Wedding 4
Eleanor Brownlow (1691-1730). A suitor for Eleanor's hand was Lieutenant-General Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford (of the 2nd creation), KG (1672 to 1739), known as Thomas Wentworth, 3rd Baron Raby from 1695 to 1711. He was an English peer, diplomat and statesman who served as First Lord of the Admiralty. His mother Lady Wentworth describes how she attempted a marriage negotiation with Alice Brownlow.
Thomas Wentworth , Lord Raby, when later, 1st Earl of Strafford by George Vertue, engraver, after Sir Godfrey Kneller
Apart from marriage to widowers, Alice's other strategy in attracting suitors was to avoid correcting the overvaluation of her daughters as co-heirs to Young Sir John Brownlow. Alicia's value was quoted at £30,000. Lady Wentworth was under the impression that Eleanor, the target of her son's affections, was worth £30,000 (~£6 million 2021). Margaret Brownlow's value, quoted in a newspaper of the following year, was £40,000 (~£7 million 2021). The actual marriage settlement for each sister was £10,000 and £1,500 pa, though more money would come after the death of Margaret. And more again when Alice died.
Lady Wentworth had already attempted a settlement for her son in 1705 with a niece of Lord Portlands ... worth thirty or more thousand pound, I wish you had her.
Reading through Lady Wentworth's 1709 letter makes clear how Alice conducted negotiations.
Eleanor Brownlow, (1691-1730) c1710. Portrait miniature watercolour on vellum, painted by Christian Richter (1678-1732) VAM. Another miniature on ivory is recorded. Known as Nellie to her friends.
Lady Wentworth July 1709 to her son then Lord Raby, Queen Anne's ambassador to Berlin
My dearist and best of children,
I hope I have layd a good foundaytion for you with your ingenyous headpeec to finish. It would be to tedyous to trouble you with all my inventions to bring this to pas, but in short I found none seemed soe secure as this.
Hall [unidentified, perhaps a lawyer] whoe is very dexterus at all things he writt a letter whearin he aquanted Lady Brownloe that he was sent by a parson of quallety about a buisnes that might be a great sattisfaction to each famely, and beged the favour he might speake a word in pryvitt with her ladyship.
Soe he stayd tell she was up, and she came to him, but brought her steward [Trigg] whoe stood at a distanc while he told her that he was sent by a parson of qallety which had seen her youngist daughter and was very much in lov with her, which if she pleesed to giv leev she should have a parteculor of his estate, and then know his name. Soe she said she could say nothing without knowing the name. Soe he told her it was you.
She said she had hard a very good carrector of you, but she was not willing to marry the youngist before the elder [Margaret & Jane]; She smiled when he said you was in lov with her. She said she would conseder of it ; he askt her if she would giv him leeve to wait of her again. She said by noe means—or if she would give me leev to wait upon her, she sayd noe, she would not have me giv my self that trouble, but she presented her sarvis to me. He told her I sent him, and you had writt twoe or thre letters to me about it.
Soe Ellison [unidentified], Hall, and I thinck that you should write immedyetly to my Lady [Brownlow] and another enclosed to the young one [Eleanor], and not to lett it get wynd. I am possetivly sure it will doe if you will goe one with it, and yet noe creeture hear knows it but Hall and Ellison; for I shall dispair if any of Peter's famely know it [Peter, her brother equerry to Queen Anne], not but he and his wife are both to good to hender it, but she has many reletions to my knolledg would leeve noe stoan, as the saying is, unturned to hender it.
Wentworth Castle Thomas Wentworth's home. He and his son William, developed the estate courtesy of his wife's inheritance. The garden & deer park is now managed by the National Trust since 2019.
That Lady Wentworth was not best pleased with the outcome was her acerbic comment that My Lady [Alice] was very much set out, but very ugly , as al old people ar that is very youthful in thear dres.
Wentworth's modus operandi was spotting pretty, wealthy young heiresses while at Chapel Royal, St James's Palace. This she had done with Margaret and Eleanor.
Repeated again with another young lady in December 1709. I am very angree with Hall. The anonymous Hall had missed the chance of getting this Miss worth £20,000.
Raby eventually married Anne Johnson in 1711, who brought him a dowry of £60,000.
Elopement
Writing to her brother in January 1708 (Julian), Lady Wentworth states,
Lady Brownlow's daughter [aged 19] is run away and nobody knows yet with whom, tho' 'twas ever since Twelfth day.
With whom is never said. A 1717 diarist, John Thomlinson claims that Eleanor's love preference was with women. We will never know, if this was true, or whether her childhood injury requiring surgery (Wharncliffe 1893) led to a barren marriage with her cousin, Sir John Brownlow (later Viscount Tyrconnel) on Tuesday August 12th 1712, just one year after Jane's wedding. Though the pretyest of them all, the only one not to be wed by her mother to a nobleman.
This marriage was also for financial reasons. With £10,000+ gone with each marriage, the Belton estate was entailed with financial obligations for the heir, Viscount Tyrconnel.
After Eleanor's marriage to her cousin Sir John Brownlow baronet on 12 August 1712, she lived for a few years at Bruton, Somerset, image above.
Extracts from Eleanor Brownlow’s accounts for 1715 to 1718, kept by E. Wooding, her steward and by herself. The entries are somewhat haphazard and don't always appear in chronological order or are undated. At this time, she lived at her husband’s Bruton Abbey. Sir William Brownlow (1665-1702) bought the manor in 1698. His son, Sir John Brownlow, later Viscount Tyrconnel, inherited. William Berkeley of the previous owner’s family bought it back in 1717. The Brownlows’ Arlington Street house, London had been shut up from 1715.
The precise date of Eleanor's birth is unknown, but an entry,
To my Ladys Servants to drink her Health on her birthday £5-0-0
appears under the date 23 October 1718, implying that her birth date is sometime on the preceding days in October.
Annual budget
Money in red, today’s value based on RPI. Her budget was £900 (£153,000). £100 for the house, £300 for housekeeping, the coach £100, 6 servants wages £43, 3 Liverys £30. George Rimmington employed as a groom on £6 pa, but had to pay for his own washing [presumably of livery]. Over a 2 month period Eleanor paid out £200 to the poor. Her husband, John, MP for Lincolnshire during this period, is unmentioned.
December ye 20th [1716] expences on the Road to London [4 nights on the road]
Bill at [£ s d]
Day one mileage 34
For a coach from Bruton to Salisbury 5/-, For 2 places in ye Stage Coach 1/6, Sarum 12/-, Servants 5/-, Coachman & Postilion 12/6
Bruton to Salisbury. At a typical 5 mph, a 7-hour journey. It seems that Eleanor used rented coaches on route with servants travelling on public transport. The bills for each overnight stop are for accommodation and ‘tips’ to coaching inn staff etc.
Day two mileage 24
Sutten 6/4, Servants 1/-
Sutton Scotney on the A30. In the C18, provided the fastest coaching route from London to the South West.
Day three mileage 25
Hartford Bridge 9/-, Servants 2/-
The White Lion Coaching Inn survives. Lewis (1840): "It is situated on the great western road, and the numerous coaches which are constantly passing through it impart to the place a considerable degree of liveliness and bustle."
Day four mileage 18
Eggum 6/-, Servants 1/-, 3 Stage Coach men 4/-
Egham, Surrey. The Red Lion 1702 is a coaching inn acting as “a stage” for coaches conveying travellers to the west of England
Day five mileage 18 to final stop in London
Kensington Decr: 24 1716
Expences on ye Road £10 15/11
Cost of the journey was £1,833.
Feasibly, Eleanor rented at Holland House, Kensington as did her mother, Alice Brownlow (London holiday 1702).
June 24 The house bill in Great Russell Street £23-8-9
Eleanor stayed until June, latterly at a house in Great Russel Street, where the British Museum now stands, rental £4,000.
During her London sojourn she visited her sister Alicia, Lady Guilford in Arlington Street, tipping her sister’s servants £9-7-0 (£1,672) on January 4th. A large sum because of an Xmas stay? She saw another sister, Jane, Marchioness Lindsey. By August 1718, she was at Belton losing £1,707 to the dice game Hazard at Belvoir Castle (the 1668 one). Eleanor's account book has her gambling at cards, dice and nine pins as well.
Evidently music was important to her as she paid for harpsichord tuning at Belton four times. She was a subscriber to the publication by subscription of Handel's opera, Rodelinda, 1725. One of 121 subscribers for 167 copies @ 15s each.