During these last six years, the first stage of the Wars of the Roses, Elizabeth Lambert had grown up into a girl of eleven or twelve, and was no longer a child; the former Earl of March had become the new king of England through battle, even if he had not won a serious political majority, despite a special service of thanksgiving in Westminster Abbey and a lavish coronation. However, he was still technically only a king in waiting since Henry VI, the anointed sovereign, was still alive at that time even though he was in hiding. Even in 1461, the ambitious Queen Margaret still hoped desperately that the wars were not over, for she had set her heart on winning them, and she was already embarking on serious pro-Lancastrian diplomatic moves in France.
In England however, the entire population and especially the city merchants, even if they had not known or cared a great deal for the late Duke of York, now understandably wanted to hear even more about his son Edward, newly confirmed as king. The public knew that the young Edward was a heroic military leader, but they wanted to know what he was like personally, not just that he was tall, dark and handsome; or was he fair, as the unsatisfactory portraits in London’s National Portrait Gallery and even the Royal Collection seem to show? Unless they had actually watched him in a street procession nobody would even know what he looked like. Women and girls, who had heard about his good looks, were ready to get excited about him.
There was no secret about the way he had been brought up: the education of the young Earl of March at Ludlow Castle, the family home, had been carried out according to the rules of his class, the aristocracy, but his apparent inborn talent for leadership, especially in warfare, seems to have been innate, inherited. His father had had sufficient experience of military life and many contacts with political life, even if over-coloured by his own ambition, to direct the young man’s practical studies, having first chosen suitable tutors to carry out all details of the varied instruction needed. Edward was not allowed to be idle, for moral, religious and historical teaching was rated as highly important, although naturally the young man could also indulge in hunting, jousting or any other sports during his leisure. Carefully chosen experts would supervise the book-learning, something which Edward seems to have enjoyed, even if he was never to develop into an intellectual. It was known that he learnt to read Latin and to speak tolerably good French, while later in life, especially after visiting Bruges, he collected some fine books, which are still preserved in the British Library in London,1 but he seems to have preferred books that were objects of beauty in themselves with fine script, print or lettering and attractive illustrations. Scholarship as such was not his main interest: he seems to have appreciated the artistic value of the books he chose rather than the messages they were intended to carry to the reader. During mealtimes at Ludlow Castle he had to listen to readings from religious or highly moral works, a practice usual at the time and continued later, particularly in abbeys, convents and certain schools. Edward possessed through inheritance the practical qualities that would be essential in the early part of his life; the rest would be indeed the ‘adjunct’ to personality, as Shakespeare was to describe education in Love’s Labour’s Lost, the near-spontaneous development of those valuable inborn qualities, the indefinable extra that was to become paramount during his later years when he had finally stopped fighting, at least in England, and was able to concentrate on governing the country, carrying out many essential reforms in several spheres. But all that lay a long way ahead.
Elizabeth Lambert’s parents in Cheapside would also follow the rules of education, again those relevant to her family circumstances, far removed of course from those of her future lover both because the education of girls was totally different from that given to boys of the merchant class and because the ambitions of her family and her class, although strong, were naturally different from those of the high-born York family. However, the future was to prove that the king would be permanently dependent on the merchant class of London, for he was always in need of money, while at the same time he soon developed a personal interest in trade. So Elizabeth, even if born into the middle class, was not as far away from the king as it might have seemed.
Amy Lambert in particular would be keen now to ensure that as her daughter grew up she would receive the best education available for girls at the time but as the family would have known only too well, the choice for girls was limited: they could attend the elementary schools as boys did but otherwise parents would have to employ private tutors. The girls themselves might decide they would like to enter the Church and if they did so they could benefit from the best education in England, although the conditions obviously would not suit everyone. Most private tutors would be retired teachers or priests, possibly even scriveners, who would be useful at least in teaching children how to write.
In 1949 Simone de Beauvoir (inescapable in any context touching on the education of women) when considering their situation during the Middle Ages, decided that women were so well protected, within the middle and upper classes at least, that many of them had little incentive or encouragement to think about anything that might allow them the independence of a career. In one sense, however, middle-class parents in the fifteenth century could offer girls a ready-made introduction to the world of commerce, for their children, who were expected to grow up quickly, would be encouraged to work closely with them even before the boys were apprenticed, usually of course outside the family, while the girls, after marriage, often worked with their husbands, who might depend on their help. The Lambert family would be ready to arrange all this in due course.
However, records have come to light showing that if given the chance, or if widowed, some women at this time were enthusiastically ready to develop an independent and rewarding career of their own. One particularly interesting group among the merchant class were the ‘silkwomen’, for the valuable trade in silk fabrics and embroidery was virtually in their hands alone. The career of one of these women, the twice-widowed Ellen Langwith, has been documented in detail2 and proves that the women of the fifteenth century were certainly capable of creative and responsible work and soon commanded respect from everyone. However, hardly any girls remained unmarried, for parents and other relatives would search carefully for the right partner, who must first of all be useful to them, while the daughters themselves had little or no say in the matter. If the chosen man suited the prospective bride, if she liked the look of him, that was a bonus. No husband? Surely it was only a question of finding one. As Paul Murray Kendall remarked in his study of medieval life The Yorkist Age, the word ‘spinster’ could be used to describe someone who spun yarn: a word describing an unmarried girl or woman was hardly necessary in late medieval society, for such people were rare indeed.
Education must come first, however, marriage a little later, but not much later. Education was organised with one dominant aim: in the city, it must lead to progress in business and also, at the same time, to advancement in social life. After a boy had completed his apprenticeship it was usual for him to accept a placing and work his way up, but this would not necessarily be in the same trade or business that his father conducted. Girls must be groomed for a different type of success: it was assumed that every girl would marry, but she must marry well, she must accept a husband who was either well established or very soon likely to be, then, as a wife and mother, she in her turn could bring up a group of children who would also be well or even better educated, then make good marriages themselves or even hope to move closer to the gentry. This might often happen in the case of boys who had decided to take up a career in law, which was a popular choice. Marriage was inescapable, and just as much a business as anything else, determining social status and financial ease: it would determine the future and prove the truth of the old much-quoted saying: ‘Marriage is destiny’. As in business, the result could be good or bad. On the whole young couples made the best of things, there would be respect and sometimes, perhaps, even love, although sentimentality and hopes of romance were not encouraged.
Parents, of course, and especially perhaps mothers, who felt personally responsible and were themselves experienced, were intent on a good future for their daughters, but education for girls remained complicated. In his detailed Survey of London John Stow referred to several schools and colleges for boys, some of them still well known today, but nowhere does he mention a single educational establishment exclusively available to girls. None of the charitably minded generous people, mainly men but some of them women, who endowed or maintained the schools apparently considered that girls needed any specially organised instruction – the only ‘learning’ of value to them would be mostly provided at home. However, there are often references in Stow’s Survey to ‘poor children’ who had to be looked after in charitable establishments and presumably young girls were included among them. Sylvia Thrupp, in her authoritative study of 1948 The Merchant Class of Mediaeval London, mentions that elementary education was available to girls as well as boys, but emphasises that the former had no access to the higher education now available for their brothers, who could attend the grammar schools. Eton College had been founded by Henry VI in 1440 and there were many opportunities for boys to move out of the merchant class and take up other professions, notably law, as already mentioned. Latin was taught in the grammar schools and probably 40 per cent of Londoners could read it. This was a high proportion, for apparently only about one half of male Londoners (excluding priests) could read English, although by the mid-century it was used commonly in many documents. Better-off parents wanting higher education for a daughter could probably find it without too much trouble, although they would have to pay for it, but John Lambert could certainly have afforded it for his daughter, even though the family soon included at least three sons. One of them, William, later entered the priesthood.
It is clear at least that many girls received an excellent practical education at home, essential to them for the reasons already mentioned, starting with the management of the home itself and also an understanding of the family trade or business, much of which, except for trades such as bulk warehouse storage, was arranged and conducted in the family home. It was assumed without question that a well-educated girl with some knowledge or even experience of business was better equipped not just for her own personal life, but for the all-important good marriage. Girls were married early, and widows did not stay unmarried for long: they were always in demand as partners, because in many cases at least it was assumed that for one generation at least they and their new husband would have access to the inheritance left by the first.
But what can be assumed about the education given to Elizabeth Lambert? It is known that she learnt to read and write, even if no letter or other document written by her has yet been found. It is not difficult to imagine, without too much speculation, what she read, although her parents’ home in Cheapside would not contain a library as such. It was not yet possible to buy printed books as we know them, for William Caxton, who incidentally was also a mercer, did not start printing in Westminster until later in the century, probably about 1476. However, there was no shortage of parchment copies of books, and it is possible that John Lambert, whose business sometimes took him to the continent, might bring back books from places like Bruges or from Germany, where printing began earlier. However, nearly all the early printed books were in Latin, which the Lambert sons may have learnt to read, but not their parents nor their sister. To borrow a phrase from Professor E.F. Jacob in his 1961 study The Fifteenth Century, 1389–1485, the Lambert household might have been described as ‘literate but not literary’. There was probably a small private chapel in the house which would contain simple devotional tracts and works such as The Golden Legend, also devotional, including many lives of saints and a long-standing favourite, becoming later one of Caxton’s most successful printed books. Chaucer, who had died in 1400, would be known about, but it seems unlikely that the merchants and their families had the time or inclination to read the most famous poet of the Middle Ages or that moving earlier classic The Visions of Piers Plowman. The writers who succeeded them, at least those who are remembered or even studied today, would be probably various imitators of Chaucer or else too sophisticated for this essentially practical household; the meetings and ceremonies of varied kinds that John Lambert would have to attend, sometimes accompanied by his wife, plus the domestic and other work that she had to organise, would leave them little time for reading, quite apart from the essential business accountancy and trading details that both parents would need to supervise. There would be no time for the more sophisticated fourteenth-century writers like Hoccleve or John Lydgate who earn occasional mentions today. The voyages described by the mysterious Sir John Mandeville might have been read out of curiosity at least, although whether the travels he described were mere adaptations of continental works is unknown.
The early teaching that Elizabeth received would be mainly oral: counting songs, nursery rhymes, fairy tales, ballads and riddles, while she would surely have been encouraged to sing and dance. The range of ballads was wide, and even if many of them had not yet been written down, some of the adults or the older servants would know them by heart and pass them on to the children. The favourite ballads would probably include some from the classic group about Robin Hood, Maid Marion and the sheriff of Nottingham, still popular in Hollywood five or even six centuries later. The long-lasting ballads included dramatic memorable stories such as the well-known Clerk Saunders and Edward, Edward, which came from Scotland. Since prose fiction as such was not yet being written in England, and the classic work that recalled the splendid days of chivalry, Malory’s Morte d’Arthur was not printed until about 1485, the young Elizabeth probably did not have the chance to read it. However, when she was growing up, she would certainly be told legends, often set in early English history, while some crude romantic stories which had nothing to do with literature and have not survived may have been available to her, if her parents allowed them into the house.
It seems unlikely that she ever had the chance to read or even hear about that delightful earlier work The Owl and the Nightingale with its sophisticated discussions on morals, love and marriage. Instead, perhaps, as she grew up, she would find and enjoy the stories recounted in poems such as ‘The Nut-brown Maid’, that subtle and delightful classic telling how a lover, in disguise, tested the devotion of the girl who said she loved him. Perhaps, as she began to see more of her own city, she may have heard that famous and colourful poem ‘London Lickpenny’,3 thought earlier to have been written by Lydgate but now rated as anonymous. Nothing is more evocative of commercial London life in the early or mid-fifteenth century. The speaker recounts his experiences in coming to the city from Kent and this monologue-poem expresses all the day-to-day liveliness of the busy, bustling city where everyone was trying to sell something to everyone else: for instance there were Flemish merchants offering ‘Fine felt hats, spectacles for to read’, and of course there was plenty of food:
Cooks to me, they took good intent,
Called me near, for to dine,
And proffered me good bread, ale, and wine;
A fair cloth they began to spread,
Ribs of beef both fat and fine.
But for lack of money I might not speed.
That was the speaker’s problem, he had no money, but all the same he spent the day having a good look round, reminding his readers or listeners of all that was available in this actively cheerful series of markets: he was offered ‘hot peascods’, strawberries, and ‘some spice’, popular, in fact essential in those days to disguise the taste of meat that could be more than high, often just bad:
Pepper and saffron they gan me bede,
Cloves, grains, and flour of rice.
Again, with no money, he could not buy anything, but he wandered on through different markets:
Then into Cheap I gan me drawn
Where I saw stand much people.
It was here that some of the goods handled by mercers were being offered by stallholders, probably at cut prices or in small quantities:
fine cloth of lawn,
Paris thread, cotton and umple [possibly remnants].
Even if everything sold here was cheap this poor man still could not afford to buy anything, not even ‘hot sheep’s feet’, while in East Cheap he was offered ‘ribs of beef and many a pie’. This lively poem even evokes the sound of the market:
Pewter pots they clattered in a heap;
There was harp, pipe and sawtry [psaltery].
It was all noisy good fun but the speaker truly ‘lacked a penny’, he drank a pint of wine but was left very hungry and never found the hood he had ‘lost in Westminster among the throng’, for no man of law would help him unless he could be paid, and the poor man couldn’t do that. He went back to Kent, saying ‘Jesus save London that in Bethlehem was borne’. In London you had to have money or nobody took any notice of you. That situation has not changed.
The Lamberts and their fellow mercers knew all about money and the need to have it; as a class mercers were far from poor, they worked hard and were usually able to lend money, as already mentioned, which earned them interest. They could do that even when normal business was not brisk. When Elizabeth was taken out shopping in the big markets she would learn the value of money and how bargains were concluded. She and her mother – for she would not often be allowed out alone, and the two of them might be accompanied by a servant, indicating that ‘Lady’ Lambert was a superior mercer’s wife – would have to buy food nearly every day because of course it could not be preserved for very long. The Lamberts would employ at least one cook and various kitchen staff, usually male, for strong arms were needed to deal with the animal carcasses supplied by the butchers and poulterers. Because no offal of any sort was discarded meat preparation was complicated and often hard work.
Visitors from abroad were impressed by the display of wealth in English middle-class houses, particularly silver plate, which was not merely ornamental but used at table every day; however it has to be admitted that many foreigners had a low opinion of English cooking – and unfortunately there is nothing unusual about that. Yet visitors found Englishwomen welcoming and warm-hearted, ready to greet any stranger who happened to come into a tavern not with handshakes or curtsies but with friendly kisses.4 These women were not prostitutes: the latter could easily be found if wanted.
The basis of Elizabeth’s upbringing would certainly be practical and surely affectionate, but as she grew older she would be taught more seriously about the importance of religion, for the Church still had great power, and details from the recent history of England would be explained to her as well. She would learn at least the names of some kings and queens who had occupied the throne before Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou, who had been married not long before she herself had been born; she would learn about the ‘official’ king’s father, Henry V, the military hero, and perhaps, further back still, she might have been told about Henry IV, the usurper who had forced Richard II to abdicate and finally let him die in prison, probably poisoned.
As the young Elizabeth grew up – encouraged like all children of the time to grow up quickly – she would hear about her father’s Yorkist views on the monarchy, and it would not have occurred to her to think he might be wrong or that the new young king people were talking about might have to deal with opposition; she, like the whole family would accept the unrest and violence that took place in the 1450s and after: it was the background to her life, to everyone’s life, especially if they lived in London. In the country there was unrest too but of a different nature, usually quarrels about ownership of land, while relationships between the owners and their tenants, the problem of finding labour to replace the losses caused by the plague, all made things more difficult. In addition destructive battles had been fought over many fields in the Midlands and the north and if the soldiers were not paid they pillaged the countryside for food. There was no standing army and there were of course no accessible newspapers; news travelled slowly, although gossip and rumour circulated easily, usually with very little accuracy.
At the same time the girl in Cheapside would soon learn about the more pleasant side of life; she would be taught to appreciate the high-class textiles which her father bought and sold, and she would learn about the fabrics and fashions in vogue, much loved by medieval people who liked to show off the rich colours and texture of velvet, the variety of furs, the gold filigree, the embroideries and lace, in addition to other splendours. The work of the tailors and cutters, who were represented by their own livery companies, was very much admired. Most men in the better-off classes paid great attention to their clothes and often owned more finery than their wives, especially if, like John Lambert, they had to attend formal gatherings and feasts as part of their duty. Jewellery was popular, worn equally by men and women, for in a world without banks and banking, money, apart from commercial arrangements, had to be invested somehow and English goldsmiths, who created the jewellery, were skilled and popular.
Since the Lamberts were essentially an ambitious family – the energetic ‘Lady’ Lambert was presumably as ambitious socially as her husband was in business – they would probably find time to consult the reading material that was becoming very popular about good manners, which were considered very important. Boys especially, when they took up apprenticeships, were taught early that they must be responsible and polite, that was the way to success; in no circumstances must they pick their nose or allow themselves noisy farting. As for Elizabeth, she soon developed into a pretty girl with fair hair, the colouring that had always been admired and later received a special mention from Robert Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy;5 so her parents were surely pleased. There is no record of her childhood years, but the colour of her hair was mentioned later by at least one sixteenth-century poet who wrote about her, Michael Drayton; while the chronicle writers, also later, mentioned the thrill of ‘gay apparel’ as one of the reasons for the abrupt change she made to her life later, probably in the early 1470s.
It has to be remembered too that medieval people had to make their own entertainment in most ways; they could not go to any theatre to find colour and gaiety, although the miracle plays on biblical themes were popular, if limited in scope. At least everyone knew the characters and the plots, and the characters identified themselves when they first appeared. Elizabeth, remembered later for her charitable work, may well have seen that moving early play Everyman, and she may have remembered – for who could forget it – how all his so-called friends desert Everyman, except ‘Good-Deeds’, the one helpful figure who stays at his side when death approaches. Just as people created the richness of life for themselves by wearing dramatic clothes and costly jewellery, they never tired of watching street processions; they also made certain that their homes were well furnished, although the bedrooms in particular seem to have been very small and the furniture was hardly comfortable. The walls were often hung with decorative items such as painted wall-hangings and there are some rare survivals of paintings actually on wall surfaces. Portraits were rare too, limited to royal and aristocratic personages and rarely hung on the walls. Many people mentioned in this story have remained invisible, their appearance only known through engravings produced in the following century, probably based either on distant memories or on documents that had disappeared years before. What did John and Amy Lambert look like? Unfortunately we can only guess.
One aspect of Elizabeth Lambert’s education deserves a mention: who were her ‘role models’, to use a popular phrase of today? The Virgin Mary and the saints were never forgotten, but the Middle Ages themselves did not include a great number of outstanding women who might impress young girls, probably because nobody saw any reason for recording their lives. Yet there were three who can still attract attention centuries later, all belonging to the world of religion and inevitably talked about. The earliest of these was the seventh-century Abbess Hilda of Whitby who lived c. 614–80 and had developed double religious houses for both men and women working seriously in the areas of devotion and education. The important Council of AD 664, which confirmed the acceptance of Christianity in Northumbria, took place during her tenure as abbess. The Venerable Bede admired her, and through priests Elizabeth might well have known about her. She was followed several centuries later by Julian (Juliana) of Norwich whose shrine at Walsingham in Norfolk still has a great following in the twenty-first century. Her dates are uncertain but she is known to have died sometime about 1443 and her enduringly famous mystical work Revelations of Divine Love is still a classic today.
Among the many visitors who found their way to her presence in Walsingham was another woman who made a name for herself at this time. This was the surely eccentric Margery Kempe, daughter of the mayor of Lynn (later King’s Lynn), again in Norfolk. After marriage and the births of fourteen children the incredibly energetic Margery ran a small business of her own for a short time but then decided to devote her energies to God, went on pilgrimages round Europe and unconsciously invented a new literary genre – the autobiography. Since she could not read or write she dictated to a scribe all her travel adventures and religious and mystical experiences, which took her about two years. Some people were able to read the transcription, which was made by a long-suffering monk under the author’s watchful eye and constant tearful interruptions. She would often burst into ecstatic tears for no particular reason. Some contemporaries, possibly in the 1460s, had had the chance to learn about Margery Kempe’s unusual personality and wonder why there was so much weeping. Unfortunately it cannot be known whether Elizabeth Lambert had heard of this book, although it is unlikely that she had the chance to read it; late in the century the only copy available of the work mysteriously disappeared from circulation and was not seen again until 1934, when, according to her biographer Louise Collis, it was rediscovered in a Yorkshire country house and eventually published by the Early English Text Society. Margery, however, was known and gossiped about in her own century and although people hearing about her probably thought she must have been mad, they surely paid attention. If the young Elizabeth heard about her she would not have been tempted to follow her example. Margery was unique.
Would Elizabeth have heard or even read of any other outstanding women of early centuries? Not too many seem to have been remembered during the Middle Ages, unless the early chronicles were known in the Lambert household, but she might have heard something about Boudicca, heroine of the Roman occupation. On the whole, however, women would have had scanty mention in the records. In the early history of England there were a few others about whom not a great deal is known but their lives were surely of value, if only for a time, but at least people would have talked about them and Elizabeth might have heard this talk. One such was the mother of William the Conqueror, known in France as William the Bastard. She was not Count Robert’s wife but a girl called Arlève, or Arletta, daughter of a tanner, who happened to attract his father, the Duke of Normandy, one day when he was riding by and saw her hanging out the washing. She was soon summoned to the palace. William always maintained that his status of ‘bastard’ made him all the more determined to stand up for himself and win, which he did. Nothing more was heard of his mother, although it is known that she was, of course, married off. There were no magazines or scandal sheets at the time, but obviously there was scandal which entertained women in particular. Young Elizabeth would have listened to gossip whenever she had the chance, since there were few other sources of entertainment at the time.
Another woman of interest in those early years was Edith of the Swan Neck, the long-standing mistress of Harold of England, who was defeated by William in 1066. There was such carnage at the battle of Hastings that Harold’s body could not be identified by anyone, except by one woman, Edith. She was summoned to the corpse-strewn field after the battle, and her previous intimate life with Harold enabled her to point out the so-far unrecognisable dead body. There is also a mystery about Aelfgifu of Northampton who bore sons to King Cnut; he then married Emma and his previous mistress appears to have been left on her own. However, Cnut made use of her by sending her to Scandinavia to supervise his old territories on his behalf.
There were a few more important women in history whom Elizabeth might have heard of and she might well have been warned against any involvement in such strange experiences: surely somebody would have told her about Eleanor of Aquitaine, who lived from about 1122 to 1204; she was a historical figure who sounds legendary, due to her marriages, her possible lovers, her journeys to the crusades and her extraordinary behaviour in general. Would Elizabeth have heard of the romantic legend about ‘Fair Rosamond’, the long-term mistress of Eleanor’s second husband, Henry II of England? This legend may have been an invention but it had great appeal to later painters and poets, notably among the Pre-Raphaelites. She was reputed to be Rosamond Clifford, a member of the well-known family, and it was said that she had several children by the king. Was it true that the king had built a special house for her and did the jealous Queen Eleanor find out about it? The entrance was supposed to be through a maze with complications only known to the king but in the end, of course, the Queen discovered the secret and took her revenge; there are many versions of how she is supposed to have killed Fair Rosamond. Did she arrange for her to fall into a concealed pit or did she somehow administer poison? Rosamond is said to have been buried in a church at Godstow in Oxfordshire until a visiting cleric, the Bishop of Lincoln, ordered the tomb of this wicked woman, this ‘harlot’, to be removed, and Rosamond was reburied in the neighbouring chapter house. If Elizabeth had heard this story or even read some of the ballads written round it, would she have thought about it later? It had originally been told by Ranulf Higben, the fourteenth-century chronicler, and later retold by John Stow and others but it seems to have been recounted for children as a cautionary tale, for it is known to have fascinated them and even encouraged them to read.6 This was one of the stories that supplied the equivalent of romantic fiction, which had not yet been invented. Years later, several poets, including Samuel Daniel and Michael Drayton, found it natural to link the name of Jane Shore with that of Rosamond. Their names were also to be linked in many anonymous ballads, but the young Elizabeth Lambert would only have been told about Rosamond as an example of how she, a respectable member of a respectable family, should not behave.
Then there was that impressively wicked queen, Isabella, again a historical, not a legendary figure, who came from France and was said to have been incredibly beautiful. She was married to Edward II but took one of his enemies, Roger Mortimer, as her lover; together they succeeded in removing her husband from the throne. Isabella, known later as the ‘She Wolf of France,’ and Mortimer then ruled the country as regents, having arranged for her young son to occupy the throne and be King Edward III at least in name. Eventually Edward, although little more than a child, got the better of his aggressive mother and sent her to a convent. Mortimer was executed. Isabella was a woman whose conduct set a scandalous example of how not to behave.
If Elizabeth’s family ever gave her news from France, she may have learnt that in 1450, the beloved mistress of the French king Charles VII, Agnès Sorel, la dame de beauté, as he called her, had suddenly died, possibly from poison, and that the king’s heart was broken. It might have struck the young English girl that any woman, apart from the queen herself, should somehow manage not to be too close to a king, it seemed to lead to trouble. She might also have noticed that queens did not always have a very interesting life: they had been virtually sold by their families as a mere clause in a treaty, they were there, as everybody knew, to produce heirs to the throne and that was almost all, so the king would find a mistress, even a succession of them. Women like Queen Isabella, who fiercely took matters into their own hands, sometimes came to a bad end. A mistress would often be better remembered than a queen, but she often led a dangerous life; Elizabeth would be surely conditioned by some of these stories about women, many of them true, and none of them comforting. But they implied drama, melodrama, excitement of some sort. And young girls would have listened to them.
These were a few individual women, some good, some bad, who were not forgotten in early English history, but it is hard to find many records of individuals in the city of London generally who can be remembered now as possible icons for an adolescent girl in the mid-fifteenth century. In his absorbing ‘biography’ of London Peter Ackroyd writes of the ‘feminine principle’,7 but the women he describes were all members of anonymous groups: he does not see them as individuals, for presumably none of them emerged far enough from the crowd to be remembered on her own. Later in life ‘Jane Shore’ herself was destined to act as a woman on her own, but it is not easy to think of many predecessors whose behaviour might have influenced her. In the meantime her ‘education’, in the double sense of upbringing and learning, was soon over. She had acquired some learning, it became that ‘adjunct’ to herself, but it was certainly not all book-learning; some of it was legend, and legends, which always seem to have involved women, were more easily memorable than history, especially perhaps to a girl. It was still too early in history for any woman outside the Church or the aristocracy to be given a systematic education. Even in nineteenth-century France, Stendhal, who appreciated women but never lost his irony about them, noted this problem. ‘Women,’ he wrote in De l’amour of 1822, ‘only know what we [i.e. men] don’t care to teach them, what they read for themselves in the book of life.’ He was not wrong about that. The young Elizabeth would watch and listen to the grown-ups, and would be learning in the same way, while probably never forgetting the old legends or even the achievements of a few women in history.
It was time now to think of the next stage in her life, the most important stage in any girl’s existence in those earlier centuries, and she would not have long to wait: marriage.