Make-up and the Tudor Queens

[walk...@ionet.net]

First of all, I would like everyone that posted and e-mailed me in
support (and with lively interest) of my posts on "The Origins of
Lipstick" and "Goats, Herms and Codpieces: Male Virility, Royal
Fashions and Henry VIII."

As I have said before, History is a very rich and interesting subject,
and need not be rendered a dull and lifeless recitation of dates and
places - and, believe it or not, there is humour there, both to us and
even the people who lived it.

Santayana said "Those that learn not History... are doomed to repeat
it," but there are many other Lessons to be learned that just from the
mistakes made by our predecessors, Royal and otherwise. Leaning
History makes these characters leap from the pages - full and blood
people with likes and dislikes, virtues and vices... and let us not
forget, they laughed, too.

That being said, here's another historical look at what is taken now
as a commonplace item... make-up.

Nowadays, most people are trying for the "natural look;" enhancing
what Nature has given one and trying to keep a gloss on it. With a
few notable extremes in fashions, and despite mistaken attempts that
"Beauty" exists only in looking like a sleep-deprived, heroin-addicted
anorexic, there are now "ideals" for Everyman and Everywoman, black
and white, fat and thin.

To say that there were not in the Tudor Age is an understatement, for
not only were there the pressures of trying to re-create the elusive
"ideal" but the fact that the way one looked was also considered a
bonafide indicator of what one's Soul looked like, too.

Simply put, fair was "good" and dark was "bad." Beauty itself was
taken to a scary level of significance, and not at face value. A
beautiful woman was thus considered pure of heart (until she proved,
dramatically and repeatedly, that she was not) and a handsome man
a good man.

Women had to overcome, as I have written in other posts, a natural
disposition to evil, and educating women was not the answer ("To
educate a woman and make a fox tame hath the same effect - to maketh
them both more cunning" said a famous man of letters before the
extremely intelligent Elizabeth I was even born.) Girls were to be
cloistered and keep at their looms, spinning wheels and embroideries
until their fathers or brothers (at any rate, their ranking male
relatives) chose a husband for them. They should be pious, of course,
but teaching them to pray (by rote, of course) did not include
teaching them to read, nor write. That Catherine Howard could
scribble out her own name and a poorly-spelled illicit love letter
does not show her low birth (she was a Howard, and therefore was of
relatively high, if not Royal, birth, even if she was from an
impoverished branch of the family) or her lack of education, but more
noteable that the poor girl could manage to write at all. (That the
only surviving example of her writing is an illicit love letter is
simply ironic, given how her Life would end.)

But... back to the make-up and the "ideals" of the Time.

With the added stress of "fair equals goodness" (and the fact,
mentioned in my defense of Richard III) that any (God forbid) physical
deformity also bespoke ill-favour at best and evil at worst, women
especially were at pains to recreate, to quote the late Malcolm X,
"by any means necessary" the ideal.

Of the Tudor Queens, the closest to the "ideals" were Elizabeth of
York and Jane Seymour. The other ladies, excepting only the
dark-haired, dark-eyed and olive-skinned Anne Boleyn (and remember,
Gentle Readers, that her memory would be blackened as Evil Incarnate)
were merely "also-rans." Even the famous beauty of the "Tudor Rose,"
Princess Mary Tudor, Queen of France, Duchess of Suffolk, would be an
also-ran for her dark hair, which fell short of the blonde ideal.

Both Elizabeth of York and Jane Seymour were famous for their pallour
- Jane especially would have skin that was almost translucent, and as
desired as that was, she was so very pale that people wondered (with
good reason) how such a delicate-looking creature could possibly
withstand the rigours of Life and last long. (Elizabeth of York and
Jane Seymour would share another distinction besides their
complexions; both would die of puerperal fever after childbirth,
Elizabeth in 1502 and Jane in 1537.) That Jane was not especially
attractive (especially to modern eyes) was immaterial. She had the
"right qualities" which overshadowed her plump face and rather pointed
nose.

Thus a woman with the most beautiful of features, but with dark hair
and eyes, and God forbid, a less than ghostly of complexions was
considered to be disadvantaged in comparison to her plainer, but
paler, sister.

Elizabeth of York was said to resemble her splendid father, and her
equally attractive mother (of all the calumnies spread about her wily,
tempermental mother, Elizabeth Woodville, ugliness could never be
said of her, though there were probably some who were struck by
her "ideal" beauty "hiding" her difficult Soul.) She was blonde, and
her eyes were said to be a fabulous blue-green. She also was the
tempermental ideal (Jane Seymour would be, too) and that would be that
she would never question the inherent superiority of the males in her
Life, be they her husband, the usurper Henry VII, first Tudor King,
nor the men of the Church of her time. Meek and obedient, it may
never have occurred to Elizabeth that with the presumed deaths of her
two brothers, the "Princes in the Tower" that it was she who had the
best "right" to wear England's Crown. Crowns Regnant were not the
business of ladies, even beautiful ones. All would be struck by the
gentleness, and the humility, of this last Yorkist Princess, destined
to be the first Tudor Queen.

Despite the stereotypes, the only daughter-in-law that Elizabeth would
ever know, Catherine of Aragon (when Elizabeth died in 1502, Catherine
was then the widow of Elizabeth's oldest, Arthur, Prince of Wales.)
was neither dark-haired, nor dark-eyed. In fact, and despite many
famous portraits of Catherine that survived to this day depicting her
with the what was considered stereotypical of Spanish colouring, was
actually very fair. Never a stunningly beautiful woman (the beauty of
her sister-in-law Princess Mary Tudor was especially seen as marvelous
in light of her Royal birth - that Princesses could be spectacularly
beautiful was considered a bonus, what was most important was their
bloodlines and their presumed abilities to give birth to a string of
healthy - preferably male - children to continue their husband's
dynastic ambitions.) Catherine was not ugly, either. Catherine had a
Lancasterian great-grandmother, for whom she had been named; John of
Gaunt's daughter (by one of his "Royal Marriages," to Margaret,
daughter of the Duke of Brabrant, as opposed to her future husbands'
descent from Gaunt's third, non-Royal marriage to his mistress,
Katherine Swynford.) Catherine of Lancaster. Catherine of Aragon was
short of stature (which was not necessarily a detriment - the Tudors
were said to favour, "small, neatly-made" women) with what was praised
as an "English" "roses-and-cream" complexion, which, with her cascades
of what we would call "strawberry blonde" hair were considered her
best feature. Her eyes were grey (and therefore not the "ideal" of
blue, or at the very least, the attractive blue-green of her
mother-in-law Elizabeth of York.) She had a "manly" deep voice that
her daughter, Mary I, would inherit, "that carrieth right well" in
rooms when she spoke. Alas, for all her beautiful complexion and her
glorious hair (that would soon darken) by the time Catherine was an
adult, her hair had "muddied" and could best be described as an
auburn-ish colour that was not quite the "Tudor gold" - that is,
reddish blonde, that was the true "ideal" - that was so praised. She
was also plain in the way that is charming in young girls but not so
in mature women, and inclined to be heavy-faced in the way of her
mother, the great Warror Queen, Isabella of Castile. (Anyone who
views pictures of this Spanish Queen will notice that her features
seem to make a slow, steady slide down her face.)

Also, Catherine, burdened by the failures of her many sad pregnancies
(only one daughter, the future Mary I, would live longer than 5 weeks)
steadily gained weight, making the unhappy transformation from
"pleasingly plump" to "dumpy." With the combination of her short
stature (she was well beneath 5 feet in height) this led to her being
called "deformed," presumably because with the combination of her
weight and the heavy fashions of the day, she appeared "as wide as she
was high."

With the ideals thus firmly in place, and at least one woman to
personify them, women, especially Royal ones, who had the time and
money to, went in pursuit.

Dark and/or blotchy complexions ("the little pox" - smallpox - and
what we now call "chicken pox" wrecked havoc on complexions, and
often left their sufferers, if they managed to survive, hideously
scarred for Life - Elizabeth herself would be scarred from smallpox)
could be improved by the liberal application of paste whose primary
ingredient was lead. No one knew at the time that lead was a deadly
poison that would weaken bones and poison blood, that it would slowly
and inexorably destroy immune systems that were already weakened by
poor diets and lack of fresh air and sunshine. Arsenic (!!!) another
poison that weakens the constitution in myriad ways, was also an
ingredient in face creams. The resulting paste gave the wearer a dead
white face (which would be dead in reality after a few years of use) -
it was not in any way "natural looking" and no one mistook the wearer
for looking in any way "natural." One of the closest equivilents I
can suggest is the dead-white of the base coat of clown make-up. Add
the scarlet and vermillion tones favoured in the considered-morally-
scandalous lipstick of the time, and there you have it. People would
erupt in gales of surprised laughter now, but it was an earnest effort
then.

Cosmetics, such as existed at the time, had as one of their key
ingredients oils that could have done little to allow the skin to
breathe and could have only served to clog the often already-scarred
pores of the wearers, causing pimples, which were just as unsightly
then as they are now.

No Tudor Queen would aplly make-up as liberally and determinedly as
Elizabeth of York's granddaughter and namesake, Elizabeth I.
Elizabeth had been blessed with the favoured pale colouring - her
eyelashes and eyebrows were so fair as to give her a constant look of
"surprise" because they were invisible and made her eyes appear to be
widened in amazement - but she had the dark eyes of her mother, the
black-eyed Anne Boleyn, along with the Tudor myopia that would make
her appear to be able to look into someone's Soul when she talked to
them. Elizabeth's eyes have also been described as somehow "tawny,"
but nevertheless, she did not inherit the blue of the Tudors. It
appears that none of Henry's children would - Mary I's eyes were grey
like her mother's, and Edward VI's were brown like his mother, Jane
Seymour's. (I do not know the eye colour of Henry Fitroy, the Duke of
Richmond's, that there is a possibility that his were blue.)
Elizabeth did inherit Henry's colouring and fair hair - she would
prize her hair and draw attention to it with her hairstyles (when she
still had it, later she would resort to increasingly unnatural-looking
red wigs.)

Elizabeth would use her colouring politically - Mary I, in her failing
yearsm would deny Elizabeth her paternity, and point out in her misery
(her faithless husband, Philip II, was already courting Elizabeth's
favour, if not yet openly her hand, even as Mary entered her final,
miserable and painful illness) that Elizabeth "had the look of Marc
Smeaton" (the hapless musician of Anne Boleyn who had been accused of
adultery with the Queen and had been executed shortly before her.)
Thus Elizabeth found it politically expedient to downplay her
maternity, while drawing all attention she could to her resemblence
to Henry VIII, down to his fair colouring and reddish hair.

Ladies' hair of this time was kept long (to openly wear one's hair
down in a public forum was considered an advertisement of purity and
virginity - that Anne Boleyn had worn her beautiful raven tresses down
on the way to her Coronation - while noticiably pregnant with
Elizabeth - was thus seen as incongruous and scandalous, "decency
begged that she would confine her hair.") As Elizabeth was the
vaunted "Virgin Queen," she would often wear it down and openly,
cascading down her back from beneath a jewelled circlet or other
symbol of her Royal status. Elizabeth did not favour the nets or
hoods of Tudor ladies, or of her predecessors.

Hair (nor bodies, for that matter, but that is the subject of another
post) were washed often. Bathing was suspect - one ran the risk of
scrubbing away the skin's cells and inviting infection. Thus hair,
like the human bodies on which it grew, were washed infrequently but
perfumed regularly. Elizabeth washed her fair hair in lye, which
would have made it straighter (one of the main ingredients of what
were called "conking solutions" use to straighten black people's hair
in times past was lye) and lighten it's colour (progressively
stripping it of any colour and probably making her look like she had
the bleached colour of weeds on the seashore) it would also have made
it brittle and dry. Elizabeth must have also managed to burn her
scalp on occasion (and she was never one not to take anger out on
others', her maids were said to fear the Royal temper, and once
Elizabeth broke the finger of one of her maids, though she would
blame it on a "falling candlestick" and send the maid a present.)
Burned scalps and the use of lye do not make for healthy hair, nor
for a place for healthy hair to grow, and it can be presumed that
Elizabeth lost her hair due to a combination of age, the diet of the
time, and her cosmetic efforts. This would not pose too much of a
problem, as wigs were the fashion, and many ladies wore wigs to "plump
up" their own hairs, especially with the elaborate hairstyles that
came dizzingly in and out of fashion.

So, there stands Elizabeth I before you - dead white make-up of the
Kabuki Opera slathered all over her face with serious care, her hair
fried (and finally concealed with wigs) her mouth stained scarlet or
vermillion. Her famous spidery hands, of which she was so proud,
must have had the ridged and weak nails so indicative of arsenic and
lead poisoning. Had she not been so resolute, she could have easily
died long before she did - her pursuit of Beauty would have
considerably weakened her constitution. It would be interesting to
calculate how much the Beauty regimes of the day effected the babies
their devotees carried - infant mortality could be traced to weak and
stillborn babies, poisoned by lead and arsenic in the womb.

Make-up had been considered scandalous by those before Elizabeth, and
with few exceptions, what one saw was what one got. Elizabeth's
determined use of make-up was, in its own way, pioneering. Despite
the disapproving words of many, the fashion of the Queen was the
fashion of the Court, and therefore of the country she ruled. Future
Queens would make their own ways, and some with better success than
others, because of Elizabeth.

--
- CEM-L-G

walk...@ioNET.net

"Die besten Dichter schweben in den Wolken muessen uns noch versteckt
halten, bis die Luft rein ist."

[Kellywtp]

>Simply put, fair was "good" and dark was "bad." Beauty itself was
>taken to a scary level of significance, and not at face value. A
>beautiful woman was thus considered pure of heart (until she proved,
>dramatically and repeatedly, that she was not) and a handsome man
>a good man.

Was not also your fairness or darkness of skin, a grade of your level of class,
i.e. you didn't work outdoors but stayed inside a fair pale lady of the manor,
so even those olive skinned ladies who did not do manual labor outdoors were
still at such a disadvantage.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
May the saints protect you,
And sorrow neglect you,
And bad luck to the one
That doesn't respect you.
~~AN IRISH PROVERB

[Susan Cohen]

walk...@ionet.net wrote:

> First of all, I would like everyone that posted and e-mailed me in
> support (and with lively interest) of my posts on "The Origins of
> Lipstick" and "Goats, Herms and Codpieces: Male Virility, Royal
> Fashions and Henry VIII."

I'm sorry I missed ir - I wanted to discuss the Spanish angle!

> That being said, here's another historical look at what is taken now
> as a commonplace item... make-up.
>

> To say that there were not in the Tudor Age is an understatement, for
> not only were there the pressures of trying to re-create the elusive
> "ideal" but the fact that the way one looked was also considered a
> bonafide indicator of what one's Soul looked like, too.
>
> Simply put, fair was "good" and dark was "bad." Beauty itself was
> taken to a scary level of significance, and not at face value. A
> beautiful woman was thus considered pure of heart (until she proved,
> dramatically and repeatedly, that she was not) and a handsome man
> a good man.

This was taken directly from the Greeks.

> Women had to overcome, as I have written in other posts, a natural
> disposition to evil,

This was a religious belief of the time - but I'll bet you did cover this
in other posts.

> Girls were to be
> cloistered and keep at their looms, spinning wheels and embroideries
> until their fathers or brothers (at any rate, their ranking male
> relatives) chose a husband for them. They should be pious, of course,
> but teaching them to pray (by rote, of course) did not include
> teaching them to read, nor write. That Catherine Howard could
> scribble out her own name and a poorly-spelled illicit love letter
> does not show her low birth (she was a Howard, and therefore was of
> relatively high, if not Royal, birth, even if she was from an
> impoverished branch of the family) or her lack of education, but more
> noteable that the poor girl could manage to write at all.

OTOH, she was given a most haphazard upbringing. Her other cousin, Anne
Boleyn, was raised by Mary of Burgundy, & was a woman of taste and
erudition. Mary Tudor - a near generation ahead of her - was raised with
the throne in mind, & was as good a scholar as any man. I have to disagree
with you about Kathryn [I spell her name that way to further distinguish
her from Catherine of Aragon & Katherine Parr] Howard: rank & position
spelled greater learning. No one educated her much because no one expected
much of her - her branch of the family wasn't distinguished enough.

It was, however, with the New Learning that female learning came out of
the closet. It was revolutionary that men should interperet the Scriptures
for themselves - without being told by a priest what to believe - but I
find it wondrous that they still didn't find a way to keep women out of
the Reformation.

> But... back to the make-up and the "ideals" of the Time.

Okay. (I digressed as well!)

> With the added stress of "fair equals goodness" (and the fact,
> mentioned in my defense of Richard III) that any (God forbid) physical
> deformity also bespoke ill-favour at best and evil at worst, women
> especially were at pains to recreate, to quote the late Malcolm X,
> "by any means necessary" the ideal.
>
> Of the Tudor Queens, the closest to the "ideals" were Elizabeth of
> York and Jane Seymour. The other ladies, excepting only the
> dark-haired, dark-eyed and olive-skinned Anne Boleyn (and remember,
> Gentle Readers, that her memory would be blackened as Evil Incarnate)

It is still most likely that most of her imperfections were, *just like
Richard's* trumped up by her enemies.

> were merely "also-rans." Even the famous beauty of the "Tudor Rose,"
> Princess Mary Tudor, Queen of France, Duchess of Suffolk, would be an
> also-ran for her dark hair, which fell short of the blonde ideal.

Wait a minute - she had red-gold hair, like her brother! Aren't you
thinking of Margaret?

> Both Elizabeth of York and Jane Seymour were famous for their pallour
> - Jane especially would have skin that was almost translucent, and as
> desired as that was, she was so very pale that people wondered (with
> good reason) how such a delicate-looking creature could possibly
> withstand the rigours of Life and last long. (Elizabeth of York and
> Jane Seymour would share another distinction besides their
> complexions; both would die of puerperal fever after childbirth,
> Elizabeth in 1502 and Jane in 1537.)

Oddly enough, Elizabeth of York's mother - the famed pale beauy Elizabeth
Woodville - was highly prolific. But you're right.

> That Jane was not especially
> attractive (especially to modern eyes) was immaterial. She had the
> "right qualities" which overshadowed her plump face and rather pointed
> nose.

It's been said that Anne of Cleves, ironically enough, is the most
attractive to modern eyes, but I have to say that the pictures vary so
wildly, it's hard to tell. And in Anne's case, it could be the genius of
Holbein casting its spell - as it did so many years ago...

> Thus a woman with the most beautiful of features, but with dark hair
> and eyes, and God forbid, a less than ghostly of complexions was
> considered to be disadvantaged in comparison to her plainer, but
> paler, sister.
>
> Elizabeth of York was said to resemble her splendid father, and her
> equally attractive mother (of all the calumnies spread about her wily,
> tempermental mother, Elizabeth Woodville, ugliness could never be
> said of her, though there were probably some who were struck by

> her "ideal" beauty "hiding" her difficult Soul.) [interesting
> unintented parallel between blondeness & blandness snipped for brevity]

> Despite the stereotypes, the only daughter-in-law that Elizabeth would
> ever know, Catherine of Aragon (when Elizabeth died in 1502, Catherine
> was then the widow of Elizabeth's oldest, Arthur, Prince of Wales.)
> was neither dark-haired, nor dark-eyed. In fact, and despite many
> famous portraits of Catherine that survived to this day depicting her
> with the what was considered stereotypical of Spanish colouring, was
> actually very fair.

What is the most interesting/ironic is that Catherine got her reddish gold
hair from the same place Isabella got hers - a Plantagent ancestor. (But
you name him later on)

> [further descriptions of Catjerine of Aragon's golden beauty coarsening
> to dumpy darkness with age & disappointments snipped]

>
> With the ideals thus firmly in place, and at least one woman to
> personify them, women, especially Royal ones, who had the time and
> money to, went in pursuit.
>
> Dark and/or blotchy complexions ("the little pox" - smallpox - and
> what we now call "chicken pox" wrecked havoc on complexions, and
> often left their sufferers, if they managed to survive, hideously
> scarred for Life - Elizabeth herself would be scarred from smallpox)

I had never heard this. I had heard she escaped.

> could be improved by the liberal application of paste whose primary

> ingredient was lead. [snips] One of the closest equivilents I

> can suggest is the dead-white of the base coat of clown make-up. Add
> the scarlet and vermillion tones favoured in the considered-morally-
> scandalous lipstick of the time, and there you have it. People would
> erupt in gales of surprised laughter now, but it was an earnest effort
> then.

Wasn't this more towards the end of her days, in old age?

> [description of Henry VIII's children's coloring snipped]

>
> Elizabeth would use her colouring politically - Mary I, in her failing

> yearsm would deny Elizabeth her paternity, [snip]

> Thus Elizabeth found it politically expedient to downplay her
> maternity, while drawing all attention she could to her resemblence
> to Henry VIII, down to his fair colouring and reddish hair.
>
> Ladies' hair of this time was kept long (to openly wear one's hair
> down in a public forum was considered an advertisement of purity and
> virginity - that Anne Boleyn had worn her beautiful raven tresses down
> on the way to her Coronation - while noticiably pregnant with
> Elizabeth - was thus seen as incongruous and scandalous, "decency
> begged that she would confine her hair.") As Elizabeth was the
> vaunted "Virgin Queen," she would often wear it down and openly,
> cascading down her back from beneath a jewelled circlet or other
> symbol of her Royal status. Elizabeth did not favour the nets or
> hoods of Tudor ladies, or of her predecessors.

But she piled it up, curled & braided it with jewels. Vey rarely was it
even in part hanging down her back.

> [lye washings & other nasty effects of cosmetics snipped]

> So, there stands Elizabeth I before you - dead white make-up of the
> Kabuki Opera slathered all over her face with serious care, her hair
> fried (and finally concealed with wigs) her mouth stained scarlet or
> vermillion. Her famous spidery hands, of which she was so proud,
> must have had the ridged and weak nails so indicative of arsenic and
> lead poisoning. Had she not been so resolute, she could have easily
> died long before she did - her pursuit of Beauty would have
> considerably weakened her constitution. It would be interesting to
> calculate how much the Beauty regimes of the day effected the babies
> their devotees carried - infant mortality could be traced to weak and
> stillborn babies, poisoned by lead and arsenic in the womb.
>
> Make-up had been considered scandalous by those before Elizabeth, and
> with few exceptions, what one saw was what one got. Elizabeth's
> determined use of make-up was, in its own way, pioneering.

Gee, wonderful. Sigh.

> Despite
> the disapproving words of many, the fashion of the Queen was the
> fashion of the Court, and therefore of the country she ruled. Future
> Queens would make their own ways, and some with better success than
> others, because of Elizabeth.

True - and it is as much due to her character as her sex, because Mary
could have been the same way, had she tried.

[walk...@ionet.net]

> walk...@ionet.net wrote:
>
> > First of all, I would like everyone that posted and e-mailed me in
> > support (and with lively interest) of my posts on "The Origins of
> > Lipstick" and "Goats, Herms and Codpieces: Male Virility, Royal
> > Fashions and Henry VIII."

> Susan Cohen <ze...@smart.net> wrote:

> I'm sorry I missed ir - I wanted to discuss the Spanish angle!

The Usenet being a wild and wooly thing, it happens... check
DejaNews. My News Server (ioNET) does the same, so I have to
"double-check" DejaNews for responses, questions, etc. Your response
did not show up on my News Server, so I found it on Deja News.

As for the "Spanish angle" (nice pun ;) I am far more grounded
with the Tudors - my "Spanish angle" revolves around the Spanish
monarchs that had contact with the Tudors, with a few notable
exceptions.

> > Simply put, fair was "good" and dark was "bad."
>

> This was taken directly from the Greeks.

And as with many things, the Romans borrowed and perpetuated it from
the Greeks.

> > Women had to overcome, as I have written in other posts, a natural
> > disposition to evil,
>
> This was a religious belief of the time - but I'll bet you did cover this
> in other posts.

Yep and yowza, the whole "women are evil" thing - perpetuated by men.
(Not that I am anti-men, guys, relax, this is a historical thing.)

[ on the mention of Catherine/Kathryn Howard]

> OTOH, she was given a most haphazard upbringing. Her other cousin, Anne
> Boleyn, was raised by Mary of Burgundy, & was a woman of taste and
> erudition. Mary Tudor - a near generation ahead of her - was raised with
> the throne in mind, & was as good a scholar as any man. I have to disagree
> with you about Kathryn [I spell her name that way to further distinguish
> her from Catherine of Aragon & Katherine Parr] Howard: rank & position
> spelled greater learning. No one educated her much because no one expected
> much of her - her branch of the family wasn't distinguished enough.

(Oooooo, Susan, now we're speaking my language. ;) Tudor History, in
all of its intricacies. :)

It was, it was just that her father was a mess. He was, simply put,
your basic lazy aristocrat who bemoaned his high birth as not being high
enough to give him all the goodies, but not low enough that he could find
a profession that would give him a good living (and he expected quite
a bit in this respect) without "demeaning" his status. This oxymoronic
position gave him the latitude (he believed) to basically do nothing
and sponge off the "higher" part of the family, which he did.

Sir Thomas More, whose position was considerably less than that of the
Howards, made certain that his daughter (notably Margaret Roper) were
as educated as he could make them. While Margaret Roper was no Elizabeth
Tudor (nor Mary Tudor, for that matter) she was in every way better
brought up than poor little Catherine/Katheryn Howard, who did indeed
suffer from being of a combination of being the daughter of a "lesser
son" (necessary to ensure the succession of a title, but superfluous
once the oldest son lives to procreate) of an enormous family, and
female to boot.

Anne Boleyn's educational and social opportunities were a direct result of
her father's, Sir Thomas Boelyn, ambitions, not the Howard blood of her
mother, Elizabeth, one of whose brothers was the Duke of Norfolk, and
another being the father of Catherine/Katheryn Howard. (The Howards were
a scarily prolific family - Elizabeth Boleyn nee Howard was merely the eldest
daughter of an enormous family - some accounts put their numbers at _nineteen_
children - and it does indeed bespeak ambition and hard work as to which of
those Howard children were successful, and which disappeared into History.)
To be certain, the Howard alliance brought prestige to Sir Thomas Boleyn
(who was not likely to marry for Love in any case, it was the name and
the alliance for which he was keen, and he was shrewd enough to exploit it)
the Boleyns were of mercer stock (one of them managed to be Lord Mayor
of London) a fact that, for all of her better-born Howard lineage, would
often be thrown up into Anne Boleyn's face.

In an age where language skills were prized, Sir Thomas Boleyn learned
French ("the language of the Courts" - Royal Courts, not legal ones, that
remained under the aegis of the Church and was therefore Latin, which
remained the language of the Church, the Law and scholars, temporal and
religious.) His fluency thus made him beneficial to his Sovereign, who
dispatched him with ambassadorial and translation duties. Sir Thomas Boleyn,
from all I have read, learned French as an adult (which is much harder
than learning a language with the easy fluency of a child steeped in it)
and was thus at pains to expose his daughters (who could serve as ladies-
in-waiting) to it - his sole surviving son, George, was hustled off to
Oxford to be educated as a gentleman. (Family money was always spent
first on the male heir - what remained could make dowries for the girls,
but the education and marriage of the male heir was every family's primary
concern.) Also, girls, as I said, could become ladies-in-waiting, and
thus be fed and boarded by their royal (or noble) mistresses, and also
educated by them, in return for their service. Dowries could also be
provided by a royal mistress (Catherine of Aragon, in her long and unhappy
tenure as "Dowager Princess of Wales" after the death of Prince Arthur
in 1502, but before her marriage to Henry VIII in 1509, would worry
considerably about her inability to give any of her Spanish ladies-in-waiting
a proper dowry because of the penury that her father, Fernando of Aragon,
and her erstwhile father-in-law, Henry VII, kept her in.) Thus, a well-
placed daughter who was smart enough to please could be the financial
responsibility of another, freeing up even more money to educate and marry
off (as well as money could afford) a son.

In fact, the surname of "Boleyn" is a result of this Francophile situation.
The surname was originally "Bullen," which pointed to the bulls' heads
on one of the family crests. Anne would sign her name, in her first,
very submissive letter to her father from France (it is the first example
of her handwriting, and she wrote in French, making a few errors) as
"Anne de Boleine." Spelling was never a sixteenth-century priority, which
also brings us to Catherine/Kathryn Howard (as well as Henry's other wives)
spelling her name in various ways. (The fabulously educated Catherine
of Aragon spelled her name variously as "Katherina," "Katharina," etc... I
use "Catherine" because it is closer to her original name, "Catalina.")
"Bullen" thus became Gallicized as "Boleyn," which at any rate appears
much more dignified than "Bullen," though many people would continue to
use "Bullen," largely because it would remind Anne of her family's humbler
past. Interestingly, Anne would sign herself as "from her doleful prison
in the Tower" as "Ann Bullen." Perhaps she was trying to stress her
Englishness (and the fact that she was, at that time, a crowned and annointed
_English_ Queen Consort)to Henry.

> It was, however, with the New Learning that female learning came out of
> the closet. It was revolutionary that men should interperet the Scriptures
> for themselves - without being told by a priest what to believe - but I
> find it wondrous that they still didn't find a way to keep women out of
> the Reformation.

Not that they didn't give it their best efforts. Anne Boleyn, and
notably, the first true "Protestant Queen" Catherine Parr (Jane Seymour
is usually given this title, in recognition of the fact that she gave
birth to the fanatically and letter-of-the-Law Protestant Edward VI, but
Jane herself was a natural Catholic, and died one. Also, since she died
when Edward was a mere 12 days old, she is unlikely to have had any
effect on Edward's upbringing at all. That was the job of Henry, who
surrounded Edward with Protestant teachers, who turned the boy into more
of a Protestant than Henry himself would have liked.) had their run-ins
with the Reformation and what was truly, and in effect, allowed for
Change. Anne was accused of having seditious books, including the
Scriptures in French (Henry protected her) and Catherine's great friendship
with Anne Askew (who would be tortured and executed as a heretic; her
tormentors were *very* eager that she expose her mistress as a card-
carrying Protestant of the stripe that Henry could not abide) put her in
danger. Catherine Parr was no scholar, what she learned came hard (Edward
VI was fond of encouraging and praising his stepmother's scholarly
attempts - as was the child Elizabeth - Mary Tudor was all for learning
as long as it was of a conservative bent, and she and Catherine heartily
disagreed on that front.) There is a famous story (and true) where
Henry VIII set a scholarly trap for Catherine Parr to fall into, which,
since she was forewarned, she nearly avoided.

The "New Learning" and its effect on the education of women, and the
Reformation were two entirely different enchiladas. Catherine of Aragon
embraced the ideals of the "New Learning" and had her daughter, Mary I,
exquisitely educated. (Greek would come more into fashion with Elizabeth
and Jane Grey; Mary's Greek was rudimentary and she certainly had neither
the fluency of Elizabeth nor Jane.) Catherine of Aragon had the experience
of her famous mother before her - a great warrior Queen in her own right,
which told her that women could - and should - be educated. There were
many famous female scholars on the Continent, some of whom even lectured in
the universities. England was indeed far behind, but there were no
shining examples of powerful and educated women. Mathilda's reign
was disastrous, and plunged England into Civil War, and the educated Queen
Consorts were not English-born (Eleanor d'Aquitaine was both edcuated
and highly-intelligent, but this was a legacy that she brought with her
from her upbringing as the great Heiress of Aquitaine, and she honed
it in her tenure as Queen Consort of France. She was considered most
unnatural, though praised for her beauty, in England.) Even the heiress
Margaret Beaufort (the mother of Henry VII) was no promoter of female
education, for which she can perhaps be excused, since she had but one child,
a son, of her own.

Female education was still heartily distrusted in England.

> Okay. (I digressed as well!)

Not a problem. Makes for interesting conversation. :)

> > Of the Tudor Queens, the closest to the "ideals" were Elizabeth of
> > York and Jane Seymour. The other ladies, excepting only the
> > dark-haired, dark-eyed and olive-skinned Anne Boleyn (and remember,
> > Gentle Readers, that her memory would be blackened as Evil Incarnate)
>
> It is still most likely that most of her imperfections were, *just like
> Richard's* trumped up by her enemies.

Absolutely. Henry was a connoiseur of female pulchritude. If Anne
had truly been so monstrous to behold, no matter what her charisma and
magnetism, Henry would not have given her the time of day, which less
plunged his country into all sorts of difficulties to marry her. Henry
could have easily married a French Princess (which is what Wolsey thought
he was aiming for, in Henry's struggle to rid himself of Catherine of
Aragon) and not caused the uproar that he did in insisting upon marrying
Anne. Henry was not the first King to put away a wedded wife of many
years, and he would not be the last. That he do so on the skaky grounds
of erotic love (and not for bloodlines and alliances, whatever his
personal inclinations) was seen as foolhardy at best.

Anne did indeed have, from all accounts, moles. Now, there are moles,
and there are moles. Anne's would have not attracted so much attention,
and been merely seen as "beauty marks" had her Life not been thrust under
the glare of public censure. As it was, there were magnified into
"witch's marks." I have never read, even from the accounts of her detractors,
that she had huge, hairy moles that disfigured her.

She also had slightly protuberant eyes, which, in any case, where not
the strangulated hyperthyroid-looking eyes so famous in the Hannoverians.
One can notice her eyes in her charcoal sketches by Holbein. There were
also "black-on-black" (her irises appearing so dark that both her pupils
and her irises appeared to be black) which, again, even in the accounts
of her detractors, were praised (however grudgingly) as attractive, even
as their colour flew in the face of convential "ideals" of Beauty. The
Imperial Ambassador (and in the way of good Ambassadors, spy) Chapuys,
who loathed Anne, described her as "having nothing but the King's great
appetite, and her eyes, which are black and beautiful."

The little nubbin of an extra finger was magnified into a full extra
finger, and again, another "sure sign of a witch." From all that I
have read, and past the political magnifications, it was nothing immediately
noticiable or ghastly. Henry being an extremely superstitious man, had
Anne truly been running around with 11 fingers, he would have noticed it,
and, to be honest, probably have been disgusted by it.

The extra breast thing - well, that was not something that anyone who
saw Anne in her clothes would have noticed, and Anne herself was probably
very clever at concealing it. It was "rudimentary" by accounts, and since
I do not know of its exact location and relative size, I would make an
educated guess that it was easy to conceal.

[touching Mary Tudor, widowed Queen Consort of France, Duchess of Suffolk]

> Wait a minute - she had red-gold hair, like her brother! Aren't you
> thinking of Margaret?

Unlike Henry, who retained a strawberry-blondish colour of hair (until
it greyed with age) all his Life - it was described as "fire flashing gold"-
Mary's hair darkened as she aged to a dark auburn, like Catherine of
Aragon's. (Mary aged better than Catherine, full stop, but then Catherine
had a harder Life and different antecents, besides. ;) Mary had indeed
been a gorgeous young Princess, and she remained attractive to her dying
day, but her hair changed colour, from a blonde even yellower than Henry's
to darker. You can see this transformation in some of her portraits -
notably her "wedding portrait" with the Duke of Suffolk, in which she
wears her French jewels (which Henry was soon to confiscate) and the artist
has streaked her hair with red highlights so it does not disappear into
the dark of her "French hood" headdress.

Margaret Tudor came up with the short end of the stick, both in terms
of Beauty and personality. She was never considered a raving beauty
("pleasing" was as far as she got in the bloom of her youth) and she
really got scary (and gained weight, which was acceptable in men and
not so much in women - *sighs* much like today) when she got older.
She also developed a "pearl" (possibly a cataract) in one eye, which
did nothing to enhance her faded charms, nor her sight for that matter,
either.

> Oddly enough, Elizabeth of York's mother - the famed pale beauy Elizabeth
> Woodville - was highly prolific. But you're right.

I am thinking about writing a post on body types - and what the people of
the Tudor era took them to "mean."

> It's been said that Anne of Cleves, ironically enough, is the most
> attractive to modern eyes, but I have to say that the pictures vary so
> wildly, it's hard to tell. And in Anne's case, it could be the genius of
> Holbein casting its spell - as it did so many years ago...

Poor Anne of Cleves - she was much more of a victim of Henry's personal
tastes and eccentricities than truly an ugly woman. Holbein's portrait was
painted "head-on" which did conceal a longer nose by virtue of its angle.
Holbein was not very big on "gilding the lily," in fact, his sketches and
portraits are the best "photography" that we in the present age have to "see"
the people of his time.

Henry VIII knew every one of his wives (in not always "in the Biblical
sense") before he married them, save Anne of Cleves. Catherine of Aragon
had been married to his older brother, Arthur. Henry had escorted her to
her wedding, even to the Altar, and he had basically grown up around her,
seeing her, when she was allowed, and he was allowed, around Court from the
time he was 10 until he married her. Anne Boleyn (and Jane Seymour, too, for
that matter) was a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon. Jane Seymour was
a lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn. Catherine/Katheryn Howard was a
lady-in-waiting to Anne of Cleves, and Catherine Parr (whose mother had been
a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon, for whom Catherine Parr could very
well been named) was a "lady about Court."

It was a tight little group in the Tudor Courts - not as incestuous
as some historians would suggest, but pretty tight all the same, as evidenced
by Henry's unprecedented choice of four of his six wives from within it,
and one (Catherine of Aragon) who had become a part of it. Only Anne of
Cleves was specifically "imported" for Henry VIII (Catherine of Aragon had
been "imported," for her bloodlines and political reasons, her beauty
was immaterial in the face of her health and the promise of children,
specifically for her marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales.)

Anne of Cleves arrived an unknown, save for Holbein's pleasing portrait.
Henry had married romantically each of her predecessors, even Catherine
of Aragon. There had been no "marriages of State" arranged solely for
alliance and power, until then. Henry had been free to marry whomever
he liked in 1509, and he surprised many by choosing Catherine of Aragon,
who was past the first bloom of youth. He truly had loved her - or at
least been infatuated with her - this unhappy Spanish Princess who was
in desperate need of a hero to rescue her. Ever the romantic, Henry
provided himself as the knight in shining armour, as it were.

Though many would praise Anne as "right Queenly" and "certainly nothing
lacks" Henry did not like her on sight. Period. Understandably, Anne,
whose English was non-existant at this point, was baffled by Henry's
cold courtly behaviour. Lucky for her, she was a complete innocent,
and she had no idea that she was extremely unlikely to conceive. (If anyone
has not heard about this, let me know, and I will post on it.)

Anne of Cleves herself was miffed when, after Katheryn/Catherine Howard's
spectacular and dizzying fall from grace, that Henry married Catherine
Parr, whom, in Anne of Cleves' opinion, was not nearly as attractive as
Anne herself. There were plenty of people who would have contradicted
Anne's vocal disapproval had this been true, but none did.

> What is the most interesting/ironic is that Catherine got her reddish gold
> hair from the same place Isabella got hers - a Plantagent ancestor. (But
> you name him later on)

Yes. Catherine of Aragon was named for her Platagenet great-grandmother,
Catherine of Lancaster, the daughter of John of Gaunt by Margaret, the
Duke of Brabrant. What is even more interesting, as I mention, is that
Catherine was though _royally_ descended from John of Gaunt, whereas
both of her husbands (not surprisingly, Arthur and Henry were full
brothers ;) were descended from John's non-royal marriage to his mistress,
Katherine Swynford.

Catherine, her mother Isabella and at least two of her siblings (Juan
and Juana) were all fair-haired and light of eye. Juan was especially
praised as "golden" in every respect, from his colouring to his personality.
(Catherine's sister Juana's beautiful colouring was seen as incogruous
next to her difficult, and finally famously "mad," personality. That
she was not actually "mad" until her final years is another story.)

Catherine of Aragon, save one portrait by Sittow, never fared well
in portraits. From accounts, her "ugliness" was more a function of the
prejudices of her age than actual out-and-out unattractiveness. At any
rate, she was not a "dark Spainard," though many painters (who took
her situation as artistic inspiration but had never seen the living
Catherine) would paint her as such, and many film-makers the same. (She
is depicted in the movie "Anne of the Thousand Days" as dark-haired
and eyed, and looking very much like a thin - she wasn't - Italian
widow.)

> > Dark and/or blotchy complexions ("the little pox" - smallpox - and
> > what we now call "chicken pox" wrecked havoc on complexions, and
> > often left their sufferers, if they managed to survive, hideously
> > scarred for Life - Elizabeth herself would be scarred from smallpox)
>
> I had never heard this. I had heard she escaped.

She escaped with what Beauty she had largely intact, but she did
have faint "pocks" and scars she was at understandable pains to
conceal. She was nursed through her illness (and she contracted it
in the summer of 1562, after her ascension) by the sister of her great
friend (and alleged lover) Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leiceister; Mary
Sidney. Mary Sidney was not so lucky, for though she braved contagion
to nurse Elizabeth and keep a vigil by her bedside, the resulting
contracture of the pox from Elizabeth scarred her hideously for Life.

Of all the things that can be said about Elizabeth I, her loyalty to
those she saw as devoted friends is impressive. Mary Sidney was
so disfigured by the pox that she did not want to be seen in public,
and certainly not by anyone that was not family or close friends.
Elizabeth, in recognition of Mary's sacrifice, allowed Mary to live
where she liked, and although Elizabeth was very demanding of her
friends, she never imposed upon Mary.

> > could be improved by the liberal application of paste whose primary
> > ingredient was lead. [snips] One of the closest equivilents I
> > can suggest is the dead-white of the base coat of clown make-up. Add
> > the scarlet and vermillion tones favoured in the considered-morally-
> > scandalous lipstick of the time, and there you have it. People would
> > erupt in gales of surprised laughter now, but it was an earnest effort
> > then.
>
> Wasn't this more towards the end of her days, in old age?

She started wearing make-up not long after her ascension. Elizabeth
was a very vain woman, and she also lived in an age where women in
their late twenties were considered "middle-aged." (Childbearing,
and its inherent dangers, cut a huge swath through the female population-
Royal and otherwise.) Elizabeth was seriously concerned with appearing
as attractive as she could, and she prized especially her fair complexion,
using everything that was alleged to perserve it. Women, especially of
Elizabeth's time, had to use whatever natural resources they had to
exercise whatever power they could, and thus Beauty was an asset, and
the preservation of it (Beauty could inspire chivalry, and thus give
Elizabeth a hold over her male counterparts and male advisors, followers
and subjects) was merely intelligent strategy.

As she aged, she demanded more and more extravagant compliments, and her use
of make-up became the extreme described above.

> > As Elizabeth was the
> > vaunted "Virgin Queen," she would often wear it down and openly,
> > cascading down her back from beneath a jewelled circlet or other
> > symbol of her Royal status. Elizabeth did not favour the nets or
> > hoods of Tudor ladies, or of her predecessors.
>
> But she piled it up, curled & braided it with jewels. Vey rarely was it
> even in part hanging down her back.

Elizabeth I was a fashion-plate and a clothes horse, much in the way of
both her parents and her older sister (Mary may not have had the greatest
of tastes - preferring, like Anne of Cleves, what could be considered
ostenstation, "more" - and "richer" being "better.") She did experiment
greatly with hairstyles, but was very noted for allowing her hair to be down
when she was first Queen, as it was so indicative of both youth and innocence.
Later, she did indeed go whole-hog into the most elaborate hairstyles
possible.

> > Make-up had been considered scandalous by those before Elizabeth, and
> > with few exceptions, what one saw was what one got. Elizabeth's
> > determined use of make-up was, in its own way, pioneering.
>
> Gee, wonderful. Sigh.

Nothing wrong, as I said before, in keeping a shine on what you have,
but I do agree that many women "overdo" it in the elusive (and in some
cases, downright sad) pursuit of an "ideal," regardless of whether or
not that "ideal" a) is truly attractive (or in any way "natural looking")
and b) suits them at all.

Aside: American women are so, unfortunately, known for their make-up
extremes that some Germans refer to it as "war paint," comparing it
to the swathes of colour applied by the American Indians.

> > Despite
> > the disapproving words of many, the fashion of the Queen was the
> > fashion of the Court, and therefore of the country she ruled. Future
> > Queens would make their own ways, and some with better success than
> > others, because of Elizabeth.
>
> True - and it is as much due to her character as her sex, because Mary
> could have been the same way, had she tried.

Poor Mary I, she was damned if she did, and damned if she didn't. Elizabeth's
choices caused her much personal pain (even if they allowed her a very
real exercise of power in its stead, and she was a woman who adored
power) but she had the sad example of her sister before her. They were
two different women, each with virtues and vices, and they were raised
two different ways to become two different kinds of people. One of the
greatest differences is, simply put, that Elizabeth was more chameleon-
like and adaptable to the changes around her. She was a "new age" woman,
where everything that Mary had been taught to cling to and hold dear
was of the medevial age - much like her mother, Catherine of Aragon.
Both Catherine and Mary would be caught in the head-on collisions of
those two worlds, those two ages, and neither had the ability to move
forward, with compromising what they felt was "right." Both would die
in the same, unhappy situation, as Antonia Fraser so aptly described it,
"separated from a husband, bereft of a son, and waiting her rival
triumph." A sad epitaph indeed.

--
- CEM-L-G

walk...@ioNET.net

"Die besten Dichter schweben in den Wolken muessen uns noch versteckt
halten, bis die Luft rein ist."

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