Elizabeth
'I found myself compelled by David Starkey's vivid recreation of the hazardous uncertainty of Elizabeth's early life, her successive exclusions from the centre of power, the studiedly ambiguous answers she offered her interrogators, her inevitable implications in conspiracies and narrow escapes from execution' - so wrote the critic from the Times Literary Supplement on the first publication of Dr Starkey's biography of the young Elizabeth Tudor.
David Starkey is a historian and broadcaster, and fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. He has written and presented Elizabeth, Henry VIII and Reinventing the Royals for Channel 4, and has been a controversial panellist on Radio 4's Moral Maze. In addition to this biography, he has published The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and politics, The English Court from the Wars of the Roses to the Civil War and Henry VIII: A European court in England.
In this edited extract, the year is 1547 and Elizabeth is about 14. Henry VIII had died in January, and soon after his death, the princess had moved in with her stepmother Catherine Parr in her house in Chelsea. However, in April, Catherine secretly married Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, lord admiral and brother of Henry's third wife Jane ...
Seymour was now Elizabeth's stepfather. He was also, since she lived under Catherine's roof, effectively her guardian. In both capacities it was his duty to protect and nurture her. Instead, at the least, he abused his trust; he may even have sexually abused her. For Elizabeth was not only a king's daughter, with a fortune and a claim to the throne. She had also blossomed into a pretty teenage girl.
Elizabeth's portrait
We can see what Seymour saw thanks to Elizabeth's second surviving
portrait. It dates from the last year of Henry's reign or the first two
or three of Edward's, when Elizabeth was in her early teens. The artist
is unknown, but he was a master, who responded to his subject with a delicate
sensitivity.
Elizabeth stands. Her body is slightly turned to the right. But her eyes confront the observer directly and hold him with a steady stare. The set of her jaw is firm, too. Her auburn hair, parted in the middle, is her father's, as is her pale complexion, her delicate mouth and her long, slightly arched nose that would turn into the imperious eagle's beak of the older woman. But the eyes, coal-black and profound, are her mother's, Anne Boleyn's.
No bluestocking
She holds a book, with gold mounts at the corners, in front of her.
The gesture displays her hands, with their long, slender, beringed fingers,
in which she took such pride. It also suggests that she has been interrupted
in reading. And it was clearly serious study: a slip of paper marks one
place in the book; her left index finger another. To her right is another,
much larger book, open on a velvet- draped lectern. She is ready, you
feel, to receive Grindal or Ascham [her tutors] and begin her exercises
in Latin or Greek or theology.
But she is no blue-stocking. She wears the latest French hood. This reveals the face, rather than concealing it like the native English gable head-dress. Her dress, with its long, wide sleeves, is in crimson damask and it is open at the front to show a magnificent underskirt, richly worked in gold embroidery. Her under- sleeves are of the same fabric. Her hood, necklace, dress and girdle are trimmed with lustrous pearls. The effect is rich, fashionable, yet elegantly restrained. There is also a hint, just a hint, of her breasts under the tightly stretched fabric of the bodice.
The bedroom
Finally, there is the background. Tawny curtains are pulled back on
either side, leaving her head and milky-white shoulders outlined against
the dark void between them. A doorway seems to lie beyond. To the left
is the dull glint of a rich counterpane. She is standing in her bedroom
in front of her bed.
Not too much should be read into this. Peace and quiet were difficult to find in early Tudor households, and bedrooms were made to serve many purposes. Her father's illustrated Book of Psalms, for instance, shows him, too, reading in his bedchamber, though he had studies, libraries and closets in plenty.
But, come the night, the books would be put away; the splendid dress with its underskirts and trimmings would be removed; the bed curtains would be drawn; and Elizabeth, wearing only a shift, would settle to sleep. The dark eyes would close and the firm jawline relax a little.
'Bare-legged'
This was Seymour's opportunity. Early in the morning, he would come
into her bedchamber, of which he had pocketed the key. If she were up
but not dressed, he bade her a hearty good morrow and 'struck her upon
the back or buttocks familiarly'. If she were still in bed, he pulled
back the curtains to 'make as though he would come at her'. Elizabeth
would then seek refuge by retreating to the furthest corner of the bed.
On one occasion, when the household was staying in his own London house, he entered clad only in his night-shirt and gown, or, as the contemporary account put it, 'bare-legged'. The modern equivalent of 'bare-legged' is 'without trousers' and the innuendo is the same.
Tickling
Seymour did not go so far. But he did pretty well everything else.
He snatched kisses from Elizabeth; 'played' with her maids and stole embraces
from her under his wife's very nose. But most extraordinary are the incidents
where Seymour's antics were actually assisted by his wife, the pious,
learned and Protestant Catherine Parr.
Early on two mornings, for instance, Catherine joined her husband in his visit to Elizabeth's bedchamber, where they both tickled the girl in bed. Later, in the garden, Catherine held Elizabeth while Seymour cut her dress into a hundred pieces. Reproved for her behaviour by Kate Ashley [her principal gentlewoman], Elizabeth said simply that 'she could not do [i.e. strive] with all', with both her step-parents.
Bold as brass
What are we to make of all this? When an indignant Kate Ashley went
on to challenge Seymour for behaviour that risked wrecking Elizabeth's
reputation, his reply was as bold as brass. With an oath, he swore: 'I
will tell my Lord Protector how I am slandered; and I will not leave off,
for I mean no evil.' This is the 'reproof valiant'. Some modern writers
go further and offer the 'lie circumstantial'. Perhaps, one has speculated,
the dress-cutting incident was in fulfilment of some wager.
It is interesting to consider how these excuses would play in front of a modern panel of social workers and paediatricians, all sensitised to the faintest hint of child abuse.
It is also interesting to wonder how Catherine herself reconciled her behaviour with her conscience. She had become pregnant soon after the marriage. Maybe it was the effects of this pregnancy - her first at the age of 36 - which unbalanced her judgement. Maybe she was trying to keep Seymour's love by going along with his infatuation for her pert and pretty step-daughter. Maybe, though it is hard to see how, she was trying to stop things going further.
Complicity
By May 1548, however, she had decided that things had gone too far.
So Elizabeth was sent off to stay with Sir Anthony Denny and his wife
at Cheshunt. Denny was one of the leading figures of the new régime;
while his wife Joan, née Champernon, was Kate Ashley's sister.
It was an ideal arrangement: Denny's position offered protection while
his wife proved a kindred spirit, sharing both her sister's learning and
her commitment to the new religion.
Before Elizabeth left her stepmother's roof, she had an interview with Catherine. Catherine warned her of the dangers to her reputation posed by her conduct, while Elizabeth, on her own admission, 'answered little'. This was uncharacteristic: Elizabeth did not normally take reproof lying down.
Her silence suggests her complicity, at least, in what had taken place. Elizabeth had tasted forbidden fruit and found she had enjoyed the taste. Catherine, for her part, as Kate Ashley told Elizabeth's cofferer [accounting officer], Thomas Parry, was jealous at an obviously mutual attraction.
