The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Tragedy by Leanda de Lisle

Author:Leanda de Lisle [Lisle, Leanda de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, General, Women, Historical
ISBN: 9780345516688
Google: ndfJm1Wr3TQC
Amazon: B002RLBKUY
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2009-10-12T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVIII A Knot of Secret Might

When Katherine and Hertford discovered the Queen was planning to leave Whitehall for a few days’ hunting, they put their plans into place. Katherine claimed her face was swollen with toothache and was given permission to remain behind with Jane Seymour for companionship. Hertford left court that night, suggesting they meet at his house at Cannon Row as soon as they could get away the next day.

Hertford was up at seven the following morning, already anticipating Katherine’s arrival. In an effort to keep calm he read and went for a walk. Meanwhile his Groom of the Great Chamber, Christopher Barnaby, made up his bed. About an hour later his second groom, John Jenkin, arrived from Whitehall carrying the news that Elizabeth had left for Eltham. Hertford asked Jenkin to tell the other servants to avoid the Great Chamber. As the minutes ticked by, however, Hertford decided it would be best to get most of the servants out of the house altogether. He called his Gentleman Usher, John Fortescue, and told him that the servants should have a free day and could leave the house to carry out whatever business they had.1

Katherine and Jane Seymour, meanwhile, left Whitehall ‘by the stairs at the orchard in the palace’, and walked along the sands on the riverbank to Cannon Row.2 It was a winter’s morning, between Halloween and Christmas, and the breeze from the Thames was bitter.3 Jenkin saw them arrive at the house from the direction of the Watergate between nine and ten. He dashed into the kitchen to tell the cook, William Powell, who ogled at the women as they passed the kitchen door. Powell had noticed Katherine at the house a couple of times before. The senior groom, Barnaby, bumped into them as he came down the stairs from the earl’s Great Chamber. Jane greeted him by name and asked him where he was going. ‘The earl’s business,’ he replied hurriedly. Hertford had asked him to deliver a message to a goldsmith. He was, perhaps, the craftsman from whom Hertford had commissioned Katherine’s wedding ring. Hertford had designed it with five gold links, each inscribed with the line of a verse he had composed:

As circles five, by art compact, show but one ring in sight, So trust unites faithful minds, with knot of secret might, Whose force to break but greedy death, no wight* possesses power As time and sequels well shall prove, my ring can say no more.4

Hertford greeted his sister Jane and Katherine with warm embraces. Jane, however, ‘not tarrying half of quarter of an hour’, left quickly to get the priest.5 It appears Hertford had arranged for him to wait nearby. Left alone Hertford and Katherine kissed and exchanged sweet nothings, ‘such as passes between folk that intend as they did’.6 But Jane Seymour soon returned with the priest - a short, middleaged man with fair skin and an auburn beard. His long black gown and white collar suggested he was

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