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"Anne Stanhope was a devoted and loyal wife and mother. She was also a politician, a committed religious reformer, and a survivor of Tudor intrigue. It was her actions and her connections at court that saved the Seymour family from ruin throughout the reigns of Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. Her activities as a patroness of religious literature distinguished her from many of her contemporaries. Anne also worked with both of her husbands – but with Edward Seymour in particular – to form influential political partnerships. Like many of her female contemporaries, she was a major force in politics and religion. The Duke and Duchess of Somerset’s struggle with Thomas Seymour in the late 1540s, however, set the groundwork for Anne’s unfortunate historical image. Almost immediately, writers and historians slandered her reputation. She became a stereotypical “bad wife” – proud, nagging, vengeful. By looking beyond this image, however, scholars may now view Anne Stanhope’s story in a more balanced light."

-Caroline Elizabeth Armbruster, '"A woman for many imperfections intolerable": Anne Stanhope, the Seymour family, and the Tudor court', (MA thesis, Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, 2013)

[ednyfedfychan]

“Jane’s own career is difficult to pin down. Chronicler Charles Wriothesley later wrote that she had been in Catherine of Aragon’s service before Anne Boleyn’s, and she was definitely at court by 1534 when she is mentioned on a New Year gift list. It’s likely that her transfer to Queen Anne happened in 1533 when Catherine’s household was reduced, perhaps because the king had already noticed her from afar, or even because Queen Anne herself selected Jane. If the latter, Anne must soon have regretted this.“

— Nicola Clark, The Waiting Game

[ednyfedfychan]

“As was usual, the queen’s women frequently encountered the gentlemen of the king’s privy chamber in the course of their duties. Equally naturally, flirtations sprang up, ran their short course and died as regularly as the waxing and waning of the moon. Among the king’s gentlemen in the winter of 1539 was Thomas Culpeper, much in favour with the king. Culpeper was the kind of man who enjoyed useful connections and pretty women, and among the queen’s maids of honour he had both. Katherine and Culpeper had got along well. But Katherine was not a stranger to flirtation, and apparently held firm against him: there would be nothing else unless he promised her something more concrete. This was not part of Culpeper’s plan, and he turned instead to other women. Katherine, unused to rejection, was shocked, sad and no doubt had to watch these other relationships blossom in front of her. ‘Her grief was such’, she later told him, ‘that she could not but weep in the presence of her fellows’, the other girls. But soon the king himself made his interest clear and it was not long before she was elevated above her wildest dreams, and far above Thomas Culpeper.

Queen Katherine chose to make him smart for his earlier rejection. One of his new conquests was Bess Harvey. Bess had previously served Queen Anne Boleyn, and had been among the group of women who had been to view the king’s ships at Portsmouth in August 1539. At some stage in the spring or summer of 1541, Queen Katherine gave Bess a gown of damask and sent Jane, Viscountess Rochford to Culpeper with a pointed message: ‘he did ill to suffer his tenement’ – Bess – ‘to be so ill-repaired’ and so Katherine ‘for to save his honesty’ had covered the cost on it. It was a bold and relatable, if petty, triumph and says much about Queen Katherine’s personality. We don’t know precisely when Katherine played this card, but at some stage after she became queen Katherine and Culpeper reconnected. Of itself this wasn’t necessarily a problem. Queens naturally encountered men who were not the king. They had to work with them: the queen’s council, over half of her household and the entirety of the king’s were men. To interact with men for the sake of politics, patronage and even friendship was normal, but Queen Anne Boleyn’s execution five years previously had shown that such relationships might be all too easily, even wilfully, misinterpreted.”

— Nicola Clark, The Waiting Game

[ednyfedfychan]

“Queen Anne’s exchange with Smeaton must have been overheard. […] None of these conversations could have happened privately. the queen would at least have had another woman there as chaperone, and this may be how the king heard of her conversation with Norris.”

“[…] partway through [the May Day jousts] the king abruptly stood and left, departing shortly for Whitehall Palace on horseback with only six attendants, a move that everybody, including the queen, thought was odd. At roughly the same time, Jane Seymour also left – a fact that Anne surely noticed – and went to Sir Nicholas Carew’s house at Beddington in Surrey, some miles to the south of the city. Anne and her women retired to her chambers at Greenwich. It must have been a terrible night. It was impossible not to know that something was gravely wrong, but equally impossible to know what would happen next.”

— Nicola Clark, The Waiting Game

[ednyfedfychan]

“[Henry] was not a splendid king, he was pretty clearly not a well beloved king, but he was without a doubt a very successful king… Perhaps he was successful precisely for the reason that his objective was limited. His reach never exceeded his grasp. He saw his problem clearly, defined it in terms which admitted of a solution and then solved it… In the process he imposed upon England a new conception of royal leadership which was to secure for his house the enthusiastic loyalty of his subjects until nearly a century later the last of his line was laid beside him in Westminster Abbey. But somehow his performance never caught the popular imagination. It was all so eminently sane and intelligent – no trumpets, no drum beats, no snow-white plumes, no palpable trophies. One of the greatest of modern historians finds his reign dull. Laying foundations can be dull work especially when, as in Henry’s case, it is merely a business of setting stone upon stone with no vision of the splendid edifice which is to mount above them.”

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“The Tudors: Personalities and Practical Politics in Sixteenth Century England” by Conyers Read (via essequamvideri24)

#look this is why I love this dude so much#he was basically CEO of England#and then his kids were typical fucked up Rich Kids born rich to a self-made man#it’s all great

(via harritudur)

[ednyfedfychan]

"In the 1520s, England too was a country bursting with relics. Catherine had kissed them at Canterbury, Walsingham, Westminster and St Paul’s, and followed Elizabeth of York’s example of going into labour clutching the birthing girdle of the Virgin Mary. And these relics were accessible to the people in small parish churches, not just in the large cathedrals and monasteries. In Shelford visitors might see phials of Mary’s milk and part of her churching candle, in Kaldham the finger bone of St Stephen was on display, in Burton-on-Trent pilgrims might see the staff of St Modwena, and part of the shirt of St Thomas could be found at Derby. Clothing, girdles, combs, hair, bones and bodily fluids could be found housed all around the country as an essential component of pre-Reformation Catholicism, accessible, powerful and defining. Catherine was an important religious leader in England, teaching by example. Among the artefacts that accompanied her on her travels were pictures of Mary and her mother, St Anne, and St Elizabeth, who must have had particular resonance for Catherine, as she had miraculously conceived and given birth to a child even after the onset of her menopause.

Amy Licence, Catherine of Aragon: An Intimate Life of Henry VIII's True Wife

[ednyfedfychan]

The most obvious means by which a queen might exercise influence at court was through her close contact with the king in much the same way as other nobles did, although the nature of such influence is impossible to judge because it does not leave records behind. That women would advise their husbands, even kings, was accepted and expected: Christine de Pizan maintained that the wise princess would urge her husband to discuss matters with his councillors, and encourage others to advise him. Jacobus de Cessolis, recognizing that queens would thereby be privy to important matters of state, advised that a queen's 'wysedom ought tappere in spekynge that is to wete that she be secrete and telle not such thynges as ought to be holden secrete'. Queens were of course not exempt from the traditional misogynistic fear of the power of women's words to lure men, as Eve had done, into sin and folly. The fourteenth-century author of The III Consideracions Right Necesserye to the Good Governaunce of a Prince warned

And how be it that a kinge or Prince shulde love his lady and wyf in maner as him self, yit it is nat expedient that he uttyr unto hir, and discloosc the sccrccs, grcctc conscillcs and greet thingcs that he hath doon for his estate and for his landc, nc that in such thing he be governed aftir hir at som tymc, but he shulde allc daycs reserve unto him self the lordship and souvereyntee, or ellys many perilles may betide.

But to be governed was not the same as to be advised and there was also a strong tradition and rich literature of women wisely advising their husbands at all levels of society. This included encouraging a husband to make peace with his subjects or to be more generous to the poor or the Church as well as the familiar motif of intercession in response to a particular plea.

-J.L. Laynesmith, "The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445-1503"

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“Mary Tudor was also absent [from Anne’s coronation]. Her health really was poor and she would die within the year, amid rumours she was killed by the ‘sorrow’ of seeing her brother Henry abandon his wife. Her hostility was in contrast to the attitude of Henry’s other sister, Margaret Tudor in Scotland, who would write Anne once a queen as ‘our dearest sister’ and who was happy to see her daughter, Margaret Douglas, welcomed to Anne’s court.”

— Game of Queens: The Women Who Made Sixteenth Century Europe, Sarah Gristwood

[ednyfedfychan]

Henry VIII’s inventory later listed ‘two little babies in a box of wood [dolls], one of them having a gown of crimson satin and the other a gown of white velvet’, which had been placed in storage, and it is entirely possible that Elizabeth played with these toys during her youth

Nicola Tallis, Young Elizabeth

[ednyfedfychan]

“…Throughout her reign Elizabeth continued a number of rituals of medieval kings that demonstrated the continuing power of the aspect of sacred monarchy. We can see, however, the gendered nature of the way she approached these ceremonies. Throughout her reign Elizabeth used the royal touch to cure people of the disease, scrofula, known as the king’s evil. Being able to cure through touch suggests the power Elizabeth had as a religious figure, a sacred monarch, and the value of her self-presentation as Virgin Queen. …Lancastrians claimed that Edward IV could not touch since he was not the rightful king. Wrote Fortescue, he “wrongly claims to enjoy this wonderful privilege. Wrongly … [since] this unction is powerless because Edward had no right to receive it.“ 

Sir John went on to argue by analogy, and scornfully asked: ”Would a woman who received ordination thereby become a priest?“ Clearly not. Continuing this line of argument, Fortescue added that a usurper would not be the only one unable to cure by touch. Many duties likewise are incumbent on the kings of England in virtue of the kingly office, which are inconsistent with a woman’s nature, and kings of England are endowed with certain powers by special grace from heaven, wherewith queens in the same country are not endowed. The kings of England by touch of their annointed hands they cleanse and cure those inflected with a certain disease, that is commonly called the King’s Evil, though they be pronounced otherwise incurable. This gift is not bestowed on Queens.

Keep reading

[ednyfedfychan]

Quite apart from its political implications as an identifying emblem for the Tudors, the rose was an important and pervasive Marian and Christological symbol that was used throughout the Middle Ages. Although in a religious context its significance was multi-layered and thus sometimes convoluted, basically the rose was used to refer either to specific qualities of the Virgin or to the Virgin herself and to the Passion of Christ. It is especially relevant, therefore, with regard to the derivation and rationale of the Tudor device of the rose, that both the Virgin and the Passion of Christ were central to Henry VII's personal devotions, as his will clearly indicates and the imagery of his chapel demonstrates. Thus, unquestionably, beyond its dynastic use, the rose would have had significance for him personally in its capacity as both a Marian and Christological symbol.

— Virginia K. Henderson, Retrieving the "Crown in the Hawthorn Bush": The Origins of The Badges of Henry VII | Traditions and transformations in late medieval England

[ednyfedfychan]

“While Mary was no longer to be referred to as ‘princess’, let alone as Princess of Wales, her old position had not been entirely forgotten. On 1st March 1537, the feast day of St David, the patron saint of Wales, the Yeoman of the King’s Guard presented her with a leek, the country’s symbol.”

— The Kings Pearl Henry VIII and his daughter Mary, by Melita Thomas, 2017, pages 221 and 222

[ednyfedfychan]

"the tudors slandered richard iii with their evil tudor propaganda" henry viii began a campaign to blacken his father's legacy and reverse a significant number of his effective policies the moment he died. the popular image of richard iii as a hunchbacked villain has been, if not deposed, then certainly profoundly criticised. henry vii, on the other hand, is still remembered as a miserly villain. how's that for tudor propaganda?

[ednyfedfychan]

Mancini, who left England around the time of Richard’s coronation, tells of men bursting into tears when Prince Edward was mentioned: ‘already there was a suspicion that he had been done away with.’6 If this was indeed the case – and it has, of course, been furiously disputed – it marked a departure from earlier precedent in that there was no funeral to confirm the fact of their death; but it is not difficult to imagine why that might have been. The funeral of two children would have been, to put it in modern terms, a public relations disaster. There is at least no doubt that contemporaries thought that they were dead, and acted accordingly. It is inconceivable that the predominantly Yorkist rebels against Richard III would have backed Henry Tudor, in most people’s eyes an exiled nonentity with no claim to the throne, as their candidate for king if they had thought that Edward’s sons were still available.

Richard III: A Failed King?, Rosemary Horrox

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“Edward Seymour had been one of the first to hear Lascelles’ allegations against Catherine Howard and he had advised Cranmer to pursue them and reveal all to the King. He could hardly have done otherwise, but Surrey seems to have taken his actions to heart.”

— Jessie Childs, Henry VIII’s Last Victim

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“But most worrying of all from Henry’s perspective was the general religious ferment that now seemed to be bubbling ominously throughout his realm. […] Loud-mouthed women were also making their mark, it seems. One Margaret Tofts, for instance, had sealed her place in history by declaring that her daughter could piss holy water every bit as good as that produced by any priest’s blessing.”

— John Matusiak, Henry VIII: The Life and Rule of England's Nero

[ednyfedfychan]

“On one occasion Lady Lisle had sent him a gift of a caged bird from Calais but before the bird could be delivered it was killed by a cat. Hertford apparently took the loss ‘right grievously’ whereupon Lady Lisle sent her own bird although she ‘would not do the same for any lord in England, except the King’.”

— Margaret Scard, Tudor King In All But Name