THE QUEEN AND THE LORD HIGH-ADMIRAL
At the time of the much-discussed clandestine marriage between Thomas
Seymour and Katherine Parr, the Princess Elizabeth was a precocious
girl of fifteen, not beautiful, but tall for her age, well developed,
and of elegant figure. The aquiline features, which age was to harshen,
were softened at this early period by the roundness of youth; and the
brilliant complexion stood in no need of the artificial assistance to
which the Queen so freely resorted in her later life. The splendid
auburn hair--its colour may have owed something to a touch of
henna--considerably heightened charms not the least striking of which
were a pair of small but black and penetrating eyes, inherited from
her mother, Anne Boleyn.[129] Unmindful of the fact that a girl of
fifteen is not precisely a baby, the Queen had encouraged the Admiral
to romp with “our Eliza” in the garden and even in her bedroom. Seymour
was notoriously devoid of any sense of delicacy or chivalry, and
there can be very little doubt that the object of his play with his
illustrious stepdaughter was to kindle a passion which might serve his
purpose in case the Queen, already advancing in pregnancy, should die
in childbirth--a not improbable contingency, considering her age and
the fact that she had never borne a child before. At a much later date
Mrs. Ashley, the Princess’s governess, deposed as follows before the
Privy Council: “At Chelsea Manor,[130] after my Lord Thomas Seymour
was married to the Queen, he would come many mornings into the said
Lady Elizabeth’s chamber before she was ready, and sometimes before she
did rise, and strike her familiarly on the back, and so go forth to his
chamber, and sometimes go through to her maidens and play with them.
And if the Princess were in bed, he would put open the curtains and bid
her good morrow, and she would go further in the bed. And one morning
he tried to kiss the Princess _in_ the bed and I was there, and bade
him go away for shame. At Hanworth, for two mornings, the Queen was
with him, and they both tickled my Lady Elizabeth in her bed. Another
time, at Hanworth, he romped with her in the garden, and cut her gown,
being of black silk, into a hundred pieces; and when I chid Lady
Elizabeth, she answered, ‘She could not strive with all, for the Queen
held her while the Lord Admiral cut the dress.’ Another time, Lady
Elizabeth heard the master-key unlock, and knowing my Lord Admiral
would come in, ran out of her bed to her maidens, and then went behind
the curtains of her bed and my Lord Admiral tarried a long while, in
hopes she would come out.” Upon Mrs. Ashley’s begging the Admiral to
be more circumspect, because his tomfooleries were giving the Princess
a bad reputation, he answered, with an oath, “I will tell my Lord
Protector how I am slandered; and I will not leave off, for I mean no
evil.” “At Seymour Place,” continues Mrs. Ashley, “when the Queen slept
there, he did use awhile to come up every morning in his night-gown
and slippers. When he found Lady Elizabeth up and at her book, then he
would look in at the gallery-door, and bid her good morrow and so go
on his way; and I did tell my Lord it was an unseemly sight to see a
man so little dressed in a maiden’s chamber, with which he was angry,
but left it. At Hanworth, the Queen did tell me ‘that my Lord Admiral
looked in at the gallery-window, and saw my Lady Elizabeth with her
arms about a man’s neck.’ I did question my Lady Elizabeth about it,
which she denied, weeping, and bade us ‘ax all her women if there were
any man who came to her, excepting Grindal.’ [This gentleman was her
tutor.] Howbeit, methought the Queen, being jealous, did feign this
story, to the intent that I might take more heed to the proceedings of
Lady Elizabeth and the Lord Admiral.”[131] Mr. Ashley, husband of the
above deponent, and also in Princess Elizabeth’s service, concurred
in his wife’s opinion that the Admiral was going too far, and that
the Princess was “inclined” towards him, for whenever the Admiral was
mentioned “she was wont to blush to her hair-roots.” That Elizabeth
herself was alarmed is proved by the fact that she told Parry, her
cofferer, “that she feared the Admiral loved her but too well, and that
the Queen was jealous of them both; and that Her Majesty, suspecting
the frequent access of the Admiral to her, came upon them suddenly
when they were alone, he having her in his arms. The Queen was greatly
offended, and reproved Mrs. Ashley very sharply for her neglect of duty
in permitting the Princess to fall into such reprehensible freedom of
behaviour.” The scandalous conduct of her husband at last roused not
only the jealousy but the apprehensions of Queen Katherine. She feared
some misfortune might befall the Princess at her tender age, and felt
that in such a case the blame very naturally, and not unjustly, would
be cast on her; and she would be generally regarded as the author of
her stepdaughter’s ruin. Very quietly, therefore, Her Majesty suggested
the departure of the Princess, who was forthwith sent back to Hatfield,
attended by her governess and servants. Elizabeth seems to have borne
her late hostess no ill-will on account of this banishment, and a few
months later we see her affectionately concerned about Her Grace’s
health, and greatly rejoiced at the news that she had been safely
delivered. Evidently a letter from the Admiral, received some days
before the event, had assured her the expected child would be a boy,
and it must have been on receiving this expression of opinion that the
Princess indited the following quaint epistle to her stepmother:--
“Although Your Highness’s letters be most joyful to me in absence,
yet, considering what pain it is for you to write, Your Grace
being so sickly, your commendations were enough in my Lord’s
letter. I much rejoice at your health, with the well liking of the
country, with my humble thanks that Your Grace wished me with you
till I were weary of that country. Your Highness were like to be
cumbered, if I should not depart till I were weary of being with
you; although it were the worst soil in the world, your presence
would make it pleasant. I cannot reprove my Lord for not doing your
commendations in his letter, for he did it; and although he had
not, yet I will not complain of him, for he shall be diligent to
give me knowledge from time to time how his busy child doth; and
if I were at his birth, no doubt I would see him beaten, for the
trouble he hath put you to. Master Denny and my lady, with humble
thanks, prayeth most entirely for Your Grace, praying the Almighty
to send you a most lucky deliverance; and my mistress [Mrs. Ashley]
wisheth no less, giving Your Highness most humble thanks for her
commendations. Written, with very little leisure, this last day of
July.--Your humble daughter,
ELIZABETH”
The phrase, “If I were at his birth, no doubt I would see him beaten,
for the trouble he hath put you to,” is as quaint as any metaphor in
Shakespeare. This letter was dispatched some six weeks before the
Queen’s confinement. About the same time Katherine received a friendly
missive from the Princess Mary, congratulating her on the rumour she
hears concerning her good condition, and assuring her she will pray
Almighty God to help her in her hour of hope and danger.
The unpleasant rumours as to the behaviour of “my Lord Admiral” and
Elizabeth were soon well known all over London, and caused much
spiteful gossip. It was currently reported that when the Princess
left the Queen’s house she had betaken herself to some out-of-the-way
dwelling at Hackney, where a mysterious infant had been born.[132]
This story was so generally believed that it had an echo even during
the great Queen’s reign. In the twenty-first year of Elizabeth (1579),
a youth who appeared at Madrid asserted himself to be the Queen’s son
by the Lord Admiral, and was accepted as such by the Spanish King and
Court. The Lord Admiral certainly made a great impression on the young
girl’s heart, for long after her accession, Elizabeth, very reticent,
as a rule, concerning events connected with her childhood and youth,
would, in the privacy of her closet, confide to the ladies she admitted
to her intimacy that “the Lord Admiral had been the only man she had
ever loved; and the handsomest she had ever seen.”
Perhaps the departure of Princess Elizabeth left the Queen more leisure
to look after her other charge, the Lady Jane Grey, who had been
removed from Seymour Place to the Manor House, Chelsea. Katherine,
on account, it may be, of the restlessness sometimes observed in
ladies in her condition, moved about a great deal during this period.
Sometimes she addresses her letters from Hanworth, sometimes from
Oatlands. Then, as political events rendered her husband’s position
less and less secure, she determined to retire to Sudeley Castle,
Seymour’s lately acquired seat in Gloucestershire, and to lie-in there.
The journey from Hanworth must have been a troublesome one for a woman
in her state of health. She travelled with her husband, Lady Jane
Grey,[133] Lady Tyrwhitt, six other ladies, and two chaplains. She
herself was in a waggon, comfortably lined and cushioned, no doubt,
and with every possible precaution to ensure her comfort, but the
roads were atrocious, and the journey lasted six days. Yet the weary
traveller’s patience must have been amply rewarded, for Sudeley Castle
in those days was one of the most splendid houses in England--a gem
of Gothic architecture, furnished in the most sumptuous style. The
Queen’s apartments had been fitted up with as much magnificence as
she would have enjoyed if she had still been Queen-Consort of England
and about to present the realm with an expected heir. Her bedchamber
was hung with costly tapestry, specified, in an inventory still
preserved at Sudeley, as consisting of “six fair pieces of hangings
illustrating the history of the Nymph Daphne.” The bed had a tester
and curtains of crimson taffeta, with a counterpoint of silk serge.
There was another bed for the nurse, hung with “counterpoints of
imagery to please the babe”--probably some stuff such as was common in
those days embroidered with animals, birds, and little men. The outer
chamber had been arranged as a day nursery, and was hung with “a fair
tapestry” representing the twelve months of the year. In it was set a
“chair of state” covered with cloth of gold--all the other seats were
stools--and a bedstead with tester curtains and rich counterpoints, or
counterpanes, as they are now called. There is still a lovely oriel
window of Tudor architecture at Sudeley popularly called “the nursery
window,” but this cannot be the window of the nursery that was prepared
for Katherine Parr’s babe, for the inventory distinctly says “carpets
for _four_ windows in the nursery.” This other “nursery window” looks
out upon one of the most lovely scenes in England--the chapel where
Katherine Parr sleeps in peace after her chequered life, the garden in
front of it, while beyond, the lovely green of the famous woods of St.
Kenelm soften into the haze of the distant horizon.
Lady Jane’s room, beyond Queen Katherine’s, was also splendidly
furnished, and adorned with tapestries representing the history of St.
Catherine. The bed was hung with blue silk, and a large piece of Turkey
carpet[134] covered the floor.
Queen Katherine’s life at Sudeley must have been very quiet and
peaceful. Local tradition tells us that she was wont, with her young
charge and her ladies, to visit the poor and take an interest in her
gardens. Divine service according to the rites of the Church of England
was said regularly twice a day in the beautiful chapel by one of her
chaplains, Coverdale or Parkhurst, and sermons were preached at least
three times a day. The Lord Admiral’s ostentatious absence from these
pious exercises was a matter of great vexation to the Queen, and gave
rise to a report that his Lordship was an atheist.[135]
The return of the Lord Protector from his campaign in Scotland boded no
good for the Lord Admiral; the brothers had a bitter quarrel, and on
this occasion it was that Seymour departed with the Queen for Sudeley.
Edward had been writing to Somerset, calling him “his dearest uncle”
and saying that he was well pleased with his many victories, and on
the warrior’s return the Admiral found himself quite driven into the
shade. However, about a month before the Queen’s confinement, he made
a hurried journey to London, hoping to induce the young King to write
a letter complaining of the treatment his younger uncle and the Queen
were receiving from the Protector. Edward was easily persuaded to write
the letter, but before the plot was thoroughly matured it was betrayed
to the elder Seymour, and Thomas, arrested by the Lord Protector’s
order, was taken before the Council to answer for his behaviour.
Threatened with imprisonment in the Tower, he made a sort of submission
to Somerset, and a hollow reconciliation took place, the Protector
adding a sum of £800 per annum to Sudeley’s appointments in the hope
of conciliating his unruly brother, who hurried back to Sudeley, where
he felt himself comparatively safe; for so long as the Queen lived he
could defy his foes, his wife’s great rank and the well-known affection
entertained for her by the boy-King sufficing to screen him even from
the vengeance of the infuriated head of the house of Seymour.
On 30th August 1548 Queen Katherine bore the infant for whom such great
preparations had been made. The parents had fondly hoped it would
be a boy, but, alack! it was a puny girl, destined to be a child of
misfortune. She cost her mother her life, and grew up to suffer the
bitter pangs of poverty and neglect.
My Lord Sudeley, who had been consulting fortune-tellers and palmists
about the expected child, was bitterly disappointed, for they had
predicted the birth of a son. This did not prevent him from writing
a very flattering account of his infant daughter to his brother the
Protector. The Duke had quite recently sent his brother a very severe
letter complaining of his intrigues; but the birth of the child seems
to have had a softening effect, and the following letter was far more
friendly, containing a courteous message to the Queen, and continuing:--
“We are right glad to understand by your letters that the Queen,
your bedfellow, hath a happy hour; and, escaping all danger, hath
made you the father of so pretty a daughter. And although (if it
had pleased God) it would have been both to us, and (we suppose)
also to you, a more joy and comfort if it had, this the first-born,
been a son, yet the escape of the danger, and the prophecy and good
hansell of this to a great sort of proper sons, which (as I write)
we trust no less than to be true, it is no small joy and comfort to
us, as we are sure it is to you and to her Grace also; to whom you
shall make again our hearty commendations, with no less gratulation
of such good success.
“Thus we bid you heartily farewell. From Sion, the 1st of Sept.
1548.--Your loving brother,
“E. SOMERSET”
It is a curious fact that the child was born on 30th August, and
that Somerset’s letter is dated the 1st of September, proving that
communication was much more expeditious in those days than we are apt
to imagine.
Lady Tyrwhitt, who attended on the Queen, has left a very touching
account of her last hours.[136] Everything seems to have gone well
until about six days after the child’s birth, when the Queen suddenly
became delirious, and conceived a great dread and a burning jealousy
of her husband. Lady Tyrwhitt says that “two days before the death of
the Queen, at my coming to her in the morning, she asked me ‘Where I
had been so long?’ and said unto me ‘that she did fear such things
in herself, that she was sure she could not live.’ I answered as I
thought, ‘that I saw no likelihood of death in her.’ She then, having
my Lord Admiral by the hand, and divers others standing by, spake
these words, partly, as I took, idly [that is, “in delirium”]: ‘My
Lady Tyrwhitt, I be not well handled; for those that be about me care
not for me, but stand laughing at my grief, and the more good I will
to them, the less good they will to me.’ Whereunto my Lord Admiral
answered, ‘Why, sweetheart, I would you no hurt.’ And she said to
him again, aloud, ‘No, my lord, I think so’; and immediately she
said to him in his ear, ‘But, my lord, you have given me many shrewd
taunts.’ These words I perceived she spoke with good memory, and very
sharply and earnestly, for her mind was sore disquieted. My Lord
Admiral, perceiving that I heard it, called me aside, and asked me
‘What she said?’ and I declared it plainly to him. Then he consulted
with me ‘that he would lie down on the bed by her, to look if he
could pacify her unquietness with gentle communication,’ whereunto
I agreed; and by the time that he had spoken three or four words to
her, she answered him roundly and sharply, saying, ‘My Lord, I would
have given a thousand marks to have had my full talk with Hewyke [Dr.
Huick or Huycke[137]] the first day I was delivered, but I durst not
for displeasing you.’ And I, hearing that, perceived her trouble to
be so great, that my heart would serve me to hear no more. Such like
communications she had with him the space of an hour, which they did
hear that sat by her bedside.”
Little Lady Jane Grey was no doubt near the afflicted Queen throughout
these trying scenes; but she would almost certainly have been excluded
from the bedchamber when the Queen’s condition became alarming. Just
before the end Katherine seems to have rallied, for on 5th September
she was able to make her will, leaving everything to her husband,
and “wishing it had been a thousand times more, so great was her
love for him.” The witnesses to this will were Dr. Huycke, already
mentioned, and Dr. Parkhurst, afterwards Bishop of Norwich, both men
of unimpeachable integrity, who would not have signed the document if
there had been anything illegal about it. Katherine Parr died on 7th
September, the second day after the date of her will and the eighth
after the birth of her child. She was in her thirty-sixth year, and
had survived Henry VIII just one year, six months, and eight days. Her
funeral took place at Sudeley Castle, according to the rites of the
Church of England, on Friday, 8th September, and was the first royal
funeral so celebrated in England. Dr. Coverdale was the officiant at
the Queen’s burial. A procession was formed of “conductors” (_i.e._
leaders) in black, gentlemen, Somerset Herald, torch-bearers, Lady Jane
Grey, acting as chief mourner, her train borne by a young gentlewoman,
then more ladies and gentlemen; finally, “all other following.” The
Lord Admiral, according to custom, did not attend his wife’s funeral.
The ritual was somewhat curious, and is described in the following
terms in an MS. entitled “A Booke of Buryalls of Trew Noble Persons,”
now in the London College of Arms:[138] “When the corpse was set within
the rails, and the mourners placed, the whole choir began and sung
certain psalms in English, and read three lessons; and after the third
lesson, the mourners, according to their degrees and that which is
accustomed, offered into the alms-box.... Doctor Coverdale, the Queen’s
almoner, began his sermon ... in one place thereof he took occasion to
declare unto the people ‘how the offering which was there done, was
(not) done anything to benefit the corpse, but for the poor only; and
also the lights, which were carried and stood about the corpse, were
for the honour of the person, and for none other intent nor purpose’;
and so went through with his sermon, and made a godly prayer, and the
whole church answered and prayed with him.... The sermon done, the
corpse was buried, during which time the choir sung the _Te Deum_ in
English. And this done, the mourners dined, and the rest returned
homewards again. All which aforesaid was done in a morning.”