Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 3.djvu/524

 504 CRAVEN Apr. 1769. His widow i/. at Kenilworth, Oct., and was bur. i Nov. 1791, at Binley, aged 76. Will pr. Nov. 1791. VI. 1769. 6. William (Craven), Baron Craven of Hampsted Marshall, nephew and h., being s. and h. of the Rev. John C, B.C.L., Vicar of Staunton Lacy, and Rector of Felton, Salop, by Mary, da. of the Rev. Baptist Hick.es, of Stretton-on-the-Foss, which John was next br. to the last Lord and d. 21 Aug. 1752. He was b. and bap. II Sep. 1738, at Staunton Lacy; matric. at Oxford (Ball. Coll.) 20 Oct. 1756, Fellow of All Souls' Coll. and B.A., 1762, M.A., 1766; cr. D.C.L., 7 July 1773, on the installation of Lord North as Chancellor. Lord Lieut, of Berks, 1786 till his death. A Whig.(^) He w., 30 May 1767, at Spring Gardens, St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Elizabeth, 2nd da. of Augustus (Berkeley), 4th Earl of Berkeley, by Elizabeth, da. of Henry Drax. He ^.27 Sep. 1 791, at Lausanne in Switzerland, aged 52, and was bur. at Binley-C*) Will pr. Nov. 1791. His widow, who was b. if Dec. 1750, in Spring Gardens afsd., and had been separated from her husband in 1780,0 took up her abode at Anspach, and m.^ 13 Oct. 1791, at Lisbon (sixteen days after her husband's death), as his 2nd wife. Christian, Margrave of Brandenburg-Anspach. He (who was b. 2^. Feb. 1736) sold his Principality to the King of Prussia, and settled in England at " Brandenburg House," Hammersmith, and d. 5 Jan. 1 806, at Benham Valence, Berks, "of a pulmonary complaint," and was bur. in a mausoleum there. She d. at Naples, 13 Jan. 1828. (^) The Royal Register, vol. ii, dismisses him in a line — "Is it my Lord that is in Opposition or my Lady?" — implying that his politics were dictated by his wife. V.G. C") He and a Mrs. Coxe appear in 1780, as "Lord C. .. . and Mrs. C.xe," in the notorious tete-a-tete portraits in Town and Country Mag., vol. xvi, p. 401 ; and in 1789 his wife and the Margrave appear therein as "The Literary Traveller and the German Correspondent," vol. xxi, p. 51. See Appendix B in the last vol. of this work for a list of these Portraits of Peers. ("=) According to her story, owing to his infidelity, but in this regard there does not seem to have been much to choose between the pair. A rather scandalous book, The Whig Club, 1 794, speaks of her "unblushing profligacy." She was well known in contemporary society as the Margravine of Anspach. She was author of numerous plays, and of A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople. She is often mentioned by Horace Walpole, who admired her beauty, talents, and her perfect frankness. "Serena" Holroyd writes from Bath, 23 Nov. 1791, "I was told that Lady Craven, on hearing of her Lord's death, put on deep mourning that very day, wept, and went through the whole ceremony of a widow. The next morn she wiped her tears, threw off her weeds, put on bridal trappings, and was married to the Margrave!" And again, from the same place, 18 Jan. 1792, "They told me the Margrave and Mar- gravine of Anspach were all the amusement . . . Only think of her dancing a minuet and country dance . . . He is an insignificant-looking man, and undoubtedly he must be a poor, mean silly fellow to leave his country, Isfc, for such a purpose." V.G.