Anne of Cleves- Unbeloved

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Anne of Cleves- Unbeloved Page 28

by D Lawrence-Young


  Chapter Twenty-Three - Power and Death

  Edward Seymour, the Protector, was not having an easy time ruling the country in the king’s name. Two rebellions had broken out: one in the south-west and another in East Anglia. The causes of the unrest were religion and land enclosures. I learned later that Seymour had become so unpopular in the council that Sir William Paget had written him a note saying, ‘Every man of the council hath misliked your proceedings.’ This and other remarks made the Protector feel so unsafe in London that he fled to Windsor castle. I also learned that this was not only a case of the Protector not succeeding as an efficient ruler but also that John Dudley, the Earl of Warwick, was trying to oust him at the same time. The earl planned to rule the council and, therefore, the country in his stead. He succeeded in doing this three months later.

  For a short while it appeared that Seymour and Dudley had resolved their differences and were now working in harmony, but it soon became clear that Edward Seymour was not happy at having to share power with the equally ambitious Earl of Warwick. Then, as time passed, Dudley discovered that Seymour was plotting against him in order to regain his former and complete control of the council. Dudley wasted no time. He had Seymour arrested for felony - which I understood was a very serious crime - and soon after had him executed at the Tower in January 1552.

  “He went the same way as his younger brother, Thomas,” I commented to Lady Browne when I heard the news. “Killed by the axeman.”

  Lady Browne shrugged. “That’s what power does to you, my dear. It raises you up and it brings you down.”

  “Yes,” I said with a grimace. “As Saint Matthew says, ‘The power and the glory.’”

  “So let’s see what the power and the glory do for the Earl of Warwick,” Lady Browne said. “Now that he has risen, will he also be brought down?”

  He was, but not in the way he imagined. Towards the end of the year rumours started circulating around the court that young King Edward was not well. Each time his coughing fits started, they took longer and longer to cease. My ladies told me that the poor lad was growing visibly weaker and paler and that the Earl of Warwick, who had promoted himself to be the Duke of Northumberland, was trying to cover this up by saying the king was merely suffering from a passing childish illness. At the same time, he arranged for his son, Guildford, a spoilt and callow youth, to marry the king’s fifteen year old cousin, Lady Jane Grey. At first she would not consent but her parents - who were always looking for advancement - would not allow their daughter to refuse. In the end the poor girl was bullied into this unwanted marriage. The result was that the marriage of Lady Jane Grey and Guildford Dudley took place at the Duke of Northumberland’s London home towards the end of May 1553.

  At first I couldn’t understand why the duke was so insistent that Lady Jane marry his son. After all, young Guildford loved hunting and the outdoor life while nothing kept his new wife happier than reading Latin and Hebrew texts or discussing religion and philosophy with grey-haired academics.

  “Did the marriage take place just because the duke wishes his son to marry into the powerful Grey family, or is there more to it than meets the eye?” I asked Lady Rutland on one of her visits.

  “That’s part of the reason, my dear, but it’s also because Lady Jane is a cousin of the king. And if,” and here she looked around carefully before continuing, “and if anything should happen to His Majesty, then Lady Jane will be next in line to the throne…”

  “And the duke’s son, Guildford, will be the next king,” I said, finishing off her explanation.

  “Exactly.”

  “But what about the princesses, Mary and Elizabeth?” I asked. “I know that King Henry declared in an Act of Succession that they should succeed his son in that order, first Mary and then Elizabeth if, God forbid, anything should happen to Edward.”

  “I know that,” Lady Rutland said quietly, almost whispering, “but word has got out that Northumberland has persuaded, some say forced, the king to declare his sisters illegitimate. He said they are the daughters of the divorced Catherine of Aragon and the beheaded Anne Boleyn and so the next in line should be Lady Jane.”

  “And is the Duke of Northumberland in favour of Lady Jane because she is also a Protestant and because Princess Mary believes in the old faith?” I asked.

  Lady Rutland nodded. “And although Princess Elizabeth is thought to be more in favour of the Protestant faith, her sister Mary is older. And as Northumberland cannot get rid of Mary unless he chops off her head or something like that, he will do his best to have Lady Jane on the throne if he wants the Protestant ways to become established in this country.”

  I listened to all this carefully and became further convinced to stay away from the devious Duke of Northumberland.

  “Yes, my dear Anne,” Lady Browne added, rising to leave. “It all depends on His Majesty’s health. If he should die, poor lad, then this country will know no peace.”

  Lady Browne’s predictions came true. The poor young king lay in his bed coughing and becoming more and more frail. His life ended on 6 July 1553. Four days later the Duke of Northumberland had Lady Jane crowned the Queen of England. It seemed that he had succeeded. His aim was to rule the country as the chief adviser hovering in the background behind his son, Guildford, and the new queen. But it was not to be.

  Despite the threats made by the duke and her parents, Queen Jane refused to make her new husband king. In addition, the council which at first had supported the duke, now switched their allegiance and decided to support Princess Mary’s claim to the throne. In the meanwhile, Mary had left London and was busy gathering her forces in East Anglia.

  To forestall her plans, the duke took his own forces and planned to capture the princess before she could succeed in entering London as Queen Mary, the rightful queen as designated by her father, King Henry. However, Northumberland failed and was taken prisoner. The triumphant Princess Mary, together with Princess Elizabeth and eight hundred lords and nobles at the head of a large army, then entered the capital to claim her throne. The duke was thrown into the Tower, a prison he now shared with his son and his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey. She had reigned for nine days and had not enjoyed one single moment of it. So much for the power and the glory, I thought.

  I was present when Princess Mary was crowned shortly afterwards and this was the last time that I was to appear in public. The celebrations lasted for several days and they included a royal procession from the Tower through the City of London to Whitehall, where the coronation took place. The new Queen Mary made a speech and as she held the ceremonial ring she declared, “I am already married to this Common weal and the faithful members of the same, the spousal ring whereof I have on my finger.”

  Two weeks later, the Protestant Duke of Northumberland, the man who had condemned Seymour, King Edward the Sixth’s Lord Protector to death and who had tried to prevent Queen Mary from succeeding to the throne met a similar fate. Queen Mary had her revenge and started on her campaign to bring the Roman Catholic faith back to England.

  When I heard about this I repeated Lady Browne’s words to her about power having a way of raising you and then bringing you crashing down.

  “I wonder what’ll happen to our new queen?” I asked. “I wonder how she’ll survive in a man’s world.” Then I asked her if Queen Mary was the first queen who had reigned in England.

  “No, my dear. Four hundred years ago there was a Queen Matilda who was also known as Queen Maud. She called herself ‘Lady of the English’ and she tried to take the crown away from her cousin King Stephen.”

  “Did she succeed?”

  “Yes, but only for a very short time. She was very arrogant and wouldn’t reduce the taxes for the people of London. So they threw her out after a few months they took King Stephen back again.”

  “So Mary doesn’t really have a good example to follow, does she?”

  “No, my dear. I’m afraid she doesn’t.”

  A few months later I
decided to seek an audience with the queen as I had some ideas about whom I thought she should marry and I wanted to discuss them with her in private and not through any letters or messengers. I must admit I was thinking about a marriage not only for love but one that would also benefit Cleves.

  The queen greeted me in her private chamber as graciously as she had done when she was a princess. We chatted about our friends and families and ate a few cakes and drank a little wine. Then feeling comfortable in her presence, I started to tell her about my ideas.

  “Your Majesty,” I began. “I’ve been thinking of this for some time now. I think the time has come for you to take a husband.”

  She smiled and her eyes twinkled. “I’ve also been thinking the same, and I’ve probably given this problem even more thought than you have - and for a longer time as well. So my dear Anne, who do you have in mind? Who will keep me and the country happy?”

  “The Archduke Ferdinand.”

  “Your brother-in-law?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. After all, not only is he the King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia, but he is also an observant and God-fearing Roman Catholic like yourself. And of course, it goes without saying that he comes from good stock.”

  “Yes, my dear, I know that. And I also know that he is a very forthright soul as well. Did you know his motto is, Fiat iustitia, et perea mundus – Let justice be done though the world perish?”

  I told her that I didn’t know that particular fact but if she married him, there was a good chance that he would give her many healthy sons.

  “Yes,” she replied, her sharp eyes twinkling. “And if I married him it would be good for your duchy as well.”

  This queen was no fool and she promised that she would consider my suggestion.

  Later I discovered that my brother and I had not been the only ones to suggest that she marry the archduke. The King of the Romans had also sent an ambassador to London with the same idea in mind but for some reason that I didn’t understand at the time, the queen refused to meet him. Whenever an appointment was arranged, the queen suddenly felt ill and said that it was impossible for her to meet with him. At first when I asked one of my ladies for an explanation they couldn’t give me a credible answer. But then Lady Rutland told me what she had heard.

  “It’s because of Philip of Spain,” she said.

  “The Emperor’s son?”

  “Yes, my dear. It seems that quite some time ago Her Majesty decided to marry him.”

  “But would such a marriage be accepted in England?” I asked, surprising myself somewhat as I found myself thinking about this problem from the English and not the Clevean point of view. “You know how much the English love the Spanish. You only have to say Spanish and the English say Inquisition.

  “I know that, my dear Anne, but don’t repeat what I am going to tell you now. Not to anyone. From what I’ve heard, the queen will not hear a single word spoken against him. She thinks he is a saint.”

  When I heard that the queen wished to marry King Philip I was very disappointed, especially as I couldn’t think of how this marriage would bring any benefit to my native country. I also found out that I wasn’t the only one who was disappointed. The newly appointed Lord Chancellor, together with the Duke of Norfolk, was also in favour of the queen marrying an English subject. He suggested that she should marry Edward Courtenay, a descendant of King Edward the Fourth. I knew the queen liked him for she had released him from prison where, in 1538, Henry the Eighth had sent him for alleged conspiracy. Since his release, she’d created him the Earl of Devon and it was he who had carried the Sword of State at her coronation. However, we were soon to learn that once the queen had decided to marry the Spanish king, the newly-created earl stood no chance of becoming her husband.

  What none of us realised at the time was that the queen’s idea to marry Philip would start a rebellion which the rebel leaders hoped would lead to her overthrow and replacement by a Protestant monarch. The rebellion was to be led by several lords and knights who would bring their forces to London from the four corners of the country. This was not to be a minor one-day uprising but a well-organised national rebellion. Three of the ringleaders included Sir Thomas Wyatt, the son of the poet, Lady Jane Grey’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, and Edward Courtenay.

  The rebellion broke out in January 1554 but within a week the queen’s troops had put it down and the ringleaders had been sent to the Tower. A few were released but several others including Sir Thomas Wyatt and Lady Jane’s father were incarcerated in the Tower. Over eighty of the rebels were hanged.

  “And that’s not all,” Lady Browne said when she came to visit me a few days later with Lady Edgecombe. We were sitting out in the garden enjoying the weak wintry sunshine. “Do you remember that I told you that Sir Thomas Wyatt and the Duke of Suffolk had been sent to the Tower?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, while they were there, the queen had Lady Jane and Guildford executed as well.”

  “Why?” I gasped in shock. “She was such a sweet and innocent creature. The only things that interested her were her books and learning foreign languages.”

  “I know that, my dear,” Lady Edgecombe said, laying a supportive hand on my shoulder. “But the queen, aided by her Catholic advisers, decided that Lady Jane Grey was too near the throne and too Protestant to be allowed to live.”

  “That’s right,” added Lady Browne. “And they also claimed that the poor girl had been tainted by her father. They said that since he had supported Sir Thomas Wyatt, his daughter was also suspect of being part of the plot.”

  “But how can that be?” I asked, wiping my eyes. “She’s been in prison for these past six months.”

  “I know that, and you know that, but these Catholic supporters of the queen aren’t interested in any logical explanation like that. All they want to do is snuff out all reformist or any other plots before they start.”

  I sat there silently for a few minutes thinking of that young girl laying her sweet, clever head on the block. Oh, the waste of it all. Jane was the last person in the world who’d threaten the queen. In the past they’d got on so well when they had met each other at Catherine Parr’s house but now Queen Mary had ordered this small scholarly girl to be hacked to death. It wasn’t right. It just wasn’t. And what had turned the gracious Mary I had known into such a ferocious killer? Was she the only one to make these cruel decisions or had she been pushed by her advisers who were interested only in bringing the Roman Catholic Church back to England? I thought back to my earlier conversation with the queen. Did she also believe in Fiat iustitia, et perea mundus – Let justice be done though the world perish?

  And that wasn’t the only grim news I heard that chilly February. Two weeks later I was told that Lady Jane’s father and Sir Thomas Wyatt had also been executed.

  If before I had gone to the court only on rare occasions, now I visited it even less. First of all, the extreme and suffocating atmosphere there did not appeal to me and secondly, I was beginning to suffer from longer and longer periods of ill-health. I was spending more of my time in bed and in order to be nearer London and my physicians I moved into my manor house in Chelsea.

  In the spring of 1557 I could feel the end was coming and as I lay in my sickbed or sat in the peaceful gardens in what had been one of Catherine Parr’s favourite houses, I started writing out my will. I bequeathed various sums of money and jewellery to my friends, ladies and servants and I also remembered to leave money for the poor folk of Richmond, Bletchingley, Hever and Dartford. I also left jewels for Queen Mary and Princess Elizabeth and I knew that on my demise my lands would revert to the Crown.

  The last thing I remember was that on 15 July 1557, I was smiling and holding the hands of one of my ladies and feeling particularly weak and sleepy. More than that, I cannot recall.

  THE END

  Epilogue

  Anne of Cleves died on 18 July 1557, her final request being “that we may have the suffrages of holy chu
rch according to the Catholic faith, wherein we end our life in this transitory world.”

  Queen Mary, appointed as executor of the will, provided a splendid funeral for her. Of all of Henry VIII’s six wives, Anne of Cleves was the only one to be buried in Westminster Abbey. Today it is difficult to locate her tomb due to all the other monuments that tend to hide it. Nevertheless, despite the fact that many of the ornaments that decorated the tomb were stolen soon after the ceremony, it is still possible to make out the letters A and C carved below a crown on two sides of her tomb.

  One month after she was buried, according to tradition, Anne’s household officers symbolically broke their white staves of office and threw them into the tomb. Their period of employment had come to an end.

  Queen Mary wrote to Anne’s brother to inform him of her death and he ordered memorial services to be held throughout the Duchy of Cleves for ‘Princess Anna, Duchess of Julia, Cleves and Berg, Queen of England.’

  To sum up the English half of Anne of Cleves’ life, she was in many ways the most fortunate of all Henry VIII’s wives. Despite her bewildering and unpleasant marriage and quick divorce from a man obsessed with having sons, she stepped down from the throne with much money and property in addition to all the jewels, plate and rich clothes she had acquired during her short six months as Queen of England. Her relationship with her past husband improved and with time they grew to be very friendly. However, her greatest achievement of all was to walk away from this bloated and demanding king with her head on her shoulders.

  * * * * * * * * *

  And what happened to those who played an important rôle at the end of Anne’s life? Queen Mary threw away the popularity she had gained at the beginning of her reign when she married the Spanish king, Philip II, just eight months after her coronation in October 1553. In addition, she became increasingly fervent in her Roman Catholic beliefs. Nearly three hundred Protestants paid for this with their lives by being burnt at the stake. This grim statistic caused the once gentle queen to be known forever as Bloody Mary.

 

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