The Sisters Who Would Be Queen
Page 39
to Cannon Row: Add MSS 37749, f. 40.
Thames was bitter: Halloween was then called “Allhallowtide.” In Catholic belief, and that of some Protestants, it is the Feast of All Souls.
“say no more”: Barnaby may have been sent to actually fetch the ring, but subsequently not wished to have admitted playing such a direct role in the ceremony.
get the priest: Add MSS 37749, f. 52.
“as they did”: Add MSS 37749, f. 43.
a married woman: I am grateful to Susan North of the V&A, who helped me make sense of the different references to this headdress in the Hertford/Katherine interviews in the Tower.
with the earl: Add MSS 37749, ff. 41, 50, 58.
her in future: Norman Jones, The Birth of the Elizabethan Age, p. 104.
the Queen’s mercy: Add MSS 37749, f. 59.
March, age nineteen: Her age is given on the inscription of her tomb—although they do seem to have been a bit haphazard about ages and this does make her very young to have done the work she did after the death of the Queen of Navarre! The funeral address was given by a friend of Cecil, Edmund Scambler, Bishop of Peterborough.
arms and heralds: Nichols, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, p. 88.
“otherwise he would”: Add MSS 37749, ff. 42, 50.
“tarry from her”: Add MSS 37749, ff. 63.
she had married: As she recalled in later testimony.
“upon the Loire”: CSPF, Vol. IV, p. 113.
“much less [money]”: Ibid., p. 299.
whatever he wanted: Ibid., p. 152.
“succession” he prayed: John Guy, My Heart Is My Own, p. 131.
“misliking with her”: CSPF, Vol. IV, p. 159.
affair with him: Jane Seymour had been certain the Queen would not give him a license.
received no reply: Add MSS 37749, f. 51.
brushed Pembroke off: CSPF, Vol. IV, p. 159.
marriage remained valid: Ibid., p. 160.
“and his likewise”: Tanner MS 193, f. 224. Although dated 1559, the letter appears to be a misdated transcript.
“towards the progress”: Lord Hardwicke, Hardwicke, Miscellaneous State Papers, Vol. I, p. 172. Add MSS 37740, f. 63.
“many scores more”: Tanner MSS 193, f. 227.
“it was so terrible”: Nichols, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, p. 96.
friend Mistress Sentlow: “Mistress” usually refers to a married woman, but Cecil later insisted that the only people discovered to have known about Katherine and Hertford were maids and their servants. Bess was, furthermore, in sufficient favor at Christmas to exchange New Year gifts with the Queen. There is no mention of her sister-in-law.
“of her friends”: Sir John Harington, Nugae Antiquae, Vol. II, p. 391. Add MSS 37749, f. 83.
“and spied out”: Add MSS 37749, f. 59.
“highness for her”: Add MSS 37749, f. 43.
“marriage and endowment”: As it was later phrased in the 1572 Catholic “Treatise of Treasons.”
Hertford’s immediate return: Lettenhove, Relations Politiques, Vol. II, p. 608n.
“the Lady Katherine”: Haynes (ed.), State Papers, Vol. VI, p. 370.
“although very heretical”: Lettenhove, Relations Politiques, Vol. II, p. 608n.
“will confess nothing”: CSPD, Vol. I, p. 184.
XIX: FIRST SON
arrived in Paris: The orders had been written at Smallbridge, a house near Ipswich that belonged to Queen Mary’s former favorite, Sir Edward Waldegrave. Evidently the strain of having to entertain the enraged monarch proved too much for him: he died on 1 September.
“or three days”: CSPF, Vol. IV, p. 262.
“honour and service”: Ibid., p. 281.
may first appear: CSPR, Vol. I, p. 46; Strickland, Tudor Princesses, p. 210.
links to Cecil: The previous year, Sackville had written a sonnet for publication in Thomas Hoby’s translation of the Book of the Courtier. Hoby, we may recall, was Cecil’s brother-in-law and the host of the dinner party to which Hertford and Katherine were invited after Amy Dudley was found dead. Nichols (ed.), Machyn, p. 266.
how she was: Add MSS 37749, f. 43.
caught up with her: Hertford Castle was on the site of a Saxon fort built by King Alfred to keep out the Danes, and reconstructed by William the Conqueror shortly after 1066 as a motte or bailey. It had been updated by various kings since, but it was not one of Elizabeth’s more comfortable residences.
“of a corpse”: CSPS, Vol. I, 1558–67, p. 214.
“her from it”: John Hungerford Pollen (ed. and trans.), “Lethington’s Account of Negotiations,” p. 39. John Spottiswoode, History of the Church of Scotland, pp. 11–30.
to the succession: Ibid., p. 39.
“of that match”: Ibid.
to greet her: Nichols (ed.), Machyn, p. 267.
a family friend: A Robert Wingfield was a witness to Frances Brandon’s will. He may have been from the Midlands Wingfield family.
“nothing is certain”: J. E. Jackson, “Wulfhall and the Seymours,” p. 154.
them a priest: CSPR, Vol. I, 1558–71, p. 51.
his feet on: Strickland, Tudor Princesses, pp. 226, 227.
soon be freed: Baker (ed.), Dyer, Vol. I, p. 81.
left a description: The tourist’s name was Gerard Leigh.
“with curious cookery”: Nichols, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, Vol. I, pp. 133, 134, 135, 139.
revolution in drama: By Vita Sackville-West.
“people plant obedience”: Greg Walker, The Politics of Renaissance Drama, p. 202; Mortimer Levine, The Early Elizabethan Succession Question, p. 43.
employ he remained: The list of Hertford’s expenses from 10 February to 27 January 1568 includes: “Th. Norton 6l” (HMC Bath, Vol. IV, p. 178).
by the audience: N. Jones and P. W. White, “Gorboduc and Royal Marriages,” pp. 3–16.
iconography certainly fits: This is the limning that David Starkey has argued is of Jane. The writing declares that the sitter is in her eighteenth year, rather than her seventeenth, as I believe Jane probably was when she died. But I do not think this matters much—the date of death on Katherine’s tomb, for instance, is off by several years. At least two people who knew Jane believed she was seventeen when she died: John Ulmer and Michel Angelo Florio—and it is possible that she was seventeen. The sources strongly indicate that she was born before June 1537, and perhaps as early as May 1536. Nor do I think it important that she has blue eyes, rather than brown, as Jane was described as having. The likely artist, Levina Teerlinc, habitually painted her sitters with blue eyes, and in any case the description of Jane Grey having brown eyes is given only in Richard Davey’s invented letter from Baptista Spinola. Meanwhile, I find Starkey’s arguments about the foliage representing Guildford and Robert Dudley compelling, and this date makes sense of their being linked. The image is therefore posthumous, but it is the nearest image we have to Jane’s likely appearance. Teerlinc would have known Jane well—she was a courtier like Jane and she also painted Katherine. She could have based it not only on personal memories of Jane, furthermore, but also on images that may since have been lost. We know that Bess Hardwick owned at least one image of Jane, as did the Earl of Hertford. Arbella Stuart commented on both in 1603. That the one owned by Hertford was a miniature is suggested by the fact that Arbella describes it as something easily transportable (see Chapter 24).
“Earl of Hertford”: Haynes (ed.), State Papers, Vol. I, p. 378.
parliamentary) monarchy: Stephen Alford, The Early Elizabethan Polity, William Cecil and the British Succession Crises, pp. 92, 93.
to the bed: Baker (ed.), Dyer, Vol. I, p. 82; Longleat PO/I/93.
“sweet bedfellow” again: Longleat PO/I/93.
his coreligionists: Alford, The Early Elizabethan Polity, p. 94.
XX: PARLIAMENT AND KATHERINE’S CLAIM
“of the claimants”: CSPS, Vol. I, 1558–67, p.
263.
their favored candidates: The description is reminiscent of the Hoby dinner party that took place after the death of Amy Dudley. A guest at that dinner, the Earl of Arundel, was holding one of these dinner party meetings in 1563 at his house.
under house arrest: They were at Sheen, in the care of Sir Richard Sackville, the father of Thomas Sackville, the author of Gorboduc.
was at stake: J. E. Neale, “Parliament and the Succession Question in 1562/3 and 1566,” pp. 124, 125. Mortimer Levine, Tudor Dynastic Problems, pp. 106, 107. Levine, Early Elizabethan Succession Question, p. 49.
“blood in England”: CSPS, Vol. I, 1558–67, p. 296.
“from coming together”: Levine, Early English Succession Question, p. 28; HMC Salisbury, Vol. I, p. 396.
“rather than hindrance”: Haynes (ed.), State Papers, Vol. VI, p. 396. The date of 1562 given in Davey’s Sisters is incorrect. On Mason’s betrayal of Jane Grey, see Chapter 11.
the Queen’s pleasure: Baker (ed.), Dyer, Vol. I, pp. 81, 82.
was republished: By John Tisdale between 22 July 1562 and 22 July 1563.
Cecil, all over it: He would try to pull off a measure similar to this over twenty years later, in 1584–85.
by Katherine’s rivals: According to de Quadra, Katherine Grey’s rivals hadn’t liked Cecil’s suggestion that they (or their husbands) be members of the Council that would help choose the Queen’s heir. They feared that instead of being safe on their country estates, plotting in their own interests, they would be corralled into choosing Katherine and then locked up. Equally they could not afford to be left off such a Council, and leave others in charge of their interests—so no such Council could be permitted.
of Edward VI: HMC Salisbury, Vol. I, p. 294.
of the marriage: Ellis, Letters Illustrative, Vol. II, p. 285.
from his companionship: CSPS, Vol. I, 1558–67, p. 313.
XXI: HALES’S TEMPEST
“his lordship’s household”: HMC Salisbury, Vol. I, pp. 179, 280.
“humbly I crave”: Ellis, Letters Illustrative, Vol. II, pp. 177, 278.
“monkeys and dogs”: Strickland, Tudor Princesses, pp. 225, 226.
“the heart roots”: Ellis, Letters Illustrative, Vol. II, pp. 279, 280.
“word written therein”: Ibid., p. 281.
“wish you health”: Landsdowne 6, f. 36.
“reign over us”: Ellis, Letters Illustrative, Vol. II, pp. 281, 282.
“life, Katherine Hertford”: Longleat, Portland, Vol. I, ff. 92, 93: “No small joy, my dearest Lord, is it to me the comfortable understanding of your maintained health. I crave to God to [give you strength] as I doubt not but he will. You, neither I, have anything in this most lamentable time so much to comfort [us in our pitiable absence from each other] as the hearing, the seeking and countenance [of good health] in us both. Though of late I have not been well, yet now, I thank God, pretty well, and long to be merry with you, as you do with me as when our little, sweet boys in the Tower was gotten either the twenty fifth or twenty ninth of May; even I say no more but be you as merry as I was heavy when you the third time came to the door and it was locked. Do you think I forget old fore … matters between us? No surely I cannot but bear in memory fare many more than you think, for I have good leave to do so when I call to mind what a husband I have of you, and my great hard fate to miss the viewing of so good a one. Very well, though I write you [are] good, you be my naughty Lord. Could you [not] find [it] in your heart to have pity of me to [have given me] more pains for more brats, so fast one after another? No, [but] I would not only have regard to rest my bones … I should have remembered the blessing of God in giving us such increase. I [don’t] doubt I should rather have been glad to have borne a great deal [more] pain than thought any too much … to bring them, so much is my boundless love to my sweet bedfellow that I was wont with joyful heart to lie by, and shall again … Thus most humbly thanking you, my sweet Lord, for your husbandly sending both to see how I do, and also for your money, I most lovingly bid you farewell: not forgetting my especial thanks to you for your book, which is no small jewel to me. I can very well read it, for as soon as I had it, I read it over even with my heart as well as with eyes; by which token I once again bid you Vale et semper salus my good Ned, Your most loving and faithful wife during life, Katherine Hertford.”
“sleep in quiet”: Ellis, Letters Illustrative, Vol. II, pp. 283, 284, 285.
was a vital ally: Lady Knollys was a daughter of Elizabeth’s aunt Mary Boleyn.
Lord John continued: Landsdowne 7, ff. 110, 119.
ruffs and handkerchiefs: Strickland, Tudor Princesses, p. 239.
“grant his prayer”: Ibid., p. 241.
Queen of Scots: HMC Salisbury, Vol. I, p. 294.
“all the world”: Ellis, Letters Illustrative, Vol. II, p. 273.
clients of Cecil’s: Hertford’s servant Anthony Penn testified that a man called Thomas Dannet, a cousin of Cecil, had delivered a discourse on the marriage to him, written by Robert Beale, Hales’s agent in Europe. Dannet was a veteran conspirator who had been involved in the rising led by Katherine’s father in the Midlands in 1554. He told Penn to show the discourse to Hertford’s lawyers “to quicken their wits” (Levine, The Early Elizabethan Succession Question, p. 73). Those clients of Cecil who were named included the lawyer William Fleetwood, a friend of the Gorboduc author Thomas Sackville. He would be associated in the 1580s with Cecil’s plans for a Grand Council on Elizabeth’s death. He enjoyed, at this time, the patronage of Sir Ambrose Cave, whose daughter and heir was to marry Mary Boleyn’s grandson Henry Knollys in 1565—the wedding Mary Grey would use as cover for her own marriage. It is worth recalling here Katherine’s presents of the stockings to Lady Knollys, Henry’s mother, in the New Year of 1564. Another client of Cecil whose name emerged was that of the evangelical preacher David Whitehead, who had been a chaplain to Katherine Suffolk (Ellis, Letters Illustrative, Vol. II, p. 285). Whitehead, whom Cecil strongly supported for a bishopric, was one of a number of Protestant clerics who took part in a debate about transubstantiation at his house in November 1551.
PART FOUR
Lost Love
XXII: THE LADY MARY AND MR. KEYES
Sir Ambrose Cave: The Knollys wedding did not take place in August or at Whitehall, as stated by previous biographers.
“of the window”: CSPS, Vol. I, 1558–67, p. 451.
Scarborough in 1557: Both Lady Arundell and Lady Stafford would be remembered in Mary’s will.
Bishop of Gloucester: The brother was called Edward Keyes, the friend Martin Cawsley, and the bishop of Gloucester in this period was Richard Cheyney.
is very great: Ellis, Letters Illustrative, Vol. II, p. 299.
very rich man: He founded the Muscovy Company of London, which held a monopoly on Anglo–Russian trade.
“degree or place”: Norma Major, Chequers, p. 27.
“and heinous crime”: Strickland, Tudor Princesses, p. 269. CSPD, Vol. I, p. 263; photocopy from Chequers estate.
absolutist Elizabeth abhorred: The “Allegations against the Surmised Title of the Queen of Scots …,” published in December 1565, demanded that Mary Stuart be excluded on religious grounds—an argument that could even justify overthrowing a reigning monarch. Cecil’s friend Sir Thomas Smith, meanwhile, had composed a major work on England’s “mixed monarchy” entitled De Republica Anglorum.
“to great inconvenience”: CSPD, Vol. I, p. 277. Strickland, Tudor Princesses, p. 271.
XXIII: THE CLEAR CHOICE
“prescribed unto me”: Notes and Queries, Vol. I, June 1995, p. 423.
on deaf ears: Wentworth’s only child, Lady Maltravers, was the widow of Katherine’s first cousin Henry Fitzalan, Lord Maltravers (d.1556). He may therefore have been close to her uncle and ally of the Earl of Arundel. This suggests he was chosen (possibly by Cecil) as someone who would at least be kind to Katherine. A remodeled Gosfield Hall was later home to the exiled Louis XVIII.
yet
been found: Sir John Mason died on 20 April 1566. Hertford was still with his widow on 24 June when he writes “from my Lady Mason’s house in London” (Notes and Queries, 1 June 1995, p. 423).
“with the Queen”: Ellis, Letters Illustrative, Vol. II, p. 286.
pamphlets was published: Levine, The Early Elizabethan Succession Question, pp. 168, 170.
and the ablest: Ibid.
Spanish ambassador commented: CSPS, Vol. I, 1558–67, p. 589.
as she could: The letter is dated 16 October and is from Gosfield.
“to my heart”: J. W. Burgon, The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham, Vol. II, pp. 398, 399.
“makes the law”: Guy, “Tudor Monarchy and Its Critiques,” p. 6.
know her will: Levine, The Early Elizabethan Succession Question, p. 176.
“with the matter”: Sally Kempton, “Cutting Loose,” Esquire, New York, July 1970.
“of the succession”: Levine, Early Elizabethan Succession Question, p. 181.
“I can conveniently”: Ibid., pp. 184, 185; Susan Doran, Monarchy and Matrimony, the Courtship of Elizabeth I, p. 87.
succession began again: This time they began with a learned oration for a resumption of discussions from William Lambard, a client of Cecil’s kinsman Ambrose Cave. It is worth recalling here Cave’s link to the Hales tract.
“of these heretics”: CSPS, Vol. I, 1558–67, p. 595.
“would not like”: Ibid., p. 596.
Queen to do so: Cecil was the principal draftsman although he collaborated with half a dozen MPs (Alford, Early Elizabethan Polity, pp. 155, 156).
“the same object”: CSPS, Vol. I, 1558–67, p. 618.
“might cause trouble”: Ibid., p. 620.
cousin at once: Guy, My Heart Is My Own, p. 365.
de Silva reported: CSPS, Vol. I, 1558–67, p. 69.
“servants very orderly”: Notes and Queries, 8th series, 1895, p. 2.
Lieutenant of the Tower: Agnes Strickland (Lives of the Tudor Princesses), and modern biographers who have drawn extensively from her, have erroneously said that he was already “Lieutenant.” However, he did not achieve this post until 1570 or ‘71.