But, in June 1547, scarcely five months after the death of Henry VIII., the Lord High Admiral espoused that king's widow, Catherine Parr, who was too desperately enamoured to wait any longer. By this marriage the lord admiral hoped to acquire the wealth which Catherine Parr had accumulated while she was queen, to share in the dower to which she was now entitled, and to obtain through her means an easy access to the boy-king Edward VI., over whom Catherine was supposed to have great influence. By a royal grant, dated in August 1548, the lord admiral, in his own right, was put in possession of an immense deal of landed property, part of it being taken from the spoils of the Howard family. Violent and inconstant, he soon quarrelled with his wife. To the princess (afterwards queen) Elizabeth, who was living with Catherine Parr, his behaviour was so extraordinary and so free as to provoke, almost inevitably, the suspicion that he aspired to a union with her. Evidence was also produced to prove that the princess, then only in her fifteenth year, was rather warmly attached to the lord admiral; and it is stated by several old writers, that she, in effect, never forgot this her first love. Catherine Parr did not conceal her jealousy and wrath either from Elizabeth or from the lord admiral her husband. After a scene disgraceful to all concerned in it, Elizabeth was removed to a wiser and safer keeping, being apparently sent to the then royal house at Hatfield.* While Elizabeth resided with Catherine Parr and the lord admiral, there lived under the same roof, Elizabeth's near relative-the Lady Jane Grey, upon whom, also, the licentious and unscrupulous lord admiral had his designs. The Lady Jane Grey is supposed to have been born at Bradgate in Leicestershire, about the year 1537, or four years after the birth of the Princess Elizabeth. As usual, there is a want of precision as to place or date. * These strange facts, with others yet more startling, are contained in the Burghley State Papers.' She was the eldest of the three daughters of Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorset, by the Lady Frances, daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, by the Lady Mary Tudor, youngest sister of Henry VIII. Thus she was, through her mother, grand-niece of Henry VIII. and first cousin once removed to Edward VI.* There is no authentic account of the Lady Jane's earliest years. She is first mentioned in connexion with Catherine Parr, at the time when she was sent to reside with her at Chelsea, very soon after the death of Henry VIII. If the date usually given to her birth be correct (of which there is some doubt), she could not have been much more than ten years old at that time. She resided in the house at Chelsea both before Catherine's imprudent marriage with the lord admiral and after that event, which followed so closely upon the death of the old king. Young as she was, she could not have learned much good in that house. Thus early, projects of marriage were agitated for her; and the lord admiral, bearing in mind her near relationship to the Royal Family, upon which, hereafter, some right or claim might be raised, became exceedingly urgent with her parents to intrust to him the disposal of her hand. Her father, the Marquess of Dorset, was poor in purse and quite as poor in spirit; and it is an unquestionable fact that, upon mercenary calculations and considerations, he conceded to this powerful and remorseless Seymour the disposal of her in marriage. The lord admiral's projects in regard to the Lady Jane varied according to times and circumstances; but it is quite clear that he always calculated upon making her an instrument or a means of promoting his own interests or his insane schemes of ambition. In September 1548, the family having removed from Chelsea to Hanworth, Catherine Parr, after giving birth *Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Memoir prefixed to the 'Literary Remains of Lady Jane Grey,' 1825. When Mary Tudor married Charles Brandon, she was the dowager queen of France, being the young widow of Louis XII. to a daughter, died, complaining, with her last breath, of the wrongs she had received from her husband the lord admiral. According to the common practice of those dishonourable and iniquitous times, he was charged with having poisoned Catherine, in order to clear the path to a greater marriage. The Lady Jane was in the house when Catherine died; and there the admiral wanted to keep her. The Princess Elizabeth had been for some time removed; and it was evidently upon this very account that he was the more eager to retain Lady Jane Grey, whose right to the crown was in reality afterwards set forth as superior to that of Elizabeth. The publication of a curious correspondence between his lordship and Jane's father, the Marquess of Dorset, shows the admiral's excessive eagerness to keep the young lady in his power. Notwithstanding this earnestness, the young lady was, however, sent back to her father and mother, the Marquess of Dorset still promising that the admiral should have "the bestowing of her." Yet the admiral soon got her back into his actual keeping by bribing her right noble father. This has been proved beyond controversy by a recent writer, who gives a letter written by the Marquess of Dorset himself, after the lord admiral's trial, wherein he (the marquess) states that it was his determination not to have permitted his daughter to return to Seymour (then, be it said, not only a widower, but one whose looseness and profligacy were open and notorious), but that the lord admiral went himself to Dorset House" and was so earnest in persuasion that he could not resist him, amongst the which persuasions was that he would marry her to the king's majesty ;"and lest an opposition might be offered by the mother, Sir William Skevington was employed by Seymour to win over the marchioness and to overcome her natural reluctance. But other persuasions were used by the wealthy and impatient lord admiral. So soon as the *See Lady Jane Grey and her Times,' by George Howard, Esq. 8vo. London, 1822. † Id. 66 Lady Jane had returned to him at Hanworth, he sent her needy father 5007. as it were for an earnestpenny of the favour that he would show unto him, and which sum formed part of 20007, that he had promised to lend him, and for which he refused any bond, saying that the Lady Jane should be his pledge."* Thus the young lady was again in the lord admiral's actual keeping, and so she remained until his brother the Protector-a more decorous, but scarcely a more honourable man than himself—threw him into the Tower and made the parliament attaint him of treason. As the lord admiral was plotting against his brother Somerset, and endeavouring to ruin him by attaining a complete ascendency over the young king, and as Edward VI. though delicate, did not as yet show symptoms of the disease which carried him to the grave, he may really at one time have contemplated marrying the Lady Jane to that prince. He might have hoped from such an union many advantages. Yet it is by no means clear that he did not at one time contemplate marrying the young girl himself; for the revolutionary scheme for changing the order of succession which was carried out after the death of Edward VI. may have floated in his sanguine and ambitious mind, even while that prince was living and likely to live. At a very early period it was a common notion among the most zealous of the Protestant party, that, either by marriage with her cousin Edward or by virtue of her own right and zealous protestantism, the Lady Jane would be seated on the throne of England. After several secret examinations in the Tower, but without any trial whatever, the lord admiral was brought to the block, on Tower-hill, on the 20th of March, 1549, or two months and a day after his first committal. The first signature to the warrant for his execution was that of his own brother, the Protector Somerset, and Archbishop Cranmer signed it with the rest of the members of council. He had made no confessions, having to all threats * George Howard, Esq. Lady Jane Grey and her Timės.' |