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.Nor had the lovers committed any crime; there was no chance now of Katherine being pregnant by the late King or disrupting the royal succession by the birth of a child whose paternity was doubtful.Yet the Protector's wife had her petty revenge.Furious at having to yield precedence to the wife of her husband's despised younger brother, she persuaded Somerset to confiscate the Queen's jewels, which were kept in safety in the treasury, on the grounds that they were state property and could not be willed to a queen dowager.These jewels had, in fact, been handed down from queen to queen through the ages, and some were of great antiquity, but Henry VIII had provided that Katherine Parr should enjoy them until such time as the young King married.Now Anne, Duchess of Somerset, was determined to wear them herself.The Admiral and his wife must not think that they could offend her and get away with it.2 - Amorous IntriguesThat summer, the swaggering, larger-than-life figure of the Admiral moved into the household at Chelsea and set himself to charm the inhabitants.'His service was ever joyful,' recorded one man who served him at this time.He treated both his equals and social inferiors with calculated affability, and under his influence Queen Katherine's rather staid household grew lively and more relaxed.Each day was a new round of pleasure, and if Katherine was perturbed by her husband remembering urgent matters of business just as she was expecting him to accompany her to the reformed services in the family chapel, she did not complain.The Lady Elizabeth, now approaching the impressionable age of fourteen, was especially vulnerable to the charm and handsome presence of her new stepfather, who was now her nominal guardian.At Chelsea, or the Queen's country house at Hanworth, or the Admiral's London home, Seymour Place, she became increasingly - and dangerously - aware of him as a man to whom she was, perhaps fearfully, attracted.Nor was he ignorant of her interest, for she was too young and inexperienced to conceal it from him.Katherine Parr might think her still a child, but Seymour was all too conscious that she was budding into womanhood and developing a talent for flirtation such as had made her mother notorious.For him, it was a piquant situation, made all the more alluring by the fact that Elizabeth was second-in-line to the throne.While, on the face of it, the Queen's household was an oasis of calm and happiness in a troubled world, it was in fact shortly to witness a drama that would end in tragedy for each of its chief inhabitants.Unaware of her sister's peril, the Lady Mary was at this time touring her properties in East Anglia and appointing the chief officers of her household.Robert Rochester, a middle-aged man who had looked after her accounts for some years and hailed from Essex, was made Controller, while other local gentlemen, Henry Jerningham, Sir Francis Englefield and Edward Waldegrave, were also given positions of responsibility: Englefield was probably Chamberlain and Waldegrave Steward.Among the thirty-two male servants listed as being in Mary's household, only Richard Wilbraham and Randall Dodd had a record of long service.There were four chaplains, and a bevy of ladies-in-waiting, including Susan Clarencieux, Eleanor Kempe, Frideswide Strelley and perhaps at this time Jane Dormer, who, unlike the others, was very young and had not served Mary since the 1530's.Altogether the household numbered in excess of a hundred persons.In East Anglia, Mary was warmly received wherever she went, giving the lie to van der Delft's claim that June that she was 'less and less regarded' and had been incarcerated in a house in 'the north'.However, in expressing his disapproval of the religious changes that were then taking place in England, he declared he was confident that Mary would remain firm in the ancient faith in which she had been raised; he had heard that she was hearing as many as four masses a day.In July, the ambassador finally managed to obtain an audience with Mary, who explained that she had been living in some seclusion because she was in mourning for her father.She had not dined in public since his death, she said, but graciously invited van der Delft to share her table.'She seemed to have entire confidence in me,' he wrote.He was scandalised to learn that the Council had not seen fit to disclose to her details of the dowry allocated her by Henry VIII, and expressed his opinion that her income was insufficient for a princess of her standing.During the conversation Mary asked him what he thought about Queen Katherine's remarriage.He told her he quite approved of it, and divulged how rumour had had it that Seymour had first meant to marry Mary herself.Mary laughed.'I have never spoken to him in my life,' she said, 'and have only seen him once.'During the next two years she would in fact be the subject of several marriage negotiations, but Charles V was probably correct in his opinion that the Council would not allow Mary to marry a foreign prince until King Edward was of an age to marry and father children, in case her husband led a rebellion on behalf of the Catholic heiress.At Chelsea, John Ashley, husband of Kat, had noticed that, whenever the Admiral's name was mentioned, the Lady Elizabeth's ears pricked up, that when he was praised in conversation, she showed inordinate pleasure, and that she blushed when she spoke his name.The signs were ominous, and he said as much to his wife.'Take heed,' he warned, 'for I fear that the Lady Elizabeth do bear some affection to my Lord Admiral.' But Mrs Ashley had a soft spot for Seymour and would hear no ill spoken of him.In fact Kat had encouraged her charge's infatuation by telling her it had been she whom he had wished to marry before all others.In vain did John Ashley point out the potential dangers in the situation; if there were any impropriety between Elizabeth and the Admiral both would be guilty of high treason, for which the penalty for Elizabeth would be death by decapitation or burning.Kat Ashley, however, naively believed the girl's interest in Seymour to be entirely innocent; she herself had fallen victim to his charisma, and could see no wrong in it.Had she been less irresponsible, she might have averted one of the most distressing episodes of Elizabeth's life.We know about the events that followed from the signed depositions of Mrs Ashley, Thomas Parry, the princess's cofferer, and Elizabeth herself, given under cross examination early in 1549, and preserved in the State Papers of the period.According to these statements, the Admiral had keys made for himself for all the rooms in Chelsea Old Palace, including one for Elizabeth's bedchamber, which was above Katherine Parr's.Then, although he had only been married for a few weeks,He would come many mornings into the Lady Elizabeth's chamber before she was ready, and sometimes before she did rise; and if she were up he would bid her good morrow and ask how she did, and strike her upon the back or on the buttocks familiarly, and so go forth to his lodgings; and sometimes go through to the maidens and play with them, and so forth.And if [Elizabeth] were in her bed he would put open the curtains and bid her good morrow, and make as though he would come at her, and she would go further into the bed so that he could not come at her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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