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If you thought that Mary and Anne Boleyn were the most scandalous and ‘disgraceful’ women who were ever bestowed the title of being one of Henry’s numerous mistresses, you were very wrong indeed as this week’s mistress is surely one in competition with the Boleyn sisters, that much is true.
Being considered scandalous and disgraceful was a very controversial matter in Tudor times as the ‘rules’ were different for men and women—and most definitely harsher for women as they were meant to be oh so good, innocent and not seductive by any means.
I mean, isn’t that kind of odd? —A woman couldn’t be seductive, but she had to look good. Isn’t the idea of being seductive to do with one’s looks in the first place?
Seems strange to me.
Anyway, let’s stop going off on a tangent so I can explain.
For men, being considered scandalous and disgraceful was more on the purposes of going against the King or the laws of society; this could range from causing a scandal by being involved with the King’s romantic life or saying something outrageous towards a member of the royal family or, in the terms of being shameful, being known for not being respectful towards your superiors/elders of society and quite frankly being an rude, arrogant person with no care for anyone else, not even your monarch.
Some examples of scandalous and disgraceful men during the Tudor period include; Thomas Wyatt (a very famous poet who was the victim of the scandalous rumour that he had slept with the future Queen Anne Boleyn after gossip spread about their relationship prior to her marriage to Henry VIII and which is subsequently questioned through his poem ‘Whoso List to Hunt, I Know Where Is An Hind’ in which the imagery suspiciously relates to the King and his mistress), Thomas Seymour (the third husband of Henry’s last wife Catherine Parr and the brother of Henry’s third wife Jane Seymour who brought scandal to his name through the rumours of his disgraceful behaviour towards the teenage future Queen Elizabeth I as it is said that he tried to sleep with her during his brief marriage to Catherine Parr shortly after Henry’s death and who was later executed for treason by his OWN brother after further suspicion over his desire for the teenage Princess came into question) and finally, once again in involvement with the future Virgin Queen, Sir Robert Dudley (a man who has been known throughout history as her ‘secret lover’ who is the subject to a scandalous rumour that he arranged his wife’s tragic death so that he might be able to marry the Queen who apparently returned his affections).
Seems like the Tudor era was filled with scandalous, disgraceful men.
. . .
Now, on the other hand, scandal and disgraceful behaviour for women was purely based on one thing and one thing alone; her sexuality and romantic life.
As I’m sure you’re well aware by now, after reading the previous posts, women in Tudor times were expected to be chaste (meaning you’re a virgin), innocent (meaning that you did nothing naughty like go against your father’s wishes or sneak off to meet boys in the middle of the night) and that you were submissive (yep, you had to obey the men in your life, sorry modern women!)
And if you were not these, you might have been considered scandalous or disgraceful.
That is where alleged mistress Elizabeth Bryce Amadas comes into play as she is most definitely known as a woman who did not hold back her tongue, nor did she like to do as she was told in the eyes of men.
Born Elizabeth Bryce circa.1508 to her parents, James Bryce (the son of Sir Hugh Bryce) and his wife Elizabeth Chester, sadly not much is known about her early life as it is her later life that is of more interest to historians, but it is believed that Elizabeth was an only child and very much beloved by her parents. But it would be in her early teenage years that her defiant and somewhat immature behaviour would make its presence known as historians believed that Elizabeth and her father often quarrelled over her father’s desires and decisions over her future, especially when it came to her arranged marriage.
It was an arranged marriage that, in the eyes of Tudor society, Elizabeth should have been well-pleased and grateful for as she would marry Robert Amadas, a London man and the richest goldsmith in the whole of England—meaning that Elizabeth would have wanted for nothing as goldsmiths were (I think, don’t quote me on this) considered respectable men as their services would be required from the likes of nobility and royalty alike.
In fact, it was her marriage to this rich goldsmith that landed her a highly sought-after place of employment within the royal court as a member of Queen Catherine of Aragon’s household. Something that I’m sure she would have been very pleased with as she would have been in the heart of the Tudor court.
And this, sadly, is where all her troubles started and where her tragic end was foreshadowed.
. . .
Though her marriage to Robert appeared to be quite a blissful one as the couple would go on to have two children, Elizabeth and Thomasine, the marriage was doomed to fail just as miserably as Henry VIII’s own first marriage had (in terms of Catherine of Aragon, Henry couldn’t have been happier to be rid of her). In the mid-to-late 1520s, around the same time that the Boleyn sisters had come to the English court and caught the King’s attention, Elizabeth began claiming that Henry had asked her on numerous occasions if he may join her at the house of William Compton in Thames Street, presumably to sleep with her, and alleged that the King had used Compton and another man called Dauncy to deliver personal messages on his behalf to her. If these claims are true, Henry’s advances towards her must have taken place prior to 1528 as Compton died in that year, unless Dauncy continued to deliver these messages.
These claims were only worsened when Henry made it clear his intention to remove Catherine of Aragon from power as his Queen and wife and replace her with his latest mistress, Anne Boleyn as blunt Elizabeth did not keep her opinions clear to herself.
This would not end well for Elizabeth; in 1532, Elizabeth was arrested on charges of treason towards speaking out against Anne Boleyn, who was very close to marrying Henry VIII and was rumoured to be pregnant at this point in time. Elizabeth is said to have described Anne Boleyn as a harlot who should be burnt for bewitching the King and, by setting aside his current wife and Queen, Catherine of Aragon, was encouraging other men in England to do the same. Her motive behind her harsh words might have been that her husband had recently left her (and although she did become the partner to Thomas Nevill, her marriage had taken a sour turn and she believed Henry’s marriage had influenced her own) and she was out for blood against the influential King.
Luckily, Elizabeth was later released from prison but, as she was still married to her husband, her luck did not continue as the couple fell into poverty and their causes of death are known but I could take a guess that their wealth declined so badly that they died either from starvation or from some sudden illness.
To this day, it is still unclear whether Elizabeth gave in to the King’s advances.
But—why the hell would you go about court claiming that the King was interested in you and not admit whether you gave in or not unless you were trying to salvage what was left of your reputation by concealing the truth—which might have been that she was actually sleeping with the King.
Might this have been the reason why she was not executed for treason? Because she was the King’s mistress?
But was this not the point in time where Henry was supposed to be loyal to Anne Boleyn and only have her as his mistress, but might he have lied to Anne Boleyn to keep her sweet?
Who knows?
And honestly, as bad as it sounds, Elizabeth went looking for trouble and so she got everything that she deserved as a result of causing it in the first place.
And now…enter the first of the famous sisters who both played mistress to the King, Mary Boleyn.
Get ready for a bumpy ride because this is going to be fun!
- Have a ‘Tudor-fic’ week!
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