The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: The tragedy of Mary, Katherine and Lady Jane Grey. Leanda Lisle de

was being sought out as a patron by such figures as Michel Angelo Florio, the first pastor of the Stranger’s Church for religious exiles in London, and was looked up to and admired by pious, female intellectuals, as Catherine Parr had once been.¹

      An anonymous letter in Greek written to Jane at about this time, and believed to be from Sir William Cecil’s wife, Mildred Cooke, enclosed with it a gift. It was a work by Basil the Great, the fourthcentury Bishop of Caesarea, whom Lady Cecil had translated and with whose greatness Jane was now compared. ‘My most dear and noble Lady,’ the letter began. Basil the Great had excelled ‘all the bishops of his time both in the greatness of his birth, the extent of his erudition, and the glowing zeal of his holiness’; yet Jane was his match, ‘worthy both in consideration of your noble birth, and on account of your learning and holiness’. The gift of this book was only ‘ink and paper’, but it was expected that the profit Jane would gain from it would be more ‘valuable than gold and precious stones’.² The phrase would stick in Jane’s mind. It referred to the Old Testament axiom that wisdom was worth more than rubies, and this was something she passionately believed to be true.³ Jane remained in regular correspondence with the theologian and pastor Heinrich Bullinger, and sent his wife gifts, including gloves and a ring. But she was also widening her circle of contacts in Europe. Jane was keen particularly for Bullinger to introduce her to Theodore Biblander, who had translated the Koran, as well as being a famous scholar of Hebrew. It was said later that she had even begun to learn Arabic.⁴

      Jane hoped her pretty sister Katherine would follow in her footsteps, not just in the study of Greek, but also in piety. Katherine was still not yet showing many signs of having a serious nature, and little Mary had not yet begun to study classical languages, but both were very young, and much could be expected of them in the future.

      Watching, meanwhile, as Jane continued to step confidently forward on the public stage, her father surely hoped that it would now not be long before his ambitions for her to be a Queen consort were fulfilled. Edward, like Jane, was maturing fast. The King had been attending Council meetings since August 1551 and much was being made of the fact that he had passed his fourteenth birthday. It was at this age that his late cousin, James V of Scotland, had come into his majority and Edward had insisted his orders no longer needed to be co-signed by the full Council. Such self-assurance gave the regime confidence in facing down the charge that it was illegal to make changes to the national religion during his minority. Edward was ‘no poor child, but a manifest Solomon in Princely wisdom’, trumpeted the polemicist John Bale, as a radically revised Prayer Book was prepared for publication.⁵ This book was everything Harry Suffolk hoped for.

      Strongly influenced by Bullinger and other Swiss reformers, the new Prayer Book was to sweep away all the half measures of 1549, damning the ‘fables’ of the Mass and offering a reshaped funeral service that removed all prayers for the ‘faithful departed’. The sense of a connection between the living and the dead, central to medieval religion, was finished. One of the Grey sisters’ family chaplains, a man called Robert Skinner, was also working with their friend Cecil on a new statement of doctrine, forty-two articles of faith that would take the English Church closer to the Swiss model.⁶ But while the revolution continued at brisk pace, there were growing divisions within its ranks. Archbishop Cranmer would never forgive Northumberland for the execution of the ‘Godly Duke’ of Somerset and was concerned by the increasing radicalism on the Privy Council, led by Harry Suffolk, Parr of Northampton and Northumberland. Cranmer refused to abolish kneeling for communion in the new Prayer Book and was furious when the Council allowed a final coda, a ‘black rubric’, inspired by the radical John Knox, that explained kneeling was permitted only to add dignity to the service.

      Meanwhile, others within the elite had more secular concerns. The King’s coffers were empty, and there were many who were envious and afraid of the influence Northumberland wielded over Edward. Having engaged the King’s trust with his enthusiastic support for religious reform, Northumberland had sealed it by maintaining a close relationship with the boy. He had become a father figure: according to a servant of the French ambassador, the Sieur de Boisdauphin, Edward revered Northumberland almost as if he were the older man’s subject, rather than the other way round. Periodically, there were even accusations that Northumberland wished to be King himself. Only one man stood out as a potential rival to Northumberland’s position, his fellow soldier-politician, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, and the Welshman’s position at court was looking increasingly shaky.

      Pembroke had benefited hugely from his marriage to Anne Parr, sister of the late Queen dowager, Catherine. It had made him a member of Edward’s extended family, while Northumberland remained an outsider. But when Anne Parr died in February 1552, Northumberland moved quickly to take advantage of Pembroke’s weakened position. Within two months Pembroke had been sacked from his role as Master of the Horse, which had given him close access to Edward, and replaced with Northumberland’s elder son, the young Earl of Warwick. There is some evidence that Pembroke intended to retrieve his position by marrying his son Henry, Lord Herbert to Katherine Grey. His wife had been an old friend of Frances, dating back to their days in Catherine Parr’s Privy Chamber, and a betrothal may have been discussed, or even arranged, before she died.⁷ In any event, the next logical move for Northumberland was to secure a royal relative of his own.

      Northumberland’s elder three children (all sons) were married. But his fourth son, Lord Guildford Dudley, was not. A later story that he was his mother’s favourite is a myth,⁸ but Guildford was a handsome youth of seventeen, tall and fair-haired - personal attributes that were all by the way. In great families it was the eldest son who was important, followed by his sisters, who were given dowries and expected to form great alliances. Younger sons were worth no more than ‘what the cat left on the malt heap’. Guildford Dudley’s elder brother, Lord Robert Dudley, the future Earl of Leicester, had married the daughter of a Norfolk squire because, as a third son, only a respectable union was expected of him. Guildford was even further down the pecking order; but nevertheless, Northumberland had a very ambitious marriage in mind for him.

      Jane’s father would never have agreed to her marrying Guildford. But there was another royal, who like Jane was an heiress of marriageable and childbearing age. The bride Northumberland had in mind was the fifteen-year-old Margaret Clifford, daughter of Frances’s late sister, Eleanor. She was, like the Grey sisters, a descendant of Henry VII through their mutual grandmother, Mary Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk. She was also the heir to vast estates in the north, where Northumberland hoped to become a great magnate. Unsurprisingly, Margaret’s father, the Earl of Cumberland, had no wish to marry his daughter to a fourth son and made a series of excuses as to why it was not possible. But Northumberland then asked the King to intervene. It was a mark of just how much influence he had with Edward that while he was with the army attending to disorders in the Northern Marches, the King was busy acting as his marriage broker.

      On 4th July, Edward sent an extraordinary letter to Cumberland ‘desiring him to grow to some good end forthwith in the matter of marriage between the Lord Guildford and his daughter; with licence to the said earl and all others that shall travail therein to do their best for conducement of it’.⁹