Seymour.
This had seemed to Surrey an insult to himself and his house which he could not endure.
Swaggering about the court, he insulted all those who had risen to high places in the land through their talents. His father warned him, but he would not listen to warnings.
“This kingdom,” he declared, not caring who heard him, “has never been well since the King set mean creatures in the government. It would seem that His Majesty delights to rid himself of noble blood and to employ none but low people.”
This was a direct insult to the Seymours, so they watched him and waited for their opportunity.
“Since the King,” said Edward Seymour to his younger brother when they walked in the Great Park together, “cannot last long it might be well to lower the pride of these Howards while he yet lives.”
Thomas agreed that it would be well. “You will remember that Norfolk once proposed a match between Surrey and the Princess Mary.”
“The King would have none of it.”
“But if the King were dead and there was a young boy in his place, who knows what Norfolk might try? The Princess Mary is a Catholic, and so is Surrey. The Catholic Party would be strongly in favor of such a match.”
The brothers looked at each other cautiously—two scheming men; for the moment they seemed to harbor the same desires. But did they? Hertford wished to see himself Protector of this kingdom with the little Edward his puppet. Thomas visualized marriage with the Princess Elizabeth and, as a corollary, the throne.
Temporarily they stood together against the Howards, but only temporarily.
And while they talked, Hertford thought of the great power which would come to him through his little nephew; and Thomas’s dreams of a shared throne were tinged with other dreams, of an erotic nature.
Surrey, from his apartments, watched them and laughed aloud.
“See,” he said to one of his attendants, “there go the lowborn Seymours. They plot against me and my father, I doubt not. They hate our noble blood as we hate their baseness.”
He sought his sister.
She was not a very happy young woman at this time. The King occasionally looked her way, but although his desire for her was at times quite strong, he could not forget the affinity between them, since she was his daughter-in-law, and his desire was not quite strong enough to overcome that drawback.
“Look!” cried Surrey, entering her apartments, and not caring that some of her servants were with her. “See the two great men walking together?”
The Duchess looked, and she found it difficult to draw her eyes away from the younger of the Seymour brothers.
“You are a fool,” she whispered. “Brother, you are the most reckless fool at court.”
He bowed. He was not displeased with the epithet.
“And,” she went on quietly, still looking at the tall man who walked beside his brother in the park, “I will tell you this: If your folly takes you to the Tower—which it may well do—I will do nothing… nothing to help you.”
Her brother laughed aloud and did not bother to lower his voice. “So you think I have persuaded our father against a match with Seymour, do you? Then you are right. I’ll not stand by and see our noble family united with such lowborn knaves.”
“How dare you speak to me thus?” she demanded.
“Because I am your brother. I will never allow you to marry with Seymour…even if he would. Ah, but he never would. He looks higher. Lowborn as he is, he yet looks high indeed.”
“You speak of the King’s brother-in-law,” she murmured.
“I speak also of the man you long for, sister.”
“Go… Go. Do not come here to brawl.”
He bowed ironically. He saw that he had won her hatred. He had insulted her before her servants.
The courtiers continued to watch him with speculative eyes. They were beginning to look at him in the way they regarded those whose days they believed to be numbered.
What is wrong with me? he asked himself. He was getting old, he supposed. He was thirty; he longed for excitement; and he was so reckless that he cared little how he obtained it.
He looked about him for fresh mischief, and his interview with his sister gave him an idea.
SURREY LOST NO TIME. He dressed himself with the utmost care. Sparkling with jewels, haughty in the extreme, he called on Lady Hertford.
Hertford’s wife, who had been Anne Stanhope, was known throughout the court as one of its proudest and most ambitious women. She shared her husband’s ideals