CHAPTER II

LADY KATHERINE GREY AT THE COURT OF QUEEN MARY

MISS AGNES STRICKLAND and other historians have fallen into the error of stating that Mary Tudor appointed the Lady Frances, Duchess of Suffolk, to be one of her women of the bedchamber, and her two daughters, the Ladies Katherine and Mary Grey, maids of honour. A little reflection will show that such appointments were as impossible in Mary’s time, as it would be, in our day, for Her present Majesty, to name the Duchess of Fife and her children, or the Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, to similar positions in her household. The Ladies Grey were royal princesses and possible successors to the reigning sovereign. Mary, therefore, simply restored to the royal Duchess of Suffolk her rights of precedence and _entrée_ at court, which had been withdrawn on account of her share in the conspiracy to place her daughter, the Lady Jane Grey, upon the Throne. A note among the Willoughby Papers (1556) probably gave rise to the error in question, by stating that “Mrs. Margaret Willoughby has been to Court with the Lady Frances’ Grace, who has her place in the Privy-chamber. Young Mistress Willoughby was much commended, and the Lady Frances’ Grace did not doubt but, in a short time, to place her about the Queen’s highness, so as to content all her friends.” This, however, merely confirms what we have said above. Throughout her reign, owing to ill-health, Queen Mary received not only her intimate friends, but even ambassadors and other official persons, in her bed-chamber, whilst she lay, propped up with cushions, in the bed.

The Lady Frances, after her ill-assorted marriage, lived with her young husband at Sheen, but came up to London to her house in the Strand (which she had not as yet sold, and on the site of which Northumberland House was subsequently built) whenever it suited her purpose to visit the queen or her other royal relatives. Though the Ladies Katherine and Mary Grey were not exactly “received” into the queen’s household—their rank forbade it—they accompanied the queen wherever she went, and lodged in the royal palaces. Mary did not wish the sisters of Lady Jane Grey to be far out of her sight and reach, lest they might be involved in some attempt to place either of them, and especially the Lady Katherine, at the head of the Protestant party, in the position left vacant in so tragic a manner by their sister Jane. Mary, and after Mary’s death, Elizabeth in her turn, paid each sister a pension of eighty pounds a year; but this was a bounty, not a salary. After the deaths of their father, uncle, and sister, the estates of the Greys, at Bradgate and elsewhere, were confiscated, and eventually passed by entail to the next male heir, Lord Grey of Pirgo; and therefore the inheritance of the two sisters from their father was lost to them and never restored. It was otherwise with the Lady Frances, whose property, although considerably diminished by mortgages and loans, was never confiscated; but the rents only sufficed for her own maintenance and that of her young husband. As to her daughters, this sinister lady does not seem to have troubled much about them. She apparently left their interests to Providence—and the queen. Lady Katherine Grey and her little sister were treated with consideration at the court of Queen Mary, and granted the state and precedence due to princesses of the blood, as is clearly indicated in the records of the time, by an apparently trivial mention, that “their trains were upheld by a gentlewoman” on all great occasions, a privilege only accorded to members of the royal family.

The contrast between the secluded life which she had led at Baynard’s Castle, and the court of Queen Mary, must have been great, and afforded, to a very young girl of Katherine’s age, sufficient amusement to make her forget the sorrows through which she had recently passed. The Duke of Somerset, when protector, had reduced the household expenses of Edward VI to about half what they had been in the reign of his father, Henry VIII. Queen Mary, being economically inclined, although aware that she must make a great figure if she wished to captivate Philip of Spain, did not restore things to the splendid state in which they had been in her father’s time. She reduced the number of her servants and attendants, but in a measure increased the splendour of their costumes. Like her sister Elizabeth, she was inordinately fond of dress, with this difference, however, that she had perfect taste; and fortunately for her, fashion was not then as grotesque as it became later on, when good Queen Elizabeth wore farthingales four yards in circumference, and a ruff that gave her head the appearance of being in the centre of her body. Mary’s household was ordered almost on monastic lines. Mass every morning, saying the rosary, evening and night prayers, and pious readings took up much of the ladies’ time. They were, moreover, expected to accompany the queen to hear innumerable sermons, and to follow her in the countless religious processions which were now revived with exaggerated zeal. The queen, it is true, occasionally indulged in a stately measure, was fond of music and not a little, also, of cards; but until the advent of Philip, her court was as decorous as it was dull.

Lady Katherine Grey’s first appearance at the court of the queen, her cousin, was on the occasion of Mary’s marriage to Philip of Spain in July 1554, when she is mentioned as being among the ladies who rode in that startling red-lacquered chariot, lined with crimson velvet and specially constructed for the purpose, that so delighted contemporaries, and conveyed Her Majesty and her ladies over the very rough roads between London and Winchester, rendered still more dreadful by an almost incessant downpour of rain which had lasted for some weeks. The queen and her suite reached Winchester on Monday, July 23, on the same day that Prince Philip left Southampton, where he had landed, after seven days’ rough voyage from Corunna, on Thursday, July 19. At Southampton he had been lodged in the palace, specially adorned with tapestries sent down from London. The decorations of his bedroom puzzled and displeased him not a little, for it was hung with crimson velvet embroidered “in many places” with the arms of England, bordered with scrolls on which figured the words, “Defender of the Faith and Head of the Church,” in raised letters of gold and silver, interlaced with the roses of York and Lancaster. Philip, a belligerent Catholic, did not like himself in the character of “Defender of the [Protestant] Faith” or as “Head” of the Protestant or any other church. The people of Southampton seem to have been delighted with the personal appearance of the Spanish prince; contemporary documents describe him as possessing a “bright complexion,” which he certainly had not in ordinary life, and we may therefore conclude that he rouged for the occasion—a by no means unusual practice, even with men, in those days. Titian and Coelho have depicted Philip, and it would be hard to find a more unpleasing countenance than that of this Prince of Naples, soon (1556) to be King Philip II of Spain and emperor of half the known world; a strangely shaped conical head, a prematurely wrinkled forehead, a chubby nose with large nostrils, and a protruding underlip, made up a most unprepossessing face, not even relieved by fine eyes, but merely by a pair of grey ones that rather emphasized than otherwise the sodden complexion of a gentleman who was, however, nothing like so unpleasant in his manners as we have been led to fancy him. He was, at least at this period of his life, neither mean nor morose, but exceedingly alert, liberal, and courteous, even to menials. He arrived in England in the best of tempers, which was, however, sorely tried during his short journey from Southampton to Winchester, performed, with a very numerous escort, on horseback. The roads were wretched, the rain and wind incessant, and at a given point, some three miles before reaching Winchester, the prince’s horse shied, and Philip, Infante of Spain, Viceroy of Naples, Sicily, Austria, Flanders and the Indies, East and West, was sent sprawling, like an ordinary mortal, into a mud-heap, whence he emerged in such a filthy condition, that he had to be conveyed into a hut, washed, cleaned and furbished up generally for the rest of his ride. He reached Winchester towards evening, where he dined alone. He was then dressed afresh, the better to make a favourable impression upon the royal bride, who awaited him with the utmost impatience at the Bishop’s palace. When he entered the great hall, the queen, gorgeously robed in white satin embroidered in silver, with a train of blue velvet, greeted him with every demonstration of affection. Philip himself was in white velvet, slashed with cloth of silver. He moreover wore a short cloak of black velvet, embroidered in gold with a design of pomegranates. A little before reaching Winchester, His Highness had been met at the wayside by a gentleman on horseback, bearing a ring from the queen, as a token of her regard, which ring Philip took great care to wear, and even to point to, when he first beheld Her Majesty. There had, however, been some trouble over the matter of the ring, for Lord Pembroke, who had been selected to convey it to the prince, spoke neither French, Italian, nor Spanish. Pembroke’s speech on delivering the said ring was either misunderstood or wrongly translated, and Philip came to the conclusion that it was intended to warn him of some plot or other against him, for he was well aware of the intense dislike to the marriage entertained by the majority of the English; and he even prepared to turn back. He, however, called the Duke of Alva and Count Egmont to him, and passing for shelter under the dripping boughs of a tree, consulted with them. Pembroke was now called also, and after a good deal of pantomiming, it was made clear that the ring was simply a matter of compliment, and not a warning; and thus, greatly relieved, the brilliant company galloped on, through the blinding wind and rain, as fast as their horses could speed. As the queen spoke Spanish fluently, no doubt Philip described this incident to her, and maybe it explains why, shortly after the prince had entered her presence, Mary was observed to be laughing heartily as she conversed with him.

The marriage of the Queen of England to the Prince of Naples and Spain took place in Winchester Cathedral on July 25, being the Feast of St. James. Mary walked from the episcopal palace to the church, her cousin, the Lady Margaret Douglas (Lennox), carrying her train, assisted by Sir John Gage, the chamberlain. Behind her walked Lady Katherine Grey, “her train upheld by a gentlewoman.” Then came the queen’s favourite women: the Lady Browne, Mrs. Jane Dormer, Mrs. Clarencieux, the Lady Bacon, Mrs. Sands, the beautiful Lady Magdalen Dacre, Mrs. Mary Finch, Jane Russell, Mrs. Shirley, and many others. In the chancel were assembled the distinguished Spanish noblemen and women who had accompanied the prince from Spain. The tall, majestic, but sinister-looking Duke of Alva, with his fine features, steely grey eyes, and long forked grey beard, must have been the observed of all observers, for he was already renowned and dreaded as a formidable opponent of the Reform. The handsome Count Egmont was also a conspicuous personage in the prince’s foreign escort. Within a few short years, together with his friend, Count Horne, he was to be amongst Alva’s most famous victims, and eventually to be immortalized in a tragedy by Schiller and an overture by Beethoven. After the wedding ceremony, performed by Dr. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, the illustrious company walked processionally to the episcopal palace, where a copious banquet was served, the royal table being furnished with plate of solid gold. A cupboard of nine stages, full of gold vases and silver dishes, was placed well in sight, for ornament rather than for use. In a gallery opposite was stationed a band of musicians, who played a selection of English and Spanish tunes; after which, four heralds, attired in their official tabards, entered, and between the first and the second courses, one of them, after much trumpeting, pronounced a congratulatory Latin panegyric in the queen’s honour and in that of the Prince of Naples, which was received with tumultuous applause, though we may take it for granted that nine-tenths of the audience did not understand a word of what had been said! At what we should call the dessert, a group of Winchester boys pressed forward and grouped themselves round their head-boy, who read a Latin epithalium[61] of his own composition. The queen then most graciously introduced the lads to the prince, and they were all of them rewarded by Her Majesty and His Highness with gold and silver coins, tied up in little red bags. At the close of the banquet, Prince Philip rose and returned thanks to the Lords of the Privy Council and to the other English nobility present. At six o’clock the tables were cleared and taken up, and a little later the queen, who had retired for about an hour, returned to the hall, accompanied by her women, and spoke very graciously to the Spanish ladies. Among these were the Duchess of Alva, the Countess Egmont, the Countess Horne, the Countess of Villhermosa, the Duquesa de las Neves, and many others, whose costumes were deemed so extraordinary and ludicrous by the English ladies that they had the greatest difficulty to conceal their merriment. We can imagine how the little Lady Katherine Grey must have been diverted by the comical spectacle presented by the towering form of the Duchess of Alva, a very large and tall woman, attired in one of those gigantic farthingales with which Velazquez has made us familiar. It seems that the Duchess of Alva’s huge petticoat was embroidered in a design of parrots and squirrels pecking at cherries and oranges and other fruits, and even nuts: the whole on a ground of gold thread. No doubt it was a marvellous specimen of needlework, but when taken in conjunction with a formidable ruff of gold lace and a headdress so peculiar as to baffle description, the presence of the august lady was well calculated to astonish and divert her English hosts, who were attired in the tasteful costume of the period. The Spanish ladies, who did not dance the English dances, after much ado consented to execute a Spanish fandango, to the amused delight of the queen and the court of England.

What became of Lady Katherine Grey immediately after the marriage of the queen is not recorded. From Winchester the royal couple went to Basing Hall for their honeymoon, where they were splendidly entertained by the Marquis of Winchester; but as the suites of the queen and her consort were, to use Dominie Sampson’s expression, “prodeegious,” both in quality and quantity, a large contingent of them rode on to London to await their majesties’ arrival. After a week at Basing Hall, the royal couple, with their courts, proceeded, in mended weather, to Windsor. The cavalcade consisted of fifty-two of the lumbering but vividly painted coaches then in vogue, containing about a dozen persons each: that occupied by the prince and the queen, who sat opposite each other precisely as they would have done in an omnibus, was the only one painted scarlet. The passage of the royal party and their suite through the hamlets, villages, and small towns on the way, created, we may be sure, a delightful impression upon the country-folks, unaccustomed to seeing so many gay coaches, litters, cavaliers, and horsemen. Long before the interminable cortège reached Windsor, the sun shone out gloriously, as the noble silhouette of the incomparable castle, with its round and square towers rising majestically from the midst of its delicious surroundings of every tint of verdure, burst upon the delighted English and the surprised Spaniards, who had no conception that England—which, according to their letters home, they considered a land of barbarians—contained any palace so superb: one that coul until August 27, in that fair riverside palace, of which, unfortunately, so little has survived. On the morning of that day, Philip and Mary, in their state barges, escorted by nearly a hundred other craft, some of them manned by as many as forty oarsmen, rowed down the river to Suffolk Place, Southwark, where they spent the night before making their state entry into London. In those days, Suffolk Place, of which only a memory remains in the name of a mean court, was one of the most magnificent Tudor residences in England. It had been inherited by the queen’s uncle, Charles Brandon, from his uncle Thomas, and sumptuously furnished for the reception of the queen-dowager, Mary Tudor. In the reign of Edward VI it was converted into a mint, but was now refurnished for the reception of Prince Philip. It is not likely that either the Lady Frances, or her daughters Katherine and Mary, were included in the state procession that started for Westminster from Suffolk Place early in the morning of the 28th of August. The tragedy of Lady Jane was too fresh in the minds of the people for it to be prudent to recall it too forcibly by the presence in a public function of the mother and sisters of the numerous victims. The state entry of Philip and Mary into the metropolis must have been very curious, if only on account of the number of giants which, for some unexplained reason, formed part of the usual pageants along the road: their towering height contrasted sharply with the very diminutive stature of the queen. Of greater interest probably to the people of London than this state entry was another procession which passed through the streets some months later, bearing to the Tower no less than ninety-seven iron chests, each a yard and a quarter in length, and reported to contain a quantity of Spanish silver, which, says Machyn, “will mak by estymacyon 1 thousand pounds.” These chests were carried in carts specially constructed for the purpose, and guarded by Spaniards in rich liveries, and were greeted, so it was noted, with greater enthusiasm than was shown for either the prince or the queen. Naturally the people were well pleased to see so tangible a proof that the national exchequer, which had been emptied by Henry VIII and by the protector, under Edward VI, was being thus replenished by the otherwise intolerable Spaniards.

Unhappily, in the midst of the coronation festivities, the old Duke of Norfolk died; and in deference to his memory, the queen, who was probably very tired herself of these rejoicings, ordered that they should be suspended for some time. The court therefore proceeded to Hampton Court, where it arrived on August 23 (1554), and was met, we know, by Lady Katherine Grey, because a few days after their highnesses’ arrival, an important incident in the life of this young lady occurred—i.e. her meeting, after some years’ separation, with young Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, the late Duke of Somerset’s eldest son, who at one time had been much attached to Lady Jane Grey. He was not a very desirable suitor, it may be, for so great a lady as Katherine, since, besides being not very well off—having been deprived of his father’s lands and titles—he was so undersized that he was generally called “little Hertford”; whilst, as we shall see later on, he seems to have possessed a timorous and vacillating character.

Meanwhile, the king and queen retired to a suite of beautiful Gothic chambers, known as “Paradise,” which were destroyed in the seventeenth century, when this part of the palace was rebuilt by William and Mary. Philip and Mary shut themselves up for nearly a week, much to the annoyance of the public, no one being admitted, except such ladies-in-waiting and gentlemen as were absolutely necessary for the service of the royal table and bedchamber. These days of peaceful seclusion were possibly the happiest of Mary’s life: for she firmly believed Philip to be in love with her, and he played up to her fancy as deceitfully and skilfully as only he knew how. The royal pair would sit for hours together hand in hand, and even disappear down a private staircase, to meander, with their arms round each other’s waists, like the commonest of lovers, across the lawns and the flower-bordered avenues of that charming and still delightful garden. The queen was infatuated, and firmly believed that in due course she would give birth to a son and heir—had not the fact been lately prophesied to her by a famous soothsayer? Unfortunately, even thus early in his married life, Philip exhibited his fickle nature, in an amusing incident that moved the court to merriment. Among the ladies in attendance on Mary at this time was the beautiful Lady Magdalen Dacre, a friend of Lady Katherine Grey and of about her age. Her beaming face and her bright eyes soon attracted the attention of Philip, who watched an opportunity to pounce upon his fair prey and kiss her, whereupon the fiery young Englishwoman, breaking away from him, gave him a resounding box on the ears. Philip took his punishment prettily enough and made no complaint; but the story of his defeat, spreading like wildfire through the court, created much amusement, and no doubt eventually reached Her Majesty’s ears.

Mr. Martin Hume published, some years ago, a very curious letter he found among the Spanish archives, giving a description of the few happy days Mary enjoyed with Philip, from which we learn that the over numerous Spaniards who accompanied the prince were as much disgusted with the English as the English were with them. Left somewhat to themselves, thanks to the love-making of their sovereign, they made themselves masters of Hampton Court. They could not endure the cooking; it was, they said, coarse, raw, and horrible. The famous “roast-beef of old England” was unsuited to their palates, and their stomachs revolted at the quantity of strong beer which the attendants upon Mary imbibed so copiously that, according to the correspondent in question, by the time evening drew on, the majority of them were drunk. Further, this correspondent says: “There is not a single Spanish gentleman here who would give a farthing for any of their women; and, to speak plainly, they care equally little for us Spaniards. The English, in fact, hate us as they do the devil, and in that spirit they treat us. If we go up to town to make purchases, we are sure to be cheated, and it is quite dangerous for us to venture into the country. As to their women, with few exceptions, they are most plain, very fat, and red in the face. They dress extremely badly, and shuffle rather than walk. There are eighteen kitchens in this royal palace, and every day there are consumed not less than one hundred sheep, twelve oxen, eighteen calves, and beer in such abundance, that the winter flow of the river at Valladolid is not greater in quantity.” The amusing writer then proceeds to describe the queen. “Bless you,” says he, “she is a very plain little lady, small, lean, with a pink-and-white complexion and no eyebrows; very pious and very badly dressed.” In this matter of the queen’s dress our Spanish critic probably preferred the Spanish fashion for ladies, with its “vastie” farthingales and impossible head-dress, to the rich but sober costume which Queen Mary affected.

Whilst Philip and Mary were spending an idyllic existence in the pleasant seclusion and surroundings of their sequestered apartments, the ladies of the court no doubt availed themselves of the opportunity to enjoy a greater amount of freedom than court etiquette usually allows; and thus it came to pass than young Hertford and Lady Katherine met almost daily, either in the garden or in the palace itself, thereby adding fuel to the fire of that attachment between them which was eventually to prove so disastrous to both. That the Duchess of Somerset, the lad’s mother, was aware of their love-making appears pretty certain, and probably Mary herself was cognizant of it, and by no means disapproved. She felt sure she would become the mother of an heir to the Throne, and it mattered very little to her whom the Lady Katherine married, provided he was of sufficient rank. Notwithstanding that his mother, the duchess, was a very outspoken Protestant, Queen Mary always entertained a great affection for her, addressing her, in her numerous letters, as her “Dearest Nan.” Indeed the early courting of Lady Katherine and Hertford was spent under the most auspicious circumstances, smiled upon by the queen and amidst the most charming and romantic surroundings.

On the 28th of September the court removed from Hampton Court and went to Westminster Palace, and with it went Lady Katherine and all the ladies, young and old; and there is a record that, on the 30th of the month, the Lady Frances came up to town and paid her respects to the queen and her consort. She probably attended their highnesses to St. Paul’s, where the whole court listened to a sermon preached by Gardiner.

Meanwhile the Spaniards, who had flocked to London in great numbers, were the cause of perpetual trouble to the citizens and to themselves. Street fights between them and the English were of constant occurrence, and all sorts of brawls, as picturesque, no doubt, as they were unpleasant, between the English gentlemen and the Spanish cavaliers, and Spanish valets and London apprentices, occurred almost daily—and especially nightly. Probably London felt itself well quit of this foreign invasion when the greater part of it followed Philip, on his return to Spain in August 1555, leaving the queen at Greenwich in the deepest despondency. Before this, the Lady Katherine Grey had formed an intimacy with the two daughters of the late Duke of Somerset, the Ladies Margaret and Jane Seymour, who had been appointed maids of honour to the queen. They are described as very good-looking young women, and Jane was even considered to be one of the most learned of her time. Shortly after the departure of Prince Philip, Lady Jane Seymour, who was very delicate, fell ill, and the queen allowed Lady Katherine to go with her to her mother, the Duchess of Somerset’s house at Hanworth, which Mary had recently restored to her, and where the young Earl of Hertford was staying. As may be imagined, the courting which had begun at Hampton Court was continued, with renewed vigour, at Hanworth, Lady Jane Seymour being Lady Katherine’s confidante.