Jane returned to Bradgate and there she took her lessons with John Aylmer, studying Latin, Greek and Hebrew. Jane preferred her books to other pursuits and so in August 1550, when her mother Frances went hunting, she stayed at home reading Plato in Greek. Roger Ascham, the Cambridge scholar and tutor to the Princess Elizabeth, called on her and asked why she was not out hunting with her mother and the other ladies.
Ascham later recorded her reply in his book, The Schoolmaster, which was published twenty years after.
I will tell you, and tell you a truth which perchance ye will marvel at. One of the greatest benefits that ever God gave me, is that he sent me so sharp and severe parents and so gentle a schoolmaster. For when I am in presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry, or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else; I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly, as God made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presently sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, and other ways (which I will not name for the honour I bear them) so without measure misordered, that I think myself in hell, till time come that I must go to Mr Aylmer; who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that I think all the time nothing whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because whatsoever I do else but learning, is full of grief, trouble, fear, and whole misliking unto me. And thus my book hath been so much my pleasure, and bringeth daily to me more pleasure and more, that in respect of it, all other pleasures, in very deed, be but trifles and troubles unto me.
Much has been written about Frances’ character in juxtaposition to her daughter – the cruel, heartless mother and the innocent angelic daughter – and it is based on this response where Jane quite plainly denigrates her parents. We will never know their true relationship but if this was Jane’s reply, it sounds more like the giving out of a petulant teenager. A young girl who was told to stay at home as a punishment. On the other hand, Frances may not have been an affectionate, loving parent and Jane may well have had cause to prefer her books and her learning. Frances was of high birth, her mother a queen, her father the king’s best friend and she was ambitious for her daughters and for their standing at court.
A tragedy in 1551 would raise the prospects of Frances and her family even more. When an epidemic of the sweating sickness broke out, Charles’ sons by Katherine Willoughby, Henry and Charles, moved to the Bishop of Lincoln’s Palace in Buckden in Huntingdonshire in a bid to escape the dreaded illness. Henry, the eldest, had become the second Duke of Suffolk on 22 August 1545 after his father’s death. Both of the boys were admitted into the Order of the Bath after Edward VI’s coronation and Henry in particular was a companion to the new boy king, echoing their father’s relationship with his king, and sharing some of his lessons with Edward and his tutor, Sir John Cheke.
The boy’s education continued in St John’s College, Cambridge with Thomas Wilson, a rhetorician and later privy councillor to Elizabeth I, who with Walter Haddon, produced a Latin life of the boys. Henry was described as ‘he thought himself best when he was among the wisest, and yet contemned none, but thankfully used all, gentle in behaviour without childishness, stout of stomach without all pride, bold without all wariness and friendly with good advisement’. Charles was ‘profited both in virtue and in learning’. Wilson wrote ‘For the Greek, Latin, and the Italian, I know he (Charles) could do more than would be thought true by my report. I leave to speak of his skill in pleasant instruments, neither will I utter his aptness in music, and his toward nature to all exercises of the body’.3
Unfortunately, their bid to escape the sweating sickness failed. Wilson wrote of their final hours:
They were both together in one house, lodged in two separate chambers, and almost at one time both sickened, and both departed. They died both dukes, both well learned, both wise, and both right Godly. They both gave strange tokens of death to come. The elder, sitting at supper and very merry, said suddenly to that right honest matron and godly gentlewoman, ‘O Lord, where shall we sup tomorrow at night?’ Whereupon, she being troubled, and yet saying comfortably, ‘I trust, my Lord, either here, or elsewhere at some of your friends’ houses.’ ‘Nay,’ said he, ‘we shall never sup together again in this world, be you well assured,’ and with that, seeing the gentlewoman discomfited, turned it unto mirth, and passed the rest of his supper with much joy, and the same night after twelve of the clock, being the fourteenth of July, sickened, and so was taken the next morning, about seven of the clock, to the mercy of God. When the eldest was gone, the younger would not tarry, but told before (having no knowledge thereof by anybody living) of his brother’s death, to the great wondering of all who were there, declaring what it was to lose so dear a friend, but comforting himself in that passion, said, ‘Well, my brother is gone, but it makes no matter for I will go straight after him,’ and so did within the space of half an hour.
Bizarrely, Charles was the 3rd Duke of Suffolk for just moments before he died. The boys were buried at Buckden, and Strype recalls their ‘month’s mind’ – a remembrance mass – held on 22 September, ‘was performed with two standards, two banners, great and large, ten bannerols, with divers coats of arms; two helmets, two swords, two targets crowned, two coats of arms; two crests, and ten dozen of escutcheons crowned; with lamentation that so noble a stock was extinct in them’.4
King Edward lamented his companion’s death, composing an oration on mourning the death of friends, in their honour. Sir John Cheke wrote their epitaph and Walter Haddon, co-author of their memorial biography, delivered an eulogy. Immortalised in paintings by Hans Holbein the Younger, these boys had the potential to be outstanding men and would be sorely missed by their contemporaries. With their death, the title of Duke of Suffolk passed to Frances’ husband, Lord Grey, making Charles’ and Mary’s daughter, the Duchess of Suffolk, as her mother had been.
A month after the Brandon-Willoughby boys died, Sir Charles Brandon, Charles’ eldest illegitimate son also died at Alnwick. Charles Brandon senior had had three illegitimate children that we know of but there may have been more. The mothers of these children are not known nor to any extent what their father’s relationship was with them although Charles Brandon was close enough to his namesake to aid his career. Charles junior followed his father into some of his military forays. He was on the Scottish border in 1542 commanding a raiding party of 200 men and was at the siege of Boulogne in 1544 where he was knighted. His father also helped him to gain the position of steward and constable of Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire.
Charles had married Elizabeth Pigot, the widow of Sir James Strangways. They lived principally at Sigston Castle, one of her family’s properties, and received further estates in Yorkshire after her father’s death. As well as his military roles, Charles became MP for Westmoreland but his health does not appear to have been good and around the age of thirty, he wrote his will. The wording confirms he was a Protestant declaring there was ‘no salvation for me but by the shedding of Christ’s most precious blood, into whose hands I commit my soul’.5 His wife, Elizabeth, was the main beneficiary but if she did not carry out her duties as executor within a year, then the lands and goods left to her were to go to her fellow-executor Francis Seckford. Francis was Humphrey Seckford’s eldest brother, Charles’ ‘cousin’ and another principal beneficiary. It was to Humphrey that Sigston Castle was bequeathed. The Seckfords were a Suffolk family and this connection may show that Charles was related to them through his mother. Charles also left gold bracelets to his ‘sister Sandon’, his half-sister Frances, another of Charles’ illegitimate children, who had married William Sandon of Ashby by Partney in Lincolnshire. Little else is known of her except she later remarried an Andrew Bilsby. There is no mention of the third illegitimate child we know of, Mary Brandon, who married Robert Ball of Scottow, Norfolk. It may be that Charles and Frances therefore shared the same
mother and were actually full siblings.
With Charles’ death, the male Brandon line died out but the female was going strong through Mary Tudor’s daughter, Frances and her children. On 25 May 1553, two of Frances’ daughters, Jane and Katherine, were married; Jane to Guildford Dudley, son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and chief councillor to King Edward and Katherine to Lord Henry Hastings. Guildford’s sister, Katherine Dudley, also married Lord Henry Herbert, son of the Earl of Pembroke in a triple wedding at Durham Place, the London home of the Dudley family. No scandal had been attached to Jane after the Seymour debacle and the Dudley’s welcomed her into their family, just as anxious to be connected to a royal family and increase their status. Jane however was not so enamoured with the match hoping instead to marry Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford. Rumour had it that she was forced to marry Dudley ‘by the urgency of her mother and the violence of her father, who compelled her to accede his commands by blows’.6 Nonetheless Jane, wearing a gown of gold and silver with her hair glittering with pearls, wed the Dudley boy surrounded by the greatest nobles and peers in the kingdom. Tellingly, King Edward was too ill to attend.
Edward had been suffering with chest problems that affected his breathing. In the early months of 1553, the bouts of illness came and went but gradually grew worse which each new episode draining his young life away. By June, Scheyfve, the Imperial ambassador, reported ‘the matter he ejects from his mouth is sometimes coloured a greenish yellow and black, sometimes pink, like the colour of blood’.7 The royal doctors believed he had a tumour on his lungs and feared he would not live long.
As his health fluctuated, Edward had written a will, the Device for the Succession, that excluded his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. His relationship with Mary had been a difficult one due to her fervent religious beliefs. When Edward had ordered her not to hear Catholic mass, she continued, always devout as her mother Katherine of Aragon had been. Edward feared that Mary would ruin England if she were to rule but he had no real reason to overlook his Protestant sister Elizabeth except that both of his sisters still had the issue of illegitimacy hanging over them. Edward felt that his sisters were half-blood whereas his cousins were whole blood. He wrote
that the ladie Jane, the ladye Katherine, and the ladie Marye, daughters of our entirely beloved cosen the ladie Fraunces, nowe wife to our lovinge cosene and faithfull counsellor Henry duke of Suffolke, and the ladie Margarete, daughter of our late cosene the ladie Elleonore deceased, sister of the saide ladie Frauncis, and the late wife of our welbeloved cosen Henry earle of Cumberland, being very nigh of our whole bloude, of the parte of our father’s side, and being naturallborne here within the realme, and have ben also very honorably brought upe and exercised in good and godly learninge, and other noble vertues, so as ther is greate truste and hope to be had in them that they be and shalbe very well inclined to the advancement and settyng forth of our comon welth.8
The succession then was left ‘to the Lady Frances’s heirs male, for lack of (if she have any) such issue (before my death) to the Lady Janes heirs males’.9 Frances was to act as regent before her son came of age but Frances had had no surviving sons and Jane was only just married. Jane’s new father-in-law, the Duke of Northumberland, convinced the king to amend his will so that Frances was passed over entirely and that the clause ‘Lady Janes heirs males’ was changed to ‘Lady Jane and her heirs males’ thus positing Jane as Edward’s successor as there would be no sons to continue the Tudor reign. His own son Guildford Dudley, Jane’s new husband, would be right by her side – or so he thought.
On 1 July, gathered crowds waiting for a glimpse of the king saw Edward at a window in Greenwich Palace. They were shocked at his sickly appearance and knew his time was short. The fifteen-year-old boy king died just five days later after reigning for six years. By Edward’s amended Device for the Succession, Jane Grey, Mary Tudor’s granddaughter, would now be queen.
Jane had been ill herself but was now rushed to Syon House to be greeted by her parents and nobles of the realm as their future monarch. Jane has always been portrayed as mild and meek, a pawn in the game of power that pervaded the Tudor court, who had the crown thrust upon her but she must have known this was coming. She was an educated young woman, aware of her heritage and ancestry. Her mother Frances surely prepared her for her accession to the throne and at least instilled in her the way to behave in the next few days. Did Jane really fall to the floor and weep when she was told she would be queen? If so, it was something she had been coached to do because her next move was to deliver a speech to those gathered in which she magnanimously accepted the role of queen.
On 10 July Jane was taken by decorated barge along the Thames to the Tower of London, her new and last home. Crowds had gathered to witness the arrival of the young girl who Spinola, a Genovese merchant, described as having ‘small features and a well-made nose, the mouth flexible and the lips red. The eyebrows are arched and darker than her hair, which is nearly red’10 – a sign of her Tudor inheritance. Gunfire sounded and two heralds read out a proclamation declaring Jane queen, but the crowds remained resolutely silent apart from a young boy called Gilbert Potter who loudly asserted that Mary had more right to the throne for which he was promptly arrested.
Lady Jane may have been proclaimed queen but as well as Potter many felt that the Princess Mary, Henry’s eldest daughter, was the rightful heir to the throne, not least of all Mary herself. On the same day as Jane was crowned a letter was delivered to the Privy Council in which Mary asserted her ‘right and title to the Crown and government of this realm’.11 Mary had been about to travel to London to see her sick brother Edward before his death but had realised she could be walking into a trap. Instead she had holed up at Framlingham Castle behind its thick, strong medieval walls and bided her time while her supporters rallied to her cause.
Queen Jane in the meantime had begun her reign by promptly informing her father-in-law that her husband Guildford Dudley would not serve as king beside her but that she would make him a duke. It was Jane’s one stand in the strange changing circumstances she found herself in – a glimmer of control. Orders were given for her army to confront Mary and her men under the command of Dudley senior but the tide was turning. More and more of the nobility joined the princesses’ side and even six royal navy ships declared for Henry VIII’s daughter.
Jane valiantly tried to consolidate her position but when two prominent members of her Privy Council, the Earls of Pembroke and Arundel, defected it was only a matter of time before the other councillors followed suit. On 19 July Pembroke rode into Cheapside to proclaim Mary as Queen of England. Whereas the crowds had silently received the news that Jane was queen, this time they shouted and cheered for joy. The church bells rang out and bonfires were in lit in celebration around the city. Mary was the people’s choice and they welcomed her as their new queen as they had never welcomed Jane.
Jane was moved from her royal apartments in the Tower to the rooms she would stay in as her prison and there she awaited her fate. The husband she had never liked was also imprisoned in separate accommodation. In the days that followed Jane’s mother, Frances, had an audience with the new queen at Beaulieu where she pleaded for her family. Jane’s father, Lord Grey, was pardoned but although Mary wished to extend the same graciousness to Jane, her councillors advised her against it and Jane was charged with treason.
Mary arrived in London on 3 August at the head of a huge procession of 800 nobles, accompanied by her half-sister the Princess Elizabeth and looking every bit the new queen in a purple gown adorned with gold and jewels. There was still hope for Jane but there would be none for her father-in-law who had headed her army. John Dudley, Earl of Northumberland, was executed for treason on 22 August but it was still possible that Jane would be pardoned.
Mary had been moved by the letter that her cousin wrote to her from the Tower:
Although my fault be such that but for the goodness and clemency of the Queen, I can have no hop
e of finding pardon … having given ear to those who at the time appeared not only to myself, but also to the great part of this realm to be wise and now have manifested themselves to the contrary, not only to my and their great detriment, but with common disgrace and blame of all, they having with shameful boldness made to blamable and dishonourable an attempt to give to others that which was not theirs … [and my own] lack of prudence … for which I deserve heavy punishment … it being known that the error imputed to me has not been altogether caused by myself. [The Privy Council] … who with unwontd caresses and pleasantness, did me such reverence as was not at all suitable to my state.12
But all hope was lost in the early months of 1554. Mary had been welcomed and accepted as the new queen of England but as negotiations commenced for her marriage to a Spanish prince, rebellion stirred. Thomas Wyatt with James Croft, Peter Carew and Jane’s father, Lord Grey were the key leaders of an uprising that strove to enter London and remove Mary from the throne, replacing her with her half-sister Elizabeth. The rebels marched on the city but were met by cannon and a large force of men rallied after Mary gave a rousing speech in the Guildhall saying ‘we shall give these rebels a short and speedy overthrow’.13 The insurgents retreated to Kingston where Mary’s troops had destroyed the bridge over the Thames. Hastily making repairs so they could cross, Wyatt’s men then marched on to Ludgate where they were overcome.
Although Jane and her husband had played no part in Wyatt’s rebellion, Mary knew that they posed a continual danger to her reign. It had been rumoured that during the uprising Jane’s father had declared her the true queen again and if others felt the same they would rally to her cause. Jane posed a constant threat and one that Mary, although she had wished for a better solution, now had to eradicate.
The Tudor Brandons Page 16