Council of Regency , 1st and 4th:
Or, on a pile gules between six fleurs-de-lys azure three lions of England (special grant); 2nd and 3rd:
Gules, two wings conjoined in lure or (Seymour) These arms concede the positions of greatest honour, the 1st & 4th
quarters, to a special grant of arms incorporating the fleurs-de-lys and lions of the royal
arms of Plantagenet 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. 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. 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, 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. 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, and to have secured the support of
Sir Anthony Browne of the Privy Chamber. Seymour's appointment was in keeping with historical precedent, 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 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. In his first parliament, which met in November 1547, Seymour procured the repeal of all the
heresy laws and nearly all the
treason laws passed since
Edward III. He sought to win over the Scots by those promises of autonomy, free trade, and equal privileges with England. But the Scots were not to be won over yet, and would not be persuaded; the protector led another army into Scotland in September 1547, and won the
Battle of Pinkie Cleugh on 10 September. He trusted the garrisons he established throughout the Lowlands to wear down Scottish opposition, but their pressure was soon weakened by troubles in England and abroad; and
Mary, Queen of Scots, having been betrothed to
Francis, heir to the French throne, was transported to France in 1548, where the two married ten years later. Seymour also attempted to bring uniformity to forms of worship, and in 1549 the first
Act of Uniformity introduced a
Book of Common Prayer that attempted to compromise between different teachings; it was replaced by a more severe form in 1552, after his fall. Prior to and during the Protectorate, the Book of Common Prayer was a central element of the emerging Protestant literature.
Thomas Seymour , Lord Admiral and brother of Edward Seymour Edward Seymour faced less manageable opposition from his younger brother
Thomas, who has been described as a "worm in the bud". As King Edward's uncle, Thomas Seymour demanded the governorship of the king's person and a greater share of power. Seymour tried to buy his brother off with a
barony, an appointment to the
Lord Admiralship, and a seat on the Privy Council—but Thomas was bent on scheming for power. He began smuggling pocket money to King Edward, telling him that the Duke of Somerset held the purse strings too tight, making him a "beggarly king". He also urged him to throw off the Protector within two years and "bear rule as other kings do"; but Edward, schooled to defer to the council, failed to co-operate. In April 1547, using King Edward's support to circumvent his brother's opposition, Thomas Seymour secretly married Henry VIII's widow
Catherine Parr, whose Protestant household included the 11-year-old
Lady Jane Grey and the 13-year-old
Princess Elizabeth. In summer 1548, a pregnant Catherine Parr discovered Thomas Seymour embracing Princess Elizabeth. As a result, Elizabeth was removed from Catherine Parr's household and transferred to that of Sir Anthony Denny. In that September, Catherine Parr died in childbirth, and Thomas Seymour promptly resumed his attentions to Elizabeth by letter, planning to marry her. Elizabeth was receptive, but, like Edward, unready to agree to anything unless permitted by the council. In January 1549, the council had Thomas Seymour arrested on various charges, including
embezzlement at the Bristol
mint. King Edward himself testified about the pocket money. Most importantly, Thomas Seymour had sought to officially receive the governorship of King Edward, for no earlier Lord Protectors, unlike Edward Seymour, had ever held both functions. Lack of clear evidence for treason ruled out a trial, so Thomas was condemned instead by an
Act of Attainder and beheaded on 20 March 1549.
War Edward Seymour's only undoubted skill was as a soldier, which he had proved on his expeditions to Scotland and in the defence of Boulogne in 1546. From the first, his main interest as Protector was the war against Scotland. After a crushing victory at the
Battle of Pinkie in September 1547, he set up a network of garrisons in Scotland, stretching as far north as
Dundee. His initial successes, however, were followed by a loss of direction. His aim of uniting the realms through conquest became increasingly unrealistic. The Scots allied with France, who sent reinforcements for the defence of Edinburgh in 1548, while
Mary, Queen of Scots, was removed to France, where she was betrothed to the
dauphin. The cost of maintaining the Protector's massive armies and his permanent garrisons in Scotland also placed an unsustainable burden on the royal finances. A French attack on Boulogne in August 1549 at last forced Seymour to begin a withdrawal from Scotland.
Rebellion During 1548, England was subject to social unrest. After April 1549, a series of armed revolts broke out, fuelled by various religious and agrarian grievances. The two most serious rebellions required major military intervention to put down: one was in
Devon and
Cornwall, the other in
Norfolk. The first, called the
Prayer Book Rebellion (and also known as the Western rebellion), arose mainly from the imposition of church services in English; the second, led by a tradesman called
Robert Kett, mainly from the encroachment of landlords on common grazing ground. A complex aspect of the social unrest was that the protestors believed they were acting legitimately against
enclosing landlords with the Protector's support, convinced that the landlords were the lawbreakers. The same justification for outbreaks of unrest was voiced throughout the country, not only in Norfolk and the west. The origin of the popular view of Edward Seymour as sympathetic to the rebel cause lies partly in his series of sometimes liberal, often contradictory, proclamations, and partly in the uncoordinated activities of the commissions he sent out in 1548 and 1549 to investigate grievances about loss of tillage, encroachment of large sheep flocks on
common land, and similar issues. Seymour's commissions were led by the evangelical M.P.
John Hales, whose socially liberal rhetoric linked the issue of enclosure with
Reformation theology and the notion of a godly
commonwealth. Local groups often assumed that the findings of these commissions entitled them to act against offending landlords themselves. King Edward wrote in his
Chronicle that the 1549 risings began "because certain commissions were sent down to pluck down enclosures". Whatever the popular view of the Duke of Somerset, the disastrous events of 1549 were taken as evidence of a colossal failure of government, and the Council laid the responsibility at the Protector's door. In July 1549, Paget wrote to Seymour: "Every man of the council have misliked your proceedings ... would to God, that, at the first stir you had followed the matter hotly, and caused justice to be ministered in solemn fashion to the terror of others ...".
Fall from power The sequence of events that led to Seymour's removal from power has often been called a ''
coup d'état''. as Lord Mayor of London. Hill did not send assistance. By 7 October he was writing desperately to
Sir Rowland Hill,
Lord Mayor of London, and a fellow member of the Privy Council requesting 1000 troops to defend him and the King. By this point a meeting had already been had between Hill and London representatives with
John Dudley, then Earl of Warwick at
Ely Palace. That meeting moved decisively against Somerset. Meanwhile, a united Council published details of Seymour's mismanagement of government. They made clear that the Protector's power came from them, not from Henry VIII's will. On 11 October, the council had Seymour arrested and brought the king to
Richmond. In February 1550,
John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, emerged as the leader of the Council and, in effect, as Seymour's successor. Although Seymour was released from the Tower and restored to the council in early 1550, in October 1551 he was sent to the Tower on an exaggerated charge of treason. Edward noted his uncle's death in his
Chronicle: "the duke of Somerset had his head cut off upon Tower Hill between eight and nine o'clock in the morning". Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset was interred at
St. Peter ad Vincula,
Tower of London.
Historiography Historians have contrasted the efficiency of Edward Seymour's takeover of power in 1547 with the subsequent ineptitude of his rule. By autumn 1549, his costly wars had lost momentum, the crown faced financial ruin, and riots and rebellions had broken out around the country. Until recent decades, Seymour's reputation with historians was high, in view of his many proclamations that appeared to back the common people against a rapacious landowning class. In the early 20th century this line was taken by the influential
A. F. Pollard, and was echoed by Edward VI's 1960s biographer
W. K. Jordan. A more critical approach was initiated by M. L. Bush and Dale Hoak in the mid-1970s. Since that time the first Duke of Somerset has often been portrayed as an arrogant ruler, devoid of the political and administrative skills necessary for governing the Tudor state. ==Marriages and issue==