to oppose the rival establishment, though the transactions were skilfully cloaked, and he escaped any open censure in the house. Shortly afterwards he lost his seat at Exeter, and had to take refuge in the small borough of Totnes. In 1697 he tendered 10,000l. for recoinage, and advised, when parliament met, that supply should be postponed to a discussion of the king's speech. In November 1697 he spoke in defence of Sir John Fenwick, citing ancient history and quoting much Latin, but little to the purpose (cf. Oldmixon, iii. 153, 159). Next year, upon being again returned for Exeter, he was for reducing the civil list to the earlier amount of 600,000l. He was prominent in the attacks upon Somers and the Dutch favourites, and was the chief manager of the Resumption Bill for the commons during the early months of 1700. When parliament was prorogued on 11 April, he went to Kensington to take leave of the king. William told him that he did not mean to think of the past, he only hoped they would be better friends next session; to which Seymour, in a tone of conscious superiority and anticipating a tory reaction in the constituencies, replied, ‘I doubt it not’ (Bonnet's Despatch, ap. Ranke, v. 214).
When the new parliament met in December 1701, Seymour was discovered to be infected by the prevailing enthusiasm for William and the Dutch alliance, owing to Louis XIV's recognition of the Pretender, and he was carried away by the popular fervour for war. Both parties at the new year (1702) were vying with each other in their endeavour to put the king in the best possible position for opening a campaign. The succession of Anne seemed to improve Seymour's prospects. He was in April made comptroller of the royal household, and in May ranger of Windsor Forest. Inopportune as were his strictures upon military abuses, Marlborough and Godolphin tolerated him in the council for two years; but in April 1704 he was abruptly dismissed. His political rancour was well illustrated next year, when upon the eve of Blenheim he vowed that Marlborough should be hunted like a hare upon his return to England. The succession of whig triumphs completely extinguished his influence. He died at his seat of Maiden Bradley on 17 Feb. 1708, and was buried in the parish church. If we may credit Rapin, his death was precipitated by the fright he received at the hands of an old beldame, who assaulted him in his study while the household were absent at a neighbouring fair (Hist. 1751, iv. 65–6).
According to Burnet, Seymour was the ablest man of his party, a man of great birth, graceful, bold, and quick, of a pride so ‘peculiar to himself that,’ says he, ‘I never saw anything like it.’ He certainly did not yield in arrogance to his cousin, ‘the proud duke’ of Somerset. In friendship he was grudging and insincere, and he cannot be acquitted of sordid meanness. He represented a class rather than a party, but he was loyal to certain narrow conceptions of patriotic duty. Resenting his suspicions of the whig hero, Macaulay drew a very harsh portrait of Seymour; but it can hardly be denied that the cause of parliamentary control benefited by his shrewdness and tenacity.
Seymour married, first, on 7 Dec. 1661, Margaret, daughter of Sir William Wale, kt., of London, and by her had Sir Edward, fifth baronet, and father of Edward, eighth duke of Somerset [see under Seymour, Charles, sixth Duke]; and Sir William, who entered the army, was captured by a French privateer in 1692, obtained Cutts's regiment, which he commanded with distinction at Namur, was wounded at Landen in July 1693, and died a lieutenant-general in 1728 (D'Auvergne, Campaigns in Flanders, 1693, pp. 90–1). He married, secondly, Letitia (d. 1729), daughter of Francis Popham of Littlecote, by whom he had six sons and one daughter. Of these the eldest, Popham Seymour-Conway, succeeded to the estates (worth 7,000l. a year) of his mother's cousin, Edward Conway, earl of Conway. He was just becoming known as the most extravagant young fop about town when he was mortally wounded in a duel by an officer named Captain Kirke. He forgave his adversary on his deathbed on 18 June 1699; but his father, Sir Edward, prosecuted Kirke with the greatest vehemence, and when Kirke was convicted of manslaughter he tried without success to obtain a writ of appeal. Popham's fortune passed to his next brother, Francis (1679–1732), who assumed the name and arms of Conway, and was created Baron Conway in March 1703; he was father of Francis Seymour Conway, marquis of Hertford [q. v.], and of Field-marshal Henry Seymour Conway [q. v.]
A portrait of Seymour, by Roth, was engraved by Worthington, and there is an engraving by Harding from the monument at Maiden Bradley.
[Manning's Lives of the Speakers; G. E. C.'s Complete Peerage, s.v. ‘Somerset;’ Luttrell's Brief Hist. Relation, vols. iii. iv. v.; Reresby's Diary; Evelyn's Diary; Bulstrode Papers, 1 Nov. 1667; Burnet's Own Time; Eachard's Hist. of England; Christie's Life of Shaftesbury; Boyer's Annals of Anne, 1735, pp. 14, 36, 38, 125, 209;
