Charles Kerr, 2nd Earl of Ancram

Charles Kerr, 2nd Earl of Ancram (1624 – September 1690) was a Scottish peer and a member of the English House of Commons.^[1][2]

Biography

Charles was born on 6 August 1624 at Richmond, Surrey to Anne daughter of William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby and the second wife of Robert Kerr, 1st Earl of Ancram.^[3][4] Until he inherited his father's title after the death of his father in December 1654 he was known by the courtesy title of Lord Carr.^[5][6]

Kerr had a long career in the English House of Commons. He was able to continue to sit in that house after he was ennobled, the fact that Earl of Ancram was a Scottish title was no impediment to sitting in the English House of Commons representing an English or Welsh constituency. Kerr was the Member of Parliament (MP) for St. Michaels in Cornwall between March 1647 and December 1648 in the Long Parliament,^[6] Robert Holborne, a Royalist, was disabled from sitting for St. Michaels and gave the seat to Kerr, who constituency's MP until he was excluded in Pride's Purge.^[7] Between July 1660 and December 1660 Kerr sat in the Convention Parliament representing Thirsk. After the Restoration In the Cavalier Parliament (from 1661 to 1681) he represented Wigan and again in the Oxford Parliament (from 1661 and 1681). The last Parliament in which he sat, still for Wigan, was the Loyal Parliament the first parliament of the reign of James II (from 1685 to 1687).^[6]

On his death, sometime between 1 September 1690 and 11 September 1690, the earldom devolved upon Robert Kerr, (afterwards Marquess of Lothian), the eldest son of Kerr's elder half brother William Kerr, 3rd Earl of Lothian.^[6]

Family

Ancram married Francis who was a Lady of the Bedchamber to Catherine, Queen Consort to King Charles II.^[8] They had daughter, Anne, who married Colonel Nathaniel Rich.^[9][10][11] Rich and Anne, his second wife, had no children.

Notes

1. Also known as Charles Carr, 2nd Earl of Ancram.
2. Lodge (1847), p. 305
3. thePeerage.com, Cites: Source 2, Hammond
4. Lodge (1850),p. 299
5. Lord Carr or Lord Kerr
6. thePeerage.com, Cites: Source 1, Cokayne
7.  "Holborne, Robert". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
8. Court satires of the Restoration – Page 59
9. Anderson (1867), p. 620
10. Notes and queries, Series 3, Volume 11, January to June 1867. p. 392 Correspondent cites Philip Morant, The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex, Vol. I.
11.  "Rich, Nathaniel (d.1701)". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

References

• Anderson, William (1867). The Scottish nation: or. The surnames, families, literature, honours, and biographical history of the people of Scotland, Volume 2, A. Fullarton, 1867
• Lodge, Edmund (1847). The genealogy of the existing British peerage: with sketches of the family histories of the nobility, Saunders and Otley, 1847
• Lodge, Edmund (1850).Portraits of illustrious personages of Great Britain: With biographical and historical memoirs of their lives and actions, Volume 5, H.G. Bohn, 1850
• Staff, Charles Kerr, 2nd Earl of Ancram, thePeerage.com, page 1225. Retrieved 12 March 2010.

1. [S1] G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910–1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume I, page 132. Hereinafter cited as The Complete Peerage.
2. [S2] Peter W. Hammond, editor, The Complete Peerage or a History of the House of Lords and All its Members From the Earliest Times, Volume XIV: Addenda & Corrigenda (Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1998), page 24. Hereinafter cited as The Complete Peerage, Volume XIV.