Edward Weld

Edward Weld (1740–1775) was a British recusant landowner.

Biography Edward Weld was the eldest of the four sons and one daughter of Edward Weld (1705–1761) and his second wife, Dame Maria née Vaughan. He was heir to the enormous Lulworth Estate with its magnificent Jurassic coastline and its castle in the county of Dorset, England and to other estates. He was a member of the well connected notable recusant family and one of the wealthiest people in the kingdom. As was usual for the sons of Catholic gentry at that time, Edward and his younger brother, John, were sent to be educated abroad. While away, their mother died in 1754. They had been despatched at around the age of nine into the hands of British Jesuit preceptors at Watten in the Austrian Netherlands and thence to St Omer. There, in 1759, Edward's brother, John fell ill and died, probably in September. At age twenty, having concluded his education, Edward prepared for the Grand Tour by honing the manners of a young gentleman at the Jesuit house in Rheims and a stay at the court of the former Polish King Stanislaw Leszczynski in Lorraine. On his return to England, he had been orphaned by his father, Edward Sr., and as his heir had become immensely rich and was eligible for the hand of a suitable lady.

He was widowed after his first marriage in 1763 to Juliana Petre, daughter of Robert James Petre, 8th Baron Petre, who died in 1772. In 1775, he married the impecunious Maria Smythe, sixteen years his junior, and became her little-known first husband. Three months after the wedding, he fell off his horse and died of his injuries, before having had time to sign his new will. As there was no issue from either marriage, the estate passed to his surviving younger brother, nine years his junior, Thomas. At her special entreaty a number of documents which she particularly valued, including her marriage certificate, were deposited in Coutts Bank, sealed and witnessed by Stourton.

Moreover, Mrs Fitzherbert dictated to Lord Stourton her memoir which he preserved. It contains invaluable evidence about her marriage to the future George IV, and of their years together. On the subject of whether there were any children of the marriage she remained reticent as this would have had enormous repercussions on the Royal Succession. Stourton, who attributed her reticence to "natural delicacy" apparently believed that she was implying that there were no children. William at his death entrusted his brother Charles with the task of publishing the truth about the royal marriage. However, Charles was unable to obtain the documents deposited in Coutts Bank, but he used his brother's copy of Maria's memoir as the basis for his biography of Mrs. Fitzherbert, published in 1856. Her nephew-in-law from her marriage to Edward, Cardinal Weld, persuaded Pope Pius VII to declare the marriage to George sacramentally valid.

Landholdings of Weld family

Principal landholdings as of 1775: Stonyhurst, Lancashire Aston, Staffordshire Pipe Ridware, Staffordshire

In 1801, Thomas, Edward's brother, bought Pylewell Park in Hampshire as a wedding gift for his son, Joseph. In 1837, Thomas, second son of Joseph, inherited Ince Blundell Hall on Merseyside from the last Blundell cousin.