Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset

“ On 26 July 1538 he succeeded his father as fifth Earl of Shrewsbury. The greater part of Shrewsbury's life was spent on the Scottish borders; in 1542 he was serving under the Duke of Norfolk, and in April 1544 he was appointed captain of the rear squadron of Hertford's fleet and commander of the rear-guard of his army [see Seymour, Edward, first Duke of Somerset] . On 10 June he was named lieutenant-general of the north, in succession to Hertford. ”

“ The young King, who loved him dearly, had little power to befriend his uncle, whose estates were forfeited, and he was treated with insult and contumely. The Earl of Warwick was bent on his destruction. Arraigned of high treason at Westminster Hall, he demanded a trial of his peers, was acquitted of the principal charge, but found guilty of felony, and after several months’ imprisonment, in spite of every attempt on King Edward’s part, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, was condemned to die on the scaffold. ”

“ The Duke of Somerset, Protector.Edward's first Regent or ‘Protector’ was his mother's brother, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset; a man of much higher character than most of the nobles, but rash and hot-headed, and quite unfit to lead the nation. His quarrel with Scotland, 1548.He continued Henry’s vindictive quarrel with Scotland, won a great victory at Pinkie, and drove the Scots once more into the arms of France. Their girl-queen, Mary Stuart, who might have been a bride for our boy-king, was sent for safety to France and married to the French King’s son. ”

“ Seymour married, first, on 7 Dec. 1661, Margaret, daughter of Sir William Wale, kt., of London, and by her had Sir Edward, fifth baronet, and father of Edward, eighth duke of Somerset [see under Seymour, Charles, sixth Duke] ; and Sir William, who entered the army, was captured by a French privateer in 1692, obtained Cutts's regiment, which he commanded with distinction at Namur, was wounded at Landen in July 1693, and died a lieutenant-general in 1728 (D'Auvergne, Campaigns in Flanders, 1693, pp. 90–1) . ”

“ While she was still not more than fifteen years of age, within three months after the tragedy in Pall Mall, Elizabeth Percy became the wife of Charles Seymour, sixth Duke of Somerset, by whom only she had issue: she died in 1722, leaving, besides three daughters, one only surviving son, Algernon, who in 1748 succeeded his father as seventh Duke of Somerset. In 1749 this duke was created Baron of Warkworth and Earl of Northumberland, with remainder of those dignities to the heirs male of his daughter, his only surviving child, by her marriage with Sir Hugh Smithson. ”

“ 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 Duke of Norfolk, developing, as age crept upon him, an unwonted desire for peace and amity, had lately devised a method of terminating the feud between his heir and the Seymour brothers, so powerful, by reason of their kinship to Prince Edward, in the State. Not only had he revived a project for uniting his widowed daughter, the Duchess of Richmond, to Thomas Seymour, Lord Admiral, Katherine Parr’s former lover, but had made a further proposal to cement the alliance between the rival houses by marrying three of his grandchildren to Hertford’s children. ”

“ Somerset was very stern with Edward, and kept him very short of money, so Seymour tried to win the young King's liking by kindness and by gifts of pocket-money, which kings like as well as other boys. But Seymour's enemies were too strong for him; he was shut up in the tower, and Somerset so influenced the child king that he consented to have his kind uncle condemned to death. It seems a pity that a boy so wise and good should have been so cold-hearted. It must have been because all the men around him were hard and cold ”

“ Protector Somerset was nearly always with him, but the king treated him with indifference. The protector left for Scotland in 1647 to enforce by war the fulfilment of the marriage treaty between Edward and Queen Mary which the Scottish rulers were anxious to repudiate. The French aided the Scotch, and Boulogne was taken. In Somerset's absence his treacherous brother. Lord Seymour, the admiral, attempted to oust him from all place in the king's regard. Lord Seymour constantly sought interviews with Edward, and remarked on one occasion that the protector was growing old. ”

“ But now I will go further to speak somewhat of the great hatred which divers of these seditious persons do bear against the gentlemen; which hatred in many is so outrageous, that they desire nothing more than the spoil, ruin, and destruction of them that be rich and wealthy." (11) Somerset, who owed his elevation to the accident of being the brother of Jane Seymour, proved unequal to the crisis of 1449, and was supplanted by John Dudley, now better remembered as Duke of Northumberland. Dudley was the strongest member of the new aristocracy. ”

“ Somerset was a brave general as well as a great statesman. He invaded Scotland during the first year of his protectorate, on account of the refusal of the Scottish government to ratify the contract entered into with Henry VIII., by which it was agreed that Mary Queen of Scots should marry Edward. At the memorable battle of Pinkie, on September 10, 1547, the Scots were completely beaten. But Somerset was hastily summoned southward. His brother, Lord Seymour, had been caballing against him, and was arrested, tried, and beheaded on Tower Hill, on March 20, 1549. ”

“ After the Pomeroys disappeared the first owner of the manor and castle was Edward Seymour, afterwards the haughty Lord Protector Somerset, who first rose in royal favour by the marriage of his eldest sister Jane Seymour to Henry VIII, and that monarch appointed him an executor under his will and a member of the Council on whom the duty devolved of guarding the powers of the Crown during the minority of his son and successor Edward VI, who only reigned six years, from 1547 to 1553 ”

“ Edward, first Duke of Somerset, was remarkably handsome, majestic, and naturally of a melancholy aspect, ‘every inch a gentleman.’ His extravagance, both in public and private matters, was undeniable, and he affected great splendour in dress, not only on State occasions. During his imprisonment he employed himself in works of a religious character. He was twice married—first to Catherine, daughter and co-heir of Sir William Fillol of Woodlands, county Dorset. Respecting this lady there exists a mystery: there were rumours of misconduct, and certain it is her son was disinherited. ”

“ His enemies, such as Warwick and Southampton, who seem to have been the prime movers in Seymour's ruin, perceived more clearly than Somerset, how fatally his brother's death would undermine his own position and alienate popular favour in the struggle on which he had now embarked in the cause of the poor against the great majority of the Council and of the ruling classes in England. ”

“ After all, however, the artist need not have spoilt his church with ornament. He said, that being situated in a very public place, "the parishioners" spared no cost to beautify it; but to beautify a church is not to make it a piece of confectionery. [158]
Somerset House occupies the site of a princely mansion built by Somerset the Protector, brother of Lady Jane Seymour, and uncle to King Edward VI. His character is not sufficiently marked to give any additional interest to the spot. ”

“ But we are anticipating, and must return to the early years of Edward Seymour. He was educated both at Oxford 22and Cambridge; and afterwards joining his father at Court, entered the army, and also distinguished himself greatly in France, and was knighted for his services in 1525. On his return to England he was appointed Esquire to the King, and was one of the challengers in the tilt-yard of Greenwich, when Henry kept his Christmas there. On the King’s marriage with his sister Jane, Edward Seymour was created Viscount Beauchamp, with other grants and honours, and in 1537, Earl of Hertford. ”

“ Somerset himself sent his son Lord Edward Seymour with letters in the October 5.King's name to Russell and Herbert, entreating them to come to the rescue of the Crown from a conspiracy of villains with all the force which they could raise. [76] Inflammatory handbills were dispersed through the adjoining towns and villages calling on the peasantry to take arms for the Protector—the people's friend ”

“ Next before his Majesty rode Henry Vere, Earl of Oxford, Lord Great Chamberlain of England, with Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, Earl Marshal. These noblemen were bare-headed. Then appeared James, with a crown on his head, 262“and most royally caparisoned.” But the personage who excited the most general interest was Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, a man only sixty-three years of age, but accounted in those days—such is the increased value of life in ours—“decrepit with age.” ”

“ In the chancel will be noticed the effigy of Sir John Seymour (1536) , the father of Protector Somerset. A brass commemorates another John Seymour, brother of the Protector. There is also a monument to a daughter of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. In the south transept is an effigy, cross legged, of Sir Adam de Stokke (1312) and a plain slab with an incised cross of another of his family. The church has a quantity of stained glass of much beauty. An ancient Market Hall once stood in the centre of the spacious main street ”

“ The consciousness of insecurity kept them at one with each other. Become all-powerful in the State, jealousy and passion sundered them.65 Ambitious, proud, and resentful of the Duke’s assumption of undivided authority, Seymour had quickly shown an intention of undermining his brother’s position in the country, with his hold upon the King, and the Protector may reasonably have felt that it was neither safe nor politic, so far as his personal interest was concerned, to remain too long at a distance from the centre of government. ”