Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 1 Vol 7.djvu/176

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174 SOMERSET. soon afterwards was scented ol high treason and felony ami being found guiltv of the latter; 11 ) was beheaded, 22 Jan. 1551/2, at the Tower of London, ('>) anil bur. in the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula there. He was attainted, shortly after his death, whereby all hi* honour* were forfeited.^) He >«. firstly, about 152? Catharine, da. and coheir of .Sir William FttXOl,, of Woodlands, in liortoii, Co. Dorset, and Fillol's Hall in Langton Wash.io l osses,!, by Dorothy, da. and h. of John Ifikld, of Standoii, Herts. She was repudiated^) about 1535. He m. secondly about 1587. Anne, da. of Sir Kdward StanhoI'k. .if Shelfonl, CO. Notts, by Elizabeth, sister of John, Earl of Bath, da. of Fulke (Boubchikr), Lord Kitz Wahink. She m. secondly Francis Xewdioatr, of Hanworth, co. Midx. [b. 1515), who was one of the Gentlemen of the Household of her late husband, and whose will, dat. ;il May 1 fi S 0 to 2li Jan. 15S1/2, was pr. 13 May 1588. She d. 16 April 15S?. 1 ') aged HO, and was bur. in Westm. Abbey. .M.I. Her will dat. 14 July lr.SO. pr. 1 June 1587.IC) Earldom. j. Sin Robert Kerr, olhnwisv Carr, 4ih and yst n.nf VI. 101'? Sir Thomas Kkhh. of Fernihurst, by his second wife, Janet, sister of Sir j Q ' Walter Scott, of ISuccleuch, was b. about 1 - r , x 7 ; was a Rags of Honour if,r to James VI £Sj, whom (when James 1. 1 he accompanied into England ; 10+0 - knighted at Hampton Court, 23 Dec. 1007 ; a Gent, of the Bedchamber, 1 007 ; and being in high favour with the K.ing(>' i obtained in 1U09 a (») This was for conspiring the death of a Privy Counsellor, i.e., John (Dudley), Duke of Northumberland, his rival in power. (") He was "free-spirited, open-hearted, humble, hard to distrust, easy to forgive," pays Lloyd (" IVorthie*," 1605); "courteous and allable," says Hay ward (Life of Ed VI), but he adds, "little esteemed for personage." The vast property he amassed from the monastic estates anil his sudden rise to the highest honours made him unpopular. Somerset House, in the Strand, was an instance of the destruction which he wrought on the ancient ecclesiastical structures. Ill it {inter aha) was involved (tor the sake of the stones) the great cloister of St. Paul's, which had contained the well-known " dance of death." A characteristic portrait 01 him "after a painter unknown" is engraved in "Doyle." ( c ) " In the Third General Report of the Lords' Committee to search for documents relative to the dignity of a Peer of the Realm, the following remark is found on tlie effect of the attainder of the said Duke on the descendants of Sir Kdward Seymour, his son : — 'The attainder of the Duke of Somerset, his father, and forfeiture of bis of his dignities, by Act of Parliament of the 5th and 6th of Kilw. VI. dill not affect the dignity of Duke of Somerset granted to Sir Edward Seymour, and the heirs male of his body. By the terms of the grant, that dignity bad vested, immediately after the patent passed the Great Seal, in Sir Edward Seymour, with limitation to the heirs male of his body, though the actual enjoyment of it by Sir Kdward, and the heirs male of bis body, was made to depend on the failure of heirs male of the body of his father by his second wife ; ' and it is consequently affirmed, that on the extinction of the heirs male of the Duke of Somerset by his second wife, that Dukedom would have devolved on the heirs male of Sir Kdward Seymour abOVe-mentionAct, even had not the act of restoration in 1000 taken place, ' because so far as the said limitation was in question, it wanted no such act for its preservation.' As the Barony of Seymour was granted with the fame limitation, the preceding observations prove that it would have descended in a similar manner to the Dukedom of Somerset." [Courthope]. By this extraordinary doctrine I he descent of a dignity thro' an attainted person is allowed, the attainder of the grantee himself being actually held (in certain cases) not to affect the dignity. (d) His only son, William Fillol, d. v.p. 4 Sep. ISO!*, und was bur. at St. Nicholas Olave, aged 16- ILL («) "Some light is thrown upon this extraordinary limitation by the following addition in an old hand to the notice of the marriage of the fird wife, [Catharine Fillol] of the Lord Protector .... in the pedigree of Seymour, (in Vintsenl'i HaroMJt in the College of Arms,) ripudiula quia paler ejus, past nuptial, earn cuijnoril." [Courthope]. ( f ) " A woman of a haughty stomach." [Baker's " Chronicle," p. 320]. " A lady of a high mind and haughty, undaunted spirit." [Lloyd, 1005J. (8) Printed in Gent. May., vol. 23, N.S., p. 875. ( h ) Having been thrown from his horse at a tournament in the Royal presence, lib