The Sisters of Lady Jane Grey and Their Wicked Grandfather by Richard Davey

Author:Richard Davey [Davey, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Nonfiction, New Age, Religion & Spirituality, History, Fiction & Literature
ISBN: 9781465616555
Google: gm1ZvgEACAAJ
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Published: 2021-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER VI

LADY KATHERINE AND HER HUSBAND IN THE TOWER

Before the inquiry, which dragged on for some weeks, had come to a close, Lady Katherine, on September 21, 1561, was delivered in the Tower of a male child, whose birth Machyn records in a delightfully complicated phrase: “The xxj day of September was browth [brought] to bed of a sune my lade Katheryn Gray, the dowther of the Duke that was heded on the Towre hylle, and ys brodur Lord Thomas Gray the sam tyme.” Five days later the boy was baptized in the church of St. Peter ad Vincula within the Tower, his father declaring he was indeed his son and heir, and giving him the name of Edward. The witnesses of this christening must have stood on the flagstones covering the remains of no less than six of this infant’s immediate forbears, all of whom had lately perished by the axe.[74] According to Henry VIII’s will, the unconscious babe, thus baptized above the remains of his slaughtered relatives, was the legitimate heir to the English Throne; and, as such, in after years, added yet another complication to the tangle of the succession.

Meanwhile, the young mother’s health broke down, and for some months she had to keep her bed, in her room in the Belfry or Bell Tower. In spite of her suffering condition, Elizabeth’s relentless persecution continued. She put spies about the Tower, who informed her of any attempt at communication between the two young prisoners: and the “Virgin Queen” was violently excited on learning that the earl had been inquiring after his wife’s health, through a third person (a Tower official), and that he had on one occasion actually sent her a “posy.” According to Lady Katherine’s statement (for she was interrogated even about this simple incident), being “a close prisoner in the Tower,” she never saw the person who brought her messages and “posies” from the earl.

In May 1562, Sir Edward Warner received orders to conduct the two prisoners before the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth, to be further examined as to what Elizabeth was pleased to describe in the warrant as “the infamose conversation and pretended marriage betwixt the Lady Katherine Grey and the Earl of Hertford.” Despite the ecclesiastical nature of this court, it would seem that the prisoners were not taken to Lambeth, but that whatever trial ever took place occurred in the Tower. On May 12, 1562, the commission, composed, it may be, of the officers who had examined Hertford on his first entering the Tower, passed sentence, at the Bishop of London’s palace near to St. Paul’s Cathedral, to the effect that “there had been no marriage between the Earl of Hertford and the Lady Katherine Grey.” It is probable that neither Hertford nor Lady Katherine was present during this adjudication.

Five months later, in October 1562, Lady Katherine, still confined in the Belfry of the Tower, came nearer being placed on the Throne than at any time in her life.

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