as obedient to the
prevailing wind as a weathercock; Wriothesley was an obsequious, greedy
sycophant; Paget a humble official with little influence, and the rest
were nonentities. The enmity of the Seymours against the Howards was of
long standing, and was as much personal as political; especially between
the younger brother, Sir Thomas Seymour, and the Earl of Surrey, the heir
of Norfolk, whose quarrels and affrays had several times caused scandal at
Court. There was much ill-will also between Surrey and his sister, the
widowed Duchess of Richmond, who after the death of her young husband had
been almost betrothed to Sir Thomas Seymour.[261] With these elements of
enmity a story was trumped up which frightened the sick King into the
absurd idea that Surrey aimed at succeeding to the crown, to the exclusion
of Henry's children. It was sufficient to send him to the Tower, and
afterwards to the block as one of Henry's most popular victims. His
father, the aged Duke of Norfolk, was got rid of by charges of complicity
with him. Stripped of his garter, the first of English nobles was carried
to the Tower by water, whilst his brilliant poet son was led through the
streets of London like a pickpurse, cheered to the echo by the crowd that
loved him. The story hatched to explain the arrests to the public, besides
the silly gossip about Surrey's coat-of-arms and claims to the crown, was,
that whilst the King was thought to be dying in November at Windsor, the
Duke and his son had plotted to obtain possession of the Prince for their
own ends on the death of his father. Having regard for the plots and
counterplots that we know divided the Council at the time, this is very
probable, and was exactly what Hertford and Dudley were doing, the Prince,
indeed, being then in his uncle's keeping at Hertford Castle.

At the end of December the King suffered from a fresh attack, which
promised to be fatal. He was at Whitehall at the time, whilst Katharine
was at Greenwich, an unusual thing which attracted much comment; but
whether she was purposely excluded by Hertford from access to him or not,
it is certain that the Protestant party of which she, the Duchess of
Suffolk, and the Countess of Hertford were the principal lady members, and
the Earl of Hertford and Lord Admiral Dudley the active leaders, alone had
control of affairs. Gardiner had been threatened with the Tower months
before, and had then only been saved by Norfolk's bold protest.