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Wolf Hall 2: The Mirror and the Light – Did ‘Bess Oughtred’ really hope to marry Thomas Cromwell?

Published on by Caroline Angus1 Comment
Photo: BBC/Playground Entertainment/Nick Briggs

Welcome to a new series about the fact and fiction of the newest series of Wolf Hall, The Mirror and the Light. Here is the real story of the marriage of Elizabeth Seymour and Gregory Cromwell.

By now you will have seen (as in the picture above) of the marriage of of Queen Jane’s sister Elizabeth Seymour to Gregory Cromwell. In the show, the character’s name is Bess Oughtred, and given the number of Elizabeths in the period, giving her a common nickname is helpful if you don’t know one Elizabeth from another.

Elizabeth Seymour had a hard early life. The eighth of the ten Seymour  children, Elizabeth was married at just 12 years of age to Sir Anthony Ughtred, then aged 52. Why her father John Seymour thought this a good idea remains a mystery. By 1530, John and Margery Seymour had lost two of their children to illness, but their three surviving sons, Edward, Thomas and Henry, had been sent to court. The younger two were put in backroom middling roles, while Edward Seymour was already circling the higher privy chambers as an attendant. But Edward’s wife Catherine had given him two sons whose parentage was dubious to say the least, so marriage prospects may have been a concern for the unmarried Seymour girls. Jane Seymour was already at court too, a lady for Queen Katharine of Aragon. Elizabeth and Dorothy Seymour were only children in 1530. Dorothy Seymour was married off at 13 in 1533, fortunately to someone only a few years older than herself, and began a state of regular pregnancy. Jane Seymour remained unmarried at court. Middle sister Elizabeth was the most unlucky of all.

The marriage of Elizabeth Seymour and Sir Anthony Ughtred surely raised eyebrows, given the bride was 40 years her husband’s junior. Even King Henry wasn’t that lecherous. Anthony Ughtred had a similar military background to Elizabeth’s father, so they were likely friends or at least court acquaintances of similar rank. After losing his first wife without children, Anthony Ughtred acquired Elizabeth Seymour, and she was styled as Lady Ughtred, and joined Anne Boleyn’s court around the same time Jane Seymour was transferred there in 1533. In late 1533, aged 14, Elizabeth gave birth to her son, Henry Ughtred (given the two-year gap between marriage and pregnancy, Ughtred may have not touched his child bride for a couple of years. We can only hope). Anthony Ughtred was the Captain and Governor of Jersey, and Elizabeth and baby Henry lived with him at Mont Orgueil Castle in Jersey, instead of returning to the royal court.

By early 1534, Elizabeth was already pregnant again, but illness came to Jersey, and Sir Anthony Ughtred died in October 1534, aged approximately 56. Elizabeth left her baby son Henry in Jersey and returned to mainland England to serve at court until she needed to retire to give birth to Margery in early 1535, at one of her late husband’s estates in Hexby, Yorkshire, 150 miles north of London. Her son Henry was moved north, and Elizabeth went back to court, leaving the children as head of the household.

Given that by age 16, Elizabeth was a widow with two children, and her sister Jane had been at the royal court without such misery, whether they were close can’t really be measured. But both sisters had to endure the fall of Anne Boleyn, and the rise of their own family, after their father died in late 1535 (his death is mislabelled 1536), and Jane Seymour caught the king’s eye. Elizabeth became one of her sister’s ladies at court, but life was not suddenly simple. In 1537, Elizabeth was 19, had two children to feed, and no money of her own. Hexby Manor, her late husband’s Yorkshire estate, was no glorious money-maker. No official grant of the lands had passed the estate from father to son after Anthony Ughtred’s death. Elizabeth needed to make a bold move. She was young, rumoured beautiful, and the pregnant queen’s sister, but that wasn’t enough to raise children.

Portrait probably of Elizabeth Seymour, c1542 by Hans Holbein

Lady Elizabeth Ughtred sent a letter from York on 18 March 1537 to Lord Cromwell. She explained that her husband had left her with next to nothing, leaving her as a ‘poor woman alone’ and begged to be granted an abbey once it was dissolved, somewhere to live with her children. It’s wild to think that despite being the queen’s sister, Elizabeth had nothing. Given that her late husband had been in service to King Henry and Cromwell, she wrote:

‘I am the bolder to sue herein, and will sue to no other. When I was last at Court you promised me your favour. In Master Ughtred’s days I was in a poor house of my own, but since then I have been driven to be a sojourner, for my living is not sufficient to entertain my friends.’

Elizabeth was resorting to moving between friends’ homes with her children to keep them alive. It is not surprising Cromwell promised to help her at court, he always helped widows and orphans, and paying favour to the queen’s sister would be an obvious courtesy at court. Cromwell likely went to speak with her brother Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp. The pair regularly gambled together and Cromwell had lost 45l (£19,000 today) to him just weeks before the letter arrived. Elizabeth soon returned to the London area, likely without her children. Baby Margery goes completely unmentioned in records, except for a note about her marriage up in Yorkshire. Henry Ughtred doesn’t feature anywhere until the 1560s either, so he was likely also north in Yorkshire.

A deal was struck between Thomas Cromwell and Edward Seymour, that Elizabeth would marry Gregory Cromwell, who was approximately 17 at the time. By 1 June, preparations for the wedding were underway as Cromwell ordered a wedding cape and dagger for his son, worth £4,000 today. There was no mistaking who the groom would be at the wedding. Cromwell held a glorious party at Mortlake Manor, the grand castle-like on the Thames usually reserved for the Archbishop of Canterbury (confiscated from Cranmer in 1536 for supporting Anne Boleyn, and given to Cromwell as a gift), Mortlake was to be Gregory and Elizabeth’s home for the time being, lavish, fully staffed, great location, and safe from passing illnesses. Cromwell order a porpoise for the dinner, minstrels to entertain, new uniforms for the staff, and various costs for both Lady Elizabeth and her brother, Sir Edward Seymour, who brought along artichokes, and even Princess Mary sent a gift of quinces. The wine alone at Mortlake for this one party would cost £170,000 today. It may have even been the wedding itself, given Mortlake had a chapel, though the news of the marriage wasn’t made public until 3 August, so that is the generally accepted date of the occasion.

If this June 1537 event was only an engagement party to seal the betrothal, Elizabeth must have felt very pleased with her position, as by the 3 August date, she was already pregnant. Henry Cromwell was born in March 1538, likely at Cromwell’s home Great Place in Stepney, and Princess Mary was his godmother. Cromwell held enormous parties at Hampton Court though February and March 1538 with the king, spent the equivalent of £20,000 today to make sure Elizabeth gave birth in comfort, for her son was the first cousin of baby Prince Edward. Cromwell spent twice as much on outfits, choreographers, horses and and performers at Hampton Court to celebrate in style with the king.

Cromwell soon took on Lewes Priory in Sussex to have it rebuilt as a manor home for his son and daughter-in-law, who got pregnant again almost immediately after giving birth. But by mid-June 1538, Gregory Cromwell was sent to be punished by Bishop Richard Sampson of nearby Chichester for a sexual crime. The Bishop wrote to Richard Cromwell about Gregory’s punishment and told him:

‘the young man has been with me this morning and scornfully refused this penance. Wherefore, I advertise you of it, praying you to weigh it as a matter that touches much the honesty of your friend. For surely if there be any business for it, I will advertise the King’s Majesty of the whole. And I doubt not but when my Lord Privy Seal shall hear the truth, he will assist me in it’.

Sampson was amid having his Chichester cathedral dissolved and its relics stripped, including the shrine of St Richard. Given Sampson needed to give out punishment to Gregory Cromwell, and Richard knew of the situation by the time this letter was written, suggests only two crimes; heresy or sexual assault. Eighteen-year-old Gregory had been
left to enjoy the high life since childhood, given everything without having to earn it, so it is not reasonable to think he may have made an off-hand comment that could have been insulting or even sound heretical to the Catholic bishop. But Gregory was no scholar, no politician like his father, and never showed any interest in religion. Also, that a heretical comment could receive a small punishment but provoke his father in such a wild manner is at odds with reality, leaving only sexual crimes. The church tended to turn a blind eye to (men’s) adultery, equally seduction or coercion without consent. Whatever Gregory did, Sampson said it would affect Gregory’s ‘honesty’, which in turn would harm the ‘reputation’ of Elizabeth, sister to late Queen Jane. Whatever sexual assault Gregory committed (and it cannot have been against Elizabeth), it was enough to potentially make a scandal of the Cromwell family. Given that sexual crimes are rarely punished even today, particularly by the Catholic church, Gregory must have done something especially heinous.

Cromwell had nurtured his only son, given him the world, gained him a noble bride, and had just finished spending countless thousands on Lewes Priory. Suddenly, the young Cromwell household needed to be broken up, Gregory whisked out of Sussex entirely. Sir John Gage nearby offered to lease the Lewes lands so Cromwell could get out at once, and now Cromwell was the largest landowner in Kent, he had somewhere to hide his useless son. Gregory was shipped up to Mortlake Manor, probably at Edward’s Seymour’s nearby home, and a letter from Elizabeth Cromwell arrived, stating she would stay half a mile from Mortlake Manor. Elizabeth wrote, ‘this letter from you is more pleasure to me than any earthly good, for my trust is now only in you …  your humble daughter-in-law’. Cromwell needed to pay for Gregory at Mortlake for Christmas and pay servants to attend Elizabeth, who was six months pregnant while she cared for ten-month-old Henry.

The young couple had reconciled by May 1539 when Edward Cromwell was born at their new home at Leeds Castle, and Thomas Cromwell was born around May 1540, Katherine Cromwell a year later, and then Frances Cromwell in 1542, named after Richard Cromwell’s wife who had recently passed away.

So while The Mirror and Light shows Bess Oughtred looking to marry a man close to the king, it was probably lucky she didn’t, though the early years as Lady Cromwell were not happy ones either. She continued to sign her name Elizabeth Ughtred until 1540 when Gregory was made a baron, but she was safe from her brother-in-law King Henry after writing him a groveling letter, disavowing her father-in-law when he was executed.  When Gregory Cromwell died in 1551, Elizabeth married Sir William Paulet, Earl of Wiltshire, and after her death in 1568, Her eldest son, Henry Ughtred, married his stepsister Elizabeth Paulet.

The eldest son of the couple , Henry Cromwell, carried on the family name as part of a string of quiet Cromwell MPs who eventually gained power in Ireland. Edward Cromwell died of illness around the same time his father Gregory died. The third son of Gregory and Elizabeth Cromwell, Thomas Cromwell, went on to be an archivist in parliament and created the first ever English-Italian dictionary, continuing his grandfather’s love of the country and language, and remained close to Ralph Sadler, while Katherine and Frances Cromwell married politicians and lived quiet lives. None of these children are ancestors of genocidal maniac Oliver Cromwell; he was the great-great-grandson of their cousin, Richard Cromwell.

All sources come from The Private Life of Thomas Cromwell. My publisher might come for you if you plagiarise.

PLANNING THE MURDER OF ANNE BOLEYN

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Almost 500 years have passed since the death of Anne Boleyn, and yet, there has never been a suggestion she was guilty of the crimes that saw her executed. Attempts to muddy Anne’s reputation throughout history have not lessened her popularity, nor convinced anyone she was an adulterer. But many myths surrounding Anne’s conviction for sleeping with George Boleyn, Henry Norris, Francis Weston, William Brereton, and Mark Smeaton, have cropped up as a result of centuries of lies, slander, and misinformation from detractors.

One month after Anne was executed, the Convocation of Canterbury ratified the paperwork detailing her arrest, conviction, execution, and the annulment of the marriage between King Henry VIII and his second wife. As parliament had already ruled Anne’s only child, Princess Elizabeth, was no longer heir to the throne, all the paperwork surrounding the trial was destroyed. No trace of her charges, witness statements, evidence, or even Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s reasoning for annulling the royal marriage survived the mass destruction. Everyone was supposed to forget Anne Boleyn and accept Queen Jane.

But why did Anne Boleyn ever need to die? King Henry had started little more than an infatuation with Jane Seymour in December 1535, and yet many saw the opportunity to pounce, not to reduce Anne’s influence but to increase Princess Mary’s standing. As Vicegerent Thomas Cromwell and Ambassador Eustace Chapuys whispered of alliances in secret meetings, the Catholic nobility and the White Roses began to hatch their plan to restore the king’s daughter Princess Mary to her rightful place at court. Just as Katharine of Aragon died, Anne Boleyn felt secure as England’s queen, only to find that her adversary’s death would soon bring on her own.

Who ultimately planned Anne Boleyn’s death? Why did political and religious enemies of Thomas Cromwell go to him in the months leading to Anne’s death, expecting his co-operation to restore Princess Mary? Did Jane Seymour have any significance, why did King Henry and Thomas Cromwell get into a public shouting match at a dinner party, and just how easy was it to convince Henry to remove his wife for good?

The answers lie not in what evidence remains of court life in early 1536, but in the gaps left behind. None of the characters that played a role in Anne Boleyn’s death were strangers; all had connections, alliances, and opportunities, and when their pasts and futures are laid together, we can see how a haphazard plan to end a queen’s life had almost nothing to do with her at all.

Henry VIII’s Children

HENRY VIII’S CHILDREN – PART 5: Etheldreda Malte

Published on by Caroline Angus2 Comments

Ahead of the release of Henry VIII’s Children: Legitimate and Illegitimate Sons and Daughters of the Tudor King on 30 May (Pen & Sword Currently have a 30% off special throughout May), I am doing a 15-part series on some of the smaller, lesser-known details that are covered in the book. These details played out in the background of the defining moments of the lives of each of Henry’s children. Here is a short introduction to Etheldreda Malte, daughter of the king.

PART 5: ETHELDREDA MALTE
This portrait painted in the 1550s, was once considered to be Queen Mary

Among the women King Henry VIII is thought to have bedded, few stand out; but of those thought to have become pregnant, one was listed as a royal laundress. What did persist was the suggestion that Henry fathered a daughter named Etheldreda Malte. King Henry had his pick of women at court and had no reason to keep his indiscretions and choices a secret. So why did Etheldreda’s mother’s name get lost among the bevvy of women unfortunately remembered as royal mistresses? A daughter born to a laundress would have been forgotten, and yet the baby of this rumoured affair instead lived her life in the orbit of her supposed half-sister Queen Elizabeth.

The window between 1525-1535 is littered with supposed affairs between King Henry and ‘forgettable’ women, among them Joan (or Jane or Joanna) Dingley alias Dobson. Dingley was a common name at court among the lesser-ranked members right through to those working in the privy chamber. Sir John Moore, from the merchant hub of Dunclent (also spelt Dunkelyn, Douklin or Dobson) in Worcestershire, had a daughter named Joan (or Jane), who married James Dingley at a young age in the mid-1520s, but James died soon after. Later rumours claimed Joan ‘met’ King Henry, and Etheldreda (or Audrey) was born in the late 1520s, and the  Moore and Dingley families remained working quietly at court.

A man of a similar social standing as Joan Dingley was John Malte, the king’s tailor. By 1530, Malte was doing well in the king’s household, and by the mid-1540s had been lavished with manors and lands far beyond what a servant could expect, earning thousands from the leases granted to him while he designed, created, and finished King Henry’s attire. But in January 1547, as Henry was aware of his failing health, he finalised a 1,312l 12d (over £550,000 today) gift of lands, manors, and livestock to ‘John and Etheldred Malte, alias Dyngley, bastard daughter of the said John Malte and Joan Dyngley alias Dobson’. The fine lands and grants were for Etheldreda and her heirs, not for Malte’s sons.

King Henry had ordered Malte to ensure Etheldreda’s education, and she married Sir John Harington of Stepney, an attendant of Sir Thomas Seymour, and then the Grey family while Etheldreda served Princess Elizabeth, including spending time in The Tower with her during Queen Mary’s reign. Etheldreda remained close to Elizabeth only to die just months after seeing her alleged half-sister be crowned queen in 1559.

Up next, the making of Henry Fitzroy, Wannabe King of the North

HENRY VIII’S CHILDREN: Part 4 – The Many Illegitimate Sons

Published on by Caroline AngusLeave a comment

Ahead of the release of Henry VIII’s Children: Legitimate and Illegitimate Sons and Daughters of the Tudor King on 30 May (Pen & Sword Currently have a 30% off special throughout May), I am doing a 15-part series on some of the smaller, lesser-known details that are covered in the book. These details played out in the background of the defining moments of the lives of each of Henry’s children. Here is a tiny snippet of each of the men who claimed (or were later claimed) to be the sons of Henry VIII. Many men claimed to be illegitimate sons of Henry VIII, for assorted reasons. As with claims made by others through the centuries, the information is impossible to verify, just assertions made by bold men in return for favour or protection.

PART 4: THE ILLEGITIMATE SONS

John Perrot

Perrot was born in the second week of November 1528, likely at Haroldston manor in Pembrokeshire, Wales.24 Perrot’s mother was Mary Berkeley of Thornbury, Gloucestershire, daughter of Thomas Berkeley and Susan FitzAlan. Mary Berkeley lived as a ward with her uncle Maurice Baron Berkeley, alongside another ward Thomas Perrot, son of Sir Thomas Perrot and Lady Katherine Poyntz. Fellow wards Thomas and Mary married at a noticeably young age and lived in Pembrokeshire, with their daughters Jane and Elizabeth when baby John was born in 1528. Assertions have been made that Mary Berkeley was a lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon, yet there is no evidence to prove this. The Berkeley/FitzAlan families were prestigious and well-connected families in England and Ireland, while the Perrot men fought at the Battle of Flodden and were wealthy Welsh landowners. John Perrot would go on to live at court and in noble circles in Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth I’s reigns, spend time in control of parts of Wales and Ireland under Queen Elizabeth’s and lead a dramatic royal life.

Thomas Stuckeley

Despite the rumours of the king and the Boleyn sisters, many others were put forward as possible lovers of the king, one such lady being Jane Pollard. By 1525, Jane had married Sir Hugh Stukeley and was almost thirty years of age. Sir Hugh and Lady Jane had ten children, five sons and five daughters, however, with sketchy details, the birth order of the children is hard to judge. Their marriage went ahead around 1512, with their youngest son born in 1529. Thomas Stuckeley was roughly the middle child of this surprisingly healthy large family, with all ten children living until adulthood. Jane Pollard herself was one of eleven children and had married well into a high-ranking family. Hugh Stukeley’s father Sir Thomas was the eldest of seven, had been Knight of the Body to King Henry in 1516, and had inherited the vast glamourous estate of Affeton in Devonshire. Sir Hugh and Lady Jane certainly had the family connections to move in royal circles, and Affeton was a home fine enough to host the king and many nobles, including the respected and beloved Courtenays.

Her son Thomas Stuckeley worked for Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk under Henry VIII, and then went on to lie, cheat and swindle his way through Edward VI, King Henri of France, Mary I, Elizabeth I, Holy Roman Emperor Philip, and Pope Gregory, before disappearing alongside King Sebastian of Portugal during a battle in Morroco.

Richard Edwardes

Edwardes was born in North Petherton, Somerset in 1525, to William Edwardes and his wife Agnes Blewitt. The legends say King Henry visited hunting grounds and met Agnes, who cannot have been more than fifteen in 1525, and fathered her child. The trouble with the theory is that King Henry did not travel on progress anywhere near Somerset in the 1523-1525 window in which Agnes gave birth. Agnes was not a lady at the royal court. A tale that King Henry paid Agnes a stipend for her baby’s education is similarly nothing but theory.

Agnes’ son Richard Edwardes grew up in North Petherton before attending Oxford in 1540, studying under George Etheridge, becoming a fellow in 1544 and joining Christ Church College Oxford in 1546.  But Edwardes’ talents lay in composing, poetry, and writing plays, and joined the Chapel Royal in 1557. A life at court writing now-famous and Shakespeare-inspiring plays, and composing music for Queen Elizabeth I saw Edwardes happy and successful, only for him to die right before receiving a substantial gift from the queen now rumoured to be his sister.

Henry Lee

One of the more unusual claims was yet another son named Henry, this child born in 1533-1534. This child was born at a time when King Henry was married to Anne Boleyn and their daughter Princess Elizabeth had just been born. Baby Henry’s father, Sir Anthony Lee was an attendant to Thomas Cromwell, who married Lady Margaret Wyatt, daughter of Cromwell’s dear friend Sir Henry Wyatt. The pair likely met as Margaret Wyatt was close to Thomas Cromwell, and she spent time with him and his wife before her marriage, and again in later years when her husband was in prison. But Margaret Wyatt, Margaret Lee after marrying in 1532, was a lady-in-waiting for Anne Boleyn, albeit a quiet woman. Margaret would have spent much time at court, well within King Henry’s sights.

Henry Lee lived a reasonably quiet life among his educated circle of family and friends as he worked in parliament, and rose to become Queen Elizabeth’s Champion in 1570, at the age of fifty-seven. Henry remained close to the queen for another twenty years before doing the one thing almost no one (except his grandfather Henry Wyatt) did in a Tudor court – retire happy in old age.

Up next – Etheldreda Malte

HENRY VIII’S CHILDREN: Part 3 – The Carey Children

Published on by Caroline Angus4 Comments

Ahead of the release of Henry VIII’s Children: Legitimate and Illegitimate Sons and Daughters of the Tudor King on 30 May (Pen & Sword Currently have a 30% off special throughout May), I am doing a 15-part series on some of the smaller, lesser-known details that are covered in the book. These details played out in the background of the defining moments of the lives of each of Henry’s children. Here is a snippet of the story of Mary Boleyn’s children.

PART 3 – THE CAREY CHILDREN


Of the handful of illegitimate children ascribed to King Henry’s name, Catherine Carey holds the greatest claim. Yet even then, the story of her parentage is as flimsy as the evidence for King Henry’s involvement with Catherine’s mother. Mary Boleyn is well-known as a mistress to the king; a tale so often told it gives rise to its own common myths and tropes. Mary returned home from her time in France and was married to William Carey in February 1520. Many theories on how King Henry and then embarked on an affair with Mary are based entirely on hearsay and fiction. 

Lady Mary Boleyn, also known as Lady Carey, via wikimedia commons

What is certain is by early 1524, Mary Boleyn gave birth to Catherine. But Mary was married, and naturally, baby Catherine was attributed to William Carey, and despite later slander, no one at the time suspected auburn-haired Catherine to be the king’s daughter. Catherine Carey’s birth came at a time when King Henry was increasingly anxious about the royal succession, and the birth of auburn-haired Henry Carey, likely in early 1526, only made things more complicated.

Catherine and her brother Henry likely lived with their parents during their early years; William Carey was granted the borough of Buckingham in February 1526, in a specific entail that stipulated the land could only be inherited by all ‘lawfully begotten’ heirs. By this time, Mary and King Henry had likely given up any potential relationship. Life for young Catherine Carey was like any of the period, until the sweating sickness outbreak, when William Carey suddenly died on 22 June 1528. Catherine probably stayed with her mother Mary after Carey’s death, while Henry Carey went to live in Anne Boleyn’s care, now she was the Boleyn in the king’s affections.

Despite the Boleyn family’s standing, Catherine Carey’s early life is a mystery. Young when her aunt was queen, her movements and life go unrecorded, though when her mother Mary married Sir William Stafford and fell pregnant in 1534, Catherine likely lived either in Calais, where soldier Stafford was stationed, or at the various estates in Staffordshire owned by Stafford’s noble father. Mary and her new husband were quiet during the execution of Anne Boleyn, but in late 1539, Thomas Cromwell invited Mary and young Catherine to court to meet Anna of Cleves. Catherine was given a place in Anna of Cleves’ household at court, as short-lived as it would be. Catherine used the time wisely; by 26 April 1540, sixteen-year-old Catherine married Francis Knollys, who had been drafted into the gentlemen-pensioners with Catherine’s father. 

Catherine transferred to new Queen Katheryn Howard’s household in late 1540, only to leave and embark on a family Henry VIII could have only dreamed of – sixteen children born over twenty-two years. After her marriage, an act of parliament ensured Francis Knollys’ lands were jointly in Catherine’s name, and soon after, Mary Knollys was born. A year later came Henry Knollys, followed Lettice, William, and Edward by 1547, who lived between their estates at Rotherfield Greys in Oxfordshire and Reading in Berkshire when not in London.

Being married to a staunch Protestant, Catherine was well-placed when Edward VI took the throne. Francis Knollys did well, being knighted in 1547 for his work against Scotland, aided William Cecil in religious changes, and by the time King Edward died in 1553, was already well-endowed with lands and estates. These came in useful, as Robert, Richard, Elizabeth, Maud, Thomas, and Francis the younger were been born to Catherine during King Edward’s reign, many with the rich auburn hair of the Tudors. But darker times soon befell Catherine when Queen Mary took the throne, leaving Protestants like herself at Mary’s mercy. Princess Elizabeth penned a sad goodbye to Catherine just before she, Francis, and their children left England for the safety of Germany during Mary’s reign.

Catherine and Francis Knollys needed to relocate to Frankfurt, and this period of instability gave Catherine a break from childbirth; she had given birth every year since she had married, so unless unfortunate miscarriages occurred, she was likely apart from her husband at times, before giving birth to Anne in 1555. Catherine then joined Francis in Germany, taking only five of her children, forced to leave the rest behind, probably at Rotherfield Greys.

Catherine Carey, Lady Knollys, via wikimedia commons

Catherine’s husband Francis did well among the Protestants in Germany,  before returning to England on the death of Queen Mary in November 1558. The following month, Catherine moved into Queen Elizabeth’s household as Chief Lady of the Bedchamber, the most senior lady-in-waiting. Francis was admitted to the Privy Council as Queen Elizabeth took power. As soon as Catherine was safe back in England with her husband at court, the yearly pregnancies returned, with daughters born in successive years, Catherine, Cecily, Margaret, and then Dudley Knollys, though Dudley did not survive long after birth. Thankfully, Catherine was never again recorded as pregnant, though her remaining surviving portrait shows her pregnant, likely with Dudley. Their comfortable and favoured lives continued in relative peace throughout the 1560s with Catherine as head of Elizabeth’s chamber, but she fell ill and died on 15 January 1569 at Hampton Court Palace.

Henry Carey, born on 4 March 1526, had a similarly obscure upbringing as his sister Catherine. He likely lived with his family until his father’s death in 1528 and became a ward of Anne Boleyn, who placed him in a Cistercian monastery to be educated. He did benefit from the tutoring of French scholar Nicholas Bourbon in 1535, but other than that, his life goes unrecorded. Despite the pedigree the Carey household had through their Beaufort/Spencer lineage (William Carey’s aunt was Countess of Northumberland), it seems as if the Carey family quickly forgot Henry and his sister Catherine after William Carey’s death. These details only fuel speculation about their true parentage. As all monasteries were closed by 1540, Henry Carey could have been placed in any number of households, possibly even Princess Elizabeth’s. He was not forgotten; his sister was a noblewoman, and in 1545, he married Anne Morgan, granddaughter of Blanche Milbourne, Lady Troy, one of Princess Elizabeth’s early governesses. His wife’s aunt, Blanche Parry, also spent time serving Princess Elizabeth.

Henry Carey, Baron Hunsdon, via wikimedia commons

Henry Carey was selected for parliament in 1547 under King Edward and again in 1554-5 under Queen Mary, suggesting he had moderate religious views and obeyed the constantly changing religious rules. As soon as Elizabeth became queen in November 1558, she knighted her cousin Henry Carey and made him a baron after her coronation a few months later. Elizabeth gave Carey her manor at Hunsdon, which had been a home belonging to Queen Mary only months earlier, and where Elizabeth (and possibly Henry Carey himself) spent much time growing up. Carey also gained lands in multiple locations, a pension, a court role, and became a Knight of the Garter. They clearly knew each other very well.

 Decade after decade, Carey served his queen, including facing off against rebellions and possible invasions of England. His wife Anne gave him thirteen children, with illegitimate children also born to Carey through the years. But Henry Carey fell ill in July 1596 and died at Somerset House on The Strand in London. Queen Elizabeth offered Henry Carey the earldom of Ormond on his deathbed, a title once belonging to their shared grandfather Thomas Boleyn, but Carey declined.

The families of Catherine and Henry Carey ensured the family line with dozens of children. Whether they secretly carried on Henry VIII’s bloodline, while his legitimate children could not, is entirely a matter of conjecture. Even if the rumours were untrue, the Carey children and grandchildren had strikingly similar looks to Queen Elizabeth, so perhaps it was the Boleyn genes that prevailed over the Tudors. After all, it is not a descendant of Henry VIII who sits on the English throne today, but a descendant of Mary Boleyn, in King Charles III.