{{Short description|British noblewoman}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}} {{Infobox noble | name = Elizabeth Rannie | image = David Martin Viscountes Melville.jpg | caption = Portrait by David Martin | birth_date = {{circa|1750}} | birth_place = Calcutta | death_date = June {{death year and age|1847|1750}} | death_place = Cornwall, England |spouse = {{unbulleted list|{{marriage|Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville|1765|1778|end=div}} |{{marriage|Captain Everard Fawkener |1778|end=unknown}}}} |issue = {{Plainlist| * Elizabeth Dundas * Anne Dundas * Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville * Montague Dundas }} |father = David Rannie |mother = Elizabeth Bayley }} '''Elizabeth Rannie''', also known as '''Elizabeth Rennie''', (1750–1847) was a British noblewoman who was married to Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, and was mother to Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville.
==Early life== Elizabeth was born in Calcutta around 1750.<ref name="radioscotland">{{cite web |title=Disposable Brides |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zt4cm |website=BBC Radio Scotland |accessdate=13 July 2020}}</ref> Her father, David Rannie, was a Captain in the British merchant service, and amassed a considerable fortune in India.<ref name="cockburn">{{cite book |last1=Sir Robert Cockburn Baronet |title=The Records of The Cockburn Family |publisher=T. N. Foulis 1913 |pages=200–215 |url=https://www.palmspringsbum.org/genealogy/getperson.php?personID=I106541&tree=Legends}}</ref> Her mother was Elizabeth Bayley. A younger sister, Janet, was born around 1753.<ref name="cockburn" />
In 1760, with the fortune amassed through 30 years of trading with the East India Company in Calcutta, her father purchased Melville Castle.<ref name="cockburn" /><ref name = "castle">{{cite web |title=History of Melville Castle |url=https://melvillecastle.com/history/ |website=Melville Castle |accessdate=13 July 2020}}</ref>
In November 1764 her father died, aged 48, leaving the estate and a considerable dowry to Elizabeth, then aged 13 or 14, and her younger sister Janet.<ref name="cockburn" /><ref name="castle" />
Her sister married Archibald Cockburn in 1768.<ref name="cockburn" />
==Marriage to Dundas== Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, first husband of Elizabeth Rannie|thumb On 16 August 1765, Elizabeth Rannie and Henry Dundas were married;<ref name="ODNB">{{cite ODNB |title=Dundas, Henry, first Viscount Melville |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-8250 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/8250 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 |accessdate=13 July 2020}}</ref> she was 14 years old, and he was 24. Through the union, Dundas acquired the Melville castle and estate, and her fortune;<ref name="castle" /> these represented almost all of his wealth.<ref name="medium">{{cite web |title=Henry Dundas, the First Viscount Melville: why and how should Scotland remember him? |url=https://medium.com/there-shall-be-an-independent-scotland/henry-dundas-the-first-viscount-melville-why-and-how-should-scotland-remember-him-d7a63b273335 |website=The Medium |date=14 August 2018 |accessdate=13 July 2020}}</ref> Her £10,000 fortune was lost by Dundas through an investment in Douglas, Heron & Company, also known as the Ayr Bank, which crashed in 1772.<ref name="ODNB" /> Numerous Scottish land owners were bankrupted in the collapse. Melville castle was mortgaged as a result of the misinvestment, and the countess and family impoverished.<ref name="castle" /> Dundas also had income through work with the corporation of Edinburgh and the Church of Scotland, as well as legal work. In 1766 he was appointed solicitor-general for Scotland.<ref name="ODNB" /> Rannie and Dundas lived between Edinburgh, where they lived at 5 George Square, Edinburgh, and Melville Castle.<ref name="despotism">{{cite book |last1=Fry |first1=Michael |title=The Dundas Despotism |date=1992 |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |isbn=0748603522 |pages=48, 60}}</ref> Rannie and Dundas had four children:<ref name="despotism" /><ref name="ODNB" /> * Elizabeth, born in May 1766, died in 1852. Married her first cousin, Robert Dundas of Arniston. * Anne, born in September 1768, died in 1852. * Robert Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, born in Edinburgh on 14 March 1771. Only son and heir to Dundas and the title. Inherited Melville Castle upon death of Henry Dundas in 1811. Died in 1851. * Montague, born in April 1772, died in 1837. Robert Saunders Dundas, 2nd Viscount Melville, son of Elizabeth Rannie and Henry Dundas|thumb
Her portrait was painted by David Martin in 1770; it now belongs to National Galleries Scotland.<ref name="national gallery">{{cite web |title=David Martin - Elizabeth Rannie |url=https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/3264/elizabeth-rannie-viscountess-melville-1751-1843-wife-1st-viscount-melville |website=National Galleries Scotland |accessdate=13 July 2020}}</ref>
==Affair and divorce== In October 1778, Rannie took a 10 day tour around East Lothian, stopping to attend a ball at the house of Mr Colt of Aldhame and Hon Mrs Helen Stewart in Musselburgh. Here she was discovered, and later admitted via letter to her husband, to be having an affair with Captain Everard Fawkener, later a lieutenant, of the 11th dragoons (11th Hussars). Rannie then fled to the home of her brother-in-law, Archibald Cockburn.<ref name="radioscotland" />
Her husband filed for divorce and it was granted within five weeks, on 21 November 1778.<ref name="ODNB" />
As per the laws of the age, as the confessed adulterous party, Elizabeth Rannie forfeited the entire property she had brought into the family, and never saw her children again, then aged between 6 and 12 years old.<ref name="despotism" /><ref name="national" />
==Later life and death== Elizabeth and Everard Fawkener were married on 2 December 1778, almost immediately after her divorce from Dundas.<ref name="radioscotland" />
Everard Fawkener was the son of Sir Everard Fawkener, an English merchant who was chiefly known for his friendship to Voltaire.<ref name="Fawkener">{{cite ODNB |title=Fawkener, Sir Everard |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-9228 |year=2004 |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/9228 |isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 |accessdate=13 July 2020|last1=Mason |first1=Haydn }}</ref> Through his father, Everard Fawkener met with Voltaire in 1774.<ref name="radioscotland" /> Through his brother, William Augustus Fawkener, Everard held the civil service post of the Commissioner of Stamps from 1783 until his death in 1803.<ref>W. R. Ward, 'Some Eighteenth Century Civil Servants: The English Revenue Commissioners, 1754–98' ''English Historical Review'', Vol. 70, No. 274 (Jan. 1955), p. 33.[https://www.jstor.org/stable/556899] Accessed: 4 April 2009</ref>
Little is known of the marriage between Fawkener and Rannie, except that in 1784 she calls him a ‘brute’.<ref name="radioscotland" /> There was no issue and the marriage presumably ends with his death in 1803. Little is known of the later life of Elizabeth Rannie, except that she never saw her children again and lived a poverty stricken existence.<ref name="radioscotland" /> Decades later, her son discovered she was still alive in Cornwall, where she died at the age of 97 in 1847.<ref name="despotism" />
==Legacy== thumb|upright=1.4|left|Entrance of Melville Castle Notable descendants of Elizabeth Rannie, in addition to her son, include grandsons Henry Dundas, 3rd Viscount Melville and Richard Saunders Dundas.
To this day, the peerage of Viscount Melville is descended from Elizabeth Rannie, and takes its name from the castle that Rannie brought into her marriage with Dundas.<ref name="ODNB" />
Melville castle remained in the Dundas family until the 1980s.<ref name="castle" /> ==In popular culture== In 2011, BBC Radio Scotland produced a three-part series entitled "Disposable Brides", focussing on bad marriages in Scotland in the 18th century. Narrated by Susan Morrison, episode 2 focussed on Elizabeth Rannie.<ref name="radioscotland" />
In 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd protests, the role of Henry Dundas in abolition was brought to light, and through that commentary appeared in the press on his marriage to then child-bride Elizabeth Rannie.<ref name="national">{{cite web |title=Henry Dundas: The Scotsman who kept slavery going |url=https://www.thenational.scot/news/18506771.henry-dundas-scotsman-kept-slavery-going/ |website=The National |date=10 June 2020 |accessdate=13 July 2020}}</ref><ref name="times letter">{{cite news |title=Echoes of Empire |url=https://www.thetimes.com/comment/article/times-letters-lockdowns-effect-on-childrens-education-c6phxslz0 |website=The Times |access-date=13 July 2020}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rannie, Elizabeth}} Category:1750 births Category:1847 deaths Category:Scottish noblewomen Category:18th-century Scottish nobility Category:19th-century Scottish nobility