On 12 February, Jane watched from her window as her husband was led to his death at Tower Hill. She waited until the cart carrying his body returned to the Tower chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. He had asked to see her before his death but Jane had refused feeling it would only cause them more misery and pain.
Now it was her turn. Jane was led to out to the green, a more private place of execution, as befitting her status. Dressed in black and carrying her prayer book, she addressed those gathered to watch her final moments.
Good people, I am come hither to die, and by a law I am condemned to the same; the fact indeed against the Queen’s Highness was unlawful and the consenting thereunto by me: but touching the procurement and desire thereof by me or on my behalf, I do wash my hands thereof in innocency before the face of God and the face of you good Christian people this day…14
After her speech, Jane said Psalm 51, the Misere, ‘Have mercy upon me O God, after they great goodness: according to the multitude of thy mercies, do away mine offences’ then prepared for her death, taking off her gown, headdress and collar and putting on a blindfold. At this point her composure left her and she panicked as she tried to feel for the block but she was guided to the correct place and with one blow the executioner ended her short life. Her father was executed eleven days later.
For her mother, Frances, life went on. Shortly after her daughter’s and husband’s execution, Frances married her Master of Horse, Adrian Stokes, on 9 March, 1554 at Kew. It was a match below her station but as such protected any children she would have from being a further threat to the throne. Of the three she had by Stokes, none survived. Her other daughters, the thirteen-year-old Katherine and nine-year-old Mary, joined Frances at court where she was serving Queen Mary as one of her ladies of the Privy Chamber. The reduced family had lost their home at Bradgate but were allowed to keep or were re-granted certain manors, including Beaumanor near to their old home.
Anne Brandon, now Haworth, the last of Charles’ daughters by Anne Browne, added to Frances’ troubles again by disputing land and property with her. She sued Frances and her husband through the Chancery Court over a manor and two monastery sites in Warwickshire previously owned by their father but their enmity didn’t last much longer. Anne died in January 1558 and was buried in St. Margaret’s church, in the grounds of Westminster Abbey. By the time of her death, and fearing her afterlife, she was more remorseful. Her apologetic will read:
I, Anne Lady Powes, one of the daughters and coheirs of the high and mighty Prince Charles, late Duke of Suffolk, by the license, assent, and consent of my loving husband, Randall Havworth Esq., do make this my last will and testament, being in perfect mind and memory, in this manner and form following. First, I do bequeath my soul unto Almighty God, beseeching him of his holy glory to forgive me all my trespasses in this world by me done and committed against his Majesty. And I repent me and lament me therefore, and am hartily sorry from the bottom of my heart, trusting verily in thy promises, good Lord, to be one of the partakers of thy blessed presence in heaven, and to have a saved soul; most humbly beseeching thee, good Lord, for pity and mercy sake, to redress my tedious, long, and wonderful sutes, pains, sorrows, and troubles, and that they may be a part of penance for my sins, so that with my said pains, wrongs, and grievous troubles being patiently taken for thy name sake may be to the salvation of my soul, bought with thy precious blood. Amen. And all the whole world, both poor and rich, that ever I have offended, I ask forgiveness, and also forgive all creatures that ever offended me.15
Whether Frances forgave the trouble she had caused her and her family we shall never know. It seems insignificant in the face of the other losses she had born the previous year. A new age was dawning. Queen Mary died in the same year as Anne, and Elizabeth inherited the throne. For all the changes to the plans for succession, Henry’s daughters both had their time as reigning monarchs and Jane’s few days paled in significance.
Frances became ill in November 1559 and she wrote her will appointing her husband as sole executor and leaving all of her property to his ministrations. Charles and Mary Tudor Brandon’s last surviving child, died not long after on 21 November 1559 at the age of forty-two in her home at the Charterhouse in Sheen. Her daughter Katherine was chief mourner at her state funeral. Strype recalled the ceremony at Westminster Abbey:
December the 5th, the duchess of Suffolk, Frances, sometime wife of Henry, late duke of Suffolk, was buried in Westminster-abbey. Mr. Jewel (who was afterwards bishop of Sarum) was called to the honourable office to preach at her funerals, being a very great and illustrious princess of the blood; whose father was Brandon, duke of Suffolk, and her mother Mary, sometime wife of the French king, and sister to king Henry VIII… She was buried in a chapel on the south side of the choir, where Valens, one of the earls of Pembroke, was buried. The corpse being brought and set under the hearse, and the mourners placed, the chief at the head, and the rest on each side, Clarenceux king of arms with a loud voice said these words; “Laud and praise be given to Almighty God, that it hath pleased him to call out of this transitory life unto his eternal glory the most noble and excellent princess the lady Frances, late duchess of Suffolk, daughter to the right high and mighty prince Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, and of the most noble and excellent princess Mary, the French queen, daughter to the most illustrious prince king Henry VII.” This said, the dean began the service in English for the communion, reciting the ten commandments, and answered by the choir in pricksong. After that and other prayers said, the epistle and gospel was read by the two assistants of the dean. After the gospel, the offering began after this manner: first, the mourners that were kneeling stood up: then a cushion was laid and a carpet for the chief mourners to kneel on before the altar: then the two assistants came to the hearse, and took the chief mourner, and led her by the arm, her train being borne and assisted by other mourners following. And after the offering finished, Mr. Jewel began his sermon; which was very much commended by them that heard it. After sermon, the dean proceeded to the communion; at which were participant, with the said dean, the lady Catharine and the lady Mary, her daughters, among others. When all was over, they came to the Charter-house [Frances’s residence of Sheen] in their chariot.16
The following year Queen Elizabeth wanted to commemorate Frances by acknowledging their blood ties. She asked William Harvey, Clarencieux King at Arms and Sir Gilbert Dethicke, Garter King at Arms to add to Frances’s coat of arms by quartering the royal arms with them, writing:
… for the good zeal and affection which we of long have borne to our dearly-beloved cousin, the Lady Frances, late Duchess of Suffolk, and especially for that she is lineally descended from our grandfather, King Henry VII., as also for other causes and considerations as thereunto moving, in perpetual memory of, thought fit, requisite, and expedient, to grant and give unto her and to her posterity, an augmentation of our arms, to be borne with the difference to the same by us assigned, and the same to bear in the first quarter, and so to be placed with the arms of her ancestors…17
By the time of Frances’ death, the only descendants of the Tudor Brandon line were her two daughters Katherine and Mary and her niece Margaret. Their lives are another story.
The Tomb of Frances Brandon in Westminster Abbey
References
Chapter One: The Brandon Ancestors
1. Rendle, Old Southwark and Its People
2. Field, The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory
3. Court of Common Pleas, CP 40/808, rot. 144
4. Ibid, rot. 347d
5. Court of Common Pleas, CP 40/816, rot. 315
6. Fenn, Paston Letters
7. Calendar of Close Rolls - Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III
8. Conway, The Maidstone Sector of Buckingham’s Rebellion
9. Calendar of Close Rolls - Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III
10. Vergil, Anglica Historia
11. Fenn, Paston Letters
12. Bernard André, The Life
of Henry VII
13. ‘Henry VII: November 1485, Part 1’, in Parliament Rolls of Medieval England
Chapter Two: The Princess and the Knight
1. Sim, Masters and Servants in Tudor England
2. Nichols, A Collection of ordinances and regulations for the government of the royal household
3. Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest, Vol.5
4. Ibid.
5. CSP, Milan
6. Kipling, The Triumph of Honour: Burgundian Origins of the Elizabethan Renaissance
7. Bernard, The Tudor Nobility
8. Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families
9. Anglo, The Court Festivals of Henry VII: A Study based upon the account books of John Heron, Treasurer of the Chamber
10. Gardiner, Memorials of King Henry VII
11. CSP, Venice
12. Kipling, The Triumph of Honour: Burgundian Origins of the Elizabethan Renaissance
13. Anglo, Spectacle Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy
14. Cripps-Day, The History of the Tournament in England and France
15. Hazlitt, Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of England: Volume 2
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
19. CSP, Spain
20. Richardson, Mary Tudor: The White Queen
Chapter Three: Henry VIII’s Court
1. Hall, Hall’s Chronicle: Containing the history of England
2. BL Cotton MS Titus A XIII, f.186
3. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 1, 1509-1514
4. Thomas and Thornley, Great Chronicle of London
5. Ibid.
6. Hall, Hall’s Chronicle: Containing the history of England
7. Vergil, Anglica Historia
8. Ibid.
9. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
10. Nichols, The Chronicle of Calais
11. Richardson, Mary Tudor: The White Queen
12. Nichols, The Chronicle of Calais
13. Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest, Vol.5
Chapter Four: The French Marriage
1. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
2. Erasmus, The Collected Works of Erasmus
3. Quoted in Harrold Bonner, Fortune, Misfortune, Fortifies One
4. Ibid.
5. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
6. Ibid.
7. CSP, Venice
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Richardson, Mary Tudor: The White Queen
11. CSP, Venice
12. Ibid.
13. Perry, Sisters to the King
14. CSP, Venice
15. Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest, Vol.5
16. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
17. Mumby, The Youth of Henry VIII: A Narrative in Contemporary Letters
18. Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest, Vol.5
19. Sadlack, The French Queens Letters
20. Starkey, Henry, Virtuous Prince
21. Richardson, Mary Tudor: The White Queen
22. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
23. Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest, Vol.5
Chapter Five: Mary & Charles
1. Loades, Mary Rose
2. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
3. Richardson, Mary Tudor: The White Queen
4. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
5. Richardson, Mary Tudor: The White Queen
6. Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest, Vol.5
7. Sadlack, The French Queens Letters
8. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Croom Brown, Mary Tudor, Queen of France,
13. Sadlack, The French Queens Letters
14. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
15. Richardson, Mary Tudor: The White Queen
16. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Weir, Henry VIII: King and Court
20. Sadlack, The French Queens Letters
21. CSP, Venice
22. Ibid.
23. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
24. Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey
25. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
Chapter Six: Married Life
1. CSP, Venice
2. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
3. Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest, Vol.5
4. Hall, Hall’s Chronicle: Containing the history of England
5. CSP, Venice
6. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
7. Ibid.
8. Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest, Vol.5
9. Hall, Hall’s Chronicle: Containing the history of England
10. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid.
17. Ibid.
18. Sadlack, The French Queens Letters
19. Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest, Vol.5
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Sadlack, The French Queens Letters
23. Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest, Vol.5
Chapter Seven: A Hostile World
1. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
2. Holinshed, Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland
3. Wodderspoon, Historic Sites and Other Remarkable and Interesting Places in the County of Suffolk
4. Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey
5. Rogers, E, ed., Correspondence of Thomas More
6. Hall, Hall’s Chronicle: Containing the history of England
7. Childe-Pemberton, Elizabeth Blount and Henry the Eighth, with some account of her surroundings
8. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
9. Ibid.
10. Sadlack, The French Queens Letters
11. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
12. CSP, Spain
13. Sadlack, The French Queens Letters
14. Ibid.
15. Hall, Hall’s Chronicle: Containing the history of England
Chapter Eight: The Trouble with Boleyn
1. Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey
2. Weir, Elizabeth of York: The First Tudor Queen
3. Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey
4. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
5. CSP, Spain
6. Strickland, Lives of the Tudor Princesses
7. CSP, Spain
8. Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey
9. Sadlack, The French Queens Letters
10. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
11. CSP, Spain
12. Ibid.
13. Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn
14. CSP, Venice
15. McSheffrey, The Slaying of Sir William Pennington: Legal Narrative and the Late Medieval English Archive
16. Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest, Vol.5
17. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Baldwin, David, Henry VIII’s Last Love
21. Strickland, Lives of the Tudor Princesses
22. CSP, Spain
Chapter Nine: After Mary
1. CSP, Spain
2. Ibid.
3. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
4. Ibid.
5. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk 1484-1545
6. CSP, Spain
7. Ibid.
8. Denny, Joanna, Anne Boleyn: A New Life of England’s Tragic Queen,
9. Ibid.
10. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
11. Ibid.
12. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk 1484-1545
13. www.tudorplace.com.ar/Documents/PilgrimageofGrace.htm
14. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
15. Ibid.
16. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk 1484-1545
17. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
18. Ibid.
19. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk 1484-1545
20. Weir, The Six Wives of Henry VIII
21. Hall, Hall’s Chronicle: Containing the history of England
22. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
23. Weir, Henry VIII: King and Court
Chapter Ten: Family Matters
1. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII
2. Plowden, Lady Jane Grey
3. Wilson, Art of Rhetorique,
4. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary
5. www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/brandon-sir-charles-1521-51
6. Plowden, Lady Jane Grey
7. Loach, Jennifer, Bernard, George; Williams, Penry, eds., Edward VI
8. http://tudorhistory.org/primary/janemary/app1.html
9. http://tudorhistory.org/primary/janemary/app1.html
10. Plowden, Lady Jane Grey
11. Foxe, John, History of the Acts and Monuments of the Church (Foxe’s Book of Martyrs)
The Tudor Brandons Page 17
