Tudor? I Hardly Knew Her! : Lady Katherine Grey, part one
Fifty Shades of Grey Girls
Lady Katherine Grey was born on August 25, 1540 at Bradgate Park, the family property of the Grey family. Just to put this in a place and time, in 1540, the King was still Henry VIII, who was then in the midst of his brief fifth marriage to Catherine Howard. Katherine was the second surviving child born to Lady Frances Brandon and her husband, Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk. She had an older sister, Lady Jane Grey and five years later, a third Grey sister was born, Lady Mary Grey. The three Grey girls were royalty because their mother’s mother was Henry VIII’s younger sister, Mary. The girls didn’t have the title of princesses but were treated with the respect appropriate to royalty. Henry VIII died in 1547, succeeded by his nine-year-old son, Edward VI.
At this point, Katherine was fourth in line to the throne (behind Henry VIII’s daughters Mary and Elizabeth, and Katherine’s older sister, Jane). While it was unlikely that Katherine would ever become Queen, she and her sisters were all seen as valuable marriage prospects. Like any famous set of sisters, each Grey girl had their own thing: Jane was intellectual and studious, Katherine was pretty and vivacious, and Mary was sweet and kind. The girls were all provided with a thorough education (including learning Latin, Greek, French, music, and the arts), and were raised in the new Protestant faith.
When fifteen-year-old Edward VI fell ill, his advisors began scheming to marry their sons to the Grey girls so that these adult men could be closer to the increasingly powerful Grey family. Because, unlike Edward VI’s presumptive heir, his older half-sister Mary I, the Greys were Protestant. It was incredibly important to both Edward VI and his advisors that the realm remain Protestant, the religion his father, Henry VIII, had basically invented. So, with the help of his advisors, the dying teen King rewrote his own will to remove Mary from being his heir. It wasn’t possible for him to just remove one of his half-sisters, so even though he’d have been fine with Elizabeth taking over, he had to disinherit both Mary and Elizabeth. Which meant that the new Queen would be his cousin, Lady Jane Grey. And until Jane had a child, Katherine would be her heir.
A few months before Edward died, fifteen-year-old Jane and twelve-year-old Katherine Grey were married off in a double ceremony. Jane’s husband was Guildford Dudley, the son of the King’s powerful Chief Minister, John Dudley. Katherine’s husband was Henry, Lord Herbert. Mary Grey, just eight years old, was betrothed to their cousin Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton. The double wedding was a huge event, with lots of feasting and partying. Edward VI attended the event, one of the last he attended before dying, aged fifteen. Upon his death, Lady Jane Grey was declared the new Queen.
Click here for the whole story of how Jane wound up the Nine Days Queen, executed at age sixteen. Basically, being a pawn did not work well for Jane or anyone who had worked to get her named Queen. Mary I took over, throwing Jane, Guildford, and her father into prison. Seven months later, all three were executed. All of their lands and money were confiscated, leaving the Grey sisters and their now-widowed mother essentially penniless. The Greys’ newly poisonous reputation spoiled the matches for both sisters, as the Herberts quickly annulled Katherine’s marriage, and the Wiltons ended Mary Grey’s betrothal. Katherine, now fourteen years old, orphaned and with only one sister left, was now the eldest Grey sister. And, despite their bad reputation and current poverty, until Mary I had a child of her own, Katherine was again a potential heir to the throne.
At this low point, the Greys found support from a surprising person: their cousin, Mary I. Taking pity on her young cousins and their mother, the Queen invited them all to the royal court. Frances, specifically, was still eyed with some suspicion for her probable role in the Jane Grey Situation, but clearly, Mary I felt some fondness for her relatives. The Greys were given precedence at state events — ahead of Elizabeth, Mary I’s actual heir. Katherine took on a special role at the coronation of Mary I and was among the guests at the Queen’s marriage the following year to Philip II. Katherine and Mary Grey were treated as princesses, including having their trains carried by their own ladies in waiting during important court events. The Queen appointed both to the prestigious role of ladies of the bedchamber, the most important role any woman could hold at court. There were even rumours that Mary I intended to adopt one or both Grey sisters, perhaps to make their status as her possible heirs even more iron-clad.
One year after Mary I became Queen, Katherine’s mother, Frances Brandon, suddenly remarried (remember, her husband had been executed after the Nine Days Queen scenario). In order to avoid causing any further controversy, Frances chose to marry Adrian Stokes, her Master of the Horse (aka a man far below Frances’s royal social status). If she and Adrian had any children, they would be low-born and therefore outside of contention to become the new King or Queen. Because of this new marriage, Frances was removed from the royal court. As such, Katherine was sent into the care of Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset (the widow of Edward VI’s former, now executed, Lord Protector). Although Anne was technically now her guardian, Katherine remained at court where she became best friends with her fellow lady-in-waiting, Anne’s daughter Lady Jane Seymour* (*not the one who was married to Henry VIII, this Jane Seymour is the niece of that other one).
Sidenote: This Lady Jane Seymour was also one of three sisters. The Seymour sisters (Jane, Anne, and Margaret) were writers whose published work includes the poem Hecatodistichon. Written in 1550, this was the first female-authored English-language encomium, the only work by Englishwomen published in Latin in the 16th century, and the only work by any Englishwomen published in any language before the 1560s. It was written as a tribute upon the death of Queen Marguerite de Navarre, herself also a writer.
Katherine Grey and Jane Seymour were close in age (Katherine was two years older), had both gone through having their fathers executed and had known each other most of their lives. Jane was also tangentially related to the royal family, as the former Boy King Edward VI had been her cousin. Jane Seymour was, for a while, a possible wife for him (Katherine’s sister Jane Grey had also been considered for this position), but of course, the boy-king had died unmarried. Katherine and Jane, like other girls at this time, would share the same bed for warmth and probably also some fun gossiping. Katherine confided in Jane that she hoped to be able to reconcile with Lord Herbert, her brief childhood husband.
An influenza epidemic tore through England (and the royal court) in the summer of 1558. Lady Jane Seymour was among those affected, and she was sent to recuperate at her family home of Hamworth with her BFF Katherine sent along to keep her company. While they were there, Jane’s brother Edward, aka Ned, happened to be at home visiting. What did they look like? Well Katherine, by now seventeen years old, was gorgeous with golden red hair, blue eyes, and a striking profile. Ned, nineteen years old, was slim with dark eyes and dark hair, a nose that people writing about him seemed to have found very appealing, and an arrogant, asshole sort of air. Ned was also distantly descended from the medieval English King Edward III, meaning that he wasn’t directly in the line of succession, but was closer than many other aristocrats. And if he and Katherine happened to get married and have a child, the combined claim that child would have — between Ned’s ancestors and Katherine’s Tudor pedigree — a strong claim to the throne. And if that child was a son? All of the Protestants would be so relieved because then they wouldn’t have to worry about having a gross woman Queen at all! So keep in mind that Katherine and Ned falling in love was, basically, a threat to the Queen and to the entire succession.
But did these teens care? No, they did not!! Lady Jane Seymour, on the mend from influenza, helped out by sending messages between her BFF and her brother all summer while they hung out at Hamworth. Ned even brought up the idea of marriage secretly in letters! His motives are unknown, but if he was just after Katherine for her money and connections, he likely wouldn’t have done all this sneaking around. After all, in order to use Katherine in that way, their marriage would have to be officially sanctioned. And the thing is, as a close relative to the Queen, Katherine couldn’t get married without the Queen’s permission.
But oh noes! Ned’s mother, Anne Somerset, found out about this borderline treasonous teenage summer romance. Anne had seen a lot of her relatives executed in the last decade, so she was understandably concerned about her son’s potentially lethal love match. She ordered Ned to forget about Katherine, but he was like, “Is it so wrong for two young people who enjoy each other’s company to spend time together???*” (*not an exact quote) and refused to stop hanging out with his girlfriend. But anyway, summer ended, and so did the influenza epidemic, and Katherine and Jane were sent back to the royal court. It was just like in Grease, the young lovers’ summer dreams ripped at the seams! But I’m sure you suspect that wasn’t the end of this ill-advised and dangerous love story.
But the thing is, back at the royal court, everything was a new kind of chaos. Queen Mary I had also fallen ill during the influenza epidemic and, on top of her other medical issues (and her habit of starving herself for religious reasons) she seemed to be dying. There wasn’t an opportunity for Katherine and Ned to get royal permission to get married if they were even thinking about doing so at this point. Queen Mary I died that November. As one of the late Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, Katherine helped to lay out Mary’s body for embalming. Katherine also took turns, along with the other ladies, to stand watch in the chapel where Mary’s corpse was set out for a month before the funeral, which Katherine also attended.
As the Queen had died without children, her successor was her younger half-sister, who was named Queen Elizabeth I. Lady Katherine Grey was now next in line to the throne.
Where Mary had sympathized with the Greys and elevated Katherine, her sister, and mother, Elizabeth was wary. For starters, the Grey family still had a toxic reputation for the whole Lady Jane Grey coup, as well as Katherine’s father’s other acts of rebellion (and his later execution). Elizabeth also knew that among the many competing factions of courtiers were some people who felt Katherine should be the Queen instead of her. Lady Jane Grey herself was already seen by some as a martyr, partly because her final letter had been published shortly after her death as propaganda. In one of these letters, Jane identified her sister Katherine as her spiritual and political heir.
Twenty-five-year-old Elizabeth had not yet cemented her reputation as the Virgin Queen, and everyone assumed that she would get married and have her own children pretty soon. She also didn’t yet know about Katherine’s ongoing secret relationship with Ned. As far as anyone knew, Elizabeth and Katherine were both young, unmarried women and, therefore, very valuable prospects to marry. As soon as either of them had a child, specifically a son, that would tip the scales to make even more people support her above the other.
But also, real talk. Elizabeth was insecure, vain and jealous in the manner of Snow White’s Evil Queen. She saw any younger, prettier woman as a personal threat. And Katherine, being a relative, seems to have been literally a younger, prettier version of the Queen. This tendency would only grow stronger, the older she got and would lead to many future secret marriages of many young, pretty women. Elizabeth, you’re doing this to yourself!
So in a sort of Cinderella moment, Elizabeth immediately downgraded Katherine and Mary Grey’s status within her court. Rather than being gentlewomen of the Privy Chamber, the Grey girls were moved over to the Presence Chamber. Katherine and Mary weren’t given any preferred treatment at Elizabeth’s coronation other than that of ladies-in-waiting. This was Elizabeth making clear that she did not trust the Greys, had not forgotten the Lady Jane Grey scenario, and perhaps even did not consider Katherine her own heir. But the thing, of course, is that Elizabeth didn’t want to get married anytime soon because she was in love with her married boyfriend, Robert Dudley.
Sidenote: potential wife-killer Robert Dudley was also Katherine Grey’s former brother-in-law, as Robert’s brother Guildford had been married to (and then executed alongside) Lady Jane Grey. So he and Katherine and Elizabeth and Ned had all known one another for years, like high school but with more pantaloons and murders.
But so, with Elizabeth publicly stating she didn’t plan to get married anytime soon, her councillors turned their attention to Katherine again. Because the Queen wasn’t going to have a child, then Katherine again began to seem like the potential next Queen. This bothered Elizabeth considerably because she really hated Katherine. Katherine was obviously aware of how Elizabeth felt and complained to the Spanish ambassador more than once about how the Queen was sidelining her. Katherine even yelled at the Queen one day in the Presence Chamber, or maybe rolled her eyes or something else that was seen as “unseemly” behaviour in the Queen’s presence.
Just to place this in context: Queen Mary I had been married to Philip, the Spanish King. After she died, Philip tried to get Elizabeth to marry him but she sensibly refused. We’re still years away from the whole Elizabeth vs Spanish Armada moment. So the fact that Katherine, Elizabeth’s heir, was bitching about the Queen to the Spanish Ambassador was a big fucking deal. The Spanish Ambassador, whose name was Feria, began scheming if maybe Philip could marry Katherine and then take over England together, etc.. Did Katherine knowingly play along with this scheme? I mean, probably. At the very least, she allowed herself to seem open to his suggestions at least to figure out how she could use him to her advantage. She had stopped talking about wanting to remarry Herbert (because she wanted to marry Ned), but to Feria, it seemed like Katherine was open to marrying anyone. Feria took her seriously and began figuring out which Spanish Hapsburg royal he could marry her to and sorting out plans to have her kidnapped to Spain.
Meanwhile, Ned had been cooling off with Katherine (due to his mother’s interference) so Katherine may have been using matters of international treason to make a play to make her boyfriend jealous. She also knew that Elizabeth’s plans to travel around the country were coming up, which meant opportunities for Katherine to see Ned for Summer Of Love Part Two. Like For while Feria was literally arranging which ships to use to kidnap her to Spain, Katherine was blissfully fantasizing about reuniting with her boyfriend. Katherine was playing a very dangerous game, and she was LOVING IT!!
But when Katherine set out with Elizabeth (who spent all her time flirting outrageously publicly with Robert Dudley), there was no sign of Ned. He had written that he had fallen ill, but actually probably his mother was making him stay away from her. But guess what, no mother could get in the way of these determined teens, and finally Ned caught up with everyone else! It was during this period that the two of them would later say they fell truly in love, taking walks through gardens, enjoying feasts and just hanging out all the time and being young and in love. Elizabeth, busy with Robert Dudley and fending off her councillors who wanted her to stop seeing Robert Dudley, didn’t know about the romance. Other courtiers did, and some warned Katherine that Ned was maybe just using her. But by October, Ned had set off to visit Katherine’s mother for permission to marry her.
Frances Grey was happy to hear that Ned wanted to marry Katherine because she liked him, and because she knew this would strengthen her daughter’s claim to the throne. After checking with her daughter this was what she wanted, Frances offered her support for the match. She advised Ned to get to work convincing other people at court that this was a good idea, namely, members of the Privy Council. Since, ultimately, it would be up to Elizabeth, they needed to get as many people advising her to support the match as possible.
Ned’s first attempts to convince people at court to support him were unsuccessful, as he was told the timing wasn’t good and he should wait. But then, unfortunately, Frances died that November before she was able to send a letter of her own to the Queen expressing her blessing for the match. Katherine and Mary Grey were with their mother as she passed, and Katherine served as chief mourner at the funeral (which Elizabeth generously agreed to pay for). Both Katherine and Ned knew that their chances of getting married anytime soon had died along with Frances. Ned wrote Katherine a letter/poem, comparing their romantic challenges to those of the Greek lovers Troilus and Cressida, who had also been kept apart for political reasons. Ned seemed worried that, like Cressida, Katherine might leave him for another lover. The Spanish were again focusing their attention on her, with eyes on potentially using her as a way to overthrow Elizabeth. But Ned needn’t have worried: Katherine was entirely devoted to him.
However, the rumours of the Spanish plot had finally reached Elizabeth. Following the adage to keep friends close and enemies closer, Elizabeth suddenly began treating Katherine much more kindly. Elizabeth planted rumours that she may even adopt Katherine (despite being just seven years older), to formalize her role as heir to the throne. Katherine was probably happy to accept this better treatment, but her main priority was finding opportunities to sneak off with her boyfriend, Ned. And as ever, Elizabeth was too busy running off hunting with Robert Dudley to notice or care what Katherine was doing (as long as it didn’t involve the Spanish Ambassador).
Ned’s sister Jane and brother Henry helped courier letters and tokens back and forth between the lovers. Katherine and Ned found opportunities to sneak off together, and more and more people were noticing their affair. But Elizabeth’s behaviour with Robert Dudley was so much more scandalous that the Katherine/Ned stuff never really took off as the big gossip of the day. (This was around the time that there were unfounded rumours Elizabeth was pregnant with Dudley’s baby, and then Dudley’s wife was maybe murdered by falling down a flight of stairs). Elizabeth’s Chief Advisor, William Cecil, had found out about the Ned/Katherine scenario, though. He warned Ned to stop seeing Katherine due to the regime-destabilizing nature of their possible marriage. Ned listened to him and ghosted Katherine. This made Katherine frantic, especially when she heard rumours he’d been flirting with another woman. And the thing is that Ned just couldn’t quit her, either.
Ned wrote to her, proposing marriage, and Katherine obviously agreed. They snuck off into BFF Jane’s private room, where Jane was the witness to their formal betrothal. Katherine and Ned agreed they’d get married at his London home as soon as she was able to slip away from the Queen. Ned gave Katherine a ring, and the betrothal was made official with a joining of hands and a lot of hugging and kissing.
But what would happen to these young lovers? Find out next week!
Vulgar History a la Carte is a companion newsletter to the Vulgar History podcast. This week on the podcast, I’m talking with author June Hur about Josean-era Korean history and her new book, A Crane Among Wolves, which reads like a historical K-Drama.
References
The Sisters Who Would be Queen: Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Tragedy by Leanda de Lisle
Elizabeth’s Women: Friends, Rivals, and Foes Who Shaped the Virgin Queen by Tracy Borman
Crown of Blood: The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey by Nicola Tallis
Devices and Desires: Bess of Hardwick and the Building of Elizabethan England by Kate Hubbard
The Betrayal of Mary, Queen of Scots: Elizabeth I and her Greatest Rival by Kate Williams
https://www.britain-magazine.com/carousel/tudor-of-the-month-katherine-grey/
https://tudortimes.co.uk/guest-articles/love-and-loss-lady-katherine-grey
https://englishhistoryauthors.blogspot.com/2012/03/born-in-tower-crimes-of-lady-katherine.html