A man of much wit and very little wisdom

Photo by Katy Buchanan
A February morning in Pittsburgh. I wonder what kind of sky Thomas Seymour
saw his last morning on earth?

Over last weekend, I finished devouring "The Temptation of Elizabeth Tudor" by Elizabeth Norton. It was on the freebie pile at work and I can hardly ever resist a Tudor tale.

It was very good. The author's research is exhaustive research and the book is extensively but not intrusively foot-noted. It's amazing to hear long-ago words from long-ago people come to life in rich, elegant Shakespearean English.

The title refers to Thomas Seymour, first baron of Sudely, Lord Admiral (and chief pirate) of Edward VI's English navy, husband to Henry VIII's last wife, Katherine Parr, and schemer for the hand of Elizabeth I, who was about 14 at the time of this tale. Truthfully, the book should have been titled "The Tragedy of Thomas Seymour." He was rash, stubborn, scheming and a political nobody, despite being Lord Admiral and a member of the House of Lords. What he had was never good enough and he always felt he deserved more (i.e., to have governorship over Edward VI, then king, but in his minority. Thomas' brother, Edward, Earl of Hertford and Duke of Somerset, held the keys to the kingdom as Lord Protector of Edward. Needless to say, the brothers did not get along).

Anyway, a boastful sense of entitlement was Thomas' downfall. Despite being popular among the common people, and even for a time favored by Edward, he knew how to make enemies and that cost him his head. Not to mention scheming to marry Elizabeth.
The princess, upon hearing of his execution, was reported to have said "This day died a man of much wit and very little wisdom."

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Elizabeth tacked successfully through the storm of Thomas' machinations for control of her person  and of Edward's in 1547-1548. Everyone knows her mother Ann Boleyn failed to sail safely through the raging weather that was Henry's desire for a son.
So I thought it was interesting to read this brief item in the Post-Gazette Wednesday morning, Feb. 9.

This is the full text:

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LONDON — Hampton Court Palace, where the Tudor king Henry VIII broke off ties with the papacy in 1530 just to divorce his first wife and marry his mistress — with whom he was besotted and whom he later beheaded — on Tuesday (2/9/16) held its first Roman Catholic service in more than 450 years.

During the service, held in the palace’s Chapel Royal, chants in Latin from an 18-person choir swelled up toward turquoise ceilings, adorned with golden stars and gilded cherubs. Around 350 attendees were packed into tiny wooden pews.

The service symbolized in part a growing reconciliation between the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church. The schism dates to 1534, when Henry VIII declared himself the head of the Church of England. The split allowed Henry to leapfrog from one marriage to another in search of a male heir: He annulled two marriages and had two of his other wives executed, including Anne Boleyn, the former mistress for whom he had rejected papal authority in the first place. (Another wife died after giving birth.)

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Wow! "Another wife died giving birth." Has anyone ever heard "Except for that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
The wife was Jane Seymour, Thomas's sister and Edward's mother; the two reasons for his outsized sense of privilege. She also gave Henry his only son (and died two weeks later, not during childbirth). What Henry would never know was that, although the Tudor line would end with Elizabeth, she made sure it went out with a huge bang. Had Edward never been born, Thomas might have lived and who knows, could have schemed successfully to marry Elizabeth.
Not to be.
Thomas was executed at the Tower of London on March 20, 1549.