Elizabeth Rennie

Elizabeth Rannie, also known as Elizabeth Rennie, (1750–1847) was a British noblewoman who was married to Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, and was mother to Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville.

Early life Elizabeth was born in Calcutta around 1750. Her father, David Rannie, was a Captain in the British merchant service, and amassed a considerable fortune in India. Her mother was Elizabeth Bayley. A younger sister, Janet, was born around 1753.

In November 1764 her father died, aged 48, leaving the estate and a considerable dowry to Elizabeth, then aged 13 or 14, and her younger sister Janet. she was 14 years old, and he was 24. Through the union, Dundas acquired the Melville castle and estate, and her fortune; Her £10,000 fortune was lost by Dundas through an investment in Douglas, Heron & Company, also known as the Ayr Bank, which crashed in 1772. Rannie and Dundas had four children:

Affair and divorce In October 1778, Rannie took a 10 day tour around East Lothian, stopping to attend a ball at the house of Mr Colt of Aldhame and Hon Mrs Helen Stewart in Musselburgh. Here she was discovered, and later admitted via letter to her husband, to be having an affair with Captain Everard Fawkener, later a lieutenant, of the 11th dragoons (11th Hussars). Rannie then fled to the home of her brother-in-law, Archibald Cockburn. Through his father, Everard Fawkener met with Voltaire in 1774.

Little is known of the marriage between Fawkener and Rannie, except that in 1784 she calls him a ‘brute’.