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40 Facts About the Tudor Era’s Awful Courtier, Thomas Seymour

Khalid Elhassan March 22, 2019 24 min

7. Attempts to Bend the King to His Will

Edward VI became so accustomed to his uncle Thomas’ gifts of coins, that he began to freely ask him for his allowance. In addition to currying favor with the child king by showering him with pocket money, Seymour bribed one of the king’s men, John Fowler, to say nice things about him. He also started reading law books, with an eye towards making himself co-Protector, alongside his older brother. To that end, Thomas tried pushing a bill through Parliament that would have made him the king’s personal Governor, and sought to get his nephew’s royal signature on it.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.