Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset KG (c. 1587 – 17 July 1645), was a politician, and favourite of King James VI and I. Robert Kerr was born in Wrington, Somerset, England, the younger son of Sir Thomas Kerr (Carr) of Ferniehurst, Scotland, by his second wife, Janet Scott, sister of Walter Scott of Buccleuch.

[3][4] The royal court was aware by June 1612 that Anne of Denmark and Prince Henry did not hold Robert Carr in such high regard.

[5] Thomas Erskine, Viscount Fenton wrote that "Rochester is exceeding great with his Majesty ..., yet can he not find the right way to please either the Queen or the Prince, but they are both in the conceit of this Court not well satisfied with him".

Even the powerful Carr, hardly experienced for the responsibilities thrust upon him and often dependent on his intimate friend Overbury for assistance with government papers,[8] fell into the Howard camp.

They then persuaded the king to offer Overbury an assignment as ambassador to the court of Tsar Michael of Russia, aware that his refusal would be tantamount to treason.

He supported the earl of Northampton and the Spanish party in opposition to the old tried advisers of the king, such as the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, who were endeavouring to maintain the union with the Protestants abroad.

Somerset still retained some favour, and might possibly have remained in power for some time longer but for the discovery in July of the murder of Overbury by poisoning.

They were Sir Gervase Helwys, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, Richard Weston, a gaoler, Mrs Anne Turner, a "waiting woman" of Frances Howard, and an apothecary called Franklin.

[3] Fearing Somerset might seek to implicate him, James repeatedly sent messages to the Tower pleading with him to admit his guilt in return for a pardon stating, "It is easy to be seen that he would threaten me with laying an aspersion upon me of being, in some sort, accessory to his crime".

He emerged into public view only once more when, in 1630, he was prosecuted in the Star Chamber for communicating a paper recommending the establishment of arbitrary government by Robert Dudley to John Holles, 1st Earl of Clare.

[3] Somerset died in July 1645, leaving one daughter, Anne, the sole issue of his ill-fated marriage, afterwards wife of William Russell, 1st Duke of Bedford.

There was a bed with gilt pillars hung with purple velvet curtains and lined with yellow silk damask, tapestries of the Trojan wars and Roman history, and two Irish harps, a theorbo, and a lute.

Somerset had over 100 paintings in a picture gallery in a former bowling alley, the subjects included the Adoration of Shepherds, The Wise Men, and Samson and Delilah.