To the thirty-three articles laid before him by the King’s councillors, Thomas Seymour at first offered no reply. His allegiance was invoked; he consented at length to answer the first three, yet refused his signature. Behind these parchments stood his nephew, the young Edward VI, and his own brother, the Protector Somerset. The prisoner within the Tower was no adversary from without: he was flesh and blood of the governing house.
Thomas Seymour, Lord Sudeley and brother to the Duke of Somerset, had wed Catherine Parr following the demise of Henry VIII. The Dowager Queen brought to this alliance an exalted station and immediate proximity to the royal person; Seymour, for his part, was Lord High Admiral, a member of that fraternity whose eldest brother ruled in the name of the boy-king Edward VI. Yet this kinship proved no shield to the Admiral. In George Borrow’s relation, the domestic rivalries of the House of Seymour run parallel to the charges of high treason; the matter was to be determined by Parliament, without the appearance of the accused before a jury of his peers.
The source portrays Anne Stanhope, Duchess of Somerset, as chief among those who inflamed suspicion between the brothers. She is said to have persuaded her husband that the Admiral compassed his life; while the Earl of Warwick fomented this enmity, well pleased to see the Protector brought into discredit. These motives are Borrow’s own interpretations, written in a partisan key. What the record establishes is that Thomas was apprehended on the 16th of January, 1549, and committed to the Tower. Four months earlier, he had buried Catherine Parr. Their daughter, Mary, had been born on the 30th of August, 1548; six days later, the Dowager Queen succumbed to puerperal fever, according to the chronology maintained by Historic Royal Palaces. She was laid to rest within the chapel of Sudeley. When the gates of the Tower closed upon Seymour, the infant who had so lately lost her mother was not yet five months old.
The indictment comprised thirty-three articles of high treason and other capital misdemeanours. Amongst them, it was laid to his charge that he had declared he would make “the blackest Parliament” ever beheld in England; that he had sought the hand of the Princess Elizabeth; and that he had pursued this design after the Council had expressly forbidden it. The articles linked this matrimonial ambition to the succession itself: an alliance with an heir to the throne might well overturn the balance surrounding the young monarch. It was further alleged that he had wed Catherine in secret, and thereafter, concealing the union, had procured a letter from the King pressing the Queen Dowager to accept him, while demanding the Protector’s good offices. They added that had Catherine conceived immediately after the death of Henry VIII, the issue might have been deemed either the late King’s or Seymour’s, to the peril and disturbance of the realm’s succession. Borrow cites this suspicion as a count in the prosecution’s case, not as an established historical fact.
One of the darkest accusations insinuated that Seymour had poisoned Catherine that he might be free to marry Elizabeth; yet Borrow adduces no proof to substantiate any such murder. To these the articles appended levies of men and money, illicit attempts to sway the young King, and a violent scheme to seize the administration of the realm. They set forth a deliberate progression: Seymour was first to induce Edward to cast off the established government and commit the helm of state to his hands; thereafter, a force assembled by land and sea would enable him to grasp at the Crown itself. Such was the architecture of the charges as Borrow relates them, rather than a corroborated conspiracy.
The three unsigned answers did not check the momentum of the cause. Borrow records their existence without disclosing their substance. The Council repaired to the young King. The Lord Chancellor set forth the case, after which each councillor delivered his opinion. The Protector, brother to the prisoner, declared that this intelligence caused him profound grief, yet he was bound to set the safety of the King above the ties of blood. Were he himself guilty of such treasons, he added, he would deem himself unworthy to live. Edward VI replied that he perceived the charges to be grave, and deemed it meet that the Council should pursue the course of justice. Borrow notes that the councillors straightway rendered thanks to His Majesty.
Parliament being then in session, the Peers resolved upon a bill of attainder—a condemnation by legislative enactment. The readings in the House of Lords concluded between the 25th and the 27th of February. With the assent of his peers, the Protector prayed leave to withdraw, “for natural compassion’s sake,” as the Council record hath it. His departure did not hinder the concurrence of the remaining lords. That same day, the Upper House dispatched to the Commons the Master of the Rolls, Sir James Hales, and Serjeant Molyneux. They inquired whether the Lower House would concur in the procedure adopted by the Lords; if so, the noblemen who had testified against the Admiral would attend in person to deliver their evidence viva voce. The Commons made answer that they would take the matter into consideration and shortly return their resolution. Nothing being heard, the messengers were sent once more on the 2nd of March, accompanied on this occasion by Serjeant Hale, the King’s Solicitor. The Burgesses then resolved that their answer should be delivered by the Speaker and sundry of their members before the Council: they required that the proofs and witnesses be regularly heard. The Lords adjourned, charged the Protector to report this answer at their next sitting, and pressed forward with the bill.
Following the attainder, on the 17th of March, the Chancellor and the councillors attended the King at Westminster. They received the report of the Bishop of Ely, who had been sent with others to the prisoner to minister unto him and offer spiritual comfort. The Council appointed the execution for the following Wednesday, between nine and twelve of the clock in the forenoon, upon Tower Hill, ordaining that his head and body should be interred within the precincts of the Tower. The Bishop was commanded to repair unto him once more, to prepare him to “suffer justice” with patience, according to the phrase preserved by Borrow. The sentence had now assumed the fixed form of an hour and a scaffold. Beneath this warrant, Borrow transcribes a roll of names: the Chancellor Rich, Warwick, Paget, and the remaining councillors. Somerset’s name appears there also. He who had sought leave to retire when his peers gave their assent was numbered among those who signed the warrant of death. The Bishop of Ely was thus charged with a second duty: to signify unto the condemned man the judgment that had been resolved, and to prepare his soul for the block. He returned no more to solicit answers to the thirty-three articles.
On the 20th of March, 1549, Thomas Seymour was beheaded upon Tower Hill, according to the date verified by Historic Royal Palaces. The infant Mary, daughter of Catherine and Seymour, was yet in the cradle. Her uncle had publicly subordinated the bond of brotherhood to the office of Lord Protector; for the child, that cold prerogative left both parents in their graves.