Mary Stewart, Duchess of Richmond

Mary Duchess of Richmond with her children, Esmé and Mary, by John Michael Wright.

Mary Stewart, Duchess of Richmond and Duchess of Lennox (1622–1685), formerly Lady Mary Villiers, was the daughter of the 1st Duke of Buckingham.

On 8 January 1634, at the age of 12, she married the 15-year-old Charles, Lord Herbert, eldest son of the 4th Earl of Pembroke and 1st Earl of Montgomery, but was widowed in 1635 when her young husband died of smallpox.[1]

On 3 August 1637, she married the 4th Duke of Lennox, who was created Duke of Richmond in 1641.

They had two children:

After the death of her son, sometime before 1664, Mary married Colonel Thomas Howard (d. 1678): he was a younger brother of Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle, and is chiefly remembered for his duel in 1662 with Henry Jermyn, 1st Baron Dover.

Maureen E. Mulvihill has built a case for Mary Villiers as the author of the poems published under the pseudonym Ephelia, including Female Poems...by Ephelia (1679).

Depiction in art

A Poem as it was presented to His Sacred Majesty, on the discovery of the plott. Written by a lady of quality, by Ephelia, 1679

Mary is the subject of several paintings by Anthony van Dyck as well as a portrait with her children by John Michael Wright.

References

  1. ↑ "Portrait of Mary Villiers Lady Herbert of Shurland (1622-1685) 1636". Philip Mould Historical Portraits.

External links

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