Described by a contemporary as ‘of a black complexion’ and ‘middle stature’,
After William’s reconciliation with the king, both brothers were elected to the third Jacobean Parliament, with Seymour being chosen as one of the Wiltshire knights, probably with the backing of his grandfather, the 1st earl of Hertford. During the Parliament, Seymour was interested principally in the attack on monopolies, in particular the role played by lord treasurer Mandeville (Sir Henry Montagu*) in the notorious inns’ patent. On 21 Feb., after the committee for grievances reported on the activities of the patentee Sir Giles Mompesson*, Seymour raised the question of the part played by the ‘referees’, that is to say those who had advised the king to issue the patent to Mompesson.
After the Easter recess (21 Apr.), Mallory called for the resumption of the investigation into the inns’ patent and was supported by Seymour, who wished that he ‘had less cause’ to speak, but said that ‘when the public is in question I will speak freely’. After detailing the abuses of patentees recommended by Mandeville, he again rounded on the lord treasurer, advising that ‘since great judges have joined with mean men in this abuse, it will be fit they should be made partakers with them in punishment’, a speech which one diarist thought touched Mandeville ‘to the quick’. After some debate the House authorized further action against the referees, and Seymour was named to the investigating committee.
It is not clear why Seymour waged this concerted campaign against Mandeville. There seems no reason to doubt his assertion that he spoke without ‘particular violence or spleen’, but it is noticeable that his attack on the referees was encouraged by Cranfield, who replaced Mandeville as treasurer later that year and defended Seymour as having spoken as ‘freely and stoutly since the beginning of the Parliament as any man’. It may have been that Seymour was operating in concert with Cranfield to try to topple the lord treasurer.
As well as monopolies, Seymour spoke on a variety of issues before the summer adjournment. He was especially concerned with the rights and privileges of Parliament, in particular the Commons’ judicial jurisdiction. On 23 Mar. he called for the exemplary punishment of the constables in the Yorkshire election, while on 20 Apr., during debate on Sir John Bennet’s case, he maintained that the Commons had the power to examine and judge any Member and refer its decision to the Lords.
Seymour supported the attempt of the House to extend its competence to Ireland following the complaint of Sir John Jephson about the misgovernment of that kingdom. On 27 Apr., the day after the House appointed an investigative committee, he moved for some knowledgeable individuals to attend the committee before they left town. After the king expressed his disapproval of the Commons’ proceedings, Seymour suggested that the House should petition the king for leave to examine the ‘misdemeanours in the state of Ireland’, but this advice was ignored.
During the winter sitting Seymour backed the general call for the defence of the Palatinate (27 Nov.), but he also requested that the session be brought to an end before Christmas and a committee be appointed to consider the bills which should accompany any subsidies, as ‘the country when we come home’ would otherwise ‘be discontented.’
Following the king’s declaration of 15 Dec. that the Commons’ privileges flowed from the monarch and that certain areas of debate were denied to them, Seymour affirmed Parliament’s right to discuss religion and the safety of the king and kingdom. Arguing that it was not worth continuing with bills, he advised that the session be ended and the matter resumed at a subsequent sitting, ‘for he is not satisfied that we stand right in His Majesty’s grace’.
Seymour’s fears regarding possible retribution after this Parliament proved well founded, as in February 1622 he was questioned by the Privy Council for refusing to contribute to the Palatinate Benevolence. Writing to Cranfield, the marquess of Buckingham advised that the campaign against refusers should be aimed principally against those ‘that were of the Parliament, and especially those which were most refractory, amongst whom Sir Francis Seymour was one of the chief’. He counselled that Seymour be again called upon to pay, and that if he refused a second time he should be sent to the Palatinate ‘that others may be scared by the example’.
Seymour’s grandfather, the earl of Hertford, had died in April 1621, whereupon his title descended to Sir Francis’s brother, William. Several Wiltshire manors passed directly to Seymour, while his brother conveyed to him the site of Marlborough Castle, where Seymour had built a house.
On 27 Feb., shortly after the session opened, Sir John Eliot complained that Members had been questioned after the previous dissolution and called for a petition to the king to secure their privileges and ensure secrecy of debate. Seymour, who had himself complained that Commons’ debates in 1621 were not kept secret and had been brought before the Council after the Parliament, seized the opportunity to press home this issue. The House should not be satisfied with the general promise to defend parliamentary privilege contained in James’s opening speech, he said, for this was a standard component of all such addresses and yet Members had still been imprisoned. He called for the Commons’ Protestation of December 1621 which James had torn from the Journal to be re-entered, demanded that those imprisoned after the previous assembly indicate whether they had been incarcerated for their actions in Parliament, and insisted on the punishment of Members who informed the king of their proceedings.
Seymour spoke in the debate over breaking off the treaty negotiations initiated by Rudyard on 1 March. In a ‘grave and vehement manner’, he inveighed against the deleterious effects in England of a Spanish Match, and claimed that the recent de facto toleration of papists had led to an increase in Jesuit activity, the conversion of many hundreds of Protestants and the attempted conversion of the prince and Buckingham. He called for the treaty negotiations to be ended, the Spanish ambassador to be sent home and the laws against recusants executed. Unlike the members of the ‘patriot’ coalition, who were wary of mentioning the practicalities of war, Seymour moved that a ‘diversive war might be enterprised’, thereby pressuring the king of Spain into ‘an exchange for as good or better than the Palatinate’.
In debate on 5 Mar. over the propriety of a request made by the earls of Southampton and Pembroke for the Commons to declare its intention of supporting a war, Seymour averred that the matter should be suppressed so it would not be thought that the king ‘did accept of our advice upon promise and contract’.
His subsequent contributions over the subsidy further indicate his preoccupation with the domestic consequences of breaking with Spain. On 9 Apr. he asked whether a letter in which James informed the king of Spain of his determination to dissolve the treaty negotiations constituted the declaration which the Commons had demanded on 20 Mar. as a precondition of the subsidy grant; the House resolved it was not, and on 20 Apr. he advised the inclusion of such a declaration in the bill’s preamble.
Seymour was also involved in the debate over the recusancy petition. Separate petitions from the Lords and Commons for the execution of the laws against Catholics had been referred to a committee, which had divided over the manner of their enforcement. The Lords’ petition advocated leaving the question of enforcement to the king, but Seymour rejected this and advised that a Proclamation be issued, and rebutted accusations that this might give the appearance of a war of religion to James’s declaration against Spain.
Seymour often deployed images of ‘country’ interests in his speeches. These were probably not merely rhetorical devices, but an expression of genuine concern for the affairs of his constituents. When he opposed the pretermitted customs, for instance, he doubtless had the interests of Wiltshire’s clothiers in mind. Describing these duties as ‘mere impositions’, he asserted that the king lost more through the reduction in cloths sold than he would if he abandoned the duty (13 April).
Seymour was personally interested in a bill which allowed him and his elder brother to sell the entailed manors of Isle Abbots and Puryton-with-Downend for the payment of debts incurred by their grandfather. The measure, which was enacted, also permitted Sir Francis to raise portions for his children. The entailed manors were replaced with Seymour’s ‘newly built’ mansion house in Marlborough and by lands purchased from his grandfather in Savernake Park, which became part of the settled estate.
During the Parliament Seymour supported his ally of 1621, Sir Lionel Cranfield, now earl of Middlesex, during the latter’s impeachment. Although their association in 1621 probably was important in securing Seymour’s assistance, it may also be significant that Middlesex opposed war with Spain.
Following the dissolution, Seymour returned to Wiltshire and helped organize the levy for Mansfeld’s expedition, despite having opposed action in the Palatinate during the Parliament.
Seymour’s first contribution to debate indicated that his priorities were sharply opposed to the government’s agenda, which was to obtain a vote of supply and postpone domestic matters to a later session. His major concern was not supply but the state of religion. On 22 June, after requesting that the king be petitioned to restrain access to ambassador’s houses and implement the laws against papists, Seymour proposed that religion and supply be considered together.
By the morning of 30 June Seymour was satisfied that matters of religion were now far enough advanced for the House to turn its attention to supply. Consequently, as soon as the House read and approved the petition to the king against recusants, Seymour initiated a supply debate. Under normal circumstances Members would have frowned upon any discussion of supply so soon after the beginning of a Parliament, but in 1625 many of Seymour’s colleagues were anxious to return to their homes as soon as possible because the plague was now raging in the capital. Although Seymour now initiated a supply debate, he was not inclined to be generous, as he proposed that the Commons should vote the king just one subsidy and one fifteenth ‘for the present’. This meagre sum underlined Seymour’s opposition to the type of war envisaged by the king and Buckingham, and the fact that Seymour had not co-ordinated his motion with the courtiers, whom he took entirely unawares, suggests that he was hoping to deprive the government of a larger grant. These tactics proved almost wholly successful, for, to the horror of Charles and Buckingham, the House resolved to vote the king just two subsidies.
During the debate over accounting for the 1624 subsidies on 1 July, Seymour demonstrated his concern for his constituents by insisting that local military expenses be allowed out of the subsidies.
Buckingham attempted to woo Seymour before the Parliament reassembled at Oxford, requesting his support in an attack on lord keeper Williams, but Seymour rebuffed these advances.
After the case for supply was again put by the Crown’s agents, Seymour, on 10 Aug., implicated Buckingham as the reason for the king’s wants. He asserted that ‘the causes of this necessity are more fit to be opened than the necessity itself’, and claimed that the money from Parliament and Benevolences had been given to ‘private’ men. Turning his attention to the sale of honours, which many attributed to Buckingham’s influence, Seymour lamented that the king’s honour had become a ‘merchantable commodity’. He continued, ‘if His Majesty hear not of this by us, he shall never hear of it in his Bedchamber’. He also declared himself dissatisfied with the plans for war, as they did not proceed from good counsel, and consequently he rejected the idea that there should be any further grant of money.
In his attacks on Buckingham, Seymour was consistently supported by Sir Edward Coke and Sir Robert Phelips, both of whom were to share his fate in the aftermath of the dissolution. Although there were rumours that the agitators against Buckingham would be imprisoned, the king resolved to obtain a more compliant Commons in a subsequent Parliament by pricking the duke’s main opponents as sheriffs, thus disabling them from election.
Seymour’s absence from the 1626 Parliament did not shield him from further reprisals, however, and in July he was removed from the Wiltshire commission of the peace, of which he was custos, in a purge orchestrated by Buckingham.
Seymour arrived in Parliament determined to address the unlawful policies undertaken to support a war he had never endorsed, and he denounced recent abuses in a powerful speech of 22 Mar. which circulated widely as a separate. He stressed the Commons’ role in delivering impartial advice and counsel to the king without fear or flattery. Recalling the dissolutions of 1625 and 1626 and the disastrous expeditions on the Continent, he condemned the employment of commanders who possessed neither the skill nor experience for the task. He also appeared to target Buckingham once again when he described how the king could be abused by the misinformation of his counsellors, and how unsuccessful monarchs in general had relied upon unworthy ministers. He denounced billeting, the Forced Loan and the widespread imprisonment of refusers without cause shown, matters which provided the chief impetus behind the drive to safeguard the subjects’ liberties. He also condemned divines like Robert Sibthorpe and Roger Manwaring, who ‘prattled the absolute authority of the king in levying money, to poison ... His Majesty’s ears and the clean and wholesome fountains of our ancient rights and laws’. If the king were persuaded to ‘take from his subjects what he will,’ as they counselled, Seymour wondered ‘what we have to give?’ Employing forceful rhetoric, he claimed that all men should lay down their lives for the service of the king and commonwealth, but affirmed that if the subject had his goods unlawfully taken from him, it was incumbent upon Parliament to redress the balance. He moved for a committee to draw a petition of grievances for presentation to the king, and asserted that consideration of supply should only follow the redress of these grievances.
Seymour followed Sir John Eliot on 25 Mar. in condemning recent government policy as an affront to liberty and answered Sir Richard Shilton’s speech that the Commons should not trench on the king’s prerogative. As on 22 Mar., he maintained that the liberty of the subject should be secured through a petition to the king rather than a bill.
so great a gift as that I hope it will be fit for other things than masques and may take (I trust) that mask from the king’s eyes that keeps him from the sight of those that would faithfully serve him did not the foul ends of baser instruments divert him from his own royal dispositions.
Ibid. 309; HMC 4th Rep. 290.
On 23 Apr. he objected to the Lords’ attempt to consider on their own the question of arbitrary imprisonment, claiming that many of their Members had, as privy councillors and lord lieutenants, signed the orders to commit refusers. He may have adopted this position in the knowledge that several peers supported the king’s right to imprison for reasons of state. Seymour was not a lawyer, and his contributions to the debates over the subjects’ rights were not couched in legal argument or precedents, but on 28 Apr. he was named to the committee for framing the bill on the liberty of the subject. On 1 May he acknowledged the bill to be a ‘great business’ and stressed the need to strike a balance between the royal prerogative and the liberties of the subject. He believed the king would not allow the provision in the bill which denied him and the Council the right to imprison without cause shown. He then rounded on those (unlike him) who held office as justices of the peace or as deputy lieutenants. They were often more blameworthy than their superiors, he argued, as they executed all orders for fear of being dismissed, and he demanded that penalties be imposed upon those who ‘exceed the law in points of imprisonment’.
After the king requested that the Commons rely upon his promise to abide by Magna Carta and the explanatory statutes rather than pass a law for their liberties, Seymour recalled that it had been Charles who allowed the House to proceed by bill in the first place. Once again he demonstrated his concern for ‘country’ opinion, claiming that ‘we come not to satisfy ourselves but our country: and if we bring home only promises it will not give them satisfaction’. He went on to support Wentworth’s proposed reply to the king, which some opposed for its reference to illegal government actions, and in so doing he apparently took another swipe at Buckingham, commenting that he feared the king ‘never heard the truth in any place so well as from here’.
On 5 June, after the king’s unsatisfactory first answer to the Petition of Right and his injunction that the Commons not lay any scandal on his government by naming Buckingham in a Remonstrance, Seymour supported Digges’ motion to sit in silence, adding ‘we are all so miserable that I know not what to do’.
During the 1628 session Seymour demonstrated considerable interest in a bill to allow the 2nd earl of Devonshire (Sir William Cavendish I*) to sell lands to pay his debts. He was named to the committee on 21 Apr. and, when the measure was reported with a mistake in the title on 10 May, he asked that it might be amended at the clerk’s table. After some opposition to this suggestion, it was decided that the House should vote on whether to recommit the bill, whereupon Seymour acted as teller for the yeas. On 29 May Seymour requested that those who objected to the bill might be permitted to be members of the committee before adding that ‘he hoped to give satisfaction to all, else he would not offer it to the House’. The bill nevertheless continued to meet with resistance when it was reported on 10 June. Seymour attempted to answer these criticisms by recalling the similar Act passed for the benefit of himself and his brother in 1624, and acted as teller for the yeas when it was questioned whether the bill should be engrossed.
Seymour was a relatively active Member during the brief 1629 session, when he spoke on the pressing matters of religion and privilege. On 26 Jan. he followed Francis Rous’s lengthy speech on Arminianism with his own observations on the difficulties facing the Church. Although he concentrated on the increase of papists at home, his later speeches make it clear that he believed Arminian churchmen represented a dangerous threat to the commonwealth. He claimed that proceedings against papists had been hindered in the king’s name during the prorogation, and targeted the attorney-general, (Sir) Robert Heath*, when he asserted that the culprit could be discovered ‘upon a little examination’.
Seymour was much less loquacious in the case of John Rolle*. He appeared to be wary of diverting attention away from religion, for on 19 Feb. he noted that, although Rolle’s case was a privilege matter, he was ‘doubtful whether to take it into consideration now will not disadvantage us’.
Seymour was not interrogated after the Parliament, and indeed was restored to the Wiltshire bench in 1629, probably through the influence of Pembroke. Although not an especially active county governor, he was prominent in opposing a local commission for the reformation of abuses in cloth-making in the 1630s.