SEYMOUR, Sir John (c.1587-1663), of Bitton and Frampton Cotterell, Glos.

The Seymour family of Frampton Cotterell was established there in Tudor times. The origins of this cadet branch of the Seymours of Wolf Hall, Wiltshire, lie in illegitimacy. It was believed by John Smyth of Nibley, an inaccurate genealogist, that John Seymour, the grandfather of our MP, was a base son of Edward Seymour, 1st earl of Hertford and duke of Somerset.15Berkeley Castle Muniments, select book 79, f. 16; Lives of the Berkeleys, ii. 238. An alternative candidate as father of the child from whom the family at Frampton sprang was Protector Somerset’s father, Sir John Seymour† of Wolf Hall, MP for Heytesbury in 1529.16HP Commons 1509-1558, ‘John Seymour’. The matter seems beyond final proof, but it is clear that the ‘right worshipful’ John Seymour was granted in 1550 a lease of the prebend of Bitton, which became the main estate of the family for over a century. He left many bequests of gold and silver plate and jewellery. Among these was a gilt poleaxe for his landlord, Sir John Thynne† of Longleat, recognition of the close links between Thynne’s father, Sir John Thynne†, and Protector Somerset.17PROB11/94/182. His daughter had to request Robert Cecil†, 1st earl of Salisbury to recover her marriage portion, in a petition that described John Seymour as a late servant to Queen Elizabeth.18HMC Hatfield, xxiv. 133-4.

Others of the Seymour family petitioned for a place in the Cecil household in 1602, suggesting that closeness to court and the aristocracy continued to play an important part in the family’s identity. This Member’s father, Thomas Seymour, was knighted in July 1603. He spent much time at Bath, which is not far from Bitton. Called upon in 1605 by Cecil to attend his kinsman, Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford, in the Low Countries, Thomas Seymour declined, pleading ill-health and the plague in his household.19HMC Hatfield, xvii. 73. The price he paid for refusal was service as sheriff of Gloucestershire later that year.20List of Sheriffs (L. and I. ix), 51. His son, this John Seymour, was knighted at around the age of 18, after his period at the Middle Temple, and thereafter lived as a country gentleman at Bitton. After his marriage to Ann Poulett in 1611, the lease on the Bitton prebend was renewed to include the lives of Sir John and his wife.21Salisbury Cathedral, chapter muniments, press II, register of leases 3, p. 70. The marriage lasted long enough before Anne Seymour’s death to produce children, but Seymour’s second wife brought the wealth of a Bristol merchant’s daughter to Bitton. The Seymours maintained a town house in Bristol, and Lady Seymour provided candles for morning prayer at the Bristol church of St Werburgh, suggesting a strong attachment to the established church and its liturgy, although the minister at the time, John Tilladam, was far from being a Laudian. Diamonds and emeralds, as well as silver and gold, were among Elizabeth Seymour’s bequests when she died around 1637, and the candles for prayer were continued by her executors.22Bristol RO, P/St.W/Chw/3(b), pp. 67, 79, 87; PROB11/175/90. Intriguingly, none of the valuables disposed of in her will were left to her husband, and there are no expressions of affection or even regard for him in the document, beyond a plain bequest of household stuff. Given his inclinations towards Parliament in the civil war, it is quite possible that religious differences existed between him and his conformist wife.

Seymour found a place in the Gloucestershire commission of peace only three years before the civil war, and came to prominence in 1642 as a deputy lieutenant and proponent of Parliament’s propositions to raise money for the war effort.23Glos. RO, D7115, letter 3 Oct. 1642. In November, he and Edward Stephens* tried to galvanize John Smyth of Nibley into summoning the militia dragoons from Berkeley hundred to a meeting at Chipping Sodbury, stressing the dangers they felt the region to be in from a royalist attack.24Glos. RO, D7115, letter 25 Nov. 1642. The same month he worked unsuccessfully to persuade Bristol corporation to join a parliamentarian association of neighbouring counties.25Bristol RO, 04264/4, pp. 14, 18. Seymour was active in building the defences of Cirencester in the winter of 1642-3, and according to the contemporary historian John Corbet, was among the five gentlemen to take a leading role in preparations against a siege.26J. Corbet, ‘Historicall Relation of Military Government of Glos.’, in J. Washbourn, Bibliotheca Gloucestrensis (Gloucester, 1825),16. A Captain Seymour was in charge of a battery in the garden of John George*: perhaps this was Thomas, John Seymour’s only son. Both Seymours seem to have evaded capture after the sack of the town by Prince Rupert in February 1643.27‘A particular relation of the action before Cirencester’, in Washbourn, Bibliotheca Gloucestrensis, 164. The elder Seymour withdrew to Bristol, a garrison of Parliament, and was there when the city surrendered to Prince Rupert on 26 July. He and Edward Stephens* were personally mentioned in the articles of surrender, which guaranteed their safe passage out.28Glos. RO, 04264/4 p. 33; Mems. of Prince Rupert, ii. 260. Later that summer, he was accused of felony of sheep; the informer against him disappeared before a formal charge could be laid against him, and the episode illustrates how vulnerable parliamentarian gentry now were in the royalist city.29Bristol RO, JQS/M/3, f. 213v.

After this, we lose track of Seymour until his reappearance at the head of an army of ‘clubmen’ in September 1645. After the battle of Naseby, the New Model army was engaged in a campaign to reduce the royalist garrisons of the west. On 3 September, a royalist newspaper reported that over a thousand clubmen under Seymour were helping the parliamentarian governor of Gloucester besiege Berkeley castle.30Mercurius Aulicus no. 14 (31 Aug.-7 Sept. 1645), 1733 (E.320.14). The siege was lifted and resources diverted to Bristol, which surrendered to Sir Thomas Fairfax* on the 11th. The following day, it was noted in the press that Seymour’s clubmen had joined Fairfax; by the 19th, these were estimated to amount to 2-3,000 troops.31The Moderate Intelligencer no. 29 (11-18 Sept. 1645), sig. Ff (E.302.2); The True Informer no. 22 (13-20 Sept. 1645), 175 (E.320.9). The clubmen were escorted to Fairfax’s quarters by a group of gentry, among them Seymour and one of the Stephens clan who was an MP: probably Nathaniel Stephens, knight of the shire, but possibly either John or Edward.32The Parliament’s Post no. 19 (16-23 Sept. 1645), 4 (E.320.22). The term ‘clubmen’ must in the context mean the ill-armed irregulars of a private army, some of whom were possibly recruited in the proto-industrial and populous parish of Bitton: there is no evidence of a neutral force in Gloucestershire or of any wavering in Seymour’s commitment to a parliamentarian victory.33LPL, Comm. XIIa/9/189-90.

During 1646, Seymour was to an extent active in the county committee of Gloucestershire: the only year that any warrants signed by him have been noted.34A.R. Warmington, Civil War, Interregnum and Restoration in Glos. (Woodbridge, 1997), 92. In September, he and Sylvanus Wood* were among signatories to an order to slight Berkeley castle, which had been stormed by the parliamentarians a year earlier. Seymour, Wood and their county committee colleagues were acting on a directive from the Committee of Both Kingdoms*, but the steward of the Berkeley estates, John Smyth of Nibley, argued with Seymour on the justice of demolishing a seat which was in fact not that of a royalist delinquent.35HMC 5th Rep. 356-7. The collaboration between Seymour and whichever of the Stephens family it was at the 1645 siege of Bristol was sufficient to make Seymour a credible candidate in the recruiter election for Gloucestershire held at Stroud in November 1646. First among the electors signing his indenture was Sylvanus Wood, and the names of other county committeemen showed who was promoting his candidature. Thomas Stephens, son of Edward Stephens*, was another of the county’s new leadership who lent support.36C219/43/180. His election seems to have proceeded without incident in the unusual venue, and passed without comment in the London newspapers, only his first appearance at Westminster exciting interest.37Perfect Occurrences no. 2 (8-15 Jan. 1647), 12 (E.371.5); Perfect Diurnall no. 181 (11-18 Jan. 1647), 1448 (E.513.34).

Seymour’s parliamentary career was limited in scope and duration. First noted in the House on 17 January 1647, he was nominated to serve on a committee charged with settling a clergyman in a parish on the Gloucestershire-Warwickshire borders. He took the Covenant on 1 February, and three days later was added to all committees for his county.38CJ v. 52a, 69a, 75a. Six weeks elapsed before he was noticed again in the Commons Journal, this time for his being named to a committee on keeping royalist-inclined clergy out of livings from which they had been ejected. Two days later (24 Mar.) he was one of the committee established to settle the dispute between the Coventry garrison and the Warwickshire committee. This had begun as a local complaint by the citizens of Coventry against the size of their local garrison, had widened into hostility between the Warwickshire committee and elements of the county gentry, and was now being aired in the Commons by MPs like Thomas Boughton and William Purefoy I, on opposite sides.39CJ v. 122b. The committee to which Seymour was named, dealing with depositions in the case, was chaired by John Lisle, an indication that radicals were in the ascendant. The following day, Seymour was granted leave to go to the country, suggesting that he was not a keen participant.40CJ v. 123b.

Seymour seems to have stayed away for over two months. Not until 5 June was he noticed again, as ‘Mr’ Seymour – he was the only one of his name in the House at that time. He was one from the Commons side in a joint committee with the Lords to hear what the Scots commissioners had to say.41CJ v. 200a. On 21 July, he was named with men with an interest in army administration such as Thomas Pury I and William Purefoy I to investigate abuses in payments to the army. This was to be the last attendance in the House by Pury until September, who seems to have absented himself from Westminster in the aftermath of the ‘forcing’ of the Houses by a Presbyterian-inspired mob on 26 July. Seymour, by contrast, stayed, and on 3 August was named with Edward Stephens* and a number of leading Presbyterians to consult with the City over preparations for a possible return to the capital by the king.42CJ v. 253a, 266b. After the army moved into London in August, Seymour was named to the committee to draw up an order to nullify proceedings during the forcing of the Houses, but following an earlier pattern, two days after his nomination he went again to Gloucestershire.43CJ v. 272a, 274a. Absent at a call of the House in October, he made his reappearance only in late November.44CJ v. 330a, 364b. He was named to a committee on legislation to defray the salaries of the Committee for taking the Accounts of the Kingdom*, along with Gloucestershire men Thomas Pury I, Nathaniel Stephens, John Stephens and Michael Oldisworth, and the following month was required with Thomas Pury II to bring in assessments from the county. This pairing of the conservative Seymour with the radical Pury recalled a similar match in divisive circumstances between Henry Brett* and the elder Pury back in 1642. It was as if Seymour were being monitored.45CJ v. 364b, 400b.

In June, Seymour was allowed further leave from the House, but was back by 9 October, to be named to a committee charged with raising a force to protect Parliament from composition and sequestration money. He and Luke Hodges* were ordered to Gloucestershire on 25 November to bring in assessments for the army.46CJ v. 593a; vi. 47a, 87b. It is doubtful whether he went, as he was listed among those secluded from the House in Pride’s Purge on 6 December.47A Vindication of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1649), 29 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5). Although Seymour had not been an active proponent of the Treaty of Newport with the king, he was an associate of Edward Stephens, who was. His participation in Commons business during the flight of Members to the army the previous year was a further offence against the Independents and the New Model. The purge marked not only Seymour’s seclusion from Parliament, but also the start of a period of his complete withdrawal from public life, which persisted until 1660. When the surveyors for the sale of church lands visited Bitton in October 1649, they reported that Seymour’s lease for £26 a year was for a rectory worth £183 a year more than he was paying.48LPL, Comm. XIIa.15/130. Seymour maintained a friendship with his neighbour, John Harington I*, and attended sermons with him in 1653: he was evidently an orthodox, conservative puritan.49Harington’s Diary, 28, 81, 83.

Early in February 1660, there were riots in Bristol, as apprentices allegedly encouraged by their masters ran through the streets demanding a free Parliament. Those who had served the commonwealth or Parliament were targeted, and suffered damage to their houses and goods, while two troops of horse were unable to gain access to the city to quell the disorder. The magistrates managed to calm things down, and the troops of Major Izod eventually entered. Seymour was a victim of army anger at the recall of the secluded Members to the Commons on 21 February, widely perceived correctly as a prelude to the restoration of the monarchy. He was arrested with others for a while, but a letter from General George Monck* assuring the soldiers that a new Parliament would look after their interests, was enough to defuse the tension. The Commons itself ordered Seymour’s release on the 27th. 50Mercurius Politicus no. 606 (2-9 Feb. 1660), 1084 (E.775.1); no. 607 (9-16 Feb. 1660), 110 (E.775.4); no. 609 (23 Feb.-1 Mar. 1660), 1137, 1139 (E.775.9). His arrest makes it unlikely that he ever made the journey to London for the few weeks remaining of the Long Parliament. On 12 March, however, he was named to the militia committee for Gloucestershire and probably returned to the bench of magistrates shortly afterwards. Thereafter, Seymour played no further part in national politics, confining himself to local affairs as a justice of the peace. He made his will on 14 June 1663, naming among his close friends and legatees Richard Berkeley, who had suffered decimation of his estate under Major-general John Disbrowe*, and the widow of Sir Richard Crane, killed fighting under Prince Rupert near Bristol in August 1645.51PROB11/313/228; Glos. RO, Smyth of Nibley papers Vol. III, f. 71; Warmington, Civil War, Interregnum and Restoration, 122; Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 214; Anglia Rediviva, 100, 124. Seymour died on 17 November 1663, and was buried at Bitton. It seems likely that Norborne Berkeley, who sat for Gloucestershire from 1741 to April 1763 was a descendant of his through Seymour’s daughter’s line.52Vis. Glos. 1682-3 ed. Fenwick and Metcalfe, 183.