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The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor

Head of Zeus Ltd

AFFECTION SHALL LEAD ME TO COURT ...

It was bracingly cold in London on the morning of 11 October 1537. The weather the previous year had been so piercing that the Thames had frozen, forcing water traffic onto the already crowded streets of England's capital. This year would not prove so frigid, but at this time of day, as the sun slowly began to rise, the assembled crowds still had their hands tucked away against the frost, and there was a murmur in the air. They were waiting for news – but as yet, there was none to report.

The friars, priests and clerks gathered there pulled on their ceremonial copes, which appeared vivid against the monochrome-looking buildings. The mayor and aldermen of the city, along with members of all the crafts guilds in their liveries, joined them, forming into a line. It was a companionable scene, since such gatherings were frequent enough for the participants to know each other well; but that day they walked with downcast eyes. Slowly, they processed through the narrow, tunnel-like streets of the city, passing ancient buildings of timber or stone, their feet pressing on the rutted, cobbled streets. Prayers were on the lips of the priests. Crowds watching from the streets or from jettied windows above adopted the invocation. It was a prayer for the queen, Jane Seymour, who had already been in labour for a day and two nights. All England's hopes rested on her good hour.

An anxious King Henry VIII, at Hampton Court, recalled the last royal birth, four years ago. He had ascended the throne as a handsome and vigorous seventeen-year-old, nearly thirty years before. His first marriage, to Catherine of Aragon, had produced a daughter, Mary, but not the hoped-for son. In around 1527, he had turned his attentions to the exotic, dark Anne Boleyn, but the road to the altar proved a long one. Anne was over thirty and past her childbearing prime when she became queen in January 1533; yet she was already pregnant. Henry, who had broken with the pope to marry his love, expected a son, any doubts about the child's gender assuaged by the hired fortune tellers. He had wasted his money. The letters carefully prepared in advance to announce the birth of a 'prince' were clumsily amended for a 'princess'. Anne's daughter, Princess Elizabeth, caused consternation at her birth on 7 September 1533. But she was, for a time, heiress to Henry's throne.

Elizabeth was born to gilded splendour. When she was a baby, four rockers were engaged whose sole purpose was to gently push her cradle and soothe her off to sleep. When she changed residences, which was frequently, she was carried in a velvet litter at the head of a snaking procession of servants. This all changed with the swing of a headsman's sword in May 1536 and the execution of her mother on trumped-up charges of adultery. Although not yet three years old, Elizabeth noticed her drop in status, precociously asking her governess, Lady Bryan, 'how happs it yesterday Lady Princess and today but Lady Elizabeth?' Within a few months, she had outgrown all her clothes, but there were no replacements forthcoming from a king who was preoccupied with a new bride. Elizabeth had not visited court for eighteen months by the time her stepmother Jane, the new queen, went into labour.

By the standards of the time, Jane Seymour was, at twenty-eight, rather old for her first confinement, having failed to attract a husband in her youth. It was her air of quiet virtue, so different from the outspoken Anne Boleyn, that drew the king to her. He had been entranced by her refusal to accept a gift of money from him early in 1536, because she had 'no greater riches in the world than her honour, which she would not injure for a thousand deaths'. Within days, Jane's brother, Edward Seymour, and his wife had been installed as chaperones in fine court apartments. Conveniently, they had access to Henry's own private rooms via a secret stair.

Edward Seymour intended to rise with his younger sister at court. They were the children of Sir John Seymour, of Wolf Hall in Wiltshire, and his wife, Margery Wentworth, a 'benign, courteous and meek' woman with solid family connections. Both Edward and his brother Henry, the eldest surviving sons, were born at the turn of the sixteenth century. They had a comfortable childhood in their father's 1,200 acres, which offered hunting in the parks and strolls through the fine walled garden or fruitful orchards. Fifty servants attended to the family's needs. There was a private chapel for the Seymours, and they could also worship in the village of Great Bedwyn, close to Wolf Hall.

Infant mortality, which was then so virulent, left a hole at the heart of the Seymour family and divided the Seymour children into two groups. By the time that Edward's youngest siblings abandoned babyhood, he had left home and was using family connections to take the first tentative steps towards a court career, while Henry, not sharing his brother's ambitions, later chose the conventional life of a country squire. The third surviving son, Thomas, who was born around 1508, was followed by Jane and two other sisters.

The Seymour children were literate, learning their letters with the parish priest, but none of them showed Edward's intellectual promise. With no inheritance prospects and few routes to advancement, Thomas struggled to follow his brother to court. Indeed, it was only the intervention of his cousin Sir Francis Bryan, the infamous 'vicar of Hell' who took him into his service around 1530, that rescued him from country obscurity. At about the same time Bryan also secured a place at court for Jane.

Jane's marriage to the king increased Thomas's standing too, bringing appointments to the Privy Chamber and other minor offices soon afterwards. He hoped for more if Jane could only bear Henry a son. It was in the early hours of 12 October 1537, at the point of total exhaustion, that the queen did as desired – and London erupted in celebration. At 9 o'clock in the morning, a new procession formed up at St Paul's, among the booksellers and market stalls that crowded the churchyard. As the church bells rang and Te Deums were sung in church, Jane issued the official birth announcements from her fine gilt bed. All seemed well and, at forty-six, Henry VIII finally had his longed-for male heir.

Edward Seymour must have heard the cannons, fired from the Tower of London, and the carousing crowds, drunk on hogsheads of wine distributed by the proud new father. London was kept up until past 10 o'clock that night with the celebrations, while preparations were put in hand for the newborn Edward's christening on 15 October. By convention, neither the king nor queen attended their son's baptism. Instead, Jane, wrapped in velvet and furs against the cold, was carried to an antechamber close to the chapel at Hampton Court in order to receive her guests and – if all proved well – revel in her role as royal mother. She gave the fine, healthy baby boy her blessing before he was carried into the torch-lit great chapel.

Sir Francis Bryan, benefitting from his royal cousin's success in the birth, took charge of the font, carrying towels and wearing an apron to protect his clothes. He spotted his kinsman, Edward Seymour, who had been given the honourable but burdensome task of carrying the four-year-old Princess Elizabeth. Thomas Seymour, too, was there, holding one corner of the canopy above the baby prince. This was Elizabeth's first meeting with either Seymour brother, although only the elder brother – her bearer – can have made any impression on her.

Just nine days after the christening, however, the king's jubilation turned to despair. Queen Jane, who had fallen ill with puerperal fever shortly after Edward's birth, succumbed to septicaemia. Only six days earlier, as Jane hovered between life and death, Henry had shown his appreciation of her two brothers with an earldom (of Hertford) for Edward and a knighthood for Thomas. Edward proudly received his patent from the king's own hand and was so overcome with gratitude that, after thanking God in a short speech, he promised humbly to 'do His Grace such service that might be to his pleasure'. Privately, the new Earl of Hertford mused that 'affection shall lead me to court, but I'll take care that interest keeps me'. The unexpected death of Queen Jane threw Henry into mourning for the wife who had finally given him his son and heir; but it did not dampen the Seymour brothers' sense of triumph or hinder their ambitions.

Both now motherless, Elizabeth and the infant Edward found themselves thrown together. From her birth, Elizabeth had been attended by a suite of servants. Her great-aunt, Lady Bryan, who had originally cared for Princess Mary, served as her 'lady mistress', filling a mother's role in her day-to-day life. Lady Bryan, who by 1537 was approaching sixty, understood the needs of the royal children better than anyone else. In spite of her grey hairs, she was energetic and sprightly and would live to a ripe old age. She took charge of Prince Edward from birth, plainly adoring the little boy who, by the time he was seventeen months old, could tap his tiny feet to music, enjoying himself so much that 'he could not be still'. With chubby fingers, he took the instruments from the minstrels employed to amuse him and tried to pick out his own tunes. Elizabeth was with him during such times, watching her brother lovingly.

Lady Bryan could not be expected to raise the royal children indefinitely, and within a few years she retired to Essex. Elizabeth's new lady mistress came from within the household. As a 'wise lady of dignity', she was as solidly respectable as her predecessor. Blanche, Lady Troy, had been raised in the Welsh Marches and, along with her niece Blanche Parry, had joined the princess at her birth. As a widow, she could focus her energies on her charges, so that the nursery she presided over was as warm and affectionate as in Lady Bryan's day. But times were changing, drawing the two children away from their nursery songs and early letters. In 1543 Elizabeth was called to court for a wedding.

Late in 1542, Catherine Parr, Lady Latimer, a pretty auburn-haired woman of thirty, arrived in London with her second husband. The couple were northerners by descent, although Catherine had been born and raised close to the court. Left a penniless widow when she was barely out of her teens, Catherine had hurriedly wedded the older John Neville, Lord Latimer. As his bride, she took up residence at Snape Castle in Yorkshire and occupied herself in raising her stepchildren. It was a quiet, domestic life, but not one that suited her very considerable intellectual talents. She was also caught up in the events of the Pilgrimage of Grace late in 1536, when the conservative north rebelled against the king's religious policies, including the dissolution of the monasteries. Catherine had no sympathy for Roman Catholic tradition, but her husband did. After agreeing to act as the rebels' captain, Latimer was strongly suspected of treason, while Catherine's own life was endangered when the insurgents occupied her home. It was only with difficulty that Latimer cleared his name and slowly regained royal favour. In September 1542 he fell sick at York and returned to London. By the following March he was dead – and Catherine was widowed for the second time.

Although she dutifully arranged her husband's funeral and took on responsibility for her stepdaughter Margaret Neville, Catherine was no retiring widow. Even before Lord Latimer had passed away, she had attracted two suitors. The favoured gentleman, whom Catherine wished to marry 'before any man I know', was Sir Thomas Seymour. But the other was King Henry, whose own fifth marriage, to Catherine Howard, had ended nearly a year before with an axe blow to the imprudent queen's neck.

When, in early 1543, Catherine Parr began to attend the household of her old friend Princess Mary, the king caused gossip by visiting his eldest daughter with sudden regularity. On 16 February 1543, while Lord Latimer was still lingering on his sickbed, Henry made his intentions very clear when he insisted on paying a tailor's bill for clothes for both Catherine and Mary. The gowns for Catherine, made of gorgeous fabrics and cut in Italian, French, Dutch and Venetian styles, were lavish and must have been meant by Henry as a wedding trousseau – in anticipation of the object of his affections soon becoming free to wed. Catherine, however, intended to resist.

By 1543, Sir Thomas Seymour was a highly eligible bachelor of thirty-five who regularly attended the court. As uncle to Edward, Prince of Wales, he punched above his weight in the marriage market. Even the great noble the Duke of Norfolk sought him for his daughter, the widowed Duchess of Richmond. The duke had first raised the match personally with the king at Westminster in 1538, amid the hustle and bustle of a royal move to Hampton Court. Henry had agreed, laughing, that if Norfolk was 'so minded to bestow his daughter upon the said Sir Thomas Seymour, he should be sure to couple her with one of such lust and youth, as should be able to please her well at all points'. Thomas was well built and handsome, with a thick auburn beard. Although the scheme continued, on and off, until the 1540s, the duchess's 'fantasy would not serve her to marry with him'. Instead, Seymour flirted with Catherine Parr – but stepped away when the king declared an interest.

Catherine resisted the king's advances for as long as she could. Privately, she was horrified at the thought of marriage to a man who was now – at fifty-one – old (for the time), grossly overweight and disabled by an open ulcer suppurating in his leg, a lingering injury from falling under his horse during a joust in 1536. It was said that she complained he wronged her in marrying such a young woman. Catherine had already endured two arranged marriages and she now wanted someone young and vigorous. But the king, who was still 'lusty' in thought if increasingly less able in deed, wanted her in his bed. The modestly born and, seemingly, infertile gentlewoman was otherwise a surprising royal choice.

Catherine was not, though, easily won. Reverting to his romantic youth, Henry attempted to woo her with poetry, urging this fair 'nymph' in his own poetic hand to 'set doubts aside' and couple herself with him. His wife would be required to swear to be 'buxom in bed'. Catherine prayed to be released from the king's ardour, yet, as she later lamented, 'God withstood my will therein most vehemently for a time'. She took the Almighty's silence as evidence of divine purpose, making 'possible which seemed to me most impossible; that was, made me renounce utterly mine own will, and to follow his will most willingly'. She believed that she did God's work when she finally accepted Henry in July 1543. In preparation for this living martyrdom, she noted down Bible verses by which she intended to live, hoping to be a force for good and 'refuse not the prayer of one that is in trouble, and turn not [a]way thy face from the needy'. In Henry's younger daughter, Elizabeth, whom she first met that month, she found a child badly in need of a mother's love.

On 12 July 1543, the nine-year-old Princess Elizabeth woke at Hampton Court and made her way to the queen's tiny private chapel. She squeezed herself in among the company, which included her half-sister Mary, as well as her cousin Margaret Douglas and Catherine Willoughby, the Duchess of Suffolk – the young wife of her uncle (and the king's old friend) Charles Brandon. Much of the Privy Council had also crowded in, including Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, and his wife. They had come for a wedding. As King Henry took Catherine's hand in his, Bishop Stephen Gardiner recited the words of the marriage ceremony – the sixth time Henry had heard it and the third for Catherine. Quietly, the widow gave herself to Henry 'as long as they both shall live', promising to obey and serve him, while for his part he vowed to 'love and honour her as a spouse and husband ought to love and honour his wife'.

Although childless, the new queen was an experienced step-parent; already her two Neville stepchildren were devoted to their 'dear sovereign mistress'. But Catherine was denied the opportunity to become an immediate influence over Elizabeth, as her 'obedient daughter' was sent back to the nursery within days of the wedding. It was to be a year before the pair met again, by which time Elizabeth's world had changed. On 7 July 1544, the king decreed that it was time for his son Edward, now six years old, to learn how to become a man. Edward Seymour and the conservative Lord Chancellor Thomas Wriothesley were sent to strip the boy's female attendants of their posts. It was an event that seared itself in the memory of Edward, who recorded years later that 'he was brought up among the women until he was six years of age'. Henceforth, the prince was to be cared for and instructed by men, and there was no place in this establishment for his ten-year-old sister. Instead, Elizabeth now came to spend more time at court and in the company of her father's new queen.

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Excerpted from The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor by Elizabeth Norton. Copyright © 2015 Elizabeth Norton. Excerpted by permission of Head of Zeus Ltd.
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