The Derby Women – By Dr Stephen Lloyd, Curator of the Derby Collection
Speakers TBC
Dr Vanessa Wilkie,
Dr Jennifer Davey
Janina Ramirez
Professor Jill Perry,
Dr Lucy Worsley OBE
Dr Anna Keay OBE
Many Stanley women had to run the estates when their husbands were away on political or court business, and alongside their preoccupation with the future of the dynasty, for many the creation of a great house became their life’s work. Without a great house at its centre, land had little function in the display of wealth, position and power.
Elizabethan prodigy houses were created specifically to impress the monarch with the intention of persuading The Queen to visit. Later, during the eighteenth century, Knowsley saw a great deal of architectural activity as it became the principal family seat, and was expanded in celebration of the family’s return to good fortune following the suffering endured at the hands of Oliver Cromwell. Knowsley Hall and its marvellous art collection became the physical embodiment of the Derby dynasty’s wealth, learning and power.
However, it was not enough for a grand house to be an art gallery alone; it was essential that an atmosphere of conviviality was achieved, and here the Derby wives excelled, with the family becoming famed for its hospitality to the present day.
In an era when the ultimate aim for a daughter was to make a good wife, the personal achievements of the Stanley women seem even more pronounced. The financial security and position of their marriage afforded them a freedom to develop their characters to their fullest potential. It took energy, endurance and ambition to rise beyond the normal expectations of a wife, characteristics that Stanley women possessed in abundance.
Women of the House of Stanley
Convention tells us that women are often attracted to powerful men. But what happens when the women too are powerful? Here, six centuries of Stanley women, many of them Countesses of Derby, address that very question, women whose power and influence helped to shape the Derby Earldom along with many other great dynasties.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the story of Lady Margaret Beaufort (1443 - 1509), who was instrumental in bringing the earldom to rest upon the Stanley family. In 1485, England was in a state of civil war, and the Wars of the
Roses reached their climax with the Battle of Bosworth. Margaret’s husband Thomas, 2nd Baron Stanley was King Richard III’s Lord High Constable and Lord Steward. When Henry Tudor challenged King Richard, Lord Stanley,
a powerful man highly skilled in the art of warfare who possessed his own private army, was central to the King’s battle plan. Margaret however, had been married before to the Earl of Richmond, and together they had a son – none
other than Henry Tudor. Through Margaret’s influ-ence, Stanley chose to support his stepson rather than his boss on the battlefield, and several other key figures also took their armies and followed Stanley. As a result Henry, with his smaller army and relative inexperience, was victorious. It was Lord Stanley who took the crown from the fallen King Richard and placed it upon Henry Tudor’s head, proclaiming him to be King Henry VII of England. In recognition for his service, Stanley was created first Earl of Derby.
Lady Margaret Clifford (1540 - 1596), wife of the 4th Earl of Derby, was daughter of the Earl of Cumberland and Eleanor Brandon, grand daughter of King Henry VII. Through her, the 4th Earl’s children were brought into the royal bloodline, and Queen Elizabeth I referred to Lady Margaret as “one very near in blood to us.”
Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, second wife of the 1st Earl of Derby, 18th century copy after English School (c.1509)
One of the most famous Countesses of Derby was the wife of the 7th Earl of Derby, Charlotte de la Trémoille (1599 - 1664), whose portraits can be found in many rooms within Knowsley Hall. It is a testament both to her strength of character and those of her daughters that they survived incarceration and worse at the hands of Oliver Cromwell’s Parliamentarian forces, culminating in the siege of Lathom House in 1644. At this time the Countess was alone at Lathom, as the Earl was away defending the Isle of Man. When the Parliamentarian forces demanded that Lady Derby, whom they had dubbed ‘The Whore of Babylon’ yield Lathom House, Her Ladyship replied that “she would neither tamely give up her house, nor purchase her peace with the loss of her honour.” In the siege that followed, Charlotte soon realised that she had no chance of overcoming her attackers by force, and therefore had to rely on her own cunning and wits for her very survival.
Although Charlotte and her children were in due course rescued from their immediate plight by Lord Derby and Charles I’s nephew Prince Rupert and his army, worse was to come. Her eldest daughter Henrietta Maria (1630 - 1685) accompanied Charlotte to the Isle of Man, and in 1651 was forced to endure the surrender of Peel Castle and Castle Rushen, and the seizure of all her possessions except her clothes. Two of Charlotte’s other daughters, Katherine (b.1631) and Amelia (1633 - 1702), were arrested and imprisoned in 1650 in a Parliamentarian attempt to blackmail Lord Derby into compliance. Their father subsequently became their fellow inmate following his capture in 1651, and they had to endure the spectacle of watching their father be taken from his prison cell, knowing that he was on the way to his place of execution. Such experiences certainly shaped the character of all Charlotte’s daughters, who were noted for their “piety and sweetness”.
As Dorothea Helena de Rupa married the 7th Earl’s son Charles in 1650, the turbulence of the times dictated that there was little opportunity for being merely a ‘trophy wife.’ Despite the poverty stricken circumstances that she now found herself in, Dorothea showed true Stanley spirit and resolve and was highly instrumental in campaigning for Lord Derby’s pardon following his capture in 1651. Following the death of her husband in 1672, she became renowned for her good works caring for the poor of south west Lancashire.
When the 10th Earl died with no issue, the heir to the Earldom was Sir Edward Stanley, 5th Baronet of Bickerstaffe, who then became 11th Earl of Derby. His mother, Elizabeth Patten (d.1694), was therefore the matriarch of a new Derby dynasty. As heiress of Thomas Patten of Preston and Thornley, she brought wealth, land and property to the Stanley family. Similarly, the 11th Earl’s wife Elizabeth Hesketh (1694 - 1776), heaped more wealth and good fortune upon the Stanley family, as she was daughter and heiress of Sir Robert Hesketh of Rufford. By all accounts she was the ultimate hostess, playing an active role in the sporting and social world of the South Lancashire landed gentry.
Charlotte de la Trémoille, wife of the 7th Earl of Derby, tearing up the summons to surrender Lathom House - circle of Isaac Fuller (early 18th century)
Before becoming the 12th Earl of Derby’s second wife, Eliza Farren (1759 - 1829) achieved position and status in her own right as a celebrated comic actress, specialising particularly in portraying aristocratic ladies. Despite his admiration for her, Lord Derby’s relationship with Eliza remained platonic for many years whilst his first wife, Lady Elizabeth Hamilton, from whom he was separated, still lived. He eventually married Eliza in 1797, and she brought great happiness and joy to Lord Derby and his children during their life together at Knowsley.
Indeed, during the time of the 12th and 13th Earls, Stanley women showed themselves to be highly skilled in the most complex art of all, that of nurturing and raising a memorable dynasty. Charlotte, the 12th Earl’s eldest daughter (1776 - 1805), married her cousin Edmund Hornby of Dalton Hall. Her married name was therefore Charlotte Hornby, which, was also the maiden name of the 13th Countess.
Eliza Farren, second wife of the 12th Earl of Derby, after Sir Thomas Lawrence (c.1790)
Lady Mary Sackville West (1824 - 1900), Marchioness of Salisbury and 15th Countess of Derby, was widowed by her first husband at the age of 43. A year later she and her five children were forced to leave their family home by the new Lord Sailsbury. In 1870 she married the 15th Earl of Derby, after a very public friendship for 20 years. They had a happy marriage, and rarely spent time apart. They shared many similar interests yet differed in personalities. Whereas Edward was shy and insular, Mary was a prominent political hostess and through her actions and activities managed to maintain his position at the centre of British politics.
Stanley women have experienced at first hand the pain of war, social upheaval, poverty and personal loss, as well as the happiness that good fortune and a loving family can bring. Their stories grace the pages of many a historical treatise, and yet those same experiences have at some time touched all our lives. They have throughout the centuries met all of life’s challenges squarely, with the wit, charm and intelligence that so typically characterises these extraordinary women – the women of the House of Stanley.
Lady Mary Catherine Sackville West, Marchioness of Salisbury, wife of the 15th Earl of Derby by Jane Hawkins after James Rannie Swinton (c.1850)