Edward Seymour, 1st duke of Somerset

Edward Seymour, 1st duke of Somerset (born c. 1500/06—died Jan. 22, 1552, London) was the Protector of England during part of the minority of King Edward VI (reigned 1547–53). While admiring Somerset’s personal qualities and motives, scholars have generally blamed his lack of political acumen for the failure of his policies.

After the marriage of his sister, Jane Seymour, to King Henry VIII in 1536, he rose rapidly in royal favour. He became earl of Hertford in 1537, and in 1542 he was appointed lord high admiral, a post he soon relinquished. He commanded the English forces that invaded Scotland in 1544 and sacked Edinburgh; a year later he won a brilliant victory over the French at Boulogne.

After the death of Henry VIII (Jan. 28, 1547), Hertford was named protector by the regency council that Henry had nominated to run the government for the nine-year-old king Edward. He soon became duke of Somerset (Feb. 16, 1547) and for two and a half years acted as king in all but name. His chief rival for power was John Dudley, earl of Warwick. Somerset tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade the Scots to join a voluntary union with England, but, when his appeal was rejected, he destroyed all chances of reconciliation by invading Scotland and defeating the Scots at the Battle of Pinkie (Sept. 10, 1547). In domestic affairs, the Protector proceeded with moderation in consolidating the Protestant Reformation in England. He repealed Henry VIII’s heresy laws, which had made it treason to attack the king’s leadership of the church; the first Book of Common Prayer, which was imposed (1549) by an Act of Uniformity by Somerset, offered a compromise between Roman Catholic and Protestant learning. Nevertheless, these and other apparently moderate measures stirred up antagonisms that resulted in Catholic uprisings in western England in 1549.

Somerset attempted to aid the rural poor by forbidding enclosures—that is, the taking of arable common land by the propertied classes to use as pasturage—and this action led to his downfall. The landowners foiled his efforts; the desperate peasants revolted in Norfolk under the leadership of Robert Kett; and in October 1549 Somerset was swept from power and imprisoned by a coalition of Warwick and the propertied classes. When the coalition broke down, he was released in February 1550 and ostensibly reconciled with his rival. But in October 1551, the Duke of Northumberland (as Warwick was then called) had Somerset imprisoned on a trumped-up charge of treason. Four months later he was executed.