Bastard Prince (34 page)

Given the delay in recognising Mary's entitlement, it may have been difficult to provide for her out of Richmond's former lands. In the four years since Richmond's death, large parts of his holdings had already been re-granted, although it is difficult to avoid the other conclusion: that possessing of such a convenient wealth of land allowed the king to appear to be bountiful, without actually feeling the pinch. Certainly, the lump sum of £90 that she was given ‘in reward' in February 1539 probably represented all that he deigned to give her as arrears.

Even though the question of her jointure, and by association her status, appeared to have been settled, Mary's life did not immediately fall into place. She was, no doubt, gratified to be included in the reception for the king's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. In all the accounts of the preparations and at the reception itself she was ranked next in honour to the king's niece, Margaret Douglas. However, plans afoot to include her in the household came to nothing when Anne arrived in England with a clutch of her own attendants.

Despite the unspecified amount of plate and jewels from her husband's household, these lean years had been difficult for Mary, nor is it certain how generous her father had been. To take on the burden of Mary's expenses might be seen as an acknowledgement that she was his responsibility as his daughter, rather than the king's charge as dowager Duchess of Richmond and a relict of the Crown. In April 1537 Norfolk wrote to Cromwell about ‘the defraying of my daughters charges' and thanked him for his ‘pains taken therein', but whether this resulted in any hard cash is less certain. It was later reported that Mary's ‘coffers and chambers [are] so bare as your Majesty would hardly think. Her jewels, such as she had, sold, or lent to gage [pawned], to pay her debts'. The prospect of a bright new future at court, when her cousin Catherine Howard became the king's fifth wife, must have seemed her salvation.

The king's distaste for Anne of Cleves, who ‘had breasts so slack and other parts of her body in such sort that [he] somewhat suspected her virginity', is well documented, as is his growing attraction for Catherine Howard, his ‘rose without a thorn', whom he believed to be innocent and pure. Whatever Anne of Cleves' apparent faults, Henry can hardly have chosen a more unsuitable replacement. Even if Norfolk was unaware of the full extent of his niece's sexual experience, he would have known of her giddy temperament, rather too much like her feckless father to do him any political good.
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This in itself tends to suggest that it was Henry, rather than Norfolk, who first looked on Catherine as a suitable bride. Catherine's stepgrandmother, the dowager Duchess of Norfolk, later confirmed that Henry had taken a fancy to her ‘the first time that ever he saw her'.

Whatever the possible pitfalls ahead – and no one could have expected that Catherine would be stupid enough to continue her wanton behaviour once she was queen – the opportunity was too good to waste, especially since the failure of the Cleves marriage also gave Norfolk the excuse to bring down Thomas Cromwell. Once again Henry needed a scapegoat and the architect of this distasteful union was an obvious choice. Norfolk helped destroy his credit with the king and Henry did the rest. The minister was even denied the right of a trial and was sentenced to death by Act of Attainder, a novel form of control that he himself had recently suggested to the king. At last it seemed that the Howards were firmly back in the ascendant. Yet even as Mary enjoyed her time in the new queen's household, perhaps rather to the chagrin of the Earl of Rutland, who lost to her at cards, one wonders how many of the Howards knew that their new ascendancy was a gamble.

When Catherine's infidelity came to light after only eighteen months of marriage, the queen's household was immediately broken up. Largely thanks to Norfolk's fancy footwork, reminding Henry that ‘a great part of this matter is come to light by my declaration to your Majesty, according to my bounden duty', he and his immediate family emerged unscathed. In November 1541, when Margaret Douglas, who had been residing in disgrace at the former convent of Syon after her romance with Sir Charles Howard, brother of the queen, was summarily ordered to remove to Kenninghall in order to make room for the erstwhile queen, Mary was politely requested to accompany her ‘if my lord her father and she be so contented'. As she returned to Norfolk, Mary must have taken some pleasure in having the company and society of her friend. Yet as she reached her twenty-fourth birthday, the dowager duchess must have wondered if her prospects would ever live up to the glittering promise of her girlhood.

Glimpses of Mary's life at Kenninghall do not show her living in obscurity or isolation. Correspondence from court passed to and fro, she continued to send the king his New Year gift and he in his turn did not completely forget her. In 1544, when he was anxious to raise funds to further his military successes in France, Mary was one of those dowager ladies earmarked to be applied to for a loan. Henry's sixth wife, Katherine Parr, was rather more gracious in her remembrance, sending a present of a stag from Woking Park. That Mary entertained company is evident in February 1545, when she sought a dispensation for herself and her guests to eat meat during Lent and at other prohibited times. She was also occasionally to be found back at court. In 1546, for example, she was present for the visit of the French ambassadors. But this was a far cry from the sort of life that a young woman of her age and status might feel she had a right to expect. Most significantly, she still did not have a husband, a household or children of her own.

Now that Mary had been granted what was, to all intents and purposes, her jointure, Norfolk made another attempt to marry her off to Sir Thomas Seymour. This time Norfolk also planned to marry his grandchildren, the offspring of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and his brother Thomas Howard, to Edward Seymour's sons and daughter, with the idea that the connection between the two families would grow alongside the future King Edward. It was a shrewd political move. Yet, as in the summer of 1538, it seems that the Duke of Norfolk's carefully constructed designs to further the family fortunes were once more destined to fall foul of his own children.

That Surrey allowed his pride to override political good sense and openly objected to his children being matched with a Seymour is not exactly surprising. For Mary to let a chance of matrimony slip through her fingers for a second time demands more explanation. It is easy to lay the blame at Surrey's feet, providing a convenient excuse for her later conduct. Yet it was unusual for a woman to remain unmarried, when all her hopes of wealth, security and status were bound up in the prospect of husband and children. Thomas Seymour was distinctly eligible, with excellent prospects of advancement, and many women in Mary's circumstances might have been grateful for such a catch.

Instead, Mary was no keener to marry Thomas Seymour now than she had been in 1538. Sir Garwen Carew, a courtier and contemporary, confirmed ‘her fantasy [fancy] would not serve to marry with him'. Perhaps she felt she was marrying beneath her. Perhaps she saw through the charming and handsome exterior to the man whose ambition was rather greater than his abilities. Whatever her reasons, although Mary acknowledged that her father was keen to promote the alliance, she was clear about her own sentiments and would not have him. As a result, the proposal was cause for a furious argument between Mary and her brother. In a heated exchange Surrey suggested she should not refuse the marriage straight away, but use this opportunity to get closer to the king. If Henry spent enough time with her perhaps he ‘should take such a fantasy unto you that you shall be able to govern like unto Madame d'Éstampes'. Since the Duchess d'Étampes was the mistress of Francis I, Mary was predictably outraged. Because of her marriage to Richmond, in the eyes of the law and the Church, that would have been like sleeping with her own father. Even for the sake of her family she would not stoop to that, rather she wished ‘all they should perish, and she would cut her own throat rather than she would consent to such a villainy'.

The idea that a man of Surrey's proud bearing seriously intended such a thing is plainly ludicrous. Also, if the exchange had been conducted in the full view of onlookers then it is amazing that such a gossip-worthy event was not more widely reported at the time. When Hugh Ellis, a servant of the Howards, was later asked whether he was aware of Surrey's plan to install his sister as the king's mistress, he had heard nothing about it. Mary herself certainly did not intend the episode to become public knowledge when she confided in Sir Garwen Carew.
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This does not mean that the incident did not take place; simply that Surrey did not expose his sister to public humiliation. Unfortunately, if the row was conducted in private, Surrey may well have allowed his disgust at the whole concept of an alliance with the Seymours to be expressed rather more graphically than was prudent and Mary was perhaps too upset and indignant to see his disgust and sarcasm for what it was.

Whatever Surrey's intentions, his words and actions were ammunition for his enemies. In 1544 the king had made it clear that in the case of a minority, membership of Edward's Regency Council would be dictated by his last will. If those who were keen for greater reforms in religion were to triumph, then religious conservatives like Norfolk had to go. Another leading conservative, Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, was easily discredited when he compounded a string of mistakes, including a failed attempt to secure the downfall of Katherine Parr, by demurring over an exchange of lands with the king. The need to move against Norfolk was more pressing, but proved more difficult. The Earl of Surrey was an easier target. The son's proud bearing and outspoken attitude would be the ideal means by which to drag down his father.

At first it seemed all would go well. Some slanderous words and an unsuccessful military offensive in Boulogne were slender but sufficient grounds for Surrey's arrest. Norfolk was summoned to London and promptly arrested in his turn. With both men securely in the Tower the ground shifted. Now all the rumours agreed that the two men were being detained under the far more serious charge that during the king's recent illness they had conspired to seize control of Prince Edward. This was widely reported and it was even said that Surrey had already confessed. The ground was prepared for a joint execution, even as far as sounding out the likely reaction of the King of France. Yet Surrey did not die for this, nor for the rumours that the Howards had attempted to restore the pope. Surrey did not even die for the reasons rehearsed at his trial. Surrey died because his enemies willed it.

Mary's actions helped seal her brother's fate. Not only would she seem prepared to cooperate in Surrey's downfall, but she would seem willing, even eager, to provide details which would send him to the scaffold. A bitter woman, who had her mother's vindictive temper and her father's sense of self-preservation to encourage her to betray and destroy her own family, has long been the historically accepted face of the Duchess of Richmond. Yet this same woman would tirelessly petition for her father's comfort, innocence and release and raise her brother's children as if they were her own, at considerable personal expense. Also, if she was supposed to be the willing accomplice of her family's enemies then someone had not tutored her very well.

As soon as Norfolk and Surrey were safely under arrest, the king's commissioners sped at once to Kenninghall. They arrived at daybreak to find Mary had only just risen and was not ready to receive them. They broke the news of her father's and brother's confinement to a woman ‘sore perplexed, trembling, and like to fall down'. On her knees Mary declared that she would conceal nothing and this has often been taken as evidence of complicity. Yet since she knew her father to be a true and faithful subject of the king, what did she have to hide? As the commissioners went about their business, cataloguing the family goods in preparation for their seizure by the crown, Mary must have seen how grave the danger was. It seems that she hoped to follow her father's example that obedience and submission was the best route to being graciously forgiven. From the outset the king's own officers were of the opinion that her ‘frank disposition' was in the hope of obtaining the king's mercy.

The evidence Mary gave was not an outpouring of bile, but her responses to a series of questions put to her by the king's commissioners. However, as Norfolk's opponents scrabbled to find something that would embroil him in his son's misfortunes, Mary had an entirely different agenda. Rather wearily her interrogators reported:

Admittedly, in her desire to help her father, Mary risked her brother's liberty and perhaps even his reputation, but not his life. Surrey's dislike of the new nobility, and in particular the Seymours, was well known. Not even Norfolk's enemies could find a way to use her complaints that Surrey had dissuaded her from going too far in reading the scriptures. Many of her other points descended into reports of Surrey's posturing and name-calling. There was nothing here to bring her brother to the block.

The idea that Surrey had encouraged his sister to become the king's mistress initially seemed more promising. To seek such influence hinted at dangerous ambition. The possibilities were spelt out with certain passages marked in Henry's own hand, with an unwitting Norfolk, who had not even been present at the time of the argument, being implicated in his son's designs: