Stepney family

The Stepneys originated from the London suburb of that name, but by the mid-15th century a branch of the family was settled at St Albans in Hertfordshire, subsequently owning the manor of Aldenham from 1546 to 1589.

The Welsh branch was established by Alban Stepney, a young lawyer who came to Pembrokeshire in 1559 with his relation by marriage Richard Davies, Bishop of St David's.

The third baronet's nephew, Sir John Stepney (d. 1681), the fourth baronet, married Justina Mariana, only child and heiress of Sir Anthony van Dyck, the artist; through her grandfather Patrick Ruthven, last surviving brother of John, Earl of Gowrie, she inherited and passed on to subsequent generations of Stepneys a claim to the attainted Scottish titles and estates of the Ruthven family.

Their son Sir Thomas Stepney, 5th Baronet, married Margaret, sister and co-heiress (with Anne Lloyd of Cwmgwili) of Walter Vaughan of Llanelli, on 9 December 1691.

[5] His memorial in Llanelli parish church claims that he was descended from King Henry VII – an error resulting from misconceptions about the ancestry of the Earls of Gowrie.

The eighth baronet, Sir John Stepney (1743–1811), was MP for Monmouth Boroughs from 1767–88, ambassador to Saxony from 1775–82 and to Prussia from 1782–4; his career owed much to Henry Somerset, 5th Duke of Beaufort, a close friend from their time together at Oxford.

Financial problems, perhaps the result of his passions for horse-racing and cards, led him on a number of occasions to attempt to sell Llanelly House and other parts of his estates.

A notorious rake and member of the circle around Charles James Fox, Stepney never married but had a number of affairs, notably with the society beauty Lady Almeria Carpenter.