7 September 1533 A.D. GREENWICH PALACE: Queen Anne Boleyn gives birth to a daughter—Elizabeth
7 September 1533 A.D. GREENWICH
PALACE: Queen Anne Boleyn gives birth to a daughter—Elizabeth
Mann,
Claire. “7 September 1533—Queen Anne Boleyn gives birth to a daughter.” The Anne Boleyn Files. 7 Sept 2015. http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/7-september-1533-queen-anne-boleyn-gives-birth-to-a-daughter/.
Accessed 7 Sept 2015.
7 September 1533 – Queen Anne Boleyn gives birth to a daughter
Elizabeth I, Ermine Portrait by Nicholas Hilliard
On
7th September 1533, at three o’clock in the afternoon and less than two weeks
after she had taken to her chamber, Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, gave
birth to her first child at Greenwich Palace (Palace of Placentia). The baby
was a daughter and was “a beautiful infant with natural coloring […] beautiful
perfection”,1 and the couple named her Elizabeth.
Although
the pregnancy appears to have been difficult at times, with Lancelot de Carles
writing that the King even wished the baby dead because of the pain Anne
suffered, the birth itself was “without trouble” and “without extreme distress”2
and although the baby was not the expected boy, the couple must have been
relieved that they had a living child. Anne had had a letter prepared giving
thanks to God for sending her “good speed, in the deliverance and bringing
forth of a prince”, so an ‘s’ was added. The celebratory jousts for a prince
were cancelled, for it was traditional for celebrations for the birth of a
princess to be low-key, but a herald proclaimed the good news, the Chapel Royal
choristers sang a Te Deum
and a lavish christening was planned. The birth had shown that Anne could carry
a baby to term so there was plenty to celebrate.
Of
course, this baby girl would become Queen Elizabeth I, “Gloriana” and the
“Virgin Queen” and you can read more about her reign and her achievements in an
article I wrote on the Elizabeth Files – click here.
Click here to read more about Anne
Boleyn the mother.
Sources
1. Ascoli,
Georges, La Grande-Bretagne Devant L’opinion Française Depuis La Guerre de Cent
Ans Jusqu’à La Fin Du XVIe Siècle, 233–34, De la Royne d’Angleterre, Lancelot
de Carles, lines 171 and 173. Translated by Susan Walters Schmid in “Anne
Boleyn, Lancelot de Carle, and the Use of Documentary Evidence”, Dissertation,
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY, December 2009.
2. Ibid.,
lines 157 and 169.
Comments
Post a Comment