User:Krysty9889/Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh

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Family

She had 4 children over the span of her life. Her children were:


 * Catherine, born 1633, who married Sir William Parsons and then in 1660 Hugh Montgomery, 1st Earl of Mount Alexander. Later on, Catherine and Hugh would have a child named Catherine Montgomery. She would go on to marry Sir Francis Hamilton, 3rd Baronet of Castle Hamilton.


 * Elizabeth, Jones's second daughter, was born around 1635 and would then go on to marry a footman much to her mother's dismay.
 * Frances, born in Stalbridge in Dorset, England, on August 17, 1639, was Jones's youngest daughter. Frances was born prematurely and was often sick. She never married and instead lived with her mother for the majority of her life.
 * Richard Jones, 1st Earl of Ranelagh, was born February 8, 1641. Richard was the only son born to Jones and her husband. He went on to marry Elizabeth Willoughby and they had three daughters together, Elizabeth, Frances, and Catherine. After Elizabeth, his wife, died he went on to marry widow Lady Margaret Cecil. They did not produce any children together.

Death

In her final days Jones was still avidly involved in politics and science. She wrote letters giving political advice to her friend whose husband wanted to move up in rank. She had the connections and the influence people wanted in politics so she had many friends asking her for advice and to put a good word in for them. She also still gave medical advice to people who wrote to her. Even in her last days, as she was getting sicker and frailer, she would have someone write letters for her since her hands were too weak to do it herself. She never stopped trying to help her friends.

Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh, died on December 23 1691. Her cause of death is not fully known. Her brother, Robert Boyle, died on December 31, 1691 and left a behind a will that named Katherine Jones as the an executor and the first person on his list of beneficiaries. In the will, he planned on giving her a ring that he had worn throughout his life, and cherished dearly. In the will he states that he and Katherine shared a private love of this ring. He also left his estate to her and asked that it would be used as a Christian establishment. He also left receipts and recipes of his, from his research and medical practices. However, because she died before him, these receipts went to Robert Boyle's friend John Locke, who ten published the second volume of Robert Boyle's Medicinal Experiments. Robert Boyle changed his will on December 29, 1691 to acknowledge the death of his sister and remove her as the primary executor. Katherine Jones' life was honored with her brother Robert at a combined funeral on January 7 1692. They were buried next to each other at the St. Martin-in-the-Fields. At the funeral, a friend and bishop of Salisbury, Gilbert Burnet spoke in remembrance of Katherine and his words are said to be one of the most famous depictions of her. He noted how she used her privileges to help and benefit others, and never did things for personal gain. He also noted that although she was very political and held strong opinions, "her Soul was never of a Party" and that she did not let politics bar her from helping others. He ended his remembrance of her with appreciation for her affect on her brother. His full remembrance:

"She lived the longest on the publickest Scene, she made the greatest Figure in all the Revolutions of these Kingdoms for above fifty Years, of any Woman of our Age. She employed it all for doing good to others, in which she laid out her Time, her Interest, and her Estate, with the greatest Zeal and the most Success that I have ever known. She was indefatigable as well as dextrous in it: and as her great Understanding, and the vast Esteem she was in, made all Persons in their several turns of Greatness, desire and value her Friendship; so she gave herself a clear Title to employ her Interest with them for the Service of others, by this that she never made any use of it to any End or Design of her own. She was contented with what she had; and though she was twice stript of it, she never moved on her own account, but was the general Intercessor for all Persons of Merit, or in want: This had in her the better Grace, and was both more Christian and more effectual, because it was not limited within any narrow Compass of Parties or Relations. When any Party was down, she had Credit and Zeal enough to serve them, and she employed that so effectually, that in the next Turn she had a new stock of Credit, which she laid out wholly in that Labour of Love, in which she spent her Life and though some particular Opinions might shut her up in a divided Communion, yet her Soul was never of a Party: She divided her Charities and Friendships both, her Esteem a well as her Bounty, with the truest Regard to Merit, and her own Obligations, without any Difference, made upon the Account of Opinion. She had with a vast Reach both of Knowledge and Apprehensions, a universal Affability and Easiness of Access, a Humility that descended to the meanest Persons and Concerns, an obliging Kindness and Readiness to advise those who had no occasion for any further Assistance from her; and with all these and many more excellent Qualities, she had the deepest Sense of Religion, and the most constant turning of her Thoughts and Discourses that way, that has been perhaps in our Age. Such a Sister became such a Brother."

It encompassed Jones's attitude of "piety and charity".