On May 8, 1536, Sir Richard Page had arguably the worst day of his life: he found himself a prisoner in the Tower, caught up in the flurry of arrests that would end in the deaths of Anne Boleyn, her brother, and four other men. Page, along with his fellow arrestee Thomas Wyatt, would emerge from the Tower with head intact. Who was the mysterious Sir Richard, the man who served Henry VIII and both his sons and who came so close to losing his life in 1536?

Page’s parentage is unknown. He had a sister, Margaret Page, whose married name was Margaret Smart, and cousins named John Carleton and Anthony Sondes. Page also refers in a letter to William Fitzwilliam, whose father had been a merchant tailor and the sheriff of London, and his wife, Anne, the daughter of Richard Sapcote of Elton, Huntingdonshire, as his nephew and his niece, but it is not clear which spouse was Page’s blood relation. In the 1520’s, he worked his way up through the ranks of royal servants, serving as Vice Chamberlain to Henry VIII’s natural son, Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, whose arms he was tasked with devising.

Page sat on commissions of the peace in Middlesex and Surrey in 1526. In July 1528, he wrote to Cardinal Wolsey to report on the difficulties of Sir Thomas Cheyny, who was evidently embroiled in a dispute: the king had decreed that Cheyny “shall never come into the Chamber until he has confessed his fault and agreed with Mr. Russell; for he will have no grudge amongst his gentlemen.”

In  April 1529, as a gentleman of the privy chamber, Page received an annuity of a hundred pounds. That same year, he was knighted  “at the Parliament time.” On December 3, 1530, as a knight of the body, Page received a grant of the site of the late priory of St. Leonard, Thoby, Essex, and the manors of Thoby and Bluntzwall, Essex, once the property of the dead and attainted Cardinal Wolsey.

It was the hapless Wolsey who gives us Page’s first association with Anne Boleyn. On May 17, 1530, Thomas Cromwell wrote to Wolsey, “”Mr. Page received your letter directed unto my lady Anne, and delivered the same. There is yet no answer. She gave kind words, but will not promise to speak to the King for you.”

It was likely sometime  around this period that Page married. His bride was Elizabeth Bourchier, who had three previous marriages to Henry Beaumont, a husband known only as Verney, and Edward Stanhope. She had a daughter from each of her second and third husbands: Katheryn Verney and Anne Stanhope. In 1557, when Elizabeth died, she was survived by her daughter by Page, Elizabeth Skipwith, who was aged 30 or more.

Though we know little of Richard himself, his access to the powerful meant that he wrote to intercede on behalf of other people, such as his letter on behalf of his unfortunate niece:

23 Sept. 1534  1180. Sir Ric. Page to Cromwell.

Whereas you promised me at Langley to be good to my nephew Fitzwilliam concerning the misordering of his wife and other gentlewomen by the butcher of Hoddesdon if it be proved that he struck her, it will be duly proved by Mr. Cook, my nephew Fitzwilliam and Mr. Ogle. The butcher did not only strike my niece, but beat her with his fist, so that she fell in a swoon, and he rudely handled Mrs. Cook and other gentlewomen. If you are too busy to attend to this, be good master to their husbands when it is brought into the Star Chamber or elsewhere. As they are his tenants, my lord of Essex will do what he can to stop the punishment. Woodstock, 23 September.

You have honored ladies and gentlewomen too much to see them take shame by a villain.

[The story behind this letter requires a blog post in itself, and will duly receive one.]

Several of Page’s letters figure in the Lisle correspondence. On October 15, 1533, he wrote to Honor Lisle, the wife of Arthur Plantagenet, Lord Lisle (the illegitimate son of Edward IV) on behalf of Thomas Stockwhite, who had fallen into debt. Writing from the royal palace of Greenwich, Page explained, “The poor man dwelleth by me and hath a house full of children, and if he be troubled all they are like to fare much the worse or perish.” He added, “Here is no news but that the King’s Highness and the Queen’s Grace are merry.” (Anne Boleyn, now queen, had recently given birth to the future Elizabeth I.)

On June 13, 1535, Page enlisted Lord Lisle’s help in trying to collect two debts: a fifteen-year-old debt from Lord Edmund Howard, whose daughter Katherine would be Henry VIII’s fifth queen, and one from Francis Hastings. Page hoped that Lord Lisle could “take some order with him” for the debt from Howard, and thought that if “your lordship will be somewhat round with” Hastings, he would soon pay up.

Lord Lisle himself wrote to Page on April 22, 1536, asking Page to be his ally in a matter involving the “Spear rooms” at Lisle’s disposal at Calais. Page, however, would soon be in no case to answer him. According to the lost journal of Antony Antony, notations from which were preserved by Thomas Tourneur, on May 8, 1536, Page was imprisoned in the Tower, where Anne Boleyn, accused of adultery, had gone as a captive a few days before.

Neither Page nor Thomas Wyatt, who was also arrested, was ever charged with a crime, and what entangled Page in this royal scandal remains a mystery. On May 12, 1536, John Husee wrote to Lord Lisle that Henry Norris, Francis Weston, William Brereton, and Mark Smeaton had been arraigned and condemned to die. He added, “Mr. Page and Mr. Wyatt are in the Tower, but as it is said, without danger of death: but Mr. Page is banished the King’s presence and Court for ever.” The next day, however, Husee was less certain. He reported that a “Harry Webbe” might be arrested in the West County and noted “some other say that Wyat and Mr. Page are as like to suffer as the others.” On May 19, 1536, having reported the executions of Anne and the rest, he wrote, “And touching Mr. Page and Mr. Wyat, they remain still in the Tower. What shall become of them, God knoweth best.”

By July 18, 1536, however, Page was a free man. That day, he wrote to Lady Lisle:

Good Madam, I most heartily thank you for your kind remembrance, which is to me as welcome as anything can be; and do ascertain you that I am long ago at liberty and the King my good and gracious lord, but hitherto I have not greatly essayed to be a daily courtier again. And the King being so much my good lord as to give me liberty, I am more meet for the country than the Court. And to such a poor cabin as I have there, there is no lady nor gentlewoman in England shall be more welcome than ye shall be; beseeching you, if your chance be to come into these parts, ye will so take it, and me too. For yours shal I be, with all the service that may lie in my possible power. And pray your good ladyship to make my hearty recommendations unto my good lord your husband.

From London, this xviiith day of July.

by yours most bouwnden,

R. Page

Just as we don’t know what brought Page to the Tower, we don’t know what he or his friends did to clear his name. The fact that he was able to clear his name, though, raises an interesting question: Was there a genuine belief that Anne and her circle were guilty? As  G. W. Bernard has pointed out, the fact that Page and Wyatt were released without having been charged suggests there was a good-faith investigation and that guilt was not necessarily a foregone conclusion. Furthermore, if the charges against Anne and her circle were trumped up and the Seymours were among the clique attempting to destroy these people, as some have claimed, Page was an unlikely victim. His stepdaughter, Anne Stanhope, had married Edward Seymour by 1535 and had been chaperoning Jane Seymour when she received visits from Henry VIII.  It has been suggested that it was the Seymour connection that saved Page from execution, but in light of this connection, why imprison  him in the first place unless there was a genuine suspicion that he was guilty? This is not to say that Page, Anne Boleyn, or any of the rest were actually guilty, but it may be that Henry VIII and/or Thomas Cromwell thought that they were and proceeded accordingly.

Wisely for him but sadly for us, Page seems to have maintained a judicious silence about the events of 1536. His discretion served him well, for by November 1536 he had been made sheriff of Surrey and Sussex. By June 1537, he was entertaining the Lady Mary (the future Mary I) at his home, where the king’s sackbut played and was rewarded by Mary.  That same month, Lady Page sent cream and strawberries to the Lady Mary, who must have enjoyed them, for Page sent more strawberries to her later that month. In 1544, he was appointed as chamberlain at Hampton Court for Prince Edward. When Prince Edward became king, Page was appointed as one of his governors while the king’s uncle Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector, went to Scotland in 1547. Page’s appointment was resented by Thomas Seymour, Edward VI’s other uncle, who was later quoted as saying  that he disliked “the protector not appointing him to have governance of the king before so drunken a soul as Sir Richard Page.” No evidence corroborates Thomas Seymour’s description of Richard Page as a drunkard, and it seems rather unlikely that either Henry VIII or Edward Seymour would have entrusted Edward to the care of such a man.

Page, however, was not destined to serve Edward VI long, for he died in February 1548. In his will, dated September 22, 1547, he asked that he be buried at either the church of St. Mary on the hill besides Bishopgate in London, of which he was a patron, or at the parish church of Flamstede, where he had a manor. Most of his bequests went to his widow and to his daughter Elizabeth Skipwith: their gifts included a hundred pounds in old angels. Page had several granddaughters by Elizabeth Skipwith, two of whom were named Mabel and Frances. He gave his stepdaughter Katheryn Verney twenty pounds toward her marriage. Page left nothing to his other stepdaughter, Anne Seymour, but Anne, now the Duchess of Somerset, hardly needed anything. To the Protector himself Page gave a silver and gilt cup enameled after the antique fashion, with five lions standing upon castles to bear up the foot.

Somerset was executed in 1551, along with Lady Page’s stepson Michael Stanhope. Richard Page’s stepdaughter, Anne, was imprisoned in the Tower and remained there until Queen Mary’s reign. Had Richard Page not died when he did, he might well have been caught up in the events that led to Somerset’s imprisonment and execution. As it was, he died in his bed—once again, a lucky man.

Sources:

Will of Richard Page, PROB 11/34

G. W. Bernard, Anne Boleyn, Fatal Attractions. Yale University Press, 2010

Catharine Davies, ‘Page, Sir Richard (d. 1548)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/70795, accessed 5 May 2012]

Matthew Davies, ‘Fitzwilliam, Sir William (1460?–1534)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2010 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9662, accessed 5 May 2012]

Muriel St. Clare Bryne, ed., The Lisle Letters. University of Chicago Press, 1981.

Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn. Blackwell Publishing, 2005.

C. S. Knighton, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series of the Reign of Edward VI, 1547-1553, Preserved in the Public Record Office.  London: HMSO, 1992.

Letters and Papers of Henry VIII

Mary Ann Lyons, ‘Fitzwilliam, Sir William (1526–1599)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9664, accessed 5 May 2012]

Frederick Madden, ed., Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary. London: William Pickering, 1831.

George William Marshall, ed., The Visitations of the County of Nottingham in the years 1569 and 1614. London, 1871.

Beverley A. Murphy. Bastard Prince: Henry VIII’s Lost Son. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2001.

John Gough Nichols, Literary Remains of King Edward the Sixth. Part I.  London: J. B. Nichols and Sons, 1857.

‘Parishes: Flamstead’, A History of the County of Hertford: volume 2 (1908), pp. 193-201. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43269&strquery=Page Date accessed: 05 May 2012.

State Papers, Henry VIII, Vol. I, Parts 1 and 2, 1831.

J. A. Tregelles, A History of Hoddesdon in the County of Hertfordshire. Hertford: Stephen Austin & Sons, Limited, 1908.

Hi! I’m working on a substantive post, so stay tuned for it, but in the meantime, I thought I’d post some search terms. I also wanted to mention that my new novel, Her Highness, the Traitor, will be published on June 1 and that I’ll be doing a blog tour. I’ll post the schedule here.

I was also thrilled to see the results of this survey of historical fiction readers. I’m in some august company!

Without further ado, here are some search terms for you:

anne boleyn barbie doll

Mattel tried to make a prototype, but the sixth finger kept breaking off, and the neck knob was too small.

profiles and cecily woodville telephone number

Silly, everyone knows that the Woodvilles had unlisted telephone numbers.

what group might henry vii be apart of on facebook ?

Henry VII didn’t have much use for Facebook. He preferred Twitter.

was queen elizabeth nice to margaret beaufort

No. She wouldn’t let her “friend” her on Facebook.

margaret of anjou what was she scared of

Menopause.

corpse of unsuitable friend

Mother always told me to choose my corpses wisely.

how was the medieval divorce

OK. Could have used a little more litigation.

pictures of jane shore

Rumor has it that these were found underneath Richard III’s mattress following the Battle of Bosworth.

history of Robitussin

If that’s not a blockbuster in the making, I don’t know what is.

While looking for something else this morning, I made the mistake of looking in the Lisle letters and got completely sidetracked by the question of the birthdates of the older children of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and his second wife, Anne Stanhope. Since this has blown a good part of the day, I thought I would at least get a blog post out of it.

According to eminently respectable sources, including the Complete Peerage, Edward Seymour, then Lord Beauchamp, and Anne had a son who was born shortly before February 22, 1537, his baptismal date. Other less reputable sources claim that the son was born on October 12, 1537 (the same day Jane Seymour bore Henry VIII his son). Which of these dates is correct?

Neither, it appears.

As a letter from John Husee to Lady Lisle shows, there was indeed a Seymour child baptized on February 22, 1537—but the baby was a girl. The tip-off is the identity of her godparents: Jane Seymour, the Lady Mary (that is, Princess Mary, Henry VIII’s daughter), and the Lord Privy Seal. Children had three godparents: two of their own gender and one of the other. The baby’s gender is further confirmed by Mary’s privy purse expenses, which indicate that the princess gave Lady Beauchamp’s nurse 20 shillings at the christening in February. This entry does not give the child’s gender, but a subsequent entry, in November 1537, records that one of Anne’s servants brought one of her daughters to see Mary, “my lady being godmother to the same.” (Note the “one of” her daughters; this becomes important later.)

Anne Seymour had not been yet been churched as of March 11, 1537 (Lady Lisle was waiting for some goods which could not be sent until the churching took place). Mary traveled back and forth to visit Anne Seymour in March 1537, probably to the churching, as she gave Anne’s nurse another ten shillings on that occasion. As Anne would not have been allowed to resume sexual relations with her husband until the churching, which probably took place shortly after March 11, any child born to her in October 1537 would have been seriously premature. It appears likely, however, that no child was born to the Seymours in October 1537, because in fact their next child was born in March 1538. Most likely, the October 1537 birth date arises from confusion with that of Edward VI.

On March 20, 1538, Henry VIII’s accounts mention a warrant given to a goldsmith for “a certain cup given at the christening of the earl of Hertford’s son.” (Edward Seymour had been made Earl of Hertford after Edward VI’s birth in October 1537.) That a child was born to the Seymours this spring is confirmed by Lady Mary’s privy purse expenses, which show that in April 1538, she reimbursed Lady Kingston for money laid out at two christenings she had attended: one for the Countess of Sussex (Mary Arundell) and one for the Countess of Hertford. The sum—a combined total of seventy shillings for both countesses—is more generous than that given out at the February 1537 christening, even when divided into half to account for the Countess of Sussex’s child. This again suggests that Mary’s latest Seymour godchild was a boy, since boys usually inspired more generous gifts than girls.

A draper’s bill for July 17, 1538, mentions “my Lord, my Lady, my young Lord,” the latter presumably being the infant Lord Beauchamp.

The boy born in 1538 does not appear to have survived childhood. On May 22, 1539, Anne Seymour gave birth to a second son, Edward, who was christened at Beauchamp Place and whose godfathers were the Duke of Suffolk and the Duke of Norfolk. This was the Seymour son who grew up to become the Earl of Hertford, as evidenced by a letter describing the earl as 13 in 1552. (The keeper of Ludgate and Aldgate received 8 pence for “letting John Smith in and out in the night when he went for Mris Midwife.”)

All this, however, leaves us with a problem. Anne and Edward Seymour’s daughter Anne, whom we’ll call Anne II to save everyone’s sanity, is generally thought to have been born in 1538, but as we’ve seen, the child born in March 1538 was a boy, and another child can’t be squeezed in between March 1538 and May 1539. This must mean that Anne II was the girl born in February 1537. Or was she? Mary’s privy purse expenses indicate that on November 30, 1537, a gentlewoman of Lady Hertford’s brought two Seymour girls to visit the princess, and another November 1537 entry mentioned earlier refers to “one of” Lady Hertford’s daughters. Since nothing indicates that twins were born in February 1537, it seems that another Seymour girl had been born before February 1537. Because Edward Seymour and Anne Stanhope were married no later than March 9, 1535, there would have certainly been time for them to have two daughters born by November 1537. If Anne II was born in early 1536, she could have been named for Anne Boleyn, Henry’s current queen. (Indeed, given Anne Boleyn’s fate and subsequent image problem, “Anne” seems an odd name for a Seymour girl to have been given in February 1537, although Anne II could have been named after her mother.) This would mean that Margaret Seymour, the second Seymour daughter, was the girl born in February 1537. All this fits in nicely with an inventory dated in 1539 or 1540, which mentions the beds of Lady Anne and Lady Margaret, and with the purchase of a primer (a prayer book) for Lady Anne sometime between August 22, 1539, and December 31, 1539. The latter purchase would seem somewhat premature if Anne II had been born in 1538, but seems quite reasonable if she was born in 1536.

In sum, it seems certain that no son was born to the Seymours in 1537, that a son instead of a daughter was born in 1538, and that Anne Seymour didn’t get much of a break between babies. No wonder she was cranky!

All of these calculations come too late, by the way, to be reflected in my upcoming novel, in which Anne II is depicted, in line with conventional wisdom, as having been born in 1538. Forget you saw this post, please, when you read my book.

Sources:

Marjorie Blatcher, ed., Report on the Manuscripts of the Most Honourable Marquess of Bath Preserved at Longleat. Vol. IV. Seymour Papers 1532-1686. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1968.

Muriel St. Clare Bryne, ed., The Lisle Letters. Vols. 4 and 5. University of Chicago Press, 1981.

The Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, “Wolfhall and the Seymours.” Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, XV (1875).

Letters and Papers of Henry VIII.

Frederick Madden, ed., Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary. London: William Pickering, 1831.

National Archives SE/VOL. X/8 22 Aug.-31 Dec. 1539

Hi, there! Between taxes and a lovely weekend in Washington, D.C., with the family, I haven’t had much time to blog, but I did want to stop in and commemorate the death of Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset. She’s an important character in Her Highness, the Traitor (coming out on June 1!), and I’m seriously considering giving her a novel to herself. What would you think of that?

Anne died at Hanworth in Middlesex on Easter Sunday, April 16, 1587. Her epitaph claims that she was ninety, but her year of birth has been more recently estimated as 1510, which seems more likely given her gynecological history (she bore her last child in 1550, after which her childbearing was interrupted by her husband’s imprisonment in October 1551 and execution in January 1552).

Anne herself had been arrested soon after her husband was seized and remained as a prisoner in the Tower until August 1553, when she was released by Mary I, with whom she had long been friendly. Over the next years, she managed to rebuild her fortunes; Retha Warnicke gives the value of her goods and moveables at her death as £9,829 19s 8d.

In 1600, William Dethick, Garter principal king of arms, recalled the duchess’s funeral:

At the sompteous and stately funeralls of the last Anne duchesse of Somerset, which were performed by the right honorable Edward earle of Hertford hir executor, anno 1587, there was a portraieture of the same duchesse made in robes of her estate, with a coronicall to a duchesse, and the same representation bore under a canopie; and all the other ceremonyes accomplished; and bycause there was no duchesse to assist thereat, the queen’s majesty gave her royal consent that the countesse of Hartford his wife should have all honour done to her after that estate during the funeral. As by warrant directed to me under her majesty’s hand appears.

The Earl of Hertford, who had married Frances Howard some years after his first marriage to Katherine Grey landed both of the spouses in the Tower, erected a fine tomb to his mother’s memory in the Chapel of St. Nicholas. The English epitaph, which fills four plaques, reads:

Here lieth entombed,

ANNE,

The noble Dutchess of Somerset,

Dear Spouse unto the renowned Prince

Edward, Duke of Somerset,

Earl of Hertford, Viscount Beauchamp,

And

Baron Seymour.

Companion

0f the most famous knightly Order of the Garter,

Uncle to King Edward the Sixth,

Governor of his Royal Person,

And most worthy Protector

Of all his Realms, Dominions, and Subjects.

Lieutenant-General of all his Armies,

Treasurer, and Earl-Marshal of England,

Governor, and Captain,

Of

The Isles of Guernsey, and Jersey;

Under whose prosperous Conduct,

Glorious Victory

Hath been so often, so fortunately

Obtained,

Over the Scots,

Vanquished at Edinburgh, and Leith,

And

Musselborough Field.

A Princess

Descended of noble Lineage,

Being

Daughter to the worthy Knight,

Sir Edward Stanhope,

By Elizabeth his Wife, that was Daughter to

Sir Foulke Bourchier,

Lord Fitz Warren:

From whom

Our Modern Earls of Bath are sprung.

Son was he

To William, Lord Fitz Warren,

That was Brother to Henry, Earl of  Essex,

And William their Sire,

Sometime Earl of Eu, in Normandy.

Begat on Anne, the sole Heir of

Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester,

Younger Son, to the mighty Prince

Edward the Third,

And of his Wife Elinore;

Co-heir unto

The 10th Humprey De Bohun,

That was

Earl of Hereford, Essex, and Northampton,

High-Constable of England.

This Lady bare many Children, To wit,

Edward Earl of Hertford, Henry, and

A younger Edward;

Anne Countess of Warwick,

Margaret, Jane, Mary, Katherine,

And Elizabeth.

And with firm Faith in Christ,

And in most mild Manner,

Render’d she her Life

At Ninety Years of Age,

On Easter-Day, the 16th of April.

1587.

The Earl of Hertford, Edward her eldest Son,

In this doleful Duty careful and diligent,

Doth consecrate this Monument to his dead Parent;

Not for her Honour wherewith living she did abound,

And now departed, flourisheth;

But for the dutisul Love he beareth her,

And for his last Testisication thereof.

The photograph here shows Anne’s effigy, but the tomb itself is much larger.  A photograph of the entire tomb can be found here.

Sources:

William Dethick, Garter. “Of the Antiquity of Ceremonies Used at Funeralls.” in Thomas Hearn, ed., Collection of Curious Discourses, Volume I, 1773.

Retha Warnicke, Wicked Women of Tudor England: Queens, Aristocrats, Commoners. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

From a newspaper article I read today:

Madison, Wisconsin—She’s known to us today as “Bloody Mary.” But for Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, she is a woman to be esteemed.

Speaking at a campaign stop at the University of Wisconsin, Santorum, when asked by a student questioner whether there was a historical woman he particularly admired, cited the first reigning Tudor queen. “First, she had strong religious principles, and she wasn’t too politically correct to act upon them,” said Santorum. “Second, she got married, unlike her younger sister Elizabeth, who didn’t think she needed a man to help her rule. Mary understood the importance of faith and family in a way that Elizabeth never did.”

Asked his opinion of Mary’s policy of burning Protestants, Santorum said, “You could argue—and I will argue—that Mary’s strong moral convictions were preferable to this wishy-washy notion of tolerance that the left has, where Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, goddess-worship, paganism, and atheism are all of the same value, are all points of view to be allowed. Where has that led us? Into a moral cesspool.”

Santorum, who has said that the notion of separation of church and state makes him want to “throw up,” hastened to add, “That’s not to say that I believe Mary was one hundred percent correct in burning Protestants. There are certainly decent Protestants, then and now, though I can safely say that if Mary had seen the state of the Anglican Church today, and of mainline Protestantism in the United States, she would have probably burned more of them.”

The candidate looked thoughtful when asked by another student whether he would support burning nonbelievers and non-Christians in an effort to purify the condition of religion in the United States. “Besides the obvious spiritual benefits, burning these people at the stake would have the side effect of bringing down the unemployment rate, both by reducing the surplus population and by putting right-thinking Americans to work ferreting out heretics, but as it stands now, it’s probably illegal under the Eighth Amendment. Until we get that amendment and the First Amendment tweaked a bit, we might just have to settle for singeing people.”

For the video of Mr. Santorum’s appearance, see here.

As long-term readers of this blog know, each year I volunteer at the county’s annual library sale. There, I unpack books and arrange them on tables. Until this year, the perk was first pick from over 450,000 books, but the country library gods got rid of that privilege this year, so we have to shop on Thursday with the rest of the public. (Bah, humbug.)

But anyway, this morning all of us were put to work getting the children’s tables ready. This makes perfect sense, as teachers get to choose books for their classrooms on Wednesday and most of their haul comes from the juvenile section. Unfortunately, the juvenile and board board tables are the gulag of the library volunteer world. The books vary widely in size and are often oddly shaped, making them difficult to lay out on tables, and they’re slippery. (Furthermore, for reasons I would prefer not to explore, they have a tendency to stick together.) Besides that, there are oodles of them. Moreover, seeing book after book featuring cover illustrations of Disney princesses and titles like Ducky Goes Potty brings out the curmudgeon in me. And finally (yes, I swear, this is really “finally), there is almost no chance of finding a complete set of the Paston Letters inadverently stuck in with the juvenile books.

However, my time in Juvenile was not fruitless, because while I was setting out Dora the Explorer books, I found myself wondering, What if someone wrote children’s books about Henry VIII? Such as these:

Henry meets Anne Boleyn: Henry’s New Friend

Jane Boleyn accuses Anne and her brother George of incest: Jane Tells a Fib

Anne gets executed: Anne’s Really Bad Day

Jane Seymour marries Henry: Jane the New Girl

Henry’s leg really starts to bother him: Henry’s Boo-Boo

Henry dies: Big Changes for Edward

Incidentally, if you live in the Raleigh, North Carolina area, I did notice some good pickings: biographies of Edward IV, Richard III, Henry VI, and Henry VIII, among others; two copies of Julia Fox’s book on Jane Boleyn, and plenty of biographies of Elizabeth I–and most of the history wasn’t unpacked when I left today. I also moved Margaret George’s novel about Mary, Queen of Scots from the biography section to the fiction section, and I fully expect to have to move her Henry VIII novel as well, as one invariably crops up in the biography section.)

I’m coming up for air after a busy couple of weeks, and haven’t had time to prepare much of substance for the blog, but I thought you might enjoy seeing these two letters written on June 3, 1544, one from the Lady Mary (i.e., the future Mary I), one from Katherine Parr. Both are directed to Anne Seymour, then Countess of Hertford.

At the time the letters were written, Anne’s husband, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, was serving in Scotland. Hertford had been corresponding regularly with his wife and receiving news from his servants about her welfare as well as that of the rest of his family. On April 19, 1544, he wrote in a draft letter to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, “My most hearty thanks for your lordship’s kindly message to my wife in my absence.” In a postscript, he added, “My wife begins to bring my grounds and walks at Sheene to greater perfection than I left them in.” (The earl then added crisply, “Your lordship might show me no little pleasure by ordering the speedy removal of the bricks, slate, &c. of the ‘celles’ which you bought there.”)

Despite keeping herself busy in the garden, however, the countess was evidently impatient for her husband’s return, as the letters from Mary and Katherine Parr show. Mary’s letter reads:

Madame, after my mooste herty comendacons this shalbe to advtise you that I have receyved yor lres [letters] and I hertely thanke you for yor kynde remembaunce and the desire ye have of my healthe I have byn nothing well as yet thes holydayes wherfore I praye you holde me excused that I write not this to you wt my hand. I have delyved yor lres unto the Queues grace who accepted the same very well. And thus, good Madame I byd you mooste hertely well to fare. At Saynt James the iii daye of June.

Your assured frend to my power duryng my lyef

Marye

The queen’s letter:

Madam, my lord youre husbandes comyng hyther is not altered, for he schall come home before the Kynges maiestye take hys journey over the sees, as it pleasyth hys maiestye to declare to me of late. You maybe ryght asseuryd I wold not have forgotten my promyse to you in a mater of lesse effect than thys, and so I pray you most hartely to thynke. And thus wt my very harty conïendations to you I ende, wyshiug you so well to fare as I wold myself.

Your asseuryd frend,

Kateryn the Quene, K.P.

As promised by the queen, the countess got her wish about her husband: Hertford returned from Scotland a few weeks later and remained in England until August, when he joined Henry VIII in Boulogne.

Sources:

Barrett L. Beer, ‘Seymour, Edward, duke of Somerset (c.1500–1552)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25159, accessed 23 March 2012]

Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Honorable the Marquis of Salisbury, K.G., Preserved at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, Part I (1883).

Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on the Manuscripts of the Most Honourable the Marquess of Bath Preserved at Longleat, Vol. IV (1968).

Janel Mueller, Katherine Parr: Complete Works and Correspondence.  University of Chicago Press, 2011.

I know I haven’t replied to the recent comments on my blog, and I apologize! I read everyone’s comments and appreciate them immensely, but I’ve been busy these past few weeks with deadlines of various sorts. I’ll try to be better about replying.

I did want to mention that I’ve put copies of Her Highness, the Traitor up for a giveaway at Goodreads. Anyone from the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia is welcome to enter.  The giveaway ends on April 2. You will have to join the Goodreads site to enter, and the Goodreads staff chooses the winners.

In my spare moments, I have had some fun on Pinterest. You can see the board I created for people, places, and things in Her Highness, the Traitor here.

And finally, longtime readers of this blog will remember that I’ve done a number of posts about Elizabeth Woodville and her family. After years of bemoaning the fact that there’s no published nonfiction book about the entire Woodville family, save for a hostile and poorly researched one written by a fervent admirer of Richard III, I finally decided to stop whining and write one myself! My proposal has been accepted, so look for more details in the coming months as the project develops. In the meantime, here’s my Pinterest Woodville board.

On April 20, 1578, Mary Grey, the youngest daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, and Frances Brandon, died at her house in St Botolph’s-without-Aldersgate in London. Unlike her older sisters, Jane and Katherine, Mary died a free woman.

In 1565, while at the court of Elizabeth I, Mary had married Thomas Keyes, the sergeant porter at court. Their timing was extraordinarily poor, as Mary’s sister Katherine had already been confined for making a match without royal permission. Elizabeth was no happier over Mary’s match with Keyes, and the newlyweds were duly imprisoned.  Keyes was freed but died in 1571, having never been allowed to live with Mary as his wife. Mary was released in 1572. After staying with her stepfather, Adrian Stokes, for a time, she set up her own house in London, where she died at around age thirty-three. Three days before her death, she drew the following will.

The will was transcribed by W. L. Rutton and appears in the October 20, 1894, issue of Notes and Queries. For readability, I have broken up the various provisions into separate paragraphs.

Most of the people named in the will had close connections to Mary’s family. Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk, had been married to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, after the death of his wife Mary Tudor and thus was Mary’s step-grandmother. After Brandon’s death, Katherine married Richard Bertie and had two children by him, Susan and Peregrine. Susan was the Countess of Kent named by Mary. Peregrine’s wife, Mary, was Mary de Vere, daughter of John de Vere, sixteenth earl of Oxford.

The Countess of Lincoln was Elizabeth Fitzgerald, married to Edward Clinton, Earl of Lincoln.

Lady Arundel is identified by Leanda de Lisle in The Sisters Who Would Be Queen as Mary’s cousin Margaret Willoughby, married to Sir Matthew Arundel. Lisle identifies Lady Stafford as Dorothy Stafford, a sister of the rebel Thomas Stafford and a long-standing attendant upon Elizabeth I.

Lady Throckmorton was the former Anne Carew. She was the second wife of Mary’s stepfather, Adrian Stokes.

Jane Merrick was a daughter of Thomas Keyes and thus was Mary’s stepdaughter. Mary Merrick, Mary’s namesake and goddaughter, was Jane Merrick’s daughter.

Mrs. Morrison, Mary’s “gossip,” was her godmother.

Blanche Parry, who had served Elizabeth since the future queen’s infancy, was chief gentlewoman of the queen’s privy chamber from 1565 on.

The Will of Mary Grey

In the name of god Amen the xvij daye of Aprill in the years of our lord god 1578 And in the XXth years of the Raigne of our Soveraigne Ladye Elizabethe by the grace of god of England Fraunce and Irelande Queene defender of the faithe I the Ladye Marye Greye of the p’ishe of St. Botolphe wthout Aldersgat in the Citie of London widowe of wholl minde and of good and perfect remembraunce laude and praise be unto Almightie god therfor doe ordaine and make this my last will and testamente in manner and forme followinge repealinge herbie and utterlie revolkinge all former willes and testamentes whatsoever hertofor by me made and ordained

And furste as toutchinge my soull I comitt ye same to ye mercie of god Almightye my Savior and redemer by whose deathe and passione onelie wthout any other waies or meanes I truste to be saved under whose true churche I proteste myself unto the wholl world to die an humble and true repentant personne for my sinnes committed

And as for my bodie I commit the same to be buried where the Quens ma’tie shall thinke most meete and convenient

Itm. I will that all such debtes and duties as of right and consciens I doe owe unto any personn or persons be well and trulie contented and paide by myne execntores herafter by me made and ordained

Itm. I geave & bequeathe unto my verie good ladie and graundmother the Dutchess of Suffolks grace one paere of hand Braclettes of gould wth a jacinte stonne in eatche Bracelette wh Bracelattes were my l. grace my late mothers or els my Juell of unycornes horne wchsoever likethe here grace best to take And wchsoever herr grace refusathe I geave and bequeathe the same to my verie good ladie ye lady Susanna Countesse of Kente

Itm. I geave to my verie good lady and cosenne the countesse of Lincolne one girdle of gouldsmithes worke set all wth pearle and buttons of gould

Itm. I geave to my verie good l. and sister my l. Marie Bartye and to Mr Peregrine Bartye her husband my best gilt cupe and my best saltceller of sylver and gilt

Itm. I geave to my verie good I. and cowsene my I. Stafford a tablet of gould wth an aggett in it

Itm. I geave to my verie good l. my l. Arrundell one tankarde of sylver and gilt

Itm. I geave to my l. Margaret Nevell a traine kirtle of yellowe vellet wth a foreple belonginge to it of the same

Itm. I geave unto her also my best gowne of blacke vellet and a kirtle of blacke vellet to the same gowne wch is cutte under wth murrey farlett

Itm. I geave unto her more one petticotte of crimson satten garded about wth a blacke gard of vellet and a gould lace ymbrothered uppon the same

Itm. I geave to my verie good l. my l. Throckmortonne a boulle of silver and gilt wth a cover

Itm. I geave to my verie frend Mrs Blaunche a Parre a little gilt bowlle wth a cover to it

Itm. I geave to my verie good cosen Mrs Hall the elder one neaste of plaine small silver bowlles

Itm. I geave to my verie good cowsenn Mrs Duport the elder one standinge eup of silver and gilt wth a cover

Itm. I geave to my gossoppe Mrs Morrisonne a cowple of small silver bowles pinked

Itm. I geave more to my cowsenn Mrs Hall a gowne of blacke vellet set about wth buttons and a blacke vellet kirtle layed about wth a purple and blacke silke billmmer lace

Itm. I geave to my daughter Janne Merrick one good fethered bedde and a boulstere to the same and the three peres of hangings wch I have of myne owns and a cowple of covered stoolles

Itm. I will that the leasse of my howse wherin I now dwell be sould and the money comminge therof after the rent is paid I that is due to the landlord alreadie I geave the residue to Marrie Merrick my goddaughter to be kepte in the hand of my cowsen Edmond Haull to the use and behoof of the child untill suche tyme as shee either be married or accomplishe the tearme of xxj years

Itm. I geave to Marrie Fulleshurst xls And unto her sister Margaret Fulshurst vjl xiiis iiijd wch I will to be delivered to my cosenn Mr Toms. Duport to keepe and occupie for the wenches behalf untill suche tyme as thei either be married or accomplishe the tearme of xxj years

Itm. I geave to Rachell Broune iiijl to be likewise kepte in the handes of my cosen Edmond Hall to the use and commoditie of the wenche untill thee come either to be married or els to the tearme of xxj yeares as aforesaid

Itm. I giue to Anne Gouldwell my servant half a dozen of silver spones and twoe trenchers plattes of silver

Itm. I giue to Katherin Duport my servant one trencher platte of silver gilt about the eddge

Itm. I giue to Robt. Savell my servant my blacke coatche geldinge with my coatche and furniture belonging

Itm. I geave to Henrie Gouldwell my servant my baie coatche gelding

Itm. I giue unto William Parfoot [qy.; Parpoint erased] iiijl to binde him prentice to some good occupacon suche as my executores shall thinke meet and convenient

Itm. the residue of all my goodes and catteles boths moveable and immoveable leasses houshould stuffs jeuelles platte money dettes and all other my goodes by whatsoever name or names thei beare or ought to be called wch either I be myself or by myne owne handes have not geaven or befor in this my last will and testament not bequeathed or assigned I will that of the same be made the most that can be And my debtes being paide my funerall charges & expenses performed And theiss my legacies contaigned in this my p’sent testament fufiiled I will that the same be equallie devided amongst my forsaied servants

And the rest not named by the hands of my trustie and welbeloved cowsens Mr. Edmoud Hall and Mr. Thomas Duport esquires whome I constitude ordaine and make my executores of this my p’nt last will and testament hoping thei will finishe and accomplishe the same according to the effectes and my true meaninge herine as my assured hope and speciall trust is therin.

In witnesse wherof that this is my verie true last will and testament I have hereunto subscribed my name and set to my seall the day and yeare furst above written.

Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset, was one of the more prickly personalities of the Tudor period, but among her attractive qualities was her devotion to her husband, which he repaid in full.  One of the most difficult periods in the couple’s lives was in 1549, when Somerset, who as uncle to King Edward VI had the virtual rule of England as his nephew’s Protector, fell dramatically from power.

Following the unrest of the summer of 1549, relations between Somerset and his fellow councilors had hopelessly deteriorated, and on October 6, Somerset hauled the young king from his comfortable chambers at Hampton Court and rode hard for Windsor Castle, which was unprepared to receive him.  (It seems likely that the king, who apparently caught cold on the journey, resented being seized in this manner.) Previously that day, the Protector had sent his unpopular wife away: “About five in the afternoon he sent his wife off to her house, and she went out weeping, very badly handled in words by the courtiers and peasants, who put all this trouble down to her.”

It was in this state of mind that the duchess wrote this letter on October 8, 1549, to William, Lord Paget, one of the duke’s most trusted advisers.

Good Master Comptroller,  I have receaved commendacons from yow by my brother, for which I geve yow thankes from a sorrowfull hart as ever woman had. Ah, good lorde, what a miserable vnnaturall tyme is this? What hath my lorde done to any of these noble men? or others? that they shulde thus rage and seke thextremitie to him and his that never had thought in the like towardes any of them. Ha, Master Comptroller, I have ever loved and trusted youe, for that I have seine in yow a perfyte honest frende to my lord who hath always made the same accompt and assuredly bare yow his good will and frendship as yow your selfe hath best tryall. God hath geven yow a great wisdome and a frendly nature. A, good Master Comptroller, for Christes bloodes sake spare not for payne study and wryting as I here yow do, the lyvinge God will prosper yow and yours the better. I knowe yow maye do muche good in these matters beinge a wiseman. Howe can God be content with this disorder to daungier the king and all the realme in sekinge extremities. God must nedes of his rightuousnes sore plage those that seketh these matters. Oh, that I could bere this as I ought to do with patience and quietnes, but it passeth all fraile fleshe to do. For knowynge so well my lordes innocency in all these maters taht they charge him with all, they be so vntrewe and most vnfriendly credyt taht surely it hath bene some wicked persone or persones taht furst sought this great vprore. I saye againe yf I could bere the tyme, I know well and assure my selfe taht God will kepe and defende him from all his enemies, as he hath alwais done hitherto. Good Master Comptroller, comefort my lorde as I trust yow do, both with counsaile and otherwise, for I muche feare he is sore greved at the hart, furst for the kinge and the realme, and as greatly to se these lordes frendeshippes so sclender to him as it doth appear and specially of some, albeit he hath pleasured them all. Alas, that ever any Christian realme shulde be so sclaundered. Thus to ende with all I crie to yow eftesones shewe youe, shewe your selfe like a wurthie counsailour and a servaunt to God and the kinge taht these tumultes might cease.

Anne Somerset

The tumults did soon cease, but not in the way the duchess would have preferred. By October 11, she was at her brother’s house in Bedington, where Somerset had sent Richard Whalley, a relation of the duchess and one of his supporters, to “re-comfort her.” Somerset, increasingly isolated, surrendered that same day. On October 14, he was imprisoned in the Tower. His wife then devoted herself to trying to win his release.  Van der Delft, the imperial ambassador, reported on December 19, 1549, that she was ”always in [the] house” of John Dudley, Earl of Warwick (who would later emerge as the most powerful of Edward VI’s councilors), and that she had won him over to her husband’s side. A few days later, on Christmas Day, the duchess was allowed to visit her husband in the Tower “to his no little coumfort.”

After her Tower visit, the duchess continued her efforts on behalf of her husband. Van der Delft reported on January 18, 1550, that “Warwick, who has succeeded in gaining full control of affairs, is openly favourable to the Protector, and their wives exchange banquets and festivities daily.” (Jane Dudley, the Countess of Warwick, and Anne Seymour had known each other for some years: they were among the select group of courtiers who had attended Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine Parr.) On February 6, 1550, Somerset was released from the Tower, where after a stop at the sheriff’s of London, “the duke toke his barge and passed to Savoye wheare my lady  hys wyff lyeth and hath kept hur chambor of a long tyme.”

Following the Protector’s release, the Earl of Warwick attempted a reconciliation with Somerset, which the men sealed by arranging the marriage of Warwick’s eldest son to Somerset’s daughter Anne. Van der Delft, however, wrote that it was said that “the two mothers have made the match.” Whatever the truth of this, the wedding between their children was probably the high point of the relations between the two men. By 1551, Somerset was plotting against Warwick, and by October 1551, he was again a prisoner in the Tower. This time, the Duchess of Somerset would not be able to work on her husband’s behalf, for she too was a prisoner. Only in August 1553, when the triumphant Mary I rode into London, would the duchess, widowed when her husband was executed on January 22, 1552, be set free.

Sources:

Barrett L. Beer, ‘Seymour, Edward, duke of Somerset (c.1500–1552)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2009 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25159, accessed 19 Feb 2012]

Barrett L. Beer and Sybil M. Jack, eds., “The Letters of William, Lord Paget of Beaudesert, 1547-63.” Camden Miscellany XXV, Camden Fourth Series, Volume 13, 1974.

Susan Brigden, ed., “The Letters of Richard Scudamore to Sir Philip Hoby, September 1549-March 1555.” Camden Miscellany XXX, Camden Fourth Series, Volume 39, 1990.

Alan Bryson, “‘The Speciall Men in Every Shere’: The Edwardian Regime, 1547-1553.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of St. Andrews, March 2001.

Alan Bryson, ‘Whalley, Richard (1498/9–1583)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/29161, accessed19 Feb 2012]

Calendar of State Papers, Spain

Patrick Fraser Tytler, ed., England Under the Reigns of Edward VI and Mary. Volume 1. London: Richard Bentley, 1839.