by Roger Powell
The seventh son, Lord Seymour died an infant and the eigth son, Lord James, served as Bishop of Hereford for forty-one years and as chaplain to George II. He is largely responsible for maintaining the tradition that his grandmother was born in Hereford. The 9th and youngest son, Lord Aubrey, a Captain in the Royal Navy and Captain of Prince Frederick, died a hero’s death at the Battle of Carthagena in 1740.
The family coat of arms, granted in 1676, are the Royal Arms of King Charles II, debruised by a baton sinister gules charged with three roses proper, and were subsequently quartered with the ancient arms of de Vere, Earls of Oxford. The family motto, still unfulfilled, reads ‘Auspicium Melioris Aevi’ (a pledge of better times to come), for which the family is still waiting patiently.
James, Lord Beauclerk(1671–80)
James was born on Christmas Day 1671 and was named after his uncle the Duke of York, who, together with the King visited Nelly later that day. James was the younger son of Nell Gwyn by Charles II, and the French Ambassador complained that the political business of the Court had all but stopped in order to celebrate his birth.
Like his elder brother Charles (see page 75), James had to wait for five years before he was given a surname and arms and was officially acknowledged by his father. Although he was granted the appellation of Lord Beauclaire/Beauclerk in 1676 ‘with the same place and precedence as is due unto the eldest son of an earl’, and was in special remainder to his brother’s titles of Earl of Burford and Baron Headington, he himself was the only son of King Charles II not to have been separately ennobled in his own right.
But if Charles had intended to ennoble James, as probably he did, he was in fact prevented from doing so by James’s early death in 1680 when he died in Paris ‘of a sore leg’ aged only eight. He had been tutored there for the previous two years, where education and deportment were regarded as the best in Europe, and while very little is known about him, at least he is remembered in a number of paintings and engravings by Kneller, Lely, Abraham Blooteling, Henri Gascar and C. Netscher.
Worse too was that Nelly hadn’t been there at his death, nor did she go to his funeral or even visit his grave, and indeed no one knows where he was buried. Naturally, Nelly was heartbroken and went into deep mourning, shutting herself away for many months. She was devastated by his death and never quite recovered from it, compounded, as it was, by her mother’s death the previous year and Charles II’s death only five years later. However, it is extraordinary that so little is known about the death of a son of the reigning king by one of the most famous women in the land, for there was little reference to him and still no one knows exactly how or where he died.
However, one of the most likeable aspects about his mother, Nelly, was that she alone, actually loved the king for the man himself and not for what she could get out of him. Nelly was totally loyal to the king as his subject and his lover. She was simply and truly overjoyed at whatever time he chose to spend with her. Nelly’s philosophy was, perhaps, summed up by the inscription on her bedpan: ‘Fear God and Serve the King’. Indeed she also has the distinction of being the only Royal mistress to have an annual Newmarket race named after her: the Nell Gwyn Stakes which is a trial race for fillies.
Lady Barbara (Benedicta) FitzRoy, formerly Palmer (1672–1737)
Barbara, who was her mother’s youngest daughter, was born on 16 June 1672 (and not 16 July as claimed by the editors of the Complete Peerage), in Cleveland House, St Martins in the Fields. She is generally reputed to have been the fruit of Barbara Cleveland’s liaison with John Churchill, the great Duke of Marlborough.
Like the rest of Barbara’s children, she was given the surname of Palmer upon birth, although Charles II did later informally recognise her as his own daughter, by giving her the surname of FitzRoy. In the surviving records of the Benedictine Nuns of Pontoise, France she was declared to be
‘natural dau of our latt soueraine King Charles ye 2nd ... her mor was the Dutchess of Cleavland’
But although Charles never publicly acknowledged her or granted her arms, when Barbara was appointed Prioress of St Nicolas’s Hospital, Pontoise by the Duc d’Bouillon in 1720, she took out letters of naturalisation in which she was described as Charles’s legitimised daughter; and in the preamble was also addressed by King Louis XV as ‘our dear cousin’.
Contemporary opinion, however, favoured young Churchill as the father, King Charles allegedly declaring
‘You may tell my lady that I know the child is not mine, yet I will acknowledge it for old times’ sake’.
This was an extraordinary declaration on his part, considering that Barbara had had several lovers prior to the child’s conception. The first was the poet William Wycherley, whom Barbara met secretly at the home of Mrs Knight, the famous singer, during Lent (1671). When word was brought to the King of the affair, he determined to catch them in flagrante and one day suddenly arrived unannounced only to pass Wycherley on the stairs muffled in his cloak. On taxing the Duchess for being abed she replied ‘It is the beginning of Lent and I retired hither to perform my devotions’. Where upon he replied ‘Very Likely and that was your confessor I met on the stairs’. The affair only lasted a few months.
Young Churchill arrived back from Tangier in the winter of 1670–1, and before the year was out had fought two duels. The first reported in a newsletter from London in February 1670–1 stated that:
‘Yesterday was a duel between Mr Fenwick and Mr Churchill esquires who had as their seconds Mr Harpe and Mr Newport son to my Lord Newport; it ended with some wounds for Mr Churchill, but no danger of Life’.
The second, a more serious affair, took place in August 1671, the details of which were reported by Sir Christopher Lyttleton:
Landguard August 21 1671
I have yr Lordships of Augst 3d, in wch you give mee a worse account of Mr Bruce then by yr former, and for wch I think you could not be too severe with him. His captaine had not had much better luck at home, for hee has bine lately engaged in a reencounter with youg Churchill. I know not ye quarrel; but Herbert rann Churchill twice through the arme, and Churchill him into ye thigh, and, after, Herbert disarmed him. But wht is ye worse, I heare yt Churchill has so spoke of it, that the King and Duke are angry wth Herbert. I know not wht he has done to justify himself.
What these letters clearly show is that despite the commonly held belief, that during the years of his army service, Churchill only returned in the winter months, he was in fact in England on the above dates. Nevertheless, as in the Wycherley affair, King Charles again attempted to catch the Duchess unawares with her lover. On doing so he taxed her with her lack of discretion and to the fleeing ensign declared ‘I forgive you, for you do it for your bread’. His continuing interest in her affairs and his unannounced visits, betray on his part a certain jealousy or, perhaps, a desire to protect her reputation, such as it was, she being the mother of a good number of his children. Either way, his visits continued, only tailing off in March of the following year when Barbara was heavily pregnant with her latest child, conceived in the autumn of 1671 (end of August/beginning of September), when the Court was at Windsor and King Charles was wooing the future Duchess of Portsmouth.
Not content with Churchill as a lover, the following year Barbara took up with the Earl of Mulgrave (John Sheffield, a notorious roué, who later married James II’s illegitimate daughter). Indeed it was reported by Lord Conway in November 1673 that Barbara was ‘with child by Mulgrave and in no favor with the King.’ Her situation was very reminiscent of the Emperor Augustus’s daughter Julia, who when she took a lover, would always liken herself to a merchant ship which only took on passengers when it had a full cargo! In this way Julia was able to preserve the legitimacy of her children. So for King Charles to acknowledge the child in the knowledge that her mother had had at least two lovers prior to her conception, was extraordinary indeed and only makes sense if he (Charles) was still having intermittent carnal relations with her.
Despite her moth
er’s proclivities and reputation, the young Barbara grew up to be a modest and well bred young lady. However, this has not prevented historians from accusing her of being the mother of an illegitimate child by the Earl of Arran (James Hamilton, subsequently 4th Duke of Hamilton). This allegation is strongly denied by the archivist to the Benedictine congregation of which Barbara was a member. Indeed the facts, once again, appear to contradict the popular belief of a double illegitimacy, certainly in Barbara’s case.
Her alleged illegitimate child, Charles Hamilton, was born 30 March 1691 at Cleveland House. As Barbara FitzRoy became a novice at the Benedictine convent at Pontoise on 22 November 1689 and was professed there 2 April 1691, under the name Benedicta, it is clearly impossible for her to have been the child’s mother.
Dame Benedicta spent thirty years as a member of the Benedictine congregation at Pontoise only leaving on 27 Aug 1721 to take up her post as Prioress of the Royal Priory of St Nicolas, where she eventually died in 1737 aged 65.
Sir Charles Lennox, KG, 1st Duke of Richmond & 1st Duke of Lennox (1672–1723)
Referred to by John Evelyn, the diarist, (with Charles Beauclerk) as ‘very pretty boys who seem to have more wit than the rest (of Charles’ progeny)’, he was born in 1672 and created Duke of Richmond and Duke of Lennox (in Scotland) at the tender age of three. Charles Lennox was the son of Charles II by the French spy Louise Renée de Penancoet de Keroualle (1649–1734), who was created Duchess of Portsmouth for life in 1673, and Duchesse d’Aubigny in France. In that year Charles was also granted by his father a pension of £2,000 per year. Evidence of her undoubted hold over King Charles can be found in the words attributed to him on his deathbead ‘I have always loved her and I die loving her’.
Madame de Sevigne when writing to Madame Grignan in 1675 commented
‘Keroual has every reason to be satisfied with the treatment she has received in England; she has achieved her purpose which was to be the King’s mistress. He spends all his nights with her with the full knowledge of everyone at Court; her son has been acknowledged and has received two dukedoms and withal has amassed great wealth and has succeeded in being feared and respectewd, at any rate by some persons.’
But Louise does not come over very well. She was French, Catholic, driven, manipulative, greedy and hungry for power. Lord Halifax described her as ‘scheming, aloof and heartless’. However, she obviously had her attractions and clearly Charles II was devoted to her, calling her ‘Fubbs’ – an amalgation of ‘fat’ and ‘chubby’. She became a marvellous target for Nell Gwyn’s wit, with her broken English and her French pretensions.
In 1681 Richmond was appointed a KG and Master of the Horse (although he was replaced as the latter by James II) and Governor of Dumbarton Castle. He also became High Steward of the City of York. It was said that his mother introduced the young KG with the blue ribbon over his left shoulder instead of round his neck and with the George appendant on the right side instead of on the breast. Charles II is said to have been so pleased with this conceit that he commanded all other knights to follow suit and so they still do. However this story is not believed by Beltz in his Order of the Garter. But what was the character of this youngest bastard son of the King? Mackay describes him
‘when not Thirty Years old [as] Good natured to a fault, very well bred, and hath many valuable Things in him; is an Enemy to Business, very credulous, well Shaped, Black Complexion, much like King Charles….
Thomas Hearne writes in 1723 that he was
‘a man of very little understanding, and though the son of so great a king as Charles II, was a man that struck in with every thing that was whiggish and opposite to true monarchical principles’.
He even declared to the Earl of Wharton that he was a ‘staunche Whig’. So it is easy therefore to understand his mother’s surprise that he should have embraced such principles as the theory of contract and mixed monarchy, when he was the son of a monarch such as Charles II. The idea that a
‘monarch stood in a contractual relationship to the community as a trustee who ruled upon conditions, the breach of which rendered his crown forfeit’
was completely repugnant to her.
Prior to the death of his father, the Duke’s mother saw fit to have him naturalised as a French subject, but even she was taken aback by the King’s sudden death a few months later. Uncertain about her future in England, she took the young Duke to France, where he was professed a Catholic later that year. Aged only thirteen, he was ceremoniously received at Fontainebleu by King Louis XIV of France just one day before the French King rejected the Edict of Nantes.
When old enough, he later served for a time in the French army firstly as an ADC to the Duc d’Orleans, the King’s nephew, and then as commander of his own cavalry regiment. Curiously however, he did not serve in any of the regiments that accompanied King James to Ireland in his attempt to win back his kingdoms. Instead King Louis sent him to serve in the Low Countries from whence he wrote to his mother:
‘Although you were angry with me when I left, because I applied myself to nothing, I can assure you that you will be very pleased with me during this campaign’.
To the consternation of his mother and surprise of King Louis the young Duke then suddenly decided that he wished to return to England, and with no more ado, promptly left France without telling anyone. He claimed that he would enjoy a far higher rank in England and greater revenues. He then formally renounced his Catholicism at a ceremony at Lambeth Palace in May 1692. Two years later, he was appointed Lord High Admiral of Scotland and in 1696 Grandmaster of the Freemasons of England.
Despite renouncing his Catholic religion, William III initially suspected the Duke was a Jacobite and was privy to the plans of the Jacobite Court. However, by serving as the King’s ADC he was able to convince him otherwise. When asked to sign the Assocation of 1696, he promptly did so, and thus gave further proofs of his allegiance to King William. However his Whiggish principles always sat awkwardly on his shoulders and on more than one occasion he was forced to justify his stand to his mother.
The rumours of the Duke’s drinking and debauchery, which had reached the ears of his mother in France, were, according to his wife, put about by his enemies:
‘All those that are so handsome as His Grace will have enemies upon the account of envie’. ‘His Grace, he had never bin from me twice after nine o’clock at night (wch is far from leading a debauch’d life)’.
Despite her protestations, however, his contemporaries knew otherwise. Like his half brother the Duke of St Albans he enjoyed the favours of the notorious prostitute Sally Salisbury and their affair was the talk of the town, the lady twitting him with the remark ‘As a whore she was good enough for a Garter’.
Eventually the Duke’s dissolute way of life caught up with him and the year before his death his wife wrote to her eldest son:
‘Your poore papa brought from London an intermitting feaver and with it a most violent Histerick Fits, that he has been all this Fortnight that he has favoured Goodewoode most extreamly ill. Mr Peakhame with the Barke has stoped the Feaver, but his other Fits were attended with such convulsions that I sent for a Doctor from London, who assures Lord Duke unless he interely leaves of strong waters he recovery is impossible. I hope this will prevaile else I fear you will hear very ill news, for indeed I never remember Lord Duke so broke and decayed as he is at present: in his Fits he raves after you and says he is sure if he did but see his Dear Boy he should be well’.
Later that year the Duchess wrote to her son again:
‘our friend drinks not less than three pints a day notwithstanding his late illness. God keep you from having the same passion’.
He died in 1723, a year after his wife, Anne, whom he had married before 1692 and who had remained loyal throughout. She was the 2nd daughter of Francis, Lord Brudenell, sister to the 3rd Earl of Cardigan and widow of Henry Lord Belasyse of Worlaby, and they had one son and two daughters. The present representative of this famil
y, which is unique in that it is the only issue of Charles II to have descended from father to eldest son in an almost unbroken male line over nine generations, is Charles Henry, 10th Duke of Richmond and Lennox and 5th Duke of Gordon and Duc d’Aubigny – a duke four times over (born 1929), who still lives at his ancestral estate at Goodwood in West Sussex. He is a chartered accountant and has given much public service, including holding high office in the Church of England as as a member of its General Synod and as a Church Commissioner. However, according to the newspapers in 1994, he had to pay off his own mistress in the sum of £10,000, before resigning as Lord Lieutenant of West Sussex.
His complicated arms include in the first grandquarter the Royal arms of King Charles II within a bordure compony argent and gules, charged with eight roses of the 2nd, the Scottish mark of bastardy, with an inescutcheon bearing the arms of the French dukedom of Aubigny; the 2nd grandquarter is for the Dukedom of Lennox and the third grandquarter for the Dukedom of Gordon quarters Gordon, Badenoch, Seton and Fraser with the motto ‘En la rose je fleuris’ (I flourish in the rose).
Lady Mary Tudor, later Countess of Derwentwater (1673–1726)
Mary Tudor was born in 1673, the daughter of Moll or Mary Davies, actress and singer, by King Charles II. She is said to have caught the King’s eye when she sang ‘My Lodging It is on the Cold Ground’ in the play The Rivals and it was not long before she was warming herself in the King’s bed and was thereafter provided with a house in Suffolk Street.
Moll’s origins are uncertain. One source claims she was the illegitimate daughter of Col Charles Howard, son of the Earl of Berkshire, and another the daughter of a blacksmith from Charlton, near the seat of the Howard family in Wiltshire. Her chief talent was dancing and she was, according to Pepys, far superior in this regard to Nell Gwyn. Pepys claimed that Col Howard ‘do pimp for her for the King … but Pierce says that she is the most homely jade as ever he saw, though she dances beyond any thing in the world’.