30 JULY 1864, Page 12

THE SEYMOURS.— (ESAU'S BRANCH.)

EDWARD SEYMOUR, the second son of the first Duke of Somerset by his first marriage, to whom his elder brother John left his property, had for his residence the manor and castle of Berry-Pomeroy, in Devonshire, the seat of the Pomeroy or Pomeroi family from the Conquest to the reign of Edward VI., when Sir Thomas Pomeroy sold the estate to the Protector Somerset. Edward Somerset was with his father at the battle of Muselburgh, in Scotland, and was knighted after it. In the 7th of Edward VI. he obtained an Act of Parliament restoring him in blood, so as to enable him to take any lands that might thereafter come to him. On September 6 in the same year he had a grant of the lordships and manors of Walton, Shedder, and Stowey, the. park of Stowey and the hundred of Water•Stock, Somerset, which had belonged to his father, the first provision made for bins since his father's death. He was Sheriff of Devonshire in the 25th Elizabeth, but in other respects lived a retired life, and died May 6, 1593, seized of the castle and manor of Berry, and Berry- Pomeroy, and Bridgetown, in Pomeroy, with the advowson of the church of Berry, the castle and manor of Totnes, the manors of Totnes, Cornworthy, Lodeswell, Huise, Monnockenzeale, alias 2eale-llonacon, and Losebear, and fourth part of the hundred of .Hayborre, the site of the monastery of Torr, and divers other lands in Devonshire, the manor and lordship of Maiden-Bradley, in Wiltshire, besides a capital messuage, called the Lord Cheyne's House, in Blackfriars, near Ludgate, in London. By his wife Mary, daughter and heiress of John Walsh, one of the Justices of the Common Pleas, he left a son and heir, Edward, who was chosen one of the Knights for Devonshire, in two Parliaments of Elizabeth and the 1st of James I. That King made him a baronet June 29, 1611, and he died April 11, 1613. He was succeeded by his son Edward, who was knighted May 22, 1603, and sent on an embassy to Denmark He was a Knight of the Shire for Devon in two Parliaments of the reign of James I., and a burgess for Kel- lington and Totnes in two other Parliaments,—the last in 1625, at the beginning of the reign of Charles- I. But on its dissolu- tion he retired to Berry-Pomeroy, which he had made " a very stately house " by additions costing, according to Mr. Price, up- wards of 20,0001. Here he lived to an old age, and died in 1659, being distinguished for his obliging temper and prudent manage- ment. His son and successor, Sir Edward, represented Devon- shire in the Parliaments of April and November, 1640, and, espousing the Royalist side, attended the summons of the King to Oxford in January, 1644, and was expelled from the Parliament at Westminster in the same year. He shared the ordinary fortunes of the Cavaliers, and Berry-Pomeroy Castle was reduced to a ruin in the Civil Wars; but after the Restoration he became Vice-Admiral of Devon, and an M.P. in all the Parliaments of the reigns of Charleall. and James If. He continued all his life a determined Cavalier, and died in the latter part of 1688. He had married a daughter of Sir- William Portman, and his fifth son by her, Henry Seymour, suc- ceeded eventually to the Portman property, and assumed that name, but dying without issue, the property went to another relation by marriage of that family, one of the Berkeleys of Pylle. Sir Edward's eldest son, also Sir Edward, played a con- spicuous part in the reign of Charles II. and those that succeeded as leader of the Protestant Tories in the House of Commons: In 1667 he was the first to move the impeachment of the Earl of Clarendon. On June 6 in the same year he had a grant of the office of Clerk of the Hanaper for life, and on February 15, 1673, was un- animously chosen Speaker of the Commons. "He was," saps Macaulay, " one of the most skilful debaters and men of business. in the kingdom. He had studied all the rules and usages of the House of Commons, and thoroughly understood its peculiar temper. He was elected Speaker under circumstances which made that distinction peculiarly honourable. During several genera- tions none but lawyers had been called to the chair, and he was the first country gentleman whose abilities and acquirements enabled him to break that long prescription." On April 9, 1673, he was sworn of the Privy Council, and soon after made Treasurer of the Navy. He was re-elected Speaker on March 6, 1679, but the King refused his approbation, "his haughty and uncompromis- ing temper having given such disgust." An ardent Tory, he was- attacked by the Whigs in their hour of triumph, and on November 20, 1680, they carried a vote of impeachment against him, and a motion was made to address the King to remove him from his. counsels for ever. But this was dropped, and no articles were ex- hibited against him. He strongly opposed the Exclusion Bill, but was a strenuous promoter of the Habeas Corpus Act. He was at the head of a strong Parliamentary connection called the Western Alliance, and which included many gentlemen of Devonshire; Somersetshire, and Cornwall. " Weight of moral character," says Macaulay, " was wanting to him. He was licentious, profane, corrupt; too proud to behave with common politeness, but not too, proud to pocket illicit gain." At the commencement of the reign of James II. he made on the 22nd April, 1685, a remarkable speecht, which created a great sensation. He was " in bad humour with the Court," because "his interest had been weakened in some places by the remodelling of the Western boroughs, and his pride- had been wounded by the election of Trevor to the chair." " How he stood," continues the historian, " looking like what he was,. the chief of a dissolute and high-spirited gentry, with the artificial ringlets clustering in fashionable profusion round his shoulders, and a mingled expression of voluptuousness and disdain in his eye and on his lip, the likenesses of him which still remain enable us to imagine." He denounced the proceedings, of the Court in unmeasured terms, declared that the " Test Act, the rampart of religion, and the Habeas Corpus Act, the rampart of liberty, were marked out for destruction; but first demanded. an inquiry whether they really were a legislature, and concluded by moving that before any supply was granted the House would take into consideration petitions against returns, and that no mem- ber whose right to sit was disputed should be allowed to vote. No one else would have dared to use such language, and no one

ventured to second the motion, though many approved of it, and its effects everywhere were very great. He afterwards opposed the King's proposed augmentation of the army, suggesting instead a remodelling of the militia. At the Revolution he joined the Prince of Orange at Exeter, and " at his first audience he is said to have exhibited his characteristic pride in a way which surprised and amused the Prince. think, Sir Edward,' said William, meaning to be very civil, that you are of the family of the

Duke of Somerset.' Pardon me, Sir,' said Sir Edward, who never forgot that he was the head of the elder branch of the Sey- mours, ' the Duke of Somerset is of my family." But he brought experience and skill to the cause. He said the Prince's party was as yet a rope of sand, sent for Burnet, and suggested an " associa- tion " as a bond, which course was adopted with great success. On William's victory Seymour exhibited his old Cavalier principles by moving an address to the King to arrest General Ludlow, the regicide, who had ventured back to England, and he opposed the Bill converting the Convocation into a legal Parliament, being then answered by two old Puritans, Maynard and Birch. He sup- ported the Regency scheme, but he took the oaths of allegiance to William, though with no good grace, and continued to hold very irreverent language respecting him down to March, 1692, when he accepted office, was sworn of the Privy Council, and made one of the Lords of the Treasury, to the great indignation of the Tory country gentlemen. Here, again, however, Sir Edward's pride took fire. He refused to sit below the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Richard Hampden,-a com- moner,-though he was willing to sit below the first lord, Lord Godolphin, a Peer. But William succeeded in soothing him, among other means by presenting him to the Queen as " a gentle- man who would in his absence be a valuable friend," and making him one of the Cabinet, and he consented to waive the point ; but he so far preserved his old Tory principles as to oppose the Triennial Bill. He had been accused of leaving a largebalance against him as Treasurer of the Navy. As Lord of the Treasury, in 1693, he accepted some thousands of pounds from the East India Company as a bribe for the renewal of their charter. In 1694, when the Whigs were being reintroduced into the Ministry, Seymour was dismissed from the Treasury to make room for one of them. In 1695, when the disclosures were made respecting the bribes, it was found that Seymour had so skilfully disguised his dealings under a contract for saltpetre that no vote of censure was able to be passed on him, and the Tory gentlemen were more than half-induced to believe in his innocence ; but he lost a great deal of his influence in the House and the West of England. At the general election of 1695 he was defeated at Exeter, and took refuge in his family borough of Totnes. He spoke against the association for the defence of William's life, and against the attainder of Sir John Fenwick. At the election of 1698 he was returned in his absence for Exeter by a large majority. He hoped to have been proposed for Speaker, and made an extravagantly violent speech when another member was proposed instead. In 1699 his eldest son by his second marriage, Popham Conway-Seymour, who was in the twenty-fourth year of his age, and who, having a separate estate of seven thousand a year left him by his cousin, the last Earl Conway, had obtained by his extravagant foppery the name of " Beau Seymour," quarrelled with a young officer of the Blues of the name of Kirke, and died of the effects of a wound in the neck, rendered mortal by his subsequent excesses. Not satisfied with pro- secuting Kirke through counsel in the King's Bench, Sir Edward went down to the Court himself, and delivered a violent harangue against standing armies. Kirke wasfoundguiltyonly of manslaughter, and Seymour was unable to obtain an appeal from the verdict. He continued to make violent speeches in the House, amongst others against Somers, during the rest of the reign of William. On the accession of Queen Anne, Sir Edward, on March 14, 1702, was appointed Comptroller of the Household, sworn of the Privy Council, and offered a Peerage, but he only accepted the Barony of Conway for Francis, his eldeit surviving son by his second wife. He was dismissed from his office in 1704, and died February 17, 1708, at Maiden-Bradley, whither he had retired from public life. He was twice married, first to Margaret, daughter and coheiress of • Sir William Wale, an Alderman of London, and secondly to Letitia, daughter of Francis Popham, of Littlecote, Wiltshire. His second son by her, Francis, is the ancestor of the present Marquis of Hertford. His eldest son by his first marriage, Edward, succeeded him in the baronetcy, Maiden-Bradley (their chief seat), and the principal family estates. He served for some little time in Parliament, but afterwards retired to a country life at Maiden-Bradley, where he died, aged eighty, December 29,

1711. Like his father, he had married a Popham, of Littlecote, and his second son, Francis, followed their example.

His eldest son, Edward, who had been member for Salisbury, suc- ceeded his cousin as eighth Duke of Somerset. He bad a grant of the offices of Warden and Chief Justice in Eyre of the Forests, &c., beyond Trent, and was made Lord-Lieutenant of Wiltshire, and died December 12, 1757. He married Mary, daughter and heiress of Daniel Webb, Esq., of Monkton Farley, in Wiltshire, and niece and heiress of Edward Somner, Esq., of Seemd, in the same county. The Webb estate descended to the Duke's second son, Lord Webb Seymour. Edward, his eldest son, succeeded him as ninth Duke. He was of the Privy Council of George III., and died unmarried January 2, 1792. For some years before his death, at the age of eighty-four, he shut himself up entirely at his house at Maiden-Bradley, never visiting any one, and living in such dread of the small-pox that he never touched a letter, but made a ser- vant open it and hold it up to a glass window, through which he read it. He greatly improved the amount of his property by his parsimony. Dying unmarried, he was succeeded by his next brother, Lord Webb Seymour, tenth Duke of Somerset, who only survived till December 15, 1793, when he was succeeded by his eldest surviving son (by his wife Anne, daughter and heiress of John Bonne], Esq., of Stanton-Harcourt, Oxfordshire), Edward Adolphus, eleventh Duke, who married a daughter of the Duke of Hamilton, and died August 15, 1855. He was a Knight of the Garter, but chiefly known for his scientific and mathematical pur- suits. He was succeeded by his son Edward Adolphus, twelfth and present Duke of Somerset, and First Lord of the Admiralty, a dis- tinguished member of the Whig party, to which this elder branch of the Seymours, since their accession to the dukedom, has generally adhered. He is a man of considerable abilities and an iron will, and an excellent man of business. His eldest son, Edward Adolphus Ferdinand, has been called to the Upper House in his father's barony of Seymour, and is known as a volunteer in Garibaldi's Neapolitan campaign. The family have assumed the spelling "St. Maur" (with doubtful taste), instead of the historic "Seymour." They should leave those Norman imitations to the nouveaux riches.

Before concluding our account of the Seymours, we must say a few words on the branch represented by the present Marquis of Hertford. Edward Conway, third Viscount and first Earl Conway, by his last will, dated August 9, 1683, devised all his possessions in England and Ireland to the sons of his cousin, Sir Edward Seymour, by his second marriage, and to their heirs male in succession, with remainder to his own right heirs. In accordance with this will his cousin Popham • Seymour succeeded to the estates of which the chief seat in Eng- land was Bagley, in Warwickshire, assuming the name of Seymour- Conway, and was killed, as we have seen, in a duel, June 4, 1699, when he was succeeded by his next brother, Francis, who also took the name of Seymour-Conway. Queen Anne, as we have seen, created him (March 17,1703), Baron Conway of Bagley, and oa October 16, 1712, Baron Conway and Killultagh, county Antrim, in Ireland, in which county he possessed a great estate, part of the inheritance of Earl Conway. On October 17, 1727, he was sworn of the Irish Privy Council, and in August, 1728, appointed Governor of Carrick-. fergus. By his third wife, Charlotte, daughter of Sir John Thornton, Lord Mayor of London in 1688, and sister of Sir Robert Walpole's wife, he had four sons, the eldest of whom, Francis, succeeded him in his honours. The second, Henry, became well known as General Conway, both in the Continental wars and in the administrations and politics of England. He was Groom of the Bedchamber to George IL and to George III. till April, 1764 ; joint Secretary with the Duke of Grafton in the Rockingham Administration. On March 30, 1782, he was appointed Comman- der-in-Chief, and held this post till December, 1783. The Duke of Devonshire left him in October, 1764, a legacy of 5,0001., as an expression of approval of his conduct in Parliament. He died at his seat (Park Place) in Oxfordshire, July 9;1795, aged seventy- five. He was fond of literature and a poetaster. His elder brother, Francis, was on August 3, 1750, created Viscount Beau- champ and Earl of Hertford. In 1751 he was one of the Lords of the Bedchamber ; in 1757 appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Warwick- shire, and made a Knight of the Garter. In June, 1763, he was sworn of the Privy Council, and sent Ambassador Extraordinary to France. On August 1, 1765, he was appointed Lord-Lieu- tenant of Ireland and Master of the Horse ; on December 4, 1766, Lord Chamberlain, and again, April 12, 1783, and resigned on the 20th December following. He was also Recorder of Coventry and Thetford. On June 29, 1793, he was created Earl of Yarmouth and Marquis of Hertford (having gone over to Pitt along with the Portland Whigs), and died June 14, 1794, aged seventy-five. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Francis, second Marquis of Hert- ford, who was in the House of Commons from 1766 till his father's death ; was appointed in 1774 a Lord of the Treasury, and held this office till 1780. In 1804 he was appointed Master of the Horse, but resigned in 1806, on the accession of the Grenville-Fox Ministry. He died June 17, 1822. Having married for his second wife the Honourable Isabella Anne Ingram, daughter and coheiress of Charles, Viscount Irvine, in Scotland, he assumed in 1807, by Royal licence, the name of Ingram before those of Seymour- Conway. He was succeeded by his son, Francis Charles Seymour- Conway, third Marquis of Hertford, born March 11, 1777. He entered at Christchurch, Oxford, but took his degree as a member of St. Mary's Hall. Immediately on attaining his majority he was returned to the House of Commons for Orford, in Suffolk. From 1802 to 1812, under the title of Earl of Yarmouth, he sat for Lis- burn ; from 1812 to 1820, for the county Antrim ; and from the latter date to his father's death for the borough of Camelford. At an early age he became a leader of fashionable society, and formed the friendship of the Prince of Wales, though retaining his Tory principles. He was at Paris when the peace of Amiens was broken off, and was seized by Buonaparte, who kept him for more than three years in confinement in the fortress of Verdun. But when the Whigs came into office in 1806, the Prince of Wales requested Mr. Fox to apply through Talleyrand for the Earl's release. The French Government thought the application indicated that Lord Yarmouth was a personal favourite of Fox's, and he was not only released, but entrusted with a verbal communication to the English Minister of the terms on which Buonaparte was disposed to treat for peace. The basis was accepted by Fox, and Lord Yarmouth returned to Paris with powers to conclude a treaty ; Buonaparte, however, had meanwhile obtained hopes of making better terms with Russia, and raised his demands with England. The Earl of Lauderdale was sent as a colleague to Lord Yarmouth, to add weight to the English diplomacy, but ultimately the negotiations both with England and Russia came to nothing. In September, 1809, Lord Yarmouth acted as second to his cousin, Lord Castle- reagh, in his duel with Ur. Canning. In 1810 he succeeded to the greatest part of the disposable property of the old Duke of Queens- berry, whose putative daughter he had married. The Duke left to Lord Yarmouth for his life and that of Lady Yarmouth, and then to descend to their issue male, 150,0001., the two houses in Picca- dilly, and the villa at Richmond, with all their furniture. Lord Yarmouth was also named residuary legatee, and it was estimated at the time that he would eventually obtain 200,0001. additional from that source. In the Regency discussions of 1811 Lord Yarmouth supported the proposal which placed the fuller power in the Prince of Wales, and in the new appointments which followed became Vice-Chamberlain, his father being made Lord Chamberlain. Their removal from these offices, demanded and refused, was the ostensible cause of the failure of the attempt to introduce Lords Grey and Gren- ville into the Cabinet on the death of Mr. Perceval. In August, 1812, Lo rd Yarmouth exchanged his office of Vice-Chamberlain for the more lucrative one of Lord Warden of the Stannaries, and was sworn of the Privy Council. He acted as escort to the Emperor Alexander when the allied Sovereigns visited England in 1814, and was made a Knight of the Garter, November 22, 1822. He was Recorder of Bodmin, and in September, 1824, became Recorder of Coventry, but resigned both posts in 1832, on the prospect of municipal re- form. In 1827 he was sent to convey the Garter to the Emperor Nicholas, and astonished St. Petersburg by his magnificence. He supported throughout the Wellington Cabinet, and was offered a great Household appointment on the accession of William IV., but declined it on account of his health. He had suffered much from the gout, and spent his winters at the baths of Aix and at Naples, but returned in the spring to London, and gave the most splendid entertainments at his villa in the Regent's Park, which he had fitted up in an extraordinary style. He died at his town resi- dence, Dorchester House, Park Lane, on March 1,1842, aged sixty- five. In him culminated the dissipation of the Regency period, and probably his open excesses equal, if they do not go beyond, those of any English nobleman on record. He is said, however, to have been a man of real ability, to have been well read in old and modern literature, and to have been remarkable for his sagacious judgment. He has been also praised for generosity and con- stancy in his friendships. By his wife, Maria Fagniani, he left a daughter, and two sons, the elder of whom, Richard Seymour- Conway, succeeded him in his titles. His will was a most extraor- dinary document. To his widow he left 23,0001., to his eldest son all the landed estates and the residue (estimated at 100,0001. at least).

Admiral Sir Richard Strachan left his three daughters, then very young, to the guardianship of Lord Hertford, and they chiefly resided with him till their marriages, and he left large legacies to them, viz., to Charlotte, Countess Zichy, who constantly resided with him, 80,000/. ; to Matilda, Countess Berthold, 80,0001. ; and to Louisa, Princess Antonio Ruffo, 40,000/. ; and to each succes- sively a life interest in the villa in Regent's Park, which was then to revert to his family. To Lady Strachan he left a life annuity of 7001. and 10,000/. ; to a Mrs. Spencer a life annuity of 1,0001. and 5,0001. To his servants legacies amounting to 20,0001., to his executors, 5,0001. each ; to Sir Horace Seymour, 8,000/. ; to Lord George Seymour, 5,0001. ; to his cousin, Captain Meynell, 4,0001. ; to Mr. Wilson Croker, 21,000/. and his wine (estimated at not more than 5001.) ; to Mr. De Horsey, 3,5001. ; and to Mr. Raikes, 2,000/. His successor, the present and fourth Marquis, is unmarried, and resides at Paris. He is chiefly known in England for his collection of paintings ; and if he dies without heirs will be succeeded by the Admiral lately commanding on the American station.

The Seymours are, in fact, aristocrats of the ideal type, men on the one hand besotted with the pride of birth, absolutely devoted to their own wills, whether for evil or for good, but on the other ready to sacrifice all for the greatness and welfare of the State. They have done great services and have been nobly paid, and their greatest act was one none but an aristocrat would have dared. But for the Duke of Somerset the Council which met upon Anne's death might, and probably would, have recalled the Stuarts, but no man not at once Duke and Seymour, if unconnected with the Cabinet, would have pushed uninvited into a Cabinet Council, and compelled the members to make instant choice between their safety and their predilections. This act of impudent patriotism saved the Protestant succession, and those who grudge the pride of the Seymours may remember with advantage the incident in which it was most conspicuously shown.