- Excerpt from "Notices of an English Branch of the Malet Family", by Arthur Malet, published 1885, pp 48-49, appendices V1-V3:
JOHN MALET OF ENMORE.
John Malet, son of John Malet and the daughter of Sir John Tracy, married Untia Hawley,* daughter of Francis Lord Hawley; by her he had one child, his heiress-- he died in 1656:
1. Elizabeth Malet, married John Wilmot Earl of Rochester.
She was the subject of an outrage which is thus related:
Charing Cross in the time of Charles II was the scene of the forcible abduction of Elizabeth Malet (celebrated as the triste Heritiere of De Grammont) by the Earl of Rochester. She was the daughter of John Malet of Enmore, Somerset, and was possessed of a fortune of L.2,500 a year. One evening she had been supping at Whitehall with the beautiful Miss Stewart, afterwards Duchess of Richmond, and was returning home with her grandfather Lord Hawley, when their coach was suddenly arrested at Charing Cross; they were surrounded by a number of men, who seized and carried Miss Malet to another coach drawn by six horses with two females inside: it drove rapidly off, but was pursued, and Rochester was found near Uxbridge skulking by himself: he was committed to the Tower but, pardoned by King Charles, he afterwards married Elizabeth Malet, and had issue by her:
1. Charles Wilmot, third Earl of Rochester, died s. p., November 12th, 1681, buried at Spelsbury.
2. Ann Wilmot, married first to Henry Bayntun,** 1685; he died at Adderbury, Oxon, September 1st, 1691. Married second to Francis, son of Fulke Greville Lord Brooke. She died in 1703.
3. Elizabeth Wilmot, married Edward Montague, Earl of Sandwich; he died October 20th, 1729, aged fifty-seven; she died July 2nd, 1757.
4. Malet Wilmot, married John Vaughan, created first Viscount Lisburn, June 29th, 1695; he died 1721; she died August, 1716.
Elizabeth Lady Rochester died in 1681.***
Marginalia: The Enmore line of Malet closes.
* Untia Malet married as her second husband Sir John Warre, and by her had issue Sir Francis Warre, Bart., of Hestercombe.
** Henry Bayntun by his wife Ann Wilmot had one daughter, his heir, who was married to Edward Rolt, of Sacombe, Com: Hertsly, who had issue by her Edward Bayntun Rolt, who represented the borough of Chippenham in Parliament in the second and third Parliaments of King George II, and, by virtue of an Act made in the fifteenth year of that King, sold the manor of Enmore with other estates to James Smyth of St. Audries, from whom it was conveyed to the Earl of Egmont.
Bayntun, of Spye Park, Wilts, Esq/re, buried at Bremhill, June 19, 1691. To my son John Bayntun, all my manors, etc. My daughter Ann Bayntun on her marriage with Edward Henry Bayntun, son of my sister Lucy Bayntun.
*** Hatton Family Correspondence, Camden Society, Vol. II, p. __
Letter to the Countess of Manchester, August 2nd, 1681. "The young [the Dowager was living] Lady Rochester is dead suddenly of an apoplexie."
*** Bishop Burnet's Lives and Characters, etc., Jebb's edition, 1883, p. 245.
The Bishop is writing of Lord Rochester's last days:--"He told me that he had thereupon received the Sacrament with great satisfaction, and that was increased by the pleasure he had in his Lady's partaking it with him, who had been for some years misled into the Communion of the Church of Rome; and he himself had been not a little instrumental in procuring it, as he freely acknowledged; so that it was one of the joyfullest things which befell him in his sickness, that he had seen that mischief removed in which he had so great a hand. And during his whole sickness he expressed so much tenderness and true kindness to his lady that, as it easily defaced the remembrance of every thing wherein he had been in fault formerly, so it drew from her the most passionate care and concern for him that was possible, which indeed deserves a higher character than is decent to give to a person yet alive."
In each of the five letters which Burnet prints from the Dowager Countess to her sister Lady St. John, Lady Rochester is mentioned. In the P.S. to Letter III, the words are: "Before I sealed this I received yours and two waters for my son Ro; he and his Lady give you thanks and present their service to you."
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