In Bed with the Tudors: The Sex Lives of a Dynasty from Elizabeth of York to Elizabeth I by Licence Amy

Author:Licence, Amy [Licence, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2013-01-06T00:00:00+00:00

6

Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth

1526–1536

Miscarriage & Misogyny

In the King’s royal head

Secret displeasure bred

Which cost the Queen her head.1

On a summer Sunday at the start of June 1533, Londoners in all their finery converged on Westminster Palace. The Mayor and Aldermen, dressed in crimson and scarlet, arrived by barge; bishops and abbots in their ceremonial copes and mitres; Knights of the Bath with their distinctive white lace on the left sleeve; barons and viscounts in their parliamentary scarlet robes; noblemen in powdered ermine, all awaiting the arrival of their new queen. Her sexual magnetism was legendary, her name scandalous: everyone wanted to see the woman who had held their king in thrall for seven years and displaced the popular Catherine. Between eight and nine that morning, their patience was rewarded. Anne Boleyn, daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, emerged from the royal lodgings. Her audience saw a tall, lithe, pale-skinned, raven-haired woman in her early thirties, with enchanting large dark eyes, not traditionally beautiful but unusual and captivating. She was splendidly dressed in a robe of purple velvet lined with ermine, over a kirtle of crimson and on her loose dark hair, sat a gold circlet set with pearls and other precious stones. The accounts for her clothing at that time included over thirty-two yards of crimson velvet, costing 13s and 4d a yard, 19 yards crimson damask costing 7s a yard and 3 yards of scarlet at 9s: considerable expense given that the daily wage of an unskilled labourer was around 7d, a poor woman to wash dishes or a boy to turn a spit could be had for 4d and a carpenter could command 1s, 2d for a day’s work.

Under the folds of sumptuous fabric, Anne’s swollen belly showed that she was pregnant, carrying the longed-for heir that had precipitated her rival’s downfall. As Cranmer wrote later ‘the condition thereof did well appear, by reason she is somewhat big with child’. Among her attendants were her triumphant family but also those supporters of Catherine, who had little choice but to fulfil ceremonial roles, like the king’s brother-in-law Suffolk, who was High Steward of the day, dressed in crimson, pearls and precious stones. Anne’s kinswoman, the Duchess of Norfolk, bore her long train, her ladies wore scarlet with the more fashionable narrow sleeves, while borne above her was carried a canopy of red and blue. She was led to St Peter’s Church, Westminster and sat in the ‘seate riall’, a platform elevated on two steps, covered with tapestry, where she was anointed by Archbishop Cranmer, who placed the traditional crown of St Edward on her head, although this was later substituted for a lighter one made especially for her. She took communion and made an offering at St Edward’s shrine before processing out to the sound of trumpets. The following feast for 800 guests, was held in the Palace’s Great Hall, where the newly anointed queen sat under the cloth of estate. Two ladies sat at her feet throughout, to ‘serve

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