King had had: Brewer (ed.), Letters and Papers, Vol. XIII, part I, p. 81; part II, p. 280. Nichols, County of Leicester, Vol. III, part 2, p. 673. Henry VIII had also denied Dorset the Garter, which he was given in February 1547.
“not the poorest”: G. W. Bernard, “The Downfall of Sir Thomas Seymour,” p. 226.
“enough for you”: Henry Clifford, The Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, p. 60. The reference to “king” suggests, to my mind, a period post-January 1547. Jane Dormer’s grandfather Sir William Sidney, who was a first cousin of Frances’s father, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, was Steward of the King’s Household in 1547.
Earl of Hertford: HMC Salisbury, Vol. I, p. 70.
Protector denied him: Ibid., Vol. I, p. 63; Patrick Fraser Tytler (ed.), England Under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary, Vol. I, p. 138.
Dorset balked: Samuel Haynes (ed.), A Collection of State Papers Relating to Affairs in the Reigns of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, Vol. VI, p. 838.
“any other place”: Tytler, Edward VI and Mary, Vol. I, p. 138; Haynes (ed.), State Papers, Vol. VI, p. 838.
as soon as possible: Dorset later admitted he went to see Sudeley following Harington’s persuasive comments on Jane’s possible marriage to Edward. Tytler, Vol. I, p. 138.
(another king): John Gough Nichols, Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London, p. 55.
stepmother Katherine Suffolk: Their friendship is indicated, for example, by the fact that Katherine Suffolk stayed at Bradgate, and in 1548 enclosed her letters to Thomas Seymour with those of Frances. Jane shared the guidance she received from Martin Bucer with her young uncles, Katherine’s sons. In 1555, Frances would follow Katherine’s example in her choice of second husband.
had been made: We know Jane lived at Seymour Place because Dorset noted that she remained there from this time until the death of Catherine Parr. Knighton (ed.) Calendar of State Papers Domestic, p. 83.
IV: THE EXAMPLE OF CATHERINE PARR
manners and behavior: Harris, Aristocratic Women, pp. 40, 41.
riding lessons: Kate Astley’s uncle Sir Gawain Carew was the brother-in-law of Jane’s grandfather Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. After Katherine Astley’s death, on 18 July 1565, John married an illegitimate daughter of Jane’s uncle Thomas Grey, one Margaret Lenton.
was anxiety: Clifford, Jane Dormer, p. 86.
(prove quite popular): The first volumes were printed in January and the huge number of twenty thousand was sold over the next three years.
for its publication: www.oxforddnb.com/Katherine Parr.
exciting religious ideas: The Queen’s chaplain, John Parkhurst, was previously chaplain to Jane’s grandfather Suffolk and was a friend of her tutor, John Aylmer. It is highly likely she read the Lamentation.
“the old religion”: CSPS, Vol. IX, p. 50.
“other shameful names”: Nichols, Grey Friars, p. 55.
“ten years old”: Strype, Memorials, Vol. II, p. 13.
asked for it: Haynes (ed.), State Papers, Vol. VI, p. 75.
less often shared: Mary Bateson, Records of the Borough of Leicester, p. 57.
“come at her”: Haynes (ed.), State Papers, Vol. VI, p. 100.
to woo her: Strype, Memorials, Vol. II, p. 196. The accusation was included in his indictments of 1549.
her husband’s arms: Catherine’s biographer Susan E. James (Kathryn Parr, The Making of a Queen) believes this incident took place on Twelfth Night, 6 January. I believe, however, that this is a misreading of the source. Sixth January 1549 is the date that Katherine Astley described this incident to Elizabeth’s cofferer, Thomas Parry, not the date that the incident occurred (see Haynes, ed., State Papers, Vol. VI, p. 96).
simply “sporting”: James, Kathryn Parr, pp. 412, 413.
nurse and servants: Strype, Memorials, Vol. II, part I, p. 201.
flee the light of the Gospel: So claimed Katherine Suffolk’s spiritual adviser Hugh Latimer. The duchess, who began paying for publication of his sermons that year, may have been his informant.
campaign unhurt: Wriothesley and Hamilton, Chronicle, Vol. I, p. 5.
changes already introduced: For the evangelicals, the Holy Sacraments were not inviolate, so divorce was quite possible. But Somerset feared that allowing it was too progressive a step at this stage. Indeed, England remained in the sixteenth century the only Protestant country in Europe not to allow divorce. It may not have been coincidental, however, in this instance, that Somerset’s wife was a cousin of the woman to whom Northampton had been wed as a child and wished to divorce.
“to love you”: Tytler, Edward VI and Mary, Vol. I, p. 140.
“than they were”: James, Kathryn Parr, p. 332.
of her life: Dorset’s cousin and estate manager, Sir Thomas Arundell, who had been Katherine Howard’s brother-in-law, was currently Chancellor of Catherine Parr’s household, and well placed to find Tilney a position with the Queen dowager. Elizabeth Tilney was the niece of Agnes Tilney, Duchess of Norfolk, and her mother—also called Elizabeth—was related to Jane’s mother through the Brandons. See Cyril Bristow’s Tilney Families.
V: THE GUARDIAN’S FATE
breast milk: A. G. Dickens (ed.), Clifford Letters of the Sixteenth Century, p. 27. Eleanor had been complaining of blood in her urine as well as pains in her side, toward her back. Professor Christopher Sutton suggests it is possible that she was suffering from renal tuberculosis.
pupils against him: The tutor in question was Richard Croke. James, Kathryn Parr, p. 48.
by Jane’s defiance: Frances’s thoughts are extrapolated from her letters to Sudeley (and those of her husband), in September 1548, as well as Tudor thinking on youthful willfulness and defiance, for which see Baldwin Smith’s Treason in Tudor England.
“father and more”: Haynes (ed.), State Papers, Vol. VI, pp. 77, 78.
she replied: Tytler, Edward VI and Mary, Vol. I, p. 133.
“sobriety and obedience”: Haynes (ed.), State Papers, Vol. VI, p. 78.
his “goodwill”: Ibid., p. 79.
extensive frauds: In April 1547, the Council forbade the coining of any more testons (shillings), two-thirds of which were alloy. Sharington nevertheless bought up large quantities of church plate from the Somerset villagers, and during May, June, and July, coined it into testons. He also made over 4,000 livres in three years by shearing and clipping coins. To conceal his frauds he made false copies of the books of the Mint and destroyed the originals.
peer to do so: Bryson, p. 99.
followed suit: Tytler, Edward VI and Mary, Vol. I, p. 140.
“went to Elizabeth”: CSPD, Vol. I, p. 88.
marriage to Elizabeth: Haynes (ed.), State Papers, Vol. VI, pp. 68, 95.
life at risk: Anne Boleyn’s uncle Thomas Howard died in the Tower in 1537 having become betrothed to Lady Margaret Douglas without the King’s permission. The following year, 1538, the Earl of Devon was executed for plotting to ally his son, Edward Courtney, with the King’s daughter Mary. The then twelve-year-old Courtney, a descendant of Edward IV, remained in the Tower, perhaps in part because he remained a potential groom for Mary: together they could pose a threat to Edward, who in Catholic countries was not considered legitimate, as he was born when England was in schism with Rome.
disaster ahead: Strype, Memorials, Vol. II, p. 430.
“of much mercy”: Haynes (ed.), State Papers, Vol. VI, p. 107. Tytler, Edward VI and Mary, Vol. I, p. 141.
his velvet shoes: Strype, Memorials, Vol. II, p. 198; Bernard, “Downfall,” p. 150. Simon Adams and G. W. Bernard, “A Journal of Matters of State,” p. 57. The Treason Acts of 1547 had confirmed the 1544 Act of Succession. At the time, however, the Protector still hoped that Mary would conform to her brother’s religious decrees, as he had to their father’s. This hope had diminished rapidly since. It is therefore possible that her being passed over in the succession was under consideration as a future option—and this may have been what Sudeley was suggesting
. The man who commented on the messages was Hugh Latimer.
Tower Hill to die: I have taken the date from Nichols, Grey Friars. Different sources seem to give a slightly different date.
long and happily: Baldwin Smith, Treason in Tudor England, pp. 476, 477, 491.
“strangely, horribly”: Bernard, “Downfall,” p. 231.
VI: NORTHUMBERLAND’S “CREW”
considered confrontational: CSPD, Vol. I, p. 110.
“or bed unkilled”: A. J. Fletcher and D. MacCulloch, Tudor Rebellions, p. 11.
had even arrived: CSPD, Vol. I, p. 131.
great popular revolt: HMC Middleton, p. 519; Alice Friedman, House and Household in Elizabethan England, p. 15. There were, however, outbursts of violence. Leicestershire, for example, was convulsed by riots just two years later, in August 1551.
them in pieces: Margie Mae Hankinson, “William Thomas, Italianate Englishman,” p. 30.
late Queen Dowager: It was with Anne Parr, Lady Herbert, that John Foxe describes Lady Lane escorting Catherine to King Henry’s chamber carrying her candle before her.
also in Essex: The date of this visit is often given as 1550. This is a misreading of the source. The following February is described as the fourth year of Edward’s reign—1550—making the previous November 1549 (HMC Middleton, p. 520).
“of her playing”: Giovanni Michieli, Venetian ambassador, 1557 (see “Description of Mary I” www.tudorplace.com.ar/Documents/description_of_mary_i.htm).
“come of this move”: CSPS, Vol. X, 1550–52, p. 6.
at his success: Ibid., Vol. IX, p. 489. Sir Philip Hoby (a client of Dorset’s friend Parr of Northampton) crowed that it “puts all honest hearts in good comfort for the good hope that they have of the preservation of God’s word.” (Hoby letters, Camden Misc. XXX, p. 96.)
“[the Catholic] religion”: Ibid., Vol. X, 1550–52, p. 6.
as an evangelical: HMC Middleton, pp. 520, 521.
Duchy of Lancaster: Strype, Memorials, Vol. II, pp. 485, 486.
“four purposes beforehand”: John Gough Nichols (ed.), The Literary Remains of Edward VI, Vol. I, p. ccxxvii.
she told him: CSPD, Vol. I, p. 163. Cecil’s brother-in-law William Cooke was married to Frances Grey, daughter of Lord John Grey of Pirgo and first cousin of the Grey sisters.
to help build: Dorset was paying John of Ulm a pension of twenty crowns perannum from August 1549. The chief sources of religious radicalism in England were the religious exiles—men such as Ulm—and their leading patrons were all close to the Grey sisters. On the Privy Council they were Dorset and Northampton, outside it Katherine Suffolk and Edward’s tutors, Sir John Cheke (a former Parr client) and Sir Anthony Cooke, father-in-law of William Cecil. Cooke’s son was married to Frances Grey, first cousin of the Grey sisters.
VII: BRIDLING JANE
to his son: Quoted in Baldwin Smith, Treason in Tudor England, p. 84.
“of my life”: See Plato, Phaedo. For “young and lovely” see letter in Agnes Strickland, Tudor Princesses, p. 128.
“troubles unto me”: Ascham, The Whole Works, Vol. III, pp. 118, 119.
this spirited girl: Robinson, Original Letters, Vol. I, p. 276.
“you consider both”: Henry Ellis, Original Letters Illustrative of English History, Vol. II, p. 430.
“of real Godliness”: Heinrich Bullinger, The Decades of Heinrich Bullinger, Vol. IV, pp. 528, 544. It was published in March 1551, but Dorset was still in Leicester in April (Bateson, Records, p. 65).
destined for others: Bateson, Records, p. 68. The wine would have been intended for Lord John Grey’s wife.
“puerile correspondence”: Robinson, Original Letters, Vol. I, pp. 9–11.
“the sweetest flowers”: Ibid., pp. 4, 5, 6. Also see note 16, chapter 6.
“the greatest advantage”: Ibid.
“the King’s Majesty”: Ellis, Letters Illustrative, Vol. II, p. 430.
“in Greek and Latin”: Agnes Strickland, Tudor Princesses, p. 120.
Ulm sighed: Ibid., p. 110.
“sick and died”: North (ed.), England’s Boy King, pp. 92, 93.
“quick than ancient”: Thomas Wilson, quoted in Cecilie Goff, A Woman of the Tudor Age, p. 195.
“strong in adversity”: Ibid., p. 197.
dedicated to Dorset: Dorset appears to have employed Wilson for a time as a tutor for Thomas Willoughby.
VIII: JANE AND MARY
“the baker made him?”: www.hrionline.shef.ac.uk/foxe/1563 edition, Bk 12, p. 1746. Foxe—the source of this story—does not give a date for it. The last recorded visit Jane made to Beaulieu was November 1549, and the incident could have taken place then, although the following year, 1550, when her father was on the Privy Council, seems more probable.
the university library: Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Boy King, p. 134; Michael Wyatt, The Italian Encounter with Tudor England, pp. 83, 84.
“know all things”: CSPS, Vol. X, pp. 205, 206.
playmate Jane Dormer: Clifford, Jane Dormer, p. 63. Evangelicals later averred that Councillors had sometimes to restrain Edward in his determination to put a stop to Mary’s Mass. Perhaps so. Edward followed up the Christmas meeting with a letter in which he warned his sister that her closeness to him in blood made her faults all the greater. “Truly sister,” he wrote in a postscript written in his own hand, “I will not say more and worse things, because my duty would compel me to use harsher and angrier words. But this I will say with intention, that I will see my laws strictly obeyed, and those who break them shall be watched and denounced” (CSPS, Vol. X, p. 212). Thirteen-year-olds like Edward and Jane have few shades of gray in their moral universe, but Edward was always more conciliatory when he was with Mary than when he sent her one of his angry letters. And perhaps not all the Councillors at his side were so very keen to restrain him. There was a notable display of aggression from some of them at Greenwich Palace on 13 February 1550, only a week after Mary received Edward’s letter. A group of peasants were brought before the Council, accused of disobeying the ordinances on religion. As horrified courtiers and diplomats listened from neighboring rooms they could hear the men being beaten and threatened. The loudest shouts were recognized as “my Lord of Warwick [John Dudley] and the two marquesses [Dorset and Northampton]” (ibid., Vol. X, p. 223).
Prayer Book service: Ellis, Letters Illustrative, Vol. II, pp. 176–81.
“off their heads”: Tytler, Edward VI and Mary, p. 3.
Duke of Northumberland: It doubled the number of dukes in England—the other two being Somerset and the old Duke of Norfolk, who had been in the Tower since the end of King Henry VIII’s reign, his crime being that his son had argued that Norfolk’s royal blood meant he should be governor during Edward’s minority. The son, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was executed for his offense. Frances’s father had tried to arrange a marriage for her with Surrey in 1530, but the duke had turned him down on the grounds that Frances’s dowry was insufficient.
“maidenly shamefastness”: “The pomp of English ladies abated by the Queen’s example,” John Aylmer, An harbrowe for faithful and trew subjects, margin reference.
“frequently as possible”: Robinson, Original Letters, Vol. I, p. 4.
“house and feast”: Simon Thurley. The Royal Palaces of Tudor England, pp. 48, 74.
instead of dismay: John Gough Nichols (ed.), The Diary of Henry Machyn, pp. 13, 14.
“in which I reside”: Robinson, Original Letters, Vol. I, p. 277.
“crucify themselves”: Ibid., pp. 285, 286.
“God’s Word”: “A young Lady’s Answer,” Aylmer, Faithful and trew subjects, margin reference.
Tower for burial: CSPS, Vol. X, p. 453. Tytler, Edward VI and Mary, Vol. II, pp. 71, 72.
“realm, am skinned”: Wyatt, Italian Encounter, p. 79.
PART TWO
Queen and Martyr
IX: “NO POOR CHILD”?
had once been: Florio dedicated to Jane the Regole de la Lingua Thoscana in 1553.
/>
“precious stones”: Strickland, Tudor Princesses, pp. 133, 134.
to be true: Ibid.
to learn Arabic: Sir Thomas Chaloner’s 1563 Elegy suggested that Jane spoke Arabic. This source, however, has to be treated with circumspection. Besides his Arabic translations, Biblander was the author of a famous Hebrew grammar and commentaries on the Bible, which may well have been what interested Jane.
prepared for publication: Strype, Memorials, Vol. II, part II, p. 39.
the Swiss model: Skinner, who was a close friend of John Ulmer and Wullocke, also sometimes attended the King.
before she died: Herbert’s first letter to Katherine in 1561 makes clear that they were betrothed when “very young”—i.e. before she was twelve in August 1552—then married “at lawful years” and later divorced. See Tanner MS 193, f. 224.
is a myth: The duchess’s only recorded words on the subject were to insist how much better she loved her husband than any of her sons (see S. J. Gunn, “A Letter of Jane, Duchess of Northumberland,” p. 1270).
“conducement of it”: On the same day he made Northumberland’s intimate Sir John Gates Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Nichols, Literary Remains, Vol. I, p. clxv.
“death must follow”: CSPD, Vol. I, p. 254.
come crashing down: Chris Skidmore, Edward VI, The Lost King of England, p. 235.
“been seen before”: Strype, Memorials, Vol. II, part II, p. 30.
Katherine Suffolk’s comment: Foxe quoted in Goff, Woman of the Tudor Age, p. 179.
that summer, 1552: Antonio de Guaras, The Accession of Queen Mary, p. 89.
lost his goodwill: Ellis, Letters Illustrative, Vol. II, pp. 145, 146n. The letter is undated. David Starkey argues that it was written around Candlemas (February) (Starkey, Elizabeth, p. 108). It may even have been marginally earlier (see Tytler, Edward VI and Mary, Vol. I, pp. 161, 162).
Treasons Act of 1547: This was a period in 1547 when it was still hoped that Mary would conform to her brother’s religious decrees as she had, eventually, to her father’s settlement.
The Sisters Who Would Be Queen Page 36