Elizabeth

by Philippa Jones

  … Master Tyrwhit and others have told me that there goeth rumours abroad which be greatly both against my honour and honesty, which, above all other things, I esteem, which be these, that I am in the Tower, and with child by my lord admiral [Thomas Seymour]. My lord, these are shameful slanders, for the which, besides the great desire I have to see the king’s majesty, I shall most heartily desire your lordship that I may come to the court after your first determination that I may shew myself there as I am.40

  The Protector wrote back to her to say that if Elizabeth could identify anyone who uttered such slanders against her, the Council would have them punished. Elizabeth was unwilling to accuse specific people in case it made her look vindictive. She came up with a better plan, asking the Council to stop the gossip instead:

  … if it might seem good to your lordship, and the rest of the council, to send forth a proclamation into the countries that they refrain their tongues, declaring how the tales be but lies, it should make both the people think that you and the council have great regard that no such rumours should be spread of any of the King’s majesty’s sisters (as I am, though unworthy) and also that I should think myself to receive such friendship at your hands as you have promised me, although your lordship shewed me great already. 41

  By early February, both Parry and Kat Ashley had made full and detailed statements to the Council. On 5 February, Tyrwhitt showed copies of their confessions to Elizabeth, hoping that their written disclosures might cause her to break down. Tyrwhitt was pleased to see that ‘she was much abashed and half breathless and perused all their names particularly.’

  Tyrwhitt allowed Elizabeth one night to think matters over, but when they next met Elizabeth was once more in command of herself. What had been reported was not treasonable, after all, and there was no evidence that Elizabeth was involved in a marriage plot. The exasperated Tyrwhitt wrote, ‘They all sing the same song and so I think they would not do, unless they had set the note before.’42

  After the investigations both Kat and Parry remained in prison. The Council decided that Kat had been lax in her care of Elizabeth and that she should be replaced as Governess by Lady Tyrwhitt, who had served Catherine Parr and was a puritanical Protestant. When she was told, Elizabeth replied, ‘Mrs Ashley was her mistress and she had not so demeaned herself that the Council should now need to put any more mistresses unto her.’ Rather lacking in tact, Lady Tyrwhitt replied, ‘seeing she did allow Mrs Ashley to be her mistress, she need not be ashamed to have any honest woman to be in that place.’ The teenage Elizabeth wept and then sulked. Tyrwhitt reported her despair at losing Kat and her hope that she might recover Kat as her mistress one day: ‘The love she beareth her is to be wondered at.’43

  Tyrwhitt noted that she was also protective of Thomas Seymour: ‘She beginneth now a little to droop by reason she heareth that my Lord Admiral’s house be dispersed. And my wife telleth me now that she cannot bear to hear him discommended but she is ready to make answer therein; and so she hath not been accustomed to do, unless Mistress Ashley were touched, whereunto she was very ready to make answer vehemently.’44 Elizabeth was loyal to those she counted as friends. She wanted Kat Ashley back, a woman who had been like a mother to her in many ways, and she would not hear anything against Thomas, who may have been the first man she loved.

  Others were not so loyal, and so Thomas’s fortunes were doomed from the moment of his arrest. While Elizabeth and servants such as John Harington might stand firm, others did not – the nobles with whom he had discussed his plans came forward, his servants spoke out against him, and even the King reported conversations with Thomas that indicated some treasonable intent. The Council charged him with treason, producing 39 articles of treasonable activities, including that he ‘had attempted and gone about to marry the King’s Majesty’s sister, the Lady Elizabeth, second inheritor in remainder to the Crown.’45

  Thomas demanded an open trial to face his accusers. The Council, headed by Thomas’s brother, Edward Seymour, asked the King for an Act of Attainder to bypass the need for a trial, which was granted. Thomas finally spoke out: he had meant no harm to the King or the Protector, and had long given up his pursuit to share power. To prevent Edward Seymour showing leniency to his brother, the other Council members went to the King on 10 March to ask for the authorization to act without him. This, too, was granted.

  On 20 March, Thomas Seymour was beheaded on Tower Hill. Even on the scaffold, Thomas refused to make the usual confession, leading Bishop Latimer to say of him, ‘Whether he be saved or no, I leave it to God, but surely he was a wicked man, and the realm is well rid of him.’46

  3

  The First Child?

  Elizabeth’s reaction to Thomas Seymour’s execution remains a matter of conjecture. Whether or not she had been privy to, or part of, a secret marriage plot with Thomas, this was without a doubt her first intimate relationship with a man and as such would influence the way she thought of men in her future dealings with them, both before and after she became Queen. Fraught, as they were, with political intrigue and emotional turbulence, her experiences with Seymour, even without the added complications of a possible secret pregnancy and child, were not likely to change the difficult and unhealthy vision of marriage that Elizabeth had formed, while still a child, as she observed firsthand the tragic outcomes of her father’s relationships with his wives.

  If, as rumours at the time suggest, Elizabeth did have an illegitimate child with Thomas Seymour, it was most likely to have been conceived in 1548, when she was living in Catherine Parr’s household. There is no doubt that Elizabeth felt a fascination for Thomas, who was an extremely attractive and virile man, moreover one extremely popular with women. Whether his subsequent behaviour in visiting her bedroom while she was in bed and his other advances were solicited or not, it appears that Elizabeth did feel some form of passion for him. A more principled man would have made sure that if a young girl, particularly his wife’s ward, developed a crush on him nothing came of it, but Thomas seemed singularly lacking in principles; in any case, he was pursuing an agenda of his own.

  Common sense and a well-developed sense of self-preservation should have told Thomas that the King’s sister should be off-limits. Thomas, however, was arrogant to the point of being self-destructive. His impulsive personality and imperious manner meant that he simply went ahead with his desires: if he had wanted Elizabeth and she had seemed willing, he would have justified his actions by arguing that when his plans matured, he would be a major power in the country and no one would be able to punish either of them for any untoward behaviour.

  In order to find out the truth and extent of Thomas and Elizabeth’s relationship, we need to explore what was said during the discussion that took place between Elizabeth and Catherine in May or June 1548, just before Elizabeth was sent away from Chelsea. None of Catherine’s letters to Elizabeth survive, but the first letter from Elizabeth to her stepmother after their parting shows no sign that they parted bitterly. If anything, Elizabeth seems to be thanking Catherine for being kind and supportive. This supports the contention that Elizabeth was sent away not as a result of Catherine’s own jealousy, but to save her. But, if that is the case, what was Catherine trying to protect Elizabeth from? The loss of her reputation? Thomas? Or was she protecting a young girl in possession of an explosive secret – should it become common knowledge?

  Is it possible that when they spoke, Elizabeth broke down and told Catherine that she might be pregnant? That would explain Catherine’s desire to get Elizabeth away from the house – and from Thomas Seymour – as soon as possible to the Dennys, a safe place. It could also explain Catherine’s promise to let Elizabeth know ‘of all evils’ people might speak of her – that is, to warn her if any hint of the pregnancy ever surfaced. It could also demonstrate a closing of ranks by Catherine and Elizabeth to protect Thomas despite his selfish, philandering behaviour.

  The time frame also works: Catherine and Thomas had married in April or
May 1547 and, as Catherine gave birth in August 1548, she probably fell pregnant in December. Thomas appears to have begun his pursuit of Elizabeth as early as the summer of 1547, but it would most likely have been after his wife knew that she was pregnant, in February or March 1548, that he began a physical relationship with Elizabeth.

  If Elizabeth had fallen pregnant soon after that, by May or June when she left Catherine’s household, she may have been about three months along, a time when a pregnancy would have begun to show. She may have had no choice but to tell Catherine of her situation, but very few people other than her stepmother needed to be involved in keeping the secret. She would, of course, have needed the help of Blanche Parry and Kat Ashley (the latter was so loyal she would later continue to protect Elizabeth while interned in the Tower of London). Finally, Lord and Lady Denny, who were the sister and brother-in-law of Kat Ashley, gave her sanctuary and also closed ranks around the teenage princess, allowing her to take to her bed over the next six months.

  In September, when Catherine died and Elizabeth was said to be suffering bouts of ill health, she could have been seven or eight months pregnant. No one but her closest servants would ever have seen her unclothed. Even a doctor would have been forbidden to look at a naked female patient. The ‘illnesses’ would explain any sickness or prolonged bed rest; any apparent ‘swelling’ of her abdomen could be explained away as resulting from a kidney complaint.

  This timing would put the birth of the child in October or November 1548. If this was the case, it would tie in with Elizabeth’s letter to the Protector in January 1549, when she wrote concerning rumours ‘… that I am … with child by my Lord Admiral. My lord, these are shameful slanders, for the which besides the great desire I have to see the King’s Majesty, I shall most heartily desire your lordship that I may come to Court after your first determination, that I may show myself there as I am.’1

  In January Elizabeth would have been able to face her interrogators in person; she could come to Court and show that she was not pregnant; she may even have permitted a discreet examination of her person, because by that time she was not pregnant any more.

  Even at this young age, Elizabeth had political enemies who would have been happy to see her removed from the succession, disgraced or dead. To the latter group belonged the Catholics who feared that the Protestant Edward VI might decide to pass over the Catholic Princess Mary or Mary, Queen of Scots and leave the throne to Elizabeth. Another faction supported an alternative Protestant heir, particularly Frances Grey, Duchess of Suffolk, and her eldest daughter, Lady Jane Grey.

  Elizabeth’s supporters, on the other hand, came from a wide spectrum of Court and country. Many Protestants preferred Elizabeth over her Catholic half-sister Mary as Edward VI’s successor, should he die without an heir. There were even some who saw her as a possible focal point for an as yet unplanned rebellion. Elizabeth’s mother’s paternal family, the Boleyns, and her extended maternal family, the Howards, also saw her as their chance to recapture their old greatness if she came to the throne. But at the heart of things, it was Elizabeth’s personal servants and their families who were personally devoted to her and who helped her most at Cheshunt. There, Elizabeth would have been surrounded by well-wishers who could cover up her pregnancy and help her place the child in a suitable home, once it was born.

  If it was true that Thomas had made her pregnant, at some point in October or November 1548, Elizabeth gave birth to a child. Directly afterwards, Elizabeth left Cheshunt and moved to Hatfield. This arguably might have served to draw all eyes away from the Dennys and their task of placing the baby somewhere safe, but there were rumours, both at the time and later on regarding this. There was the story of a London midwife, taken one night to the Great House in the village of Hamstead Marshall in Berkshire, where she was called upon to assist a fair young lady give birth. As soon as the child was born, it was reportedly murdered by a ferocious gentleman who attended the lady. The horrified midwife was generously rewarded and returned home, only to die several days later after being poisoned.2 That the ‘fair young lady’ might have been Elizabeth seems to be supported by the fact that the Great House at Hamstead Marshall belonged to Sir Thomas Parry. However, the house only passed to Parry in 1559, long after these events were said to have taken place. Furthermore, rumours like this were not uncommon.

  This story might not be as wild as it seems, though. The Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, a biography of one of Mary I’s ladies-in-waiting who married the Spanish Duke de Feria, was written during Elizabeth’s lifetime. It includes the passage:

  In King Edward’s time what passed between the Lord Admiral, Sir Thomas Seymour and her Doctor, Latimer preached in a sermon, and was a chief cause the parliament condemned the Admiral. There was a bruit of a child born and miserably destroyed, but could not be discovered whose it was; only the report of the mid-wife, who was brought from her house blindfold thither, and so returned, saw nothing in the house while she was there, but candle light; only, she said, it was the child of a very fair young lady. There was muttering of the Admiral and this lady, who was then between fifteen and sixteen years of age. If it were so, it was the judgment of God upon the Admiral; and upon her, to make her ever after incapable of children … The reason why I write this is to answer the voice of my countrymen in so strangely exalting the lady Elizabeth, and so basely depressing Queen Mary.3

  Dating from the early 1600s, the account is close to contemporary with Elizabeth’s life, but it should be noted that Jane Dormer was one of Mary I’s closest friends and a fanatical Catholic who disliked Elizabeth enormously while the references to Elizabeth may have been meant to discredit her. They probably also act as a gauge of public rumours at the time.

  Another possibility is that Elizabeth did fall pregnant, but she never carried the child to term, either miscarrying while she was at Cheshunt, or aborting it and this might explain why there is no positive trace of her child. In any event, by January 1549 Elizabeth could demonstrate that she was not pregnant.

  Those researchers who believe that Elizabeth did give birth to a healthy child have endeavoured to identify it over the years. Historian Paul Streitz suggests that the infant boy was given to John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford, and his wife, Margery Golding (who later became a maid of honour to Elizabeth I), and was brought up as Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

  The young de Vere did seem to have a ‘guardian angel’ – or an influential parent. When John de Vere died in 1562, Edward became a ward of Court and was placed in the household of William Cecil, Elizabeth I’s Secretary of State and one of the most influential men in England. De Vere later attended Queen’s College, Cambridge, and was awarded a Master of Arts degree from both Cambridge and Oxford. He continued his education at the Inns of Court, where, in July 1567, he killed a cook named Thomas Bricknell while fencing. The jury was told the far-fetched story that an intoxicated Bricknell had thrown himself onto de Vere’s blade,. The resulting verdict was suicide and by this decision, Bricknell’s pregnant widow and child were stripped of his possessions by the state.

  In 1571, the 21-year-old de Vere married Cecil’s favourite daughter, 15-year-old Anne. The couple had a son and four daughters, but de Vere accused her of adultery (at one time he refused to acknowledge one of his daughters) and abandoned her several times. He had innumerable affairs with women and men, and in 1581 he had an illegitimate son (Sir Edward Vere) by Anne Vavasour. After spending some years travelling abroad, he became a Catholic for a short time before confessing all to Elizabeth I, giving up the Catholic Church and betraying his Catholic friends as traitors.

  By the 1590s de Vere had lost most of his wealth, but he managed to retrieve his position by marrying the wealthy heiress Elizabeth Trentham, who would give him his heir, Henry de Vere, in 1592. De Vere died at King’s Place, Hackney, on 24 June 1604. During his last years he received no financial assistance from Elizabeth I and was rejected as a Knight of the Garter. He is most probably best r
emembered as one of the great Elizabethan courtier poets – and, some claim, as the author of the works attributed to Shakespeare.

  One problem with this theory is that the accepted date of birth for Edward de Vere is 12 April 1550, at Castle Hedingham, Essex (home of the Earls of Oxford). The timeline for Elizabeth’s affair with Thomas Seymour suggests that makes it impossible for de Vere to be Elizabeth’s child. Elizabeth was sent away from Chelsea in May or June 1548; Thomas was arrested on 17 January 1549 and executed in March. Early January is therefore the last time they could have had sexual relations, meaning that the very latest birth date of their child would have to be October 1549, a good six months before de Vere was born.

  Furthermore, evidence suggests that if Thomas and Elizabeth did have a sexual relationship, it occurred before Elizabeth left Catherine Parr’s household in mid-1548, putting the birth no later than early January 1549 (before her interrogation and subsequent house arrest began). Although it might be possible to disguise the date of a baby’s birth by a few months, it would be impossible to persuade anyone that a child of a year or more might be newborn.

  If we assume that Elizabeth gave birth late in 1549, and that the baby survived, I believe there are other candidates who better fit the bill.

  The Bisham Babies

  On his Royal Berkshire History website David Nash Ford records, ‘The parish church at Bisham [near Marlow], claims among its many huge monuments a “small sculptured memorial” to Queen Elizabeth’s two sons, which sadly I have been unable to locate.’4 Bisham Church is famous for its magnificent monuments to the Hoby family, who lived in nearby Bisham Abbey, a monastic building that fell into private hands with the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII.