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.
Mary Seymour, Duchess of Somerset in Wiltshire and Devon. On 11 September 1744, the unexpected death of George Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp (1725–1744), the only son of Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset, made Sir Edward the heir presumptive to the dukedom and to the barony of Seymour. On 23 November 1750 the 7th duke died, and Seymour succeeded to the dukedom, his wife then becoming a duchess. The principal Percy family estates and houses of Alnwick Castle, Northumberland House, Petworth House, and Syon House, had been divided between the 7th duke's daughter Elizabeth Percy, Duchess of Northumberland, and his nephew, Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of