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.
Anne Seymour, Duchess of Somerset Seymour and John Dudley. Somerset fell again into disgrace in October 1551, when he was arrested on charges of conspiring against Warwick, who had recently been created Duke of Northumberland. Somerset was convicted of felony on 1 December 1551 and beheaded on 22 January 1552 on Tower Hill. The Duchess of Somerset had been arrested with her husband and continued in the Tower until 30 May 1553. After Mary I's accession in July and the attainder of the Duke of Northumberland she was allowed to choose from the Dudley family's confiscated household stuffs. Anne Seymour married secondly Francis Newdigate (d.