(1718 - 93) of North Aston, Oxon., o. surv. s. of 1st. Vct. Hill [I] of Hillsborough, Co. Down; MP 1741 - 56; FRS 1764; FSA 1791; m. 1 1748 Ldy. Margaretta Fitzgerald (d. 1766), dau. of 19th E. of Kildare [I], 2 1768 Mary suo jure Bs. Stawell, wid. of Rt.Hon. Henry Bilson-Legge; suc. fa. 1742 as 2nd Vct.; cr. E. of Hillsborough [I] 1751, B. Harwich 1756, E. of Hillsborough 1772, M. of Downshire [I] 1789.
1765 - 6 Naples (Dec. 1765 - Mar. 1766), Rome (Mar. - Apr.), Florence (Apr. - May) [England early Aug.]
The Earl of Hillsborough, 'a well-bred, handsome man with agreeable manners, more fitted to the part of courtier than a statesman', arrived at Naples from Marseilles with his first wife at the beginning of December 1765.1 'Poor Lady Hillsborough', wrote William Hamilton to Horace Mann on 24 December, 'that arrived here about 3 weeks ago, grows weaker every day, and will not, I fear, live many weeks'.2 She died on 25 January 1766, and her husband left Naples about six weeks later.3 Later that year Lord Kildare and Charles Fox found Hillsborough's Italian master in Naples to be 'dreadfully stupid'.4
In March or April 1766 Hillsborough had sat to Batoni in Rome. The signed and dated whole-length portrait (Clark/Bowron 300; on loan to the Ulster Museum, Belfast) shows the Earl contemplating an oval portrait of his wife, his head cast down in grief. The Earl arrived in Florence at the end of April and had returned to England by the beginning of August.5
1. SP 93/21 (Hamilton, 3 Dec. 1765). 2. SP 105/316, f.342. 3. SP 93/22 (Hamilton, 28 Jan. 1766). 4. Leinster Corr., 3:437 (Kildare, 17 Nov. 1766). 5. Wal.Corr., 22:418, 445.
J. C.