Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth. Lucy Aikin

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      Far from submitting himself as before to the indulgence of the protector, and seeking to disarm his indignation by promises and entreaties, Seymour now stood, as it were, at bay, and boldly demanded a fair and equal trial,—the birthright of Englishmen. But this was a boon which it was esteemed on several accounts inexpedient, if not dangerous, to grant. No overt act of treason could be proved against him: circumstances might come out which would compromise the young king himself, whom a strong dislike of the restraint in which he was held by his elder uncle had thrown pretty decidedly into the party of the younger.

      The name of the lady Elizabeth was implicated in the transaction further than it was delicate to declare. An acquittal, which the far-extended influence of the lord-admiral over all classes of men rendered by no means impossible, would probably be the ruin of the protector;—and in the end it was decided to proceed against him by the arbitrary and odious method of attainder.

      Several of those peers, on whose support he had placed the firmest reliance, rose voluntarily in their places, and betrayed the designs which he had confided to them. The depositions before the council were declared sufficient ground for his condemnation; and in spite of the opposition of some spirited and upright members of the house of commons, a sentence was pronounced, in obedience to which, in March 1549, he was conducted to the scaffold.

      The timely removal of this bad and dangerous man, however illegal and unwarrantable the means by which it was accomplished, deserves to be regarded as the first of those signal escapes with which the life of Elizabeth so remarkably abounds. Her attachment for Seymour, certainly the earliest, was perhaps also the strongest, impression of the tender kind which her heart was destined to receive; and though there may be a probability that in this, as in subsequent instances, where her inclinations seemed most to favor the wishes of her suitors, her characteristic caution would have interfered to withhold her from an irrevocable engagement, it might not much longer have been in her power to recede with honor, or even, if the designs of Seymour had prospered, with safety.

      The original pieces relative to this affair have fortunately been preserved, and furnish some very remarkable traits of the early character of Elizabeth, and of the behaviour of those about her.

      The confessions of Mrs. Ashley and of Parry before the privy-council, contain all that is known of the conduct of the admiral towards their lady during the lifetime of the queen. They seem to cast upon Mrs. Ashley the double imputation of having suffered such behaviour to pass before her eyes as she ought not to have endured for a moment, and of having needlessly disclosed to Parry particulars respecting it which reflected the utmost disgrace both on herself, the admiral, and her pupil. Yet we know that Elizabeth, so far from resenting any thing that Mrs. Ashley had either done or confessed, continued to love and favor her in the highest degree, and after her accession promoted her husband to a considerable office:—a circumstance which affords ground for suspicion that some important secrets were in her possession respecting later transactions between the princess and Seymour which she had faithfully kept. It should also be observed in palliation of the liberties which she accused the admiral of allowing to himself, and the princess of enduring, that the period of Elizabeth's life to which these particulars relate was only her fourteenth year.

      We are told that she refused permission to the admiral to visit her after he became a widower, on account of the general report that she was likely to become his wife; and not the slightest trace was at this time found of any correspondence between them, though Harrington afterwards underwent an imprisonment for having delivered to her a letter from the admiral. Yet it is stated that the partiality of the young princess betrayed itself by many involuntary tokens to those around her, who were thus encouraged to entertain her with accounts of the admiral's attachment, and to inquire whether, if the consent of the council could be obtained, she would consent to admit his addresses. The admiral is represented to have proceeded with caution equal to her own. Anxious to ascertain her sentiments, earnestly desirous to accomplish so splendid an union, but fully sensible of the inutility as well as danger of a clandestine connexion, he may be thought rather to have regarded her hand as the recompense which awaited the success of all his other plans of ambition, than as the means of obtaining that success; and it seemed to have been only by distant hints through the agents whom he trusted, that he had ventured as yet to intimate to her his views and wishes; but it is probable that much of the truth was by these agents suppressed.

      The protector, rather, as it seems, with the desire of criminating his brother than of clearing the princess, sent sir Robert Tyrwhitt to her residence at Hatfield, empowered to examine her on the whole matter; and his letters to his employer inform us of many particulars. When, by the base expedient of a counterfeit letter, he had brought her to believe that both Mrs. Ashley and Parry were committed to the Tower, "her grace was," as he expresses it, "marvellously abashed, and did weep very tenderly a long time, demanding whether they had confessed any thing or not." Soon after, sending for him, she related several circumstances which she said she had forgotten to mention when the master of the household and master Denny came from the protector to examine her. "After all this," adds he, "I did require her to consider her honor, and the peril that might ensue, for she was but a subject; and I further declared what a woman Mrs. Ashley was, with a long circumstance, saying that if she would open all things herself, that all the evil and shame should be ascribed to them, and her youth considered both with the king's majesty, your grace, and the whole council. But in no way she will not confess any practice by Mrs. Ashley or the cofferer concerning my lord-admiral; and yet I do see it in her face that she is guilty, and do perceive as yet that she will abide the storms or she accuse Mrs. Ashley.

      "Upon sudden news that my lord great-master and master Denny was arrived at the gate, the cofferer went hastily to his chamber, and said to my lady his wife, 'I would I had never been born, for I am undone,' and wrung his hands, and cast away his chain from his neck, and his rings from his fingers. This is confessed by his own servant, and there is divers witnesses of the same."

      The following day Tyrwhitt writes, that all he has yet gotten from the princess was by gentle persuasion, whereby he began to grow with her in credit, "for I do assure your grace she hath a good wit, and nothing is gotten off her but by great policy."

      A few days after, he expresses to the protector his opinion that there had been some secret promise between the princess, Mrs. Ashley, and the cofferer, never to confess till death; "and if it be so," he observes, "it will never be gotten of her but either by the king's majesty or else by your grace." On another occasion he confirms this idea by stating that he had tried her with false intelligence of Parry's having confessed, on which she called him "false wretch," and said that it was a great matter for him to make such a promise and break it. He notices the exact agreement between the princess and the other two in all their statements, but represents it as a proof that "they had set the knot before." It appears on the whole, that sir Robert with all his pains was not able to elicit a single fact of decisive importance; but probably there was somewhat more in the matter than we find acknowledged in a letter from Elizabeth herself to the protector. She here states, that she did indeed send her cofferer to speak with the lord-admiral, but on no other business than to recommend to him one of her chaplains, and to request him to use his interest that she might have Durham Place for her town house; that Parry on his return informed her, that the admiral said she could not have Durham Place, which was wanted for a mint, but offered her his own house for the time of her being in London; and that Parry then inquired of her, whether, if the council would consent to her marrying the admiral, she would herself be willing? That she refused to answer this question, requiring to know who bade him ask it. He said, No one; but from the admiral's inquiries what she spent in her house, and whether she had gotten her patents for certain lands signed, and other questions of a similar nature, he thought "that he was given that way rather than otherwise." She explicitly denies that her governess ever advised her to marry the admiral without the consent of the council; but relates with great apparent ingenuousness, the hints which Mrs. Ashley had thrown out of his attachment to her, and the artful attempts which she had made to discover how her pupil stood affected towards such a connexion.

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