Jane Seymour’s phoenix badge[/caption]Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII and mother of Edward VI, died days after giving birth. An inscription above her grave read:
[Read More...]Here lieth a Phoenix, by whose death
Another Phoenix life gave breath:
It is to be lamented much
The world at once ne’er knew two such.
On 12th November 15371, Jane Seymour’s body was taken by chariot from Hampton Court Palace to Windsor Castle. The chariot was followed by a procession led by the Duke of Suffolk and the Marquis of Dorset. Jane’s stepdaughter, the Lady Mary, acted as chief mourner in the procession and the service, which was held at St George’s Chapel on arrival at Windsor. A solemn watch was kept that night, and then Jane was buried on the morning of the 13th November. Queen Jane had died on 24th October, probably from puerperal (childbed) fever, just twelve days after the birth of her son, the future Edward VI.
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Historian Gareth Russell talks to us about Jane Seymour from the Earl and Countess of Moira’s old home in Ireland
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On this day in Tudor history, 24th September 1561, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Edward Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp, was born at the Tower of London. He was baptised two days later.
Beauchamp was the eldest son of Katherine Grey (sister of Lady Jane Grey) and Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, and he was born in the Tower because his parents had been imprisoned for marrying in late 1560 without the queen’s permission.
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On this day in Tudor history, 22nd May 1537, Edward Seymour, brother of Queen Jane Seymour, was sworn in as a privy councillor.
Edward, who was born in around 1500, had been at court since early adolescence, and he’d risen to become an esquire of the body by 1531.
In 1536, when the king was wooing his sister, Jane, Edward was appointed to the king’s privy chamber. Following Henry and Jane’s marriage, the rewards came thick and fast…
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On this day in Tudor history, 21st February 1568, Katherine Seymour (née Grey), Countess of Hertford, was buried at Yoxford. Her remains were later re-interred, by her grandson, in the Seymour family tomb at Salisbury Cathedral.
Katherine was the second daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, and his wife, Frances Brandon, and the granddaughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and Mary Tudor, Queen of France. She was also the younger sister of Lady Jane Grey, or Queen Jane.
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On this day in Tudor history, 22nd May 1537, in the reign of King Henry VIII, Queen Jane Seymour’s brother, Edward Seymour, was appointed to the privy council.
It was just one reward of many and you can find out more about Edward Seymour’s rise in this 60-second TudorHistoryShorts video:
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On this day in Tudor history, 31st July 1553, Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk, was “discharged out of the Tower by the Earle of Arundell and had the Quenes pardon.”
Suffolk had, of course, been imprisoned after Mary I had overthrown his daughter, Queen Jane, or Lady Jane Grey, and his release was down to his wife, Frances, interceding with the queen and begging for mercy.
But who was Henry Grey and how did he go from being pardoned to being executed in 1554?
Find out in today’s talk.
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On this day in Tudor history, 13th July 1553, while John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, was preparing to leave London to apprehend the late Henry VIII’s daughter, Mary, members of the new Queen Jane’s council were meeting with the imperial ambassadors.
What was the meeting about? What was the news from East Anglia? And why were councillors beginning to feel uneasy?
Find out what was going on in today’s talk.
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On this day in history, 6th April 1621, in the Stuart period, Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, died at Netley in Hampshire. He was aged around 81 at his death.
Now, Hertford is known for his secret marriage to Lady Katherine Grey, sister of Lady Jane Grey, and their conjugal visits in the Tower of London, but Hertford had a thing for secret marriage and married twice more, all in secret. And then his son and grandson also had secret marriages!
Find out more in today’s talk.
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On this day in Tudor history, 19th March 1568, Elizabeth Seymour, Lady Cromwell, died. She was around fifty years old at her death.
Elizabeth was the sister of a queen, and a lord protector, and two of her brothers were executed as traitors, but what else do we know about Elizabeth Seymour and how is she linked to the Cromwell family and a portrait once thought to be of Queen Catherine Howard?
Find out more in today’s talk.
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On this day in Tudor history, 21st November 1559, Frances Grey (maiden name Brandon, other married name Stokes), Duchess of Suffolk and the mother of Queen Jane, or Lady Jane Grey, died at Richmond. She was laid to rest in St Edmund’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey, on the orders of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, and her second husband, Adrian Stokes, erected a tomb in her memory.
Frances, daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and Mary Tudor, Queen of France, has gone down in history as rather a harsh and abusive mother, but let me tell you a bit more about the woman who was once named in Edward VI’s “devise for the succession”.
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On this day in Tudor history, 13th November 1553, in the reign of Queen Mary I, the former queen Jane, or Lady Jane Grey, was tried for treason at Guildhall in London. She wasn’t the only one tried, her husband Lord Guildford Dudley, his brothers Ambrose and Henry Dudley, and Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, were also tried for treason for their parts in putting Jane on the throne.
In today’s talk, I explain what happened at their trial and also what happened to these Tudor people after they were found guilty and condemned to death.
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On this day in Tudor history, 27th May 1537, news that Queen Jane Seymour had felt her baby move for the first time provoked celebrations in London, Calais, Oxford and York.
How did people celebrate?
In today’s video, I share what the contemporary sources say about this day and how the news was celebrated.
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On this day in Tudor history, 5th March 1549, a bill of attainder was passed against Thomas Seymour, Baron Sudeley, uncle of King Edward VI, finding him guilty of 33 counts of treason.
In today’s video, I explain what happened and share some of the charges laid against this brother of Queen Jane Seymour.
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This month’s amazing 82 page Tudor Life magazine is a wonderful look at the Seymour family and their remarkable journey, both in royal history and in popular culture.
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On this day in history, 25th May 1553, Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford Dudley got married at Durham place in London.
In the same letter to the Emperor in which de described Edward VI as “wasting away daily”, Jehan Scheyfve recorded the marriage of Jane and Guildford:
“On the 25th of this month were celebrated the weddings of my Lord Guilford, son of the Duke of Northumberland, to the eldest daughter of the Duke of Suffolk; of the Earl of Pembroke’s son to the second daughter; and of the Earl of Huntingdon’s son to the daughter of the Duke of Northumberland. The weddings were celebrated with great magnificence and feasting at the Duke of Northumberland’s house in town.”
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On this day in history, 19th March 1568, Elizabeth Seymour, the wife of John Paulet, Lord St John died. She was laid to rest on 5th April in the Paulet family church of St Mary at Basing, Hampshire.1 She was around fifty years of age.
The undated inscription on the wall of the vault in the church (as transcribed by Lord Bolton, 16th Dec. 1903) reads:
“Hic jacet D[omina] Cromwell, quondam conjux Johis, Marchionis Winton.”2
Known by her superior title of Lady Cromwell, Elizabeth was never a Marchioness – her husband succeeded his father as 2nd Marquess of Winchester after her death.
[Read More...]Elizabeth Seymour was a younger daughter of Sir John Seymour and his wife, Margery Wentworth. Her date of birth is unknown but is estimated to have been between 1511 and 1518. She married her first husband, Sir Anthony Ughtred, in January 1531; since sixteenth-century women could marry, at the earliest, at the age of twelve, realistically Elizabeth could have been born no later than January 1519. Such an early marriage, however, would have been extraordinary, since the Seymours were a respected gentry family, but they were not nobility. Historians have noted that Tudor noble- and gentlewomen tended to marry by the age of twenty. It is possible that Elizabeth served alongside her sister Jane in the household of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, who became queen in 1533. Usually, the queen’s maidens were aged in their mid-to-late teens, although Jane herself would have unusually been around twenty-four years old when appointed to Anne’s household. For Elizabeth to have married Ughtred in 1531 and to have served the queen two or three years later would indicate that she was probably born no later than c. 1515.
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Thank you to historian and author Conor Byrne for writing this article for us.
Jane Parker was the daughter of Henry Parker, Baron Morley, and Alice St John. Her birth date is unknown, but her marriage took place in late 1524 or early 1525 when she would have been at least twelve years of age, the earliest age permitted for females to marry. Since she accompanied Katherine of Aragon as an attendant to the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520, and appeared at a court masque two years later, it is probable that she was born no later than 1507 and probably by about 1505. Her highly educated father was a gentleman usher to Henry VIII. From her teenage years, Jane resided at court and lived in some luxury; her belongings included sleeves and apparel of rich fabrics, jewellery and plate.
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Thank you so much to historical novelist Janet Wertman for inspiring today’s Claire Chats on the subject of just who signed Thomas Seymour’s death warrant – was it King Edward VI or was it Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset and Lord Protector? I look at what the sources say.
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How much do you know about Edward Seymour, brother of Queen Jane Seymour and Lord Protector in Edward VI’s reign,
and his second wife, Anne Stanhope? Grab your favourite beverage, make yourself comfortable and get those little grey cells working with this little quiz – good luck!
We have many historians as members of the Tudor Society, and we thought it would be interesting to ask them what they are researching or working on at the moment, and whether they've come across anything of interest from the Tudor Period. Janet Wertman has responded with this wonderful Tudor gem... over to Janet!
Your timing is perfect! I just stumbled upon a gem that made me dance.
First, a bit of context.
It will come as no surprise to anyone reading this that the Tudor world is full of wild parallels. Catherine of Aragon spending seven years at the start of her life (relatively) waiting for Henry to marry her, then seven years at the end of her life waiting for him to return to her. The fates of Henry’s wives (divorced-beheaded-died/divorced-beheaded-survived) intertwined with their “types” (foreign princess-Howard family-basic English). Cromwell’s downfall stemming from invented charges and using the Act of Attainder he had popularized. Just to name a few.
I found one I had never noticed before.
I am deep into the first draft of The Path to Somerset, the sequel to Jane the Quene that charts Edward Seymour’s rise to power after her death (during what I lovingly refer to as Henry’s “crazy years”). It is turning out to be far darker than I expected – at least the way the story is revealing itself to me – and I have to say, I am having a blast.
Last week, I sank the Mary Rose (single handedly!). Gardiner was watching the battle with Henry from the shore in Portsmouth, they were right there as the pride of the country foundered (I use two points of view in a book; for Somerset I chose Edward and Gardiner/Protagonist and Antagonist – and Edward was off in Scotland at the time so Gardiner got to be the filter for the event). The scene was intense as it took them through the emotional devastation, the possibility of losing to the French, the fear that God had turned his face from them. But there was something about it that seemed just too pat, too predictable. I wanted a twist.
I got a great one....
The night before the planned French attack, Francis went to dine on his own flagship, the Carraquon, to send off his fleet. Being a king, he brought his own food and chef. The poor man was used to the royal kitchens, not the cramped quarters of a ship’s galley. He was careless with the galley fires, which is not something to do when you’re that close to so much gunpowder. The fire spread quickly and Francis and his family barely made it off the ship before it blew up spectacularly. They had to delay the attack a couple of days to create a new flagship…
That detail changed everything. It allowed me to start the scene with English arrogance and overconfidence. After all, they had the Great Harry and the Mary Rose, the finest warships in the world, and hundreds of cannon whose fine construction was the envy of their enemies. And, of course, they smugly saw the hand of God in the destruction of the Carraquon– a sign that the Almighty was firmly on the English side. Playing up that attitude made the sudden reversal in the tragedy of the Mary Rose all that more poignant and terrible. It also gave my scene the oomph I was after …
Janet Wertman is the author of Jane the Quene (The Seymour Saga), a fantastic novel about a fascinating Tudor queen.
Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, was born in or before 1509 and was the fourth son of Sir John Seymour and his wife Margery Wentworth. He would have grown up at the Seymour family home of Wolf Hall (also known as Wulfhall) in Wiltshire. He was one of a brood of six sons and four daughters, and his siblings included Edward Seymour, Lord Protector; Jane Seymour, Henry VIII’s third wife and queen consort; Elizabeth Seymour, who married three times: Sir Anthony Ughtred, Gregory Cromwell and John Paulet; and Sir Henry Seymour.
Nothing is known of his early life, but Thomas started his court career by serving courtier and diplomat, Sir Francis Bryan, in whose service he was in by 1530. The Seymour family began to rise in favour at Henry VIII’s court as the king started courting Jane Seymour in spring 1536 and then married her on 30th May 1536, following the execution of Queen Anne Boleyn. Thomas joined Henry VIII’s privy chamber in October 1536 and while his sister was queen his rewards included being knighted and being named joint master steward of Chirk and Holt. In 1538, he benefited from the dissolution of the monasteries by receiving land once owned by monasteries in Essex, Hampshire and Berkshire. He was involved in diplomatic missions to France, Vienna and the Low Countries in 1538, 1542 and 1543 respectively.
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The fifth article in Sarah Bryson’s series on prominent Tudor courtiers…
Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset is one of the most well-known of Henry VIII’s courtiers. Although the duke was most influential under the reign of his nephew, King Edward VI, it was during the reign of Henry VIII that Seymour started his ascent at the Tudor court.
The exact date of Edward’s birth has not been recorded, but it is believed that he was born around 1500 at the family’s home of Wolf Hall, Wiltshire, to Sir John Seymour and Margery Wentworth. John and Margery had ten children: six sons (John, Edward, Henry, Thomas, John and Anthony) and four daughters (Jane, Elizabeth, Margery and Dorothy). Edward Seymour was descended from the ancient family lines of the Percys and Cliffords, and his father served both King Henry VII and King Henry VIII as Sheriff of Wiltshire and Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset, cementing the family’s loyalty to the Tudors.
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Here is the transcript of last night’s wonderful live chat session with Janet Wertman about Jane Seymour and Janet’s book “Jane the Quene”.
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In this month’s expert chat we have Janet Wertman, author of Jane the Quene, a novel about Jane Seymour, third wife of Henry VIII. Janet discusses how she went about researching her novel, including how she put together a detailed timeline to ensure that events happened in the correct order.
[Read More...]On this day in history, 17th February 1547, Edward Seymour, uncle of King Edward VI and brother of the late Queen Jane Seymour, was made Duke of Somerset. He had already been appointed to the offices of Lord Protector of the Realm and Governor of the King’s Person on 1st February.
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William Somer (Sommers) served as Henry VIII’s fool from June 1535 and just a month later got into trouble with the King. In July 1535, Eustace Chapuys, the Imperial ambassador, recorded that Henry VIII was so angry with Somer that he nearly killed him:
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