Herbert, William (1506?–1570)

A Welshman, Herbert was at court as a gentleman pensioner by 1526 but in 1527 he killed a man in a brawl and was not heard of again until he reappeared in court records as an esquire of the body to Henry VIII in 1535. He married Anne Parr in early 1538, shortly after Queen Jane Seymour’s death. After Kathryn Parr became queen, Herbert rose in favor and was created Earl of Pembroke in 1551.

Howard, Catherine (1521?–1542)

Raised by her father’s stepmother, the dowager Duchess of Norfolk, Catherine was allowed to run wild as a teenager. When she came to court as a maid of honor to Anna of Cleves, her vivaciousness had as much to do with attracting the king’s attention as her petite form and pretty face. Henry VIII fell in love, had his marriage to Anna annulled, and married Catherine on July 28, 1540. Eventually, however, Catherine’s past came to light. An investigation into former lovers also turned up Thomas Culpepper, who had been meeting with Catherine in private during the royal progress of 1541. Catherine was arrested and sent first to the former Syon Abbey and then to the Tower. On February 11, 1542, Parliament passed a law making it a crime for an unchaste woman to marry the king. Catherine was executed the next day.

Hungerford, Walter (1525?–1596)

Hungerford, whose father was given the title Lord Hungerford of Heytesbury in 1536, was a member of Lord Cromwell’s household by 1538. In 1540, however, both Cromwell and Lord Hungerford were attainted and executed. The charges against the latter included unnatural sexual acts. It is not clear where young Walter went at this point, although he would probably have become a royal ward. He could not marry or inherit until he was of age at twenty-one. He married Anne Bassett on June 11, 1554, at Richmond Palace. He was younger than she, but estimates differ on how many years separated them. After Anne’s death he remarried, but his second marriage was unhappy and ended in a scandalous separation.

Husee, John (1506?–1548)

Lord Lisle’s man of business for seven years, operating primarily in London, Husee was also a “gentleman of the King’s retinue at Calais.” His father was a vintner. He turned down the offer to become Lisle’s steward. He is well represented in The Lisle Letters but disappears from the correspondence without explanation in March of 1540, just before the Botolph conspiracy came to light.

Hussey, Mary (d. 1545+)

Because of the treason of her father, Baron Hussey of Sleaford, Mary lost any hope of a good marriage. At the end of May 1539, she went to Calais to become a waiting gentlewoman to Honor Grenville, Lady Lisle. As a result, she was part of that household a year later when Lord and Lady Lisle were arrested and all their correspondence seized. Mary Hussey helped Mary Bassett destroy her love letters and appears to have remained with Lady Lisle during her imprisonment in Calais and been released with her after Lord Lisle’s death in March 1542. She later married and had children. Her sister, Elizabeth, was Lady Hungerford, unhappy second wife and later widow of Walter Hungerford’s father.

Jerningham, Elizabeth (before 1515–1558+)

A waiting gentlewoman to Anne Stanhope, Lady Beauchamp, until January 1537, Elizabeth became a maid of honor to Anne’s sister-in-law, Queen Jane Seymour, at that time. Later she was a maid of honor to Queen Mary. In this, she was following family tradition. Her mother, Mary Scrope, first as Lady Jerningham and later as Lady Kingston, was a member of Catherine of Aragon’s household from the beginning of the reign.

Kingston, William (before 1476–1540)

Constable of the Tower of London from 1524 until his death, Kingston was responsible for many high-ranking prisoners, including Queen Anne Boleyn and Lord Lisle. There is no record that he ever helped anyone escape from the Tower.

Knyvett, Edmund (1508–1551)

The king’s sergeant porter, a cousin of the Earl of Surrey, Knyvett married by 1527 and had four sons. In 1541 he almost lost his hand for striking another man within the precincts of the royal court. The king waited until the last moment to pardon him. Accounts of exactly when and where this happened differ. Later in life, Knyvett was involved in a scandal with a married countess.

Manners, Thomas (Earl of Rutland) (1492?–1543)

Lord chamberlain to Anna of Cleves, the Earl of Rutland was the one who convinced Anna to agree to annul her marriage to the king. Rutland’s second wife, Eleanor Paston, was a friend and correspondent of Honor Lisle’s and took Honor’s daughter Catherine Bassett into her household. Rutland’s primary residences were the former Benedictine nunnery of Holywell in Shoreditch, just outside London, and Belvoir Castle.

Princess Mary (1516–1558)

The only child of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon to survive infancy, Mary became queen on the death of her brother, Edward VI, in 1553. She restored Catholicism to England with disastrous results. Her marriage to Philip II of Spain produced no children, and upon her death she was succeeded by her younger half sister, Elizabeth. Queen Mary was so fond of Anne Bassett, one of her ladies, that Anne was married in the queen’s chapel at Richmond Palace and the wedding breakfast was held in the royal apartments. As a wedding gift, Mary granted the couple a goodly number of properties that had been confiscated by the Crown when Lord Hungerford was attainted.

Mewtas, Peter (d. 1562)

Peter Mewtas was a gentleman of the privy chamber to Henry VIII and held other posts as well. In the spring of 1537 he was in France, nominally in attendance on Stephen Gardiner and Sir Francis Bryan, but he was really there to carry out King Henry’s orders to kidnap and murder Cardinal Pole. This plot failed. Later that year, Mewtas married Jane Astley, one of the queen’s maids of honor. They had a house beside Our Lady of Barking in Tower Street, where Anne Bassett was their guest in 1539. Mewtas was knighted in 1544.

Norris, Mary (d. 1570)

The daughter of Henry Norris, who was accused of being one of Queen Anne Boleyn’s lovers and was executed on that charge, Mary was a maid of honor during the tenure of Anna of Cleves and probably during that of Jane Seymour. She may also have been a maid of honor to Catherine Howard. She married Sir George Carew, admiral of the Fleet, and was with King Henry at Southsea Castle on the day in 1545 when the Mary Rose sank. She watched in horror as her husband and hundreds of others drowned. Mary’s second husband was Sir Arthur Champernowne of Dartington.

Parker, Jane (Lady Rochford) (d. 1542)

Infamous for her part in bringing about the downfall of two of Henry VIII’s six wives, Jane may simply have been the victim of bad press. That is the contention of a recent biography, Jane Boleyn, by Julia Fox. The daughter of Baron Morley, Jane was unhappily married to George Boleyn, Queen Anne’s brother, and evidence Jane gave was used against him. Contemporaries, however, cannot have thought too badly of her. She was back at court as a waiting gentlewoman to Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, and Catherine Howard. That her connivance allowed Catherine to meet with Thomas Culpepper in secret is well established, as is the fact that she paid for this lapse in judgment with her life. She was executed in 1542.

Parr, Anne (Mistress Herbert) (1515?–1552)

Anne Parr’s mother was a lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon and Anne became a maid of honor to Queen Jane Seymour. In early 1538, she married William Herbert and as Lady Herbert she was keeper of the queen’s jewels for Catherine Howard. She should not be confused with Lady Herbert of Troy, who was in Elizabeth Tudor’s household, or with Mrs. FitzHerbert, who was chief chamberer to Jane Seymour. Although Anne left court briefly to give birth to her first child in 1540, she was back in time to attend Queen Catherine during the latter’s imprisonment at Syon House and in the Tower of London. When Anne’s sister, Kathryn, became queen in 1543, Anne was part of Kathryn’s household. Anne’s husband was created Earl of Pembroke in 1551. At the time of Anne’s death, she was one of Princess Mary’s ladies.

Parr, Kathryn (Lady Latimer) (1512?–1548)

There are a lot of silly stories about Kathryn Parr’s first two husbands. Neither was a sick old man. The first, Edward Borough or Burgh, was twenty-two years her senior and the second, John Neville, Lord Latimer, was about nineteen years older than she was—in other words, still in the prime of their lives. Lord Latimer was in good health until the Scottish campaign of 1542, after which he was known to be dying. It was at this point that King Henry began to send Kathryn gifts. She was also courted by Thomas Seymour, Queen Jane’s brother, but not until he returned to England in January of 1543. Latimer was buried on March 2, 1543. Kathryn married the king on July 12, 1543. After Henry VIII’s death, Kathryn wed Thomas Seymour. She died after giving birth to a daughter, Mary. Susan James’s Catherine Parr is an excellent account of her life.

Parr, William (1513–1571)

Brother to Anne and Kathryn Parr, William Parr was at court even before his sister became queen. He was married as a boy of thirteen to Ann Bourchier, age ten, the only child of the Earl of Essex. Parr expected to be granted the Essex title when Ann’s father died. Instead it was given to Thomas Cromwell and lapsed upon Cromwell’s execution. Parr was engaged in a passionate love affair with one of Catherine Howard’s maids of honor, Dorothy Bray, in 1541, but later he fell in love with Elizabeth Brooke. Since his wife was still living, he could not marry either woman, but eventually he was able to divorce Ann and wed Elizabeth. This marriage was declared invalid during Mary Tudor’s reign and reinstated under Queen Elizabeth. Parr was created Earl of Essex in 1543 and Marquis of Northampton in 1547. After the deaths of both Ann and Elizabeth, he took a third, much younger wife, but survived that marriage by only a few months. He had no children by any of these unions.

Paston, Eleanor (Countess of Rutland) (before 1496–1559)

As the second wife of Thomas Manners, Earl of Rutland, Eleanor gave birth to eleven children. In between, she served as a lady of the privy chamber to Jane Seymour, Anna of Cleves, and Catherine Howard. In 1536 the Rutland house in Shoreditch was the scene of a triple wedding—three child marriages uniting Henry Manners, age ten, with Lady Margaret Neville; Anne Manners with Lord Neville; and Dorothy Neville with Lord Bulbeck, the Earl of Oxford’s heir. Catherine Bassett lived in the Rutland household from 1537 until 1540.

Philpott, Clement (d. 1540)

The younger son of a Hampshire knight, Philpott joined the household of Lord Lisle at Calais as a gentleman servitor in April 1538 and became good friends with Lisle’s chaplain, Sir Gregory Botolph, who arrived in Calais at the same time, and with Edward Corbett, who was already there. Philpott was devoted to Botolph and privy to his plans to overthrow Calais, but at the last minute he lost his courage and revealed the plot to Lord Lisle. He was arrested; questioned in Calais; sent to the Tower of London; tried for treason; and hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tyburn on August 4, 1540. He has been variously characterized as a dupe and as a dangerous fanatic.

Plantagenet, Arthur (Viscount Lisle) (1462?–1542)

The illegitimate son of King Edward IV, he was thus Henry VIII’s uncle. He had three daughters by his first wife. By his second wife, Honor Grenville, Lady Bassett, Lisle acquired four stepdaughters and three stepsons. The oldest of the boys, John Bassett, married Lisle’s oldest daughter, Frances Plantagenet. The extensive correspondence of Lisle and his family while he was lord deputy of Calais has been preserved by virtue of being seized when Lisle was arrested and charged with treason in 1540. He died in the Tower of London shortly after being told he had been pardoned.

Radcliffe, Robert (Earl of Sussex) (1483–1542)

When his first family was grown, Sussex married a young maid of honor, Mary Arundell, as his third wife. Anne Bassett lived in their household for a time following the death of Queen Jane Seymour. It was the Earl of Sussex who was sent to Calais to arrest Lady Lisle and seize Lord Lisle’s papers.

Scrope, Mary (Lady Jerningham; Lady Kingston) (d. 1548)