Mary Hervey

Mary Hervey, Lady Hervey (née Lepell; 1700–1768) was an English courtier.

Born around 1700, Mary Lepell was the daughter of Brigadier-general Nicholas Wedig Lepell and his wife, Mary Brooke, daughter and co-heiress of John Brooke of Rendlesham, Suffolk. Her tombstone states that she was born on 26 September 1700; there is, however, some uncertainty about the date of her birth and the baptism registers state it was 16 September 1699.

Her father was born in Germany, while a page of honour to Prince George of Denmark, married in 1698, and in the following year obtained an act of naturalisation. On 3 April 1705 he received a Commission to raise a new regiment of foot, and on 1 January 1710 was promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, before being appointed Supreme Commander of the British Forces in Spain, which position he held until 1712.

In 1715, through family connections, she was appointed a Maid of Honour to Queen Caroline. According to a letter written by the Duchess of Marlborough in December 1737, Mary was made a cornet by her father "in his regiment as soon as she was born … and she was paid many years after she was a maid of honour. She was extreme forward and pert, and my Lord Sunderland got her a pension of the late king George I, it being too ridiculous to continue her any longer an officer in the army."

At court Mary Lepell divided the honours for wit and beauty with her friend Mary Bellenden, subsequently the wife of Colonel John Campbell, who became the fourth Duke of Argyll. Pope and Gay sang her praises. William Pulteney, first Earl of Bath and Philip Dormer Stanley, fourth Earl of Chesterfield wrote a joint ballad in her honour to the tune of "Molly Mogg". Voltaire, another of her numerous admirers, addressed a copy of verses to her beginning with the lines:

Hervey, would you know the passion
You have kindled in my breast?

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