LEE, Sir Henry (Harry), 3rd bt. (1637-59), of Ditchley, Oxon. and Quarrendon, Bucks.

Lee’s grandfather Sir Henry Lee (d. 1631), who had added to his inheritance estates at Quarrendon and Ditchley acquired from his cousin and namesake the champion of Elizabeth I, was created a baronet in 1611 and served as sheriff of both Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, but his short-lived male descendents hardly had the opportunity to play a significant role in public life.9CB; Oxon. RO, DIL/xviii/c.1; VCH Bucks. iii. 74, 96; iv. 101; VCH Oxon. x. 135-7. Meanwhile a succession of long-lived dowagers, who all remarried peers, ensured that a sizeable proportion of income from what should have been a very substantial patrimony was always diverted away from the male heir, and his interests potentially subordinated to those of other families. Lee’s grandmother, Eleanor Wortley, died in 1666, having become in turn the wife of (Sir) Edward Ratcliffe†, 6th earl of Sussex, (Sir) Robert Rich†, 2nd earl of Warwick, and Edward Montagu†, 2nd earl of Manchester; his mother, Anne St John, died in 1696 as countess of Rochester, while his sister-in-law, Lady Elizabeth Pope, who after his younger brother’s death married Robert Bertie, 3rd earl of Lindsey, died only in 1719.10CB; CP; Oxon. RO, Dillon MSS.

Lee succeeded to the baronetcy at the age of 18 months after his father’s sudden death from smallpox. Ralph Verney*, who with his father Sir Edmund Verney* acted as a trustee of Lee family settlements over a long period, attended the reading of the will and reported that Sir Francis Henry’s debts amounted to some £4,000 or £5,000, commenting à propos the latter’s provision for his widow and children that ‘he hath given away more than I believe can be raised out of the estate’.11Mems of the Verney Fam. i. 245-7. Anne St John was to have the wardship, but no mention was made of the countess of Sussex, with whom the deceased had quarrelled over her remarriage.12Mems. of the Verney Fam. i. 245. With the outbreak of war, while the countess adhered to Parliament, Anne earned its mistrust.13Mems. of the Verney Fam. i. 243; ii. 95. By January 1645 Anne had married the controversial royalist cavalry commander Henry Wilmot*, Viscount Wilmot.14CP. Their second, but only surviving, son, John Wilmot, the future poet and rake, was born probably at Ditchley in April 1647, but shortly afterwards Lady Wilmot followed her husband abroad, settling in Paris.15‘Henry Wilmot’, ‘John Wilmot’, Oxford DNB. The movements over the next few years of Henry Lee and his younger brother Francis (Henry)† are not entirely clear. On 10 October 1653 the brothers were granted a pass to go beyond the seas, but the source which indicates that Francis was educated at the Académie de Veaux, Paris, does not mention Henry, and the assertion that Francis was tutored by the ejected clergymen Thomas Triplet at Hayes, Middlesex, does not fit the chronology of Triplet’s career.16CSP Dom. 1653-4, p. 438; CCSP iv. 166; HP Commons 1660-1690; ‘Thomas Triplet (Triplett)’, Oxford DNB.

Some time between the summer of 1654 and early 1655 Lee’s mother, now countess of Rochester, had returned to Ditchley. Reportedly disillusioned with life in Paris, she also had unfinished business with the Committee for Compounding over her jointure lands and the Lee estate at Quarrendon, which had been implicated in proceedings against Wilmot.17‘John Wilmot’, Oxford DNB; CCSP iv. 40; CCC 2235-6. It appears that she then proceeded to cultivate her Wiltshire relatives in search of a suitable match for her eldest son. Following announcements at the morning exercise at Spelsbury, Oxfordshire, on three successive Sunday mornings in May, on 1 June at West Lavington, Wiltshire, 17-year-old Henry Lee married Anne, one of the two daughters and coheirs of Sir John Danvers*, and the sole heir of her recently-deceased brother Henry Danvers.18CB; West Lavington and Spelsbury par. regs.; PROB11/246/26. Sir John, who though a signatory to Charles I’s death warrant and a member of the council of state in 1649-50 was also known as a friend of royalists, had died in April at his home in Chelsea, where the Lees had a house.19‘Sir John Danvers’, Oxford DNB. Young Lee acquired not only an estate at Lavington, which had come to the Danvers family from Sir John’s second wife Elizabeth Dauntsey, but also in time his father-in-law’s parliamentary interest.20LPL, MS 3476, ff. 89-90.

Elected to the 1659 Parliament for Malmesbury, the seat gained by Danvers in 1645, Lee joined a House populated by several close relatives, including Danvers’ other son-in-law, Robert Danvers alias Villiers*, who had inherited the manor of Malmesbury through his wife Elizabeth but sat for the Wiltshire seat of Westbury (until expelled for delinquency in February); his uncle Sir Walter St John* who had a county seat; and Henry St John*, Member for Wotton Bassett.21‘Robert Danvers’, Oxford DNB. Lee was promptly nominated with many others to the elections and privileges committee.22CJ vii. 594b. However, his career was brief. On 18 February he obtained leave to go into the country, in order to hunt for three or four days according to royalist intelligence, which entertained great hopes of his support in the Commons.23CJ vii. 605b. On 27 March, apparently without having returned to the House, he died at Ditchley of the same disease that had claimed his father.24CCSP iv. 166, 177. There was dismay in Brussels: like Sir Walter St John, he had supposedly promised a donation to the royal cause.25CCSP iv. 209.

In a pious will drawn up on 18 March 1659 Lee vested his lands in the hands of three trustees, including St John and Sir Ralph Verney. He dealt generously with his wife and his mother, and named his half-brother John, now earl of Rochester, as his heir if the Lee male line failed, but he also left his grandmother, by now countess of Warwick, £100 for a mourning ring, ‘which I humbly entreat her Ladyship to accept (though it be a small remembrance) from her grandson that loved her’, and there was £300 for poor ministers.26PROB11/290/199. His widow survived long enough to give birth to their second daughter Anne on 20 July, but she died on 31 July.27Spelsbury par. reg. Her will, proved on 22 December, named Richard Salwey* as well as Verney among her trustees, and her mother-in-law as her executrix.28PROB11/296/536. Ditchley and Quarrendon passed to Lee’s brother Francis, still under age. He was returned to the Convention Parliament with Robert Danvers for Malmesbury, and continued to represent the borough after the Restoration.29HP Commons 1660-1690.