Mary Rose (3 page)

Mary was apparently born on 18 March 1495/96, according to a note in her mother’s psalter which there is no good reason to doubt.
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Like the other royal offspring she would have been put to a wet nurse until she was weaned, and then placed under the care of a dry nurse, because royal ladies did not suckle their own infants, and it is uncertain how much Mary would have seen of her mother as she left infancy behind. Arthur, as Prince of Wales, had his own household and was not normally resident in the court, but the girls, although they had their own attendants, were not similarly indulged and their nursery remained within the household, travelling with it from place to place. This involved quite a lot of movement because even the greatest palaces became insanitary after several weeks of occupation and the court seldom stayed in one place for more than a month. The main base was Eltham, but journeys downriver to Greenwich were frequent, while upriver lay Westminster, Richmond and Windsor, less often visited but still important residences.
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Meanwhile the nursery at Eltham was washed and fumigated, ready for fresh occupancy. The children’s world was circumscribed, because although there was a constant stream of distinguished visitors who came to inspect them, and they were occasionally paraded for that purpose, they would have had little or no contact with such men, and their exposure to the normal life of the court was minimal. It is unlikely, for example, that two-year-old Mary was even aware of the celebrations in London in 1497 which marked the arrival of the sword and cap of maintenance from Pope Alexander VI, which entitled her father to style himself ‘Protector and defender of the Church of Christ’.
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Her own vision of God at that point would have been rather more limited. It is possible that she did remember the fire which destroyed much of Richmond Palace on 22 December in the same year, because the court was in residence at the time, and the blaze is alleged to have started in the King’s apartments. It was principally the old buildings which suffered, and the fire was extinguished after three hours.
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No lives were lost, but the hurried evacuation may well have remained in her mind. Normally, however, trips up and down the river between Greenwich and Westminster would have been the limit of the young royals’ exposure to the outside world.

Although we know next to nothing about how Mary spent her time during the first few years of her life, thanks to the survival of the Wardrobe accounts we are rather better informed about how she was dressed. Silks and damasks were issued which would have been made up into baby clothes by her attendant ladies. Stiff and wholly inappropriate for a small child as these may now appear, they would have been the normal garb for a noble infant of that period, which insisted on cramming its children into scaled-down versions of adult costume at the earliest opportunity.
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Blankets, bedding, napkins and handkerchiefs were also provided regularly, and ribbons of coloured silk or gold for the princesses. At the age of three or four Mary was wearing voluminous long-sleeved dresses, with full kirtles and tight-fitting bodices, hopelessly encumbering for an active child. Play in the modern sense was clearly not on the agenda, but she seems to have grown up without any ill effects from this type of deprivation. Perhaps more suitable clothing was permitted within the confines of the nursery. By the time that she was four, in 1499, Mary had a whole collection of dresses, including purple satin and blue velvet – and eight pairs of soled shoes. Clearly she lacked for nothing which would have made her presentable.
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Unfortunately the records are silent on how often she would have been shown off in these splendid garments. How much Elizabeth herself was involved in the rearing of her daughter is an open question. The lack of reference to her in this connection would suggest not very much. There are, for instance, only two allusions to Mary in the Queen’s Privy Purse expenses for 1502. One is for twelve pence for a papal pardon during the jubilee year of 1501, which must have been a mere gesture because it is hard to see what sins a six-year-old could have committed, and the other is for 12
s
8
d
paid to a tailor for making her a gown of black satin.
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Apart from these there is nothing. That does not necessarily imply neglect, because her expenses may have been differently met, but it does suggest that the Queen was too busy with public and household duties to supervise the lives of her children. Nevertheless, when she died early in 1503 they all seem to have felt the loss keenly, so perhaps she had other ways of making her presence known. Some time later Thomas More imagined the dying Queen taking leave of her children; ‘Adieu my daughter Mary, bright of hue, God made you virtuous, wise and fortunate’, although He did not make More a very good prophet.

The person who seems to have taken her duties most seriously in connection with their upbringing was the children’s paternal grandmother, Margaret Beaufort. Margaret was a woman of extraordinary toughness and determination, whose influence over her son is known to have been profound. Margaret’s properties were restored to her as soon as Henry was accepted as king, and various other houses were granted to her, including the mansion of Coldharbour in London, to use when she was not resident at court. Politically sensitive wardships were conferred on her, and she was at first given the custody of the Earl of Warwick before the King decided that he would be safer in the Tower.
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Elizabeth stayed with her in the weeks before her marriage, and she played a leading part in both coronations. In 1488 both she and the Queen were issued with liveries of the Order of the Garter, which was an especial mark of favour. No woman could be a member of that chivalric order, but this grant enrolled them as associates, and gave them a part in the Garter ceremonies. It has been remarked that her role was very similar to that which Cecily, Duchess of York, had discharged at the beginning of Edward IV’s reign.
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She frequently joined the King and Queen on their progresses, and her proximity to the royal couple seems to have been taken as a matter of course. Although she had no theological training, her piety was austere and diligent, and contributed significantly to the high moral tone which Henry liked to impose upon his court. Her education had been rudimentary. She had married at thirteen and borne her son before her fourteenth birthday. Consequently she had no Latin, nor any other language apart from French, but she was very appreciative of the learning of others, and became a notable patron of the humanists. She was particularly close to John Fisher, who became Bishop of Rochester in 1504, and with him founded the college of St John in Cambridge, for the specific purpose of promoting the new learning.
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It was almost certainly her influence which dictated the appointment of Bernard Andre as tutor to Prince Arthur, and later John Skelton from her favourite university of Cambridge, and these appointments in turn guaranteed a curriculum of strict classicism for both him and his younger brother, Henry. By 1500, when their accomplishments were brought to the attention of Erasmus, they were the best-educated princes in Europe. It may also have been she who insisted on them being ‘bible learned’ in a manner never seen before, and quite at odds with the prevailing ethos of aristocratic education. She was not, of course, a member of the Council, and politically her influence was limited, but culturally she reigned supreme. It was perhaps characteristic of her that she did not attach the same importance to the education of her granddaughters as she did of the boys. In both cases her attitude was pragmatic. Arthur certainly and Henry possibly were being trained as rulers, and for them a knowledge of history and philosophy were essential if they were to govern well. The girls were being brought up for a more domestic role, and their priorities were good appearance, piety and chastity. It was highly unlikely that either of them would find themselves in the kind of position which Margaret herself occupied. There are occasional slight signs that Elizabeth resented this intrusion into her proper realm of responsibility, but she was no match for Margaret when it came to strength of personality, and in any case the King would have it so. In spite of her royal blood the Queen was by nature passive, even submissive, so the pair appeared together in public on numerous occasions with every outward sign of harmony. Perhaps Elizabeth was relieved that so forceful a person was prepared to take over the demanding task of supervising so lively a brood, while she got on with the essential task of giving birth. However, in that respect fortune had deserted her. She may have had an abortive pregnancy in 1497, but her next live birth was of Edmund, who was born in 1499. For a while Henry had three living sons, but Edmund did not survive infancy, dying in 1500.
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Arthur, the golden hope of both his parents, succumbed to consumption in 1502, and it was in an effort to repair that damage that the Queen again became pregnant later in that year. She died in childbirth on 11 February 1503, and the child, a daughter named Catherine, swiftly followed her to the grave. Margaret’s reaction is not recorded, but she would have been sufficiently occupied in consoling her son, who was devastated by his loss.
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The royal nursery was at first presided over by Elizabeth Denton, but she left not long after Mary’s birth to become a lady-in-waiting and was replaced by Anne Cromer, about whom nothing is known apart from her name. Unlike Arthur, Mary was given no separate establishment, but by 1501 she had her own staff of attendants, which was paid out of the Chamber account. This included a physician and a schoolmaster, along with the wardrobe keeper and gentlewomen of the chamber, but it was not large, and nothing very much is known about it – not even who the schoolmaster may have been. The King’s thinking in this respect can be seen in his order of 1502 that his daughter was to be attended on the same scale as his recently widowed daughter-in-law, Catherine of Aragon, for whom an allocation of £100 a month was made, which was enough for six to eight servants – adequate for Mary, but mean for the Dowager Princess of Wales.
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In 1498, when Margaret was nine and Mary three, a French maiden was imported, partly to keep them company, but more importantly to teach them French by the painless method of daily conversation. Neither the age nor the name of this young lady are known, but it is reasonable to suppose that it was Jane Popincourt, who would have been about seven at that point.
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Jane was certainly a member of the Chamber shortly afterwards, and much later created a scandal when she became the mistress of the Duc de Longueville while he was in England in 1513. At what point Jane’s morals may have begun to stray is not known, but it cannot have been until about 1503, and if she had any influence over Mary at that time it has escaped the record. It is highly unlikely that the Countess of Derby would have tolerated her continued presence if she had been under any suspicion, because the princess’s chastity was a jewel beyond price.

By 1499 two of King Henry’s surviving children were spoken for in marriage. Arthur had been committed since 1496 to Catherine, the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, who was a year older than himself, while Margaret was on offer to the twenty-eight-year-old King of Scots, James IV. This negotiation had been suspended in 1497 when James briefly supported Perkin Warbeck in his impersonation of Richard of York, but had been resumed two years later when the truce of Ayton was signed between the countries.
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The former marriage took place in November 1501 and the latter in August 1503, just as soon as the parties were old enough to cohabit. Whether Henry ever considered betrothing his younger daughter as a baby we do not know, but in November 1498 there came an offer which he had no difficulty in refusing. The party concerned was Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan, who was looking for allies to confront a threatened French invasion, and he sent to London a special envoy with a threefold request. Firstly he sought an alliance with England, in order to fend off the advances of Louis XII, who had picked up French ambitions in Italy where Charles VIII had laid them down. But Henry replied that he was at peace with France, and had no intention of disrupting that situation. Secondly, in order to seal the alliance, he wanted a marriage between Mary, who was then three, and his own son Massimiliano, who was about the same age. To this the King answered politely but firmly that there was no way in which he would consider betrothing his daughter until she reached the age of seven. If Ludovico was still interested in four years’ time, he would be happy to give the matter serious consideration. The Duke’s third request was the Order of the Garter for himself. However, it was breach of etiquette to solicit such an honour, and the King responded by pointing out that since the King of France was already a knight, it would not be possible to gratify him. ‘The knights of old who bore this badge swore to be friends of friends and foes of foes’, and therefore it would be impossible to admit any enemy of Louis as a member.
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Henry loved prevarication, and kept the Milanese envoy Raimondo de Raimondi waiting almost forty days for this unsatisfactory response, by which time Raimondo had long since come to the conclusion that Henry preferred French gold to anything that the Duke had to offer. It may be significant that the Venetian report of these exchanges did not come until 1 April 1499, and the Venetians were usually well informed.
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In fact Ludovico sought in vain for allies, not only in England but in Italy and the Holy Roman Empire as well, and was overthrown by the anticipated French invasion later in the same year. On 6 October Louis made a solemn entry into Milan, which had been conquered in a series of campaigns.

Not long after the Milanese envoy had been dismissed, Mary had an encounter which she may well have recalled later, although it is unlikely to have made much impact at the time. She met Desiderius Erasmus. The great scholar had been persuaded to come to England by William Blount, Lord Mountjoy, who had been a pupil of his in Paris, and while staying with Mountjoy in Greenwich he was taken by Thomas More to visit the royal schoolroom at Eltham. Erasmus later recalled the event: