Elizabeth I's Secret Lover

by Robert Stedall

  Inexplicably, Somerset failed to follow up on his victory. With Edinburgh at his mercy, he contented himself with burning Leith before retiring back across the border. This seems ‘a massive blunder’. His objective of persuading Mary Queen of Scots to marry King Edward was lost, as was his ambition to achieve ‘peace, unity and quietness’26 by making Edward the Emperor of a united Great Britain of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Without Edinburgh being taken, the Scottish Government refused to come to terms, and Marie of Guise gained time to bring in French reinforcements. The English force under Wharton was forced back to Carlisle after being defeated in the Western Marches. On 13 December 1548, Luttrell, now the English captain in the east, was pushed back at Broughly Castle. In the following July, French forces besieged Haddington leaving Somerset’s German mercenaries in fear of their lives and it fell two months later. With the English being ousted from Scotland, Mary was free to become betrothed to the French Dauphin. Arran was bought off by the French with the Dukedom of Châtelherault.

  Although the English army had performed well under Warwick and its other generals, Somerset’s failure to grasp the campaign’s strategic objective opened him to further criticism on his return to London and it was Warwick who received credit for the victory. Edward wrote: ‘Pray thank, in my name, the Earl of Warwick, and all the other noblemen and gentlemen … God granting me life, I will show myself not unmindful of their service.’27 In their absence in Scotland, Thomas Seymour had done much to undermine their authority in the Council by criticising Somerset’s administrative skills and the financial cost of the Scottish campaign. He tried to persuade the King to give instructions to the Council to transfer the Protectorate to him. After discussing it with Cheke, the King refused.

  Thomas also flirted with Elizabeth. In the spring of 1548, he visited her room in the mornings to ‘strike her familiarly on the back or on the buttocks’.28 The pubescent Elizabeth seemed flattered by his interest and may have reciprocated his attentions, but Kat Ashley considered them scandalous, and reported him to Catherine. When tackled about it, Thomas was indignant, claiming that it meant nothing. At first, Catherine dismissed it as innocent fun, even joining in with the tickling on some occasions herself, but after she became pregnant and caught him holding Elizabeth in his arms, she had her removed from the household to live with Kat at the home of Kat’s brother-in-law, Sir Anthony Denny, at Cheshunt in Hertfordshire.29 Ascham went with her. Elizabeth later wrote to Catherine ‘replete with sorrow’. Perhaps surprisingly, Jane Grey remained as Thomas’s ward, and her parents do not seem to have learned of his inappropriate behaviour. She moved with Thomas and Catherine to Thomas’s country estate at Sudeley Castle to await the birth of Catherine’s child.

  Catherine gave birth to a daughter, Mary, at Sudeley on 30 August 1548, but died from puerperal fever six days later, and Mary lived only two years. Despite Thomas’s devastation, he inherited Catherine’s very considerable wealth and tried to rekindle his suit for Elizabeth. There can be little doubt that the 14-year-old Elizabeth was rather flattered by the renewed advances of this older, but indisputably attractive man. Even Kat seems to have become wound up in the intrigue. Thomas’s main objective was to find a way to supplant his brother as Protector; marriage to Elizabeth would be a significant stepping-stone. He also ingratiated himself with the 10-year-old King by giving him pocket-money and criticising his brother’s tight supervision of him. He used his position as Lord High Admiral to promote a rebellion against the Government, for which he claimed to have raised 10,000 men. He seems to have gained the support of Sir William Sharington, Master of the Bristol Mint, and of Dorset, still hoping that Thomas would be able to arrange his daughter’s marriage to the King. Sharington embezzled £4,000 of gold from the Mint to strike coinage in support of their cause. They spent this freely and gained backing for the plan from pirates. Nevertheless, with Catherine being dead, Thomas’s power was greatly diminished, and support from among the nobility fell away.

  On his return from Scotland, Somerset called Thomas to a Council meeting to explain himself. With Thomas no longer having access to the King, he failed to appear. On 16 January 1549, he attempted to kidnap the King at Hampton Court, shooting one of the boy’s spaniels, which barked as he was trying to break into the royal apartments. He was incarcerated in the Tower after being arrested carrying a loaded pistol outside the King’s bedroom at night. Rumours of his flirtation with Elizabeth implied that she might also be involved in his treasonable plans. She was arrested with Kat Ashley. The Council was convinced of her complicity, particularly as she vehemently defended Thomas and appeared distraught at his arrest.30 Nevertheless, despite weeks of interrogation she proved ‘a master of defiance, logic and shrewdness’, providing no evidence of her involvement. Kat revealed all she knew of the flirtation, and Elizabeth had to deny as malicious slander suggestions that she was pregnant by Thomas, even offering to present herself at court to demonstrate that it was untrue.

  Although Somerset wanted to protect his brother, Warwick and the Duchess of Somerset lent weight to those who sought Thomas’s execution. He was convicted of treason but remained defiant in the hope of a royal reprieve, but Edward approved his death warrant. The loss of his pet dog had irretrievably turned him against his uncle. Thomas showed commendable bravery on the scaffold on 20 March 1549, but there was no outpouring of sympathy, and his enormous inheritance from Catherine Parr was seized by the Crown. Although Dorset avoided being charged, this put paid to any further suggestion that Jane Grey would marry the King.

  Thomas Seymour was not the Protector’s only casualty. Gardiner’s continuing efforts to retain Catholic doctrine irked Protestant members of the Council. He upheld transubstantiation, the Catholic view that the bread and wine became the body and blood of Christ during the sacrament. It was Cecil, newly appointed as Somerset’s confidential secretary and right-hand-man, who was tasked with advising Gardiner what he could or could not say in a sermon before the King, after Gardiner’s opposition to granting him royal supremacy over the church. Gardiner was incensed at having his views questioned by an upstart Cambridge graduate, who ‘showed neither learning, reverence nor respect for his elders and betters’.31 He complained that Cecil must have exceeded his authority, but Somerset confirmed to him that Cecil was acting as instructed. Gardiner retorted: ‘I mislike subjects that rule like kings to the diminishing of the King’s authority, and their own estate.’32 When he ignored Cecil’s brief, Somerset sent him to the Tower.

  Chapter 3 Somerset’s difficulties in Government

  Somerset did not find control of Government straightforward, and the public was shocked at him authorising his brother’s execution. He failed to act with sensitivity and his attempts to resolve the nation’s ills proved ‘almost universally unsuccessful’. His efforts with Cranmer to achieve a universal Protestant church were also ‘widely resented’.1 More extreme Protestants, including Warwick, saw the 1549 prayer book as too moderate and ambiguous.

  The royal exchequer had been left depleted by Henry’s fruitless military involvement on the Continent and Somerset’s incursion into Scotland. The young King became irritated that the Protector’s efforts to make economies left his royal purse short of money to provide gifts for his staff and courtiers. Meanwhile Somerset was ‘daily acquiring more and richer grants of land [and] pulled down two churches in the Strand in order to build his great palace of Somerset House’.2 Edward was aware that he had purloined the jewels given to Catherine Parr by Henry VIII, which Thomas should have inherited after her death.

  Somerset also faced ‘unprecedented social and economic turmoil’. A steady population increase was causing deep distress in rural areas. Wealthy landowners were enclosing their estates to provide pasture for increased wool production, thereby removing peasant farmers from their traditional occupations. Rural unemployment and reduced wages were emptying hamlets and villages and causing much social disturbance. A combination of inflation, changing land use and p
roperty speculation only increased the problem, causing a steep rise in grain prices.3 There was also religious conflict, sometimes between papist fathers and heretic sons.4 ‘Students and courtiers, merchants and peasants met in secret groups to study Tyndale’s New Testament and other banned books.’5 This combination of economic uncertainty and religious innovation led to rebellion. It had begun with the Pilgrimage of Grace during the winter of 1536/7 and continued to simmer close to the surface until it broke out again in Norfolk and the west country in 1549, and on several occasions inbetween.6

  Somerset was persuaded that unrest was caused by greed on the part of wealthy landowners.

  He gave away all his lands round Hampton Court to the farmers and small holders; he set up a private Court of Appeal, so that anyone who had been wronged might approach him personally; he tried to regulate the further enclosure of common land; he instituted schools where there had been chantries and monasteries.7

  This gained him an epithet as ‘The good Duke’,8 but by taking the peasantry’s side, he turned the propertied classes led by the Council firmly against him. This only encouraged disorder without relieving distress. Groups of impoverished and unemployed farmworkers started to break down enclosures and plough up pasture. Although the Council asked Somerset to make a show of strength on the landowners’ behalf, his calls for the peasantry to return to their homes went unheeded. When he called for the use of the 1549 prayer book and banned the Catholic Mass in churches, almost the whole of southern England was in revolt.9

  Somerset needed to involve the army but wanted to avoid bloodshed. With the Council opposing him, he did not dare to leave London, where he had control of the young King, and did not want Warwick or other Council members gaining in stature in command of his troops. In the end, he gave command to John Lord Russell, Sir William Lord Herbert, Sir William Lord Grey de Wilton and Northampton, Catherine Parr’s brother. Northampton was sent to regain control of Norwich, then the second city in England, which was being held by a rebel army led by Robert Kett. Kett was a landowner of some substance who had attracted several members of the Norfolk gentry to his cause. With Northampton underestimating the rebels’ strength and determination, he bungled it and had to hurry back to London after more than a hundred of his men had been slain.

  The Protector had no choice but to give command to Warwick but dithered and made several changes to his instructions. When, at last, his orders were clarified, Warwick moved quickly and decisively, but was unwell. He gathered a large body of men able to bear arms. In early August, with his sons Ambrose and Robert (who was now just 16) at his side, he led a large group of Dudley retainers to the Midlands, where he assembled 6,000 foot and 1,500 horse at Warwick Castle. Robert was given command of his own company of foot (no doubt with experienced captains at his side).10 From here, they marched towards Cambridge to join up with levies from Essex, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. On 22 August, they arrived at Wymondham in Norfolk to be billeted at the home of Sir John Robsart at Stanfield Hall. It was here that Robert first met Sir John’s only daughter Amy, whom he was later to marry. Dressed in ‘part armour, plumed helmet and scarlet sash’, he must have ‘cut a fine figure’.11

  The East Anglian landowners were seriously rattled. Their granaries had been pillaged for forage and many of their servants and tenants had joined the rebels. Some of them (including two of Robsart’s stepsons) had been captured and were being held prisoner at Norwich. The situation was complicated. Much of the rebel discontent arose from rivalries and greedy self-interest between competing landowning families.12 Many families found their allegiances split. Robsart, who was a principal Norfolk landowner, was married to Elizabeth Appleyard. Through her first husband, Elizabeth was Kett’s sister-in-law.

  On the following day, Robert said his goodbyes after his brief acquaintance with Amy. The army moved on to Sir Thomas Gresham’s estate at Intwood to make preparations to face Kett and his followers at Norwich. Warwick’s force has been variously estimated at between 7,500 and 14,000 men with a few pieces of artillery. Although many were ‘scantily trained levies, there was a hard corps of veterans and mercenaries’.13 In addition to Warwick, the army’s command included four other peers of the realm, all experienced soldiers, Northampton, Lord Grey of Powis, Lord Willoughby of Parham and Lord Bray. Kett had mustered 12,000 men ‘who made up in desperation what they lacked in military experience’.14 When conciliation failed, Warwick embarked on the unwelcome process of slaughtering his own countrymen, which he was to execute with ‘dispatch and efficiency’.15 After the failure of Northampton’s earlier mission, Warwick made a point of giving him a chance to redeem himself by commanding the attack on St Stephen’s Gate. After artillery had battered down the portcullis, Northampton headed the successful charge through the breach, making him Warwick’s undying friend. Ambrose, who was with him, also acquitted himself with distinction. When St Benedict’s Gate was thrown open, Warwick marched his army into the town to establish control. When forty-nine rebel captives were hanged, the citizens in the market square agreed to cooperate. Nevertheless, the rebels remained strategically positioned on high ground outside the gates at Mousehold Hill. They still controlled areas of the town north of the river and in the east, where they managed to capture some of Warwick’s artillery after it took a wrong turning, removing several pieces to Mousehold Hill. Hand-to-hand fighting continued without respite for the rest of the day and night, during which the rebels set light to the south-east quarter in a tactic designed to divert troops from the walls. Warwick did not fall for this and, to the citizens’ anguish, left the fires raging.

  With Norwich being difficult to defend, the City fathers lacked confidence in Warwick’s prospects and tried to encourage his departure to avoid further damage. Warwick showed all his leadership skills. He called his captains together and, in front of a large crowd of citizens, made them confirm that they would fight on the King’s behalf to the last. This bravado won the citizens’ support. When 1,100 German mercenaries arrived as reinforcements, he launched cavalry forays to cut off the rebels’ supplies. On 27 August, after leaving his infantry (including Robert) to defend the walls, he launched a massive cavalry offensive at Dussindale. This left 3,500 rebels dead as salutary retribution for Somerset’s mistaken policies.

  The Norfolk gentry and Norwich citizens rejoiced at Warwick’s success, but he called for pardon and mercy to restrain them from further vengeance to sate their sense of outrage. This aligned him with the views of the young King, who had been influenced by Cheke to call for moderation. Cheke wanted to reason with the insurgents rather than to burn them at the stake. His approach so much impressed Somerset that he was appointed to negotiate and calm the rebels’ grievances. Meanwhile Robert had time ‘to renew and deepen his friendship with Sir John Robsart’s daughter’.16

  Although Warwick’s return to London was met with ‘the cheers of a relieved populace’ and ‘the congratulations of his fellow councillors’, he received no thanks from the Protector, who failed to honour ‘the man who had just saved the country from insurrection’.17 When Warwick sought offices for Ambrose as reward for his bravery at Norwich, Somerset snubbed him by offering them to Warwick’s former steward, now one of Somerset’s secretaries. Although the emphatic victory had sown seeds of criticism of the Protector, it was ‘merely the precursor to a further round of power broking’ within the Council.18 While no one doubted that Somerset should go, many Council members sought a regency governed by committee as set out in Henry VIII’s will. Nevertheless, ‘with a child king on the throne, and two bastardized half-sisters next in succession, England needed a strong man to hold the reins of power’.19 Warwick had not initially envisaged himself as England’s political leader, but the need to end class hatred and the breakdown of social order led to his conclusion that Somerset’s protectorate should be ended.