Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond

Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond, 1st Duke of Lennox, 1st Duke of Aubigny (29 July 1672 – 27 May 1723) was the illegitimate son of King Charles II of England and his mistress Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth.

Life

Lennox was created Duke of Richmond, Earl of March and Baron Settrington in the Peerage of England on 9 August 1675 and Duke of Lennox, Earl of Darnley and Lord Torbolton in the Peerage of Scotland on 9 September 1675, and was invested as a Knight of the Garter in 1681. He was appointed Lord High Admiral of Scotland, under reservation of the commission granted to James, Duke of Albany and York (later James VII), as Lord High Admiral for life. The appointment was therefore only effective between 1701 and 1705, when Lennox resigned all his Scottish lands and offices.

It appears that he was Master of a Lodge in Chichester in 1696, and so was one of the few known seventeenth-century freemasons.

Family

He was married to Anne Brudenell (d. 9 December 1722), daughter of Francis, Baron Brudenell on 8 January 1692; with whom he had three children:

• Lady Louisa Lennox (24 December 1694 – 15 January 1716); married James Berkeley, 3rd Earl of Berkeley
• Charles Lennox, Earl of March, later 2nd Duke of Richmond and 2nd Duke of Lennox
• Lady Anne Lennox, later Countess of Albemarle

By his mistress Jacqueline de Mézières:

• Renée Lennox (1709–1774) mistress of her cousin Charles Beauclerk, 2nd Duke of St Albans.

He is an ancestor of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, and Sarah, Duchess of York. He is also an ancestor of the Earls Spencer of Althorp, Diana, Princess of Wales, and also Diana's sons, Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, the heir to the British throne, and his younger brother, Prince Harry.

Cricket

Richmond was a patron of cricket, then becoming a leading professional sport, and did much to develop it in Sussex. It is almost certain that he was involved with the earliest known "great match", which took place in the 1697 season and was the first to be reported by the press. The report was in the Foreign Post dated Wednesday, 7 July 1697:^[1]

"The middle of last week a great match at cricket was played in Sussex; there were eleven of a side, and they played for fifty guineas apiece".

The stakes on offer confirm the importance of the fixture and the fact that it was eleven-a-side suggests that two strong and well-balanced teams were assembled.^[1] No other details were given but the report provides real evidence to support the view that top-class cricket in the form of "great matches" played for high stakes was in vogue at the time.^[2] It was possibly an inter-county match: i.e., a Sussex XI versus a Kent XI or a Surrey XI.^[2] Richmond sponsored a team in the 1702 season against an Arundel side.^[3] His son Charles, the 2nd Duke, inherited his interest in cricket and became the patron of both Sussex county cricket teams and Slindon Cricket Club.

Ancestry

References

Bibliography

• McCann, Tim (2004). Sussex Cricket in the Eighteenth Century. Sussex Record Society. 

Further reading

• Late Baron di Bauvso, Malta. 1 January 2000.
• The Adami Collection – collection of Parish records of Marriages, legacy and nobility, National Library of Malta, vol 10, pp 1838.