Catherine Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington Catherine Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington Catherine Sarah Dorothea Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington (née Pakenham; 14 January 1773 – 24 April 1831) was the wife of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington. She was commonly known before her marriage as Kitty Pakenham. The daughter of Edward Pakenham, 2nd Baron Longford, and the former Catherine Rowley, she was born Catherine Pakenham on 14 January 1773 in Dublin, Ireland. She became "The Honourable Catherine Pakenham" when her father succeeded as the 2nd Baron Longford in 1776. She had met Wellesley in Ireland when they were both young, and Wellesley, after numerous visits to
Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley for many years with Hyacinthe-Gabrielle Roland, an actress at the Palais Royal. She had three sons and two daughters by Wellesley before he married her on 29 November 1794. He moved her to London, where Hyacinthe was generally miserable, as she never learned English and she was scorned by high society: Lady Caroline Lamb was warned by her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Milbanke, a noted judge of what was socially acceptable, that no respectable woman could afford to be seen in Hyacinthe's society. Their children were: Through his eldest daughter Lady Charles Bentinck, Wellesley is a great-great-great grandfather to Queen Elizabeth II.