All the Queen's Men (2 page)

Anne was soon to be divorced yet was thankful to remain alive, living on in England in quiet and contented retirement for another seventeen years. Anne of Cleve's demise was, however, to cause the downfall of the devious Thomas Cromwell in 1540, incurring Henry's wrath for arranging such a disastrous marriage. Cromwell was subsequently executed at the Tower of London, a fate previously suffered by Sir Thomas More, another of the king's capable ministers to fall from grace. Catherine Howard followed Elizabeth's own mother, Anne Boleyn, and died on the execution block at Tower Green.

It was not until Henry married Katherine Parr, his sixth and final wife, that Elizabeth began to settle into a more stable existence, albeit for a limited period of time. Katherine brought Elizabeth back to the Court to live with herself and the King until his death at the age of fifty-six in 1547, leaving his only son Edward to inherit the throne at the tender age of nine with his uncle, Edward Seymour, the Duke of Somerset and brother of Jane Seymour, as Regent and Lord Protector. Hitherto Elizabeth had enjoyed a relatively close relationship with her half-brother, but after he became King she saw little of him. A famous portrait of Elizabeth painted around 1546 by William Scrots, an official artist to both Henry VIII and Edward VI, is now part of the Royal Collection and can be seen at Windsor Castle. It depicts Elizabeth in her early teens, demure, pale complexioned with light auburn hair and a thoughtful, wary expression.

Katherine Parr scandalized the Court by remarrying a mere matter of months after the King's death. While she was still only thirty-five, Thomas Seymour was her fourth husband and Edward Seymour's younger brother. Thomas had been Katherine's lover before she was betrothed to Henry and was now Lord High Admiral with ambitions to climb to even greater heights; he was thoroughly unscrupulous in his endless pursuit for power and prestige using whatever means were available to him. Elizabeth lived with Katherine Parr and Thomas Seymour, dividing their time between Katherine's London house by the River Thames at Chelsea and the romantic Sudeley Castle in the Cotswolds, given to Thomas by Edward the boy king when he created him Lord High Admiral and Lord of Sudeley. The castle had been a royal property since Henry VIII had first come to the throne and the King had visited there briefly in 1535 with Elizabeth's mother Anne Boleyn.

Thomas Seymour might well have married Katherine earlier if he had not been obliged to make way for the ageing Henry. A letter displayed in Katherine's bedroom at Sudeley Castle written to Thomas shortly after becoming Henry's sixth wife states, ‘As truly as God is God, my mind was fully bent . . . to marry you before any man I know.'
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With Henry dead she was now free to marry Seymour.

The Lord High Admiral represented an excellent early example of the type of man that most appealed to Elizabeth: tall, dark, extremely good-looking, aggressively masculine, possessing a commanding manner yet highly amusing and entertaining, qualities which were particularly appealing to an impressionable young princess, barely into her teens yet on the threshold of womanhood. The attraction would appear to have been mutual, as it was not long before Thomas Seymour, still wearing his night-shirt, began to appear suddenly and unexpectedly in Elizabeth's bedroom while she was still in bed, in order to indulge in playful, yet disturbing antics. Elizabeth appeared to quite enjoy being tickled and fondled, chased giggling around the room while uttering delighted shrieks. Katherine would sometimes join in these childish yet sexually suggestive games – on one occasion Katherine held down the struggling princess in the garden while Seymour cut her dress to ribbons with a dagger. These erotic romps only ceased after Katherine discovered her husband with Elizabeth clasped in his arms in a passionate embrace.

In September 1548, Katherine Parr died in childbirth at the age of thirty-six, barely eighteen months after Henry VIII's death. She was buried within the chapel at Sudeley Castle in spite of the King's dying wish that she should be laid alongside him at Windsor. It was not long before the irrepressible Thomas Seymour began pestering the Princess Elizabeth with proposals of marriage.

None of these activities involving Elizabeth and Seymour were mere Court gossip, for their relationship was publicly exposed when Seymour was subsequently tried on thirty-three counts of treason against the realm and later executed on Tower Hill; his elder brother Edward, the Lord Protector signed the death warrant. Elizabeth suddenly found herself subject to severe questioning from Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, the Privy Council's Special Commissioner, while Kat Ashley, Elizabeth's loyal yet indiscreet governess, revealed all under interrogation, in between complaining bitterly about the uncomfortable conditions of her prison cell. This situation was highly embarrassing for Princess Elizabeth and made a profound impression on her, considerably influencing her relationships with the opposite sex in the years to follow.

During this particularly bloodthirsty period, Lord Protector Somerset was deposed by John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, and beheaded. The Duke succeeded Somerset as Lord Protector but in turn met his executioner on Tower Hill, having foolishly proclaimed the tragically manipulated Lady Jane Grey as queen after Edward VI had died in 1553. Northumberland's foolhardy actions involving his young niece represented a desperate attempt to maintain England as a Protestant kingdom, but they were regarded as a revolutionary act, attracted little public support, and were quickly suppressed. Northumberland's young son Robert Dudley was also involved in his father's abortive attempts to elevate Lady Jane and, while escaping a similar fate to his father, he was imprisoned in the Tower before going into temporary exile in France. Dudley was destined to become one of the greatest figures of the Elizabethan era.

Elizabeth watched these dramatic events from the safety of Hatfield, wisely distancing herself from a course of action that was unlikely to succeed and in any case would have no material advantage for her. Amid the confusion of this extraordinary power struggle, Mary did exceptionally well to rally sufficient support from the Court and her citizens to successfully claim the throne. Posterity tends to overlook this achievement, preferring to concentrate on the plight of the teenage Lady Jane Grey and her short-lived husband Lord Guildford Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland's son, who was executed at the same time as Lady Jane, there being less than a year between altar and scaffold.

Edward VI had been a sickly child since birth and never seemed destined to occupy the throne for very long. His portrait, painted in 1546 and attributed to William Scrots, shows a slight, thin-faced figure with a wan complexion. He died at the age of fifteen, very probably of tuberculosis, in the summer of 1553, to be succeeded by Mary, half-sister to Edward and Elizabeth. Mary was as fervently Catholic as Edward had been Protestant and was eager to restore the ‘True Faith' to her newly acquired kingdom. Initially, the relationship between the two half-sisters appeared reasonably amicable as Elizabeth rode in procession behind the new Queen to attend her coronation ceremony at Westminster Abbey. That autumn, however, Mary decided to marry Philip of Spain against the advice of her Council, causing a wave of discontent across the country which culminated in an uprising in Kent led by a local squire named Sir Thomas Wyatt. While this revolt was quickly suppressed, it was discovered that letters had been sent by Wyatt to Princess Elizabeth, creating the suspicion that she was implicated in the plot against Mary together with Edward Courtenay, the handsome young Earl of Devon. At once, Elizabeth dispatched a highly emotional letter to the queen appealing to her better nature and pleading her innocence: ‘I protest before God that I never practised, counselled, nor consented to anything prejudicial to you or dangerous to the state. Let me answer before I go to The Tower if not before I am further condemned.'
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Her frantic plea fell on deaf ears and it was not long before a near-paranoid Queen Mary, heavily influenced by Simon Renard, the Spanish ambassador who saw an anti-Catholic conspiracy around every corner, ordered her half-sister to be taken to the Tower. Elizabeth was in grave danger.

The princess was conducted to the Tower from Whitehall Palace by barge down the River Thames, on 18 March 1554, Palm Sunday. It was a dark and dismal day, pouring with rain, the sky grey and heavily overcast. Elizabeth was escorted on the journey by two of Mary's Privy Councillors, the Marquess of Winchester and the Earl of Sussex, two astute peers who, with an eye to the possible future, were determined to treat the princess with scrupulous politeness, an action which proved highly beneficial, as both were to subsequently serve on Elizabeth's Privy Council when she became queen, while Sussex was later appointed to the significant post of Lord Chamberlain.

Negotiating the swirling tide under London Bridge with some considerable difficulty, they arrived at the Tower and entered the sombre fortress through the watergate below St Thomas's Tower, an entrance now known as Traitor's Gate, under whose wide arch had passed an ever-increasing number of state prisoners, many of whom never saw freedom again. Lady Jane Grey, granddaughter of Henry VIII's sister Mary, the tragic ‘Ten Day Queen', had been executed on Tower Green only a fortnight earlier, in the same place as Elizabeth's mother Anne Boleyn and stepmother Catherine Howard had perished on the block. Elizabeth had known Lady Jane when both had been in Katherine Parr's care and the two girls had spent many happy childhood days together both at Chelsea and Sudeley Castle. Jane was another innocent young girl whose life had been imperilled when caught up in the dangerous plotting of ambitious older men. Now she had been beheaded and if the Spanish ambassador had his way, Elizabeth would surely follow. Never had she felt so utterly helpless, so alone or so vulnerable.

A huge phalanx of heavily armed guards towered above her on the quay, impassive yet acutely menacing to the frightened young princess. For a moment, Elizabeth's resolve deserted her. She stepped slowly out of the barge then sank down onto the wet flagstones and refused to go any further. When the kindly Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir John Brydges, tactfully suggested that she would benefit from coming in out of the rain, Elizabeth tersely rebuked him that she was better off remaining where she was. Mary was to give Sudeley Castle to Sir John Brydges, making him Lord Chandos. Elizabeth later made his son Edmund a Knight of the Garter. In turn Sir John's grandson Giles entertained the Queen at Sudeley: in 1592 to celebrate the anniversary of the Armada's defeat, a joyous feast and pageant was held in Elizabeth's honour that lasted three whole days.

The impasse outside the Tower was conveniently overcome when one of Elizabeth's manservants suddenly began to weep uncontrollably. Without losing face, Elizabeth was able to rise to her feet, loudly declare that as she was totally innocent, no man need shed tears on her behalf, then stride haughtily into the Tower, every inch a princess, albeit one in great peril. ‘Let us take heed my Lords, that we go not beyond our commission for she was our King's daughter. Let us use such dealings that we may answer it thereafter, if it shall so happen for just dealing is always answerable,'
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the ever-cautious Earl of Sussex warned his companions as burly guards marched Elizabeth towards the Bell Tower, close to the Lieutenant's lodgings and where Sir Thomas More had previously been imprisoned. Sir John Brydges followed the Earl's advice and treated Elizabeth well – she was able to dine in his lodgings and take exercise in the fresh air by walking under close escort along part of the battlements known today as Queen Elizabeth Walk. Sir Thomas Wyatt was also imprisoned in the Tower at the same time in much less salubrious surroundings, while undergoing torture in an attempt to make him confess that Princess Elizabeth had been involved in his plot to overthrow the Queen:

We have this morning prevailed with Sir Thomas Wyatt touching Princess Elizabeth and her servant Sir William St Loe. Wyatt confirms his former sayings and says Sir James Croft knows more, Croft has been examined and confesses with Wyatt, charging St Loe with the same. Examine St Loe or send him to be examined by us. Croft will tell all. Sir John Bourne. Sir John Brydges.
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Thus runs a laconic report with sinister undertones recounting proceedings at the Tower while the hapless Wyatt was under interrogation. Sir James Croft was a country squire, thought to be one of the conspirators, but in fact was in Wales at the time of the uprising and so took no part in it. Arrested and brought back to London under guard, he survived close questioning, revealing nothing that implicated either himself or the princess. Likewise, Elizabeth's servant St Loe, who was suspected of being an intermediary between Elizabeth and Wyatt, resisted all attempts to say anything which might incriminate her in any way.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth was closely interrogated by Stephen Gardiner, the stern-faced Bishop of Winchester, together with other Privy Councillors. She rebuffed all their efforts to make her confess and her inquisitors were unable to make any headway in establishing her guilt. Within Mary's Privy Council, Elizabeth had a powerful and sympathetic advocate pleading her case, her great-uncle Lord Admiral William Howard. Her case was further strengthened when Sir Thomas Wyatt made an impassioned speech prior to his execution on Tower Hill, exonerating the princess from any knowledge of his abortive uprising. Elizabeth's robust conduct throughout her ordeal displayed all the character of a future queen.

Whether or not Elizabeth really knew anything of significance about Wyatt's plans remains a matter of speculation; suffice to say that it would have been out of character for Elizabeth to conspire to replace the legitimate sovereign of the nation, particularly a plot organized by a person of Wyatt's lowly social standing. However, these events were pivotal to her conduct in later life, an important process in the shaping of the future Queen of England.