Talk:Francis Fane (dramatist)

Grandson of the first earl
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article on Fane, Sir Francis (d. 1691), playwright, ... states
 * "Fane, Sir Francis (d. 1691), playwright, was the eldest son of Sir Francis Fane (d. 1680), of Fulbeck, Lincolnshire, and Elizabeth, widow of John Darcy and daughter of William West, of Firbeck, Yorkshire. He was the grandson of Mildmay Fane, second earl of Westmorland. ..."

This is a problem because the sources used for our article on Sir Francis Fane (royalist) state that he was "third, but second surviving, son of Francis Fane, 1st Earl of Westmorland" (

This line of inheritance is also backed up by Debrett's:
 * John Fane, 7th Earl of Westmorland, died without issue, in 1762, when the barony of Le Despencer, being a barony in fee, devolved upon his nephew Sir Francis Dashwood, bart.; but the earldom of Westmorland went to the male heir, Thomas Fane, of Bristol, merchant, son of Henry Fane, (d. 1726,) attorney at law, grandson of Sir Francis Fane, K.B. (the subject of this article) and great grandson of Sir Francis Fane, of Fulbeck, co. Lincoln, K.B. the third son of Francis Fane, 1st Earl of Westmorland.

So the ODNB is contradicting the two older sources and the Francis Fane (royalist) was the son of the second earl and not a 3rd son of the first earl.

The ODNB article on Fane, John, seventh earl of Westmorland says: "Westmorland was succeeded as eighth earl by Thomas Fane (b. 8 March 1701),... the great-grandson of Sir Francis Fane and great-great-grandson of Francis, first earl of Westmorland."
 * First Earl->royalist->dramatist->Henry Fane->Thomas Fane
 * Earl--->son-->grandson-->great-grandson->great-great-grandson

So as far as I can tell the ODNB article on Fane, Sir Francis (d. 1691), playwright, ... is not consistent with the article on Fane, John, seventh earl of Westmorland, and the ODNB article on the eight earl of Westmorland is consistent with the older sources and the line of inheritance used in the Wikipedia articles. This means that unless there is more evidence to support it we should ignore the ODNB article Fane, Sir Francis (d. 1691), playwright, ... claim that he was the grandson of the second earl and leave it as it is grandson of the first earl. -- PBS (talk) 13:23, 3 February 2011 (UTC)


 * From my talk page:


 * Regarding your choice of published genealogical material for references in citations. In general the newer the publication (if printed and published and by a recognized authority on the subject) the more accurate the information. Those people are very sensitive to informed criticism / peer review. While it may satisfy a thirst for a matching citation to link to something, er, antique it is often hopelessly misleading (if apparently charming) to a Wikipedia reader and to make the kind of "adjustment" you have carried out in Fane above is to act irresponsibly. Multiple repeat publications and the passage of time do not change the inaccuracies of those lovely old aspirations to whatever.


 * There is, in just the same way, good reason for material differences between editions of the DNB. To repeat the untruths of the original misleads Wikipedia readers in just the same way as I have described in the previous paragraph. It is so easy to check with the updated version while copying/pasting from the old one it is surely, as I have pointed out, irresponsible not to do so. Eddaido (talk) 21:46, 13 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Eddaido please read the last paragraph of my previous posting. I may have made a mistake and the two ODNB sources may be consistent, please check and see if you think they are. If you have any more modern sources that can shed light on this then please lets see them. On the other hand if you have no other sources and you can not find a fault in my suspected difference in the two ODNB articles then I think we should stick with the majority of sources. -- PBS (talk) 22:30, 13 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Looking at the ODNB article on Fane, Mildmay, second earl of Westmorland (1602–1666), It says

"::He records in his autobiography the birth of six children [with his first wife], of whom the first five were girls; the last child, born on 6 January 1635, was a boy, Charles, later the third earl, to whom Charles I acted as godfather. The following year, probably on 29 June 1636, Grace Fane died in childbirth. On 21 June 1638 the widower married Mary .... There were nine children of this marriage, of whom the eldest son, Vere, succeeded his half-brother in the earldom."


 * This means that Francis Fane (royalist) would have to have been born after Vere which means Francis would have had to have been born post 1640 which would have made him a child during the Civil War. Therefore Francis Fane (royalist) can not have been the son of the second Earl.
 * Now it is possible that the father of Francis Fane (dramatist) was the son of a different Frances Fane who was the son of the second earl, but if he was then with a gap of only 21 years between the earliest date of his fathers birth and 1661 when the "[dramatist] and Sir Henry (possibly his brother) petitioned the king, asking to be confirmed to ‘the rank of grandsons of earls, in which at the coronation they were placed before baronets’ (from the dramatist's ODNB article)" it is highly unlikely that the dramatist is the grandson of the second Earl. -- PBS (talk) 23:15, 13 March 2011 (UTC)