By Holbein.
EXECUTED 1549-50.
Black gown and cap. Badge of Garter suspended by a ribbon round his neck.
HE was the fourth son of Sir John Seymour of Wulfhall, by Margaret Wentworth. He was one of the twelve assistants to the executors of the will of his brother-in-law Henry VIII., and on the accession of Edward VI. he was advanced to great honour. Having already distinguished himself as a sailor, he was made Lord High Admiral and Baron Seymour of Sudeley, also Knight of the Garter. But these honours did not satisfy the King’s ambitious uncle; he turned his thoughts to a royal alliance, and asked the consent of the Council to his marriage with the Princess Elizabeth, then only fifteen.
His suit was refused. He then, having in his pay a gentleman about the King, bade him ask Edward whom he should marry. ‘His Majesty,’ says Froude, ‘graciously offered Anne of Cleves,’ and then added he would rather he married Princess Mary, in order that she might change her opinions. But that would neither have suited the Council, nor Mary herself, so Seymour was fain to put up with a Queen-Dowager instead of a future Queen-Regnant, and he proffered his addresses in a quarter where he knew they would be acceptable.
Between him and Queen Catharine Parr there had been love-passages, when she was the widow of Lord Latimer, till a King became his rival. Catharine at first refused to marry until her two years of widowhood should be passed, but Seymour soon prevailed on her to consent to a private union, and letters still extant show that she used to receive him clandestinely, at the palace, Chelsea.
She shared her Lord’s hatred, and jealousy of his brother the Protector, and his wife, and said, if they refused their consent, it would be of no consequence. The amiable young King was easily persuaded to do as his uncle wished, and begged Catharine to listen to Seymour’s suit. She also desired her lover to ask the Council to intercede with her in his behalf, when she was already his wife.
Princess Mary sensibly refrained from meddling, and while all these schemes were being carried on, the whole truth was discovered. There was a general outcry at the scandal, and it was no wonder that the Protector was much displeased.
Besides, it was a question if it were not high treason to marry a Queen widow, so soon after the Sovereign’s death, (at all events it was made into a charge against Seymour later,) as it might possibly have added a fresh difficulty to the vexed question of the succession to the Crown.