Part I
In his bedchamber in the Palace of Whitehall King Henry VIII lay dying. For nearly thirty-eight years he had ruled England as an autocrat, and already he was a legend. He had married six wives, had two beheaded, and founded the Church of England with himself as its Supreme Head and Governor. Now, prematurely aged with disease, he was preparing to meet his Maker and account for his sins.
Those sins would certainly include squandering his inheritance by mismanagement and extravagance, so that already by the 15305 he had been desperately in need of money and eager to profit from his religious Reformation. In his early years, ignoring the lessons to be learned from England's humiliation at the end of the Hundred Years War, he had sought glory and renown in France by attempting to emulate the example of Henry V, to little effect. During the last years of his reign, he again went to war with the French and also the Scots, but the cost was so crippling that the country was almost bankrupt when the King died. Even before these later wars, Henry had been forced to debase the currency. The vast spoils he had appropriated from the monasteries he dissolved in the Reformation of the 15305 had largely gone into his own pocket and been spent long since, or they had been used to win over a doubtful aristocracy to the cause of religious reform.
Yet Henry's Reformation had been essentially cautious. Although he renounced all links with the Roman Catholic Church and ordered that the Pope be addressed as the Bishop of Rome, he remained to the end of his life a devout Catholic, and expected his subjects to follow him. The changes he did introduce were welcome to a people who had long resented foreign interference in the English Church and had complained of abuses, but the King knew that the majority of his subjects were not ready to embrace the Protestant faith, and to the end of his reign he would burn those few who did.
Henry's religious policy did not please everybody and led in his later years to the appearance of both Catholic and radical reformist factions within the court and the government, each of which did their best to manipulate their ageing master for their own ends. When he died, these factions - taking advantage of the fact that his heir was a minor - would choose to interpret his intentions with regard to religious policy for their own ends, with disastrous consequences for England.
The closure of the monasteries had led to serious social problems. Prior to the Dissolution, monks and nuns had tended the sick, provided education, and offered shelter and food to the destitute. Now, thousands of monks and nuns had themselves been rendered homeless and unemployed, and were reduced to begging, thus creating a problem for the authorities. During the last years of Henry VIII's reign a few former monastic establishments were turned into hospitals and schools, a policy continued by his successor, but it was not until the end of the century that Poor Law Acts dealt efficiently with the social evils of poverty and destitution.
More social problems had arisen throughout Henry's reign from the enclosure of land formerly under cultivation and common land. This was used as pasture for sheep belonging to the greater landlords, and meant that small farmers who had grazed their animals on common land, or worked in the fields, could no longer earn a living and were reduced to penury. There was much ill-feeling on the part of these dispossessed farmers - of whom there were many - against this policy, yet it carried little weight with the landowners.
By 1547, therefore, the kingdom was in an unsettled state with manifest problems - religious, financial and social. For all his splendour and his formidable reputation, and his founding of the Church of England, Henry VIII's reign had been a catalogue of failures rather than achievements.
In the dark, cold early morning of 28 January 1547, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, was at the royal bedside, urging his master to show him by a sign, any sign, that he died in the faith of Jesus Christ. Around the bed, waiting, stood the King's councillors and chief courtiers. Most prominent amongst them was Henry's brother-in-law, Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, whose sister, the dead Queen Jane, had been the only one of the King's wives to present him with a thriving son. The present Queen, Katherine Parr, was not present, having already said farewell to her awesome spouse some hours earlier.
With Hertford stood Sir Anthony Browne, Master of the Horse, and the Earl's faithful ally, Sir William Paget, Secretary of State. As the King's breathing grew more laboured, these three murmured their concern that the heir to such a monarch was a boy of only nine years. They were well aware that Henry VIII had appointed a council of regency, but knew too that a dead king's wishes held no force in law. They were agreed that Hertford, as the boy's uncle, should become Lord Protector of England during the coming minority, even though this was in direct contravention to the dying king's wishes.
Paget, fortunately, had been entrusted with the safe-keeping of King Henry's will, and had no intention of showing it to anyone else until Hertford had taken possession of the person of the new king and brought him to London. He was even prepared to suppress certain of the contents of the will and equally determined to override any objections that might be made by his fellow executors. In return for such signal service, Hertford had promised to make Paget his chief adviser, a position which carried with it many and great rewards.
The end was drawing near. At two a.m., the dying King convulsively squeezed the Archbishop's hand, which Cranmer announced was proof that Henry 'trusted in the Lord', and shortly afterwards 'yielded his spirit to Almighty God'.
The new king, Prince Edward, was staying at the manor of Ashridge in Hertfordshire. Because he was close to Elizabeth both in age and affection, Hertford and his friends decided that it would be better to take the Prince to Enfield so that he could be with his sister when the news of their father's death was broken to them.
Hertford wasted no time. Taking the key of the chest in which the late king's will reposed, he left Whitehall at once in the company of Sir Anthony Browne and galloped north to Hertfordshire. At the palace, foreign ambassadors enquiring about King Henry's health were informed that he was slightly indisposed but attending to business in private, and to lend veracity to this fiction his meals were borne into his apartments to the sound of trumpets.
Later that morning Hertford and his escort clattered into the courtyard at Ashridge. They bade the Prince prepare to visit his sister Elizabeth at Enfield, but did not tell him anything further. They then rode with Edward to Hertford Castle, where they spent the night. Hertford apparently could not sleep. He was regretting having brought with him the key to the chest containing Henry VIII's will. Surely, he reasoned, he could trust Paget. Between three and four in the morning he decided to return the key by messenger, with a brief, encouraging note.
He would be back in London with the young king within twenty-four hours; there would be no time for his opponents to unite against him.
When dawn rose the Earl took his nephew to Enfield. When he arrived he led the boy to the presence chamber and summoned the Lady Elizabeth to join them. He then announced to them the death of their royal father and made formal obeisance on his knees to Edward as king. Both children burst into uncontrollable sobs, which were so heart-rending that their servants were soon crying too. So long did their lamentations continue that the Earl and his attendants became concerned, but at length Edward and Elizabeth calmed themselves. Already a change was taking place, as both became conscious of their altered roles in life. Never again would they be so close.
There was little time anyway for grief, for soon afterwards Hertford left for London with the young king, now styled Edward VI, in order to seize control of the government of England.
Edward was soon writing to Elizabeth: There is very little need of my consoling you, most dear sister, because from your learning you know what you ought to do, and from your prudence and piety you perform what your learning causes you to know. I perceive you think of our father's death with a calm mind.'
Elizabeth had indeed quickly composed herself, exhibiting a self-control uncommon in a child of her age. Nevertheless, she would throughout her life revere the memory of Henry VIII, who - for all his faults and cruelties - embodied in her eyes all that a successful prince should be. When she was twenty-four, a Venetian ambassador would write, 'She prides herself on her father and glories in him.' Others might cast doubts on her parentage, but Elizabeth never forgot that she was her father's daughter.
Mary's reaction to her father's death is not recorded, although she was in Whitehall Palace at the time. What is known is that she was angry with Hertford for not coming to pay his respects to her for some days afterwards. Within a short while she had left court and taken up residence in one of her own houses. Thereafter, her visits to the capital were rare, and mainly through her own choice.