The Scandalous Ladies of Boughton Malherbe
By Henny Shotter
Reading road names such as ‘Park Road…Coach Road…Chain Gate’ makes your heart beat faster as you feel embedded, not only in the present but also in the past. These roads lead to Boughton Malherbe, where history abounds, as known to Members of KAS through several publications1. In 2021, during repair work to the wooden floor, a grave which had been lost for generations2 was rediscovered and caused much excitement among archaeologists and the local community. The broader context of the grave of Edward Wootton (1548-1626) and his second wife, Margaret, can be found in an article by Dr Claire Bartam3 on the Christ Church website. After Baron Edward Wotton’s death, Margaret buried him in Boughton Malherbe church, providing a space for herself. She caused a scandal by acknowledging on the ledger stone that she and her husband were Catholic. She had to remove the word ‘Catholic” and was heavily fined…not for the inscription but because she had moved the font.
In 2009, another Wotton lady made the headlines: ‘Van Dyck’s lover to go on display’4. A portrait of Countess Katherine Stanhope, née Wotton, had been discovered and was displayed for the first time at the van Dyck exhibition in the Tate. Lady Katherine Stanhope (1609– 1667), the oldest daughter and heir of the Boughton Malherbe estate, is perhaps the most sparkling personality of the three. She was widowed young when her husband, Lord Henry Stanhope, died. She was left with three children, a large estate to run, two unmarried sisters and no male “protector”, as her father had died too. It was possibly down to the scandal caused by her grandfather, Catholic Edward, and his young widow that her father-in-law, Philip Stanhope, 1st Earl of Chesterfield, did not want to have any dealings with her besides giving her a yearly allowance. Her mother was still alive and looked after the estate and the children when Katherine decided to seek her fortune in London as a ‘socialite’. That was the time when she had a love affair with van Dyck. Katharine5 had the reputation of being very careful with money, and she expected the painting to be gifted to her. This was not the case, and whether she ever owned the portrait, we don’t know.
She married the Dutch envoy Jehan Poliander van der Kerckhove, who had come to the Court of Charles I, looking for a bride for William II, Prince of Orange, in 1639. The bride was the daughter of Charles I and his wife Henrietta Maria: 9-year-old Mary Henrietta, the first Princess Royal. Katherine Kerckhove, the widow of Stanhope, née Wotton, accompanied the princess to the Netherlands as her governess and became her lifelong confidante. Charles, I had been concerned that the marriage between Mary and William II should not be consummated before she reached 14. In 1644, it was down to Katherine to report that this mission had failed when the young couple was found in bed together. It was then decided ‘to let them get on with’. William III of Orange, later King of England, resulted from this union. His father, however, succumbed at the age of 20 to illness and didn’t live to see his son.
Katherine must have been a brave lady as she, the Royalist, travelled to England and claimed her son’s inheritance, the Nottinghamshire paternal estate which the Cromwell protectorate had confiscated. She promptly ended up in the Tower for a few days!
Her journey was, however, successful, and she was able to secure her son’s inheritance, albeit for a considerable price. Charles II, then still in exile, became very suspicious of her and warned his sister, Mary, that Katherine might be a spy. He changed his views, however, on his return to England, bestowing the title ‘Countess suo jure” (in her own right) for her services to the crown. Katherine married three times. From her last husband, she took over the position of ‘Postmaster General’, still the only female Postmaster General in history. Stepping in the footsteps of the male Wottons, she married wisely and died the richest woman in England of her time. She is buried in Boughton Malherbe, though her splendid memorial was broken up by the Victorians and used for floor covering. Not so fortunate was her great-aunt Margret Wotton (1485-1535). After the death of her husband, Thomas Grey, she was left with huge debts. She had to keep a tight rein on her son’s spending to provide her daughters with a dowry. A scandal erupted when he took her to court and complained to the King’s Council. She was defamed as ‘being an unnatural mother’. However, what can you expect of this son, Thomas Grey, whose ambition contributed to his daughter, Lady Jane Grey, Queen of the Nine Days, ending her young life on the executioner’s block?
1 Jacqueline Bower, The Wotton Survey https:// kentarchaeology.org.uk/publications/ member-publications/wotton-survey, S. Adams, The Contents and Context of the Boughton Malherbe Late Bronze Age Hoard.
2 Evans, I.E.C. (1960) The Church of Saint Nicholas, Boughton Malherbe
3 Bertram, C. (2019) W is for Wotton https:// medium.com/the-christ-church-heritage- a-to-z/w-is-for-wotton-e21889972ddcb
4 Announced by the BBC, see Guardian https:// www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/ feb/14/anthony-van-dyck-portrait-painting
5 Biographical data from Poynting, S. ‘Stanhope… Katherine suo jure countess of Chesterfield and Lady Stanhope’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2004 Oxford)