There's little point in asking whether Thomas Seymour, Katherine's last husband, was a saint or sinner. We all know he was bad and possibly slightly mad. But it's hard not to feel sympathy with another human at their lowest point. On this day, in 1549, Thomas' world literally came to an end when Parliament passed a Bill of Attainder against him and guaranteed his death on the executioner's block.
Of course, Baron Sudeley had been the architect of his own downfall. Ambitious and not afraid to show it, he had spent the past two years agitating just about everyone in his desperation to get his hands on real power. It had all come to a ghastly conclusion in the corridors outside the bedroom of his nephew, King Edward VI, just weeks earlier when Thomas was found with a gun. Not even his considerable charm could save him. From his arrest on January 17th to the accusations of treason brought against him on February 22nd, there was an inevitability about the end of this part of his story that he could do little to stop.
The Bill of Attainder was a rather handy way of ensuring a guilty verdict against the king's uncle, not that it was ever really in doubt. Thomas had made plenty of enemies as he trampled a path he hoped would make him mighty. His elder brother, Edward Seymour, had in the past tried to help his upstart sibling but there was no saving Thomas now. The bill found him guilty without giving him a chance to defend himself.
While there was really nothing he could have done to avoid the axe, a trial might at least have put some context on what he was trying to achieve when he was found with a loaded pistol in close proximity to his nephew, the king. As it is, we will never really know what Thomas aimed to achieve that fateful evening. If he was aware of his real motivations, he took them with him to the grave on March 20th 1549.
All images Public Domain, via Wiki Commons
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