Sunday, April 17, 2011

Question from Lauren - Tutoring of Mary and Elizabeth

Re: Mary and Elizabeth

When they were tutored, were they tutored alongside other noble children, or on their own?

5 comments:

Katherine said...

Mary and Elizabeth were tudored by themselves, normally the children of the king were tudored alone. But illigetamite children and nieces and nephews were sometimes taught with other high-standing children

Katherine said...

Both Mary and Elizabeth were tutored alone. Most of the time this was the case for the children of the king. But other children of the people of the court tutored their children with others

Lauren said...

I had read that Catherine Parr and Queen Mary were tutored together as children, but read nothing to back this up

kb said...

I think we should be more specific about when, at what age, the tutoring happened. Within the royal nursery there were multiple children. For a while Kat Astely handled the education of the young Elizabeth. Roger Ascham commented favorably on Astely's although cautioned against going too fast. This turned out not to be a problem as Elizabeth was so sharp.

Ascham tutored both Edward and Elizabeth in italic writing. As Mary and Elizabeth shared a household for some time, it is quite likely that Mary spent some time with Elizabeth on the pursuits which Mary was well versed in including music and languages. Mary's own education was originally designed by Vives as the request of Katherine of Aragon.

As there were many children within the royal nursery household, it is quite likely that in the early years, the children shared lessons. This was certainly the approach taken in the French royal nurseries.

In the early teen years, Elizabeth, Mary and Edward undoubtedly had private tutoring for some subjects.

Foose said...

Per the question on Katherine Parr being tutored with Princess Mary, Susan James says:

"It has been claimed that Kateryn Parr was educated at court with the Princess Mary under the tutelage of Juan Luis Vives. This is probably quite untrue for besides the fact that there is no evidence that Vives taught the princess personally - or ever left Spain for that matter - Kateryn was four years older than Mary and in 1523, when Catherine of Aragon was hiring tutors for her daughter, Kateryn, at 11, was already well into her education."

I think James is considered the foremost scholar on Parr at this point (Linda Porter wrote an excellent popular biography, also) so her opinion can probably be trusted. I was surprised at her statement that Vives may never have left Spain. Other authorities seem to accept that he went to England and wrote his educational works there.

James says that Katherine Parr's education was, "according to [Lady Parr's] younger daughter, Anne, based on the programme of studies that Sir Thomas More set out for his own children."