Comments on: Did Elizabeth ever mention Anne Boleyn?

By: Ana

Ana — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 12:56:54 +0000

I think you have to get away from the modern way of thinking on this. For 16thC aristocrats parents were not love objects. In fact children and parents would barely know each other. Kids were sent away at a young age, and younger kids were cared for by nurses. Mother-love such as it was was provided by servants, not by the mother, and fathers were even more distant. Probably Eliz venerated her father because he was her king, and also represented her own claim to kingship. By asserting her connection to him she was strengthening her legitimacy. It would have been a public, political admiration, not necessarily in any way connected to her private feelings.

By: Aurora

Aurora — Sun, 02 May 2010 19:56:35 +0000

Tonja hit the nail right on the head.

Elizabeth has no memories of her mother (she was much too young to remember anything at all). And anything that she DID hear would be very negative towards her mother. All Elizabeth had was her father, so I think she realized very early on that I should just love what I have, because that’s all I can have.

By: Claire

Claire — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:54:52 +0000

Hi Tonja,
Yes, Elizabeth was only 2 years and 8 months when her mother died plus she only stayed with Anne for the first 3 months of her life and then was removed to her own household. It is highly likely that she would not have remembered her mother at all. As a queen though, she did surround herself with Boleyn relatives so I’m sure she could have grilled them for information about her mother, I hope she did.

By: Tonja

Tonja — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:18:12 +0000

You need to remember, Queen Elizabeth was a very small child when she lost her mother. She would have very few if any memories of her.

And, being raised by King Henry’s staff, of course all she was EVER going to hear about her mother was what an evil, adulterous, incestuous witch she was.

No one in the court or as part of Henry’s staff was going to ever tell Elizabeth anything otherwise (THE TRUTH) about her mother.

After all, they liked their heads just fine where they were-on their necks !

By: Matterhorn

Matterhorn — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 23:42:17 +0000

It’s striking and rather incredible that Elizabeth idolized her father, when he had her mother killed. How was this possible? Do you think it had something to do with her being too young to really remember her mother? I imagine it would have been much harder for her to love Henry if she had been close to Anne.

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