Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/338

 Seymour had two children: Robert, who survives, and Jane (d. 1881).

A few of Seymour's original pencil studies for the Pickwick plates were subsequently sold at Sotheby's for 500l. There is a miniature of himself in ivory, the whereabouts of which is not known; it was painted about 1827, and represents him leaning one hand on Paley's ‘Moral Philosophy.’ An extremely rare lithograph (not a first-rate portrait), published by his widow in 1841, has been reproduced in facsimile.



SEYMOUR, THOMAS, (1508?–1549), born about 1508, was the fourth son of Sir John Seymour (d. 1536) of Wolf Hall, Wiltshire, by his wife Margery (d. 1551), daughter of Sir Henry Wentworth of Nettlested. , first duke of Somerset [q. v.], was his elder brother. He must be distinguished from Sir Thomas Seymour who was sheriff of London on ‘evil May day’ 1516, was lord mayor of London in 1526 and 1530, was mayor of the Staple at Westminster, was employed by Henry VIII on various commercial negotiations, and died on 11 Dec. 1532 (cf. Letters and Papers, vol. iv. passim; Greyfriars' Chron. pp. 30, 33;, Shoreditch, p. 54). The future lord high admiral first came into notice in 1530 as a servant of Sir [q. v.], who during his frequent embassies employed Seymour to carry despatches (Letters and Papers, v. 323, 325). But the marriage of his sister Jane [see ] to Henry VIII in May 1536, and of another sister, Elizabeth, to Cromwell's son Gregory, opened the way to rapid preferment. On 1 Oct. following he received a grant in survivorship of the stewardship of Chirk and other castles and manors in the Welsh marches, and in the same year he became a gentleman of the privy chamber. In 1537 he was granted the manor of Holt, Cheshire, and on 18 Oct. he was knighted (, Chron. i. 69). Grants of Coggeshall, Essex, Romsey, Hampshire, and Coleshull, Berkshire, followed in the next two years (cf. Addit. MS. 15553, f. 72), and in July 1538 the Duke of Norfolk suggested a marriage between Seymour and his only daughter Mary, widow of the Duke of Richmond. The suggestion failed, owing probably to the vehement opposition of Norfolk's son, the Earl of Surrey, and in 1543, soon after the death of Lord Latimer, Seymour sought the hand of his widow, [q. v.]; but Catherine was destined to become Henry VIII's sixth wife.

Meanwhile, in 1538, Seymour accompanied Sir (d. 1548) [q. v.] on his embassy to the French court, and in October was present during the negotiations at Cambray, carrying despatches thence to London on the 21st. On 12 June 1539 a bill, introduced by Cromwell, was passed, securing certain lands to him (Lords' Journals, i. 116 a, 119 a). He was one of those appointed to meet Anne of Cleves at Calais on 13 Dec. 1539 (Chron. of Calais, pp. 168, 173), and was one of the six knights selected to challenge all comers at the tournament on 1 May 1540. A few weeks later he was sent to Ferdinand, king of Hungary and brother of Charles V, to enlist support for Henry against France and Scotland. He arrived at Vienna in July, and remained there two years, describing, in his letters to Henry, the progress of the war against the Turks. He was recalled in October 1542, but was sent in December to Nuremberg to engage two thousand horse and three thousand foot for the English service. Failing in this object, he was recalled in January 1542–3, but in the following May was appointed ambassador, with Dr. [q. v.], to the regent of the Netherlands (State Papers, Henry VIII, vol. ix. passim). War breaking out between England and Spain on the one side, and France on the other, Seymour was on 26 June made marshal of the English army in the Netherlands, being second in command to Sir [q. v.] On 24 July 1543, with a strong detachment, he captured and destroyed the castles of Rinquecen and ‘Arbrittayne’ [? Ardinghen] (ib. ix. 452). At the beginning of August he was sent to the regent to ask for reinforcements; on his return he held for a short time the chief command during Wallop's illness, and besieged Bohaine; he went into winter quarters at Calais in November (ib. ix. 460–2 et seq.). As a reward for his services he received further grants of land, and on 17 April 1544 was made master of the ordnance for life. In this capacity he served in France during the campaign of the following summer. He returned to England at its close, conveying large stores of ammunition and ordnance. In October he was appointed admiral of the fleet, and on the 29th was directed to revictual Boulogne, and then await the French fleet in mid-Channel. These plans were frustrated by storms.

During the summer of 1545 Seymour was stationed at Dover, with orders to defend the Kentish coast against the projected French