witness this with indifference. The Protector, to satisfy him, got him created Baron Seymour of Sudley, and with this title he received in August, 1548, the lordship of Sudley in Gloucestershire, together with other lands and tenements in no less than eighteen counties. He made him, moreover, high admiral, a post which had been held by the Earl of Warwick, who received instead of it that of lord great chamberlain. These honours and estates might have well contented a man of even great ambition, but the aspiring of the Seymours brooked no limits. The new Lord Seymour was still restless, and could not feel content till he stood on a level with his fortunate brother. The Protector was a man who, though he had even violence and insolence of temper. Shrinking at the faintest murmurs of the people, stooping to the domestic yoke of a coarse, proud, and imperious wife, he treated not only his inferiors, but even his equals at the Council board, with all the offensive airs of an upstart. That these traits have not been bestowed upon him by his enemies, we have the clearest proofs in the honest expostulations of his intimate friend Paget, who wrote thus to him:-"If I loved not your grace so deeply in my heart that it cannot be taken out, I could hold my peace as some others do, and say little or nothing. But my love to your grace, and good hope that you take my meaning well, hath enforced me to signify unto your grace, that unless your From an Old Print in the British Museum. Latimer Preaching before Edward VI. been entrusted with great commissions, and had executed his military ones with a lion-like fury, was yet of a timorous nature. He grasped at the highest honours, yet he trembled to lose them, and, therefore, coveted popularity, and was careful to maintain an outwardly irreproachable moral character. He moreover was a zealous reformer of religion, and probably was sincerely so. We have no cause to deem that he feigned this attachment to Protestant principles, though he neither understood the humility nor the humanity required by the Gospel which he contributed largely to make known. We have seen the un-Christian cruelty of his campaigns; and, in his whole bearing, after his achievement of the supreme power, he displayed the most inflated arrogance, and (See p. 310.) grace do more quietly show your pleasure in thing wherein you will debate with other men, and hear the again graciously say their opinions, when you do requr it, that will ensue whereof I would be right sorry, your grace shall have just cause to repent, that is, that man shall dare speak to you what he thinks, though it was never so necessary." And he adds, "However it cometh to pass I cannot tell, but of late your grace is grown great in choleric fashions whensoever you are contraried in that which you have conceived in your head;" and he entreats him to avoid this, or mischief might grow out of it. The admiral, on the contrary, cared little for popular opinion. He was a handsome, gay man, free in principles, by no means nice in his life or his mark, A.D. 1547.] MARRIAGE OF QUEEN CATHERINE AND LORD SEYMOUR. extremely fascinating to ladies, and as ambitious as any anan that ever lived. As he did not seem to succeed in his desire of rising to a station as lofty as that of his brother, the Protector, through the Council and political alliance, he sought to achieve this by means of marriage. There were several ladies on whom he cast his eyes for this purpose. The Princesses Mary and Elizabeth were the next in succession, and he did not hesitate to aim at securing the hand of one of them, which would have realised his soaring wishes or plunged him down at once to destruction. He seems then to have weighed the chances which a union with Lady Jane Grey might give him; but, as if not satisfied with the prospect, he suddenly determined on the queen-dowager. He had, indeed, paid his addresses to Catherine Parr before her marriage with Henry VIII., and Catherine was so much attached to him that she at first listened with obvious reluctance to Henry's proposal. No sooner was Henry dead than Seymour seems to have renewed his addresses to Catherine, and, with all her piety and prudence, the queen - dowager seems to have listened to him as promptly and readily. Though Henry only died at the end of January, 1547, in a single month, according to Leti, she had consented to a private contract of marriage, and she and Seymour had exchanged rings of betrothal. According to King Edward's journal, their marriage took place in May, but the courtship had been going on long before, and was only revealed to him when it was become dangerous to conceal it any longer, Pillory at the Gateway of Old London Bridge. 313 Cheyne Pier. There Seymour used to visit her in the night, and so cautiously that Catherine, in one of her letters, discloses the fact that she herself waited at the park-gate, when all others had retired to rest, to let him in. "When Traitors' Heads over the Gateway of London Bridge. it shall be your pleasure to repair hither, you must take some pain to come early in the morning, that you may be gone again by seven o'clock, and so I suppose you may come without suspect. I pray you let me have knowledge over-night at what hour you will come, that your portress may wait at the gate to the fields for you." But such an affair could not long escape attention, and though they were married, Seymour began to take steps for soliciting the king's consent to the alliance. First he wrote to the Princess Mary, entreating her to break it to her brother Edward, and to plead for it; but Mary declined so delicate a commission, saying, "Wherefore I shall most earnestly require you, the premises considered, to think none unkindness in me, though I refuse to be a meddler any ways in this matter; assuring you that, wooing matters set apart, wherein, being a maid, I am nothing cunning, I shall most willingly aid you, if otherwise it shall lie in my power." Failing here, a plan was laid for inducing Edward, not merely to consent to the marriage of his step-mother with his uncle Seymour, but for his own asking her to accept Seymour, which he did; and was made to believe that the match actually proceeded from his own suggestion. Catherine Parr played a part in this scheme-as appears by King Edward's own letters and journal-which shows that with all her piety and reputation for discreetness, and even wisdom, she was not averse on occasion to practise all the art of the diplomaShe went on professing her deep love and devotion to the memory of his father long after she was secretly the wife of Seymour, till the young unsuspecting king was completely wrought over to her wishes. that he did not interfere in this affair without a good deal of repugnance, or without good advice against it, and they were privately married long before that. The | tist. On the king's death Catherine went to live at her fine jointure house at Chelsea, on the banks of the Thames, which, with its gardens and extensive grounds, occupied Yet appears from his own statement:-"Lord Seymour came to me in the last Parliament at Westminster, and desired me to write a thing for him. I asked him what. He said, It is no ill thing; it is for the queen's majesty.' I said, 'If it were good, the lords would allow it; if it were ill, I would not write it.' Then he said, 'They would take it in better part if I would write.' I desired him to let me alone in that matter. Cheke (his tutor) said to me afterwards, 'Ye were best not to write.'" The immediate consequence of this ill-will in Somerset and his termagant wife towards Catherine was, that she was refused all the jewels which had been presented to her by the late king, her husband, on the plea that they were Crown property. The Protector next called upon her to give up the use of her favourite manor of Fausterne for a creature of his of the name of Long, and though Catherine indignantly refused to do it, by his power he compelled her to give way, and receive Long as tenant. On the other hand, Seymour used every means to ingratiate himself with the young king, both through the means of his wife, for whom Edward had a great regard, and through the Princess Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey, who had been pupils of Catherine Parr's. Edward appears to have really liked Seymour much better than he did Somerset. The former furnished him with money, of which Somerset seems to have kept him very scant; and though the Duchess of Somerset was pleased to say that Catherine Parr "was fain to cast herself for support on a younger brother," this could not mean pecuniary support, for the match with Catherine was a very desirable one, indepen When the marriage became known Somerset was highly incensed at Seymour's audacity in contracting a marriage of this lofty and important kind without consulting the Council, or without the authority of the Crown. He was stimulated to strong expression of his indignation by his haughty duchess, who had been accustomed to regard her husband and herself as the chief people in the realm, next to the king and his sisters. The proud duchess had long borne an ill-concealed dislike to Catherine, thinking it scorn that the wife of the great Somerset should bear the train, as was her office, of a queen who had formerly been a subject like herself. Now she openly rebelled against the fulfilment of this office, alleging that "it was un-dent of her elevated position. She was amply dowered by suitable for her to submit to perform that service for the wife of her husband's youngest brother." It was, in fact, more tolerable to bear the train of Catherine as queen than to have her as her superior in the family. The feuds on this subject became warm. Catherine, with all her prudence, was roused by the Protector's language regarding the marriage, and declared that she would call him to account for it before the king; but not the less did Somerset's proud duchess struggle audaciously with the queen-dowager for precedence, "so that," says Lloyd, "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." Parliament and the king's patents; she had two dowers besides, as widow of the Lords Borough and Latimer, and was supposed to have saved a very large sum whilst ebo was queen-consort. Seymour, therefore, with her property and his own grants, was extremely rich. Both the brothers intrigued actively to get their Royal nephew married, so as to serve their own ambition. The plan of Somerset was to marry the king to his own daughter, Jane Seymour, a lady of much learning, but the admiral plotted against that by endeavouring to place the still more learned Lady Jane Grey continually in his way, who was strongly recommended to Edward by Catherine Parr, who had a real affection for both of them The Marquis of Dorset, the father of Lady Jane Grey, The duchess declared that, as wife of the Lord Protector, was induced to allow his daughter to reside in the she had the right to take precedence of everybody in admiral's family on a distinct proposition of this kind England, in her proud mind not even excepting the King Edward was very fond of stealing away from his princesses; but as she was soon compelled to submit courtiers into the apartments of Catherine Parr, who had she cherished a hatred both against Catherine and Lord always been the only person like a mother that he hai Seymour, which, no doubt, had its full effect in urging ever known, and, going there by a private entrance withher husband to imbrue his hands in his brother's blood. out any attendants, he could converse freely with her According to Hayward, in his life of Edward VI., Anne her ladies, and the admiral. This excited the deepe-t Stanhope, Duchess of Somerset, was "a woman for many jealousy on the part of the Protector, who exerted every imperfections intolerable, but for pride monstrous. She means to prevent this intercourse, and so to surround was both exceedingly violent and subtle in accomplish-him with his spies that he could rarely find himself aloca ing her ends, for which she spurned all respects of conscience or shame. This woman did bear such invincible hate to the queen-dowager, first for light causes and women's quarrels, and especially because she (the queen-dowager) had precedency over her, being the wife of the greatest peer in the land." He also says that she was accustomed to abuse Queen Catherine in the grossest terms, and in this strain: -" Did not Henry VIII. marry Catherine 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." The Royal boy, however, had too much of his father self-will, however weak he might seem, to be led into either of these alliances. He expressed much indignation at the Protector's attempt, and wrote in his journal that he would choose for himself; and not a subject, but a foreign princess, well stuffed and jewelled." That 14, having not only a princely dower, but also a priverf wardrobe and royal ornaments. 66 Whilst these intrigues were going on around ler, Catherine Parr gave birth to a daughter, on the 30th August, 1518, and on the 7th of September, only e days after, she died of puerperal fever. Rumours of br husband having poisoned her, to enable him to aspire the hand of the Princess Elizabeth, were spread by in enemies, for which there does not appear the slightest foundation. The lord admiral, who had found it difficult to keep out of danger during the life of his wife, partly through his own rash ambition, and partly through the malice of his near relatives, soon fell into it after her death. In July of 1548, he had been called before the Council on the charge of having endeavoured to prevail on the king to write a letter, complaining of the arbitrary conduct of the Protector, and of the restraint in which he was kept by him. He was seeking, in fact, to supersede the Protector, and was threatened with imprisonment in the Tower; but the matter for that time was made up, and the Protector added £800 per annum to his income, by way of conciliating him. He 315 queen-dowager, being then about sixteen years of age, the admiral used to go into Elizabeth's chamber before she was dressed, and sometimes before she was out of bed. "At Seymour Place, when the queen slept there, he did use awhile to come up every morning in his nightgown and slippers. When he found my Lady Elizabeth up, and at her book, then he would look in at the gallery door, and bid her good morrow, and go on his way; and the deponent told my lord it was an unseemly sight to see a man so little dressed in a maiden's chamber, with which he was angry, but left it." This highly imprudent and discreditable conduct at length proceeded to such an extreme, that Catherine Parr had cause to repent having suffered it. Elizabeth herself told Thomas Parry, the cofferer of her household, that she feared the admiral loved her too well, and had done so a long while; that the queen was jealous of them both, insomuch that, coming suddenly upon them when they were all alone, he having her in his arms, the queen severely reprimanded both the admiral and the princess. She also scolded Mrs. Ashly for her neglect of her charge, and took instant measures for having Elizabeth removed to her own household establishment. But with Catherine departed his good genius. gave a free play to his ambitious desires, and renewed his endeavours to compass a clandestine marriage with the Princess Elizabeth, as he had done with Catherine. Finding, however, that such a marriage would annul the claims of Elizabeth to the throne, he next devised means to extort from the Council a consent, which he was well aware it would never yield voluntarily. For this purpose he is said to have courted the friendship of the discontented portion of the nobility, and made such a display of his wealth and retainers as was calculated to alarm Elizabeth herself was subjected to inquiry, and as to the Protector and his party. The Protector was now whether Mrs. Ashly had encouraged her to marry the resolved to get rid of so dangerous an enemy, though his admiral, which she declared she had never done, except own brother. Sharington, master of the mint at Bristol, by the consent of the Protector and the Council. Elizabeth being accused of gross peculation by clipping the coin, wrote to the Lord Protector from Hatfield, stating that the issuing testoons, or shilling pieces, of a false value, and vilest rumours regarding her were in circulation, namely, making fraudulent entries in his books, was boldly that she was confined in the Tower, being "enceinte" by the defended by the admiral, who owed him £3,000. But lord admiral; which she protested were shameful slanders, Sharington ungratefully, to save his life, betrayed that and demanded that, to put them down, she should be of his advocate. He confessed that he had promised to allowed to proceed alone to Court, that she might show coin money for the admiral, who could reckon on the herself as she was. services of 10,000 men, with whose aid he meant to carry off the king and change the government. This charge, made, no doubt, solely to save his own life, was enough for Somerset: Seymour was arrested on the 16th of January, 1549, on a charge of high treason, and committed to the Tower. It may be supposed what consternation and mortification these scandals and examinations gave to a girl of sixteen; but Elizabeth displayed no small portion of that leonine and sagacious spirit on the occasion which so greatly characterised her afterwards. Sir Robert Tyrwhitt, the husband of Lady Tyrwhitt, already mentioned, There was no lack of charges against him, true or false. was sent by the Protector to Hatfield to interrogate her. It was stated that he had resolved to seize the king's He informed Somerset that when Lady Browne commuperson, and carry him to his castle of Holt, in Denbigh-nicated to her that Mrs. Ashly and Parry were sent to the shire, which had come to him in one of the Royal grants; that he had confederated for this purpose with various noblemen and others, and had laid in great store of provisions and a great mass of money at that castle. He was also charged with having abused his authority as lord admiral, and encouraged piracy and smuggling, and with having circulated reports against the Lord Protector and Council too vile to be repeated. But the most remarkable were the charges against him for endeavouring, both before and after his marriage with the queendowager, to compass a marriage with the king's sister, the Lady Elizabeth, second inheritor to the Crown, to the peril of the king's person and danger to the throne. Mrs. Catherine Ashly, the governess of Elizabeth, who was brought before the Council, and made what are called her confessions, certainly opened up a curious course of conduct which had been going on in the household and lifetime of the prudent Catherine Parr, in which she figured remarkably herself. She stated that at Chelsea, where the princess was living under the care of the Tower, she was greatly confounded and abashed, and wept bitterly for a long time, and demanded whether they had confessed anything or not; that on his arrival, he assured her what sort of characters Ashly and the others were, and said that if she would open all things herself, she should wholly be excused on account of her youth, and all the blame should be laid on them. But Elizabeth replied that she had nothing to confess; "and yet," asserts Tyrwhitt, "I see it in her face that she is guilty." Presuming on this consciousness of guilt, Tyrwhitt the next day asked her if she would have married the lord admiral if the Council had given their consent. She fired up, and astonished him by telling him that she was not going to make him her confessor; demanded what he meant by such a question to her, and who bade him ask it. Tyrwhitt was soon made aware that "she hath a very good wit, and nothing is gotten of her but by great policy." A few days after, however, the politic agent had the opportunity of trying both her wit and her fortitude, by putting into her hand the confessions of Parry and Ashly. The exposures of the flirtations with the admiral must have startled and shamed her to the extreme. "At the reading of Mrs. Ashly's letter," Tyrwhitt wrote to Somerset, "she was much abashed, and half breathless, or she could read it to the end, and perused all their names perfectly, and knew both Mrs. Ashly's hand and the cofferer's hand with half a sight: so that fully she thinketh they have confessed all they know." It is a significant fact that Elizabeth, so strong in her feelings and resentments, never seems to have retained any ill-will towards Mrs. Ashly for these awkward disclosures, but, on the other hand, interested herself zealously on her behalf. There can be no doubt that her far-seeing and politic mind immediately perceived the necessity of getting that woman in her own hands, and out of those of others, as soon as possible. Accordingly, we find her in the following March writing to Somerset, entreating him to give her freedom to Mrs. Ashly, on the grounds that she had been in her service many years, and had exerted herself diligently for her "bringing up in learning and honesty;" that whatever she had done in the matter of the lord admiral was because he was one of the Council, and therefore she thought he would undertake nothing without the consent of the Council; and that she had heard her say repeatedly that she would never have her marry any one without the approbation of the Lord Protector and the Council. She finally added, that people seeing one she loved so well in such a place would think that she herself was not clear of guilt, though it might have been pardoned in her. This was an episode in Elizabeth's life which might have made her rather more lenient, in after days, in judging of the love affairs of the young people about her. The unfortunate admiral now found all the world against him, if we may except his wife's brother, the Marquis of Northampton, his brother-in-law, Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, his cousin, Sir Nicholas Thockmorton, and Sir Thomas Throckmorton, the poet. The latter, in his homely verse, says of Seymour "Thus guiltless he through malice went to pot, Not answering for himself nor knowing cause." That these noblemen and gentlemen, the near kinsmen of Catherine Parr, should remain his firm and almost only friends, is ample proof that they, who had the best means of knowing, held him perfectly guiltless of any ill-usage, much less of poisoning his wife. For the rest, all combined to destroy him, and to curry favour with the all-powerful Protector. Even Wriothesley, the new Earl of Southampton, who had been dismissed from office, came forward and joined in the proceedings against him. He was again and again examined privately and searchingly by deputations from the Privy Council, who endeavoured to persuade him to confess, and submit himself to the grace of the Protector and Council. But Seymour stood boldly on his innocence of any treasonable design, and demanded a fair and open trial. But the fact was, that the Council had no evidence of any treasonable design, or of anything but to take the place, as a matter of political ambition, in the government which his brother now held -a perfectly legitimate object; and to have given him a fair trial would not serve the purpose of the Protector, which was to be rid of him and his rivalry together. Finding that he would not move an iota from his just demands of a trial by his peers, the right of every Englishman, the whole Council adjourned to the Tower on the 23rd of February, and read to him a list of thirtythree articles which they had drawn out against him. They then again used strenuous endeavours to persuade him to submit; but he stood firm, and demanded an open trial, and to be brought face to face with his accusers. Finding that he could make no impression upon the Council, he at length said that if they would leave the articles with him, he would consider them; but even this they refused, and the next day they proceeded to report to the king, and to request him to leave the matter to Parliament. The poor boy had, no doubt, been worried into a consent to the sacrifice of his favourite uncle After listening to the arguments of the different members of the Council, and to the hypocritical pretence of the Protector, that "it was a most sorrowful business to him, but, were it a son or brother, he must prefer his majesty's safety to them, for he weighed his allegiance more than his blood," he then said, "We perceive that there are great things objected and laid to my lord admiral, my uncle, and they tend to treason; an! we perceive that you require but justice to be done. We think it reasonable, and we will that you proceed according to your request.". This lesson, which, without doubt, had been well drilled into him, was repeated with such gravity, that the Council professed to go into raptures over the Royal precocity of wisdom. Hearty thanks were returned to this boy-Solomon; and the next day a bill of attainder wa introduced into the House of Lords. It was almost unanimously declared that the articles amounted to treason, and the bill passed without a division. In the Commons there was more spirit; it was opposed by many, who objected to proceeding by attainder instea! of fair trial, as most unconstitutional and dangerous They commented severely on the peers, who, after listen ing to some mere hearsay slander, should proceed on 57:2 grounds to attaint their fellows. They demanded that the accused should be brought to the bar and allowed t plead for himself. In reply to this a message came down from the Lords, purporting that the Lords who had take the evidence should, if the House required it, come to t bar and detail that evidence; but the House declining this, and calling for the admiral himself, on the 4th March a message was sent from the king, that " thought it not necessary to send for the admiral." To spirit of the Commons had reached its height: at th Royal command it sank at once, and out of 400 members only about a dozen ventured to vote against the bill. On the 14th the Royal assent was given to the bill; the Parliament was prorogued and on the 17th the warTA: was issued for the admiral's execution. To this warrant Cranmer, contrary to the canon law, put his signaturs but it was not less contrary to the higher laws of natu that Somerset should set his hand to this shedding of brother's blood. The Bishop of Ely was commissioned inform Seymour of this solemn fact; and the admiral requested that Latimer should be sent to him, and also that some of his servants should be allowed to attend h He petitioned, moreover, that his infant daughter sto. be confided to the Duchess of Suffolk to be brought # |