Six Wives (77 page)

    A mere three days between the birth and the christening of course imposed a terrifyingly tight timetable. The ceremonial itself was not the issue: the leading nobility were already on standby at Court and the rituals they would perform were familiar and (for the older participants at least) well rehearsed. But getting the infrastructure ready was another matter, and the Office of Works at Greenwich moved into overdrive. The 7th, the day of the baby's birth, was a Sunday and the 8th was the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Nevertheless, one carpenter started work on the Sunday and by the Monday he was joined by twenty-eight others. They worked through the Feast day and were paid double on the Tuesday for overtime. They were still at it on the Wednesday morning. But, by the time the dignitaries started to arrive for the afternoon ceremonial, all was ready.
¹⁵

    The workmen had created a processional way from the Hall door of the palace to the Church of the Observant Friars. They had erected frames, which were hung with tapestry, and rails, to keep off the crowds. The inside of the Church had likewise been transformed into a
theatre
. The carpenters had built a large octagonal stage, three steps high. The centre was strengthened with a solid post to take the weight of the great silver font, which, following the practice of the last hundred years, was brought up specially from Canterbury. And the top of the stage, where the font stood, was also protected by rails. The rails were covered in red cloth; 'fine cloth' was laid over the stage and above hung a square canopy of crimson satin fringed with gold. There was an enclosure with a brazier, where the child could be undressed in comfort. And the font was lined with fine linen and filled with warmed water.
¹⁶

    When the preparations were complete, the procession was marshalled in the Hall. Nobles carried the basins, in which the godparents would wash, the candle which would be thrust into the newly baptised child's hand, the salt which would exorcise her and the chrism cloth which would be bound over her anointed head. The baby herself was borne by the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk and wrapped (in default of Catherine's Spanish robe) in a royal mantle of purple velvet with a long train furred with ermine.

    It was a Boleyn triumph: Anne's uncle, Norfolk, back hotfoot from France, officiated as Earl Marshal; her father, Wiltshire, supported the baby's train; her brother, Rochford, was the first of the four nobles who carried the portable canopy over the child; and her creature, Cranmer, was godfather.

    Chapuys had heard that the baby would be named Mary. In fact, she was christened Elizabeth. This was the name of both her grandmothers: Henry's mother, Elizabeth of York, and Anne's mother, Elizabeth Boleyn née Howard. At the moment of the christening the Church was filled with a blaze of light: the candle in the child's hand was lit and, simultaneously, five hundred torches carried by yeomen of the guard and other servingmen were fired as well. Then Garter King of Arms proclaimed the child's name and titles 'with a loud voice':

And the trumpets sounded.
¹⁷

* * *

So Mary had been left with her name at least. But her title of Princess and her status of heir were transferred to the new royal child.

    Mary, however, took after her mother. She was not the surrendering kind, and she would yield nothing, it quickly became clear, without a ferocious struggle.

E
ven before she became Queen, Anne had Mary in her sights. 'She has boasted', Chapuys reported in April 1533, 'that she will have the Princess for her lady's maid.' Elizabeth's birth gave Anne the opportunity for an even more exquisite vengeance: she would make Mary, willy-nilly, a member of her baby daughter's Household and force the pretend Princess to serve the real one.
¹

But it proved easier said than done.

* * *

Elizabeth, preceded by her baptismal gifts, had been carried back to the Queen's Chamber to be presented to her mother and father after her christening. But then, as was usual with royal children, she was whisked away to a specially adapted nursery suite at Greenwich. In it, there was a newly built screen to protect the royal baby from draughts, and a table to enable her nurse to roll the swaddling clothes in which she was wrapped to encourage her limbs to grow straight. She also had a substantial staff. At its head was the Lady Mistress of the Nursery, Margaret, Lady Bryan. She was the sister and heiress of Lord Bourchier and mother of Sir Francis Bryan. But she could not have been more different in character from her rake-hell son. She was sensible and warm and indiscriminately motherly, and she transferred her affections easily from Mary, over whose infancy she had also presided, to Elizabeth.
²

    The other key member of Elizabeth's staff was her wet-nurse, who suckled the child. The appointment was important. It was also eagerly sought for, and Anne would have received many nominations from interested parties. But the name of her final choice is unknown. There is also a story that Anne was eager to breast-feed her own baby, and was only prevented from doing so by Henry's selfish desire for a good, uninterrupted night's sleep! Refusing a wet-nurse would have been a characteristically unconventional gesture on Anne's part. But, alas, the tale is derived from Leti's fictionalised account and is without foundation.
³

    Nevertheless, it
is
clear that Anne was immensely proud of her daughter and took an unusually close interest in her upbringing and welfare. This was no mere maternal indulgence, of course. Until Anne had a son, Elizabeth was the prime symbol of Anne's marriage – and the child's position, honour and dignity were the guarantee of her own.

    This is why Anne was so determined to enforce Elizabeth's status as Princess. It is also why others resisted her infant claims so vehemently.

* * *

The contest of wills began in December 1533. On the 2nd, there was an unusually large and important meeting of the Council. The last, but by no means the least, item on the agenda was to take 'a full conclusion and determination . . . for my Lady Princess's house'. 'House', in Tudor English, meant both the house, or physical building, where Elizabeth was to stay, and the Household, or staff of servants, who would run her notso-little Court. Both were to change dramatically.
⁴

    Hitherto, Elizabeth had remained with her parents at Greenwich. But now, with the approaching Christmas season, the palace was felt to be unsuitable for the infant. Too many people came to pay court, and there was too much risk of infection. Instead, it was decided that she should be moved to a salubrious rural retreat. The area chosen was the agreeable, well-wooded and gently rolling countryside of Hertfordshire. It was close enough to London for ease of access and far enough away to be healthy. There was also a choice of suitable houses, all lying within a few miles of each other. The first thought was to send her to the small royal residence of Hertford Castle. But for some reason minds were changed and it was resolved instead that Elizabeth should take up residence at Hatfield, a few miles to the west.
⁵

    Hatfield was a country retreat of the bishops of Ely and it was Bishop John Morton, later Archbishop of Canterbury, who had rebuilt the house as a fine, modern red-brick palace in about 1480. Arguably, from the point of view of his politically less influential successors, Morton built
too
well. Henry VIII took to the house and used it as if it were his own – first for himself and later for his children. Indeed, in 1533 he paid out of his own pocket for the few minor repairs that were necessary to get the house ready for Elizabeth and her suite.
⁶

    And with Elizabeth's new house went a new, and much bigger, Household staff. Hitherto, her nursery, with its dozen or so women, headed by Lady Bryan, had been a semi-autonomous department within, and serviced by, the large, well-oiled machinery of the royal Household. But at Hatfield her entourage would have to be self-sufficient. This meant the appointment of a multitude of new, largely male, servants to run the hall, kitchens, buttery and the other multifarious departments of a great Tudor household. And that, in turn, according to sixteenthcentury notions, required that a man be put in charge. The choice fell on a Norfolk gentleman, Sir John Shelton, who owed his appointment to the fact that he was married to Anne's aunt on her father's side.
⁷

    There was ample scope for dispute between Shelton as Steward and Lady Bryan, who had hitherto reigned supreme as Lady Mistress. And there was soon to be another, much greater source of discord.

* * *

The Council decided that Elizabeth should begin her move to her new home on 10 December, which was the day that her parents also vacated Greenwich for a few days so that the palace could be cleaned and got ready for the Christmas festivities.
⁸

    En route to Hatfield, the child was carried through London in what, at the age of three months, turned out to be her first Progress-cumentrée. According to Chapuys, there was 'a shorter and better road' to Hertfordshire which did not touch the capital (though it is difficult to imagine what it was). But instead the deliberate decision was taken to parade Elizabeth through the City 'for greater solemnity and to insinuate to the people that she is the true Princess'. To this end, she was accompanied not only by her new Household but also by a distinguished escort of 'two Dukes and several lords and gentlemen'.
⁹

    But Norfolk and Suffolk were there not only for show. Instead, each had been given an important mission by the Council meeting on 2 December. For, following Anne's double triumph of her coronation and Elizabeth's birth, there were now
two
Queens in England – and
two
Princesses also. Chapuys proposed, half-seriously, that the situation should be allowed to continue. But for Anne and Henry it was intolerable: their conduct could only be right if Catherine and Mary were wrong and had no claim to their titles.

* * *

    The sympathies of an already favourable audience thus caught, she ordered Mountjoy and his fellows to read their instructions. They did so, thereby disclosing immediately that they were required to address themselves to her as the Princess Dowager. This gave Catherine her opening for a magnificent tirade. She rejected such a title and always would. She was the King's wife and his Queen and the mother of his legitimate child and heir. She did not recognise either Cranmer's court or its verdict. And if any of her servants addressed her as Princess Dowager, 'she would never answer to any that shall so call her'.

    And she proved as good as her word. The following day, Mountjoy, as a courtesy, showed her his written report, in which she was of course referred to throughout as 'Princess Dowager'. Once again, she rose to the occasion with a grand gesture. 'She called for pen and ink, and in such places as she found the name "Princess Dowager", she, with her pen struck it out' – 'as is apparent', noted Mountjoy of his defaced report of their encounter, which still survives, crossings-out and all.
¹¹

    After such a performance and encore, Catherine's servants had supported her to a man. And Mountjoy, whose heart was not in it, had backed off.

* * *

Meanwhile, Mary was left temporarily untouched. 'As to the Princess', Chapuys had reported in April 1533, 'her name is not yet changed, and I think they will wait until the Lady has a child.'
¹²

    But the child
was
now born and Mary's hour had come. She was more than equal to it. There had already been one, abortive attempt against her position. On 14 September, a week after Elizabeth's birth, Mary's Chamberlain, Lord Hussey, was given oral instructions from the Council 'concerning the diminishing of her high estate of the name and dignity of Princess'. Mary reacted with a magnificent disdain. How dare Hussey act alone, she asked him, without other councillors and without written instructions, in 'such an high enterprise'? She 'could not a little marvel' at his rashness.
¹³

    It was her father's phrase and her father's authentic voice, and it was this similarity of character that made the clash between Henry and his daughter so terribly destructive to Mary – and so exasperating to Anne.

    But now, in early December 1533, Norfolk was on his way with the written instructions and the posse of fellow councillors that Mary had required. He found her at Beaulieu or New Hall in Essex. Brusquely, he informed her of his mission: 'her father desired her to go to the Court and service of [Elizabeth], whom he named Princess'. Mary replied that 'the title belonged to herself and no other' and started to give many reasons. Wisely, Norfolk refused to get into an argument. Instead, he said 'he had not come to dispute but to accomplish the King's will'.

    He spoke like a soldier under orders and Mary, in turn, beat a tactical retreat. She asked for 'half an hour's respite to go to her Chamber'. There, instead of womanish tears or a frantic packing up of favourite possessions, she sat down to execute a 'protestation'. It followed a draft sent her by Chapuys, and declared that nothing she might do under compulsion or by fraud should be prejudicial to her rights. Then she was ready. She asked what company she should bring. The Duke replied that it was unnecessary to bring much, as she would find plenty where she was going.