Seymour, likewise with an oath, asserted “that they should, and that none should dare to say nay to it.”
Russell answered that he, at least, dared “say nay” to the Lord Admiral’s greed, “for it was clean against the King’s will.” And so they parted.
These inquiries about the royal ladies’ fortunes became known to the Protector, possibly through Russell, and thus the whole intrigue was brought to light.
Lady Jane at Seymour Place and in the possession of the Lord Admiral was already a stumbling-block in the way of Somerset’s own matrimonial schemes for his own son, and the discovery of the underhand manner in which Thomas had endeavoured to supplant him in the King’s affections goaded the elder man to fury. But Sudeley had grown reckless, and he openly defied his all-powerful brother, and vaunted his determination to oust him at any cost from his high seat.[145] He boldly set about ingratiating himself with the yeoman class, which was embittered against Somerset on account of his exactions; and Dorset, now his willing tool, also strove to secure a following among the farmers and gentlemen, on bad terms with the existing Government. The ladies of the Court, who hated the arrogant Duchess of Somerset, were flattered into a friendly feeling for the Lord Admiral and what he was pleased to consider his just cause. To keep up his influence, he had secretly bought over a hundred manors and stewardships, and he had arranged with his scoundrelly friend, Sharington—who, to save his skin, turned traitor—to secure sufficient ammunition and arms to store Holt Castle, to which fortress he intended to convey the King. Thanks to this man’s frauds on the Bristol Mint, my Lord of Sudeley got together money enough to raise an army of 10,000 men. In addition to all this, he was in league with no less than four distinct gangs of pirates or privateers, and had established a sort of dépôt for stolen property in the Scilly Isles, whither the cargoes of sea-plundered vessels were taken to await removal to London. Here, then, was an array of crimes and treasons enough to hang any man, even if he was the Lord Protector’s brother! One fatal day Thomas made the egregious mistake of approaching Wriothesley on the subject of obtaining the Protectorship. He told him Dorset and Pembroke were on his side. “Beware what you are doing,” replied Wriothesley gravely; “it were better for you if you had never been born, nay that you were burnt quick alive, than that you should attempt it.” Sudeley, somewhat dashed by this rebuff, next sought the Earl of Rutland, and spoke to him in much the same impudent and imprudent fashion. Rutland, when his visitor departed, went straight to Wriothesley and told him what he had learnt. Both agreed to reveal all they knew of the conspiracy to the Council. Several meetings were held to inquire into the matter; and at length Somerset summoned his brother to appear before him. Sudeley sent a flat refusal. Early in the forenoon of 17th January 1549 Sir Thomas Smith and Sir John Baker proceeded to Seymour Place, and there arrested the Lord Admiral, who was conveyed by water to the Tower, after a passionate leave-taking with his aged mother.[146]
To Lady Jane the trial and subsequent execution of her guardian must have been a matter of intense and painful interest. She was still his guest at Seymour Place when he was arrested, and she must have witnessed the tragic parting of the unhappy mother from the son so remorselessly torn from her aged arms to meet his doom. Whatever his crimes and faults, the Lord of Sudeley had been a good son, and the old Lady Seymour mourned him deeply till she died of her sorrows, on 18th October in the following year. She was buried with scant pomp. The King, her grandson, and his Court did not even put on the customary mourning, on the plea that black gowns did not really signify respect to the dead, who were best remembered in the hearts and prayers of those who survived them—certainly not a popular or contemporary belief, for on the day following Lady Seymour’s death two State funerals were celebrated with all those honours which were denied to the remains of the grandmother of the reigning sovereign. There was probably a political motive at the back of this want of respect, which may perhaps be ascribed to the evil influence of Warwick, who, in his desire to humiliate the Somersets, refused the honours due to the corpse of the Protector’s mother.
Meanwhile, the destruction of Thomas Seymour was being prepared with skill and secrecy. Whilst the foredoomed Admiral had been boasting all over London of his immense influence, his foes, now that he was in their power, subtly compassed his ruin by buying witnesses against him and securing the goodwill of his numerous and venomous enemies. They had long been spreading a rumour that he had poisoned the late Queen Katherine in order to make an even higher alliance with one or other of the heiresses to the throne. His scandalous proceedings with regard to the Princess Elizabeth at Chelsea and Hanworth, and the unbecoming manner in which he had regained possession of Lady Jane, were brought up against him. Lady Tyrwhitt, one of the bedchamber ladies of the late Queen his wife, was called to give certain damaging evidence, pointing to a strong suspicion that Seymour had not only been most unkind to the deceased lady, but had actually poisoned her food during the last few days of her life, and set up the fever which carried her off within a week of her child’s birth. Lord Latimer stated that Seymour, when Queen Katherine had prayers said in his house morning and afternoon according to the order of the Reformed Church, would get out of the way, and swear on his oath that “The Book of Common Prayer was not God’s work at all.” There was a merciless raking up of misdeeds, true or false, of the man’s earliest youth—as, for instance, “that, in 1540, a woman who was executed for robbery and child-murder had declared that the beginning of her evil life was due to her having been seduced and desolated by Lord Thomas Seymour.” The Dorsets were summoned from Bradgate to give evidence in the matter of the wardship of their daughter, and other witnesses were fetched from different parts of the kingdom to give damaging testimony.[147]
During, though not at, Seymour’s trial, Elizabeth was subjected to a private inquiry at Hatfield, and personally asked whether Mrs. Ashley had encouraged her to marry the Admiral. This she declared she had never done, adding that she did not believe Mrs. Ashley had said the things attributed to her. The Princess also wrote the Lord Protector a letter, dated from her house at Hatfield, saying she had learned that vile rumours regarding her chastity were in circulation, and that people had even gone so far as to spread abroad that she was confined in the Tower, being with child by the Lord Admiral. The story, she protested, was an outrageous slander, and she demanded that she might be allowed to proceed to Court to disprove these evil reports. On this momentous occasion, Elizabeth, considering her youth, displayed no small amount of sagacity and also of that leonine spirit for which she was afterwards celebrated. When confronted, however, with Mrs. Ashley’s written evidence, she blushed to the roots of her hair, and, abashed and breathless, returned the letter with trembling hands to her inquisitors. Curiously enough, Elizabeth does not seem to have resented Mrs. Ashley’s outspoken condemnation of her conduct with the Lord Admiral. On the contrary, hearing of her arrest, she set to work to save her from the clutches of the law, declaring the lady had been in her service many years, and had exerted herself diligently to bring her up in learning and honesty.
Elizabeth told Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, who was sent by the Council to examine her on the subject of her intimacy with the Lord High-Admiral, “that voices, she knew, went about London that my Lord High-Admiral” should marry her, but added, with a smile, “It is but London news”—evidently London was as much a centre of gossip in those days as now. A little later she asserted that “she did not wish to marry him, for she who had had him [meaning Katherine Parr] was so unfortunate.”
It would appear that Lady Browne (Surrey’s “fair Geraldine”) was also a friend of Seymour’s, and that he went to her and asked her to break up her household and come to stay with the Princess Elizabeth, so that she might keep him posted as to what was going on in that Princess’s circle. This the lady had agreed to do, but she was prevented by the sudden illness and death of her old husband, the famous Master of the Horse, Sir Anthony Browne. Parry, Elizabeth’s comptroller, seems also to have favoured the Lord Admiral, although it was mainly owing to him that the revelations concerning his mistress’s conduct with Seymour were made public. On one occasion, when Parry was advising the Admiral to leave off his attempt to court the Princess, he replied that “it mattered little, for, see you, there has been a talk of late that I should marry the Lady Jane,” adding, “I tell you this merrily—I tell you this merrily.”
As for the said Admiral, all the world now turned against him, excepting the late Queen’s brother, the Marquis of Northampton, his other brother-in-law, Lord Herbert, and his deceased wife’s two cousins, the Throckmortons, one of whom wrote the following homely lines on the wretched man’s piteous plight:—