Yesterday I posted my review of Her Highness, the Traitor by Susan Higginbotham. Be sure to check it out to enter the giveaway! I am a big fan of Susan’s and always so excited when I hear she has a new book out. She has never disappointed me.
Today it is my honor to welcome Susan as my guest at So Many Precious books! Welcome Susan!
When researching Her Highness, the Traitor, I was shocked at the sheer number of “facts” about the people in my novel which, on further investigation, turned out not to be true. Here are a few of them:
Myth: Edward VI was a sickly child. Fact: Until the last months of his life, Edward VI was a healthy boy who had no more than routine childhood illnesses.
Myth: Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset, physically shoved Katherine Parr out of her way and fumed, “If master admiral [Katherine’s husband Thomas Seymour] teach his wife no better manners, I am she that will.” Fact: The story about Anne shoving Katherine comes from the extremely unreliable Spanish Chronicle, which among other howlers has Thomas Cromwell (beheaded in 1540) investigating the allegations against Katherine Howard that arose in 1541. As for the quote about Katherine Parr being taught some manners, Anne Seymour never made such a statement. Rather, Peter Heylyn, writing in the seventeenth century, merely claimed that Anne thought this—something that Heylyn was hardly in a position to know.
Myth: Jane Grey’s parents were only interested in gambling and hunting. Fact: Nothing is known about the interests of Frances Grey, despite the prevailing notion of her as a predatory huntress. Henry Grey, however, was a patron of scholars who was also said to be “somewhat learned himself” and to speak elegant Latin. He spent the night before his own execution reading the works of Heinrich Bullinger, with whom his daughter Jane had corresponded. For a New Year’s gift, Jane translated a treatise on marriage from Latin into Greek for her father.
Myth: While visiting the manor of Sheen, Jane Grey and her parents were frightened by a bloody, axe-wielding hand that came from behind a wall. Fact: As far as I can tell, there is no contemporary source for this story. It seems to have arisen in the Victorian period.
Myth: Jane’s parents viciously beat her in order to force her to marry Guildford Dudley. Fact: This allegation, which has become a staple of novels and movies about Lady Jane, occurs only in a pirated Italian account. Significantly, Jane herself in her letter to Mary said nothing about being physically forced to wed Guildford, though it would have served her purpose to portray herself as a reluctant bride.
Myth: Edward VI was poisoned and his body switched with that of a youth of the same age. Fact: While it was widely rumored that John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, poisoned Edward, there is absolutely no evidence to support this, and Northumberland was never charged with regicide. As for the story of the body-switching, this tale originated with a cloth-merchant living in Strasbourg, who did not name his source. Edward VI had not yet been buried when Mary I took control of the government; had there been any doubts about the identity of the royal corpse, it would have been an easy matter to ascertain the truth.
Myth: Mary I executed Jane Grey in order to please Philip of Spain, who otherwise would have refused to go through with his marriage to the queen. Fact: While Mary had been under pressure from the imperial ambassador and some of her councilors to execute Jane and her husband Guildford, executing Jane was never a precondition to Mary’s marriage to Philip.
Myth: Guildford Dudley sniveled his way to the scaffold, in contrast to his self-possessed wife. Fact: the contemporary account of Guildford’s execution says simply that he shook hands with some well-wishers, prayed at length before his death, and made a short speech before his death. Nothing suggests that Guildford made anything other than a manly, dignified end.
Myth: Upon hearing of Frances’s marriage to her second husband, Adrian Stokes, Elizabeth I remarked, “What? Has she married her horse-keeper?” to which William Cecil replied, “Yes, madam, and she says your majesty would like to do so too.” Fact: Snappy as this repartee is, it is chronologically impossible. Elizabeth was not queen when Frances married, but was being held in custody by her sister Mary I.
Myth: Adrian Stokes was an uneducated stable hand half Frances’s age. Fact: Adrian was only two years younger than Frances. In the 1540’s, he served as marshal of Newhaven, an English post in occupied France, where he had command of ten men. Stokes was certainly literate in English, as letters written in his own hand show, and if he composed the epitaph on his wife’s tomb, he knew Latin as well. Stokes served in Parliament twice and on a number of local commissions. Fun Fact: Adrian’s stepdaughter by his second marriage, Elizabeth “Bess” Throckmorton, married Sir Walter Ralegh.
About Susan Higginbotham:
I am the author of two historical novels set in fourteenth-century England: The Traitor’s Wife: A Novel of the Reign of Edward II and Hugh and Bess. Both were reissued in 2009 by Sourcebooks.
My third novel, The Stolen Crown, is set during the Wars of the Roses. It features Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, and his wife, Katherine Woodville, as narrators. My fourth novel, The Queen of Last Hopes, features Margaret of Anjou, queen to Henry VI, and is set mainly in the earlier years of the Wars of the Roses. It was released in January 2011. My latest novel, Her Highness, the Traitor, will be released in June 2012. Its heroines are Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland, and Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk, who respectively were the mother-in-law and the mother of Lady Jane Grey.
My website is
http://www.susanhigginbotham.com. I blog at http://susandhigginbotham.blogspot.com
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