Elizabeth was placed in the care of her last stepmother, Catherine Parr, a woman Elizabeth loved and respected. But some one else also soon assumed the role of her guardian, Catherine Parr's new husband, the Lord High Admiral, Thomas Seymour, uncle to the new King, Edward VI. Not satisfied with having married a widow of a King, he also sought to possess a daughter of a King, Elizabeth.
Thomas Seymour was the type of man that always would attract Elizabeth. A hot blooded male, handsome, possessing a rough charm. Despite his marriage to Catherine, he was willing to play with fire in his attempts to seduce the King's daughter. Today we would describe what happened at the Queen's home at Chelsea as sexual abuse of a minor, which probably stopped just short of a full on sexual affair. Catherine Parr decided to send Elizabeth away when she caught her husband kissing Elizabeth. By then, the damage to Elizabeth's reputation had been done. For Elizabeth, a girl not yet fifteen, all this was too much for her to come away from unscathed. For months she was ill. Then Elizabeth's loved Catherine, brought to bed of her first child in four marriages, died.
Not long after her death, Tom Seymour played his hand at not only gaining Elizabeth but placing the young King, her brother in his power too. He failed on both accounts, and ended his life on an execution block. His arrest and death cast over Elizabeth's life the dark shadow of the axe.
The last years of her brother's reign saw a very circumspect Elizabeth. But with his death came new dangers. Elizabeth's sister came to the throne with much rejoicing, but the rejoicing soon ended when people realised how determined Mary was to return England to the Catholic faith as well as marry Philip of Spain. Within a year of Mary's reign, Sir Thomas Wyatt (son of the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt) led a rebellion to place Elizabeth and Edward Courtenay, great-great-grandson of Edward IV, on the throne. The rebellion only succeeded in achieving the deaths of most of the ringleaders, making Mary also sign the death warrants of her sixteen-year-old cousin, Jane Grey, and her husband Guildford Dudley, as well as order the arrest of Elizabeth.
Elizabeth's time in the Tower of London was probably the worst period of her life. Years later, Elizabeth told the French ambassador she wondered if she should beg for the mercy of a sword rather than an axe. (iii) When Bedingfield came to take her into his care, she asked in panic whether her cousin's scaffold had been taken down, thinking he was taking her to her death. (iv).
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