Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset

Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, 1st Earl of Hertford, and 1st Viscount Beauchamp (1500 – 22 January 1552) was an English nobleman and politician. He acted as Lord Protector of England from 1547 to 1549 while his nephew, King Edward VI, was still a minor. Seymour was the eldest surviving brother of Queen Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s third wife and the mother of Edward VI.

After Jane married Henry in 1536, Seymour quickly gained the king’s favor and was made Earl of Hertford. When Henry died in 1547, the Regency Council appointed Seymour protector for the nine-year-old Edward VI. He was given the title Duke of Somerset and became England’s effective ruler. Somerset continued Henry’s military campaign against Scotland, winning a clear victory at the Battle of Pinkie, but could not hold his position there. At home, he pushed forward reforms as part of the English Reformation, imposing the first Book of Common Prayer through the Act of Uniformity in 1549. This was meant as a compromise between Protestant and Catholic teachings. His religious policies, along with agrarian grievances, sparked unrest, including the Prayer Book Rebellion and Kett’s Rebellion. Costly wars and poor economic management left the Crown financially ruined, further weakening his government.

In October 1549, John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and a group of privy councillors forced Somerset from power and imprisoned him in the Tower of London. He was later freed and reconciled with Warwick (now Duke of Northumberland), but in 1551 Northumberland accused him of treason. Somerset was executed in January 1552. Until the 1970s, historians generally saw him as a champion of political liberty and the common people; since then, he has often been portrayed as an arrogant and inept ruler of the Tudor state.

Edward Seymour was born around 1500, the son of Sir John Seymour, feudal baron of Hatch Beauchamp in Somerset, and Margery Wentworth, eldest daughter of Sir Henry Wentworth of Nettlestead, Suffolk, and a descendant of Edward III. In 1514, at about age 14, he joined the household of Mary Tudor, Queen of France, and served as enfant d'honneur at her marriage to Louis XII.

Seymour fought in the Duke of Suffolk’s 1523 campaign in France, was knighted by the duke on 1 November, and accompanied Cardinal Wolsey on an embassy to France in 1527. Appointed Esquire of the Body to Henry VIII in 1529, he grew in favor, and the king visited his manor at Elvetham in Hampshire in October 1535. Through his marriage to Catherine Fillol, he gained ownership of Woodmancote Place, Sussex.

After Jane married Henry 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 kept royal favor after his sister’s death on 24 October 1537.

In 1541, while Henry was away in the north, Hertford, Thomas Cranmer, and Thomas Audley managed affairs in London. In September 1542 he was made Warden of the Scottish Marches, and a few months later Lord High Admiral, a post he soon gave up for John Dudley, the future Duke of Northumberland. In March 1544 he was appointed lieutenant-general of the north to punish the Scots for rejecting the marriage treaty between Prince Edward and the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. He landed at Leith on 3 May 1544, captured and sacked Edinburgh, then returned by land, burning villages and castles along the way.

In July 1544 he was made lieutenant of the realm under Catherine Parr, Henry’s sixth wife and regent, during Henry’s absence at Boulogne. He joined the king in August and was present at the town’s surrender. That autumn he was one of the commissioners sent to Flanders to hold Emperor Charles V to his treaty with England. In January 1545 he commanded at Boulogne, repelling an attempt by Marshal de Biez to retake the town on the 26th. In May he was again lieutenant-general in the north to avenge the Scottish victory at Ancrum Moor; he did so with a savage raid 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 … 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.”

In March 1546 he was sent back to Boulogne to replace the Earl of Surrey, whose command had failed. In June he negotiated peace with France and the boundaries of English conquests. From October until Henry’s death, he attended the king, engaged in the struggle for control of the coming minority. Personal, political, and religious rivalry set him and Baron Lisle against the Howards. Surrey’s rash temper brought about his own ruin and that of his father, the Duke of Norfolk.