DORMER, Rowland (1651-1712)

At the death of Charles Dormer, 2nd earl of Carnarvon, the earldom was extinguished for lack of direct male heirs but the barony of Dormer descended to the nearest male descendant of his grandfather, Robert Dormer^†, 1st Baron Dormer. The new Baron Dormer did not inherit the principal family seat at Wing Park; this had passed (in marriage) to Philip Stanhope, later 3rd earl of Chesterfield. CBS, D-X 1001-1100. The Dormers nevertheless retained other estates in Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and the Midlands and the 4th baron lived at the family estate of Grove Park in Warwickshire (situated at Budbrooke, in the Roman Catholic stronghold to the west of Warwick). VCH Bucks. ii. 350; iii. 60, 94; VCH Hants, iii. 106; VCH Warws. viii. 490-504.

As a Catholic, Dormer was unable to take his seat in the House and his circumscribed political activity was limited to the brief period of religious toleration during the reign of James II; in 1688 he was named as an alderman for Warwick in a charter that was never issued. HP Commons, 1660-90, i. 432-3. Virtually nothing is known of Dormer’s private affairs, apart from his conveyance of a tract of land to the mayor and corporation of Warwick in 1706. WCRO, CR 611/213. He died on 27 Sept. 1712 and was buried at Budbrooke. A marble memorial was erected in the parish church of St. Michael by his younger sister, Anne, to whom the manor of Budbrooke passed after Dormer’s death. VCH Warws. iii. 66, 68. Dormer never married and was succeeded in the barony by his second cousin Charles Dormer, as 5th Baron Dormer.