the crown, but at the Battle of Hexham on 15 May 1464 they were utterly defeated by John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu. Somerset was captured in a barn at the site of what is now known as Dukes House, and beheaded shortly afterwards that same day. He was buried at Hexham Abbey. Parliament annulled the act restoring him to his dignities, which again became forfeit and were never restored. Somerset was unmarried, and his younger brother, Edmund Beaufort, was styled 4th Duke of Somerset by the Lancastrians. In 1485, some twenty-one years after his death, Somerset, along with Jasper Tudor, had all acts of attainder against him annulled in the first Parliament of Henry VII, "for their true and faithfull Allegeaunces and Services doune to the said blessed King Herrie [VI]." Character Somerset was described by Chastellain as "un très grand seigneur et un des plus beaulx josnes chevaliers qui fust au royaume anglais" ("A very great lord and one of the most handsome knights in the English kingdom"). He was probably as competent as any of the Lancastrian leaders, but their military capacity was not great. Illegitimate progeny By his mistress Joan Hill he had an illegitimate son: Charles Somerset, 1st Earl of Worcester, 1st Baron Herbert (c.1460-1526), KG, who was given the surname "Somerset" and was created Baron Herbert in 1506 and Earl of Worcester in 1513. From him descend the Earls and Marquesses of Worcester and the Dukes of Beaufort, who are the last known surviving male-line descendants of King Henry II (1154-1189) of England, Count of Anjou, founder of the Plantagenet dynasty, of which King Richard III (1483-1485) was the last ruling member in the male line. Ancestry Notes References Attribution Endnotes: Cal. Rot. Pat. Rymer's Fœdera Rotuli Parl. William of Worcester and Stevenson's Letters (Rolls Ser.) English Chron., ed. Davies, Gregory's Collections, Three English Chron., and Warkworth's Chron. (Camden Soc) Polydore Vergil Hall's Chronicle Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner Fortcseue's Governance of England, ed. Plummer Arthur de Richemont, Matthieu D'Eseouchy and Chastellain's Chroniques (Soc. de l'Hist. de France) Beaucourt's Charles VII Stubbs's Const. Hist. vol. iii. passim Ramsay's Lancaster and York Doyle's Official Baronage G. E. Cokayne's Complete Peerage 1436 births 1464 deaths Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset 202 Marquesses of Dorset People of the Wars of the Roses People executed under the Yorkists Executed English people People executed under the Plantagenets by decapitation