Virgin

by Robin Maxwell

  Elizabeth could see now — it was quite evident — that what Robin had done had been meant for her protection. Indeed, though he could not know and she would never tell him, his timely actions had likely saved her from Seymour's rape. Most important, she knew, her heart swelling with comfort and happiness, he had shown the utmost courage with his terrible admission today. Robin Dudley was an honest man, and nothing, nothing could be more important.

  All tears and laughter had finally ceased.

  “Do you forgive me, then?” Robin asked.

  “I thank you,” she said simply, and he did not question her reply.

  She could see his body relax, and his expression too. They walked side by side now, easy with one another, even in silence as it had always been. They strolled to the edge of the great wood, allowing its ancient towering strength to refill and refresh them. Finally Robin spoke.

  “My father says you will never rule England.”

  “I think he is right. Too much stands in the way.”

  “Be that as it may,” said Robin, pausing to face her, “consider me your man, Princess. Count on me … always. Will you promise me that?”

  “I promise,” she said, most seriously.

  With poise unexpected from a sixteen-year-old boy, Robin took Elizabeth’s hand and raised it to his lips. He kissed her fingers as a man would his sovereign’s. But then he could not seem to let her go.

  Elizabeth turned her hand gently and caressed Robin’s cheek — this man, this boy, this dearest of all hearts. She carefully pulled her hand away. “I think,” she began, “that in coming years I shall envy Amy Robsart very much indeed.” Elizabeth saw what she thought was pain flicker across Robin’s features. “But never mind. We are best friends,” she said forcefully, so that the tears would not begin again.

  “And always will be,” he agreed staunchly.

  Elizabeth felt a lightness, almost weightlessness overcome her, and the pain that had for so long consumed her, body and soul, began to dissolve away.

  “Shall we ride?” he asked suddenly. “I think it will do you good.”

  “I think, Robin Dudley,” said Elizabeth, smiling with great and newfound joy, “that you know me very well.”

  Epilogue

  The embezzler William Sherrington obtained a full pardon for himself and had his house, lands, and position at the Royal Mint restored to him. He ended his life as the sheriff of Wiltshire.

  Owing to Elizabeth’s persistence with the Protector, Kat Ashley and Thomas Parry were released from the Tower and restored to the Princess’s service. Kat remained Elizabeth’s closest waiting lady and ally until she died fifteen years later.

  With the death of his brother Thomas, the ascendancy of Edward Seymour, the Lord Protector and Duke of Somerset, ended. During the civil revolt of 1549 his popularity plummeted while John Dudley flaunting his new title as Duke of Northumberland, flourished. Further reduced by his rival’s successful scheming, Somerset was relieved of his duties and confined to the Tower. He was succeeded as Protector by none other than Northumberland. Somerset temporarily regained his place on the Privy Council and, in a gesture of submission, married his daughter to Northumberland’s eldest son and namesake, John Dudley, but he was secretly plotting to bring the new Protector down. The plot failed. Somerset was convicted of a felony and beheaded in 1552.

  King Edward the Sixth lived under Northumberland’s protectorship and together, rabid Protestants, they instituted some of the worst persecution of Catholics in English history. When King Edward was sixteen years old, he died an excruciatingly painful death, some believe of tuberculosis. In the weeks preceding his death, the Duke of Northumberland schemed with Lord Dorset and, in secret, married their children Guildford Dudley and Lady Jane Grey. Though it was not Jane’s or Guildford’s wish, it was their fathers’ greatest desire that the pair should rule as king and queen. They succeeded briefly. For nine days the fourteen-year-old Jane was queen of England, thus upsetting the lawful succession of Princess Mary. No one counted on popular support for the Catholic princess nor on her ability to muster an army of her own. But she and her troops routed Northumberland and Dorset, and as Queen Mary (later known as “Bloody Mary” for her persecution of Protestant heretics) she took the throne. The Duke of Northumberland, his son John Dudley, and Lord Dorset were beheaded for treason to the Crown. A victim of Dorset’s and Northumberland’s failed schemes, little Jane Grey, nine days a reluctant queen, and Guildford Dudley were executed on Tower Green.

  Catherine Parr’s death of childbed fever may have ended the life of an extraordinary Renaissance queen, but her influence lived on through Elizabeth. Despite the Queen Dowager’s lapse into what can only have been temporary insanity during her marriage to Thomas Seymour, Catherine managed to imbue Elizabeth with strength, character, and political skill sufficient to see her through the rest of her life.

  Dowager Queen Catherine and Thomas Seymour’s orphaned infant daughter Mary Seymour was wholly unwanted by her relations. She was cared for briefly by the Duchess of Somerset and later the Duchess of Suffolk, but history soon lost track of the girl and she died in obscurity at an unknown date.

  After a reign of five years during which she married her Spanish cousin, Philip II, Queen Mary died childless. In 1558, in a transition both peaceful and joyful, Princess Elizabeth ascended the throne. As Queen Elizabeth she ruled gloriously for forty-four years. Many believe the Seymour affair figured significantly in her distrust of powerful men and her remarkable decision never to marry.

  Robin Dudley, whose grandfather, father, and two brothers had all been executed for treason against the Crown, lived on to be named Earl of Leicester, with grants, properties, and great houses bestowed upon him by his childhood friend, now queen. Dudley became Elizabeth’s lover, suitor for her hand in marriage, confidant, Privy Councillor, and one of the three most trusted advisors throughout her long reign. Dudley was perhaps the most reviled man at court, not so much for his behavior as for his unshakable influence with the Queen. When the Spanish Armada attempted its invasion of England in 1588, she entrusted to Lord Leicester the greatest of honors possible — leadership of all her land forces. He died shortly after the Armadas spectacular defeat, and thus the deepest, most passionate, most enduring friendship of Elizabeth's life ended.

  Author’s Note

  While I am deeply indebted to a number of excellent historians without whose research this book would have been impossible, I have always been astonished that this episode of the Tudor story has been largely ignored or given short shrift by them. Alison Weir in her recent biography of Elizabeth (The Life of Elizabeth I) allows the subject three brief paragraphs and draws exactly one conclusion about the events. Even among the texts that view the Seymour affair as significant enough for a detailed account, there are next to none that go beyond the facts and provide an analysis of the individuals and relationships involved in the most fascinating psychosexual interplay, the most virulent sibling rivalry, and the deadliest family feud of the sixteenth century Thomas Seymour ranks as the number-one bad boy of Tudor history. A textbook-perfect sociopathic/charismatic personality, he ran roughshod over the Renaissance landscape, severely altering every life he touched.

  In any account of a history that goes back 450 years there are sure to be gaping holes — that is expected. But in the period spanning the death of Henry VIII (1547) and the execution of Thomas Seymour (1549), I found in most cases glaring omissions and inconsistencies, inadequate analyses and faulty conclusions.

  This is particularly true of the idea that Seymour might have played a role in his wife’s death. Despite the fact that on her deathbed she was clearly furious at her husband and berated him in front of many people, only Carolly Erickson (The First Elizabeth) admits that “the circumstances were highly suspicious.” Seymour did not allow Catherine to see her physician for three days after their daughter s birth, and the will that she dictated during the agonizing postpartum period was never signed. Still, Anthon
y Martienssen (Queen Katherine Parr) sloughs off the idea that Thomas Seymour may have hastened Catherine s death and takes the High Admiral at his word, quoting a letter he wrote to Lord Dorset. In it Seymour claimed to be “so amazed” by Catherine's passing that his affairs were thrown into confusion, for he had “neither anticipated nor expected it.” This from a biographer who earlier described Seymour as a man with “serious defects of character” and “an overriding passion for power and wealth, but with no objective than his own self-aggrandizement.” He was “devious … consumed with jealousy for his brother … and his prime motive in seeking Catherine as a bride was to supplant his brother as Protector.” Why would Martienssen so blithely accept a description of this scoundrel’s emotions surrounding his wife’s death?

  William Seymour's Ordeal by Ambition, an otherwise well researched account (by a descendant of the Seymours) of the family’s rise and fall, says “There was loose talk at the time … that Thomas poisoned her.” The author easily dispels this story about the Queen Dowager’s final days by attributing it to what he clearly feels is a biased report. Though Catherine’s stepdaughter, Lady Tyrwhitt, was the closest eyewitness to the events, Seymour dismissively describes her as “not a particularly pleasant woman.” Her evidence against Thomas, “whom she cordially disliked, was damaging and ungenerous” (italics mine). The biographer admits that Catherine’s will was unsigned and made orally, but he declares unequivocally that “the witnesses were persons of the highest character.” Then in the very next paragraph, of the man whom he has just defended against the possibility of foul play, he says, “Seymour lost all sense of proportion. He scowled upon the world with lineaments of jealousy, rage and doom…. His actions … were scarcely those of a heartbroken widower. Still less can he be excused for his eager pursuit of the Princess Elizabeth, almost before the grave had closed over that gentle and lovely lady…. Thomas compromised himself beyond redemption by his gasconades, and worse still his overt treachery.” Is this a man we should trust to secure “witnesses of the highest character” for the oral and unsigned last will and testament of the richest woman in England?

  Of Elizabeth’s response to Thomas Seymour's sexual advances, Neville Williams (The Life and Times of Elizabeth I) declares, “For all his charm the Admiral had become repulsive and she [Elizabeth] determined that he would never come across her alone.” In the very next sentence he says, “During her pregnancy Catherine Parr’s jealousy of the Princess increased, and at Whitsun 1548 she caught Elizabeth in Seymour's arms.” So much for Elizabeth's determination to stay away from her repulsive stepfather.

  The most egregious omission, and the mystery that propelled me into examining this story in the first place, was the Queen Dowager’s state of mind during this period. How was it, I asked myself, that a woman of Catherine Parr's intellectual and moral stature as well as her peerless decorum and unparalleled kindness could have become the mad creature who would pinion her stepdaughter’s arms while her husband, armed with a dagger, ripped Elizabeth’s dress from her body and slashed it to ribbons? Virtually none of the historians ponder this question.

  As to Thomas Seymour's effect on Elizabeth, Paul Johnson (Elizabeth I) concludes, “These episodes, when they emerged, caused Elizabeth great embarrassment. But they do not amount to much.” Most historians believe that after Catherine’s death, although Kat Ashley encouraged the marriage to Seymour, and Parry met a dozen times with him to discuss the details of such a match, Elizabeth wanted nothing to do with the Admiral and even refused to correspond with him. Johnson claims that “at no point did she seriously think of marrying him.” I asked myself, how could a girl who had risked the love of the only woman she had ever called mother by succumbing to passion with Seymour suddenly — now that he was free to marry, and she encouraged by her closest retainers — ignore his very existence? Only Erickson states that the Princess “may have given him secret encouragement.” This seems a most logical possibility to me.

  There is much dispute as to the extent of Elizabeth and Seymour’s sexual involvement — how far they went, and whether in fact the rumors of her pregnancy were true. In no history book is more said of the events leading up to her expulsion from Chelsea House to Cheshunt than that Catherine discovered the Princess “in Seymour’s arms.” I cannot believe that a woman who loved her stepdaughter so dearly would send her the very next day from her sight, never to lay eyes on the girl again, unless the “embrace” was serious indeed. But this is one “hole in history” that only writers of historical fiction are allowed to fill. I can only hope that my take on the subject is believable, satisfying, and as true to the facts as humanly possible.

  The readers of my first two novels in this series, The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn and The Queens Bastard, have questioned me endlessly — or come to their own conclusions — about what in these stories is “historical” and what is “fiction,” so I'll take a moment here to expound on Virgin.

  Until the moment of Elizabeth’s expulsion from Chelsea House after her tryst with Seymour was discovered by Catherine, the characters and events adhere very closely to the historical record. We do know that the Princess went to Cheshunt and thereafter became quite ill. It’s recorded that she and Catherine corresponded cordially during that time and that the Queen Dowager’s pregnancy was unremarkable.

  That Elizabeth and Thomas Seymour continued their personal relationship after Catherine’s death, however, is conjecture, though Erickson suggests it is possible that they did. The clandestine meeting at Seymour House and the Admiral’s attempted rape are literary invention, though in light of his character and the later desperate measures he took, it seems a plausible scenario.

  While there’s no proof that Robin Dudley spied on Thomas Seymour at his father’s behest, we do know that it was John Dudley who brought to the Privy Council much of the damning evidence of Seymour’s illegal activities that ultimately led to his trial and execution for treason. By this time Elizabeth and Robin had been close friends for six years, and she might well have confided to him her passion for Seymour. The rivalry between the Seymours and the Dudleys was firmly in place, and the excessively ambitious John Dudley was willing to resort to extreme measures to bring his enemies down. While I’ve clearly taken literary license here, I believe everything written is well within the realm of possibility.

  The guiding inspiration behind each of these books has been Elizabeth and Robin Dudley’s deep and abiding love for each other, one that lasted through their lives till his death. By the time she ascended the throne at age twenty-five, these two had already passed through countless fires together, forging the powerful foundation of that relationship. While the pages of history fail to link them during this critical episode in Elizabeth's life, I have every reason to believe they shared its agonies and dangers as well as reaping from it several invaluable lessons.

  Please forgive this author her indulgences and flights of fancy, but conjecture extrapolated from fact is, after all, the very heart of historical fiction.