Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World (33 page)

Now, it was Henry’s part to assay a second victory: as on the battlefield, so in the bedchamber, for as Ann Wroe points out, the language of love was very much the language of war, and a man was expected to come prepared with his “weapon” or “harness” and engage in a “raid,” or “sweet combat,” with his lady, each showing the other mercy in paying “the sweet due debt of nature.”
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For all the years of intrigue and political maneuvering, the blood shed at Bosworth, the pageantry and symbolism of the wedding, and the advantages of this great alliance, what mattered now was what happened when these two young
people, divested of their royal finery—for it was customary to sleep naked—got between the sheets together to do their duty to their people and to posterity, and, as Fuller put it, “the two Houses of York and Lancaster united first hopefully in their bed.” As time would soon prove, this was a most successful mating, not least because the Yorkist claimant to the throne, who could have been Henry Tudor’s greatest enemy, had now been rendered neutral in his embrace.

The white and red roses of York and Lancaster combined were from the first the chief symbol of this union, and of the new dynasty. Henry was actively to promote it. The following year, in York on progress, he ordered a pageant to be performed featuring “a royal rich red rose, unto which rose shall appear another rich white rose, unto whom all flowers shall give sovereignty, and there shall come from a cloud a crown covering the roses.”
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Here is the origin of the Tudor badge, the rose and crown. The great rose window in the south transept of York Minster, with its intertwined red and white roses, commemorates the marriage of the founders of the Tudor dynasty. The King had the Tudor rose incorporated into the collar of the garter insignia, and it became customary to surround the royal arms with a garland of Tudor roses.

Popular songs were written about the new emblem, notably, “A Crown-Garland of Noble Roses gathered out of England’s loyal Garden: A Princely Song made of the Red Rose and White, royally united together by King Henry VII and Elizabeth Plantagenet,” which claimed that “the owners of these princely flowers in virtues do excel.”
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And in 1550 the title page of the printed edition of Hall’s chronicle,
The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York
, had the title enclosed between two rose trellises, with Henry VII and Elizabeth of York kneeling, hand in hand, at the top of each, with their son, Henry VIII, in majesty above them—the true inheritor of both strains of royal blood.
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O
n the morning after her wedding night, Henry presented Elizabeth with Giovanni de’ Gigli’s poem, her morning gift, and then there would have been the traditional small ceremony of her “uprising” as a new wife.
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Henceforth, as a married woman, she would be expected to bind up her hair and cover it with a hood, although queens were invested with symbolic virginity because they were expected to emulate Mary, the Mother of Christ, so they were allowed the privilege of wearing their hair loose on ceremonial occasions when they wore their crowns.

Waking up as Queen of England, Elizabeth would surely have been conscious of the fact that she now occupied the most powerful and socially desirable position to which a woman could aspire.
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She was the wife of the Lord’s Anointed,
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a status that would from now on be reflected in every aspect of the ritual and ceremonial that surrounded her and governed her life; and she, the daughter of a King and Queen, would have been aware of the weight of responsibility that brought with it. She was to be the highest example of virtuous womanhood: the living mirror of the Virgin Mary, as exemplified by her chastity and
humility, her anticipated motherhood, her charity, and her acts of mercy. A Queen had to be the embodiment of piety, the guardian of the royal bloodline, an object of chivalric devotion, a gentle and moderate mediator in the conflicts of men, and an inspiration to her husband’s subjects.

Elizabeth now had to prove her worthiness in more practical ways too. She had to bear the heirs so crucial to the Tudor succession and the continuance of the new dynasty. She had a great household to run, and was no doubt thankful that a phalanx of officers had been appointed to help her do it. She had a sophisticated ceremonial role to perform at court and in the realm at large. She had to negotiate the political institution that was the court, which might mean subsuming her private loyalties to her duty to the King her husband. She had to learn to live within her means, yet show herself generous in her charities and make provision for her immediate relations, who would now look to her for support and advancement. She also had to accustom herself to her husband’s ways, combine queenly dignity with the docility and submission expected of a wife, and be a loving helpmeet to this man who clearly expected her to play a subordinate role, despite her superior claim to the throne. Then she had to forge good relations with his influential mother. It was daunting, what was expected of her: yet she had been born a royal princess and reared to know what to expect; and she had the example of her mother before her.

The Queen’s seal survives in the National Archives at Kew. Elizabeth chose “Humble and reverent” as her queenly motto, in place of
“sans removyr,”
and the white rose of York as her personal emblem. As her father’s heiress, she was legally entitled to bear the royal arms of England, but for Henry VII that implied joint sovereignty, so at his instance she and her sisters bore the royal arms quartered with those of their Mortimer and de Burgh forebears. Their maternal Wydeville heritage did not feature at all.
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Elizabeth’s escutcheon can be seen at the foot of her tomb in Westminster Abbey. For public occasions and court ceremonials, her retinue wore her personal livery of mulberry and blue silk, the colors of the House of York.
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At other times they wore liveries of various colors, such as russet, green, tawny (tan), or black.
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Elizabeth now had to adjust to marriage with the complex twenty-nine-year-old man who was her husband. Bacon called Henry VII “a dark prince and infinitely suspicious,” which is not surprising considering that, from early childhood, his life had been overshadowed by war and intrigue. And as King, as Bacon observed, “his time was full of secret conspiracies.” He was calculating, pragmatic, devious, ruthless, and prone to dissimulation, and he never won the love of his people, only their grudging respect.

But Henry was also “a man of vast ability”
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and hidden depths. He knew four languages, was well read, good at economics, and well versed in the arts of the period. He was clever, hardworking, subtle, shrewd, caring to his family, and possessed of a dry humor. His good qualities would much later be lauded in a funeral oration made by John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester and chaplain and confessor to Margaret Beaufort, who praised “his politic wisdom in governance” as “singular,” his wit “always quick and ready, his reason pithy and substantial, his memory fresh, his counsels fortunate and taken by wise deliberation.”

Henry’s greatest achievements were to survive on the throne for so long and ultimately to bring stability to England. His aims were a secure throne bolstered by wealth, the maintenance of law, order, and peace, the supremacy of the crown, the future prosperity and standing of his dynasty, and the establishment of his realm as an international power to be reckoned with. He succeeded in them all. He established strong centralized government, a far-flung network of administrators and justices, and effective law and order. He promoted foreign trade and commerce, brought economic prosperity to the merchant classes, and amassed a fortune that made him financially independent of Parliament. By clever alliances he would substantially enhance England’s standing in the arena of European politics.

Henry was haunted by the knowledge that an army as small as the one he had led against Richard III at Bosworth could overthrow him, and by the fear that any of the Yorkist heirs might challenge his title. Yet despite his insecurities, he brought firm government to England. Conscientious and professional, he displayed insight, prudence, patience,
and understanding. He was well-informed and astute, and his political acumen earned him universal respect. Ever suspicious of his nobles, he outlawed “bastard feudalism,” the system by which great lords had maintained private armies of retainers, which made the Wars of the Roses possible. Henry reined in the power of the nobility by banning such armies and reviving the Court of Star Chamber,
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which had power to punish those lords who infringed the new laws. He promoted loyal and energetic “new men” who had risen through wealth and ability to prominence.

He was a man who liked to keep an eye on details that other kings might have left to others. Notoriously careful with money, he painstakingly initialed each item in his accounts.
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“He constantly kept notes and memorials in his own hand, especially touching persons, as whom to employ, whom to reward, keeping a journal of his thoughts.” But he was to be confounded. “His monkey, set on, as it was thought, by one of his chamber, tore his principal notebook all to pieces, when by chance he had left it about. Whereat the court, which liked not these pensive accounts, was much tickled with the sport.”
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Henry was an intelligent and cultured man who patronized William Caxton, collected books, appreciated poetry, and encouraged the new learning of the Renaissance in England. He invited French and Italian scholars such as Bernard André and Polydore Vergil to his court. Like Elizabeth, he was genuinely devout, and would attend Mass up to three times a day. He was also liberal when it came to giving alms to the sick, the poor, and the Church.

If Henry lacked the common touch, he liked to give the impression of greatness, and knew when to spend lavishly to project the magnificence expected of monarchs, which would command respect and awe for the new dynasty. Andrea Trevisano, a Venetian envoy, was received by the King in 1497 in “a small hall hung with very handsome tapestry. Leaning against a tall gilt chair covered with cloth of gold, His Majesty wore a violet-colored gown lined with cloth of gold, and a collar of many jewels; and on his cap was a large diamond and a most beautiful pearl.”
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When the King ate, he was served not by his household officers but by peers of the realm. Whenever he ventured out in public, he walked under a canopy of estate and was attended by great ceremonial.
He founded the Yeomen of the Guard, the first standing army in English history, as his personal bodyguard. Henry VII’s personal magnificence, typical of princes of the age, helped to convince not only his subjects, but also foreign ambassadors and the princes they served, that his throne was secure. Yet an envoy once observed of him: “He likes to be much spoken of, and to be highly appreciated by the whole world. He fails in this because he is not a great man.”
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Henry was often a cheerful, witty, and congenial companion. He loved court ceremonial, music, cards, dice, gambling, dancing, disguisings, plays, and morris dancers, and delighted in the antics of tumblers, jugglers, acrobats, fire eaters, and court fools, pastimes Elizabeth enjoyed also. He was clearly a thoughtful man, and gave generous gifts to his servants and Elizabeth at New Year, and extra to those who could not attend the festivities.
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To his children, he was an attentive and loving father, “full of paternal affection, careful of their education, aspiring to their high advancement, regular to see that they should not want of any due honor and respect.”
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That he loved them too is apparent in two inscriptions he wrote in a book of hours given to his daughter, Margaret, probably on her departure to marry the King of Scots in 1503: “Remember your kind and loving father in your prayers.” And, “Pray for your loving father that gave you this book, and I give you at all times God’s blessing and mine.”
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Also, he was a faithful and loving husband to Elizabeth.