The Sisters Who Would Be Queen
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ALSO BY LEANDA DE LISLE
After Elizabeth: The Rise of James of Scotland and the Struggle for
the Throne of England
FOR GEORGE MACRAE GIMBEL
Such as ruled and were queens were for the most part wicked, ungodly, superstitious, and given to idolatry and to all filthy abominations as we may see in the histories of Queen Jezebel.
THOMAS BECON, 1554
CONTENTS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FAMILY TREES
PROLOGUE
PART ONE
Educating Jane
I. BEGINNING
II. FIRST LESSONS
III. JANE’S WARDSHIP
IV. THE EXAMPLE OF CATHERINE PARR
V. THE GUARDIAN’S FATE
VI. NORTHUMBERLAND’S “CREW”
VII. BRIDLING JANE
VIII. JANE AND MARY
PART TWO
Queen and Martyr
IX. “NO POOR CHILD”?
X. A MARRIED WOMAN
XI. JANE THE QUEEN
XII. A PRISONER IN THE TOWER
XIII. A FATAL REVOLT
PART THREE
Heirs to Elizabeth
XIV. AFTERMATH
XV. GROWING UP
XVI. THE SPANISH PLOT
XVII. BETROTHAL
XVIII. A KNOT OF SECRET MIGHT
XIX. FIRST SON
XX. PARLIAMENT AND KATHERINE’S CLAIM
XXI. HALES’S TEMPEST
PART FOUR
Lost Love
XXII. THE LADY MARY AND MR. KEYES
XXIII. THE CLEAR CHOICE
XXIV. WHILE I LIVED, YOURS
XXV. THE LAST SISTER
XXVI. A RETURN TO ELIZABETH’S COURT
XXVII. KATHERINE’S SONS AND THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH
XXVIII. STANDING AT KING HENRY’S OPENED TOMB
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, after François Clouet © By kind permission of His Grace the Duke of Bedford and the Trustees of the Bedford Estates
The tomb at Westminster Abbey of Frances Grey (née Brandon), Duchess of Suffolk © The Dean and Chapter of Westminster
The ruins of Bradgate Manor, Leicestershire © Leicester Mercury Media Group
Thomas Seymour of Sudeley, by Nicholas Denizot (1545–49) © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Catherine Parr, attributed to Master John (c. 1545) © The National Portrait Gallery, London
Edward Seymour, by Hans Holbein the Younger © The Trustees of the Weston Park Foundation, U.K./The Bridgeman Art Library
Katherine Brandon (née Willoughby), Duchess of Suffolk, by Hans Holbein © Grimsthorpe and Drummond Castle Trust
Henry Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, by Hans Holbein the Younger (1541) © The Royal Collection 2007 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Charles Brandon, by Hans Holbein the Younger (1541) © The Royal Collection 2007 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Edward VI, by an unknown artist (c. 1547) © The National Portrait Gallery, London William Parr, Marquess of Northampton, by Hans Holbein the Younger (c. 1540) © The Royal Collection 2007 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, age twenty-nine, by a follower of Claudio Coello © Private Collection. Photograph courtesy of Antonia Deutsch.
Edward VI’s “Devise for the Succession” © By kind permission of the Masters of the Bench of the Inner Temple. Photograph courtesy of Ian Jones.
Lady Jane Grey, by Levina Teerlinc (c. 1545–47) © Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection, USA/The Bridgeman Art Library
A document signed by “Jane the Quene” © By kind permission of the Masters of the Bench of the Inner Temple. Photograph courtesy of Ian Jones.
Tower of London © The Society of Antiquaries of London
“The Execution of Lady Jane Grey,” by Paul Delaroche (1834) © The National Gallery, London
Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, by an unknown artist © Corpus Christi College, Oxford, U.K./The Bridgeman Art Library
Mary I, by Hans Eworth © Society of Antiquaries of London, U.K./The Bridgeman Art Library
Lady Katherine Grey, by Levina Teerlinc (c. 1555–60) © V&A Images, Victoria and Albert Museum
Lady Dacre and son, by Hans Eworth (1559) © Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library
Queen Elizabeth I, by an unknown artist (c. 1558) © Philip Mould, Ltd.
Mary Queen of Scots, after François Clouet (1560) © Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France, Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library
Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, by Steven van der Meulen (c. 1560–65) © Wallace Collection, London, U.K./The Bridgeman Art Library
Katherine Grey as Countess of Hertford with her son Edward, Lord Beauchamp, by Levina Teerlinc (c. 1562) © Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, U.K./The Bridgeman Art Library
Sir William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, by Arnold van Brounckhorst (c. 1560) © The National Portrait Gallery, London
Lady Mary Grey, as Mrs. Keyes, by Hans Eworth © By kind permission of the Trustees of the Chequers Estate/The Bridgeman Art Library
The East Front of Chequers © By kind permission of the Trustees of the Chequers Estate, Mark Fiennes/The Bridgeman Art Library
Effigies at Salisbury Cathedral of Lady Katherine Grey and her husband, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford © Photograph courtesy of Dr. John Crook
Map of London, from “Civitates Orbis Terrarum,” by Georg Braun (1542- 1622) and Frans Hogenburg (1635-90), c. 1572 © Glasgow University Library, Scotland/The Bridgeman Art Library
PROLOGUE
GOD, THE PRIME MOVER, BROUGHT PEACE AND ORDER TO THE darkness of the void as the cosmos was born. Everything, spirit or substance, was given its place according to its worth and nearness to God. Above the rocks, which enjoyed mere existence, were plants, for they enjoyed the privilege of life. Each plant also had its appointed rank. Trees were higher than moss, and oak the noblest of the trees. Superior even to the greatest tree were animals, which have appetite as well as life. Above the animals mankind, whom God blessed with immortal souls, and they too had their degrees, according to the dues of their birth. This was the great Chain of Being, by which the Tudor universe was ordered, and at its top, under God, stood Henry VIII. It was a place he held convincingly. As he prepared for the joust on a spring day in 1524 he was still the man described by a Venetian ambassador as “the handsomest Prince in Christendom.” Tall and muscular, with a fine complexion, the thirty-two-year-old monarch had ruled England for fifteen years and was in the prime of life. He had just had some new armor made and was looking forward to testing it at the tilt.
Henry was considered the finest jouster of his generation, and the watching crowd had high expectations of the sport ahead. Attending the King on foot was his cousin Thomas Grey, the 2nd Marquess of Dorset: his diamond-and-ruby badge, of a Tudor rose, testified to his skills as an athlete. Henry’s opponent, his brother-in-law Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, was, however, still more renowned. His father had been killed in 1485, holding the standard of Henry VII at the battle of Bosworth Field, where the Tudor crown was won. He had been raised at court and had married Henry’s younger sister, Mary, the beautiful widow of Louis XII of France. But Suffolk was also the King’s closest friend. The two men even looked alike and at great court tournaments often dressed in identical armor.
As Henry reached his end of the tilt, Suffolk was informed that the King was in place. The duke, however, was having trouble with his helmet. “I see him not,” Suffolk shouted out, “by my faith, for my headpiec
e blocks my sight.” Thomas Grey of Dorset, hearing nothing above the stamping of the horses, then fatefully handed the King his lance. Henry’s visor was still fastened open as he readied himself, but Suffolk’s servant, mistaking the signal, warned the duke, “Sir, the King is coming.” Suffolk, blinded by his helmet, spurred his horse forward. Immediately the King responded, charging with his blunted spear down the sandy list. In the crowd people spotted the King’s bare face and there were desperate shouts of “Hold! Hold!,” but “the duke neither saw nor heard, and whether the King remembered his visor was up or not, few could tell.” The thundering of hooves was followed by the clap and crack of impact. Suffolk had struck the King on the brow and his shattered lance filled the King’s headpiece with splinters. As the horses pulled up, the King still in the saddle, some in the crowd looked set to attack the duke, while others blamed Dorset for handing the King his spear too soon. Henry, in response, protested loudly that no one was at fault and, taking a spear, ran a further six courses to prove he was unhurt. But the deepest fears of the spectators still lingered.
The battle of Bosworth had followed a long period of violent disorder, fueled by rival claimants to the throne. The eventual victor, Henry VII, had ensured the peace England now enjoyed by bequeathing his crown to an adult son, Henry VIII, who was his undisputed heir. But what would have happened if that son, the King, was now killed, or died suddenly? The fear of a return to the violence of the past was visceral. It was believed that disorder had been brought into the universe when Lucifer, the Angel of Light, had rebelled against God, and into the world by sin, when that fallen angel tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden. Ever since, Lucifer had remained watchful for any opportunity to set loose anarchy, intending eventually to engulf Earth and the heavens in a chaos of unimaginable horror and evil. In the shadow of Armageddon, the question of what would happen if the King died was of vital interest—and the answer was a troubling one. Henry’s only legitimate heir was a little girl, his still carefree eight-year-old daughter, Mary. Under English law it was possible for a woman to inherit the crown. Her mother, Catherine of Aragon, assumed that one day she would. But England had not yet had a Queen regnant, who ruled in her own right, and it was uncertain one could survive long.
Women were believed the weaker sex, not only in terms of their physical strength. More significantly, they were also judged to be morally frail—a belief so deeply held that it has underpinned attitudes to women and power into modern times. While reason and intellect were associated with men, women were considered creatures of the body: emotional, irrational, and indecisive. As such they ranked below men in the Chain of Being. Although a servant might owe obedience to his mistress by reason of her place in the social hierarchy, sisters took second place to their brothers in the inheritance of property, and wives were subject to their husbands in marriage. It did not seem fitting to Henry that a woman—by nature inferior to men—should sit at the apex of power, as a monarch did. Nor did he believe it really possible.
Henry feared that even if ambitious warrior nobles did not overthrow the unsoldierly Mary, her husband would be the true ruler. England might even be absorbed into a foreign empire through a marriage treaty. His wife’s Hapsburg relations were infamous for extending their territory by this means. And, in any case, what did it say about his virility that he could only provide his dynasty with second best: a girl?
Henry had accepted that, at thirty-eight, Catherine of Aragon was too old to have more children, and he stopped visiting her chambers that year. But as he considered the fate of his country, and his dynasty, Henry remained determined to settle his kingdom on a male heir. His pursuit of this goal would bring him more power than any of his medieval predecessors had possessed, but in doing so he would tear unwittingly into the myths from which royal authority was drawn. He broke with the Papacy in Rome to claim a royal authority over spiritual and temporal affairs, placing himself above English law and using Parliament to seize the right to nominate his heirs. But the breach with Rome placed the crown at the heart of a religious struggle, and in bringing Parliament into the divine process of the succession he introduced the mechanism of consent. As the new Protestant beliefs brought fresh life to the old prejudices against women holding power, two generations of Tudor princesses and three queens would struggle to survive the coming storms. Among them were the granddaughters of the King’s two jousting companions: Lady Jane, Katherine, and Mary Grey.
Dynastic politics, religious propaganda, and sexual prejudice have since buried the stories of the three Grey sisters in legend and obscurity. The eldest, Lady Jane Grey, is mythologized, even fetishized, as an icon of helpless innocence, destroyed by the ambitions of others. The people and events in her life are all distorted to fit this image, but Jane was much more than the victim she is portrayed as being, and the efforts of courtiers and religious factions to seize control of the succession did not end with her death. Jane’s sisters would have to tread carefully to survive: Lady Katherine Grey as the forgotten rival Queen Elizabeth feared most, and Lady Mary Grey as the last of the sisters who were heirs to the throne. Each, in turn, would play their role in the upheavals of a changing world, and bear the costs of the continued demands for royal sons. It would be left to Katherine’s grandchild, the heir to a lost English dynasty, to see the circle close. Standing at Henry’s opened tomb he would bear witness to where the King’s determination to control the future ended, and how efforts to deny women the absolute power of the crown helped bury absolutism in England.
PART ONE
EDUCATING JANE
“Is the Queen delivered?
Say Ay and of a boy.”
“Ay, ay my liege,
And of a lovely boy: the God of heaven
Both now and ever bless her: ‘tis a girl
Promises boys hereafter … “
Henry VIII, ACT V SCENE I
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
I
Beginning
FRANCES, MARCHIONESS OF DORSET, PREPARED CAREFULLY for the birth of her child. It was an anxious time, but following the traditions of the lying-in helped allay fears of the perils of labor. The room in which she was to have her baby had windows covered and keyholes blocked. Ordinances for a royal birth decreed that only one window should be left undraped, and Frances would depend almost entirely on candles for light. The room was to be as warm, soft, and dark as possible. She bought or borrowed expensive carpets and hangings, a bed of estate, fine sheets, and a rich counterpane. Her friend the late Lady Sussex had one of ermine bordered with cloth of gold for her lying-in, and, as the King’s niece, Frances would have wanted nothing less.
The nineteen-year-old mother-to-be was the daughter of Henry’s younger sister, Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, the widow of Louis XII and known commonly as the French Queen. Frances was, therefore, a granddaughter of Henry VII and referred to as the Lady Frances to indicate her status as such. The child of famously handsome parents, she was, unsurprisingly, attractive. The effigy that lies on her tomb at Westminster Abbey has a slender, elegant figure and under the gilded crown she wears, her features are regular and strong. Frances, however, was a conventional Tudor woman, as submissive to her father’s choice of husband for her as she would later be to her husband’s decisions.
Henry—or “Harry”—Grey, Marquess of Dorset, described as “young,” “lusty,” “well learned and a great wit,” was only six months older than his wife. But the couple had been married for almost four years already. The contractual arrangements had been made on 24 March 1533, when Frances was fifteen and Dorset sixteen. Among commoners a woman was expected to be at least twenty before she married, and a man older, but of course these were no commoners. They came from a hereditary elite and were part of a ruthless political culture. The children of the nobility were political and financial assets to their families, and Frances’s marriage to Dorset reflected this. Dorset came from an ancient line with titles including the baronies of Ferrers, Grey of Groby, Astley, Boneville, and
Harrington. He also had royal connections. His grandfather, the 1st Marquess, was the son of Elizabeth Woodville, and therefore the half-brother of Henry VIII’s royal mother, Elizabeth of York. This marked Dorset as a suitable match for Frances in terms of rank and wealth, but there were also good political reasons for Suffolk to want him as a son-in-law.
The period immediately before the arrangement of Frances’s marriage had been a difficult one for her parents. The dislike with which Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, viewed her brother’s then “beloved,” Anne Boleyn, was well-known. It was said that women argued more bitterly about matters of rank than anything else, and certainly Frances’s royal mother had deeply resented being required to give precedence to a commoner like Anne. For years the duke and duchess had done their best to destroy the King’s affection for his mistress, but in the end without success. The King, convinced that Anne would give him the son that Catherine of Aragon had failed to produce, had married her that January and she was due to be crowned in May/June. It seemed that the days when the Suffolks had basked in the King’s favor could be over, but a marriage of Frances to Harry Dorset offered a possible lifeline, a way into the Boleyn camp. Harry Dorset’s father, Thomas Grey of Dorset, had been a witness for the King in his efforts to achieve an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. He had won his famous diamond-and-ruby badge of the Tudor rose at the jousting tournaments that had celebrated Catherine’s betrothal to the King’s late brother, Arthur, in 1501. In 1529, the year before Thomas Grey of Dorset died, he had offered evidence that this betrothal was consummated. It had helped support Henry’s arguments that Catherine had been legally married to his brother and his own marriage to her was therefore incestuous. Anne Boleyn remained grateful to the family, and Harry Dorset was made a Knight of the Bath at her coronation.
From Harry’s perspective, however, the marriage to Frances—concluded sometime between 28 July 1533 and 4 February 1534—also carried political and material advantages to his family. His grandfather, the 1st Marquess, may have been Henry VII’s brother-in-law, but by marrying a princess of the blood he would be doing even better; and the fact that he had only the previous year refused the daughter of the Earl of Arundel may be an early mark of his ambition. Through Frances, any children they had would be linked by blood to all the power and spiritual mystery of the crown. It was an asset of incalculable worth—though it would carry a terrible price.