Vulgar History - How To Lose A Queen In Nine Days, part 7： Lady Katherine Grey, Countess of Hertford

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a women's history comedy podcast. My name is Anne Foster.

00:00:21.200 I don't know how well my microphone is picking things up, but my cat Hepburn is here,

00:00:25.380 purring extraordinarily loudly because you know what she's excited about this week's episode

00:00:30.120 because it features numerous house pets is that why is that what you're so excited so this is

00:00:37.040 season three of vulgar history and the theme for this season has been and continues to be how to

00:00:42.860 lose a queen in nine days aka the lady jane gray scenario and what we've been doing is looking at

00:00:49.040 we're in the middle of looking at nine women slash girls including jane gray herself and

00:00:55.040 looking at how their their lives helped to explain this weird thing that happened where

00:01:01.240 Jane Grey, 16 year old girl, kind of became Queen of England for nine days and then was sent to jail

00:01:07.900 and then was executed. And last time we looked at Lady Jane Grey herself but the whole Lady Jane

00:01:14.380 Grey scenario did not happen. It was not specifically about her as much as she was an

00:01:19.840 interesting person. The whole situation started with the first, the woman who we talked about in

00:01:26.500 the first episode of this season, Mary Tudor, who is King Henry VIII's youngest sister. She had two

00:01:32.860 daughters, Frances and Eleanor, and then Jane Grey was the daughter of Frances. So whoever the oldest

00:01:42.060 child of Frances had been might have wound up in the same situation Lady Jane Grey did.

00:01:49.840 But Lady Jane Grey was removed from being queen.

00:01:52.600 That didn't remove the threat of the Grey family entirely because Jane had two younger sisters.

00:01:59.140 And today we're looking at the middle Grey sister who was born Lady Catherine Grey.

00:02:04.740 And if we're comparing the three Grey sisters, Jane, Catherine, and Mary,

00:02:09.100 to famous groups of women or sisters in literature.

00:02:14.660 So if we're looking in a Pride and Prejudice type situation,

00:02:18.220 Jane Grey was the Lizzie Bennet. She was the the intellectual of the group. She was sort of the

00:02:26.780 you know not like other girls of the group who didn't put as much weight as some of her siblings

00:02:33.420 or her parents on you know marriage and romance and that sort of stuff. Catherine who we're looking

00:02:38.240 at today is very much the Lydia Bennet in this scenario. So Catherine was very much more into

00:02:46.600 romance and pretty things and dresses and parties. And as much as Jane was not suitable 1.00

00:02:54.860 to be a queen and wasn't interested in being queen, Catherine also was very much not. But 0.93

00:03:00.540 with the death of Jane, that's the role that she wound herself landed into. If you're not

00:03:05.940 into Pride and Prejudice, I will compare it to In Little Women. Lady Jane Grey is our Joe,

00:03:11.480 and Catherine is our Amy and again just so that my my prejudices are out there I'm a total Amy

00:03:19.320 girl so Catherine Gray is she's my girl and her story some might say it's a sad story I would say

00:03:27.240 just because a story ends sadly doesn't mean it was a sad story this is in fact a story with a

00:03:32.000 lot of very cool exciting things happening in it that happens to end not wonderfully for her

00:03:37.420 slash anyone. So let's dive in. So Lady Catherine Grey was born on August 25th, 1540 at Bradgate

00:03:46.300 Park, the family property of the Grey family. Just to put this in a place and time. So 1540.

00:03:52.980 At this point, Henry VIII was still king. And he was at that point in the midst of his brief

00:03:57.580 fifth marriage to Catherine Howard. I'm going to propose. Catherine Grey might have been named

00:04:02.560 after Catherine Howard. But then when Catherine Howard fell from grace, it was okay because

00:04:06.140 henry's next wife was katherine parr so being named katherine was still an okay name to have

00:04:11.180 i'm guessing this because her older sister jane had been named after jane seymour who had been

00:04:15.560 the queen when she was born because the queen just kept switching so katherine was the second

00:04:21.620 surviving child born to lady francis brandon who we talked about a few weeks ago and her husband

00:04:28.320 henry gray the first duke of suffolk so lady jane gray was already born because she's the oldest

00:04:32.800 sister and then five years later the third gray sister was born who's lady mary gray who we're

00:04:38.300 going to talk about maybe next week the three gray girls were royalty because their mother's

00:04:43.740 mother was henry the eighth's younger sister mary the gray sisters didn't have the title of

00:04:49.000 princesses but they were treated with the respect appropriate to royalty and they got to be called

00:04:55.600 ladies so henry the eighth died in 1547 catherine gray was seven years old at the time and the new

00:05:02.820 king became as we have talked about one million times already before in this podcast his nine

00:05:08.340 year old son who became king edward the sixth so at this point nine year old edward becomes the

00:05:14.740 king catherine gray was fourth in line to the throne so first in line to the throne was henry

00:05:21.300 the eighth's daughter mary then henry the eighth's daughter elizabeth followed by catherine's older

00:05:25.040 sister, Jane. So Catherine, fourth in line of four, four young, youngish women. So while it was

00:05:32.520 very unlikely that Catherine would ever become a queen, she and her sisters were all seen as

00:05:38.340 valuable marriage prospects, just because that's a lot closer to being the monarch than most people

00:05:43.260 were around then. So the girls were all provided with a thorough education, including learning

00:05:50.140 latin greek french music and the arts and were raised in the protestant faith which is what

00:05:55.660 everybody was into at that time except for the catholics but again we've covered that in

00:06:01.300 previous episodes so edward was the king for six years and then when he was 15 years old he fell

00:06:08.760 ill with i believe tuberculosis and his advisors who mostly had the last name seymour and were

00:06:15.040 mostly dirtbags began scheming to marry their sons to the gray girls so that these adult men

00:06:20.100 could be closer to the increasingly powerful gray family because edward's death just meant 0.93

00:06:24.060 the gray sisters were that much closer to power which made them very appealing child brides to 0.89

00:06:30.280 ambitious men and their sons so the thing is that the grays were protestant unlike mary the first

00:06:37.100 and so this is the the john dudley of it all where he was thinking like okay if i can position jane

00:06:43.860 to be the next queen then that's good for me john dudley because i'm gonna figure out a way to make

00:06:49.000 that work best for me so the whole thing happened with the will edward rewrote his will and he made

00:06:57.200 he removed his half-sister mary and elizabeth from being the heir making the new queen his cousin

00:07:05.260 catherine's older sister lady jane gray and until jane had a child catherine would be jane's heir

00:07:10.440 so a few months before edward died 15 year old jane and 12 year old catherine gray were married

00:07:16.960 off in a double wedding ceremony. Jane's husband was Guildford Dudley, the son of the king's

00:07:23.380 powerful chief minister, John Dudley. Catherine's husband was named Henry Lord Herbert. Mary Gray,

00:07:30.140 the third sister, was just eight years old. She wasn't married to anyone, but she was betrothed

00:07:33.840 to their cousin, Arthur Lord Gray of Wilton. So the double child bride wedding was a huge event

00:07:40.260 with lots of feasting and partying and the whole Tudor style. We talked about an episode about

00:07:46.380 catherine's mom francis liked to throw a party so i'm sure it was a major event and even the king

00:07:52.320 15 year old edward the sixth attended the wedding this is one of the last weddings he attended

00:07:57.320 before he died at age 15 when he died lady jane gray was declared the new queen and this is where

00:08:03.300 if you haven't listened to the previous episode like hit pause listen to the whole jane gray thing

00:08:08.580 and then come back here i'll just give you a sec so jane became queen for nine days and then was 1.00

00:08:15.760 executed a year later so being a pawn did not work well for jane nor would it for anyone unless 0.84

00:08:22.480 unless she had been a boy or a man i don't think anyone could have survived that whole thing it

00:08:27.400 was a bad plan john dudley made a bad plan that's what happened there so mary the first took over

00:08:33.240 becoming mary the first jane guildford and jane's father i think guildford's father everyone was

00:08:39.820 just thrown in prison they were executed all of their lands and money were confiscated which left

00:08:44.840 the Grey sisters and their now widowed mother effectively penniless and bankrupt they also had

00:08:52.220 a incredibly poisonous reputation because they were Jane was at the middle of everything that

00:08:57.680 happened and their father Catherine's father Henry was kind of a key player and all of that so this

00:09:03.000 spoiled the marriages for both the matches for both the sisters so the Herbert family quickly

00:09:08.040 annulled Catherine's marriage to their son and the Wiltons ended Mary Grey's betrothal to their son

00:09:14.180 So Catherine was now 14 years old, half-orphan, because her father was dead.

00:09:19.520 Her mother was still around, and she had lost one sister, only had one sister left, and was now the eldest Grey sister. 0.78

00:09:26.460 And despite their horrible reputation at this point, and the fact that they were effectively poor, 0.67

00:09:32.620 until Mary I had a child of her own, Catherine was again potentially heir to the throne.

00:09:38.160 so at this point the greys found support from a surprising person which was mary the first the

00:09:44.220 cousin she took mary took pity on her young cousins and their mother and invited them all

00:09:49.200 to royal court so a lot of this was because francis the uh chris jenner of her age just like

00:09:55.460 was really good behind the scenes wheeling and dealing and getting them back in favor so francis

00:10:00.980 was still eyed with some suspicion for potentially her role in the lady jane gray situation but mary

00:10:06.660 was willing to overlook that to some extent the gray sisters and their mother were given precedence

00:10:12.600 at state events even ahead of elizabeth by i mean like i think this means you know when they were

00:10:18.820 walking in the most important person was first which would be the queen then the grays were

00:10:22.600 behind her and then elizabeth would be behind them catherine herself took on a special role

00:10:28.200 at the coronation of mary the first and she was among the guests at queen mary's marriage the

00:10:33.100 following year to Philip of Spain, who just for the record was also terrible, but we won't get

00:10:39.800 into that right now. Catherine and Mary Grey were not literally princesses, but they were treated

00:10:45.220 effectively like princesses, which meant things like having their trains carried by their own

00:10:50.200 ladies-in-waiting during important events. Both sisters were appointed to the role of ladies of

00:10:55.180 the bedchamber, which is kind of the highest position you could get. That means you get to 0.98

00:11:00.300 be in the private with the queen i don't know helping her with her hair and doing her makeup

00:11:04.460 and stuff so it was having private alone time with the king or the queen was kind of the most

00:11:09.540 valuable thing you could get there were rumors that mary intended to adopt one or both of the

00:11:14.960 gray sisters maybe to make their status as her heir even more ironclad which is interesting

00:11:19.640 because i feel like they were protestant and she was catholic but family was first just like in

00:11:25.840 Fast and Furious. So one year after Mary became queen, Catherine's mother, Frances Brandon,

00:11:33.740 suddenly remarried to a man named Adrian Stokes, who was a man far below her social status. And

00:11:41.280 that was, as we covered in that episode, partially, almost definitely because Frances just didn't want

00:11:46.880 any future children she had to be at the same sort of risk that happened to Jane, who was executed

00:11:50.880 at age 16. So any children that she and Adrian had would be lowborn and therefore not at all

00:11:55.560 considered to be the new king or queen. Because of this new low status marriage, Francis left royal

00:12:03.400 court. And with her gone, that meant that Catherine was also sent away. So she was sent into the care

00:12:09.080 of Anne Seymour, the Duchess of Somerset. This Anne is the widow of Edward VI, former Lord

00:12:18.780 Protector. So although Anne was technically now her guardian, Catherine remained at court. Oh,

00:12:24.960 okay so just her mother left Catherine was still there and because her mother was gone she needed

00:12:30.380 a guardian so the guardian was Anne Seymour and so Catherine became best friends with one of the

00:12:36.040 other ladies in waiting whose name was Jane Seymour who is not the same Jane Seymour who is married

00:12:40.900 to Henry VIII that was years ago this is just someone else with the same name and this lady

00:12:46.440 Jane Seymour is the niece of the other one so this lady Jane Seymour is also an incredibly cool

00:12:52.740 person. So there were three Seymour sisters, which is a nice parallel. There was Jane, Anne,

00:12:57.680 and Margaret Seymour, and they were writers. They were young women, teen writers. So their

00:13:02.860 published works includes a poem written in 1550. There was the first female authored English

00:13:08.980 language encomium, the only work by English women published in Latin in the 16th century,

00:13:15.420 and the only work by any English women published in any language before the 1560s.

00:13:20.000 This poem, which has a long title in Latin that I am not going to even attempt to pronounce,

00:13:26.240 but I'll put it in the show links, was written as a tribute upon the death of Queen Marguerite

00:13:30.180 of Navarre, who was herself also a writer.

00:13:32.620 So Jane Seymour, very cool, accomplished person.

00:13:35.600 They're sort of like the original Bronte sisters, Jane and Margaret Seymour.

00:13:39.720 So Catherine Gray, great, great option, great choice and best friending.

00:13:43.940 So they were close in age.

00:13:45.160 Catherine was two years older than Jane.

00:13:46.500 both of them had gone through having their fathers executed because jane seymour's father had been

00:13:51.180 the king's protector who whatever all the seymour men were awful and all the seymour women were

00:13:56.400 kind of cool is what i'm seeing so they had this bonding experience in common both of them were

00:14:00.240 teenage girls who were ladies in waiting whose fathers have been executed as traitors and they'd

00:14:04.100 also known each other on and off for most of their lives jane was also tangentially related to the

00:14:09.820 royal family so they had that in common because edward the sixth had been her cousin and for a

00:14:16.340 while jane seymour was a possible wife for him edward of course died age 15 not being married

00:14:22.140 to anybody but there was a lot of talk about who who might he marry jane gray had been another

00:14:26.680 person potentially that he would have married katherine and jane like other girls at this time

00:14:31.580 in this time before central heating would share the same bed for warmth and also probably had some 0.86

00:14:37.020 fun sleepovers and gossiping. They became as close as sisters. Catherine apparently confided

00:14:42.380 in Jane that she hoped to be able to reconcile with Lord Hertford, her brief childhood husband.

00:14:48.620 And then in the summer of 1558, influenza came to town. So it tore through England and the royal

00:14:55.860 court and Lady Jane Seymour was one of the people who got sick. So she was sent to recuperate at

00:15:00.780 her family home at Hamworth and Catherine was allowed to come to keep her company because

00:15:05.440 everyone knew they were such good friends. While they were there, Jane's brother Edward, aka Ned,

00:15:10.920 happened to be at home hanging out and visiting. And this is where I just want to let you know

00:15:15.020 what everybody looks like in this situation. Catherine was by now 17 years old, and everybody

00:15:19.840 said she was gorgeous with golden red hair, like all of the Tudor women tended to have had,

00:15:26.380 blue eyes and a striking profile. And a profile was a very important thing. Back then, you wanted

00:15:31.500 have like a good nose ned was 19 years old so just two years older he was slim with dark eyes

00:15:36.800 and dark hair and also a nose that people writing about him seemed to have found very appealing and 0.95

00:15:42.420 he was kind of his personality was sort of like an arrogant asshole sort of thing but he made it 0.77

00:15:47.060 work he was handsome and stuck up but you kind of liked that about him somehow so he was he like 0.95

00:15:54.580 jane so the seymour family were distantly descended from the medieval english king edward

00:16:00.760 the third, meaning that they, the Seymours, weren't directly in the current line of succession,

00:16:05.520 but they were closer than many other aristocrats to this. So what this meant is that if he and

00:16:11.980 Catherine, for instance, happened to get married and have a child, that child would have the

00:16:17.120 combined claim of Catherine's tutor ancestry, as well as Ned's, I believe, Plantagenet ancestry.

00:16:24.220 So that child would suddenly become a major threat to be maybe the next king and or queen, 1.00

00:16:28.660 especially if that child was a son for instance because it was still just all girls and women 0.97

00:16:34.140 potential heirs going on all over the whole family tree so just bear in mind that katherine and ned

00:16:39.560 were they to fall in love was kind of a threat to the entire tudor dynasty succession and guess

00:16:47.420 what they fell in love because they were two hot young teens and tudor times influences coming

00:16:52.420 through and they're like we only live once etc so jane seymour like legend status best friend

00:16:58.400 she was getting better from influenza and she helped out by sending secret messages between

00:17:02.920 katherine and ned all summer while they all hung out at hamworth and ned even brought up the idea

00:17:08.140 of marriage secretly in some of these letters which is the very idea of their these two getting

00:17:13.160 married was very dangerous but they were young and in love so his motives are unknown some people

00:17:19.900 think that maybe he was just after katherine for her money and connections but i think if that's

00:17:25.460 what he's doing then why would he be sneaking around like this he'd want it to all be done

00:17:28.900 on the up and up so that they could be officially married and everyone would know about it sneaking

00:17:32.400 around with her wouldn't really get him the money or power so i think they were both into this in a

00:17:37.800 real way so the thing though is that because catherine is such a close relative to the queen

00:17:43.580 she had to get royal permission to marry anybody and this is also because at this point too she's

00:17:49.860 a potential heir to the throne and there's the whole thing about if a woman becomes queen like 1.00

00:17:55.060 she can be queen that's fine but she'll probably get married to a man and then the man would kind

00:17:59.220 of be in charge of her so whoever Catherine married was very important because he was

00:18:03.100 potentially going to be the new king but then Ned's mother slash Catherine's guardian Anne

00:18:09.380 Somerset found out about this borderline treasonous summer romance and wanted to put a stop to it and

00:18:15.160 I mean understandably Anne had very recently seen a lot of her relatives like the whole Seymour

00:18:20.180 family executed very recently. So she was understandably concerned about her son's

00:18:25.540 potentially deadly love match. So she ordered Ned to forget about Catherine, but he was like,

00:18:30.940 is it so wrong for two people who enjoy each other's company to spend time together? It's not

00:18:35.300 an exact quote, but that sort of feeling. And he refused to stop hanging with Catherine, but then

00:18:40.100 summer ended and so did the influenza epidemic. And Catherine and Jane were sent back to royal

00:18:45.140 court and it was just like in the musical greece their summer dreams ripped at the seams but i'm

00:18:51.720 sure you suspect this wasn't the end of this ill-advised and dangerous love story because it

00:18:56.880 was not oh those summer nights so the thing is that back at royal court everything was a new kind

00:19:01.920 of chaos and this is a lot of catherine's story and a lot of what happens to her she was able to

00:19:06.660 do because everybody was busy paying attention to other stuff and not worrying much about her

00:19:12.900 So what was happening right now is that Queen Mary I had also fallen ill during the same

00:19:17.040 influenza epidemic, and she had a lot of ongoing chronic health issues, and she also had a

00:19:24.240 habit of religiously fasting too much, like starving herself, which I think probably didn't

00:19:31.060 help very much, and everyone kind of thought, like, oh, she seems to be dying.

00:19:36.000 So there wasn't an opportunity for Catherine and Ned to talk to her and be like, hey, can

00:19:39.940 we get permission to get married?

00:19:41.080 and then sure enough queen mary the first died that november so catherine as one of the queen's

00:19:48.060 ladies-in-waiting helped to lay out mary's body for embalming and then catherine was also one of

00:19:52.900 the ladies-in-waiting who took turns standing 24 hour watch in the chapel where mary's corpse was 0.71

00:19:57.840 set out for months before the funeral which catherine also attended and so the queen had

00:20:03.140 died without children so her successor was her younger sister who became queen elizabeth the

00:20:08.620 first. And just people just keep like falling away, like Tudor women dominoes. And Lady Catherine 0.53

00:20:16.760 Grey was now next in line to the throne because all of the other contenders were all dead. So

00:20:23.020 while Mary had been nice to the Greys and had elevated Catherine to the role of Lady of the

00:20:30.920 bedchamber. Elizabeth was a lot more, I don't want to say paranoid, but it's kind of like

00:20:38.840 paranoid, but for good reasons. Because Elizabeth had, she'd been through some shit, so she had 0.97

00:20:46.800 good reasons to not trust anybody. For starters, the Grey family still had a pretty bad reputation 0.98

00:20:52.120 because the whole Lady Jane Grey scenario slash Catherine's father being involved in acts of

00:20:57.460 rebellion and being executed. Elizabeth also knew that her own claim to the throne at this point,

00:21:03.220 like put yourself in the shoes of like, this just happened. She's 25 years old. She's kind of the

00:21:07.560 third queen in a row. It hasn't yet been proven that England could even have a queen, that that 0.93

00:21:12.640 was going to be okay. A lot of people still consider Elizabeth illegitimate. So there's

00:21:16.940 still a lot of factions that were going to, that she like rightfully would have worried were going

00:21:21.140 to usurp the throne from her. So that includes some people who felt that Catherine should be

00:21:25.400 the queen instead of her. And this was based on the whole Elizabeth being sort of illegitimate

00:21:30.380 thing slash people who felt that the Grey family, there was not the illegitimate part. So anyway,

00:21:38.200 people didn't want Elizabeth to be queen. Lady Jane Grey, by this point, was already seen as a 0.99

00:21:43.220 martyr because partly because her final letter had been published shortly after her death as

00:21:47.960 propaganda. And in one of these, in this letter, Jane had identified Catherine as her spiritual

00:21:52.400 and political heir. So that kind of put a target on Catherine to begin with. So everybody assumed

00:21:59.020 though, that Elizabeth was going to get married and have her own children pretty soon. So like, 0.98

00:22:02.460 who would her heir be? It's like, well, probably, you know, the son that we assume that she will

00:22:06.300 have. Elizabeth didn't know at this point that Catherine and Ned had this secret love connection

00:22:11.940 going on. So as far as anybody knew, Elizabeth and Catherine were both young, unmarried women,

00:22:16.860 and therefore uh very valuable prospects to marry and as soon as either of them had a child

00:22:23.480 specifically a son that would kind of tip the scales to make more people support her

00:22:27.260 above the other one like elizabeth was the queen mcatherine if she got married had a son it 1.00

00:22:33.500 wouldn't take much for people to back her and kick out elizabeth but also real talk elizabeth was and

00:22:39.100 i love elizabeth she's my girl if you see the the avatar for this entire podcast it's my face

00:22:45.140 on a portrait of queen elizabeth like she was a mess and i love studying her so elizabeth was

00:22:51.740 insecure vain and jealous kind of like the evil queen in snow white in the sense of even though 0.76

00:22:57.160 she was just 25 she saw any younger prettier woman as a personal threat to her like she had 0.88

00:23:02.800 to be the most beautiful special smart woman in any situation and katherine who was related to her 1.00

00:23:09.780 also had red hair seems to have been literally a younger prettier version of Elizabeth like people 0.53

00:23:15.720 would say how pretty Catherine was and people would just be like Elizabeth well everyone said

00:23:21.100 she was good looking because she was a queen and she made them say that but I think Catherine

00:23:24.500 was you know like softer and girlier and Elizabeth was jealous of her so in a sort of Cinderella

00:23:34.300 moment where Catherine and Mary Grey had been treated basically like princesses, Elizabeth 0.98

00:23:39.640 downgraded them both. So instead of being gentlewomen of the privy chamber, they were moved

00:23:44.120 over to what was called the presence chamber, which is just where the less important ladies 0.98

00:23:49.400 in waiting would go. So they would not have any alone time with the queen ever. They weren't given 0.64

00:23:53.340 any preferential treatment at Elizabeth's coronation. This was Elizabeth's way of making

00:23:58.520 clear to everybody who saw them that she did not trust the greys. She had not forgotten the Lady 0.96

00:24:02.740 Jane Grey scenario and potentially didn't even actually consider Catherine her own heir. So she's

00:24:09.320 just kind of sending out these signals to everybody like Catherine Grey does not matter. She's not

00:24:15.000 important. Don't be good to her. But of course, the thing is that Elizabeth herself, everybody

00:24:21.940 quickly figured out, didn't want to get married anytime soon because she was in love with her

00:24:26.300 married boyfriend Robert Dudley the son of John Dudley who had engineered the Lady Jane Grey

00:24:32.980 scenario so another person who had a father killed as a traitor that was just a thing a lot of people

00:24:38.000 had in common at this point so just a brief pause moment about Robert Dudley so he was also Catherine

00:24:45.980 Grey's former brother-in-law because his brother Guildford had been married to and then executed

00:24:51.380 alongside Catherine's sister, Lady Jane Grey. So Robert and Catherine and Elizabeth and Ned had

00:24:58.540 all known each other for years. It was like, they were like the cool young teens. It was Tudor court,

00:25:02.660 the next generation. They were just, so just like high school, like a, like Riverdale, but with more

00:25:07.900 people wearing pantaloons and corsets and more murders happening. Actually, no,

00:25:12.900 similar amount of murders as happens on Riverdale. So Elizabeth publicly said, guess what? I'm not

00:25:19.380 going to get married to anybody i won't tell you why and everyone's like it's because she's in love

00:25:23.820 with a married man this is kind of weird but with her saying like i'm not going to marry anyone i'm

00:25:28.760 married to england so this is just like because of the ongoing crisis of who's going to be the heir

00:25:35.340 the her privy counselors slash everybody was like okay we need to sort this out because we can't

00:25:40.200 have these ongoing wild jane gray scenario crises happening like it needs to be clear who is going

00:25:45.160 to inherit from who and when and how so with elizabeth clearly not planning to have a child

00:25:51.580 anytime soon catherine again began to seem like the potential next queen this bothered elizabeth 0.99

00:25:58.820 a lot which is like fair but also she did this to herself by saying she's not going to get married

00:26:05.160 and it's not really catherine's fault it's sort of just what catherine represented catherine however 0.56

00:26:09.960 i mean this became personal catherine was aware of how elizabeth felt apparently catherine complained

00:26:15.020 to the Spanish ambassador more than once about how she felt the queen was sidelining her and 0.98

00:26:18.740 being mean to her. Apparently one day Catherine even yelled at Elizabeth in the presence chamber 0.99

00:26:22.840 or possibly just like rolled her eyes or something but everyone was like oh that's unseemly. So

00:26:28.440 there's kind of a Catherine versus Elizabeth rivalry going on. Just to place this all in

00:26:34.560 context in terms of Catherine complaining about Elizabeth to the Spanish ambassador just in terms

00:26:39.540 of what's up with England and Spain at the moment. So Queen Mary I had been married to Philip

00:26:44.600 who was the king of Spain and after she died Philip tried to get Elizabeth to marry him but 0.67

00:26:51.080 she refused obviously because he was awful so the fact that Catherine Elizabeth's heir was bitching

00:26:57.660 about Elizabeth to the Spanish ambassador was a pretty big deal because Spain was kind of the

00:27:03.580 enemy right now so at this point the Spanish ambassador's name was Feria and he began scheming

00:27:08.880 like well what if Philip the king of Spain married Catherine and then the two of them could take over

00:27:13.840 England together so there's a question did Catherine knowingly play along with the scheme

00:27:19.220 like did she want to marry Philip and take over England I feel like not but I also feel like she

00:27:24.880 knew that that would bother Elizabeth and that was a good power move for her so at the very least

00:27:29.920 she allowed herself to seem open to his suggestions maybe just to figure out how to use him to her

00:27:35.020 advantage she had by this point stopped talking about wanting to remarry her childhood husband

00:27:40.820 Herbert because she now wanted to marry Ned but all that she told Faria was like yeah I don't

00:27:46.040 really want to remarry Herbert and Faria was like great that means that she'll marry Philip of Spain

00:27:50.600 so he took her seriously and began figuring out you know could he marry her to Philip or is there

00:27:55.960 another Spanish royal that he could marry her to and he like began actively figuring out plans to

00:28:02.040 stage her kidnapping and bring her to Spain as part of this long-term plan so this is remember

00:28:07.860 this for when we get to scoring for the scandalousness meanwhile ned seymour had been

00:28:14.280 sort of ghosting catherine because his mother was really didn't want him to be involved with her

00:28:20.820 because she didn't want him to be executed so catherine might have at this point been using

00:28:25.800 matters of international treason to make a play to make her boyfriend jealous which i respect 1.00

00:28:31.100 10 000 good for her she also knew that elizabeth plan elizabeth had plans to go on a progress which 0.99

00:28:37.760 just one of those sort of things where the monarch just like brings her entourage and like travels

00:28:42.160 around the country for the summer so she knew that that was coming up which meant that catherine

00:28:46.480 would get to see ned again for summer of love part two so this is where so faria was literally

00:28:52.340 arranging like the minutiae like which ship was he gonna send to kidnap her to spain meanwhile

00:28:59.860 catherine was just fantasizing about reuniting with her boyfriend so she's playing a very dangerous

00:29:04.420 game she was loving it I am loving it I'm living for it this is just like love this girl so then

00:29:11.460 Elizabeth started out on her progress and this is another thing where like everyone's just busy

00:29:16.520 with other things to pay attention to what Catherine is doing much to everyone's detriment 1.00

00:29:20.220 so during the progress Elizabeth spent all of her time flirting outrageously with her married

00:29:25.700 boyfriend Robert Dudley going hunting dancing with him and stuff and everyone is just like oh my god

00:29:30.540 what's like it's still weird to everyone to have a queen instead of a king to have an unmarried

00:29:35.100 queen who is just like didn't want to get married and was flirting with a married man was like what

00:29:39.740 is happening england was amazing right now but ned was not around catherine is lonely

00:29:45.820 ned had written to her that he had fallen ill probably this was still his mother and making

00:29:50.940 him stay away from her but guess what no mother could get in the way of these determined teens

00:29:55.420 and finally ned caught up with the progress and it was during this period their second summer

00:29:59.580 together that the two of them would later say that they fell truly in love taking walks through

00:30:04.780 the gardens and enjoying feasts and just hanging out all the time being young and in love taking

00:30:09.120 advantage of the fact that elizabeth was busy with robert dudley and everyone else was busy

00:30:13.360 gossiping about elizabeth and robert dudley so now i knew they were doing this okay a couple

00:30:18.620 people knew they were doing this and some of the other courtiers warned catherine that ned was

00:30:22.320 maybe just using her maybe he was at this point i don't really trust a seymour man but i'm gonna

00:30:29.020 give him the benefit of the doubt but it was a dangerous game and i'm sure people warning them

00:30:32.880 like this is kind of treason but by that october so they spent the summer together and by october

00:30:38.880 they were like we're gonna get married and so ned sent off to visit catherine's mother francis to

00:30:43.200 get permission to get married so our girl francis gray was happy to hear that ned seymour wanted to

00:30:51.740 marry catherine because she liked ned seymour and because she knew that this would strengthen her

00:30:56.760 daughters claimed the throne because Francis Gray was a clever person who was always kind of looking

00:31:02.240 for angles and ambition again she's very much the Kris Jenner of her age she was also nice to her

00:31:07.720 daughter in this at this point because she checked with Catherine like do you want to marry Ned

00:31:11.840 Catherine's like yes I do so then Francis is like I support you both so but they had to figure out

00:31:17.480 how to do this in order to not get in trouble so she advised Ned to get to work convincing other

00:31:24.100 people that this was a good idea just kind of behind the scenes getting some support from other

00:31:28.560 people specifically members of the privy council so that when they brought it to the queen the

00:31:33.020 queen would agree because she'd ask her counselors like is this a good idea and they wanted to prep

00:31:37.000 all the counselors to be like oh yeah totally it is so ned was not gifted with persuasion

00:31:45.060 his first attempts to convince people at court to support him were unsuccessful he's told the

00:31:50.880 timing wasn't good and he should wait. And then Francis died that November. So he asked permission

00:31:57.380 October. One month later, she died. And she died before she's able to send a letter of her own to

00:32:01.980 the queen saying like, hey, these do you want to get married? And it's cool. So Catherine and Mary

00:32:06.920 Gray were with Francis as she died. And then Catherine served as chief mourner at the funeral,

00:32:12.540 which Elizabeth paid for because they were relatives. And at this point, Catherine and Ned

00:32:17.120 knew their chances of getting married anytime soon had kind of died along with Francis. Ned wrote

00:32:23.380 Catherine a letter or a poem in letter form, a letter in poem form, comparing their romantic

00:32:29.040 challenges to those of the famous Greek lovers Troilus and Cressida, who had also been kept apart

00:32:34.360 for political reasons. Ned seemed worried that, like Cressida, Catherine might leave him for

00:32:39.480 another lover. And this was because she was again leveraging the Spanish international treason to

00:32:45.800 try and get him to put a ring on it so the Spanish were again focusing their attention on her on

00:32:52.840 Catherine with hoping to use her to overthrow Elizabeth but Ned needn't have worried because

00:33:02.000 Catherine was just like in Greece hopelessly devoted to him however finally the rumors of

00:33:08.400 this Spanish plot to put Catherine on the throne finally got Elizabeth's attention so realizing

00:33:15.340 that Catherine was actually a threat and not just this kind of inconvenient pretty person

00:33:18.760 to swat away. Elizabeth suddenly began treating Catherine much more kindly. I think it's the 1.00

00:33:23.800 thing of keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Elizabeth started planning rumors that

00:33:29.480 maybe, like her sister, maybe she'll adopt Catherine, even though Elizabeth was just seven 0.82

00:33:34.960 years older than Catherine, to formalize her role as heir to the throne. Catherine, I'm sure she

00:33:41.260 didn't super trust what Elizabeth was up to, but she would have been happy to get better

00:33:45.280 treatment although her main priority was still finding opportunities to sneak off with her

00:33:49.980 boyfriend ned and as ever elizabeth was too busy running off hunting and hanging out with her

00:33:55.220 married boyfriend robert dudley to notice or really care what katherine was doing as long as

00:33:59.660 it didn't involve the spanish ambassador so then jane seymour return of the bff so ned's sister

00:34:07.380 jane and their brother henry helped again sneaking letters and tokens back and forth between katherine

00:34:12.500 and ned katherine ned found every opportunity they could to sneak off together and make out

00:34:17.240 and stuff and people were just more and more people started to clue into the fact that this

00:34:21.640 was happening but still elizabeth's behavior with robert dudley was still so much more scandalous

00:34:26.960 that the katherine and ned stuff never really took off as the big gossip of the day this point

00:34:32.900 is around when robert dudley's wife was potentially murdered potentially by him after she fell down a

00:34:40.440 flight of eight stairs which is like a really short flight of stairs to break your neck from

00:34:45.680 falling down so there were rumors at this point that robert dudley killed his wife that maybe

00:34:50.360 elizabeth had gotten him to kill his wife there's just a lot of a lot of major scandals happening

00:34:56.580 that really took the heat off of catherine and ned so however william cecil elizabeth's chief

00:35:03.240 advisor had found out about the ned catherine scenario he warned ned to stop seeing catherine

00:35:07.820 due to the regime destabling nature of their possible union and again ned being pragmatic i

00:35:14.780 guess um listened to him and ghosted catherine again so catherine became frantic there were

00:35:19.980 rumors that he'd been flirting with another woman and then at the end of the day ned just couldn't

00:35:23.980 quit her either so ned wrote to her proposing marriage and catherine obviously agreed without

00:35:30.620 anyone around to ask for the blessings well her mother wasn't around his mother wasn't gonna

00:35:36.780 bless it they couldn't ask the queen so this was a secret sexy elopement situation so what they did

00:35:42.500 is they snuck off into jane's private room so again jane ned's sister catherine's bff and jane

00:35:48.100 was the witness to their formal betrothal catherine ned agreed they would get married at his home in

00:35:53.020 london as soon as she was able to sneak away from the queen ned gave catherine a ring and the

00:35:58.420 betrothal was made official with a joining of hands and apparently an awful lot of hugging and

00:36:04.140 kissing but katherine couldn't just run off at any time to get secretly married she had to be 0.91

00:36:09.300 clever about it but with the help of like championship level bff lady jane seymour

00:36:16.340 they figured out a strategy so they got to london with a whole entourage and elizabeth was like i'm

00:36:21.900 going off for a hunting trip with robert dudley and i need all my ladies in waiting to come along

00:36:26.420 with me and katherine was like oh no i can't i have a toothache and because it was the 16th

00:36:31.760 century, Evan's like, ooh, that's true because there's not toothpaste yet. And so that was an

00:36:36.700 okay excuse. And Jane offered to stay behind to keep her company. And Elizabeth is like,

00:36:41.580 you do you. And she headed off with the other ladies in waiting, leaving Catherine and Jane

00:36:46.500 unobserved. And so Ned had been there for dinner that night and he was like, okay,

00:36:52.080 just come by my house first thing tomorrow morning. So the next morning, Ned gave all of

00:36:56.700 his servants the day off so they wouldn't see what he was up to. Catherine and Jane snuck out

00:37:01.340 of the palace and made their way on foot along the river thames to ned's house at this point

00:37:05.820 it's late november and i don't live in england but i feel like that's like a pretty cold situation

00:37:12.040 to be walking along the walking along the river thames in late november but this is what they

00:37:17.400 were doing uh so they were probably super cold ned greeted them at his house where a few servants

00:37:22.420 on their way out for their day off also uh witnessed them arriving ned's like don't worry

00:37:27.800 about it no big deal no secret weddings happening here but they need to get a priest so jane ran

00:37:33.560 out into the street it's just like a random morning and she just was like is there a priest

00:37:37.600 anywhere on the street is there a priest on this 16th century sidewalk on this winter's morning

00:37:43.360 and she found a random priest who agreed to perform the ceremony because lady jane seymour

00:37:47.460 was amazing so the random priest who they had found was i think one of the the protestants

00:37:56.140 had all kind of like fled england during the reign of mary but then elizabeth was there so

00:38:01.080 the protestants kind of came back this is the whole um catherine willoughby episode we talked

00:38:08.100 about that a bit so the identity of the priest becomes important later but he was probably

00:38:12.020 someone who was just briefly in london before he went on somewhere else so the random priest

00:38:16.280 performed the wedding ceremony for them in jane's bedroom and as part of the ceremony ned gave

00:38:22.340 catherine a puzzle ring which side note that's a let's bring that back i love a puzzle ring moment

00:38:29.440 and the puzzle ring was engraved with a poem he had written for her that went quote as circles

00:38:34.000 five by art compact show but one ring in sight so trust uniteth faithful minds with not of secret

00:38:40.120 might who's forced to break but greedy death no white possesseth power as time and sequels well

00:38:46.020 shall prove my ring can say no more jane paid the priest 10 pounds which in today's money is 5 000

00:38:53.920 u.s dollars which was way more than the priest probably would have ever expected to be paid for

00:38:59.120 a secret elopement in a bedroom and then jane had some banqueting meats prepared for them to eat but 0.98

00:39:05.800 katherine and ned were just like we just need to like have sex right now so bye so jane left the

00:39:11.920 and they consummated their marriage all night long. Catherine was by now 20 years old. Ned was 22. 0.98

00:39:18.560 They apparently had sex for literally for hours. And then finally Catherine had to go because she 0.95

00:39:23.200 and Jane had to be back at the palace for dinner. The servants in Ned's house were back by this

00:39:27.660 point and they all knew at least there was a bunch of sex happening upstairs. And Ned kissed his wife 0.95

00:39:33.800 goodbye and she and Jane had to go. So now they were secretly married and Catherine and Ned went

00:39:40.160 on to have sex when and wherever they could in whatever palaces they got to be with the queen

00:39:47.160 whenever they got a moment to themselves jane just like again championship level best friending here

00:39:53.220 she helped them meet up she helped them exchange letters and catherine's servants quickly learned

00:39:57.620 that when ned showed up they just should politely leave the room they were never able to spend a

00:40:01.840 whole night together but they clearly glowed with such love and adoration for each other that

00:40:07.060 everybody eventually started to figure out that they were at least sleeping together no one at

00:40:13.700 this point other than jane and the random priest though knew that they were literally married to

00:40:17.860 each other uh william cecil elizabeth's minister again didn't like these two being together he did

00:40:24.580 not know they were married and so to protect elizabeth he arranged for ned to go on an extended

00:40:29.680 holiday to Europe. Now, at this point, it becomes clear that Ned is not great at communicating with

00:40:37.400 Catherine because he didn't, I guess he didn't tell her that he was going to go on the strip

00:40:43.500 to Europe because she wound up hearing about it from Jane, his sister, her BFF. And Catherine was

00:40:48.900 like, I'm sorry, you're going on holiday. But what if, for instance, it turns out I'm pregnant and

00:40:54.980 you're not here and to help me out with how mad elizabeth is going to be and how much trouble 0.55

00:41:00.880 we're going to be in and ned was like are you pregnant because if you're pregnant i'll stay 0.74

00:41:05.120 and she's like i don't i don't know if i'm pregnant and then apparently she did she not

00:41:12.420 know did she he got so annoyed with her not knowing that he wound up going to europe and 0.72

00:41:18.380 tragically so just when she needed her best friend the most lady jane seymour fell ill again

00:41:24.560 this time with tuberculosis and then she died just 19 years old on march 29th 1560

00:41:31.100 she goes down in the championship best friends hall of fame for sure and not only was this a

00:41:37.240 terrible loss for catherine the loss of her dear friend but also jane was the only witness to their

00:41:43.180 wedding because nobody knew the name of the random priest or how to find him so ned really wanted to

00:41:50.940 go to europe catherine truly did not know if she was pregnant or not and or maybe was in somewhat

00:41:56.140 denial knowing how much trouble she would be in if she was pregnant and so finally they agreed that

00:42:00.440 he could go but he left her a letter that said effective is sort of like a will sort of in case

00:42:06.380 something happened to him this is a letter that kind of said like if anything happens to me

00:42:10.120 please note that I am married to Catherine and she should inherit my lands because she is my wife

00:42:15.980 but then in a horrible Romeo and Juliet level misunderstanding mix-up she lost this letter and

00:42:24.060 it turns out she was in fact totally pregnant and he was by then gone in Europe she kept the

00:42:32.520 pregnancy hidden for as long as possible as because what else could she do this was

00:42:37.980 a pretty scary situation to be in not just the like being pregnant in 16th century of it all

00:42:45.100 but also the secret marriage jane being dead so there's no witnesses and the whole elizabeth

00:42:50.440 probably being really mad about it all so she kept the pregnancy secret and or was in denial

00:42:56.140 about it because as we talked about before this baby had a very strong claim to be the next king

00:43:02.960 or queen of england both from her tutor grandmother and then also from ned's royal ancestry and if

00:43:09.440 the baby was a son then all bets are off because this would be the first boy potential ruler in

00:43:15.560 the entire family tree that all the candidates are all women and girls and people who wanted

00:43:20.520 to replace elizabeth would love to have this baby boy as a new option so it was a pretty scary 0.97

00:43:26.680 situation and once catherine finally accepted slash realized that she was pregnant she wrote

00:43:31.980 numerous letters to ned in france begging him to come back but none of the letters reached him

00:43:36.440 potentially this is my theory because she i guess addressed them all to my beloved husband instead

00:43:42.180 of using his name but the marriage was secret so how were the messengers supposed to know who to

00:43:46.560 deliver the letters to. Like once Jane leaves the story, there's just not a trusted career to get

00:43:51.180 these letters back and forth. And it just all gets kind of catastrophic. Also, potentially,

00:43:56.700 another theory I have is that William Cecil or another one of Elizabeth's spies was secretly

00:44:00.880 intercepting the letters to keep Ned away because that just made things worse for Catherine. 0.93

00:44:04.940 So if we just take a step back and look at psychologically, this is a 20 year old woman

00:44:10.580 whose older sister her father her brother-in-law had all been executed for treason related things

00:44:18.040 and she was now carrying a treason baby kind of and her husband was missing and her best friend

00:44:24.360 had just died and her mother was dead this is a stressful situation it was just like a nothing is

00:44:31.160 good about this and elizabeth has started being mean to her again so life was not great for lady

00:44:36.340 katherine gray at this moment so she finally figured out in the the path of heroines on so

00:44:42.900 many soap operas before her that if she couldn't get in touch with ned she needed to find somebody

00:44:46.740 else to pose as her husband slash baby daddy so that it wouldn't being pregnant out of wedlock 0.79

00:44:53.040 which she wasn't but if she couldn't prove her marriage that's what people would think like that 0.99

00:44:56.260 was bad news for her in the culture in which she lived in but then also she if she was married to

00:45:02.860 someone who wasn't Ned then maybe it wouldn't be so dangerous for everybody so she decided to get

00:45:06.720 back in touch with Herbert with her the husband who she had briefly as a young tween before it

00:45:13.140 was annulled so at this point Catherine was once again on progress with the queen just like touring

00:45:18.980 around the British Isles visiting people and hanging out in castles so this was the third

00:45:23.620 summer I guess in this story because the first one she met Ned at his house the second one they

00:45:27.660 were in progress together and now she's by herself pregnant and sort of abandoned so she exchanged

00:45:32.660 letters with herbert while on progress and he was actually pleased to hear from her because the gray

00:45:37.600 family they got annulled because the whole treason thing but because of catherine's mother's work the

00:45:41.980 grays were not so toxic anymore so he was like this is great so glad to hear from you after all

00:45:46.720 this time and she was like so our marriage from childhood is basically still valid right like it

00:45:51.720 was really annulled like we're basically married and he's like oh sure yeah that's a nice idea and

00:45:56.400 he began to like formally court her but then he found out that she was pregnant and he knew that

00:46:03.900 babies don't gestate for 10 years ergo he was obviously not the father of this baby and so he

00:46:09.280 called things off because her motives were so obvious and so distasteful to him to which i say 0.97

00:46:14.700 herbert god damn it like he could have saved the day but he did not and that sucks for her and 0.96

00:46:22.380 everybody so Catherine at this point eight months pregnant continued traveling on as a lady in 0.99

00:46:26.300 waiting and everybody surely must have noticed she's pregnant at this point one would assume

00:46:32.640 um it was just getting more visibly obvious and perhaps Elizabeth some people theorize that

00:46:40.300 Elizabeth might have known and was just kind of like intentionally being mean to her because she

00:46:44.320 knew she was pregnant and wanted to punish her but I don't I don't think that's true because when 0.99

00:46:48.560 Elizabeth finds out. It's very clear she knows. Eventually, Catherine realized that she had to

00:46:52.580 confide in somebody because she didn't have her best friend. She didn't know what to do.

00:46:58.480 Her mother was dead. Her older sister was dead. So looking around, she considered her options,

00:47:03.200 and eventually she decided to confide in her childhood friend, Elizabeth St. Lowe,

00:47:08.780 who was the sister-in-law of Catherine's friend, Bess of Hardwick. So some records of this

00:47:17.140 say that it was Bess of Hardwick that Catherine confided in, because at this point, Bess of

00:47:22.920 Hardwick's real name was Elizabeth. And she was at this point married to a man whose last name

00:47:26.880 was St. Lo. So Bess of Hardwick was AKA Elizabeth St. Lo. But that's not who Catherine talked to.

00:47:31.880 She talked to Bess of Hardwick's sister-in-law, Elizabeth St. Lo. So Elizabeth St. Lo was one of

00:47:38.300 the Queen's gentlewomen of the Privy Chamber. So Catherine kind of thought, okay, this is someone

00:47:42.240 who's really close with the Queen, but she's also friends with me. Maybe she can like help smooth

00:47:46.380 all this over. But in fact, not a great choice because Elizabeth St. Lowe apparently wept 1.00

00:47:52.280 inconsolably and panicked at being told this. She was like, why did you tell me this? Like now I'm

00:47:57.480 an accessory to treason. And she also was clearly not great at secret keeping because by the next

00:48:02.920 morning, everyone at church was whispering about Catherine being secretly pregnant. So that didn't

00:48:08.620 go well. But Catherine's like, I need, I need somebody to help me out here. I need somebody

00:48:13.180 in my corner and again she looked around she's like who's somebody who i kind of know but who

00:48:17.320 also elizabeth would would maybe be okay hearing this from and so she decided on robert dudley

00:48:24.340 which is quite a decision but remember robert dudley was her former brother-in-law because

00:48:30.100 robert dudley's brother guildford has been married to catherine's sister lady jane gray and they all

00:48:35.880 kind of knew each other from growing up and stuff but he was also elizabeth's boyfriend and loyal

00:48:41.820 to her above everybody else and he also kind of still hated the whole gray family for how the

00:48:48.120 lady grain scenario had led to the execution of his whole family but katherine was hoping that

00:48:54.420 maybe the like former brother-in-law of it all would outweigh the other stuff and robert was

00:48:59.400 like okay i'll go talk to elizabeth about this and see how it goes his plan was probably probably

00:49:06.540 just knowing him that the news of katherine's pregnancy might cause elizabeth to finally agree

00:49:12.860 to marry him because it would mean that elizabeth needed a child so he was using this for his own

00:49:18.140 means but surprise except not a surprise elizabeth was not like oh my god wow i'm gonna marry you now

00:49:24.360 robert dudley in fact she freaked the fuck out in the worst possible way kind of understandably 1.00

00:49:30.800 and uh catherine was collateral damage obviously or not even collateral damage she was like the 0.99

00:49:37.080 main damage so firstly so the reasons why elizabeth freaked out but also why it's kind of 0.93

00:49:43.900 like of course she did first of all she's the queen and all of her ladies-in-waiting had to

00:49:49.620 get her permission to marry anyone secondly catherine was elizabeth's heir and a possible

00:49:54.860 future queen and a royal so she couldn't just marry anyone but for her to marry ned a man

00:50:00.460 with his own claim to the throne would thereby mean that the catherine ned baby would have a

00:50:04.280 stronger claim to be king or queen than literally anyone else in england was like if they'd asked

00:50:09.920 permission she would not have given permission and now that this was happening she was freaking out

00:50:14.500 obviously elizabeth also because she was very paranoid also understandably based on her entire

00:50:21.880 life up to this point so she suspected that this marriage secret marriage baby situation was part

00:50:27.840 of uh some sort of a plot maybe the spanish or maybe the scottish or maybe some people in england

00:50:34.240 but she was like someone is trying to take over the country by having catherine and ned have a

00:50:40.100 baby together and that was not okay so for all the above reasons elizabeth had catherine imprisoned

00:50:45.360 in the tower of london and she recalled ned from europe so he could be thrown in jail too

00:50:50.940 he like was like sorry i didn't get the message and kept trying to not come back

00:50:54.820 because he knew he was in huge trouble too.

00:50:57.660 Elizabeth also had Elizabeth St. Lowe

00:50:59.480 dismissed from her duties in the Privy Chamber 0.95

00:51:01.400 and she was sent to the Tower of London

00:51:03.140 for ultimately six months

00:51:04.580 for not telling the Queen about this secret. 1.00

00:51:08.480 So, I mean, frankly, Elizabeth St. Lowe did that to herself.

00:51:10.920 She learned the secret and then didn't tell the Queen.

00:51:14.000 So then she went, she should have told the Queen.

00:51:16.100 Should she have?

00:51:17.340 I don't know. 1.00

00:51:17.840 She used, that's collateral damage, Elizabeth St. Lowe. 1.00

00:51:20.200 So again, Elizabeth and basically everyone

00:51:22.560 assumed that this was part of a more complex

00:51:24.340 political strategy than just two young horny people falling in love because it had to have

00:51:30.600 been that like they were all playing this four-dimensional chess all the time when actually

00:51:34.360 the story is so much more straightforward than that but they were like there must be some sort

00:51:37.700 of secret angle to this because everybody literally everybody was constantly scheming

00:51:42.660 and Catherine's pregnancy with a potential new heir was a majorly serious political move by

00:51:47.240 accident because it wasn't a political move it was just her falling in love with the wrong guy

00:51:51.600 it wasn't a scheme but when everyone is scheming they can't wrap their heads around

00:51:55.200 that sometimes a 20 year old woman marries her true love and gets pregnant so catherine by now

00:52:01.980 all this chaos happens she's now nine months pregnant and she was subjected to interrogation

00:52:07.040 in the tower of london where they tried to get her to implicate other people in this quote-unquote

00:52:10.700 scheme of like asterisks there's no scheme like it's a very straightforward thing that happened

00:52:16.320 and out of all of this like the compounding of the trauma so she's now being held in the same

00:52:22.200 place where her sister and father had been jailed and then executed but but like her sister she

00:52:28.520 behaved very bravely she had a strong stubborn streak and she refused to be intimidated meanwhile

00:52:34.820 ned's mother remember her she distanced herself from his wildness quote-unquote even as he was

00:52:41.800 being finally dragged back to england from his european holiday for his own interrogations

00:52:46.140 rumors were flying that the young couple would be executed and he and his mother in her way were

00:52:51.400 doing their best damage control to try and at least not get killed when he arrived at the tower

00:52:56.120 he arranged to have flowers sent to catherine and he sought to find out from his jailers how she was

00:53:01.580 doing so that's nice the historian leanda delisle from whom i got a lot of this information from her

00:53:07.940 excellent book she hypothesizes he was also at this point working to ensure that his and katherine's

00:53:13.180 testimony would line up so he wanted to get to talk to her to make sure that their stories would

00:53:17.360 match so they would maybe not be executed because then as long as their marriage was recognized

00:53:22.140 their child would be considered legitimate and presumably they would not be killed so he was he

00:53:28.860 was he came back he had he had some schemes and the legitimacy of katherine and ned's baby was

00:53:34.400 the most important thing going on right now because if Catherine and Ned's marriage was

00:53:39.940 declared legitimate which would be tricky what with the Jane Seymour being dead and nobody knowing

00:53:45.180 the name of the random priest but if the marriage was found to be legitimate that meant their baby

00:53:48.680 was also legitimate and that would make the baby an incredibly dangerous threat to the queen

00:53:53.020 especially if it's a boy so it's like if the marriage is found legitimate the baby is a threat

00:53:59.080 but if their marriage is found to not be legitimate then they would both be guilty of

00:54:02.980 illegal fornication and then they might be in more trouble themselves so it's kind of like

00:54:08.480 it's not it's not quite lose lose but it's like not too great options so catherine and ned's only

00:54:14.700 defense against charges of illegal fornication were to explain that yes they actually were

00:54:18.940 married and so the fact she was pregnant was not a problem only one side could win the marriage

00:54:23.800 would either be legally recognized and the baby then a threat or the marriage would not be legally 0.99

00:54:28.740 recognized and then they were just like fornicators so catherine still having obviously a 0.93

00:54:34.720 we're going to guess a miserable time being nine months pregnant and having to undergo days-long

00:54:39.260 interrogations in the jail in which her sister was executed um elizabeth was also doing poorly

00:54:44.880 because this is all the parallelism of this story so like like her sister mary the first elizabeth

00:54:51.600 tended to lose her appetite when she was distressed so she was really stressed about all this like she

00:54:57.620 was stressed about everything to the point that she hadn't been paying attention to Catherine and

00:55:01.120 then it turns out she should have been paying attention to Catherine so just things are not

00:55:04.980 going great for her someone who saw her Elizabeth around this time described Elizabeth as looking

00:55:09.800 extremely thin and the color of a corpse so like not great Bob so nobody was having a good time

00:55:16.160 with any of this and then things got worse for everyone when Catherine gave birth on September

00:55:21.500 24th. For the first time, and I feel like all of Tudor history, everyone was kind of hoping it

00:55:28.100 would be a girl because if the baby was a girl, then it wouldn't be so much of a threat because

00:55:32.720 it's just another girl, possible queen. There's already so many of them, but if it was a boy,

00:55:38.280 then suddenly that child is so much more dangerous for people who wanted to usurp the throne from

00:55:43.940 Elizabeth. Surprise, it was a boy. Catherine named her son Edward Seymour, and he was Viscount

00:55:50.240 beauchamp which i guess is the inherited title of being a seymour so ned's real name is edward

00:55:55.460 so this is like edward seymour jr two days after he was born baby edward was baptized in the tower

00:56:00.800 chapel feet away from where his aunt lady jane gray both of his grandfathers catherine's father

00:56:06.260 and also ned's father and other relatives had been interred following their executions so welcome to

00:56:11.980 the world little baby edward uh with his existence there was suddenly a protestant male heir to the

00:56:18.760 throne of england and the only thing in his way at this point was the question of the legitimacy

00:56:25.120 of his birth so elizabeth robert dudley literally everybody was running around scheming and freaking

00:56:32.220 out and catherine just kind of was recovering from childbirth she was moved to live within the

00:56:38.320 mansion of the tower's lieutenant so instead of like being the tower itself she got to live in the

00:56:42.740 the tower of london's lieutenant's house so at least she had a nice place to stay during her

00:56:48.480 little maternity leave from jail they were being kind to her and she was able to keep her pet

00:56:53.580 spaniels and monkeys with her side note i do not know at what point she acquired pet spaniels and

00:57:02.220 monkeys but it's nice she had them with her my cat is here with me she's like finally a story

00:57:09.080 with some animals in it so katherine's just like got her baby she's recovering and it's like not

00:57:14.240 jail but in this mansion she's got her monkeys with her like things could be better but it's

00:57:19.880 not as bad as it could be ned was also being kept in the same mansion but in a separate apartment

00:57:26.120 about 10 feet away from her so they weren't allowed to see each other but just knowing

00:57:30.340 they were in the same space was probably reassuring to some extent but through bribery

00:57:36.120 and also playing on the sympathy of the guards they were able to exchange notes like the guards

00:57:42.120 would send letters back and forth ned was determined to appeal if their marriage was

00:57:46.400 found invalid but for the time being all they could do is wait 10 10 feet away from each other

00:57:51.820 exchanging notes with monkeys so elizabeth ordered an official church commission like an investigation

00:57:59.780 like a commission to investigate the legality of the marriage the whole point of this was for

00:58:05.960 them to find the marriage invalid no matter what it took and if they had to lie or make it up

00:58:10.740 because elizabeth needed the marriage to be invalid she needed this baby edward to be

00:58:14.760 illegitimate because that would that would destroy the threat that he posed to her but so the

00:58:21.460 commission was like everyone knew what they were going to find but they had to give the appearance

00:58:24.960 of actually investigating so what you might think it's easy to say like this marriage that was held

00:58:30.780 in the bedroom of your house with no living witnesses and no one can find the priest like

00:58:35.400 you'd think it'd be easy to say like did that happen maybe not but the tricky thing is that

00:58:39.640 at this time in common law the only requirements for a marriage to be found legal was for the bride

00:58:45.060 and groom to consent to marry in front of witnesses and catherine and ned both said again and again

00:58:50.060 that they had done this it's just one witness was dead and the other witness i don't know his name

00:58:53.840 and to the point that catherine and ned both said if they saw the priest in person they probably

00:58:58.280 wouldn't recognize him like just random priest no no idea who he was again like where where it

00:59:05.000 should have been kind of easy to prove that they were married it circumstances conspired against

00:59:09.780 them but while this is all happening ned continued to bribe the guards to let him not just exchange

00:59:15.240 notes with katherine but to visit her himself so on may 25th he was able to sneak into her room and

00:59:21.380 did they have sex of course they had sex a little conjugal visit he managed to sneak in to see her

00:59:26.440 again four days later and they had sex again and do you see where this is going because this is

00:59:31.620 going to katherine becoming pregnant for the second time and now it's all even more complicated

00:59:36.880 because by now they had both declared they were married in front of witnesses e.g the people

00:59:41.460 interrogating them and remember that's the only law that that's the way to prove you're married

00:59:45.720 like as long as you say you're married in front of witnesses then you're married so the second

00:59:49.280 child would be 100 legitimate no question about it katherine now knew unlike last time she now 0.98

00:59:55.660 knew what pregnancy felt like so she figured out pretty quickly oh shit i'm pregnant again 0.90

00:59:59.620 but ned was thrilled she was happy they're having a little jail family together the two of them baby 0.96

01:00:05.600 edward the monkeys the spaniels and a new little baby meanwhile elizabeth had other problems to

01:00:10.960 deal with her life is just non-stop really in a lot of ways so elizabeth's issues with mary queen

01:00:16.480 of scots at this point were taking up much of her attention and then elizabeth came down with

01:00:20.960 smallpox which if you want to know about how gruesome and deadly that was i have a mini

01:00:26.100 episode meanwhile elizabeth's issues with mary queen of scots were taking up a lot of her

01:00:30.540 attention and then she came down with smallpox and if you want to know more about smallpox go

01:00:36.440 back a few episodes in your feed i did a special pandemic mini episode about smallpox it is a 0.87

01:00:42.220 pretty awful disease so everyone was like it sucks you're so sick your majesty but also like

01:00:48.180 could you name an heir is mary queen of scots your heir or is it katherine gray or is it baby 0.98

01:00:54.480 edward like who's gonna inherit when you die not that i'm saying you're gonna die but like

01:01:00.900 are you gonna die and elizabeth was like i won't tell you who my heir is because i refuse to die

01:01:07.540 and she was right she did not die at that point so elizabeth was like okay everyone i'm 29 years

01:01:14.860 old i might have a child one day and i will not tell you who my heir is because if i tell you who

01:01:19.080 my heir is then that person will be used as a figurehead to try and usurp the power from me so

01:01:22.800 I will never, ever, ever tell anyone who my heir is. Ever. And her previous counselors were like,

01:01:28.420 but what if we told you that, guess what, Catherine Gray, the person who you sent to jail for getting 0.84

01:01:33.100 pregnant, is pregnant again in jail. And Elizabeth is just like, are you fucking kidding me? Oh my 0.99

01:01:41.000 God. So she was incredibly upset about all of this for all the reasons we've gone through. And also

01:01:46.040 just like, she was under a lot of stress, Elizabeth, at this point. But also because she had thrown

01:01:50.840 catherine and ned in jail for fornicating and then they like while in jail continue to fornicate 1.00

01:01:56.480 which is just like you know a little disrespectful of her maybe she would think so she had the 0.93

01:02:02.620 lieutenant of the tower thrown in jail because it was his house that they were living in when they 0.98

01:02:07.400 had sex and she catherine got pregnant catherine and ned were brought in for new interrogations

01:02:12.600 but not even elizabeth could stop nature from taking its course and so on february 10th catherine

01:02:20.620 gave birth to a second child who is guess what another son who she named thomas seymour so

01:02:27.300 elizabeth is freaking out obviously about these two little babies like the first one who was like

01:02:33.020 maybe technically illegitimate sort of but the second one it's like was legitimate and had this

01:02:38.800 claim to the throne and so elizabeth is freaking out meanwhile public opinion uh was very much on

01:02:45.920 the side of the young lovers because of course it was this is an incredibly romantic love story

01:02:51.360 and if not for the political angle everyone knew that those two would have been considered married 0.96

01:02:56.040 in the first place like the whole thing was bullshit and everyone kind of knew it was kind 0.98

01:03:00.400 of bullshit and they supported these two young people against the unmarried queen elizabeth 0.99

01:03:05.860 wouldn't allow a priest to attend the baptism of baby thomas but two of the prison guards agreed 0.99

01:03:12.000 to stand up as his godparents because the jailers were totally shipping katherine and ned and this

01:03:18.080 this story has like a lot of like little sweet moments like that anyway elizabeth is just like

01:03:22.480 okay i have to do something about this not just like the fact that these two boys are potential

01:03:28.640 rivals to me even though they're literally babies but also because public opinion is turning towards

01:03:33.260 katherine and against me the more people sided with katherine the more likely it was that these

01:03:39.340 supporters might try to depose elizabeth so it wasn't possible to declare thomas illegitimate

01:03:44.860 but elizabeth did what she could she put ned publicly on trial for seducing a virgin of the

01:03:51.160 blood royal which is frankly a great charge name and makes me think of vampires i'll just say it

01:03:57.980 again again the charge was seducing a virgin of the blood royal and then ned was also put on

01:04:03.780 trial for conspiring with the lieutenant to get to see catherine even though he was in jail and

01:04:08.320 then he was also charged for sneaking out of his jail cell which he pretty indisputedly did because

01:04:12.600 he had sex with katherine ned was found guilty on all three charges and he was fined five thousand

01:04:17.920 pounds for each crime so fifteen thousand pounds total so i put that into a currency converter

01:04:24.240 so remember how jane seymour paid the random priest ten pounds and that was the equivalent

01:04:30.280 of 5 000 modern day u.s dollars so 15 000 pounds in modern day money is like according to this

01:04:40.980 currency converter infinity modern day dollars like an unimaginable amount so this wasn't something

01:04:46.580 that elizabeth expected to be repaid ever it was just sort of showing like money cannot even account

01:04:51.640 for how much you have betrayed me with this seducing a virgin of the blood royal the point 0.99

01:04:57.420 of this was to punish him forever and to show everyone to not fuck around with elizabeth now 0.99

01:05:02.200 it was coming up to the 10-year anniversary of lady jane gray's death which time flies and her 0.97

01:05:08.040 story was becoming trendy again people were like like flashback remember 10 years ago the lady

01:05:13.980 jane gray scenario that was weird there were rumors spreading totally not true that jane had

01:05:19.300 been pregnant at the time of her execution like a 10 000 jane gray was not pregnant at the time 0.51

01:05:25.360 for execution but this made people more sympathetic to her as this kind of martyr figure and then it

01:05:31.080 also sort of connected her with Catherine who is now in jail with a baby and a toddler facing her

01:05:35.480 own possible execution people kept supporting Catherine much to Elizabeth's annoyance and

01:05:41.240 like just the image of Catherine who was younger and prettier than Elizabeth but kind of looked 1.00

01:05:46.700 like her with also like pale skin red hair so she's like a prettier younger Elizabeth married

01:05:52.180 with two sons and it was just sort of like in this sort of patriarchal society the fact where 1.00

01:05:57.460 elizabeth is like not as pretty not married no children like people are like oh let's side with 0.91

01:06:03.480 the like wife and mother who's pretty around the same time a portrait was done up of catherine with

01:06:08.940 edward which was duplicated and spread around as propaganda for the people who supported her

01:06:14.440 against elizabeth it is also fun fact the oldest known image of an english woman with her baby

01:06:20.660 later that same year because there's not enough happening jesus christ there was an outbreak of

01:06:26.660 plague in london elizabeth like her father before her was an early adopter to what we now know as

01:06:35.040 germ theory and so she fled for the countryside to get away from all the sickos catherine trapped

01:06:40.780 in the tower of london with her two sons monkeys and dogs was desperate to avoid the disease 0.56

01:06:45.760 obviously she did not want to die at this point so she had her advocates so basically just people

01:06:52.720 who her supporters her supporters begged the queen to let Catherine move elsewhere and finally

01:06:58.940 Elizabeth relented and let Catherine be moved into house arrest but there was a catch Catherine was

01:07:05.000 to be separated from her husband and one of her children the older one so Ned and baby Edward were

01:07:10.560 sent to live with Ned's mother while Catherine and baby Thomas were sent to stay with her uncle

01:07:15.500 lord john gray catherine was forbidden to contact ned or her sister mary gray who is still around 0.82

01:07:23.700 and we'll talk about her next episode and explain what she was up to spoiler secret marriage also

01:07:31.460 catherine was also forbidden to visit with anyone while she was in her uncle's house slash house

01:07:36.880 arrest and less than a month after her arrival catherine was reported to have fallen into a

01:07:41.920 deep depression which like oh wow you think like not just did she have like two babies back to back

01:07:48.580 so it's dealing with like postpartum issues she also had to deal with literally everything that

01:07:53.780 had happened in her life to this point she missed ned and baby edward terribly she cried constantly

01:08:00.560 she didn't eat very much and she said things like i would to god i were buried william cecil still

01:08:07.740 supported her as a potential heir because he didn't like marry queen of scots because of the 0.99

01:08:15.460 whole catholic scottish thing catherine didn't give a shit like she didn't want to be queen 0.98

01:08:19.640 whatsoever that was not all she wanted to do is to be with ned and like have her little family 0.97

01:08:23.460 so she just her name like not even her like her image and her name were being used by people who 1.00

01:08:29.000 wanted to dump elizabeth she just wanted to be with her family i don't know if her monkeys were

01:08:36.720 still with her i like to think they were william cecil helped catherine compose a letter to the

01:08:42.320 queen to relent and to let her out of jail robert dudley even agreed to deliver the letter because

01:08:47.640 he was the only person who could safely do so without incurring the queen's wrath because

01:08:51.480 the queen was in love with robert dudley catherine was hopeful that this letter would free everybody

01:08:56.540 and so she wrote a letter to ned even though she wasn't allowed to send letters to ned like

01:09:00.240 obviously there's shippers everywhere and they sent her letter to ned and so in her letter

01:09:04.500 Catherine wrote saying like I hope this letter to the queen will work and we get to reunite soon 1.00

01:09:09.060 tragically no Elizabeth rejected her appeal they the lovers were to remain apart any hope that she

01:09:16.260 had had from writing this letter evaporated at this point Catherine wrote to William Cecil I

01:09:23.420 rather wish of God shortly to be buried than in this continual agony to live her uncle John Gray

01:09:30.160 was implicated for his own scheming he had been scheming to try and get more support for catherine

01:09:35.720 as potential heir when elizabeth found out john gray and the other conspirators are thrown in jail

01:09:40.960 where john died potentially by suicide and or depression i just want to heads up that the

01:09:51.480 stories were out of delightful charming moments and it's just kind of misery from now on so if

01:09:57.220 that's not what you're in the mood for i understand if you need to step away so katherine and baby

01:10:02.840 thomas were moved to a different house slash jail because their uncle was now dead and in jail and

01:10:07.980 they remained there for the next three years then that jailer fell ill and so she had to be moved

01:10:13.100 again she continued though to communicate via secret letters with ned who replied to her

01:10:18.300 letters with gifts and tokens then in 1566 mary queen of scots gave birth to a son this now meant

01:10:27.820 that catherine was no longer the only tutor heiress married with a son and mary queen of scots being

01:10:33.640 already a literal queen had much more power than the depressed imprisoned catherine and actually

01:10:39.400 elizabeth secretly kind of preferred mary queen of scots to be her heir because because she was

01:10:46.280 a queen, you know, queens support queens, etc. So Elizabeth was working at this point to try to

01:10:51.480 protect Mary Queen of Scots while simultaneously punishing Catherine and Mary Grey. Again, next

01:10:57.260 week, I'll explain what Mary Grey was being punished for. Mary Queen of Scots having the 0.94

01:11:01.580 son was kind of not good news for Catherine, but also not bad news for Catherine, just kind of like

01:11:06.700 complicated everything else. Anyway, but then the whole thing happened where Mary Queen of Scots's 0.74

01:11:11.320 husband Lord Darnley was found murdered and his house was exploded and it looked like Mary Queen

01:11:18.420 of Scots had conspired to murder him and I'm glossing over this just because I'm probably

01:11:23.420 going to do like a 12-part new season at some point just getting into the Mary Queen of Scots

01:11:27.780 saga but effectively what this means is that Mary Queen of Scots suddenly seemed like not a great

01:11:33.900 option to be the next Queen of England because she seems to have exploded her husband so Catherine's

01:11:40.040 supporters she still had supporters even though she didn't want them she was just like being sad

01:11:44.620 and lonely all the time there were people who wanted her to be queen just because they didn't 0.98

01:11:49.540 like elizabeth so her supporters they spread the rumor that mary was in fact responsible for the

01:11:55.480 murder explosion and elizabeth was unable to continue protecting her even though secretly

01:12:00.960 she liked her best meanwhile katherine herself she personally she posed no threats like she was this

01:12:08.140 not doing great medically slash psychologically speaking young woman in her mid-20s she was not

01:12:16.020 about to like raise an army against Elizabeth but people working in her name were threatening to

01:12:22.180 Elizabeth because well everyone was threatening to Elizabeth that was that's just what her life 0.66

01:12:27.540 was like so to keep Catherine from becoming a figurehead to these rebels Elizabeth instructed

01:12:33.460 catherine's jailers not to let her interact with anybody so like great like let's just keep this 1.00

01:12:39.340 depressed woman even more isolated so catherine has moved again at this point it was her fifth 0.99

01:12:45.500 prison in seven years when her new jailer saw her for the first time he was shocked at how poorly

01:12:50.460 she looked she was pale and thin shoulders bowed not a hint of her former vitality or it girl

01:12:56.240 status the various descriptions of her throughout this period sound like someone describing somebody

01:13:02.420 who has been dealing with depression for a long period of time.

01:13:08.000 Catherine had low energy, she ate very little,

01:13:11.140 and she spoke constantly about wanting to die.

01:13:16.540 Again, you might want to step away from this podcast because, yeah.

01:13:22.060 So on January 26, 1568, a doctor was sent for,

01:13:26.380 and he found there was little to be done for Catherine,

01:13:28.420 who seemed to have starved herself and would no longer eat.

01:13:31.960 Catherine recited prayers and had psalms read to her. The household servants surrounded her,

01:13:37.780 one encouraging to her that she could yet live a long life. And Catherine said, quote,

01:13:42.660 no, no, no life in this world. But in the world to come, I hope to live ever for here is nothing

01:13:47.640 but misery and there is life everlasting. After several hours, Catherine passed along her final

01:13:54.120 requests. She asked for a message to be sent to the queen begging forgiveness for marrying without

01:13:58.680 permission. She also asked the queen to be good to her two sons and to Ned. Catherine then asked

01:14:04.920 that Ned be sent tokens, I guess a return of some of the tokens he had sent to her. She wanted him

01:14:09.920 to have returned the ring he gave to her upon their betrothal, her wedding ring, and a third

01:14:14.680 memento mori ring. The memento mori ring had been engraved with a message for Ned that says,

01:14:20.480 while I lived yours. Catherine's final words were, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. She then closed her

01:14:27.980 own eyes with her hands and her death was recorded at nine o'clock that morning she was just 28 years

01:14:34.280 old so after this so her son thomas her second son was now four years old he was moved to live

01:14:41.120 with his father ned and catherine's older son edward who is by now six years old queen elizabeth

01:14:48.060 ordered catherine's final jailer to oversee the internment and burial of catherine she was buried

01:14:53.720 in a chapel in yorksford which is near where she had been staying where she died rather than in

01:14:58.840 westminster abbey uh as her her mother and other royal relatives had been and this is partially

01:15:05.000 because elizabeth wanted to downplay catherine's importance she didn't want her to become like

01:15:10.360 lady jane gray like another figurehead because now her sons were still around like she just didn't

01:15:14.760 want to remind anyone that catherine was royal at all but still she was a a woman of the blood royal

01:15:22.160 certain protocols had to be adhered to just as had been done for mary the first catherine's body

01:15:28.060 was embalmed and sent set out for a round-the-clock vigil watched over by servants 77 official mourners

01:15:34.480 were dispatched from london who arrived with an impressive entourage elizabeth to no one's

01:15:39.600 surprise did not attend the event but apparently she unconvincingly pretended to be sad back at

01:15:45.700 home and nobody bought her act obviously catherine's death was a relief to her the spanish ambassador

01:15:51.560 noted that the queen had long been afraid of lady catherine gray two years after catherine's death

01:15:59.140 ned was freed from house arrest he would go on to marry twice more weirdly both of them still

01:16:04.600 secret elopements and he wound up back in prison once more because he just like couldn't not elope

01:16:10.620 secretly throughout his life he worked to try and have his sons edward and thomas restored to the

01:16:15.760 royal succession, but they never were. When Edward was 19 years old, and coincidentally staying in

01:16:22.540 the same Seymour family house where Catherine and Ned had first met, he fell in love with a

01:16:27.440 gentlewoman named Honora Rogers, and he asked Queen Elizabeth for permission because he had

01:16:32.580 learned from his parents' life. Queen Elizabeth happily permitted this marriage because Honora

01:16:37.300 Rogers was a gentlewoman and not a royal, and by marrying a not royal person, this effectively

01:16:43.240 removed edward from ever being king because his wife wasn't fancy enough and this was one less

01:16:48.320 heir for her to worry about elizabeth died in 1603 and before she died she named james stewart

01:16:54.960 the son of mary queen of scots as her heir however there was this faction of people who

01:17:01.320 continued on to believe that the true heirs should have been catherine's sons and this really bothered

01:17:06.500 james the new king nearly as much as it had bothered elizabeth so people learned to just

01:17:10.380 like not bring this up around him. Ned lived until 1621. He died at age 84. In 1625, King James died

01:17:21.600 and he was succeeded by his son, King Charles I. By this point, so many years had passed, Charles

01:17:27.020 didn't really care about the whole Catherine Grey scenario, meaning that finally her descendants

01:17:31.820 were able to have her remains reinterred next to Ned in Salisbury Cathedral, so their joint tomb

01:17:37.560 can still be viewed so it's a tomb for ned and catherine there's a latin inscription in the

01:17:42.480 tomb that translates to incomparable consorts who experienced in the vicissitudes of changing

01:17:49.060 fortune at length in the concord that marked their lives here rest together and eventually

01:17:54.940 her sons were retroactively declared to be legitimate her descendants so through edward

01:18:02.960 who married honora rogers catherine gray's descendants include queen elizabeth the queen

01:18:08.180 mother aka lady elizabeth bow's lion so the queen mom like queen elizabeth the second

01:18:14.620 this mother through her so catherine gray's descendants include queen elizabeth the first

01:18:21.640 and all of her heirs including prince william and prince harry so elizabeth worked so hard to keep 0.95

01:18:28.360 catherine and her sons from ever becoming on the throne and yet they are so suck on that basically

01:18:36.400 this is like a super maxi episode this i had to take a break in the middle to get something to

01:18:43.600 drink because this story is just there's so much to get into and now it's time to go to score lady

01:18:49.820 catherine gray on our scandalicious scale in terms of scandaliciousness this is how juicy are the 1.00

01:18:56.180 scandals in which she was involved. And we've got some very juicy scandals here. We've got

01:19:00.360 the secret marriage. We've got the secret pregnancy. We've got the conceiving a second

01:19:09.660 child while in jail of it all. I mean, just like having the pregnancy, revealing it to people,

01:19:16.560 like the dramatic pregnancy reveal, like this is all like very soap opera-esque. I'm going to give

01:19:22.940 her a no oh god like not a 10 i'm gonna give her a nine for scandalousness i think because this is 0.89

01:19:30.400 just like top tier scandalousness in terms of scheminess so this is where like towards the end

01:19:39.580 she was depressed and wasn't doing much of anything which is understandable given what

01:19:45.960 her life is like at that point but prior to that if you think about the scheminess of like

01:19:49.820 having the secret love affair having the secret wedding but even before that like when she was

01:19:56.060 like playing the spanish ambassador to make ned jealous like her scheminess was

01:20:03.260 it wasn't to the level of the like political scheminess but her sort of like interpersonal

01:20:08.940 scheminess i think was very high tier like she practically like she like the spanish ambassador 1.00

01:20:14.420 was working on like hiring a ship to kidnap her to marry her to the king of spain but she didn't 1.00

01:20:20.280 mean that because she was just doing that to make ned want to propose to her like 1.00

01:20:24.540 top tier scheminess i'm going to give her honestly i'm gonna give her an eight for 1.00

01:20:30.000 scheminess because that's just like she almost caused a war in playing mind games with her

01:20:36.460 boyfriend and that's very schemey of her significance is tricky with her because so 0.99

01:20:45.240 her heirs did end up becoming involved in it did end up becoming the royal family 0.96

01:20:52.740 her significance to elizabeth was so much that it kind of ruined both of their lives there for a

01:20:59.300 while her significance what but what's her significance like to history is i don't know

01:21:06.440 like she made there is significance for sure like she didn't actively pass a legislation or whatever

01:21:14.220 but she was i'm gonna give her seven for significance and then the final category is 1.00

01:21:19.480 the sexism bonus where so like how much was she fucked over by living under the patriarchy and 0.62

01:21:25.080 i'm gonna say like a lot because if she was a boy if any of the grays have been boys the supporters 0.97

01:21:31.640 would have rallied behind her and she would have become king but at the same point i don't think

01:21:35.580 she wanted to be king it was sort of like it wasn't just the sexism that got on her way it

01:21:42.920 was kind of elizabeth and elizabeth wasn't upholding sexism necessarily like in a sense 0.97

01:21:48.000 sexism kind of helped her like that's why the people kept supporting her because she was married 0.99

01:21:53.740 with sons i'm gonna give her a basic five because no one no woman in history has ever experienced

01:22:00.900 less than a five in sexism and she is not any different so let me just see so that's a 29 let 0.90

01:22:08.140 me just double check my math 29 where this lands her is 0.5 below her older sister lady jane gray

01:22:19.120 yeah so she's just outside of the top five effectively on the scandalous scale and i feel

01:22:25.480 like for such a short life where she spent a lot of it incapacitated for health-related

01:22:32.200 psychological reasons it's quite quite a strong showing truly i really love her i think that this

01:22:38.520 story is one that's not told enough and i think it's really sad at the end but also it's so

01:22:46.180 thrilling and interesting throughout it. There's twists and turns. There's monkeys.

01:22:51.080 Lady Catherine Gray, everyone. Honestly, this is the Vulgar History Podcast. I am Anne Foster.

01:22:58.000 I have a couple of reminders to tell you. Firstly, I don't usually say this on the podcast because I

01:23:03.480 don't want you to feel pressure at all. But if you want to rate and or review this podcast in

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01:23:16.160 the reviews are from other countries but i just figured out a way to see the ones from the u.s

01:23:19.820 and there were two beautiful reviews the first one is from roxana hannah who says coffee with

01:23:25.620 the side of european history really like this podcast i feel like anne is a friend who's

01:23:30.260 teaching me about interesting history over coffee or wine i hope she keeps making episodes because

01:23:35.600 i love the figures she has chosen as well and then the second review is from janae ryan who says so

01:23:42.200 fun. This is exactly my jam. Give me that feminist history with a touch of humor. This is so well

01:23:47.020 done. Best listened to with a fresh cup of tea. Now, first of all, thank you both so much for

01:23:52.740 these reviews. Secondly, so Roxanna suggests listening to this podcast with coffee or wine,

01:24:00.080 and Janae recommends listening to the podcast with a fresh cup of tea. So what I would say is

01:24:05.020 if you're thinking of putting in a review, which again, no pressure, please include what beverage

01:24:10.100 pairing do you have for this podcast coffee wine or tea or other i'm i would love to know

01:24:17.460 so if you want to do that feel free but again no pressure you can find more of my writing

01:24:25.920 including the essay upon which this podcast episode was based at ann foster writer.com

01:24:32.680 this podcast does an instagram at vulgar history pod on twitter at vulgar history you can support

01:24:39.040 me slash this podcast on patreon at patreon.com slash ann foster writer and that's where you can

01:24:44.700 find the so this asshole mini episodes about gross men from history including thomas seymour

01:24:50.820 and robert dudley so that's where you can find that stuff also there's a merch store all these 0.86

01:24:57.460 links are in the show notes too so at teespring.com slash stores slash vulgar history i've got shirts

01:25:03.520 up there um there's one at least one per each episode this season just celebrating the various

01:25:10.120 women we're looking at in this weird nine episode jane gray situation and i keep a list at bookshop.org

01:25:21.180 and that link is in the the show notes as well uh vulgar history recommends so all the books that

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01:25:34.700 Gray, an unsung woman writer of history, you know, support some bookstores. That is the longest

01:25:42.160 episode I've ever done. Thank you for going on this wild journey with me. Take care, keep your

01:25:48.480 masks on, tits out, and I'll talk to you next time. 0.99

01:26:00.200 The war is over and both sides lost. 0.99

01:26:11.020 Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust.

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01:27:07.480 Do you ever watch a TV show set in a historical time period

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Vulgar History - October 14, 2020

How To Lose A Queen In Nine Days, part 7： Lady Katherine Grey, Countess of Hertford

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