ABSTRACT
If families had been political factions, then Sir Thomas Seymour, Lord
Seymour of Sudeley, and his older brother Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford,
who in a coup on the death of Henry VIII in January 1547 became duke of
Somerset and Protector of the realm, might have been expected to work closely
together. Like his elder brother, Sir Thomas Seymour had served in the king’s
privy chamber, in diplomacy and on the battlefield, though less prominently:
he was ennobled and appointed Lord High Admiral at the same time as his
brother became Protector. But far from co-operating, Seymour and his brother
quarrelled bitterly, and in March 1549 Sir Thomas Seymour was executed for
treason. A study of his activities between January 1547 and March 1549 makes
an exciting story,2 but it is much more than that. Seymour’s career shows the
possibilities open to ambitious noblemen; more broadly still, it shows where
power lay, or was thought to lie, in mid-Tudor England.
