were pictureless, bookless, almost spoonless. Still they were determined to make the best of it . . . 'Algie and Susie', as they always speak of each other, have had a most delightful life, enjoying and giving enjoyment. No one ever looked more ducal than this genial, hearty, handsome Duke: no one brighter or pleasanter than his Duchess."76
Harold St Maur, who wrote the family history, Annals of the Seymours, tactfully avoiding all mention of his parents' drama, had three sons. Stover was sold and is now a girls' school. Harold moved to Kenya and died there. He has one surviving grandson, Edward St Maur, a photographer in Chepstow, Gwent, who is the last person able to bear that surname; he has three daughters. Were circumstances slightly different, as his grandfather was never declared illegitimate by the lords, he could, in theory, apply for a writ of summons to Parliament as Earl St Maur. But the implication would be that he was also the rightful Duke of Somerset, which is a nest better left undisturbed. As it is, he has the sword with which Lord Edward killed the bear, and the Stover inventory. Ruth St Maur has a son and nephew living in London.[3]
and in 1891 to Algernon, 14th Duke, both brothers of the 12th. He then died in 1894 and was succeeded by his son, whom Hare called "Algie"; there had been four Dukes of Somerset in nine years.
When Algie, the 15th Duke, died in 1923, yet another crisis threatened the family. All that was left of the legitimate family were his three nieces, Helen, Lettys, and Lucy, known collectively as "Hell let loose". There was no direct heir, and the mantle was assumed by a distant relation, Brigadier-General Sir Edward Hamilton Seymour, k.b.e., who could claim descent from only two of the previous fifteen Dukes of Somerset, the 8th and of course the 1st; but he was the senior heir male of the body of the Lord Protector, even if it required considerable genealogical dexterity to see how. At least that was his firm belief, until the Marquess of Hertford, also a Seymour, challenged his right to the dukedom and claimed it for himself. It was 1750 all over again. The matter had to be referred to the House of Lords, and it was not until two years later that a final decision was made.
Sir Edward Hamilton Seymour was the great-grandson of Colonel Francis Compton Seymour, a son of the 8th Duke of Somerset. This Francis Compton in 1787 made a most unusual marriage, choosing as his bride the daughter of an East End publican. Her name was
Leonora Perkins, widow of a sailor called John Hudson, and the marriage took place at St Michael's, Crooked Lane, Woolwich. Their son, born 2 1st September 1788, leads directly to the new Duke. Hertford's case was that this boy was a bastard, as Leonora's first marriage to John Hudson was still valid. Why ? Because Hudson was not dead at all.
In 1786, a year before the marriage with Seymour, there was a John Hudson who died in Calcutta and was buried there. He and Leonora had lived together at 9 Paddington Street since 1780. Lord Hertford, whose agents had resorted to a minute examination of local rate-books and other municipal records in order to get him the dukedom, pointed out that there was a John Hudson on the ratebook in 1790, and a John Hudson who died in Middlesex Hospital in 1791. Surely, he said, this is the man; he had deserted, returned to England, found his wife Leonora living with another man at 9 Paddington Street (our Seymour), and moved out. His name subsequently appears on the rate-book as residing at 28 Marylebone High Street. As for the John Hudson buried in Calcutta, that must be another man. Someone called Francis Seamore [tt'c] does not appear on the rate-book for 9 Paddington Street until 1791, the same year that a John Hudson died in Middlesex Hospital.
It was a pretty strong case. Hertford was, of course, the next legitimate heir if the then Duke of Somerset's descent could be successfully impugned, and there was something attractive about the idea of the two titles of Somerset and Hertford being joined again as they were in the sixteenth century. The Duke's reply was that all Hertford's "evidence" rested on conjecture, petty scandal, and supposition; he further claimed that the public baptism of Seymour's children by Leonora was inconceivable if Hudson were still alive; they lived openly as man and wife.
Before the House of Lords could make their decision, two more would-be dukes entered the fray. A man called Henry Seymour, descended from Leonora's third son by Francis Compton Seymour, said that their marriage did not take place until after the first two sons were born. As there was not a shred of documentary evidence to support the claim, he withdrew pretty quickly. The other claimant was Harold St Maur, who may well have been justified, but who could produce no marriage certificate to back him up.
The Committee of Privileges met to declare on 25th March 1925. They said that Lord Hertford asked them to believe that Hudson would accept that his wife should live in his house with another man, and move to another house round the corner, while still meeting the bills. That would require, said their lordships, a degree of self- sacrifice beyond credence. It is more likely that he would have turfed them both on to the street. More precisely, they had examined the hospital register and found that the John Hudson who died there was forty-four, whereas Leonora's husband would by then have been fifty-three had he lived. They therefore found that Hudson was dead, the marriage valid, and Sir Edward Hamilton Seymour rightfully 16th Duke of Somerset."
So life at Maiden Bradley resumed. The Duke's son followed an almost identical military career, won the D.S.O., and the O.B.E., was mentioned in despatches, and bore the sceptre at the coronation of George VI. It was the first time any Duke of Somerset had been involved in a public occasion for over half a century. Apart from this one show of publicity, and his sporadic duties at Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire, he led a quiet life. He was the only duke to have been adept at tapestry, knitting and conjuring, in which he was so accomplished that he was for many years President of the Magic Circle.
He married Miss Edith Parker, and their first two sons died in infancy. The late duke was their third son. Percy Hamilton Seymour, 18th Duke of Somerset, born in 1910, was educated at Clare College, Cambridge, then went into the army where he rose to the rank of major. He married the daughter of another major, and they had three children, two boys and a girl. So quietly did they live at Maiden Bradley, the only constant heirloom in this troubled descent, that few people seemed to know there was a Duke of Somerset. He rarely took his seat in the House of Lords, didn't like politicians ("no military man likes politicians") and visited London only when he had to. Not much is left of the house at Maiden Bradley, following successive demolishings in the nineteenth century. What is left, however, makes a comfortable country house, with six bedrooms, a kitchen garden, and dogs eddying around wherever you step. It is much more easy to manage than a Chatsworth or a Woburn. From the illustrations past there is only a mirror belonging to Mary Queen of Scots, which the vandals must have missed when the 12th Duke died, and a dusty ceremonial coach, which was spruced up and used when his daughter married. The village around the house used to belong to them, but that went in 1953. The present Duke still has about 5000 acres, and some of Totnes in Devon, which he has to nibble at occasionally by selling a house or two when necessity demands.
The dangerous days when Lord Protector Somerset and the Duke of Norfolk were dire enemies is a dim and distant echo of little consequence now in this peaceful Wiltshire house. The Duke of Somerset has not even met the Duke of Norfolk. John Seymour, 19th Duke of Somerset, was born in 1952 and succeeded to the dukedom in 1984. He is markedly more interested in his ancestry than was his late father, has a house in Fulham and took his seat in the Lords in 1985. He made his maiden speech in 1987, and welcomes any debate on agriculture or forestry, as he feels passionately about the disastrous destruction of the rain forests over the globe. As this is a subject which will dominate attention in the closing years of the twentieth century, and moreover is arguably more important to the future of mankind in peacetime than the nuclear bomb, it is encouraging to think that the House of Lords, that great bouillabaisse of surprisingly democratic opinion, may produce a spokesman on the subject.
The Duke of Somerset is the f
irst of the Seymours for many generations to take an active interest in the ruined castle of Berry Pomeroy, near Totnes, the only surviving house of four built by Lord Protector Somerset after 1547. Described by its historian Harry Gordon Slade as "an impossibly large and hideously inconvenient house", it is probably no wonder that it was already neglected and well on the way to ruin by 1688. Nonetheless, it remains in the ownership of the Duke of Somerset, who was considerably pleased to have it recognised by the Department of the Environment, which administers it, as the most important monument in the West of England. Similarly, the Duke was present at the 450th anniversary of the Yeomen of the Guard in Armoury Hall, representing the blood and spirit of the man who founded them and gave them their uniform, the Lord Protector 1st Duke, his direct ancestor. There is every sign that the dukedom of Somerset may once more emerge, if not into the limelight, at least into acknowledged visibility.
The Duke has a job, representing Sotheby's in Wiltshire, as well as a wife, whom he married in 1978, before he came to the title. The Duchess of Somerset, nee Judith-Rose Hull, is the daughter of the deputy chairman of Shroders, John Folliott Charles Hull. They have a son and heir, Lord Seymour, born in 1982. (As the eldest son of a duke, by the way, this little boy has precedence over all earls, viscounts and barons in the country).references
1. Hist. MSS Comm., 12th Rep., App. ix, p. 47.
2. Melvyn Tucker, Thomas Howard, p. 39.
3. D.N.B.
4. Tucker, op. cit., 40.
5. Collins Peerage, 1,63; Tucker, op. cit., 47.
6. D.N.B.
7. Camden Remains, 1605, p. 217, quoted in Tucker, op. cit., 46m
8. J. H. Round, Studies in the Peerage, p. 109.
9. D.N.B.
10. Complete Peerage, IX, 617 (d).
11. Letters and Papers Henry VIII, Vol. XX, Part 1, p. 846.
12. Complete Peerage, ex: Nott, Works of Henry Howard, App.
xxvii.
13. Letters and Papers Henry VIII, Vol. XIV, Part 1, p. 160.
14. D.N.B.
15. D.N.B.
16. Collins, I, 70.
17. Lit. Rem. of Edward VI, 11,390.
18. Elizabeth Jenkins, Elizabeth the Great, p. 141.
19. Neville Williams, Thomas Howard Fourth Duke of Norfolk,
PP- 139. 14520. Williams, op. cit., 193.
21. Jenkins, op. cit., 182.
22. Ibid., 200.
23. Williams, 242.
24. Collins, I, 115.
25. Complete Peerage, IX, 626 (c).
26. Reresby Memoirs (1735), p. 41.
27. See D.N.B.
28. Wraxall, Historical Memoirs, p. 576.
29. Hist. MSS. Comm., Portland MSS, III, 508.
30. Hist. MSS. Comm., VII, 429.
31. Walpole, Yale edition, XVII, 338.
32. Hist. M S. Comm., Carlisle MSS. p. 916.
33. Walpole, XXIII, 194.
34. Wraxall, Posthumous Memoirs, I, 31.
35. W. M. Thackeray, The Four Georges, pp. 131-2.
36. History Today, May 1974.
37. Wraxall, Posthumous Memoirs, I, 35.Old and New London, IV, 186.
38. Journal of Elizabeth, Lady Holland, II, 9-10.
39. Wraxall, Hist. Mem., 35-6.
40. A Duke of Norfolk Notebook, p. 68.
41. ibid., 38.
42. ibid., 124.
43. Frances, Countess of Warwick, Afterthoughts.
44. Williams, op. cit., 48.
45. TheTimes, 27thMay 1929, 31stMay 1929.
46. The News Chronicle, 23rd May 1953.
47. Creevy, Papers, II, 162.
48. The News Chronicle, 23rd May 1953.
49. Augustus Hare, In My Solitary Life, p. 35.
50. Sunday Mirror, 6th September 1970.
51. The Observer, 2nd February 1975.
52. D.N.B.
53. Hist. MSS. Comm., 6th Report, p. 368.
54. Collins, I, 184.
55. Macaulay, History of England, II, 271.
56. D.N.B.
57. Walpole, XX, 18.
58. ibid., XVIII, 522-3.
59. Cockbura Memorials, in Journal of Lady Elizabeth Holland, II,
22.
60. Creevey, Papers, II, 64.
61. Complete Peerage, XII, Part 1, p. 86 (g).
62. Moneypenny, Life of Disraeli, I, 231.
63. Leaves from the Notebooks of Lady Dorothy Nevill, p. 14.
64. Lady Holland to Her Son, p. 201.
65. House of Lords, Accounts and Papers, 1864, Vol. XXIII.
66. Letters and Memoirs of 12th Duke of Somerset, ed. Lady
Guendolen Ramsden, p. 292.
67. Letters of Lord St Maur and Lord Edward St Maur, p. 36.
68. Complete Peerage.
69. Letters of Lord St Maur etc., 26th August 1857.
70. ibid., 12th October 1862.
71. ibid., 14th August 1857.
72. ibid., 31st October 1862.
73. ibid., 11 th November .1860.
74. ibid., 30th November 1867.
75. Augustus Hare, op. cit., p. 283.
76. The Times, 19th February, 26th March 1925.
2. Bright Sons of Sublime Prostitution
Duke of Buccleuch; Duke of Grafton; Duke of Richmond; Duke of St Albans
"Bright sons of sublime prostitution, You are made of the mire of the street, Where your grandmothers walked in pollution Till a coronet shone at their feet... Graces by grace of such mothers As brightened the bed of King Charles."
Swinburne, A Word for the Country
King Charles II was one of the most popular monarchs ever to sit on the English throne. He was also quite blatantly and publicly one of the most sensual. It is by no means certain how many mistresses he had, but a quick count shows at least fifteen. By these various women, the King produced an illegitimate offspring of some fourteen children, many of whom he elevated to the peerage. No monarch created more dukedoms than Charles, and six of them were conferred on his own bastard sons. Of these, no less than four still exist.
The Duke of Buccleuch is descended from the hapless Duke of Monmouth, Charles's son by Lucy Walter; the Duke of Grafton from a son the King fathered with Barbara Villiers; the Duke of Richmond was the son of the French mistress, Louise de Kerouaille; and the Duke of St Albans was Nell Gwynn's son. Buckingham is reputed to have said that the King was "father of his people", and to have then added, sotto voce, "of a good many of them". Charles was not alone in his licentiousness, though he set the tone for the whole country. Freedom of sexual experience was the order of the day. Relieved to be rid of the Civil War, and frankly glad to be alive, the people congratulated themselves in an orgy of self-indulgence. It was a bold, lusty, ribald, amusing, drink-sodden, smelly, dangerous time, when people lived life to the hilt, fought duels, took mistresses, and urinated in the gutter. Pepys admitted to having never taken a bath in his life, and he was not exceptional. Sanitation did not matter in the hedonistic, epicurean London of 1660.
It was against this background that the King was seen to be sporting with one woman after another. The people preferred the royal mistresses to be English and honest, rather than foreign and haughty, hence they took Nell Gwynn to their hearts while they treated Louise de Kerouaille with scorn. But they did not object to the principle of the King having mistresses, nor did they mind the swift succession of bastards whom he acknowledged as his own. Only a Puritan like the diarist John Evelyn professed to be shocked to witness the King sitting and "toying with his concubines", but what Evelyn did not notice and what made the people tolerate the King's amours was his kindness towards them, his constancy in affection.1 Of the three women watched by Evelyn, one was a current mistress, and the other two had been rival mistresses twenty years before. But the King was loyal to them all. He visited them all regularly, long after the initial passions had worn off, gave them titles, money, houses, and doted upon his numerous illegitimate children. He was no selfish sensualist, but a man capable of enduring love as
well as sudden passion. His reputed last words on his death-bed were "Don't let poor Nelly starve", a remark which speaks volumes for his sentimental nature. The people discerned these qualities, and forgave him. They also knew that he was deeply loyal to his wife, Queen Catherine of Braganza, who could give him no children. He would never allow her place to be usurped nor respect towards her to be withheld. He was a model husband as well as an ardent adulterer; such paradoxes were possible in the seventeenth century, while in a more hypocritical age they would be unimaginable. Parliament was not happy with the amounts of money lavished on the royal mistresses when the Exchequer was down to its last halfpenny, but that the King should have mistresses there was no question.
During his years of exile Charles gained his first experience in the pursuit of love. He was only eighteen when he met Lucy Walter, the mother of the 1st Duke of Buccleuch, but she was not by any means the first woman to share his bed. Charles was probably a father at the age of sixteen, when he was in Jersey, but no proof is readily available; certainly, he was no virgin when he met Lucy. Lucy, too, was an experienced girl, a Welsh beauty of about eighteen, whom
Evelyn described as "brown, beautiful, bold, but insipid".2 The two adolescents spent the summer of 1648 together and were so obviously awash with passion that many supposed them to have been secretly married. Lucy once claimed to be Charles's wife, and he often addressed her as such. Gossip about Lucy's marriage to Charles crops up again and again throughout his reign, and persists to this day. If it were true, it would have huge repercussions for the monarchical succession in England, and for Lucy's descendant, the present Duke of Buccleuch. For it would mean that the Duke had a better right to sit on the throne than does Queen Elizabeth II.
On 9th April 1649, in Rotterdam, Lucy gave birth to a boy, whom they called James, after his great-grandfather, James I. Scurrilous gossips said that Lucy was so promiscuous, she could not have been sure that the boy was fathered by Charles, and that he bore a far closer resemblance to Robert Sidney, who had also bedded Lucy at about the same time; the child had the same mole on his upper lip that Sidney had, they said. The possibility that the Buccleuch line is founded in part not only on an illegitimate birth, but on the wrong illegitimate birth, is alluring, to say the least. However, it does not stand up to scrutiny. There is no real evidence that Lucy was all that promiscuous, and Sidney, who was ugly (not handsome, as traditional versions have it), had no mole. Charles himself was in no doubt. He acknowledged the boy as his natural son, and held for him a tremendous affection all his life.3
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