The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor (26 page)

Sealing his letter, Somerset passed it to Hull and bid him ride to Sudeley to deliver it to the Admiral in person. Matters would soon be straightened out, he assured him, since the Protector ‘required’ his brother to write to Hussey ‘commanding him without further delay to see that the said Matthew Hull may be answered for his freight’. He signed his command ‘your loving brother’, but there was nothing but contempt in the missive’s contents. If Thomas were going to continue to allow his Admiralty to wrong men such as Hull, Somerset would step in. It perhaps did not occur to Somerset that Hull’s keen interest in the freight – which did not belong to him – rather than just his ship suggested more guilt in the matter than he would admit to.

Matthew Hull’s complaint had already touched on another point of contention between the two brothers. A few days earlier, Seymour had written on behalf of Francis Agarde, one of his servants.
18
Agarde had found himself embroiled in murky goings-on between a man named Leche and his father. There had been a disagreement over the ‘lewd life of Leche’s wife’, which had placed the patrimony in danger. Doubtful of his daughter-in-law’s honour, the older Leche had determined ‘to part with the land rather than bastards should be his heirs’. Agarde, on hearing of this, had rushed in to bargain for the property; but then there were attempts made by the Leche family – on reflection – to set the contract aside.

On 13 August Somerset responded, patronizingly declaring to his younger brother that Agarde ‘hath abused you’, before dismissing the man’s concerns.
19
He wrote that he had examined the matter personally and found in favour of the plaintiff, content that he would not look into the private life of Leche and his wife in such a matter. The response infuriated Thomas, who stewed over it for some days – and then received the surprise of Somerset’s imperious commands regarding Matthew Hull. It was not until 19 August that Seymour felt able to write his sniffy reply, informing his brother that, in spite of the lawfulness of Agarde’s position, ‘I shall make no further importune to Your Grace therewith but only admit therefore that this man at whose request I wrote is surely honest’. He was hurt. Somerset would not even bend slightly to favour a servant of his brother in one simple matter. Indeed, he actively favoured those who set themselves in opposition to the Admiral and his servants. In an age where nepotism was positively encouraged, this was hardly the action of a ‘loving brother’, as the Protector persisted in describing himself.

Thomas Seymour was also angered at his brother’s refusal to see his own opinions as anything other than infallible. Reading through Somerset’s letter of 16 August, Thomas was surprised to see that it was meant to have been carried by Matthew Hull himself: yet this ‘named bearer’ had been nowhere in sight.
20
For Thomas, this was proof of Hull’s guilt. The man was obviously too ashamed to appear before him. Unlike the Protector, Seymour had come across Hull before and knew considerably more about his dabbles in piracy than his brother, thanks to a confession he had received from a notorious pirate named Kelley. Indeed, as Seymour admonished Somerset, his brother should have known that, since he had himself travelled up to Chelsea the previous summer to examine that matter in Catherine’s gardens there.

Intent on proving that Hull had fooled his brother, Seymour carried out his own investigation at Sudeley. Within only three or four days, he was gleefully able to inform Somerset that Hull was both ‘the principal in the piracy’ and deeply involved with Kelley. Indeed, he had the evidence to prove it. As far as Seymour was concerned, his brother was out of touch with the Admiralty.
*4
Thomas would follow the letter of his brother’s commands but go no further. He also asked the Protector to be fair to Hussey in such a case where ‘a dishonest man is his accuser in an unjust suit’, thus openly criticizing his brother’s misguided belief in Matthew Hull.

For a few days at least, Thomas Seymour satisfied himself that he held the upper hand in his poisonous correspondence with his brother. It was to be a small victory, though. Somerset, in his next letter, forced himself to agree that there might just be some truth in the accusations against Hull. Indeed, he thought it best that Seymour ‘give such order that the said goods be put in safe custody till it be further known whether it be pirate goods or no’.
21
Most likely though, as far as the Protector was concerned, Hull and his fellow sailors had been deceived by the ‘false and crafty’ men who had sought to rob their insurers.

A steady stream of messages continued to flow between the brothers over the summer. On 27 August, bursting with fury, Thomas finally set out his complaints on paper, snarling that Somerset always seemed to take everyone else’s side. It took Somerset some days to feel cool enough to reply.

Thomas Seymour’s emotional state was not helped by the tense wait for news of his wife’s labour. It was the same for Elizabeth, whose health continued to be poor at Cheshunt, although, more positively, she was beginning to build a friendship with her host, Lady Denny.
*5
Elizabeth last wrote to Catherine on 31 July, before her stepmother retired for her month of rest and waiting. The princess looked forward to news of what she hoped would be ‘a most lucky deliverance’, resulting in the birth of a healthy little stepbrother.
22

The queen’s impending labour was discussed at Cheshunt by Elizabeth and the ladies around her. Everyone was hopeful. Elizabeth had considerable confidence in Catherine’s doctor, Robert Huicke, who had served for some years as a royal physician and in whom she had been happy to entrust her own care when ill.
23
Catherine was also pleased to bring Huicke with her to Sudeley – by then, he had served her dutifully for several years.
24
The doctor had his own reasons for welcoming the change of scene. He had only recently been the subject of a famous divorce case, where he had been censured for his cruelty towards his entirely blameless wife. Despite the gossip on that score, he was renowned for his skill in medicine and had been one of the physicians admitted to the old king’s deathbed. Huicke was admired in Catherine’s household. Now he consulted with her, as the birth drew near.

The child who had been so active in Catherine’s womb finally entered the world on 30 August 1548, in the privacy of the queen’s darkened bedchamber at Sudeley. The birth, attended by doctors and female household members, went well. There was no hint that the parents were in any way disappointed to discover that their ‘little knave’ was a girl. They delighted in the child, naming her ‘Mary’ in honour of her eldest royal stepsister, who was to be her godmother.

The day of the birth was hectic. Seymour rushed in to meet his daughter as the queen tried to speak to Dr Huicke about her recovery. It was the action of an excited first-time father – but in shooing away the doctor, Thomas laid himself open to criticism. Catherine had not dared to speak up then, but later, as Elizabeth Tyrwhitt remembered, she plaintively told her husband: ‘My Lord, I would have given a thousand marks to have had my full talk with Huicke the first day I was delivered. But I durst not, for displeasing of you.’
25
Thomas, who – like Catherine – was old to be a first-time parent, just wanted to see his child, pushing all obstacles out of his path. He was besotted with the tiny infant, who lay in her cradle of crimson and gold.
26
She was so pretty, he wrote to his brother, while the queen, too, was doing well. The Protector was still his brother and the first person to whom he wanted to tell his good news. He despatched his letter post-haste.

Somerset had just sent one of his own angry letters to his brother, on 1 September, when Thomas’s letter announcing the birth arrived later the same day. Fatherhood was far from new to Somerset, and his brother’s gushing description of his daughter must have made him smile. Putting aside the pervasive brotherly ill feeling, he wrote to congratulate Thomas on his becoming ‘the father of so pretty a daughter’.
27
He was glad, he said, that the queen had enjoyed a ‘happy hour’ and was past danger, although even then, at the moment of Thomas’s great happiness, he could not resist a criticism. ‘It would have been, both to us and, as we suppose, also to you, a more joy and comfort if it had been – this, the first – a son.’ He himself was already the father of several fine sons, one of whom had been born only weeks earlier.
28
Somerset was sure, however, that in subsequent pregnancies Catherine would fulfil her dynastic duty.

For Catherine, lying exhausted in her bed on 30 August, the idea that this birth was but the prelude to what Somerset described as ‘a great sort of happy sons’ might have seemed less appealing than her brother-in-law supposed. After decades of barren marriages, she must have felt a sense of achievement as she looked at her tiny daughter, sleeping in her cradle, the daughter of a queen. Catherine felt surprisingly well after the birth. It was confidently reported that she had escaped all danger and that she would soon be up and about.
29
Such reports, however, were quickly revealed to be premature.

On the morning of 3 September, Elizabeth Tyrwhitt came to her friend in the dark, stuffy bedchamber, where only one small window remained uncovered, allowing a glint of sunlight. There she found Catherine sweating with fever in the great bed in the centre of the room, and attended by Thomas, who held tightly onto her hand. By now, the cradle had been moved to the nursery. Elizabeth Tyrwhitt entered quietly, so as not to disturb her friend.
30
Yet the queen called out to her, asking where she had been for so long. Before giving Lady Tyrwhitt time to answer, Catherine whispered that ‘she did fear such things in herself, that she was sure she could not live’. Burning with fever and in pain, she ignored her friend’s assurance that she ‘saw no likelihood of death in her’.

Thomas’s presence seemed evidence of his concern for his wife, but Catherine’s mind was troubled by him. Without glancing at her friend, she breathed: ‘My Lady Tyrwhitt, I am not well handled, for those that be about me careth not for me, but standeth laughing at my grief. And the more good I will to them, the less good they will to me.’ She seemed delirious, but Thomas took her words seriously, conscious that he was not the only one to hear them. ‘Why, sweetheart, I would you no hurt,’ he answered, sitting at her side. But Catherine, speaking more loudly, declared: ‘No, My Lord, I think so.’ He leaned closer to her, perhaps hoping to silence her accusations, and the queen whispered hoarsely – yet audibly – in her husband’s ear: ‘But, My Lord, you have given me many shrewd taunts.’

Elizabeth Tyrwhitt heard everything and considered Catherine’s words, spoken ‘very sharply and earnestly’, to be the mark of a mind that was ‘unquieted’. It might have been the fever, since the queen was probably by now delirious; but her friend believed she spoke with ‘good memory’. Certainly, Catherine was aware enough to know that she was dying. Lady Tyrwhitt and those around Catherine knew of Thomas’s jealousy and possessiveness over his wife, and many in the household knew of the former goings on with Elizabeth.

Glancing around, Thomas, concerned that Catherine’s friend had heard what the queen had said, pulled her aside and asked her to repeat it. Lady Tyrwhitt, who had little time for Seymour, ‘declared it plainly to him’, to Seymour’s discomfiture. Nonetheless, his main concern was with Catherine, and he asked Lady Tyrwhitt what he should do to ease his wife’s suffering. He thought that he might lie down beside her on the bed ‘to look if he could pacify her unquietness with gentle communication’. Lady Tyrwhitt, aware of the genuine passion that had also existed between the couple, believed he might be right. Seymour climbed into the great bed beside his wife, whose body gave off the burning heat of her fever.

He spoke soothingly to her, but Catherine shushed him after only three of four words, complaining that he had prevented her from speaking to her doctor and all but accusing him of wanting her dead. She continued to rant against her husband for an hour as Seymour tried to quieten and soothe her. Lady Tyrwhitt, who loved the queen, ‘perceived her trouble to be so great that my heart would serve me to hear no more’; yet she did not think the words were only the ravings of fever. Perhaps for the first time,
in extremis
Catherine dared to speak her furious mind to Seymour; although she was not heard to make any specific mention of his relationship with her stepdaughter, perhaps it was one of the ‘shrewd taunts’ with which she charged him.

Catherine’s illness drew out over the days that followed her daughter’s birth. The queen’s symptoms grew alarming.
*6
There was little that the doctors could do but wait and hope that their patient would recover. Thomas was often with her, tired, emotional and grieving. It was unfortunate that, as the queen lay on her deathbed, Somerset’s two communications dated 1 September arrived at Sudeley. The first, which answered Seymour’s peeved letter of 27 August, undid all the good work of Thomas’s friendly birth announcement. In this letter, Somerset coldly declared that he had received his brother’s letter of 27 August, but that ‘to the particularities whereof at this present we are not minded to answer, because it requireth more leisure than at this time we have’.
31
They would speak about it when they were next together. The letter should have ended there, but it did not. The anger crackled from Somerset’s carefully composed lines as he complained – using the royal ‘we’ to denote his elevated situation – that ‘we cannot but marvel that you note the way to be so open for complaints to enter in against you, and that they be so well received’. It was hardly his fault, he considered, if Thomas ‘do so behave yourself amongst your poor neighbours, and others the king’s subjects, that they may have easily just cause to complain upon you’. He was very sorry, he said, if these complaints came to him, but it was his brother’s fault that the men had such just and valid complaints to make in the first place. He continued, saying that he ‘would wish very heartily it were otherwise; which were both more honour for you, and quiet and joy and comfort for us’. Yet, if the complaints came, he would hear them. It was his ‘duty and office so to do’, particularly where they came from those ‘that findeth or thinketh themselves injured or grieved’. He was not going to make allowances for anyone, since ‘though you be our brother, yet we may not refuse it upon you’. As far as Somerset was concerned, the whole sorry business could be remedied if his brother meekly followed his lead in all things.