Charlie Fenton > Recent Status Updates

‘In May 1562, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had carefully examined all the evidence in the Grey/Seymour case, pronounced that there was no marriage between Lady Katherine and Edward Seymour. Instead the couple were found guilty of fornication. Edward Seymour was fined £15,000 for ‘seducing a virgin of the blood royal’, they were both sentenced to imprisonment during Her Majesty’s pleasure’

‘Bess had clearly felt affection for her late husband, the father of her children, but Sir William Cavendish had been twenty years her senior and had suffered from ill health for the last three or four years of his life... When St Loe entered her life, Bess could forget her problems for short periods and just be a woman. At forty, St Loe was only nine years older than Bess, physically fit and madly in love with her.

‘On 5 December 1560, just fifteen months after being crowned King of France, Francis died; he left young Mary a widow at just three days shy of eighteen. Francis was succeeded by his younger brother Charles, with his mother Catherine de Medici acting as regent. She became increasingly hostile towards the widowed queen, whose position at the French court was now less secure.’

‘Mary is remembered more for her failures than her successes... she deserves our respect. Against all the odds, she had claimed her throne, married the man of her choice and turned the religious wheel round by making England a Catholic country again. She was a woman in a man’s world. She had proved that a woman could be queen and rule a county, and as such had set a template for Elizabeth to follow.’

‘Elizabeth wrote from Hatfield to congratulate Mary. The half-sisters who had been so callously discarded by their half-brother set aside their differences to unite in a show of Tudor unity. They met at Wanstead on 3 August, riding together to Aldgate where they were greeted by cheering crowds. The half-sisters had much in common. Both had been declared bastards by their father, seen their mothers rejected’

‘When Frances and Henry Grey’s firstborn turned out to be a boy, the couple wasted no time in trying to arrange a marriage between him and Princess Elizabeth. Their hopes were dashed when their infant son died, and they went on to have three daughters: Jane, born in 1537; Katherine, born in 1538; and Mary, born in 1540. It was clear that the lack of a son was a massive disappointment.’

‘Queen Jane Seymour had always treated Elizabeth with kindness and affection on the few occasions she had been allowed to attend court, but there is no evidence that she was a mother figure to her stepdaughter. That role went to Lady Bryan’s replacement, Katherine Champernowne, a well-educated and affectionate governess who was appointed to the royal household in October 1536.’

‘Arthur Barlow approached Elizabeth and Ralph Leche with the proposition that Robert Barlow, his eldest son and heir, who would inherit all the Barlow estates, should become the husband of their third daughter, Bess... It is known that the marriage took place in the lifetime of Arthur Barlow, who died a few weeks later on 28 May 1543, at which time his son Robert was thirteen years and ten months old.‘

‘John and Elizabeth had one son and five daughters: James, born in 1526; Dorothy, whose birth date is unknown and who died young; Mary, born 1523; Jane, born 1524; Elizabeth, always known as Bess and born 1527; and Alice, born 1528. According to John Hardwick’s will, there may also have been another baby daughter.‘

‘she was a poor judge of character. Her choice of King Henry was disastrous, and by failing to conduct a proper investigation into his murder, she lost her throne. Her cosseted upbringing in France had left her ill-prepared for the intransigence of either the Scottish nobility or the Kirk. Both were questioning the divine right of her rule, but she lacked Elizabeth’s political astuteness.’

‘For those who argue that Mary had no advance knowledge of the conspiracy to murder her husband, the most difficult issue is to explain why she condoned a whitewash for Bothwell’s trial with no evidence being presented. All the early commentators accepted the view of the propaganda that she had been involved with him in an amorous attachment and wanted to avoid a proper investigation.’

‘My fundraising for The Silver Lining Appeal had risen a lot since February, and I’ve now raised over £13,000. The neuro-rehabilitation room is going to be called ‘Nicole’s suite’, which I’m over the moon about. The room will hopefully be used from summer 2008. If anyone reading this is unfortunate enough to have to use the room, I hope that it helps you recover.’

‘Four officials from the Tower of London came to talk to us. I tried on some armour and got to feel the crown jewels, quite literally! A Beefeater called Richard was really nice and funny. He had his uniform on and let me feel it. I felt the medals and the embroidery on his chest. He said, “You’re not feeling any more,” and I said, “I don’t want to!” I hope he wasn’t too offended!’

‘Mary seemed too distraught to take control. Although she wrote to Lennox promising justice for the king, she took no immediate action to set up an enquiry, and the Council’s efforts were half-hearted. A reward of £2,000 Scots was offered for information with ‘an honest yearly rent’ and a pardon to anyone giving evidence, but no one came forward.’

‘The king must have been disturbed, probably by those lighting the fuse and, with his valet, Taylor, had tried to escape... He and Taylor lowered themselves on the far side with a rope and chair, but the king seems to have fallen and cracked a rib. They ran through the south garden and orchard, but were accosted by Archibald Douglas and his henchmen’

‘There was no gunpowder on their clothing or evidence of strangulation. It was later established that one of the king’s ribs was broken, but that was the only sign of a struggle. Beside them, laid out in a row, was a chair, a piece of rope, a dagger, the king’s hand modestly covered his genitals. A backless velvet slipper, thought to have belonged to a conspirator, lay nearby.’

‘Although his absence seems to have been designed to imply doubt over the prince’s paternity, in reality he did not want the lesions and suppurating pustules over his face and body to be seen after another outbreak of his secondary syphilis. His affliction has been confirmed by scientific examination of his skull by Karl Pearson at the Royal College of Surgeons in London in 1928.’

‘if they were only seeking to murder Riccio, there were ample opportunities away from Edinburgh, and it was Morton’s original plan to seize him clandestinely in his quarters at Holyrood. Yet it seems that the king was no averse to the consequential death of the queen and her unborn child. By murdering Riccio in her presence, there was a realistic expectation of shock causing a miscarriage’

‘In September 1565, while trying to focus opposition against Moray, Mary was embarrassed by the king’s very public visits to bars and male brothels in Edinburgh. When she arrived to try to curb his drinking at an Edinburgh merchant’s, he was so abusive that she left in tears. A lady of the court became pregnant by him, and Randolph reported that he was unworthy to be Mary’s consort.’

‘This was the day that Mum told me that I hadn’t got long to live. When two of my nurses explained that I would never walk or see again, I was devastated... they asked me what I wanted to do. I replied, ‘Go shopping, but I’ll go when I’m better and can walk.’ It was then that they told me I had to do it now. That’s what I thought, ‘NO. I’m going to fight and I will prove everyone wrong.’’

‘he asked me to show him some stretches. So there I was, in the middle of his tiny room, demonstrating my gymnastic skills. I got the impression he thought that if my arm really hurt, I shouldn’t be able to stretch like that.’

This reminds me of when I was first diagnosed with my liver disease. I felt faint and sick every time I ate at lunch, but never any other time. It took them ages to take me seriously.

‘He came across as a man of culture, writing elegant verses to Mary on the qualities necessary for good government (no doubt in an effort to demonstrate that he was worthy of the Crown Matrimonial). If he had followed his own advice, all might have been well... On Mary’s instruction, the king’s name was given precedence over the hereditary sovereign on state documents and on coinage‘

‘she agreed to Darnley’s visit with its inevitable consequences. She seemed to believe that he would not agree to marry Mary while his mother was under her control, threatened with the loss of the family’s substantial English estates. That was to reckon without Margaret Douglas’s astute acceptance that the prospect of the Scottish and English thrones for her son was a prize worth any personal inconvenience’

Not a history book for once, this is rare! I read this book when I was 11, the same age Nicole was when she was diagnosed with cancer, and it had a huge impact on me. I just loved the way she loved life, she was so upbeat and just got on with things. I finally managed to find a copy (it is out of print now) and am reading it immediately.

‘Margaret was anxious about her husband’s continuing incarceration and declining health. Although she wrote to Elizabeth to seek better treatment for him, she received no reply. Under interrogation, Lennox had affirmed that his messengers sent to Scotland were seeking only the restoration of his estates. Yet the Lieutenant of the Tower wrote to Cecil of his ‘extreme passions’ at his imprisonment.’

‘Margaret Douglas was determined to promote Darnley’s suit to marry Mary... Margaret, who was in Yorkshire, plied Mary with the advantages of marriage to her long-legged son, which would combine their close claims to both the Scottish and English thrones. She even suggested that they should replace Elizabeth. Mary, however, was being guided by her Guise uncles, who had other ideas’

‘Soon after her marriage; Margaret Douglas found that she was pregnant. The Lennoxes first son Henry, Lord Darnley, was born at their London residence, the Palace of Stepney, in March 1545, but he died eight months later. Despite this great sadness, Margaret conceived again and a second son, also Henry, was born at Temple Newsam on 7 December 1546 and was thus four years younger than his future wife’

‘Born at Dumbarton on 21 September 1516, Lennox had faced a difficult upbringing. In 1526, his father, John Stewart, 3rd Earl of Lennox, with estates to the north of Glasgow, was killed while trying to assist the Dowager Queen Margaret to effect the escape of her son, the young James V, from the control of Angus, from whom she was now estranged.‘