sporting and Rural Records of the Cheveley Estate. 59 



brother, Francis, who was born on January 17, 1657, not only 

 succeeded his father as third Lord Seymour of Towbridge, but 

 became fifth Duke of Somerset on the death, in 1675, of his 

 cousin John, the fourth duive, who was murdered at Lerici, near 

 Genoa, on April 20, 1678. The murdered man's uncle, Lord 

 Alington, demanded satisfaction of the Republic, but the murderer 

 escaped, and his effigy only was hung by the Genoese. This 

 subsequent owner of the Cheveley estate was born in 1661. He 

 was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, when he unex- 

 pectedly succeeded to the Dukedom of Somerset in 1678. It was 

 to his marriage, however, he owed all his wealth. His first wife, 

 Elizabeth Percy, was the only surviving daughter and sole heiress 

 of Josceline, eleventh and last Earl of Northumberland. At the 

 age of four she succeeded to the honours and estates of the house 

 of Percy, holding in her own right six of the oldest baronies in the 

 kingdom. She was brought up by her grandmother, the Dowager 

 Countess, who, in February, 1679, refused her ward's hand to 

 Charles IL, for his son the Duke of Richmond, and a few weeks 

 later bestowed the heiress upon Henry Cavendish Earl of Ogle, a 

 sickly boy of fifteen, heir to Henry Duke of Newcastle. Before a 

 year had elapsed he died, and the old Countess lost no time in 

 arranging a fresh match between her ward and Thomas Thynne, of 

 Longleat, in Wiltshire, familiarly known as " Tom of Ten 

 Thousand." Thynne was formally married to Lady Ogle in the 

 summer of 1681, but immediately after the wedding the bride of 

 fourteen fled for protection to Lady Temple at the Hague, and 

 Thynne was murdered in Pall Mall by hired assassins on 

 February 12, 1682, at the instigation of Count Charles Konigs- 

 mark, who had been a rival suitor for the Countess of Ogle. 

 Some three months after Thynne's death the Countess, who was 

 now fifteen, consented to regard the Duke of Somerset in the light 

 of a suitor, and on May 30, 1682, they were married, the Duke 

 having previously agreed to assume the names and arms of Percy ; 

 but from this agreement he was released when his wife came of 



i 2 



Cheveley. 



Charles 



Seymour, 



Sixth Duke of 



Somerset. 



His first wife. 



Her 

 first, second, 



and 

 third husband. 



