Lady Katherine Knollys

by Sarah-Beth Watkins

  And for Henry Carey, the perhaps illegitimate son of the dead King but at least the cousin of the new, times were changing. He moved into his new role in the political arena alongside Edward VI. When William Carey was alive, Henry had been granted the borough of Buckingham ‘in tail male’ - a grant that passed on to male heirs. In Weir’s book about his mother, she suggests that this is one reason why Henry could not have been the King’s. Entitlement could only pass down to legitimate heirs not bastard sons but as Henry was born in wedlock, regardless of whether he was the King’s, this grant would still have passed to him. Henry Carey was elected MP for Buckingham and was present at the first Parliament of Edward VI’s reign.

  Katherine also had something to celebrate in 1547. She had given birth to another son, Edward, the previous year and her husband, Francis, was now achieving knighthood. Not only did this mean Francis was on his way to great and better things, she could now title herself as Lady. As with Henry, Katherine’s brother, Francis had joined the new household of the young Prince Edward. He was sent North to Scotland with the English army and was knighted in the field at Roxborough by Edward Seymour, the now Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector and his commander-in-chief.

  King Edward’s reign was not a peaceful one. There was much social and political unrest, particularly in the area of religious reform. Cranmer was intent on making England a Protestant country and he had an ally in Edward Seymour. Cranmer pushed for change and Edward agreed in the most part to his ideas. The one who didn’t and wouldn’t refute her faith was Mary, her mother’s daughter in every way, devout and unyielding. Living at New Hall, Mary was continuing to hear mass and flouting Edward’s new rules. He was not amused. He may have been a boy King but he was still a King and Mary was being aggravatingly stubborn.

  Whilst Edward and Mary were butting heads over religion, the Lady Elizabeth was living with Henry’s last wife, Katherine Parr, the Dowager Queen, and was about to go through one of the most scandalous episodes of her life. Soon after her father’s death, Elizabeth had joined Katherine at her residence in Chelsea. By mid-April, their household was also joined by Thomas Seymour, newly created Lord Admiral and the Lord Protector’s brother and now Katherine’s new husband. Katherine had loved Thomas way before her marriage to the King and now that he was gone and the Seymour family were in power, she could marry for love. But Thomas didn’t have eyes just for his bride. He was more than a little enamoured with Elizabeth who was now a pert and attractive teenager.

  Seymour stole the key to Elizabeth’s bedchamber and used it to startle her in the early hours of the morning where he would pretend to dive at her leaving her shrieking and cowering in the corner of her bed. If she was up but not dressed, he became too familiar with her and would slap her buttocks whilst wearing nothing but his nightshirt. He stole kisses from her and flirted with her shamelessly whilst his wife, Katherine looked on. It is strange to think that Katherine would allow such behaviour. Perhaps she was afraid of losing Seymour’s affections, but her behaviour became stranger still when she held Elizabeth down while Seymour cut her dress to shreds one day whilst they were walking in the gardens.

  Katherine Parr was privy to Seymour’s attention to Elizabeth but warning bells were starting to ring. When she caught them together in what seemed to be an intimate embrace, she asked her charge to leave her household. How far Seymour had got with Elizabeth, we shall never know but in May 1548, Elizabeth was sent to live with her father’s gentleman, Sir Anthony Denny and his wife at Cheshunt. Still Katherine and Elizabeth stayed on good terms with letters exchanged between them frequently. In one Elizabeth wrote:

  Although your Highness’ letters be most joyful to me in absence, yet considering what pain it is to you to write, your Grace being so great with child and so sickly, your commendation were enough in my lord’s letter. I much rejoice…with my humble thanks, that your Grace wished me with you, till I were weary of that country. Your Highness were like to be cumbered if I should not depart till I were weary of being with you; although it were the worst soil in the world, your presence would make it pleasant.4

  All the signs were that Elizabeth had encouraged Thomas Seymour at least to a certain degree. Being a teenager and in her first flush of attraction, she fell for the dashing Admiral and was swayed by his larger than life personality but she was no fool. She was still the dead King’s daughter and as such acted with dignity in the days to come when her relationship with Thomas would come under close scrutiny.

  Katherine Parr died eight days after she gave birth and was buried at Sudeley. It may have given Thomas some pause for thought but it wasn’t long before he was dreaming up new ways to fulfil his ambitions. And this led him back to Elizabeth and the possibility of their marriage. He began to make enquiries as to Elizabeth’s finances - ever the romantic(!), Thomas wanted to make sure she was worth marrying.

  On 17th January 1549, Thomas Seymour was arrested and Elizabeth’s servants Thomas Parry and Kate Ashley soon followed him to the Tower. They told their interrogator, Sir Robert Tyrwhitt everything about Elizabeth’s conduct with Seymour. While shameful, it was not treasonous and Elizabeth was saved from further repercussions. Seymour, however, had gone too far. He had planned and plotted against the King, trying to usurp his rule to become more than he was ever likely to be. He was executed in early March and although it must have pained Elizabeth that the man she had been so attracted to was no more, she must also have sighed with relief to have not been tainted by his actions. It was an experience she would never forget, forging her resolve to remain a virgin although ‘almost all the men that she subsequently loved, or pretended to love, resembled Seymour’5.

  Elizabeth managed to get through this time in her life - that included rumours that she had given birth in secret to Seymour’s baby - and settled down for awhile in her new home with the Dennies. Her sister, Mary, however, was becoming a thorn in Edward’s side. For her part she felt that the country was sliding into religious turmoil and ever the fervent Catholic, Mary felt it her duty to uphold her faith. She chose to hold four masses a day which was excessive to say the least but also infuriated the Privy Council. She was sent a letter requesting that she observe his Majesty’s laws referring to the replacement of mass with a communion of the people and the use of the English Book of Common Prayer. Mary refused and wrote a furious reply in which she stated that the new laws were ‘a late law of your own making for the altering of matters of religion, which in my conscience is not worthy to have the name of law’. The lord protector and the council could not allow Mary to disobey the changes to religious observation and summoned her chaplain and officers to a meeting in which they hoped they could convince them to make Mary see sense. Mary was not impressed and she wrote again to the Lord Protector:

  My Lorde, I perceive by letters directed from you and other of the kings majesties Counsaile, to my Controller, my Chaplaine, and master Englefielde my servant, that ye will them upon their allea- gaunce to repaire immediately to you, wherin you give me evident cause to change my accustomed opinion of you all, tht is to say, to thinke you careful of my quietnesse and wel doings, considering how earnestly I wryte to you for the stay of two of them, and that not without very just cause. And as for master Englefield, as soone as he could have prepared himself, having his horses so farre off, although yee had not sent at this present, would have perfourmed your request. Bit indeed I am much deceived. For I had supposed ye would have waited and taken my letters in better part, if yee have received them; if not, to have tarried mine answere and I not to have found so little friendship, nor to have bene used so ungently at your hands in sending for him upon whose travial doth rest the only charge of my whole house, as I wryt to you lately, whose absence therefore shall be to me & my saide house no little displeasure, especially being so farre off. And besides all this, I doe greatly marvaile to see your wrytinge for him, and the other two, with suche extreame words of pearill to ensue towards them in case they did not come, and specially for m
y Controller, whose charge is so great, that he canne not sodainly be meete to take a journey, which words in mine opinion needed not (unless it were in some verye just and necessarye cause) to any of mine, who taketh myself subject to none of you all, not doubting but if the kings majestie my brother were of sufficient years to perceive this matter, and knew what lacke and incommoditie the absence of my said officer should be to my house, his grace would have bene so good Lorde to mee, as to have suffered him to remaine where his charge is. Notwithstanding I have willed him at this time to repaire to you, commanding him to returne foorthwith for my very necessities sake, and I have geven the like leave to my poore sicke prieste also, whose life I think undoubtedly shall be putte in hazard by the wet and colde painefull travaile of this journey. But for my parte I assure you all, that since the king my father, your late maister and verye good Lorde died I never tooke you for other than my frende; but in this it appeareth contrary. And sauving I thought verily that my former letters shoulde have discharged this matter, I woulde not have troubled myself with writing the same, not doubting but you doe consider that none of you all would have bene contented to have bene thus used at your inferiours hands, I meane to have hadde your officer, or any of your servants sent for by a force (as yee make it) knowing no just cause why. Wherefore I do not a little marvaile, that yee had not this remembraunce towards mee, who always hath willed and wished you as well to doe as myself, and both have and will pray for you all as heartily as for mine own soule to almightye God, whome I humblye beseech to illumine you with his holy spirite, to whose mercy also I am at a full point to commit my selfe, what so ever shall become of my body. And thus with my commendations I bid you all fare well. from my house at Kenninghal, the 27 of June

  Your frende to my power though you geve me contrary cause, Mary6

  Her attitude was something she would carry forward into her later years and surprisingly it was allowed to pass. The council had far more important things to worry about, including the situation in Scotland, and Mary was left to continue her religious devotions the way she insisted they should be kept. Elizabeth and Katherine, now Lady Knollys, had been raised together in the Protestant faith and were of one accord when it came to matters of religion. Where Elizabeth and Katherine welcomed reform, Mary wanted a return to Rome and the Catholic religion. Her faith was her lifeline. It was all she had had to sustain her throughout her childhood and her separation from her mother. Her piety, devotion and stubbornness set the tone for what was about to happen.

  Katherine and her brother, Henry, had begun to reap the benefits of their clouded births after King Henry’s death and the reign of Edward brought them closer than ever to court. But when the boy King died at just fifteen at Greenwich Palace on 6th July 1553, it heralded a change in England that no-one had foreseen - the reign of Bloody Mary - and for Katherine it would mean uprooting her family and fleeing abroad.

  Chapter Six

  Bloody Mary and the Exiles

  Mary fought for her right to the English throne and her fighting spirit was to transform her into a woman of power and vengeance; a woman that Katherine and her family would have to flee from. If there was ever even the hint of the acknowledgement of any blood between them, it would be swept aside with Mary’s religious fury.

  When King Edward knew he was dying, he wrote his ‘Devise for the Succession’ that disinherited his sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. He had hoped to pass the throne on to the male descendants of the Duchess of Suffolk, Frances Brandon, and failing that, to the male heirs of the Lady Jane Grey, but neither of them had any male children by the time of Edward’s demise. Edward rejected the idea that a woman could reign by herself but on his deathbed his cousin Lady Jane was named his heir. Jane never wanted such majesty thrust upon her. She was merely a pawn in another Tudor plot for power, but one that Mary could challenge. To make sure Jane would be crowned Queen, her family and political allies set out to arrest Mary, who, always the shrewd one, had been clever enough to flee to East Anglia where she had support to her claim to the throne.

  Mary wrote to the Privy Council from where she was holed up in Kenninghall, stating her case for her right to rule:

  My lords, we greet you well and have received sure advertisement that our dearest brother the King and late sovereign lord is departed to God. Marry, which news, how they be woeful unto our hearts, He wholly knoweth to whose will and pleasure we must and do humbly submit us and our will.

  But in this lamentable case, that is to wit now after his departure and death, concerning the Crown and governance of this Realm of England with the title of France and all things thereunto belonging, what has been provided by act of Parliament and the testament and last will of our death father – beside other circumstances advancing our right –the Realm know and all the world knoweth. The rolls and records appear by authority of the king our said father and the king our said brother and the subjects of this Realm, as we verily trust that there is no good true subject that is or can or will pretend to be ignorant hereof. And of our part, as God shall aid and strengthen us, we have ourselves caused and shall cause our right and title in this behalf to be published and proclaimed accordingly.

  And, albeit this manner being so weighty, the manner seemeth strange that our said brother, dying upon Thursday at night last past, we hitherto had no knowledge from you thereof. Yet we considered your wisdoms and prudence to be such that having eftsoon among you debated, pondered, and well weighed this present case with our estate and your estate, the commonwealth, and all your honours, we shall and may conceive great hope and trust and much assurance in your loyalty and service, and that you will like noble men work the best.

  Nevertheless, we are not ignorant of your consultations and provisions forcible, there with you assembled and prepared – by whom and to what end God and you know, and nature can but fear some evil. But be it that some consideration politic of some whatsoever reason hath hastily moved you thereto, yet doubt you not, my lords, we can take all these your doings in gracious part, being also right ready to remit and fully pardon the same freely, to eschew blood-shed and vengeance of those that can or will amend. Trusting also assuredly you will take and accept this grace and virtue in such good part as appeareth, and that we shall not be enforced to use the service of other our true subjects and friends which in this our just and rightful cause God, in whom our final affiance is, shall send us.

  Wherefore, my lords, we require you and charge you, for that our allegiance which you owe to God and us, that, for your honour and the surety of your persons, you employ your selves and forthwith upon receipt hereof cause our right and title to the Crown and government of this realm to be proclaimed in our City of London and such other places as to your wisdoms shall seem good and as to this case appertaineth, not failing hereof, as our very trust is in you. And this letter signed with our hand shall be your sufficient warrant.

  Given under our sign at our Manor of Kenninghall the 9th July 1553.1

  Her letter arrived on the same day as Jane was crowned and showed the Privy Council that she was serious about her right to succeed. The lords of the council were in agreement with her claim to the throne and poor Jane, Queen of only nine days, was taken to the Tower along with her husband who had plotted to bring Mary down. In the coming days, Jane would be charged with high treason along with her husband Lord Dudley and two of his brothers at their trial in the Guildhall of London. All were sentenced to death. The evidence against Jane was presented in no doubt and presented to her in her own writing; she had signed her name as ‘the Queen’. Though Jane had merely been a pawn in the Tudor game of politics, her life was now forfeit.

  Elizabeth too was in a precarious position and she walked a dangerous line with her half-sister. Mary was now coming into her own power, one she felt was God given and she would have her own way. The relationship between these two sisters was set to change. It started well, with Mary making public shows of affection towards her younger sister, but Elizabeth knew it was only
a matter of time before they would be at odds. Elizabeth had been brought up in the new religion, Mary stayed steadfast in her Catholic beliefs and it underlined the coming discord between them.

  In a private audience between the two sisters at Richmond Palace, Elizabeth tried to patch the widening rift between them by asking Mary for instruction in the Catholic faith and to give her books so that she may read up on the ways of the old religion, it never having been taught to her. This satisfied Mary that Elizabeth was doing something to redress her religious miseducation, as she saw it, and she asked her to accompany her to Mass. It was noted though that Elizabeth ‘tried to excuse herself, saying she was ill and complained loudly all the way to Church that her stomach ached, wearing a suffering air’2. Although Elizabeth would go some way to placate Mary, she would never be completely swayed by her or her beliefs.

  Mary was crowned the rightful Queen of England on 1st October 1553 at Westminster Abbey and Elizabeth attended alongside the former Queen, Anne of Cleves. Instead of Archbishop Cranmer, the man who had heralded in Protestant reform, officiating over the service, Mary chose the Bishop of Winchester, Stephen Gardiner. It was a statement of her religious intent. Mary was coming into power in her late thirties and she had waited a long time to reign. Although Edward had tried to quash her religious practices, she was still a devout Catholic and she meant for England to reunite with Rome and to leave aside the Protestant reforms that her father had started and her brother continued.

  Elizabeth was still trying to appease Mary but it galled her. She had probably heard by now that Mary was also discussing her behind her back, referring to her as a heretic and a bastard and reviving an old rumour that Elizabeth was in fact the daughter of Mark Smeaton. Mary said these things behind closed doors but as always gossip leaked out and Elizabeth knew her proximity to her sister was perilous. She asked to be able to withdraw from court but Mary refused to let her go.