Charles Colyear, 2nd Earl of Portmore
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Charles Colyear, 2nd Earl of Portmore KT
Order of the Thistle
The Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle is an order of chivalry associated with Scotland. The current version of the Order was founded in 1687 by King James VII of Scotland who asserted that he was reviving an earlier Order...

 (27 August 1700 – 5 July 1785) was a Scottish
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 nobleman, known as Beau Colyear for his conspicuous dress.

He was the son of David Colyear, 1st Earl of Portmore
David Colyear, 1st Earl of Portmore
General David Colyear, 1st Earl of Portmore KT PC was a Scottish general and Governor of Gibraltar-Military career:...

 and his wife Catherine Sedley
Catherine Sedley
Catherine Sedley, Countess of Dorchester, Countess of Portmore , daughter of Sir Charles Sedley, 5th Baronet, was the mistress of King James VII and II both before and after he came to the thrones. After his accession James yielded to pressure from his confessor Fr...

, former mistress of James II
James II of England
James II & VII was King of England and King of Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII, from 6 February 1685. He was the last Catholic monarch to reign over the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland...

. Amongst his ancestors were William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle
William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle
William Parker, 13th Baron Morley, 4th Baron Monteagle was an English peer, Lord of Morley, Hingham, Hockering, &c., in Norfolk, the eldest son of Edward Parker, 12th Baron Morley , and of Elizabeth Stanley, daughter and heiress of William Stanley, 3rd Baron Monteagle .When quite a youth he...

, foiler of the gunpowder plot, and Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...

. He was also a descendant of Elizabeth of York, daughter of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York
Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York
Richard Plantagenêt, 3rd Duke of York, 6th Earl of March, 4th Earl of Cambridge, and 7th Earl of Ulster, conventionally called Richard of York was a leading English magnate, great-grandson of King Edward III...

 and sister of Edward IV of England
Edward IV of England
Edward IV was King of England from 4 March 1461 until 3 October 1470, and again from 11 April 1471 until his death. He was the first Yorkist King of England...

.

He was MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Member for Wycombe
Wycombe (UK Parliament constituency)
Wycombe is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It currently elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post system of elections....

 in 1726 and Andover
Andover (UK Parliament constituency)
Andover was the name of a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England from 1295 to 1307, and again from 1586, then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1918. It was a parliamentary borough in Hampshire,...

 1727–1730, when he succeeded to the earldom.

He owned many famous racehorses. He was a founding Governor of the Foundling Hospital
Foundling Hospital
The Foundling Hospital in London, England was founded in 1741 by the philanthropic sea captain Thomas Coram. It was a children's home established for the "education and maintenance of exposed and deserted young children." The word "hospital" was used in a more general sense than it is today, simply...

, a charity created in 1739, dedicated to the salvation of abandoned children
Child abandonment
Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring with the intent of never again resuming or reasserting them. Causes include many social and cultural factors as well as mental illness. An abandoned child is called a foundling .-Causes:Poverty is often a...

.

With Elizabeth Collier he had an illegitimate daughter, also called Elizabeth, born c. 1747, who married first Edward Pole, the soldier and secondly Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin was an English physician who turned down George III's invitation to be a physician to the King. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave trade abolitionist,inventor and poet...

, the physician.

He was Knighted in June 1732 and married the same year Juliana Hale, daughter of Roger Hale of Halwell, Devon, and widow of Peregrine Osborne, 3rd Duke of Leeds
Peregrine Osborne, 3rd Duke of Leeds
Peregrine Hyde Osborne, 3rd Duke of Leeds was a British peer.He was the second son of Peregrine, Earl of Danby and his wife, the former Bridget Hyde, only daughter of Sir Thomas Hyde, 2nd Baronet...

. They had the following children:
  1. Caroline Colyear (b. c.1733) married Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Baron Scarsdale
    Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Baron Scarsdale
    Sir Nathaniel Curzon, 5th Baronet, of Kedleston, created 1st Baron Scarsdale was an English Tory politician and peer....

  2. Juliana Colyear (b. 1735) married Henry Dawkins in 1759
  3. William Charles Colyear, 3rd Earl of Portmore
    William Charles Colyear, 3rd Earl of Portmore
    William Charles Colyear, 3rd Earl of Portmore was a Scottish peer, styled Viscount Milsington until 1785.He was the second but only surviving son of Charles Colyear, 2nd Earl of Portmore. He was styled Viscount Milsingtion in 1756 on the death of his brother David.Milsington was educated at Eton...

    (1745–1823)


Portmore was famous in high society for the splendour of his dress and equipages.
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