Sisters of Treason (54 page)

This is a work of fiction, and though I have tried to adhere as faithfully as possible to the historical facts as we know them, it must not be forgotten that much from this period, and women’s lives in particular, is unknown or disputed. Having said that, Katherine Grey’s life is quite well documented, and the story I tell of her is essentially correct, though her inner world is of course of my own making. We cannot know the extent to which she was involved in the campaigns that sought to have her named as Elizabeth’s heir, and I have chosen to create her as a woman more driven by love than ambition, which does seem to fit with her character as it emerges from historical accounts of her life. Mary Grey’s story is more vague; we have the basic facts of her life, her physicality, described by a poison-tongued ambassador as “crook-backed and very ugly,” and some detailed accounts of her marriage, incarceration, and final years. The scene of her arrest, a version of which I describe in the novel, is not documented and her early years remain a matter of speculation, though we do know she was educated in the manner of her sisters.

It is largely the story of Levina Teerlinc that has required the full force of my imagination as so little is known about her. The idea of interweaving Levina’s story with the Greys’ derives from the existing portraits attributed to Teerlinc of Katherine Grey, and another image by her that is possibly of Jane Grey, or so David Starkey has argued. Susan James attributes the portrait of Katherine Grey as a girl to the Master of the Marchioness of Dorset
(Frances Grey’s title before she became Duchess of Suffolk), and not to Levina Teerlinc, though it is generally recognized as Teerlinc’s work and the V&A, who own it, describe it thus. This suggested to me that the Master of the Marchioness of Dorset and Levina Teerlinc were perhaps one and the same person, leading to my idea of Teerlinc’s close relationship with the Grey family. So though it is a fiction, it is tenuously rooted in fact, and there is no doubt that Teerlinc knew the Greys. Her involvement with Foxe and the passage of accounts and images of the Marian martyrs to Geneva is entirely of my own invention, but her adherence to the new faith would chime with her links to the Grey family. Susan James even forwards the possibility that Teerlinc was first introduced to the English court via Katherine Parr’s private secretary, Walter Bucler, who had been sent to Flanders on a secret mission with the hope of strengthening ties between England and the Protestant princes, which again supports my depiction of her as involved in the Reformation.

Levina’s relationship as teacher to Nicholas Hilliard has been forwarded by both Sir Roy Strong and Susan James, who also makes a strong argument that an anonymous treatise on limning, published in 1573, is by Teerlinc—Hilliard went on to publish his own book on the art of the miniature some twenty-five years later. James even goes as far as suggesting that a good number of Hilliard’s works, including the famous “Pelican” and “Phoenix” portraits of Elizabeth I, are Teerlinc’s—I am not qualified to form an opinion on this, but my instincts would suggest this is not the case. Specific details of the relationship between Teerlinc and Hilliard, and in particular his copying of the Katherine Grey limning, are entirely conceived by me. Though there are in existence a number of sixteenth-century copies of the portrait of Katherine Grey and her son, differing from the original in the manner I describe in the novel, none are, as far as I have been able to discover, attributed to Hilliard.

The most comprehensive source for information about the three Grey sisters is Leanda de Lisle’s
The Sisters Who Would Be Queen: The Tragedy of Mary, Katherine and Lady Jane Grey
.

For further information on Levina Teerlinc’s works, see Susan E. James’s
The Feminine Dynamic in English Art, 1485–1603: Women as Consumers, Patrons and Painters
.

The Tudor Succession Explained

The Grey sisters’ claim to the throne derived from their maternal grandmother, the first Mary Tudor, younger sister of Henry VIII. Her first husband was Louis XII of France; she was widowed only months after her wedding and then secretly married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. They had two daughters, Frances and Eleanor. Frances married Henry Grey (then Marquis of Dorset, later Duke of Suffolk) and gave birth to the three Grey sisters.

Mary Stuart’s claim was also from her maternal grandmother, Margaret Tudor, the older sister of Henry VIII. Margaret was the wife of James IV of Scotland; their son, James V, and the French Marie of Guise were Mary’s parents. On her father’s death, and only days old, Mary Stuart became Queen of Scots. She was betrothed in infancy to the Dauphin and raised from the age of five at the French court.

In 1543 Parliament passed an act reinstating Henry VIII’s two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth Tudor, to the succession, and a few years later Henry, in his last will and testament, excluded the Scottish Stuart line from the English throne. There were various reasons for this, one being the prevailing belief that English monarchs had to be born on English soil, but it was also because of the close ties between Scotland and France and the fact that both countries were in almost permanent conflict with England. According to Tudor historian Leanda de Lisle, the Grey girls were chosen by Henry because, unlike the Stuart line, they were not sufficiently strong candidates to threaten his son Edward’s position. For Henry, however, this must have been a moot point, as
he surely assumed that Edward would have heirs to continue the Tudor dynasty.

But Edward VI died aged only fifteen, having fathered no children. Under the influence of the Duke of Northumberland, Edward drew up a new Device for the Succession on his deathbed, but it was never ratified by Parliament. This legislation echoed his father’s wish to eliminate the Stuarts from the throne but also excluded his half sisters Mary and Elizabeth on the grounds that their father had deemed them both illegitimate (a hotly disputed point). This placed Lady Jane Grey next in line, as her mother had set her claim aside, but not everyone was in agreement, particularly those supporting Mary Tudor. Jane was crowned but the popular support lay with Mary, who easily ousted her young cousin only nine days after she had been declared Queen.

By the time Elizabeth Tudor inherited the throne from her half sister the two strongest claimants to succeed her were Katherine Grey and Mary Stuart, both problematically female, with the former dying in captivity and the latter executed. Although both had borne the sons that England had so desperately hoped for, Elizabeth failed for her entire forty-five-year reign either to name an heir or to produce one herself, much to the consternation of her advisors. In her final years, though, it became clear that James Stuart, the Protestant son of the Scottish Queen she’d executed, would succeed her, becoming James I.

Cast of Characters

I have listed characters alphabetically according to either first name, or that by which they are most often referred to in the novel. I also include interesting details about some of the minor characters that may not have made it into the story.