the TUDOR TUTOR
Your cheeky guide to the dynastyArchive for Elizabeth I
Written in the Stars
Happy coronation anniversary weekend to Elizabeth I! The lady had consulted an astrologer, who advised her that her reign would be “glorious and prosperous” should her ceremony take place on the 15th of January. Looks like there’s something to those stars after all, doesn’t it?
Here is an informative link to the chart itself and its analysis. Thanks to Robert Parry, author of The Virgin and the Crab, for this link!
God Hath Sent a Prince!…err, Princess!
Elizabeth I "Virgin Queen" by Alexia Sinclair
Today is the 478th birthday of our marvellous ginger queen, Elizabeth I! Oh sure, at that time her father was hoping there would be cause for a tiny codpiece in his newborn’s layette. But his wife (at that time) gave birth to a healthy baby girl who would go on to become on of Britain’s most iconic monarchs.
Thanks to Lara Eakins at TudorHistory.org, we can check out Elizabeth’s actual birth announcement! (and its transcript, if you can’t read fancy-shmany loop-de-loops.) In the third line, dead center, you can see where “prince” was hastily corrected to “princess,” as hopes for a boy had been dashed.
If there was ever a girl who had to be born a Virgo in order to survive, it was this one. Witty, organised, patient, methodical, and intelligent are traits of those born under this sign (and believe me, I know, I’m married to one!). Elizabeth was in the precarious position of queen during a tumultuous time in England’s history, and she could not flub it up.
It was a miracle she got to that point to begin with, if you think about it:
- Once upon a time, Henry VIII was married to a fine catch, that Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon; they were supposed to live happily ever after. As we know, that didn’t work out, although a daughter (the future Mary I) was born.
- Elizabeth came next, to Henry and Anne Boleyn…but she was still a girl, and that wouldn’t do.
- Henry finally found his heir in little Eddie, his son with Jane Seymour!
- Eddie did succeed his father, but was one sick puppy after a while and died at the age of 15.
- Next up: Mary I! Unhappy marriage, no heirs, cancer consumes her, and only then…
- “The queen is dead: Long live the queen!” 25-year-old Elizabeth takes her place on the throne.
* Killer image of Elizabeth I at the top there, isn’t it? It’s by Australian photographer / digital artist Alexia Sinclair. You can find this image and the rest of the “Regal Twelve” here.
Our Lady of the Perpetual Neck Ruff
I’m just back from the National Portrait Gallery in D.C., where I saw a certain Tudor monarch’s portrait displayed prominently at the end of a hallway. This one is dated 1558 and it’s by an unidentified artist. (Click the pic for a better view.)
It was painted shortly after she got the crown, so there are a few references to leave no question as to who is the rightful monarch. The words “Elizabeth Regina” & her father’s square-cut stone (“the Mirror of France”) around her neck drive home the point quite well, don’t you think?
The Gang’s All Here
Image via Wikipedia
Today is the anniversary of Elizabeth I’s funeral and burial, and the British Library has a 17th century snapshot, if you will, of her funeral procession on a 40-ft scroll. The participants are labelled and all; it’s fascinating! (The detail on the coats of arms and on the flag are particularly good.)
Remember to keep clicking “View the Next Section” when you reach the far right hand side of the scroll, and enjoy!
Recap: “Secrets of the Virgin Queen”
Image via Wikipedia
See that neck ruff above? The special “Secrets of the Virgin Queen” offers one possible theory as to why Elizabeth I wore it. I love a good secret, so let’s see what National Geographic has for us…
1) The Bisley Boy – Legend has it that preteen Princess Elizabeth escaped plague-ridden London to stay at Overcourt hunting lodge in Bisley but died there anyhow. Her temporary guardians buried her near the local church and replaced her with a young local ginger boy disguised as Elizabeth. His stint carried on longer than originally planned when (s)he went on to become the monarch. Bram Stoker even got in on the act a few hundred years lately by including the Bisley Boy story in his book Famous Imposters.
So was there any truth to the “She’s a MAN, baby!” accounts? The case behind the assertions states that Liz wore high ruffs to hide an Adam’s apple and wore so much makeup she was, in fact, ”Drag Queen Elizabeth.” She was very athletic and could outride both women and men on a horse. And she had very long fingers. How the fingers-part proves anything is beyond me. Liz also forbade a postmortem on her body, so surely she was hiding manly bits? Personally, I think she wanted to carefully guard her privacy in death as she had in life. She was such a control freak I doubt she would have wanted anyone poking around her corpse even if she had the body of Adriana Lima.
2) Anne Boleyn’s alleged affairs – Guilt by association? This part of the special isn’t as much about Elizabeth’s “secrets” but rather about her mother’s adultery/incest charges and subsequent shortening by about 8 inches.
As an aside, I am wondering where they got the portraits they are using for this special. A lot of them are…unflattering, to say the least.
3) Thomas Seymour – When Liz was a teen, her latest stepmother in a long line of them was Catherine Parr. After Henry VIII’s death, Catherine married that slimy Seymour brother, Thomas. Have more respect for yourself, girl! Anyway, the handsome but jerky guy put some moves on his young stepdaughter over a period of months. Holy. The best recorded incident occured one morning when he approached her while she was still in her bed, tickled her, slapped her bum playfully, there was romping around, and it is making me sick just to write this.
There’s no evidence of how far this “flirtation” went and ever-private Elizabeth denied it all under questioning. You can hardly blame a teenage girl for enjoying the attentions of a hot older man (even if he is a creep and married to your stepmother?). We’ve all been there, falling for the cad. So I blame only Seymour for this icky bit of Elizabethan history.
Cue a severe-looking Mary I drifting about some hallway while the narrator talks about her succeeding Eddie VI. Why is she always portrayed as a harsh brunette? Her father was ginger and her mother had golden blonde hair. Sheesh.
4) Testicular feminization (now called complete androgen insensitivity syndrome) – In short, this is the deal when a fetus with an XY chromosome doesn’t respond to male hormones enough to resemble a male externally, so at birth it resembles a female. There are no internal female sex organs, however there are testes in the abdomen. Similar to Secret #1, this Secret suggests that because the queen was unmarried, never had children, was successful and ambitious and athletic, had long fingers, and didn’t want an autopsy, she could have been in this boat. Elizabeth Cady Stanton is rolling in her grave right about now.
I am noticing during commercial breaks that the National Geographic channel is now referring to itself as “NatGeo.” Aloud. “Nat-GEE-oh.” Oh dear.
5) Robert Dudley – Ah yes, the One Who Got Away. Who apparently didn’t mind that he was in love with a hermaphrodite. (Just kidding.) Elizabeth has been quoted as saying to him, “You are like my little dog: When people see you they know I am nearby.” The 16th-century early warning system for single queens. Sure, the Dudley/Liz pairing could have been all so romantic and he could have been The One for her, except for the inconvenient fact that he was already married. Not that he saw his wife all that much, living at Tudor court and all.
His marriage was a moot point after his wife, Amy, fell down the stairs in their house and died. Oh the rumors! Did Robert have her killed? Was she killed by those who disapproved of the queen’s relationship with her “little dog”? Or did Amy commit suicide? In any case, her death was the final nail in the coffin, so to speak, of the Liz/Rob relationship.
6) Arthur Dudley – In 1587, a young man washed ashore in Spain and was arrested as an English spy. He told them he was (dun-dun-dunnnn) Arthur Dudley, son of Robert Dudley and none other than the queen of England. He had a long and wildly inventive story but it is widely believed that it is all a hoax.
In closing, the special tells us that Elizabeth loved being called a virgin as she aged. I suppose this is something that would set her apart from, say, the Kardashians. It was interesting to see the “secrets” all wrapped up in a tidy, hourlong package like this, although I do think a number of them are more “National Enquirer” than “National Geographic.”
The special will run again on Tuesday the 1st of February at 5:00 pm ET. For updated info, see this link.
After You, Who?
Here’s a stellar 5:40 bit from Showtime on life after Henry VIII . He was a tough act to follow, for sure, but someone had to do it! Take a gander at how the succession went for the remainder of the Tudor period.
Buttered Up by the Bard
Image via Wikipedia
While the Elizabethan era is all about, well, Queen Elizabeth I, we can certainly say that William Shakespeare is nearly synonymous with the time period as well. The prolific playwright from Stratford-upon-Avon showed up on the London theatre radar in the 1590s, and acted in his own plays quite often. Ironically, while we quote the man endlessly and praise him for such masterpieces as “Othello,” “Macbeth,” “The Merchant of Venice, ” and ”Romeo and Juliet,” he basically plagarized the majority of his plots and ideas from others.
Shakespeare was a not-so-subtle part of the Tudor propaganda machine (and for good reason, because to insult the queen and her gang would have meant curtains for Will). In his productions, monarchs were chosen by God, Catholics were portrayed negatively, and Liz I’s ancestors were a force to be reckoned with and respected. After the queen’s death, Will kept the beat alive with “Henry VIII.” Unfortunately, it was during a 1613 performance of this play that a special effect lit fire to the Globe Theatre and burned the whole thing down.
We often envision Richard III as an evil hunchback because the Bard painted him as such. But there is no proof he was deformed in any way. And remember that Liz’s grandpa, Henry VII, saved the day by killing the king and taking the crown for his own, something Will wove into Elizabethan theatre as well. Nothing like your enemy reduced to pathetically bleating “my kingdom for a horse!” to make your own dynasty shine like a new penny.
By the late 1500s, England was in its glory at last. Shakespeare kept the country on its newly-mounted pedestal by buttering up the queen, having fun with the language, and making fun of foreigners. England’s Golden Age and all its hoopla certainly starred the Virgin Queen above all, but was in a way brought to you by William Shakespeare.
Maybe She’s Not “House of Tudor” but “House of Slytherin”?
Image by Mr. Muggles via Flickr
A painting of Liz I hanging in the National Portrait Gallery has revealed a secret after almost 400 years. Instead of the typical posy, the queen originally was holding something more sinister. What was it, and what was its meaning?
Update: Another interesting article about it here, with a better close-up shot.
Resting in Peace?
Image by Cornell University Library via Flickr
Elizabeth I and Mary I: Half-sisters as well as total enemies (in their adult lives, anyway). Protestant vs. Catholic, and daughter of “that whore, Anne Boleyn” vs. daughter of “the ex-queen, a.k.a. not my mother, Catherine of Aragon.” As years progressed, the schism between these two ladies widened and widened.
So wouldn’t they be thrilled to know they’d be rubbing elbows in death? For some reason, the girls are buried in the same magnificent tomb in Westminster Abbey. There is an eerie but beautiful aisle on the north side of the Lady Chapel, which asks for silence with little “Shhhh” signs posted on the walls. Within these walls lay the remains of James I’s little daughters, and supposedly those of the Princes in the Tower, Edward V and Richard.
And in a large monument nearby, Elizabeth’s coffin is plopped on top of her half-sister Mary’s. Only Liz’s striking figure is commemorated on the effigy. Mary seems to be an afterthought (although at her funeral in 1558, the new queen Elizabeth provided for every pomp and circumstance). But a plaque tells us she’s in there, so who am I to argue? It reads, “ ”Partners both in throne and grave, here rest two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of the Resurrection.” Let’s hope they’re getting on better in the Afterlife!
Tudor Über-Home: Hatfield House
Image via Wikipedia
It was 451 years ago today that the 42-year-old Mary I died and her half-sister Elizabeth took the reins (or the reign, as the case may be). The young red-haired girl had been living at Hatfield House on-and-off for most of her life, and got the big news on the morning of 17 November 1558.
She’d been chilling under a lovely oak tree on the property when gentlemen from the court came galloping along on their horses to deliver this life-changing announcement. Her response? “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is wondrous in our eyes!” (Kind of more eloquent than “Yes, We Can!”)
This gorgeous house is in the county of Hertfordshire (Herts, for short), in the southeast of England just above London. It has an extensive maze garden, a restaurant, a gift shop, and reportedly a few ghosts as well. It’s currently closed for tours for the winter, but will reopen in 2010 from April to September.
UK schools can take their students to Hatfield for an educational Living History program, details here! (PDF file)
