Mervyn Tuchet, 2nd Earl Of Castlehaven

Before 1617, he married Elizabeth Barnham (1592 – c. 1622/24), daughter of Benedict Barnham and his wife, née Dorothea Smith, and by her had six children:

James Tuchet, 3rd Earl Of Castlehaven (c. 1617–1684)

Lady Frances Tuchet (b. 1617)

Mervyn Tuchet, 4th Earl Of Castlehaven (d. 1686)

Hon. George Tuchet (d. c. 1689)

Lady Lucy Tuchet (d. 1662)

Lady Dorothy Tuchet (d. 1635)

Mervyn Tuchet, Lord Audley, succeeded his father as Earl Of Castlehaven and Baron Audley on 20 February 1616/7 .

On 22 July 1624 he married, at Harefield , Middlesex , Lady Anne Stanley (1580–1647), elder daughter and co-heiress of Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl Of Derby and widow of Grey Brydges, 5th Baron Chandos . By her he had one daughter, Lady Anne Tuchet.

He was Beheaded on Tower Hill for a number of Sexual Crime s, (an "unnatural crime" committed with his page, Laurence Florence FitzPatrick, who confessed to the crime and was executed) and for assisting Giles Browning (or Giles Broadway), also executed, in the Rape of the Countess of Castlehaven (née Anne Stanley), in which Lord Castlehaven participated by restraining his wife. The charges were brought against him on the complaint of his son, who feared disinheritance, about the promiscuousness of his mother, to the Privy Council .

Laurence FitzPatrick testified that the Countess of Castlehaven "was the wickedest woman in the world, and had more to answer for than any woman that lived."

Cockayne, in the ''Complete Peerage'' adds that the death of the Earl was certainly brought about by the Countess's manipulations, and her unquestionable adultery with one Ampthill and with Henry Skipwith renders her motive suspicious.

According to Cynthia B. Herrup, ''A House in Gross Disorder: Sex, Law, and the 2nd Earl of Castlehaven,'' Oxford University Press, 1999 , Anne was the equal of Lord Castlehaven in immorality.

The 2nd Earl of Castlehaven was attainted of felony on 14 May 1631 , forfeiting his English Barony of Audley, as it was created for ''heirs general'' but retaining his Irish Earldom and Barony (since it was an entailed honour protected by the statute '' De Donis ''). When he was Beheaded on Tower Hill that same day, his Irish titles passed to his son, James .

NOTE

¹The marriage of Katherine Gray to Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford (d. 1621) was of questionable validity: if it be deemed invalid, and if one excludes the descendants of James VI & I, then Ferdinando Stanley would have been the heir of the Tudors. He was approached by conspirators and offered the English throne if he would help in their conspiracy against Elizabeth I. He declined, and was then poisoned by the conspirators. Anne Stanley would have succeeded him to the throne, but her children by Baron Chandos would have proceeded her daughter by the Earl of Castlehaven in the succession.

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Mervyn Tuchet, 2nd Earl Of Castlehaven