The Dukes (15 page)

He was not without his abilities, but held them in higher regard
than anyone else did. He came to the title at the age of sixteen, was
Gentleman of the Bedchamber to both Charles II and James II, was
made Knight of the Garter at twenty-one. Later distinctions included
the Lord President of the Council and Master of the Horse. He made
a spectacular marriage. His bride was Lady Elizabeth Percy, Countess
of Ogle, daughter and sole heiress of the last Earl of Northumberland;
she brought to the marriage and to the growing ego of the Duke of
Somerset all the Percy estates and revenues, including Northumber­land House in the Strand, Alnwick Castle, Petworth, and Syon
House. Further, his bride held in her own right six of the oldest
baronies in the kingdom, those of Percy, Lucy, Poynings, Fitz-Payne,
Bryan, and Latimer. The Duke's self-importance henceforth knew no
bounds, though it was all derived from his wife, as was almost all his
money.

She, strange to say, at sixteen was already twice a widow. She had
first married at the age of thirteen Henry Cavendish, Earl of Ogle.
He died shortly afterwards, aged eighteen, and young Elizabeth was
again on the market. She was pursued by Thomas Thynne of
Longleat, a rogue and philanderer, and Count Koenigsmark, a hot-
blooded continental nobleman. Being worth a considerable fortune
the girl was under all kinds of pressures to place it somewhere, and
Thynne was chosen as the most likely beneficiary. She married him in
some secrecy, then promptly disappeared, having told her servants that
she wanted to buy some plate, and instructed them to wait for her
outside the Old Exchange, by her carriage. She did not return, but
fled to seek the protection of Lady Temple, wife of the ambassador
in Holland. Clearly, she was scared, as well she might be; her new
husband was murdered in Pall Mall by hired assassins of his rival
Koenigsmark.

The Duke of Somerset was this adolescent's third husband. As part
of the marriage settlement, he was obliged to adopt the name Percy
(which would otherwise disappear), but she later released him from
this clause. The drama of her short history made her a fit object for
lampoons. Swift wrote this impromptu piece, full of wicked implica­tions (she had flaming red hair and was nicknamed "Carrots"):

Beware of
Carrots
from Northumberlond.

Carrots sown
Thyn
a deep root may get,

If so they are in
Sommer set.

Their
Conyngs mark
them, for I have been told.

They assassine when young and poison when old.

Preening himself with pleasure, blossoming with the arrogance of
rank, the Proud Duke loved nothing more than to put on his splendid
robes. He relished ceremonies and grand occasions, anything which
gave him an excuse to display his splendour. But he would only
allow himself to be seen by those whose status in society made them
worthy of such an honour. He never suffered the lower classes to set
eyes upon him. He went so far as to build houses at strategic points
between London and Petworth so that he would not be obliged, on
making the journey between his properties, to stay at an inn. Courtiers
were sent on ahead of him to clear the roads, so that his progress
might proceed without obstruction. People were told to make them­selves scarce, because His Grace did not deign to be seen by
commoners. One man responded to this command in the only way
merited, by thrusting a pig in the Duke's face. As Macaulay wrote,
he was "a man in whom the pride of birth and rank amounted almost
to a disease".
⁵⁶

Accounts of his stupid arrogance are abundant. On one occasion,
his second wife tapped him lightly with her fan. "Madam," he said
imperiously, "my first Duchess was a Percy, and she never took such
a liberty." When his daughter Charlotte had the temerity to sit down
in his presence, the Duke immediately deprived her of £20,000 of her
inheritance.

Stories such as these would be even more amusing were it not for
the malignant cruelty which they conceal. For Somerset's pride was
truly so grotesque that it made misery for his family. One laughed at
him, and pitied those near him. Like Monsieur Jourdain in Moliere's
Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme,
Somerset allowed his ridiculous obsessions
to poison any natural filial love he may have felt. For example, he had
a habit of dozing on his couch after dinner. It was the duty of his
youngest daughter to sit and watch him while he slept. One day she
left him, and he rolled off to the floor. When he woke up and found
himself on the floor he was so furious that he forbade everyone in the
house to speak to her, although they were to treat her with respect as
his
daughter. This torment went on for an entire year, the family and
servants not daring to open their mouths to the poor girl, still less
to approach His Grace to find out when or if the prohibition was to
be lifted. So it was never known if he had forgiven her. "His whole
stupid life was a series of pride and tyranny", said Walpole.
⁵⁸

His worst offence was to explode with anger against his son Lord
Hertford because his grandson Lord Beauchamp died at the age of
nineteen, thus depriving his line of an heir. Walpole tells the tale.
"He has written the most shocking letter imaginable to poor Lord
Hertford", he writes, "telling him that it is a judgement upon him for
all his undutifulness, and that he must always look upon himself as
the cause of his son's death. Lord Hertford is as good a man as lives,
and has always been most unreasonably ill-used by that old tyrant.
The title of Somerset will revert to Sir Edward Seymour."
⁵⁹
Sir
Edward was Speaker of the House of Commons, and is credited with
having put the Proud Duke in his place in conversation with King
William. The King said to him, "Sir Edward, I think you are of the
Duke of Somerset's family?" to which he replied, "No, Sir; he is of
mine."

To appreciate the import of Sir Edward Seymour's remark, we
have to travel back to the beginning of the dukedom of Somerset and
gingerly climb genealogical trees.

The Proud Duke, 6th in line, died in 1748, aged eighty-seven. His
son succeeded as 7th Duke, was the following year created Earl of
Northumberland, to perpetuate the title of his mother's family, the
Percys, and since he had no sons after the death of Lord Beauchamp,
special arrangements were made for the earldom to pass to the heirs
of his son-in-law Hugh Smithson, who then became the ancestor of
the present Duke of Northumberland.

A crisis occurred in the dukedom of Somerset, the first of several
to beset this title, when the 7th Duke died the following year, 1750,
bringing the line of descent to an abrupt end.

The 1st Duke of Somerset, Edward Seymour the Lord Protector
(1500-1552) had married twice. The first marriage, to Katherine
Fillol, was not an entire success. The paternity of their first son was
suspect, and there was talk that Seymour was furious because the baby
was born while he was absent for many months in France. When in
1547 he bad himself created Duke of Somerset he had already been
married again to Anne Stanhope, and he made the patent of creation
specify an entail which placed the issue of this second marriage (the
junior branch) in preference to the issue of the first marriage (the
senior branch) by reason of Katherine Fillol's infidelity. The first son
was cut out entirely. In order, the dukedom was to descend to

1.
   
heirs male of himself and his second wife

2.
   
heirs male by any future wife

3.
   
to Edward, the second son by his first wife

4.
   
to his brothers

5.
    
to his heirs female

So, the first seven Dukes of Somerset were descended from Anne
Stanhope. In 1750 the dignity reverted to the issue of the first marriage
and Sir Edward Seymour, who claimed it, was a direct descendant
of the second son by the first wife Katherine Fillol. (The first son, of
dubious legitimacy, had conveniently died unmarried in 1552.)
When Sir Edward Seymour the Speaker told King William that the
Duke of Somerset belonged to
his
family rather than the other way
round, he was not merely being funny. In the normal course his
branch of the family would have had precedence from the very
beginning, being heirs of the body of Edward Seymour, the Lord
Protector's eldest surviving son.

The second branch of Seymours finally came to the title in 1750,
with the 8th Duke of Somerset (1695-1757), a fifth cousin once
removed of the 7th. The man who carries the title of Somerset now is
descended from this 8th Duke, and therefore, through eleven
generations, from the Lord Protector's first marriage.

The 10th Duke, Webb Seymour, was one of those strange
hypochondriacs who frequently occur in ducal households; so terrified
was he of catching smallpox that letters had to be hurled through a
gingerly opened window. He may have been driven to excess by his
wife, Anna Maria Bonnel - jealous, bigoted, and shrewish. Their
eldest son, Edward Adolphus, succeeded as 11th Duke of Somerset
(1775-1855) and brought to the family its most intellectual member.
A Fellow of the Royal Society, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries,
and an author of learned treatises in scientific subjects, such as
Properties of the Ellipse,
the nth Duke was a thinker. Diffident and
cautious, trusting to his own reason but not in awe of it, he was a fine
example of a son of the Age of Enlightenment, reflective, just, and
temperate. He lived a retired existence in contemplation and content­ment. His brother Lord Webb John Seymour (1777-1819) was also
a man of intellect, with a heady reputation in the fields of science and
mathematics. His closest friend was John Playfair (1748-1819),
professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at the University of
Edinburgh, and founder of the modern science of geology. Seymour
and Playfair were quite inseparable; they would turn down an
invitation to dine if they had not yet solved together an abstract
problem which may have occupied their attentions for two or three
days. So close were they that, according to Lord Cockburn, "they used
to be called husband and wife, and in congeniality and affection no
union could be more complete". Geology, he added, was their
favourite pursuit.
⁶⁰