Sorry for bothering you but I would like to know ,what is your interpretation of Elizabeth ,Edward and Mary’s relantionship? I heard a lot of stuff and I wanna know your opinion
Also ,the quote about you picking Anne for a girl’s night ,in which book it is ?
Aaah, errrm...again, I might update this in more detail later, because I have a lot of thoughts on this. (He said, before going Full Meta Pretentious)
And you are never bothering me. Sometimes I have spoons, and sometimes I don't.
Broad strokes:
Mary had conditional affection for her siblings so long as she did not see them as a threat, and so long as they were not significantly empowered. So, this is why she seems to have had more tenderness towards Edward while he was Prince rather than King, why she seems to have not had affection for Elizabeth until she was disempowered in 1536 (and then, lost it, once Elizabeth was her own heir and very beloved by the people).
She was also holding, as one of the Acts during her reign makes clear, the belief that they were bastards, and she was not. So she always felt an inherent superiority towards them that's underlying the affection...it's a sort of patronizing affection, really. It's not less authentic for being so, just more complex. There's also the likelihood that this has been nurtured by her faction, who seems to have held a long bitterness towards the memory of AB in the existence of Elizabeth, to the literal death-- among Margaret Pole's last words were an exhortation for those in attendance to her execution to pray for the lives and souls of the King, Prince Edward, and Princess Mary...Elizabeth was omitted. Did she believe she was not the King's daughter, or was this an implication that Edward & Mary were the only 'legitimate' children? Had Fitzroy been alive during this time, we could maybe better understand her intent behind this, had he been omitted as well, unfortunately we don't know.
Edward believed himself superior to both his sisters, but seems to have been more patronizing towards Mary, despite being the younger, even before becoming King. There's not an equivalent letter about Elizabeth to the one he wrote about Mary, where he's scolding her for dancing so much and such. But, he's in-waiting to becoming the most important man in the kingdom (arguably, he is that, as his father is the past, and he's the future), and has been told that it's his place to be the moral standard and instruct his future subjects. This is all part and parcel of that, although one wonders if there's some insecurity underlying all this, because Edward was very intelligent, and he wouldn't have been unaware that much of Catholic Europe believed Mary was legitimate.
Elizabeth he's closer to in age, Elizabeth he's brought up with, Elizabeth he's educated alongside. Elizabeth was always more conformable than Mary, and seems to have genuinely revered him both as Prince and as King. So, Edward's affection for Elizabeth was probably less complex than his for Mary (which turned mainly to resentment). On the other hand, he did eventually write her out of the succession, which is where the superiority comes in (although we don't know if he would have done so in any context...had Elizabeth married a Protestant, had Elizabeth had a/ child/ren by 1553-- specifically and 'better', a son-- I think it's entirely plausible he would have made her, at the least, regent to her child in his will).
Onto Elizabeth...Elizabeth believed herself Mary's superior insofar as intellect, and perhaps even her equal or better, insofar as birth. She might have believed that by the terms of her father's Succession Act (one condition of which was, Mary would maintain the Henrician settlement insofar as the Anglican Church-- something Mary reversed), she was entitled to the throne. Mary was both her persecutor and savior: she arrested her, but she also released her. She then tried to place many conditions upon her freedom, including marriage to men of Mary and Philip's choice, not Elizabeth's. Ultimately, she did not disinherit her, and Elizabeth's transfer to power was as smooth as it was, in large part, because Mary relented and maintained her as heir.
They were also all (although not equally) bonded through being motherless, and being completely orphaned at the same time, also, although at very different stages in their lives. Mary is the only one that truly had any memory of her own mother, was this something they envied? Edward was the only one that truly had the memory of his mother openly honored and revered, was this something his sisters envied? For Elizabeth and Edward, it's another bonding point, although probably not ever one made explicit, or actually discussed: they're off-center, they are only half of what they 'should' or 'would' have been, because half of what made them is no longer there. Did they have this sense that neither could escape, of an absent filial imprint, of the palimpsest of what was there before, desperately searching fresh ink? Of absent or unfulfilled identity, of absent maternal protection?
What do you do when your father is your god? How do you comprehend your world when he's not there anymore?
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That's from an interview of both Julia Fox & John Guy, about their dually authored book, Hunting the Falcon. The quote is about AB, although personally if I said it, it would apply to Anne of Cleves, as well.
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