Robert Dormer, 1st Earl of Carnarvon
| The Earl of Carnarvon | |
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Robert Dormer, 1st Earl of Carnarvon, c.1630, by Anthony van Dyck
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| Spouse(s) | Lady Anna Sophie Herbert |
| Issue | |
| Father | Sir William Dormer |
| Mother | Alice Molyneux |
| Born | c.1610 |
| Died | 20 September 1643 Battle of Newbury, Berkshire, England |
| Buried | Wing, Buckinghamshire, England |
Robert Dormer, 1st Earl of Carnarvon (1610 – 20 September 1643) was an English peer. He was the son of Sir William Dormer, and thus a grandson of Robert Dormer, 1st Baron Dormer. His mother was Alice Molyneux, daughter of Sir Richard Molyneux, 1st Bt. and Frances Gerard. Dormer received the title Baron Dormer at the age of six and on 2 August 1628, at age 18, he was raised to Viscount Ascott and was created Earl of Carnarvon.
At age six, Dormer was left a ward to the King. His father had left him a rich peer at an early age. The King then sold Dormer's wardship to Philip Herbert, then Earl of Montgomery, for £4000. Dormer had been brought up as a Catholic and would become a high-living Catholic courtier, in danger, infuriating to hard-line Parliamentarians. He was educated at Eton College and Oxford University. He was, according to the seventeenth-century biographer David Lloyd, “extreamly wild in his youth”, and addicted to gambling and hunting. He and his wife are recorded as regular performers in masques at court. He was an ardent Royalist and defying his father-in-law he fought for King Charles I in the English Civil War.
On 27 February 1625, at the age of fifteen, he was married to his guardian's daughter, Lady Anna Herbert (d.1643), which secured her future as Dormer was one of the wealthiest men in England at the time. Anna was the daughter of Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke and Lady Susan de Vere, the youngest daughter of the Elizabethan courtier, poet, and playwright, Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford.
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