Tudor Queens of England (3 page)

During their marriage, what control would he exercise over her person and the resources of the kingdom? A conventional marriage suggested pessimistic answers to all these questions. The trouble was that the roles of a wife and of a sovereign were not really compatible. A queen could hardly be a petitioner and intercessor in her own country, let alone a humble and dutiful helpmate. She could be chaste and discreet, but hardly silent – and what if her duty compelled her to fall out with her royal spouse? Some of these problems were resolved by the treaty that accompanied the marriage agreement, which was negotiated by Charles rather than Philip, and gave him very little independent authority in Eng

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f there was an heir, he would be regent in the event of the Queen’s death but only until the normal age of majority and if she died childless his interest in the realm would cease. Philip was not pleased and many Englishmen believed that such conditions would be unenforceable, but in theory the treaty completed an acceptable relationship. The more limited legal problem was resolved by a statute in Mary’s second parliament that ‘ungendered’ the Crown and declared that a queen’s authority was identical with that of a king
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Despite all these precautions, Mary never really came to terms with her predicament, as we shall see. Nor could she ever fi nd an image with which she was comfortable. If she had ever become a mother she might have used the Virgin as a role model but that was not to be. Neither a virgin nor a mother, she was also a wife who, for most of her married life, was left to cope on her own. Philip was at her side for only about 15 months of their four-year marriage. While he was present they appeared together in studied equilibrium, but while he was absent she was rather at a loss to express her status. Praise for her religious policies, particularly from the clergy, was strong but unfocused. Her portraits show her magnifi cently dressed but otherwise nondescript – neither regal nor iconic. The only image that survives of her after her marriage is the one she would least have wanted and in many ways the unfairest – that of Bloody Mary, the arch persecutor and religious bigot. Mary was a woman of puritanical conscience and no imagination or sense of humour. She had also spent so much of the formative part of her life acting out the role of a suffering servant that she was unable to adjust to power when she found herself possessing it. Her failure to bear a child was probably critical in this as in other ways and left her after 1555 with a role that she could live (as she had to) but could not express.

Her half-sister and successor Elizabeth was a total contrast in every respect save one – she was also a woman thrust into a role normally played by men. The sad example of Mary’s failed marriage – and even more the problems that it had created – may have deterred her from following the same route or it may not, we do not know. What we do know is that her whole attitude, both to the exercise of power and to its imagery, was quite different. Mary had been hesitant, traditional in her conception of a woman’s place in the scheme of things, and uncertain of her image, but Elizabeth relished the challenge and took politics by the scruff of the neck. She was probably both more intelligent and better educated than her sister and was well aware that intellectually she had the edge of almost everyone around her. That was why she was able to fi ll her court and administration with men of such extraordinary ability. While recognizing that she was operating in a man’s world, she had no time at all for the traditional notion that some matters were beyond a woman’s competence. Whereas Mary had regarded her sex as a liability, and potentially a crippling one, Elizabeth used hers as weapon. Quite aware that she was strikingly good looking, she set out to fascinate and tease the men with whom she had to deal in a way that her sister would have regarded with incredulous horror. Women were supposed to be unstable and procrastinating – very well, she would delay and change her mind until they were all dancing with frustrated rage – knowing perfectly well that only she could make the necessary decisions. Let them wait! Whether her famous courtships

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were genuine or simply political ploys we do not know and it is quite likely that she was not sure herself. Only in her dealings with Robert Dudley did the fundamental confl ict between the woman and the Queen become apparent, and then the Queen won, at considerable c

ost.13 Lik
e Mary, her religious conscience was highly developed, but whereas God told Mary that she must restore the old faith and eliminate heresy, He told Elizabeth that He had entrusted a realm and a church to her and that she would be answerable to Him for both. Let no one presume to usurp her authority.

If Elizabeth had ever married – as every man at her court (and most women) expected her to – she might well have become mired in the same conceptual and political bog but by not sharing her bed she avoided sharing her power. By not being a wife she was free to act as a king – and even donned armour at the time of the Armada to address her troops assembled at Tilbury. No man could have governed in her inimitable style – certainly not her successor James I – because even in her old age (when it had become somewhat grotesque) she never ceased to play the game of courtly love. Politics eventually came to wear the masque of charade but woe betide anyone who presumed upon the old lady’s indulgence, as the Earl of Essex found to his cost. In some respects Elizabeth’s imagery was frozen in time, because it was always depicting the idea rather than the real woman. Her portraits, and there are hundreds of them, are iconic, stylized. Whether they bear any relation to the real woman is almost irrelevant. She was Deborah, Astrea, Belphoebe and many other biblical or mythical fi gures. Above all, she was a fi gure of mystery and power – mysterious as only a woman could be in a world of men. As the prospects of marriage receded, even in the eyes of the most optimistic, virginity became her trade mark. She never exploited the Blessed Mary to provide a role model – that would not have suited her Protestant conscience; rather, she became an iconic virgin herself – a woman whose physical integrity became a symbol for the inviolability of her country. By remaining a

femme seul
, Elizabeth was able to develop a female style of monarchy that was quite distinct from the traditional male style to which all Queen Consorts were subjected, but just as effective.

It would be easy in this post-feminist world to contrast the triumphant reign of Elizabeth with the downtrodden consorts of Edward IV or Henry VIII and to conclude that the latter were poor specimens of womanhood. That would be a serious mistake because their circumstances were quite different and the tasks that they performed quite distinct. Consorts were always seen as aspects of their husbands and contributors to his

maiestas
, never as people in their own right. They might, as was the way with women of all social classes, have great infl uence over their husbands, but any action that resulted was always his responsibility, 12

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not hers An intelligent woman with ideas of her own thus faced a dilemma, as was the case with both Margaret of Anjou and Anne Boleyn. Margaret paid with her reputation and Anne with her life. It was in motherhood and in intercession that a Queen Consort found her fulfi lment, and both were distinctively female accomplishments. No king could bear his own child and a consort who failed in this respect, like Catherine of Aragon, was liable to pay a high price. The idea of marriage as a free and equal partnership was alien to the medieval mind. It was a state that men entered into with their own interests in mind and within which the woman had a defi ned and subordinate role. She was judged by the skill with which she discharged that role. In principle a ruling queen was a man, discharging a male function, which was why combining rule with marriage was so schizophrenic and why Elizabeth’s balancing act was so uniquely successful. No female ruler actually became a mother until the time of Queen Anne, over a century after Elizabeth’s death – and by then the world had changed so much that her consort did not have to be recognized as king. Anne’s frequent and futile pregnancies were an affl iction but did not affect the way in which she was regarded, which was more as a fi gurehead than as an effective head of state. Elizabeth would have been horrifi ed by the transformation. Victoria was also born into a culture of marital subordination and although her infl uence upon her ministers was considerable she was more an imperial symbol and icon than an effective governor. Her constitutional position was by then so clearly defi ned that her husband, in a neat role reversal, was consigned to the supportive role previously occupied by female consorts. Outside the bedroom, the customs of marriage did not apply to the Crown. Victoria’s daughters helped to defi ne the royal houses of Europe and her long widowhood left a symbolic trail that long outlived her. The present Queen and her consort have been totally defi ned by constitutional propriety and since Victoria’s death the British monarchy has been constrained to reinvent itself not once but several times. The gulf that separates Elizabeth II from Elizabeth I is as great as that which separated the fi rst Elizabeth from Catherine de Valois.

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The Queen as Trophy: Catherine de Valois

Catherine was the youngest daughter of Charles VI of France and his consort, Isabella of Bavaria. She was born in Paris on 27 October 1401 at the Hotel de St Pol, which was used almost as a retreat when her father’s mental illness was particularly severe. Her upbringing was eccentric, being marked by periods of neglect and even privation as her father was not in touch with reality and her mother was pursuing her ow

n agenda.1
At one point she was even abducted by her uncle, Louis of Bavaria, but on that occasion the King recovered his reason at the critical time. Isabella was imprisoned at Tours and Catherine was placed temporarily in other hands but she never seems to have borne her mother any ill will for her erratic behaviour. She had been called into political service long before she was old enough to be aware of what was happening and before her second birthday was betrothed to Charles, the grandson and heir of Louis, Duke of Bourbon. However, Charles died in 1409 and even before that Henry IV of England had been proposing a peace settlement to be sealed by a marriage between Catherine and his own heir, Henry of Monmouth. However, there were a number of stumbling blocks in the way of such a settlement, not least Henry’s claim to the Crown of France and the scale of the bride’s dowry, which the English king is alleged to have set at two million crowns. Charles VI offered 450,000, and the negotiation came to nothing.

When Henry IV died on 20 March 1413, the issue was still unsettled but his successor, who was still unmarried and 25 years old, was keen to continue the quest and in January 1414 vowed that he would wed no other. France, however, was in a state of almost constant crisis, with the Burgundians and the Armagnacs at each other’s throats. The king was again mentally ill and only occasionally fi t to conduct business. It seems that Henry may well have had it in mind to secure his bride by capture rather than negotiation because he was obviously anxious to take advantage of France’s problems. He entered into an alliance with John the Fearless of Burgundy for that purpose in 1414. On 13 August 1415 he attacked on the fl imsiest of pretexts and laid siege to Harfl eur. Shortly after he won his great victory at Agincourt, and began the systematic conquest of Normandy. Negotiations for peace and marriage alike disappeared from view.

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With the King incapacitated and the Queen discredited, the government of France was temporarily in the hands of the Constable, Bernard of Armagnac. The royal family was in almost total eclipse. Two successive dauphins had died and the third, Charles, was as yet too young to assume any responsibility. John the Fearless had held aloof from the Normandy campaign but as the English increasingly gained the upper hand so his relations with Henry became closer. In May 1418, operating in the name of the Queen, he seized Paris, and with it the formal government of what was left of France. The Dauphin, Charles, however, had escaped from Paris and, showing no signs of his father’s debility, in spite of his youth, set himself up as regent at Bourges. From there he controlled (more or less) a large area in the centre of the country. In order to resolve this deadlock, an agreement with the offi cial government in Paris now became increasingly desirable from Henry’s point of view and on 7 May 1419 envoys were appointed to negotiate such a settlement. Catherine, now 18, seems to have been present at these discussions, together with her mother who is alleged to have exercised great infl uence over her. Once again the size of the dowry was a sticking point. Meanwhile John of Burgundy was also negotiating with the Dauphin because, clearly, an agreement that included him would be preferable to one that did not. He was strong enough to make a considerable nuisance of himself if he were excluded. However, on 10 September 1419, the two had a blazing row on the bridge at Montereau, as a result of which the Duke was set upon and murdered by the Dauphin’s followers. Charles was not actually present when this happened but was generally (and reasonably) held responsible. This put paid to any chance of a tripartite settlement and since the rest of the royal family, including Catherine, was under the control of Philip of Burgundy, John’s son and heir, the way to a more limited agreement was now open. At the same time Philip’s animosity to the Dauphin could be taken for granted.

The resulting Treaty of Troyes, signed in May 1420, has been represented as the nadir of French fortunes. Although in one guise the Duke of Burgundy was a great nobleman of France and could not unreasonably negotiate on the King’s behalf, at the same time he was also an independent ruler in alliance with the King’s enemy. The ambiguities of the French political system were as much to blame for the humiliation at Troyes as Charles VI’s weakness. Henry V agreed to give up the title ‘King of France’ in return for recognition of his sovereignty over those territories which he already controlled. Henry and Charles would both continue for the time being to rule their respective realms but if Charles should die fi rst the King of England would succeed him, and any child born to Henry’s union with Catherine would inherit both kingdoms. The text of the treaty reads (in part):