The Last Tudor: New novel examines Elizabeth I and the threat to her throne
POLYGRAM Cate Blanchett as Eizabeth I
But as I discovered in my triple biography The Sisters Who Would Be Queen they were the rightful heirs to the Tudors. Now Philippa Gregory tells me “I have used your excellent history to guide me through the events”, for her new blockbusting novel The Last Tudor. It is brilliant fiction, but knowing the true story makes it all the more extraordinary. Imagine you are 18. Your elder sister has been executed after a short reign as queen. You have survived the rule of her killer, “Bloody” Mary Tudor and emerged as the heir to Elizabeth I. Such was the fate of the second of the three Grey sisters, Lady Katherine Grey. To recover the real Katherine and discover why the story of the Grey sisters was later covered up, we must return to 1558, when Elizabeth I was about to inherit the throne from Bloody Mary. Katherine was staying with her friend Jane Seymour when she fell in love with Jane’s 19-year-old brother, “Ned” Seymour, Earl of Hertford.
Ned’s mother warned him their affair was dangerous. Under the will of Henry VIII Katherine was Elizabeth’s heir. This is not, of course, how history remembers it. Mary Queen of Scots is the Stuart we recall as Elizabeth’s rival. But Henry VIII had demoted the Stuarts in favour of the Grey sisters. The eldest, Lady Jane Grey, was catapulted over the Tudor sisters, when she was left the throne by Henry’s son Edward VI. But less than two weeks after Edward’s death Queen Jane was overthrown and beheaded in 1554 aged 16. The danger for Elizabeth I was that if she failed to marry and have sons, and Katherine did, then Elizabeth, in turn, could be overthrown. The English Protestant elite had backed Jane Grey before her death, and they now wanted a queen who was not only Protestant, as Elizabeth was, but would also have a son as a future king. When Bloody Mary died in 1558, Queen Elizabeth knew nothing of Katherine’s love affair with Ned Seymour, but she made it plain she disliked the Grey girls and was determined neither Katherine, nor the youngest sister Lady Mary Grey, would ever be allowed to marry.
ALAMY Katherine Gray with her firstborn son in a miniature by Levina Teerlinc
Katherine defied the queen to marry Ned in secret with only his sister Jane Seymour, as witness. Remarkably, I found the details of what followed, down to the sexual positions of the wedding night, in original manuscripts.
Elizabeth put on a show of grief at Katherine’s death, but it was judged unconvincing Leanda de Lisle
The couple married in Ned’s bedroom at a house on the Thames. They briefly toasted their wedding, but Ned’s sister, “perceiving them ready to go to bed” then left. They made love on one side of the bed and then the other with Katherine naked save for a fashionable headdress. They got up briefly and then went back, to make love again, before dashing back to court to avoid being missed. Over the following months the couple met for sex in the Queen’s palaces and in Ned’s London house.
It wasn’t until Katherine was eight months pregnant that the Queen found out about their secret marriage. The couple was sent to the Tower, but the Queen’s fury could not prevent Katherine giving birth to a prince of a new Seymour royal dynasty. As Ned’s sister – the sole witness to the marriage – had died of typhoid, and the priest had vanished, Elizabeth had the Church of England decree the marriage had never taken place. Katherine’s son was made a bastard. Sympathetic warders in the Tower nevertheless allowed Ned to corridor creep to Katherine’s rooms on three occasions. Again manuscripts survive describing their love-making on the striped satin bed in her prison room. In 1563 Katherine gave birth in the Tower to a second son.
CHEQUERS TRUST Lady Mary Grey
A furious Elizabeth had the couple separated in far-flung country house prisons. In a unique letter, Katherine was frank about how much she missed their love-making. “I long to be merry with you, as I know you do with me, as we were when our sweet little boy was begotten in the Tower” she told Ned. “I wish you to be as happy as I was sad when you came to my door for the third time, and it was locked. Do you think I can forget what passed between us? No, I cannot. I remember it more often than you know. .. such is my boundless love for my sweet bedfellow, that I once lay beside with joyful heart and shall again”. Although Katherine pleaded with the Queen for her forgiveness she was kept apart from Ned and her elder son. A miniature of Katherine, painted at this time by the female court artist, Levina Teerlinc, remains the earliest known portrait of an English mother with her baby: a sad reminder for Katherine of all she had lost.
Natalie Dormer in pictures Thu, February 11, 2016 Natalie Dormer's best red carpet moments. Play slideshow Getty 1 of 28 Game of Thrones Star Natalie Dormer
The Virgin Elizabeth, eaten up by sexual jealously and fear of her rivals, even imprisoned the youngest sister, the tiny Lady Mary Grey, who married the huge guard in charge of palace security – a marriage to a commoner that ruled her out from ever becoming queen. She would not be released until her husband was dead. Katherine, meanwhile, never would lie beside her Ned again. In January 1568 Katherine’s warder asked for the royal doctor to help the despairing 28 year old. But Katherine said she had no wish to live. Instead she sent a message to Elizabeth begging her to, “be good to my children and.. to my Lord [Ned], for I know this my death will be heavy news to him”. She then asked her warder to send Ned a memento moriring, engraved with the words, “While I lived, yours”. Elizabeth put on a show of grief at Katherine’s death, but it was judged unconvincing. “She was afraid of her”, the Spanish ambassador noted. Ned was freed in 1571, still hoping his elder son would one day be King. But at 19 the boy fell in love with a commoner. Elizabeth gave this marriage her blessing knowing it would destroy the boy’s chances for the crown. Katherine’s younger son pre-deceased Elizabeth, dying in 1600, and the way was left clear for James Stuart, to succeed the in 1603.
GETTY The Execution of Lady Jane Grey in the Tower of London in 1553