Secrets of the Tudor Court Boxed Set (89 page)

Brooke, Elizabeth (1525–1565)

Elizabeth Brooke is sometimes confused with her aunt, Lady Wyatt, with whom she shared her name. This younger Elizabeth, however, is most likely to have been the “sister of Lord Cobham” to whom Henry VIII paid attention at a supper and banquet at court in January 1542, leading to speculation that he might marry her. Elizabeth was accounted one of the most beautiful women of her time. Late in the reign of Henry VIII, she captured the heart of Queen Kathryn’s brother, William Parr. For more on this fascinating woman, see the extended biography at my website, KateEmersonHistoricals.com.

Browne, John (d. 1540+?)

Edward Corbett’s servant, Browne was accused of treason right along with his master. There is a record of his attainder and his exemption from the general pardon, but not of his execution.

Carey, Catherine (1523?–1569)

As the daughter of Mary Boleyn, long Henry VIII’s mistress, Catherine may in fact have been the king’s child, but he never acknowledged her as such. Catherine came to court as a maid of honor to Anna of Cleves in January of 1540, but she married Sir Francis Knollys on April 26 of that
same year and gave up the post. They had fourteen children. Catherine returned to court when Queen Elizabeth took the throne.

Champernowne, Joan (Mistress Denny) (d. 1553)

Joan Champernowne came to court as a maid of honor to Catherine of Aragon and remained at court during the tenures of Henry VIII’s next five wives. Married to Anthony Denny, by whom she had at least ten children, she was called upon by King Henry VIII to take Anne Bassett as a guest in her house in Westminster so that Anne could enjoy the country air and take long walks. Joan was one of the ladies sent to greet Anna of Cleves upon her arrival. While serving Kathryn Parr, she was accused of sending aid to Anne Askew, who was later executed for heresy. Joan was an ardent Protestant, but nothing treasonable or heretical was ever proved against her. In May 1548, Princess Elizabeth and her household were sent to stay at Cheshunt with the Dennys. They remained there until autumn. Some accounts say Elizabeth’s governess, Katherine Champernowne Astley, was Joan’s younger sister. Others believe they were only distantly related. Joan was considered a great beauty.

Corbett, Edward (d. 1540+?)

Very little is known about the real Edward Corbett except that he was a gentleman servitor to Lord Lisle at Calais and frequently carried messages to Honor Lisle’s daughters in England and ran other errands for his master. He became close friends with Clement Philpott after the latter’s arrival in Calais in 1538 and was recruited by Sir Gregory Botolph to participate in a plot to overthrow Calais. His failure to report what Botolph suggested made him guilty of treason even though he did not actively aid the conspirators. He was arrested, questioned in Calais, then taken to England and imprisoned in the Tower. He was attainted and exempted from the general pardon but there is no record of his execution. He
simply disappears from history. He may have been one of the “others” executed at the same time as Clement Philpott. His relationship with Anne Bassett is my own invention, but it
could
have happened.

Cromwell, Thomas (1485?–1540)

Henry VIII’s chief advisor after the death of Cardinal Wolsey, Cromwell was the driving force behind the king’s marriage to Anna of Cleves. Henry’s displeasure with his new bride was undoubtedly what cost Cromwell his life. Cromwell created difficulties over money and property for Lord and Lady Lisle and was probably responsible for Lisle being implicated in the Botolph conspiracy, even though Lisle knew nothing about it before Philpott confided in him. Cromwell was arrested on June 10, 1540, and executed on the same day Henry VIII married Catherine Howard.

Culpepper, Thomas (d. 1541)

Described as “a beautiful youth,” Thomas Culpepper was at court as a page in 1535 and by the time Henry VIII married Catherine Howard, Thomas’s sixth cousin once removed, he was a groom of the privy chamber and had the unpleasant duty of dressing the ulcer on the king’s leg. Culpepper was high in favor at court as early as 1537, when Honor Lisle sent him the gift of a hawk in the hope he might use his influence with the king on her behalf. Whatever his relationship with the queen during the progress of 1541, it was foolish in the extreme to have met with her in private. He was executed on the charge of treason.

Denny, Anthony (1501–1549)

By 1536, Denny was a groom of the privy chamber to Henry VIII, yeoman of the wardrobe of robes, keeper of the royal palace at Westminster (Whitehall), and keeper of the privy purse. Later he was a gentleman of the privy chamber. He was one of the king’s most trusted servants and
the recipient of frequent grants. He had houses in Aldgate in London, where he was a neighbor of Hans Holbein the Younger, and in Westminster. It was to the latter that Anne Bassett came as Denny’s guest in October 1539. Denny was present at Kathryn Parr’s wedding to the king in 1543 and was knighted on September 30, 1544.

Prince Edward (1537–1553)

The baby prince’s mother, Jane Seymour, died of complications of childbirth when Edward was twelve days old. He was for the most part raised away from court. He succeeded his father in 1547.

Princess Elizabeth (1533–1603)

Elizabeth makes only a brief appearance here, at the christening of her baby brother. For most of the period of this novel, she was regarded as the king’s illegitimate daughter and therefore not in line to inherit the throne. She shared a household with her older half sister, Mary, for part of that time and succeeded Mary to the throne in 1558.

Grenville, Honor (Lady Lisle) (1494?–1566)

In 1515, Honor Grenville married Sir John Bassett and by him had three sons and four daughters. Her second husband was Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle and lord deputy of Calais. She was one of the “six beautiful ladies” who accompanied Anne Boleyn to France in 1532 and at least two of her daughters, Anne and Mary, were renowned for their looks. In 1540, when accusations of treason were made against Honor and her husband, in part because she continued to cling to the old ways in religion, she was placed under house arrest in Calais and held there until her husband’s death in the Tower of London in March 1542. Following her release, she retired to Tehidy in Cornwall. Rumor had her going mad while in captivity, but this is not supported by any reliable source.

Harris, Isabel or Elizabeth (Mistress Staynings) (d. 1543+)

Isabel had four children under the age of six by 1534, when her husband was sent to prison for debt. One of her children was named Honor, after Isabel’s aunt, Lady Lisle. Left in poverty and pregnant with her sixth child when her husband died in 1537, Isabel entered the service of Mary Arundell, Countess of Sussex, as a waiting gentlewoman. She was invited to join Lady Lisle’s household in Calais but declined. She may later have remarried, to a man named Thomas Gawdie.

Henry VIII (1491–1547)

King Henry was forty-six in 1537 and still in relatively good health, although he was already portly. He was over six feet tall and had introduced the square-cut beard into fashion a few years earlier. By 1543, he had lost his looks. His waist measured fifty inches and his chest forty-five. His beard was sparse and flecked with gray and his hair was thinning. He weighed over 250 pounds and sometimes wore a corset. He used a staff to walk and wore a felt slipper on the foot of his game leg. Rumors that he was impotent began as early as his marriage to Anne Boleyn. He may have suffered from syphilis, but his symptoms are also consistent with land scurvy, which is caused by poor diet. Henry died less than four years after marrying Kathryn Parr.

Herbert, William (1506?–1570)

A Welshman, Herbert was at court as a gentleman pensioner by 1526 but in 1527 he killed a man in a brawl and was not heard of again until he reappeared in court records as an esquire of the body to Henry VIII in 1535. He married Anne Parr in early 1538, shortly after Queen Jane Seymour’s death. After Kathryn Parr became queen, Herbert rose in favor and was created Earl of Pembroke in 1551.

Howard, Catherine (1521?–1542)

Raised by her father’s stepmother, the dowager Duchess of Norfolk, Catherine was allowed to run wild as a teenager. When she came to court as a maid of honor to Anna of Cleves, her vivaciousness had as much to do with attracting the king’s attention as her petite form and pretty face. Henry VIII fell in love, had his marriage to Anna annulled, and married Catherine on July 28, 1540. Eventually, however, Catherine’s past came to light. An investigation into former lovers also turned up Thomas Culpepper, who had been meeting with Catherine in private during the royal progress of 1541. Catherine was arrested and sent first to the former Syon Abbey and then to the Tower. On February 11, 1542, Parliament passed a law making it a crime for an unchaste woman to marry the king. Catherine was executed the next day.

Hungerford, Walter (1525?–1596)

Hungerford, whose father was given the title Lord Hungerford of Heytesbury in 1536, was a member of Lord Cromwell’s household by 1538. In 1540, however, both Cromwell and Lord Hungerford were attainted and executed. The charges against the latter included unnatural sexual acts. It is not clear where young Walter went at this point, although he would probably have become a royal ward. He could not marry or inherit until he was of age at twenty-one. He married Anne Bassett on June 11, 1554, at Richmond Palace. He was younger than she, but estimates differ on how many years separated them. After Anne’s death he remarried, but his second marriage was unhappy and ended in a scandalous separation.

Husee, John (1506?–1548)

Lord Lisle’s man of business for seven years, operating primarily in London, Husee was also a “gentleman of the King’s retinue at Calais.” His father was a vintner. He turned down the offer to become Lisle’s steward. He is well represented in
The Lisle Letters
but disappears from the
correspondence without explanation in March of 1540, just before the Botolph conspiracy came to light.

Hussey, Mary (d. 1545+)

Because of the treason of her father, Baron Hussey of Sleaford, Mary lost any hope of a good marriage. At the end of May 1539, she went to Calais to become a waiting gentlewoman to Honor Grenville, Lady Lisle. As a result, she was part of that household a year later when Lord and Lady Lisle were arrested and all their correspondence seized. Mary Hussey helped Mary Bassett destroy her love letters and appears to have remained with Lady Lisle during her imprisonment in Calais and been released with her after Lord Lisle’s death in March 1542. She later married and had children. Her sister, Elizabeth, was Lady Hungerford, unhappy second wife and later widow of Walter Hungerford’s father.

Jerningham, Elizabeth (before 1515–1558+)

A waiting gentlewoman to Anne Stanhope, Lady Beauchamp, until January 1537, Elizabeth became a maid of honor to Anne’s sister-in-law, Queen Jane Seymour, at that time. Later she was a maid of honor to Queen Mary. In this, she was following family tradition. Her mother, Mary Scrope, first as Lady Jerningham and later as Lady Kingston, was a member of Catherine of Aragon’s household from the beginning of the reign.

Kingston, William (before 1476–1540)

Constable of the Tower of London from 1524 until his death, Kingston was responsible for many high-ranking prisoners, including Queen Anne Boleyn and Lord Lisle. There is no record that he ever helped anyone escape from the Tower.

Knyvett, Edmund (1508–1551)

The king’s sergeant porter, a cousin of the Earl of Surrey, Knyvett married by 1527 and had four sons. In 1541 he almost lost his hand for striking another man within the precincts of the royal court. The king waited until the last moment to pardon him. Accounts of exactly when and where this happened differ. Later in life, Knyvett was involved in a scandal with a married countess.

Manners, Thomas (Earl of Rutland) (1492?–1543)

Lord chamberlain to Anna of Cleves, the Earl of Rutland was the one who convinced Anna to agree to annul her marriage to the king. Rutland’s second wife, Eleanor Paston, was a friend and correspondent of Honor Lisle’s and took Honor’s daughter Catherine Bassett into her household. Rutland’s primary residences were the former Benedictine nunnery of Holywell in Shoreditch, just outside London, and Belvoir Castle.

Princess Mary (1516–1558)

The only child of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon to survive infancy, Mary became queen on the death of her brother, Edward VI, in 1553. She restored Catholicism to England with disastrous results. Her marriage to Philip II of Spain produced no children, and upon her death she was succeeded by her younger half sister, Elizabeth. Queen Mary was so fond of Anne Bassett, one of her ladies, that Anne was married in the queen’s chapel at Richmond Palace and the wedding breakfast was held in the royal apartments. As a wedding gift, Mary granted the couple a goodly number of properties that had been confiscated by the Crown when Lord Hungerford was attainted.

Mewtas, Peter (d. 1562)

Peter Mewtas was a gentleman of the privy chamber to Henry VIII and
held other posts as well. In the spring of 1537 he was in France, nominally in attendance on Stephen Gardiner and Sir Francis Bryan, but he was really there to carry out King Henry’s orders to kidnap and murder Cardinal Pole. This plot failed. Later that year, Mewtas married Jane Astley, one of the queen’s maids of honor. They had a house beside Our Lady of Barking in Tower Street, where Anne Bassett was their guest in 1539. Mewtas was knighted in 1544.

Norris, Mary (d. 1570)

The daughter of Henry Norris, who was accused of being one of Queen Anne Boleyn’s lovers and was executed on that charge, Mary was a maid of honor during the tenure of Anna of Cleves and probably during that of Jane Seymour. She may also have been a maid of honor to Catherine Howard. She married Sir George Carew, admiral of the Fleet, and was with King Henry at Southsea Castle on the day in 1545 when the
Mary Rose
sank. She watched in horror as her husband and hundreds of others drowned. Mary’s second husband was Sir Arthur Champernowne of Dartington.