Upon Dorset’s death, his title of Marquis of Dorset, alongside that of the baronies of Groby and Astley were immediately transferred to his eldest son, Thomas Dorset, who was by then a young man of twenty-four. Just over a year later, on 18th November 1502, the new Marquis was granted livery of his lands.1 Once the funeral was over, a grieving Cecily may have remained at Astley or perhaps even returned to Shute to take some time to mourn her husband and to spend the Christmas period in quiet solitude with her children. She was now facing life as a widow, with the now intricate job of actioning Dorset’s Will as well as the prospect that she would now have to raise their large family on her own.
By January 1502 however, most likely still dressed in her black mourning attire, she was back in London to celebrate the proxy wedding of the Scottish King James IV and Princess Margaret at Richmond. Thomas Dorset took part in the celebratory jousts, and perhaps she watched her son with fond memories of times past when she had stood and watched her husband partaking in the sport he enjoyed so much. The ceremony itself took place in the Palace of Richmond, with the Earl of Bothwell standing proxy for James IV. Cecily was in attendance with Queen Elizabeth and the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. The actual wedding took place the following year when Thomas Dorset accompanied his fourteen-year-old cousin some of the way when she set of for her new life in Scotland.2
Cecily’s whereabouts for the rest of 1502 are sketchy, although we do find her residing in Lincolnshire towards the end of the year, perhaps to be closer to her mother who by this time was sixty years old and may already have been in poor health. It seems she had remained close to members of her husband’s family even after his death, including his half-sister, Queen Elizabeth. An item in the queen’s accounts for 11th November 1502 details a payment to William Pole, Elizabeth’s Groom of the chamber ‘for his costs riding from Langley to the Lady Marquess into Lincolnshire by the space of 5 days’. The accounts do not detail the reason for the trip, but perhaps he was taking her a gift of venison as was reflected in the other payments made to him that day.3 Cecily held the manor of Multon in Lincolnshire from her Harington inheritance and it passed to her son Richard Grey in her Will after her death. As 1502 passed into 1503, Cecily had survived a whole year as a widow and perhaps may have been looking with more optimism towards the future.
As the new year dawned Cecily, along with the rest of the country, would have been shocked when they received the sad news of the death of Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth had been a popular queen, respected by her subjects and loved by all who knew her. She had been in London where on 2nd February 1503, she had given birth to her fourth daughter, whom they named Katherine. Nine days later she had succumbed to a postpartum fever, most likely caused by an infection. The young princess Katherine also did not survive. Her son, Prince Henry, the future Henry VIII, would later go on to describe the death of his mother as being the worst day of his life. The king was bereft and retired from public life for a few weeks, lost in his own personal grief. It seems that this marriage, planned by their mothers during the darkest of days, did result in a happy union after all.
On Sunday 12th February, the day after her death, Elizabeth’s coffin was carried to the Church of St Peter ad Vincula within the Tower, where she remained for the next eleven days. During that time, her coffin was watched over at all times by six ladies in rotation. Cecily may well have taken her turn in this ritual. On the day of the funeral, the queen’s procession from the tower to Westminster followed the same route that she took for her coronation. Walking behind the chariot that carried the body of the queen were her four sisters, Katherine, Anne, Bridget and Cecily, all wearing mourning gowns with sweeping trains. All along the route the religious corporations, fraternities and guilds had turned out to pay their respects alongside young children dressed as angels singing psalms. The fronts of all the churches that they passed were hung with black cloth and magnificently illuminated.
After the service in Westminster Abbey, Cecily’s son, Thomas Dorset, escorted the queen’s sister Katherine of York, who had acted as chief mourner, and all the other lords and ladies to the queen’s great chamber in the palace of Westminster where Katherine presided over a supper of fish.4
The unexpected death of the queen was a time for national mourning and a more individual tragedy for Cecily herself who may have developed a close friendship with her sister-in-law. But Cecily was to experience an even more personal loss a few months later in 1503 when she lost her daughter Lady Eleanor Arundell, who died aged around twenty-three, leaving behind several young children. Coming just two years after the death of her husband, this would have bought the whole family back together once more for an occasion dominated by grief and sadness, to mourn one of their own.
Having buried her eldest daughter, an act no mother ever wants to contemplate doing, Cecily must have been hoping for some respite, but fortune had not yet finished with her. Her location during Christmas 1503 is unknown, maybe she spent it with her mother, but sadly it was to be her mother’s last and at some point, in early 1504, Cecily would have been delivered the devastating news of her mother’s death.
Katherine Neville was around sixty-two years old when she died. She had written her Will on November 22nd 1503, perhaps signalling that she knew her health was declining. Having been married to William Hastings for nearly twenty years, Katherine never remarried after his death and remained a widow for almost as long as she had been married. Katherine and Hastings had had six children together – four boys, Edward, Richard, William and George and two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne. From Katherine’s Will alone we can see the affection she had for her children and Cecily must have felt a huge grief at her passing.
In her Will Katherine requested burial not with her husband, but within the parish church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Given that Hastings had been laid to rest some twenty years before, it was highly unlikely that she would have been granted burial in the royal mausoleum alongside him. Instead, she chose to be laid to rest in the church that was built in the early 1470s, alongside the building work that took place during that time at their home of Ashby castle. The church is situated right next door to the castle, and an early sundial on the church tower is believed to have been viewable from the solar at the Castle. The church today contains the Hastings chapel and several memorials to later members of the family. Katherine’s burial place though is in the Lady chapel.5
Katherine named Cecily as an executor of her Will alongside her half-brothers, Edward, Richard and William and her half-sister Anne Hastings and her husband, the Earl of Shrewsbury. She left money for a priest to sing for the souls of her father, mother and husband for the next three years and also payment to the priest who was to complete this task of six pounds per annum. She made a particular request that her priest, Sir William Englondel, be the one to take on this task if possible. Clearly a pious woman, she also left items to the chapel which included her little gilded chalice and a printed mass book.
Although many women chose not to remarry after the death of their husbands in order to retain complete control of their own finances, it seems Katherine had struggled with money and by the time of her death was not particularly well off. She was not poor by any means, but seemingly her tenants were often late in paying their rents perhaps causing her monetary worries. An arrears roll from Michaelmas 1501 indicates she was owed £23 16s 11d from five of her estates. A surviving letter from Katherine, written to Sir Reginald Grey sometime between 1496 and 1503 makes it clear she was struggling financially and also points to her failing health. She writes: ‘And where I have been so long in yowre debt for you fee I besech you thenk no one unkindesse in me therefore for the cause oonly was my great disease of seleries which I have had many a daie to my great costs and charge of phisike beside odre many great charges’. She then goes on to thank him for being a good master to her son, Richard, and says she hopes to be able to pay future fees on the date they are due’.6
Wills are often a valuable insight into both the personal possessions of the deceased and those they were closest to during their lifetime, offering us a minute glimpse into their lives. Delving into Katherine’s Will, it becomes obvious how close she was to her family and what a pious lady she was.
Still apparently owing money at the time of her death, Katherine’s Will requests that all her debts are to be paid off first, including money that she had borrowed from Cecily which was to be repaid from her estate:
Item, where I owe unto Cecilie, Marquesse Dorset, certain sumes of money which I have borrowed of her at diverse times, as appeareth by bills indented thereof made, I woll that the said Cecilie, in full contentation of all such sumes of money as I owe unto her, have my bed of arres, tittor, testor, and counterpane, which she late borrowed of me, and over that, I will that she have my tabulet of gold that she now hath in her hands for a pledge, and three curtains of blew sarcionett and a traverse of blew sarcionett, and three quishions of counterfeit arres, with imagery of women, a long quishion, and two short, of blew velvet, also two carpets.
Her other children were also not forgotten. Her daughter, Anne Hastings had been married to George, Earl of Shrewsbury, who had once been a ward of the Hastings household. Katherine was seemingly very fond of him as she bequeathed to ‘myne especial good Lord George, Earl of Shrewsbury, a cope of cloth of gold, of white damasce, with torpens cloth of gold and velvet upon velvet [and] a vestment of purpure velvet, with a crucifix and images of St. Peter and St. John, embroidered upon that oon of them’. Her daughter, Lady Shrewsbury, was also left a lily-embroidered cloth of gold, and other textile items including several cushions and carpets.
Edward, as the eldest son and heir, would inherit the main bulk of the Hastings estates and Cecily was required to hand over to him an image of our lady which was currently in her possession: ‘Item, I bequeath to my son, Edward Lord Hastings, an image of our Lady, now being in the hands of my Lady Marquesse’. He also received his fair share of cloths, hangings, cushions and curtains as well as a third of the hay that was stored at Kirby, and all the timber that she had stored there. Edward also was allowed to keep all the bedding that he had of hers, which was in London, apart from two feather beds, a cowcher [a couch possibly], and two carpets that were to go to Richard Hastings.
Richard and William Hastings received the other two thirds of hay from Kirby and once again we can see how devout Katherine was in the items she left them which included two hangings for an altar, with the twelve Apostles embroidered with gold, with a crucifix, and the Salutation of our Lady. They were also bequeathed ‘hangings of verd that now hang in my chamber and in the parlour; alsoe all my stuffe of napree pertaining to the pantree; alsoe two pair of blankets and two pair of fustians; alsoe four pair of fine sheets; alsoe my stuffe of kitchin, as platters, dishes, sawcers, broaches, potts, and pans: alsoe all my hey that is in Lubbershorp, provided that William have more part of the hey; also two parts of the hey at Kerby; also two vestiments, two coporauxes; alsoe to Richard foure pair of brigaunters, and to William two payre, and to them both thirteen saletts’.
William Hastings also received more bedding from her chamber and some plate that was at that time in the hands of a John Holme with the instruction that he pay the said John ‘at the feast of St. Andrew next coming, fifteen pounds in part of payment of a greater sum’. To her younger son, George Hastings, she left a good feather bed, a bolster, a pair of blankets, a pair of fustians and a pair of fine sheets. She also left several items to her nephews and nieces and shared out her gowns amongst her female relatives and some of her gentlewomen.
Her chaplain, Sir Christopher, was also remembered. He was to receive a vestment of crimson velvet, and a cross of black cloth of gold. She also requested that immediately after her death he entered the farm at Kerby: ‘appertaining unto him, and to take all such fruits as have growne this year, with tithes, oblations, and other profits belonging to the said ferme, and over that he to perceive in money fifty-three shillings foure-pence, and to content himself for the rent of the said ferme for this year, and to pay unto the preest of Kirby his full wages unto the annuntiation of our Lady next coming’.
Lastly her household were not forgotten, she paid them their whole quarter’s wages ‘to be finished at Christmas next’ as well as any unpaid wages due unto them. She also gave each of her gentlemen thirteen shillings four-pence, each of her yeoman were to receive ten shillings, and to every groom she bequeathed six shillings and eight-pence. To furthermore pay off any remaining debts she instructed Cecily and Edward to ‘sell off hangings or bedding as shall be sold for the payment of my debts and performance of my Will’.7
That Katherine had a special bond with her children is demonstrated by the fact she chose them as executors of her Will ‘as my special trust is in them’. That depth of feeling was obviously shared by her children. A letter written by her eldest son, Edward, who was just seventeen years old when his father was killed, illustrates how much they thought of her. In the letter, Edward writes of ‘the great trouble, pains, heaviness, and labor that the said lady his mother had with him in his bringing up, and specially since the decease of his said lord and father, and the manifold motherly kindnesses to him hitherto showed’.8 All of her children must have keenly felt her loss with Cecily perhaps as the eldest remembering the early years they shared together after the death of Cecily’s father.
Unlike her mother, who chose the path of widowhood, this was not the path that Cecily would choose for herself and a year after her mother’s death, in 1504, Cecily announced her intention to take a second husband. Her chosen spouse was Lord Henry Stafford, a younger son of Harry Stafford, the 2nd Duke of Buckingham and his wife, Katherine Woodville. There was a considerable age gap between them – Henry was around twenty-five years of age, with a birth date of 1479, to Cecily’s forty-five. Presumably, there was an attraction between them – particularly on Cecily’s side as she did not need to remarry. Henry’s younger sister, Anne Buckingham would a few years later marry Cecily’s nephew, George Hastings, the son of her half-brother, Edward, so perhaps the families already knew each other, and at some point an attraction naturally developed between the pair.
Their marriage most likely took place sometime in mid-1505, as an indenture was made in April that year between Cecily Marchioness of Dorset and Lord Harry Stafford ‘in consideration that he has troth plighted and promised to take her to wife’.9 The couple needed royal permission to marry and the king gave it, although at a cost of £2000. £1000 was payable immediately, as a guarantee of Stafford’s good behaviour towards his king and the second was payable over the next five years. Henry was appointed a Knight of the Order of the Garter (K.G.) the same year, perhaps intended to elevate him in status to marry Cecily.10 As the younger Buckingham brother, he did not have any fortune or status of his own. After their father’s execution at the hands of Richard III, and once Henry Tudor had taken the throne, both Henry and his elder brother Edward had been made wards of the king’s mother, Margaret Beaufort. It was Edward that inherited the dukedom and all that came with it and Henry had been financially dependent on his elder brother, assisting him in managing the Stafford estates.
This intended marriage between Henry Stafford and Cecily was to cause trouble between Cecily and her family from the start. Thomas Dorset, concerned that his mother’s second marriage to a much younger man would considerably diminish his inheritance, was completely against the match. This could be seen as a selfish viewpoint from her eldest son, concerned only about his own financial dealings. That may be true and he may actually have been a greedy and grasping elder son. But there may also have been an element of concern for his mother, worried perhaps that although his mother may have developed an attraction for this younger man, perhaps it was not reciprocated to the same extent by Stafford. Indeed, Thomas may have suspected, rightly or wrongly, that Stafford himself was in this just for the money. How much of that is true will never be clear, but the fact that Henry would presumably outlive Cecily due to his younger years, led to Thomas objecting that his inheritance could be diluted amongst any children that his mother and her new husband may have together. Consequently, the pair dramatically fell out over her intended nuptials and in November 1504, Thomas challenged her right to continue as his father’s executor.
Tensions escalated to such a height that the king and council were forced to step in to resolve the dispute. Both Cecily and Thomas were summoned before the king so that he could resolve their differences and re-establish some sort of peace between them. They eventually reached an agreement that Cecily would receive the issues of all their lands appointed by her late husband for the performance of his Will. She would retain Astley as her dower and had to keep the Archbishop of Canterbury informed of her progress in sorting out the rest of Dorset’s Will. Once this had been done, Thomas would receive his inherited lands as specified by his father and must assign her dower to her within three months of his entry. Cecily was to retain her own inherited lands for life and upon her death they would descend to Thomas and the heirs of her body. If Thomas were to die before Cecily without leaving behind any male heirs, the agreement would be null and void. If he died first but had living sons, then her lands would remain with Stafford for life, and would only pass to Thomas’ sons once Henry Stafford himself had died.11
A further Indenture was then made in December of that year between Cecily and Stafford, which referred back to the November Indenture and added further clauses that covered what would happen in the instance of Stafford dying before Cecily:
Whereas by indenture dated 11 Nov it was agreed that Ilfardescombe manor and other lands lately recovered from her to her use for performance of her last will should descend after her death to Thomas marquis of Dorset, she now, in consideration that lord Henry Stafford has promised to marry her, grants the same for life and to the longest liver, to hold after her death to the use of lord Henry for life and thereafter to the intent that his executors shall take the issues during the feoffees’ lives for performance of his Will and hers; if he predecease her, then his executors shall take the issues of Porloke, Lymyngton, Stapilton and Ichestoke Joverney manors with appurtenances in Somerset during the feoffees’ lives for the performance of his Will; if the said marquis die without issue male, she grants to the above-named feoffees all her other lands etc. to hold after her death to the use of lord Henry Stafford for life (after payment of her debts) and thereafter for performance of his Will and hers.12
The legal wrangling between Thomas Dorset and Stafford unfortunately resulted in Cecily’s daughters becoming the biggest losers in these arguments between mother and son. Their father had left them all dowries but the arguments over money caused delay in the Grey girls receiving them. One of her daughters, Dorothy, felt so aggrieved at the slow payment of her dowry, that when she married and the money was not forthcoming, she sued the executors of her father’s Will for the non-payment.13
But despite the bickering, the wedding went ahead at some point in 1505. Cecily and Stafford would have continued to live in Cecily’s properties as Stafford had none of his own and it seems Shute manor remained one of her favoured residences as in a grant made in December 1509, Stafford is referred to as ‘Sir Henry Stafford, of Shute, Devon’.14
Settling into married life together, little is known of their movements over the next few years. But in 1509 they, like the rest of the country, would have received the news of the death of Henry VII, which occurred on 21st April. He had been on the throne for over twenty years and although perhaps the least famous of the Tudor monarchs, he was the founder of the dynasty and had changed the course of England’s ruling family. Several years before, in April 1502, Prince Arthur, the king and queen’s eldest son, had died at Ludlow, less than six months after his wedding to the beautiful Spanish Princess, Katherine of Aragon. The Duke of York, Prince Henry, became his father’s heir upon Arthur’s death, and in 1509 it was he who succeeded to the throne as Henry VIII. This new young king on the throne would eventually be a good thing for Cecily and Stafford, bringing them closer once again to court life than they perhaps had been for the past few years. But it would begin with a period of worry and uncertainty for Cecily as immediately upon Henry’s accession, her husband Stafford was arrested and thrown into the tower, more on a suspicion of anything he might do than on anything he had actually done.
But what led to Stafford’s committal to the tower had its origins in tensions that had begun many years before. It had begun with a younger brother of the Earl of Lincoln, Edmund de la Pole, who had taken against the king when Henry VII had refused to grant him the dukedom upon the death of his father, the Duke of Suffolk. Instead, he was only granted the lesser title of Earl of Suffolk, and Edmund had been resentful ever since. In 1498, he had been indicted of murder in a fight and fled overseas, although he was later pardoned for the offence. Returning to England for a short while, he had fled again in 1501 without royal leave, to his Aunt Margaret’s court in Burgundy. In the summer of that year in what was obviously designed to be a clear threat to Henry, he began calling himself the ‘White Rose’. In response to this threat, Edmund was declared an outlaw and in February 1502 many of his close associates were arrested and imprisoned, suspected of their involvement in the conspiracy. These men included James Tyrrell, William de la Pole (Edmund’s younger brother), Sir John Wyndham and William Courtenay.
Thomas Dorset was also a close associate of this group of men but for whatever reason he was not included in the 1502 arrests. However, he had clearly come under Henry’s suspicion by 1508, as in that year Sir Richard Carew, who was Lieutenant of Calais, transported William Courtenay and Thomas Dorset across the sea to the Calais prison by commandment of the king. According to the writer of the Chronicle of Calais, on 18th October 1508, the pair were brought across the sea after ‘they had bene in the towre of London a greate season’.15
The Courtenays as we know from the time of Old William Bonville, were neighbours of Cecily’s in Devon. But Cecily and her family were also related to William Courtenay through marriage. In 1496, Cecily’s sister-in-law, Katherine of York, had married William and they spent much of their time living at Colcombe, three miles from Shute. Katherine of York was the second youngest of the children of Edward and Elizabeth Woodville and much younger than her half-brother, Dorset. Born in 1479, she was in fact just a few years younger than her nephew, Thomas Dorset. Her husband, William Courtenay, was born in 1475 and he and Thomas Dorset had become good friends. Even after William’s death in 1511, Thomas Dorset remained in touch with his aunt. Her accounts for the year 1523/24 detail payments to the servant who bought news of the Marquis’ intended visit, for the carriage of wine and strawberries, and for servants who wrestled before him. Also, to the Bailiff of Sampford Peverell for bringing fish during his visit.16 Thomas Dorset’s eventual arrest was most likely due in some part to the closeness between the two families. Katherine of York did not seem to have fallen under suspicion, and neither did Cecily, although it must have been a worrying time for them both. So, it must have been even more distressing for Cecily when her husband was also arrested in 1509.
Whilst Thomas and Stafford were incarcerated, the coronation of England’s new king took place. After Prince Arthur’s death, his widow, Katherine of Aragon, had not returned to her Spanish homeland but had remained in England. In 1509 it was decided that she would make a suitable wife for Henry and a suitable queen for England, a role she felt had always been her destiny. In a joint coronation which took place on Midsummers Day, 24th June 1509, a newly married Henry VIII and his beautiful Spanish queen brought joy to the country. The streets of London were hung with tapestries and cloth of gold and Londoners gathered to watch this new young Tudor king take the helm of England. Henry rode to his coronation at the Abbey, and following behind him in the procession was Katherine, her long auburn hair loose, reclining in a litter. With the air still tinged with the smell of smoke from the Midsummer’s eve bonfires, upon reaching the Abbey Henry and Katherine proceeded on foot through the great hall of Westminster Abbey towards the Abbey Church. The formal proceedings were followed by feasting and a great tournament that night, and the festivities then continued for two more days after. Stafford and Thomas Dorset missed the whole event. The suspicion that had fallen on both men presumably did not stretch to the whole family as some of Cecily’s children were still welcome at court and Richard, John and Anthony Grey attended the coronation celebrations. Whether Cecily herself was there too is unclear.
It was not until a month later that King Henry sent to Calais for Thomas and he returned back across the channel and back into royal favour. According to the Calais chronicler, both Thomas Dorset and William Courtenay had only narrowly escaped with their lives; they had been facing execution and only survived because Henry VII had died before he could give the order.17 Much to Cecily’s relief, Stafford was also released from imprisonment and he was created Earl of Wiltshire on 27th January 1510. From then on, he would become known as Wiltshire. He very quickly became one of the king’s close associates, with both men sharing a love of tournaments, hunting and lavish entertainment.18 Both back in the centre of the court, Thomas Dorset and Wiltshire were also summoned to Henry’s first parliament where Thomas carried the cap of maintenance and Wiltshire carried the sword.
With a second-generation king and queen now on the throne, the Tudor dynasty was firmly established. But even though his position was more secure than his father’s had been when he first became king, Henry knew that he needed a son to carry on the royal line. After several early miscarriages, Queen Katherine gave birth to a son on New Year’s Day 1511. The king was delighted. A keen jouster himself, he organised a grand tournament to be held to celebrate his son’s birth. The tournament was held at Westminster in February 1511 and both Wiltshire and his stepson Dorset took part. The four knight challengers were the king himself as Ceure Loyall (Sir Loyal Heart), Sir Edward Neville as Vailliaunt Desyre, William Courtenay as Bone Valoyr and Sir Thomas Knevet as Joyous Panser. Richard Grey took part in the first day of jousting and Thomas Dorset and Wiltshire were in the lists for the second day, alongside John Grey and a new rising star at court, a certain gentleman named Thomas Boleyn.
But tragically all the hope and joy at the birth of the little prince came to a swift end when the little boy died on 22nd February. In the saddest of funerals, the little prince was laid to rest, and Thomas Dorset was honoured with the role of chief mourner. A heartbroken king and queen resolutely looked forward to any future pregnancies that they were sure would bring them a royal son and heir. Unbeknownst to anyone at this point in time, the desire for a son would go on to dominate Henry’s reign and would influence many of the decisions he made throughout his life.
Little is known of Cecily and Wiltshire’s life together. During their marriage, Wiltshire remained involved in court life in one way or another. He travelled to France with the king in 1513, captaining a group of 651 men and also travelled with him in 1520 for Henry’s meeting with the French king at the Field of Cloth of Gold. By 1520 he had been made a privy councillor.19 Cecily’s whereabouts during those years are harder to trace. The arguments over money had not completely gone away and by 1515 Cecily and her husband were involved in another dispute with her eldest son, once again over her daughter’s dowries which Thomas insisted should be paid by Cecily and Wiltshire. Her surviving daughters, Cecily, Dorothy, Mary, Elizabeth and Margaret were all in their twenties by then with Cecily the eldest at around twenty-eight and Margaret the youngest at just twenty-three. Margaret was the only one who had not married. This time their argument was arbitrated by Thomas Dorset’s old schoolmaster, Thomas Wolsey. Perhaps in a show of favouritism towards his old pupil, Wolsey forced Cecily and Wiltshire to contribute rather than the money being paid from the Grey estates.20
In May 1521, Wiltshire was to receive bad news when his brother, Edward Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham, was arrested and tried for treason. He was arrested on charges of predicting the king’s death, allegedly by listening to certain prophecies which told of the death of the king. Henry VIII was so scared of his own mortality that discussing his death in any way, shape or form was considered a treasonable offence. Thomas Dorset was on the panel that delivered the sentence, along with his brother-in-laws, Ferrers and Willoughby. He was sentenced to death. Wiltshire at this time seemingly had a good enough friendship with the king not to fall under his suspicion.
Whether Henry Stafford proved himself a good husband or not is impossible to tell, but evidently he was not good at managing his finances, which may have caused trouble within their marriage. Entries in the 1523/4 subsidy lists for Colyton, Ottery and the surrounding areas make it clear that he was considered a bad debtor. It was recorded he owed over £9 for ‘fresshe a salte fyssche the whiche woll never be payde’ and another lists ‘my lord of wylshire ouer to her xxiiij the which she thynketh never to be paid of hit’.21 He was even in debt to the king who had loaned him a considerable amount of money over the years, and by 1521 he owed the crown £4407 4s.22
By 1522, we can trace Cecily to Bedwell, the house of her daughter Dorothy and her husband Lord Mountjoy. A letter exists from that period, written from Cecily to a certain young gentleman at court named Thomas Cromwell. Before his time as Henry VIII’s chief minister, Thomas Cromwell had been a lawyer and during the early 1520s, he was often contacted in that capacity. It is likely that he first became known to Cecily and her family when they required his legal help. Cecily wrote to him in August that year, addressing him as her ‘sonne marquys servaunt.’23
Cromwell, I woll that yow send to me in hast the trussynn bed of cloth of tyssewe, and the fether bed, with the fustyons and a materas longunn to the same with the cownterpoynt; also I woll that you delyver all such tents, pavylons and hales as you have of myne to my sonne Lenard, as you tender my plesue. And thys shall be your suffycyant warrant and discharge att all tymes. Wrtytn at Bedwell thys present Thorsdaye by fore our Lady daye the Asumpcyon. Cecyl Dorsett.
Although Cecily appears to have remained close to her children, perhaps frequently visiting and staying with them as the letter from Bedwell evidences, the family disagreements rumbled on and by December 1522 another of her son in law’s, John Dudley, who was married to Cecily Grey, was complaining to the king that Wiltshire was still withholding Cecily’s dowry. Wiltshire responded that Dorset had failed to obey a prior agreement and requested that Wolsey make him comply. However, less than four months later, arguments between the Grey children and their stepfather ceased when Wiltshire suddenly died. Cecily had been married to him for around eighteen years.
The Earl died on 6th April 1523, aged forty-four. The couple had no children together, and with no sons to inherit the Earl of Wiltshire title, it would be held in abeyance until December 1529 when it would be awarded to Thomas Boleyn. As well as grieving for her second husband, Cecily was now tied into financial arrangements in an agreement brokered by Wolsey that she would pay her daughter’s dowries out of her lands and that her younger sons would be granted a life interest in several of her properties. She also had Wiltshire’s debts to repay to the king, which it was agreed she would pay back in instalments.24
Perhaps to assess her finances, Cecily had a survey of all her manors completed in 1525. Her surveyor, Richard Phelps made an account of all her manors in the five counties of Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Wiltshire and Dorset. She also owned manors in other counties, including Bedfordshire, Lincolnshire, London and even as far north as Yorkshire and Cumberland, which came to her as part of the Harington fortune, but these were not included in the survey.
The survey detailed all 79 manors that she owned, which ranged from full manors of cottages and farms, to parcels of land that were worth nothing, such as ‘Lords Wodde which contains 90 acres of pasture land which is worth nothing because it is full of underwood which underwood has been growing five years’. Her manors in the south-west equated to roughly 30,000 acres and had a rent roll of around £1000, with the majority of these being in Devon and Cornwall. In Cornwall she had 152 holdings, amounting to a total 3007 acres which brought in a total rent of £161.15.5 per annum. She had no free tenants. In Devon where she held the majority of her manors, the survey recorded 543 holdings, and a total of 15,841 acres. This gave her a total rent of £473.2.10 per annum and included 51 free tenants.
The majority of Cecily’s properties were leased, and rent was paid either in monetary terms or sometimes in kind, for instance where her tenants promised to keep a mill in good repair or to supply Cecily with candles in lieu of their due rent. The rent for John Betiscombe for his land in Ayschelonde was one pound of pepper or 2/- yearly. For John Marschall of Meryett, he owed one sparrowhawk at Gowesbradon or 2/- yearly.
It seems Cecily was a compassionate landlady, on occasion reducing or cancelling fines and/or rent because the tenant was old as in the case of Joan Focke: ‘widow holds one cottage with a small curtilage adjoining. And it is granted to her for the term of her life without a fine because she is poor and weak’. On two occasions cottage leases were granted to elderly residents who offered to pray for her.25
By 1527, Cecily had paid all the dowries, including to her daughter, Elizabeth, Countess of Kildare, even though she married ‘without the assent of her friends, contrary to the will of the lord marquess her father, by reason whereof the said £1000 ought not to be paid’. Cecily explained she was giving Elizabeth the money nonetheless ‘forasmuch as the said marriage is honourable, and I and all her friends have cause to be content with the same’.26
Like many other women of her time, Cecily was a pious woman and during her lifetime she made contributions to several churches, including the North aisle in Axminster church, near to Shute. During both her marriages she had spent a good proportion of her time at her manors at Shute and Wiscombe Park and must have frequented the church regularly. Wiscombe Park originally belonged to the priory of Otterton and was granted to Sir William Bonville Knight, an ancestor of Cecily’s, during the reign of Henry III. During the time she and Wiltshire stayed at Wiscombe, Cecily began building the ‘Dorset Aisle’ at Ottery St Mary’s.
The Dorset aisle is one of Cecily’s most beautiful legacies and is rich with her family connections. The Haringtons, the Staffords and the Hastings families are all represented, alongside heraldic details such as the Bourchier knot and the Wake knot (representing the families of two of her daughter’s husbands) alongside the crest of Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, married to her daughter Elizabeth Grey.27 There may also be a tribute to Cecily herself in the shape of the female figure in the porch who is believed to be St Cecily. The female figure carries in her hands what looks like a pair of organs, in the exact same way that St Cecilia is depicted as holding them in Raphael’s celebrated drawing, engraved by Marc Antonio. The attendant angel would be that described in Chaucer’s ‘Seconde Nonnes tale’: ‘I have an angel which that loveth me, That with greet love where so I wake or slepe, is redy ay my body for to kepe’. It is though that perhaps her tenantry joined together in erecting the porch and may have had Chaucer’s lines in mind, and applied them to Cecily, their beloved mistress.
In her later years Cecily also spent some of her time arranging a memorial to her beloved Elizabeth at the Church of St Dubricius in Porlock, Somerset. During Elizabeth’s first marriage to Sir John Harington, the couple had a desire to build a chantry in the church at Porlock. Sir John died in 1418 and Elizabeth became Lady of the Manor of Porlock. She is referred to as Lady Elizabeth Harinton, Lady of Porlock in the Will of a John Bakelyn of Dunster in 1420.28
Upon Elizabeth’s death the manor of Porlock fell to Cecily. In the church there are alabaster effigies to Elizabeth and John. Elizabeth is wearing a cote-hardie and gown, fastened across her chest. A double chain with an attached jewel decorates her neck and round her hips is a rich cincture. On her head she wears a horned head-dress and just over her brow is a band-coronet, studded with pearls and crested by fleurs-de-lys. Her fingers are adorned with rings. Her head rests on a cushion supported by angels and an animal rests at her feet. Lord Harington is next to her with his head resting on a helmet, adorned with a crest of a lion’s head. Angels were originally on each side supporting it. He is dressed in his plate armour and his feet rest on a lion. The canopy over the effigies and the chantry and other alterations to the church were designed and added by Cecily, clearly showing her affection for Elizabeth.29
After Wiltshire’s death, Cecily was well into the latter years of her life. The England she had been born into in the mid-1400s was long gone. By the 1520s, Henry VIII had been on the throne for over a decade. By then it had become clear that Queen Katherine was unable to provide the king with his much-desired heir. After several miscarriages and still births, Katherine had given birth to a healthy living girl in February 1516, whom they named Mary. But a further pregnancy in 1518 had culminated in the birth of another baby girl who died after only a few short hours and heralded the end of the queen’s childbearing years. In 1522 the appearance at court of a young woman named Anne Boleyn had led the king to seek a divorce, enamoured with this unconventional and exotic raven-haired woman and convinced that a new wife would provide him with a son. From around 1526/1527 Henry’s great matter had been rumbling away at court, with the king seeking a legal way in the eyes of the church for him to divorce his queen and marry Anne. The reason his marriage had been blighted with a lack of male heirs he decreed was because he had made a mistake in the eyes of God in marrying his brother’s wife. Katherine of Aragon, arguing fiercely to retain her position as rightful queen and remain married to the man she loved, claimed that her marriage to Arthur had never been consummated and that she had therefore never fully been his wife. In November 1501 after Katherine and Arthur’s wedding, Thomas Dorset had been part of the bedding ceremony, escorting the Prince to his chamber where the young couple would have been put to bed and blessed in their union, with the expectation that they would bear healthy children together. Thomas was later called to give evidence to further the king’s case that Katherine’s marriage had indeed been consummated. He told the court how he recalled having seen Katherine awaiting Arthur under the bedclothes during the bedding ceremony and how he had noted Arthur’s healthy complexion the next day.
Cecily may have spent the last seven years after Wiltshire’s death occupied with the alterations to the churches at Ottery and Porlock, as well as perhaps spending time with her children and grandchildren, and perhaps wondering, like the rest of the country, how the king’s great matter would ever be resolved. However, she would not live to see the king obtain his divorce and Queen Anne Boleyn take her place alongside Henry on the throne of England as on 10th October 1530 Cecily died, aged sixty-one. It is believed she may have been in London at the time of her death, although her Will, written in 1527, had begun by specifying different burial locations which were dependent on where she was when she died. Westminster was one of the options, but she was actually buried at Astley, with her first husband, so this is perhaps an indication that she was at her home of Astley Castle when she died. However, as Astley was her preferred place of burial, it may also have been that her family transported her body to her preferred resting place next to her first husband, Dorset. Perhaps even Westminster as an option was no longer open to her when she died.
If she was in London when she died as some believe, it may have been at Shackwell in Hackney, Middlesex. Shackwell was a quiet and attractive part of Hackney, made desirable to its residents by the presence of a spring or well that provided their water. If she was there, she may have been staying in the property of a gentleman named Giles Heron, who had his seat at Shackwell. His father, Sir John Heron, a rich courtier, had died in 1522, and the manor, part of a larger estate that belonged to him, was passed down to his son Sir Giles Heron. Giles Heron is mentioned as a ffeofe in Cecily’s Will so there was obviously a connection between her and the Herons.30
Cecily’s Will was proved a month after her death, in November 1530. Following her main burial request, she was interred with Dorset in Astley:
My body to be buried in the Chapel within the Church of the College of Astley, in Warwickshire, in the tomb where the body of the said Lord Marquess my husband is buried.
I will that, soon after my decease, a thousand masses be said for my soul, in as convenient baste as may be. I will that a goodly tomb be made in the Chapel of Astley over the said Lord Marquess my husband, and another over me.31
Due to the large number of properties and estates she owned, and the legal obligations she was tied into, her Will is extensive. She asks for her executors to provide two priests daily to sing in the said Chapel of Astley, for the souls of her first husband and for her soul for the next eighty years. There is no mention of her second husband so perhaps that is indicative that she did not consider her marriage to him a huge success. Maybe a union based on an initial physical attraction, eventually turned into a loveless marriage with a younger man, who whittled away money like water and left her with his debts. Perhaps her son, Thomas, was astute after all?
Her daughters were then remembered, each to be left money out of her inheritance. To her sons, she left several manors: to Richard, the manor of Multon, in the county of Lincoln; to her son John the manors of Yarde, Pokin, Torrells, and Littlesdon, in the county of Somerset and to Lord Leonard Grey the manors of Says-Bonvill, and Pixton, in Somerset, and the manor of Albryngton, in Dorset, and the manor of Marston, in Sussex, for his life. Her eldest, Thomas, would of course inherit the bulk of her estates.
She also remembered her household and directed that all her servants were to be paid a years’ wages plus any monies owing and instructed that if they attended her funeral, they would be expected to wear black gowns. A further £20 was to be given to poor households within four miles of the place she died. As with many last requests, she directed her executors to pay any outstanding debts out of her estate, which included the debts of her second husband, Wiltshire. Any unmade bequests from Dorset’s Will that had not yet been actioned were to be performed, including giving money to the scholars of Oxford and Cambridge. Education and learning were clearly important to the family, and the time that their sons spent at Magdalen clearly impressed Dorset enough to want to contribute to the learning of other students.
Her executors were numerous and included her nephew, Henry Courtenay, Marquis of Exeter and grandson Thomas Arundell.31 Her eldest son, Thomas Dorset, inherited the bulk of her estate, including Shute manor although interestingly was not named as an executor. Clearly their arguments over the years had clouded her view of him and she did not trust him with the important task of completing her last requests.
Today in Astley church what is thought to be her severely damaged effigy can be seen alongside those of Sir Edward Grey, Lord Ferrers of Groby and Elizabeth Talbot, although the church itself is much changed from when Thomas and Cecily were laid to rest there. Originally there were thought to be four tombs and nine alabaster effigies. The church itself was built by Sir Thomas Astley in 1343, but in 1558 Adrian Stokes, who held the estate after his wife’s death, pulled down the spire and stripped the roof of lead, causing the tower to fall in the year 1600. The collapse of the tower destroyed the other monuments and is what caused the damage to Cecily’s effigy. In 1607 the remains of the tower, the transepts, and the nave were demolished and the only part of the old church that remained, the old chancel, was incorporated into the nave of the newly built church. Cecily’s effigy is believed to be the one on the far left of the three that remain. She is wearing a pedimental head-dress, a high-cut kirtle, cote-hardie, and mantle and at the corners are two small dogs.32 Thomas’ effigy has not survived.
Cecily Bonville Grey, the matriarch of the Grey family, had been one of the richest women in England and yet perhaps one of the least well known to us today. She has faded into the shadow of her more famous husband, yet together Cecily and Dorset went through muchand made a formidable team. Through both her marriages she led a rich and eventful life and through her children and grandchildren, her legacy continued.