the sad last months of Madame de Pompadour, whom he admired, and wrote a kindly epitaph for her. In August 1765 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. In Dublin, leading representatives of the Protestant Ascendancy warmly anticipated his arrival. The Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, John Ponsonby, was satisfied that "the public as well as private character of Lord Hertford, together with the great property which he has in Ireland" were "the best securities which we can have for his good behaviour. There could not have been found a person to govern us who in all respects would be so likely to use us well . . .". But with his eldest son, Francis, Viscount Beauchamp, as his chief secretary, Hertford was in Ireland for just one parliamentary session (October 1765–June 1766). He hastened to return to his court circle in London where he was appointed Lord Chamberlain 1766–82 (and again April–December 1783). In 1782, when she was only fifty-six, his wife died after having nursed their grandson at Forde's Farm, Thames Ditton, where she caught a violent cold. According to Walpole, "Lord Hertford's loss is beyond measure. She was not only the most affectionate wife, but the most useful one, and almost the only person I ever saw that never neglected or put off or forgot anything that was to be done. She was always proper, either in the highest life or in the most domestic." (Walpole visited Forde's Farm on several occasions from his residence at Strawberry Hill, Twickenham.) Within two years of the tragedy, Lord Hertford had sold Forde's Farm to Mrs Charlotte Boyle Walsingham, and a further two years later, she had re-developed the estate, building a new mansion which she called Boyle Farm, a name still in use today. In July 1793 he was created Marquess of Hertford, with the subsidiary title of Earl of Yarmouth. He enjoyed this elevation for almost a year until his death at the age of seventy-six, on 14 June 1794, at the house of his daughter, the Countess of Lincoln. He died as the result of an infection following a minor injury he received while riding. He was buried at Arrow, in Warwickshire. Marriage Lord Hertford married Lady Isabella Fitzroy, daughter of Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, on 29 May 1741. Her grandfather was Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton (1663-1690), an illegitimate son of