The first Elizabethan Parliament (1559) famously witnessed the restoration of the royal supremacy and paved the way for the reintroduction of Protestantism. It also saw the House of Lords briefly become the main focus of parliamentary opposition to royal policy, a radical departure. However, this Parliament boasts another unusual feature, as Dr Andrew Thrush, the editor of our Elizabethan House of Lords section, explains…
It has previously gone unnoticed that, during the first Elizabethan Parliament, one of the lay members of the House of Lords took his seat even though he was a prisoner of war, an occurrence which appears to be unique in the annals of English parliamentary history. The peer in question was William Grey, 13th Lord Grey of Wilton, widely regarded at the time as England’s finest soldier. Grey was the former commander of the English garrison at Guînes, in the Pas de Calais. In January 1558 the French captured Calais and laid siege to Guînes. Despite putting up a stout defence, Grey was unable to prevent the town’s capture. Following the surrender of Guînes, Grey was held prisoner in the Chateau de Sainte-Suzanne, south-east of Evron, in the Loire valley. His ransom, set at 25,000 crowns (equivalent to about £8,000 in this period or about £1.9m in today’s values), was not paid until the late summer of 1559, by which time Parliament had been dissolved. Nevertheless, Grey attended the House of Lords on at least three occasions that year, on 1, 4 and 10 February, shortly after the session began. The printed Journal (published in the early nineteenth century) also shows Grey as having been present twice more, on 13 and 17 April. However, the first of these attendances is certainly erroneous as it does not appear in the manuscript Journal. The second also seems to be a mistake, based upon a misreading by the editors of the printed Journal of the manuscript, in which the attendances are carelessly recorded for that day.
Royal Collection Trust
Why was Grey able to sit in the Lords, albeit briefly, while still a prisoner of the French? The answer to this intriguing question lies in the relations between England and France at the time. Following the accession of Elizabeth I in November 1558, England’s new queen was anxious to bring about an end to the war with France which she had inherited from her predecessor, her half-sister Mary I. The French king, Henri II, was no less desirous of peace. However, whereas Elizabeth expected Calais and its associated territories to be returned to England as part of any peace settlement, Henri was determined to hang on to his recent conquests. In order to put pressure on Elizabeth to agree to his terms, Henri decided to draw attention to the fact that his daughter-in-law, Mary Stuart, queen of Scotland and wife of the dauphin, had a claim to the English throne which many considered to be better than Elizabeth’s. Unless Elizabeth agreed to drop her claim to Calais, he threatened to promote Mary’s right. Rather than select a Frenchman to carry this unwelcome message, however, Henri offered the task to Lord Grey who, in late December, returned to England, ostensibly in order to attend Elizabeth’s forthcoming coronation.
The terms of Grey’s parole remain frustratingly unclear. However, according to the Venetian ambassador in Paris, Grey was required to guarantee that he would pay a ransom of 40,000 crowns if he failed to return or was prevented by the queen from doing so. From this same ambassador we also learn that Grey’s parole was limited to just two months: on 6 February 1559 he reported that a messenger from Grey had arrived in Paris confirming that the baron intended to return to France shortly.
Workshop of Francois Clouet, 1559,
Royal Collection Trust
Thanks to the Mantuan agent at the English court, we know that Grey arrived at Whitehall on the evening of 30 December 1558. Moreover, from a document drafted at the time by the queen’s chief minister, Sir William Cecil, we also know that, after some difficulty, Grey was subsequently granted two interviews by the queen. These meetings, and the discussions which surrounded them, may explain why Grey attended the 1559 Parliament only infrequently. At the first interview, Grey presented Elizabeth with a letter from the duc de Guise, the commander of the French forces which had captured Calais, in which the queen was assured that France now wanted peace. It may also have been at this meeting that Grey delivered the message from Henri II threatening to support Mary queen of Scots’ claim to the English throne if Elizabeth made difficulties over Calais. In the second interview, Grey was told to thank Guise for his letter and to say that Elizabeth, too, desired peace. However, he was to add that Elizabeth wanted to turn the clock back to 1553, when Edward VI had ascended the throne. In other words, she was not prepared to make peace unless Calais was first restored. Grey was told to send this reply in writing ‘by some gentleman well instructed’. At around the same time, Elizabeth sent two members of her Council to the Spanish ambassador to discover whether her ally, Philip II of Spain, would allow Grey to be exchanged for one of the French noble prisoners in Spanish hands. In the event, nothing came of this approach, even though Philip had by now decided, albeit reluctantly, to seek Elizabeth’s hand in marriage.
It seems likely that Grey returned to France in mid-February 1559. As we have seen, his supposed attendance in the Lords on 17 April 1559 can be discounted; he was certainly not on the jury which, three days later, tried the 2nd Lord Wentworth (Sir Thomas Wentworth) for surrendering Calais after barely a fight. Grey remained a prisoner until his ransom was paid later that year. Interestingly, the money was provided by Elizabeth, who accepted Grey’s argument that even if he sold all the lands he owned he could never hope to raise the 25,000 crowns demanded by his captors. However, the queen, in true form, put her own financial needs first by canvassing voluntary contributions from other members of the nobility – crowdfunding before the fact. She also required Grey to pay her back and to put up part of his estate as collateral. In so doing, she condemned the baron, who died in December 1562, to serious financial hardship for the remainder of his life.
ADT
Further reading:
A commentary of the services and charges of William, Lord Grey of Wilton, K.G. by his son Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, K.G. ed. P. de Malpas Grey Egerton (Camden Society, vol. 40; 1847)
The History of Parliament 