Elizabeth Tudor was lucky enough to grow up with people who were fiercely loyal to her even though they had nothing to gain from it. Thomas Parry was one of those people.
Parry served as the young Elizabeth’s cofferer, acting as her financial manager (supposedly, he was better with the management side than the numbers – it is a wonderful legend that Elizabeth carefully checked his books of account). His name is all over two of the formative incidents in her life, the ones falling under the rubric “that which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
The first occurred during Edward’s reign. After Katherine Parr died, Thomas Seymour took an interest in Elizabeth’s assets and met with Thomas Parry to discuss consolidating her lands closer to his own …presumably because he had an interest in marrying her. When Seymour was arrested for treason in January 1549, Thomas Parry and Kat Ashley were taken to the Tower in an effort to connect Elizabeth to the plotting. While the two servants did disclose the embarrassing indiscretions that had taken place while Elizabeth lived in the Seymour/Parr household, neither ever admitted more than general discussions about marriage in general. Elizabeth was able to piggyback on their confessions with an exculpatory, “I never would have done anything without the consent of the Council.” Seymour died and she did not.
Then during Mary’s reign, when the government tried to connect Elizabeth to Wyatt’s rebellion, Parry was one of the few protestants allowed to accompany Elizabeth to Woodstock when she was released from the Tower. Because Woodstock was small and run down, he was not given lodgings there – instead, he stayed in town and kept people apprised of Eizabeth’s situation, drumming up popular support that helped keep her safe.
For that loyalty, Elizabeth rewarded him highly when she took the throne. Parry was named Comptroller of the Household, knighted, and appointed to the Privy Council. Apparently people at court did not like him much, saying that he had died “of mere ill-humor.” Regardless, Elizabeth gave him the honor of burial in Westminster Abbey.
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