Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, 1st Earl of Hertford, 1st Viscount Beauchamp (150022 January 1552) was an English nobleman and politician who served as Lord Protector of England from 1547 to 1549 during the minority of his nephew King Edward VI. He was the eldest surviving brother of Queen Jane Seymour, the third wife of King Henry VIII and mother of King Edward VI.
Seymour grew rapidly in favour with Henry VIII following Jane's marriage to the king in 1536, and was subsequently made Earl of Hertford. On Henry's death in 1547, he was appointed protector by the Regency Council on the accession of the nine-year-old Edward VI. Rewarded with the title Duke of Somerset, Seymour became the effective ruler of England. Somerset continued Henry's military campaign against the Scots and achieved a sound victory at the Battle of Pinkie, but ultimately he was unable to maintain his position in Scotland. Domestically, Somerset pursued further reforms as an extension of the English Reformation, and in 1549 imposed the first Book of Common Prayer through the Act of Uniformity, offering a compromise between Protestant and Roman Catholic teachings. The unpopularity of Somerset's religious measures, along with agrarian grievances, resulted in unrest in England and provoked a series of uprisings (including the Prayer Book Rebellion and Kett's Rebellion). Costly wars and economic mismanagement brought the Crown to financial ruin, further undermining his government.
In October 1549, Somerset was forced out of power and imprisoned in the Tower of London by John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and a group of privy councillors. He was later released and reconciled with Warwick (now Duke of Northumberland), but in 1551 Northumberland accused him of treason, and he was executed in January 1552. Until the 1970s historians had a highly positive view of Somerset, seeing him as a champion of political liberty and the common people, but since then he has also often been portrayed as an arrogant and inept ruler of the Tudor state.
Origins and early career Edward Seymour was born c. 1500, the son of Sir John Seymour, feudal baron of Hatch Beauchamp in Somerset, with his wife Margery Wentworth, eldest daughter of Sir Henry Wentworth of Nettlestead, Suffolk, and descended from Edward III. In 1514, aged about 14, he received an appointment in the household of Mary Tudor, Queen of France, and was enfant d'honneur at her marriage with Louis XII.
Seymour served in the Duke of Suffolk's campaign in France in 1523, being knighted by the duke on 1 November, and accompanied Cardinal Wolsey on his embassy to France in 1527. Appointed Esquire of the Body to Henry VIII in 1529, he grew in favour with the king, who visited his manor at Elvetham in Hampshire in October 1535. Through his marriage to Catherine Fillol he became the owner of Woodmancote Place, Sussex.
Rise under Henry VIII When Seymour's sister, Jane, married King Henry VIII in 1536, Edward was created Viscount Beauchamp on 5 June 1536, and Earl of Hertford on 15 October 1537. He became Warden of the Scottish Marches and continued in royal favour after his sister's death on 24 October 1537.
In 1541, during Henry's absence in the north, Hertford, Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Audley had the chief management of affairs in London. In September 1542 he was appointed Warden of the Scottish Marches, and a few months later Lord High Admiral, a post which he almost immediately relinquished in favour of John Dudley, the future duke of Northumberland. In March 1544 he was made lieutenant-general of the north and instructed to punish the Scots for their repudiation of the treaty of marriage between Prince Edward and the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. He landed at Leith on 3 May 1544, captured and pillaged Edinburgh, and returned by land burning villages and castles along the way.
In July 1544 he was appointed lieutenant of the realm under Catherine Parr, Henry's sixth wife and regent, during Henry's absence at Boulogne, but in August he joined the king and was present at the surrender of the town. In the autumn he was one of the commissioners sent to Flanders to keep Emperor Charles V to the terms of his treaty with England, and in January 1545 he was placed in command at Boulogne, where on the 26th he repelled an attempt of Marshal de Biez to recapture the town. In May he was once more appointed lieutenant-general in the north to avenge the Scottish victory at the Battle of Ancrum Moor; this he did by a savage foray into Scotland in September. He reported that on 16 September 1545 he had "sent forth a good band to the number of 1500 light horsemen in the leading of me [and] Sir Robert Bowes, which from 5 a.m. till 3 p.m., forayed along the waters of Tyvyote and Rowle, 6 or 7 miles beyond Jedburgh, and burnt 14 or 15 towns and a great quantity of all kinds of corn".James Gairdner & R H Brodie, Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, vol. 20:2 (London, 1907), no. 400: State Papers Henry the Eighth, Part IV (London, 1836), pp. 521-2.
In March 1546 he was sent back to Boulogne to supersede the Earl of Surrey, whose command had not been a success; and in June he was engaged in negotiations for peace with France and for the delimitation of the English conquests.
From October to the end of Henry's reign he was in attendance on the king, engaged in the struggle for predominance which was to determine the complexion of the government during the coming minority. Personal, political and religious rivalry separated him and Baron Lisle from the Howards, and Surrey's hasty temper precipitated his own ruin and that of his father, the duke of Norfolk. They could not acquiesce in the Imperial ambassador's verdict that Hertford and Lisle were the only noblemen of fit age and capacity to carry on the government; and Surrey's attempt to secure the predominance of his family led to his own execution and to his father's imprisonment in the Tower of London.
Seymour's Protectorate
Council of Regency
Upon the death of Henry VIII (28 January 1547), Seymour's nephew became king as Edward VI. Henry VIII's will named sixteen executors, who were to act as Edward's Council until he reached the age of 18. These executors were supplemented by twelve men "of counsail" who would assist the executors when called on.; The final state of Henry VIII's will has occasioned controversy. Some historians suggest that those close to the king manipulated either him or the will itself to ensure a shareout of power to their benefit, both material and religious. In this reading, the composition of the Privy Chamber shifted towards the end of 1546 in favour of the Protestant faction. In addition, two leading conservative Privy Councillors were removed from the centre of power. Stephen Gardiner was refused access to Henry during his last months. Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk, found himself accused of treason; on 24–25 December, he offered his vast estates to the Crown making them available for redistribution, and he spent the whole of Edward's reign in the Tower of London., incorrectly dates the surrender to 12 January, the date of Norfolk's final confession of treason; see also .
In his letter offering his lands, now lost but quoted in Herbert of Cherbury, Henry the Eight (1649), p. 566, Norfolk asserted that he was as innocent as "the childe that was born this night", the Christ child born on Christmas Day.
Other historians have argued that Gardiner's exclusion had non-religious causes, that Norfolk was not noticeably conservative in religion, that conservatives remained on the council, and that the radicalism of men such as Sir Anthony Denny, who controlled the dry stamp that replicated the king's signature, is debatable.In addressing these views, Loach cites, among others: G. Redworth, In Defence of the Church Catholic: the Life of Stephen Gardiner (Oxford, 1990), pp. 231–237; Susan Brigden, "Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, and the Conjoured League", Historical Journal, xxxvii (1994), pp. 507–537; and Eric Ives, "Henry VIII's Will: A Forensic Conundrum", Historical Journal (1992), pp. 792–799. Whatever the case, Henry's death was followed by a lavish hand-out of lands and honours to the new power group. The will contained an "unfulfilled gifts" clause, added at the last minute, which allowed Henry's executors to freely distribute lands and honours to themselves and the court,;
David Starkey describes this distribution of benefits as typical of "the shameless back-scratching of the alliance"; G. R. Elton calls the changes to the will "convenient". particularly to Seymour (then known as Earl of Hertford), who became the Lord Protector of the Realm and Governor of the King's Person, and who created himself Duke of Somerset.
Henry VIII's will did not provide for the appointment of a Protector. It entrusted the government of the realm during his son's minority to a Regency Council that would rule collectively, by majority decision, with "like and equal charge".;
The existence of a council of executors alongside the Privy Council was rationalised in March when the two became one, incorporating the executors and most of their appointed assistants and adding Thomas Seymour, who had protested at his exclusion from power. Nevertheless, a few days after Henry's death, on 4 February, the executors chose to invest almost regal power in Edward Seymour.; Thirteen out of the sixteen (the others being absent) agreed to his appointment as Protector, which they justified as their joint decision "by virtue of the authority" of Henry's will.; Seymour may have done a deal with some of the executors, who almost all received hand-outs;; he is known to have done so with William Paget, private secretary to Henry VIII,In 1549, Paget was to remind Seymour: "Remember what you promised me in the gallery at Westminster before the breath was out of the body of the king that dead is. Remember what you promised immediately after, devising with me concerning the place which you now occupy ... and that was to follow mine advice in all your proceedings more than any other man's". Quoted in and to have secured the support of Sir Anthony Browne of the Privy Chamber.
Seymour's appointment was in keeping with historical precedent,; Uncles of the king had been made Protector in 1422 and 1483 during the minorities of Henry VI and Edward V (though not also Governor of the King's Person, as Hertford's brother Thomas, who coveted the role for himself, pointed out). and his eligibility for the role was reinforced by his military successes in Scotland and France. He was senior to his ally Lisle in the peerage, and was the new king's closest relative.
In March 1547, he secured letters patent from King Edward granting him the almost monarchical right to appoint members to the Privy Council himself and to consult them only when he wished.; In 1549, William Paget described him as king in all but name. In the words of historian G. R. Elton, "from that moment his autocratic system was complete". He proceeded to rule largely by proclamation, calling on the Privy Council to do little more than rubber-stamp his decisions.
Seymour's takeover of power was smooth and efficient. The imperial ambassador Francis van der Delft reported that he "governs everything absolutely", with Paget operating as his secretary, although he predicted trouble from John Dudley, Viscount Lisle, who had recently been raised to Earl of Warwick in the share-out of honours.; In fact, in the early weeks of his Protectorate, Seymour met opposition only from the Lord Chancellor, Thomas Wriothesley, whom the Earldom of Southampton had evidently failed to buy off, and from his own brother. Wriothesley, a religious conservative, objected to Seymour's assumption of monarchical power over the council. He then found himself abruptly dismissed from the chancellorship on charges of selling off some of his offices to delegates.;