"By your most humble subject and servant,
Charlys Suffoke."
Shortly after having written this letter Suffolk was annoyed by an incident which might have embroiled him further with the King. It was all through the meddlesome match-making of Mistress Jerningham, who ought to have known better. In March Queen Katharine was going to Our Lady of Walsingham to pray for a son, and on the way she was to be entertained by the Suffolks. The Duke's letter to Wolsey explains the affair.
"My very good lord,[ [473]—In my most heartiest manner I commend me unto your good lordship, ever more thanking you for the good mind that you have borne unto me, and beseeching your good continuance of the same. So it is, my lord, according to your advice I met the Queen my mistress on Friday last past at Pickenham Wood, and as my duty was, awaited upon her Grace to Walsingham, and also according to your advice the French Queen did meet with the said Queen my mistress at the next place that was convenient nigh unto our lodging, and such poor cheer as we could make her Grace we did, with as good heart and mind as her own servants according to our duties. Furthermore, my lord, as yesterday, Monday, the 16th day of March, Mistress Jerningham came to the French Queen my wife at dinner time, before the Queen my mistress coming hither, and after that she had been with the said Queen my wife, she took her daughter-in-law aside with her, and called young Berkeley [heir to Lord Berkeley] unto them, and there privately ensured [betrothed] the said Berkeley unto the Lady Anne Grey, one of the Queen my wife's ladies and mine. Which is no little displeasure unto me, seeing he is the King's ward, and that it pleased his Grace to put him to my rule and guiding. I had lever have spent a thousand pound than any such pageant should have been done within the Queen's house and mine. My Lord, I heartily desire and pray your good lordship that if any misinformations be made unto the King's Grace hereof that it will please you to shew his Grace hereof as I have written unto you, lest his Grace should give credence unto some other light informations herein, which I should abide by upon my honour, and that it will please you to stay the matter till my coming up to London. Also that it would please your lordship so to order this matter that it may be an example to all other, how they should make any such mysteries within any nobleman or woman's house hereafter, and in especially with one of the King's wards. And thus fare you well, my very good lord, I beseech Jesu to send you long life and good health. From the manor of Rising, the 17th day of March.
"By your assured
Charlys Suffoke."
The betrothal was of course invalid, and Suffolk got no blame in the matter, but it is a great pity one cannot read what Wolsey said to forward Mistress Jerningham. Suffolk came to Court for St George's Day, was well received by the King and Wolsey, and in a few days returned to Suffolk to bring his wife to town, and they were spectators of the Cardinal's "pageant" when at the intercession of himself and the three queens, for the Queen of Scots was in London, the King pardoned the rioters of the Evil May Day. Mary saw the fine sight when each of the forty men in custody took the halter from his neck and threw it in the air, and jumped for joy at his escape from death. "It was a very fine spectacle and well arranged," said a cynical foreigner. In July they were present at the banquet and jousts given at Greenwich to the ambassadors of the Emperor and the King of Spain on the signing of the treaty of amity. Suffolk signed it, and with it lost, he probably thought, all chance of his wife's income. At Greenwich the sailors from the King's great galley set up the cables for the tilt, and the two queens, Katharine and Mary, watched their husbands joust under the windows of the palace,[ [474] "like Hector and Achilles," Henry in black and white, the Duke in white, lozenged with crimson satin semé with the letters C.M., for Charles and Mary. Then came a banquet, when the French Queen sat at the head of the table beside her brother, and Suffolk was in the middle of one side opposite Norfolk and old Lady Guildford. During the dinner boys made the sweetest melody with their voices, flute, rebeck, and harpsichord, and after this there was dancing, when the King showed himself indefatigable, dancing all night after jousting all afternoon. The great feature in the whole series of entertainments was the playing of Fra Dionysius Memo,[ [475] late organist at St Mark's, Venice, and now chief musician to Henry, and so sweet it was, and so enthralled was the King by it, that the Court had concerts lasting for four hours on end. Henry always led the applause vehemently. The Court resounded with song, and there was rivalry among the boy singers and the musicians. Small wonder that Mary, whose tastes were like her brother's, longed to be always at Court with such gay company, but Suffolk could not move without running up against his creditors, and again he had to refuse Lord Shrewsbury,[ [476] who was pressing for his money, so that probably his enjoyment was not as whole-hearted as his Queen's.
MARGARET TUDOR, QUEEN OF SCOTS
FROM THE PAINTING IN THE STYLE OF BERNARD VAN ORLEY IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY
Immediately the festivities were over,[ [477] Mary went to Bishop's Hatfield, and there was delivered of a daughter who was called Frances, for she was born on St Francis' Day. The Queen and the Princess Mary were godmothers, for whom Lady Boleyn, Anne Boleyn's mother, and Lady Elizabeth Grey acted as deputies, and the Abbot of St Albans was godfather. There was great state at the christening, but nothing like that held for the young lord who might become King of England.
The financial arrangement which Suffolk had made with the Council was an indenture which showed that their debts to Henry amounted to £24,000 due by them at Calais, £600 for their diets in the King's house, and also £2300 for other things. Of this, £20,000 was the proper debt of the French Queen, and £6901 the debt of the Duke. Henry acknowledged having received from them in jewels £1666, 13s. 4d., and was to receive the remainder in instalments of 1000 marks at Michaelmas and at Easter, "if the French Queen so long live and the Duck togeders," and it probably was now that the clause was inserted by which the King waived his right to demand payment when by reason of war Mary's income was practically cancelled.[ [478] Francis promised in February 1518 that the dowry of his belle-mère should be paid, and gave orders to the officers in Saintonge, and the other places of her dower-lands, to let her representatives receive the rents, and the result was that 14,610 crowns were paid to Henry's representative, Fowler, at Calais. The arrangement with the Suffolks seems to have been that the King's officer was to receive the amount paid by the French, and that he was to pay over to the Queen the proportion due to her after the King's debt was satisfied, and in July 1518 Humphrey Wingfield, the Duke's officer, gave receipt for £2722.