by Tracy Borman
For a while, it looked as if the whole sorry affair would blow over, and Kat would be able to repair the damage done to her protégée. Elizabeth had evidently spent a good deal of time reflecting upon her stepmother’s parting words. No doubt humbled by Katherine’s benevolence and, for all her defiance, appreciating that she had instead deserved her censure, she resolved to do everything she could to make amends. Upon reaching Cheshunt, she wrote at once to her stepmother, thanking her for her kindness and assuring her that she had been “replete with sorowe to departe from your highnis.” She went on to excuse her sullenness, saying: “although I answered little, I wayed it more dipper [deeper] whan you sayd you wolde warne me of al euelles [evils] that you shulde hire of me, for if your grace had not a good opinion of me you wolde not have offered frindeship to me that way.” She concluded the note with the heartfelt words “thanke God for providinge suche frendes to me.”18
Elizabeth’s letter had the desired effect. Katherine was eager to forgive her stepdaughter’s behavior, which she no doubt put down to little more than youthful indiscretion. She may well have been right. Elizabeth’s furious protestation of her innocence, together with her subsequent resentment toward the woman who had suspected her of adultery, suggests that while she may have allowed Seymour to overstep the mark, she never conceded to his desire for a full sexual relationship. It is likely that a combination of loyalty to Katherine and a keen sense of the danger of such a relationship to her own position, prevented her from giving in to this, no matter how much she might have wanted to.
The speed at which Katherine and Elizabeth overcame this first serious challenge to their friendship is a testament to the depth of their love for each other. There is no trace of any lingering hostility in the letters they exchanged after their separation in June 1548. Katherine wrote several times to Cheshunt telling her stepdaughter how much she was missing her. Elizabeth replied to each of these with pledges of loyalty and affection. “My humbel thankes that your grace wisshed me with you til I ware wery of that cuntrye … although hit were in the worst soil in the wor [world] your presence wolde make it pleasant,” she wrote a month after their separation.19 After a time, Katherine even allowed her husband to write to Elizabeth, and the latter repaid her trust by sending a politely detached reply, thanking him for his attention but clearly putting a stop to anything more.
Although the affair quickly died down, it had taken its toll on Katherine. Heavily pregnant with her first child at the comparatively advanced age of thirty-six, the stress of it all had seriously damaged her health. Elizabeth expressed her anxiety that her stepmother had seemed very ill when the two women had parted at Hanworth, and sent regular inquiries after her health. Even though Katherine assured her that she was much recovered, she was clearly still unwell. In addition to the increasing exhaustion and discomfort of her pregnancy, she had injured her wrist so badly that she was barely able to reply to her stepdaughter’s letters. “Although your hithnys letters be most joyfull to me in absens, yet consyderinge what paine hit ys to you to write your grace beinge so great with childe, and so sikely [sickly] your comendacyon wer ynough in my Lordes lettar,” Elizabeth assured her.20
Katherine derived some comfort from removing to her husband’s beautiful castle of Sudeley in Gloucestershire shortly after Elizabeth’s departure, where she awaited the birth of her child. From there, she wrote to her husband at court, assuring him that his “little knave” was in good health and kicking her boisterously to prove it. Seymour replied that she should keep the child lean by feeding it a good diet and taking regular exercise, so that “he may be small enough to creep out of a mousehole.”21
A few weeks after issuing this wry piece of advice, Seymour joined his wife at Sudeley. Her pains began shortly afterward, and on August 30, she was delivered of a girl—not the “little knave” they had confidently expected. The baby was christened Mary in honor of her eldest stepdaughter, whose attitude toward Katherine had softened upon hearing that she was with child. Their joy was short lived, however, for Katherine soon fell prey to that most dreaded of childbed illnesses, puerperal fever. In her delirium, all the suppressed pain and humiliation caused by her husband’s betrayal burst forth, and she ranted against him as he stood by her bedside with her ladies, desperately trying to comfort her. Seizing her husband’s hand, she appealed to Lady Tyrwhit, one of the ladies present, crying: “I am not wel handelyd, for thos that be abowt me caryth not for me, but standyth lawghyng at my Gref; and the moor Good I wyl to them, the les Good they wyl to me.” In vain, Seymour tried to calm her with the assurance that he had meant her no harm. As Lady Tyrwhit later recalled, “she saed to hym agayn alowd, no my Lord, I thinke so; you have geven me many shrowd tauntes.” The more her husband tried to pacify her, the more Katherine dealt with him “rowndly and shortly.”22
Eventually, after six days of lying in this state, racked by pain and sorrow, Katherine died on September 5. She was buried the same day at Sudeley Castle. Lady Jane Grey, who had replaced Elizabeth as her protégée, was the chief mourner. Lord Seymour appeared to be genuinely grieved at the sudden loss of his wife, for whom, despite his indiscretions, he had cherished a real affection. He was reported to be “the heaviest man in the world.”23 It was he who sent news of her death to Elizabeth at Cheshunt. There is no record of her reaction, but the fact that she was shortly afterward reported to be gravely ill suggests that the news had affected her badly. From the time that Elizabeth was nine years old until two days before her fifteenth birthday, Katherine had been one of the most influential women in her life. Grief at the loss of her stepmother was no doubt mingled with guilt at the thought of the pain she had caused her. This guilt would have been intensified when she heard of Katherine’s “unquyettydd” mind as she ranted against Elizabeth and Seymour for so betraying her.
In the immediate aftermath of Katherine’s death, Elizabeth seemed determined to honor her stepmother’s memory. A number of disputes had arisen over the late dowager queen’s estates. Among the claimants was the Duchess of Somerset, wife of the Lord Protector, who tried to get her hands on one of Katherine’s London residences, Durham Place. Perhaps using this as an excuse to reestablish close contact with Elizabeth, Seymour wrote to ask her to intervene with the duchess on his behalf. He received a curt response. “In faith I will not come there, nor begin to flatter now,” Elizabeth told him.24
Her governess showed a good deal less fidelity to the late queen. Apparently having learned precious little from the scandal, she immediately started plotting to marry Seymour to Elizabeth. With unseemly haste, she told her charge that “her old husband, appointed at the king’s death, was free again, and she might have him if she wished.” This is where Elizabeth’s greater maturity, at fifteen years old, than that of her governess, by now well into her forties, is revealed. The girl immediately dismissed Kat’s foolish proposition, saying that her marriage was a matter for the king and the council to decide. She knew—as Kat should have done—that for a royal to marry without the sovereign’s permission was treason. Yet still Kat persisted. Surely Elizabeth would not refuse him if the council did give its permission? In the meantime, she ought to write to the Lord Admiral, assuring him of her continued affection. Again it was Elizabeth who had her wits about her. She refused to write, “lest she be thought to woo him.” Undeterred, her governess asked for leave to go to London and pass on Elizabeth’s good wishes—and no doubt a good deal more besides. Elizabeth would have none of it.
If she had left the matter there, Kat would have avoided a great deal of future trouble. But her preoccupation with Lord Seymour bordered upon infatuation, and she was determined to have the vicarious pleasure of seeing him married to Elizabeth. She therefore continued to wheedle and plead, praising Seymour’s qualities incessantly and insisting that Elizabeth had been the real object of his affections all along. Gradually, with nobody else to advise her, Elizabeth began to succumb to the alluring fantasy that her governess was concocting. While she s
till refused to write to the Lord Admiral herself, she agreed that Kat could do so.
Triumphant, Kat could hardly refrain from talking about the matter and evidently told her husband all about it. Perhaps not surprisingly, this resulted in a bitter row between them, and John Astley forbade her to meddle any further in the matter, warning her with some considerable foresight that “the admiral’s suitors would come to an evil end.”25 Furious at her husband’s obstinacy, Kat left for London, no doubt intending to seek out Lord Seymour, despite Elizabeth’s instructions to the contrary. Seymour evidently knew of Kat’s weakness for him and played on it, sending her a flirtatious message to inquire “whither her great Buttocks were grown eny les or no?”26
Kat stayed in London for some time but evidently failed to see Lord Seymour herself, so she sent a message to him via the cofferer Thomas Parry, a rather self-important busybody. Kat instructed Parry to assure Seymour of her own goodwill and friendship, to which he replied: “Oh, I know she is my Frend.” When Parry went on to relay Kat’s message that “she wold her Grace were your Wief of any Man’s lyvyng,” Seymour sensibly retorted that his brother, the Lord Protector, would never agree to it.27 He did, though, make a suggestion that would have been considered most improper at the time. He said that he could pay a visit to Elizabeth on his way to Sudeley Castle. Parry wrote to tell Mistress Astley this, and she, for once, showed a measure of decorum, replying that “he shuld in no weye come hether for feyr of Suspicyon.” She then went to tell Elizabeth all about it, who was “mych offendyd with her,” telling her that she should not have committed the matter to paper because then there would be proof that she knew of the proposal.28
But this was a mere show of propriety on the young girl’s part, for when Parry returned to Hatfield, she immediately besieged him, desperate to hear everything that had passed between him and the Lord Admiral. She listened, enraptured, as he told her of Seymour’s “Gentlenes and kind offeres,” and urged him to go and tell Kat what he had just told her, no doubt keen to compare notes with her governess later. Kat was every bit as excited as her protégée, if not more so.
A short while later, Kat dined with Thomas Parry and his wife in their chambers. After supper, their talk turned to Lord Seymour and the prospect of his marrying their mistress. According to Parry’s account, he expressed concern about this, saying that Seymour was “not onely a very covetouse Man, and an Oppressor, but also an evill jelouse Man.” He went on to describe “how cruelly, how dishonestly, and how jelowsly he hadd used the Quene.” Kat was having none of it. “Tushe, tushe,” she said, “that is no Matier, I know him better then ye do.” She affirmed that she “wold wishe her his Wife of all Men lyving.” Warming to her theme, she confided to Parry that the dowager queen had once found Elizabeth in Lord Seymour’s arms, and that this had been the cause of their peremptory departure from her household. Registering the shock on Parry’s face, she knew that she had gone too far. She begged him not to repeat what she had told him, and Parry assured her, “I had rather be pulled with Horses.” With one final plea for discretion, Kat took her leave.29
Parry was not true to his word. By Christmas 1548, the rumor that Lord Seymour was on the verge of taking Elizabeth as his wife was the talk of the whole court. It was said that Seymour had retained his late wife’s ladies so that they could wait upon his new bride, Elizabeth. Thanks to Kat, there was more evidence to support these rumors. She had apparently engineered clandestine visits between Elizabeth and Seymour, flouting the restraints to which an innocent young lady should have been subject—particularly one of royal blood. Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset, wife of the Lord Protector, was horrified to learn that Mistress Astley had allowed her charge to go on a romantic boat ride on the Thames at night with only Seymour for company. She exclaimed that Kat “was not worthy to have the Governance of a King’s Daughter,” and said that “another shuld have her Place, seeing that she bare to much Affection to my Lord Admyrall.”30
Things now began to unravel with alarming speed. In mid-January 1549, Thomas Seymour was arrested on the charge of high treason and committed to the Tower. A key part of the evidence against him was that he had conspired to marry the king’s sister without the council’s permission, which in itself would have been enough to send him to the block. Elizabeth was deeply shocked when she heard of it, but how much greater must her dismay have been when she was soon afterward told that her beloved Kat had also been arrested and taken to the Tower, along with Thomas Parry. “She was marvelous abashede, and ded weype very tenderly a long Tyme,” reported Sir Robert Tyrwhit, the formidable official who had been appointed to interrogate the princess at Hatfield. Elizabeth would have been fully aware of just how much danger her governess was in. Only seven years earlier, Jane, Viscountess Rochford, had proved how fatal complicity in royal affairs could be when she had been executed for helping to arrange Katherine Howard’s secret meetings with Thomas Culpepper. Was Elizabeth’s beloved Kat now to meet the same end?
The council had decided that the best way of uncovering the truth would be to interrogate Elizabeth separately from Mistress Astley and Thomas Parry so that the notes could be compared afterward and any discrepancies found out. This was the greatest ordeal Elizabeth had faced since her mother’s execution, and as she was still only an adolescent, it must have been terrifying indeed. But if she had been deprived of Kat Astley, then she could at least rely upon her old servant Blanche Parry for support. The records suggest that the latter was with Elizabeth throughout this anxious time. Tyrwhit even used her to relay messages to the princess, which must have helped soften the blow of what they contained.
At first, all three of the accused stood by their story that nothing improper had ever passed between Elizabeth and Lord Seymour, that there had been no offers of marriage, and that in any case Elizabeth would certainly not have consented to such without the council’s permission. “I never secretly moved [Elizabeth’s] affections to [Seymour] or any other, but always counselled her to keep her mind safe and at the council’s appointment,” Kat insisted. “I told her not to set her mind on it, seeing its unlikelihood.”31
Elizabeth was just as firm, and her answers to Sir Robert Tyrwhit show the strength of her loyalty toward her beloved governess. She insisted that Kat had not spoken to her about marrying Seymour, much to the frustration of Sir Robert, who clearly did not believe her. “She will no more accuse Ashley than herself,” he told his master, the Lord Protector, “and cannot now abide anybody who disapproves of her doings.”32 When he tried to cajole her into confessing her servants’ guilt on the basis that “all the Evyll and Shayme shuld be ascrybyd to them, and her Yowth consedered,” he was given short shrift. “I do parsav [perceive] as yet, she wyll abyd mo [more] Stormys, or [before] she ackews Mestrys Aschlay,” he complained.33 He had got no further a week later. Having read the transcripts of Mistress Astley’s and Parry’s interrogations and compared them with his own, he was convinced that the three must have conferred beforehand. “They all synge onne Songe,” he lamented, “and so I thynke they wuld not do, unles they had sett the Nott befor: For surly they wold confesse; or ells they could not so well agree.”34
Getting nowhere with their prisoners, the interrogators at the Tower changed tack. They moved Kat Astley to one of the darkest, most uncomfortable cells in the entire prison. Let her see how long she would continue to stand by her mistress under those conditions. Kat was wretched with terror and discomfort, as the full implications of what she had done seemed at last to sink in. Miserably she lamented her “great folly in speaking of marriage to such a person as she,” and promised that if she were allowed to return to Elizabeth, she would never commit such a transgression again. “I have suffered punishment and shame,” she went on, pleading that the council be lenient toward “this first fault.” When they showed no signs of relenting, she begged them to move her to a different cell: “Pity me … and let me change my prison, for it is so cold that I cannot sleep, and so dark that I cannot se
e by day, for I stop the window with straw as there is no glass.” It is a testament to her love for Elizabeth that despite the wretchedness of her condition, she still would not betray what had really happened with Lord Seymour. As her interrogators continued to press her, she claimed that she could not remember all the events because “My memory is never good, as my lady, fellows and husband can tell, and this sorrow has made it worse.”35
With Elizabeth still remaining tight lipped at Hatfield, she and Kat might well have weathered the storm. But their resolve was not matched by that of Thomas Parry. In the middle of February, a month after their arrest, he tried to save his own skin by telling his interrogators everything they wanted to know about Seymour’s relationship with Elizabeth. The half-dressed romps in her bedchamber, the young girl’s blushes every time he came into the room, their moonlit ride along the Thames, her being caught in his arms—everything was revealed in all its sordid detail. At last the interrogators had what they wanted. Confronted with Parry’s confession, the half-truths and falsehoods of Elizabeth and her governess would collapse like a house of cards.
“False wretch!” wailed Kat upon hearing of Parry’s betrayal. So much for being “pulled by horses”: it had taken only verbal threats to get him to tell everything. Knowing there was now no choice, she reluctantly uncovered all the details she had so firmly held back before. Yes, she admitted, Seymour had “come at” Elizabeth in her bedchamber on many occasions; he had tickled her and kissed her and cut her gown to shreds. And yes, she and her royal mistress had talked of the marriage “diverse Tymes,” and Kat had “wishid both openly and prively, that thei two were maried together.”36
When Mistress Astley had miserably confessed the whole sorry story, a messenger was dispatched to Hatfield, where a triumphant Sir Robert Tyrwhit received the news that would finally defeat his stubborn opponent. With barely concealed satisfaction, he showed Elizabeth her governess’s confession, at which “she was much abashed, and halffe Brethles,” horrified that all the lurid details of her relationship with Lord Seymour had been (literally) laid bare. After she had recovered herself, she showed a courage that was remarkable for a fifteen-year-old, refusing to implicate either Kat or Parry in the affair. “In no weye she wyll confesse, that owr Mestrys Aschlay, or Pary, wylled her to eny Practys with my Lord Admyrall, ether by Message or Wryttynge,” a dismayed Tyrwhit wrote to his master. Much to his disappointment, neither would she corroborate or deny the salacious details that they had revealed about her romps with Seymour. All that she did admit was that she had talked of the Lord Admiral “manye Times” with her governess, and the latter had tried to persuade her that he intended to marry her. She was careful to add, however, that she had told Kat that nothing could be done without the council’s consent.37
