Willem Hendrik van Nassau-Zuylestein

William Henry Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford, KG, PC (17 September 1717 O.S. – 29 September 1781)[1]

William Henry Nassau van Zuylestein was born with the name Willem Hendrik van Nassau Heer van Zuijlestein in 1717, the elder son of Frederick Nassau van Zuylestein, 3rd Earl of Rochford, and his wife Elizabeth (‘Bessy’) Savage, daughter of the Richard Savage, 4th Earl Rivers.

His ancestry was Anglo-Dutch, descended in an illegitimate line from William the Silent’s son Frederick Henry (1584–1647), Prince of Orange. Rochford’s grandfather and great-grandfather both had English wives, ladies-in-waiting at the courts of William II and William III of Orange. His grandfather was a close companion of William III, accompanying him to England in the Glorious Revolution of 1688–9, and later rewarded with the earldom of Rochford.[4]

Educated at Eton College (1725–32) as Viscount Tunbridge, Rochford’s school friends included three future secretaries of state, Conway, Halifax and Sandwich. However, he also made a lifelong enemy at Eton of the Prime minister’s son, the influential writer Horace Walpole. Instead of going to university, Rochford was sent to the Academy at Geneva, where he lodged with the family of Professor Antoine Maurice. From Geneva he emerged as fluent in French as he was in Dutch and English, and succeeded his father as 4th Earl of Rochford in 1738 at the age of twenty-one.[5]

William was a British courtier, diplomat and statesman of Anglo-Dutch descent. He occupied senior ambassadorial posts at Madrid and Paris, and served as Secretary of State in both the Northern and Southern Departments. He is credited with the earliest-known introduction of the Lombardy poplar to England in 1754.[2]

He was a personal friend of such major cultural figures as the actor David Garrick, the novelist Laurence Sterne, and the French playwright Beaumarchais. George III valued Rochford as his expert advisor on foreign affairs in the early 1770s, and as a loyal and hard-working cabinet minister. Rochford was the only British secretary of state between 1760 and 1778 who had been a career diplomat.

Rochford played key roles in the Manila Ransom negotiation with Spain (1763–66), the French acquisition of Corsica (1768), the Falkland Islands crisis of 1770–1, the crisis following the Swedish Revolution of 1772, and the aftermath of the Royal Marriages Act of 1772. In addition to his work as foreign secretary, he carried a heavy burden of domestic responsibilities in the early 1770s, especially Irish affairs. He was a key member of the North administration in the early phase of the American War of Independence. Illness and a political scandal forced him from office in November 1775.[3]

Personal Life

In May 1742 Rochford married Lucy Younge, daughter of Edward Younge of Durnford in Wiltshire, but the marriage produced no children. As a young married man Rochford became a close personal friend of the actor David Garrick, and they remained firm friends for over thirty years.[23] Rochford and Lucy first lived at Easton in Suffolk, a property inherited from his uncle Henry Nassau, and they only moved to the family seat at St Osyth in Essex after the death of Rochford’s mother in 1746. Rochford also bought a town house in London, at 48 Berkeley Square, which he owned until 1777. The Rochfords allowed each considerable freedom in their personal lives, even by the rather relaxed standards of the eighteenth century nobility, and Lucy Rochford was notorious for her numerous lovers, who included the Duke of Cumberland and the Prince of Hesse. Rochford had mistresses at Turin, one of whom, an opera-dancer named Signora Banti, followed him to London, but he never acknowledged her children as his own. Lucy objected to this expensive mistress, and Rochford agreed to give her up if Lucy also gave up her current lover, Lord Thanet. She responded that he was not a drain on their finances, but quite the contrary.[24]

Rochford’s next mistress, Martha Harrison, gave him a daughter, Maria Nassau, who was adopted by Lucy as her surrogate daughter. Maria lived with them in Paris, and thereafter at St Osyth. Rochford had affairs in Paris with the wives of two of Choiseul’s friends, the marquise de Laborde and Mme Latournelle. Another mistress, Ann Labbee Johnson, followed him to London and bore him a son and daughter. After Lucy’s death in 1773 Rochford brought Ann and the children to live with him at St Osyth. His will made her sole executrix of his estate and paid tribute to her ‘friendship and affection’.[25]

In his youth Rochford was an accomplished horseman and an expert yachtsman, once racing his yacht from Harwich to London against that of Richard Rigby, and was also involved in early Essex cricket matches. He used his yacht to visit his estates at Zuylestein in Holland’s Utrecht province. He was an enthusiast for English country dancing, fostering their popularity at the court of Turin in the 1750s. His greatest loves (apart from his various mistresses) were the theatre, music and opera. (He played the baroque guitar.) Confessing himself ‘excessively curious for plants’, he collected specimens on a visit to the Swiss Alps in 1751 to send home to St Osyth. Most famously, he is credited with the first known introduction of the Lombardy poplar to southern England, bringing home a sapling strapped to the centre-pole of his carriage in 1754.[26]

Chronology

• 1717 – birth of William Henry Nassau van Zuylestein at St Osyth
• 1725–38 – educated at Eton College and the Academy, Geneva
• 1738 – succeeds his father as 4th Earl of Rochford
• 1738–49 – Lord of the Bedchamber to George II
• 1748 – Vice-Admiral of the coasts of Essex
• 1749–55 – Envoy Extraordinary at the court of Turin
• 1755–60 – member of the Privy Council, Groom of the Stole to George II
• 1756 – Lord Lieutenant of Essex
• 1759 – Colonel of the Essex Militia
• 1763–66 – Ambassador to Spain
• 1766 – witnesses the Madrid Riots
• 1766–68 – Ambassador to France
• 1768 – fails to prevent French acquisition of Corsica
• 1768–70 – Secretary of State, Northern Department
• 1770–71 – takes charge in Falklands Crisis
• 1770–75 – Secretary of State, Southern Department
• 1773 – conducts secret negotiations with France
• 1773 – helps resolve the Swedish Crisis
• 1775 – unpublished ‘Plan to Prevent War in Europe’
• 1775–81 – retirement
• 1776 – Master of Trinity House
• 1779 – Knight of the Garter
• 1781 – dies at St Osyth on 29 September

Wiki Source

Genealogie Online