(1723 - 92), soldier and playwright; 2nd s. of Capt. John Burgoyne; educ. Westminster; m. 1743 Ldy. Charlotte Stanley (d. 1776), dau. of 11th E. of Derby; 1780 took as mistress Susan Caulfield; army officer, cornet 1744, capt. 1745, sold out 1751 - 6, capt. 11 Drag. 1756, lt.-gen. 1777; surrendered to American forces at Saratoga 1777; MP 1761 - 92.
1755 Florence (by Feb.), Rome (by May)
In 1751 Burgoyne had sold his commission and taken his wife Lady Charlotte to France to avoid their creditors. Her father, Lord Derby, had always disapproved of their marriage. In 1755 they left France for Italy, accompanied by the Comte de Stainville, who had been appointed to the French Embassy in Rome1 and, presumably, by the artist Hubert Robert, who is known to have accompanied de Stainville.2 Robert Adam met them on their journey at Aix on 21 December 1754, and he noted their arrival in Florence for the last week of the Carnival in February 1755. Lady Charlotte, 'who didn't like foreigners', frequently partnered Adam at the Carnival Balls.3 In May she visited Adam in the Casa Guarnieri in Rome and inspected his wardrobe; 'she had no objection to anything but my red suit which colour she could not put up with ... but upon my assuring her ladyship I would soon be master of the prettiest suit of silk cloth Rome could afford she was quite satisfied'.4 Burgoyne sat to Allan Ramsay in Rome, the half-length portrait set against the Colosseum being dated 1756 (priv. coll.). Late in 1755 the worsening political relationship between England and France persuaded the Burgoynes to return to England. He was gazetted Captain in 1756, and became reconciled with his father-in-law.5
In 1763 Lady Charlotte wrote to the 2nd Viscount Palmerston in Rome: 'I shall be glad to hear how you like the Italian society, though I think, in general, it is very agreeable to most men. To me it was detestable. The turn of all women in that country is gallantry, and if one is so unfashionable as to have some notions of honour and virtue one has but a bad chance of passing one's time the least agreeably. I have no idea how anybody can live in Italy that does not give themselves wholly to passion'.6
1. Fleming, Adam, 347. E.B. De Fonblanque, Political and Military Episodes ... from the Life and Correspondence of John Burgoyne, 9. 2. Fleming, Adam, 352. 3. Ibid., 118, 132. 4. Ibid., 158. 5. R.J. Hargrove Jr., Gen.John Burgoyne, 24. 6. Connell 1957, 43 (22 Nov. 1763).