This very eminent man was the second son of Sir John Seymour of Wolf
Hall, and Margaret Wentworth of Nettlestead, and owed his first rise to
notice entirely to the elevation of his sister, Queen Jane Seymour. He
married, at some period previous to this, Katherine, daughter and
co-heir of Sir William Folliott, whom he repudiated when he reached a
rather higher position, in order to marry Anne Stanhope, a great
heiress. This was probably in 1537. On the 6th of June in that year he
was created Viscount Beauchamp, and on the 18th of October following was
advanced to the dignity of Earl of Hertford. So late as the accession
of Edward the Sixth, he was still a Lutheran; for had he been then a
Gospeller, we should not have found his signature to a letter written to
the Council recommending a pardon at the Coronation, because "the late
King, being in Heaven, has no need of the _merit_ of it." He was
created by his royal nephew, February 16, 1547, Duke of Somerset, and
Lord Protector of England during the King's minority. It was very soon
after this that he became a Gospeller; and immediately the Lords of the
Council, headed by Northumberland, conspired to ruin him. The fullest,
and the saddest, account of the plot against Somerset will be found in
that Diary of Edward the Sixth, which records only facts, not opinions,
much less feelings. Edward never enters anything in his Diary but
events; and he did not see that the affair was a plot. Among Somerset's
judges were his rival Northumberland, his daughter-in-law's father
Suffolk, the Gospeller Sussex, his enemy Pembroke, and his cousin
Wentworth. The Duke was acquitted of high treason, and condemned to
death for felony, i.e., for devising the death of Northumberland.
Somerset rose and owned honestly so much of the accusation as was true.
He _had_ considered whether it were advisable to impeach Northumberland
and others; and had decided not to do so. He might have added that for
his rival, a simple member of the Council, to depose and afterwards to
impeach the Lord Protector, was at last as felonious or treasonable as
any act of his. But words were vain, however true or eloquent.
Northumberland had resolved upon his death, and thirsted for his blood.
Somerset died upon Tower Hill, January 22, 1552. His Duchess survived
him, but she was not released from the Tower until the accession of
Mary. He left behind him twelve children; three by Katherine Folliott,
nine by Anne Stanhope. The present Duke of Somerset is the
representative of the former; the Duke of Northumberland, by the female
line, of the latter. Lady Jane, the proposed Queen of Edward the Sixth,
was afterwards Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth, and died unmarried,
March 19, 1560, aged only nineteen. Somerset's failings were pride and
ambition; and he suffered in having married a woman whose faults were
similar to his own. The character delineated in the text is not that
attributed to him by modern historians. I must beg my readers to
remember, that the necessities of the story oblige me to paint the
historical persons who enter into it, not as modern writers regard them,
nor indeed as I myself regard them, but as they were regarded by the
Gospellers of their day. And the feelings of the Gospellers towards
Somerset were those of deep tenderness and veneration. Whether the
Gospellers or the historians were in the right, is one of those
questions on which men will probably differ to the end of the world. I
believe that his last days, the worst from a worldly point of view, were
the best from a religious one, and that he was chastened of the Lord
that he should _not_ be condemned with the world.