Harriet Green as Anne Boleyn in Six Queens of Henry VIII.
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.
Tag: otd
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 a herald 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)
“ He hastened to assure me, in case I had missed his blind panic, that as long as I was well, everything was fine. With his daughter in his arms, he set about instructing the midwives on how to avoid childbed fever, and swore he would take on my care personally.
“Henry,” I laughed, feeling more pleased than I could say, although a little disconcerted to think that he might well follow through with his oath and become my nurse.
“I am well… See me here, unharmed and healthy? There is no cause to fear.”
“You have to be protected against fever,” he said with a strained expression. “The first few days are dangerous. There can be no signs, until it is too late. It was that way with…”
"I am not going to die,” I said. “Look at our little Princess. I could not leave her, now could I?”
Henry’s face had crumpled. He came to the bed and embraced me. I felt his tears of relief flow down my face. When I shifted back, his eyes were bright with tears. “I am being foolish,” he said with a catch in his voice. “
– The Scandal of Christendom (Above All Others; The Lady Anne Book 4), by
On 24 June 1532 (or, possibly, 1533) Lady Jane Dudley, the wife of Sir John Dudley, gave birth to her fifth son, Robert. It was a holiday with much street celebration in England, the Feast of St. John the Baptist. It may also have been his father’s name day, so that baby Robert was arguably a very special present. (X)
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