Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/343

 house at Netley, Hampshire, Hertford was suffered to go at large. On the Restoration, the dukedom of Somerset and barony of Seymour, which were declared forfeit by act of parliament of 12 April 1552, were revived and conferred upon him by act of parliament passed 13 Sept. 1660. He was among the lords who welcomed Charles II at Dover on 26 May 1660, and on the following day received the Garter from the king at Canterbury, having been elected into the order at Jersey on 13 Jan. 1648–9. He died on 24 Oct. following, and was buried on 1 Nov. at Bedwyn Magna, Wiltshire. An anonymous portrait of Somerset belongs to the Duke of Beaufort; another by Vandyck (in Lord Clarendon's possession at The Grove, Watford) was engraved and prefixed to vol. iii. of Lady Theresa Lewis's ‘Lives of the Friends and Contemporaries of Lord Chancellor Clarendon,’ 1852.

By his second wife he had, with other issue, two daughters—Mary, who married Heneage Finch, second earl of Winchilsea [q. v.], and Jane, who married Charles Boyle, lord Clifford of Londesborough, son of Richard Boyle, first earl of Burlington, and second earl of Cork [q. v.] —and two sons, viz.: (1) Henry, lord Beauchamp (d 1654), leaving, with other issue, by his wife Mary, eldest daughter of Arthur, lord Capel of Hadham, a son William, who succeeded as third duke of Somerset (d 26 Sept. 1671, aged 20); (2) John, lord Seymour, who succeeded as fourth duke of Somerset on his nephew's death, and died without issue, 29 April 1675, when the dukedom passed to the grandsons of his father's brother, Francis, first baron Seymour of Trowbridge [see under, sixth ].

[Foster's Alumni Oxon.; Complete Peerage, s. n. ‘Hertford;’ Collins's Peerage, i. 474 et seq.; Courthope's Hist. Peerage; Hutchins's Dorset, i. 250; Rymer's Fœdera, ed. Sanderson, xvi. 710; Edinb. Rev. July 1896, art. x.; Harl. MS. 7003, ff. 122, 132; Birch's Memoirs of the Reign of Elizabeth, ii. 506; Court and Times of James I, i. 127; Winwood's Mem. iii. 201, 279–81; Nichols's Progresses of James I; Metcalfe's Book of Knights; Clarendon's Rebellion; Parl. Hist. ii. 75, 126, 1212, 1374–5; Lords' Journal, iii. 4, 98, 130, 499, 544, 552, v. 49, xi. 171, 358; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1611–18, pp. 342, 349, 401, 514–15, 1638–45, and Cal. Comm. for Compounding, and for Advance of Money; Notes of the Treaty of Ripon (Camden Soc.) App. p. 79; Rushworth's Hist. Coll. pt. ii. vol. ii. pp. 1200, 1276, pt. iii. vol. i. pp. 627, 672, 685, 766, vol. ii. 130, 284, 561–573, 792, 805, pt. iv. vol. i. p. 280; Whitelocke's Mem.; Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 308, 9th Rep. pt. ii., 10th Rep. pts. iv. and vi., 12th Rep. pts. ii. and ix., 13th Rep. pt. i.; Bates's Elenchus Motuum Nuperorum (1685), p. 142; Nicholas Papers (Camden Soc.), ii. 66; Lodge's Portraits of Illustrious Personages, ed. Bohn, v. 99; Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, 9th ed. iv. 361; Gardiner's Histories of England and of the Great Civil War.]

 SEYMOUR, WILLIAM DIGBY (1822–1895), county-court judge, third son of Charles Seymour, vicar of Kilronan, co. Roscommon, by Beata, daughter of Fergus Langley of Lich Finn, Tipperary, was born in Ireland on 22 Sept. 1822. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, graduating B.A. in 1844 and LL.D. in 1872. He was called to the bar at the Middle Temple on 12 June 1846, and practised on the northern circuit. By the influence of his father-in-law he was returned to parliament as one of the members for Sunderland in 1852, and his support of the liberal party was rewarded with the recordership of Newcastle in December 1854. On returning to his constituency for re-election he was defeated. In the meantime he had become connected with various commercial undertakings, notably with the Waller Gold-mining Company, of which he was chairman in 1852. His experiences were unfortunate, and in 1858 he had to make an arrangement with his creditors. In 1859 he was called before the benchers of the Middle Temple to answer charges affecting his character as a barrister in connection with some commercial transactions, and on 23 Feb. was censured by the benchers (Times, 22, 24, 25 Feb. and 4 April 1859). Seymour disputed the fairness of the decision, but he would not publish the evidence, and he was excluded from the bar mess of the northern circuit. He commenced legal proceedings against Mr. Butterworth, the publisher of the ‘Law Magazine,’ for giving a statement of the case with comments. The trial was heard by Lord-chief-justice Cockburn on 2–3 Dec. 1862, and resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff of 40s. (ib. 3 Dec. 1862 p. 10, 4 Dec. pp. 8–9).

In May 1859 Seymour was returned for Southampton, securing conservative support by a pledge not to vote against Derby's government. His failure to observe this promise was commented on by the ‘Morning Herald,’ and Seymour sought to institute a criminal prosecution of that paper, which was refused by Lord Campbell. Seymour was named a queen's counsel in the county palatine of Lancaster in August 1860, and on 19 Feb. 1861 a queen's counsel for England by Lord Campbell. In the same year he was employed by the government to draw up the Admiralty Reform Act.