(Vol. vi., p. 578.)
There appears to be some doubt if the alleged marriage ever did take place,
for I find, in Baker's _Chronicles_, p. 334., that in 1563 "divers great
persons were questioned and condemned, but had their lives spared," and
among them--
"Lady Katherine Grey, daughter to Henry Grey Duke of Suffolk, by the
eldest daughter of Charles Brandon, having formerly been married to the
Earl of Pembroke's eldest son, and from him soon after lawfully
divorced, was some years after found to be with child by Edward Seymour
Earl of Hartford, who, being at that time in France, was presently sent
for: and being examined before the Archbishop of Canterbury, and
affirming they were lawfully married, but not being able within a
limited time to produce witnesses of their marriage, they were both
committed to the Tower."
After some further particulars of the birth of a second child in the Tower,
the discharge of the Lieutenant, Sir Edward Warner, and the fining of the
Earl by the Star Chamber, to the extent of 5000l., the narrative proceeds:
"Though in pleading of his case, one John Hales argued they were lawful
man and wife _by virtue of their own bare consent, without any
ecclesiastical ceremony_."
Collins, in his _Peerage_ (1735), states:
"The validity of this marriage being afterwards tried at Common Law,
the minister who married them being present, and other circumstances
agreeing, the jury (whereof John Digby, Esq., was foreman) found it a
good marriage."
{69}
Sharpe, in his _Peerage_ (1833), under the title "Stamford," says:
"'The manner of her departing' _in the Tower_, which Mr. Ellis has
printed from a MS. so entitled in the Harleian Collection, although
less terrible, is scarcely less affecting than that of her heroic
sister," &c.
Perhaps your correspondent A. S. A. may be enabled to consult this work,
and so ascertain further particulars.