Tudor Women Queens & Commoners

by Alison Plowden

  All the same, rather to some people's surprise, the King did marry again, and in a quiet ceremony at Hampton Court on 12 July 1543 the widowed Lady Latimer of Snape Hall became the sixth woman to stand beside her sovereign lord and vow to 'take thee, Henry, to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to be bonair and buxom in bed and at board, till death us do part'.

  If Henry had been seeking a loyal and sympathetic companion for his declining years, he could hardly have made a better choice. Lady Latimer, born Katherine Parr, had already been twice married to men much older than herself and been twice widowed. At thirty-one she was still a pretty woman, but more to the point she was also a mature, well-educated and thoughtful woman, experienced in the arts of managing elderly husbands. In the words of the anonymous author of The Spanish Chronicle, she was 'quieter than any of the young wives the King had had, and as she knew more of the world, she always got on pleasantly with the King and had no caprices'.

  The new Queen and her family were no strangers to royal circles. Her sister Anne was married to William Herbert, one of the Esquires of the Body, and her brother William was making a notable career for himself in the royal service, having just been appointed to the key post of Lord Warden of the Scottish Marches. Their mother had been one of Catherine of Aragon's ladies, and Katherine had spent her earliest years at Court, being one of the hand-picked young girls chosen to share the Princess Mary's lessons under the direction of Luis Vives. Unlike her immediate predecessor, Katherine Parr had been carefully brought up and was not only aware of her responsibilities but eager to fulfil them. She was to prove an excellent wife and a kind and conscientious stepmother, creating a comfortable domestic enclave at Court where the royal family could be almost cosy. But her talents were not confined to the home. Henry's sixth Queen, like his first, was a woman of trained intelligence and shrewd political sense. Her influence rapidly became a factor to be reckoned with, and, in one case at least, it was to have incalculable consequences for England.

  6. WHEN WOMEN BECOME SUCH CLERKS

  Under the beneficent rule of Queen Katherine Parr, scholarly pursuits once more became fashionable at Court. Following in the footsteps of pious and serious-minded ladies like Margaret Beaufort and Catherine of Aragon, Katherine Parr took an informed interest in intellectual matters and was a lively patron of the New Learning. She encouraged the Princess Mary to exercise her mind and make use of her Latin by embarking on a translation of Erasmus's paraphrase of the Gospel of St. John, and she is generally credited with helping to secure the appointment of John Cheke, lecturer in Greek and Fellow of Margaret Beaufort's foundation of St. John's College Cambridge, as principal tutor to the six-year-old Prince of Wales. But more important - more important indeed than the Queen would ever know - was her determination to ensure that the Princess Elizabeth should receive the same high standard of education as her brother and sister.

  Henry's younger daughter was ten years old now, a pale, red-headed girl, becoming a little withdrawn and inclined to stand stiffly on her dignity. Since Anne Boleyn's disgrace, the motherless Elizabeth had been living with her household staff in one or other of the numerous royal manors scattered around the Home Counties, usually sharing an establishment with either her brother or sister. She was not neglected in any obvious sense. Her father was quite fond of her when he remembered her existence, and she took her place as a member of the family on state occasions - she'd made her debut at Prince Edward's christening and had been present at the official celebrations to welcome Anne of Cleves - but until the advent of Katherine Parr there had been no influential personage at Court with the will or the power to take a special interest in her welfare, and her upbringing had been left pretty well entirely in the hands of her governess.

  Katherine Parr was fully aware of the dangers and difficulties attached to the position of Henry VIII's sixth wife, but being a woman of spirit and strong principles she intended not only to survive but to make a success of the task to which she believed God had called her. It was part of her policy from the beginning to work to unite the royal family and to establish good relations with her stepchildren, thus creating a power base for herself which would be independent of any rival faction. This was intelligent thinking and an undertaking for which the Queen, with her warm outgoing personality, was especially suited. She and Mary already knew and respected each other, and now they became firm friends. The Queen saw to it that there was always a warm welcome for the Princess at Court, and when Mary went back to her Essex home, they corresponded regularly (often in Latin), exchanged presents and lent one another small services or servants with special skills.

  Katherine experienced no difficulty either in gaining the trust of young Prince Edward. The boy was genuinely fond of her and began calling her 'mother' almost at once. Edward and Mary were both figures of political importance whose goodwill would undoubtedly be a valuable asset; but it was Elizabeth, bastard of a notorious adulteress, without friends or influence or any apparent future, who became the Queen's particular protégé. Katherine brought the proud, lonely little girl to Court, gave her apartments next to her own at Greenwich and Whitehall and took pains to draw her into the family circle. It was almost certainly Katherine's doing that William Grindal, another Cambridge scholar, was appointed tutor to the Princess, and she continued to keep a careful watch over the child's progress. Elizabeth, always responsive to affection and fiercely loyal in her friendships, repaid her stepmother with love. Her earliest surviving letter was written to Katherine in July 1544 in Italian - probably as an exercise - and at the end of the year she presented the Queen with a laborious translation from the French of a long and exceedingly dull poem by Margaret of Navarre, bound in an elaborately embroidered cover worked by herself.

  In the summer of 1544 the King departed on his last warlike adventure abroad, creating his wife Regent in his absence -an honour not accorded to a consort since the days of Catherine of Aragon. Unlike her predecessor, Katherine Parr was not called upon to fight a war on the home front, but she was left an almost equally awesome responsibility in the guardianship of Prince Edward - his father's pride and joy and England's Treasure. While the King was away, the Queen gathered her new family round her at Hampton Court, sending regular bulletins to France about the health of 'my lord Prince' and his sisters. Her domesticating influence was already being noted in the outside world, a new factor on the English political scene and worthy of mention in ambassadors' despatches, while at home she was winning golden opinions among the liberal intelligentsia. Every day at Court was like a Sunday, enthused one of the scholars patronized by Katherine, adding that this was something 'hitherto unheard of, especially in a royal palace'. Nicholas Udall, master at Eton College and editor of the volume of transitions to which Mary had contributed, wrote in his preface that it was now no strange thing to hear gentlewomen use grave and substantial talk in Greek or Latin with their husbands in godly matters. 'It is now no news in England', he went on, 'to see young damsels in noble houses and in the Courts of princes, instead of cards and other instruments of vain trifling, to have continually in their hands either psalms, homilies or other devout meditations.'

  This spreading interest in 'godly matters' was a direct, if unintentional, result of Henry's quarrel with the Pope and had recently received a vital stimulus by the publication of the so-called Great Bible - based on Tyndale's and Coverdale's translations - which went through seven editions between the years 1539 and 1541. Its effect on an increasingly literate and sophisticated public was electric. To the average concerned and educated layman it meant that he was now, for the first time, in a position to study and interpret the Word of God for himself, and this in turn led to the exhilarating realization that it was possible for an individual to make his own approaches to the Almighty without having to depend entirely on the priest to act as intermediary. This was an experience in which the women could share; indeed, in ma
ny households, it was the women who took the lead. To the woman trapped in a loveless marriage, to all those women who had failed to find fulfilment within the narrow limits of home and family, restless souls seeking an outlet for frustrated emotional and intellectual energies, the discovery of the Scriptures, and with it a whole new world of delights in which the spirit could find its own refreshment, brought a sense of release and excitement which transformed thousands of lives.

  In the most important household in the land, the women were also taking the lead. Queen Katherine Parr was known to favour the so-called New Faith, which laid great stress on the importance of private devotion while playing down the organized, sacramental aspects of religious observance. She had gathered a number of like-minded ladies round her, and together they spent much of their time studying and discussing the Gospels and listening to discourses by such fashionably advanced preachers as Nicholas Ridley, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Shaxton. Katherine's circle included her sister, Anne Herbert, and her stepdaughter, Elizabeth Tyrwhit; Joan Denny, wife of one of the King's favourite gentlemen of the Privy Chamber; the outspoken young Duchess of Suffolk, the Countess of Sussex, Lady Fitzwilliam, Lady Lane, and Jane Dudley and Anne Seymour, Countess of Hertford, whose husbands were both leading members of the progressive party at Court.

  But, in spite of their privileged position, the Queen and her friends were treading on dangerous ground, for, the break with Rome notwithstanding, England was still, in the early 1540s, to all practical intents and purposes a Catholic country, with observance of all the basic tenets of the Catholic faith still legally enforceable. The conservative faction had suffered a serious setback over the Katherine Howard affair, but they remained a force to be reckoned with, and right-wing bishops like Bonner of London and Gardiner of Winchester were becoming increasingly disturbed by the spread of heresy, especially in London and the south-east.

  The bishops knew all about the Queen's study groups and strongly suspected that she was giving active encouragement not only to subversive elements within the Church but to those outside it who were beginning to challenge the priesthood to show scriptural authority for their claim to represent the only channel through which the laity could hope to receive divine grace. Gardiner, Bonner and their supporters on the Council had no doubt who to blame for the growing strength of radical religious views in high places, and there was, of course, a good deal of personal animosity involved as well. The right-wingers were jealous of Katherine's influence with the King and his children, and although the Queen herself was always tactful, some of her followers were not. The Duchess of Suffolk, for example, had named her pet spaniel 'Gardiner' in a deliberately provocative gesture and made no secret of her low opinion of his Grace of Winchester and all his works; while Lady Hertford, arrogant and quarrelsome, never experienced any difficulty in getting herself disliked.

  Since her marriage the Queen had undoubtedly moved steadily further towards Protestantism, and in the summer of 1546 her enemies at last saw an opportunity to pounce. In her little book of prayers and meditations, The Lamentation of a Sinner, which had recently been circulating in manuscript form, Katherine reminded her own sex that: 'if they be women married, they learn of St. Paul to be obedient to their husbands, and to keep silence in the congregation, and to learn of their husbands at home'. Unfortunately, there was to be an occasion towards the end of June 1546 when the Queen failed to follow this excellent advice - at least according to the story later told by John Foxe in his best-selling Book of Martyrs. Henry's dancing days were over now, and it was his wife's habit to sit with him in the evenings and endeavour to entertain him and take his mind off the pain of his ulcerated legs by inaugurating a discussion on some serious topic, which inevitably meant some religious topic. On this particular occasion, Katherine seems to have allowed her enthusiasm to run away with her, and the King was provoked into grumbling to Stephen Gardiner: 'A good hearing it is, when women become such clerks, and a thing much to my comfort to come in mine old days to be taught by my wife.'

  This, of course, was Gardiner's cue to warn his sovereign lord that he had reason to believe the Queen was deliberately undermining the stability of the state by fomenting heresy of the most odious kind and encouraging the lieges to question the wisdom of their prince's government. So much so, that the Council was 'bold to affirm that the greatest subject in this land, speaking those words that she did speak and defending likewise those arguments that she did defend, had with impartial justice by law deserved death'. Henry was all attention. Anything which touched the assurance of his own estate was not to be treated lightly, and he authorized an immediate enquiry into the orthodoxy of the Queen's household, agreeing that if any evidence of subversion were forthcoming, charges could be brought against Katherine herself.

  Gardiner and his ally on the Council, the Lord Chancellor Thomas Wriothesley, planned to attack the Queen through her ladies and believed they possessed a valuable weapon in the person of Anne Kyme, better known by her maiden name of Anne Askew, a notorious heretic already convicted and condemned. Anne, a truculent and argumentative young woman who came from a well-known Lincolnshire family, had left her husband and come to London to seek a divorce. Quoting fluently from the Scriptures, she claimed that her marriage was no longer valid in the sight of God, for had not St. Paul written: 'If a faithful woman have an unbelieving husband, which will not tarry with her she may leave him'? (Thomas Kyme was an old-fashioned Catholic who objected strongly to his wife's Bible-punching propensities.)

  Anne failed to get her divorce, but her zeal, her sharp tongue and her lively wit soon made her a well.-known figure in Protestant circles. Inevitably she soon came up against the law, and in March 1546 she was arrested on suspicion of heresy, specifically on a charge of denying the Real Presence in the sacrament of the altar. Pressed by Bishop Bonner on this vital point, Anne hesitated and was finally persuaded to sign a confession which amounted to an only slightly qualified statement of orthodox belief. A few days later she was released from gaol and went home to Lincolnshire - not to her husband but to her brother Sir Francis Askew.

  Throughout that spring the conservative counter-attack gathered momentum, and by early summer a vigorous anti-heresy drive was in progress. At the end of May Thomas Kyme and his wife were summoned to appear before the Council. Although not proved, it's probable that the initiative for this move came from Kyme himself. Anne had refused to obey the order of the Court of Chancery to return to him, nor is it likely that he wanted her back. At the same time, he was in an invidious position, deserted and defied by his wife and unable to marry again. It cannot have failed to occur to him that only Anne's death would finally solve his problems. Armed with a royal warrant and packed up by the Bishop of Lincoln (who had a long score to settle with Anne), Thomas Kyme forcibly removed her from her brother's protection and carried her off to London.

  The Council's summons was ostensibly about the matrimonial issue, and Kyme was soon dismissed, but Anne, 'for that she was very obstinate and heady in reasoning of matters of religion, wherein she avowed herself to be of a naughty opinion', was committed to Newgate prison to face renewed heresy charges. All through the following week determined efforts were made to wring from her a second and more complete recantation. The bishops were not anxious to make martyrs-retractions, especially from the better-known Protestants, would obviously be more valuable for propaganda purposes -but Anne was not to be caught a second time. When Stephen Gardiner tried his charm on her, begging her to believe he was her friend, concerned only with her soul's health, she retorted that that was just the attitude adopted by Judas 'when he unfriendly betrayed Christ'. Any lingering doubts and fears had passed. She knew now, with serene certainty, what Christ wanted from her, and she was ready to give it. At her trial on 28 June she flatly rejected the existence of any priestly miracle in the Eucharist. 'As for that ye call your God, it is a piece of bread. For a more proof thereof... let it but lie in the box three months and it will be mouldy.' After that
, there could be no question of the verdict, and sentence of death by burning was duly passed on this self-confessed and obstinate heretic.

  Anne Askew is an interesting example of an educated, highly-intelligent, passionate woman destined to become the victim of the society in which she lived - a woman who could not accept her circumstances but fought an angry, hopeless battle against them. She was unquestionably sincere in her religious convictions - to what extent she also used them unconsciously to sublimate tensions and frustrations which might otherwise have been unbearable, we can only speculate. To Thomas Wriothesley the interesting thing about her was the fact that she was known to have close connections with the Court. Two of her brothers were in the royal service, and she was friendly with John Lassells - the same who had betrayed Katherine Howard five years before. It's highly probable that Anne had attended some of the Biblical study sessions in the Queen's apartments, and she was certainly acquainted with some of the Queen's ladies. If it could now be shown that any of these ladies - perhaps even the Queen herself- had been in touch with her since her recent arrest; if it could be proved that they had been encouraging her to stand firm in her heresy, then the Lord Chancellor would have ample excuse for an attack on Katherine Parr.

  Anne was therefore transferred to the Tower, where she received a visit from Wriothesley and his henchman Sir Richard Rich, the Solicitor General, but the interview proved a disappointment. She denied having received any visits while she had been in prison, and no one had willed her to stick to her opinions. Her maid had been given ten shillings by a man in a blue coat who said that Lady Hertford had sent it, and eight shillings by another man in a violet coat who said it came from Lady Denny, but whether this was true or not she didn't know, it was only what her maid had told her.