[2] Ormonde was a leading Tory politician and soldier who was appointed Captain-General in 1711 to replace the Duke of Marlborough in command of Anglo-Dutch forces in the War of the Spanish Succession.
In 1715, facing impeachment by Parliament, Ormonde fled to Paris, where he joined the Jacobite pretender to the throne James.
Following a dispute with his father George I, part of the wider Whig Split, the Prince and his wife Caroline of Ansbach were forced to leave St James's Palace.
During the winter months they established a separate court at Leicester House, Westminster, but their summers were spent at Richmond.
The writer, cleric and satirist Jonathan Swift visited the couple there in 1726 and 1727 but was saddened by memories of happier early times spent there with his friend Ormonde.