by Amy Licence
So was the Virgin Queen Elizabeth actually a man? Probably not. Perhaps the most persistent theory is that of the Bisley boy, supported by the Gothic writer Bram Stoker. According to the story, the young Elizabeth had died at around the age of eleven, whilst staying in a local country house. Henry was absent on a French campaign, so she was rapidly substituted for a male playmate of the same colouring, who proceeded to take her place. Most of the ‘evidence’ for this is based on descriptions of her having mannish qualities and features, such as her long fingers, height and love of hunting and riding, as well as the layers of make-up being used to hide stubble. Additionally, her fashionable high collars and ruffs were supposed to hide her Adam’s apple and suspicion was raised by her forbidding an autopsy after her death. Apparently though, this tale was invented by an imaginative local clergyman in the nineteenth century. Following this idea, recent suggestions have been made that Elizabeth had a form of male pseudo-hermaphroditism, now called ‘complete androgen insensitivity syndrome’; a congenital defect where suffers develop male and female genitals. Although appearing female at birth, the condition of those affected becomes apparent at the onset of puberty. It affects one in every 20,000 babies, presenting with undescended testicles, no womb or uterus and a body producing testosterone.17 Many such theories abound, prompted by the inability to accept Elizabeth’s qualities or her unmarried status. The truth may have been much simpler, as the queen herself explained; that she was married to her kingdom and would have one mistress and no master. It did not solve the problem of her succession.
The will of Henry VIII had bypassed the heir of the Scottish descendants of Margaret Tudor in favour of Mary Rose and the Greys. The two younger sisters of the ill-fated Lady Jane had been born in the 1540s and stood in line as Elizabeth’s immediate successors until their secret marriages lost them royal favour. Forbidden from taking husbands without the knowledge of the queen, Catherine was the first to incur the Virgin’s wrath. At twelve, she had been married once before to Henry Herbert, son of the Duke of Pembroke, as part of the Northumberland-Grey power base but after failure of their coup, Pembroke promptly dissolved the match, which had never been consummated on account of the couple’s youth. As an older teenager, Catherine fell in love with Edward Seymour, son of the Lord Protector, and the couple determined to marry against parental wishes. Legal marriages could take place anywhere, so long as the vows were properly made, enabling them to wed in secret in his bedroom in 1560 and immediately go on to consummate what became a doomed match. Edward’s sister, their only witness, died soon after. Edward went overseas and Catherine found herself trying to conceal her pregnancy at court, unable to prove her marriage was legal. She maintained her secret until the eighth month, finally begging for help from Bess of Hardwick and Robert Dudley, who took the news straight to Elizabeth. Catherine was confined to the Tower, where she delivered a son. She was later allowed secret visits from Seymour by her gaolers, during which she conceived and delivered a second son. Eventually released but living under house arrest, she refused to eat and died, probably of some wasting illness exacerbated by anorexia, at the age of twenty-eight. It was a similar story for her sister Mary, born in 1545. Famously short and hunch-backed, Mary secretly married the royal gatekeeper Thomas Keyes, a very tall man, for which she was imprisoned by Elizabeth in 1565; the couple had no children and Mary died in 1578. Another potential claimant to the throne was Arbella Stuart, the granddaughter of Margaret Douglas, daughter of Margaret Tudor by her second husband. She was born in 1575 and following the death of her mother, lived with grandmother Bess of Hardwick at Hardwick Hall. Elizabeth’s advisers never seriously considered her claim however, as the birth of Mary Queen of Scots’ only son, James, in 1566 offered a better candidate. In 1594, the arrival of James’ first son Henry confirmed the line and it was James who ultimately succeeded Elizabeth as King of England.
Towards the end of 1602, Elizabeth fell ill and retired to her personal chambers. In each of her palaces, sumptuous beds had been dressed with the richest fabrics, like the walnut frame delivered to her in 1581, with its cloth of silver and velvet, lined with Venetian gold, silver and silk; the headpiece made from Bruges crimson satin topped with six huge plumes of ostrich feathers sparkling with gold spangles. At the end, though, she eschewed all her beds and lay propped up on a pile of pillows on the floor, trying to delay the inevitable. It didn’t work. She died the following March, at the age of sixty-nine at Richmond. Exactly a century after the death of her grandmother and namesake, she was buried at Westminster Abbey. Her embalmed body in its lead coffin was carried downriver at night on board a boat ablaze with torches. A hearse, drawn by four horses and draped in black velvet, carried a coffin covered in purple, on which lay a life-size wax effigy of the queen dressed in her state robes and crown. Mourners lining the route to the abbey wept and wailed at the sight, pausing only to gasp at how lifelike her effigy was. At the altar, Archbishop Whitgift was waiting to perform the ceremony; almost a thousand mourners followed but one in particular was notably absent. En route to the capital were the new royal family; James, great grandson of Margaret Tudor, his wife Anne of Denmark and their current children, Henry, Elizabeth and Charles; the journey south was slow and they did not arrive until after the event. By then, the old queen had been interred alongside her sister but James did order a magnificent tomb to be built in her honour, designed by Maximilian Colt and completed in 1606.
Although Henry VIII died leaving three legitimate children who might be expected to marry and bear a host of heirs, no Tudor royal delivery took place after the arrival of Edward in 1537. Although predominantly it was the dynasty’s men who were the ones to win battles and reform national churches, female fertility shaped their dynasty. The question of succession was an inescapably pressing one right from the start. Henry VII needed to establish his line in the uncertain days after Bosworth, Henry VIII became a serial husband in the quest for a son, Edward VI died young, Mary was unable to conceive and Elizabeth chose not to. These factors shaped the course of over a century of English history. It was in the bedroom rather than the council chamber that the fate of the Tudors was determined.
For Tudor women, queen or commoner, giving birth was rarely a straightforward affair. Undoubtedly class was the most significant factor determining the nature of the experience and although it made richer women’s experiences more comfortable, it was still no guarantee against complications and death. Marriage could be very much a lottery; the nature of Tudor society meant that women were subject to the rule of their male relations, whether husbands, fathers or brothers. The quality of their lives, therefore, depended upon the characters and understanding of men they often had not chosen and although some did rebel, the repercussions for divorce, adultery, promiscuity and illegitimate birth were great. Women’s sexual lives were also at the dictate of men, denying them the ability to make individual and informed choices about the conception of children. Birth was dangerous and when things went wrong, medicine appeared to have less to offer than conventional wisdom or sympathetic magic. The era was also divided by religious reform; before the 1530s, a greater range of superstitious practices were permissible but the subsequent upheavals of the mid-Tudor era left many women politically and religiously uncertain, especially the illiterate. On the whole, culture-specific factors mean that sixteenth-century women’s reproductive lives were vastly different from those of their modern counterparts. Still, their aspirations for marriage and childbirth were not too dissimilar. Just like the twenty-first-century mother, they felt hope and fear, pain and elation: only an accident of time separates them.
1. Modern statue of Edward IV from the exterior of Canterbury Cathedral.
2. Tudor portrait of Edward IV, father of Elizabeth of York and grandfather of Henry VIII.
3. Elizabeth Wydeville, wife of Edward IV. A companion Tudor portrait to 2. with the same rich black and gold colouring. A plain gold wedding band is visible on her left hand.
4. Henry
VIII and Henry VII, detail from the Whitehall mural of 1537, by Holbein.
5. Modern statue of Henry VII, from the exterior of Canterbury Cathedral.
6. Henry VII, the first Tudor king, in a portrait that perpetuates later interpretations of his miserliness. He holds a Lancastrian red rose in his right hand.
7. Elizabeth of York, the white rose, whose marriage to Henry VII united warring factions and produced the Tudor line. She wears regal red velvet, gold and ermine.
8. Margaret Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VII and wife of James IV of France. Henry VIII excluded her from his will but her Stuart descendants inherited the throne in 1603.
9. Mary Rose Tudor, younger daughter of Henry VII and Queen of France by her marriage to Louis XII. Grandmother of the unfortunate Lady Jane Grey.
10. Prince Arthur, whose premature death allowed Henry VIII to succeed to the throne. The combination of piety and chivalry in this modern window epitomised the early Tudor ideal.
11. Modern statue of Henry VIII from the exterior of Canterbury Cathedral.
12. Henry VIII: the most iconic image of a Tudor majesty, his gaze directly confronting the viewer in a departure from previous portraiture (by Hans Holbein).
13. Catherine of Aragon as queen. Henry VIII’s Spanish Catholic first wife who refused to move aside quietly, insisting she was his wife until her death.
14. Medieval carved underside of a window in Kent, depicting the ‘underside’ of life; the female figures attract and repel with their overt sexuality and suggestive fecundity, warning the passer-by to keep their mind on the spiritual and avoid the perils of temptation.
15. Ruins of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, Kent, dissolved by Henry VIII. It was rapidly changed into a royal palace ready for Anne of Cleves to stay there on her journey to meet Henry late in December 1539. In the end, she only lodged here for a single night.
16. Canterbury Cathedral Chapter House window depicting Henry IV and Archbishop Cranmer flanking another version of the Holbein Henry VIII.
17. Funeral effigy of Elizabeth Blount, Lady Tailboys, Henry’s mistress and the mother of his son, Henry Fitzroy.
18. Anne Boleyn, Henry’s second, ill-fated wife; pen-and-ink drawing by Holbein.
19. George Cruikshank’s depiction of Henry VIII’s reconciliation with Anne Boleyn.
20. Beheaded statue from a tomb in Canterbury Cathedral; this was the easiest and most symbolic way for iconoclasts to strip Catholic images of their power: even the golden eagle to the right has lost its head too.
21. Jane Seymour, the demure and modest replacement for fiery Anne Boleyn. Her rapid marriage to Henry VIII has divided opinion since.
22. Anne of Cleves, the Holbein miniature that convinced Henry VIII to enter into a short-lived marriage with her in 1540.
23. Window in King’s College chapel, Cambridge, depicting Catherine Howard as the Queen of Sheba.
24. Catherine Parr in stained glass at Sudeley Castle.
25. Modern statue of Edward VI, from the exterior of Canterbury Cathedral.
26. Edward VI as a child, playing with a pet monkey. A painting by Holbein in the Kunstmuseum at Basle.
27. Mary I, an austere but human portrait. Most of her life was spent waiting for an uncertain inheritance that brought her personal triumph and tragedy.
28. Elizabeth I, the longest-reigning Tudor monarch, whose notorious virginity ended the dynasty.
29.Mary Queen of Scots, heir to her cousin Elizabeth and focus of Catholic discontent until her execution in 1587.
30. Tudor woman and child.
Notes
1. Elizabeth of York & Arthur, 1485–1486: The First Tudor Heir
1. ‘Ladye Bessiye’ Anonymous Ballad, possibly composed 1560–80. From Ian Forbes Baird, Poems Concerning the Stanley Family (Earls of Derby) 1485–1520, PhD thesis (University of Birmingham, 1989).
2.Venice 1481–1485, Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 1, 1202–1509, 141–159.
3. Bacon, Francis, History of the Reign of King Henry VIII (Cambridge University Press, 1901).
4. Hall, Edward, Chronicle; containing the History of England, during the reign of Henry the fourth and the succeeding monarchs, to the end of the reign of Henry VIII, in which are particularly described the manners and customs of those periods (Collated with the editions of 1548 and 1550) (London: J. Johnson, 1809).
5. Jerdan, William (ed.), Rutland Papers. Original documents, illustrative of the courts and times of Henry VII and Henry VIII (London: Camden Society, 1842).
6. Okerlund, Arlene Naylor, Elizabeth of York (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
7. Rutland Papers.
8. Souden, David, The Royal Palaces of London (London: Merrell, 2008).
9. Nicolas, N. (ed.), Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York; Wardrobe Expenses of Edward IV (London: Pickering, 1830).
10. Tremlett, Giles, Catherine of Aragon, England’s Spanish Queen (Faber & Faber, 2010).
11. Thurley, Simon, The Royal Palaces of Tudor England (Yale University Press, 1993).
12. Hall, Edward, Chronicle; containing the History of England, during the reign of Henry the fourth and the succeeding monarchs, to the end of the reign of Henry VIII, in which are particularly described the manners and customs of those periods (Collated with the editions of 1548 and 1550) (London: J. Johnson, 1809).
13. Stowe, John, ‘Historical Memoranda of John Stowe: The Baptism of Prince Arthur, Son of Henry VII’ in Gairdner, J. (ed.), Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles (1880).
14. ‘Houses of Benedictine Monks: Priory of St Swithin, Winchester’ in A History of the County of Hampshire, Volume 2 (1973) 108–115.
15. Flete, John, The History of Westminster Abbey (c. 1450).
16. Paden, William D. and Paden, Frances Freeman, ‘Swollen Woman, Shifting Canon: A Midwife’s charm and the Birth of Secular Romance Lyric’, PMLA, 125, 2 (March 2010) 306–321.
2. Elizabeth of York & the Future Henry VIII, 1487–1503: The Family Expands
1. Anonymous Ballad, seventeenth century, in The Union of the Red Rose and the White by a Marriage Between King Henry VII and a Daughter of King Edward IV (Huntington Library, University of California).
2. Hutchinson, Robert, Young Henry: The Rise of Henry VIII (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011).
3. Pelling, Margaret and White, Frances, Database of Physicians and Irregular Medical Practitioners in London 1550–1640 (Institute of Historical Research, 2004).
4. Millet, B. and Wogan-Browne, J., Medieval English Prose for Women (Clarendon Press, 1992).
5. Cressy, David, Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge, 1980).
6. Schofield, Roger, ‘Did the mothers really die?’ in The World we have Lost (Cambridge papers: 1993).
7. Cressy, David, Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge: 1980).
8. Bentley, Thomas, The Monument of Matrons (1582).
9. Anonymous ballad, details as in note 1.
10. CSPS Spain (April 1503).
3. Catherine of Aragon & Henry, Prince of Wales, 1501–1510: Widowhood & Fertility
1. Guillemeau, Jacques, The Happie Deliverie of Women (London: Hatfield, 1612).
2. Spencer, W. G. (trans.), Celsus de Medicina (1476) (Massachusetts: Heninemann, 1935).
3. Pelling, Margaret and White, Frances, Database of Physicians and Irregular Medical Practitioners in London 1550–1640 (Institute of Historical Research, 2004).
4. CSPS (March 1505).
5. Ibid. (October 1506).
6. Ibid. (April 1507).
7. Ibid. (August 1507).
8. Mendelson, Sara and Crawford, Patricia, Women in Early Modern England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998).
9. Burton, R., The Anatomy of Melancholy (Oxford: 1621).
10. Lemnius, L., The Secret Miracles of Nature in Four Books (1658).
11. CSPS (June 1505).
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12. Ibid. (August 1505).
13. B. L., Cotton Mss. Titus.
14. CSPS (June 1509).
15. Public Records Office. Spanish transactions 1, 5, f 119.
16. Donnison, Jean, Midwives and Medical Men: A History of the Struggle for the Control of Childbirth (Heinemann, 1988).
17. Essex Record Office (ERO) Q/SR 126/58.
18. ERO Q/SR 160/14.
19. EBBA 20763 Pepys 1.414–5.
20. EBBA 20807 Pepys 2.192.
21. Cressy, David, Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge: 1980).
22. Guenther, Megan, ‘To all grave and modest matrons: Practical midwifery and chiurgery in De conceptu et generatione hominis (1580)’ in Anatomy of Gender (2005).
4. Catherine of Aragon & Mary, 1511–1518: Saints, Pilgrimage & Infant Mortality
1. Sarum Missal, volume 2, 162.
2. Fox, J., Sister Queens: Catherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011).
3. Quoted in Butler, Derek, The Quest for Becket’s Bones (Yale University Press, 1995).
4. Walker, Damian and Walker, Godfrey, ‘Forgotten But Not Gone: The Continual Scourge of Congenital Syphilis’, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2, Issue 7 (July 2002).
