Duke of Somerset, from the county of Somerset, is a title that has been created five times in the peerage of England. It is particularly associated with two families: the Beauforts, who held the title from the creation of 1448, and the Seymours, from the creation of 1547, in whose name the title is still held. The present dukedom is unique, in that the first holder of the title created it for himself in his capacity of Lord Protector of the Kingdom of England, using a power granted in the will of his nephew King Edward VI.
Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, known by the epithet "The Proud Duke", was an English peer. He rebuilt Petworth House in Sussex, the ancient Percy seat inherited from his wife, in the palatial form which survives today. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, he was a remarkably handsome man, and inordinately fond of taking a conspicuous part in court ceremonial; his vanity, which earned him the sobriquet of "the proud duke", was a byword among his contemporaries and was the subject of numerous anecdotes; Macaulay described him as "a man in whom the pride of birth and rank amounted almost to a disease".
The titles of Earl of Hertford and Marquess of Hertford have been created several times in the peerages of England and Great Britain.
Sir John Seymour, Knight banneret was an English soldier and a courtier who served both Henry VII and Henry VIII. Born into a prominent gentry family, he is best known as the father of Henry VIII's third wife, Jane Seymour, and hence grandfather of king Edward VI of England.
General Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset, styled Earl of Hertford until 1748, of Petworth House in Sussex, was a British Army officer and Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1708 until 1722 when he was raised to the House of Lords as Baron Percy.
William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset, was an English nobleman and Royalist commander in the English Civil War.
Seymour, Semel or St. Maur, is the name of an English family in which several titles of nobility have from time to time been created, and of which the Duke of Somerset is the head.
Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, 1st Baron Beauchamp, KG, of Wulfhall and Totnam Lodge in Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire, of Hatch Beauchamp in Somerset, of Netley Abbey, Hampshire, and of Hertford House, Cannon Row in Westminster, is most noted for incurring the displeasure of Queen Elizabeth I by taking part in more than one clandestine marriage.
Sir John Ernle was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1654 and 1695. He was one of the longest-serving Chancellors of the Exchequer, a position he held from 2 May 1676 to 9 April 1689.
Charles Seymour, 2nd Baron Seymour of Trowbridge was the son of Francis Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Trowbridge, whom he succeeded in the barony in 1664. Francis had been a younger brother of William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset.
Baron Seymour of Trowbridge was a title in the Peerage of England. It was created on 19 February 1641 for Francis Seymour, a younger son of Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp, for his support of Charles I in Parliament. It became a subsidiary title of the Duke of Somerset in 1675, and became extinct on the death of Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset in 1750. The dukedom reverted to the elder line, the 6th baronet of Berry Pomeroy becoming 8th duke of Somerset.
Edward Seymour, Lord Beauchamp of Hache was an English nobleman who had a theoretically strong claim to the throne of England through his mother, Lady Katherine Grey, but his legitimacy was questioned. He was an ancestor of the Dukes of Somerset.
This is a list of people who have served as Custos Rotulorum of Wiltshire.
Sir Edward Seymour, of Berry Pomeroy, 4th Baronet, MP was a British nobleman, and a Royalist and Tory politician.
Marlborough Castle, locally known and recorded in historical documents as The Mound, was an 11th-century royal castle located in the civil parish of Marlborough, a market town in the English county of Wiltshire, on the Old Bath Road, the old main road from London to Bath. The barrow on which the fortification was built, perhaps the "barrow of Maerla", seems to be a prehistoric earthwork which formed the motte of the Norman Marlborough Castle. It survives as a tree-covered mound known as Marlborough Mound, within the site of Marlborough College.
Sir Francis Popham (1573–1644) of Wellington, Somerset, was an English soldier and landowner who was elected a Member of Parliament nine times, namely for Somerset (1597), Wiltshire (1604), Marlborough (1614), Great Bedwin (1621), Chippenham 1624, 1625, 1626, 1628–29), and for Minehead (1640–1644).
Thomas Fanshawe, 1st Viscount Fanshawe KB was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1621 and 1661. He supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War. Following the Restoration he was raised to the peerage.
Edward Kyrton, or Edward Kirton (1585–1654), was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons variously between 1624 and 1645. He supported the Royalist side in the English Civil War.
Sir Edward Rodney was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1621 and 1642.
The feudal barony of Hatch Beauchamp or honour of Hatch Beauchamp was an English feudal barony with its caput at the manor of Hatch Beauchamp in Somerset. The site of the mediaeval manor house, to the immediate south of the ancient parish church of St John the Baptist, is today occupied by Hatch Court, a grade I listed mansion built in about 1755 in the Palladian style.
