Amelia Sophia Spencer

Amelia was the youngest of 8 children of the 4th Duke of Marlborough. The Duke was opposed to Amelia's marriage to Henry Boyce because he was considered below her station. Her father at first persuaded her to give him up, but "during the last days of her mother's long illness, Lady Amelia was observed conducting clandestine interviews with her lover in the park. Lord Francis (her brother) intervened and Amelia told him that she intended to wait until some time after her mother's death, when she would ask her father for his consent to her marriage. We hear no more details - but Lady Amelia Spencer was married to Captain Boyce in September 1812. And it was well indeed that the aging and now lonely Duke did not alienate another daughter, for in this same year death swept away 47-year-old Elizabeth (married to her cousin John Spencer); and a year later Caroline (wife of Viscount Clifden) would die, aged forty-four - so only two of the five lively daughters, Anne, Countess of Shaftesbury, and Amelia Boyce, would remain to enlighten his darkling years".

QUOTE from "The Profligate Duke" by Mary Soames, pages 137 - 138

Her sister Charlotte also married beneath her station. She married Edward Nares, who's father was a former MP for Oxford. She never visited Blenheim again (see notes for Charlotte).

On page 28 of the Soames' book, Amelia at age 22 was described as "rather pretty, but looks formal and not at ease. They say the Duchess has always been a most disagreeable mother, indeed, some go so far as to say an unnatural one, ...".