Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp

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Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp (born September 21, 1561 in the Tower of London , † July 1612 in the county of Wiltshire ) was an English nobleman and eldest son of Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford and the Lady Catherine Gray , what made him one Nephew of the Nine Day Queen Lady Jane Gray . As heir ( apparent heir ) of the Earl of Hertford , he carried the courtesy title of Lord Beauchamp . In contrast, he never held a substantial title of nobility. Due to his mother's descent from Princess Mary Tudor , the younger sister of King Henry VIII , Seymour had a claim to the throne, which led Queen Elizabeth I to invalidate his parents' secret marriage and declare it illegitimate. Nevertheless, Seymour was long considered a potential successor to Elizabeth.

Life

Family and origin

Edward was born the eldest son of Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford and his wife Catherine Gray . His parents had married secretly and without the permission of Queen Elizabeth I at the end of 1560 . Since Catherine Gray was in the line of succession to the throne after Elizabeth according to King Henry VIII's will , her unauthorized marriage was politically explosive. Elisabeth herself was childless and the nobility, who wanted a Protestant succession to the throne and were looking for an alternative to Maria Stuart's claims to the throne , therefore turned their hopes on Catherine Gray and her descendants. Since Elisabeth always feared rivals, she reacted extremely angry at Catherine's pregnancy and had her imprisoned in the Tower of London .

Edward Seymour as a baby with his mother Lady Catherine Gray , possibly by Levina Teerlinc

Edward was born there on September 21, 1561 and was baptized two days later in the tower's chapel. He was given the courtesy title of Lord Beauchamp , after the subordinate title of his father, Baron Beauchamp , although it was uncertain whether it would legally be awarded to him. In order to render him harmless as a potential successor and thus as a focus for dissatisfied subjects, Elisabeth had his parents' marriage declared invalid in 1561, as Hertford and Catherine could not produce any witnesses for the marriage. Edward became a bastard and had no inheritance claims, neither to the throne nor to the titles of his father. Nevertheless, the Protestant nobility, especially Elizabeth's Minister William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley , tried to prove the marriage as valid and to legitimize Edward, to Elizabeth's great annoyance.

In the summer of 1563, when Edward was almost two years old and his mother had given birth to a second son named Thomas in the Tower, he and his family were released from the Tower. However, he was separated from his mother and younger brother and sent together with his father to his mother Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset . When he was barely three years old, his father was also separated from him and placed in the care of the hostile Sir John Mason, while Edward stayed with his grandmother. Anne Seymour did her best to secure the release of her son and daughter-in-law and to reunite the family, but unsuccessfully. Catherine Gray died on January 26, 1568 without ever seeing her son or husband again. Then Edward's brother Thomas was also placed in Anne Seymour's care.

Youth and conflict with father

Seymour was initially tutored by a private tutor under the care of his grandmother at her seat in Hanworth, Middlesex . When he was eight years old, his father Hertford was finally released from prison, and Seymour wrote him letters in Latin about his progress in his studies. In 1574, his music teacher described the younger brother Thomas Seymour as the far more gifted of the two, complaining that Thomas, "would learn two lessons for anyone my lord [Edward] would learn if I were to teach him." It is sometimes suggested that Edward and Thomas lived in William Cecil's household for a period, but there is no conclusive evidence of this. On December 22, 1576, he was enrolled in Magdalen College . However, based on the correspondence received, it can be concluded that he was neither a good student nor a graduate.

Edward's father Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford

Speculations about Seymour's claim to the throne continued. In 1574, rumors circulated that he had been engaged to Elizabeth's daughter, allegedly born of her relationship with Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester . Allegedly, according to the Spanish ambassador, there are plans to murder Maria Stuart and her son Jacob in order to clear the way for Seymour's accession to the throne. Both claims and the existence of a daughter of Elisabeth cannot be proven historically, but they show the interest that his contemporaries had in Seymour's claim to the throne. Hertford, too, had high hopes for them, despite the official illegitimacy of his sons. In the summer of 1581, however, Seymour fell in love with Honora Rogers, daughter of Sir Richard Rogers, who had lived for a time in the household of his grandmother Anne Seymour. Interestingly enough, until recently her father had been one of the most notorious smugglers in the country, who owned several pirate ships.

This circumstance made Honora a highly inappropriate match for a potential heir to the throne. Angered by his son's improper relationship, Hertford made Seymour promise not to marry a woman who had not been chosen by his father. But although Seymour officially submitted to his father and asked Honora to return his letters and gifts, he secretly wrote to her asking her "not to apply the saying 'out of sight, out of mind' to me". Contrary to all promises, he secretly married her, which came to light in September 1582. Since his enraged father immediately separated him and Honora, Seymour wrote to Elizabeth's influential minister, Francis Walsingham , asking for assistance. Hertford kept his son under house arrest for three years in an attempt to dissuade him from this marriage. In 1585 Seymour tried to flee to London to ask the Queen for help. Hertford recaptured him, however, whereupon Seymour threatened suicide if he remained separated from Honora.

Both father and son wrote letters to the Privy Council to gain support for their cause. Seymour accused his father of wanting "in time to make me no longer like my wife, although my conscience, God and God's law oblige me to love her as I do myself." In contrast to Hertford's secret marriage to Catherine Gray, this time Elisabeth was quite inclined to show mercy. Marriage below his rank neutralized a potential threat from Seymour, as the nobility would never accept an heir to the throne whose wife was a pirate's daughter. She officially allowed Seymour to marry Honora. To appease his disappointed father, she also gave Hertford permission to marry his long-time mistress Frances Howard. In 1587, the family finally seemed to have accepted Seymour's marriage when Anne Seymour, who had also opposed the marriage, left a generous inheritance to her grandson and Honora.

Later years and death

In 1595 Hertford tried again to gather evidence of the legitimacy of his sons. In all likelihood, his only concern was that Seymour was allowed to inherit his title. However, Elisabeth saw it as an attempt to incorporate Seymour into the line of succession and again had Hertford briefly imprisoned in the Tower. Seymour himself, she ordered, should from now on no longer be addressed as Lord Beauchamp, but only as Master Seymour. Other than that, Seymour was not further bothered, possibly a sign that the Queen, unlike his father, did not suspect him. Even a year later, when his brother became involved in possibly conspiratorial acts, no action was taken against Seymour.

Nevertheless, there were still hopes in the population for Seymour as heir to the throne, especially since Elisabeth was getting old and had still not chosen a successor. Thus, in 1594 in Antwerp a highly controversial book entitled A Conference to the Next Succession of the Crown of England printed (in German: A discussion of the next succession to the crown of England ), whose author Doleman the Seymours as popular candidates for the throne designated. He discussed the possibility of a marriage between Seymour and Arbella Stuart , another potential heir to the throne. In April 1598, a seaman named William Love confessed that Captain Robert Elliot, a pirate who did business with Seymour, wanted to smuggle Seymour into Spain. Fortunately for Seymour, it was proven that these were plans for a kidnapping, not a plot to which he had agreed.

Queen Elizabeth I in the 1590s

The older the queen got, the more her potential successors became the focus of public interest. On March 28, 1600, rumors circulated that Seymour was gathering an army to defend himself in the event of a successor to King James VI. of Scotland to instigate a revolt. While it was dismissed as a mere rumor by some contemporaries, it was believed in Venice, for example, that Seymour "raised foot troops and mounted troops in the west with the intention of declaring himself king in his own right", his name once more with Arbella Stuart in Was linked. According to the Venetian sources, Seymour acted at the behest of the French. A little later, however, these rumors fell silent when it was said that Hertford had declared that "he would be carried to London and there sign the proclamation [for Jacob] and swear that his son's hand will do the same". However, no consequences or investigations into these alleged actions by Seymour are mentioned in the English government papers. It is also possible that Seymour only armed his troops in order to be armed against a possible popular uprising when Jacob came to power.

Elizabeth died in 1603 and King James of Scotland succeeded her as James I. According to a sixteen-year-old lady-in-waiting, the council asked Elisabeth shortly before her death whether Seymour should be her successor. The dying queen is said to have replied: "I will not tolerate the son of a villain on my throne, but only someone who is worthy to be king". Since Jacob still feared that Seymour and his descendants could assert their claims, he had Henry VIII's will and the succession to the throne recorded in it annulled by parliamentary resolution in 1604. In 1608 the now very old Hertford finally managed to find the clergyman who had married him and Catherine Gray at the time. Again he tried to prove the legitimacy of his sons so that Seymour could inherit his titles. Jacob only partially fulfilled this wish by allowing Seymour to inherit his father's title and restore the courtesy title of Lord Beauchamp. However, he did not remove his official illegitimacy.

Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp died in July 1612 before his father at the age of 50. The title of Earl of Hertford therefore passed to Seymour's son William Seymour after the death of his father . Seymour was buried on July 21st in Bedwyn Magna near Wick and later transferred to Salisbury Cathedral , where his parents also found their final resting place. On the grave of his parents, which can still be visited today, there is a statue of him and his brother Thomas.

progeny

With Honora († 1608) he had the following children:

  1. ⚭ 1610 Arbella Stuart (1575-1615)
  2. ⚭ 1616/17 Frances Devereux († 1679)
  1. ⚭ 1620 Frances Prinne
  2. ⚭ 1635 Catherine Lee († 1700/1)
  • Honora († 1620); ⚭ 1610 Sir Ferdinando Dudley

literature

  • Leanda de Lisle: The Sisters who would be Queen: The Tragedy of Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Gray. Ballantine Books, 2009, ISBN 978-0-00-721906-3 .
  • Dulcie M. Ashdown: Tudor Cousins. Rivals for the Throne . Sutton Publishing, 2000, ISBN 0-7509-2547-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Albert Frederick Pollard: Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp (1561-1612) . In: Susan Doran: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900 . Volume 51. Oxford University Press, 2004, ( Wikisource ).
  2. ↑ Leanda de Lisle: The Sisters who would be Queen: The Tragedy of Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Gray. Ballantine Books, 2009, p. 215.
  3. ^ Dulcie M. Ashdown: Tudor Cousins. Rivals for the Throne. Sutton Publishing, 2000, p. 119.
  4. ↑ Leanda de Lisle: The Sisters who would be Queen: The Tragedy of Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Gray. Ballantine Books, 2009, p. 276.
  5. ↑ Leanda de Lisle: The Sisters who would be Queen: The Tragedy of Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Gray. Ballantine Books, 2009, p. 284.
  6. ↑ a b Dulcie M. Ashdown: Tudor Cousins. Rivals for the Throne. Sutton Publishing, 2000, p. 186.
  7. ^ Dulcie M. Ashdown: Tudor Cousins. Rivals for the Throne. Sutton Publishing, 2000, p. 187.
  8. ↑ Leanda de Lisle: The Sisters who would be Queen: The Tragedy of Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Gray. Ballantine Books, 2009, p. 292.
  9. ^ Sarah Gristwood: Arbella. England's Lost Queen. Bantam Books 2004, p. 45.
  10. ^ Sarah Gristwood: Arbella. England's Lost Queen. Bantam Books 2004, p. 344.
  11. ↑ Leanda de Lisle: The Sisters who would be Queen: The Tragedy of Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Gray. Ballantine Books, 2009, p. 293.
  12. ^ Dulcie M. Ashdown: Tudor Cousins. Rivals for the Throne. Sutton Publishing, 2000, p. 201.
  13. ^ Sarah Gristwood: Arbella. England's Lost Queen. Bantam Books 2004, p. 144.
  14. ^ Dulcie M. Ashdown: Tudor Cousins. Rivals for the Throne. Sutton Publishing, 2000, p. 203.
  15. ^ A b Sarah Gristwood: Arbella. England's Lost Queen. Bantam Books 2004, p. 244.
  16. ^ Dulcie M. Ashdown: Tudor Cousins. Rivals for the Throne. Sutton Publishing, 2000, p. 218.
  17. ^ Sarah Gristwood: Arbella. England's Lost Queen. Bantam Books 2004, p. 245.
  18. ↑ Leanda de Lisle: The Sisters who would be Queen: The Tragedy of Mary, Katherine, and Lady Jane Gray. Ballantine Books, 2009, p. 299.
personal data
SURNAME Seymour, Edward, Lord Beauchamp
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobleman
DATE OF BIRTH September 21, 1561
PLACE OF BIRTH Tower of London
DATE OF DEATH July 1612
Place of death Wiltshire county