Elizabeth (4 page)

In June 1536, Elizabeth was formally proclaimed illegitimate. With this turn of events, it seemed possible that the Lady Mary and her father might become reconciled. Instead, Mary found herself under more pressure than ever, first to acknowledge the King as Head of the Protestant Church in England when she was herself staunchly Catholic, and also to accept that his marriage to her mother, Catherine of Aragon, had been unlawful, thereby making Mary illegitimate. Heartsick and disillusioned, in July of that year Mary finally agreed to these demands, although she begged Spanish Ambassador Chapuys to tell the Pope that she had only agreed under duress and remained a true Catholic at heart and the lawful child of her father and mother in the eyes of God.

Mary’s outward show of obedience was enough to satisfy Henry. Accompanied by the new Queen, he visited Mary at Hunsdon, where Jane presented her stepdaughter with a diamond ring and the King gave her an order for 1,000 crowns. As long as Mary remained dutiful, the days of poverty and neglect were over, it seemed. Chapuys, happy to see Mary back in the King’s graces, wrote:
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It is impossible to describe the King’s kind and affectionate behaviour towards the Princess [Mary], his daughter, and the deep regret he said he felt at his having kept her so long away from him … There was nothing but … such brilliant promises for the future, that no father could have behaved better towards his daughter.’
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Mary was permitted to return to Court and given a household suitable to her standing as the King’s daughter, albeit an illegitimate
one. Elizabeth, stripped of the title of princess, still shared an establishment with Mary, who was now the principal mistress of the household. Mary’s servants, driven away during her days of torment, were allowed back. Queen Jane treated Mary well, befriending her husband’s oldest child, and returning some of the signs of rank that Mary had been denied while Anne Boleyn had been alive. Jane had been a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon and had much admired her.

One of Jane’s first requests of the King was that Mary be allowed to attend her, which Henry was pleased to allow. Mary was chosen to sit at the table opposite the King and Queen and to hand Jane her napkin at meals when she washed her hands. For one who had been banished to sit with the servants at Hatfield, this was an obvious sign of her restoration to the King’s good graces. Jane was often seen walking hand-in-hand with Mary, making sure that they passed through the door together, a public acknowledgement that Mary was back in favour. In August, Chapuys wrote, ‘the treatment of the princess [Mary] is every day improving. She never did enjoy such liberty as she does now …’
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Meanwhile, Henry, wary of relying on Jane to give him a son, raised the question of the 20-year-old Mary’s marriage – the next best thing to a son, after all, would be a healthy grandson.

In October 1536, an anonymous letter to the Cardinal de Bellay, Bishop of Paris, described Mary and Elizabeth’s situation at Court: ‘Madame Marie is now the first after the Queen, and sits at table opposite her, a little lower down … Madame Isabeau [Elizabeth] is not at that table, though the King is very affectionate to her. It is said he loves her very much.’
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Mary appeared to show great affection towards her little sister Elizabeth during this time, giving her small gifts from her own privy purse. Mary wrote to her father, who was now in the happy
position of being able to be gracious to both his daughters, ‘My sister Elizabeth is in good health, thanks be to our Lord, and such a child toward, as I doubt not but your Highness shall have cause to rejoice of in time coming.’
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For Elizabeth, although bereft of her mother, there was a happy occurrence in June 1536. Katherine Champernowne joined the household as a Waiting Gentlewoman. Katherine, whom the little Elizabeth would come to call ‘Kat’, was the daughter of Sir Philip Champernowne of Bere and Modbury, in Devonshire. She was appointed on the recommendation of Thomas Cromwell. The Champernownes were a very well-connected West Country family. Kat’s cousin, another Katherine, married twice, becoming the mother of the notable Elizabethan explorers and colonizers, Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh.

Kat became Elizabeth’s Governess in 1537; she married Sir John Ashley, a distant cousin of Anne Boleyn, in 1545, and stayed in Elizabeth’s service until her death. She was a well-educated woman and taught the three-year-old girl her letters and numbers. Kat joined a household in turmoil, however. In August, Kat’s superior and Elizabeth’s Governess at the time, Lady Margaret Bryan, wrote to Thomas Cromwell of her concerns about Elizabeth’s rich diet, lack of appropriate clothing and the confusion in her status under the stewardship of Sir John Shelton (the Governor of the household at Hunsdon). The letter sums up all the anguish, frustration and confusion that resulted from the death and disgrace of Elizabeth’s mother:

There is no confirmation that the new clothes, or cloth to make them, ever arrived, but Lady Margaret’s plea for a simple diet for the child, to be served in her private quarters, was addressed. On 16 August, Sir John Shelton wrote to Cromwell, ‘I perceive by your letter the King’s pleasure that my lady Elizabeth shall keep her chamber and not come abroad.’ Shelton also requested money to buy food for the household; the King’s warrant had not arrived on time.
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It is impossible to know the extent to which Elizabeth may have been affected by her parents’ divorce and her mother’s death. Two particular events possibly made some impression on the young child, though. The first occurred in January 1536, when Catherine of Aragon died at Kimbolton. As Ambassador Chapuys reported to Charles V:

A second event occurred only a few months later, when, just days before her arrest, Henry VIII was angry at Anne Boleyn. Whether Elizabeth was old enough to recall it is unclear, but after she came to power in 1558, it was brought to her attention by Alexander Ales, a member of an embassy to the German Princes, who wrote to Elizabeth claiming: ‘… I saw the sainted Queen your mother, carrying you, still a little baby, in her arms, and entreating the most serene King your father … The faces and gestures of the speakers plainly showed the King was angry …’
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Elizabeth was certainly aware of a change in attitude towards her. She is credited with saying to Sir John Shelton, who had been deputed to explain to her the changes in her lifestyle following her mother’s death, ‘How haps it, Governor, yesterday my Lady Princess, and today but my lady Elizabeth?’
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Margaret Bryan, Kate Champernowne, Blanche Parry and others, still remained part of her immediate circle, but Elizabeth would never set eyes on her mother again, and she would see her father far less frequently. Her sister, Mary, was more kind to her, it was true, now that they were both victims of Court intrigue. And though both would have to cope with a string of further stepmothers, Jane Seymour was certainly considerate towards both Mary and Elizabeth.

There were to be further changes in the Royal Court. In March 1537, Jane announced that she was pregnant, to Henry’s great pleasure. On 16 September, the Queen retired to Hampton Court, and on 9 October she went into labour, giving birth to a baby son, Edward, the new heir to the throne, at 2 a.m. on 12 October 1537.

The Court and the city of London immediately burst into celebration. People poured into the streets to celebrate the news. Pork, supplied by the Court, was roasted over open fires and the water conduits ran with ale and wine. A special song was written and printed that soon flooded the city:

On 15 October, the christening of the new prince took place in the chapel at Hampton Court. Henry and Jane remained in their apartments while the splendid procession wound its way down to the chapel. Among all the magnificence, the young Elizabeth played her part, carrying the christening robe. As she was barely four, Edward Seymour, Jane’s brother, carried her. On the way out, as the christened Prince Edward was carried back to his parents, little Elizabeth walked hand-in-hand with her sister Mary, also the baby’s godmother, helped by Blanche Herbert, who supported the train of her elaborate robes.

This was another event that Elizabeth would remember: the kindness of her sister, the emotional tears of her father, the frailty of her stepmother, not yet recovered from the ordeal of childbirth, obliged to watch the procession from her rooms while wrapped in velvet and furs. A week later it was all over: on 24 October, the 29-year-old Jane Seymour died of puerperal fever – a form of septicaemia that often resulted after childbirth in those times. On
12 November, Henry VIII’s third wife and the mother of his only legitimate son was given a magnificent funeral, attended by the whole of the Tudor Court. It may be safely assumed that Elizabeth was there: her sister, Mary, headed the cortege as Chief Mourner.

Henry VIII was not in a hurry to choose his next Queen: he now had a legitimate male heir. He lavished love and care on his son, and also took time to consider how his daughters, illegitimate or not, could be used as political assets in terms of future alliances through marriage. Henry’s priority was to prevent an alliance between the great Catholic powers of France and Spain. With this in mind, he offered himself in marriage to various French princesses, and then tried to negotiate a marriage with the niece of Charles V.

As for his daughters, in 1538, there was a suggestion that Elizabeth, now aged five, might marry one of Charles V’s nephews, either Maximilian, heir to the Holy Roman Empire, Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, or Charles, Archduke of Austria. This political manoeuvring was not taken too seriously despite a report by Chapuys in March 1538 that he had seen Elizabeth and she was ‘certainly very pretty’.
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Charles V might have wanted an alliance with England, but not in this way.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth’s childhood seemed to be progressing well. In December 1539, Sir Thomas Wriothesley was sent to see the six-year-old Elizabeth at Hertford Castle, where she was spending Christmas. He brought messages from her father, who wished her and her household a happy Christmas. Sir Thomas reported back favourably:

With Prince Edward’s birth, several changes had been made to Elizabeth’s daily routine. Lady Margaret Bryan had left to become Edward’s Governess. Blanche Herbert was now head of the household and Kat Champernowne became Elizabeth’s Governess. These two women, in particular, provided stability and emotional support for the child. Blanche only left Elizabeth some 10 years later, when she retired, while Kat would remain a loyal companion for life.

Elizabeth was to have three more stepmothers, but there is no evidence that she was ever ill-treated by any of them. Anne of Cleves, a German noblewoman who became Henry VIII’s fourth wife in January 1540, went out of her way to befriend her stepdaughters and remained on friendly terms with Mary and Elizabeth even after her brief seven-month marriage to the King had been annulled.