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,
Evelyn Seymour, 17th Duke of Somerset Evelyn Seymour, 17th Duke of Somerset Evelyn Francis Edward Seymour, 17th Duke of Somerset (1 May 1882 – 26 April 1954) was a British Army officer, landowner, peer, and for eight years Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire. He was also a baronet. The son of Edward Seymour, 16th Duke of Somerset, by his marriage to Rowena Wall, Seymour was born in Colombo, Ceylon. He returned to England and was educated at Blundell's School, Tiverton, and later at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He was gazetted a second lieutenant on the Unattached List in January 1901, before being attached to the Royal