Above: Anne Stanhope (c.1510-87), duchess of Somerset.
Anne Stanhope, duchess of Somerset, has long had a negative reputation. Mary Dewar described her in 1964 as 'the terror' of her husband Edward Seymour's household and as 'a hated meddler'. William Seymour, who was a descendant of Somerset's second son by his rejected first wife, characterised Anne Stanhope as a 'proud, domineering woman, with a passion for precedence and an overwhelming interest in personal aggrandizement'. Susan E. James referred, in her biography of Queen Katherine Parr, to Anne's 'myopic arrogance'. Finally, the popular writer Alison Weir wrote of Anne Stanhope's 'monstrous' pride; she was 'a termagant who exercised much influence over her weaker husband by the lash of her tongue'.
Like other elite Tudor women, including Frances Grey, duchess of Suffolk, Anne has been slandered and criticised for perceived faults in her character. Her character has been termed arrogant, overbearing, ruthless and haughty. If she was ambitious, she was, so it goes, monstrously so. If she sought the best for her family, writers believe, it was because of her pride and her desire to out manoeuvre those she disliked. The story goes that she was married to a weak and ineffective man who she was able to dominate and manipulate. In short, she was a 'wicked woman' who was cordially despised by her contemporaries.
Popular culture either views Anne, duchess of Somerset, as a haughty she-wolf or, thanks to The Tudors, as a cunning nymphomaniac. Suffice it to say that neither can be supported with historical evidence. These negative depictions draw on polarising gender stereotypes of women that have featured in societies for millennia. The real Anne Seymour, duchess of Somerset, was a very different woman.
Above: The Duchess of Somerset in The Tudors.
Anne Stanhope was born in around 1510 to Sir Edward Stanhope and his second wife Elizabeth Bourchier. By her father's first marriage, Anne had two half brothers: Richard and Michael. Anne's uncle, John Bourchier, was earl of Bath. At an early age, Anne arrived at court and served in the household of Queen Katherine of Aragon. There, she seems to have met Edward Seymour, son of John and Margery. Edward was knighted in 1523 and became an esquire of the king's household and esquire of the king's body. His first marriage to Katherine Filliol was annulled because Edward questioned the paternity of the elder of his two sons by her. A later manuscript alleged that Katherine had had an affair with her father-in-law John Seymour, but there is no corroborative evidence to support this.
By the spring of 1535, Anne had married Edward Seymour, with whom she had ten children: Edward (who died young); Anne; Edward; Henry; Margaret; Jane; Mary; Katherine; Edward; and Elizabeth. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn stayed with the couple at Elvetham, Hampshire, in October of that year. Anne had married into an ambitious and enterprising family. Several months after his royal visit, the king was publicly favouring Anne's sister-in-law Jane Seymour, who was perhaps two years older than her. Anne and her husband Edward acted as Jane's chaperones at Greenwich Palace, when the king desired to spend time in his new love's company. In May 1536, Queen Anne was executed and the king married Jane several days later. Anne Seymour became sister-in-law to the new Queen of England and could therefore expect political and social rewards as a result.
Above: Jane Seymour (left) and Katherine Parr (right). At different stages, Anne Seymour was sister-in-law to both of these queens of England.
In June 1536, Edward Seymour was ennobled by the king as Viscount Beauchamp, and following the birth of the queen's son in October 1537, Seymour became earl of Hertford. As countess of Hertford, Anne Seymour enjoyed a prominent and important place at court. She was involved in the reception of Anne of Cleves at Greenwich in January 1540, and attended Katherine Howard when she became queen. The Countess of Hertford enjoyed a close and warm relationship with Mary Tudor, the elder daughter of Henry VIII, with whom she played cards and exchanged gifts. Anne also appears initially to have enjoyed good relations with Katherine Parr, last queen of Henry VIII. She petitioned Queen Katherine for Hertford's return in 1544 when he was engaged in Newcastle overseeing the Scottish Borders.
Anne Seymour's religious devotions were well known and respected. She sent ten shillings to the condemned heretic Anne Askew in 1546, suggesting that the countess harboured radical religious views. In the reign of Edward VI, which sought to eliminate Catholic forms of worship, Anne Seymour was permitted to openly celebrate her Protestantism. Eight different works were dedicated to her between 1548 and 1551. As Retha Warnicke notes, 'more publications were dedicated to her than to any other woman in early Tudor England'. These works were primarily translations of books used to uphold the doctrines of Protestantism. Walter Lynne, who dedicated a book to her, referred to Anne as 'the most gracious patroness and supporter both of good learning and also of godly men'. He found her to be 'the most worthy example of all noble women, whose Godly study all Christian hearts do rejoice in'. Clearly Anne's religious beliefs were well known, while she was respected and esteemed. This respect for her encouraged individuals to seek out her patronage.
Above: Anne Seymour's tomb in Westminster Abbey.
Following Henry VIII's death in early 1547, his nine-year-old son Edward succeeded to the throne as Edward VI. Because of his youth, Edward Seymour, who at this time ennobled himself as Duke of Somerset, became Lord Protector and controlled the regency council appointed by the late king to govern the realm during his son's minority. The Lord Protector experienced growing tensions with his younger brother Thomas Seymour, who married some months later the dowager queen Katherine. This marriage caused considerable scandal and horror at court, as it was viewed as a sign of disrespect to King Henry. Both contemporaries and modern historians blamed Anne, duchess of Somerset, for the brothers' conflict. As Caroline Armbruster noted, 'allowing wives to take the blame for the misdeeds of their husbands was nothing new for sixteenth-century observers', as can be identified with the scapegoating of Anne Boleyn and Lettice Dudley for the actions of their husbands. In the fifteenth-century, Queen Elizabeth Wydeville had been blamed for the execution of her brother-in-law, the duke of Clarence; yet, as Charles Ross asserted, Elizabeth's husband Edward IV 'alone must bear responsibility for his brother's execution'. Armbruster noted that the same could be said for Edward Seymour, duke of Somerset.
Those who disliked Somerset's rule began to attack his wife as a way of attacking him. An anonymous Spanish chronicler described the Duchess of Somerset as 'more presumptuous than Luther', because she claimed precedence over the dowager queen Katherine, who was now her sister-in-law. The chronicler claimed that the duchess urged her husband to execute Thomas Seymour: 'My Lord, I tell you that if your brother does not die, he will be your death'. Writing in 1603, John Clapham specifically alleged that the dislike between the Duchess and the Queen Dowager was the cause of the hatred between Edward and Thomas: 'It hath been reported, a disagreement between Lady Somerset and Katherine [Parr] about precedency, a matter that... breeds many quarrels among women... This feminine quarrel was the first occasion of the breach between the Protector [Edward Seymour] and... his brother [Thomas Seymour]'.
Above: Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset (left), husband to Anne; and Thomas Seymour (right). Anne was blamed for the execution of Thomas Seymour in 1549.
It seems clear that the Duchess of Somerset and the Queen Dowager disliked one another and were estranged from one another, but as Warnicke notes, 'the women did not cause their husbands' disagreements'. Both the Duke and Duchess objected to Thomas Seymour's hasty marriage to Katherine Parr. If anything, it signalled disrespect for the memory of the late king, and the Somersets were not alone in reacting negatively. Mary Tudor, who had formerly been close to her stepmother Katherine, was horrified and distanced herself from the affair. Katherine and the Duke of Somerset experienced conflict with one another. Katherine complained that the duke was ignoring her requests and was disputing with her over his leasing of her dower property, Fausterne Park. It was Somerset, rather than his wife, who Katherine was displeased with, although she appears not to have liked the duchess.
The evidence for Anne Seymour's haughtiness is problematic, for none survives from before the arrest of Thomas Seymour in early 1549. No statements from this time even accused the duchess of urging her husband to order Seymour's death. The Earl of Warwick and his supporters tended to be blamed for Seymour's end. Meanwhile, renowned scholars such as John Cheke, tutor to Edward VI, continued to seek Anne's assistance and support. Cheke wrote to her in praise of her 'singular favour' and expressed thanks for her 'undeserved...goodness'.
From Henry VIII's death to the execution of the Duke of Somerset in January 1552, Anne Seymour, duchess of Somerset, was the most powerful and, arguably, important woman in England. In late 1551, Somerset was brought down by the Earl of Warwick and his allies. Following Somerset's execution for treason, Warwick ennobled himself as the Duke of Northumberland. He ordered Anne Seymour to be imprisoned in the Tower alongside her half-brother Michael, who was executed in February 1552. In the space of a few weeks, the duchess had been imprisoned and had lost both her husband and brother. Her emotional turmoil, anguish and despair can only be guessed at. The duchess remained imprisoned for two years. In August 1553, she was freed by Queen Mary, her close friend.
By January 1559, Anne Seymour had remarried. Her husband was an esquire, Francis Newdigate. Newdigate had served Edward Seymour as a gentleman usher, which is probably how the duchess became aware of him. These years involved scandal for Anne. In 1561, her son Edward's clandestine marriage to Lady Catherine Grey, younger sister of the beheaded Jane, came to light. Because Lady Catherine was popularly viewed as successor to Elizabeth I, the marriage was greeted with horror and controversy. Queen Elizabeth ordered the unfortunate couple to be incarcerated in the Tower of London where, in November 1561, Catherine was delivered of a son, Edward. Catherine gave birth to a second son, Thomas, in February 1563. The marriage had been declared invalid the year before. The boys were declared bastards and barred from inheriting their father's estates. Catherine died in 1568.
Above: Lady Catherine Grey, daughter-in-law of Anne Seymour.
Anne's final years were less troublesome and tumultuous. She died on 16 April 1587, aged around seventy-seven, at Hanworth Palace in Middlesex, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The Duchess of Somerset was respected and esteemed in her own lifetime for her extensive religious patronage. She was regarded by authors as a pious, godly matron. Her social rank undoubtedly made her an attractive patron. Anne's family loyalty and devotion to her husband, Edward Seymour, were also recognised. She bore him ten children, and enjoyed close relations with Mary Tudor, who later became Mary I. Anne was sister-in-law to two queens of England - Jane Seymour and Katherine Parr. She seems to have been close to Queen Jane, but experienced conflict with Queen Katherine, whom she disliked. Anne did not urge her husband to put to death Thomas Seymour; contemporaries identified the Earl of Warwick as the instigator, while some actually attributed Seymour's end to the Protector himself. Warnicke rightly explains that 'Lady Somerset's reputation as an aggressively proud woman, who greatly influenced the governmental policies of the lord protector is largely a myth'.
Writers who did not know her, including the anonymous Spanish chronicler, identified her as a proud, greedy and insufferable woman who ruled her weak husband and manipulated his decisions. Historians have tended to accept these negative judgements alongside Katherine Parr's letters, in which she admitted her dislike of the duchess. Yet a wealth of other evidence offers a different view of Anne Seymour, duchess of Somerset. Those who did know her viewed her with respect and esteem, and her Protestantism encouraged religious writers to regard her as a pious and virtuous woman. In her own lifetime, Anne Seymour was never accused of promiscuity or wanton behaviour. The portrayal of her in the television series The Tudors, therefore, which depicts her as promiscuous and the mother of illegitimate children, could not be any further from the truth, for the real Anne Seymour was a loving and attentive wife who had 10 children by Edward Seymour.
Above: A portrait identified by some as Frances Grey, duchess of Suffolk.
History remembers Lady Jane Grey, the so-called 'nine days queen', as an innocent teenager brutally sacrificed on the altar of ambition, greed and political treachery. This interpretation runs concurrently with the belief that Jane's family, the Greys, and her Dudley in-laws, were mercilessly ambitious, cold-hearted, scheming and brutal in their quest for power and position. In particular, Jane's mother, Frances Grey, duchess of Suffolk, is usually presented as the mother from hell: physically abusive, she allegedly took delight in bullying her young daughter and treating her with calculated cruelty. But is there any evidence for this dark view of Frances Grey?
High-born Tudor women were prone to misrepresentation and character assassination in their own lifetimes and have been savagely condemned up until the present day. Prominent examples include Anne Boleyn and Anne Stanhope, duchess of Somerset. Frances Grey is a notable example of this trend. Yet, as historical fiction writer Susan Higginbotham notes: 'the real Frances Grey bears no resemblance to the lurid tales about her. Only in our own time has she become a controversial and loathed figure'. Indeed, in her own lifetime, the Duchess of Suffolk was a respected, popular and influential woman who occupied a central place at court. Who then, exactly, was the real Frances Grey, niece of Henry VIII, mother of Lady Jane Grey and wife of the Duke of Suffolk?
Above: Frances's parents: Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk (left), and his wife Mary Tudor, formerly queen consort of France (right).
Frances Brandon was born on 16 July 1517 at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, the seat of the bishops of Ely. She was the eldest daughter of Henry VIII's close friend and brother-in-law Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, by his wife Mary Tudor, younger sister of the king. Frances grew up and was educated at Westhorpe in Suffolk. In the spring of 1533 at Suffolk House in London, sixteen-year-old Frances married Henry Grey, marquis of Dorset. Her mother died at the end of June that same year. Frances served as principal mourner at her funeral in July. It is impossible to know how close she had been to Mary, but Frances surely mourned her mother's death.
After four years of marriage, Frances gave birth to her first daughter, Jane, probably in the spring of 1537 (although Jane's exact date of birth is not known). In novels such as Alison Weir's Innocent Traitor (2006), the ruthlessly ambitious Grey parents react with disappointment and anger to the birth of a daughter, but it is unlikely that this would have been the case in reality. The birth of a daughter might have been disappointing, but Frances was only twenty years old and had many years of childbearing ahead of her. As historian Eric Ives correctly notes, the Grey parents were not in the public eye when their first daughter was born, and neither Jane's date nor her place of birth have been recorded, much less her parents' response to her birth. In August 1540, a second daughter, Catherine, followed, and five years later, Mary was born in 1545. That same year, Frances's father, Charles Brandon, died.
Frances occupied an important place at court during these years. At this time, she attended Queen Katherine Parr, who was her aunt by marriage. She enjoyed a close relationship with Lady Mary, eldest daughter of Henry VIII. Frances's relationship with Queen Katherine is significant, because the queen famously enjoyed close relations with Jane Grey, Frances's eldest daughter. Jane lived in the household of Katherine Parr following the death of Henry VIII, but upon Katherine's death in 1548 Jane returned to her family home at Bradgate in Leicestershire to live with her parents.
Above: Frances's eldest daughters: Jane (left) and Catherine (right).
Frances's relations with her eldest daughter have been, to say the least, controversial. Cultural depictions present Frances as a bullying and cruel mother who treated Jane harshly and mercilessly, physically beating her into submission. This antipathy towards Frances, which stemmed from a belief that she was a poor mother, first emerged in the eighteenth-century, at the same time in which Lady Jane Grey was cast as an innocent martyr and angelic figure, incapable of sin. As Higginbotham notes, however, it was the thirteen-year-old Jane's complaint about her parents to her tutor Roger Ascham in 1550 that has caused the greatest damage to Frances's reputation. Jane complained:
For when I am in presence either of father or mother; whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry, or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing any thing else; I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly, as God made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presently sometimes with pinches, nips, and bobs, and other ways (which I will not name for the honour I bear them) so without measure misordered, that I think myself in hell...
Higginbotham suggests that 'the impact of Ascham's recollection on Frances's reputation simply cannot be understated', for historians and novelists have used this quote from Jane to construct an image of the Grey parents as abusive and tyrannical monsters who inflicted misery on their daughters. Yet, as Frank Prochaska noted, 'Ascham may have 'overblown' Jane's comments to create additional support for his argument that teachers should not take on the role of parents and use corporal punishment to motivate their students to study' (Warnicke). Undoubtedly, Ascham may have exaggerated or even distorted what Jane actually said about her parents. Moreover, as Warnicke notes, it is significant that Ascham's account was published only after the deaths of both Jane and her parents, when he felt it was safe to do so.
Thus, Frances has been characterised as a cruel and abusive mother, and her daughter Jane an innocent and sinless victim of her mother's wrath and hatred. But Alison Plowden is right to point out that Jane's complaints about her parents may actually reflect 'the attitude of a priggish, opinionated teenager, openly scornful of her parents' conventional, old-fashioned tastes'. It is surely going too far to use this 'evidence' to construct such a dark view of Frances Grey, without any other supporting evidence. In fact, the Duchess appears to have been a well-respected and popular figure in society, and there is no evidence that her relations with her younger daughters Catherine and Mary were difficult or problematic.
Moreover, even if Jane's parents did discipline her, it seems to be going too far to characterise Jane as the victim of 'child abuse', as some historians and novelists have. In early modern England, parents were admonished to use corporeal punishment as last resort. Lloyd deMause, an American psychologist, famously put forward the suggestion in his The History of Childhood (1974) that 'the further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care, and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten [and] terrorized'. Other noted scholars, such as Lawrence Stone and Philippe Aries, have provided evidence in support of this. Therefore, even if Jane was physically disciplined by Frances, it does not mean that Frances was 'a child abuser' or 'a bad mother'. To condemn her as such is to apply modern values to a premodern society that had very different views and understandings of childhood.
Above: A portrait for centuries identified as a depiction of Frances Grey (left) and her second husband Adrian Stokes (right), but which actually shows Lady Mary Dacre and her son Gregory Fiennes.
Belief in Frances's supposedly cruel nature has been encouraged by a portrait thought to depict Frances alongside her second husband, Adrian Stokes, whom she married in 1555. The female figure appears greedy, unattractive, grasping and uncaring. Historians have utilised the picture as 'evidence' of the Duchess's unfavourable character. Hester Chapman, believing that the portrait depicted Frances, commented that the woman appears 'greedy', 'actively cruel' and 'coldly indifferent'. Yet the portrait is not of Frances at all, but of Lady Mary Dacre.
Above: A depiction of the execution of Lady Jane Grey. Frances Grey pleaded with Queen Mary to show mercy for both her daughter and husband.
1553 was a momentous year for the Grey family. In May of that year, sixteen-year-old Jane wed Guildford Dudley, a younger son of the Earl of Warwick, and twelve-year-old Catherine married Henry Herbert, son of the earl of Pembroke. Traditionally, it has been assumed that the reluctant Jane was physically beaten by her parents until she agreed to marry Guildford. Only continental sources put forward this story, and as such were probably reflecting sensational rumour rather than fact. English sources make no mention of any coercion. Jane was a member of the aristocracy, and would have been well aware that her marriage was politically motivated to benefit and enhance her family. When writing to Mary Tudor later on, Jane did not blame her parents.
Scholars have debated endlessly about whether the Greys allied with the Dudleys in a conspiracy to usurp the throne from Mary Tudor and replace her with the Protestant Jane. Evidence compellingly indicates that Edward VI, determined to prevent the Catholic Mary from becoming queen, masterminded a 'devise' which proposed that his Protestant cousin Jane succeed to the throne, in place of his illegitimate sisters Mary and Elizabeth. Following Edward's death on 6 July, Jane was proclaimed queen, although a lack of support for her cause amidst the remarkable disorganisation of her regime meant that she was swiftly deposed by Mary, whom many regarded as the rightful queen. Jane was imprisoned in the Tower alongside her husband and her father-in-law Warwick (now duke of Northumberland).
Frances had traditionally enjoyed a close relationship with Queen Mary, and certainly pleaded for her husband's freedom, and perhaps also for that of her imprisoned daughter. On 22 August 1553, Northumberland was executed on Tower Hill. Jane and her husband were found guilty of high treason in November, although the queen was inclined to mercy and intended to spare both from execution. Frances continued to reside at court. How she felt about her daughter's plight can only be imagined. Given the flawed and distorted nature of the 'evidence' for her relations with Jane, it is impossible to tell what the real nature of the relationship between the two was like, but Frances surely experienced considerable emotional turmoil and distress.
Jane almost certainly would have been spared, had it not been for the outbreak of Wyatt's Rebellion in early 1554, an uprising seeking to prevent the queen's planned marriage to the Catholic prince, Philip of Spain. The involvement of Jane's father, the duke of Suffolk, sealed Jane's fate. On 12 February, the sixteen-year-old was put to death on Tower Green, shortly after her husband Guildford's execution on Tower Hill. Eleven days later, Frances's husband was beheaded. In the space of less than two weeks, Frances had lost both her husband and eldest daughter. Her grief, distress and pain can only be imagined.
Frances was now placed in a very difficult position. She pleaded with the queen for clemency, and was allowed to remain at court with her two daughters. Catherine and Mary were respectively thirteen and nine years old when they lost their sister and father. These devastating events must have overshadowed their childhoods and caused both of them considerable emotional pain and torment. In March 1555, the thirty-eight year old Frances remarried. Because Frances had royal blood, that her second husband, Adrian Stokes, was merely her master of the horse, seems to indicate that her remarriage was motivated not by political ambition, but by love. Alternatively, it has been suggested that Frances deliberately chose Stokes as her second husband in a shrewd attempt to ensure that any children she had with her second husband would be too lowborn to be viewed as potential claimants to the throne. Frances remained on good terms with Queen Mary, who allowed her to reside at Richmond, while Catherine and Mary served as maids of honour to their cousin the queen. Frances had a daughter, Elizabeth, by her second husband, who died in 1556.
On 20 November 1559, Frances died at forty-two years of age. She was buried at Westminster Abbey. Her second daughter Catherine acted as chief mourner. Adrian erected a tomb with a recumbent figure in Frances's memory. Frances's funeral was actually the first Protestant service at the abbey after the reconstitution of its chapter. The inscription on Frances's grave reads (in Latin):
Nor grace, nor splendour, nor a royal name,
Nor widespread fame can aught avail;
All, all have vanished here.
True worth alone Survives the funeral pyre and silent tomb.
As Higginbotham relates, Frances Grey, duchess of Suffolk, was not a controversial woman in her own lifetime. She was respected, revered and liked. She has been more slandered in modern times than she ever was in her lifetime. As historian Leanda de Lisle notes, however:
'Since the eighteenth century she [Frances] has been used as the shadow that casts into brilliant light the eroticised figure of female helplessness that Jane came to represent. While Jane is the abused child-woman of these myths, Frances has been turned into an archetype of female wickedness; powerful, domineering and cruel.'
It is time to separate fact from fiction in the turbulent, extraordinary life of Frances Grey, duchess of Suffolk. We lack evidence for how she felt; how she interacted with her daughters; what her relationship with her husband Henry Grey was like. It seems unfair to condemn and disparage her, when there is no evidence to support this negative treatment. Frances was an esteemed and respected figure in her lifetime, and although she may certainly have experienced difficult relations with her eldest daughter, Lady Jane Grey, it seems to be going much too far to view Frances as an abusive mother who cruelly tyrannised her children. If anything, Frances deserves our sympathy and compassion for enduring a life replete with suffering.
