and his Daughter, and of the losses sustained by them by the enclosure of the New Park". Lionel died in 1669, leaving his Ham and Petersham estate to Elizabeth along with Framsden Hall in Suffolk, which had been her jointure on their marriage. Elizabeth and John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale (1645–82) Elizabeth may have become acquainted with John Maitland, 1st Duke of Lauderdale at some time in the 1640s, when he was one of the Scottish Commissioners on the Committee of Both Kingdoms who petitioned for her father's release on charges of treason in 1646. She felt sufficient gratitude towards him to claim in later years that she appealed to Cromwell to show clemency following his capture after the Battle of Worcester, a gesture Maitland repaid in his will when he left her £1,500 in gold for "preserving my life when I was a prisoner in the year 1651". They became much closer following the death of her husband and he began visiting Ham regularly. Already a favourite of the King, he was appointed High Commissioner for Scotland in August 1669 which, on top of his political influence as Secretary of State and participation in Charles's Cabal ministry, made him one of the most powerful men in the country. In 1671 Lauderdale was granted by Letters patent full freehold rights to the Manors of Ham and Petersham and the 289 acres of leased land. In 1672 Elizabeth and Lauderdale were married, and soon afterwards he was created Duke of Lauderdale and Knight of the Garter. With Lauderdale's part in the Cabal Ministry, the family remained close to the heart of court intrigue. As Duchess and consort to a very political Duke, Elizabeth had risen to the peak of Restoration society where she could exercise her many talents and interests. Image was paramount and the Lauderdales began a programme of aggrandisement of their properties – Elizabeth consulted her cousin, William Bruce, and Maitland commissioned William Samwell, respectively amateur and professional architects. Ham was extended on the south front with an enfilade of rooms created each side of a central axis around a new downstairs Dining Room. Most grand houses at that time had apartments laid out in this way, comprising a suite of rooms approached one through the other. The original plan was to create the Duchess's apartments to the left (east) and the Duke's to the right, she having