00:00:00.000hello and welcome to vulgar history season three this is a feminist women's history comedy podcast0.99
00:00:21.400and my name is ann foster this season's theme is how to lose a queen in nine days aka the lady0.87
00:00:29.900Jane Grey scenario. So we're already up to episode eight, and we've talked about the ancestors of
00:00:37.860Lady Jane Grey, some of the influences on Lady Jane Grey, and now we're looking at sort of like a
00:00:42.060post-Jane Grey situation. What happened after she was queen for nine days and then was executed?
00:00:51.100You know, let's just backtrack. If you're listening to this episode, I'm gonna hope and assume you've
00:00:57.380probably listened to the other ones so far this season, so I don't want to get into the nitty
00:01:01.940gritty family tree of it all, but just so that we're all up to speed. There was a king in England
00:01:09.100who was called Henry VII. He married Elizabeth of York. They had several children. One of their
00:01:15.400children was Henry VIII. One of their other children, Henry VIII's younger sister, was
00:01:20.440Mary Tudor. Mary Tudor had a daughter named, well, she had two daughters actually, but her older
00:01:25.920daughter, Frances Brandon, had three daughters. They were the Grey Sisters, Jane, Catherine,
00:01:32.300and Mary. And because it was sort of unclear who was going to inherit after Henry VIII's son,
00:01:41.100Edward, died very young, the Grey Sisters were an option. So Jane herself was sort of thrust
00:01:48.240into the role of queen. That did not go well. She was executed age 16. Last time we looked at the
00:01:54.720middle gray sister Catherine who ran off and got secretly married and then got in trouble for that
00:02:00.800and ended up dying imprisoned she did have two sons and actually just as a clarification from
00:02:06.760last time I have since through listening to an audiobook while I was researching I learned that
00:02:13.100so Catherine's older son Edward Seymour I pronounced his title Lord Beauchamp because
00:02:20.160that's how it's pronounced if you're a french person it's b-e-a-u-c-h-a-m-p beauchamp i would
00:02:26.740think but in fact because british people gotta be british it's pronounced beachum so that's gonna
00:02:33.480come up and that's the word i'm saying i also learned through listening to audiobooks this past
00:02:39.960week that a man whose name i said an awful lot of times last episode uh william cecil is what i said
00:02:47.400several times. That was Queen Elizabeth I's sort of fixer. Anyway, apparently it's William
00:02:53.720Cecil. So a couple of corrections there. I also neglected to include some more information about
00:03:01.760Catherine Gray's dogs. So I'm going to just slide that into this episode because there's
00:03:06.800some overlap here. Who we're looking at this week is the third Gray sister, Lady Mary Gray.
00:03:14.960and now I have to just put out my own personal bias which is not to get too much into my
00:03:22.080personal life but I'm the youngest of three sisters and so I inherently really love the
00:03:29.780youngest of three sisters in any in stories in movies you know just the even if it's the
00:03:36.100youngest of five sisters I just like feel an affinity for the youngest so I love right away
00:03:41.560i'm diving into this just with some some pre predisposed to to cheer on lady mary gray but
00:03:47.900i'm cheering on all of them i'm cheering on everybody that's kind of what this podcast is
00:03:51.060about just looking at these women who deserve to be talked about and examined and explored and
00:03:56.680lady mary gray of all the gray sisters all three of them i mean lady jane is the best known even
00:04:03.720if you didn't know until you listen to that episode slash this season why she was the 90s
00:04:08.900queen like her name is kind of known to history fans lady catherine gray people might know about1.00
00:04:17.040because the the secret marriage stuff maybe but lady mary gray is much less talked about which
00:04:23.640is interesting because i have a website where i post essays about women in history and my essay
00:04:29.240about lady mary gray which i published less than a year ago but it's consistently the top red thing
00:04:37.160People are curious about Lady Mary Grey. People want to know about Lady Mary Grey. I'm here to explain who she was and what she did. Let's get into it. Lady Mary Grey was born around 1545. She was eight years younger than Lady Jane Grey and five years younger than Lady Mary Grey.
00:04:59.660so she was those are the sorts of age gaps like five and eight years apart where once you become
00:05:06.520adults it's kind of like oh you're all pretty close in age but when you're kids that's huge
00:05:10.500like it's a difference between an infant and an eight-year-old and just because jane was the
00:05:15.720oldest she was given lots more opportunities she sent to royal court so mary wouldn't have known
00:05:20.100her super well just because of the age gap effectively there's not a lot of anything we
00:05:26.800know about mary gray to the extent to which we know about lady jane and katherine because
00:05:30.480lady jane gray and katherine gray a lot of their letters and diaries and stuff
00:05:34.700or not a lot of but some of those exist so we're able to learn more about them lady mary gray
00:05:40.340there's a lot more of things like that left behind but we can figure a lot of stuff out
00:05:47.080and the person who figured out a lot of stuff for me to be able to tell you this in a podcast is
00:05:52.320historian Leanda Delisle, who I've used her book a ton for many episodes in this series.
00:05:58.580So, and I cannot recommend it enough. Her book is called The Sisters Who Would Be Queen,
00:06:02.840Mary, Catherine, and Lady Jane Grey, A Tudor Tragedy. And I, you know, it's a good title,
00:06:09.680certainly a good title. I don't know if she chose the title, but I don't like calling
00:06:14.360someone's life a tragedy i would not call her life a tragedy so lady mary gray her parents were
00:06:23.600as we discussed lady francis brandon the daughter of charles brandon and mary tudor
00:06:29.440and her father was henry gray the first duke of suffolk people in 16th century england were
00:06:38.080on average shorter than people in 21st century most western countries because of nutrition
00:06:46.580reasons and i think mostly nutrition reasons frankly so on average people were shorter than
00:06:55.420than they are now this is like if you go to visit any of the old castles or where i'm in canada
00:07:02.060there's some old forts and things you can visit and it's just stunning how like the stairs are
00:07:06.480really close together and the ceilings are kind of low and the beds are kind of short. And it's
00:07:09.720just because the average person was shorter at that time. So we know that Lady Jane Grey herself
00:07:17.000was a short person. That's how she's been described. I believe Catherine Grey was as well.
00:07:22.220But the thing with Mary Grey is she was especially short. There's a couple portraits of her, but you
00:07:28.760can't really tell from a portrait what someone looks like, especially because her portraits are
00:07:31.960leg from the waist up, but she was notably short. So she might have been a person with dwarfism,
00:07:41.220whether that is the sort of, I think it's pronounced achondroplasia, the like Sinead
00:07:47.520Burke or Peter Dinklage, or if she was some other sort of, for some other reason, genetically,
00:07:54.440just a very small person, but it was notable. It was notable. She was much smaller than the
00:08:00.400average person and people then were generally pretty small. So she would have been had to have
00:08:05.960been really short in order for it to be that significant to people. She may have also have0.78
00:08:11.940had scoliosis, which might have given her a crooked or a hunched back. But I mean, people
00:08:18.320were just kind of describing what they thought she looked like. And these were not, these were
00:08:22.660not her physicians. These are not people who knew the names of diseases. They were just kind of like
00:08:27.620she looks different from other people. And so they just kind of use the terminology they had
00:08:32.100at that time. But the thing is that this was a culture and an era and a time and a place where
00:08:39.400religion and superstition were closely entwined. It was a common belief in this place and time
00:08:45.080that if you were a sinner, it would be visible somehow on your body. The social order reflected
00:08:51.580the divine order in which what was good was also beautiful and ugliness and deformity was
00:08:56.600associated with sin and that which was base so she would have been seen as somebody who people
00:09:03.460just because of the superstitions of the time which frankly are not that different from cultural
00:09:08.140beliefs right now or people just assume that people who are conventionally attractive are also
00:09:12.600necessarily better or more good of people anyway so she would have been dealing with that sort of
00:09:20.940thing but as the third sister she could sort of live in the shadow of her more noticeable older
00:09:27.520siblings and also this sort of helped her when she needed to to help her sort of hide herself
00:09:34.080and keep herself out of the line of fire sort of like if you've watched i claudius
00:09:40.620slash read the book i claudius slash are familiar with the ancient roman emperor claudius he had
00:09:48.180stammer and some physical differences as well, which made people assume that he was less
00:09:55.040intelligent. But he uses that to his advantage, people underestimate him. And so then he's able
00:10:02.520to get one past them. And he ends up being not murdered for a long time, because people assume
00:10:08.140that he's less intelligent. So I think this sort of becomes Mary Gray's superpower, the fact that
00:10:14.320she looks physically different in a way that made people not worry about her so she could kind of go
00:10:18.640low under the radar. That being said she was treated apparently just the same as her other0.98
00:10:25.000sisters in terms of their education. They were raised in a very luxurious wealthy household
00:10:30.280although her parents were often in debt because they threw some money expensive parties and were
00:10:34.260not good with financial management but the three girls were raised to the highest educational
00:10:38.600standards of their time so they had lessons in the humanities as well as instructions on how to run a
00:10:43.300household. They're also raised according to the still pretty new Protestant faith. So Mary Gray
00:10:50.840was born at the same time that Henry VIII was married to his sixth wife, Catherine Parr. And
00:10:56.820then two years later, when Mary was two years old, Henry VIII died and his nine-year-old son,
00:11:01.720who was also Mary Gray's cousin, once removed, Edward VI became the new king. So three years
00:11:08.740later, Mary Gray is five years old. Her older sister, Jane, who is eight years older, went to
00:11:19.020stay with Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour. So Catherine Parr, we talked about her, there's a
00:11:23.500whole episode about this, but Catherine Parr was married to Henry VIII. Henry VIII died. Catherine
00:11:27.420Parr got married to Thomas Seymour, who was a horrible, gross person. But at this point,0.74
00:11:33.260no one really knew that and so jane left to go live with them for various reasons so this is
00:11:40.700sort of like as a much younger sister it's like your older teenage sister goes off to university
00:11:45.480like jane gray had been coming and going to royal court off and on for all of mary's life probably
00:11:51.980as a important person jane would be called upon to go there but this is a more permanent
00:11:57.880seeming sort of separation where she kind of like going off to university like we're just kind of
00:12:03.580recapping stuff we've talked about in other episodes but this is where we're focusing on
00:12:08.260mary and how this might have affected her so what happened is that for religious slash scheming
00:12:17.280reasons king edward vi changed his will to exclude his sisters mary and elizabeth and instead named
00:12:24.540as his successor, Lady Jane Grey, who is Mary Grey's oldest sister. And then presumably after
00:12:30.620her would be like the children of Lady Jane Grey, and then would be Catherine, and then would be
00:12:35.500Mary Grey. So this kind of elevated the three Grey sisters, suddenly, and kind of unexpectedly.
00:12:43.900And looking back on all of this and the succession crisis, and who would be the queen,
00:12:50.680elizabeth the first is such a famous and well-known queen and kind of part of that is there's a lot
00:12:59.540of propaganda after her life or after her death to kind of elevate her is this like gloriana and
00:13:07.000stuff well some of that happened during her life as well but basically at this point no one knew
00:13:11.600that she was going to be a good queen who would reign for decades and decades and do a good job
00:13:16.660of queening like anything was possible it was all very precarious and anyone could have taken over
00:13:22.140so that's kind of what we're dealing with here we know how the story ends but i'm just trying
00:13:28.140to put myself in the shoes of someone who doesn't who doesn't know what's going to happen here so
00:13:33.040when mary gray was about seven years old she got so ill that apparently she nearly died but she
00:13:40.320recovered from whatever oldie time thing happened to her and when she was eight years old she was
00:13:47.860betrothed to her distant cousin arthur gray and her sisters jane and catherine were married off
00:13:53.820to various other people arthur gray her the betrothed to this eight-year-old girl was middle
00:14:03.380aged and his face had been disfigured when a scottish pike was thrust through the roof of his
00:14:08.220mouth so he had some interesting scars on his head he was also renowned as a very good soldier0.95
00:14:19.060but i mean she was eight and this is all kind of weird the reason that the gray sisters were
00:14:24.960married off like this all at once or slash betrothed mary was not actually married because
00:14:29.660she was just eight years old was because of the changing of the will and so it seemed like if
00:14:34.140they were going to become more important they wanted to make some good connections between them
00:14:37.960and other families by marrying them to strategically to other families so briefly just after the
00:14:47.780sisters were betrothed slash married in the following 12 months edward vi died of tuberculosis
00:14:55.120jane gray became queen for nine days and then was imprisoned queen mary the first took power
00:15:03.160She made England be Catholic again.0.60
00:15:06.660Mary Grey's father got involved in a rebellion against Mary, and then Jane Grey and their0.97
00:15:12.160father were both executed as punishment for, mostly for their father's actions.
00:15:17.700The surviving Grey family, which was Francis, the mother, Mary and Catherine, they were
00:15:23.340stripped of their property and wealth, and also Mary Grey's betrothal was dissolved
00:15:28.220because no one wanted to marry these toxic people anymore.
00:15:33.160To stay safe, Francis, her mother, she stuck close with Mary and Catherine, and they all kind of acted like they were Catholic now, and that was totally fine.
00:15:46.040And also shortly after, to protect them all, Francis took a new husband who is named Adrian Stokes, and he was a commoner.
00:15:53.920and effectively by marrying someone so low born he wasn't like a random person off the street but
00:16:02.860he wasn't a royal or a noble it nullified francis's claim any claim she had to the throne
00:16:09.420and it meant any more children she had wouldn't be at risk of being executed so it sort of saved
00:16:15.020slash protected them also this is a sort of place culturally where having a husband was just
00:16:19.660it was helpful for women in general to have a man anyway adrian stoke seems like a good guy
00:16:26.120and straight away francis left royal court because she had married this lower class man
00:16:34.140and mary gray who's 10 years old left court with them and there's not a lot written about mary for
00:16:40.840the next little while but presumably she was off with adrian stokes and francis and seeing them
00:16:46.240having this nice relationship, and they all would be presumably getting over this psychological
00:16:50.620trauma of having Jane and the father executed. There's a lot to get over, and so they had some
00:16:58.920time away. Good for them. Three years later, so Mary is now 13. Queen Mary I died, and Elizabeth
00:17:07.320took over. One year after that, Frances, Mary's mother, passed away. Mary and Catherine were at
00:17:14.040her side as she died francis left most of her estate so francis had worked really hard to get
00:17:22.380some of their money and stuff back after the disgrace of the family and so what she had francis
00:17:30.000left most of it to adrian stokes with a small inheritance each for catherine and for mary
00:17:35.220so elizabeth the first is the queen and again like it's so hard to disengage myself from thinking
00:17:42.540about like and she was a queen for decades and gloriana and painting her face white and everything
00:17:46.900but at this point she could have easily been usurped and there were lots of people who wanted0.82
00:17:51.720to and we know now her gamut of not getting married and not having children paid off really
00:17:57.720well because she was able to not die in childbirth and not have any man control her and she became
00:18:04.080like married to the country and whatever but at this time everyone's like is she really do we0.86
00:18:08.960want to have a queen who's not married and has no children and as long as she didn't have any
00:18:12.820children the question was well who is going to be her heir and so there had been such a turnover
00:18:19.220of monarchs over the last like what five years when there's not a smooth transition from one
00:18:26.920monarch to another just so many little factions build up and there's instability and sort of chaos
00:18:32.800in the kingdom and that's what everybody wanted to avoid so the question of like who will be
00:18:37.600Elizabeth's heir was a pretty major question. Officially, her heir was Catherine Grey,
00:18:44.200followed by Mary Grey. As such, both girls took on positions as lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth,
00:18:51.520their cousin once removed, which luckily for them brought along with it some salary. So they were,
00:18:57.640they went from being very poor to having more money so they could get like nice outfits and
00:19:00.480stuff. Later on, Mary Grey buys some incredible outfits. So she, I'm sure, was really excited
00:19:04.700about this. And just for the record, as close relatives to the queen slash potential heirs,
00:19:12.620neither Catherine nor Mary Gray was allowed to marry without Elizabeth's permission.
00:19:16.660So just tuck that factoid away. Maybe that's going to come up. Actually, it's going to come
00:19:22.000up right away. So 1560. Mary Gray is 15 years old. Catherine Gray is 20. And Catherine Gray
00:19:29.540secretly married edward aka ned seymour you can listen to the previous episode of this podcast
00:19:36.560for how that turned out for everybody elizabeth found out about the secret marriage she had the
00:19:42.200the marriage declared invalid but catherine had a son edward lord beecham who was declared
00:19:48.880illegitimate this just took it all took a long time to sort out during which time catherine who
00:19:54.160was in jail and so was ned they ended up conceiving another son who was also named illegitimate i
00:19:59.320think and he was named thomas and so just kind of chaos and mary gray was just doing her i claudius
00:20:05.600thing just kind of staying out of trouble staying being well behaved and trying to not be executed
00:20:10.500for the wild actions of her relatives the thing is that even though so catherine gray was sent to
00:20:17.140prison for having gotten secretly married and have having sons but as long as catherine was alive and
00:20:23.860Elizabeth didn't have any children. Catherine, even in prison, was a potential heir to the throne,0.97
00:20:29.480as were her two sons. Interestingly, Lady Mary Grey doesn't seem to have ever been seen really
00:20:35.920as a rival or a possibility. There were like the people who thought that someone from this part of
00:20:41.940the family tree should take over, but all their support behind Catherine, and especially because
00:20:45.620she had a husband and she had these sons. It was easy to contrast her with Elizabeth, who was not
00:20:51.160married and didn't have any children. Mary didn't really have that power behind her.0.99
00:20:57.560Part of this, presumably, is Catherine was older, and so she was next in line,0.94
00:21:03.040technically. But also, I think part of this might have been because the cultural belief
00:21:07.380at the time, not just that people who were good looked beautiful and looked conventionally
00:21:15.580attractive but also there's the idea that the monarch needed to look the part like the monarch
00:21:21.840the king or queen ostensibly had been chosen by god and so god would choose the best person
00:21:28.120and so that person would be based on if you follow the thinking would be kind of the most
00:21:33.360conventionally attractive person at the time and i wonder if that's part of why elizabeth was so
00:21:39.020obsessed with always wanting to be the prettiest person around. Anyway, so Mary had obvious,0.99
00:21:46.420visible, physical differences that might have made people just not want to rally behind her cause.
00:21:52.620Meanwhile, we're going to get to Mary, Queen of Scots, I think a bit in here, who is another0.59
00:21:58.500major rival to Elizabeth. She was the descendant of King Henry VIII's other sister, Margaret,0.99
00:22:06.320and her kind of shenanigans really kept elizabeth distracted from what the gray sisters were up to0.57
00:22:13.560and mary queen of scots was also i think like six feet tall so there's just a lot of interesting
00:22:18.280heights of people in this considering if you just imagine everybody was about five feet tall
00:22:23.940mary gray way shorter mary queen of scots way taller just interesting that the main characters
00:22:31.800in the story are all kind of outliers size wise anyway so much of what we know about what happened0.99
00:22:39.560in this era was from letters from various spanish ambassadors because they were all catty bitches0.91
00:22:44.960who just like sending all the gossip back to spain so whichever spanish ambassador was around at this1.00
00:22:50.960time described mary gray as crook backed and very ugly which fuck you like what did you look like i1.00
00:22:57.560don't know. So Mary Gray, because of her physical differences, made her less of a threat. And then1.00
00:23:04.220also being the younger sister, she potentially would have hoped that she could have a bit more
00:23:09.240freedom than what Jane and Catherine had had. We know that Mary admired her older sisters.
00:23:15.480Throughout her whole life, she kept with her a copy of a book called The Book of Martyrs,
00:23:21.340which contained a description of Lady Jane Gray's brave death. So she wouldn't have known her sister
00:23:26.080jane very much because jane left when mary was what like five years old and then became queen
00:23:31.620and then was executed but she clearly admired her and the way that she had comported herself
00:23:37.200she also i'm gonna guess likely appreciated the love story of her sister catherine
00:23:43.920and catherine's bravery to get secretly married against the queen's wishes she probably and again
00:23:51.460we don't know a lot about her so i'm just doing a lot of supposition here but probably made mary
00:23:55.720Gray also saw how her mother's marriage to Adrian Stokes had protected her from all the courtly
00:24:00.520scheming and how marrying a lower born man was actually kind of a clever thing to do. This is
00:24:06.820what we know. This is what I'm guessing about what was going on inside of her head because we don't
00:24:11.180know what she did until 1565. Mary Gray is 20 years old and she fell in love with a man named
00:24:20.140Thomas Keyes. Who was Thomas Keyes? He was a widower, twice Mary's age. So she was 20,
00:24:28.780I guess he was at least 40. And he had several children from his first marriage, like six or
00:24:33.620seven. He worked at the palace and his job was called the Sergeant Porter, which was sort of
00:24:40.360like head of security slash bouncer sort of situation. So his job required that he was seen
00:24:48.740as being super trustworthy entirely loyal to the queen also really physically imposing so he was a
00:24:57.040soldier and he would like his tasks would include things like if the if the courtiers got drunk and
00:25:02.980unruly or got into fights or someone tried to sneak in like he would he would intervene so he
00:25:08.860was also because height is just like no one has the same height in the story as each other he was
00:25:14.240apparently six foot eight again if like the average like if most people are five feet tall
00:25:20.000he's six foot eight which is extremely tall for nowadays when there's you know calcium and
00:25:26.720milk and fluoride in the water so he was a massive person at first i read six foot eight and i was
00:25:32.600picturing sort of like a lanky basketball player type person but now i'm picturing
00:25:36.800in order to be physically imposing to do the sorts of stuff he was doing i think he must
00:25:42.160have been also broad so like really tall but also big so now i'm picturing andre the giant so two
00:25:49.100people one much taller than average one much smaller than average and they fall in love
00:25:54.960so thomas keys like a bouncer part of his job was he'd be stationed at the front gates to ensure
00:26:02.040peaceful comings and goings from the palace and mary as a lady-in-waiting would be coming and
00:26:07.160going from the palace pretty often. So they would see each other every time she would come and go.
00:26:12.680And he started to court her. So he would court her in the traditional sense of how people were
00:26:18.140supposed to do it then. So he would give her tokens like jewelry and other sorts of thoughtful
00:26:22.080things when she passed through the gates. Clearly she fell for him as well. And they decided they
00:26:27.380wouldn't let their age difference, their height difference, or the fact that Mary's sister was
00:26:31.280literally in prison right now for marrying without consent get in their way. So Catherine Gray had0.92
00:26:36.600been sent to jail for marrying without the queen's permission that was partially also because
00:26:41.260catherine gray had married somebody who made her children be major threats to take over from0.97
00:26:48.520elizabeth mary was thinking of marrying somebody who would actually make take her out of contention
00:26:52.640for the throne so maybe elizabeth would like that but they still to get elizabeth's permission
00:26:56.380but the thing was elizabeth was kind of busy and they couldn't get like the timing was just never
00:27:02.200right to ask her for instance at this particular time elizabeth was busy with mary queen of scots
00:27:09.760who was becoming more and more of a threat for interest sake at this point elizabeth's plan0.99
00:27:13.940was so mary queen of scots was not married to anyone yet elizabeth wanted to marry mary queen
00:27:20.720of scots to elizabeth's boyfriend robert dudley because robert dudley was like the most loyal
00:27:25.840person to her she knew and she wanted to make sure that mary queen of scots was less of a threat
00:27:30.400Mary Queen of Scots was like, I'm not going to marry your boyfriend. I'm going to actually marry0.59
00:27:34.760my cousin, Lord Darnley, who is just like the worst person in history. And also marrying Lord
00:27:42.060Darnley made Mary Queen of Scots even more of a threat for various reasons we won't get into
00:27:46.680because this is a Lady Mary Grey podcast, not a Mary Queen of Scots podcast. This is all just a
00:27:51.640lot of major things going on such that Elizabeth was too busy for Mary Grey to ask permission to
00:27:57.920get married and then i guess they got impatient and i feel like this is the mary gray of it all
00:28:03.180these both all three sisters were just really stubborn and headstrong and wanted what they
00:28:09.000wanted and i love that about them anyway so they decided to elope i can't imagine thomas keys came
00:28:15.820up with that idea and convinced mary like i feel much more like mary would have decided to do this
00:28:21.040like partially because she sort of idolized her sister catherine but she was not marrying somebody
00:28:26.420who would make her more of a threat so a lot of what went wrong with catherine gray's marriage
00:28:32.100one part of everything that went really wrong was that there wasn't enough witnesses to it0.55
00:28:36.500so like was it legitimate or not so mary gray made sure there would be enough witnesses at her
00:28:43.480wedding so here is what she did their scheme was to wait until elizabeth was out of town0.99
00:28:49.940so Elizabeth was going to go to a wedding of a family member along with most of the courtiers0.99
00:28:56.600so there'd just be a few people left behind and then just for a suspense for a second on the day
00:29:03.160that Elizabeth was supposed to leave it seemed suddenly like oh maybe she was gonna not she's
00:29:07.340gonna maybe miss the wedding because of various Spanish political reasons but then after the
00:29:12.120suspense elizabeth and everybody wound up leaving so it was on july 16th 1565 mary gray had dinner
00:29:20.940with three of her cousins who were also her secret wedding guests she had a childhood friend named
00:29:26.620margaret willoughby who had grown up she'd spent like i think at least a year growing up with the
00:29:32.160gray sisters after her own parents had died so they were really close similar to how catherine
00:29:36.960was bffs with lady jane seymour margaret willoughby was mary's cousin slash close friend and kind of
00:29:43.460like a sister to her with one of her sisters being dead and the other sister in jail she was the
00:29:48.580closest she had to a sister that she could interact with at this point so margaret willoughby is one
00:29:53.060of these secret guests as well as two women who i've only seen described as the two daughters
00:29:58.540of lady stafford who were apparently also her cousins but she needed to have an official
00:30:04.200witness for the actual wedding ceremony. And it was really dangerous because this was a secret
00:30:09.460wedding. So if somebody really high ranking did it, they make it in super trouble. So Mary decided
00:30:13.580to get a servant girl to be the official witness. And so there was a servant girl named Frances
00:30:19.520Goldwell, who Mary liked. Frances Goldwell didn't know any of this was happening. She was just
00:30:24.380summoned and she didn't know why. And what she was summoned for was to be the one in the room
00:30:28.920when the wedding took place so the ceremony was held in the council chamber which i'm not sure
00:30:36.080what that is but it was a room that i hope was nice looking there were no candles lit as it was
00:30:42.520still daytime so the sun was lighting up the room there were 11 guests along with the priest but
00:30:49.280most of them stood outside so they wouldn't be like if and when this all blew up they wouldn't
00:30:54.760be in trouble for actually witnessing it just francis goldwell was there to witness it after
00:30:58.600the ceremony there was a party with banqueting meats and everyone partied and had a great time
00:31:03.760and then the bride and groom got to go and consummate their marriage and for 10 days everything
00:31:10.760was great and then mary queen of scots married lord darnley which was very scandalous and very
00:31:20.200devastating to elizabeth mary queen of scots was like okay me and my new husband darnley the worst0.92
00:31:25.820person in the world. We promise that we're not going to invade England as long as you pass an0.81
00:31:31.100act of parliament saying that I, Mary Queen of Scots, am officially your heir. And Elizabeth
00:31:36.700knew that parliament would not agree to that because parliament actually was more of a fan
00:31:41.240of Catherine Gray being her heir. So she wasn't able to do that. And that probably made her
00:31:46.760frustrated, especially kind of frustrated about the Gray sisters in general. So it was sort of0.92
00:31:53.380like the worst possible time for her for the rumors to finally reach her about the fact that
00:31:58.380Lady Mary Grey had gotten secret sexy married in an elopement 10 days ago. So as per William Cecil
00:32:05.800who other than the Spanish ambassadors is another major source of gossip from this time
00:32:10.740here is an unhappy chance and monstrous the Sergeant Porter being the biggest gentleman
00:32:17.040of this court has married secretly the Lady Mary Grey the least of all the court the offense is
00:32:23.360very great. So in order to avoid pregnancy, Elizabeth had Mary Gray and Thomas Keyes sent
00:32:31.440to separate prisons in different cities. So there was no chance of getting a secret jail pregnancy0.99
00:32:38.380occurring. Meanwhile, Frances Goldwell, the little servant girl, got in trouble for being0.99
00:32:44.500the witness to all of this. Her mistress was named Lady Howard, who, you know, brought her in and was
00:32:50.800like what's Francis Goldwell like did you do this like treasonous thing but Francis Goldwell lied
00:32:55.820and pretended like she didn't understand what was going on or what was being asked of her she's like
00:32:59.840I don't was I didn't know that was a wedding I just thought it was people standing there
00:33:03.540saying things but Lady Howard had always thought that Francis Goldwell was kind of unintelligent
00:33:10.160and so this Francis Goldwell didn't get in too much trouble because Lady Howard was like
00:33:14.200Francis you dummy like you didn't realize what you saw anyway Francis didn't get in trouble
00:33:19.820So sort of like the Mary Gray strategy of just like if you pretend like you're as unintelligent as people assume you are, then maybe you don't get in trouble.0.95
00:33:29.340Except in this instance, Mary Gray had shown her intelligence by having this secret scheme and then she did get in trouble.
00:33:37.440So Mary Gray was sent to instead of like a prison prison, she sent to a country house to just sort of be kept in house arrest.
00:33:44.700so she's sent to a house called checkers which is still around and used today as one of the
00:33:51.940residents of the british prime minister she was kept though in a room that was 12 12 foot
00:33:58.380i don't know if that's like 12 foot by 12 foot let's imagine that anyway a small room she's a
00:34:04.280small person but you know that's not pleasant the room is now known as the prison room and
00:34:08.840apparently if you go there now you can still see some drawings and writing that apparently
00:34:14.200Mary herself left on the walls while she was in there just like being bored. So like the person
00:34:18.880who lived in checkers became her jailer and his name was Sir William Hawtree and he was an old
00:34:25.520family friend so he was probably going to be sympathetic for her although he still had to
00:34:31.260obey all the rules that Elizabeth gave about what Mary could and could not do. Like for instance she
00:34:37.360was not allowed to see anybody she was not allowed to write letters or to receive letters and she
00:34:42.620could only go outside to walk just the bare minimum she needed for like health related reasons much
00:34:49.640like when Catherine was put in prison who at this point like parallel now they're both in prison
00:34:56.260Catherine and Mary so Mary wrote to William Cecil to try and advocate for herself to get some
00:35:03.000improvements to her situation and it doesn't like he was doing his best to try and get Elizabeth to
00:35:07.200forgive mary and mary herself all the letters that she wrote she signed mary gray to already
00:35:12.700sort of try and pretend like she hadn't been married to try and so she's like if we just
00:35:17.500all pretend like i'm not married then i'm not in trouble anymore i'm mary gray not mary keys
00:35:21.560everything's fine meanwhile things were really bad for thomas keys so he was not a royal like
00:35:28.700the grays so it's not like you are too important and getting married was bad but the whole thing
00:35:36.340about his job as Sergeant Porter was it so much relied on him being trustworthy and loyal and
00:35:42.020dependable. So to secretly marry one of the queen's relatives was seen as such a huge betrayal
00:35:47.100of his position. He was sent to a notoriously awful literal prison called Fleet, and he was
00:35:54.080kept in solitary confinement in a small cell, which was not big enough for him. Andre the giant
00:36:00.260sized person so he was in constant discomfort slash agony like he couldn't stand he couldn't
00:36:08.380stretch his legs out he wasn't even allowed to go walking like he was just smooshed up
00:36:12.800in this jail cell he offered to agree to an annulment but this is where mary tried to
00:36:21.580correct for what had gone wrong with katherine's marriage but it's sort of like she went too far
00:36:25.740the other ways there was too many witnesses they couldn't there's no way they could annul the
00:36:29.980marriage. People had seen it happen. It had been consummated. Like there were no grounds to
00:36:33.740annul the marriage. And a year went by. And after one year, a new jailer came into fleet who was
00:36:41.380apparently extra sadistic. So Thomas Keyes, he'd been there for a year. He was like an industrious
00:36:47.480person, soldier. So he had been using handmade slingshots that he made himself to capture birds
00:36:55.240to eat i guess he had a window and he was using some so i mean like amazing like good job thomas
00:37:00.400keys but the new sadistic new jailer was like no you can't prepare your own meals aka catch birds
00:37:07.960so he was only given rotten meat to eat on one occasion the food he was given had first been
00:37:13.900dropped on the floor in the poison for the dogs before being given to him so he was like actively
00:37:22.000trying to be murdered. Mary Gray was pretty frantic about this, frankly, but nothing could
00:37:28.820be done. Like she wrote letters to William Cecil. Elizabeth was very firm that she would not give in
00:37:33.900whatsoever. So another year passed and eventually, so for political reasons, Elizabeth moved Mary
00:37:42.520Gray from Checkers to go and live with her step-grandmother, Catherine Willoughby, from
00:37:48.460episode two of this podcast season katherine will be still hanging out so katherine willoughby
00:37:53.620to recap had spent some time um she fled to like mainland europe when protestants were being
00:38:02.260persecuted but then she came back and was just being a overall super cool person and she's mary
00:38:10.120gray's step-grandmother so katherine willoughby was told like guess who's coming to stay with you
00:38:16.960mary gray and then mary gray just like showed up one day like early so she was surprised that mary
00:38:22.560arrived the day she did and also mary gray arrived with almost no belongings and katherine was
00:38:26.660confused because she knew mary gray had been raised effectively like a princess in utmost luxury with
00:38:33.960the nicest of everything and she's just like mary where's where's all your luggage and mary's like
00:38:38.780i don't own anything like i have been in prison and the thing is that katherine didn't have stuff
00:38:46.460to lend her like even you know furniture because she had spent this time in europe and she had lost
00:38:52.960so much money and belongings because of being on the run but she did what she could because she was
00:38:57.700a cool person she did report though in letters that mary gray was nothing like she used to be
00:39:03.260not the like spirited opinionated cool person that she had been as a younger pre-prison katherine
00:39:10.820will be also reported that like katherine gray and like elizabeth and mary um queen mary mary
00:39:18.800gray was so depressed that she refused to eat so the whole like being so stressed you can't eat
00:39:25.600just seems to really happen a lot to women in a tudor family anyway so mary is depressed not
00:39:32.180eating obviously her husband is in this gruesome prison being fed dog poison she has no money
00:39:39.640life is kind of shitty for her right now but catherine hoped that being hanging out there
00:39:47.220with her step family would raise mary's spirits and bring her kind of back to herself so catherine
00:39:52.000willoughby is her step grandmother and catherine willoughby's two children were there with her
00:39:56.400peregrine and susan bertie who were i guess technically mary gray's step aunt and step uncle
00:40:03.160although susan and peregrine were both about 10 years younger than her so at this point mary gray
00:40:08.440in her mid-twenties and Peregrine and Susan were in their mid-teens. And apparently they did get
00:40:13.640on very well. But again, just sort of like the ripple effects of what Mary Queen of Scots was
00:40:18.440up to. All this stuff was heating up. And again, I'm not going to get into it now. Just know there's
00:40:22.500a lot of story to tell. But remember Mary Queen of Scots married Darnley, the worst man in the
00:40:28.560world. So eventually she realized he was the worst man in the world. And then Darnley was murdered
00:40:32.780when his house blew up and then mary queen of scots quickly married the person who might have
00:40:39.120blown up the house got pregnant with twins was sent off to a prison island miscarried the twins
00:40:47.240and then escaped from the prison island disguised as a washerwoman like whenever i get to the mary
00:40:51.940queen of scots on this podcast i feel like that's going to be its own like 12 part series because
00:40:56.680the woman's life was eventful so at this point mary queen of scots was very clearly the main
00:41:03.280rival to elizabeth slash really wanted to be the heir but mary gray was still around and elizabeth0.94
00:41:12.000wanted to keep her out of the way and kind of wanted to keep her just doing as poorly as possible1.00
00:41:17.140to keep her from having the strength or anything to to fight back so mary gray was removed from1.00
00:41:23.140catherine willoughby's household and moved to another country house arrest situation so her new
00:41:29.160host slash jailer was a man named sir thomas gresham and his wife ann gresham so thomas
00:41:37.520gresham was a former mayor of london and he had a huge house with gardens she could walk in
00:41:42.020which is nice i guess hopefully her room was bigger than 12 feet and he was also this is the
00:41:47.800issue of what house she was sent to is whoever whoever mary was staying with had to shoulder the1.00
00:41:54.020financial burden of maintaining her because elizabeth didn't want to slash couldn't pay for
00:41:59.680it so thomas gresham was rich enough that he could afford it which is part of why mary was sent there
00:42:04.820but things did not go well there because the greshams were not doing well as a couple so sir
00:42:11.600thomas gresham was he had chronic pain so his leg had been broken at some point and it had been
00:42:17.680set badly. So he was in constant pain. It was described in one book as constant agony. He'd
00:42:24.580also gone half blind. Thomas and Anne Gresham's son had recently-ish died and Anne hated having
00:42:32.900Mary Grey there. She blamed Mary's presence for why Anne couldn't go and visit her mother who was
00:42:38.300like 90 years old. I'm not sure what the connection there is. Anyway, Anne described Mary Grey as the
00:42:43.660heart and sorrow of my life. So her presence there made Thomas Gresham and his wife, who were already
00:42:52.040not getting along, not get along even more. So straight away, Thomas Gresham started writing to
00:42:57.140William Cecil to try and have Mary sent away. And that didn't happen for a while. But meanwhile,
00:43:04.440after four years of being smooshed in a too small jail cell in Fleet, Thomas Keyes was finally
00:43:11.320released and so he's released and he was allowed to go work so he's given a job as a security
00:43:16.600officer sort of thing near his home in kent which meant that he got to reunite with his six or seven
00:43:22.840children from his first marriage and he was just like a nice guy and he was still he still considered
00:43:29.320mary his wife which mary was his wife and so he wrote very polite letters to elizabeth and i guess
00:43:34.960maybe also william cecil ask saying like you know since i'm out of jail like it'd be cool if i could
00:43:39.840live with my wife again who is mary gray but elizabeth did not permit that in the middle of
00:43:47.620all of this i didn't even mention that katherine gray had died in prison so she died in prison in
00:43:53.3801568 and this kind of is part of why mary gray became kind of more of a concern to elizabeth
00:44:01.520that's why she went from living in like the nice situation to sort of a less nice situation and
00:44:07.100the thing that I forgot to mention last time when I was talking about Catherine Gray is so Catherine0.63
00:44:10.900Gray was sent to jail and it was again just like a house slash jail anyway she's permitted to keep
00:44:16.540her spaniels and her monkeys with her what I forgot to mention last time is apparently when Catherine
00:44:22.280Gray died there's a sort of a legend sort of uh maybe true maybe not story that her dog was so
00:44:29.140sad that she died that the dog was maybe at her funeral and so the dog just like laid down on her
00:44:35.280grave. And then the dog, like Catherine had herself, just like stayed there and starved
00:44:39.960itself to death out of grief. Just some, some dog sadness there. I felt like I should mention that
00:44:46.460to you. And I forgot to say it in the last episode. Anyway, so Catherine Gray had died, meaning Mary
00:44:53.000Gray was the last remaining sort of challenger because Catherine Gray's two sons were technically
00:44:58.140illegitimate so things are going okay thomas keys is back out of prison he can like walk around and
00:45:07.360stretch his long arms and legs he gets to hang out with his six or seven children but things are not
00:45:13.200great because he had contracted so many health issues from his time in fleet just from everything
00:45:20.620being in an uncomfortable situation for so long and for being fed dog poison and rotten meat and
00:45:26.600everything that happened so his health issues compounded to the point that he died he'd been
00:45:32.200out of jail for two years when he died so they knew they like the jailers knew that they were
00:45:39.200going to have to break this news to mary gray they knew she'd be really upset so they waited
00:45:42.140a few days to tell her until a doctor could be sent to the gresham house because they knew that
00:45:46.340she'd be so upset and maybe she'd faint or something and they want a doctor to be on hand
00:45:50.140and in fact she was really upset so maybe it's good the doctor was there she asked gresham to
00:45:55.900write to elizabeth for permission for mary to dress in mourning clothes to recognize the fact
00:46:01.340that her husband had just died she also wanted to take custody over thomas's now orphaned children0.80
00:46:06.420but elizabeth did not permit either because elizabeth was sort of forcing mary to pretend1.00
00:46:12.140like she had never been married and this is where mary's kind of true obstinate gray sister0.95
00:46:20.020personality really shines because these are some letters that exist so we can really see what she
00:46:24.820was like so mary's first letters that she wrote to elizabeth were being like oh i'm so sorry that
00:46:29.000i offended you sincerely mary gray but after thomas died for the first time mary signed her letters
00:46:34.920mary keys so she was just like guess what like you're not like you wouldn't let me in all this0.99
00:46:39.840marriage you send my husband to this awful jail for so long and like fuck you basically but in0.98
00:46:44.680like polite oldie time ways at this point the letters she wrote to elizabeth were like well1.00
00:46:49.300since you know literally my husband is dead i guess you have no reason to be mad at me so can0.98
00:46:54.540you just let me to jail thanks fuck you mary gray but again with no swears at around the same time0.99
00:47:01.300a portrait was painted of her so i don't know if she had it commissioned or something but i feel0.99
00:47:04.820like this was part of her just sort of like rage grief process so this is a portrait you can still
00:47:10.160see if you look at the instagram for this podcast you can see it there anyway so in the portrait0.98
00:47:14.700her wedding ring is front and center so it's very much just like a fuck you elizabeth of a portrait0.91
00:47:20.580it so mary gray her spirit now entirely back her super strong personality very clear made gresham0.98
00:47:29.940even more desperate particular of her because she was even more of an imposition to him and his0.85
00:47:35.540terrible marriage he got kind of unhinged like he sent more and more letters begging to have mary
00:47:42.180gray sent away like to the point that he was sending like two letters a day which is considering
00:47:48.060how long it took for letters to be delivered like that's like sending 200 text messages in an hour
00:47:54.080finally may 1572 mary gray had been in house arrest for seven years and elizabeth finally
00:48:01.680allowed her to be freed what had changed as per everything affecting mary gray in the story it
00:48:08.260had to do with mary queen of scots so at this point people wanted elizabeth to be nicer to
00:48:13.420mary queen of scots which she didn't want to do but she was like well what if i'm nice to mary
00:48:17.940gray instead like i can be nice to someone called mary it'll just be nice to mary gray so at this
00:48:23.100point mary gray was totally not a threat like there's not supporters who like wanted her to be
00:48:27.980the queen instead of elizabeth the people who supported the gray sort of branch of things were
00:48:32.740supporting i think catherine's sons at this point and some other people who will look at
00:48:37.940in next week's finale episode anyway for whatever reason mary gray was finally freed from house0.99
00:48:45.720rest so she could go off and be a glamorous person. But the thing is her inheritance had0.99
00:48:50.740not been restored to her and she had no money to set up her own household. She pleaded with
00:48:55.440Elizabeth and finally Elizabeth gave in and permitted her to have a small allowance. So
00:49:01.720Mary left the Greshams like as soon as she was able to. And apparently Thomas Gresham wrote a
00:49:07.220letter saying that Mary left with all her books and rubbish. And I think everyone was just really
00:49:12.600glad that they didn't have to be roommates anymore and mary did have a lot of books she spent a lot
00:49:17.500of her time reading books about um theology and religion and i don't know if she was like really
00:49:24.840into books before she was in prison for seven years but i think the books were really what
00:49:28.760helped her pass the time and make it through and find her strength so she had no money but she was
00:49:35.480free and she had nowhere else to really go so at first she went to live with her stepfather adrian
00:49:40.720Stokes, who remember was the commoner who her mother, Frances, had married. Frances had died
00:49:47.700several years before and Adrian Stokes had remarried because like nobody in Tudor times was
00:49:52.160staying single ever. So Adrian Stokes had a new wife who is the former Lady Throckmorton,
00:49:59.280who had seven children from her previous marriage. So these were kind of Mary's step-step siblings.
00:50:06.360this is getting into sort of a complicated like kardashian jenner level step step situation
00:50:12.780anyway the seven throckmorton children the thing is that one of them was a nine-year-old girl named
00:50:19.380bess throckmorton who years later would get in trouble with elizabeth for having her own secret
00:50:26.500sexy marriage and i'm sure we'll talk about that on some other podcast at some point but
00:50:31.080best Throckmorton or as I think of her Throcko she was pretty much a legend as well which is0.98
00:50:37.100pretty cool so just a little cameo appearance by little baby Throcko here so Lady Throckmorton
00:50:42.200had known Mary Grey since she was a girl and was very kind and lavish attention on her which is
00:50:47.780just what Mary needed I think at this point just like some motherly attention and love and someone
00:50:53.660to be nice to her and not hate her like the Greshams had and also the house that they were
00:50:58.700now living in was one of the ones that mary had grown up in and her room was sort of left behind
00:51:03.920you know like when someone goes off to college and you come back for christmas it's like oh your room
00:51:07.580is still just the same but she was also like i'm also 27 years old and i would like to not live in
00:51:13.120my childhood home and be a fabulous independent woman and less than a year later she had saved
00:51:19.460enough money from i guess from her allowance or i don't even know just from her own cleverness1.00
00:51:25.000she had enough money on hand that she's able to start her own household. And thus begins a new
00:51:30.600phase of Lady Mary Grey's life, Gal About Town. So she was a social butterfly. She had lots of
00:51:38.080really close friendships, including with her step-grandmother, Catherine Willoughby, as well as
00:51:44.060her step-aunt and uncle who were teenagers, Susan and Peregrine Bertie. She was still tight with
00:51:51.040Margaret Willoughby, her wedding guest and childhood friend. And although she hadn't been
00:51:55.480given permission by Elizabeth to take custody of Thomas Keyes's children, she caught up with them
00:51:59.960and became sort of a friend to them, especially his daughter, Jane Merrick, who was close enough
00:52:08.540to Mary Gray that she made Mary Gray the godmother to her daughter, who was named Mary, probably after
00:52:15.080her. Mary Gray also stayed in touch with her sister Catherine's widower, Ned Seymour, who kept
00:52:20.260her up to date on what the latest news was with Edward and Thomas, her little nephews.
00:52:25.180She also carefully maintained relationships with some of her old friends from her lady-in-waiting
00:52:30.580courtier days, such as a woman named Blanche Perry, who was a gentlewoman of the Privy
00:52:35.080Chamber, so one of the people who was closest to Elizabeth.
00:52:38.200It was probably Blanche who facilitated the delivery of a New Year's gift in 1574, when
00:52:45.660mary gray sent queen elizabeth a pair of bracelets and the queen accepted the gift which is like
00:52:51.640sort of a hint that maybe she wasn't so mad at mary anymore the following year 1575 elizabeth
00:52:59.880agreed to give mary gray some of the income from her family property so after the grays
00:53:05.380had all been sent to prison all of the income from the property just went to the crown like
00:53:10.660it had been going to elizabeth and now she decided mary gray can have some of that income so she's
00:53:14.560like coming around vis-a-vis mary gray at this point which i think speaks to mary having some
00:53:20.200of the same powers of persuasion and charm that her mother francis brandon had had of being able
00:53:25.200to even after having done treasonous things it's like well you can't stay mad like look how nice
00:53:30.640she is so again just her cleverness i appreciate anyway so mary had enough money for her household
00:53:36.000and now with the income from the family properties she now had enough money not just to survive
00:53:40.060but to thrive and she went out and bought gorgeous new bespoke dresses and jewels um one of them
00:53:47.060is like yellow and black so she's sort of like a fashionable bee like she had been raised in
00:53:54.280luxury and it had all taken away and then she was just like finally had her own money her own income0.70
00:53:58.700and she was just like living it up good for her and now that she was not like she had enough money
00:54:05.660that she could actually have interests and not just be desperate all the time so she kept up
00:54:10.920with her reading she was really interested in reading books about the protestant versus catholic
00:54:18.200situation although she stayed personally entirely out of politics not wanting to make waves or get
00:54:24.880in trouble about anything she just like you know read read up like reading the news but you know0.99
00:54:29.820keeping herself out of it for personal reasons. And all of this was just the right approach,
00:54:35.860because by the end of 1577, Elizabeth appointed Lady Mary Grey to be a maid of honor to the queen.
00:54:44.020So her rehabilitation was complete. She'd gone from being a lady-in-waiting, to being in prison,
00:54:50.080to being bankrupt, to being a lady about town, and now she was restored. Amazing. But then,
00:54:57.260plague so lady mary gray became a maid of honor to the queen at the end of 1577 and then that
00:55:04.560following april plague hit london very hard all the rich people like people didn't know about
00:55:11.640germ theory but they just kind of knew about kind of like if someone had the plague just like don't
00:55:16.440get too close to them probably so all the rich people kind of like ran away to their the equivalent
00:55:22.880of like the Hamptons or whatever to stay away from all the people with the plague including
00:55:28.180Mary so she was at her home in the country and she fell ill despite being there which
00:55:33.080is where it's like did she fall ill with a plague or was it something else and we do
00:55:37.340not know but this is where I just truly need to bring up the fact that she may have thought
00:55:43.600she was protected from the plague because she owned a mystic ruby her sister Lady Jane
00:55:48.840gray also had owned a mystic ruby what is a mystic ruby well to quote leanda delisle this magical
00:55:56.700treasure was said to be created by crystallization of the blood in very old wise unicorns and was
00:56:03.060found at the base of their horns forming a distillation of their very essence according
00:56:07.580to the medieval alchemist albertus magnus mystic rubies would guard against plague anyway mary
00:56:14.160gray got really sick despite having a mystic ruby she knew how sick she was she knew she was dying
00:56:19.260and so she drew up her will she identified herself in the will as lady mary gray comma widow so sort
00:56:26.480of balancing things like when she went back to be a lady and waiting for elizabeth she had to0.65
00:56:30.500pretend like she'd never been married and not use the last name keys but at least she called0.85
00:56:34.400herself a widow to just it just shows that she was still devoted to him and she's still angry
00:56:38.640at the whole situation and also proud to be the widow of Thomas Keyes. So in her will,
00:56:43.920she bequeathed some of her items to Catherine Willoughby, also some things to Susan Birdie,
00:56:50.240things to her friend Margaret Willoughby, some stuff to Lady Throckmorton, some to her stepdaughter
00:56:54.700Jane Merrick. She left things to two of her male servants and the bulk of her fortune to her god
00:56:59.120daughter, so Thomas Keyes's granddaughter, Mary Merrick. She also left some funds to a servant0.97
00:57:03.720boy so that he could be trained in a trade. So just really thinking of who was left behind and
00:57:09.420what she would leave them. And I believe she left the mystic ruby to Catherine Willoughby.
00:57:14.040And now it's like a dream of mine to, in auction, purchase a mystic ruby, whether Lady Mary Grey's
00:57:19.960or someone else. I just feel like that's a goal of mine now. Anyway, so Lady Mary Grey died on
00:57:27.120april 20th 1578 aged 33 in her will she very savvily had said like the queen can decide where
00:57:37.420she should be buried like she wasn't going to make any demands and as she was a lady-in-waiting and
00:57:42.380the queen liked her at this point her funeral and she was the queen's relative like she was a
00:57:47.400descendant of henry vii so lady mary gray's funeral was marked with a procession and her coffin which
00:57:52.340was described as being tiny, was delivered to Westminster Abbey, where so many of her royal
00:57:57.340ancestors had been buried before. Elizabeth arranged to have Mary Grey's remains laid to
00:58:02.640rest in the same tomb as her mother, Frances. The chief mourner at the funeral was Mary's step-aunt
00:58:09.240slash 10 years younger than her, Susan Bertie. Mary's grave is still unmarked, but if you go to
00:58:15.540see where Frances Brandon is buried, Mary's remains are there as well. But now it's time
00:58:20.880to score Lady Mary Grey on our Scandalicious scale. Just to recap where everybody else fell0.82
00:58:29.200thus far this season. They're all pretty close together. They're sort of like little clusters.
00:58:33.720So the top scorer so far this season is Lady Jane Grey with 29.5. Lady Catherine Grey has a 29. So
00:58:41.680the Grey sisters are already up top. Will Lady Mary Grey be up there with her sisters? We will
00:58:45.960see. The first category is scandalousness. So this is the juiciness of any scandals in which
00:58:54.180she was involved. And frankly, a secret sexy marriage is one of the most scandalous things
00:59:00.140you can do. It's scandalous that she fell in love with the bouncer, the like castle bouncer,
00:59:05.840and they courted as she walked by in and out of the gates. And then the fact that they waited
00:59:11.360for elizabeth to go out of town and had a secret marriage that was like very cleverly well prepared
00:59:16.180where she had she knew everybody would be away except for her guests and then she got the certain
00:59:20.480i guess that's more scheminess just the scandalousness of her marrying thomas keys
00:59:25.920secretly behind the queen's back is like quite scandalous i'm gonna give her a 7.5 because that
00:59:34.200was basically the only scandalous thing she did but it was like a very scandalous thing in terms
00:59:40.460of scheminess I appreciate her scheminess the wedding planning was perfection for a secret1.00
00:59:47.040wedding she saw what had happened to her sister not having enough witnesses so she made sure she
00:59:50.720had witnesses she made sure she knew the priest's name she had a feast like it was all very well
00:59:57.180thought out it just the timing was bad vis-a-vis what Mary Queen of Scots was up to so it was a
01:00:04.220good scheme but then when you think about like in her feature and how she I don't even know how she1.00
01:00:08.800scheme to get all of her money back and to be able to have a house and then to convince Elizabeth to1.00
01:00:13.020take her back like I feel like Mary Grey kind of a legend like her cleverness and her scheminess
01:00:19.120were dare I say even better than her older sisters which again as myself being the third of three
01:00:29.420sisters I feel like that's one of the benefits of being the youngest is you get to see what your
01:00:32.920sisters did learn from them and then become even more schemey than them i'm gonna give her i think
01:00:39.340a 7.5 as well for scheminess her significance i mean frankly i love her her significance in my
01:00:48.360heart is major but her significance to all of this is not as much as jane it's not as much as
01:00:53.140catherine because mary was never really a threat for the throne her actions they're not in the
01:01:00.240grand scheme of things, super significant. Like the tide had already turned with what Catherine
01:01:06.640Gray had done. And then with what Mary Queen of Scots was up to. So I'm, I'm so sorry, but still
01:01:13.080there's some significance. Like she was enough of a challenge to Elizabeth that she was sent to jail.
01:01:16.920So I'm going to give her a five for significance. And then the sexism bonus is where we add up to
01:01:22.020see how much living under the bullshit patriarchy of her time got in her way. But I don't think it0.99
01:01:29.640was especially bad for her i mean like okay so when she was eight she was engaged to be married1.00
01:01:34.580to the guy with the pike through the head the like middle-aged man but she didn't end up having0.94
01:01:39.320to marry him because of the jane gray scenario and then she got to choose her own husband0.97
01:01:43.760and then she was sent to prison but that wasn't like patriarchy based except for i guess elizabeth's1.00
01:01:50.280power was inherently dependent on the patriarchy i don't know i think i'm gonna give her like she0.78
01:01:56.460gets more than a five because that like betrothal at age eight to the old guy but i'm going to give
01:02:02.680her a 6.5 so let me just add all of this up so 26.5 for lady mary gray so what with this place1.00
01:02:13.820is her just so you i really need to figure out a place to put the scandalous scale so you can
01:02:18.400see these numbers and you don't just have to trust me randomly reading off of my google document so
01:02:23.820the lowest score thus far this season was catherine willoughby at 25 and askew at 26 lady mary gray
01:02:29.16026.5 but she's still below catherine power francis gray mary tudor and then her sisters jane and
01:02:35.220catherine are both at 29 but i feel like this is appropriate because mary gray's whole thing was
01:02:38.940being kind of low under the radar not as obviously scandalous as other people and in such a way she
01:02:47.200lived longer than either of his sisters she got to enjoy more freedom than either of his sisters
01:02:51.380she got to buy all those nice dresses and rent her own house and she died like yes she died of the
01:02:56.120plague but she had a couple days warning she got to write that nice will she got to live life at
01:03:01.380least partially on her own terms which i think is a kind of a happy ending so that's episode eight
01:03:10.560of this season of vulgar history so there's going to be one more episode of this season
01:03:14.840not ever just of this season this whole you know it's how to lose a queen in nine days
01:03:20.060it's nine episodes it kind of like it kind of has to be but if you just can't get enough of
01:03:24.520these podcasts on my patreon i have two bonus episodes so if you join the patreon financially0.58
01:03:31.380you can listen to the this season's two new episodes of so this asshole which is the
01:03:37.980mini episodes i do looking at to some of the gross men in these stories i put the my thoughts0.93
01:03:43.140about them into the so this asshole mini episodes so as to not bulk up the vulgar history podcast
01:03:48.840with talking about men too much there's one about robert dudley and there's one about thomas seymour
01:03:53.520and there's also some past ones from previous seasons as well so if you join my patreon it's
01:03:58.000patreon.com and foster writer and my history essays including the one about lady mary gray
01:04:03.620which is like continues to be very popular and i love that i love the people are learning about her
01:04:07.960is that ann foster writer.com you can find this podcast on instagram at vulgar history pod on
01:04:13.980twitter at vulgar history we have a little shop to get some merch at teespring.com slash stores
01:04:19.780slash vulgar history again that's also in the show notes but i've been putting up different
01:04:24.220designs for all of the at least one per episode this season as well as some other ones so there's
01:04:28.820there's one of lady jane gray that's just this really nice classical portrait of her and then
01:04:33.820i overlaid it with the words fuck off i'm reading and it's just really great i don't know the merch
01:04:40.620sort of mostly exist just to make me smile and if it makes you smile take a peek there0.84
01:04:44.100so the main book that I was list that I used for this is the Leanna Delisle book the sisters who
01:04:49.360would be Queen Mary Catherine and Lady Grey a Tudor tragedy truly this episode the one the
01:04:54.240Catherine Grey one like I got so much information from these books or from this book I would totally
01:04:58.980recommend if you just if you like this you know hour and whatever dive into Lady Mary Grey just
01:05:04.720listen to the whole book it's you can get the audiobook on libro.fm or you can read the book
01:05:10.420just to fill in all the blanks about this these really cool three sisters who i'm obsessed with
01:05:15.560yeah and so i have a list on bookshop.org of just all the books i've mentioned on this podcast
01:05:20.980the ones that i've used for research and ones that i just recommend for reading about cool
01:05:24.760women in history i guess that's everything this is another maxi so not quite as long as the last1.00
01:05:30.280one but these gray girls they just really so much to talk about them and people don't know about1.00
01:05:36.060them. And I think I'm just excited to be able to talk about them with other people. So take care
01:05:41.140out there in this chaotic world we're living in. I'll talk to you next time and keep your masks on
01:06:06.980The war is over and both sides lost.1.00
01:06:11.400Kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust.
01:06:16.860Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight.
01:06:24.320But in the shadow dark, the darkness always wins.
01:06:28.620This is old school adventuring at its most cruel.
01:06:31.820Your torch ticks down in real time, and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job.
01:06:38.000This is a brutal rules-light nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make.
01:06:45.560This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s, and man, it is so good to be back.
01:06:50.300Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on youtube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day.
01:07:00.840See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.
01:07:08.000Now, before you go hunting for something else to listen to, let me make it easy.
01:07:12.760I'm Mike Carruthers, host of a podcast called Something You Should Know.
01:07:16.600And I speak with experts about fascinating things that affect your life,
01:07:21.240from human behavior, relationships, health, science, and everyday mysteries.
01:07:26.720We've been downloaded millions of times because every episode teaches you something you'll