Edward Seymour (born about 1500) the eldest surviving son of Sir John Seymour and Margery Wentworth of Wolf Hall in Wiltshire was following the court trajectory of many other Tudor men in terms of patronage and a slow climb up the social ladder until his sister, Jane Seymour, caught the eye of Henry VIII at which point Thomas Cromwell moved out of his accommodation to make way for Edward and his wife Ann Stanhope so that the king could speak privately to Jane whilst chaperoned by her family. Once Jane became queen Edward swiftly acquired some nifty new titles.
The trajectory of his rise can be seen in the manner of his address in 1523 he became Sir Edward when he was knighted by the Duke of Suffolk when he went with him on campaign to France. In 1536 the king made him Viscount Beauchamp and then in 1537 the Earl of Hertford. In 1542 he became the Lord High Admiral but really he was a soldier and he handed that position back when the Scots repudiated the Treaty of Greenwich which had been made in the aftermath of the Battle of Solway Moss. In 1544 he headed north for a spot of Rough Wooing, sailed into Leith and burned Edinburgh. He also won a victory against the French at Boulogne in 1546. He gained a reputation for military efficiency.
On 27 January 1547 Henry VIII died leaving a regency council to care for is son, the new king Edward VI. Sir Edward had no desire to share power with the rest of the Privy Council and promptly managed to wangle the post of Lord Protector based on the fact that he was the new king’s uncle and had a reputation as a soldier in both Scotland and France. He also dished out a new title for himself becoming the Duke of Somerset on February 16 1547. He then edged the Privy Council out even more into the cold by drawing up Letters Patent that his nine-year-old nephew signed decreeing that he only need call on the services of the Privy Council when he thought it was necessary. Needless to say this resulted in resentment and would ultimately leave him isolated. Thomas Wriothesley the chancellor and newly minted Earl of Southampton protested. He found himself being deprived of the chancellorship for his pains.
Essentially historians are torn about the Lord Protector. Many of them see him as highly principled and concerned for the care of the poor within England’s realm. It was he who issued the proclamation saying that hedges and fences enclosing common land should be removed. Others see him as failing to take the necessary command and control of the situation – when Kett’s Rebellion erupted in 1549 it was because they believed they were following the Protector’s instructions in demolishing the new enclosures. It didn’t help that there were a series of bad harvests and that inflation was rampant.
There was also the tricky matter of his difficult relationship with his little brother Sir Thomas who was jealous of Edward and did everything he could to make life difficult for the Lord Protector.
Edward Seymour even managed to please no one in religious terms when he tried to steer a middle path between Catholics and Protestants and failed to please either group when as part of Cranmer’s reforms he instituted the Common Prayer Book in English resulting in the Prayer Book Rebellion in 1549 when the population of the west Country rose up in protest at the english content of church services. Calvinists didn’t think he went far enough even though he banned the lighting of candles and got rid of a number of holidays and suppressed the chantries.
Meanwhile so far as foreign affairs were concerned Somerset had tried initially to suggest that the Scots should enter a union voluntarily with England and when that failed he headed north and induced in a bit of Scot bashing – the Battle of Pinkie occurred on September 10 1547 and was an English victory but resulted ultimately in the Scots sending their little queen to France for safety which was what Henri II wanted but which was not what the English wanted as the country once more became the bone between the two dogs. The cost of the war was prohibitive as was the need for a standing army. By the end of the period the borders between England and Scotland were back at their Henrican starting point.
Somerset’s rival on the council, John Dudley, the Earl of Warwick was able to bide his time and draw on the support of all the people that Somerset had managed to irritate including Edward VI. Somerset realised what was happening and headed off to Windsor from Hampton Court with Edward VI on 1 October 1549 but when it became clear that if he stood his ground that it would result in faction, feud and blood shed he “came quietly” as the newspapers would say. The people who supported I’m were the ones without power or influence. Seymour was arrested on the 11th of October on charges that included ambition and followings own authority.
Somerset and his faction were toppled but after a time in prison Somerset was allowed to return to the Privy Council which he had managed to alienate by not conferring with them. Unfortunately for him he tried to law back his position so found himself under arrest for treason along with the Earl of Arundel. Dudley claimed that Somerset intended to capture the Tower of London and then raise rebellion around the country. There was no evidence but it didn’t matter.
Somerset was found guilty and executed on 22 January 1552. The people of London were ordered to stay indoors on the morning of Edward Seymour’s execution but a huge number of people turned out, many of them sobbing. When some soldiers arrived late there was a cry that “the good Duke” was to be spared but it was Seymour who calmed the crowd and explained that there would be no reprieve. Certainly his nephew Edward VI does not spare his uncles blushes in his journal and is completely, apparently, unmoved by his execution in 1552 simply noting that he had had his head chopped off.
Weir, Alison. (2009) Children of England: the Heirs of Henry VIIILondon: Jonathan Cape
In June 1547 it became public knowledge that the dowager queen, Katherine Parr had married the Lord High Admiral, Sir Thomas Seymour Baron Sudeley. Elizabeth was thirteen-years-old when the admiral joined the household at Chelsea. Although he was twenty-five years older than Elizabeth the admiral had previously approached the Privy Council in February 1547 with a view to marrying her and Elizabeth’s governess, Kat Ashley, had been rather taken with the idea.
At Hanworth, another of Katherine Parr’s properties Kat Ashley (pictured right in some sources but identified as Lady Joan Denny by the V & A – Joan was Kat’s neice) spoke sharply to Seymour telling him of the inappropriateness of his early morning visits but Seymour protested that he was doing nothing wrong. Ashley was increasingly concerned that Seymour arrived barelegged and in his slippers each morning as well as trying to climb into the same bed as Elizabeth. Servants talked and Elizabeth could not afford to have scandal attached to her name given the charges that had been levied against her mother.
Henry VIII was buried on 16th February 1547 at Windsor with Jane Seymour. Their son Edward was now king with a regency council nominated by Henry VIII. It wasn’t long before Edward Seymour had nobbled the council and rather than five equal men had become Lord Protector.
Edward’s younger brother Thomas felt aggrieved. Even though he was now the Lord High Admiral (sounds vaguely Gilbert and Sullivan), Baron Sudeley and a privy councillor he felt it was somewhat unfair that his brother was the Lord Protector. What resulted was two years of rampant ambition, scandal and tragedy followed by Thomas’s execution on three charges of treason not that he was ever brought to trial.
I can only conclude that I’m having a phase of unfortunate young women on the History Jar at the moment – and have made a mental note to be more grateful that I was born when and where I was!
How many of you watched Helen Castor’s new three part series on Lady Jane Grey last night entitled England’s forgotten queen? Its on BBC4 at 9.00pm on Tuesday evening. I’m sure its on the Iplayer as well by now.
Making Henry VIII’s will was probably a tad on the tricky side to draw up as it had become illegal to speak about the king’s death thirteen years before it was drawn up in 1535- verbal treason. Normally a family tree would have been sufficient to identify who was going to inherit what but Henry’s matrimonial past was complex to put it mildly. Parliament had passed two Succession Acts – one in 1536 and the second in 1544. Both of them empowered Henry to nominate his heir. There was even a proviso for the appointment of a regency council. Henry clearly thought that being dead was no barrier to dictating the way things should happen.
Edward’s “devise” differed from his father’s in that he excluded Mary – she was just far too Catholic for devoutly Protestant Edward. He also excluded Elizabeth- because she was legally illegitimate and because by that time, if we’re going to be cynical about it, John Dudley duke of Northumberland had acquired Lady Jane Grey as a daughter-in-law and wanted to remain in charge. In excluding Mary Queen of Scots young Edward was simply following his father’s will. At first, as Castor revealed last night, the will only considered the possibility of male heirs – either his own or those of the Grey sisters. As his health unravelled the amendment was made in two words which made Lady Jane Grey his heir;
Ignoring the problem of Henry VIII’s daughters there was the small mater of Parliament. The Third Succession Act of 1544 left Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate but placed them in line for the Crown. Henry VIII’s will is backed up by Parliament. It is not simply a personal document. It is held up on the shoulders of law. Edward’s on the other hand assumes that because one king has willed his kingdom to his heirs that another could do the same. The problem for the duke of Northumberland was that Edward did not live long enough for the legal process to be fulfilled by an act of Parliament.
Sir George Vernon was born around 1508 but his father, Richard, died in 1517 whilst he was still a child so the Vernon lands were subject to the rules about wardship- which always ran the risk of financial loss but in George’s case his guardians, who included Cardinal Wolsey, appear not to have drained his resources. In fact by the time of his death in 1565 the peerage records the fact that he had possession of thirty manors. Sir Henry Vernon, George’s grandfather pre-deceased his son by only two years.
Henry Grey was the great grandson of Elizabeth Woodville by her first husband Sir John Grey of Goby – and incidentally it’s pronounced ‘Grooby’. He died at the second Battle of St Albans in February 1461 leaving Elizabeth a widow with two sons. The rest, as they say, is history.
The correct title for this post should be the succession crisis and it all occurs in 1553. Edward VI’s health was an important affair. These are the some of the key facts that we know:
Mary had been on her way from her Suffolk estates to visit her sick brother but forewarned she turned back and avoided capture by Robert Dudley and a force of armed men. Once she’d regained the safety of Framlingham Castle she declared herself queen and sent Thomas Hungate to London with a letter to present to the Privy Council to that effect. She fled deeper into East Anglia – to Kenninghall in Norfolk.
John Dudley, son of an executed traitor suffered the same fate as his father in 1554 when he failed to place his daughter-in-law Lady Jane Grey on the throne. He’d risen to the highest place in the country and become the first non-royal 
The Treaty of Greenwich, of July 1543, was about the marriage between Henry VIII’s son Prince Edward and the infant Mary, Queen of Scots pictured left. There was also a side venture to further tie the union between the two nations with a marriage between the Earl of Arran’s son and the Lady Elizabeth . Unfortunately the treaty was never ratified and by Christmas the treaty was like old newspaper – good for wrapping fish and chips but not much else.