Annotation:Dutchess of Grafton
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DUTCHESS OF GRAFTON. English, Country Dance Tune (cut time). G Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. The melody and dance instructions appear in all four editions of London publisher John Young's Second Volume of the Dancing Master (1710-1728), Walsh & Randall's The New Country Dancing Master...Second Book (1710), and Walsh & Hare's The Second Book of the Compleat Country Dancing-Master (1719).
The Duchess of Grafton was born Isabella Bennet (1668-1723), the daughter of a Royalist commander in the English Civil War, and his wife, a descendant of the House of Orange. Rewarded for his service to the Royalist cause, Bennet was named Duke of Grafton, and had the foresight to have a remainder included in the title that allowed women to inherit. At the age of four Isabella was married to an illegitimate son of King Charles II, Henry FitzRoy, Earl of Euston, and the ceremony was repeated when she was aged 11 or 12. The couple lived at Euston Hall and had one son. Upon her father's death, Isabella became the Duchess of Grafton. When she was about aged 22 or 23, her husband died from a wound received at the storming of Cork, Ireland, in 1690, when he led the forces of William of Orange. Some eight years afterward she married Sir Thomas Hammer.
Isabella was one of the Hampton Court Beauties whose portrait was painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, commissioned by Queen Mary II to depict the most beautiful women of the court of William III.
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