Written By: Katelyn Abbott
As the Queen of England Anne had a larger staff of servants than Katherine of Aragon had. Her staff of servants had been over two hundred fifty servants to tend to her personal needs including butlers, cooks, maids of honor, ladies-in-waiting, priests, and stable boys. Anne had been responsible for the basic physical needs of clothing, feeding, and housing her maids of honor and her ladies-in-waiting and care for their moral, religious, and spiritual well-beings. She clearly had over sixty maids-of-honor who served her personal needs and take with her to accompany her to social events. Anne’s groomsmen and ladies-in-waiting did have to attend chapel daily, were expected to be gracious, virtuous, modest, humble, and above all obedient in the execution of their duties, frequently encouraged them to read an English bible (most likely her copy of William Tyndale’s forbidden New Testament of 1534 now in the British library) that she kept on a desk in her chamber at their leisure that she herself did not disdain to consult in it, gave her ladies-in-waiting prayer books to hang from their girdles, and had forbidden anyone in her household on going to brothels or any other place of ill repute on the pain of instant dismissal from her service. Her ladies-in-waiting included her sister-in-law Jane Parker, Lady Rochford, and her cousins Mary Howard and Mary Shelton.In reality Anne had accepted them for who they were, been friends with them, and cared about them and she did treat them as both servants and dear friends. It was Anne who arranged a most impressive match of marriage for her cousin Mary Howard to the King’s own illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy as she arranged other marriages for her other ladies-in-waiting and been the one to provide dowries for some of them. Anne was known to be over friendly and generous when it came to her maids of honor and her ladies-in-waiting which was one of the many reasons each year saw hundreds of applications for new positions into her household. Anne’s personal silk-woman, Jane Wilkinson, would later tell how there never was “better order amongst the ladies and gentlewomen of the court than in Anne’s day. She had also gone to employ several priests who acted as her chaplains, confessors, and religious advisers. The favorite she had among them was the religious moderate Matthew Parker who would become one of the chief architects of Anglican thought during the reign of Anne’s daughter Queen Elizabeth I.
King Henry VIII had been
able to give Anne Baynard’s Castle and Havering which had once been assigned to
Katherine of Aragon as part of her jointure. Baynard’s Castle remained a store
for her large and valuable collection of Wardrobe stuff. She came to inherit
much of it from Katherine of Aragon.
As Queen Anne was enjoying
getting Katherine of Aragon’s devices replaced with her arms, falcon badges,
and initials at enormous cost in every royal house and having luxurious new
first-floor lodgings been rapidly made for both King Henry VIII and her which
ran at right angles to each other above Cloister Green Court and were connected
by private galleries. A staircase came to lead to a new privy garden and there
did happen to be a balcony from which Queen Anne and her ladies-in-waiting
could watch the hunting in the park. Anne’s rooms were decorated in the antique
style by a German craftsman and had mirrors set into the ceiling. Grotesque
work ended up adorning the outer walls of her bedchamber. Anne’s furnishings
were the best that the age could provide with her having her elaborately carved
tester bed bearing the royal arms of England now being at Hever Castle and she
had gone on to own another of gilded walnut. One of her beds was hung with read
sarcanet with a matching canopy stiffened with blue buckram and another smaller
bed was of green satin with crimson and orange curtains on it. Anne owned six
chairs of estate which were variously upholstered in cloth of gold, green silk,
or crimson and purple velvet with gold and silk fringing and gilded and
enameled pommels. Preparations were being made for Anne in her gabled
first-floor apartments at Greenwich which were being renovated at this time. So
the expense Seville tiles were laid in the chimney grates and cheaper green and
yellow Flanders tiles were in every alcove. There were five new doors that were
hung in her great bedchamber, new rush matting was laid in the passage to her
robing room, and new transoms were installed in the great bay window between
her bedchamber and her presence chamber. Two folding tables in antique style
were made for her with inlaid tiles with one being a “breakfast table” and the
other being a gaming table “for Her Grace to play on.”
On June 28, 1533 a sumptuous leader and three mules arrived at
Greenwich as a wedding gift from King
Francis I to Anne who was so delighted with it that she had insisted on being
taken for a three-mile ride there and then.
A picture of Anne holding her daughter Princess Elizabeth Tudor in her arms after her birth
After her coronation Anne settled into a quiet routine at the King’s
favorite residence Greenwich Palace to prepare for the birth of her baby. Anne demanded that Katherine of Aragon send her the
christening robe meant for the birth of the royal offspring for her unborn
child while she was pregnant, but Katherine of Aragon refused to do so since it
was her own personal property which made Anne back down once she was told that
the former queen had brought it with her from Spain so it belonged to her
(which had
made Anne make her unborn baby’s christening gown herself along with the
layette of booties, caps, gowns, and warm blankets for the oncoming child with
her ladies-in-waiting). She bore her baby between
three o’clock and four o’clock in the afternoon slightly premature on September
7, 1533. The child was christened Elizabeth probably in honor of apparently
either or both Anne’s mother Elizabeth Howard and King Henry VIII’s mother
Elizabeth of York, but the birth of a daughter was a heavy blow to her parents
since they had confidently expected a son. All but one of the astrologers and
royal physicians had ended up predicting a son for them (being William Glover who had told Anne that he had had a vision of her bearing 'a woman child and a prince of the land' which was not well-received by her), King Francis I had
been asked already by them to stand in as the boy’s godfather, and King Henry
VIII and Anne had chosen names for a boy with the names both Edward and Henry
as their top choices. Now the pre-prepared letters announcing the birth of a
prince had an s hastily added to them
to read princes[s] and the traditional joust tournament for the birth of a male
heir was cancelled.
Nevertheless Princess Elizabeth was a beautiful baby girl with her father King Henry VIII’s red hair and Anne’s dark brown eyes. King Henry VIII and Anne came to accept their child for who she was, care about her, and deeply love her and ended up being proud of their daughter’s beauty, intelligence, charm, drive, elegance, fine sense of humor, grace, liveliness, and sweetness. King Henry VIII did his best to comfort Anne by reminding her that their daughter Princess Elizabeth was healthy and that boys should surely follow her. The infant princess ended up being given a splendid christening. Following the birth of her daughter Princess Elizabeth Anne proved her to be a devoted mother to Princess Elizabeth. She had gone to request to King Henry VIII that their newborn daughter Princess Elizabeth be allowed in her chambers so that she could breast-feed her, but King Henry VIII had refused to do so since it was deemed unfit for a grand lady to not have a wet-nurse and she had insisted upon keeping Princess Elizabeth on a silken pillow by her side whenever possible. Anne inevitably feared that Katherine of Aragon’s daughter Lady Mary, who had been stripped of her title as a princess and labeled a bastard, posed a threat to Princess Elizabeth’s position. King Henry VIII had managed to soothe his new wife’s fears by removing Lady Mary from her household at the manor Beaulieu and separating her from her many servants to send her to Hatfield House to serve as a lady-in-waiting to where her half-sister Princess Elizabeth would be living with her own sizeable staff of servants and where the country air was thought to be better for the newborn baby’s health. Anne visited her daughter Princess Elizabeth frequently at Hatfield House and other residences whenever possible.
A picture of Anne visiting her daughter Princess Elizabeth at Hatfield House
Anne had been able to handpick several of the servants who made up
Princess Elizabeth’s new household at Hatfield including Kat Ashley (who became
Princess Elizabeth’s lifelong confidante and friend), Lady Margaret Bryan, and
Lady Anne Shelton amongst others. She choice to send choice cuts of venison and
other animals she caught while she went hunting for Princess Elizabeth to eat
at Hatfield. Anne did spoil her daughter Princess Elizabeth with beautiful
gowns, caps, delicate jewels, rich gifts, sweets, and toys. She ended up taking
a major concern in Princess Elizabeth’s education as she drew up a study of
classical languages for Princess Elizabeth to learn English, French, Greek,
Hebrew, Italian, Latin, and Spanish for she was determined that her daughter
would be just as well-educated as Katherine of Aragon’s daughter Lady Mary was.
Anne would even often sit in on betrothal discussions for Princess Elizabeth
which was an action unheard of in this time period.
A picture of Princess Elizabeth Tudor who became Queen Elizabeth I of England
Anne was pregnant again by Christmas 1533 and her gift to King Henry VIII at New Year was an exquisite table fountain of gold studded with diamonds, pearls, and rubies from which “ issueth water at the teats of three naked women standing at the fountain” probably designed by Han’s Holbein on January 1, 1534 with King Henry VIII giving her several caches of jewels and tremendous amounts of gold plate as her New Year’s Gifts.
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