Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset (née Stanhope) (c.1510 – 16 April 1587) was the second wife of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset (c.1500–1552), who held the office of Lord Protector during the first part of the reign of his nephew King Edward VI, through whom Anne was briefly the most powerful woman in England. During her husband's time as Lord Protector she claimed precedence over the dowager queen Catherine. Anne Stanhope was likely born in 1510, the only child of Sir Edward Stanhope (1462 – 6 June 1511) by his wife Elizabeth Bourchier (b.
Susan Seymour, Duchess of Somerset Susan Seymour, Duchess of Somerset Susan Margaret Seymour, Duchess of Somerset ("née" Richards Mackinnon, 11 January 1853 – 30 January 1936), who also published as Mrs Algernon St Maur, was a Scottish aristocrat, writer and philanthropist. Susan Mackinnon was the ninth of ten daughters of Charles Mackinnon of Corriechatachan and Henrietta Studd. She married Algernon Seymour, who later became 15th Duke of Somerset, on 5 September 1877, at Forres. The couple had no children. She shared many of her husband's outdoor interests and, under the name Mrs Algernon St Maur, wrote a book "Impressions of a Tenderfoot during a Journey