Notes…Frances was the great grand-daughter of Sir Marcus Rainsford (1660-1709) and his wife, Jane Mee. Sir Marcus was Lord Mayor of Dublin and established a brewery after inheriting a substantial water supply from his father-in-law. His grandson, Marcus, sold the brewery to Arthur Guinness in 1759 and it remains the original site of the Guiness Brewery.

Frances married Welbore Ellis Doyle (c.1752-1797) of Bramblestown, Kilkenny in 1774. He came from a military family and was himself a Lieutenant in the 55th (Irish) Regiment of Foot. Frances travelled with her husband throughout his entire tour of duty across America, Continental Europe and eventually Ceylon.

In 1781, the Doyles were captured together with Lord Rawdon when sailing home to England aboard the ‘Cormorant’. In his Journal entry for 27 September, Baron von Closen referred to a rumour from America of Mrs Doyle’s affair with Lord Rawdon and how he found Lieutenant-Colonel Doyle to have been ‘a very easy-going fellow’, suggesting that the affair might have been accepted by her husband. After several negotiations, Lieutenant-Colonel Doyle was exchanged for ‘Sieur Ternan’ and the Doyles finally reached English soil in 1782.

Despite the alleged affair with Rawdon, Frances and Welbore went on to have three children. Their sons, Francis Hastings (1783-1839) and Carlo (b.1787) both became Major Generals in the army. The former became a baronet in 1828. The latter was born whilst the Doyles were stationed in Warsaw. Their third child, Charlotte Elizabeth was born in London in 1789.

Welbore died in Ceylon just six months after being posted there as a Commander-in-Chief. Frances returned to England where she later married the exiled Prince Joseph of Monaco (1763–1816), second son of the Sovereign Prince of Monaco, Honoré III. The couple did not have any children. Prince Joseph already had three daughters by his first spouse, Françoise Thérèse de Choiseul whom he had lost to the Guillotine in 1794.