Elizabeth's Women

by Tracy Borman

  Although the Lady Mary shared their sentiments, any satisfaction that she felt at witnessing the birth of a mere daughter to Anne Boleyn was short lived. Her new half sister had been immediately proclaimed as the king’s first legitimate child, glossing over the fact that he already had a daughter. Elizabeth, not Mary, was now the sole heir.

  CHAPTER 2

  “The Little Whore”

  When the furor of Elizabeth’s birth had begun to subside, Anne was left to contemplate her new role as the mother not of a prince but of an unwanted girl. After everything she had been through, it would be logical to assume that she felt more than a degree of bitterness and resentment toward Elizabeth. But often motherhood defies logic, and any disappointment that she might have felt was quickly overshadowed by much deeper maternal instincts. Anne was not an obviously maternal woman: Her guile, seductiveness, and self-interest seemed somehow at odds with such emotions. And yet these feelings were apparently more than just the result of giving birth, because some time before she fell pregnant, she had told Henry that she longed for children, as they were “the greatest comfort in the world.”

  Anne’s reaction to her newborn daughter seemed to bear this out. She lavished affection upon Elizabeth and could hardly bear to be apart from her. When she returned to court after her confinement, she took her daughter with her. Courtiers looked on in astonishment as Anne carefully set the baby down on a velvet cushion next to her throne under the canopy of estate. It was highly unusual for a queen to keep her child with her: surely it ought to be bundled off to the royal nursery, as was customary? But Anne had never been one to abide by convention, and she went one step further by expressing her intention to breast-feed Elizabeth herself. This was going too far, even for Henry, who might have been inclined to indulge his wife during these first few weeks after the birth. It was unheard of for a queen to breast-feed her offspring; even noblewomen would enlist the services of a local wet nurse. The king insisted that Anne do the same for propriety’s sake, and she reluctantly assented. A Mrs. Pendred was duly assigned as Elizabeth’s wet nurse.

  A far greater sacrifice was on the horizon, for Anne knew full well that she would not be able to keep Elizabeth with her forever. Sooner or later the child would have to be set up in her own establishment away from court, as tradition dictated for royal offspring. Henry was already making plans for this and had appointed the palace of Hatfield, some twenty miles from London, as the most suitable place. As well as being within convenient reach of the court, this pleasant retreat in Hertfordshire, with its gently rolling countryside and plentiful woodland, was also well away from the unhealthy, plague-ridden air of London. This latter consideration prompted the move to take place. On December 2, 1533, the Privy Council—the king’s chief advisory body—met to consider, among other pressing items, “a full conclusion and determination for my Lady Princess’s house.” With Christmas approaching, it was agreed that the risk of infection at Greenwich was too high, because people from across the city and country would come to court.

  A few days later, when Elizabeth was barely three months old, she was removed to Hatfield in all due state, along with an army of nursemaids, governesses, stewards, and other household staff who would become her surrogate family. As was appropriate for a princess, her household was largely female. There was a wet nurse to suckle her and four “rockers” to attend her in her cradle, as well as numerous other ladies to nurse, bathe, amuse, and protect her. It was a premise of Tudor childhood that infants would be marked for life with the character of the women who nursed them. All of these women were therefore subject to the utmost scrutiny, and this was particularly so for those who cared for royal children.

  The impact that the loss of her daughter had upon Anne was great indeed. During those three short months at Greenwich, she had forged an extremely close bond with Elizabeth, doting on her in public and showering her with gifts. This went beyond maternal affection. Young as she was, Elizabeth was an ally against Anne’s enemies at court, for she symbolized her mother’s fertility and thus the hope of future children. She was also the king’s only legitimate heir. Little wonder that Anne was heartbroken to see her go.

  It is hard to imagine that the three-month-old Elizabeth would have had any lasting memory of her mother from those earliest days of her infancy. Any bond that did exist would most likely have been instinctive rather than based upon remembered affection, but even then it would have had to have been stoked regularly in order to avoid losing it altogether. This is precisely what Anne intended to do. For a start, she used her influence to insure that her daughter would be surrounded by members of the Boleyn family. The Queen’s aunts, Lady Shelton and Anne Clere, took general charge of the household, and Margaret Bourchier, Lady Bryan, was appointed Elizabeth’s “Lady Mistress.” Through these ties of kinship, Anne no doubt hoped to maintain some hold over her daughter, albeit from a distance.

  Anne seemed to share a particularly close affinity with Lady Margaret Bryan, who was the half sister of her mother. Lady Bryan had been chosen by Henry VIII because of her competence in caring for his first daughter, Mary. She was a woman of excellent credentials. The widow of Sir Thomas Bryan and the sister and heiress of Lord Bourchier, she had been a member of Catherine of Aragon’s household. Her son, Sir Francis Bryan, was one of the king’s closest companions at court and wielded some considerable influence there. Sir Francis was part of the Seymour faction, which at once set him at odds with Anne Boleyn. But his mother apparently did not share his sympathies, for she was on good terms with the new queen.

  At the venerable age of sixty-five, Lady Bryan had had many years’ experience in child care and was ideally suited for the role of Lady Mistress to the king’s new daughter. She had proved so adept in caring for Elizabeth’s half sister, Mary, for six years that Henry had rewarded her with the title of baroness. Having been accustomed to treat Mary as heiress to the throne, it must have been with some embarrassment and sympathy that she had witnessed the girl suffering the humiliation of being declared a bastard and ordered to yield precedence to the baby Elizabeth. But Lady Bryan was as much a pragmatist as her young charge would prove to be, and she was no doubt consoled by the trust that Henry had placed in her with this new appointment. It is to her credit that she subsequently encouraged Mary to look with affection upon her younger sister, despite the myriad reasons the elder daughter had to despise this usurper to her father’s favor, not to mention her own title of princess.

  Lady Margaret helped to ease the wrench that Anne and Elizabeth felt at first being parted in December 1533. Of a naturally warm and caring disposition, she looked after the infant princess with maternal affection. She referred to herself as Elizabeth’s “mother,” and the tone of her letters to the Queen attests to the fondness that she felt toward this pretty red-headed child. Margaret was effectively an extension of Anne and carried out her orders with such care and assiduity that Elizabeth herself came to view her as a second mother.

  This could easily have sparked a fit of jealousy in the new queen, who was only rarely able to see her daughter, but instead it brought the two women closer together, united by their affection for the child. By the end of Lady Margaret’s first year in charge of the royal nursery, she was believed to have such influence with Anne that courtiers sought her advice when trying to ingratiate themselves with the Queen. Lady Lisle, for example, agonized over what to buy the latter as a New Year’s gift in 1534, and after consulting with Lady Bryan, she chose a little dog to add to her collection of pets. Anne liked it so much that she immediately snatched the dog from the messenger’s arms without waiting for him to utter the customary request to accept it.1

  As well as relying upon Lady Bryan, Anne strengthened her ties with her infant daughter by sending tangible reminders of herself to Hatfield. From the moment of her child’s birth, she had lavished expensive presents upon her. Anne’s love of clothes was passed on to her daughter, as she created a miniature version of herself, dressing Eliza
beth in the finest silks and richest velvets.

  The best account of these gifts is provided by a memorandum of “Materials Furnished for the use of Queen Anne Boleyn and the Princess Elizabeth” between January and February 1535, when Elizabeth had been at Hatfield for just over a year.2 Every detail of the child’s costume was considered by her mother: from the “velvet blak” collar of a dress made from “Russet velvet,” to some purple sarsenet “for lyning of a sleve of purpull satten ymbrotheryd ffor my Lady prynses.” Anne had always had an impeccable sense of style, and she set off her own dark coloring with rich fabrics in tawny, damask, and leaf green. The records show that she was spending some £40 per month on clothes and accessories for herself and her young daughter (equivalent to around £13,000 today), which was a considerable sum compared to her other expenses.

  Having been supplanted in the succession by the loathsome child of the king’s “Great Whore,” the Lady Mary had refused to suffer the further humiliation of yielding precedence to her and continued to refer to herself as princess. When a message arrived to say that the king ordered that she should “lay aside the name and dignity of Princess; and commanded her servants no longer to acknowledge her such,” Mary refused to accept it because it was not delivered by a “person of honor.” She then “boldly” told the messenger that “she was the King’s true and lawful daughter and heir” and that “her servants would not take notice of this order upon the same reason.”3 Her father was beside himself with rage, admonishing her for “forgetting her filial duty” with such “pernicious” behavior. Undeterred, she insisted that she was his “lawful daughter, born in true matrimony,” but assured him that “in all other things you shall find me an obedient daughter.”4

  Courageous though it may have been, Mary’s behavior merely served to bring an even greater punishment upon her. A month after Elizabeth’s birth, Henry announced that he intended to disband his elder daughter’s establishment and make her serve the new princess when she moved to Hatfield that December. Mary’s allies at court were aghast. “The King, not satisfied with having taken away the name and title of Princess, has just given out that, in order to subdue the spirit of the Princess, he will deprive her of all her people … and that she should come and live as lady’s maid with this new bastard,” reported Chapuys, adding that Mary was “mightily dismayed” by this turn of events. Like Mary, he was convinced that Anne was behind it all. “I do not understand why the King is in such haste to treat the Princess in this way, if it were not for the importunity and malignity of the Lady.”5

  If Mary already despised her new stepmother, she now had greater cause when she reluctantly obeyed her father’s command and made her way to Hatfield. It was clear from the start that she would be treated with all of the indignity and disgrace of a bastard. Elizabeth had been conveyed to her new home in a velvet litter, escorted by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, together with a large retinue of ladies and gentlemen. In order to emphasize her status as England’s new heir, she had been paraded in front of the people of London as her magnificent entourage had made an unnecessarily circuitous route through the capital. “There was a shorter and better road,” complained Chapuys, “yet for greater solemnity, and to insinuate to the people that she is the true Princess, she was taken through this town.”6 By contrast, Mary had been forced to travel in a humble litter of leather, not the royal velvet. Just a short time before, she had been used to being followed by a long train of servants clad in gold-embroidered coats; now she was accompanied by “a very small suite.”7 She had been forced to leave behind almost all of the ladies who had been her constant companions since childhood, including the Countess of Salisbury, who had first been appointed to her household fourteen years before. Equally fond of her charge, the countess had asked to be allowed to accompany her. Chapuys observed that it was “out of the question that this would be accepted; for in that case they would have no power over the Princess.”8 Now Mary had only the company of her stepmother’s relations, the Sheltons, to look forward to. Anne incited her aunt, Lady Shelton, to treat the girl as harshly as she herself would have done in her place. On one occasion, upon hearing that Mary had stubbornly refused to pay her half sister due reverence as princess, she ordered Lady Shelton to box her ears “as the cursed bastard she was.”9

  From the moment that she arrived at Hatfield, Mary set out to be as intransigent as possible. Clearly there under extreme duress, she refused to be bowed by the petty indignities and outright cruelty that she suffered on a daily basis. Upon her arrival, she was ordered to go pay her respects to the princess. She retorted that she “knew no other Princess in England except herself, and that the daughter of Madame de Penebroke [Pembroke] had no such title.” The most that she would concede was to call the child “sister,” considering that her father had acknowledged her to be his, just as she called the Duke of Richmond “brother.”10 Anne was furious when she heard this, and instructed her aunt to take every opportunity to reinforce the girl’s inferiority. Thus Elizabeth was given a place of honor in the dining hall, while Mary was forced to sit at a lower table. But the more they tried to subdue her, the more she rebelled. Rather than suffering this indignity, she took to eating her meals in her room. This was reported to Anne, who duly ordered Mary back to the dining room. And so the war of attrition continued.

  Increasingly troubled by the news of his elder daughter’s willful behavior, the king decided to go in person and force her to see the error of her ways. In January 1534, barely a month after her removal there, he prepared to make his way to Hatfield. But when his new wife heard of this, she urged him not to bestow such an honor upon the ungrateful girl and suggested that he should send his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, instead. Chapuys surmised that her real motive for doing so was that she was deeply insecure about the king’s relationship with his elder daughter and feared that “the beauty, virtue and prudence of the Princess might assuage his wrath and cause him to treat her better.” To Anne, Mary embodied everything that threatened her own position. She was a fervent Catholic, with the might of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire behind her. Worse still, as Henry’s firstborn and the daughter of the people’s beloved Catherine of Aragon, many looked to her, and not Elizabeth, as the rightful heir to the throne. Anne knew that many still persisted in referring to Mary by her former title. Chapuys made little secret of it, and later reported to his master, Charles V: “The King went lately to see his bastard daughter, who is twenty miles away, and the Princess with her.”11

  If Anne already despised Mary as a symbol of her husband’s first marriage and of her own questionable legitimacy as queen, then how much more intense her hatred became when fuelled by the fierce maternal protectiveness toward her own daughter. From the moment of Elizabeth’s birth, questions had been raised about her legitimacy, and she had been compared unfavorably to her elder half sister, whose blood was entirely royal, not half so. Anne therefore immediately resolved to do everything in her power to undermine Mary’s position—if not destroy her altogether—by endeavoring to take everything that was hers and give it to Elizabeth. This even included her name: Anne had argued fiercely that her newborn daughter should be christened Mary, claiming that it was entirely appropriate considering that she had been born in the “chamber of the virgins” and on the eve of the Virgin Mary’s nativity. Her true motive was clear, however: she wanted to give the people a new Mary so that the old one would be forgotten.12 The king had refused, more sensitive than Anne to the hostility this would spark among his subjects.

  Henry was more amenable to Anne’s request regarding his impending visit to Hatfield and sent orders that Mary was to be kept from him. Cromwell accompanied his royal master so that he might speak to the girl on the king’s behalf. But the Lady Mary would not be bowed by the most powerful man in her father’s council. She stubbornly refused to acknowledge the new queen and her daughter, and simply pointed out that she had “already given a decided answer and it was labor wasted to press her.”13<
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  Mary’s determined behavior succeeded in winning over the king, despite all the best efforts of his wife. As he was preparing to mount his horse prior to departing, she suddenly appeared on a terrace at the top of the house and knelt down in reverence to him. Disarmed by such a touching display of filial affection, the king bowed to her and put his hand to his hat. All of those present duly followed suit and “saluted her reverently with signs of good will and compassion.” It was a small but significant victory for Mary, for it had proved that her father still loved her, despite all the persuasions of the new queen. However, by the time he returned to court, he seemed to have resumed his former stance and complained to Chapuys of Mary’s obstinacy, “which came from her Spanish blood.” But when he was reminded by another ambassador present that the girl had been well brought up, “tears came into his eyes, and he could not refrain from praising her.”14

  When she heard of this, Anne flew into a rage and was more determined than ever to remove this troublesome girl from the king’s affections. It was even rumored that she planned to do away with her for good. “A gentleman told me yesterday that the earl of Northumberland told him that he knew for certain that she had determined to poison the Princess,” reported Chapuys with some alarm. He was later told by another informant that Anne had boasted that she would “use her authority and put the said Princess to death, either by hunger or otherwise,” adding that she “did not care even if she were burned alive for it after.” Mary herself seemed to fear that this might happen, for she told Cromwell that her keepers “were deceived if they thought that bad treatment or rudeness, or even the chance of death, would make her change her determination.”15