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
At the beginning of the English Civil War, in 1642, William Cavendish of Bolsover and Welbeck Abbey who was the Earl of Newcastle at that time gave Charles I £10,00 and raised a troop of 200 horsemen. In June of that year William was sent to secure Newcastle. He was on his way to becoming the king’s general in the north and about to start a military dance with Lord Ferndinado Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas Fairfax that would only end in 1644. Not that it was all plain sailing. The slide to war met with opposition and not every local lord was keen on Cavendish’s recruitment campaign.
At the Battle of Marston Moor Newcastle’s Regiment of Foot were killed almost to a man. They remained in formation in the centre of the Royalist line and it is thought defended White Syke Close. The Parliamentarians recognising their bravery asked for their surrender but the regiment refused. By the time the Whitecoats died the battle was already lost – their deaths were futile. They were buried in mass graves where they fell. If you walk the route of the Battle of Marston Moor White Syke Close is marked on the ordinance survey map. Alternatively take advantage of a Country File walk which outlines the battle and leads you on a circular walk, 
Have you noticed the way that wives simply don’t count in the historical record unless they bring oodles of cash or have heirs and spares? Sometimes it really does look like “his story.” There certainly aren’t any pictures of Margaret or her daughters so this post will have to make do with William Cavendish. Margaret was William’s first wife.
In 1176 the Cistercians arrived in Cotton but three years later relocated to nearby Croxden. The land was given by Bertram de Verdun, the lord of nearby Alton. He was concerned not only for his own soul but also for those of his predecessors and also his descendants. Bits of Alton Castle (not open to the public) date to the twelfth century so are also part of Bertram’s building schemes. Croxden is the oldest of Staffordshire’s Cistercian houses. There were twelve monks and their abbot, an English man known as Thomas of Woodstock. They acquired endowments in Staffordshire, Leicestershire and in Hartshorne in Derbyshire amongst other locations from Bertram. The land at Hartshorne was known as Lees and measured as a carucate. A carucate is of Norse origin and it signifies the amount of land that can be ploughed by one plough team of eight oxen in a season. Carucate is my word of the day! The monks also held Riston and Trusley in Derbyshire.
The choice of Croxden fits with the site selection that is almost uniform to Cistercian monasteries:
The other feature of Croxden’s architecture to often appear in commentaries is the abbot’s lodging. The first lodging appears between 1270 and 1290 but the following century Abbot Richard rebuilt a much more splendid dwelling – demonstrating the inevitable shift from poverty and simplicity.
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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.
Prior to the sixteenth century Derbyshire did not have an extremely powerful local magnate to dominate affairs. The position was occupied in latter half of the fourteenth century by John of Gaunt who acquired manors, castles and rights through his marriage to Blanche of Lancaster. On his death the land and power base, along with the loyalty of the local affinity when largely to his son Henry of Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby who returned from exile to reclaim his father’s title and estate when Richard II confiscated them. As a consequence of this Bolingbroke turned into Henry IV and duchy land turned into Crown estates.
Henry Cavendish (1550 – 1616) was married off to Grace Talbot as part of Bess and the Earl of Shrewsbury’s marriage agreement. As the eldest son he should have inherited Chatsworth but he managed to get into Bess’s bad-books and got himself disinherited. He didn’t have any legitimate off spring. It should be noted that he actually did inherit Chatsworth but sold it to his brother. One of his illegitimate sons, also called Henry, founded the Cavendish of Doveridge line.
Let us return today to the Royalist summer of victories in 1643. It was really only in the east of the country that events did not go all Charles I’s way. On 20 July 1643, Lord Willoughby captured Gainsborough in Lincolnshire for Parliament. This meant that the Earl of Newcastle could not now communicate so easily with the royalists at Newark and he could not simply march south expanding royalist territory. The Committee of Safety scratched their various heads and then sent Oliver Cromwell and Sir John Meldrum from the Eastern Association Army to back up Lord Willoughby as he was being threatened by the Royalist military commander – Colonel Charles Cavendish – who was the nephew of the Earl of Newcastle.
I’ve hopped away from the English Civil War for a couple of days. I’m currently trying to find out what I can about the Derbyshire Blues. This was the regiment of militia raised by William Cavendish, the Third Duke of Devonshire, in 1745 in response to the arrival of Bonnie Prince Charlie and his prospective invasion of England.
A second meeting at the George, or the King’s Head as it became as the Jacobites drew closer was also recorded in the Derby Mercury. It turns out that the Duke not only summoned the gentry of the county to discuss the need for a militia but that he wined and dined them as well. Even so when commissions were sent out it was reported that some were turned down.
Essentially we have covered the fact that during 1643 the Earl of Essex’s parliamentarian Western Association army did not have a great deal to shout about. Meanwhile in Yorkshire the same Commissions of Array were delivered and like their counterparts in the SouthWest the gentlemen of Yorkshire and the Midlands were forced to decide where their loyalties lay. Hull and Leeds were important towns. Both declared for Parliament, Hull rather noticeably by refusing to let the king into the town in 1642.
By contrast the Parliamentarians had men whose names reverberate through history. Sir John Hotham was the governor of Hull; Sir Hugh Cholmley led the garrison at Scarborough and then in the West Riding there was Ferdinando Fairfax (pictured right) and his son Thomas (pictured at the start of this post). The only difficulty was that Hotham didn’t appreciate Fairfax being the senior commander. The Fairfaxes controlled the West Riding and extended their hold from there to Tadcaster. Their main opponent in the West Riding was Sir William Savile.