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.
Algernon Seymour, 15th Duke of Somerset build. After leaving the Regular Army, he spent several years ranching in Western America. On accession to the Dukedom in 1894, he voted often in the House of Lords, although he seldom spoke there. He became president of Dr Barnardo's Homes, a charity which both he and the Duchess had supported for many years. When Somerset died in 1923, he left no son, and his brothers Lord Ernest and Lord Edward had both recently died childless, so his titles and estates were inherited by the nearest heir, his distant cousin Colonel Edward Seymour. The Duke was buried on Brimble Hill