Brother Thomas had yet a greater surprise and vexation in store for Somerset and his Duchess, and even for King Edward VI himself, than the matter of the wardship of Lady Jane Grey. He was, if the truth is to be honestly told, about the most extraordinary scamp of his time. Physically he eclipsed his elder brother, the Protector, himself considered a very handsome man. In addition to a fine figure, Thomas possessed beautiful features, just escaping the long thin nose which characterised his brother’s face and ruined Queen Jane’s pretensions to beauty. He was dark, with a full beard, a ruddy complexion, and full brown eyes. In a word, a very fine fellow indeed, and exceedingly attractive to the fair sex, who found it hard to resist his blandishments, a cruel fact of which he was apt to boast. He danced to perfection, was first in all sports, could turn pretty verses when it suited him—and even godly ones, on occasion. His love of dress was proverbial, and in that brilliant Court of Henry VIII Sir Thomas Seymour never failed to hold his own for extravagance and magnificence. Like his brother Somerset, he could be kindly when it suited his purpose, and liberal enough to his inferiors when he desired to create a good impression. He seems to have even been a dutiful son, for, as we have said, his mother lived with him to the end of his life, and he spoke well of her.
These comparative virtues were outweighted by his evil qualities, for not even in that age of rascality and of wickedness in high places did there exist a greater ruffian than this seemingly polished gentleman. Thomas was one of those men who are born without a conscience.[115] Henry VIII had not long been dead and the elder Seymour scarcely proclaimed Protector of the Realm when Sudeley began to realise that his own part at the Court of his nephew, Edward VI, must be quite secondary unless he could forthwith contract some royal alliance and thereby make his position equal to his brother’s. So it fell out that, before the late King’s body was cold, Thomas Seymour had made up his mind to marry one of the royal princesses; and ere it was buried he had offered his hand to the elder of the King’s widows, Anne of Cleves. That cautious Princess promptly refused the dubious proposal, preferring her independence and present comfort to the probable sacrifice of a handsome income paid by the State for the poor pleasure of espousing a cadet of the house of Seymour. Nothing daunted by this refusal, the undismayed suitor aimed higher yet, and offered his hand and heart to Princess Mary, who thanked him, in a courteous letter, for the honour he paid her, and assured him that she had not the slightest intention of changing her state, especially so soon after her father’s death. Baffled again, my Lord of Sudeley now addressed himself to the youthful Princess Elizabeth, who, according to Leti, answered him in a most becoming manner, reminding him that her father was just dead, and that it would ill become her to think of marriage at such a moment or for at least two years after so sad an event. She had not, she said, had time to enjoy her maidenhood, and wished to do so for that period at least, before embarking on the stormy seas of matrimony. Elizabeth’s letter, if she really wrote it,—one can never quite trust Leti, though he lived near enough to the time to have access to papers and documents long since destroyed,—was a model of finesse and good taste.
The rejected, but undejected, Seymour now turned his attention to his old love, Katherine Parr, whom, as we know, he first courted when she became the widow of Lord Latimer. He must have been a good deal in her company in the last months of King Henry’s life, and on her own admission she had not lost any of her old love for him; for in a letter, written presumably within a fortnight of the late King’s death, she says, “I would not have you think that this, mine honest good will towards you to proceed from any sudden motion of passion; for, as truly as God is God, my mind was fully bent the other time I was at liberty [that is, after the death of Lord Latimer], to marry you before any man I know. Howbeit God withstood my will therein most vehemently for a time, and through His grace and goodness made that possible which seemed to me most impossible; that was, made me renounce utterly mine own will and follow His most willingly. It were long to write all the processes of this matter. If I live, I shall declare it to you myself. I can say nothing, but as my Lady of Suffolk[116] saith, ‘God is a wonderful man.’” In March, after Henry’s death, the Queen removed to Chelsea Manor, a mansion which Henry had built as a nursery for his children and settled on her as a dower-house. Princess Elizabeth had joined her within a few days for the purpose of finishing her education under the auspices of the learned Queen. At the very time, therefore, that Seymour was intriguing to secure possession of Lady Jane Grey, he was clandestinely spending his evenings with Katherine Parr either at Whitehall or, later, when she finally removed with her household to Chelsea, at the Manor House, coming there by a lane that led from the Bishop of London’s house up a path which, until a few years ago, was still in existence and associated by tradition with the names of Katherine Parr and Thomas Seymour. Some authorities assert that the two were secretly married about three weeks after the King’s death, and that the Lord Admiral prolonged his visits, not leaving his wife till dawn, when she would let him out by the garden wicket, and then steal back to her room unobserved (at least, so she hoped).[117] According to Edward VI’s Journal, however, the marriage was not officially celebrated until May, and it was certainly not made public before the end of June 1547. The intrigues of Lord Thomas to induce the young King, his nephew, to sanction his marriage with his stepmother began by his poisoning the King’s mind against his brother Somerset, and, taking advantage of the Protector’s absence in Scotland, he did all in his power to make himself agreeable to Edward VI by lending him considerable sums of money. Somerset kept the royal lad very short of petty cash, so that at times he had none to distribute to such folk as strolling musicians, servants who brought him presents from his relatives, and other persons who had obliged him. Seymour, who had isolated the King, employed a man named Fowler as intermediary between himself and Edward.[118] Flattered and cajoled by his uncle Thomas and well disposed by his natural affection to his stepmother, the poor little King was at length induced to write a letter advising the Lord Admiral to marry the Queen-Dowager. This extraordinary missive, which is still extant, was penned a few days after Edward had received a very curious epistle from his stepmother, then on a visit to him at St. James’s Palace, in which she had dilated upon her extraordinary affection for the memory of his late father. The letter was written in Latin, and the young King’s answer was in the same dead language. The King’s letter is full of advice, which comes oddly from a lad not yet ten to a woman verging upon forty. He hopes to do what is acceptable in her sight because of, firstly, “the great love you bear my father the King, of most noble memory; then your good-will towards me; and lastly, your godliness, and knowledge and learning in the Scriptures. Proceed, therefore, in your good course; continue to love my father, and to show the same great kindness to me which I have ever perceived in you. Cease not to love and read the Scriptures, but persevere in always reading them; for in the first you show the duty of a good wife and a good subject, and in the second, the warmth of your friendship, and in the third, your piety to God.”[119] Very soon after writing this letter he wrote another to Her Majesty, this time in English, in which he assured her that, far from being vexed with her for marrying his uncle, he promised to aid her in the hour of need, should the alliance prove offensive to those who were in power.
In June the marriage was made public. The indignation of the Duke and Duchess of Somerset knew no bounds. They had been greatly angered over the matter of Lady Jane Grey, but no words could express their exasperation at what they were pleased to consider their brother’s fresh exhibition of “indecency and wickedness.” The first practical expression of their wrath was the sequestration of the jewels the Queen had left behind at Whitehall after King Henry’s death. She had applied for them several times, and now wrote in a more determined strain; only, however, to receive a haughty refusal and the startling information that the jewels belonged to the Crown, whereas they really were a personal gift to her from the King at the time of the visit of the French Envoy M. d’Annebault. These jewels were never returned to Katherine Parr—a matter which roused the Lord Admiral’s wrath to a culminating pitch. “My brother,” he said, “is wondrous hot in helping every man to his right save me. He maketh a great matter to let me have the Queen’s jewels, which you see by the whole opinion of the lawyers ought to belong to me, and all under pretence that he would not the King should lose so much, as if it were a loss to the King to let me have mine own!”[120]
Then came another unpleasant incident, in the course of which the Queen-Dowager was subjected to unfair treatment on account of her marriage. Somerset determined to force her to lease her favourite manor of Fausterne to a friend of his named Long. Katherine refused point-blank to receive this gentleman as a tenant, especially at a ridiculously low rent, and in a letter to her husband expressed her scornful indignation at the “large” offer for Fausterne which his brother had made her. Yet in the end she was obliged to accept Somerset’s terms. Fausterne passed from her hands into those of Long, and was never restored to her.
It is not surprising that she felt a little “warm,” as she expresses it, at the manner in which the Somersets handled her. Her position had been recognised by the King and Parliament, and yet her brother-in-law and his wife refused to acknowledge her right to precedence: the Duchess of Somerset declared that she was herself as good as Queen, since she was the consort of the King’s Protector, “who was virtually the head of the Realm.” Whenever Katherine went to Court, if the Duchess of Somerset chanced to be present, there was sure to be trouble. According to Lloyd, the Duchess not only refused to bear up the Queen’s train, but actually jostled her so as to pass first. “So that what between the train of the Queen, and the long gown of the Duchess, they raised so much dust at Court, as at last put out the eyes of both their husbands, and caused their executions.” Heylin says the Duchess was accustomed to inveigh against her royal sister-in-law in her coarsest manner. “Did not King Henry VIII marry Katherine Parr in his doting days, when he had brought himself so low by his lust and cruelty that no lady that stood on her honour would venture on him? And shall I now give place to her who in her former estate was but Latimer’s widow, and is now fain to cast herself for support on a younger brother? If master admiral teach his wife no better manners, I am she that will.”
Historians who, for political and religious purposes, have exaggerated the virtue and accomplishments of Edward VI, and endowed Lady Jane Grey with charms and gifts which that modest young lady never possessed, have woven a legend around her and Edward VI which would lead the uninitiated to believe that she was the constant sharer of his juvenile tasks and pastimes, whereas in reality it was only in the last few months of his life that she became in the least prominent at his Court. Immediately after his birth and the death of his mother Prince Edward was handed over to the care of Lady Brian,[121] formerly governess to his two sisters, by whom she was greatly beloved and respected, and also to that of his dry nurse, Mrs. Sybilla Penn.[122] His infancy was spent at Chelsea Manor House and at the country seats of Ampthill and Oatlands. In these places he was frequently visited by his sisters Mary and Elizabeth, and presumably also by his little cousins of the house of Grey; but when he attained his sixth year, in accordance with the peculiar views of his father on the subject of education, all female influence was withdrawn from him, although Lady Brian continued to preside over his household. A number of very young noblemen were selected to be his constant companions and playfellows. Among them were his cousins, the two sons of Brandon, Duke of Suffolk; the Lord Edward Seymour, afterwards Earl of Hertford; and his great friend, the one being he seems to have really loved, young Barnaby Fitzpatrick, sometimes mentioned by the Swiss Reformers as Earl of Ireland.[123] His principal tutors were the extremely Protestant Dr. Richard Cox, who became Dean of Westminster in 1549 and subsequently, in Elizabeth’s reign, Bishop of Ely; the learned Sir John Cheke,[124] Provost of King’s College, Cambridge, and his first schoolmaster; Sir Anthony Cooke; M. Jean Bellemain, his French master; and Roger Ascham, who taught him caligraphy. He also received lessons in the art of writing in the Italian or Roman type, which most nearly resembles the modern, from Dr. Croke, who had taught this art at an earlier period to the young Duke of Richmond and Queen Katherine Parr. Dr. Christopher Tye was his music master; and Philip Van Wylder taught him to play upon his father’s favourite instrument, the lute. Lady Jane was certainly not among his circle of intimate associates, which did not even include his two sisters, although the Lady Mary was at one time officially appointed his guardian, and Elizabeth passed the greater part of the year 1546 with him at Hatfield. So little intercourse had he with his sisters after his accession to the throne that he actually only met Princess Mary three times, and Elizabeth five. As to Lady Jane, he scarcely ever saw her, unless indeed she spent a few days with him at Whitehall some weeks before his death. As soon as the Somersets were thoroughly acquainted with the true motive that had induced the Dorsets to part with their daughter, they took every precaution to prevent its accomplishment; and so little was the Lady Jane seen at the Court of King Edward that she is only once casually mentioned by that monarch in his Journal as being present at the great functions arranged in 1550 in honour of the Dowager of Scotland when she passed through London on her way to her northern dominions; and this was at the time that Northumberland was in favour and Somerset in disgrace.
On Thursday, 18th February 1547, the temporal Lords assembled at the Tower in their robes of estate to witness a solemn and significant ceremony. The young King having ascended his throne, and the officials of his Court taken their allotted positions about him, the doors were thrown open, and Edward Seymour, Lord Protector and Earl of Hertford, was led from the Council Chamber and conducted before His Majesty. Garter bore his letters-patent, the Earl of Derby his mantle, the Earl of Shrewsbury his rod of gold; my Lord Oxford carried his cap of estate and coronet. The Lord of Arundel bore the sword, and walked immediately before the Protector, who was supported by the young Duke of Suffolk and the Marquis of Dorset. After the usual ceremonies, Hertford knelt and was invested by his royal nephew, who put on the mantle, girded on the sword, placed the coronet upon his uncle’s head, and delivered him his rod of gold. Then the trumpets sounded, and the Herald proclaimed Edward Seymour to be no longer Earl of Hertford, but now and hereafter Duke of Somerset.
After the Protector came the Lord William Parr, Earl of Essex, brother to the Queen-Dowager, who was created Marquis of Northampton and of Essex. Then appeared John Dudley, Lord de Lisle, who had not assumed full importance at that time, but who was presently to become the protagonist of the ominous tragedy already in preparation. The future father-in-law of Lady Jane Grey, and the Nemesis of Somerset, was a man of splendid presence, exceedingly tall, with regular and majestic features, rendered even more striking by his long beard and sweeping moustache. He entered led by the Earls of Derby and Oxford, and was presently created Earl of Warwick. Dudley was followed by Wriothesley, who was raised to the peerage as Earl of Southampton.[125] Immediately after him came the majestic Sir Thomas Seymour, whom the King created Baron Seymour of Sudeley, at the same time delivering to him his patent as Lord High-Admiral of England. Sir Richard Rich, Sir John Sheffield, and Sir William Willoughby followed in succession and were created barons by the same names they had borne as knights. When the elaborate ceremony was over, a grand banquet, at which the King was not present, was offered to the new peers in the Tower. His Majesty, who was far from strong, had fainted from fatigue, and no wonder!—the function had lasted from seven in the morning till nearly midday!
In the evening of the same day (18th February) three of the handsomest men of the English Court—Somerset, Sudeley, and Warwick—rode with a small escort from Whitehall through the Strand to Baynard’s Castle, the residence of Sir William Herbert, Queen Katherine’s brother-in-law, one of the wealthiest men in England, served by not less than a thousand men, who wore his liveries. Here these three gentlemen were hospitably entertained at supper. There was much to talk over, and the party, elated by the honours so recently showered upon its members and heated by Herbert’s good wine, became “right merry”—little dreaming that within two years’ time Somerset would condemn his own brother Thomas to death, and that a few months later Warwick, as Duke of Northumberland, would sign the death-warrant of Somerset, only to be beheaded in his turn for high treason a year or so later by Queen Mary’s command. The Marquis of Dorset may have been of the company, and his presence would add an additional note of tragic significance—for Warwick was to become the direct cause of the deaths both of Lady Jane and of her father!