20 Feb. 1696 (Lords' Journ. xv. 675). On 25 Dec. 1695 he received a pension of 1,000l. per annum (Rawlinson MS. A 241). In the report presented to parliament in 1699 it was shown that he had received grants of land in Ireland amounting to 30,512 acres (Rapin, iii. 399). His later years were passed in comparative seclusion for the most part in Holland, where William visited him in 1697, and he died at his estate of Zuylenstein in the province of Utrecht in January 1708–9. He had married, on 25 Jan. 1681, Jane, daughter of Sir Henry Wroth of Durrants, Enfield, and of Loughton House in Essex [see under Wroth, Sir Robert]. She went over as maid of honour to Mary, princess of Orange (afterwards Mary II). Zuylestein seduced her, and then refused the promised marriage, being strongly encouraged in this course of conduct by William. Ken, however, at Mary's instance, wrought upon the count to marry the lady, and performed the ceremony secretly in Mary's chapel while the prince was absent hunting. William was excessively angry, and Ken had temporarily to withdraw from The Hague (cf. Spence, Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 329; Newman, Tracts for the Times, No. 75).
The eldest son, William Nassau de Zuylestein or Zulestein, second Earl of Rochford (1681–1710), was born in 1681, and after 1695 was styled Viscount Tunbridge. He was returned to the Irish parliament for Kilkenny in 1705. In the meantime he had gone out to the seat of war in Flanders, and was appointed one of Marlborough's aides-de-camp early in 1704. Marlborough wrote of him to his father on 1 Sept. 1704 as a young seigneur who promised well, and he was selected for the honour of bearing the despatch of the victory of Blenheim from the generalissimo to the queen. The ‘M. Lulestein’ mentioned in the same letter (as printed by Murray) is evidently a misprint for Zulestein, and probably refers to Tunbridge's second brother, Maurice. Tunbridge arrived in London with his despatches on 15 Aug. In January 1706 he was promoted lieutenant-colonel of the 32nd regiment of foot, and on 1 Feb. 1707 colonel of the 3rd dragoons. On 3 May 1708 he entered the English parliament in the dominant whig interest for Steyning borough, Sussex. Next year (having succeeded as second Earl of Rochford in January 1708–1709) he was sent out with his regiment under the command of General Wills to Spain, arriving off Lisbon in October 1709. On New Year's day 1710 he was promoted brigadier-general. At the battle of Almenara (not Almanza, as stated by Collins and Burke) he fought with the utmost gallantry at the head of his dragoons on the extreme left, under Stanhope and Carpenter. His regiment bore the brunt of the fighting, and he was killed by a sword-cut in the hour of victory, 27 July 1710. Stanhope speaks of him as a young officer of much promise (History, 1870, p. 433). Being unmarried, he was succeeded in the earldom by his brother,
Frederick Nassau de Zuylestein, third Earl of Rochford (1682–1738), who had been brought up in Holland as a noble of the province of Utrecht. He joined the powerful whig opposition (1710–14) in the House of Lords, and took part in the protest against the stifling of the Assiento inquiry in 1713 (Rogers, Protests of the Lords, i. 224). He died on 14 June 1738 at his house in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and was buried at Easton in Suffolk, where his younger brother, Henry (d. 1741), who had been a lieutenant-colonel in a dragoon regiment, was seated. His own country residence was St. Osyth Priory, the fine old Essex mansion (partly renovated about 1715) which came to him through his marriage in 1701 to Bessy (d. 23 June 1746), illegitimate daughter by Elizabeth Culleton of Richard Savage, fourth earl Rivers [q. v.] By her he was father of William Henry Nassau de Zuylestein, fourth earl of Rochford [q. v.], and Richard Savage Nassau de Zuylestein (1723–1780), M.P. for Colchester (1747–54) and for Malden (1774–80), and one of the clerks of the board of green cloth. This Richard Savage married, on 24 Dec. 1751, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Edward Spencer of Rendlesham, Suffolk, and the widow of James Douglas, fifth duke of Hamilton; by her (she died on 9 March 1771) he was father of William Henry, fifth and last earl of Rochford.
Of the first earl's daughters, Anne died unmarried and was buried in St. Nicholas's Chapel, Westminster Abbey, on 15 Feb. 1701 (Chester, Reg. p. 248); Mary married the Heer Harvelt or Harrevel, one of the chief nobles of the province of Guelderland and second son of Godert de Ginkel, first earl of Athlone [q. v.]; and Henrietta married Frederick Christian Ginkel, second earl of Athlone (1668–1719), the elder brother of Mary's husband [see under Ginkel, Godert de].
[Collins's Peerage, 1812, iii. 721; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage; Burke's Extinct Peerage, s.v. ‘Nassau;’ Huebner's Genealogische Tabellen, iv. 1272; Zedler's Universal Lexicon, 1750, lxiv. 956–8; Essex Arch. Soc. Trans. 1873, v. 45; Playfair's Family Antiquity,
