The Men Who Would Be King (5 page)

Although I could not be plentiful in giving thanks for the manifold kindnesses received at Your Highness's hand at my departure, yet I am something to be borne withal, for truly I was replete with sorrow to depart from Your Highness, especially leaving you undoubtful of health, and albeit I answered little I weighed it more deeper when you said you would warn me of all evils that you should hear of me, for if Your Grace had not a good opinion of me you would not have offered friendship to me that way, that all men judge the contrary, but what may I more say than thank God for providing such friends to me.

So wrote Elizabeth to her stepmother. It was a forlorn letter, but the style and the exquisite, even handwriting showed a control far beyond her years. The girl who answered little but stood weighing matters the “more deeper” was learning, painfully, to suppress her emotional responses.

Catherine was pregnant and unwell at the time. During Thomas's temporary absences she exchanged bantering letters with him about their “little knave”—they took it for granted that their baby would be a boy—and Thomas teasingly instructed his wife to “keep him so lean and gaunt with your walking and good diet that he may creep out of a mousehole.” Elizabeth wrote, with a sad attempt at lightheartedness, “If I were at his birth, no doubt I would see him beaten for the trouble he has put you to.” Kind and sensible as ever, Catherine kept up an affectionate correspondence with her stepdaughter after their parting, and encouraged Thomas to write to her as well. “He shall be diligent to give me knowledge from time to time how his busy child doth,” Elizabeth wrote gratefully. At the end of August 1548, the child was born; it was a girl. Eight days later, Catherine died, raving with puerperal psychosis. There was a pathetic little scene shortly before her death, when, holding Thomas's hand, she cried deliriously, “Those that be about me careth not for me, but stand laughing at my grief, and the more good I will to them, the less good they will to me.” Puzzled, the admiral answered, “Why sweetheart, I would you no hurt,” but Catherine drew him close and whispered sinisterly, “But my Lord, you have given me many shrewd taunts.” With the anxious, blundering tenderness of a strong man in a sickroom, Thomas lay down on the bed beside her, to see “if he could pacify her unquietness with gentle communication,” but she only became more anguished.

For a few days after her death Thomas was dazed with grief—“so amazed, that I had little regard either to myself or to my doings,” he wrote later. Temporarily he had no heart to carry on with any of his plans, and little Lady Jane Grey, whom he had taken into his household with the intention of marrying her to the young king, was bundled home to her bullying parents, the Marquess and Marchioness of Dorset.

A long, gossipy conversation took place soon after Catherine's death, between Thomas's servant Wightman and Sir Nicholas Throckmorton. Having “debated the great loss my Lord had by reason of her departure,” they went on to speculate about the admiral's future. Throckmorton said piously that he hoped the loss of “so notable a wife” would “make him more humble in heart and stomach towards my Lord Protector's Grace,” and added that “it stood my Lord upon to alter his manners, for the world beginneth to talk very evil-favoredly of him, both for his slothfulness to serve, and for his greediness to get, noting him to be one of the most covetous men living.” Then, significantly, he remarked, “My Lord Admiral is thought to be a very ambitious man of honour, and it may happen that, now the Queen is gone, he will be desirous for his advancement to match with one of the King's sisters.” Since it was laid down in Henry VIII's will that Mary and Elizabeth might only marry with the council's consent, it would be treason for Thomas to seek Elizabeth without its permission, and that, as Wightman replied to Throckmorton, “must needs be his utter ruin and destruction.”

Thomas's grief over Catherine's death did not last long; his defiant swagger soon returned to him. He had no intention of humbling himself to the protector, or of sweetening his reputation, but on the contrary became more determined than ever to increase his power. On September 17, within a fortnight of his wife's death, he began to negotiate with the Dorsets for the return of their daughter Lady Jane Grey to his care; the eleven-year-old girl was fourth in line to the throne and as such she was wrangled over like any other piece of valuable property. Thomas intended to marry her to the king—who, unlike his sisters, did not have to have the council's consent to his marriage, only its advice—and his interest in the matter was heightened by the fact that the protector hoped to marry her to his own son, the young Earl of Hertford. The admiral won the child's parents over with what was delicately called “certain covenants,” namely £500 down and a promise of a further £1,500, and to Lady Jane herself he acted the role of a kindly, jovial father, for which she was earnestly grateful.

The secret of Thomas Seymour's charm lay in his ability to adopt the tone that would be most pleasing to his hearer. To Elizabeth he was a teasing admirer, to Jane a gentle parent, and to Edward he was a jolly, boyish uncle. He gave his royal nephew continual gifts of money, and instituted a delightful conspiratorial system whereby Edward should leave notes for him under a carpet in the palace. The boy king drew the required contrast between his two uncles, and remarked mutinously, “My uncle of Somerset deals very hardly with me, and keeps me so strictly that I cannot have money at my will. But my Lord Admiral both sends me money and gives me money.” Thomas stirred the boy's thoughts further, with such artless observations as “You must take upon yourself to rule, for you shall be able enough as well as other kings,” pointing out that then he would have plenty of money of his own. The servant Fowler, whom Thomas bribed heavily, “was always praising of him,” and often remarked to Edward, “You must thank my Lord Admiral for kindness that he showed you, and for his money.” In January 1547, when Edward Seymour had become protector, there had been some question of Thomas being made governor of the king's person. “It was never seen,” Thomas afterwards said, ominously, “that in the minority of a king, when there have been two brethren, that the one brother should have all the rule, and the other none.” It was said that he had researched into precedents in the history chronicles. Understandably, the protector was thought to be “in fear of his estate,” and to hold his younger brother “in a great jealousy.”

In the month following Catherine's death, Elizabeth and her large household had moved from Cheshunt, where they had been since Whitsun, to go to the old manor of Hatfield. Her closest female companion now was Kat Ashley, who was well meaning and devoted, but a fool; dazzled by the admiral, she kept up a misguided campaign to further his suit with her charge. “You shall see shortly,” she said slyly, “he that would fain have had you, before he married the Queen, will come now to woo you.” Despite Elizabeth's coolheadedness, it became obvious that Kat's talk was secretly pleasing to her. John Ashley, Kat's husband, showed sense; several times he cautioned his wife “to take heed, for he did fear that the Lady Elizabeth did bear some affection to my Lord Admiral, she seemed to be well pleased therewith and sometimes she would blush when he were spoken of.” But the governess had an ally in the cofferer of the household, Thomas Parry, who repeated to Elizabeth interesting items from his conversations with the admiral—how he wished she resided at Ashridge so that he could visit her on his way down to the country, how he had inquired about her household expenses and described his own, how he wished her lands could be exchanged for those of his late wife, and so forth. Half-won though the girl was, she would not be drawn beyond a certain limit; when Parry asked her outright whether, if the council consented, she would marry the admiral, she perceptively demanded, “Who bade him say so?” and to his reply that “nobody made him say so, but that he gathered by his asking of these questions before,” Elizabeth said snubbingly, “It was but foolish gathering.”

Around Christmas it was being widely rumored that Elizabeth was to marry the admiral. Kat had told her charge of one such report, and Elizabeth “smiled at it, and said it was but a London news”; but gossip, and the Duchess of Somerset's annoyance, cannot have been diminished by the fact that Thomas offered to lend his house and all his household belongings to Elizabeth and her servants while they were in London. When Parry told her of the admiral's offer she seemed overjoyed, and Parry, remembering the rumors he had heard, and how Elizabeth looked happy when Thomas was spoken of, “took occasion to ask her, whether, if the Council would like it, she would marry with him.” To that crucial question Elizabeth gave a reply that was characteristic of her cool, equivocating intelligence. “When that comes to pass,” she said carefully, “I shall do as God shall put my mind.”

It was a mind markedly superior to that of her shallow, showy suitor. Parry, unabashed by the girl's guarded reply, continued the conversation with the revelation that the admiral wished her to visit the hated Duchess of Somerset and gain her favor in the hope that she would influence her husband, the protector, to permit Elizabeth's lands to be exchanged for others more useful to Thomas—“to entertain Her Grace for your furtherance,” he phrased it. Elizabeth was shocked. At first she would not believe that the strong, splendid admiral wanted her to fawn before an enemy for personal profit. “I dare say he did not so, nor would so,” she said scornfully. Parry assured her it was true, and she retorted, “I will not do so, and so tell him.” She “seemed to be angry, that she should be driven to make such suits,” he later recalled, and she swore, “In faith I will not come there, nor begin to flatter now.”

Hypocrisy was one of Thomas Seymour's failings; indiscretion was another. Like an excited child, he seemed unable to keep safely silent about his hopes and plans, but instead bragged of his intentions. In the autumn of 1548, riding to the Parliament House with Lord Russell, he was warned that rumors were flying that he intended to marry one of the king's sisters. Quickly, he denied it, but two or three days later he brought the subject up again with Russell, and said defiantly that it would be better for the king's sisters to marry Englishmen than foreigners: “And why might not I, or another, made by the King their father, marry one of them?” The prudent old Lord Russell gave him a strong warning about the dangers of such an ambition, and then added dryly, “I pray you, my Lord, what shall you have with any of them?” “Three thousand a year,” Thomas answered promptly. “My Lord, it is not so,” said Russell, “no more than only ten thousand pounds in money, plate and goods, and no land,” and he went on to ask Thomas if he could afford to maintain a household fitting a wife of such rank. A vehement argument ensued, which Russell later reported: the admiral “answered, ‘They must have the three thousand pounds a year also.' I answered, ‘By God, but they may not.' He answered, ‘By God, none of you dare say nay to it.' I answered, ‘By God, for my part I will say nay to it, for it is clean against the King's will.' ”

But neither oaths nor advice could cure Thomas of the ache of swollen ambition. While doing all that he could to disrupt his brother's rule, swearing that he would bring about “the blackest Parliament that ever was in England,” levying troops, winning over nobles and yeomen, and conspiring with the vice-treasurer of the Bristol Mint to raise money illegally, he maintained a blind unrealistic faith that his brother would, in the last resort, save him from the consequences of his dangerous play for power. The courtier George Blagge made an attempt to reason with the admiral. “What if my Lord Protector, understanding your mind, commit you to ward?” he asked urgently, and received the airy reply, “No, no, by God's precious soul, he will not commit me to ward. No, no, I warrant you.” “But if he do,” Blagge pressed him, “how will you come out?” “Well, as for that,” said Thomas, shrugging, “I care not, but who shall have me to prison?” “Your brother,” said Blagge. “Which way?” said Thomas. “Marry, well enough,” retorted Blagge promptly, “even send for you, and commit you, and I pray you, who shall prevent him?” “If the Council send for me, I will go,” Thomas answered confidently. “He will not be so hasty to send me to prison.” Blagge was so disturbed by this exasperating exchange that he never spoke to the admiral again.

Thomas Seymour's trust in the protector's fraternal loyalty was indeed misplaced. On January 17, 1549, he was sent to the Tower of London, almost exactly two years after the death of Henry VIII had set spurs to his hopes. “I thought before I came to this place that my Lord's Grace, with all the rest of the Council, had been my friends,” he said to his jailer, “and that I had had as many friends as any man within the realm, but now I think they have forgotten me.” Four days later, on Monday, January 21, Elizabeth's cofferer, Parry, and her governess, Kat Ashley, were also committed to the Tower, on account of “the matter of the Admiral.” And thus Elizabeth, at the age of fifteen, was left almost friendless at Hatfield, to face alone the first great crisis of her life.

She had been let down badly by those who should have protected her interests, and so again she learned harshly of the need for self-reliance, and the danger of committing her destiny and herself into another's keeping. Her elders were in the Tower, and she, not long out of childhood, had only her own mature and subtle mind to aid her in the frightening situation that her first suitor had created.

Sir Robert Tyrwhitt was sent down to Hatfield to interrogate her. He required proof that the admiral had, in direct contravention of the council's wishes, conspired “to have in marriage the Lady Elizabeth, one of His Majesty's sisters, and second inheritor after His Majesty to the crown.” Evidence of all kinds was accumulating around the admiral, and at first Tyrwhitt believed his task would not be difficult. “I have good hopes to make her cough out the whole,” he wrote with grim confidence to the protector. The pale, aloof girl was “marvellous abashed” when she learned that Parry and Kat were in the Tower, and she showed her youth by crying miserably for a long time, begging to know whether they had confessed anything or not. Tyrwhitt was encouraged when she sent for him and said she had certain things to tell him, but to his disappointment these turned out to be merely some details of a letter which she had sent the admiral concerning her chaplain, to which she had added a postscript that she said referred to Durham Place. Such trivialities were not what he wanted, and he ominously reminded Elizabeth of “the peril that might ensue, for she was but a subject.” He tried to lure her into trustful confession of all that had passed between her and Thomas Seymour by promising that “all the evil and shame” should be ascribed to Parry and Kat Ashley, and that her own youth would cause the king, the protector, and the council to treat her leniently, but Elizabeth would not be drawn. “In no way she will not confess to any practice by Mistress Ashley or the Cofferer,” Tyrwhitt reported to the protector, “and yet I do see it in her face that she is guilty, and do perceive as yet she will abide more storms ere she will accuse Mistress Ashley.” He decided to change his tactics with this slippery and resilient little witness; instead of “more storms” he tried “gentle persuasion,” which he thought brought more promising results. Yet still she would give him no real evidence, merely describing how Parry had asked her whether she “would be content” to marry the admiral or not, and resolutely including in her account the all-important clause, “if the Council would consent.” Embarrassed at seeming to be outwitted by a young girl, Tyrwhitt wrote earnestly to the protector: “I do assure Your Grace she hath a very good wit, and nothing is gotten of her save by great policy.”