Great Ladies: The Forgotten Witnesses to the Lives of Tudor Queens 4 - The End (Pages 148 - end)

 

When Mary became queen, she felt she had an obligation to marry. The English wanted her to marry Edward Courtenay. Edward Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon (c. 1527 – 18 September 1556) was an English nobleman during the rule of the Tudor dynasty. Courtenay  became a favourite of his royal cousin Queen Mary, who greatly benefited the young man. Mary showed her young cousin considerable affection. Courtenay considered he might be the Queen's future husband.

Mary eventually married Philip II of Spain n July 25, 1554, at Winchester Cathedral..

When the news that Mary was to marry Philip II, there was a rebellion led by Sir Thomas Wyatt. It erupted in Kent out of intense opposition to Queen Mary I's marriage to Philip II of Spain, as well as fears of a return to Roman Catholicism. Wyatt gathered roughly 3,000 to 4,000 men and marched on the capital.  Lacking backing from ordinary Londoners and blocked at the gates, Wyatt surrendered at Temple Bar on February 7, 1554.

As a consequence of this rebellion, Wyatt was executed as well as Jane Grey, her husband and her father. 

Sir Thomas Wyatt the Younger was beheaded for high treason on April 11, 1554, at Tower Hill following his failed rebellion. Following his decapitation, his body was quartered, his bowels and genitals burned, and his quarters and head displayed publicly around London as a stern warning to other dissidents.

Mary initially decided to spare the lives of Jane and her husband, assuming that they had been mere pawns in the midst of a much larger political scheme. However, the outbreak of Wyatt's Rebellion in January 155t was not the intention of the conspirators to bring Jane to the throne again. Nevertheless, at the height of the crisis, the Government decided to reactivate the sentence, which had remained suspended, against Jane and her husband. Jane was becoming a serious threat to Mary, so the executions of Grey and Guildford Dudley were also an opportunity to remove possible inspirations for future unrest and unwelcome reminders of the past.4 against Queen Mary's marriage plans with Philip of Spain would ultimately seal Jane's fate. 

Mary thought to be pregnant twice and he experienced symptoms of pregnancy, but there was never a baby. It is thought that she had a phantom pregnancy. The other time it is thought to be the symptoms of the mortal disease that killed her. 

Among her faithful servants, she trusted Susan Clarencius. Susan White, known as Susan Clarencius (before 1510 – in or after 1564), was a favourite lady in waiting and longtime friend of Queen Mary I of England.

Jane Dormer look after the queen when she was dying. She married Gomez Suárez de Figueroa y Córdoba, Duke of Feria. Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria (6 January 1538 – 13 January 1612) was an English lady-in-waiting to Mary I who, after the Queen's death, married Gómez Suárez de Figueroa y Córdoba, 1st Duke of Feria and went to live in Spain, where she would become a magnet for exiled English Catholics.

Gómez Suárez de Figueroa y Córdoba, 1st Duke of Feria (c. 1520–1571) was a Spanish nobleman and diplomat, and close advisor of Philip II of Spain.

Queen Mary I of England died on November 17, 1558, at St. James's Palace at age 42. Her death ended her five-year reign, and the throne passed to her half-sister, Elizabeth I.

Elizabeth became queen at the age of 25. 

Among the women who served her these were her favourites:

Catherine Carey, after her marriage Catherine Knollys and later known as both Lady Knollys and Dame Catherine Knollys (c. 1524 – 15 January 1569), was chief Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth I, who was her first cousin. She was the daughter of Mary Boleyn, sister to queen consort Anne Boleyn. She and her brother Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, were rumoured to be illegitimate children of Henry VIII.

Lettice Knollys was Catherine's daughter, and she served Elizabeth. However they fell out when Lettice married Robert Dudley. Lettice Knollys (8 November 1543 – 25 December 1634) was an English noblewoman. With her marriage to her cousin Elizabeth I's favourite, she incurred the Queen's unrelenting displeasure.

Dorothy Stafford, Lady Stafford (1 October 1526 – 22 September 1604) was an English noblewoman, and an influential person at the court of Queen Elizabeth I of England, to whom she served as Mistress of the Robes.

Blanche Parry (1507 or 1508 – 12 February 1590) of Newcourt in the parish of Bacton, Herefordshire, in the Welsh Marches, was a personal attendant of Queen Elizabeth I, holding the offices of Chief Gentlewoman of the Queen's Most Honourable Privy Chamber and Keeper of Her Majesty's Jewels.

Katherine Ashley (née Champernowne; died 18 July 1565), also known as Kat Ashley or Astley, was the first close friend, governess, and Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth I. 

Robert Dudley was the man who was closest to Elizabeth, but they never married, not even when his wife, Amy Dudley, was found dead in mysterious circumstances.

Robert Dudley (24 June 1532 – 4 September 1588) was an English statesman and the favourite of Elizabeth I from her accession until his death. He was a suitor for the queen's hand for many years.

Amy, Lady Dudley (née Robsart; 7 June 1532 – 8 September 1560) was the first wife of Robert Dudley. Amy Dudley lived with friends in different parts of the country, having her own household and hardly ever seeing her husband. In the morning of 8 September 1560, at Cumnor Place near Oxford, she insisted on sending away her servants, and later was found dead at the foot of a flight of stairs with a broken neck and two wounds on her head. The coroner's jury's finding was that she had died of a fall downstairs; the verdict was "misfortune", accidental death. The most widely accepted modern explanations of her death have been breast cancer and suicide, although a few historians have probed murder scenarios. 

Robert Dudley had affairs. With Douglas Sheffield, he had a son. Douglas, Lady Sheffield (née Howard; 1542/1543 – 1608), was an English noblewoman, the lover of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester and mother by him of explorer-cartographer Sir Robert Dudley, an illegitimate son.

Robert Dudley died at age 56 on September 4, 1588, at Cornbury Park in Oxfordshire. He likely passed away from malaria or stomach cancer shortly after the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Elizabeth favoured Lettice Knollys's son, Robert Devereux, but he fell from Grace when he mocked the queen. He was eventually executed. 

Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex ( 10 November 1565 – 25 February 1601) was an English nobleman and army officer who was a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I. Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex and former favorite of Queen Elizabeth I, was beheaded for high treason on February 25, 1:601, at the Tower of London. He was condemned after leading a brief, failed coup d'état in London.

Near the end of her life, Elizabeth surrounded herself by women of her family, and she suffered when some of these loyal women died.

Philadelphia, Lady Scrope (née Carey; c.1563 – 3 February 1628) was an English aristocrat and courtier. She was at the queen's bedside near the time of her death.

Catherine Howard, Countess of Nottingham (née Carey; c. 1550 – 25 February 1603), was a cousin, lady-in-waiting, and close confidante of Elizabeth I of England. She was in attendance on the queen for 44 years.

Elizabeth Southwell (1584–1631) was an English courtier. She was appointed maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth in 1599. She wrote an account of the death of Queen Elizabeth.

Queen Elizabeth I died on March 24, 1603, at Richmond Palace in England at the age of 69. Her death ended the Tudor dynasty after a 45-year reign, and King James VI of Scotland succeeded her to the English throne.