SOMERSET, ROBERT CARR (or KER), EARL OF (c. Scottish politician, younger son of Sir Thomas Ker of Ferniehurst by his second wife, Janet, sister of Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch. He accompanied James I. as page to England, but being then discharged from the royal service, sought for a time to make his fortune in France. Returning to England he hap pened to break a limb at a tilting match, at which James was present, and was recognized by the king. Entirely devoid of all high intellectual qualities, Carr was endowed with good looks, ex cellent spirits, and considerable personal accomplishments. These advantages were sufficient for James, who knighted the young man and at once took him into favour. In 1607 the king conferred on Carr Sir Walter Raleigh's forfeited manor of Sherborne. Carr's influence was already such that in 1610 he persuaded the king to dissolve the parliament, which had shown signs of attacking the Scottish favourites. On March 25, 1611 he was created Viscount Rochester, and subsequently a privy councillor, while on Lord Salisbury's death in 1612 he began to act as the king's secretary.
On Nov. 3, 1613 he was advanced to the earldom of Somerset, in December was appointed treasurer of Scotland, and in 1614 lord. chamberlain. Somerset fell from favour in 1615, when the cir cumstances of the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury in 1613 were disclosed, and he and his wife, who had secured a divorce from the earl of Essex to marry him, were implicated. For this story see SIR THOMAS OVERBURY. Possibly Somerset was no more than an accessory after the event. He was pardoned in 1624, and from that time disappears from history. He died in July See the article by S. R. Gardiner in Dict. Nat. Biog., with authori ties there cited, and the same author's History of England; State Trials II.; Life and Letters of Bacon, ed. by Spedding ; Studies in Eng. Hist., by Gairdner and Spedding.