him and by whom he had two children, 800l. a year, and his house at St. Osyth with his furniture, plate, and horses. To those two children and to another natural child 300l. a year each, and 300l. a year to his nephew (his successor in the earldom); but his lordship has entered a caveat to the will and thrown it into chancery’ (Gent. Mag. 1781, p. 493; Delany, Corresp. vi. 56). The priory and the bulk of the estates appear to have passed nevertheless to the bastard son, Frederic Nassau, who died ‘aged 75’ on 2 July 1845. He married Catherine Rose, baronne de Brackell, who had a room at the priory fitted up in her native Swiss style with panels in oil-colours representing Swiss scenery; she died on 4 Nov. 1857. By her granddaughters a few years later the estate at St. Osyth was sold (Gent. Mag. 1858, i. 114; Essex Archæol. Soc. Trans. 1873, v. 45 sq.). The peerage passed to William Henry [Nassau de] Zulestein, fifth earl of Rochford, born at Rendlesham on 28 June 1754, being the eldest son and heir of Richard Savage Nassau de Zulestein (d. 1780), M.P. for Colchester June 1747–April 1754, for Maldon October 1774–1780, and clerk of the board of green cloth. He died, unmarried, at the White House, Easton, Suffolk, on 3 Sept. 1830, when the peerage became extinct (cf. Gent. Mag. 1823, ii. 178–80, 1830, ii. 273; Essex Archæological Society's Transactions, v. 48).
Rochford was one of the few men of note mentioned by Junius with commendation. If we may believe the statements of an anonymous writer in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (cf. ib. v. 47), Rochford was privy to the authorship of the Junius letters. The writer states that an intimate friend of his was kept waiting by him one evening, and that when Rochford came in he apologised for his lateness, saying that it had been occasioned by an affair of the utmost importance; and he added that henceforth no further communication need be expected from Junius. The writer gives no date, but states that after that day no more letters appeared.
The fourth earl of Rochford is referred to in terms of undue disparagement in Walpole's ‘Memoirs of the Reign of George III’—nor does the character there given of the secretary seem to agree particularly well with the facts of his career. Walpole speaks in his ‘Letters’ of Rochford's foppery in 1746, when he appeared in a set of birthday clothes with the Duke of Cumberland's head upon every large plate button; later he admits ‘his person is good and he will figure well enough as an ambassador.’ In connection with his embassy at Turin he credits him, upon insufficient authority, with having been the first to introduce Lombardy poplars on any scale into this country. It is true, however, that several of these poplars planted about 1768 are still standing in the park at St. Osyth's.
There are two fine mezzotint portraits of Rochford, one engraved by R. Houston after Domenico Dupra, the other by Val Green after Jean Baptiste Perronneau (both described in Chaloner Smith, Catalogue, pp. 582, 684; cf. Evans, Cat. of Engraved Portraits, Nos. 8959–60), and there is a woodcut after Dupra in Doyle's ‘Official Baronage’ (iii. 164). The print-room (Brit. Mus.) has an attractive mezzotint likeness of ‘Bessey Countess of Rochford,’ engraved by J. Smith after Char. D'Agar (1723). George III twice visited St. Osyth, on his way to inspect the camp at Colchester, as the guest of the fourth Earl of Rochford. On one occasion the king presented the earl with two very fine portraits of himself and Queen Charlotte by Allan Ramsay; these are still preserved at the priory.
[Collins's Peerage, iii. 375; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage; Burke's Extinct Peerage, s.v. ‘Nassau;’ Walpole's Corresp. ed. Cunningham, ii. 63, 152, 380, 418, 421, 428, 457, iii. 278, 356, 368, iv. 345, 494, 500, v. 62–3, 131, 269, 272, 350, 411, vi. 275, 277, vii. 87; Stanhope's Hist. of England, 1854, v. 198, 203, 242, 282, 318, vi. 71, 224; Lecky's Hist. of England, iv. 402, 404, 457; Political Memoirs of Francis, fifth Duke of Leeds (Camd. Soc.), 1884, pp. 25, 34, 48; Grenville Papers, iii. 236, 240; Woodfall's Junius, 1812, iii. 177; Fitzmaurice's Life of Shelburne, 1876, ii. 3, 130, 316; Coxe's Memoirs of the House of Bourbon, iii. 298; Armstrong's Elisabeth Farnese, p. 395; Memoirs of Augustus Henry, third Duke of Grafton, ed. Anson, 1898, pp. 204, 226, 263 sq.; London Museum, Nov. 1770, pp. 371–2; Malmesbury Corresp. i. 76; Essex Archæological Society Transactions, 1st ser. v.; Davy's Suffolk Collections, xx. 287, apud Addit. MS. 19096 (for the Nassau family at Easton); Hist. MSS. Comm. 5th Rep. App. pp. 232, 254, 8th Rep. App. p. 286, 10th Rep. pt. vi., 11th Rep. pts. v. and vii., 14th Rep. App. x. passim, 15th Rep. App. i. 229; Addit. MSS. 32828–35 (correspondence with Holdernesse), 32724–33071 (correspondence with the Duke of Newcastle, 1751–68), 33056, f. 243; Egerton MS. 2638, ff. 20–21 (correspondence with Sir William Hamilton); Egerton MSS. 2697–2700 (corresp. with R. Gunning at Copenhagen, 1768–1771).]
