Basil Feilding, 6th Earl of Denbigh and 5th Earl of Desmond (3 January 1719 – 14 July 1800) was an English nobleman and courtier.
He was the son of William Feilding, 5th Earl of Denbigh, and Isabella Haeck de Jong, daughter of Peter Haeck de Jong of Utrecht and Anna Maria van Weede tot Dijkveld en Ratelis.Mosley, Charles, editor. Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage, 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003 He succeeded to the title of 6th Earl of Denbigh on 2 August 1755.
Lord Denbigh married Mary Cotton, daughter of Sir John Cotton, 6th Baronet, and Jane Burdett, on 12 April 1757. Their first son was William Feilding, Viscount Feilding. Their second son was Charles John Fielding, born 20 December 1761, who published a poem dedicated to his brother titled The Brothers, an Ecologue (1781).Debrett's Peerage of England, Scotland, and Ireland, Vol 1: England (1820, p.159); Charles John Feilding, The brothers, an eclogue (1781), Eighteenth Century Collections Online, Gale, available at http://find.gale.com/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=tou&tabID=T001&docId=CW112271682&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE [Accessed 12 June 2020].
Denbigh was appointed Colonel of the Warwickshire Militia in 1759 and commanded them during their embodiment for home defence during the Seven Years' War, taking particular care for their health. Anon, 'The Warwickshire Militia in 1759–60', Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research, Vol 11, No 42 (April 1932), pp. 83–9.J.R. Western, The English Militia in the Eighteenth Century: The Story of a Political Issue 1660–1802, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965, pp. 168, 181, 384, 397. A Tory peer in the House of Lords, he was a board member of the High Tory Loyal Brotherhood and the Birmingham Bean Club.
In 1779, Charles prosecuted James Donally for highway robbery, who had accused him of sexual assault.Old Bailey Proceedings Online, February 1779, trial of JAMES DONALLY, otherwise PATRICK DONALLY (https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?div=t17790217-40) [Accessed 12 June 2020]; Simon Deveraux, "Donally, James (fl. 1779–1784), blackmailer." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 23 Sep. 2004, available at https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-65517 [Accessed 12 June 2020]. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and died abroad unmarried.Collins's Peerage of England: Contains the earls to the termination of the seventeenth century (1812, p.280). Basil married, secondly, Sarah Farnham, daughter of Edward Farnham, on 21 July 1783.
Feilding owned the Newnham Paddox estate in Warwickshire. He was Master of the Royal Harriers and Foxhounds from 1762 until 1782, when the post was abolished. Horace Walpole called him "the lowest and most officious of the Court-tools".
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