Elizabeth Seymour, Lady Cromwell

Elizabeth Seymour was a daughter of Sir John Seymour and Margery Wentworth and a sister of Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII. Widowed after her first marriage to Sir Anthony Ughtred, Elizabeth married Gregory Cromwell, the only surviving son of Thomas Cromwell, in 1537, linking two families then close to the centre of Tudor government.

Jane Seymour’s brief queenship elevated the Seymour family, while Thomas Cromwell’s fall and execution in 1540 placed Elizabeth and Gregory in a precarious position. Gregory nevertheless survived his father’s destruction and was created Baron Cromwell later that year. Elizabeth outlived him and later married John Paulet, eventually Marquess of Winchester.

Elizabeth is the central figure in Carol McGrath’s The Queen’s Sister, which follows her through the rise of the Seymours, her marriage to Gregory Cromwell and the dangerous political reversals of Henry VIII’s court.