THOMAS THYNNE, SECOND VISCOUNT
WEYMOUTH.
By Dahl.
BORN 1710, DIED 1751.
Tawny coat. White skirt. Short hair.
ON the death of the first Viscount, the title and estates, by virtue of patent, and entail, descended to the heirs of his youngest brother, Henry Frederick, namely, his grandson Thomas, then only four years old, the posthumous son of Thomas Thynne, by Lady Mary Villiers, daughter of the first Earl of Jersey.
His guardians appear to have been in haste to arrange the young lord’s marriage. At the early age of sixteen he espoused Lady Elizabeth Sackville, eldest surviving daughter of Lionel, Duke of Dorset. But the married pair were immediately separated, as before mentioned, and Lord Weymouth sent off to travel, and while absent from his wife she fell sick, and died in 1729. On his return to England in the same year, a second wife was speedily provided for him, in the person of Lady Louisa Carteret, daughter of John Earl Granville, by whom he had three sons; Lord Weymouth, on first coming of age, finding the grounds and gardens round Longleat House, not only in a bad state, but in too antiquated a style to suit his taste, sent for the renowned ‘Capability Brown’ to improve and modernise them; some of the plans, however, made at that time were not carried out till later. ‘The most august house in England’ was much neglected during this Lord’s lifetime. He did not reside there in his minority, and soon after he came of age he went to live in an old manor-house in the neighbouring village of Horningsham, which had once belonged to the Arundel family. He died and was buried at Horningsham. In 1739 Lord Weymouth was appointed Ranger of Hyde and St. James’s Parks.