SOMERSET, EDWARD SEYMOUR, DUKE OF (c. I 1552), protector of England, born about 1506, was the eldest surviving son of Sir John Seymour (d. 1536) of Wolf Hall, Wilt shire, by his wife Margaret, eldest daughter of Sir Henry Went worth of Nettlested, Suffolk. The Seymours claimed descent from a companion of William the Conqueror, who took his name from St. Maur-sur-Loire in Touraine ; and the protector's mother was descended from Edward III. Edward was "enfant d'hon neur" to Mary Tudor at her marriage with Louis XII. in 1514, served in Suffolk's campaign in France in 1523, and accompanied Wolsey on his embassy to France in 1527. Henry VIII., to whom he became (1529) squire of the body, married his sister Jane in 1536, and Edward was created Viscount Beauchamp, and, after the birth of Edward VI., earl of Hertford.
In 1541, during Henry's absence in the north, Hertford, Cran mer and Audley had the chief management of affairs in London; in September 1542 he was appointed warden of the Scottish marches, and a few months later lord high admiral, a post which he almost immediately relinquished in favour of the future duke of Northumberland (q.v.). In March 1544 he was made lieu tenant-general of the north and instructed to punish the Scots for their repudiation of the treaty of marriage between Prince Edward and the infant Mary Queen of Scots. He landed at Leith in May, captured and pillaged Edinburgh, and returned a month later.
In May 1545 he was again appointed lieutenant-general in the north to avenge the Scottish victory at Ancrum Moor; this he did by a savage foray into Scotland in September. Political and religious rivalry separated him and Lisle from the Howards, and Surrey's hasty temper precipitated his own and his father's ruin.
Protector.—Their overthrow had barely been accomplished when Henry VIII. died. He had no statutory power to appoint a protector, but in the council of regency which he nominated Hertford and Lisle enjoyed a decisive preponderance; and the council at its first meeting after Henry's death determined to fol low precedent and appoint a protector. They chose Hertford (now duke of Somerset), and he emancipated himself from the trammels originally imposed on him as protector; he was king in everything but name. In his first parliament, which met in Novem ber 1547, he procured the repeal of all the heresy laws and nearly all the treason laws passed since Edward III. Even with regard to Scotland he had protested against his instructions of and now ignoring the claim to suzerainty which Henry VIII. had revived, sought to win over the Scots by those promises of autonomy, free trade, and equal privileges with England, which many years later eventually reconciled them to union. But Scottish sentiment, backed by Roman Catholic influence and by French intrigues, money and men, proved too strong for Somer set's amiable invitations. The Scots turned a deaf ear to his persuasions; the protector led another army into Scotland in September 1547, and won the battle of Pinkie (Sept. 1o).
Somerset apparently thought that the religious question could be settled by public discussion, and throughout 1547 and 1548 England went as it pleased so far as church services were con cerned; all sorts of experiments were tried, and the country was involved in a grand theological debate, in which Protestant ref ugees from abroad hastened to join. The result convinced the
protector that the government must prescribe one uniform order which all should be persuaded or constrained to obey; but the first Book of Common Prayer, which was imposed by the first Act of Uniformity in was a studious compromise between the new and the old learning, very different from the Protestant ism of the second book imposed after Somerset had been removed, in 1552. The Catholic risings in the west in 1549 added to Somer set's difficulties, but were not the cause of his fall. The factious and treasonable conduct of his brother, the lord high admiral, in whose execution (March 2o, 1549) the protector weakly acqui esced, also impaired his authority ; but the main cause of his ruin was the divergence between him and the majority of the council over the questions of constitutional liberty and enclosures of the commons. He was divided in mind between his sympathy with the rebels and his duty to maintain law and order. France seized the opportunity to declare war on August 8; and the outlying forts in the Boulonnais fell into their hands, while the Scots captured Haddington.
His Fall.—These misfortunes gave a handle to Somerset's enemies. Warwick combined on the same temporary platform Catholics who resented the Book of Common Prayer, Protestants who thought Somerset's mildness paltering with God's truth, and the wealthy classes as a whole. In September he concerted meas ures with the ex-lord-chancellor Wriothesley; and in October, after a vain effort to rouse the masses in his favour, Somerset was deprived of the protectorate and sent to the Tower. But the hostile coalition broke up as soon as it had to frame a construc tive policy; Warwick jockeyed the Catholics out of the council and prepared to advance along Protestant lines. He could hardly combine proscription of the Catholics with that of Somerset, and the duke was released in February 155o. For a time the rivals seemed to agree, and Warwick's son married Somerset's daughter. But growing discontent with Warwick made Somerset too dan gerous. In October 1551, after Warwick had been created duke of Northumberland, Somerset was sent to the Tower on an exag gerated charge of treason, which broke down at his trial. He was, however, as a sort of compromise, condemned on a charge of felony for having sought to effect a change of government. Few expected that the sentence would be carried out, and apparently Northumberland found it necessary to forge an instruction from Edward VI. to that effect. Somerset was executed on Jan. 22, 1552, dying with exemplary patience and fortitude.