TUDOR QUEENS OF ENGLAND This page intentionally left blank Tudor Queens of England David Loades Continuum UK, The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX Continuum US, 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com Copyright © David Loades 2009 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission from the publishers. First published 2009 British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978 1 84725 019 3 Typeset by Pindar NZ, Auckland, New Zealand Printed and bound by MPG Books Ltd, Cornwall, Great Britain Contents Illustrations vii Introduction: Image and Reality 1 1 The Queen as Trophy: Catherine de Valois 13 2 The Queen as Dominatrix: Margaret of Anjou 23 3 The Queen as Lover: Elizabeth Woodville 43 4 The Queen as Helpmate: Elizabeth of York 71 5 The Queen as Foreign Ally: Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves 87 6 The Domestic Queens: Anne Boleyn, Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr 113 7 The Queen as Whore: Catherine Howard 139 8 The Queens who Never Were: Jane Grey and Mary Stuart 155 9 The Married Sovereign: Queen Mary I 187 10 The Unmarried Sovereign: Elizabeth I 209 Epilogue: Queens Since 1603 227 Notes 235 Additional Reading Suggestions 249 Index 253 This page intentionally left blank Illustrations Between Pages 64 and 69 1 Catherine de Valois 2 The marriage of Henry VI to Margaret of Anjou 3 Elizabeth Woodville 4 Elizabeth of York 5 Catherine of Aragon 6 Anne of Cleves Between Pages 178 and 185 7 Anne Boleyn 8 Jane Seymour 9 Catherine Parr 10 Catherine Howard 11 Jane Grey 12 Mary Queen of Scots 13 Mary I 14 Elizabeth I For Judith, wife, sovereign and friend Introduction: Image and Reality A medieval queen was not a ruler. The imagery of power was exclusively masculine and very largely military. A king led his soldiers into battle, executed the brutal sentences of justice upon criminals and played war games with his nobles and companions. The ideal Christian prince was a crusader, the father of strong sons, tough and wise. It was his fi rst duty to protect his realm in arms and to be leader and patron of those who fought. He was also the protector of the Church – that is of those who prayed – and of those who laboured, traded or otherwise lived under the shelter of his shield. His councillors and clerks were either nobles, who shared his value systems, or celibate clergy. God had been incarnate in the form of a man, and the whole bible, particularly the Old Testament, was heavily androcentric.1 Women were seen mainly in relation to men – the symbolism of Adam’s rib being frequently invoked. A woman complemented her husband, bearing his children, tempering his severity, sustaining his virtue – and of course fl attering his ego. Women were believed to be intellectually inferior to men, physically weaker and morally more fragile. The ideal woman was chaste, obedient and patient. A woman held no offi ce in the public domain, and her virtue was judged against her own kind, not in relation to men. Her role model was the Virgin Mary, the mother of God and the only woman to have accomplished the miraculous feat of being a mother and a virgin simultaneously. At the same time every woman was also Eve, a source of temptation and potentially of the betrayal of God. This seems to have been primarily a clerical perception, and arose from the extremely negative attitude of the medieval Church towards sexuality. Female sexuality was mysterious and fascinating but also evil if not strictly controlled. Without the discipline that man imposed upon her, any woman might be a whore or a witch – or both. In the middle of the sixteenth century John Knox (not, admittedly, a sympathetic witness) could write: Of which words it is plain that the Apostle meaneth (in 1 Corinthians 11) that woman in her greatest perfection should have knowen that man was Lord above her … in her greatest perfection woman was created to be subject to man. But after her fall and rebell ion committed against God, there was put upon her a new necessity, and she was made subject to man by the irrevocable sentence of God, pronounced in these words: