Elizabeth's Women

by Tracy Borman

  All of these features can be seen in the portrait of Elizabeth that was painted around 1546, when she was thirteen years old. She has an aura of intelligence beyond her years, and her dark eyes appraise the viewer with almost uncomfortable perception. A prayer book is clasped in the long fingers of which she would later be so proud, and which bore no trace of the “sixth nail” for which Anne was notorious. The slender figure and small, pert breasts inherited from her mother are set off to great effect by a beautifully tailored dress. Elizabeth’s red hair is swept neatly under a French hood, a fashion that Anne had introduced at court. Indeed, both women shared a sense of style that went beyond a love of fine clothes. Elizabeth, like her mother, realized that to act the part, she must dress the part. From Anne she inherited the instinct for image making, and would go on to exploit this to spectacular effect—much more so than her mother was ever able to.

  Meanwhile, the devoutness of Elizabeth’s new stepmother was being remarked upon by many at court. She was said to be “so formed for pious studies that she considered everything of small value compared to Christ.”42 Determined to share her passion for religious reform, Katherine gathered around her a group of intellectual women, each renowned for their “learning” and faith. They included her sister, Lady Herbert, and her stepdaughter Margaret Neville, together with the Duchess of Suffolk, Lady Lisle, and other notables. She would hold “conferences” with these ladies in her apartments, discussing matters of doctrine, hearing sermons, and offering prayers. She also spent many hours reading the scriptures and receiving instruction from chaplains and other learned men. Nicholas Udall, the scholar and playwright, praised her piety and that of her “circle” in a dedication to a translation that he made of a work by Erasmus in 1548: “When I consider, most gracious Quene Katerine, the greate noumber of noble woemen in this our time and countrye of England, not onelye geven to the studie of humaine sciences and of straunge tongues, but also so throughlie experte in holy scriptures, that they are hable to compare with the beste wryters as well in endictynge and pennynge of godlye and fruitful treatises to the enstruccion and edifynges of whole realmes in the knowledge of god, as also in translating good bokes oute of Latine or Greek into Englishe … I cannot but thynke and esteem the famous learned Antquitee … ferre behynde these tymes.”43

  Among these “noble woemen” was Elizabeth herself. She proved a conscientious student, receptive to everything her stepmother could teach her. The textbooks that she studied included works by Katherine herself. One of the most influential of these was The Lamentation of a Sinner, published in November 1547. This drew upon Lutheran and Calvinist teachings, but went much further by promoting the author’s equality to men—a shocking concept for the time. Katherine adopted the persona of a ruler who chastised his subjects for their lack of faith. She claimed that Christ embodied the typically female qualities of meekness and humility, while she herself had a very manly ambition to “covet rule over my brethren.”

  Katherine was not promoting the rights of women over men; she was promoting her own rights, and in so doing, setting herself apart from the rest of the female sex as an exceptional example of learning and authority. It was the image of queenship that the young Elizabeth would take as her role model. Famously lamenting that she was but a “weak and feeble woman,” she would assume a masculine stance in order to stamp her authority on a man’s world. And as a queen regnant in her own right, she would be able to do so with much greater effect than the woman who had originally inspired her.

  The influence that Katherine Parr had had upon Elizabeth’s spiritual upbringing was celebrated in the New Year’s gift that her stepdaughter gave to the king at the beginning of 1546. It was another translation, but this time the work was Katherine’s own. Prayers and Meditations was published in May 1545 and included five original prayers written by the Queen. Elizabeth undertook an even more ambitious project than the previous year by translating the work into not one but three languages: French, Italian, and Latin. She used the accompanying letter to let her father know just how much she had been influenced by his sixth wife. Introducing the book as having been “compiled by the Queen your wife … [and] translated by your daughter,” she lauded it as “a work of such piety, a work compiled in English by the pious industry of a glorious Queen and for that reason a work sought out by all!” Pointing out that theology was the “proper study of Kings,” Elizabeth concluded that Katherine’s Prayers must have been “by your Majesty highly esteemed.”44

  Intended both to signify her adoption of Katherine’s teachings and to heighten her father’s respect for his wife, Elizabeth’s present backfired. Far from esteeming Katherine’s work, it is unlikely that Henry had ever read it. When he learned how much it had influenced his impressionable young daughter, however, he was gravely concerned. Theology was too weighty a matter for women to trespass upon, and if Katherine was publishing her own works and gathering around her an ever-growing circle of supporters at court, then she was grossly exceeding her limited authority as queen. He had been browbeaten by Elizabeth’s mother, and it had taught him a lesson he would never forget. Katherine would have to be slapped down.

  The Queen’s enemies at court seized this as an opportunity to get rid of her. Feeding the king’s all-too-ready suspicion, a group of religious conservatives led by Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, started to put about rumors of her demise. When the king confided in him that he resented his wife’s outspokenness in matters of religion, Gardiner went at once to his fellow plotters, who included powerful men like Sir Richard Rich and the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas Wriothesley, and gathered enough evidence of Katherine’s heresy to condemn her to death. The men found a number of banned religious texts within her library, which enabled them to secure a warrant for her arrest.

  By chance, the Queen heard of this before the men could reach her and immediately took to her bed, claiming that she was mortally ill. When the king rushed to see her, she cleverly told him that she was sick with fear that she had displeased him. Henry admitted that he was aggrieved at her for overstepping the mark in religious matters, and Katherine proceeded to give a skillfully submissive defense of her actions. She professed that she had entered into spiritual debates with him only in order to take his mind off his many ailments, as well as to learn from his responses. Knowing that one of the chief causes of his displeasure was that she, a mere woman, had meddled with affairs that were rightly the preserve of men, she went on to plead the weakness of her sex. “Your Majesty doth know right well, neither I my self am ignorant what to great imperfection and weakness by our first creation is allotted to us women, to be ordained and appointed as inferiour and subject unto Man as our head from which head all our direction ought to proceed.” She then resorted to simple flattery, telling her husband that he was “so excellent in giftes and ornaments of wisdom,” whereas she was “a simple poor woman so much inferiour in all respects of nature to you.”45 By the end of her speech, Katherine had talked herself out of trouble. The king was instantly mollified and railed against Gardiner and all the others who had dared to question his wife’s loyalty. Katherine knew, though, that it had been a close call. She had narrowly escaped with her life and would not risk it again.

  Elizabeth was almost certainly at court when this controversy unfolded. Earlier that year, Katherine had succeeded in gaining the king’s consent that his two daughters might join her household on a more or less permanent basis. Elizabeth and Mary duly headed the list of ladies-in-waiting “accustomed to be lodged within the King’s Majesty’s house.” Witnessing the Queen’s sudden fall from grace, Elizabeth must have felt sick with terror at the thought of losing the dearest of all her stepmothers, and perhaps also guilty at the part she had unwittingly played in it by her ill-advised choice of New Year’s gift. But Katherine’s submission, like that of Anne of Cleves six years earlier, had taught Elizabeth the wisdom of pragmatism. Much as she might have shared Katherine’s stance on her natural equality with men, she
realized that this was not a belief to be defended in a court that was still ruled by men. Only when she herself became queen, with no male consort to limit her powers, did she reignite this notion and exercise it to staggering effect.

  The controversy of Katherine’s near arrest and condemnation had clearly shaken her, and thenceforth she played a much more low-key role at court. Fortunately for Elizabeth, her father’s suspicions had been sufficiently allayed for her to continue spending time with her stepmother. When the court was at Greenwich or Whitehall, Katherine insured that the girl’s apartments were situated next to her own: an honor that singled her out as the Queen’s favorite stepchild. “The affection that you have testified in wishing that I should be with you in the court, and requesting this of the king my father, with so much earnestness, is a proof of your goodness,” Elizabeth enthused in a letter to her stepmother. “So great a mark of your tenderness for me obliges me to examine myself a little, to see if I can find anything in me that can merit it, but I can find nothing but a great zeal and devotion to the service of your Majesty.”46 Things seemed to be settling into a comfortable pattern, and Elizabeth was enjoying her prolonged stay at court. She attended the Christmas celebrations at Greenwich in 1546 and was pleased to see her stepmother fully restored to favor, as the king talked and feasted with her. But a little over a month later, everything had changed. Henry VIII, England’s seemingly invincible king, was dead.

  CHAPTER 5

  Governess

  Elizabeth was with her brother, Edward, at Ashridge when they received the news that their father had died. The children were said to have clung to each other and wept piteously. Henry’s widow, Katherine, was also bereft, for if she had never truly been in love with her husband, she had at least come to care for him deeply. Her grief was intensified by disappointment when her hopes of assuming the regency during Edward VI’s minority were dashed. Having distinguished herself when she had taken the reins three years earlier, she confidently expected to do so again. Her late husband had apparently never shared her confidence, however, and three days after his death, Edward Seymour, brother of the late queen Jane, was appointed Lord Protector of England. Under his leadership, the Privy Council would rule until the nine-year-old Edward reached his majority. Katherine was afforded no role at all in the government of the realm.

  The king’s death heightened the tension between his two daughters. Mary was generously provided for in her father’s will, which also reaffirmed her place in the order of succession. She inherited substantial estates in East Anglia, as well as her favorite residences of Hunsdon in Hertfordshire and New Hall in Essex. This was only fitting, as she was the elder of the two daughters and higher up in the order of succession, so naturally she took precedence over her half sister in the division of Henry’s spoils. But Elizabeth may have had cause for some resentment, given that she had been raised in a household that was structured around her needs above those of her half sister.

  Mary and Elizabeth, along with their brother, were taken back to court in the immediate aftermath of Henry’s death. However, they could not remain there for long because the new king had no queen and it was not considered fitting for unmarried ladies to be present without a female household in which to serve. A few days after Henry’s death, they therefore joined the entourage of their widowed stepmother. This was only intended as a temporary arrangement, because it was expected that the two daughters would soon move to their own estates.

  Thomas Seymour, the Lord Admiral and brother of the Lord Protector, now began to renew his advances to the dowager queen. Theirs was an attachment of some duration, and it is likely that they would have married some years before had Katherine not come to the attention of King Henry. But Seymour was far from being a one-woman man, and his name had been attached to various other ladies of standing at court. Among them were the king’s own daughters.

  Seymour had once paid court to Mary but had been swiftly rebuffed. Kat Astley was of the firm belief that Henry had been on the point of offering the Lord Admiral his younger daughter’s hand in marriage when death had robbed him of the chance. She had little to base this upon, apart from the rumors that were always virulent at court, together with the fact that Henry had enhanced Seymour’s standing by appointing him a Privy Councillor five days before he died. As Kat tried to interfere in the matter, the indiscretion and naivety of her character appeared in sharp relief. It seems that she was driven not merely by the best interests of her young charge, but by a kind of vicarious pleasure. She was undoubtedly attracted to the handsome Seymour and anticipated a union between him and Elizabeth with almost as much excitement as if she herself had been involved. She later admitted that she had tried to further the matter while King Henry was still alive by telling Seymour that she believed he and Elizabeth were well matched. Coming across him in St. James’s Park one day, she had remarked: “I had heard it said he should have married my lady.” Seymour had denied it at once, jesting that “he loved not his life to lose a wife,” and that the council would never allow it.1

  Meanwhile, Katherine’s feelings toward Seymour had clearly never gone away, for within as little as three months of Henry’s death, she had married her former suitor. The wedding was conducted in such secrecy that even today it is still not known exactly when it took place, but it is likely to have been in either April or May 1547. Such an impetuous action was at odds with the calm good sense for which Katherine was so well known. But perhaps this was the point: After three political marriages, she had had enough of acting out of duty. Now it was time to take something for herself. At thirty-four—an advanced age for marriage in Tudor times—she may have felt it was her last chance of happiness. There may also have been an element of defiance in her decision to marry the Lord Protector’s brother so swiftly. The late king had denied her a place in the government of the country, so why should she show him any loyalty now?

  The unseemly haste with which the widowed queen married again brought upon her the condemnation of the council, whose permission she had not sought. It also caused a scandal at court. Edward VI noted in his journal: “The Lord Seymour of Sudeley maried the Quene whose nam was Katerine, with wich mariag the Lord Protectour was much offended.”2 The dowager queen, still angry at being ousted from the government of the country, bitterly resented his disapproval. Shortly after the wedding, she wrote indignantly to her new husband: “my Lord your Brother hathe thys Afternone a lyttell made me warme. Yt was fortunate we war so muche dystant, for I suppose els I schulde have bytten hym.” Such a show of passion was rare for a woman who was renowned for her calmness and good sense. In her fury, she was determined to go see the young King Edward himself, “wher I intend to utter all my coler to my Lord your Brother,” but assured Seymour that she would obey him if he advised her not to do so.3 It is not clear whether she made good her threat.

  When she heard of Katherine’s marriage, Princess Mary was outraged at what she perceived to be a blatant show of disrespect to her late father. Seymour had sought her help in securing Katherine’s consent to marry him and had met with a sharp rebuke. “Consyderyng whose wyef her grace was of late … I ame nothyng able to perswade her to forget the losse of hyme, who is as yet very rype in myne owne remembrance,” she wrote.4 By the time this letter arrived, Seymour had already married Katherine. Close though she had been to her last stepmother, Mary cut off all contact and refused to have anything more to do with her.

  Elizabeth’s response was rather more measured. Although she paid lip service to the same disbelief that was felt by the rest of the royal family, it was with telling alacrity that she accepted Katherine’s invitation to live with her at Chelsea in west London, delighted at the prospect of being reunited with her stepmother. Edward VI’s Privy Council had soon established a routine of rigid ceremonial, and the staid, almost puritanical atmosphere formed a stark contrast to the glittering world of his father’s court. Little wonder that Elizabeth showed no hesitation when Katherine’s letter arrived.
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  When Mary heard of this, she was horrified. The only way she could comprehend it was to assume that Elizabeth had felt she had nowhere else to go. She therefore wrote at once to the girl, urging her not to associate with the dowager queen, considering the “scarcely cold body of the King our father so shamefully dishonoured by the Queen our stepmother.”5 She went on to offer Elizabeth a place in her own household so that the two sisters might show a united front in their disapproval of their stepmother’s actions. Elizabeth’s reply was full of deference and respect, assuring Mary of her loyalty and obedience. But she clearly had no intention of passing up the opportunity of being reunited with her stepmother, and therefore told Mary that they must “submit with patience to that which could not be cured.” She added that although Katherine’s behavior might not have been entirely proper, “the Queen having shown me so great affection, and done me so many kind offices, I must use much tact in manoeuvring with her, for fear of appearing ungrateful for her benefits.”6

  Mary left in disgust for her estate at New Hall in Essex. Although her relationship with Elizabeth had been difficult for some time, this was the first show of defiance on the part of her younger sister. She made it clear that she seriously disapproved of Elizabeth’s choice and predicted (rightly, as it turned out) that it would damage the girl’s reputation.