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,
Percy Seymour, 18th Duke of Somerset Percy Seymour, 18th Duke of Somerset Percy Hamilton Seymour, 18th Duke of Somerset (Crowborough, Sussex, 27 September 1910 – 15 November 1984), styled Lord Seymour between 1931 and 1954, of Bradley House in the parish of Maiden Bradley, Wiltshire, was a British peer. He was the son of Evelyn Seymour, 17th Duke of Somerset by his wife Edith Parker, a daughter of William Parker by his wife Lucinda Steeves. He was educated at Blundell's School, Tiverton in Devon, and at Clare College, Cambridge. He was subsequently commissioned into the Wiltshire Regiment. He saw service in India, Persia and Burma. In