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 nobility); 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 endorsement of her title; 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 God 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, noble households, taverns, and humble hovels. The swift arrival of an heir would go far toward assuring the stability of the Tudor dynasty, and it would immeasurably increase Elizabeth’s standing with her husband the King and the country at large.

The news that any highborn lady was to bear a child was cause for great celebration in that dynastically minded age, and it was the subject of much interest on the part of both sexes. It was not expected that the Queen would retire from public view or swath herself in shawls like Queen Victoria, for there was then no sense of squeamishness or embarrassment about what was regarded as a highly desirable condition; and it was customary for relatives and friends to send good wishes for a safe delivery—a “happy hour.” Everyone was well aware of the risks involved in childbirth.

Henry VII might have claimed his crown by right of conquest, but now that he had married Elizabeth, it was indisputably his by right. It should have ensured his security and been “the final end to all dissensions, titles, and debates,”⁴ yet it was already obvious that this marriage, which had been made to heal the breach between the warring royal houses, was insufficient to stifle treason and had not reconciled all the King’s opponents. Some diehard Yorkist activists just would not accept it, and they were making their opposition plain.

In the spring of 1486, Henry VII felt it politic to go on a progress to Lincolnshire and Yorkshire to be seen by his northern subjects and to “weed, root out, and purge men tainted with dissension and privy factions,” especially in Yorkshire, where Richard III had once been popular.⁵ Elizabeth stayed behind at the palace of Placentia at Greenwich with her mother. It has been suggested that Henry did not take her with him because he wanted to make it clear he did not owe his crown to her or “seek popularity on her account,”⁶ yet it is far more likely that she was suffering the nausea and fatigue common in early pregnancy; moreover, the King was visiting areas where pockets of Yorkist resistance were anticipated, so he would not have wanted his expectant Queen to be exposed to any risk.

Henry departed before Easter, which fell on March 26 that year, and he would be away for three months, visiting—among other places—Waltham, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Stamford, Lincoln, Doncaster, Pontefract, York, and Worcester. On the way, he had to suppress insurrections involving Humphrey Stafford, and Francis, Lord Lovell, one of Richard III’s closest adherents, and deal with a plot against himself—but generally he was well received, even in York. While he was away, he sent frequent letters to Elizabeth.

Placentia, where she was staying, was a beautiful palace built around 1427 as “Bella Court” by Henry V’s brother, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who had acquired the large hunting park surrounding it in 1433. The large stone mansion was seized by Margaret of Anjou on his death in 1447, and it was she who renamed it “Placentia,” meaning a “pleasance,” or pleasant place, and set about converting it into a palace. To that end, ranges of brick and timber were built, the floors paved with terra-cotta tiles bearing her monogram, beautiful glass windows decorated with marguerites and hawthorn buds inserted, pillars and arcades adorned with sculpted marguerites added, and a vestry built to serve as a jewel house. Tapestries covered the walls of the royal apartments, and in the gardens there was an arbor for ladies to sit in. Queen Margaret’s house was arranged around two courtyards, and to the west she ordered a pier constructed, so royal barges could land.⁷ In 1465, Placentia was granted to Elizabeth Wydeville as part of her jointure.

The palace lay in a healthy setting, aired by breezes from the Thames, and nestling in two hundred acres of rolling parkland. Elizabeth had known this palace from childhood, and it was already one of Henry VII’s favorite residences. He was soon to rename it Greenwich Palace.

On March 6, Pope Innocent VIII issued a bull confirming the dispensation issued by the Bishop of Imola. On March 27, in another bull, he gave his own dispensation addressed to “thou King, Henry of Lancaster, and thou, Elizabeth of York,” recognizing Henry as King, threatening anyone who rose against him with excommunication, and informing the royal couple that “as their progenitors had vexed the kingdom of England with wars and clamors, to prevent further effusion of blood it was desirable for them to unite in marriage.” He referred to Elizabeth as “the undoubted heir of that famous king of immortal memory, Edward IV.” The bull arrived in England in June, and copies of it, printed in Holborn by William Machlin, were distributed.⁸

Henry VII was at Worcester when the dispensation was brought to him, and he was present in Worcester Cathedral on Trinity Sunday to hear John Alcock, Bishop of Worcester, read it, proclaiming to all that “understanding of the long and grievous variance, contentions, and debates that hath been in this realm of England between the House of the Duchy of Lancaster on the one party, and the House of the Duchy of York on the other party,” and “willing all such divisions to be put apart, by the counsel and consent of his College of Cardinals,” His Holiness had approved, confirmed, and established “the matrimony and conjunction made between our sovereign lord, King Henry VI of the House of Lancaster of that one party, and the noble Princess Elizabeth of the House of York of that other, with all their issue lawfully born between the same.” A copy was presented to the Queen at Sheen, and the text was printed, circulated, and read out in pulpits throughout the realm “for conservation of the universal peace and eschewing of slanders.”⁹

When the King was at Coventry Cathedral on St. George’s Day, John Morton, the new Archbishop of Canterbury, and many other bishops, all in their pontifical vestments, “read and declared the Pope’s bulls, touching the King’s and Queen’s right, and there in the choir, in the bishop’s seat, by the authority of the same bulls, cursed with book, bell, and candle all those that did anything contrary to their right, and approving their titles good.”¹⁰

In a third bull of dispensation, issued on July 23,¹¹ the Pope confirmed that “if it please God that the said Elizabeth (which God forbid) should decease without issue between our sovereign lord and her of their bodies born, then such issue as between [the King] and her whom after that God shall join him to shall be had and born inheritors to the same crown and realm of England.” In other words, Henry’s title, and his children’s right to the succession, did not depend on his marriage to Elizabeth, but was vested in him independently. It was through him, not his wife, that the crown would descend. Again, Elizabeth’s title to the throne had been slighted, while this bull confirmed Henry’s title and threatened anyone challenging it with excommunication.

That summer, after suppressing “tumultuous sedition” in the North,¹² Henry returned south via Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester, and Bristol, rejoining Elizabeth at Sheen.¹³ By now she would have begun loosening the front laces of her bodice as her pregnancy began to show. There was no concept of antenatal care in those days, and a midwife would not have been engaged until near the time of the expected confinement. On June 5 the royal couple traveled by barge to Westminster for London’s official welcome.¹⁴

André says that “while the Queen was close to delivery,” Henry was administering affairs from Windsor. At the end of August the King and Queen moved to Winchester,¹⁵ the ancient capital of England, where Henry wanted his heir to be born, for he believed it to be the site of Camelot, King Arthur’s fabled seat, and that being born there would be portentous for the prince who would bring a new golden age to England.

In Winchester Castle there was a round table, said to be King Arthur’s, but in fact dating from the mid-thirteenth century. It has been said that the Queen wished to give birth in the castle but that it proved inconvenient, so she moved instead to St. Swithun’s Priory, the ancient Benedictine monastery founded in AD 642–43, attached to Winchester Cathedral. However, the city of Winchester was by then depopulated and run-down, and the castle in decline, the last major works having been undertaken in the fourteenth century,¹⁶ so it is likely that the Queen had intended all along to be confined in the priory, where most of the buildings dated from the later Middle Ages.

Prior Thomas Hunton gave Elizabeth the use of the luxurious Prior’s House, now the Deanery. It was originally built in the thirteenth century, from which time the triple-lancet-arched porch survives, but was largely reconstructed in the seventeenth century after becoming derelict. The Prior’s House stood at the southeast corner of the Great Cloister, on the edge of Little Cloister. It had a vaulted ground floor, above which was the Prior’s Chapel. Adjoining the house was his great hall with its magnificent timber roof, erected in 1459–60. Here, Elizabeth established her small court, with her mother, her sisters, and the Lady Margaret in attendance. “The prior’s great hall was the Queen’s chamber.”¹⁷ While Elizabeth rested, the King took advantage of the good hunting to be had nearby in the New Forest, braving the torrential rains that swept the land as autumn approached.¹⁸

Records survive of the expenditure laid out by the King on items for Elizabeth in preparation for her confinement, “both for her own use and also for the removal of the Queen to the city of Winchester, and afterward for the taking of her chamber before the birth, and also toward the birth, as in divers robes and divers other ornaments pertaining to the said lady Queen”: lengths of cloth of scarlet and of various other colors, white woolen cloth and cloth of frieze (a coarser woolen cloth); thirty-three timbers of whole ermines; thirty-nine timbers of ermine backs; 2½ timbers of ermine bellies; one pane (piece) of ermine; forty-nine timbers and fifteen bellies of pure miniver; 13½ timbers of “lettuce” (“letoux”) miniver, which was white or pale gray; powderings of bogy; 66½ yards of cloth of “doubly set” velvet, probably having a two-pile warp; 42¾ yards of “singly set velvet”; 1¼ yards and three separate “nails” (yards) of cloth of gold; 23½ yards of damask; 5¾ yards of satin; 230 yards of sarcenet, to be furred with ermine and miniver; pieces of buckram, worsted, and fustian (a thick woven cloth of wool, Egyptian cotton, or linen); 440 ells of Holland linen cloth for napkins and kerchiefs; 119¾ ells of canaber cloth, a linen cloth for making hose; 4¼ ounces of silk; two pounds and twelve ounces of silk ribbon; one pound of gold-colored silk ribbon; fringe of silk and Venice gold; thread, cord, down, and wool. Among “divers other things necessary for the said Queen” were a chair of state, two beds, fourteen pommels of cypress wood, gilded; gilt nails, rings of lacquered iron, skins of leather, iron hammers, two pounds of feathers, four fustian cushions, seventeen yards of waxed linen, and two saddles covered with velvet.¹⁹ As much importance was accorded to the maintenance of the Queen’s royal estate during her confinement as to practical essentials.

Benjamin Digby, page of the Queen’s bed, was paid 16s.8d. “for preparing certain stuffs for the lady Queen against the nativity of the lord Prince,” while Thomas Swan, his colleague, received 40s. “for the making of divers bearing sheets [infant mantles] of Holland cloth.”²⁰

There was no question of Elizabeth taking charge of her own confinement. Even though childbirth was an exclusively female preserve, even for queens, it was the King who regulated ceremonial affairs in the royal household. On December 31, 1494, evidently inspired by Olivier de la Marche’s L’État de la Maison de Charles de Bourgogne, commissioned by Edward IV in 1473 to facilitate the establishment of fashionable Burgundian protocols at his court, Henry drew up a series of ordinances governing the running of the royal household and laying down the ceremonials to be observed there. These included “ordinances as to what preparation is to be made against the deliverances of the Queen, as also for the christening of the child when she shall be delivered”; ordinances that were to be observed for many decades to come.²¹ There is no evidence that they were drawn up by Margaret Beaufort, as is often stated, although it is likely that she was consulted. Elizabeth herself may also have contributed her views.

Little is known of royal birth conventions prior to the late fifteenth century, but Henry’s ordinances were modeled on procedures laid down in Edward IV’s “Royal Book”²² of court ceremonial, which had drawn on English, French, and Burgundian court ritual: we know that certain formalities had evolved in regard to royal confinements, for in 1456, Isabella of Portugal, Duchess of Burgundy, had consulted a book about the estates of France before preparing chambers for the confinement of her daughter-in-law.²³

Henry VII himself expanded on the dictates of the “Royal Book,” which may have been based on the court ceremonial of the Lancastrian kings. Even if Elizabeth’s earlier confinements were not conducted according to the 1494 ordinances, she would have been subject to similar provisions laid down in the “Royal Book” for her mother, with which she was no doubt familiar. These determined the color and quality of the furnishings for her chamber and bed, which was to be made up with pillows of down and a scarlet counterpane bordered with ermine, velvet, or cloth of gold.²⁴

Henry VII’s ordinances of 1494 reflected and formalized existing practice—it is stated in places that they were laid down “after the old custom”—and doubtless they embellished it. They provided for “the furniture of Her Highness’s chamber, and the furniture appertaining to her bed, how the church shall be arrayed against the christening, [and] how the child shall go to be christened.”²⁵

The King decreed: “As to the deliverance of a queen, it must be known what chamber she will be delivered in, by the Grace of God; and that chamber must be hanged with rich Arras [tapestry], the roof, side, and windows, all except one window, and that must be hanged so she may have light when it pleaseth her.” The room was also to have “a royal bed therein, the floor laid with carpets over and over with a fair pallet bed, with all the stuff belonging thereto, with a rich sperner [bed canopy] hanging over; and there must be a cupboard set fair, covered with the same suit that the chamber is hanged withal.” Over the doorway was to be hung a “traverse [curtain] of damask.”²⁶

The “stuff for the Queen’s bed” consisted of “two pairs of sheets of Rennes, either of them of four breadths and five yards long; two long pillows and two square, of fustian stuffed with fine down; a pane of scarlet furred with ermines and bordered with velvet or cloth of gold; a head-sheet of like cloth furred in like wise; a counter[pane] of fine lawn of five breadths and six yards long; and hinder [bottom] sheet of the same lawn, four breadths and five yards long.”²⁷ The bed linen would have been sweetly perfumed with flowers and herbs. The bed was made according to the King’s regulations, which stipulated that the Queen’s ladies and gentlewomen must perform the task to a set routine that involved drawing the bed curtains back, stripping the mattress and shaking it, then laying each cover separately and straightly, and smoothing it down with care, leaving no wrinkles. They would also have tightened the ropes across the bedstead (the origin of the saying “sleep tight”), then laid upon that a canvas cover before plumping the mattress in place. The curtains would have been drawn to conserve warmth, and the bed sprinkled with holy water.

The pallet bed was to be made up with “a feather bed with a bolster of fine down; a mattress stuffed with wool; two long and four short pillows; a pane of fustian of six breadths and five yards long; two pair of sheets of Rennes of four breadths and five yards long; two head-sheets of Rennes of two breadths and four yards long; a pane of scarlet furred with ermines, bordered with blue velvet upon blue velvet or cloth of gold; a head-sheet of like color, furred with ermines; a coverture of fine lawn of five breadths and six yards long, a head-sheet of the same lawn of four breadths and five yards long; a sperne[r] of crimson satin, embroidered with crowns of gold, the [King’s and] Queen’s arms and other devices, and lined with double tartaron [or tartaire, silk stuff, originally from Tartary] garnished with fringe of silk and gold and blue and russet, with a round bowl of silver and gilt.” Also to be provided were “four cushions covered with crimson damask or cloth of gold” and “a round mantle of crimson velvet, plain, furred with ermines, for the Queen to wear about her in her pallet, and all other things necessary for the same.”²⁸ Thus royally robed, she would give birth on the pallet bed, and then be lifted into the great bed for her lying-in period.

An altar with relics was to be placed near the pallet bed, so Elizabeth could hear Mass after being confessed and shriven before facing the dangers of childbirth, and pray for the protection of God and His Holy Mother during her coming labor. A court cupboard laden with gold plate for the service of her meals was also placed in the bedchamber.²⁹

The Queen, by custom, withdrew from the world for the duration of her confinement: this was known as “taking to her chamber.” Precise instructions were given by the King for the ceremonial to be followed, although he would not be present. “And if it please the Queen to take to her chamber, she shall be brought thither with lords and ladies of estate, and brought into the chapel or church there to be house-led [given Holy Communion].” When Elizabeth took to her chamber in good time for the birth, her mother and Margaret Beaufort headed her attendants, and her elder sisters were probably among their number. Throughout her life, Elizabeth would surround herself with family members, especially her female relations, to whom she was evidently close.³⁰

After Mass, attended by these ladies, her household, and a throng of courtiers, she proceeded “into the great chamber,” seated herself on her chair of estate, and took “spice and wine under the cloth of estate.”³¹ Her chamberlain, the Earl of Ormond, “in a very good voice desired in the Queen’s name all her people to pray God would send her a good hour,” and Elizabeth formally bade farewell to the courtiers. “Two of the greatest estates [led] her into her chamber where she shall be delivered, and then they [took] their leave of the Queen. Then all the ladies and gentlewomen [went] in with her” and she disappeared from public view.³²

Childbirth being an exclusively female ritual, “no man [was] to come into the chamber where she shall be delivered.” All her male officers were temporarily stood down, for “thenceforth, no manner of officer should come within the Queen’s chamber but only ladies and gentlewomen, according to the old custom that women be made all manner of officers, as butlers, panters (keepers of the pantry), sewers, carvers, cup bearers; and all manner of officers shall bring to them all manner of things to the great chamber door.” The only men who might be admitted during the weeks to come were the King and the Queen’s chaplains.

It was at this point that the “gossips” took up residence at court. They were the godparents, or sponsors, of “such estates both spiritual and temporal as it shall like the King to assign to be gossips,” and they were summoned “to be near the place where the Queen shall be delivered,” so that “they may be ready to attend on the young prince or princess to the christening.”³³

Childbirth was a hazardous event for women in Tudor times. There was a very real chance of either mother or baby dying, and because of the risks, life expectancy for women was around thirty years. It has been estimated that one in forty women perished in childbed, and that the average first marriage lasted five years because of that high mortality rate. There must have been countless other women who were injured or traumatized by childbirth, or left with chronic conditions as a result of it. Male physicians were not normally involved in childbirth, as their presence was thought to upset laboring women; a midwife was in charge of the confinement, but midwives were usually of lowly status, poorly paid, and qualified only by reason of their experience.³⁴ The midwives who served queens in this period seem to have practiced their calling professionally, and were probably more expert at it than most. It was common for female relations, friends, and “gossips” to be present at a birth, to encourage the laboring mother, so it was natural for Elizabeth’s own mother, the Queen Dowager, to join her when she took to her chamber, because mothers often assisted at their daughters’ confinements, many traveling long distances to do so.

Knowledge of the reproductive process was limited, but the practices employed by midwives could be surprisingly modern. Herbal baths were given to relax the expectant mother during the later months.³⁵ Documentary evidence suggests that women were encouraged to give birth in a sitting or squatting position. They were encouraged to do breathing exercises for labor, much as they are today, but there was no pain relief beyond opiates such as poppy seeds or infusions made of tansy, parsley, mint, cress, willow leaves and seeds, ivy, birthwort, or the bark of the white poplar. Instead, women relied on the protection of female saints such as St. Margaret of Antioch, to whom they would offer prayers of supplication. Westminster Abbey owned a precious relic, the girdle of the Virgin Mary, which was sometimes lent to queens and high-ranking women, so that they could tie it around themselves in labor, for it was believed to be of special efficacy at such times; and there were girdles of other saints with similar miraculous properties.³⁶Sometimes a prayer on a long scroll of parchment would be wrapped around the mother as a “birth girdle.”³⁷ Despite all these practices, many women would have suffered the unmitigated pain of natural labor.

The baby was supposed to arrive within twenty contractions. If it took longer, certain remedies might be essayed to open up the womb, such as opening doors and cupboards, untying knots, or unlocking chests.³⁸ It is hardly surprising that childbirth was an ordeal in those days—and it was an ordeal that many women faced on a yearly basis; Elizabeth was to suffer it seven times.

“Afore one o’clock after midnight” on the morning of St. Eustace’s Day, September 20, 1486, as Margaret Beaufort’s scribe noted in her Book of Hours,³⁹ “the Queen was delivered of a fair prince,”⁴⁰ to the great joy of the King and his subjects high and low. A manuscript drawing in the “Beauchamp Pageant” of ca. 1483–87 shows the birth of Henry VI to Katherine of Valois, wife of Henry V, in 1421, but the costumes and interior are those of the 1480s and reflect the kind of arrangements in place at the time of Elizabeth’s first confinement. The picture depicts the Queen, crowned (although she would not have been in reality), lying in a great bed, tended by four ladies, one of whom holds the swaddled infant, who is also crowned; another smooths the sheets; at the doorway a third lady passes on the good news of the birth to a messenger waiting outside.⁴¹

Bacon states that Elizabeth’s son “was strong and able, though he was born in the eighth month, which the physicians do prejudge,” while Fuller describes him as “vital and vigorous, contrary to the rules of physicians.” To have been born at full term, he would have had to be conceived between December 29 and January 6, but his parents had not married until January 18. It is possible that Henry and Elizabeth had preempted their nuptial vows; as we have seen, once a precontract was made, it was acceptable for couples to consummate their union, after which society regarded them as legally wed. Elizabeth had been honored as Queen from December 1485, so maybe she and Henry began sleeping together at that time. Many couples of lesser rank did not bother with a formal marriage ceremony, but for royalty, of course, it was crucial for the avoidance of doubt over the succession. Even if the King and Queen had waited until after their wedding, their child might have been only about two to three weeks premature.

However, other evidence tends to corroborate the statement that he was born at eight months, and suggests that Bacon and Fuller were making flattering assumptions; the accounts of the bishops of Winchester for 1486–87⁴² show that the prince’s nursery household was established for at least the first six months of his life at Farnham, Surrey, halfway between Winchester and London, because he was weak and needed careful nursing until he was strong enough to be moved to London and the palaces of the Thames Valley. William Wayneflete, the Bishop of Winchester, had died the previous month, but the man who was already designated his successor, the aristocratic Peter Courtenay, Bishop of Exeter, was in Winchester for the prince’s christening, and it was probably at his suggestion that the concerned parents decided to send their little son to Farnham. Courtenay, a loyal Yorkist, had been in the service of Edward IV, so may have been familiar to Elizabeth in her younger days. He had joined Buckingham’s rebellion against Richard III, then fled to Brittany to join Henry Tudor, who later rewarded him handsomely, making him keeper of the Privy Seal. The King and Queen would have been grateful to entrust the well-being of their heir to such a loyal supporter.

In her hour of triumph, Elizabeth was in a weak state. She may have caught an infection during parturition, as she is recorded as suffering an ague⁴³—an acute fever—during her lying-in period. The importance of hygiene during childbirth was not fully understood until the nineteenth century, even in royal households, and unwashed hands and instruments not infrequently gave rise to fatal infections such as puerperal fever.⁴⁴ It was not until the sixteenth century that midwives were urged to wash their hands and remove rings before delivering a baby.

Although Henry and Elizabeth must have felt concern over the health of their child, it surely seemed to them that, in vouchsafing the blessing of a male heir, God had smiled upon the marriage that united Lancaster and York. Henry named his son Arthur, “in honor of the British race”⁴⁵ and after the hero-king of legend, in order to underline his much vaunted (but mythical) descent from King Arthur and his dynasty’s links with the ancient rulers of Britain; and because his infant heir had been born at Winchester, “where King Arthur kept his court.”⁴⁶ Above all, he chose the name because it epitomized a universally revered heroic and powerful ideal. “Englishmen no more rejoiced over that name than other nations and foreign princes quaked, so much was the name terrible and formidable to all nations.”⁴⁷ It resonated with their burgeoning nationalism, with its promise that the Tudors were ushering in a new Arthurian age of greatness.

The tiny Prince Arthur, already styled Duke of Cornwall, was bathed, swaddled, and laid in one of the two cradles that had been made for him, the one “fair set forth by painter’s craft” in fine gold—“the little cradle of tree” with buckles that could be attached to his swaddling bands. This was in everyday use. The other cradle, which stood in his outer chamber under a cloth-of-gold canopy, was only “used on state occasion. Furnished with great magnificence,” it was five feet six inches long and two feet six inches wide, and was “graven with the King and Queen’s arms” and made up with luxurious bedding of crimson cloth of gold, scarlet, ermine, and blue velvet.⁴⁸

Yeomen of the Queen’s chamber were immediately dispatched with the “comfortable and good tidings” of the birth to “all the estates and cities of the realm,” and the King gave orders for church bells to be rung throughout the land. The Te Deum was sung in churches in thanksgiving, and in the streets people lit bonfires “in praise and rejoicing” and “every true Englishman” celebrated the joyful news.⁴⁹

On a cold, wet Sunday, September 24, four-day-old Arthur was borne to his christening in Winchester Cathedral. Because so many infants died young, it was customary to have them baptized soon after birth. By tradition, the King and Queen did not attend: Elizabeth, of course, was still lying in, and the King kept no “day of estate,” as a christening was seen as “a deed of alms.”⁵⁰ It was the godparents—or sponsors—who had important parts to play, while the ceremonial was ordered by the King. It is a measure of Henry’s gratitude to Elizabeth—and no doubt of his desire for a display of amity and unity—that her mother and other members of the Wydeville family were assigned prominent roles, while the high-profile presence of Elizabeth’s Yorkist relations was a public acknowledgment of Arthur as the heir to both York and Lancaster, and proclaimed their endorsement of the legitimacy of the Tudor dynasty. It also showed that in return for their loyalty, Henry was ready to treat them with the honor their blood deserved.

The christening was held up because John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, one of the godfathers, had been delayed on his way from Lavenham, Suffolk, because of the stormy weather, which had turned the roads into quagmires. After waiting for him in vain for three hours, the King gave the order for the procession to form in Elizabeth’s great chamber. “My Lady Cecily, the Queen’s eldest sister, bare the Prince, [who was] wrapped in a mantle of crimson cloth of gold furred with ermine and with a train” that Sir John Cheyney helped to support. Cecily was attended by her eleven-year-old sister Anne and supported by the Marquess of Dorset and the Earl of Lincoln. It was thought proper that the prince’s train should be borne by an earl, so Lincoln may have been assigned the honor. Two hundred unlit torches, carried by esquires and yeomen, were borne before the prince as, attended by “a great company of lords and ladies and divers gentlewomen,” Cecily “proceeded through the cloisters into the church, where Queen Elizabeth [Wydeville] was abiding the coming of the prince.”⁵¹

Margaret Beaufort was strangely absent on this important occasion. Possibly she did not wish to be seen taking second place to the prince’s other grandmother, Elizabeth Wydeville, who outranked her, yet they had worked together for Henry Tudor’s triumph and his marriage to Elizabeth of York, so possibly the Lady Margaret was merely unwell. The Queen Dowager stood godmother to the prince, and Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby, who gave a salt cellar, was one of the godfathers. Thomas FitzAlan, Lord Maltravers, stood in to present a coffer of gold on behalf of the Earl of Oxford, who arrived in time to sponsor Arthur at his confirmation. Lionel Wydeville, Bishop of Salisbury, also took part in the ceremony, and Margaret of Clarence was foremost among the ladies in attendance.

Henry VII’s ordinances of 1494 specified the manner of the christening of a prince, and it is likely they reflected the arrangements made for Arthur’s baptism. The cathedral door was hung with cloth of gold, and the nave had been magnificently “hanged with cloths of Arras and red sarcenet” and laid with carpets right to the altar, a sure sign of magnificence, for carpets were costly items that were more commonly placed on tables to preserve them; only the very wealthy put them on floors. In the Lady Chapel “a solemn font of silver-gilt” costing £5.11s. [£2,700] was placed next to the ancient Norman font on “a stage of steps with a rich canopy” of cloth of gold, the stage also laid with carpets. The font was lined with cloth of Rennes, surmounted by “a great gilt bowl” and “set on a great height, that the people may watch the christening.” Beside it was “a step like a block for the bishop to stand on.”

To one side was a curtained area, behind which was “a fire of coals,” a chafer of water, and silver basins. It was here, where he could be kept warm and clean, that the prince was undressed completely. Then he was carried up the steps and given into the arms of John Alcock, Bishop of Worcester, who immersed him in the font and christened him. Anne of York came forward with a rich chrisom cloth, which she had worn pinned to her breast and draped over her arm on “a kerchief of fine ermines,” and as it was placed on the baby’s anointed head the esquires and yeomen lit their torches.

With his little fingers held closed around a lighted taper, Arthur was “borne in fair order to the High Altar” by his grandmother, as the choir sang Veni Creator Spiritus and Te Deum. The Queen Dowager laid him on the altar, “after which the Earl of Oxford took the prince in his right arm, and Peter Courtenay, Bishop of Exeter, confirmed him.” Afterward he was taken back behind the curtain to be dressed, and wine and spices were served to the “gossips,” who presented many costly gifts to the child. Elizabeth Wydeville’s was “a rich cup of gold, covered, which was borne by Sir Davy Owen,” the King’s bastard uncle.

With the gifts carried aloft in procession by the peers, “the prince returned and was borne home by my Lady Cecily, the minstrels playing on their instruments; and then was he borne to the King and the Queen.” Henry sat by Elizabeth’s gorgeously hung bed of estate as they waited to receive their son; she was wearing a rich gown and mantle for the occasion. Given that she was still feverish, she must have made an effort to put on such a brave show. Cecily placed young Arthur in her arms, for, following ancient custom, his mother was the person who first called him by his Christian name; then he received “the blessings of Almighty God, our Lady and St. George, and of his father and mother.” The christening gifts were presented at the door to the Queen’s chamber, after which the infant prince was returned to his nursery.⁵²

The King wanted everyone to share in his joy at having an heir, and to understand the importance of this day. “In the churchyard were set two pipes of wine, that every man might drink enough” to toast the prince, and three days of celebrations followed the christening, as England rejoiced.⁵³ The birth of a royal heir who embodied the union of Lancaster and York and would aptly be hailed as “the rosebush of England, rose in one,” had greatly strengthened the King’s position and assured the succession; it was hailed as the beginning of a new golden age, and commemorated in ballads such as this one, “The Peace of the Roses,” by Thomas Phelypps:

I love the rose both red and white;

Is that your pure, perfect appetite?

To hear talk of them is my delight.

Joyed may we be

Our Prince to see

And roses three!⁵⁴

Pietro Carmeliano composed a long laudatory poem in honor of the prince’s birth, hailing him as a new Arthur, the manuscript decorated with red and white roses,⁵⁵ and the poet laureate, John Skelton, joined the chorus of celebration:

The rose both red and white

In one rose now doth grow.

Bernard André composed “a poem of one hundred verses,” which, thankfully, he omitted from his history because of its length. Yet he could not resist including its opening lines, which begin: “Come celebrate the child’s birth, O Muses, and the noble offspring born of illustrious royalty. To celebrate the festal day, wreath your hair with a comely flower, O English, and crown your brows with garlands. Let the pipe blow, let boys and young girls dance and stir the air with applause, and let happy London celebrate festive games. Behold, the royal child Arthur arises, the second hope of our kingdom.”

It was said that the birth of the new Arthur had been foretold by Merlin,⁵⁶ while the Welsh bard, Dafydd Lloyd, celebrated the arrival of this “descendant” of the ancient Welsh princes in a verse in which he recommended him to the keeping of Dark-Age Welsh saints:

Let St. Mary and St. Mwrog secure

Our Prince and his cradle;

Let the hand of Beuno and Ilar

Preserve him from all ill,

And the hand of Derfel, the great guide,

And the hand of Christ.⁵⁷

Newly delivered mothers were expected to lie in after the birth; unlike now, there was no getting up and walking around soon afterward, and of course no understanding of the risks of blood clots and pulmonary embolisms, which may well have accounted for a number of fatalities in childbed. It was believed that the body needed time to cleanse itself during the period following labor. The lying-in period could be anything from fifteen to sixty days, and it ended with the mother’s churching. The new mother might spend up to two weeks on her back before her “upsitting.” As soon as she could sit up and was well enough to receive visitors, the Queen presided over a ceremony called the “relevailles,” at which she showed off her child to the courtiers while sitting up in bed, royally wrapped in her mantle of estate.⁵⁸ Afterward she would remain in her bedchamber, but not necessarily in bed; and for the last few days of her confinement she was allowed to leave her chamber but not go outdoors.⁵⁹ Given that childbirth was such an ordeal, and could have painful physical repercussions such as a perineal tear or an obstetric trauma, many women must have needed this time to recuperate.

“After that the Queen was purified and whole of an ague that she had,”⁶⁰ she was churched. At the feast of Michaelmas (September 29), at the King’s command, Richard Gullefer, merchant of London, supplied “my lady the Queen” with “ten yards of crimson velvet at 35s. [£850] the yard [and] six yards of damask russet at 9s. [£220] the yard,” at a cost of £20.4s. [£10,000].⁶¹ This was for her churching, the solemn purification and thanksgiving service that followed her lying-in period, cleansed her of sexual sin and afforded her the opportunity to offer thanks for her child and her survival. “And when the Queen shall be purified, she must be richly be seen in tires⁶² and rich laces about her neck, and linen cloth [must be laid] upon the bed of estate; and there shall be a duchess or a countess to take her down off ye bed and lead her to her chamber door,” where two more duchesses waited to receive her. Then “a duke shall lead her to the church,” carrying a lighted taper, as the choir sang the Nunc Dimittis and Lumen ad Relevacionem, antiphons that were associated with the purification of the Virgin Mary.⁶³

The ceremony of churching took place at the chapel door, where the bishop intoned, “Enter the temple of God, adore the Son of the Holy Virgin Mary, who has given you the blessing of motherhood,”⁶⁴ and sprinkled the Queen with holy water before leading her by the hand into the church, where the Mass of the Trinity was celebrated. The escorting duke, still carrying the lighted taper, would precede the Queen up to the high altar, where she made her offering of it, along with gold and the chrisom cloth used at her infant’s baptism; then all her ladies and gentlemen offered too, according to their degrees. Once the ceremony was over, Elizabeth sat enthroned in her great chamber, under her canopy of estate, and had her largesse, or charity, cried. The King, by custom, was not present.⁶⁵

Now Elizabeth was officially ready to resume normal everyday life—and sexual relations with her husband. Queens did not breastfeed their infants, so their periods resumed soon after giving birth, enabling them to conceive again. Whatever her joy in her baby, Elizabeth had already given him into the care of others who would suckle him and see to all his daily needs, leaving her free to fulfill her prime dynastic duty of bearing royal offspring, and to attend to her ceremonial functions and other duties. In the late fifteenth century a good mother was one who loved her children and looked to their advancement; the term did not imply daily practical care or interaction with them. Royal mothers accepted it as inevitable, indeed normal, that their young would be reared and looked after by other people. Their chief concerns were to oversee and supervise their children’s upbringing and education, and, later on, to ensure that they made good marriages.

The infant prince already had his personal staff, and soon he would have his own establishment headed by a chamberlain. The King laid down the rules for the management of the royal nursery, which was to have a lady governor, a nursery nurse (the term wet nurse had not yet come into use), and rockers, or chamberers; but it was the Queen who appointed the staff. Before June 1487—and probably from the time of the prince’s birth—Elizabeth, Lady Darcy, who had been in charge of Edward V’s nursery and obviously managed it well, was appointed to run Prince Arthur’s as “lady governor” or “lady mistress,” at a salary of £26 [£12,700] per annum. Under her was Katherine Gibbs, the prince’s nurse, Elizabeth Wood, a gentlewoman, and a staff of yeomen, grooms, sewers, and panters. There were also three rockers—Amy Butler, Emmeline Hobbes, and Alison Bwimble—whose duty it was to rock Arthur to sleep in his cradle and keep watch over him. Velvet liveries were supplied by the King to the female attendants in 1488.⁶⁶ All had sworn solemn oaths of service before the Lord Chamberlain.

Every precaution was taken, for in an age before antibiotics, infants were vulnerable to infection, and clearly Henry VII feared that other dangers might threaten “the jewel of his household.” He gave orders that, before his son was weaned—which would not have been until he was two⁶⁷—“it must be seen that the nurse’s meat and drink be essayed [for poison] during the time that she giveth suck to the child”; he also commanded that “a physician do stand over her at every meal, which see what meat or drink she giveth the child.”⁶⁸

The prince’s nursery was furnished with rich stuffs, crimson damask cushions and “eight large carpets” on the floor, but his father also provided for practical items such as a great chafer (warming dish), a basin of latten (brass), and two large pewter basins for washing laundry.⁶⁹

Elizabeth’s ague persisted into the autumn. Her prolonged ill health after the birth of Prince Arthur may have been the reason why she did not conceive another child for nearly two and a half years. When she finally recovered, she gave a substantial offering to Winchester Cathedral in thanksgiving for her return to health and the safe delivery of her son. Prior Hunton and his successor, Prior Thomas Silkestede, used this gift for enlarging and revaulting the fourteenth-century Lady Chapel where Arthur had been christened, installing larger windows with beautiful stained glass, and commissioning a series of wall paintings depicting scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary. The work was completed around 1500, and Elizabeth’s arms, surmounted by the legend “In Gloriam Dei,” may be seen there today, alongside those of her son, on decorative shields mounted on the wall. She herself is depicted in a Victorian stained-glass window in the same chapel.⁷⁰

The court left Winchester in the third week of October, arriving on the October 26 at Farnham, where Prince Arthur’s household was now established, with 1,000 marks [£140,300] allocated for its upkeep.⁷¹ “The town of Farnham, where the King’s firstborn son, Arthur, is now being nursed,”⁷² had been in the hands of the bishops of Winchester since the ninth century; the castle dated from 1138 and overlooked the town from its high hill. The prince’s household was probably established in the adjacent bishop’s palace, an equally ancient building with many later improvements. Peter Courtenay, the bishop-elect, was probably in residence in the palace at this time. The constable of Farnham was Thomas FitzAlan, Lord Maltravers (soon to be Earl of Arundel), who was married to Elizabeth’s aunt, Margaret Wydeville.

It was no doubt felt that the cleaner air of Farnham would do the premature infant some good, and it was certainly not thought necessary that his mother should be with him. Elizabeth had discharged her chief responsibility, that of appointing trustworthy attendants to care for him, and now she had duties to perform. She was back with Henry at Greenwich by November 1, when the King held a great court to celebrate the feast of All Hallows, clad magnificently in cloth of gold, “a very good sight, and right joyous and comfortable to behold.” On November 18, no doubt grateful for the heir who had arrived so promptly, the King sent £100 [£48,900] to the Queen “by the hands of the Lord Treasurer.”⁷³

This disruption to the bonding process may have affected the relationship between mother and son. A substantial body of modern research has shown that mothers show limited maternal responsiveness toward premature babies when there has been a prolonged period of separation after birth.⁷⁴ We cannot say that was the case with Elizabeth and Arthur—not enough is known, although there is evidence that she would have much more to do with her subsequent children—but it is a possibility. There is no evidence to suggest that Arthur experienced the learning difficulties that can affect premature children, but new research, based on a study of a million births,⁷⁵ shows that prematurity can have consequences right into adulthood, and that such children have an increased risk of dying in late childhood compared with babies delivered at full term; in late childhood, boys in particular have a sevenfold increased risk of dying. That may not impact greatly on today’s low mortality rates, but it would have had serious implications five hundred years ago. And while there is little evidence to support the theory that Arthur was always delicate, it is likely that he had a lifetime risk of poor health because he was premature, and there might have been concerns about his frailty before he reached his fourteenth birthday.

Arthur’s nursery was to remain at Farnham for at least six months, and perhaps the first two years of his life, after which it was apparently relocated to, or near, Ashford, in Kent.⁷⁶