Portrait of Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley (c.1508-1549)

This half-length portrait shows the sitter turning slightly to the left. Dressed in black, he has a red-brown beard and wears a black plumed hat with the Little George of the Order of the Garter pinned to it. He has been set against a green background. Thomas Seymour took part in several expeditions against the French. In 1547 he was created Baron Seymour, made Knight of the Garter, appointed Lord Admiral and also secretly married the Queen Dowager Catherine (Parr), the sixth and last wife of Henry VIII (who died that year, with Catherine following in childbirth in September 1548). The inclusion of the Garter badge here therefore suggests a date of 1547 or shortly after for this portrait, since Seymour was imprisoned and executed in 1549 for intriguing against his brother, the Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector under Henry VIII's short-lived immediate successor, the child King Edward VI (son of his third wife, Jane Seymour). There is also a very similar and good early miniature of Seymour in the collection (MNT0137) and it is at least possible that this oil might be posthumous and based on that, though the beard is rather fuller.