The house of Tudor

MARY I

From Princess to bastard

"Bloody Mary" Tudor was born on February 18, 1516. She was the only surviving child of King Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Henry doted on Princess Mary when she was little, calling her "the greatest pearl in the kingdom." The princess received an excellent education, and was carefully sheltered.

In 1522 Henry arranged Mary's betrothal to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Charles was an adult, and Mary was just six years old; the marriage would take place when she was twelve. Mary had met Charles and liked the idea of marrying him. But in 1525 Charles broke off the engagement so that he could marry Princess Isabella of Portugal. That same year Henry sent Princess Mary to live in Wales, as was traditional for the king's heir.

The year 1527 started off well for Princess Mary. She returned to live at her father's court and celebrated her engagement to a son of the king of France. But Henry VIII's attitude toward Mary and her mother had started to change. He had decided that God disapproved of his marriage to Catherine; why else had the queen failed to produce healthy male children? And he was in love with the woman who was to become his second wife: Anne Boleyn.

Soon Mary learned that Henry wanted to annul his marriage to her mother. For this, the king needed the pope's permission. While he waited, he continued to treat Catherine as his queen and Mary as his heir. But Mary's legitimacy was now in doubt, making her less valuable on the marriage market. The French engagement was broken off and no other match was arranged for her, although her father's advisors considered marrying her to King Henry's illegitimate son, Henry Fitzroy. (Fitzroy married someone else. He died young and without heirs.)

Henry grew increasingly angry with Catherine for resisting his attempt to end their marriage. Finally, in 1531, he sent Catherine away from court. After being shuffled between various castles and palaces, the queen ended up a prisoner at Kimbolton Castle, near Huntingdon. Realizing that the pope would never grant his divorce, Henry split from the Catholic church, established the Church of England, had his marriage declared invalid, and married Anne Boleyn. Anne gave birth to a daughter, Princess Elizabeth, in 1533.

Mary was now officially a bastard, called "the lady Mary," but, like her mother, she refused to accept her change in status. Henry was infuriated by his daughter's defiance and threatened to have her executed if she did not stop referring to herself as a princess. When Mary was eighteen, her household was disbanded and she was sent to live in Princess Elizabeth's household, where she was treated badly. Henry refused to see her, but he was not completely indifferent to Mary. Once, glimpsing her at a window, he nodded and touched his hat politely.

Catherine and Mary were not permitted to visit each other, and Catherine died in 1536 without seeing her daughter again. Now Mary was alone. Four months after Catherine's death, however, Mary's greatest enemy toppled from power when Anne Boleyn was arrested on false charges of adultery and executed. Anne had hated Mary and stated that she wanted her dead. With Anne gone, Henry treated his eldest daughter somewhat more kindly. His third, fourth, and sixth wives were all well-disposed toward Mary. (She got along less well with his teenaged fifth wife, Katherine Howard.) Although she never regained her former status or her father's affection, she was once again part of the royal family.

At first she got along well with the king's other children. As Elizabeth and Edward grew up, however, up their Protestant views put them at odds with Mary, who never swayed from her devout Catholicism. After Henry's death in 1547, Mary's nine-year-old half-brother became King Edward VI. As king, Edward scolded and bullied Mary about her beliefs. On his deathbed he disinherited her in favor of their teenaged cousin Lady Jane Grey.

Lady Jane Grey did not want to be queen, but that didn't stop her father and his supporters from trying to seize the throne for her after King Edward's death in 1553. Few people supported "Queen Jane," however. In the end even Jane's ambitious father abandoned her, and Mary was proclaimed queen. After a lifetime of sorrow and danger, the 37-year-old Mary Tudor was now the most powerful person in England.

The unhappy Queen

Soon after her accession, Mary began considering the possibility of marrying Prince Philip of Spain, the son of her former fiancé, Emperor Charles V. It worried her that Philip was 11 years her junior because he was "likely to be disposed to be amorous, and such is not my desire, not at my time of life, and never having harbored thoughts of love." With difficulty the emperor's envoy convinced her that Philip was a stable, mature adult who would help protect her kingdom.

Mary's subjects were alarmed to learn of her engagement to the Spanish prince, fearing that England would become part of Spain. The queen, however, had no intention of turning the country over to Philip. He arrived in England on July 20, 1554, and met Mary for the first time on July 23. Mary liked Philip from the start, and he treated her kindly, although he probably found her unattractive. (The men who had accompanied him to England later described Mary as old, badly dressed, and almost toothless.) The wedding took place two days later. Two months later, Mary's doctors told her that she was pregnant.

In December a law was passed that allowed bishops of the Church of England to convict heretics and sentence them to death by burning. Almost 300 people were burned alive during Mary's reign with Mary's full approval, earning her the nickname "Bloody Mary."

By the summer of 1555 it became obvious that Mary was no longer pregnant, if she had ever been. Mary was bitterly disappointed. Philip left England that August, promising Mary that he would soon return. Mary missed him desperately. Philip didn't return to England until March of 1557. During his absence he had become the king of Spain. After a few months in England he left to go to war; Mary never saw him again. She became depressed and paranoid. Tortured by loneliness and unhappiness, Queen Mary fell ill. She died on November 17, 1558 and was succeeded by her half-sister, Queen Elizabeth I.

ELISABETH I

The unwanted Princess

Elizabeth I was born on September 7, 1533 at Greenwich Palace near London. Her father was England's King Henry VIII; her mother was the king's second wife, Anne Boleyn. Elizabeth had an older half-sister, Mary, who was the daughter of the king's first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

King Henry had moved heaven and earth to marry Anne Boleyn. He had parted from the Catholic Church, established the Church of England, and annulled his twenty-four year marriage to Queen Catherine - partly because he loved Anne, and partly because he wanted the male heir Catherine could not give him. Henry and Anne were convinced that their first child would be a boy. The new queen even had a document drawn up ahead of time that announced the birth of a prince. When the prince turned out to be a princess, her parents were dismayed.

Over the next few years Anne had three miscarriages, and Henry - who had become disenchanted with her even before Elizabeth's birth - decided to be rid of her. In 1536 he had Anne arrested on false charges of adultery. The Archbishop of Canterbury bowed to the king's will by declaring that Henry's marriage to Anne had never been valid. Like her half-sister Mary, two-year-old Elizabeth was now considered illegitimate. Anne was executed, and two weeks later the king married Jane Seymour.

In 1537 Queen Jane died after giving birth to a son, Edward. Elizabeth and Mary participated in his christening ceremony. As Edward grew older, he and Elizabeth became close; although they lived in separate households, they wrote to each other often.

When Elizabeth was four, Katherine Champernowne became her governess. The well-educated Champernowne - known as Kat Ashley after her marriage in 1545 - began teaching Elizabeth astronomy, geography, history, math, French, Flemish, Italian, Spanish, and other subjects. Elizabeth was an excellent student. Her tutor Roger Ascham later wrote, "She talks French and Italian as well as she does English. When she writes Greek and Latin, nothing is more beautiful than her handwriting."

In 1540 Elizabeth's father married Anne of Cleves. Repelled by what he perceived as his bride's ugliness, Henry quickly had the marriage annulled and instead married Anne Boleyn's first cousin Katherine Howard. Katherine was very young - about fifteen - and something of a featherbrain, but she was kind to Elizabeth, who was surely appalled when, in a repetition of the past, the queen was arrested and charged with adultery. This time the charges were true. Queen Katherine was beheaded in 1542, when Elizabeth was seven years old.

Katherine Howard's violent death seems to have had a lasting impact on Elizabeth. At the age of eight she met one of Prince Edward's classmates, Robert Dudley, and told him of an important decision she had made. "I will never marry," she said. It was a decision that would shape her life.

Thomas Seymour

In 1543 Elizabeth gained yet another stepmother when Henry married his sixth and final wife, Katherine Parr. Four years later Henry VIII died, leaving his crown to Edward. According to Henry's will, if Edward died without heirs he would be succeeded by Mary. If Mary died without heirs, Elizabeth would become queen.

Soon after Henry's death, Elizabeth received a marriage proposal from handsome Thomas Seymour, who was England's Lord Admiral and the brother of the late Queen Jane. Knowing that Seymour was simply seeking the power that marriage to the king's sister could bring him, Elizabeth turned him down. So Seymour proposed to the widowed Queen Katherine, who had been in love with him before her marriage to Henry VIII. Unaware of Seymour's previous proposal to her stepdaughter, Katherine happily accepted. They were quickly married, and the following year Elizabeth went to live with them at the royal Old Manor House in Chelsea.

Thomas Seymour still had designs on pretty red-haired Elizabeth. He took to visiting her bedroom in the morning before she was dressed. During these visits he sometimes tickled her or slapped her bottom; once he tried to kiss her. Elizabeth giggled and seemed to enjoy his attention, but Kat Ashley was disturbed by the Lord Admiral's behaviour, and the servants began to gossip. Queen Katherine was aware of what was going on, but saw it all as innocent romping. Once she even joined in the "joke," holding Elizabeth in the garden while her husband cut off Elizabeth's dress.

Hoping to further deceive his wife, Seymour told her that he had seen Elizabeth with her arms around a man's neck. Concerned, the queen questioned Elizabeth, who cried and insisted it wasn't true. Now Katherine began to suspect that her husband, not some mystery man, had been making advances to her stepdaughter. She started watching the Lord Admiral more carefully. One day Katherine went looking for him and Elizabeth and, according to one account, "came suddenly upon them, where they were all alone, he having her in his arms." Understandably upset, Katherine banished Elizabeth from the Old Manor House.

A few months later Katherine died after childbirth and Seymour resumed plotting to marry Elizabeth. Elizabeth knew that she could not legally marry without the permission of the king's council, and she refused to be drawn into the Lord Admiral's schemes. In 1549 Seymour was arrested on charges of conspiring to marry Elizabeth and take over the government. Kat Ashley was also arrested, along with another of Elizabeth's employees, and Elizabeth herself was closely interrogated. She kept her wits about her and denied any involvement in Seymour's treasonous activities. In the end she convinced the Council of her innocence, and her servants were released from prison.

When Elizabeth heard that Seymour had been beheaded for his crimes she supposedly said only, "This day died a man of much wit and very little judgement." She had learned that she must keep her feelings to herself if she hoped to survive.

Perilous years

Elizabeth continued to get along well with her brother, King Edward, but in 1553 Edward died. On his deathbed he was persuaded by the duke of Northumberland to name Lady Jane Grey to succeed him. Lady Jane tried to refuse the crown, but Northumberland (who was her father-in-law) proclaimed her to be the new queen. Meanwhile, Henry VIII's daughter Mary was proclaimed queen by her supporters. Northumberland surrendered to Mary's forces. He and Jane Grey were imprisoned and later executed.

Queen Mary was determined to restore Catholicism as the country's official religion. She pressured Elizabeth to convert. Elizabeth obediently attended one Mass, but complained the whole time of feeling ill. Because this and Elizabeth's popularity with the English people, Mary grew wary of her half sister.

When Sir Thomas Wyatt led an uprising against Mary, the queen suspected that Elizabeth was involved. Elizabeth was taken to London and confined at Whitehall Palace. Eventually, although no evidence against her could be found, she was sent to the Tower, where Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard, Jane Grey and so many others had awaited execution. When Elizabeth saw that she was being brought into the Tower via the Traitor's Gate, she panicked and begged to be brought through some other gate.

Told that she must enter this way, she cried, "Oh Lord, I never throught to come in here as a prisoner . . . I come in as no traitor but as true a woman to the Queen's Majesty as any as is now living; and thereon will I take my death." She sat down on the stairs and refused to move. When told that it wasn't healthy to sit in the rain, she replied tearfully, "It is better sitting here than in a worse place!"

One of her servants started to sob and Elizabeth told him angrily that he shouldn't cry, saying, "I thank God that I know my truth to be such that no man can have cause to weep for me!" With that she continued into the Tower.

Despite her very reasonable fears, she was released from the Tower two months later, on the eighteenth anniversary of her mother's death. She remained a prisoner, however. In 1555 she was moved under heavy guard to Hampton Court, where the queen was staying. Mary refused to see her, but Mary's new husband Philip of Spain met with Elizabeth and fell under her spell. At his encouragement Mary finally reconciled with Elizabeth.

Over 250 Protestants were burned at the stake during the reign of "Bloody Mary," and Elizabeth's failure to truly convert to the Catholic faith put her in constant danger, as did other people's conspiracies to overthrow Mary and place Elizabeth on the throne.

Finally, on November 17, 1558, Mary died and Elizabeth's years of peril came to an end. She was now the queen of England.

Gloriana

Elizabeth's advisors urged the twenty-five-year old queen to quickly marry some foreign prince and produce heirs so that the throne would not pass to Henry VIII's great-niece, Mary Stuart, the queen of Scotland. Elizabeth stood by her early decision never to marry. (One of the many proposals she rejected was from Mary's widower, Philip of Spain.)

Elizabeth had a romantic nature, and may already have been in love her childhood friend, Robert Dudley, whom she later made the Earl of Leicester. Although Elizabeth was a hard-working monarch, like her father she had a great appetite for entertainment. She enjoyed archery, dancing, hunting, riding, and tennis. Whatever she did, Leicester was usually nearby. He was given a bedroom near hers, and rumours about the nature of their relationship were rampant.

Leicester had a wife named Amy. In 1559, while Leicester was at court, Amy fell down the staircase of her country home, broke her neck, and died. She had been alone in the house at the time of her accident, and it was whispered that she had been murdered so that Elizabeth and Leicester could marry. But Elizabeth did not marry Leicester. Twenty years later he infuriated the queen by secretly marrying her cousin Lettice Knollys, but Elizabeth forgave him, and he remained her favourite until his death.

Elizabeth was glorified by poets and artists as Gloriana, the Virgin Queen. With the help of fine clothes, jewels and cosmetics, the vain queen maintained a glamorous image despite her advancing age. In her mid-fifties she fell in love with Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, son of Lettice Knollys. Essex was in his early twenties, good-looking, and extremely arrogant. Although he reigned as the queen's favourite for many years, he did not always show Elizabeth the deference she demanded. Once, when Elizabeth slapped him during an argument, Essex threatened to draw his sword on her. Elizabeth sent him to Ireland to quell a rebellion; while there, Essex ignored the queen's orders and pursued his own agenda. When he defied her by returning to England without permission, Elizabeth placed him under house arrest. After his release Essex attempted to lead an uprising against the queen, and the heartbroken Elizabeth had no choice but to sentence him to death. Essex was executed in 1601.

Two years later Elizabeth became very ill. Perhaps she did not want to live without Essex; when her doctors offered her medicine, she refused to take it. She died on March 24, 1603 at the age of 69.

CONCLUSION

During this period from 1485 to 1603, England developed into one of the leading European colonial powers, with men such as Sir Walter Raleigh taking part in the conquest of the New World. Nearer to home, campaigns in Ireland brought the country under strict English control. Culturally and socially, the Tudor period saw many changes. The Tudor court played a prominent part in the cultural Renaissance taking place in Europe, nurturing all-round individuals such as William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser and Cardinal Wolsey. The Tudor period also saw the turbulence of two changes of official religion, resulting in the martyrdom of many innocent believers of both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. The fear of Roman Catholicism induced by the Reformation was to last for several centuries and to play an influential role in the history of the Succession.  
 
 

              

           

        
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

THE LIST OF LITERATURE:

1. I. I. Burova. The Monarchs of England К. 1997.
2. Джордж Маколей Тревельян. История Англии: от Чосера до крорлевы Виктории. М. 2001.
3. Официальный сайт Букингемского дворца: www.royal.gov.uk.
4. Сайт, посвященный истрии королевских династий мира: www.royalty.nu.