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Lot 53
WILLIAM III Warrant signed ("William R" at head) and counter-signed by the First Lord of the Treasury, Sidney, Earl of Godolphin, and his fellow lords, Stephen Fox, Charles Montague, William Trumbull and John Smith, addressed to the Commissioners of the Treasury, Kensington, 4 May 1695
24 June 2015, 11:00 BST
London, Knightsbridge£1,000 - £1,500
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WILLIAM III
Warrant signed ("William R" at head) and counter-signed by the First Lord of the Treasury, Sidney, Earl of Godolphin, and his fellow lords, Stephen Fox, Charles Montague, William Trumbull and John Smith, addressed to the Commissioners of the Treasury, and directing that £850 be paid "unto Our Right Trusty and Right Welbeloved Cousin Dorothy Countess of Dorchester" as "Our free guift and Royall bounty to her for and towards the maintenance and Support of her daughter the Lady Katherine Darnley"; half crown duty blindstamp at head; with two dockets later attached, 1 page, integral leaf removed, laid down, slightly browned in the margins, folio, Kensington, 4 May 1695
Footnotes
ʻOUR FREE GUIFT AND ROYALL BOUNTY' – A GRANT BY WILLIAM III TO THE DAUGHTER AND MISTRESS OF JAMES II.
Catharine Sedley, beneficiary of the present grant, was daughter of the Restoration poet and wit, Sir Charles Sedley. She had been the mistress of James II, when Duke of York. After his accession, the King broke off their affair, as a moral example to the Court, but granted her a pension and created her suo jure Countess of Dorchester. Lady Katherine Dudley was the only one of her children by the Duke to survive into maturity. Lady Dorchester clearly inherited a measure of her father's wit: ʻCatharine became a familiar figure at Whitehall, Barillon describing her as clever, but very pale and thin. She soon supplanted Arabella Churchill (whom she excelled both in ugliness and impudence) in the good graces of the Duke of York. Charles II conjectured that she must have been prescribed to his brother by his confessor as a sort of penance. Dorset made some rather brutal attacks upon her lack of beauty and love of finery... Catharine herself was astonished at the violence of the ducal passion. "It cannot be my beauty," she said, "for he must see I have none; and it cannot be my wit, for he has not enough to know that I have any"' (Thomas Seccombe, DNB).
Nor did she let the accession of William III and James's legitimate daughter, Queen Mary, cramp her style: ʻThe countess certainly made no secret of her lack of respect for the new king and queen. Presented at court in April 1689, she offended Queen Mary by telling her that "If I have broke one commandement, you have another; and what I did wase more naturall"... A remark made to the earl of Ailesbury at about the same time implied that she wanted William III assassinated... In July 1690 she was called in for questioning by the government and remained a major suspect. Despite this, she successfully claimed part of her pension' (Andrew Barclay, ODNB).
This grant is listed in the Calendar of Treasury Books, Volume 10, 1693-1696, Lady Dorchester's name, incidentally, being given as Dorothy in all such Treasury Book entries (see also the digitised text, courtesy British History Online). See illustration overleaf.