THE 



WILTSHIRE MAGAZINE. 



« 



MULTOEUM MANIBUS GRANDE LEVATUR ONUS." — Ovid. 



Jfoncfe, fiftlj §uRe of jlometsft, 



Sljot lig mistake, a. 30, 



By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 

 ;N the year 1671, on the death of William Seymour, third 



PP gj Duke of Somerset, a young man of nineteen years of age 

 and unmarried/ the estates of Tottenham, Savernake, and others, 

 came to his sister and heiress, Lady Elizabeth Seymour, who married 

 the Earl of Ailesbury. The title passed to his uncle, John Seymour, 

 fourth Duke, husband of Sarah Alston, the Duchess of Somerset 

 who founded in this county the Broad Town Charity, and the Hos- 

 pital at Froxfield. 2 Duke John dying at Amesbury, April, 1675, 



1 William, the third Duke, died of the small pox. A letter (from one of the 

 Thynne family) , dated London, 12th December, 1671 , the day on which he died, says, 

 " We are like to lose another Duke who is taking a longer journey, the D. of 



Somersett ; he is fallen ill of the small Pocks the infection whereof is soe malia-- 



o 



nant that they" [the plural "pocks" was always used in those days] "appear 

 rather in purple than red spots. The Phisitians have given him over, to the 

 universal grief e of the Towne." It was this, the third Duke, whom Samuel 

 Pepys saw at Arundell House in attendance upon the Duchess of Newcastle, and 

 whom he describes as " a very pretty young man." See his Diary, 30th May, 

 1667. The Editor of the Diary errs in his note when he says it was " Francis, 

 5th Duke, murdered in Italy : " for in 1667, Francis, fifth Duke, was only four 

 years old. The same mistake is made in the Preface to the Fourth Report of the 

 Historical Commissioners, p. xv., speaking of certain riotous proceedings at 

 Whetstone Park, in which the Duke of Monmouth, the Duke of Albemarle, and 

 the Duke of Somerset were engaged. Of this William, third Duke, there is a 

 fine engraving by Vertue from a picture by Lely. 



2 The noble foundress of the Froxfield Hospital [mis-ca]led Sfraxfield on her 

 monument in Westminster Abbey] does not appear to have enjoyed much happiness 

 with her second husband, Lord John Seymour. In 1672, on his succeeding to the 

 dukedom, she presented to the King a petition for a separate maintenance, the 

 VOL. XVIII. — NO. LII. B 



