Fairy Tale Queens: Representations of Early Modern Queenship (28 page)

Henry courted Anne for several years before they married in 1533, and many of his subjects expressed their disapproval of her before she became queen. A dispatch from the Venetian ambassador reveals as much about popular notions of justice as it does about antagonistic sentiment toward Anne: “It is said that more than seven weeks ago a mob of from seven to eight thousand women of London went out of the town to seize Boleyn’s daughter, the sweetheart of the King of England, who was supping at a villa on a river, the King not being with her; and having received notice of this, she escaped by crossing the river in a boat. The women had intended to kill her; and amongst the mob were many men, disguised as women; nor has any great demonstration been made about this, because it was a thing done by women.”
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As Louis Montrose points out, even apart from the likely exaggerated numbers in the report, there was an element of “charivari” or “rough music” in the episode.
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Part of the crowd’s carnival impulse was their presumption of the authority to pronounce judgment on Anne for her sexual relationship with the king, though they could attack her in a way they could not attack the king.

Furthermore, that men enacted their wrath against Anne, dressed as women, recalls the fairy tales in which men’s sexual misconduct is displaced onto a conflict between women.

Not surprisingly, much of the public criticism of Anne occurred in 1533, the year of her marriage and coronation. In June of that year, Rauf Wendon of Warwickshire stated to a priest, Thomas Gebons, “that the Queen was a whore and a harlot, and that there was a prophecy that many should be burned in Smithfield, and he trusted it would be the end of queen Anne.”
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Given Anne’s death sentence just three years later—either burning or beheading as the king wished—the prediction is haunting, but even Anne herself had alluded to the possibility in a conversation with Henry. In the summer of 1530, Chapuys reported that the King told Anne “she was under great obligation to him, since he was offending everyone and making enemies everywhere for her sake, and that she replied: ‘That matters not, for it is foretold in ancient prophecies that at this time a Queen shall be burnt: but even if I were to suffer a thousand deaths, my love for you will not abate one jot.’”
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Perhaps the “ancient prophecy” was a familiar one, for another prediction is recorded from a Mrs. Amadas who said, “my lady Anne should be burned, for she is a harlot.”
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The slurs “whore” and “harlot” appear frequently in popular denunciations of Anne Boleyn. In August 1533, James Harrison, a priest from Lancashire, voiced his objection to Anne’s recent coronation: “I will have none for queen but Queen Catherine; who the devil made Nan Bullen, that whore, queen?” Several witnesses corroborated the account and said that they had heard a similar comment on other occasions.
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Shortly after, a Robert Borett, “late of London, did rail upon the Queen and my lord of Canterbury. These words he has confessed before Sir John Waynwright, vicar of Norton, Oliver Mawkinson, and others. He said, in the presence of Waynwright and John Cowke, that the Queen was a churl’s daughter, and also that she was a whore.”
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Another report claimed that a Mistress Joan Hammulden said that “she was sent for to one Burgyn’s wife of Watlington, when she was with child, about Whitsuntide twelvemonth, and the said Burgyn’s wife said to her that for her honesty and her cunning she might be midwife unto the queen of England, if it were queen Katharine; and if it were queen Anne, she was too good to be her midwife, for she was a whore and a harlot of her living.” Mistress Burgyn denied the words but in turn claimed “that one Collins’ wife had said...that it was never merry in England since there was three queens in it [referring to Catherine, Anne, and the princess Mary], and then the said Joan said there would be fewer shortly, which the said Joan denies.”
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Because such otherwise ordinary village gossip was considered seditious and punishable, the records are filled with accusations, counteraccusations, and denials, and many of the exchanges are between women.
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In the early years of their courtship, Henry took pains to stifle such public outcries, but suppression of dissent was difficult. Chapuys reported that during the Easter season following Henry’s marriage to Anne, a preacher gave “a sermon in which he expressly recommended his audience to offer up prayers for the health and welfare of queen Anne” at which many expressed their dissatisfaction by walking out on the service. The king “was so much disgusted that he sent word to the Lord Mayor of this city that unless he wished to displease him immensely he must take care that the thing did not happen again; and he gave orders that in future no one should dare speak against his marriage.” The Lord Mayor duly warned Londoners “not only to abstain from murmuring about the King’s marriage, but to command their own journeymen and servants, and a still more difficult task their own wives, to refrain from speaking disparagingly about the new Queen.”
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Chapuys notes that in spite of legislation and penalties, such talk was impossible to prevent, particularly among women. Whether women actually gossip more than men is a perennial subject of debate, but the perception was that women were as judgmental of the queen’s misconduct as men, if not more so.

As Carole Levin demonstrates, seditious words were also directed at the king, many of which were direct “attacks on Henry’s potency and behavior.”
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But none of these complaints redounded on Henry in the way they did Anne. Chapuys’s report of Anne’s execution first notes “the joy shown by the people every day, not only at the ruin of the concubine but at the hope of Princess Mary’s restoration... I think the concubine’s little bastard Elizabeth will be excluded from the succession.” Chapuys’s obsessive loyalty to Catherine, the princess Mary, and the Catholic succession was his primary agenda, and his disparagement of Anne, always referred to as the “concubine” or the “whore,” was consistent. Still, even Chapuys admitted, “Already it sounds ill in the ears of the people, that the king, having received such ignominy, has shown himself more glad than ever since the arrest of the whore; for he has been going about banqueting with ladies, sometimes remaining after midnight, and returning by the river.”
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Henry behaved just like his many fairy tale counterparts who were only too happy to see one queen executed in order to quickly make way for the next.

There are two other fairy tale echoes in the story of Anne’s demise, one oblique and the other more direct. The case against Anne Boleyn was built on exaggeration, because there was no simple, unequivocal evidence of her guilt. John Husee, servant to Lord and Lady Lisle, wrote to his mistress about the trial proceedings: “Madam, I think verily, if all the books and chronicles were totally revolved, and to the uttermost persecuted and tried, which against women hath been penned, contrived, and written since Adam and Eve, those same were, I think, verily nothing in comparison of that which hath been done and committed by Anne the Queen.” Husee admits that many of the charges were “not all thing as it is now rumored,” but nonetheless the nature of the accusations were so “abominable and detestable as I am ashamed that any good woman should give ear unto.”
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Although we will never know all the minute details of the accusations against Anne, it is clear that their quality as well as the quantity—five men on multiple occasions—were accumulated to render her as “abominable and detestable” as possible. Similarly, for the wronged queen in Basile’s “Sun, Moon, and Talia” and the guilty queens in the “disguised heroes” tales, it is not enough that they are associated with sexual wrongdoing; they are also portrayed as monstrous and thus deserving of their horrific punishments.

Finally, as if the various charges of lecherous behavior against Anne were not sufficient, one more accusation was leveled against her that leaps straight from the fairy tale: the queen as poisoner. Chapuys reported that “the very evening the concubine was brought to the Tower of London, when the duke of Richmond [Henry’s illegitimate son] went to say goodnight to his father...the king began to weep, saying that he and his sister, meaning the princess Mary, were greatly bound to God for having escaped the hands of that accursed whore, who had determined to poison them.”
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This display, as Ives points out, reveals Henry’s propensity for maudlin self-pity and “shows how quickly the Seymour alliance had got to work, for the story that Anne intended to poison Mary and actually had poisoned Katherine had been a fixation with them for months.”
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There was no evidence of Anne’s intent to poison anyone, but it was one more addition in the construction of the evil queen whose sexual transgressions intersected with her other wicked acts.

Elizabeth I

During her 45-year reign as Queen of England, Elizabeth I suffered repeated attacks on her sexual reputation. Though the motivations varied, certainly, her mother’s alleged sins were visited upon Elizabeth throughout her life. As Montrose puts it, “Few English monarchs can have descended the throne with a more questionable, lurid, and violent pedigree than did Elizabeth Tudor.”
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The lurid and violent part of the pedigree was due to Henry’s conduct, but it was Anne’s questionable history that plagued Elizabeth, who always spoke of her father with pride but seldom referred to her mother. Elizabeth’s silence should not be taken as condemnation or shame but as political savvy, as she understood that Anne’s unpopularity and her association with sexual misdeeds were not assets in her constant establishment of her own authority. Still, Anne’s demise haunted Elizabeth’s entire reign. As late as 1588 Cardinal William Allen wrote that Elizabeth, this “wicked Jezebel” was “an incestuous bastard, begotten and borne in sinne, of an infamous courtesan Anne Bullen.” Consistent with the fairy tale tendency to accumulate or magnify crimes to create an image of utter monstrosity, Allen charged that Elizabeth’s presumed lechery extended to multiple men; Elizabeth never married, Allen claimed, “because she cannot confine herself to one man.”
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Broader cultural factors contributed to the negative discussion of Elizabeth’s sexual life. As Levin reminds us, gossip about Elizabeth’s sexual life allowed her subjects to express their ambiguous feelings about her anomalous position as a female monarch.
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Sara Mendelson also considers the seditious charges against Elizabeth in her discussion of popular attitudes toward the queen. According to Mendelson, popular perceptions affirmed the good/evil binary: whereas good Queen Bess was beloved by many, she was found wanting by others.

Of all the features of Elizabeth’s monarchy, “the queen’s chastity, or rather her presumed virginity, was one of the most contentious issues of her reign,” but the nature of the gossip and speculation depended on the person’s “political aims and orientation.” Mendelson also argues, “Fantasies about Elizabeth’s sexuality were shaped in part by the Renaissance notion that female rulers were exceptional beings who were to be excused for their sexual peccadillos in much the same way as male monarchs. Ballads, histories and plays offered examples of mythical or historical queens who were notorious for their sexual license...Fairy lore also reinforced images of royal promiscuity.”
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Promiscuous queens were indeed prominent in literature, but their behavior is not necessarily sanctioned or excused in the way male sexual liberty is. In fairy tales, queens are universally punished for their sexual license whereas kings often escaped censure or were allowed to repent.

If gossip about Elizabeth came from her mother’s disgrace or from popular attitudes about women’s sexuality, much of it derived directly from the circumstances of her own life. Elizabeth’s personal life has been thoroughly examined, but much of the sexual calumny centered on the Seymour incident of her adolescence as well as on her emotionally intense relationships with Leicester and her many other favorites and suitors during her reign. As unjust and scurrilous as these attacks were, they seasoned Elizabeth in withstanding future onslaughts against her honor.

Elizabeth’s first lesson in the precariousness of chaste reputations occurred when she was only 15. Gossip circulated that she had become pregnant by Thomas Seymour, the widowed husband of her last stepmother and friend, Katherine Parr. Relying on her wits and rhetorical skill, Elizabeth gave testimony and wrote to the Lord Protector a clear account of what transpired when she was living in the Parr-Seymour household, emphatically denying the charges: “Master Tyrwhit and others have told me that there goeth rumors abroad which be greatly both against mine honor and honesty, which above all other things I esteem, which be these: that I am in the Tower and with child by my lord admiral. My lord, these are shameful slanders.”
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Elizabeth saved herself from the threat of these rumors and also defended her household servants, Katherine Ashley and Thomas Parry, against charges of wrongdoing. As a young princess and next in line to the throne, Elizabeth learned how critical it was for her to be guarded and circumspect.

Thus, by the time Elizabeth assumed the throne, she understood that her image required constant vigilance. As Paul Hammer argues, Elizabeth was “only too well aware that contemporary criticism of female rule played heavily upon the alleged propensity of women to fleshly weakness and its consequences for the state.”
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In his discussion of Elizabeth’s handling of the scandalous sexual liaisons among her various courtiers, Hammer argues that the queen’s legendary anger over these affairs is too easily attributed to her “notorious sexual jealousy,” when in fact unregulated sexual behavior tarnished the honor of the court and her ability to distance herself from the worst suspicions about female rule.

The greatest source of accusations about Elizabeth’s sexual conduct came from her relationship with Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, and the criticism came from many corners. Soon after Elizabeth became queen, the Spanish ambassador wrote to Philip that “during the last few days Lord Robert has come so much into favour that he does whatever he likes with affairs and it is even said that her Majesty visits him in his chamber day and night.”
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Not only did their close relationship lend ballast to the rumors of sexual intimacy, but the accidental death of Dudley’s wife, Amy Robsart, in 1560 gave further rise to scurrilous talk, some of which suggested that Robsart had been murdered so Dudley and Elizabeth could marry. Dudley was Elizabeth’s Master of the Horse, and Mary Stuart joked at the time that the queen intended to marry her horsekeeper; several years later, Mary wrote to Elizabeth about rumors she had heard from the Countess of Shrewsbury. According to Mary, the Countess discussed Elizabeth’s relationship with Robert Dudley, “whom she said you had made promise of marriage before a lady of your chamber had lain infinite times with you, and with all the license and intimacy which can be used between husband and wife.”
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