The Six Lady St. Johns and their influence on the Court of King James I

By Elizabeth St. John

On July 20th, 1615, the six St.John sisters stood proudly commemorated in the polyptych portrait at St. Mary’s Church, Lydiard Tregoze, in Wiltshire. According to Lucy Hutchinson, author of Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson, “there were not in those days so many beautiful women found in any family as these.” She went on to say, “but my mother was by the most judgments preferred before all her elder sisters, who, something envious at it, used her unkindly.”

(L to R) Lucy, Barbara, Eleanor, Jane, Anne and Katherine

Her mother was Lucy St.John, the youngest of the six sisters, and one who would perhaps lead the most adventurous life of all of them. As a generation of women who were central to the Stuart milieu of patronage and influence, the portrait also celebrated their husbands, for at the foot of each woman rests a tablet with the coat of arms of the men they married. Only Lucy’s lozenge is blank, for although she had met her future husband, Sir Allen Apsley, they were not yet married. And yet, he arguably promoted Lucy to one of the most influential of the sisters, for shortly after the marriage he was appointed Lieutenant of the Tower of London, and they moved into The Queen’s House overlooking Tower Green.

The Queen's House, the Tower of London

For the next thirteen years, Lucy St.John looked after the prisoners and raised her children within the confines of the Tower of London. Sir Allen was generous, and gave her “a noble allowance of £300 for her own private use.” She certainly put this to good use, for her daughter goes on to say, 

“Sir Walter Raleigh and Mr. Ruthin being prisoners in the Tower, and addicting themselves to chemistry, she suffered them to make their rare experiments at her cost, partly to comfort and divert the poor prisoners, and partly to gain the knowledge of their experiments, and the medicines to help such poor people as were not able to seek physicians.”

Sir Allen Apsley did not attain his appointment a Tower on his own merit, however. Lucy St.John’s sister, Barbara, married Edward Villiers, the fatherless second son of a Leicestershire squire. However, five years later, his older half-brother, George Villiers, was made Knight of the Garter, after being “discovered” by James I. Once knighted, George Villiers ascended rapidly, a comet at the court of King James with a multitude of relatives and supporters trailing in his tail. One of these was Allen Apsley. According to contemporary court papers, Sir Allen was given the option of securing the lucrative position of Lieutenant of the Tower because of his wife’s relationship to George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham. For a mere £3,000 (£500,000 in today’s money), the job was his. 

The view from Lucy's parlour, overlooking Tower Green

Unfortunately, the close friendship that evolved between Sir Allen and the Duke did not end in harmony. Sir Allen also held the position of Victualler of the Navy, and Buckingham’s frequent forays overseas to engage in foreign wars strained the nation’s finances immensely, and placed a huge personal burden on Sir Allen as he struggled to provision a Navy that was poor on men, ships and supplies. At the time of Buckingham’s assassination in 1628, Sir Allen was almost £100,000 (£9,000,000) in debt, putting his own credit and that of others on the line to support his patron. The money was never recovered, and Lucy and her children were hauled through the courts for decades after his death in 1630 in attempts to recover funds. 

Riches and perquisites for the Ladies St.John did not stop here, however. Katherine St.John, the eldest of the sisters, married a gentleman of shrewd business acumen but shaky character, Sir Giles Mompesson. He devised a scheme of licensing inns that enabled his patron – the Duke of Buckingham – to secure thousands of pounds worth of fines to satisfy his very expensive habit of acquiring Italian artwork. Sir Giles’s method of extracting fines left a lot to be desired and in his resulting prosecution he was forced to leave the country in a hurry. However, no shrinking violet was Katherine, for when the attempt to arrest Sir Giles was made in his chambers, his escape was orchestrated by Katherine, her brother-in-law Sir William St.John, and her half-brother Sir Edward Hungerford. The St.John women were obviously very persuasive.

Barbara St. John Villiers

And what of Barbara, the sister who married Edward Villiers? She, along with her husband, nearly caused the downfall of the Duke of Buckingham through his tacit endorsement and granting of gold and silver thread monopolies. Sir Edward (he was knighted around the same time as George started his rise to fame) was involved in this scheme up to his neck, and when he forced the Attorney General to imprison several gold and silver makers for not paying fees to him, there was an immediate uproar. The House of Commons were out for blood, and although they were told that Buckingham had given his half-brother no encouragement in the matter, the reaction was such that it was felt an example should be made of Buckingham. Monopolists such as George and Edward Villiers were “bloodsuckers of the kingdom and vipers of the commonwealth,” and the furor nearly brought down the Duke.

Interestingly, Barbara maintained a secure hold on the gold and silver thread monopolies long after her husband’s death. It is quite possible that income from this lucrative opportunity could have funded the education and lifestyle of her granddaughter, another Barbara Villiers – future Countess of Castlemaine and mistress of King Charles II.

The remaining older sisters, Anne and Jane, appeared to lead fairly quiet lives, although without a doubt they observed the antics of their sisters at Whitehall. However, they were not immune from the influences of court – Anne’s husband Sir George Ayliffe left this rather touching bequest in his will:

“…to my dearest and best friend that ever I found in the world, my Ladie Villiers, my dear sister, £20 for a diamond ring, in memories of me her poor brother, who ever truly loved her and honour her even to death…”

And what of the younger sister, Eleanor? The tablet at her feet reveals she married a distant cousin, Sir William St.John of Highlight in Wales (the same gentleman who arranged the escape of Giles Mompesson). A soldier, a pirate, and a commander of the King’s Ships, Sir William was a good friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, and tragically was instructed by the Duke to arrest him in his final escape attempt before being executed.

It is fascinating to contemplate the effort required to survive and prosper during the time this generation of St.John sisters were alive. Not only were they facing the daily threat of contagion, disease and childbirth, they faced the continual challenge of relying on others to look after their interests. Thus, their life must have been an intricate dance where partners changed daily and the steps were never the same. More than four hundred years later we can look back and admire these women for their courage and dexterity.

_____________________

Photos © 2016 Anthony St.John and Elizabeth St.John

Elizabeth St.John was brought up in England and lives in California. In the course of writing her best-selling debut novel, The Lady of the Tower, she has tracked down family papers and sites from Nottingham Castle, Lydiard Park, and the British Library to Castle Fonmon and The Tower of London. Although the family sold a few castles and country homes along the way (it's hard to keep a good castle going these days), Elizabeth's family still occupy them - in the form of portraits, memoirs, and gardens that carry their imprint. And the occasional ghost. But that's a different story...

For more information about Elizabeth visit her website at elizabethjstjohn.com, or for more information about her novel, visit Lady of the Tower.

The novel The Lady of the Tower is available through Amazon. 

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon: from Commoner to Chief Minister

By Cryssa Bazos

Few commoners experienced the meteoric rise in power and influence that Edward Hyde saw. In his career, he had been named Chancellor and advisor to King Charles II, elevated to the peerage as Earl of Clarendon and grandfather to not one but two reigning monarchs, Queen Mary II (1689 to 1694) and Queen Anne (1702 to 1707). He was at heart a historian and a prolific writer; his writings formed a foundation for our understanding of the English Civil War. His most notable history was the History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England. But with any unprecedented rise, one must be mindful of the sudden drop.

Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon
by Adriaen Hanneman;
National Portrait Gallery; NPG 773

Edward Hyde was born in 1609 to a respectable middle-class family of politicians and lawyers from Wiltshire. He continued the family calling and studied law at Oxford, where upon the completion of his studies, he was admitted into the Middle Temple. In the years leading up to the civil war, he was elected to Parliament and spoke up for moderate reform. When the lines were finally drawn, his loyalty aligned him with King Charles I.

During the first Civil War, Hyde was named to the King’s Privy Counsel and given the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1645, with episodes of plague and an encroaching enemy threatening them, the King appointed Hyde as the Prince of Wales’ guardian (the future Charles II), to see his son and heir safely to the west. This was the beginning of a trusted and close advisory relationship between Hyde and Charles II. Together with Richard Fanshawe, the Prince’s secretary, the party fled to Cornwall, and Hyde continued on to Jersey with the Prince. Following the execution of Charles I, Hyde fled to the Continent with his wife and children.

Charles II (de Champaigne)
by Philippe de Champaigne; Licensed under
Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

Hyde was a staunch Royalist and Anglican, firm in his opposition to the Crown’s enemies. When Charles II sought an alliance with the Presbyterian Scots to win back his throne, Hyde did not support the young King’s choice of bedfellows, nor did he accompany him to Scotland. His reservations proved to be astute. Charles had been little more than a royal prisoner, and by the time he had seized some measure of control over his campaign, it was too late to stop the Cromwellian tide. With the King’s defeat at Worcester, on September 3, 1651, and the Prince of Wales' subsequent narrow escape to the Continent, the Royalist cause was left in shambles.

Over the next eight years, Hyde became a trusted advisor to the King in exile. In much the same way that Cromwell’s spymaster, John Thurloe, groomed a network of spies and intelligence that spread beyond England, Hyde performed a similar service for Charles, though to a lesser extent. To be fair, Thurloe retained complete control of his operation, whereas Hyde had to manoeuvre around rival Royalist factions who resented a commoner’s proximity to the King and who were desperate to deliver the crown to Charles. Hyde was caught between the Queen mother’s people (Henrietta was a great meddler in her son’s affairs) and the faction led by Prince Rupert, with both rival groups actively trying to discredit him. This would become routine even during the Restoration.

In November 1653, responding to an increasingly dysfunctional Parliament back in England, Hyde encouraged the formation of the Sealed Knot, which became the official Royalist organization to restore Charles to the throne. Its founding members were John Belasyse, Richard Willis, William Compton, Henry Hastings, John Russell and Edward Villiers. Reports and instructions were passed through Hyde. The group’s mandate was very much a reflection of Hyde’s moderate policies and at odds with the more action orientated Royalist factions. In the end, the Protectorate proved unsustainable. Following the death of Oliver Cromwell and the disposition of his heir, Richard, the monarchy was restored.

A few months after the Restoration, the Hyde family were at the centre of a royal scandal. Hyde’s eldest daughter, Anne, had entered into a secret liaison with the King’s brother, James, the Duke of York, and had become pregnant. Anne Hyde claimed that James had promised her marriage, though he initially denied it. The couple secretly married on September 3, 1660, causing a major scandal when it was finally discovered. Hyde was horrified. Though Anne was his favourite daughter, a father’s affection did not blind Hyde to the loss of opportunity for England. James was as an asset to England and should have been an instrument to solidify foreign alliances. The scandal gave Hyde’s critics the opportunity to accuse him of orchestrating the affair.

Peter Lely [Public Domain] via Wikimedia Commons

Initially, Hyde profited from his daughter’s marriage. Within a year, he became the 1st Earl of Clarendon. Over the next few years, Anne would give birth to daughters Mary and Anne, who would one-day reign as Queens of England. But in the meanwhile, his enemies were looking for ways to remove him from Royal favour.

On July 10, 1663, Hyde was impeached of high treason in the House of Lords. The articles ranged from the political—profiting from policies to the disadvantage of the nation; to the absurd: promoting Charles’s marriage to a barren Queen; to the ridiculous: encouraging Popery (oddly enough, he has been incorrectly credited with the religiously intolerant Clarendon Code which did not favour Catholics). After four days of deliberation, the impeachment was dismissed.

Rather than this eliminating his political problems, it galvanized his detractors and made them more determined to oust him from his position. Concerted rumours of his impending retirement together with his attempt to curtail Charles’s merry court succeeded in eroding his position. In August 1667, the privy seals were taken from him, and the King’s favourite mistress, Barbara Villiers, jeered at him as he left.

Plans to once again impeach Hyde over the second Dutch War reached him in time and he fled to France before they could arrest him. After his departure, an Act of Banishment was passed against him in November 1667. Sadly, he was never allowed to return to see his children and died in France on December 9, 1674.

From commoner to Chancellor to Chief Minister and finally to banished exile, Edward Hyde worked relentlessly to represent the Crown until the rival factions succeeded in bringing him low. In the end, history would remember him as a scholar, historian and grandfather of Queens.

References:

Historical Inquiries Respecting the Character of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, Lord Chancellor of England, by George Agar Ellis

Diary of Samuel Pepys

Royalist Agents, Conspirators and Spies: Their Role in the British Civil Wars, 1640-1660, by Geoffrey Smith.

Royalist Conspiracy, by David Underdown

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cryssa Bazos is a historical fiction writer and 17th Century enthusiast with a particular interest in the English Civil War. For more stories about that period, visit her blog.