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.In fact, the shadow of the Tower was looming ever nearer.Only the day before Parry saw the Admiral, government officers raided Sharington's palatial house and uncovered documentary evidence of his forgery and his treasonable coalition with Seymour.Sharington confessed to his crimes, but admitted only to having appropriated about £4000.Because he had turned King's evidence and implicated the Admiral, he was later pardoned, restored to his house and lands, and appointed Sheriff of Wiltshire.Somerset dispatched an urgent summons to his brother to come and explain his actions in private, but Seymour sent word that the time was inconvenient.The Protector therefore had no alternative but reluctantly to lay the facts about his brother's 'disloyal practices' before the Council, who at once ordered the interrogation of all those involved.Thus began the most extensive of all Tudor treason enquiries.Fowler confessed all, in great detail.Even the King was questioned about his uncle's activities, although his deposition remained confidential; it would not have helped Seymour anyway, for it contained incontrovertible evidence of his designs.But the Admiral, with his peculiar talent for impulsive action, soon signed his own death warrant.On the night of 16 January, accompanied by a party of armed supporters, Seymour used his forged key to enter the King's rooms at Hampton Court via the privy garden, intending to kidnap Edward VI.As he unlocked the door leading from the antechamber into the royal bedroom, Edward's spaniel leaped at him, barking furiously.Seymour drew his handgun and shot the dog dead.The report of the gun brought an officer of the Yeomen of the Guard running, demanding that the Admiral explain his presence, armed, outside the King's bedchamber.As Edward stood, pale and terrified in his nightshirt, beside his dead dog in the doorway, the Admiral blithely explained that he had come to test how well the King was guarded.The dog had turned on him and he had killed it in self defence.The guard thought this a likely tale, and although he allowed Seymour to go home, he reported the matter immediately to the Council.That august body met early the next morning and decided 'to commit the Admiral to prison in the Tower of London, there to remain until such further order be taken with him as the case shall require'.Later that day, after dinner, Seymour spoke with Dorset in the gallery at Seymour Place, saying he was 'much afraid to go to the Council'.'Knowing yourself a true man,' reassured Dorset, 'why should you doubt to go to your brother, knowing him to be a man of much mercy?'But Seymour would not.If Somerset ordered his arrest, 'By God's precious soul, he would thrust his dagger into whosoever laid hands on him'.These were empty words.He went meekly enough when he was apprehended that night on a charge of attempting to murder the King, merely protesting his innocence and averring that 'no poor knave was ever truer to his prince'.On the following day, 18 January, the Council gave orders that anyone known to have associated with Seymour be questioned as possible accomplices.Mrs Ashley and Thomas Parry were suspected of being among their number, and officers were dispatched to Hatfield that same day.By 20 January, Fowler, Sharington and John Harington were with Seymour in the Tower.As the pile of depositions mounted, the full extent of the Admiral's 'plain sedition', as Somerset put it, became clear.The Protector was satisfied that his brother had 'devised and almost brought to pass a secret marriage between himself and the Lady Elizabeth, in such sort and order as he might easily (and so it appeareth intended) have taken into his hands and order the person of the King's Majesty and of the Lady Mary, and have disposed of His Majesty's whole Council, at his pleasure'.News of the Admiral's arrest reached Hatfield within hours.Then, on 20 January, Thomas Parry, hearing the clatter of horses' hooves, saw a party of richly-attired horsemen riding through the palace gates.In a panic he fled through the house in search of his wife.'I would I had never been born, for I am undone!' he mourned, ashen-faced and trembling.Then he 'wrung his hands and cast away his chain [of office] from his neck and his rings from his fingers'.Minutes later, the Council's representatives, Sir Anthony Denny and Sir Robert Tyrwhit, led by William Paulet, Lord St John, Great Master of the Household, strode into the palace and demanded to see the Lady Elizabeth.It was Denny, her old friend, who questioned her about her relationship with the Admiral.She gave careful answers, painting the friendship as entirely innocent and platonic.Denny did not pursue the matter further.Without telling her, he arrested Ashley and Parry and rode back with them to London, where they were confined in the Tower the following day, pending questioning about their involvement with Seymour.Mrs Ashley seemed unaware of her peril, but Parry feared the coming interrogation because he knew very well that if the Council obtained proof that Elizabeth had consented to be Seymour's wife, her life itself might be in danger.Back at Hatfield, Sir Robert Tyrwhit gathered the household together and announced that the Admiral had been committed to the Tower on a charge of high treason.He had plotted to overthrow his brother the Protector, schemed to marry the Lady Jane Grey to the King and make the Lady Elizabeth his own bride, and purposed to rule the kingdom himself.Tyrwhit's instructions from the Council were that he was to take charge of the Lady Elizabeth's household and try to obtain enough evidence of treason to ensure that the Admiral went to the block.If the Lady Elizabeth was incriminated by such evidence Tyrwhit was to persuade her to lay the blame on her servants, Ashley and Parry.But, of course, if she was deeply implicated in the Admiral's crimes, then the Council would have no alternative but to impose the penalty provided for by law - death by beheading or burning.After dismissing the household to their duties, Tyrwhit saw Elizabeth alone and told her that her governess and cofferer had been taken to the Tower.She showed herself'marvellously abashed, and did weep very tenderly a long time', pleading fruitlessly for their release.She asked whether either had confessed anything, but Tyrwhit would say nothing; he just left her alone for the present.He would talk with her again when she had composed herself.On 22 January, Elizabeth sent for him, saying she had remembered certain matters she had forgotten to tell Sir Anthony Denny.Tyrwhit listened keenly, but learned nothing more interesting than that the princess had written several letters to the Admiral about mundane things, such as soliciting his help in recovering Durham House.She also disclosed that, in view of the gossip, Mrs Ashley had written to Seymour, advising him not to visit Elizabeth 'for fear of suspicion', but Elizabeth had been cross with Kat for taking such a liberty.As he listened, Tyrwhit grew restive.He had expected that the interrogation of this young girl would lead swiftly and easily to the desired results, but he sensed that Elizabeth was playing with him and that beneath the demure exterior there lurked a very formidable brain indeed.He reported to the Protector,I did require her to consider her honour and the peril that might ensue, for she was but a subject [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]