Charles John Gardiner, 1st and last Earl of Blessington

Charles John Gardiner, 1st and last Earl of Blesington

• Born on 19 July 1782.
• Son of Luke Gardiner, 1st Viscount Mountjoy and Elizabeth Montgomery.
• Married, firstly, Mary Campbell Macdougall, daughter of Alexander Macdougall and Anne Hay, on 11 July 1812 at St. George's Church, St. George Street, Hanover Square, London, England.
• Married, secondly, Margaret Power, daughter of Edmund Power and Ellen Sheehy, on 16 February 1818 at St. Mary's Church, Bryanston Square, Marylebone, London, England.
• Died on 25 May 1829 at age 46 at Hôtel Maréchal-Ney, Paris, France, from apoplexy, without surviving male issue. * His will was proven (by probate) in May 1830.
• Educated at Eton College, Windsor, Berkshire, England.
• Succeeded to the title of 2nd Viscount Mountjoy [I., 1795] on 5 June 1798.
• Held the office of Representative Peer (Whig) [Ireland] between 1809 and 1829.
• Created 1st Earl of Blesington, [U.K.] on 12 January 1816.
• Held the office of Governor of County Tyrone.

On his death, both of his peerages became extinct.1

Children of Charles John Gardiner, 1st and last Earl of Blesington and Mary Campbell Macdougall

• Lady Harriett Anne Janes Frances Gardiner+1 b. 5 Aug 1812, d. 17 Dec 1869
• Luke Wellington Gardiner, Viscount Mountjoy4 b. 11 Sep 1813, d. 26 Mar 1823

http://www.thepeerage.com/p3714.htm#i37136

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Charles John Gardiner, 1st Earl of Blessington (1782 – 25 May 1829)

• Irish earl best known for his marriage to Margaret Farmer, née Power, whom he married at St Mary's, Bryanston Square, London, on 16 February 1818 (only four months after her first husband's death).
• Elected a representative peer in 1809,
• Created Earl of Blessington in 1816,
• Inherited the title of Viscount Mountjoy in 1829.

He was present at the trial of Queen Caroline.

After she left her first unhappy marriage, Margaret Power had stayed for almost three years with her parents, then moved to Cahir, in 1809 to Dublin, and from 1809-1814 with a Dublin acquaintance, Captain Thomas Jenkins, of the 11th light dragoons, with whom she formed a close relationship. It was during her Hampshire stay that she met Gardiner, 7 years her senior. (Gardiner's first wife died sometime after 1812, having borne him two illegitimate children prior to their marriage and two legitimate children, Lady Harriet Gardiner and Luke Wellington Gardiner, Viscount Mountjoy). Jenkins received £10,000 from Gardiner to cover the jewels and clothing that he had purchased for Margaret, buying his approval for Gardiner's and Power's marriage, after which she changed her name to Marguerite.

Honeymooning in Ireland, they returned to a newly leased town mansion at 10 St. James's Square, London, in 1820. This address (now the base of Chatham House) soon became a social centre, but their heavy spending and extravagant tastes meant that, despite his annual income of £30,000 from his Irish estates, they were soon both heavily in debt. On 25 August 1822 they set out for a continental tour with Marguerite's youngest sister, the twenty-one-year-old Mary Anne, and servants. They met Count D'Orsay (who had first become an intimate of Lady Blessington in London in 1821) in Avignon on 20 November 1822, before settling at Genoa for four months from 31 March 1823. There they met Byron on several occasions, giving Lady Blessington material for her "Conversations with Lord Byron".

After that they settled for the most part in Naples, also spending time in Florence with their friend Walter Savage Landor, author of the "Imaginary Conversations" greatly admired by Lady Blessington. It was in Italy, on 1 December 1827, that Count D'Orsay married Harriet Gardiner to strengthen the tie between himself and her stepmother Lady Blessington. The Blessingtons and the new couple moved to Paris towards the end of 1828, taking up residence in the Hôtel Maréchal Ney, where the Earl suddenly died at forty-six of an apopleptic stroke in 1829. D'Orsay and his wife then accompanied Lady Blessington to England, but the couple soon separated. D'Orsay lived with Lady Blessington until her death, and she let out the Earl's St James's house.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Gardiner,_1st_Earl_of_Blessington