Category Archives: Queens of England

Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon

Posted on by
Reply

huntingdon3bHenry Hastings, born in 1535, was the great grandson of  Margaret, Countess of Salisbury – the redoubtable lady who defied the executioner in the Tower of London , and as the very entertaining Yeoman of the Guard explained during my visit, “had it away on her toes.”  She was in her 80s at the time and about to be the victim of judicial murder.   He was descended from the Pole family so was a Plantagenet, Margaret was the niece of King Edward IV.  It was a bloodline that did rather mean that his family was prone to sudden death by beheading.  Both his maternal grandparents had suffered a similar fate and his two times great grandfather the Duke of Clarence was the chap who suffered an unfortunate end in a vat of malmsey.

 

Henry loyal to the Tudors and his country was a protestant with puritan tendencies having spent much of his childhood as companion to King Edward VI.  He was even married to the Duke of Northumberland’s daughter Catherine Dudley (making him a brother-in-law to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester).  Upon his father’s death he became the Third Earl of Huntingdon.

 

When Elizabeth was seriously ill in 1562 his name was given as a potential replacement.  It would have meant ignoring the rights of Lady Catherine Grey but his bloodline, his faith and, of course, his gender made his claim a powerful one.

 

His protestant sympathies were so strong that he asked Queen Elizabeth if he could go to France to support the Huguenots.  There was talk of him selling his estates to raise an army.  It is perhaps not surprising then, that as a possible heir to the English throne and a man of Protestant principle he was not one of Mary Queen of Scots admirers; he’d been invited to hear the evidence against Mary as presented by Moray in the form of the Casket Letters.  He was firmly against a marriage between Mary and the Duke of Norfolk in 1569, not least because it would have weakened his own position.

 

At this time the Earl of Shrewsbury, Mary Queen of Scots jailor, was ill and had been with the queen to take the waters in Buxton.  He had gone without Elizabeth’s permission.  Now, ordered back to Tutbury Mary was about to make the acquaintance of Huntingdon.  He was sent ostensibly to assist Shrewsbury to guard the queen against the northern earls who were planning to raise an army, march south and free the queen.  He arrived on the 19th of September.  Mary feared for her life and said as much in a letter to the French ambassador.  Shrewsbury must have agreed with Mary because he wrote back saying that his health was sufficient to guard his charge and that he had no desire to be replaced.  In the event Mary was conveyed to Coventry and out of reach of the Northern Earls via Ashby de La Zouche castle which belonged to Huntingdon.  The shared responsibility for the queen was not a happy alliance as letters in the National Archives demonstrate.

 

Huntingdon soon departed from his temporary role as joint custodian of the queen.  He soon found another occupation.  The threat of the Northern Earls loomed ever larger  in 1569 so it was decided that Huntingdon should be made lord-lieutenant of Leicestershire and Rutlandshire.  He was also created Lord Presedent of the North in 1672.  The following year he was one of the Duke of Norfolk’s judges when he was tried for the crime of treason.

 

His offices in the North grew and as a consequence it was he who represented Queen Elizabeth in a conference with the Scottish regent Moray following the Raid of Reidswire; he looked into the religious beliefs of the gentry of the north – no doubt in search of Catholic plotters- and was part of the force that gathered to repel the expected Spanish invasion.

 

In his spare time he wrote a family history, a poignant task given his lack of children.  He also invested in the early chemical industry buying land in Dorset with an alum and coppera mine, the manor of  Puddletown and part of the manor of Canford, which had previously belonged to Lord Mountjoy.  The two men became involved in a legal wrangle about who had the right to extract the minerals.  Mountjoy claimed that he had stipulated that he should retain the rights to extract the minerals.    The conflict was eventually resolved after many years.  The mines did indeed belong to Huntingdon but he had to pay Mountjoy’s son (the old lord had died by that time) £6000 in compensation.

 

Henry Hastings died in December 1595 and was buried in Ashby-de-la-Zouche.  His brother George became the Fourth Earl.

CNV00007

 

 

 

 

Kings and Queens

Posted on by
Reply
Detail from Ripon Cathedral.

Detail from Ripon Cathedral.

I still have the wooden ruler I was given as a child that lists all the rulers from 1066 onwards.  I shall be buying a modern version to give to my middle grand-daughter as she is currently undertaking a project on the kings and queens. I’m sure it will come in useful.

What else might she need if she is to know all that needs to be known about our assorted monarchs?  Well in addition to the royal family tree – I have two (one that’s been lurking in a cupboard since I left university and a second that came free with a newspaper), I’ll also be sending along a copy of the Kings and Queens of England & Scotland by Plantagenet Somerset Fry.  There’s also a Ladybird book (come to think of it I think I may have had that once upon a time).

However, the reason for this post is the rather fun mnemonic rhyme to help remember the monarchs in order….

Willie, Willie, Harry, Stee,
Harry, Dick, John, Harry Three,
One-To-Three Neds, Richard Two,
Harrys Four-Five-Six… then who?

Edwards Four-Five, Dick the Bad,
Henrys seven and eight, Ned Six (the lad),
Mary, Bessie, James you ken,
Then Charlie, Charlie, James again…

Will & Mary, Anne of gloria,
Georges ( 4 ), Will Four, Victoria,
Edward Seven next, and then
Came George the Fifth in 1910…

Ned the Eighth soon abdicated,
So George Six was coronated,
Then Number Two Elizabeth…
And that’s all, folks (until her death…)!!

 

I’m a bit sad that the Empress Matilda doesn’t get a look in or the Young King – Henry was crowned king of England by his father Henry II while he was still very much alive.  I suppose that would be rather complicating matters as indeed would Lady Jane Grey.  To find out more about some of the monarchs click the tab marked “Rulers” at the top of the page.

I have also discovered that there’s a sentence to help remember the Royal Houses:

No Plan Like Yours To Study History Wisely!

Norman, Plantagenet, Lancaster, York, Tudor, Stuart, Hanover, Windsor

How brilliant is that? I’d love to find out if there are any more helpful historical memory devices.

Sir Francis Knollys – (pronounced Knowles)

Posted on by
3

knollysSir Francis was born in Oxfordshire in 1511.  His father died when he was seven but he gained a position at court thanks to Henry VIII who showed him the same favour with which he’d regarded his father.  He is perhaps best known as Mary Queen of Scots gaoler but he appears at keys moments throughout much of the Tudor period.  For instance,  he was one of the gentlemen who met Anne of Cleves on her arrival in England; he was an MP; a soldier during the Rough Wooing; a friend to Princess Elizabeth and Robert Cecil; husband of  Catherine Carey (Elizabeth’s cousin via Mary Boleyn).

There is, of course, the possibility that Catherine Carey was not simply Elizabeth’s cousin but also her half-sister but there is insufficient evidence to draw any satisfactory conclusions.  It is however safe to say that Sir Francis was close to Elizabeth.  His wife was a good friend of the queen’s as well as being a relation.  So close was his relationship that Sir Francis was able to express his belief that keeping the Scottish queen in England was a disaster.

As a determined Protestant his career suffered a severe reverse upon the accession of Mary Tudor.  He was such a determined Protestant that he went to Germany rather than live under Catholic rule.

Unsurprisingly his career resumed once Elizabeth ascended the throne.  In addition to becoming a privy councillor he also resumed his parliamentary career.  He worked for the queen in Ireland and received jobs within the queen’s household such as Treasurer.  The image shows Sir Francis holding a white staff showing his role as officer in the queen’s household.

 

In May 1568 Mary Queen of Scots arrived in England.  Knollys was sent north to act as her gaoler.  His reputation as puritan made him naturally suspicious of the Scots queen.  However, her charisma soon won him over, though he never let down his guard while he had care of her in Carlisle Castle and later in Bolton Castle.  In fact he was so worried about security that he sent the plans of Bolton Castle and his security provision to Cecil for approval.  He taught the queen English and read the English Prayer Book with her as well as discussing his faith – a matter which caused Elizabeth to write a letter chastising his behaviour.

On January 20th 1569 Knollys received orders to take Mary to Tutbury Castle and hand the royal prisoner over the Earl of Shrewsbury who would take over Knollys’ role of gaoler.  Sir Francis remained with Mary until February when his wife died.

Sir Francis died in 1596 after a long and illustrious career as a politician and adviser to the Tudors.

 

 

Two men, two queens, one surname….and a girl.

Posted on by
Reply
Nicholas Throckmorton

Nicholas Throckmorton

Have you noticed the way that one name will repeat itself throughout a period of history.  The Norman period is littered with women called Matilda. Bizarrely the same is true, in the reign of Elizabeth I, of the name Throckmorton.  The two men are Nicholas and Francis Throckmorton; the two queens Elizabeth I of England and Mary Queen of Scots.

Nicholas Throckmorton was a Tudor courtier and loyal ambassador to Elizabeth as well as being Francis’s uncle.  Francis was a Catholic conspirator who plotted to assassinate Elizabeth and put Mary on the throne.

 

Nicholas Throckmorton was also Catherine Parr’s cousin so first met Elizabeth when both of them were in the Dowager Queen’s household.  Young Throckmorton navigated the rocky whirlpool of Tudor politics because of his Protestant sympathies and because he was able to become one of Edward VI’s advisors.  He went on to become and MP and undertreasurer at the mint which was at that time in the Tower of London.

 

He got to know the Tower much better during reign of Mary when his protestant ideas got him into trouble.  Eventually he went to France.

 

After Elizabeth’s accession his fortune’s changed once more and he found himself in France not this time as asylum seeker but as Elizabeth’s ambassador where he met Mary Queen of Scots.  It was he who helped arrange her journey back to Scotland after she’d been widowed.  In 1565 he was sent as ambassador to Scotland.  His task was to prevent Mary, by now a personal friend, from marrying Lord Darnley.  He was in Scotland once more when Mary was overthrown. He found himself in the predicament of irritating touchy Scottish lairds and annoying his famously tetchy queen.  It didn’t help that Elizabeth sent him one set of instructions while Cecil sent a different set of instructions.  He was probably relieved to return to England – where he leapt from the proverbial frying pan straight into the fire stoked by Mary Queen of Scots.

He became involved with the plan to marry Mary to the Duke of Norfolk in 1569.  This led to the Northern Earls Rebellion and to Throckmorton spending an uncomfortable few weeks in Windsor under arrest while Elizabeth fumed at Throckmorton’s stupidity.  He claimed that he thought that Elizabeth was in favour of the marriage.  He escaped trial and imprisonment but he wasn’t allowed any more key political roles and certainly wasn’t allowed anywhere near the Scottish queen.

On to the the second Throckmorton. In 1583 there was a plot to assassinate Elizabeth; at its heart a man called Throckmorton – Francis was Nicholas Throckmorton’s nephew.  He was also very Catholic.  Francis Throckmorton had been recruited by the Spanish to kill Elizabeth at the same time that Henry Duke of Guise invaded England (funded by the Spanish.)  It was the discovery of this plot that led to the Bond of Association which stated that it was sufficient to know of a plot to kill the queen or usurp the throne to be guilty of treason – as in, guilty by association.  Francis was tired and found guilty after making his confession which was gained by torture.  He was executed for treason.

Bess Raleigh nee Throckmorton

Bess Raleigh nee Throckmorton

…And the girl?  The girl is the other famous Tudor Throckmorton.  Bess Throckmorton was Nicholas Throckmorton’s daughter and Francis’s cousin but she is more usually remembered as the lady-in-waiting who fell in love with and married Sir Walter Raleigh much to Elizabeth’ s irritation.

Marguerite of France

Posted on by
Reply

200px-Marguerite_of_franceUsually when we think of Edward I’s queen we think of Eleanor of Castile.  However the grief-stricken widower married again.  Initially he planned to marry Philip III’s daughter Blanche but she was married elsewhere to the Duke of Austria in fact.  In her place, Philip IV offered the king his young half-sister Marguerite.  Edward was so disgruntled about the loss of his potential bride that he went to war, or so the story goes.  Five years later, following negotiations the sixty year old king married Marguerite.  It’s more likely that the protracted negotiations had to do with who would hold Gascony.  It was all that remained of the Angevin empire and Edward wished to keep hold of it but the French had other ideas.

However, the couple finally tied the knot in 1299.  There was a forty-year age difference.  They were married in Canterbury and then Edward hurried back to Scotland to pursue his military campaign but not before Marguerite became pregnant.  Her first child, Thomas, was born a year after her marriage in Brotherton in Yorkshire.

Marguerite – presumably fed up of being deserted in London by her groom- hastened north to join the king.  It was the start of a mutually loving relationship.  When her sister Blanche died, Edward tried to lighten her distress by having the whole court go into mourning.  There are also letters which show his concern for his young wife’s health. They had three children, one of whom was called Eleanor after Edward’s first queen which just goes to show how understanding Marguerite must have been.  She even attended masses and memorial services for Edward’s first wife.  She also became friends with her step-children and interceded with the king on more than one occasion on behalf of folk who’d irritated him. She even managed to soothe Edward’s anger against the man who hid the crown used by Robert Bruce.  No wonder her English subjects called her ‘The Pearl of France.”

Her desire to be loved and liked may have had some negative side effects though.  The king gave her wardships worth £4000 so that she could pay her debts, a quarter of which seems to have been with an Italian cloth merchant….so a well-dressed lady.  Whatever her methods she and her husband had a genuinely loving relationship and she steered a delicate course across the treacherous waters of Anglo-French relations which remained difficult during this period.

When Edward died, Marguerite proclaimed “When Edward died, all men died for me.”  She retreated to Marlborough Castle after the coronation of her step-son which was unfortunate.  Her niece Isabella – to be known in history as the ‘she-wolf of France’ arrived in England as Edward III’s new bride and at that time the barely adolescent Isabella could have done with a bit of loving help from her diplomatic and much-loved aunt.

Marguerite died just ten years after her king.

Berengaria of Navarre

Posted on by
1

berengaria_tombDaughter of Sancho the Wise of Navarre, Berengaria was related to the royalty of Spain, England and France.

She was brought from Navarre to Sicily by her future mother-in-law, Eleanor of Aquitaine, in 1190 to marry King Richard I of England.  She was in her twenties at the time.

Richard was in Sicily on his way to the Holy Land to join with the Third Crusade having taken the cross in 1187.  He had been prevented from fulfilling his vow because of a Plantagenet power struggle with his father King Henry II and younger brother Prince John over control of Aquitaine.  His ally in his rebellion against his father was the French King Philip but by the time Berengaria arrived on the scene relations were souring between the two monarchs, not least because Philip expected Richard to marry the french princess Alys, a bride-to-be of some twenty years.  Unfortunately, Philip’s half-sister was an unsuitable match in Richard’s eye – not least because she had been Henry II’s mistress, not that this stopped Philip from pocketing some 10,000 marks in compensation.

Berengaria accompanied Richard and Richard’s widowed sister Queen Joanna of Sicily to the Holy Land.  Before their ship could reach Outremer it was separated from the main fleet and the royal women were ship wrecked off Cyprus.  The ruler of Cyprus, Isaac Comnenus, whose only redeeming feature seems to have been the love he bore his daughter, attempted to take them hostage.  This resulted in Richard leading an attack on Cyprus and capturing the island in less than a month.  As well as demonstrating his prowess in battle, Richard also captured a useful staging post.  Berengaria and Richard were married in May 1191 at Limassol. Berengaria was also crowned at this time and Richard gave her dower rights to all territories in Gascony south of the River Garonne.  The marriage had been delayed thus far because of it being Lent.

Why marry Berengaria?  Richard was the Duke of Aquitaine before he became King of England.  An alliance with Navarre went some way to off setting the expanding power of Castille and Count Raymond of Toulouse who was undoubtedly a thorn in Richard’s side.  It could also be that Berengaria’s reputation was spotless, a direct contrast to Alys.  Chroniclers of the time were generous in their praise of a queen who never came to England.  William of Newburgh described her as prudent and beautiful.

Both royal women accompanied Richard to the Holy Land.  They were at the Siege of Acre and remained there while the crusaders pushed in land and it was from here that they sailed when Richard and Saladin agreed their truce in 1191.  Berengaria and Joanna sailed to Brindisi and from there they travelled to Rome while Richard travelled home a different route and found himself a captive of the Duke of Austria.

Following his release, Berengaria did not join her husband.  The estrangement between husband and wife was never fully reconciled.  Perhaps because Richard needed to secure his empire from the machinations of Philip of France or possibly because Berengaria’s father was now dead and her brother, Sancho VII, had succeeded to the throne.  The Navarre alliance served Richard well during his crusading years.  Certainly he’d never bothered to demand the two castles that were Berengaria’s dowry.  Now however, Richard set about gaining what the marriage treaty guaranteed.  He even involved Pope Innocent III. The couple remained childless and spent very little time in one another’s company.  As he lay dying he sent for his mother, not his wife. Berengaria did not attend Richard’s funeral and remained in a small castle near Angers -in effect a penniless princess having failed to provide Richard with an heir.

Berengaria now entered into a long struggle with King John for her dower lands which were all in France.  In addition to her own dower lands in Gascony she was supposed to receive Eleanor’s lands in England, Normandy and Poitou after Eleanor’s death.  John, once named Lackland, was not forthcoming.   Fortunately, her sister, Blanche of Champagne took in the widowed queen and later King Philip gave her the city of Le Mans to rule. It was only in 1214 that John said he would settle the claim. This was, in part, due to Magna Carta and the fact that the Pope had excommunicated him but he never did pay what was owed.  King Henry III settled Berengaria’s claim when he came to the throne.

Berengaria lived in Le Mans and ruled there from 1204 until her death in 1230.  She ruled well and with determination, even tackling corrupt clerics.  The Bishop of Le Man once closed the door of the cathedral in her face as she arrived for a Palm Sunday service.  She also founded the abbey of L’Epau