Whilst Seymour was personally negotiating with the Marquis, the task of persuading the Marchioness fell to Sharington. “Sir William [Sharington] travailed as earnestly with my wife,” says Dorset, “to gain her good-will for the return of our daughter to Lord Thomas Seymour as he [probably Seymour is meant in this case] did with me; so as in the end, after long debating and ‘much sticking of our sides,’ we did agree that my daughter Jane should return to him.”[144]
Their bargain with the Admiral struck, the Dorsets hurried back to Bradgate, whence they incited the dispatch of the following ingenuous letter:—
“To the Right Honourable and my singular
good lord, the Lord Admiral.“My duty to your lordship, in most humble wise remembered, with no less thanks for the gentle letters which I received from you. Thinking myself so much bound to your lordship for your great goodness towards me from time to time, that I cannot by any means be able to recompense the least part thereof, I purpose to write a few rude lines to your lordship, rather as a token to show how much worthier I think your lordship’s goodness, than to give worthy thanks for the same, and these my letters will be to testify unto you that, like as you have been unto me a loving and kind father, so I shall be always most ready to obey your godly monitions and good instructions, as becometh one upon whom you have heaped so many benefits. And thus fearing I should trouble your lordship too much, I most humbly take leave of your lordship.—Your most humble servant during my life,
“Jane Graye”
(Endorsed)
“My Lady Jane, the 1st of Oct. 1548.”
With this letter the Lady Frances sent Sudeley another, in which she again calls him her “very good lord and brother”: Jane considers him as “a loving and kind father,” and her mother signs herself, “Your assured and loving sister, Frances Dorset”—most friendly!
It was near Michaelmas when the Lord Admiral, with a numerous retinue, including several ladies, arrived at Bradgate to carry the girl back with him to Hanworth. Traces of his return journey may be found in papers preserved in the Public Library at Leicester, which inform us that “beer, cold meat, and ale was provided by the Mayor for my Lady Jane and her escort, proceeding from Bradgate with the Lord Thomas Seymour, to London.” Sudeley brought the £500 with him and gave it to the father who, for the sake of filthy lucre, had not scrupled to hand over his young daughter to a notorious profligate. Thomas treated the matter jovially, saying “merrily” he would take no receipt for the money, for “the Lady Jane herself was in pledge of that”; the Marquis, on the other hand, sought to endue the affair with a more respectable appearance by declaring the cash was “as it wer for an ernst peny of the favour that he [Sudeley] wold shewe unto him [Dorset].” To our eyes, there is, and can be, but one redeeming feature in the whole of this sordid transaction—the fact, proved by sufficient evidence, that Lady Jane Grey whilst under the Lord Admiral’s roof was treated not only with respect, but with much kindness, and that, even allowing for the fact that letters such as that already quoted were inspired by her parents, she seems to have been genuinely attached to both Sudeley and his mother.
Had Thomas Seymour contented himself with achieving eminence in any one legitimate direction—the Navy, for instance—he might have succeeded in winning both fame and honour. But he lacked the clearness of judgment and power of reticence necessary to carry any one of his more nefarious schemes to completion, and so ended in pitiable failure. Whilst his brother was away fighting in Scotland, he had striven, and with some success, to ingratiate himself with the young King. To this end, as we have seen, he lent him various sums of money. He seized every opportunity of belittling and even calumniating his brother, the Protector, openly accusing him of conspiring against Edward’s liberty, all of which the poor little King was only too eager to believe; for Somerset, with his puritanic views, had not made the boy’s existence very pleasant to him, persistently treating him as a little old man, and suppressing all those amusements and sports which lads, even sickly lads, love so dearly. It is said that, on one occasion, when he came upon the King and Barney Fitzpatrick playing cards, he seized them in a fury and threw them into the fire. He had striven, in a word, to make Edward look at life as he saw it himself, through smoked Calvinistic glasses that robbed it of all brightness.
The Duchess of Feria relates that Queen Mary once told her Edward VI had confessed to her that he was very tired of sermons—not to be wondered at, since the poor child had to hear one at least daily on some dogmatic controversy or other, and these dull homilies often lasted a good two hours. In fact, the royal lad was bored and “prayed” to death. For more than a year after his accession to the throne he was compelled to hear a daily Mass, celebrated according to the old rites but with the Epistle and Gospel said in English. Interpolated into this Latin service was the inevitable lengthy sermon preached by men well known for their Reforming zeal, such as Canon William Barlow of St. Osyth’s, in Essex, who became Bishop of Chichester in Elizabeth’s reign; Dr. John Taylor; Dr. Redman, a violent opponent of the doctrine of Transubstantiation; Dr. Thomas Becken; Dr. Giles Ayre, a bitter enemy of Gardiner; and the extremely Protestant Dr. Latimer. John Knox, who came to London in 1551, also preached before the King; but by that time the Mass had been replaced by the services of the first Book of Common Prayer. Knox was in a very bad temper with the Protector at the time of his visit, and accused him of paying more attention to the building of his new house in the Strand than to his (Knox’s) sermons. As time went on, poor Edward had to listen to controversies in which Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, Ridley, Bishop of Rochester, and “that most zealous Papist,” Heath, Bishop of Worcester (afterwards, under Mary, Archbishop of York), “debated and disputed” on such grave subjects as Transubstantiation, the Intercession of Saints, Worship of the Virgin, Prayers for the Dead, Purgatory, etc., and attend sermons preached in the courtyard of Whitehall Palace, where Gardiner delivered his last discourse on papal supremacy, which sent him to the Tower. Contemporary evidence shows exactly how the audience was grouped round the improvised rostrum built close to the walls of the palace, so that the King might hear the preacher from an open window, where he generally sat, notebook in hand, in the company of the Lord Protector, and of Dr. John Cheke, his tutor. Aged people of both sexes were ranged on benches close to the palace, whilst the general congregation, standing, filled up the courtyard. The learned Nicholas Udall often sat at a desk under the pulpit, taking shorthand notes of the sermon, and by his means many of the more notable of these orations have been preserved to this day. John Knox preached his last sermon before Edward VI from the pulpit at Whitehall Palace. At many, if not at most, of these pious exercises Lady Jane Grey, her mother and sister must have assisted, for it was expected that all the great ladies of the Court should attend; and consequently, in one or two old engravings of these interesting functions, we behold them, wearing their “froze pastes” or coifs, seated in rows, looking exceedingly sanctimonious, not to say bored. There are numbers of young children among them, one or two of whom have evidently fallen into a deep sleep.
Edward, extremely delicate from his birth, slightly deformed, with one shoulder-blade higher than the other, weak eyes, and occasional attacks of deafness, suffered terribly, we are told, from headaches, a fact which causes little surprise, considering the number of sermons he was forced to attend. The Lord Admiral, during the brief time he held the King’s favour, altered all this. The sermons were reduced, the sports and pastimes multiplied. No wonder, then, that of his two uncles Edward VI preferred Thomas to Edward!
Hardly was Lady Jane installed at Seymour Place, whither she was removed from Hanworth as soon as the weather grew cold, than her guardian set himself to weave not one but half a dozen fresh intrigues. Once more he planned to marry the Princess Elizabeth, or, failing her, a little later on, his young ward, Lady Jane. He even endeavoured to open a fresh correspondence with the Princess, and met with some success; but the astute damsel made him a very politic response. However impressed she may have been by the Admiral’s good looks, she was well aware that he had compromised her once, and was resolved there should be no second edition of the Chelsea business. Yet she had the imprudence to send his Lordship letters through her servants, and, thus encouraged, the Admiral began to make minute inquiries as to her fortune and the management of her affairs. He also endeavoured to find out the amount of the fortunes owned by Lady Jane Grey and Princess Mary, and, in short, of all the marriageable ladies of the royal family, not excluding Anne of Cleves. A report of these inquiries coming to the knowledge of John Russell, the Lord Privy Seal, that functionary thought it his duty to look into the matter, and seized an opportunity when riding with the Admiral through the streets of London to ask him his object point-blank. As they rode past Westminster Hall, Russell turned to Seymour, saying, “My Lord Admiral, there are certain rumours bruited of you which I am very sorry to hear.”
“What rumours?” demanded Seymour.