Page 47 - All About History - Issue 72-18
P. 47
y f f f f
Place des Vosges which was
built on the site of the Hôtel des
Tournelles and its gardens
the Louvre in Paris and royal châteaux of Blois least until her fall
and Amboise in the Loire. from grace, was the
When the Queen’s household was in Paris, greatest possible
the unmarried young ladies of her retinue advertisement
were housed in the Hôtel de Tournelles, an for their much-
enormous, old royal palace which sprawled prized education
across over 20 acres in the Marais. system, which was
Here Anne would have shared a room with still producing
other young girls and fallen under the charge some of the most-
of the formidable gouvernante des filles, an accomplished young
older court lady whose unenviable job it was to women in Europe,
supervise the flighty young maids of honour despite increasingly
and deter any attempts upon their honour by stiff competition
the predatory gentlemen of the court. from Italy, Spain
While there, Anne and the other girls, and England, where
some of whom were also English, enjoyed an high-born young GUARDIAN:
extensive curriculum of lessons designed to women were also Guardians are requested to sign and return this report
transform them into perfectly accomplished beginning to enjoy
courtiers. The principles espoused by Anne better educational
de Beaujeu (who died in 1522 and would opportunities.
have visited the court during Anne Boleyn’s When the four-
residence there) were still very much in favour year-old Mary,
and young women growing to adulthood at Queen of Scots, was
the French court throughout the 16th century sent to France in 1548 in order to escape the French court and other aristocratic French
would all be educated along much the same ominous threat of English invasion and kidnap, households so that they could be imbued with
lines, with the same emphasis on reading, her devoted mother Marie de Guise consoled alittleofthatallimportantFrenchflairand
learning languages, music, dancing, debating herself with the fact that her daughter would polishthat hadmadethelikesofAnneBoleyn
philosophy and religion, and deportment. be raised in one of the most magnificent courts and Diane de Poitiers stand out in the crowd
Some girls would obviously have found this in the world and would be receiving the same andwintheheartsofkings.
all very hard work but intelligent, ambitious expansive and thorough education as she However, the French court in the latter half
young women like Anne Boleyn thrived in this herself had enjoyed. of the century, when it was presided over by
intellectual hot house. With Mary went several children, the thelastValoiskingsandtheirItalianmother
When Anne Boleyn returned home to offspring of high-ranking Scottish aristocrats, Catherinede’Medici,wasaverydifferent
England in 1522, her highly polished French most notably the ‘Four Marys’ – Mary place to the one that had nurtured the nascent
sophistication, sense of style and exquisite Beaton, Mary Seton, Mary Fleming and Mary talents of the Boleyn girls and, of course,
manners quickly made her one of the most Livingstone, who acted as the little Scottish Mary, Queen of Scots. When word began
talked about young women at court – pursued queen’s maids of honour (a purely honorific to spread of Queen Catherine’s infamous
by most of the men and envied by the women. title at first as they were all less than six years L’escadron volant (Flying Squad), a group of
When she captured the attention and then old) and enjoyed the same benefits of a French young noblewomen specially trained from © Getty, Alamy, Thinkstock
the heart of Henry VIII, it was said that he courtly education – a much prized asset at youthtobeasseductiveaspossibleandthen
was ensnared by the fact that she seemed the time and one that their ambitious parents act as informants and spies for the queen,
more French than English, which made her obviously hoped might one day win them parents naturally became much less keen to
automatically more attractive in a court which wealthy and influential husbands. expose their daughters to the perils of court life
garded the French as the arbiters of taste. Throughout the 16th century, noble parents and the practice of sending girls to court to be
s far as the French were concerned Anne, at continued to send their daughters to the educated began to die out.
47
