Elizabeth Seymour, Duchess of Somerset

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Peter Lely : Lady Elizabeth Percy, Countess of Ogle, around 1679

Elizabeth Seymour, Duchess of Somerset (born January 26, 1667 in Petworth House , Sussex , † November 24, 1722 in Northumberland House , London ) was the heir to an extensive estate.

Later, Lady Elizabeth was a lady in waiting ( Lady of the Bedchamber and Mistress of the Robes ) to the royal court of Queen Mary II and her younger sister Queen Anne .

Life

origin

Elizabeth Percy was the only surviving daughter of the politician and landowner Lord Percy (1644–1670), later Earl of Northumberland, and his wife Lady Elizabeth Wriothesley (1646–1690), daughter of Thomas Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton , and his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Leigh.

Her father was a direct descendant of King Edward III. from House Plantagenet (or Anjou ) and after his untimely death, Lady Elizabeth inherited the extensive Percy estate as sole heir, including larger estates, Petworth House , Northumberland House , Alnwick Castle , Syon House , Tynemouth Castle and Priory. In 1673, her mother married the diplomat and aristocrat Ralph Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu (1638-1709) and she came into the care - and under the guardianship - of her grandmother Elizabeth Percy († 1705), the widowed second Wife of Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland .

Marriage and offspring

On March 27, 1679, the only 12-year-old Lady Elizabeth with the 15-year-old Henry Cavendish, Earl of Ogle (1663-1680), better known as Lord Mansfield until 1676 and then Earl of Ogle, only son of Henry Cavendish, 2 Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne , and the Lady Frances Pierrepont, married. The following year her husband died of smallpox and the virgin widow returned to live with her grandmother. Charles II tried the wealthy heiress to marry off his illegitimate son Georg FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Northumberland , the third son of his mistress Barbara Villiers , but her grandmother refused to connect her granddaughter to a bastard, even if the bastard has been since 1674 Title Earl of Northumberland , which was her father's title.

Peter Lely: Sir Thomas Thynne of Longleat, around 1680

Instead , her grandmother arranged a remarriage in 1681 with Thomas Thynne of Longleat (1648-1682), called Tom of Ten Thousand because of his rich inheritance , the only son of Sir Thomas Thynne of Richmond and Stuarta Balquanquill. The marriage, which was concluded on November 15, 1681, was considered unhappy and was never consummated. The young bride found her husband so disgusting that she went to the court of the Dutch governor William III under the care of Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, and his wife Dorothy Osborne . von Orange-Nassau and his wife the English princess Maria (II.) Stuart fled. She also found support from her mother and stepfather, the Duke of Montagu. In the Netherlands she fell in love with the adventurer and officer Count Hans Karl von Königsmarck , who came from the old Brandenburg nobility . Königsmarck instigated three murderers, the Black Fist Assassins guild , headed by Michael Migdall, who murdered Thynne a few months later, on the evening of February 12, 1682, when he was returning from an evening with his companion, the Duke of Monmouth . The murderers could be arrested the next day. In court, Königsmarck was named as the commissioner of the murder, but while the three assassins were convicted and hanged on March 10, 1682, the count was acquitted, but had to leave the country.

Godfrey Kneller : Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, 1703

On May 30, 1682, the twice widowed Lady Elizabeth married in Montagu House Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset (1662-1748), the second son of Charles Seymour, 2nd Baron Seymour of Trowbridge, and Lady Elizabeth Bennett. His vanity, which earned him the nickname "the proud duke" (dt. The proud duke), was proverbial even among contemporaries and the subject of numerous anecdotes. Seven children emerged from their marriage:

Later years

In 1683 Lady Elizabeth was maid of honor in the royal household; during the revolution the Somerset couple sided with the Prince of Orange . Friends of Princess Anne since 1692 , she became Lady of the Bedchamber (1702) after her accession to the throne . Little noticed by Marlborough , her husband made friends with the Tories and was able to maintain the trust of the Queen, while Lady Elizabeth replaced the Duchess of Marlborough as Mistress of the Robes in 1710 . In the memorable crisis when Queen Anne was dying, the Somersets acted in concert with Argyll , Shrewsbury and other Whig nobles who, insisting on their right to attend Privy Council meetings , secured the successor to the House of Hanover .

Lady Elizabeth died in her London apartment, Northumberland House, on November 23, 1722, of complications from breast cancer and was buried in Salisbury Cathedral in December 1722.

Name in different phases of life

  • 1667–1668 Miss Elizabeth Percy
  • 1668–1679 Lady Elizabeth Percy
  • 1679-1681 Elizabeth Cavendish, Countess of Ogle
  • 1681-1682 Elizabeth Thynne of Longleat
  • 1682-1722 Elizabeth Seymour, Duchess of Somerset

honors and awards

  • 1694 Chief Mourner at the funeral of Queen Mary II.
  • 1702-1710 Lady of the Bedchamber
  • 1710-1714 Mistress of the Robes
  • 1714 Chief Morner at Queen Anne's funeral

literature

  • Margaret Cavendish: The Life of William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle , C. Firth, London (1906)
  • AS Turberville: A History of Welbeck Abbey and its Owners , Volume 1, Chapter 10, London (1938)
  • Charles Mosley: Burke's Peerage and Baronetage , Crans, Switzerland: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd (1999)
  • HCG Matthew: Dictionary of National Biography on CD-ROM, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press (1995)

Web links

Commons : Elizabeth Seymour, Duchess of Somerset  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Remarks

  1. ^ Joceline Percy, 11th Earl of Northumberland on thepeerage.com , accessed September 10, 2016.
  2. ↑ Thomas Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton on thepeerage.com , accessed September 10, 2016.
  3. ↑ Thomas Thynne of Longleat on thepeerage.com , accessed September 10, 2016.
  4. ^ Foreigners who murdered Thomas Thynn
personal data
SURNAME Seymour, Elizabeth, Duchess of Somerset
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Percy, Elizabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mistress of the Robes to Queen Anne and politician (Whig)
DATE OF BIRTH January 26, 1667
PLACE OF BIRTH Petworth House , Sussex
DATE OF DEATH November 24, 1722
Place of death Northumberland House , London