Robert Petre, 7th Baron Petre

Robert Petre, 7th Baron Petre, (1689 – 22 March 1713) was a British peer, the son of Thomas Petre, 6th Baron Petre (1633-1706) and his wife Mary Clifton, daughter of Sir Thomas Clifton. He succeeded to his title, at the age of 17, upon the death of his father.

Robert is said to have spurned wearing a wig in the conventional way, spending instead six hours every day dressing his own hair, very small for his age, yet a gay young spark. He caused an uproar of indignation and outrage in the family when, in 1711, being then only 20, in a freak of gallantry cut off a lock of hair from the head of a celebrated beauty, his distant cousin, Arabella Fermor, daughter of Henry Fermor of Tufton.

Alexander Pope, a friend of the family, was prevailed upon to write one of his humorous heroic verses about the incident in the hope that laughter would defuse the situation. The result was “The Rape of the Lock” (first published in ‘Lintot’s Miscellany’ in May 1712) which was an enormous public success, selling 3,000 copies in four days. The first version of the poem, however, so lampooned all those involved that it upset the Petres even more and Arabella, flattered to be cast as heroine by the distinguished Mr. Pope, is said to have become “very troublesome and conceited”. She became the wife of Francis Perkins of Ufton Court, near Reading, in about 1716 and died in 1738.

As far we can tell, Robert lived at Ingatestone Hall, but on the strength of his marriage on 1 March 1712, to Catherine Walmesley (1697–31 January 1785), an extremely rich Lancastrian heiress. She was an ardent Jacobite who had been considered as a possible spouse for Bonnie Prince Charlie and even James Stuart “the Old Pretender”. Lord Petre intended moving back to Thorndon Hall, the family seat, but died of smallpox, at the age of 23, before doing so. His 16 year old bride was 6 months pregnant. His son, Robert James Petre, 8th Baron Petre, was born three months after his death. Lord Petre's widow remarried, in 1733, to Charles Stourton, 15th Baron Stourton. She was a woman of great charity and is said to have caused embarrassment to both families by cutting up her former husband’s parliamentary robes for distribution to the poor.