Note 132 — Chapter IX · THE QUEEN AND THE LORD HIGH-ADMIRAL

There are several versions of this story. For instance, Henry Clifford, a retainer of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, says, in his MS. Life of that lady (London, Burns & Oates, 1887) that “In King Edward’s time what passed between the Lord Admiral, Sir Thomas Seymour, and her [Elizabeth] Dr. Latimer preached in a sermon, and was a chief cause that the Parliament condemned the Admiral. There was a bruit of a child born and miserably destroyed, but could not be discovered whose it was; only the report of the midwife, who was brought from her house blindfold thither, and so returned, saw nothing in the house while she was there, but candle light; only she said, it was the child of a very fair young lady. There was a muttering of the Admiral and this lady, who was then between fifteen and sixteen years of age.”