BURIED TOGETHER
Friend William III of England, buried together
Queer Places:
Bulstrode Park, Gerrard’s Cross, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire SL9 8SZ, UK
Westminster Abbey, 20 Deans Yd, Westminster, London SW1P 3PA, Regno Unito
Hans William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland, Baron Bentinck of
Diepenheim and Schoonheten,[1]
KG, PC (20 July 1649, Diepenheim, Overijssel – 23 November 1709, Bulstrode
Park, Buckinghamshire) was a Dutch and English nobleman who became in an
early stage the favourite of
William, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder in the Netherlands, and future
King of England. He was reportedly steady, sensible, modest and usually
moderate.[2]
The friendship and cooperation stopped in 1699.
In 1691 the Society for the Reformation of Manners began its
activities, some of them designed to put an end to the ‘scourge’ of sodomy
that was said to have polluted the streets of London. The references to
same-sex love among males may have been heated by rumours about the new
king,
William III of England, who had been given the crown in 1689. William himself had
been attached to
William
Bentinck, ennobled as the Earl of Portland, and the gossip about the
two men reached the public in satires and ballads. The king was accused of
buggering Bentinck and the favourite was called a ‘catamite who rules
alone the state’ or, more unusually, a ‘bardash’ or the equivalent of the
French ‘bardache’, meaning man-woman or passive male prostitute. One
satire put it this way: In love to his minions he partial and rash is,
Makes statesmen of blockheads and earls of bardashes. When the king seems
to have transferred his affections to another Dutchman, Arnold Joost van
Keppel, Bentinck threw up all his public offices in a fit of pique.
William remonstrated with him, and Bentinck replied that ‘the kindness
which your majesty shows to a young man and the manner in which you appear
to authorize his liberties and impertinencies make the world say things I
am ashamed to hear’.
An anonymous writer posing as a procuress and brothel-keeper, ‘Jenny
Cromwell’, composed a pamphlet entitled Jenny Cromwell’s Complaint Against
Sodomy (1692) which associated the London court with its queer
inhabitants. Among the elite circle of the sodomites she mentioned
‘Bardash’ or Bentinck and the king; another candidate for inclusion was
the
Earl of Scarsdale who was wont ‘to skulk about the alleys / And is
content with Bettys, Nans and Mollys’. ‘Jenny Cromwell’ rose to a final
condemnation against William III: ‘Till you came in and with your
Reformation / Turn’d all things Arsy Versey in the Nation.’
Westminster Abbey, London
Hans Willem was the son of Bernard, Baron Bentinck of Diepenheim and
descended from an ancient and noble family of Guelders and Overijssel. He
was appointed first page of honour and chamberlain. When, in 1675, Prince
William was attacked by smallpox, Bentinck nursed him assiduously, and
this devotion secured for him the special and enduring friendship of
William. From that point on, Bentinck had the Prince's confidence, and in
their correspondence William was very open.
In 1677 he was sent to England to solicit for Prince William the hand
of Mary, daughter of James, Duke of York and future King of England. He
was again in England on William's behalf in 1683 and in 1685. Later, in
1688, when William was preparing to assist in the overthrow of (now King)
James including an invasion by Dutch troops, Bentinck went to some of the
German princes to secure their support, or at least their neutrality. He
had also been, since 1687, a medium of communication between his master
and his English friends. Bentinck superintended the arrangements for the
invasion, including raising money, hiring an enormous transport fleet,
organising a propaganda offensive, and preparing the possible landing
sites, and also sailed to England with Prince William.
The revolution accomplished, William (now King of England) made
Bentinck Groom of the Stole, first gentleman of the bedchamber, and a
Privy Counsellor. In April 1689 he was created Baron Cirencester, Viscount
Woodstock and, in its second creation, Earl of Portland. (The first
creation of the earldom had been made for Richard Weston in 1633, but it
became extinct in 1688.) He commanded some cavalry at the Battle of the
Boyne in 1690, and was present at the Battle of Landen, where he was
wounded, and at the Siege of Namur in 1695.
Bentinck's main work was of a diplomatic nature. In 1690 he was sent to
The Hague to help solve the problem between William and the burgomasters
of Amsterdam. He was caught up in the corruption scandal concerning the
East India Company in 1695; the board was losing its monopoly under
pressure from a New Company and was engaging profusely in bribery in an
attempt to renew its charter. He was however cleared in the matter. Having
thwarted the Jacobite plot to murder the King in 1696, he helped to
arrange the peace of Ryswick in 1697. In 1698 he was ambassador to Paris
for six months. While there, he opened negotiations with Louis XIV for a
partition of the Spanish monarchy, and as William's representative, signed
the two partition treaties (Treaty of The Hague (1698)).
William Bentinck had, however, become very jealous of the rising
influence of another Dutchman, Arnold van Keppel, and, in 1699, he
resigned all his offices in the royal household. He did not forfeit the
esteem of the King, who continued to trust and employ him. Portland had
been loaded with gifts, and this, together with the jealousy felt for him
as a foreigner, made him very unpopular in England. He received 135,000
acres (546 km²) of land in Ireland, and only the strong opposition of a
united House of Commons prevented him obtaining a large gift of crown
lands in North Wales. For his share in drawing up the partition treaties
he was impeached in 1701, but the case against him did not proceed. He was
occasionally employed on public business under Queen Anne until his death
at his residence, Bulstrode Park in Buckinghamshire. Portland's eldest son
Henry succeeded him as earl, and was granted the titles of Marquess of
Titchfield and Duke of Portland in 1716.
While living in Holland, Bentinck maintained a garden boasting many
botanical rarities. Illustrations of these plants were collected under the
name Codex Bentingiana. This work has since disappeared from the
botanical scene.[3]
Lord Portland was married twice. On 1 February 1678, he married his
first wife, Anne Villiers (died 30 November 1688), daughter of Sir Edward
Villiers and his wife Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the 2nd Earl of
Suffolk. They had seven children:
- Lady Mary Bentinck (20 August 1679 – 20 August 1726), who married,
firstly, the 2nd Earl of Essex on 28 February 1692 and had one son and
two daughters.[4]
She married, secondly, Sir Conyers D'Arcy (died 1 December 1758),
circa August 1714 and had no issue.
- Willem Bentinck (3 March 1681 – 26 May 1688)
- Henry Bentinck, 1st Duke of Portland (17 March 1682 – 4 July 1726)
ancestor of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.
- Lady Anna Margaretha Bentinck (19 March 1683 – 3 May 1763), who
married Arent van Wassenaar, Baron van Wassenaar circa 1701 and had at
least one daughter.
- r (18 February 1684 – 31 March 1712), who married the 4th Baron
Byron (4 January 1670 – 8 August 1736) on 19 December 1706 and had
four children.
- Lady Eleonora Sophia Bentinck (8 April 1687 – ????)
- Lady Isabella Bentinck (4 May 1688 – 23 February 1728), who
married the 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull on 2 August 1714.
He married on 12 May 1700, his second wife, Jane Martha Temple (1672 –
26 May 1751), daughter of Sir John Temple, and widow of John Berkeley, 3rd
Baron Berkeley of Stratton. They had the following children:
- Lady Sophia Bentinck (4 April 1701 – 5 June 1741), who married the
1st Duke of Kent on 24 March 1729 and had issue.
- Lady Elizabeth Adriana Bentinck (27 June 1703 – 1765), who married
Rev. The Hon. Henry Egerton (died 1 April 1746) on 18 December 1720
and had issue.
- The Hon. William Bentinck, 1st Count Bentinck (6 November 1704 –
13 October 1774), who married Charlotte Sophie, Countess von Aldenburg
(4 August 1715 – 5 February 1800) on 1 June 1733 and had two sons. In
1990, after the extinction of the male line from his half-brother the
1st Duke of Portland, his descendant Henry Bentinck, 7th Count
Bentinck became the 11th Earl of Portland. One of his sons, Captain
John Albert Bentinck, Royal Navy, of Terrington St Clement in Norfolk,
a Count of the Empire, founded the line of Bentinck of Indio in the
parish of Bovey Tracey in Devon.[5]
- Lady Harriet Bentinck (12 November 1705 – 10 June 1792), who
married James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Clanbrassill (bef. 1697 – 17 March
1758) on 15 October 1728 and had two children.
- The Hon. Charles John Bentinck (2 June 1708 – 18 March 1779), who
married Lady Margaret Cadogan on 11 January 1738.
- Lady Barbara Bentinck (20 October 1709 – 1 April 1736), who
married the 2nd Baron Godolphin (1707 – 25 May 1785) on 18 February
1734; no issue.
My published books:
BACK TO HOME PAGE
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Bentinck,_1st_Earl_of_Portland
- Ackroyd, Peter. Queer City (p.126). Random House. Edizione del
Kindle.