Vulgar History - How To Lose A Queen In Nine Days, part 5： Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk

00:00:00.000 hello and welcome to the vulgar history podcast my name is ann foster and this is a feminist 0.50

00:00:21.780 women's history comedy podcast to get our minds off of the literal hellscape in which we are all 0.72

00:00:30.440 living today. Let's look back at what things were like in the 16th century in England when 0.99

00:00:37.540 it was also pretty grisly, but at least we're not living in it. This is season three. And what

00:00:45.580 we've been looking at is the season long topic of how to lose a queen in nine days, aka the lady

00:00:51.420 Jane Grey scenario. And we're getting closer and closer to that. We've looked at her grandmother,

00:00:58.640 her step-grandmother, some other women who are influential to her. And this week we are going

00:01:03.960 to look at her mother, a woman whose name is, well, she was born Lady Frances Brandon, and then

00:01:10.640 she got married and became Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk. And that's who we're going to be

00:01:15.980 looking at today. So cast your mind back. So Lady Frances Brandon. So she's the daughter of Mary

00:01:23.520 Tudor, who we talked about in the first episode of this podcast, who was Mary Tudor was the sister

00:01:29.740 of Henry VIII. And Frances was her oldest surviving child. Her father was Charles Brandon,

00:01:37.300 the king's bff so francis she was born on july 16th 1517 and she was named francis because her

00:01:48.080 birth date was saint francis's day the day we celebrate saint francis that's sort of a guess

00:01:54.740 her name could have also been a nod to king francis the first of in france because both of

00:02:00.980 his parents knew him and may have wanted to pay respects to him her mother was of course the

00:02:04.960 Dowager Queen of France. Her godmothers were Catherine of Aragon, who was still the queen

00:02:11.780 at this point, and Princess Mary. So Princess Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine

00:02:18.140 of Aragon. So she's because she's the king's niece. So of course, she's way up there. Of course,

00:02:22.380 she has very societally important godparents. Francis had a brother, Henry, who is one year

00:02:29.400 older than her and a sister Eleanor who is two years younger she also had two older half sisters

00:02:35.720 from her father's first marriage who were named Mary and Anne who were both five to ten years

00:02:40.600 older than her. Frances grew up in the countryside of Suffolk in the village of West Thorpe in so her

00:02:49.660 parents had numerous different homes because they were rich and had lots of homes and but the one

00:02:55.200 where Francis grew up was their favorite one which is called Westhorpe Hall she's again this

00:02:59.920 is the same time period so Princess Mary is a girl Catherine of Aragon is a queen and this is an era

00:03:04.820 in which girls were given much more access to a thorough education than they had been in the past

00:03:12.520 in England so she was given an education suitable for a woman of her rank it sort of spoke to how

00:03:18.820 rich and classy your parents were to see how how well educated your daughters were

00:03:24.120 in 1528 so when she was 11 years old her father purchased the wardship of the wealthy heiress

00:03:33.500 Catherine Willoughby who we talked about a few episodes ago Catherine was about two years older

00:03:38.200 than Francis so Francis let me just see Francis was 11 at this point so Catherine would have been

00:03:46.760 about two years older so Catherine joined the household as sort of uh effectively an adopted

00:03:53.480 sister so she grew up alongside Francis and Eleanor as well as their brother Henry and everyone

00:03:58.580 assumed that Catherine Willoughby was going to be wed married to Henry eventually this is what's

00:04:05.140 going on just suddenly a whole bunch of siblings in this house both of Francis's parents had been

00:04:09.960 famously good-looking and Francis apparently was as well although we don't super know what

00:04:14.500 she looked like other than the way the carving is on her tomb but she was probably good-looking

00:04:21.560 and she was known as the Lady Frances. She wasn't technically a princess but because her mother

00:04:28.920 was the Dowager Queen of France and she was the king's niece so she was treated similarly to

00:04:33.580 a princess even though she technically wasn't didn't have the title of princess. When Frances

00:04:39.000 was 15 years old she was betrothed to Henry Gray the third Marquess of Dorset who I just want to

00:04:46.620 mentioned was six months older than her it's just sort of a treat at this point this is how low my

00:04:52.560 standards are for relationships in any of the stories this season that he's not 60 years older

00:04:57.740 than her so they're about the same age her and henry there was sort of step cousins both of them

00:05:03.500 were descendants of elizabeth woodville so elizabeth woodville henry the eighth's grandmother

00:05:08.800 elizabeth woodville had had a first husband who was mr gray and then she had some gray children

00:05:14.980 and then she married Edward, and then Henry VIII and the Tudors were her other family stream.

00:05:20.860 So basically, this was just a good match of two people who are pretty equal in most ways.

00:05:26.740 So usually for non-royal, non-rich people, you had to wait legally until the bride was 20 years

00:05:34.140 old to marry, but these two were not commoners, and so exceptions were allowed to be made.

00:05:37.700 henry's her husband his grandfather was the half brother of henry the eighth's grandmother

00:05:45.540 so politically this was an advantageous match because there were still some hard feelings

00:05:52.660 between henry the eighth and his sister mary who you might recall from that episode didn't approve

00:05:57.520 of him marrying anne boleyn which was happening at the same time so the brandon family in general

00:06:03.100 the children of mary tudor and charles brandon and their children the brandon family were sort

00:06:10.480 of on the outs with the king but a marriage between francis brandon and henry gray would

00:06:15.280 potentially they were all hoping smooth things over and make the brandons be welcome back into

00:06:20.620 royal favor yes in 1528 charles brandon bought the wardship of catherine willoughby and then a

00:06:26.540 years later in 1533 is this the same year they got married uh yeah so the same year they got

00:06:33.840 married at around the same time charles brandon purchased the wardship without the estates of

00:06:38.480 henry gray for 4 000 marks so this is just some backstory of how he was able to arrange the

00:06:43.780 marriage because he became henry gray's guardian as well he was able to choose who henry gray

00:06:48.080 would marry and he was like what about my daughter so henry gray had originally been

00:06:52.420 betrothed to a woman named Catherine Fitz-Allen. But Henry Gray refused to go through the marriage

00:06:59.380 because he had his sights set higher. So bear that in mind. Henry Gray, Francis's husband,

00:07:05.440 was an ambitious person. And the thing is that a marriage to Francis Brandon had much more prestige

00:07:10.300 because she was the king's niece. So he reneged on the marriage to Catherine Fitz-Allen by paying a

00:07:15.660 fee. The king paid the first installment on the debt. So clearly the king was in favor of this

00:07:21.160 match. So at their wedding, King Henry VIII attended the wedding, which was probably that

00:07:26.320 May, May of 1533 at Suffolk Place. For whatever reason, we know the detail that this wedding

00:07:32.840 cost Charles Brandon about 1,666 pounds at the time, which is just like, I didn't do the

00:07:40.060 conversion. But when you bear in mind that $50 or $10 was like 5,000. So this was just like a

00:07:46.920 hugely expensive wedding so shortly after this wedding Anne Boleyn was crowned queen and Catherine

00:07:53.000 of Aragon Francis's godmother was demoted to dowager princess Francis and her mother did not

00:07:59.860 like Anne Boleyn and so they did not attend this coronation and then Francis's mother lived long

00:08:06.440 enough to see Francis's wedding but then she died on June 25th that's Mary Tudor and Francis's

00:08:12.380 the oldest daughter, acted as chief mourner at her funeral. A few months after this, after Mary

00:08:19.260 Tudor's death, Francis's father, Charles Brandon, married Catherine Willoughby, his ward, so that's

00:08:27.120 the whole gross situation we got into a while ago. Weird, strange, but apparently they all still got

00:08:32.520 along, so okay. That September, 1533, just being a very busy year, was when Anne Boleyn gave birth

00:08:41.020 to a daughter who became princess elizabeth this stuff is happening super quickly here it was must

00:08:49.160 have felt so chaotic to live in none of us would know what that's like to live in a time of absolute

00:08:53.880 chaos in march 1534 princess mary who was also francis's godmother was omitted from the succession

00:09:02.420 by parliament and then also francis's brother henry died so what this meant is that elizabeth

00:09:09.200 at this point was next in line to the throne and francis was next effectively

00:09:15.980 in 1536 catherine of aragon died and boleyn was beheaded like stuff was just coming fast and

00:09:23.120 furious and henry the eighth's daughters mary and elizabeth were both declared illegitimate

00:09:27.600 and barred from the throne by law of parliament so when he set aside henry his older sister was

00:09:34.740 margaret tudor and she had children and she but she had been married off to the king of scotland

00:09:40.880 so her children were scottish and also catholic so henry kind of wasn't counting them so at this

00:09:45.400 point with the disinheriting of elizabeth and mary francis just kind of moved up higher in the

00:09:55.460 overall scheme of things so in documents and state reports francis is listed just behind the king's

00:10:02.840 daughters. So she's super important person. And four years later, Francis gave birth to her first

00:10:12.080 surviving child, a daughter who they named Lady Jane Grey. She had previously lost a son in

00:10:17.720 infancy about a year before who had been named Henry. But Lady Jane Grey was her first surviving

00:10:23.220 child. That name might be familiar to you from the theme of this whole season. So Lady Jane Grey

00:10:28.540 is on the scene she was named after the queen who at this point was jane seymour and jane seymour

00:10:36.760 was named as lady jane grey's godmother so again francis and her family being super tight with

00:10:42.100 with the king this was at exactly the same time that the pilgrimage of grace had just ended so

00:10:47.740 this was the year-long rebellion of people from northern england who supported uh the catholic

00:10:53.820 religion they were mad at henry um they were sort of running around making their point politically

00:10:59.640 through riots and demonstrations and so at the point that lady jingray was born london bridge

00:11:06.260 was decorated with the decapitated heads of the rebellion leaders because the pillow image of

00:11:10.860 grace had just ended with henry defeating them so this just kind of set the tone for what the

00:11:15.840 whole world was like overall in that situation 144 rebels had been dismembered and their body

00:11:22.020 parts put on show both in the north of england where they had where most of the rebellions had

00:11:27.360 started and also around london so things are just i'm putting in all these details just so you can

00:11:33.860 sort of picture the utter chaos and weird terror of just what the world was like but francis was

00:11:41.200 mostly she was good with the king like her daughter's godmother was the queen francis was

00:11:47.860 a good situation despite all the chaos everywhere uh that october jane seymour the queen gave birth

00:11:56.280 to henry the eighth's only legitimate son prince edward so as soon as he was born this diminished

00:12:00.700 francis's position because this baby was now the new heir i guess francis would be next behind him

00:12:06.060 and francis as the next in line attended the prince's christening and then weeks later jane

00:12:11.820 seymour died and francis was in the funeral procession for her at the funeral procession

00:12:17.820 francis was second in line behind princess mary her own godmother in 1538 like things are just

00:12:25.420 she got married in 1533 and then by 1538 everything's just chaotic she's just 20 years

00:12:32.080 old at this point francis in 1538 the same year henry gray her husband turned 21 which meant

00:12:38.380 he was able to get access to his money and so the couple finally had financial independence and were

00:12:44.160 able to move into their own home they were a very sociable couple they entertained lots of visitors

00:12:49.180 apparently they enjoyed this like 20 and 21 year old young family with a daughter they enjoyed

00:12:56.260 gambling playing cards and dice francis apparently like everybody did i mean rich everybody she

00:13:04.500 enjoyed going hunting um she enjoyed hawking like going out with her hawks doing whatever

00:13:09.480 for new year's 1540 francis received a gift of of hounds from henry the eighth occasionally

00:13:17.360 francis and her husband would attend royal court but for the most part they stayed in the country

00:13:22.460 and this is like remember that edward had been born so even though francis was next in line

00:13:28.360 when it also just seemed like well henry's probably gonna have more children or if not he

00:13:32.920 has a son so Francis even though she was next in line it wasn't no one really thought anything

00:13:38.200 was going to come of it so she was able to just be sort of a very rich royal adjacent person

00:13:44.120 she attended the wedding of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves which was his next wife however Francis

00:13:51.020 and Henry's lavish lifestyle led to financial difficulties and they were constantly in debt

00:13:56.600 in 1540 Francis gave birth probably again people's birth dates weren't written down

00:14:04.480 very reliably but around then she gave birth in probably August of 1540 to her second daughter

00:14:10.540 Lady Catherine Gray and then five years later she had a third daughter Lady Mary Gray so they had

00:14:16.340 three daughters no living sons Francis and Henry were very aware of their royal status and they

00:14:23.860 knew that their three daughters had really high status as well and so they harbored high ambitions

00:14:28.760 for them especially for jane who was the eldest and seemingly kind of the smartest so they really

00:14:35.480 thought that maybe good things could happen for her powerful important things again so just like

00:14:40.740 francis had been given this really good education they the three girls were all given an education

00:14:48.980 trendily grounded in humanism they hired lots of tutors francis and henry were protestants and so

00:14:55.740 they raised their daughters as evangelicals and we got all into that in the last episode but

00:15:00.460 so the religion becomes really important especially when we're looking at

00:15:05.200 jane gray's whole situation so they invest in much of their time and money like buying getting

00:15:08.960 the best tutors you know the best musical instruments and stuff for jane who was their 0.84

00:15:13.880 oldest and also seemingly kind of the the most likely to succeed of the three katherine was kind 1.00

00:15:22.900 of like uh if we're looking at them in terms of little women slash pride and prejudice jane was

00:15:28.520 very much like the lizzie bennett and slash joe march like she was just the really smart one who 0.87

00:15:35.720 you knew was sort of destined for great things katherine the middle daughter was sort of like

00:15:40.080 a lydia bennett slash amy march and then mary gray was sort of like a meg slash jane just sort

00:15:46.860 of like nice and quiet so it i don't know how much of that is self-fulfilling that they put

00:15:51.840 so much of their energy into making jane be as amazing as possible but she also

00:15:55.800 kind of had the most potential and she was the oldest so that made sense in the summer of 1543

00:16:03.060 henry the eighth married his sixth wife catherine parr who we talked about last time

00:16:08.380 francis was friends with catherine yes she was part of or sort of like a adjacent member at large

00:16:15.380 of the renaissance reformation girl squad so francis served catherine power in her privy chamber

00:16:20.440 in 1546 um at around the same time best of hardwick who's sort of a famous notable rich

00:16:27.820 woman in this era joined francis's household as a waiting gentlewoman so that's i mean not like a

00:16:35.600 super important plot point but just bear that in mind for stuff that happens later on so this was

00:16:40.520 to be the beginning of a long-lasting friendship between Bess of Hardwick who was also really

00:16:44.920 resilient really uh ambitious and Francis so Bess may she had several husbands as well I mean I'm

00:16:53.360 not doing a podcast episode about Bess of Hardwick this season I'm sure I will at some point and I

00:16:58.180 wrote an essay about her on my website but she had several different husbands one of so she may 0.97

00:17:03.020 have met her second husband when she was serving in the gray household so the grays hosted best of

00:17:09.440 hardwick and william cavendish that's her second husband the grays hosted their wedding at bradgate

00:17:15.460 in 1547 which was followed by two days of celebration so francis was just kind of like

00:17:20.860 the go-to gal for like social events of the season so things are just like whipping around

00:17:29.120 things are happening things are changing and one of the things that was changing is henry

00:17:35.220 was getting more and more sick and he was changing his will his final act of succession

00:17:42.620 you know what i'm not going to get into all of it but francis was just sort of like

00:17:48.820 ping-ponging around of like you're next in line like oh no the girls are actually not

00:17:53.200 illegitimate anymore like oh no yeah no you're next in line oh no the girls are illegitimate

00:17:56.640 again but the main thing was that Edward was his heir and it's just kind of like who would be after

00:18:00.860 him would it be Francis or would it be Mary and Elizabeth her father Charles Brandon died on

00:18:07.960 August 22nd 1545 Francis was by his side so we see a lot of that in these stories especially in

00:18:14.780 her story just family members being there when people die which just it's a nice thing in his

00:18:22.120 will charles brandon her father had left francis and her sister eleanor each 200 pounds worth of

00:18:28.160 plate i regret to inform you i did not look that up but i'm sure that's something cool

00:18:33.480 along with jewelry and household items so the stuff that they inherited francis would have

00:18:38.900 inherited is equal to about 61 000 pounds in today's money which is about twice that of dollars

00:18:45.560 although at the time of charles brandon's death he still had two surviving sons who stood to

00:18:51.880 inherit his dukedom so Francis and Eleanor this is his thing like she wasn't really his heir she

00:18:57.260 wasn't really the heir to the king just a whole bunch of men are gonna die I just feel like

00:19:01.240 Tudor men were just real fragile at this time so when Francis was serving as the lady of the

00:19:08.640 privy chamber to Catherine Parr she would sometimes bring Jane to court with her sometimes to prepare

00:19:13.340 Jane for her future life as a maid of honor serving the queen which was just what everyone 0.73

00:19:19.060 assumed jane's life was going to the next step of her life would be probably so katherine parr who 0.98

00:19:25.420 you all know about from the last episode was a passionate evangelical who supported the new

00:19:29.520 reformed religion as did francis's stepmother katherine willoughby this so 1546 this is the

00:19:36.760 same year that ann askew who we also talked about last time had been arrested for street preaching

00:19:42.440 after yelling at her husband publicly and leaving him aka she was great if you haven't listened to 0.98

00:19:48.160 the last episode so anne askew was sentenced to death for heresy but rumor had it that the queen

00:19:54.060 and her inner circle the renaissance reformation girl squad secretly supported her both like

00:19:59.180 financially but also just philosophically allegedly before she was arrested and had

00:20:04.880 been introduced to both francis and eleanor who were the king's nieces so really important rich

00:20:10.420 people for her to meet like good financial patrons for her if this did happen if anne

00:20:15.800 ask you had met Francis and Eleanor is probably through an introduction from Catherine Willoughby

00:20:19.980 because well that's the connection between the greys and the king at this point by the end of

00:20:27.440 1546 King Henry was dying and again he kept like changing his will his whole thing was just

00:20:35.120 wanting to make sure that the succession was obvious and clear and the Tudors would be in

00:20:40.220 control forever which i think we all know they were not so he reiterated in his will that his

00:20:46.460 three surviving children should inherit the throne so go like edward and then mary and then elizabeth

00:20:51.540 so boy and then the girls in age order he officially skipped over his older sister margaret

00:20:57.000 and her heirs saying that after his three children next in order would be the issue of francis

00:21:04.900 herself. So Frances herself was not the heir, which is interesting. Why did he exclude her?

00:21:13.040 Chances are it was because her husband, Henry Gray, was sort of, uh, Henry didn't care for him.

00:21:19.300 He didn't trust him. And the way that everybody understood that being a queen would work,

00:21:23.660 England had not had a queen at this point. The closest they had come before this was Empress

00:21:28.700 Matilda, which didn't work out. But just the way that the laws worked and everything,

00:21:33.020 if the queen had a husband then the husband would effectively be in charge

00:21:37.020 and henry didn't want henry gray to be in charge so but francis's children were not yet married so

00:21:46.200 maybe anyway it's just less scary but who thought that all of henry's children would not inherit so

00:21:53.380 this is just all sort of like a technicality at this point and then so henry died and then

00:21:59.940 surprising everyone katherine parr got married super quickly to thomas seymour the brother of

00:22:05.880 jane seymour just four months after the king died and we got into that last time it was a terrible

00:22:11.460 decision on her part she was in love i guess he was awful uh thomas approached francis and henry

00:22:19.920 with a proposal to marry their daughter jane to king edward the boy king who was thomas's nephew

00:22:26.620 you so he kind of did have the power to maybe arrange that he offered them a loan of two thousand

00:22:31.400 pounds for this and in return he asked that jane be sent to live with him and his new wife catherine

00:22:38.420 parr so they agreed to this obviously because having their daughter married to the king meant

00:22:43.960 that she would be the queen and that's amazing and also i'm sure they could use the two thousand

00:22:47.560 pounds and so some people some historians look at this decision as being showing that francis

00:22:56.540 and her husband were like power hungry or scheming or whatever but like a everybody was at this time

00:23:01.240 but be like why wouldn't they want their daughter to become the queen that's like the ultimate goal

00:23:05.720 and this is not weird like they would have arranged for her to marry someone 0.99

00:23:11.360 anyway like jane who we're going to learn about soon uh lady jane gray had been brought up 0.99

00:23:16.840 in a world in a society and a class where she knew that her marriage was going to be arranged 0.98

00:23:22.200 and that would be for the good of her family so she would have expected her parents to do

00:23:26.460 the best for her future by choosing for her a high status groom but there's no reason to assume that

00:23:32.360 this would have displeased her the plan to maybe marry her cousin Edward so Jane went to hang out

00:23:39.080 with Princess Elizabeth who was like similar-ish age who is Catherine Parr's stepdaughter at this 1.00

00:23:44.640 point at Catherine Parr's house um and that's where Catherine Parr hosted all these salons 1.00

00:23:49.560 and had all these religious debates and uh elizabeth was probably like almost definitely

00:23:56.700 assaulted by thomas seymour and it's just kind of a weird time for everybody and then catherine

00:24:03.580 pard died shortly after giving birth to a daughter francis and henry well after all this happened

00:24:08.240 francis and henry wrote to thomas saying like so can jane come back home now like because catherine

00:24:14.660 parties died and that was allowed lady jane gray came home for a short time but thomas a god okay

00:24:22.740 he's the worst thomas seymour was like but what if you send her back to me so i don't know if he

00:24:27.520 wanted to maybe marry her for power or something but jane was only there for a short time before

00:24:32.780 thomas seymour was charged and found guilty of treason and was executed so good riddance to him

00:24:38.600 after his execution Jane Grey returned for real to her family and resumed her studies with her

00:24:45.100 tutor and at this point the Greys were in high favor with the king who is the boy king Edward

00:24:52.980 so when I say the king it's kind of like the king slash the Seymour relatives who were his regents

00:24:59.600 so the Francis and Henry and I guess maybe Jane and their daughters moved between their home

00:25:06.100 in london and bradgate so they just went to royal court quite a bit and they were

00:25:11.320 because they were super important people they were closely related to him and he didn't have

00:25:14.960 a lot of alive relatives we know that in september of 1549 francis and her husband entertained the

00:25:22.020 king at their house and then in august 1550 okay i'll explain the situation and then i'll explain

00:25:31.280 the repercussions of it after so in august 1550 francis liked hunting that was one of her hobbies

00:25:37.580 that's what all the rich people did it's not weird that was her hobby she went off for a hunt

00:25:42.540 and jane was left at home alone to study because she really liked studying and francis supported

00:25:48.260 that for her while jane was at home without her parents there a man named roger asham

00:25:53.480 came by who was like a writer slash intellectual person and 20 years later he would write a book

00:26:02.320 called the schoolmaster in which he would recall that jane had told him that her parents were

00:26:07.760 physically abusive to her the only evidence or hint at all we have that francis was abusive

00:26:15.760 to her daughter is this guy roger ashton who wrote a book 20 years later about a conversation

00:26:21.400 he had with jane so he may have exaggerated what jane said jane might have been trying to i don't

00:26:28.160 know impress him or something or maybe she's mad at her parents but whatever jane allegedly told

00:26:33.620 him all this stuff and 20 years later he wrote in his book but the thing is that his book the

00:26:37.880 schoolmaster kind of the thesis of it was that teachers should not act as parents and resort to

00:26:45.180 corporeal punishment to motivate their students so his whole point was kind of like teachers should

00:26:49.860 be nice because parents are mean so he threw in a story here about jane gray who was like famously

00:26:56.020 intelligent saying like see her parents were mean teachers should be nice so it's just okay so during 0.93

00:27:03.160 tutor times good parents were strict parents and physical punishment was common so maybe she was

00:27:09.540 whatever maybe she was beaten because that's just kind of what people did not that that's a good

00:27:15.060 thing but just it's not uncommon so the thing is that because of what roger asham wrote in his book

00:27:22.880 francis has got this long like centuries long horrible reputation of being this cruel 0.98

00:27:29.000 abusive woman and we're going to talk about that later but just bear in mind that the only 1.00

00:27:36.020 only mention anyone ever said about that was roger asham 20 years later saying jane gray

00:27:41.100 told him this. Maybe it's true, but a lot of people threw in some fake examples that don't

00:27:47.780 actually, there's no evidence of them. So Jane's parents were extremely proud of her.

00:27:53.580 They were very ambitious for her. She was stubborn, unusually bright, articulate, and

00:28:00.180 opinionated. And Jane had an Italian tutor named Michel Angelo Florio, who he wrote that

00:28:10.940 Jane seemed particularly close to her mother. There's a man named John of Ulm who also visited

00:28:15.560 their house and says the family seemed happy, which doesn't mean that Frances wasn't abusive

00:28:20.520 to Jane. But again, it just, her reputation really blossomed from this one thing. So who knows what

00:28:30.020 the real story is, but I'm going to say Roger Asham misremembered and or made that whole thing

00:28:36.680 up that's my theory so yeah so other than this one record there are no contemporaneous documents

00:28:42.840 saying anything about francis being abusive to her children or her servants or anyone ever

00:28:48.840 so the people who would go on to vilify francis have said that so the fact that francis gave

00:28:58.540 jane such a thorough and good education some people say like that shows that

00:29:02.660 they were scheming they were overly ambitious um it was their way of compensating like they

00:29:10.560 didn't have a living son so they tried to overcompensate by like making her do too much

00:29:14.660 school or something some writers depict the parents as resenting jane being so intellectual

00:29:20.200 but this is all i mean wild guesses but also probably untrue it's not giving her a good

00:29:30.420 education doesn't mean that they were any more or less scheming than anybody else who wanted good

00:29:34.080 things for the children and if they were scheming good for them like of course they were she was

00:29:38.820 maybe gonna marry the king like she was a really important young woman and they could see the good

00:29:44.540 things maybe it could happen for her and it doesn't make them villains if they tried to encourage that

00:29:49.580 happening henry gray he was a patron of scholars so he also was really into education and learning

00:29:57.680 he had a reputation as a man who was proud of his own learning so of course they would have

00:30:02.760 wanted the same thing for their daughter jane and frankly if the so some people think that

00:30:09.660 maybe the greys didn't like jane being so intellectual but if they had they would have

00:30:13.960 just stopped paying for her tutors so this is this is the sort of thing where i came across

00:30:21.000 so many references to how francis has been misrepresented as this abusive person but i

00:30:27.360 read those before i read anything suggesting that she was abusive so it's just kind of like i'm

00:30:31.860 disproving this theory to you that you might not even know about but if you watch for instance the

00:30:36.560 movie jane lady jane starring helen and bottom carter the mother the francis character is shown

00:30:42.680 like cruelly hunting and i forget like vivisecting a deer or something and being horribly abusive and

00:30:48.340 that's partially because that is a that was just kind of how she was remembered by history for a

00:30:54.080 long time but also because that is a movie and movies need villains and it makes jane the

00:30:59.480 character be more sympathetic if the mother seems mean so that whole piece of it i just wanted to

00:31:08.660 throw out there so i'm just debunking something that may not even have been bunked for any of you

00:31:14.060 francis gray i don't think was any more or less physically abusive than any other mother

00:31:21.680 in this era and the fact that they worked so hard to educate jane kind of shows the opposite

00:31:27.440 well i don't know they could work hard to not the opposite but just clearly that she cared for her 0.97

00:31:32.680 daughter that's all i'm saying well and also everybody were catty bitches then like if anyone 0.99

00:31:38.880 had thought that she was an unusually harsh mother or mean like someone would have written it down 0.99

00:31:43.540 and nobody did until 20 years later as part of this guy's thesis about why learning should be

00:31:49.660 taught rather than by love than fear so in the summer 1551 there was an outbreak of the sweating

00:31:59.980 sickness and Francis's two half-brothers Charles and Henry Brandon died which meant because her

00:32:06.280 father was dead her brothers were dead there was no male people in the family so now the title of

00:32:10.260 Duke of Suffolk was available because her oldest brother had that title so with no one else around

00:32:15.880 And Francis's husband, Henry Gray, was endowed with the title by right of his wife,

00:32:20.140 and she was now the Duchess of Suffolk.

00:32:23.940 And things were still going good.

00:32:26.700 So even though people knew, and she openly supported the reformed religion,

00:32:31.240 she maintained a close relationship with Princess Mary,

00:32:34.420 her godmother slash longtime person she knew.

00:32:37.860 So Princess Mary was now heir to the throne, and Francis was friends with her.

00:32:41.140 francis and all three of her daughters visited mary actually in 1549 and they all celebrated

00:32:46.320 christmas together in 1551 that same year in 1551 francis was present during the welcoming

00:32:53.640 ceremonies for marie de guise who is the dowager queen of scots and regent in scotland for her

00:32:59.200 daughter mary queen of scots marie de guise is an amazing person i will 10 000 to a podcast about

00:33:05.220 later mary queen of scots i'm gonna do some podcasts don't you worry about it but so they

00:33:12.400 were mary queen of scots is the descendant of henry's henry the eighth sis older sister margaret

00:33:18.140 who had all been disinherited in favor of francis and the other heirs of henry's younger

00:33:24.300 sister mary there's a lot of marys and maries i'm so sorry but the fact that francis was present

00:33:29.620 during these welcoming ceremonies shows how high status she had then the next year in the summer

00:33:35.920 of 1552 francis became super sick deathly ill probably the sweating sickness her family despaired

00:33:44.040 for her life her husband so she was staying at their london home and her husband left royal court

00:33:50.240 to be by her side because this family they do a lot of being with each other when they die

00:33:53.900 she did recover but from this point forward she suffered some from some long lasting symptoms

00:33:59.920 like a constant fever slash shivering and some spleen related issues

00:34:05.400 and then but everything is still utter chaos the fact that the king is a boy

00:34:12.360 means that all these ambitious men around them were making all kinds of schemes and plans

00:34:17.360 everybody kind of had to choose a side and your sides were sort of edward seymour who is the

00:34:23.880 had been the uncle slash lord protector of the boy king or there is another guy called john

00:34:31.800 dudley who is the duke of northumberland so edward seymour duke of somerset was removed

00:34:37.340 from being the boy king's advisor and he was replaced by john dudley duke of northumberland

00:34:42.000 and francis and henry were like we're just going to support john dudley and duke of northumberland

00:34:46.480 that seems like what we want to do john dudley in the lady jane film is played by patrick stewart

00:34:55.340 i'm pretty sure just frankly watch the movie it's it's a good movie john dudley the father of

00:35:01.440 robert dudley if you know who that is queen elizabeth's long time paramour so john dudley

00:35:08.700 was now the head of the king's council and had massive influence over the king in the country

00:35:12.300 so Francis and Henry siding with him was just sort of uh making an informed decision about who

00:35:18.620 where do they think the power is and who do they want to support and how can they continue

00:35:22.540 having some influence for themselves Dudley began to work on a plan to bypass

00:35:29.460 the king's sister Mary as his heir so right now I know it kept changing but so Edward is a boy

00:35:36.740 and the king until he had his own children his heir was going to be his older sister mary

00:35:42.380 followed by his next oldest sister elizabeth and then i guess it would be francis next but

00:35:47.460 dudley was like we don't really want mary to be queen next because of catholic reasons and she

00:35:54.000 everyone knew if and when she became queen she would probably make england be catholic again

00:35:59.560 so they're trying to find a way to bypass her francis does not seem to be have been involved

00:36:05.500 in this particular line of scheming although her husband maybe was but this is where the lady jane

00:36:11.740 gray scenario how to lose a queen in nine days stuff starts kind of coming together

00:36:16.120 so the boy king's health was in decline under the influence of john dudley edward would edward

00:36:27.200 started working on his own will which is just like for a little kid king to be writing a will is kind

00:36:32.340 this ad but they effectively manipulated slash convinced him to write a will excluding mary and

00:36:39.080 making his heir be francis's daughters so not again not francis herself but francis's daughters

00:36:44.200 so this was made into letters patent signed by the king and his council uh there were arguments

00:36:52.140 at the time that changing the succession would require parliamentary approval and that never

00:36:56.080 actually happened while the letters patent were being done up dudley called francis to to come

00:37:03.760 by so she could swear to give up her claim to the throne in favor of her daughters so you remember

00:37:12.140 there was a plan before of to maybe marry lady jane to the king but now the king was dying so

00:37:16.340 it's like who can be how's this gonna work and here's what happens Dudley approached Francis

00:37:25.960 and her husband about marrying their daughter Jane to his son Guildford Dudley played in the

00:37:31.080 movie by Carrie Elwes in his Princess Bride era young handsomeness so that's you can picture for

00:37:37.860 that Francis opposed the marriage because she could smell the fact that they were working on

00:37:43.440 some sort of scheme that seemed kind of treasonous but her husband Henry agreed and because of

00:37:48.860 patriarchy that's all it took so on May 21st Guildford Dudley was married to Lady Jane Grey

00:37:57.540 and then so May 21st that wedding happened the king the boy king died on July 6th and then things

00:38:05.480 began to move swiftly his death was kept kept secret for three days and then Jane was proclaimed

00:38:12.320 queen by the privy council in front of her parents at one of their homes the next day jane was

00:38:18.760 publicly recognized as queen at westminster so this is basically a coup by john dudley to because

00:38:25.980 you know the thing about if a woman is the queen then her husband gets all the powers this is a

00:38:30.920 way for john dudley to get his son guildford to hopefully have all the power and so jane becomes

00:38:37.960 the queen. Francis was there with her every step of the way. She was supporting her throughout this

00:38:42.740 whole ordeal. Jane didn't want to be queen. We're going to learn more about her, her take on the 0.99

00:38:48.320 situation in a future episode. But so Francis and Jane were lodged together in anticipation of her

00:38:53.860 coronation. But Mary, Francis's godmother, was determined to overthrow this and become queen 0.77

00:39:02.320 because this is all a bunch of bullshit to her and everyone really because the law stipulated that 0.88

00:39:09.020 mary should be the next queen like this is jane gray became queen sort of because of an asterisk 0.97

00:39:15.000 sort of footnote in a document that was never actually legally approved sort of um so dudley

00:39:22.700 john dudley and henry gray francis's husband were instructed to raise troops to fight mary to keep

00:39:29.060 her out and to keep jane being the queen francis didn't want him to go she didn't want her husband

00:39:35.480 to do this because she again just to good survival instincts i think from all her time at court

00:39:39.760 and sure enough support for jane melted away and mary was proclaimed queen bloodlessly there was

00:39:47.280 no actual battle everyone just kind of gave up and let her take over and so this was this all

00:39:54.360 happened in nine days and then jane was now a prisoner in the tower of london francis was

00:39:59.680 forced to leave jane because she had been with her this whole time and then but henry francis's

00:40:06.660 husband was arrested and imprisoned for his part in the whole jane gray scenario francis rode to

00:40:12.760 plead the case of her family with the queen mary her longtime friend slash godmother

00:40:17.820 she arrived the morning of july 29th and made an impassioned plea for her husband's life

00:40:23.840 to mary and so the same people who sort of claimed that francis was this horrible mean bully who

00:40:29.680 didn't love her daughter are like well why didn't she make a impassioned plea for her daughter's

00:40:33.160 life and it's like well maybe she did like but no one wrote it down so she told mary her family

00:40:40.300 was the victim of john dudley's schemes which they were and threw herself and her husband on

00:40:45.000 the queen's mercy francis probably believed that mary would be merciful to jane so that's maybe

00:40:50.540 another reason why she was pleading for her husband but maybe not so much for jane mary was

00:40:56.300 sympathetic to francis they were longtime friends remember they had spent christmas together and

00:41:00.080 stuff and mary apparently wanted like she was leaning towards pardoning jane and henry but

00:41:08.120 mary's counselors the imperial ambassadors argued against this and so the next day mary agreed to

00:41:14.500 pardon henry but not jane lady jane gray was charged with treason for having we'll talk about

00:41:21.340 why exactly last time but basically for becoming queen and she would face execution mary released

00:41:27.900 henry from the tower but he was to remain under house arrest but guess what in january of the

00:41:33.440 next year henry gray left house arrest to go join a man called thomas wyatt and other rebels in an

00:41:39.220 uprising to protest queen mary's pending marriage to king philip of spain king philip of spain being

00:41:46.840 a descendant of juana from juana of castile from last season on this podcast so henry gray is just

00:41:54.980 like gotta go do some more treasoning so there's evidence francis did not approve of this plot

00:41:59.800 did not want henry to do this uh didn't want her husband involved and again her instincts were

00:42:05.520 correct because the rebels were defeated and captured including her husband so Francis again

00:42:10.120 it's just like oh my god my husband she's got to plead again so she goes to see Mary again like hey

00:42:16.380 it's me what's up and she pleaded with the queen not to pardon her husband but at least to forgive

00:42:21.620 him she knew that he was probably going to be executed for like literal treason but the if

00:42:28.620 the queen forgave him that would allow Francis and her daughters to have some rehabilitation

00:42:33.340 rehabilitation at court um and maybe she could get some of when her husband was arrested all

00:42:39.760 of his lands were confiscated and given to the crown so francis was kind of penniless kind of

00:42:44.240 bankrupt and her reputation was in tatters so she was at least just hoping for the forgiveness so

00:42:50.340 her life could improve a little bit but mary at this point not doing great herself personally

00:42:56.780 we'll do an episode about her later to get into why that was but for mary's own reasons uh she 0.99

00:43:04.920 had lady jane gray and guilford deadly tried found guilty and executed five days later henry

00:43:10.540 gray was put on trial and then he was executed as well so now francis's oldest daughter and son-in-law

00:43:17.200 had been executed her husband had been executed she had still two daughters katherine and mary

00:43:23.160 gray but kind of what is she going to do now there's no record that francis at this point

00:43:30.920 before jane was executed had pleaded for her life but there's no reason to believe that she wouldn't

00:43:36.320 have again the haters say like the fact that we don't today have evidence of a farewell letter

00:43:42.680 from jane to francis means that jane was mad at her mother but the letter could have gone missing

00:43:48.340 this was all several hundreds of years ago and jane's italian tutor uh florio stated that jane

00:43:55.560 did in fact write to francis so the letter may have been lost or francis may have chosen to

00:43:59.440 destroy it anyway two weeks after her husband henry was executed francis got married so we

00:44:05.960 talked before with with katherine parr about how you're supposed to wait a certain amount of time

00:44:11.480 before getting married and i forget what it is but it's at least six months i feel like it might

00:44:15.360 be a year uh francis gray waited two weeks before taking her new husband who was a man named adrian

00:44:23.620 stokes he was this was probably a love match he was uh one of her gentlemen sort of staff members

00:44:32.800 he was her master of horse slash steward he was 36 years old and she was 37 so again the ages are

00:44:39.440 pretty close why would she have gotten married two weeks after her husband was executed to one

00:44:45.180 of her servants is a great question the haters say it just proves that she was like heartless

00:44:52.580 and didn't care that her daughter had just been killed and her husband had just been killed

00:44:55.820 but i think it's kind of obvious that she was frantic to find a way to survive and not

00:45:03.740 to try and save face for herself and for her children

00:45:06.240 so elizabeth the first's biographer william camden who lived around the same time just a

00:45:15.680 bit afterwards believed that francis made the match to her dishonor but yet for her security

00:45:19.740 as marrying a commoner distanced francis and her surviving children from the crown making her be

00:45:25.200 suddenly like not a threat at all so hopefully she wouldn't be executed either it was a way to 1.00

00:45:30.180 just like neuter herself as a challenge so the law said if a noble woman marries a commoner she 1.00

00:45:37.580 ceases to be noble so this marriage compelled francis to give up her status as duchess 0.93

00:45:42.360 but society continued to respect her anyway and guess what she wasn't executed so

00:45:46.840 good plan there francis was also after her husband was executed she was entrusted with

00:45:53.160 the care of her husband's niece whose name was margaret willoughby and people commented

00:45:58.400 approvingly at Francis's success at introducing Margot Willoughby to court so again just showing

00:46:03.280 that she's maybe a nice person due to Francis's non-stop behind the scenes pleading and begging 0.54

00:46:10.440 the case and working all of her connections from back in her house party days the Gray family was

00:46:16.260 rehabilitated after the death of her husband even though even as the imperial ambassadors did their 0.50

00:46:21.460 best to continue to persuade mary to eliminate the gray family as threats to her being queen 0.56

00:46:28.700 but au contraire by july 1554 mary queen mary invited francis to join the privy chamber so a 0.70

00:46:37.500 super prestigious position for her and it just kind of showed that mary is like a no hard feelings

00:46:42.660 gesture francis also maintained a friendly relationship with princess elizabeth who was

00:46:48.200 at this point queen mary's heir so like the gray family was just like mostly out of contention here

00:46:55.240 altogether like marrying adrian stokes just really fixed that problem for her

00:46:59.380 also actually so when her husband had been arrested before she married adrian stokes had

00:47:06.040 been rumors that maybe francis would be married to a man named edward courtney who was a descendant

00:47:12.760 of the Plantagenet royal family he was a man who also had been he was sort of just like eligible

00:47:19.400 bachelor so he was a potential husband for Mary and for Elizabeth but France's potential one of

00:47:25.020 the reasons she married Adrienne Stokes so quickly was just so that no one could make her marry Edward

00:47:29.160 Courtney because then she would have been a huge threat again so marrying Adrienne Stokes is truly 0.96

00:47:34.920 a preemptive strike to escape herself being a target anymore she so she was in mary's privy 0.97

00:47:44.300 chamber but eventually francis retired from royal court she had three pregnancies with her second

00:47:48.900 husband only one of which resulted in a live birth of a daughter she named elizabeth but the baby

00:47:54.700 died after a few months so queen mary died having had no children and she was inherited

00:48:02.060 inherited by she was succeeded by her sister who became queen elizabeth first

00:48:07.340 francis was too ill to attend elizabeth's coronation and actually by early november

00:48:14.600 1559 francis drew up her will and arranged to sell some property and give the proceeds to her

00:48:19.620 surviving children lady catherine gray and lady mary gray francis named adrian stokes as the

00:48:24.900 executor of her will and left all her goods and life interest in most of her property to him

00:48:29.480 um so francis gray francis brandon gray stokes died on november 21st with her two daughters

00:48:37.960 at her side as well as some close friends as well like this is i don't i like this custom of having

00:48:43.160 people there with you it just shows the love of a family queen elizabeth agreed to pay for the

00:48:50.040 funeral because francis was technically her cousin elizabeth called her her beloved cousin

00:48:55.220 francis's funeral was the first protestant service in westminster abbey after the reconstitution of

00:49:00.780 its chapter by queen elizabeth the first because when mary was queen she made it be catholic but

00:49:05.320 then elizabeth made it be protestant again so francis was only 42 when she died but if you go

00:49:12.220 by like major traumatizing life event per year you would think she was 85 so at her funeral her

00:49:20.220 daughter, Lady Catherine Gray, acted as chief mourner, the same role that Frances had played

00:49:24.760 at her own mother's funeral. Four years later, Adrian Stokes erected a monument to Frances in

00:49:31.900 Westminster Abbey, which still exists today. You can go visit it if you're there. The monument

00:49:38.200 contains inscriptions in English and Latin, the first of which reads, Here lieth the Lady Frances,

00:49:43.960 Duchess of Suffolk, daughter to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and Marie, the French Queen,

00:49:48.940 first wife to henry duke of suffolk and after to hadrian stock esquire the fact that this

00:49:56.860 inscription does not mention francis's daughters is again these conspiracy theory haters say like

00:50:03.860 oh this is proof that she wasn't a good mother that the daughter's names aren't mentioned here

00:50:08.540 but actually so at the time she died well four years after she died by this point spoiler for

00:50:16.080 some later episodes this season at the time this monument went up Francis's oldest surviving

00:50:21.980 daughter Catherine Gray was currently a prisoner in the Tower of London and Adrian Stokes had been

00:50:28.940 one of the people questioned about the stuff that Catherine did that got her sent to jail

00:50:32.720 Catherine Gray's place in the royal succession was also a very delicate subject Elizabeth

00:50:37.520 was kind of panicked by the presence of the Gray family so it seems like probably a conscious

00:50:42.720 decision by adrian stokes to not mention the daughters on the tomb so he wasn't being

00:50:47.500 disrespectful but actually kind of smart about it so why did she get such a bad reputation

00:50:56.160 so leanna delisle who wrote a book about the gray sisters she noted that lady jane gray's 0.99

00:51:04.440 reputation as a helpless meek victim developed over the centuries like if you look at some of 1.00

00:51:09.480 famous art paintings of Lady Jane Grey she just seems like this poor stranded little baby who 0.90

00:51:15.000 doesn't who can't help herself so Frances's reputation devolved in parallel fashion to 1.00

00:51:21.480 quote Leanna Delisle from the early 18th century Frances became the archetype of female wickedness 0.69

00:51:26.840 and the writer Susan Higginbotham Higginbotham who's written a novel about Frances says that 1.00

00:51:35.060 here's a quote from her susan higginbotham but there is another reason why francis has become

00:51:40.980 such a loathed figure at least among women and that is jane herself jane the girl who preferred

00:51:46.340 reading a book to hunting with the family is the thinking girl's heroine she's the sort of girl

00:51:50.500 who hated gym class who hated going to family gatherings and having to make small talk with

00:51:54.380 her dreary relations who spent her lunch hour hiding out in the library she's the sort of girl 0.74

00:51:59.060 who grows into a reader and often into a writer when female readers and authors come across jane's

00:52:04.220 complaint to roger asham they do not picture just jane but themselves in that situation poor francis

00:52:10.880 doesn't stand a chance so that is the story of francis gray the duchess of suffolk and it's time

00:52:18.880 to score her on our scandalicious scale so here we go and this is an interesting there's always

00:52:27.340 some weird thing that makes this scoring interesting or complicated and here it's the

00:52:31.960 fact that there is all this scandal around her name for being this horrible abusive mother but

00:52:35.960 it's mostly unfounded and also i hadn't heard of it so it doesn't really affect my the way that i 0.59

00:52:44.220 see her so the first category is scandalousness so she her proximity to scandalousness like she's

00:52:51.460 the mother of lady jane gray who kind of usurped the throne her husband was executed in

00:52:57.080 in this failed rebellion like she was this is where i think she was really clever and really

00:53:04.460 resilient that she was able to work so hard despite all these scandals being around her

00:53:08.780 that she herself while she was alive was not really tainted by the scandaliciousness of it

00:53:14.000 all although marrying her like horse groomer two weeks after her husband was executed is like

00:53:21.620 pretty high up for scandalousness i'm going to give her seven i think scheminess 0.51

00:53:27.480 and this is just her so her husband's scheminess is like shitty bad poorly done scheminess where

00:53:35.820 he got caught and then executed her scheminess i would say stuff like going to the queen like

00:53:39.800 convincing her to free her husband like all this behind the scenes stuff she did to even 0.51

00:53:45.300 marrying adrian stokes like she was smart she had a plan and she did everything she could 0.95

00:53:49.420 to try and just to survive in this wild world in which she was living i'm going to give her an eight 1.00

00:53:56.100 i think for scheminess 0.95

00:53:57.580 significance as per ever this season is an interesting question she's the mother of lady

00:54:05.480 jane gray and lady jane gray is a pretty significant figure

00:54:09.060 also just being the daughter of of the french queen and her own personal significance though

00:54:19.260 i think it's not major like she was there while a lot of stuff happened and she did all the scheming

00:54:26.860 you know i'm gonna give her a nine for scheming to kind of make up for the fact that for

00:54:32.300 significance i'm giving her i'm giving her a six no yeah six because she's the mother of

00:54:39.220 lady jane gray and then for sexism bonus there's not a lot in her story that's like 0.80

00:54:47.500 there's the regular shitty amount of patriarchal bullshit that everybody goes through but there's 0.84

00:54:53.780 nothing that's like especially galling on top of that so i think i'm just gonna stick with the 0.85

00:54:59.180 standard default five five point sexism bonus so that gives her 16

00:55:04.460 27 everybody this season is getting really close to each other so 27 is the same as Catherine Parr

00:55:14.080 0.5 less than her mother Mary Tudor this season I like how this is sort of lining up everybody

00:55:21.900 this season is like quite consistent they're ranging from 25 to 27.5 thus far on the scandalous

00:55:29.200 the scale so that is francis gray this is the vulgar history podcast my name is ann foster so

00:55:37.300 you can follow us on instagram at vulgar history pod twitter at vulgar history i have a website

00:55:43.440 where i write essays about historical women that's at ann foster writer.com i have a patreon

00:55:49.960 which is at patreon.com slash ann foster writer there's a merch store where we're selling stuff

00:55:55.840 theme to some women from previous seasons as well as to to this season's overall well the women the

00:56:03.000 season and just kind of the overall themes like there's a shirt for the renaissance reformation

00:56:07.040 girl squad for instance and some other just cool things face masks all the stuff from the patreon

00:56:13.800 from the store just by the way goes to help support my writing and this podcast and that's

00:56:21.380 what it's for so i appreciate the support i don't have any ads on this podcast because partially i

00:56:27.160 can't be bothered and partially i'd rather just fund it through supporters you know like public

00:56:32.860 television that just feels right for me for right now and what else is there so yes the patreon.com

00:56:40.420 and foster writer and then the teespring store the link is in the show notes but it's at teespring.com

00:56:45.360 slash stores slash vulgar history and also if you go on bookshop.org i have a list of the

00:56:53.200 recommended books like books that i've used for research and reference and i just realized i

00:56:59.980 forgot to tell you what i used to research today's episode so the books i will recommend for this so 0.83

00:57:05.320 this is a book that's been really helpful to me for many of these kind of less lesser known women

00:57:10.300 this season so there's a book called elizabeth's women friends rivals and foes who shape the virgin

00:57:14.920 and Queen by Tracy Borman. Recommend. There's a book, Henry VIII, The King and His Court by

00:57:21.080 Alison Weir. The Sisters Who Would Be Queen, Mary Catherine and Lady J. Grey, A Tudor Tragedy by

00:57:27.560 Leanda Delisle. Super good. And then also Crown of Blood, The Deadly Inheritance of Lady Jane Grey

00:57:33.080 by Nicola Tallis. There's no books about just Frances, but she pops up and that's where I put

00:57:37.880 everything together. And then there's also a really great essay. So Susan Higginbotham.

00:57:44.920 wrote a really good essay on her she is a historical fiction writer and she also keeps

00:57:49.560 a blog where she talks about various stuff and she wrote an essay called the maligned francis

00:57:56.200 gray duchess of suffolk and she wrote a book a historical fiction book called her highness

00:58:03.480 the traitor which is why she wrote why she did so much research on francis and also why she wrote

00:58:12.660 this great essay about it so susan higginbotham i'll put a link to her book as well in the

00:58:16.220 bookshop.org link that you can get to through the show notes but as ever this is vulgar history 0.96

00:58:24.040 my name is ann foster and keep your masks on and your tits out and i'll talk to you next time 0.98

00:58:42.660 The war is over and both sides lost. 0.99

00:58:52.420 Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust.

00:58:57.440 Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world,

00:59:02.080 praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.

00:59:05.320 But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.

00:59:09.060 This is old school adventuring at its most cruel.

00:59:13.140 Your torch ticks down in real time and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.

00:59:19.060 This is a brutal rules light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make.

00:59:26.620 This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s and man, it is so good to be back.

00:59:31.240 Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8pm Eastern on youtube.com slash the glass cannon

00:59:38.660 with the podcast version dropping the next day.

00:59:42.040 See what everybody's talking about

00:59:43.340 and join us in the dark.

00:59:48.720 Do you ever watch a TV show set in a historical time period

00:59:52.280 and think, how accurate is this really?

00:59:55.040 But also, does it matter if it's accurate or not?

00:59:58.300 NeferTV is a new podcast about shows set in ancient times.

01:00:04.420 This season, we're recapping every episode of the show,

01:00:07.500 Spartacus, Blood and Sand.

01:00:09.480 I'm Anne Foster, and I have never

01:00:11.540 seen this show before.

01:00:13.280 And I'm Gina Berry, and I have watched

01:00:15.460 this show maybe too many times.

01:00:17.660 Join us every other Monday

01:00:19.180 on the NeferTV podcast as we

01:00:21.340 discuss the real history behind Spartacus,

01:00:23.820 Blood and Sand. Follow

01:00:25.140 NeferTV, that's 1.00

01:00:26.880 N-E-F-E-R-T-V

01:00:29.400 wherever you get your podcasts.

01:00:32.600 For eight

01:00:33.540 years, we've been asking the same question

01:00:35.720 over and over again.

01:00:37.500 How did this happen? My name's Mandy.

01:00:40.260 And I'm Alyssa, and we're the hosts of Moms and Mysteries, the true crime podcast with over 55 million downloads.

01:00:46.560 We're two Florida moms who are obsessed with mysteries.

01:00:49.560 Each week, we do deep dives into fascinating true crime stories.

01:00:52.900 We cover everything from infamous cases like Casey Anthony to the bizarre and complex crimes right here in our home state,

01:00:59.900 like the shocking murder of FSU professor Dan Markell.

01:01:02.620 We bring you the facts, but with warmth and width, you'd only get from two friends who have been hooked on mysteries since childhood.

01:01:08.820 Join us for new episodes of Moms and Mysteries every Tuesday and Thursday.

01:01:12.460 Listen to Moms and Mysteries on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Vulgar History - September 30, 2020

How To Lose A Queen In Nine Days, part 5： Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk

Episode Stats

Transcript