Anne, Viscountess Hinchingbrook
By MRS. BEALE.
Three-quarter Length.
(Seated. Light Auburn Hair, Dove-coloured Dress. Pearl Ornaments. Holding a Flower in the Left Hand.)
Lady Anne Boyle was the fourth daughter of Richard, second Earl of Cork and first Earl of Burlington, by Lady Elizabeth Clifford, only daughter and heiress of the fifth Earl of Cumberland. In 1667 she married Viscount Hinchingbrook, eldest son of the first Earl of Sandwich, by whom she had two sons and one daughter. Pepys seemed well contented with the marriage for his patron’s son, though he is dissatisfied at not having a favour sent him, and Lady Sandwich was so much pleased with her new daughter-in-law as apparently to be consoled for her first born having lost the chance of marrying the great heiress, Mistress Mallet.
The first time Pepys saw her at Lord Crewe’s he saluted her and invited her to his house; he thought her mighty pleasant and good humoured, but neither did he count her a beauty or ugly, but a comely lady; and when she accepted his hospitality next day he found her “a sweet natured and well disposed lady, a lover of books and pictures, and of good understanding;” and he goes on to visit her and her lord afterwards at Burlington House next to Clarendon House, which he was glad to see for the first time.
Lady Hinchingbrook and her sister Henrietta, Countess of Rochester, were undoubtedly shining lights of modesty, and domestic virtue in this profligate age.
She was buried in the family vault at Barnwell, where a touching inscription records her many virtues, and the regret her death occasioned.