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Biographical information about Katherine Stanley and her husband, undated

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The child in this picture was Katherine, third daughter of Earl and Lady Derby, who married, September 1652, as his second wife, Henry Pierrepont, first Marquis of Dorcester (1606-1680). He was a year older than her father; and the marriage took place during the year following the father's execution.

Henry Pierrepont was the oldest son of Robert Pierrepont, first Earl of Kingston. He also was a royalist and took an active part in the raising of forces for the King's army, but he did not take part in the fighting. He followed the King to Oxford and remained there till the war ended, Charles rewarding his adherence by creating him Marquis of Dorchester in 1645. From his youth he was always much addicted to books, and after the war he resumed his studies. Sedentary habits and trouble of mind made him ill, and his illness suggested the study of physic. He also studied law, and the year before his marriage was admitted to Gray's Inn. The royalists regarded his conduct as a scandal to his order, and spread a report that by his prescriptions he had killed his daughter, his coachman and five other patients. He is described as a little man, with a very violent temper, and once was guilty of an assault within the precincts of Westminster Abbey during divine service. He was also committed to custody for violent words during a debate in the House of Lords, and later received a beating from another lord. He challenged his own son-in-law (married to the child of his first wife) to a duel, two years after his marriage to Katherine Stanley, and the letters hew rote make very amusing reading now. In 1667 he came to blows with the Duke of Buckingham at a conference between the Lords and Commons, and the Marquis "lost his periwig and received some rudeness;" but the Marquis "had much of the duke's hair in his hands to recompense for the pulling off his periwig." It is to be supposed from all this that the sweet-faced child of the portrait had none too happy a time after her marriage. The marquis is said to have hastened his own death by taking his own medicines.

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