Grace, daughter of Sir William Thornhurst of Herne, Kent, by whom he had one son, Charles, who succeeded him, and five daughters. She died on 9 April 1640. Shortly afterwards Fane married Mary, second daughter of Horace, lord Vere of Tilbury, widow of Sir Roger Townshend of Raynham, Norfolk, by whom he had a son, Vere Fane, who succeeded his brother Charles as fourth earl, another son Horace, and four daughters.
[Collins's Peerage (Brydges), iii. 295–6; Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. App. 419; Rep. on Gawdy MSS. 168; Rep. on Westmorland MSS. App. 44; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1640 p. 18, 1641–3 p. 344, 1651–2 p. 471, 1655 p. 269, 1661–2 p. 431; Whitelocke's Mem. pp. 82, 143; Nicolas's Hist. of Knighthood, iii. xvi; Lords' Journ. v. 443, 686, vi. 185, 253 b, 272, 356 a, 425 b, 427 a, 701 b, 703 a.]
FANE, PRISCILLA ANNE, Countess of Westmoreland (1793–1879), fourth child of William Wellesley-Pole, third earl of Mornington, and baron Maryborough, by Katharine Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Admiral the Hon. John Forbes, was born 13 March 1793, and married 26 June 1811 John Fane [q. v.], then lord Burghersh, who afterwards became tenth Earl of Westmorland. She was an accomplished linguist and a distinguished artist. When Lady Burghersh she exhibited six figure pieces is the Suffolk Street Exhibition between 1833 and 1841, and afterwards in 1843 and 1857 sent two scriptural subjects to the British Institution. Her picture of Anne, countess of Mornington, surrounded by her three distinguished sons, Richard, marquis of Wellesley, Arthur, duke of Wellington, and Henry, baron Cowley, has been engraved, and is well known. She died at 29 Portman Square, London, 18 Feb. 1879, was buried at Apthorpe, Northamptonshire, 25 Feb.
[Times. 20 Feb. 1879. p. 5, and 2S Feb. p. 9; Annual Register, 1879, Chronicle, p. 179; Graves's Dict. of Artists, pp. 36, 252; Morning Post, 20 Feb. 1879, p. 5.]
FANE or VANE, Sir RALPH (d. 1552), executed for alleged conspiracy, was only son of Henry Fane or Vane of Hadlow, Kent, who was sheriff of Kent in 1508, and grandson of Henry Fane or Vane of Hildenborough, Tunbridge. He distinguished himself at the siege of Boulogne in 1544, when he was knighted; was nominated under Henry VIII's will steward (with Sir William Goring) of ‘all my lord of Lincolnes lands,’ and, after fighting under the protector Somerset at Musselburgh in 1547, was created a knight-banneret. As a supporter of the protector he shared the favour of Edward VI, and received from him in 1550 a grant of the manors of Penshurst and Lyghe, the forfeited property of Edward Stafford, duke of Buckingham. In October 1551, when the Duke of Northumberland had resolved on the destruction of Somerset and his supporters, Fane was one of those charged with conspiring to murder Northumberland. He was arrested ‘in a stable of his man's at Lambeth under the straw,’ and sent to the Tower (Edward VI's Journal, 16 Oct.) On 27 Jan. 1551–2 he was put on his trial on the treasonable charge of conspiring to kill various privy councillors, and, in spite of his appeals to his past military services and his strong denial of guilt, he was sentenced to death. The king described him at the trial as ‘answering like a ruffian’ (ib. 27 Jan.). A warrant was signed by Edward, 25 Feb., and Fane was hanged the next day on Tower Hill. Of three companions executed at the same time, Sir Miles Partridge was hanged, and the other two, Sir Thomas Arundell and Sir Michael Stanhope, were beheaded. On the scaffold Fane repeated his plea of innocence, and is said to have added: ‘My blood shall be the duke's bolster as long as he liveth’ (Camden, Remains, quoting ‘Gallica Relatio,’ ed. 1870, pp. 307–8; Heylyn, Reformation, 1674, p. 117). Fane's forfeited manor of Penshurst was immediately bestowed on Sir William Sidney, and all the goods and chattels found in Fane's house at Westminster on Sir John Gate, a creature of Northumberland. Strype states that Elizabeth, Lady Fane or Vane, who proved ‘a liberal benefactor of God's saints’ during the Marian persecution, and often corresponded with Philpot and Bradford, was Fane's widow. She died in Holborn, London, in 1568 (Foxe, Acts and Monuments, 1842, vii. 234; Strype, Eccl. Mem. vol. iii. pt. i. p. 226).
[Nichols's Literary Remains of Edward VI (Roxburghe Club); Hayward's Life of Edward VI; Hasted's Kent, i. 411, 422; Collins's Peerage, ed. Brydges, iii. 284; Bradford's Works (Parker Soc.), vol. ii.; Philpot's Writings (Parker Soc.); Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80.]
FANE, ROBERT GEORGE CECIL (1796–1864), bankruptcy commissioner, thirteenth and youngest child of the Hon. Henry Fane and Anne, daughter of Edward Buckley Batson, and brother of Sir Henry Fane [q. v.], was born 8 May 1796, and educated at the Charterhouse from 1808 to 1813. He matriculated from Balliol College, Oxford, 22 May 1813, and was afterwards a demy and fellow (1824–35) of Magdalen College, Oxford, where he proceeded B.A. 1817 and M.A. 1819. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn 1 June 1821, and soon enjoyed a considerable practice
