Susan Higginbotham's Blog: History Refreshed by Susan HIgginbotham, page 19

Myths About Lady Jane Grey's and Guildford Dudley's Executions

On February 12, 1554, Lady Jane Grey was executed on Tower Green, shortly after her husband, Guildford Dudley, was executed on Tower Hill. The tragic deaths of the young people have spawned countless books and paintings, several films–and a number of myths. Here are some of them:

1. Philip of Spain, Queen Mary's fiancé, insisted upon Lady Jane's execution before he would marry the queen.

Philip's supposed insistence upon Jane's death before he would wed Mary has often been used in novels and in the film Lady Jane to depict Mary as a pathetic, aging hag so desperate for love that she would sacrifice a young girl's life to keep from losing a prospective husband. Mary's council did indeed urge the queen to execute Jane, and Simon Renard, the imperial ambassador, was clearly pleased at her decision to do so. But there is no evidence that Philip or his father, the Emperor Charles, demanded Jane's death as a precondition to marriage or indeed that they even had a chance to do so, given the short period of time between the collapse of Wyatt's rebellion (the uprising which sparked the decision to execute Jane and Guildford, who had been sentenced to death the previous year) on February 7 and the executions on February 12. Indeed, the decision to execute the couple appears to have been taken before the rebellion had even ended: Renard, writing to the emperor on Thursday, February 8, to report the collapse of the rebellion, believed that Jane and Guildford's executions had been ordered for the previous Tuesday—February 6—but did not know whether they had been carried out. Renard's letter to Charles on February 13 mentions Jane's and Guildford's deaths the day before almost offhandedly: "Since then it has been discovered that 400 or 500 gentlemen and others had a share in the plot, so the prisons will not suffice to hold them all. Yesterday Courtenay, chief of the conspiracy according to Wyatt, was committed to the Tower, and the Lady Elizabeth set out to come hither. She is expected to-morrow with an escort of 700 or 800 horse, and it is believed that she will soon be sent to the Tower, where Jane of Suffolk was yesterday executed, whilst her husband, Guildford, suffered in public. To-day 30 soldiers, men of some standing, were executed as an example to the people."

Mary may or may not have been reluctant to execute Jane and Guildford, but she was certainly capable of resisting imperial pressure, as her refusal to execute her sister Elizabeth despite Renard's urgings shows.

2.  Queen Mary offered to spare Jane's life if she would convert to Catholicism.

Mary did send a priest, John Feckenham, to persuade Jane to accept the Catholic faith before she died, and gave her a three-day reprieve from execution while he attempted to convert her. Mary's interest, however, was in saving Jane's soul, not her life. As Giovanni Commendone, a papal official who was on hand for the events of 1553, related, "Once sentence was passed, it was sent to her a theologian of high repute who should try to persuade her and free her from that superstition in which she had grown up, so that when dying her body, the soul would not be lost." One can speculate as to what might have happened had Feckenham succeeded in winning Jane's conversion, of course, but little indicates that Mary, who had executed the Duke of Northumberland the previous August despite his own dramatic conversion to Catholicism, was offering any spiritual plea-bargains. (Incidentally, Jane did allow Feckenham to accompany her to the scaffold, where she took leave of him affectionately and told him "that during those few days she was more bored by him than frightened by the shadow of death.")

3. Jane refused to write to her mother before her death.

Jane wrote messages to her father and to her sister Katherine before her death, but no message to Frances survives, prompting many to cite this omission on Jane's part as proof of Frances's shortcomings as a mother. In fact, Michelangelo Florio, who had served as Jane's tutor in Italian, stated in Historia de la vita e de la morte … Signora Giovanna Graia that Jane wrote to Frances before her death. It  may simply be that the letter to Frances was lost or destroyed, particularly if it was purely of a personal, and not religious, nature.

On a related note, Jane is said to have written two messages to her father, one of which appears in her prayer book, the other of which is a letter which begins "Father, although it hath pleased God to hasten my death by you, by whom my life should rather have been lengthened . . . " The prayer book, of course, survives in the British Library, but as Eric Ives in his book on Lady Jane Grey has noted, the original of the letter does not. It first appeared in the 1570 edition of John Foxe's Book of Martyrs. As Ives points out, the style of the two writings differs considerably: Jane addresses her father, the Duke of Suffolk, in the unquestionably authentic prayer book as "Your grace," whereas the letter begins abruptly, "Father." Ives also notes that the letter refers to the duke's imprisonment (he was brought to the Tower on February 10) and questions why Jane would need to write to her father twice within a short period of time. Thus, there is good reason to doubt the authenticity of the letter.

4. Guildford Dudley wept copiously on his way to the scaffold and at his execution.

Guildford Dudley has been portrayed in both nonfiction and in most historical novels as sniveling his way to the scaffold, his undignified  behavior being contrasted to that of his calm, self-possessed wife. In fact, the one contemporary account of his death indicates that while walking to the scaffold without a priest but surrounded by well-wishers, he conducted himself with quiet dignity. On the scaffold, he simply made a short, unrecorded speech and prayed a great deal, without losing control of his emotions.

The monday, being the xijth of Februarie, about ten of the clocke, ther went out of the Tower to the scaffolde on Tower hill, the lorde Guilforde Dudley, sone to the late duke of Northumberland, husbande to the lady Jane Grey, daughter to the duke of Suffolke, who at his going out tooke by the hande sir Anthony Browne, maister John Throgmorton, and many other gentyllmen, praying them to praie for him; and without the bullwarke Offeley the sheryve receyved him and brought him to the scaffolde, where, after a small declaration, having no gostlye father with him, he kneeled downe and said his praiers; then holding upp his eyes and handes to God many tymes; and at last, after he had desyred the people to pray for him, he laide himselfe along, and his hedd upon the block, which was at one stroke of the axe taken from him.

5. Jane's faithful old servant, Nurse Ellen, attended her at her death.

Jane was indeed accompanied to the scaffold by two gentlewomen, identified by the Tower chronicler as Mistress Elizabeth Tylney and "Mistress Eleyn," but the notion that Mistress Ellen was her childhood nurse is a modern invention. Exactly who Mistress Ellen was, unfortunately, is unknown: Leanda de Lisle suggests that "Ellen" might be a variant of "Allan" and that Mistress Eleyn might have been part of the Fitzalan family.

6. Jane was pregnant when she died.

Thomas Chaloner, writing after Mary I's death, wrote in an elegy (as translated by Dr. J. Stephan Edwards) that Mary "was not stirred by [Jane's] youth nor fortitude, nor by nearness of blood, nor (so holy) by pregnancy." As Edwards notes, there is no other evidence that Jane was pregnant at the time of her death; indeed, since she had not been with Guildford since July 1553, her pregnancy would have been far advanced in February 1554 and is highly unlikely to have escaped notice. (On a related note, the episode in the film Lady Jane where Guildford and Jane enjoy a night of love-making the evening before their deaths is entirely fictitious; indeed, Jane is on record as having declined to have a farewell visit with Guildford on the ground that it would only distress them both.) Something about young women and the Tower seems to have stirred otherwise sensible men to flights of fancy: Renard, reporting on February 17 that Mary's sister Elizabeth was on her way to the Tower, insisted that the future Virgin Queen was known to be pregnant.

Henry VIII's Other Niece: Eleanor Clifford, Countess of Cumberland

Main Gate, Skipton Castle

Of Henry VIII's three nieces—Margaret, Countess of Lennox, Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, and Eleanor, Countess of Cumberland, the last was the shortest-lived and probably the least known. Eleanor was the younger daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and his wife Mary, known as the French Queen because of her previous marriage to Louis XII.

Eleanor was born sometime between 1518 and 1521. S. J. Gunn has speculated that she might have been named for Eleanor, Queen of Portugal and later Queen of France, who was the Emperor Charles V's older sister. Erin Sadlack has suggested that she might have been born in late 1520 or 1521, after Henry VIII met Charles V at Gravelines. According to Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, who wrote a history of her family in the seventeenth century, Eleanor was around twenty-seven or twenty-eight when she died in 1547.

In 1533, Eleanor had the sad duty of attending the funeral of her mother, where Frances Grey, Eleanor's older sister, who was then the Marchioness of Dorset, served as the chief mourner. Present at the funeral was Henry, Lord Clifford, Eleanor's future husband, who was the heir to Henry Clifford, first Earl of Cumberland.

Eleanor was married in 1535 to Henry, who had been born in around 1517. According to Lady Anne Clifford, the couple were married at Suffolk Place, the Duke of Suffolk's home in Southwark, in the presence of Eleanor's uncle, Henry VIII.  An Act of Parliament concerning Lady Eleanor's jointure was passed in February 1536. So pleased was the Earl of Cumberland to acquire a royal daughter-in-law, Lady Anne writes, he built an octagonal tower  and a great gallery at Skipton Castle for her "more magnificent entertainment." Despite the splendid arrangements at Skipton, Henry and Eleanor seem to have resided mainly at Brougham Castle until he succeeded to his father's earldom.

In 1536, Eleanor served as chief mourner at Catherine of Aragon's funeral. It seems odd that her older sister Frances was not called upon for this duty; perhaps Henry thought that his cast-off wife did not rate the higher-ranking sister, or perhaps Frances, who had been married in 1533 and whose first two children died young, was pregnant with one of these children or was recovering from the birth of one of them. Neither sister seems to have been closely connected with the current queen, Anne Boleyn, perhaps because of their late mother's strong dislike for the king's marriage to her.

In October 1536, Eleanor had a terrifying experience. During the Pilgrimage of Grace, she was staying with her young son and two of her sisters-in-law at Bolton Priory. The commons, besieging the Earl of Cumberland's stronghold at Skipton Castle, threatened to capture them and, if the castle was not yielded, "to violate and enforce them with knaves unto my Lord's great discomfort." Instead, Christopher Aske, brother of the rebel Robert Aske and a cousin and receiver to the Earl of Cumberland, enlisted the aid of the vicar of Skipton, a groom, and a boy and led the would-be captives over the moors at night to the safety of Skipton Castle. Eleanor's husband, meanwhile, defended Carlisle against a force of rebels.

The siege of Skipton Castle lasted from October 21 or 22 to October 27, when the rebels abandoned the effort. They were preparing to march on Doncaster when news of the truce at Pontefract reached them. On November 7, 1536, Eleanor's worried father wrote to the Earl of Cumberland, "And forasmuch as  I understand my daughter was of late in some daunger by reason of the rebels in your partes: I hartely pray you my lord in eschewing any further danger or peril ye will send her unto me hither if yee thinck yee may so doe by any surety possible, and here I trust she shall be out of danger."

Following this high drama, Eleanor appears to have lived a quiet life, well away from court. She is not mentioned as being present at Prince Edward's christening. Nor does she appear as one of the ladies at Jane Seymour's funeral in 1537 or in the list of ladies who greeted Anne of Cleves in 1539-40, although her sister Frances was present on both occasions and her father and stepmother were prominent in welcoming Anne of Cleves. Perhaps Eleanor was in ill health or pregnant; at some point the Duke of Suffolk wrote to the Earl of Cumberland, "And understanding that my daughter Clifforde cann never have her good health at Riche Abbey, I desire you my lord that you would be contented that your sonne my lord Clifford and my said daughter may have your castle at Brome [Brougham] as they have had afore tyme where they may be and contynue for such season as they shall thincke most convenyent for the more confirmation of both their healths, wherein you shall doe me and them great pleasure." On December 20 in an unspecified year, Suffolk, having heard from Eleanor's husband that he was planning to go to London, wrote to the Earl of Cumberland that he was content to learn that Eleanor would remain with her father-in-law until the holidays had passed. If this was written in December 1539, as its editor has suggested, Eleanor was presumably not expected to be on hand to meet Anne of Cleves, who arrived in early January.

Sometime in 1540, Eleanor gave birth to her only child who would live to adulthood, Margaret. Her first son, Henry, had died when he was two or three, and her second son, Charles, also died young. Eleanor's father-in-law died in 1542, and his son succeeded to his earldom, making Eleanor the new Countess of Cumberland. Eleanor suffered another loss when her father died in 1545. In his will, he left Frances and Eleanor two hundred pounds' worth of plate each.

As with Henry's earlier queens, there is no indication that Eleanor was part of Anne of Cleves' or Katherine Howard's households. She and her sister Frances, however, were both listed in 1546 as one of the "ladies ordinary" attendant upon Katherine Parr who were accustomed to be lodged within the king's house.

In his Treatise of Three Conversions of England, published in 1604, Robert Parsons claimed that Anne Askew was accused of finding "meanes to enter with the principall of the land, namely with queene Catherine Parre herselfe, and with his neeces the daughters of the duke of Suffolke." As other ladies in the queen's household were connected with Anne Askew, it is possible that Eleanor and Frances were indeed approached by her, although nothing indicates whether either sister was receptive.

Henry VIII died in January 1547, leaving a will which provided that if his children Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth died without heirs, the crown would pass to his niece Frances's heirs, then to Eleanor's. Eleanor did not live to see the repercussions this will would have for her Grey nieces or for her own daughter, for she died the same year as her uncle the king. The following letter, written, sadly, on Valentine's Day, may belong to the last year of her life. It is inscribed, "To my mooste lovynge Lorde and husband, the Erle of Combreland."

Dere hart, after my moste hartye commendatyons, thys shalbe to sertify yow that sense yowr departure frome me, I have byn very seke & att thys present my watter ys very redd, wherby I suppos I have the jaundes and the aygew both, for I have none abyde to meate & I have suche payns in my syde & towardes my bak as I had att Brauham, wher ytt be gane with me furst. Wher for I desyre yow to help me to a physyssyon and that thys berer may brynge hyim with hyim, for now in the begynning I trust I may have gud remedy, & the longer ytt ys delayed the worse ytt wylbe. Also my sister Powys [Anne Grey, a daughter of the Duke of Suffolk from a previous marriage] ys comyd to me and ys very desyrous to se yow, whiche I trust shalbe the sooner at this tyme, and thus Jhesu send hus both healthe. Att my lodge at Carleton, the xiiith day of February.

And, dere hart, I pray yow send for Doctor Stephyns, for he knowyth best my complexon for such cawsys.

By yowr assuryd loufyng wyff, Elenor Cumbarland.

According to Anne Clifford, Eleanor, at the age of around twenty-seven or twenty-eight, died at Brougham Castle toward the end of November 1547, although the Complete Peerage gives her date of death, without citing a source, as September 27, 1547. The countess was buried at Holy Trinity Church at Skipton.

Lady Anne Clifford tells us this colorful story of the earl's reaction to his wife's death:

[H]e fell into an extream sickness, of which he was at length laid out for a dead man, upon a table, & covered with a hearse of velvet; but some of his men that were then very carefull about him perceiveing some little signs of life in him, did apply hot cordials inwardly & outwardly unto him, which brought him to life again, & so, after he was laid into his bed again, he was fain for 4 or 5 weeks after to such the milk out of a woman's breast and only to live on that food; and after to drink asses milk, and live on that 3 or 4 months longer.

History does not record the identity of the woman who suckled the earl. According to Lady Anne Clifford, he seldom came to court after his first wife's death. In addition to being interested in alchemy and chemistry, she tells us, "he had an excellent library, both of written hand books and printed books. To which he was exceedingly addicted, especially towards his latter end, when he had given over living at the court & at London."

Henry Clifford turned his attention away from his books and alchemy in 1554 long enough to remarry. His second wife was Anne, the daughter of William, third Baron Dacre of Gilsland. She bore him two sons, George and Francis, who became the third and fourth earls of Cumberland. Before this, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, had approached the earl about a marriage between Northumberland's fourth son, Guildford Dudley, and Margaret Clifford. The Earl of Cumberland appointed men to negotiate a marriage settlement, but Guildford instead made a fatal marriage to Lady Jane Grey while Margaret was ultimately betrothed to Northumberland's younger brother, Andrew. The latter marriage never took place, however, as Andrew was imprisoned for his role in the attempt to divert the succession from Mary Tudor. Margaret Clifford instead married Henry Stanley, Lord Strange, the future Earl of Derby, in 1555, in the presence of Mary I and Philip. Though the marriage produced four sons, it broke down, and the couple eventually separated. Margaret, dangerously close to the throne after the demise of her Grey cousins, was later accused of attempting to employ astrology to divine the date of Elizabeth I's death and her choice of an heir; as a result, she spent several years under house arrest. She died at Clerkenwell in 1596. Margaret's will can be found here (N.B. I do not endorse the premise of this site, which is devoted to proving that the Earl of Oxford was the author of Shakespeare's plays).

Sources:

Dulcie Ashdown, Tudor Cousins: Rivals for the Throne. Gloucestershire, Sutton Publishing, 2000.

M. L. Bush, The Pilgrimage of Grace: A Study of the Rebel Armies of October 1536. Manchester University Press, 1996.

A. G. Dickens, ed., Clifford Letters of the Sixteenth Century. Durham and London, Surtees Society, 1962.

S. J. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, c. 1484–1545. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988.

R. W. Hoyle, "Letters of the Cliffords, Lords Clifford and Earls of Cumberland, c. 1500–c. 1565." London, Camden Miscellany XXXI, 1992.

Barbara J. Harris, English Aristocratic Women, 1450–1550. Oxford University Press, 2002.

Louis A. Knafla, 'Stanley, Henry, fourth earl of Derby (1531–1593)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article..., accessed 4 Feb 2012]

Leanda de Lisle, The Sisters Who Would Be Queen. New York: Ballantine Books, 2008.

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII.

Erin Sadlack, The French Queen's Letters. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Richard T. Spence, 'Clifford, Henry, second earl of Cumberland (1517–1570)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article..., accessed 4 Feb 2012]

 

The Funeral of Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland

Either on January 15, 1555 (the date in her inquisition postmortem), or January 22, 1555 (the date on her tomb), Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland, died.  My piece about her will can be found here.  She was buried on February 1, 1555.

The duchess's cause of death is unrecorded, although experiencing the deaths of her husband and two of her sons within the span of a year and a half, plus the loss of her wealth and status, can have hardly helped her physical well-being. Whether Jane suffered from poor health in the years before her death is unclear.  A 1548 letter in which her husband asked that the surgeon of Boulogne be allowed to remain with a woman who was in danger of losing her leg refers not to Jane herself, as stated in some older sources, but to another lady. On the other hand, her husband John Dudley, then the Earl of Warwick, wrote early in Edward VI's reign that "my wyfe hath hadd herr Fytt agayne more extremer then she hadd any tyme yet," which could suggest that Jane had bouts of ill health, but since the earl then goes on to say that Lady Clinton had been ill and that he himself had "escap[ed] the Fytt w[hi]c[h] I dyd loke for yester daye,"  perhaps Jane's illness was simply a passing malady that had affected the whole household.

The duchess died at Chelsea, where she had been allowed to live after her husband's execution. Although in her will she asked that her debts be paid and money given to the poor instead of "any pompe to be shewed upon my wreched carkes," she was buried with some style. As Henry Machyn, who recorded details of numerous aristocratic funerals at the time, noted:

[The j day of February was buried the duchess of Northumberland at Chelsea where she lived, with a goodly herse of wax and pensils, and escocheons, two baners] of armes, and iiij [banners of images, and] mony mornars, and with ij haroldes of armes. Ther was a mageste and the valans, and vj dosen of torchys and ij whyt branchys, and alle the chyrche hangyd with blake and armes, and a canepe borne over her to the chyrche.

Jane's tomb at Chelsea Old Church still exists; a brass of Jane and her five daughters (the two who survived her and the three who died young) can be seen here. An accompanying brass, presumably of Jane's husband and sons, has disappeared. The church suffered heavy damage during the Blitz; Jane, a resilient woman, would no doubt have been pleased at the survival of her tomb.

The Deaths of a Duke and a Duchess

On January 22, 1552, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, uncle and former Protector to Edward VI, was executed on Tower Hill. Somerset was a complex man, neither the "Good Duke" of one stereotype nor the greedy megalomaniac of another, but he was probably out of his element as Protector and had a knack for alienating his fellow councilors through his abrasive style. He does seem to have been quite popular, however, among the common people, many of whom flocked to his execution and dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood for mementoes. The evening before his death, Somerset wrote these lines in an almanac: 

Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom

Put thy trust in the Lord with all thy heart

Be not wise in thine own conceit, but fear the Lord and flee from evil

 From the Tower, the day before my death

E. Somerset

Somerset's widow, Anne, had been imprisoned in the Tower at the same time as the duke, in October 1551, and remained there as a prisoner until Mary I entered London in 1553. The duke was buried at the Chapel of Peter ad Vincula between Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. On August 22, 1553, he was joined there in death by John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.

John Dudley's widow, Jane (one of the heroines of Her Highness, the Traitor) died on either January 15, 1555 (the date mentioned in her postmortem inquisition)  or January 22, 1555 (the date mentioned on her tomb), at Chelsea. I rather hope it was the latter date, for her sons received royal pardons that day, and it would be nice to think that she lived long enough to know of this. Since the death of her husband, whom she loved dearly and had known since she was about three, she had worked tirelessly on behalf of her imprisoned sons, first to free them and then to obtain pardons for them. She left a long, rambling will, written in her own hand, which because it was composed without benefit of legal counsel is much more revealing of the testator's personality than many such documents.  In it, she warned, "And whoever dothe trust to this transitorie worlde as I dyd may happen have an overthrowe as I hadd."

Another Year, Another Search Terms Post

It's been a while since we've done search terms here. Apologies to those of you who follow me on Facebook; you'll have seen the first one there:

romance novel about an earl that becomes a panther

He pulled her tightly to him and kissed her, smoldering kisses that lingered on her skin and made her thrill with longing. "One day," he whispered, "I'll bring you home the biggest, tastiest deer you've ever seen."

the duke did not discuss his feelings with the duchess because he

He was out carousing with his panther buddy.

john dudley bad execution

Good executions are always to be preferred.

beheading of duchess ——- gone wrong

See what I mean?

of is the weather coming-of-age higginbottom they are making for your

Somewhere in here is a kernel of meaning, but it's an awfully small one.

stained glass with henry vii edward i edward ii and no richard iii

No Richard III? Does the Richard III Society know about this?

homer simpson builds westminster abbey

Yes, but Ned Flanders gets all of the credit.

did edward 11 have a dog

If he had, it might have spared him a lot of problems.

which monarch kept the corpse of an unsuitable friend for weeks edward 11

See, this is where the dog could have come in handy.

who was king henry viii

Some fat royal dude who had a lot of wives.

Jacquetta Woodpile

First they accuse the poor woman of witchcraft, then they screw up her last name.

higginbotham is such an ugly last name

Well, it could be worse. I could have been named Woodpile.

richard lll hotel proprietor

It's true. The Battle of Bosworth was just a grand charade so he could throw off the cares of kingship and pursue his lifelong dream of going into the hospitality industry

happy new terms

The only type of terms to have.

The Wedding that Beget a Dynasty

On January 18, 1486, Henry VII married Elizabeth of York at Westminster Abbey. The wedding was conducted by Thomas Bouchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had crowned three kings–Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII–and who had also crowned two queen consorts, Elizabeth Woodville and Anne Neville.

Little is known about the ceremony, but the union itself was celebrated in a lengthy Latin epithalamium  (a poem in honor of a bride and bridegroom) by Giovanni Gigli, the papal collector for England and a future Bishop of Worcester.  In her Memoirs of the Queens of Henry VIII, and His Mother, Elizabeth of York, Agnes Strickland included translations of a few stanzas, some of which appear below:

Hail, ever honoured and auspicious day,

When in blest wedlock to a mighty king—

To Henry—bright Elizabeth is joined,

Fairest of Edward's offspring, she alone

Pleased this illustrious spouse.

***

So here the most illustrious maid of York,

Deficient nor in virtue, nor descent

Most beautiful in form, whose matchless face

Adorned with most enchanting sweetness shines;

Her parents called her name Elizabeth,

And she, their first-born, should of right succeed

Her mighty sire. Her title will be yours

If you unite this princess to yourself

In wedlock's holy bond.

***

Oh! my beloved, my hope, my only bliss,

Why then defer my joy? Fairest of kings,

Whence your delay to light our bridal torch?

Our noble house contains two persons now,

But one in mind, in equal love the same.

Oh! my illustrious spouse, give o'er delay,

Your sad Elizabeth entreats—and you

Will not deny Elizabeth's request,

For we were plighted in a solemn pact,

Signed long ago by your own royal hand.

***

How oft with needle, when denied the pen,

Has she on canvass traced the blessed name

Of Henry, or expressed it with her loom

In silken threads, or 'broidered it in gold;

And now she seeks the fanes and hallowed shrines

Of deities propitious to her suit.

Imploring them to shorten her suspense,

That she may in auspicious moment know

The holy name of bride.

***

Your hymeneal torches now unite,

And keep them ever pure. Oh! royal maid,

Put on your regal robes in loveliness.

A thousand fair attendants round you wait,

Of various ranks, with different offices,

To deck your beauteous form; lo, this delights

To smooth with ivory comb your golden hair,

And that to curl and braid each shining tress,

And wreath the sparkling jewels round your head,

Twining your locks with gems. This one shall clasp

The radiant necklace framed in fretted gold

About your snowy neck, while that unfolds

The robes that glow with gold and purple dye,

And fits the ornaments, with patient skill,

To your unrivalled limbs; and here shall shine

The costly treasures from the Orient sands,

The sapphire, azure gem, that emulates

Heaven's lofty arch, shall gleam, and softly there

The verdant emerald shed its greenest light,

And fiery carbuncle flash forth rosy rays

From the pure gold.

[Not bad for a churchman, eh?]

Excerpts from Her Highness, the Traitor

My forthcoming novel, Her Highness, the Traitor, is to be published on June 1, 2012. The novel is told by Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland, and Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk (though neither is a duchess when the novel opens). Here are a couple of excerpts from the early part of the novel, one per duchess:

Jane

I was not born to high estate. My father, Edward Guildford, was only a knight—and he was not even that when I was born, but a mere squire, albeit one high in the young king's favor. It was owing to this royal esteem that one chilly day in January 1512, my father strode into our hall at Halden in Kent with a black-haired boy in tow. "This is John Dudley, Mouse," Father said, using the pet name I had been given to distinguish me from my stepmother, Joan, whose name was sufficiently close to mine as to cause confusion sometimes. "He is to be my ward—that is, in my care—now that his father is dead and his mother's remarried. He'll be staying here a long time."

John, who was seven years of age to my three (almost four, as I liked to point out), executed a respectful bow, but did not match my stepmother's welcoming smile. "You look cold, John," my stepmother said then, her voice lacking its natural warmth. "Why don't you sit by the fire?"

It was an order rather than a suggestion, and the boy said, "Yes, mistress," and obeyed. His voice was not a Kentish one, even I at my young age could tell.

"He seems very ill mannered," my stepmother said when the boy was out of earshot.

"He's coming among strangers, and he's tired. He's a London boy, don't forget, not used to riding." My father chuckled. "Stared at my horse as if he were at the menagerie at the Tower. I had him take the reins for a time while coming here, though, and he did quite well. He's sharp."

"Aye, like his father. And look where that got him, speaking of the Tower."

"Where's that, Mama?" I could not resist asking. "What tower?"

"Never you mind," said my stepmother briskly as my father gave her what I had begun to recognize as a meaningful look. I was a quiet child, which meant adults often said interesting things in my presence they might have avoided saying in front of a more talkative girl, but sometimes to my disappointment they remembered themselves. Pitching her voice in a manner that informed me that future comments would not be welcome, she said to my father, "How much does he know of all that, by the way?"

"Most all, I fear. Some of the neighbors talked before they stopped speaking to the family altogether, and he figured out the rest for himself. He's sharp, as I said."

"Oh." My stepmother's voice softened. "Poor lad." She glanced at me. "Jane, why don't you join Master Dudley by the fire?"

I obeyed. John was sitting on a bench and staring into the flames. Shy as I was, I was being brought up to converse properly, as became a well-bred young lady. "Hello," I said brightly.

John looked at me with apparent reluctance, though in my opinion, I was at least more interesting than the fire, crackle as it might. "They called you 'Mouse' just now," he said with the air of one feeling bound to say something. "That's a strange name."

"That's just what they call me here. My real name is Jane." I paused. "Jane and John. They sound almost alike."

John grunted.

"I have my own pony," I went on, undaunted. How I had forgotten to mention this to John immediately I had no idea, for there was no creature I loved more than my new pony, which I was just learning to ride. I'd tried my best to let everyone in Kent know of my new acquisition. "Father said you don't know how to ride yet."

"No. Why should I? I'm from London."

I did know something about London. Father was often at the king's court there. But I didn't know all that much. I contemplated this apparently horseless place for a time before asking, "How do you go places there? Walk?"

The boy gave me a pitying look for my ignorance. "Just for short distances. People do ride, especially if they're coming in or out of the country, but if you're traveling from one part of London to another, it's best to take a boat down the Thames."

"Really?"

"My father used to take me all of the time before he died."

"My mother's dead," I offered companionably. "She died the same day I was born." (I thought at the time only that this was rather an interesting coincidence.) "They say she got sick. What did your father die of?"

"They cut off his head."

I stared at him in bewilderment. I vaguely knew that men who did wrong things could get hanged, though I had never seen such a dreadful sight. But cutting a man's head off? "Like a chicken?"

"Yes."

I placed my hands on my neck and determined that losing one's head would not be an easy accomplishment. "But why?"

"Mouse," said my father, putting his hand on my shoulder and looking at John apologetically. "That's enough questions for now. Your mother needs you to help her with—well, she needs you to help her with something."

"Yes, Father," I said, but I could not resist looking back at the boy as I scurried away. I had good reason to look back, after all; without knowing it, I had met my husband.

Frances

If I must say so myself, I sew a shirt beautifully. On many a New Year's Day, I had presented my creations to my uncle King Henry, who confided to me once that they excelled his first queen's handiwork, and she was a capital shirt maker. I also made smocks, which graced the forms of both the ladies Mary and Elizabeth. I did not neglect to keep my own family well supplied with these garments, and I was hard at work on a shirt for Harry when he joined me in my chamber later that evening. "I am doing something new with the embroidery this time. See?"

"Lovely," Harry agreed. "So what did you think? Were you pleased to see our Jane getting on so well in the queen's household?"

"It appears that Jane has become very fond of the queen." I sighed slightly.

"So what is wrong with that?"

What was wrong with it, I longed to say, was that I wanted her to love me. "Nothing, of course. I just wish she paid the same respect to me as she did the queen."

"When has she been insolent toward you?"

"Never in so many words. Well, not at all, really. She is a good girl. But—"

"Collaborating with the queen when she gets older! Did you hear that? I say, this has opened up a world of opportunity for our Jane."

"I just hope it doesn't give her an inflated idea of herself," I ventured. "Modesty is an accomplishment in itself."

"Well, of course." My husband yawned.

I continued to work on my husband's shirt, my thoughts not on my stitches but on my first child, my little Henry, born when I was still just sixteen. What a sweet baby he had been! But he had lived only six months, and at seventeen, I had watched as he was laid in his tiny grave. I had been too drained from days of watching him fade away to cry. Harry had stood beside me, weeping openly, and his hateful mother had stood there, too. She had let it be known I was a burden on her son, with the large retinue he insisted I have as a duke's daughter. This mother of several healthy grown sons had stared at the little coffin dispassionately, plainly thinking I was proving even worse of a bargain than she thought. I could not even bear her Harry a healthy male child.

My husband and I had been too young to know how to offer each other the comfort we each needed. After our little boy was buried, he had turned to his books and to his gambling and to his life at court, and I had turned to my relations and friends, whom I had visited for weeks on end. Somehow, though, we had come together often enough for me to conceive a second child, who had lived only hours. But whatever God's plan had been in depriving me of my first two babes, he seemed to have changed it with the birth of my third, for Jane and her sisters after her had been thriving infants, gulping their nurse's milk and protesting vigorously against the indignity of being swaddled.

Yet I could not stop thinking about my lost children—especially about my son. It was foolish, I knew, for he had died so young that I had no way of knowing what sort of boy he would have become, but I pictured him as an affectionate, kind young man who would have never scorned my ignorance and who would have written to me regularly from his place at court. I pictured him much like my younger half brothers, who were nearly as learned as my Jane but with a taste for archery and tennis, as well. Or perhaps Henry might have been like the lads of Jane Dudley, Countess of Warwick. The countess had lost several of her boys, two as young children and one during the siege of Boulogne three years before, but five had survived: handsome sons who outshone their plain little mother in every respect but who never treated her as an embarrassment.

My little Henry would have proudly worn my shirts, I thought as I sighed and turned my attention to my work.

 

Henry VIII: The King Who Had Six Wives and Four Eyes

Today I went to the library and dragged home the first volume of The Inventory of King Henry VIII. Transcribed by Philip Ward and edited by David Starkey, this is the inventory of Henry's goods that was made after his death. It's a very thick, heavy, and expensive book, and it's fascinating!

One thing that I learned from this book was Henry owned spectacles. Lots of spectacles, with, of course, cases to place them in when they were not gracing the royal visage. Not only did the king own spectacles, he possessed those magnifying glasses that one moves across a page to see the text better. No wonder poor Katherine Howard carried on with Thomas Culpeper–she probably got tired of conversations like this:

Henry: "Honey, where are my spectacles?"

Katherine: "I don't know. Can you remember where you last saw them?"

Henry: "If I could, I wouldn't be asking you."

Katherine: "Well, maybe they're over there on the table by that little prayer book."

Henry: "What prayer book?"

Katherine: "That one."

Henry: "How can I see the prayer book without my spectacles?"

Katherine: "Well, if you can't see without them, you should keep them on."

Henry: "I don't need them except to read."

Katherine: "Oh, Lady Rochford? Can you help the king find his spectacles? Master Culpeper and I will go search in the other room."

Anyway, here are a few of Henry's spectacular spectacles and other optical accessories:

Item one glasse to lay vppon a Boke trymmed at bothe theends with silver and gilt.

Item one like glasse trymmed with silver white.

Item a grene stone to reade with all garnysshed with siluer guilt [sic].

Item twoo Spectacle cases of Siluer gilte with spectacles Siluer gilte enameled.

Item a Spectacle case siluer white withowte Spectacles.

Item a Spectacle case of Morisco worke.

Item a spectacle case syluer gilte flagon wise with spectacles in yt.

Item a Spectacle case of lether with a pair of spectacles in it.

Item a Spectacle case of lether like a booke harnessed with syluer and spectacles  in it.

Item xv Cases of Leather for Spectacles whereof three furnished.

Item one brode glasse to loke vppon a boke garnished with gold weying iiii oz. di.

Item a Spectacle case of golde engraven with the Armes of England with twoo spectacles.

Item a boke of gold enameled with the kinges Armes and Dyuers conclusyons of Astronomy furnished with Spectacles.

(Incidentally, when I typed up this list, I had to resort to my own "glass to lay upon a book," albeit without the gilt trimming. It took me five minutes to find it.)

A New Year's Gift to the Duke of Somerset

On January 2, 1549, William, Lord Paget sent an unusual gift to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset (shown in the portrait here), who was acting as Protector for his nephew Edward VI. Paget, who had been a trusted adviser to Henry VIII and had played a leading role in making Somerset Protector, was in the habit of speaking frankly to the duke; a few days before, on Christmas day, Paget wrote a letter to Somerset in which he stated that he believed that the duke was mistakenly trying to please all men and was lax in his administration of justice. Paget wrote in his January 2 letter, the spelling of which I've modernized:

Because the determination to renew gifts of the new year was sudden I could not prepare such a New Year's gift for your grace as the fashion of the world required me to present to a personage of your estate, and yet considering the favor of your grace to be special towards me, and my love the reciprocal towards you, me thought it best to send your grace though no rich gift yet a token of my heart which wishes both this and all other years hereafter happiness and luck unto you. My token is this schedule here enclosed, wherein as in a glass if your grace will daily look, and by it you read you shall so well apparel yourself as each man shall delight to behold you. I pray your grace to accept this token in good part, which very hearty love and great carefulness of your grace's well doings hath moved me to send unto your grace to whom I wish as well as I do mine own soul.

From Westminster etc., W. P.

The Schedule

Deliberate maturely in all things. Execute quickly the deliberations. Do justice without respect. Make assured and staid wise men ministers under you. Maintain the ministers in their offices. Punish the disobedient according to their deserts. In the king's causes give commission in the king's name. Reward the king's worthy servants liberally and quickly. Give your own to your own, and the king's to the king's frankly. Dispatch suitors shortly. Be affable to the good, and stern to the evil. Follow advice in council. Take fee or reward of the king only. Keep your ministers about you uncorrupt. Thus God will prosper you, the king favour you, and all men love you.

W. P.

How sorely Somerset needed to follow this advice would be proven that October, when a group of councilors, disillusioned with the duke after the violent rebellions of that summer, staged a coup against the Protector. Somerset would spend the New Year of 1550 as a prisoner in the Tower.

Sources:

Barrett L. Beer and Sybil M. Jack, "The Letters of William, Lord Paget of Beaudesert, 1547–63." Camden Miscellany vol. XXV, Fourth Series, Volume 13, 1974.

Barrett L. Beer, 'Seymour, Edward, duke of Somerset (c.1500–1552)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article..., accessed 31 Dec 2011]

Sybil M. Jack, 'Paget, William, first Baron Paget (1505/6–1563)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article..., accessed 31 Dec 2011]

My Favorite Reads of 2011, and Books to Look For in 2012

Happy New Year! I wanted to end the year by listing (in no particular order) some of my favorite reads of 2011. Most of these weren't books that appeared in 2011, just books I read in 2011.

Nonfiction:

My Thoughts Be Bloody: The Bitter Rivalry That Led to the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Nora Titone

The Rise and Fall of Thomas Cromwell by John Schofield

Antony and Cleopatra by Adrian Goldsworthy

Blood on the Moon: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln by Edward Steers Jr.

Fiction:

Jane Seymour by Frances Clark

Rivals in the Tudor Court by D. L. Bogdan

The Lost Crown by Sarah Miller

The Secret Diary of a Princess by Melanie Clegg

And here are some of the books I'm looking forward to in 2012. (Yes, the list is pretty Tudor-heavy. So shoot me.)

Nonfiction:

The Maid and the Queen: The Secret History of Joan of Arc by Nancy Goldstone

Bessie Blount: The King's Mistress by Elizabeth Norton

Jane Seymour by Kelly Hart

The Tudors: History of a Dynasty by David Loades

The Plantagenets by Dan Jones

Thomas Wyatt by Susan Brigdan

Our Man in Rome: Henry VIII and His Renaissance Ambassador by Catherine Fletcher

Heretic Queen: Elizabeth I and the Wars of Religion by Susan Ronald

Wicked Women of Tudor England: Queens, Aristocrats, Commoners by Retha Warnicke

Fiction:

At the Mercy of the Queen by Anne Barnhill

At the King's Pleasure by Kate Emerson

The Sister Queens by Sophe Perinot

A Dangerous Inheritance by Alison Weir

Four Sisters, All Queens by Sherry Jones

The Sumerton Women by D.L. Bogdan

The Secret Keeper by Sandra Byrd

(Need I say I'm looking forward to my own book, Her Highness, the Traitor?)

Anyway, I hope it's a great 2012 for all of you!