Charles Dillon, 12th Viscount Dillon

Charles was born on 6 November 1745 in London.^[1][2] He was the eldest child of Henry Dillon and his wife Lady Charlotte Lee. His father was the 11th Viscount Dillon.

Charles's mother was the eldest daughter of George Lee, 2nd Earl of Lichfield. His parents had married on 26 October 1744 in London.^[3]

He was one of seven siblings, who are listed in his father's article. His two younger brothers, Arthur and Henry, were colonels of Dillon's regiment in France.

In January 1766 Pope Clement XIII ended the Catholic Church's support for the Jacobites and recognised the Hanoverian Dynasty as the rightful rulers of England. On 4 December 1767, in Dublin, Charles conformed to the established church.^[4] In that same year he was also elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.^[5]

Charles, in his youth, liked racing and gambling and made huge debts.^[6] He moved to Brussels to avoid his debtors.

In 1770 he was elected MP for the Westbury Borough constituency in Wiltshire, England.^[7]

In 1776 Charles changed his surname from Dillon to Dillon-Lee and quartered his arms accordingly to comply with the will of his maternal uncle George Lee, 3rd Earl of Lichfield. In that same year, his mother inherited the Lichfield estate at the death of her uncle the fourth Earl, who died childless.

Charles married twice. He married firstly on 19 August 1776 in Brussels Henrietta-Maria Phipps, daughter of Constantine Phipps, 1st Baron Mulgrave and his wife Lepel Hervey.^[9] She was descended from James II through his illegitimate daughter Lady Catherine Darnley.

Charles and Henrietta Maria had two children:

1. Henry Augustus Dillon-Lee (1777–1832), succeeded him as the 13th Viscount
2. Frances Charlotte Dillon-Lee (1780–1819), married Thomas Webb, Baronet^[10]

On 4 November 1776 Robert Lee, 4th Earl of Lichfield, died and his earldom became extinct.^[11] The nearest relatives of the last earl were his nieces. Charles's mother, née Lee, inherited the estate as she was the eldest surviving of these nieces.

His first wife died in 1782.^[12] In 1787 he married, secondly, Marie Rogier of Mechelen.^[13] She had been an actress in Brussels and had been his mistress in the time before his first marriage.^[14]

Charles and Marie had at least three children:

1. James William Dillon-Lee (1792–1812), seems to have died unmarried^[15]
2. Henrietta Dillon-Lee (died 1811), seems to have died unmarried^[16]
3. Charlotte Dillon-Lee (died 1866), married in 1813 Frederick Beauclerk (1773–1850), a younger son of Aubrey Beauclerk, 5th Duke of St Albans and an early cricketer^[17][18]