The Suffolk family almost certainly remained at the Charterhouse for the rest of the year while Frances regained her strength. They were evidently there on 8 November, for on that day Henry wrote to Cecil requesting a licence for one of his servants to travel to Flanders. The King, meanwhile, was celebrating the Christmas season at Greenwich, little knowing that he would never see another: the year 1553 would be his last. Jane too can have had no idea that the coming year would signal the most momentous of her life, and that she would not survive the consequences.
CHAPTER 11
A Comely, Virtuous and
Goodly Gentleman
AS THE YEAR 1553 began, Edward ‘fell sick of a cough, which grievously increased’.1 Jane’s parents were in frequent attendance at Edward’s court, and given their familial proximity to the King, must have been among the first to hear the hushed whispers of the King’s illness.2 Edward had, in fact, been ill for some time, but on this occasion it was not long before it became clear that his cough was developing into something infinitely more serious.3 The fifteen-year-old King, whose reign had started with such anticipation, was ‘almost wasted away with a long and lingering disease’, and was facing the possibility of an early death.4
The contemporary chronicler Robert Wingfield later observed that ‘his endowments of intellect were so much more outstanding and admirable than his good looks that not without reason might the English reproach the fates for being unjust and utterly envious in carrying off a future leader of such promise’.5 Throughout his short reign, Edward, who had been ‘tall and of a healthy constitution for a boy in middle youth’, had diligently advanced the Reformation that his father had begun in England, and by 1553, though the cogs were still turning, England had become a primarily Protestant country.6 Gone were the Mass, the images in churches, and altars. All services were now conducted in English, and priests were allowed to marry.7 Edward’s work in the cause of religion, however, was very much unfinished, and his Protestant nation was still in its infancy. Nevertheless, Edward’s achievements had, in the eyes of some of his admiring contemporaries, already been impressive. His tutor, the learned John Cheke, wrote that same year to Heinrich Bullinger, praising Edward’s achievements. Though Edward was ‘debilitated by long illness’, Cheke commended him for he
[h]as accomplished at this early period of his life more numerous and important objects, than others have been able to do when their age was more settled and matured. He has repealed the act of the six articles; he has removed images from the churches; he has overthrown idolatry; he has abolished the mass, and destroyed almost every kind of superstition.8
With Edward having made such significant and positive changes towards creating a stable haven for Protestantism in the space of just six years, his Councillors were fearful as to what would happen if he were to die. He had not married, and thus, by the terms of Henry VIII’s will, the next in line to the throne was Edward’s half-sister, the Lady Mary. And there was no doubt that, should she inherit, the religious changes implemented by Edward would be quickly undone, and all of his efforts wasted.
Relations between the two siblings were strained over matters of religion, and had been increasingly so over the course of Edward’s reign. Despite this, as the new year began, their differences were temporarily put to one side. Mary had decided to visit her half-brother, and on 10 January, Jane’s mother, Duchess Frances, was among the ladies of the court who escorted her cousin Mary from the Priory of St John in Clerkenwell to the Palace of Westminster for her visit. All went smoothly, and the following month Mary returned. As she arrived at the Palace of Whitehall, she was ‘honourably received and entertained with greater magnificence’.9 However, at the time of her coming the King was so unwell, having been ‘attacked by a fever caused by a chill he had caught’, that he was unable to receive her, and it was three days before the siblings finally met.10 The meeting took place in the King’s bedchamber with Jane’s parents and other members of the court in attendance, hardly the most private of settings. ‘The King received her very kindly and graciously, and entertained her with small talk, making no mention of matters of religion.’11 Mary, however, was distressed by her brother’s deteriorating state, which was glaringly obvious. With little time to dwell further upon it, she bade her half-brother farewell, and when she withdrew ‘she was again accompanied by several gentlemen and ladies, and notably by the Duchesses of Suffolk and Northumberland’.12 Perhaps, conscious of Edward’s poor health, Mary perceived that it would not be long until she herself became queen. She would have been wary of the Duke of Northumberland, however, who ‘governs with absolute authority’ and who exerted an alarming amount of influence over the young King.13 Nevertheless, it was during this visit that the Imperial ambassador observed that the Duke of Northumberland, and several members of the Council ‘did duty and obeisance to her as if she had been Queen of England’, so it must have appeared to Mary that they were preparing themselves for her succession.14 Unbeknown to her, the King’s physicians had just diagnosed his illness as consumption. In addition, as ‘the disease was lethal’, the physicians ‘considered he might live until September’.15
For Northumberland, whose position of power was entirely dependent upon Edward, whom he had encouraged in his programme of radical religious change, this news of the King’s health was disastrous. Though Edward’s physicians were in constant attendance, everyone, both at court and in London, knew that his condition was serious, and the Imperial ambassador reported that he was ‘very weak’.16 Northumberland realized that should Edward die and Mary succeed, he would undoubtedly be ousted from power. Mary utterly loathed the Duke and bitterly resented the level of control he levied over the young King. As Edward’s health began to decline at an alarming rate, certainly by March, though probably before, Northumberland had decided to hatch a plan whereby both the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth were excluded from the succession. Mary’s adherence to the Catholic faith was well known, and should she succeed not only would Northumberland be removed, but she would also surely attempt to return England to Catholicism. That still left Elizabeth, but Northumberland realized that it was impossible to cut out Mary without removing Elizabeth too. After all, their father had declared both sisters bastards, and though they had both been restored to his favour and the succession in his will, the Acts of Parliament that had disinherited them had never been overturned. Although a Protestant, Elizabeth was unlikely to be any more pliable than Mary, and at nineteen, could not be relied upon to look to Northumberland for guidance. The Imperial ambassador later reported that ‘they are not too particular about her, and reasons for excluding her from the succession might easily be found’.17 The Duke needed an alternative successor who would rely on him, and could ensure his own continued power. He did not have far to look.
At the end of April, Edward left Whitehall for the healthier air of Greenwich Palace. He was still extremely ill, and the Imperial ambassador observed that ‘there seems to be no improvement in his condition, and he has only shown himself once, in the gardens, the day after his arrival’.18 His symptoms were becoming worse, and the ambassador had been reliably informed that ‘the King is undoubtedly becoming weaker as time passes, and wasting away. The matter he ejects from his mouth is sometimes coloured a greenish yellow and black, sometimes pink, like the colour of blood.’19 It was becoming evident that the King’s days were numbered, but Northumberland, playing for time in order to put his plan into action, was determined to keep up a pretence that the King would recover. He sent regular reports of Edward’s health to Mary and Elizabeth, both of whom were greatly concerned by what they had heard. But despite their best efforts, both sisters had been forbidden from visiting him. Nevertheless, Northumberland’s feigned reports to Mary were worthy of comment from the Imperial ambassador, who duly noted that ‘This all seems to point to his desire to conciliate the said Lady and earn her favour.’20 Little did he know that Northumberland had no intention of attempting to win Mary’s favour:
indeed, his plan was far more daring.
NORTHUMBERLAND WAS ‘AN ambitious man’, and he had been contemplating the future.21 For the first time since William of Normandy had conquered England by right of his sword in 1066, all of the potential heirs to the throne were female. In this extraordinary situation, Northumberland’s plan was simple: the Lady Mary and the Lady Elizabeth, first and second in line to the throne according to the terms of Henry VIII’s will, would both be excluded on the grounds of their illegitimacy, and Lady Jane Grey, currently third in line to the throne, would become Edward VI’s successor. Furthermore, he had engineered another strategy in order to bolster his own power. In April the Imperial ambassador had learned that ‘during the last few days’, the Duke ‘has found means to ally and bind his son, my Lord Guildford, to the Duke of Suffolk’s eldest daughter’.22 Guildford was Northumberland’s fourth surviving son, but as his three elder brothers were all married, he was the best that his father had to offer. Northumberland had realized that a marriage between his son and the as yet unmarried Jane would put him in an extremely powerful position, and one in which he would be able to control the young queen, herself only a year older than King Edward. It was a plan that the Duke had probably been considering for some time, but it is unclear exactly when he informed Jane’s parents of his scheme to make Jane the King’s heir. Their support was crucial to the plan’s success. Blinded by promises of ‘proverbial mountains of gold’ and a glittering future for Jane and his family, Jane’s father Henry appeared ready to comply with Northumberland.23 According to Robert Wingfield, who was well placed to know the truth of the matter, ‘the timid and trustful duke therefore hoped to gain a scarcely imaginable haul of immense wealth and greater honour of his house from this match, and readily followed Northumberland’s wishes’.24 Having enjoyed little prestige during the reign of Henry VIII, Henry’s fortunes had taken a dramatic turn for the better under Edward VI, and he was naturally eager for this to continue. Like the young King, Henry was an enthusiastic advocate of Protestantism, and realized that this would be destroyed should Mary come to power. Ultimately, ambition and greed overtook him, and he threw in his lot with Northumberland. But there was still a long way to go.
The first mention of a marriage between Jane and Guildford had been in late April 1553. Despite the belief that the initiative had come from Guildford’s father, the Duke of Northumberland, it in fact appears to have originated elsewhere.25 Following his arrest, Northumberland would claim that ‘the marriage had been pushed forward by the Earl of Pembroke’, later adding that others, including the Marquess of Northampton and Jane’s father, were also keen for the marriage to take place.26 William Cecil, husband of Jane’s friend Mildred and later chief advisor to her cousin Elizabeth, is said to have believed that Northampton’s wife, the friend of Jane’s parents, was ‘then the greatest doer’, and the Marchioness certainly appears to have played some part in it.27 Wherever the impetus came from, the ‘marriage was arranged by the Duke not by chance but with a very precise purpose’, and Northumberland was now forced to begin implementing his plans for the succession with rapidity due to the sudden decline in King Edward’s health.28 By 28 April the young couple were betrothed, ‘with the consent and approval of the King and his Council’.29 Northumberland was delighted to secure a royal bride for his son, while Jane’s father Henry ‘was easily led and persuaded’, but there were those who were less than enthusiastic.30 Duchess Frances was unsurprisingly ‘vigorously opposed to it; but her womanly scruples were of little avail against opponents of such might and power’.31 For at least the last six years, almost certainly longer, Frances had been cherishing hopes that her eldest daughter would marry King Edward and thus become Queen of England. So certain had she been that the marriage would one day transpire that it appears that those around her believed it too. John of Ulm once wrote that Jane ‘is to be married, as I hear, to the king’.32 With Jane’s betrothal to Guildford, Frances’s hopes of a royal marriage for her daughter had now been permanently crushed. Instead she would be forced to watch as Jane, whose veins flowed with royal blood, was married to one of the younger sons of a duke; a devastatingly poor substitute. Little wonder then that ‘the Duchess of Suffolk, and her entourage were not convinced’.33
There may also have been another, more significant reason for Frances’s disapproval; she may have been opposed to Northumberland’s plan to make Jane King Edward’s successor. Frances was certainly ambitious for her daughter, but she had always anticipated that Jane would achieve these ambitions through her marriage to Edward, and thus become his consort. She may never have considered the possibility of overlooking her cousin the Lady Mary, to whom she was close, and the Lady Elizabeth, in Jane’s favour, and the idea could well have appalled her. Also, Frances was not stupid, and she realized that Northumberland’s plan was both risky and dangerous. A queen regnant in England was virtually unprecedented, and by contrast to the King’s daughters, who were hugely popular, Jane was effectively unknown to the English people, which significantly increased the risk.34 She had never lived at court as the Ladies Mary and Elizabeth had done, neither had she been raised with any expectations of becoming queen in her own right. If Frances did indeed disapprove of Northumberland’s plans, it would certainly explain some of her later behaviour. She may well have feared for her daughter’s well-being at this time, but for the moment, overruled by ambitious men, there was little that she could do: she was certainly no match for Northumberland.
Frances was dismayed by Jane’s impending marriage, but it was nothing compared to how Jane felt. Though she had been raised in the knowledge that it was a woman’s duty to marry, she had also been raised with expectations of grandeur. Thus, when she was told that she was to marry Guildford – a fourth son – Jane, ‘strongly deprecating such marriage’, did not bother to hide her contempt.35 Perhaps a semblance of her defiant attitude still remained from her time in the late Admiral’s household, where her upbringing had been more relaxed, but Jane’s parents were horrified by her behaviour in voicing her objections to the marriage. Though Frances was also unhappy, like Jane she knew that she had no choice but to comply. Therefore, ‘by the insistence of her Mother, and the threats of her Father’, Jane was forced to accept what she could not change.36 Nevertheless, the choice of Guildford Dudley must have come as a bitter disappointment.
Guildford, ‘a comely, virtuous and goodly gentleman’, was maybe a year older than Jane.37 Named after his maternal grandfather, Sir Edward Guildford, he had grown up within the security of a close and happy family. He was likely raised at his father’s Midlands estate, Dudley Castle, the family’s London town house of Ely Place, and, later, at the once-royal stronghold of Warwick Castle, where he would have been surrounded by his brothers and sisters.38 Guildford’s parents were loving and considerate, taking an unusual level of interest in the welfare of their children. In a letter written by their father to Guildford’s elder brother John, their mother Jane added the postscript: ‘your loving mother that wishes you health daily’.39 Like his betrothed, Guildford had also been brought up as an adherent to the Protestant faith, and had almost certainly received a grand education that matched that of his elder brothers, as befitted the son of an aristocrat.40 It is difficult to ascertain whether he took the same avid interest in learning as Jane; none of his contemporaries ever referred to him as a scholar, but that is not to say that he was not learned. Clearly an attractive youth, he was also prone to petulant outbursts, so typical of teenagers, when he did not get his own way.41 For Guildford, a marriage with Lady Jane Grey, the King’s cousin, was beyond his wildest dreams and no doubt appealed to his vanity. His three elder brothers were all married, but none of them had made a match of this prestige.42 His younger brother, Harry, had recently been either married or betrothed to Jane’s cousin, Margaret Audley, but that was still no comparison to the marriage arranged for Guildford.43 Two of his siblings had married for love (Mary and Robert), but in Guildford’s case, the circumst
ances were very different.44 Prior to his betrothal, it seems unlikely that Guildford had ever even had a conversation with Jane. He may have observed her during her occasional visits to court, but that was probably as far as it went. Her feelings had been made perfectly clear, and Guildford had almost certainly heard of her distaste for their marriage. He had only to look at her cool demeanour for her hostility to be evident. As of yet, Guildford had been given no opportunity to develop any feelings of his own for Jane, and her countenance was less than encouraging. Only time would tell whether he would grow to love her, and whether she in turn would see past his family connections and grow to love him too.
CHAPTER 12
The First Act of a Tragedy
GIVEN THAT JANE was the eldest daughter of one of the most important peers of the realm, her marriage should have been a cause for celebration. But considering the disappointing choice of husband that had been selected for her, neither she nor her mother were excited by what lay ahead. Frances, however, certainly felt a greater degree of enthusiasm for the marriage of her younger daughter, Katherine. It had been agreed that Katherine was to share her elder sister’s wedding day, while little Mary was to be betrothed. By the same token, Jane’s wedding day was destined to be a triple celebration, and she just one of three brides. Northumberland’s daughter, another Katherine, was also to wed in what was expected to be a spectacular day of merrymaking. Like Jane’s, these other marriages had been arranged in an attempt to bind loyalties and cement alliances for Northumberland’s future plans. All of the parents involved were happy to comply, but their children had no choice.
Crown of Blood Page 15