James Waldegrave, 1st Earl Waldegrave


James Waldegrave, 1st Earl Waldegrave, was a British diplomat who served as ambassador to Austria and France.

Life

Waldegrave was the son of the 1st Baron Waldegrave and Henrietta FitzJames, the illegitimate daughter of James II and Arabella Churchill.
Educated in France, Waldegrave inherited his father's title in 1690, and on 20 May 1714 he married Mary Webb, a daughter of Sir John Webb, 3rd Baronet and they had three surviving children:
After the death of his wife, he converted from Roman Catholicism to Anglicanism to take his seat in the House of Lords. He was briefly a Lord of the Bedchamber in 1723 and again from 1730to 1741. He was ambassador extraordinary to France 1725 and Ambassador to Austria from 1727 to 1730. He then succeeded Horatio Walpole as ambassador to France from 1730 to 1740. During his ambassadorship to France, he still spent enough time in London to be one of the founding Governors of the new charity there, known as the Foundling Hospital. In 1729, he had been created Earl Waldegrave and on his death in 1741, was succeeded by his eldest son, James.
Sir James inherited Hever Castle in Kent which had remained in the Waldegrave family for 160 years. It was deemed too small for Sir James and he sold it in the early 1700s to Sir William Humfreys, Lord Mayor of London.

Ancestry