It was scarcely possible that the Protector should not have been cognisant of a part at least of his brother’s machinations; and he naturally, so far as was possible, kept his charge from falling further under the influence of his enemies. The young King’s affection for his step-mother had been a cause of disquiet to her brother-in-law and his wife, care being taken to separate him from her as much as was possible. So long as Katherine remained in London it had been Edward’s habit to visit her apartments unattended, and by a private entrance. Familiar intercourse of this kind terminated when she removed to a distance; and, so far as the Lord Protector could ensure obedience, little communication was permitted between the two during the short time the Queen had to live. The boy, however, was constant to old affection, and used what opportunities he could to express it.
“If his Grace could get any spare time,” wrote one John Fowler, a servant of the royal household, to the Admiral, “his Grace would write a letter to the Queen’s Grace, and to you. His Highness desires your lordship to pardon him, for his Grace is not half a quarter of an hour alone. But in such leisure as his Grace has, his Majesty hath written (here enclosed) his commendations to the Queen’s Grace and to your lordship, that he is so much bound to you that he must remember you always, and, as his Grace may have time, you shall well perceive by such small lines of recommendations with his own hand.”[69]
The scribbled notes, on scraps of paper, written by stealth and as he could find opportunity, by the King, testify to the closeness of the watch kept upon him; their contents show the means by which the Admiral strove to maintain his hold upon his nephew.
“My lord,” so runs the first, “send me, per Latimer, as much as ye think good, and deliver it to Fowler.” The second note is one of thanks.
An attempt was made by the Admiral to obtain a letter from the King which, complaining of the Protector’s system of restraint, should be laid before Parliament; but the intrigue was discovered, the Admiral summoned to appear before the Council, and, though he was at first inclined to bluster, and replied by a defiance, a hint of imprisonment brought him to reason, and some sort of hollow reconciliation between the brothers followed.
The King, the unfortunate subject of dispute, was probably lonely enough. For his tutor, Sir John Cheke, and for his school-mate, Barnaby Fitzpatrick, he appears to have entertained a real affection; but for his elder uncle and guardian he had little liking, nor was the Duchess of Somerset a woman to win the heart of her husband’s ward. From his step-mother and the Admiral he was practically cut off; and his sisters, for whom his attachment was genuine, were at a distance, and paid only occasional visits to Court. Mary’s influence, as a Catholic, would naturally have been feared; and Elizabeth, living for the time under the Admiral’s roof, would be regarded likewise with suspicion. But the happiness of the nominal head of the State was not a principal consideration with those around him, mostly engaged in a struggle not only to secure present personal advantages, but to ensure their continuance at such time as Edward should have attained his majority.
The relations between the Seymour brothers being that of a scarcely disguised hostility, the Admiral had the more reason to congratulate himself upon having obtained the possession and disposal of the person of Lady Jane Grey—third, save for her mother, in the line of succession to the throne. Should her guardian succeed in effecting her marriage with the King the arrangement might prove of vital importance. On the other hand, Somerset’s matrimonial schemes for the younger members of the royal house were of an altogether different nature. He would have liked to marry the King to a daughter of his own, another Lady Jane, and to have obtained the hand of Lady Jane Grey for his son, young Lord Hertford.
Such projects, however, belonged to the future. Nothing could be done for the present, nor does it appear that, when Somerset’s scheme afterwards became known to the King, it met with any favour in his eyes; since, noting it in his journal, he added his private intention of wedding “a foreign princess, well stuffed and jewelled.”
So far as Katherine was concerned, her domestic affairs were probably causing her too much anxiety to leave attention to spare for those of King or kingdom, except as they were gratifying, or the reverse, to her husband. Since the May day when she had given herself, rashly and eagerly, into the keeping of the Lord Admiral, she had been sorrowfully enlightened as to the nature of the man and of his affection; and, if she still loved him, her heart must often have been heavy. The presence of the Princess Elizabeth under her roof had been disastrous in its consequences; and, though it was at first the interest of all to keep the matter secret, the inquisition made at the time of the Admiral’s disgrace into the circumstances of his married life affords an insight into his wife’s wrongs.
In a conversation held between Mrs. Ashley, Elizabeth’s governess, and her cofferer, Parry, after the Queen’s death, the possibility of a marriage between the widower and the Princess was discussed, Parry raising objections to the scheme, on the score that he had heard evil of Seymour as being covetous and oppressive, and also “how cruelly, dishonourably, and jealously he had used the Queen.”