The Protestant Throckmorton

Sir Nicholas Throckmorton died on February 12, 1571; he was a survivor of the Tudor succession, restored to favor under Mary I in spite of his initial support of Lady Jane Grey--who was executed on February 12 in 1554--and suspicion of his involvement in the Wyatt Rebellion. According to the Dictionary of National Biography:

diplomatist, born in 1515, was fourth of the eight sons of Sir George Throckmorton of Coughton, Warwickshire. His grandfather, Sir Robert Throckmorton (son of Thomas, and grandson of Sir John Throckmorton [q. v.]), was a privy councillor under Henry VII, and died in 1519 while on a pilgrimage to Palestine. His mother was Katharine, daughter of Sir Nicholas, lord Vaux of Harrowden, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Henry, lord Fitzhugh, and widow of Sir William Parr, K.G. She was thus aunt by marriage to Queen Catherine Parr, and Sir Nicholas claimed the queen as his first cousin. His father, Sir George, incurred, owing to some local topic of dispute, the ill-will of Cromwell, whose manor of Oversley adjoined that of Coughton. Early in 1540 Cromwell contrived to have his neighbour imprisoned on a charge of denying Henry VIII's supremacy, but Lady Throckmorton's niece, Catherine Parr, used her influence with the king to procure Sir George's release. Sir George was one of the chief witnesses against Cromwell at his trial, which took place in the same year, and was consulted by Henry VIII in the course of the proceedings. After Cromwell's fall Sir George purchased Cromwell's forfeited manor of Oversley. He was sheriff of Warwickshire and Leicestershire in 1526 and 1546, and built the great gatehouse at Coughton. He died soon after Queen Mary's accession. Sir Robert Throckmorton (d. 1570), Sir George's eldest son and successor in the Coughton estate, was succeeded by his son Thomas (d. 1614), who, as a staunch catholic, suffered much persecution and loss of property during Elizabeth's reign. Thomas Throckmorton's grandson Robert was a devoted royalist, and was created a baronet on 1 Sept. 1642. The baronetcy is still held by a descendant.

As for Nicholas, the fourth son, he was a Protestant:

Nicholas was chiefly brought up by his mother's brother-in-law, Lord Parr. In youth he served as page to the Duke of Richmond, and probably went to Paris with his master in 1532. With two brothers he joined the household of his family connection, Catherine Parr, soon after her marriage to Henry VIII in July 1543. Unlike other members of his family, he accepted the reformed faith of his mistress, and remained a sturdy protestant till his death. He and two brothers were present as sympathising spectators at the execution of Anne Askew, the protestant martyr, in 1546 (Narratives of the Reformation, Camden Soc. pp. 41–2).

Throckmorton entered public life as M.P. for Malden in 1545, and sat in the House of Commons almost continuously till 1567. The accession of Edward VI was favourable to his fortunes. With the king's religious sentiment he was in thorough sympathy, and Edward liked him personally. . . .

Although he was Protestant, he eventually sided with the Catholic Mary instead of the Protestant Jane:

Throckmorton's signature was appended to the letters patent of 7 June 1553 which limited the succession of the crown to Lady Jane Grey and her descendants (Chronicle of Queen Jane, p. 100). Immediately after Edward's death and Lady Jane's accession, Throckmorton's wife acted by way of deputy for Lady Jane as godmother of a son of Edward Underhill, the ‘Hot-Gospeller,’ at his christening in the Tower of London (19 July 1553); the boy was named Guilford after Lady Jane's husband (Narratives of the Reformation, p. 153). On the same day Mary was generally proclaimed queen. Throckmorton is reported to have been at the moment at Northampton, and when Sir Thomas Tresham formally declared for Mary there, he is said to have made a protest in Lady Jane's favour, which exposed him to personal risk at the townspeople's hands (Chron. of Queen Jane, p. 12). But Throckmorton's devotion to Lady Jane was more specious than real, and he had no intention of forfeiting the goodwill of her rival Mary. He was credited by his friends with having taken a step of the first importance to Mary's welfare on the very day of Edward VI's death by sending her London goldsmith to her at Hoddesdon to apprise her of the loss of her brother, and to warn her of the danger that threatened her if she fell into the clutches of the Duke of Northumberland (Legend of Throckmorton, vv. 111 et seq.; cf.Goodman's Life and Times, i. 117). On Mary's arrival in London she showed no resentment at Throckmorton's dalliance with Lady Jane's pretensions, and he sat as member for Old Sarum in her first parliament of October–December 1553.

But he was suspected of involvement in the Wyatt Plot and spent some time in the Tower of London, but was acquitted at trial by the jury! That's extraordinary in the history of treason trials, but he had defended himself well--and both he and the jury were still imprisoned after the verdict.

When Mary died and Elizabeth became queen, Throckmorton began diplomatic contacts with Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland and Queen of France (briefly):

Elizabeth's accession to the throne opened to him a career of political activity. He was at once appointed chief butler and chamberlain of the exchequer, and was elected M.P. for Lyme Regis on 2 Jan. 1558–9. In the following May the more important office of ambassador to France was bestowed on him (cf. Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1547–80, p. 128). On 9 Jan. 1559–60 the queen signed instructions in which he was directed to protest against the assumption of the arms of England by Francis II, who had married Mary Queen of Scots on 24 April 1558, and had ascended the French throne on 10 July 1559 (Hatfield MSS. i. 165–7; State Papers, Foreign, 1559–60, No. 557). Francis died on 5 Dec. 1560, and Throckmorton was much occupied in the weeks that followed in seeking to induce Queen Mary to forego ‘the style and title of sovereign of England,’ and to postpone her assumption of her sovereignty in Scotland. Throckmorton had many audiences of her, and acknowledged her fascination. They corresponded on friendly terms, and despite differences in their religious and political opinions, he thenceforth did whatever he could to serve her, consistently with his duty to his country (cf. Labanoff, Lettres de Marie Stuart, i. 94, 128). He now succeeded in reconciling Elizabeth to the prospect of Queen Mary's settlement in Scotland. But he endeavoured to persuade Mary to tolerate protestantism among her subjects, and did not allow his personal regard for her to diminish his zeal for his own creed. The Venetian ambassador in France described him (3 July 1561) as ‘the most cruel adversary that the catholic religion has in England’ (Cal. Venetian State Papers, 1558–80, p. 333). He showed every mark of hostility to the Guises and of sympathy with the Huguenots, and urged Elizabeth to ally herself publicly and without delay with the Huguenots in France and the reformers in Scotland. Little heed was paid to his proposals.

As you read the rest of the biography, you might notice that Throckmorton was not always a successful diplomat. One problem he had was that Elizabeth I's directions were not always clear, and sometimes even contradictory. He fell out of her graces one last time over Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk's idea of marrying the deposed Mary, Queen of Scots:

Throckmorton thenceforth suffered acutely from a sense of disappointment. His health failed during 1568, but he maintained friendly relations with Cecil, to whom he wrote from Fulham on 2 Sept. 1568 that he proposed to kill a buck at Cecil's house at Mortlake. He had long favoured the proposal to wed Queen Mary to the Duke of Norfolk, and he was consequently suspected next year of sympathy with the rebellion of northern catholics in Queen Mary's behalf. In September 1569 he was imprisoned in Windsor Castle, but he was soon released and no further proceedings were taken against him. He died in London on 12 Feb. 1570–1. . . . Throckmorton was buried on the south side of the chancel in St. Catherine Cree Church in the city of London.

Image Credit at top: Throckmorton's monument in St. Katherine Cree. Note the bottom of the the portrait of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury above the tomb in this picture (he was Bishop of London when he consecrated the rebuilt church in 1631).

The Princess Mary Refuses to Conform

How appropriate and timely for a Sunday! The Princess Mary stood up to her brother and his minions adamantly when they tried to force her to give up attending the Catholic Mass in her household during August 1551. As this biography by Jean Marie Stone published in 1901 and based on primary sources describes the growing pressure on Henry VIII's eldest daughter, it began in March that year and increased through the spring and summer.

The law of Uniformity once passed, Edward’s ministers could only justify it by carrying it out logically; but in thus doing they cut through marrow and bone, and the acts of the Privy Council show the drastic nature of their dealings with the disobedient. On the 19th March, Sergeant Morgan had been summoned before the Council for hearing Mass at St. John’s, in the Lady Mary’s house, two or three days previously, “and not being able to excuse himself, because that, being a learned man, he should give so ill an example to others, he was committed to the Fleet prison”.[275]

On the 24th, Sir Anthony Browne was examined as to whether he had of late heard any Mass or not, when he answered, “that indeed twice or thrice at the New Hall; and once at Romford, as my Lady Mary was coming hither about ten days past, he had heard Mass. Which being considered as a notable ill example, was thought requisite to be corrected, and therefore he was committed to the Fleet.”[276]

On the same day, Rochester, Comptroller of Mary’s household, was interrogated as to “how many ordinary chaplains her Grace had”. He answered that she had four, namely Drs. Mallet, Hopton, Barker and Ricardes. But it was not until August that definite steps were taken to coerce the Princess into subjection. The story of the proceedings as it is told in the Acts of the Privy Council is dramatic.[277]

The English envoys having signified to the Emperor the ultimatum of Edward’s government on the 9th August, on the 15th, three of Mary’s servants, Rochester, Waldegrave and Sir Francis Englefield appeared before the Council, and were commanded on their return home, to call Mary’s chaplains together, and to inhibit them from further saying Mass in her house, or in any other place, contrary to the King’s laws, under pain of the King’s high indignation and displeasure. As Rochester made many excuses “to avoid the report of this matter unto her Grace and the execution thereof in her house, he was finally commanded on his allegiance to see it performed, and in case her Grace should dismiss him, and the rest out of her service, upon the receipt of this message (as he pretended she would) then was he and the rest commanded on the King’s Majesty’s behalf, neither to avoid her service nor to depart from her house, but to see this order prescribed unto them fulfilled until they should have further commandment from hence”.[278]

On August 19, 1551 Mary wrote to her half-brother Edward and emphasized that she had understood that she would be exempt from the Act of Uniformity, especially after the Holy Roman Emperor had threatened England with war if she were forced to conform:

They were then dismissed, and returned to Mary, but were summoned to appear again on the 24th, to give an account of their doings. In the meanwhile, the Princess wrote the following letter to Edward, which was perhaps more forcible than anything she had hitherto said in her defence:—

“My duty most humbly remembered unto your Majesty. It may please the same to be advertised, that I have by my servants received your most honourable letter, the contents whereof do not a little trouble me, and so much the more for that any of my servants should move or attempt me in matters touching my soul, which I think the meanest subjects within your realm could evil bear at their servants’ hands; having for my part utterly refused heretofore to talk with them in such matters, and of all other persons least regarded them therein; to whom I have declared what I think, as she which trusted that your Majesty would have suffered me, your poor humble sister and beadswoman, to have used the accustomed Mass, which the King your father and mine, with all his predecessors evermore used; wherein also I have been brought up from my youth, and thereunto my conscience doth not only bind me, which by no means will suffer me to think one thing and do another, but also the promise made to the Emperor, by your Majesty’s Council, was an assurance to me, that in so doing I should not offend the laws, although they seem now to qualify and deny the thing. And at my last waiting upon your Majesty, I was so bold to declare my mind and conscience to the same, and desired your Highness rather than you should constrain me to leave the Mass, to take my life, whereunto your Majesty made me a very gentle answer. And now I beseech your Highness to give me leave to write what I think touching your Majesty’s letters. Indeed they be signed with your own hand, and nevertheless in my opinion not your Majesty’s in effect, because it is well known (as heretofore I have declared in the presence of your Highness) that although our Lord be praised, your Majesty hath far more knowledge, and greater gifts than others of your years, yet it is not possible that your Highness can at these years be a judge in matters of religion. And therefore I take it, that the matter in your letter proceedeth from such as do wish these things to take place, which be most agreeable to themselves, by whose doings (your Majesty not offended) I intend not to rule my conscience. And thus, without molesting your Highness any further, I humbly beseech the same, ever for God’s sake to bear with me as you have done, and not to think that by my doings or ensample any inconvenience might grow to your Majesty, or your realm; for I use it not after any such sort, putting no doubt but in time to come, whether I live or die, your Majesty shall perceive mine intent is grounded upon a true love towards you, whose royal estate I beseech Almighty God long to continue, which is and shall be my daily prayer, according to my duty. And after pardon craved of your Majesty, for these rude and bold letters, if neither at my humble suit, nor for regard of the promise made to the Emperor, your Highness will suffer and bear with me as you have done, till your Majesty may be a judge herein yourself, and right understand their proceedings (of which your goodness yet I despair not) otherwise rather than offend God and my conscience, I offer my body at your will, and death shall be more welcome than life with a troubled conscience.

“Most humbly beseeching your Majesty to pardon my slowness in answering your letters, for my old disease would not suffer me to write any sooner. And thus I pray Almighty God to keep your Majesty in all virtue and honour, with good health and long life to his pleasure.

“From my poor house at Copped Hall, the xix of August.

“Your Majesty’s most humble sister,

“Marye.”[279]

The Princess Mary was able to outlast the rule of Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset, who was executed at the end of 1551. She was stronger against her half-brother Edward on the matter of attending the Holy Mass than she had been against her father on the matter of signing a document acknowledging Henry VIII's supremacy over the Church, her parents' invalid marriage, and her own illegitimacy in June of 1536. The Duke of Norfolk had, however, threatened to "beat her and knock her head so violently against the wall, that they would make it as soft as baked apples". Dealing with her powerful father was different than responding to her half-brother, who was still a minor, his reign administered by councilors and the protector, Somerset.

The National Archives has posted images of the report of those sent to confront Mary at Copped Hall in Essex (previously the property of Walsham Abbey) after she wrote the letter. She told them she would rather die than replace the Holy Mass with services from the Book of Common Prayer!

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Mary Jean Stone or Jean Mary Stone was:

Born at Brighton, Sussex, in 1853; died at Battle, Sussex, 3 May, 1908. She was educated at a Calvinist school in Paris and at Aschaffenburg in Germany, where she acquired an intimate knowledge of French, German, and Italian. In Germany Miss Stone was brought into touch with the Catholic religion, and exchanged Protestantism for the "free atmosphere", as she expressed it, of the Catholic Church. She was received into the Church by Monsignor Ketteler, then Bishop of Mainz. Her historical studies, for which, perhaps, she is best known to the public, were, on her return to England, encouraged by the fathers of the Society of Jesus. Her talent and painstaking method of research earned for her a speedy recognition in her "Mary the First, Queen of England" (1901). This is a study of the unhappy queen which takes first rank amongst historical monographs. Miss Stone also wrote "Faithful unto Death", a study of the martyrs of the Order of St. Francis during the Reformation period (1892); "Eleanor Leslie", a memoir of a notable Scottish convert to the Church (1898); "Reformation and Renaissance", a group of studies on the periods indicated (1904); "Studies from Court and Cloister", reprinted essays, of which perhaps the most interesting are those on "Margaret Tudor", "Sir Henry Bedingfeld", and a "Missing Page from the Idylls of the King" (1905); "The Church in English History", a higher textbook for teachers of history (1907). Her "Cardinal Pole", begun for the St. Nicholas Series, was interrupted by her death. She was a frequent contributor to the greater periodicals, the "Dublin Review", "Month", "Blackwood's", "Cornhill", etc., and contributed several articles to THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA.

Day One of Nine: Queen Jane

Here's History Today's take on Lady Jane Grey Dudley becoming the Queen of England on July 10, 1553:

Edward died on July 6th. Mary, on her way to Greenwich, was warned of the trap and rode pell mell for Norfolk. Elizabeth stayed in bed. The King’s death was kept quiet and on July 9th Jane was taken to Northumberland’s mansion outside London, Syon House at Isleworth, where the Duke, her husband and her parents were waiting with members of the council, who to her surprise treated her with immense deference. Northumberland announced that she was queen and she fainted before, with the utmost reluctance, accepting the throne ‘if what has been given to me is lawfully mine’. The following day she was proclaimed by heralds with flourishes of trumpets at various places in London, to the stony disapproval of the citizens. One man who incautiously said the Lady Mary had the better right had his ears cut off.

In the afternoon Jane arrived by barge at the Tower, tried on the royal crown, which made her feel faint again, and had a blazing row with her husband and his mother when she said she would not make him king. The banquet that evening was spoiled by the arrival of a letter from Mary to the council firmly asserting her right to the throne and demanding immediate support.

Jane continued going through the motions as queen in the Tower, but Northumberland had miscalculated badly. The Lady Mary was well liked (she had not burned anyone yet) and he was not. Mary’s support grew and she gathered a sizeable army, while Northumberland’s men deserted. So did the council in London. By July 18th only three of them – including Jane’s father – remained loyal to Northumberland. The others left the Tower on the improbable excuse of urgently needing to talk to the French ambassador and had the lord mayor of London proclaim Mary next day. Her father told Jane she was no longer queen and she said she was delighted to hear it and could she go home, please?

Please read the rest there.

Image credit: The Crown Offered to Lady Jane Grey, as imagined in the 1820s: Guildford and Jane are in the centre

Humphrey Arundell and the Prayer Book Rebellion

Humphrey Arundell, leader of the Prayer Book Rebellion, was hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn Tree on January 27, 1550. As this website states,

Humphrey was born in 1512 or 1513. His uncle was Sir John Arundell of Lanherne, one of the richest and most powerful men in Cornwall. The Arundell family were also very faithful Catholics. Humphrey married Elizabeth Fulford and together they had three children. By 1537, both of Humphrey’s parents had died and he took over the family home at Helland, near Bodmin.

Although he had been a loyal military servant of the Crown, the imposition of Archbishop Cranmer's ENGLISH Book of Common Prayer was not acceptable to Arundell and many in Cornwall:

Although Humphrey was a member of the ruling class he was also upset about the religious changes happening in Cornwall. In June 1549, Humphrey and a man called John Winslade (sometimes spelled Wynslade) gathered an army of over 3,000 Cornish people at Castle Canyke, near Bodmin. Humphrey made a list of complaints about the religious changes and sent it to the English government. He was particularly frustrated about the new English language Prayer Book and church service, because some Cornish people could not understand English.

They preferred the Mass in Latin to the new service in English:

The English government refused to listen to Humphrey’s complaints. By this time, people in Devon had also gathered an army to resist the religious changes. Although Humphrey had not wanted to fight, he was left with no choice. Humphrey’s army quickly captured St Michael’s Mount, Trematon Castle and Plymouth. The Cornish and Devon armies joined together and surrounded Exeter for five weeks. The English government became so worried they brought foreign soldiers from Germany and Italy to fight against Humphrey’s army.

Arundell's army was defeated and he was eventually captured, brought to London, tried, sentenced, and executed as a traitor.

More about the Prayer Book Rebellion here. Humphrey's cousin, Thomas Arundell of Wardour Castle, would be executed a little more two years later because Edward VI's government did not trust the Arundell's of Cornwall, suspecting Thomas's older brother John on complicity with the Prayer Book Rebellion and general rejection of religious change. John survived to thrive during the reign of Mary I but Thomas did not:

Arundell had not hitherto been closely linked with the ex-Protector, and indeed was thought by Cavendish, Wolsey’s servant and biographer, to have been the Earl of Warwick’s ‘chief counsellor’ in Somerset’s overthrow in the autumn of 1549. The imperial ambassador likewise considered him a ‘prime mover’ in uniting the Council against the Protector, who had refused to allow him to enter the service of Princess Mary; after Somerset’s fall Arundell, an open Catholic, was accepted by Mary into her service. The interrogatories prepared for the duke in 1551 implied no great trust between him and Arundell but one of the questions, ‘By how many noblemen and others would Sir Thomas Arundell be assisted?’, probably provides the clue to Arundell’s arrest. He was allied by birth and marriage to some of the greatest in the land and could have been dangerous. Whether, as was alleged at his trial on 28 Jan. 1552, he had plotted against Warwick while in the Tower cannot be known, but he can hardly have been guilty of the second charge, of conspiring with Somerset at Syon house on 2 Oct. 1551, two days before his release from the Tower. Arundell pleaded not guilty and the jury was reluctant to convict, but after a night without food, fire or light it found him guilty of felony, not guilty of treason. He was condemned to be hanged, but in the event was beheaded, on Tower Hill, on 26 Feb. 1552. His death was noted on the list of Members in use during the last session of the Parliament of 1547, but no attempt seems to have been made to replace him. His attainder was confirmed by Act (5 and 6 Edw. VI, no.37) and his possessions were forfeited to the crown.

Image credit: St. Michael's Mount painted by British painter James Webb in the 1890s.

Another Tudor Rebellion Begins

On Whitsunday, 1549, The Book of Common Prayer was the only service book English churches could use, per Parliamentary law. On Whit Monday, June 6, the people of Cornwall began to express their dissatisfaction with the change in liturgy. The crucial issue was the language of The Book of Common Prayer, English, as this blog describes:

The Book of Common Prayer was meant to unify Anglican services throughout the kingdom. The prayer book contained English language liturgical rites devised by Cranmer, banned religious processions, and ordered communion under both kinds. But its biggest novelty was simply that it mandated Mass be said in English, and authorized inspections by royal officials to ensure its provisions were carried out. Thus, though it was now fifteen years into the Anglican schism, the introduction of the Book of Common Prayer on Whitsunday, 1549 marked the first time most Englishmen had ever heard the Mass said in English.

And what they heard upset them, for it became clear that what they had was no longer the Mass. Still, fifteen years of royal propaganda had done its work throughout much of the kingdom, and though there was some grumbling about certain aspects of the new rite, most of England was disposed to grudgingly accept it. That is, except the districts of Devon and Cornwall.

As this post from History Today explains, once the rebellion began, it spread and the Tudor government of Edward VI, headed by Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, soon responded with the customary Tudor thoroughness:

The protest soon spread to the Devonshire village of Sampford Courtenay, where, the day after the new prayer book came into force, the villagers demanded that their priest wear his old garments and read from the old service book. The minister swiftly reverted to “his old popish attire and sayeth mass and all such services as in times past accustomed”, while a local yeoman who tried to oppose the protestors was killed.

The events at Sampford Courtenay had a snowball effect and soon many other local people were demanding that their traditional ways of worship be restored. In fact, such was the strength of the opposition to the book that a powerful force of Cornish rebels were soon marching over the Devon border to join forces with those of Sampford Courtenay.

In July 1549, the combined force of Cornish and Devon rebels – by now some 4,000–6,000-strong – made the fatal decision to besiege Exeter, the regional capital, whose inhabitants remained loyal to the crown. The siege dragged on for six weeks “until the famine was so sore, that the people [of Exeter] were fain to eat horse-flesh”.

“The rebellion was the outcome of an accumulation of grievances, some of which dated back to before Edward came to the throne”, says Professor Mark Stoyle of the University of Southampton. “The revolt was primarily fuelled by religious conservatism, but a desire to protect Cornish cultural distinctiveness also played its part.”

Read the rest there.

Edward VI's Georgian Coronation

On Tuesday, Turner Classic Movies aired a series of Errol Flynn movies including Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, and The Prince and the Pauper. Based upon Mark Twain's historical comedy novel, the story in the latter movie takes place after Henry VIII's death when his son Edward trades places with a poor boy named Tom Canty. Evil Edward Seymour, the Earl of Hertford, played by Claude Rains, takes advantage of the confusion to use the fake Prince as his pawn while Miles Hendon, Errol Flynn, protects the real king. The boys are played by brothers, Billy and Bobby Mauch, who seem several years older than the historical Edward's nine years at the time of his coronation.

Warner Brothers intended The Prince and the Pauper to be released in time for the coronation of Edward VIII, but because Edward wanted to marry Wallis Simpson, he abdicated and the coronation--now of his younger brother George--and the release of the film were delayed until May of 1937.

The Coronation Scene, which is very detailed and gorgeously filmed in black and white, is a set piece. Although the real Edward and Miles are on their way to Westminster Abbey, the director had no interest in creating any tension--there are no cuts to Edward and Miles coming closer as the anointing and the coronation of the fake Edward is proceeding. They arrive with seconds to spare! 

 A footnote in this book, which describes how Erich Korngold composed his own version of the coronation anthem, "Zadok the Priest", includes the promotional detail that this scene would be similar to the rites in King George VI's coronation so much so that "Those of us who are not fortunate enough to be able to see the actual rites, will witness an accurate picture of what will occur in Westminster Abbey in May."

So instead of trying to achieve authenticity to the historical coronation of Edward VI, the producers opted for authenticity to the contemporary coronation of George VI! 

I also found it amusing that Edward trusted Thomas Howard, the Duke of Norfolk most of all and that he exiled his historical Protector, Somerset (Claude Rains) at the end of the movie. The anniversary of Somerset's execution is coming up--January 22, 1552.

"A Morbid, Fantasising England"

The Daily Mail has a great photographic story on the murals that John Shakespeare, William Shakespeare's father, had to paint over in the Chapel of the Guild of the Holy Cross in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1563. The paintings depict, according to the Stratford Town Trust, "the legend of St George and the Dragon, the Martyrdom of St Thomas Beckett and the Dance of Death."(Note that there are various problems with the text of the story. Henry VIII was dead by 1563; one of the restorers does not know the meaning of "iconoclastic", etc--but the pictures of the "Dance of Death", the first mural to be restored are great.)

In The Guardian, Jonathan Jones comments on what he sees as a morbid fascination with death and the devil in medieval England:

The paintings restored in the Guild Chapel reveal the powerful dream-world that was visible to ordinary townspeople 500 years ago. Devils and death loomed up on painted walls. Whether they were painted simply, as in Stratford, or done with the genius of a Bosch, these were collective fantasies of spectacular power.

The project that has saved Stratford’s murals deserves to be imitated wherever there are traces of medieval art still surviving in Britain. It does not matter if these images are fine art. They are something more important: a reminder of what it is to be human in a world shadowed by death and the devil.

He must fantasizing today if he does not think the world is not shadowed by death--we all will die--and the devil--there is evil in the world today--and that neither should be acknowledged or feared. But he forgets that those medieval people also had Faith in their Redeemer, Hope for salvation, and Love for God and neighbor. Only one of the three murals has been restored. St. George and the Dragon would have reminded them that God conquers the Devil and St. Thomas a Becket would have reminded them that they had great intercessors in Heaven. Jones has overemphasized one aspect of medieval piety.

The Guild of the Holy Cross (their seal is pictured above) was essential to Stratford, according to this site:

Established in the 13th century, it became the heart of Stratford's commercial, civic, social and religious life. The Guild helped its members to network, strike business deals, and even (so it was claimed) get into heaven faster.

Both men and women could become Guild members by paying a small fee. Joining was a good idea if you wanted to meet influential people and widen your network of contacts. Most members were prosperous local tradesmen, craftsmen and their families. But local clergy, gentry and even nobility joined too. Some members came from other towns like Coventry, London and Bristol.

The Guild provided 'social services' in medieval Stratford. It helped its members when they were ill, and supported their families if they died. It also gave 'alms' (charity) to poor and vulnerable local people, building a range of almshouses (sheltered accommodation) next to the Guildhall in about 1500.

It also looked after local infrastructure like bridges, and founded the first school in Stratford. In 1295 it appointed a schoolmaster called Richard as 'rector scholarum' to teach members' sons Latin, music and the principles of Christian faith. 

The Guild survived the reign of Henry VIII but not that of Edward VI (and there might not have been time for its restoration under Mary I). The lay members of the Guild had wealth and power, the site comments, and "this wealth and power was its undoing". What was its undoing was prayer for the dead as Edward VI's Protectors destroyed the last vestiges of remembering the Poor Souls in Purgatory in England. 

Her Nine Days Were Up Today in 1553

From History.com: This Day in History: July 19, 1553:

After only nine days as the monarch of England, Lady Jane Grey is deposed in favor of her cousin Mary. The 15-year-old Lady Jane, beautiful and intelligent, had only reluctantly agreed to be put on the throne. The decision would result in her execution.

Lady Jane Grey was the great-granddaughter of King Henry VII and the cousin of King Edward VI. Lady Jane and Edward were the same age, and they had almost been married in 1549. In May 1553 she was married to Lord Guildford Dudley, the son of John Dudley, the duke of Northumberland. When King Edward fell deathly ill with tuberculosis soon after, Jane’s father-in-law, John Dudley persuaded the dying king that Jane, a Protestant, should be chosen the royal successor over Edward’s half-sister Mary, a Catholic. On July 6, 1553, Edward died, and four days later Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen of England.

Lady Jane’s ascendance was supported by the Royal Council, but the populace supported Mary, the rightful heir. Two days into Lady Jane’s reign, Dudley departed London with an army to suppress Mary’s forces, and in his absence the Council declared him a traitor and Mary the queen, ending Jane’s nine-day reign.

Author Samantha Wilcoxon writes about why we don't refer to Lady Jane Grey as Queen Jane:

A recent post of mine brought questions to the forefront regarding Lady Jane Grey's status as a Tudor queen. I included her in my list of monarchs but noted that she is not always included in others. This list, for example, mentions her only parenthetically. Jane is referred to as a ruler by Royal.UK, but is still listed by the name Lady Jane Grey. In fact, we most commonly refer to her as Lady Jane Grey rather than Queen Jane.

Why is that? She had not had a coronation, but there are other examples of monarchs who have been accepted as such despite the lack of this ceremony. Edward V is a notable example quite close to Jane's time. Little Edward is never left out of discussions of England's kings though he ruled even less than his distant cousin Jane did.

Jane was proclaimed and deposed with lightening speed, causing some to refer to her as an unsuccessful usurper rather than a legal queen.

Read the rest there.

Image credit: the Streatham Portrait, discovered in 2005/2006, as noted by The Guardian:

Queen of England for nine days, then dispatched by the axeman at the Tower of London at the age of just 17, Lady Jane Grey and her tragic story have exerted a deep fascination for centuries. She is the only English monarch since 1500 of whom no portrait survives. Or so it has long been assumed.

But experts are now claiming that a painting that hung for years in a house in Streatham, south-west London, is of Lady Jane. The owner inherited the work from his great-grandfather, a collector of 16th-century antiques.

A pawn in the ambitious power games of her parents and father-in-law, Lady Jane was briefly queen after the death of her cousin Edward VI - until her short rule from the Tower of London was transformed into imprisonment when Mary I successfully claimed the throne.

Were this a painting of Lady Jane, it would satisfy a centuries-old hunger to know the appearance of this unfortunate teenager, described at the time as "prettily shaped and graceful" with a "gracious and animated figure". . . .

The "new" portrait, which experts have confidently dated to the second half of the 16th century, shows a slender young woman in an opulent gown and jewels, a book held in her left hand. Above her shoulder is a faint inscription reading "Lady Jayne". The costume she wears was in fashion in the early 1550s; Jane was queen in 1553.

There was quite a debate about whether or not this was a portrait of Lady Jane Grey; David Starkey rejected it. Eric Ives, evidently, accepted its validity enough to have it used on the cover of his 2009 book:

Lady Jane Grey, (sic) is one of the most elusive and tragic characters in English history.

In July 1553 the death of the childless Edward VI threw the Tudor dynasty into crisis. On Edward's instructions his cousin Jane Grey was proclaimed queen, only to be ousted 13 days later by his illegitimate half sister Mary and later beheaded. In this radical reassessment, Eric Ives rejects traditional portraits of Jane both as hapless victim of political intrigue or Protestant martyr. Instead he presents her as an accomplished young woman with a fierce personal integrity. The result is a compelling dissection by a master historian and storyteller of one of history’s most shocking injustices.

The Boy King Crowned

Edward VI was crowned King of England and Ireland on February 20, 1547. This site explains some of the changes made to the coronation ceremony to reflect the religious changes England was about to undergo under Edward VI's Protector, Edward Seymour, and rest of the Privy Council:

Edward VI’s coronation was subjected to substantial revision and interpretation. He was the first monarch to be formally proclaimed king prior to his coronation and the Recognition and the oath were redrafted by his Privy Council. The most radical change of the ceremony was the considerably reduced role of churchmen, traditionally the intermediaries between God and the King. The ceremony itself was shortened because of the boy’s young age: instead of the usual twelve hours, it took “mere” seven.

A dais had been erected in the richly decorated Abbey. On it was a throne decorated in damask and gold, with two cushions to help raise the small King. The ceremony started with Edward VI taking his coronation oath (promissio regis) on the Sacrament – the usual form since 14th century. After taking the oath, Edward was prepared for receiving unction. From 14th century onwards two special tunic-like shirts, one of white lawn, the other of red tartaryn, were worn by the Monarch for this part of the ceremony. The antiphon “Veni Creator Spiritus” was sung during the preliminaries to anointing.

The task of divesting the King of his clothes in readiness for anointing was traditionally the prerogative of the Archbishop and/or other senior clergymen. For Edward’s coronation, the task fell to the Lord Great Chamberlain. Only two ceremonial tasks were assigned to clergymen: the Bishop or Dean of Westminster dried the anointed places with a cotton cloth and delivering the royal buskins (soft boots) and spurs to the Lord Great Chamberlain.

Edward’s anointing was surprisingly religious, so to speak, because the coronation itself generally played down the notion of the King needing any additional sanctity. Edward received both chrism and holy oil on his breast, elbows, wrists, crown and, uniquely, the soles of his feet. This very thorough anointing was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury who in his address to the King at the coronation strongly attacked the sacramental nature of the traditional consecration and unction, and denied Popes had the power to make Kings. Among other things, the Archbishop declared that the “solemn rites of coronation have their ends and utility; yet neither direct force or necessity” and that “the oil, if added, is but a ceremony”.

Cranmer’s address also included a repudiation of the Roman Catholic Church’s authority over the crown, a discussion of the significance of coronation rites, the king’s duties ( which include emulating the godly King Josiah of Judah in banishing idolatry from the land), and a blessing on the king’s reign. Among other things, he said: “The bishops of Canterbury, for the most part, have crowned your predecessors, and anointed them kings of this land; yet it was not in their power to receive or reject them… Your Majesty is God’s Vice-regent and Christ’s vicar within your own dominions, and to see, with your predecessor Josiah, God truly worshiped and idolatry destroyed, the terrain of the Bishops of Rome banished from your subjects and images removed”.

Read the rest there.

Thomas Seymour, RIP

Thomas Seymour, one of Edward VI's uncles, died on the block on March 20, 1549 at the age of 41. He left a baby daughter, Mary, whose mother, Catherine Parr (Henry VIII's last wife) had died in childbirth. Seymour was the 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley and had been Lord High Admiral of England, but he was accused of treason against Edward VI. Seymour's brother was Lord High Protector, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, who would also die at the block during Edward's reign.

The young Princess Elizabeth had lived with Parr and Seymour for a time after Henry VIII's death, but was removed from the household after Catherine Parr noticed the untoward behavior of Seymour toward Elizabeth. Lady Jane Grey was also in their care and she was in the household when Parr gave birth to her only child, Mary; this was her fourth marriage. Parr died after Mary's birth (surely named after the Princess Mary?). 

This orphaned baby was placed in the care of Katherine Willoughby, the widow of Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk (who had married Henry VIII's younger sister Mary). Although Katherine Willoughby was of Spanish descent--her mother was one of Catherine of Aragon's ladies-in-waiting and best friends--she was not a Catholic, but favored the Protestant cause. And, although she was friend of Catherine Parr's, Katherine did not appreciate being the guardian of this little baby girl.

Linda Porter writes about Seymour's fall and the fate of his little girl in this History Today article:

Without the steadying influence of Katherine Parr and perhaps suffering more from the effects of bereavement than has often been supposed, Thomas Seymour’s judgement, which had been unpredictable in the past, now deserted him completely. His resentment against the power and authority of his brother rankled, his own role in politics being ill-defined, and he began to develop schemes for raising the country in revolt and perhaps even marrying Elizabeth. Neither of these ideas was as hare-brained as they look with hindsight, but both were fraught with danger and Thomas lacked any real power-base from which to impose himself on England. Eventually he was caught apparently trying to kidnap Edward VI, who had been very fond of his younger uncle until he shot his pet dog in the ensuing fracas. The background to this incident remains murky but the campaign of vilification that swung into action to discredit Seymour was swift and relentless. Attainted and therefore never brought to trial, Thomas was executed for treason on March 17th, 1549 (sic), leaving Lady Mary an orphan at the age of seven months.

Thomas did not appoint any of his own or Katherine’s relatives as guardian to his daughter. He could scarcely have handed her to the brother who signed his death warrant and no one else among the extended Parr or Seymour families seems to have taken much interest in the child. Like most of his former ‘friends’, they were all trying to put as much distance between themselves and Thomas Seymour as possible. Instead, Katherine Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, a close friend of Katherine Parr and a lady of seemingly unimpeachable reforming religious ideas, was appointed as guardian. It was not a charge she accepted with enthusiasm.

Despite her strong religious views, the duchess’s bosom was not full of Christian charity. Lady Mary may have been a dispossessed orphan, but she was an expensive one. As a queen’s daughter, she came with a household of her own, consisting of a lady governess, rockers, laundresses and other servants. The government was supposed to provide for her upkeep and the payment of her staff but the duchess could not get Somerset to part with the money until she appealed to William Cecil, then a prominent member of the duke’s household, to intervene on her behalf. The letter she wrote makes it clear how much she resented ‘the queen’s child’, as she frostily referred to the little girl.

The article concludes with what might have been the child's epitaph:

I whom at the cost
Of her own life
My queenly mother
Bore with the pangs of labour
Sleep under this marble
An unfit traveller.
If Death had given me to live longer
That virtue, that modesty, That obedience of my excellent Mother
That Heavenly courageous nature
Would have lived again in me.
Now, whoever
You are, fare thee well
Because I cannot speak any more, this stone
Is a memorial to my brief life

Read the rest here.

Margaret Aston, RIP

Martin Sheppard writes for The Independent about historian Margaret Aston, who died in November:

Margaret Aston was an historian whose work illuminated the study of English religious life between the late Middle Ages and the Civil War. Although she was from the most establishment of backgrounds her chosen field was that of popular belief, and her main subjects were heretics and iconoclasts.

An independent historian of the highest calibre, Aston combined exact scholarship with wide-ranging ideas and interpretation, bringing out the crucial part played by images and printing in changes to religious belief. Her beautifully written work has had a profound impact on all subsequent interpretations of the English Reformation.

He comments on her book about the famous allegorical painting of the English Reformation pictured above:

A remarkable by-product of Aston’s unrivalled knowledge of English iconoclasm appeared in 1995. The King’s Bedpost was a reinterpretation of Edward VI and the Pope, an enigmatic painting in the National Portrait Gallery. In a compelling detective story she demonstrated that the picture was painted much later than had been previously thought and reflected the crisis that led up to the excommunication of Elizabeth I in 1570.

The book is unfortunately out of print at Cambridge. The Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies (PIMS) published a festscrift dedicated to Margaret Aston in 2009:

As that title notes, her work often centered on images and iconoclasm, including a two volume work that will be completed in 2015 with the publication of Broken Idols of the English Reformation, also from Cambridge.

Why were so many religious images and objects broken and damaged in the course of the Reformation? Margaret Aston's magisterial new book charts the conflicting imperatives of destruction and rebuilding throughout the English Reformation from the desecration of images, rails and screens to bells, organs and stained glass windows. She explores the motivations of those who smashed images of the crucifixion in stained glass windows and who pulled down crosses and defaced symbols of the Trinity. She shows that destruction was part of a methodology of religious revolution designed to change people as well as places and to forge in the long term new generations of new believers. Beyond blanked walls and whited windows were beliefs and minds impregnated by new modes of religious learning. Idol-breaking with its emphasis on the treacheries of images fundamentally transformed not only Anglican ways of worship but also of seeing, hearing and remembering.

~A major new contribution to our understanding of the English Reformation
~Analyses the causes and effects of iconoclasm and illuminates why certain types of images were particularly targeted
~Sets iconoclasm within a wider process of religious revolution designed to create new generations of believers and new ways of belief

Easter Sunday at Durham Before the Dissolution and the Reformation

Remembering the glories of the recent past, a former monk of Durham Abbey recounted the rituals of early morning on Easter Sunday, as the guarding of the Sepulchre ended with the Resurrection:

There was in the abbye church of duresme [Durham] verye solemne service uppon easter day betweene 3 and 4 of the clocke in the morninge in honour of the resurrection where 2 of the oldest monkes of the quire came to the sepulchre, being sett upp upon good friday after the passion all covered with redd velvett and embrodered with gold, and then did sence it either monke with a paire of silver sencors sittinge on theire knees before the sepulcher;

then they both risinge came to the sepulchre, out of the which with great reverence they tooke a marvelous beautiful Image of our saviour representinge the resurrection with a crosse in his hand in the breast wheof was enclosed in bright Christall the holy sacrament of the altar, throughe the which christall the blessed host was conspicuous, to the behoulders;

then after the elevation of the said picture carryed by the said 2 monkes uppon a faire velvett cushion all embrodered singinge the anthem of christus resurgens they brought to the high altar settinge that on the midst therof whereon it stood the two monkes kneelinge on theire knees before the altar, and senceing it all the time that the rest of the whole quire was in singinge the foresaid anthem of Xpus resrugens;

the which anthem being ended the 2 monkes tooke up the cushines and the picture from the altar supportinge it betwixt them, proceeding in procession from the high altar to the south quire dore where there was 4 antient gentlemen belonginge to the prior appointed to attend theire cominge holdinge upp a most rich cannopye of purple velvett tached round about with redd silke, and gold fringe;

and at everye corner did stand one of theise ancient gentlemen to beare it over the said Image, with the holy sacrament carried by two monkes round about the church the whole quire waitinge uppon it with goodly torches and great store of other lights, all singinge rejoyceinge and praising god most devoutly till they came to the high altar againe, wheron they did place the said Image there to remaine untill the assencion day.

The image above (from Wikipedia/public domain) is of an alabaster carving created in 14th century England. You might remember that there has been a travelling exhibition of these surviving alabasters from the Victoria & Albert Museum the past few years, most recently (from my search) at The Dayton Art Institute. Those alabaster carvings that survived the English Reformation and the iconoclasm of the reign of Edward VI were found on the Continent or in private homes. 

As the book that accompanied the exhibition noted:

During the later Middle Ages, England had a thriving art industry that produced religious alabaster sculptures in large numbers and exported them to virtually every country in Europe. Despite the success and scale of this industry, however, English alabasters have remained a neglected art form. Alabaster is a remarkable and attractive material for a sculptor to work with. It is a fine-grained, rare form of gypsum, superficially resembling marble, but with a softer, deeper translucent glow and a creamy, yellow-ochre finish. Because the material was soft and easy to carve, and was found in large quantities beneath the soil of the English Midlands, medieval English sculptors worked this mineral resource extensively from the late fourteenth century until the Reformation in the 1530s, creating lively, spirited reliefs for altarpieces and devotional figures.

Bishop Stephen Gardiner, RIP



Stephen Gardiner, Mary I's Chancellor and the Bishop of Winchester, died on November 12, 1555. While he had supported Henry VIII's supremacy, he also opposed Edward VI's Calvinist Reformation, and then he assisted Mary I, and renounced  his views on the supremacy, since that was a role she rejected. The 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica summed up his life and character thusly:

Perhaps no celebrated character of that age has been the subject of so much ill-merited abuse at the hands of popular historians. That his virtue was not equal to every trial must be admitted, but that he was anything like the morose and narrowminded bigot he is commonly represented there is nothing whatever to show. He has been called ambitious, turbulent, crafty, abject, vindictive, bloodthirsty and a good many other things besides, not quite in keeping with each other; in addition to which it is roundly asserted by Bishop Burnet that he was despised alike by Henry and by Mary, both of whom made use of him as a tool. How such a mean and abject character submitted to remain five years in prison rather than change his principles is not very clearly explained; and as to his being despised, we have seen already that neither Henry nor Mary considered him by any means despicable. The truth is, there is not a single divine or statesman of that day whose course throughout was so thoroughly consistent. He was no friend to the Reformation, it is true, but he was at least a conscientious opponent. In doctrine he adhered to the old faith from first to last, while as a question of church policy, the only matter for consideration with him was whether the new laws and ordinances were constitutionally justifiable.

His merits as a theologian it is unnecessary to discuss; it is as a statesman and a lawyer that he stands conspicuous. But his learning even in divinity was far from commonplace. The part that he was allowed to take in the drawing up of doctrinal formularies in Henry VIII's time is not clear; but at a later date he was the author of various tracts in defence of the Real Presence against Cranmer, some of which, being written in prison, were published abroad under a feigned name. Controversial writings also passed between him and Bucer, with whom he had several interviews in Germany, when he was there as Henry VIII's ambassador.

He was a friend of learning in every form, and took great interest especially in promoting the study of Greek at Cambridge. He was, however, opposed to the new method of pronouncing the language introduced by Sir John Cheke, and wrote letters to him and Sir Thomas Smith upon the subject, in which, according to Ascham, his opponents showed themselves the better critics, but he the superior genius. In his own household he loved to take in young university men of promise; and many whom he thus encouraged became distinguished in after life as bishops, ambassadors and secretaries of state. His house, indeed, was spoken of by Leland as the seat of eloquence and the special abode of the muses.

He lies buried in his own cathedral at Winchester, where his effigy is still to be seen. (Image credit for his chantry tomb: wikipedia commons.) His last words were: "I have erred with Peter, but have not wept with Peter."

 

The bishop has been in the news lately, as an important document of the English Reformation was recently sold at auction, but its export has been prevented, per this story from The Guardian:

 

A 16th-century manuscript that shines a light on a furious battle between two bishops of Winchester, over the then touchstone Reformation issue of clerical marriage, has had a temporary export bar placed on it. The culture minister, Ed Vaizey, announced the bar on Thursday in the hope that someone will find the money to keep the manuscript in the UK.

 

The paper's abridged title is A Traictise declarying and plainly prouying, that the pretensed marriage of Priestes … is no mariage (1554), and was sold by the Law Society at Sotheby's in June for £116,500, nearly six times the upper estimate.

 

The manuscript contains two diametrically opposed positions on clerical marriage. There is the anti-marriage stance of Stephen Gardiner and the virulently pro-marriage opinions of John Ponet, one of Thomas Cranmer's righthand men and a key figure in the English Reformation.

 

It was Ponet who replaced Gardiner as bishop of Winchester in 1551, although his tenure lasted only two years, before he was forced to flee England when the Catholic Mary Tudor came to the throne in 1553. Gardiner then resumed the job.

 

It's interesting to note that John Ponet survived Gardiner only by several months, as he died in August of 1556. Ponet argued for tyrannicide--specifically, the execution of Mary I--while in exile on the Continent in A Shorte Treatise of Politike Power.

Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days Queen

Four days after young King Edward VI died on July 6, 1553, Lady Jane Dudley began her reign as Queen of England. (I call her by her married name because her in-law relationship to the Duke of Northumberland, John Dudley, was essential to her succession to the throne in the eyes of Edward VI). The delay in the accession came about because her father-in-law Dudley waited to announce the king's death while preparing for a smooth transition. Because of her Protestantism, because she was executed by "Bloody" Mary, because John Foxe promoted her cause, she became known as a martyr and victim of Catholic oppression in England--part of the Black Legend of Catholic cruelty. She has also been thought a victim of family abuse and manipulation, an unwilling pawn of Northumberland.

 

Two studies recently have questioned this view: Eric Ives' Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery and Leanda de Lisle's The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Tragedy. Both books are all about the issue of the succession in the Tudor Dynasty, either from Edward VI to Jane or Mary, or from Elizabeth I to Mary, Queen of Scots, or the surviving Grey sisters, Mary and Catherine--so in neither book is Jane the main subject, really. I reviewed de Lisle's book, but have not read Ives' book, but as this reviewer notes, Ives' study is a "provocative and revisionist account" that takes nothing for granted:

Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery is not a biography. Rather, it is a book about a dynastic and political crisis. The ‘Tudor Mystery’ that Eric Ives has set out to solve is how the ‘legitimate’ Queen Jane, who commanded considerable political support, was overthrown in favour of the illegitimate Mary Tudor in ‘a wholly unexpected political coup’ (1). Viewing Jane’s rule from this angle produces a provocative and revisionist account of the summer of 1553. This alone would make Ives’ book an important piece of scholarship; that he wields an extensive array of archival evidence and provides the most detailed account to date of the succession crisis of 1553 makes this a book that no Tudor historian can ignore. . . .

Despite the title, Jane Grey is not the focus of Ives’s book, though Ives does discuss Jane’s education, family and religion at some length. His Jane is not the tragic figure who appealed to so many Victorians, but a ‘bluestocking’ and committed evangelical used as a political pawn by her indifferent parents. Jane married Guidlford Dudley reluctantly and was initially disinclined to take the throne: indeed, she was apparently surprised to discover that she was queen. Yet once on the throne she wielded power with a firmer hand than her earlier reluctance might suggest, adamantly blocking plans to invest her husband as king. Jane and her supporters had the advantage. They controlled the court, the state administration and the Tower, and Northumberland oversaw orders to the lord lieutenants in the counties to uphold Jane’s rule, whereas Mary possessed significantly inferior resources and was mistaken in her belief that her cousin, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V would come to her aid. Immediately after Edward’s death, few would have bet on Mary. Yet within thirteen days she had amassed considerable support, had been proclaimed Queen in London with the backing of the Privy Council, and Northumberland, who had led an army out of London in order to suppress Mary’s uprising, had surrendered. All of these developments need to be examined anew if Jane, not Mary, was rightfully queen.


A Tudor Biographer Reviewing Another Tudor Biographer's Book, Part II

Earlier this month, I posted on one Tudor era biographer reviewing another Tudor era biographer's work--in that case Linda Porter reviewing Anna Whitelock. This time, it's Anna Whitelock reviewing John Guy, who has written biographies of St. Thomas More and his daughter Margaret, Mary, Queen of Scots, and St. Thomas of Canterbury (St. Thomas a Becket). Anne Whitelock reviews John Guy's new study of Henry VIII's children for the BBC History Magazine:

Anna Whitelock considers a new look at Henry VIII's children, and how his marital troubles shaped their lives

Henry VIII was a king infamous above all else for his desire for a male heir. The story of Henry’s marital difficulties is well known – as are the children of this most dysfunctional family, who have been the focus of countless individual studies. However, they have not been considered together as often as might be expected. While Guy does not offer much that is significantly new in terms of the detail of the lives of Mary, Edward, Elizabeth and Henry Fitzroy – his first-born son and the illegitimate offspring of his affair with Elizabeth ‘Bessie’ Blount – it is a useful enterprise to bring the king’s children together in one accessible volume.

In doing so the book charts the impact of Henry’s marital difficulties on his offspring. Their formative years were played out in the shadow of high politics, and in vivid descriptions Guy documents how their lives, lifestyles, households, furnishings and education were directly affected by the vagaries of their father’s favour. As this account demonstrates, their childhood and adolescence amounted to an eventful, and traumatic, apprenticeship for rule. . . .

Rather than simply rehearsing the key events of each of the reigns, Guy’s focus is more on the sibling rivalries, conflicting faiths and competing ambitions that tore the family apart during the years that followed. It is a pacy and accessible narrative of the unfolding family drama, but one might have hoped for a little more detail about the personality and rule of each of the children. . . .

This may be a well-known story, but Guy presents it with typical narrative flair and attention to detail, producing a book with obvious appeal.

Read the rest here. This could become a regular series--stay tuned for A Tudor Biographer Reviewing Another Tudor Biographer's Book, Part III!

John Guy on Henry VIII's FOUR Children

According to the publisher, Oxford University Press:

Behind the facade of politics and pageantry at the Tudor court, there was a family drama.

Nothing drove Henry VIII, England’s wealthiest and most powerful king, more than producing a legitimate male heir and so perpetuating his dynasty. To that end, he married six wives, became the subject of the most notorious divorce case of the sixteenth century, and broke with the pope, all in an age of international competition and warfare, social unrest and growing religious intolerance and discord.

Henry fathered four living children, each by a different mother. Their interrelationships were often scarred by jealousy, mutual distrust, sibling rivalry, even hatred. Possessed of quick wits and strong wills, their characters were defined partly by the educations they received, and partly by events over which they had no control.

Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, although recognized as the king’s son, could never forget his illegitimacy. Edward died while still in his teens, desperately plotting to exclude his half-sisters from the throne. Mary’s world was shattered by her mother’s divorce and her own unhappy marriage. Elizabeth was the most successful, but also the luckiest. Even so, she lived with the knowledge that her father had ordered her mother’s execution, was often in fear of her own life, and could never marry the one man she truly loved.

Henry’s children idolized their father, even if they differed radically over how to perpetuate his legacy. To tell their stories, John Guy returns to the archives, drawing on a vast array of contemporary records, personal letters, and first-hand accounts.

Features:
*The intriguing family drama of England's most powerful king and his battle to perpetuate the Tudor dynasty
*A tale of six marriages, adultery, execution, and the most notorious divorce case of the sixteenth century
*A skilfully woven narrative based on original documents, personal letters, eyewitness accounts, and the handwritten letters of the four children themselves
*Shows how the childhood experiences and relationships of Henry's four children shaped their later lives - and the destiny of a nation

Note the inclusion of Henry Fitzroy, the Duke of Richmond! When Alison Weir wrote her book on the children of Henry VIII, she highlighted the heirs of Henry VIII at the end of his reign (Edward, Jane Grey, Mary, and Elizabeth). John Guy explains why he included the Duke of Richmond and comments on Mary's character in this interview:

What inspired you to write The Children of Henry VIII?

I got fed up with people from tv companies or guides in stately homes trying to tell me that Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn came to visit X or Y places as a family, with baby Elizabeth in one or other of their arms. The royal children were brought up in nurseries set apart from where their parents were living, often many miles apart. The children were together only on a handful of occasions in Henry’s entire reign, and each was rarely able to spend much time with Henry or their mother. I wanted to include Henry Fitzroy, the king’s illegitimate son, since he tends to be forgotten and yet he was an important part of the story in the earlier years. I also thought it could be illuminating to relate and position each of the children more precisely to one another, and that this might improve our understanding of the period as a whole, which turned out to be the case.

What do you think is one of the most common misconceptions about Henry’s daughter, Mary Tudor?

Mary was by nature generous, especially to her friends and supporters, but could also be generous to those who opposed her – after all, she had decided not to execute Lady Jane Grey until she learned of Wyatt’s rebellion and of Jane’s father’s role in it. She tended to give people the benefit of the doubt, but when I found how much she hated Elizabeth from the beginning and how this vendetta played out in Mary’s own reign, I was rather shocked. I was also surprised to discover the scale of Mary’s intransigence over religion in Edward’s reign – even when her cousin the Emperor Charles V told her to cease making her own houses symbols of resistance to Protestantism by having mass celebrated daily and inviting passers-by to attend, she wouldn’t stop. Charles thought it was enough that she had a licence to say [attend] mass herself – to satisfy her own conscience. He was too experienced a politician to think Mary should deliberately provoke the Duke of Northumberland. And he certainly didn’t want Mary to seek exile in his own dominions. I hadn’t realized just how intransigent Mary could be – something Philip was to discover fairly quickly when he married her.

Guy means that Mary should have stopped with just having Mass celebrated for her attendance--not that Mary "said" Mass! Leanda de Lisle writes of Guy's achievement in the April 2013 issue of the Literary Review:

John Guy is that rare cross: a scholar who also writes for the popular market. It shows here, as he sketches with verve and fluency the education and beliefs, as well as, briefly, the reigns of these last Tudors. But where he excels is in illuminating the relationships between the squabbling siblings. They say if you've got lemons make lemonade, and in Guy's hands the story of The Children of Henry VIII is fresh, sparkling and sharp.

De Lisle also comments that the "squabbling siblings" were "horrid to each other, but not horrid enough"! and suggests that Mary, having failed to bear a child by Philip of Spain to bump Elizabeth from the succession, should have used one of the plots against her (the Wyatt Rebellion Guy mentions above perhaps) as a reason to have Elizabeth executed. Philip of Spain prevented that action and surely lived to regret it as Elizabeth repaid him with war in the Spanish Netherlands and pirate raids on Spanish ships.