Elizabeth's Women by Tracy Borman

Author:Tracy Borman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Non-fiction, Biography, History
ISBN: 9780553907865
Publisher: Vintage Digital
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Cousins

From the moment she took the crown, Elizabeth had been faced with the threat of rival claimants. Given her mother’s history and the subsequent confirmations of her own illegitimacy, this was inevitable. Her religion provided a further excuse for the Catholic powers both within England and across Europe to try to supplant this heretical queen with a candidate of their own. Ironically, given the prejudices against female rule that had been demonstrated during Mary’s reign, all the leading contenders for the English throne were women. Descended from Henry VIII’s sisters, they were also cousins of the new queen. Principal among them was Mary Stuart, daughter of Mary of Guise and James V of Scotland, who was the son of Henry VIII’s elder sister, Margaret Tudor. James’s sister, Lady Margaret Douglas, was another potential claimant. But Henry had excluded this branch of his family from inheriting the throne, so it was the descendants of his younger sister, Mary, who at first seemed to pose more of a threat. Elizabeth had already witnessed an attempt to place a member of this latter branch upon the throne and thus usurp the rightful order of succession. That member had been Lady Jane Grey, the “Nine Days Queen.” Her surviving sisters were Katherine and Mary.

The Grey sisters were the daughters of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, but their royal blood came from their mother, Frances Brandon, who was the eldest daughter of Henry VIII’s sister, Mary Tudor. Born around 1540, Katherine was eighteen years old when Elizabeth became queen. Her sister Mary was five years younger. Katherine and Mary’s childhood had not been a happy one. Raised at Bradgate Hall in Leicestershire, they had been bullied and beaten by their ambitious parents, who saw them as little more than a commodity in their political schemes. Unlike their elder sister, Jane, neither Katherine nor Mary had sought solace in learning, and they had failed to impress Roger Ascham during his visit to Bradgate in 1550. But Katherine at least had beauty to recommend her, and was described by one historian as a “pretty featherbrain.”1

Katherine’s good looks and royal blood made her a desirable bride from a young age. As part of his plans to seize power after Edward VI’s death, the Duke of Northumberland arranged her marriage to Henry Herbert, the eldest son of his ally, William Herbert, first Earl of Pembroke.2 Meanwhile, the eight-year-old Mary was betrothed to her cousin Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, whose father was also a member of the Duke of Northumberland’s faction at court.

On May 21, 1553, at the age of just thirteen, Katherine was married to Henry Herbert on the same day that her sister Jane married Guilford Dudley. The ceremony took place at the Duke of Northumberland’s house and was “celebrated with great magnificence and feasting.”3 Katherine’s marriage was not consummated4—a convenient fact that enabled Pembroke to have it dissolved when Northumberland’s plot failed and Mary Tudor ascended the throne. Her future now looked bleak, as did that of her younger sister.

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