The House of Tudor

by Alison Plowden

  Although the Admiral was now hardly bothering to conceal his eagerness to put an end to the Protectorate, dropping broad hints about his plans and boasting of his strength in the country to anyone who would listen to him, he was no nearer to getting his hands on Edward than he had ever been. Elizabeth also remained out of his reach. But in the princess’s household, once more established at the palace at Hatfield, there was much excited speculation about his intentions. Katherine Ashley, who was already hearing wedding bells, told her charge that now ‘her old husband’ was free again, he would be sure to come wooing before long. To the romantic Mrs. Ashley it looked like a happy ending. Thomas Seymour had, after all, been considered worthy to marry the Queen and was ‘the noblest man unmarried in this land’. Such a fine figure of a man, too. What could be more suitable for her beloved princess?

  The Admiral, in fact, still had just enough sense not to come wooing in person but he was taking a close, almost a proprietorial interest in Elizabeth’s affairs, cross-examining her steward, Thomas Parry, about the state of her finances, the whereabouts of her landed property, the number of servants she kept and the details of her housekeeping expenses. Gossip soon began to link their names and it was being whispered that the Admiral had kept the late Queen’s maids together to wait on the Princess Elizabeth after they were married.

  In November, Lord Russell, the Lord Privy Seal, tried to warn Thomas Seymour - pointing out that any Englishman who attempted to marry either of the princesses would undoubtedly procure unto himself the occasion of his utter undoing’ and Thomas, who was so closely related to the King, would be particularly at risk. After all, observed old John Russell, it was a well-known fact that both Henry VII and Henry VIII, although wise and noble princes, had been famous for their suspicious natures. What, therefore, was more likely than that Edward would take after his father and grandfather in this respect? If one of his uncles married one of the heirs to his crown, he would inevitably think the worst, *and, as often as he shall see you, think that you gape and wish for his death’.

  But Thomas Seymour was past listening to advice. He continued to conduct his courtship of Elizabeth through the willing agency of Parry and Mrs. Ashley. Like most adventurers, the Lord Admiral was extremely plausible and perhaps the steward and the governess can hardly be blamed for failing to realize just how flimsy was the flamboyant façade he presented to the world. But one person did realize it. Although the fifteen-year-old Elizabeth could not entirely conceal the ‘good will’ she still felt for the Admiral, her behaviour, compared with those who were supposed to be caring for her, was a model of discretion. She had not responded to Mrs. Ashley’s eager promptings and when Thomas Parry had the temerity to ask her outright whether, if the Council approved, she would marry the Admiral, she snubbed him sharply. The Tudor princess was fully alive to the dangers of being drawn into anything which might be construed as secret correspondence with a man committed to opposing the lawful government. Nor had she forgotten the clause in her father’s will which laid down that if she or Mary married without the consent of their brother and his Council, they would forfeit their right of succession to the throne.

  The New Year came in and the Lord Admiral’s career approached its predestined climax. Tales of his various ‘disloyal practices’ had become too numerous and too circumstantial to be ignored any longer and in January 1549 the faction headed by John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, which had been waiting patiently for the Seymour brothers to destroy one another, decided that the time had come to start applying pressure on the Duke of Somerset. The Protector seems to have made a last minute effort to avert disaster by trying to send Thomas abroad, but it was too late - Lord Seymour of Sudeley had already tied a noose round his neck with the rope so generously paid out to him. He was arrested on 17 January and the Council started on the business of rounding up his associates. John Fowler of the Privy Chamber, Katherine Ashley and Thomas Parry were all taken away for questioning, while Sir Robert Tyrwhit was sent down to Hatfield to extract a confession from the Princess Elizabeth.

  When Elizabeth was told that her governess and her steward had been arrested ‘she was marvellous abashed and did weep very tenderly a long time’, demanding to know whether they had confessed anything or not. This sounded promising and Robert Tyrwhit did not anticipate any difficulty in getting a useful statement out of her. All the same, their first interview was disappointing. The princess, it seemed, had nothing to tell him and Tyrwhit felt obliged to warn her ‘to consider her honour and the peril that might ensue, for she was but a subject’. Having allowed Anne Boleyn’s daughter to digest this scarcely veiled threat. Sir Robert went on to advise her to be frank with him. If she would ‘open all things herself, then her youth would be taken into consideration by the Protector and the Council and the ‘evil and shame’ ascribed to Mrs. Ashley and to Parry, who should have taken better care of her. But this was not the way to approach Elizabeth Tudor, always fiercely loyal to her friends. ‘And yet’, wrote Tyrwhit, ‘I do see it in her face that she is guilty, and do perceive as yet she will abide more storms ere she accuse Mistress Ashley’.

  At their next interview Elizabeth told Sir Robert how the Admiral had kindly offered her the use of Seymour Place when she came up to London to sec the King (Durham House, where she usually stayed, being temporarily unavailable); how she had once written him a note asking some small favour for her chaplain; how there had been a suggestion that the Admiral might pay her a visit but Mrs. Ashley had thought perhaps better not, knowing how people gossiped. It was all very innocent, very trivial and quite beside the point -just the ordinary friendly intercourse between two members of the same family. Still, it was a start and Tyrwhit hoped that more would follow now that he had begun ‘to grow in credit’ with the princess. At the same time, he told the Protector, ‘I do assure your Grace she hath a very good wit, and nothing is gotten of her but by great policy.’

  42 Katherine Parr, a portrait attributed to William Scrots.

  43 Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and brother of Jane Seymour. On Henry’s death he became Lord Protector for his nephew, Edward. A miniature by Nicholas Milliard.

  44 The Lord Protector’s brother, Thomas Seymour, who married Henry VIII’s widow, Katherine Parr.

  45 Edward VI, a portrait by an unknown artist.

  46 The coronation procession of Edward VI. The procession is seen leaving the Tower, moving along East Cheap and down the Strand to Charing Cross and Westminster.

  47 Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, father of Jane, Katherine and Mary Grey; an engraving after a contemporary portrait.

  48 Frances Brandon, Dowager Duchess of Suffolk, with her second husband, Adrian Stokes, her Master of Horse and sixteen years her junior, painted by Hans Eworth, 1559.

  49 John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. Having successfully deposed Somerset, Dudley married his own son to Lady Jane Grey intending to make her queen on Edward’s death.

  50 Lady Jane Grey, the unfortunate victim of Northumberland’s plotting.

  51 The reign of Queen Jane; contemporary woodcuts.

  In her present predicament Elizabeth needed all the wit and self-control she could muster. Utterly alone, her household full of strangers and spies, she was being called upon to answer the kind of charge - based chiefly on tittle-tattle and innuendo -which IS always most difficult to refute. She faced hours of skilled and relentless questioning, designed to trap her into admissions which would have ruined her good name and quite possibly cost her her place in the succession. Her liberty, her whole future might very well be at stake. And she was still only fifteen years old. Tyrwhit tried all the tricks of the interrogator’s trade but on 28 January, after more than a week of unremitting effort, he was obliged to report: ‘I have practised with my lady’s grace by all means and policies to cause her to confess more than she has already done. But she does plainly deny that she knows any more than she has already opened to me.’

  The Protector himself had now writte
n to Elizabeth, counselling her ‘as an earnest friend’ to declare all she knew. This was the opportunity Elizabeth had been hoping for and she took it with both hands. Her reply to Somerset, polite but businesslike and written in the exquisitely legible Italic script she had learned from Roger Ascham, is by any standards a masterpiece of its kind. There had never at any time been any sort of secret understanding with the Admiral and neither Mrs. Ashley nor Parry had ever advised her to marry anyone without the full consent of the King’s Majesty, the Protector and the Council. Even if they had, she herself would never have agreed to such a thing. She had already told Robert Tyrwhit everything she knew about her own and her servants’ contacts with Thomas Seymour since the Queen’s death, but if she remembered anything further, she would either write it herself ‘or cause Master Tyrwhit to write it’. Her letter ended with an indication of the sort of methods being used to break her resistance. ‘Master Tyrwhit and others have told me that there goeth rumours abroad which be greatly 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. 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.’

  Elizabeth Tudor had defended herself and her friends against the most unwarrantable accusations with courage and dignity, and had more than hinted that she would expect an official apology. Unfortunately, though, neither her much loved governess nor her steward possessed the stalwart qualities of their mistress. Under interrogation in the Tower, first Parry and then Katherine Ashley broke down and made long, verbose statements. These were rushed to Hatfield where, on 5 February, Robert Tyrwhit was able to confront the princess with her servants’ ‘confessions’. ‘She was much abashed and half breathless’ he reported and studied the signatures with particular attention, although, as Tyrwhit remarked, she knew both Mrs. Ashley’s hand and the cofferer’s ‘with half a sight’. He went on, ‘I will tomorrow travail all I can to frame her for her own surety and to utter the truth.’

  But by the next day Elizabeth had recovered her poise. It was, of course, acutely humiliating to see the intimate details of those merry romps at Chelsea and Han-worth set down in writing for everyone to read. It was humiliating but it was not remotely treasonable. There was still no evidence whatever that Elizabeth, or Mrs. Ashley, or Thomas Parry had been involved in any sort of plot. So, when Tyrwhit returned to the attack, the princess graciously allowed him to take down her own ‘confession’ which, apart from a few unimportant details, contained absolutely nothing new. ‘They all sing the same song’, wrote Tyrwhit in exasperation, ‘and so I think they would not do, unless they had set the note before.’

  The Council now appointed Sir Robert’s wife to replace Mrs. Ashley as the princess’s governess, hoping that the princess would ‘accept her service willingly’. The princess would not. She cried all that night and ‘lowered’ at Lady Tyrwhit all the next day - signs that prolonged strain was having its effect. ‘She beginneth now a little to droop’, Tyrwhit reported towards the end of February, ‘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.’

  The Admiral had, of course, been doomed from the moment of his arrest. Although Elizabeth herself had turned out to be such a disappointing witness, there was no lack of evidence from other sources. Even the King obligingly recalled the details of certain conversations with his uncle, and those gifts of pocket money, once eagerly accepted, were now produced as evidence of treasonable intent. Since Parliament was still in session, the Council decided not to accord Thomas Seymour the courtesy of an open trial, but to proceed against him by means of an Act of Attainder - a cheap and convenient method of dealing with enemies of the State. First, though, the consent of the victim’s two closest relatives must be obtained and on 24 February, ‘after the King’s majesty had dined’, the full Council assembled in his presence. The Lord Chancellor ‘declared forth the heinous facts and treasons of the Admiral’, adding that the prisoner had obstinately refused to answer any of the charges except in open trial. Everyone then cast their votes in favour of remitting the matter to his Majesty’s high court of Parliament. When it came to the Protector’s turn, he said - and he had very little choice, after all - that deeply distressing though the case was to him, his first duty must be to the King’s majesty and the crown of “England, for he ‘did weigh more his allegiance than his blood’. Now it was up to the King. Was he going to make any effort to help his kind uncle? He was not. ‘We do perceive’, announced the eleven-year-old Edward Tudor, ‘there is great things which be objected and laid to my lord Admiral mine uncle, and they tend to treason; and we perceive that you require but justice to be done. We think it reasonable, and we will well that you proceed according to your request.’ At these words, ‘coming so suddenly from his Grace’s mouth of his own motion’, the assembled company, greatly relieved by his Grace’s admirably unsentimental attitude, gave him ‘most hearty praise and thanks’.

  Thomas Seymour was executed on Tower Hill on 20 March but unlike that other Queen Dowager’s widower who had suffered a similar fate in the market square at Hereford nearly ninety years ago, the Lord Admiral left no posterity to alter the course of history. Little Mary Seymour, stripped of her inheritance and abandoned to the reluctant care of the dowager Duchess of Suffolk - once one of Queen Katherine Parr’s closest friends - disappeared from sight and is believed to have died in childhood.

  The indifference which Edward had shown over the downfall of his uncle Thomas had been noted by the Earl of Warwick and had encouraged that intelligent individual - now in the final stages of preparing his own bid for power -to hope that the King would be equally indifferent to the fate of his other Seymour uncle. Events soon began to play into Warwick’s hands. The year 1549 was marked by a general and increasing popular discontent - due partly to economic hardship caused by rising prices and widespread unemployment, and partly to an angry reaction in the more backward rural areas against the sweeping religious changes introduced since King Henry’s death. This discontent presently erupted into two quite serious revolts, one in the West Country and one in Norfolk, which caused considerable alarm among the propertied classes. Somerset’s high-minded liberalism might earn him the title of ‘the Good Duke’ among the common people, but his merciful attitude towards rebellious common people did not endear him to the nobility and gentry, who turned thankfully to the Earl of Warwick - a capable soldier with no tiresome notions about the rights of the poor.

  Meanwhile, the Protector’s growing arrogance and intolerance of opposition were also alienating his colleagues on the Council and his friend William Paget, who had done so much to help him attain his elevated position, warned him bluntly that unless he showed more consideration in debate and allowed other people freedom to speak their minds, he would soon have cause to regret it. But Paget had no more success in trying to warn the elder Seymour than John Russell had once had with the younger. Somerset, increasingly harassed and worried by the failure of his policies at home and abroad, seems to have been no longer able to face the realities of the political scene and had taken refuge behind a smokescreen of irascibility. His public image, too, had been fatally damaged by his brother’s death -just as the Earl of Warwick had known it would be. His outwardly cold-blooded reaction to the Admiral’s attainder and execution had disgusted a lot of people who now, most unfairly, stigmatized him as a fratricide, ‘a blood-sucker and a ravenous wolf.’

  In mid-September Warwick returned triumphantly to London after suppressing the rebellion in East Anglia. As well as being the hero of the hour, he now had a well-armed and vic
torious body of troops ready at his command. This was clearly the moment for a move to dislodge the Lord Protector from his shaky throne. Towards the end of the month, the citizens of London were surprised to see those members of the Council who followed Warwick’s lead going armed about the streets, ‘their servants likewise weaponed, attending upon them in new liveries’. There was much coming and going at the Earl’s house in Holborn and rumours were flying round the city that the confederates were planning to seize the Tower.

  Somerset was with Edward at Hampton Court when he learnt that the London Lords, as Warwick’s party had become known, intended to pay him a ‘friendly’ visit. Only two members of the Council had remained at his side and only about five hundred men - some of his own and some wearing the royal livery - were available to guard the palace. Realizing his danger somewhat late in the day, the Protector sent out anguished appeals for reinforcements and issued a proclamation in the King’s name, commanding ‘all his loving subjects with all haste to repair to his Highness at his Majesty’s manor of Hampton Court, in most defensible array, with harness and weapons, to defend his most royal person and his most entirely beloved uncle the Lord Protector, against whom certain hath attempted a most dangerous conspiracy.’