Everything about Katherine Stanhope Countess Of Chesterfield totally explained
Katherine Stanhope, Countess of Chesterfield (
bapt. 19 December 1609–
9 April 1667) was an
English-born
courtier at the
Dutch court of
Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange and later to the
restored court in England. Throughout her serving life, she was a trusted aide to the princess and the exiled English court at
The Hague. But, as a former widow, was also faced with the hardship of securing family lands during the
sequestrations carried out by the
Commonwealth of England and surviving political intrigue. Despite this, and after having been thrice married, she was later granted a
peerage and was to become a wealthy woman before her death.
Early life and first marriage
Born Katherine Wotton in 1609, she was the eldest daughter and coheir of
Thomas Wotton, 2nd Baron Wotton and his wife, Mary, nee Throckmorton. She was also a paternal great-niece of
Sir Henry Wotton and a maternal great-niece of
Sir Walter Raleigh.
On
4 December 1628, Wotton married
Henry Stanhope, Lord Stanhope (the eldest surviving son of
Philip Stanhope, 1st Earl of Chesterfield, and his first wife, Catherine) at
Boughton Malherbe becoming
Lady Stanhope by courtesy. They had three surviving children:
When Lord Stanhope died
intestate at
St. Martin-in-the-Fields in 1634, their eldest son, Philip, became a royal
ward and Lady Stanhope was obliged to pay
£2000 for the grant of the wardship to herself. She was forced to borrow this money due to her husband dying in debt and her father-in-law, Lord Chesterfield, refusing to help her. Relations with her father-in-law appear to have been generally poor, since he
petitioned against her in 1636 for her refusal to pay
ship money of £30, which had then been claimed from his
tenants. After her husband's death, Lady Stanhope then divided her time between her children at her estate in
Boughton Malherbe and her house on New Street between
Covent Garden and
Strand (later briefly occupied by
John Flaxman). A letter from
Lord Conway to
Sir Thomas Wentworth (later
Earl of Strafford) in 1637 suggests she was careful with her money. The wealthy
Lord Cottington was said to have wanted to marry Lady Stanhope, but she was said to be in love with her cousin, Carew Raleigh, son of Sir Walter. She was also a lover of
van Dyck until they argued over the cost of a portrait of her, which he threatened to sell to a higher bidder.
Second marriage
In 1640, the
Dutch diplomat Jehan van der Kerckhove, Lord of Heenvliet, visited
England with instructions to arrange a marriage between
Prince William, the only son of
Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, and
Princess Mary, a daughter of
Charles I. Heenvliet was married with children at the time, but was soon widowed and began to
woo Lady Stanhope. Their courtship didn't go smoothly, however, as Heenvliet was considered an 'obscure foreigner' - any children from the marriage would have had no
inheritance rights under
English law and if she predeceased him, all of Lady Stanhope's property would be
forfeit to
The Crown. Heenvliet's
confidant,
Louis de Dieu, later wrote a letter to
James Ussher, the
Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, containing full details of Heenvliet's
lineage and honours and asked Ussher to reassure Lady Stanhope as to the worth of her possible future husband. When the king also gave his support to the marriage, Heenvliet and Lady Stanhope were married in early 1641, shortly before the marriage of the young prince and princess.
Life in Holland
Charles I then appointed Heenvliet Superintendent of the new household of Princess Mary (aged nine) at
The Hague, whilst Lady Stanhope took over as Mary's governess from the
Countess of Roxburghe. Lady Stanhope's appointment wasn't universally accepted, however: the
Marquess of Hamilton had lobbied for his mother-in-law, the
Countess of Denbigh, to be appointed, and the princess herself had caused a public scene when Lady Roxburghe left The Hague a few months after they arrived there in 1642. The young princess soon transferred her affections to Lady Stanhope, to whom she remained attached for the rest of her life, as she did to Lord Heenvliet.
Lady Stanhope became pregnant during the early months of her governess-ship and gave birth to 'a big and fat child' in 1643. She and Lord Heenvliet intended to name him Thomas after her father, with her mother, the Dowager Lady Wotton, and Lord Heenvliet's father, Poliander, as godparents. However, Princess Mary and the Prince of Orange proposed themselves for this role and the child was baptised with the more regal names of
Charles Henry.
Lady Stanhope's initial duties as governess consisted of looking after the princess's wardrobe and carrying out small errands for her, but she was also given the task of monitoring the princess's sexual development. She had promised King Charles that she wouldn't allow the marriage to be consummated before Mary was fourteen years old and even stationed an attendant, Mrs. Abercrombie, to sleep in the princess's room to prevent it. When it was discovered in 1644, that the princess's nurse had allowed Prince William to sneak into Mary's bedroom whilst Mrs. Abercrombie was asleep, Lady Stanhope scolded both Abercrombie and the nurse. When it was mentioned that the Prince and
Princess of Orange supported their son's actions, Lady Stanhope was silenced and, as Heenvliet commented, 'there is no remedy and they're continuing'. Thereafter,
Queen Henrietta Maria and the Princess of Orange both awaited news from Lady Stanhope of a possible pregnancy, though Lady Stanhope told the queen that it wasn't until early 1647, the time she became Princess of Orange, that Mary began to
menstruate.
Lady Stanhope had given birth to a daughter, Amelie Willemine in 1646. Mary, a week after the death of her husband, gave birth to her only child,
William (later William III of England) in 1650, at which time Lady Stanhope became indispensable to the young, widowed princess. A few months later, Lady Stanhope's stepdaughter, Walburg (from Heenvliet's first marriage), married
Hon. Thomas Howard (a younger son of
Theophilus Howard, 2nd Earl of Suffolk), the princess's
Master of the Horse and Walburg became a
Lady of the Bedchamber to Mary and governess to the young Prince William.
Inheritance
The birth of Lord Heenvliet and Lady Stanhope's son a few years earlier had raised their concerns over his
inheritance rights to Lady Stanhope's lands in England. In 1642, Charles I'd offered Heenvliet English
citizenship and to revive the
barony of Wotton (Lady Stanhope's father having been the last holder of the title) for him. However, Heenvliet knew the
peerage would have made both himself and his children
foreigners in the
Dutch Republic and so asked for the barony to instead be conferred on any future son of theirs. In 1648, shortly before being removed from
Hurst Castle, the king issued a
warrant disclaiming any
Crown interest in Lady Stanhope's lands, although she obviously tried to secure her lands after the king's execution in 1649. Later that year, the
de jure Charles II issued an identical warrant and also created their son Baron Wotton, via a patent which was formalised at
Perth in 1650.
In 1644, during the
English Civil War, Lady Stanhope's property had been threatened with
sequestration by the
Roundheads because of her correspondence with the Charles I. Despite her
underwriting an arms deal,
Sir Edward Nicholas, a
royalist, was also hostile to both her and Heenvliet and suspected she'd compromise with the parliamentary forces in order to save her estates. In 1651, the Chesterfield lands had been sequestrated due to her former father-in-law's role in the war. They were to be sold off if his heir, Lady Stanhope's son, Philip, wasn't in
London to compound for them by the end of the year. After attempts to contact her son, who was then travelling in
Italy, failed, Lady Stanhope went to London herself and was immediately arrested. She was freed after two weeks and stayed in
England until the following June, by which time she'd secured the Chesterfield estates for her son at a cost of £20,000.
Political intrigue
Soon after Lady Stanhope returned to Holland in 1651, Sir Edward Nicholas wrote to
Sir Edward Hyde with a serious accusation against her (exactly what isn't clear from Hyde's reply), which Hyde passed on to Charles II. The
de jure king reluctantly wrote to his sister, Princess Mary, to warn her against Lady Stanhope, but the princess furiously denounced the accusation and demanded to know the author. The chief suspect was the princess's mother-in-law, the
Dowager Princess of Orange, with whom she'd poor relations, for which Lady Stanhope was held responsible by the Dutch. Lady Stanhope's suspected damaging influence was shared by Hyde and Nicholas, who saw her and her husband's support for Queen Henrietta Maria and
Henry Jermyn's "
Louvre faction" as antagonistic to royalist interests.
Lady Stanhope was seemingly unaffected by the event and by 1654, had won favour with Hyde by offering favours to his wife,
Frances and their daughter,
Anne (later wife of
Prince James, Duke of York). Hyde subsequently denounced any accusations of Lady Stanhope by Nicholas, especially defending her when the latter accused her of a relationship with
Daniel O'Neill. Her efforts to regain trust with Charles II took longer, but she later did so, evident that despite refusing to accompany Princess Mary to
Paris on a political visit in 1656, Charles forgave her on the grounds of their friendship.
Family feud
The re-purchasing of the Chesterfield estates for Lady Stanhope's son soon brought problems. In 1649, her mother had demanded money allocated to the former's daughters, Catherine and Mary (who had stayed with her grandmother throughout Lady Stanhope's life in Holland). However, the land from which Lady Stanhope intended to raise this money had to be sold to buy the Chesterfield estates, the income from which made her son, Philip, independent of his mother. In 1654, Philip brought a
lawsuit against his mother which seems to have been connected to the money reserved for his sisters, yet possibly connected to the terms of his recent marriage contract to Lady Anne Percy, since the lawsuit also involved his father-in-law, the
Earl of Northumberland. Lady Stanhope
counterclaimed by claiming all expenses paid to her son since his father's death, whilst at the same time pleading for assistance and sympathy from family or friends.
The dispute continued throughout the
1650s and was finally resolved in 1659, when the old accusations, against Lady Stanhope's and Heenvliet's readiness to co-operate with the parliamentary forces for the protection of their lands, resurfaced. They were also accused of being willing to accept the Wotton barony and citizenship not from Charles I, but from
Richard Cromwell, and also of providing information to
John Thurloe during the war, charges denied by Heenvliet.
Third marriage and final years
Lord Heenvliet died in 1660 and Lady Stanhope commissioned a marble monument to him in the Pieterskerk in
Leiden. Charles II's recognition of her services to himself and his sister, Princess Mary, was rewarded when on
29 May 1660 (the day the king arrived in
London following
The Restoration), he created her
Countess of Chesterfield (a title she'd have been known by had her first husband survived his father)
for life. The new countess then prepared for the arrival of Princess Mary to England, but the next few months were to be the last of her long service to Mary, as the princess died later that year. The countess and her stepdaughter, Walburg, were left £500 by Mary, but the countess was owed a considerable amount from the princess, which was unable to be paid (as well as most of her other legacies) as she died heavily in debt. As a result, Lady Chesterfield refused to return the princess's jewellery until she received her full legacy, and also kept Mary's wardrobe as a perquisite.
Lady Chesterfield then made her life in England and Heenvliet and their three children were
naturalised in 1660. She was later reconciled to her son, Philip (by now
Earl of Chesterfield), but her daughters soon died: Mary from
smallpox in 1660, Catherine in childbirth in 1662 and Amelie in 1663. She continued her royal service to the new court, becoming an attendant to the
Duchess of York and later becoming a
Lady of the Bedchamber to the
Queen in 1663.
Despite her shrewdness and complaints about her finances, Lady Chesterfield was already a wealthy woman at the time of The Restoration, retaining her estate at
Boughton Malherbe and her house in
Covent Garden. Her wealth soon increased when she married, in 1662, her old friend
Daniel O'Neill, who had been well rewarded by Charles II for his loyalty. When O'Neill died of a
stomach ulcer two years later, he left everything to Lady Chesterfield and she became very rich, inheriting his property, pensions,
Postmaster Generalship and monopoly on the manufacture of
gunpowder for
The Crown.
In her last few years, she lived at
Belsize Park (built for her by O'Neill) with her son, Lord Chesterfield, who was with her when she died of
dropsy in 1667. She was buried alongside her husband in the church of
Saint Nicholas at Boughton Malherbe and her will instructed a monument of the couple be erected there, showing who O'Neill was and 'my relation to him'. Lord Chesterfield carried this out, but took the opportunity to add his own father to the memorial, which consists of three white
marble lions surmounted by a black marble three-sided
pyramid (now paving the
vestry), the faces referring to O'Neill, Lady Chesterfield and Lord Stanhope.
Ancestors
Notes and references
Sources
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