Broadlands
A country estate in Hampshire, near Romsey
My family and I moved from Southampton to Romsey when I was 14. The estate and its owners played a significant part in the life of Romsey. Not only as a landowner far beyond that of the park, or the Romsey Show held in the grounds, but the contributions to the town. Romsey always had bunting up in the town, supposedly due to the number of Royal visitors to Broadlands.
Typical of large country estates in their day they were an influential part of the wider society and accordingly worth a small One Place Study. Broadlands has shared its Estate Archive with Southampton City Council, and there are a number of articles which help with the background.
An outline and history of Broadlands can be found here. The following is an extract of same.
Broadlands formed part of the abbey of Romsey in the C10. Surrendered to the Crown at the Dissolution in 1539, it was granted first to John Foster, a former steward to the abbey and then in 1544 to Sir Thomas Seymour, an uncle of Edward VI. He sold it in 1547 to Sir Francis Fleming whose granddaughter, Frances, married Edward St Barbe. It remained in the St Barbe family until the mid C17 and Sir John Barbe, who succeeded in 1661, made considerable improvements to the house and laid out an elaborate formal garden which was described by the writer Celia Fiennes on her visit c 1696 (Morris 1947). Sir John died in 1723 and his cousin and heir, Humphrey Sydenham, sold Broadlands in 1736 to Henry Temple, first Viscount Palmerston, the estate around the house and gardens consisting at this time of only the central part of the present park. Lord Palmerston began the replanning of the gardens down to the river along more informal lines in 1738-9, for which he is reported to have employed William Kent (1685-1748), before his death in 1757 and the succession of his grandson. In 1767 the second Lord Palmerston commissioned Lancelot Brown (1716-83) to provide a comprehensive design for remodelling the house and surrounding grounds and for laying out and planting the parkland (Estate maps, 1785, 1787; Estate papers). Brown's son-in -law, the architect Henry Holland (1745-1806), further remodelled the house and two major garden buildings in 1788. The third Viscount Palmerston (1784-1865), who became Queen Victoria's Prime Minister in 1855, succeeded in 1802. He acquired further land to the west and south which allowed him to extend the park to its present boundaries and to continue with its improvement by replanting and adding to Brown's work and by new planting in Brown's style. Following Lord Palmerston's death, Broadlands passed first in 1865 to his younger step-son, William Cowper-Temple, Lord Mount Temple, for whom W E Nesfield (1835-88) designed a new formal garden with a pool on the south front. In 1917 Lord Palmerston's nephew, Evelyn Ashley, later created Lord Mount Temple of Lee (of the second creation), inherited. Broadlands then passed to his daughter, Edwina, who in 1922 married Lord Louis Mountbatten, later created Earl Mountbatten of Burma. The Romsey bypass was built along the northern edge of the park in the 1930s and after the Second World War, the Earl and Countess Mountbatten began planting commemorative trees in the park and simplified Nesfield's work in the garden. Broadlands passed to Lord Louis' grandson in 1979 and during the 1990s, following severe storm damage, the parkland planting was restored to Brown's design.
I have yet to research John Foster.
The Seymour era 1544 to 1547.
A colourful, influential and interesting family.
Sir Thomas Seymour has an article in Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1-22.
SEYMOUR, THOMAS, BARON SEYMOUR, OF SUDELEY (1508 ?-1549), brother of Edward Seymour, first Duke of Somerset [q. v.]· in service of Sir Francis Bryan [q. v], 1530; knighted, 1531; accompanied Sir Anthony Browne (d. 1548) [q. v.] on embassy to French court, 1538; on mission to Ferdinand, King of Hungary, 1540-2; joint ambassador to regent of Netherlands, 1543 ; marshal of English army in Netherlands under Sir John Wallop [q. v.], 1543 ; appointed master of ordnance for life, 1544, served in Frances 1544 ; admiral of fleet, · 1544, serving against French, 1544-5 ; commissioner to arrange terms ,with France, 1546 ; privy councillor, 1547 ; created Baron Seymour, K.G., and lord high admiral, 1547; secretly married. the Queen-dowager, Catherine Parr, 1547; endeavoured to turn Edward VI against the Protector and formed project for marrying Edward VI to Lady Jane Gray; lieutenant-general of the south during the Protector's Invasion of Scotland, 1547; engaged in privateering enterprises, pressed his suit for hand of Princess Elizabeth, Catherine Parr having died 5 September 1548, and was arrested and imprisoned in Tower, 1549; found guilty of treason and executed.
A very full life and a famous name. A relation of one of the wifes of Henry VIII, Jane Seymour.
Another article in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
Edward Seymour, duke of Somerset (q.v.), known as the Protector, was the first of the line of dukes to which the holder of the title at the present day belongs, having been created Viscount Beauchamp of Hache, Co. Somerset, in 1536; earl of Hertford in 1537; and in 1547 Baron Seymour and duke of Somerset. His honours, which were entailed on the issue of his second in priority to that of his first marriage, being forfeited by attainder in 1552, Robert Carr became earl of Somerset (q.v.) in 1613, but died without male issue in 1645, when his title became extinct. A curious incident in the history of this title was the grant by Charles I. in 1644 of a commission to Edward Somerset, son of Henry, 1st marquess of Worcester, empowering him to fill up certain blank patents of peerage with a promise of the title of duke of Somerset for himself. After the Restoration this instrument was cancelled in consequence of a resolution of the House of Lords declaring it to be “in prejudice to the peers”; and the grantee, who had meantime succeeded to the marquessate of Worcester, surrendered his claim to the dukedom of Somerset in September 1660. In the same month the dukedom of Somerset and barony of Seymour were restored to William Seymour (1588–1660), great-grandson of the Protector, who in 1621 inherited the titles of earl of Hertford and Baron Beauchamp which had been granted to his grandfather Edward Seymour in 1559, and who, in 1640, had himself been created marquess of Hertford. This nobleman, who in early life had incurred the displeasure of James I. by marrying the king’s cousin, Lady Arabella Stuart, and had been imprisoned in the Tower for the offence, had later an exceptional claim on the gratitude of the royal house of Stewart, for he fought with distinction on the royalist side in the civil war, and was one of four lords (the others being the duke of Richmond, and the earls of Lindsey and Southampton) who petitioned the Commons to be allowed to assume responsibility for the actions of Charles I. and to suffer death in his place. He died in November 1660, a few weeks after his restoration to the dukedom, and, having outlived his three eldest sons, was succeeded by his grandson William, 3rd duke of Somerset (c. 1651–1671). As the latter died unmarried, his sister Elizabeth brought to her husband, Thomas Bruce, 2nd earl of Ailesbury, the great estates of Tottenham Park and Savernake Forest in Wiltshire; while the Somerset title devolved on John Seymour (c. 1628–1675), the 2nd duke’s fifth and youngest son. At the death of the latter without issue in April 1675 the marquessate of Hertford became extinct, and his cousin Francis Seymour (1658–1678) became 5th duke of Somerset. This nobleman was the eldest surviving son of Charles Seymour, 2nd Baron Seymour of Trowbridge, whose father Sir Francis Seymour (c. 1590–1664), a younger brother of the 2nd duke of Somerset, was created a baron in 1641.
Charles Seymour, 6th duke of Somerset (1662–1748), succeeded his brother Francis, the 5th duke, when the latter was shot in 1678 at the age of twenty, by a Genoese gentleman named Horatio Botti, whose wife Somerset was said to have insulted at Lerici. Charles, who thus inherited the barony of Seymour of Trowbridge along with the dukedom of Somerset, was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; and in 1682 he married a great heiress, Elizabeth, daughter of Joceline Percy, earl of Northumberland, who brought him immense estates, including Alnwick Castle, Petworth, Syon House and Northumberland House in London. (See Northumberland, Earls and Dukes of.) In 1683 Somerset received an appointment in the king’s household, and two years later a colonelcy of dragoons; but at the revolution he bore arms for the prince of Orange. Having befriended Princess Anne in 1692, he became a great favourite with her after her accession to the throne, receiving the post of master of the horse in 1702. Finding himself neglected by Marlborough, he made friends with the Tories, and succeeded in retaining the queen’s confidence, while his wife replaced the duchess of Marlborough as mistress of the robes in 1711. In the memorable crisis when Anne was at the point of death, Somerset acted with Argyll, Shrewsbury and other Whig nobles who, by insisting on their right to be present in the privy council, secured the Hanoverian succession to the Crown. He retained the office of master of the horse under George I. till 1716, when he was dismissed and retired into private life; he died at Petworth on the 2nd of December 1748. The duke’s first wife having died in 1722, he married secondly, in 1726, Charlotte, daughter of the 2nd earl of Nottingham. He was a remarkably handsome man, and inordinately fond of taking a conspicuous part in court ceremonial; his vanity, which earned him the sobriquet of “the proud duke,” was a byword among his contemporaries and was the subject of numerous anecdotes; Macaulay’s description of him as “a man in whom the pride of birth and rank amounted almost to a disease,” is well known. His son Algernon (1684–1750), by his first wife Elizabeth Percy, was called to the House of Lords as Baron Percy in 1722; and after succeeding his father as 7th duke of Somerset in 1748, was, on account of his maternal descent, created Baron Warkworth and earl of Northumberland in 1749, with remainder to Sir Hugh Smithson, husband of his daughter Elizabeth; and also Baron Cockermouth and earl of Egremont, with remainder to the children of his sister, Lady Catherine Wyndham. At his death without male issue in February 1750 these titles therefore passed to different families in accordance with the remainders in the patents of their creation; the earldom of Hertford, the barony of Beauchamp, and the barony of Seymour of Trowbridge became extinct; and the dukedom of Somerset, together with the barony of Seymour, devolved on a distant cousin, Sir Edward Seymour, 6th baronet of Berry Pomeroy, Devonshire. (See Seymour, or St Maur.)
The Seymours of Berry Pomeroy were the elder branch of the family, being descended from the protector Somerset by his first marriage, the issue of which had been excluded from succession to the titles and estates until after the failure of the issue of his second marriage (see above), which failure occurred on the death of the above-named Algernon, 7th duke. Sir Edward Seymour (1695–1757), who thus became 8th duke of Somerset, was grandson of Sir Edmund Seymour, Speaker of the House of Commons in the reign of Charles II. His two sons succeeded in turn to the dukedom, and his grandson Edward Adolphus, 11th duke (1775–1855), was a mathematician and scientist of some distinction. The latter’s son Edward Adolphus, 12th duke (1804–1885), was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, and from 1830 till he succeeded to the peerage in 1855 he was a Liberal member of the House of Commons as Lord Seymour, first for Okehampton, and afterwards for Totnes. He held various offices in Lord Melbourne’s administration from 1835 to 1841; was a member of Lord John Russell’s cabinet in 1851; and first lord of the admiralty from 1859 to 1866. In 1863 he was created Earl St Maur of Berry Pomeroy. He refused to join W. E. Gladstone’s ministry in 1868, but he gave independent support to the chief measures of the government. He died in November 1885. In 1830, while still Lord Seymour, he married Jane Georgiana, youngest of the three celebrated daughters of Thomas Sheridan, who was the “Queen of Beauty” at the famous Eglinton Tournament in 1839. The duke was the author of Christian Theology and Modern Scepticism (1872), and Monarchy and Democracy (1880). As his two sons both died unmarried in his lifetime, the family titles, except the earldom of St Maur, which became extinct, devolved on his two brothers successively; the younger of whom, Algernon Percy Banks, 14th duke (1813–1894), was succeeded by his son Algernon (b. 1846) as 15th duke of Somerset.
The title of Earl St Maur adopted by the 12th duke in 1863 is said to have been the original form of the family name of which Seymour was a later corruption, and since the last-mentioned date it has been assumed as the family surname of the dukes of Somerset.
The Pomeroy name above has the potential of providing a second link into the Seymours on our Family Tree.
Another article in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
SEYMOUR, or St Maur, the name of an English family in which several titles of nobility have from time to time been created, and of which the duke of Somerset is the head. The family was settled in Monmouthshire in the 13th century. The original form of the name, which has been resumed by the dukes of Somerset since 1863, seems to have been St Maur, of which Camden says that Seymour was a later corruption. It appears that about the year 1240 Gilbert Marshal, earl of Pembroke, assisted William St Maur to wrest a place called Woundy, near Caldecot in Monmouthshire, from the Welsh. Woundy and Penhow, at the latter of which he made his residence, were the property of Sir Richard St Maur at the end of the 13th century, but they passed away from the family through the marriage of Sir Richard's great-great-granddaughter, the only child of John St Maur, who died in 1359. John St Maur's younger brother Roger married Cecily, one of the daughters and co-heiresses of John Beauchamp of Hache, Baron Beauchamp de Somerset (d. 1361), who brought to her husband the greater part of her father's extensive estates in Somersetshire, Devonshire, Buckinghamshire and Suffolk. The eldest son of this marriage was Sir William St Maur, or Seymour (for the later form of the name appears to have come into use about this date), who was an attendant on the Black Prince, and who died in his mother's lifetime, leaving a son Roger, who inherited the estates and added to them by his marriage with Maud, daughter of Sir William Esturmi of Wolf Hall, Wiltshire. During the next three or four generations the wealth and importance of the Seymours in the western counties increased, until in the reigns of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. Sir John Seymour of Wolf Hall became a personage of note in public affairs. He took an active part in suppressing the Cornish rebellion in 1497; and afterwards attended Henry at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and on the occasion of the emperor Charles V.'s visit to England in 1522. The eldest of his ten children was Edward Seymour, 1st duke of Somerset (q.v.), the famous Protector in the reign of Edward VI.; his third son was Thomas Seymour, Baron Seymour of Sudeley (q.v.); and his eldest daughter Jane was third wife of King Henry VIII., and mother of Edward VI. The Protector was twice married; and, probably owing to the adultery of his first wife whom he repudiated about 1535, his titles and estates were entailed first on the issue of his second marriage with Anne, daughter of Sir Edward Stanhope. (See Somerset, Earls and Dukes of.)
The Protector's eldest surviving son by his first marriage, Sir Edward Seymour (d. 1593), knight, of Berry Pomeroy, Devon, was father of Sir Edward Seymour (d. 1613) who was created a baronet in 1611; and the baronetcy then descended for six generations from father to son, all of whom were named Edward, until in 1750, on the failure of heirs of the Protector by his second marriage, Sir Edward Seymour, 6th baronet of Berry Pomeroy, succeeded to the dukedom of Somerset. The 3rd baronet, in whose time the family seat at Berry Pomeroy was plundered and burnt by the Roundheads, had a younger brother Henry (1612–1686), who was a close personal attendant of Prince Charles during the Civil War, and bore the prince's last message to his father, Charles. I., before the latter's execution. Henry Seymour continued his service to Charles II. in exile, and at the Restoration he received several valuable offices from the king. In 1669 he bought the estate of, Langley in Buckinghamshire, where he lived till his death in 1686. In 1681 his son Henry, at the age of seven years, was created a baronet.
SEYMOUR OF SUDELEY, THOMAS SEYMOUR, BARON (c. 1508-1549), lord high admiral of England, was fourth son of Sir John Seymour of Wolf Hall, Wiltshire, and younger brother of the Protector Edward Seymour, ISI duke of Somerset. His sister Jane Seymour became the third wife of Henry VIII. in 1536, and another sister, Elizabeth, married Thomas Cromwell's son. Seymour's Connexions thus ensured his promotion, and he quickly won the favour of the king, who gave him many grants of land and employed him in the royal household and on diplomatic missions abroad. From 1540 to 1542 he was at Vienna, and in 1543 in the Netherlands, where he served with distinction in the War against France, holding for a short time the supreme command of the English army. In 1544 he was rewarded with the post of master of the ordnance for life, becoming admiral of the fleet a few months later, in which capacity he was charged with guarding the Channel against French invasion. Henry VIII. left Seymour a legacy by his will, and is said to have directed that he should be raised to the peerage. In February 1547 he was accordingly created Baron Seymour of Sudeley and appointed lord high admiral. From this time forward he was mainly occupied in intrigue against his brother the Protector, of whose power he was jealous; and he aimed at procuring for himself the position of guardian of the young king, Edward VI. Several matrimonial projects entered into Seymour's schemes for gratifying his ambitions. No sooner was Henry VIII. dead than the lord high admiral tried to secure the princess (afterwards queen) Elizabeth in marriage; and when this project was frustrated he secretly married the late king's widow, Catherine Parr, whose hand he had vainly sought as early as 1 543. He also took steps to ingratiate himself with Edward, and proposed a marriage between the king and the Lady lane Grey. He entered into relations with pirates on the Western coasts, whom it was his duty as lord high admiral to suppress, with a view to securing their support; and when the Protector invaded Scotland in the summer of 1547 Seymour fomented opposition to his authority in his absence. On the death of his wife in September of the next year he made renewed attempts to marry the princess Elizabeth. Somerset strove ineffectually to save his brother from ruin, and in January 1549 Seymour was arrested and sent to the Tower; he was convicted of treason, and executed on the 20th of March 1549.
Thomas's family home of Wolf Hall (aka Wulfhall or Wolfhall is an early 17th-century manor house in Burbage, Wiltshire, England. A previous manor house on the same site, in the parish of Great Bedwyn, was the seat of the Seymour family) is about 30 miles North of Broadlands granted to Thomas in 1544. Article in the Guardian about finding Wolf Hall.
Henry the Eighth, by the Grace of God, King of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and of the Church of England and also of Ireland in Earth Supreme Head. Not a bad title!
Where is King Henry VIII Buried and Why Doesn’t He Have a Tomb?
According to the 1841 census Viscount Palmerston MP (55) and Viscountess Palmerston (50) stayed at 5 Carlton Terrace, assumed to by Carlton House Terrace near Marlborough House, The Mall, London. Map found here.
1841 England Census for Viscount Palmerston Middlesex St Martin in The Fields Charing Cross District 6. Image 7 Page 11. Carlton House Terrace was built on the location of the previous Carlton House.
OS Map with Broadlands Park 1896 in the Parish of Romsey Extra.
The original manorial lordship title for Romsey Extra, though now largely meaningless, is still in existence and was purchased by the Broadlands Estate in 1991 along with that of Romsey Infra.
In 1859, 37,000 bricks for the building of an extension to Broadlands House were delivered by way of the Andover Redbridge Canal
Railway to replace canal. In the Romsey area this particularly meant Lord Palmerston of Broadlands to the south of the town and Lord Sherborne in the Timsbury area.. Not only did the railway company bear much of the expense of altering the route of the main road, but also paid for the wall that runs alongside it, known locally as ‘Mile Wall’.
more later
