Charlecote House – Painting of Margaret Spencer

The artist isn’t known, but this painting is located in the Great Hall of Charlecote House and depicts Margaret Spencer (1627-1704). She has a direct connection to the property as she first married Robert Lucy of Charlecote (1622–1658 and son of Sir Thomas Lucy III and Alice Spencer) in 1654. After Robert’s death, she married Thomas, 4th Lord Arundell of Wardour, hence her later title. I did read Charlecote and the Lucys by Alice Fairfax-Lucy to see why Robert died, but it doesn’t give a reason and I imagine that no-one knows. Margaret and Robert had one child, Bridget Lucy who married William Molyneux, but the Lucy line seems to have died there and the title went back up the line (for anyone interested, the full tree is here).

The artwork was presented by to the National Trust in the 1940s by Sir Montgomerie Fairfax-Lucy two years after the death of his father, Sir Henry Ramsay-Fairfax, 3rd Baronet.