Mr. Martin Hume published, some years ago, a very curious letter he found among the Spanish archives, giving a description of the few happy days Mary enjoyed with Philip, from which we learn that the over numerous Spaniards who accompanied the prince were as much disgusted with the English as the English were with them. Left somewhat to themselves, thanks to the love-making of their sovereign, they made themselves masters of Hampton Court. They could not endure the cooking; it was, they said, coarse, raw, and horrible. The famous “roast-beef of old England” was unsuited to their palates, and their stomachs revolted at the quantity of strong beer which the attendants upon Mary imbibed so copiously that, according to the correspondent in question, by the time evening drew on, the majority of them were drunk. Further, this correspondent says: “There is not a single Spanish gentleman here who would give a farthing for any of their women; and, to speak plainly, they care equally little for us Spaniards. The English, in fact, hate us as they do the devil, and in that spirit they treat us. If we go up to town to make purchases, we are sure to be cheated, and it is quite dangerous for us to venture into the country. As to their women, with few exceptions, they are most plain, very fat, and red in the face. They dress extremely badly, and shuffle rather than walk. There are eighteen kitchens in this royal palace, and every day there are consumed not less than one hundred sheep, twelve oxen, eighteen calves, and beer in such abundance, that the winter flow of the river at Valladolid is not greater in quantity.” The amusing writer then proceeds to describe the queen. “Bless you,” says he, “she is a very plain little lady, small, lean, with a pink-and-white complexion and no eyebrows; very pious and very badly dressed.” In this matter of the queen’s dress our Spanish critic probably preferred the Spanish fashion for ladies, with its “vastie” farthingales and impossible head-dress, to the rich but sober costume which Queen Mary affected.
Whilst Philip and Mary were spending an idyllic existence in the pleasant seclusion and surroundings of their sequestered apartments, the ladies of the court no doubt availed themselves of the opportunity to enjoy a greater amount of freedom than court etiquette usually allows; and thus it came to pass than young Hertford and Lady Katherine met almost daily, either in the garden or in the palace itself, thereby adding fuel to the fire of that attachment between them which was eventually to prove so disastrous to both. That the Duchess of Somerset, the lad’s mother, was aware of their love-making appears pretty certain, and probably Mary herself was cognizant of it, and by no means disapproved. She felt sure she would become the mother of an heir to the Throne, and it mattered very little to her whom the Lady Katherine married, provided he was of sufficient rank. Notwithstanding that his mother, the duchess, was a very outspoken Protestant, Queen Mary always entertained a great affection for her, addressing her, in her numerous letters, as her “Dearest Nan.” Indeed the early courting of Lady Katherine and Hertford was spent under the most auspicious circumstances, smiled upon by the queen and amidst the most charming and romantic surroundings.
On the 28th of September the court removed from Hampton Court and went to Westminster Palace, and with it went Lady Katherine and all the ladies, young and old; and there is a record that, on the 30th of the month, the Lady Frances came up to town and paid her respects to the queen and her consort. She probably attended their highnesses to St. Paul’s, where the whole court listened to a sermon preached by Gardiner.
Meanwhile the Spaniards, who had flocked to London in great numbers, were the cause of perpetual trouble to the citizens and to themselves. Street fights between them and the English were of constant occurrence, and all sorts of brawls, as picturesque, no doubt, as they were unpleasant, between the English gentlemen and the Spanish cavaliers, and Spanish valets and London apprentices, occurred almost daily—and especially nightly. Probably London felt itself well quit of this foreign invasion when the greater part of it followed Philip, on his return to Spain in August 1555, leaving the queen at Greenwich in the deepest despondency. Before this, the Lady Katherine Grey had formed an intimacy with the two daughters of the late Duke of Somerset, the Ladies Margaret and Jane Seymour, who had been appointed maids of honour to the queen. They are described as very good-looking young women, and Jane was even considered to be one of the most learned of her time. Shortly after the departure of Prince Philip, Lady Jane Seymour, who was very delicate, fell ill, and the queen allowed Lady Katherine to go with her to her mother, the Duchess of Somerset’s house at Hanworth, which Mary had recently restored to her, and where the young Earl of Hertford was staying. As may be imagined, the courting which had begun at Hampton Court was continued, with renewed vigour, at Hanworth, Lady Jane Seymour being Lady Katherine’s confidante.
[CHAPTER III]
THE PROGRESS OF LADY KATHERINE’S LOVE AFFAIRS
The happiest years of Lady Katherine’s life were, according to her own account, those spent at the court of Queen Mary. She was too well versed in the politics of the time not to recognize that the queen’s action with respect to her sister Jane was not a matter of private revenge but of public policy, approved and indeed endorsed by her Parliament. She bore witness, in after years, to the kindness and consideration she had received from Queen Mary, and the precedence accorded to her on all state occasions as a princess of the blood, allowing her to walk before any of the other great ladies of the court, excepting the Princess Elizabeth, the Lady Frances, and Henry VIII’s fourth wife and only surviving widow, Anne of Cleves. Queen Mary, unlike her successor Elizabeth, insisted upon her ladies and maids of honour paying the utmost attention to their religious duties, and was, moreover, very vigilant as to their manners and their morals. So long as her health permitted, together with all her court, she heard Mass every morning in the palace chapel, or in her bedroom, when she was ill. Very frequently she attended Vespers, together with all her court, besides taking her part in those numerous religious processions—which had been suppressed since her father’s reign—round the cloisters of Westminster Abbey and the courtyards of her palaces, on saints’ days and holy days. Of an evening, when at needlework with her ladies, hymns and litanies were sung; so that King Philip, notwithstanding his zeal for the Church, was somewhat depressed by so much piety, when he returned to England in 1556, and observed that “his wife’s court was now become like that of some abbess, there was so much praying and psalm-singing.” No doubt, Lady Katherine Grey joined in all these pious exercises, and it was even reported that, at this period, she followed her mother’s example, and reverted to the Church of Rome. She was certainly not a very staunch Protestant, since she told Feria that she was “as good a Catholic as any.”
At the court of Queen Mary, Lady Katherine Grey formed one or two interesting friendships. She kept up her connection with Mrs. Saintlow, who, however, does not seem to have troubled Queen Mary overmuch with her presence; and she became intimate with Jane Dormer, Countess de Feria, an extremely beautiful young woman, belonging to a very ancient Catholic family, for whom the queen entertained a great affection. This lady has left a book of memoirs, printed some fifty years ago, which contains many interesting details of life at the court of England under the rule of Mary Tudor. This friendship between Katherine Grey and the Countess of Feria proved dangerous, since it placed the former in immediate communication with the Spanish ambassador, and led to her being compromised in one of the most remarkable plots of the many connected with the succession that rendered Elizabeth’s life a misery to her. So great was the influence of the Ferias over Lady Katherine that, in March 1559, the count could write to King Philip triumphantly stating that she had actually given him her solemn promise that she would not marry without his consent, nor change her religion, which points to the fact that, as we have said above, she had become a Catholic. Another of Lady Katherine’s intimates at this time was Surrey’s “Fair Geraldine,” the beautiful Lady Clinton, who, although a professed Protestant, was beloved by Queen Mary, who retained her in her privy-chamber, together with Lady Bacon and one or two other ladies who approved of the Reformation. She had married, when very young, the elderly Sir Anthony Browne, who was master of the horse to Henry VIII, and had been left by him a rich widow. Her second husband was Lord Clinton, who in due time became Earl of Lincoln. Lady Katherine held her in such high esteem that she bequeathed her a legacy in her will.