Read Online In Bed with the Tudors: The Sex Lives of a Dynasty from Elizabeth of York to Elizabeth I by Amy Licence - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Amy Licence
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Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and developed by Henry VI and Edward IV. As such, it was a smaller and less significant royal property, more of a country retreat than the symbolic locations chosen for the arrival of Arthur and Margaret. Within a few years, all that remained of Henry’s birth place would be completely demolished to make way for a grand new programme of building in the Burgundian style. Its positioning may have afforded the heavily pregnant queen a greater degree of privacy and quiet than she would have found at Westminster; apparently it was her favourite house. Assuming the physicians’ calculations had been correct, Elizabeth would have taken to her chamber early in June, to await the birth at the end of that month. The usual mechanism of preparations would have ensured all was ready for her enclosure in her chamber, from the yards of cloth and hangings about her bed, to the tapestries on the walls, cradles, pallet bed, all in the richest colours and fabrics as well as the indispensable reliquary. It was her first summer confinement; perhaps in the heat she requested that the one uncovered window might be left open, so she could look out down to the river and watch the distant craft sailing past in the long days of waiting. Finally, on 28 June 1491, the ordeal came to an end; she was delivered of a sturdy, golden-haired son.
A child’s safe arrival triggered the next phase in the frenzy of activity of the birth chamber. While Elizabeth lay back and rested, exhausted after her ordeal, the focus of her attendants shifted to the child, to secure its safety and establish the all-important gender and state of health. Superstition continued to govern this element of the procedure. While some gossips remained to comfort and congratulate the mother, it was the midwife’s next job to cut the umbilical cord; a task of immense significance, as a child’s navel was believed to hold the key to future fertility: if it was wrinkled, the mother would bear more babies, if smooth, her child-bearing days were over. The cord also had magical qualities of protection: some people carried a dried piece of it around as a charm to fend off witches, which was a very real fear for pregnant and labouring mothers, illustrated by a case of July 1582, when the Kent assizes found Elizabeth Johnson, a spinster of Kemsing, not guilty of having bewitched one Elizabeth Fremlynge so that she gave birth to a stillborn child. The caul and placenta were removed from the child and left to dry, thought to bring great fortune and an indicator of baby’s future health, although as superstition became increasingly frowned upon, midwives were directed to bury them. As usual, the child’s navel was dusted with powder of aloe and frankincense to speed recovery, while the midwife examined the new arrival carefully, checking his breathing and wiping his ears, eyes and nostrils. Cases of jaundice were treated with tree bark boiled in barley water or clarified whey. Then the little prince was washed gently in any of a number of substances; wine, milk, mallow, rue, sweet butter, myrrh, linseed and barley water, or rubbed with oil of acorns – supposedly another preventative measure against the perils of death before baptism – before being swaddled and laid in the cradle. Alternative methods of care included swathing them in roses ground up with salt to absorb moisture from their limbs and the mouth and gums cleansed with a finger dipped in honey. As she looked on the face of her sleeping newborn baby, Elizabeth cannot have predicted what the future would hold for him. As a second son, Prince Henry was the necessary ‘spare heir’, significant as a safe-guard but not expected to rule. His arrival was celebrated but few records were made of the event. His birth was a comparatively quiet business: it is symbolic that Margaret Beaufort only briefly mentioned his arrival in her Book of Hours, writing over a correction, whilst his elder brother and
A child’s safe arrival triggered the next phase in the frenzy of activity of the birth chamber. While Elizabeth lay back and rested, exhausted after her ordeal, the focus of her attendants shifted to the child, to secure its safety and establish the all-important gender and state of health. Superstition continued to govern this element of the procedure. While some gossips remained to comfort and congratulate the mother, it was the midwife’s next job to cut the umbilical cord; a task of immense significance, as a child’s navel was believed to hold the key to future fertility: if it was wrinkled, the mother would bear more babies, if smooth, her child-bearing days were over. The cord also had magical qualities of protection: some people carried a dried piece of it around as a charm to fend off witches, which was a very real fear for pregnant and labouring mothers, illustrated by a case of July 1582, when the Kent assizes found Elizabeth Johnson, a spinster of Kemsing, not guilty of having bewitched one Elizabeth Fremlynge so that she gave birth to a stillborn child. The caul and placenta were removed from the child and left to dry, thought to bring great fortune and an indicator of baby’s future health, although as superstition became increasingly frowned upon, midwives were directed to bury them. As usual, the child’s navel was dusted with powder of aloe and frankincense to speed recovery, while the midwife examined the new arrival carefully, checking his breathing and wiping his ears, eyes and nostrils. Cases of jaundice were treated with tree bark boiled in barley water or clarified whey. Then the little prince was washed gently in any of a number of substances; wine, milk, mallow, rue, sweet butter, myrrh, linseed and barley water, or rubbed with oil of acorns – supposedly another preventative measure against the perils of death before baptism – before being swaddled and laid in the cradle. Alternative methods of care included swathing them in roses ground up with salt to absorb moisture from their limbs and the mouth and gums cleansed with a finger dipped in honey. As she looked on the face of her sleeping newborn baby, Elizabeth cannot have predicted what the future would hold for him. As a second son, Prince Henry was the necessary ‘spare heir’, significant as a safe-guard but not expected to rule. His arrival was celebrated but few records were made of the event. His birth was a comparatively quiet business: it is symbolic that Margaret Beaufort only briefly mentioned his arrival in her Book of Hours, writing over a correction, whilst his elder brother and
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