Sir Andrew Bayntun-Rolt

Sir Andrew Bayntun-Rolt, 2nd Baronet (c. 1740–1816) was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1780 to 1786. .

Baynton-Rolt was the eldest son of Sir Edward Bayntun-Rolt, 1st Baronet and his wife Mary Poynter of Herriard, Hampshire. He married firstly Lady Mary Alicia Coventry daughter of George Coventry, 6th Earl of Coventry, on 28 June 1772.[1] She became involved in an adulterous relationship with John Allen Cooper and the couple were divorced on 24 June 1783.[2] He married secondly Anna Maria Maude. He succeeded his father in the baronetcy on 3 January 1800.[1]

Bayntun-Rolt was returned unopposed as Member of Parliament for Weobley on the interest of Lord Weymouth at a by-election on 31 March1780. He was returned unopposed again at the ensuing general election of 1780, and again in 1784. There is no record of his having spoken in the House. He appears to have been used as a placeholder as he resigned his seat in April 1786 when Weymouth’s eldest son was old enough to sit for Parliament.[3]

Bayntun Rolt died on 12 August 1816. He had no surviving male issue and the title became extinct on his death in 1816. His estate went to his only surviving daughter[1]

Sir Andrew Bayntun-Rolt?

Andrew Bayntun Rolt was born on 28th September 1755 at Spye Park House, in the county of Wiltshire. He was the fourth son of Sir Edward Bayntun Rolt.

Sir Edward and his wife, Dame Mary Poynter, had seven children prior to this, but the first six, born before 1752 were considered illegitimate when the law changed that year, declaring marriage by custom and repute to be illegal. This meant that neither of Sir Edward's three sons could be regarded as a legal heir in the event of his death, so he and his wife remarried in secret.

Their seventh child was a daughter, before the birth of Andrew some years later in 1755, which gave Sir Edward his rightful and legal heir.

On the 28th June 1777 Andrew Bayntun Rolt married The Right Honourable Lady Maria Alicia Coventry, who was the eldest daughter of The Right Honourable, George William, the 6th Earl of Coventry. This marriage took place at her father's house in Piccadilly, in the Parish of St. George, Hanover Square and was performed by the Rev. St. Andrew St. John, clerk, a priest or member in holy orders of the Church of England, by virtue of a special licence granted for that purpose, by his Grace, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

The couple had first met and became acquainted a year earlier and were both 21 years of age at the time of their marriage. The witnesses who signed the marriage certificate were The Earl of Coventry, Sir Edward Bayntun Rolt (Andrew's father), Anne Coventry, William Harris and John Coventry. Some years earlier, Lady Coventry had an altercation with a certain Kitty Fisher, one of the most famous 18th century courtesans, known for her beauty and wit, and the mistress of several well-known men of the day, including Maria's husband, the Earl of Coventry and probably Casanova. Kitty maintained a certain rivalry with the Earl's wife and when they met in a London park, Lady Coventry admired her dress and asked her the name of her dressmaker. Kitty replied that she had better ask Lord Coventry as he had given it to her as a gift.

Lady Coventry called her an impertinent woman, but Kitty answered that her marrying a nutty Lord had put enough social difference between them that she would have to withstand the insult. But that she was going to marry one herself just to be able to answer back to her.

On the 30th June 1777, two days after their marriage, Maria Alicia Bayntun wrote a letter to her stepmother, Lady Barbara Coventry, from her new home, Battle House, in the village of Bromham. An extract from this letter reads: "We arrived here today by dinner time and took a walk around the park in the company of Mrs Forster, Miss Bayntun, Sir Edward and Mr Bayntun. I don't think it polite to write a long letter in their company. Sir Edward and Mr Bayntun wishes to be remembered to my father and I ask you to urge my sister Anne and my brother to answer".

Andrew and Maria Bayntun's first-born daughter, Mary, died a few days after her birth, but in 1780 they had another daughter, Maria Barbara, and the couple made their home at Battle House (the Dower House), situated next to the church in Bromham village.

However Maria had an affair with Andrew's nephew, John Allen Cooper in 1781, a 21 year old officer in the 20th Regiment of foot who had served with his regiment in America during the War of Independence. He was the son of his older sister, Mary (1740 - 1784), who lived at Comberwell, two miles north of Bradford on Avon. Maria had been seeing him regularly, in secret, for 10 months or more as he was very friendly with the couple and resided with them for some time at Battle House.

He was a gentleman of great personal charm and attractions, and the wife and mother forgot her two-fold duties with many stolen meetings with her new lover. Andrew and John enjoyed riding with the hounds and often hunted with a pack belonging to the Bayntuns. He was a Member of Parliament for Weobly, Hertfordshire and therefore spent quite some time in London.

The affair was first noted at the beginning of September 1781 by Andrew's brother, the Rev. Henry Bayntun, when he visited the house on three separate occasions and saw the couple romping together and kissing each other. Mary Nash, who was Lady Maria's personal maid and some of the other servants of the house were also aware of the affair and had seen them together on many occasions. Sir Andrew, at this time, was in London attending Parliament.

On the 9th December, Edward Baldwyn, one of the servants at Battle House, rode to Spye Park, the residence of Andrew's father – Sir Edward Bayntun Rolt and acquainted him of what he and the other servants had seen. Sir Edward asked Baldwyn to tell the same to the Rev. Henry Bayntun.

Andrew arrived home from London on Monday 10th December, and complying with Sir Edward's instructions, the Rev. Henry Bayntun, his brother, duly informed him of the affair. Later Henry was called to the drawing room at Battle House, as was Cooper, where Andrew immediately summoned and confronted his wife, who was pregnant at the time. He asked her to confess to the affair, which at first she denied, but eventually stated she had lain with Cooper on several occasions. Andrew asked her if the child she was carrying was his or Coopers. Upon learning it was not his, he asked for the return of her wedding ring and banished she and Cooper from his house. Andrew and Maria never laid eyes on each other again from that day.

The following day, Maria sent her maid to personally deliver a letter to Andrew. In it, she begged his forgiveness and stated that although she had now become bitter enemies of both his mother and father, and in their eyes a wicked woman, she pleaded with him to believe that she would not be wicked enough to ever deceive him again and stated that she still held a glimmer of hope that he would be hers again.

But without a reply, she and Cooper, set off from the Greyhound Inn to his mother's house in Cumberwell where they lived together for a short while. Nothing further is known of the baby she was carrying when she left.

Divorce was rare at this time but on the 15th February 1783 it was granted to Andrew Bayntun Rolt by an Act of Parliament. Andrew was, at first, inconsolable and despite her shameless actions, he long lamented the mother of his only child. However Cooper treated Maria with cruelty and brutality. The heartless destroyer of her life and fame, finished the dismal tragedy, shutting up her corpse in the house alone, until the rats had actually eaten part of her body. Yet this man was afterwards admitted to the best society and admired by all the ladies. Death at least put an end to her sufferings and the young, elegant and accomplished Lady Maria, nurtured upon the bosom of indulgence, died in a low house, without a single friend or attendant to minister her last wants or a charitable hand to close her dying eyes. She died on the 18th January 1784 at the age of 29.

In 1787 Andrew married Anna Maria Maude, but this marriage failed to produce any children and he entered into a series of relationships that would eventually see him father many more children. Anna Maria outlived Andrew and died in 1827. Her will was proved at London on the 25th October 1827 and she had been living at Walcot in the County of Somerset prior to her death.

In 1788 Andrew's father, Sir Edward Bayntun Rolt, was forced to declare his granddaughter, Maria Barbara, first in the entail of the Bayntun estate when she was just 8 years old, which meant she would inherit her father's estate upon his death. The divorce meant that she would be Andrew's only legal and legitimate heiress.

Sir Andrew, in his early life, possessed very high moral qualities, but the misconduct of his first wife, to whom he was fondly attracted, altered his nature and he became a more carefree and reckless character.

He had two girlfriends – Harriet Maria Poynter who bore him 13 children and Ann Power who gave him another six – but many of these children died young. Andrew is said to have lavished a lot of money on his illegitimate children.

In July 1797, Andrew's eldest daughter, Maria Barbara, eloped with the Reverend John Starky, the Rector of Charlinch, Somerset much to the surprise of the family.

A Roman building was first discovered by Sir Andrew Bayntun, about the end of the 18th century, and was subsequently investigated by Sir. R. Colt Hoare in 1810. The "dig" took place on the site, situated in a field called West or Wyatt's Park on the old Bromham Park estate.

Then in 1800, Andrew inherited the Bayntun estate and the Lordship of the Manor of Bromham, after the death of his father, Sir Edward, and afterwards moved into Spye Park House.

He was made High Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1802 and in 1803 he sold the Manor of Clench to Thomas Bruce, the Earl of Ailesbury. Clench had been Bayntun property since the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538.

By 1806, Andrew was no longer living at Spye Park, but at Percy House, Lower East Hayes, Bath, Somerset and was listed in a record of the appointment of his son-in-law, the Rev. John Starky, as Rector of Charlinch, on the 15th April 1808, as late of Spye Park, Wiltshire but now of Bathampton, Somerset. He chose to rent the mansion at Spye Park for a number of years.

In 1812, Spye Park was rented to Colonel Thornton, of Lincoln's Inn, Middlesex, a gentleman much noted in the annals of sporting and racing. The lease was for 21 years, if Sir Andrew should live so long, and included the mansion, with a mill, a herd of deer and lands, at an annual rent of £750.

The new tenant wanted to replace the Bayntun portraits in the house with those of his own. He had an immense number of sporting and other valuable paintings of his own, together with a collection of rare and exotic plants and the lands were stocked with three wagon loads of bald-faced and other red deer, roebucks, Asiatic deer and partly-coloured fallow deer.

Andrew agreed and arranged for Henry Bayntun, probably his nephew, the Rector of Bromham rather than his brother Harry, the Rector of Rowde and Wolverton, to take charge of the Bayntun portraits.

On the 13th of September 1813, Andrew Bayntun Rolt made his last Will and Testament, which mentioned seven of his 13 children by Harriet Maria Poynter. The will lists the six children as Andrew, Thomas, John, Lucy, Harriet, Maria Constance and Mary, who were all christened with the surname Bayntun, despite the fact that Andrew was never married to Harriet Maria. Clearly Andrew wanted these children to have his name and he also refers to their mother in his will as Harriet Maria Bayntun, otherwise Poynter, spinster. The other six children had died before this time – many of them at a very young age.

A previous Deed of Settlement dated 13th December 1809 listed another of his reputed seven acknowledged children by the said Harriet Maria, called Maria Constantia.

The will also lists his six children by Ann Power – Ann, Charles, Martha, Francis, George and Wilmot Robert – all with the surname Bayntun Power and he makes provision for them financially once they reach their respective age of 21, or sooner should either Ann or Martha marry before that time.

When Andrew died on 12th August 1816, the same Henry Bayntun and Sir Andrew's daughter's husband John Starky argued over the paintings and these particular portraits were never returned to Spye Park. They are today in the possession of Andrew Bayntun Starky and are housed in the Bayntun Starky family's private museum in Brackenfield, New Zealand.

Six years after Andrew's death Anne Power married Robert Gomery at Walcot, Bath, on the 17th October 1822. Gomery was an actor and singer in London at the Old Drury Lane Theatre. One of the witnesses at this wedding was Ann Bayntun.

Andrew had bequeathed her a house at 7 Lambridge, Bath, and a good income and she and her new husband lived there until her death in 1844. All of her six children to Andrew Bayntun Rolt were mentioned in her will, including Charles Bayntun Power, whom it lists as being deceased at the time.

Andrew Bayntun Rolt was buried in the family crypt in the Church of St. Nicholas, Bromham. His second wife, Anna Maria survived him and was buried at Swainswick near Bath.