Frances Seymour, Duchess of Somerset (born 1699)

The earl and countess had two children: Shortly after their marriage, the couple moved into a house built by her husband's father, Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, on the site now occupied by Marlborough College.

[citation needed] The countess was a literary patron, whose protégés including Isaac Watts, Laurence Eusden, John Dyer, William Shenstone and Stephen Duck, whom she introduced to the queen.

Samuel Johnson claimed that Thomson, on his first visit to Marlborough, "took more delight in carousing with Lord Hertford and his friends than assisting her ladyship's poetical operations, and therefore never received another summons".

[11] The countess even used her influence with Queen Caroline to obtain clemency for Thomson's friend, the poet Richard Savage, who had been convicted of murder.

She signed his petition for the establishment of a Foundling Hospital on 26 May 1730,[13] being one of twenty-one 'ladies of quality and distinction' who encouraged male relatives to lend their support to Coram's charitable initiative: a Royal Charter was granted in 1739.

Title page of Memoirs of the literary ladies of England from the commencement of the last century by Anne Elwood , 1843. The third section is a biographical description of Frances Seymour.