Family and Education

b. c.1706, 1st s. of William Windham of Earsham and nephew of Joseph Windham Ashe. m. Apr. 1734, Mary, da. of Charles Howard, wid. of Henry Scott, 1st Earl of Delorain [S], 1s. suc. fa. 1730.

Offices Held

Sub-gov. to Duke of Cumberland 1731; afterwards comptroller of his household till the Duke’s death in 1765.

Biography

Appointed sub-governor to the ten-year-old Duke of Cumberland, Windham married the governess of the younger Princesses, a lady who

engrossed the dalliance of the King’s looser hours, his Majesty having chosen, not from any violence of passion, but as a decent convenient, natural, and unexceptionable commerce, to make the governess of his two youngest daughters his whore, his two eldest daughters convenient [i.e. to make a convenience of their apartment], and the guardian of his son’s youth and morals his cuckold.1

Returned for Aldeburgh in 1747 on Pelham’s recommendation,2 classed as a government supporter, he died 4 May 1789.

Ref Volumes: 1715-1754

Author: Romney R. Sedgwick

Notes

• 1. Hervey, Mems. 745.
• 2. Pelham to Bedford, 28 Dec. 1746, Bedford mss.