When, subsequent to the death of the Queen Dowager, a short year afterwards, her husband’s ambitious schemes had aroused the jealousy of his all-powerful brother, one of the charges made against him was that he had planned to marry the Princess Elizabeth and use her as one of his instruments for obtaining supreme power. The original confessions and declarations of those who were supposed to be concerned with him in the plot, which are still amongst Lord Salisbury’s papers at Hatfield, were published in full many years ago by Haynes, and have more recently been calendared by the Historical MSS. Commission. They have been used by all historians of the times, and there is no intention of repeating here fully the oft-told story divulged by these curious declarations. It is needless to say that they disclose scandalous treatment of a young and sensitive girl both by Seymour and Catharine Parr, even after allowing for the free manners then prevalent. It is difficult to understand, indeed, what can have been Seymour’s real intention towards the Princess, unless it was the guilty satisfaction of his own passions. His wife was young and healthy, and in the natural course of events might have been expected to live long, so that he could hardly have looked forward to his marriage with Elizabeth; and yet Mrs. Ashley,[3] her governess, confessed in the Tower in February, 1549, that Seymour was in the habit of visiting the girl’s bedroom before she was dressed, sometimes by himself and sometimes with his wife, and there indulged in much indelicate and suggestive romping, in which Catharine Parr herself occasionally took part. Thomas Parry,[4] the cofferer, repeats in his confession a story told him by Mrs. Ashley which carries the matter somewhat further. “She said the Lord Admiral loved the Lady Elizabeth but too well, and had done so for a good while, and this was the cause that the Queen was jealous of him and Lady Elizabeth. On one occasion the Queen coming suddenly upon them had found him holding the Lady Elizabeth in his arms; upon which she fell out with them both, and this was the cause why the Queen and Lady Elizabeth parted.”