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Charlotte Lee, Countess of Lichfield

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Charlotte Fitzroy
Countess of Lichfield
Lady Lee, of Quarendon
Charlotte Fitzroy, Countess of Lichfield
Born(1664-09-05)5 September 1664
Died17 February 1718(1718-02-17) (aged 53)
Noble familyStuart
Spouse(s)
​
​
(m. 1677; died 1716)​
IssueCharlotte Lee, Lady Baltimore
Charles Lee, Viscount Quarendon
Edward Lee, Viscount Quarendon
Captain Hon. James Lee
Hon. Francis Lee
Lady Anne Morgan
Hon. Charles Lee
George Lee, 2nd Earl of Lichfield
Hon. Francis Henry Fitzroy Lee
Lady Elizabeth Young
Barbara Browne, Lady Browne
Lady Mary Lee
Hon. Fitzroy Lee
Hon. FitzRoy Henry Lee
Hon. William Lee
Hon. Thomas Lee
Hon. John Lee
Robert Lee, 4th Earl of Lichfield
FatherCharles II of England
MotherBarbara Villiers, 1st Duchess of Cleveland

Charlotte Lee, Countess of Lichfield (5 September 1664 – 17 February 1718), formerly Lady Charlotte Fitzroy, was the illegitimate daughter of King Charles II of England by one of his best known mistresses, Barbara Villiers, 1st Duchess of Cleveland. Known for her beauty, Charlotte was married at age 12 to her husband, Edward Henry Lee, 1st Earl of Lichfield, with whom she had a large family.

Early life

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Charlotte Lee was born Charlotte Fitzroy, on 5 September 1664,[1] the fourth child and second daughter of Barbara Palmer, Countess of Castlemaine, the only child of the Royalist commander William Villiers, 2nd Viscount Grandison. She was placed in the care of a governess; Mrs. Godfrey in Berkshire House. [1] Also living there was her older brother Charles betrothed Mary Wood daughter of Sir Henry Wood and whom Charlottes mother had more or less abducted and had decided to bring up with her own children.

Alt
Charlotte with her mother painted by Henri Gascar

Charlotte Fitzroy's mother had separated from her husband Roger Palmer, 1st Earl of Castlemaine, but was still married to him. Castlemaine did not father any of his wife's children; Charlotte and her siblings were the illegitimate offspring of their mother's royal lover, Charles II. The king acknowledged his daughter and so she bore the surname of Fitzroy – "child of the King".

The diarist Samuel Pepys noted that the child would likely have good marriage prospects: "my Lady Castlemayne [Barbara Villiers] will in merriment say that her daughter (not above a year old or two) will be the first mayde in the Court that will be married…" [2]

Charlotte was for her royal blood and connections seen as a great match and in 1672, Sir Francis Radclyffe ;an ambitious man tried to bring about a marriage between the eight year old Charlotte and his nineteen year old son Edward Radclyffe[3]. He approached and gained a meeting with Lord Grandison (the great-uncle of Charlotte) and Lord Clifford (councillor to Charles II)

But for whatever reason nothing came of the marriage and Edward would instead come to be married to Charlottes half-sister Mary Tudor , the daughter of Moll Davis.

In 1673[4] Charlotte and her older sister Anne were given coat of arms[4] and made Lady Companions of the Order of the Garter.

Charlotte accompanied her mother and three of her siblings[5] to France in March, 1676[6], Charlotte and her younger sister Barbara were sent to be educated at the convent of the Conceptionist Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady[7], at Faubourg Saint-Antoine in Paris[8].

After Charlottes father demanded to see hus daughter ,mother and daughter returned to England in 1677 for Charlottes marriage.

Charlotte was the favourite niece of James, Duke of York, younger brother of Charles II, who would later reign as King James II. The historian John Heneage Jesse wrote of Charlotte Fitzroy: "we know but little of her except that she was beautiful."[9] As a child, Charlotte was painted by the court painter Sir Peter Lely, Charles II's Principal Painter in Ordinary, in which she is seated with her Indian page, holding a bunch of grapes and dressed in pink silk. Today, the painting hangs in the York Art Gallery.

The art historian Anna Brownell Jameson described Charlotte Fitzroy as having "rivaled her mother in beauty, but was far unlike her in every other respect."[10]

Alt
Charlotte as a child painted by Peter Lely (ca. 1672)

Villiers was said to be "cruel and austere" parent and when as a child Charlotte accidentnally broke the glass window of her mothers coach when traveling through the park; she was so distraught that she started crying in fear of her punishment.(being beaten) A witness to the accident sent a message to her father and he swiftly sent a message to Villiers that their daughter was not to be punished.[11]

It appears that Charles II was a loving father. In 1682 he wrote to Charlotte: "I must tell you I am glad to hear you are with child, and I hope to see you here before it be long, that I may have the satisfaction myself of telling you how much I love you, and how truly I am your kind father, Charles Rex".[12]


Marriage and children

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Charlotte Fitzroy and her husband Edward Henry Lee, 1st Earl of Lichfield, as children, painted by Peter Lely.

On 16 May 1674, before her tenth birthday, Lady Charlotte was contracted to marry Sir Edward Lee, and they were married on 6 February 1677, in her thirteenth year. When Charles Stewart, 6th Duke of Lennox, died in 1673, Sir Edward was created Earl of Lichfield. Charlotte's dowry was agreed at £18,000, and her husband was awarded a pension of £2,000 per year. [13]

Together they had eighteen children:

  • Charlotte Lee, Lady Baltimore (13 March 1678 (Old Style) – 22 January 1721),
  • Charles Lee, Viscount Quarendon (6 May 1680 – 13 October 1680).
  • Edward Henry Lee, Viscount Quarendon (6 June 1681 – 21 October 1713).
  • Captain Hon. James Lee (13 November 1682 – 1711).
  • The Hon. Francis Lee (14 February 1685).
  • Lady Anne Lee (29 June 1686 – d. 1716?), married N Morgan.
  • The Hon. Charles Lee (5 June 1688 – 3 January 1708).
  • George Henry Lee, 2nd Earl of Lichfield (12 March 1690 – 15 February 1743).
  • The Hon. Francis Henry Fitzroy Lee (10 September 1692 – died 1730).
  • Lady Elizabeth Lee (26 May 1693 – 29 January 1741). Married:
    • (1) Francis Lee, a cousin. Had one son and two daughters, the eldest of whom, Elisabeth (d. 1736 at Lyon) married Henry Temple, son of the 1st Viscount Palmerston.
    • (2) Edward Young, in 1731, author of the Night Thoughts, by whom she had one son. It is said that he never recovered from Elizabeth's death.
  • Lady Barbara Lee (3 March 1695 – d. aft. 1729), married Sir George Browne, 3rd Baronet of Kiddington.
  • Lady Mary Isabella Lee (6 September 1697 – 28 December 1697).
  • The Hon. Fitzroy Lee (10 May 1698 – died young).
  • Vice Admiral Hon. FitzRoy Henry Lee (2 January 1700 – April 1751), Commodore Governor of Newfoundland.
  • The Hon. William Lee (24 June 1701 – died young).
  • The Hon. Thomas Lee (25 August 1703 – died young).
  • The Hon. John Lee (3 December 1704 – died young).
  • Robert Lee, 4th Earl of Lichfield (3 July 1706 – 3 November 1776).

Later life

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Charlotte Lee, Countess of Lichfield, painted by Godfrey Kneller.

After the death of her father in 1685 Charlotte continued to be part of the inner circle of the new king, who was her uncle James and a great favorite of his wife Mary of Modena. Charlotte was not present for the childbirth of Mary in 1688 but she was prepred to vouch for the legitimacy[14][15] of James Francis Edward when his fathers political enemies and her cousins Anne and Mary tried to claim that the newborn was not the son of James II in an effort to prevent a Catholic dynasty from ruling the country.

Charlotte testified ;

That she was not at the Queens Labour, (being in Child-bed her self) but that she was almost constantly with the Queen, while she was with Child, and hath put on her Smock, and seen the Milk run out of her Breast, and felt her Belly; so that she is sure she could not be deceived, but that the Queen was with Child

Due to Charlotte and her husbands staunch support of Charlottes uncle James II,who was deposed in 1689 in the Glorious Revolution the couple was not allowed at court and in 1702[15] when Charlotte asked her cousin queen Anne If she would not allow her to attend court, Anne simply replied that no such thing was possible until Charlottes husband had pledged his loyalty to William[15]. Charlotte and her housband withdrew to their estate at Ditchley in Oxfordshire.

Death and legacy

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Charlotte Lee died on 17 February 1718, aged 53, and was buried in All Saints Churchyard in Spelsbury, Oxfordshire, England.

A building was constructed right next to her house that would eventually be known as 10 Downing Street.[16]

Cultural mentions

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The french writer Charles de Saint-Evremond included Lee as a topic of interest[17] in his vignette of imagined conversation between a nobleman and a lady.

The countess of Lichfield appears as a character in "Devil water"[18] (1961) by Anya Seton.

Lee is mentioned in the book "A good day for marrying a duke" by Betina Krahn whose fictional protagonist is her descendant[19].

Ancestry

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References

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  • Andrews, Allen (1970). The Royal Whore: Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine. Chilton Book Company. ISBN 0-8019-5525-4.
  • Jameson, Anna (1833). The Beauties of the Court of Charles the Second: A Series of Memoirs Biographical and Critical. Henry G Bohn, York St, Covent Garden, London.
  • Jesse, John (1855). Memoirs of the Court of England During the Reign of the Stuarts.

Notes

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  1. ^ a b Andrews, p.216
  2. ^ [1] Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 21 February 1664/1665 Retrieved 2 October 2018
  3. ^ Gibson, William Sidney (1850). Dilston Hall, Or, Memoirs of the Right Hon. James Radcliffe, Earl of Derwentwater, a Martyr in the Rebellion of 1715: To which is Added, A Visit to Bamburgh Castle : with an Account of Lord Crewe's Charities, and a Memoir of the Noble Founder : Forming the Second Series of Descriptive and Historical Notices of Northumbrian Churches and Castles. Longman, Brown, Green & Longmans.
  4. ^ a b Papworth, John Woody (1874). An Alphabetical Dictionary of Coats of Arms Belonging to Families in Great Britain and Ireland: Forming an Extensive Ordinary of British Armorials : Upon an Entirely New Plan ... T. Richards.
  5. ^ Ranke, Leopold von (27 January 2024). A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century: Vol. 4. BoD – Books on Demand. ISBN 978-3-368-71838-1.
  6. ^ Beauclerk-Dewar, Peter; Powell, Roger (24 October 2011). Royal Bastards: Illegitimate Children of the British Royal Family. The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-7316-1.
  7. ^ SJ, Robert E. Scully (13 December 2021). A Companion to Catholicism and Recusancy in Britain and Ireland: From Reformation to Emancipation. BRILL. p. 142. ISBN 978-90-04-33598-1.
  8. ^ Watkins, Sarah-Beth (12 October 2023). Charles II's Illegitimate Children: Royal Bastards. Pen and Sword History. ISBN 978-1-3990-0095-6.
  9. ^ Jesse, page 171
  10. ^ Jameson page 82
  11. ^ Marshall, Edward (1873). The Early History of Woodstock Manor and Its Environs: In Bladon, Hensington, New Woodstock, Blenheim; with Later Notices. J. Parker and Company.
  12. ^ Letter to of Charles II to his daughter, Countess of Lichfield, Whitehall, 20 October 1682. Archeologia, London, Vol LVII, Pt 1, p176
  13. ^ Andrews, p.120
  14. ^ Hearne, Thomas (1857). Reliquiae Hearnianae: The Remains of Thomas Hearne ... Being Extracts from His Ms. Diaries. The editor.
  15. ^ a b c Beauclerk-Dewar, Peter; Powell, Roger (24 October 2011). Royal Bastards: Illegitimate Children of the British Royal Family. The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7524-7316-1.
  16. ^ "10 Downing Street". gov.uk. Retrieved 6 April 2020.
  17. ^ Melville, Lewis (1 January 2005). The Windsor Beauties: Ladies of the Court of Charles II. Modern HIstory Press. ISBN 978-1-932690-13-2.
  18. ^ Seton, Anya (19 June 2014). Devil Water. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 978-1-4447-8821-1.
  19. ^ Krahn, Betina (28 November 2017). A Good Day to Marry a Duke. Zebra Books. ISBN 978-1-4201-4348-5.
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