Famous Imposters 33

Famous Imposters 33

At the time of her first letter to the new Queen, Catherine (Parr), she

was just a trifle under ten years of age and a well-grown child, quick,

clever, rather precocious, and well grounded in the learning of her

time. The exact date of this letter is not given by Leti--of which more

anon--but it must have been somewhere between July 12 and 31, 1543.

Henry VIII married Catherine Parr on 12 July, and in her letter of 1543

Elizabeth calls Catherine “your Majesty.” In her letter of 31 July,

1544 she writes to the same correspondent:

 

“... has deprived me for a whole year of your most illustrious

presence.”

 

The whereabouts of Elizabeth during this last year appears to be the

centre of the mystery; and if any letter or proof is ever found of

Elizabeth’s being anywhere but in her own house of Overcourt in Bisley

Parish, it will go far to settle the vexed question now brought before

the world for the first time.

 

 

(_b_) _The opportunity_

 

The year 1542 was a busy time for Henry VIII. He had on hand, either

pending or going on, two momentous wars, one with Scotland the other

with France. The causes of either of these were too complicated for

mention here; suffice it to say that they were chiefly dynastic and

polemic. In addition he was busy with matrimonial matters, chiefly

killing off his fifth wife Catherine Howard, and casting eyes on the

newmade widow of Lord Latimer. In 1543 he married the lady, as his

sixth wife. She herself can hardly be said to have lacked matrimonial

experience, as this was her third union. Her first venture was with

the elderly Lord Borough, who, like Lord Latimer, left her wealthy.

Henry had by now got what might be called in the slang of the time “the

marriage habit,” and honeymoon dalliance had hardly the same charm

for him as it usually is supposed to have with those blessed with a

lesser succession of spouses. The consequence was that he was able to

give more attention to the necessary clearing up of the Scottish war,

which finished at Solway Moss on December 14th, with the consequent

death from chagrin of the Scottish King James V. The cause of the war,

however, continued in the shape of a war with France which went on till

1546 when peace was declared to the pecuniary benefit of the English

King. For the last two years of this time Henry carried on the war

singlehanded, as the Emperor Charles V, who had begun it as his ally,

withdrew.

 

There is a paragraph in Grafton’s _Chronicle_ published in 1569 which

throws a flood of light on Elizabeth’s absence at this time, 1543:

“This yeare was in London a great death of the pestilence, and

therefore Mighelmas terme was adjourned to Saint Albones, and there it

was kept to the ende.”

 

In his _Girlhood of Queen Elizabeth_, Mr. Mumby says: “For some obscure

reason Elizabeth seems to have fallen out of her father’s favour again

very soon after Catherine Parr had obtained his consent to her return

to Court” (1543). No such cause for the removal of the Princess from

London was necessary. It was probably to the presence of the pestilence

in London that her removal to a remote and healthy place was due.

Failing Prince Edward, then only five years of age and a weakly child,

the crown must--unless some constitutional revolution be effected in

the meantime or some future son be born to him--devolve on his female

heirs, a matter pregnant with strife of unknown dimensions. Mary was

now twenty-seven years old and of a type that did not promise much for

maternity. At the same time, Mary, though his eldest living daughter,

was the hope of the Catholic party, to which he was in violent

opposition; whereas in Elizabeth lay the hope of the whole of the party

of the Reformation. Her life was to her father far beyond the calls of

parental affection or dynastic ambition, and she had to be saved at all

costs from risk of health. Henry’s own experience of child-life was a

bitter one. Of his five children by Catherine of Aragon only one, Mary,

survived childhood. Elizabeth was the only survivor of Anne Boleyn;

Edward, of Jane Seymour. Anne of Cleves had no children, and if report

spoke truly no chance of having any. Catherine Howard was executed

childless. And he had only just married Catherine Parr, who had already

had two husbands.

 

On July 12, 1543, Henry married Catherine and in due course devoted

himself to the war. On the 14 July, 1544, he crossed from Dover to

Calais to look after the conduct of affairs for himself, and on the

26th began the siege of Boulogne. This lasted for two months when

having reduced the city he returned home. On the 8 September he wrote

to his wife to that effect. During his absence Queen Catherine was

vicegerent and had manifestly as much public work on hand as she

could cope with. Bisley was a long way from London, and there were no

organised posts in the sixteenth century. Moreover, ever since his

last marriage, Henry had been an invalid. He was now fifty-two years

of age, of unhealthy body, and so heavy that he had to be lifted

by machinery. Catherine was a devoted wife; and as Henry was both

violent and irritable she had little time at command to give to the

affairs of other people. There was small opportunity for any one then

who was sufficiently in the focus of affairs to be cognisant of such

an imposture as the tradition points out. Doubtless hereafter, when

a story so fascinating and at first glance so incredible begins to

be examined and its details thoroughly threshed out, more items of

evidence or surmise than are at present available will be found for

the settlement of the question, one way or the other. In the meantime,

be it remembered, that we are only examining offhand a tradition made

known for the first time after three centuries. Our present business is

to consider _possibilities_. Later on the time may come--as it surely

will; if the story can in the least be accepted--for the consideration

of _probabilities_. Both of these tentative examinations will lead to

the final examination of possibility, of probability, and of proof

_pro_ or _contra_.

 

At this stage we must admit that neither time nor opportunity present

any difficulty in itself insuperable.

 

 

G. THE IDENTITY OF ELIZABETH

 

(_a_) _Documents_

 

The next matter with which we have to deal is regarding the identity of

Elizabeth. This needs (if necessary) a consideration of the facts of

her life, and so far as we can realise them, from external appearance,

mental and moral attitudes, and intentions. On account of space we

must confine this branch of the subject to the smallest portion of

time necessary to form any sort of just conclusion and accepting the

available records up to 1543, take the next period from that time

to anywhere within the first few years of her reign--by which time

her character was finally fixed and the policy on which her place in

history is to be judged had been formulated and tested.

 

This implies in the first instance a brief (very brief) study of her

physique with a corollary in the shape of a few remarks on her heredity:

 

_Grafton’s Chronicle_ states, under the date of 7 September 1533,

“the Queene was delivered of a fayre Lady” which was his Courtly way

of announcing the birth of a female princess, blond in colour. In all

chronicles “fayre” means of light colour. In Wintown the reputed father

of Macbeth--the Devil--is spoken of as a “fayre” man; evil qualities

were in that age attributed to blondes.

 

In a letter dated from Greenwich Palace, 18 April, 1534, Sir

William Kingston said to Lord Lisle: “To-day, the King and Queen

were at Eltham” (where the royal nursery then was) “and saw my Lady

Princess--as goodly a child as hath been seen. Her Grace is much in the

King’s favour as a goodly child should be--God save her!”

 

In 1536, when Elizabeth was but three years old, Lady Bryan, the

“Lady-mistress” of both Mary and her half-sister, wrote from Hunsdon

to Lord Cromwell regarding the baby princess. “For she is as toward

a child and as gentle of conditions, as ever I knew any in my life.

Jesus preserve her Grace!” In the same letter she says “Mr. Shelton

would have my Lady Elizabeth to dine and sup every day at the board

of estate. Alas! my Lord it is not meet for a child of her age to keep

such rule yet. I promise you, my lord, I dare not take it upon me to

keep her Grace in health an’ she keep that rule. For there she shall

see divers meats, and fruits, and wines, which it would be hard for

me to restrain her Grace from. Ye know, my lord, there is no place of

correction there; and she is yet too young to correct greatly.”

 

Testimony is borne according to Leti to the good qualities of the

Princess Elizabeth in these early years, by the affectionate regard in

which she was held by two of Henry’s queens, the wronged and unhappy

Anne of Cleves and the happy-natured Catherine Parr. Anne, he says,

though she had only seen her twice loved her much; she thought her

beautiful and full of spirit (“pleine d’esprit.”) Catherine, according

to the same writer who had seen her often before her marriage to Henry,

admired her “esprit et ses manières.”

 

If Leti could only have spoken at first hand, his record of her would

be very valuable. But unhappily he was only born nearly thirty years

after her death. His history was manifestly written from records and as

Elizabeth’s fame was already made before he began to treat of her his

work is largely a panegyric of hearsay. There is, regarding the youth

of the Princess, such an overdone flood of adulation that it is out of

place in a serious history of a human life. In his account of the time

which we are considering, we find the child compared in both matters

of body and mind to an angel. She is credited at the age of ten with an

amount of knowledge in all branches of learning sufficient to equip the

illustrious men of a century. The fact is the Italian has accepted the

queen’s great position, and then reconstructed her youth to accord with

it, in such a way as to show that whatever remarkable abilities she

possessed were the direct outcome of her own natural qualities.[2]

 

[2] Amongst other branches of knowledge he credits her with

knowing well “Geography, Cosmography, Mathematics,

Architecture, Painting, Arithmetic, History, Mechanics.” She

had a special facility in learning languages; spoke and wrote

French, Italian, Spanish, Flemish. She loved poetry and wrote

it, but regarded it as a useless amusement and, as it was

distasteful to her, turned to history and politics. Finally

he adds: “She was naturally ambitious and always knew how to

hide her defects.”

 

The details above given are not merely meagre but are only explicable

by the fact that during the earlier years of her life the child