Check out Lady Katherine Grey. Her older sister, Lady Jane Grey, was the Nine Days' Queen. Which is to say she spent nine days as the apparent new monarch before being executed by Mary Tudor. Among other things that's a setback for the family. Mary's half-sister Elizabeth, however, considered Katherine a potential heir to the throne after her. Except then Katherine went and secretly married Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford when Elizabeth wanted to marry her off to the Earl of Arran (which would have been a stupid move for reasons I won't go into here.) So Katherine and Edward's marriage is annulled against both their wishes and Katherine spends the rest of her short life in the Tower of London.
And yet things still could have turned out differently. If Elizabeth had succumbed to her nasty case of smallpox Katherine, even as a jailbird, would have still been a viable choice to replace her, being a Protestant at a pivotal time for the new Church. A dramatic turnaround, but such things did happen.
Another odd twist is that a couple of generations later something very similar happened to Lady Arbella Stuart, except that Arbella never got the chance to have any children with her husband. That husband being Katherine's grandson, William, Earl of Somerset. Another might-have-been.
And now? Now the maximum level of drama in the Royal Family is set by Harry writing a tell-all book which was read only by people who were going to goof on it. It's just not the same.
2 comments:
That was a well done historical overview of the vagaries and tragedies of court ladies in Renaissance England. Poor Lady Jane Grey who never wanted to be queen at all was executed at the age of sixteen. Mary Tudor who became known as Bloody Mary after the violence of her attempts to bring Catholicism back to England died prematurely. Elizabeth was wise in her choice of councellors. Known as the Virgin Queen she established the long period of peace and prosperity in England. Arabella was simply unlucky in a tumultuous time.
Shakespeare's historical kings, transformed into characters that fit his themes, told us a great deal about how kings behaved and how they were judged. He never did make a play based on Elizabeth I (probably wise of him) but we can thank her long reign for allowing him to explore the temperment and quirks of kings.
Considering the dismal experiences of Charles I and Charles II I've often wondered why it was that his mother named Charles III as she did. Surely she must have known it was an ominous choice. But anyway, he's done okay so far even though he and Camilla at their advanced ages did look more than a little ridiculous in their robes of state.
Harry and Meghan have definitely made some serious errors in judgement. The most recent debacle was their story about being chased at high speed through NYC by paparazzi. The taxi driver said since traffic only moves there at 15mph when it moves at all he never felt in danger.
One thing it took me a while to realize is that Mary Tudor and Mary, Queen of Scots were two different people. The movie Elizabeth introduced me to Mary of Guise, another real (if embellished) figure different from both of them. And the crazy thing is that while all three of them were Catholic, the Catholic colony of Maryland wasn't named after any of them, but rather Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I.
Yeah, the Greys were an unlucky family. Jane was part of her father's gambit that didn't pay off, and that cost him his life as well. Katherine, like Arbella decades later, made normal decisions which her station in life wouldn't allow her to make. Mary Grey avoided some of this hassle but still died rather young. The thing about Elizabeth is that her reign was a success but she didn't really become popular until the closing years, after the Armada's failed invasion.
I think Shakespeare would have needed much more time to put Elizabeth in perspective. One of his last plays was about her father, Henry VIII. That was written in James's time of course. James's Scottish background also helped inspire Macbeth.
Interesting point about the name "Charles." Charles; I was a bad mixture of arrogant and feeble. Of course the Commonwealth period between him and Charles II did lead to the idea of constitutional monarchy. No one wanted a return to the Cromwells either.
That alleged high speed chase was too embarrassing for me to mention. The Sussexes need to get an outside director.
Post a Comment