B y December, the Admiral's schemes were maturing well. Having discovered that the vice-treasurer of the Bristol mint, Sir William Sharington, by clipping and debasing the coinage and doctoring the account books, had defrauded the King of huge sums of money in order to finance lavish improvements to his house, Laycock Abbey in Wiltshire, he blackmailed the man into handing over a share of the profits to pay for mercenaries to fight for him during the coming coup. Sharington produced £10,000 in total.
'A man might do something withal,' declared the Admiral.
Then, although his duties as Lord High Admiral included guarding the kingdom against piracy, Seymour was actively encouraging gangs of pirates to plunder English ships, giving them the freedom of his lands in the Scilly Isles as a safe haven, and receiving in return a large portion of their loot. He also demanded bribes from the masters of ships sailing on their lawful business to Ireland, as the price of their safe passage.
Meanwhile, he had done his best to poison the young King's mind against the Protector, and was now planning to remove Edward from Somerset's control even if it meant kidnapping him. With Fowler's connivance, he had counterfeit keys made for the gates to the royal privy garden, and a stamp of the King's signature forged. His nephew, however, was growing tired of his uncle's tirades: 'I desired him to let me alone,' he said later. But Seymour, in his blinkered way, believed that Edward was irritated with Somerset, not himself. He still planned to marry the boy to Jane Grey once he was in power, and told Sharington, 'For her qualities and virtue she is a fit marriage for the King. I would rather the King should marry her than the Lord Protector's daughter.' Edward, of course, given his way, would have chosen neither.
The Admiral, however, was fond of bragging to anyone who would listen about how well his plans were developing, and was careless about who was listening. 'I have more gentlemen that love me than my Lord Protector has,' he boasted. Therefore by early December 1548 the Protector and Council knew he was plotting some mischief. Spies in his household had told them he was amassing weapons at Sudeley. Yet support among his aristocratic friends was weak. Dorset had stated categorically that he was unable to afford the expense of bolstering a coup, while Northampton had warned Seymour that the whole enterprise would fail. Seymour ignored him, as he ignored Thomas Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, when he cautioned, 'Beware what you are doing. It were better for you if you had never been born, nay, that you were burnt quick alive, than that you should attempt it.'
Christmas passed uneventfully, a tranquil spell before the tempest that was about to unleash itself. Elizabeth had decided that it might be prudent not to go to London after all, and Mary too was absent from court; in fact, throughout his reign, Mary rarely journeyed to London to visit her brother, but remained on her estates. Ascham travelled to Cambridge to spend the festival with his old friends, returning in January, and the season was marked with the usual festivities at Hatfield.
On 5 January, the evening before Twelfth Night, Mrs Ashley and Thomas Parry sat talking by the fire. Naturally, the conversation came round to the subject of Seymour's interest in Elizabeth. Parry said he had noticed 'there is goodwill between him and Her Grace', of which he had learned 'both from him and Her Grace also'.
Ashley confirmed that 'she knew it well enough', but coyly said she dared not speak of it because she had suffered such a 'charge' from the Protector's wife. Instead, she began praising the Admiral. Parry, who had heard the rumours, said it was his belief that Seymour would not be a fit husband for Elizabeth, but Kat was still harbouring romantic notions, and retorted that she was extremely pleased that the magnificent Seymour purposed to marry her charge.
'I would wish her his wife of all men living,' she declared, and stated her belief that Seymour 'might compass the Council if he would'.
Parry's response was disappointing; he did not think the Admiral had behaved at all well towards the princess. He had heard 'much evil report' of Seymour, 'that he was not only a very covetous man and an oppressor, but also an evil, jealous man; and how cruelly, how dishonestly, and how jealously he had used the Queen'.
'Tush! Tush!' flustered Mrs Ashley. 'I know him better than ye do, or those that so report him. I know he will make but too much of Her Grace, and that she knows well enough. He loves her but too well, and has done so a good while.' She then became confidential and revealed to Parry that the late Queen had been jealous of the Admiral's interest in Elizabeth, telling him how Katherine had found them in an embrace, and explaining that this was why Elizabeth had been sent to Cheshunt.
Parry was astounded.
'Hath there been much familiarity indeed between them?' he asked.
But Mrs Ashley was realising she had said too much, and 'seemed to repent that she had gone so far'.
'I will tell you more another time,' she said, and made him promise several times never to repeat a word of their conversation to anyone, 'for Her Grace should be dishonoured forever, and she likewise undone'.
'I would rather be pulled [apart] with horses,' Parry assured her.
Two days later Parry was again in London, visiting the Admiral in his chamber at court. But he found Seymour in a very different mood on this occasion, 'in some heat, or very busy, or had some mistrust of me'. In fact Seymour had just learned that word of his proposed visit to Elizabeth at Ashbridge had reached the Protector, who had icily declared that he would send his brother to the Tower if he attempted to go anywhere near her.
In fact, the shadow of the Tower was looming ever nearer. Only the day before Parry saw the Admiral, government officers raided Sharington's palatial house and uncovered documentary evidence of his forgery and his treasonable coalition with Seymour. Sharington confessed to his crimes, but admitted only to having appropriated about £4000. Because he had turned King's evidence and implicated the Admiral, he was later pardoned, restored to his house and lands, and appointed Sheriff of Wiltshire.
Somerset dispatched an urgent summons to his brother to come and explain his actions in private, but Seymour sent word that the time was inconvenient. The Protector therefore had no alternative but reluctantly to lay the facts about his brother's 'disloyal practices' before the Council, who at once ordered the interrogation of all those involved. Thus began the most extensive of all Tudor treason enquiries.
Fowler confessed all, in great detail. Even the King was questioned about his uncle's activities, although his deposition remained confidential; it would not have helped Seymour anyway, for it contained incontrovertible evidence of his designs. But the Admiral, with his peculiar talent for impulsive action, soon signed his own death warrant.
On the night of 16 January, accompanied by a party of armed supporters, Seymour used his forged key to enter the King's rooms at Hampton Court via the privy garden, intending to kidnap Edward VI. As he unlocked the door leading from the antechamber into the royal bedroom, Edward's spaniel leaped at him, barking furiously. Seymour drew his handgun and shot the dog dead. The report of the gun brought an officer of the Yeomen of the Guard running, demanding that the Admiral explain his presence, armed, outside the King's bedchamber.
As Edward stood, pale and terrified in his nightshirt, beside his dead dog in the doorway, the Admiral blithely explained that he had come to test how well the King was guarded. The dog had turned on him and he had killed it in self defence. The guard thought this a likely tale, and although he allowed Seymour to go home, he reported the matter immediately to the Council.
That august body met early the next morning and decided 'to commit the Admiral to prison in the Tower of London, there to remain until such further order be taken with him as the case shall require'. Later that day, after dinner, Seymour spoke with Dorset in the gallery at Seymour Place, saying he was 'much afraid to go to the Council'.
'Knowing yourself a true man,' reassured Dorset, 'why should you doubt to go to your brother, knowing him to be a man of much mercy?'
But Seymour would not. If Somerset ordered his arrest, 'By God's precious soul, he would thrust his dagger into whosoever laid hands on him'. These were empty words. He went meekly enough when he was apprehended that night on a charge of attempting to murder the King, merely protesting his innocence and averring that 'no poor knave was ever truer to his prince'.
On the following day, 18 January, the Council gave orders that anyone known to have associated with Seymour be questioned as possible accomplices. Mrs Ashley and Thomas Parry were suspected of being among their number, and officers were dispatched to Hatfield that same day. By 20 January, Fowler, Sharington and John Harington were with Seymour in the Tower. As the pile of depositions mounted, the full extent of the Admiral's 'plain sedition', as Somerset put it, became clear. The Protector was satisfied that his brother had 'devised and almost brought to pass a secret marriage between himself and the Lady Elizabeth, in such sort and order as he might easily (and so it appeareth intended) have taken into his hands and order the person of the King's Majesty and of the Lady Mary, and have disposed of His Majesty's whole Council, at his pleasure'.
News of the Admiral's arrest reached Hatfield within hours. Then, on 20 January, Thomas Parry, hearing the clatter of horses' hooves, saw a party of richly-attired horsemen riding through the palace gates. In a panic he fled through the house in search of his wife.
'I would I had never been born, for I am undone!' he mourned, ashen-faced and trembling. Then he 'wrung his hands and cast away his chain [of office] from his neck and his rings from his fingers'. Minutes later, the Council's representatives, Sir Anthony Denny and Sir Robert Tyrwhit, led by William Paulet, Lord St John, Great Master of the Household, strode into the palace and demanded to see the Lady Elizabeth.
It was Denny, her old friend, who questioned her about her relationship with the Admiral. She gave careful answers, painting the friendship as entirely innocent and platonic. Denny did not pursue the matter further. Without telling her, he arrested Ashley and Parry and rode back with them to London, where they were confined in the Tower the following day, pending questioning about their involvement with Seymour. Mrs Ashley seemed unaware of her peril, but Parry feared the coming interrogation because he knew very well that if the Council obtained proof that Elizabeth had consented to be Seymour's wife, her life itself might be in danger.
Back at Hatfield, Sir Robert Tyrwhit gathered the household together and announced that the Admiral had been committed to the Tower on a charge of high treason. He had plotted to overthrow his brother the Protector, schemed to marry the Lady Jane Grey to the King and make the Lady Elizabeth his own bride, and purposed to rule the kingdom himself.
Tyrwhit's instructions from the Council were that he was to take charge of the Lady Elizabeth's household and try to obtain enough evidence of treason to ensure that the Admiral went to the block. If the Lady Elizabeth was incriminated by such evidence Tyrwhit was to persuade her to lay the blame on her servants, Ashley and Parry. But, of course, if she was deeply implicated in the Admiral's crimes, then the Council would have no alternative but to impose the penalty provided for by law - death by beheading or burning.
After dismissing the household to their duties, Tyrwhit saw Elizabeth alone and told her that her governess and cofferer had been taken to the Tower. She showed herself'marvellously abashed, and did weep very tenderly a long time', pleading fruitlessly for their release. She asked whether either had confessed anything, but Tyrwhit would say nothing; he just left her alone for the present. He would talk with her again when she had composed herself.
On 22 January, Elizabeth sent for him, saying she had remembered certain matters she had forgotten to tell Sir Anthony Denny. Tyrwhit listened keenly, but learned nothing more interesting than that the princess had written several letters to the Admiral about mundane things, such as soliciting his help in recovering Durham House. She also disclosed that, in view of the gossip, Mrs Ashley had written to Seymour, advising him not to visit Elizabeth 'for fear of suspicion', but Elizabeth had been cross with Kat for taking such a liberty.
As he listened, Tyrwhit grew restive. He had expected that the interrogation of this young girl would lead swiftly and easily to the desired results, but he sensed that Elizabeth was playing with him and that beneath the demure exterior there lurked a very formidable brain indeed. He reported to the Protector,
I did require her to consider her honour and the peril that might ensue, for she was but a subject. I further declared what a woman Mrs Ashley was, saying that if she would open all things herself, all the evil and shame should be ascribed to them [i.e. Ashley and Parry], and her youth considered both with the King's Majesty, Your Grace and the whole Council. But in no way she will not confess any practice by Mrs Ashley or the cofferer concerning my Lord Admiral; and yet I do see it in her face that she is guilty, and do perceive as yet she will abide more storms ere she accuse Mrs Ashley.
Elizabeth realised she was fighting for her honour and reputation, at the least, and she knew enough of statecraft to understand that if she was implicated in the Admiral's crimes her very life was at stake, not to mention the lives of her servants, whom she was determined to protect. She was alone, without friends or advisers, and she had to deal with a clever politician, for Tyrwhit was a man many years her senior both in age and experience. She told him firmly that there had never been any secret understanding concerning marriage between herself and the Admiral, neither had Mrs Ashley suggested that there be. She herself would never consider marrying anyone without the express consent of the King and Council. In her opinion, neither Ashley nor Parry had ever schemed to have her married to the Admiral without such consent.
Under questioning, Elizabeth was cool and self-possessed, and — despite himself- Tyrwhit was impressed, though he had got precisely nowhere. But he could afford to wait; he knew that Ashley and Parry were being questioned in the Tower at that very moment, and meant to await the arrival of any statements extracted from them. Meanwhile, he looked through Parry's account books, grumbling that they were 'so indiscreetly made, it doth appear that he had little understanding to execute his office'.
On 23 January, Tyrwhit had another session with Elizabeth, using what he called 'gentle persuasion' to make her confess she had agreed to marry Seymour. All she would say was that, when Parry returned from visiting the Admiral in London, the marriage had been discussed as a possibility only, and that Seymour had offered to lend her his London house 'for her time being there to see the King's Majesty'.
'I do begin to grow with her in credit,' reported Tyrwhit with satisfaction. 'This is a good beginning. I trust more will follow. I do assure Your Grace she hath a good wit, and nothing is gotten of her but by great policy.'
But nothing was 'gotten of her' throughout the week of intensive questioning and subtle coercion that followed, and Tyrwhit began to despair, feeling distinctly peeved because he was certain he was being outwitted by a clever young woman, whom he was convinced was concealing information crucial to the case against Seymour. Yet Elizabeth remained impervious to threats, persuasion, or any of the other methods of questioning employed by her interrogator. Nor did she say a word to implicate her servants.
'I verily do believe,' wrote Tyrwhit, 'that there hath been some secret promise between my lady, Mistress Ashley and the cofferer, never to confess to death. And if it be so, it will never be gotten of her, but either by the King's Majesty or else by Your Grace.'
Only when Tyrwhit informed Elizabeth that rumour had it she was already in the Tower and pregnant with Seymour's child did her composure break, for above all she desired the good opinion of the people and the preservation of her honour.
'These are shameful slanders!' she cried angrily.
At this point Tyrwhit produced a letter written to her by Somerset, who urged her 'as an earnest friend' to disclose everything she knew. After reading this she was 'more pleasant' to Tyrwhit 'than she hath been at any time since my being here'. But the slanderous gossip that was being spread about her rankled, and on 28 January she wrote to the Protector, desiring him to 'declare how the tales be but lies' since 'no such rumours should be spread of any of the King's Majesty's sisters, as I am, though unworthy. My lord, these are shameful slanders, for the which I shall most heartily desire your lordship that I may come to the court that I may show myself there as I am.' Elizabeth also reiterated in her letter the innocuous details of her dealings with the Admiral that she had already disclosed to Tyrwhit.
As for the alleged plan to marry her to the Admiral,
Mrs Ashley never advised me unto it, but said always (when any talked of my marriage) that she would never have me marry, neither in England nor out of England, without the consent of the King's Majesty, Your Grace's and the Council's. [Ashley and Parry] never told me they would practise it. These be the things whereof my conscience beareth me witness, which I would not for all earthly things offend in any thing, for I know I have a soul to save, as well as other folks have.
She ended by promising to keep Somerset informed through Tyrwhit if she remembered anything else of importance.
Her letter made little difference. The Protector lifted not a finger to help her, and Tyrwhit subjected her to yet another week of interrogation, using 'all means and policies' to persuade her to reveal the information he was convinced she was withholding. But she stuck to her story, and warned that those who ventured to speak ill of Mrs Ashley in her presence would 'fare the worse'. In desperation, Tyrwhit urged the Council to intensify their efforts with the governess. If a signed deposition of her guilt could be obtained, Tyrwhit was confident of making Elizabeth 'cough out the whole'.
Ashley and Parry had at first been lodged in relative comfort in the Tower, yet this did little to allay their terror. For more than a week, both were subject to the most rigorous examination, and when this failed to elicit incriminating evidence against Seymour and Elizabeth, Ashley was confined in a deep dungeon, so cold and so dark that she could neither sleep nor tell if it were night or day. Yet it was not this that broke her, but a confrontation with Parry, who, faced with the prospect of a similar cell, made a written confession of everything he knew. Because Ashley had made him her confidante, it was damning, particularly the details about Elizabeth being caught in an embrace with the Admiral.
The Council were convinced that if Mrs Ashley were brought face to face with Parry, and shown his signed confession, she too would break her silence, and they were right. Parry told her what he had done and, while she bitterly reviled him as a 'false wretch', she now had no choice but to confess also, bewailing her 'great folly' in gossiping about the Lady Elizabeth's marriage. Out came all the sordid details about the Admiral's outrageous behaviour and Ashley's encouragement of his suit to the princess; the governess admitted that she and Elizabeth had spoken of Seymour often 'and hath wished both openly and privily that the two were married together'. But neither she nor Parry had ever thought to bring it about behind the backs of the King or the Council. Nevertheless, the Council were satisfied, for they now had enough evidence to convict the Admiral.
Ashley's confession was signed on 4 February 1549. On 5 February, both depositions were delivered to Hatfield and shown by a triumphant Tyrwhit to the Lady Elizabeth. When she saw them she was 'much abashed and half breathless' with shame. Yet although they did her reputation no good, there was nothing in them to incriminate her of treason, for there was no evidence that she had ever plotted or consented to be Seymour's wife. Elizabeth pointed out to Tyrwhit that Ashley had been foolish and indiscreet but had committed no crime. Tyrwhit, however, was of the opinion that neither Ashley nor the princess had revealed all they knew. As for Parry, he was a man who had broken his word, for he had sworn to be torn apart by wild horses rather than betray his mistress. Elizabeth sprang to his defence.
'It was a great matter for him to promise such a promise, and to break it,' she retorted.
Tyrwhit remained unimpressed. 'They all sing one song,' he wrote to Somerset on 6 February, 'and so I think they would not do unless they had set the note before.' In other words, he believed they had colluded to tell the same tale.
The next day, Elizabeth confirmed in writing what Ashley and Parry had written, embellishing her statement with a few innocuous details, admitting only that she had known through others that the Admiral desired to marry her and that there was gossip about them. The recent malicious rumours of her pregnancy were false and ought to be publicly refuted. Then she signed her name, knowing that this deposition could hurt no one. She had called Tyrwhit's bluff, and he knew it. So did the Council, when they received her statement and realised it would be of no help to them whatsoever as far as the incrimination of Elizabeth and her servants was concerned. 'She will in no way confess that our Mistress Ashley or Parry willed her to practise with my Lord Admiral either by message or writing,' fumed Tyrwhit in his accompanying letter.
Elizabeth then wrote at least four times to the Protector in a determined attempt to salvage her reputation and good name. Terrified lest public opinion turn against her, she urged him repeatedly to have her innocence publicly proclaimed and the rumours refuted.
Tyrwhit was ever ready to offer advice as to how to phrase her letters, but this Elizabeth 'would in no wise follow, but writ her own fantasy'. Consequently, he took some pleasure in telling her that the Protector had taken her letters 'in evil part'. She pointed out that Somerset had asked her to be candid with him, and she had written nothing but the truth. She was disappointed that, in his reply to her, he had ignored her complaints concerning the rumours of her 'lewd behaviour'. 'However,' she replied on 21 February, 'you did write that if I would bring forth any that had reported it, you and the Council would see it redressed; which thing, though I can easily do it, I would be loath to do, because it is mine own cause.'
'Nevertheless, if it might seem good to your lordship and the Council to send forth a proclamation into the countries [counties] that they refrain their tongues, declaring how the tales be but lies, it shall make both the people think that you and the Council have great regard that no such rumours should be spread. Howbeit, I am ashamed to ask it any more, because I see you are not so well-minded thereunto.'
Somerset, who was reluctantly impressed by Elizabeth's masterly grasp of affairs and political astuteness, and now believed her innocent of all complicity in the Admiral's schemes, promised her he would indeed issue such a proclamation, though he had no intention of doing so.
Tyrwhit was now running the Hatfield household, and he had decided, despite Elizabeth's protests, that neither Ashley nor Parry were fit to return to her service. Instead, his wife would act as her governess. Lady Tyrwhit had no desire to do so, guessing what Elizabeth's reaction would be, but was overruled by her husband. Tyrwhit himself broke the news to the princess, informing her that the Council had pronounced Mrs Ashley 'far unmeet' to be her governess and wished her to 'thankfully accept' Lady Tyrwhit in her place. Elizabeth, devastated at the prospect of losing Kat, who had been as a mother to her, replied that 'Mrs Ashley was her mistress and she had not so demeaned herself that the Council should now need to put any more mistresses unto her'.
Lady Tyrwhit, who was present at the interview, pointed out that, 'seeing she did allow Mrs Ashley to be her mistress, she need not be ashamed to have any honest woman to be in that place'. But Elizabeth could not come to terms with the prospect of a change and 'took the matter so heavily that she wept all night and loured the following day', when Tyrwhit wrote to Somerset,
All is no more. She fully hopes to recover her old mistress again. The love she beareth her is to be wondered at. If I should say my fantasy, it were more meet that she should have two [governesses] than one.
Elizabeth was also writing to the Protector to express her dismay at Lady Tyrwhit being appointed her governess, because 'people will say that I deserved through my lewd demeanour to have such a one'. She expressed concern at the continuing rumours about her and Seymour, and claimed she knew the names of some of those who were spreading them; however, she would not disclose who they were because she would not have it said she was eager to see them punished. All the same, she was 'loath to have' the ill will of the King's-subjects, and repeated her request for her innocence to be proclaimed to the world.
Somerset, however, was unsympathetic, and dispatched a glacial reply in which he reprimanded her for being pert and obstinate. Lady Tyrwhit was duly installed as governess and Elizabeth had no choice but to put up with her.
If Elizabeth had suffered miseries as a result of the Admiral's arrest, so had Jane Grey, whose parents had immediately brought her home to Bradgate Manor. Disappointed of a royal match for their daughter, they took out their frustrations on her as if she had personally been responsible for the failure of Seymour's plans. They also hastened to lay before the Council evidence of the Admiral's suspicious behaviour, so as to clear themselves of all association with it.
Jane remained at Bradgate for the next three years, suffering ill-treatment from her parents. Her only consolation was the time she spent in the company of her beloved tutor, John Aylmer, whose teaching enabled her to escape into a charmed world of literature, philosophy and theology.
The Admiral, meanwhile, had been invited to answer the charges brought against him before the Council. He declined, and no persuasion would make him change his mind. He meant to have an open trial so that he could air his grievances to the world.
On 22 February the Council met to discuss the charges and draw up an indictment against him: thirty-three counts of treason were listed, including plotting to marry the Lady Elizabeth 'by secret and crafty means, to the clanger of the King's person', whose throne, 'following the example of Pochard III', he meant to usurp; having sought to seize control of the King and turn his mind against the Lord Protector; having tried to woo Parliament by 'plain sedition'; having gathered 'a great multitude' at Sudeley Castle to help him take the realm by force; and even having murdered Katherine Parr, which was absurd. The veracity of the other charges, however, sounded all too probable, and the Council concluded that 'the Lord Admiral was sore charged' with 'high treason, great falsehoods and marvellous heinous misdemeanours against the King's Majesty and the Royal Crown'.
On 23 February, the Lord Chancellor went to the Tower and read out the indictment to the Admiral, asking him if he could clear himself of the charges, 'or show some excuse, if he had any, whereby he could think to purge himself of them'. But he refused to answer them unless his accusers were 'brought before him, and except he were brought in open trial, where he might say before all the world what he could say for his declaration'. The Chancellor had no choice but to leave him 'in his old custody'. Somerset expressed his intention of going to visit his brother to add his persuasions, but John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, persuaded him to change his mind.
The next day, the Council agreed that formal proceedings against the Admiral should commence. There was to be no trial. Parliament 'should have the determination and order thereof by passing an Act of Attainder against Seymour. All that would then be needed to condemn him would be the King's signature on the Act. The councillors were unanimous in their decision, even Somerset, who, 'declaring how sorrowful a case this was to him, said that he did yet rather regard his bounden duty to the King's Majesty than his own son or brother, and could weigh more his allegiance than his blood'.
After dinner, the Council waited upon the young King, who signified his approval of the proceedings to be taken against his uncle, declaring that the charges 'tend to treason, and we perceive that you require but justice to be done. We think it reasonable, and we will that you proceed according to your request.' When they heard these words, 'coming from His Grace's mouth of his own motion', the councillors 'marvellously rejoiced, and gave His Highness most hearty praise and thanks'.
When the Admiral was informed that there was to be no trial, he did at last speak out and hotly denied that he had ever meant to usurp his brother's position or kidnap the King. Yes, he had sent the King pocket money through Fowler, and had looked for 'certain precedents' dividing power fairly between the King's uncles during the minority, but he had at length become 'ashamed of his doings, and left off that suit of labour'. This said, 'he would answer no more'.
On 4 March, the Bill of Attainder adjudging Seymour guilty of high treason, which had been rushed through Parliament, received the royal assent, condemning the Admiral to death and forfeiture of lands, titles and goods. The Protector, after some hesitation prompted by fraternal affection, signed the Bill on the King's behalf. Now he had to decide what should be done with his brother and, not unnaturally, he stalled over signing Seymour's death warrant. Yet there were no such scruples over the Admiral's lands, which were distributed amongst Somerset's supporters, while the household at Sudeley was disbanded.
News of the Admiral's attainder reached Hatfield before 8 March, when Tyrwhit reported to the Protector that the Lady Elizabeth 'beginneth now a little to droop, by reason she heareth that my Lord Admiral's house be dispersed. And my wife telleth me now that she cannot bear to hear him discommended but she is ready to make answer therein; and so she hath not been accustomed to do, unless Mistress Ashley were touched, whereunto she was very ready to make answer vehemently.'
Distressed as she was by the Admiral's impending doom, Elizabeth was still fighting for Mrs Ashley's release from her grim prison, even more so now because, with Seymour attainted for treason, Ashley and Parry might be in greater danger as his accomplices. Furthermore, their continuing imprisonment imputed guilt to herself. In a letter to Somerset written on 7 March, Elizabeth conceded that Ashley had been irresponsible, and emphasised that she herself had no desire 'to favour her evil-doings', but there were three reasons why she was interceding on her behalf:
First, because she hath been with me a long time, and many years, and hath taken great labour and pain in bringing me up in learning and honesty, and therefore I ought of very duty to speak for her. 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 thereto. 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 I am not clear of the deed myself, but that it is pardoned to me because of my youth, because she that I loved so well is in such a place.
This time, the plea was successful. Shortly afterwards, the Protector authorised the release of Ashley and Parry from the Tower, although neither was allowed to return to Elizabeth's service.
Somerset had weightier matters on his mind. A week had elapsed since his brother had been attainted and a death warrant had been drawn up, but he still had not been able to bring himself to sign it. Warwick, who had ambitions of his own which were blocked by the Seymour brothers, had meanwhile been urging his colleagues on the Council to force the Protector to do what was clearly his duty. On 10 March, the councillors had another audience with the King and asked him for permission to carry out the sentence on the Admiral 'without further troubling or molesting in this heavy case either His Highness or the Lord Protector'.
As Somerset stood beside him, helpless to intervene, Edward replied, 'I thank you, my lords, for the great care you have taken for our surety,' and granted permission for them to proceed according to the law.
Five days later, the Admiral was warned to prepare himself for execution on 20 March. In view of his gentle birth, the King had graciously commuted the sentence of hanging, drawing and quartering to the less brutal decapitation. Seymour spent his last night on Earth writing desperate messages to both Mary and Elizabeth with a rough pen made from 'the aglet of a point that he plucked from his hose', begging them to be wary of Somerset's power over the King and 'enforcing many matters against him to make these royal ladies jealous of him'. He then had his servant stitch the notes into the sole of his velvet shoe, for removal and dispatch after his death.
On the morning of the 2oth, Seymour was escorted to Tower Hill. As he mounted the steps of the straw-strewn scaffold, he bade the servant in a murmured aside 'speed the thing that he wot [knew] of. His guards overheard him. The servant afterwards confessed what his instructions were, and the letters were discovered and destroyed.
The Admiral, said Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, in a sermon preached shortly afterwards, 'died very dangerously, irksomely, horribly'. The Almighty had obviously forsaken him. 'Whether he be saved or no, I leave it to God, but surely he was a wicked man, and the realm is well rid of him.'
According to Leti, who is not the most reliable source, when the news of Seymour's death was broken to Elizabeth, she remained calm and would only say, 'This day died a man of much wit and little judgement.'
The bitter experience of loving and losing the Admiral has been adjudged by many historians to have had a traumatic effect upon Elizabeth's emotional and sexual development, occurring as it did when she was at a highly impressionable age. Some have gone so far as to blame it for Elizabeth's life-long avoidance of marriage, suggesting that, with the executions of Anne Boleyn, Katherine Howard and Thomas Seymour in mind, she had come to equate marriage with death. This did not affect her desire to flirt and court male interest, but it prevented her from ever making the final commitment in any emotional relationship. This is an interesting theory that may well have some basis in truth, though there is no contemporary evidence for it, only post-Freudian supposition. At the very least, the fate of Thomas Seymour taught Elizabeth a salutary lesson about the benefits of keeping one's own counsel and concealing one's feelings, and she never forgot it. For the rest of her brother's reign she would maintain a low public presence, leading a quiet, exemplary life and so repairing the damage caused by the Seymour affair to her reputation.
Elizabeth was not the only one to suffer as a result of the Admiral's death. Somerset was overcome with guilt that he had lifted no finger to save his brother, and blamed Warwick for dissuading him from seeing Thomas while he was in the Tower. In 1554, Elizabeth told her sister Mary that she had overheard the Protector say that if he had not been prevented from speaking to his brother, Seymour would 'never [have] suffered, but persuasions were made to him so great that he was brought in belief that he could not live safely if the Admiral lived. And that made him consent to his death.'
Little Mary Seymour was an innocent, unknowing victim of her father's death. His attainder had left her a pauper, for all that she was the daughter of a queen, and at seven months of age she was given into the unwelcoming custody of the young Katherine Willoughby, Dowager Duchess of Suffolk, who was soon complaining of the high cost of maintaining 'the Queen's child and her company' and writing furious letters to Somerset demanding a regular allowance for the baby . There is no record of his granting one, nor any reliable testimony to Mary living beyond her first birthday.
Throughout the spring and early summer of 1549, gossip about the Admiral and the Lady Elizabeth continued. Jane Dormer remembered a country midwife alleging that around this time a gentleman had called upon her in the middle of the night and taken her blindfolded, riding pillion, to a great mansion that she had never seen before, there to attend to 'a very fair young lady'. When the child was born, the man caused it to be 'miserably destroyed'. Many believed, then and later, that the young mother was none other than Elizabeth, although there is no other evidence for it and the midwife herself could not be sure of the identity of her patient.
Elizabeth herself had gradually become more tolerant of Lady Tyrwhit. She had not complained when Sir Robert informed her that she would have to make economies because Parry had left her finances in such a mess. She asked him only that Parry's position remain vacant, to which he replied that one of his own clerks would fill it on a temporary basis, saving her /[ioo per annum. The spirit seemed to have gone out of her; she was weary and showing signs of nervous strain. Often, she felt so ill she could not leave her bed for several days. Clearly, the events of recent months had taken their toll.
Lady Tyrwhit was fond of collecting proverbs and mottoes and applying them to everyday situations. 'Be always one,' she would say to Elizabeth, quoting a particular favourite. This caught the girl's imagination so much that, says Camden, her earliest biographer, 'she took this device unto herself, translating it into Latin as' Semper eadem . It would be her motto for the rest of her life.