SEYMOUR, Edward (1610-88), of Berry Pomeroy, Devon.

Edward Seymour was a great-great-grandson of his namesake, duke of Somerset and lord protector to Edward VI. The Seymours had come over from Normandy with William I, according to the antiquary John Prince with the name ‘Sancto Mauro’, but Edward’s great-grandfather had been the first to settle in Devon.23Devon and Cornw. N and Q, xxxi. 70-1. The family home was Berry Pomeroy castle, but Edward was apparently born not in the castle, undergoing building work at the time in 1610, but in the vicarage.24Devon and Cornw. N and Q, xxxi. 70. His mother was the daughter of the Cornish courtier under Elizabeth, Sir Henry Killigrew†. Seymour’s upbringing and education were typical of one from a background among the greater county gentry: schooling in the west country (in this case in two Dorset schools), Oxford and then a period of travel abroad, in Paris and the Low Countries. Around 1633 he married Anne, daughter of Sir John Portman of Orchard in Somerset, and later invested in wardships: in one, that of the future royalist John Bluett, he partnered his father-in-law, Portman.25Coventry Docquets, 477, 484.

When the king caused writs to be issued for elections for a Parliament in 1640, Seymour’s possible experience of public affairs was limited to a single commission from chancery, on piracy; and to a brief period on the Wiltshire bench of magistrates, which reflected the Seymours’ maintaining a home in that county, at Maiden Bradley. He had also served in the militia.26I. Palfrey, ‘The Royalist War Effort Revisited’, Trans. Devonshire Assoc. cxxiii. 42. Despite this lack of any record of achievement, Seymour’s contemporary biographer captured the deference extended to him when he decided to stand at the election.

Now about this time, an occasion offering for the election of a knight of the shire for Devon to serve then in Parliament, although two eminent gentlemen had made great interest to be chosen, yet when Colonel Seymour, who had made none, declared upon the spot his resolution to stand a candidate, young as he was, he carried the election.27Devon and Cornw. N and Q, xxxi. 72.

It seems difficult to decide precisely who was displaced by Seymour’s decision, but it must have been sentiment in favour of a family of great parliamentary experience – his father had sat in six Parliaments – and county eminence that secured his return. He made no impact on the Commons during the Short Parliament, but with Thomas Wise* was again returned to the second Parliament to meet that year.

Seymour made little impact on the Long Parliament, either. On 21 November, he offered £1,000 as security for the City loan to relieve the king’s army facing the Scots in the north.28Procs. LP i. 229. Not until 3 May 1641 is more heard of him, when he took the Protestation.29CJ ii. 133b. He was named to no committees at all in this Parliament. On 9 March 1642, the same day that the House expelled Robert Trelawny, Seymour was granted leave, and it seems highly likely that he was offended at the treatment meted out to the Plymouth man.30CJ ii. 473a. He never returned, and had probably never been in sympathy even with the reform programme of 1641, sharing nothing of the excitement at the prospect of change felt by his correspondent John Bampfylde, father of Sir John Bampfylde*.31Devon RO, 3799-3, John Bampfylde to Edward Seymour, 9 Jan. 1641. In August 1642 his name was associated with slanderous songs against the Five Members, sung in Exeter, and on 2 September the House suspended him as an absentee, pending investigation.32Devon and Cornw. N and Q, xxix. 82; Palfrey, ‘Royalist War Effort’, 42; CJ ii. 750a.

After civil war broke out, Seymour took control of a county regiment which was routed by opposing forces loyal to Parliament. Seymour was commissioned on 9 November to raise a regiment of 1200 volunteers, but he and his father were captured at Modbury, and shipped from Devon to London, via the Thames and Gravesend. He was ordered by the Commons (27 Dec.) to be incarcerated at Winchester House, from where he made a daring escape by filing through his window bars, leaping on to the back of an unsuspecting sentry and felling him with his own musket.33HMC 15th Rep. vii. 64; CJ ii. 903a; Devon and Cornw. N and Q, xxxi. 73. Parliament’s lame but only possible response was to disable him from sitting in the Commons during that Parliament, on 16 January 1643.34CJ ii. 929a. On 16 April, William Seymour, 1st marquess of Hertford, commissioned him to raise a regiment of 1,500 men, but on 19 June Sir Bevill Grenvile*, just two weeks before he was killed, warned Seymour not to stray far from his regiment when in Devon, lest he be captured again by parliamentarians. Grenvile’s anxiety that Seymour should ‘fall into their power’ must have been prompted at least in part by the knowledge that Seymour’s father was still detained in London, though the following month he was involved in an exchange of prisoners.35Mems. of Prince Rupert, ii. 232; CJ iii. 158b.

Before Seymour could deploy a regiment in the field, he was commissioned governor of Dartmouth, where he remained until 1645. The parliamentarian general, Henry Grey*, 1st earl of Stamford, wrote to him in July in courteous terms to express his devotion to Seymour, and to lament how ‘our miserable condition causeth this separation’, advocating a general prisoner exchange.36Devon RO, 1392 M/L1643/12. Another prisoner in London, Robert Trelawny, wrote to Seymour in September to ask him to help secure his release by means of an exchange.37HMC 15th Rep. vii. 66. Seymour was unable to help, preoccupied as he was with the directives which arrived at Dartmouth from the king’s privy council and from Prince Maurice, requiring him to attend to such matters as the collection of customs, the regulation of shipping and the storage of gunpowder.38Mems. of Prince Rupert, ii. 306, 330, 340, 361. Grenvile’s warning notwithstanding, Seymour left Dartmouth for the Oxford Parliament, and on 27 January 1644 signed the eirenic letter to Robert Devereux, 3rd of Essex, encouraging peace moves.39A List of the Lords and Others (E.32.3). He did not remain in Oxford for long, however, having returned to his post in Devon by late February, leaving the Houses there still in session.40Devon RO, 1392 M/L1644/34; Palfrey, ‘Royalist War Effort’, 51. The implication of his contemporary biographer’s comment on his departure is that it was occasioned by a quarrel.41Devon and Cornw. N and Q, xxxi. 72.

As soon as Seymour had returned to Dartmouth he was involved in despatching 300 men to join the siege of Plymouth.42Devon RO, 1392 M/L1644/26. By the summer of 1644, the hinterland behind Dartmouth was itself facing disturbances and risings, but despite attempts by Seymour’s friends attending the king, such as Sir Edmund Fortescue, it was made clear that no troops were to be diverted to the South Hams from the king’s campaign in Cornwall.43Mems. of Prince Rupert, iii. 14. Seymour seems to have attracted respectful approaches from his political and military enemies. In July 1644, Parliament’s high admiral, Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, wrote in similar terms to those that had been adopted by Stamford the previous year, recalling the ‘ancient acquaintance’ he had enjoyed with the Seymours, ‘the recalling whereof to memory adds to the trouble of our present distance’.44HMC 15th Rep. vii. 76. Respect and deference were not forthcoming from all quarters, however. In May 1644 Francis Lord Cottington asked Seymour to surrender his interest in Honiton rectory, so that the chaplain of Lord Hopton (Sir Ralph Hopton*) could be settled there.45Devon RO, 1392 M/L1644/29. On 24 September 1644, Seymour was succeeded as governor of Dartmouth by Sir Hugh Pollarde*, coinciding with the handing over to him by his father, Sir Edward, of the command of his trained band regiment.46HMC 15th Rep. vii. 80. After this, Seymour left England for France, and it has been speculated that his departure may have been intended as a self-imposed exile after his apparent demotion. If this was so, however, he must have thought better of the plan, because he had returned by May 1645, to set about raising a life-guard troop for Charles, prince of Wales.47HMC 15th Rep. vii. 84; Palfrey, ‘Royalist War Effort’, 53.

In January 1646, Seymour was in charge of one of the forts near Dartmouth, perhaps Kingswear or Dartmouth castle, under Pollarde’s command, when Sir Thomas Fairfax* attacked. Part of Seymour’s regiment was in Exeter, and he himself was in that city at some point during the siege, but he was in the Dartmouth area when the garrison there surrendered. By the terms of the articles of surrender, Sir Henry Cary of Cockington, joint commander with Seymour of the forts, was allowed to march away, but Seymour was forced to surrender with quarter only, and was imprisoned.48HMC 15th Rep. vii. 88; Devon and Cornw. N and Q, xxxi. 74. In March he submitted to the committee for compounding with delinquents, and claimed that in the previous December his wife had gone to London to negotiate his surrender to Sir William Waller* and other MPs. The abruptness with which Seymour had left his governorship at Dartmouth and his subsequent under-employment by the royalist high command, with the episode of his journey to France, makes his narrative plausible. On 6 June an order for his release was given, after he had been fined £3,133, with the possibility of a reduction to £2,700. In January 1648 his property was sequestered for non-payment of the fine, but he had paid enough of the fine by March 1649 to secure an order from Fairfax securing him from further interference from the state, subject to his keeping out of trouble.49CCC 1126; CJ iv. 557a; vi. 162a; HMC 15th Rep. vii. 89.

During the 1650s, Seymour played a part in royalist plots and was noted as one of the king’s leading supporters in the south west. He was imprisoned in Exeter in May 1651 on the authority of John Disbrowe*, major-general in the south west, but was released by July and allowed to go home.50HMC 15th Rep. vii. 90. The estates of both Seymour and his father came under scrutiny again in December from the local commissioners for sequestrations, but he seems to have avoided a further mulct of his property. An eagle eye was kept upon him during 1654-5. He gave his parole in February 1655 not to move from Exeter and to report to Unton Croke II* if required; and these conditions were maintained at least until the summer of 1658.51HMC 15th Rep. vii. 90-2. The government’s interest in him was understandable, since he and his brother, Henry Seymour, were regarded by the exiled royalists as among their brightest hopes in the west of England. It was probably Henry who was said to have taken money out of the country for the use of the king, but whether this was really so seems doubtful, given the level of surveillance he attracted.52TSP ii. 511. Seymour was involved in, or at least associated himself with, the rising in the summer of 1659 led by Sir George Boothe*, even though the Devon militia commissioners required horses of him to help maintain the high level of security in defence of the commonwealth.53Devon and Cornw. N and Q, xxxi. 74; HMC 15th Rep. vii. 92.

Seymour succeeded to the baronetcy in October 1659 and the following year was an early supporter of moves to restore the king.54The Declaration of the Gentrie of the King’s Party (1660). He was barred from standing for the Convention, but from 1661 sat in four Parliaments on his own interest for Totnes. He proved once again to be a rather inactive Member, chiefly interested in south-western matters and taking an independent point of view. His loyalty to Charles II remained undimmed, and he was made sheriff in 1679 because of his reliability in the turbulent times of the Exclusion crisis.55Devon and Cornw. N and Q, xxxi. 75. James II’s attempt to turn him out of his recordership at Totnes in favour of a Catholic was resisted by the townsmen, and he lived just long enough to know of the landing of William III at Brixham, dying on 4 December 1688. His chaplain, the historian John Prince, recounted a story of the minister of Paignton telling his congregation that the path to heaven was not by way of Lupton, home of the descendants of John Upton I* and Arthur Upton*, ‘for there was puritanism’, nor by way of the Catholic Torre Abbey, but by Berry Pomeroy, ‘the good old Sir Edward Seymour’s’.56Devon and Cornw. N and Q, xxxi. 76.