BLOUNT, Henry (1641-79)

In his father’s will, Henry Blount was recorded as the third of three surviving sons suffering from a congenital mental handicap. TNA, PROB 11/319. Yet he married a widow in 1678, an option that was not open to a person legally defined as an ‘idiot’. Savile Corresp. 40; Hist. Psychiatry, ix. 95. At calls of the House on 10 Nov. 1675 and 16 Feb. 1678, he was excused attendance, and there is no record that he ever used his proxy or played a part in the life of the House. The peerage was extinguished at his death, which according to Chester Waters’ genealogical studies took place in 1679 at Great Harrowden in Northamptonshire (the seat of the Vaux family who were linked to the Blounts through the marriage of the earl’s aunt, Lady Isabella Blount and Nicholas Knollys, soi disant 3rd earl of Banbury). Collins Peerage suggests instead that he died in 1681 but there appears to be no evidence to support this. Collins, Peerage (1812 edn), ix. 458.