Catherine Gray
Lady Catherine Gray , also Katherine Gray , Katharine Gray (* August 1540 , † January 26, 1568 ) was the second daughter of Henry Gray, 1st Duke of Suffolk and Lady Frances Brandon , the younger sister of the "Nine Day Queen" Jane Gray and older sister of Mary Gray . In addition to the educated Jane and the short stature Mary, Catherine was considered a beauty among the Gray sisters. Through her mother she was a granddaughter of Mary Tudor , the younger sister of Henry VIII, and thus had a place in the line of succession. Under Queen Elizabeth I she fell out of favor due to her secret marriage to Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford , and was arrested for the rest of her life and separated from her husband on the orders of the Queen.
Life
Childhood and youth
Catherine was born in August 1540 to Henry Gray and Frances Brandon’s second surviving daughter. From an early age she received lessons in Latin and Greek, as well as French and Italian. While her sister Jane became famous for her education and Mary stood out for her small stature, Catherine was known for her beauty. Historians compare her portraits with those of her grandmother Mary Tudor, of whom Erasmus of Rotterdam admiringly said that "nature has never shaped anything more beautiful". Her great uncle, King Henry VIII, decreed in his will that after his three children Edward VI. , Maria I and Elisabeth I. Frances Brandon's descendants should inherit the throne. The descendants of his older sister Margaret Tudor , the Scottish Stuarts and Lady Margaret Douglas, however, were passed over.
At the age of twelve, Catherine was married on May 21, 1553 to 15-year-old Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke , a nephew of the late Queen Catherine Parr . On the same day, her sister married Jane Guildford Dudley , son of Lord Protector John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland . The aim of the marriages was an alliance of the Protestant nobility against a Catholic Counter-Reformation. The young King Edward was dying and, according to Henry's will, his heiress was the Catholic Princess Maria. On his deathbed, however, Eduard changed the line of succession and named the Grey's sisters as his heirs instead of his sisters Maria and Elisabeth.
At the time of the marriage, Henry Herbert was ill and when Catherine subsequently moved to Baynard's Castle with him , she took care of him. while her sister Jane was proclaimed the new queen. The marriage between them was not consummated because of Catherine's youth. When Henry Herbert's father, Pembroke, realized that Mary's victory was looming, it was easy for him to annul the marriage and send Catherine home. Henry Herbert and Catherine, who had become quite close in the past few weeks, claimed in vain that they married so that they could stay together. It is unknown whether Catherine visited her sister Jane in the Tower in the coming months. Since Jane tries in her last letter to Catherine to comfort her sister about the lost inheritance of her father, the historian Eric Ives believes a contact between the two in Jane's final months is possible.
After the execution of Jane and her father, Frances Brandon gradually regained the favor of the new Queen Maria. Six months later, she and her daughters were called back to court, where Catherine received a place as Maid of Honor , a designation for unmarried ladies-in-waiting . Here she befriended Jane Seymour, a daughter of the overthrown Lord Protector Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset , who was named after her aunt Queen Jane Seymour . She became Catherine Grey's best friend. In the summer of 1558, when Jane became seriously ill, Catherine, now eighteen, accompanied her home to Hanworth, Middlesex . Here Catherine met the great love of her life: Jane's brother Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford . During the summer, Seymour finally asked his sister to "bring up the subject of marriage to Lady Catherine." However, his mother Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset did not support his plans and Catherine's return to court put an end to all speculation for the moment.
Relationship with Elisabeth
After Mary's death Catherine Gray was Elisabeth's Heir Presumptive , according to Heinrich's will , until Elisabeth had children herself. However, Elisabeth and Catherine did not have a good relationship with each other. Elisabeth perceived possible successors as a threat, especially from the ranks of the Grays. She had not forgotten that the Protestant nobility had disinherited her and her sister Maria in favor of Jane Gray and declared her bastards. In addition, she preferred Maria Stuart as her heiress, as Maria, as the granddaughter of Heinrich's older sister, had a greater claim under the law of the time than the granddaughters of Heinrich's younger sister. According to Leanda de Lisle, Maria embodied the traditional principle of inheritance within a dynasty, while Catherine Grey's claim was endorsed by parliament. Catherine's English citizenship gave her an advantage over Mary Queen of Scots and her Protestant upbringing made her the preferred heir to the throne of Parliament, unlike the Catholic Margaret Douglas . Elisabeth, however, had no interest in including parliament in the line of succession and stuck to the traditional rule of succession, even though both her father and brother had ignored them by parliamentary resolution.
Catherine had expected that she would be appointed and treated as the official heiress upon Elizabeth's accession. Nevertheless, Elisabeth refused to name a successor. She kept Catherine at court, but reduced her rank among the ladies-in-waiting so that Catherine no longer had unrestricted access to the royal private chambers. The Spanish ambassador Feria reported that Catherine complained to him that Queen Maria "had always treated her kindly, but now she learns nothing but rudeness from Queen Elizabeth, who could not bear to see her as a possible successor." also personal tensions between the two, because the English ambassador in Madrid wrote about Catherine in 1559: "She spoke very snooty and inappropriate words within earshot of the Queen and in the presence of others."
Since France had secured Maria Stuart with her claim to the English throne as Dauphine, the Spaniards were interested in a similarly valuable chess piece. The English ambassador therefore warned William Cecil that Spain had plans to kidnap Catherine from England and bring her to Spain. There she was supposed to marry Philip II or Don Carlos and thus represent a Spanish counterweight to Maria Stuart. Catherine, who had not seen Hertford since last summer, raised Feria's hopes by promising him not to marry without his consent. But Feria was recalled to Spain and after the death of the French king, Maria Stuart's father-in-law, Spanish concerns about a French invasion of England were calmed. Instead, they kept in touch with the Catholic Margaret Douglas.
Secret marriage to Edward Seymour
In the summer of 1559, when Elizabeth was making her annual journey through her kingdom, Catherine met Edward Seymour again on the journey. As the young queen was mostly preoccupied with her favorite Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester during this period , Catherine and Edward had plenty of time together and their feelings deepened. That fall, Seymour asked Catherine's mother, Frances Brandon, for permission to marry her daughter, and Frances consented. However, with Catherine's place in the line of succession, her marriage was of great importance to Elizabeth. Marriage required the Queen's approval. So Frances, with the help of her husband Adrian Stokes, drafted a letter to Elisabeth for her permission. Stokes advised Seymour to seek assistance from the Privy Council. But before the letter could be sent, Frances died and Seymour decided to put the matter on hold for the time being.
In 1560, Elisabeth began to treat Catherine more kindly. She made her a lady of the Privy Chamber and even talked about adopting Catherine. Catherine was a counterweight in the emerging conflict with the young Maria Stuart over the succession to the throne. At the same time, William Cecil spoke to Edward Seymour and advised him to stay away from Catherine. However, after receiving a disappointed letter from Catherine, Seymour stated, “In order to avoid such accusations in the future, he was ready, if she agreed, to marry her as soon as the Queen went to London, if it could be arranged and he hoped to her would now have no more doubts. ".
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In the presence of her friend Jane Seymour, Catherine married Edward Seymour between All Saints' Day and Christmas Day 1560. The clergyman who trusted the two was unknown to them by name, which later turned out to be a great disadvantage. Both kept their marriage a secret, but met regularly at the queen's palace, which made both Catherine's relatives and William Cecil suspicious. Cecil was also held in suspense by Elizabeth's infatuation with Robert Dudley and continued to fear that the Queen might marry him and lose her throne. For this reason, Catherine was close to his heart as Elisabeth's heiress and he convinced Seymour in early 1561 to take a trip to the continent. At this point, Catherine was already pregnant. Simultaneously, her friend and sister-in-law Jane Seymour died at the age of only nineteen, the only witness to the secret wedding.
In England alone, Catherine was treated very coldly by Elizabeth, a possible indication that the Queen knew about the affair with Seymour. Letters to her husband received no response, and Catherine began to realize that she could not produce any proof of their marriage. Having a child as an officially unmarried woman was tantamount to social ruin. By the eighth month of pregnancy, she was desperate enough to try again. One possible candidate was her first husband, Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke , whose father had already asked her to remarry. Herbert learned of her pregnancy through gossip, however, and withdrew from her indignant and hurt with the threat of exposing her to the world.
In desperation, Catherine turned to Robert Dudley on August 9th. Not only was he the Queen's favorite, but also her brother-in-law, since his brother Guildford had married Catherine's sister Jane. She visited him at night in his rooms, told him about her predicament and begged him to put the queen in a good mood. But when Elisabeth received the news, she had no mercy. Furious, she had Catherine locked in the Tower of London and ordered Seymour to return from Europe immediately. Since he also had royal ancestors, Elisabeth feared a conspiracy and had him imprisoned in the Tower after Seymour's return. William Cecil commented on her arrest with the somber words: "God is very dissatisfied with us."
In the tower
Catherine and Edward have now been subjected to various interrogations. Both hoped that their marriage would be recognized so that their child would not be born a bastard. But it quickly became clear that they couldn't prove their marriage. The only witness to the marriage had already died and the clergyman could no longer be found. In addition, Catherine had lost a will drawn up by Seymour in her favor as his widow. What worried Elisabeth most was the fact that Catherine was heavily pregnant and that her child was entitled to the throne. She herself was still pressured by parliament to marry and secure the Tudor dynasty. With Maria Stuart's return to Scotland, the continuation of the Protestant dynasty had become an urgent necessity. There was a real possibility that the disaffected nobles would rally around Catherine Gray to put their son on the throne. Elisabeth's way out of this dilemma was to have Catherine Gray and Edward Seymour's marriage void and her offspring to be declared a bastard.
On September 24, 1561, Catherine's first son Edward was born in the Tower. As a bastard, he officially resigned from the line of succession, although there were voices in the nobility that the marriage was final. Protestant nobility feared that Elizabeth would eventually name the Catholic Mary Stuart as her heir, and Catherine Gray, Protestant, married and with a healthy son, was an attractive alternative. For this reason, Elizabeth ordered on February 10, 1562 a re-investigation of the "feigned marriage between Lady Catherine Gray and the Earl Hertford", where her testimony, according to historians, already indicated what the verdict should be. Without witnesses, without the necessary pre-wedding announcements, and without the priest, it was easy to have the marriage declared invalid. Seymour, however, was determined to take legal action against this judgment as well.
Edward and Catherine had officially separate cells in the Tower, but bribed the prison guards and met for two nights. During this time, Catherine became pregnant for the second time. On February 10, 1563, she had a second son named Thomas Seymour in the Tower. Elisabeth was beside herself when she found out about this second child. Unlike his brother Edward, he couldn't be simply called a bastard. At Edward's conception and birth, Elizabeth's councilors had argued, there were no witnesses to his parents' marriage. Before Thomas' conception, however, his parents had announced their marriage before the Archbishop of Canterbury and England, which was already sufficient under the law of the time to be considered man and woman. Elisabeth ignored this fact and sentenced Edward Seymour to a heavy fine for “seducing a virgin of royal blood, conspiring with the overseer and leaving his cell”.
The last years and death
When the plague broke out in London in the summer of 1563, the family was allowed to leave the Tower, but were separated from each other. Seymour and his eldest son were sent to live with his mother, while Catherine and her baby were brought to their uncle, John Gray. Even so, Catherine was not allowed to have contact with anyone outside of John Grey's household, not even her sister Mary Gray . However, she was allowed to write to her friend Cecil and in her letters she expressed her gratitude for his support. The separation from her beloved husband and her eldest son, however, plunged Catherine into deep depression. Her alarmed uncle wrote to Cecil just a month after she arrived that she hardly ate and often burst into tears.
Cecil tried to support Catherine's request for a pardon, but Elisabeth did not allow herself to be softened. On December 13, Catherine wrote desperately: “God only knows what the long longing for the Queen's benevolence has created in my wretched, unhappy body. Before I continue to live in this constant agony, I wish God a grave soon. ”Her condition and Elizabeth's lingering resentment made John Gray angrily wish he were the Queen's confessor and could move her to pardon. For this loyalty to his niece he found himself a little later in the Tower, where he died in 1564. Catherine Gray and her baby have now been brought to Ingatestone . There she was finally isolated from all friends and acquaintances by order of the Queen. In 1567, after the death of her overseer, Catherine was taken to Cockgate Hall in Suffolk and placed under the supervision of Sir Owen Hopton. By the time she arrived she was so weak and sick as a result of her depression that Hopton called for a doctor.
On the evening of January 26, 1568, Catherine informed her caretakers that she was dying. Through the Hoptons she asked Elisabeth to “be good to my children and not blame them for my guilt”, as well as “to be kind to my Lord, because I know that the news of my death will hit him hard”. She also asked Hopton delivered three rings to Edward Seymour: her engagement ring, her wedding ring and a ring with a skull engraved with "Yours for as long as I lived". She died in the early hours of the morning, aged only twenty-seven. Historians suggest that she ate too little during her depression and starved herself to death.
On February 21st, she was buried in Yoxfold with all the honors that a princess deserves. After the death of her husband Edward Seymour in 1621, her grandson William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset , had Catherine's coffin transferred to Salisbury Cathedral and buried next to Seymour. On the magnificent crypt, which can still be visited today, there is the inscription:
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Incomparable spouses Who |
progeny
Catherine's marriage to Edward Seymour produced two sons:
- Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp (September 21, 1561 - July 1612); ∞ Honora Rogers, children Edward, William , Francis and Honora
- Lord Thomas Seymour (February 10, 1563; † 1600)
Meaning in history
Although Catherine Gray is now almost forgotten due to Elizabeth's rivalry with Mary Queen of Scots, she was the great hope of the English nobility for a Protestant succession to the throne during her lifetime. In addition to William Cecil , its supporters also included prominent nobles such as Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk and Henry FitzAlan, 19th Earl of Arundel . Norfolk and Arundel had met repeatedly to discuss how Catherine could be redeemed. When Elizabeth found out about this, she burst into tears and ordered Arundel to come to her. The latter, however, was unfazed by her anger and declared grimly that if she intended to rule the kingdom through her passions, he would prevent her from doing so with the help of the nobility. The apparent preference of an English-born heir to the throne over Mary Queen of Scots ensured that Elizabeth began to show greater favor to her cousin Lady Margaret Douglas and her son Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley .
During Catherine's lifetime, MP John Hales wrote a treatise A Declaration of the Succession of the Crowne Imperiall of Inglande , in which he advocated Catherine Grey's claims to the throne. He was friends with Cecil and shared his sympathies for Catherine. At the same time, he was known for his views that the monarchy should share its authority with parliament. He first researched the legitimate descent of the Greysisters, which was sometimes doubted due to the marital capers of their grandfather Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk . Henry's will, to which Hales had access, supported Catherine's claim as heir to the throne. Hales also argued that since Edward III. there was a law that all persons who were born outside of England were excluded from the line of succession, including Mary Stuart. In order to legitimize Catherine's sons, Hales sought the opinions of legal scholars from abroad: when was a marriage between two adults legally binding? The scholars' answer was clear and precise. A marriage was based on the consent of two people and was consummated sexually. With that Catherine Gray and Edward Seymour were married and their sons legitimate. Angry about his presumption of interfering with the succession to the throne, Elisabeth had him temporarily imprisoned. Through Hales, Catherine Gray became a symbol of an succession to the throne that was supported by parliament and which stood in stark contrast to the traditional succession.
The descendants of Catherine Gray also posed a threat to Elizabeth's successor, James I. Jacob was aware that according to Henry VIII's succession plan , which had been supported by Parliament, Catherine's descendants were the rightful heirs to the throne. In 1608 the elderly Edward Seymour finally succeeded in locating the clergyman who had married him and Catherine at the time. In a petition he asked King Jacob to restore the legitimacy of his sons so that they could legitimately take over his inheritance. Jacob granted them the right to inherit the title of their father, but refused to legitimize them because, like Elisabeth, he always feared rivals for his throne. He reacted all the angrier when Catherine's grandson William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset married Arbella Stuart , a granddaughter of Margaret Douglas. In this way, the lines of Margaret Tudor and Mary Tudor would have combined and presented an alternative to the rather unpopular king. Seymour managed to escape, while Arbella died in the Tower.
Catherine Gray in literature
The English poet Thomas Fuller dedicated the poem Lady Tearful to Catherine Gray . She also appears in Pauline Francis' novel Rabenlady , which deals with the life of her sister Jane Gray .
literature
- Leanda de Lisle: The Sisters who would be Queen: Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Gray: A Tudor Tragedy. Ballantine Books 2009, ISBN 978-0-00-721906-3
- Agnes Strickland: Lives of the Tudor Princesses including Lady Jane Gray and her Sisters. 1868 Longmans, Green and Co., London.
- Philippa Gregory: Um Reich and Krone - Das Erbe der Tudors 2 (Original title: The last Tudor), Rowohlt Taschenbuchverlag September 25, 2018, ISBN 978-3-499-27460-2
Web links
Individual evidence
- (De Lisle)
- Leanda de Lisle: The Sisters who would be Queen: Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Gray: A Tudor Tragedy. Ballantine Books 2009.
- (Strickland)
- Agnes Strickland : Lives of the Tudor Princesses including Lady Jane Gray and her Sisters. 1868 Longmans, Green and Co., London.
- ↑ p. 197-198: "always treated her kindly, but now she experienced nothing but discourtesy from Queen Elizabeth, who could not bear to think of her as a possible successor"
- ↑ a b p. 198: "She had spoken very arrogant and unseemly words in the hearing of the queen and others standing by."
- ↑ p. 199: "to avoid all such suspicion for the future, he was ready, if she would consent, to marry out of hand, the next time the queen went to London, if convenience might be found, and then he hoped she would have no more doubts. "
- (Ives)
- Eric Ives: Lady Jane Gray: A Tudor Mystery . Malden MA; Oxford UK: Wiley-Blackwell 2009, ISBN 978-1-4051-9413-6 .
- ↑ p. 272
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gray, Catherine |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Gray, Katherine; Gray, Katharine |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Members of the English nobility |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 1540 |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 26, 1568 |