His hasty retreat was ascribed to different causes. Some supposed him eager to be again at his post, with the prestige of his victory still fresh. By others it was imagined that he feared the intrigues of his enemies, and in especial of his brother the Admiral. Nor would such uneasiness have been without justification. So long as their combined strength was necessary to enable them to stand against their enemies, the two had made common cause. Somerset was popular in the country; the nobles preferred the Admiral. For both a certain distrust was entertained by those who felt that “their new lustre did dim the light of men honoured with ancient nobility.[52]” The consciousness of insecurity kept them at one with each other. Become all-powerful in the State, jealousy and passion sundered them. Ambitious, proud, and resentful of the Duke’s assumption of undivided authority, Seymour had quickly shown an intention of undermining his brother’s position in the country, with his hold upon the King, and the Protector may reasonably have felt that it was neither safe nor politic, so far as his personal interest was concerned, to remain too long at a distance from the centre of government.
To the jealousies natural to ambitious men other causes of dissension had been added. These were due to the position achieved by Seymour some months previous to the Scotch campaign by his marriage with the King’s widow.
The conduct of Katherine at this juncture is allowed by her warmest partisans to furnish matter for regret. Little information is forthcoming concerning her movements at the time of the King’s death; nor does any blame attach to her if she regarded that event in the light of a timely release, an emancipation from a condition of perpetual unrest and anxiety. In any case the age was not one when overmuch time was squandered in mourning, real or conventional, for the dead; and, judging by the sequel, it is possible that, even before the final close was put to her married life, she may have been contemplating the recovery of her lost lover. It is said that when the Lord Admiral paid her his formal visit of condolence she not only received him in private, but candidly confessed how slight was her reason to regret a man who had done her the wrong of appropriating her youth.[53]
If the conversation is correctly reported, Seymour would augur well of the Queen’s willingness, so far as was possible, to make up for lost time. But he was not himself inclined to be hurried. Intent upon securing every means within his power to assist him in the coming struggle for pre-eminence, he did not at once convince himself that it was his best policy to become the husband of the King’s step-mother, and that a more advantageous alliance was not within his grasp.
Other matters were also occupying his attention; and it was now that Lady Jane Grey, unfortunately a factor of importance in the political world, was brought prominently forward and that her small figure comes first into view in connection with the competition for power and influence.
Although allied with the royal house, and in a position to share in some sort Surrey’s contempt for the parvenu nobility of whom the Seymours were representative, Dorset and the King’s uncles, agreed upon the crucial matter of religion, were on good terms; and Henry was no sooner dead than it occurred to the Admiral that he might steal a march upon his brother and secure to himself a point of vantage in the contest between them, by obtaining the custody for the present, and the disposal in the future, of the marquis’s eldest daughter.
He lost no time in attempting to compass his purpose. Immediately after the late King’s death—according to statements made when, at a later date, Seymour had fallen upon evil times—Lord Dorset received a visit from a dependant of the Admiral’s, named Harrington, and the negotiations ending in the transference of the practical guardianship of the child to Seymour were set on foot.
Harrington was, it would seem, the bearer of a letter from his master, containing the proposal that Lady Jane should be committed to his care; and found the Marquis, on this first occasion, “somewhat cold” in the matter. The messenger, however, proceeded to urge the wishes of his principal, supporting them by arguments well calculated to appeal to an ambitious man. He reported that he had heard Seymour say “that Lady Jane was as handsome as any lady in England, and that, if the King’s Majesty, when he came of age, would marry within the realm, it was as likely he would be there as in any other place, and that he [the Admiral] would wish it.”[54]
Such was Harrington’s deposition. Dorset’s account of the interview is to much the same effect. Visiting him at his house at Westminster “immediately after the King’s death,” he stated that Seymour’s envoy had advised him to be content that his daughter should be with the Admiral, assuring him that he would find means to place her in marriage much to his comfort.
“With whom?” demanded Dorset, plainly anxious to obtain an explicit pledge.