21. Nichols (ed.), Chronicle of the Grey Friars, p. 91.
22. CSPV, Mary 1555–1558, VI (884).
23. CSPS, Elizabeth 1568–1579, II, p. 370.
24. Garrett, The Marian Exiles, p. 211.
25. Pierre Viret was born into a Catholic family in Switzerland. After attending university in Paris, Viret converted to Protestantism. He later began preaching, in the course of which he travelled to Geneva where he met John Calvin.
26. Garrett, The Marian Exiles, p. 211.
27. D. Constable (ed.), Letters of John Calvin compiled from the original manuscripts and edited with historical notes by Dr Jules Bonnet, II (Edinburgh, 1857), pp. 421–2.
28. Ibid.
29. J.R. Dasent (ed.), Acts of the Privy Council of England, New Series (London, 1890), p. 145.
30. This was the burning of John Rogers, who died at Smithfield.
31. Wriothesley, Chronicle, II, p. 133; Nichols (ed.), Chronicle of the Grey Friars, p. 97.
32. Camden, The Historie, p. 20.
33. As Weir highlights, Stafford had waited nine years following the death of Mary Boleyn before remarrying. Dorothy Stafford was a distant relative of his, and the couple would have three sons and two daughters together. See Weir, Mary Boleyn, p. 233.
34. Foxe, Acts and Monuments, p. 348.
35. Garrett, The Marian Exiles, p. 212.
36. Ibid.
37. Camden, The Historie, p. 175.
38. Garrett believes that the eldest son, Henry, is also unlikely to have been one of the five children in exile. See Garrett, The Marian Exiles, p. 213.
39. Katherine was married first to Sir Edward Burgh, and then to John Neville, Baron Latimer.
40. CSPV, Mary 1555–1558, VI (884).
41. Ibid.
42. Grindal was a protégé of Ascham’s, and died of the plague in 1548. Ascham succeeded him in the role of Elizabeth’s tutor, and he already had an excellent reputation for his scholarly abilities.
43. Cited in F. von Raumer, The Political History of England, During the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries, I (London, 1837), p. 141.
44. Cited in A.F. Pollard, Tudor Tracts 1532–1588 (New York, 1964), p. 334.
45. The beautifully embroidered book still survives, and is now in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
46. Camden, The Historie, p. 6.
47. The precise date of Katherine Parr and Thomas Seymour’s marriage is unknown, but it is likely to have been in May 1547.
48. Wriothesley, Chronicle, II, p. 103.
49. CSPS, Mary 1553, XI, p. 440.
50. Guildford and the Duke of Suffolk were both executed on Tower Hill, while Jane was beheaded within the relative privacy of the confines of the Tower of London. All three were laid to rest in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula within the Tower.
51. Wriothesley, Chronicle, II, p. 113.
52. Foxe, Acts and Monuments, p. 428.
53. These same rooms had been lavishly redecorated for Anne Boleyn’s coronation in 1533, which was the first time she occupied them.
54. CSPS, Mary 1554, XII, p. 13.
55. Wriothesley, Chronicle, II, p. 116.
56. Ibid. Woodstock had originally been a royal hunting lodge, but under Henry II it was transformed into a magnificent royal palace. By the reign of Mary I, however, the palace had fallen into disrepair. Today a single stone marks the site on which it once stood, and can be found in the grounds of Blenheim Palace.
57. Bedingfield had wholeheartedly supported Mary during the 1553 summer coup, and was well rewarded for his loyalty. He was made a Privy Councillor and granted an annual pension of £100 (£20,000). His family home was Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk, where his descendants have lived ever since.
58. CSPV, Mary 1555–1558, VI (884).
59. Ibid.
60. Children were often given the same name as their godparents, and Elizabeth Knollys would later become a favourite of Elizabeth’s. She was also the godmother of Henry Carey’s eldest son, John.
61. Cited in M.A.E. Wood, Letters of Royal and Illustrious Ladies, III (London, 1846), p. 280. Wood incorrectly dates this letter to 1553. Given that Katherine probably did not leave England until early in 1557, this cannot have been the case.
62. Most people were sceptical that the Queen really was pregnant, but Mary convinced herself that it was true.
63. Camden, The Historie, p. 8.
Chapter 3: Captive to the Charms of Lettice Knollys
1. CSPV, Mary 1555–1558, VI (884).
2. Camden, The Historie, p. 6.
3. J. Nichols, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth, I (London, 1823), p. 36.
4. The occasion was often marked with jousts and tournaments, at which the Queen distributed prizes to the participants.
5. CSPV, Mary 1555–1558, VI (1549).
6. J. Harington, Nugae Antiquae: Being a Miscellaneous Collection of Original Papers in Prose and Verse: Written in the Reigns of Henry VIII, Queen Mary, Elizabeth, King James, etc, II (London, 1779), p. 312.
7. J. Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, Relating Chiefly to Religion, and the Reformation of it … Under King Henry VIII, King Edward VI and Queen Mary I (Oxford, 1822), p. 10.
8. Camden, The Historie, p. 10.
9. CSPV, Mary 1555–1558, VI (884).
10. Ibid.
11. Foxe’s work served as an important piece of propaganda for the Elizabethan regime, and one on which they were able to capitalize.
12. E. Duffy, Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor (Yales, 2009), p. 82.
13. Garrett, The Marian Exiles, p. 212.
14. In a later letter to his wife, Francis asked Katherine to deliver his good wishes to Lady Stafford, who was a favourite at court.
15. This is the date on which Sir Francis Knollys was sworn into the Privy Council.
16. Anthony Hoskins suggests that the title of Hunsdon that Henry Carey was granted by Elizabeth I was significant. He suggests that this title may have referred to the royal residence of Hunsdon that was used as a palace for Henry VIII’s children, and that may have been where the Carey children were sent. Although this is a possibility, it is one that is not supported by any contemporary evidence.
17. G.B. Harrison (ed.), The Letters of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1935), pp. 82–3.
18. TNA LC 2/4/3, f. 53v.
19. Howard was Anne Boleyn’s cousin, and would later marry Henry Carey’s daughter, another Katherine Carey.
20. TNA LC 2/4/3, f. 53v.
21. Kate had joined Elizabeth’s household by October 1536, possibly through the auspices of Thomas Cromwell. By 1547 she had become Elizabeth’s governess, and was incredibly close to her charge.
22. Lawson (ed.), Gift Exchanges, p. 108.
23. Ibid., p. 115.
24. Anne was the daughter of Sir Thomas Morgan and Elizabeth Whitney. Her marriage to Henry Carey was a happy one that produced twelve children, but Henry was not a faithful husband. His lovers included a Venetian lady, Emilia Lanier. He also had illegitimate children.
25. Lansdowne MS 3, f. 191v-192.
26. T. Borman, Elizabeth’s Women: The Hidden Story of the Virgin Queen (London, 2009), p. 197.
27. Mary was certainly alive in 1566, but after that there is no trace of her in contemporary sources.
28. Borman, Elizabeth’s Women, p. 196.
29. Ibid., p. 191.
30. K. Bundesen, ‘“No other faction but my own”: Dynastic Politics and Elizabeth I’s Carey Cousins’, unpublished PhD thesis (University of Nottingham, 2008), p. 26.
31. CSPS, Elizabeth 1558–1567, I, p. 21.
32. The couple had two daughters, Lettice and Frances.
33. Lansdowne MS 62, f. 123.
34. E. Jenkins, Elizabeth and Leicester (London, 1961), p. 124.
35. Harington, Nugae Antiquae, p. 124.
36. See Borman, Elizabeth’s Women, p. 219.
37. Syon was granted to the Knollyses in May 1560 on the basis of a thirty-one-year lease, while Franc
is was also appointed Keeper of Syon for life.
38. Knollys, Papers relating to Mary Queen of Scots, pp. 65–6.
39. Ibid., p. 67.
40. Ibid., p. 63.
41. Wriothesley, Chronicle, II, p. 143; Camden, The Historie, p. 57.
42. Camden, The Historie, p. 17.
43. Nichols, Progresses, I, p. 43.
44. TNA PRO, E 101/429/3, f. 121.
45. Nichols, Progresses, I, p. 38.
46. Pollard, Tudor Tracts 1532–1588 (New York, 1964), p. 367.
47. CSPS, Elizabeth 1558–1567, I, p. 108.
48. Ferdinand and Charles were the sons of the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand I. Eric of Sweden was later deposed in 1568, due to insanity.
49. Camden, The Historie, p. 29.
50. C. Haigh (ed.), Elizabeth I (London and New York, 1988), p. 20.
51. CSPS, Elizabeth 1558–1567, I, p. 45.
52. CSPV, Elizabeth 1558–1580, VII (659).
53. CSPV, Elizabeth 1558–1580, VII (26).
54. Hastings hailed from Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, and was married to Anne Stafford. Anne was the daughter of Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, and Katherine Wydeville, the sister of Edward IV’s queen. The couple had eight children.
55. W. Bourchier Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereux Earls of Essex, I (London, 1853), p. 3.
56. Walter’s grandfather fought for Henry VIII at the Battle of Flodden in 1513, attended the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, journeyed to Gravelines to meet the Emperor Charles V the same year, and sat in judgement on the Duke of Buckingham at his trial for treason the following year. In such high favour with the King was he that when Henry’s daughter, Mary, was sent to Ludlow Castle at the beginning of 1525 to establish her own household, Walter’s grandfather was appointed her Steward. Later that year, on 22 August, he was honoured further when he was appointed Chief Justice of South Wales. He was married to Mary Grey, a daughter of Thomas Grey, first Marquess of Dorset (great-grandfather of Lady Jane Grey), and the couple had three sons and a daughter. Mary died on 22 February 1538, and the following year Walter remarried, taking as his second wife the daughter of Robert Garnish, Margaret. Margaret gave birth to a son and a daughter, providing further security for the Devereux line: Edward Devereux would marry Catherine Arden; the couple are ancestors of the present Viscount Hereford. Katherine Devereux married Sir James Baskerville.
57. B.A. Harrison, The Tower of London Prisoner Book: A Complete Chronology of the persons known to have been detained at their majesties’ pleasure, 1100–1941 (Leeds, 2004), p. 180.
58. Bourchier Devereux, Lives and Letters, I, p. 7. Richard was the second but eldest surviving son of Walter Devereux by Mary Grey.
59. The evidence for the place of Walter’s birth comes in the form of funeral charges that were laid out at the time of his death. It was here stated that his body was returned to ‘the castle of Carmarthen, where he was born’. See Devereux Papers, V, f. 22.
60. Cokayne, Complete Peerage, V, p. 329.
61. Edmund Tudor died of plague just three months before the birth of his son.
62. Elizabeth later married Sir John Vernon, and their daughter, Elizabeth, later became one of the Queen’s ladies. Anne married Sir Henry Clifford.
63. Cokayne says 13 October 1547. See Complete Peerage, V, p. 140.
64. The inscription on the tomb reads ‘Here lyeth the body of ye right honourable Sir Walter Devereux, of ye King’s most noble order of ye garter knight, Viscount Hereford, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, who deceased … and ye body of Lady Mary, his wife, daughter of ye Lord Thomas Marquess Dorset, who deceased ye xxii day of February, A.D. MLXXXVII. Here lyeth also ye body of Lady Margaret, his second wife, daughter of Robert Garnish of Kenton …’ Following Walter’s death his widow married William Willoughby of Parham. She was buried in Stowe church at her own request on 21 July 1599, so must have died shortly before.
65. Camden, The Historie, p. 80.
66. Devereux Papers, III (14).
67. Bourchier Devereux, Lives and Letters, I, p. 11.
68. In 1601, long after Walter’s death, his portrait was recorded in an inventory of Lettice’s household possessions, and prior to that it had been displayed at another of her homes. TNA LR 1/137, f. 80r.
69. Bourchier Devereux dates the marriage to either 1561 or 1562. See Lives and Letters, I, p. 8.
70. It is possible, too, that Walter’s mother, Dorothy, may have travelled from Lamphey to attend; at New Year 1562, Lady Devereux presented the Queen with ‘six handkerchiefs edged with gold’, and while this does not provide any clearer information about the date of Lettice’s wedding, it is indicative that her mother-in-law may have been in London in order to participate.
Chapter 4: The Goodliest Male Personage in England
1. Cited in S. Gristwood, Elizabeth and Leicester (London, 2007), p. 71.
2. In a letter to Burghley in 1587, Robert mentioned that his birthday was 24 June. It has been suggested that he was born in 1533, but 1532 is a more likely date.
3. Derek Wilson suggests that he may have been born at Halden in Kent. See D. Wilson, Sweet Robin: A Biography of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester 1533–1588 (London, 1981), p. 10.
4. Warwick Castle had undergone a string of owners, including Richard III.
5. Chandler (ed.), John Leland’s Itinerary, p. 461.
6. One of the ships that accompanied Frobisher’s third voyage in 1578 was called the Bear of Leycester, in honour of Robert.
7. E. Fenton (ed.), The Diaries of John Dee (Charlbury, 1998), p. 335.
8. S. Watkins, Elizabeth I and her World: In Public and in Private (London, 1998), p. 168; E. Goldring, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and the World of Elizabethan Art: Painting and Patronage at the Court of Elizabeth I (London, 2014), p. 3.
9. R. Strong, ‘Faces of a Favourite: Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and the Uses of Portraiture’, British Art Journal, 5:2 (2004), pp. 80–90; Goldring, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, p. 6.
10. Examples can be found in the National Portrait Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Parham House and the Wallace Collection, to name but a few.
11. This name was reportedly used in the last words of Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex, who was Robert Dudley’s enemy. Recorded by Robert Naunton, as Sussex was on his deathbed in 1583, he supposedly warned his friends to ‘beware of the Gypsy’ for ‘he will be too hard for you all, you know not the beast so well as I do’. See R. Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia (London, 1641), p. 19.
12. Camden, The Historie, p. 44.
13. Dudley Papers, XIII, f. 25; Adams (ed.), Household Accounts, p. 140.
14. Adams (ed.), Household Accounts, p. 85.
15. J. North (ed.), England’s Boy King: The Diary of Edward VI 1547–1553 (Welwyn Garden City, 2005), p. 128.
16. The rebellion was named after its leader, Robert Kett.
17. In 1552, Anne gave birth to a daughter who died. She herself died the same year, and despite two further marriages, Ambrose would never have children.
18. Cited in Goldring, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, p. 43.
19. The couple had no children, and following John’s death Anne would remarry, taking Sir Edward Unton as her second husband. However, she was later declared to be a lunatic, and was given over to the care of her son, Henry. She died in 1588.
20. For details of the wedding see North (ed.), England’s Boy King, p. 56.
21. Ibid.
22. Sir Francis Knollys’s stepfather, Sir Thomas Tresham, had been among those who the Duke of Northumberland had tried to rally to Jane’s cause. As a staunch Catholic, though, Sir Thomas had instead proclaimed Mary queen at Northampton.
23. Robert’s eldest brother, John, had already been tried alongside his father on 18 August.
24. J.G. Nichols (ed.), The Chronicle of Queen Jane and Two Years of Queen Mary, Camden Society 48 (London, 1850), p. 33.
25. Ibid., p. 35.
26. Ibid.
27. Wriothesley, Chronicle, II, pp. 106–7.
28. CSPS, Mary 1553, XI, p. 280.
29. The carving features the bear and ragged staff that the Dudleys adopted as their symbol, surrounded with a floral border that displays acorns for Robert, roses for Ambrose, gillyflowers for Guildford, and honeysuckle for Harry.
30. He was probably buried in the Church of St John the Baptist, Penshurst.
31. Jane Dudley died at Chelsea, either on 15 January (the date of her inquisition postmortem), or 22 January (the date on her tomb). She is buried at Chelsea Old Church, where her tomb still survives, although badly damaged.
32. Philip’s father, the Emperor Charles V, abdicated in favour of his son in January 1556.
33. Robert later recollected witnessing this sad incident. Harry’s date of birth is unknown; he was the youngest of the Dudley brothers, and I have estimated that he was probably born in around 1537 judging by the approximate dates of birth of his siblings.
34. It had in fact been a triple wedding, for besides Jane and Guildford and Katherine and Henry, Jane’s younger sister Katherine Grey had also been married. Her husband was Henry Herbert, heir of the Earl of Pembroke. However, following the accession of Mary I the marriage was annulled on the grounds of non-consummation.
35. Ascham became Elizabeth’s tutor in 1548 following the death of her former tutor, William Grindal. Prior to this he had taught Robert.
36. CSP Foreign, Elizabeth 1562, V (439).
37. Camden, The Historie, p. 32.
38. Ibid., p. 20.
39. See Adams (ed.), Household Accounts, for numerous examples of this.
40. See the Dudley Papers for examples.
41. See Adams (ed.), Household Accounts, for examples.
42. CSPS, Elizabeth 1558–1567, I, p. lx.
43. CSPD, Elizabeth, Addenda, p. 73.
44. This tale emerged in 1587, when a young man appeared at the Spanish court claiming to be the couple’s son. His identity has never been established, and he vanished from the records. That there was any truth to his tale is highly unlikely.
45. Lawson (ed.), Gift Exchanges, pp. 38, 48.
46. CSPS, Elizabeth 1558–1567, I, p. 38.
47. Ibid., I, p. 133.
48. Ibid., I, p. 112.
49. Ibid., I, p. 117.
50. Cited in Freedman, Poor Penelope, p. 12.
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