Putting the Dartington Bride in context
By Rosemary Griggs
In our predominantly secular twenty-first century society, it can sometimes be challenging to comprehend the full impact the Protestant Reformation had on people’s lives. The religious reform movement that swept through Europe in the sixteenth century brought conflict and change on an unprecedented scale. Age-old traditions and beliefs were challenged and social structures upended while religious factions battled for supremacy.
My novel, The Dartington Bride, spans the years from 1559 to 1584, a period which saw two strong women hold the reins of power and grapple with their respective nations’ response to religious upheaval; in France Catherine de Medici, in England Queen Elizabeth I.
Elizabeth’s grip on those reins was perhaps the stronger because she ruled as absolute monarch and controlled her council with an iron will. Catherine sought to rule as ‘Queen Mother’ through a succession of young sons. While France descended into a series of bloody civil wars that would divide the country for forty years, England stayed relatively free of conflict. Throughout this time, both women must also navigate their relationship with ardently Catholic Spain, which was emerging as the European ‘Super Power’ of the age.
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Portrait of Catherine de’ Medici, by Clouet.
Catherine’s eldest son, Francois II, inherited the throne in 1559. He was as a teenager, married to Mary Queen of Scots.
Mary’s uncles, the ultra-Catholic Cardinal of Loraine and his brother, the Duc de Guise, seized power and introduced policies to repress the Protestants. This helped trigger the conspiracy of Amboise in March 1560, a plot to seize the young king and overthrow the Guises. The conspiracy ended in failure, resulting in the execution of approximately 1,200 individuals and the arrest of Prince Louis de Condé, the Protestant leader.
But Francois died in December of the same year, replaced by his even younger brother Charles IX. Catherine de Medici made sure this time that she became his regent. She sent Mary back to Scotland, dismissed the Guises, released Condé, and reversed the previous policy of religious oppression. The Catholic response to the limited toleration she introduced was hostile. It was the Duc de Guise who provided the spark that set the two sides at war. As he was passing through Vassy on 1 March 1562, his men opened fire on a Protestant congregation. In response to this ‘massacre of Vassy’ the Protestants asked Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, to raise an army to protect them. He issued a call for the Protestant people of France to raise troops to oppose Guise and his allies, and the fighting began. Gabriel de Lorges, Comte de Montgomery (see below) would soon emerge as a leader of the Protestant forces.
Over the following two decades Catherine de Medici made repeated attempts to achieve religious compromise between the Protestants, known as Huguenots, and Catholics led by the House of Guise. She would never satisfy both sides.
In England, Elizabeth inherited a complex religious situation from her three predecessors. Her father, Henry VIII, had split from the Church of Rome. Her brother, Edward VI, had pushed England towards Protestantism. Her sister, Mary, had sought to restore Catholicism. Although Elizabeth’s personal conviction leaned towards Protestantism, she regarded the matter of religion primarily as a political concern. She removed Mary’s Catholic Bishops and advisers and appointed moderate Protestants, while denouncing persecution of people of either persuasion. By adopting this approach, she more-or-less succeeded in maintaining peace in her realm. It was only after the Ridolfi plot in 1571, a conspiracy orchestrated by an international banker, that she decided to strengthen the laws against Catholics. The plan was to assassinate Elizabeth and replace her with the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots. From then onwards, Elizabeth became concerned that, because of Mary Queen of Scots’ affiliation with the Guise family and her previous time as the Queen of France, Spain and France might join forces in a Catholic alliance. That fear would ultimately lead to Mary’s execution at Fotheringhay Castle in 1587.
In my novel I do not seek to educate readers in the complex high politics of this turbulent period in French and English history. Rather I keep the focus on one woman’s own lived experience of those years. Scarred by a traumatic childhood during the French Wars of Religion, Lady Gabrielle Roberda Montgomery arrived in Elizabethan England in 1571 to marry into one of Devon’s most prominent families. Affectionately known as Roberda, she was the daughter of Gabriel de Lorges, Comte de Montgomery. She wed Gawen Champernowne, the son of Sir Arthur of Dartington — a marriage that promised huge benefits for both families.
Roberda’s father achieved unwelcome fame in 1559 when he unintentionally caused the death of King Henri II of France during a jousting accident. While the king pardoned him from his deathbed, Queen Catherine would always hold Gabriel responsible for her husband’s untimely death. Two years later, Gabriel travelled to England and encountered many influential people who leaned towards the Protestant faith. Amongst them he met Sir Arthur Champernowne of Dartington Hall in Devon. Upon his return to France, Gabriel embraced the reformed religion and became a prominent Huguenot military leader. His wife, Isabeau, took her children with her when she followed him as the tides of war ebbed and flowed.
Sir Arthur Champernowne was a staunch supporter of the Protestant cause, as were many other members of his family. He was the younger son of Sir Phillip of Modbury, who, in his youth, was squire of the body to King Henry VIII. Sir Philip and his wife, Katherine Carew, had six daughters and two sons. By the time of his death in 1545, five of Sir Phillip’s daughters were married; advantageous alliances with either powerful courtiers or with local men to strengthen Sir Philip’s Devon power base. Sir Philip made the unmarried eldest girl, Katherine the elder, executor of his will alongside her uncle, George Carew, a prominent churchman. Towards the end of 1545, she married John Astley. Many people know her as Kat Astley, Elizabeth’s childhood governess.
The arms of Champernowne.
Arthur was a minor when his father died in 1545 and his elder brother, John, was also dead. While travelling with his cousin Sir Peter Carew, he succumbed to disease in Vienna in 1541, leaving behind an infant son, Henry.
Prior to his father’s death, Arthur had already served in Henry VIII’s last campaign in France. In 1548, Sir Anthony Denny, an up-and-coming figure at Henry VIII’s court and the husband of Arthur’s sister Joan, sought the king’s blessing for Arthur’s marriage. Arthur’s bride was Mary (née Norreys), the widow of his cousin Sir George Carew who tragically perished on the Mary Rose. In 1549, Arthur played his part in suppressing the Western uprising known as the ‘Prayer book rebellion’. With Mary he came into possession of Polsloe Priory near Exeter and then, in a complicated transaction begun in 1554, he exchanged the Priory for the former royal estate at Dartington. He was the first of the Champernowne family to live there. They would remain until 1925.
In 1554, Arthur, alongside his cousin Peter Carew and his uncle Sir Gawen Carew, became implicated in the Wyatt rebellion, a plot against Queen Mary’s Spanish marriage. He spent a short time in the Tower of London before he was released, having satisfied the authorities of his loyalty.
When Elizabeth came to the throne in November 1558, family connections brought Sir Arthur close to the centre of power. Kat had remained faithful to the Queen through difficult times, and Elizabeth appointed her former governess Chief Lady of the Privy Chamber. From that influential position, Kat was well-placed to advance members of her family. Sir Arthur served as Sheriff of Devon in 1561, he was MP for Totnes and Queen Elizabeth made him Vice-Admiral of the Fleet of the West. Gabriel, Comte de Montgomery, hoped to persuade Queen Elisabeth to send money and troops to aid the Huguenots, No doubt it was Sir Arthur’s close connection to the crown through Kat that encouraged him to link his daughter to Sir Arthur’s son, Gawen. He hoped Sir Arthur would be able to influence the Queen and her advisers to offer stronger support.
Sir Arthur was just as enthusiastic. His son Gawen would marry into a French noble family who shared their passionate Protestant beliefs. Considering that Sir Arthur’s own family had Norman ancestry, the idea of acquiring lands and establishing a connection with a prominent Normandy family might have also been appealing. However, Arthur’s principles didn’t prevent him from negotiating a significant financial reward for the union. It took several years to reach an agreement with the Montgomerys regarding a substantial dowry.
The queen continued to favour the Champernownes after Kat’s sudden death in 1565. As Vice-Admiral, Sir Arthur was in an excellent position to give the Huguenots practical support. He ‘stayed’ Spanish ships that were supplying the Duke of Alva, who had been sent to the Low Countries by King Phillip to suppress Protestants who were rebelling against Spain’s authority. In doing so he sometime crossed the thin line between privateering under letters of marque from the queen and piracy. A few years later, he faced court cases demanding the return of some of the goods he seized.
In 1568/69 Arthur helped his nephew, Henry Champernowne, to raise a land force. With the queen’s permission they went to France to support the Huguenots, Champernowne would eventually inherit the bulk of the family estates and would fight alongside the Huguenots in France, only to die in La Rochelle in 1570. Henry led a force of 100 soldiers, which included Arthur’s sons Gawen and Charles Champernowne. Notable amongst a group of other cousins was a young Sir Walter Raleigh. Henry and his men fought at the battle of Jarnac, where the Huguenots suffered a defeat. He returned later in the year and was credited with saving many lives during the retreat following the battle of Montcontour. Henry also acted as a conduit for information from France to Queen Elizabeth’s chief adviser, William Cecil, Lord Burghley. After Henry died in 1570 in La Rochelle, probably as a result of disease raging through the overcrowded port, Sir Arthur and the Gawen took over this role.
The young couple had no say in their marriage. Gawen, who was barely eighteen years old when they wed, had been raised to become a soldier and had assumed control of his father’s ships from a young age. Marriage seemed to hold little appeal for him. On the other hand, Roberda had been educated with the expectation that she would eventually marry.
After the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572, Sir Arthur Champernowne welcomed the Montgomery family to Dartington Hall. In my story Roberda is determined to help others with lives blighted by the conflict. But Gawen does not approve. Their differences will set them on an extraordinary path.
30 March 2024
I have drawn this article together from a range of sources including Elizabeth’s French Wars, 1562-1598 by William A Heap, which has been particularly helpful during my research for The Dartington Bride.
By Rosemary Griggs
Audiobook narrated by Rosemary Griggs
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Thank you so much for hosting Rosemary Griggs today, and with such a fascinating post.
ReplyDeleteTake care,
Cathie xx
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