by Linda Porter
None, however, seem to have done so, though that is not to say that the account is fabricated. Katherine had ample reason to lament her husband’s thoughtlessness and his outbursts of temper. Her reproofs also suggest strongly how devastated she had been by his behaviour with Elizabeth. But his own evident concern for Katherine in her extremity is quite clear and there is no reason to suppose that Dr Huicke could have done anything further that might have prevented the childbed fever that was ravaging her body and mind. In fact, he may well have caused it. Yet however distressed Katherine was on the morning of 3 September, Thomas does seem to have succeeded in calming her. She herself, accepting the inevitability and fast approach of death, remembered, in the end, only the love she had long felt for him. She sent for Huicke and John Parkhurst, the chaplain who had served her while she was married to Henry VIII, and dictated her will, being too weak to write it herself. All her property and possessions were left to her husband. The queen ‘wishing them to be a thousand times more in value than they were’, gave Thomas complete authority to dispose of them as he saw fit. Katherine made no profession of religious faith in her will, nor did she mention her baby. Of little Mary Seymour, lying in her splendid cradle, there was no word. Nor is there any record that she asked to see her daughter as her life ebbed away. Presumably she believed that Thomas would be a good father to their child and was content to leave Mary in his care.
Katherine died in the early morning of 5 September. Her body was carefully wrapped in layers of cere cloth, a waxed cloth used to help prevent decay, and encased in a lead envelope in her coffin. She was buried in the chapel of Sudeley Castle, within sight of the windows of her daughter’s nursery. Jane Grey was the chief mourner for a lady she seems to have held in great affection. The service was short, in English, as Katherine would have approved, and over in a morning. Not for Katherine the processions and funeral masses that saw her third husband to his grave. Instead, psalms were sung in English by the choir, three lessons read, and offerings made in the alms box for the living, not the dead. This point, a key element of the reformed religion that Katherine had done so much to promote, was emphasized by Miles Coverdale in his ‘very good and godly sermon’: ‘they should none there think,’ he admonished them, ‘that the offering which was there done, was done anything to benefit the dead, 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’. Then he delivered his sermon, said a prayer, and ‘the corpse was buried, during which time the choir sung Te Deum in English And this done, the mourners dined and the rest turned homeward again.’16 This simple ceremony has been described as the first Protestant burial of an English queen. It was certainly a stark contrast to a Catholic funeral service, though the singing of the Te Deum, even in English, demonstrates that the old forms had not quite been swept away completely. But Katherine Parr, wife to four husbands, who had lived through thirty-six years of some of the greatest changes England has ever seen, was gone.
However regretful they may have been in private, none of Henry VIII’s children made any public utterance on their stepmother’s passing. When it was suggested to Elizabeth that she write a letter of condolence to Thomas, she declined, on the grounds that she might be thought to be wooing the widower. Whether this reticence was caused by a genuine desire to discourage Seymour, or concern that the Privy Council could misinterpret her intentions if the letter became public, is hard to say. Her caution, though, is ample evidence that Katherine’s admonitions when they parted in May 1548 had been taken to heart.
THOMAS SEYMOUR was stunned by Katherine’s death. Despite the known dangers of childbirth, and his wife being old for her first experience of motherhood, the possibility that she might not survive seems simply never to have crossed his mind. In his shock and grief he turned to his family, going back to London to spend some time with his brother at Syon House. Somerset’s home, full of children and with Duchess Anne the proud mother of yet another son, cannot have been an easy place for Thomas to come to terms with his loss, even if their quarrels were temporarily suspended. His immediate thought was to abandon everything – send Jane Grey back to her parents, disband Katherine’s household, acknowledge that his dreams had been in vain: ‘with the Queen’s Highness death, I was so amazed’, he wrote to Jane’s father, the marquess of Dorset, ‘that I had small regard either to myself or to my doings’.
His despair very soon gave way to a more considered assessment of how he would approach life without Katherine. There was no need for Jane Grey to leave and he would keep on most of his wife’s ladies. He would not throw to the winds everything they had sought to achieve together. This revived ambition was mingled with sadness and a sense of responsibility towards the substantial number of people who had been dependent on the queen. Seymour told Dorset that he hoped to meet him to discuss Jane Grey’s future as soon as possible but that ‘I must repair unto the court, as well to help certain of the Queen’s poor servants, with some of the things now fallen by her death, as also for my own affairs.’17
How his own affairs might be moved forward concentrated Seymour’s mind as he came to terms with Katherine’s demise. It was important not to lose sight of what had been their primary goal – to be put on an equal footing with his brother in the upbringing and management of the king. Much as Thomas liked life in the country, he recognized that he needed to be at court. And he speedily realized it was important to keep Lady Jane Grey with him, if his plans for her marriage to Edward VI were ever to succeed. He asked his own mother, who was currently caring for little Lady Mary Seymour, to look after Jane: ‘my mother shall and will, I doubt not, be as dear unto her, as though she were her own daughter’, he sought to reassure the Dorsets. But the marquess and his wife Frances needed some persuading. Seymour was compelled to visit them in person, at their home, Bradgate, in Leicestershire. Using all his charm and plausibility, he was determined to obtain their agreement that he should remain Jane’s guardian. He had even taken with him his friend Sir William Sharington, who soothed Frances’s fears while Thomas worked on her husband. Jane herself does not seem to have minded returning to Seymour’s care: ‘you have been towards me a loving and kind father’, she wrote at the beginning of October. ‘I shall be always most ready to obey your godly [ad]monitions and good instructions as behooveth one on whom you have heaped so many benefits.’18
This success boosted Thomas’s confidence. He believed that there was everything to play for and that ultimate success might yet be his. And he thought he had friends: Dorset, Katherine’s brother, Northampton, and her brother-in-law, William Herbert, as well as the earl of Rutland. And then there was Sharington, the head of the new mint at Bristol. Sharington and Seymour had known each other for years. Both had served with Sir Francis Bryan and Sharington had been in Henry VIII’s Privy Chamber as well as Katherine Parr’s household while she was married to the king. Sir William owned the beautiful Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire, not far from the Seymours’ home at Wolf Hall. He was considerably older than Thomas and appeared to be wealthy and influential. Sharington certainly knew how to make money – quite literally – for he was a fraudster and embezzler on a large scale, and his role in Bristol gave him ample opportunity to cover the fact that he was hugely overstretched in his personal finances. As an associate he was shady and as a friend, it would turn out, completely unreliable. But then, so were the other men who Thomas believed to be on his side.
As the autumn of 1548 progressed, relations between the two Seymour brothers deteriorated once again. Katherine’s death had briefly brought them together but now the distance between them seemed to grow wider by the month. Thomas, sensing, quite rightly, that Somerset’s popularity on the Privy Council was substantially diminished compared with his position a year ago, tried to win allies to his cause. The reasons for his failure to do so must remain a matter of conjecture. Some may have had to do with personal dislike, or misgivings at his increasingl
y intemperate tone. His fundamental argument about the separation of the offices of Protector and Governor had both logic and historical precedent on its side, so it may well have been the man, rather than the idea, that met with a frosty reception. He required the support of king and parliament to bring about this change. Both presented major problems. Access to Edward was increasingly difficult. The king was ‘guarded, monitored, taught and governed every hour of his life’19 and it was difficult, even for an uncle who provided presents of pocket money, to penetrate this cordon to any lasting effect. In fact, it was easier, as Seymour himself once said, in a remark he later had cause to regret, to remove the king physically. The security arrangements for Edward at this time were surprisingly lax, especially at night.
Parliament presented other difficulties. Any bill would have to be sponsored by the king and, by his own admission, Thomas was not a natural parliamentarian. Surprisingly, he did not count himself an effective speaker. This may have been no more than fear of his inability to curb his temper when challenged, but it may also point to some insecurity with a large audience and a big occasion. He was an effective letter-writer but evidently did not count oratory as his strong suit.
The lack of response to his schemes did not deter Thomas. He seems to have scarcely noticed. There were other avenues to be pursued. One of the most interesting and attractive of these was the search for a new wife. He was reported as saying (though admittedly the source was third hand) that ‘he would wear black for one year, and would then know where to have a wife’. This statement has been used as evidence of his heartlessness and scheming but it should be recalled that his late wife had married again after the deaths of Lord Latimer and Henry VIII in far less time than a year. Rumours of his intentions soon began to circulate among the Privy Councillors. They were not amused, and, indeed, somewhat incredulous, that Thomas might seriously think of marriage with either of the king’s sisters. But though he did not broadcast his plans openly, he was undoubtedly contemplating such a match.
Of the two, Elizabeth was clearly the preferred choice. She was younger, better-looking (though Mary, at thirty-three, remained presentable) and not so obviously tied to the old religion. Seymour, who knew women well, probably sensed that the intimacy there had been between them could easily be rekindled. The business side of such a match also had a strong appeal. Thomas Parry remembered, in his rambling confessions, that Thomas had questioned him at length about the size of Elizabeth’s household, her lands and where they were, and how much income she derived from them. He then offered the princess his house in London, ‘stuff and all’, as Parry put it, ‘with such kindness and gentleness’ that Parry decided to broach the matter with Elizabeth herself. There must, he thought, ‘be some matter betwixt them’, an underlying affection that had remained after Katherine’s death. Seymour added to this impression by announcing that he would try to see Elizabeth: ‘I remember my Lord Admiral said, when her Grace came to Ashridge to lie, it was not far out of his way; and that he might come to see her in his way up and down; and would be glad to see her there then.’20
The date of this conversation was not made clear, though other exchanges between the two men, all concerning Elizabeth, took place in mid-December 1548. Again, Thomas reiterated his desire to see the princess if she came to court. Any other meeting could not properly take place without the Protector’s consent, and much as Elizabeth might have desired to see Thomas, she was conscious of this restraint. By this time, towards the end of the year in which his wife had died, Thomas was playing with fire. He had earlier denied to Lord Russell that he was pursuing either of the king’s sisters. Russell told him, on the way to parliament, that he ‘was sorry to hear rumours that he made means to marry Mary or Elizabeth, which would be his undoing … he denied attempting any such thing’. Thomas was clearly troubled by what had been said, because a few days later he pressed Russell to reveal who had claimed he was going to marry again. Russell replied: ‘I declined, but advised him against it.’ This counsel only made Thomas bolder. ‘He replied that it was convenient for them to marry, and better within the realm than abroad, and why should not he or another made by their father marry one of them. I [Russell] told him that it would be the undoing of anyone, particularly him who was so near the king. The king might be suspicious like his father and grandfather, and suppose that if the admiral married his sister he wished for his death.’ They then argued about the financial advantages of such a match, disagreeing about particulars, and left the matter unresolved. Russell clearly thought he had made his point, but went straight to the lord chancellor, Richard Rich, to relate what had been discussed.
The anger that had burned in Thomas since Henry VIII’s death began increasingly to cloud his judgement. He had always spoken first and thought afterwards. Even Katherine had found him hard to handle and she had supported his ideas and sense of grievance. He hated being told that he had lost his power now she was gone and continued to fight for her jewels, asking Mary for help in identifying the pieces that were rightfully the queen’s. Again, the princess prudently refused to be drawn into his affairs. Thomas was not deterred. He would prove wrong those who thought his prospects diminished. Not all power resided in London. He owned a great deal of land, a source of men who could fight, as well as income. With those men at his back, he could bring down the government. Or so he claimed. Whether he really intended armed insurrection is doubtful. He had no coherent plan of action to back up his statements, and no friends of any influence. Nor did he have the funds that such a course would have required, though the ever-resourceful Sharington might, at an earlier point, have provided him with counterfeit coin. A sum of £10,000 had been mentioned. Now Sharington himself was under suspicion, a fact noted by Thomas Seymour’s enemies – of which he had a growing number.
They came for him at 8 o’clock in the evening of 17 January. Rumours about the circumstances of his arrest were in circulation ten days later in Europe, where they were met with much interest and further speculation. This international dimension to Thomas Seymour’s downfall is sometimes overlooked, yet it formed part of what appears to have been an orchestrated campaign of propaganda once he was shut away in the Tower. On 27 January the imperial ambassador, Franc¸ois Van der Delft, was in Calais, awaiting a crossing to England. The version he had heard was that
the admiral of England, with the help of some people about the court, attempted to outrage the person of the young king by night … the alarm was given by the gentleman that sleeps in the king’s chamber, who awakened by the barking of the dog that lies before the king’s door, cried out “help! Murder!”. Everybody rushed in, but the only thing they found was the lifeless corpse of the dog. Suspicion points to the admiral, because he had scattered the watch that night on several errands and because it had been noticed that he had some secret plot on hand, hoping to marry the second daughter of the late king, the Lady Elizabeth, who is also under grave suspicion.
He would, he told Charles V, find out more when he got back to London, as at the moment he had nothing more to go on ‘beyond the information of those who repeat common report’.21 Three days later, Charles V wrote from Brussels to say that the news was common currency there, too. But by this time Thomas was supposed to have plotted the death of Mary Tudor as well. The emperor had also heard of the accusations that Thomas had sheltered pirates and been paid off in kind, and as he had recently exchanged harsh words with the English ambassador to Brussels on this very subject of piracy he was concerned not to give the impression that he had somehow had forewarning of Seymour’s schemes. Such a comment was typical of the very cautious Charles V.22
William Paget subsequently backed up the story circulating in Calais, when, on being pushed by Van der Delft about why Seymour had been arrested, said the Privy Council had felt compelled to act ‘when the admiral was finally discovered within the palace late at night, with a large suite of his own people and the dog that keeps watch before the king’s door was found dead’.23 The d
eath of this animal is the one constant in the versions of this incident that later circulated. It has been claimed that Thomas, finally moved to desperation, decided to kidnap Edward VI under cover of darkness, knowing he was inadequately guarded, and quite possibly with his nephew’s connivance. Carrying a pistol, he is said to have shot the dog when it persisted in barking, thus alerting members of the king’s household and alienating Edward. It is worth noting, however, that neither the imperial ambassador’s first report nor Paget’s explanation makes any mention of the fact that Seymour was armed or exactly how the dog was killed. Nor were any specific charges relating to this incident included in the accusations against Thomas. But by the time of Van der Delft’s interview with Paget, on 8 February, the campaign to besmirch the admiral was firmly in place. As Paget, ever the master of the pithy phrase put it, he had been ‘a great rascal’ and that was how the Privy Council wanted him to be remembered.