In addition to his wives, Brandon had a notorious mistress, who bore him several children, one of whom, Sir Charles Brandon, had a son who was a celebrated jeweller in the reign of Elizabeth,[44] and who, some say, was the father of that Richard Brandon who is alleged to have beheaded Charles I.[45] These scandals and many others, of which we know little or nothing, though some are hinted at in the correspondence of the various ambassadors, no doubt affected the happiness of the queen-duchess, and account for the infrequency of her visits to London and her rare appearances at court functions.
[CHAPTER IV]
THE LAST DAYS OF SUFFOLK AND OF THE QUEEN-DUCHESS
Notwithstanding Mary Tudor’s exalted rank, her husband neglected her. The Chronicles and State Papers of the period frequently allude to this sad fact. The death of her only son, the young Earl of Lincoln, of the “sweating sickness,” which occurred in 1527, when he was only twelve years old, affected her health, so that she retired from London, and spent nearly all her time at Westhorpe Hall, a grand Tudor mansion near Bury St. Edmunds, which remained intact until the beginning of the last century, when it was pulled down to make room for the present ugly and uninteresting structure. The ancient furniture, some of which had evidently belonged to the queen-duchess, was sold in 1805, and amongst the other miscellaneous lots put up to auction was a lock of Mary Tudor’s fair hair, which was purchased by a Suffolk antiquary for seven shillings.
Mary espoused, as far as she dared, the cause of her unhappy sister-in-law, Katherine of Aragon, and it is not surprising, therefore, that though in London at the time, she did not attend the coronation of Anne Boleyn, where her husband figured so conspicuously as Lord High Constable of England. He behaved abominably to Queen Katherine, and even insulted her grossly when he was sent by Henry to Bugden to visit her, just before her removal to Kimbolton; so coarsely, indeed, that the queen ordered him out of her presence, reminding him, at the same time, of the many favours she had heaped upon him when she was in power.
The royal grandmother of the unfortunate sisters of the House of Grey seems never to have enjoyed good health. As far back as 1518, Suffolk wrote to Wolsey to inform him that the queen-duchess, his wife, was ill of a “anagu” [an ague], the cure of which gave the king’s “fuesesune” plenty of good occupation. The word “physician” was apparently an orthographic stumbling-block to both the duke and his consort. Early in February 1533, Mary Tudor wrote from Westhorpe Hall to the king, informing him that she intended coming to London to consult “Master Peter, her fesysyon”; as her health was failing, she felt it wise to seek other advice. Accordingly, towards the middle of April, she arrived, with her two daughters, at Suffolk Court; here preparations were at once made for the marriage of the elder of these young ladies with the youthful Marquis of Dorset, and for the betrothal of the younger, the Lady Eleanor, to Lord Henry Clifford, eldest son of the Earl of Cumberland. These combined ceremonies were solemnized in the first week of May, most likely in that stately parish church which is now Southwark Cathedral. Henry VIII attended the function, but whether he was accompanied by Anne Boleyn, who was already queen, though not as yet crowned, we know not.[46]
A few days later, on May 19, Queen Anne Boleyn passed in triumph through the streets of London from the Tower to Westminster Abbey, to be crowned. On either side of her open litter, sumptuously hung with silver tissue, and borne by two milk-white palfreys draped in white brocade, rode the Duke of Suffolk and Henry, Marquis of Dorset, who bore the sceptre. Cecily, dowager Marchioness of Dorset, was with the old Duchess of Norfolk in a chariot that followed the litter conveying the queen, who in glittering robes of cloth of gold and with a circlet of magnificent rubies crowning her raven tresses, “freely exposed the beauty of her person to the gaze of the people.” But the populace, even as it gazed upon her loveliness, did not forget the good “old queen” it had worshipped, who was even then lying sick unto death at Bugden Hall in Huntingdonshire. Anne was received in dead silence, throughout the whole line of the procession: not a cap was raised in her honour.