20 March 1549 – The Execution of Thomas Seymour

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

On 20 March, 1549 Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron of Sudeley, Lord High Admiral and the fourth husband of the late Dowager Queen Catherine Parr, was executed on Tower Hill. He had been found guilty of thirty-three counts of treason following his arrest at Hampton Court Palace when he had allegedly broken into his nephew Edward VI’s apartments to kidnap him.

In Sir John Harington’s Nugae Antiquae collection of orginal papers, in prose and verse appears the following poem said to have been written by Seymour a week before he was beheaded:

Forgetting God to love a king
Hath been my rod, or else nothy’nge
In this frail lyfe being a blaste
Of care and stryfe, til yt be paste.
Yet God did call me in my pryde
Leste I shulde fall and from him slyde.
For whom he loves he muste correcte,
That they may be of his electe.
Then death haste thee, thou shalt me gaine
Immortallie with God to raigne!
Lord! sende the Kinge like years as Noye [Noah],
In governinge this realme in joye;
And, after thys frayl lyfe, such grace,
That in thy blisse he maie find place.¹

Harington then described Seymour as “an aspiring man” who was “said to have been an excellent master to those knights and gentry who served under him.”

 

Read more about Thomas Seymour in the following articles:

• 16 January 1549 – Thomas Seymour, the Young King and the Spaniel
• Thomas Seymour’s Execution 20 March 1549
• The Execution of Thomas Seymour – Gives more detail on his downfall.
• Thomas Seymour Breaks into the King’s Residence
• Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour Part One
• Catherine Parr and Thomas Seymour Part Two
• Elizabeth, Seymour and Shakespeare

Also on this day in Tudor history

On this day in history, 20th March...

 1469 - Birth of Cecily, Viscountess Welles and princess, also known as Cecily of York, third daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. She was born at Westminster Palace.
1544 - Baptism of Cuthbert Mayne, Roman Catholic priest and martyr. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Launceston on 30th November 1577 after being charged with traitorously getting ...hold of a papal bull and publishing it.
1549 - Execution of Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron of Sudeley and Lord High Admiral, husband of the late Dowager Queen Catherine Parr and brother of Queen Jane Seymour and Protector Somerset.
1555 - Burial of John Russell, Earl of Bedford, courtier and magnate, at Chenies, following his death 14th March.
1560 - Birth of Sir Edward Hoby, scholar, theologian, politician and diplomat, at Bisham in Berkshire. He was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Hoby and Elizabeth (née Cooke), daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke.
1572 - Death of Mary Bassett (née Roper), translator and granddaughter of Sir Thomas More. Her education was praised by Roger Ascham and Nicholas Harpsfield, and she presented Mary I with a copy of five books of Eusebius's "Ecclesiastical History" which she had translated from Greek into English.