DUKEDOM OF

KENDAL  . The English title of duke of Kendal was first bestowed in May 1667 upon Charles (d . 1667), the infant son of the duke of York, afterwards James II . Several persons have been created earl of Kendal, among them being John, duke of Bedford, son of Henry IV.; John Beaufort, duke of Somerset (d . 1444); and Queen Anne's husband, George, prince of Denmark . In 1719 Ehrengarde Melusina (1667-1743), mistress of the English king George I., was created duchess of Kendal . This lady was the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, count of Schulenburg (d . 1691), and was born at Emden on the 25th of December 1667 . Her father held important positions under the elector of Brandenburg; her brother Matthias John (1661–1747) won great fame as a soldier in Germany and was afterwards commander-in-chief of the army of the republic of Venice . Having entered the household of Sophia, electress of Hanover, Melusina attracted the notice of her son, the future king, whose mistress she became about 1690 . When George crossed over to England in 1714, the " Schulenburgin," as Sophia called her, followed him and soon supplanted her principal rival, Charlotte Sophia, Baroness von Kilmannsegge (c . 1673-1725), afterwards countess of Darlington, as his first favourite .

In 1716 she was created duchess of

Munster; then duchess of Kendal; and in 1723 the emperor Charles VI. made her a princess of the Empire . The duchess was very avaricious and obtained large sums of money by selling public offices and titles; she also sold patent rights, one of these being the privilege of supplying Ireland with a new copper coinage . This she sold to a Wolverhampton iron merchant named William Wood (1671–1730), who flooded the country with coins known as " Wood's halfpence," thus giving occasion for the publication of Swift's famous Drapier's Letters . In political matters she had much influence with the king, and she received £1o,000 for procuring the recall of Bolingbroke fromexile . After George's death in 1727 she lived at Kendal House, Isleworth, Middlesex, until her death on the loth of May 1743 . The duchess was by no means a beautiful woman, and her thin figure caused the populace to refer to her as the " maypole." By the king she had two daughters: Petronilla Melusina (c . 1693–1778), who was created countess of Walsingham in 1722, and who married the great earl of Chesterfield; and Margaret Gertrude, countess of Lippe (1703–1773) .