The fascinating life of Frances Jennings, elder sister of Sarah,
Duchess of Marlborough, charting her marriages and changes of
fortune, her exile and return, her ambition, political manoeuvring
and sincere piety. Frances Jennings, elder sister of Sarah, duchess
of Marlborough, had an interesting and eventful life, most notably
as the influential wife of Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell,
Catholic viceroy of Ireland under James II. Born circa 1649 into a
Hertfordshire gentry family, she was a noted beauty at the
Restoration court. There, she met and married George Hamilton, a
Catholic officer who, after 1667, served in Louis XIV's army. In
Paris, Frances raised three daughters, converted to Catholicism,
and became an active member of the English Catholic emigre
community. Following Hamilton's death, she remarried to Richard
Talbot. As vicereine of Ireland, Frances helped re-establish
Catholic hegemony, assisting in the foundation of convents and
re-consecration of Christ Church cathedral. During the
Williamite-Jacobite War in Ireland (1689-91), Frances fled to James
II's exiled court in France. In 1691, she received word that her
husband, now Jacobite duke of Tyrconnell, had died. Attainted for
high treason, she used the Marlboroughs' influence to recover her
Irish estates. In 1708, she returned to Dublin, where she died in
1731. Highlighting Frances's political manoeuvrings, religious
identity and deep family attachments, this book portrays a complex
and contested figure, a woman who acted on multiple stages, in
diverse roles, challenging expectations of rank, gender, and
'nationality' in unexpected ways.
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