Edward Weld (Senior)

Edward Weld (1705 East Lulworth – 8 December 1761 Lulworth Castle) was a wealthy English gentleman landowner and member of an old recusant family. He was responsible for initiating the internal Adam style decor and 18th century furnishing of a rare example of an early 17th century mock Jacobean castellated hunting lodge and extensive grounds he had inherited from his father.[1] Weld also came to prominence due to his exposure in two separate legal cases which could have terminated his good standing by challenging his manhood in an ecclesiastical impotency trial and in the latter case, risked his liberty, if not his life, on account of an alleged involvement in the Jacobite rising of 1745. Both cases against him were dismissed.

Background

Weld was descended from Sir Humphrey Weld, a merchant whose family were seated in Shropshire, and Sheriff of London in 1599, who was elected Lord Mayor of London in 1608. Edward was the third and first surviving son of Humphrey Weld (died 1722) of Lulworth, (grandnephew of MP, Humphrey Weld,[2] purchaser in 1641 of the vast Lulworth Estate who died without a male heir), and of his wife Margaret Simeons, daughter of Sir James Simeons of Chilworth nr. Oxford. Weld succeeded to his father in 1722. On coming of age he was the fourth generation of Welds to take charge of the vast estate with its portion of the magnificent Jurassic Coast (today a UNESCO World Heritage Site).

Architectural designer
Turner's view of Lulworth Castle, Dorset

Edward Weld ensured, through a project lasting thirty years, that Lulworth Castle (today a Scheduled monument and Grade I listed building), attributed to Inigo Jones,[3] and its interiors were decorated and furnished to the highest taste and standards by engaging the reputable Dorset firm of architects, Bastard brothers of Blandford Forum.[4][5][6][7] Weld also continued laying out the extensive grounds, begun by his father, extending the castle's southern balustraded terrace and erecting a walled garden.[4][8]

Impotency trial

Albeit a practising Roman Catholic, as a member of the gentry Weld took care to maintain good relations with his peers and was esteemed in the county and beyond for his "amiable character".[9] His performance as a landowner laid the foundations of an apparently lasting legacy.

In 1727 young Weld married nineteen year old Catherine Elizabeth Aston (1708-1739), daughter of Walter Aston, 4th Lord Aston of Forfar and Lady Mary Howard, daughter of Lord Thomas Howard and Mary Savile, sister of Edward Howard, 9th Duke of Norfolk. After three years there was no issue. Weld became the subject of a sensational lawsuit taken out by his wife, Catherine, in the ecclesiastical Arches Court at Canterbury on the grounds of non-consummation of their marriage, in effect accusing him of impotence. Having consulted a range of surgeons in London, and undergone a simple surgical procedure, Weld successful countersued. The couple resolved to live apart, until her death in 1739.[10] The report of the lawsuit published quickly in 1732 by the pseudonymous Crawfurd was itself an early form of cashing in on sensationalising the detail of a distressing intimate situation for at least one of the parties.[11]

Family life

In 1740 he married secondly Dame Mary Theresa Vaughan of Courtfield in Monmouthshire, with whom he had a daughter and four sons, the eldest of whom was Edward Weld, future husband of Maria Fitzherbert, and the youngest, Thomas Weld (of Lulworth), with his wife Mary Stanley, father of fifteen children, a noted philanthropist and personal friend of George III whom he entertained at Lulworth.[12] Their eldest grandson was Cardinal Thomas Weld.[13]

"Treason trial"

In 1745 Weld was accused of being associated, possibly on account of his then unpopular faith, with the then Jacobite rising raging in Scotland and northern counties of England where he had kin, in a letter allegedly found on the road to Poole. He was taken into custody and hauled before the magistrates who, on examination, deemed the letter to be a hoax. The case against him was dismissed, but he was obliged to surrender his coach horses, on account of their strength and size, as potentially useful equipment to rebels. Such was the hostility and risk to Catholics at that time, however influential and well connected they might be, to clear his name Weld also had to have a personal interview in London with the Duke of Newcastle, older brother and minister of the then Prime Minister, Henry Pelham, after which the matter was apparently dropped.[14] Upon his death at the age of 56, Weld, by then widowed a second time, received many tributes including eulogies in verse.[9][15]

Legacy

As Catholic members of the English gentry in the Age of Enlightenment, Edward and his second wife, Mary, chose to have their three surviving sons educated by exiled English Jesuits who ran a network of colleges in Catholic Europe.[16] Accordingly, Edward, John and Thomas were despatched to the Colleges of St Omer, Bruges and Liège in the Spanish Netherlands, where their relatives, the Simeon Welds had settled, and which aside from providing a good education, prepared them for the Grand Tour with social openings in the power centres of Paris and Rome. These connections would later feature prominently in the life of their son Thomas and his descendants' lives, by enabling the repatriation, after over two hundred years, of the English Jesuits to Stonyhurst College donated to them by Thomas, and the Welds' continuous connections with French religious and surviving members of the French royal family. Thomas' subtle influence may have eased the passage of the Catholic Relief Act 1791, (Thomas was a supporter of bishop John Milner), eventually leading to Catholic emancipation.[17] While their sons were being schooled abroad, first Mary died in 1754 followed by the middle son, John in 1759 and finally by Edward himself late in 1761.[17]

Lulworth Castle in 2013

Edward's grandfather, William Weld, reclaiming Lulworth after its forcible occupation by Roundheads in the English Civil War, came close to insolvency. It was saved mainly through the dowry brought in by Edward's mother, Margaret Simeons, and later by Edward's own skills, which set it on a course to prosper for two centuries in the hands of the Weld family.[6] In 1929, however, during the tenure of Herbert Weld Blundell, Lulworth castle was completely gutted by fire. Edward's and all subsequent improvements to the eighteenth century Adam style interiors, furnishings and pictures, including the magnificent library, were lost, except for a quantity of valuable pictures, books and furniture which were rescued with the help of two teams of Girl Guides who happened to be camping in the park. Fortuitously, a photographic and documentary record of the castle had been made in 1926 by the publication, Country Life.[6] The castle lay a derelict ruin for seventy years until one of Edward's descendants, Wilfrid Weld, undertook a painstaking restoration in partnership with Historic England to bring it to its current status as a museum.[18] Very occasionally, furniture and pictures from Lulworth have appeared in auction rooms, which by their provenance and mid-eighteenth century dating suggest their original acquisition was by Edward Weld.[19][6]

Edward Weld is the subject of an extant portrait in oil attributed to the painter Adrien Carpentiers.[20]

References
  1. Newman, John and Pevsner, Nikolaus (1972). "East Lulworth". Dorset Buildings of England - Pevsner buildings of England. The Buildings of England, Ireland, and Scotland Series. Yale University Press. p. 194. ISBN 978-0-3000-9598-2.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  2. "WELD (WILD), Humphrey (1612-85), of Lulworth Castle, Dorset and Weld House, St. Giles in the Fields, Mdx". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 2 September 2020.
  3. Hutchins, John (1861). The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset. 1. Westminster: John Bowyer Nichols and Sons. p. 374.
  4. 'Lulworth, East', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, Volume 2, South east (London, 1970), pp. 144-151. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/dorset/vol2/pp144-151 [accessed 31 August 2020].
  5. Berkeley, Joan (1971). Lulworth and the Welds. Gillingham: Blackmore Press.
  6. Manco, Jean and Kelly, Francis (1991). "Lulworth Castle from 1700". Architectural History. 34: 146–53. doi:10.2307/1568597. JSTOR 1568597.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  7. Legg, Polly. 'The Bastards of Blandford: an inventory of their losses in the fire of 1731’, Furniture History, Vol. 30 (1994), 15–42 (p. 21 & n. 24)
  8. Historic England. "Park and gardens Name: Lulworth Castle (1000720)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 7 May 2020.
  9. Antony, C.M. (October 1915). "Lulworth Castle: its History and Memories". The Catholic Historical Review. 1 (3): 249.
  10. Crawfurd, John (1732). The cases of impotency and virginity fully discuss'd : being, the genuine proceedings, in the Arches-Court of Canterbury, between the Honourable Catherine Elizabeth Weld, alias Aston, and her husband Edward Weld, Esq; of Lulworth-Castle in Dorsetshire. Wellcome Collection.
  11. Hoffman, Stephanie B. (2010). "BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: IMPOTENCE TRIALS AND THE TRANS-HISTORICAL RIGHT TO MARITAL PRIVACY" (PDF). Boston University Law Review. 89: 1725–1752.
  12. Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry, Volume 2. H. Colburn, 1847. pp. 1545-6 view on line
  13. Pollen, John Hungerford. "Weld." The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. 18 January 2019
  14. Haydon, Colin (1993). Anti-Catholicism in Eighteenth-century England, C. 1714-80: A Political and Social Study. Studies in imperialism. Manchester University Press. pp. 12–13. ISBN 978-0-7190-2859-5.
  15. "Verses occasioned by death of Edward Weld. (ob. Dec.1761)". Dorset History Centre: discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk. Retrieved 30 August 2020.
  16. Rothery, Mark; French, Henry, eds. (2012). Making Men: The Formation of Elite Male Identities in England, c.1660-1900 - A Sourcebook. Macmillan International Higher Education. p. xxxv. ISBN 978-1-1370-0281-5.
  17. Whitehead, Maurice (2003). "In the Sincerest Intentions of Studying: The Educational Legacy of Thomas Weld (1750–1810), Founder of Stonyhurst College". Recusant History. 26: 169–193. doi:10.1017/S0034193200030764.
  18. Newth, John. "One of Dorset’s grandest and most interesting country houses - The history of Lulworth Castle is bound up with the stories of the Weld family and of one of the most important estates in South Dorset. John Newth has been to visit.". Dorset Life, April 2015. Wiew on line:
  19. "Sale of the "Lulworth Castle Dragon Chairs"". British Antique Dealers' Association. Retrieved 30 August 2020.
  20. "Property from the Important Collection of a Nobleman Attributed to Adriaen Carpentiers: PORTRAIT OF EDWARD WELD (1705-1761) OF LULWORTH CASTLE, IN A GARDEN, A STATUE OF MINERVA BEYOND". Sotheby's Catalogue. London. 24 September 2013.
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