The Virgin and Thomas Seymour

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1:47It was the middle of the night and a spaniel began barking. And then there was a gunshot. The barking stopped. The household at Hampton Court, the palace of the 11-year-old King Edward VI of England, began to rouse at the noise. Something was happening. Someone was trying to break into the king's bedchamber, and when his dog began barking, waking up the household, the intruder in his panic had shot the dog. It was January 16th, 1549, and as the scene came into focus, the truth seemed almost impossible to understand. The intruder who had murdered the king's beloved spaniel, who seemed to have been attempting to, at best, kidnap the king himself, wasn't a random knave or criminal.

2:43It was the boy's uncle, Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral. For months, Thomas had been making himself more and more unpopular with his insubordination and obvious ambition. But now things had gone too far to ignore. Thomas was taken to the Tower of London and an interrogation began to discover just how deep his treason went. This investigation revealed a chilling relationship between Thomas Seymour and the king's older sister, Elizabeth, the woman that we now know as Queen Elizabeth I. But back then, she was just Lady Elizabeth, an orphaned teenager whose path to the throne seemed unlikely. And now she had become implicated in a scheme that would threaten her honor, her virtue, her freedom, and her entire future.

3:49The relationship between Thomas Seymour and Elizabeth is one of the less discussed aspects of Elizabeth's long, fascinating life. But the relationship represents one of the first gauntlets the future queen faced. In dealing with the Thomas situation, she would be forced to show her ability as a stateswoman and a diplomat while still a teenager. And the entire saga would reinforce a belief that Elizabeth held since childhood, a fundamental perspective she would maintain for the rest of her life. That marriage was a deadly and dangerous business. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood.

4:42Catherine Parr was King Henry VIII's sixth and final wife, and by the time he was wooing her, she wasn't really interested. Catherine was in her early thirties, and she had already been twice widowed, two dead husbands after two arranged marriages. She had been hoping that her third husband might be someone she loved, someone she was sexually attracted to. Even though Henry was the king of England, he wasn't all that attractive of a prospect. He was over 50 with an open oozing ulcer on his left leg from a jousting injury, and he had beheaded two of his wives already. Catherine would have much preferred to marry someone like the handsome, incredibly charming Thomas Seymour.

5:35She prayed at night that the king's attention would turn to someone else, but alas, it did not. And so, because she had prayed that Henry would change his mind and he didn't, Catherine understood that marrying the king was God's will whether she liked it or not. The historian Elizabeth Norton describes the situation, I think, quite well as Catherine accepting, quote, a living martyrdom. Catherine and Henry were married, and Catherine became not only the queen, but also stepmother to Henry's three living children, all from different wives. The oldest was only a few years younger than Catherine herself, Mary, the justifiably dour daughter of Henry's first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

6:25But Henry's younger two children were more in need of maternal care. There was nine-year-old Elizabeth, the daughter of the beheaded Anne Boleyn, and the six-year-old Edward, son of Jane Seymour. Both Anne and Edward's mothers had died when they were too young to remember them. And Catherine, as their new stepmother, did a genuinely admirable job bringing them back into the family fold and giving them the sense of comfort and normalcy that was severely lacking from both of their early lives, especially from Elizabeth's. Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn, is a tragic and fascinating figure, one we've discussed on this podcast in our episode in the series on the wives of Henry VIII.

7:16But to give the very, very short version, Henry had been married to Catherine of Aragon for almost 20 years with only a daughter to show for it when he fell madly in love with Anne Boleyn. Henry became convinced that his lack of an heir was God frowning on his marriage with Catherine, and he ultimately broke from the Pope in order to annul the marriage and marry the beguiling Anne. Anne was flirtatious and opinionated, but as the outside pressures on their marriage mounted, anger from Catholic institutions, from Catherine of Aragon's royal family members abroad, from disapproving subjects, the things Henry had loved about Anne began to curdle.

8:04Her outspoken flirtatiousness became grating and presumptuous, and he blamed her for what was beginning to seem like a mistake, especially when she gave birth not to the son she had promised, but to a little girl, Elizabeth. Eventually, Anne's enemies managed to put together a case against her, accusing her of adultery and incest. Almost certainly all false. And Anne was beheaded, all before little Elizabeth had even turned three. When Anne went from queen to traitor, little Elizabeth's position changed too. Apparently, the precocious little toddler asked her governess, quote, How Haps It Yesterday, Lady Princess, and Today But Lady Elizabeth.

8:57This episode is not about Henry VIII, but just to give the basic context so we can all be caught up, after Anne, Henry married one of her ladies-in-waiting, Jane Seymour, who finally gave Henry his long-awaited son, Edward. Jane died, and then a few wives later, Henry married Catherine Parr, who stayed with him until his death, at which point his then nine-year-old son Edward became King Edward VI. Historically speaking, when a child becomes king of a kingdom, it's not a good thing. Unless, of course, you happen to be a family member of that child, and you get the opportunity to step into a power vacuum.

9:47As I mentioned, Edward was the son of Jane Seymour, who tragically died two weeks after he was born. But Jane had brothers, and now those men were the uncles of the King of England. Jane's oldest brother was named Edward Seymour. I want to give a brief apology for all of the repeated names in this slightly convoluted episode before we get our bearings, but the good news is you don't really need to know anything about Edward Seymour. What you need to know is that he was the all-star of the family, considered brilliant from an early age, and when his tiny pre-teen nephew became king, Edward Seymour found a way to make himself Lord Protector, aka the person who would actually be ruling the kingdom.

10:39And like so many families with overachieving kids, there was also another son, Thomas Seymour. Thomas was eight years younger than his brother, and though it never seemed like he was a disappointment, everybody pretty much agreed he wasn't as promising as his older brother. Thomas grew up to be good-looking, adventure-seeking, and arrogant. He believed he was destined for great things, and resented the fact that his brother was the one who ended up behind the levers of power. By the time King Henry VIII died, Thomas was still unmarried in his late 30s, and a very eligible bachelor. After all, he was handsome and charismatic.

11:27The uncle of the king, who incidentally had just made him a baron, and the brother of the guy actually ruling the kingdom. Thomas wanted to make his way up in the world, and the way he was going to do it was by marrying a powerful woman. According to some sources, Thomas's first choices were Henry VIII's daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, which was laughably presumptuous of him. Mary and Elizabeth were at this point first and second in line for the throne, respectively. They were important political tools who could be married to international princes for diplomatic reasons. For context, Mary Tudor would go on to eventually marry the King of Spain.

12:13She wasn't going to marry some guy who was just made a baron five minutes ago. Though some historians question the legitimacy of these letters, apparently Thomas Seymour wrote to the 13-year-old Elizabeth less than a month after the death of her father to propose. He wrote, quote, I dare not tell you of the fire which consumes me and the impatience with which I yearn to show you my devotion. He goes on to say that her kindness would, quote, make the happiness of a man who will adore you till death. If the letters are authentic, Elizabeth replied incredibly diplomatically. She wrote, quote, I confess to you that your letter, all elegant as it is, has very much surprised me.

13:03For besides that neither my age nor my inclination allows me to think of marriage, I could never have believed that anyone would have spoken to me of nuptials at a time when I ought to think of nothing but sorrow for the death of my father. What Thomas was probably all too aware of was that according to Henry VIII's will, if Elizabeth was going to get married at all, it would need to be approved by the council, or else she would forfeit her inheritance and place in the line of succession. Maybe he believed that seducing her would be the first step to getting the council to approve, or maybe naively he assumed that they would.

13:47Whatever he believed, he was wrong on all counts. Elizabeth turned him down, and when Thomas did eventually bring up his desire to marry one of Henry's daughters in a council meeting, he was met with abject refusal. And so if Thomas could not marry the daughter of a king, he resigned himself to marrying the former wife of one. Catherine Parr was 34 years old when her third husband, Henry VIII, died, and she was still by all accounts a beautiful woman. She had thick auburn hair and an excellent figure, clear skin, apparently thanks to her habit of bathing in milk. Thomas picked up where he had left off before her third marriage, and though her husband had only died a few weeks prior, soon, allegedly, the pair were meeting in secret for stolen kisses.

14:45That spring, just a few months after the death of her husband, Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour were secretly married. For young Elizabeth, Catherine Parr was the closest thing to a mother that she had ever had. Elizabeth had been nine years old when Catherine became her stepmother, and her life up until that point had been pretty tumultuous. As I mentioned, Elizabeth wasn't even three when her mother died, and over the next several years, her father would marry three more times. Two of those wives would die, one beheaded. Elizabeth would spend her childhood bouncing around from various houses and households, her father seemingly forgetting she existed for stretches of time.

15:34Catherine Parr gave her a sense of normalcy. Catherine advocated to Henry VIII on behalf of his daughters and helped bring them back into the family fold. And Elizabeth and Catherine were in many ways kindred spirits. They were both brilliant and academic, interested in writing and debating new ideas. When Elizabeth was just 11, she translated a French poem to English and hand-embroidered a book cover with her stepmother's initials to give her as a gift. And Elizabeth would also translate Catherine's own writings, her book, Prayers or Meditations, into French, Italian, and Latin. It must have been disorienting for young Elizabeth when her father died.

16:20She was now orphaned, and not just that. The younger brother she had grown close to had also all but disappeared from her life overnight, having been plunged into the rarefied bubble of kinghood. But Catherine warmly extended an invitation to Elizabeth to come live with her in her new household. And so Elizabeth went with her stepmother outside the city to her manor in Chelsea.

16:51Not everyone had been happy that Catherine Parr had secretly married Thomas Seymour. It had only been months since King Henry died, and Thomas had not gotten permission from the king or from the council for the match. Both Catherine and Thomas knew it was a less-than-decorous decision. Thomas actually embarked on a strategy that feels like something a child would do. After he had already secretly married Catherine, he went to both his nephew and brother, asking them for their help in trying to arrange a match. They both reacted less enthusiastically than Thomas would have liked, which meant the entire plan pretty much backfired.

17:37Mary Tudor, Catherine's other stepdaughter, Elizabeth's half-sister, was scandalized that Catherine had gotten married so quickly after Henry's death. Mary actually asked Elizabeth to come live with her, and not with the clearly sinful, lustful Catherine. But Catherine Parr was in love, and Elizabeth, by all accounts, was happy for her, until things became more complicated that summer. Catherine's husband, Thomas Seymour, was the lord and master of her estate, which he took advantage of almost immediately after the wedding by withdrawing 2 ,000 pounds, nearly 2 million today, from her coffers in less than three months, and by carrying the keys to Chelsea Manor so he could unlock any of its doors.

18:33Sometime in late May or early June, Elizabeth was lying in bed early in the morning when she heard a key enter and turn in the lock. The curtains around her bed were pulled back, revealing Thomas Seymour, her new, almost stepfather, a man 25 years her senior. Elizabeth was wearing only a nightdress, and she tried to pull her sheets up to cover herself, while Thomas smiled and said, Good morrow, gesturing like he was playfully about to pounce onto the bed. He was still wearing his nightclothes, described as, quote, bare-legged in his slippers. Elizabeth moved away from him in bed, so, quote, he could not come at her.

19:22According to historian Tracy Borman, Elizabeth was like forbidden fruit for him. He was very much drawn to power. Knowing that she was Henry VIII's daughter and she was under his roof was pretty irresistible for Thomas. For him, it was a game. Elizabeth made it a point to start waking up early so she would be out of bed by the time her stepfather might arrive for his unwelcome good mornings. The next time he came, she was already out of bed, but she wasn't dressed yet, still wearing her nightgown. And when she turned away from him, he smacked her, quote, familiarly on the butt. Thomas was a mercurial, controlling person.

20:08At some point during the summer, Thomas found the door to his wife's chamber closed, right before a servant came out carrying a basket of coal. Thomas began screaming in a jealous rage, accusing Catherine Parr of infidelity, although later he would claim that he was just joking. But joking or not, he was a man that no one in the household wanted to anger. For his many faults, it seemed that Catherine remained madly in love with him, either unaware or in denial about the attention he was paying to her stepdaughter. I want to stop here and point out on a personal note how strange I find some of the writing about Elizabeth and Thomas Seymour.

20:58Even in modern writing, you'd be surprised how often Elizabeth is described as flirtatious and encouraging, her feelings about Thomas Seymour, quote, complicated. A common narrative is that young Elizabeth had a crush on the dashing older Thomas, but then he takes things too far in a way that she knew could be damaging to her reputation. I'm not trying to do any revisionist history, and I'm certainly not one to shy away from how complicated relationships can be. And though Elizabeth was 13 at this time, for a princess in the 15th century, it would have been an early but not unthinkable age for society to deem her as marriageable.

21:49And it's incredibly plausible that a young, sheltered girl might have had a crush on a handsome older man paying her attention. But all of that said, I cannot wrap my head around a version of the story that seems like Elizabeth was encouraging Thomas in any way. She politely but firmly rejected his marriage proposal before he married Catherine Parr. And then, when he was married to her stepmother and he came into her bedchamber when they were in the same household, Everything Elizabeth did seems to indicate to me that his behavior was not welcome. In one book I read, the author relays that Elizabeth lifted her sheet to cover herself when Thomas came into her room and tried to move away from him, but then the author concedes that she didn't leave the bed, which the author interprets as some sort of tacit sanction.

22:52To me, that scene reads very clearly as a young woman trying her best to cover herself up in her bedchamber and not leave the bed so she wouldn't be more exposed or closer to where her creepy stepfather was standing. Despite the fact that Elizabeth was the daughter of a king, Thomas Seymour was an incredibly powerful person in her young life. She was living in his house. He was brother to the Lord Protector and uncle to the current king. He was married to her beloved stepmother. Even from a young age, Elizabeth was masterful at diplomatic rejections and preservations of ego. And I find it a little astonishing the degree to which some accounts see certain behavior as flirtatious, which come across to me very clearly as merely polite.

23:51And even if she were, quote, flirtatious, whatever that means, it would have been flirtation from a sheltered, naive 13-year-old girl in response to the attentions of the incredibly forward man, 25 years her senior, who also happened to be the master of the house Elizabeth lived in. I always hesitate to use modern terminology to historical figures, but the word grooming did come to mind reading about their relationship. On one occasion, Thomas actually climbed into Elizabeth's bed while she was still sleeping, even though her governess, Cat Ashley, was present in the room. When Elizabeth woke up, she tried to get away from her stepfather in the bed, pulling the sheets up around her.

24:43A writer notes that, quote, she did not struggle as her visitor reached down to kiss her where she lay, which to me reads as a little conciliatory, given that Elizabeth was a 13-year-old girl who just woke up to find the adult man with a bad temper and an incredible amount of power over her inches away from her face. Even to Cat Ashley, who was charmed by Thomas and thought of him as a friend, thought that that behavior was crossing a line. According to her, she cried, go away for shame, but Thomas ignored her. Cat would help Elizabeth wake up earlier so that she could get fully dressed before Thomas stopped by, which, as luck would have it, always stopped his little games.

25:33When Elizabeth was dressed and reading before Thomas came to her room, he would just say good morning from the hallway and keep on walking. The spanks and tickles and kisses were only for when she was in her nightgown. The most incendiary incident came the following autumn. Elizabeth was in the garden with Catherine Parr when Thomas approached, his dagger unsheathed, visible in the light. What happened next is frankly a little difficult for me to understand. But Catherine held Elizabeth while Thomas cut Elizabeth's gown into a hundred pieces, leaving her to clutch at the pieces of fabric around her body to maintain her modesty.

26:21Why was Catherine engaging with Thomas's malicious, scandalous little, quote, game? I think like so many anecdotes from history, we can imagine it playing out in several different ways. Maybe seeing the knife drawn, Elizabeth clutched her stepmother, and the two of them were frozen in fear together, unable to challenge Thomas wielding a weapon, cutting Elizabeth's dress away. Or maybe, on the other end of the spectrum, Catherine was so madly in love with Thomas that she convinced herself that it all was just some fun little game, and she willingly held Elizabeth down while Thomas cut her clothes off.

27:06However it happened, when Elizabeth ran back to her governess, she reported that Catherine had been holding her while, quote, my lord did so dress it. Apparently, Catherine was also involved in some of the other, quote, tickling games that Thomas engaged in with Elizabeth. I can't explain why she would have been enabling such clearly line-crossing behavior, except maybe she was so deeply in denial that she needed to create a narrative for herself that it really was just all a harmless romp. Thomas was also a very manipulative person, aware of how much control he had over Elizabeth and her reputation, clearly relishing it.

27:57Cat Ashley reported being summoned by Catherine Parr one afternoon. To her surprise, Catherine was furious with her. Thomas had reported to Catherine that he had seen Elizabeth through a gallery window embracing a man. Of course, that type of scandal was beyond the pale, and as her governess, Cat was responsible for properly supervising Elizabeth. To me, it seems less likely that Elizabeth would have been kissing an unidentified man while clearly visible in the window, and more likely that Thomas was exercising his control over both his wife and his stepdaughter in telling Catherine what he allegedly saw.

28:45Catherine must have, on some level, suspected what was happening, But one day, she got the proof even she couldn't ignore. Catherine came upon Thomas and Elizabeth embracing. We don't know what happened next, whether Thomas tried to justify or defend herself, whether Catherine blamed him or berated Elizabeth. But Elizabeth's time in Catherine's house was over. Catherine, by this point, was pregnant by Thomas, A surprise to everyone, given that she was 35 and had been married three times but never before had had a child. And she was planning on going to Sudley Castle to rest before giving birth and to get away from the risk of the plague.

29:35Elizabeth needed somewhere else to stay. Catherine sent Elizabeth to live in Herefordshire, under the charge of Sir Anthony Denny and his wife, who was the sister of Elizabeth's governess, Cat Ashley. Was she trying to protect Elizabeth and her reputation in getting her away from Thomas? Surely Catherine understood what it would mean for Elizabeth's future if she had already had a man in her bed. Or was Catherine angry and punishing Elizabeth, sending her into exile? We know that Catherine had already turned her anger on Cat Ashley for failing to properly supervise Elizabeth. And it seems to me as though Catherine knew that Cat was the one person in the situation that she could blame.

30:26After all, better to get angry at a governess than fully reckon with what type of man her husband was, or get angry at the 14-year-old girl manipulated by a 40-year-old man. I wish we knew what Catherine was thinking and feeling. I wish we knew what Elizabeth was feeling. But I imagine as Elizabeth was cast out from the home of the woman who had really acted as her mother for most of her young life, they must have both been heartbroken. Catherine and Elizabeth would never see each other again. In autumn of 1548, Catherine gave birth to a baby girl, but she immediately became ill with puerperal fever.

31:13Thomas was with Catherine at her sickbed, but his presence did not comfort her. She was also attended by a friend, Lady Tyrewitt, and Catherine feverish said to her friend, My Lady Tyrewitt, I am not well handled. For those that be about me careth not for me, but standeth laughing at my grief. Thomas apparently came closer and said, Why, sweetheart, I would you no hurt, only for Catherine to say, No, my lord, I think so. Catherine Parr died September 5th, 1548, two days before Elizabeth's 15th birthday.

31:58In the aftermath of his wife's death, Thomas Seymour did seem genuinely bereft, and he mourned for Catherine. But her death wasn't going to stop his ambitions for himself, and his fundamental belief, deep down, that he should be the one in power, not his older brother, whom he continued to have friction with. In fact, as historian Rebecca Larson points out, his plans would become more outlandish now that he didn't have, quote, a wife to rein in his wilder instincts. Thomas's brother was still the Lord Protector, but in Thomas's estimation, he was too controlling over the young King Edward, and Thomas believed that there shouldn't be a protector at all.