setting on of salt and sweet together which is still a custom in
Eastern feasts, and the making a second and a third course, as of
another complete dinner, also of salt and sweet dishes. The crown of
each was the “Subtelty,” a comparatively artistic design in jelly and
candied sugar, something like a modern trifle, but always utilized for
bearing the motto of the feast, and consequently it was probably the
last to be demolished. No wines are mentioned in this manuscript. It
must have taken a long time even to eat a morsel of each selection.
And after the feast was over would come into the hall, as was the
custom with her progenitors, the gentlemen of her Chapel Royal and
perform their play about Humankind and the good and bad angels. The
customary prayer for the Queen by the performers, would close the
proceedings.
_“Athenæum,” 1st September 1905._
FOOTNOTES:
[93] A copy is preserved by the Society of Antiquaries.
XXV
SIR ANDREW DUDLEY AND LADY MARGARET CLIFFORD, 1553
The Dudley, who with Empson, served Henry VII rather too eagerly in
filling the coffers of the State, was sacrificed in the first year of
Henry VIII to the resentment of the people. He left three sons, John,
Andrew, and Jerome, plain Dudleys. The aspiring ambitions of the eldest
were successful beyond his early hopes, and he had worked himself up
through all the grades of nobility to the highest place, and greatest
power in the land, by the first half of 1553.
The Dudleys were a united family, both through affection and common
interests, and John helped his brother Andrew as much as he could, to
add to his own strength in Edward’s reign. So plain Andrew Dudley was
made Admiral of the Fleet of the North on 27th February 1546-7, and
knighted shortly afterwards. He was also made Keeper of Westminster
Palace, October 1560, Master of the Robes, and Captain of Guisnes. He
did not share in the greater honours the Privy Councillors bestowed
on each other on 11th October 1551, when his brother John, then Earl
of Warwick, was made Duke of Northumberland. But in 1552-3 Sir Andrew
Dudley was made Knight of the Garter, and it became evident that his
elder brother meant to shower more honours on him should he himself
be successful in his skilfully prepared _coup d’état_. An old Earl of
Warwick had been surnamed “the Kingmaker”; this Dudley, Earl of Warwick
and Duke of Northumberland, might have been surnamed _the Queenmaker_.
By a curious coincidence, all the possible heirs to the throne at that
time were women. Northumberland arranged to set aside the will of Henry
VIII, in so far as it affected the succession of Mary and Elizabeth, on
the ground that their father had determined their illegitimacy in Acts
of Parliament which had never been repealed; he followed that will in
excluding from succession the Scottish Queen, and he persuaded Edward
VI to make a will for himself settling the crown on the heirs of his
Aunt Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, younger sister of Henry VIII. Mary had
left two daughters, Frances, now Duchess of Suffolk, and Ellinor, late
Countess of Cumberland. It has never been explained how Northumberland
managed to persuade the Duchess of Suffolk to allow herself to be
passed over during her lifetime. But he arranged it somehow, that her
eldest daughter, the Lady Jane Grey, should be the chosen heir to
Edward’s throne. When he thought he had settled this, he married the
Lady Jane to his eldest unmarried son, the Lord Guilford Dudley, and
gave her two younger sisters to his friends. The story of the disasters
brought thereby on all concerned is universally known.
But it is not so well known that Northumberland’s far-reaching vision
had seen and settled with further possible royal successions, and he
betrothed his brother Andrew to the sole daughter and heir of Ellinor,
Countess of Cumberland. The bare fact is mentioned in the D.N.B., and
in some other authorities (not in all). A hitherto unnoted suit has
turned up at the Record Office among the uncalendared proceedings
of the Court of Requests of Elizabeth, which provides much fuller
tragi-romantical details. This is a suit instituted by Sir Robert
Dudley, afterwards Earl of Leicester, to secure possession of all
his uncle Andrew’s goods, as executor of his will. Ellinor, daughter
of Mary, Duchess of Suffolk, had married Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of
Cumberland; and it says much for the power and influence of the Duke of
Northumberland in 1553 that he should have made the noble Earl content
to give his well-dowered daughter Margaret, great-granddaughter of
Henry VII, to a middle-aged landless knight, a widower to boot. The
fair young girl, if the D.N.B. is correct in the date of her birth
(which it gives as 1540), would be but thirteen years old, though it
seems from her examinations later, she was a year or two older. The
inclination of the lady is nowhere referred to. It is barely possible
there may have been some feelings of affection between the apparently
incongruous pair. She may have
Loved him for the dangers he had passed,
And he loved her that she did pity them.
They were duly betrothed, and arrangements proceeded. The earliest
preserved reference is in “A Warrant to Sir Andrew Dudley, as Master of
the Wardrobe, to take for the Lady Margaret Clifford, daughter to the
Earl of Cumberland, and to himself for their wedding apparel, sundry
silks and jewels, 8th June, 7 Ed. VI, 1553, M. S. Reg. 18, cxxiv. f.
364.”
On 12th June of the same year a letter was dictated by the Privy
Council in favour of Sir Andrew Dudley, concerning a marriage to be
concluded “at the King’s request,” but the address is not given in the
register. So by the middle of June 1553, Sir Andrew Dudley was gaily
preparing for his wedding with the second cousin of the King, a girl
who, by the new scheme of the succession, stood next in the line of
inheritance of the throne after the Lady Jane Grey and her two sisters.
The Earl of Cumberland had shunned Court life since the death of his
wife Ellinor, and had lived with his young daughter at Skipton Castle,
in Craven, Yorkshire. He was loth to part with his daughter, even had
Sir Andrew had a suitable home to which to take her. Therefore it had
been arranged that the bride and bridegroom should reside with the Earl
at Skipton, at least for a time. Sir Andrew sent rich gifts of jewels
and clothing, collected all his best plate and furniture, and even
borrowed some from his friends to adorn the suite of rooms they should
dwell in. He seems to have had faithful and capable servants. Oswald
Wilkinson, of the city of York, had been gentleman porter at Guisnes
when Sir Andrew was in command there; he left when his master left, and
followed him to Ireland, where he served him during the last year of
Edward VI. And now Sir Andrew sent this trusty servant in charge with
sixteen or seventeen others to convey his treasures north to his bride.
Among other things there were:
Three cupboards furnished with plate, with a garnish of vessels silver
gilt, a Venetian cup with a cover pounced, a salt with certain stones
set therein, and one or two pieces of small plate which were thought
to be all pure gold.... Also much goodly apparel, both for him and
for her, three or more suits apiece, two of them of gold and silver
tinsel, the rest of velvet and satin, with buttons and aglets of gold.
As for money, none went with them, save a little purse of gold and
silver strange coins, in value about £10.
Oswald Wilkinson and Alexander Harrison were present at the unpacking,
and thought the things would be worth at least £3,000. Wilkinson made
two copies of the inventory, with rough valuation, in the presence
of Lady Margaret Clifford, Lady Conyers, Sir Ingram Clifford, James
Banks and William Danby, gentleman servants to the Earl, and Mrs.
Brograve, gentlewoman to Lady Margaret. Wilkinson signed one of the
inventory-books, and gave it to the Lady Margaret, she signed the
other, and gave it to him to keep till his master came. The Lady
waited for her Lord in the Northern Tower, with the keys of the plate
cupboards, the clothes chests, and the jewel coffers in her pocket,
while the faithful henchman of her future husband kept the keys of the
treasure chamber. They seem to have remained at Skipton nearly three
weeks, during the first part of which time Sir Andrew was winding up
his affairs, realizing his money, and preparing to follow his wedding
gifts to his future home.
But the young King died too soon; too soon for Northumberland, for he
had not yet had the Royal Will ratified by his submissive Parliament;
too soon for Sir Andrew, for he had not yet wed his lady. Edward’s
death was concealed from the outer world for a day or two, while
Northumberland and the Council prepared their plans. Then followed an
anxious week for the country. But in Skipton Castle there was a special
dread. New rulers had sometimes a way of getting rid of collateral
connections.
Northumberland and the Council proclaimed the Lady Jane as Queen, and
arranged that the Duke of Suffolk should go forth to deal with Mary.
But the only Royal action the poor little Queen Jane was ever allowed
to do of her own free will, was to insist that her father should stay
with her in the Tower, a decision by which she helped to save his life
in the first instance. So Northumberland perforce had to go himself,
and all his family supported him. He got as far as Cambridge, his
forces deserting as he went. The unexpected courage of Mary, the
ready response it met, turned the tide of events. The Council he had
left behind him in London, bound with an oath to Jane, proclaimed
Mary. Northumberland tried to save himself also by proclaiming her in
Cambridge. But he was too late. All the Dudley family were arrested,
Sir Andrew among them, so he never reached his bride and his treasure
waiting for him in Skipton Tower, but was hurried to the Tower of
London, in by the Traitor’s Gate.
The Earl of Cumberland had been sitting on the fence. When he heard
that Mary had been proclaimed in York, he dropped on the safe side, and
to show his love and loyalty took the keys of her treasures from his
fair daughter, the keys of the chamber from Dudley’s servants, with
both the inventories, and took possession of the property in the name
of Queen Mary!
No affronted Sovereign, backed by her people, could afford to pass by
treason so determined. Northumberland and some of his chief supporters
fell at once. The Baga de Secretis records, under the date of 19th
August 1553, the attainder of Sir Ambrose Dudley, Henry Dudley,
Esquire, Sir Andrew Dudley, Sir John and Sir Henry Gate, “for levying
war against the Queen, and asserting the title of the Lady Jane on
the 18th and 19th July, and for taking their way towards Framlingham
Castle, to deprive the Queen of her Royal Dignity.” They were all
condemned. But Mary was wonderfully merciful. She pardoned the Dudleys,
she even released the Duke of Suffolk, father of her rival, because
confinement did not agree with his health.
There was an investigation into the traitors’ goods. Oswald Wilkinson
was sent to the Tower, on the charge of carrying his master’s goods
to Skipton, and he was kept there till the inventories were sent for
and gone into. Early in 1554 Sir Andrew Dudley “was created loyal
subject, and enabled to take, receive, and enjoy all manner of gifts
of land, goods, and household stuff henceforth to him given.” That was
cold comfort to a man past his prime, now without place or influence or
friends to give him aught. And he wanted his bride. He sent up humble
petitions for relief. By-and-by, “the King and Queen, moved with pity,
by their letters patent under the Great Seal, granted him all such
goods and chattels as had belonged to him on the 22nd July, 1553,”
which had afterwards belonged to the King and Queen, and gave him full
power and authority “to prosecute all actions or suits or executions
concerning the goods, money, debts, against all and every person
deteyning them, and in peace quietly to have and enjoy them, as if Sir
Andrew Dudley had never been attainted of treason.” But this concession
came too late.
We must turn back to note what the Cliffords had been doing. Sir Andrew
being in the Tower, the Earl of Cumberland came to London, and handed
over his Collar of the Garter into the Queen’s own hands, and some
other jewels to the Queen’s Commissioners, Lord Rich and Mr. Potts,
and on 6th September 1553, it was agreed that the Earl should keep the
rest of Sir Andrew’s goods, on paying £500 into the Exchequer. Mary
was very cordial to the Earl, but warned him that he must not marry
his daughter except to one approved of by herself. It would almost
seem that she suggested Henry, Lord Strange, son and heir of the Earl
of Derby. At least the smiles of royalty brightened this wedding. The
Queen presented the bride with a brooch of thirteen diamonds, all the
household linen, and all the robes which had belonged to Sir Andrew
Dudley. It is probable the Lady Margaret Clifford wore at her marriage
to Lord Strange on 7th February 1554-5, the very robes of gold and
silver tinsel Sir Andrew had received from the Royal wardrobe for his
own intended wedding in June 1553. The Queen made a great feast at
Court on the occasion of the marriage. There were jousts, in which
King Philip himself took part, and “after supper there was the Juego
de Cañas,” a Spanish game, in which he led. The Queen was anxious, a
presentiment of evil weighed her down, and she more than once sent to
beg the King not to expose himself so much. Her suspicion of a lurking
danger was well founded. There was already widespread discontent with
the Spanish marriage, the religious severities had increased this, and
on the 4th of February, only three days before this gay wedding, John
Rogers, the first Marian martyr, had been burned at the stake amid the
murmurs of the people. The State Papers tell us that a secret band
of conspirators had appointed William Hunnis, Allday, Cornwall, and
others to the number of twelve, to kill the King, and after him the
Queen, that very night. But though these elements of danger mingled
in the gay crowd nothing was done. “A cautious consideration of the
risks run by themselves put the conspirators out of stomach for the
enterprise.” So the Lady Margaret Clifford was safely married to the
Catholic Lord Strange; and after the festivities were all over the
Queen’s pity turned to her former _fiancé_, and he was made capable of
holding property and demanding debts. The first thing he did was to
send his former servant, Alexander Harrison, to York to meet Oswald
Wilkinson, and go with him to Skipton Castle to demand back his (Sir
Andrew’s) wedding provision. But the Earl refused unless they paid
him £500. They had it not to pay. The Earl refused even to give them
some necessary pieces of plate for Sir Andrew’s use, worth in all
about £40, which they earnestly requested. Poor Sir Andrew never saw
either his bride or his property again. He was in a sad plight. He
had lost all Court influence through his brother’s death, he was not
so young or so astute as his nephews. He became suspected of being
concerned in the plot held together by John Throckmorton, the Ashtons,
and Henry Dudley (not his nephew). He might have sympathized with it,
but nothing was proved against him. After a year filled with trials
and executions in connection with this conspiracy Sir Andrew Dudley
fell ill. He thought he was going to die, and made his will on 21st
July 1556, leaving many legacies to be paid out of debts due to him,
and appointing as overseers his nephews, Ambrose, afterwards Earl of
Warwick, Robert, afterwards Earl of Leicester, and Henry, not the
conspirator. The broken man did not then die. A new path to promotion
might have been found for him in the new reign, through his nephews.
But he died in the first year of Elizabeth at Westminster. His will was
proved on 22nd November 1559, by Sir Robert Dudley. Thence arose the
suit in the Court of Requests, which has preserved so many details. Sir
Robert could not settle the legacies without securing the debts, so he
exhibited a Bill of Complaint against the Earl of Cumberland, the chief
debtor. The complaint itself is lost, but it is easy to reconstruct it
(excepting the date) from the other papers. In an undated answer the
Earl denied that the Lord Robert Dudley had any right to demand goods
lawfully forfeited, minimized the amount and value of the goods, but
acknowledged having:
One purse of 29 pieces of gold and 11 pieces of new money; divers
apparels, as shirtes, petycotes, trusses, doublets of taffaty and
satin, hoses of velvet and saten, jerkyns, clokes, and gowns of velvet
and satin with aglets of gold, jackets of cloth of gold, cote of
silver, velvet, and satin, hankerchers, certain plate double gilt,
parcel gilt, white plate, one cup of gold, and certain pewter and
glass.
The Queen became possessed of all, kept the jewels, and bargained
the other goods to him for £500, as may be seen by a privy seal. The
Replication of Lord Robert Dudley (also undated) declared the answer
insufficient. The Earl of Cumberland in the first instance was not an
official of the Queen’s, and had no right to seize the goods. They were
not in his keeping, but in the keeping of the Lady Margaret. He never
paid that £500 to the Exchequer, and had no receipt for it. Dudley was
able to prove the goods were worth £4,500. Sir Andrew had a patent
granted him to sue for all debts.
In the rejoinder the Earl said he knew of Sir Andrew’s patent, but
before it was granted the Queen had seized the goods, detained some,
sent some to the Lady Strange, and sold the remainder to him for £500.
It is true that he did not pay this directly. But the Lord Strange
owed him £500, and paid it for him. A commission was appointed to hear
witnesses at Westminster, and they heard Lord Robert Dudley’s on 10th
December 1560. The most important was Oswald Wilkinson, who stated
all the facts above, and added that they could not have altered the
inventory without his knowing it. Thomas Greene, of Adlyngton, co.
Cheshire, another old servant, spoke to sums of money Sir Andrew had
possessed. Alexander Harrison, while supporting Wilkinson, added that
he had received from Sir Henry Sidney through James Shelley £1,300 for
Sir Andrew Dudley at Petty Callys in Westminster in the last year of
Edward VI. The Earl kept all the goods and inventories and everything
except the four horses he and his fellows rode on. William Garrat and
William Clark, gentlemen, of Westminster, former servants, supported
the depositions of their fellows, and Hugh Briscowe had seen the book
of payments for all Sir Andrew’s property, and heard him confess it on
his death-bed. He knew Sir Andrew had sent in a Supplication against
the Earl to the late Queen in the Court of Requests. John Cogges had
packed all the property and had heard it estimated at £5,000.
The Earl’s witnesses were not examined till 3rd February 1561-2,
Christopher Monckton, William Danby, and others, who really supported
Dudley’s witnesses. On the same day, the 3rd of February 1561-2, the
noble witness the Lady Margaret Strange was called. She gave her age
as twenty-four, and thus the D.N.B. would seem to be out by two years
in the date of her birth. She supported the depositions of the Dudley
servants clearly and fully, and signed her deposition in her beautiful
clear, careful handwriting, “Margaret Strange.” From the Book of
Decrees and Orders one can gather that some private arrangement was
come to after all. Lord Robert Dudley was becoming ever more powerful
with the Queen, and the Earl of Cumberland would doubtless have to
climb down. And the Lady Margaret Strange, who was not very happy
with her Lord, became, on his father’s death, the Countess of Derby,
survived her husband, and, it is said, communed with soothsayers,
who promised her that her son should be King. That son resisted the
suggestion, and she saw him struck down by poison given, it was said,
by disappointed Jesuits. Her second son became Earl, and kept himself
safe and secluded from worldly ambitions, “writing only comedies for
the common players”; and she, out of favour in Elizabeth’s suspicious
Court,[94] because of her dreams of a Royal succession, ended her life
in gloom in 1596. (_See_ Camden’s “Annals,” p. 470.)
_“The Yorkshire Post,” 26th August 1912._
FOOTNOTES:
[94] She was confined in 11th March 1579, also 23rd November 1579. See
Reg. Privy Council of date, and at other later times.
XXVI
JANE, THE QUEEN’S FOOL
The only woman in this country clearly recorded to have filled the
peculiarly masculine office of the Royal Fool was a person named
Jane, whose paternal name is as yet only a matter of inference. It is
not insignificant that she flourished in the time of our first Queen
Regnant, 1537-1558, coming to the Household while Mary was Princess,
and sharing the days of her adversity, as well as of her prosperity.
It is possible that Mary, with her modest nature, considered that it
would be more decorous that her quiet household should be amused by a
humourist of her own sex, than by such jesters as awakened by their
broad witticisms roars of laughter in her father’s Court. But it is
more than likely that, from some kind motive at first, she had extended
her protection to Jane as a young girl left under some peculiar need
of help, and, after fitting her for it, appointed her to the office.
No book of Jane’s witticisms has come down to us, nor any allusions to
them, as in the case of her predecessor Scogan, and her contemporary
Will Somers, so that it is probable that her sayings were neither
very brilliant nor very broad, and that she was one who rather warmed
and illumined life by a genial humour, than one who flashed upon it
startling coruscations of wit. Dr. Doran, in his “History of Court
Fools,” does not allude to her, though he might have done so had he
studied Sir Frederick Madden’s published transcript of the household
expenses of the Princess Mary, as Miss Strickland has done to advantage.
Little is known of her except through the accounts of her garments,
and yet through the language of clothes we find in this case a good
deal of information regarding Court customs and expenditure, and of the
Queen who determined both. In many ways Mary showed herself liberal by
nature, but nowhere more markedly than in the clothing of her Court
Fools. Besides the Girl-Fool of her youth, the Queen, on coming to the
throne, “entertained” her father’s fool, William Somers, doubtless on
account of his well-known kindly and charitable disposition. Armin, in
his “Nest of Ninnies,” says of him:
He was a poor man’s friend
And helped the widow often to her end;
The King would ever grant what he did craue,
For well he knew Will no exacting Knave,
But wished the King to do good deeds great store
Which caused the Court to love him more and more.
But though Henry VIII granted his Fool’s requests, he did not array
Somers anything like so handsomely as Mary did. So it does not seem
surprising that she liked to deck her Woman Fool almost gorgeously at
times. One can only wonder how Jane could wear out all the shoes that
were made for her, unless she had some poor relatives whom they fitted.
The more limited gifts of Mary’s early days were, no doubt, eked out
by home-made “translations,” and certainly aided by grants from the
King. The earliest entry (Royal MSS. British Museum, 17B. xxviii) runs:
“December 1537. Payd for housen and shewes to Jane the Foole 20ᵈ.”
In 1538: “Payd for a yerde and a halfe Damaske for Jane the Fole 7/.
Item payed to Mʳˢ Laundress for stuff by hir bought for Jane the Fole
15/.”
In 1542 appears: “Item for a pair of shews for Jane the Fole 6/.” In
April 1543: “Item for three elles clothe to make Jane the Fole smocks
3/.” In July 1543: “Item payd for Jane the Fole for the tyme of her
seekness 22/6.” In September of that year:
“Payd for a Kirtle for Jane Foole 15/.
“Item for nedles for Jane 1ᵈ.”
In January 1543-4: “Payed for shaving of Jane Fole’s head 8ᵈ,” an
expense which was again incurred in July 1544, in August and September
of that year, as if some weakness in the hair had followed her severe
illness.
In June-1544: “Item for a coffer for Jane the Foole 3/4.”
From another source we find other facts. In 1540 there had been a
warrant issued by Henry VIII to Sir Anthony Denny, Master of the Great
Wardrobe, to deliver certain quantities of silks and stuffs to “The
nurse of Prince Edward, to Catharine Champernoone, to Ann Basset, and
to Jane the Foole” (Add. MS. 7100, Brit. Mus.).