Queen of This Realm

by Jean Plaidy

  I hated Lady Tyrwhit, mostly because she wasn't Kat. I glared at her and refused to talk to her except when it was necessary. She was a patient woman and she showed no resentment. In fact she behaved rather like a jailer and even at such a time I recognized that hint of hesitation which all displayed when dealing with someone who had a claim to the throne. It suggests that they do not really believe one will ever reach that exalted position—but caution bids them play safe in case one should.

  I do not remember how many days passed before Sir Robert Tyrwhit came to my bedchamber. He had sheaves of paper in his hand. These were, he explained, the confessions of Parry and Katharine Ashley.

  I took them and read them. It was all there… the rompings, the tickling in bed, the cutting of the dress, the morning visits to my bedchamber in his nightgown with bare legs. They had told everything. Parry had said that wild horses could tear him asunder and he would not tell. How different was the true case.

  I did not blame them. I just thought of them—and particularly of Kat— in some dark dungeon waiting with trepidation the hour of questioning, no doubt dreading in terror the terrible means that could be used to prize information from them. The thought of Kat on the rack was more than I could bear. I forgave them… readily… for telling all they knew.

  I was ill and rather glad of it. I could shut myself away in my bedchamber and with good excuse, and only answer Lady Tyrwhit when absolutely necessary. I remembered that she had been lady-in-waiting to my stepmother and had been present at her death-bed when Katharine had accused the Admiral of wishing her ill and to be with others. And that meant me. I could understand then that vague attitude of triumph that I, who had caused her beloved mistress so much anguish, was now suffering myself.

  Then I began to realize that there was some good in Lady Tyrwhit. She was better than her odious husband in any case.

  The whole country was talking about Thomas Seymour. He had always caught people's attention because of his presence and good looks; and I had noticed that people like little better than to see those who were mighty brought low.

  They talked more of his matrimonial ventures than his treason to the Crown. The affair of the Bristol Mint was not so interesting as what his life had been like with the Dowager Queen. It was proved that he had tried for me first—and to my horror and astonishment that he had also had his eyes on the Princess Mary and Lady Jane Grey, all not without some claim to the throne. Had he poisoned his wife? it was being asked. She had accused him on her death-bed of wanting to be rid of her. Had he not had his eyes on the Princess Elizabeth?

  How do these matters become public knowledge? There are spies everywhere, as every royal daughter knows. The distressing nature of malicious gossip is that it is embellished as it passes along. It grows like a living evil, like a malevolent disease.

  They were destroying my reputation. Seymour and I had been lovers, they said. I had had a child by him. One account had it that a midwife had testified that one dark night she had been taken to a house blindfold so that she would not know where she was going. She saw nothing in the house but candlelight, but she did know that she had delivered a fair young lady of a child. There was an even more horrible version. It claimed that the child had been taken away and destroyed.

  I accepted the fact now that I had been entirely foolish in allowing the Admiral to pay court to me when he was married to my stepmother; I had been duped. But the monstrous nature of these accusations infuriated me.

  After much reflection, I rallied my courage. Though fearful, I wrote a carefully worded letter to the Lord Protector in which I told him that I trusted and believed in his good will toward me. I asked him directly to make a declaration that people should refrain from circulating falsehoods about me, for they must know that they were falsehoods, and I was sure they would wish to protect the King's sister from such calumny.

  As a result of that letter, the Council replied that if I could point out these people who were spreading lies about me, they should be suitably punished.

  It was at least some slight consolation.

  I fretted for Kat. I wanted her with me. I missed her love and her gossip. I decided to plead with the Protector for her return. I could not bear to think of her a prisoner in the Tower.

  “My Lord,” I wrote,

  “I have a request to make… peradventure you and the Council will think I favor her evil doing, for whom I shall speak, which is Katharine Ashley, that it would please Your Grace and the rest of the Council to be good unto her. Which thing I do, not favor her in any evil (for which I would be sorry to do), but for these considerations that follow, the which hope doth teach me in saying that I ought not to doubt but that Your Grace and the rest of the Council will think that I do it for other considerations. First, because that she hath been with me a long time, and many years, and hath taken great labor and pain in bringing me up in learning and honesty; and therefore I ought of very duty speak for her; for Saint Gregorie sayeth, ‘that we are more bound to them that bringeth us up well than to our parents, for our parents do that which is natural for them that bringeth us into the world, but our bringers-up are a cause to make us live well in it.' The second is because I think that whatsoever she hath done in my Lord Admiral's matter, as concerning the marrying of me, she did it because, knowing him to be one of the Council, she thought he would not go about any such thing without he had the Council's consent thereunto; for I have heard her say many times that she would never have me marry in any place without Your Grace's and the Council's consent. The third cause is, because that it shall, and doth, make men think that I am not clear of the deed myself but that it is pardoned to me because of my youth, because that she I loved so well is in such a place…

  “Also, if I may be so bold and not offending, I beseech Your Grace—and the rest of the Council to be good to Master Ashley, her husband, which because he is my kinsman I would be glad should do well.

  “Your assured friend to my little power, Elizabeth.”

  I hoped my appeal would not fall on deaf ears. I did have some faith in Somerset. He lacked all the charm and good looks of his brother, but I believed him to be a just man and honest as far as men can be when the acquisition of power is the main object of their lives.

  I felt numbed when a friend whispered to me that the Admiral was condemned to death. That spy Tyrwhit would be watching me closely. I must prepare myself to show no emotion when the news was brought to me of his execution.

  It arrived on a blustery March day. I had steeled myself. When Tyrwhit came to me, he was not alone. He wanted evidence of the manner in which I received the news so that he could report with corroboration to his masters.

  “My lady,” he said, “this day Thomas Seymour laid his head upon the block.”

  They were watching me, all of them. I clasped my hands. They did not tremble.

  I said clearly, for I had rehearsed the words: “This day died a man of much wit and very little judgment.”

  Calmly I took my leave of them and went into my chamber.

  THREE YEARS HAD PASSED SINCE THE DEATH OF THOMAS Seymour, and I believed I had succeeded in living down the scandals which had been circulating about me at that time. I had become very ill. I do not think I realized until after the Admiral's death the strain I had endured. I had not exactly loved him—in fact I still find it difficult to analyze my feelings toward him—but death is so irrevocable and when it befalls someone whom one has known well it is a shock, particularly when one has been in fear of one's own life.

  My youth, I was sure, had saved me and also the fact that I was considered of no great importance; but I knew that as my years increased, so would the danger with them.

  Lady Tyrwhit was kind to me during the months following the Admiral's death and I grew fond of her, but no one could replace Kat. The Protector was, I think, a little concerned for my state of health and sent Dr Bill, a good physician, to look after me. Dr Bill realized that the cause of my debility was not entirely physic
al and he prescribed that my old governess, who had been released from the Tower but forbidden to return to me, should be brought back, for he was sure her presence would have a beneficial effect on my health.

  To my great joy the Protector agreed, and what a glorious day that was when we were reunited. We just clung together weeping and assuring ourselves that it was really true.

  Poor Kat, she had had a terrifying experience and she told me of her fears when she had been taken away. “The Tower, my lady … and we had betrayed you. Parry and I betrayed you…”

  I hugged her and kissed her and told her she was a treacherous old idiot and I did not know why I loved her.

  Then she said very seriously: “I would serve you with my life.” And I knew she would, and I fervently hoped she would never come within the shadow of the rack again.

  I had resumed my studies with Roger Ascham and they were a source of great joy to me. Edward and I wrote to each other and he was very annoyed because we were not allowed to be together. Edward was at this time thirteen and I was seventeen. After the Admiral's death I was kept very much in the background and hardly ever asserted myself; and when Edward suggested that I ask for a meeting I refrained from doing so, having learned a lesson. A seventeen-year-old girl would appear in a very different light from one of fourteen. I must never again become embroiled in what could be construed as treason. But when Edward asked for my portrait as he could not see me in person, that was one request with which I could comply.

  Soon after Thomas's execution, dark clouds began to gather about the head of the Protector. The state of the country was not good; there was trouble with the Scots in the North and they had taken several castles on the Border; war was declared by the French; but the chief cause of friction was perhaps the religious conflicts within the realm. Moreover, through miscalculations, more land was being turned from arable into pasture which created hardship and resulted in the depreciation of the currency; there were risings in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Norfolk, and this last was developing into more than a revolt of the peasants. It was a rebellion, which was at length crushed successfully by John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, a man of immense ambition. His triumph in Norfolk was the start of his campaign against the Lord Protector. He obviously wanted to oust Somerset from his place and take it himself. I did not know John Dudley, but I did remember a son of his whom I had met during one of his visits to Court when I was about eight years old. We had danced together. He was about a year older than I, and something in our natures had attracted us to each other. I think we both had an unusually high opinion of ourselves, children though we were!

  So when I heard that John Dudley was emerging as an enemy of Edward Seymour all I knew of him was that he was the son of the powerful Edmund Dudley who had been held responsible for the taxes imposed by my grandfather King Henry VII and whom my father had sacrificed to the block in order to placate the people soon after his accession. That… and he had a son named Robert.

  Although I was far from the center of events, I had my own informants, careful though they were—so I was aware that two ambitious men were determined to rule the King, and through him the country. Each had his supporters, and I confess to thinking that Seymour, as the King's uncle, would prevail, for although Edward was but a boy, his word must be taken some account of, and he would always remember—even though he had rebelled against his sternness—that Edward Seymour was his uncle.

  After his success against the Norfolk peasantry, John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, as he was by then, had brought two hundred captains to Seymour to demand more pay for the work they had done. When the Protector refused this, Warwick suggested that they gather together a body of men who were tired of the Protector's rule and overthrow him. Somerset, however, managed to raise ten thousand men and went to Windsor with the King. But the Council had had enough of Somerset by then. He was an able man, if ambitious, but he was stern and his manner brusque—the opposite of his brother's—and that had not endeared him to them.

  Events turned against him, and it was not long before he too was judged a traitor and lodged in the Tower.

  How thankful I was then to be away from Court. I did wonder what part my brother had played in this. Had he also resented those days when Somerset controlled his purse strings?

  Warwick took over the role of Protector, but he could not bring himself to agree to Somerset's execution; nor could others. I supposed it crossed their minds that they could as easily be in Somerset's shoes.

  So he was released, and when his eldest daughter Anne married Warwick's eldest son, Viscount Lisle, it seemed as though the two families had patched up their quarrel. Perhaps Somerset hoped to return to his former position; perhaps Warwick feared him; but it was not long before the King's uncle was once more in acute danger.

  A death struggle was taking place between Edward Seymour and John Dudley. Each had his advocates but surely, as the King's uncle, Seymour must prevail even though Edward had never liked this uncle. Thomas had been his favorite and yet he had given evidence against him although he had always been so affectionate toward him. I did not altogether understand my young brother. There was something aloof and cool about him. He could not be swerved from an opinion, and he was quite fanatically religious, having more and more turned to the new reformed faith.

  Events might have turned out more favorably for Edward Seymour if he had not fallen ill and had to take to his bed. That gave John Dudley his chance. He immediately gave himself a grander title than that of Earl of Warwick, and became the Duke of Northumberland; and his close friends were similarly raised to the peerage.

  Then, one of his adherents, a certain Sir Thomas Palmer, who had served my father well and acquired a reputation for great courage along with a fair amount of property, decided that he had not prospered as he would have wished under the Seymour regime, and could look for advancement under that of John Dudley. One day he called on the Duke and asked if he might walk with him in his gardens. There he disclosed what he called the plot. He had evidence, he said, that Edward Seymour was planning to kill the newly created Duke of Northumberland. He was sure of this because he had been one of the conspirators. However, he had changed his mind and no longer wished to support Somerset and he was therefore throwing himself on Northumberland's mercy. The plot was to raise the country against Northumberland and bring about his downfall.

  Shortly after that Edward Seymour was arrested and sent to the Tower.

  For six weeks he remained there while evidence against him was collected and sifted. He was then accused of plotting to destroy the city of London, seize the Tower and the Isle of Wight and secure for himself and his heirs the crown of England.

  I could scarcely believe that the man of whom we had all lived in awe for so long was now himself a prisoner.

  Some months before this I had come out of my retirement. I thought the scandals had been forgotten by this time and I did not want to remain buried in the country forever. Perhaps I was safer there but after the period following the Admiral's execution I had felt so shut away that I was longing for some excitement however dangerous it might be.

  My sister Mary arrived in London a day or so before I did and was given a warm welcome, but Mary was such a firm Catholic, holding so tenaciously to the old ways, that people did watch her rather warily; and when I rode in shortly afterward, there was no doubt of their pleasure in me.

  I caught the whisper: “How like her father she is! It might be great Henry himself riding there! That is just how he must have looked in his young days.”

  I had his reddish hair and general coloring. I sat my horse well. I was upright, but whereas he had had great bulk, I was very slim. They cheered me. “Long live the Princess Elizabeth!” And I went on hearing those words echo long after I had left the streets. They were the sweetest music to me. I wanted more of their admiration after my long isolation. I responded with a rush of happiness. The truth was that I wanted to ride among them, to see their smiling faces and to hear
and sense that they loved me.

  Edward was delighted to see me, and made a great show of his affection, which made everyone marvel because with most people he was so aloof. He made me tell him what I was studying with Roger Ascham and we talked of Cicero and the Greek Testament with more excitement than I was sure Edward showed for the affairs of the country.

  I told him about my household and the latest indiscretions of Kat Ashley, which made him smile. I had Parry back with me now, which was another great joy, but as I told Edward, now I was watchful of the household accounts myself.

  We read to each other and chatted in Latin and were very happy together.

  He said nothing about the trouble between Northumberland and Somerset and I was wise enough not to mention it, although I should have loved to know what his feelings were, considering it was his uncle who was in the Tower awaiting death. Perhaps he did not care, for he had been fond of Thomas and appeared quite indifferent when he went to the block.

  I was very disturbed to receive a letter from Edward Seymour begging me to speak to the King on his behalf. He knew the King's love for me and he was sure I could influence him more than anyone else. If I would remind the King of their relationship and the love his uncle had always borne him…

  I pondered that. I should have liked to show people the influence I had with Edward, but caution was at my elbow. Remember Thomas Seymour, it said. Whatever happens, do not become embroiled in their quarrels. If Northumberland knew that I had pleaded for his enemy, what would his feelings be toward me?

  No, certainly I must take no part in their quarrel.

  “Being so young a woman,” I wrote to him, “I have no power to do anything in your behalf”; and I went on to explain that the King was surrounded by those who would resent my making such a request to him.