Anne (Clarges) Monck (abt. 1619 - bef. 1688)

Born about 25 Mar 1619 in London, England

Wife of George Monck — married 23 Jan 1653 (to 3 Jan 1670) in St George the Martyr, Southwark, Surrey, England

Descendants

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Biography

Anne Clarges was born on the 25th of March 1619, the daughter of London farrier, John Clarges, and his wife, Anne Leaver. ^[1] On 28 February 1633 ^[1]at St Laurence, Poultney ^[2] she married Thomas Radford, ^[3] a farrier like her father ^[1] or a milliner of the New Exchange in the Strand. ^[4] She was not quite fourteen years old at the time but marrying so young was quite acceptable in the 17th century. The marriage is said to have lasted until 1649 when the couple separated. Anne was then thirty years old.

John Aubrey recounted that Anne worked as a seamstress and it was in the course of her work that she met George Monck then a prisoner in the Tower and they became lovers. ^[1] Monck was in the Tower for two years from January 1644 ^[5] so there is nothing improbable about the story and it could account for how Anne met a soldier who spent little time in London. However it was, Anne separated from Thomas who vanished from the scene. Four years later Anne and George married at St George, Southwark on the 23rd of January 1653. Whether she was actually a widow was of little moment at the time and since their son, Christopher, was born in August that year his arrival could well have been the motive for them to marry at that particular time. Their only other child, George, died in infancy.

In 1660, the republican experiment having failed, George, and Anne's brother, Thomas, were instrumental in organising the restoration of the monarchy. Thomas was knighted by a grateful king, Charles II, and on the 7th of July that year George was made Duke of Albemarle with Anne as his Duchess. Their son, Christopher, was granted the courtesy title of Earl of Torrington. ^[6] Samuel Pepys's observation that she was plain ^{[7] [8]} is perhaps belied by her portrait. ^[2]

That Anne was not above meddling in affairs ^[9] and that she was very unpopular in certain quarters is clear. ^[10] By 1666 Anne was very vexed about her husband's being at sea so much and wasn't afraid to say so. ^[11] Anne certainly made enemies and in so doing became the target for malicious gossip ^[12] Pepys who generally recorded the follies of his betters with sorrow had nothing good to say about the Duchess.

Her husband's health was failing and he spent the winter of 1667/8 sleeping in a chair and mostly they lived quietly at his New Hall estate but in the summer of 1669 they were able to entertain Cosimo, son of Ferdinando de Medici, ^[13] Grand Duke of Tuscany who deplored both Anne's coarse manners and her parsimony. George died of dropsy at the Cockpit on the 3rd of January 1670, surrounded by army officers as he had lived. A state funeral was planned by the King which meant that Anne had not buried her husband when she herself died on the 29th of January. She was buried in Westminster Abbey on the 29th of February.^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4} Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: George Monck; Ronald Hutton, ‘Monck , George, first Duke of Albemarle (1608–1670)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2012 accessed 14 Dec 2016
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} The peerage.com: Anne Clarges Cites: G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume I, page 89
3. ↑ London, England, Church of England Baptisms, Marriages and Burials (St Lawrence Pountney 28 Feb 1632 (OS) Thomas Radford of St Martin in the Fields married Anne Clargis) daughter of John Clargis a farrier)
4. ↑ History of Parliament online entry for George Monk her second husband [1]
5. ↑ Wikipedia: George Monck [2]
6. ↑ Wikipedia biography of her son, Christopher Monck [3]
7. ↑ Diary of Samuel Pepys: 8 March 1661 "At noon Sir W Batten, Colonel Slingsby and I by coach to the Tower, to Sir John Robinson's, to dinner, where a good cheer. High company; among others the Duchess of Albemarle, who is ever a plain homely dowdy. After dinner, to drink all the afternoon. Towards night the Duchess and ladies went away."
8. ↑ Diary of Samuel Pepys 9 December 1665 "At table the Duchess, a damned ill-looking woman, complaining of her Lord's going to sea the next year said these cursed words "If my lord had been a coward he had gone to sea no more: it may be then he might have been excused, and made an Embassadore" (meaning my Lord Sandwich). This made me mad, and I believe she perceived my countenance change, and blushed herself very much"
9. ↑ Diary of Samuel Pepys 8 March 1662 "In the Hall I met with Serjeant Pierce; and he and I to drink a cup of ale at the Swan, and there he told me how my Lady Monk hath disposed of all the places which Mr. Edwd. Montagu hoped to have had, as he was Master of Horse to the Queen; which I am afraid will undo him, because he depended much on the profit of what he should make by these places. He told me, also, many more scurvy stories of him and his brother Ralph, which troubles me to hear of persons of honour as they are."
10. ↑ Diary of Samuel Pepys: 26 February 1666 " my Lady Carteret comes................exclaims against the Duke of Albemarle, and more the Duchess for a filthy woman, as indeed she is."
11. ↑ Diary of Samuel Pepys 6 July 1666 "I dined with Sir G Carteret........... He tells me, too, the Duke of Albemarle is dissatisfied, and that the Duchesse do curse Coventry as the man that betrayed her husband to the sea: though I believe it is not so."
12. ↑ Diary of Samuel Pepys 17 November 1667 "...by and by comes Captain Cocke...............He told me that a certain lady, whom he knows, did tell him that, she being certainly informed that some of the members of the Duke of Albemarle's family did say that the Earl of Torrington was a bastard, did think herself concerned to tell the Duke of Albemarle of it, and did first tell the Duchesse, and was going to tell the old man, when the Duchesse pulled her back by the sleeve, and hindered her, swearing to her that if he should hear it, he would certainly kill the servant that should be found to have said it, and therefore prayed her to hold her peace. "
13. ↑ ODNB says they were visited by the Grand Duke of Tuscany, but it was Cosimo, who did not become the Grand Duke until his father's death in 1670

Anne Clarges was a member of the aristocracy in British Isles.