Biography of Catherine Grey Countess Hertford 1540-1568

Ellis' Letters. Anne Duchess of Somerset to Sir William Cecil: upon the same.

[ms. lansdowne 9. art 32. Orig.]

This Letter is endorsed as having been received April 18th, 1566.

Good Mr. Secretary, yf I have let you alone all thys whyle I pray you thynke yt was to tary for my L.

Leycesters assystans, to whom as I have now wryten to take some occasyon to do good in my Sonne's cause, so are thyese to pray you to provoke hym, and jqyne with hym to further the same; trusting the occasyon of thyse Holy Weke and charytable tyme of forgevenes ernestly sett forth by hys Lordship and you, wyll bryng forth some comfortable frute of rely ve to the long afflycted partyes: wherin my Lord and you cannot go so farre but God's cause and the Quene's honor bedd you go farther. Thus moch I thowght good to wret as gevyng occasyon for my Lord and you to move the Quenes Ma^ty to mercy, and not styll to suffre this cause alone to rest withowt all favor and forgevenes I can nomore but ons agayn pray yowre emest dealyng herein; and lykwyse that myne humble duty of thanks for Mr. Mychells passport may be donne to her Hyghnes, and so do leave you to God.

Yo asured lovyng frynd,

ANNE SOMERSET.

To my lovyng frynd Mr. Secretary.

Note. Within a year from the receipt of this Letter death released the Lady Catherine (age 26) from her sufferings. The Harleian MS. N°. 39. foL 380. contains what is called "The Manner of her departing." The Reader will peruse it with a feeling of pity.

"All the night she continued in prayer, saying of psalms and hearing them read of others, sometimes saying them after others, and as soon as one Psalm was done she would call for another to be said; divers times she would rehearse the prayers appointed for the Visitation of the Sick, and five or six times the same night she said the prayers appointed to be said at the hours of death, and when she was comforted by those that were about her, saying 'Madam be of good comfort, with God's help you shall live and do well many years,' she would answer 'No, no, no life in this worlde, but in the world to come I hope to live ever; for here is nothing but care and misery, and there is life everlasting:' and then seeing herself faint, she said ' Lord be merciful unto me, for now I begin to faint,' and all the time of her fainting, when any about her would chafe or rub her to comfort her, she would lift up her hands and eyes unto heaven and say 'Father of Heaven, for thy son Christ's sake, have mercy upon me.' Then said the Lady Hopton unto her, 'Madam be of good comfort, for with God his favour you shall live and escape this; for Mrs. Cousen saith you have escaped many dangers, when you were as like to die as you be nowe.' 'No, no my Ladie my time is come, and it is not God's will that I should live any longer, and his will be done, and not mine;' then, looking upon those that were about her, 'As I am, so shall you be, behold the picture of yourselves.' And about vi. or vij. of the clocke in the morning she desired those that were about her to cause Sir Owen Hoptone (age 48) to come unto her, and when he came he said unto her, 'Good Madam how do you,' and she said, 'Even now going to God, Sir Owen, even as fast as I can; and I pray you and the rest that be about me to bear witness with me that I die a true Christian, and that I believe to be saved by the death of Christ, and that I am one that he hath shed his most precious blood for; and I ask God and all the world forgiveness, and I forgive all the world.' Then she said unto Sir Owen Hoptone 'I beseech you promise me one thing, that you yourself with your own mouth will make this request unto the Queen's Majesty, which shall be the last suit and request that ever I shall make unto her Highness, even from the mouth of a dead woman; that she would forgive her displeasure towards me as my hope is she hath done; I must needs confess I have greatly offended her, in that I made my choice without her knowledge, otherwise I take God to witness I had never the heart to think any^vil against her Majesty; and that she would be good unto my children, and not to impute my fault unto them, whom I give wholly unto Her Majesty: for in my life they have had few friends, and fewer shall they have when I am dead, except Her Majesty be gracious unto them: and I desire her Highness to be good unto my Lord, for I know this my death will be heavy news unto him, that her Grace will be so good as to send liberty to glad his sorrow, ful heart withall'^a Then she said unto Sir Owen, 'I shall further desire you to deliver from me certain commendations and Tokens unto my Lord,' and calling unto her woman, she said, 'Give me the box wherein my wedding Ring is,' and when she had it she opened it, and took out a Ring with a pointed diamond in it, and said, 'Here Sir Owen, deliver this unto my Lord^b, this is the Ring that I received qf him when I gave myself unto him and gave him my faith.' 'What say you, Madam,' said Sir Owen, 'was this your Wedding Ring?' 'No, Sir Owen,' she said, 'this was the Ring of my assurance unto my Lord, and there is my Wedding Ring,' taking another Ring all of gold out of the box, saying, 'Deliver this also unto my Lord, a and pray him even as I have been to him, as I take God to witness I have been, a true and a faithful Wife, that he would be a loving and a natural Father unto my children, unto whom I give the same blessing that God gave unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' And then took she out another Ring with a Death's head, and said 'This shall be the last Token unto my Lord that ever I shall send him; it is the picture of myself.' The words about the Death's head were these 'While I lyve yourtf and so, looking down upon her hands, and perceiving the nails to look purple, said, 'Lo here he is come,' and then as it were with a joyful countenance she said 'welcome Death,' and embracing herself with her arms, and lifting up her eyes and hands unto heaven, knocking her hands upon her breast, she brake forth and said ' O Lord! for thy manyfold mercies, blot out of thy Book all mine offenses!' Whereby Sir Owen perceiving her to draw towards her end, said to Mr. Bockeham were it not best to send to the Church that the bell^c may be rung, and she herself hearing him, < Good Sir Owen let it be so.' Then immediately perceiving her end to be near, she en. tered into Prayer, and said, 'O Lord! into thy hands I commend my soul, Lord Jesus receive my spirit' and so putting down her eyes with her own hands she yielded unto God her meek spirit at nine of the clock in the Morning the 27th of January, 1567."

The marriage between Lady Catherine Gray and the Earl of Hertford was not established till 1606; when the priest who had joined them being produced, and other circumstances agreeing, a jury at common law found it a good marriage^d. Several papers relating to Lord Beauchamp's Appeal against the Sentence of the Commission, in 1604, occur in the Cottonian MS. Vitellius C. xvi. folL 412, 458, 516, 522: and Sir Julius Caesar's Notes from the Jurisconsults when the sentence was reversed, in the Lansdowne MS. 732.

Note a. The Lord Hertford remained in prison nine years.

Note b. This Ring had been exhibited by Lady Catherine to the Commission of Inquiry. It consisted of five links, the four inner ones containing the following posie of the Earl's making:

"As circles five by art compact shewe but one Ring in sight,

So trust uniteth faithfull mindes with knott of secret might;

Whose force to breake but greedie Death noe wight possesseth power,

As time and sequels well shall prove. My Ringe can say no more."

Note c. The Passing Bell. It was rung at the passing from Life to Death, with the intention that those who heard it should pray for the person dying.

Note d. Brydges's Edit of Collins's Peerage, vol. i. p. ITS.

The Gentleman's Magazine Volume 93. 01 Jun 1823. Mr. Urban, June 1.

There seems to have been an error which has crept into all our Histarians, respecting the fate of the Lady Katharine Grey, youngest daughter of Henry Grey Duke of Suffolk, and the Lady Frances, daughter of Charles Brandon. The main points of her history are well known, and no doubt, correctly detailed; but it is of her death and burial that I am now speaking. Dr. Fuller, in his quaint way, gives us the following account:

"She was born at Bradgate, and (when her father was in height) married to Henry Lord Herbert, son and heir to the Earl of Pembroke; but the politic old Earl, perceiving the case altered, and what was the high way to honour, turned into the ready road to ruin, got pardon from Queen Mary, and broke the marriage quite off. This Heraclita, or Lady of Lamentation, thus repudiated, was seldom seen with dry eyes for some years together, sighing out her sorrowful condition; so that though the roses in her cheeks looked very wan and pale, it was not for want of watering. Afterwards Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, married her privately without the Queen’s licence, and concealed it till her pregnancy diseovered it. Queen Elizabeth beheld her with a jealous eye, unwilling she should match either foreign Prince or English Peer, but follow the pattern she set her of constant virginity. For their presumption this Earl was fined £15,000 imprisoned with his lady in the Tower, and severely forbidden her company; but love and money will find or force a passage. By bribing the keeper, he bought (what was his own) his wife’s embraces, and had by her a surviving son, Edward, ancestor to the Duke of Somerset. She died Jan. 26, 1567, a prisoner in the Tower, after nine years durance there."

It appers from Bayley’s "History of the Tower,", p. 91, that on the 5th Sept. 1562, 4 Eliz. "the Ladie Katherine Grey, and the Erle of Hartford," were prisoners there: but from the following note, copied from a MS by Reyce, now in the College of Arms, relating to Suffolk Antiquities, it is equally clear that she did not die there: the note is as follows:

There lie buried in the Church and Chancel at Yoxford, the bowels of y^e Lady Katherine, wife of Edward Seimour Earl of Hardford. She was daughter of Henry Grey Duke of Suffolk, and of Mary the French Queen, the younger of the two daughters of King Henry VII:—of the elder, K. James and K. Charles were descended. This lady Katharine had been committed prisoner to Sir Owen Hopton, Lieftenant of the Tower, for marrying without the Queen's knowledge, and was by him kept at Cockfield Hall, in Yoxford, being his house, where she died. I have been often told by aged people in Yoxford, that after her death, a little dog she had, would never more eat any meat, but lay and died upon her grave."

This statement is corroborated by the following entry in the Parish Register of Yoxford:

The Lady Katherine Gray, buried 21st Feb. 1567." D.A.Y.