Blanche Parry

being related to the Earls of Worcester and Pembroke and having raised five children of her own. All the surviving evidence suggests that Lady Troy was a pleasant, graceful and charming person whose own children loved her, making her quite capable of fulfilling the role of mother to the younger royal children. Her training of Elizabeth can be credited for the little girl's self-possession and ability to handle discerning visitors. The courtier Thomas Wriothesley was most complimentary (in 1539) about the 6 year old Lady Elizabeth's upbringing and education. It is quite possible that Elizabeth and Edward did not later remember Lady Bryan's tenure at all and that their earliest memories were of Lady Troy as their Lady Mistress and the mother–figure who provided the security and love that is so important in the early years of childhood and could easily have been lacking in the lives of these particular children.

Lady Troy's position is confirmed by analysis of four lists of personnel in the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. Kate Champernon, later Ashley / Askley, is second in the list of ladies after Lady Troy. Kate's position was not that of Lady Mistress (as has been asserted) but that of governess.

As the guardian of the royal children Lady Troy was responsible for their early religious education, encouraging regular prayers. While at Court she must have favoured a form of worship reflecting the Catholicism of the last years of King Henry VIII's reign, as if she had shown any overt Protestantism it would have at least been noted. From about 1544 Elizabeth seems to have become aware of the theological discussions at court, particularly in the household of her step–mother Queen Katherine Parr, an awareness further fostered by the Protestant leanings of Kate Ashley. That Elizabeth kept her religious interest within the bounds of her father's dictates may well have been due to the influence of Lady Troy and her niece, Blanche Parry, who went to court with her.

In 1545 Roger Ascham (Elizabeth's tutor from 1548 and who may have had a connection with Lady Troy through John Whitney, his page and favourite pupil) wrote to Kate Ashley, as she then was following her marriage to John Ashley in the same year. Ascham asked that she commend him to my good Lady Troy and all that company of gentlewomen, proving Lady Troy was still in charge. However, she is not mentioned in the c.1546 household list for Lady Elizabeth.

Exactly what had happened is described in a letter written a few years later, on 31st January 1549, by Sir Robert Tyrwhitt to the Duke of Somerset: Kate Ashley...was made her mistress by the King her father... For her (Elizabeth's) desire to see the King, she confesses that her (Ashley's) pallet was removed from her (Elizabeth's) bedchamber because it was so small at Chelsea. But four of her gentlewomen confess that Ashley first removed Lady Troy, who has lain there continually for about two years and then her successor (Blanche) Parry and could abide nobody there but herself... Sir Robert Tyrwhitt's letter suggests that Kate Ashley was not popular with the other ladies in the household. It also shows that Lady Troy had trained her niece as her successor. However, Kate Ashley was married while Blanche was not and this may have been the preferred status for a third Lady Mistress. King Henry, who died in January 1546/1547, had approved the change and Kate was in place before Elizabeth went to live with her step–mother Queen Katherine Parr at Chelsea later in 1547.

Princess Elizabeth became fluent in Latin, Italian, French and Spanish and fairly proficient in Greek. It is occasionally asked if she could speak Welsh. This seems very unlikely but as Elizabeth clearly had a gift and fascination for languages, she may well have understood how to pronounce Welsh words and to have enjoyed Welsh lullabies sung to her as a child by Lady Troy and Blanche Parry. Reading the Bible was a discipline that both had followed all their