The Sisters Who Would Be Queen Page 4

  Since 1375 the so-called Liber Regalis had laid down how Kings of England were to be crowned, and it dictated the format of the ceremonies ahead. But for Edward’s coronation several significant modifications were made. The first became apparent as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, presented Edward to the three estates—Lords, Commons, and bishops—in the congregation beneath him. Instead of asking their assent to his crowning, Cranmer demanded they swear their service to Edward. The significance of this became apparent in the coronation oath, which the archbishop had also rewritten. The ancient promise to preserve the liberties and privileges of the clergy was struck out, and Edward, instead of agreeing to accept laws presented by his people, swore that the people were to accept his laws: in reality the Council’s laws presented under his authority. Henry VIII had regarded his claimed “royal supremacy” over religious affairs his greatest achievement. The arguments used in its support placed him above not only the Pope’s laws, but England’s also. He was the superior legislator who “gave” the law and exercised his “imperium,” or “command,” over Church and state. But this authority was now in the hands of politicians and prelates he had assumed were his lapdogs. Their power, through the boy King, was absolute and would be wielded for a specific purpose. Cranmer’s sermon explained that Edward was to be a new Josiah, the biblical king and destroyer of idols. It was a Year Zero in which a new religious ideology was to be imposed on his country and England’s Catholic past rooted out of his subjects’ hearts and churches.

  At the conclusion of the rituals, Jane’s father, Dorset, and her young uncle the eleven-year-old Henry, Duke of Suffolk, stepped forward. Together they helped Edward hold his scepter and “the ball of gold with the cross” and presented him to the congregation as their King. Propped up like a living doll, he represented more than anyone else the central place children now held in the brutal world of adult politics. But Jane, along with her teenage cousin the Princess Elizabeth, would soon join Edward as the tools of ambitious men.

  The future for Lady Jane Grey and her sisters was to be dominated by one document: King Henry’s will. Parliament had given Henry the right he demanded to bequeath the crown by testament, and when he had called for it, on 26 December 1546, he was prepared to use that power. Lying sprawled on the vast state bed at Whitehall, with its gilded frame and rich hangings, the ailing monarch had worked at his revisions for four days. The period between Christmas Day and New Year is a strange hiatus, a time caught between the past and the future, appropriate, perhaps, for the birth of such a document. The seasonal celebrations did not disturb him, but Henry’s councillors and confidants buzzed around him like flies until, on the 30th, he approved the final changes.

  The principal provisions of the will had been confirmed already under the third Act of Succession, in 1544. Edward was bequeathed the throne followed by any children Henry had with Catherine Parr. The crown then passed to Edward’s illegitimate half sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. At that point, however, there was a dramatic change in the line of succession. Just as Henry had ignored in 1544 the common laws on inheritance that excluded illegitimate children from the throne, so he had now refused to be bound by the tradition of primogeniture. The entire Stuart line of his eldest sister, Margaret of Scotland, was excluded from the succession. In the event of the death of his children without heirs, the crown was settled instead on the descendants of his younger sister, Mary Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk. At the stroke of his pen her granddaughters, Lady Jane, Katherine, and Mary Grey were named the heirs to Elizabeth.

  Henry never chose to explain why he had excluded the Stuarts in favor of the Brandon line. The Kings of Scotland had, however, been enemies of England for generations. Henry had hoped to find a solution to their centuries of warfare in betrothing the infant Mary Queen of Scots to Edward. When the Scots rebuffed him, Henry was faced with the prospect of their Queen being married to a European prince or a Scottish nobleman, and, either way, he did not want to risk England falling into foreign hands. It was to that end that he had made his daughters’ inheritance provisional on their taking a husband in accordance with the wishes of the Privy Council. Curiously, his will did not insist on a similar rule for the Grey sisters. Perhaps he assumed that Frances would have a son or grandson by the time his own line was extinct. It would explain why her name was overlooked in the will. It is also possible, however, that Henry’s decision was influenced by his mistrust of her husband.

  Harry Dorset was described by a contemporary as “an illustrious and widely loved nobleman,” much admired for his learning and his patronage of the learned. But as the rich husband of a royal wife, Dorset did not need to work hard for the status he held, and he had grown lazy and uncompromising. Although he had fought for the King in the wars with France, he had done little more than the minimum required of a nobleman. He preferred to leave the business of fighting to his younger brothers, Lords John and Thomas Grey. Nor was he suited to the snake pit of court politics. Remembered in the seventeenth century as “upright and plain in his private dealings,” he hated the dissembling that was part of court life. He had all the arrogance of the ideologue, and an imperial ambassador described him a few years later as being without sense. He was happiest with his books, or in the company of “good fellows,” men who enjoyed a day’s hunting and a game of cards. This was not the kind of man Henry respected, and the new Protector, Somerset, had no more use for him than the late King had had.

  Somerset was a successful soldier-politician on whom Henry had relied heavily in the last years of his reign. He was also emerging as a high-minded evangelical, and became known later as “the good duke.” Unfortunately this was how he saw himself. The portrait in which he sports a white suit and golden beard, like some heavenly princeling, encapsulates his self-image perfectly. Harry Dorset was not, however, the only member of the extended royal family to resent Somerset’s power and arrogance. King Edward’s younger uncle, Thomas Seymour, was already looking to Dorset for a political alliance against his older brother. Described by his gentleman servant Sir John Harington as a fine soldier and a dashing courtier, Thomas Seymour had a magnetic voice, “strong limbs and manly shape.” Women fell for him, and men admired him: indeed, once they had succumbed to his charm they never forgot him. Even thirty years after his death his former entourage was bound in friendship by his memory, and “the best of them disdained not the poorest.” In common with the protagonists of Greek tragedy, however, Thomas Seymour also possessed a fatal flaw: greed, and of the most dangerous kind—the greed for power. Somerset had tried his best to engage Seymour’s support for his Protectorship. The younger brother had been brought on to the Privy Council, given the title Baron Seymour of Sudeley, and made Lord Admiral. What the new Baron Sudeley had hoped for most, however, was the post of Governor of the King’s Person, which would have allowed him to share the power of the Protectorship. And in this he was thwarted. Few others wished to see such a division of authority, and so in March, a month after the coronation, Somerset took the post for himself. A furious Sudeley was now determined to block any further advance by his brother, while continuing to seek power for himself. But to achieve this he needed first to raise his profile within the royal family.

  Since January, Jane and her sisters had seen a new and increasingly regular visitor to Dorset House on the Strand. Jane would have recognized him as a man about court: he was Sudeley’s servant John Harington. A landowner and man of considerable subtlety and intelligence, Harington had been sent to prepare the ground for what Sudeley called a “friendship” with Dorset.

  Sudeley, meanwhile, was wooing Henry VIII’s widow. Catherine Parr had been in love with Sudeley before she had married Henry and now that she was free to make her own choice she clearly found him irresistible. Within weeks of the King’s death the handsome Lord Admiral had the Queen dowager “under the plummet [duvet]” at her manor in Chelsea. They married in secret in May 1547, shortly after she was given the care of her stepdaughter the Pri
ncess Elizabeth, and less than four months since King Henry had died. Over the following weeks, as Sudeley saw the huge influence his new wife had over Elizabeth, it struck him that the wardship of the next in line to the throne, Lady Jane Grey, would also be valuable. Notably, Edward’s heirs were all female. The entire political system, the stability of England, depended on a series of women and girls and, whether adult, like Catherine Parr and the Princess Mary, or children, like the Princess Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey, they were, to Sudeley, beings to be used and manipulated.

  Sudeley had often noticed Jane Grey about the court. She appeared rather small, but her dark brows and eyes, which were “sparkling and reddish brown in colour,” suggested a lively spirit. He now began to watch her with closer interest, observing her playing and talking with the new King. An audience with Edward was always a formal affair, but as Jane Grey’s cousin Jane Dormer recalled, it was still possible to spend many happy hours with him, “either in reading, playing or dancing.” Edward was universally considered “a marvellous, sweet child, of very mild and generous condition,” and Dormer recalled how he would call her “my Jane,” and, when she lost at cards, he would comfort her: “Now Jane, your king is gone, I shall be good enough for you.”

  As similar scenes were played out under Sudeley’s gaze, he realized that Lady Jane Grey, with her royal blood, could one day be more than a playmate for Edward. She could become the King’s wife, a possibility that served his purposes well. Sudeley knew, or suspected, that Somerset hoped to see Jane Grey married to his eight-year-old son, Edward Seymour, the Earl of Hertford. He hoped that if he could persuade Jane’s father to make her his ward, he would be able to thwart his brother’s ambitions in this regard and gain some control over whom Jane did marry. There would be many powerful people who would want her as a bride—all useful allies in the struggles ahead.

  As Sudeley knew, Dorset had not been treated well by the Protector. When Catherine Parr’s courtly brother, William, had been made Marquess of Northampton, it was said it had been done not so much to promote Northampton as to demote Dorset, who was, until Northampton’s election, the only marquess in England. This view appeared to be confirmed in March, when Northampton was raised to the Privy Council, and Dorset was not. Harington was instructed to assure Dorset that, as the King’s second uncle, Sudeley was well placed to do him the favors the Protector denied him. When, during one of his subsequent visits to his London home, Dorset confirmed his willingness to be Sudeley’s friend and ally, Harington seized his opportunity. The most appropriate mark of this future friendship, he said, would be if Dorset were to send Jane to live in Sudeley’s household as his ward. At that, however, Dorset balked.

  It was usual for aristocratic families to send a daughter approaching adolescence to live with a well-connected family. The tradition served a number of useful purposes, binding, as it did, parents as allies and children as friends. The contacts made were used often in the arrangement of a future marriage. For a girl of noble birth it was virtually unthinkable that her marriage should be left to chance, but Jane, at ten, was rather young to be “put out,” as it was termed. And there were other considerations. We do not know the precise timing of Harington’s visit, but if it took place before Sudeley’s marriage to Catherine Parr became public, Harington was asking Dorset to send his daughter to the household of an unmarried man. If, as is more likely, it took place after, then it was to a man whose marriage was considered a scandal. Catherine Parr had destroyed her reputation by marrying so soon after the King’s death. Virtue in a woman was associated almost entirely with chastity—that is, unimpeachable sexual morality and continence. It was believed that the female sex drive was stronger than the male (since women were creatures of feeling rather than reason), and therefore the likely explanation for Catherine Parr’s behavior was assumed to be unbridled lust. Sudeley, meanwhile, was judged guilty of selfish ambition. If his wife became pregnant it would be uncertain whose child it was. This was potentially dangerous to the stability of the country. Since Henry VIII had introduced a law requiring the monarch’s assent to any royal marriage, their actions might even have been judged treasonous, had Sudeley not persuaded Edward to write a letter that made it appear that the marriage was made at his suggestion.

  Harington had anticipated that Dorset’s reaction to the proposed wardship might not be favorable and assured Dorset that Sudeley would see to it that Jane was placed in a most advantageous marriage. “With whom?” Dorset demanded. “Marry,” Harington replied, “I doubt not but you shall see him marry her to the King; and fear you not but he will bring it to pass.” Dorset was stunned by Harington’s remark. He listened, however, as Harington continued, describing how Sudeley, watching Jane about court, had declared that she was “as handsome a Lady as any in Christendom, and that, if the King’s Majesty, when he came to age, would marry within the realm, it was as likely it would be there than in any other place.” Dorset began to consider the possibilities: maybe Sudeley’s idea was not an unrealistic one? Henry VIII had taken English wives. His daughter was an intelligent, highly educated, evangelical princess: the perfect bride for Edward. For the Greys, it would also be a better match than either his grandfather, or he himself, had made. Dorset agreed to discuss the matter of Jane’s wardship with Sudeley as soon as possible.

  While the royal children played their innocent games, the adults began moving the pawns on the political chessboard. Within a week of Harington’s approaches, Dorset was at Seymour Place along the Strand, talking with Sudeley in the privacy of his garden. The banging and clattering of builders echoed across the hedges and herb beds. Next door, the Protector was razing the local parish church of St. Mary and the Holy Innocents to make way for a vast Italianate palace. It was the first building of its kind in England, a suitable monument to Somerset’s burgeoning status as alter rex (another king). Above the noise Sudeley repeated to Dorset that he believed Jane would make the King a fine Queen. But he offered also substantial proof of his friendship: several hundred pounds toward an eventual payment of two thousand pounds for Jane’s wardship. Dorset was impressed. Sudeley’s “fair promises” and eagerness to be his friend were in stark contrast to the treatment he had received at Somerset’s hands. Convinced that an alliance with Sudeley was an honorable way forward, he sent for his daughter immediately.

  Dorset’s actions have since been characterized as those of a heartless parent selling his daughter for profit. As Jane watched her bags being packed and kissed her sisters farewell, however, this was surely not how she saw it. It was usual for money to change hands in matters of wardship, as guardians would profit from any inheritance that came the way of their ward while they were minors. Her father’s wardship had been bought twice over, by the late Earl of Arundel and the Duke of Suffolk, and for double the figure Sudeley was prepared to pay for Jane. It was, in any case, not the money that had appealed most to Dorset. By placing his daughter with Sudeley, he would open the greatest possible prospects for her, which in turn could bring glory to the family name. Jane would have understood this, for noble children were part of a family network that extended to kin and beyond, in which each was expected to play his or her part for the good of the whole. Jane’s mother, Frances, appears to have had her doubts, however, about the wisdom of the scheme. Her friend and stepmother Katherine Suffolk disapproved of Sudeley and was shocked by his hasty marriage to their friend the Queen dowager, Catherine Parr. But although Frances also later made strenuous efforts to keep Jane at home, away from Sudeley, she saw it as her duty to support her husband in his decisions—and from this time forward he hoped that his favorite child would one day be Queen.

  The ten-year-old was installed with her guardian at Seymour Place as soon as the necessary arrangements had been made. Despite her mother’s possible misgivings it was to be one of the happiest periods of Jane Grey’s life.

  IV

  The Example of Catherine Parr

  IT WAS ONLY A SHORT BOAT RIDE FROM DORSET HOUSE TO
Seymour Place, but Jane’s new home opened a more independent world for her. At the best of times large aristocratic households were not very good at giving girls the kind of closely supervised lives their parents would have liked. Guardians were often at court or staying with friends, and the girls were left in the care of servants who had less reason than their parents to watch their manners and behavior. Even an experienced stepmother like Catherine Parr sometimes neglected her duties. The Protector’s wife, Anne, Duchess of Somerset, was shocked to see Parr’s ward, the young Princess Elizabeth, unaccompanied, out in a barge on the Thames one night that summer. There were no such complaints about Sudeley’s care of Jane, but he was an indulgent guardian, with more pressing concerns than babysitting a ten-year-old girl. Jane, a confident child, must have enjoyed the novel sense of freedom this gave her, although she was never left entirely to her own devices.

  When Jane wasn’t at Seymour Place she was attending the Queen dowager’s household with her guardian. In the last year of her life she would return to Catherine’s former house at the royal manor of Chelsea. Here, in the summer, the garden boasted orchards of cherry and peach, velvety damask roses, and the warm scents of lavender and rosemary. Inside, the noise and bustle was greater even than Jane was used to at Bradgate. In addition to the Queen’s Privy Chamber and Maids of Honor, the household included upwards of one hundred twenty gentlemen and yeomen. At thirty-five, Catherine Parr remained attractive; with a handsome husband she worked hard to stay beautiful, plucking her eyebrows with silver tweezers and dressing in the latest fashions. Children are always fascinated by the rituals of adult grooming and, to the later irritation of her tutor John Aylmer, Jane developed a similar fondness for carefully styled hair and fine clothes. She also grew to share the Queen dowager’s love of music. Catherine and her brother, William Parr of Northampton, were the greatest patrons of musicians at court. The most famous, the five Bassano brothers, provided the only permanent recorder consort known in England before the twentieth century. One brother, Baptista, instructed the Princess Elizabeth in Italian, as well as in playing the lute.