Jane and the Seymours
- till Somerset's fall (1549/1550) -
"There will be much ado for my Lady Jane. My lord Protector and my lasdy
Somerset will do what they can to obtain her of my Lord Marquess Dorset for
my Lord of Hertford. But they shall not prevail therein, for my Lord Marquess
hath given her wholly to me..."
Thomas Seymour to William Parr
Under Somerset's dictatorship, which lasted from 1547
to 1550 - from Jane's eleventh to her fourteenth year - the Protestants,
or Reformers, as they preferred to be called, suddenly came into their own,
and the pattern of Jane's religious beliefs was accepted and put forward
by a number of distinguished and successful persons, including Cheke,
Ascham, her future father-in-law John Dudley and several other
members of the Council. Although Protestantism then made little or no appeal
to the bulk of the English people, its impact on such young and enthusiastic
intellectuals as Lady Jane was immediate, violent and lasting. Apart from
its denial of certain long-established dogmas, of which the most vital was
the Real Presence in the Host, part of its power appears to have lain in
its promotion of practical, non-mystical contact with the Deity. In Jane's
spiritual life the question of losing herself in God did not arise. He seems,
not so much to have spoken through her, as to have always been available
for direct communication and instruction when called upon, with the result
that her approach was not ecstatic, but confident and serene. The process
of establishing the divine nearness was comparatively simple, requiring no
intermediary.
This attitude was apt to breed a certain arrogance (very marked in Lady Jane),
contempt for and horror of those who preferred the old ways, and, in the
case of most young persons brought up as she was on the classics instinctive
association of the platonic theories with the Protestant outlook. The Phaedo
became Jane's favourite Dialogue after she left Katherine parr's circle;
some of its key passages exactly reflect her and her contemporaries' opinions
about death, as expressed by Socrates before taking the hemlock from the
hands of the executioner. "I ought to be grieved at death," he is
reported to have said, "if I were not persuaded...that I am going to other
gods who are wise and good...and therefore I do not grieve...The real philosopher
has reason to be of good cheer when he is about to die...After death he may
be able to obtain the greatest good in the other world...When I come to the
end of my journey I shall obtain that which has been the pursuit of my
life."
This immunity from terror was strengthened by the vision of an absolutely
concrete heaven. There was hell too, of course, But, for the Protestants,
no disagreeable interval of purgatory. And for such as Jane, the temptations
to stray from righteousness and thus risk damnation were very few. Indeed
they hardly occurred. Her interests were aesthetic and literary, she was
neither worldly, grasping nor carnally minded. All she had to do therefore,
in order to prepare for paradise, was to abjure and, when occasion required,
to inveigh against the idolatry of the Mass and follow the teaching of those
she admired most, while regarding herself a sinner who could yet count on
admittance to the celestial city. With this ineffable rapture ahead and the
newly discovered intoxication of philosophic inquiry to feed on while waiting
for it, mundane pleasures were easily rejected.
So the education of this remarkable girl intensified its pressure, hardening
and crystallizing her outlook. Demure, retiring but not shy, Lady Jane listened
and learned, finding the happiness and warmth in the Queen Dowager's company
she had never been given at home. Then the pleasant rhythms of life at Chelsea
and Whitehall - where Katherine had a suit of rooms next to the King's privat
rooms - were suddenly destroyed. Intrigue and passion broke up the household,
and at the age of eleven Jane lost the first person who had ever been kind
to her...
A few weeks after the death of Henry VIII the Lord
Admiral reappeared in Katherine Parr's life. Very soon he was visiting her
secretly at Whitehall and in her country palace of Chelsea. Jane was now
a member of the Court circle: a silent, background figure, she yet had
importance, not only because of her status but because her intellectual powers
were already apparent. She was considered extraordinarily advanced for her
age. No one then, least of all the King's tutors, would have admitted that
she surpassed him - her development shows that she did, and also that she
might be a match for him in more than one sense.
It now ocurred to the Admiral that he was the very person to arrange an alliance
between the cousins. His doing so woul diminish the prestige of the Protector,
who was carrying out the late King's policy of obtaining a french or Spanish
princess for his nephew. Seymour consulted Dorset, and they agreed to work
together on the scheme.
Meanwhile, the Admiral pursued a number of his own: the first was to ruin
the Protector, of whom he was bitterly jealous. The second was to find an
heiress for himself. He proposed marriage to Anne of Cleves, the
Duchess of Richmond, the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, and Katherine
Parr. Katherine's love for him had never died and she encouraged his advances.
The Admiral then set about subjugating the King - an easy matter for Somerset
was over-strict with him - and began to form a party against his brother.
So Jane was plunged in the midst of a palace intrigue spun around herself,
the Queen Dowager and the boy King by Seymour and his allies, of whom the
principal was her own father.
Thomas Seymour was high-spirited, violent, bold and unscrupulous. To be
successful, such persons must have good looks, accomplishments and immense
physical vitality. The Admiral had all these, in addition to many of the
graces, without the qualities, of a fine gentleman. His boisterous humour
was combined with an instinctive realization of what people wanted. If it
suited him, he provided it. To Edward VI, who complained that his elder uncle
kept him short of money, he gave presents of money, he made Katherine feel
both royal and desirable by the mingled courtliness and fervour of his approach,
he excited Elizabeth by his charm, and for Lady Jane, who had never known
parental love, he seems to have produced the warmth and gaiety, perhaps even
the spoiling ways of an indulgent uncle. Edward, less intellectually advanced
but more acute in his judgment of people than his cousin, soon perceived
the Admiral's falsity. Jane did not, as will presently appear.
When Jane had been with the Queen Dowager for some months, Dorset, who seems
to have been pushing his interests from his London house, began to grow
impatient. He talked of removing Jane from the Admiral's household if nothing
were done about the marriage. At last, Seymour sent one of his gentlemen,
Harington, to reassure him. Still nothing happened. Finally Dorset
went to the Admiral's house in Seymour Place and had a talk with him in the
garden, out of the hearing of the servants. Seymour was full of promises
and schemes. But if Dorset was so foolish as to remove the Lady Jane, they
would never be realized. He must have her guardianship - and he was willing
to pay for it. What Dorset later described as "certain covenants" were then
agreed upon. They resulted in Seymour's paying Dorset some hundreds on account
of the £2,000 that would be his if Jane was officially contracted to
Edward VI. But the Admiral took no practical steps, for the Protector, as
Edward's Governor, was in absolute control. It would not do for Dorset to
know this, however. He continued to make Dorset "fair promises", and Lady
Jane stayed on.
Till Jane came under the Queen Dowager's care, she had been neither praised
nor loved. (The famous eulogies of ascham and others were still to come)
Now her situation changed. Katherine grew very fond of her; she and Edward,
exactly of an age, found many tastes in common. And as the rumours of her
being married to him began to spread, she received a great deal of admiration
and flattery. This atmosphere of adulation may have been enhanced by the
fact that the Protector, from whom his brother's schemes had so far been
concealed, was considering a marriage between Jane and his eldest son
Edward, Lord Hertford. But Edward's mind was set, either on a continental
alliance or on his father's plan of contracting him to the five-year-old
Queen of Scots, Mary Stuart.
Meanwhile Katherine was persuaded by the Admiral to marry him secretly. They
confided in the King, whose approval and support would protect them from
the wrath of Somerset and the Privy Council. By the end of May 1547 all was
known, and the Protector, although much displeased, had forgiven his younger
brother. A year passed happily and uneventfully for Jane, perhaps because
Seymour's plans for her marriage to his nephew did not materialize, and she
moved with the Queen Dowager from one splendid palace to another - Hanworth,
Chelsea, Whitehall. In the summer of 1548 she retired with Katherine to the
Admiral's property of Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire. There the Queen
gave birth to a daughter and died eight days afterwards of puerperal fever.
Then the clouds began to gather round Lady Jane.
Although the Admiral had ceased to make any pretence of affection for the
wife who had risked so much for him already several months before her death,
she left him all her possessions wishing "that they had been a thousand
times more than they were". So did the Admiral; for he was always short
of money and now his situation had become really desperate. He was no nearer
his combined scheme of ousting the Protector and marrying Lady Jane to the
King. He left Gloucestershire before the funeral, hurrying back to London
to get in touch with Edward, and Jane was chief mourner at the ceremonies
in the Chapel of Sudeley Castle.
As soon as he heard of the Queen Dowager's death, Dorset sent for Lady Jane
to his London house, and Seymour seemed rather relieved that she should go.
At any rate, he consented to her departure and she remained with her parents
for a little while. The letters that passed between them and the Admiral
during the next few weeks make it clear that they had perceived a change
in her. She was no longer the docile, little creature they had known at Bradgate.
Dorset did not like this development and neither did his wife. What concerned
them much more, however, was the Admiral's failure to arrange her marriage,
and they decided to cut their losses and remove her permanently from his
charge. Seymour then visited them and insisted that all would yet be well,
if they would let her come back to him. "As he would have no nay,"
said Dorset afterwards, "we were contented she again return to his
house," and Lady Jane and her attendants accompanied the Admiral to Hanworth.
Seymour wanted to keep her indefinitely while doing nothing about her marriage.
She was an asset. Her presence in his household raised his status. To Parry,
Princess Elizabeth's treasurer, he confided a secondary scheme. "There
hath been a tale of late," he said, "they say now I shall marry my
Lady Jane," adding with his great laugh, "I tell you this but merrily
- merrily."
Seymour might have succeeded in putting off Dorset, but frances was not so
easily satisfied. She began to worry too, about her daughter's position -
who was chaperoning her? Seymour answered her objections in a soothing latter
to her husband. He was keeping on all his wife's maids and could therefore
provide suitable attendants for Jane. Also, his mother, old Lady Seymour,
had arrived, "who will, I doubt not, be as dear to Jane, as though she
were her own daughter." He added that he and the Dorsets must meet to
discuss the matter as soon as he returned from Court. When they did so, Seymour
renewed his promises. At first, Dorset did not whish to leave Jane with the
Admiral, then he hesitated. At least Frances Dorset wrote, thanking Seymour
for his offer. they would continue to take his advice about Jane's future
- i. e. her marriage with the King, but he must trust her as "his good
sister" to know what was best for their own child. Once more the Admiral
had to plead for her guardianship. Dorset replied with a description of her
development. In fact, Dorset thought that Jane had been spoilt and was becoming
unmanageable. It seems that Lady Jane had changed, from the Dorsets' point
of view, for the worse.Perhaps the strength of character which was to surprise
so many was now apparent beneath her quiet exterior.
Again, she returned to her parents. And before they were again persuaded
by Harington and Seymour to give her up, she herself wrote to the Admiral,
formally, as the occasion required, yet beneath the stiff phrases the desire
for his company is clearly seen.
She returned to the Admiral's care at about the time of her twelfth birthday.
Before she did so Dorset received another five hundred pounds. The Dorsets
were now committed to the Admiral's cause. they found themselves involved
in a conspiracy to overthrow the government and seize the person of the King.
Among the plotters was Sir William Sherington, Master of the Mint,
who by issuing worthless coins supplied some of the funds. Another was the
late Queen's brother, William Parr, now Marquess of Northampton, to
whom the Admiral said, "There will be much ado for my Lady Jane. My lord
Protector and my lasdy Somerset will do what they can to obtain her of my
Lord Marquess Dorset for my Lord of Hertford. But they shall not prevail
therein," he went on, "for my Lord Marquess hath given her wholly
to me..."
The Admiral was now determined to raise the country against his brother -
why did not Dorset join him? Dorset did not follow Seymour, preferring to
fall back on the Protector's half-promise that Lord Hertford should marry
Jane.
Between the autumn of 1548 and January of the following year the Admiral's
schemes became more daring and widespread. He ignored all warnings, including
those of his friends on the Privy Council. But the Admiral would not accept
that the King had seen through him - it was his brother's fault that he could
not obtain access to His Majesty. By this time Sherington had collected
£10,000 and the rising was planned - in the Admiral's brain, at least.
Still nothing happened. No one would join him in the first move. At last,
maddened by the King's withdrawal and his allies' pusillanimity, Seymour
broke into the King's bedchamber, apparently with the intention to kidnap
him. He was seized, atteinted, and executed a few weeks later. As soon as
he was arrested the Dorsets removed Lady Jane to Bradgate, having supplied
the Privy Council with all the evidence they needed and thus exculpating
themselves.
For the next three years Jane remained with her parents. In their eyes she
was now a symbol of failure and a wasted effort - and they treated her
accordingly.
To Biography part 4 - Jane's intellectual and
spiritual life
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