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,
Susan Seymour, Duchess of Somerset Susan Seymour, Duchess of Somerset Susan Margaret Seymour, Duchess of Somerset ("née" Richards Mackinnon, 11 January 1853 – 30 January 1936), who also published as Mrs Algernon St Maur, was a Scottish aristocrat, writer and philanthropist. Susan Mackinnon was the ninth of ten daughters of Charles Mackinnon of Corriechatachan and Henrietta Studd. She married Algernon Seymour, who later became 15th Duke of Somerset, on 5 September 1877, at Forres. The couple had no children. She shared many of her husband's outdoor interests and, under the name Mrs Algernon St Maur, wrote a book "Impressions of a Tenderfoot during a Journey