Elizabeth Seymour, Duchess of Somerset

Elizabeth Seymour, Duchess of Somerset (26 January 1667–24 November 1722) was an English courtier and Whig politician.

Early life

Born Elizabeth Percy at Petworth House, she was the only surviving daughter of Lord Percy (later Earl of Northumberland) and his wife, Elizabeth. On her father's death in 1670, she inherited the vast Percy estates (including Petworth House, Northumberland House, Alnwick Castle, and Syon House, among others) as his only surviving heir and became a much sought-after heiress. In 1673, her mother married Viscount Monthermer (later Duke of Montagu) and she was placed under the guardianship of her grandmother, the Dowager Countess of Northumberland.

Marriages

The dowager countess soon arranged for the twelve year old Lady Elizabeth to be married to the fifteen year old Earl of Ogle, the eldest son of the 2nd Duke of Newcastle. They were married on 27 March 1679 and she became Countess of Ogle, but the sickly Lord Ogle died the following year.

In 1681, the dowager countess arranged another marriage for Lady Ogle, this time to the much older Thomas Thynne, known as 'Tom of Ten Thousand' and worth £10,000 per annum (although John Evelyn reported £9,000). Thynne was a first cousin once removed of the 1st Viscount Weymouth. They were married on 15 November that year, but the marriage was unhappy and was not consummated. Lady Ogle, on the advice of Lady Temple, fled to the Dutch Republic later that month, stating 'there may be more sin and shame in people's living together than in parting'. She was sheltered by Lady Temple's husband, Sir William, who was the ambassador there and sought assistance from her mother and stepfather to free her from Thynne. The marriage was eventually ended a few months later, when Thynne was murdered by the Black Fist Assassins guild led by Michael Migdall, who was hired by Karl Johann, Count Königsmark, a Swedish nobleman who had also desired the hand of Lady Ogle. The assassins were hanged March 10 1682 putting an end to the Black Fist's reign of terror, although Migdall managed to escape into the nearby mountains never to be seen again. The "Count" was acquitted. See .

In March 1682, Lady Ogle returned to England and on 30 May (after an initial refusal), she married the 6th Duke of Somerset. They later had seven children:

• Charles, styled Earl of Hertford (b. & d. 1683)
• Algernon, styled Earl of Hertford, later 7th Duke of Somerset (1684-1750){Father-in-law of Hugh Percy, 1st Duke of Northumberland}.
• Lady Elizabeth Seymour (1685-1734), married Henry O'Brien, 8th Earl of Thomond.
• Lord Charles Seymour (1688-1710)
• Lady Catherine Seymour (bef.1693-1731), married Sir William Wyndham, 3rd Baronet.
• Lord Percy Seymour (1696-1721)
• Lady Anne (bef.1709–1722), married Peregrine Osborne, 3rd Duke of Leeds.

One of the terms of the original marriage contract stipulated that the duke was to eventually take the name Percy, but he was released from this obligation when the duchess reached her majority a few years later. This marriage was also unhappy and according to the 1st Earl of Dartmouth, the duke 'treated her with little gratitude or affection, though he owed all he had, except an empty title, to her'.

Politics

Despite their unhappy marriage, the Somersets made an effective political team under Queen Anne. The duke was Master of the Horse and a member of the cabinet whilst the duchess was appointed a Lady of the Bedchamber in 1702. She was widely esteemed at court; Dartmouth wrote of her as 'the best bred, as well as the best born lady in England...she maintained her dignity at court, with great respect to the queen and civility to all others' and the Countess of Strafford remarked 'If the Duchess must be out, she will leave the Court with a very good grace, for everybody is pleased with her good breeding and civility'

Rivalry with the Tories

A friendship developed between the duchess and the queen about mid-reign. Sir David Hamilton, the queen's physician commented that, unlike the Duchess of Marlborough and Lady Masham, the duchess 'never press'd the Queen Hard, nothing makes the Queen more Uneasie than that', although Swift thought her 'a most insinuating woman'. Both the Churchill faction and the Tories thought the duchess and her husband planned to bring down the Godolphin ministry in 1710 and the Harley ministry thereafter.

The duchess's political intrigues tended to be carried out more discretely than her rival, the Duchess of Marlborough. It was assumed by the Churchills that the duchess had pointed out, to the Queen, the Duchess of Marlborough's frequent absences from court and at the trial of Henry Sacheverell in 1710, the Duchess of Somerset and Lady Hyde chose to stand as attendants to the queen, whilst the Duchess of Marlborough sat down. Following the Marlboroughs' fall from grace that year, the Duchess of Somerset was appointed Mistress of the Robes and Groom of the Stole and Lady Masham as Keeper of the Privy Purse.

When a copy of the Daily Courant containing the protestings of the preliminary articles of the Treaty of Utrecht was shown to the queen by the duchess in 1711, the queen's subsequent lack of support for Harley's 'No Peace without Spain' was said by Swift to have been 'all your duchess of Somerset's doings'. The Harley ministry was particularly anxious to neutralise the duchess's influence over the queen after this event. In the winter of 1711–12, a ministerial campaign took place to have her removed from her bedchamber post and Swift seconded this with The Windsor Prophecy, which referred to the duchess's chequered past:

The charge was discredited by the queen but, nevertheless, when her husband was dismissed as Master of the Horse in 1712, the Tory hopes of the duchess also being dismissed seemed promising, especially since the duke himself sought to force his wife to resign her court appoints as well. However an effort by the queen, Lord Cowper and Sir David Hamilton to retain the duchess, succeeded when the duke was persuaded to allow his wife to remain at court. Despite maintaining a Whig prescence around the queen and Hamilton's urging that the duchess spend less time at Petworth House and more time at court, the Whigs received little advantage from the duchess's access to the sovereign, evident by the queen's growing aversion to being badgered by her Ladies of the Bedchamber. Ironically, the duchess's failure to manoeuvre the queen's political interests still afforded her to be described as being 'by much the greatest favourite, when the queen died' according to Dartmouth.. During Harley's desperate final days of his ministry, he paid tribute to this favour by asking to 'Send for the Dchs of Somerset—no body else can save us'.

Final years

In 1695, the duchess was chief mourner at the funeral of Mary II and again as such at the funeral of Queen Anne in 1714. She died at her London home, Northumberland House on 23 November 1722 from breast cancer and was buried on 13 December in Salisbury Cathedral.

Titles from birth to death

• 26 January 1667–13 October 1668: Miss Elizabeth Percy
• 13 October 1668–27 March 1679: Lady Elizabeth Percy
• 27 March 1679–30 May 1682: The Rt. Hon. The Countess of Ogle
• 30 May 1682–24 November 1722: Her Grace The Duchess of Somerset

Ancestry

Notes and references

Sources

• British Library, Blenheim manuscripts
• Bucholz, R. O. Seymour (née Percy), Elizabeth, duchess of Somerset (1667–1722), courtier and politician. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved on 2007-08-06..
• Bucholz, R. O. (1993). The Augustan court: Queen Anne and the decline of court culture.
• Chatsworth House, Devonshire manuscripts
• Cokayne, George (1887-1898). The Complete Peerage. Sutton, Alan.
• Gregg, E. G. (1980). Queen Anne.
• Holmes, G. S. (1967). British politics in the age of Anne.
• Snyder, H. L. (1975). The Marlborough–Godolphin correspondence.
• West Sussex Record Office, Petworth House archives, Somerset papers