Charles Cavendish-Bentinck (priest)

The Reverend Charles William Frederick Cavendish-Bentinck (8 November 1817 – 17 August 1865) was a great-grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. His significance lies in his position as a royal ancestor, and in his own connections by birth to three powerful British ducal families.

Family

He was born the elder son of Lieutenant Colonel Lord Charles Bentinck^[1] and Anne Wellesley, formerly Lady Abdy.^[2]

His paternal grandparents were William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, Prime Minister of Great Britain, and Dorothy Cavendish, a daughter of William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, another Prime Minister, by his marriage to Lady Charlotte Boyle, a daughter of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington.

Cavendish-Bentinck's maternal grandparents were Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, and his wife Hyacinthe-Gabrielle Roland, for many years an actress at the Palais Royal. Lord Wellesley, a former Governor-General of India, was an older brother of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, yet another Prime Minister.^[3]

Thus, between his own paternal and maternal connections, Cavendish-Bentinck was related to three dukes, all prime ministers, and to several other aristocratic families. However, as a younger son, he had little expectation at birth of succeeding to his grandfather's Dukedom, with his father's eldest brother having fathered several sons. He thus became a Church of England clergyman and made two unexceptional marriages, the second into a family of the landed gentry.

Marriages and children

His first wife Sinetta Lambourne, daughter of James ^[4] (Gypsy Jim) Lambourne and Sinetta Smith, married on 26 September 1839. Sinetta died childless on 19 February 1850, with the cause of death being Mesenteric Disease. They had two sons, the first born 1840: Charles William Cavendish Bendick who died at 19 days old. The second born 1841 Charles Cavendish Bentink died 1842. The cause of death for both children was "Convulsions" both sons were interred at All Souls, Kensal Green Cemetery. Sinetta Lambourne (née Smith) was also interred at All Souls, Kensal Green Cemetery.

He married secondly (Caroline) Louisa Burnaby, daughter of Edwyn Burnaby, High Sheriff of Leicestershire, and Anne Caroline Salisbury, on 13 December 1859. They had three children:

• (Nina) Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck (1862–1938). Married Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. They were parents to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (1900–2002) and thus maternal grandparents to Queen Elizabeth II.
• Ann Violet Cavendish-Bentinck (1864 – 5 May 1932).
• Hyacinth Cavendish-Bentinck (1864 – 9 December 1916); married Augustus Edward Jessop.

Potential heir to the Dukedom of Portland

Cavendish-Bentinck's paternal uncle William Bentinck, 4th Duke of Portland, died on 27 March 1854. Two of that Duke's sons had predeceased him, including the politician Lord George Bentinck, who had died suddenly, still unmarried, on 21 September 1848, and the next Duke, Cavendish-Bentinck's first cousin William Cavendish-Scott-Bentinck, inherited the title and huge estates in 1854, but remained unmarried. The heir presumptive at that point was the 5th Duke's younger brother, Lord Henry William Cavendish-Bentinck, and Charles Cavendish-Bentinck was the second heir, so would have foreseen the possibility of ultimately succeeding as Duke. However, both brothers outlived him.

Cavendish-Bentinck died on 17 August 1865 at the age of 47, thus missing the chance to succeed his first cousin as Duke of Portland, which he would have done if he had lived until 1879. His cousin Lord Henry William died on 31 December 1870, and the 5th Duke followed on 6 December 1879. The next Duke was William Cavendish-Bentinck, a son of Lt.-General Arthur Cavendish-Bentinck, the Reverend Charles Cavendish-Bentinck's younger brother.

Thus, Charles's three daughters failed to become the daughters of a Duke, although one daughter still made a brilliant marriage, despite her father's early death.

Ancestors

References

For further reading

• Usenet group "alt.talk.royalty". Retrieved 2007-03-02.  Usenet discussions over 10 years
• "Wellesley family genealogy". Retrieved 2007-03-02.  A somewhat incomplete genealogy of the Wesley/Wellesley family that shows the relationship between Anne Wellesley, and her father Lord Wellesley and her uncle the Duke of Wellington.