Bastard Prince (33 page)

As Cranmer had rather pointedly observed, Henry was no stranger to matrimonial law. This was no naïve misunderstanding. According to her mother, Mary was supposed to receive £1,000 a year from the king as her widow's jointure.
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Henry can hardly have viewed the prospect of bestowing such a significant sum of money with very good grace. Not only was there no hope of grandchildren, but to add insult to injury Norfolk had been allowed to forgo the substantial dowry that the king could normally have expected for the marriage of his son. Also, while Mary and her father were always careful to stress the role of the king in arranging the marriage, it is evident that his treacherous queen, Anne Boleyn, had persuaded him into it. In the circumstances, he had every reason to want to be rid of the whole matter.

If Mary's marriage was invalid, she would lose more than her jointure. As Richmond's widow ‘the right high and noble princess Mary Duchess of Richmond and Somerset and Countess of Nottingham', was ranked next to Henry's own niece, Margaret Douglas, and above her own mother, Elizabeth Stafford, Duchess of Norfolk. Any irregularity in the marriage would automatically return her to her former rank as ‘the Lady Mary Howard', daughter to the Duke of Norfolk. Much as Henry clearly wanted to save himself unpleasant expense, he is unlikely to have been aware of this. If he succeeded in his challenge, the Howards would lose every right and benefit from what had once seemed such a prestigious match.

In recent months Norfolk had worked hard to distance himself from the disgrace of his half-brother, Lord Thomas Howard, which was rapidly followed by the downfall of his niece, Anne Boleyn. Yet despite his sterling service during the Pilgrimage of Grace, when his need for Norfolk's military experience had helped the king to put aside his resentment over Richmond's funeral, the fortunes of the Howards remained at a decidedly low ebb. Norfolk's duties in the north, albeit as the king's lieutenant, effectively kept him from court. In his absence, men like Thomas Cromwell and Edward Seymour, now the king's brother-in-law, had Henry's ear. When Norfolk learnt that matters relating to Scotland were to be discussed, he begged to be allowed to return so that he might share the benefit of his experience. At the bottom of his letter he scrawled in his own hand ‘the loss of one of my fingers should not be so much to my sorrow as to be in fear not to see my master at this time'. However, even that did not work and he continued to be kept from the king. Until Norfolk could engineer his own return to favour, he was hardly in a strong position to push his daughter's case.

In the circumstances, David Starkey's claim that Norfolk ‘gave [Mary] no backing in her efforts to get adequate maintenance from the King', is perhaps a little harsh. It is never wise to lose sight of the fact that Norfolk was notoriously self-serving. He was certainly not going to risk anything which might prejudice his own return to favour. Yet, within those parameters, he made concerted efforts to bring the case to the king's attention. On his return from the north, Norfolk wrote from Kenninghall asking permission to come to London with his daughter and a small entourage. When Cromwell fobbed him off with a vague answer Norfolk did not give up, but pressed Cromwell ‘to advertise me whether you thought I should displease his majesty with bringing her up or not'. Unfortunately, his efforts were frustrated when sickness swept across East Anglia. Kept at home by the risk of infection, he was reduced to sending up the treasurer of his household to speak to Cromwell on his daughter's behalf.

Despite his undoubted efforts and the justice of her case, Mary would not receive her jointure until the king decided to permit it. Regardless of appearances, Norfolk did have some advantages. As one of only two remaining dukes in England, he had a usefulness that could not easily be dispensed with. Thomas Cromwell could manoeuvre to keep him from the court, but he could not block his attendance when the king wished to consult him. His role as Earl Marshal at the funeral of Queen Jane or his selection as one of Prince Edward's godfathers, had nothing to do with his personal relationship with the Seymours, but was a reflection of his rank and status as one of the greatest peers in the realm. Sooner or later his patience and good service would surely be rewarded.

Norfolk's efforts to restore the Howards to favour were not helped by his own dysfunctional family. His son and heir, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, found the meteoric rise of a gentry family like the Seymours impossible to bear. In the summer of 1537, the tension between the Earl of Surrey and Edward Seymour (created Earl of Hertford at his nephew's christening in October 1537) erupted into open violence. Surrey tried to strike the king's brother-in-law within the precepts of the court. The due punishment for such a crime was the loss of his right hand. Fortunately for Surrey, the king was indulgent enough towards the Duke of Richmond's childhood friend to commute his sentence to a few months comfortable, but embarrassing, confinement at Windsor Castle.
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On his release the duke tried to keep his son more quietly in the country, but Surrey's volatile temper would not be so easily contained.

Then there were the Duchess of Norfolk's attempts to tie her own financial difficulties to the question of her daughter's jointure. After an acrimonious marriage, the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk had formally separated in 1534. Cromwell's attempts to reunite the couple were hampered by her allegations of a history of maltreatment and abuse. Among other instances of violence Norfolk had, she claimed, had her bound ‘till blood came out of my finger ends' and beaten ‘till I sp[a]t blood'. Norfolk refuted her claims as wilful slander, but his determination to keep his mistress of eleven years, Bess Holland, whom the duchess described as ‘that harlot which has put me to all this trouble', at Kenninghall and parade her openly at court enraged his estranged wife. The duchess also protested vehemently at the reduced circumstances in which her husband expected her to live. A gentlewoman could not live on £50 a quarter ‘and the one quarter and half the other is spent before it commeth in'. Hearing that Mary's jointure had not yet been paid, she asked Cromwell to ensure that the king did not grant Mary her settlement until she first received hers.

The Duchess of Norfolk might have believed that her marriage, purchased by her father at a cost of two thousand marks, which had endured for twenty-two years and produced five children, gave her case precedence over her daughter's brief, childless union, which had come at no cost to the family, but society would not condone her behaviour. Convention expected a woman to turn a blind eye to a husband's infidelity. Instead, the duchess was mortified that her children tolerated Bess Holland's presence and was particularly distressed that Mary went about in her company. Her bitterness was perhaps all the sharper because they did not support her in her battles with their father. She roundly declared there was ‘never woman that bare so ungracious an eldest son, and so ungracious a daughter, and unnatural'. Yet the issue was rather more complicated than such high emotion allowed. Mary's reliance on her father's bounty made it difficult for her to side with a mother whose own behaviour was not above reproach.

The duke also had his hands full ensuring that his wilful daughter, who was justly convinced of her lawful right, did not assert her claim more forcefully than was politic. Like her mother, and rather too like her cousin Anne Boleyn, Mary was a woman of strong opinions. Norfolk admitted that ‘in all my life I never commoned with her in any serious cause ere now' and he had not been entirely comforted to discover her grasp of the legal niceties. Henry would not take kindly to being lectured on his duties and responsibilities by his former daughter-in-law. Thankfully, Mary seems to have reserved her more tempestuous outbursts for her long-suffering father. To Cromwell she wrote in grateful thanks for ‘how painfully you daily . . . labour . . . to the king's majesty for my matter', humbly assuring him that she would accept whatever arrears that Henry might deign to give her.

Instead, it seems another solution was initially considered. As early as November 1536 Norfolk had been expressing a desire to see Mary safely married again, except that he believed:

Norfolk's concern that Mary might be persuaded into an unsuitable match proved groundless. Suitors were not exactly beating a path to her door. As well as the exacting standards of her father, it would be a very poor bargain indeed to have agreed terms on the basis of a marriage to the dowager Duchess of Richmond, widow of the king's son, only to find that marriage ultimately declared invalid and your wife stripped of all rank and royal connection.

Now, after almost two years of dispute and delay, Norfolk had apparently reconsidered his position. Now he ‘knew but 2 persons upon whom he thought meet or could resolve in his heart to bestow his said daughter'. However, the king was so unimpressed with the second gentleman that he could not even remember his name. The other, whom Norfolk admitted was the one ‘to whom his heart is most inclined', was Sir Thomas Seymour.

The sudden death of Queen Jane had not markedly affected the rising fortunes of the Seymours. Their relationship to the future king seemed to assure their ascendancy for decades to come. Whatever Norfolk's personal feelings towards the family, he knew Edward Seymour, in particular, was a man of ambition, bolstered by ability and military skill. Already Earl of Hertford and a privy councillor, it was clear that he was a rising force and a man to contend with. His praise of Thomas ‘for his towardness and other his commendable merits' was perhaps slightly more tongue-in-cheek. However, while Edward was already married, Thomas was not. Ever the astute politician, Norfolk was naturally reluctant to allow such a valuable asset as an unmarried daughter to remain unrealised. A union between the two families would be more than a diplomatic
rapprochement
, it was an attempt to safeguard the Howards' own role at the heart of English politics.

Scenting an opportunity to sweep this whole unpleasant business of Mary's jointure under the carpet, Henry was keen to endorse the match, declaring ‘one of such lust and youth . . . should be able to please her well at all points'. Not unreasonably rather taken aback at an overture of marriage from such a quarter, Sir Thomas Seymour was rather more cautious and asked Cromwell to sound out the Duke of Norfolk's intentions. Despite the Seymours' royal connections, a union between a duchess and a knight was by no means an equal match and the history of difficulties between them had hardly fostered good relations. However, the Seymours were painfully conscious of their gentry roots and marriage into one of the two remaining ducal families would enhance their dignity and assuage such criticisms. To reject such an auspicious union, especially when the king heartily approved, would not be entirely wise.

Everything seemed in order. Even Cromwell had his own reasons to support the marriage. The conservative Duke of Norfolk's disapproval of the increasingly protestant line being taken in religion would hopefully be tempered by closer links with the reforming Seymours. Yet suddenly the negotiations stalled, as it seems Mary was not at all happy to hear she was to marry again.

Mary Howard has sometimes been painted as something of a coquette, a flighty young thing who loved nothing more than the spectacle of the court. Resentful at being left to moulder at Kenninghall, she would be eager for any excuse to return; she was not the sort of girl to reject anyone as charming and handsome as Sir Thomas Seymour. Yet Mary's own letters make it very clear that she was not easily swayed by anyone. The doubts over her marriage to Richmond had left Mary sensitive about her status. As the wife of Sir Thomas Seymour courtesy might allow her to retain the title Duchess of Richmond, but there would be no formal acknowledgement that she had been the duke's true and lawful wife. If she married now she might never receive her jointure.

If Mary had hoped to force the king's hand by refusing to countenance the marriage until the question of her jointure was settled, she was to be disappointed. If she was to succeed, it was to be on Henry's terms. In October 1538, Henry once again had his eye on the prize of the Duchy of Milan, this time through the marriage of his elder daughter, Mary, to Charles V's cousin, the Infante Dom Luis of Portugal. In his eagerness to secure such a trophy, the king considered throwing in the hands of all his other available female relations, including his younger daughter Elizabeth, his niece Margaret Douglas and Mary (whom in this context he presumably accepted as his true daughter-in-law) for whatever Italian princes the emperor ‘thought most convenient and meet to be retained in alliance'. In the end sanity prevailed and this particular initiative was not even included in the proposals. Yet Mary was still no closer to obtaining her goal.

In the end it was, perhaps predictably, her father's martial service which turned the tide. When Henry was badly frightened by the threat of war in the winter of 1538 the Howards were restored to favour.
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Shortly afterwards, on 11 March 1539, Mary received the first of a series of grants. The king did not exactly cast this first payment as a capitulation. It stressed that Mary had been unable to recover her dower from the law and specifically recorded that the union had never been consummated. Nor was it particularly generous, providing an income of £12 per annum, although Mary could perhaps take some comfort in the fact that these lands, as part of the honour of Richmond in Norfolk, were a tacit acknowledgement of her position as dowager Duchess of Richmond.

Subsequent grants to augment her income were not made out of her late husband's estates at all, but drawn from Henry's newly acquired stock of monastic properties. Recent events, which had seen England excommunicated by the pope, the recall of the French and Spanish ambassadors and the very real threat of invasion, meant that the conservative Duke of Norfolk was operating from a much stronger position. Many people believed that the passing of the Act of Six Articles, which affirmed the king's (and therefore his country's) belief in the seven sacraments, meant the tide of reformation was on the wane. At last, finding himself back in Henry's favour, Norfolk was finally well placed to plead his daughter's suit. By 1540 Mary had been granted a range of former Church properties, which gave her an income in excess of £744 a year.