According to a recent article in History Today by biographer Linda Porter, Kateryn Parr’s chaplain, John Parkhurst, published a book in 1573 titled Ludicra sive Epigrammata juvenilia. Within it is a poem that speaks of someone with a “queenly mother” who died in childbirth, the child of whom now lies beneath marble after a brief life. But there is no mention of the child’s name, and 1573 is twenty-five years after Mary’s birth. It may hint at Mary, but certainly does not insist, which is odd if it was Mary Seymour. Why not simply come out and say it, as was done for dozens, or hundreds, of other children of lower birth, if indeed it was a queen’s daughter?
Fiction is a rather more generous mistress than biography, and I was therefore free to wonder. Why would the daughter of a queen and the cousin of the king not have warranted even a tiny remark upon her death? In an era when family descent meant everything, it seemed unlikely that Mary’s death would be nowhere noted. Far less important people, even young children, had their deaths documented during these years; my research turned up dozens of them. Edward Seymour requested a state funeral for his mother, as she was grandmother to the king (which was refused). Would then the death of the cousin of a king, and the only child of the most recent queen, not even be mentioned? The differences seem irreconcilable. Then, too, it would have been to Willoughby’s advantage to show that she was no longer responsible for the child if she were dead.
The turmoil of the time, in which Mary’s uncle the lord protector was about to fall; the fact that her grandmother Lady Seymour died months after Juliana would have taken the child to Ireland; and the lack of motivation any would have had to seek the child out lest they then be required to pay for her upkeep all added up to a potentially different ending for me. The lack of solid facts allowed me to give Mary a happy ending, one I feel is entirely possible given Mary’s cold trail, and one I feel both Kate and Mary deserved.
Parr’s sister, Anne Herbert, was a true courtier, having served in every one of King Henry’s wives’ households; in 1552, only two years after the disappearance of Mary Seymour, Anne Herbert died too. At that time she was attached to the household of the Lady Mary, who would soon become queen.
William Parr, the queen’s brother, was forced to set aside his wife, Elisabeth Brooke, during Mary Tudor’s reign and return to his first wife, who was one of Queen Mary’s friends. Parr had his titles and lands removed and Brooke was required to live by the kindness of her friends. When Elizabeth I became queen she restored to Parr his titles and parliament, his wife; Brooke became a close friend of the queen until Brooke died of breast cancer in 1565. Parr had a taste for witty, beautiful, highborn women and later married Helena Snakenborg.
Katherine Willoughby lost her two sons, then at Cambridge, within an hour of each other, most likely by plague, about a year after this book ends. I like to imagine that the deaths of her own sons would have given her a different, softer perspective on the orphaned daughter of her friend Kateryn Parr. Willoughby married again, for love, and had two more children.
Alas, the dynastic marriage lord protector arranged between his daughter Anne and Dudley’s son John did not bring about the protection he himself needed, nor a lasting détente between the two families. Edward Seymour was beheaded in January 1552, just eighteen months after this book ends. His rival Dudley followed him to the block in 1553. But the Dudley family would famously live on through yet another son, Robert, the great love of Queen Elizabeth’s life.
Of Kateryn Parr, Paul F. M. Zahl says, “Fortunately, providentially, a sheet of paper with the coming accusations scrawled on it somehow fell out of the pocket of one of the orchestrators. This paper was picked up by a Protestant—we have no idea by whom—and passed to Katherine. Katherine turned white, grasping the whole picture in exactly five seconds.” I believe that the warning that document offered gave her the opportunity to save her own life as well as turn Henry away from Gardiner and his faction during the last months of the king’s life. Like Zahl, I believe that was not coincidental, which is why I’ve written it within the context of a vision sent to assist her.
Historians, readers, and others throughout the ages have taken different positions on whether or not Thomas Seymour sexually assaulted the Lady Elizabeth or whether she was a willing participant. I firmly believe she was not. It’s my own belief that he did not have intercourse with her, but I believe his sexualized teasings, ticklings, and other intimidations did add up to harassment, and it affected her the rest of her life. Seymour wielded great power in his household and Elizabeth had no power to stop him when she tried to. That, in essence, is at the core of all abuse, isn’t it? In various circles, she’s still sharing blame as people continue to ask to what extent she complied with or encouraged him. This, sadly, is so often repeated in modern-day society for those who suffer sexual violence that innocent victims often wrongly question themselves. This is why I wrote Juliana’s thread thusly, and had Jamie rebuke that wrongheaded thought.
Upon Thomas Seymour’s death the Lady Elizabeth remarked, “Today died a man of much wit and very little judgment.” She was already precociously astute. Perhaps the questioning she underwent in this situation, no matter how uncomfortable, gave her the practice she needed to help her prevail during the much more important questioning that was to follow during her sister’s reign.
The story of Anne Askew written herein is largely true, except for her contact with Juliana, of course. However, Kateryn Parr’s friends and ladies most certainly did support Anne Askew, which was one fact that Gardiner’s faction tried to use to trip them up and perhaps have them arrested. John Knox recounts that someone provided gunpowder so Askew would die more quickly.
The Countess of Sussex’s account is also largely true, though I have fictionalized her much more than Askew for story’s sake. Like the fictional Juliana, Anne Calthorpe, the Countess of Sussex, was supposed to have a gift of prophecy and was examined by a commission “for errors in scripture,” and, toward the end of Edward’s reign, was arrested for “dabbling in treasonous prophecies (sorcery)” and sent to the Tower. It was, of course, treasonous to imagine or speak of the king’s death, so I tied those two things together in my story. Sorcery and prophecy were often confused during the age and the word prophesyings took on yet another meaning altogether during the Elizabethan years. Anne Calthorpe fled to the Continent when Mary Tudor became queen.
Those with the spiritual gift of prophetic visions share that it is not like being a fortune-teller or seeing the future, and it is not at the person’s beck and call. It may seem like the prophets of old heard a word from the Lord every day, but on closer inspection that is not so. The biblical account of the prophet Hosea covers a period of fifty to eighty years. During all that time Hosea may have had only five to ten prophetic visions or words from God. The prophetic gift is given to the prophet, but the visions are given when God chooses and normally for the benefit of others, often during times of danger or transition, and are not usually for the benefit of the person with the gift but for the body overall.
Prophecies may come in dreams, visions, or “hearing” from God in a person’s spirit and can be either symbolic or exact representations of events. True prophetic visions never contradict other parts of the Bible and come to fulfillment 100 percent of the time. It may seem like a strange or unusual gift, but it’s not. There are over 1,800 prophecies recorded in Scripture and many people, very often women, are actively using their gift of prophecy today.