Lady Katherine Knollys: The Unacknowledged Daughter of King Henry VIII by Sarah-Beth Watkins

Author:Sarah-Beth Watkins [Watkins, Sarah-Beth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782795841
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
Published: 2015-01-29T22:00:00+00:00

Seen in context, Hale was blaming Mr Skidmore (or Scudamore) for suggesting that Henry Carey was the King’s son. It was just one of many libellous statements that Hale made, including that Henry ‘had meddled with the Queen’s mother’ and his actions would lead to his execution in Tyburn later that year. But for his accusation that Henry was the King’s, he was the only person to have been recorded at the time of spreading the rumour, whether it was in fact truth or not.

At nine years old, Henry was unaware of the insinuation Hale had made about his parentage and his aunt was continuing to take his education very seriously. Nicholas Bourbon, a French poet, scholar and humanist that Anne Boleyn had saved from the French Inquisition was employed to give him tuition, which included learning the arts of rhetoric and logic, grammar, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. Anne had been instrumental in securing Bourbon’s release from prison and when he arrived at the English court, she paid for him to take up lodging with the King’s physician, Dr Butts, while also employing him as a tutor for several of the wards of court.

Henry wasn’t the only student of Bourbon’s. He spent his days of scholarly pursuit with Henry Norris’ son - whose father would be executed for his alleged indiscretion with Anne - and Thomas Hervey, both sons of prominent men of the Tudor court. He rarely saw his sister or his mother but his aunt Anne visited him in the December of 1535 and he came under her care until her downfall in 1536 and ‘probably then returned to his mother and stepfather’2 around the age of ten. Little is known of Henry’s whereabouts during these formative years but his education must have continued, giving him the skills and ability to take up at position at court at the age of nineteen.

Life had settled down for his sister Katherine and she was concentrating on her family and motherhood. By the time Katherine was twenty one, she was the mother to four young children. Her daughter Mary had been born in 1542, the same year her husband Francis was made MP for Horsham, quickly followed by the births of Lettice in 1543 and William in 1545. These were days of the nursery so unlike the one Katherine had been sent to where she grew up with Elizabeth. This time Katherine was in charge.

Katherine and Francis had made their home at Greys Court, Rotherfield Greys, in the Chiltern Hills of Oxfordshire. Although King Henry had granted the couple the estate of Rotherfield Greys around the time of their marriage, it took two further Acts of Parliament to secure their rights and for Katherine to be named joint tenant along with her husband. Greys Court was and still is a beautiful house with splendid gardens. Originally a 14th century castle with a fortified tower, a Tudor manor house was added and it was here the new Knollys family made their home.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.