Princess Elizabeth

On this day in 1533, Anne Boleyn gave birth to Princess Elizabeth at Greenwich.

Only two weeks earlier, on the 26^th August 1533, after a relatively trouble-free pregnancy, Anne Boleyn took to her chambers at Greenwich to do what the royal physicians and astrologers had already predicted as certainty, give birth to a son and heir to the Tudor Throne.

In Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne, Starkey describes the chamber in great detail:

The walls and ceiling were close hung and tented with arras – that is, precious tapestry woven with gold or silver threads – and the floor thickly laid with rich carpets. The arras was left loose at a single window, so that the Queen could order a little light and air to be admitted, though this was generally felt inadvisable. Precautions were taken, too, about the design of the hangings. Figurative tapestry, with human or animal images, was ruled out. The fear was that it could trigger fantasies in the Queen’s mind which might lead to the child being deformed. Instead, simple, repetitive patterns were preferred. The Queen’s richly hung and canopied bed was to match or be en suite with the hangings, as was the pallet or day-bed which stood at its foot. And it was on the pallet, almost certainly, that the birth took place (Starkey, pg2).

42 years earlier, Elizabeth of York, had taken to her chambers at Greenwich, her favourite palace by the Thames, to give birth to her third child, Henry Tudor.

At 3 O’clock in the afternoon, on Sunday 7^th September 1533, Anne Boleyn gave birth to a baby girl. The jousts that Henry VIII had planned to commemorate the birth of his son were cancelled as the birth of princesses did not warrant a large public celebration but ‘a herald immediately proclaimed this first of Henry’s legitimate children, while the choristers of the Chapel Royal sang the Te Deum’ (Ives, pg.184).

The circular letters prepared before the birth by the royal clerks, announcing the ‘deliverance and bringing forth of a Prince’ were amended to read ‘Princes’ (Starkey, pg. 507).  One such letter survives today.  It is written in the queens name and bears her signet:

Right trustie and welbiloved, we grete you well. And where as it hath pleased the goodnes of Almightie God, of his infynite marcie and grace, to sende unto us, at this tyme, good spede, in the delyveraunce and bringing furthe of a Princes,² to the great joye, rejoyce, and inward comforte of my Lorde, us, and all his good and loving subjectes of this his realme; for the whiche his inestymable benevolence, soo shewed unto us, we have noo litle cause to give high thankes, laude, and praising unto oure said Maker, like as we doo mooste lowly, humbly, and with all the inwarde desire of our harte. And inasmuche as we undoubtidly truste, that this oure good spede is to your great pleasure, comforte, and consolation, We, therefore, by thies our letters, advertise you thereof, desiring and hartely praying you to give, with us, unto Almightie God, high thankes, glorie, laude, and praising; and to praye for the good helth, prosperitie, and contynuall preservation of the said Princes accordingly. Yeven under our Signet, at my Lordis Manour of Grenewiche, the 7 day of September, in the 25th yere of my said Lordis reigne.

To oure right trustie and welbiloved, the Lorde Cobham.

Elizabeth was not the male heir that Henry and Anne had hoped for, but the consolation was that she was healthy and had a full head of Tudor red hair. So the royal couple put on a brave face, as they had no reason to fear that sons would not follow. Weir relates how when Henry visited his wife after the birth and Anne expressed disappointment at the sex of their child Henry responded by saying that it was okay because they were both still young and ‘by God’s grace, boys will follow’ (Weir, pg. 258).

At her magnificent coronation, with her large belly embodying the hope of security, Anne must have felt untouchable. But now, with only a girl in the cradle, Anne’s position was weakened and only the birth of a son would bring her the stability she hoped for.

References

Ives, E. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 2004.

Starkey, D. Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne, 2001.

Starkey, D. Six Wives, 2003.

Weir, A. The Six Wives of Henry VIII, 2007.

The Boleyn Wife by Brandy Purdy

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Brandy Purdy, author of The Boleyn Wife. She very kindly agreed to answer some questions exclusively for our On the Tudor Trail readers! I thank Brandy for sharing her thoughts and opinions with us in such a sincere manner.

In the interview we talk about the lure of the Tudors, Lady Rochford: villain or victim, Brandy’s favourite of Henry VIII’s queens, Katherine Howard’s promiscuousness, ghosts and even Jack the Ripper gets a mention!

I thoroughly enjoyed ‘getting to know’ Brandy a little better and look forward to reading her next book, Mary and Elizabeth: Rivals for the Tudor Throne when it is released next year.

Read the full interview here.

Chateau d'Amboise

Following in the footsteps of Anne Boleyn has taken us to many picturesque locations that are steeped in history and number 24 on the list is no exception! We return to the Loire Valley in France to a palace perched above the market town of Amboise.

Amboise lies on the banks of the Loire River and was once home to the French royal court.

Joan of Arc passed through the town in 1426 on her way to Orleans to the Battle of Patay.

Francis I Chateau de Amboise sits perched on a promontory overlooking the Loire River and dominating the town.

The chateau was built in the 11^th century and has undergone extensions and improvements over time. Charles VIII rebuilt it extensively in 1492 in the French Late Gothic Flamboyant style and then in 1495 employed two Italian mason-builders to provide Amboise with a taste of Renaissance decorative motifs.

Continue reading here.

I have lots of questions and answers to add so it may take a little while but we’ll get there in the end. Readers normally email me their questions but now you can enter your question directly into the ‘ask a question’ form found here and at the end of this post.

I look forward to receiving lots of interesting questions from you!

Anne of Cleves by Hans Holbein the Younger 1539

On the 4th September 1539, the marriage treaty between Henry VIII and the Lady Anne was signed by the Duke of Cleves at Dusseldorf.

The Duke’s representatives arrived at Windsor on the 23rd of September to ratify the marriage treaty. For the next 8 days, the king entertained the men with hunting and feasting before moving to Hampton Court and concluding the marriage treaty.

Preparations were already underway for a Christmas wedding at Greenwich, followed by 12 days of festivities.

Unfortunately, the Christmas wedding that Henry had hoped for did not take place due to bad weather keeping the Lady Anne at Calais for longer than expected.

Was the weather a sign of the storm that would soon rage in Henry and the doomed marriage that awaited the pair?

Anne Boleyn attributed to John Hoskins

A reader recently wrote in to ask whether I knew what had happened to Anne Boleyn’s famous pearl necklace and I thought I’d post a response here so that others have an opportunity to add information as well.

There is much speculation as to what actually happened to Anne’s famous necklace with the gold B. Some people believe that it was passed down to Elizabeth and others that it went back to the Crown after her downfall. I have even heard that some of the pearls are in the crown of Elizabeth II!

Unfortunately, there is no definitive answer to the question of Anne’s jewellery. I have read many Anne biographies and have only ever come across theories. I think if we consider that in 1532 Henry reset much of the royal jewellery for Anne then it is likely that when she fell from favour he did the same for his next queen. In Eric Ives’ biography on Anne he states that Henry went about, “setting aside many of the best stones for Anne, as in the case of four bracelets, which yielded her no fewer than eighteen tabled rubies.” (Ives, pg. 158)

Interestingly enough, he not only reset the royal jewellery he also stripped Catherine of her own jewels, this obviously did not please the former queen and she responded by saying that it would be a sin for her jewels to adorn ‘the scandal of Christendom’ (Ives, pg. 158).

If Catherine of Aragon, after 26 years of marriage, was ordered by Henry VIII to return her jewels then I think that Anne’s jewels would have suffered a similar fate.

In saying that, some of Anne’s belongings, like her two Book of hours, survived the ‘coup’ and so there is hope that her ‘B’ necklace was also saved by a loyal Boleyn supporter and kept safe until the reign of her daughter, Elizabeth I.

I certainly hope so.

Ives, E. The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, 2004.

The Red Queen by Phillipa Gregory

I have just finished reading The Red Queen by Philippa Gregory and found it entertaining and engaging. This is the second book in the Cousins’ War series and covers roughly the same period as The White Queen (the first book in the series) but from a different point of view. The protagonist and narrator, Margaret Beaufort, is a difficult character to relate to and not at all ‘likeable’. She is fervently religious, compares herself regularly to Joan of Arc and will stop at nothing to see her son, whom she considers the true heir to the throne, become king and herself, ‘My Lady, the King’s Mother’.

The story follows the life of Margaret Beaufort, Lancastrian descended from Edward III, from nine years of age into adulthood. She is married three times and becomes a mother at the tender age of 13. She is separated from her son, Henry Tudor, when he is only a baby as she is sent off to live with husband number two.

As with all of Gregory’s historical fictions, her characters come to life. They emerge from the pages to tell us their stories. Margaret Beaufort’s voice is so vivid, so close that at times you almost feel the heat of her breath.

Margaret believes that she is favoured by God and that her destiny is to put her son on the throne of England. She devotes the best years of her life to achieving this and measures peoples’ worth on how much they can accelerate her holy plight.

We become entangled in Margaret’s conniving and traitorous acts. She is intelligent, determined and ruthless and meets her match in husband number three, Thomas Stanley.

Margaret feigns allegiance to the Yorkist monarchs while plotting and planning their ruin. Although the reader may know how this story ends, until the last few pages, Margaret does not, so the end  is suspenseful, gripping and exciting. Gregory does a wonderful job of relating the Battle of Bosworth and offers up plenty of imagery and detail.

Having read The White Queen, I found it really interesting to ‘live’ the same events but through the eyes of a different character. Although in many ways Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth Woodville are different, they also have much in common. Both women are intelligent, determined and committed to their causes – neither ever gave up.

I enjoyed immersing myself in the world of Margaret Beaufort and am now determined to learn more about her life. Gregory has left me desperately wanting to read the third book in the trilogy about another strong and fascinating woman, Elizabeth Woodville’s mother, Jacquetta.

I leave you with one of my favourite parts of the story, when Elizabeth Woodville’s daughter, Elizabeth of York who knows she will be queen either through marriage to Henry Tudor or her uncle, King Richard III finally responds to Margaret Beaufort’s incessant torment about her imminent shame regardless of who she marries. Elizabeth says:

Yes, but either way, shamed or not, I shall be Queen of England, and this is the last time you will sit in my presence…. Then she sweeps me a curtsey, turns her back on me with absolute disdain, and walks out of my great hall and into the yard where the soldiers are waiting in the sunshine to take her to safety far away. I have to say, she leaves me stunned into silence (pg. 344-345).

P.S Margaret Beaufort was in fact very reluctant to accept a lower status than her daughter in law, the queen consort. She wore robes of similar quality and only walked half a pace behind her.

Palace of Mechelen

To retrace the steps of Anne Boleyn we have journeyed to many castles, stately homes, chapels and buildings in England but today we venture across the English Channel to modern day Belgium and what was once Margaret of Austria’s Palace at Mechelen.

In the 15^th and 16^th century, Mechelen was the capital of Burgundian Netherlands or the Low Countries (roughly present day Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg).

The Palace of Mechelen, built from 1507 as a residence for Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, was home to a young Charles V who spent much of his youth here under the watchful eye of his aunt Margaret.

Continue reading here.

Patent granted to Anne Boleyn as Marquis of Pembroke

On the morning of Sunday, 1^st September at Windsor Castle Anne Boleyn received the title of marquis of Pembroke. This was significant for a number of reasons, the first being that no other woman had ever been bestowed with the title, secondly, the earldom of Pembroke had previously been held by Henry’s great-uncle, Jasper Tudor, and so had strong royal connections (Starkey, p.459) and finally the title made Anne the most prestigious non-royal woman in the realm.

Continue reading here.

Jane Seymour by Hans Holbein the Younger

I have just completed my third post in the series on Tudor hauntings where I have been focusing on the myths and stories surrounding the ghosts of the six wives of Henry VIII. This time I’ve chosen the ghost of Jane Seymour, third wife to Henry VIII.

Within 24 hours of the execution of Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour and Henry VIII were formally betrothed.

In an unbelievable twist of fate, Jane Seymour, the woman that had come to court as a lady in waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon and then served as a lady in waiting to Queen Anne Boleyn after the first queen fell from favour, was now on the brink of becoming queen herself.

Read the full article here.