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

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

– 1683) was a

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

-born

Irish peer The peerage of Ireland consists of those Peerage, titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as Lordship of Ireland, Lord or Monarchy of Ireland, King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great B ...

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

anglicised Anglicisation or anglicization is a form of cultural assimilation whereby something non-English becomes assimilated into or influenced by the culture of England. It can be sociocultural, in which a non-English place adopts the English language ...

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, is a feminine given name. The name and its variants are popular in countries where large Christian populations exist, because of its associations with one of the earliest Ch ...

(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 Diana, Princess of Wales. William was born during the reign of his p ...

(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 is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest ext ...

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

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estate in

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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 fr ...

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

apoplexy Apoplexy () refers to the rupture of an internal organ and the associated symptoms. Informally or metaphorically, the term ''apoplexy'' is associated with being furious, especially as "apoplectic". Historically, it described what is now known as a ...

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.

Coat of arms

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 Emigrants from the Dutch Republic Earls in the Peerage of Ireland 3 Kirkhoven, Charles Peers of England created by Charles II Peers of Ireland created by Charles II