Frances Keightley

Frances Keightley
Born1658 (1658)
Died1725 (aged 66–67)
Spouse Thomas Keightley
ChildrenCatherine Keightley
Parents

Frances Keightley (1658-1725) was an English aristocrat from the Hyde family.

Biography

Frances was the youngest daughter of Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon and his second wife Frances Hyde, Countess of Clarendon. In 1675, she married Thomas Keightley. By 1682 they were living in Mallow, County Cork. They separated, meeting briefly in Dublin, in July 1684.

Frances appears to have had religious difficulties, she was in Glaslough, Ireland, in 1686, when she met the controversialist, Charles Leslie. It is believed that he wrote his Short and Easie Method with the Deists in 1698 to address her religious doubts. Afterwards, she was in London in 1687/8, where the last of her sons, Francis, died. She stayed with her brother Henry Hyde, 2nd Earl of Clarendon. Subsequently, she lived at Athelhampton House with her sister-in-law Mary Long (née Keightley), they both petitioned King William in 1701/2 to be absolved of fines for not attending church.

In January 1712/13, she met her husband again at Somerset House after an absence of twenty seven years. Her relatives believed that the long quarrel was due to the uncertainess of her temper and no fault of her husbands.

The couple's only child to survive to adulthood was Catherine who married Lucius O'Brien in 1701.

Frances wrote Advice to a Daughter, in which she urged her daughter to be very certain if she wanted to marry, and to read and learn as much as she could.

References

  1. ↑ Nicol, Cheryl (2016). Inheriting the Earth. Warminster: The Hobnob Press. p. 106. ISBN 9781906978372.
  2. ↑ Ashford, Gabrielle (2012). Analecta Hibernica, No. 43. Irish Manuscripts Commission. ISBN 978-1906865160.