by Linda Porter
Perhaps Parry was being disingenuous here, to try to salvage something of Elizabeth’s reputation, torn to shreds by the admissions of himself and Katherine Ashley. The truth is that Katherine, six months into an uncomfortable pregnancy, could no longer condone the relationship between her stepdaughter and husband. Her physical and mental wellbeing was too fragile to endure further stress and she knew, much more than Thomas or Elizabeth’s servants, or even the princess herself, how the world would view this behaviour if word spread. So, in May 1548, Elizabeth moved into Hertfordshire to take up residence with Sir Anthony Denny and his wife, Joan, who was Katherine Ashley’s sister. There, after some time for reflection, she wrote to the queen, expressing concern for her health and alluding to the interview that had taken place between them before she left:
Although I could not be plentiful in giving thanks for the manifold kindness received at your highness’ hand at my departure, yet I am something to be borne withal, for truly I was replete with sorrow to depart from your highness, especially leaving you undoubtful of health. And albeit I answered little, I weighed it more deeper when you said you would warn me of all evils that you should hear of me; for if your grace had not a good opinion of me, you would not have offered friendship to me that way that all men judge the contrary. But what may I more say than thank God for providing such friends to me, desiring God to enrich me with their long life and give me grace to be in heart no less thankful to receive it than I now am glad in writing to show it. And although I have plenty of matter, here will I stay, for I know you are not quiet to read. From Cheshunt, this present Saturday.
Your highness’ humble daughter, Elizabeth.8
Elizabeth had evidently heard Katherine out in chastened silence, unable, at that point, to defend herself or give much of an explanation of her behaviour. The queen was the only mother she had ever known, a figure of enormous influence in her young life. And now she realized that she had parted from her with scarcely a word.
Yet she remained in contact with Thomas, apparently with his wife’s knowledge. She held no grudge against him; in fact, quite the reverse. She was keen to remind him of her constancy. Later in the summer, before Katherine’s baby was born, she replied to a message or a letter from him in which he had apparently apologized for not fulfilling a promise. It is not clear exactly what this promise was, and Elizabeth made light of it, assuring him:
My lord,
You needed not to send an excuse to me, for I could not mistrust the not fulfilling of your promise to proceed for want of goodwill, but only the opportunity serveth not; wherefore I shall desire you to think that a greater matter than this could not make me impute any unkindness in you. For I am a friend not won with trifles, nor lost with the like. Thus I commit you and all your affairs in God’s hand, who keep you from all evil. I pray you make my humble commendations to the queen’s highness.
Your assured friend to my power, Elizabeth.9
This is not the language of someone who feared the person she was addressing. The letter has a dignity and gravity that counterbalance the lurid tales told later about Elizabeth and Thomas Seymour. Nothing else of any correspondence between them survives. Elizabeth continued to exchange letters with the queen as the date for the baby’s arrival drew ever closer. Their peace, it seems, was made. But Elizabeth never saw Katherine or Thomas again.
ONCE SHE HAD LEFT their household, the queen and her husband set about repairing their fractured relationship. The preceding months had not all been difficult, and Katherine’s pregnancy was a source of great joy and hope. She must have conceived in November and might have suspected, but not been entirely sure, that she was carrying a child when she and Thomas spent Christmas at Hampton Court with Edward VI. Whatever their domestic tensions, the couple had by no means lost sight of their ultimate goal of an official role in the king’s upbringing. Thomas continued to pay out sums of money for the boy’s personal use, telling him ‘ye are a beggarly king’ because he had little direct resource to reward friends, servants or entertainers at court. This embarrassing gap in Edward’s finances was soon being filled by his uncle via the helpful Fowler. Thomas failed, however, to get the king to sign a bill naming him as Governor of the king’s person. Feeling that he was being pushed into putting his signature to something he did not fully understand, Edward told Thomas that he must follow the proper parliamentary procedures. He also asked John Cheke, his tutor, for advice and was assured that his response was the correct one. Thwarted and angry, Thomas retreated.10 Yet still he and his wife did not give up their quest.
But in the early summer of 1548, Thomas Seymour’s primary concern was to ensure that Katherine gave birth to his heir (he was convinced the baby would be a boy) in the most comfortable and pleasant surroundings, with all the state that befitted a queen. So, in mid-June, Katherine set out for Sudeley Castle, her husband’s property in Gloucestershire, to prepare for the birth of her child. She was often unwell at this time, her only known pregnancy, and she was old by Tudor standards to be having a first child. Her cousin Nicholas Throckmorton described her in his poem as ‘past middle age’ and said she ‘barren was before’. Morning sickness and tiredness caused her much discomfort and even late in the pregnancy she was still suffering – and by now she was very large. Elizabeth wrote to Katherine on 31 July, thanking her for thinking of her and acknowledging ‘what pain it is to you to write, your grace being so great with child and so sickly’. She was clearly pleased to read that Katherine ‘wished me with you till I were weary of that country’ and assured her that ‘although I were in the worst soil in the world, your presence would make it pleasant’.11
This letter shows that, despite the circumstances of their parting, the queen and her stepdaughter missed one another greatly. However, Katherine had taken Lady Jane Grey with her to Sudeley and the younger girl was a source of comfort as well as providing a focus for the queen’s maternal skills while she awaited the birth of her own child. A large retinue of ladies and gentlemen accompanied the queen and Jane, turning Sudeley into a court of its own. Thomas undertook some hasty building work so that the castle could accommodate his wife and her servants, but he did not have time to make the extensive changes with which he has often been credited.
It was a lovely, tranquil spot on the edge of the Cotswolds, a complete contrast to the bustle and noise of London. Sudeley is just outside the ancient town of Winchcombe, whose origins went back to Saxon times. The castle itself also had a long history, being mentioned in the Domesday Book, though its past was chequered. An earlier owner, William de Tracy, was one of the knights who murdered Thomas Becket; and Richard III, as duke of Gloucester, had used the castle as his campaign headquarters before the battle of Tewkesbury, in which Katherine Parr’s grandfather had fought. Much of its current appearance and appointments in the mid-sixteenth century it owed to improvements made by Richard when he became king. He added the banqueting hall and the state rooms and might have spent more time there if he had reigned longer. Henry VII gave the castle to his uncle, Jasper Tudor, but after Jasper’s death it reverted to the Crown. Sudeley remained in royal ownership, though it was not much used. Henry VIII made one visit with Anne Boleyn in 1535 and when Edward VI gave it to Thomas Seymour it was in need of refurbishment. Thomas spent £1,000 (about £340,000 today) getting it ready for Katherine, but pressure of time did not allow him to make any major structural changes.
Sudeley, with its fine walks and beautiful garden, was an ideal location for the queen to pass the last three months of her pregnancy. In the spring and summer it is especially attractive. But Katherine had not skimped on her establishment when she exchanged London for Gloucestershire. Her entourage at Sudeley included her new almoner, Miles Coverdale, her doctor, Robert Huicke, a full complement of maids-of-honour and gentlewomen, as well as 120 gentlemen and yeomen of the guard. The duchess of Somerset, who was also pregnant (a coincidence, but a further competitive element between the Seymour brothers) might be the wife of the most po
werful man in the land, but she could not boast such an attendance: Katherine was still a queen.
Yet as the final preparations were being made for Katherine and Thomas to go down into the country, there was the sudden threat of naval hostilities with France The prospect that her husband might be called away to fulfil his duties as lord admiral alarmed Katherine: ‘I am very sorry for the news of the Frenchmen’, she wrote to him from Hanworth. ‘I pray God it be not a let to our journey. As soon as ye know what they will do, good my lord, I beseech you let me hear from you, for I shall not be very quiet till I know.’ Fortunately, this anxiety, coupled with the continuing struggle to get her personal jewellery returned from the duke of Somerset (a dispute that was still festering nearly eighteen months after the death of Henry VIII) did not quite overshadow her continued joy in her pregnancy. The unborn child was, she told Thomas, very active: ‘I gave your little knave your blessing, who like an honest man stirred apace after and before. For Mary Odell [one of her ladies] being abed with me had laid her hand upon my belly to feel it stir. It hath stirred these three days every morning and evening so that I trust when you come it will make you some pastime. And thus I end bidding my sweetheart and loving husband better to fare than myself.’12
Thomas was delighted with her description of the active son he believed would live to take up his father’s cause and set right the injustice done to his parents. He told her:
the receiving of your letter revived my spirits, partly for that I do perceive you be armed with patience, however the matter will weigh [here he was referring to his efforts to prise Katherine’s possessions from his brother], as chiefest, that I hear my little man doth shake his poll [head], trusting if God should give him life as long as his father, he will revenge such wrongs as neither you nor I can, at this present, the turmoil is such. – God amend it!
There was, though, better news of foreign matters: ‘As for the Frenchmen, I have no mistrust that they shall be any let of my going with you this journey, or any of my continuance there with your highness.’ He would be with her at her time of travail and had some advice on how she might ease the pangs of delivery: ‘I do desire your highness to keep the little knave so lean and gaunt with your good diet and walking, that he may be so small that he may creep out of a mousehole. And I bid my most dear and well-beloved wife most heartily well to fare.’13
These letters reveal a great deal about the underlying affection between Thomas and Katherine, a love that had survived ridicule, family and political pressures, as well as temptation and jealousy. At Sudeley, as the weeks passed and Katherine’s confinement drew ever closer, all that remained to complete their happiness was the birth itself. They may have had enemies, but they also had well-wishers who had cause to remember Katherine’s friendship and pray for her safe delivery. Her elder stepdaughter, Mary, wrote from Newhall in Essex on 9 August and said that she was taking the opportunity of a visit from the queen’s brother to add another letter to the many she had already sent, as she understood that he ‘intendeth to see your grace shortly’. The next day she hoped to begin the journey to her Norfolk estates, but ill-health had delayed her. She was conscious that she would be further than ever from the queen but she hoped ‘with God’s grace, to return again about Michaelmas, by which time, or shortly after, I trust to hear good success of your grace’s great belly’.14
While she waited for that success, Katherine fitted out a beautiful nursery for her baby. The room overlooked the gardens and Sudeley’s chapel, a fair and peaceful aspect. It was hung with tapestries and decorated in the queen’s favourite colours of crimson and gold. Beside the baby’s cradle, with its pillows and quilt, was a bed with a scarlet tester and crimson curtains and a separate bed for the nurse. The child was already provided with plate for a table service and fine furniture. As the summer of 1548 drew to its conclusion, the queen continued to follow Dr Huicke’s advice and walk regularly in the castle grounds. Yet despite the imminence of her own child’s arrival, she was still thinking about the situation of English politics and the theft, as she perceived it, of her stepson’s rightful possessions. Sir Robert Tyrwhit remembered that she had said to him during one of her perambulations: ‘Master Tyrwhit, you shall see the king when he cometh to his full age, he will call his lands again, as fast as they be now given from him.’ She assured Tyrwhit that Seymour would give up Sudeley Castle, if the day came that the king required its return.
For the present, however, Sudeley was her home and refuge. She had endured an uncomfortable pregnancy and an emotional, uncertain time since the death of Henry VIII. But the end of her confinement was apparently more straightforward. On 30 August, Katherine gave birth to a healthy girl. The baby was named Mary, after the queen’s elder stepdaughter. Any disappointment that the parents might have felt that this was not the anticipated little male avenger of their wrongs was completely swept away by the joys of parenthood and relief at Katherine’s safe delivery. She and Thomas were old to be having a first child, and their delight was made plain when the proud father wrote to his brother (who already had two children from his first marriage and nine from his second) about his sweet little girl. The duchess of Somerset had trumped Katherine a few weeks earlier by giving birth to yet another boy, but her husband was circumspect, even encouraging, in his response to Thomas:
We are right glad to understand by your letters that the Queen your bedfellow hath had a happy hour: and, escaping all danger, hath made you the father of so pretty a daughter. And although (if it had so pleased God) it would have been both to us, and we suppose to you, a more joy and comfort if it had been this the first son; yet the escape of danger, and the prophecy and good hansell [promise] of this to a great sort of happy sons, the which as you write, we trust no less than to be true, is no small joy and comfort to us, as we are sure it is to you and to her Grace also.
The use of the royal ‘we’, an affectation that did not endear Somerset to other members of the Privy Council, was something that his brother had come to expect. And by the time the duke’s letter, written on 1 September, reached Sudeley, Thomas Seymour had far more serious things to occupy his thoughts.
At first, it seemed as though Katherine had come through the birth well. But, alas, she had not experienced the escape of danger her brother-in-law assumed. Within a few days, she developed the fever and weakness that were the first signs of puerperal fever, the deadly bacterial complication of childbirth that afflicted so many women of her time. Lacking antiseptics and antibiotics, newly delivered women were at the mercy of a lottery of life and death. Understanding of hygiene was very basic and Dr Huicke, as he tended to Katherine during and after the birth, did not have at his disposal the scrubs, gloves and sterilized instruments of our times. It made no difference whether you were a queen or a peasant. Katherine had been given the best of care while she carried her child, but there was nothing that could be done for her now.
Thomas may have clung, for a while, to the hope that the fever would pass and she would rally. Most probably her ladies, and Katherine herself, knew otherwise. As her condition worsened, she suffered bouts of delirium, interspersed with periods when she was calmer and collected. But, clearly, she realized, before her doctor confirmed her worst fears, that she was dying. After a troubled night, she called Robert Tyrwhit’s wife, Lady Elizabeth, to her bedside on the morning of 3 September. This lady’s recollection of the queen’s words at that time have passed down to us as a deathbed denunciation of Thomas Seymour, but it should be remembered that here was someone who disliked Seymour intensely, wanting to leave an overwhelmingly negative impression. Nevertheless, her account reveals the hidden anguish that Katherine had suppressed, but which now came to the surface as she struggled to accept what was happening to her.
When Lady Tyrwhit arrived in Katherine’s chamber, the queen asked her where she had been so long, and then said that ‘she did fear such things in herself, that she was sure she could not live’. Seeking to reassure her despairing and frightened
mistress, Lady Tyrwhit replied that she saw no likelihood of death in her. But Katherine was not placated. In fact, she became more disturbed, despite the fact that Thomas was holding her hand and trying to soothe her. ‘She then … spake these words,’ recalled Elizabeth Tyrwhit, ‘partly, as I took it, idly [in delirium], “My Lady Tyrwhit, 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 unto them, the less good they will to me.”’ This rebuke was clearly intended for her husband but he strongly denied it, answering, ‘Why, sweetheart, I would you no hurt.’ Katherine replied: ‘No my lord, I think so’, but she pulled him closer, saying in his ear, ‘but, my lord, you have given me many shrewd taunts’. Lady Tyrwhit went on to say that the queen spoke these words ‘with good memory and very sharply and earnestly, for her mind was far unquieted. My Lord Admiral, perceiving that I heard it, called me aside, and asked me what she said, and I declared it plainly to him.’ Though there are evident contradictions concerning Katherine’s lucidity in this account, Lady Tyrwhit was determined to drive her point home. She admitted that Thomas was distressed enough by his wife’s accusations to suggest that he lie down on the bed beside her so that he could ‘pacify her unquietness with gentle communication’, but she wanted it known that Seymour’s attempts were counter-productive. Katherine had reproved him, ‘very roundly and shortly’, claiming that she would have liked a full consultation with Dr Huicke the first day she was delivered, ‘but I durst not, for displeasing of you’. In other words, the queen was so far afraid of her husband’s reaction if she had a private session with her doctor that Thomas’s unreasonable jealousy had brought her to the point of death. Too distressed to listen further, so she claimed, Lady Tyrwhit left this heartbreaking scene. But others who were there, she vowed, could back up what she had remembered.15