Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth

Field Marshal Richard Molesworth, 3rd Viscount Molesworth, PC (1680 – 12 October 1758), styled The Honourable Richard Molesworth from 1716 to 1726, was an Anglo-Irish military officer, politician and nobleman.

Military career
Molesworth was commissioned into Orkney's Regiment in 1702; he served with his Regiment at the Battle of Blenheim. On 22 May 1706, the eve of the battle of Ramillies, he was appointed aide-de-camp to the great Duke of Marlborough. During the battle, a French cavalry unit came close to killing the Duke when an Irish recruit, Patrick Molaise O'Meighan, shot the Duke's horse dead from under him. Molesworth galloped to the rescue, mounted the Duke on his horse and made good their escape. By rescuing Marlborough when he had fallen from his horse, he is famously attributed to saving Marlborough's life at the Battle of Ramillies. As a result of his heroism, he was bestowed by the monarch the right to fly the royal colours in perpetuity.

In 1707 he became Commanding Officer of the Coldstream Guards. He was present at the relief of Brussels and at the Battle of Malplaquet in 1709. The following year he served in Catalonia.

In 1714 he became Lieutenant of the Ordnance in Ireland then became Member of Parliament in the Irish House of Commons for Swords. In 1715 he raised a Regiment of Dragoons and helped suppress the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715.

He was made Commander-in-Chief, Ireland in 1751, which was the title of the commander of all British forces in Ireland before 1922, and since held by the President of Ireland.

He was colonel of the 5th Regiment of Dragoons and 9th Regiment of Dragoons.

Family
He married twice. First he married Jane Lucas and had one child, Mary, later to be styled Countess Belvedere, and second wife of Earl of Belvedere. Secondly he married Mary Jenney Ussher and had four children from this union; Henrietta, Melosina, Mary and Louisa (who married William Ponsonby, 1st Baron Ponsonby). Hennrietta Molesworth (1745–1813) was a great-great-grandmother of author and Christian apologist C.S.Lewis.