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.
Percy Seymour, 18th Duke of Somerset Percy Seymour, 18th Duke of Somerset Percy Hamilton Seymour, 18th Duke of Somerset (Crowborough, Sussex, 27 September 1910 – 15 November 1984), styled Lord Seymour between 1931 and 1954, of Bradley House in the parish of Maiden Bradley, Wiltshire, was a British peer. He was the son of Evelyn Seymour, 17th Duke of Somerset by his wife Edith Parker, a daughter of William Parker by his wife Lucinda Steeves. He was educated at Blundell's School, Tiverton in Devon, and at Clare College, Cambridge. He was subsequently commissioned into the Wiltshire Regiment. He saw service in India, Persia and Burma. In