Elizabeth (7 page)
In 1547, Elizabeth took a short break from the difficult situation at Chelsea, spending Christmas at Court with Edward and their half-sister, Mary. There, she behaved like a loyal and devoted subject, as well as a beloved sister of the King and the current heir to the throne. The Italian calligrapher and writer Petruccio Ubaldini, who was a visitor to the Court at the time, observed that he had seen, ‘the princess Elizabeth drop on one knee five times before her brother, before she took her place.’
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The half-siblings would have enjoyed a varied and exciting programme of religious ceremonies and entertainments over Christmas and New Year, all suitable for a young King who was still a child.
In January 1548, Elizabeth returned to Chelsea. In that same month, her tutor, William Grindal, died. Thomas and Catherine already had a suitable candidate to replace William, but Elizabeth had her own opinion on the subject. She chose Roger Ascham, who came recommended by Sir John Cheke, Edward VI’s tutor.
As Catherine’s pregnancy advanced, she spent more time resting. She no longer accompanied her husband when he visited Elizabeth, yet, one day in May or June 1548, Catherine made a discovery, according to Thomas Parry’s evidence in the Seymour enquiry. Parry testified that Thomas loved Elizabeth and had done so for a long
time and that Catherine was jealous of that fact. On this particular occasion, Catherine ‘came suddenly upon them, where they were all alone, he having her [Elizabeth] in his arms, wherefore the Queen fell out, both with the Lord Admiral and with her Grace also ... and as I remember, this was the cause why she was sent from the Queen, or else that her grace parted from the Queen.’
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Catherine was apparently devastated by this betrayal and is alleged to have ordered Elizabeth to be removed from her household.
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Certainly, in May 1548, Elizabeth and her servants were sent away from Chelsea; they went to stay with Sir Anthony Denny and his wife, Lady Joan, at Cheshunt, Hertfordshire. Shortly after her arrival at the Dennys’ home, Elizabeth wrote a letter to Catherine:
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 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 I will stay for I know you are not quiet to read.
From Cheston [Cheshunt] this present Saturday, Your highness’ humble daughter, Elizabeth.
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This letter is perhaps remarkable in that it contains no explanation, apology or justification for whatever had happened before Elizabeth’s departure from Catherine’s household. If Catherine had sent Elizabeth away in anger, there is no reference to it in the letter – rather Elizabeth thanks her stepmother for her kindness and concern and also for her promise to let Elizabeth know if anyone is slandering her.
In sending Elizabeth away, Catherine could possibly have been punishing her ward for her bad behaviour, but equally, she could have been protecting the young girl. This letter seems to support the second explanation. Similarly, if Elizabeth were being punished, Catherine’s decision to send her to the Dennys was an odd one. Sir Anthony Denny had been a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and a friend to Henry VIII, and his wife, Joan, was a close friend of Catherine’s and the sister of Elizabeth’s beloved Governess, Kat Ashley. They were excellent guardians rather than strict jailers. Was Catherine protecting Elizabeth from Thomas’s attentions? Or is there yet another explanation? Could Elizabeth have been sent away because she was already pregnant with Thomas’s child?
Whatever the reason, Catherine now had other pressing matters to deal with. She left London on 13 June for Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire, where she awaited her own baby’s arrival. Lady Jane Grey was still in attendance and must have provided some distraction from her situation.
Elizabeth and Thomas were still in correspondence, as the following July letter from Elizabeth shows. It was sent in response to a missive from Thomas, stating that he could not fulfil a promise that he had made to her:
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 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 by 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.
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Elizabeth also wrote a letter to Catherine around the same time, indicating that Catherine was aware of the contents of previous letters written by Thomas to her:
Although your Highness’ letters be most joyful to me in absence, yet considering what pain it is to you to write, your Grace being so great with child and so sickly, your commendations were enough in my lord’s letter. I much rejoice at your health with the well-liking of the country, with my humble thanks, that your Grace wished me with you, till I were weary of that country. Your Highness were like to be cumbered if I should not depart till I were weary of being with you; although it were the worst soil in the world, your presence would make it pleasant. I cannot reprove my lord for not doing your commendations in his letter, for he did it. And although he had not, yet I will not complain on him, for that he shall be diligent to give me knowledge from time to time how his busy child doth, and if I were at his birth no doubt I would see him beaten for the trouble he had put you to. Master Denny and my lady with humble thanks prayeth most entirely for your grace, praying the almighty God to send you a lucky deliverance.
And my mistress [Kat Ashley] wisheth no less, giving your highness most humble thanks for her commendations. Written with very little leisure this last day of July.
Your humble daughter, Elizabeth.
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Such a light-hearted letter hardly seems to support the contention that Catherine and Elizabeth had parted acrimoniously.
Finally, on 30 August 1548, Catherine’s child was born, a daughter named Mary. She was attended by her stepdaughter, Elizabeth Tyrwhitt, who recorded the event. After the birth, Catherine developed a fever, which was the beginning of puerperal sepsis. She became agitated and told the ladies attending her that she had not been well handled by Thomas, ‘for those that be about me careth not for me, but standeth laughing at my grief; and the more good I will to them, the less good they will to me.’
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Thomas held her hand and replied, ‘Why, sweetheart, I would do you no hurt,’ but Catherine returned ‘very sharply and earnestly’, ‘No, my Lord … you have given me many shrewd taunts.’
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Thomas is reported to have lain down beside her, but Catherine said she would give 1,000 marks to have a proper talk with the physician who attended her delivery, but dared not for fear of displeasing him.
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This seems to indicate that Catherine believed Thomas no longer loved her and was, indeed, possibly working against her best interests. Whatever the truth of the matter, Catherine never recovered from the infection that had taken hold of her body.
Catherine Parr, the Queen Dowager and Elizabeth’s stepmother, died on 5 September 1548. She was buried at Sudeley, where 12-year-old Lady Jane Grey took the position of Chief Mourner. News of Catherine’s death was brought to Cheshunt, where Elizabeth was staying, and a servant told Kat Ashley that
Thomas was heavy-hearted at his wife’s death.
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Elizabeth did not attend the burial, an act that was strange in itself. Catherine had been enormously kind to Elizabeth, both as a stepmother and as her ward after Henry’s death. Surely had she been able to, Elizabeth would have attended the funeral of a woman who, as her letters indicate, she held in such esteem? What happened to prevent this? Illness, perhaps, or something more?
It does appear that in the autumn of 1548, Elizabeth began to suffer from bouts of poor health, something that was common knowledge at the time. Elizabeth herself wrote to Edward Seymour in September, stating that she was bound to him in her time of sickness: ‘… you have been careful for my health, and sending unto me not only your comfortable letters but also physicians as Doctor Bill [Dr Thomas Bill, physician to Henry VIII and Edward VI], whose diligence and pain has been a great part of my recovery.’
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Similarly, in a letter to her brother, Edward VI, Elizabeth referred to an affliction of her ‘head and eyes’ which made it difficult to write to him.
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And, perhaps, more tellingly, Kat Ashley in her February 1549 testimony at Thomas’s enquiry, stated that immediately after Catherine’s death, Elizabeth was bedridden for part of the time and unable to go more than a mile from the house throughout the second half of 1548.
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Rumours began to circulate that the Lady Elizabeth was pregnant, and that those around her were protecting her by alluding to her ‘illness’.
Without the influence of the more sensible Catherine Parr, Thomas began to pursue his plans to overset his brother, Edward, in earnest. His plans were largely unrealistic, extravagant and unworkable. Put simply, in Thomas’s bid to oust his brother from
power, he was intemperate. He had already suggested that Edward and he should share the protectorate and control of the young King, and when this offer was rejected, he instead openly schemed to displace his brother. He also went to great lengths to ingratiate himself with the King, making him gifts of money and speaking disrespectfully of the Protector, whose overbearing and autocratic manner was beginning to annoy the young Edward VI.
Freely discussing his plans with anyone who he felt might assist him, he sounded out the other Councillors with imprudent openness, questioning their loyalty to Edward Seymour. Even before Catherine died, Thomas had bribed Sir William Sharington, the Vice-Treasurer of the Mint in Bristol, to coin money that could be misappropriated to fund his plans to overthrow his brother. It was said he had a map of England that indicated which areas he could rely on for support in the event of an uprising (and the money embezzled from the Mint could be put to use bribing anyone who wavered in their support). Thomas and Sharington managed to embezzle £4,000 from the Mint before the plot was uncovered. Sharington later informed the authorities that Thomas had said, ‘If we had £10,000 in ready money, that were well.’
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Thomas’s plans were wide and varied, however, and Lady Jane Grey, Elizabeth and her half-sister, Mary, also entered the frame at one point or another. On Catherine’s death, Jane had returned to her parents, but Thomas persuaded them to return her to his guardianship by promising to arrange her marriage to Edward VI. In reality this was unlikely, as a possible union between Edward and Mary, Queen of Scots had already been mooted, something that would never come to pass due to the deteriorating relations between England and Scotland.
Thomas had also renewed his attentions towards Elizabeth after Catherine’s death. Not content with seeking to rule through
Edward VI, he was looking to the future. Lady Mary, the next in line to the throne, suffered from poor health and was a committed Catholic in a now Protestant country. If Edward VI should die young or without heirs, there was a good chance that Mary would be removed from the succession or die before she could produce an heir, and Elizabeth would inherit the crown. Why should Thomas restrict himself to the power behind the throne when he might have the throne itself?
However, Thomas’s desire to be Elizabeth’s suitor raised suspicions about his political intentions. In November 1547, riding in the procession to Parliament, Thomas found himself next to the Lord Privy Seal, Sir John Russell, who warned him that he should take care: ‘My Lord Admiral, there are certain rumours bruited of you which I am very sorry to hear … if you go about any such thing [seek to marry princesses Elizabeth or Mary], ye seek the measure to undo yourself and all those that shall come to you.’
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Thomas denied that there was any such plot and angrily demanded to know the identity of his accuser. Russell managed to calm him down, but several days later Thomas sought him out as they rode from Edward Seymour’s house to Westminster and asked him again who his accuser was.
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Russell refused to say. Thomas stated that he was not planning anything untoward, but commented that it was better that the princesses chose to marry someone ‘within the realm than in any foreign place’, further adding ‘And why might not I, or another, made by the King their father, marry one of them?’
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