Queen Mary read the report twice, then threw it across the table. Her men had searched through Kat Ashley’s belongings, and what they found gave her all the excuse she needed. Seditious reading material. It was enough.
Kat had spent her entire adult life protecting Elizabeth Tudor. She had kept her secrets, guarded her reputation, and more than once put her own neck on the line for a princess who was always one political shift away from the block. Now, as Mary’s paranoia about her Protestant sister grew sharper every childless month, Kat became the perfect target. It started in the summer of 1536, when Kat joined the household of the two-year-old Princess Elizabeth.
Kat had earned her place through her connection to Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s chief minister. That same summer, Elizabeth’s mother, Anne Boleyn, was beheaded after failing to produce the son Henry desperately wanted. The little princess was left motherless, an inconvenient reminder of a marriage the king wanted to forget. By 1537, Kat had become Elizabeth’s governess.
She taught the four-year-old an elaborate code of politeness and respect for her elders. She drilled her in mathematics, geometry, and astronomy, alongside history and several languages. The clever princess absorbed everything quickly. But Kat also insisted on the more womanly arts.
She made Elizabeth sew a shirt for her new baby brother, Prince Edward, the long-awaited son Henry had finally gotten from Jane Seymour. It was a diplomatic gesture, and Kat was the one who quietly oversaw it. The court kept changing around them. Jane Seymour died in childbirth.
Henry annulled his marriage to Anne of Cleves, whom he found ugly in person. Then came Catherine Howard, his fifth wife, who was charged with adultery and beheaded. The pattern was not lost on Elizabeth. She reportedly told her childhood friend Robert Dudley that she would never marry, deeply shaken by the fates of both her own mother and her stepmother.
In 1543, Henry married his sixth and final queen, Catherine Parr. Parr was steady and kind, and she finally brought stability to Elizabeth’s household. The princess was restored to the line of succession, and her household, including Kat, was brought back to court. Two years later, at forty years old, Kat married John Ashley, a senior gentleman in Elizabeth’s household and a cousin of Anne Boleyn’s.
She had spent years waiting in the wings, raising a princess who was mostly ignored at court. For two good years, she enjoyed a steady married life. Then Henry VIII died in 1547, and his nine-year-old son became Edward VI. The boy’s uncles, Edward and Thomas Seymour, began exerting increasing influence.
Thomas Seymour was the ambitious one. He wanted the throne itself, and he first asked whether he might marry either Princess Mary or Princess Elizabeth to get closer to it. When he was told both princesses were off the table, he rekindled an old romance and married the widowed Catherine Parr instead, just two months after Henry’s death. The newlyweds invited Elizabeth, Kat, and the rest of the princess’s household to live with them in Chelsea.
There, Kat was promoted to chief gentlewoman for Elizabeth, a position of real power. The princess was now second in line to the throne after her sister Mary. The stakes were enormous. Kat was among the first to notice the dark signs, but at first, they didn’t alarm her.
Thomas Seymour began a flirtation with his fourteen-year-old royal ward, and Kat found it amusing. She may have had her own motives. Seymour was devious, but he was also charming and handsome. There is some indication that Kat herself had developed a crush on him, and she encouraged Elizabeth to play along.
She once commented that Elizabeth would be lucky to have someone like Thomas Seymour for a husband, and she let the girl know how much Seymour had wanted to marry her before he settled for Catherine Parr. But one morning, Seymour went too far. He entered Elizabeth’s bedroom wearing only a nightshirt and tried to tickle her while she was still in bed in her nightgown. Kat was shocked.
A young princess’s virtue could not be called into question. She had spent over a decade protecting Elizabeth and her reputation. She went to Catherine Parr and confessed everything she had been seeing. Sadly, Parr was just as enamored with Seymour as everyone else.
She did not stop him. Instead, she took part in the romps, perhaps hoping to keep an eye on him that way. The former queen even helped hold Elizabeth down in a game while Seymour cut up the girl’s gown. Not long after that incident, Parr walked in on her stepdaughter and her husband in what seemed to be a private embrace.
Finally, both women were aghast. Kat and Catherine lectured Elizabeth, though not Seymour, on what was appropriate and expected of her. Then Elizabeth was sent away from Parr’s home. Just months after Elizabeth and Kat left, Catherine Parr died after giving birth.
Elizabeth had lost one of the only adults she trusted during her turbulent childhood. Kat consoled her, but then she made a heartless suggestion. Thomas Seymour still held a strange power over her. She suggested Elizabeth write to Seymour to comfort him in his grief.
Elizabeth was sharper than her governess. She told Kat that Thomas Seymour probably wasn’t sad enough about Catherine Parr’s death to even need comfort. As Kat soon saw for herself, Elizabeth was right. Within almost no time, the newly widowed Seymour was again directing his attention at Elizabeth, still hoping to marry her.
Certain court factions were turning against him for his machinations around Edward VI, and he was desperate. So desperate, in fact, that he made a fatal error, and he swept Kat Ashley right along with him. News of Seymour’s flirtations with Elizabeth reached King Edward’s advisers. Unlike Kat and Catherine, these men were immediately appalled, if only because they hated the thought of Seymour gaining any more influence.
With enemies closing in, Seymour inexplicably went to his nephew’s chambers with a loaded pistol, perhaps intending to take Edward into his custody. He ended up fatally shooting the boy’s spaniel. The next day, he was arrested and thrown into the Tower of London. He brought Kat down with him.
As court officials tried to interpret Seymour’s bizarre midnight power play, they drew disturbing conclusions. They began to worry that he, along with Kat Ashley, had roped Elizabeth into a plot to harm her half-brother. Elizabeth was too precious a target to go after directly. Her loyal lady-in-waiting was not.
On the 21st of January, 1549, Kat was placed under arrest for suspicion of aiding in Seymour’s activities. She was taken to the Tower of London. Her days there were terrifying. For over a month, she faced constant interrogations about her role in Elizabeth’s household.
She freely admitted to the flirtations but swore she had absolutely no involvement in Seymour’s raid on Edward’s chambers. She also held fast to another claim. Even facing continued imprisonment and an uncertain future, she maintained that Elizabeth had nothing at all to do with Seymour’s plans, even though Elizabeth perhaps stood to gain the most from the situation. Kat was released from the Tower in early March 1549.
Just thirteen days later, on March 20th, the crown executed Thomas Seymour. Kat likely couldn’t help imagining herself in his place. Her next years were more turbulent than ever. She went back to Elizabeth’s household, but she had little time to rebuild a steady life.
In early 1553, King Edward VI fell ill, possibly with tuberculosis. The once healthy boy declined rapidly and died that summer. What followed his death was a catastrophe. His two natural successors, Princess Mary and Princess Elizabeth, stood on opposite sides of England’s religious divide.
Mary was Catholic. Elizabeth was Protestant. The power struggle plunged the court into chaos, briefly elevating Lady Jane Grey to the throne for just nine days before Mary claimed her crown by force. When Mary took the throne, Kat and Elizabeth were in more danger than ever.
In 1554, Mary imprisoned her sister Elizabeth in the Tower to keep a closer eye on her chief rival. As with everything that happened to Elizabeth, Kat felt the consequences too. She was taken into the custody of Sir Roger Cholmley for months. Still, she never lost her loyalty to Elizabeth.
In May 1555, the political environment calmed enough that Kat was finally released and allowed to return to Elizabeth. Even so, Queen Mary kept a close watch on both her sister and Elizabeth’s lady-in-waiting. She was ready the moment Kat slipped. Still childless, Mary’s paranoia about Elizabeth taking her throne grew.
In May of 1556, she acted. Crown men discovered seditious reading material among Kat’s belongings, and Mary immediately punished her. Likely seeking to intimidate Elizabeth through her lady-in-waiting, Mary threw Kat into Fleet Prison for three months, where she was subjected to a series of indignities. Even so, Kat did not crack.
Once more, her loyalty never wavered. She was so loyal, in fact, that even after her release, Queen Mary refused to let Kat see Elizabeth ever again. But not even the Queen of England could make that wish last. Just two years after Kat’s stint in Fleet Prison, Mary died childless.
Lady Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth I. Elizabeth rewarded her old governess for her devotion. She made Kat first lady of the bedchamber and gave her luxurious gifts and favors. Kat became one of the most influential people at court.
Courtiers came to her to beg favors from the Queen. But even with all this new power, Kat couldn’t stay out of trouble. Elizabeth was of marrying age, yet she refused to take a husband. Kat was unhappy about the Queen’s refusal and harbored hopes that Elizabeth would change her mind.
Perhaps sensing that Elizabeth’s childbearing years were slipping away, Kat became involved in a plot with a fellow lady-in-waiting to marry Elizabeth to Eric XIV of Sweden. They penned a letter to a Swedish politician, strongly hinting that the match between monarchs would be very welcome at the English court. The letter was immediately intercepted by one of Elizabeth’s advisers. When Elizabeth found out about the plot, she was incredibly angry that they would go behind her back and jeopardize her power.
She placed both Kat and Dorothy under house arrest. It was the last mistake Kat Ashley ever made. Elizabeth only kept them under house arrest for a brief period before she caved and let them out. Kat did not even lose her position as chief gentlewoman of the privy chamber, and she spent the next two years as influential as ever.
But she had very little time left. In the summer of 1566, Kat died. Queen Elizabeth’s grief was not peaceful. She mourned her old governess deeply, especially because Kat had not been at court when she died.
Elizabeth lived for forty more years, but she never forgot the woman who had protected her through beheadings, imprisonments, and plots. Although Kat Ashley is often forgotten by history, she helped shape it in subtle and sometimes scandalous ways. She survived the blood and turmoil of the Tudor era, and she was a vital part of the story of one of England’s most influential monarchs.
