Bequest of Arlene Schnitzer

The arms are those of Coventry, probably for George William, 6th Earl of Coventry, lord-lieutenant and custos rotulorum of co. Worcester. He married first in 1752 Maria Gunning, one of the three "beautiful Gunning sisters'' (with her siblings the Duchesses of Hamilton and Argyll). She died young in 1760, weakened by🐻 the white lead in her cosmeti🌼cs, and he married secondly in 1764, Barbara, daughter of Lord St. John of Bletshoe. The Earl served as Lord of the Bedchamber to George II and to George III, 1752-70; he resigned in protest over Britain's treatment of the American colonies. An important patron of the arts, on succeeding in 1751 he employed Capability Brown to redesign the house and landscape at Croome Court. In 1760 the Earl called in Robert Adam, whose Gobelins Tapestry Room from Croome is now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Recently, care for Croome was taken over by the National Trust.