When the First Duke of Devonshire (pictured left) was sixty-five, suffering from gout, troubled by his stretched finances (too much spent on the gee gees at Newmarket and rebuilding Chatsworth) and his popularity with Queen Anne was waining he found consolation in the daughter of his valet.
Mary Ann Campion had been born in 1687- the year before the first duke added his name to the document that invited William of Orange to invade. She was just seventeen when she became pregnant – a case of droit de signeur if there ever was one!
Mary Ann was an actress, or at any rate she sang, danced and played the harpsichord. She’d first appeared on stage when she was just eleven so it may be that she had natural talent rather than a reliance on eye-brow raising patronage. By 1703 she was singing in Italian, although some of the songs she were singing would, not by any account, be deemed suitable for a thirteen-year-old today, even a “little canary bird.”
History records her last public performance as the 14th March 1704. The reason behind this was that the duke wished her to leave the stage. He set her up in London in a property known in Bolton Street, St. Martin in the Fields – where she gave birth to a daughter named after her mother. The baby appears to have been healthy but Mary Ann either had a difficult birth or was already unwell. She made her will on the 23r April 1706. On the 16th May 1706 Mary died of something described as a “hectic fever.”
The duke was unfashionably grief stricken. Although he didn’t attend the funeral he had his mistress’s remains interred at the church near Latimers in Buckinghamshire where he owned a house and where other members of his family were buried. He even went so far as to put a monument up in her memory – enjoining readers to remember that the lovely young woman had a virtuous mind and that although her birth was lowly she had been a very sincere person more suited to nobility.
Mary Ann left her house to her daughter along with her jewellery and plate. The duke left his daughter £10,000.
It would be nice to know what happened to Mary Ann Cavendish.
Philip H. Highfill, Kalman A. Burnim, Edward A. Langhans A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers
On which note let us proceed to the Second Duke – unsurprisingly called William. William had gained the title Marquis of Hartington on his father’s elevation to a dukedom in 1594. This is the title by which the heir of the current duke is still known. This William was not a chip off the old block. He did not become involved in drunken brawls or debauchery. His marriage, arranged by his father to show his political loyalties, was to Lady Rachael Russell the daughter of William Russell who was executed in 1683 after attempting to have the Catholic Duke of York excluded from the succession. Charles responded by dissolving parliament thus removing the Whig voice. Russell was ultimately implicated in the Rye House Plot to assassinate Charles II – He hadn’t actually been involved in the actual plot, it was enough that he was a leading Whig – at worst his crime was misprision of treason which wasn’t a capital offence, which basically means that he knew something treasonous was about to happen but he didn’t tell the authorities. The political union between William and Rachael evolved into a love match rather to the first duke’s irritation.
The third duke is, completely unsurprisingly, also a William. He became duke in 1729 following his Oxford education and stint in parliament representing various counties. Dr Johnson who we have already seen was not keen on Whigs made an exception for the Third Duke of Devonshire. He described him as “a man faithful to his word” – though not necessarily of “superior abilities.” He was also described as a man of untidy dress, plain habits and noted on on account of the astonishing amount that he could drink.
In 1718 William, then Marquis of Hartington, married Katherine Hoskins. It was not a match arranged by the second duke. The marquis had fallen in love with a merchant’s daughter – fortunately the merchant was wealthy. Hugh Walpole described Katherine as “delightfully vulgar.” The pair had seven children upon whom their father doted (I’m warming to this Cavendish).
Which brings us to the Fourth Duke – yes his name is William. He was born in 1720. and like his forefathers became an MP and served in Government – briefly becoming Prime Minister. He married aristocratically to Elizabeth Boyle, the 6th Baroness Clifford which is why the Cavendishs own Bolton Abbey. In addition to which she brought huge quantities of London property and other assets into the Cavendish fold. All I really want to add about duke number four is that he arranged for Capability Brown to landscape Chatsworth and he was the chap who had the rather grand stable built.
Finally we arrive at the Fifth Duke of Devonshire and the nineteenth century. Yes, his name was William Cavendish – there does seem to be a bit of a pattern emerging. Like his father the fifth duke was Lord Lieutenant of Derbyshire handheld administrative posts in Ireland but unlike his father who must have held the office of Prime Ministers for one of the shortest periods of time ever he declined cabinet positions. The Fifth Duke is more famous for his marriages, firstly to Lady Diana Spencer and secondly to his long term mistress Lady Elizabeth Hervey but that’s a post for another time as is the development of Buxton as a fashionable eighteenth century spa town.
Bess of Hardwick disowned her eldest son Henry but he had still inherited Chatsworth despite the fact that Bess entailed what she could to William and his heirs. Due to his debts Henry sold Chatsworth to his brother William.
In 1605 thanks to the auspices of his niece Arbella Stuart he became a baronet. In 1618 with the aid of £10,000 paid to James I he became an earl. In addition to his land holdings in Derbyshire he was also investing in foreign trade – the East India Company, the Muscovy Company, the Bermuda Company and also in the settlements in Virginia.
By the time he was in his twenties young William was a polished courtier (pictured left). He also had a reputation of brawling, drinking and womanising. He also spent money as though it was water. This Cavendish was behaving as though he was a member of the aristocracy.
Which brings us to the English Civil War. Christian Bruce was a friend of Henrietta Maria. The Cavendishs were Royalists. In 1642 the 3rd Earl presented himself in York with his younger brother Charles who joined with Prince Rupert and his cavalry, took part in the Battle of Edgehill and ultimately became the Royalist commander for Derbyshire and Lincolnshire prior to his death at the Battle of Gainsborough. Meanwhile the earl, no doubt on his mother’s advice, took himself off to Europe until 1645 when he compounded for his Royalist sympathies – paid a fine of £5000 and returned to live in England at Leicester Abbey where his mother had her residence (it had been purchased by the first earl in 1613) and from there he went to Latimer Place in Buckinghamshire until the Restoration when he returned to Chatsworth.