Broken Family, Delayed Maternal Love - Queen Elizabeth's Past (Part 1)
It was not until 1544 that Queen Elizabeth's comments on her mother, Anne Boleyn, finally appeared in the literature.
Historian Alison Will (in several of her books) also mentions the evidence and significance of Elizabeth's bond with her late mother.
In fact, Elizabeth often wore an "A" pendant when she was a teenager aged 11-12. Although pendants were a common ornament in Tudor times, Elizabeth's one is different.
Because it was built by Anne Boleyn herself.
We know that during Queen Anne's reign, at least three pendants were made, namely the aforementioned "A", the famous "B" necklace and the "AB" she wore in the portrait of Nidd Hall.
Mary Tudor on the left and Elizabeth on the right. We need to pay special attention to the "A" pendant around Elizabeth's neck, as it once belonged to her mother, Anne F. Kennedy.
Pictured here is Anne Boleyn's B pendant
This gives us reason to believe that Elizabeth seems to want to publicly demonstrate her connection to her mother by wearing a pendant, which is not only an act of silent rebellion (Henry VIII always wanted Elizabeth to admit the identity of her illegitimate child), but also in some way conveyed Elizabeth's determination to inherit her mother's will.
By 1548, the young Elizabeth had grown into an ambitious teenager, thanks to the education and attention of her loving stepmother, Queen Katherine Parr.
Later, Elizabeth gave her translated literary work as a gift to Katherine Parr, which may be another clue to Elizabeth's affection for her birth mother, Anne Boleyn.
Margaret of Navarre
Because Anne Boleyn was friendly with the French writer Margaret of Navarre, people sometimes even called Anne Margaret of Angloume.
So Elizabeth's choice to translate Marvaret's book Margaret is likely to reaffirm her position to the court while remembering her birth mother.
The cover of Elizabeth Tudor's translation of The Mirror of the Sinful Soul was given in 1548
In 1554, when Elizabeth was 20 years old, she was almost destined to share the same fate as her mother, who was imprisoned for three months in the Tower of London by her sister Queen Mary on suspicion of treason.
Although she was a "prisoner of the nobility", Elizabeth was granted some privileges, which allowed her to walk around the Tower of London under the gaze of the guards. Unfortunately, each time, she had to go through the scaffolding in front of the armory where her birth mother's head had been cut off.
And she may also usher in the end of her life here.
Years later, when Elizabeth was crowned queen with difficulty, she revealed to a French nobleman that she had thought she would die in a tower, and that she could not escape the nightmare of having her neck cut off by an axe.
She was even determined to hire the best executioner in France to carry out the execution. In this way, she can "die neatly and crisply" like her mother.
(Note: Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn, had hired a French swordsman to carry out the execution before the execution, when it was believed that experienced executioners could make the criminal feel no pain during the execution.)
As we have seen, there is already plenty and ample evidence that Queen Elizabeth I had a deep-seated obsession with her mother.
However, there are still many people in the academic community who are trying to refute this argument.
Some historians, such as David Starkey, argue that Elizabeth was actually more closely related to her father, Henry VIII.
Stubby was a well-known scholar of Tudor history, and his judgment that "Elizabeth did not approve of her birth mother" probably stemmed from the following questions:
First, many wonder why Elizabeth kept emphasizing that she was the "cub of the lion" and the "daughter of the father's king", etc.; second, if she believed that her father had illegally ended the life of her biological mother due to the accusations, why elizabeth I, unlike her sister Queen Mary, had worked hard to restore her mother's reputation and declare her parents' marriage legal after ascending the throne. ”
In fact, the first question to answer Starkey is simple: we must be clear that Elizabeth is a survivor of the Tudor palace fight, and her choice to emphasize her relationship with her father rather than her birth mother is absolutely deliberate.
In fact, elizabeth's position became precarious after the death of Anne Boleyn, and there were constant rumors in the court that Henry VIII also wanted to attack this "probably not his own child".
Therefore, always emphasizing her identity was Elizabeth's only way of avoiding danger, and she also wanted to beg Henry VIII's forgiveness by releasing these signals. And, as it turned out, this approach did help Elizabeth as a teenager.
But despite Elizabeth's constant emphasis on her fatherhood, she did not hide her pride in being an Anne Boleyn daughter, sometimes even publicly advertising her mother.
Elizabeth, for example, on her way to her coronation in 1559, crossed the Arc de Triomphe on Gracechurch Street.
People noticed a life-size statue of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn in the procession.
"In front of King Henry VIII was a white and red rose (Tudor rose) with pomegranates printed on it (symbolizing their fertility and leading to elizabeth's birth), while the current queen's mother, Queen Anne Boleyn, had a golden crown and a gilded scepter on her head.
There is direct evidence that the crown worn by Queen Elizabeth after her coronation may also have been originally made for her birth mother in 1533.
(Note: In order to consolidate the fruits of the marriage, on June 1, 1533, Anne Boleyn was crowned Queen of England by Henry VIII for the first time.)
After answering Starkey's first question, we are faced with a more difficult question – since Queen Elizabeth's repeated emphasis on her fatherhood is understandable, why didn't she, like Queen Mary, try to justify her parents' marriage after taking office? Wouldn't that be more conducive to the Queen's rule?
(Note: Queen Mary was Elizabeth's half-sister, and her mother Catherine of Aragon was henry VIII's first wife, and was also deposed like Anne Boleyn)
(To be continued)