The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor (27 page)

There had indeed been many complaints about Seymour’s behaviour that summer as he sought to gain authority over the country around Sudeley. Somerset considered that his brother should try to make friends with his neighbours and ‘obtain your desire by some other gentle means, rather than by seeking that which is either plain injury, or else the rigour and extremity of the law’. He cited the complaints from one neighbour, Sir John Briggs, which he particularly required Thomas to remedy, before signing his letter ‘your loving brother’. It was very bad luck that this letter crossed with Seymour’s more emollient letter.

Somerset’s championing of Briggs’s cause hit a particularly raw nerve. Thomas’s servant William Wightman was present when his master received the letter during a break in his vigil over Catherine. He watched as Seymour’s face reddened into a ‘great heat’ of fury.
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Thomas ranted for some time, swearing his customary oath ‘by God’s precious soul!’ before declaring that ‘My Lord, my brother is wondrous hot in helping every man to his right, saving me’. His mind turned once again to Catherine’s confiscated jewels, complaining that ‘he maketh a great matter to let me have the queen’s jewels, which, you see, by the whole opinion of all the lawyers, ought to belong unto me and all under pretence that he would not the king should lose so much, – as who say it were a loss to the king to let me have mine own?’ It seemed so terribly unfair, particularly since, as Seymour roared, his brother ‘maketh nothing of the loss that the King’s Majesty hath by him’, declaring that in Somerset’s poor dealing with Crown property he had lost Edward at least £10,000 a year.

It seemed like persecution – in Somerset’s eyes, Thomas could do no right. Wightman, aware of the dangerous nature of the conversation, jumped in, declaring that he thought the royal lands so lost were ‘by all men’s guesses, far under that sum’. Thomas, however, was having none of it, answering: ‘Well, well, they are at this point now that there can neither bishopric, deanery, nor prebend fall void, but one or other of them will have a fleece of it.’ Wightman nodded. What Thomas said was largely true, and Wightman agreed that the Deanery of Wells and the Bishopric of Lincoln ‘had been sore plucked at’.

Seymour was placing all his hopes on his nephew. Calming down as suddenly as he had risen to fury, he said: ‘It maketh no matter, it will come in again when the king cometh to his years, as he beginneth to grow lustily. By God’s precious soul! I would not be in some of their coats for five marks when he shall hear of these matters. For mine own part, I will not have a penny after that rate, nor they shall not all be able to charge me with the value of a farthing.’ Wightman had the last word, cautioning his master that his ‘evil waiting and slackness in service in this time of the King’s Majesty’s tender years’ did not look good for him, ‘when one day’s service is worth a whole year’s’. Could he not just do his duty quietly and wait for better times?

Against the background of Somerset’s first letter, the second written on 1 September – in which he gave thanks for Catherine’s ‘happy hour’ – must have seemed insincere or mocking even when Thomas received it, on 3 or 4 September.

By 5 September, the queen, weakened with fever, was declining; everyone knew that she could not live long. She was calmer, though, and had already asked Thomas for his consent to her making a will.
*7
Early that morning, in the presence only of Dr Huicke and her chaplain John Parkhurst, who prayed with her, she made her will, declaring that she was ‘lying on her deathbed, sick in body, but of good mind, perfect memory and discretion’.
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Perhaps the fog in her mind had cleared – if she had been delirious at all. Still conscious of her status, she called herself ‘Queen of England, France and Ireland’ and ‘late the wife of Henry VIII, that prince of famous memory’. She also referred to Thomas as her current husband, proudly setting his titles alongside those of her previous husband.

Catherine’s will shows signs of revision and alteration. It was not admitted to probate until three months after her death, and the surviving document may not accurately reflect the queen’s true wishes.
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If the will was forged, then Thomas, who was the executor who proved the will, was the most likely culprit. On the face of it, the document demonstrates Catherine’s enduring love for her husband, the scribe recording that ‘the said most noble queen, by permission, consent, and assent aforesaid, did... with all her heart and desire, frankly and freely give, will, and bequeath to the said Lord Seymour, Lord High Admiral of England, her married espouse and husband, all the goods, chattels, and debts that she then had, or of right ought to have in all the world, wishing them to be a thousand times more in value than they were or been’.

Yet, as a wife, Catherine legally owned nothing. The will was largely pointless as a means of conveying property. It was, however, a useful record of her
wishes
, particularly since anything that she ‘of right ought to have in all the world’ potentially included her disputed jewels, still languishing in the royal treasury. Given Dr Huicke’s somewhat dubious character, he might have been persuaded to help in the forgery of a will that made little legal difference anyway. Thomas did not absolutely
need
the testament; but it was helpful. Since Thomas would not have consented to a will in which he was not the chief beneficiary, it is unlikely that Catherine’s original wishes differed substantially from what was written, although the sentiments towards her jealous, possessive and wayward husband may well have been expressed in different words.

Thomas remained at Catherine’s side, holding the hand of a wife who had once wished him ‘better to fare than myself’.
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There was no final message for Elizabeth, who was waiting for news at Cheshunt. Instead, the queen spent her last hours praying with Jane Grey, to whom she passed her personal prayer book as a memento. Catherine had continued to write in the tiny book up until her sickness overcame her, breaking off abruptly half way through a prayer redolent of one in adversity: ‘all mine hope and whole affiance, most pitiful Lord, have I cast on Thee. Let me be no more, [I pray] Thee, shake off, for [that] were sore to my rebuke [and] shame among [my] enemies. Deliver [and] succour me of Thy [justice]...’.
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On 5 September 1548, less than a week after she had given birth to her daughter, Catherine Parr slipped quietly away, her auburn hair lying dishevelled on her fever-stained pillows. For Thomas Seymour, the death of his wife threw him into a state of grief and confusion. It also changed everything for him. At a stroke, he was once more England’s most eligible bachelor. All his plans were suddenly altered.

*1
The summer of 1548 was notable for a ‘great drought for lack of rain’ (Wriothesley, Vol. II., p. 5).

*2
‘remainder’ – a trust. One individual was entitled to the profits of the manor for life, with another entitled ‘in remainder’ (i.e. receiving the manor after the life tenant’s death).

*3
Although the talk among the English garrison in Calais was that ‘the Lord Admiral and Lord Clinton were chiefly to blame for the French galleys getting back to France from Scotland without molestation’ (Gruffydd, p. 59).

*4
Somerset’s correspondence incorrectly identified Seymour’s chief naval officers. Anthony Hussey was Minister of the Admiralty, and, as Seymour happily pointed out to his brother, it was Dr Griffin Lyson who served as his chief judge. Seymour informed his brother that he had asked Hussey to be just in his dealings, as Somerset requested; but he did not take the initiative and contact Lyson regarding the matter.

*5
The pair were close enough that, in her only surviving accounts from the period, Elizabeth gave Lady Denny the substantial sum of £100 on 12 July 1552, with the record of the payment tucked away between gifts to servants and payments for the bringing of New Year’s gifts. Noticeably, payments of the same period to Elizabeth’s ladies, such as Blanche Parry, were in shillings rather than pounds – the payment to Lady Denny was a considerable one (Strangford, p. 37).

*6
There was little understanding of the causes of infection and, of course, as yet no antibiotics. Catherine was probably suffering from puerperal fever.

*7
A husband’s consent was required for a married woman to make her own will, since, legally, all property owned by a married couple belonged to the husband.

January 1549. In the crisp winter morning, Thomas Seymour pulled his horse in beside that of the elderly Lord Russell, as they rode together the short distance to Parliament. ‘Father Russell, you are very suspicious of me,’ he said, ‘I pray you tell me why?’ ‘My Lord,’ replied Russell, ‘I shall earnestly advise you to make no suit for marriage.’ But surely, mused Seymour, it was better that princesses Mary and Elizabeth ‘were married within the realm than in any foreign place and without the realm, and why might not I or another made by the king their father marry one of them?’

To the horror-struck Russell, such a marriage must surely undo anyone, and Thomas Seymour ‘especially above all others, being of so near alliance to the King’s Majesty’. How so, asked Thomas? Lord Russell, a man who was a generation older than Seymour, had the weight of history behind him. Because, he said, the king’s father and grandfather had both been suspicious princes and ‘wherefore it may be possible, yea, it is not unlikely but that the King’s Majesty following therein the nature of his father and grandfather may be also suspicious’.

The Lord Privy Seal was simply saying what everyone thought – that a marriage to a princess would look dangerously as if Thomas Seymour wanted to become king. Furthermore, it would be an unsupportable provocation to a fraternal relationship strained almost beyond endurance.

Thomas Seymour was hit hard by Catherine’s death. He found himself ‘so amazed’ that, as he put it, ‘I had small regard either to myself or to my doings’.
1
In the days following, he could not think straight, although he ordered a fine, Protestant funeral for his late wife. On 7 September 1548, in the dying days of summer, the queen was buried, her body carefully embalmed before interment in a lead coffin.
2
She was carried through the leafy gardens to Sudeley’s small chapel, its interior now draped in black cloth. By convention, Thomas, being Catherine’s husband, was absent from proceedings – although he could have watched the procession from the castle windows. Instead, Jane Grey attended as chief mourner, standing solemnly as the coffin was laid onto trestles surrounded by tapers.

Jane’s official role in the funeral would have been Elizabeth’s, had she been there. But Elizabeth was still sick in bed at Cheshunt. ‘Madam, now you may have your husband that was appointed you at the death of the king’ announced Elizabeth’s lady mistress, breaking the news of Catherine’s death with no thought as to the girl’s feelings. As for marriage to her stepmother’s widower, ‘nay’ declared Elizabeth, shocked, but Kate Ashley continued: ‘Yes, if all the Council did agree, why not? For he is the noblest man unmarried in this land.’ It was a cold calculation; but for the moment the princess shied away from any thought of marriage. She refused Kate’s earnest request that she write to Thomas, to help ‘comfort him in his sorrow’.
3
‘It needs not,’ Elizabeth insisted. Kate cajoled her – Seymour would find such a missive very kind. Kate’s tongue was not stopped, and a blushing Elizabeth reaffirmed that she would not write, for if she did she ‘should be thought to woo him’.
4
She would not write; but Kate did, letting the Admiral know that he was remembered at Cheshunt.
*1