The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor (17 page)

On New Year’s Day 1548 Edward VI went publicly to mass at Hampton Court, which was celebrated in the usual way.
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He spent the best part of a month at this palace, where he had been born.
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His and Somerset’s reign had, by that time, lasted very nearly a year, although the boy continued to resent his overbearing uncle. Whenever he was permitted to see his subjects, which was rarely, Edward complained that ‘my uncle of Somerset dealeth very hardly with me, and keepeth me so straight, that I cannot have money at my will. But My Lord Admiral both sends me money and gives me money’.
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Such reports pleased Seymour, and he continued to send funds to the child. In spite of his anger at Cheke’s failure to support him during the Parliament, Thomas paid money to the tutor when the king asked him to, as well as to a bookbinder at the request of Edward’s French master.
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He made so many payments on the young king’s behalf that Edward – less than a year later – was unable to recall them all. Edward made a poor showing as king on account of his poverty, Seymour informed him. At the same time, John Fowler was always making sure to praise Seymour when he spoke to Edward. ‘Ye must thank My Lord Admiral for gentleness that he showed you, and for his money,’ he enjoined his master, hoping to keep the flow of coins from the Admiral coming.

To his later accusers, it looked very much as though Seymour was using his wealth to ‘corrupt’ the Privy Chamber, encouraging its habitués ‘to persuade the King’s Majesty to have a credit towards him’, with the intent that Thomas could ‘use the king’s highness for an instrument to his purpose’.
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He almost certainly was. As far as Seymour was concerned, the governorship of the king was his birthright as Edward’s younger uncle.

Elizabeth, who was another instrument to Seymour’s purpose, was finally able to throw off her mourning clothes that January. She still often chose to wear black, however, which suited her pale face and reddish-blond hair, ensuring that she cut a striking figure in the household. Unlike her stepmother and Princess Mary, she liked to dress in a plain style rather than following showy fashions; she had a particular ‘contempt of gold and head-dresses’. Having turned fourteen on 7 September 1547, she had reached an age when she could expect to be married. Since her brother Edward appeared to be in robust health, and would surely himself marry in a few years and beget children, Elizabeth appeared to have little hope of the throne herself. At Christmas 1548, as she spent her time with her music, her books and her tutor, she waited to hear who might be arranged for her as a husband.
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William Grindal, while being – as far as Kate Ashley was concerned – an unlikely lover of the princess, was a kindly man, beloved of everyone who knew him. It was therefore a shock for everyone when, in the early weeks of January 1548, Elizabeth’s tutor sickened. The cause of his illness was alarming, since it was the terrifying bubonic plague, which had wiped out a third of Europe’s population 200 years before. The outbreak in 1548 was, fortunately, small and largely confined to London and surrounding areas; but its eruption in the middle of Elizabeth’s household struck those around Grindal with terror.
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His case did not, in the end, lead to an epidemic in the house, but Grindal failed to recover, dying later that month – and leaving Elizabeth without a tutor.

Roger Ascham was devastated when he heard the news of his dear friend’s death. It came in the midst of a difficult time for the scholar. Disputes in which he was involved were reaching boiling point at Cambridge. On 5 January Ascham wrote to the Protector’s secretary, William Cecil, to raise the issue of one such dispute in his college – St John’s – concerning the mass.
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The arguments had got so out of hand that the university’s vice-chancellor, John Madew, had stepped in, ordering an immediate cessation. Ascham, however, who was an argumentative man at the best of times, would not desist, informing Cecil that he and his fellows had written a book on the matter which they greatly desired to present to the Protector. Ascham had also acquired a copy of Catherine Parr’s
Lamentations of a Sinner
as soon as it was published, reading with interest ‘the most holy confessions of our queen’ – although, as he told Cecil, he preferred the secretary’s prologue with its ‘beauty and eloquence’. There was no such praise for Catherine’s writing. He was, however, deeply interested in her stepdaughter.

With a heavy heart, Roger Ascham sat down to write a letter to Princess Elizabeth on 22 January. He spoke of their common grief ‘at the death of our friend Grindal’.
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But he hesitated to offer his condolences, for fear ‘that reminding you of it would rather increase than assuage your sorrow, if I did not clearly understand your great prudence, strengthened by the counsels of Mistress Katherine Astley and the precepts of my dear Grindal himself’. In spite of his anguish, Ascham was aware that his friend’s death left a highly prestigious opening – and one that could get him away from the turmoils of Cambridge. He suggested, tentatively, that Elizabeth should consider ‘that other Grindal’ (William Grindal’s kinsman, Edmund) as her new tutor; but really he was already lobbying for himself. He spoke of the goodwill that he was sure the princess had for him, asking only that ‘your former favour may rest on the opinion which Grindal has so long held about me, and not be referred to the judgment of anyone else; for though I have lost him, I do not wish to lose the benefit of his good opinion’. What better character reference could he have than the testimony of ‘his Grindal’?

Ascham offered the princess his service and obedience, while skirting around his obvious desire that she should think of him as a new tutor. He certainly needed to absent himself from Cambridge, where the master of his college had recently written him such a letter that it ‘plunged us, not into a disturbance, but into the great sorrow’ and which provoked Ascham to protest that ‘we have done nothing to merit so bitter a letter’.
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As the dispute over the mass rumbled on at Cambridge, Grindal’s death – for all its dolefulness – must have seemed providential.

In lobbying for the position, Ascham became aware that he had a rival. Catherine and Thomas, as Elizabeth’s guardians, had the final say in the matter, and they wanted Francis Goldsmith. They knew him well, since he had been a member of Catherine’s household for years. Moreover, his skill in Latin was formidable. He was also not averse to performing a little flattery, playfully referring to his mistress as the Queen of Sheba or ‘the most pious Queen Esther’ and assuring her of as glorious a reputation in years to come.
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All he desired, he insisted, was to ‘be able to distinguish myself as worthy in some degree of your highness, in the condition of a servant’. He was obsequious, but Catherine was nevertheless flattered and resolved to give him the coveted post. While Goldsmith lobbied for preferment with the guardian, however, Ascham was going straight to the pupil.

By 1548, Ascham – hirsute and plump-cheeked – was approaching his mid-thirties.
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A Yorkshireman by birth, he had enjoyed an idyllic childhood with his parents, whose marriage lasted a devoted forty-seven years and who even passed away together, dying on the same day. He was the star of the family, going south to Cambridge while still a teenager and taking his degree at the age of sixteen. Nearly penniless, Ascham was hungry for patronage. His native county was proud of him: the Archbishop of York diligently sent a pension to Yorkshire’s favourite son.
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Ascham was a man of strong feelings; despite the hothouse of Cambridge keeping him from his parents for years on end, he was devastated at their deaths in 1544.
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Although Ascham was a self-promoter and highly ambitious, he was to be often brought low by grief. He later found himself unable to sleep after the death of his infant son (a ‘sweet babe’),
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an event that caused him to question the very nature of life, in which he ‘found nothing but sorrow and care, which very much did vex and trouble me’.

Ascham was an undeniably complex character – convinced that his career was in the doldrums and that he was overlooked in favour of lesser men, but also given to moments of feverish excitability, as when, on one occasion, he was shown a pelican in Germany. This marvel, he recorded, was a great ‘milk-white’ creature, well able to swallow an English penny loaf, while its eyes were ‘as red as fire, and, as they say, an hundred years old’.
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He could be slippery, too: his father’s dying request was that he leave Cambridge and its disputes behind and take himself ‘to some honest course of life’. He had no desire to leave and, later, confided in John Cheke that if ‘peace and unanimity can be fully restored, I shall then think that I have virtually left Cambridge, according to my father’s advice’.
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Possessing one of the keenest intellects of his day, Ascham was prepared to leave nothing to chance regarding Elizabeth. He had already taken the time to write to Kate Ashley personally as his ‘very loving friend’, recognizing her influence in the household.
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He praised her for the work she had done in the education of ‘that noble imp’, as well as sending her a silver pen as a very extravagant token. As a way of currying favour with the princess, he also sent Elizabeth an Italian book and a prayer book. He had heard, he wrote, that the princess’s own silver pen had been broken and offered to mend it at his expense, if Mistress Ashley would only send it to him. Kate did as she was bid, and Ascham hurried to fix the pen and send it back, together with a personal note to Elizabeth.
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The scholar also resolved to visit Elizabeth. Saddling his horse, he rushed over to Hanworth in the first week of February 1548. Catherine and Thomas were both still away in London, and Elizabeth gave Ascham an audience. He was intrigued by her poise; it also turned out that he had no need to lobby further for his appointment. Elizabeth ignored his attempt ‘to make any bargain’. Could he confirm that he ‘was ready to obey her orders,’ she asked? When he confirmed that he could, she revealed that she had already begun to secure his employment with the queen and Seymour. Sadly, the girl informed him that she was aware of Goldsmith’s candidacy. A downcast Ascham ‘advised her to comply’ with her guardians before praising Goldsmith and advising her to ‘follow their judgment in such a matter’.
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Ascham had not ridden so far to be beaten, however. With calculated flattery, Elizabeth’s guest ‘prayed her not to think of any good to be got by me, but to let nothing stand in the way of her bringing to perfection that singular learning of which Grindal had sown the seeds’. Although seeming to bow out gracefully, Ascham stayed on for several days, while Elizabeth showcased her language skills. He approved, while also intimating that (as he said) ‘although I am foolish and in fact nobody in almost everything, yet that I can be of use to her in teaching her Greek and Latin and in performing the duties of her secretary’. As far as Elizabeth and Ascham were concerned, the matter was settled. As the princess was packing up to join her stepmother and stepfather in London, she was preparing also to persuade them of the wisdom of her choice. For good measure, Ascham wrote to John Cheke in London for his support. Goldsmith may have won the backing of the queen and Seymour, but Ascham had the upper hand with the royal pupil. Joyfully for him, he was soon ensconced as part of Elizabeth’s household.

When Elizabeth joined Thomas and Catherine in London, in February 1548, she found a stepfather still embroiled in the ramifications of his recent actions. Protector Somerset appeared prepared to ignore his brother’s conduct in Parliament, and hoped that Thomas’s plotting had now ended. He was, in any event, absorbed by concerns of state, as the war in Scotland continued to rumble on, while news from France was hardly encouraging. As ever, Somerset presented a friendly, but circumspect, face to Imperial Ambassador Van der Delft, who was determined to get the latest information from him, visiting him on 23 February 1548. The ambassador asked Somerset bluntly ‘whether it was true that the King of France had a force of cavalry ready to ship and send to the assistance of the Scots’.
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Somerset agreed that he had been informed that this was the case, although at that time Henry II of France was appearing better disposed towards England than before. Somerset explained patiently to the ambassador that the French king was conflicted, wanting both to comply with his treaty of peace with England and his promise to aid the Scots. His words sounded almost as though he was trying to convince himself of the truth of them.

The death in 1547 of Henry VIII’s old sparring partner, King Francis I of France, had led to the accession of his son Henry, a man determined to avenge the English capture of Boulogne. While technically England and France were at peace, it was common knowledge that the French were aiding the Scots. It looked to everyone as though England’s ancient continental enemy was preparing for direct military action too. In Paris that spring, talk was of war and the reclaiming of Boulogne.
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To compound things, there were rumours that a French painter, who had spent time in England, had been commissioned by Henry II to produce pictures of all the ports in England, for the use of the French navy.
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