Within four years, from 1971 to 1975, a giddy succession of titles descended upon him. He succeeded his father as Baron Howard of Glossop (which is where one finds the Norfolk connection. The title of Howard of Glossop was created in 1869 for the second son of the 13th Duke of Norfolk as a "consolation peerage" to compensate for his failure to get elected M.P. for Preston; he had represented Arundel in the House of Commons for fourteen years from 1852 to 1868). The following year his mother died, passing on to him her own more ancient dignity, the barony of Beaumont, created in 1309 for the second cousin of Edward II. This title fell into abeyance in 1895, when the 10th Baron Beaumont killed himself accidentally with a shotgun when crossing a stile. This man, happily for his descendant, was converted to Roman Catholicism in 1880. The R.C. community in England would have been very shaken with a Protestant Duke of Norfolk. The barony was called out of abeyance in 1896 in favour of the present Duke's mother, then aged two.
As soon as the mantle of Norfolk fell upon him, he accepted the challenge ruefully, making no secret of his wish that the wavy line had taken another direction. Never before the centre of so much national attention, he takes publicity in his stride, with more of a desire to please than his predecessor, less impatience, less intolerance. The Howard bluntness, the cause of so much trouble in the past and source of so much endearment in more recent times, runs with undiminished vigour in Norfolk's veins. If he is embarrassed by the fuss, he will say so.
* * *
By an apt coincidence, the dukedom of Somerset was restored in the same year as the dukedom of Norfolk - 1660, 108 years after the execution of Edward Seymour, the 1st Duke, and eighty-eight years after the execution of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk. Thus were the descendants of the rival families, once bitter enemies, restored to their proper dignity at the same time. The man who then became 2nd Duke of Somerset for a month (he also died in 1660) was William Seymour, great-grandson of the 1st Duke, and Marquess of Hertford since 1641. He was a scholarly man, Chancellor of the University of Oxford 1643-1647 and again in 1660, a natural student. But it was for an adventure in love that the world knew his name.
When Master William Seymour was fifteen years old he was the object of passionate attentions from Lady Arabella Stuart, who was then twenty-seven. This would be no more than cause for amusing gossip were it not for the fact that Arabella was first cousin to James I, being descended from Henry VII through Margaret Tudor and therefore high in line of succession to the throne. No member of the Royal Family was allowed to fall in love without the Sovereign's approval, and James severely scolded his cousin, ordering her to break off the affair, which was quite unsuitable. Not only was William Seymour a pubescent boy, but he was not even heir apparent to his grandfather's title of Earl of Hertford, being a second son. The future revival of the dukedom of Somerset was not then even contemplated, and it would not have fallen upon him anyway. Arabella obeyed, but not without protesting that they were deeply and truly in love. Events were to prove her sincere.
The affair resumed in 1610, by which time he was twenty-two and she thirty-four. Their romance, more dramatic than any fiction, came to a head when they married clandestinely at Greenwich, without the King's consent, which, she being of royal blood, was essential. They were discovered and imprisoned, he in the Tower, she at Lambeth. They were treated with such leniency that he appears to have been allowed to visit her in prison while he was still nominally in chains himself. It was an easy matter for them to hatch a plot for escape.
Arabella escaped first, dressed as a man. Seymour was to follow her. He walked out of the Tower of London having changed clothes with his barber, and hastened to the continent in search of his wife. She, meanwhile, had been caught, and sent to the Tower. The young lovers never saw each other again. She was confined in the Tower for the rest of her short life, where she gradually lost her mind. She was quite insane when she died in 1615. Seymour eventually came back to England, married Frances Devereux, sister of the Earl of Essex, in 1618, and led subsequently a more sedentary life. He died four weeks after being restored as 2nd Duke of Somerset in 1660.83
The Dukes of Somerset then went into a decline more absolute and more hedged in obscurity than the Dukes of Norfolk. The 3rd Duke inherited at the age of eight, and died at the age of nineteen of an unspecified "malignant fever" following a riotous libertine existence." The 5th Duke (1658-1678) met his end in Italy at the age of twenty. He was with some French friends who foolishly insulted the wife of a Genovese gentleman called Horatio Botti. The touchy Italian knocked on the Duke's door, and when he answered, shot him dead on the spot.56
The 6th Duke of Somerset (1662-1748) was the brother of the dead man, and was descended from a younger son of the 1st Duke. He is the largest character in the Seymour gallery, an absurdly pompous eccentric who holds a place in the history of the family analogous to that held by Jockey of Norfolk in the Howard history. There is a difference, however. Jockey of Norfolk, though he drank too much, was loved. The "Proud Duke", 6th of Somerset, was loathed.
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 p
rogress 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
The studious 11th Duke fell in love with Lady Susan Hamilton, daughter of the 9th Duke of Hamilton, but her elder sister, Lady Charlotte, had eyes for him herself and, somehow or other, managed to woo him away to her own side. He was not the kind of man to put up much resistance, and one daughter was presumably as good as another. His bad-tempered mother objected to the match, probably on the grounds that Charlotte was much older than the Duke, but also possibly from spite; she was only the daughter of an esquire, whereas the Hamiltons were among the highest in the land. At all events, the wedding took place in 1800, and Lady Charlotte brought to the Seymour family many magnificent Hamilton heirlooms, paintings and furniture. There were Rembrandts, Rubens, Van Dycks, and plenty more, no doubt the cause of Creevey's acid comment about the new Duchess, that "false devil who robbed her brother Archie of his birthright",61 brother Archie being Lord Archibald Hamilton. The treasures she filched from the dukedom of Hamilton and passed to the dukedom of Somerset were to be the cause of bitter family upheavals amongst the Seymours in the next generation, and to provoke a rift the effects of which are felt today. The Duchess was, incidentally, incredibly mean. The Farington Diary records her dinner table being decked with "nothing but a leg of mutton at the top and a dish of potatoes at the bottom".
The Duke adopted the name St Maur in the belief that his family originated from Normandy, and in denial of his real origin from Seymour, yet paradoxically he called both his daughters Jane. Vanity of this kind was an unusual aberration for him. He married a second time after Charlotte's death
, and he and his second wife are buried simply in a grave at Kensal Green cemetery, part of the tombstone broken with neglect.
His son the 12th Duke of Somerset (1804-1885) rose to a more elevated and responsible position in public life than any duke since the Lord Protector, married one of the most beautiful women of the day, and had five happy children. From every point of view, however, his life was to develop tragically.
In the first place, the beautiful Duchess was not a popular choice. She was one of the three celebrated grand-daughters of the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan and accordingly was always known as the "Sheridan Duchess". That she was stunning there is no question. Lord Dufferin saw her at the Eglinton tournament of 1839 and enthused about her "large deep blue or violet eyes, black hair, black eyebrows and eyelashes, perfect features, and a complexion of lilies and roses".82 Disraeli wrote ecstatically, "anything so splendid I never gazed upon . . . clusters of the darkest hair, the most brilliant complexion, a contour of face perfectly ideal".63
This was all very well, but she was not an aristocrat. No amount of beauty could make up for low birth. From the beginning, then, the rest of the family were fiercely opposed to her. Her father-in-law the nth Duke (still alive at the time of the marriage), did all he could to dissuade his impulsive son from embarking on such a union. An eye for beauty was always a most powerful spur to any Seymour, however, as his previous amours had shown. The principal seat of the Seymours at this time was Stover Hall, in Devon, where the Hamilton heirlooms were housed. That the Sheridan Duchess was despised by other members of the family for her low birth is shown by an extraordinary document signed by the 13th Duke, full of vituperative contempt for her and her husband, which used to hang for all to see at Maiden Bradley, and is now kept in a bottom drawer there. In it, the Duke described her as a "low-born greedy beggar woman", whose sole object was to get her hands on the property and leave it away from the direct heirs. The Duchess of Hamilton commented acidly that she was not used to "novel splendours". The Sheridan Duchess, who ate guinea-pigs and even produced a recipe book to show dozens of ways in which guinea-pigs could be prepared,64 was happy with her husband and children, and viewed with patronising tolerance the rest of the Seymours.
The Dukes Page 8
