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

Khalid Elhassan March 22, 2019 24 min

33. He Lost His Lover to Henry VIII

Marriage of Henry VIII and Katherine Parr, as depicted in the TV series ‘The Tudors’. Pintrest

Thomas Seymour had demonstrated his skill as a diplomat, but the main reason he ended up as ambassador to the Hapsburgs was that Henry VIII took a shine to Seymour’s lover, and wanted him out of the way. In 1542, Seymour had started a romantic relationship with a wealthy widow, Katherine Parr, and the duo began making plans to marry. Then the king became infatuated with Parr, decided that he would like her for himself, and got Seymour out of the way by bundling him off to the Hapsburg court. Parr reportedly loved Seymour, but when Henry VIII proposed, she decided that should could not say no to the king.

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.