by David Field
‘None of your damned business,’ Catherine hissed back, before turning to return to her seat. ‘Stick to your Greek and allow me to provide for Lady Jane’s future role at Court.’
IV
‘May I introduce my granddaughter, Lady Jane Grey?’ Catherine Suffolk proudly asked as she ushered a slightly trembling Jane into the centre of the room.
Jane executed a wobbly curtsey to the fine ladies seated in a semi-circle, not knowing who was who, and thoroughly overawed by the occasion.
They were assembled in the main room of Edward Seymour’s quarters on the ground floor of the ‘Placentia Palace’ of Greenwich. He had occupied these rooms ever since his sister Jane had first caught King Henry’s eye, and he and his wife Anne had chosen to make them their main residence when in London, although Anne and the growing brood of children found their Sussex estate more comfortable.
Even though the main room was one of the most spacious on the ground floor, it was still in danger of feeling overcrowded, given the company that had assembled in order to watch the final, un-costumed, rehearsal for the masque to be performed at the May Day Banquet that was to be held upriver at Hampton the following week.
Thomas Seymour was to be the master of ceremonies, as well as acting the part of ‘Pan, the God of the Wilderness’, with the recently widowed Catherine Parr as ‘The Queen of the May’, following their success at the Christmas festivities.
The rehearsal came temporarily to an end and Edward Seymour, as host, effected the introductions for the benefit of Jane.
‘Seated slightly back from the others, and next to the window, is the Lady Mary,’ he told her, ‘and this is her Senior Lady, Mistress Catherine Parr. On the other end of the line of chairs is the Lady Elizabeth, who will be part of the masque when it is finally performed. My wife Anne you have of course met, but you may not have met my brother Thomas. When I was lately at Bradgate you had a little friend from whom you seemed inseparable — has she accompanied you to London?’
‘Yes, my Lord,’ Jane replied in a wavering polite tone, ‘but she is presently back at the house of my grandparents. Where is Prince Edward?’
Her forthright question caused a slight ripple of mirth among the ladies and in order to spare her further blushes Lady Mary smiled at Catherine Suffolk and paid her a fitting compliment. ‘You are to be congratulated on having preserved your youthful looks while having become the grandmother of such a beautiful child, my Lady Suffolk.’
Catherine smiled graciously, not sure whether or not it was a barbed reference to her child status when first bedded by Charles Brandon. ‘She is, of course, not my natural grandchild, since she is the offspring of my husband’s daughter by his first marriage, to the Princess Mary. Her mother, Lady Grey, is thereby a niece of His Majesty and this delightful granddaughter of mine by marriage is a cousin in some degree to the young Prince Edward, with whom she desires to share the advantages of a fine education.’
The chamber door opened and a liveried attendant, slightly out of breath, announced, ‘His Majesty King Henry and the Duke of Cornwall.’
All the adults who had been standing dropped smartly to their knees, while the Ladies Mary and Elizabeth clapped their hands in delight. Unsure what to do, Jane curtsied and remained standing.
Henry smiled down at her from his impressive height. ‘What a delightful child! Are you perhaps the Lady Jane of whom I have heard so much? The daughter of my niece, Frances Grey?’
‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ Jane croaked as she curtsied once again and kept her eyes demurely on the floor.
Henry turned to Prince Edward with a smile. ‘See the beauty of the companion you may have in your schoolroom, should you choose?’
‘Not if she’s cleverer than me,’ Edward pouted, and everyone laughed politely.
Henry smiled around the faces of the company and his eyes finally came to rest on Catherine Parr. ‘Mistress Parr, is there some reason why your hand is glued to that of my long-serving ambassador to Germany, who only returns to my service when his credit has run out with the alehouse keepers of Vienna?’
Catherine let go of Thomas Seymour’s hand as if it had suddenly become red hot and she blushed as Thomas offered an explanation.
‘We were rehearsing for the May Day masque, Your Majesty.’
‘Indeed?’ Henry asked in a tone of disbelief. ‘Well then, let us see how this mummery progresses. Pray give me an early sample of your proposed fare.’
As Catherine and Thomas began the opening dialogue, in which Pan met the Queen of the May in a sylvan grove named ‘Windsor Forest’, Henry sidled up to Edward Seymour and spoke quietly from the corner of his mouth.
‘How go our relations with the Scots?’
‘I fear that the Catholic faction will prevail, Your Majesty, and that the young Mary will be wedded to France.’
‘All the more reason why we need good friends in Germany and the Low Countries ere we venture across the Channel to tweak Francis’s nose. See to it that we send an ambassador without delay. And make it your dissolute brother Thomas — the less he holds the hand of the Lady Catherine, the better.’
Jane was destined never to share a school room with the young Prince Edward, principally because he was apprehensive that she might prove to be cleverer than him, and being bested by a girl was not something to be tolerated by a somewhat spoiled and over-indulged boy who was constantly being reminded that one day he would be King of England. But this did not prevent him seeking Jane’s company on the many occasions when suitable young people of his age were invited to visit him in his own apartments at Greenwich, where he held court as if he were already the King and where he had his own troupe of minstrels.
On such occasions, Jane and Edward would chat happily regarding the things they were being taught by their respective tutors. Edward’s interests, like his father’s, were wide ranging and liberal in nature, from European and classical languages to religious philosophy, mathematics and the rudiments of music. Jane was also receiving a broad Renaissance education under private tutors such as John Aylmer and Michelangelo Florio in the house of her Suffolk grandparents, and even though their original ambition for Jane to be educated daily with the heir apparent had not come to fruition, Jane pleaded with them to resist her own parents’ insistence that she be returned home, where the education had been more rigid and the discipline more stern.
But if Jane was happy and content in her new environment, Grace Ashton would have preferred to go home to the familiar fields and hedgerows of her family estate in Leicestershire. She was not invited to Court and in fact, she rarely saw outside the Suffolk family’s London residence, an overcrowded mansion in Borough High Street, across the Thames in Southwark, where the only young people remotely of her age were young serving boys and girls. Having nothing in common with them and being strictly reminded, on an almost daily basis, that she was ‘a different class of girl altogether’, she was housed in a single room immediately beneath the tiled roof and tended to hang morosely around the kitchen, where the cook would find her tasks to occupy her attention, if only to prevent her getting under everyone else’s feet.
She had written several times, in her childish scrawl, to her parents, begging to be brought home, but her pleas had come to nought. Although concerned for her happiness, Richard and Kate Ashton were constantly reassured by their influential neighbour Henry Grey that Grace was being well cared for and that the Greys continued to deem it a great favour for their daughter Jane to have a companion and chaperone on those days when she was not learning all about life at Court.
Even when Jane was not at Court, she was being treated more like the daughter of the house, whereas Grace ate with the servants and lived a solitary existence in the room under the eaves of the tall three-storied town house. Jane had not forgotten Grace, but somehow their paths crossed less often as the weeks passed.
V
As the summer of 1543 commenced, Catherine Parr had more to think about than dressing Lady Mary’s
hair and laying out her gowns. At the May Day Ball, King Henry had made a great point of complimenting her on her portrayal of the May Queen and had insisted on partnering her in some of the slower dances that followed, during which he offered to write other masques in which her ‘fair beauty’ might be shown to best effect, while reminding her that Thomas Seymour, to whom she seemed to have become attached, would shortly be leaving England on a perilous mission to the Low Countries from which he might never return.
Lady Mary looked upon the growing number of occasions when she was invited to events at Court as further confirmation of the extent of her long awaited reconciliation with her father, little knowing that his real motivation was that she never failed to bring Lady Catherine Parr with her. It was her still youthful attendant who was the real object of Henry’s attention and even when he sought out Catherine more and more for conversations in quiet corners, it never occurred to the somewhat straight-laced Lady Mary that this was other than her father’s implied acknowledgment of his daughter’s wise choice of a lady-in-waiting.
She learned the true state of things at the same moment as the other members of Court, who were assembled by summons in late June to be advised that Lady Catherine Parr had graciously accepted the role of Henry’s sixth Queen of England and that the marriage was to be celebrated in only two weeks’ time at Hampton.
City merchants celebrated the rapid torrent of orders for new tunics, hose, gowns, jewels, horses, livery and linen as Courtiers adjusted quickly to the news and prepared themselves to parade in all their finery both at the simple service conducted by Archbishop Cranmer inside the chapel at Hampton on 12th July and the Wedding Banquet that followed.
Meanwhile, the Scottish Parliament had finally repudiated any possibility that their young Princess Mary would become betrothed to Edward of England, and they nailed their colours even more firmly to the mast by cementing the ‘Auld Alliance’ with France by way of a marriage proposal between their princess and the young Dauphin.
Catherine Parr soon began a campaign for the reinstatement of the royal daughters she had come to know so well and most notably the Lady Mary, whom she had served as an attendant Lady. Basking in the warm glow of a new marriage, this time with a demure and almost matronly consort who seemed to attract no scandal and who was happy to nurse her new husband as she had once nursed her previous one, Henry was easily persuaded that the ultimate succession ought to be formalised, in the event that anything should happen to his son.
It was a delicate matter and it was essential that Parliament approve what was being proposed, if it was to be effective in preventing any disputes after Henry’s death. Catherine’s main concern was to restore Lady Mary to her rightful place in the line of succession, despite her strident and unapologetic adherence to the ‘old’ Catholic faith. But this could not, in all logic or conscience, be achieved without granting the same rehabilitation to the more liberally Protestant Elizabeth, and so the resulting Act of Succession returned both Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession, behind Edward, any potential children of his, and any potential children of Henry by Queen Catherine. But, as if to preserve something of his previous rejection of two former wives, Henry insisted that his two natural daughters retain their illegitimate status.
There was little apprehension that the Act would ever need to be implemented, given that Edward was a robust child approaching seven years of age, who could be expected to grow into manhood, then take his pick of the available princesses of Europe. But, conscious of his own mortality and about to embark for France at the head of a large army of invasion whose ultimate target was Paris, Henry decided to reinforce what Parliament had just enacted in a will.
He dictated it to Archbishop Cranmer, in which he confirmed the succession that was now statutory, but added that should this for any reason fail then the line of succession should continue through the ultimate heirs of his deceased younger sister Mary, but excluding Frances Grey. This made her daughter, Lady Jane Grey, the ultimate in line to the throne, should Edward, Mary and Elizabeth all be childless and dead when the will came to be implemented.
Few were aware of the terms of this will and life at Court continued under the more gentle influence of the new Queen, who basked in the gratitude of the two royal daughters who had been restored to the inheritance. They could not have been more different in nature and outlook, with the more sombre Mary, now obliged to pay due respect to a former lady-in-waiting who had become her stepmother, somewhat set apart from the rest of those who gathered regularly to amuse young Prince Edward.
Grace Ashton, meanwhile, was back where she belonged, on her father’s estate at Knighton and eagerly anticipating her forthcoming seventh birthday, on which she had been promised her own pony. Since Jane Grey was still at Court, their shared nurse Mary Calthorpe, when not in attendance on the young Lady Catherine at Bradgate, was able to devote more attention to the high-spirited young ‘Mistress’ at Knighton.
‘Lord preserve us, young lady!’ Mary exclaimed as she examined the room that Grace had allegedly tidied. ‘What did they teach you in that fine house in London? Or were you waited on hand and foot, as you expect to be upon your return here?’
‘They taught me nothing, Nanny, other than the life of a servant. I was not waited on — rather I was expected to wait on them. Even Jane, who was treated by the Brandons as if she was their daughter, while I was nothing but a kitchen girl. I did, however, learn how to roast meat on a fire.’
Mary’s heart softened as she saw the memory of betrayal written across the poor lass’s crestfallen face and she laid a comforting hand on Grace’s shoulder. ‘More fool them, then, that they couldn’t see what a real lady was in their midst.’
‘I don’t suppose I’ll ever see Jane again,’ Grace said wistfully. ‘She’ll be married off to some fine lord and will probably have a big house in the country, or perhaps a mansion in London like the one where I worked in the kitchen.’
‘Do you miss Jane?’ Mary asked.
Grace nodded, almost in tears. ‘She was my only friend, for as long as I can remember. But she forgot all about me when she was always going to Court and playing with the Prince.’
‘I miss her too,’ Mary admitted, choking back a tear. ‘Lord knows that the pair of you used to run me ragged when you were together, but I’d happily put up with that to see her back here with you, and the two of you covered in muck.’
Mary Calthorpe was not the only one feeling the absence of Jane. Although there was another Grey daughter, Catherine, aged four, both Henry Grey and his wife Frances missed having the lively Jane around the place, always up to mischief with her young friend Grace, and they were fearful for her fate, alone in the wickedness that they had both experienced at the court of King Henry.
They trusted her grandparents, the Duke and Duchess of Suffolk, to treat her kindly and steer her out of the way of any obvious harm, but Jane would soon be of an age to attract young men, and their many earlier ventures to Court had left them with no illusions about the opportunities that existed in London for seduction and betrayal. Jane had always been stubborn and headstrong and they feared for her future should she be preyed upon by some randy young gallant in search of an heiress, or simply an outlet for his lust.
Richard Ashton’s insistence that Grace be sent back to Knighton had led to a certain cooling of relations between the Greys and the Ashtons. Henry Grey complained that Jane had been left without her companion and chaperone, to which Richard Ashton had retorted, with some heat, that she had never been either, since Jane had effectively abandoned Grace in order to pursue a life of sorts at Court, and Grace had never been treated by those in the Suffolk household as other than an extra house servant. When Grey had announced that if any harm befell Jane, he would hold Ashton responsible, Ashton retorted that the remedy lay in their own hands. They could bring Jane back home, as he had done with Grace, but if they preferred to hazard her welfare in the hope of seeing her advanced in royal circles, then the res
ponsibility rested with them.
VI
Two years passed, during which Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, died. His widow became closer to Queen Catherine, and two rumours began to circulate in Court. The first was that Queen Catherine was using her position to drive through dangerous reforms in religious practice that would cause a rebellion, and that Henry was too old and weak to resist. When Henry confronted her with this accusation, she managed to persuade him that her recent arguments with him regarding further Reformist measures had been intended only to take his mind off the suffering caused by his ulcerous leg.
The other rumour was that Henry had fallen for the alluring ‘Madame Suffolk’ and was seriously contemplating removing Queen Catherine from the throne, given her failure thus far to bear him any children and replacing her with Charles Brandon’s widow. Catherine lost no time in assuring the Queen that there was no truth in the rumour and given the warm friendship that had developed between them, she was believed. However, the two ladies agreed that it might be better were the Suffolk widow to withdraw to the family estate she had inherited some years ago in Lincolnshire.
This was the imposing Grimsthorpe Castle and within weeks of suppressing the alleged scandal involving her and the King, the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk had moved her entire retinue north. Along with her, as an unspoken adopted daughter, she took Jane Grey, who rapidly tired of being even an honoured member of the new household, given that opportunities no longer existed to visit Court, or idle away her hours with Prince Edward.
Grimsthorpe was little more than a two day ride away from Jane’s own family home at Bradgate and she had little difficulty in persuading her parents to collect her in the family coach and bring her back to the familiar scenes of her earlier childhood and memories that were now nearly two years old.
As Jane stepped down from the coach on her father’s supporting arm, her eye fell on a subdued looking Grace Ashton, standing to the side of their old Nanny Calthorpe. She gave a cry of recognition, slipped from her father’s grasp and ran towards Grace with widespread arms. Then, a few feet short, she stopped dead in her tracks when Grace showed no sign of opening her arms for an embrace and instead stood staring at her accusingly.
