Emily FitzGerald, Duchess of Leinster


Emily Fitzgerald, Duchess of Leinster, known before 1747 as Lady Emily Lennox, from 1747 to 1761 as The Countess of Kildare and from 1761 to 1766 as The Marchioness of Kildare, was the second of the famous Lennox sisters, daughters of Charles Lennox, 2nd Duke of Richmond.

Early life

Lady Emily married James FitzGerald, 20th Earl of Kildare, on 7 February 1747. After their wedding in London, the couple returned to Fitzgerald's native Ireland, first residing at Leinster House then Carton House.
Their marriage was reportedly a happy one, despite Lord Kildare's infidelities. Emily was almost always pregnant, giving birth to nineteen children in just twenty-five years, but only ten lived to mature adulthood:
Lord Kildare was created successively Marquess of Kildare and Duke of Leinster in recognition of his contribution to the political life of his country. It was partly the Duke's influence that led to a rift between the Duchess and her eldest sister, Caroline Fox, 1st Baroness Holland.

Later life

[Image:Emily Duchess of Leinster 1770 s.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The Duchess of Leinster painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in the 1770s.]
After the death of Lord Kildare on 19 November 1773, Emily married her children's tutor, William Ogilvie, on 26 August 1774. Emily and Ogilvie had begun an affair some years earlier in Frescati House. Despite her remarriage, she continued to be known as The Dowager Duchess of Leinster.
Ogilvie was nine years her junior, and was the natural father of her youngest son from her first marriage. They lived for part of their marriage at Ardglass Castle in Ardglass, County Down, where Ogilvie worked to develop the village. A further three children were born to them after their marriage, two of whom lived to adulthood:
Emily was treated generously in her first husband's will. He left her a jointure of 4,000 annually, and a life interest in Leinster House and Carton together with all their contents. She had brought the usual ducal daughter's dowry of £10,000, so the jointure and other payments would financially cripple her son, the second Duke of Leinster.
The first Duke also made over-generous provisions for his younger sons and all his daughters. Emily also received the usual annuity of £400 annually for each of the minor children who lived with her, even after her remarriage to Ogilvie.
Thus, Emily and William Ogilvie were probably financially better off than her son, the second Duke, who existed on less than £7,000 annually, out of which he had to run two large houses, play a role in Irish politics, and also provide lavish dowries of £10,000 each for three sisters who married. He also had to pay huge annuities to his two younger brothers Lord Lecale and Lord Henry Fitzgerald, and to pay his youngest brothers £10,000 each at their majority. Since Emily lived to 1814, all these generous testamentary provisions, along with the huge building costs incurred by the first Duke, crippled the Leinsters for generations.
Fourteen of her children predeceased her, ten of whom died in childhood or adolescence. All these bereavements caused much pain to Emily, who always remained until the end at the bedside of her children, except to faint from the suffering of seeing them die in her arms. One of her sons, Lord Edward FitzGerald, was a major figure in the republican movement, and was killed during the Irish Rebellion of 1798.
She died on 27 March 1814 in Grosvenor Square, London.

Popular culture

In 1999, Irish Screen, BBC America and WGBH produced Aristocrats, a six-part limited television series based on the lives of Emily Lennox and her sisters. Geraldine Somerville and Siân Phillips portray Emily as a young woman and as an older woman, respectively.
The series aired in the US on PBS stations under the aegis of the anthology series Masterpiece Theater; in the UK it aired on the BBC. The series was based on Stella Tillyard's 1994 biography, ''Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa and Sarah Lennox 1740-1832.''