474 COVENTRY the Bedchamber to George II and George III, 1752-70; Recorder of Coventry, 1774. He m., istly, 5 Mar. 1752 (spec, lie), at St. Geo., Han, Sq., Mary,(^) ist da. of John Gunning, of Castle Coote, co. Roscommon, by Bridget, da. of Theobald (Bourke), 6th Viscount Mayo [I.]. She, who was i>. at Hemingford Grey, co. Huntingdon, and l>ap. there 15 Aug. 1732, and was long considered the most beautiful woman at the Court, d'. of consumption, 30 Sep. 1760, at Croome, and was i>ur. at Pirton, but removed to Croome. He m., 2ndly, 27 Sep. 1764, Barbara, da. of John (St. John), loth Baron St. John of Bletso, by Elizabeth, da. of Sir Ambrose Crowley. She d. 25 Nov. 1804. He rf'. 3 Sep. 1809, in Piccadilly, aged 87.() Will pr. Oct. 1809. IX. 1809. 7. George William (Coventry), Earl OF Coventry, &'c., s. and h. by ist wife, of whom he was the only son, b. 25 Apr. 1758; matric. at Oxford (Ch. Ch.) 5 Jan. 1776; Ensign, 64th Foot, 1776; Lieut. 17th Light Dragoons, 1777; Lord Lieut, and Custos Rot. of CO. Worcester (on resignation of his father) 1808 till his death. Recorder of Worcester; High Steward of Tewkesbury. A Tory. He w., istly, 18 Mar. 1777, Catherine, da. of Robert (Henley), ist Earl of Northington, by Jane, da. of Sir John Huband. She ^. s.p., 9 Mar. 1779, then. In 1766 he protested against the Repeal of the Stamp Act, and in 1770 against the Middlesex election proceedings; i.e. he was for the Court in the first case and against it in the second, voting with the Grenville section of the Whigs in both cases. In 1778, 1779, 1780 and 1 781, he signed protests against North's Govt, and their American policy. From 1783 he voted with Pitt against the Coalition's India Bill in that year, and for the Regency Bill in 1789. Apparently he was anti-North, except on the one point of the repeal of the Stamp Act. {ex inform, the Rev. A. B. Beaven). V.G. (^) Her two daughters " got on very well with their mother-in-law [^rectius step- mother], who was very kind to them, and they grew up, and were married, and they were both divorced afterwards — poor little souls ! poor painted Mother, poor Society, ghastly in its pleasures, its loves, its revelries! " (Thackeray, Four Georges). "She [Mary Gunning, Countess of Coventry] is a fine figure and vastly handsome, notwithstanding a silly look sometimes about her mouth; she has a thousand airs, but with a sort of innocence that diverts one." (Mrs. Delany, 10 Nov. 1754). V.G. She was the more lovely of the two (or rather three) sisters, so famed for their beauty, of whom Elizabeth was Duchess of Hamilton and afterwards Duchess of Argyll. See vol. i, p. 210, note "a." Horace Walpole writes, 27 Feb. 1752, of " the extempore wedding of the youngest of the two Gunnings " [with the Duke of Hamilton, for the two sisters married within less than three weeks], and adds that " Lord Coventry, a grave young Lord, of the remains of the patriot breed, has long dangled after the eldest, virtuously with regard to her honour; not very honourably with regard to his own credit," [and] " declares that now he will marry the other." The portrait of this lady, by various painters, has been many times engraved. (•>) He and a Miss Williams appear in 1775, as "Peeping Tom of Coventry and Miss W . . . ms," in the notorious tete-a-tete portraits in Town and Country Mag., vol. vii, p. 65. See Appendix B in the last volume of this work. V.G.
