Charles Stanhope, 2nd Baron Stanhope (1593–1675) was an English landowner, courtier, and writer of marginalia. Stanhope was the son of

Sir John Stanhope Sir John Stanhope (1559 – 1611) was an English knight and landowner, and father of Philip Stanhope, 1st Earl of Chesterfield. Career John Stanhope was the son of Sir Thomas Stanhope (d. 1596) of Shelford Manor, Nottinghamshire, and Margare ...

Harrington, Northamptonshire Harrington is a village and civil parish in Northamptonshire, England, administered by North Northamptonshire council. At the time of the 2001 census, the parish's population was 154 people, including Thorpe Underwood but reducing to 146 at t ...

and Margaret MacWilliam, daughter of

Henry Macwilliam Henry Macwilliam (c. 1532 – 1586) was a member of Parliament for Dorchester (1571), Liskeard (1572), Appleby (1584) and Carlisle (1586).Queens' College, Cambridge, and was knighted on 4 June 1610. It was reported in June 1613 that, "My Lord Stanhope's son is lately fallen lunatic", but he seems to have made a recovery. He was Master of the Posts, an office that had belonged to his father, from 1625 to 1637. Margraret, Lady Stanhope died in 1640 at Stanhope House, in Charing Cross, London. In 1641 Charles Stanhope married Dorothy or Doll Livingston, a sister of James Livingston,

Earl of Newburgh The title Earl of Newburgh (pronounced "''New''-bruh") was created in the Peerage of Scotland in 1660 for James Livingston, 1st Viscount of Newburgh, along with the subsidiary titles Viscount of Kynnaird and Lord Levingston. The viscountcy o ...

, and a daughter of the Scottish courtier Sir John Livingston of Kinnaird, groom of the bedchamber, and Jane Sproxton (later Lady Gorges). However, some sources state his wife was Dorothy Barret.

Marginalia

Stanhope is remembered for an anecdote about the fate of the wardrobe of

Elizabeth I of England Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". Eli ...

which he recorded in the margin of his copy of Cresacre More, ''The Life and Death of Sir Thomas More'' (1642), the book is now in the

Folger Shakespeare Library The Folger Shakespeare Library is an independent research library on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., United States. It has the world's largest collection of the printed works of William Shakespeare, and is a primary repository for rare materi ...

. The marginalia asserts that

George Home, 1st Earl of Dunbar George Home, 1st Earl of Dunbar, KG, PC (ca. 155620 January 1611) was, in the last decade of his life, the most prominent and most influential Scotsman in England. His work lay in the King's Household and in the control of the State Affairs of ...

, the new Scottish master of the wardrobe realised £60,000 from the sale of the late queen's clothes, and spent £20,0000 on the house he built at

Berwick Castle Berwick Castle is a ruined castle in Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland, England. History The castle was commissioned by the Scottish King David I in the 1120s. It was taken by the English forces under the terms of the Treaty of Falaise in 11 ...

. A similar story was recorded by Symonds D'Ewes on 21 January 1620, according to the antiquary

Thomas Astle Thomas Astle FRS FRSE FSA (22 December 1735 – 1 December 1803) was an English antiquary and palaeographer. He became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Society. Life Astle was born on 22 December 1735 at Yoxall on the ...

, that King James had given the late queen's wardrobe to the Earl of Dunbar, who had exported it to the Low Countries and sold it for £100,000. Stanhope's father, Sir John, had a connection with the wardrobe, having been tasked with making an inventory of royal apparel in 1604, and worked in Parliament to forward the Earl of Dunbar's business. In his copy of Fulke Greville's ''Certaine Learned and Elegant Workes'' (1633), now in the Folger Library, Stanhope noted a rhyme about London pubs; :They pass by the Devil they make it no matter, :the

Mitre The mitre (Commonwealth English) (; Greek: μίτρα, "headband" or "turban") or miter (American English; see spelling differences), is a type of headgear now known as the traditional, ceremonial headdress of bishops and certain abbots in ...

, the Globe, the head in the platter, :the Fountain, the

Mermaid In folklore, a mermaid is an aquatic creature with the head and upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish. Mermaids appear in the folklore of many cultures worldwide, including Europe, Asia, and Africa. Mermaids are sometimes ass ...

too, these they go by all, :and how they will answer they balk at the Head Royal. Three Catholic ladies were, "the College of Collapsed Ladies in Drury Lane, my Lady Garner, my Lady Markham, my Lady Easten". Further marginalia in the ''Life of Death of Sir Thomas More'' criticises his wife; she "spends you in two years £4,000 clear upon herself in paint perfumes", and "£320 a year for herself is enough if not too much for my Lady Dollkin". He characterises her servants in misogynistic terms as witches and spies.

Lands and houses

Stanhope spent the Civil War abroad and after the Restoration bought

Nocton Hall Nocton Hall is a historic Grade II listed building in the village of Nocton, in Lincolnshire, England. The plaque on the north face of the Hall (see below) indicates that the original building dates back to about 1530 but since then there have bee ...

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

. His niece

Elizabeth Delaval Lady Elizabeth Delaval (c. 1648 – 1717) was a memoirist and Jacobite agent, whose self-reflective writings 'shed light on the upbringing and marriage arrangements of a girl belonging to a prominent royalist family.' Life Elizabeth Delaval w ...

(1649-1717) had an unhappy childhood in London and at Nocton with Dorothy Stanhope, relieved by amateur theatricals with the servants. Delaval, in her "meditations", blames Stanhope's servant Mistress Carter for leading her away from moral instruction. After two years at court as a maid of the privy chamber to

Catherine of Braganza Catherine of Braganza ( pt, Catarina de Bragança; 25 November 1638 – 31 December 1705) was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland during her marriage to King Charles II, which lasted from 21 May 1662 until his death on 6 February 1685. She ...

, Delaval returned to Nocton in 1664. Dorothy Stanhope was not a widow during this period, as some sources suggest. After her first husband Robert Delaval died in 1682, Elizabeth married Henry Hatcher, and in 1688 they joined the court of the exiled James II in France at

Saint-Germain-en-Laye Saint-Germain-en-Laye () is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France. It is located in the western suburbs of Paris, from the centre of Paris. Inhabitants are called ''Saint-Germanois'' or ''Saint-Ge ...

. In 1654 Stanhope sold the manor of Stambourne and Stambourne Hall in Essex to Rachael, the widow of Sir John Cambell of Clay Hall,

Barking Barking may refer to: Places * Barking, London, a town in East London, England ** London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, a local government district covering the town of Barking ** Municipal Borough of Barking, a historical local government dist ...

. Stanhope died in 1675 and was buried at Nocton. He had no children and left his estate at Nocton to a distant relation, Sir William Ellys, or his widow sold it to Justice Ellis for £18,000 in 1676.''HMC Duke of Rutland'', vol. 3 (London, 1889), p. 31.

References

External links

G. P. V. Akrigg, 'The Curious Marginalia of Charles, Second Lord Stanhope', in ''Joseph Quincy Adams Memorial Studies'' (FSL, Washington, 1948), pp. 785-801

Sarah Werner, 'Surprised by Stanhope', The Collation, Research and Exploration at the Folger

Portrait of Sir Charles Stanhope, Christie's, London 22 November 2006 lot 4

Susan Wiseman, 'Elizabeth Delaval', Biography, Early Modern Women Research Network
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stanhope, Charles 1593 births 1675 deaths 2 Charles 17th-century English nobility Alumni of Queens' College, Cambridge