The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots Read online

  The implication that Anne had enjoyed adulterous relationships with so many was beyond scandalous – and Anne could not come back from it. If Anne had truly conducted such affairs, she would have needed the assistance of her female attendants – as in the case of the ladies sent to the Tower for later abetting Henry’s fifth wife, Catherine Howard, in concealing her adultery. But no woman was arrested. Cromwell was aiming for scandal and a quick solution.

  On 1 May, the king and queen attended a May Day tournament at Greenwich, but the king left abruptly, without saying a word to Anne, and rode back to Westminster. He had greater matters in hand. The next day, Anne’s brother, George, and Henry Norris were arrested, and then four further men: Sir Francis Weston, William Brereton, Richard Page and the poet Thomas Wyatt.

  On the morning of 2 May, Anne was watching a game of tennis when she was called to the Privy Council and told of the charges against her. She promised she was the king’s true wife and faithful, but it did no good. She was taken back to her apartments to eat with her ladies under guard. At 2pm, the Duke of Norfolk came to take her to her barge for the voyage to the Tower. She was not given time to change or say goodbye to Elizabeth. She hoped that she would be found not guilty or at least simply cast aside, and then she would be able to see her daughter once more. For who would ever execute a queen?

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Excluded and Banned’

  Elizabeth was at Greenwich Palace, with her household, when everything changed. For in a moment, Anne went from queen to prisoner. In the Tower, she occupied the same beautiful apartments that she had on the night before her coronation – but now she was hysterical with fear and grief. On 17 May, the Archbishop of Canterbury annulled her marriage with the king. Elizabeth was now illegitimate. She was, as the Act of July 1536 put it, ‘utterly foreclosed, excluded and banned to claim, challenge or demand any inheritance as lawful heir’.

  At the trial, at which her uncle was one of those sitting in judgement, Anne defended herself with spirit, ‘giving so wise and discreet aunswers to all thinges layde against her’. Henry shrugged it off. ‘She hath a stout heart but she shall pay for it’, he declared when he heard the details of the trial.1 It was a show trial – a foregone conclusion. Henry had already ordered a skilled swordsman from France so that Anne’s head could be cut off cleanly – his only act of mercy to his former wife.

  She was convicted of treason and sentenced to death. Anne was hysterical after the trial, making awful jokes about her fate – but what else could she do? The king had forsaken her, her daughter had been decreed illegitimate and she was about to die. Henry had little interest in her and spent the period of the trial dallying with Jane Seymour. On 19 May, Anne gave her final speech to the crowds at the Tower. Brave until the end, she praised the king as one of ‘the best princes on the face of the earth’. Perhaps she thought that he’d been pushed into it. But more likely she hoped to ensure some sort of protection for Elizabeth. For, as she knew, her daughter would be as reduced and friendless as Mary had been. Henry was busy with Jane Seymour and had not even thought to arrange a coffin for his queen of three years, and she was buried in an old arrow chest. On the day after the execution, Henry announced his engagement to Jane, delighted to be rid of his Boleyn queen. As Chapuys put it with horrible glee, the king had ‘the joy and pleasure a man feels in getting rid of a thin, old and vicious hack in the hope of soon getting a fine horse to ride’.2 He would not wait – the wedding was due to take place in less than two weeks.

  No one told Elizabeth, then aged two years and eight months. Her father had ordered that she be kept to her rooms at Greenwich in the immediate aftermath. Henry did not wish to see his daughter – and doing so would have suggested affection for Anne when all his hopes were now caught up in Jane. As with her sister Mary before, the little girl was now Lady Elizabeth, not a princess. She was moved to Hunsdon in the next few days – and her household appeared to be reduced. It seems as if Lady Bryan at first kept the details from her. But Elizabeth was an intelligent child – and she could see that things had changed. As she asked Sir John Shelton, ‘how happs it yesterday Lady Princess and today but Lady Elisabeth?’ He barely knew how to answer her. It was impossible for her to understand what had happened – children at such a young age who experience the death of a parent tend to ask when he or she is coming back. As she had seen Anne only infrequently, she probably imagined she would arrive to play with her soon enough. Once the news was broken, it was the task of those around her to patiently and repeatedly tell her that this would not be the case.

  ‘Now, as my Lady Elizabeth is put from that degree she was in, and what degree she is at now, I know not but hearsay’, wrote Lady Bryan to Cromwell in desperation.3 In the aftermath of the execution, there were few instructions to Lady Bryan on how to run the transformed household. Moreover, the servants were in confusion and the question of how much money would be received was unresolved. As Lady Bryan continued, she had no idea of the precedence that should be kept. ‘I know not how to order her, nor myself nor none of hers I have the rule of – that is her women and grooms.’ Mealtimes were chaos with no one knowing what the status of the child was – Sir John Shelton wanted her to dine in state daily but Lady Bryan fretted that if the child did so, ‘she will see divers meats, fruits and wine, that it will be hard for me to refrain her from’. Elizabeth was in great distress from teething and everyone was in disarray. Lady Bryan was worried that Elizabeth’s income would now plummet and she made the acute judgement that she should try to extract money while she could. She wrote that Elizabeth had no gowns or petticoats, nor smocks or shoes or even nightgowns. Although Anne Boleyn had showered her with clothes, it seems as though they were more majestic than practical. Lady Bryan wanted money as fast as possible – before she was expected to keep an entire household on the pittance due to a bastard.

  Elizabeth no longer had the company of Mary. Jane Seymour had been a supporter of the first princess, and the king was now prepared to be magnanimous – although not, as Jane suggested, to go so far as to restore Mary to the succession (the king told her she should focus her thoughts on her own future children). The king invited his troublesome eldest child to court after the execution and gave her presents of Anne’s jewels. He gave her back her household, and although it was a joint one with Elizabeth, Mary would be senior as she was the elder. She would be able to remove her own staff from the household if she went to court – and suddenly those who had tormented and beaten her had to curtsey and obey. Jane Seymour had been correct in promising Mary that her troubles would soon be at an end. But it was clear to Mary that if she wished to remain at court, she must bow to Henry’s will and accept that his marriage to her mother had been invalid. Initially, she resisted, infuriating those sent to persuade her – two dukes declared that if she were their daughter they would beat her head against the wall ‘so violently that they would make it soft as baked apples’. However, perhaps thanks to the influence of Jane, she eventually realised that there was no hope in restoring her mother’s position. She agreed to do as Henry wished and also said she accepted Elizabeth – ‘I shall never call her by other name than sister’. She was naturally hoping that she might be restored to the succession, with her sister next along from her.

  Henry and Jane were married at the end of May 1536, just eleven days after Anne’s execution. It was an unseemly marriage, too hasty, but Henry didn’t care. He was the king and he was desperate to be married to his Jane.

  In October 1537, Jane gave birth. And finally, Henry had all his desires. Jane had given him a healthy son. But she was sick and death followed twelve days later. Henry was saddened, but not stricken with grief. For him, Jane had died in pursuance of the greatest goal of all – giving England a prince and an heir. The country celebrated with fireworks and the king threw lavish banquets. At the grand christening of Edward, Elizabeth was invited to bear his train, although the heavily embroidered material was far too heavy and the Earl of Hertford
, the brother of Jane, carried her up in his arms to help her.

  The country was thrilled by the child and the king was overcome with delight. Everything he had done had been worth it. God had given him a son. But Elizabeth’s status was even more unclear. If she had been Edward’s sister, her future would have been simple: marriage to a foreign royal power. But the proposed engagement to the third son of the French king had failed even when Anne had been alive, and now there was even less enthusiasm overseas for the king’s illegitimate daughter. When the possibility was raised that she might marry a nephew of Charles V, the emperor ‘noted the life and death of her mother’.4 No one wanted a bastard daughter. Henry’s council believed that it would be difficult to marry either sister abroad unless their status was raised to that of ‘some estimation at home’, a solution Henry would not entertain. It is possible that Henry might have managed to bribe a marriage to a minor royal with a huge purse of gold – but he wasn’t willing to do so. All his money was for him, who had been confirmed as the great king by God.

  Princesses were expected to be betrothed and, without potential husbands, Mary and Elizabeth were even more reduced in the eyes of the court. Nevertheless, although the king may have been little motivated to address Elizabeth’s marriage prospects, he was keen that she should be properly educated. As she herself wrote later, ‘the face I grant, I might well blush to offer, but the mind I shall never be ashamed to present’. Much is often made of Elizabeth’s unique education by historians – forgetting that the Tudor court was a place of educated women. Henry might have preferred blondes who giggled and said little as mistresses, but he preferred educated women for his wives.

  Sixteenth-century women were often told to hide any learning they had from their husbands, and scanty female education was often justified on the basis that learning might scare off potential husbands. But Catherine of Aragon had been educated by her brilliant mother, Isabella of Castile, a woman so powerful and intelligent that she impacted even on the rules of chess – before her reign, the queen could only move one square at a time, but then came her successes. Chess manuals were published enthusing about the power of a queen and new rules created in which the queen piece could range freely across the board. And Mary too had been given much learning. Elizabeth was taught French, Italian, Spanish and Flemish, history and geography, became skilful at mathematics and astronomy, graceful at dancing and riding, and reasonable at music. Embroidery, however, was not a strong point (a failing she shared with Queen Victoria), unlike Mary who excelled at it and would send Elizabeth hand-sewn presents in the hope of charming her. Unlike other girls of her age, Elizabeth also learned Latin and was apparently expert in it by the age of three, although it has to be said that her tutoring was not always systematic in her early years, because her governesses changed – Kat Ashley had joined the household and Lady Bryan was sent to care for the young Prince Edward. However, Elizabeth was delighted by Kat, the daughter of West Country gentry. Elizabeth later said Kat ‘took great labour and pain in bringing me up in learning and honesty’.5 Young and fun, she was very different to the strict Lady Bryan.

  Kat became a friend to Elizabeth, when there was otherwise a bewildering procession of ladies at court and stepmothers. First was Anne of Cleves, who arrived from the Netherlands in December 1539 to marry Henry the following month. She was the daughter of the Duke of Cleves and Cromwell had hoped that the match would form an alliance against Catholic Europe. She was twenty-four, sweet-natured and rather tall, but heavyset. Unfortunately, waiting for her as an attend­­ant was the young and beautiful Catherine Howard – and when Henry saw her, he fell headlong in love, aided by how terribly unappealing he found his new wife. The king declared he would have the marriage annulled on the grounds of non-consummation, and his rejected bride should live as his sister. Anne of Cleves had learned from the lives of the previous wives and she knew that resistance was futile – so she gamely accepted the decision, and, in reward, Henry gave her estates, including those that had once belonged to the Boleyns. As time passed, she was invited more to court and given a good position – Henry liked to reward loyalty – and so she came to know Elizabeth and form a strong bond with her and Mary. But for the six-year-old Elizabeth, Anne was just another in a dizzying train of ladies to whom she was told to pay her respects.

  Henry, forty-nine, fat and suffering from leg wounds, decided he had to have Catherine Howard for himself, even though she was probably only seventeen or so (we do not have an exact record of her birthdate), younger than Henry’s eldest child. Catherine had been a young and exploited girl, and while living with her father’s stepmother, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, she was groomed and assaulted by her music tutor. Now she found herself catapulted into a marriage she did not want, solely to please her ambitious family. She was fond of Elizabeth – the two might have been sisters, with only a few years between them – and she gave her small presents of beads and jewellery. But then in 1541 Henry declared Catherine had been having an affair and she was sent to the Tower, in the way of her predecessor Anne Boleyn, and executed – although Henry did not give her the grace of a French swordsman and instead she was beheaded with an axe.

  Finally, in July 1543, Henry married Katherine Parr. She was well educated, twice widowed, and, as she was in her early thirties, positively mature for Henry’s tastes. He was sick and often in pain and made little attempt to produce more children. Katherine took her duties as stepmother seriously. In 1544 the princess Elizabeth gained her own tutor, William Grindal, who was a great scholar of Latin and the classics and had learned under Roger Ascham, and her Latin and Greek was much improved. Elizabeth was also in great favour with her stepmother and knew how to please her with mature discussion of religion and displays of learning. In 1544, she wrote to Katherine that ‘Inimical Fortune’ had ‘deprived me for a whole year of your most illustrious presence’.6 Katherine was acting as regent for Henry, since he was off on (a failing) campaign in France. She signed ­declarations, dealt with budgets and was in discussion with the ­lieutenant in the Northern Marches, the Earl of Shrewsbury, about the ­relationship with Scotland. Her effective and efficient ruling was a brilliant ­advertisement for a female monarch – and one that Elizabeth noticed. In 1546, when Elizabeth was nearly thirteen, Katherine had her brought to court to be with her as lady-in-waiting, the first in her household after Princess Mary. Elizabeth was delighted to be at court, surrounded by what she had discovered she loved best: glamour, money, celebration, plotting and power.

  Most monarchs hoped to have an heir and a spare, two boys to ensure the throne was secure in the days when terrible plagues could sweep the country and children were the most vulnerable of all. But Henry had done his duty. All hopes for the succession were invested in the little prince – but in 1543, the king decreed that should Edward die without heirs, the throne should pass to Mary and then Elizabeth. It would be impossible, in his view, that Edward should die childless, but his advisors persuaded him to pass an Act, the Third Succession Act, just in case. For in Scotland, a child had just been born with a greater claim to the throne than anyone bar Edward, Mary and Elizabeth.

  In the years immediately after the birth of Mary, Queen of Scots, Henry VIII was obese, fractious, sick and suffering from boils on his body and a constantly suppurating leg wound. He found it increasingly difficult to walk and was pushed about in various mechanical contraptions, a sad reduction for such a proud man. He was so at the mercy of his advisors that he nearly sent Katherine Parr to the Tower for suspected evangelical Protestant sympathies – and she had to use her quick wit to escape. Anne Askew, a twenty-five-year-old Lincolnshire noblewoman, was not so fortunate. She had been arrested for heresy and was so tormented on the rack that she had to be carried to her execution at Smithfield because her elbows and knees had been dislocated and walking caused her horrific pain. The interrogators had hoped for Katherine’s name or at least those of her ladies, but Anne had refused to implicate anyone, and was slowly burned
alive.

  Henry’s advisors pushed him to make further provision for the succession, after his son Prince Edward. Although his daughters (heirs, but he had not made them legitimate – ‘lawfully begotten’ was added next to their names in his will, but later crossed out) were the next to inherit after the little boy, the possibility must be considered that all three children might die childless. To Henry, this was pure legalese and he had no expectation of such a ridiculous occurrence – even though he had not bothered himself to arrange marriages for his daughters. In strict generational terms, the heir after Edward, Mary and Elizabeth was the granddaughter of his elder sister, Margaret, who had married James IV of Scotland – Mary, Queen of Scots. Instead, Henry decided his own heirs, overturning common laws of succession and primogeniture. Mary, Queen of Scots was pushed out of the running. Henry favoured the children of his younger sister, Mary, who had married Charles Brandon, ensuring that the crown stayed English. The will was ‘dry-stamped’, which has led Mary’s supporters throughout history to declare it was problematic and invalid. But as historian Suzannah Lipscombe has shown, Henry assented to the will and it was legal. For him, the idea of Mary, the infant Queen of Scots and future Queen of France, also becoming Queen of England would be a disaster. The country would become no more than a province of France. Little Mary was dangerous and should never be allowed to come near Henry’s throne.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘A Calm Mind’