Free The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor by Elizabeth Norton Page A

trust of John Fowler, one of the gentlemen of the king’s privy chamber and a man who had daily access to the king. Fowler was the grandson of both a chancellor of the exchequer and a lord mayor; but his family had declined in social terms, and Thomas Seymour’s attentions flattered him. 38
    One day in June 1547, Seymour called Fowler to the chamber he kept at court, chatting amiably with his guest and putting him at his ease before commanding his servant to leave the room. 39 Finding himself alone with Thomas, Fowler was surprised by the sudden change in tone. Seymour asked him: ‘Now Mr Fowler how doth the King’s Majesty?’ Being one of the king’s closest attendants, Fowler assured him that the king was well. Thomas then asked whether the boy lacked anything, to which his guest demurred.
    Seymour now came to the point, enquiring whether ‘His Grace would not in his absence ask for him, or ask any question of him?’ The king’s servant could nod his agreement to this – the king would sometimes speak of Thomas, but nothing else. Fowler asked his host: ‘What question should the king ask of you?’ ‘Nay nothing,’ replied Thomas, ‘unless sometimes he would ask why I married not.’ The marital status of the king’s uncle was hardly likely to be uppermost in the nine-year-old’s mind, as was confirmed when Fowler assured Thomas that ‘I never heard him ask me such a question.’
    The answer was disappointing for Seymour, and he paused. After some uncomfortable, silent seconds, he looked again at his guest, before asking: ‘Mr Fowler I pray you if you have any communication with the King’s Majesty soon or tomorrow, ask his highness whether he would be content I should marry or not. And if he say yes I pray you ask His Grace who he would should be my wife.’ The urgency of the request was clear to Fowler. He desperately wanted the Lord Admiral’s patronage and agreed to to do as he was asked.
    That night, Fowler sidled up to the king on finding him alone in his chambers. Almost reciting Thomas’s words verbatim, he said boldly: ‘I marvel that My Lord Admiral marrieth not.’ Edward ignored him. Undaunted, Fowler tried again, asking directly: ‘Could Your Grace be contented he should marry?’ The king had never given it any thought, but it seemed reasonable to him; he merely answered ‘very well’. Fowler tried to draw more interest from the boy, asking whom he thought his uncle should marry. Raised as he was among men, Edward had little knowledge of the women of his kingdom, but Anne of Cleves – his father’s fourth wife and former stepmother, whose annuity he was still paying – sprang to mind. After a pause during which he considered further, Edward changed his mind: ‘nay, nay… I would he married my sister Mary to turn her opinions’.
    The interview was over, and Edward wandered away, oblivious to the blow with which he had just struck Thomas. Fowler reported back to Thomas in the palace gallery the next day. But Seymour laughed when told of the king’s words, before sending the servant straight back to Edward to ask whether ‘he could be content that I should marry the queen’. Pretending that Catherine still needed to be wooed, he also asked the boy to write to her on his behalf.
    Given Fowler’s earlier lack of success in the matter, Seymour did not entirely trust him. He therefore managed to slip into the royal apartments himself the following day. 40 In private, he entirely persuaded the king that the match was his idea. Edward wrote at once to Catherine to promote his uncle. It was a brilliant piece of manoeuvring, making the marriage tantamount to a royal command. Thomas himself brought Catherine’s meek reply to the king, in which she made a ‘gentle acceptation’ of the suit – before confirming that she had done as bid and married Thomas. 41 Edward replied on 25 June, thanking Catherine for this proof of her love and obedience. 42 He was sure she would be pleased with