The Nine Days' Queen, Lady Jane Grey, and Her Times. Richard Davey

      QUEEN KATHERINE PARR

      AFTER THE PAINTING FORMERLY IN THE POSSESSION OF HORACE WALPOLE

      History does not record the names of the tutors who assisted Katherine Parr to acquire her remarkable education and numerous accomplishments. We may suppose that some priest or monk chaplain at Kendal or Sizergh instructed her in Latin and Greek, in both of which languages she was proficient. She may have learnt French from Mr. Bellemain, French tutor to Prince Edward, a pronounced Huguenot, who, notwithstanding his unorthodoxy, was in high favour at Henry’s Court, received a pension from Edward after he ascended the throne, and walked in the young King’s funeral procession. She mastered the language sufficiently to be able to write it and speak it correctly, and even to record her sentimental impressions in tolerable verse. Amongst the MSS at Hatfield there is a curious French poem, partly written by Katherine and partly by another, probably her teacher. It opens with the following verse in the Queen’s handwriting:—

      “Considerant ma vie miserable

       Mon cœur marboin, obstine, intraitable,

       Outrecuide tant, que non seullement,

       Dieu n’estimoit ny son commandement.”

      The concluding verse runs:—

      “Qui prepare vous est devinement

       Ainsi que le monde eust son commencement

       Au Pere au Filz au Saint Esprit soit gloire

       Loz et honneur d’eternelle memoire. Finis.”26

      Katherine’s handwriting, though clear and legible, is not to be compared with that of Elizabeth, King Edward, and Jane Grey, who very probably took lessons in the then much esteemed art of caligraphy from Dr. Cheke, chief tutor to the Prince, or from Ascham, both famous for the beauty of their penmanship.

      Although very worldly, Katherine Parr was much preoccupied with theological disputations, and a distinctly evangelical tone pervades her literary remains; it is nevertheless certain that during the lifetime of her second husband, Lord Latimer, she was, or pretended to be, a Catholic, and that during the few years of her married life with Henry VIII she was a schismatic or “Henryite.” Tact and prudence were her leading characteristics, and she was both amiable and conciliatory, though she could, when angered, be extremely vindictive. Thomas Cromwell’s downfall, usually attributed to the machinations of Katherine Howard, was in reality mainly due to those of Katherine Parr, for she it was, as we shall presently see, who opened Henry VIII’s eyes to the prodigious rapacity and unpopularity of his favourite chancellor.

      Lord Latimer, the lady’s second spouse, like Lord Borough, had been twice married, and when he took her to wife was already the father of several children. The date of this marriage has not been handed down to us, but as Latimer lost his second wife in 1526, it could not have taken place earlier than 1527. He was a staunch Catholic of the belligerent sort, and a prominent leader of the Pilgrimage of Grace, an insurrection that broke out in the North of England in 1536 in consequence of the popular displeasure at the suppression of the monasteries and sequestration of church property. The peasants, suddenly deprived of the monks’ accustomed charity and driven to desperation, began a local crusade, which soon assumed large proportions, their ranks being joined by a great number of noblemen and gentlemen belonging to the old faith, amongst them the Archbishop of York, Lord Nevill, Lord Darcy, Lord Latimer, Sir Stephen Hamerton, Sir Robert Constable, a certain mysterious individual who called himself the “Earl of Poverty,” and Robert Aske, who though of mean extraction was nevertheless considered by the rest of his party as their nominal general. These motley pilgrims increased in numbers as they swept southwards in picturesque confusion; but despite the enthusiasm of their members, they seem to have been ill-disciplined and badly organised, and were presently dispersed at Dunstable, thanks to the conciliatory attitude of the Duke of Norfolk, whom the King had empowered to treat with these rebels and disband them. Latimer, who had been elected their spokesman, withdrew almost immediately and returned to London, where he soon afterwards resumed his post as Comptroller of the King’s Household. After this excursion into open revolt against his sovereign, Lord Latimer evidently deemed it prudent to keep himself very much in the background: he did not join the second Pilgrimage of Grace, which broke out in the following February (1537) and terminated in the execution by sword and fire of some seventy of its more prominent members, among them old Lord Derby, who was over eighty-three years of age.

      When in London, Lord Latimer inhabited a house situated in the churchyard of the Charterhouse. The Chartreuse, as it was then called, was rather a fashionable place of residence, being not far distant from Clerkenwell, which in King Henry’s time was a sort of Court suburb, such as Kensington became in the eighteenth century. From a letter still extant, it would appear that Lord Latimer, like many a modern nobleman and gentleman, was in the habit of letting his mansion furnished when he himself was absent at Snape Hall, his country seat in Yorkshire. Sir John Russell, Lord Privy Seal, who looked meek enough27 but was popularly known as “Swearing Russell” on account of his profane language, wrote in January 1537 requesting Latimer to allow a friend of his to have the loan of his house in the “Chartreuse” during his absence. Latimer dared not refuse, but his answer betrays his reluctant compliance with the request and some temper at the favour having been asked:—

      “Right Honourable and my especial good Lord—After my most hearty recommendations had to your good Lordship. Whereas your Lordship doth desire … [effaced] of your friends my house within Chartreuse churchyard, beside so … [effaced] I assure your Lordship the getting of a lease of it costs me 100 marcs, besides other pleasures [i.e. “improvements”] that I did to the house; for it was much my desire to have it, because it stands in good air, out of press of the city. And I do alway lie there when I come to London, and I have no other house to lie at. And, also, I have granted it to farm [i.e. “have let it”] to Mr. Nudygate,28 son and heir to serjeant Nudygate, to lie in the said house in my absence; and he to void whensoever I come up to London. Nevertheless I am contented if it can do your Lordship any pleasure for your friend, that he lie there forthwith. I seek my lodgings at this Michaelmas term myself. And as touching my lease, I assure your Lordship it is not here; but I shall bring it right to your Lordship at my coming up at this said term, and then and alway I shall be at your Lordship’s commandment, as knows our Lord, Who preserve your Lordship in much honour to His pleasure. From Wyke, in Worcestershire, the last day of September.—Your Lordship’s assuredly to command,

      “John Latimer”

      “To the right honourable and very especial good lord, my Lord Privy Seal.”29

      Lord Latimer died in February 1543, a twelvemonth after the execution of Queen Katherine Howard, leaving his widow the manors of Nunmonkton and Hamerton for life, and his mansion in the Charterhouse for as long as she should remain a widow. As soon as her husband was safely buried in St. Paul’s Churchyard, Katherine began to indulge her leaning towards what was then known as the “new learning”; and her house became the resort of the leaders of a movement which was eventually to complete the Reformation in England. These gentlemen were wont, it is said, to assemble at regular intervals and hold conferences on religious subjects in the presence, not only of Katherine and her household, but of a select circle of great ladies, among them Katherine’s sister, Anne Herbert, and the charming Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk, the fourth wife of Lady Jane’s singular grandfather, who were only too willing, notwithstanding the risk they ran, to sit at the feet of a Coverdale, a Latimer, or a Parkhurst. Religion, however, sat lightly on this clever Duchess, who—so brilliant, witty, and amusing are her letters—might well claim to be the precursor in the epistolary art