Lady Wentworth's search for a bride for her son, Lord Raby

[Paul Theroff]

In "The Wentworth Papers" there are a series of letters written by Lady Wentworth, mother of the 3rd Lord Raby, to her son, in which she contiuously sends him word of eligible women he might marry. I found this quite interesting, and think it might be of interest to some others here.

During this period the Wentworth papers consists mostly of letters written to him by his mother and brother, while he himself was almost always on the Continent in diplomatic and military roles. We do not know whether Thomas asked his mother to help hims earch for a bride, but one assumes that if he didn't want her to do so he would have told her so, and she would have stopped.

(Note: Lady Wentworth's spelling was very bad. I have tried to correct the spelling in the excerpts I give below, in order to make it more readable.)


3 April 1705:
"I have found out a match that will please you I am sure very much; she has four thousand a year and very pretty, but what will please you most is -- she is but four year old."!!

5 June 1705:
"Yesterday Lady Brooke Brought her Granddaughter, Lady Rachel Nowell [Noel; later, Duchess of Beaufort] to see me. I wish you had her, they say she has at least thirty thousand pd."

4 September 1705:
"Hall says there is a niece of Lord Portland's in Holland, a handsome young woman worth thirty or more thousand pound, I wish you had her."

2 October 1705:
"My sister Bathurst gives a great character of Johnson's Daughter the great fortune [presumably the Anne Johnson whom Raby did marry in 1711]. I wish you had her, or Lady Rachell.."

13 January 1706:
"I have heard you say you have been acquainted with my Lord Carbery; his daughter [presumably, Lady Anne Vaughan, later Duchess of Bolton], you know, was to have Lord Shrewsbury who you know is married to an Italian. This lord's daughter is about seventeen, extremely good, and very handsome, and very modest and virtuously brought up... Write Lord Carbery word, you are desperate in love with his daughter, and that money he wants not, and that you will make as good a husband as Lord Shrewsbury. I have heard of spells; I wish I could give that lord one, that he might be as desirous to have you as his son in law as I am of having it so."

27 February 1706:
"In my last I told you that Lord Huntington was dead. I wish you had his sister [Lady Elizabeth Hastings], she is young and handsome; she had left her by her father ten thousand pound, and six hundred a year by some relation, I think her grandmother, and now by the death of her brother six hundred a year more." [In 1705 Raby's agent John Bromley sent him an account of Lady Betty Hastings, "very handsome and a vast fortune".]

dated 29 February 1706 [which she corrected in a later letter to 2 March, she having forgotten how many days are in February]:
"I wish you had Lady Mary [apparently she meant Elizabeth] Hastings, she for certain has twelve hundred a year inheritance and ten thousand pound."

25 March 1706:
"I know no reason why you do not make interest to get the Duke of Newcastle's or Lord Carbery's daughters, indeed I like either of them much better. If you gave out I was dead, and I will go and hide in some corner, then I am sure she would have you, for she has an aversion to a mother in law, as many has and not without reason."
[Newcastle's daughter was Lady Henrietta Cavendish, later Countess of Oxford.]

14 November 1707:
"I hear Sir Cloudesley Shovell has left a daughter that will be a vast fortune; pray make inquiry after her, his son has drowned with him"

10 February 1709:
"There is three sisters in law of niece Hanbury's, Lady Ascough's daughters, that will ne worth 20,000 a piece... It would rejoice me to hear some great fortune in your country was fallen in love with you, and that you was so with her..."

July 1709:
"You know this Lady Brownlow has five daughters, the eldest married to Lord Exeter, the second to Lord Gilford, the third is going but not yet married, but all things concluded one with Lord Sherwood... [She then goes on to denigrate Sherwood, and concludes] Are you not acquainted with the Earl of Exeter, what if you wrote a letter to him to speak to his mother, and tell him it's the lady's person and not her money that has charmed you."
[NOTE: Lady Wentworth's spelling was atrocious, and I do not know who she meant by "Lord Sherwood". It's not "Sherard", because none of them fits. As she writes in December 1709, though, the third Brownlow daughter instead got engaged to the future Duke of Ancaster, and the fourth one married a Brownlow cousin.]

20 December 1709:
"am very angry with Hall, for I set him to inquire after a young lady that I wrote you word how pretty she was, that I see at chapel. I heard she was a fortune and Hall brought me word she would have very little during her father's life, and he was likely to marry again. She is now going to be married and has twenty thousand pound certain. Here is Lord Carbery's daughter and the duke of Newcastle's yet left for you. It's no shame for a man to be refused, why should you not write a letter to Lord Carbery to propose yourself to his daughter, and assure him you will desire nothing of her fortune til he is dead. He is vastly rich and will give all he has to her, only is so covetous he will part with nothing present; he is very old and will never marry again. Lord Shaftesbury made this proposition and was refused and yet Lord Raby may be excepted, besides to be refused is no disgrace."

18 March 1710:
"I hope you will not let one post slip without a letter to Lady B. and her daughter; in my own imagination I do conclude it done, if it be not your fault, delay in such affairs looks ill and seldom prospers... Just now the Lady Raby that would be so was to see me, she goes tomorrow into the country, but I won I like this last much better. God grant this last may be so and make you as happy as ever man upon earth was, or can be, in a wife. I am sure it must be her own fault if she be not so, for so good a son cannot but be a good husband."

Midsummer Day 1710:
"Here was a lady the other day that has three very pretty daughters, and her favorite she made stand under your picture you brought from Prussia, and said she never saw two faces more alike. Indeed the lady is very pretty... She did expect I would have wished her my daughter, but indeed I did not, for she has no fortune considerable."

13 July 1710:
"I am fallen in love with Lady Humble [presumably Mary Fisher, widow of Sir WIlliam Humble, 1st Bt.?]... I like her better than Lady Effingham or Lady Betty Hastings, she is not a beauty but very fine skin, only her face is tanned -- and fine shape pretty hands, and none can have more sense than she has, virtuous discreet none more, and a very good manager, and they say is worth at least ten thousand pd. If I was a man I would have her before some with thirty.... She is young enough to have children, she is so good a housewife she will double her fortune by good management; her conversation is worth a great deal. Lady Clark says none is fit for you but the Duke of Newcastle's daughter. Lady Tufton has buried this last Sunday one of her daughters but has five very handsome left. For five thousand pf you may buy her house, and one or two may be bated if you will take a daughter.." ["Lady Tufton" is possibly Lady Catharine Cavendish, wife of Thomas Tufton, 6th Earl of Thanet, who did have five daughters, though two had already married, and I don't know of one dying in 1710. Plus, she would be called "Lady Thanet". It could also be Elizabeth Wilbraham, wife of Hon. Sackville Tufton, who also had several daughters, but she was not "Lady" Tufton. Lady Wentworth speaks of her as a widow, which neither of these women was.]

7 August 1710:
"I wish you would inquire about this Sir William or Sir Robert, I forget which, Trotman's daughter; all say she is a vast fortune but very ugly..."

22 August 1710:
"Here is a very pretty girl that will be worth 30 thousand pd... such a blooming complexion as she had only better eyes. It is Sir William Mathews' only child..."

6 October 1710:
"Pray my dear, why will you let Lady Mary Thynne go, she is young, rich, and not unhandsome, some say she is pretty; and a virtuous lady, and of the nobility, and why will you not try to get her. It's said Lord Villiers' Lady was worth four score thousand pd; you might have got her, as well as Lord Villiers.
[Lady Mary Thynne was Lady Mary Villiers, whose first husband, Thomas Thynne, died in April 1710. She married Lord Lansdowne in 1711. Lord Villiers was her brother, married 1705 to Judith Herne.]

In 1711 Raby was created Earl of Strafford and married Anne, daughter of Sir Henry Johnson (who had himself married as his second wife, Martha Lovelace, 8th Baroness Wentworth, of a distantly related branch of the Wentworths). Surprisingly there are no letters from Raby's mother or brother regarding this Johnson marriage, which may have been concluded hurriedly while Raby was visiting England.

[Paul Theroff]

Thomas Wentworth, 3rd Lord Raby, was an extremely proud man with a lifelong chip on his shoulder. His great-uncle, Thomas Wentworth, the great Earl of Strafford, had been created Baron Raby with a remainder including his brothers and their issue, but when he was created Earl of Strafford he had no such special remainder.

The 1st Earl was attainted and executed in 1641, but his son William was later created Earl of Strafford, with normal remainders. When William died in 1695, our Thomas succeeded as 3rd Lord Raby, but the earldom of Strafford expired, and the great Wentworth Woodhouse estates went to William's nephew, Thomas Watson, later Watson-Wentworth. Our Thomas inherited no estated with his title.

See genealogy at
https://www.angelfire.com/realm/gotha/gotha/rockingham.html

The letters in the Wentworth Papers have frequent mentions of Thomas' jealousy of the Watson-Wentworths, with Thomas often speaking of how he wants his estate to be as big as theirs, and bragging when he believed he had accomplished that.

There was also a contest about the title "Earl of Strafford", with his mother mentioning a couple times that the Watson-Wentworths were trying to obtain it. Thomas finally obtained it in 1711, and even obtained a remainder for his brother Peter, while the Watson-Wentworths waited until 1728 to become Barons Malton, until 1734 to be Earls of Malton, and eventually in 1746 becoming Marquesses of Rockingham.

Then there was the rivalry between their houses. While the Watson-Wentworths inherited Wentworth Woodhouse and built a magnificent seat there, Thomas Wentworth built his own magnificent Wentworth Castle just six miles away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wentworth_Castle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wentworth_Woodhouse