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Coldbrook House, Hardwick, Abergavenny NP7 9BT, UK
Westminster Abbey
Westminster, City of Westminster, Greater London, England
Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, KB (8 December 1708 – 2 November 1759) was a Welsh diplomat, writer and satirist. He was a Member of Parliament from 1734 until his death.
In 1732, Richard Bateman and
Henry Fox
(father of Charles James, MP for Windsor and later the 1st Lord Holland) were
appointed Receivers-General for South Wales. The pair belonged to the
celebrated coterie which included Henry's brother,
Stephen Fox-Strangways, 1st Earl of Ilchester,
John Hervey, 2nd
Baron Hervey, Thomas
Winnington, Horace Walpole
and Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams. By his own account,
the Poland's bachelor king,
Stanisław August
Poniatowski, was ambivalent about his sexuality: 'I did not feel that I was made for women; my first attempts seemed to me like a mere necessity to be accounted for by circumstances', he writes in his memoirs, describing himself before the famous affair with Catherine. The question of his personal life is, however, one that few historians have addressed with much objectivity. Prior to his life as monarch, the precocious, handsome and introspective Poniatowski, the diplomat's son, travelled widely throughout aristocratic Europe, establishing personal friendships and political alliances. The most important of these was with the English nobleman Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, who was serving as ambassador to the court of
Frederick the Great when
Poniatowski met him, and was later transferred to Russia, where the future
king joined him as his secretary.
Hanbury was the son of a Welsh ironmaster, John Hanbury, of Pontypool Park, co. Monmouth, Esq., and his second wife, Bridget Ayscough, eldest daughter of Sir Edward Ayscough of Stallingborough and South Kelsey. With his father's marriage to Bridget came a fortune of £10,000 and connections with established political families. His mother was a close friend of
Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough.
In 1720, Charles assumed the name of Williams, under the terms of a bequest from his godfather, Charles Williams of Caerleon.
Williams entered Parliament in 1734 for the Monmouthshire constituency as a supporter of Robert Walpole and held the seat until 1747. He then won the seat of Leominster in 1754 and held it until his death.
From 1747 till 1750, Williams was the British Ambassador in Dresden. In 1748 he had the same function in Poland and witnessed a Polish Sejm, where he met members of the influential Czartoryski family (August Aleksander Czartoryski). When the future King of Poland, Stanisław Poniatowski, was receiving medical treatment in Berlin, Sir Charles met him when sent there as Ambassador (1750–1751). He entered into Polish and Russian history by introducing Stanisław to the Russian Grand Duchess Catherine Alexeyevna (Saint Petersburg 1755, the future Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia), from which a famous romance developed between them.
In 1739, Williams gave support for the establishment of the Foundling Hospital and served as one of its founding governors. Williams's father bought the Coldbrook Park estate near Abergavenny for him from his godfather's bequest. There in 1746 he added a nine-bay, two-storey Georgian façade in 1746.
Williams played a major role as a British envoy at the court in Russia during the Seven Years' War. Although Russia was at war with Britain's ally Prussia, the two countries remained at peace.
Horace Walpole praised the wit of his poetry and wrote of his "biting satire".[1]
On 1 July 1732, he married Lady Frances Coningsby (1707/8–1781) at Saint James, Westminster, London. Lady Frances was a daughter of Thomas Coningsby, 1st Earl Coningsby and Lady Frances Jones (second daughter and sole heiress of Richard Jones, 1st Earl of Ranelagh and the Hon. Frances Willoughby, a daughter and heiress of Francis Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby).[2] Together, they had two daughters:
Frances Hanbury-Williams (c. 1735–1759), who married William Capel, 4th Earl of Essex, the son of William Capell, 3rd Earl of Essex and Lady Elizabeth Russell (a daughter of Wriothesley Russell, 2nd Duke of Bedford).[3]
Charlotte Hanbury-Williams (1738–1790), who married Robert Boyle-Walsingham, the fifth and youngest son of Henry Boyle, 1st Earl of Shannon, in 1759.
Robert Boyle-Walsingham was lost aboard HMS Thunderer in a West Indian hurricane.[4]
Charles Hanbury Williams died insane in 1759 and the Coldbrook estate passed to his brother George.[5] His widow died on 31 December 1781 and was buried at Westminster Abbey.
Through his eldest daughter Frances, he was a grandfather of Elizabeth Capel (wife of John Monson, 3rd Baron Monson) and George Capel-Coningsby, 5th Earl of Essex (who married Sarah Bazett and, after her death, Catherine Stephens).[3]
Through his second daughter Charlotte, he was a grandfather of Richard Boyle-Walsingham (1762–1788), who died unmarried, and Charlotte Boyle-Walsingham, later suo jure Baroness de Ros, who married Lord Henry FitzGerald, the fourth son of the 1st Duke of Leinster and the Duchess of Leinster .[6]
Williams was the inspiration for the character Charles Edaston in the 1913 George Bernard Shaw play Great Catherine, which recounts the story of a British envoy to Catherine's court. It was made into a film starring Peter O'Toole in 1968. Williams also left poems which were said to be "witty but licentious".[7]
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