The place of Lettice’s birth and the setting for the majority of her childhood was the charming Greys Court; the beautiful manor house set in the Oxfordshire countryside, a little over forty miles from London that was her parent’s main residence. There had been a building on the site of Greys since Domesday, and the house is now ‘a patchwork of many layers and materials’.58 Owned by the De Grey family throughout the medieval period, after a brief period of ownership by the Lovell family, the estate had been granted to Lettice’s grandparents in 1514.59 As the traveller John Leland asserted in 1542, ‘It may not yet be forgotten in Henley that it used to belong to Lord Lovell, and that as a result of his attainder it was granted to Knollys.’60 By the time that Lettice’s parents settled at Greys, it comprised a fourteenth-century manor house and tower, with Tudor embellishments. Leland described it thus: ‘As you enter the manor house you see on your right hand three or four very old stone towers, a clear indication that it was at one time a castle. It has a very large courtyard paved with brick and surrounded with timber buildings; but this is of a later period.’61 As the century progressed, Lettice’s father undertook a programme of lavish rebuilding at Greys in the hope of a royal visit – his wish was granted when Elizabeth I later visited for a day, before moving elsewhere to stay.62 Throughout her life, Lettice paid frequent visits to her childhood home, and sought refuge there on more than one occasion in the comforting presence of her family.
Greys Court offered Lettice and her family a comfortable home that provided easy access to London, yet was far enough away from the intrigues of the royal court. It would not be long, however, before the events taking place elsewhere in the realm impacted upon this peaceful domestic existence, and separated Lettice’s family.
CHAPTER 2
Darling to the Maiden Queen
ON 28 JANUARY 1547, when Lettice was three years old, the great Henry VIII, who had torn his country apart by means of his split from the Catholic Church, died at the age of fifty-five. Katherine Knollys’s probable father was a distant figure to her and her family, and his death cannot therefore have been mourned with anything more than what was customary following the death of a monarch. Henry was succeeded by his nine-year-old son, Edward VI – the longed-for male heir whose birth had cost Jane Seymour her life. Shortly before his death, Henry had appointed a Regency Council to rule during Edward’s youth, and when the old King died Edward’s maternal uncle Edward Seymour immediately proclaimed himself head of this. Within a short time he was both Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector, and as such the most powerful man in England.
The Knollys family looked set not only to continue to enjoy royal favour during Edward’s reign, but also to rise higher. For Francis this was necessary, for the demands of a growing family were placing an increasing strain on his finances. He had served as Prince Edward’s Master of the Horse, a prestigious position and a sign of great favour, but there was more to come. On 20 February, the young King was crowned in Westminster Abbey, and the following day a celebratory joust took place. Francis was one of six gentlemen who participated, alongside Richard Devereux, whose son would later become intimately acquainted with Lettice.1 Francis Knollys and his wife were devoted to the Reformed faith (the term Protestant was not adopted in England until the 1550s), and were raising their family to adhere to the same. Likewise, the young King was fanatical about his faith, and throughout his reign Edward would take radical steps to ensure that the religious reform started by his father was continued in an ever more zealous manner. Francis Knollys was eager to ensure that Lettice and her siblings were raised as Protestants, but he was by far the most zealous. It was not long before he began mixing in Protestant circles, and among his friends were William Cecil, ‘an exceeding wise man, and as good as many’, who was in the service of the King’s uncle, the Lord Protector.2 Together with other religious enthusiasts, Francis began attending religious meetings at Cecil’s London house, where the group would discuss the meaning of the sacrament of the altar.3
During the reign of Henry VIII, Francis had continued to sit in Parliament, and he and his brother Henry were among those who sat in the first Parliament of Edward’s reign. He had also embarked on a military career, most notably serving with the King at the siege of Boulogne in 1544. This looked set to continue under Edward VI; in 1547 the Lord Protector opted to continue the ‘Rough Wooing’ begun by Henry VIII – an attempt to forcibly arrange the marriage of King Edward with the four-year-old Mary, Queen of Scots – and Francis was among those who accompanied him and the English army as they made their way towards Scotland to battle the Scots into submission.4 When the two armies met near Musselburgh and engaged in battle on 10 September, it resulted in a crushing defeat for the Scots. Francis distinguished himself at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh, and by way of reward the Lord Protector knighted him on the battlefield. His military prowess was in no doubt, and would later be inherited by several of his sons.
As Edward VI’s reign progressed, so too did Francis’s career. In his home county of Oxfordshire he was particularly well renowned, and in 1547 he became a Justice of the Peace. He was also given other posts in the county, including the constableship of Wallingford Castle in 1551, not far from Greys, and the stewardship of nearby Ewelme.5 Such posts would have kept Francis busy in Oxfordshire, but he also continued to attend court. In January 1552, he participated in two tilts, one with his brother Henry, and continued to ingratiate himself with the young King. His brother did likewise, and the previous summer he had been sent to France to treat for a marriage between the young King and Henri II’s daughter, Elisabeth.6 The plans came to nothing, but it was not the last time Henry would be used for diplomatic missions.7
While her father was making a name for himself at court and in the local neighbourhood, Lettice and her siblings were being raised at home. Little is known of her early life, but it seems probable that it was her mother who oversaw the education of Lettice and her brothers and sisters. There is no record of Lady Knollys visiting court during Edward VI’s reign, and with no queen there, there was very little place for her. That is not to say that she did not pay the occasional visit, but during these years she was frequently pregnant, producing four children in Edward’s six-year reign alone. It is therefore likely that Lettice’s mother was able to devote these years to raising her family, and overseeing the smooth running of her household at Greys Court.
When it came to educating the Knollys children, it is possible that the Magdalen College scholar Julius Palmer, who was later burned at the stake at Newbury in 1556 as a Protestant heretic, tutored Lettice. The martyrologist John Foxe noted that Palmer, who had ‘a very prompt and ready memory’, was ‘a teacher of children in the house of Sir Francis Knollys’, but does not stipulate which children.8 Four of Lettice’s brothers later attended Eton College, the prestigious boy’s school founded by Henry VI in 1440, and went on to Magdalen College, Oxford, but there was no such parallel available for girls.9 Judging by Lettice’s numerous surviving letters, she received an education befitting of her rank. She had an elegant hand, and was not afraid of committing her thoughts to paper, expressing herself clearly, confidently and authoritatively. It is likely that she was also given some grounding in languages, an essential skill for a courtier – her eldest daughter would later be celebrated for her understanding of Spanish.10 In addition, she and her sisters were taught all of the practical skills that were essential for women in order to manage their own households when they married. Lettice later put these to good use, ordering the smooth running of her household when her first two husbands were absent from England. She seems to have been a skilled needlewoman, and a later inventory of her belongings reveals that she owned a large quantity of sewing materials.11 The girls would also have been taught manners and etiquette, and are likely to have received instruction in dancing and music. Her mother may have been particularly fond of music, for adorning the effigy of the double tomb of Lettice’s parents in the church at Rotherfield Greys, severa
l instruments are depicted next to Lady Knollys. And Lettice later found a similar enthusiast in her second husband, who owned various instruments and made regular payments to musicians during the course of their marriage.12 Later in life Lettice also hunted, an outdoor pursuit that she was fond of and to which she would have been introduced during her childhood, in addition to the popular sport of hawking.
The spiritual welfare of his children was of the utmost importance to Sir Francis Knollys, and all of his children were raised in the Protestant faith. He was particularly concerned that his daughters ought to be brought up in godliness, and in relation to this he would later write that ‘experience teaches what “foul crimes” youthful women fall into for lack of orderly maintenance. My will is good, they cannot lack as long as I have it, but there is no more “to be had of a cat but the skin”.’13 Francis’s strict morals played a central role in the childhoods of Lettice and her siblings, and he was well known for his serious behaviour. In later years a humorous tale was related, whereby Francis
had his lodging at court, where some of the Ladies and Maids of Honour used to frisk and hey about in the next room, to his extreme disquiet a nights, though he had often warned them of it; at last he gets one to bolt their own back door, when they were all in one night at their revels, strips off [to] his shirt, and so with a pair of spectacles on his nose, and Aretine in his hand, comes marching in at a postern door of his own chamber, reading very gravely, full upon the faces of them. Now let the reader judge what a sad spectacle and pitiful fright these poor creatures endured.14
Such a story is perhaps indicative of the kind of reaction Lettice and her siblings would have received if they had misbehaved at home! Similarly, Francis was a man who liked routine. Each New Year he gave the Queen a purse of sovereigns, the only change being the purse in which they were presented; in 1562 ‘a purse of blue silk and gold knit’, and the following year ‘a purse of red silk and silver’.15
At home at Greys Court, Lettice would not have lacked for company. By 1552 there were nine Knollys children including Lettice, who would have turned nine in November. Four of her siblings were under the age of five, the youngest being Richard who was born in May 1552, and the eldest being eleven-year-old Henry. With so many youngsters, Greys Court must have been a hub of youthful energy, with little place for peace and quiet, and no shortage of playmates. As Mary and Lettice were the two eldest daughters, they would have been expected to help out with their younger siblings, and so Lettice would have received an early introduction to the skills of motherhood. She was surrounded by an abundance of brothers and sisters, whose care would have occupied much of her time. It was through them that she is likely to have developed her love of children, for motherhood would be something in which she excelled.
WHILE LETTICE AND her siblings were raised in the Oxfordshire countryside, elsewhere in England the young King Edward had been devoting his attentions to the development of Protestantism within his realm. In January 1549, the Act of Uniformity was passed in Parliament, confirming the use of Protestant rites in all churches across the country. The Act also prescribed the Book of Common Prayer, written in English by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, as the sole religious text in churches, and all of the Popish imagery associated with Catholicism was removed.
Matters had also taken a turn in the political arena, and following a coup d’état in 1549 the Lord Protector had been ousted from power. Despite a brief period of rehabilitation, on 22 January 1552 he was executed for felony. John Dudley, who was created Duke of Northumberland in 1551, assumed his place. Northumberland had quickly taken up the reins of power in England, and was fully supportive of the King’s religious policies. However, when the fifteen-year-old Edward fell ill at the beginning of 1553, it soon became clear that he was not going to live long enough to ensure that his religious reforms were securely in place. To the alarm of the King and his most fervent religious supporters, as young Edward was childless the next in line to the throne was his half-sister, Mary, the only surviving child of Henry VIII’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon. By extreme contrast to Edward, Mary was a devoted Catholic. She had also spent the entirety of Edward’s reign refusing to conform to his religious policies, much to his fury. She had defiantly ordered the Catholic Mass to be celebrated in her chapel, and there was no doubt that if she succeeded Edward she would attempt to return England to the folds of the Church of Rome. Although Elizabeth, the younger of Edward’s half-sisters, was a Protestant, it was impossible for the King to rule out one half-sister without also disinheriting the other. Thus it was that, with the support of the Duke of Northumberland, Edward drew up a document, ‘My Devise for the Succession’, whereby he attempted to overturn the provisions set out in his late father’s will. Edward’s Devise passed over both of his half-sisters on the grounds of their illegitimacy, enforced by law during the reign of Henry VIII following the annulment of his marriages to their mothers. Instead, Edward named his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey, whom Henry VIII had nominated in the event of all three of his children dying childless, his heir. Edward’s health declined so rapidly that there was no time for the Devise to be passed through Parliament. Therefore, in order to ensure that the terms of the Devise were upheld, Edward demanded the signatures and allegiance of his councillors. Despite his religious convictions, Sir Francis Knollys may have been glad that he was not a member of the King’s Council, and was therefore not required to sign. Nevertheless he would have heard of the trepidation of many of those who did, feeling wary and fearful about what was to follow.
On 6 July, Edward VI died a painful death, probably of a pulmonary infection, at Greenwich Palace. Over the course of the next thirteen days, a bitter power struggle ensued. In accordance with the dying King’s wishes and in an attempt to retain his own power, the Duke of Northumberland had Lady Jane Grey, now his daughter-in-law following her marriage to his son Guildford in May, proclaimed Queen.16 But nobody had counted on the popularity or fighting spirit of Edward’s Catholic half-sister, Mary. Having rallied huge support, on 19 July all allegiances to Lady Jane Grey were forgotten and she was deposed in favour of Mary. Contemporary chroniclers in London reported that as she was proclaimed Queen Mary I, there were ‘bonfires in every street’, while the bells were ‘ringing in every parish church’, so great was the elation of the citizens.17 On 22 August, Northumberland was executed, and Lady Jane Grey and her husband were imprisoned in the Tower.18
Francis Knollys did not involve himself in the coup to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne, but he was alarmed when, as Edward VI had feared, Mary made it clear that she was indeed intent on reverting England to the Catholic faith. Having won her kingdom without shedding a single drop of blood, she immediately took steps to restore the Catholic faith. A month after her accession, however, she issued a proclamation declaring that she would not force any of her subjects to embrace Catholicism. Though many of them accepted this and had good cause to hope that their lives would not be unduly affected, for others the re-establishment of Catholicism in the realm signalled disaster: the Knollys family were foremost among them.
During the first Parliament of her reign in October, one of Mary’s first steps was to have the legislation that had once declared her illegitimate revoked – there was to be no doubt in anybody’s mind that she was a true and legitimate heir of Henry VIII. She also began to reverse all of the religious changes that had been put in place by her half-brother. Within months, the Book of Common Prayer that had become an integral part of Edward VI’s church had been outlawed, and the Catholic Mass had been reintroduced. Mary met with little resistance from the majority of her subjects, and those who did resist found themselves speedily imprisoned; Archbishop Cranmer, and Bishops Latimer and Ridley being chief among them.19 The Queen’s plans to return England to the folds of Rome were furthered when, in January 1554, negotiations for her marriage to the Catholic Philip of Spain, the son of her cousin the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, were concluded. On 23 July, Philip arrive
d in Winchester, ‘accompanied with noblemen as well of England as of his own country, with trumpets blowing and bells ringing’.20 Mary and the court had journeyed to meet him, and on 25 July, two days after his arrival, Mary and Philip were ‘honourably married with great solemnity’ in a magnificent ceremony at Winchester Cathedral.21 Thirty-eight-year-old Mary felt ‘a violent love for him’, but for the twenty-seven-year-old Philip the marriage was merely a matter of policy.22 Mary now had a foreign Catholic consort, and England, it seemed, was set on following a very different path from the one prescribed by Edward VI.
The idea of a Catholic England repulsed Francis Knollys; he was incredibly principled, particularly about his staunch Protestant views. The Imperial ambassador would later describe him as being ‘a terrible Protestant’, and his faith was an issue on which he was not prepared to compromise.23 It was with this in mind that, in the same year as Mary’s accession, Francis left England. Taking his eldest son Henry with him, he travelled to Geneva, probably setting sail from Dover on 16 September.24 It must have been difficult for him to leave his family behind at this time, for only the previous month his wife had given birth to another son, Francis, born on 14 August. His business, though, was of the utmost importance, and time was very much of the essence. It was the belief of historian Christina Garrett, writing in 1938, that Francis was sent abroad as an envoy to meet with John Calvin in Geneva, and his disciple Pierre Viret at Lausanne, on behalf of William Cecil.25 Garrett argues that Francis was tasked with obtaining Calvin’s permission for a colony of English Protestant immigrants to settle in Geneva, and this theory does sound credible.26 It would have been an arduous journey, particularly for the twelve-year-old Henry, but before 20 November father and son had reached Geneva. On that day, Calvin wrote a letter of introduction to his follower, Viret, on behalf of two English gentlemen who had recently been his guests. The men are likely to have been Francis and Henry, and young Henry in particular made an impression on Calvin. While he believed that ‘the father of the young man, is a person of good birth, and was wealthy in his own country’, Calvin reserved his greatest compliments for Lettice’s brother.27 Henry, he wrote, ‘merits higher praise for piety and holy zeal; for, under the reign of King Edward, seeing that the Church suffered from want of pastors, he undertook voluntarily the labours of that office’.28 Impressive behaviour for a twelve-year-old.
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