Marriage and Issue
On 19 May 1653 at Petworth, Lady Elizabeth married Arthur Capell, 2nd Baron Capell of Hadham. On 20 August 1661, he was created Viscount Malden and the first Earl of Essex by King Charles II of England; Elizabeth was henceforth styled as the Countess of Essex. The marriage produced one surviving son and a daughter:
- Algernon Capell, 2nd Earl of Essex (28 December 1670- 10 January 1710), married Mary Bentinck, by whom he had one son William Capell, 3rd Earl of Essex who in his turn married Lady Jane Hyde, by whom he had issue.
- Anne de Vere Capell (1675- 14 October 1752), married on 25 July 1688, Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle, by whom she had two sons and four daughters.
Elizabeth had five other sons who all died in early infancy. In 1672, Elizabeth's husband was made a Privy Counsellor, and appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He was dedicated to stamping out English corruption in Ireland; one of his many acts was to prevent Phoenix Park in Dublin from being granted to King Charles's former mistress Barbara Villiers who had been promised the Park as well as the fertile lands surrounding it as a gift from the king. In point of fact, it was due to the Earl of Essex that Phoenix Park continues to exist in the 21st century.
In 1677, the Essexes returned to England; in 1679, the Earl was appointed First Lord of the Treasury. He was implicated in the Rye House Plot in June 1683 and sent to the Tower of London. It was there on 13 July 1683 that he committed suicide by cutting his own throat, leaving Elizabeth a widow at the age of forty-six. She never remarried.
She died on 5 February 1718, and was buried in Watford, Hertfordshire.
Read more about this topic: Elizabeth Percy, Countess Of Essex
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