The strange adventures of the Ladies Katherine and Mary Grey, although they excited great interest at the time of their happening, and were of immense contemporary political importance, are now almost unknown, even to professed students of Elizabethan history. The sad fate of these unfortunate princesses has paled before that of their more famous sister, Lady Jane Grey, who, although the heroine of an appalling tragedy, was rather the victim of others than of her own actions. In a sense, she was merely a lay-figure, whereas her sisters, especially Lady Katherine, who played an active part on the stage of history at a later period of life, and possessed an unusually strong personality, were entirely swayed by the most interesting of human passions—love. Lady Katherine was literally “done to death” by her infatuation for the young Earl of Hertford, the eldest son of that Protector Somerset who suffered death under Edward VI. The feline cruelty with which Queen Elizabeth tormented Lady Katherine, after the clandestine marriage with her lover was revealed, called forth the freely expressed condemnation of Chief Secretary Cecil, who denounced his royal mistress’s harshness in no measured terms.

It is said that Lady Willoughby d’Eresby, one of the faithful attendants on Katherine of Aragon, was so infuriated by Henry VIII’s courtship and marriage with Anne Boleyn, that she pronounced a terrible curse upon that wretched queen and the infant Elizabeth. If, through her intercession or incantations, she contrived to induce some evil spirit to inspire Henry VIII to make his famous but ill-considered Will, she certainly succeeded in adding very considerably to the discomfort of his celebrated daughter, who, during all her life, had to experience the consequences of an ill-judged testament, whereby Henry VIII, by passing over the legitimate claim to the succession, of his grandniece, Mary Queen of Scots, the descendant of his eldest sister, Margaret Tudor, widow of James IV of Scotland, in favour of the heirs of his youngest sister, Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Duchess of Suffolk, opened a very Pandora’s box, full of more or less genuine claimants, after Elizabeth’s death, to the English Throne. The Spanish Ambassador enumerates a round dozen of these, all of whom, with the exception of Mary Stuart and Lady Katherine Grey, he describes as more or less incompetent place-seekers, not worth the butter on their bread, but who clamoured to obtain the queen’s recognition of what they believed to be their legal rights, and thereby added greatly to the general confusion. Of these claimants, Lady Katherine Grey was by far the most important, her right to the Crown being not only based on two Royal Wills—those of Henry VIII and Edward VI[1]—but, moreover, ratified by a special Act of Parliament. She therefore played a more conspicuous part in the politics of the early years of Elizabeth’s reign than is generally known, and, as a matter of fact, was rarely out of the queen’s calculations. In the first year of her reign, Elizabeth, wishing to be on the best of terms with her young cousins, not only admitted them to her privy chamber, but went so far as to recognize Lady Katherine as her legitimate successor, and even proposed to adopt her, calling her, in public, her “daughter.” For all this, there was no love lost between the queen and the princess. Lady Katherine, who had been intimate with the Countess of Feria, an Englishwoman by birth, and a close friend of Queen Mary, was strongly prejudiced against the Princess Elizabeth, who, she had been assured, was no daughter of Henry VIII, but a mere result of Anne Boleyn’s intimacy with Smeaton the musician. Notwithstanding, therefore, the queen’s advances, on more than one occasion Lady Katherine Grey, according to Quadra, the Spanish Ambassador, answered Elizabeth disrespectfully. It was not, however, until after the news of the clandestine marriage between Lady Katherine Grey and the Earl of Hertford reached her majesty, that she began to persecute the wretched girl and her husband, by sending them to the Tower—not, indeed, to “dungeons damp and low,” but to fairly comfortable apartments, worthy of their high station, for which the earl, at least, had to pay handsomely. When, thanks to the carelessness or connivance of Sir Edward Warner, the lieutenant, the offending couple were allowed occasionally to meet, and Lady Katherine eventually gave birth to two sons, Elizabeth’s fury knew no bounds, and the young mother had to undergo an awful and lifelong penance as the result of her imprudence. That Elizabeth had good cause to object to the introduction into this world of a male successor, became unpleasantly apparent some ten years later, when the two boys were put forward as claimants to her Throne, and thereby came very near involving England in an ugly civil war.

The misfortunes of her elder sister do not seem to have impressed Lady Mary Grey, on whom the Crown devolved, according to the Wills of Henry VIII and Edward VI, in the event of Lady Katherine dying without issue. She was a dwarf, and married secretly Mr. Thomas Keyes, the “giant” Sergeant-Porter of Whitehall Palace, who “stood seven feet without his shoes.” When Elizabeth received the news of this “outrage” on the part of the youngest of the sisters Grey, her resentment was truly dreadful, though her indignation, in this instance, was almost justifiable, since there is nothing a great sovereign dislikes more than that any members of the royal family should expose themselves to ridicule. Lady Mary, by her unequal marriage, had dragged the great name of Tudor into the mire, and had rendered herself the laughing-stock of Europe! Elizabeth adopted in this case the same unpleasant treatment which she had administered to the recalcitrant Lady Katherine; but, fortunately for the little Lady Mary, Mr. Keyes died “of his torments,” at an early stage of proceedings, and his widow, having promised never to repeat her offence, by re-marrying with an ordinary mortal, let alone with a dwarf or a “giant,” was permitted to spend the rest of her short life in peace and plenty.

The character of Elizabeth does not shine for its wisdom or kindliness in these pages; and some incidental information concerning the mysterious fate of Amy Robsart, Leicester’s first wife, tends to prove that “our Eliza” was perfectly well aware of what was going on at Cumnor Hall, where, it will be remembered, the fair heroine of Scott’s magnificent novel, Kenilworth, died “of a fall downstairs,” which, at the time, was not generally considered accidental. The callous manner in which the queen announced this accident—if accident it was—to the Spanish Ambassador, is full of significance. Meeting him one day in a corridor at Hampton Court, she said to him very lightly, and in Italian: “The Lady Amy, the Lord Robert’s wife, has fallen downstairs and broken her neck.” A few days earlier the queen had asked the ambassador whether he thought there would be any harm in her marrying her servant, meaning Dudley. He ventured to remind her that there was an impediment to this scheme, as the Lord Robert’s wife was then still living. This impediment was soon removed!

Elizabeth’s openly expressed passion for the future Earl of Leicester, who was Lady Katherine Grey’s brother-in-law, damaged her reputation throughout Europe, and even jeopardized her Throne. The French Ambassador informs his sovereign that “the Queen of England is mad on the subject of the Lord Robert,” “she cannot live without him,” “their rooms communicate.” “I could tell your Majesty,” says the Spanish representative at our Court, in a letter to Philip II, “things about the Queen and the Lord Robert which baffle belief, but I dare not do so in a letter.” Strange to relate, however, no sooner was Amy Robsart dead, than Elizabeth’s behaviour to the Lord Robert, as he was generally called, underwent a considerable change. She was willing to retain him as a lover, but, after what had happened, she was too frightened of possible consequences, to accept him as a husband. It was only the beauty of his person that captivated the queen: otherwise, she recognized him to be what he really was—a fool. “You cannot trust the Lord Robert,”[2] she once complained to the French Ambassador, “any further than you see him. Il est si bÊte.” She was perfectly right, for, although she was perhaps never aware of the fact, the Spanish State Papers reveal that at one time Robert Dudley[3] was actually in correspondence, through the Spanish Ambassador, with Philip II, to obtain his approval of the following astounding scheme, which, in abbreviated form, stands thus: “The Lord Robert is to marry the Queen, and, with Philip’s aid, they are to become Catholics, and work for the reconciliation of England to the Church, and the interests of Spain.” Comment is needless!

The biographies of the two princesses, Katherine and Mary Grey, are preceded by a few chapters dealing with Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and Mary Tudor, their grandfather and grandmother. I have published these chapters, because they seem to me to complete the history of this strange family, and enable me to place before my readers a subject never before, I believe, treated in detail: that of the remarkable series of marriages of Charles Brandon, who, at the time that he was courting his king’s sister, had two wives living, one of whom, the Lady Mortimer, was destined to give him considerable trouble, and to vex his spirit and that of his consort not a little. I think I may claim to be the first writer on Tudor topics and times who has been able to determine who was this Lady Mortimer, Brandon’s first wife, and to trace her very interesting pedigree to a singular source. The story of Charles Brandon and of his clandestine marriage with Mary Tudor has been frequently related, and, indeed, it forms the subject of one of the last essays ever written by Major Martin Hume. Brandon’s earlier adventures, however, have entirely escaped the attention of historians, and are only alluded to in a casual manner in most volumes on this subject. Brandon had a very interesting and complex personality, and the strange resemblance which existed between him and his master, King Henry VIII, forms not the least singular feature in his romantic career. This resemblance was not only physical, but moral. So great was it, from the physical point of view, that certain of his portraits are often mistaken for those of King Henry, to whom, however, he was not even remotely connected by birth. As to his moral character; his marriages—he had four wives, whilst a fifth lady, Baroness Lisle, was “contracted to him”—tend to prove that either Henry VIII influenced his favourite, or the favourite influenced his master, especially in matters matrimonial.

A brief account of Lady Eleanor Brandon and her heirs closes this volume, which I hope will receive from the public as indulgent and kindly a reception as did the story of Lady Jane Grey (The Nine-days’ Queen), of which the celebrated M. T. de Wyzewa, in a lengthy review in the Revue des Deux Mondes, did me the honour of saying that “Jamais encore, je crois, aucun historien n’a reconstituÉ avec autant de relief et de couleur pittoresque le tableau des intrigues ourdies autour du trÔne du vieil Henri VIII et de son pitoyable successeur, Edouard VI.”

It is my duty to state that I submitted the manuscript of this book for the consideration of the late Major Martin Hume, who had already done me the honour of editing my previous work, on Lady Jane Grey, for which he supplied an Introduction on the foreign policy of England during the reign of Edward VI and the “nine-days’ reign,” possibly one of the most brilliant essays on Tudor times he ever wrote. He was so much interested in the present volume, that he promised to write for it a similar introductory chapter; but, unfortunately, a few weeks after this kind offer of assistance was made, I received the sad news of his sudden death. Major Martin Hume, was, therefore, unable to carry his promise into effect; but in a letter which he wrote to me at an earlier period of our agreeable correspondence, he indicated to me several sources of information, of which I have gratefully availed myself.

The loss that historical literature sustained by the death of Major Hume was far greater than the general public, I think, realizes. He was a past-master in Tudor lore and history, and the future will, I trust, accord him that high position amongst our historians to which his work on the Spanish or Simancas State Papers should alone entitle him. In paying this, my poor tribute, to his memory as an historian, I can only add my sincere expression of profound regret at his loss as a personal friend.

In this volume—as well as in the previous one on Lady Jane Grey—I received considerable assistance, in the earlier stages of its compilation, from the celebrated Dr. Gairdner, and from my deeply regretted friend, the late Dr. Garnett. I wish to acknowledge my debt of gratitude to these gentlemen; and to renew my thanks to the authorities of the Record Office, the Bodleian Library, and other libraries, public and private, for their unvarying courtesy.

In conclusion, I desire to express my appreciation of Mrs. Wright-Biddulph’s kindness in allowing me to publish in this work a reproduction of her unique portrait of Lady Katherine Grey. Lord Leconfield, likewise, gave me permission to reproduce several of the portraits in his magnificent collection at Petworth, but, unfortunately, his courteous offer came too late. None the less it merits acknowledgment in these pages.

Richard Davey.

Palazzo Vendramin Calergi, Venice.

August 1911.