1613-1680. She married Sir Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath, in 1638, and then Lionel Cranfield, third Earl of Middlesex (1625-1674), whom she married in May 1655 six months after the death of her first husband.
Fane, Lady Rachel (Countess of Bath)
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References
Chart showing the number of references in each month of the diary’s entries.
1660
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1666
- Dec
5 Annotations
Second Reading
Bill • Link
The manor [Basildon] subsequently came into the possession of the Fane family. Rachel, Countess of Bath (fifth daughter of Francis, first Earl of Westmoreland), who married, firstly, Henry Bourchier, last Earl of Bath, who died in 1654; and secondly, Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Middlesex; bequeathed the manor of Basildon to her nephew, Sir Henry Fane, K.B., whose son Charles Fane, Esq., was created, in 1711, Viscount Fane and Baron of Loughgayre, in the kingdom of Ireland. The Countess of Bath was born in 1613; and died 11 Nov. 1680. She was buried at Tavistock. co. Devon. Probably this manor was bequeathed to her by her first husband.
---Transactions of the Newbury District Field Club. 4:102, 1895
Terry Foreman • Link
Lady Rachel, Countess of Bath
by Anthony van Dyck, 1638
http://www.thepeerage.com/e11819.…
Terry Foreman • Link
On 13 December 1638 at the age of 50, Henry Bourchier, by now 5th Earl of Bath, married at St. Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield (the Mildmay family church), to 25-year-old Rachael Fane (1612/13–1680), the fifth daughter of Francis Fane, 1st Earl of Westmorland by his wife Mary Mildmay (d. 1640), daughter and eventual sole heiress of Sir Anthony Mildmay (d. 1617), of Apethorpe Hall, Northamptonshire. The marriage was childless.
Rachel's monument exists in St Peter's Church, Tawstock, in Devon, given by the Diocese of Bath and Wells, a white marble life-size standing female figure by Balthasar Burman, a replica of the statue made in 1671/2 by his father Thomas Burman of Mary Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (1556–1632) situated in a niche in the Shrewsbury Tower of Second Court, the building of which she financed, in St John's College, Oxford. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hen…
Third Reading
San Diego Sarah • Link
Bourchier, Rachel, Countess of Bath (1613 -1680)
Rachel Fane was the daughter of Francis Fane, 1st Earl of Westmorland, and Mary daughter and heir of Sir Anthony Mildmay.
She married firstly Henry Bourchier, Earl of Bath, who died in 1654.
Rachel Fane Bourchier, Countess of Bath, married secondly Lionel Cranfield, 3rd Earl of Middlesex, in 1655, but retained her precedency as Countess of Bath by royal warrant.
She and the Earl of Middlesex were separated on 13 June 1661 granted by the Court of Arches, on the grounds of cruelty and desertion. '
She presented collections of books to the value of £200 decorated with this stamp to Emmanuel College Cambridge in 1659, and made a similar gift to Trinity College Dublin in 1671.
https://armorial.library.utoronto…
San Diego Sarah • Link
Rachel Fane (1612/13–1680), the fifth daughter of Francis Fane, 1st Earl of Westmorland by his wife Mary Mildmay (d. 1640), daughter and eventual sole heiress of Sir Anthony Mildmay (d. 1617), of Apethorpe Hall, Northamptonshire.
Apethorpe Hall was where Rachel grew up -- she would have been one when King James first laid eyes on George Villiers there in 1614.
James loved the place so much he paid to have the house extended to accommodate his friends on their repeated visits -- and during 21st century rennovations they found a secret passage way between the King's bedchamber and another bedroom!!!!
http://www.thecrownchronicles.co.…
As an impressionable child, Rachel was exposed to how wealthy women ruled their homes, and to the lives of the rich and famous.
And she wrote about it all -- her unpublished manuscripts have been found and are now held at the Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone,
Her surviving writings includes not only drama and poetry but also a set of accounts compiled during her first marriage with Henry Bourchier, 5th Earl of Bath, covering the period 1639-1654. These accounts, and Lady Rachel’s earlier dramatic work, place her in an economy of commodities and luxury goods — silks, sugar, sables — that by the 1620s was entwined with English trade, colonialism, and the transatlantic slave trade.
Fane was also connected with the English colonial adventures in Ireland through the Earl of Bath, who owned large estates in Limerick and Armagh which the Countess of Bath passed on to her nephew, Sir Henry Fane.
The mid-17th century, when Lady Rachel Fane was writing, saw the expansion of English colonization and its exploitation of enforced African and indigenous labor, increasing attempts to limit the political agency of children, and the reconfiguration of the family and the domestic sphere. All of these developments are reflected in her work.
Her social position also meant that her portrait was painted at least 4 times.
The Countess of Bath was not a published author, but for women's study students today she has left us invaluable clues to how wealthy women lived and thought in the mid-17th century.
Info gleaned from https://emctc.tome.press/chapter/… -- skip the first half of the article which has nothing to do with her. It also has a picture of Apethorpe and 4 of her portraits -- she was beautiful.