Tudor Marriage: Scandal - Edward Seymour and Katherine Grey

After the execution of Jane Grey, her sisters knew that they must tread carefully. Queen Mary had only reluctantly sent Jane to her death due to the continued scheming and rebellion of her father and pressure from the Spanish, but those who remained wished to be free of the stain of treason.

By the end of 1558, Queen Mary had died and was replaced with Queen Elizabeth. Their father had not expected either of his daughters to rule and their brother had attempted to revise his will to avoid it, but these Tudor sisters proved that they would not be denied. For the remaining Grey sisters, and anyone else with a bloodline that placed them close to the crown, Elizabeth’s accession was the end of marrying according to one’s own wishes.

Elizabeth is famous for remaining single during her four decades as queen, despite leading many men to believe that they might be lucky enough to win her hand. Although she made the decision not to bear her own heirs, she also did not want any of her extended family raising up sons who might threaten her. In a quest no less maniacal than her father’s obsession with bearing sons, Elizabeth tried to keep everyone around her from having them.

Katherine Grey was Elizabeth’s cousin, and her family had already made one grasp for the throne, but she was also a sensual young woman who desired a husband and family more than a crown. Her hopes for the future had already been crushed once. In a double wedding with her older sister, Jane, Katherine had been wed to the son of the Earl of Arundel. However, with Jane’s fall, he quickly decided that she was not as profitable of a match as originally thought. The marriage was annulled, and Katherine was left alone. She was also fatherless after Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, was executed for treason.

Before long, Katherine was in love again and begging her mother to write to the queen, with whom she was first cousins, to request her approval. Frances Grey died before she could finish the letter to Elizabeth, but her death proved to Katherine, as if she had not already had reason to learn it, that life was fleeting. She and her lover decided to marry in secret and hope that Elizabeth would be forgiving.

Queen Elizabeth I is known for many things. Being forgiving is not one of them, but her treatment of Katherine Grey is one of the darkest stains upon her character.

Katherine Grey and her son Lord Edward Beauchamp

Edward and Katherine were young and in love, but they were no match for their queen when it came to cleverness. Since the ceremony had been performed in secret, it was easy for Elizabeth to claim it had never happened. The only witness had been Edward’s sister, who had since died, and the priest who had performed the sacred act could no longer be located.

Katherine fell pregnant but was uncertain that she was with child until Edward was already far away in France, a plot to keep the young lovers apart that was enacted a bit too late. In her ninth month of pregnancy and alone, Katherine was tossed into the Tower by a very angry Queen Elizabeth. Edward was summoned home as those closest to them tried to distance themselves in the eyes of the queen.

When Edward landed in Dover, he was also arrested and taken to the prison that had been the final home of Katherine’s sister and both of the young people’s fathers. Remembering their fate could not have been an encouragement as they underwent numerous interrogations.

Elizabeth had two goals in questioning the couple. She sought to discover who had aided and abetted the young lovers behind her back, that they, too, might be punished. It was also vital to demonstrate that there was no valid marriage between Edward and Katherine, bastardizing their coming child. She was already battling with those who pressured her to name Mary Queen of Scots as her heir. The last thing Elizabeth needed was a male heir born to a branch of the royal family to further threaten her position.

In the Tower, Katherine gave birth to a son, further infuriating Elizabeth. A child with combined Tudor and Seymour blood was too much of a threat. Based upon the Act of Succession put in place by Henry VIII and still law, the child was Elizabeth’s heir. She took great pleasure in deeming him illegitimate. The queen further disgraced the names of the Grey sisters by claiming that they were unfit for consideration in the succession due to their father’s treason. Elizabeth, who continued to refuse to name or bear an heir, was obsessed with proving that there was no one worthy of inheriting her crown.

White Tower of the Tower of London

While Elizabeth raged against them, Edward and Katherine were as happy as inhabitants of the Tower could be. They had their little son and were housed in rooms just steps away from each other. Of course, they were only allowed to pass messages rather than spend time together, but it must have given each comfort to know that the other was near and that friends on the outside fought for their son’s rights as heir to the kingdom. Certainly, they hoped for a better outcome than their ancestors whose graves could be found nearby.

Even the young couple’s guards took pity on their situation, allowing them visits that were irrefutably prohibited by the queen’s orders. Before long, Katherine was pregnant again. She could not have made Elizabeth angrier had she attempted to physically swipe the crown from her golden-red head.

Since Edward and Katherine had declared their marriage to several interrogators by the time their second child was conceived, it was difficult for the queen to have this child illegitimatized. To make matters worse for Elizabeth, she fell ill with what was feared to be a fatal case of smallpox, and the council pressed for Katherine to be named her heir as set forth in King Henry’s will. They had no intentions of honoring Elizabeth’s wish that Robert Dudley be named Lord Protector.

Surprising everyone, herself included, Elizabeth recovered. However, the need for her to settle upon an heir had been placed under a spotlight. This did not open the queen’s heart to her cousin’s son. In fact, as more people pleaded the case of Edward and Katherine, Elizabeth fought harder to deny them. She had the Lieutenant of the Tower arrested for allowing Katherine to fall pregnant the second time.

On February 10, 1563, almost a year and a half after the birth of her first child, Katherine gave birth to another son. While Edward continued to fight for their rights, Katherine cared for the two boys in the Tower, likely trying not to think about the number of royal sons who had never left its precincts. When a plague hit London that summer, only the pleading of Katherine’s faithful supporters convinced the queen to allow the family to be removed from the Tower to house arrest in separate and more healthful parts of the country.

This may have initially been construed as a positive sign, but Elizabeth was not relenting. Edward and Katherine continued to fight for their right to be together, but the pressure from others to name Katherine or her son as Elizabeth’s heir made the queen unsympathetic toward them. When the youngest Grey sister, Mary, also secretly married in 1565, hope was lost.

Mary and her husband were quickly arrested and separated. Katherine, who had already suffered bouts of depression due to the separation from her husband and oldest son, would not recover. On January 26, 1568, she died at age twenty-seven, crushed by the jealous Queen Elizabeth. Katherine and Edward had broken the barriers to marriage but suffered severely in payment.


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Additional Reading:

De Lisle, Leanda. The Sisters Who Would Be Queen. New York: Ballantine Books, 2009.