← Back to the front page

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

Khalid Elhassan March 22, 2019 24 min

32. Seymour Was Also a Decent Military Commander

Coat of arms of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. Wikimedia

While Seymour was serving as ambassador to the Hapsburgs, war broke out against France, so Henry VIII made him a marshal and second in command of the English forces in the Netherlands. Seymour demonstrated that he was a competent commander by capturing and destroying some important French castles. He also took overall command temporarily when the commander in chief fell ill, and gave a credible performance in that leading role. He was rewarded with prestigious military appointments, such as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and Master General of the Ordnance.

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.