The Other Tudors (41 page)

In a letter from her house at Grimsthorpe, dated 24 July 1549, to William Cecil Katherine wrote that if she was to maintain the Dowager’s child as befitted her rank, she needed an annual pension for this purpose. She described the child’s ‘miserable furniture’ (household equipment) that did not befit her rank. She added that she would have placed the responsibility and expense of the child on the Marquis of Northampton, Catherine Parr’s brother, except that he was ‘ill able to bear it’. In fact, not only was he in financial difficulties, he was physically ill, and died shortly after his sister.
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The Duke of Somerset had been supposed to send money for his niece, but he too was in difficulties and no funds were forthcoming from him either. As a result of Katherine’s letters to Cecil, the Council decided to restore Thomas Seymour’s lands and property to his daughter, thereby providing her with revenue suitable to the only daughter of the Queen Dowager.

Mary Seymour then vanishes from the records. The historian, Agnes Strickland, suggests that she married Sir Edward Bushel and had a daughter, and that her descendants were amongst the members of the Lawson family in Westmoreland and Cumberland. However, this is by no means proved, and tends to rely on anecdotal evidence from the family.

Katherine d’Eresby wrote frequently to Cecil, a fellow Protestant intellectual, on a variety of topics. On 9 May 1550 she asked his opinion about a marriage between her son, Henry Brandon, and Anne Seymour, the daughter of the Duke of Somerset. She wanted the children to have a free choice about the match. On 8 September, Katherine wrote, thanking him for his letter and news. She had received a letter from the Duchess of Somerset and had answered it. All this planning came to nothing, however. A further letter from Grimsthorpe, dated September 1551, was one of resignation. She thanked Cecil for his friendship during her ‘last sharp and bitter trial’ – the death of her sons in Cambridge.
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Katherine did not remain a widow. In 1552, she married Richard Bertie, a like-minded extreme Protestant. He had read Law at Oxford and taken service with Katherine as her Gentleman Usher and Master of Horse. They were safe under the reign of the Protestant Edward VI, but when Mary I, a fervent Catholic, came to the throne the Berties felt it expedient to spend some time abroad. It is almost certain that Mary, as happened with other people whom she was fond of, ordered that an official ‘blind eye’ be turned to the flight of the Berties. The journey of the couple and their adventures abroad were so exciting and unusual that they led to a ballad by Thomas Deloney, a play by Thomas Dive, and a book by Richard Bertie himself.

This enforced exile meant that when Katherine gave birth to her son, Peregrine Bertie, it was at Lower Wesel, Cleves. Legend said that she went into labour in the church porch, and it was there that Peregrine was born. Richard later reported in his book about their travels in Europe that this was an exaggeration. Peregrine had been born in the local hotel where his parents were staying. When the family eventually returned to England in 1559, following Elizabeth I’s ascension to the throne, Peregrine Bertie had to be naturalised. The family returned to Katherine’s house at Grimsthorpe, which became their principal residence again. Here Katherine also gave birth to a daughter, Susan, who married firstly Reginald Grey, Earl of Kent, and later, Sir John Wingfield.

Perhaps it was her love of children that made Katherine so amenable to taking on other people’s offspring. She had cared for Catherine Parr’s daughter, and in 1568 she also took responsibility for the sons of Catherine, her stepgranddaughter and Jane Grey’s sister. In 1560, Catherine Grey had carried out a secret marriage with Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, heir to the executed Duke of Somerset, and had two sons. It was a most foolish move. Apart from anything else, the 1536 Act of Succession to the Crown made it illegal for any member of the Royal Family to marry without the permission of the Monarch. This automatically made the marriage null and void, and any children would be illegitimate. Elizabeth I was furious about the marriage and both Catherine and Edward Seymour were sent to the Tower, where Catherine gave birth to their son, Edward, on 24 September 1560 and their second son, Thomas in 1561.

Catherine Grey was now the mother of two sons who might have stood in the succession to the English throne, but she could not prove the marriage. The boys were unwanted by the Greys or the Seymours, and so ended up in the care of Katherine d’Eresby. The eldest son, Edward, tried throughout his life to claim all his father’s titles, but without success. His son, William Seymour, would eventually be given the title of Duke of Somerset, after a disastrous marriage with Arabella Stuart, James VI of Scotland’s cousin and rival claimant to the English throne. Arabella spent most of her life in prison after this marriage and an abortive attempt to flee the country to rally foreign support for her claim. They got engaged when William was 15 years old and Arabella was 35.

Katherine d’Eresby finally died on 19 September 1580. On 23 September Peregrine Bertie wrote to Sir Francis Walsingham from Willoughby House. He put forward his claim to the titles of the baronies of Willoughby and d’Eresby, which rightly came to him now through his deceased mother. He asked Walsingham to put in a good word for him with the Queen.
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He challenged for and won the extinct title of Lord Willoughby de Eresby, which had last been bestowed on his mother’s father.

Peregrine Bertie married Mary, the daughter of John de Vere, the 16th Earl of Oxford. In 1582, his eldest son, Robert, was born; he would go on to have another four sons (Peregrine, Henry, Vere and Roger) and one daughter, named Katherine. He became one of Elizabeth I’s military commanders; however, like many of her servants, he was rarely paid. By 1590 he had virtually retired, ill and sadly short of money. He set out to visit various European spa cities in the hope of finding relief from his illness. He only returned to England in 1596. Peregrine Bertie finally died on 25 June 1600, and was buried at Spilsby, Lincolnshire.

There are a number of stories and rumours of other mistresses and other illegitimate children belonging to Henry VIII. The very nature of Henry made him a focus for such stories; of ladies who were said to have become his mistress, such as Elizabeth Bryan and Mistress Parker; ladies who he may have loved, such as Elizabeth Brooke and Elizabeth Amadas, and children he may have fathered, including Sir Henry Lee and Richard Edwardes. Even if the events relating to these people are unsupported by historical references, they cannot merely be denied or ignored as they are part of the story of this most fascinating man. Thus, no history of Henry VIII would be complete without them.

Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Thomas Bryan and Margaret Bourchier, was born c.1500 into a family who existed in the heart of the Court. Her parents both held court positions and her mother would go on to hold the post of Lady Governess to Henry VIII’s children, Princess Mary, Henry Fitzroy, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Edward.

It was said that she was still a child, aged about 12, when she caught Henry’s attention. She performed in the masques that the King so enjoyed and Henry gave her a diamond necklace and a fur coat; he also presented her mother with a gift of £500. It is even suggested that, at age 12, Elizabeth gave birth to Henry’s child. Whatever her relationship with the King, in December 1514, she married Sir Nicholas Carew when he was 19 and she was 14. Henry attended their wedding and gave a gift of land worth 50 marks, a considerable sum, to the young couple. It was also reported that the King gave the new Lady Carew gifts of ‘innumerable jewels’.

In all likelihood Henry never took Elizabeth Bryan as his mistress. His own grandmother had been married at 12 and was a mother at 13; despite two more marriages, Margaret had had no more children. Henry VII had delayed sending his daughter Margaret to Scotland to her husband because he feared the damage that might be done to her if she had sexual relations too soon. Henry VIII would have known all this and his preferred partners were grown women, capable of enjoying sex and also of joining in with all his other interests. A 12-year-old child would not fit into this picture, except as a delightful diversion.

Henry had affection for the whole Bryan family; Margaret Bourchier’s paternal great-grandmother had been Anne Plantagenet, so Elizabeth’s mother was actually a distant cousin to the King. She went on to become one of Henry’s most trusted family servants, caring for his children. Elizabeth’s brother, Sir Francis Bryan, despite a reputation as a libertine, was also a close friend to the King.

Elizabeth and Nicholas Carew had four daughters, Elizabeth, Mary, Anne and Isabel, and a son, Sir Francis Carew. Her granddaughter, Elizabeth Throckmorton, married Sir Walter Raleigh. In 1520 at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, ‘Mistress Carew’ attended as one of the Queen’s gentlewomen. Sir Nicholas became involved in the various plots within the Court, jostling for power. He was very deeply involved in the plotting against Anne Boleyn. Finally, he was accused of treason – of speaking against the King, and was beheaded on Tower Hill on 3 March 1539. Elizabeth died in 1546.

In 1521 the 18-year-old Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Brooke, Baron Cobham, married Thomas Wyatt, the poet. Their son, also named Thomas, was the leader of Wyatt’s Rebellion in 1554, the unsuccessful uprising that sought to remove Mary I from the throne and replace her with Elizabeth I.

Elizabeth Brooke’s marriage to Wyatt was not successful and after the birth of their son in 1521 the couple’s relationship deteriorated. Wyatt later admitted to his son, ‘the fault is both in your mother and me’, adding, ‘but chiefly in her.’
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He may have been referring to the fact that in 1522 Anne Boleyn came to Court and Wyatt became one of her admirers; whether Elizabeth already had a lover or whether she took one in response to her husband’s activities, is debatable. In 1524, possibly at the start of Henry’s affair with Anne Boleyn, Wyatt was sent abroad as an ambassador, a post he held, on and off, until his death. Elizabeth is reputed to have set up house with her lover although there is no record of his identity.

In 1536 Wyatt had been arrested on suspicion of having been one of the ‘lovers’ of Anne Boleyn, but had been released. In 1540 he was arrested again on charges of treason and this time it was Catherine Howard who interceded with Henry VIII for his release. The reconciliation with his wife was one of the conditions of his release. Back with Elizabeth and restored to his post as Ambassador, in 1542 Wyatt became ill, dying on 11 October. After Catherine Howard was condemned to death, Henry VIII dined with various ladies and showed especial affection for two of them, fuelling rumours that he was already searching for a new wife. One was Anne Bassett, and the other, presumably with the knowledge that Wyatt was terminally ill, was Elizabeth Brooke. If the King showed her such attention, presumably her reputation was not that bad. Perhaps Wyatt’s remarks to his son were more in self-justification than truth.

Another rumoured illegitimate son of Henry VIII’s was Sir Henry Lee. John Aubrey, in his
Brief Lives
, wrote of Sir Henry Lee (1530–1610): ‘Old Sir Harry Lee [was] knight of the Garter and was supposed brother of Queen Elizabeth. He ordered that all his family should be christened Harry’s.’

He also recorded that ‘He [Sir Henry] was never married’ and that he kept a mistress, Mrs Anne Vavasour. His tomb monument showed Sir Henry at rest with Anne kneeling at his feet. Aubrey quoted the following verses:

Aubrey, barely holding back a snigger, says that Sir Henry, ‘kept women to read to him when he was abed. One of these readers was Parson Jones’s wife of Wotton. I have heard her daughter (who had no more wit) glory what a brave reader her mother was and how Sir Harry’s worship much delighted to hear her.’
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