Elizabeth of York’s feelings we should take at face value; her husband’s reaction to them with a grain of salt. But, more importantly, how are we to take André’s statement about Henry VII’s provision for his family? My guess is that it represented a fairly formal settlement. And at all events, it became so over the next year or two.
Hitherto contemporaries had applied the name ‘nursery’ only to Arthur’s youthful establishment, which, as we have seen, had followed Yorkist precedent and was run by ex-Yorkist personnel, like the ‘lady mistress’ or head officer of the nursery, Dame Elizabeth Darcy. Arthur’s departure for the Welsh Marches and the public stage left this royal nursery empty. It was soon taken over by Henry and his sisters. Their little establishment was first called ‘our nursery’ in 1494, and within a couple of years the term became common form.14 At about the same time, a head officer, the ‘lady mistress of our nursery’, was appointed. But it was not Dame Elizabeth Darcy. Instead, one of the queen’s ladies, Elizabeth Denton, got the job. Moreover, Mrs Denton continued to serve and be paid as one of Elizabeth of York’s attendants even after her appointment as lady mistress.15
This would point to the closest possible connexions between Henry’s nursery and his mother’s household; it also suggests that the two were usually physically close as well. Which is perhaps why Eltham, where Elizabeth had stayed with her younger children during her husband’s absence in France, seems to have been the principal site of Henry’s upbringing. It was next door to his birthplace and Elizabeth’s favourite residence of Greenwich, and conveniently close to London. The short journey was safe for the youngest royal infant, and ladies of the queen’s household could come and go at will. As could the queen herself.
Elizabeth of York, in short, may not have been a hands-on mother, but she was close at hand. And at moments of crisis she could – and did – take charge of Henry herself.
But the choice of Eltham was probably impelled by sentiment as much as convenience. It had been a favourite residence of Elizabeth of York’s father and Henry’s grandfather, Edward IV, who had carried out extensive building works there including the great hall, with its magnificent hammer-beam roof, and the stone bridge. Nowadays most of Eltham is ruinous, though Edward IV’s hall and bridge survive. In Henry’s day, when Edward IV had been dead for only a decade, his grandfather must have been a vivid memory. Men who had been his servants probably still worked at Eltham; items of his household stuff were perhaps still in use.
By the choice of Eltham, Elizabeth had made sure that her second son would be brought up in the shadow of the grandfather he so much resembled.
In this little world of the nursery at Eltham, Henry was undoubtedly king of the castle. He was the real king’s second son; he was also, for almost all of the time, the only boy in a household of women, and as such was probably spoiled outrageously. But, despite his primacy, he was always aware of his siblings. His elder sister Margaret was a given in his life. Though slight in stature, like her godmother and namesake Lady Margaret Beaufort, she was (also like Lady Margaret) a formidable character and well able to secure her share of attention.
Then there was the excitement, which Henry experienced at least three times, of the arrival of a new baby, with its nurse and rockers. Room had to be made for a fresh face in the circle and a new name had to be learned. Or, equally mysteriously, it must have seemed to Henry, a playmate would disappear. A temporary hush would descend on the noise of the nursery, and perhaps he would glimpse a black-robed procession bearing a tiny coffin.
This first happened in autumn 1495, when Elizabeth, the then youngest child, suddenly sickened and died. Infant mortality was heavy under the Tudors, and the death of children was all too common an affliction. But this was the first time that Henry’s parents had had to bear it. They were deeply affected. The enormous sum of £318 was spent on the funeral of ‘our daughter Elizabeth, late passed out of this transitory life’. A monument was erected to her in the chapter house at Westminster Abbey. The epitaph spoke wistfully of her childish beauty.16
Henry was then four years old. Old enough for the death of a pretty young sister to have made an impression, but too young for it to have been a serious blow.
And in any case, a replacement soon arrived, as his mother was already pregnant with another child. She was delivered on 18 March 1496 of a daughter who was christened Mary – presumably in honour of the Virgin, to whom her father bore a special devotion. In the course of the next year, the wording of the warrants for wages for the staff of the nursery was adjusted to reflect the new arrival, and the name of ‘Mary’ replaced ‘Elizabeth’ as one of Henry’s two ‘sisters’.17
Finally, on 21 February 1499, Henry at last acquired a baby brother, named Edmund, after his grandfather Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond. Edmund’s wet-nurse was Alice Skern, who had previously suckled Mary, the next youngest child. In 1499–1500 Alice, together with Edmund’s two rockers, duly figured in the list of wage-payments for the nursery, alongside the attendants on Henry, Margaret and Mary.18 A younger brother would have had a much greater impact on Henry’s life than the arrival of another sister. He would have been a rival for attention in the nursery; he might have been a political rival when they grew up. But (as we shall see) it was not to be.
Also important in defining Henry’s social world were the servants of the nursery, led by his wet-nurse and lady mistress. Nurse Uxbridge’s parting from Henry some time in the first half of 1493 was probably tearful. But it was sweet sorrow, as the success of Anne’s nursing led to a lifetime of royal patronage that was the making of her and her second husband. The patronage was started by Henry’s father, and was continued on an even more generous scale by Henry himself. Clearly he felt affection, even love, towards her. And while there is no record of reunions between Anne and her former charge during Henry’s boyhood, she was to have an honourable place at his coronation.19
But his feelings for Anne seem to have been eclipsed by his regard for his lady mistress, Elizabeth Denton. Anne, after all, had left him while he was still only an infant and well below the age of memory. Elizabeth Denton, on the other hand, was the dominant figure of Henry’s early boyhood and beyond. This would not necessarily have been to her advantage. Henry, I would guess, was not always an easy child to handle: he was royal and knew it, yet Elizabeth was required to keep him in bounds. In the event, she seems to have got the balance right and Henry was to cherish an abiding affection for her, which he would show by rewarding her lavishly when he became king.20
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But is there a darker side to the story? Was the scale of these rewards a sign that Henry, neglected by his parents, turned to the women of his nursery for the love that should have come from his own father and mother? Hardly. It was entirely conventional for a king to reward his former wet-nurse and the others who had looked after him in infancy: even Henry’s own son, Edward VI, who was the coldest of young fish, did so. Moreover, as so much depended on the royal offspring, their parents would have been mad to neglect them.
Henry VII and Elizabeth of York were not mad. Instead, according to their own lights, they were conscientious and loving parents. If a criticism can be made, it is that they tried