EDWARD SEYMOUR, duke of Somerset; in Larrey's "History." V. Gunst sc.

EDWARD SEYMOUR, duke of Somerset, 8vo. W. N. Gardiner sc. 1793.

EDWARD SEYMOUR, duke of Somerset; in Park's "Noble Authors," 1806.

The Duke of Somerset, ancestor of the present Duke of Somerset Created 16 and Earl of Hertford, was lord-protector of the kingdom, lord high- Feb. 1547. treasurer, and earl-marshal, in this reign. Though his administration was not without blemishes, his conduct was generally regulated by justice and humanity. He repealed the sanguinary and tyrannical laws of Henry VIII. and by gentle and prudent methods promoted the great work of the reformation. Such was his love of equity, that he erected a court of requests in his own house, to hear and redress the grievances of the poor. His attachment to the reformed religion, but much more his envied greatness, drew upon him the resentment of the factious nobility, at the head of whom was his own brother the lord-admiral, and John Dudley, earl of Warwick.* He caused the former to be beheaded, and was soon after brought to the block himself, by the intrigues of the latter, to whose crooked politics, and ambitious views, he was the greatest obstacle. Executed the 22d of Jan. 1551-2. See Class VII.

JOHN RUSSEL, the first earl of Bedford, 1549, Houbraken sc. Illust. Head. In the collection of the Duke of Bedford.

JOHN RUSSEL, earl of Bedford. Holbein. Bartolozzi, 1796. In the Royal Collection.

JOHN RUSSEL, earl of Bedford; from the same by Dalton, inscribed lord privy-seal, with one eye.

JOHN RUSSEL, first earl of Bedford. W. Bond sc. 1815. From the original in the collection of his Grace the Duke of Bedford; in Mr. Lodge's "Illustrious Portraits."

* Afterward Duke of Northumberland.

John, lord Russel was, in 1542, appointed lord-admiral of England and Ireland, and the next year lord privy-seal; which great office he held in this and the next reign. He attended Henry VIII. at the sieges of Terouenne and Boulogne; at the former of which, he, at the head of two-hundred and fifty reformadoes, recovered a piece of ordnance from ten thousand French, under the Count de Cr. earl St. Paul. At the coronation of Edward VII. he was appointed lord 19 Jan. high-steward of England for that day; and in the same year, he

1549.

had a grant of the monastery of Woburn in Bedfordshire, which is now the seat of the present Duke of Bedford, who is lineally descended from him. Ob. 1554. See the former reign, Class VII.

GIOVANNI DUDLEY, duca di Northumberland, holding a sword in his right hand, 12mo. in Leti's 'Reign of Elizabeth."

66

66

•

JOHN DUDLEY, duke of Northumberland; in the
Antiquarian Repertory." Godfrey sc. 1786.

The original is at the Duke of Dorset's, at Knowle.

John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, was earl-marshal, and lord high-admiral. He was a man of parts, courage, and enterprise; but fraudulent, unjust, and of unrelenting ambition. He had the address to prevail with Edward VI. to violate the order of succession, and settle the crown upon his daughter-in-law, the Lady Jane Grey. Several historians speak of him as the greatest subject that ever was in England. He was executed for rebellion, in the first year of Queen Mary. It has been observed, that he had eight sons, of whom none had any lawful issue.* See class VII.

TOMASO SEIMOR, Ammiraglio d'Inghilterra, 12mo. in Leti's "Elizabetta." It should be remembered here, that the authenticity of most of the portraits in this book is as questionable as the author's facts.

THOMAS SEYMOUR, lord Seymour of Sudley, in a cap and feather; 4to. Platt sc.

* Sir Robert Dudley, who was styled abroad Earl of Warwick, and Duke of Northumberland, appears to have been the legitimate son of Robert, earl of Leicester, by the Lady Douglas Sheffield, though he was declared illegitimate by his father. See the "Biographia," p. 1807.

THOMAS SEYMOUR, with his autograph. Thane excu. Thomas Seymour, baron of Sudley and lord-admiral of England, was a younger brother of the protector Somerset. He was a man of a good person and address; and no stranger to the arts of the courtier, or the gallantry of the lover. The impression which he made on the heart of Catharine Parre, whom he married, and on that of the Princess Elizabeth, whom he would have married, was, by credulous people, in a credulous age, imputed to incantation. His love seems to have been only a secondary passion, that was subservient to his ambition.* His views were certainly aspiring; and he was justly regarded by his brother as an active and dangerous rival. He was executed, in consequence of an act of attainder, without even the formality of a trial, the 9th of March, 1548-9. Mr. Warton, in his "Life of Sir Thomas Pope," has given us a curious account of some coquetries which passed between the Princess Elizabeth and the lordadmiral.+

GULIELMUS HERBERTUS, comes Pembrochiæ; in the "Heroologia," 8vo.

There is a portrait of him in the delivery of the charter of Bridewell, in the preceding Class.

This nobleman was esquire of the body to Henry VIII. a privycounsellor, and one of the executors of that king's will. He was nearly allied to Henry, by his marriage with Anne, sister to Catharine Parre. He was, in this reign, constituted master of the horse, elected a knight of the garter, and created earl of Pembroke. In the reign Cr. 1551. of Mary, he was appointed general of the forces raised to suppress Wyatt's rebellion, and had the command of the army sent to defend Calais. He was lord-steward of the household in the reign of Elizabeth. Ob. 1569, Æt. 63. His head may be placed in the last-mentioned reign.

* In the preamble to an act of parliament, in the second and third year of Edward VI. entitled, "An Act for the Attaynder of Sir Thomas Seymour, knight, Lorde Seymour of Sudley, high-admiral of England," printed by Grafton, 1549, folio, it is said, "that he would have done what he could secretly to have married the Princess Elizabeth, as he did the late queen, whom, it may appear, he married first, and after sued to his majesty and the lord-protector, and their council, for his preferment to it; whom, nevertheless, it hath been credibly declared, he holped to her end, to haste forward his other purpose."

+ Vide Hayne's "State Papers."

THOMAS WRIOTHESLEY, first earl of Southampton. From an original picture in the collection of his Grace the Duke of Queensberry. E. Harding, jun. sc. 4to.

Thomas Wriothesley, son of William Wriothesley, York herald, was born in Barbican about the year 1500, and in process of time arrived to great advancement in the state. In the year 1535, being at that time one of the clerks of the signet, he was made coroner and attorney in the court of Common Pleas. In 1540 he was knighted, and made constable of the castle of Southampton, and that of Portchester, Jan. 1, 1543-4; he was made a baron, by the title of Lord Wriothesley of Tichfield, in the county of Southampton; and May 3, 1545, lord-chancellor of England, in the room of Lord Audley, deceased. About the end of the same year he was installed knight of the garter; and in 1546, the last year of Henry VIII. the king lying on his death-bed, Lord Southampton was constituted one of his executors, and appointed to be of council to Prince Edward, his only son and successor.

Three days before the coronation of King Edward VI. he had the title of Earl of Southampton conferred on him, Feb. 16, 1546-7. But not long after, in consequence of his opposing the rest of the lords, and others of the council, he was divested of his office of chancellor, and dismissed from his place at the council-table.

After this, when Dudley, earl of Warwick, in the year 1549, was contriving the ruin of Edward Seymour, duke of Somerset, that earl taking advantage of Southampton's discontent for the loss of his office, and his otherwise being discountenanced, endeavoured to draw him into his party, but failing in the attempt, out of revenge for his disappointment, he procured his confinement; from which being delivered, he retired to his house in Holborn, called Lincolnplace (but afterward Southampton-house), where he died July 30, 1550, and was buried in a vault under the choir near the high-altar of St. Andrew's church in Holborn, where he had a fair monument erected to his memory.-By Jane his wife, who was daughter and heiress of William Cheney of Chessamboyes, in the county of Buckingham, esq.; he left several daughters, and one son, named Henry, who succeeded him in the title.

CLASS III.

PEERS, &c.

EDWARD COURTNEY, earl of Devonshire, was confined in the Tower during this reign, where he spent his time in the improvement of his mind, and in elegant amusements. See a description of his

portrait in the reign of Mary.

CLASS IV.

THE CLERGY.

ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS.

THOMAS CRANMERUS, archiepisc. Cant. Julii 20, Et. 57. Holbein p. Vertue sc. h. sh.

THOMAS CRANMER, archbishop of Canterbury, without inscription; engraved after Holbein. Calari f. Guil. Cartwright, h. sh.

THOMAS CRANMER; small folio. A. Blooteling sc. THOMAS CRANMER, &c. Clamp sc. in Harding's "Shakspeare."

There is a good head of him, after Holbein, in Thoroton's “Nottinghamshire;" fol.

Archbishop Cranmer proceeded by gentle steps to promote the reformation, under Edward VI. Though he was in his nature averse from violent and sanguinary measures in the establishment of religion; he was transported beyond his usual moderation in one instance, and went so far as to persuade the king, much against his inclination, to sign the warrant for the burning of Joan Bocher for heresy. This woman held, "that Christ was not truly incarnate of the Virgin; whose flesh, being the outward man, was sinfully begotten, and born in sin, and consequently he could take none of it: but that the Word, by