Elizabeth Seymour Maid of honor at the Tudor court, younger sister of Queen Jane Seymour Country: Great Britain

Biography of Elizabeth Seymour

Elizabeth Seymour, the younger sister of Queen Jane Seymour, was a maid of honor at the Tudor court and the third wife of King Henry VIII. She was born in 1511 at the Seymour family estate of Wolfhall, the daughter of Sir John Seymour and Lady Margaret Wentworth. Elizabeth had three siblings, Edward, Thomas, and Jane Seymour.

At the age of thirteen, she was married to Sir Anthony Ughtred, the Governor of Jersey, who died in 1534. This marriage was childless. By this time, Elizabeth, like her sister Jane, was already a member of Queen Anne Boleyn's court. Towards the end of 1535, the king took a keen interest in Jane, and they were married on May 30, 1536, eleven days after the execution of Anne Boleyn. The relatives of the new queen were granted honorary titles and lucrative positions, and Elizabeth and Lady Anne Seymour, wife of Edward Seymour, became close attendants to Jane, who died shortly after their wedding on October 24, 1537.

In 1537, Edward Seymour arranged for Elizabeth to be engaged to Gregory Cromwell, 1st Baron Cromwell, the son of Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII's chief advisor and one of the most powerful men in the kingdom. They were married in 1538, and the marriage was marked by the birth of five children. In early 1540, Elizabeth returned to court to welcome the king's next wife, Anne of Cleves, and resumed her position as a maid of honor. After the annulment of Anne's marriage to Henry and the execution of Thomas Cromwell in mid-1540, Elizabeth remained in her position and continued to serve the king's subsequent wives, Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr.

Her brothers, Thomas and Edward, who had been influential statesmen during the reign of their nephew King Edward VI, were executed on charges of treason during his reign. In 1551, Lady Elizabeth became a widow, and after the death of King Edward, she distanced herself from the court. In 1554 (some sources indicate 1557), she married for the third time, to John Paulet, 2nd Marquess of Winchester, whose father, William Paulet, became Lord Treasurer after the execution of Elizabeth's brother, the Duke of Somerset. It was suspected that William Paulet was involved in the conspiracy against the Seymours and had a direct role in their downfall.

Lady Elizabeth Seymour passed away in 1563 at the age of around 52. For a long time, a portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger was exclusively identified with Catherine Howard, Henry VIII's fifth wife. This view was also shared by historians of the Victorian era. Modern researcher Antonia Fraser proposed the hypothesis that the portrait most likely depicts Lady Elizabeth Seymour. This theory is supported by the fact that the lady in the painting is dressed in mourning attire - Elizabeth, unlike Catherine Howard, had a reason to wear it (after the death of her first husband in 1534). The resemblance to the portrait of Jane Seymour (also by Holbein) is also noted. The lady's age is mentioned as 21 years. Catherine's birthdate is not precisely established, usually ranging from 1521 to 1525, and by early 1542, she was already beheaded. There is also a theory that the portrait is of Lady Margaret Douglas, the daughter of Henry VIII's older sister Margaret Tudor.

The National Portrait Gallery in London, which owns this portrait, has not yet made a final decision regarding the identification of the woman depicted and labels it as "Portrait of an Unknown Woman, formerly presumed to be Catherine Howard."