AT TWO O’CLOCK in the morning of 28 January 1547, squeezing the hand of his Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, Henry VIII drew his final breath and ‘passed from this life’.10 With his death, his nine-year-old son, Edward, now became the sixth king of England to bear that name, and he had big shoes to fill. The late King had provided for the government of the realm while Edward was a minor, and by the terms of his will a Regency Council was established, the members of which had been appointed by Henry VIII prior to his death. Most of these members were committed reformers, the faith in which the young King had been raised, and which he would make steadfast attempts to impose upon his country. Poignantly, however, Jane’s father had been excluded, and it is an insult that he cannot have failed to have noticed. At the head of the Council was Edward’s maternal uncle, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, ‘a dry, sour, opinionated man’.11 Hertford moved quickly in order to establish himself as Lord Protector of the realm, though he was ‘simply appointed first of the Councillors by the testament of the late King’, and in February he was created Duke of Somerset, while his younger brother, Thomas, a man of ‘high courage’, was made Baron Seymour of Sudeley and Lord High Admiral.12 Somerset was one of those that the Imperial ambassador Chapuys described as ‘stirrers of heresy’, due to their commitment to the religious reform of which Jane was so zealous.13 Both he and his younger brother would later become intimately linked with Jane and her family. In order to hold on to the reins of power Somerset needed as big a base of supporters as possible, and set about trying to secure the loyalty of as many of the lords as he could, including Henry Grey. After all, Henry’s eldest daughter Jane was now third in line to the throne, and that was something for which Henry could not be ignored.
Not only was Henry afforded an important role in the coronation of Edward VI, which took place on 20 February in Westminster Abbey, but on 23 May, after years of waiting and several nominations, he was finally admitted to the Order of the Garter.14 Founded in 1348 by Edward III, the Order was the highest order of chivalry (and still is) in England, dedicated to the patron saint St George. Admittance was solely by appointment of the monarch; therefore, Henry’s selection to join many of his friends and colleagues was a singular honour and an indication of potential favour in the future. His copy of the Statutes of the Order of the Garter, known as the Suffolk Garter Book, still survives in the Royal Collection complete with his signature.15 The book set out all of the rules and regulations which, as Knights of the Garter, members were expected to obey. It was a triumphant moment.
Despite the establishment of the Church of England during the late reign, Henry VIII’s religious views had still been relatively conservative, and in essence he had remained a Catholic. When Henry was on his deathbed and beyond speech, Archbishop Cranmer had asked the King for some indication that he died in the true faith of Christ, and Henry, ‘holding him with his hand, did wring his hand in his as hard as he could’, and this was taken as affirmation.16 Following the execution of Anne Boleyn, Henry had found some of the ideas of the Reformist movement increasingly distasteful and deplored their radicalism. However, there had been many in England who were becoming progressively interested in reform and whose views leant towards evangelicalism, and thus Henry’s court had divided into two parties: the conservatives – with men such as the Duke of Norfolk and Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, who were adherents of Catholicism – and the Reformist camp, with Archbishop Cranmer and Edward Seymour at its core.
It was not safe to express evangelical views openly at this time or even ideas that bordered on evangelicalism. In June 1546, a Lincolnshire woman named Anne Askew was put to the rack at the Tower, the Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas Wriothesley turning the handles of this terrifying instrument himself. She was suspected of having discussed her radical religious beliefs with ladies in the Queen’s household, and even the Queen herself, but even at the height of her agony as her limbs were stretched, Anne refused to admit to this and would give no names. The following month, Anne was burned at the stake at Smithfield as a heretic.
Like the Dorsets, Katherine Parr was a member of the Reformist camp, to her peril during the reign of her late husband.17 Though they were no doubt appalled when they heard of the shocking end of Anne Askew, they wisely kept their opinions to themselves. Jane also probably learned of Askew’s story, and may have admired her strength of conviction; it was one that she too, in time, would come to display.
With the onset of the new reign, however, the tide had very much turned in favour of the reformers, and Edward VI showed none of the hesitation of his father. With the support of his trusted Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, the young King began introducing a series of religious reforms that revolutionized the English church, placing it firmly in the realms of the Protestant movement that was growing on the continent. The Act of Six Articles was repealed, and it quickly became clear which direction things were moving in.18 Jane and her family were surely delighted by such bold moves, and greatly approved of the changes that were taking place. Jane’s father, described as ‘the thunderbolt and terror of the papists, that is, a fierce and terrible adversary’, was foremost among the men at court who actively encouraged these changes.19 It was little wonder, therefore, that Heinrich Bullinger chose to dedicate the fifth part of his Decades to Henry.
Heinrich Bullinger was the successor of Huldrych Zwingli, and the head of the Zurich church. Zwingli was a leading Swiss reformer who used his influence to transform the city of Zurich into one of the leading Protestant centres on the continent. In 1523 Zwingli produced his ‘Sixty-Seven Articles’: points that detailed his beliefs on a range of religious issues. All of these were based on the reading of the Bible, which was central to his work, and which he believed was the word of God that could not be superseded by any human power. The Bible, in Zwingli’s opinion, set out all of the conditions that people should live their lives by, and soon the ‘Sixty-Seven Articles’ became Zurich’s official doctrine. The areas surrounding Zurich, though, were unconvinced by Zwingli’s views, and remained adherents to Catholicism. The result was a religious war, initially launched in 1529. During the second campaign of 1531, Zwingli was killed at the Battle of Kepel, leaving his son-in-law, Bullinger, to continue his work. It was Bullinger who was responsible for spreading the ideas of Zwinglianism across Europe, from where they eventually came to reach England. Bullinger also wrote a number of theological works, the most famous of which was the Decades. In the course of his work he struck up correspondences with a number of people who were familiar with Jane, one of whom was her tutor, Master Aylmer.
Jane’s father’s reputation for piety was well known, and it was probably through the auspices of his protégé John of Ulm that he came to Bullinger’s notice. Religion was a subject about which Henry was passionate, as his letter to Bullinger in which he thanked the Swiss theologian for the dedication demonstrated:
I acknowledge the divine goodness towards his church, and, as Paul expresses it, the love of God to man, that he has chosen to adorn and illuminate his church with such lights, as that we who are less enlightened, may follow those guides in the beaten path of true religion, who may both be able, by reason of the gifts they have received from God, and willing, by reason of their affection to their brethren, diligently to point out the way in which we ought to walk.20
Henry’s household at Bradgate became a haven for those devoted to the cause of reform, and the atmosphere was one in which Jane herself was fully immersed. What was more, she was about to be given just the type of fertile ground and encouragement that she needed in order for her religious views to grow.
CHAPTER 5
A Loving and Kind Father
THOUGH LADY FRANCES had been excluded from the succession, the Grey sisters had not, and currently stood as third, fourth and fifth in line to the throne. Jane’s parents were not the only ones who were conscious of their daughters’ status – particularly Jane’s. Almost immediately after the death of King
Henry, the family was in residence at Dorset House when a visitor arrived, seeking a meeting with Jane’s father.
John Harington was an intelligent man, who would later become dangerously entangled in Jane’s story.1 Now around thirty years old, he was in the employ of the Lord Protector’s younger brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, the Lord Admiral, to whom he was also a close companion. Harington was well known to Jane’s father, and perhaps also to Jane, but on this occasion his visit to Dorset House had a very specific purpose. Following the customary exchange of pleasantries, Harington moved swiftly to the point. As Jane’s father remembered it, Harington
[s]howed me that the admiral was likely to come to great authority and, as the king’s uncle, might do me much pleasure, advising me to report to him and enter more into his friendship. He advised me to allow my daughter Jane to be with the admiral, saying he would have her married to the king.2
Henry’s interest was gauged, and he listened as Harington attempted to flatter him by adding that Jane was ‘as handsome a lady as any in England’.3 Jane had a place in the line of succession in her own right, but now it appeared that Seymour was offering to help Jane’s parents to achieve the most glittering future possible for their eldest daughter: marriage to her cousin King Edward, which would make Jane a queen. There is no way of knowing whether the Dorsets had considered the possibility of a marriage between their daughter and the young King prior to 1547; after all, Henry VIII’s hopes of a marriage between his son and Mary, Queen of Scots, had been well known, and Jane and Edward were still incredibly young. If the thought had not already occurred to them, the seed had now most definitely been planted. It seems that Seymour had already discussed his plans with a number of his associates, for Sir William Sharington later recalled that ‘he heard the Lord Admiral say that the Lady Jane was a fit marriage for the King’.4
The grand promises and flattering words were all very well, but despite his familial relationship to King Edward, Henry could not see that the Admiral was well placed enough to be making any such promises. After all, everyone knew that the real powerhouse at court was his elder brother, the Lord Protector. Turning Harington away from Dorset House, Henry made his feelings clear. But the Admiral, ambitious and forceful, could be incredibly compelling when the occasion called for it. Eager to get his own way, he persevered, and Henry later admitted that ‘within a week I went to the admiral’s house at Seymour Place where he persuaded me to send for my daughter’.5 A physically attractive man nearing forty, Seymour knew how to employ all of his charms to achieve his desires. But it was not only his honeyed words that had won Henry round – it was his cash too. In return for allowing Jane to join his household as his ward, Seymour promised Henry a tempting loan of £2,000 (£615,000), ‘hearing me complain of debt’.6 Aware of Henry and Frances’s ambitions for their daughters and the high hopes that they had for Jane, the ruthless Seymour cunningly played on their greed in order to draw them into his plans. In the complex system of sixteenth-century networking, it was not unusual for noble children to enter the households of others of a similar social standing in order to complete their education, and to form possible future matrimonial alliances. By agreeing to send Jane into the Admiral’s keeping, however, Henry and Frances had, in effect, given him control of their daughter and her future. Well known for their fondness of gambling with money, gambling with their daughter was another matter entirely, and one in which the stakes were infinitely higher.
The ten-year-old Jane remained blissfully ignorant of the intrigue and negotiations that had taken place between her father and the Admiral as she prepared to embark on what she may have viewed as an exciting change. Alternatively, the thought of leaving behind the familiar surroundings of Bradgate Park and her family may have seemed a daunting prospect; after all, Jane had never known anything else. Bidding her parents and younger sisters farewell, in February 1547 she arrived at the palatial Seymour Place on the Strand. Located just a stone’s throw from Dorset House, but miles away from Bradgate Park in rural Leicestershire, Seymour Place may have taken some adjustment for Jane. There were no younger sisters competing for attention at Seymour Place; Jane was the only child, for the Admiral was unmarried with no children of his own, and Jane, therefore, was the star attraction. She found that she liked her new guardian, whom she later referred to as ‘a loving and kind father’, and was easily won over by his charms.7 But once the initial novelty had worn off, she soon found that life was to continue in very much a similar vein as it had done at home. For here, despite the new surroundings, Jane resumed her studies under the kind supervision of her tutor, Master Aylmer. Given the close relationship between teacher and pupil, Jane probably found his continued presence a comfort, especially as she spent little time with her guardian. The Admiral was busy with other plans of his own – plans that for the moment were shrouded in the utmost secrecy.
The Admiral’s thoughts had turned to matrimony. Determined to gain the ultimate prize of a royal wife, after first expressing an interest in King Henry’s daughters, he turned his attentions to King Henry’s widow. Despite the onset of her third widowhood, the Queen Dowager, Katherine Parr, was an attractive woman of almost thirty-five.8 Tall, with auburn hair and a sensual nature, she was, moreover, a wealthy woman since the death of her royal husband. On top of that, she had fallen in love with Seymour before her marriage to her royal spouse, and later wrote to him that ‘As truly as God is God, my mind was fully bent the other time I was at liberty, to marry you before any man I know.’9 Now that she was at last free and had an attractive dowry to add to her allure, Seymour began to pursue Katherine with alacrity. Much to her disappointment, Katherine had been afforded no place in the government of her stepson King Edward, and her time, therefore, was all her own. Her feelings towards Seymour had remained unchanged during her marriage to the King, and she actively encouraged his advances. In no time at all Katherine had fallen completely under Seymour’s spell. Soon after Jane’s arrival at Seymour Place, Katherine and Seymour became lovers. However, Katherine was still in mourning for her late royal husband, adding an element of both danger and excitement as the couple were forced to conduct their relationship in secret. In the dead of night, Seymour began visiting Katherine at her dower manor of Chelsea, a short distance from Seymour Place. Jane would have had no inkling that her guardian had gone, for he always left Chelsea early in the morning before Katherine’s household awoke.
The relationship was serious, and probably at some time in May, Katherine and Seymour were married clandestinely. It did not, though, remain secret for long, and the following month news of the marriage became public. It caused complete outrage in many quarters, the Lord Protector being furious at his brother’s presumption to take such a wife, in so secret a way. His anger can easily be imagined, for when the Admiral had previously expressed an interest in marrying the Lady Mary, the Lord Protector had told him in no uncertain terms that ‘neither of them was born to be king, nor to marry a king’s daughter’.10 Equally, Jane’s cousin the Lady Mary greatly disapproved of the match, not least because of the indecent haste with which it had been conducted following her father’s death, ‘who is as yet very ripe in mine own remembrance’.11 But the young King Edward, who had always been fond of both his uncle and his stepmother, gave the marriage his blessing, writing to assure Katherine that he believed that Seymour ‘is of so good a nature that he will not be troublesome any means unto you’.12 It seems likely that Jane’s parents also approved of the marriage, for it would, in turn, have a profound and positive effect on Jane.
For Jane, the marriage of her guardian and Katherine Parr was an excellent development. While she had undoubtedly met Katherine before, she perhaps greeted her for the first time in her capacity as Seymour’s wife in July, when it was observed that Katherine ‘went lately to dine at the house of her new husband’.13 Though Jane remained as Seymour’s ward, to her delight she now discovered that she was invited to spend more time with Katherine in her household at Chels
ea.14 Completely adored by her stepchildren and always fond of children herself, though with none of her own, Katherine welcomed Jane with open arms. At Chelsea Jane also had the company of her fourteen-year-old cousin, the Lady Elizabeth, who had recently taken up residence with her stepmother. With the slender build of her mother and the fiery red-gold hair of her father, Elizabeth was developing into an attractive young woman, described as ‘comely rather than handsome, but she is tall and well formed, with a good skin, although swarthy; she has fine eyes and above all a beautiful hand of which she makes a display’.15 Such striking features suggest that Elizabeth was always going to turn heads. Unlike Jane, however, Elizabeth’s early years had been far from stable. Before she reached her third birthday, her mother, Anne Boleyn, had been executed and she herself had been declared illegitimate. It was thanks to the love and devotion of her stepmother, Katherine, that she was finally beginning to flourish.
Jane’s parents almost certainly received frequent reports of her progress, and must have been delighted by what they heard. They certainly approved of Katherine’s influence, and Frances in particular was an admirer of the Queen Dowager’s. An inventory taken after her death reveals that she owned a portrait of Katherine, and the two women also shared similar religious beliefs.16 Lady Frances, however, appears never to have been as enthusiastic about her faith as Katherine, and she certainly never demonstrated devotion in the same manner as the Queen Dowager. In the company of Katherine, who actively encouraged her learning, Jane was positively thriving. Katherine herself had been fortunate enough to receive a high-level of education, and as a result was exceedingly cultured. She also took great care of her appearance, and Jane cannot have failed to notice Katherine’s passion for beautiful clothes and shoes, her love of costly jewels, and her penchant for fragrant scents.17 She was an inspiring example for Jane, as her spirited enthusiasm for learning was something she pursued for the rest of her life, serving to further cement the bond between herself and her husband’s ward. She was interested in art, and had commissioned numerous portraits of herself from artists whom she patronized, including a miniature as a keepsake for her husband; she wrote poetry and adored books, and through them was able to indulge and express her radical religious beliefs, for among her accomplishments, Katherine was an author.
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