Four Queens and a Countess - Review by Mary Hoffman

How to upstage a queen

Jill Armitage's previous book was about Arbella Stuart, a possible claimant to the throne of England when Elizabeth l died, and she does make a cameo appearance here. But the star of the show - and the "Countess" of the title is Bess of Hardwick, who was Arbella's grandmother.

I don't know if it's just that we know so much already about the Tudor queens and the Scottish thorn in Elizabeth's side but Bess would be a remarkable woman in any age. She was born in humble circumstances, the third child of a second son, a gentleman but only of minor gentry.

Elizabeth was always known as Bess, fortunately for us, or there would be two Elizabeths as well as two Marys in this book. Her first marriage was as a teenager, to a boy younger than herself, who died the following year. She never lived with Robert Barlow and is likely to have been a virgin widow. Nevertheless she had some claim on his property and spent a long time at law, trying to get anything out of his family.

Three years after Robert's death, Bess, still only around twenty years old, married Sir William Cavendish. They were married for ten years, until his death, during which time she bore him eight children, six of whom lived to be adults - a good record for the 16th century. Sir William had property in Derbyshire, including the Chatsworth Estates. (His heirs became the Dukes of Devonshire, who still own Chatsworth House. Andrew Cavendish was married to the famous "Debo," née Mitford, who made Chatsworth House what it is today. I think Bess would have approved of her.)

Bess of Hardwick in later life

When Sir William died, after ten years of marriage, Bess was responsible for his two surviving daughters from an earlier marriage as well as her own six children. By now Lady Cavendish was still only around thirty years old and good-looking and she attracted many suitors. So a couple of years later she married, for the third time, to Sir William St. Loe. He had two daughters by a previous marriage too but at his death, six years later, he left everything to Bess, cutting out his own children and his younger brother, who might well have poisoned him.

Bess was now a very wealthy woman, with an annual income worth millions in today's terms. She soon attracted another husband, her fourth and last, George Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury. Countess Shrewsbury's vast income was appropriated by her husband in the custom of the time. But she was now a significant person at court, being one of Queen Elizabeth's Ladies of the Bedchamber.

The Earl had seven children already and two of his sons married two of Bess's young daughters in the year of their parents' marriage. Whether the Earl and Countess's marriage would have been happy in the long term, we can't know but Jill Armitage makes it clear that it didn't stand a chance once they had visited on them a Royal house guest.

Mary, known as Queen of Scots, was billeted on them by her cousin Queen Elizabeth shortly after their marriage and remained with them, under virtual house arrest, for the next fifteen years. But they didn't stay in one place: they were constantly on the move from one of their homes to another. And Mary had an extensive entourage and was expensive to keep. And of course there were constant plots to release her, to topple or assassinate Elizabeth and put a Catholic queen on the throne again.

Mary, Queen of Scots

I have never understood the fascination with this Mary. At least, I do understand it but don't share it. She is supposed to have been very charismatic and charming but her actions are quite repellent. She and Bess, who would have been ten years or more older, a mature female confidante, who treated the imprisoned queen with kindness, used to sit together doing embroidery to pass the long days of Mary's imprisonment.

It would have been natural for the two women to have chatted and gossiped, to have exchanged confidences, as women friends do. But, according to Jill Armitage,  Mary used the rumours Bess unwisely passed on about the English queen's love life, to get her into trouble and put her out of favour.

And it seems she also used her charms on the ageing Earl, flirting with him and alienating him from his wife. Whether this is true or not, the Shrewsburys' marriage was on the rocks and they lived virtually apart for the ten years before his death. That was three years after Mary's execution at Fotheringhay Castle.

The Earl's death left Bess as Dowager Duchess of Shrewsbury and mother-in-law to the new Earl, Gilbert, who was married to her daughter, Mary. She was free to do as she liked for the first time for decades and what she liked was building projects. She was a shrewd business woman and always fought for her rights, from the day of her first husband's death. She was the second richest woman in England after the queen, enjoying income from the Barlow, Cavendish and St. Loe estates and a third of that from the Shresbury estates.

She also had a life interest in several properties, including land near her birthplace in Hardwick, where she set about building the new, now famous, Hardwick Hall. It had an unusual amount of glass for a late 16th century manor house and was much admired. Bess moved into Hardwick Hall around her seventieth birthday. She ordered a grand funeral monument for herself but lived until she was 81 in 1608, outliving Elizabeth and the other queens in this book.

Before Elizabeth, there was Lady Jane Grey, the "nine days queen" and then Mary Tudor, the first Monarch of England in her own right.

Lady Jane Grey - the Streatham portrait

 In any other context, Lady Jane would have been the heroine of this narrative. As I wrote in my story "Learn to Die" in the History Girls' anthology Daughters of Time (Templar 2014), she was not the helpless pawn she has sometimes been portrayed as, but a young woman of steely determination and unshakable Protestant faith. Bess of Hardwick was a friend of the family and Lady Jane was godmother to her second child, a daughter called Temperance, who sadly died in infancy.

Four years after this Lady Jane Grey was named as Edward Vl's heir and embarked on the disastrous course that led to her execution.

Because the people rejected her claim, albeit one sanctioned by the late boy king, and preferred Henry Vlll's daughter Mary.

This was a tricky time for Bess and her husband of the time, William Cavendish, who were both Protestants. But Queen Mary became godmother to their fifth child, a son called Charles. A shrewd choice in the circumstances.

Bess of Hardwick remains the real star of this book and I'd love to read a book just about her. She was one of the most remarkable women to emerge in Renaissance England and lived a life as eventful as any queen's.

Jill Armitage, author of Four Queens and a Countess

La Reine Blanche by Mary Hoffman

The "other" Mary Tudor

No, not England's first  Queen Regnant but Henry the Eighth's favourite sister.

If this new biography had its title translated into The White Queen, readers might think it was fiction, like Philippa Gregory's novel of the same name, about Elizabeth Woodville.

As it is, the subject's life is so extraordinary that Sarah Bryson might well have presented it as fiction. (The subtitle is a bit misleading: it's not just a collection of letters, though these are drawn on.)

I have written about the first Mary Tudor on here before. I am particularly interested in her and her second husband, Charles Brandon, at least partly because one of my sons-in-law is their descendant. I know, I know. It's only two days since Katherine Roberts told us that 1 in 200 men in the world is directly descended from Genghis Khan.

But I look at my son-in-law's hooded eyes and a Plantagenet looks back at me. I have his family tree going back to Frances Brandon and can see back to Henry Vll beyond that. Another ancestor helped that same Henry become king by rallying to his side at the Battle of Bosworth.

Family connections aside, Mary Rose, sister of Henry the Eighth, would be a fascinating subject to anyone. Henry Vll and his wife, Elizabeth of York famously married both to legitimate his rather shaky claim to the throne and to bring an official end to the "Wars of the Roses," or Cousins' War. They had four children who survived infancy: two boys and two girls. The boys were Arthur, who died as a teenager a few months after marrying Katherine of Aragon, and Henry whose marital history is all too often rehearsed.

The older daughter was Margaret, named for her formidable grandmother Margaret Beaufort, and married to James lV of Scotland  (Mary Queen of Scots was her granddaughter). She came between the two sons. The last surviving daughter was Mary Rose, five years younger than the brother who would become king.

This portrait suggests she shared the red-gold hair of her brother and niece Elizabeth. Prized as sons were, the royal couple had two already and no reason to anticipate Arthur's early death so perhaps they were relaxed about the new baby's being a girl. Because royal princesses had their own advantages: they could be married off to other European royals.

Mary had her first marriage proposal when she was three; it was rejected. But then the proposed husband was "only" the son of a Duke. The royal toddler knew nothing about it of course; such matters were sorted out by fathers. Her older sister was to be married to a king and her father intended nothing less for his second daughter.

In fact Mary was first "married" at the age of five to Charles, who would not only go on to be King of Spain but Holy Roman Emperor too. Her father would not have known this for certain at the time of their proxy wedding and indeed Charles - an infant himself - was also "only the son of a duke"  but that dukedom was Burgundy, one of the richest and most influential in Europe.

So Mary Rose could have become Empress but settled for Duchess. But not until she had first been a queen.

Her life was filled with all the little luxuries her brother could give her, especially rich fabrics for clothes. He became king when Mary was only thirteen and seems always to have favoured her, sending her letters and presents whenever she was not at court. And of course Mary had gained a sister-in-in-law, Katherine of Aragon, to whom she became very close.

Her brother became impatient with the way that negotiations for Mary's marriage to Charles, now Prince of Spain, were being dragged out, by Charles's father Ferdinand and grandfather Maximilian, who was Holy Roman Emperor . So Henry started to cast around for another suitable husband for her.

His choice fell on Louis Xll of France, aged 52, who had been married twice before. His first marriage had been annulled and his second ended in the death of his wife, Anne of Brittany, who was worn out by stillbirths and miscarriages both with Louis and her first husband.

Mary was eighteen when this marriage was suggested to her and this is the point when she leaps out of the pages of history and becomes a real woman, just as fearless as her brother. This is when she famously extracts the promise from him that, if she "did marrie for our pleasure at this time ...that you will suffer me to marry as me liketh to do." This is how she puts it in the letter she sends Henry after Louis' death.

And straightaway we can imagine these redheaded siblings facing off and the teenager telling her big brother (who happens to be king of England)  "I'll marry this old guy to please you, but when he dies I get to choose my next husband."

It is inconceivable that she didn't already have her eye on Charles Brandon, lately made Duke of Suffolk, as a candidate for spouse number two. He was a dashing figure at court and the nearest thing Henry had to a best friend. He was very attractive to women and had already been married twice, in slightly scandalous circumstances and was now an eligible 30-year-old widower (albeit betrothed to his ward!).

But if we think that Mary was anything other than a compliant and obliging wife to the man who was over thirty years her senior, Sarah Bryson puts us right. She seems to have behaved in relation to her husband King Louis and his court with exemplary modesty and courtesy. She was equipped with the most gorgeous clothes and jewels - a sop to her vanity from her brother to sugar the pill of marrying this much older man?

Whatever their marriage was like, it lasted only three monhs and then Louis was dead. It was at this time that Mary was dubbed "La Reine Blanche."

I imagine the calumny that Louis died because of over-exerting himself in the bedchamber with his teenage bride started almost immediately. He was more likely to have fallen victim to the gout that plagued him. But whatever the cause of his death, it seems clear that Louis doted on his young wife and treated her with great favour and kindness.

Mary had got off lightly. A wonderful trousseau, loads of bling and only three months of having to submit to an old man's embraces. But now she had to extricate herself from France. And who was sent to bring her home? Why, none other than Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.

Henry must have known what a risk he was taking in sending his glamorous friend. He even extracted a promise from Brandon that he would not marry Mary without the king's permission. And such permission would not have been forthcoming, since Mary was now back on the marriage market, still young and beautiful and with the added advantage now of having been a queen. And Charles was of a far inferior social rank.

But Mary was no longer a pliant child or even a bargaining teenager; she took matters into her own hands and proposed to Brandon herself! Within days of his arrival in France they were married.

To marry in secret, without the king's permission, was very dangerous but Henry was caught in a trap. This was his beloved younger sister and his best friend. Although he was furious and stung them with a huge fine, of course he took them back into his confidence and favour.

It took a lot of hard work for the errant couple to regain Henry's trust . There were letters full of flattery, there were tears and protestations, self-abasement and promises for the future. And a whopping great diamond, known as The Mirror of Naples, given to Mary by Louis on their marriage and now offered to the English king.

They returned to England together 503 years ago, almost to the day, on 2nd May 1515. Mary had to hand over all her returned dowry to her brother but she must have thought her new husband worth the financial sacrifice.

They lived mainly at Suffolk Place. Mary was the second-highest ranking lady in England after her sister-in-law, Queen Katherine, and by February 1516, Charles Brandon was restored to all his roles at court. Katherine gave birth to a daughter in February 1516, after Mary's unsanctioned marriage, and the child was named after her aunt. This little girl became the woman the world knows as Mary Tudor.

Just under a month later Mary and Brandon had their first child, a boy, whom they named Henry. By such reciprocal gestures was the reconciliation sealed. Their second child, Frances, was born in the following year. Another daughter, Eleanor, was born in 1519.

In 1520, Mary, still only 24, twice-married and mother to two children, attended with her husband the fabulous Anglo-French encounter known as the Field of Cloth of Gold. But  before that, she met for the first time the man who had been her  fiancé, now King Charkles V of Spain. It makes her seem a woman we can recognise when Sarah Bryson tells us she ordered a whole new wardrobe for this occasion.

In France, Brandon was the star of the jousts and how Mary must have rejoiced at his prowess. Here she was, a Dowager Queen, married to the man of her choosing, sister of a king and dressed and bejewelled in splendour while her handsome, athletic husband shone in the lists. In the five years since she had last been in the country her life had changed much for the better.

But then two years later Mary and Charles's son Henry died. And the next decade showed a decline in her happiness. Another son, also called Henry, was born but lived until only eleven years of age.

By 1527 Henry was trying to get an annulment of his marriage to Katherine and was focused on marrying Anne Boleyn and fathering a legitimate male heir. Until such time as he had one, little Henry Brandon, Earl of Lincoln  was a candidate for the English throne.

Mary was horrified. Not at the thought of her son losing his place in line to the throne but because Katherine was genuinely her friend and she thought her brother's behaviour reprehensible. She developed a hearty dislike for Anne Boleyn, whom she had known in France.

And how painful it must have been for Mary that her brother enlisted her husband to take messages to to the stricken queen, telling her of her fate. In 1533, shortly after Anne's coronation, Mary died. She was only 37 years old.

Her little son died the following year but by then Charles Brandon had re-married. Three months after Mary's death he married his 14-year-old ward (no not the one he was engaged to before he married Mary). Catherine Willoughby, a great heiress, had been picked out to be little Henry's bride but Charles decided he would be the more suitable husband, especially because he was greatly in need of money.

Sarah Bryson makes it clear that, although it was a love match, Charles and Mary had their burdens to bear. With the return of her dowry to Henry and the huge fines they had to pay the king because of their unauthorised marriage, the couple was always strapped for cash. They had to keep up the most lavish of appearances at court and Brandon often had to seek loans.

They lost both of their sons (albeit the second after Mary's death), Mary missed a good friend in Katherine of Aragon and she herself suffered many episodes of an unspecified illness throughout her life. She retained the title Queen of France for the rest of her days and was clearly proud of it. But for eighteen years she was married to a man whom, for all his faults, she clearly loved.

The daughter, wife and sister of kings and grandmother of the queen with the shortest reign in English history, the first Mary Tudor has at last found a worthy biographer in Sarah Bryson, who has done her subject a great service in this vivid and absorbing book.

Sarah Bryson

(All photos public domain)

THE SUM OF ME – an exclusive short story by Elizabeth Fremantle

I am sadly stepping down from The History Girls at the end of 2017 and have posted something special for my last blog: an unpublished short story about the Grey sisters.

Copyright: Victoria and Albert Museum

The Sum of Me

Elizabeth Fremantle

   ‘Push, harder. Push, faster. Higher.’ His hands are on my back. I am swinging up, up, so high I can see over the wall into the stable block, so high I can see the laundry maids laying out the linens to dry in the far field, so high I am a bird. I soar and dip, trailing sputters of laughter, heart flapping. Then I am down, rolling on fresh grass, still laughing, struggling to fill my lungs. He is beside me with a grin.
   ‘Kitty,’ he says closing his eyes, as if the word is sacred.
   I clasp the back of his neck, drawing his face towards mine, pulling him closer slowly, until I can feel his breath on my skin, until our lips couldn’t be closer without touching, until his eyes merge into one, until my belly fizzes. I can smell him. He smells of the countryside, horses and meadows. Then I push him off, scramble up, back onto the swing.
   ‘Push me again.’
   But he is brooding now, sitting hunched on the grass, cradling his knees.
   ‘Don’t be a misery. You know you are my favourite cousin.’ I smile but he’s not looking.
   Eventually he mutters, ‘But–’
   ‘But what?’
   ‘Nothing.’
   I swing myself, pushing off the ground with my feet, kicking them up and folding them back, back and forth, back and forth. Heat flowers beneath my dress, under my arms, down my back, down there. He pretends not to watch me, hiding dark eyes behind a fringe of dark hair. I rip off my coif and throw it towards him. He doesn’t catch it and it lands limply on the grass. My hair flies free.
   I imagine seeing myself as he does, watching my hair flung out behind me like a comet’s tail. I am wondering if this is what it feels like to be in love – soaring and dipping, a burning at the core of me.

   He is picking daisies with long fingers. Those same fingers that were trying to stuff themselves down the front of my tight-laced stomacher, last night, where my bud breasts are sprouting. When I press them they feel sore and there is a hard nub inside, like a kernel. My older sister, Jane, says that is normal. She also says I should stop thinking of my body so much and think more of God. How can I help it, when my body is transforming under my eyes? When I reply that God made my body, she tells me I am missing the point.
   Up I swing, hair lifting so a rush of cool air kisses the nape of my neck. I spot Father at a distance, ahead of his retinue, returning from court. A whirr of excitement catches in my throat, spilling out of me in a squeal. I am, if it is possible, more thrilled even by the return of Father, than I am by the thought of my favourite cousin’s burrowing fingers.
   ‘Father’s back,’ I say, jumping off the swing, meeting the ground at a run. ‘Come on, let’s go and meet him.’ But he doesn’t follow and I am glad, because I want Father to myself.
   But he is not alone when I arrive in the yard. The others have caught up. Jane is wearing a face that like a yard of tripe. But Father is gleaming, got up in all his finery. He catches sight of me, barefoot, hair loose. ‘My darling girl.’ He reaches down to me, catching me under the arms, hoisting me up to sit in front of him. He smells different, sweet, smoky, as if court has rubbed off on his clothes. ‘My little favourite,’ he whispers, kissing me, almost on the mouth. His beard tickles. ‘You mustn’t tell the others.’ He always says this. I run my finger over my lips to show they are sealed and lean my head back against his chest.
   ‘What was it like at court?’ I am longing to hear about the King, who is only a little older than I am, who Jane is meant to marry, if Father gets his way.
   Mother thinks different. ‘Between you and me,’ she has said, ‘the little King will marry a foreign princess. England needs allies.’ Mother should know. Her mother was married to a king once – the King of France. It is from Mother that we get our Tudor blood. ‘A blessing or a curse, I know not which,’ she says of it.
   ‘You wouldn’t like it there these days, Kitty.’

   ‘But I would, I would. Will you take me?’ The idea of court makes me want to burst out of my skin – all those people, the ones everyone talks of, all in the same place. ‘Please.’
   ‘I’m telling you, you wouldn’t like it. the King is unwell. It’s grim there.’
   ‘But when he is better you will take me, won’t you – like you promised?’
   Father doesn’t answer, just calls over one of the grooms to help us down. I can see my cousin skulking by the orchard gate. I blow him a kiss when no one is watching and his face is illuminated, briefly. Jane has disappeared into the house with her long face, without greeting me. I suppose she is upset because the King is ill. But Jane is not a sulker and I think something must be very wrong to put her in such a cheerless humour.
   Father piggybacks me, laughing, up the steps and into the hall.
   ‘She is too old for all that.’ Mother is standing in the door with Aunt Mary, waiting for us. ‘She needs to learn how to behave like a lady.’ But I can see that she is trying to hold her cross face together so it hides the smile behind.
   ‘I have news,’ Father says to her, putting me down, saying, ‘run along Kitty. Go and find your sisters.’ He and Mother close themselves in his study. I press my ear to the door but can’t hear anything except the throb of my blood – Tudor blood, a blessing or a curse.
   Jane is on the stairs.
   ‘Don’t snoop,’ she says. ‘You will find out soon enough. Come with me. Let’s find Mary.’
   Mary is our little sister who is the sweetest thing in the world, though she is crookbacked and hardly bigger than an infant, in spite of being almost eight years old. I am so used to Mary being the way she is it surprises me when strangers stare at her. Strangers stare at me too but not for the same reasons – I am stared at because of my prettiness, or that is what Father says.
   So, Mary is the sweet one, I am the pretty one and Jane is the clever one. Truth be told, Jane has all three qualities in abundance and puts us all to shame, or that is the opinion of our tutor. Although she is only fifteen Jane can hold a whole conversation in Greek and writes long letters in Latin about the Bible to scholars in places with funny names like Wittenburg, where the double-yous are vees.
   I cannot read Greek, let alone converse in it, nor Latin. My tutor threw my Lily’s Latin Grammar in the fire the other day with the words, ‘is your head stuffed with feathers, Lady Catherine?’ He shouted it, with more aggression than was necessary. I thought about telling Mother, but then he might have been replaced and, as he is a good deal nicer than his predecessor, I thought to use the situation to my advantage.
   I said to him, ‘I shall say nothing of the book, nor the shouting, on one condition.’
   He looked at me then as if I smelled nasty, before nodding slowly.
   ‘That you stop trying to teach me Greek or Latin and let me practice my music and dancing more often.’
   ‘With respect, I am employed to teach you the languages…
   ‘With respect, sir,’ I cut in. ‘You are not employed to throw valuable books on the fire.’
   We shall see what the outcome is.
   As Jane and I reach the landing, Mother storms from the study. ‘…too young!’ She slams the door, stopping to lean against it, bringing her hands up to cover her face. Jane and I scurry away.
   ‘What is this news?’ I ask Jane. ‘Does it have anything to do with me?’
   ‘You should think a little less of yourself and a little more of God.’ This is the kind of thing she says often, which makes her seem a bore, though she is not – not really. She truly believes we would all be better off for thinking more of God and less about almost anything else. I am sure she is right. But how can I think of God when the world is so full of other things to think of?
   Mother says I am too impetuous and need to learn to behave as befits my position. Father says I am perfect just as I am. Mistress Ellen, our nurse, thinks I am headstrong and Aunt Mary thinks me selfish. I don’t know what I think, from one minute to the next. That is the sum of me.
   I can see by the way Jane’s mouth is pursed that she knows more than she is telling. Perhaps by putting it differently, I will prise something out of her. ‘What is it that could have made Mother so very upset?’
   ‘You shall find out soon enough.’ As she says it she smiles but it is one of the saddest smiles I have ever seen.

Only the close household is at supper tonight. Little Mary stifles a yawn next to me and stretches her twisted spine, first one side and then the other. I reach out and rub my palm over the hunch of her shoulders, where she is knotted into a firm, tight mound, running my fingers down to loosen the lacing that is designed to keep her in shape. In my head I have the picture of Tom watching me from the orchard gate, making my heart bloat like a sponge in water. I catch his eye across the table. I cannot eat. Love makes you lose your appetite, everyone says so. Father takes a deep breath, as if he has just come up from under water, and raps on the table with the hilt of his knife.
   ‘I have important announcements that will affect us all.’ His eyes are dancing and he has a high colour. I can’t take my eyes off him. He looks so very splendid in his crimson outfit edged with gold, like a hero from ancient times. ‘Jane, stand.’
   My sister gets to her feet.
   ‘My eldest daughter, our very own Lady Jane, is to be named as heir in the king’s new devise for the succession.’
   We are all suspended in astonished silence – Maman looks distraught; Uncle John’s face is unreadable; Aunt Mary dabs at her eyes with a handkerchief; Tom’s mouth is an O; Little Mary looks bewildered; Father looks like the cat who licked the butter; Jane looks at her hands. I am thinking that this means I will be the Queen’s sister, but Jane’s voice echoes in my head: you should think less of yourself and more of God.
   But how can I think of God when I am thinking about being, after Mother I suppose, the greatest lady in all the court, sister to the Queen – me.
   Father continues. ‘This is not to be talked of until the official announcement is made. If I catch any loose mouths amongst you I will personally run you through with my sword.’ There is a general mumble around the table. ‘I have more good news,’ Father’s moustache is twitching, keeping a smile at bay. ‘Catherine, Mary,’ he says lifting his hands palms up. We both stand as if he is our puppeteer.     ‘My girls are to be wed.’
   Tom is stock-still, like that man from the bible who looked back when he was not supposed to. I fear he might burst into tears. I want to take his hand and run from the room, run all the way back to this afternoon when we were playing on the swing, run all the way back to last night when we were discovering parts of each other that had never been touched.
   ‘Lady Jane shall be wed to the Duke of Northumberland’s boy, Guildford Dudley.’
   Jane’s lips are pressed together tightly and her hands are twined together, knuckles white. I have never seen this Guildford Dudley and, as far as I know, nor has she, but I do know that Northumberland holds the reigns of all England – Father says it all the time.
   ‘Lady Catherine shall be wed to the Earl of Pembroke’s eldest, Henry Herbert–’
   ‘Who’s Henry Herbert?’ I blurt. My head is thrumming so I can’t get whatever is in it to make sense. A thought emerges slowly: what use is being the Queen’s sister if I am married already.
   ‘Quiet!’ snaps Father, pinching me hard at the nape of my neck where the bruise will not show. ‘And Lady Mary… she is still too young for marriage, of course, but will be betrothed to our cousin Arthur Grey.’
   It is me who gasps loudest. Cousin Arthur is a great uncouth fellow with a pike-wound in the face. We used to make up stories about him, to put the frights up each other after dark. Little Mary’s face is pale and damp as a dish of rennet and mine cannot be much better.
   ‘The ceremony,’ continues Father, ‘shall take place in three weeks at Durham Place.’ His hand is resting on my shoulder. It is a dead weight. Tom’s hand is over his mouth. Jane’s hands still cling each other. Mother’s fingers pick angrily at the pearls on her gown.
   ‘… our daughters to be pawns in Northumberland’s game of chess,’ I hear her mutter under her breath. ‘Come girls, to bed,’ she says, her voice full of false brightness, herding the three of us towards the door, where Mistress Ellen is waiting.

I am in a borrowed dress; it is the finest I have ever worn, but it is too big. It belonged to some Duchess who is in the Tower. Or that is what I overheard Mother tell Mistress Ellen, ‘My girls wed in such haste they must wear the cast-offs of a disgraced duchess.’
   The dress was altered a fortnight ago but I am thinner now and Mistress Ellen has had to fold the excess fabric and pin it together to make it fit.
   A great crowd has assembled at Durham Place and all their eyes are on us. I have dreamed of moments like this – me in a magnificent dress, all the court gathered to see me, all except the King that is, who is too sick to leave his bed. I have heard it whispered that he is dying, and though it is treason to even think that thought, I cannot help but remind myself that when he is gone my sister will be Queen.
   I may well have dreamed of moments like this, but it is not as I had imagined. No – I am thinking of Tom’s distraught face as we parted. My heart is shrinking and my breath wobbling, eyes watery. Jane gives my hand a squeeze, ‘it’ll be over before you know it.’
   But we both know this is only the beginning of it, that she will be in the bed of Guildford Dudley, and I will be at some place called Barnard’s Castle, in the care of my new husband’s family, before the day is done. We walk forward slowly together. I mustn’t think of Tom or I will lose my composure altogether.
   A scowling boy takes my hand, placing a careful kiss on it. So this is my one, I suppose. Jane has not offered a hand to hers. He is robust looking, not handsome, but with something that is not unattractive either. Jane keeps her gaze off him.
   My one is pallid as porridge and beaded with dew – I was warned he had been dragged from his sickbed to wed me. But he wears a fetching green doublet and his eyes are green to match – green like the jade dragon that sits on father’s desk. He smells of almonds and has a curl of dark hair that falls forward over, which he flicks back with a toss of his head. His jade eyes take me in and he appears, all in one moment, to come to life, like a drooping flower just watered. I feel better, suddenly.
   He links his arm through mine and as we approach the altar, he leans in close to whisper, ‘you are the most exquisite thing I have ever seen.’ Something I do not recognise uncoils in the root of me and my favourite cousin is forgotten.



© Elizabeth Fremantle

No part of this short story is to be duplicated without the permission of the author.

Elizabeth Fremantle's latest novel The Girl in the Glass Tower, is published by Penguin. 
For more information about the author and her books see ElizabethFremantle.com

"Here lyeth Quene Kateryn" by Ann Turnbull

From Cleeve Hill in the Cotswolds you can look down and see Sudeley Castle, close to the small town of Winchcombe.

Sudeley has been restored, but some of the ruins of earlier buildings remain - notably the walls and tall Gothic windows of Richard III's banqueting hall, and the shell of a 15th century tithe barn, which now houses an enchanting garden of roses, hollyhocks, clematis and wisteria.

Sudeley - a stronghold since Anglo-Saxon times - was slighted after the Civil Wars and left uninhabitable. For two centuries it was used by tenant farmers for sheltering animals, and some of its stones were carried away. King Charles I's campaign bed - a great demountable four-poster of solid carved oak - lay forgotten in a barn on the estate. And the body of Queen Katherine Parr lay buried beneath a wall in the ruined chapel and was not rediscovered for more than two hundred years.

Katherine Parr? Well, when Henry VIII died in 1547, Sudeley passed to Thomas Seymour, who went on to marry the king's widow, Katherine Parr. So Katherine came to live at Sudeley, along with Thomas's ward, the eleven-year-old Lady Jane Grey. Sadly, Katherine's time at Sudeley was short - little more than a year. She became pregnant and died of puerperal fever a week after the birth, aged thirty-six. When her lead coffin was discovered and opened in 1782, her body was found to be wrapped in six layers of linen cerecloth, which had kept it perfectly preserved (though later openings eventually reduced it to dust.)  In the 19th century the chapel was rebuilt and re-dedicated as St Mary's Church, and Katherine was laid in a marble tomb inscribed with the words found on her coffin, "Here lyeth Quene Kateryn, wife to Kyng Henry VIII..."

The castle was sensitively restored by John and William Dent, wealthy glove-makers, who bought it in 1837. Since then, the present owners have built up some fascinating collections and exhibitions. Emma Dent, the Victorian chatelaine, was a great collector, and there is a room full of antique lace and embroidery, including a 16th century lace canopy said to have been made by Anne Boleyn for the christening of Princess Elizabeth. Emma also devoted energy to both buildings and gardens, and can be seen below, in topiary, sitting in her herb garden, reading a book - though she was so busy with good works around Winchcombe (providing almshouses, a school, a new church, a piped water supply, teaching at a night school and running sewing classes) that it's hard to imagine she had much time to sit and read.

Some highlights of the exhibitions for me were:

Katherine Parr's privy, curtained and upholstered in crimson velvet.

The Vertue drawings - copies of thirty-three portraits by Holbein of members of the Tudor court.

Charles I's despatch box, in which he kept all his correspondence during the Civil War - one of the spoils of the battle of Naseby.

Charles I's campaign bed - now restored and refurnished.

Katherine Parr's books and her letter to Thomas Seymour accepting his marriage proposal.

Oh, and the Roman mosaic - another thing for which we have to thank Emma Dent. But that will be the subject of a separate blog...

LADY CROOKBACK – on disability and invisibility in historical fiction. By Elizabeth Fremantle

Lady Mary Grey

Lady Mary Grey, youngest sister of the tragic Lady Jane was described by a contemporary ambassador as 'small, crookbacked and very ugly.' It is thought by some historians that she was born with the congenital scoliosis of her ancestor Richard III (possibly also suffered by her cousin Edward VI) and there is more than one reference to her diminutive stature, suggesting that she was, aside from her spinal distortion, remarkably small. It would seem that Lady Mary then was a woman with significant disabilities and yet one who inhabited the highest echelons of the court. It was this intriguing figure that inspired my novel Sisters of Treason.

My own daughter was paralysed as a baby and for many months we believed she would never walk. Happily she did, but that experience fuelled my desire to give a voice to one of history's invisible women and to articulate something of the kind of life she might have led as both court insider and outsider. One comes across the occasional  man with physical differences in historical fiction: Bucino the dwarf of Sarah Dunant's In the company of the Courtesan, George RR Martin's Tyrian Lannister and polio victim Tomas Ashton of Rosie Allison's The Very Thought of You. All these characters play a pivotal part in their respective narratives, with Ashton as a damaged romantic lead in the mould of Jojo Moyes's quadriplegic hero in Me Before You, Lannister as a key character and Bucino as the protagonist of Dunant's novel. But there is a distinct absence of women with disabilities at the heart of historical fiction. It seems that women are allowed flaws of character, and a prevalence of women with psychological challenges can be found, but bodily flaws seem to be taboo. Looking to the past for literary examples offers little. There is the wheelchair-bound Edith in Stephan Zweig's wonderful Beware of Pity and a number of tragic girls like Beth in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and Love For Lydia Springs to mind too, who are defined by debilitating illness but it is hard to find empowered women who do not conform to the physical norm. It is for this reason that I chose to take that ambassador's grim appraisal at face value when creating the character of Mary Grey. I didn't want to tone down her disabilities or blur them in any way and felt it was important for her to live on the page as she was in life and allow her, in some small way, speak for all the invisible women of her time.

The Infanta of Spain with her dwarf

In Early Modern Europe the Medieval belief still held sway, that physical flaws equated to sin, demonstrated effectively in Shakespeare's evil characterisation of that 'lump of foul deformity' Richard III. But Mary wasn't a child hidden away like a shameful secret, on the contrary she was educated alongside her sisters and is thought to have been something of a scholar like her eldest sister Jane. She spent many years at court, a place where dwarfs held special status as royal playthings. But Mary was different: she was full of royal blood herself and so I imagined her position as complex, treated as a kind of pet by dint of her stature but also holding a position in line to the throne. Mary inhabiting a place of ambivalence offered me opportunities to make her party to information others would not, as being infantalised or dehumanised in the eyes of others, her presence was not considered a threat. I show her sitting on the lap of Mary Tudor and overhearing political discussions of great secrecy. Thus she is empowered by her intelligence. But her life is a hard one, as roles for aristocratic women of the period were limited and always involved marriage and the bearing of children, something impossible for Mary. She envisages an endless life lived out in limbo at court where, as the daughter and sister of traitors, she is watched closely. But the most remarkable thing about the real Mary Grey, which truly demonstrates her extraordinary character, is that she refused to be bound by the expectations of her situation and made a break for personal freedom and happiness. A true heroine for our times.


Here's a short extract from Mary Grey's story. In it she is only nine-years-old and reeling from the execution of her beloved sister Jane.

   I hand my gown to Magdalen, who holds it up, saying with a smirk, 'How does this fit?' She dangles it from the tips of her fingers away from her body.
   'This part,' I explain, pointing at the high collar that has been specially tailored to fit my shape, 'goes up around here.'
   'Over your hump?' Magdalen says with a snort of laughter.
   I must not cry. What would my sister Jane have done, I ask myself. Be stoic, Mouse, she would have said. Let no one see what you are truly feeling.
   'I don't know why the Queen would want such a creature at her wedding,' Magdalen whispers to Cousin Margaret, not so quiet that I can't hear.
   I fear I will cry and make things worse, so I think up a picture of Jane. I remember her saying once: God has chosen to make you a certain way and it cannot be without reason. In his eyes you are perfect – in mine too. But I know I am not perfect; I am so hunched about the shoulders and crooked at the spine, I look as if I have been hung by the scruff on a hook for too long. And I am small as an infant of five, despite being almost twice that age. Besides it is what is in here that matters; in my mind's eye Jane presses a fist to her heart.

Sisters of Treason will be published on 22nd May

ElizabethFremantle.com

POLITICS AND THE ART OF INTIMACY: Levina Teerlinc, a sixteenth century miniaturist – Elizabeth Fremantle

The mid-sixteenth century saw the rise of a new art form: the portrait miniature. Designed to be hidden, rather than displayed in public, miniatures were worn on ribbons tucked away from prying eyes amongst layers of clothing, in pockets and pouches, or in boxes – like Elizabeth I's collection of tiny likenesses. They often signified love and were exchanged as betrothal gifts, keepsakes or between clandestine lovers, but were also worn as covert symbols of political affiliation. It is one such portrait, an image of a woman, who many championed as Elizabeth I's successor, with her son, potentially a future King of England, that is a central symbol in my novel Sisters of Treason.

This portrait of Lady Katherine Grey and her son Lord Beauchamp is the first known English secular image of a mother and child. It is also, if you look very closely at the object Katherine wears round her neck, the first instance in painting of a miniature being worn. It is her husband's likeness and so this forms a kind of family group. When this was painted Katherine was imprisoned in the Tower of London for her unsanctioned marriage to Edward Seymour – indeed that is where she gave birth to little Lord Beauchamp.

The artist was Levina Teerlinc, the daughter of an illuminator of some renown, who came to England from Bruges, joining the household of Katherine Parr when she was queen. Teerlinc was remarkable as a sixteenth century woman earning her living as a painter, but more so in that she served as a court artist to four Tudor monarchs: Henry; Edward VI; Mary I and Elizabeth I, and would have worked on designs for jewellery, seals and documents as well as portraits. It is a great shame that more of her work has not survived but from the few images we have it is clear that she was instrumental in the spread in popularity of the limning or miniature. Specialist in portraiture of the period, Susan E James, makes a strong argument that Teerlinc was the author of A Very Proper Treatise Wherein is Briefly Set for the Arte in Limning that demonstrated the main tenets of the form. James is also of the mind, as is art historian Roy Strong, that Teerlinc may have taught Nicholas Hilliard who was to become one of the world's greatest practitioners of the art.

Teerlinc painted a number of images of the Grey family: the portrait of Lady Katherine with her son and another of her as a girl and also a much disputed miniature by Teerlinc that some, including David Starkey, believe to be a likeness of Katherine's older sister, the tragic Lady Jane Grey. This is hotly disputed and there is no definite image of Jane Grey but there is in these little portraits a clear suggestion of a relationship between Teerlinc and the Grey family.  I have built on this in my novel, weaving the painter's life with that of the two younger Grey sisters Katherine and Mary, two girls whose lives were played out at the heart of the struggle for the Tudor succession, only to be forgotten when their Stuart cousins came to power.

This brings me back to the portrait of Katherine and her son and the political significance of such an image. It was widely copied (I know of at least three similar images in existence) and would have been a covert demonstration of allegiance to the Greys and their claim to the throne. Elizabeth I, ever fearful of usurpers, had Lord Beauchamp deemed illegitimate and Katherine was to end her days in incarceration, but thanks to the intimate art of Levina Teerlinc we have an insight into a forgotten fragment of history.

Ref: Susan E James The Feminine Dynamic in English Art 1485-1603, Ashgate.

Sisters of Treason will be published by Michael Joseph on 22nd May 2014