The
Birth of Elizabeth
by Wendy J. Dunn
1533, three hours after noon, on the
seventh of September, in a bed once part of a French Prince's ransom, a healthy
baby girl was born to Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII - to the grief of both her
parents. Poor Elizabeth! If any child's birth disappointed her parents it was
her birth. Conceived at the tail end of her father's passion for her mother,
once a passion all consuming but now flickering out, she was the child her
father had turned his kingdom upside down to get. King Harry, once the Pope's
golden boy for his book defending the Papacy against the attacks of Martin
Luther, was now even under threat of excommunication for putting aside his
'sister-in-law' Catherine of Aragon for Anne Boleyn and the children she could
give him. But not a girl child - never a girl child.
I admit to not liking Henry VIII. A selfish man with great ego, the King's
character was probably best described by Sir Thomas More when he said his head
would soon be off his shoulders 'if it could win the King a castle in France.'
But if there is one time I feel some sympathy for him it is probably here, at
the time of Elizabeth's birth. Married at eighteen to Catherine of Aragon, the
widow of his brother, just after becoming King, Henry VIII married for political
reasons and perhaps because of a confused sense of chivalry. His many gallant
attempts to ensure the succession of a male heir met with anguish after anguish.
The first child, a girl, born dead seven months after his union with Catherine,
the second child a son, named for his father, found dead in his cradle within
weeks of his birth, just days after Catherine and Henry celebrated their son's
safe arrival. Until their daughter's birth, the 'Bloody Mary' of history, the
list of tragedy goes on and on. Even Mary's live birth could be seen as a
tragedy, especially when you remember how dreadful her life would be, not only
for herself but also for others.
By 1518, the last of Catherine and Henry's dead babies had been buried,
Catherine, her body worn out by the constant child bearing, seven children in
nine years, would show no further signs of pregnancy. And that's not really
surprising, since by that time the King no longer cohabited with her. Before
this time, in 1516, the King already questioned the validity of his marriage.
And being a good Bible scholar, he soon located the appropriate passage in
Leviticus, which said if a man married his brother's widow the marriage would
bear no fruit. The King ignored another text in Deuteronomy saying a man should
marry his brother's widow, raising up living children in his dead brother's
name. Henry did have one acknowledged, living son- Henry Fitzroy, Duke of
Richmond- born to Bessie Blount in 1519. So, to him, the problem clearly had
nothing to do with him. Even though very much part of the King's character to do
what best suited his own purposes, it seems he really believed all the dead
children born in his marriage was God's judgement upon him for taking as wife
the relict of his dead brother.
The King first cast his gaze in the direction of Anne Boleyn probably when he
was 32, very much in his prime, with a wife who looked years older than her real
age of 38. Anne may have been as young as
sixteen, deeply in love with her first love, Hal Percy, Northumberland's
heir, and with a sister pregnant with a child some scholars still believe
fathered by the King.
In his
The life and Times of Cardinal Wolsey,
George Cavendish,
claimed
Cardinal Wosley destroyed Anne's
relationship with Hal Percy, at the King's command. Heart-broken, not wanting
the honour of being the next Boleyn girl bedded by the King, Anne was sent home
in disgrace. When she came back to court all her thoughts were for revenge,
especially towards Wosley, a man who called her foolish and an upstart.
For the next six years she tantalised
and fascinated the King. By the time she gave him what she wanted, probably
after being made Marquess of Pembroke, I think she discovered the hunted game
was in fact really herself.
Ives and other scholars believe hey may have married secretly before
consummating their relationship. Not long after they first became lovers, Anne
found herself pregnant. The King, declaring his first marriage invalid, quickly
exchanged one queen for another.
Anna Boleyn, an ebony haired woman
with a slender neck, which would one day be such an easy task for a French
executioner's sword, was five months pregnant when crowned Queen of England. By
the time the baby was due to born, the King rested easily in the reassurance of
soothsayers that the child would be all he and England wanted. So reassured was
the King he had even drawn up proclamations announcing the birth of the Prince,
to be named either Henry or Edward. Then Elizabeth was born, and her parents
grieved, never knowing that one-day she would be the best of the Tudor monarchs,
a monarch who would give her name to an age.
Reference:
 E, Ives, The Life and
Death of Anne Boleyn: The Most Happy, Blackwell Publishers, 2004
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