Bastard Prince (35 page)

Even this was not Mary's fault. Rather than having been volunteered by her, the exchange had already been reported to the king's commissioners by her supposed confidant, Sir Garwen Carew. In any case, this also proved to be a dead end. First the article was watered down to ask whether Surrey had ever tried to use ‘any person' to influence the king. Then, when it seemed Norfolk could not be linked to this particular ploy, this line of investigation was quietly abandoned.

However, in the midst of Mary's deposition, the king's officers touched on the question of Surrey's coat-of-arms. Evidence given by a former Howard retainer, Sir Robert Southwell, had suggested that Surrey had made changes which indicated a right to bear the arms of England. Tantamount to asserting a claim to the throne, Surrey's actions appeared to encourage comparison with his maternal grandfather, the Duke of Buckingham, who had been executed for his dynastic ambition in 1521. With fairly blatant foolishness Surrey insisted on including the Stafford arms in his shield, which in his father's case were more prudently represented by a blank quarter. It was dangerous territory. As other witnesses eagerly ‘substantiated' the claims,
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it seems that there was a growing conspiracy to bring Surrey down on this point, in the face of a dearth of other usable evidence.

When the king's commissioners eagerly addressed this issue with the Duchess of Richmond, they were obviously hoping for something of substance. Instead, Mary's answers were either vague – ‘she thought her brother had more than seven rolls' – or easily proven to be mistaken. For example, the crown ‘to her judgment much like a close crown' was not the crown of England at all, but the crown of Scotland, which had been included in the Howard's arms to mark her paternal grandfather's victory over James IV of Scotland at the battle of Flodden in 1513.
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The daughter of a duke, especially one as jealous of her status as Mary, might be expected to be more knowledgeable about her own family crests. Mary was not a foolish woman. Unlike Bess Holland, who sought to save herself by reporting what was convenient, Mary successfully managed the semblance of cooperation, without disclosing any evidence that was ultimately fit to be used.

Mary's first objective was not to save herself, but to clear her father, whom she correctly identified as the real target. However, this did not mean she was eager to speed her brother to the scaffold. Two siblings who were close in age, who boasted similar acerbic temperaments but very diverse viewpoints, cannot always be expected to get along. Commenting on Surrey's plot to make Mary the king's mistress, Hugh Ellis had declared he had never seen them ‘so great together to wish her so good a turn'. Yet in protesting her father's innocence she had also admitted that ‘nature constrained her . . . to desire the well doing of his son, her natural brother'. Certainly, Mary thought well enough of her brother to make him the steward of her lands. Perhaps she expected that if her father was cleared her brother would also be released. If not, she was also well aware that he had been in trouble with king before and had always escaped lightly. Perhaps she hoped Henry's affection would be enough to shield her brother from real harm.

In view of the forces closing about him, it is perhaps a little unkind to judge that if anyone was responsible for his downfall it was Surrey himself. His legal right to bear any sort of arms was less at issue than his possible intentions and his arrogant bearing. Belatedly, Surrey seems to have realised that it might be wise to rein in his regal pretensions. A hastily penned note to Hugh Ellis made a significant change to his magnificent portrait of imperial imagery and heraldic designs. The painter was ‘to leave out the tablet where my lord of Richmond's picture should stand'. Following his father's more prudent example in displaying the family's blood relationship to Edward III through the Stafford line, the tablet was now to be daubed over with black paint. Yet, in truth it seems nothing now could save the House of Howard.

In the end, despite all the evidence collected against him, Surrey was indicted on the single and decidedly shaky charge of quartering his arms incorrectly. The grounds for the attainder of the Duke of Norfolk were even weaker, lacking any real semblance of treason. However, even Norfolk's well-trusted expedient of throwing himself on the king's mercy and confessing ‘my crime no less than high treason and although I do not deserve it, humbly beg his Highness to have pity upon me' was not enough this time to save him or his son from the full rigour of the law. Surrey was duly executed on 21 January 1547. At least one contemporary also believed Norfolk had been secretly beheaded in the Tower. In truth, only Henry's own death saved Norfolk from the block. Yet his attainder and imprisonment was apparently enough. It terms of political influence the House of Howard now seemed a spent force.

Mary herself escaped relatively unscathed, with her lands and most of her personal goods untouched. However, she had faced no charges and, more importantly, she was no threat. Alone among her family she had embraced the new order in religion. Her support for Protestant preachers was enthusiastic, defending men like John Huntingdon as of ‘such sort as I dare take upon me to answer that nothing shall pass from him contrary to the King's majesty's proceedings'. Yet she did not forget her family. She, and rather surprisingly her mother, were given permission to visit the duke ‘at times and with train convenient'. However, Mary was a lone woman with limited resources and her repeated efforts to secure her father's release were largely ineffective. Her repeated pleas ‘for license for her father to write to the King's Majesty for mercy' fell on deaf ears.

While she herself was still welcome at court, in November 1551, being part of the reception for the dowager Queen of Scotland, Mary of Guise, it was plainly on the government's own terms. Mary had to tread carefully. At any time the full force of her father's attainder might be applied. Rumours circulated of his death. Mary's difficulties did not stem from lack of interest or effort. She simply did not have the leverage to back up her requests.

In the circumstances, it is particularly surprising that Mary did not remarry. With her father imprisoned in the Tower and her younger brother Thomas too inexperienced to take his place as head of the family, a husband would have been a useful asset. That she did not, may not have been entirely of her own choice. With her brother executed and her father still liable to be so, her prospects were not entirely good. Far from being an auspicious alliance, even to show interest might invite suspicion. Norfolk would be somewhat handicapped in arranging a match from the confines of the Tower, and in the light of all his previous concerns about suitors, finding a fitting candidate may have been difficult. That Mary herself eschewed marriage is also possible. The idea that she still grieved for Richmond seems improbable, in the light of their limited acquaintance. However, other factors, such as the dangers of childbirth or the loss of her personal freedom, may have influenced her choice. Any one of these reasons would be sufficient to forestall serious negotiations, but none of them represented Mary's greatest disadvantage.

For a duchess, Mary was not a particularly wealthy woman. In the subsidies of Edward VI's reign her goods were valued at £200. At the same time a baroness was also assessed at £200 in goods.
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Kenninghall and other accustomed residences had been lost to her because of her father's attainder. Much of the Howard property had already been re-granted to loyal councillors and Kenninghall, Framlingham and other interests in East Anglia were passed to Mary Tudor. Out of her own lands the Duchess of Richmond had to find the money to pay her debts. The annuity of £20 she granted to Bess Holland was perhaps intended to repay money lent during her time of trouble.

Mary does seem to have struggled to make ends meet. In the last subsidy of Henry VIII her lands were assessed at £626 13
s
4
d
, almost £120 less than the settlement allowed to her by Henry in 1540. Several properties in London and elsewhere were sold off. In July 1546, the Goat Inn in the Strand fetched £80. Other properties were leased or rented out. In the circumstances, the lands worth £5 6
s
8
d
, which Edward VI granted to her in August 1552, seem little more than a gesture. Worst of all, Mary's interest in her lands were strictly for the term of her life only. Any fortune-hunting husband would quickly appreciate that she was not a sound matrimonial investment.

To add to her financial burden, Mary's costs and charges now had to cover her nieces and nephews as well. When it had first been decided to remove Surrey's children from their mother's care, the eldest son, Thomas Howard, had been placed with Sir John Williams, the treasurer of the Court of Augmentations, and his brother and sisters with Lord Wentworth. However, this arrangement did not last long and soon all five children, two sons and three daughters and their cousin Charles Howard, were placed in Mary's care. She took her duties seriously, engaging John Foxe, later the author of the
Book of Martyrs
and already a Protestant preacher of some note, to be their tutor. However, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that King Edward's satisfaction that he knew ‘no better place for their virtuous education' was basically derived from the fact that this was by far the cheapest option.

Finance was clearly an issue; several times Mary applied to the king for some assistance with the children's upkeep. After considerable delay she finally secured an annuity of £100 a year. Although Mary has rather unfairly earned the enmity of Howard biographers by presuming to raise the heirs of the House of Howard in the reformed faith, she did give the children some semblance of a normal life. No longer separated from each other or in the hands of strangers, after much disturbance came stability. The arrangement seems to have been successful. Even when Thomas Howard had succeeded to his grandfather's dukedom of Norfolk and the eldest girl was shortly to be married to Henry, Lord Berkley, the suggestion that the Countess of Surrey might be awarded the custody of her remaining daughters was not acted upon. The girls stayed with Mary.

With the accession of Mary Tudor in July 1553, Norfolk was at once released from the Tower. He recovered his office as Earl Marshal and was appointed president of the new queen's council. Matters were put in hand for the reversal of his attainder and the recovery of his lands. Most of his family shared in the triumph. Even the estranged Duchess of Norfolk, Elizabeth Stafford, was on hand to see her husband released. Mary's nephew, Thomas Howard, assumed his father's title of Earl of Surrey, and his brother, sisters and mother were summoned to court for the celebrations of the new reign. Only Mary, Duchess of Richmond, was not invited.

Unlike Norfolk, who could at least take refuge in his claim that his niece had never liked him, Mary had been close to Anne Boleyn. John Foxe would recall the Duchess of Richmond as being ‘one of the chief and principal of her waiting maids about her'. This alone was hardly likely to endear her to Mary Tudor. For her part, the new queen's recent possession of Kenninghall and many of the Howard treasures might well rankle with the duchess, especially since the queen had also enjoyed several valuable pieces of plate from Richmond's estate which might have eased Mary's path in her penury. Even putting aside the major question of religion (and the queen would not have done that lightly) it is doubtful that these two very different women would ever have been friends. Although the Duchess of Richmond seems to have enjoyed a warm friendship with Margaret Douglas, enough to be her confidante and share tastes in poetry and gossip, the only evidence of any personal contact between Mary and the new queen is a single entry in Mary Tudor's privy purse expenses when the Yeoman of the Cellar to ‘my Lady of Richmond' was given 8
s
in reward, presumably for bringing some message or gift. While Mary continued to prefer the reformed faith, even a semblance of cordiality was impossible.

Perhaps, rather than renounce her religious beliefs, Mary chose to remain in discreet retirement. Her retreat into seclusion was perhaps reinforced by her grief over her father's death just over a year later in August 1554. If her own actions did not demonstrate the level of affection and esteem in which she held her father, then the terms of his will were testament to his fondness and admiration for her as he repaid her family loyalty with the gift of £500:

Perhaps her grief also contributed to her own decline. Not long after this her own health must have been giving cause for concern. By 19 January 1556 she was dead, as a grant to William Cordell clearly described her as the late Duchess of Richmond and Somerset.
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She was buried alongside her husband in a magnificent white clunch marble tomb. Intricately decorated in the French style, with fluted pillars, ornamented with a frieze of Old Testament scenes and the armorial bearings of the duke and duchess, it stood as a testament to their joint, unfulfilled potential. Despite its evident grandeur, the tomb is unfinished, lacking not only the traditional effigies of the deceased, but any trace of colour. If this was the tomb that Norfolk had originally commissioned to lie in Thetford Priory, its fortunes had been interrupted by far more than the arrival of a legitimate prince.

The dissolution of Thetford Priory in 1540 had prompted Norfolk to seek a more suitable resting-place for his family. He had decided on St Michael's parish church, which still stands in the shadow of Framlingham Castle in Suffolk. However, it was felt that the chancel needed extensive remodelling to accommodate the Howard family tombs in appropriate splendour. Building was duly begun, only to be abruptly curtailed when Norfolk was arrested. His attainder left the churchwardens scrabbling around for funds to make good the work in progress. After his release Norfolk was keen to rehabilitate his family's honour by every possible means. Not only was the building work at Framlingham resurrected, but it seems Norfolk commissioned completely new tombs, for himself, his father, Richmond and Surrey.