Thomas and Edward Seymour were at Henry’s death, the one a simple knight, the other Earl of Hertford and Lord Chamberlain. Not content with these mediocre honours, they at once busied themselves with their own advancement. Hertford caused himself to be created Duke of Somerset, while Sir Thomas was made Lord Seymour of Sudley. Besides this, the latter coveted the patent of High Admiral, held by the Earl of Warwick, and as with the Seymours to covet was to have, Warwick was obliged to resign the patent in his favour. Neither of the brothers was sensitive in regard to the outspoken criticism of the other members of the Council, who suggested that it would have been well to await the King’s majority, to be rewarded according to their merits; and in spite of murmurs of dissatisfaction the new Duke of Somerset had himself proclaimed Protector, and procured letters patent under the Great Seal, conferring on his person the whole authority of the Crown. The ambition of Admiral Seymour had, it is said, further led him to solicit the hand of Elizabeth, immediately after her father’s death,[255] and, meeting with a rebuff, he at once offered himself to the widowed Queen, greatly to the indignation of Henry’s daughters when the fact became known to them. The indecency of the proceeding could scarcely have been more accentuated, for as soon as Henry’s body was laid in the tomb, the Admiral was secretly married to Katharine Parr. Henry died on the 28th January, and an undated letter from Katharine to the Admiral, bearing intrinsic evidence that she was his wife when she wrote it, also contains irrefragable proof that it could not have been written later than the middle of February next following.[256] Thus the marriage was an accomplished fact weeks before his appeal to Edward for permission to marry his stepmother. To marry a queen dowager, without the royal consent was a misdemeanour involving fine and imprisonment, and he therefore by means of flattery, and by supplying the boy secretly with large sums of money, so wormed himself into his favour, that Edward being made aware of his uncle’s wishes, affectionately urged him to marry Katharine, and afterwards thanked him for doing so. It is probable that Henry’s children never knew the extent to which they had been deceived, although in the subsequent indictment of Seymour, one of the charges brought against him was, that he had married the Queen Dowager so quickly after the King’s death, that if she had had a child within the next nine months, disputes might well have arisen regarding the succession.