Lord Anne Hamilton

Lord Anne Hamilton (12 October 1709 – 25 December 1748) was a Scottish nobleman. He is said to have married the richest woman in Great Britain and they had a child. Early life Hamilton was born at St. James's Square, London, the third son of Lieutenant-General James Hamilton, 4th Duke of Hamilton, and his wife the Honourable Elizabeth Gerard, daughter of Digby Gerard, 5th Baron Gerard. His feminine forename is due to his being named after his godmother, Queen Anne. Hamilton's other godparents were John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland. Hamilton was commissioned into the Coldstream Guards as an ensign on 4 April 1731, and resigned in May 1733. Personal life and death Lord Anne Hamilton reputedly married Mary Edwards, in or before 1731, in a clandestine marriage said to have been in the chapel of the Fleet Prison. It was reported in The Gentleman's Magazine but the chapel records do not include details and Mary Edwards denied it and never changed her name. She was the daughter and heiress of Francis Edwards of Welham Grove, Leicestershire. She was one of the greatest heiresses of her day with a fortune of between £50,000 and £60,000. Lord Anne assumed Mary Edwards' name and arms as Lord Anne Edwards Hamilton. Their portraits were painted by William Hogarth with their son Gerard Anne Edwards. Mary Edwards also commissioned Hogarth to paint Taste in High Life in 1742. The couple had one child, a son: Gerard Anne Edwardes (1734–1773), married in 1754, Lady Jane Noel, daughter of Baptist Noel, 4th Earl of Gainsborough of the first creation. They were the parents of Sir Gerard Noel, 2nd Baronet, ancestor of the Earls of Gainsborough of the second creation. Sometime after 1734, because she felt that Lord Anne was becoming spendthrift with her money, Mary Edwards left him and took the extraordinary step of repudiating her marriage. She declared herself a single woman and took steps to create evidence that no marriage had ever taken place; their child, Gerard Anne Edwards, was rendered illegitimate, and took his mother's surname.