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SEY was derived from a place named St. Maur in Normandy. Though the Seymours came to England at the Conquest, until the reign of Henry VIII. they were only minor proprietors in the counties of Monmouth and Wilts, the most important office they ever filled being that of high sheriff. The head of the family at the period of the Reformation was Sir, who did good service in the French wars of Henry VIII., and in suppressing the insurrection of Lord Audley and the Cornish rebels in 1497, and was made a knight banneret in 1513. The marriage of his eldest daughter, Jane, to Henry VIII. led at once to the elevation of the family. A few days after the nuptials (June 5, 1536), the eldest brother of the young queen, was created Viscount Beauchamp, and in the following year was raised to the dignity of Earl of Hertford. Henry seems to have placed great confidence in his brother-in-law, and appointed him to various high employments, which he fulfilled in a very creditable manner. In 1544 he commanded the expedition which the English monarch sent to devastate Scotland, in revenge for the refusal of the Scottish regent and parliament to fulfil the agreement to marry their young Queen Mary to Prince Edward. Having effected a landing at Granton, in the frith of Forth, the earl burned the town of Leith, a considerable part of Edinburgh, and various other towns in the border districts, and wasted the whole country with fire and sword. He subsequently commanded various important expeditions against France. On the death of Henry in January, 1547, the earl was left one of the royal executors, and a member of the council appointed to advise the young king, his nephew. He soon obtained an ascendancy over the other councillors, was nominated lord treasurer of England, and created Duke of Somerset (15th February, 1546-47); two days after, he obtained a grant of the office of earl marshal for life, and on the 12th of March was constituted protector of the realm—an office altogether new to the constitution. Henry VIII. had earnestly recommended the prosecution of the attempt to unite the two portions of the island, by a marriage between their respective sovereigns; and the protector, having failed to gain over the Scottish governor to this scheme, invaded Scotland at the head of a powerful army, to compel the nobles to complete the match. He encountered the Scottish army at Pinkie, near Musselburgh (10th September, 1547), and defeated them with great slaughter. His victory, however, was not followed up by vigorous measures. At this juncture he received intelligence, that during his absence a formidable conspiracy had been formed against his authority. He decided, therefore, on returning with all haste to the English court; but before his departure he was guilty of most impolitic and barbarous outrages upon the Scottish people; he burned the town of Leith, plundered and destroyed the abbey of Holyrood and other religious houses, and devastated the southern districts of the country—measures which greatly increased the hatred of the nation against the ruthless invader.

Meanwhile the intrigues of his brother, , Lord Sudely, lord high-admiral of England, had raised a cabal against the protector's authority. This nobleman, who had all the ambition of the duke, with less talent and a worse temper, had married Catherine Parr, the widow of the late king, without the knowledge of his brother, hoping by this match to increase his authority in the council. He succeeded, by gifts of money, in ingratiating himself into the favour of the young king, and during the protector's absence in Scotland induced Edward to write to both houses of parliament, requesting that Lord Sudely might be appointed his governor. The alienation, which in this way sprung up between the two brothers, was greatly increased by a violent quarrel between their wives for precedence at court. The duke on his return from Scotland marred his brother's ambitious projects, and caused the council to threaten the admiral with the loss of all his offices, and imprisonment in the Tower. Terrified by these menaces. Lord Sudely made his submission, and Somerset and he were to all appearance reconciled. But the intrigues of the former, though interrupted, were not laid aside. He was appointed to the command of an expedition to Scotland, which, however, he mismanaged. A few months later the queen-dowager, his wife, died in childbed, and he lost no time in renewing his addresses to the Princess Elizabeth, whom he had courted before his marriage to her step-mother. This project, however, was baffled by the passing of an act declaring marriage with the sisters of the king, without the consent of the council, to be treason. Foiled in this scheme, the admiral entered into an association with several of the nobility who envied the protector's greatness, provided magazines of arms, and enlisted two thousand men with the design of seizing the king's person, and taking the reins of government into his own hands. Somerset, who seems to have exhibited great forbearance amidst these proceedings, now thought it necessary to permit the law to take its course against his infatuated brother. On the 19th of January, 1549, the admiral was committed to the Tower, and the seal of his office was taken from him. Having obstinately refused all offers of reconciliation with his brother, he was ultimately brought to trial on a charge of treason, found guilty, condemned, and executed on the 20th of March, 1549, without having been confronted with his accusers or allowed to say a word in his own defence. The protector, who had regularly taken his place in the house of lords while the prosecution of his brother was going on, was severely censured for having consented to his death; and the enemies of the duke are said to have inflamed his resentment against the earl, with the hope that the fall of the one brother would be the ruin of the other. It is certain that, after this event, the enmity which his upstart greatness had excited among the nobles began to be more openly displayed. His ambition and arrogance had given deep offence to one section of the old nobility; his zealous support of the protestant religion exasperated the adherents of the Romish faith; the great proprietors were enraged by his proclamation against new inclosures; while the populace, whose favour he had striven hard to gain, were provoked by his displacing a parish church and other ecclesiastical buildings to make room for his splendid palace in the Strand. A conspiracy of the nobles formed against him proved successful (October, 1549) in depriving him of all his high offices, and inflicting upon him a very heavy fine. The leader of the plot, and his successor in power, was the earl of Warwick, better known by his subsequent title of duke of Northumberland, an ambitious and unscrupulous courtier, whose hatred Somerset had incurred by depriving him of the office of high admiral. A kind of reconciliation, however, took place between them, and in June, 1550, the son of the earl was married to the daughter of the duke. But their mutual enmity was too deeprooted to be thus removed. Somerset began to intrigue for the overthrow of his rival, and his own restoration to the office of protector. He was in consequence arrested and brought to trial on the charges that he intended to excite a rebellion, and to assassinate the duke of Northumberland. He was acquitted of treason, but was illegally found guilty of felony (December, 1551); and on the 22nd of the ensuing month was beheaded on Tower Hill amid the lamentations of the people, with whom he had recovered his popularity. Burnet says, the duke "had as many virtues and as few faults as most great men, especially when they are unexpectedly advanced, have ever had." It was justly observed by an old author, that the duke and his brother would have been invincible by any party, if they had directed their talents amicably to the same end. But between the train of the queen and the long gown of the duchess, they raised so much dust at the court, as at last put out the eyes of both their husbands, and occasioned their execution.

The duchess referred to was Anne Stanhope, niece and heiress of John Bourchier, earl of Bath. She was a woman of a haughty disposition and fiery temper. Through her influence the titles and estates of the duke were settled upon her children, to the exclusion of his sons whom he had by a former marriage—an act equally unprecedented and unjust. Her eldest son, , was created Earl of Hertford by Queen Elizabeth in the first year of her reign, but provoked the anger of this jealous and capricious sovereign by marrying, in 1563, a lady of the blood-royal, Catherine, sister of Lady Jane Grey. For this offence he was kept a prisoner in the Tower for nine years, and was fined in the sum of £10,000. The unhappy countess died in confinement in 1567. The earl lived to an advanced age, and was employed as an ambassador by James I. At his death in 1621 he was succeeded by his grandson,, who, like him, in 1609, incurred the displeasure of his sovereign, by forming a matrimonial alliance with the celebrated Arabella Stewart, daughter of the king's uncle. The unhappy couple were put into confinement in separate places. Seymour ultimately made his escape to the continent, but the lady closed her unfortunate and romantic life in the Tower, in 1615. The earl subsequently returned, and in 1640 was created a marquis by Charles I., and made governor to the prince of Wales. He held a high command in the royal army during the