I’ve talked about this before on my blog but I don’t think its fair to call Catherine Parr an “accomplice” to Seymour’s abuse. There’s no evidence to show that she was egging him on or encouraging his actions - she seemed to want to ignore it and only joined in seemingly in an attempt to make the whole situation seem playful and harmless … I think she was in a very difficult situation where she was watching the man she loved behave inappropriately and had to slowly come to terms with the reality that he was harassing and taking advantage of her young step-daughter. I think any love she held for him had died by the time she gave birth to their child, if her last words to him are any indication.
So I reiterate what I said before: did Catherine fail Elizabeth by not taking the situation seriously enough until it was too late? Yes I think so. But I don’t think she can be held to the same level of blame as Thomas Seymour. At the end of the day, he knew exactly what he was doing and it was his actioans alone that endagered Elizabeth.
The bottom line is the evidence points towards Catherine genuinely loving Elizabeth so I still don’t think this potentially unsympathetic characterisation that BE seems to be going for (from the little content we have so far) is entirely warrented or deserved.
