be arrested in Westminster Hall for lack of respect and for an alleged breach of privilege [see Pemberton, Sir Francis]. On another occasion, it is related that when at Charing Cross his carriage broke down, the beadles, by his orders, stopped the next gentleman's coach they met, and Seymour drove away in it, merely explaining to the ejected owner that it was fitter for him to walk in the streets than the speaker of the House of Commons. In the new parliament of March 1678–9 Seymour was returned for Devonshire, and was again unanimously elected speaker; but he was now somewhat estranged from the court, especially from Danby, and was no longer acceptable to the king. On submitting himself to the chancellor for the royal approval, he was informed that the king ‘thought fit to reserve Seymour for other service, and to ease him of this.’ Sacheverell and Powle strongly opposed the power of the crown to reject the choice of the commons. To allay the excitement, the king on 13 March prorogued the house for two days, at the end of which a compromise was effected and Serjeant Gregory appointed (cf. Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. app. vii. 157).
Upon becoming once more a private member, Seymour seems for a time to have co-operated with Halifax, and shared his unpopularity. Thus he opposed the Exclusion Bill, and at the same time urged the Duke of York to change his religion. In November 1680 articles of impeachment were exhibited against him for malversation in his office, but the dissolution put an end to the proceedings (cf. Add. MS. 9291, f. 1). Later, in March 1681, he seems to have originated a proposal that the crown should descend to James, but that the Prince of Orange should act as his regent. In 1682 he joined with Halifax in trying to bring about Monmouth's restoration to favour. He was, however, drawing nearer to Rochester, through whose influence he hoped, in 1683, to obtain the privy seal, but the prize fell to Halifax. Seymour nevertheless remained at court, generally acting with Rochester's party. His fears for the protestant religion seem to have been genuine, and at the opening of James II's parliament, in which he represented Exeter, he stood almost alone in overt opposition. He spoke of the abrogation of charters and the arbitrary proceedings at recent elections in terms of unguarded candour, with which few dared to sympathise, so numerous and threatening were the nominees of the court. In the same session, in relation to James's force at Hounslow, he raised his voice against standing armies, consisting, as he said, of people whom nobody knew and no one could trust. During the same year (1685) Seymour succeeded to the baronetcy on his father's death.
Surpassed by none as a staunch tory and churchman, he warmly sympathised with the revolution in its earlier phases. In November 1688 he joined William at Exeter, along with Sir William Portman. ‘You,’ said the prince to him, ‘are of the Duke of Somerset's family?’ ‘Pardon me, sir,’ said Sir Edward, who never forgot that he was head of the elder branch of the Seymours, ‘the Duke of Somerset is of my family.’ While at Exeter he suggested and framed the association in favour of the Prince of Orange, the members of which pledged themselves to hold together until religion and the laws and liberties of the country had been established in a free parliament. This action gained him the confidence of William, who, when he proceeded to Axminster on 25 Nov., left Exeter in Sir Edward's charge. As a parliamentary expert and author of the association, he was well qualified for the office of speaker, when the convention met in January 1689, but he had ranged himself with Rochester in opposing an offer of the crown to William, and Powle was elected.
Early in February he proposed that the house should discuss the state of the nation as a grand committee, and he urged that before the throne was filled liberties must be secured. He was against limiting the duration of parliaments to three years. In the hope of an accession of strength to his party upon a fresh election, he strenuously, but in vain, opposed the motion for turning the convention into a parliament. Great satisfaction was felt at court when Seymour took the oath to the new sovereigns on 2 March, while the Jacobites were proportionately depressed. In November 1689, with unseemly alacrity, he headed a deputation praying William to issue a proclamation for the apprehension of Edmund Ludlow. Seymour had enjoyed Ludlow's forfeited estates in Wiltshire since the Restoration, and he lost no time in hounding the former owner out of the kingdom (Ludlow, Memoirs, 1894, ii. 511). In March 1691–2 he was made a lord of the treasury; but the appointment led to considerable strife owing to Seymour's refusal to give precedence to Richard Hampden, the chancellor of the exchequer, until he was mollified by a seat in the cabinet and a special recommendation to the queen. He lost his place on the formation of the whig junto in April 1694, and henceforth took an increasingly active part in the obstructive tactics of the tories. During the same year there seems no reason to doubt that he was heavily bribed by the old East India Company
