Part 6 (1/2)

The Lady Margaret was often at court, especially in the earlier years of the reign. Although she played no formal role in politics, her influence in the domestic sphere was strong, and Elizabeth rarely acted independently of her-and possibly was glad of her advice. Yet as Elizabeth was soon to find, Margaret was frequently at her side, or never very far away. Wherever the King and Queen were, there his mother would usually be too, and she often accompanied Henry and Elizabeth on their travels and progresses around the kingdom. Sometimes she appeared in public with Henry when Elizabeth was absent. His household ordinances provided for lodgings to be kept for her at all the royal residences, often next to his private apartments. At Woodstock, their apartments were linked by a shared withdrawing chamber, and at the Tower they adjoined Henry's bedchamber and council chamber.62 It was soon accepted that the King, the Queen, and the King's mother formed an inviolable triumvirate.

The pattern was set less than a month after the wedding when, on February 6, 1486, the King issued a license jointly to his ”dearest consort, Elizabeth, Queen of England, and his dearest mother, to found a perpetual chantry in the parish church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Guildford, Surrey, for one chaplain to perform divine service daily for the healthful estate of the King, his consort, and his mother, and for their souls after death.”63 In conjunction with this, two gentlemen of Guildford persuaded the Queen, Margaret, and two knights of the King's household to a.s.sist them in the founding of a guild in honor of the Trinity, the Virgin Mary, St. George, and All Saints at the same parish church.64 In December 1487, Elizabeth and Margaret, along with Archbishop Morton and Reginald Bray, were granted the right to present their candidate to the deanery of the college of St. Stephen at Westminster.65 Whenever Lady Margaret attended church with the King and Queen, she sat beneath her own cloth of estate. If she entertained a bishop to dinner, he would be treated as if he were in the King's own presence. After Evensong, wine and spices would be served to Margaret as well as to the King and his sons-the Queen was not included. But when Elizabeth went in procession, Margaret had to walk a little behind her, ”aside the Queen's half train.” When Henry and Elizabeth dined in state after Ma.s.s, only ”half estate” was accorded to Margaret; and at the Easter Garter ceremonies in chapel, while Elizabeth and Margaret were censed after Henry, only the King and Queen might kiss the pax,66 a small tablet adorned with a sacred image, usually the crucifixion, which the devout kissed instead of each other as a sign of peace.

Thus it was soon made clear to Elizabeth that from now on she was invariably to be a.s.sociated with her formidable mother-in-law. It was to be expected that Margaret, an experienced and capable woman of forty-three, would take the young Queen under her wing and act as her mentor. That they enjoyed a harmonious relations.h.i.+p is evident from various sources, and the fact that they collaborated on several occasions when they were of one mind about something. The impression one gets is of two women who got on well working in unison together for everyone's benefit. As Fisher testified, everyone who knew Margaret loved her, and there is no reason why Elizabeth should have been an exception. Furthermore, Margaret had a sense of humor and could provide congenial companions.h.i.+p: she kept two fools, Skip and Reginald the idiot, and enjoyed gambling at cards and chess, as did the Queen.67 The affection between the two ladies may have been facilitated by the fact that they were not continually obliged to enjoy each other's company. The Lady Margaret sometimes resided at Lathom House or Knowsley Hall, the northern seats of the Stanleys; when in London, she would stay at Coldharbour.68 After 1499, having taken a vow of chast.i.ty with Stanley's permission, she was less often at court, having moved into her own house at Collyweston in Northamptons.h.i.+re, where apartments were permanently kept ready for her husband and her daughter-in-law the Queen.69 She never visited Lathom after that, but sometimes resided at Woking Palace in Surrey or Hunsdon House in Hertfords.h.i.+re.

Elizabeth's good relations with her formidable mother-in-law are testimony to her warm heart, her good judgment of character, her peaceable nature, and her talent for diplomacy.

The court over which Elizabeth presided as Queen was as magnificent as her father's, and like Edward IV's it was modeled on that of Burgundy. Henry VII has gone down in history as a miser, but he spent freely on the outward trappings of wealth, such as jewels, on which he paid out upward of 128,000 [62.2 million], hundreds of pieces of plate bearing the monogram HE (for Henry and Elizabeth), tapestries, rich furnis.h.i.+ngs, and the rebuilding and decoration of his palaces. His court was imbued with learning, music, and pageantry. He deliberately exploited the symbolism of royal pageantry and the ceremonial, laying down a new series of ordinances for the regulation of daily royal life and etiquette. Small wonder that Bacon called him ”a wonder for wise men.”

Elizabeth may have been influential in the development of royal pageantry during Henry's reign, which would set a pattern for the Tudor court for the next century and more. As the daughter of Edward IV, who had recognized the value of Burgundian court culture, with its emphasis on magnificence and display, and emulated it, she was ideally placed to advise her husband.

On great occasions the court would be the setting for the lavish feasts, tournaments, pageants, and revelry deemed essential for a successful monarchy, but as we have seen, Henry VII enjoyed simpler pleasures too. No great sportsman himself-although he liked hunting, hawking, c.o.c.k-fighting, bull baiting, shooting crossbows at the b.u.t.ts, and the spectacle of jousting-he nevertheless installed bowling alleys and tennis courts on the grounds of his palaces, and laid on hunting expeditions and lavish musical entertainments, all for the diversion of his courtiers and guests. Elizabeth shared many of these interests, including hunting and archery; her privy purse expenses record payments for her greyhounds and for arrows and broadheads (arrow tips). She went hawking too: Oliver Aulferton was keeper of the Queen's goshawks and spaniels, and was paid a salary of 2 [970].70 Where the moral laxity of some European courts was notorious, the court presided over by Henry and Elizabeth was a byword for propriety, which was ensured by the marital fidelity of the King and Queen, and no doubt by the guiding moral hand of the Lady Margaret. It was also a great center of piety and learning, peopled by divines, scholars, and poets.

When they were not on display to the court, the royal family enjoyed living in the warmth and intimacy afforded by the warren of small closets beyond the public chambers of their apartments, an arrangement that reflected the increasing desire of European monarchs to achieve some privacy in their otherwise very public lives, although privacy as they understood it invariably meant having many select persons in attendance to look to their every need. It was during Edward IV's reign that this growing taste for seclusion emerged, so Elizabeth would have grown up with the notion of kings and queens enjoying a private life away from the court. That would have been a foreign concept to earlier medieval kings, whose lives had been communally centered on the great hall, and who were incessantly on display.

The court was not just a magnificent domestic and ceremonial inst.i.tution; it was also the seat of government and the political hub of the kingdom. There were two political ent.i.ties in the court: the Privy Council, which-presided over by the King-attended to matters of state; and the Privy Chamber, the nerve center of monarchical power. It was Henry VII who created the Privy Chamber, the department of state comprising the influential and often powerful gentlemen who waited personally upon the sovereign and were thus able to influence him and bestow patronage. There are frequent references to his retiring among them in his private lodgings, which were also called the privy chamber.

Elizabeth had her corresponding private apartments, where she resided with her ladies and other female attendants-a chaste female enclave within the King's ”house of magnificence.” It usually consisted of three distinct parts: a great chamber, a presence chamber for audiences and entertaining, and a privy chamber, which, like the King's, might comprise bedchambers, closets, a privy, a privy wardrobe, and sometimes a privy kitchen, where the Queen's meals were prepared. Guards were stationed at the entrance to each room, and only the King, Elizabeth's servants, and the most privileged guests would be admitted to her privy chamber. Elizabeth would usually dine with her ladies in her presence chamber, rather than with the King.71 Edward IV's ”Black Book of the Household” had laid down that service to the Queen ”must be nigh like unto the King.”72 The Queen was not of course confined to her apartments. She enjoyed the freedom of the court and the King's lodgings, and it was expected that she would be at his side whenever appropriate: at the great religious festivals, when both wore their crowns, at ”days of estate,” feasts, courtly celebrations, receptions and entertainments, and when peers were enn.o.bled. When the King sat in his chair of estate, or throne-the actual seat of government-there she would be, seated on a lower chair beside him, with ”the cloth of estate hanging somewhat lower than the King's, by the valance.”73 Although he was ”frugal to excess in his own person,” Henry VII ”kept a sumptuous table. There might be six to seven hundred persons at dinner. His people say that his Majesty spends upon his table 14,000 [nearly 7 million] annually.”74 On a ”day of estate” when Henry dined before the court in his great chamber, he would have a bishop and a duke, or two earls, at table with him, and Elizabeth-who arrived in procession preceded by her chamberlain and usher-always sat at her own table with a d.u.c.h.ess, a countess, and perhaps a baroness. She had her own servers and carver, and her sewer (food taster) to bring her neck towel, or napkin, which was worn over one shoulder. Everyone else was seated below the high tables according to rank. Once the meal was over, the boards were cleared and the royal sewers spread a clean ”surnap” (tablecloth) across them, which the ushers then smoothed over. Knights or barons would bring basins and covered ewers containing water, and at a sign from the King everyone washed their hands. The esquires then took up the boards, while the ushers knelt down to ”make clean the King's skirts” of crumbs. Grace was said by a bishop or a royal chaplain.75 Music, minstrelsy, and disguisings were part of the culture of the Tudor court. Elizabeth loved them all, especially music; she had grown up in a court where her parents both employed musicians, and she too had her own minstrels and drummers; three of the latter would serve her son, Henry VIII. Among her musicians were Mark Jaket and Janyn Marcazin, who is listed as a minstrel in 1503, Richard Denouse, William Older, and a fiddler whom Henry VII rewarded.76 Late in 1486, Jaket and Older received a reward of 5 [2,500]. In 1502 the Queen's minstrels were headed by ”M. of Lorydon,” and each received a salary of 2.6s.8d. [1,130].77 These minstrels were professional musicians and their function was to entertain the Queen, her household, and her guests, and provide accompaniment for dancing in the privy chamber; they also taught musical skills to the royal children.

Elizabeth was to commission works from William Cornish and Richard Fairfax, two virtuosi of the Tudor court.78 Her pa.s.sion for music, which was to be inherited by her children, may be measured by the large sums she was ready to spend on it-money she could ill afford. She would handsomely reward minstrels such as the man who played a drone-possibly an organ or a cornemuse (bagpipes)-before her at Richmond. One of her most lavish purchases was a pair of clavichords for herself, costing 4 [1,950].79 Her influence was significant. Her daughters played skillfully upon the lute, and her son, the future Henry VIII, became a notable musician and composer.

Books would have had a prominent place in the Queen's chamber; they were not just there for the pleasure to be obtained from them, but as outward manifestations of magnificence, for they were fabulously expensive objects of desire and proclaimed the erudition and interests of their owners. Elizabeth's love of books had stayed with her from childhood. Hers were a mix of the secular and the devotional. She owned one of the finest ma.n.u.scripts of the age, the beautifully illuminated ”Hours of Elizabeth the Queen,” dating from ca.141530. It is now thought to have been owned by her, rather than by her mother, as was previously claimed, and had once belonged to her cousin, Cecily Neville, Countess of Warwick (d. 1450), daughter of Ralph Neville, Earl of Salisbury. Its colorful pages ill.u.s.trate the Hours of the Virgin and the Pa.s.sion of Christ, the Penitential Psalms, the Office of the Dead, the Commendation of Souls, and prayers to St. Mary. There are eighteen exquisite miniatures, borders lavishly decorated with foliage on solid gold leaf, 423 decorated initials, and roundels showing the signs of the Zodiac. The ma.n.u.script bears the inscription ”Elysabeth ye quene” in the lower margin of one folio, beneath a miniature of the Crucifixion.80 The beautiful fourteenth-century Bohun Psalter owned by Elizabeth of York as Queen is in Exeter College, Oxford, and is inscribed on the first page in her hand: Thys book ys myn Elysabeth ye quene.

It is also known as ”The Ma.s.s Book of King Henry VII's Queen Elizabeth and King Henry VIII's Queen Katherine,” and contains calendar notes by Elizabeth and her daughter-in-law, Katherine of Aragon, to whom it came after her death, and a further autograph inscription: Thys book ys myn Katherine the qwene.

Elizabeth also recorded in it the birth dates of her children.81 An illuminated ma.n.u.script of verses written between 1415 and 1440 by Charles, Duke of Orleans,82 bears the arms of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. It may have been partly executed for Edward IV at the end of his reign, but was completed by the anonymous Master of the Prayer Books under the direction of Quentin Poulet, Henry VII's librarian, by 1500.83 It was probably a gift from Henry to Elizabeth. Orleans, a French prince captured at Agincourt, wrote his poems while he was a prisoner in the Tower of London. They tell of love, of spring, and of melancholy, and one speaks of jealousy, which may have struck a chord with Henry: Strengthen, my Love, this castle of my heart, And with some store of pleasure give me aid, For Jealousy, with all them of his part, Strong siege about the weary tower has laid.

Nay, if to break his bands thou art afraid, Too weak to make his cruel force depart, Strengthen at least this castle of my heart, And with some store of pleasure give me aid.

Nay, let not Jealousy, for all his art Be master, and the tower in ruin laid, That still, ah Love! thy gracious rule obeyed.

Advance, and give me succour of thy part; Strengthen, my Love, this castle of my heart.

Henry may also have presented Elizabeth with the ”Miroir des Dames,” a ma.n.u.script containing moral instruction for queens and other highborn ladies.84 Based on a thirteenth-century text, of which copies had been owned by several European queens, and finished in 1428, it contained an addition in the form of a frontispiece showing the crown of England resting on a hawthorn bush-that favored Tudor symbol-with a salutation to Henry VII, ”Vive le n.o.ble roy Henry,” perhaps added soon after Bosworth, possibly around the time of the King's marriage. The nature of the text-which reminds queens that, as the image of feminine perfection, they are blessed with a special grace and must be an example to their s.e.x-makes it likely that this book was given by Henry to Elizabeth of York.85 Another illuminated ma.n.u.script a.s.sociated with Elizabeth is a lavish ”Legendary,” a book of the lives of the saints, dating from ca. 1250.86 The flyleaf bears the inscription ”G.o.d save King Harry and Queen Elizabeth,” which must have been added before 1503, and a mark identifying it as later belonging to Henry VIII's library.87 A prayer book that had belonged to Elizabeth of York was sold at auction in 1983.88 Like her parents, Elizabeth was a patron of William Caxton and his successor at the Westminster printing press, Wynkyn de Worde. In 1490, Caxton's translation of Eneydos, a French version of Virgil's Aeneid, was dedicated to her eldest son, and around 1491, Caxton printed the Orationes: Fifteen Oes and Other Prayers ”by commandments of” the Queen and the Lady Margaret. It was his last publication, and comprised fifteen prayers then believed to have been written by St. Bridget of Sweden, all beginning with the letter O.89 It was probably Elizabeth's grandmother, Cecily Neville, who had nurtured in her a special devotion to St. Bridget, which she shared with Margaret Beaufort. Margaret was a regular visitor to the Bridgetine abbey of Syon,90 where Elizabeth's cousin, Anne de la Pole, was prioress. When Anne died in 1501, her successor maintained good relations with the Queen, sending her quails and rabbits for her table.91 Books were valued gifts. In 1494, Margaret Beaufort commissioned from Wynkyn de Worde a weighty book of spiritual exercises ent.i.tled Scala Perfectionis (The Scale of Perfection) by the Augustinian mystic Walter Hilton, which she and Elizabeth jointly presented to their kinswoman, Mary Roos, who served the Queen as lady-in-waiting. Elizabeth inscribed it: ”I pray you pray for me. Elysabeth ye quene.”92 Elizabeth may have been the ”Queen Elizabeth” who gave a book of hours to Katherine Neville, the widow of Lord Hastings, but Elizabeth Wydeville could also have been the donor.93 Both the King and Queen wrote inscriptions in a Parisian missal of 1498 owned by one of Elizabeth's ladies. Henry's read: ”Madam, I pray you remember me, your loving master, Henry R.” Elizabeth's was less formal: ”Madam, I pray you forget not me to pray to G.o.d that I may have part of your prayers. Elysabeth ye Queene.” Evidently she felt she needed the spiritual consolation these prayers might afford her.94 Henry VII was astute when it came to finance. His tough upbringing had taught him the value of money and of enforcing policies that would ensure peace and generate wealth; he understood that the subtle practice of statecraft was infinitely preferable to achieving his aims through war. Yet although he was generous in giving alms to the sick and the dest.i.tute, and in enriching the Church, he was to gain a lasting reputation for parsimony. It was said that ”although he professes many virtues, his love of money is too great.”95 The Milanese amba.s.sador reported in 1495, ”The King is rather feared than loved, and this is due to his avarice.”96 A Venetian amba.s.sador thought him ”a great miser,” and wrote that he ”had acc.u.mulated so much gold that he was supposed to have more than well-nigh all the other kings in Christendom.”97 The Spanish amba.s.sador observed, ”The King's riches augment every day. I think he has no equal in this respect. If gold coin once enters his strongboxes, it never comes out again. He always pays in depreciated coin. All his servants are like him: they have a wonderful dexterity in getting other people's money.”98 A papal envoy who came to the English court to raise money for a crusade was disconcerted to find only 11.11s. [5,650] in his collecting box, ”which result made our hearts sink within us, for there were present the King, the Queen, the mother of the King, and the mother of the Queen,” and many lords and ladies.

But the description of Henry as a miser, a gloomy, Scroogelike figure in sober, shabby clothing counting his money, is a distorted one. He had known adversity and realized that strength lay in financial security. By ama.s.sing a fortune, he was bolstering the future success of his dynasty, and he was determined to live in a style befitting a great prince. But his subjects paid a high price for it. A few years later Pedro de Ayala, the Spanish amba.s.sador, imputed ”the decrease of trade” to ”the impoverishment of the people by the great taxes laid on them. The King himself said to me that it is his intention to keep his subjects low, because riches would only make them haughty.” He was to pay for this with his popularity. ”He is disliked, but the Queen is beloved because she is powerless.”99 Henry's carefulness with money did not extend to the state he kept as King. It was expected of Renaissance sovereigns that they looked and acted the part magnificently, outward display considered essential to command the respect, confidence, and admiration of their subjects and other nations. In this, Henry was following the precepts of the court of Burgundy. Careful in other respects with money, he recognized the value of regal display and spent lavishly on it. ”He knew well how to maintain his royal majesty and all which pertains to kings.h.i.+p.”100 As Queen, according to Thomas More, Elizabeth enjoyed ”plenty of every pleasant thing.”101 Rodrigo de Puebla, amba.s.sador from the court of Queen Isabella of Spain, observed: ”There is no country in the world where queens live with greater pomp than in England, where they have as many court officers as the King.”102 But that high estate had to be maintained. On marriage, every English queen consort received a dower for the financial support of herself and her household. This took the form of a substantial settlement of lands, manors, and other crown property, making her one of the major landowners in the realm.103 Elizabeth was co-heiress with her sisters to lands of the n.o.ble families of Mortimer, March, and Clare, which had been inherited by the House of York. These lands, in which Cecily Neville held a share as dower, were not part of the crown estate, and should have been divided between the Yorkist princesses and then pa.s.sed to their husbands on marriage; but Henry VII appropriated their shares as well as what was his in right of his wife, quietly incorporated them into the crown lands, and dowered Elizabeth from them.104 She was in possession of lands of the earldom of March in Herefords.h.i.+re by September 1486;105 some of the rest went toward the support of Elizabeth Wydeville and Cecily, d.u.c.h.ess of York; but for Elizabeth's sisters there would be nothing, not even dowries.

Elizabeth had to wait for the rest of her settlement, for it was not finally a.s.signed to her until November 1487; until then her financial needs were mainly met by the King's household, further-and perhaps deliberately-limiting her sphere of influence and her capacity for patronage. From time to time she received grants from the King, such as the annuity of 100 [48,900] bestowed on February 3, 1486, at Sheen Palace.106 When she finally was a.s.signed her dower, for life, no set amount appears formally to have been settled on her. To the Mortimer and Clare estates were added her mother's lands, worth about 1,890 [924,000], and annuities from fixed rents from the towns of Bristol (amounting to 102.15s.6d., now 50,250) and Bedford. In addition, like her predecessors, she had income from wards.h.i.+ps, fines, and tax exemptions granted her by the King, and in 1487, Parliament enacted that she could sell and grant leases in her own name, without the King's consent, in consideration of the great expense of her chamber. On February 1, 1492, Henry settled upon her the reversion of the dower lands of her grandmother, d.u.c.h.ess Cecily, which she should have inherited anyway as part of the Mortimer and Clare inheritance.107 Henry had not only to maintain his wife, but also her mother-effectively, he was supporting two queens, which placed an unusual strain on his finances, as a new queen was usually a.s.signed the dower of her predecessor; as we have seen, Henry had granted other lands to Elizabeth Wydeville. He also gave grants to his own mother, and was responsible for the maintenance of Elizabeth's dowerless sisters, although he expected her to support them out of the income allocated her. It did not help that revenues from the dukedom of York were tied up in her grandmother's generous dower. To boost Elizabeth's income, the King, ”in consideration of the great expenses and charges that his most dear wife, Elizabeth, Queen of England, must of necessity bear in her chamber,” obtained the consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament that she should ”be able to sue in her own name, without the King, by writs &c., all manner of forms [contracts], rents, and debts due to her; and sue in her own name in all manner of actions, and plead, and be impleaded, in any of the King's courts.”108 Queens, unlike other married women, enjoyed the unique privilege of granting and acquiring lands as femmes sole, and they could also sue, and be sued, independently of the King.109 However, Henry VII, like Edward IV, was not above alienating lands he claimed to hold ”in right of Elizabeth, the Queen consort,” as in 1494 when he gave away some Irish estates of Elizabeth's earldom of March to her chamberlain, Thomas Butler, Earl of Ormond.110 In 1489, Elizabeth was granted the use of some of the property of her aunt, Isabella Neville, d.u.c.h.ess of Clarence, during the minority of Isabella's son, the Earl of Warwick. In 1495 she inherited Mortimer and Clare property worth 1,400 [684,500] from her grandmother, Cecily Neville, which she had been granted in reversion in 1492.

Elizabeth had her own auditors. Each year, they and her receiver-general would tour her estates, inspect her stewards' accounts, compile valuations of her properties, arbitrate in disputes, and advise their mistress on various issues.111 There could be a shortfall between what was due to her in rents and what was actually received.112 There is evidence to show that Elizabeth and her council were obliged to extract as much income as they could from her manors, but that this was resented by her tenants. For example, in 1487 they established a collector of rents at the royal manor of Havering in the hope of ensuring that all monies due to the Queen would be raised, but the local people made life difficult for every occupant of the post until, in 1497, the then inc.u.mbent, Thomas Elrington, was a.s.saulted after ordering the bailiff to seize the goods of the Queen's tenant, local justice of the peace Sir Philip c.o.ke, who might have been knighted for valor in the recent Cornish uprising but had rent outstanding. c.o.ke, whose wife was probably the sister or aunt of Margaret Belknap, one of Elizabeth's gentlewomen, was accused of an act injurious to the honor of the Queen and as a dangerous example to her other tenants. Her council fined him 5, whereupon Elrington demanded twelve years' back rent. c.o.ke reacted violently, and was fined a further 5; he never again held office, but in a sense his was the victory, because Elrington was relieved of his post to avoid further violence, and was never replaced.113 The Queen had the right to make a new appointment every time a post on one of her estates fell vacant: it was another way in which she could show favor to those who had served her well. Sir Gilbert Talbot, who had been a.s.sociated with Elizabeth in ”The Song of Lady Bessy” and was now one of Henry VII's privy councilors, was appointed steward of her lands in f.e.c.kenham, Worcesters.h.i.+re. A letter from Elizabeth survives in which she acknowledges the good and faithful service he had rendered to her.114 In November 1502, Talbot sent her a wild boar as a gift.115 Margaret of Anjou had received a dower of 10,000 marks [at least 1.5 million], which was later increased. Elizabeth Wydeville's dower was at least 4,500 [2.1 million]. Elizabeth of York's dower lands were ultimately worth only 3,360 [1.6 million] in 1506, less than two-thirds of her mother's income.116 Although she had brought him a great inheritance (the lands of the Mortimers and the Clares), Henry kept her short of money, which meant that financially she would always be heavily dependent on him for loans and gifts of cash, several of which are recorded.117 She was obliged to borrow small sums from her sisters and even her servants.118 Though she appeared outwardly wealthy,119 Elizabeth struggled to make ends meet, and her extant privy purse expenses show that often she could settle her debts only in part, leaving much still owed, in several cases over an extended period. One London silk merchant, Henry Bryan, had to submit his account for 107 [52,000] several times, and in the end was obliged to settle for payment in installments.120 By 1495, Elizabeth was deeply in debt, and had been driven to p.a.w.ning her plate to Sir Thomas Lovell for 500 [250,000], and borrowing money from her chamberlain and her ladies. In February 1497 the King ordered 2,000 [972,200] to be delivered to her ”to repay her debts,” but it was only another loan. When he loaned her money, he expected her to pledge her plate as security, and to redeem it on the due date, and took care to see that she did.121 She was not extravagant in her personal expenditure. She ran her household economically, better than her mother had run hers. She paid her ladies lower salaries than previous queens, the highest being 33.6s.8d. [16,200]. As well as her dower, she received money from the Exchequer for her chamber expenses, and this she spent on items such as clothes for herself and for her household, horses, repairs to her barge and litters, repeated ”boat hire,” household items (such as sheets, baskets, bellows, carving knives, bolts, locks, an axe, brushes, wheels, wax, f.a.ggots, and barehides), jewels, a small pair of enameled knives for the Queen's own use, meat for her goshawks and spaniels, offerings in church, barrels of Rhenish wine, bread, ale, b.u.t.ter, eggs, and milk, and payments to her physicians and apothecaries. There were a few luxury items too, including chair coverings of crimson and blue cloth of gold and crimson velvet with linings of blue satin; and, for the Queen's litters, twenty-seven cus.h.i.+ons of blue cloth of gold, backed with various shades of satin, damask, and velvet. Elizabeth herself checked and signed every page of the book in which details of her income and her privy purse expenses were listed, ensuring that her officers were acting within their means. The most costly items she ever bought for herself-apart from clothing-were the clavichords and popinjay for which she paid a poor man 13s.4d. [320].122 The small sums of pocket money she apportioned to herself were given by her accountant, Richard Deacons, into the hands of her ladies (usually Lady Anne Percy, Lady Elizabeth Stafford, or Elizabeth Lee), who would put them in her privy purse. It was rare for Elizabeth to receive more than 10s. [250] or 20s. [500] at a time, and sometimes she got as little as 4s.4d. [110]. She was, however, abundantly generous, which may have been the cause of some of her financial difficulties.123 The King gave her only a very small allowance for the charities to which she was expected to dispense, so she had to make stringent economies in order to give to the poor. Much of her available funds were spent on gifts-numerous, but not lavish-and donations to religious establishments. That left less for alms, and it has been noted that she outlaid only 9.11s.5d. [4,650] on those in her last year. Her gambling debts at Christmas 1502 were about half that amount.124 She also had to support her unmarried sisters, paying them annuities of 50 [24,450] each out of her privy purse. When they married, they received no dowries from the King, so she paid their husbands annuities of 120 [58,350] for their maintenance. In addition, she sent her sisters gifts of cash: in 1502, for example, she gave Anne 6.13s.4d. [3,250] for pocket money.125 Often, Elizabeth would go without to do all this. She might have lived in great state and luxury, but the Queen of England had to juggle her financial resources as carefully as any peasant's wife.

9.

”Offspring of the Race of Kings”

Early in January 1486, before her wedding, it had been confidently expected that the new Queen would immediately be crowned, and it must have been on the King's orders that a royal official, Piers Curteys, drew up a memorandum listing expenditure for items to be delivered ”against the Queen's coronation”: spurs for the henchmen who were to ride in the procession; ”tawing” (treating) of ermines; ”canopy staves and ye timber work of two chairs of estate”; hire of a cart ”to carry in ye Rennes”-a fine linen cloth woven in Brittany, to be dyed scarlet and used as a carpet-”unto Westminster, and six porters' wages for to help to lay the same Rennes from Westminster Hall unto the abbey”; ermines, miniver, and ”powderings for furring of divers of ye Queen's robes” (small spots added to distinguish royal ermine from that worn by the n.o.bility); worsted, ”white bogy [lambskin] for furring of ye henchmen's gowns,” and ”scarlet,” a fine, expensive wool cloth.1 In the event, though, there was no coronation for Elizabeth-not for nearly two years. It is often said that Henry expected her to bear him a son before he outlaid any serious expenditure on her crowning, or that he did not want people to think that the ceremony was an endors.e.m.e.nt of her t.i.tle; but the likeliest explanation for it being deferred is that, by Lent, it was known that Elizabeth was expecting a child.

Loyal subjects had ”prayed to Almighty G.o.d that the King and Queen would be favored with offspring, and that eventually a child might be conceived and a new prince be born, so that they might heap further joys upon present delights.” They had not had long to wait. ”Our Lord Jesus Christ heard their prayers and permitted the joyous Queen to become pregnant with the desired offspring.”2 The speed with which Elizabeth conceived-on her wedding night, perhaps-must have seemed to Henry, and no doubt to many of his people, to be the greatest manifestation of divine approval of his marriage. ”Then a new happiness took over the happiest kingdom, great enjoyment filled the Queen, the Church experienced perfect joy, while huge excitement gripped the court and an incredible pleasure arose over the whole country.”3 The bodies of queens were effectively public property, for their fertility was of prime importance to the nation and a legitimate object of speculation in courts, diplomatic circles, n.o.ble households, taverns, and humble hovels. The swift arrival of an heir would go far toward a.s.suring the stability of the Tudor dynasty, and it would immeasurably increase Elizabeth's standing with her husband the King and the country at large.