The Last Gambit

An Interview with Thomas Seymour on the Eve of Execution

Renaissance Weekly's final conversation with the Lord Admiral who gambled everything and lost

The Tower of London at midnight is a place where ambition comes to die.
In a cold stone chamber lit by a single guttering candle, we found Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, writing what he claimed would be his final letter. At forty, the former Lord High Admiral retains traces of the devastating charm that once made him the most sought-after man at court, though months of imprisonment have hollowed his cheeks and dulled the fire in his eyes.
Tomorrow, he faces the headsman's block.

RENAISSANCE WEEKLY: Lord Thomas, you have perhaps twelve hours remaining. How does a man spend his final night?

THOMAS: [looks up from his writing, a sardonic smile playing at his lips]

Composing letters that will never be sent, reviewing decisions that cannot be unmade.

[gestures around the sparse chamber]

Rather fitting accommodations for someone who aimed so high and fell so far, don't you think? Though I maintain better quarters than most here enjoy.

RW: You've had months to contemplate your situation. Do you accept responsibility for the choices that brought you here?

THOMAS: [laughs bitterly]

Responsibility? For what? Trying to protect my nephew from my brother's cold ambitions? For seeking to restore England to its proper religious foundations?

The only thing I'm guilty of is underestimating how thoroughly Edward has poisoned the Council against me. And perhaps trusting the wrong people.

RW: Many would say your guilt lies in conspiring with foreign powers against the Crown.

THOMAS: [waves dismissively]

Conspiring? I was securing England's future! My brother's policies - this religious zealotry, these ruinous Scottish wars - they're destroying the realm.

[leans forward intensely]

I had the vision to see what was needed, the courage to act. If that's treason, then honour itself has become treasonous.

RW: What about the Spanish gold? You used foreign funding to finance your schemes.

THOMAS: [his expression grows crafty]

Did I? Prove it. Show me documents that haven't been forged by my enemies.

Besides, what difference does Spanish gold make when English coin has become worthless copper? At least Spanish gold was real. My brother has debased our currency so thoroughly that a man needs a wheelbarrow of coins to buy a loaf of bread.

RW: Master John Dee played a significant role in exposing your activities. What's your assessment of him?

THOMAS: [his face darkens with genuine anger]

Dee. That meddling Welsh scholar with his mathematical pretensions and moral superiority.

[stands and begins pacing]

Do you know what infuriates me most about him? He had every opportunity to join the winning side, to profit from his talents, to secure real advancement. Instead, he chose to serve my brother's failing regime out of some misguided sense of duty.

RW: He seems to have outmanoeuvred you at every turn.

THOMAS: [stops pacing, his fists clenched]

Outmanoeuvred? He was lucky! Blind, stumbling luck aided by traitors in my own camp.

[voice rises]

That Spanish fool Cristóbal, Captain Mercer's last-minute change of heart - if my people had remained loyal, Dee would be rotting in a Suffolk cave instead of enjoying the Protector's favour.

RW: Yet he anticipated your moves, prepared counterstrategies...

THOMAS: [interrupts angrily]

Because someone was feeding him information!

You don't seriously think a Cambridge mathematician could out-think a man of my experience without inside knowledge?

Someone close to me betrayed every plan, every contingency. Probably multiple someones.

RW: What about your brother? Any final words for the Lord Protector?

THOMAS: [his anger suddenly gives way to something rawer]

Edward?

[sits heavily]

He was always Father's favourite, you know. The serious one, the responsible one. I was the charming younger son, good for diplomatic marriages and ceremonial duties.

[voice grows bitter]

But I had ideas, vision, ambition. I could have made England great again, restored her to her proper place among Christian nations. Instead, Edward gets to play at being kingmaker while the realm crumbles.

RW: Do you believe he wants you dead?

THOMAS: No. No, I think it genuinely pains him. But Edward has always been a man who chooses duty over family, policy over affection.

[almost whispers]

We were close once, as boys. Before the weight of the crown came between us. He'll execute me tomorrow because he believes it's necessary for England's stability. He's wrong, but... [shrugs] he's always believed his judgments were infallible.

RW: Any regrets as you face the end?

THOMAS: [considers this carefully]

I regret underestimating people - Dee's cleverness, my brother's ruthlessness, even that Spanish agent's honour. I regret trusting men like Don Diego who had no loyalty beyond gold.

And I regret that Catherine Parr died without ever knowing how much I truly cared for her, beneath all the political manoeuvring.

RW: What would you want history to remember about Thomas Seymour?

THOMAS: [straightens, some of his old arrogance returning]

That I saw what England could become - united in faith, strong in purpose, feared by her enemies. That I had the courage to act when others merely talked.

And that I was destroyed not by foreign enemies or noble opponents, but by small-minded men who preferred comfortable failure to glorious risk.

RW: Any final message for those who opposed you?

THOMAS: [a cold smile]

Tell them they've won a battle, not the war. The problems that drove me to act - religious division, economic chaos, foreign threats - they haven't disappeared with my death.

My brother thinks executing me will bring stability. Instead, he's merely delayed the reckoning. England's crisis runs deeper than one man's ambition.

As dawn broke over the Tower's walls, Lord Thomas returned to his writing, dismissing us with a wave. His final words echoed in the cold chamber: "History will vindicate me, even if justice will not."

Whether history will prove so generous remains to be seen, but by sunset today, Thomas Seymour's earthly concerns will be at an end.

Thomas Seymour spoke with Renaissance Weekly in his Tower cell on the night of March 19th, 1549. He was executed the following morning, maintaining his defiance to the very end.