Henry Somerset, 1st Marquess of Worcester

The Marquess of Worcester
Spouse(s) Hon. Anne Russell

Issue

Noble family House of Beaufort
Father Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester
Mother Elizabeth Hastings, Countess of Worcester
Born 1577
Died 18 December 1646

Henry Somerset, 1st Marquess of Worcester (1577[1] – 18 December 1646) was an English aristocrat, who was a prominent and financially important Royalist during the early years of the English Civil War.

Life

He was the son of Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester and Elizabeth Hastings. On 3 March 1628, he succeeded his father and became the 5th Earl of Worcester.[2]

Brought up a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism as a young man. He was considered an outstandingly wealthy peer, with an income, by the contemporary estimate of Richard Symonds, of £24,000 per annum. By good management, as well as by inheritance and marriage, he built up major holdings in property. When war came, he claimed to have expended and lent over £900,000 to the royalist cause.[3]

Charles I asked him to keep a low profile in public life. Some noted recusants, such as Gwilym Puw and his chaplain Thomas Bayly, gathered around him at Raglan Castle. His local support was increased by the fact that he was not identified as a courtier.[4] For his financial support of King Charles I at the outset of the First English Civil War, he was created 1st Marquess of Worcester, on 2 November 1642.

After the battle of Naseby, King Charles sought refuge at Raglan, in the period June to September 1645.[5] The next year, the Marquess was forced to surrender Raglan Castle to the forces of Sir Thomas Morgan, 1st Baronet, late in 1646, marking the effective end of the Civil War in Wales.[6] He was taken into custody by the Parliamentary forces, and died in Covent Garden, on 18 December 1646.[2]

Family

He married Hon. Anne Russell, daughter of John Russell, Baron Russell and Elizabeth Cooke on 16 June 1600. Anne's paternal grandparents were Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford and his wife Margaret St. John. Anne's maternal grandparents were Sir Anthony Cooke and his wife Anne FitzWilliam.[7][8]

With his wife, he had nine sons and four daughters including, Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester, his heir and successor, and Thomas Somerset, his second son, who became a Catholic priest in Rome before joining the Oratory of St Philip Neri in Perugia before Pope Clement IX sent him to England as his internuncio. Fr Thomas died in exile in Dunkirk on 30 August 1678. Another son was Sir John Somerset, of Pauntley, Gloucestershire, who married Mary Arundell, a daughter of the 1st Baron Arundell of Wardour, co. Wiltshire by his second wife. His youngest daughter, Elizabeth, married Francis Browne, 3rd Viscount Montagu.[9]

Ancestry

Notes

  1. "Henry Somerset, 1st Marquess of Worcester". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 2014-12-02.
  2. 1 2 Lundy 2011, p. 2465 § 24647 cites Cokayne 2000, p. 857
  3. "Access to Archives". The National Archives. Retrieved October 2013.
  4. "The National Library of Wales :: Dictionary of Welsh Biography". Yba.llgc.org.uk. Retrieved October 2013.
  5. "KELLY'S DIRECTORY OF MONMOUTHSHIRE, 1901". Freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com. Retrieved October 2013.
  6. "Raglan Castle and the Civil War". Castlewales.com. Retrieved October 2013.
  7. Lundy 2011, p. 2465 § 24647 cites Mosley 1999, p. 221
  8. David Nash Ford. Royal Berkshire History, Nash Ford Publishing, 2001. Elizabeth Cooke, mother of Hon. Anne Russell.
  9. Roundell, Julia Anne Elizabeth (1884). "VIII". Cowdray: the history of a great English house. London: Bickers & Son. pp. 78–86.

References

Political offices
Preceded by
The Earl of Worcester
Lord Lieutenant of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire
jointly with The Earl of Worcester 1626–1628

1626–1629
Succeeded by
The Earl of Northampton
Peerage of England
New creation Marquess of Worcester
1642–1646
Succeeded by
Edward Somerset
Preceded by
Edward Somerset
Earl of Worcester
1628–1646
Baron Herbert
(writ in acceleration)

1604–1646
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