Edward Weld (1740–1775) was a British recusant landowner.
Edward Weld (1740–1775) was a British recusant landowner.
Edward Weld was the eldest of the four sons and one daughter of Edward Weld (1705–1761) and his second wife, Dame Maria née Vaughan. [1] He was heir to the enormous Lulworth Estate with its magnificent Jurassic coastline and its castle in the county of Dorset, England and to other estates. He was a member of the well connected notable recusant family and one of the wealthiest people in the kingdom. [2] As was usual for the sons of Catholic gentry at that time, Edward and his younger brother, John, were sent to be educated abroad. While away, the boys were orphaned by their mother who died in 1754. They had been despatched at around the age of nine into the hands of British Jesuit preceptors at Watten in the Spanish Netherlands and thence to St Omer. There, in 1759, Edward's brother, John fell ill and died, probably in September. [3] At age twenty, having concluded his education, Edward prepared for the Grand Tour by honing the manners of a young gentleman at the Jesuit house in Rheims and a stay at the court of the former Polish King Stanislaw Leszczynski in Lorraine. [4] On his return to England, he had been orphaned by his father, Edward Sr., and as his heir had become immensely rich and was eligible for the hand of a suitable lady.
He was widowed after his first marriage in 1763 to Juliana Petre, daughter of Robert James Petre, 8th Baron Petre, who died in 1772. In 1775, he married the impecunious Maria Smythe, sixteen years his junior, and became her little-known first husband. Three months after the wedding, he fell off his horse and died of his injuries, before having had time to sign his new will. As there was no issue from either marriage, the estate passed to his surviving younger brother, nine years his junior, Thomas. [3]
Meanwhile, his widow, was left without provision and soon married Thomas Fitzherbert of Swynnerton. Before long, he too died in 1781 but left her well provided for and known to history as "Mrs Fitzherbert". She went on to contract a morganatic marriage in 1785 with the Prince of Wales, the future George IV. [2]
The short-lived connection to Edward, and his youngest brother Thomas Weld, emerged later in his widow Maria's life when she faced implacable opposition regarding the validity of her third marriage, that is, to the Prince of Wales. It came in the person of Lord William Stourton, who was anyway related to her through their mothers, but William and Maria were also related by marriage, William's wife, Catherine Winifred Weld was a niece of Maria's first husband, Edward, and, William's sister the Hon. Charlotte Mary Stourton was married to Catherine Winifred Weld's brother, Joseph Weld. They were always on friendly terms, and she came to place great trust in him. She appointed William one of the executors of her will, and to act for her as her agent in business generally, in her last years. He was also one of her trustees who acted for her in regard to the destruction of her private papers and was a witness on the occasion, 24 August 1833, when she permitted the Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington to burn a hoard of her private papers concerning her secret (catholic) marriage to George IV. [5] At her special entreaty a number of documents which she particularly valued, including her marriage certificate, were deposited in Coutts Bank, sealed and witnessed by Stourton. [6]
Moreover, Mrs Fitzherbert dictated to Lord Stourton her memoir which he preserved. It contains invaluable evidence about her marriage to the future George IV, and of their years together. On the subject of whether there were any children of the marriage she remained reticent as this would have had enormous repercussions on the Royal Succession. Stourton, who attributed her reticence to "natural delicacy" apparently believed that she was implying that there were no children. William at his death entrusted his brother Charles with the task of publishing the truth about the royal marriage. However, Charles was unable to obtain the documents deposited in Coutts Bank, but he used his brother's copy of Maria's memoir as the basis for his biography of Mrs. Fitzherbert, published in 1856. [7] Her nephew-in-law from her marriage to Edward, Cardinal Weld, persuaded Pope Pius VII to declare the marriage to George sacramentally valid. [8]
Principal landholdings as of 1775: [2]
In 1801, Thomas, Edward's brother, bought Pylewell Park in Hampshire as a wedding gift for his son, Joseph. [11] In 1837, Thomas, second son of Joseph, inherited Ince Blundell Hall on Merseyside from the last Blundell cousin. [12]
Recusancy was the state of those who remained loyal to the Catholic Church and refused to attend Church of England services after the English Reformation.
Maria Anne Fitzherbert was a longtime companion of George, Prince of Wales. In 1785, they secretly contracted a marriage that was invalid under English civil law because his father, King George III, had not consented to it. Fitzherbert was a Catholic and the law at the time forbade Catholics or spouses of Catholics from becoming monarch, so had the marriage been approved and valid, the Prince of Wales would have lost his place in the line of succession. Before marrying George, Fitzherbert had been twice widowed. Her nephew from her first marriage, Cardinal Weld, persuaded Pope Pius VII to declare the marriage sacramentally valid.
East Lulworth is a village and civil parish nine miles east of Dorchester, near Lulworth Cove, in the county of Dorset, South West England. It consists of 17th-century thatched cottages. The village is now dominated by the barracks of the Royal Armoured Corps Gunnery School who use a portion of the Purbeck Hills as a gunnery range. In 2013 the estimated population of the civil parish was 160.
Lulworth Castle, in East Lulworth, Dorset, England, situated south of the village of Wool, is an early 17th-century hunting lodge erected in the style of a revival fortified castle, one of only five extant Elizabethan or Jacobean buildings of this type. It is listed with Historic England as a Scheduled monument. It is also Grade I listed. The 18th-century Adam style interior of the stone building was devastated by fire in 1929, but has now been restored and serves as a museum. The castle stands in Lulworth Park on the Lulworth Estate. The park and gardens surrounding the castle are Grade II listed with Historic England.
The Weld family may refer to an ancient English family, and to their possible relations in New England, an extended family of Boston Brahmin. An early record of a Weld holding public office, is of the High Sheriff of London in 1352, William. In the 16th and 17th centuries people called Weld and living in Cheshire began to travel and to settle in the environs of London, in Shropshire, in Suffolk and thence in the American Colonies, and in Dorset. While the Welds of England had adopted Protestantism, the exception were all three sons of Sir John Weld of Edmonton who married into elite recusant families thus reverting, with their descendants, to Roman Catholicism. The noted Catholic Weld lineage, unbroken till the new millennium, is that of Lulworth Castle in Dorset.
Charles Philip Stourton, 17th Baron Stourton (1752–1816) was the son of William Stourton and Winifred Howard, a great-granddaughter of the 6th Duke of Norfolk and a leading Roman Catholic.
William Stourton, 18th Baron Stourton (1776–1846) was a Roman Catholic English peer. He is chiefly remembered for the private memoirs of his relative Maria Fitzherbert, the secret wife of King George IV, which she dictated to him, and which formed the basis for her first biography, published by his brother Charles Langdale in 1856.
Thomas Weld was an English landowner who renounced his assets to enter the Roman Catholic priesthood. He was consecrated Roman Catholic bishop and cardinal.
The Colleges of St Omer, Bruges and Liège were successive expatriate institutions for Roman Catholic higher education run by the Jesuits for English students.
The Weld family are a cadet branch, arisen in 1843, of the English Welds of Lulworth. It is an old gentry family which claims descent from Eadric the Wild and is related to other Weld branches in several parts of the United Kingdom, notably from Willey, Shropshire and others in the Antipodes and America. A notable early Weld was William de Welde, High Sheriff of London in 1352, whose progeny moved in and out of obscurity.
Herbert Joseph Weld Blundell was an English traveller in Africa, archaeologist, philanthropist and yachtsman. He shortened his surname from Weld Blundell to Weld, in 1924.
Charles Langdale ; 19 September 1787 – 1 December 1868) was a British politician and biographer. He served as Whig Member of Parliament, wrote the memoirs of Maria Fitzherbert, and was a leading Roman Catholic figure during the 19th century.
Maria (Mary) Winifreda Francisca Howard, Duchess of Norfolk was an English Catholic noblewoman, the last of the wealthy Shireburn family. She married twice, firstly to Thomas Howard, 8th Duke of Norfolk from whom she became estranged before his death and secondly to Peregrine Widdrington. She built a house in London on Arlington Street, which today is the clubhouse of the Royal Over-Seas League.
Weld is a surname of Anglo-Saxon English and Dutch origin.
Sir John Weld was a wealthy landowner and London merchant, the son of a Lord Mayor of London and the father of the branch of the Weld family which became settled at Lulworth Castle in Dorset. He was a charter member and Council assistant of the Newfoundland Company of 1610.
Thomas Bartholomew Weld (1750–1810), known as Thomas Weld of Lulworth Castle, was a member of the English Catholic gentry, landowner, philanthropist and bibliophile. He was connected to many of the leading Catholic families of the land, such as the Bodenhams, Cliffords, Erringtons, Petres and Stourtons. He proved to be a great benefactor of the Society of Jesus in England in their educational and pastoral endeavours, as timely donor of his Stonyhurst estate in 1794. He was also a benefactor to other Roman Catholic religious and clergy. He was a personal friend of King George III. His sister-in-law was Maria Fitzherbert. After the French Revolution he hosted refugee remnants of the French royal family at his castle. He was the builder, in 1786, of the first Roman Catholic place of worship in England after the Protestant Reformation.
Alfred Weld S. J. was an English Jesuit priest, professor of Science and Director of Stonyhurst Observatory. While working at the observatory, he welcomed in 1848 the Italian refugee Jesuit, Angelo Secchi, who went on to be a pioneer in Astronomy. Weld was ordained in 1854. After briefly managing St Marys Hall in Lancashire, he became Novice Master at Manresa House, Roehampton. During this period, in 1862, he was the founding editor of the Jesuits' in-house magazine, Letters and Notices and ensured The Month was edited by the Society. It was his desire to foster a community of writers. The anonymous author of his obituary in Letters and Notices, wrote: "It is no exaggeration then to say that the literary work of the Province, so promising, so prolific, and so fruitful of good which has marked the last thirty years, is in great measure due to the initiatif and large-minded encouragement of Father Weld." It was during Weld's time at the helm that the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was welcomed into the Society.
Colonel Sir Joseph William Weld, OBE, TD (1909-1992), was Lord Lieutenant of Dorset, a British army officer and landowner. A direct descendant of Sir Humphrey Weld, and member of a noted recusant family, he became owner of the Lulworth Estate and Lulworth Castle in Dorset, in 1935 after the death of his cousin, Herbert Weld Blundell. He volunteered for the Territorial Army.
Edward Weld was an English gentleman of the landed gentry and a member of an old recusant family. Weld is notable for two trials, one when he was accused of impotency, the other for treason at the time of the Jacobite rising of 1745.
Humphrey Weld, DL, JP was an English lawyer, member of the Royal household, public official, landowner and property administrator who was elected to the House of Commons for Christchurch in Hampshire in 1661. Weld was a crypto-recusant who kept his religious allegiance secret in order to stay in public office during a turbulent political period in English history. He was appointed Cup-bearer to the Catholic Queen Henrietta Maria 1639-44 and later as Gentleman of the Privy Chamber 1668-85 under her son, Charles II. He served as a magistrate and in numerous other public roles in London, Middlesex, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire and in Dorset, where he was governor of Portland Castle. In 1641 he bought the Lulworth Estate in Dorset where he started the "Lulworth" line of the (recusant) Weld family which has continued for over 350 years.
