Mary Seymour
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Mary Seymour (August 30, 1548 -after 1550 ?) was the only daughter of Thomas Seymour, Baron Seymour of Sudeley, and Catherine Parr, widow of Henry VIII of England. Complications from Mary's birth would claim the life of her mother on September 7, 1548, and her father was executed less than a year later for treason against Edward VI.
In 1549, Parliament passed an Act (3 & 4 Edw. 6 C A P. XIV) removing the attainder placed on her father from Mary, but his lands remained property of the Crown.
As her mother's wealth was left entirely to her father and later confiscated by the Crown, little Mary was left a destitute orphan in the care of the Duchess of Suffolk. After 1550 Mary disappears from historical record completely, leading to the conclusion that she did not live past the age of two.[citation needed]
[edit] Speculations of an adult life
Victorian author Agnes Strickland claims in her biography of Catherine Parr that Mary Seymour did survive to adulthood, and in fact married Edward Bushel, a member of the household of Queen Anne of Denmark, but there is no contemporary evidence to support this claim.[citation needed]
Mary was also believed to have been removed to Wexford, Ireland and raised under the care of a Protestant family there, the Harts, who had been engaged in piracy off the Irish coast under the protection of a profit sharing arrangement with Thomas Seymour.[citation needed]
A lozenge-shaped ring inscribed "What I have I hold" reputed to have been an early gift to Thomas by his brother Edward passed down through her descendants the Seymour-Harts up to at least 1927.[citation needed]
The fictional story, The Red Queen's Daughter, by Jacqueline Kolosov, centers around Mary Seymour, and speculates a life in which she never marries, and becomes lady in waiting to Queen Elizabeth I.
