Charles Fane, 1st Viscount Fane


Charles Fane, 1st Viscount Fane PC was an Anglo-Irish courtier, politician and a landowner in both England and Ireland.
Fane was baptised at Basildon in Berkshire on 30 January 1676, he was the second son but heir of the Right Hon. Sir Henry Fane, of Basildon, KB,, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Southcott of Exeter.

Family

His elder brother's death made him eventual heir to the Bourchier estates; the manors of Lough Gur and Glenogra in county Limerick and of Clare, near Tandragee, in county Armagh; to the Fane estate at Basildon in Berkshire; and to the Southcott estate at Calwoodley in Devon.
The elder brother Henry Bourchier Fane was Standard Bearer of the Gentlemen Pensioners from 10 April 1689 until early 1696 when he was killed as a result of a duel, by Elizeus Burges,.
Having left Wadham College, Oxford Fane duly replaced his unfortunate elder brother as Standard Bearer from 20 April 1696, a post he had vacated by 31 March 1712.
Meanwhile, his younger brother George Fane had become Commander of the Royal ship the Lowestoffe,. Appointed Captain in 1709, he died without issue at New York the same year.

Political career

Fane was appointed Deputy Lieutenant for Berkshire, 21 September 1715. He was Member of the Irish Parliament for Killybegs in county Donegal, a seat controlled by the Conygham family, from 1715 to 1719.
On 22 April 1718 he was created Baron of Loughguyre, in the county of Limerick, and Viscount Fane, both in the Peerage of Ireland, and number 264 on the roll. He took his seat seven years later on 21 April 1725, having been appointed to the Irish Privy Council on 5 May 1718. Fane's Irish peerage, though no doubt well deserved, must have been helped along by his soldier-statesman brother-in-law James Stanhope, who had become First Lord of the Treasury in 1717, been created Baron Stanhope of Elvaston and Viscount Stanhope of Mahon on 3 July 1717, returned to his former office of Secretary of State for the Southern Department in 1718, having been further elevated, to Earl, just eight days before Fane, on 14 April 1718.
He stood unsuccessfully for Berkshire in the election of 30 August 1727. At the poll Fane was beaten into third place by Robert Packer, a distant ancestor of the late Kerry Packer, and by Sir John Stonhouse.

His wife

Fane married at the Chelsea Hospital, 12 December 1707, Mary daughter of the envoy hon. Alexander Stanhope, FRS,, by Catherine, daughter and co-heir of Arnold Burghill, of Thingehill Parva, Withington, Herefordshire by his second wife Grizell, co-heir of John Prise of Ocle Pyrchard, Herefordshire.
A sister of soldier-statesman James, Earl Stanhope, Mary Fane was also an old friend of the Mistress of the Robes, Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough,, having been one of the six original Maids of Honour to Queen Anne, appointed 4 June 1702, an office she had vacated by November 1707.
An indenture of settlement dated 19 November 1707 between Charles Fane of Basildon and others, had her marriage portion at 3,000 L. Robert Walpole, the husband of Mary's first cousin twice-removed Catherine Shorter aka cousin Walpole, was a witness..
Fane died 7 July 1744 and was buried at Basildon 16 July 1744, aged 68. His widow died 21 and was buried at Basildon on 30 August 1762, aged 76.
They had seven children.
From 1751–1758 Mary, Viscountess Fane lived at No. 2, Swan Walk, Chelsea, London.
In a letter to Horace Mann, from Strawberry Hill, dated Sunday, August 29, 1762, Horace Walpole ended his long epistle: PS. When I was mentioning acquaintance you have lost, I forgot to name Lady Fane; you see nervous disorders are not very mortal; I think she must have been above seventy.

Grotto

In the 1720s and 30s she built the sometime renowned Grotto at the Fane's New House by the Thames at Lower Basildon, but in the parish of Streatley in Berkshire.
These extracts show some of the process:
Her son, Charles, was appointed British Resident in Florence in March 1734 and was there in person between 3 October 1734 and the Spring of 1738. Lady Fane and her daughter Dorothy were there with him from June 1736. Dorothy stayed until at least June 1737, this extract from a letter to Lady Fane suggests that the mother too was there for a year:
It is probable that during this trip Lady Fane ordered her pair of prized scagliola table tops from the Irishman Friar Ferdinando Henrico Hugford. These are quite similar to the one at The Vyne, Hampshire. That top has the arms of Walpole impaling Shorter – for Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole and his first wife Catherine Shorter, who died 20 August 1737. The hint of shells on the tables suggest that they may have been for her grotto at the New House, Basildon.
In 1747 the blue-stocking and fellow Berkshire-dweller Elizabeth Montagu described the Fane grotto:

Gallery


Image:Mary ffane letter birth of 2nd E Stanhope.jpg|Mary ffane to her husband, reporting the birth of the future Philip, 2nd Earl Stanhope in August 1714.
Image:SarahMarlborough1737.jpg|Letter from Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough to Lady ffane, 1737
Image:CoverofLettertoCharlesffane1714.jpg|From his wife, with Stanhope seal.
File:Prosapia&InsigniaMaryFaneII.jpg|Prosapia and Insignia for Fane, Southcott, Stanhope and Burghill
Image:FaneStanhopeScagliolaTableTop.jpg|Florentine scagliola table top with arms of Fane impalling Stanhope, c. 1737.
File:Bacchus on Fane Table.jpg|Detail of Bacchus on one of a pair of side-tables made for Lord Fane and/or his wife c. 1740. Possibly meant for the New House's Grotto at Basildon.
Image:Waiter 1732.jpg|Britannia gauge silver waiter dated 1732, with Fane crests and arms of Fane impaling Stanhope. Maker, Paul de Lamerie.
File:Fane Table.jpg|One of the pair of the Fanes' Florentine scagliola topped and British Bacchus masked and cabriole legged c. 1740 tables. This detail of a larger B/W photo was commissioned c. 1870.
Image:Fane Stanhope 1732.jpg|Coat of arms on a silver waiter dated 1732, showing arms of Fane impaling Stanhope, for Charles Fane and his wife Mary, possibly a 25th wedding present.
Image:Bourchier Tower Sept 2005.jpg|Bourchier Tower at Lough Gur
Image:TheGrottoofLadyFaneBasildonnearStreatleyBerks.jpg|Lady Fane's, New House, August 2007, taken from the north, from a moving train, early morning.