An ambitious mother or a misunderstood woman?

Portrait of a woman tentatively identified as Frances, c. 1560.

Once upon a time, a brave English princess found herself released from her marriage to a very aged King of France due to his perfectly timely death, not even a year after the wedding. This princess was named Mary and she was said to be one of the prettiest women at court and was sister to the ruling King, Henry VIII, who had a best friend named Charles Brandon. He was the one entrusted with bringing princess Mary back to her brother, probably to marry her off once again. Mary had other plans, though. Charles did get her back from France but he did so after marrying her himself in secret, which was a big, big mistake back in the day. No one from the royal family could do such a thing without the monarch’s knowledge. Such a crazy quick decision must have been led by one or both of the following emotions: desperation or true love. Charles Brandon was kind of a Don Juan at court, famously renowned heartbreaker, so it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume young Mary might have been interested in him to the point of insisting on the wedding until he folded, as he later reported. But Mary did know her brother Henry more than most people and she was likely scared of being sent off to another horrible match propelled by politics or money and that could have prompted her to make a rushed move marrying Charles, who was already there and wasn’t too difficult to look at.

The pair went through some ups and downs and built up a family of their own, adding up to the children he had sired from previous marriages. The children she had were: Henry, Frances, Eleanor and Henry.

We’re gathered here today to know more about Frances.

Then known as Lady Frances Brandon, the daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and his third wife, the aforementioned Princess Mary Tudor, was born on 16 July 1517 in Hatfield. Right off the bat, the name that was bestowed upon her was an uncommon one, reflecting her mother’s character. It’s commonly assumed that her name was chosen either in honour of French King Francis I or she was named after Francis of Assisi. Her baptism counted with two amazing women as godmothers: her aunt and first wife to Henry VIII, Queen Katherine of Aragon, and her cousin Mary.

From then on, she lived a happy infancy mostly in Westhorpe, Suffolk, with not much to take note about until later years, when the time to wed her arrived. The chosen one was Henry Grey, 3rd Marquess of Dorset. Henry was son of Thomas Grey and Margaret Wotton, and he worked as Lord High Constable and a Privy Council. Unlike her noble parents, the pair sought out the King’s permission and with it being granted, they tied the knot in 1533. This union got her a position at court, where she went on to have two babies: Henry and a little girl who wouldn’t survive long enough to be registered. After this loss, the couple welcomed three more daughters, which surely overjoyed Frances after the death of her first one. They were called Jane, Katherine and Mary. They also had a baby boy named Edward. You may be familiar with Jane due to her infamous reputation as the “nine days queen” after Edward VI’s death left her as heir of the English Crown surpassing Mary I’s birthright. That’s not today’s plot, though.

Frances had lost now her two brothers and her husband had inherited the title of Duke of Suffolk. She lived at court and secured a position for her daughter Jane through the former Queen; Catherine Parr. This is where the girl ended up meeting Prince Edward, becoming one of the closest members of the boy king after his ascension to the throne, when Jane went to live with Parr, now married to Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley and Lord High Admiral. It was there where supposedly Jane complained about her parents with Ascham recalling:

“For when I am in the presence either of father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it as it were in such weight, measure and number, even so perfectly as God made the world; or else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presently sometimes with pinches, nips and bobs and other ways (which I will not name for the honour I bear them) ... that I think myself in hell.”

There exists no other witnesses to this alleged behaviour of the Suffolks towards any of their children so we’ll never know, though Frances’ reputation remained stained forever due to it. She and her husband are also heavily critiqued by the education they gave Jane, as some say they were grooming their daughter to be a Queen someday and others believe they raised her with resentment for not being a son, blaming her for not being good at “manly” activities and being too into her books and studies. Also, as Jane left no farewell letter to her mom, many are sure their relationship was sour and Frances was a cunning bad mother. Michelangelo Florio stated that Jane did in fact write her a letter, but it might have been simply lost to us in the centuries after she wrote it.

Frances, along with other surrounding parties, hoped for a match between Edward VI and Jane, with Thomas Seymour pushing for it the most. Unfortunately, his weird outbursts and his killing of the King’s dog led him to death and the Jane-Edward marriage plan fell through. Frances didn’t call her daughter back home and instead thought about marrying her to Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, son of the late Lord Protector and Anne Stanhope. After Seymour’s chaotic fall from grace, Frances sought out the new Lord Protector, John Dudley. John had fathered Henry, Thomas, John, Ambrose, Henry, Robert (Elizabeth I’s favourite), Guildford, Mary, Charles, Katherine, Temperance, Margaret and Katherine; with Guildford becoming the chosen one to be wedded to Frances’ daughter Jane. Guildford and Jane married in May 1553 alongside his sister Katherine and Henry Herbert, the heir of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, at Durham House.

Some argue that the Suffolks didn’t really like the match that much but were told the King approved of it and relented, with a surviving text by Commendone related: "the first-born daughter of the Duke of Suffolk, Jane by name, who although strongly deprecating the marriage, was compelled to submit by the insistence of her mother and the threats of her father", which agrees with the portrayal of Jane in Prime Video’s now cancelled TV series My Lady Jane, though with less magical elements.

Now Edward VI, who was ringing heaven’s door by June 1553, devised a new Device of Succession that denied his sisters Mary and Elizabeth’s rights to the crown and declared Jane as the heir due to her Protestant faith. Even though Edward had been born to catholic Jane Seymour, he was raised by Protestant tutors and didn’t want the country to go back to Rome in Mary’s hands after all the work their father and he had done to break the bond. That’s why he had to erase Elizabeth’s birthright as well, even though she was Protestant like her mother, Anne Boleyn. Frances was probably and understandably hurt by him bypassing her, but it was most likely due to the fact that she was not going to have any other male issue to pass the crown to, unlike young and newly wedded Jane, who would surely sire many children in years to come. The Suffolks had a private talk with the young King and she gave up her rights in favour of her daughter.

Events rolled into action on 6th July when Edward VI died after a long pitiful battle with sickness, and on 10th July, the new Queen was formally crowned. Frances accompanied Jane during the whole process, even during the stay at the Tower, as was tradition for a Queen. She was the one who was called to soothe poor Jane when the news arrived to her and the weight of a fractured country fell upon her shoulders. Peace was short-lived as Mary rebuked the coronation and fought for her rightful place as Queen of England, deposing Jane on 19th July 1553 and receiving full support of her people. Jane’s imprisonment was quickly followed by her father’s, who was granted freedom thanks to his wife’s intervention, who had gone to plead for her family’s safety in the middle of the night, making John Dudley the sole culprit and getting a pardon for her husband. The new Tudor Queen assured her that her daughter Jane would also be released once the coronation had been dealt with. Sadly for everyone, Wyatt the Younger had other plans.

He initiated a revolt against Mary I on 25th January 1554, joined by the Duke of Suffolk. They had the goal of deposing Mary and putting Elizabeth on the throne, with the last one having no idea about all of this. Frances spent some time within the Tower of London while Mary started to see Jane as a danger to her rule. Things got to a bloody end with Jane and Guildford being beheaded in February and her father following close behind a few days later after being declared a traitor.

What was to become now of Frances?

Her daughter and husband were accused of treason and now were dead, and she was now responsible for two teenaged daughters with no prospects of improving their lives. Kind of a low point to a woman born into royalty. Being a woman back then meant you didn’t have any possessions to live from or in and her husband’s belongings were passed down to the Crown, as it was usual with those accused of treason. Once again, a talk with Mary granted her the chance to be forgiven and have some of her properties returned to them.

Mary’s forgiveness wasn’t all shiny and golden. While France was kept close to her, it was more than likely that the queen wanted to keep an eye on her more than anything else, in case another revolt happened.

She married a second time. Adrian Stokes, Master of the Horse, married her in 1555, to which Elizabeth I said: “Has the woman so far forgotten herself as to marry a common groom?”

The thing is that Frances had looked into marrying a far higher ranking suitor for herself. Edward Courtenay, a Plantagenet descendant, was an option for a while, but the match was discarded as any children by them could have a right to the throne and that would only make Mary more suspicious and defensive against her after all the turmoil from 1553. The Master of the Horse was a way safer choice. Furthermore, people frowned upon her decision to remarry so quickly after the tragedy, taking it as another prove of her being cold and cruel, though William Camden had another opinion, saying she had married “to her dishonor but yet for her security” as she was living in poverty and had daughters to take care of.

Frances and Adrian went on to conceive three more children: Elizabeth, who was a stillborn, Elizabeth, who died in infancy, and another stillborn baby, this once a boy.

Not much is known of her life after her family’s fall. We do know that she passed away from an illness in 1559 and her remains were taken to Westminster Abbey, where its first Protestant service ever took place. At the funeral, her daughter Katherine acted as chief mourner. The Stokes had to have been a more or less happy family, as her widower had someone make an alabaster monument and an effigy on her grave that still can be seen today. There can also be read the following inscription:

“Nor grace, nor splendor, nor a royal name,

Nor widespread fame can aught avail;

All, all have vanished here.

True worth alone Survives the funeral pyre and silent tomb”

To history, Frances has become somewhat of a villainess to some and to others she was just forgotten, sandwiched between her famous mother and her even more famous daughter. But the truth of it is we can’t be sure of anything as many years lay in the middle of her decisions and our opinions. Being a woman is difficult nowadays but even more so back then, and she had lots of people to look after while having virtually no rights or properties.

One wonders what we could have done better if we had been wearing her shoes.

Alas, that’s food for thought for another day.

References:

• https://www.susanhigginbotham.com/posts/the-maligned-frances-grey-duchess-of-suffolk/

• https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/frances-brandon-duchess-of-suffolk/

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Grey,_Duchess_of_Suffolk