Charles Fane, 1st Viscount Fane PC (Ire) (January 1676 – 4 July 1744) was an English courtier, politician and a landowner in both England and Ireland.}
Fane or ffane was baptised at Basildon in Berkshire on 30 January 1676, he was the second son but heir of the Right Hon. Sir Henry Fane, of Basildon, KB, (1650-1705/06), by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Southcott of Exeter.
His elder brother's death made him eventual heir to the Bourchier estates; the manors of Lough Gur and Glenogra in county Limerick and of Clare, near Tandragee, in county Armagh; to the Fane estate at Basildon in Berkshire; and to the Southcott estate at Calwoodley in Devon.
The elder brother Henry Bourchier Fane was Standard Bearer of the Gentlemen Pensioners from 10 April 1689 until early 1696 when he was killed in a duel by one Elias Burgess. This no doubt the same Colonel Elizeus Burges, a self confessed drinker and womaniser, who was commissioned (17 March), and proclaimed (9 November), Governor of (the province of) Massachusetts (Bay) but never took up the office and resigned April 1716. He was, however, British Resident in Venice from 1719–1722, and 1727 to his death in 1736. On 9 November 1715 Elizeus Burgess was proclaimed Governor, he having been commissioned on 17 March 1715, but he nevercame over to perform his duties, and resigned the office in April 1716.
Having left Wadham College, Oxford (he had matriculated 3 April 1693, fil. eq. de Balneo natu minor. Taken up for Battels, 21 January 1702/03.)) Fane duely replaced his unfortunate elder brother as Standard Bearer from 20 April 1696, a post he had vacated by 31 March 1712.
Meanwhile his younger brother George Fane had become Commander of the Royal ship the Lowestoffe, (a 5th rate, 104.5 x 28-foot (8.5 m) ship built at Chatham dockyard in 1697). Appointed Captain in 1709, he died without issue at New York the same year.
Fane was appointed Deputy Lieutenant (DL) for Berkshire, 21 September 1715. He was Member of the Irish Parliament (MP) for Killybegs in county Donegal, a seat controlled by the Conygham family, from 1715 to 1719.
On 22 April 1718 he was created Baron of Loughguyre, in the county of Limerick, and Viscount Fane, both in the Peerage of Ireland, and number 264 on the roll. He took his seat 21 April 1725, having been appointed to the Irish Privy Council on 5 May 1718.
He stood unsuccessfully for Berkshire in the election of 30 August 1727. At the poll Fane (1319 votes) was beaten into third place by Robert Packer (1620 votes), a distant ancestor of the late Kerry Packer, and by Sir John Stonhouse (1558 votes).
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Fane married at the Chelsea Hospital, 12 December 1707 (license dated 19 November 1707), Mary (1686–1762) daughter of the envoy hon. Alexander Stanhope, FRS, (the youngest son of the first Earl of Chesterfield), by Catherine (d.1718), daughter and co-heir of Arnold Burghill, of Thingehill Parva, Withington, Herefordshire by his second wife Grizell, co-heir of John Prise of Ocle Pyrchard, Herefordshire. A sister of soldier-statesman James, Earl Stanhope (1673–1721), Mary Fane was also an old friend of the Mistress of the Robes, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough having been one of the six original Maids of Honour to Queen Anne, appointed 4 June 1702, an office she had vacated by November 1707.
An indenture of settlement dated 19 November 1707 between Charles Fane of Basildon and others, had her marriage portion at 3,000 L (pounds). Robert Walpole, the husband of Mary's first cousin twice-removed (through the Stanhope family) Catherine Shorter (c.1682-1737) aka cousin Walpole, was a witness.
Fane died 7 July 1744 and was buried at Basildon 16 July 1744, aged 68. His widow died 21 and was buried at Basildon on the 30 August 1762, aged 76. They had seven children.
In the 1720s and 30s she built the sometime renowned Grotto at the Fane's New House by the Thames at Lower Basildon, but in the parish of Streatley in Berkshire. These extracts show some of the process:
- ...I desire to have
- notice of the first barge that comes to town
- I hope you received the things I sent last week
- 3 pairs of andirons 6 pairs of blankets three hampers
- of empty bottles some stones and shells which
- were directed to be left att the new house and
- the painted cloaths which are to cost a vast
- sum of mony.
—Lady Fane.
- ..when I go home I shall finish my Grotto as fast as possible
- and then I shall want to make a door in that little place.
—Lord Fane.
Her son, Charles, was appointed British Resident (Horace Walpole's friend Sir Horace Mann was his assistant then successor as Resident) in Florence in March 1734 and was there in person between 3 October 1734 and the Spring of 1738. Lady Fane and her daughter Dorothy were there with him from June 1736. Dorothy stayed until at least June 1737, this extract from a letter to Lady Fane suggests that the mother too was there for a year:
- ... I am glad to find that you have had the pleasure of passing
- a whole year with your son
—Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough.
It is probable that during this trip Lady Fane ordered her pair of prized scagliola table tops from the Irishman Friar Ferdinando Henrico Hugford (1695–1771). These are quite similar to the one at The Vyne, Hampshire. That top has the arms of Walpole (with his post-1726 Garter Knight embellishments) impaling Shorter - for Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole and his first wife Catherine Shorter, who died 20 August 1737. The hint of shells on the tables suggest that they may have been for her grotto at the New House, Basildon.
In 1747 the blue-stocking and fellow Berkshire-dweller Elizabeth Montagu (1720–1800) described the Fane grotto:
- the situation is like most grottoes, placed where a grotto would not be looked for:
- it joins to the house. Now having told its only defect, I will go on to the rest.
- The first room is fitted up entirely with shells, the sides and ceilings in beautiful mosaic,
- a rich cornice of flowers in baskets and cornucopias, and little yellow sea
- snail is so disposed in shades as to resemble knots of ribbon which seem
- to tye up some of the bunches of flowers.
- There is a bed for the Hermit, which is composed of rich shells and so
- shaded that the curtain seems folded and flowing...
- the room adjoining it is rough work in a very bold taste,
- the water falls down into a cold bath.
- The grotto is about 50 yards from the Thames, to which the descent is very precipitate.
- From the shell room you have a view of it.
- The House to which this grotto is joined is a small habitation where
- Lady Fane used to spend a good deal of time. Lord Fane's seat is about a mile from it.
| Parliament of Ireland | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Thomas Pearson Henry Maxwell |
Member of Parliament for Killybegs 1715–1719 With: Thomas Pearson |
Succeeded by Thomas Pearson Robert Colvill |
| Peerage of Ireland | ||
| New creation | Viscount Fane 1718–1744 |
Succeeded by Charles Fane |
| Baron of Loughguyre 1718–1744 |
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