The christening of lady Elizabeth, daughter to King Henry VIII., the 25th year of his reign, A.D. 1533.
On Sept 7, between three and four o’clock p.m., the Queen was delivered of a fair lady, for whom Te Deum was incontinently sung. The mayor, Sir Stephen Pecock, with his brethren and 40 of the chief citizens, were ordered to be at the christening on the Wednesday following ; on which day the mayor and council, in scarlet, with their collars, rowed to Greenwich, and the citizens went in another barge.
7th September 1533 | Anne Boleyn gives birth to Elizabeth
At 3 O’clock in the afternoon, on this day in 1533, Anne Boleyn gave birth to Princess Elizabeth at Greenwich. The jousts that Henry VIII had planned to commemorate the birth of his son were cancelled as the birth of princesses did not warrant a large public celebration, but aherald immediately proclaimed this first of Henry’s legitimate children, while the choristers of the Chapel Royal sang the Te Deum. The circular letters prepared before the birth by the royal clerks, announcing the deliverance and bringing forth of a Prince were amended to read Princes.
Elizabeth was not the male heir that Henry and Anne had hoped for, but the consolation was that she was healthy and had a full head of Tudor red hair. So the royal couple put on a brave face, as they had no reason to fear that sons would not follow. It is reported that when Henry visited his wife after the birth and Anne expressed disappointment at the sex of their child, Henry responded by saying that they were both still young and by God’s grace, boys will follow.
At the time, apart from upset at the baby’s sex, many people were simply relieved that the Queen had not only had a fairly easy delivery, but that she had lived through it at all.
Given how close Elizabeth had been born to one of the great festivals of the Virgin, it would have been expected for the baby princess to receive the baptismal name of Mary. However, the King already had a daughter with that name, from his first marriage. With that union’s annulment, Mary Tudor had lost the title of princess, and there were rumours in the Spanish Embassy that the new Queen planned to christen her daughter Mary, anyway, in the hope that the new Princess Mary would utterly eclipse the old one in the public’s mind. As with so many of the Spanish-started rumours about Anne Boleyn, this story was groundless, for there doesn’t seem to have been any hesitation on either the King or the Queen’s part in naming their new daughter, Elizabeth. It was the most logical name to go for: both the King and the Queen had mothers with that name. And so it was probably as a mutual maternal tribute that Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn selected the name for the baby that was destined to be their only child together and thus christened the girl who would arguably become the single most famous woman in her country’s history. (x | x)
i feel a lot of people don’t understand the mistrust that many mentally ill/chronically ill/disabled people have towards healthcare practitioners.
it’s something that comes from years of misdiagnosis. the multiple doctors you meet who just don’t care. who accuse you of faking. who don’t take you or your symptoms seriously. whose own prejudices blind them to your plight. who belittle you. mock you. condescend to you. who don’t listen to you. who are lazy, cruel, uninformed.
i think it is so worth it to keep looking for doctors until you find the right fit because when you (finally) meet a doctor who gets it, who understands, and can treat you and help make things better or at least manageable and bearable, it’s a breath of fresh air.
but even so i really think we need to stop being so hard on people who are wary of doctors. sometimes they’re wary for a reason.
