General A general officer is an Officer (armed forces), officer of high rank in the army, armies, and in some nations' air force, air and space forces, marines or naval infantry. In some usages, the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colone ...

Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of Somerset (11 November 16847 February 1750) was a

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

officer, Whig politician and peer who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

from 1708 to 1722 when he was raised to the peerage as

Baron Percy The title Baron Percy has been created several times in the Peerage of England. The first, soon after 1066, a feudal barony rather than a barony by writ, which continued in parallel with the later baronies by writ, until the abolition of feuda ...

and took his seat in the

House of Lords The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

Background

Seymour was the only son of

Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, Order of the Garter, KG, Privy Council (United Kingdom), PC, (13 August 16622 December 1748), known by the epithet "The Proud Duke", was an English aristocrat and courtier. He rebuilt Petworth House in Su ...

, by his first wife, the heiress Lady Elizabeth Percy, deemed Baroness Percy in her own right, the only surviving child of Joceline Percy, 11th and last Earl of Northumberland. He set out on a Grand Tour at the age of 17, visiting Italy from 1701 to 1703 and Austria in 1705.

Public life

Seymour was still in Austria when he was returned as Member of Parliament for

Marlborough Marlborough or the Marlborough may refer to: Places Australia * Marlborough, Queensland * Principality of Marlborough, a short-lived micronation in 1993 * Marlborough Highway, Tasmania; Malborough was an historic name for the place at the sou ...

on the recommendation of his father at a by-election on 27 November 1705. In 1706 he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Sussex for the rest of his life. He went to Flanders in the summer of 1708 to serve as a volunteer under the Duke of Marlborough and brought back news of the relief of Brussels in November. At the

1708 British general election The 1708 British general election was the first general election to be held after the Acts of Union had united the Parliaments of England and Scotland. The election saw the Whigs gain a majority in the House of Commons, and by November the Whi ...

, he was returned as a Whig MP for both Marlborough and

Northumberland Northumberland ( ) is a ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North East England, on the Anglo-Scottish border, border with Scotland. It is bordered by the North Sea to the east, Tyne and Wear and County Durham to the south, Cumb ...

and chose to sit for Northumberland. He became a Colonel of the 15th Foot in 1709, and was returned in the subsequent by-election. He acted as a teller for the Whigs on several occasions and voted for the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell in 1710. At the

1710 British general election The 1710 British general election produced a landslide victory for the Tories. The election came in the wake of the prosecution of Henry Sacheverell, which had led to the collapse of the previous government led by Godolphin and the Whig Junto. ...

he was returned again as Whig MP for Northumberland. He was appointed Governor of Tynemouth Castle by Robert Harley in 1711 and was also appointed a justice of the peace for Northumberland. In Parliament, he voted for the motion of ‘ No Peace without Spain’ on 7 December 1711. He was returned again for Northumberland at the

1713 British general election The 1713 British general election was held on 22 August 1713 to 12 November 1713, to elect members of the House of Commons, the lower house of the Parliament of Great Britain. It produced further gains for the governing Tory party. Since 1710 R ...

and spoke strongly in support of Richard Steele, voting against his expulsion. In 1714 he was appointed Groom of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales. Seymour was returned unopposed as Whig MP for Northumberland at the

1715 British general election The 1715 British general election was held on 22 January 1715 to 9 March 1715, to elect members of the House of Commons, the lower house of the Parliament of Great Britain. It returned members to serve in the House of Commons of the 5th Parliam ...

and proposed Spencer Compton as Speaker on 17 March 1715. He also became colonel of the 2nd Life Guards. He moved for the impeachment of Lord Kenmure, a rebel lord, in January 1716 and voted against the Government on Lord Cadogan in June 1717. When there was a break in relations between George I and his son

Frederick, Prince of Wales Frederick, Prince of Wales (Frederick Louis, German: ''Friedrich Ludwig''; 31 January 1707 – 31 March 1751) was the eldest son and heir apparent of King George II of Great Britain. He grew estranged from his parents, King George and Queen C ...

later in 1717 he resigned his post as Groom of the Bedchamber to the Prince. He was returned again unopposed at the

1722 British general election The 1722 British general election elected members to serve in the House of Commons of the 6th Parliament of Great Britain. This was the fifth such election since the merger of the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland in 1707. Tha ...

. On 16 October 1722 took the chair at a committee of the whole House on the bill to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. On his mother's death on 23 November 1722, he was summoned to the House of Lords as Lord Percy and vacated his seat in the House of Commons. Percy was Custos Rotulorum of Wiltshire from 1726 to 1750. He became a brigadier-general in 1727 and in the same year was appointed

Governor of Minorca Below is a list of (known) governors of British Minorca from the time of the British occupation in 1708 until the British relinquished control of the island for the last time in 1802. Background It was commonplace for governors to be absent from ...

, a post he held until 1742. He was promoted to major-general in 1735 and to lieutenant-general in 1739. From 1740 to 1750 he was colonel of the

Royal Horse Guards The Royal Regiment of Horse Guards, also known as the Blues, or abbreviated as RHG, was one of the cavalry regiments of the British Army and part of the Household Cavalry. In 1969, it was amalgamated with the 1st The Royal Dragoons to form the ...

and then served as

Governor of Guernsey The Bailiwick of Guernsey is a British crown dependency off the coast of France. Holders of the post of Governor of Guernsey, until the role was abolished in 1835. Since then, only Lieutenant-Governors have been appointed (see Lieutenant Gover ...

from 1742 to 1750. In 1748 he succeeded his father as

Duke of Somerset Duke of Somerset, from the county of Somerset, is a title that has been created five times in the peerage of England. It is particularly associated with two families: the Beauforts, who held the title from the creation of 1448, and the Seymours ...

Land ownership and titles

The Duke's only son Lord Beauchamp died unmarried in 1744, aged 19 (see below). In 1748 Somerset was created Baron Warkworth, of

Warkworth Castle Warkworth Castle is a ruined medieval castle in Warkworth, Northumberland, Warkworth in the English county of Northumberland. The village and castle occupy a loop of the River Coquet, less than a mile from England's north-east coast. When the ...

in the County of Northumberland, and Earl of Northumberland, with remainder to his son-in-law, Sir Hugh Smithson, 4th Baronet, with the intention that the majority of the Percy estates should descend in this line. He was at the same time created Baron of Cockermouth, in the County of Cumberland, and Earl of Egremont, with remainder to his nephews, Sir Charles Wyndham, 4th Baronet, of Orchard Wyndham, and Percy Wyndham-O'Brien, a revival of the Egremont title held by an earlier member of the Percy family,

Thomas Percy, 1st Baron Egremont Thomas Percy, 1st Baron Egremont (29 November 1422 – 10 July 1460) was a scion of a leading noble family from northern England during the fifteenth century. Described by one historian as "quarrelsome, violent and contemptuous of all authority", ...

Family

Somerset married Frances Thynne, daughter of Henry Thynne and granddaughter of Thomas Thynne, 1st Viscount Weymouth. This Thomas Thynne was the first cousin of "Tom of ten thousand", who had been the second husband of Algernon's own mother,

Elizabeth Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to: People * Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name) * Empress Elisabeth (disambiguation), lists various empresses named ''Elisabeth'' or ''Elizabeth'' * Princess Elizabeth ...

. Somerset and Frances had two children: *George Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp (11 September 172511 September 1744), predeceased his father, unmarried. * Elizabeth Percy, ''suo jure'' 2nd Baroness Percy (26 November 17165 December 1776), married Sir Hugh Smithson, 4th Baronet, later 2nd Earl of Northumberland by right of his wife and 1st Duke of Northumberland by creation; had issue. Somerset died in 1750 and was buried in the Northumberland Vault, within

Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London, England. Since 1066, it has been the location of the coronations of 40 English and British m ...

. He was one of the richest landowners in England, but as he died with no surviving son his estates were split after his death. The ducal title passed to a distant cousin,

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. Family The son of Sir Edward Seymour, 5th Baronet, of Berry Pomeroy, a descendant of Lord Protector Somerset by his fi ...

. The earldom of Northumberland and most of the traditional Percy estates passed to his daughter and her husband (see

Alnwick Castle Alnwick Castle () is a castle and country house in Alnwick in the English county of Northumberland. It is the seat of the Ralph Percy, 12th Duke of Northumberland, 12th Duke of Northumberland, built following the Norman Conquest and renovated an ...

Northumberland House Northumberland House (also known as Suffolk House when owned by the Earls of Suffolk) was a large Jacobean architecture, Jacobean Townhouse (Great Britain), townhouse in London, so-called because it was, for most of its history, the London re ...

and

Syon House Syon House is the west London residence of the Duke of Northumberland. A Grade I listed building, it lies within the 200-acre (80 hectare) Syon Park, in the London Borough of Hounslow. The family's traditional central London residence had b ...

Petworth Petworth is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Chichester (district), Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located at the junction of the A272 road, A272 east–west road from Heathfield, East Sussex, Heat ...

in Sussex passed to the duke's nephew

Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont, PC (19 August 171021 August 1763), of Orchard Wyndham in Somerset, Petworth House in Sussex, and of Egremont House in Mayfair, London, was a British statesman who served as Secretary of State for the Sou ...

. Later dukes of Somerset lived at

Maiden Bradley Maiden Bradley is a village in south-west Wiltshire, England, about south-west of Warminster and bordering the county of Somerset. The B3092 road between Frome and Mere, Wiltshire, Mere forms the village street. Bradley House (Wiltshire), Brad ...

, a far more modest estate than those already mentioned, and for a short while at Stover House, Teigngrace, Devon and at

Berry Pomeroy Berry Pomeroy is a village and civil parish in the South Hams district of Devon, England, east of the town of Totnes. The parish is surrounded clockwise from the north by the parishes of Ipplepen, Marldon, Torbay (unitary authority), Stoke G ...

, Devon.

References

, - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Somerset, Algernon Seymour, 7th Duke of 1684 births 1750 deaths British Army generals British Life Guards officers British MPs 1707–1708 British MPs 1708–1710 British MPs 1710–1713 British MPs 1713–1715 British MPs 1715–1722 Algernon Burials at Westminster Abbey 507 East Yorkshire Regiment officers Lord-lieutenants of Sussex English MPs 1705–1707 Hertford, Algernon Seymour, Earl of Royal Horse Guards officers Algernon Seymour, 07th Duke of Somerset Peers of Great Britain created by George I 5 Whig (British political party) MPs for English constituencies Presidents of the Society of Antiquaries of London Earls of Egremont Governors of Guernsey (1500–1835)