Edward Villiers 1655?-1711

Edward VILLIERS, 1st Earl of Jersey 1655?-1711

Bookplate of Edward Villiers, Earl of Jersey (BM Franks Collection *69)

Biographical Note

Son of Sir Edward Villiers, knight marshal. Matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge 1671, but did not graduate. He held a series of court appointments during the 1680s and 90s and raised to the peerage as Viscount Villiers in 1691; he was involved in diplomatic missions to Europe in the later 1690s. He became Lord Chamberlain in 1700 but increasingly fell out of favour after the accession of Anne in 1702.

Books

Villiers used an engraved armorial bookplate (Franks *69). He died in debt and his library was sold by retail sale in London, 25.11.1712, as part of a joint sale with the books of Timothy Burrell; no catalogue survives, but the sale was advertised in newspapers.

Sources

• Alston, R. C. Inventory of sale catalogues 1676-1800. St Philip, 2010
• Gambier Howe, E. R. J. Franks bequest: catalogue of British and American book plates bequeathed to the ... British Museum. London, 1903.
• Handley, Stuart. "Villiers, Edward, first earl of Jersey (1655?–1711), politician." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.