do any more but smile upon her.' But ten days later her vacant throne
was filled by Jane Seymour, whose brothers, Edward earl of Hertford and
sir Thomas Seymour, were constantly seen at Court. Elizabeth, no longer
heiress of the crown, had been sent down to Hunsdon, in Hertfordshire,
under the care of lady Bryan and her kinsman Shelton, and here she was
left, forgotten by everyone, and without any money being allowed for her
support. As for clothes, she had really none, 'neither gown, nor
petticoat, nor no manner of linen, nor kerchiefs, nor rails (or
nightgowns), nor sleeves, nor many other things needed for a child of
nearly three years old.' Neither, according to the rest of lady Bryan's
letter to the king's minister, Thomas Cromwell, does she seem to have
been provided with proper food. Lady Bryan evidently did not get on well
with master Shelton, who shared her charge, and complains that he knows
nothing about children, and wished Elizabeth to dine and sup every day
with the rest of the household, and that 'it would be hard to restrain
her grace from divers meats and fruits and wines that she would see on
the table.' No doubt it was hard, for Elizabeth was always rather
greedy, and set much store by what she ate and drank. Just at this time,
too, simple food was specially necessary for her, as she had 'great pain
with her great teeth which come very slowly forth'; and most likely she
was rather cross and fretful, as children are apt to be when they have
toothache; so lady Bryan is sorry for her, and 'suffers her grace to
have her will,' more than she would give her at other times. But when
her teeth are 'well graft,' or cut, her governess trusts to God 'to have
her grace after another fashion than she is yet, for she is as toward
(or clever) a child and as gentle of conditions as ever I saw in my
life.'
It was not only lady Bryan whose soul was filled with pity at the
forlorn situation of the little girl, whose birth had been made the
occasion of such rejoicings. Her sister, princess Mary, now restored to
favour, also entreated the king on her behalf, but we are not told if
their letters produced the changes prayed for.
---------------------
One day in October, 1537, when Elizabeth was just four and Mary about
twenty-one, a messenger rode up to the house at Hunsdon, clad in the
king's livery, and craved permission to deliver a letter to the
princess. He was shown into the hall, and there, in a few moments, the
two sisters appeared. Bowing low before them, the man held out the
folded paper, bound with a silken thread and sealed with the royal arms
of England. Mary took it, guessing full well at its contents, which
were, indeed, what she had supposed. A boy had been born to the queen,
Jane Seymour, and the king summoned the prince's sisters to repair
without delay to Westminster in order to be present at the christening
of the 'Noble Impe.'
Elizabeth, full of excitement, listened open-mouthed as princess Mary
told her that they had a little brother, and were to ride next morning
to London to see him in the palace. Like her father Henry VIII., whom
she resembled in many ways, the little princess loved movement of any
kind, and all her life was never so happy as in journeying from place to
place, as the number of beds she is supposed to have slept in testify.
Like the king also, she loved fine clothes; and the old chroniclers
never fail to describe what the king wore in the splendid pageants in
which he delighted. His taste seems to have been very showy and rather
bad. At one time he is dressed in crimson turned up with green, at
another he is gorgeous in a mixture of red and purple. Elizabeth, we may
be sure, was arrayed in something very fine, as she proudly carried the
chrisom containing the holy oil, with which the baby was to be anointed.
Princess Mary, his godmother, held him at the font, and when the
ceremony was over, and they left the chapel, the king's two daughters
went into the room where lay the dying queen.
---------------------
From that day Elizabeth had a new interest in life. She felt as if the
little prince belonged to her, and when he gave signs of talking, she
was sent for to London by the king 'to teach and direct him.' She made
him a little shirt as a birthday present, and as he grew older she
taught him easy games, and told him stories out of books. By-and-by she
begun to repeat to him simple sentences in French, or Latin, or Italian,
and when his tutors took him away, or she grew tired of being governess,
she would practise her music on the viols, or try some new stitch in
needlework.
In this way time slipped by, and Elizabeth had passed her sixth
birthday, when it became known at Court that the king was about to wed a
fourth wife, and that his choice had fallen on princess Anne of Cleves.
This new event was of the deepest interest to Elizabeth, and she at
once, with her father's permission, wrote the bride a funny stiff note,
'to shew the zeal with which she devoted her respect to her as her
queen, and her entire obedience to her as her mother.'
This letter gave great pleasure to the German bride, and laid the
foundation of a lasting friendship between the two. For though rather
big and clumsy, and not at all to Henry's taste, Anne was very
kind-hearted, and grateful to the little girl for her welcome. All the
more did she value Elizabeth's affection because it was plain, from
nearly the first moment, that the king had taken a violent dislike to
her, and though she knew he would not dare to cut off _her_ head, as he
had done Anne Boleyn's, because she had powerful relations, yet she felt
sure he would find some excuse to put her away. And so he did after a
very few months; but during all that time Anne busied herself with the
interests and lessons of the young princess, and when the decree of
divorce was at last pronounced, begged earnestly that Elizabeth might
still be allowed to visit her, as 'to have had the princess for a
daughter would be a greater happiness than to be queen.'
---------------------
In reading about Elizabeth in later years we feel as if she much
preferred the company of men to women; but in her childhood it was
different, and the three stepmothers with whom she was brought in
contact were all very fond of her. Jane Seymour, of course, she hardly
knew, and besides, Elizabeth was only four when she died. But when the
pretty and lively Katharine Howard stepped speedily into the place of
the 'Flanders Mare' (for so, it is said, Henry called the stout Anne of
Cleves), she insisted that the child should take part in all her wedding
fêtes, and being herself a cousin of Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth's mother,
gave the princess the place of honour at the banquets. Elizabeth, no
doubt, was flattered and pleased at the honours heaped on her, but in
her secret heart she would rather have been with Anne of Cleves.
Henry's marriage with Katharine Howard came to an end even more swiftly
than his marriages were wont to do. This one only lasted six months, and
after the queen's execution, which took place in February 1542,
Elizabeth was sent to rejoin her sister Mary in the old palace of
Havering-atte-Bower. Here she remained in peace for a whole year, as the
king was too busy with affairs of state, with rebellions in Ireland and
a war with Scotland, to think about her, or even about a new wife.
Still, marriage, either for himself or somebody else, was never far from
Henry's mind, and soon after he not only offered Elizabeth's hand to the
young earl of Arran, who did not trouble himself even to return an
answer, but tried to obtain that of the baby queen of Scotland, Mary
Stuart, for prince Edward. We all know how ill this plan succeeded, and
that in the end, when Henry was dead and the English had again invaded
Scotland, queen Mary was hurried by guardians over to France, and Edward
VI. left to seek another bride. 'We like the match well enough, but not
the manner of the wooing,' said the Scots, so Mary became queen of
France as well as queen of Scotland.
But all these things were still four years ahead, and Henry had yet to
marry his sixth and last wife, Katharine Parr, the rich widow of lord
Latimer.
This event took place during the year 1543, when Katharine had been only
a few months a widow. Unlike three out of her five predecessors her
ancestry was as noble as that of the king himself, to whom, indeed, she
was fourth cousin. Her mother had brought her up carefully and taught
her to write her own language well, besides having her instructed in
those of other countries. She insisted, too, on the child spending much
of her time at needlework, which Katharine particularly hated, and
escaped whenever she could. However, in spite of her dislike, she grew
very clever with her fingers, and some beautiful pieces of embroidery
still remain to show her skill. Katharine was fair and gentle, and full
of sense and kindness, and as she was known to be a great heiress, her
suitors were many. Before she was twenty she had been twice married, and
had several stepchildren, and as she was often at Court, where many of
her relations filled important offices, she was no stranger to Henry,
who had great respect for her judgment. At Lord Latimer's death she was
only thirty, and hardly was he buried when sir Thomas Seymour, the
king's handsome and unscrupulous brother-in-law, began to woo her for
his wife. Perhaps it was because he was so different from either of her
previous husbands that lady Latimer fell in love with him, but before
the marriage could be accomplished Henry stepped in, and Seymour retired
in haste. He knew better than to cross his sovereign's path! So six
months after Latimer's death, his widow became queen of England, and
Elizabeth went to live with her fourth stepmother.
---------------------
All her life Elizabeth was able, when she thought it worth her while, to
make herself pleasant in whatever company she might be in; tyrannical
and self-willed as she often proved in after-years, she invariably
managed to control her temper and thrust her own wishes aside if she
found that it was her interest to do so. She had learned this in a hard
school; but luckily she had the gift of attracting friends and keeping
them, and as a child there was not one of her mother's successors on the
throne—little though they had in common—who did not delight in
Elizabeth's presence. Queen Katharine at once obtained the king's
consent to fetch her to Whitehall, and to give her rooms next to the
queen's own. Here the princess, now ten years old, could work under
Katharine's eye, with her brother Edward, and, as Heywood says, 'Most of
the frequent tongues of Christendom they now made theirs: Greek, Latin,
Italian, Spanish, Dutch, were no strangers,' and by the time she was
twelve Elizabeth knew a little about mathematics, astronomy and
geometry; but history was her favourite study, and many were the hours
she passed with old chronicles in her lap. Love of music she inherited
from her father, who composed anthems, which you may still hear sung;
and needlework had always been a pleasure to her, so that she had plenty
to do all day. Now, every one would declare that so much time spent over
books was very bad for her, but Elizabeth never seemed any the worse,
and could ride over heavy roads from dawn to dark without the least
fatigue. If you wish to see a specimen of her labours you can find one
in the British Museum, where lies a little book she made for her
stepmother when she was staying at Hertford, which bears the date
December 20, 1545! It is a translation in French, Latin and Italian,
done by Elizabeth herself, of some meditations and prayers written by
the queen, and copied by the princess in a beautiful clear hand. The
cover appears to be made of closely worked stitches of crimson silk on
canvas, with the initials K. P. raised in blue and silver, which time
has sadly tarnished. Perhaps it was meant for a Christmas present and a
surprise for the queen, who must have been very pleased with her gift.
Prince Edward was a delicate child, and most likely for that reason he
was sent down by his father to live at Hatfield House, with Elizabeth to
keep him company. Hatfield had formerly belonged to the bishops of Ely;
but a mere question of possession mattered no more to Henry than it had
done to Ahab before him, and, like Ahab, he took for his own the land he
coveted, and gave the unwilling bishops other property in exchange. Here
in the park, through which the river Lea ran on its way to join the
Thames, Edward and Elizabeth could wander as they pleased, while inside
the beautiful house, part of which had been built in the reign of Edward
IV., they did their lessons with the excellent tutors the king had
chosen for them. One of these, Sir Anthony Cooke, was allowed to have
his daughters with him, and these young ladies, afterwards as famous for
their learning as their father, were destined to be closely bound up in
Elizabeth's life, as the wives of Bacon and of Burleigh. So, 'these
tender young plants, being past the sappy age,' as Heywood poetically
calls them, spent some happy months, till an event happened which
changed everything for everybody.
On January 30, 1547, Elizabeth was at Enfield, where she had been
passing the last few weeks, when to her surprise she beheld, as dusk was
falling, her brother, whom she imagined to be at Hertford, riding up to
the house with his uncle, Edward Seymour earl of Hertford on one side,
and sir Anthony Brown on the other. The prince glanced up at the window
and waved his hand as she leant out, but Elizabeth, who was quick to
notice, thought that, even in the dim light, the faces of his escort
looked excited and disturbed. In a few minutes they were all in the
room, where a bright fire was blazing on the huge hearth, and then, hat
in hand, the earl told them both that their father was dead, and that
his son was now king of England.
---------------------
The brother and sister gazed at each other in silence. Then Elizabeth
buried her head on Edward's shoulder, and they wept bitterly and truly.
As yet neither of them had suffered much from Henry's faults, and though
Edward had been his favourite just because he was a boy and his
successor, he had been proud of Elizabeth's talents and her likeness to
himself. Thus, while many in England who had trembled for their heads
felt his death to be a deliverance, to two out of his three children it
was a real sorrow. Poor Mary had suffered too much, both on her own
account and on her mother's, to have any feeling but a dull wonder as to
her future.
The reading of the king's will did something, however, to soothe her
bitter recollections, for it placed her in the position which was hers
by right, heiress of the kingdom should her brother die childless, and
in like manner Elizabeth was to succeed her. Meanwhile, they both had
three thousand a year to live on—quite a large sum in those days—and
ten thousand pounds as dowry, if they married with the consent of the
young king and his council.
---------------------
The moment that Henry was dead Katharine Parr left the palace and went
to her country house at Chelsea—close to where Cheyne pier now stands;
and here she was immediately joined by Elizabeth, at the request of the
council of regency. Katharine had been in every way a good wife to
Henry, and had nursed him with a care and skill shown by nobody else
during the last long months of his illness. He depended on her entirely
for the soothing of his many pains, yet it was at this very time that he
listened to the schemes of her enemies, who were anxious to remove her
from the king's presence, and consented to a bill of attainder being
brought against her, by which she would have lost her head. Accident
revealed the plot to Katharine, and by her cleverness she managed to
avert the danger—though she never breathed freely again as long as the
king was alive.
The old friendship between Katharine and her stepchildren was destined
to receive a severe shock, and in this matter the two princesses were in
the right, and the queen wholly wrong. It came about in this way.
As far as we can gather from the rather confused accounts, sir Thomas
Seymour, Katharine Parr's old lover, a man as greedy and ambitious as he
was handsome, had taken advantage of Henry's affection for him to try to
win the heart of the princess Elizabeth, not long before the king's
death. As she was at that time living at Hertford, under the care of a
vulgar and untrustworthy governess, Mrs. Ashley, it would have been easy
for Seymour to ride to and fro without anyone in London being the wiser.
Certain it is that, from whatever motive, he was most anxious to marry
her, and a month after her father's death wrote, it is said, a proposal
to the princess in person—a very strange thing to do in those days, and
one which would assuredly bring down on him the wrath of the council.
But Elizabeth was quite able to manage her own affairs, and answered
that she had no intention of marrying anybody for the present, and was
surprised at the subject being mentioned so soon after the death of her
father, for whom she should wear mourning two years at least.
---------------------
Although Seymour thought highly of his own charms, he had a certain sort
of prudence and sense, and he saw that for the time nothing further
could be gained from Elizabeth. He therefore at once turned his
attention to the rich widow whom the king had formerly torn from him,
and with whom he felt pretty sure of success. He was not mistaken; and
deep indeed must have been Katharine's love for him, as she consented to
throw aside all the modesty and good manners for which she was famed and
to accept him as a husband a fortnight after the king's burial, and only
four days after he had been refused by Elizabeth, with her knowledge and
by her advice.
The marriage seems to have followed soon after, but was kept secret for
a time.
---------------------
It is difficult to say whether Mary or Elizabeth was more angry when
these things came to light. Elizabeth had, as we know, been almost a
daughter to Katharine, but she and queen Mary had always been good
friends, and many little presents had passed between them. At her
coronation Katharine had given the princess, only three years younger
than herself, a splendid bracelet of rubies set in gold, and when Mary
was living at Hunsdon a royal messenger was often to be seen trotting
down the London road, bearing fur to trim a court train, a new French
coif for the hair, or even a cheese of a sort which Katharine herself
had found good eating. Mary accepted them all gratefully and gladly, and
passed some of her spare hours, which were many, in embroidering a
cushion for the closet of her stepmother.
And now, in a moment, everything was changed, and both princesses saw,
not only the insult to their father's memory in this hasty re-marriage,
but also the fact that royalty itself was humbled in the conduct of the
queen, who should have been an example to all. Mary wrote at once to her
sister, praying her to mark her disapproval of the queen's conduct by
leaving her house and taking up her abode at Hunsdon. Elizabeth,
however, though not yet fourteen, showed signs of the prudence which
marked her in after-life, and answered that having been placed at
Chelsea by order of the king's council, it would not become her to set
herself up against them. Besides, she feared to seem ungrateful for the
previous kindness of the queen.
But though living under the protection of the queen-dowager, either at
Chelsea or in the country village of Hanworth, Elizabeth had her own
servants and officers of the household, amounting in all to a hundred
and twenty people. It was very unlucky in every way that the governess
chosen to be her companion should have been her kinswoman, Mrs. Ashley,
a good-natured, vulgar-minded woman, who was never so happy as when she
was weaving a mystery. Of course Katharine took care that the princess
passed many hours in the day in lessons from the best tutors that could
be found, but still there was plenty of time left when the governess,
whose duty kept her always by the girl's side, could tell her all manner
of silly stories and encourage her foolish fancies. At length, about
Whitsuntide 1548, the queen's ill-health put an end to this state of
things, and Elizabeth was sent down, with all her servants, to the
castle of Cheshunt, then under the command of sir Anthony Denny; and
from there she wrote a letter to her stepmother, thanking her for the
great kindness she had ever received from her, and signing it 'your
humble daughter Elizabeth.' After this, they wrote frequently to each
other during the following three months, which proved to be the last of
Katharine's life. By the end of the summer she was dead, leaving a
little daughter behind her, and bequeathing to Elizabeth half of the
beautiful jewels she possessed.
Elizabeth's sorrow was great; but when Mrs. Ashley asked if she would
not write a letter to the widower, now baron Sudeley and lord high
admiral of England, the princess at once refused, saying 'he did not
need it.' He did not, indeed! for a very short time after the queen's
death he came down to see Elizabeth, and to try and obtain from her a
promise of marriage, which the girl, now fifteen, refused to give. But
he still continued to plot to obtain possession of the princess, and,
what he valued much more, of her lands. At length his brother the
protector thought it was time to interfere. The admiral was arrested on
a charge of high treason, committed to the Tower, and executed by order
of the council in March 1549. Seymour's downfall brought about that of
many others. Mrs. Ashley, her husband, and the princess's treasurer
Parry, were all thrown into prison, on suspicion of having helped the
admiral in his schemes to marry Elizabeth, and she herself was in deep
disgrace at Court. For a whole year she was kept as a sort of prisoner
at Hatfield, under the watchful eye of sir Robert and Lady Tyrwhit, and
she would have been very dull indeed had it not been for her books.
However, as we know, Henry had been careful to give his children the
best teaching, and the celebrated sir John Cheke and William Grindall,
who had formerly been tutors to Edward and Elizabeth, were now replaced
by the still more famous Roger Ascham.
Perhaps Elizabeth was not _quite_ so learned as Roger Ascham describes
her in a letter to an old friend in Germany. Tutors sometimes think
their favourite pupils cleverer than is really the case, and do not
always know how much they themselves help them in their compositions or
translations. But there is no reason to doubt that, like sir Thomas
More's daughters, her cousin lady Jane Grey, and her early playfellows,
the daughters of sir Anthony Cooke, Elizabeth understood a number of
languages and had read an amount of history which would astonish the
young ladies of the present day. At that time Greek was a comparatively
new study, though Latin was as necessary as French is now, for it was
the tongue which all educated people could write and speak. The
princess, according to Ascham, could talk it 'with ease, propriety and
judgment,' but her Greek, when she tried to express herself in it, was
only 'pretty good.' It does not strike Ascham that during this part of
her life she cared much for music, though she had been fond of it as a
child, and, by her father's wish, she had then given so much time to it
that she played very well upon various instruments. Cicero and Livy she
read with her tutor, and began the day with some chapters of the Greek
Testament. Afterwards they would read two or three scenes of a tragedy
of Sophocles, specially chosen by Ascham not only for the beauty of
their style, but for the lessons of patience and unselfishness that they
taught—lessons which it is feared Elizabeth did not lay greatly to
heart.
Scholar though he was, and writing to another scholar, it was not only
about Elizabeth's _mind_ that Ascham concerned himself. The princess, he
says, much prefers 'simple dress to show and splendour; treating with
contempt the fashion of elaborate hair dressing and the wearing of
jewels.'
We smile as we read his words when we think of the queen whom we know.
It is very likely that the king's council, who heard everything that
passed at Hatfield or Ashridge, did not allow Elizabeth enough money for
fine clothes or gold chains; but at that time, and for some period
after, her garments were made in the plainest style, and she wore no
ornaments. No sooner, however, did she ascend the throne than all this
was completely changed, and she was henceforth seen only in the
magnificent garments in which she was frequently painted; and there is
even an old story, that has found its way into our history books,
telling us how, after her death, three thousand dresses were discovered
in her wardrobes, 'as well as a vast number of wigs.'
---------------------
All this time Somerset the protector had strictly forbidden the king to
see his sister or to hear from her. But receiving, we may suppose, good
reports of her conduct, both from Ascham and the Tyrwhits, he though it
might be well to allow both her and her brother a little more liberty,
and gave Edward leave to ask Elizabeth to send him her portrait, and
even to make her a present of Hatfield. Elizabeth was delighted to be
able once more to exchange letters with the young king, and writes him a
letter of thanks in her best style, to accompany her picture.