Sir Peter Lely 1618-1680

three-quarter length, seated, wearing a red dress and blue robes, picking flowers from a sculptured urn

Anon. sale, Sotheby's, 12th April 1995, lot 26, where acquired by the present owner

The sitter was the only surviving daughter and sole heiress of Josceline, 11th and last Earl of Northumberland (1644-1670).  At the age of four, she succeeded to all the Percy estates and held six of the oldest baronies in Britain.  She was brought up by her formidable grandmother, Elizabeth, Dowager Countess of Northumberland, who was the daughter of Theophilus, Earl of Suffolk.  Her grandmother refused on her behalf the hand of Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond, but consented to her marriage in 1679 to the sickly Henry Cavendish, Earl of Ogle.  He died within a year, and she was then married to Thomas Thynne of Longleat, known as 'Tom of the Ten Thousand' from whom she fled to Lady Temple in the Hague.  Thynne was assasainated in February 1682, apparently at the instigation of Count Charles Konigsmark, a rival suitor for her hand.  Three months later, now aged fifteen, she married Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset (1662-1748).  Known as 'The Proud Duke' he was a handsome courtier who was later to become a favourite of Queen Anne.  She succeeded the Duchess of Marlborough as Mistress of the Robes and Groom of the Stole to Queen Anne.  Swift was a notable enemy and wrote a lampoon on her in 1711 entitled The Windsor Prophecy in which he reproached her for Thynne's murder.  The Duchess died on 23rd November 1722 leaving three sons, the eldest of whom, Algernon, Earl of Hertford, later became 7th Duke of Somerset.  Of her three daughters, Elizabeth married Henry O'Brien, Earl of Thomond, Catherine, married Sir William Wyndham, and Anne married Peregrine Osborne, later Duke of Leeds.