Quartered arms of Sir Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester
Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester, KG, Earl Marshal (c. 1550 – 3 March 1628) was an English aristocrat.[1] He was an important advisor to King James I (James VI of Scots), serving as Lord Privy Seal.
Career
He was the only son of three children born to the 3rd Earl of Worcester and Christiana North. On 21 February 1589, he succeeded his father as Earl of Worcester.
In June 1590 Worcester travelled to Edinburgh to congratulate James VI of Scotland on his safe return from Denmark and marriage to Anne of Denmark, and gave notice that the king was to join the Order of the Garter.[2] He discussed with James rumours that English ships had lain in wait for his return. At first, he was not able to see Anne of Denmark who had toothache, and he joked that in England this would be interpreted as a sign she was pregnant.[3] Worcester had an audience with Anne, and took her letter to Elizabeth. He was accompanied by Lord Compton who watched 'pastimes' or hunting on the sands of Leith.[4]
In 1593 he was made a Knight of the Garter. In a letter of September 1602 he mentions that Queen Elizabeth was entertained in the Privy Chamber with country dances and Irish tunes.[5]
The Earl of Worcester was Master of the Horse to Elizabeth I, and Master of Anne of Denmark's household.[6] He wrote a letter describing the formation of the queen's household in 1604 which is frequently quoted by historians.[7] In 1606 he was appointed Keeper of the Great Park, a park created for hunting by Henry VIII around Nonsuch Palace, of which Worcester Park was a part. The residence Worcester Park House was built in 1607.
Elizabeth Somerset, who might have died young, but that is unsure;
Lady Anne Somerset, who married Sir Edward Wynter (als Wyntour) of Lydney, Gloucestershire, on 11 August 1595.[10]
Lady Catherine or Katherine Somerset, who died on 6 November 1654 and, before 14 January 1607, married Thomas Windsor, 6th Baron Windsor, with whom she had no issue; and
Four of his daughters danced as the rivers of Monmouthshire in the court masque Tethys' Festival on 5 June 1610; Lady Catherine Windsor as the "Nymph of Usk"; Lady Katherine Petre as the "Nymph of Olwy"; Lady Elizabeth Guildford as the "Nymph of Dulesse"; and Lady Mary Wintour as the "Nymph of Wye".[13]
^Joseph Bain, Hamilton Papers, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1892), p. 710.
^Steven Veerapen, The Wisest Fool: The Lavish Life of James VI and I (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2023), p. 183: Maureen Meikle, 'Anna of Denmark's Coronation and Entry', Julian Goodare & Alasdair A. MacDonald, Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Brill, 2008), p. 293.
^Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), pp. 324-5, 331.
^Edmund Lodge, Illustrations of British History, vol. 3 (London, 1791), p. 148.
^Ethel. C. Williams, Anne of Denmark (Longman, 1970), p. 160.
^Eva Griffith, A Jacobean Company and its Playhouse: The Queen's Servants at the Red Bull Theatre (Cambridge, 2013), p. 121: Linda Levy Peck, Court Patronage and Corruption in Early Stuart England (London, 1990), p. 69.
^'Wynter. Pedigree No. 1 and No. 2', in J. Macleane and W.C. Heane (eds), The Visitation of the County of Gloucester taken in the year 1623, (&c.), Harleian Society XXI (1885), pp. 271-78, at p. 273 (Internet Archive).
^John Burke and John Bernard Burke., Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies, pp. 369–370
^John Cox, Annals of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate (London, 1876), p. 91.
^Edmund Sawyer, Memorials of Affairs of State from the papers of Ralph Winwood, vol. 3 (London, 1725), p. 181: John Nichols, The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities, of King James the First, vol. 2 (London, 1828), p. 349.
^Newman, John (2002). Gwent/Monmouthshire. New Haven; London: Yale University Press. p. 305. ISBN978-0-300-09630-9.
