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,
Lord Edward Seymour (died 1593) Welsh, etc.) of Cathanger, Fivehead, Somerset, Justice of the Common Pleas in 1563, MP for Cricklade (1547), Bristol (twice in 1553, twice in 1554, 1555, 1559, 1563), Somerset (1558) by whom he had one son: After the male line of the Seymour Dukes of Somerset in descent from the 1st Duke and his second wife Anne Stanhope failed on the death of Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset (1684–1750), of Petworth House in Sussex (5th cousin of the 5th Baronet), the Berry Pomeroy family inherited the Dukedom in accordance with the special remainder, in the person of Sir Edward Seymour,