Mary Rose
Page 16
It may even have been that he found his role in the court distasteful, torn as he was between loyalty to the King and disagreement with his policies. On 16 June 1531 Eustace Chapuys wrote to the Emperor:
Suffolk and his wife, if they dared, would offer all possible resistance to this marriage [between Henry and Anne], and it is not two days since he and the Treasurer [the Duke of Norfolk], talking of this matter, agreed that now the time was come when all the world should try to dissuade the king from his folly … 10
Chapuys is not an altogether reliable witness, because of his commitment to Catherine and his tendency to hear what he wanted to hear. For instance, in 1530 he reported that Suffolk was out of favour because he had drawn to Henry’s attention that Anne had had an affair with Sir Thomas Wyatt in the 1520s, for neither of which statement is there any corroboratory evidence. However, the above observation is sufficiently consistent with what else we know about the Brandons’ attitude to carry conviction. Suffolk found his role in the progressive demotion of Catherine uncongenial. In April 1533 he was entrusted with the task of informing her that she was no longer Queen, following Cranmer’s decision on her marriage, and the following December was ordered to relocate her to Somersham, and to dismiss some of her servants, because she was now the Dowager Princess of Wales, and could not maintain a regal establishment. 11 In fact Henry was not ungenerous to his ex-wife, and her reconstituted household cost him some £3,000 a year, but Suffolk was not to know that, and Lady Mary Willoughby, by then his mother-in-law, told Chapuys that he had confessed and communicated before setting off on this mission, hoping for some accident to prevent its completion – or at least that is what the ambassador said. 12 When Catherine died in January 1536, Suffolk’s youngest daughter Eleanor was the chief mourner, supported by his new Duchess, Catherine Willoughby. Understandably Anne Boleyn was consistently hostile to the couple. In July 1531 she actually accused the Duke of having sexual relations with his own daughter, a charge which only the King’s intervention prevented from escalating into a major quarrel. There was an actual affray within the court in April 1532, which resulted in the death of one of Suffolk’s gentlemen, and the Venetian report of the incident went on:
It is said to have been caused by a private quarrel, but I am assured that it was owing to opprobrious language uttered against Madame Anne by his Majesty’s sister, the Duchess of Suffolk, Queen Dowager of France … 13
However, Anne herself could only swallow her indignation when the King decided to ignore these slights, and visit the Suffolks at Westhorpe, which he did towards the end of July 1532. Presumably she did not accompany him on this visit! On 1 September, when he conferred on Anne the title of Marquis of Pembroke, Mary was conspicuous by her absence. On 7 September Carlo Capello, the Venetian envoy, reported that when Henry crossed to Calais to meet with King Francis, he would be accompanied by ‘Madame Anne’ and thirty of the chief ladies of the realm, led by the Duchess of Norfolk, but that the King’s sister, the widow of King Louis of France, had ‘stoutly refused to go’. 14 Her absence was intended, and was construed as, a snub to Anne, but it was also a reflection on the King’s honour, which he chose to ignore. Mary’s health by that time was so uncertain that excuses were easy to make, and in any case he was so pleased by the outcome of his meeting that he probably chose to overlook the slight.
At the Treaty of the More it had been agreed that the payment of Mary’s dower revenues would be resumed, and that appears to have happened, because at the end of 1526 an indenture was drawn up between the King and his sister ‘with her husband the Duke of Suffolk’ for the repayment of their outstanding debt. This was assessed at £19,333 for the expenses of Mary’s marriage to Louis, and £6,519 for various sums lent to the Duke, and for revenues received and not accounted for. They agreed to pay £1,000 a year in half yearly instalments, two-thirds being for her debt and one-third for his. 15 If she died, her outstanding debt would be cancelled, but her jewels and hangings were to be returned to the King. If there were to be any further interruption to her revenues from France, then her repayments were to be suspended until they were resumed. For the time being the payments were being made at the rate of 17,300 livres (about £3,000) per year, but at some time early in 1531 Montmorency, with Francis’s agreement, apparently promised an increase to 20,000 (£3,800). On 18 April Suffolk wrote to Montmorency to remind him of this promise, and was assured that the increase would take effect in the following financial year, it being too late to make the adjustment to current payments. 16 Negotiations continued, and at the end of July de la Barre, the Provost of Paris, sent the Bishop of Amiens to the Duchess ‘touching her dowry’, presumably to reassure her that it would be paid. This was not a regular diplomatic mission, and according to Chapuys the Bishop went straight to the Duchess’s lodgings, and then returned immediately to France, without paying his respects at the court. 17 There may have been other such private visits which have gone unrecorded. It was a sensitive issue, and one of vital concern to the Suffolks, so that the Duke kept up his contacts with Montmorency for that purpose. For that reason, Brandon was sent on various missions to France during these years, in which he no doubt combined official business with his own private concerns.
At New Year 1533 the Brandons as usual exchanged gifts with the King, although Mary was by then a sick woman. Nevertheless she kept up her intercessions for those who appealed to her for help, writing several time to Lord Lisle, the Governor of Calais, for places which were within his gift. The last such letter was written on 30 March in favour of one John Williams. It was written, as usual, by a secretary, but was signed in what the calendar notes as ‘a very shaky hand’. 18 On the whole she had more success with her pleas than the Duke did. Only those whose information was inadequate or outdated tended to appeal to him directly by this time. Admittedly the Earl of Cumberland was one who requested his intercession with the King, but the Duke thought it wise to pass the letter to Cromwell, whose influence with Henry was now markedly greater than his own. His relations with the Secretary were surprisingly good, perhaps more a sign of Cromwell’s tact than his own flexibility, and his dependants frequently appealed to Cromwell for help, with Brandon’s approval. When they clashed over patronage, the Duke was firm but apologetic, and this seems to have been acceptable to the chief minister. They occasionally hunted together, but were never personally close, and Suffolk reacted angrily in 1532 when Cromwell passed on to the King some slanderous rumours which were circulating about him. 19 Theirs was a working relationship because the minister knew perfectly well that it would take more than a few rumours to unseat the Duke from a relationship which went back before the beginning of the reign. On 1 June 1533 Anne Boleyn was crowned, and Suffolk was once again called upon to perform an uncongenial duty. He was High Steward and Constable for the day, and since the Duke of Norfolk was away on a diplomatic mission, he had the highlight pretty much to himself – after the Queen, that is, whom no effort was spared to make appear rather more than mortal. He presided over the Court of Claims which preceded the coronation, and over the table of peers at the subsequent banquet. 20 The Duchess did not appear, but given her state of health no one was surprised by that, no doubt to the Duke’s relief. The princess Mary (now the Lady Mary) also did not appear at the celebration of her mother’s rival, and that was not commented upon either, but several observers noted the absence of the Duchess of Norfolk, who in the absence of the French Queen should have led the peeresses. Suffolk, however, had one thing on his mind which was not connected with the day’s events, because before he departed on his mission the Duke of Norfolk had requested that he hand over his office of Earl Marshall. Only the King could effect such a change, and Henry accepted Norfolk’s case, requesting Suffolk to stand down in terms that could not be denied. He innocently declared himself pleased that Brandon had shown ‘zeal to nourish kindness and love’ with the senior duke, knowing perfectly well that he had no option. 21 The evidence suggests that Suffolk surrendered his position
with an ill grace, and that the change did nothing to increase the ‘kindness and love’ between them, as Norfolk was warned during June. The office conferred no status that the Duke did not already possess, and the fee was minimal, but it did stand at the head of the chivalric hierarchy in England, and of the heralds and Kings of Arms, and that conferred a prestige which Suffolk took seriously, hence his disgruntlement over his forced resignation.
During the last years of her life, Mary spent most of her time at Westhorpe, while her family steadily dwindled around her. Anne was married in 1525 and Mary in 1527 or 1528, and although they remained in sense dependent upon the Duke, their membership of the Duchess’s household ceased at that point. Frances was married in London in 1531, an event which tempted Mary out of her seclusion, and only fourteen-year-old Eleanor remained at home when she succumbed to her final illness. 22 In spite of her disillusionment over Henry’s treatment of Catherine, her affection for her brother was clearly undimmed. Several months earlier she had written to him as her ‘Most dearest and best beloved brother’.
I humbly commend myself to your grace … I have been very sick and ill at ease, for which I was fain to send for Master Peter the physician for to have holpen me of this disease which I have, howbeit I am rather worse than better, wherefore I trust surely to come to London with my Lord. For if I should tarry here I should never asperge the sickness [and] I would be glad to see your grace the which I do think long for to do. For I have been a great while out of your sight [which is] the greatest comfort to me that may be possible … 23
Whether she realised her ambition on that occasion is not known, nor whether it produced any amelioration in her condition. By May 1533 it was clearly too late for any such therapy. Early in the month the Duke made a hasty visit to Westhorpe to see her, but it was to be the last time that he would do so. Preoccupied with the coronation and its aftermath, and perhaps sceptical of the alarming reports emanating from Westhorpe, he did not appear again before she died on 25 June. As far as we know, only Eleanor and Henry were with her at the time, and we have no evidence of the details. 24 She had been in a fragile state for some time, but there is no indication that her condition was thought to be terminal. Nor do we know anything of the competence of the physicians who attended her, although they were presumably in the Duke’s employment. The Spanish Chronicle attributed her death to grief over Henry’s behaviour, ‘the sight of her brother leaving his wife brought on an illness of which she died’, but that was voice out of Catherine’s camp, willing to attribute every ill to Anne Boleyn, and need not be taken seriously. 25 Perhaps the most likely explanation is angina. In spite of her relative youth (she was thirty-eight) it was several years since she had cut a dash on the courtly scene, and her political opinions, although well known, were important only insofar as they influenced those of her husband. Henry seems to have been genuinely although briefly distressed, and the court went into official mourning, but no one else apart from her family was particularly concerned. A French envoy, writing to Francis I, reported her death on the 27th, and wrote again on the 30th, commenting that she was ‘much beloved in the country and by the common people of [London]’. 26 This no doubt had something to do with the generosity of her largesse, but was probably more on account of her well-known sympathy with Queen Catherine, who had a large popular following.
Mary’s body was embalmed, and lay in state in the chapel at Westhorpe for over three weeks before burial. Her passing bell had been heard just before eight o’clock on the morning of her death, but the rituals had to be carefully observed for one of her status, and the length of the delay was probably caused by the time which it took for a delegation to come from France. 27 Meanwhile a wax chandler had ‘sered and trammelled’ the body with spiced cloth, which was then sealed in a leaden box covered with black velvet and adorned with a cross of white damask. While it was still in the chapel the coffin was covered with an embroidered pall of blue velvet, many tapers burned day and night and a continuous vigil was kept by the members of her household. A detailed account of her funeral is preserved among the manuscripts of the College of Arms, which shows that all the preparations were complete by 20 July. 28 English heralds arrived from London to accompany the French pursuivants, and black gowns, hoods and trains had been issued to all the aristocratic participants. Neither the King nor the Duke were present, the chief mourner being her daughter Frances, who was escorted by her husband the Marquis of Dorset, and by her brother the Earl of Lincoln. Ladies Powis and Mounteagle were also present, Eleanor, and Catherine Willoughby the Duke’s ward who had been living in the house. The interment was to be in the abbey church at Bury St Edmunds, and for the journey thither the coffin was placed on a hearse draped in black velvet emblazoned with Mary’s arms, and covered with a pall of black cloth of gold, betokening the wealth of the deceased. On this lay Mary’s effigy, representing her as Queen of France, complete with robes of state, a gold crown and a golden sceptre as a symbol of her (supposed) power. It is not known whether this effigy was of wax or carved wood, and in any case it has long since disappeared, but it was presumably designed by a well-known artist of the time, possibly the King’s Sergeant Painter, Andrew Wright. 29 The hearse on its journey was drawn by six horses, trapped in black cloth, while over it was a canopy borne by four knights of the Duke’s affinity. Alongside it were more standard bearers carrying the insignia of the Brandon and Tudor families. The whole cortège was led by a hundred torch bearers, who were local country folk recruited for the occasion, given coarse blacks and few pence for their trouble, and who were followed by the clergy bearing the chapel cross. Next came the household staff, heralds and officials suitably mounted, followed by the hearse, and then the knights and nobles in attendance. After them came another hundred taper bearers, only in this case they were the Duke’s yeomen, which must have left the Duke, who remained at Ewelme, ‘but thinly attended’. The cortège was completed by the female mourners, led by the Marchioness of Dorset, the mounted ladies, two mourning wagons or coaches containing those unable or unwilling to ride, and Mary’s waiting women and other servants on foot. Along the way, we are told, others joined the procession, because Mary was well thought of in the county, and many wished to pay their respects. Representatives of neighbouring parishes met the procession at intervals, were given torches and money, and followed on behind. Bury St Edmunds was reached at about two o’clock in the afternoon, and the body was received by the abbot and monks of the abbey. 30 The coffin was placed on a catafalque before the high altar, and surrounded by the mourners in strict order of precedence. The dirge was then sung, and the French pursuivant commended the soul of the ‘right high excellent princess, and right Christian Queen’ to the prayers of the assembled company.
That completed the proceedings for that day, and everyone moved to the monastic refectory, where a supper had been ‘plenteously prepared’. There was food and drink for everyone, but the abbey could only accommodate so many guests, so whereas the nobles and officials were provided for, presumably the rest either went home or found such lodgings as might be available in the town. Eight women, twelve men, thirty yeomen and a number of clergy were appointed to watch about the corpse during the night, probably in shifts, and accommodation was no doubt provided for those, either within the abbey or nearby. Early the next morning breakfast was served, in the refectory for important visitors and elsewhere for the others, and the ceremonies were resumed at about seven o’clock. A requiem mass was sung, and the six leading mourners, the four Suffolk daughters, Catherine Willoughby and her mother, offered their palls of cloth of gold at the altar. The funeral oration was delivered by William Rugg, at that time Abbot of St Benet’s at Hulme in Norfolk, and soon (June 1536) to be Bishop of Norwich, who may well have been a client of Mary’s at an earlier stage in his career. 31 It was a long and wearying address, and so exhausted were Frances and Eleanor after listening to it that they were excused attendance at the actual inhumation. This, which took place within the abbey
church as became her rank, was attended by the other mourners and by all Mary’s officers, who broke their staves into the grave, as the custom was. On the following day, which was 23 July, the funeral party dispersed, the family returning to Westhorpe. Mary was long remembered in Suffolk as a gracious lady, and the memory was reinforced by the great dole which was distributed after the final funeral dinner on the 22nd, when meat and drink had been available to all, and every poor person had received four pennies. An alabaster monument was erected in the church, but was destroyed at the dissolution just a few years later, and the details and cost of its construction have also disappeared. 32 At that time the coffin was also removed to the neighbouring church of St Marys, where it still is. It has been twice opened, and fragments of her hair removed, but in 1784 it was reinterred in the chancel at St Mary’s, and the grave covered with the original slab of Petworth marble which had marked her altar tomb in the abbey church. Since the end of the eighteenth century she has been allowed to rest in peace.
While Mary still lay in state at Westhorpe, her brother and husband had solemnised another funeral service for her at Westminster Abbey. 33 It was presumably by her own wish that she had been buried at Bury St Edmunds, and neither the King nor the Duke had found it possible to be present, but she had been a great lady, with a high profile at court, and a proper tribute to her rank and virtue was called for. It took place on 10 and 11 July with all the ostentatious formality accorded to royalty. That had not been a feature of the ceremony at Bury, in spite of its magnificence, her royal status only being recognised in the presence of the French heralds. At Westminster the Earl of Essex led seven delegated mourners, with the Kings of Arms, heralds and pursuivants all performing their official duties, and the ceremony was the same except that it did not have an actual body to focus upon. Presumably the breaking of staves was also omitted as there would have been no grave, and in any case Mary’s officers were all in Suffolk at the time. The London obsequies were presumably paid for by the King, who observed that Mary was a queen worthy of such expenditure, but the Suffolk funeral expenses were met by the Duke. 34 In the absence of any household accounts we have no idea how much it cost, but in view of the quantities of food and drink consumed, to say nothing of the doles, and the amount of black cloth which needed to be provided, it must have run to many hundreds of pounds. 35 The Duke as usual was hard up and heavily in debt, and the termination of Mary’s dower payments must have been a real headache to him. Inevitably he stood down most of her household, but he still had two unmarried children and his ward to support, as well as the regular expenses of his own household. Fortunately Henry again came to the rescue, remitting £1,000 of his debt to the Crown, and granting him the fruits of the vacant see of Ely for the year 1533/34, which would have amounted to over £2,000. 36 Brandon was also capable of helping himself in this situation, and within three months he had remarried, his bride being his ward Catherine Willoughby, who had been originally purchased for his son. Henry, however, was only eleven, which would have meant a wait of three years, and Suffolk’s problems were pressing. Catherine was fourteen and apparently willing to become the next Duchess of Suffolk, so they were married on 7 September. Mary had been in her grave only seven weeks, and many disapproving observations were made, but the Duke urgently needed a source of revenue to replace that which his deceased wife had provided, and Catherine was well endowed both in Lincolnshire and in East Anglia.