Have you ever felt that something was going to happen for certain. Like, you feel it in your bones. You *are* going to get that promotion! That guy is *definitely* checking you out. But then it doesn’t happen? The promotion goes to Joe in Accounting who honestly has no idea what he’s doing, and when you danced your way over to the guy at the bar who was definitely checking you out, smile bright and inviting, it turns out he was waving to the girl behind you?
Yeah, well, what if it involved a child? And you kind of burned down every bridge in Christendom to get the son that you so longed for? And every astrologer in the entire country told you that it was going to be the long-awaited son. And you literally told the Pope to shove off, and you were so sure – so incredibly certain – that this child was going to be a son and a great King, and it was going to validate every decision you made to get here, and prove all the haters wrong. And you drew up all the birth announcements, smugly announcing a prince, which you just knew was coming?
And that prince turned out to be a princess?
Oopsies.
Well, that’s how it went with the birth of Princess Elizabeth. It’s a great irony that Gloriana’s birth was a disappointment to her parents.
Anne Boleyn had an easy first part of her pregnancy. She was about six months pregnant when she was crowned in a lavish coronation ceremony that we can only imagine would have been draining to her. I know when I was six months pregnant I didn’t really feel like gliding around in a litter looking jubilant and excited at greeting my people, many of whom hated me. When I was six months pregnant I felt like spending all day long in a swimming pool being weightless, and wearing flip flops because I couldn’t tie my shoes. But I digress.
In his biography of Anne Boleyn Eric Ives wrote that for a time after her coronation, Anne’s health was reportedly good. But there is reason to believe that the later stages of pregnancy were a challenge. Ives cites one source – 34 De Carles – saying that Henry was concerned enough to hope for a miscarriage if it would save Anne. He didn’t go on summer holidays as he normally would, declining a progress, and staying at Windsor where she could rest until it was time for her confinement.
Her chamber for confinement, in Greenwich, would have been shrouded in mystical and sacred femininity, part of the rituals of childbirth that went back millennia. She would stay in this chamber that had relics, and a baptismal font – midwives were given the authority to baptize babies who would not survive, and they needed to have all the tools needed in the event that Anne’s baby didn’t look like she would make it. This was a room reserved only for women. No male attendants could enter. They would have tapestries hung depicting scenes of fertility, prayer books and beads to use to chant, and depictions of saints who would protect women in labor.
As a side note, much of this fell away with the Reformation, and women were legally not allowed to call out to anyone other than God to see them through childbirth – no calling out for Mary or any Saint. Only God. How much this was enforced is doubtful though. I would not want to be the magistrate charged with interrupting a full on second stage labor to remind the mother not to pray to anyone other than God.
Henry spent the time that his wife was in confinement making plans for the joust that he would hold to celebrate the birth of his son. He planned to call the child Henry or Edward. But nope, at 3pm on Sunday 7 September, out came a girl.
Chapuys, the Imperial Ambassador, was delighted. But Henry and Anne weren’t too upset. Anne’s labor was easy enough after health issues. And Elizabeth was healthy. It all looked well. Henry cancelled the jousts, but he had also done that with Mary’s birth. A herald did immediately announce the birth of Henry’s first “legitimate” child, and a Te Deum was sung by the Chapel Royal at St. Paul’s.
Plans for a christening were made for three days hence, where there would also be bonfires, and free wine in London.
But as Ives points out, before the birth of Elizabeth, Anne was the hope of a son for England. While pregnant she was the hope fulfilled. But now she had a daughter. Anne Boleyn was unable to cement her position the way she would have if she had borne a son, which would have quieted all but the firmest detractors. The claims of the son would outweigh anything else, and everyone in Europe would recognize it.
Instead, she was still uncertain on the throne, Mary would still have precedence because of her age and the support of Catholic Europe, and her enemies both at home and abroad.
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.