Frances (Brydges) Cecil (1580 - 1663)

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Biography

Early Life

Frances Brydges was born in 1580, the oldest daughter of William Brydges, 4th Baron Chandos of Sudeley and Mary Hopton.^[1] She had two younger siblings, a brother Grey and a sister Beatrice.

Frances grew up at Sudeley Castle in a beautiful part of the Cotswolds near Winchcombe, Gloucestershire. In 1592 when Frances was twelve years old, Queen Elizabeth I came to Sudeley to celebrate the fourth anniversary of her victory over the Spanish Armada.^[2] It would be hard to overstate how large an impression this occasion may have made on the young Frances.

Frances's father, William Brydges, died in November of 1601.^[3] His death precipitated events that marked the ending of Frances's days at Sudeley Castle.

Marriage to Sir Thomas Smith

The exact date of Frances's marriage to Thomas Smith is unknown but is thought to have been sometime before 1604. ^[1] Thomas was well known to Frances's family, her uncle Giles Brydges (3rd Baron Chandos) having exerted his influence to get him selected as MP for Cricklade in 1589, ^{[1] [4]} and despite an age difference of over twenty years all indications were that this was a very happy marriage.

The couple divided their time between their home in Westminster and an estate at Parsons Green, Fulham. His rising political career made them prominent in court society and Frances became a popular hostess.^[1]

Frances and Thomas Smith had two children:

• Robert Smith, baptised Aug 1605
• Margaret (Smith) (Carey) Herbert

Beginning in the summer of 1607, however, Thomas's health began failing and he underwent many costly and ineffective medical treatments. He was an invalid for the last year of his life and died in their home at Parsons Green on 28 November 1609. ^[4] Frances was inconsolable. She had an elaborate, ten foot tall monument erected in the chancel of the church at Fulham in Thomas's memory with the following inscription:

D.O.M.|Thomae Smitho Eqviti Avrato Regiae Mati|A Supplicvm Libellis et ab epistolis Latinus|Viro Doctrina Prvdentiaq. Singvlari|Francisca Gvil: Baronis Chandos filia|Opt. Marito conivx Moestiss.|Plorans posvit|Obitxxviii.

Translation: To the Glory of Almighty God. To Sir Thomas Smith, knight, Master of Requests and Latin Secretary to the King's Majesty, a man of remarkable learning and foresight, Frances, daughter of William, Baron Chandos, his most disconsolate wife, weeping, has erected [this monument] to her excellent husband. He died [the] 28th day of November 1609.^[5]

Frances was left a widow at the age of 29, with a four year old son and an infant daughter. Her husband left his estate (said to be worth £20,000) to his young son and his will named Frances as executor, with the rights to enjoy the profits from the estate during the remainder of her lifetime.^{[1] [4]}

Marriage to Thomas Cecil

Late in 1610 Frances married Thomas Cecil, 1st earl of Exeter. ^[1] She was thirty years old and held to be "a young fayre widow." ^[4] Thomas Cecil was sixty-eight and had lost his first wife (to whom he was married for 45 years) the previous year. Because of the large discrepancy between their ages court society did not completely approve of this marriage. ^[6] Thomas Cecil held many influential positions including president of the council of the north and member of the privy council. Frances threw herself into the role of political hostess by holding lavish entertainments at the earl's palatial home at Wimbledon.^[1] There was one child from this marriage, a daughter:

• Georgiana Cecil, b 13 Jul 1616^[7]

The year that Georgiana was born was also the year that Frances was dragged into an explosive scandal involving her husband's grandson, William Cecil, Lord de Ros.

Scandal

On 12 February 1616 William Cecil married Anne Lake, daughter of Sir Thomas Lake (secretary of state). ^[8] From the beginning it was an unhappy marriage. Two months later he was selected as ambassador-extraordinary to Spain. For various reasons he was forced to personally raise the cash for the embassy there, and did that by mortgaging the most lucrative part of his estate, Walthamstow Manor, to Anne's father. Lord Lake then brought political pressure to bear to make it difficult for William to repay this mortgage debt, in an attempt to force him to sign the property completely over to his wife Anne. At the same time Anne and her mother, Lady Lake, applied pressure of their own: they blackmailed William by threatening to publicly reveal he was sexually impotent and to have the marriage nullified. ^[8] When William Cecil departed for Spain he left behind a brewing scandal.

Thomas Cecil intervened at this point in an effort to protect his grandson's financial interests, and the transfer of Walthamstow Manor to Lady Anne did not go through. When William returned to England there was an attempt at a reconciliation with Lady Anne and for a brief time they both lived together at his grandfather's estate at Wimbledon, but the relationship deteriorated quickly and William fled to Italy in August 1617. He died there the following summer.^[1] Lady Anne and her parents, Lord and Lady Lake, were furious. Lady Anne believed that Frances, the young countess of Exeter, had influenced her husband to intervene on William's behalf and she was determined to wreak vengeance. Both she and her parents publicly accused Frances of having an incestuous relationship with her step-grandson.^[9] These allegations were not generally believed but did have some plausibility. The large age difference between Thomas Cecil and Frances made it easier to believe she may have had an affair with the younger man.^[1] Not satisfied with this attempt to smear Frances's reputation, Lady Anne next alleged that Frances had tried to poison her while she and William had lived at Wimbledon. She and her mother produced letters to William purportedly written by Frances (later proven to be forgeries) and two witnesses (one of them a maid of Lady Anne) to the 'incestuous' acts (whose testimony was later recanted).^[1]

This was too much for the earl and countess of Exeter and they filed suit against Lady Anne and her parents in Star Chamber. Investigations began in 1618 and during the first five days of February, 1619, King James himself presided over the trial in the Star Chamber. It was melodramatic in the extreme, involving the revealing of the forgeries which the Lakes had attributed to the countess, a trip to Wimbledon where King James witnessed first-hand that the spot where Lady Anne's maid testified she stood while spying upon the countess and William in bed together would have rendered it physically impossible for her to see any such thing, and the eventual recanting of both witnesses who the Lakes had produced.^[10] Lady Anne and her parents received substantial fines and were imprisoned in the Tower of London until such time as they were willing to write their confessions and apologies. By June, Lady Anne and her father had both done this and been released. Lady Lake however held out for almost two years, refusing to admit that she may have been at fault in any way. ^[10]

Frances was completely vindicated and from all accounts continued to be well accepted among her social peers. In 1623 Gervase Markham published a second edition of his wildly popular book Countrey Contentments, or the English Huswife: containing the inward and outward vertues which ought to be in a compleate woman and he dedicated the volume to Frances, a woman he called "honorable and most virtuous" with "rare and unparalleled knowledge." ^[11] Nevertheless there can be no doubt that the public accusations and trial were traumatic experiences for the young countess. Her daughter Georgianna was less than one year old when the Lakes first began to make their accusations against Frances public.

Later life

During 1621 Thomas Cecil's and Frances's young daughter Georgiana died at the age of five. ^[7] Also on August 10th of that year Frances's brother Grey died unexpectedly while in Germany. ^[3] By the latter part of the following year (1622) her husband, Thomas Cecil, had become seriously ill, and he died on 7 February 1623. ^[12] Frances was once again a widow, and she returned to the estate at Parsons Green to take up residence there. On 23 October 1624 her mother Mary (Hopton) Brydges died,^[3] one more loss for Frances to absorb.

Around this same time (or possibly during the following year) Frances's daughter Margaret married Thomas Carey, second son of the earl of Monmouth. ^[1] Early in 1626 Frances's son Robert died at the age of 21, ^[1] leaving his sister as heir to the Fulham estates. Frances continued living at Parsons Green until 1632, when she moved from the house in order to give it to her daughter and son-in-law. ^[1] It is unclear where Frances spent the remainder of her life. She lived to mourn the death of her son-in-law and to celebrate her daughter's (second) marriage to Edward Herbert, an influential Royalist who eventually was forced to flee England in disgrace and whose lands were sequestered. The family home at Parsons Green was also lost, having been transferred to Herbert at the time of Margaret's marriage to him. The rebellion took a heavy toll on Frances's family. She died in 1663 (sometime between 20 January when she wrote her will ^[13] and 17 July when it was proved) at the age of 83. Although a space had been reserved for her on Exeter's monument in Westminster Abbey, she chose rather to be buried in Winchester Cathedral.^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13} Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry for 'Cecil [nee Brydges; other married name Smith], Frances, countess of Exeter', 23 Sep 2004, revised 25 May 2006. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/70625
2. ↑ Digital Dig Team: "Sudeley Castle." https://digventures.com/sudeley-castle/background/history-of-sudeley-castle/
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2} 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 III, page 127.
4. ↑ ^{4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3} Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry for 'Smith, Sir Thomas', 23 Sep 2004, revised 03 Jan 2008. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/25907
5. ↑ Feret, C.J. Fulham Old and New, 1900, vol. 1, pp. 221-222. The monument is surmounted by the following arms: Dexter: Az., a lion rampant or, langued gu., on a chief arg., three torteaux (Smith). Sinister: Quarterly, (1) and (4), Arg., on a cross sa., a leopard's face or (Brydges); (2) Or, a pile gu. (Chandos); (3), Arg., a fess between three mortlets sa. (Berkeley); over all a crescent gu., for difference. Photograph of monument on p. 222. https://www.ancestry.co.uk/interactive/34874/00000001?backurl=&ssrc=&backlabel=Return#?imageId=00000254
6. ↑ History of Parliament Online, entry for ’CECIL, Thomas (1542-1623), of Burghley House, Lincs. and Wimbledon, Surr.’ https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/cecil-thomas-1542-1623
7. ↑ ^{7.0 7.1} W H Charlton, Burghley: The Life of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Lord High Treasurer of England, pub. W Langley, Stamford, Lincolnshire, 1847, pp. 122 and 126, Google Books https://books.google.com.br/books?id=8uQ5AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22earl+of+exeter%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmoKjFvarWAhUFULwKHcKAA5k4KBC7BQhRMAc#v=onepage&q=%22earl%20of%20exeter%22&f=false
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1} Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry for Cecil, William, sixteenth Baron Ros (1590-1618), pub. 23 Sep 2004, revised 25 May 2006. https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-70619
9. ↑ Samuel Rawson Gardiner. Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage: 1617-1623, Vol. I, Hurst and Blackett, London, 1869, p 161. https://archive.org/details/princecharlesan00gardgoog/page/n184
10. ↑ ^{10.0 10.1} Samuel Rawson Gardiner. Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage: 1617-1623, Vol. I, Hurst and Blackett, London, 1869, pp. 159-164, https://archive.org/details/princecharlesan00gardgoog/page/n184
11. ↑ Markham, Gervase. Countrey Contentments, or the English Housewife Containing the Inward and Outward Vertues Which Ought to be in a Complete Woman. London: Longmans, Green, 1901. https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:heh898zor
12. ↑ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, entry for ’ Cecil, Thomas, first earl of Exeter', 2004, revised online 2008 https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-1012556?rskey=tf7KLr&result=3
13. ↑ Will of Frances Countess of Exeter, Dowager. British National Archives, catalogue reference: PROB11/311/498. See 'images' section of this profile for a pdf copy of Frances's will.