Elizabeth, Countess de Gramont

Elizabeth was born in 1641,[1] in Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland. She was the third of the nine children[2] and the eldest of the daughters of George Hamilton and his wife Mary Butler. Her father was Scottish, the fourth son of James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Abercorn, and would in 1660 be created baronet of Donalong and Nenagh.[3] Her mother, Mary, was the third daughter of Thomas Butler, Viscount Thurles, and a sister of the future 1st Duke of Ormond.[4] Her mother's family, the Butler dynasty, was Old English and descended from Theobald Walter, who had been appointed Chief Butler of Ireland by King Henry II in 1177.[5] Her parents had married in 1629.[6]

Portrait by Peter Lely, c. 1663, one of the series of Windsor Beauties.[18] She is depicted as Saint Catherine as she holds a martyr's palm leaf in her left hand and a wheel leans against the socle of the column behind.

Both her parents were Catholic, but some relatives on her father's as on her mother's side were Protestant. Her grandfather, James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Abercorn, had been a Protestant,[19] but her father and all her paternal uncles were raised as Catholics due to the influence of her paternal grandmother, Marion Boyd, a Scottish recusant.[20] Some branches of the family were Protestant, such as that of her father's cousin Gustavus (1642–1723). Her mother's family, the Butlers, were generally Catholic with the notable exception of her maternal uncle, the future 1st Duke of Ormond. Her eldest brother, James, would turn Protestant when marrying Elizabeth Colepeper in 1661.[21] Her younger brother Thomas seems to have made the same choice as he became a captain in the Royal Navy.[22]

Her father served in the Irish army and fought for the royalists under the leadership of her uncle James Butler, the Earl of Ormond, in the Irish Confederate Wars (1641–1648) and the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649-1653) until he followed Ormond into French exile in 1651.[23]

She is said to have been born in Strabane, County Tyrone, Ulster, near to which lies the townland of Dunnalong (or Donalong), which was her father's share of the land given to her grandfather Abercorn during the Plantation of Ulster.[24] Her uncle Claud had lived in the Castle of Strabane until his death in 1638. The family must have fled from Ulster during the Irish Rebellion of 1641 when Phelim O'Neill burned the Castle of Strabane and took her aunt Jean, the widow of her uncle Claud, prisoner.[25]

She was still an infant on 17 September 1646, when Owen Roe O'Neil, who had taken over from Phelim as leader of the Confederate Ulster army, captured Roscrea Castle where she lived. The confederates spared her, her siblings, and her mother but put everybody else to the sword.[26][27] Owen O'Neill was leading his army south after his victory over the Scottish Covenanters at Benburb in June and was now attacking the royalists as directed by Rinuccini, the papal nuncio.[28][29]

Her father was governor of Nenagh Castle, 30 kilometres (19 mi) west of Roscrea, in October 1650 when the Parliamentarian army under Henry Ireton attacked and captured the castle on the way back from the unsuccessful siege of Limerick to their winter quarters at Kilkenny.[30]

Early in 1651, when she was about ten, her father followed Ormond into French exile.[31] The family first went to Caen[32] where they were accommodated for some time by Elizabeth Preston, the Marchioness of Ormond.[33] Her father and her elder brothers, James and George, were soon employed by Charles II in various functions.[34][35] She then left for Paris with her mother, who would find shelter in the convent of the Feuillantines, together with her sister Eleanor Butler, Lady Muskerry,[36] while she was sent to boarding school at the abbey of Cistercian nuns of Port-Royal-des-Champs, near Versailles. This school had an excellent reputation and was ahead of its time by teaching in French rather than in Latin. She attended this school for seven or eight years, together with her cousin Helen Muskerry.[37][38] The abbey also was a stronghold of Jansenism, a Catholic religious movement that insisted on earnestness and asceticism but which was later declared heretic for its position on grace and original sin.[39]

Having left school, she was associated with the court in exile of Henrietta Maria, the dowager queen, Charles I' s widow, who had fled to France in 1644 and had in 1657 moved to the Château de Colombes, near Paris.[40] In March 1660 she met Sir John Reresby at the celebration of the Restoration organised by Henrietta Maria at the Palais-Royal in Paris.[41]

She became a member of the English court at Whitehall in 1661. She was admired as a great beauty and called "la belle Hamilton".[42] She also became known for her judgement, charm and sensibility. She was seen as witty and careful with her words as she, reportedly, said no more than she thought.[43] She also loved practical jokes and mischief. So she made fun of Margaret Bourke, a rich heiress, whom her cousin Lord Muskerry had married, by making her believe that she had been invited to a masquerade by the Queen and had to disguise herself as a Babylonian woman. This episode is told in the Mémoires du comte de Grammont.[44]

She was much courted at Whitehall. First of all by the Duke of Richmond whom she rejected when she found out that he would not marry her without a dowry.[45] She also resisted the advances of Henry Jermyn, 1st Baron Dover, though reputed irresistible.[46] She was not tempted by the thirty thousand per year of the heir of Norfolk.[47] She rejected Charles Berkeley, 1st Earl of Falmouth.[48] When courted by the Duke of York, the future King James II,[49] she doubted the sincerity of his intentions as he had just married Anne Hyde in 1660.[50]

Finally, in January 1663, appeared on the scene Philibert, chevalier de Gramont, a French exile.[51][52] He was already forty years old and a younger half-brother of Antoine III, duc de Gramont. He had got into trouble at the French court by courting Mademoiselle Anne-Lucie de la Mothe-Houdancourt, on whom Louis XIV had set his eyes.[53][54][55][lower-alpha 1]

De Gramont quickly entered into the English court's inner circle. Not much adaptation was needed as French was the predominant language at the Restoration court.[56] Elizabeth admired his wit and gallantry and fell in love with him.

Engraving by Edward Scriven 1810, after Peter Lely.

Philibert married her in London late in 1663 or early in 1664.[57][58][59] In March 1664, having heard of his marriage, Louis XIV wrote him a letter giving him permission to return.[60] The couple had a son on 28 August old style, but he died as an infant.[61][62][63]

A famous anecdote is told about her marriage, which reverts the order of events by placing the marriage, which was according to this tale forced on de Gramont by her brothers, after the permission to return. It goes as follows:

When in 1664 he was allowed to return to France, he left in haste, giving the impression that he would not honour his commitments. Her brothers George and Anthony therefore pursued and intercepted him on his way to Dover and pressured him to return and marry her.[64] They asked him whether he had not forgotten something in London. He replied "Pardonnez-moi, messieurs, j'ai oublié d'épouser votre sœur." (Forgive me, Sirs, I have forgotten to marry your sister).[65][66][67] He turned around, went back to London, and dutifully married her.[68]

The story is partly proven wrong since he married her before Louis allowed him to come back, but it could well be true that a bit of pressure from her brothers was needed. It has been said that this incident suggested to Molière his comedy Le mariage forcé, first presented on 29 January 1664,[69] but this idea clashes with the known dates.

She went with her husband to France[70] and was appointed in 1667 dame du palais or lady-in-waiting to the French Queen, Maria Theresa of Spain.[71] At that time the French court was seated at the Louvre in Paris, not yet at Palace of Versailles. At the court she was recognised as a woman of considerable wit and beauty.[72] She also knew how to hold her own at the court of Louis XIV, being said to have "beak and claws".[73] Her husband nevertheless pursued his gallant exploits to the close of a long life, being, said Ninon de l'Enclos, the only old man who could affect the follies of youth without being ridiculous.[74]

In 1679, at the death of his elder brother Henri, who had appointed him his heir,[75] her husband became comte de Toulongeon. He did not want to change his name to Toulongeon, but changed it from chevalier de Gramont to comte de Gramont. She was henceforth known as the comtesse de Gramont.

In 1679 she was pointed out as a client of La Voisin, and was thereby incriminated in the affaire des poisons. However, no action was taken against her. In May 1682 the French court moved its seat from the Louvre to the Palace of Versailles.[76] In 1683 she lost her appointment as lady-in-waiting due to the queen's death. In 1684 Fénelon became a spiritual guide to her.[77] In May 1690 the King assigned her an apartment in the Palace of Versailles that had been freed by the death of Charles de Sainte-Maure, duc de Montausier, the Dauphin's tutor.[78]

On 6 April 1694 N.S. her daughter Claude Charlotte, aged 29, married Henry Stafford-Howard, 1st Earl of Stafford, aged 46, who had fled to France with James II. The marriage was held at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.[79] She thus became Lady Stafford. The groom had been created Earl Stafford By James II on 5 October 1688 and had, at the same time, changed his name from Howard to Stafford-Howard.[80] As the earldom was created before James II's flight, it was a valid English peerage and not a Jacobite one. The marriage would remain childless and was not happy.

In 1696, her husband fell gravely ill, and after he recovered, he followed her example and turned to devotion.[81] In 1699, she fell into disgrace because of a visit she had paid to the abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs.[82] The king disliked the Jansenists. She had to beg his pardon.[83]

In May 1703, when she was 61, Louis XIV lent her a house near the end of the Gardens of Versailles, called Les Moulineaux,[84][85][lower-alpha 2] which she renamed Pontalie.[86] This name is explained in the story "Le Bélier", written by her brother Anthony, who derives it from "pont d'Alie" (Alie's bridge), Alie being the daughter of a druid who marries a Prince of Noisy (after nearby Noisy-le-Roi) in the story.[87]

Elizabeth and Philibert had two daughters,[88] who were maids-of-honour to Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria, whom the Grand Dauphin married in 1680.[89][90]

1. Claude Charlotte (c. 1665 – 1739), married Henry Stafford-Howard, 1st Earl of Stafford.[91][92]
2. Marie Elizabeth (1667–1729), became abbess in 1695 of the Chapter of Poussay in Lorraine.[93][94][95]

The marriage of the elder daughter was childless and the younger was a nun. Philibert's cadet branch of the house of Gramont therefore ended here.

Her husband died on 31 January 1707 in Paris.[96] She died about a year later on 3 June 1708 in Paris.[97][98]

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• Genealogy of Elizabeth Hamilton on The Peerage website
• Elizabeth Hamilton as Saint Catherine by Peter Lely, one of his series of Windsor Beauties
• The lost Settlement of Dunnalong