Francis Fane (royalist)

Biography

Fane was the third, but second surviving, son of Francis Fane, 1st Earl of Westmorland.

Fane was made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Charles I. During the English Civil War he was appointed by the Duke of Newcastle to be governor of Doncaster for the King, and afterwards of Lincoln Castle.

Lincoln was besieged by Edward, Earl of Manchester on 3 May 1644. An attempt to break the siege was made by George, Lord Goring on 5 May, but he found the Parliamentary forces too strong and retreated. The next night the Lincoln Castle (a key defensive structure) was stormed with the use of scaling ladders. Sir Francis Fane, Sir Charles Dallison, and 100 other officers and gentlemen, and 800 soldiers were taken prisoner.

He obtained some reputation as a dramatic writer, having left, besides some poems, three dramatic pieces. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in May 1663 (and expelled in 1682).

Fane was seated at Fulbeck, in Lincolnshire, and at Aston in Yorkshire, where he resided the latter part of his life.

Family

Fane married Elizabeth (widow of John Lord Darcy,) eldest daughter of William West, of Firbeck and his wife Catherine Darcy dau of Sir Edward Darcy of Dertford in com. Ebor. and coheir to her brother, John West, Esq. She died in 1649, and left issue by Sir Francis Fane, four sons and six daughters:

1. Francis, who became a dramatist.
2. William, who died unmarried.
3. Henry
4. Edward, who married Jane, third daughter of James Stanier, of London, merchant, living 1679. This Edward ob. 15th, 1679, aet. thirty-seven, and was buried at St. Martin's in the Fields, London.

Daughters: Mary, married to ??? Marshall, of Fisherton, Lincolnshire; Rachael; Elizabeth; married Thomas Wodhull, of Mollington in Oxfordshire, Esq. and died 2 May 1678; Catherine; Grace, wife of William Grove, of Shropshire, Esq.; and Jane.

His siblings included

Mildmay, 2nd Earl of Westmorland, Rachel, Countess of Bath, and Colonel the Hon. George Fane.