Henrietta FitzJames

Henrietta FitzJames' mother, Arabella Churchill (23 February 1648 – 30 May 1730), was the mistress of King James II, and the mother of four of his children. Arabella was the child of Sir Winston Churchill (an ancestor of the Prime Minister of the same name) and Elizabeth Drake. An older sister of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, Arabella began her relationship with King James II, then Duke of York, around 1665, while he was still married to Anne Hyde. Arabella became the duchess's lady-in-waiting in that year, and gave birth to Henrietta and one other child during Anne's lifetime.

Henrietta FitzJames

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Henrietta FitzJames (1667 – April 3, 1730), the Dowager Lady Waldegrave and titular Countess of Newcastle, was an illegitimate daughter of James Stuart, Duke of York, afterward James II, King of Great Britain, by his mistress, Arabella Churchill, herself sister of the great Duke of Marlborough.

Henrietta was sister to the celebrated James FitzJames, Duke of Berwick. She was brought up a Roman Catholic, and married into a family of the same religion. On November 29, 1683 she married Henry Waldegrave, 1st Baron Waldegrave and by him had two children:

Arabella;

James.

She accompanied her father and his queen in their exile, and lived some years at St. Germains. After Waldegrave's death in 1689, Lady Waldegrave married Piers Butler, 3rd Viscount of Galmoye on 3 April 1695. He was created the Earl of Newcastle. The marriage was childless. She died in 1730 and was buried in at Navestock.

She is an ancestor of the Earls Spencer and Diana, Princess of Wales.

[edit]References

The peerage page