Caroline Lennox, 1st Baroness Holland

Caroline Lennox, 1st Baroness Holland (portrayed by Joshua Reynolds , 1757–1758)

Georgiana Caroline Lennox, 1st Baroness Holland (born March 27, 1723 in Richmond House in Whitehall , † July 24, 1774 in Holland House , Kensington , London ) was a British noblewoman .

origin

Caroline's grandfather, Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond , was born in 1672, the youngest of King Charles II's many illegitimate sons . His mother, Caroline's great-grandmother, was Louise de Kérouaille (1648–1734), who was sent to England as a young woman at the age of 20 with the courtiers and diplomats of King Louis XIV , who carried out the negotiations on what would later become the secret and infamous treaty led by Dover . Louise ousted Charles's ruling mistress, Barbara Villiers , and was made Duchess of Portsmouth by Charles II . For his part, Louis XIV recognized her services to his country by handing over the lands of the Stuarts in France . Along with the land, she received two castles, Aubigny and La Verrerie. Louise occasionally visited Aubigny for recreation, and Caroline visited her great-grandmother there in the late 1720s.

Life

Earlier years

Lady Caroline was born in 1723 in Richmond House, Whitehall, the first of the seven children of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond (1701–1750), and his wife Lady Sarah (1706–1751), daughter of William Cadogan. After Caroline's birth in 1723, Emily came in 1731. Charles, who would eventually become the third Duke, was born in 1735. George, so called in homage to the king, was born in 1737, followed by Louisa in 1743, Sarah in 1745 and Cecilia in 1750.

During her childhood, Caroline was constantly being dragged from place to place, just as the court moved, the court society dissolved and reorganized. When the King was staying at St James's Palace in London , the Lennox family could enjoy the convenience of Richmond House, about a mile away. However, if the king went to Kensington, Hampton Court or Windsor, the entire Lennox family had to follow. Caroline's mother was a member of the Queen's court, where she performed duties. She gave orders for meals and cloakroom, sent servants for books, cards, prints, handicraft bags or other pastimes and admitted visitors according to a list. Her father performed similar services for the king, and in 1735 he was awarded the title of royal stableman.

The Lennox children were almost bilingual and read English as easily as French. In Caroline's library and that of her sisters, English and French books were balanced. She liked to read, loved stories and developed a taste for Roman history as a child, which she maintained throughout her life. She inherited her parents' clear ideas of righteousness, duty, and loyalty to the family, and constantly feared that she would not live up to their expectations of good behavior. In spite of all this, she was a self-confident and well-developed girl, with a confident demeanor in society and skilled in the art of polite conversation. Since Caroline spent her early childhood in the nursery without companions, she was the focus of the family; She was lavishly showered with attention, both from her parents and from the elderly Louise de Kéroualle.

Henry Fox

It was around 1742, when she was nineteen, considered beauty and destined by her parents to make a good match, that Caroline met Henry Fox and fell deeply and passionately in love with him. At the time, Henry Fox was 37 years old, an ambitious and capable Member of Parliament, obsessed with politics, specifically handling the delicate affairs of the House of Commons . He was extremely well read, versed, and gifted for friendship and family life. Even his reputation as an atheist, gamer, and philanderer (two illegitimate children born in the early 1740s) made him irresistible to her. Caroline and Fox moved in the same circles. Socially, if not intimately, they had met in Goodwood in the 1730s, and on many other occasions since then in the Whitehall salons and theater.

marriage

On May 2, 1744, Lady Caroline and Henry Fox were secretly and quietly married without fuss in the London home of his secretive friend, the satirist and diplomat Sir Charles Hanbury Williams . Hanbury Williams and Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough , an old close friend of Fox from the days of his friendship with Lord Hervey, were the only witnesses. Their marriage resulted in four sons, Stephen, Harry, Charles James and Henry George.

Initially, Henry and Caroline were very dependent on each other as joint conspirators. She could no longer visit her family and felt betrayed by her parents; his parents had died and his brother Stephen had buried himself in his rural idyll from which he seldom emerged. Caroline was forbidden from seeing her sister Emily , whom she had relied on in the heady days of her young love, and she had few friends outside of the family. Her father refused to see anyone he knew who was visiting his daughter, for example.

affair

In the mid-1750s, rumors began to circulate that Lady Caroline had a liaison with what would become King George III of England. have. Her youngest son's fatherhood has also been questioned.

In 1762 she was raised to Baroness Holland , of Holland in the County of Lincoln . The following year her husband was given the title Baron Holland , of Foxley in the County of Wiltshire. Both titles passed to the eldest son after her death.

Individual evidence

1. ^ The London Gazette : No. 10205, p. 6 . May 1, 1762.
2. ^ The London Gazette : No. 10304, p. 6 . April 12, 1763.

Web links

• Georgiana Carolina Lennox, Lady Holland, Baroness of Holland on thepeerage.com , accessed September 14, 2016.

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Baroness Holland 1762–1774	Stephen Fox