Elizabeth I, Queen Regnant of England, was born on September 7th 1533
The arrival of a princess at Greenwich Palace was greeted with celebrations. The king and queen called her Elizabeth after both their mothers and the little girl became heiress presumptive to the throne. The presumption, as always, was that there would be a little boy somewhere along the line in the future to take her place as heir. There was - but not the one Anne Boleyn was hoping for. Because Anne had been sure that the child she was carrying would be the son Henry so desperately desired. And although she told the king that the arrival of a healthy daughter showed their children would thrive and that bouncing boys would follow, there's no doubt that Elizabeth's birth was a set back for Anne in her career as queen consort of England.
Anne Boleyn's joy at the birth of her daughter would have been tempered by the knowledge that she still had to deliver on another promise to Henry and provide a healthy brother for their little princess, Elizabeth.
The arrival of the woman who would become one of the strongest monarchs England has ever known made her mother appear weak for the first time. Anne had fought her way into the consort's crown with her intelligence and force of will. She began as an object of fascination for Henry VIII but became one of his closest advisers with a big say in shaping his policies. From the moment Henry asked his first wife, Catherine, for a divorce in 1527 until the day he made Anne his consort six years later, Mistress Boleyn had had unprecedented influence over the king. And until September 1533 Anne had always been right in the eyes of the king. For her, he had changed everything because she never let him down. And then, all at once, the queen's promises stopped coming true.
Henry VIII put unprecedented trust in Anne Boleyn, both as a consort and a councilor. When her promise that their first child would be a boy was proved wrong, her power over him began to wane.
If Anne had produced a son soon after she would, most likely, have recovered her position. But of course Anne's boy never came. She did become pregnant at least twice more, delivering a still born son just months before her downfall and execution in 1536. But there was no Prince of Wales, no Duke of York, no overfilled nursery bursting with boys. Anne had tried to make a laughing stock of Catherine of Aragon who had only given Henry a health daughter. She ended up with the same tall herself.
Catherine of Aragon's feelings on hearing that her great rival had produced a daughter, and not the promised son, would have been slightly more jubilant than Anne's
And so the poor courtier who had to tell the king that his child born this day 480 years ago was a girl also announced the beginning of the end of Anne Boleyn's power. There was no indication that day that the baby just born would rise to such levels of greatness. Perhaps give her parentage all those around her guessed she'd be feisty, intelligent and determined. She was cossetted as a princess and given the best of everything for almost three years until her mother's fall. But the beginning of her career as queen marked the end of her mother's power, a crossing of destinies for two women who shaped England at one of its most formative times.
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