On 10 July 1858, he married Caroline Theresa
Towneley (1838–1873) at the
Royal Bavarian Chapel in London. She was the daughter and co-heiress of Colonel
Charles Towneley, a Member of Parliament for
Sligo, and Lady Caroline Molyneux (daughter of
William Molyneux, 2nd Earl of Sefton). They lived at
Wytham Abbey in
Berkshire (now
Oxfordshire) and had four surviving children: • Lady Mary Caroline Bertie (1859–1938), who married
Edmund FitzAlan-Howard, 1st Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent (the last
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland) on 5 August 1879. • Capt. Montagu Charles Francis Bertie, Lord Norreys (1860–1919), who predeceased his father. He married Rose Riversdale Glynn, granddaughter of
George Glyn, 1st Baron Wolverton, with issue: •
Montagu Towneley-Bertie, 13th Earl of Lindsey and 8th Earl of Abingdon • Hon. Arthur John Bertie (26 December 1861 – 10 January 1862), died aged 15 days • Lady Alice Josephine Bertie (1865–1950), who married
Sir Gerald Portal on 1 February 1890. After his death, she married Maj. Robert Reyntiens on 5 October 1897. • Lady Cecil Josephine Bertie (1873–1895), who married Brig-Gen.
Paul Aloysius Kenna on 18 July 1895. After the death of his first wife in 1873, he remarried to Gwendoline Mary Dormer (1865–1942) on 16 October 1883. Gwendoline was the daughter of
James Charlemagne Dormer, a
British Army officer who was only two years Bertie's senior. Together, they were the parents of four more children: who married
John, son of Conservative politician
Lord Randolph Churchill and the American heiress
Jennie Jerome, and brother of
Winston Churchill. • Maj. Hon. Arthur Michael Cosmo Bertie (1886–1957), who married Aline Rose Ramsay, daughter of George Arbuthnot-Leslie, on 15 May 1929. After her death, he married Lilian Isabel Crackanthorpe, daughter of Charles Edward Cary-Elwes, on 7 May 1949. • Lt-Cdr. Hon. James Willoughby Bertie (1901–1966), who married Lady Jean Crichton-Stuart, daughter of
John Crichton-Stuart, 4th Marquess of Bute, on 12 June 1928. • Lady Elizabeth Constance Mary Bertie (1895–1987), married first Major Sigismund Trafford on 21 April 1914. After his death, she married Col. Henry Cartwright on 5 September 1956. In 1911, he broke up and sold the family estates at
Albury and
Great Haseley. The Earl of Abingdon died on 10 March 1928, aged 91, at Oaken Holt in
Oxfordshire, in
South East England. He was buried at
Abingdon Abbey in
Abingdon. His widow lived to age 77 and died on 16 September 1942.
Descendants From his first marriage, and through his eldest daughter, he was a grandfather to
Henry FitzAlan-Howard, 2nd Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent, who served as a captain in the
First World War and was wounded. Through his eldest son, he was the grandfather of
Montagu Towneley-Bertie, who succeeded his grandfather in his titles. Through his daughter, Lady Alice Bertie, he was the grandfather of
Priscilla Reyntiens, a London councillor whose second marriage was to
Montagu Norman, 1st Baron Norman, governor of the
Bank of England. Reyntiens had two sons from her first marriage to Alexander Koch de Gooreynd,
Simon Towneley and
Peregrine Worsthorne. From his second marriage, and through his daughter Lady Gwendoline Bertie, he was the grandfather of the artist
John Spencer-Churchill and
Clarissa Spencer-Churchill, who married
Anthony Eden, the Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-1950s. Through his son Hon. Arthur Bertie, he was the grandfather of
Richard Bertie, 14th Earl of Lindsey. Through his youngest son, The Hon. James Bertie, he was the grandfather of
Andrew Bertie, 78th Prince and Grand Master of the
Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Through his youngest child, daughter Lady Elizabeth Bertie, he was the grandfather of Sophie de Trafford, who married
Charles Lyell, 2nd Baron Lyell and great-grandfather of
Charles Lyell, 3rd Baron Lyell. ==References==