temporaries differed. In all probability she had been indiscreet. If
she had gone further, if she had really committed adultery--and
the possibility cannot be lightly dismissed--then it is likely that a
desperate woman had taken a desperate course to give England its
prince and save herself from ruin. Whatever the truth, she had
played her game and lost.

Lost indeed! She was denied even the hope of triumphing
through her child. In the four days between her trial and execu-
tion Cranmer had to find cause for nullifying her marriage, thus
reducing Elizabeth to the status of a bastard. It mattered little
that it was illogical to condemn and execute for adultery a woman
who had never been a wife: Henry was not averse to having it both
ways. What cause Cranmer found is unknown: it may be that he
relied upon the fact that Anne's elder sister had been Henry's mis-
tress, which in ecclesiastical law established a relationship between
the two that prohibited marriage. In any case it was a sorry business
although it achieved a rough sort of justice and was not unstates-
manlike. Elizabeth was reduced to the same status as Mary, who
therefore took priority by age, while both gave place in sex to
their base-born brother, the Duke of Richmond. The succession to
the throne thus became clearer, for at worst people could now look
to a prince, though an illegitimate one; at best they could trust in
God to bless the King with an indisputable heir. Henry was only
forty-five, and with Catherine and Anne dead, the past was liqui-
dated. He could start again on his quest for a son.

Elizabeth was two years and eight months old when her mother
was executed and even the wrench that a child of that age might
feel was spared her through living in a household of her own. Her
emotional life, in contrast with Mary's, was unaffected by her
mother's misfortunes. Neither shame nor resentment ate like a
canker at her pride. Not shame, for she grew up in a society with
feelings differently tuned from ours. A royal father was parentage
enough: it could glorify the bar sinister, remove the taint of an
adulterous mother. Nor did the scaffold matter seriously: it was an
instrument of state to which the great families of the age paid

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