Thomas Seymour

*Katherine Parr by an unknown artist, NPG*

Little Lady Mary Seymour was the daughter of dowager Queen Kateryn Parr and her fourth, and final, husband, Thomas Seymour, Baron Seymour of Sudeley. Kateryn Parr was widowed for a third time with the death of Henry VIII in January 1547. By May of the same year, Queen Kateryn was married to the new king Edward VI’s uncle, Thomas Seymour, Lord High Admiral of England and Baron Seymour of Sudeley. This was said to be a love match and within months Kateryn found herself pregnant for what may have been the first time in her life. In the months before the birth, the queen had fitted out a nursery for her baby, decorated in Kateryn’s favourite colours of crimson and gold: the nursery had views of the gardens and the castle’s chapel. The queen’s joy was tempered by the scandal that had arisen from her husband’s attentions towards Kateryn’s stepdaughter, Elizabeth.

She wrote to Thomas Seymour of how active the unborn child was:

I gave your little knave your blessing, who like an honest man stirred apace after and before. For Mary Odell [one of her ladies] being abed with me had laid her hand upon my belly to feel it stir. It hath stirred these three days every morning and evening so that I trust when you come it will make you some pastime. And thus I end bidding my sweetheart and loving husband better to fare than myself.¹

Kateryn gave birth to her only child, Mary, named after the dowager queen’s stepdaughter, Princess Mary, on 30 August 1548. At the age of 37, Kateryn was old to be having her first child, but both she and the baby had come through the labour safely and there doesn’t appear to have been any disappointment that the child was a girl rather than a boy.

*Thomas Seymour painted by Nicolas Denisot*

Within just a few days of the birth, Kateryn was showing signs of puerperal fever, a bacterial complication of childbirth that was very dangerous in the centuries before antibiotics. As her condition worsened, Kateryn suffered bouts of delirium and moments of calm, when she appeared to rally. In her delirium, Kateryn railed against her husband, saying

‘I am not well handled, for those that be about me careth not for me but standith laughing at my grief and the more good I will to them, the less good they will to me.’²

Strongly denying her accusations, Seymour replied

‘Why, sweetheart, I would you no hurt.’³

Whether Kateryn truly believed Seymour wanted her dead, or was still smarting from how close he had got to the Princess Elizabeth, or the words, reported by Lady Tyrwitt, who was not a friend of Seymour’s, were misinterpreted, we will never know. Her pain, delirium and suspicion of her husband made Kateryn’s last days even more wretched.

Kateryn Parr died 6 days after little Mary’s birth, on 5 September 1548, at Sudeley Castle. She was laid to rest beneath the floor of St Mary’s Chapel in the castle grounds, with Lady Jane Grey acting as her chief mourner. Despite her fears that her husband had poisoned her, in her will, dictated as she was close to death, she left everything to Seymour, making him a very wealthy man.

Thomas Seymour was stunned by Kateryn’s death and grieved deeply. He abandoned Sudeley Castle and returned to London, seeking refuge at Syon House, the home of his brother, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and his wife. Little Lady Mary was placed in the care of his mother, Margery Seymour.

Mary was eventually taken into the care of Edward Seymour and his wife, Duchess Anne. Anne had herself given birth to a little boy shortly before Mary’s birth and had a house full of children, little Mary’s cousins. However, when her father was arrested for treason, having plotted to marry the Princess Elizabeth, and was being held in the Tower awaiting execution, he asked that his daughter should be given into the care of Katherine Willoughby (now Brandon), Duchess of Suffolk. Katherine had been a good friend of Kateryn Parr. She had herself been widowed in 1545 and was the mother of 2 teenage boys, Henry and Charles Brandon.

Mary could have been given into the care of Kateryn Parr’s brother, William Parr, Marquess of Northampton, but he had recently found himself out of favour with Edward Seymour, the Lord Protector, as he had tried to divorce his wife, Anne Bourchier, in order to marry Elisabeth Brooks, who had served Seymour’s sister Jane when she was queen. This remarriage was considered illegal and outrageous and so, with such a scandal attached to him, Parr was not a suitable guardian to his niece; not that he appears to have paid any attention to Mary, nor expressed any desire to play a part in her life. Neither did Kateryn’s sister, Anne Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, show any interest in taking care of her niece, despite her own children being close in age to Mary.

With Thomas Seymour’s execution on 20 March 1549, Lady Mary Seymour, at just short of 7 months old, was a dispossessed orphan. Three days before her father’s death, whilst she was still in the custody of her uncle at Syon House, Mary had been granted £500 a year by the Privy Council. The money was for ‘dyettes, wages and lyvereyes of the household of Mistres Mary Seymour for a yere and a half ended at the Feast of the annunciation of Our Lady next cummyng [25 March].’⁴ However, that income was not transferred to Katherine Willoughby when the baby was moved to her residence at Grimsthorpe Castle in Lincolnshire. This left the duchess short of funds. The daughter of a queen, though not royal, was expected to be maintained to a certain standard. The little orphan arrived at Grimsthorpe Castle with her own household; her full complement of staff included her governess, a nurse and two maids. And it was left to Katherine, Duchess of Suffolk, to pay their wages.

*Katherine Willoughby, Duchess of Suffolk, Mary Seymour’s guardian*

By 24 July 1549, Katherine was writing to William Cecil, a secretary in Edward Seymour’s household at the time, in the hope that he may assist her in recovering payment for her expenses. She wrote:

‘It is said that the best means of remedy to the sick is first plainly to confess and disclose the disease, wherefore, both for remedy and again for that my disease is so strong that it will not be hidden. … All the world knoweth … what a very beggar I am.’⁵

Katherine said that her finances were worsening for numerous reasons but,

‘amongst others … if you will understand, not least the queen’s child hath layen, and still doth lie at my house, with her company about her, wholly at my charges. I have written to my lady of Somerset at large, that there be some pension allotted unto her according to my lord grace’s promise. Now, good Cecil, help at a pinch all that you may help.’⁶

The duchess included a list of items that Duchess Anne had promised to send on, including the plate and other items that had been intended for Mary’s nursery at Sudeley Castle. The duchess also complained that the baby’s governess, ‘with the maid’s nurse and others, daily call for their wages, whose voices my ears can hardly bear, but my coffers much worse.’⁷

It is saddening to read how little affection is given to this child who was so wanted by her parents. That she went from being the centre of Kateryn Parr’s world to being an unwanted burden on the late queen’s good friend. It seems that Katherine Willoughby’s pleas did eventually have an effect. In January 1550, application was made to the House of Commons for the restitution of Lady Mary Seymour, ‘daughter of Thomas Seymour, knight, late Lord Seymour of Sudeley and late High Admiral of England, begotten of the body of Queen Katherine, late queen of England’.⁸

By this act, the little girl, now 16 months old, was permitted to inherit any remaining property that had not been returned to the crown by her father’s attainder. This did not particularly improve Mary’s situation, as most of the property she would be allowed to inherit had already passed into the hands of others. This Act of Parliament is the last mention we have of Lady Mary Seymour in the historical record. The grant was not renewed when it became due in September 1550 and Lady Mary never claimed any of the remaining portion of her father’s estate.

It seems likely that the little orphan had died at Grimsthorpe Castle before her second birthday, her burial place now unknown. There are traditions that she survived. One such has her raised by her governess, eventually marrying Sir Edward Bushell, while a family in Sussex also claims to be descended from her. While neither of these scenarios are impossible, there is no historical record to substantiate the claims.

That we cannot say for certain is one more sad note in the life of a little girl whose birth was met with such joy by both her parents, but whose short life was replete with tragedy. She was a little pawn in the machinations of her elders.

Images:

Notes:

1. Linda Porter, Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr, the Last Wife of Henry VIII, p. 318; 2. ibid, p. 322; 3. ibid, p. 323; 4. Rebecca Larson, ‘The Disappearance of Lady Mary Seymour’, tudorsdynasty.com; 5. Linda Porter, Katherine the Queen, p. 341; 6. ibid, pp. 341-342; 7. ibid, p. 342; 8. ibid

Sources:

Linda Porter, Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr, the Last Wife of Henry VIII; Rebecca Larson, ‘The Disappearance of Lady Mary Seymour’, tudorsdynasty.com; Don Matzat, Katherine Parr: Opportunist, Queen, Reformer; Amy Licence, The Sixteenth Century in 100 Women; Anne Crawford, editor, Letters of the Queens of England; Oxforddnb.com; Elizabeth Norton, Catherine Parr; Elizabeth Norton, The Lives of Tudor Women; Sarah Morris and Natalie Grueninger, In the Footsteps of the Six Wives of Henry VIII.

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Women of the Anarchy demonstrates how Empress Matilda and Matilda of Boulogne, unable to wield a sword themselves, were prime movers in this time of conflict and lawlessness. It shows how their strengths, weaknesses, and personal ambitions swung the fortunes of war one way – and then the other. Available from Bookshop.org, Amberley Publishing and Amazon UK. King John’s Right-Hand Lady: The Story of Nicholaa de la Haye is the story of a truly remarkable lady, the hereditary constable of Lincoln Castle and the first woman in England to be appointed sheriff in her own right. Available from all good bookshops Pen & Sword Books, bookshop.org and Amazon. Defenders of the Norman Crown: The Rise and Fall of the Warenne Earls of Surrey tells the fascinating story of the Warenne dynasty, from its origins in Normandy, through the Conquest, Magna Carta, the wars and marriages that led to its ultimate demise in the reign of Edward III. Available from Pen & Sword Books, Amazon in the UK and US, and Bookshop.org.

Ladies of Magna Carta: Women of Influence in Thirteenth Century England looks into the relationships of the various noble families of the 13th century, and how they were affected by the Barons’ Wars, Magna Carta and its aftermath; the bonds that were formed and those that were broken. It is now available in paperback and hardback from Pen & Sword, Amazon, and Bookshop.org. Heroines of the Medieval World tells the stories of some of the most remarkable women from Medieval history, from Eleanor of Aquitaine to Julian of Norwich. Available now from Amberley Publishing and Amazon, and Bookshop.org. Silk and the Sword: The Women of the Norman Conquest traces the fortunes of the women who had a significant role to play in the momentous events of 1066. Available now from Amazon, Amberley Publishing, and Bookshop.org.

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Although the Seymours arrived with the Normans, it is with Jane, Henry VIII’s third queen, and her brothers – Edward, Duke of Somerset, and Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley – that they became prominent.

Jane bore Henry his longed-for son, Edward VI, and both her brothers achieved prominence through her. Her brother Edward was central to Henry’s activities in Scotland and became Lord Protector for the young king, his nephew, a hugely powerful position. Thomas married Henry’s sixth wife, Catherine Parr, and after her death in 1548 aimed to marry Princess Elizabeth (the future Elizabeth I), with whom he had flirted when she was in Catherine’s care, and for this he was executed for high treason. Edward fell foul of his fellow councillors and was also executed. Edward’s son was restored to the title of Lord Hertford by Elizabeth I, but was sent to the Tower when it emerged that he had secretly married Jane Grey’s sister, Catherine, who was Elizabeth’s protestant heir. Both her marriage and pregnancy were an affront to the queen.

This is the epic rise and fall of the family at the heart of the Tudor court and of Henry VIII’s own heart; he described Jane as ‘my first true wife’ and left express orders to be buried next to her tomb at Windsor Castle. The family seat of Wolfhall or ‘Wolf Hall’ in Wiltshire is long gone, but it lives on as an icon of the Tudor age.

The Seymours of Wolf Hall, A Tudor Family Story by Professor David Loades is the factual story of the family that achieved the height of power with the reign of Edward VI. Professor Loades traces the family’s story from their Norman origins, through Jane Seymour and her son, all the way to the current Seymour Duke of Somerset. It is the remarkable story of one family’s rise from minor gentry to sitting on the throne of England itself. Had Edward VI had children, we could have had Seymours on the throne for generations.

But it wasn’t to be and Professor Loades does not end the story there. He follows the fortunes of the family for centuries afterwards, as they fell in and out of favour with subsequent monarchs, such as Elizabeth I and James I; usually for their disastrous marriage choices.

The height of Seymour influence was during the reign of Edward VI (1547-1553) and Professor Loades highlights the lives of the king’s uncles, Edward, Earl of Hertford and later Duke of Somerset, and Thomas Seymour, Baron Seymour of Sudeley, as the central part of the book. The Seymours of Wolf Hall, A Tudor Family Story provides excellent analysis of the lives and actions of the two most famous Seymour brothers, dissecting their political and private influences on the young king and the nation at large.

So what sort of man was he, this Protector, the Earl of Hertford, shortly to become Duke of Somerset? He was soon to be known as the ‘good duke’ because of his alleged sympathy with the insurgents of 1549, and to be classed as a tolerant liberal by some twentieth-century historians. However, liberal in the twentieth-century sense he certainly was not, nor would he have understood what that meant. He was a man of action, particularly military action. knighted in the field in 1523, he had been largely responsible for the successful actions in Scotland after the victory at Pinkie Cleugh in 1547. Nor was he as interested in education as had been alleged. He had no intellectual training himself, and owned few books. Most of the dedications which he received owed more to his position as Protector than any known sympathy with the causes maintained by the works concerned.

A fascinating part of the book comes when Professor Loades focuses on Edward VI himself, giving perceptive insight into this least known of the Tudor monarchs. He paints a wonderful portrait of this boy king who never got the chance to reach his potential, describing a boy whose emotions were well concealed but who had a calm and collected temperament – much like his mother, Jane Seymour.

Every family story is examined, such as the marriage of Seymour’s son to Catherine Grey, a claimant to the crown under Elizabeth I, which led to stays in the Tower of London for the happy couple. We also learn of the scandalous marriage of another Seymour, with Arbella Stewart, which led, again, to the Tower of London – and the couple being forced apart

The Seymours of Wolf Hall, A Tudor Family Story provides a fascinating, insightful look into the Tudor court from the point of view of one of its most prominent families. They are not studied in isolation, however, but also within the story of Tudor history as a whole, from the life of Henry VIII through the Reformation, the birth of Edward VI and beyond, with the family’s fortunes changing with each monarch.

Thoroughly enjoyable and a delight to read, this book is a must for any lover of English Tudor history, full to the brim with information about Henry VIII, his most-beloved queen, Jane Seymour, and a family who reached the highest echelons of politics and society through the birth of Henry’s long-awaited son and heir, Edward VI. Eminently readable and thoroughly researched, Professor Loades follows the family’s fortunes from its Norman roots, through its highs and lows, to the pinnacle of power to imprisonment and disgrace, leaving the reader breathless with their rise to power and subsequent fall from grace.

Sharon’s book, Heroines of the Medieval World, is now available in hardback in the UK from both Amberley Publishing and Amazon UK and worldwide from Book Depository. It is also available on Kindle in both the UK and USA and will be available in Hardback from Amazon US from 1 May 2018.

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Pictures of Edward VI and Jane Seymour courtesy of Wikipedia.

History… the interesting bits!