Charles Gardiner, 1st Earl of Blessington
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Charles John Gardiner, 1st Earl of Blessington (1782 – 25 May 1829) was an
After she left her first unhappy marriage, Margaret Power had stayed for almost three years with her parents, then moved to Cahir, in 1809 to Dublin, and from 1809 to 1814 with a Dublin acquaintance, Captain Thomas Jenkins, of the 11th light dragoons, with whom she formed a close relationship. It was during her Hampshire stay that she met Gardiner, 7 years her senior. (Gardiner's first wife died sometime after 1812, having borne him two illegitimate children prior to their marriage and two legitimate children, Lady Harriet Gardiner and Luke Wellington Gardiner, Viscount Mountjoy). Jenkins received £10,000 from Gardiner to cover the jewels and clothing that he had purchased for Margaret, buying his approval for Gardiner's and Power's marriage, after which she changed her name to Marguerite.[citation needed]
After
After that they settled for the most part in Naples, also spending time in Florence with their friend Walter Savage Landor, author of the "Imaginary Conversations" greatly admired by Lady Blessington. It was in Italy, on 1 December 1827, that Count D'Orsay married Harriet Gardiner to strengthen the tie between himself and her stepmother Lady Blessington. The Blessingtons and the new couple moved to Paris towards the end of 1828, taking up residence in the Hôtel Maréchal Ney, where the Earl suddenly died at age 46 of an apoplectic stroke in 1829.[citation needed]
D'Orsay and his wife then accompanied Lady Blessington to England, but the couple soon separated. D'Orsay lived with Lady Blessington until her death, and she let out the Earl's St James's house.[citation needed]