by Tracy Borman
Kat Astley was similarly aghast at her protégée’s decision to live with Katherine Parr. She was still bitterly disappointed that her hopes for a marriage between Elizabeth and Thomas Seymour had come to nothing, and was also jealous of the woman to whom Elizabeth had become increasingly attached. Her jealousy may account for her subsequent actions, which would run counter to practically every behavior expected of a royal guardian.
Elizabeth heartily approved of her stepmother’s choice of husband—but perhaps not for entirely selfless reasons. Seymour was lively, audacious, and handsome; a magnet for the ladies of the court. Fully aware of his charms, he had a seductive self-confidence that many found irresistible—Elizabeth included. If she felt any jealousy or regret when she heard that he had married her stepmother, she did not show it. Perhaps she was glad of the change that he had brought in Katherine, who was clearly besotted with him and overjoyed to have finally married for love. In any case, she showed no compunction in joining the household of her stepmother and her new husband, even if he was her own former suitor. She did not do so lightly; she realized that by thus associating herself with Katherine, she would probably be denied the court. Although this had lost its appeal, it was still the center of political power, and Elizabeth knew that she was risking her position by forsaking it. It is a testament to the esteem in which she held her stepmother that this pragmatic young girl chose Katherine over her own political welfare.
Together with her tutor, William Grindal, and a select number of her household staff—including, of course, her governess, Kat Astley—Elizabeth joined Katherine and Seymour’s household at the pretty manor house of Chelsea in the summer of 1547. Her joy at being reunited with the most beloved of her stepmothers was not tempered by fear that she could be sent away at any time, as had happened so often when her father was alive. “Madam Elizabeth … will remain always in her company,” noted the Imperial ambassador.7
The house was situated on a beautiful stretch of land close to the river Thames, surrounded by picturesque gardens and woodland. It was a handsome building of red brick, two stories high and furnished with well-appointed rooms. It also had many amenities that would have been considered a luxury at the time, including piped water from a nearby spring. In short, it was a fitting place for a dowager queen’s retirement, and Elizabeth looked set to enjoy a very comfortable life there. As well as her stepmother, she also had another well-born young woman for company: Lady Jane Grey, her second cousin. The ambitious Seymour had struck a deal with Jane’s father, the Duke of Suffolk, whereby he bought her wardship and marriage rights for the sum of £2,000.8 The Duke later claimed that Seymour had promised to secure Edward VI as Jane’s husband, although Seymour denied this.
Chelsea proved a stimulating place for Elizabeth’s precocious mind. Together with Lady Jane Grey, who also had a considerable intellect, she enjoyed many hours of lessons with William Grindal, under the overall supervision of her stepmother. This happy arrangement would soon come to an end, however, for Grindal’s health was declining, and he died a few months after joining the dowager queen’s household, in January 1548. This was a blow to Elizabeth, who had flourished under his tutelage for the past four years. Much as she regretted his death, however, she was anxious to continue her education, and therefore asked her stepmother if Roger Ascham could take his place. Katherine had planned to offer the post to Francis Goldsmith, a loyal retainer, but she was well acquainted with Ascham and realized that he would be an even more suitable replacement. She therefore readily agreed to her stepdaughter’s request. Her confidence was well placed. Elizabeth thrived under Ascham’s careful tutorship and eagerly absorbed all the learning he could convey. Within a short time of his appointment, Ascham was writing in awe of his new pupil: “Her ears are so well practiced in discriminating all these things and her judgement is so good, that in all Greek, Latin and English compositions there is nothing so loose on the one hand or so concise on the other which she does not immediately attend to, and either reject with disgust or receive with pleasure as the case may be.” He went on to pay her an even higher compliment by the standards of the time, claiming: “Her mind has no womanly weakness … her perseverance is equal to that of a man.”9
As well as enhancing her studies, living with her stepmother brought Elizabeth other advantages. It was during this time that she first became acquainted with the man who was to play a hugely important role in her life. William Cecil, an able and ambitious young courtier, came to pay his respects to Elizabeth at Chelsea, possibly at Katherine’s invitation. The pair apparently got on well straightaway, and Elizabeth trusted this wise and assiduous man more quickly than was her custom. Cecil agreed to take on the management of her estates and revenues, and proved so effective in this task that Elizabeth entrusted him with other matters. She quickly came to rely upon his advice and guidance, particularly in affairs of state. It was this early acquaintance that laid the foundations for the partnership that was to be one of the most successful in British monarchical history.
Meanwhile, the geographical separation of Elizabeth and her sister Mary had increased the emotional distance between them. With Elizabeth living at Chelsea and Mary at New Hall in Essex, they were literally on opposite sides of the capital. On the surface, relations between them remained cordial, and they exchanged courteous letters. Mary was by far the more faithful correspondent, however, and it seemed that Elizabeth was enjoying the diversions of her new life at Chelsea too much to bother replying to all of her elder sister’s sober letters. Nevertheless, when in autumn 1547 Elizabeth learned that Mary had been unwell, she wrote to express her concern. “Good Sistar as to hire of your siknes is unpleasant to me, so is it nothinge fearful, for that I understande it is your olde gest that is wont oft to viset you, whose cominge, though it be oft, yet it is never welcome.”10 She went on to thank her for “your oft sendinge to me.” Elizabeth’s gratitude rings a little false, however, for she then declined a request to send Jane Russell, one of her servants, to attend Mary in her illness. Claiming that she was prevented from doing so by Jane’s husband, William, who had apparently refused to spare his wife even for a short while, she expressed her regret that she could not help her sister. Even if this were true, surely if Elizabeth had been genuinely concerned for Mary’s welfare, as William’s employer she could have ordered him to release his wife.
But Elizabeth was too preoccupied with her new life at Chelsea to give much thought to her elder sister. She was clearly thriving under her stepmother’s care, and the first few months that she spent in her household were the happiest and most stable she had known since that first summer with Katherine during the latter’s regency in 1544. Life was full of stimulation and excitement as she pursued her studies with one of England’s finest scholars and, during her leisure hours, enjoyed the lively company and entertainments on offer in the household. Her stepmother loved music and was acquainted with some of the greatest musicians of the age, who may have accompanied the regular dances at Chelsea.
Elizabeth was developing sexually as well as socially and intellectually, and was blossoming into a striking young woman, with the fine features and bewitching eyes of her mother, and an abundance of the trademark red hair of her Tudor forebears. She was an alluring prospect to any suitor, and a fatally irresistible one to her stepfather, Thomas Seymour.
According to Kat’s later testimony, early one morning, before the household had risen, she and her charge were shocked by the sudden appearance of the Lord Admiral in Elizabeth’s bedchamber. All innocence, he smilingly told them that he had simply come to bid his stepdaughter good morrow.11 The two women no doubt soon recovered themselves and laughed about it together, but both had been affected. Elizabeth already seemed infatuated with Lord Seymour and was seen to blush whenever he was spoken of. Kat, meanwhile, was evidently excited by such intimacy and gave little thought to its inappropriateness. When her husband, who was evidently a good deal more conscious of the potential gravity of the situation, wa
rned her not to encourage Seymour’s advances, she chose to ignore him.
Before long, Seymour’s morning visits to Elizabeth’s bedchamber had become a regular habit. And the more often he came, the more outrageous his behavior grew. Kat herself recounted: “He wold come many Mornyngs into the said Lady Elizabeth’s Chamber, before she was redy, and sometyme before she did rise. And if she were up, he wold bid her good Morrow, and ax [ask] how she did, and strike hir upon the Bak or on the Buttocks famylearly.” Things soon got out of hand. “If she were in hir Bed,” Kat continued, “he wold put open the Curteyns, and bid hir good Morrow, and make as though he wold come at hir: And she wold go further in the Bed, so that he could not come at hir.” By now, even the indiscreet Kat was alarmed, and when upon the occasion of his next visit, Seymour “strave to have kissed hir in hir Bed,” she admonished him, telling him to “go away for shame.”12
Kat had realized, too late, the dangers this flirtation could bring to her fourteen-year-old protégée. In vain she tried to restrain the Lord Admiral as he came again and again to Elizabeth’s bedchamber, dressed only in his nightgown. She reprimanded him that it was “an unsemly Sight to come so bare leggid to a Maydens Chambre,” at which he cried: “What do I do? I would they all saw it!” and stormed out in anger.13 Kat knew that he would be back, however, and, driven on by the fierce protectiveness that she had always felt toward Elizabeth, she decided to tell Lady Katherine of Seymour’s shocking behavior.
At first, Katherine dismissed Mistress Astley’s concerns, assuring her that Seymour’s antics amounted to little more than a light-hearted prank—a sign of his affection for his new stepdaughter. As if to humor the distressed governess, however, she offered to accompany her husband on his morning visits to Elizabeth in future.
Katherine’s reluctance to believe Kat has been viewed as a gross misjudgment on her part. But this is based upon the knowledge of what happened afterward. Should Katherine have shown greater caution at this stage? Perhaps not. She was renowned for her calm good sense and not accustomed to acting rashly. And she had little more to go on than the testimony of a woman who was known to be impetuous, indiscreet, and overly fond of gossip. Moreover, the evidence suggests that Katherine had scant regard for Kat Astley. The two women had been rivals for Elizabeth’s affection ever since Katherine’s marriage to Henry VIII, and each had tried to fulfil the role of mother figure during this time. It cannot have been a comfortable arrangement with them both now under the same roof. Katherine may therefore have believed that Mistress Astley was trying to stir up trouble between herself and her stepdaughter.
Katherine’s skeptical reaction to the concerns of the governess may also have been due to the closeness that existed between herself and Elizabeth. The latter’s many expressions of love and devotion to her stepmother were proof that she appreciated just how much she owed her. By the time of Henry’s death, the trust that the two women shared was seemingly unimpeachable. It is therefore to Katherine’s credit that she refused to believe that her stepdaughter would so betray her as to accept—or even encourage—the advances of her husband. Besides, she did not suspect that there was anything improper in Seymour’s behavior; she held him in too great an esteem to believe him capable of infidelity at so early a stage of their marriage.
However, when Katherine started to keep a closer eye upon her husband, she saw more than enough to corroborate Kat Astley’s suspicions. Seymour constantly sought out Elizabeth’s company and was increasingly physical in his contact with her. Rather than restraining him, Katherine became an accomplice to his “jests”—on one occasion pinning back Elizabeth’s arms as her husband cut the girl’s dress “into a hundred pieces.”14 What on earth had possessed this otherwise astute and sensible woman? By this time, Katherine was pregnant with Seymour’s child, so perhaps the hormonal disruption had clouded her accustomed judgment. Or perhaps she was so blinded by her love for her new husband that she could not see that he was deceiving her.
There is another explanation. Katherine may have known full well that Seymour’s attentions toward Elizabeth were motivated by lust, not fatherly affection as he claimed. She also knew her husband’s temperament. He was not the sort of man to be gainsaid or restrained: that would be the surest way of losing his love. She knew, too, that he lusted most after that which remained out of his grasp. Far from giving up after losing her to the king, he had remained on the sidelines, determined to take his chance if it should ever be offered again—as it was four years later. If she had insisted that he leave Elizabeth well alone, then she would only have increased the girl’s appeal in his eyes. She may therefore have judged that the best way to cure him of his temporary infatuation was to allow him the prize that he sought. Of course, she had no intention of permitting him to gain the ultimate victory of sleeping with Elizabeth, but she was apparently willing to let him taste just enough of her charms to sate his appetite.
If such it was, then her plan backfired spectacularly. Far from being satisfied by the fleeting touches and caresses that his romps with Elizabeth allowed him, these merely served to stoke his desire still further. Perhaps his wife’s condition intensified his lust, for it was believed to endanger the life of the unborn child if the mother indulged in sexual intercourse during pregnancy. Elizabeth therefore became the sole focus of his attention.
By the time the household moved to Hanworth around spring 1548, Seymour’s behavior had got so out of hand that his wife was compelled to act. She summoned Kat Astley and instructed her to “take more heed, and be as it were in watch betwixt the Lady Elizabeth and the Admiral.” It was with a certain satisfaction that the governess subsequently confided to Elizabeth’s cofferer (or principal officer of the household), Thomas Parry, that “the Quene was jelowse on hir and him.”15
Things finally came to a head when Seymour alleged that he had happened to look through a window of the house and had seen Elizabeth “cast hir Armes about a Man’s Neck.”16 This was almost certainly a fabrication on his part, designed to cover his own guilt in the matter. A short while later, Katherine, whose suspicions were by now strongly aroused, went in search of her husband and stepdaughter, and “cam sodenly upon them, wher they were all alone, (he having her in his Armes).” Outraged at being so deceived, she ordered Elizabeth to leave her house at once.17 Rather than accepting this meekly, Elizabeth doggedly insisted upon her innocence and railed against the injustice of her punishment. Such a blatant attempt to deny the truth in the face of apparently incontrovertible evidence angered Katherine even more, and the two women proceeded to have a furious row.
They were barely on speaking terms by the time Elizabeth left the household a few days later in June 1548, hardly a year since her arrival. But despite the hurt and anger at discovering her stepdaughter’s disloyalty, Katherine could not entirely relinquish the love that she felt for her. As Elizabeth, still resentfully silent, took her formal leave, Katherine impulsively told her that she would send warning if she heard that any rumors about the affair had got out. This would enable the girl to defend her reputation, which her stepmother knew was one of the most precious things she had.
Elizabeth’s dismissal from Katherine’s household had a profound effect upon the girl. The shock of it brought her immediately to her senses and made her realize the foolishness of her actions. Even if she had not committed the ultimate betrayal, she had still put her reputation in danger by allowing a married man of Seymour’s rank and profile to flirt with her so openly. As she and her servants made their way to Cheshunt, the Hertfordshire home of Kat Astley’s brother-in-law, Sir Anthony Denny, Elizabeth had cause to reflect upon the events of the previous few months. The realization of how close she had come to danger made her resolve never to be so reckless in the future.
Cheshunt provided Elizabeth with much-needed privacy while the scandal in the dowager queen’s household began to die down. Fortunately, it had not spread much further, so it seemed that Elizabeth had escaped with her reputation intact—no tha
nks to her governess. Kat might well reproach herself for her conduct in the whole affair. She had been carried along by her romantic sentiments toward Seymour, a notorious rogue, and had failed to appreciate the danger that his indecorous behavior had put her charge in, even when warned about this by her own husband. When this fact had finally dawned upon her, she had done her best to salvage the situation, but by then it was too late. Elizabeth was clearly besotted with the Lord Admiral, and her reputation had been sullied by her apparent connivance in those morning romps in her bedchamber.
But what if Kat’s failure to control her charge had done much worse harm than this? There has been speculation that by the time Elizabeth left Katherine’s household, she too was pregnant with Seymour’s child. She was kept in seclusion at Cheshunt, and Kat reported that she was sick. The nature of her illness was not specified, but she was laid low with it for some time. Shortly afterward, a rumor was circulated by a local midwife, who claimed that she had been called upon to assist a lady in a “great house,” and taken there blindfolded so that she would not know the identity of the family. She was ushered into the house and attended a young lady who was in labor. A short while later, the girl was delivered of a stillborn baby. The midwife was returned to her home, still none the wiser about who she had attended. But it did not take long for her to surmise that it must have been a lady of some importance to necessitate such secrecy. And was not the Lady Elizabeth reported to be ill at nearby Cheshunt? Surely the coincidence was too great.
But stories such as this were forever being put forward where members of the royal family were concerned. Without other evidence to corroborate it, it is at least equally possible that Elizabeth’s illness that summer was due to the stress of recent events. However far things had really gone with Lord Seymour, in a sense the damage had already been done: it was enough that people were merely speculating that Elizabeth had been defiled. In this first real test of her abilities as a guardian, Kat Astley had failed miserably.
