Lady Jane Seymour for the tomb of Margaret of Valois, queen of Navarre and also an author, which was published in 1550. Lady Jane Seymour Lady Jane Seymour (c.1541 – 19 March 1561) was an influential writer during the sixteenth century in England, along with her sisters, Lady Margaret Seymour and Anne Seymour, Countess of Warwick. Their brother was Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford. They were the children of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, who from 1547 was the Lord Protector of England after the death of King Henry VIII and during the minority of Jane's first cousin, King Edward VI.
Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset of Hertford (1684–1749) had produced a son of his own, Lord Beauchamp (d.1744), who had predeceased him without progeny, and thus he had only a daughter and sole heiress Lady Elizabeth Seymour, who in 1740 had married Sir Hugh Smithson, 4th Baronet. Before the death of the 6th duke in 1748, it had thus become apparent that the dukedom of Somerset would devolve by law onto an extremely distant cousin and heir male, the 6th duke's 6th cousin Sir Edward Seymour, 6th Baronet (1695–1757) of Berry Pomeroy in Devon and of Maiden Bradley in Wiltshire, who in fact represented the