Charles Henry Kirkhoven, 1st Earl of Bellomont (9 May 1643,

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

– 1683) was a

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-born

Irish peer The Peerage of Ireland consists of those titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is one of the five divisio ...

, known as Lord Wotton from 1649 to 1680. Kirkhoven (the

anglicised Anglicisation is the process by which a place or person becomes influenced by English culture or British culture, or a process of cultural and/or linguistic change in which something non-English becomes English. It can also refer to the influen ...

form of van der Kerckhove) was the only son of Jehan, Lord of Heenvliet and his wife,

Katherine Katherine, also spelled Catherine, and Catherina, other variations are feminine Given name, names. They are popular in Christian countries because of their derivation from the name of one of the first Christian saints, Catherine of Alexandria ...

(1609–1667) (later created Countess of Chesterfield), both courtiers in the Princess of Orange's household. In 1649, Charles II created him Baron Wotton, a title which became extinct upon the death of his maternal grandfather in 1630. From 1659 to 1674, he was Chief Magistrate of

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and was granted a troop of horses by the States-General. On the death of his father in 1660, he took over the former's offices in the Princess's household and was also granted a post in the household of her son,

Prince William William, Prince of Wales, (William Arthur Philip Louis; born 21 June 1982) is the heir apparent to the British throne. He is the elder son of King Charles III and his first wife Diana, Princess of Wales. Born in London, William was educat ...

(later William III of England). In 1660, following the restoration of Charles II to the English throne, Wotton and his sister Emilia were naturalised as English by Act of Parliament. In 1663, Lord Wotton took his seat in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...

and on his mother's death four years later, he inherited her estate at

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. On 25 August 1679, he married Hon. Frances Harpur, daughter of

William Willoughby, 6th Baron Willoughby of Parham William Willoughby, 6th Lord Willoughby (c. 1616 – 10 April 1673) was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons and later in the House of Lords. In 1666 he inherited the peerage of Baron Willoughby of Parham, and from ...

. In 1680, he was created Earl of Bellomont. He died in 1683 of an

apoplexy Apoplexy () is rupture of an internal organ and the accompanying symptoms. The term formerly referred to what is now called a stroke. Nowadays, health care professionals do not use the term, but instead specify the anatomic location of the bleedi ...

and was buried in

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. As he had no surviving children, his titles became extinct and he left his estate to Hon. Charles Stanhope (the youngest son of his half-brother, the 2nd Earl of Chesterfield), who later changed his surname to Wotton.

References

Stanhope née Wotton; other married name van der Kerckhove, Katherine, suo jure countess of Chesterfield, and Lady Stanhope (bap. 1609, d. 1667), courtier - Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; Poynting, Sarah
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bellomont, Charles Kirkhoven, 1st Earl of 1643 births 1683 deaths Earls in the Peerage of Ireland 3 Kirkhoven, Charles Peers of England created by Charles II Peers of Ireland created by Charles II