Biography of Elisabeth Nassau Beverweert Countess Arlington 1633-1718

On 28th December 1633 Elisabeth Nassau Beverweert Countess Arlington was born to [her father] Louis Nassau Beverweert (age 31).

In 1651 Gerrit van Honthorst (age 58). Portrait of Elisabeth Nassau Beverweert Countess Arlington (age 17).

In March 1655 Henry Bennet 1st Earl Arlington (age 37) and Elisabeth Nassau Beverweert Countess Arlington (age 21) were married.

On 14th November 1659 [her brother-in-law] Thomas Butler 6th Earl Ossory (age 25) and [her sister] Emilia Nassau Beverweert Countess Ossory (age 24) were married at Den Bosch. He the son of James Butler 1st Duke Ormonde (age 49) and Elizabeth Preston Duchess Ormonde (age 44).

In 1661 [her husband] Henry Bennet 1st Earl Arlington (age 43) was appointed Keeper of the Privy Purse.

In 1662 [her brother-in-law] Thomas Butler 6th Earl Ossory (age 27) by writ of acceleration6th Earl Ossory. [her sister] Emilia Nassau Beverweert Countess Ossory (age 26) by marriage Countess Ossory.

On 28th February 1665 [her father] Louis Nassau Beverweert (age 63) died at The Hague.

On 14th March 1665 [her husband] Henry Bennet 1st Earl Arlington (age 47) was created 1st Baron Arlington of Arlington in Middlesex with a special remainder allowing it to pass to both male and female descendants. Elisabeth Nassau Beverweert Countess Arlington (age 31) by marriage Baroness Arlington of Arlington in Middlesex.

Samuel Pepys' Diary. 15th November 1666. Presently after the King (age 36) was come in, he took the Queene (age 56), and about fourteen more couple there was, and began the Bransles. As many of the men as I can remember presently, were, the King, Duke of York (age 33), Prince Rupert (age 46), Duke of Monmouth (age 17), Duke of Buckingham (age 38), Lord Douglas (age 20), Mr. [George] Hamilton (age 59), Colonell Russell (age 46), Mr. Griffith, [her brother-in-law] Lord Ossory (age 32), Lord Rochester (age 19); and of the ladies, the Queene, Duchess of York (age 29), Mrs. Stewart (age 19), Duchess of Monmouth (age 15), Lady Essex Howard, Mrs. Temples (age 17), Swedes Embassadress, Lady Arlington (age 32); Lord George Barkeley's daughter (age 16) [Note. Assumed Elizabeth], and many others I remember not; but all most excellently dressed in rich petticoats and gowns, and dyamonds, and pearls.

Around 1668 [her daughter] Isabella Bennet Duchess Grafton was born to [her husband] Henry Bennet 1st Earl Arlington (age 50) and Elisabeth Nassau Beverweert Countess Arlington (age 34). She married (1) 1st August 1672 her half sixth cousin Henry Fitzroy 1st Duke Grafton, son of King Charles II of England Scotland and Ireland and Barbara Villiers 1st Duchess of Cleveland, and had issue (2) 1698 Thomas Hanmer 4th Baronet.

Around 1670 [her brother-in-law] Colin Lindsay 3rd Earl Balcarres (age 17) and [her sister] Mauritiade Nassau Countess Balcarres were married. She by marriage Countess Balcarres. He the son of Andrew Lindsay 1st Earl Balcarres.

Around 1671 [her sister] Mauritiade Nassau Countess Balcarres died.

On 22nd April 1672 [her husband] Henry Bennet 1st Earl Arlington (age 54) was created 1st Earl Arlington, 1st Viscount Thetford and 1st Baron Arlington of Arlington in Middlesex with a similar remainder, and in default of heirs of his body, to his brother [her brother-in-law] Sir John Bennet (age 55) and the heirs male of his body. Elisabeth Nassau Beverweert Countess Arlington (age 38) by marriage Countess Arlington. See Viscountcies of England Created with a Special Remainder.

On 15th June 1672 [her husband] Henry Bennet 1st Earl Arlington (age 54) was appointed 476th Knight of the Garter by King Charles II of England Scotland and Ireland (age 42).

On 1st August 1672 [her son-in-law] Henry Fitzroy 1st Duke Grafton (age 8) and [her daughter] Isabella Bennet Duchess Grafton (age 4) were married. She the daughter of [her husband] Henry Bennet 1st Earl Arlington (age 54) and Elisabeth Nassau Beverweert Countess Arlington (age 38). He the illegitmate son of King Charles II of England Scotland and Ireland (age 42) and Barbara Villiers 1st Duchess of Cleveland (age 31). They were half sixth cousins.

He was created 1st Earl Euston, 1st Viscount Ipswich, 1st Baron Sudbury. Isabella Bennet Duchess Grafton by marriage Countess Euston.

John Evelyn's Diary. 17th April 1673. I carried Lady Tuke to thank the Countess of Arlington (age 39) for speaking to his Majesty (age 42) in her behalf, for being one of the Queen Consort's (age 34) women. She carried us up into her new dressing room at Goring House [Map], where was a bed, two glasses, silver jars, and vases, cabinets, and other so rich furniture as I had seldom seen; to this excess of superfluity were we now arrived and that not only at Court, but almost universally, even to wantonness and profusion.

In 1674 Joseph Williamson (age 40) was appointed Secretary of State for the Northern Department having practically purchased this position from [her husband] Arlington (age 56) for £6,000.

John Evelyn's Diary. 21st September 1674. I went to see the great loss that [her husband] Lord Arlington (age 56) had sustained by fire at Goring House [Map], this night consumed to the ground, with exceeding loss of hangings, plate, rare pictures, and cabinets; hardly anything was saved of the best and most princely furniture that any subject had in England. My lord and lady (age 40) were both absent at the Bath, Somerset [Map].

John Evelyn's Diary. 10th September 1677. The canal running under my Lady's (age 43) dressing room chamber window, is full of carps and fowl, which come and are fed there. The cascade at the end of the canal turns a cornmill that provides the family, and raises water for the fountains and offices. To pass this canal into the opposite meadows, Sir Samuel Morland (age 52) has invented a screw bridge, which, being turned with a key, lands you fifty feet distant at the entrance of an ascending walk of trees, a mile in length,-as it is also on the front into the park,-of four rows of ash trees, and reaches to the park pale, which is nine miles in compass, and the best for riding and meeting the game that I ever saw. There were now of red and fallow deer almost a thousand, with good covert, but the soil barren and flying sand, in which nothing will grow kindly. The tufts of fir, and much of the other wood, were planted by my direction some years before. This seat is admirably placed for field sports, hawking, hunting, or racing. The Mutton is small, but sweet. The stables hold thirty horses and four coaches. The out-offices make two large quadrangles, so as servants never lived with more ease and convenience; never master more civil. Strangers are attended and accommodated as at their home, in pretty apartments furnished with all manner of conveniences and privacy.

John Evelyn's Diary. 8th August 1679. I went this morning to show my [her husband] Lord Chamberlain (age 61), his Lady (age 45), and the [her daughter] Duchess of Grafton (age 11), the incomparable work of Mr. Gibbon (age 31), the carver, whom I first recommended to his Majesty (age 49), his house being furnished like a cabinet, not only with his own work, but divers excellent paintings of the best hands. Thence, to Sir Stephen Fox's (age 52), where we spent the day.

John Evelyn's Diary. 6th November 1679. Dined at the Countess of Sunderland's (age 33), and was this evening at the remarriage of the [her daughter] Duchess of Grafton (age 11) to the [her son-in-law] Duke (age 16) his Majesty's (age 49) natural son), she being now twelve years old. The ceremony was performed in my [her husband] Lord Chamberlain's (age 61) (her father's) lodgings at Whitehall by the Bishop of Rochester (age 54), his Majesty being present. A sudden and unexpected thing, when everybody believed the first marriage would have come to nothing; but, the measure being determined, I was privately invited by my Lady (age 45), her mother, to be present. I confess I could give her little joy, and so I plainly told her, but she said the King would have it so, and there was no going back. This sweetest, most hopeful, most beautiful, child, and most virtuous, too, was sacrificed to a boy that had been rudely bred, without anything to encourage them but his Majesty's pleasure. I pray God the sweet child find it to her advantage, who, if my augury deceive me not, will in a few years be such a paragon as were fit to make the wife of the greatest Prince in Europe! I staid supper, where his Majesty sat between the Duchess of Cleveland (age 38) (the mother of the Duke of Grafton) and the sweet Duchess the bride; there were several great persons and ladies, without pomp. My love to my Lord Arlington's family, and the sweet child made me behold all this with regret, though as the Duke of Grafton affects the sea, to which I find his father intends to use him, he may emerge a plain, useful and robust officer: and were he polished, a tolerable person; for he is exceedingly handsome, by far surpassing any of the King's other natural issue.

John Evelyn's Diary. 17th June 1683. I visited my Lady Arlington (age 49), groom of the stole to her Majesty (age 44), who being hardly set down to supper, word was brought her that the Queen was going into the park to walk, it being now near eleven at night; the alarm caused the Countess to rise in all haste, and leave her supper to us.

John Evelyn's Diary. 4th October 1683. I went to London, on receiving a note from the Countess of Arlington (age 49), of some considerable charge or advantage I might obtain by applying myself to his Majesty (age 53) on this signal conjuncture of his Majesty entering up judgment against the city charter; the proposal made me I wholly declined, not being well satisfied with these violent transactions, and not a little sorry that his Majesty was so often put upon things of this nature against so great a city, the consequence whereof may be so much to his prejudice; so I returned home. At this time, the Lord Chief-Justice Pemberton (age 59) was displaced. He was held to be the most learned of the judges, and an honest man. Sir George Jeffreys (age 38) was advanced, reputed to be most ignorant, but most daring. Sir George Treby, Recorder of London, was also put by, and one Genner, an obscure lawyer, set in his place. Eight of the richest and chief aldermen were removed and all the rest made only justices of the peace, and no more wearing of gowns, or chains of gold; the Lord Mayor and two sheriffs holding their places by new grants as custodes, at the King's pleasure. The pomp and grandeur of the most august city in the world thus changed face in a moment; which gave great occasion of discourse and thoughts of hearts, what all this would end in. Prudent men were for the old foundations.

On 28th July 1685 [her husband] Henry Bennet 1st Earl Arlington (age 67) died. His daughter [her daughter] Isabella (age 17) succeeded 2nd Countess Arlington, 2nd Viscountess Thetford, 2nd Baroness Arlington of Arlington in Middlesex and 2nd Baroness Arlington of Arlington in Middlesex.

John Evelyn's Diary. 23rd January 1686. I din'd at my Lady Arlington's (age 52), groome of the stole to the Queene Dowager (age 47), at Somerset House [Map], where din'd the Countesses of Devonshire (age 40), Dover (age 76), &c. in all 11 ladys of quality, no man but myselfe being there.

John Evelyn's Diary. 5th December 1686. I dined at my Lady Arlington's (age 52), Groom of the Stole to the Queen Dowager (age 48) at Somerset House [Map], where dined divers French noblemen, driven out of their country by the persecution.

Before 12th December 1688 [her sister] Emilia Nassau Beverweert Countess Ossory (age 53) died. She was buried 12th December 1688 in the Duke of Ormonde Vault, King Henry VII Chapel, Westminster Abbey.

In 1698 [her son-in-law] Thomas Hanmer 4th Baronet (age 20) and [her daughter] Isabella Bennet Duchess Grafton (age 30) were married. She by marriage Lady Hamner of Hamner in Flintshire. She the daughter of [her former husband] Henry Bennet 1st Earl Arlington and Elisabeth Nassau Beverweert Countess Arlington (age 64).

On 18th January 1718 Elisabeth Nassau Beverweert Countess Arlington (age 84) died.