The Sisters Who Would Be Queen

by Leanda de Lisle

  The title of this book, The Sisters Who Would Be Queen, seems unfair when applied to Mary Grey. Jane would have been crowned if she had not been overthrown, and Katherine was dismayed not to be treated as Elizabeth’s heir. Mary, however, never seems to have considered herself a serious contender for the throne. Described as the shortest person at court, she married the biggest—a union that was seen as grotesque and remains easily paraphrased as “the dwarf who married a giant.” But Elizabeth took the threat this marriage posed seriously, with tragic results for the youngest Grey sister and her husband. Mary was, however, to survive these, and that rare discovery—lost manuscripts that had lain for centuries ignored and then miscatalogued in the College of Arms—lays her story to rest in the great Abbey of Westminster where England’s monarchs are still crowned.

  Where I have quoted contemporary sources I have modernized the spelling so the text reads more fluently for the modern reader. In an attempt to prevent confusion over the many people holding the same names or in instances where the same person changes name, I have used various techniques, for example calling some Katherines (all spelt with a “K” in the sixteenth century) “Catherine,” and referring to the Lady Mary (Tudor) and the Lady Elizabeth (Tudor) as Princesses, a title that was not in official use in England before the seventeenth century. Finally, I have modernized dates, so that the year begins on 1 January rather than on 25 March, as it did at the time.

  I could not even have begun this project without the generous help and advice of scholars such as Kenneth Fincham, whom I would like to thank for his enormous patience in answering my questions, reading the first full draft of this manuscript, as he did the last, and making suggestions as to how the book could be improved. Sue Doran very kindly also read a draft of the Jane section, while working on her own book. Any errors and faults that remain are obviously my own. Other scholars to whom I have turned with bothersome queries include Michael Wyatt and Thomas Mayer, with whom I discussed the Italian sources concerning Jane. I am also very grateful for the help I have had from John Guy, Tom Freeman, Eric Ives, Stephen Alford, David Starkey, Ralph Houlbrooke, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Mark Nicholls, Stephan Edwards, Carole Levin, and Penry Williams. I discussed costume with Susan North of the Victoria & Albert Museum (concerning, for example, the headdress worn by Katherine in bed on her wedding night), and portraits with Katie Coombs of the V&A, Tanya Cooper of the National Portrait Gallery, and David Starkey. Medical matters I discussed with Christopher Sutton and Nicholas Lowe, who identifies the portrait at the Fitzwilliam Museum by Hans Eworth said variously to be of Mary I, Jane Grey, or Jane Dormer, as a woman of about thirty-eight. This would indicate Mary I or, possibly, Frances. I chose not to use the picture in this book, as I preferred to use Frances’s effigy as the better authenticated representation of her. But for those who are interested in the Fitzwilliam portrait, my reasoning that it may be Frances is this: the picture bears only a passing resemblance to other portraits by Eworth of Mary, and there are indications that it could be of Frances. The clothes date the picture to between 1555 and 1558 and most likely late in Mary Tudor’s reign. The sitter, who is clearly of high status, is wearing allegorical jewelry that refers to the biblical story of Queen Esther, who saved the Jews from genocide, and hanging from her waist is a prayer book. It bears the initial D for Dudley, Jane’s married name, and could be the prayer book she carried to her trial. There is no reason Mary I would have carried a prayer book with that initial. Taken together, the jewelry and the prayer book indicate a comment on the suffering of the Protestant martyrs, and of Protestant hopes for their salvation in Elizabeth. Jane’s tutor, John Aylmer, compared Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, to the same biblical queen. A major concern I had with this theory is the thinness of the sitter: Frances was ill, but the face of Frances’s effigy is full. But then so is that of the effigy of Mary I, who was also notably thin in life, so, perhaps both were remembered in death as their former healthy selves. There is one other possibility: that the portrait is of Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland—but she was forty-six when she died, in January 1555 (much older than the sitter), and I would argue that the jewelry is more suggestive of Frances. I would hesitate, however, to call this a “lost portrait” of Frances: I put forth the suggestion more as a consideration.

  I had generous help in my research from Robert Yorke, Archivist at the College of Arms, and Stephen Freeth, of the Guildhall Library. I am also very grateful to Rodney Melville of the Chequers Estate, the staff of the British Library and the National Archives, and Christine Reynolds of Westminster Abbey Library. Without the patience and help of the staff of the London Library, in particular Gosia Lawik, I could not have written this book. I would like to acknowledge Nini Murray Philipson for information on the Tilney family; my father-in-law, Gerard de Lisle, who generously provided me with transcriptions of manuscripts on which I was stuck; Zia Soothill, who kept the flesh from growing too weak; my goddaughter Laetitia Campbell, who did useful research as work experience; and my three historian sons, who also helped. Several friends have advised me on structure and tone. Henrietta Joy and Dominic Pearce offered invaluable opinions on the full draft, as, at an early stage, did my fellow writers and historians Daniel Jones and Rowland Manthorpe. My U.K. editor, Arabella Pike, has always been enthusiastic and very supportive, and in the U.S. Susanna Porter’s intelligent criticism has been an enormous help to me. I would also like to thank Jillian Quint. Above all I am lucky enough to have as my agent Georgina Capel, with whom it is impossible to have a conversation without feeling happier at the end of it than at the beginning.

  NOTES

  The following abbreviations are used in the Notes:

  CSPD Calendar of State Papers Domestic

  CSPF Calendar of State Papers Foreign

  CSPR Calendar of State Papers Rome

  CSPS Calendar of State Papers Spanish

  CSPV Calendar of State Papers Venetian

  CPR Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Philip and Mary

  HMC Bath Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Bath … Preserved at Longleat, Wiltshire

  HMC Middleton Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on the Manuscripts of Lord Middleton … Preserved at Wollaton Hall, Notts

  HMC Rutland Historical Manuscripts Commission, The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Rutland, KG … Preserved at Belvoir Castle

  HMC Salisbury Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Honourable the Marquess of Salisbury … Preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire

  PART ONE

  Educating Jane

  I: BEGINNING

  wanted nothing less: This paragraph is extrapolated from what we know about birthing practices at this time. It is possible that Frances went against tradition—but highly unlikely.

  regular and strong: No portrait of Frances survives, and the effigy on her tomb is the only likeness we have of her. A portrait often said to be of Frances and her second husband, Adrian Stokes, is, in fact, of Lady Dacre and her son.

  “Harry”—Grey: was known as Harry by intimates. See, for example, Jonathan North (ed.), England’s Boy King, p. 107.

  than his wife: J. S. Brewer (ed.), Calendar of Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, Vol. XIII, p. 280.

  and Dorset sixteen: Ibid., Vol. VI, p. 142.

  was therefore incestuous: The wardship and arrangement of the marriage of Frances and Dorset took place 24 March 1533. Ibid., Vol. VI, p. 142. Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, died on Midsummer’s Day three months later, having sent her brother the King a final message of love and loyalty.

  to his family: Ibid., Vol. VII, pp. 62, 63. Marriages in the sixteenth century were a process rather than a single event. The phrase “per verba de presenti“—I take you now—was used to mark when the process concluded; in the case of the Dorsets it seems to have taken place between 28 July 1533 and 4 February 1534.

  was to be born: There have bee
n various suggestions for Jane’s birth date. Jane’s tutor, John Aylmer, drew attention to her age in a letter written on, or close to, 29 May 1551. In it he describes Jane as being “just” or, as Stephen Edwards translates it, “now” “14” (Hastings Robinson, Original Letters Relative to the Reformation, Vol. I, p. 276). Although the dates are guesses by the editor, they are inferred by references in the letter to the death of Martin Bucer on 28 February 1551, the arrival in England of Bullinger’s fifth Decade, which was not published until March, the use of the title Marquess of Dorset (Dorset became Duke of Suffolk in October 1551), and the absence of any comment on the deaths of Jane’s uncles the Brandon brothers, in July. This narrows the dates to between April and July. The reference in the letter to Dorset’s client John of Ulm, who visited Bradgate on 29 May, suggests strongly, however, that it was written around this time. The original letter in Zurich shows some correction on the number “14,” but this appears to have been done in Aylmer’s hand and it had not—to my mind—been changed from a different number. There is another letter written by Ulm in late April 1550, which also describes Jane as being “about 14” or, as Stephan Edwards translates it, “in her fourteenth year,” suggesting that she was born before the end of April 1537. Ulm did not know Jane as well as Aylmer, but the letter may be useful in supporting an April/May timing. Michel Angelo Florio also claimed later that Jane was seventeen when she died, but he was writing after her death, while Aylmer was under the same roof as Jane when he wrote the letter noting her age. The best we can say is that Jane appears strongly to have been born before June 1537, most likely at the very end of April.

  on the Strand: Dorset was serving on the treason trials, in London, of the leaders of the Pilgrimage of Grace at this time.

  to Catholic beliefs: John Ponet, “A Shorte Treatise of Politike Pouuer 1556,” in Winthrop Still Hudson, John Ponet, p. 134.

  opposition to it: David Loades, Politics, Censorship and the English Reformation, pp. 1, 3, 4, 5. Diarmaid MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided, pp. 76–87, 99–104.

  Henry, Lord Harington: It is possible she also had a daughter, of whom no details survive. Another daughter may have been lost in 1539.

  incapable of succession: For a detailed discussion on this act of Parliament see Eric Ives, “Tudor Dynastic Problems Revisited.”

  girl was named: Although there is no “proof” that Jane Grey was named after Jane Seymour, royal godparents ran in the family. Frances was named after the French King Francis II, her son, Henry, after Henry VIII.

  ruthless seductress: Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, p. 44.

  “quickening with child”: Charles Wriothesley and William Douglas Hamilton, A Chronicle of England during the Reign of the Tudors, 1485–1559, Vol. I, p. 64.

  to Henry’s court: Barbara J. Harris, English Aristocratic Women 1450–1550, p. 106.

  Stebbing in Essex: Brewer (ed.), Letters and Papers, Vol. XII, part II, p. 311, also Vol. XIII, part I, pp. 81, 515, 567; Robinson, Original Letters, Vol. I, p. 276. The friend with whom Frances was staying was Lady Derby.

  of their Prince: Wriothesley and Hamilton, Chronicle, Vol. I, pp. 66, 67.

  to the palace: Brewer (ed.), Letters and Papers, Vol. XII, pp. ii, 311.

  and other trinkets: Ibid., Vol. XII, p. 340.

  attended by footmen: John Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials Relating Chiefly to Religion, Vol. II, part I, p. 12; Brewer (ed.), Letters and Papers, Vol. XII, pp. 311, 372–74.

  “what discord follows”: For a commentary on this speech see Tillyard, The Elizabethan World Picture, p. 18.

  II: FIRST LESSONS

  not born there: Brewer (ed.), Letters and Papers, Vol. XIII, pp. 81, 515, 567. Barbara J. Harris, English Aristocratic Women 1450–1550, pp. 115, 116, 281.

  favorite daughter: Wingfield, “Vitae Mariae Reginae,” in Camden Miscellany XXVIII, p. 286.

  Duke of Suffolk, died: When Katherine Grey was born, the King was passionately in love with his fifth wife, the flirtatious teenager Katherine Howard. She had many connections to the Greys and it is probable, therefore, that Katherine Grey was, like Jane, named after a Queen. The young Queen’s sister was married to Dorset’s cousin and estate manager, Sir Thomas Arundell, and her favorite lady-in-waiting, Katherine Tilney, was related to the Brandons through her mother, Elizabeth Jeffery. Other possible godparents include Dorset’s sister, Katherine Fitzalan, or Frances’s stepmother, Katherine of Suffolk—but the Greys had a fondness for royal godparents. Their son Henry was named after the King, Frances after Francis II, and Jane after Queen Jane Seymour.

  no record of it: It is likely that Mary Grey was named after the Princess Mary. She was born after the Third Act of Succession, which restored Mary Tudor in line to the throne, and Frances was in a good position to ask her to be godmother since not only were they first cousins, Frances had been a member of her household in 1538. I cite the evidence for the children’s characters in subsequent chapters, as these characteristics emerge. The physical description of Jane is drawn, however, from the famous observations of one Baptista Spinola recorded by Richard Davey. On this please see note for p. 103, “… appeared united.”

  “good in everything”: William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene 1.

  longbow and arrows: Dorset gave the King two greyhounds as a New Year’s gift in 1540.

  of white velvet: HMC Salisbury, Vol. I, p. 131.

  book into English: Sir Thomas Hoby. Thomas Moore believed that women’s weakness made their education all the more necessary.

  remained fashionable: Charlotte Isabelle Merton, “The Women Who Served Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth,” p. 236. R. A. Houlbrooke, The English Family 1450–1700, pp. 140, 141, 144, 145.

  “wondrous well”: Harris, Aristocratic Women, p. 35. In the 1995 film Six Degrees of Separation, the protagonist played by Will Smith asks a rhetorical question about the mores of the modern American upper class. “What do the rich like to give each other as presents?” “Jam!” he answers. The same was true in Tudor England; Frances left letters to friends thanking them for their conserves.

  an Italian grammar: I have found no evidence dating from before 1554 that Jane learned Spanish, as was claimed in Thomas Chaloner’s Elegy. The “Italian grammar” may have been the book Michel Angelo Florio dedicated to Jane in 1553.

  “Learn to die”: Thomas Becon, The Catechism of Thomas Becon, p. 348; Lacey Baldwin Smith, Treason in Tudor England, p. 72.

  the mid-1550s: The word originally existed to describe a group of German princes who drew up a protest against other princes who had supported traditional religion at a diet in 1529.

  her sister, Eleanor: James Kelsey McConica, English Humanists and Reformation Politics Under Henry VIII and Edward VI, p. 227. The Jesuit was Robert Persons.

  “Lady Suffolk heats”: Sir Richard Morison, quoted in Conyers Read, Mr Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth, p. 41.

  sent her money: Jessie Childs, Henry VIII’s Last Victim, p. 260.

  “Learn to die”: Around 1549, Nicholas Throckmorton married Anne Carew, a cousin of Frances, and a future friend of Jane’s. As a widow, Carew would marry Frances’s widower, Adrian Stokes, and act as a stepmother to Mary Grey.

  “candle before her”: John Foxe (Stephen Reed, ed.), Acts and Monuments, Vol. VI.

  brave and steadfast: John Bale, who recorded Askew’s life, presents a young, gentle woman, totally at odds with Askew’s representation as confident, witty, and disputatious. The same fate awaited the fiery Jane at the hands of her future admirers.

  III: JANE’S WARDSHIP

  Church and state: In 1524, when Henry VIII faced his friend and brother-in-law Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, at the joust, it was universally argued that monarchy was instituted by God, and that the King ruled by God’s grace for the benefit of the community. His duties, enshrined in his coronation oath, encompassed the defence of the realm, maintaining law and order, issuing justice impartially, and upholding the Church
, especially against heresy. He possessed a royal prerogative that was “ordinary” and “absolute.” His ordinary prerogative included his common-law privileges as a feudal lord and included his ability to issue pardons. The absolute prerogative was his emergency power. He could suspend the law in time of war, to billet soldiers, for example; if a fire was burning a street of houses he could order the demolition of private property; and he could raise taxes. It was largely a self-limiting monarchy: but Henry cast limits aside when he broke with Rome. Henry’s research team, led by Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, had “rediscovered” the royal supremacy in “divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles.” The crucial extract concerned a mythical king, Lucius I, who was said to have converted Britain to Christianity in AD 187. According to Cranmer and his team, Lucius had wanted to know the details of Roman law, but Pope Eleutherius told him that he was “vicar of God” in his own kingdom and, as he already had the Old and New Testaments, he had everything he needed to make his own laws. From this Henry insisted that he was the superior legislator who “gave” the law and exercised his imperium or “command” over Church and state. His “absolute” prerogative was no longer confined to war or emergencies. This political theology was proclaimed in the Act of Appeals in April 1533, the month before Anne Boleyn was crowned. John Guy, “The Tudor Monarchy and its Critiques,” www.tudors.org.

  as their King: Roy Strong, Artists of the Tudor Court, pp. 201–3. Dale Hoak, “The Coronations of Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I,” pp. 147–49.

  of the learned: Wingfield, “Vita Mariae Reginae,” p. 245. Brewer (ed.), Letters and Papers, Vol. XIII, pp. 81, 280; John Gough Nichols, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, Vol. III, p. 673.