Tudor Times is the online repository for all things Tudor and Stewart (1485–1625)

On 2nd October 1536, a rising began in Lincolnshire that was the precursor to the most widespread and potentially destabilising rebellion of Henry VIII’s reign. The motives of the rebels were mixed, partially fear of taxation, but also concerns over the succession and the religious changes of the previous years. An inflammatory sermon had been preached in Louth, and the commons were determined to make their voices heard in government. The rebels tried to engage the local gentry as leaders, and, while some joined in willingly, many were forced into involvement under duress. Others, such as Sir Thomas Burgh of Gainsborough, refused to have anything to do with it. By the end of the month the main action in Lincolnshire had been suppressed, but trouble flared up into a full scale armed revolt in Yorkshire, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.

On 1st October 1553 Mary, daughter of Henry VIII and Katharine of Aragon, was crowned in Westminster Abbey. In her thirty-seven years, Mary had lurched from petted child, to de facto Princess of Wales, then to humiliated illegitimate daughter, forced to take a secondary position to her baby half-sister, then friend and companion of her later stepmothers, before being restored to her place in the succession in 1544. During her brother’s reign, Mary had been treated sometimes with respect as the heir, and other times as a recalcitrant and disobedient subject for her refusal to accept the religious changes of Edward’s reign. Finally, she overcame an attempt to bypass her in favour of her cousin, Lady Jane Grey, emerging triumphant as the first woman crowned in her own right in England. Female rule was looked upon with suspicion, but Mary proved that a queen could be just as effective as a king. Her policies, both good and bad, were enacted and effected with all the force of any king’s.

On 30th September 1599, whilst her husband was under house arrest, Frances Devereux (nee Walsingham), Countess of Essex gave birth to a daughter, whom she named after herself. The Earl of Essex, who had had a disastrous stint as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was in disgrace for leaving his post without permission, and personally offending the Queen by bursting unannounced into her bedroom before she was dressed. The Countess pleaded for her husband, but, eventually, he was executed (more on the Essex Rebellion here).

Baby Frances was brought up by her mother and stepfather, the Earl of Clanricarde. When she was not quite seventeen Frances married William Seymour, later Duke of Somerset. Seymour, who was the grandson of Lady Katherine Grey, had secretly married the Lady Arbella Stuart, to the wrath of James VI & I, but after Arbella’s death married Frances, by whom he had at least seven children. Frances lived through the Civil War and well into the reign of Charles II. Her descendants include HM The Queen, and the late Diana, Princess of Wales.