Category: 16th Century - Meandering Through Time

The Mystery of the Blue Ring

25/2/2024

Robert and Philadelphia Carey were two of the many children of Henry Carey, the son of Mary Boleyn and Anne Morgan. This family connection made them cousins to Elizabeth I. Robert was an ambassador and courier, and Philadelphia had risen through the ranks of the Tudor court, and by 1590 she held the important position of Lady of the Bedchamber.

Tradition has that this brother and sister were tasked with informing James VI of Scotland of the death of Elizabeth I.

The story goes that James VI of Scotland had given Philadelphia a 'blue ring' with the instructions that it was to be sent to him as a notification of Elizabeth's death. On the 24th of March 1603, the queen died, and waiting under the window of the royal bed chamber was Robert. As soon as the queen had died, Philadelphia dropped the ring to Carey so he could take it to the Scottish king.

A great story but was it true?

We know that Philadelphia was with the queen, and Robert Carey is known to have been in Elizabeth's court in the days before her death, but he made nothing of the ring in his memoirs, he only states

* 'that I heard with my ears, and saw with my eyes I thought it my duty to set down, and affirm it for the through, on the faith of a Christian, because I know there have been many false lies reported of the ed and death of that good lady'

Robert Carey, Ist Earl of Monmouth

Robert Cecil, Ist Earl of Salisbury

I always thought Robert Cecil sent word to the king, perhaps he sent it via Carey. Cecil had, about three years before the queen's death, begun secret correspondence with James continually assuring him that he favoured his claims to the English throne. So, how did James VI hear of Elizabeth's death?

* The Memoirs of Robert Carey - https://archive.org/details/memoirsrobertca00orregoog/page/n11/mode/2up

Thomas Wilson - Tudor Privy Councillor

1/6/2023

A weekend away in our motorhome proved to be rather interesting. We stayed at a campsite just a few miles from the tiny hamlet of Strubby in Lincolnshire whose church we were able to visit before we headed home. To my delight, I discovered that a man of some note was from this tiny hamlet. Thomas Wilson was born there in 1523, the son of a landowner/farmer, he would go on to be a writer and Privy Councillor in the court of Elizabeth I.

Nothing is known of Thomas’s life until 1537 when he attended Eton College. Twelve years later he received an MA at Cambridge and went on to write what he is remembered for, that is Rule of Reason and The Arte of Rhetorique written in 1552 whilst staying at Scrivelsby, the Lincolnshire home of Edward Dymoke. It is possible that he or his family had connections to other prominent local families as later in his career he can be found as tutor to the sons of Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk whose family were at Ewerby. He would also tutor the children of John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland.

Wilson is known to have been tortured for his writings in regard to his views on the Protestant faith and to have tortured those of the Catholic faith. He also spied for Francis Walsingham.

Thomas Wilson was married twice, his first wife was Agnes Wintour, whose great nephews were Robert and Thomas Wintour, of the Gunpowder Plot fame and his second wife was Joan, daughter of Richard Epsom, one of the first men to be executed by Henry VIII.

Essex's Rebellion

5/2/2023

In 1587 Elizabeth I made Robert Deveraux the Earl of Essex, Master of the Horse, six years later in 1593 she made him a Privy Councillor. That year he led a successful attack on the Spanish port of Cadiz. Three years later he returned home a hero.
Deveraux was intelligent and charming and he thought by flattering the aging queen he could get away with anything, the events of this day in 1601 would prove him wrong.

Deveraux by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger

While Deveraux was away changes within Elizabeth's court affected his standing, his major problem was the promotion of Robert Cecil who Deveraux regarded as an enemy, in fact, Robert Deveraux was his own worst enemy - for making peace in Ireland against the order of the queen he was banned from court and thus financially ruined, was this the reason behind his rebellion?

On the morning of the 8th February in 1601, Deveraux and his followers, notably the Henry Wriothesley, the 3rd Earl of Southampton, made their way through the city of London in, it is thought, to plead with the queen, Robert Cecil however thought otherwise and sent a message to the London's mayor. Deveraux was publicly denounced as a traitor and eventually captured, he would be tried for treason before the month was out.

So, was Robert Devereaux a real threat to the monarchy? Was the queen in real danger and what really motivated William Cecil to see off the Earl of Essex?

This rebellion is nicely played out in the 2011 film Anonymous, and here you can see Robert Deveraux (Sam Reed) persuading Henry Wriothesley (Xavier Samuel) that the plot couldn't fail!

Agnes Tilney - Duchess of Norfolk

10/12/2022

In the last week of November in 1541, Catherine Howard was imprisoned in Syon Abbey for adultery with Francis Dereham and Thomas Culpeper, her world was falling apart, but she was not the only one, other members of the Howard family also found themselves incarcerated.

In the months following Catherine's arrest, at least four of her family were imprisoned in the Tower of London for not disclosing what they knew of Catherine's past, one of them was Agnes, the sixty-four-year-old Duchess of Norfolk, she was Catherine's grandmother's cousin. All were charged with 'concealing the evil demeanour of the Queen, to the slander of the King and his succession' they were sentenced to life imprisonment and loss of goods.

After a search of the duchess's property, and the questioning of her servants, a charge was brought against her which was that she had opened the aforementioned Francis Dereham's private chest and destroyed documents, she admitted nothing. However, Agnes' main concern was the loss of her goods, when asked where she kept her money, she dropped to her knees weeping, asking God to save the king and give him a long and prosperous life.

Eventually, she admitted to hiding money in the private chamber of her home. When an inventory of Agnes' belongings was made there a vast amount of money, about three hundred and fifty pounds in today's money was found. The money was 'confiscated' and taken to Westminster Palace. Where it ended up, well, your guess is as good as mine!

On the 10th of December, the day that both Dereham and Culpeper were executed, Agnes was questioned again and this time she owned up to having prior knowledge of Catherine's wrongdoings at the time she was being put forward as a bride for the king, that she persuaded Catherine to bring Dereham to court and that she did burn his letters.

Barbara Brennan as Agnes, Duchess of Norfolk in the TV Series The Tudors.

It was deemed that Agnes was too old to stand trial. After having spent another six months in the tower she was released. She died four years later at her home in Lambeth.

Francis Drake

9/12/2022

Following his departure from Plymouth in the November of 1577, strong winds and fog in the English Channel hampered Sir Francis Drake's first attempt to reach the Americas. This bad weather had forced Drake into the Cornish port of Falmouth from where his fleet returned to Plymouth to make repairs.

It was today that Drake, once again, set sail as captain of the Pelican, which would be renamed the Golden Hind on a voyage in the August of 1578.

Replica of Golden Hind, is moored in the harbour of the seaport of Brixham in Devon.

Drake's fleet contained five ships, the Pelican and the Elizabeth were the larger ones. The Elizabeth, who was captained by John Winter, was separated from the fleet at the Straits of Magellan. The three other smaller vessels were the Marigold, Swan, and Benedict. Only Drake's Golden Hind completed the voyage.

As captain, Sir Francis Drake was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world, he returned home to England on the 26th September 1580 with a cargo hold of spices and enough treasure to pay off the country's foreign debt.

Drake's journey was classed as the 'Secrets of the Realm' and those involved were sworn to secrecy on the pain of death!

Sir Francis Drake was rewarded a year later with a knighthood and a miniature painting, by court artist Nicholas Hilliard, which is now known as the 'The Drake Jewel.'

Henry VIII Receives a Note

2/11/2022

In the October of 1541, Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was told by John Lascelles, a member of Thomas Cromwell's household, that he had knowledge that Catherine Howard, the fifth wife of Henry VIII had had intermate relations with three men while living at Chesworth House, a place where she had spent her childhood.

Chesworth House near Horsham, West Sussex, Photograph by Dave Spicer

Cranmer disliked Thomas Howard, Catherine's grandfather, and used this information to discredit the Howard family by informing Henry of Catherine's teenage activities. He left the king a note as he celebrated All Souls Day in the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court. In this note, Cranmer wrote that Catherine Howard had been accused of

"dissolute living before her marriage with Francis Dereham, and that was not secret, but many knew it."

Events soon escalated with the arrest and torture of the so-called lovers of the queen. This was followed by the execution of Dereham, along with Thomas Culpepper, on the 10th of December and Catherine went to her death on the 13th of February the following year. The third man accused was Henry Manox, he was fortunate to escape death.

What of the troublemaking John Lascelles, the instigator of this affair? He would be burnt at the stake for the crime of heresy on the 12th of July 1546. Cranmer would suffer the same fate in 1556.

Execution of Catherine Howard and Jane Boleyn.

8/2/2022

On the 13th February in 1542 the execution of Catherine Howard and Jane Boleyn.

Many people believe that it was Jane Parker, the wife of George Boleyn, who was to blame for initiating the downfall of her sister in law Anne in 1536, but there were other women in the court, Elizabeth Browne for instance, whose actions history might like to take a look at. However, it was the events of 1542 that were Jane's downfall.

In 1541, Catherine Howard, Henry VIII fifth wife, had begun a physical relationship (at least Jane thought she did) with one of his favourite courtiers, Thomas Culpepper, and Jane Boleyn went out of her way to encourage this relationship.

Catherine wrote to Culpepper in a letter that was to be all their undoing:

“praying you that you will come when my Lady Rochford is here”

If Jane had anything to do with Anne’s downfall she must have realised that she was lucky to escape in 1536, and if she didn’t, then she doesn't seem to have learned anything from the whole affair. Jane must have known what would happen if Henry found out that she was involved with Catherine and Culpepper and when the affair was out in the open each woman blamed the other. Jane Boleyn walked right into the Culpepper affair with her eyes open.

Following their arrest, Jane was imprisoned in the Tower of London and Catherine Howard at Syon Abbey. The night before her execution, Catherine is said to have spent it practicing laying her head upon the block, and Jane was in the throes of a nervous breakdown.

Both women were beheaded with one blow of the executioner's axe and their bodies buried in the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula.

I often asked myself the question, were Catherine, Jane and Anne's 'crimes' so appalling that they warranted a death sentence? That, I think made little difference, once they stood before the justices their fates were sealed, and state trials weren't fair trials. Schauer and Schauer in their article Law as an Engine of State wrote " Laws, like armies, were an engine of state, not a mechanism for justice!" and in that lies the answer.

The Wyatt Rebellion Begins

21/1/2022

On the 25th January 1554, what has come to be known as the Wyatt Rebellion began with a proclamation read out in the market square of Maidstone -

'Forasmuch as it is now spred abrode and certainly pronounced by the lords chancelour and other of the counsell, of the Quenes determinate pleasure to marry w. a stranger: etc we therefore write unto you, because you be our neighbors, because you be our frandes, and because you be Englishmen, that you will joyne with us, as we will with you unto death in this behalfe, protecting unto you before God...'

Thomas Wyatt's plan was to remove Mary from the throne of England and replace her with Elizabeth who would then marry West Country nobleman Edward Courtenay, Earl of Devon.

By the end of January 1554, Sir Thomas Wyatt and the four thousand men marched to Blackheath, south-east of the City of London to secure the advancements of 'liberty and commonwealth' that had been threatened by 'the Queen's determinate pleasure to marry with a stranger.’

The rebellion was a failure, on entering the city Wyatt's rebels were outnumbered by the queen's forces and Wyatt was captured.

Catherine of Aragon

2/10/2021

On the 2nd October 1501, Catherine of Aragon arrived at the Devon port of Plymouth

Catherine was greeted by the nobility who escorted them to St Andrews Church where thanks were given for her safe arrival and outside the townspeople clamoured to welcome their distinguished foreign guests.

Catherine was later escorted to Exeter where she was to stay for fourteen days. On the 16th her future father-in-law, Henry VII, sent messengers with a letter of welcome and a delegation of courtiers to escort her to London.

Catherine was to be married to Prince Arthur, the heir to the throne of England and of course we know that this marriage was short lived. Catherine would become queen of England on her marriage to Henry, Arthur's brother and for the first eleven years of her marriage she would be happy, but in what would later be known as the Kings Great Matter her life would be turned upside down.

Catherine was renowned for her strength of character and virtue, and I wonder if she could have seen her future would have had reconsidered this English marriage as she left the Alhambra in Granada for the port of Corunna to board a boat to England.

Sibel Penn - The Hampton Court Ghost

15/8/2021

I first came across Sibel Penn quite a while ago when I was looking into the family of Margery Pigott of Little Horwood in Buckinghamshire who, in 1587, left a bequest to her cousin Thomas Hampden 'whom I have brought up of a child.' Sibel’s maiden name was Hampden and she was of the family of Hampden, also in Buckinghamshire. I took no notice of her, only entering her name on Margery’s family tree noting that Sibel was Margery’s cousin 3x removed. Sibel was the wife of David Penn of Penn’s Place in Buckinghamshire, she was of the same family as Margery’s step mother in law Margaret, the heiress of John Penn of Penn’s Place.

It wasn’t until the other day that Sibel cropped up again as nurse to Edward VI following his birth in 1537, she was later a lady of the bedchamber to Elizabeth I.

Sibel is also Hampton Court’s most famous ghost, the Grey Lady, she died of smallpox after catching it from Elizabeth in 1562. She is buried in Hampton Church with a live-size marble effigy over her tomb.

In 1829 the church was demolished and her remains scattered. Soon afterwards an unearthly noise was heard through the wall of the south wing of Hampton Court said to sound like that of someone spinning thread. An investigation was mounted and the wall taken down, an old spinning wheel was found and the floorboards worn away where the treadle hit the floor! However, Sibel's ghost is said to haunt Hampton Court; she was seen in 1890 by a sentry who noticed a woman dressed in the exact clothing Sibel wears on her tomb.

Sibel's Memorial at St Mary's Church Hampton.

Hampton Court, as you all will know is famous for its ghosts as it is for being the property of Cardinal Wolsey and later Henry VIII, and Sibel’s ghost is not the only one to wander its corridors. In the Haunted Gallery poor Catherine Howard is said to have run up and down screaming for mercy. Jane Seymour, the much loved third queen of Henry is also said to have been seen, clothed in white and carrying a light taper close to what is known as the Silver Stick Gallery.

Interestingly, the village of Penn, the home of the aforementioned Penn’s has its own ghost, that of an 18th-century farm labourer, who appears, laughing, on a phantom horse.