Although Anne was unable to bring up her daughter herself, because she died before Elizabeth turned three, she made sure from the start that her daughter was well taken care of and had the appropriate household for a royal princess. Anne's instructions to Matthew Parker, one of the Cambridge cohort I have already mentioned, is evidence that Anne was not just ensuring that Elizabeth's spiritual needs would be met. She was also making sure that Elizabeth would have the connections she needed to become a formidable woman and queen. I believe that Anne's influence was kept alive by those who surrounded the young Elizabeth.
Notes and Sources
1 Sim, The Tudor Housewife, 19, citing Patricia Crawford in "The Construction and Experience of Maternity in Seventeenth Century England."
2 Youings, Sixteenth Century England, 372.
3 Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England.
4 Ridgway, The Anne Boleyn Collection Volume 2, chap. Anne Boleyn's Birth Date.
5 Hall, Hall's Chronicle, 794.
6 Friedmann, Anne Boleyn: A Chapter of English History, 1527-1536, 1:189, note 2.
7 Friedmann, Anne Boleyn, A Chapter of English History, 1527-1536, 190, note 1.
8 Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 183.
9 Ascoli, La Grande-Bretagne Devant L'opinion Française Depuis La Guerre de Cent Ans Jusqu'à La Fin Du XVIe Siècle, l. 148–164.
10 Sim, The Tudor Housewife, 17.
11 Weisner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 79.
12 Sharp, The Midwives Book: Or the Whole Art of Midwifry Discovered, 132–133.
13 Weisner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, 43.
14 Sharp, The Midwives Book: Or the Whole Art of Midwifry Discovered, 80–82.
15 Edwards, Mary I: England's Catholic Queen, 5.
16 Starkey, Elizabeth:Apprenticeship, 2.
17 Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England.
18 Ibid.
19 Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 184.
20 Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England.
21 Sharp, The Midwives Book: Or the Whole Art of Midwifry Discovered, 157.
22 Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England.
23 Ibid.
24 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 6 - 1533," n. 1111.
25 Wriothesley, A Chronicle of England During the Reigns of the Tudors, from A.D. 1485 to 1559, 23.
26 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 6 - 1533," n. 1125.
27 Starkey, Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII, 511.
28 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 9 : August-December 1535," n. 568.
29 Sim, The Tudor Housewife, 26.
30 Borman, Elizabeth's Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen, 21.
31 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 7," n. 296.
32 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10 - January-June 1536," n. 913.
33 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 7," n. 509.
34 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 6 - 1533," n. 1486.
35 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 8," n. 440.
36 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10 - January-June 1536," n. 141.
37 "Calendar of State Papers Foreign, Elizabeth, Volume 1 - 1558-1559," n. 1303.
38 Loke, "Account of Materials Furnished for the Use of Anne Boleyn and Princess Elizabeth 1535-36."
39 "Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 10 - January-June 1536," n. 913.
40 Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 255.
41 ed. Bruce and ed. Perowne, Correspondence of Matthew Parker, 59.
42 Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 267.
43 ed. Bruce and ed. Perowne, Correspondence of Matthew Parker, 391.
44 McIntosh, "From Heads of Household to Heads of State: The Preaccession Households of Mary and Elizabeth Tudor 1516-1558."
14. Pregnancies and Miscarriages 1533-1536
In the previous chapter, I looked at Anne's Boleyn's first pregnancy, which resulted in the birth of a healthy baby girl, Elizabeth. I'll now look at Anne's complete obstetric history.
In her book Blood Will Tell: A Medical Explanation of the Tyranny of Henry VIII, Kyra Kramer writes that both Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn "endured myriad stillbirths, miscarriages and neonatal deaths."1 It is often said that Anne's series of miscarriages and her inability to provide Henry VIII with a living son factored greatly in her fall. Kramer is not the only one to believe that Anne had a series of pregnancy disasters. G.R. Elton wrote that after the birth of Elizabeth "the dreary tale of miscarriages was resumed";2 Marie Bruce said " during the first six months of 1534 she appears to have had one miscarriage after another";3 and Hester W. Chapman believed that Anne suffered three miscarriages in 1534 alone plus the miscarriage of January 1536.4 Whilst I believe that a son would have protected Anne and would have prevented the plots of April and May 1536 ever happening, I simply do not believe that Anne had "myriad stillbirths, miscarriages and neonatal deaths."
Let us consider the evidence for Anne's pregnancies...
September 1533
We know that Anne was heavily pregnant at her coronation on 1st June 1533 and that she gave birth to a healthy baby girl on 7th September 1533, the future Elizabeth I. There is no evidence of a pregnancy before this time, so that's pregnancy number one.
January 1534
On 28th January 1534, the imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, commented that "Anne Boleyn is now pregnant and in condition to have more children."5 For Chapuys to have known that Anne was pregnant, Anne and the King must have been sure of her pregnancy. This means she must have conceived soon after her churching; Anne obviously did not suffer with fertility issues.
The next mention of this pregnancy is in a letter dated 27th April 1534 from George Taylor, Anne Boleyn's receiver-general, to Lady Lisle, in which he says that "The Queen hath a goodly belly, praying our Lord to send us a prince".6 There is further evidence of this pregnancy; in July 1534, Anne's brother George, Lord Rochford, was sent on a diplomatic mission to France to ask for the postponement of a meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I because of Anne's condition. Anne was described as "being so far gone with child she could not cross the sea with the King".7 Chapuys backs this up in a letter dated the 27th July, where he refers to the King delaying his meeting with the French King because "the lady de Boulans (Anne Boleyn) wishes to be present, which is impossible on account of her condition".8 If, for example, Anne was twelve weeks pregnant when Chapuys reported it on 28th January, her baby would have been due around 12th August. This would have made her very heavily pregnant in July 1534, hence her being described as "being so far gone". The frustrating thing is that we don't know what happened to this pregnancy. There is no mention of Anne taking to her chamber, having a late miscarriage, premature birth or stillbirth. There is just Chapuys' report on 27th September 1534:
"Since the King began to doubt whether his lady was enceinte or not, he has renewed and increased the love he formerly had for a beautiful damsel of the court".9
Chapuys doesn't say that Anne had a miscarriage or stillbirth; he merely writes of Henry no longer believing Anne to be pregnant. Now, it is not clear whether this is Chapuys' reading of the situation or whether it is him passing on a fact. It may well be that Anne gave birth to a stillborn baby and that the news was hushed up. However, this seems unlikely since ambassadors and Tudor chroniclers recorded Catherine of Aragon's stillbirths and miscarriages when this situation arose. I find it hard to believe that Anne could have faked a pregnancy, when she would have been dressed and bathed by her la
dies, and would have had her sheets examined for menstrual blood. Perhaps she experienced a false (phantom) pregnancy (pseudocyesis). The symptoms of a false pregnancy, which can last months, are the same as pregnancy: the cessation of menstrual periods, a swollen abdomen, enlarged and tender breasts, nipple changes and even the production of milk. They also include feeling of the baby moving, morning sickness and weight gain. There would have been no way for Anne to differentiate between a real pregnancy and a false one; Catherine of Aragon and Mary I both suffered false pregnancies which fooled their doctors.
It is not known exactly what causes a false pregnancy, but one factor is thought to be an intense desire to get pregnant. Although Eric Ives believes that Anne "had no reason to be under stress at this date, having produced a healthy female child eight months earlier",10 I have to respectfully disagree. Anne was under immense pressure. It was her duty to provide Henry with a son and heir, that was that. Henry had got over the disappointment of Elizabeth's gender because of the hope of a prince to come; now Anne had to provide that prince. That was pressure! Ives argues that Anne must have miscarried, rather than having a stillbirth, because there is no evidence of her taking her chamber. However, in medical terms the loss of a baby after 24 weeks is termed a stillbirth, and Anne must have been over 24 weeks pregnant in the July. It is odd that there was no mention of such a tragedy.
None of this explains Chapuys' comment in the September about Henry now doubting that Anne was pregnant. Perhaps Chapuys was not kept 'in the loop', or perhaps Anne's miscarriage or stillbirth was hushed up. It is impossible to know. Henry may well have wanted to keep it quiet rather than having to admit that Anne's pregnancy had ended in tragedy like so many of Catherine's.
1535
The only evidence for a pregnancy in 1535 is a sentence from a letter written by Sir William Kingston to Lord Lisle on 24th June 1535. Kingston wrote:
"No news here worth writing. The King and Queen are well, and her Grace has a fair belly as I have seen".11
Sir John Dewhurst,12 believes that there is actually an error in the dating of this letter because Kingston asks to be remembered to "Master Porter", Sir Christopher Garneys, who actually died in 1534. It is likely, therefore, that the letter was written in either June 1533 or June 1534, and that Anne was not pregnant in 1535.
Figure 19 - Queen Anne Boleyn, from "The Tower From Within"
29th January 1536 – Anne's Final Pregnancy
The majority of historians and authors believe that Anne Boleyn's final pregnancy ended with a miscarriage on 29th January 1536, the day of Catherine of Aragon's burial and a few days after Henry VIII suffered a serious jousting accident. There are five main pieces of contemporary evidence for the miscarriage: a letter written by Eustace Chapuys, the imperial ambassador; the individual chronicles of Charles Wriothesley, Edward Hall and Raphael Holinshed; and the poem by Lancelot de Carles, secretary to the French ambassador:
1. "On the day of the interment [Catherine of Aragon's funeral] the Concubine had an abortion which seemed to be a male child which she had not borne 3½ months, at which the King has shown great distress. The said concubine wished to lay the blame on the duke of Norfolk, whom she hates, saying he frightened her by bringing the news of the fall the King had six days before. But it is well known that is not the cause, for it was told her in a way that she should not be alarmed or attach much importance to it. Some think it was owing to her own incapacity to bear children, others to a fear that the King would treat her like the late Queen, especially considering the treatment shown to a lady of the Court, named Mistress Semel, to whom, as many say, he has lately made great presents."13 Eustace Chapuys to Charles V, 10th February 1536.
2. "And in February folowyng was quene Anne brought a bedde of a childe before her tyme, whiche was born dead."14 Edward Hall
3. "This yeare also, three daies before Candlemas, Queene Anne was brought a bedd and delivered of a man chield, as it was said, afore her tyme, for she said that she had reckoned herself at that tyme but fiftene weekes gonne with chield…"15 Charles Wriothesley
4. "The nine and twentith of Januarie queen Anne was delivered of a child before hir time, which was borne dead."16 Raphael Holinshed
In his "Poème sur la Mort d'Anne Boleyn", Lancelot de Carles, writes:
"Adoncq le Roy, s'en allant a la chasse,Cheut de cheval rudement en la place,Dont bien cuydoit que pur ceste adventure Il dust payer le tribut de nature:Quant la Royne eut la nouvelle entendue,Peu s'en faillut qu'el ne chuet estendue Morte d'ennuy, tant que fort offensa Son ventre plain et son fruict advança,Et enfanta ung beau filz avant terme,Qui nasquit mort dont versa mainte lerme."17
Here, de Carles is saying that the news of Henry VIII's jousting accident caused Anne to collapse, landing on her stomach, and that this caused her to give birth "avant terme", prematurely, to "ung beau filz", a beautiful son, who was born dead.
All five sources state that Anne miscarried her baby, and three of them state that it was a boy. Wriothesley goes on to put forward the idea that the miscarriage was caused by Anne suffering shock at the news of Henry VIII's jousting accident, as does Chapuys. The dates differ, with Chapuys and Holinshed stating that the miscarriage happened on 29th January, Wriothesley saying the 30th January, Hall saying February and de Carles stating that it happened after Henry VIII's jousting accident. However, I think we can safely assume that it happened at the end of January.
In Philippa Gregory's novel, The Other Boleyn Girl, Anne Boleyn miscarries "a baby horridly malformed, with a spine flayed open and a huge head, twice as large as the spindly little body".18 Now, obviously this is just a novel, but Gregory used the work of historian Retha Warnicke as a source and Warnicke believes that Anne did miscarry a deformed foetus. In both The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn and her essay Sexual Heresy at the Court of Henry VIII, Warnicke puts forward the idea that Anne's miscarriage was a factor in her downfall because it was "no ordinary miscarriage"19 and that it was "an unforgivable act".20 According to Warnicke, the foetus was deformed; this was seen as an evil omen and a sign that Anne had committed illicit sexual acts or been involved in witchcraft. Warnicke believes this because:
• Anne was charged with committing incest with her brother, George, who Warnicke believes to have been Mark Smeaton's lover.
• Anne was charged with adultery with Smeaton, Norris, Brereton and Weston, who Warnicke believes to have been "suspected of having violated the Buggery Statute" and who "were known for their licentious behaviour."21
• There seems to have been a delay between the miscarriage and the news being announced, showing that there was something odd about it. Chapuys did not report it until 10th February 1536.
• From late January 1536 Henry VIII councillors took steps to protect the King's honour "by leaking erroneous information about his consort before the public announcement of her miscarriage."22 Warnicke believes that they did this so that the 'sin' would be seen as Anne's, and not that of the King.
In my own reading on pregnancy and childbirth in Tudor times,23 24 however, I have learned that deformities, or things like birthmarks, were actually thought to have been caused by things the mother had seen during pregnancy, rather than by the parents necessarily having committed a sexual sin. These were superstitious times.
The only source, anyway, for Anne miscarrying a deformed foetus is Nicholas Sander, a Catholic recusant writing in the reign of Anne's daughter, Elizabeth I. His book De origine ac progressu schismatis Anglicani was published in 1585; in 1877 it was translated from Latin into English by David Lewis as "Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism". In the English translation, Sander's record of Anne's miscarriage reads:
"The time had now come when Anne was to be again a mother, but she brought forth only a shapeless mass of flesh."25
Sander went on to write about how Anne blamed Henry VIII for the miscarriage, crying "See, how well I must be since the day I caught that abandoned woman Jane sitting on your knees". However, Sander did not atte
mpt to explain the "shapeless mass" or to give any more details. I'm sure that if he had thought it was important and suggestive of sin or witchcraft, then he would have mentioned it. Sander is the only source that describes Anne's baby in this way, and he was writing much later (he wasn't born until ca.1530). As Eric Ives pointed out, "no deformed foetus was mentioned at the time or later in Henry's reign, despite Anne's disgrace"; nor was it mentioned in Mary I's reign "when there was every motive and opportunity to blacken Anne".26 Ives concluded that "it is as little worthy of credence as his assertion that Henry VIII was Anne's father"; I agree wholeheartedly. Sander, as a Catholic exile, had every reason to blacken the name of Elizabeth I and her mother, and he had no first hand knowledge of events that had happened in 1536.
There is also no evidence that the five men executed in May 1536 were involved in "illicit" sexual acts, or that Anne was involved in witchcraft.
In her recent book on Anne Boleyn, Sylwia Zupanec27 discusses Anne's 1536 miscarriage and puts forward the idea that it may not have been a miscarriage at all, but a phantom/false pregnancy. The evidence she puts forward for this is:
• That Sander did not actually mention a "shapeless mass of flesh" but, according to Zupanec, "in Latin described the outcome of Anne's pregnancy as "mola". She goes on to say that "Sander's account is not précising the information about what had happened on 29 January 1536 so he could have meant that Anne Boleyn had suffered from phantom pregnancy, miscarried an undeveloped foetus or expelled some kind of tumour."28 Zupanec believes that Sander's work was "incorrectly translated" and that as a result of this historians have misinterpreted it. To back up her translation of "mola" as a false conception, she cites two Latin works: M. Verrii Flacci Quae Extant: Et Sexti Pompeii Festi De Verborum Significatione29 and Johannes Micraelius' Lexicon Philosophicum Terminorum Philosophis Usitatorum.30 These are both Latin glossaries of terms.
The Anne Boleyn Collection II: Anne Boleyn & the Boleyn Family Page 12
