Frances Seymour, Duchess of Somerset numerous descendants include Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother (and therefore The Queen and all of her blood descendants), Diana, Princess of Wales, and Sarah, Duchess of York. Frances Seymour, Duchess of Somerset Frances Seymour, Duchess of Somerset ("née" Devereux; 30 September 1599 – 24 April 1674), was an English noblewoman who lived during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, Charles I and Charles II. Her father was Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, Elizabeth I's favourite who was executed for treason in 1601. She was the second wife of William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset, and the mother of
Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough religion, a subject she rarely mentioned, although at their last fraught interview she did warn Anne that she risked God's vengeance for her unreasoning cruelty to Sarah. The queen did not want this difference to come between them; but Sarah, always thinking of her husband, wanted Anne to give more support to the Whigs, which she was not prepared to do. Sarah was called to Cambridge in 1703, where her only surviving son, John, Marquess of Blandford, was taken ill with smallpox. The Duke of Marlborough was recalled from the war and was at his bedside when he died on