Francis Somerset

Francis Somerset (died 22 July 1563), was an English soldier, briefly a member of the House of Commons of England in the last Parliament of Queen Mary I (1558).

Somerset joined the English expedition to France and died of the Plague while taking part in the defence of Le Havre.[1]

Probably born about 1534, Somerset was the fourth son of Henry Somerset, 2nd Earl of Worcester, and his second wife Elizabeth Browne, a daughter of Anthony Browne,[2][3] Lieutenant of Calais.[4] His mother was the leading witness against Anne Boleyn, and there were rumours that she had been a mistress of Henry VIII.[5] He was descended in the male line from John of Gaunt.

Somerset was mistakenly reported to have died at the battle of Pinkie in 1547,[6] but he was one of the two Members of Parliament for Monmouthshire in 1558[7] and fought at the siege of Leith in 1560.[1][8]

During the French wars of religion, on 8 May 1562 Huguenot forces took the town of Le Havre and expelled Roman Catholics. Fearing a counter-attack by the royal armies, by the Treaty of Hampton Court the Huguenot leader Louis I, Prince of Condé, handed the town over to the English, who sent a garrison of some 6,000 men led by Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick. The English built fortifications.[9]

In 1563, the year of his death, Somerset was leader of a "band" of men. A warrant of Queen Elizabeth's authorized her Comptroller of the Household, Sir Edward Rogers, to send Sir Morice Denys, Treasurer of Newhaven, £300 (equivalent to £121,463 in 2023) to be paid to Somerset "for the wages of himself and his band, serving at Newhaven, due the 25th January last".[10] John Stow's The Annales of England calls him Captain Francis Somerset.[11]

In the summer of 1563 Charles IX sent a force, commanded by the Duke of Montmorency, which attacked Le Havre and expelled the English on 29 July 1563.[9] Somerset was then at Le Havre and died there of Plague,[12] a few days before the French had regained control of the town.[1] He died unmarried, but in his Will proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury he refers to two illegitimate children, whom he consigned to the care of his mother.[2][13]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c P. S. Edwards, "Francis Somerset", History of Parliament Online
  2. ^ a b The Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, Vol. 25 (University of Wales Press, 1974), p. 492 (footnote)
  3. ^ Michael C. Questier, Catholicism and community in early modern England (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 68
  4. ^ Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study In Colonial And Medieval Families (2011), p. 179
  5. ^ Kelly Hart, The Mistresses of Henry VIII (The History Press, 2009), p. 25
  6. ^ William Williams, The Parliamentary History of the Principality of Wales (1895), p. 121, says that Arthur Collins's 18th-century Peerage claims Somerset died at Pinkie (or Musselburgh) in 1547.
  7. ^ Thomas Nicholas, Annals and Antiquities of the Counties and County Families of Wales (Genealogical Publishing Co., 1991), p. 764
  8. ^ Joseph Bain, ed., Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots, Vol. I, A. D. 1557–1563 (Edinburgh: H. M. General Register House, 1898), p. 441
  9. ^ a b Modern Period (1492–1610), Municipal Archives of Le Havre, archived at archive.today (in French)
  10. ^ Joseph Stevenson, ed., Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth: 1563 (London; Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, 1869), pp. 304–305
  11. ^ John Stow, The Annales of England (1631), p. 652
  12. ^ John Oldmixon, History of England, Volume 1 (London: T. Cox, 1739), p. 335
  13. ^ Judith Jones, Monmouthshire Wills: Proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury 1560-1601 (South Wales Record Society, 1997), p. 8
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