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,
Edward Seymour, 8th Duke of Somerset Edward Seymour, 8th Duke of Somerset Edward Seymour, 8th Duke of Somerset (December 1694 or early 1695 – December 1757) was an English peer and landowner. The son of Sir Edward Seymour, 5th Baronet, of Berry Pomeroy, a descendant of Lord Protector Somerset by his first marriage, to Catherine Fillol, he was baptized at Easton Royal, Wiltshire, on 17 January 1694. On 8 March 1716 or 5 March 1717, at Monkton Farleigh, Edward Seymour married Mary Webb (born at Seend on 22 October 1697, died 1 February 1768, and buried at Seend), a daughter of Daniel Webb, of Monkton Farleigh,