Millicent Helen Emmeline, Duchess of Taunton

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Millicent Helen Emmeline Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet DBE FRS FSA FRSE FRHistS FBA FAcSS, née Lacy, born 20 August 1966, late Professorial Fellow, S Chad’s, Dunelm, Quondam Fellow of All Souls in the University of Oxford, formerly styled The Baroness Lacy as a life peeress in her own right, and known academically as Professor (Millicent) Lacy, is a British historian, educator, archaeologist, and, as of February 2017, duchess of Taunton.

Life
Her Grace was born at Merryhill House, Mansel Lacy, Herefs, on 20 August 1966, the daughter of the Revd Hugh Walter Alan Lacy DD & Helen Joan Margaret (née Childe), dau of Sir [Miles Henry Alan] Bullough Childe Bt MFH & Althaea [Maud Anne], Lady Childe, dau of Henry John Fitzroy Scudamore Esq. & Margery Anne Honoria (née Burke Roche). Her younger brother, Sqn Ldr Walter Fitzroy Childe Lacy RAF (No. 617 Sqn) DFC & Bar (1973 – 2007), was killed on operations in 2007.

The Revd Dr Lacy died in 2010; her mother is living as of May 2017, but suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.

Millicent Lacy, as she then was, was educated at Malvern Girls’; and took the following degrees: MA (Oxon) MPhil (Dunelm) DPhil (Cantab). Prior to her marriage, she was a Professorial Fellow at S Chad’s, Dunelm. She is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls in the University of Oxford, her husband the Duke being likewise a current Fellow of All Souls.

She currently directs the Great Vale Dig (archæological project) in South West Wilts.

She holds a life peerage in her own right as The Baroness Lacy, that life peerage having been created at the instance of the Liberal Democrats in 1996 in anticipation of the want of an Education Shadow in the Lords. Since stepping down as a professor in residence at Durham (where she retains a fellowship), Her Grace, by virtue of that life peerage, once more sits in the Lords as a (Crossbench) working peer.

Family
The Lacys of Mansel Lacy are cadets of the Norman House of de Lacy (de Lassy), who were at divers times Lords of Bowland, Pontefract, and Clitheroe, Earls of Lincoln, and Barons of Halton in the North; Lords of Meath in Ireland; and, in the Marches, Lords of Weobley and Ludlow; as well as having provided two successive Countesses of Salisbury. Her Grace is descended of the Marcher lords of the Lacy family.

Her father’s family have been, since the 18th Century, primarily landed gentry in Herefordshire, military men, and beneficed clergymen of the Established Church, with a few dons occasionally appearing amongst second sons; Her Grace’s maternal ancestors, Childes, Scudamores (themselves connexions of the Dukes of Taunton and the Dukes of Trowbridge), and Burke Roches, were in the main dedicated to squirely pursuits in England and in Ireland.

The duchess married, at the Church of SS Mary and Leonard, Woolfont Abbas, on Candlemas, 2 February 2017, Charles, Duke of Taunton.

Career
Her Grace’s academic career has been in the field of prehistory, protohistory, history, and archaeology, centred upon the British Isles. As Director of the Great Vale Dig and its underlying academic programs, she has most recently been concerned with the history and archaeology of South West Wilts and its adjoining parishes in Dorset; the Dig has notably uncovered a large and significant Iron Age metropolis, and, in early 2017, evidence of an ancient site and its inhabitant, an as-yet-unclassified hominid dubbed ‘Wodewough Man’.

Publications
The Duchess is a leading scholar in History and Archaeology, noted equally for fieldwork and for publication, and was until recently one of the premier dons at Durham.

Scholarship
Her Grace is a member or fellow of, inter alia, The WI; the RHS; the RSPB; the Council for British Archaeology; the Wainwright Society; SPAB; the Georgian Group; the Royal Society; the Society of Antiquaries; the Royal Society of Edinburgh; the Royal Historical Society; the British Academy; the Academy of Social Sciences; the British Society for Population Studies; The Economic History Society; The Regional Studies Association; the Hadrianic Society; the Anglo-Norman Text Society; the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society; the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire; the Clifton Antiquarian Club; the Chetham Society; the Lancashire Parish Register Society; the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire; the Surtees Society; the Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society; the Oxford University Archaeological Society; the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society; the Stubbs Society; the Early English Text Society; the Ancient Monuments Society; the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies (The Roman Society); the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland; the British Association for Local History; the Historical Association; and the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland.

Marriage
The Duchess married Charles, Duke of Taunton, on 2 February, 2017, in Woolfont Abbas parish church.

Peerages
In the peerage of the United Kingdom:

The Baroness Lacy (suo jure, for life)

In the peerage of England:

(by marriage) Duchess of Taunton

Arms
Arms of Millicent, Duchess of Taunton



Notes

Since her marriage to the Duke of Taunton, the Baroness Lacy suo jure, who is by the death of her brother her father’s heraldic heiress, quarters the duke’s arms with her paternal arms, which are, quarterly, 1st, Or, three lioncels rampant Purpure, a chief of the second (de Lacy); 2nd, quarterly Or and Gules, a bend Sable, over all a label of five points Argent (Lacy of Lincoln, Pontefract, Halton, and Bowland); 3rd, Azure, five fusils Or conjoined in fess (Percy ancient); 4th, Or, a fess Gules, a bend Sable, over all a label of seven points Argent (Lacy of Meath).

Motto: Seco et necto.