The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor (34 page)

Seymour also had some thinking to do. News of Sharington’s incarceration can hardly have been unexpected, but it was nevertheless alarming. It would be impossible to keep his own name out of the enquiries into the coiner’s behaviour. Although his own schemes were still at an early stage, Thomas resolved to bring forward his plans. He now needed to act quickly.

It is likely that at this point Seymour made his decision to acquire the person of the king, marry Elizabeth – and bring down his brother.

Parliament had reconvened on 2 January, whereupon Thomas Seymour, along with other members of the Lords, diligently made their way to chilly Westminster. Already, the festivities of the day before were fading into memory.
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Many of the Lords, still celebrating Christmas on their estates, were absent, including Seymour’s allies Dorset, Northampton and Rutland. Even Somerset failed to make the journey.

Two weeks before Christmas, Thomas had informed Sharington that ‘he was not contented that he was not placed in the Parliament House as one of the king’s uncles’, and matters had not changed with the New Year.
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He sat as the leading baron in Parliament, but far beneath Somerset and other members of the Council.

Only a handful of peers attended on 3 January; even Thomas remained at home, at Seymour Place, where he missed very little of interest – discussions of how murders and other felonies should be tried, and thoughts about the true making of malt. Those peers who were present struggled to keep warm, in their furs, in the draughty chamber. It was no surprise that attendance was sparse that week – the comforts of home must have been inviting. But after a day of rest on 4 January, considerably greater numbers attended the next day, including the Seymour brothers – in the same room as each other for the first time since Christmas. There is no record that the pair acknowledged each other during the session. Thomas attended every day the following week, until he was absent on 10 January.

It was around 10 January that Seymour began to invite the Marquess of Dorset and the Earl of Huntingdon to Seymour Place in the evenings. According to Dorset, the talk was mundane yet still infused with discontent. Once, Thomas idly said: ‘I hearsay that there shall be a subsidy granted to the king this Parliament.’
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This was hardly news, since Tudor parliaments were usually summoned in order to raise taxes. Nonetheless, Dorset asked: ‘What subsidy?’ ‘Marry,’ said Seymour, ‘every man that hath sheep shall pay to His Grace 2d yearly for every sheep, and to that I will never grant unto it.’ ‘Why?’ asked Dorset languidly, before pointing out that such a subsidy was better for both of them than one based on land ownership, given their substantial estates. ‘Well,’ responded Thomas, ‘do as you will, I will not’, revealing that he was as malcontented as he had been before the Christmas break.

On each evening these meetings broke up suddenly. After 9 o’clock every night, the Lord Admiral left his friends in his house before setting out alone for the court at Westminster.
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This surprised Wightman, a man who had little love for Seymour, though it was also welcome for him, for it allowed the servant to return to his own lodgings for an early night: he was told he need not wait up for his master.

At court, Thomas’s behaviour was suspicious. He would go quietly to the buttery, where alcohol for the court was kept.
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Pouring himself a drink, he would wait alone among the bottles and barrels until John Fowler appeared. Close together, in a space lit only by torchlight, Seymour would ask his companion ‘whether the king would say anything of him?’ ‘Nay in good faith,’ Fowler typically replied. At once melancholy, Thomas wished aloud that Edward was five or six years older. Every visit was similar, and before Fowler departed Seymour would insist that he ‘bring him word when the king was rising’. The servant nodded, ensuring that each morning he did as he was bid.

Parliament did not sit on 11 January, and the Protector took the opportunity afforded to summon his brother. He was intent on nipping any disloyalty in the bud. Thomas, however, refused to leave Seymour Place, telling Somerset that he would see him the next day at the Parliament House or at Westminster Palace the following afternoon.
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He had no intention of speaking to him unless he had to, and seems to have successfully avoided Somerset on his visits to Parliament and the court. Seymour’s nocturnal activities had no effect on his Parliamentary attendance: he diligently rode to Westminster every day between 12 January and 17 January. Each morning, after snatching only a few hours of sleep, he travelled to Somerset Place, taking to his horse in procession behind the Protector. Most days he rode with the ancient Lord Russell, who served as Lord Privy Seal – and long ago as Lord High Admiral – and who was one of the men on the Council that Seymour accounted his friend.

Russell, however, was worried about what he had been hearing. Turning to Seymour one day as they rode, he observed: ‘My Lord Admiral there are certain rumours bruited of you which I am very sorry to hear.’
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What were they, demanded Thomas. Why, said Russell, that Seymour ‘made means to marry either My Lady Mary, or else with My Lady Elizabeth’.
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As their horses stepped lightly over the cobbles, Russell warned his companion that if he did any such thing he would undo himself ‘and all those that shall come of you’. Seymour ignored this conclusion, instead insistently asking who had informed Russell of these rumours. Russell merely shrugged, replying that he had heard it from a number of the Admiral’s own friends, men who ‘wish you as well to do as I do myself’. Thomas merely denied everything and the pair dismounted, still ostensibly on friendly terms.

Two or three days later, it was Thomas who pulled his horse in beside Russell. He was wondering why Russell seemed ‘very suspicious’ of him, asking whether it was to do with the marriage they had discussed the other day. Russell merely responded that he would not tell him who had reported the rumours to him, but assured him that they were not malicious reports. He reiterated his warnings that marriage to one of the princesses would undo Seymour – it would be interpreted as a manoeuvre to obtain the throne for himself.

Thomas made no answer to this; but he did observe that the husband of one of the princesses would have £3,000 a year from rents. Russell shook his head. Their spouses would receive no land, only money, plate and goods – and how could he ‘maintain his charge and estate’ with that? Seymour refused to believe this, repeating that ‘they must have the £3,000 a year also’. It was getting heated now. ‘By God but they may not,’ exclaimed Russell, spluttering through his thick white beard. ‘By God, none of you all dare say nay to it,’ grimaced Thomas. Russell answered: ‘By God for my part I will say nay to it’, and spurred his horse away from his companion. The message from the Lord Privy Seal was clear. If Thomas were to marry Elizabeth, she would not get her patent giving her title to the lands bequeathed her by her father.

In spite of the increasing rancour between the two men, they continued to ride together to Parliament. On the third occasion, the talk turned to William Sharington. Thomas had been making enquiries into how his friend was held, and, turning to Russell, he commented that it seemed to him ‘that more extremity was shown to Sharington than his fault or offence did deserve’. He pointed out that, with his records confiscated, the master of the Bristol mint could not possibly hope to clear his name. But it was a ‘most heinous’ matter, Russell spluttered, since it touched the king’s coin. They arrived at the Parliament House before they had finished speaking, but the next time they rode together Seymour once again spoke up for his friend. Pulling out a copy of Sharington’s patent from the mint, the Lord Admiral declared that it seemed to him that the testoons had been lawfully made. With increasing frustration, Russell retorted: ‘My Lord, you shall not do well to take upon you to defend Sharington’s causes.’ ‘It was a foul matter,’ the old peer muttered, and Seymour should leave it at that. They rode in silence the rest of the way.

Thomas’s strange behaviour at court was beginning to be noted. One day that month, while walking in the garden at Westminster Palace with the Earl of Arundel, they found that the gate was shut. Arundel turned to Thomas and asked to be let through, insisting: ‘you have a double key. For so it is in the book.’
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At the time, Seymour professed ignorance of this duplicate key: ‘I cannot tell whether I have or not; but if I have any, it is in my casket, I think, at Bromham.’ Arundel must have wondered why Thomas would keep a key for Westminster Palace at his house in Wiltshire; but he made no further comment.

While talking to John Fowler on one occasion, Seymour was informed about orders Sir Michael Stanhope had given to ensure that the king remained safely locked away at night. Thomas asked what was meant by this, but Fowler said he could not tell. Thomas concurred: ‘No I neither. What is he afraid that any man will take the king away from him? If he think that I will go about it, he shall watch a good while.’
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It was hardly a baseless concern, though, since Thomas was taking considerably more interest in measures for the king’s security than he should have.

Not long before, while the court was still at St James’s Palace, Seymour had arrived early in the morning and wandered into the gallery to find Fowler playing his lute.
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The king’s servant stopped strumming as the Admiral entered and commented that ‘there is a slender company about the king’. Glancing around, Seymour observed: ‘I came through the chamber of presence and passed not a man, nor in all the house as I came I found not a dozen persons.’ Fowler nodded: ‘Thanks be to God we are in a quiet realm and the King’s Majesty is well beloved. If it were not so, a hundred men would make a foul work here.’ This response did not satisfy Seymour, who noted that ‘a man might steal away the king now, for there come more with me than is in all the house besides’. Perhaps he was tempted at that moment to do just that. If so, he silenced the urge, instead going in to speak to Edward for a time. Such a course, if successful, would, de facto, give Seymour the coveted governorship of the king’s person. The boy might even have been desiring it – perhaps even, during Thomas’s frequent visits to his nephew in January 1549, Seymour raised an ‘abduction’ with the king himself.

The youthful Earl of Rutland, always an uncomfortable ally of Seymour, appeared noncommittal and nervous when Thomas attempted to involve him in his schemes. Finally, on the evening of 15 January, Rutland summoned his secretary, speaking at length with him on the subject of Thomas Seymour.
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The men conferred for some time, while the secretary drafted a note, carelessly discarding parts that did not meet his employer’s liking. When he was satisfied with the document, Rutland ordered its despatch to John Dudley, Earl of Warwick. They left the room, leaving Rutland’s servant Pigot alone to tidy up.

Approaching the desk in the candlelight, Pigot found a scrap of paper containing four or five lines of text. It seemed to him to be the beginning of a Parliamentary bill making accusations against Seymour. Furtively, he hid the paper about his person before hurrying away. By the morning, he had made his way to his brother, who happened to be in Seymour’s service. This second Pigot went immediately to his master and secured an audience with him for his brother. Thomas took the paper into his hands and saw at once ‘that something was intended against him’. Stunned, as he later confessed, he began to suspect ‘by diverse conjectures’ that the Council intended his arrest.

Thomas’s mind was troubled on the morning of 16 January as he rode to Parliament beside Lord Russell. Breaking the silence, he asked: ‘What will you say, My Lord Privy Seal, if I go above you shortly?’
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This was a surprising question, since the office of Lord Privy Seal was the fifth-highest ranking in the Council, including the offices held by Protector Somerset and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
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Calmly, Russell replied that he would be very glad of Thomas’s preferment, and that he did not care if he were to go above him providing ‘that he took nothing from me’. It seemed that Thomas was imminently expecting to be appointed to one of the highest offices in the kingdom – that of governor of the king. Nothing more was said – although later that same morning Lord Russell reported the conversation to the lord chancellor.