Katherine of York

Posted on April 12, 2023 by JuliaH

Katherine was one of Elizabeth of York’s younger sisters. Her parents were Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. When her father died in 1483 she was not yet four years of age but like her older siblings found herself in sanctuary at Westminster and declared illegitimate under the terms of Titulus Regius which accepted Bishop Stillington’s declaration that Edward was pre-contracted in marriage to Lady Eleanor Talbot (Butler) prior to his secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville.

Eventually Elizabeth Woodville came to terms with Richard III and her daughters returned to their nursery or to court. Richard promised that he would provide for his brother’s children but the marriage of an illegitimate daughter of a king would never be as sparkling as that of a princess.

However, in 1485 Fortune’s wheel took a downward turn for Richard on the battlefield at Bosworth and Henry Tudor became king. He had sworn to marry Katherine’s sister Elizabeth, and with no sign of the two sons of Edward IV, Titulus Regius was revoked and an order was issued for all copies to be destroyed. Katherine was once again a Plantagenet princess. Her care and education lay in the hands of her sister Elizabeth who married Henry uniting the houses of York and Lancaster but her marriage was in her brother-in-law’s gift.

Katherine and her sisters were valuable pawns in the marriage game. it was suggested at one time that she marry the Duke of Ross but nothing came of the proposal. It was essential so far as Henry was concerned that the princesses were either married out of the country to countries sympathetic to Henry Tudor or else they should be married to men he trusted at home. Henry trusted precious few people – which isn’t surprising given the number of rebellions he had to deal with once he became king.

In 1495, Henry thought he had found just the man – William Courtenay, heir to the Earl of Devon. She was packed off to Tiverton where she became a mother in 1496. In 1497 her husband rose further in royal favour when he helped to defeat Perkin Warbeck, a royal pretender. Two more children followed, a daughter Margaret and another son named Edward. Catherine could often be found at court with her sister and she took an active part in royal events including the betrothal celebrations of her niece Margaret Tudor to James IV of Scotland.

Unfortunately Courtenay’s favour was not to last. He was implicated in the Duke of Suffolk’s rebellion in 1502 and found himself incarcerated in the Tower – although evidence was lacking. Henry VII swiftly confiscated all his goods leaving Katherine and her three children dependent on Elizabeth of York, but at least they were still free and Courtney did not suffer a traitor’s death. His main problem was that he was married to a Plantagenet princess and Henry VII simply didn’t trust that he wouldn’t make an attempt on the throne. Poor Katherine faced difficult times which were compounded by the death of her youngest son while she was with Elizabeth. Without the funds to pay for Edward’s funeral, Katherine was reliant upon her sister’s kindness for the burial of the little boy and for her mourning robes.

The following year, it was Katherine who led the mourners to Westminster where Elizabeth of York was buried. The queen had died as a result of complications following childbirth. Katherine had lost the sister to whom she was closest and the source by which she was able to live. Now she had to turn to her father-in-law for help and to her young nephew Prince Henry who was fond of his aunt.

After Henry VII’s death, Katherine’s life changed for the better. She was welcome at court, her husband was finally freed from his prison and Katherine was granted estates by which the couple could live, although she had to sign away her rights to her share of the earldom of March. When Courtenay died in 1511, Katherine took a vow of celibacy so that no new husband could be found for her. She also set about ensuring that her son, Henry Courtenay, who was now ten years of age should inherit his father’s title. In 1512 she arranged for her daughter Margaret to marry the heir of the Earl of Worcester.

She came rarely to court after that but she did become Mary Tudor’s godmother in 1516. She did not know that her Plantagenet bloodline would send Fortune’s wheel turning once more when her nephew Henry VIII attempted to divorce his wife Katherine of Aragon. Her son Henry Courtenay would be executed for corresponding with another cousin, Cardinal Reginald Pole. Her grandson Edward Courtenay would spend time in prison and because of his involvement in Wyatt’s Rebellion, which sought to topple Mary Tudor, be exiled from the country.

Katherine died on 15 November 1527 having spent the latter part of her life living in Tiverton.

The earls of Northumberland and the Percy Family – part 3 of 4. The magnificent and unlucky Tudors.

Posted on June 25, 2018 by JuliaH

The 5th Earl of Northumberland:

5th north coat of arms The 5^thearl carried the Coronation sword at Richard III’s coronation but grew up in Henry VII’s court as part of the group of young men who were schooled alongside Princes Arthur and Henry. In the first instance it helped remind the 4th earl where his loyalties lay and in the second place it kept the Percy power base under control. He was at Arthur’s marriage to Katherine of Aragon and was part of the train that took Princess Margaret to Scotland to be married to James IV. He had a reputation for being magnificently dressed and travelling in the manner befitting an earl. As such it would be easy to assume that he had royal favour but it is clear that becoming warden of the border marches was something of an issue once he attained his majority. Nor for that matter did he acquire any important national roles. The stumbling block would appear to be the “ravishment” of Elizabeth Hastings – which sounds unpleasant. In reality Elizabeth was the daughter of Sir John Hastings of Yorkshire. She was a ward of the Crown and Percy had arranged her marriage. The language of ravishment and abduction is the language of property being removed from Henry VII’s grasping fingers rather than an account depicting the earl’s predatory nature. Initially he was fined £10,000 but this was later reduced by half. Part of the problem for Percy was that the Tudors had learned important lessons about over mighty subjects. Consequentially Henry VII took a dim view of anyone standing on his prerogatives and he didn’t trust the Percy clan in any event because of their landholding and wealth – not to mention prior form. It was Henry VIII who cancelled the debt once he became king. The question is was Percy unsuited for power or did Henry VII use the case of Elizabeth Hastings to financially kneecap a man known for his lavish lifestyle?

Meanwhile Percy and his wife, Katherine Spencer – a three times great grand-daughter of Edward III had four children born in the first decade of the sixteenth century; Henry (1502), Thomas (1504), Ingram (1506) and Margaret (1508). The year after Margaret was born it was rumoured that the earl had come to an agreement with the Duke of Buckingham to overthrow the Tudors. It was supposed that he would rule north of the Trent. It says something that when Buckingham found himself in the Tower in 1521 on charges of treason that the earl was spared though he had been in the Fleet a few years previously on another ward related charge. It is also evident that Henry VIII ordered Cardinal Wolsey to keep an eye on the earl despite the fact that nothing can really, at this point in history, be levelled against him.

He did all the usual things that Tudor nobles did. He went to war in France in 1512 so was not on hand when James IV of Scotland took the opportunity to invade England. By 1522 he was back on the borders and indulging in some light feuding with the Dacre family. The problem was that Percy saw the warden role in the east and middle marches as one that he was entitled to whilst Dacre had other ideas. The only reason that the Dacre family had become used to serving in the capacity of Warden was that the fifth earl had been a minor when his father was killed by a mob near Thirsk in 1489. Whilst the earl was a ward of the Crown, the Percy estates were administered by the Earl of Surrey and many of the offices associated with the Percy family were offered out to other families. The truth is that Percy had never played the role his forefather’s played either through his youth or because of Tudor distrust. Despite that he attempted to regain the position in northern society he felt was his. By the time he was offered a wardenship he knew that he did not have the necessary military skills to fulfil the role and resigned his commission. The magnificent earl might perhaps have been better described at that stage as the very grumpy earl.

Dacre complained from the borders to the king he wasn’t getting the help from Percy that he thought should have been forthcoming. In 1517 when Margaret Tudor returned to England as a heavily pregnant fugitive, the earl was not overjoyed to see her. He wrote to the king suggesting that Dacre or the Earl of Cumberland might like to look after her. He was probably aware the cost of providing for her would come out of his purse. He attempted to suggest that the countess was indisposed but that didn’t wash with Henry who ordered Northumberland to bring Margaret south. One of the reasons was that the earl was not as wealthy as he had once been. He gambled heavily, spent excessively and seems to have been fined rather a lot by Cardinal Wolsey who seems to have been determined to break the northern powerbase that was the earldom of Northumberland.

Henry’s brother William was much more the border baron than his brother. He fought at the Battle of Flodden in 1513 and was created a knight on the battlefield. Even Lord Dacre wrote highly of William as did Bishop Ogle of Carlisle. It was William who trained the earl’s younger sons in the art of border warfare whilst their eldest brother was sent to London to the household of Cardinal Wolsey for his education and, let’s be honest, as a surety for the fifth earl’s good behaviour.

The Fifth earl turns up in national history in 1526 when he was summoned from the north to sort out the affairs of his eldest son. Henry junior was betrothed to Mary Talbot, daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, but had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn. The earl was supposed to back up the cardinal who had been ordered to prevent the match.

He died on May 19 1527.

The 6^thEarl of Northumberland:

The new earl was of age but Wolsey made the earl of Cumberland, Margaret Percy’s husband, executor of the 5^thearl’s estate. The 6^thearl was forbidden from attending the funeral of his father and then there was the issue of Mary Talbot – the powerless daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. The engagement had been a means of breaking off the relationship between Percy and Anne Boleyn but the match was not finalised. It had in fact been halted because the young people did not like one another. Now Percy was required to marry her and to live in the north. The fifth earl had not been impressed with his heir and it would have to be said that either of his younger brothers was more suited to riding around the countryside killing reivers – poor old Henry simply hadn’t been trained for it and was rather on the sickly side. It can’t have helped that his father was so far in debt- more than £17,000- that the plate had to be pawned to pay for his funeral.

Cardinal Wolsey drew up a budget. It was not generous. Wolsey also arranged for the estate rents to be collected and began to have a close look at various Percy deeds and entitlements. Matters came to a head when it was discovered that one of the earl’s retainers, appropriately named Wormme, was sending Wolsey details of the earl’s accounts. The earl was not amused and the gentleman in question is supposed to have spent considerable time in a less comfortable dungeon in Alnwick Castle upon payment of a £300 bribe by the earl specifically to get his hands on the man.

The earl now set about demonstrating that he was more than capable of maintaining order in the north though unfortunately he was less able to maintain order in his own marriage. Mary liked Henry almost as much as he liked her. The pair separated but were required by Wolsey to resume their married life. It was not a happy marriage in any sense of the word. Mary became convinced that Henry was trying to kill her – there is no evidence that he was.

But time was running out for the Cardinal who had been unable to untie Henry VIII from his marriage to Katherine of Aragon. The king had rather an unpleasant sense of humour. He sent the man whose life had been made a misery to arrest the Cardinal and convey him to London. Northumberland arrived at Cawood near York on the 4^thNovember 1529 where he behaved, it is said with great dignity and compassion for Henry VIII’s former minister.

In 1531 the earl was made a knight of the garter. He was not involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace. He died in 1537 leaving his money to Henry VIII. He is best remembered as the first love of Anne Boleyn. He collapsed at her trial and never really recovered.

Having no children his title passed to his younger brother unfortunately Thomas had become caught up in Bigod’s Rebellion (the follow on to the Pilgrimage of grace). He was hanged drawn and quartered in London in June 1537 before he could become earl.

The 7th Earl of Northumberland:

200px-Thomas_Percy_Earl_of_Northumberland_1566 The 7^thearl was Thomas’s oldest son, also called Tomas – a pleasant change from all those Henrys. To all intents and purposes his father’s death as a traitor should have debarred him from the earldom but when he came of age in 1549 he was restored to some of his lands and his loyalty to Mary Tudor in 1557 saw him restored to the earldom. The Percys had never stopped being Catholic. Unfortunately it all went to his head – quite literally- as he took part in the Northern Rising of 1569. I have posted about the 7th earl before. If you would like to read more click here to open a new page. He was executed in 1572 in York on Elizabeth’s orders. His execution warrant can still be seen in Alnwick Castle.

The seventh earl’s son died before him and he left a family of daughters so the family had to look back up the family tree for the next earl. Not only that but Elizabeth I didn’t trust the family so far as she could throw them so refused to allow them to travel to their residences in the north of the country. During this time Petworth in Sussex became the main Percy residence.

The 8th Earl of Northumberland:

Henry Percy, 8th Earl of Northumberland (c.1532-1585) (posthumous) by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 - London 1641)

Oil painting on canvas, Henry Percy, 8th Earl of Northumberland (c.1532-1585) by Sir Anthony Van Dyck (Antwerp 1599 – London 1641). A posthumous three-quarter-length portrait, standing, turned slightly to the right, gazing at the spectator, short cropped hair, beard and moustache, wearing full armour, his right hand wearing his gauntlet and holding a baton his left elbow leaning on a ledge and his left bare hand hanging over it. On the ledge is his helmet.

The eighth earl was another Henry Percy and he was the seventh earl’s younger brother. He had the common sense to remain loyal to Elizabeth I during the Rising of the North. Unfortunately he was implicated in assorted plots to release Mary Queen of Scots. He was sent to the Tower as a result of being implicated in the Throckmorton Plot and again in 1584 when he was accused of plotting to allow the Duc de Guise to land troops for the purpose of releasing Mary Queen of Scots and returning England to Catholicism. Off he went to the Tower – for a third time as it happens – he died unexpectedly on 21^stJune 1585.

Someone had shot him through the heart. It was decided that he had committed suicide. Let’s just say that warders and officers in charge of the earl’s well being were changed just beforehand to men who were careless about guns. It rather looks as though Sir Christopher Hatton, the queen’s favourite, may have assisted the “suicide.”

The Tudor taint – an heir problem

Posted on May 19, 2018 by JuliaH

LadyMargaretClifford History tends to decree that the Tudors had problems with heirs. In reality it must have felt to the heirs, on occasion, that they had problems with being Tudor. Henry VIII decreed the order of inheritance beginning with his own children. Not only did he specify the order of inheritance in his will but he ensured that it was enshrined in law with the third Act of Succession of 1544.

In the event of Henry’s own children not having children or surviving to inherit, Henry being Henry broke with the usual rules of inheritance by bypassing the children of his elder sister Margaret by nominating those of his younger sister Mary. His will refers to her as the “French Queen,” a courtesy title that she kept after the death of King Louis XII of France and her subsequent second marriage to Charles Brandon who became Duke of Suffolk. The crown was to go first to the heirs of Frances Brandon who became Lady Frances Grey the mother of Ladies Jane, Katherine and Mary Grey. If that line failed the crown would pass, in theory, to the children of Frances’ younger sister Eleanor who had married Henry Clifford, the 2nd Earl of Cumberland.

There was undoubtedly a paucity of males at that point in proceedings. Eleanor Clifford, born sometime between 1518 and 1521, had produced two sons: Charles and Henry as well as a daughter Margaret pictured at the start of this post. Eleanor died in November 1547 having been married to Henry Clifford in 1535, so she never fully understood the poisoned chalice of her Tudor bloodline. The pair lived in Brougham Castle although the 1st earl went on a bit of a building spree on the strength of having a royal daughter-in-law. The year after her marriage Eleanor was the chief mourner at Katherine of Aragon’s funeral and found herself in the wrong part of the country during the Pilgrimage of Grace. A flight across the moors from Bolton Abbey to Skipton Castle saved her from immediate capture but having arrived at Skipton she found herself besieged. Her husband was in Carlisle dealing with the rebels in Cumberland.

Eleanor does not seem to have spent much time at court although Frances Grey is listed as being present at key occasions such as the baptism of Prince Edward and the arrival of Anne of Cleves. It is perhaps not surprising both Charles and Henry died in their infancies and it would appear from surviving letters that Eleanor did not enjoy robust health. In 1540 though she gave birth to Margaret.

After Eleanor’s death the 2nd Earl of Cumberland would eventually remarry and have sons but the Tudor inheritance would pass to Margaret Clifford. This is evidenced by the fact that John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland initially suggested a marriage between his youngest son Guildford and Margaret. Before contracts could be drawn up John Dudley arranged for his youngest son to marry Margaret’s cousin Lady Jane Grey and in order to ensure that the Tudor line and the Dudleys remained firmly intertwined Margaret was betrothed instead to Andrew Dudley, the duke’s younger brother, in June 1553. Andrew would soon find himself under arrest for his part in Dudley’s bid to bypass Henry VIII’s succession.

Fernando_Stanley Margaret was married instead to Lord Strange, the heir of the Earl of Derby – or in other words into the Stanley family. She married Henry Stanley in 1555 under the watchful gaze of Queen Mary. The pair had four sons but it wasn’t a particularly happy marriage and the pair eventually separated. Of the four sons only two survived to adulthood. Ferdinando Stanley became the Earl of Derby followed by his brother William in 1594. Ferdinando (pictured left) had been earl for only a year and whilst William became the 6th earl as well as Baron Strange it was Ferdinando’s daughters who became co-heiresses to the estates. Inevitably there was a messy court case. I shall return to Ferdinando who may well have died because of his closeness to the throne and also the Stanley suspected adherence to Catholicism.

After the death of Mary Grey the last of her Grey cousins in 1578 Margaret found herself as one of the potential heirs to the English throne. In 1580 she wrote to Walsingham about the “heavy and long-continued displeasure” that she had found herself experiencing. When she died in 1596 she had spent several years under house arrest in Clerkenwell having been arrested on charges of using astrology to predict when Elizabeth I would die – a treasonous act (and one which got Eleanor Cobham into huge amounts of bother in the fifteenth century). Even in death she was careful not to offend Elizabeth as her will testifies:

First, I bequeath my soul into the hands of Almighty God, my only Saviour and Redeemer, by whom I hope only to be saved and by no other ways nor means, and my body to be buried where it shall please the Queen’s Majesty to appoint, or otherwise at the discretion of mine executors.

The line of the French Queen’s youngest daughter was now carried on by Ferdinando’s three daughters; Anne, Frances and Elizabeth. William had no children. In 1596 Anne was created the legal heir presumptive to Elizabeth I bypassing William who was also suspected on account of his closeness to the throne and catholicism.

william stanley.jpg William (pictured right) was specifically forbidden from joining the Earl of Essex on his campaign in Ireland as it was felt that he might take advantage of the opportunity to do a spot of networking. William, it would’ve to be said, appears to have done nothing to deserve royal suspicion – he was very much a member of the gentry concerning himself with his northern estates and keeping his head down – presumably he didn’t want to end up like his mother or brother. He appears to have been a scholarly type and if you like your conspiracy theories he is one of the contenders for the real Shakespeare based on the fact that George Fenner, a Jesuit, reported that William rather than being interested in politics and matters of religion spent his time “penning common plays” in his house near Chester.

Elizabeth did eventually make him a knight of the garter and King James I made his relation a privy councillor.

The mystery of the disappearance of Henry Pole…in the Tower

Posted on May 12, 2018 by JuliaH

princes_in_the_tower_2 When we think of children disappearing into the Tower and never being seen again we tend to think of Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York – a.k.a. The Princes in the Tower. Henry Pole the Younger, the teenage son of Lord Montagu and grandson of Margaret of Salisbury was sent to the Tower in November 1538 – he was not charged, he was not executed…he simply failed to re-appear in public – and he doesn’t have the same cachet as the Princes in the Tower so tends to remain largely forgotten

margaret salisbury Margaret of Salisbury was the daughter of George Duke of Clarence and Isabel Neville. She had been orphaned at five years old when George had an unfortunate accident in the Tower with a large barrel of Malmsey wine. She and her younger brother Edward grew up under the rule of their uncles Edward IV and Richard III. In 1485 when the Plantagenets lost the Crown on the field of battle at Bosworth Margaret found herself being handed into the wardship of Lady Margaret Beaufort, who in all fairness seems to have had a protective instinct for young women (perhaps not surprising given her own history). So, Margaret of Salisbury was about fourteen when she was married off to a loyal Tudor supporter – Sir Richard Pole and sent off to the Welsh marches where she could be safely ignored.

Unfortunately for the long term survival of the Pole family, despite the fact that Margaret had been deliberately married to a man whose loyalty was to the Tudors and who was far below Margaret in social status – though as the daughter of an attainted traitor this was not such an issue Margaret remained close to the court. When Henry VIII became king it was he who returned to Margaret the title of Countess of Salisbury whilst her eldest son, Henry, became Lord Montagu. It was probably just as well that Henry VIII had taken a shine to the family when Sir Richard died in 1504 the family had been so impoverished that they had to borrow money to pay for the funeral. There were five little Poles bearing Plantagenet blood in their veins – Henry, Reginald, Geoffrey and Arthur (who died of sweating sickness) as well as a daughter named Ursula who had thirteen children of her own.

katherine of aragon sil me Margaret’s loyalty was to Katherine of Aragon and to her daughter Princess Mary to whom she was governess and godmother. (Along with Margaret her sister-in-law Eleanor Pole was also a lady-in-waiting to Katherine. Eleanor was related through marriage to Lady Margaret Beaufort’s extended family.) Despite this and their conservative adherence to Catholicism (something they had in common with much of the old aristocracy – the Courtenay family were caught up with Elizabeth Barton the so-called Nun of Kent) they managed to walk on the tightrope of faith that Henry VIII strung up when he divorced Katherine and married Anne Boleyn.

Matters were not helped between the Tudor and Plantagenet cousins when Margaret’s son Reginald Pole – Henry VIII’s “pet” learned academic who had been educated at Henry’s expense wrote a book snappily entitled Pro ecclesiasticae unitatis defensionein 1536. It denounced both his marriage to Anne Boleyn and his religious policies – in short it did not have the content that Henry wanted. The Pole family in England wrote letters castigating Reginald, sure that they would be read before reaching their intended recipient. Pole wrote back to his mother telling her not to interfere with his conscience. Despite his high moral tone Pole started to have to look over his shoulder. Men were sent to assassinate him on Thomas Cromwell’s orders. Requests were sent to have him bundled up and sent home to face the music. It probably didn’t help that the Pope made him a cardinal at more or less the same time.

The Poles retreated from court and very sensibly kept their heads down – presumably quite liking the idea of keeping them. It wouldn’t be enough to save them. In 1538 the so-called Exeter Conspiracy was revealed when in August Margaret Pole’s youngest son Geoffrey was arrested and taken to the Tower.

Henry Pole, Lord Montagu was familiar with the process of being arrested for treason, after all he had been arrested for in connection to the 3^rdDuke of Buckingham’s plot against the king in 1520. Stafford had been found guilty of treason based on evidence given by his servants – the evidence was hearsay rather than concrete proof of plotting but it was enough to get him executed in 1521. Henry Pole had been released and had demonstrated loyalty to Henry VIII in a variety of capacities.

In August 1538 however, he was not in the Tower he was wondering what his little brother Geoffrey was saying and what charges that he might face. Margaret Pole wrote for permission to visit Geoffrey and to ask what he had done. In October 1538 Geoffrey was finally questioned – a couple of months in the Tower kept in isolation was enough to make him say what Thomas Cromwell wanted to hear. In November the treason net stretched around the Pole family. Henry VIII would have vengeance against Reginald and also surety that those pesky Plantagenets wouldn’t regain the throne. Geoffrey devastated that he had destroyed his own family rather than face further rather more active torture made two attempts on his own life.

Lord Montagu, his teenage son Henry, Montagu’s brother Sir Geoffrey, Montagu’s father-in-law Sir Edward Neville and his cousin Henry Courtenay, and Courtenay’s son were arrested on charges of conspiring to depose Henry VIII and replace him with Courtenay. Henry VIII’s proclamation about the plot identified that the plotters also conspired to validate their actions by marrying Princess Mary off either to either young Henry Pole or Edward Courtenay. It would have to be said that their Plantagenet blood made the need to justify their attempt on the throne with marriage to a Tudor somewhat unnecessary but it certainly gave Thomas Cromwell the opportunity to arrest as many scions of the Plantagenet bloodline as possible.

Margaret Pole was taken along to the Tower with her grandson having been rigorously questioned by William FitzWilliam, First Earl of Southampton without any notable success. Margaret would be attainted in 1539 but the only evidence was a coat bearing the insignia of a pilgrim of the Pilgrimage of Grace – there was no suggestion that it belonged to her personally. She would be messily executed in 1541 without trial. The attainder meant there was no need for one. Up until that time her existence in the Tower – complete with a furred gown can be traced in Henry VIII’s accounts along with that of her grandson. A novel entitled The Courier’s Tale, by Peter Walker, about Michael Throckmorton of Coughton Court, Reginald Pole’s messenger and agent includes an after note about the historic traces that remain of Henry Pole in Cromwell’s documents – there is a suggestion that Henry Pole was simply forgotten and allowed to die.

Letters written by Reginald Pole in Italy and also the testimony of Sir Geoffrey Pole sent Montagu and Courtenay senior to their deaths. Edward Courtenay remained in the Tower until Mary Tudor became queen in 1553 and then became caught up in Wyatt’s Rebellion the following – Mary politely suggested that he might like to travel more widely.

Henry Pole the younger simply disappeared without trace. It is of course possible that he died of natural causes but given the circumstances it is all to believable that he was simply bumped off in time-honoured fashion.

Bernard, G.W. The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church

Pierce, Hazel. Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership

The Northern Rebellion

Posted on April 30, 2018 by JuliaH

200px-Thomas_Percy_Earl_of_Northumberland_1566 1558. Queen Mary I lost Calais as a result of becoming involved in Philip II’s policy against the French. She died on the 17 November the same year. Her half-sister, Elizabeth, sitting beneath an oak tree at Hatfield became queen. On the borders between England and Scotland, life continued as usual – that is to say raiding and cross-border forays. I might dress it up as Scottish loyalty to their French allies and English obedience to Phillip II’s foreign policy but in reality it had nothing to do with continental Europe.

In 1558 on the East March the 7th Earl of Northumberland set out on a cattle raid with the Berwick garrison and was heading for home when the Scots turned up in what can only be described as high dudgeon. There was an English victory of sorts at Swinton. John Knox having done a stint on the French galleys (which perhaps accounts for his hostility to the nation) had sought refuge in Edward VI’s protestant realm before fleeing to Geneva. During the summer of 1558he published The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. He did not mean that they were deeply unpleasant merely that a reigning queen was an unnatural phenomenon. He was referencing Mary Tudor in England and the regent of Scotland Mary of Guise who ruled on behalf of her daughter Mary Queen of Scots. It was perhaps unfortunate for him that in November the monstrous regiment of Catholic queens was joined by Protestant Elizabeth.

I am not going to recount the next decade’s history. Suffice it to say there was the novel sight in 1560 of an English fleet joining with the Protestant Scots against the Catholics and the French besieged in Leith. The following year the recently widowed dowager queen of France, Mary Queen of Scots, arrived back in her homeland at the very same location. Initially guided by her half-brother, James Stewart (Earl of Moray), all went smoothly but then in 1567 having made an ill advised marriage to Lord Darnley swiftly followed by murder at Kirk O Field she lost her throne and on 16 May 1568 found herself seeking sanctuary in Workington. She was to remain in England for the next nineteen years before being executed.

mary queen of scots aged 18 Mary’s arrival was not good news so far as her cousin Elizabeth was concerned. Mary spelled trouble. For a start she was Catholic and Mary’s father-in-law, Henri II, had quartered the French arms with those of England on hearing the news that Mary Tudor had died. His logic was very simple. Elizabeth was illegitimate and therefore the next claimant to the English throne was the grand daughter of Margaret Tudor, the eldest daughter of Henry VII of England. Mary did not help matters by refusing to recognise the Treaty of Edinburgh which identified Elizabeth as the rightful queen of England. The treaty, negotiated by Cecil, should have been ratified in July 1560 and it accounted for Mary’s long sea voyage to Scotland rather than a land journey through England. The arrival of Mary in England undoubtedly signposted rebellion and plotting to come – not to mention some light cousinly jealousy.

Elizabeth did not know what to do with her cousin and although she moved her south into the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury it swiftly became clear that she was not as keen to meet Mary as Mary was to meet her. Mary’s trial at York was a device to ensure that Elizabeth should never meet her cousin and that Moray could produce the so-called “Casket Letters” that would keep his half-sister in England. Meanwhile various Catholic nobles (and non-Catholic nobles for that matter) bent their minds to the problem of what to do with Mary. The Percy family were Papists and it is perhaps not surprising that Thomas Percy the 7th Earl of Northumberland was sympathetic to the young Scottish queen’s cause. He even tried to have her turned over into his custody. Unsurprisingly “Simple Tom” pictured at the start of this post was not given her guardianship. He was, however, encouraged in his increasingly illegal actions by his wife Ann. His conspiracy was joined by Charles Neville the Earl of Westmorland. The two earls shared their plans with their wider families and the northern affinity of gentry including Leonard Dacre. The plotters met at Topcliffe and agreed that they wanted Catholicism restored and Elizabeth’s bad advisors to be disposed of – so the usual rubric. They did intend to free Mary Queen of Scots from Tutbury but they claimed that they wished to return her to Scotland rather than unseat Elizabeth.

Meanwhile Robert Dudley supported the idea of Mary being returned to Scotland with a new and reliable husband to keep an eye on her. William Maitland of Lethington, Mary’s ambassador had suggested that the Duke of Norfolk was just the chap in 1560 despite the fact that the first Duchess of Norfolk was very much alive at the time. Thomas Howard had been appointed Lieutenant General of the North in 1569 by Elizabeth. She was, if you like, extending the hand of friendship to her Howard cousins who had connived at the downfall of her mother Anne Boleyn and ultimately been associated with Catholicism rather than reform. She was also getting him as far away from court as possible not least because his grandmother was Anne of York one of Edward IV’s daughters making him Plantagenet and a possible claimant to the throne. By now Howard had been widowed twice over and as such was a suitable spouse for the captive queen. He was rather taken with the idea but quite horrified to find himself carted off to the Tower when Dudley confessed to the queen what was planned in terms of an English-Scottish marriage.

Inevitably things are not so straight forward and ultimately Norfolk and the Northern Lords would be betrayed by Leonard Dacre who was narked by the fact that Howard who had been married to Elizabeth Leyburne (the widow of the 4th Lord Dacre) had become guardian to the 5th lord and the 5th lord’s three sisters. In 1569 little George Dacre had an accident on a vaulting horse and died. Howard now took the opportunity to marry the Dacre girls off to sons from his previous two marriages and claim that his three daughters-in-law were co-heiresses and that the whole estate was now Howard property.

Leonard Dacre was not a happy man. A judgement of Edward IV had entailed the title and estates to male heirs so by rights he should have had the title and the loot. Even worse the case was heard by the Earl Marshal’s court – and yes, the Dukes of Norfolk are hereditary earl marshals of England. Let’s just say Leonard was a man with a grudge and the borderers were rather good at holding grudges for a very long time. He betrayed the northern earls and of course the Duke of Norfolk in the hope that he would see the estates that were rightfully his returned.

Dacre would encourage the northern lords in their plan to free Mary and overturn Protestant England but at the same time, when he judged the time was ripe, spill the beans to Elizabeth. Elizabeth would later describe him as a “cankred suttl traitor.” However, I am jumping the gun. Elizabeth ordered Northumberland and Westmorland to London to explain themselves. The two hapless peers panicked and rebelled. On the 10th November 1569 the Earl of Sussex wrote to say that Northumberland had fled from Topcliffe. Three thousand or so men gathered in Durham on the 14th November where a Mass was heard and Protestant texts destroyed. Men set off for Hartlepool where the Duke of Alva was supposed to land troops and to Barnard Castle to besiege troops loyal to Elizabeth. The castle held out for a week before it surrendered. The Earl of Sussex would come under suspicion for not gaining the upper hand quickly enough. From Barnard Castle the plan was to march on York. The earls were declared traitors on the 26th of November and the hunt began.

Steven_van_Herwijck_Henry_Carey_1st_Baron_Hunsdon On the West March a plan was now unfurling which would have seen the Bishop of Carlisle murdered and the castle in rebel hands. Lord Scrope, Warden of the West March, who had set out from Carlisle to confront the rebels heard news of the plot and scurried back to the castle correctly judging that Elizabeth’s famous temper would not have been placated by excuses regarding the loss of a key border fortress. Meanwhile the queen’s cousin, some would say brother, Henry Carey Lord Hunsdon, was sent north to deal with the crisis. He had been made the Captain of Berwick the previous year.

The Warden of the Middle March Sir John Forster, a notable rogue in his own right, now rode agains the rebels accompanied by the Earl of Northumberland’s younger brother Henry. Together they occupied Newcastle and Alnwick and began to move south. The earls fled in the direction of Hexham together with Lady Anne Percy and about forty or fifty retainers when it became clear that they were out manoeuvred by Forster from the North and Carey from the South. For reasons best known to themselves, despite the fact that Leonard Dacre had not joined the rebellion the fleeing party made for North Castle. Leonard was not pleased to see them as he as no doubt thinking of the Dacre estates and Elizabeth’s goodwill. His brother Edward on the other hand provided assistance to the stricken earls. The party had to escape into Scotland or face Elizabeth’s wrath. With that in mind the Armstrongs of Liddesdale seemed like a good idea at the time. The Debateable Lands of Liddesdale belonged neither to Scotland or England and whilst the Armstrongs were notionally Scottish they were Armstrong more than anything else. The hapless earls fell in to the hands of Black Ormiston and Jock of the Side. Jock was a notorious reiver.

At this point the Earl of Moray entered the equation and politely suggested that the Armstrongs hand over their “guests.” He sent a party of Elliots, another family of border hard-men to have a little chat. Elliot explained that he was under pledge to Moray and that he would be sorry to enter a state of feud with Ormiston if the two English earls weren’t booted out of Scotland and back into England within the next twenty-four hours. Somehow the earls’ horses had gone “missing” – which is what you get for stabling them with notorious horse thieves- and Lady Anne, heavily pregnant, was exhausted beyond the point where she could travel with her husband. She was robbed and perhaps worse by Ormiston before she was rescued by a party of Ferniehurst Kerrs (the ancestor of Robert Carr, King James I’s favourite). It says something that Kerr was at feud with the Percys but felt that it was beneath his honour to see Lady Anne suffer at the hands of Ormiston – though having said that he was also a loyal subject of Mary Queen of Scots demonstrating that border history is nothing if not complex in its workings.

On Christmas Eve 1569 the Armstrongs managed to separate the two earls and Northumberland found himself in the clutches of Moray’s men. The Earl of Westmorland did attempt a rescue with the few men he had but it was unsuccessful. Percy would be returned to England for a cash payment in June 1572 and executed for treason in York that August. Sussex, having got his act together, along with Sir John Forster and Henry Hunsden set the border alight in the greatest raid that Liddesdale had ever seen. MacDonald Fraser states that Forster took £4000 in loot. Let’s just say that rather a lot of homes were burned and livestock pilfered.

Ultimately Dacre who thought he had played a clever game found himself at the end of one of Hunsdon’s cavalry lances but only after the border which had only just settled down after the Earls’ rising was set loose again by the assassination of James Stewart Earl of Moray on January 23 1570. A mighty raid gathered pace as Scots began to cross the border in the name of their queen. Dacre who had not benefitted from tattle taling on the earls now came out in supports of the Scots. He managed to put together a band of 3000 men. Henry Carey was not so foolish as to take this band on without support, especially as Naworth was defended by artillery and there was a large party of Scots en route to Naworth. And had Dacre stayed put then my story might have had another chapter but he was spoiling for a fight and he took on Hunsdon at Gelt Wood. If Dacre had won the skirmish then Carlisle might have been in difficulties but as it was Hunsdon who was a tough man led a cavalry charge against the revolting baron and Dacre fled into Scotland with approximately 2000 more rebels according to Lord Scrope. The majority of them remained in the borders joining with the Scottish Marian party against the lords who held the infant James VI. Dacre left the British Isles and travelled to Flanders where he exhorted anyone who would listen to invade England.

The rebellion was over. It just left the mopping up operation. Norfolk was released from the Tower but became involved in the Ridolfi Plot so was executed in 1572. The Earl of Westmorland escaped to Flanders dying in 1601 having eked out his existence living on a pension from Philip II. Dacre died in 1573. For Elizabeth it was the start of a series of plots and rebellions revolving around Mary Queen of Scots.

MacDonald Fraser The Steel Bonnets

Levina Teerlinc – Tudor artist

Posted on April 17, 2018 by JuliaH

PrincessElizabethMiniaturec1550attributedtoLevinaTeerlinc.jpg When we think of Elizabethan miniatures we tend to think of the wonderfully Hilliard portraits with their stunning azure backgrounds. However before Hilliard there was a professional female artist who created some equally evocative images. The image at the start of this post shows a young Elizabeth Tudor and is the work of Levina Teerlinc.

Levina started work for Henry VIII and in the twenty-first century in an era when we are still talking about the “pay gap” it’s worth noting that such was her repute as an artist was such that her pay was more than that of Holbein who had recently died and vacated the position of court artist. Levina was born in Flanders, the eldest of five daughters to Simon Benninck, a renowned illustrator of manuscripts. Simon must have seen talent in his daughter just as Holbein’s father saw talent in him because Levina trained to be an artist under her father’s tuition in their home town of Bruges.

In 1545 she is seen in the official record with her husband dealing with her father’s accounts suggesting that Simon may have died at this time. This in its turn might suggest why the daughter rather than the father arrived in London. In any event, even if Simon was still alive he may not have been of a mind or in sufficient health to make the journey.

In November 1546 Levina and her husband, George Teerlinc, arrived in London where Levina was paid forty pounds year to be Henry VIII’s court artist. Levina’s salary would go up every year and she would work for every one of the Tudors from Henry VIII onwards. She received £150 after the death of Mary Tudor suggesting that although she was much loved by the queen that her salary hadn’t always been paid. The only problem for art historians is that she did not sign her work.

lady_katherine_grey_and_her_son_lord_edward_beauchamp_v2.jpg

Teerlinc in her turn was followed by Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver. Hilliard thought that creating miniatures was the work of a gentleman rather than a woman not that it seems to have stopped some of the leading women of the period for sitting for Levina. Indeed, it may be that as a woman in Mary and then Elizabeth Tudor’s household that women were more able to sit for their portraits. It was Levina who painted the miniature of Lady Katherine Grey and her son (above). It should be noticed that she is wearing a ribbon round her neck from which a glimpse of another miniature can be seen – of her husband Edward Seymour. It should also be noted, I think, that this image is the first well-known secular image of a mother and child in the brave new Protestant world of Tudor England.

mary dudley.jpg This image of Mary Dudley, Lady Sidney is painted in water-colour in vellum but rather than being mounted on ivory or precious metal the image is stiffened by playing cards.

The miniatures themselves are a bit different from Holbein’s portraits. They were designed to be given as gifts that could be worn, often tucked out of sight. Several of Levina’s appear to have been commissioned as New year gifts. They are painted on vellum in the style of a manuscript artist. In addition to being exchanged by lovers and friends Teerlinc’s works formed the basis for other jewellery as well as for the Great Seal. She may have even written a text on how to make a limning as these miniatures were known and trained Hilliard who gained prominence in the 1570s.

She did not only paint miniatures in 1556 her New year’s gift to Queen Mary was a picture of the Trinity and in 1561 she gave Queen Elizabeth a “finely painted” box. It is possible that the majority of her work was destroyed in the Whitehall fire. There is also the possibility that since she did not sign her works some of the earlier ones have been ascribed to Holbein whilst the later ones may now be viewed as the work of Hilliard.

Levina died on 26 June 1576 when she was about sixty-six. I love the fact that her father as an illuminator of manuscripts was working in an artistic tradition that went back to the seventh century and that in training Levina, her miniatures which became so popular during the Tudor period, are a clearly route-marked bridge between traditions and art forms. I also love the fact that she was paid more than Holbein. It seems a shame though that although we have heard of Hans Holbein and Nicholas Hilliard that Levina is not so well remembered in popular memory.

James, Susan E. (2009) The Feminine Dynamic in English Art 1485-1603, Aldershot: Ashgate.

Bergmans, Simone. “The Miniatures of Levina Teerling.” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, vol. 64, no. 374, 1934, pp. 232–236. JSTOR, JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/865738.

http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O174799/portrait-of-mary-dudley-lady-miniature-teerlinc-levina/

Is this Levina Teerlinc?

Scandal at Chelsea: the courtship and marriage of Katherine Parr and Sir Thomas Seymour

Posted on April 15, 2018 by JuliaH

katherine parr Henry VIII was buried on 16th February 1547 at Windsor with Jane Seymour. Their son Edward was now king with a regency council nominated by Henry VIII. It wasn’t long before Edward Seymour had nobbled the council and rather than five equal men had become Lord Protector.

Katherine Parr moved to Chelsea with her two hundred servants, one hundred and fifty man yeoman guard, Elizabeth Tudor and the queen’s jewels which Henry VIII’s will gave her permission to wear until Edward was of an age to be married. The will also stipulated that Katherine was to be accorded the honour of first lady in the land which rather irritated Anne the wife of Edward Seymour the newly styled Lord Protector (March 1547) who felt that honour ought to go to her. Edward created himself Duke of Somerset and also become Earl Marshal given that the hereditary Earl Marshal, the Duke of Norfolk was sitting in the Towner on charges of treason.

thomas seymour Edward’s younger brother Thomas felt aggrieved. Even though he was now the Lord High Admiral (sounds vaguely Gilbert and Sullivan), Baron Sudeley and a privy councillor he felt it was somewhat unfair that his brother was the Lord Protector. What resulted was two years of rampant ambition, scandal and tragedy followed by Thomas’s execution on three charges of treason not that he was ever brought to trial.

Thomas began a campaign against his brother beginning by giving his young nephew pocket money and bribing one of Edward VI’s men, John Fowler, to say nice things about him; he started reading up the law books with a view to demanding to being made Edward’s co-protector and he began looking around for a royal bride. He started of by asking the Privy Council if he could marry thirteen-year-old Elizabeth Tudor. The Privy Council said no but Elizabeth’s governess Kat Ashley was rather taken with the smooth talking charmer which was unfortunate when Sir Thomas turned his attentions from Katherine Parr to her young step-daughter.

John Fowler, the servant bribed to say nice things about Thomas to King Edward, was asked to find out the king’s view on the matter. Edward thought that Thomas should either marry Anne of Cleves or “my sister Mary to change her opinions.”

Thomas trotted back to the Privy Council to request the hand of Mary Tudor. On this occasion the Duke of Somerset explained that neither one of the brother should look to be king or to marry a king’s daughter. The brothers argued violently and when Mary was informed of the proposed match sometimes later laughed at the idea.

That just left the dowager queen. Katherine Parr was thirty-five years old and before the king had made his intentions to claim her as wife number six clear on 1542 she had been linked romantically to Thomas. This time Thomas didn’t check to see what the Privy Council thought about the idea. He began to visit Katherine at her home in Chelsea in secret. By the end of April 1547 or the beginning of May the couple decided to marry – even if society would regard it as an indecently hasty match so soon after Henry VIII’s demise. This was thrice-married Katherine’s chance of happiness and she intended to grab it with both hands.

Katherine had been married first to Sir Edward Borough – he was not a well man. After that she married John Neville, Lord Latimer who was much older than Katherine (approximately twice her age) and, of course, thirdly, she had married Henry VIII. Katherine, thanks to Latimer, was left a wealthy woman so should, by rights, have had more choice in who she wed next if at all. Sir Thomas Seymour courted her but Henry VIII had noted her care of Lord Latimer and seen her in Mary Tudor’s company. In July 1543 Katherine Parr became queen of England setting her romance with Thomas Seymour to one side and possibly disappointing Seymour’s aspirations to marry a wealthy widow.

Now though nothing was going to stop Katherine. They were married secretly in May and Katherine gave orders for a gate to be left unlocked so that her new husband could visit her in the middle of the night.

There was the small problem of telling the people who mattered. Katherine knew that she needed her step-son’s approval. However, by June there was gossip. Kat Ashley, Elizabeth Tudor’s governess met Sir Thomas at St James Park and commented on his failure to pursue his match with Elizabeth and also commented on the fact that he was rumoured to already be married to the queen.

Katherine went to see Edward VI who had no objection to his step-mother’s marriage to his uncle. Edward VI wrote to her confirming his views on the 30th May saying; “I do love and admire you with my whole heart.” He agreed to keep the marriage a secret until the relationship between Thomas and Edward Seymour was better. Katherine, however, felt that rather than relying on his brother’s kindness that Thomas should garner support for the match from leading members of the court.

Mary Tudor was not so generous as her little brother. When she received a letter from Thomas asking for her support in the matter she was horrified that a) he had aspired so high and b) that Katherine had so quickly forgotten the king who was “ripe in mine own remembrance.” Mary never seemed to forgive Katherine for marrying in haste and expressed concern that Elizabeth should continue to live in Katherine’s household believing that the newly weds had “shamelessly dishonoured” Henry VIII’s memory (you’d have thought that Mary would have been dancing on her late lamented parent’s grave given the way he treated both her and her mother.)

At the end of June 1547 the news of Katherine Parr’s marriage to Sir Thomas Seymour was public knowledge. Edward VI kept his promise to support them. The Duchess of Somerset still had to give precedence to Katherine but she did exact a revenge of sorts in that she persuaded her husband to confiscate Katherine’s jewels which should by rights have been worn by the next queen of England but which Anne Dudley now modelled.

The problem was that Chelsea would not be free from Scandal for long. In addition to her two hundred servants and one hundred and fifty yeomen there was the small matter of Elizabeth Tudor. It wasn’t long before Sir Thomas began making inappropriate visits to his step-daughter’s bed chamber. Kat Ashley didn’t immediately see any harm in his morning calls but Elizabeth took to rising earlier and earlier so that he would not catch her in bed. Ultimately Kat took him to task for arriving in his night shirt with bare legs. When he failed to see the seriousness of his behaviour Kat took the matter to Katherine Parr who made little of the morning visits, even joining in with them herself on occasion. Society was in for another scandal and it looked as though Mary Tudor may have had a point after all.

Norton, Elizabeth. (2015) The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor. London: Head of Zeus

Weir, Alison. (1999) Children of England: the Heirs of King Henry VIII. London: Jonathan Cape.

The Vicar of Hell, his cousins and Henry VIII

Posted on April 12, 2018 by JuliaH

1531_Henry_VIII Sir Francis Bryan was nicknamed either by Henry VIII or Thomas Cromwell as the Vicar of Hell. Henry allegedly asked what sort of sin it was to ruin a mother and then her child where upon Bryan commented that it was the same sort of sin as eating a hen and then its chicken. Alternatively online sources suggest that Cromwell gave Bryan the name on account of his role in bringing the Boleyn faction down.

sir nicholas carew The dissolute vicar who managed to survive Henry’s reign without falling foul of the Tudor terror had one surviving sister. Her name was Elizabeth and she became Lady Carew when she was about twelve. By the time she was thirteen she was a mother, Henry VIII was purchasing mink coats for her and giving her husband Sir Nicholas Carew (pictured right) his very own tilt yard. If that wasn’t sufficiently intriguing a look up the family tree reveals that Francis’ mother Margaret Bourchier was Anne and Mary Boleyn’s auntie. Elizabeth Howard, their mother, was Margaret’s half sister.

Lady Margaret Bryan is best known in history as the Lady Governess of Mary Tudor and then Princess Elizabeth – it is Lady Bryan who writes to Cromwell in 1536 asking how the royal toddler should be treated. Lady Margaret didn’t have much longer to influence Elizabeth as she would become Prince Edward’s Lady Governess in turn.

wolsey Sir Francis became Henry VIII’s cup bearer in 1516 and two years later was admitted to the ranks of Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber. The following year Francis was one of the young men that Wolsey had removed from court as a bad influence on the king and overly familiar with the monarch- not least because he’d been on a mission to France and returned with an expensive taste in French tailoring and a habit of mocking those dressed in the English fashion- but it wasn’t long before he was back. He turns up in 1520 with Henry at the Field of Cloth of Gold but it would be several more years before he was re-admitted to the privy chamber.

In 1522 and 23 he was fighting alongside his Howard kin in France and then Scotland. In between times he hunted, gambled, spent a lot of time at his tailors, womanised and jousted. It was the latter that caused him to lose an eye in 1526 after which he sported a rather rakish eyepatch.

The king trusted him sufficiently to send him to Rome to discuss the annulment of his marriage to Katherine of Aragon with the Pope. Despite Bryan’s smooth talking he was unsuccessful. There is a rather lively letter from the period that Byran writes to Lord Lisle requiring that the Captain of Calais should find him a soft bed and a young woman.

george boleyn.png In August 1533 it fell to Francis to tell his king that the Pope had excommunicated him. By this time Francis’ cousin Anne was not only queen but heavily pregnant. By the following year though things were turning sour. Chapuys noted that the king was involved romantically with a young lady – another of Francis’ cousins but Francis was closely associated with the Boleyn’s. So perhaps it is not surprising that it was in 1534 that Francis’ got into an argument with George Boleyn (pictured right)- after all Francis had a long experience of Henry’s pattern of womanising and knew when the king’s interest had moved on. Even so in 1536 when a list of all Anne Boleyn’s relations was drawn up Francis’ name was on it and he was questioned about his cousin but unlike George was not arrested. In fact he was promoted to Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and sent off to tell Jane Seymour the good news although he managed to plot his copybooks because he appears to have been sympathetic to Mary Tudor and queried whether or not she could be returned to the rank of princess.

This was an unusual slip on Byran’s part who was liked by Henry for his plain talking and honesty but most of the time Bryan was canny enough to know what sort of truths Henry wanted to hear. Part of the problem was that Francis’ mother had been a lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon as well as Mary Tudor’s Lady Governess. Another issue was the fact that despite his nickname “the vicar of hell” that he was Catholic. Not that this seems to have been an issue in 1536 when he went off to do battle with the rebellious pilgrims in the Pilgrimage of Grace.

The following year Bryan arrived in France intending to have Reginald Pole kidnapped or possibly assassinated – though it would appear that he may have been the one to warn the cardinal of his own intentions giving Reginald the opportunity to escape Henry’s clutches. Byran’s other unconventional methods of diplomacy included sleeping with a prostitute in Rome to find out what the pope’s views were. In 1538 he actually became the English ambassador at the french court but it wasn’t hugely successful because he spent much of the time drunk, gambling and generally misbehaving. He was summoned home not that it should have been a total surprise that he wasn’t cut out to be an ambassador. In 1519 he’d got himself into hot water for throwing eggs at the French while in Paris.

In 1539 Sir Nicholas Carew, another of Henry VIII’s old friends, and Francis’ brother-in-law found himself on the wrong side of the king – or more likely the wrong side of Thomas Cromwell. He had been teaching Jane Seymour how to best become queen rather than just another mistress – which was not what Cromwell wanted. Jane was favoured by the Howard faction who were traditional in their religious beliefs and thus not sympathetic to the reforms that were being instituted. Carew was implicated in the Exeter Plot which aimed to remove Henry from the throne and replace him with Reginald Pole. Francis sat on the jury that convicted him. It was Lady Margaret Bryan who wrote to Cromwell on her daughter’s behalf asking that some finances be provided for her care.

Francis’ reward for his loyalty to the Crown was to be sent off to France to ask the french king to send prospective wives to Calais for Henry to inspect. After that debacle Francis was probably grateful when Henry selected Anne of Cleves.

During all this time Francis was loyal to his mother’s Howard kin but by the end of Henry’s reign he had become more associated with the Seymour family – which was just as well as the duke of Norfolk was imprisoned for treason along with his son.

Bryan was married to Philippa Fortescue by 1522 but the pair had no children. He married for a second time to Joan Butler who was the dowager countess of Ormond (Yes there are Boleyn links there) and was able to make the most of this marriage to become Lord Marshall and Lord Justice of Ireland. He died at Clonmel on the 2nd February 1550.

There are no portraits of Francis.

http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/bryan-sir-francis-1492-1550

Sir William Brooke, royal favourite and duelling victim

Posted on March 1, 2018 by JuliaH

Lord Cobham.jpg Sir William Brooke (1565-1597) was the son of William Brooke, 10^th Lord Cobham Warden of the Kent Cinque Ports (1527 to 1597) pictured at the start of this post. He was of a similar vintage to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex and Elizabeth’s replacement for Dudley in the royal favourite stakes after his death in 1588. Like other Elizabethan gentlemen he did a stint in the continental religious wars being knighted by Essex in 1591 at Dieppe. He was, in short, one of the new breed of men in Elizabeth’s court.

Having done his time abroad he was then returned to Parliament as MP for Rochester at the behest of his father. Lord Cobham was not terribly amused that of the two MPS for Kent it was Sir Robert Sidney (brother of Sir Philip Sidney, nephew of Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester) who was returned as the senior parliamentarian. Elizabeth noted that it wasn’t very helpful that both men were abroad at the time. The fact that Brooke was also outlawed was also an issue. Elizabeth had decreed that members could not take their place until they had settled with their creditors. The matter must ultimately have been settled to Elizabeth’s satisfaction because he is described by Margaret Cavendish as one of her favourites. Certainly, in June 1597 William had been made Keeper of Eltham Great Park though whether it was because he was a royal favourite or because his family was an important one is something that probably bears further consideration.

The family links with Elizabeth are in themselves interesting. Clearly being a Kent family the Boleyn equation and Kent gentry affinity comes into play. Anne Boleyn sent George Brooke 9^th Lord Cobham (1497-1558) a letter telling him about the birth of Elizabeth in September 1533 but he was also one of the judges that tried the queen just three years later. The following year at the christening of young Prince Edward it was Lord Cobham – our William’s grandfather- who carried consecrated wafers for both the illegitimised Tudor princesses.

George’s story continued to be tied to that of Henry VIII’s children and it is evident that he was of the reforming persuasion in his beliefs and the way in which he had chosen to have his children educated. The reign of Mary Tudor was made difficult not only by his faith but by the fact that he was related to Sir Thomas Wyatt through marriage. Wyatt even wrote to him demonstrating the belief that Cobham would side with him against Mary to put Elizabeth on the throne. He and his sons were arrested and there can be no doubt that Thomas Brooke had sided with Wyatt until the end. After that Lord Cobham who spent some time in the Tower kept his head down. He entertained Cardinal Pole and he made enquiries about heritics.. He died just before Mary so never saw Elizabeth ascend to the throne but the new Lord Cobham, William who had also been imprisoned in the Tower for his suspected part in Wyatt’s rebellion was on hand to play his allotted part in Elizabeth’s court and the administration of Kent as well as the Cinque Ports.

Clearly our Brooke was a bit of an Elizabethan wild boy and this led to his untimely end when he insulted Elizabeth Leighton the slightly pregnant lover of Sir Thomas Lucas of Colchester. Lucas called him out and he was mortally wounded one cold December morning in Mile End at a rapier’s end. He was carried home where friends and family visited him as he lay dying.

Brooke had made his will in June having gone on a sea voyage but on the morning of his death he had added an undated codicil to the will which left everything to his brother George:

‘Your jest and my haste would not suffer me to acquaint you with what I am gone about this morning, what hath called me out so early. I send you enclosed within these what I shall leave behind me. My will and meaning is you should have all lands, leases and prisoners which I desire you may as quietly enjoy as I sincerely mean…Wishing you the best fortune, your loving brother William Brooke

The will was proved on the 25 December 1597. For those of you who like to know these things, George Brooke was executed for plotting against James I in 1603.

One letter described William Brooke as “misfortunate.” Two arrest warrants were issued for Lucas by the privy council – on on the 24th of December and a second on the 30th. This was was very unfortunate for Elizabeth Leighton who bore an illegitimate child also called Thomas who would not meet his father until he was six years old when James I pardoned Lucas and he was able to return home. He and Elizabeth went on to have seven more children of whom the youngest, Margaret would go on to serve Queen Henrietta Maria and marry the Marquis of Newcastle going down in history as Mad Madge. She would also write her biography, just because she felt like it even though society disapproved of the idea of women writing books for publication and tell the story of her father’s duel.

Henry_Brooke,_11th_Baron_Cobham,_by_circle_of_Paul_van_Somer.jpg It is perhaps not surprising that Lucas found himself at the wrong end of an arrest warrant, William Brooke’s father the 10th Lord Cobham (who had died on March 6 1597) was a man with clout. Brooke’s sister Elizabeth was the wife of Sir Robert Cecil – the most important man in the kingdom. She had also died at the beginning of 1597 but there were still family and political ties that were wielded by the new Lord Cobham – Henry Brooke – pictured left. He had been invested as Warden of the Cinque Ports on the same month that his father died.

In addition to which Whitaker makes the salient point that Elizabeth was already tetchy with the Lucas family because Sir Thomas’s sister Anne had gone to court to serve as a lady in waiting but then married for love against the queen’s wishes. Anne had defied the queen to marry Arthur Throckmorton who was the younger brother of Bess Throckmorton who, of course, irritated Elizabeth monumentally by marrying Sir Walter Raleigh demonstrating once again that everyone in the Tudor court is related somehow or another!

And who would have thought that in reading around the topic of Margaret Cavendish as part of the Stuarts in Derbyshire course I am currently delivering that I should encounter a tale of Tudor passion that correlates to Elizabeth I and her various favourites which happens to be part of another course that I am currently teaching.

Whitaker, Katie. (2003) Mad Madge. London: Chatto and Windus

http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/brooke-alias-cobham-william-1565-97

http://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/Pub/ArchCant/Vol.012%20-%201878/012-08.pdf

Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox

Posted on January 12, 2018 by JuliaH

margaret-douglas-countess-2 Margaret Douglas is an important link in the Tudor family tree and its later prospective claimants to the English throne. Unsurprisingly given that the Tudors are involved there are some dodgy family trees involved and not a little tragedy.

Margaret’s mother was the eldest daughter of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York. She was born in November 1489 and at the time when she married James IV of Scotland she was just thirteen. In 1512 she gave birth to a son James (other children died in infancy) but then the following year her husband died at the Battle of Flodden.

James V was king but an infant. There followed the usual power struggle. The key families were the Stewarts, Douglases and Hamiltons. on 6 August 1514 without consulting her council or her brother Margaret married the pro-English Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus. This effectively caused the Douglas faction to advance up a large ladder in the courtly game of snakes and ladders. A civil war resulted and Margaret was replaced as regent by John Stewart Earl of Albany – who was anti-English. Margaret having been queen and regent now slid down several rungs of importance and life became very difficult not least when Margaret lost custody of the young king and of his brother called Alexander who had been born after the Battle of Flodden. Margaret, fearing for her safety and the safety of her unborn child by the earl of Angus made plans to escape Scotland.

Her first step was to go to Linlithgow from there she escaped into England and little Margaret Douglas made her way into the world on 8 October 1515 at Harbottle Castle in Northumberland by the end of January news arrived from Scotland that the infant Alexander was dead. Margaret Douglas born of an English mother in an English castle was treated as English rather than Scottish throughout her life and in terms of the English succession. Margaret Tudor’s husband the earl of Angus now deserted his wife and made his peace with the earl of Albany…and his other wife.

Angus had been married to Mary Hepburn but he had been widowed. What Margaret Tudor didn’t know was that he had entered into a relationship with Lady Janet Stewart of Traquair before marrying her. They were ether engaged or married. In either event Angus was contracted to another woman making his marriage to Margaret Tudor effectively bigamous. Angus wanted the return of his family lands which Albany had confiscated and in the meantime he took up residence with Lady Janet in one of Margaret’s properties. As with Mary and Elizabeth Tudor the small fact of her father’s complicated love life must bring into question the legitimacy of Margaret Douglas and therefore her claim to the English throne by right of descent from Margaret Tudor.

Henry VIII did not send for his sister until 1516 and ultimately Margaret Tudor did return to Scotland when Albany went to France in 1517. This meant that Margaret Douglas also went to Scotland and became the centre of a struggle between her parents when he also returned. The earl of Angus snatched the infant Margaret from her mother’s arms. Her existence gave the earl of Angus power. She was in line to the English throne after all. Ultimately Margaret Douglas found some degree of sanctuary in the care of her godfather, Cardinal Wolsey who arranged for her to be housed in Berwick.

If that weren’t complicated enough Margaret Tudor divorced the earl of Angus and married Henry Stewart, Lord Methven. It was a match that didn’t work particularly well. Methven ultimately moved in with a mistress and Margaret Tudor tried to move back in with the earl of Angus. James V regarded Methven as a trusted advisor and refused to permit the divorce. Margaret Tudor bowed to her son’s wishes but died in 1541.

But back to Margaret Douglas’s story. After Wolsey’s fall from power and death in 1530 she found home in the household of Princess Mary at Beaulieu where she had been living since 1528. When she reached adulthood she was appointed as Lady in Waiting to Anne Boleyn which must have been difficult as she was a lifelong friend of her cousin Princess Mary. During Mary’s reign she was considered as a possible heir to the throne. It helped not only that she was close to Mary but that she was Catholic in her sympathies.

Meanwhile, back in the early 1530s at court Margaret had grown into a beautiful and creative woman who wrote poetry. She met and fell in love with Lord Thomas Howard. He was one of Anne Boleyn’s uncles (a young brother of the duke of Norfolk). The pair became engaged. They had not sought royal approval. In July 1536 Henry VIII discovered the engagement and was not a happy man. By that time Anne Boleyn had fallen from favour and both Mary and Elizabeth Tudor had been declared illegitimate. This meant that Margaret Douglas was quite high up on the list of possible heirs to the throne. She was a very marriageable commodity. Margaret broke off the engagement but by then both she and Lord Thomas had been thrown into the Tower and charged with treason. He died of natural causes on 31 October 1537. Margaret had been released from custody a few days previously.

Unsurprisingly given her mother’s complicated love life and Henry’s eye popping disapproval of his sister Margaret Douglas now found herself declared illegitimate by Act of Parliament.

In 1539 Margaret is on the list of Anne of Cleve’s ladies in waiting.

In 1540 she was back in hot water when she had an affair with Sir Charles Howard. It probably didn’t help that he was closely related to Katherine Howard. She was sent to Syon House but moved from there when Katherine Howard was also sent to Syon in disgrace. She might have remained in obscurity if the earl of Angus hadn’t popped back up to cause trouble in Scotland.

In 1543 Margaret Douglas was one of Katherine Parr’s bridesmaids.

matthew stuart.jpg Margaret finally married in 1544. He was a Scottish exile and his name was Matthew Stewart, Earl of Lennox. The pair lived at Temple Newsam near Leeds, a gift from Henry VIII to his niece upon her wedding. They had two sons – Henry Stuart Lord Darnley who would marry Mary Queen of Scots and end up murdered in an orchard in Kirk o Fields in 1567 and Charles Stuart who would fall in love with and marry Elizabeth Cavendish – Margaret Douglas’s grand-daughter was Lady Arbella Stuart. Neither Henry Stewart nor Charles nor even Arbella would have been considered a legitimate claimant to the throne by Henry VIII who excluded Margaret Lennox from the succession through his will because she made no secret of her Catholicism.

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Margaret Douglas even lost her claim to the earldom of Angus because of her husband’s part in the Rough Wooing. Margaret was Angus’s only legitimate child but he left everything to his nephew. Margaret never stopped contesting the fact that her father had broken the entail that should have seen her inherit an earldom.

Matthew Stewart, Lord Lennox was shot in the back and died in 1571 whilst fighting in Stirling. The marriage between the pair had probably been political but if the Lennox Jewel is anything to go by Margaret and her husband had fallen in love with one another.

lennox jewel.jpg

Whilst Mary Tudor was on the throne Margaret Douglas was at the centre of the royal court but once Protestant Elizabeth ascended the throne Margaret’s life became difficult not only because she insisted that Mary Tudor had said she ought to be queen but because of her Catholicism. Mathew Stuart found himself in the Tower and Margaret spent time under house arrest at Sheen.

margaret douglas hilliard Having lost her own claims to the English crown Margaret then worked on her eldest son’s claims. Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, was she claimed a contender for both the English and the Scottish crowns. Margaret was careful to send Henry to visit Mary Queen of Scots in France on several occasions. Her scheming would ultimately result in Darnley becoming Mary Queen of Scots’ second husband and effectively doubling their claim to the English throne.

Inevitably the match between Margaret’s second son (Charles) with his claim to the throne and Elizabeth Cavendish in November 1574 en route between London and Temple Newsam did not go down very well with Elizabeth I who suspected her cousin of Catholic plotting in Yorkshire. Lady Arbella Stuart would pay a heavy price for her royal blood.

Arbella Stuart

Margaret was summoned back to London and sent to the Tower for her part in arranging the match between her son and Elizabeth Cavendish. Elizabeth Cavendish’s mother escaped the Tower but Bess of Hardwick gave Elizabeth a blue satin cloak lined with velvet that Christmas suggesting that she knew that she was on a bit of a sticky wicket!

After the death of Margaret’s son Charles she concentrated her efforts on Arbella to whom she left her casket of jewellery when she died:

All the rest of my jewels goods chattels movable and unmovable, my funerals and legacies performed and my due debts paid I give and bequeath to the Lady Arbell Daughter of my son Charles deceased. Provided always and I will that where the one of my said Executors Thomas Fowler hath for sundry and divers bargains made for me and to my use by my appointment, authority and request entered into sundry bonds and covenants of warranties in sundry sorts and kinds that by law he may be challenged and constrained to answer and make good the same he the said Thomas Fowler my said executors shall out of my said goods, chattels movables plate and jewels whatsoever be answered allowed satisfied recompensed and kept harmless from any loss recovery forfeiture actions suits demands whatsoever may be and shall be of and from him my said executor lawfully recovered and obtained by any person or persons at any time or times after my decease. And provided also and I will that the rest and portion of my jewels, goods or movables whatsoever shall fall out to be shall remain in the hands, custody and keeping of my said executor Thomas Fowler until the said Lady Arbell be married or come to the age of fourteen years, to be then safely delivered to her if God shall send her then and so long to be living.

After her death on 9th March 1578 Elizabeth paid for her cousin to be buried in Westminster Abbey. It is perhaps not surprising given the tumultuous life that she led that there is even a conspiracy theory around her death. She dined with the earl of Leicester a few days before she died and that gave rise to the rumour that she was poisoned.

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Weir, Alison.(2015) The Lost Tudor Princess. London:Vintage

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The History Jar

Odds and ends of British history in no particular order

Tag Archives: Mary Tudor

Katherine of York

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