Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset appeared to back the common people against a rapacious landowning class. In the early 20th century this line was taken by the influential A. F. Pollard, to be echoed by Edward VI's 1960s biographer W. K. Jordan. A more critical approach was initiated by M. L. Bush and Dale Hoak in the mid-1970s. Since then, Somerset has often been portrayed as an arrogant ruler, devoid of the political and administrative skills necessary for governing the Tudor state. Edward Seymour married twice: The male line of Edward Seymour and Anne Stanhope died out with the seventh Duke of Somerset in 1750,
Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset General Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset (11 November 1684 – 7 February 1750), styled Earl of Hertford until 1748, of Petworth House in Sussex, was a British soldier, politician and landowner. Seymour was the only son of Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, by his first wife, the heiress Lady Elizabeth Percy, deemed Baroness Percy in her own right, the only surviving child of Joceline Percy, 11th and last Earl of Northumberland. Seymour was returned to Parliament for Marlborough in 1705, a seat he held until 1708, and then represented Northumberland until 1722.