She was vicereine in Dublin Castle while Tyrconnell was viceroy (lord deputy) of Ireland for James II.

She lived through difficult times after the death of her second husband, who was attainted as a Jacobite, but recovered some of his wealth and died a devout Catholic despite having been raised as a Protestant.

The three oldest of the six Hamilton brothers, James, George, and Anthony, belonged to the inner circle around the King at Whitehall, as they were fashionable young men and had been in exile with him.

[19][20] Jennings was courted by the Duke of York, the future James II, who thought his wife's maids of honour to be his property, but she refused to play such a role.

Elizabeth, their first child, was born in 1667 and baptised on 21 March at St Margaret's, Westminster, in an Anglican ceremony.

[34] Her husband was one of the only five Protestant lay members of the Irish House of Lords of the Patriot Parliament summoned by James II in 1688.

Early in June 1676 comte Hamilton was killed by a musket-shot in a rear-guard action at the Col de Saverne[41] and she was widowed.

[45] In 1688 during the Glorious Revolution James II fled England and was replaced with Queen Mary and King William.

In 1690, after James II's defeat at the Battle of the Boyne, the king fled to their home and was met by Frances.

[48] According to later sources, King James remarked, ‘Your countrymen, madam, can run well’ and Lady Tyrconnell replied, ‘Not quite so well as your majesty, for I see that you have won the race’.

In 1691 or 1692, after her husband's death, she was allowed to visit England to petition for the possession of the Irish lands that had been settled upon her as her jointure when she married Tyrconnell[54] and which had been confiscated after his attainder in 1689.

[56] This episode was dramatised by Douglas Jerrold and performed at Covent Garden in 1841 under the title "The white Milliner: A Comedy in two Acts".

[clarification needed] After Queen Anne had acceded the throne in 1702, she and her stepdaughter, Charlotte Talbot, eventually recovered the lands due to them in 1703 by a private act of Parliament, the Relief of Charlotte Talbot for Forfeited Estates in Ireland Act 1702 (1 Ann.

[59] She then built a house on North King Street and obtained the permission to establish a Poor Clares convent in it.

[62][d] She also funded a mass to be celebrated daily for ever at the chapel of the Scots College in Paris for the benefit of her soul and for those of both her husbands as can still be read on the memorial plaque affixed to the wall of this church (see photo).

To the most illustrious and noble Lady Frances Jennings, Duchess of Tyrconnell, Lady-in-waiting of the Queen of Great Britain, benefactrice of this College, who founded a daily mass in this sanctuary to be celebrated for ever for her soul and those of Sir George Hamilton of Abercorn, knight her first husband, and Sir Richard Talbot, duke of Tyrconnell, Viceroy of Ireland, her second husband.