My newest book "Rival Sisters: Mary & Elizabeth Tudor" is coming out this WEEKEND. Today, I want to share a short excerpt to whet your appetite. Stay tuned for more info!
Prologue: Together for eternity
Mary
and Elizabeth, the Tudor half sisters who became the first two English Queens
regnant respectively, lie buried together in one vault in the North Aisle of
Henry VII’s Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey. A commemorative Latin plaque at
the head of the monument reads: “Partners both in throne and grave, here rest
we two sisters Elizabeth and Mary, in the hope of one resurrection.”[1]
According
to the official guide to Westminster Abbey, Mary’s coffin lies beneath
Elizabeth’s. But neither Elizabeth, who died in 1603, nor Mary, who predeceased
her by forty-five years, chose to be buried in this way. Mary died on 17
November 1558 at St James’s Palace and was buried according to Catholic rites
in an unmarked grave on the North Aisle of the Lady Chapel. Mary never made a
tomb for herself during her lifetime, but in her last will she requested that
she be buried next to her mother, Katharine of Aragon, whose remains she willed
to be transferred from Peterborough to Westminster. This was never done. As her
half sister’s successor, Elizabeth was expected to provide an honourable burial
and honour Mary’s dying wish, but she failed to memorialise her. “The stones
from . . . broken altars were piled upon Mary’s grave during the whole of her
sister’s reign.”[2]
Elizabeth
died on 24 March 1603 at Richmond Palace after forty-five years on the throne.
Unmarried and childless, she designated James VI of Scotland, the son of her
executed rival Mary Stuart, as her successor. England’s Virgin Queen was buried
in the crypt beneath the altar, in the Sepulchre of her grandfather, Henry VII.
Three years later Elizabeth’s coffin was placed on top of that of her half sister.
King James made sure that a gilded effigy of Elizabeth decorated the newly
erected tomb, but there was no effigy of Mary, the only acknowledgement of her
presence there being the Latin inscription.
Burying
the childless Elizabeth with her half sister served King James’s purpose of
emphasising that “virgins do not found or further the greatness of dynasties”.[3]
A larger and grander tomb was built at Westminster Abbey for James’s mother,
Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, who was executed on Elizabeth’s orders in 1587 and
was originally buried at Peterborough Cathedral. In life, James had no warm
feelings for the woman who gave birth to him, but he honoured her in death to
celebrate the royal lineage he was born into.
It
is the relationship between Elizabeth and her Scottish cousin Mary Stuart that
is often discussed and pondered over while the relationship between Elizabeth
and her own half sister is largely forgotten. Yet it is the relationship with
Mary Tudor that forged Elizabeth’s personality and set her on the path to
queenship. Mary’s reign was the darkest period in Elizabeth’s life. “I stood in
danger of my life, my sister was so incensed against me”, Elizabeth reminded
her councillors when they pressed her to name a successor.[4]
Elizabeth harboured resentment against Mary even after the latter’s death, but
she refrained from speaking ill of her. Even if the cause of her ill treatment
was Mary, Elizabeth sighed, “I will not now burden her therewith because I will
not charge the dead”.[5]
It
is time to tell the whole story of the fierce rivalry between the Tudor half sisters
who became their father’s successors.
[1]
Regno consortes et urna, hic obdor mimus
Elizabetha et Maria sorores, in spe resurrectionis.
[2]
Julia M. Walker, Reading the Tombs of
Elizabeth I, p. 522.
[3] Ibid.,
p. 524.
[4]
Clark Hulse, Elizabeth I: Ruler and
Legend, p. 26.
[5]
John Nichols, The Progresses and Public
Processions of Queen Elizabeth, Volume 1, p. 64.
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