(c.1682 - 1743), illeg. dau. of James II by Katherine Sedley, suo jure Cts. of Dorchester; m. 1 1699 3rd E. of Anglesey (d. 1701), 2 1706, as his 3rd w., 1st D. of Buckingham (d. 1721).
c.1717 Rome
1730 - 1 Rome (Dec. 1730 - Feb. 1731), Florence (Mar. - mid-Jun.), Bologna (Jun.), Venice (early Jul.)
1736 Rome (expected 22 Sep.).
1741 Turin (expected 2 Oct.)
As half-sister of James Stuart, the Pretender, she was inordinately proud of her birth and 'never ceased labouring to restore the House of Stuart'.1 By 1714 she was being used as a courier between England and the exiled Stuart Court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, and when the Court moved to Rome in 1717 'she went two or three times to see her brother, and to carry on negotiations with him for his interest'.2
The Duchess was expected in Rome at the end of December 1730 with Edmund, her only surviving son from her marriage to the Duke of Buckingham; Belloni, the Roman banker, had rented for her the Raggi Palace on the Corso.3 Stosch reported how the Duchess had taken 'the most magnificent box at the Aliberti opera, facing the Pretender's. At the end of the opera her valets came with four torches right up to her box, which caused a fight with the soldiers of the guard, who had received orders not to let torches be brought up to the boxes for fear of fire. The Roman ladies did not visit her in her box as she had not announced her arrival in Rome to them in the customary fashion. The Pretender not pleased with her haughty behaviour and has not yet spoken to her'.4 On 21 January 1731 Stosch was held up in his carriage by armed men and warned to leave Rome within eight days on pain of death; he suspected the Duchess, and when next day she sent a servant to him, to enquire if he would sell her an engraved stone for £;10, he noticed that the man 'changed colour twenty times in a quarter of an hour' on finding him in bed surrounded by firearms of all calibres.5 While in Rome the Duchess sat to the French sculptor Bouchardon, who had completed 'le portrait' in April 1732.6
At the end of March 1731 the Duchess rented for a year the Palazzo Galoppi in Florence,7 but in mid-June she and her son (the 2nd Duke of Buckingham) left Florence for Bologna to attend the opera.8 They went on to Venice where Elizeus Burges reported on 13 July: 'The Dutchess of Buckingham and her son went from hence last week. They staid but five or six daies here, and are gone to Spaa ... There is one Mrs Pratt with her Grace, who I doubt is a little inclin'd to Jacobitism ... She is gone to Spaa with the Duke'.9
The Duchess probably returned to Italy; Stosch wrote on 22 September 1736 that she was expected shortly in Rome,10 and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote on 2 October 1741 that she was expected daily in Turin.(11)
1. Wal.Corr., 32:8 n32; 28:389. 2. Ibid., 18:192 - 3 n12. 3. SP 98/32, ff.132, 135 (Walton, 21, 28 Dec. 1730). 4. Ibid., f.142 (11 Jan. 1731). 5. Lewis 1961, 89 - 90. SP 98/32, f.161 (Walton, 24 Feb. 1731). 6. Montaiglon, 8:316. 7. SP 98/32, f.171 (Walton, 24 Mar. 1731). 8. Ibid., f.201 (26 May 1731). SP 98/30 (Colman, 30 Jun. 1731). 9. SP 99/63, f.173. 10. SP 98/37, f.405. 11. Montagu Letters, 2:291.