THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OE CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 


 
 OUR GREAT FAMILIES
 
 rniSTED BY 
 
 SPOTflSWOODE AND CO., KEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 LONDOX
 
 TALES 
 
 OF 
 
 OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD WALFORD, M.A. 
 
 FORMERLY SCHOLAR OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 EDITOR OF 'the COUNTY FAMILIES* 'tHE WINDSOR PEERAGE' ETC. 
 
 A NEW EDITION, REVISED 
 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1890 .
 
 775' 
 
 77 
 
 im 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Under the title of ' Tales of our Great Families' I have 
 ventured to publish a series of narratives relating to the 
 families of the titled and untitled nobility of this country, 
 in the hope of amusing my readers with materials which 
 for many years I have been gleaning from various sources, 
 and which have grown so rapidly in my hands that my 
 only difficulty seems to lie in selecting amid such an 
 emharras de richesses. If it be not literally true that every 
 house, whether high or low, has its ' skeleton in the closet,' 
 at all events the past history of most of our ancient houses 
 is replete with incidents, which, however artlessly they may 
 be told, will certainly make good the adage that ' truth is 
 stranger than fiction.' 
 
 In treating of these matters I wish by way of preface 
 to remark that my readers must not always look for 
 novelty. I shall often, I know, be telling a ' thrice-told 
 tale ' ; for in the anecdotal writings of Horace Walpole, 
 Mrs. Delany, Sir Nathanial Wraxall, the Hon. Grantley 
 Berkeley, Captain Gronow, Lord William Lennox, the late 
 Duke of Buckingham, Sir Bernard Burke, and Dr. Doran 
 I have a constant well from which to draw supplies. It 
 is possible, however, to recast these materials and those 
 taken from other sources, and to mould them all into one 
 harmonious whole, which, I trust, may not be found devoid 
 of interest. I am treading on delicate ground, and I am 
 conscious that here and there I may wound the tender 
 
 1927013
 
 vi TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 susceptibilities of descendants and relatives of the person- 
 ages whom I may bring upon the stage. But to these I 
 would say that the lives of the members of our old historic 
 houses are themselves historic, and that I have a full right 
 to wake up the memory of what already stands recorded 
 against them in the gossiping pages of Sir Nathaniel 
 Wraxall or Horace Walpole, unless I have reason to believe 
 that the stories I tell are untrue. If these papers shall 
 have any result beyond the amusement of the leisure hours 
 of those who take an interest in the fates and fortunes of 
 our ' Great Families,' I feel no doubt that, on the whole, 
 that influence will not be of an injurious nature, and that 
 I shall not be justly chargeable with lowering the esteem 
 in which I hope that the aristocracy of this land will long 
 be held. My papers may occasionally help to show up a 
 pretender and a charlatan in his true colours ; but in the 
 long run they will be found, I am confident, rather to 
 enhance the interest which attaches to that body at whose 
 head stand the titled names of Howard and Stanley, 
 Talbot and Herbert, Courtenay and Cavendish, and the 
 equally noble though untitled name of Scrope. 
 
 E. W. 
 
 Hampstead, N.W. 
 June 1877. 
 
 A second and cheaper edition of these ' Tales ' having 
 been called for, I have revised them and slightly altered 
 them where 1 have found, either from ciilics in the press 
 or from friends and correspondents, that my statements 
 are doubtful or inaccurate. 
 
 E. W. 
 
 7 IIvuK Pakic Mansions, 
 May 18'J0.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 The Lady Blanche Aeundell of Waedoue ... 1 
 
 The Two Faie Gunnings 12 
 
 The Thellussons 24 
 
 The Noble House of Cecil 31 
 
 Laurence, Eael Ferrers 50 
 
 The Duchess of Kingston 63 
 
 The Drummonds, Earls of Perth 78 
 
 The Three Miss Walpoles 88 
 
 The Wooing op Sir Heneage Finch 101 
 
 The Ducal House of Leeds 109 
 
 An Episode in the History of the Cathcaets . . 116 
 
 An Episode in the Noble House op Hastings . . . 123 
 
 Thomas Pixt, Lord Camelford 127 
 
 An Episode in the Earldom of Pembroke . . . . 139 
 
 The Eise of the Kothschilds 148 
 
 An Episode in the House op Haeley 159 
 
 The Bad Lord Stourton 1G7 
 
 Benjamin, Lord Bloomfield 176
 
 viii TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Page 
 
 LOED Lyttelton's Ghost 179 
 
 The Witty Duke of Wharton 194 
 
 The Ducal House of Buckingham 217 
 
 The Noble House of Stafford 223 
 
 The Ducal House of Eichmond 230 
 
 George Hanger, Lord Coleraine 238 
 
 De Courcy, Lord of Kingsale 249 
 
 The Heiress op Haddon Hall 256 
 
 The Eccentric Lady Ellenborough 263 
 
 The Barings 268 
 
 Sir F. Dashwood and the Franciscans . . . .273 
 
 The Sackvilles op Drayton 280 
 
 The Ducal House of Sutherland 286 
 
 Colonel Chartres 296 
 
 An Episode in the History of the Courtbnays . . 307 
 
 The House of Berkeley 322 
 
 The Romance of the House of Ashbkook .... 329 
 
 Romance op the Townshends 332 
 
 The Dyjiokes of Scrivelsby 339
 
 Tales of Our Great Families 
 
 THE LADY BLANCHE ARUNDELL OF 
 WARDOUB 
 
 Few of the ruined homes of our ancient families are surrovmded 
 with a brighter halo of interest than the old Castle of Wardour, 
 w^iich stands on the south-western border of Wiltshire, about 
 half-way between Salisbury and Shaftesbury ; and few heroines 
 of our country have earned a fairer name lor bravery, courage, 
 and devotion in the hour of danger than the Lady Blanche 
 Arundell of Wardour. 
 
 By birth the Lady Blanche came of a noble and distin- 
 guished race, the Somersets, at that time Earls of Worcester, 
 now Marquises of Worcester and Dukes of Beaufort. She 
 was the sixth out of seven daughters who were born to Edward, 
 the fourth Earl, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Francis, 
 Earl of Huntingdon ; and early in the reign of James I. she 
 became the wife of Thomas, second Lord Arundell of Wardour, 
 whose father, known far and wide in his day as 'the Valiant,' 
 had been created Lord Arundell of Wardour, and also a Count 
 of the Holy Roman Empire, on account of his gallantry at the 
 siege of Gran in Hungary, where, serving under the banner of 
 the Emperor Rodolph of Germany, he captured the Turkish 
 standard with his own hands. 
 
 B 
 
 7.
 
 2 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 The Emperor's patent or charter (a.d. 1695) states ex- 
 pressly that the title was conferred on him because ' he had 
 behaved himself manfully in the field, and also had shown 
 great proof of valour in the assaulting of divers cities and 
 castles, especially in forcing the water-tower near Strigonium, 
 when he took from the Turks their banner with his own hand.' 
 This honour was extended to every one of his children and 
 descendants of either sex, so that every infant who is born 
 an Arundell is born also a count or countess of the Roman 
 Empire. Collins, in his Peerage, gives an amusing account of 
 the reason which led to the Count being created an English 
 Baron also. ' On his return home, a controversy arising among 
 the Peers whether that dignity, so conferred by a foreign poten- 
 tate, should be allowed here as to place and precedence, or any 
 other privilege, it occasioned a warm dispute, which is men- 
 tioned by Camden in his History of Queen Elizabeth. The 
 Queen, being asked her opinion of the case, is reported to have 
 answered that " there was a close tie of affection between the 
 prince and subject, and that, as chaste wives should have no 
 glances but for their own spouses, so should faithful subjects 
 keep their eyes at home, and not gaze on foreign coronets ; that 
 she, for her part, did not care that her sheep should wear a 
 stranger's mark, or dance after the whistle of every foreigner.'" 
 The consequence was that the precedence claimed on account 
 of this foi'eign honour was disallowed. King James, however, 
 soon after his accession, made amends for Elizabeth's jealousy 
 by creating him Lord Arundell of Wardour, in the county of 
 Wilts. 
 
 In 1G39 Lady Jjlanche's husband succeeded to his father's 
 peerage, just as the Puritan storm was gathering which was 
 destined to burst on the head of King Charles I. and of all his 
 devoted and loyal-hearted followers and subjects, whether 
 Protestants or Roman Catholics. 
 
 In the history of the Civil War which is usually known as 
 •The Great Rebellion,' few episodes are more touching than 
 that of the siege, capture, and recapture, of the Castle of
 
 LADY BLANCHE ARUNDELL OF W ARDOUR 3 
 
 Wardour ; but I must first say a word or two about the castle 
 itself. 
 
 The Manor of Wardour, as may be seen in Sir R. C. Hoare's 
 ' History of Wiltshire,' was in early times the property of a 
 family named St. Martin ; but the castle itself appears to have 
 been built in the reign of Richard II., the last of the Plan- 
 tagenets, by John, Lord Lovel of Tichmarsh. The Levels 
 inhabited it for only three generations, as it was sold on the 
 death of the last-named nobleman's grandson in 1494, the next 
 heir to the estate finding himself involved in great difficulties 
 by his adherence to the failing cause of the Red Rose of 
 Lancaster. 
 
 The property of the Lovels was at that time as extensive 
 as any in the kingdom, and it must be owned that Lord Lovel 
 showed great taste in the selection of a site for his castle, 
 which is thus desci'ibed in the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' for 
 August 1867 : 'It stands on a flat plateau, supported by high 
 wooded banks on every side, except on the south-west, where 
 the ground slopes down to the park and the lake, admitting a 
 glowing sun to light and warm the haughty building. A spot 
 of greater beauty could hardly have been found amongst all 
 tlie scenes afforded by that peculiarly rich part of Wiltshire 
 where it marches with the Dorsetshire border. On the eastern 
 side, flanked by two strong square towers, was the great en- 
 trance, over which is still to be read a Latin inscription relating 
 how the castle came into the hands of the Arundells.' 
 
 After the Lovels, its next owners were the Touchets, Lords 
 Audley (afterwards Earls of Ca.stlehaven), to whom it was 
 given by Edward IV. in reward of their adherence to the 
 White Rose of York. The Touchets, however, did not long 
 hold it ; for the second of that line who owned it, having been 
 taken in arms against Henry VII. at the battle of Blackheath, 
 was beheaded on Tower Hill. His estates, of course, were 
 confiscated ; and Wardour Castle, after being held for a short 
 time by Sir Fulke Greville, was purchased by Sir John Arundell, 
 of Lanherne, in Cornwall, who presented it to his second son, 
 
 B 2
 
 4 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Thomas, who mamed a sister of Catharine Howard, the fifth 
 wife of Henry VIII. Attaching himself, however, very 
 warmly to the Duke of Somerset, in the next reign he shared 
 the Duke's fate, and perished on the scaffold. 
 
 The estates of Wardour were now again confiscated, and 
 granted to the Earl of Pembroke, whose seat at AVilton lay 
 but a few miles distant, and who, no doubt, was glad to join 
 AVardour on to his own domain. However, in the course of a 
 few years the Earl resolved to sell it, when it was repurchased 
 by Sir Matthew Arundell, whose eldest son was the hero of 
 Hungary, and became the first Lord Arundell of Wardour, as 
 stated above. 
 
 The chief features of the building, as it was erected by 
 Lord Lovel, are visible to the present day. It forms an 
 irregular quadrangle, flanked at the four corners by four large 
 main towers. Above the entrance are the large windows of 
 what was the great banqueting- hall ; they still remain, pre- 
 senting but a few indications of tlie ricli ti-acery with which 
 they once were filled. The form of the court was a hexa- 
 gon. Each tower had a staircase of its own, and a door lead- 
 ing into the courtyard — I can scarcely call a six sided space 
 a quadrangle — in the centre of which was a deep well. 
 Besides these, there was one principal staircase, leading 
 up from the court into the gieat hall. Parts of these stair- 
 cases still remain, but not a Ihior or a I'oof now stands 
 entire ; and the great banqueting-hall, which once resounded 
 with song and music, and was gay with banners and tap(>stry, 
 is now roofless and bare, inliabitcd only by owls and jackdaws, 
 which find a home in the ivy that clusters thick and dark 
 around the tenantless walls. But it is time that I should 
 hasten on to tell the stoi-y of the siege of Wardour Castle, 
 and of the lieroism of the Lady Blanche. 
 
 Thomas, the second Lord Arundell, liaving always sliown 
 the warmest and most loyal attachment to tlie royal cause, as 
 soon as tlie Civil War bi'oke out joined King Charles I., with 
 a regiment of horse, whi<h ho liad raised and e(juipped at his
 
 LADY BLANCHE ARUNDELL OF WARDOUR 5 
 
 own expense, and was soon as much distinguished by his 
 bravery as by his fidelity. Foreseeing the vengeance which 
 his loyalty would be sure to call down on his house and family 
 should the cause of the Roundheads and Puritans triumph, 
 before joining the King's standard he exacted from his wife a 
 promise that, if his castle should be attacked in his absence, 
 it should be defended to the very last extremity. How faith- 
 fully the Lady Blanche redeemed the promise which she made 
 to her lord, as he tore himself from her embrace on quitting 
 Wardour for the last time, is pi'oved by the written testimony 
 of both friends and enemies. 
 
 I will not waste time by dwelling long on the picture which 
 that parting scene must have presented, beyond saying that it 
 is enough to have inspired half our painters and poets. There 
 is the gate of the old grey castle, in deep shadow, while the 
 rays of the afternoon svm light up the opposite bank with a 
 golden glow, which catches tlie plumes of the Cavaliers and 
 dances on their long, flowing hair, as their horses prance and 
 toss their heads, impatient to start on their march towards 
 Lansdowne Hill and Bath ; and the first of the troops are already 
 defiling from the castle yard. The standard of the Arundells 
 (sable, six liirondelles, swallows, arg.) waves in the breeze, and 
 the ringing bugle, the tramping of the horses, the gay colour- 
 ing of their housings, and the bright equipments of their riders, 
 all combine to form a brilliant contrast to that group of anxious 
 and loving faces that cluster round the great doorway, seeking 
 the last embrace and the last words of those dear ones on 
 whom they feel and know they are possibly now to look for 
 the last time. 
 
 Alas, for the Lady Blanche ! Her fair face, crowned with 
 locks whitening with her sixtieth summer, is raised to meet 
 the lips of her true lord, who lowers his casque and stoops 
 from his charger to give her the last kiss. Alas, indeed, for 
 her ! for, whatever fate may be in store for the dear ones of 
 her companion ladies, that kiss and that look of her husband 
 was destined to be the very last. A few short months, and
 
 6 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 her husband would come back indeed, but a corpse. He would 
 come back with glory and honour to Wardour, but not to her : 
 he would come back to his grave in the church hard by. He 
 would come back ; but it would not be in his power to give 
 her that which she coveted most of all things in this world — 
 the smile of approval, the thought of which was to be her 
 solace through the weary and toilsome hours of the coming 
 siege. There, too, stands her son's wife. Cicely, the daughter 
 of Sir Henry Compton, of Brambletye House, Sussex, and 
 wife of Sir John Fermor, young and delicate, and half heart- 
 bi'oken at having to part with her husband, the father of her 
 three young children, who cling to her, half sobbing, half 
 smiling, puzzled at the grief of their mother and their grand- 
 mother, and at the pretty sight of the warlike cavalcade. 
 
 As Lord Arundell rode away, gazing back on his home, 
 well may we imagine that the Lady Blanche would raise her 
 liands to Heaven and vow before saints and angels that she 
 would keep the word which she had given to her lord, and that 
 the vow was echoed back firmly and quietly by Cicely, and 
 somewhat more loudly and emphatically by the fifty serving- 
 men who were to form the garrison, and the bevy of waiting- 
 maids who stood ci-ying in the background. Though sixty 
 years old, she joined to the firmness and wisdom of that age 
 the energy of youth and the spirit of a Somerset ; and it was 
 without the smallest signs of fear or of any weak emotion 
 that on the 2nd of May, 1643, she received the news that the 
 Puritan leader. Sir Edward Hungerford, was at her doors, and 
 that, in the name of the Parliament, he required admittance in 
 order to search for Cavaliers and ' malignants.' 
 
 It is needless to say that Sir Edward's demand Avas 
 disdainfully refused, and that he saw enough to convince him 
 that it would be no easy task to effect an entry into that 
 castle in its owner's absence. He tlioi'ofore sent for Colonel 
 Strode and some troops under his comm.nid, wliirli raised the 
 force at his disposal to a total of thirteen liundrod men. He 
 then sent a messenger to the Lady Blanche, demanding the
 
 LADY BLANCHE ARUXDELL OF W ARDOUR 7 
 
 surrender of the castle in due form ; but the only reply that 
 he received was that ' she had a command from her lord to 
 keep it, and would obey that command.' 
 
 For the last time on that evening, Lady Arundell looked 
 out in freedom from her chamber in the tower ; and it must 
 have been with a heavy heart that she gazed on the lake below 
 her windows — that lake which still spreads its peaceful waters 
 to reflect the glowing sunsets — and noted the splashing of the 
 carp as they played on its surface, and the song of the black- 
 bird, the thrush, and the cuckoo. But, together with that 
 heavy heart, she nursed and inwardly chei'ished the firm re- 
 solve that she would dare and do all that woman could and 
 might, for the sake of her husband who had gone to the war. 
 
 Late at night, a harsher sound must have been borne on 
 the breeze to her ears — the rattle of heavy guns and of soldiers 
 escorting them along the road that wound through the woods. 
 The Puritans, at all events, had lost no time, for in the moi'n- 
 ing her waiting-maid aroused her by the news that the guns 
 Avere already in position to bear full upon the walls. Unfor- 
 tunately, too, for herself and for Wardour, the castle was 
 placed in a situation chosen rather for its beauty than for its 
 military capabilities. It lay low, and the ground, rising 
 around it on three out of the four sides, gave her enemies a 
 great advantage, of which the Roundheads were not slow to 
 avail themselves. 
 
 Next day commenced a fierce cannonade, and the first shot 
 fell with deadly force in the banqueting-hall, where it cruelly 
 damaged the great chimney-piece, richly carved in dark red 
 marble, and said to have been worth 2,000/. even at that 
 time — a far larger sum than that which is now represented 
 by those figures. Portions of this mantel-piece are still pre- 
 served in the grounds, worked into a sort of rockery, and 
 some of the cannon-balls have also been kept as relics and 
 memorials of the siege. For six long days and nights, almost 
 Avithout intermission, the battery continued to hurl its deadly 
 missiles on the besieged garrison, who stoutly and valiantly
 
 8 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 rejected the conditions proffered over and over again by the 
 Roundheads ; for the latter promised quarter to the ladies 
 alone, and not to the men under arms. The number within 
 the walls was small, for out of the fifty males only twenty- 
 five were trained fighting-men ; and had it not been for the 
 assistance of the maid-servants, who steadily loaded their 
 muskets, they would have been exhausted with fatigue and 
 want of sleep before they could hold out long enough to 
 obtain honourable terms for all. 
 
 On the fourth or fifth day of the siege two mines were 
 sprung. The first did but little damage, as fortunately it 
 proved to be outside the walls of the castle ; but the second, 
 which exploded inside one of the smaller vaults, greatly shook 
 the building, and showed that the fabric was in danger of 
 destruction. Still, however, the Lady Blanche resolved not to 
 yield ; and it was not until the sixth day, when the rebels 
 brought petards and applied them to the great dooi', and balls 
 of wild-fire to throw in at the windows, that the gallant 
 defender found herself obliged to ' sound a parley.' 
 
 Thus reduced to the last straits, she agreed to a surrender, 
 but on condition of obtaining quarter for all within the castle. 
 It was also agreed that the wearing apparel of the ladies 
 should be at their own disposal, and they should be allowed 
 six serving-men to attend upon them wherever tlieir captors 
 should dispose of them ; and it was further agreed that all 
 the furniture in the castle should be safe from plunder. 
 
 Finding themselves, however, in possession of the castle 
 walls, these 'saints of the Lord ' did not feel bound to observe 
 any of tlicir promises except the first. 'Faith is not to be 
 kept with heretics,' it would appear, is a principle cui-rent in 
 society at large, and acted on by many others liesides tlio.se 
 whom the world calls ' Uoiiiish bigots.' It is true that tliey 
 spared the lives of the gallant defenders of the castle, though 
 the latter had used their guns and crossbows so well as to 
 kill above sixty of thi; )>esieging force. The ladies and the 
 three children were at once led oH" as prisoners of war to
 
 LADY BLANCHE ARUNDELL OF WARDOUR 9 
 
 Shaftesbury, just over the Dorsetshire border, where they had 
 the mortification of seeing five cartloads of the spoils of 
 Wardour driven in triumph through the streets of the town 
 on their way to Dorchester, which was then in the hands of 
 the Parliamentary army. 
 
 After a time, considering, or pretending to consider, that 
 the captive ladies and children were not safe at Shaftesbury, 
 the rebels proposed to remove them to Bath, where the plague 
 was then raging, and where the ' saints' probably hoped that 
 death would do the work which they dared not try with their 
 own hands. But here the high spirit of Lady Arundell was 
 fully aroused, and, as she lay at the time in bed, worn out 
 with fatigue and anxiety, she refused to be removed unless 
 she was dragged by actual main force. Dreading the un- 
 popularity which such severity would draw down upon their 
 cause in the Western counties, where the name of Arundell 
 was held in high esteem, at lengtli the ' saints ' abandoned 
 their designs ; so they contented themselves with wresting 
 from Cicely Arundell her two little boys, aged nine and seven 
 respectively, whom they considered such objects of alarm that 
 they sent them under a strong guard to Dorchester. 
 
 Meantime my readers may wish to know how it fared with 
 the fabric which had stood the siege, and with the estates that 
 surrounded it. If so, I will tell them. 
 
 Sir Edward Hungerford and his troops, out of pure revenge 
 and spite, laid waste the whole place with a frantic zeal, the 
 effects of which are felt down to the present day. They tore 
 up the park railings several miles in extent, let loose or killed 
 the red and fallow deer — which have never since been re- 
 placed — burnt the park lodges and entrances, and cut down 
 the trees, which they sold for fourpeiice and sixpence apiece, 
 though they must have been worth as many pounds. They 
 drove away all the horses and cattle, and even cut to pieces 
 and sold as waste metal the leaden pipes which conveyed water 
 underground to the castle ; in short, it is computed by local 
 antiquaries that the havoc which they caused would scarcely
 
 ro TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 be repaired for a hundred thousand pounds. Sir Edward 
 Hungerford placed the castle under the command of Colonel 
 Ludlow, who held it from May 1643 to the March of the 
 following year. 
 
 Just at this time of Ludlow's taking possession, news was 
 brought to Wardour that Lord Arundell, the husband of the 
 Lady Blanche, had died at Oxford of wounds which he had 
 received at the battle of Lansdowne. A fortnight had scarcely 
 elapsed when his son, young Lord Arundell, the husband of 
 Cicely, appeared before the walls, and summoned Ludlow and 
 his crew to deliver up the place to him, 'for his Majesty's 
 use.' This summons was of course refused ; and, burning 
 with rage at his father's death, his mother's capture, and his 
 children's imprisonment, he withdrew for a time to collect 
 materials for the siege of his own castle. Early in the follow- 
 ing year, accordingly, he sat down before it, determining to 
 retake it, either by siege or by blockade. At length, despair- 
 ing of being able to effect his object by any less violent means, 
 he resolved to blow up the towers and walls rather than to 
 leave it in the hands of the rebels. Accordingly, in the middle 
 of the month of March, he sprang beneath it a mine which 
 shattered its walls and western towers, and did so much 
 damage also to the stores of corn and other provisions, that 
 the garrison found themselves reduced to only four days' 
 rations. Seeing at length that all liope was at an end, Colonel 
 Ludlow capitulated, on terms which u-ere observed by the 
 Royalists, and the castle came back again into the hands of 
 its rightful owners ; 
 
 And Bertram's right and Berlram's might 
 Did meet on Elhmgowan height. 
 
 But the fabric came Ijack into the liands of the noble and 
 gallant Aruiidells sadly sliorii of its chief ornaments, and of all 
 tliat makes a house to be a homo ; and l)itter indeed must 
 have been the feelings of the young l^ord Arundell when he 
 once again entered tlie. well known Imlls, .Mnd gazed upon the
 
 LADY BLANCHE ARUNDELL OF W ARDOUR n 
 
 bare walls of the despoiled rooms which for ten long weary- 
 months had been tenanted by the rough and sour soldiers of 
 the Parliament, instead of by his own gentle wife and his 
 noble-hearted mother. However, he did return 5 and the 
 family once more occupied such portions of the castle as could 
 be put into a habitable condition. 
 
 Just over a hundred years ago, when the old castle had 
 seen a hundred and thirty years of ruin and desolation, a new 
 and noble mansion, in the Classical style, Avhich now bears the 
 name of Wardour Castle, was built by the then Lord Ai'undell, 
 about a mile from the ancient site, where the old grey walls, 
 rising proudly out of a wildenaess of dark foliage beside a lake, 
 and what once was a garden and a ' pleasaunce,' still tell the 
 tale of their defence by the hands of the Lady Blanche 
 Arundell. 
 
 And what about Lady Blanche herself % She survived for 
 some six years or more the loss of her husband and the siege 
 of his castle. On her release from captivity at Shaftesbury, 
 she retired to AViiachester, where she lived in seclusion, leading 
 a life of piety and charity; and there she ended her days in 
 October 1649, having lived long enough to add to her other 
 griefs by mourning the fate of the sovereign whom her husband 
 had served so loyally. The fine old parish church of Tisbury, 
 adjoining the park of Wardour, now holds all that is mortal of 
 the Lady Blanche Arundell and her husband. 
 
 It is some satisfaction, though a poor one at the best, to 
 know that Providence in the end punished the proud house of 
 Hungerford, one of whose members had taken so active a part 
 in brincins: about the desolation of the fair Castle of Wardour. 
 Those who wish to know how justice overtook the Hunger- 
 fords will do well to consult that storehouse of amusing 
 anecdote, ' The Vicissitudes of Families,' by Sir Bernard 
 Burke.
 
 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 THE TWO FAIB GUNNINGS 
 
 Cax it be that female beauty has degenerated in England 
 during tlie last century ? Such a decadence seems improbable, 
 nay, impossible, in a country where the fair sex avail them- 
 selves so plentifully of Nature's two great beautifiers, fresh air 
 and cold water ! And yet, which among our celebrated beauties 
 of the present day, whose photographs may be seen in every 
 stationer's window, can boast of having excited one half of the 
 furore created by the two fair Miss Gunnings, who took the 
 London world of fashion by storm in the year 1751, and turned 
 the "West End almost mad ? 
 
 These ladies, whose beauty and whose names are familiar 
 to every reader of Horace Walpole and of books of contem- 
 porary anecdote and biography, were sisters, of plain Irish 
 extraction, wholly without fortune ; and their only title to 
 aristocratic family was the fact that they were distantly related 
 to an Irish baronet of the name. The sudden a})pearancc of 
 these stars in the heaven of London fashion caused so great a 
 sensation that even the staid rules of a Court Drawing Room at 
 St. James's were defied by a mob of noble gentlemen and ladies 
 clambering upon chairs and tables to get a look at them. 
 
 Walpole speaks of them as being ' scarce gentlewomen, Init 
 by their mother'; but this somewliat ill-natured remark is 
 scarcely true. The family of Gunning could hnrdly be said to 
 be ai-istocratic in name or in lineage, but still it was respectable 
 • •uoiigli ; ;iinl on (licii- mother's side, INIaria and Elizabeth 
 < Iiuining might fairly Ixiast that the l)lood of tlie Plantagenets 
 r.in in their veins. 
 
 .\11 that tilt' 1 1 cr.i Ids' College can tell us of the Gunning 
 f.imily - iicyond tin- fact (hat a member of it, having l)eeu 
 British Minister at the Courts of Berlin and St. Petersburg, 
 w.is r.iiscd to a baioni Icy .ibout a century ago — is that it was
 
 THE TWO FAIR GUNNINGS 13 
 
 divided into two branches, which possessed, in the reign of 
 Henry VITI., considerable estates in the counties of Kent, 
 Somerset, and Gloucester; and that one of the Kentish Gun- 
 nings, in the reign of James I., settled in Ireland, where he 
 became the ancestor of the Gunnings of Castle Coote, in the 
 county of Roscommon. One of these, a Mr. John Gunning, 
 by his marriage with the Hon. Bridget Bourke, a daughter of 
 Viscount Bourke, of Mayo, had, along with a son who became 
 a general in the army, and who distinguished himself at the 
 battle of Bunker's Hill, three fair daughters, who were said to 
 rival the Three Graces. Two of these came to London, like 
 many other portionless girls before and after their time, to 
 push their Avay in the world of fashion, their ' faces ' being 
 their ' fortunes,' in the words of the well-known song : 
 
 ' My face is 1113' fortune, sir,' slie said. 
 
 The third, and youngest, appears to have settled down quietly 
 in matrimonial life in the South of Ireland ; but she does not 
 come within the scope of this paper, which I intend to devote 
 to the career of her two sisters. 
 
 A letter concerning the Gunnings, wiitten by the parish 
 clerk of Hemingford Grey, in Huntingdonshire, to Mr. James 
 Madden, of Cole House, Fulham, is worth transcribing, less 
 for the sake of the information it contains — which is, for the 
 most part, an incorrect version of well-known facts — than on 
 account of the amusing self-importance of the writer. I follow 
 his orthography : 
 
 ' Sir, — I take the Freedom in wrighting to you, from an 
 information of Mr. Warrinton, that you would be Glad to 
 have the account of my Townswoman the Notefied, the Famis, 
 BeautifuU Miss Gunnings. Born at Hemingford Grey, tho 
 they left the Parish before I had knoledge Enough to Remem- 
 ber them, and I was born in 32 (1732). But I will give you 
 the Best account I can, which I believe is Better than any 
 man in the Country besides Myself, tho I have not the Birth
 
 14 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Register for so long a Date, and since Dr. Dickens is dead, 
 I dont know where it is, but the Best account I Can Give 
 you is, Elizth., the Eldest, married to his Grace the Duke of 
 Hamilton, after his Decease to the Duke of Arguile \ tlie 
 second, Mary, to the Viscount of Coventre ; the third I never 
 knew ritely to horn, but I beleeve to some privett Gentleman. 
 I Rember a many years ago, att least 30, seeing her picture in 
 a print shop, I believe in St. Poul's Churchyard, as follows : 
 
 the youngest of these Beauties here we have in vue, 
 
 so like in person to the other two, 
 
 ho Ever views her features and her fame, 
 
 will see at once that Gunning is her Name 
 
 — which is the Best account I Can give you of these three ; but 
 then there was two more, which perhaps you don't know 
 anything about, which I will give you the true Mortalick 
 register off, fi'om a black mavel which lies in our chancel, as 
 follows : Sophia Gunning, the youngest of four daughters, 
 all born at Hemmingford, in Huntingdonshire, to John Gun- 
 ning, Esq. ; died an infant, 1737. Lissy Gunning, his fifth 
 daughter, born in Ireland ; died December 31, 1752, aged 
 8 years 10 months. "Suffer little children and forbid them 
 not to come unto me, for of sucli is the kingdom of heaven." — 
 Matt. xix. 14. This, Sir, is the Truest and Best Information 
 I Can Give you, or can Get, and if this is of any use to you, 
 I should be much obliged to you to let me have a line or two 
 from you, that I may be satisfied that it was not in vain. 
 ' And am, Sir, 
 
 ' Your mo.st obedient and humbh' servant, 
 ' \Vm. Ckiswell. 
 'Hemmingford Groj', Aug. 14, 17t>().' 
 
 But litthi is known of Catliorino, the third Miss Gunning, 
 in the annals of fa.sliion ; but I can so far supi)U'ment the in- 
 formation of Mr. William Criswcll as to tell your readers that 
 tlic 'privett gentleman' alluded to was Robert Travis, Esq., 
 to whom Catherine Gunning was married in 17G9, and who
 
 THE TWO FAIR GUNNINGS 15 
 
 had a daughter who, in the next generation, kept up the fame 
 of the family for personal beauty. 
 
 Whatever may have been the original fortune and estate 
 of John Gunning, of Castle Coote, Ireland, the progenitor of 
 ' the two fair Gunnings,' it would seem that at the time when 
 they were just budding into womanhood, their mother, the 
 Hon. Mrs. Gunning, seriously contemplated sending them to 
 seek their fortunes upon the stage. Walpole more than once 
 alludes to this intention ; and the circumstances under which 
 the lovely sisters were presented at Dublin Castle, the year 
 befoi'e their dehut in London, would seem to give colour 
 to the supposition. The Gunnings were on intimate terms 
 with Thomas Sheridan, at that time manager of the Dublin 
 Theatre ; and Mrs. Gunning, wishing to present her daughters 
 to the Earl of Harrington, then Lord-Lieutenant, consulted 
 Sheridan how she could procure the necessary dresses, which 
 she had not the means to pui'chase. The difficulty was over- 
 come by Sheridan arraying the distressed beauties out of the 
 I'esources of the stage wardrobe ; and so Maria and Elizabeth 
 Gunning made their first courtesies to the Lord-Lieutenant 
 attired as Lady Macbeth and Juliet, and, as tradition states, 
 looked most lovely. I wish it did not also state that, when 
 they became great ladies, they proved forgetful of former 
 kindness in their time of need on the part of the warm- 
 hearted and improvident Sheridan. 
 
 The first mention that we find of the fair Gunnings as 
 the 'Belles of the season' in London, is in a letter from 
 Horace Walpole in June 1751, when he speaks of them as 
 ' two Irish girls of no fortune, who make more noise than any 
 of their predecessors since the days of Helen, and who are 
 declared the handsomest women alive.' The fastidious Horace 
 ' was willing to allow the truth of the statement if they were 
 both taken together ' ; though he adds, by way of qualification, 
 that ' singly he has seen much handsomer women than either 
 of them.' How this can be, however, is not clear to my dull 
 comprehension.
 
 1 6 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 There can be no doubt of the sensation caused by the two 
 fair Gunnings wherever they went about London. They could 
 not take a walk in the park, or spend an evening at Vauxhall, 
 without being followed by such mobs as to force them to 
 retreat and go home. One day when the sisters visited Hamp- 
 ton Court, the housekeeper, whether in sport or in earnest, 
 showed the company wdio were ' lionising ' the place into the 
 room where the Miss Gunnings were sitting, instead of into 
 the apartment known as the ' Beauty Room,' with the signi- 
 ficant remark, ' These are the beauties, ladies.' 
 
 The fair sisters, the elder of whom had barely completed 
 her eighteenth year at the time of which I am speaking, as 
 may easily be imagined, did not long retain the humble patro- 
 nymic which they had brought with them from Ireland and 
 liad rendered so famous. Elizabeth, the younger sistei', drew 
 the first prize in the matrimonial lottery ; and the story of her 
 courtship and marriage had best, perhaps, be told in Horace 
 AValpole's own words, which let us into a scene in INIayfair 
 Chapel in the days when marriages not a la mode were solem- 
 nised there. The old gossip writes to his friend Sir Horace 
 Mann, at Florence, under date Feb. 27, 1752 : — 
 
 ' The event which has made the most noise since my list 
 is the wedding of the younger Miss Gunning. . . . About six 
 weeks ago the Duke of Hamilton, the very reverse of the 
 Earl [of Coventry], but debauched, extravagant, and equally 
 damaged in his fortune and in his person, foil in love witli 
 tlie youngest at a masquerade, and determined to many her 
 in tlie spring. About a fortnight since, at an immense as- 
 sembly at Loid Chesterfield's, made to show [ofl'J the liouso, 
 whidi is really most magnilicent, the Duke made love at one 
 end of the rooni, while he was playing at pharaoh {I.e. faro) 
 with the r)th('r : that is, he saw neither the l)ank nor his own 
 cards, whicli were of 300/. each. He soon lost a thousand. T 
 own 1 was so little a professor in love that T t])ought this 
 paradf looked ill for the poor girl, and could not conceive, if 
 he was .so much engagrnl with his mistress as to disregard
 
 THE TWO FAIR GUNNINGS 17 
 
 such' sums, why he played at alL However, two nights after- 
 wards, being left alone with her he found himself so impatient 
 that lie sent for a parson. The doctor refused to perform the 
 ceremony without either a licence or a ring. The Duke swore 
 he would send for the Archbishop. At last they were maiTied 
 with a ring of the bed-curtain, at half an hour after twelve, at 
 May fair Chapel. The Scotch are enraged ; the women mad 
 that so much beauty has had its effect ; and, wliat is most 
 silly, my Lord Coventry declares that now he will many the 
 other. The Duchess was presented on Friday. The crowd 
 was so great that even the noble mob in the Drawing Room 
 clambered into chairs and on tables to get a look at her. There 
 are mobs at their door to see them get into their chairs ; and 
 people go early to get places at the theati'es when it is known 
 that they will be there.' 
 
 A few weeks after the marriage the Duke of Hamilton 
 conducted his lovely bride to the home of his ancestors ; and 
 so widely spread was the fame of the beautiful Duchess, even 
 in those days when railways, penny postage, and daily news- 
 papers were things unknown, that, when they stopped one 
 night at a Yorkshire inn during their journey, ' seven hundred 
 people sat up all night in and about the house merely to see 
 the Duchess get into her post-chaise the next morning.' 
 
 There can be little doubt that Elizabeth Gunning's first 
 marriage was prompted by ambition ; it could hardly have 
 been a happy one, if we may credit Walpole's account of the 
 Hamilton manage. 'The Duchess of Hamilton's history,' says 
 he, ' is not unentertaining. The Duke of Hamilton is the 
 abstract of Scotch pride. He and the Duchess, at their own 
 house, walk in to dinner before their company, sit together at 
 the upper end of their own table, eat ofT the same plate, and 
 drink to nobody beneath the rank of an earl. "Would not one 
 wonder hoAv they could get anybody, either above or below 
 that rank, to dine with them at all ? ' It is indeed a marvel 
 how such a host could find guests of any degree sufficiently 
 wanting in self-respect to sit at his table and endure his 
 
 c
 
 1 8 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 pompous insolence — the insolence of an innately vulgai' mind, 
 which, unhappily, is sometimes to be met even in the most 
 exalted rank of life. 
 
 Let us now for the present leave Elizabeth, Duchess of 
 Hamilton to the enjoyment of her conjugal felicity in the con- 
 genial society of her stately spouse, and see what had mean- 
 while befallen her sister Maria. 
 
 Maria Gunning, the elder, and, according to the general 
 oj)inion, the lovelier, of the two sisters, on her first introduction 
 to the heau monde of London was followed by a long train of 
 aristocratic and noble admirers, among whom was the Earl of 
 Coventry ; ' a grave young lord of the remains of the patriot 
 breed,' who long dangled after her. The wavering intention 
 of the Earl was most probably decided by the example set 
 him by one even of higher rank than himself ; for the mar- 
 riage of Elizabeth to his Grace of Hamilton was followed in 
 less than three weeks by that of Maria to his lordship. Our 
 old friend Horace Walpole comments in a most characteristic 
 manner upon the notoriety of the fair sisters. After record- 
 ing the fact of their marriages, he continues, ' There are two 
 wretched women that are just as much talked of as the two 
 beauties, a Miss JefFeries and a Miss Blandy ; the one con- 
 demned for murdering her uncle, the other for the murder of 
 her father.' Lady Gower, writing to a friend in tlie country 
 shortly after the execution of these two criminals, and lament- 
 ing the lack of sufficient news to make her letter interesting, 
 says : ' Since the two Misses were hanged (Blandy and Jef- 
 ferios) and the other two Misses were mari-ied (the Gunnings), 
 tliere is nothing at all talked of.' 
 
 Shortly after their marriage tlic iCarl and Countess of 
 Coventry, accompanied by Lady Caroline Petersham — another 
 c(;lebrated l;eauty, whose charms were, liowever, at this period 
 somewhat on the wane — paid a visit to France. But the 
 standard of beauty must have been widely different in the 
 two countries at that time, for the English belles, doubtless 
 to their own extreme amazement, found themselves entirely
 
 THE TWO FAIR GUNNINGS 19 
 
 at a discount in the French capital. ' Our beauties,' writes 
 Walpole in October 1752, 'are returned, and have done no 
 execution. The French would not conceive that Lady Caro- 
 line Petersham ever had been handsome, nor that my Lady 
 Coventry has much pretence to be so now. Poor Lady 
 Coventry,' he continvies, ' was under piteous disadvantages ; 
 for, besides being very silly, ignorant of the world and good 
 breeding, speaking no French, and suffered to wear neither 
 red nor powder, she had that perpetual drawback upon her 
 beauty — her lord, who is sillier in a wiser way, and as igno- 
 rant, speaking very little French himself, just enough to show 
 how ill-bred he is.' It would have been well for Lady Coven- 
 try if she had never been suffered to wear ' red ' or ' powder ' ; 
 for it was to the lavish use of such cosmetics that the malady 
 which caused her early death was attributed by her physicians. 
 
 The lovely Countess seems to have divided her time be- 
 tween her toilet and her amusements. On one occasion she 
 exhibited to George Selwyn the costume which she was going 
 to wear at an approaching j'cte. The dress was of blue silk, 
 richly brocaded with silver spots of the size of a shilling. 
 ' And how do you think I shall look in it, Mr. Selwyn % ' asked 
 the self-satisfied beauty. ' Why,' replied he, ' you will look 
 like change for a guinea ! ' 
 
 Conspicuous in the list of this lady's adorers was Frederick 
 St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, a projjos of whom Walpole 
 writes, March 2, 1754: 'T'other night they danced minuets 
 for the entertainment of the King at the masquerade, and 
 then he sent for Lady Coventry to dance. It was quite like 
 Herodias ; and I believe, if he had offered a boon, she would 
 have chosen the head of St. John — I think I told you of her 
 passion for the young Lord Bolingbroke.' A little later the 
 Duke of Cumberland's admiration of Lady Coventry was the 
 topic of conversation, according to that universal intelligencer 
 from whom most of the gossip of the day has come down to us. 
 
 Many amusing stories are told of Lady Coventry's extreme 
 silliness ; one of the best of them is as follows : The old King 
 
 2
 
 20 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 (George II.) asked her one evening if she was not sorry that 
 there were to be no more masquerades. She replied that ' she 
 was tired of them — indeed, that she was surfeited with most 
 London sights ; there was but one left that she wanted to see, 
 and that was a coronation ! ' This wish (expressed with 
 such naivete) was not granted, for Lady Coventry died just a 
 fortnio-ht before the King. 
 
 The prestige of Lady Coventry's exceeding beauty attended 
 her to the last. Only a few months before her death in 1760, 
 she was so mobbed by a crowd of admiring plebeians while 
 walking in the park, that the King ordered a guard to be 
 always ready for the future, whenever Lady Coventry should 
 be pleased to 'take her walks abroad.' Another letter-writer 
 of the period, the Hon. J. West, gives an amusing description 
 of the result of these precautions. ' Her ladyship went to the 
 pai'k, and, pretending to be frightened, directly desired the 
 assistance of the officer of tlie guard, who ordered twelve 
 sergeants to walk abreast before her, and a sergeant and 
 twelve men behind her, and in this pomp did the idiot walk 
 about all the evening, with more mob about her than ever, as 
 you may imagine ; her sensible husband supporting her on 
 one side, and Lord Pembroke on the other. This is at present 
 the talk of the whole town.' 
 
 Elizabeth Gunning, having become a widow in 175t^, gave 
 her hand, a twelvemonth later, to one Colonel John Campbell, 
 then heir presumptive to the lionours of the great ducal house 
 of Argyll, and commenced married life for a second time under 
 auspices even more brilliant and far happier than her first ven- 
 ture. Walpole writes of it as ' a match that would not dis- 
 grace Arcadia. Her Ijeauty has made enough sensation, and 
 in .some pcoph^'s eyes is even improved. ] I<> has a most pleasing 
 person, countenance, manner ; and, if they could but carry 
 to Scotland some of our sultry English weather, tliey might 
 restore the ancient pastoral life, when fair kings and queens 
 reigned at once over their subjects and their sheep.' 
 
 It is a well-known fact, fre(|uently mentioned by Chester-
 
 THE TWO FAIR GUNNINGS 2i 
 
 field, Walpole, and other contemporary writers, that for the 
 sake of Colonel Campbell, Elizabeth Gunning, in her year of 
 widowhood, had rejected another ducal coronet, that of the 
 Duke of Bridgewater. 
 
 But the career of the beautiful Countess was fast drawing 
 to a close, and Walpole writes to a friend : ' The kingdom of 
 beauty is in as great disorder as the kingdom of Ireland. My 
 Lady Pembroke looks like a ghost. My Lady Coventry is 
 going to 1)6 one.' Poor creature ! The heartless wit spoke 
 only too truly. 
 
 One of the last occasions on which we hear of her appear- 
 ance in public was at the trial of Earl Ferrers, in the House of 
 Lords, in April 1760, for the murder of his steward. Walpole 
 writes of this trial : ' The seats of the peeresses were not near 
 full, and most of the beauties absent ; but, to the amazement 
 of everybody, Lady Coventry was there, and, what surprised 
 me much more, looked as well as ever. I sat next but one to 
 her, and should not have asked her if she had been ill, yet they 
 are positive she has few weeks to live. She and Lord Boling- 
 broke seemed to have different thoughts, and were acting over 
 all the old comedy of eyes.' 
 
 Walpole's description of her death-bed is a most melancholy 
 one. ' Poor Lady Coventry,' he writes, ' concluded her short 
 race with the same attention to her looks. She lay constantly 
 on a couch, with a pocket-glass in her hand ; and when that 
 told her how great the change was, she took to her Ijed. During 
 the last fortnight she had no light in her room but the lamp 
 of a tea-kettle, and at last took things in through the curtains 
 of her bed, without suffering them to be withdrawn.' The 
 mob, who never quitted curiosity about her, went to the num- 
 ber of ten thousand only to see her coffin. Her married life 
 extended over something more than eight years. She did not, 
 however, pass away until she had borne to the Earl three 
 children : two daughters, and also a son, George William, who 
 became the seventh Earl of Coventry, and lived nine years into 
 the present century.
 
 22 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 I have before mentioned that Lady CoA^entry's early death 
 was mainly atti-ibuted to her lavish use of cosmetics ; and I find 
 another terrible example of the same extraordinai'y infatuation 
 in the pages from which I have already so largely quoted. 
 Horace Walpole writes in 1762 : ' That pretty young woman, 
 Lady Fortrose, Lady Harrington's davighter, is at the point of 
 death, killed, like Lady Coventry and others, by white lead, of 
 which nothing could cure her.' 
 
 It will probably strike the reader of Horace Walpole's 
 Letters that he speaks with undue harshness of Lady Coventry' 's 
 ignorance and ill-breeding, when we consider the giddy height 
 to which she had been raised from a life of obscurity, if not of 
 poverty, at a very early age ; the amount of adulation poured 
 upon her by the highest personages in the land ; and, above all, 
 the fact that coarseness and ignorance were common failings 
 among the aristocracy of that day, many of whom could 
 scarcely spell at all. 
 
 At the time of her sister's death, in October 1760, the 
 Duchess of Hamilton was in such bad health that Jier physi- 
 cians apprehended a rapid decline, and ordered her to pass the 
 winter abroad. Walpole speaks of her at this time as possess- 
 ing 'but little remains of beauty' ; her features, he adds, 'were 
 never so handsome as Lady Coventry's, and she has long been 
 changed, though not yet, I think, above six-and-twenty ; the 
 other was but twenty-seven.' The Duchess, however, re 
 covered, and was one of the three ladies appointed to accom- 
 pany the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-.Strelitz from Ger- 
 many to England previous to her marriage with Ceorge III. It 
 is said that when the young German bride arrived in sight of 
 the palace of her future husband, .she turned pale, and evinced 
 such evident symptoms of terror as to force a smile from the 
 Duchess of Hamilton, who sat by lier side ; upon which the 
 young Princess In-iskly remarked, ' ^ly dear Duchess, you may 
 laugh, for you have Ix-en niarricil twice; j Init it is no joke tome.' 
 
 The general respect in whicli the young Dowager Duchess 
 of Hamilton was held at the time of her second marriafie forced
 
 THE TWO FAIR GUNNINGS 23 
 
 an acknowledgment even from the censorious Walpole, that 
 her merit was as conspicuous as her good fortune, and that the 
 extraordinary sensation created by her beauty had not at all 
 impaired the modesty of her behaviour. The Duchess of 
 Hamilton became Duchess of Argyll in 1770, a change of title 
 chai-acteristically commented upon by Walpole, who observes 
 that, ' as she is not quite so charming as she was,' he does not 
 know ' whether it is not better than to retain a title which put 
 one in mind of her beauty.' In 1776 slie was created Baroness 
 Hamilton of Hamilton, in Leicestershire, in her own right. 
 She was one of the Ladies of the Bedchamber to Queen Char- 
 lotte, who, jealous of her undoubted favour with the King, 
 treated her so badly that at one time slie contemplated resign- 
 ing her post. The Duke consented that she should do so, on 
 condition that he might dictate the letter of resignation. The 
 letter was accordingly written, liut the Duchess, greatly dis- 
 satisfied with the terms employed, Avhich by no means expressed 
 her feelings, added a postscript to this efiect : ' Though / wrote 
 the letter, the Duke dictated it.' Ultimately the affair was 
 arranged by the Duchess retaining her place. 
 
 Elizabeth, Duchess of Hamilton and of Ai'gyll, was the wife 
 of two dukes, and the mother of four. By her first husband she 
 was mother of James, seventh Duke, and of Douglas, eighth 
 Duke, of Hamilton ; and by her second husband, of George, 
 sixth Duke, and of John, seventh Duke, of Argyll. She died 
 on the 20th December, 1790, and so terminated the history of 
 the two fair Gunnings. 
 
 There is at Croome Court, the seat of the present Earl of 
 Coventry, a fine portrait of Maria Gunning, and another of 
 her ' double-duchessed ' sister ; the latter was also painted by 
 Sir Josliua Reynolds, and sat to other artists. At Inverary 
 Castle, Argyllshire, the seat of the Duke of Argyll, there is an 
 authentic full-length portrait of Elizabeth Gunning (his Grace's 
 grandmother) by Cotes, and another, also full-length, is to be 
 seen at Hamilton Palace. I am given to understand that the 
 present Duke of Argyll, the grandson of Elizabeth Gunning,
 
 24 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 has two other portraits of his ancestress, both half-length, and 
 that one of them is at his Grace's town residence at Campden 
 Hill. 
 
 The ' fair Gunnings ' were painted as companion pictures 
 by Cotes in 1751, and also by Read ; the latter pictures were 
 both engraved by Finlayson, and other engravings of Maria 
 and Elizabeth are to be seen in the British Museum. Read 
 represents the Duchess in a lace mob cap and cloak, while an 
 engraving by Houston portrays her as a country lass, with a 
 rose in her bosom. Of Maria there is a portrait by Hamilton, 
 whole-length, with a greyhound by her side. The two sistei'S 
 are very much alike : both are remarkable for their small 
 mouths, high foreheads, aquiline noses, and arched eyebrows. 
 Certainly, Maria would be adjudged by the ladies nowadays 
 the prettier in detail — she is slim and elegant, though rather 
 inanimate ; but I much prefer the looks of Elizabeth, who is 
 darker, plumper, and more intelligent, and altogether a liner 
 woman. I am told that there is also a mezzotint of ' the three 
 Miss Gunnings,' but I have not been able to tind a copy in tlio 
 Print Room at the British Museum. 
 
 THE THELLUSSONS 
 
 It is stated as a fact, by a wiit(n- in tlie Stock Exchange 
 Mevieto, that 'at the (>ik1 of the last century, wIkmi (ieorge the 
 Third was King, and when Meyer Anselm Rothscliild kept a 
 broker's shop in the Jew Lane of Frankfort, there were six 
 bankers in London who liad cadi and all the i-cpiitc of being 
 possessed of extraordinary wealtli, or what would now b(^ 
 termed millionaires. These six l)ankers,' he adds, ' were 
 Thomas Coutts, Francis Baring, Joseph Denison, Henry Hope, 
 Lewis Tessier, and Peter Thellusson.' I purpose in my pre- 
 .sent chapter to tell my readers ;i liltle alxmt the last-named 
 gentleman, what sort of will lie made, and what boc;ime of liis 
 wealth, whicli at one lime t lii< .itcncd to prove of fabulous
 
 THE THELLUSSONS 25 
 
 amount, to swallow up half the riches of his contemporaries, 
 and to form the nucleus of a fortune which should fairly out- 
 strip the Rothschilds and Esterhazys. 
 
 We are told by Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall, in his 
 amusing ' Memoirs of My Own Time,' that George Til. 
 had a very great objection to raise to the peerage any member 
 of a family engaged in commercial pursuits ; and it was long 
 Ijefore he could be persuaded — even by his favourite ' heaven- 
 born ' minister, William Pitt — to break his resolution. The 
 first to burst down the barrier of royal exclusiveness was Mr. 
 Robert Smith, a banker in London, and the son of a banker 
 at Nottingham, to whom Pitt was said to have been largely 
 indebted for the ' sinews of war ' in the earlier part of his 
 career, and on whom, therefore, was conferred, in 1797, the 
 title of Lord Carrington, or, as the family now spell it, 
 Carington. 
 
 Another of the wealthy money-changers and money- 
 brokers, whose fortunes were established by successful com- 
 merce east of Temple Bar, in the middle of the last cen- 
 tuiy, was the aforesaid Peter Thellusson, who was born in 
 1735. Though not known to fame on this side the British 
 Channel, yet, according to Sir Bernard Burke and the Heralds, 
 the Thellussons trace back their origin to the ancienne noblesse 
 of the kingdom of France. The first of the name of whom we 
 hear anything in particular was Frederick de Thellusson, 
 Seigneur de Flescheres and Baron de Saphorin, one among 
 the nobles who assisted Philip VI. of France in his expedition 
 into Flanders eai^ly in the fourteenth century. His family 
 still owned their hereditary estates at Flescheres, near Lyons, 
 up to the time of the great Massacre of St. Bartholomew, in 
 August 1572, when they fell among the victims of that dread- 
 ful night. According to tradition, the only member of the 
 family who escaped the slaughter was Theophilus de Thellusson, 
 who had married a, sister of the Count de Saluce, at that time 
 the Governor of the city of Lyons ; he seems to have effected 
 his escape into Savoy, and thence to Geneva, where he settled,
 
 26 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 and his descendants at different times filled high places con- 
 nected with the Republic of that city. 
 
 Isaac de Thellusson, who established himself as a banker 
 in a good way of business there, and afterwards at Paris, and 
 who was ambassador from his native city to the Coui't of France 
 in the reign of Louis XV., had four sons, one of whom, Peter, 
 became the great merchant of London, whom we have already 
 named. His history is certainly a very singular one. The 
 father had largely increased his business by taking into his 
 employ as a clerk, and afterwards as a partner, a man sub- 
 sequently celebrated in French history, M. ISTecker, the same 
 who was Minister of Finance during the French Revolution. 
 The firm accordingly became known as Messrs. Thellusson and 
 Necker. The son had joined his father's banking-house in 
 Paris when a young man ; but as soon as the first throes of 
 the Revolution made themselves felt, he resolved to seek a 
 country where property would be more secure, and with that 
 view to found in London a branch in connection with his 
 father's business. His great and absorbing passion seems to 
 have been to acquire a large fortune in liard cash ; and many 
 years had not elapsed ere Mr. Peter Thellusson found his sails 
 swelling with the breezes of favouring fortune, for he succeeded 
 in establishing one of the principal banking-houses in the 
 City. 
 
 ' A man of great sagacity and extraordinary perseverance,' 
 writes Mr. F. Martin, ' coupled with a desire of making money, 
 which amounted to an all-absorbing passion, Mr. Thellusson 
 soon found success at his door, and in a few years built up one 
 of tlie first Ijanking establishments in tlie British metropolis.' 
 But however great liis wcaltli, lie slill ycanu^d for more. 
 Accordingly, unsated with the gold which he li.ul accunni- 
 latod, he resolved, as h(( knew that lie could not live for ever 
 himself, to ti-y at least if he could not hand down a colossal 
 fortune to liis distant posterity, either ent ire or in 1 hrce shares, 
 he did not mufh rare which. Probably such a will as lie 
 devised in order to ellect that end had never been heard of,
 
 THE THELLUSSONS 27 
 
 or even dreamt of, before the year of grace 1797 : the sequel 
 will prove that it is a good thing for society at large that there 
 liave not been many found to imitate his example ; and it is 
 well that, although his will was allowed to stand, the recur- 
 rence of such a disposition was forbidden by a special Act of 
 Parliament. 
 
 Towards the close of the last century, when he was still 
 several years short of the allotted ' three score and ten,' he 
 one day quietly took stock of his worldly possessions, and 
 found that he was the owner of a clear 600,000/. in hard 
 cash, besides an annual rent roll of 4,500/. He ' had satisfied 
 the ordinary ambition of an English bourgeois — he had founded 
 a family. Peter Isaac, the son of his youth and the prop of 
 his house, was heir to 35,000/. a year in money and land, and 
 might claim to be a born gentleman. Peers and peeresses 
 might hereafter spring in intermediate succession from the 
 loins of that denizen of a dingy little back parlour behind the 
 bank. The best men upon 'Change envied the prosperous Peter 
 Thellusson, who had no object of ambition unsatisfied. Peter 
 himself was of a different mind : he had not nearly money 
 enough. Let other men be content to found one family : 
 Peter was lucky enough to have three sons, and he would 
 found three families. It was not that he loved his sons, or 
 his sons' sons ; but it was the hope and desire of this magni- 
 ficent posthumous miser to associate his name with three 
 colossal fortunes. If he did not love his sons, he did not hate 
 them ; he was simply indifferent to everything except to his 
 one cherished object.' 
 
 Accordingly he took the very best legal advice upon the 
 subject, and made, as most men make, a will. By this he left 
 about 100,000/. to his wife, his three sons, and three daughters 
 — probably in order to show the world that no unnatural 
 antipathy to his nearest relatives tainted his last dying testa- 
 ment with mania ; while the rest of his fortune, amounting to 
 more than 600,000/., was conveyed to trustees, who were to 
 let it accumulate till after the deaths, not only of his children,
 
 28 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 but of all the male issue of his sons and grandsons ; in fact, 
 till every man, woman, and child of the offspring of Peter, 
 and alive or begotten at Peter's decease, should be defunct. 
 After that event the vast property, with its accumulations at 
 compound interest, was to be given to the nearest male descen- 
 dants who should bear the family name of Thellusson. No 
 one of the children or grandchildren who had smiled in old 
 Peter Thellusson's face, or had trembled at his presence, or 
 had squalled at the sound of his hard, harsh voice, should be 
 ever the better or i^icher for all his wealth. The money, divided 
 into three equal parts, was to go to the eldest male descendant 
 of his eldest, his second, and his third sons respectively. If 
 there should be a failure in the male issue of any of the three, 
 the share was to be divided among the representatives of the 
 other two ; if a failure of two, then the three shares were to 
 go as one vast property to the one survivor ; but should, after 
 all, no lineal male descendants then remain, the whole was 
 directed to be applied towards paying off a part of the National 
 Debt ! This was tlie grandest part, perhaps, f)f all liis scheme ; 
 the very idea of it is Ijcwihlering to the ordinary business 
 mind. 
 
 Having done Miiat he pleased with his own, and excluded, 
 like an unnatural parent, liis own offspring from almost any 
 share in the benefit of the estate which ho held in trust for 
 ' those of his own household,' lie winds up his testament with 
 a whining appeal to the Legislature, almost worthy of Shylock 
 appealing against mercy ; he had eai'iied his iiionoy by honest 
 industry, and he hund)ly trusted that the two Houses of Par- 
 ment would not alter his will. But, though man proposes, a 
 higher Power disposes ; and this Mr. Thellusson's family learned 
 speedily. With such intentions recorded in liis w ill, wliicli he 
 <luly sigiu'd and scaled, Peter Thellusson died ; but those in- 
 tentions, like so many others in this woi'ld, were doomed to 
 be frustrated. The family met after the funeral, and the will 
 was opened, and created sensations which vibrated through the 
 land in widening circles. Our law-books picture to us the
 
 THE THELLUSSONS 29 
 
 blank disappointment of the then living relatives, the gentle 
 murmur of a past generation of lawyers, and the gaping won- 
 der of the general public. There were then alive three sons 
 and six grandsons of this malignant old merchant, ' all destined 
 to live the life of Tantalus ; to see this great pagoda tree grow- 
 ing up before them, yet never to pluck one unit of its fruit.' 
 The terms of the will enjoined that, when the last survivor of 
 all the nine children and grandchildren should yield up his 
 breath, then the charm was to end ; the great mountain of 
 accumulated wealth was to be divided into three portions, and 
 one-third was to be given to each of the ' eldest male lineal 
 descendants ' of his thi-ee sons. It is indeed strange to think 
 that so shi'ewd a man should have had apparently no suspicion 
 that his nearest relations would do anything rather than rest 
 content vmder such a will, or that the Court of Chancery under 
 Lord Eldon would not engulph in its wide jaws a good portion 
 of his fortune under such tempting conditions. And so it 
 came to pass that in something less than two years after Peter 
 Thellusson was gathered to his fathers, two bills had been filed 
 in Chancery impeaching the will, the one by his widow and 
 children, and the other by his trustees. 
 
 But although the suits Avere unsuccessful, the will being 
 allowed to stand good by the Lord Chancellor and the other 
 judges of the court, who decided in favour of the testatoi', yet, 
 for years after, members of the Bar found a rich mine which 
 they were not unwilling to work in cases connected with the 
 Thellusson will ; and only a few years of the present century 
 had elapsed when poor Mrs. Thellusson, the widow, died — it is 
 said of a broken heart. 
 
 To be brief, my Lords Loughborough, and Alvanley, and 
 Eldon, allowed the litigation to go up to the House of Lords, 
 by which the will was confirmed on appeal. The Legis- 
 lature, however, afterwards took uj) the affair, and, although 
 they would not set aside the will by an ex post facto law, they 
 enacted that the power of devising property for the purpose 
 of accumulation should be restrained in future to twenty-one
 
 30 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 years after the death of the testator. It was calculated at the 
 time that the Thellusson fund, if it had been left to accumulate 
 as its founder had specified, could not have amounted to less 
 than 19,000,000/. at the moment of distribution, and would very 
 probably have reached the figure of 32,000,000/. But this 
 calculation was rash. It was beautifully coi'rect in theory and 
 on paper, but would not work in practice ; evidently, too, not 
 a shadow of a doubt existed in his mind when he made the 
 will, that by the simple process of allowing a large capital, 
 locked up under the protection of the law, to accumulate 
 through three generations, the wealth of the future Thellusson 
 would swell into dimensions compared with which fortunes of 
 kings and emperors would be mere beggarly fleabites. Unfor- 
 tunately for himself, he had left out of his calculation one all- 
 important item — the existence of an institution called the 
 Court of Chancery, with its array of long-robed worshippers, 
 all ready to claim a share in the interest and compound interest. 
 The Court of Chancery so ' clipped and pollarded Peter Thel- 
 lusson's oak that it was not much larger than when he left it.' 
 Not only was thex'e a Chancei'y suit to set aside the will, 
 but there was a cross suit to have the trusts of the will per- 
 formed under the direction of the Court of Chancery — a suit 
 which at sixty yeai's old was as lively as evei-. Of course, there 
 were also other suits : suits about post-testament acquisitions, 
 alxmt advowsons, ttc. The last survivor of the nine lives died 
 ill February 185(3. 
 
 The unhappy lady who was the wife of this sellish mil- 
 lionaire was a Miss Woodford, the daughter of Mr. Matthew 
 Woodford, and sister of Sir Ralph AVoodfoi'd, of Carlby, somc- 
 tiiiie IM.P. for Evesham. She derived but little comfort from 
 her husband's bank-notes, and owned willi licr last breath that 
 the .source of true happiness is nut to be looked for in money- 
 bags. 
 
 Seats in the IIou-sc. of Commons were found for all tlie 
 three sons of Peter Thellus.son ; the Irish Barony of Rendle- 
 sham was conferred on the eldest, Peter Isaac, in 1806, and
 
 THE THELLUSSONS 31 
 
 three of this nobleman's sons having held the title in succes- 
 sion, the latter now belongs to his grandson, the fifth Lord 
 Rendlesham. 
 
 But the many millions sterling which the great merchant 
 had hoped would eventually come to his descendants, what has 
 become of them % The money was never destined to be theirs 
 in its integrity ; and but a comparatively modest fortune re- 
 mained, and still remains, to the house. Lord Rendlesham, 
 the head of the family, held for some years a seat in the House 
 of Commons, as one of the members for Suffolk, in which 
 county he owns a fair estate ; but though only ninety years 
 have passed since old Peter Thellusson's death, there is now 
 no banking-house which bears his name in the great world of 
 London, tiic transit gloria mundi. 
 
 THE NOBLE HOUSE OF CECIL 
 
 If Horace Walpole was allowed to manufacture such a word 
 as ' double-duchessed ' as an epithet to the fair Miss Gunning, 
 who married successively the Dukes of Hamilton and Argyll, 
 I suppose that I may be pardoned if I take a similar liberty and 
 ask my readers to pardon me for giving them a brief account 
 of the ' double-marquissed ' House of Cecil, It is not often 
 that two members of the same family are created Earls in a 
 single day, and that their respective male descendants attain a 
 still higher step in the peerage after a lapse of nearly two 
 centuries. Yet such is the history of the Cecils, now Earls 
 and Marquises of Exeter and of Salisbury. 
 
 And first it may strike my readers as strange that, though 
 the name of Cecil is no older than the reign of Queen Mary, 
 yet the ancestors of this two-fold marquisate were a very 
 ancient stock ; for did not Robert Sisilt assist Robert Fitz- 
 Hamon in the conquest of Glamorganshire and Gower Land, 
 under William Rufus ? And did he not receive, in recom- 
 pense for his services, the fair manor of Alterennes, in the
 
 32 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 county of Hereford ? And was not his son and heir Sir 
 James Sisilt, of Beaufort, in tlie county of Glamorgan ? and 
 did he not fall at the siege of Wallingford, ' having then on 
 him a vesture with his arms and ensigns in needlework, as 
 they afterwards appeared on the tomb of his descendant, 
 Gerard, in the Abbey of Dore,' — the same which were formally 
 assigned by the King to his lineal descendant, Sir John Sisilt, 
 and the same which are now bonie by the Marquises of Exeter 
 and of Salisbury, viz., ' Barry of ten, arg. and az., over all six 
 escutcheons, three, two, and one, sa., each charged with a lion 
 rampant, of the first ' — the latter, adds Sir Bernard Burke, 
 ' with a crescent for difference ' ? I pass over some seven or 
 eight generations, and come to the above-named Sir John 
 Sisilt, concerning whom ]\Ir. Sharpe relates in his ' Present 
 Peerage ' that a fierce contest arose at Halidon Hill, in 1333, 
 between him and Sir William de Fakenliam respecting the 
 arms thus heraldically described. On this occasion they were 
 adjudged to Sir John by a commission from Edward III., who 
 forbade the rival knights from meeting and doing battle for 
 the shield in single and possibly in deadly combat. His great- 
 grandson Philip appears to have spelt his name as Sicelt, 
 which was again modernised into Cyssel by his son David, 
 Sergeant-at-Arms and steward of tlie manor of Weston, in 
 Nortl)amptonshire, memorable in after-time as the place where 
 Henry VII. parted witli his daughter, the Lady INIargaret, 
 who eventually became the ancestress of the Stuart and 
 Brunswick lines. 
 
 David's son Ricliard, who appears to have called himself 
 indillerently Sitcell, Sicelt, or SysscI, was l)age ;iih1 groom of 
 the wardrobe to ' Itlull' King Hal ' and Constable of Warwick 
 Castle; and lie attendid licnry as one of liis Court on Ids 
 interview with Francis, King of France, on the Field of the 
 Cloth of Golil. He is described as being * of Burley,' mid he 
 certaiidy served as High Sliri-ifrof Rutlandshire in ibVd. He 
 received from the Crown a grant of 300 acres in St. Martin's 
 at Stamford, together with the site of St. I^Iichael's Priory ;
 
 THE NOBLE HOUSE OF CECIL 33 
 
 and he seems also to have purchased the manor of Esyngdon, 
 or Essendon, in Rutlandshire, whence his grandson, the first 
 Lord Salisbury, took the title of Lord Cecil of Essendon. 
 
 This sentleman was the father of a statesman whose name 
 is familiar to every reader of the history of England under 
 the reigns of the Tudors and Stuarts — William, Lord Bur- 
 leigh. I will not, however, speak here of the great Burleigli in 
 his capacity of a statesman, but only as a private individual. He 
 was an ardent and zealous genealogist, when his public duties 
 gave him time for such pursuits ; and his labours or amuse- 
 ments in this direction, though they often related to other 
 families than his own, were sometimes directed to researches 
 into the early annals of his own house. An excessive eager- 
 ness for the credit of a noble ancestry was one of his foibles ; 
 and a leading antiquary of the day, taking advantage of the 
 classical appearance of the newly-adapted name of Cecil, endea- 
 voured to court his favour by gravely trying to trace his descent 
 from a patrician house of ancient Rome — the gens Ccecilia ! 
 
 Passing, however, from the realm of myth to that of plain 
 prose and history, and coming to his early manhood, I find 
 him, at the age of twenty-one, a student in Gray's Inn. In- 
 clining strongly to the ' new faith,' he attracted King Henry's 
 notice and favour by a successful disputation which he held 
 with two intemperate chaplains of O'Neill, the Irish chieftain, 
 as to the limits of the power of the Roman PontiflF. The King 
 accordingly granted him the reversion of the office of ' custos 
 bi^evium ' in one of the courts of law ; and his career hence- 
 forth forms part of English history, I will therefore dwell 
 briefly on it, simply stating that, on the Protector Somerset 
 establishing a Court of Requests in his own house, he ap- 
 pointed Sir William Cecil its first master. The latter subse- 
 quently followed his patron to Scotland, and on the field of 
 Musselburgh he narrowly escaped death from a cannon-ball 
 which passed close beside him. On his return south he was 
 made Secretary of State, and sworn a member of the Privy 
 Council. On the fall of Somerset he was sent to the Tower to
 
 34 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 share his chiefs imprisonment. Released thence, I find him 
 restored to his high post, in which, says Sharpe, ' Queen Mary 
 offered to retain him permanently if he would consent to 
 alDJure the Protestant faith ; this, however, he refused to do.' 
 The rest of his story shall be told in the words of Sir Bernard 
 Burke, which differ slightly from the above statement : 
 
 ' Under the rule of Mary, though a very zealous reformist 
 previously. Sir William, with all the tact of that renowned 
 Churchman, the Vicar of Bray, doffed his Protestant mantle, 
 and conformed to the ancient faith— outwardly, says his bio- 
 grapher. Dr. Nares, but certainly so far as engaging a Catholic 
 domestic chaplain, humbling himself at the confessional, and 
 kneeling before the altar of the Real Presence, constitute such 
 a conformation. This outward demonstration proved not to 
 have been assumed in vain, for we find the wily politician 
 enjoying again the sunshine of royal favour, and actually 
 nominated, with Lord Paget and Sir Edward Hastings, to 
 conduct Cardinal Pole, then invested with a legatine com- 
 mission, into England. In this reign Cecil represented the 
 county of Lincoln in Parliament. Immediately upon the 
 accession of Elizabeth, however, with whom he constantly 
 corresponded, and on whose accession he was the first person 
 of whom the new Queen sought advice, he became once more 
 a staunch denouncer of Popish errors ; the star of his fortune 
 arose, and few statesmen have been guided through a more 
 brilliant course. Ilis first official employment was the re- 
 sumption of the secretary-of-stateship, and in that post so 
 sensible was his royal mistress of his important services that 
 she elevated him to the peerage, by the title of Baron Bur- 
 leigh, in IT)?!, although at this period his private fortune does 
 not appear to liave Ijoen much advanced ; for by a letter written 
 l)y liimself just after his elevation he says that he is 'the 
 poorest lord in England.' Soon after this, however, lie ob- 
 tained a post of more profit as well as honour, that of ' Master 
 of the Court of Wards,' which he held along with liis portfolio 
 of State. A conspiracy was soon afterwards discovered against
 
 THE NOBLE HOUSE OF CECIL 35 
 
 liis life, and the two assassins, Barney and Natter, declared 
 at their execution that they were instigated by the Spanish 
 ambassador, for which, and other offences, his Excellency 
 was ordered to depart the kingdom. As a consolation for 
 these perils, the secretary was honoured with the Order of the 
 Garter in June 1572, and in the September following, at the 
 decease of the Marquess of Winchester, was appointed Lord 
 High Treasurer, and was Chancellor of the University of 
 Cambridge for forty years, from 1558 to 1598.' 
 
 His mode of living, say contemporary writers, was in 
 keeping with his rank and the custom of the times. ' He had 
 four .places of residence — his lodgings at Court, his house in 
 the Strand, his family seat at Burleigh, and his own favourite 
 seat of Theobalds, near "Waltham Cross, to which he loved to 
 retire from harness. At his house in London, he (when free) 
 supported a family of fourscore persons, without counting 
 those who attended him in public. 
 
 ' He kept a standing table for gentlemen, and two other 
 tables for those of a meaner condition,' says Sir Bernard 
 Burke ; and these were always served alike, whether he was 
 in or out of town. Twelve times he entertained Elizabeth at 
 his house, on more than one occasion for some weeks together ; 
 and as royal visits are rather expensive luxuries, and Elizabeth 
 formed no exception to the rule (for they cost each between 
 1,000?. and 2,000/.), the only wonder is that his purse was not 
 exhausted, and that he was able to leave his son 25,000/. in 
 money and valuable effects, besides 4,000/. a year in landed 
 estates. Be this, however, as it may, his son Thomas, who 
 was raised to the earldom of Exeter in 1605, complained 
 loudly of his poverty, which on one occasion he urged as an 
 excuse for declining the honour of a step in the peerage, 
 writing to the Attorney-General, that ' he was resolved to 
 content himself with the estate (rank) which he had, of a 
 baron, and that he found his estate little enough to maintain 
 the degree he was in.' 
 
 It is somewhat strange to add that two years later he and 
 
 D 2
 
 36 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 his younger brother, Robert, were both created earls, and on 
 the very same day, May 4 ; Lord Burleigh taking the title of 
 Exeter, and his brother that of Salisbury. It is still more 
 strange that the younger brother on this occasion should have 
 taken precedence of the elder, his patent having passed the 
 Great Seal in the morning, Avhile that of Lord Burleigh, it is 
 said, did not take effect till the afternoon or evening. This 
 accident is reported to have occasioned some ill blood between 
 the brothers at the time, though they were soon reconciled by 
 finding themselves obliged to make common cause against the 
 satirists of the age, who were not slow to attack the twin 
 earls of yesterday, as mere courtiers and place-hunters,, and 
 men of no great family pretensions. 
 
 On this subject the old Lord High Treasurer had always 
 been most tenacious ; and his sons, it would seem, followed 
 his example. At all events, in the Harleian MSS. I find the 
 following curious letter from Lord Exeter, evidently written 
 at this time, which is well worth giving here at length, on 
 account" of its bearing on the mooted question of the difference 
 between a ' Gentleman ' and an ' Esquire : ' 
 
 ' There is some cause of late fallen out of one that gives 
 reproachful words to my brother, and therewithal said that it 
 was a strange thing that such a one as he, whose grandfather 
 was a sieve-maker, should rule the whole state of England ; 
 and though the malice of the party was towards him, yet I 
 must be likewise sensible thereof myself, both being descended 
 from him ; therefore I have thought good to require you 
 forthwith to take tlie pains to make search in my .study at 
 Burghlcy, amongst my boxes, of my evidences, and I think 
 you will find the very writ itself l)y which my grandfather or 
 great-grandfather, or both, were made sherifls of Lincolnshire 
 or Northam])tonshire, an<l lik(!wise a warrant from tlie Duke of 
 SufFolk, in King Jlcnry VTTL's time, to my grandfather and 
 old Mr. Wingficid, tliat dead i.s, for tlie certifying touching 
 the fall of woods in ClyfT Park or Rockingham Forest, by the
 
 THE NOBLE HOUSE OF CECIL 37 
 
 name of David Cecyle Esquire ; which title at those days was 
 not used but to such that were gentlemen of note, where com- 
 monly they were entitled but by the name of gentlemen. If 
 you have any record of your own to show the descent of my 
 great-grandfather, I i^ray you send a note thereof likewise. 
 My lord my father's altering the writing of his name maketh 
 many that are not very well affected to our house to doubt 
 whether we be rightly descended from the house of Wales, 
 because they write their names ' Sitsilt,' and our name is 
 written ' Cecyle ; ' my grandfather wrote it ' Syssell ; ' and so 
 in orthography all these names differ, whereof I marvel what 
 moved my lord my father to alter it. I have my lord's pedi- 
 gree very well set out, which he left unto me. I pray you let 
 this be secret unto yourself, which my brother of Salisbury 
 desired me so to give in charge unto you ; and so I commend 
 you very kindly unto yourself and my good aunt, your wife ; 
 from London, this 13th of November, 1605, 
 
 ' Your very loving cousin and friend, 
 ' Exeter. 
 ' To Hugh AUington, Esquire.' 
 
 Lord Exeter, who always maintained an unblemished cha- 
 racter among statesmen who were not all free from blemish, 
 was certainly a man of high talents and good sense ; and he 
 did well in contenting himself with the reflected dignity of his 
 father's splendid name, and in leaving it to his brother to 
 emulate it in the exercise of the higher offices of statecraft. 
 
 Robert, the younger brother, the Earl of Salisbury, suc- 
 cessively Secretary of State and Lord High Treasurer— as 
 his father had been before him — married a sister of the un- 
 happy Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham, and died, worn out with 
 the cares of public office and political life, within six years 
 after gaining his coronet. In his last illness he was heard to 
 say to Sir Walter Cope, ' Ease and pleasure quake to hear of 
 death ; but my life, full of cares and miseries, desireth to be 
 dissolved.' He had some years previously addressed a letter
 
 38 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 to Sir James Harrington, the poet, in pretty much the same 
 tone. 'Good knight,' saith the minister, 'rest content, and 
 give heed to one that hath sorrowed in the bright lustre of a 
 court, and gone heavily on even the best-seeming fair ground. 
 'Tis a great task to prove one's honesty and yet not mar one's 
 fortune. You have tasted a little thereof in our good queen's 
 time, who was more than a man, and, in truth, sometimes less 
 than a woman. I wish I waited now in your presence- 
 chamber, Avith ease at my food and rest in my bed. I am 
 pushed from the shore of comfort, and know not where the 
 winds and waves of a court will bear me. I know it bringeth 
 little comfort on earth ; and he is, I reckon, no wise man that 
 looketh this way to heaven.' 
 
 His son and successor continued the younger line of the 
 Cecils as Earls of Salisbury [through six generations, when 
 James, the seventh earl, was raised in 1789 to the Marquisate 
 by George III., on the recommendation of Mr. Pitt. The 
 grandson of this nobleman (I may remark by way of paren- 
 thesis) is the present Marquis of Salisbury, now Premier, and 
 Chancellor of the University of Oxford. But to return. 
 Twelve years more were destined to elapse before the like 
 lionour of a marquis's coronet was extended to the elder 
 branch of the Cecils, of Burleigh, and of Exeter. Around 
 this elder house, however, there is a great halo of romance. 
 
 I have already acquainted my readers that the two sons of 
 the great Lord Burleigh were raised in one day by James I. 
 to the earldoms of Salisbury and Exeter, and that in 1789 the 
 younger line, that of Salisbury, exchanged an earl's coronet 
 for that of a marquis. The same good foi'tune befell the head 
 of the elder house in 1801, when Henry, tenth Earl of Exeter 
 and eleventh Lord Burleigh, was advanced one step in the 
 peerage of the United Kingdom, by the favour of Geoi'ge III. 
 and Mr. Pitt, by the ' name, style, and title ' of Marquis of 
 Exeter. There is really not much to say about the interme- 
 diate earls, except that they were severally born, succeeded to 
 tlie family coronet and pew in church, married, begot children,
 
 THE NOBLE HOUSE OE CECIL 39 
 
 died, and ' slept with their fathers.' But the case was far 
 different with Earl Henry, who, probably without ever in- 
 tending or even dreaming of such a thing, suddenly found 
 himself the hero of a romance of real life, or rather the actor 
 of the leading part in a drama of rural and peasant exist- 
 ence. 
 
 Born in the year 1754, the only son, and, indeed, the only 
 child, of the Hon. Thomas Chambers Cecil, by his marriage 
 with Miss Charlotte Gardner, Henry Cecil, at the age of nine- 
 teen, found himself at once an orphan and presumptive heir to 
 the titles and estates of an old uncle who did not care for him 
 a rush, and towards whom pi'obably he felt very little affection 
 or regard. At all events, no love was lost between them ; so 
 while the old earl lived the young man kept pretty clear of 
 Burleigh and all its belongings, and travelled through various 
 parts of England, rather enjoying a life of quiet and homely 
 adventure than otherwise. He did not join the gipsies, as did 
 Bampfylde Moore Carew ; nor did he elope with an actress or 
 some foreign duchess, as many young men would have done 
 had they been left their own masters at an equally early age, 
 and been known to have good pecuniary prospects. On the 
 contrary, he mai-ried, quietly and soberly, into a good county 
 family of the West of England, choosing as his bride the pretty 
 Miss Vernon, only child of the squire of Hanbury Hall, in 
 Worcestershire. But the young lady did not answer his ex- 
 pectations ; and in June 1791, when he was just seven-and- 
 thirty, he petitioned for and obtained a divorce. This judg- 
 ment made him again a free man ', and he resolved, having 
 been once ' taken in and done for,' to look about for a second 
 wife at his leisure, and to choose no one of whom he was not 
 sure that he could mould her to his own tastes and ways, and 
 that he would find in her a pattern of conjugal affection and 
 domestic virtue. ' Courts, and courtiers, and coronets,' he 
 would say, at all events to himself, ' are all very well in their 
 way ; but their way is not my way ; and, if I can only find a 
 plain, homely, and truly virtuous maiden, in whatever sphere
 
 40 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 of life I discover her, in ball, in manor-house, in parsonage, or 
 in cottage, then I swear with King Cophetua, 
 
 This beggar-maid shall be my queen.' 
 
 How far he was true to his oath the sequel will serve to show. 
 I must ask my readers to accompany me — mentally, of course — 
 to a charming country village in Shropshii-e, nestling among 
 green lanes and fruitful apple-orchards, and called Bolas 
 Magna ; it is not far from Wellington and Newport, and 
 within six or seven miles of that well-known inland beacon, 
 the Wrekin. 
 
 It was a fine evening in the month of July 1791, when 
 the grass had been all mown and the hay had been made, and 
 when the harvest had not commenced, that a stranger, appa- 
 rently between thirty and forty years of age, stopped at the 
 gate of a small farmer and shopkeeper in the village of Bolas. 
 It was by no means a very usual thing to see a stranger in so 
 retired a place, and at first the good man and his wife, who 
 stood at the door, were inclined to refuse the hospitality 
 which he asked. He certairdy looked like a gentleman, at all 
 events like a decent person ; but what could a gentleman or 
 any person be doing, wandering about a strange village, five 
 miles at least from the nearest town, at such an hour ? In 
 spite of the evident suspicion of his bona fides which was en- 
 tertained by both of tlie old folks, the stranger urgently yet 
 courteously pressed liis demands, begging that at least he 
 might be allowed to stay in their cottage till morning, even if 
 he had only a chair to ' rest upon in their lower room.' He 
 did not rcquii'c a bed ; but it was clear that a heavy tlmiider- 
 storni was coming on, and sui-ely tliey would not force liim to 
 go on his way in the midst of the rain and storm ? At last 
 tlie boon was granted, tliough it must be owned somewhat 
 grudgingly ; and next nioining the guest wlio liad thus forced 
 himself upon them in lli<'ir little 'castle' ]na<le the formal 
 acquaintance of honest Tliomas Hoggins and his wife. Ah ! 
 it is not only in the (jjden time, or only in the regions of the
 
 THE NOBLE HOUSE OF CECIL 41 
 
 distant East, that people have ' entertained angels unawares.' 
 The stranger's pleasure in the society of Mr. and Mrs. Hoggins 
 no doubt was enhanced by the appearance at the breakfast- 
 table of their daughter, Sarah, a rustic beauty of seventeen, a 
 distant sight of whom on the previous evening, as she washed 
 up ' the things ' in the kitchen, had fairly enchained his eyes 
 and his heart. The adventure of an hour, connected with 
 crooked roads and coming night, was about suddenly to affect 
 the wanderer's future life, and still more so that of the village 
 maiden who alternately sat beside him and waited on her 
 parents and their unknown guest. 
 
 Breakfast was over ; but from that humble cottage where 
 he had slept in a chair in the parlour, from those fields where 
 Sarah Hoggins milked the cows, and from that dairy where 
 her fair hands churned the cream into butter, Mr. Jones — for 
 so the stranger styled himself — could not be persuaded to stir. 
 He was a puzzle and a mystery ; and there was no Q^^dipus at 
 hand to solve the riddle of his being — who he was and where 
 he came from. In answer to all inquiries, he spoke vaguely 
 and unsatisfactorily ; at last he said he was an ' undertaker,' 
 or something of the kind, taking refuge in the vagueness of 
 the term. Possibly such a vocation might serve to account for 
 the air of tender melancholy which seemed to surround him ; 
 or possibly the word might have been meant as a gentle hint 
 to Sarah Hoggins that, stranger as he was, he was ready to 
 undertake any office, however new to him or he to it, in which 
 she herself bore a part. Tennyson, who has made the story 
 which I am about to tell familiar to most English readers, ti'ue 
 to the poetic art, makes him out as calling himself not an 
 ' undertaker ' but a ' landscape painter.' 
 
 A week or two passed, and by the arrival of harvest-time 
 the presence of Mr. Jones in the village had already become a 
 fixed idea. The inhabitants looked upon him with a respectful 
 fear. As weeks went on, he made occasional absences from 
 Bolas \ these were always short, and confined to two or three 
 days ; and on his return he seemed to abound with money.
 
 42 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 The natives of Salop are not dull. They put the money and 
 the absences together, and they whispered the result to one 
 another. They felt sure Jones was a highwayman, and possibly 
 the tortuous and tree darkened lanes, and the stories of high- 
 waymen and footpads on the roads ai'ound Bolas Magna, may 
 have made the robber idea unpleasantly credible. Probably 
 they did not reflect that such a sparse country, so rarely visited 
 by strangers, would not support a single footpad unless he 
 possessed a large capital and could afford to abide the event. 
 
 After awhile, Mr. Jones or Mr. Cecil — we may as well 
 drop the alias — became the avowed suitor of Sarah Hoggins ; 
 but the notion that he was a highwayman still clung to her 
 mother's mind, and she sturdily set her face against the con- 
 nection. The father's logic was simple, and ultimately pre- 
 vailed : ' Why, my dear, he has plenty of money.' 
 
 He showed his easy circumstances, indeed, by taking land, 
 and by buying a site, on which he erected the largest house 
 in the neighbourhood, now called Burleigh Villa. It stands 
 amongst fields, facing the Wrekin, some seven miles distant 
 from that landmark. 
 
 The wooing and the love-making of Mr. Cecil were brief ; 
 for on October 3, just as harvest was over, and the orchards 
 were being stripped of the apples for cider, he and Sarah 
 Hoggins were married in the little church of Bolas. But still 
 who Henry Cecil was, and what was his parentage, remained 
 a mystery to all, even to Sarah herself. They still continued 
 to live on in the village — it is said in the old folks' house. 
 Next year a little daughter was born to them, but died when 
 only a few days old. She was l)uried in the little chuivliyard ; 
 but the grave is ndw forgotten. 
 
 A little more than two years passed by, and, in spite of 
 the mystery which surrounded him, tlie respectability of Mr. 
 Cecil's manners and conduct l)Ogan to inspire; the \ illagers of 
 Bolas with confidence, so that they even .-ippointed him to a 
 post of trust as overseer, or churchwarden, oi- parish-con- 
 stable. During this time, he was careful to supply by educa-
 
 THE XOBLE HOUSE OF CECIL 43 
 
 tion all the accomplishments which might be supposed to be 
 wanting in a peasant-girl who had become a wife and a 
 mother. 
 
 He was thus circumstanced, when, tow^ards the end of 
 December 1793, when he had been married a little over two 
 years, he read in a country paper the tidings of the death 
 of his uncle, the old earl. His presence, he knew, would now 
 be required at Burleigh — 
 
 Burghlej House by Stamford Town ; 
 
 and though it svas the depth of winter, he resolved to travel 
 thither, taking his wife with him, and to give her an agree- 
 able surprise. From Bolas, accordingly, one fine morning in 
 January, having said good-bye to Mr. and Mrs. Hoggins, Henry 
 Cecil and his wife, now just nineteen years of age, set out on 
 horseback for a destination of which she was ignorant. Her 
 husband merely told her that he was called on business into 
 Lincolnshire, and that she must accompany him. Like a good 
 and trustful wife, she at once obeyed his wish, and made the 
 journey seated, as was the fashion of the day, on a pillion 
 behind him. They rode on through Cannock Chase, past 
 Lichfield and Leicestei', stopping at various gentlemen's and 
 noblemen's seats on the road, till at last they came wdthin 
 sight of a noble Elizabethan mansion situated in a lordly 
 park. 
 
 Sarah Cecil gazed in admiration, and quietly remarked, 
 ' What a magnificent house ! ' 
 
 ' How should you like, my dear Sally, to be mistress of 
 such a place 1 ' was her lord's reply. 
 
 ' Very much indeed, if we were rich enough to live in it.' 
 
 ' I am glad that you like it ; the place is yours. I am 
 Earl of Exeter, and you are not plain Mrs. Cecil, but my 
 Countess.' 
 
 She could scarcely believe her ears ; but she could not 
 mistrust the fond and honest words of her husband. The 
 mystery of the last two years was solved at last — to her at
 
 44 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 least. Mr. Cecil was no highwayman, that she knew already ; 
 but a painter of landscapes he might be. It was, however, 
 indeed strange news to her that he was one of the proud 
 peers of England, and that she had the coronet of a countess 
 for her own. In a few minutes they reached the great en- 
 trance ; and there was a fresh trial for her nerves, as a crowd 
 of powdered servants came forward to recognise their new 
 lord and master, who lost no time in presenting to them 
 their future mistress. 
 
 This journey has been immortalised by Tennyson in his 
 ballad of ' The Lord of Burleigh : ' 
 
 Thus her heart rejoiceth greatly 
 
 Till a gateway she discerns, 
 With armorial bearings stately, 
 
 And beneath the gate she turns ; 
 
 Sees a mansion more majestic 
 
 Than all those she saw before ; 
 Many a gallant, gay domestic 
 
 Bows before him at the door ; 
 
 And they speak in gentle munnur 
 
 When they answer to his call, 
 WTiile he treads with footstep firmer 
 
 Leading on from hall to hall. 
 
 And while now she wonders blindly, 
 
 Nor the meaning can divine. 
 Proudly turns he round and kindly, 
 
 ' All of that is mine and thine.' 
 
 Here lie lives in state and bounty, 
 
 Lord of Burleigh fair and free, 
 Not a lord in all the county 
 
 Is so great a lord as he. 
 
 The news of tlio romantic story spread like wildfire through- 
 out the ]U'iglibourliood, and the curiosity of tho tlirce counties 
 of Lincoln, J{utlan<l, and Northampton, wliich all meet within 
 a few miles of Burleigh, was soon gratified by witnessing the 
 entry of the peasant girl of Bolas upon the new sphere of 
 life to wliich Providence had raised her without her own 
 seeking. 
 
 The happiness of the Earl and his Countess was un-
 
 THE NOBLE HOUSE OF CECIL 45 
 
 alloyed : she did ample justice to his choice, and became the 
 partner of his joys and of his sorrows. But their married 
 life was. brief. Besides their first-born, who lies buried at 
 Bolas, Sarah Hoggins had three children — a daughter and two 
 sons. The younger son. Lord Thomas Cecil (after giving 
 birth to whom she died in childbed) lived till 1873 ; the elder 
 son inherited his father's earldom, and also the marquisate 
 conferred on him in 1801, as already stated ; the daughter 
 married the Right Hon. Henry Manvers Pierrepont, by whom 
 she was the mother of Lady Charles Wellesley, who is again 
 the mother of the head of the house of Wellesley. Thus, 
 strangely enough, the present Duke of Wellington is the great- 
 grandson of the peasant-girl who in 1791 milked cows and 
 churned cream in the village of Bolas Magna ! 
 
 A friend of mine, who a few years ago travelled in Shrop- 
 shire, sent me at the time so graphic a description of a pilgrim- 
 age which he then made to the scene of this romance that I 
 venture to give part of it in his own words to my readers : 
 
 ' Whilst on a visit, a fortnight since, in Shropshire, in sight 
 of that cynosure of neighbouring eyes, the Wrekin, I found 
 myself near the scene of one of the most romantic pages in 
 the history of the English Peerage. On a pleasant September 
 afternoon, when the sunlight was bathing the broad pastures, 
 tinging the apples and damsons on the heavily-laden trees, 
 and falling ruddy on the sides of red stone quarries, I bent 
 my steps in the direction of the little village of Bolas Magna 
 — not without some misgivings of losing my way among the 
 little-frequented country-roads which lead thither. But a 
 story that Moore has sung, and which has furnished Tenny- 
 son with the subject of one of his best poems, was inducement 
 enough to make me strive against my terrible want of topo- 
 graphical acumen, to pace the very spot so consecrate to love, 
 and, if possible, converse with the remaining few who still 
 recall persons and events dating more than seventy years ago.' 
 
 After telling the story, much as I have told it to my 
 readers, my friend proceeds :
 
 46 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 'My walk led me past Burleigh Villa. It is a substantial 
 brick house, the front diversified by two bays ; and attached 
 to it are good offices and farm-buildings. A wealthy farmer 
 now occupies it ; and, as if still to connect the tradition of 
 Cupid and Hymen's doings with the house, its master, the 
 morning I paid my visit to the spot, had led a third bride 
 to the saffron- coloured altar. Crossing the little river Muse, 
 I entered the village of Great Bolas. It is the heau ideal 
 of an English hamlet — clean, picturesque, not fine, and with 
 no excitement about it. There are hundreds like it scattered 
 through our land. The houses, and they are few, are tliatched, 
 and irregularly placed. I entei-ed one, which possessed a 
 spacious lower room, beautifully neat and comfortable. Like 
 many Shropshire houses, it had a fire burning under a boiler 
 to prepare turnips for the cattle. Joining the cottage garden 
 was a churchyard. The church is a small, uninteresting 
 structure of red stone, but which, from its colour, at a little 
 distance harmonises well with a clump of trees standing close 
 to it. On the ground, which falls away rather ^steeply from 
 the northern wall of the inclosure, stood Hoggins' farm, of 
 which the only memorials remaining are a wicket by which it 
 was approached, and a well. The old man whose house I 
 entered was parish clerk. Even he had forgotten the grave 
 of the first-born child ; but he was well acquainted with the 
 circumstances of this story. His wife, who was ill in bed, 
 recollected the persons of Mr. and Mrs. Cecil. Unable to 
 converse with this link between tlic past and the present, I 
 was more fortunate, in walking from the village, to meet an 
 af'ed woman, her chin adorned witli a grey beard, whose 
 memory retained not only the action, l)ut the persons of the 
 drama. 
 
 * The picture of the "Peasant Countess," in tlic billiai'd-i'ooni 
 at Burleigh House, roprcsents her as very beautiful : the 
 I)oncil of Lawrence would liardly do less for .so interesting a 
 sitter ; but my inquiries as to her beauty raised no enthusiastic 
 response. The old woman would not even admit that she was
 
 THE NOBLE HOUSE OF CECIL 47 
 
 handsome. " She might have been well-looking," was the extent 
 of her praise. A male informant told me he believed Sarah 
 Hoggins was a " straight lass." Shade of Hogarth ! What a 
 description of beauty ! ' 
 
 The poet has beautifully described the droojiing of a flower 
 removed from its native air into a higher level. He has said 
 that the village maiden received with extreme grace the homage 
 and love of those about her ; yet that her heart was being 
 eaten out by yearnings for the little village and the old farm, 
 and the simple faces of those among whom she lived in the days 
 of her youth. These influences may have contributed some- 
 what towards her early death ; but the immediate cause took 
 eflect in childbirth, and happened only a very few years after 
 she had arrived at her honours, at the early age of twenty- 
 four. 
 
 And a gentle consort made he, 
 
 And her gentle mind was such 
 That she grew a noble lady, 
 
 And the people lov'd her much. 
 
 But a trouble weigh'd upon her 
 And perples'd her night and morn, 
 
 With the burden of an honour 
 Unto which she was not born. 
 
 Faint she grew and ever fainter. 
 
 And she murmured, ' Oh, that he 
 Were once more that landscape painter 
 
 Which did win my heart from me ! ' 
 
 So she droop 'd and droop'd before him, 
 
 Fading slowly from his side ; 
 Three fair children first she bore him, 
 
 Then before her time she died. 
 
 The school of Werther is not a numerous school amonf our 
 English nobility, whether titled or untitled ; but even at the 
 time of Mr. Henry Cecil's love adventure, the spirit of roman- 
 ticism had penetrated the French and German nations, and 
 also, to some extent, the English. But whether it was the 
 cause or the effect of that revolutionary earthquake which
 
 48 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 eighty years since was rocking the people of Europe, at all 
 events it had subsided along with those wild political enthu- 
 siasms which stirred many fine souls to their lowest depths. 
 For the most part, the alliances of ' the Upper Ten Thousand ' 
 nowadays are made upon considerations which effectually shut 
 out all chance of a rustic love, however real and genuine, end ■ 
 ing in matrimony. Nevertheless, from the day when King 
 Cophetua wedded the ' beggar-maid ' down to the present 
 hour, a few sporadic cases have occurred in high circles in 
 which love, as a kind of eccentricity, I suppose, has broken 
 through the cold and calculating rules which prevail under our 
 social code. And yet, who can say how much benefit some 
 noble families have gained by the transfusion into their veins 
 of a little admixture of plebeian blood, red with country health 
 and free from the taint of courts and cities ? 
 
 The romantic tale of Sarah Hoggins, with only a few varia- 
 tions, has also been popularised in another way, namely, as an 
 oratorio which has been performed with much success at more 
 than one Musical Festival — for instance, at Birmingham in 
 1875, when it achieved a great success. It was thus described 
 at the time : 
 
 'The story illustrated in music by the composer, Signer 
 Schira, is a pleasing and graceful one, and the music makes an 
 admirable match to the words. The subject is essentially 
 pastoral and fanciful, a tlieme whicli novelists and poets in all 
 ages have loved to tell, in l)oth simple prose and in ambitious 
 verse. A powerful lord, " the Lord of Burleigli," in one of his 
 wanderings in quest of suV)iccts to fill his sketch-book, under 
 the modest title of liis Christian name, has wooed and won tlie 
 jilFnctioiis of a simple rustic boauty, named jNIarian. On the 
 conclusion of the marriage festivities the artist-nobleman and 
 his bride set out, professedly to seek their fortunes, accom- 
 panied only by Marian's old playmate, Constance. On their 
 journ(;y they turn aside, led seemingly by an idle impulse, to 
 survey a lordly mansion, near whicli the mad ])asses, when, to 
 the amazement of jNlarian, her husljaud conducts her through
 
 THE NOBLE HOUSE OF CECIL 49 
 
 the gates, not only without opposition, but with every mark of 
 respect and welcome from the attendants. Cecil then flings off 
 his disguise, and avows his stratagem, secure in the conviction 
 that Marian loves him for himself alone; but the burden of the 
 state to which she is so suddenly lifted weighs heavily upon his 
 rustic bride, and the happiness of the lovers is shortly ended 
 by the decline and death of Marian, 
 
 Who, like a lily drooping, 
 
 Bows down her head and dies 
 
 — a termination sad enough to satisfy the most ardent lovers of 
 the "tear-compelling ballad," and sufficiently suggestive of 
 variety to give the utmost charm when set to characteristic 
 music ; and as Signor Schira approached his task in the spirit 
 of both poet and musician, the successful result already sjDoken 
 of was a matter for little surprise. The character of the music 
 is so happy in form and treatment that the mind is put to no 
 effort to conjure up the several scenes as the music progresses. 
 Now we can see the bridal procession winding down the green 
 hill to the valley in which the moss-covered village church 
 stands, grey with age, the bride and bridegroom, truly "a 
 comely couple," answering with glowing eyes the kind greet- 
 ings on all sides, and then the quaint old mansion, bearing 
 evidence of strength needed in a former time, when evoy lord's 
 house was of necessity his castle, the wondering wife passing 
 through lines of obsequious servants, and marvelling at the vast 
 amount of respect with which she and her jDainter-lover are 
 welcomed ; then the effects of transplanting the lovely flower 
 of the field into the x'icher parterre of the garden ; the sickness 
 and death of Marian follow with a sad swiftness, making the 
 story like an April day- 
 Be^ un with a smile, 
 To end with a sigh.'
 
 50 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 LAURENCE, EABL FEBBEBS 
 
 Among the noblest and the proudest of our old English families 
 deservedly stand the Shirleys, of Shirley, in Derbyshire ; of 
 Staunton Harold, in Leicestershire ; of Chartley, in Stafford- 
 shire ; of Eatington, or Etington, in Warwickshire ; and of 
 half a dozen other places, which are enumerated in the ' Landed 
 Gentry ' of Sir Bernard Burke, who assigns to them an un- 
 broken descent from the Anglo-Saxon days. And with good 
 reason too ; for does not that learned antiquary Sir William 
 Dugdale himself say that 'the name of their ancestor, Sewallis 
 de Etingdon, argues him to have been of the old stock ' 1 The 
 fact is that the lordship of Etingdon, or (as it is now 
 termed) Eatington or Etington, was granted by William the 
 Conqueror to one of his Norman followers, who appears to 
 have left Sewallis in peaceful possession of his lands, though 
 doubtless in nominal dependence on himself. In the course of 
 years, possibly, the Norman lords being absentees, and not 
 looking well to their own interests, the descendants of Sewallis 
 contrived to make good their hold, and to play first fiddle in- 
 stead of second. At all events, at a very early date under our 
 Norman sovereigns, the acknowledged lords of EatingtoiA were 
 Shirleys ; and Mr. Sewallis Shii-ley, the younger, of Eting- 
 ton, was lately one of the representatives of Warwickshire 
 in Parliament, as his father and grandfather were before 
 liim. 
 
 Sir Ralph de Shirley held the manor of Eatington, ai\d was 
 also member for Warwickshire, in the reign of Edward I. ; and 
 his descendants, the lords of Eatington, took an active part in 
 the AVars of the Roses and with Franco : and if any of my 
 readers desire to know more on the subject, tliey will iind 
 ample information anent the family in three distinct MS. 
 histories of the House of Shirley in the British Museum. 
 
 In the eighteenth generation from the above-named Saxon 
 thane — as Dugdale styles liim — I come (o Sii- Robert Shirley,
 
 LAURENCE, EARL FERRERS 51 
 
 a gallant knight and Privy Councillor in the time of William 
 and Mary, who, having inherited the ancient barony of Ferrers 
 de Chartley, in right of his mother, Dorothy, daughter and 
 heiress of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, the unfortunate 
 favourite of Elizabeth, was raised in 1711 to the Earldom of 
 Ferrers, and whose shield was destined to receive a melancholy 
 tarnish in the person of one of his grandsons, whose story I 
 come to tell. 
 
 The first Eai'l's eldest son dying without leaving issue male, 
 the title passed to his second son, Henry, and, as he died un- 
 married, it devolved in due course on Laurence Shirley, eldest 
 son of his third son, the Hon. Laurence Shirley, by his wife 
 Anne, daughter of Sir Walter Clarges, Bart.- — probably one of 
 the family after whom Clarges Street, Piccadilly, is named. 
 Even as a boy it is recorded of him that he was of a moody 
 and passionate temper, and that at times he had but little con- 
 trol over his words or his deeds. His uncle, whose death placed 
 the coronet on his head, had been in confinement under a 
 statute of lunacy, and, after a short return of reason, relapsed 
 into a state of incurable madness, which ended only with his 
 life. One of his aunts, too — the Lady Barbara Shirley — was 
 confined as a lunatic. The young lord himself was so far a 
 sharer in the hereditary disorder of his family as to be subject, 
 even after he grew to manhood, to sudden, causeless, and out- 
 rageous passions. According to a writer in the ' Gentleman's 
 Magazine,' he would walk hastily about the r-oom, clenching his 
 fists, grinning, biting his lips, and talking to himself, without 
 having anything to ruffle his temi^er, and without being under 
 the influence of liquor. He would also talk to himself incohe- 
 rently for hours and hours after he had gone to bed. Nor was 
 this all : he would entertain all sorts of groundless delusions 
 and suspicions of those round about him ; he would go about 
 secretly armed with a dagger or a brace of pistols ; when spoken 
 to he was absent, and often would not rej^ly ; he would make 
 odd mouths before a looking-glass, and spit upon it, and use 
 all sorts of strange gestures, as if he Avas bewitched. It 
 
 E 2
 
 52 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 appears, too, that he had contracted a habit of drinking strong 
 liquors while making what was then called the ' Grand Toixr,' 
 without which no member of ' the quality ' was considered to 
 have finished his education. 
 
 In 1752 the eccentric nobleman had married a daughter of 
 Sir William Meredith ; but, though she was of a mild and 
 gentle, disposition, he treated her with great brutality. Nor 
 was his wife the only member of his family to whom he so 
 behaved himself. He was on ill terms with almost all his re- 
 lations, and appears to have been a nuisance to the neighbour- 
 hood and to himself. One day when his brother William, a 
 clergyman, got up from the table, not choosing to sit longer 
 over the bottle, and joined the ladies in the drawing-room, he 
 followed him, and, standing with his back to the fire, broke 
 out into a violent rage, and insulted him in the presence of the 
 company, though there was not a shadow of pretext for any 
 such treatment. The fact was that his hereditary tendency to 
 insanity had been fostered and cherished by a fond and foolish 
 mamma, who had allowed the dear boy to have his own way in 
 everything when a child, and would not permit his father to 
 correct him. His temper had not been improved by a legal 
 separation which his wife had lately obtained from him by an 
 Act of Parliament, which had also authorised the appointment 
 of a person to receive the income of his estates, and to control 
 his expenditure. So eccentric, indeed, had he become that his 
 family solicitor, a Mr. Goostrey, declined any longer to act for 
 him, and that, on account of an absurd and groundless quarrel 
 which he contrived to pick with Sir Thomas Stapleton when 
 staying in Lord Westmoreland's house, his relatives had held 
 a cabinet council to discuss the question of applying for a com- 
 mission ui lunacy to be issued again.st him. From this step, 
 liowever, it appears that tlicy were deterred by the fact that 
 he enjoyed long intervals of sanity, and that if tliey should 
 fail they would be in danger of being sentenced to pay a heavy 
 tine as guilty of acandalum maf/natum. 
 
 It appears, too, that about this period ho took up his abode
 
 LAURENCE, EARL FERRERS 53 
 
 in lodgings at Muswell Hill, near Highgate and Hornsey, 
 where he kept all sorts of low company, whom he amused, no 
 doubt, by his vulgar and eccentric conduct. He would drink 
 coffee out of the spout of a kettle, mix his beer and porter with 
 mud, and shave one side of his face only. He threatened on 
 more than one occasion to ' do for ' his landlady upon the 
 most trifling provocation in the world ; and on one occasion 
 he violently broke open on a Sunday a stable where his horse 
 was locked up, knocking down with his fist the ostler's wife 
 when she asked him to wait a few minutes while her husband 
 brought the key. During this time, however, he managed his 
 own affairs with shrewdness and penetration, so that Mr. 
 Goostrey said it would be easier to cheat anyone in the county 
 than the Earl, and that he was as sharp as any member of either 
 House of Parliament in dealing with such a matter as the 
 cutting oflf of an entail. 
 
 Mr. Cradock, in his 'Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs,' 
 speaks of his lordship as all but a madman. He writes : 
 
 ' I still retain a strong impression of the unfortunate Earl 
 Ferrers, who, Avith the Ladies Shirley, his sisters, frequented 
 Leicester Races, and visited at my father's house. During the 
 early part of the day, his lordship preserved the character of 
 a polite scholar and a courteous nobleman, but in the evening he 
 became the terror of the inhabitants ; and I distinctly remem- 
 ber running up stairs to hide myself, when an alarm was given 
 that Lord Ferrers was coming armed, with a great mob after him. 
 He had behaved well at the ordinary ; the races were then in 
 the afternoon, and the ladies i-egularly attended the balls. My 
 father's house was situated midway between Lord Ferrers' 
 lodgings and the Town Hall, where the race assemblies were 
 then held : he had, as was supposed, obtained liquor privately, 
 and then became outrageous ; for from our house he suddenly 
 escaped and proceeded to the Town Hall, and, after many most 
 violent acts, threw a large silver tankard of scalding negus 
 amongst the ladies ; he was then secured for that evening. 
 This was the last time of his appearing at Leicester, till
 
 54 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 brought from Ashby-de-la-Zouch to prison there. It has been 
 much regretted by his friends that, as Lady Ferrers and some 
 of his property had been taken from him, no greater precau- 
 tion had been used with respect to his own safety, as well as 
 that of all around him. Whilst sober, my father, who had a 
 real regard for him, always urged that he was quite manage- 
 able ; and when his sisters ventured to come with him to the 
 races, they had an absolute reliance on his good intentions and 
 promises.' 
 
 Such was the character of Laurence, third Earl Ferrers, 
 in the early part of the year 1760, when the tragic events 
 which I am about to record took place. When it was ordered 
 by the Court of Chancery that the rents due to Lord Ferrers 
 should be paid to a receiver, the nomination of the said receiver 
 was left to his lordship, wlio of course hoped to find in that 
 person a pliant tool, who would take things easily, and let 
 him have his own way. The person whom he so appointed 
 was a Mr. John Johnson, his own steward, wlio had been in 
 the service of the Shirleys for many years — even from boyhood. 
 But he soon found out that Johnson would not oblige him at 
 the expense of his honesty and his duty ; and accordingly 
 from that time he conceived an inveterate hatred towards him 
 on account of the opposition which he oflered to his crotchets. 
 He never spoke of him except in terms of abuse and resent- 
 ment, not to say with savage oatlis ; vowing that he had con- 
 spired with his enemies to do him a mortal injury, and was a 
 villain, a scoundrel, and so forth. Further, he gave him warn- 
 ing to quit a farm of whicli he had long been tenant, and of 
 which the trustees of tlie Ferrers estates liad recently renewed 
 the lease. But in tliis matter he could not get his ow)i way, 
 and from that time lie resolved to move heaven aiul earth to 
 obtain liis revenge, even thougli he should liavo to ' bide liis 
 tinie.^ He dissenil)led his feelings, liowever, so cleverly, tliat 
 poor Johnson was led to Ijclieve that he never stood on better 
 terms with the Earl, who all the while was meditating how to 
 get lid iif him.
 
 LAURENCE, EARL FERRERS 55 
 
 In January 1760, Lord Ferrers was at his seat of Staunton 
 Harold, about two miles from Ashby-de-la-Zouch. His house- 
 hold consisted of a Mrs. C , who lived with him nominally 
 
 as his housekeeper, her four daughters, and five domestic ser- 
 vants — three maids, a boy, and an old man. Mr, Johnson's 
 farmhouse, The Mount, was about a mile off across the park. 
 On Sunday, the 18th of that month. Lord Ferrers called on 
 Mr. Johnson, and, after some discourse, desired that he would 
 come to him at Staunton on the following Friday at three 
 o'clock in the afternoon. The Friday came round ; and John- 
 son was true to his appointment. His lordship's dinner-hour 
 — like that of most country gentlemen of the time — was two 
 o'clock ; and rising early from table, shortly before the ap- 
 pointed hour, he desired Mrs. C to take the children for a 
 
 walk, arranging that they were to return at five or half-past 
 five o'clock, as the evenings were dark. The two men-servants 
 also he contrived to get out of the way on different pretexts ; 
 so that when Mr. Johnson arrived there was no one in the 
 house except the maids. 
 
 Three o'clock struck ; punctual to his promise, Mr. John- 
 son knocked and rang the bell, and was ushered by the parlour- 
 maid, Elizabeth Bui-land, into his lordship's private sitting- 
 room. They had sat together talking on various matters for 
 some ten minutes or more, when the Earl got up, walked to the 
 door, and locked it. He next desired Johnson at once to settle 
 some disputed account ; then, rising higher in his demands, 
 ordered him, as he valued his life, to sign a paj)er which he had 
 drawn up, and which was a confession of his (Johnson's) 
 villainy. Johnson expostulated and refused, as an honest man 
 would refuse, to sign his name to any such document. The Earl 
 then drew from his pocket a loaded pistol, and bade him kneel 
 down, for that his last hour was come. Johnson bent one knee, 
 but the Earl insisted on his kneeling on both his knees. He 
 did so, and Lord Ferrers at once fired. The ball entered his 
 body below the rib, but it did not do its fell work instantane- 
 ously. Though mortally wounded, the poor fellow had strength
 
 56 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 to rise, and to call loudly for assistance. The Earl at first coolly 
 prepared as though he would discharge the other pistol, so as 
 to put his victim out of misery ; but, suddenly moved with re- 
 morse, he unlocked the door and called for the servants, who, 
 on hearing the discharge of the pistol, had run in fear and 
 trembling to the washhouse, not knowing whether his lordship 
 would not take it into his head to send a bullet through their 
 bodies also. He called them once and again, desired one to 
 fetch a surgeon, and another to help the wounded man into a 
 bed. It was clear, however, that Johnson had not many hours 
 to live ; and as he desired to see his childi'en before he died, 
 the Earl ordered that they should be summoned from the farm. 
 Miss Johnson came speedily, and found her father apparently 
 in the agonies of death, and Lord Ferrers standing by the bed- 
 side, and attempting to stanch the blood that flowed from the 
 wound. 
 
 The whole neighbourliood was soon aroused, for the mes- 
 senger who was sent for the doctor told the sad story to his 
 friends and accjuaintances along the road to Ashby, and by the 
 time that the surgeon arrived tliere was a large crowd gathering 
 round the house. His lordship now began to quake for his 
 own life, and repeatedly implored the doctor not to allow him 
 to be seized, declaring, at the same time, that he would shoot 
 anyone who attempted to lay hands on him. 
 
 Fortunately, in order to deaden his feelings, his lordship 
 had recourse to the porter-jugs, which he continued to drain 
 one after another, till lie was hopele.ssly drunk ; and for a few 
 minutes he threatened to renew the attack on poor Johnson, 
 whom he reviled and cursed as a villain, vowing that he would 
 shoot him through the head as he lay in the bed. Soon, however, 
 the paroxysm passed away ; and at the end of the day, while 
 Ills victim was still writhing in agony, liis lordsliip, .stupefied 
 with drink, lay down to sleep. 
 
 Duiing the night, ])y a clever rxiso^ the surgeon, Vix. Jvirk- 
 land, contrived to have Johnson removed to his home in a sort 
 of sedan chair wliidi he (;xteraporised for the occasion ; but he
 
 LAURENCE, EARL FERRERS 57 
 
 survived the removal only a few hours, dying at nine o'clock 
 the next morning. 
 
 The next part of the story shall be told in the words of 
 the contemporary account as they stand in the ' Gentleman's 
 Magazine.' 
 
 ' As soon as it became known that Mr. Johnson was really 
 dead, the neighbours set about seizing the murderer. A few 
 persons, armed, set out for Staunton, and as they entered the 
 hall-yard they saw the Earl going towards the stable, as they 
 imagined, to take horse. He appeared to be just out of bed, his 
 stockings being down and his garters in his hand, having pro- 
 bably taken the alarm immediately on coming out of his room 
 and finding that Johnson had been removed. One Spring- 
 thorpe, advancing towards his lordship, presented a pistol, and 
 required him to surrender ; but his lordship putting his hand 
 to his pocket, Springthorpe imagined he was feeling for a pistol, 
 and stopped short, being probably intimidated. He thus suf- 
 fered the Earl to escape back into the house, where he fastened 
 the doors, and stood on his defence. The crowd of people 
 who had come to apprehend him beset the house, and their 
 number increased very fast. In about two hours Lord Ferrers 
 appeared at the garret window, and called out, " How is John- 
 son " ? Springthorpe answered, " He is dead " ; upon which his 
 lordship insulted him, and called him a liar, and swore he 
 would not believe anylDody but the surgeon, Kirkland. Upon 
 being again assured that he was dead, he desired that the 
 people might be dispersed, saying that he would surrender ; 
 yet, almost in the same breath, he desired that the people 
 might be let in, and have some victuals and drink : but the 
 issue was that he went away again from the window, swearing 
 that he would not be taken. The people, however, still con- 
 tinued near the house, and two hours later he was seen on the 
 bowling-green by one Curtis, a collier. " My lord " was then 
 armed with a blunderbuss and a dagger, and two or three 
 
 pistols ; but Curtis, so far from being intimidated 
 
 marched boldly up to him, and his lordship was so struck with
 
 58 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 the determinate resolution shown by this brave fellow, that he 
 suffered him to seize him without making any resistance. Yet 
 the moment that he was in custody he declared that he had 
 killed a villain, and that he gloried in the deed.' 
 
 The rest of the story is soon told. From Staunton, Lord 
 Ferrers was taken to Ashby, where he was kept at an inn till 
 the Monday following. During the interval, a coroner's jury 
 sat upon the body, bringing in a verdict of ' wilful murder.' 
 From Ashby, Lord Ferrers was sent to gaol at Leicester, and 
 thence, about a fortnight later, to London. He was brought 
 up, we are told, in his own landau and six, under a strong 
 guard. He arrived in town about noon on the 1 4th of Feb- 
 ruary, ' dressed like a jockey, in a close riding-frock, jockey 
 boots and cap, and a plain shirt.' 
 
 Being arraigned before the House of Lords — for a peer 
 has a legal right to be tried by his peers — and the coroner's 
 verdict having been read aloud, he was formally committed 
 into the custody of the Usher of the Black Rod, and ordered 
 to be kejot in the Tower. He arrived there about six in the 
 evening, and we are gravely told that ' he behaved during the 
 whole journey, and at his commitment, with great exactness 
 and propriety ' — whatever those words may mean. It may 
 interest Mr. Hepworth Dixon, as the author of ' Her Majesty's 
 Tow'er,' to learn, on good authority, that he was confined in the 
 Round Tower near the drawbridge, two warders being con- 
 stantly in the room with him, and one at the door ; ' two 
 sentinels also were posted on the stairs, and one upon the 
 drawbridge, with their bayonets fixed ; and from this time the 
 gates were ordered to be shut an hour sooner than usual.' It 
 is strange that so much of extra precaution should have been 
 taken because a culprit about to bo tried for his life happened 
 to have worn an earl's coronet. 
 
 We are told by the chronich'r of small things I'olating to 
 this titled prisoner of State, how much beer, how much porter, 
 how much water, Lord Ferrers was allowed daily during his 
 incarceration. No doubt tlie writer ' interviewed ' — or, at
 
 LAURENCE, EARL FERRERS 59 
 
 least, tried to interview — the noble Earl in his dungeon. Mrs. 
 
 C , his lady-housekeeper, and her four young children 
 
 were allowed to see him from time to time, and to correspond 
 with him daily from a lodging which they had taken in the 
 neighbourhood of the Miiiories. 
 
 On the 16th of April, when he had been a prisoner a little 
 more than two months, he was brought to trial at the bar of 
 the House of Peers. Lord Henley, afterwards Earl of North- 
 ington, who at that time happened to be Keeper of the Great 
 Seal, presided as Lord High Steward, but with a want of 
 dignity to which Horace Walpole more than once alludes in 
 his letters to Sir Horace Mann and Mr. George Montague. 
 The tx'ial lasted till the 18th, when Lord Ferrers endeavoured 
 with great skill and cleverness to elicit from several witnesses 
 proofs of his insanity. No detailed report of the substance of 
 such examination is extant ; but it may easily be believed 
 that the greater the skill that he displayed, the more signal 
 his failure. 
 
 ' His loi'dship,' says one account, ' managed his defence in 
 such a manner as to show perfect recollection of mind and un- 
 ^common powers of understanding ; he dwelt with the most 
 delicate and affecting sensibility on the hard situation of 
 being reduced to the necessity of proving himself a lunatic in 
 order that he might not be deemed a murderer ; and when at 
 last he found that his plea could avail him nothing, he con- 
 fessed that he had put it forward only to gratify his friends, 
 being always averse to it himself.' 
 
 It is needless to add that each of his brother peers, on 
 being asked the usual question, brought in against Lord 
 Ferrers a verdict of ' Guilty, upon my honour ' ; accordingly 
 he was sentenced by Lord Henley, in due form, to be ' hanged 
 by the neck until he was dead,' his body being given after- 
 wards, as was then the usual practice, to the anatomists for 
 dissection. The day at first fixed for the execution was the 
 21st of April ; but we are told that, ' in consideration of his 
 rank,' the fatal hour was postponed till the 5th of May. It
 
 6o TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 seems more to the point to record the fact that, also ' in con- 
 sideration of his rank,' he was permitted to be hanged with a 
 silken instead of a hempen rope. 
 
 At the trial, not only the Earl himself, but his two brothers, 
 tried to prove him to have inherited the family misfortune of 
 insanity ; and, as Horace Walpole remarks, ' it must have 
 been a strange contradiction to see a man trying, by his own 
 sense, to prove himself out of his senses, and even moi-e shock- 
 ing to see his two brothers brought to prove the lunacy of their 
 own blood, in order to save their brother's life. Both,' adds 
 the old gossiper, ' are almost as ill-looking men as the Earl ; 
 one of them is a clergyman suspended by the Bishop of London 
 for being a Methodist ; the other a wild vagabond, whom they 
 call in the country "ragged and dangerous." ' As a proof of 
 the madness of Lord Ferrers himself, it may be mentioned that 
 two years before, in 1758, he had attempted to murder his 
 wife, 'a pretty, harmless young woman,' according to Horace 
 Walpole. 
 
 During the interval between his sentence and its execution, 
 his lordship made a will bequeathing various sums to Mrs. 
 
 C , to his childi-en by her, and to the children of his 
 
 victim — a poor instalment of the reparation which he owed to 
 the orphans for the murder of their parent. 
 
 The scaffold was erected at Tyburn turnpike, as nearly as 
 possible on the spot where now stand Connaught Place and 
 Connaught Square. About nine o'clock on the morning of 
 the 5th, his lordship's person was formally demanded of the 
 keeper of the Tower by the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex. 
 Being informed of the fact. Lord Ferrers requested that he 
 might be allowed to travel to Tyburn in his own landau, 
 instead of in the mourning-coach which had been provided. 
 His request was granted ; and at the gate of the Tower he 
 entered for the last time his own 'landau,' accompanied by 
 one of the sheriffs and l>y the chaplain of the Tower, one Mr. 
 ] f umphries. 
 
 The account of the journey from the Tower to Tyburn, as
 
 LAURENCE, EARL FERRERS 6i 
 
 it stands in the ' Gentleman's Magazine', is so strange that I 
 venture to extract it entire : 
 
 ' He was dressed in a suit of light-coloured clothes, em- 
 broidered with silver, said to have been his wedding-suit ; and 
 soon after the Sheriff entered the landau he said, " You may 
 perhaps, sir, think it strange to see me in this dress, but I 
 have my particular reasons for it." The procession then began 
 in the following order : A very large body of constables of 
 the county of Middlesex, preceded by one of the high con- 
 stables ; a party of horse grenadiers and a party of foot ; Mr. 
 Sheriff Errington, in his chariot, accompanied by his under- 
 sheriff, Mr. Jackson ; the landau, escorted by two other parties 
 of horse grenadiers and foot ; Mr. Sheriff Vaillant's chariot, 
 in which was the under-sheritl', Mr. Nichols ; a moui-ning-coach 
 and six, with some of his lordship's friends ; and, lastly, a 
 hearse and six, provided for the conveyance of his lordship's 
 corpse from the place of execution to Surgeons' Hall.' 
 
 It is added that — 
 
 ' The procession moved so slow that Lord Ferrers was two 
 hours and three-quarters in his landau ; but during the whole 
 , time he appeared perfectly easy and composed, though he 
 often expressed his desire to have it over, saying that the 
 apparatus of death and the passing through such crowds of 
 people was ten times worse than death itself. He told the 
 Sheriff that he had written to the King, begging that he might 
 suffer where his ancestor, the Earl of Essex, had suffered — 
 namely, -on Tower Hill ; that " he had been in the greater 
 hope of obtaining this favour as he had the honour of quarter- 
 ing part of the same arms and of being allied to his Majesty ; 
 and that he thought it hard that he should have to die at the 
 place appointed for the execution of common felons." As to 
 his crime, he declared that he did it " under particular circum- 
 stances, having met with so many crosses and vexations that 
 he scarcely knew what he did " ; and, in fine, he protested that 
 he had not the least malice towards Mr. Johnson.' 
 
 It would be profitless to dwell on all the lesser details of
 
 62 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Lord FeiTers' last journey — how he felt thirsty as he passed 
 the top of Drury Lane, and wanted a glass of wine-and-water 
 before he went on ; how he gave a sovereign to the assistant- 
 executioner in mistake for his principal ; how he declared to 
 the chaplain that he believed in a God, but did not like 
 ' sectaries ' and their teaching ; and how he expressed, at the 
 last moment his forgiveness of the hangman and of all man- 
 kind. 
 
 It is enough to say, in the words of ' Sylvanus Urban,' 
 whose contributor was doubtless an eye-witness of the scene, 
 that his lordship met his fate with fortitude and composure 
 of mind as he was pinioned and had the cap drawn over his 
 eyes, and that as soon as the bolt was withdrawn the drop 
 fell, and Lord Ferrers died quickly, and with but little appa- 
 rent pain. At the end of an hour the body was put into a 
 cofSn, and taken to Sui'geons' Hall, where the remainder of 
 the sentence was carried out in all its disgusting details. The 
 corpse, thus mutilated, was publicly exposed to view, and on 
 the Thursday following was handed to his lordship's friends 
 and family for interment ; but his remains were not destined 
 to rest with those of his ancestors at Staunton Harold, for 
 Mr. John Timbs tells us, in his ' Curiosities of London,' that 
 after his execution, the body of Lord Ferrers was taken to 
 old St. Pancras Church and there buried privately beneath the 
 belfry, in a grave fourteen feet deep. 
 
 The Earl's widow also met with a tragic fate. Slie married, 
 secondly, Lord F. Campbell, brother of John, fifth Duke of 
 Argyll, and was burnt to death at Coombe Bank, Kent, in 
 1807, aged seventy years. 
 
 Horace Walpole calls Lord Ferrers ' a low wretch, a mad 
 assassin, and a wild beast ' ; and he details all the circum- 
 stances of his trial and execution, with considerable minute- 
 ness to Sir Horace IVIaiin, tlien our Aniba.ssador at Floionco. 
 ' What,' he asks, ' will your Italians .say to a peer of Ejigland, 
 an earl of one of our best families, tried for murdering his 
 .servant with the utmost solenuiity, and then hanged at the
 
 LAURENCE, EARL FERRERS e^, 
 
 common place for the execution of highwaymen, and after- 
 wards anatomised ? ' 
 
 I will only add that, as Lord Ferrers had no legitimate 
 issue, the title and estate passed to his brother, and that 
 therefore the present Earl Ferrers and the various collateral 
 branches of the house of Shirley can at all events boast that 
 they do not inherit one drop of the blood of Laurence, third 
 Earl Ferrers. 
 
 TUB DUCHESS OF KINGSTON 
 
 AiswsG the ladies of ' quality ' who made themselves most 
 conspicuous and famous — I may almost say famosce in the 
 classical sense of the term — in the good old days when George 
 III. was King, was Elizabeth Chudleigh, Countess of Bristol, 
 and (or) Duchess of Kingston. A proud, haughty, and im- 
 perious child, she grew up headstrong and self-willed beyond 
 her fellows, in an age when independence of character was 
 far from uncommon among women ; and it is clear that she 
 reigned for many years, feared, if not loved, among tlie circle 
 of her compeers, long before her name was brought pro- 
 minently before tire world by certain events which I purpose 
 recording in the present paper. 
 
 In the early part of the last century a certain Colonel and 
 Mrs. Chudleigh were living at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, 
 where the former, a cadet of a good family in Devonshire, and 
 who had served in the army under Marlborough, held a sub- 
 ordinate post. Mr. and Mrs. Chudleigh had a family of 
 several sons and daughters, the eldest of whom, Elizabeth, was, 
 as Horace Walpole tells us, one of his playmates when he 
 lived in his father's house at Chelsea.^ 
 
 ' Horace Walpole set her down as being fifty-five or fifty-six at tlie 
 time of her trial, and he was likely to know the fact, as she and her 
 brothers were his playfellows. The Walpoles then lived at Chelsea, 
 and her father, Colonel Thomas Chudleigh (who died in 1726) was 
 Deputy Governor of the College. Her mother was something of a 
 heroine in her way ; at all events, the story is told that, being asleep
 
 64 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Colonel Chudleigh died early, leaving it to his relict to 
 educate and ' bring out ' into society his young family on 
 a very small income, exclusive of her pension as an officer's 
 widow. Under these circumstances, Mrs. Chudleigh appears 
 to have done what most other women would do in a like 
 position, and resolved to turn to account her own and her 
 husband's ' good connections ' — the best substitute for money. 
 She hired a house on the outskirts of the town, within reach 
 of the rival camps of St. James's and Kensington Palaces ; 
 and, if she did not seek, at all events she soon found, aa 
 opportunity of displaying in high quarters the charms and 
 attractions of her eldest daughter, Elizabeth, who was alnjost 
 a woman at fifteen. From a child, it is said, she was dis- 
 tinguished for a brilliancy of wit and repartee, ' and for other 
 qualities which shone more brightly in fashionable circles than 
 at home. It so happened that Frederick, Prince of Wales, and 
 the Princess (the father and mother of George III.) held their 
 Court at Leicester House, on the north side of what now is 
 Leicester Square, having quitted St. James's in consequence 
 of the continual quarrels between the Prince and his parents. 
 Mr. Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath, was at this time a 
 great favourite of the Prince and Princess. The Chudleighs 
 knew something of Mr. Pulteney or of his wife ; and Elizabeth, 
 through their interest, was appointed, when only just eighteen, 
 one of the Maids of Honour to the Princess. Mr. Pulteney 
 took a somewhat more than paternal interest in the clever 
 
 one night as she was returuliig from a late part}' betwueu London and 
 Chelsea, she was awakened suddenly by three footpads, one of whom 
 held a pistol to her breast. She coolly put her he;id out of the other 
 window of her carriage, and said ' Fire ! ' when the patrol, who were 
 fortunately at hand, fired, and shot the robber. The daughter, if we 
 may judge from the coolness and nerve which she disjjhiyed on the 
 memorable trial in Westminster Hall, was quite a ' chip of the old 
 block,' and in no way degenerate. 
 
 ' As an example of her wit, I may mention the following anecdote, 
 which is told by Sir N. W. Wraxall. The Princess of Wales — who was 
 accused of being far too intimate with Lord Bute— one day took Miss 
 Chudleigh to task for some act of levity. • Ah, Madame,'' was her quick 
 ibioxi,''' I'hacnnc lei a xon But.'
 
 THE DUCHESS OF KINGSTON 65 
 
 girl, and encouraged her to improve her education, which had 
 been somewhat neglected, and made her his amanuensis and 
 constant correspondent. To him she would read aloud, and, 
 although her volatile disposition prevented her from ever 
 seriously applying herself to study, she gained sufficient super- 
 ficial information to enable her to fulfil her own avowed aim 
 of being on all subjects, whether she wrote or spoke, ' short, 
 clear, and surprising.' 
 
 Had she lived in our days, she would probably have become 
 a lady novelist ; as it was, she played a role of her own choos- 
 ing, acting out a romance instead of writing one. "With such 
 a pupil even so grave a statesman as Pulteney could laugh 
 and amuse himself, for she had always plenty of small talk at 
 hand ; but it must be owned that when he tried to initiate 
 her into the secrets of political economy and statesmanship, 
 she rather demurred, and showed a decided preference for 
 literature of a more amusing kind, and probably for lighter 
 and more frivolous diversions. In her station, with a pretty 
 face, fine figure, and much ready wit to recommend her, Miss 
 Chudleigh soon became a general favourite with the Court at 
 ' Leicester Fields,' among whom she could laugh and sing and 
 play a part in the miniature theatre as well as any of the rest. 
 A host of admirers sprung up around her, some with coronets 
 in possession, others with titles in prospect. 
 
 Among those who were struck wdth her beauty and fasci- 
 nation was the Duke of Hamilton, who subsequently wedded 
 one of the beautiful Miss Gnnnings, after whom all the world 
 ran mad, as already stated. The Duke proposed, and was 
 accepted, and it seemed as if she were about to attain the sum- 
 mit of her ambition, the ducal strawberry-leaves, when the 
 machinations of a heartless and meddlesome relative, Mrs. 
 Hanmer, dashed the cup of happiness from her lips. What- 
 ever may have been the motive of Mrs. Hanmer's dislike to 
 the Hamiltons, it is certain that she set herself deliberately to 
 work to break off the engagement of her niece, and to destroy 
 her prospects, by intercepting the letters of the Duke during 
 
 P
 
 66 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 his temporary absence in France. Like many another young 
 lady's heart, that of Miss Chudleigh, if she had one, was caught 
 on the rebound. It is probable that her ambition received a 
 more severe blow than her aflfections in the supposed neglect 
 of the Duke. She ' would be a duchess ' ; and a duchess in 
 some sort at least, in England, though not in Scotland, 
 she was destined to become, although the intrigues of her 
 aunt prevented her from sharing the honours of his Grace of 
 Hamilton. 
 
 Among the daily visitors of her aunt was a young naval 
 oiEcer, the Honourable Augustus Hervey, of whom Mrs. Han- 
 mer was very fond, and on whom she had, for some inscrutable 
 reason, fixed to become the husband of her niece. It was easy 
 to throw the pretty, heedless girl into tlie young sailor's way, 
 and to pei'suade the insulted beauty tliat the Duke's neglect 
 proved he had ceased to care for her, at the same time con- 
 trasting his conduct with the devotion of her new admirer, 
 and artfully suggesting that Hervey was in ultimate remainder 
 to the earldom of Bristol. The bait took ; her hopes of 
 becoming a duchess being for the time frustrated, Elizabeth 
 Chudleigh elected to run the chance of wearing a countess's 
 coronet, althougli she cared nothing for the man who was to 
 confer it on her. 
 
 Urged on tlie one side l:)y the dictates of wounded pride 
 and disappointed ambition, and on the other by the worldly 
 arguments of an artful woman. Miss Chudleigh consented, in 
 an evil hour, to become tlio wife of Captain Hervey ; but as 
 neither she nor lior lover could aflbrd the loss of her place at 
 Court, it was settled that the mariiago should be strictly pri- 
 vate, and that even afterwards she should still officiate in her 
 capacity as a ' maid of lionour.' 
 
 Til the neighbourhood of Winchester there is a small parish 
 named Laiiiston, and here, in a private chapel adjoining tlir 
 hou.se of the squire, Mr. Merrill, was celebrated the union 
 Ijctwecn Captain Hervey and Miss Chudleigh. ]t was per 
 formed late in the evening, by the light of a tallow candle
 
 THE DUCHESS OF KINGSTON 6j 
 
 stuck into an empty bottle, and without much ceremony. The 
 consequences of such a marriage, with no fixed principles of 
 right and wrong on the part of either, could not well be other- 
 wise than most disastrous. Captain Hervey seems, indeed, to 
 have been utterly devoid of any qualities which could ensure 
 the esteem or attachment of such a woman as Elizabeth Chud- 
 leigh, even for a time ; and her miseries, which date from this 
 ill-starred union, proved the cause of all the future unhappi- 
 ness which dogged her steps through life and gave a dismal 
 colour to her fate. Only some forty-eight hours had elapsed 
 from the scene in the little chapel when the bride and bride- 
 groom parted ; and, as the union had not been publicly noti- 
 fied, they agreed that it should be kept secret. Elizabeth had 
 already had sufiicient knowledge of her husband's disposition 
 to be aware it would require all the art of which she was mis- 
 tress to insure his discretion should he change his mind and 
 propose to make the marriage public. The best argument 
 which she could plead was the fact that he had little or 
 nothing to live on but his pay, and that if her marriage was 
 publicly known she would lose her post as maid of honour. 
 He therefore yielded the point, but in a way which showed 
 that he was resolved to play the tyrant and to torture his 
 victim. In fact, as she often expressed herself, 'her misery 
 began with the arrival of Mr. Hervey in England, and the 
 greatest joy that she experienced was the news of his depar- 
 ture.' Hence, while his ship was in the Downs or at Spithead 
 she always trembled with fear lest his destination mifdit be 
 altered by orders from the Lords of the Admiralty. ' A fair 
 wind down the Channel ' was the soother of her mind, and 
 nothing pleased her better than to hear that his ship had been 
 ' spoken ' leagues away from England on the wide Atlantic. 
 
 Miss Chudleigh, or rather Mrs. Hervey, for such she was in 
 the eye of the law — a maid in appearance, but really a wife 
 in disguise — came back to London, and mixed as usual in the 
 highest circles, with a cheerful face, but a heart heavy with 
 the consciousness of her anomalous position and a forecast of 
 
 F 2
 
 68 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 the misfortunes which awaited her. Her husband, though 
 quieted for a time, made his presence in London offensively 
 known, and even contrived to visit her at her lodgings in 
 Maddox Street. Not many months afterwai'ds Miss Chud- 
 leigh gave birth to a son, who, however, lived only a few short 
 weeks. The same thing happened again a year or two later, 
 and for some little time there was a boy who, if he had grown 
 to manhood, would have ' put out of joint ' the noses of the 
 subsequent Earls and Marquises of Bristol. About this time, 
 to add to the chagrin of the unhappy young wife, the Duke 
 of Hamilton returned from France, and hastened to throw 
 himself at the feet of his lady-love, and to inquire the reason 
 of her mysterious silence. Mutual explanations ensued, and 
 it appeared that, so far from his affection for Miss Chudleigh 
 having cooled, he was more than ever desirous of making her 
 his wife without delay. To his surprise, his^suit was peremp- 
 torily rejected, and it being in fact equally impossible for the 
 ci-devant Miss Chudleigh either to accept him or to explain 
 her reasons for refusing the object of her former ambition, she 
 was subjected to much inconvenient importunity from her 
 mother, as well as from the Duke. 
 
 To escape tlie reproaches and resentment of the former, 
 who, all this time Avas wholly ignorant of the fact of her 
 daughter's marriage with Mr. Hervey, and of her having be- 
 come a mother, she next embarked for the Continent, where, 
 says Hone, in his 'Year Book,' she lived in a style of shame- 
 less dissipation. Calling lierself Miss Chudleigh, she now so 
 wrought ujjon Fi-edoi'ick the Great that he dispensed with all 
 etiquette, in consequence of her request that ' she miglit study 
 at her ease a prince wlio gave lessons to all Europe, and who 
 might boast of having an admirer in every individual of the 
 British nation.' During her residence at Berlin she was 
 treated witli tlie greatest distinction. Slie aftciw.uds went to 
 Dresden, where she obtained the friendslii]> i>f the Electress, 
 who loaded her with presents. Upon returning to England, 
 .she resumed her attendance upon the Princess of Wales, and
 
 THE DUCHESS OF KINGSTON 69 
 
 continued to be the attraction of the Court. Her marriage 
 with Captain Hervey, however, perpetually annoyed her, and, 
 to destroy all trace of it, she went with a party of friends to 
 the parish where it had been celebrated, and, ha^'ing asked for 
 the register-book, tore out the record of her marriage while 
 the clergyman was in conversation with the rest of the 
 party. 
 
 Shortly afterwards, Captain Hervey becoming Earl of 
 Bristol by the death of his father, and a rumour prevailing 
 that he was in a declining state of health. Miss Chudleigh, 
 now Countess of Bristol, hoping to be soon a wealthy dowager, 
 obtained the restoration of the entry in the register. Fortune, 
 however, was against her, and she found that by her precipi- 
 tate act she had outwitted herself ; as, to her great disappoint- 
 ment, the Earl, her husband, took it into his head to recover 
 his health and strength, and she found herself once more a 
 wife, and yet not a wife. 
 
 How far her marriage with Mr. Hervey had ever leaked 
 out into the ears of ' society ' is not very clear ; but it is an 
 axiom in the highest circles, I believe, that, as sin is not sin 
 in the 'elect,' so 'vice is not vice in a duchess.' And, there- 
 fore, even if the real state of the case was known to some of 
 her friends, there was no one at hand to ' forbid the banns,' 
 when, in March 1769, she publicly married Evelyn Pierrepont, 
 Duke of Kingston, a not very wise old gentleman, who was 
 somewhat of an invalid, and whose death might be expected, 
 in the course of nature, at no distant date. 
 
 While the arrangements for this second alliance were pend- 
 ing, she made a variety of unavailing proposals to Lord Bristol 
 to agree to a divorce, and even offered to facilitate it by some 
 flagrant misconduct of her own before the eyes of all. But he 
 refused. Luckily, however, the Earl found another lady who 
 pleased him better, having plenty of cash at her banker's ; 
 and in the course of a few months a sentence of divorce was 
 pronounced by the Ecclesiastical Courts at Doctors' Commons, 
 and the marriage was solemnised as I have related.
 
 JO TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Elizabeth Chudleigh was now at all events, if not a countess, 
 at least an honest woman, and (which she valued still more 
 highly) a duchess. She had gained the height of her ambition, 
 and a giddy height she found it. She had but mounted 
 
 Uncle altior esset 
 Casus et impulse prfficeps immane ruina3. 
 
 The Duke very kindly and conveniently lived long enough 
 to establish her fairly in the eyes of the world as his duchess, 
 and then ' died, and slept with his fathers.' On opening his 
 grace's will it was found that he had bequeathed to her his 
 entire property, upon condition that she should never marry 
 again ; and the Duchess plunged into a course of licentiousness 
 which exposed her to public censure, and in consequence of 
 which she went to Italy. A magnificent yacht, built and 
 ornamented at an immense expense, conveyed her to Rome, 
 where she was received with great pomp by the Pope and 
 Cardinals, who knew but little of her antecedents, and was 
 treated as a princess. During her residence in Rome she was 
 on the eve of bestowing her hand and fortune upon an adven- 
 turer, who represented himself to be the Prince of Albania, 
 when he was apprehended as a swindler, and committed suicide 
 in prison. Soon afterwards, she learned that the heirs of the 
 Duke of Kingston sought to establish against her the charge 
 of bigamy, in order to invalidate her marriage with tlie Duke, 
 and set aside his will. She instantly repaired to her banker, 
 who, having been gained over by the other party, concealed 
 himself, to avoid giving lier the sum requisite for a journey to 
 London. She placed herself at his door, and, pistol in hand, 
 compelled him to comply with lier demand. Upon her arrival 
 in England she found that liei- first marriage had boon declared 
 valid, upon the ground of incompetency in the court which had 
 pronounced it void. Public opinion was against her ; and, 
 under the character of Lady Kitty Crocodile, .she was ridiculed 
 ])y Footc in a comely cntitlod 'A 'I'lip to Calais,' of which.
 
 THE DUCHESS OF KINGSTON 71 
 
 however, she succeeded in obtaining the jirohibition from the 
 Lord Chamberlain. 
 
 The validity of her first marriage with Mr. Hervey at 
 Lainston having been established by witnesses who were pre- 
 sent, to the satisfaction of those of the Duke's relatives who 
 had an interest in setting aside his will, it was resolved that 
 she should be publicly indicted for bigamy, and that her trial 
 should be really a State trial, being held in Westminster Hall, 
 the House of Peers sitting as her judges. 
 
 Finding it necessary to return to England, as already 
 stated, in order to meet the charges which were being made 
 publicly against her, the Duchess embarked for Dover, and, 
 reaching London, drove straight to her house at Knightsbridge, 
 where she found plenty of friends ready to espouse her cause 
 — amongst others the Earl of Mansfield and the Duke of New- 
 castle. Anxious, apparently, to turn to the best account the 
 weary weeks which must intervene before the day of the trial, 
 and to advertise herself, and to rouse, if possible, the men in 
 her cause, even if she scandalised the fairer portion of creation, 
 she resolved to put in her appearance once more in some place 
 of public resort, and accox'dingly the next night she attended 
 a masked ball at the residence of Mrs. Cornelys, at Carlisle 
 House, Soho Square. 
 
 She appeared on this occasion as ' Iphigenia.' There is a 
 print which represents her in this character, very scantily 
 dressed for a priestess, it must be owned, and which fully justi- 
 fies the sarcastic terms in which Horace Walpole alludes to it. 
 
 Meanwhile the attention of the woi'ld was concentrated on 
 the expected trial, to which Horace Walpole often alludes in 
 a vein of banter which shows that he considered the Duchess 
 no better than she ought to be. He writes to his friend Sir 
 Horace Mann, in Italy, March 22, in that year : ' Everybody 
 is on the quest for tickets for her Grace of Kingston's trial. 
 I am persuaded that her impudence will operate in some 
 singular manner ; probably she will appear in weeds, with a
 
 72 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 train to reach across Westminster Hall, with mourning maids 
 of honour to support her when she swoons at her dear Duke's 
 name, and in a black veil to conceal her blushing — or not 
 blushing. To this farce, novel and curious as it will be, I 
 shall not go. I think cripples have no business in crowds but 
 at the Pool of Bethesda ; and to be sure this is no angel that 
 troubles the waters.' 
 
 The trial was a matter which, for weeks before it came on, 
 absorbed the public attention to an extent which has never, 
 since been equalled, except by the trial of the impostor Orton, 
 who wanted to palm himself off as a genuine Tichborne. It 
 was attended by Queen Charlotte, the Prince of Wales, by 
 most of the members of the Royal Family, the foreign ambas- 
 sadors, members of Parliament, and other distinguished per- 
 sonages. The Duchess, in deep mourning, took her seat un- 
 moved, attended by two femmes de chambre, a physician, an 
 apothecary, her secretary, and a formidable army of defenders 
 in the shape of six barristers in wig and gown. I have before 
 me a picture of the Duchess standing at the bur and pleading 
 her own cause ; and if, as I have reason to think, it is a sketch 
 from life, there can be no doubt that she was a woman well 
 able to hold her own, even before the most august assembly in 
 England. 
 
 As usual, it is from the chatty pages of Horace Walpole 
 that we learn nearly all that is known of the way in which 
 * society ' at the time regarded the trial of her Grace the 
 Duchess of Kingston. He did not go actually to see it or 
 hear it, for he ' hated crowds,' and viewed the chief actor or 
 actress with no favourable eye ; but he describes the scene in 
 Westminster Hall almost as vividly as if lie had been present, 
 in this letter to Sir Horace Maim, Apiil 17, 1770 : 
 
 ' We think and talk l>utof ono subject — the solemn comedy 
 that is acting in Westminster Hall. Deep wagers had been 
 laid that tlie Ducliess would decamp before the trial came on. 
 This, with a million of other stoi'ies, has been so spread that T 
 am determined to believe no one fact but what I shall read in
 
 THE DUCHESS OF KINGSTON 73 
 
 the printed trial ; for at it I have not been, tliough curious 
 enough about so august a mummery and so original a culprit. 
 , . . The scene opened on Wednesday with all its pomp . . . 
 and the doubly noble prisoner went through her part with 
 universal admiration. Instead of her usual ostentatious folly 
 and clumsy pretensions to cunning, all her conduct was decent, 
 and even seemed natural. Her dress was entirely black and 
 plain ; her attendants not too numerous ; her dismay at first 
 perfectly unaft'ected. A few tears balanced cheerfulness 
 enough, and her presence of mind and attention never deserted 
 her. This rational behaviour and the pleadings of her four 
 counsel, who contended for the finality of her Ecclesiastical 
 Court's sentence against a second trial, carried her triumphantly 
 through the first day, and turned the stream much in lier 
 favour.' 
 
 The next day she was less successful, and, in consequence, 
 ' had to be blooded as soon as she retired, and fell into a great 
 passion of tears.' And probably Horace Walpole, at this time, 
 was not singular in thinking that the Ecclesiastical Courts 
 were quite as much on their trial as was her Grace. He adds 
 that Lord Bristol in his opinion did not stand in a fair predica- 
 ment, for he had never avowed his marriage with Miss Chud- 
 leigh, and was supposed to have connived, for a sum of money, 
 at her marrying the Duke. 
 
 Ever alive to the last floating rumours and the gossip of 
 the day, Horace writes to the Rev. W. Mason, under date 
 April 20, 1776 : ' The plot thickens, or rather opens. Yesterday 
 the judges were called on for their opinions, and una voce 
 dismantled the Ecclesiastical Court. . . The Attorney-General, 
 Thurlow, then detailed the " Life and Adventures of Elizabeth 
 Chudleigh, alias Hervey, alias the most high and puissante 
 princess the Duchess of Kingston." Her Grace bore the nar- 
 ration with a front worthy of her exalted rank. Then was 
 produced the first capital witness, the ancient damsel who was 
 present at her first marriage. ... To this witness her Grace 
 was benign, but had a transitory swoon at the mention of her
 
 74 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 dear Duke's name ; and at intervals has been blooded enough 
 to have supplied her execution, if necessary. Two babes were 
 likewise proved to have blessed her first nuptials, one of whom, 
 for aught that appears, may exist and become Earl of Bristol.' 
 
 The register of Chelsea Old Church has certainly the follow- 
 ing entry, Nov. 2, 1747 : 'Augustus Hervey, son of the Hon. 
 Augustus Hervey, baptized by the Hon. and Rev. Henry 
 Aston ' ; and the discovery of this entry, as Lysons observed, 
 might liave spared many interrogatories at the Duchess of 
 Kingston's trial. 
 
 The trial lasted through several days ; on Friday, the 19th, 
 and Saturday, the 20th, the case of the Duchess did not gain 
 ground at all, but rather the reverse. So much so, indeed, was 
 this the case, that one of her friends remarked that she must 
 have been mad ' to have sought the trial, or not to have 
 poisoned the witnesses.' For instance, there appeared a maid 
 who was present at her first marriage. Serjeant Hawkins au- 
 thenticated the birth of at least one child ; and the widow of 
 the parson who officiated at her first marriage, and on whom 
 she forced a fictitious register when she expected Lord Bristol's 
 death and had a mind to be a countess, deposed that, though 
 privy to all these circumstances, on visiting her as duchess the 
 latter said to her, ' Well, Mrs. Phillips, was not the Duke 
 very good to marry an old maid like me 1 ' 
 
 And what, the reader will ask, was the end of this memor- 
 able trial % Elizabeth Chudleigh was found by the House of 
 Peers guilty of bigamy, but, ' pleading her privilege ' as a peer's 
 wife, she was discharged without any punishment. 
 
 On the 23rd of April Walpole writes to his friend Mason : 
 * Tlie wisdom of the land lias been exerted for five days in 
 turning a duchess into a countess, and yet does not think it a 
 punishable crime for a countess to convert herself into a duchess. 
 After a paltry defence, and a speech of fifty pages (which she 
 had lierself written, and pronounced very well), the sages, in 
 spite of the Attorney-General (who brandished a hot iron), dis- 
 missed licr witli the single injunction of paying the fees, all
 
 THE DUCHESS OF KINGSTON 75 
 
 voting her guilty ; but the Duke of Newcastle — her neighbour 
 in the country — softening his vote by adding " erroneously, not 
 intentionally." So ends the solemn farce. The Earl of Bristol, 
 they say,' adds Walpole, ' does not intend to leave her that title, 
 nor the house of Medows a shilling. ... I am glad to have 
 done with her.' 
 
 Hannah More, who was present among the crowd, tells us 
 that she was dressed in deep mourning, but that hardly a trace 
 of her once enchanting beauty was visible, and that if it had 
 not been for her white face, she might easily have been taken 
 for a bale of bombasin. She adds that she behaved herself pro- 
 perly, and even with dignity, and that her presence of mind 
 did not desert her for a single moment. 
 
 Undeterred by a threat of a writ ne exeat regno being 
 issued against her, as soon as the trial was over the duchess- 
 countess was off to Calais, and on her way to Paris. She writes 
 from Calais on the 26th to a friend, sarcastically remarking 
 that the peers have recognised her as Countess of Bristol, the 
 Ecclesiastical Courts as duchess, but that she still adhered 
 to her own position, and proudly signed her name to the letter 
 'Elizabeth, Duchesse de Kingston.' She retired to Paris 'incon- 
 tinently,' as the phrase then ran ; and the writ ne exeat regno 
 was issued just after the bird was flown. Probably her enemies 
 took good care not to drive her too closely into a corner, and 
 felt that it was better for the peace of London and of ' society ' 
 that she should be on the other side of the Channel. ' Don't 
 let us talk of her any more,' writes Horace Walpole ; he adds 
 in the same breath, ' Yes, I must say a word more. I will tell 
 you what the droll Lord Abercorn said. Somebody " hoped that 
 his lordship had not suffered by the trial." He replied, " Oh 
 no ; nobody suffered by it." And, indeed, though not a comedy, 
 it was a farce.' 
 
 The subsequent career of the ex-duchess was in keeping 
 with her preceding adventures. I have already mentioned that 
 she was too sharp for the writ ne exeat regno, and before it 
 could be issued she had bolted from Knightsbridge, and turned
 
 76 TALES OP OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 up at Calais, though there were no railways or steamers to aid 
 her flight. From Calais she made her way to Rome, where she 
 contrived to propitiate the favour of the Pope so far as to be 
 received by him and feted en princesse — a good turn which she 
 requited by a handsome bequest of jewellery in her will. 
 
 After remaining there for some time she returned to Calais, 
 and hired a spacious mansion, which she furnished splendidly; 
 but the monotony of the town not suiting her volatile and tur- 
 bulent disposition, she made a voyage to St. Petersburg in a 
 magnificent yacht, and was received with the highest distinction 
 by the Empress Catherine, to whom she presented the valuable 
 collection of pictures formed by the Kingston family. She 
 afterwards went to Poland, where Prince Radzivill gave sump- 
 tuous entertainments in honour of her visit, particularly a bear- 
 hunt by torchlight. Upon returning to France, she purchased the 
 beautiful chateau de Sainte Assize, two leagues from Fontaine- 
 bleau, and a mansion in the Rue Coq-Heron at Paris, where 
 she died in 1788, after executing a will made by two attorneys 
 who came from England on purpose. She bequeathed a set of 
 jewels to the Empress of Russia, a large diamond to the Pope, 
 and a costly pearl necklace and earrings to the Countess of 
 Salisbury, because they had belonged to a lady who bore that 
 title in the reign of Henry IV. Her property in France was 
 estimated at 200,000^. sterling, besides which she had valuable 
 possessions in England and Russia. 
 
 The Duchess of Kingston, during her second noces and in 
 her second widowhood, lived at Kingston House, Knights- 
 bridge, afterwards known as Listowel House, and at one time 
 the residence of the Mai-quis Wellesley. In allusion to her 
 connection with this sjiot, she is spoken of in a play of tlic last 
 century as 'the notified Ret Clieatley, Duchess of Knights- 
 bridge.' Peter Cunningham, in his 'Handbook of London,' 
 briefly and tersely disposes of her as 'the profligate and eccen- 
 tric duclujss.' Leigh Hunt, in his 'Old Court Suburb,' styles 
 her ' an adventuress, who, after playing tricks with a parish 
 register foi' the purpose of alternately falsifying and substan-
 
 THE DUCHESS OF KINGSTON yj 
 
 tiating a real marriage, according as the prospects of her 
 husband varied, imposed herself upon a duke for a spinster, 
 and survived him as a duchess until unmasked in a court of 
 law.' He adds his opinion that she was ' a well-born and 
 handsome, but coarse-minded woman, qualified to impose on 
 none but very young or very shallow admirers. Her first 
 husband, who became Earl of Bristol, was at the time of his 
 marriage with her a young seaman just out of his teens ; and 
 the Duke, her second husband, though he was the nephew of 
 Lady Mary Wortley Montague, appears never to have out- 
 grown the teens of his understanding.' He thus wittily and 
 pithily expresses his opinion about her : 'Hating prolixity 
 and mock modesty, her maxim .... was to be "short, clear, 
 and surprising"; so she concentrated her rhetoric into swear 
 ing, and dressed in a style next door to nakedness. The 
 wealth, however, which was bequeathed to her by the Duke 
 enabled her, in spite of the loss of his title in England, to go 
 and flare as a duchess abroad, where her jewels procured for 
 her the friendship of sovereigns, and the Pope himself figured 
 in her will.' 
 
 For my own part, I venture to think that she may have 
 had, and probably had, au fond a good and noble disposition, 
 accompanied, however, with a high and proud spirit and strong 
 passions. The cruel deceit practised on her when young by 
 her aunt, coupled with her intense ambition, her waywardness, 
 and her pride, perverted the better part of her nature, and 
 drove her into courses from which in the innocence of child- 
 hood and youth she would have shrunk back with horror. 
 
 There is a sense of awful responsibility in the reflection 
 that we all exercise an influence, more or less, for good or evil 
 on those around us ; and for those who misuse it to warp the 
 ductile minds of the young in order to carry out their own 
 selfish purposes, a fearful day of reckoning will surely come, 
 when they will plead in vain, ' Am I my brother's keeper ' ? 
 Such, at least, is the moral that I would have my readers draw 
 from the story of Elizabeth Chudleigh.
 
 78 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Mr. Addison, in his ' Anecdotes,' tells an amusing story of 
 tlie Duchess, showing that she was proud and haughty, and 
 had far too high a sense of her dignity. Being one day de- 
 tained in her carriage by a cart of coals that was unloading in 
 a very narrow street, she leaned out with both her arms upon 
 the door, and asked the fellow, ' How dare you, sirrah, to stop 
 a woman of quality in the street % ' ' Woman of quality ! ' 
 replied the man. ' Yes, fellow,' rejoined her Grace ; ' don't 
 you see my arms ujwn my carriage ? ' ' Yes, I do indeed,' he 
 answered, 'and a pair of d — d coarse arms they are.' 
 
 THE DRUMMONDS, EARLS OF PERTH. 
 
 Few names, even in Scottish history, stand forth more nobly 
 and proudly than that of Druramond. According to Sir 
 Bernard Burke and the heralds, the house of Drummond 
 derives its descent from a Hungarian in the suite of Edgar 
 Atheling, the contemporary, and in some sense rival, of William 
 the Conqueror ; but the importance of the family dates really 
 from the reign of Robert III. of Scotland, who took for his 
 consort Lady Annabella, a fair daughter of Drummond of 
 Stobhall. From that period tliey became closely connected 
 with the Court and the Crown of Scotland, and attained the 
 lionours of the peerage of that country over four hundred 
 years ago, in A.D. 1487, when the head of the house, Sir Joliii 
 Drummond, of Cargill and Sl(>l)]iall, a distinguisliod statesman 
 and fliplomatist of his day, and Anil)assador Exti'aordinary to 
 i\w. Court of St. James, was created liord I )iu)niinind : his 
 great-great-grandson James, fourtli Lord, being Ambassador 
 for King James VL to Spain, was created in lOOr), Earl of 
 Perth, with remaindei- to his ' heirs male whomsoever.' 
 
 Tlic story of the origin of the name of Drummond is thus 
 related in tlie older Peerages : ' Maurice, son of George, son of 
 Andrew, King of Tfiingary, lieing in command of the vessel in 
 which Saint Margaret, afteiwards Queen of Malcolm III.,
 
 THE DRUMMONDS, EARLS OF PERTH 79 
 
 embarked for Hungary, happened to be driven by a storm into 
 the Firth of Forth. Here, on landing, fortune befriended him, 
 for he was made Steward of Lennox, and received from the 
 hands of King Malcohii the lands of Drymen, or Drummen, 
 from which was derived the name of Drummond. And to this 
 day, in memory of his safe pilotage of Queen Margaret, his 
 descendants bear for their arms "three bars wavy, gules," 
 representing the waves of the sea.' 
 
 His descendant in the fifth generation, Sir John Di'ummond 
 of Drummond, and Steward or Thane of Lennox, was a brave 
 defender of the liberties of Scotland at the commencement of 
 King Edward's usurpation ; and his son, Sir Malcolm, im- 
 mediately after the Battle of Bannockburn, obtained from 
 Robert I. a grant of broad lands in Per-thshire, in reward of 
 his services in that battle, in which, by his advice, caltrops were 
 first used as a defence against the English horse. In memory 
 of this sage counsel, 'his descendants,' as Burke tells us, 'bear 
 caltrops upon a compartment with their arms, along with the 
 motto, " Gang warily." ' 
 
 His grandson. Sir John Drummond, marrying a lady named 
 De Montifex, heiress of Stobhall and other extensive estates 
 in Perthshire, became by her the father of a daughter, the 
 Lady Annabella, a lady of great beauty and merit, whom I 
 have already mentioned as the wife of King Robert III. She 
 was crowned with him, as Queen Consort of Scotland, in Sep- 
 tember 1390 ; and it is worthy of note that her blood runs in 
 the veins not merely of Queen Victoria, but of many other 
 crowned heads of Europe in this our nineteenth century. 
 
 It is not my purpose here to give an exact account of all 
 the achievements of all the Lords of Drummond and Earls of 
 Perth. It is enough to say that, in the words of one of the 
 members of that House, Lady Clementina Davies, in her 
 'Recollections of Society,' they 'first suffered exile and losses 
 in common with the Stuarts, whom they regarded as their 
 only true sovereigns ; and then, after a hundred years of exile 
 at St, Germain, they shared the fall and misfortunes of the
 
 8o TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 House of Bonrboai. to which they had been scarcely less loyally 
 attached.' 
 
 This claim, advanced by Lady C. Davies, is supported by 
 the independent testimony of Burke, who observes : ' Their 
 loyalty (i.e. that of the Drummonds) to the throne shone at 
 all times conspicuous ; but the crisis which called out their 
 whole energies and devotion was the great contest which pre- 
 ceded the final overthow of the ancient dynasty of Scotland, 
 that of the Stuarts. So long as the conflict was waged on the 
 battle-field, the Drummonds fought manfully in the cause which 
 they had espoused, and, at length, when the last ruin of the 
 hajDless cause of Stuart was consummated at Culloden, they 
 left their native land, to die banished and broken-hearted in a 
 foreign clime. They had fearlessly set their all upon the cast 
 of the die, and they cheerfully submitted to its hazard.' 
 
 And such really was the case ; James, the fourth Earl of 
 Perth, on the defeat and abdication of King James II., accom- 
 panied his sovereign into exile at St. Germain. He was Loi^d 
 Chancellor of Scotland, and a man of high standing in the 
 world of politics as well as of law ; he was also connected with 
 the noblest of the Scottish houses, his three wives having been 
 respectively the daugliter of tlie Marquis of Douglas, tlie 
 widow of the Earl of Tullibardine, and the daughter of the 
 Marquis of Huntly, head of the ducal house of Gordon. His 
 fidelity to the Stuarts was not unrewarded, us he was raised by 
 James, in 1G95, to the Dukedom of Perth, a title which was 
 confirmed in France by Louis XIV. on the death of James, 
 along with the other Dukedoms of Berwick, Fitzjames, Albe- 
 marle, and ISlclfort. He died just before the Scottish rising of 
 1715. 
 
 But I must pass on to another ]>art of the story of the 
 Drummonds, that of the second Duke of Perth and of liis 
 "allaiit duchess. ITistoiy tells us liow James, fifth li^arl and 
 second Duk(^ of Perth, fought Ity tlie side of King James at 
 tlie Buttle of the Boyne, at Limeiick, and ut Londonderry, and, 
 reniiiining witli him till all his hopes were defeated, returned
 
 THE DRUMMONDS, EARLS OF PERTH 8r 
 
 to Scotland in 1692. While his father lay a prisoner in Stir- 
 ling Castle, he crossed over to France, and was made Master 
 of the Horse to Mary of Modena, James's queen. Next, 
 returning to Scotland, we find him opposing the Union with 
 all his might ; and, in 1715, he joined the standard of rebellion 
 raised by the Earl of Mar and his Highland chieftains, and 
 commanded the cavalry at the Battle of SherifFmuir, His wife 
 was Lady Jean Gordon, a daughter of tlie Duke of Gordon, 
 whose story I here relate. 
 
 Both by family descent — her father and her mother being 
 strict Roman Catholics — and also in virtue of her marriae-e, 
 her Grace had imbibed a spirit of entire devotion to the 
 Stuart cause. She is described, in a contemporary pamphlet, 
 now very scarce, as having a ' tolerable share of beauty, and a 
 majestic person ' — qualities which certainly are more tJian 
 borne out by the original portrait of her Grace, painted by 
 Van Vost in 1711, and still to be seen at Drummond Castle. 
 She has a magnificent high -forehead, and prominent nose and 
 chin ; a mouth expressive of the most firm resolution ; 
 and brown eyes, a shade or two darker than her hair. As we 
 look on that face, we can easily believe that her temper was 
 ' rather imperious than soft,' and that she was as ' passionate ' 
 as ' obstinate.' We are told that even as a child she showed 
 some traces of ferocity and cruelty ; but, adds the writer 
 (who, however, is prejudiced against her as a ' female rebel '), 
 'since she commenced to play the warrior, she has given a 
 full swing to the natural fierceness of her disposition, and in 
 many cases has laid aside not only the woman, but even 
 humanity.' 
 
 It appears that when the Chevalier first landed in the 
 Highlands, the Duke of Perth, though wishing well to his 
 cause, was scarcely willing to risk a rising in his favour ; but 
 his duchess, like a true woman, was no such half-hearted par- 
 tisan. His Grace's disposition caused her great uneasiness : 
 ' she sweetened, cajoled, threatened, and caressed him by turns ; 
 sometimes she was all mildness, and would attempt to reason 
 
 G
 
 82 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 him into her measures ; at other times she was all fire and 
 flint, and would needs force him into her terms. And when 
 the Duke would reply, as he did sometimes, that he would 
 gladly make an eflbrt if he saw a chance of success, she called 
 him a "poor pusillanimous wretch," and tauiated him in bitter 
 terms with the meanness of waiting to see what other chiefs 
 would join the Chevalier's standard. "You wait," she cried, 
 " till some great man joins him ; another, till a third joins ; 
 and he till you both join. The consequence will be that you 
 will be so long in debating as to whether it is safe to join or 
 not, that you will lose the opportunity for ever. . . . For 
 God's sake ! if you deserve to be Duke of Perth, exert your- 
 self suitably to your rank, and show by your actions that you 
 deserve the title you bear by daring to fight for it." ' 
 
 In this way her Grace continvied to urge the duke till 
 Charles Edward was within a few miles of Castle Drummond ; 
 and when her husband would have gladly absented himself 
 and washed his hands of the affair, she vowed that she would 
 shut the gates against him and give him up as a prisoner to 
 the Prince, if lie would not stir himself. Accordingly, lie 
 thought it best to obey his spouse, and to wait on Charles 
 Edward. 80 ' he and she went in their coacli and six, and met 
 him about seven miles from Castle Drummond, where he lay 
 that night.' We can easily imagine with wJiat zeal and polite- 
 ness she exerted herself to entertain her royal guest, while the 
 Duke .sat Ijy in a iiiclaiichuly ' lii-own study.' Indeed, so 
 successfully did she ply her woman's weapons of banter, jest, 
 and taunt, tliat before the Prince left the house the Duke liad 
 plucked up a .spirit, and entered heart and soul into that brave 
 l)ut mad enterprise wliicli was to strip liim of his princely 
 posses.sions, and .send liim forth an exile and a wanderer, like 
 the Prince whose failing cause lie e.spoused. 
 
 Next day the Duk(! contcntcid himself witli escorting the 
 Piince us far as P(!rth, and with issuinga proclamation calling 
 on his retainers to appear under the banner of the House of 
 Castle Drummond within six days. But her Grace was a
 
 THE DRUMMONDS, EARLS OF PERTH 83 
 
 much more active i^artisan. She was out on horseback for 
 three clays and thi-ee nights, during which she never slept, and 
 then returned to the castle at the head of seven hundred and 
 fifty men. As the Duke had not come back, she set up the 
 family standard with her own hand, proclaimed the Prince by 
 the sound of bagpijDes and hunting-horns, which she was 
 obliged to use for want of trumpets, laid open her cellars to 
 the multitude, and, mounting on horseback, rode at the head 
 of her troops to meet the Duke. The latter, who had no idea 
 of seeing so many men under arms, was at first afraid, and 
 thought that he was about to be seized and arrested ; but the 
 Duchess assured him there was no ground for alarm, and that 
 the men at her back were her own levy. ' The change of 
 fancied enemies into real friends,' says the pamphlet, 'was 
 very agreeable to the Duke and his party, who, it is said, 
 showed very little stomach to fight, and, if the joke had been 
 carried any further, would in all probability have showed her 
 Grace a pair of heels. This advantage afforded table talk to 
 the Young Pretender's Court for a considerable time ; and the 
 banter was carried so far against the Duke that he was much 
 annoyed at it, and the Pretender was obliged to put a stop 
 to it by his authority.' 
 
 Accompanying her husband and the Prince to Edinburgh, 
 the Duchess added much to the brilliancy of his Court at Holy- 
 rood. All sorts of anecdotes are told of her wit, her presence 
 of mind, and readiness of resource. For instance, just before 
 the battle of Prestonpans, when her husband came to take 
 leave of her in a desponding mood, she quietly said, ' "Well, yoii 
 are going to the battle, and I to cards : both are in the hands 
 of chance, and I shall be quite happy if you come back 
 victorious, though with the loss of a leg or an arm ; but I 
 really care little whether you die on the field of honour or in 
 my arms on a bed : but I would rather be the widow of a man 
 who had died nobly in a righteous cause, than the wife of the 
 greatest duke or prince on earth.' 
 
 After the battle, she urged the Duke to follow up the 
 
 G 2
 
 84 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 success which he had thus far gained, and to push on while 
 the enemy was panic-struck, before the King's troops could 
 be brought together. But she seems to have been as cruel as 
 she was audacious ; for she urged her husband to put to the 
 sword the prisoners that were taken, and to carry a Border 
 castle by assault, or starve its holders into submission. And 
 when she could not gain her point, it is recorded that she took 
 a barbarous pleasure in insulting the prisoners whom she had 
 in hand, and even blamed the Prince for treating them with 
 common humanity. 
 
 When the Highland army crossed into England, the 
 Duchess wovild not be left behind, but, attended by only a 
 lady friend, Mrs. Murray, and a single maid, she resolved to 
 join in the campaign, though it was winter. In the March of 
 that year she was up and on horseback with the daybreak ; 
 and when Carlisle surrendered, she strongly urged the policy 
 of hanging all the townsmen because they did not open their 
 gates at her first summons, holding that it was a good thing 
 to strike terror at once. Here, as is well known, both the 
 Prince and her husband, not seeing much prospect of being 
 able to carry the war by a coup de main, were inclined to turn 
 back into Scotland ; but her Grace set aside the idea by vow- 
 ing that if her husband would not head the Drummonds, she 
 would head them herself, and fight till not one remained ; 
 adding, with true female spite, that if he wished so much to 
 save his pitiful carcass, she would try to do his part in the 
 field, and he would not be much missed in the .cabinet ! 
 
 On the return of the army northwards, we are told that 
 the citizens of Glasgow were made by her to feel the full 
 weight of her resentment, and that it was through her that the 
 levies and supplies enforced upon that city were so exorbitant 
 as almost to cause an outbreak. Prom this place, however, 
 slie found it necessary to return with the Duke and a detach- 
 ment to Drummond Castle, and there .she remained till the 
 rest of the defeated Highlanders rejoined them. Here it 
 would i^eem that, fairly brought to bay, and irritated to mad-
 
 THE DRUMMONDS, EARLS OF PERTH 85 
 
 ness at the failure of her enterprise, she gave loose reins to 
 her innate cruelty, not only taking a barbarous pleasure in 
 seeing the common prisoners tortured, and insulting the 
 officers, but showing herself a terror and scourge even to her 
 own people. She was, we are told, so strict a disciplinarian 
 that she would forgive no fault, however trifling, or neglect of 
 her wishes even in trifles. 
 
 At Culloden her Grace was in the rear of the army, and 
 it was with difiiculty that she was prevented from appearing 
 in the front. When the troops began to show some signs of 
 rout, she saw a certain lord making away at full speed. As 
 he passed her G-race, she cried out, ' My lord, you mistake 
 your way : the enemies are behind, and you will not meet 
 them in that direction ! ' In the retreat she helped to cover 
 the hindmost of the fugitives, and wheeled round several times 
 against the light horse that were in close pursuit. She kept 
 with the fugitives as far as Inverness, where, worn out with 
 vexation and disappointment far more than by actual fatigue, 
 she was forced to rest for an hour, and there was arrested the 
 same day, partly by force and partly by ti-eachery, together 
 with some other ladies of less note. 
 
 Long after her husband's death the Duchess continued, 
 though passively, to maintain the Stuart cause in the North ; 
 and it is recorded o-f her that she had the gi'eater part of the 
 walls of Drummond Castle demolished and levelled to their 
 foundations, in order to prevent it from being seized and 
 garrisoned by the Royal troops. She remained there — so says 
 the family tradition — until she saw the work of destruction 
 completed, when she retired to Stobhall, in Perthshire, and 
 there she ended her troubled days in peace at the age of about 
 ninety years. 
 
 A fatality seems to have constantly followed the holders 
 of the ducal title. The Duke died at Paris in 1720, leaving 
 two sons, James and John, both of whom, exiles in a foreign 
 land, in tuni assumed the coronet of barren strawberry-leaves, 
 though under attainder, while their noble estates were con-
 
 86 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 fiscated by the Crown, and given to the Drummonds of Lun- 
 din. a younger branch. 
 
 After John, the fourth duke, came two other dukes, his 
 uncles • but they speedily followed each other to the tomb at 
 St. Germain, issueless, and apparently unmarried. And in 
 the year 1760 perished the last male descendant of the loyal 
 Scottish Chancellor, the earldom being dormant, or presumed 
 to have become extinct through the operation of the attainder 
 forty-five years previously. 
 
 A distant cousin, James Drummond, of Lundin, bent upon 
 reviving, if possible, the lost but untarnished shield of the 
 family, got himself 'served ' at Edinburgh in 1765 'heir male ' 
 of the exiled lords, and in consequence was recognised as head 
 and representative of the house of Drummond. He was styled 
 by his friends tenth Earl of Perth, and such, no doubt, he 
 was de jure, though the earldom was under the eclipse of the 
 attainder. His son and successor, James, eleventh earl de 
 jure, obtained in 1785 tlie restoration of tlie Drummond estates 
 by the Court of Session and Act of Parliament, as being ' the 
 nearest collateral heir male of Lord John Drummond, in wliom 
 the lands had become forfeited in 17IG.' His Scottish earl- 
 dom, however, was never recognised by the Crown or Parlia- 
 ment, nor did he ever atteinpt to record Ins vote at elections 
 for Scottish representative peers. But in 1797 he was created 
 a peer of Groat Britain as Baron of Perth ; he died, however, 
 soon after, without leaving a son ; and the magnilicent estates 
 of the ancient Earls of Perth, iixludiiig Drummond Castle, 
 passed by inheritance to his only daugliter and heir, who 
 carried them in marriage to Lord Willoughby de Eresby. 
 
 The representation, liowever, of tin- dormant earldom of 
 Perth, apart from tlie po.s.session of its osfntm, rovertfd to the 
 neare.st heir male, James Lewis, fourth Duke of Molfdrt in 
 Franco, as groat grandson of John Drummond, Earl and Duke 
 of Mdfort. He died, liowever, a few months sul)sequently, 
 when his brother, CharlcH Edward Drummond, became fifth 
 Duke of Molfort in Vy»} , ;m.l d' j„r, I liirtociit h Karl ..f
 
 THE DRUMMONDS, EARLS OF PERTH 87 
 
 Perth ill Scotland. Being a Catholic prelate, however, he was 
 never able to effect the restoration of his dormant Scottish 
 honours, or even to bring his case before the House of Lords. 
 On his death at Rome, in 1840, the headsliip of the family- 
 devolved on his nephew, George Drummond, who was born in 
 London in 1807, and for some years held a captaincy in the 
 93rd Highlanders. Li 1853, his petition to that effect having 
 been duly presented and considered, he was restored by the 
 special command and recommendation of her Majesty and by 
 an Act of Parliament passed without a dissentient voice ; and 
 accordingly he is now fourteenth Earl of Perth in the peerage 
 of Scotland, and sixth Duke of Melfort in France. 
 
 This dukedom is not a sham one, like that of the apocry- 
 phal and soi-disant ' Due de Roussillon,' but a real and sub- 
 stantial title, regularly bestowed and regularly transmitted 
 from its first grantee, John Drummond, a grandson of the 
 third Earl of Perth. Like his kinsman, Lord Perth followed 
 King James to St. Germain, where on AjDril 17, 1692, he was 
 raised to the dukedom by liis sovereign, and the title was con- 
 firmed to him in France by Le Grand Monarque. He was, 
 however, attainted in Scotland by the Parliament of that king- 
 dom in 1695, expressly for having been seen at St. Germain. 
 
 Thus, for some six or seven generations have the ancient 
 and loyal Drummonds been obliged to live as exiles from their 
 native land, admitted to the Courts of the Tuileries and Ver- 
 sailles, but banished from that of St. James. Thus, under 
 the stupid and senseless penal laws of the last century have 
 Scottish energy, capacity, and integrity been added to the 
 capital of France, and deducted from that of Great Britain, 
 the loss of this country being precisely the gain of our neigh- 
 bours. When the Drummonds fled into exile in 1688, Le 
 Grand j\ronarque was graciously pleased to reward them not 
 only with titles, but with a residence in the Royal Chateau at 
 St. Germain, where they lived without intermission for a cen- 
 tury or more ; and I believe that I am not exceeding the 
 liberty which has been allowed me when I add that Lady
 
 88 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Clementina Davies, to whom I owe some of the intelligence 
 contained in these pages, was the very last person born within 
 the Chateau of St. Germain in October 1795, just before the 
 necessities of the first French Revolution drove back the 
 Drummonds to the shores which they had left for exile and 
 comparative poverty in the cause of loyalty. Aymez loyaulte 
 is the motto of the Paulets, Marquises of Winchester ; but 
 there is no need to write those words on the banners of the 
 Drummonds, for they ai'c already engraven upon their hearts. 
 If not, they never will be now. 
 
 THE THBEE MISS WALPOLES 
 
 My readers, no doubt, will all remember the Miss Gunnings,^ 
 the Court beauties about whom the whole fashionable world — 
 indeed, I may say all the island from the Land's End to John 
 o' Groat's House — ran mad some century and a quarter ago, 
 and one of whom a contemporary writer styles the ' double 
 duchessed,' in allusion to her having married two dukes in 
 succession. Their story is somewhat strange in its way, but 
 it is equalled, if not surpassed, in romance by the tale of the 
 l)irths, marriages, and ultimate fortunes of three beautiful 
 Miss Walpoles, the daughters of Horace Walpolo's l)rotlier 
 Edward by a certain ' left-handed ' union, the details of which 
 are to be seen in the ' IMemoirs of Horace Walpole and his 
 Contemporaries,' edited in 184.5 by Eliot Warburton. 
 
 (Sir Robert Walpole, wlio was for so many years Prime 
 ^Minister under Kings George I. and II., and who was created 
 Earl of Orford on retiring from ministerial life, left three 
 sons. The eldest was Robert, who succeeded as second earl ; 
 the younge.st was Horace, the wit and anti(|uary of Straw- 
 berry Hill ; and between them in tlie family tree stood the 
 great statesman's second son Edward (some time a member of 
 Parliament and Chief Secretary for Ireland), who, though he 
 
 ' See above, p. 12,
 
 THE THREE MISS WALPOLES 89 
 
 nevei' himself wore a peer's coronet, became eventually the 
 grandfather of one royal duke and of one royal princess, and 
 the great-grandfather of at least one duke and one marquis 
 in the peerage of Great Britain. 
 
 Good looks were a heritage in the Walpole family. AVe 
 are told that when the great Sir Robert Walpole was a young 
 man about town he was one of the handomest of a very hand- 
 some set, and a full share of his good looks appears to have 
 passed to his son Edward, who was born in or about 1710. 
 AMien he was only eighteen his appearance was so much in his 
 favour that the ladies in Italy and Paris with one consent 
 gave him the name of ' the handsome Englishman.' Having 
 completed his education by going what was known as the 
 ' Grand Tour,' without which no man of ' quality ' could be 
 regarded as fit for society, he resolved to settle down in Lon- 
 don, leading an easy, self-indulgent life as a bachelor, lodging 
 at the West End, and belonging to half a dozen clubs where 
 high play and Whig politics prevailed. In the year 1730 he 
 occupied first-floor apartments over the shop of a certain 
 tailor, in Pall Mall, named Rennie, who, we are told, made 
 children's coats. As he passed daily by the door, in order to 
 get to his apartments, his notice was frequently attracted by 
 one of the youthful apprentices — a fair girl with blue eyes and 
 bright Saxon complexion — who worked in the shop, cutting 
 out patterns and sewing small clothes. Her name was Mary 
 Clement. Her family, though respectable, were too reduced 
 in circumstances to give her any better education than such as 
 she could pick up in Mr. Rennie's establishment ; but, though 
 poor, they were anxious that she should maintain a good 
 reputation. Mr. Edward Walpole somehow or other con- 
 trived to have frequent interviews with her when Rennie's 
 back was turned, and to give her many little presents ; but 
 not so secretly as to escape the more penetrating eye of 
 Madame Rennie, who rated her soundly, and even sent for 
 her father, in order to take her into the country out of the 
 way of temptation. No doubt she lectured her pretty sharply
 
 90 
 
 TALES OF OUR GREAT FA MIL IE S 
 
 on the great impi^opriety of her receiving presents and other 
 attentions from so ' fine ' a gentleman as their lodger on the 
 first floor, and tried hard to convince her how much more it 
 would be to the advantage of 'such a girl as plain Mary 
 Clement to become the wife of a respectable tradesman in her 
 own rank of life, rather than carry on a flirtation with one so 
 much above her as Mr. Edwai'd Walpole.' Somehow or other, 
 however, Mary Clement failed to see the matter from her 
 mistress's point of view, though she appeared to be ready to 
 listen to her disinterested advice, and even began to make 
 ready for her departure. Indeed, it is said by one fussy 
 chronicler of minute details that she ' went upstairs and began 
 to pack up her boxes,' as apprentices and servant-girls usually 
 do in such cases. 
 
 Be this, however, as it may, one thing is certain, namely, 
 that the next morning, when Mr. Rennie opened his shop, 
 there was no Mary Clement to be seen or found ; and that as 
 the day wore on she never returned to her needle. It appears 
 that immediately on leaving Mrs. Rennie's presence she had 
 rushed upstairs to the apartments of the 'handsome English- 
 man ; when ' — to use the words of the biographer of the 
 Walpoles — 'he received her with open arms ; she vowed that 
 slie would never leave him ; and she kept her word.' It is to 
 be hoped, however, that Mr. Walpolo, wlicn lie thus ' received 
 hor witli open arms,' really meant only to w.ni for lier father's 
 dcatli in order to give the poor gii'l, wlio lind llius thrown 
 herself wliolly on liis lionour, that position of a wife to wliich 
 licr l)eauty, licr aflfcclion for him, and lier llien unsullied good 
 name, conspired to en title In r. 
 
 By Mary Clement lie li.-ul lixc cliildrcn, two sons and tlinM' 
 daughters; and it i^ due to his memory to add tliat lie took 
 every care wliicli \\\i' fondest of fidlici-s could t;ike of their 
 education. As cliildrcn tliey were all remarkably handsome, 
 like tlieir parents. Her first boy appears to have died in cliild- 
 lirif.d. )iii\ inrj boon prnbidilv eiii-riod nfT bv llie ine.'i-~le- ni the
 
 THE THREE MISS WALPOLES 91 
 
 small-pox, which at that time claimed its annual tribute of 
 victims from every house of ' the upper ten thousand ; ' but of 
 tlie three girls, as they grew up to womanhood, a contemporary 
 writer of gossip avows his firm belief that, if the three Graces 
 of the heathen poets returned to earth, it was doubtful whether 
 they would be more afraid of the fair Walpoles or of the fair 
 Gunnings as rivals. After the birth of her fifth child, the 
 poor devoted Mary Clement herself died, at the age of only 
 four-and-twenty, her little son soon following her to the grave. 
 Deep was the grief of the father of her children ; and, although 
 no plain gold ring had symbolised and blessed their union, he 
 mourned her early death as any fond husband would have 
 mourned the loss of the best and most affectionate of wives. 
 But I must hasten on. 
 
 Mr. Edward Walpole was now not only a member of Par- 
 liament, but the holder of more than one lucrative appoint- 
 ment under the Crown, and his father was in the zenith of his 
 power as Prime Minister. Free from all the ties which the 
 life of Mary Clement might have imposed upon him, still young 
 and handsome, and with as brilliant prospects before him as 
 any young man of his day, his position would have entitled 
 him to think of marrying into any of the best families in the 
 kingdom, with whom doubtless his three handsome daughters 
 would not have been serious impediments ; but he never would 
 think or talk of marriage : his love was buried in the grave of 
 Mary Clement, and his only thought was for her children. At 
 all events, if at any time he entertained any ambitious desire 
 of elevating himself, it was only with a view to their elevation 
 that he coveted the distinction. He was installed a Knight 
 of the Bath in 1753 ; and when the Duke of Devonshire became 
 Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, Sir Edward Walpole was ap- 
 pointed Chief Secretary, and sworn a member of the Privy 
 Council. He subsequently I'eturned to England, and became 
 Joint-Secretary of the Treasury — a post which no doubt he 
 preferred to his splendid exile in Dublin, as it bronoht him
 
 92 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 back to that London life whicli he loved as well as did his 
 brother Horace.^ 
 
 The three daughters of Sir Edward were respectively 
 named Laura, Maria, and Charlotte ; they were elegant, lively, 
 and highly accomplished, and of good temper and wit they 
 had their full share. The portraits of Laura and Charlotte 
 were painted in a single picture by Ramsay, and that of Maria 
 by Sir Joshua Reynolds. At the Strawberry Hill sale these 
 pictures fetched respectively fifty and seven hundred guineas. 
 The ladies were already reckoned among the chief beauties 
 of their time, and they excited the admira,tion of everyone 
 who had the happiness of enjoying their society. Grand- 
 daughters of the Prime Minister, and as amiable as they were 
 lovely, they might fairly have appeared worthy of the affection 
 of the proudest nobles of the land. To any such idea, however, 
 their left-handed birth opposed what — strange to say in a day 
 when the King's German mistresses were raised wholesale to 
 the peerage of England — appeared at the time an insuperable 
 bar. They were known, not as Misses Clement, but by their 
 father's name ; but, by the prudish rules of St. James's, they 
 could not be presented at that Court, where ladies by no 
 means respectable were received wholesale ; and so of course 
 'those Miss Walpoles,' as no doubt the Duchess of Kendal 
 and Lady Walsingham snubbingly styled tliom, were never 
 recognised by persons who could boast of an unsullied descent 
 .so far as appears in the recoi-ds of the Heralds' College. 
 
 On the other hand, ITorace Walpole him.solf, be it said to 
 his credit, was very partial to liis l)rother's daughters, and 
 constantly invited them to Strawberry Hill. Indeed, as might 
 have been expected from one who combined as much as he did 
 of the re]tub]icnn with tlie courtier, he was very proud of them 
 one and ;ill, nnl w itlisl;m(ling llic bend sinister wliicli marked 
 
 ' It is said of Ilonico \V;i]])ole i\\;\i lie onc-c wliinisinally declared :it 
 Strawberry Hill Hint \\i- would like to bo a doctor if only for one reiison 
 — Iliat he mi^jlit. coiit iiui;illy write for liis ]iaticnts one pnuid recijie 
 for ,'dl coni])l;iints: ' ncciiJC Ilaustus ccclxv. aura3 Londin. in diem 
 sumendos,'
 
 ■I HE THREE MISS WALPOLES 93 
 
 theii" escutcheon, or, if I must speak heraldically, their 'lozenge.' 
 His friends and correspondents record that he would gladly 
 leave any of his favourite occupations, even his collections of 
 old china, in order to attend upon his fa\'ourite nieces ; and 
 it was almost always a grand and festive day when the lord 
 of Strawberry Hill announced that he was to welcome the 
 Walpole beauties witliin its Gothic walls. But there were 
 younger men than ' dear Uncle Horace ' who were ready to 
 leave their pursuits and professional studies in town in order 
 to pass an afternoon in their charming society ; and the lesser 
 Court of King Horace at Twickenham proved no contemptible 
 rival to the greater Court of King George and his Queen at 
 St. James's. 
 
 In fact, the beauty and real goodness and worth of the 
 Walpole girls conspired with the lax code of morality in the 
 highest circles to break down the barriers which as yet stood 
 in their way. Added to this, the prejudices which had hitherto 
 kept members of aristocratic families from matching with 
 young women of plain and untitled families were gradually 
 passing out of date. Had not jolain Sarah Jennings worn the 
 ducal coronet of Marlborough, and ruled as a queen of society, 
 even over kings and queens and courts ? And were the grand- 
 daughters of Sir Robert Walpole, though not born in wed- 
 lock, to be debarred from the outer circle of a court where 
 even the marriage of a lady was no guarantee of her correct 
 conduct ? 
 
 The tirst young man of good birth and high prospects — be 
 it said to his credit— who resolved to set this code at defiance, 
 was the Hon. and Rev. Frederick Keppel, a younger brother 
 of the Earl of Albemarle. He was a clergyman of wood 
 character and fair position, already holding preferment in the 
 Established Church, and one who not unreasonably might look 
 forward to the prospect of further promotion. He much ad- 
 mired Laura, the eldest of the three, and he thought he saw 
 in her those qualities which would make a good wife for a 
 clergyman. He knew the history of Mary Clement, and in
 
 94 
 
 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 spite of it he resolved to propose for her daughter. Horace 
 Walpole thus writes on the subject : 
 
 ' I have forgot to tell you of a wedding in our family ; my 
 brother's eldest daughter is to be married to-morrow to Lord 
 Albemarle's Ijrother, a Canon of Windsor. We are very happy 
 with the match. The bride is very agreeable, sensible, and 
 good, though not so handsome, perhaps, as her sisters. . . . 
 The second, Maria, is beauty itself. Her face, bloom, eyes, 
 hair, teeth, and person, are all perfect. You may imagine how 
 charming she is when I tell you that her only fault, if one 
 must find one, is that her face is rather too round. She has 
 a great deal of wit and vivacity, with perfect modesty.' 
 
 Mr. Keppel, already Canon of Windsor, my readers may 
 be glad to learn, lived to mount the ladder of further promo- 
 tion, and died Bishop of Exeter ; nor did I ever hear that he 
 found cause to regret the choice that he made when he married 
 the daughter of plain Mary Clement. As the untitled daughter 
 of that untitled lady, the doors of St. James's had been closed 
 against her; but as ' the Hon. Mrs. Keppel ' she at once appeared 
 at Court, and was duly presented to the King and Queen ' on 
 her marriage,' as is written in the book of the chronicles of 
 the ' Court Circular ' of the day. 
 
 It is needless to state that after this marriage of the eldest 
 sister, the chances in fa\our of the beautiful Maria and Chgir- 
 lotte making 'good matches' increased wonderfully, and that 
 they soon found as good a market to carry their matriiuonia] 
 wares to as they could have found at the ' Drawing Kooni ' of 
 royalty. In fact, the sisters-in-law of the Kcppels appear to 
 have been sisters-in-lovc as well as sisters-in-law ; and in 
 "eneral society the prejudices which for a time liad stood in 
 the way of tlio young ladies' advancement soon began to 
 crumble away. Introduced into general society by the 
 Keppels, they were received everywhere amojig tlie Sull'ulk 
 county families, ISIaria, the beauty of the family, creating a 
 iii;irkcd sensation wherever she api»eared. 
 
 Among the numerous admirers of the belle of tlie season
 
 THE THREE MISS WALPOLES 95 
 
 was a certain noble earl, of high and noble descent, who, 
 though not quite young, nor yet quite advanced in years, 
 thought himself not too old to take a young wife. Maria 
 Walpole, he thought, was by far the most lovely woman that 
 he had ever seen, at all events that he knew ; but then it was 
 the old story— ' there were objections,' strong, though possibly 
 not insurmountable. His lordship, who was no other than 
 James, second Earl Waldegrave, had held the highly respect- 
 able post of Governor and Privy Purse to the Prince of Wales ; 
 he was also Privy Councillor, a Knight of the Garter, and a 
 Teller of the Exchequer ; and it would scarcely be becoming, 
 he thought, to fly in the face of his royal master, and offenrl 
 courtly propriety by marrying a lady whom the King and 
 Queen could not possibly recognise, even though that lady was 
 a Walpole. But while Lord Waldegrave was striving to digest 
 his scruples, and to M'eigh his interest against his inclinations, 
 he found the prize within his reach was daily becoming more 
 and more precious in the eyes of several persons of distinction 
 who had similar opportunities with himself of observing how 
 much more lustre the matchless face of Maria Walpole would 
 add to a coronet than a coronet would add to her face. The 
 Earl also could not but remember that he was already four- 
 and- forty, and that there were plenty of younger rivals in the 
 field who w^ould be likely to take advantage of any indecision 
 on his part. Indeed, he was given to understand by one of 
 those kind lady fi'iends who love to have a finger in the pie of 
 every match-making arrangement, that with his lordship it 
 was a question of ' now or never,' and it was no season for 
 shilly-shallying. 
 
 The result was, as might have been expected, that the 
 Prince's Governor and Privy Purse, Earl, Privy Councillor, 
 Knight of the Garter, and Teller of the Exchequer though he 
 was, came to a decision to follow the example of Mr. Keppel, 
 and lay his honours and coronet at the feet of the daughter of 
 the poor tailor's apprentice. Accordingly, in the year 1759, 
 Maria Walpole became Countess Waldegrave, and, like her
 
 96 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 elder sister, was duly ' presented at Court.' Lord Waldegrave, 
 it may be remarked, had some pretensions to unite himself 
 with so intellectual and literary a family as the Walpoles, as 
 being one of the ' noble authors ' of his day. He had com- 
 posed a volume of 'Historical Memoirs,' extending from 1754 
 to 1758 ; a work with respect to which it is remarked with 
 some naivete by Mr. Eliot Warbui'ton, that ' it is true he was 
 the historian of rather a short period ; but then it must be 
 remembered that in four years much may be done, and, there- 
 fore, much may be written about it.' His lordship, I believe, 
 never found reason to regret his choice ; and he had three 
 daughters by his countess, who proved as good a mother as 
 wife. Four years after her marriage, and just after the birtli 
 of her last child, the Earl was struck with the small-pox, of 
 which he died. She nursed him, however, through his illness 
 with all cai-e and affection, and regardless of all consequences 
 to herself, as I learn on the testimony of her uncle Horace ; 
 and she deeply lamented his loss— indeed, for many a long 
 month she was inconsolable. To her own prospects, apparently, 
 the loss of Lord Waldegrave was a severe blow, as only a few 
 days before his last illness he had been offered the choice of two 
 splendid appointments — the Ambassadorship at Paris or the 
 Lord -Lieutenancy of Ireland. 
 
 It was long before the widowed countess would venture 
 again into society ; but society felt that it had a claim upon her, 
 and was not slow to enforce its claim. More lovely than ever 
 on her reappearance in fashionable circles, the youthful widow 
 drew on herself more admiring eyes, if po.ssiblc, tlian she had 
 doiK! ill her early maiden days. Her three little girls engrossed 
 all her attentions and affections. Many of tlielirst and highest 
 nobles in tin- l.ind sought to share their honours and possessions 
 with the clianniiig relict ; but the Countess was obdurate, and 
 a long train of rejected suitors, witli the Duke of Poitlaiid at 
 their head, passed away from li(>r doois. 
 
 But the whirligig of time brings round its I'cvenges. A 
 few years of widowhood had passed l)y, when another pre-
 
 THE THREE MISS IVALPOLES 97 
 
 tender to the widow's hand entered the field, and the very 
 lady against whom only seven brief years before the doors of 
 ' our Palace of St. James's ' were closed and barred was now 
 sought in marriage by the King's own brother. ' A singular 
 union indeed,' as Mr. Eliot Warburton remarks, ' of the two 
 extreme links of the social chain took place when H.R.H. 
 William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, in 1766, espoused the 
 daughter of the unfortunate Mary Clement — a marriage in 
 virtue of which it was not only possible,^ but quite probable, 
 that a descendant of the tailor's apprentice might in course of 
 time take his or her seat upon that very throne to which her 
 own daughters had been denied all approach.' The issue of 
 this second marriage was (1) a son. Prince William Frederick, 
 Duke of Gloucester, who married the Princess Mary, daughter 
 of King George III., and died in 1834 ; and (2) a daughter, 
 the Princess Sophia, who died unmarried in 184i. It may be 
 interesting here to record the fact that Maria's three little 
 girls by her first husband all lived to grow up and married 
 well ; the eldest becoming the wife of her cousin George, 
 fourth Earl Waldegrave, and eventually the owner of Straw- 
 1 jerry Hill ; the second marrying George Henry, fourth Duke 
 of Grafton ; while the third married Admiral Lord Hugh 
 Seymour, the great-grandfather of the present Marquis of 
 Hertford. 
 
 And do my readers wish to know the matrimonial fate of 
 Charlotte, the youngest of the three of the Walpole beauties 1 
 She was married in 1760 to Lionel, Lord Huntingtower, after- 
 wards fourth Earl of Dysart in the Scottish peerage. But 
 they shall hear the story in the words of her uncle Horace. 
 He writes under date Oct. 2, 1760 : 
 
 ' I announce to you my Lady Huntingtower. I hope j'ou 
 will approve the match .... I suppose my Lord Dysart 
 will, as he does not yet know, though they have been married 
 these two hours, that at ten o'clock this morning his son 
 
 ' What is known as the Royal Marriage Act, passed at the iuttauce 
 of George III., was one of the consequences of this union. 
 
 11
 
 98 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 married my niece Charlotte at St. James's Church. The mo- 
 ment my Lord Dysart is dead, I will carry you to see Ham 
 House. It is pleasant to call neighbours cousins, with a 
 charming prospect over against one. And now, if you want 
 to know the detail, there was none. It is not the style of our 
 little Coui't to have long negotiations ; and we do not fatigue 
 the town with exhibiting the betrothed parties for six months 
 together in public places. Venit, vidit, vicil. The young lord 
 has liked her for some time ; on Saturday sen'night he came 
 to my brother and made his demand. The Princess did not 
 know him by sight, and did not dislike him when she did ; she 
 consented, and they were to be married this morning : my 
 Lord Dysart is such a fool that nobody will pity him. He has 
 kept his son till six-and-twenty, and would never make the 
 least settlement on him. "Sure," said the young man, "if my 
 father will do nothing for me, I may please myself ; he cannot 
 hinder me of 10,000^. a year, and 60,000/. more that are in 
 tlie funds, all entailed on me on a reversion," which one does 
 not wonder that the bride did not refuse, as there is present 
 possession too of a very handsome person, the only thing his 
 father has ever given him.' 
 
 In another letter the chatty and communicative old 
 uncle thus tells the story in its full details, which are too 
 amusing to be lost to my readers : 
 
 ' My brother's last dauglitcr, Charlotte, is married, and 
 . . . though tlieir story is too sliort for a romance, it 
 will make a very pretty honcI ; nay, it is almost brief enough 
 for a play, coming very nc.iily williiii one of the unities, the 
 .space of twenty-four liours. Thci-c; is in (lie world .... 
 and lie lives directly ovci' against inc, across th(> water, a 
 strange brute called the ICarl of Dysart. Don't l)o frightened : 
 lie is not the bridegi-fjoni. 11 is son, Lord 1 1 untingtower, to 
 whom lie gives liut IDO/. a year, is a comely young gentleman 
 of six-and-twenty, who has often had thoughts of trying 
 whether his father wouhl not like graiidchiidi'en better than 
 he floes his own ciuluren All the answer he could
 
 THE THREE MISS WALPOLES 99 
 
 ever get was that, as he had five younger children, the Earl could 
 not afford to make any settlement ; but he oftered, as a proof at 
 once of his inability and his kindness, to lend his son a large 
 sum of money at a low interest. This indigent earl'has thir- 
 teen thousand a year and sixty thousand pounds in the funds. 
 This money, and ten out of the thirteen thousand, are entailed 
 upon Lord Huntingtower. The young lord, it appears, had 
 been in love with Charlotte for some months, but thought so 
 little of inflaming her that yesterday fortnight she did not 
 know him by sight. On that day he projoosed himself as a 
 son-in-law to my brother, who with much surprise heard his 
 story, but excused himself from giving an answer. He said 
 he would never force the inclinations of his children ; he did 
 not believe his daughter Charlotte had any engagement or 
 attachment, but she might have ; he would send for her, and 
 know her mind. She was with her sister Maria, to whom she 
 said very sensibly, " If I were but nineteen, I would refuse 
 point blank, for I don't like to be married in a week to a man 
 I never saw. But I am two-and-twenty. Some people say I 
 am handsome, and some say I am not ; but I believe the truth 
 is that I am likely to be at large and to go off soon. It is 
 dangerous to refuse so great a match." Take notice of the 
 words " married in a M' eek." The love that was so many 
 months in ripening could not stay above a week. She came 
 and saw the impetuous lover, and I believe she was glad that 
 she had not " refused point blank," for they were married last 
 Thursday. I tremble a little for the poor girl ; not to mention 
 the oddness of the father, and twenty disagreeable things that 
 may be in the young man, who has been kept and has lived 
 entirely out of the world. He takes her fortune, and cannot 
 settle another shilling upon her till his father dies, and then 
 promises only a thousand a year. Would one venture one's 
 happiness, and one's whole fortune too, for the chance of livino- 
 to be Lady Dysart 1 If Lord Huntingtower dies befor-e his 
 father, she will not have a sixpence. Surely my brother has 
 risked too much ! ' 
 
 H 2
 
 loo TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 111 a letter of subsequent date the gossiping old uncle 
 follows up the subject with a story too good to be omitted 
 here : 
 
 ' Lord Huntingtower wrote to offer his father eight thou- 
 sand pounds of Charlotte's fortune if he would give them a 
 thousand a year at present and settle a jointure on her. The 
 Earl returned this truly laconic .... answer : " Lord 
 Huntingtower. — Sir, I answer your letter as soon as I receive 
 it. I wish you joy. I hear your wife is very accomplished. — 
 Yours, Dysart." 
 
 'I believe my Lady Huntingtower must make it conve- 
 nient that Lord Dysart should die, and then he will. For 
 myself, I expect to be a very respectable personage in time, 
 and to have my tomb set forth like the Lady Margaret Douglas, 
 that I had four earls for iny nephews, though I never was one 
 myself. Adieu.' 
 
 The 'strange brute' of an earl died in 1770, and Charlotte, 
 Lady Huntingtower, thereon became Countess of Dysart. She 
 died, however, issueless. Horace Walpole's prophecy, how- 
 ever, was never quite fulfilled ; it is true that his nephew, 
 George, a queer, eccentric, and half-cracked creature, became 
 third Earl of Orford, and that two of his three nieces wore the 
 coronets of countesses, namely, those of Waldegrave and Dy- 
 sart ; but Laura was oljliged to be content with seeing her 
 liusband hold a spiritual peerage, wliich gave no coronet to 
 herself. Horace AN'.ilpolc, liowevcr, made up for this deficiency 
 in two ways : first V)y his second niece becoming a princess of 
 the blood royal ; and secondly, by succeeding, tliough late in 
 life, to his nephew's earldom, a title which ])ecame extinct at 
 his death, tli(»ii.L,di icvixcfl subsc([uciitly in another branch of 
 
 the family. 
 
 In conclusion, I niiisl ;i'ld tliat Sir Ivlw.iid Waliiole's son, 
 ivlward, the brother of the beauties whose stories \ have 
 attempted to tell, entered the army, and distinguished himself 
 while a subaltern by an act of gallantry which will be found 
 duly recorfled in the Wal])ole Letters. His name is not men-
 
 THE THREE MISS WALPOLES loi 
 
 tionecl in the ' Peerages ' along with those of his sisters ; but 
 it is satisfactory to know that he rose to the rank of lieutenant - 
 colonel. Of his ultimate fate I have been able to learn 
 nothing. 
 
 THE WOOING OF SIB HEN E AGE FINCH? 
 
 The name of Heneage Finch is one which for nearly two cen- 
 turies has held a foremost place both in the pages of the 
 peerage, and also among those Englishmen who have gained 
 distinction as ' learned in the law ' or as leaders in affairs of 
 State. Every Earl of Aylesford in succession, from the iirst 
 peer, who was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the 
 reign of George I., down to the last holder of the title, repre- 
 senting no less than seven generations, has l)orne that name ; 
 and the first Lord Aylesford himself was the distinguished 
 son of an even more distinguished father, Heneage Finch, 
 who, having been one of the leading members of the Parlia- 
 ment which restored King Charles II., became successively 
 Solicitor and Attorney-General, Lord Keeper of the Great 
 Seal, and ultimately was advanced to the woolsack and 
 created Earl of Nottingham. This Sir Heneage Finch, while 
 in the prime of manhood, was not only Treasurer of the Inner 
 Temple, but also ' Autumn or Summer Reader ' of that society, 
 and in that capacity he gained a high reputation for his prac- 
 tical and common-sense application of the general principles 
 of the law — a subject which as yet had not been taken in 
 hand by Judge Blackstone. His ' readings ' in the Temple, 
 we are told, were very popular and quite the fashion of the 
 day : so that we must not be surprised to find that they were 
 attended by many members of other professions and the wits 
 and courtiers of the second Charles ; and that he brought 
 them to a conclusion by a grand entertainment which he gave 
 to the King and his Court in the great hall of the Temple, 
 
 ' It may be desirable to state that this was written before I had 
 seen an article on the same subject in Tevqjle Bar for July 1872.
 
 102 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 where a play or * masque ' was performed by the students in 
 presence of his Majesty. 
 
 But if we go yet another generation back, we shall find 
 that this Lord Chancellor's father was also a Sir Heneage 
 Finch, and a man of some note in his day. At all events, he 
 was Serjeant-at-Law, Recorder of London, and Speaker of the 
 House of Commons under King Charles I. in 1626. 
 
 It is this Sir Heneage Finch the story of whose second 
 wooing I now propose to tell. By his first wife, a daughter 
 of Sir Edmund Bell, of Beaupre Hall, Norfolk, he had a family 
 of seven sons and four daughters, so that he must have been 
 well forAvard in years — or at all events, as they say, no 
 chicken — when he first set his eyes on a rich and charming 
 widow, one Mistress Elizabeth Bennett, the daughter of a 
 Staffordshire gentleman named Cradock, and whom the recent 
 death of her husband, Richard Bennett, a citizen of London, 
 and a parishioner of St. Olave's, Jewry, had left at her own 
 disposal, together with a good I'ound sum of money and other 
 property. 
 
 By the custom of London, and by tlic will of her departed 
 lord, it appears that she was in actual possession of two-thirds 
 of lier husband's goods and chattels, besides jewels and chains 
 of pearl and gold, and some splendid diamond and other rings, 
 to say notliing of the family plate, the family coach, witli four 
 'grey coach mares and geldings,' and other good things to 
 boot. In addition to these substantial recommondntions, she 
 seems to have had no small sliarc of personal attractions — 
 witl> a full consciousness of their value, no doubt — and no 
 more drawl>acks antl incumbrance than one little boy. In 
 tho.so days, altliougli the 'Duke of Roussillon ' was not ))orn 
 or tliouglit of, it was scarcely necessary for a pretty widow 
 to advertis(! for a liusband ; .ind tlni fair Mistress Bennett 
 accordingly had no lack of suitors for her liand and heart. 
 
 Mucli to the annisement of tlie wits who moved about in 
 London .society at that time, three of the most conspicuous 
 among the rival candidates bore the names of birds — Sir Sack-
 
 THE WOOING OF SIR HEN E AGE FINCH 103 
 
 ville Crow, a physician named Raven, and the Sir Heneage 
 Finch whom we have already introduced to our readers ; and 
 besides these we have on record a fourth suitor. Sir Edward 
 Dering, of Surrenden Dering, in Kent, and sundry other titled 
 and untitled individuals, whose names we shall have occasion 
 to mention presently. 
 
 The course of true love, in the case of Sir Heneage, appears 
 to have given the lie to the old proverb by ' running ' tole- 
 rably ' smoothly.' It is true that he had no lack of rivals ; 
 and, though it might be supposed that the chances were in 
 favour of a man, like himself, who had filled the Speaker's 
 chair, and must therefore have been of courtly and command- 
 ing presence, and who had the still more substantial endow- 
 ments of a town house, and also an estate and mansion at 
 Kensington,^ with high Court connections to boot, yet for 
 several months it seemed as if he was not unlikely to be dis- 
 tanced in the race by one of the aforesaid birds, and still more 
 by the Kentish squire, Sir Edward Dering, whose efforts to 
 win the hand and heart of the pretty widow were equally 
 artful and persistent. It is from one of the old manuscripts 
 preserved among the archives of Surrenden Dering, and given 
 to the world under the auspices of the Camden Society,'^ that 
 I may gather such information on the subject as I am enabled 
 to lay before my readers. 
 
 The lady's first husband had died only in the April of 
 1628, but by the end of that year she was already besieged by 
 a host of worshippers, all more or less bent, we may believe, 
 on securing a share of her money ; 
 
 Juventus 
 Non tantum Veneris quantum studiosa culinte ; 
 
 ' The house is said to have stood very nearly on the site now occu- 
 pied by Kensington Palace, and part of Kensington Palace Gardens 
 formed part of 8ir H. Finch's landed estate. 
 
 - Proceedings in the County of Kent ; from certain MSS. in the 
 possession of Sir E. Dering, Bart., at Surrenden Dering. Edited by the 
 Kev. L. B. Larking. Published by the Cambridge Camden Society. 
 18(52.
 
 I04 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 for it was publicly reported at the time that she was ' a twenty- 
 thousand-pound widow.' The first bird who flew citywards to 
 find her out was apparently a wise specimen of his kind ; at 
 all events, Sir Sackville Crow, for such was his title, was 
 making a desperate effort at that time to relieve himself from 
 the consequences of a serious deficit in his j)ublic accounts, 
 vhich shortly afterwards compelled him to retire from his 
 office of Treasurer of the Navy. He came, he saw, he pro- 
 posed, and he did not conquer. The widow, though amorously 
 inclined, was not to be easily caught ; he had to return to his 
 nest discomfited, and we do not hear of him again eastwards 
 of Temple Bar. 
 
 The next person who tried his luck with the widow was de- 
 termined not to be so easily baffled, and accordingly resolved ' 
 to take her literally by assault. This was Dr. Raven, a fashion- 
 able and successful physician of the day. In despair of other 
 and gentler means, this foolish man tlioughtthat Mrs. Bennett 
 could be won by a cowp cle main, if the bold stroke could be 
 made with sufficient vigour. Accordingly, by tampering with 
 her servants, so as to silence her personal attendant or got her 
 out of the way, he made his entry into the lady's chamber 
 after she had i-etired to rest on November 19, in the year 
 already mentioned. His reception was such as might have 
 besn imagined. The lady screamed ' Thieves ! ' and ' Murder !' 
 so as to be heard by the ' Charleys' in Cheapside ; the servants, 
 male and fcMiiale, rushed to the rescue ; tlio doctor was secured, 
 and handed over to the constable, who next day brought the 
 intruder before ' Mr. Recorder.' As Mr. Recorder— in other 
 words, 8ir Heneage Finch — was liimself one of the rival 
 suitors for the lady's hand, we may imagine the pleasure with 
 which lie sigiu-d the Drdcr for committing Dr. Raven to 
 durance vih; until he could lie l)rought to trial. The court re- 
 fused to allow him to Ix' bailed. He was ultimately tried, 
 fined, and imprisoned for the affair ; but the los.s of his pro- 
 fessional guineas no doubt was a still severer penalty. 
 
 On the next day Sir I'^dward Dering, as lie tell.s us, was in
 
 THE WOOING OF SIR HENEAGE FINCH 105 
 
 the field. His tale is told with much naivete, and shows us 
 that servants were as accessible to golden arguments as they 
 were in the days of Jupiter and Danae, or as they can be now. 
 ' Nov. 20, Edmund the King. I adventured, but was denied. 
 Sent up a letter, which was returned after she had read it.' 
 
 This repulse rendered it necessary to resort to other, and I 
 fear that I must add crooked, means. Servants are amenable 
 to bribes ; and accordingly Sir Edward's diary continues : 
 'Nov. 21. I inveigled G. Newman with 20s. — Nov. 24. I 
 did re-engage him (20*\). I did also oil the cash-keeper (20i\). - 
 Nov. 26. I gave Edmund Aspull (the cash-keeper) another 20*.' 
 
 This looks unpromising, but it appears as if Sir Edward 
 did not readily lose courage along with his cash. The next 
 entry, consequently, shows a faint glimmer of hope : ' Nov. 
 27. I sent a second letter, uiliich was kept.' 
 
 But in spite of his rising hopes, the worthy knight feels 
 that he must not relax his efforts. Accordingly he wiites, the 
 same day : ' I set Sir John Skeffington upon Matthew Cradock.' 
 This Matthew, I may remark, was a cousin of the widow, and 
 her trusty adviser in matters of business. The diary con- 
 tinues, under the same day's date : ' The cash-keeper supped 
 with me.' 
 
 Neither Sir John Skeffington, however, nor the ' cash- 
 keeper ' appears to have been of much practical use, or possibly 
 they did not do their best on his behalf. Accordingly, Sir 
 Edward begins to act seriously for himself : ' Nov. 30. I 
 was at the Old Jewry Church, and saw her, both forenoon and 
 afternoon. — Dec. 1. I sent her a third letter, which was like- 
 wise kept.' 
 
 On the following Sunday, Sir Edward, ' true to his tryste,' 
 went to St. Olave's, when, on coming out of church, George 
 Newman whispered in his ear, ' Good news — good news ! ' Sir 
 Edward, who had taken a lodging in sight of the widow's house, 
 pressed his informant to come in. George Newman — the same 
 who had been ' inveigled ' and ' oiled ' — quietly and confi- 
 dentially told Sir Edward that his lady ' liked well his carriage.
 
 io6 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 and that if his lands were not already settled on his eldest son, 
 there ^yas good hope for him.' The bearer of such good news cer- 
 tainly deserved a repetition of the oiling process, and accord- 
 ingly, says Sir Edward, ' I gladly gave him another twenty 
 shillings.' 
 
 Elated and hopeful, Sir Edward, in the course of the even- 
 ing, proceeded to call on the Recorder. Sir Edward, being a 
 man of Kent, very naturally stayed to supper, and as natu- 
 rally grew very confidential as he drank the worthy knight's 
 wine. Sir Heneage, too, grew confidential in his turn, gave 
 him to understand that he quite despaired of success himself, 
 and, indeed, meant gradually and quietly to withdraw ; in fact, 
 he went so far as to promise his aid to Sir Edward's cause. 
 So, in the course of the evening, the two suitors frankly and 
 freely chatted over the widow and her affairs, and the Recorder 
 put Sir Edward wholly off his guard. Good easy Kentish 
 baronet ! you are no match for a lawyer like Sir Heneage 
 Finch, let alone a wily and wary widow, whose choice in the 
 matter is well known to him, as he carries the game in his 
 hands. 
 
 It so happened that one great obstacle in the way of the 
 widow's re-marriage was the wardship of her little boy, 
 which belonged to a certain Mr. Steward, but which he was 
 willing to relinquish for a money payment. The widow offered 
 what she (and Sir Heneage too) tliought a fair sum ; but he 
 refused, and raised his price to so extortionate an amount that 
 the widow refused to see him or speak to him again. 
 
 Sir Edward thought that this was the juncture to push his 
 suit. Tt appears from the narrative that for a few days the 
 lady, like many others, did not quite know her own mind, and 
 would neither say ' yes ' nor ' no ; ' so, weary of waiting, on Jan. 1 
 he wrote; and demanded the return of his letters and billets- 
 flon:i\ JTis cause was now irrelrieval)ly l(»st ; for, in spite of 
 all arguments and reconnnemlations in his favour from the 
 lady's ' companion,' Mrs. Norton, and his friend, the celebrated 
 angler and man niillinei- of Fleet Street, Izaak Walton, and the
 
 THE WOOING OF SIR HENEAGE FINCH 107 
 
 clever machinery of some dreams, real or fictitious, which were 
 told to the lady in one of her softer moods by cousins and 
 friends of the baronet, and the (of course) accidental waylay- 
 ing of her little boy and his nurse in the fields of Finsbury, 
 and plying them with cakes, wine, and money, the widow 
 stood to her guns, and positively refused to think of him any 
 more as a suitor. In fact (so she gave it out), she never meant 
 to marry again at all. Suitors came and went. Great ladies 
 from the Court — the cream of ' carriage folk ' — visited the 
 mansion in St. Olave's in shoals, and set forth the merits of 
 sundry knights and gentlemen and lords, but all without effect. 
 Lady Skinner called to plead the cause of one Mr. Butler ; 
 but her description of him as a ' dark, blunt-nosed gentleman ' 
 extinguished his hopes and ended his suit. Sir Peter Temple, 
 of Stowe, a man of high birth, and the owner of lands which, 
 have since enriched the ducal house of Buckingham, came 
 forward, backed by the aid of a dashing countess, but found 
 only a cold reception, being told to go back to Buckingham- 
 shire. The Countess of Bridgwater introduced the battered 
 old sailor Sir Henry Mainwaring, who, in spite of his Cheshire 
 pedigree, was steeped in poverty to the very lips, and he and 
 another knight had an interview of an hour with the lady, but 
 neither of them was suffered to call again. Lord Bruce, the 
 head of the Bruces of Tottenham, now Earls and Marquises of 
 Ailesbury — put in a claim for himself ; but he too very soon 
 retired. More pei'severing than the rest of the candidates for 
 this very prudent Penelope, and, indeed, the only dangerous 
 rival of Sir Heneage, was the newly-made Lord Lumley, whose 
 chances were all the better as he came backed by one Loe, or 
 Lowe, a brother-in-law of the lady herself. 
 
 The latter, it must be owned, lost no opportunity of pro- 
 secuting his suit by overt attentions to the widow. As being 
 one of 'the devout female sex,' it appears she Avent to daily 
 prayers at St. Olave's Church ; and accordingly five times in 
 one week did the coach of Lord Lumley stop the way at the 
 door of the church in Old Jewry, its owner being intent on
 
 io8 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 worshipping there, though possibly the rich widow may have 
 been one object of his woi'ship. His suit was backed by no 
 less a person than the Earl of Dorset, Lord Chamberlain to 
 the Queen, an influential person in the political world, and 
 especially at the Admiralty. But all was in vain ; weeks and 
 weeks drew on, yet the lady was still obdurate : she would 
 not listen, she said, to any proposal of matrimony ; her mind 
 had been long made up. Izaak Walton now again appears 
 upon th'e scene, to plead once more the cause of his old friend, 
 Sir Edward ; but her answer was the same. Lord Lumley had 
 even proceeded so far at one time as to present her with a ring, 
 which she accepted at his hands ; but it was not a plain gold 
 one, and on February 14 his hopes were crushed by the return 
 of tliis pledge of attachment. 
 
 And so it was : tlie widow all along, at all events from the 
 px'eceding Christmas, had made %(p her aim viind ; but, like 
 most rich and pretty widows, not at all in the direction of a 
 life-long celibacy. She did not use the deepest of black- 
 bordered note-paper, or mount a long, flowing, white widow's 
 cap on a robe of black silk, talk of lierself as a ' wreck,' and 
 of lier life as a vie manquce, and carry on private flirtations 
 ill a dark room with charlatans and adventurers. But she 
 kept her own counsel, and had her own way in the end ; and 
 having contrived to delude Sir Edward into an idea that the 
 resumption of his place as a suitor was not absolutely a fruit- 
 less and hopeless task, one flno iiKH-iiing she sur])rise(l ])oth 
 him and the fashionable worhl, ami cxcryliody else except the 
 worthy Recorder of London, by going quietly, on April IG, 
 1G29 — after exactly twelve months of widowhood — to the 
 Church of St. Clement Danes, where she was married, no 
 doubt by special licence, to Sir Ileneage Finch, with whom 
 tlie all'air no doubt had l)een pre-arranged ever since the pre- 
 vious Christmas. It may interest our lady friends to learn 
 tliat Sir Edward Dering took liis defeat in good part, and 
 soon set about retri(!ving liis lost ground, time, and trouble, 
 l)y electing as his thiivl wife lie liad ahcady buried two — a
 
 THE WOOING OF SIR HEME AGE FINCH 109 
 
 daughter of Sir Ralph Gibbes, of Honington, Warwickshire, 
 with whom, no doubt, he ' lived happy ever afterwards.' 
 
 Before I dismiss my notice of the pretty widow, it may be 
 well to add that her son Simon — whom Sir Edward Dering 
 treated with cakes in Finsbury Fields — became in the end a 
 man of great wealth, which was carried by three daughters, 
 his co-heii'esses, into several noble families ; and that his uncle, 
 Richard Bennett, or Bennet as the name is now spelt, was 
 the ancestor of the Earls of Arlington and Tankerville. Of 
 Mrs. Bennett's second marriage all that I know is bright and 
 fortunate, except its brief continuance ; and it is probable 
 that among the many suitors, both bachelors and widowers, 
 who sought her hand, she really chose the best, or one of the 
 best. Of the issue of Sir Heneage Finch's first marriage, 
 three sons and one daughter lived to gTow up ; and the eldest 
 of these, named as his father, became Lord Chancellor of 
 England and Earl of Nottingham, a title with which his de- 
 scendants and representatives have joined the earldom of 
 Winchilsea. By the pretty and wealthy widow, Sir Heneage 
 had two daughters, Elizabeth, wife of Edward Maddison, Esq., 
 and Anne, married to Edward, third Viscount and first Earl 
 of Conway, ancestor of the present Marquis of Hertford. Sir 
 Heneage, however, survived his marriage little more than two 
 years, as he died on December, 5 1631. 
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF LEEDS 
 
 Out of all the great families who have attained to the honour 
 of a ducal coronet in England, most owe their existence either 
 to the accident of being sprung from royalty by a left-hand 
 marriage, or from successful statesmanship subsidised by a 
 run of luck in the way of alliances with well-endowed 
 heiresses. Some few dukedoms, I am aware — those of Wel- 
 lington and Marlborough, for instance — have been purchased 
 by a series of brilliant achievements in the field ; one, and
 
 no TALES OF OUR] GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 one only, so fur as I know — that of Norfolk — is sprung out of 
 the successful career of an able lawyer ; but there is one house, 
 namely, that of the Osbornes, Dukes of Leeds, in whose early 
 history is to be found an episode of city life so strange and so 
 singular that I need scarcely ask the pardon of my readers 
 for introducing it to them here. 
 
 The romance to which I allude is over three centuries 
 old, though it reads like an affair of yesterday. But before 
 I come to tell it, I will beg my readers' patience while I sum 
 up in a few words all that is known of the earlier history of 
 the Osborne family. It is agreed among the heralds and the 
 peerage-makers that the Osbornes were of considerable an- 
 tiquity in Kent long before they attained to the honours of 
 the peerage, or even to a title at all. We are told that one 
 John Osborne, esquire and landholder, was seated at Ashford 
 in that county as far back as the reign of King Henry A^I., 
 when his name is returned in a list of the local gentry as 
 subscribing to the oath of allegiance. His lineal descendant, 
 Richard Osborne, mariied a Kentish lady, Elizal)eth Fylden 
 or (more [irobably) Tylden ; and Ids son, also Richard, marry- 
 ing a Broughton of Westmoreland, became the father of a 
 certain Edward Osborne, who, entering early ui)on a com- 
 mercial life, served as one of tlie Sheriffs of London and 
 Middlesex in the seventeenth year of Elizabeth's reign, and 
 eight years later was chosen in due course Lord Mayor of 
 L(»ndon. He received the honour of knighthood at Wost- 
 iiiiiister in 1584, and not long afterwards was cliosen one of 
 the re])roKentativf'S of the City of London in Parliament. He 
 died in the year 1 Hill, and was bui'icd in the church of St. 
 Hionis Backcliuii-li, where ,i nioniiinenl i-ecoi'ded, ,iii<l ])ei-h;ips 
 still records, his public and pri\ale \ii-(ucs. ('nllins, in his 
 elaborate 'Peerage;,' simply says of him that 'he marric(I 
 Anno, daughter and lieiress of Sir William Hewitt, also in 
 his time Lord Mayor of London,' adding incidentally also 
 that 'Sir William died in the year l^GG, when his .said 
 diiugliter, Anne, was just twenty-three years of age.'
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF LEEDS \\\ 
 
 Sir William Hewitt appears to have been a charitable 
 and benevolent person. He was a benefactor to several of 
 the hospitals of London, and to the poor of more than one 
 parish. Thus he left to the poor in the hospital of St. 
 Thomas's, Southwark (of which he was a vice-president), 20/. ; 
 and 4s. 8c?. to every poor maiden that should be married 
 within a year of his decease in two parishes in Yorkshii-e, Avith 
 which it may be presumed that he was connected by family 
 ties. The disposal of the rest of his property is already 
 incidentally i-ecorded in the present paper. By his will, dated 
 January 3, 1566, I find he ordered his body to be buried in 
 the church of St. Martin's, in Candlewick Wai"d (of which he 
 was a parishioner), near to the place where his late beloved 
 wife Alice was interred. 
 
 But, for the sake of my lady readers, I must not pass quite 
 so rapidly over a marriage out of which such important con- 
 sequences flowed to the Osbornes. Respectable, and even 
 ancient, as the family might have been at Ashford, in Kent, 
 it is pretty clear that they must have suflfered severely in 
 purse and pocket when, in the reign of Mary or of Elizabeth, 
 Richard Osborne sent his eldest son — no doubt the eldest 
 of a large family — up to London, to fight for himself the battle 
 of life. And doubtless either a special Providence or a very 
 lucky star looked down with more than a kind smile on young 
 Edward Osborne, when the latter, at the age of eighteen or 
 nineteen summers, reached London from Ashford, and entered 
 the family of Sir William Hewitt and of Dame Alice Hewitt, 
 of Philpot Lane, as an ' apprentice ' to learn his trade. At 
 that time youthful apprentices were not left to pass their time 
 in suburban lodgings, walking backwards and forwards to their 
 daily work, and, when the day's task was over, enlivening their 
 evenings at theatres and music-halls. When they were bound 
 as apprentices, they became inmates of their master's house- 
 hold, and were expected, as members of his family, to conform 
 to the rules and regulations of the homes of which they formed 
 a part. Of course, if their masters happened to have grown-up
 
 112 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 or growing daughters, the young fellows had so many more 
 attractions to keep them at home and out of mischief ; and 
 equally of course was it a matter of constant occurrence that 
 the best and the worthiest of such apprentices were enabled 
 to climb the first rung of the ladder of commercial advance- 
 ment by securing the affections of one of the pretty and well- 
 endowed daughters of their master. And it was only the old, 
 old story, after all, that was enacted in the family of Sir 
 William Hewitt, that I have to tell. 
 
 It appears that, having no other incumbrance but a 
 daughter, and having made a fair fortune in business, Sir 
 William and Lady Hewitt, with ' Mistress ' Anne and 
 their Kentish apprentice, had removed from the wuithy 
 knight's place of business in Philpot Lane, and were occupying 
 a fashionable residence on old London Bridge, every arch of 
 which, as shown in old pictures, was at time crowded with 
 houses. The windows, on one side at least, looked down upon 
 the never-ceasing ebb and flow of the Thames ; and, as bad 
 (or good) luck would have it, one day, while fair Mistress Anne 
 was lian"ino- her favourite bird in its cage outside the pai-lour 
 window, she lost her balance and fell out into the river. It 
 was fortunately just high water, so that she had not many feet 
 to fall, and the tide was running very slackly ; but the river 
 was deep, and in a few minutes more .she would have Ik^cii 
 drownfd, had not the young gentleman fioiii Kent, who 
 i-()uiitc(l swiiiuuing among the other acconiiilislmiciits which he 
 liad learned at his native Ashford, thrown oil' his slmcs aiul 
 surcoat, and leaped into the water after litr. it was the 
 work of an instant. lie (•aught by her hair (lie struggling 
 maiden, and dragged lur 1 owai-ds a barge which was ]>assing 
 (broU"li the bridge; the cicw hove-to, .iiiil took- <.n lioard the 
 half drowned laily and her pi-eserv«'r ; and tlu^ lattei' Inking 
 lande«l at the st< ps between the bridge and Fish Street Hill, 
 brought baik his prize, with no small joy and triumph, to Ik r 
 father'.s house, where doubtless every attention was i)aid to 
 them both. It was fortunately sunnner, and so they both
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF LEEDS 113 
 
 escaped with no further bad results than a sound ducking, 
 and possibly a slight cold. 
 
 Perhaps it was scarcely a priori probable that the matter 
 would end there. Mistress Anne, as I have reason for believ- 
 ing, had long secretly admired the young gentleman of good 
 family from Kent, who had been for so many months an in- 
 mate of her parents' house, and who in all matters, great and 
 small, had shown himself a thorough gentleman in deed as he 
 was by birth. He shot well with the longbow, whenever the 
 young apprentices of the city w ent out to what is now Moor- 
 tields and Clerkenwell in order to try their skill. In winter 
 time he was the best skater and curler among all the city 
 youths ; he could sing a loyal song with spirit ; and was 
 always in the best of tempers. In fact, if the truth must be 
 told, she admired him above all the young men whom she had 
 seen east of what is now Temple Bar ; and into the far western 
 region of the mansions of the Strand and of Westminster it 
 had not been her fortune to have often entered, except on one 
 day in the year when she went regularly with her papa and 
 mamma in the family coach to visit an old aunt at St. Giles- 
 in-the-Fields, 'from whom she had expectations.' 
 
 Edward Osborne also had long admired in silence the 
 young lady whose cage-bird had given rise to this unexpected 
 adventure, and the keen eyes of Dame Alice Hewitt had not 
 been inattentive to the fact. The old people, too, were rich 
 and without a son. What arrangement more simple, obvious, 
 and easy than that Edward Osborne should become their son- 
 in-law 1 The young people, for their part, took the same view 
 of the matter as their elders ; interest and inclination for once 
 ran in the same direction ; and within a fortnight from the 
 day of the apprentice's bold leap into the Thames it was 
 arranged that the banns of ' Edward Osborne, bachelor, and 
 Anne Hewitt, spinster,' should be put up in their parish 
 church. 
 
 As neither Sir William nor Dame Hewitt was at all dis- 
 posed to forbid the banns, everything was soon settled ; and 
 
 I
 
 114 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 one fine morning in August 1559 the church bells of St. 
 Magnus and the neighbouring parishes rang out a merry peal 
 in honour of Edward Osborne and his fair young bride. 
 
 Sir William Hewitt, before his death, which happened at 
 no very distant date, constituted his son-in-law, Osborne, 
 executor of his will, along with two members of his own 
 family ; and while he left to his brother and nephews the 
 place of business in Philpot Lane above mentioned, he be- 
 queathed the bulk of his money to his only child Anne Hewitt, 
 now Anne Osborne. 
 
 The accession of the money of the Hewitts to the exchequer 
 of the Osbornes appears to have come just at a fa\'ourable 
 moment, and to have given to that ancient house a chance of 
 rising in the world — a chance of which its members were not 
 slow to take advantage. Edward Osborne was wise enough 
 not to play the fine gentleman, or to turn his back upon the 
 city where his fortune had been and was still being made. He 
 persevered in the mercantile career which he had chosen when 
 a lad, and he i-osolved to stick to it faithfully to the last. 
 Accordingly we find him filling the civic chair as Lord Mayor, 
 and receiving the honour of knighthood ; and when he died in 
 1591, Sir Edward Osborne was lamented as a good and upright 
 citizen, and one of the worthiest magistrates of the city of 
 London. 
 
 His wife brought him a son and two daughters. The latter 
 married into the Offley and Peyton families respectively ; 
 while his son, entering the army, and fighting under the ban- 
 ner of the Earl of Essex in quelling a rebellion in Ir(>land in 
 the year 1599, received from that nol)leman the accolade of 
 military knighthood. Sir Hewitt Osborne in his turn married 
 Joyce, daugliter of Thomas Fleetwood, Master of the Mint, 
 and si.ster of Sir William Fleetwood, of Cranford, in Middle- 
 sex, who is styled l)y Collins 'Receiver of the Court of 
 Wards.' By this lady he liad a son, Edward, successively 
 kniglited and created a baronet by Charles L, who constituted 
 him Vice-President of tlie Council for the North of England
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF LEEDS 115 
 
 and, on the breaking out of the Great Rebellion, appointed him 
 Lieutenant-General of the Royal forces in the North. His 
 son and successor, Sir Thomas, having taken a leading part in 
 bringing about the Restoration, was made by Charles II. 
 Treasurer of the Navy and Lord High Treasurer of the 
 Kingdom, and was also raised to the English and Scottish 
 Peerage as Lord Kiveton, Viscount Dunblane, and Earl 
 of Danby. His lordship took a leading pai-t as Chairman 
 of the Committee of the House of Peers which, on the 
 abdication of James II., in 1688, declared the throne vacant, 
 and in that capacity warmly advocated the bestowal of the 
 Crown on the Prince and Princess of Orange conjointly ; 
 he was consequently raised in 1689 to the marquisate of Car- 
 marthen, and five years later to the dukedom of Leeds, which 
 thus crowned the fortunes of the lineal descendants and repre- 
 sentatives of that Edward Osborne who, just a century before, 
 had left his native town of Ashford to enter as an ' appren- 
 tice ' the household of Sir "William Hewitt. 
 
 The ducal house of Leeds still continues to thrive and 
 flourish, and its members to this day hold that the adventure 
 of Edward Osborne on London Bridge was the first of a series 
 of successes which retrieved the at one time doubtful prospects 
 of the old Kentish family whom I mentioned at the beginning 
 of this paper. Since that day, as generation after genera- 
 tion has succeeded, the Dukes of Leeds have absorbed into 
 their line the representation, in part or entire, of the noble 
 houses of Conyers, D'Arcy, and Godolphin, to say nothing of 
 more than one descent from the royal house of Plantagenet. 
 But who shall say that the honest and brave apprentice who 
 saved fair Mistress Anne Hewitt from a watery grave is not 
 well worthy to be mentioned in the roll of the House of 
 Osborne, side by side with all and any of them, as one of those 
 ancestors of whom its members have good reason still to be 
 most proud ? 
 
 I %
 
 ii6 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 AN EPISODE IN THE HISTOEY OF THE 
 CATHCARTS 
 
 If any of my readers will turn to the Cathcart title in the 
 pages of ' Burke's Peerage,' he will see that the grandfather 
 of the first Earl Cathcart, who was commander-in-chief of the 
 expedition to Copenhagen in 1807, stands recorded as having 
 been Charles, the eighth liolder of the ancient Scottish Barony 
 of Cathcart. This liarony was conferred in 1447 by James II. 
 of Scotland on Sir Alan Cathcart, great-great-grandson of 
 another Sir Alan whose valour at the battle of Loudon Hill, 
 in 1307, is thus immortalised in the ballad : 
 
 A knight that then was in his route, 
 Worth}^ and widht, stalwart and stout, 
 Courteous and fair, and of good fame. 
 Sir Alan Cathcart was his name. 
 
 Several of this Sir Alan Cathcart's descendants fell on the 
 battle-field ; for instance, one at Flodden, and another at 
 Pinkie, both of whom were named Alan. In fact, the first 
 of the line for four hundred years who was not named Alan 
 by his godfather and godmother at the font was Charles, the 
 eighth Iwiron, who died in 1740, in the West Indies, whilst 
 acting as commander-in-chief of the British forces. Sir 
 Bernard Burke tells us that this nobleman was twice married; 
 but he is very uncommunicative about his .second matrimonial 
 union, saying merely that ho ' iiuvri'ied .secondly- (no date is 
 given) — Mi's. Sabine, widow of Joseph Sabine, Esq., of Tring, 
 but by that lady (who married after his decease Lieut.-Col. 
 Maguire) he had no issue.' In a foot-note he adds : ' This 
 is the lady of whom the extraordinary story is told of her 
 liaving been confined for many years by her la.st liusband, 
 Colonel Maguire, in a lonely castle in the fastnesses of Ire- 
 land.' The details of this romantic story I am able to supply, 
 and I trust they will act us a warning to charming widows 
 not to think of marrying more than twice or tlirice.
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE CATHCARTS 117 
 
 Lady Cathcart's Christian name I am unable to give, but 
 she was one of the four daughters of a certain Mr. Malyn, or 
 Malin, of Southwark, apparently a prosperous tradesman, who 
 had a countiy villa at Battersea. I have ascertained that she 
 made no less than four adventures on the stormy sea of matri- 
 mony, but still she rather outwitted herself in one of her 
 ventures. Her first husband was a certain Mr. James Fleet, 
 of the City of London, who is generally thought to have been 
 the son and heir of Sir John Fleet, the same who filled the 
 civic chair as Lord Mayor in 1693. All that I know about 
 him is that he was lord of the manor of Tewing or Tewin, in 
 Hertfordshire — probal)ly confused by Burke with Tring, in 
 the same county ; and that on his death, while still young, 
 she took as her second ' lord and master ' one of his and her 
 own near neighbours, a Captain Sabine, younger brother to 
 General Joseph Sabine, of Queenhoo Hall, in Tewin. In 
 1738 I find her left again a widow, and quite at her own dis- 
 posal ; for she had no children or other incumbrances ; and, 
 as both of her husbands had been fairly well off, it is clear 
 that the widow was not a bad speculation, even for 
 
 A lord, with a coronet of gold 
 And garter below the knee. 
 
 Accordingly, in 1739, she accepted the proposals of Lord 
 Cathcart, who died, as I have said, before the end of the 
 following year whilst in command of our troops in Dominica. 
 It would have been well indeed for her if on his death she 
 had resolved to give up all further thoughts of conjugal 
 felicity. 
 
 But this was not to be. For three long years she wore 
 widow's weeds, and no doubt wore them very becomingly, 
 added to which she was only a little over five-and-thirty ; and, 
 as everybody knows, few women will own to that being ' any 
 age at all.' But at the end of three years she met with a cer- 
 tain Irish gentleman, who so far captivated her fancy that, 
 although he held, or said he held, a commission in the army of
 
 ii8 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 the Queen of Hungary, she bought for him a commission as 
 lieutenant-colonel in the British service. 
 
 I am able to record her motives for entering into these 
 four successive connections. Her first marriage she contracted 
 in order to please her parents, the second for money, and the 
 third for a coronet and title. As for the fourth marriage, she 
 would often say late in life, when she could afford to jest on 
 such a subject, that she supposed that ' the devil owed her a 
 grudge, and wished to punish her for her sins.' It may be 
 presumed from what follows that in this supposition she was 
 not very far wrong. It was also said that she managed to 
 rule Lord Cathcart, but that in Colonel Hugh Maguire she at 
 last met with her match, and perhaps something more. The 
 Hibernian fortune-hunter, like others of our own day, wanted 
 only her money. She had not been married to him many 
 weeks when she found out that he cared not a straw for her, 
 but only for her purse, her jointure, and her diamonds. Ap- 
 prehending that he had made a plan for carrying her ofF 
 forcibly, or to put her into a madhouse in order to possess 
 himself of her property, she resolved to be ' on the safe side,' 
 and accordingly contrived to secrete some of her jewels in the 
 tresses of her long, dark hair, which she plaited rather care- 
 fully. Others she 'quilted' in the lining of her petticoats, 
 and constantly wore them on her body, though in daily danger 
 of losing them thereby. The Colonel had a clever friend at 
 hand to help him, a chere amie of tender years, whom he had 
 trained for his own purposes ; and this young lady contrived 
 so far to insinuate herself into the lady's confidence as to 
 discover where her will was kept, and to reveal its whereabouts 
 to the Colonel, who of course got a sight of it, and, finding 
 that it was not wholly in his own favoui-, drew out a pistol and 
 threatened once and again to shoot her. 
 
 She now lived in constant fear and dread of her caro sposo, 
 though she does not seem to have plucked up enough courage 
 to bolt off from him, .'ind 1o ajipcal to her relatives for 
 protection. In fact, she gii;w awfully nervous whenever
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE CATHCARTS 119 
 
 he approached her presence, and life began to be a burden to 
 her. 
 
 One day her apprehensions proved not to be altogether 
 groundless, for when the loving pair went out to take their 
 daily airing in the family coach, and she proposed that the 
 coachman should turn the horses' heads homewards, her hus- 
 band showed his dissent in a rather demonstrative manner, 
 and desii-ed John to drive on fui'ther. On and on the coach- 
 man drove, and the horses trotted ; and in vain she remon- 
 strated that they should never be back at Tewin for dinner, 
 though she had a lady coming to dine. At length the Colonel, 
 pulling out a pocket-pistol, told her that she might make her- 
 self quite easy about dining at home ; for ' My dear, we are 
 on our way to Chestei', and to Chester you shall go with me, 
 whether you like or no.' Her expostulations were in vain, 
 and vain, too, were her efforts, for the servants were in league 
 with their master, who had bribed them with some of her 
 gold. 
 
 Day after day passed by, and neither coach nor horses, 
 nor the colonel, nor his lady appeared at Tewin. The neigh- 
 bours began to suspect that something was wrong, and made 
 inquiry. It was ascertained that on the evening of the day 
 when they were missed, the colonel and his wife were seen 
 twelve or fifteen miles from home, with the horses' heads turned 
 to the north, and the Colonel gesticulating as if in a passion 
 with his wife. So they consulted a magistrate in the neigh- 
 bourhood, who advised that an attoi'ney should be sent after 
 him, armed with one of those legal weapons known as writs of 
 ' Habeas coi'pus ' and ' Ne exeat regno.' The attorney, accom- 
 panied by his clerk, was soon upon their track ; and as they 
 had travelled with their own horses and by easy stages, he 
 came up with the fugitives before they reached Chester. At 
 a wayside inn, where they were baiting their horses, he pre- 
 sented himself to the landlord, and asked for the room where 
 the runaway couple were luncliing. But the Colonel was not 
 deficient in expedients. The attorney was admitted by the
 
 120 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 gentleman, who at first refused to let him see his lady, and 
 threatened him with personal violence. But soon cooling 
 down, on finding that the man of law did not know the lady 
 by sight, he said that if he waited a few minutes he should 
 see her and speak to her, adding, ' She is going to Ireland with 
 me with her free consent.' It did not take many minutes for 
 the Colonel to tutor the pretty chambermaid of tlie inn to 
 personate his wife. On coming into the room, she bowed 
 graciously, and inquired what the lawyer wanted of her. The 
 attorney, as instructed by his employers, asked the supposed 
 captive whether she was going off to Ireland of her own free 
 will. ' Perfectly so,' said the woman. ' What more do you 
 want % ' ' Nothing, madam,' was the answer of the limb of 
 the law, who was glad enough to escape from the room, and 
 beg and obtain her pardon for making such a mistake ; and in 
 another half-hour he was off on his way back to Hertford- 
 shire, if not having done his business, at all events having 
 earned his pay. So at least he thought. 
 
 But the Colonel was not so easily satisfied. It struck him 
 that possibly the attorney might recover his senses and find 
 out how lie liad been deceived, and so turn up again ' like a bad 
 penny,' and perhaps delay or even stop his progress towards 
 the sister isle \ so, in order to make assurance doubly sure, he 
 sent after him two or three stout fellows, armed with bludgeons, 
 telling them at the same time to plunder him not only of liis 
 purse, but also, above all, of the papers in his pocket. They 
 followed Mr. Attorney, caught him up in a lonely part of the 
 road, and faithfully executed their connnission, for they 
 knocked him about severely, and with threats of further in- 
 jury carried off in triumph the pieces of parchment, which 
 they speedily brought back to the inn. 
 
 When the Colonel found the two writs actually in his pos- 
 session, h(! knew that at length he was safe ; and so he pur 
 sued his journey, not to Cretna, but to Ireland, the lady not 
 daring to open her lips or show any further sign of an 
 untractable nature.
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE CATHCARTS 121 
 
 Poor woman ! At Holyhead she was taken on board a 
 fishing-smack, and landed, after a stormy passage, in one of the 
 lesser Irish seaports, where there were no police or Custom 
 House officers to make awkward inquiries or to take notes ; 
 and as there were no telegraphs or newspapers, or other means 
 of rapid communication between the two sides of the Channel, 
 the Colonel had no difficulty in completing his journey and 
 brinsinir the lady to the abode which he had destined for her 
 reception. This was a lonely and moated mansion, far away 
 from a town, and well out of the reach of inquisitive and 
 inconvenient neighbours. Indeed, it is said that except the 
 butcher's cai't, which visited the place about once in ten days, 
 nothing on feet or on wheels ever entered its gates, and that 
 the grass grew thick upon the drive leading up to the front 
 door. Two trusty keepers, a man and his wife, kept watch 
 and ward night and day upon the unfortunate lady, who was 
 regarded by them as a sort of amiable lunatic, and treated 
 accordingly, though with extreme politeness. 
 
 That she was not, however, quite a lunatic Lady Cathcart 
 showed in a very marked way 5 or, if she was insane, there 
 was ' method ' and something more ' in her madness.' Whilst 
 in this state of confinement she was occasionally allowed to 
 walk about the grounds, though the park gates were closed 
 upon her, and she could not scale the park walls. One poor 
 old woman came once a week to dig up the weeds which grew 
 along the garden path ; and of her she contrived to make a 
 friend. Through this crone she managed to send the jewels 
 which she had worn in her hair and in the quilting of her 
 petticoats to an acquaintance of former years, by whom they 
 were carefully and honestly preserved. 
 
 At last after several years, namely, in 1764, a release came 
 to the unhappy prisoner. The Colonel had a tit in the night, 
 and was found at daybreak dead in his bed. That morning 
 saw her a free woman. It was necessary to communicate his 
 death to his kith and kin in order that arrangements might 
 be made for his funeral. They came to the house, and found
 
 122 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 his widow anxious and ready to quit the spot where she had 
 been so long immured ; and they, on their part, were glad to 
 come into a bit of property, even if it were only the lease of 
 a lonely and tumble-down old grange. So she found her way 
 to Dublin, where her jewels were restored to her, and the sale 
 of one of them was sufficient to pay the expense of her journey 
 by ship and the ' stage waggon ' back to Hertfordshire. She 
 made her way to her former residence at Tewin ; but the dinner 
 to which she and her husband were to have sat down on the 
 eventful day of their flight was, of course, no longer on the 
 table. Indeed, during her forced absence in Ireland the place 
 had been let on lease by the Colonel to a ' responsible ' tenant ; 
 and this gentleman declined to turn out until forced to do so 
 by a writ of ejectment, which she brought at the next Hert- 
 fordshire Assizes. She attended these assizes in person, and 
 the news of the success of her suit was greeted with cheers by 
 large crowds of the good people of Tewin, who insisted on 
 taking the horses out of her carriage and drawing her in 
 triumph through the streets of Hertford. 
 
 She lived on for many years at Tewin, where she kept open 
 house for her neighbours, and played a rubber at whist with 
 all and any of them. Late in life she wore a sort of turban, 
 which, thougli eccentric in its make, suited her features well ; 
 and it is among the traditions of the county tliat when long 
 upwards of eighty she danced a minuet at tlie Assembly 
 liooms at Welwyn with the spirit of a young woman of a 
 quarter of that age. What is bettor authenticated is that, in 
 1783, Lady Cathcart gave an annuity of 5/. to Tewin Sdiool, 
 and that .she died in 1789, in the ninety-ninth year of lier age. 
 Sl)c lies Ijuried in Tewin Church, and the property wliich once 
 was her own now belongs to Lord Cowper. 
 
 It will be remembered by readers of Miss Edgworth's 
 novels that the story of Lady Cathcart's imprisonment is 
 introduced by her, under another name, into her humorous 
 Irish talc of * Castle Ivackrent.' Thoy will not forget liow 
 the scapegrace, Sir Kit Kackrcnl, manies a young English
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE CATHCARTS 123 
 
 lady for the sake of her fortune, and brings her to Ireland, 
 where he affects to quarrel with her because she i^rofesses to 
 dislike sausages, and cannot endure to see pork on the table ; 
 the real cause of offence, however, being that she refuses to let 
 him have possession of a diamond trinket which she keeps 
 about her person. In his well-feigned rage on the score of the 
 sausages, he locks the lady up in her room, and keeps her in 
 close confinement, until one day Sir Kit is brought home dead 
 on a barrow, having been killed in a duel, when the lady 
 regains her liberty. 
 
 The story of Lady Cathcart has also been told by Dr. W. 
 Chambers, in a little topographical book, entitled ' A Week 
 at Welwyn.' 
 
 AN EPISODE IN THE NOBLE HOUSE OE HASTINGS 
 
 In the whole compass of the history of the British aristocracy 
 it would be a difficult task to find a more strange and eccentric 
 personage than the Hon. Henry Hastings — hermit, sportsman, 
 and centenarian in one — the second son of George, fourth Earl 
 of Huntingdon, a contemporary of Elizabeth, James I., and 
 Charles I. The main facts of his life, and the leading features 
 of his character, were for a long time to be found only among 
 the musty manuscripts of Anthony Ashley Cooper, the cele- 
 brated Earl of Shaftesbury, in the British Museum. Some of 
 them, however, are portrayed in the ' BiographiaBritannica,' 
 and others are to be found in the ' Fragment of an Auto- 
 biography ' by Lord Shaftesbury, published a few years since by 
 Mr, W. I). Christie ; while for the rest, again, we must have 
 recourse to the pages of that scarce and curious book, ' The 
 Eccentric' 
 
 Mr. Hastings is described by Lord Shaftesbury as being 
 'of Woodlands,' a mansion and estate in Dorsetshire, which 
 he appears to have owned. But, instead of residing like a 
 gentleman on his own property, he preferred, as I have already 
 hinted, the life of a hermit, combining with it that of a sports-
 
 124 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 man, and accordingly fixed his abode in the New Forest, over 
 which King James gave him a forester's rights, assigning him 
 also a lodge in its green glades to dwell in. In all probability 
 the reason of his strange hermit life was a disappointment in 
 love, which had thrown a dark shadow over his early years. 
 As he died in a.d. 1639, he must have first seen the light of day 
 in 1529, if there be any truth in the assertion that he was a 
 hundred and ten years old at the date of his decease. Of this 
 fact, however, there is no certain proof, for the parish registers 
 in the days of our 8tuart sovereigns were kept but carelessly 
 at best ; and I have no wish to take up the cudgels and fight 
 over again the vexed question of ' centenarianism.' 
 
 It may be supposed that, singing as he did the good old 
 song, ' A life in the woods for me,' Henry Hastings kept clear 
 of politics, and blessed his stars that he had not been born an 
 eldest son, and so forced to wear a coronet. His business and 
 tactics lay in quite another direction ; and Lord Shaftesbury 
 gives us an amusing peep into the interior of the Hampshire 
 forester's lodge. He says : ' His home was of the old fashion, 
 in the midst of a park well stocked with deer, and near the 
 house rabbits to serve his kitchen ; many tisliponds too, and 
 a great stor(; of wood and timbei". . . . He kept all manner 
 of sport-hounds that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger ; 
 and hawks, long and short-winged ; he had also all sorts of 
 nets for fishing ; he had a walk in tJie New Forest, and the 
 manor of Christ Church. This last supplied him with red 
 deer and river fish, l)ut all his neighbouivs' grounds and 
 royalties were free to him.' In fact, he seems pretty well to 
 have realised in his person Pope's idea of the ' noble savage ' 
 ranging free ' in the woods.' We are sorry to add, however, 
 that, in spite of his lonely life, he did not bear the veiy best 
 of characters. 
 
 His liall was strewn with marrow-bones, full of hawks' 
 perches, liounds, spaniels, and terriers, and his walls were 
 hung around with tlie skJMs of foxes, polecats, rats, and other 
 vermin, which he ii.uled to the panels. There always stood
 
 EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF HASTINGS 125 
 
 two large arm-chairs near his fireplace, and it was seldom 
 that they were not occupied with litters of puppies and kittens, 
 whick he would on no account allow to be disturbed while in 
 possession. At table he always took a very spare and frugal 
 meal, limiting himself to a single glass of beer or wine. But 
 he never dined unattended by his dogs and cats, to keep which 
 in order he always had laid before his ' trencher ' a little white 
 stick or wand some fourteen inches long. The windows and 
 corners of his room, Lord Shaftesbury tells us, were filled up 
 with arrows, crossbows, hunting- poles, hawks' hoods and bells, 
 and last (not least) with rows of old green and greasy hats, 
 with their crowns thrust in so as to hold ten or a dozen 
 pheasants' eggs. He made it a point of duty and honour to 
 have at dinner daily all the year round a plate of oysters, 
 which came to him from the neighbouring town of Poole. At 
 the end of the apartment which served as his parlour and 
 primitive dining-hall there were two doors, the one of which 
 led to his beer and wine closet, and the other into a room 
 which had been designed as a chapel. But, 'although a fine 
 Bible and Foxe's 'Book of Martyrs' both lay there in due 
 form, he did not use the place for the purposes of devotion ; 
 indeed, if the truth must be told, it was no uncommon thing 
 to find a hen turkey sitting in what ought to have served as a 
 pulpit. When the pulpit was not required for the hen turkey's 
 wants, he would use it as a storehouse for a gammon of bacon, 
 a venison pasty, or a baked apple-pie, of which he was par- 
 ticularly fond. 
 
 The rest of the furniture of the house was as old and as 
 strange as its master ; and, as he kept no wife or servants, he 
 could 'do as he pleased with his own.' He liked, however, a 
 friend of his own sphere and rank of life to ' drop in ' upon 
 him occasionally, especially on a Friday, when ' he had the 
 best of sea and fresh- water fish,' and a ' London pudding ' by 
 way of cheer. Occasionally, too, he would leave his solitude 
 and go over to Hanley to play bowls with Lord Shaftesbury 
 and other Dorsetshire gentlemen. This, however, did not
 
 126 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 often happen ; for, nearly related though he was to him, Lord 
 Shaftesbury held principles quite opposed to his own, so that 
 they seldom met except to quarrel. In fact, as a writer in 
 the ' Eccentric ' remarks, ' two men could not be more opposite 
 in their dispositions and pursuits ; for Henry Hastings, though 
 king-appointed, was an independent character to the backbone, 
 and Lord Shaftesbury used to declare that he never could bear 
 the brutality of his manners, for he was fit only to live by him- 
 self as a hopeless misanthrope.' 
 
 In the inclosure which he fenced off from the surroundins 
 park and forest, though he lived so solitary a life, he contrived 
 to make a bowling-green, where he would play for hours by 
 himself, chalking up the scores of ' right against left ; ' and 
 he must have kept himself au courant with the fashions of the 
 day, if it be true that his footpaths were strewn with the 
 fragments of old tobacco-pipes, since the ' noxious weed ' was 
 scarcely known in England when he was a boy. To keep up 
 the pleasant delusion that he had company with him, he built 
 in his garden a banqueting-room, where, seated by himself, he 
 would give out imaginary toasts, and drink glasses of real wine 
 to imaginary beauties. At times, however, when the lit took 
 him, he would deck up this banqueting-room like a booth at a 
 fair, and entertain some of the skilled poachers of tlie neigh- 
 bourhood, from whom, though Ranger by the King's appoint- 
 ment, he did not ol>joct to receive stray gifts in kind, or 
 hints of a practical nature. And, hermit as he was, he was so 
 fai" from liatiiig games and diversions, tliat he would entertain 
 his rough and plebeian guests witli cards and dice, giving each 
 of them one glass of ' mum ' or liccr, and iid more. 
 
 In the evening, by way of supper, wn an; told that ho 
 would take a single glass of sack, .seasoned witli the syrup of 
 gillyflowers, whicli he stirred with a sjirig of rosemary. The 
 troubles of the times never touched or disturbed iiim ; .safe in 
 the glades of his Hampshiio forest, he had foi-gotten tlK> King, 
 and the (Jourt had forgotten liim. A short tinu^ l)f!fore liis 
 death lie rode on hor.soback, and went a day's journey in order
 
 EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF HASTINGS 127 
 
 to hear an old huntsman, who was himself turned ninety, 
 relate the death of a stag that was said to be older than either 
 of the pair. If so, the united ages of huntsman, stag, and 
 Hastings must have been as near as possible three hundred 
 years. There is a portrait of this Henry Hastings at St. 
 Giles's House, near Wimborne, Dorsetshire, the seat of Lord 
 Shaftesbury, and an engraving from the portrait will be found 
 in the second volume of Hutchins's 'History of Dorset.' 
 Tradition still recoi'ds the fact that, in spite of his lonely life 
 and patched dress, he showed in his manners the breeding of 
 a regular gentleman, except in the one matter of swearing. 
 Altogether, Henry Hastings must be pronounced to have been 
 an original — such a man as you would not be likely to meet 
 twice in a lifetime. Lord Shaftesbury describes him as having 
 been ' low of stature, very strong and very active, with reddish 
 flaxen hair.' He tells us that 'his clothes were always made 
 of green cloth,' possibly in allusion to the fabled connection of 
 his ancestor with Robin Hood and Little John, with Sherwood 
 Forest and suits of ' Lincoln green ; ' and he adds, with a spice 
 of sly satire, which he seems thoroughly to enjoy, that ' all of 
 the latter, even when new, were never worth five pounds.' 
 
 Had Mr. Hastings married and had sons, it is more than 
 probable that the present century would never have heard of 
 the celebrated peerage case which gave the earldom of 
 Huntingdon to the great-grandfather of the present head of 
 the house. 
 
 THOMAS PITT, LOBD CAMELFOBD 
 
 The sad story of the wasted life and tragical end of Thomas, 
 second Lord Camelford, is one which cannot fail to awaken 
 interest in readers of every rank, as an instance of a man who, 
 though largely gifted with good natural qualities, and placed 
 in a situation of life where, with good sense and right principles 
 to guide him, he might have attained a high position in the
 
 128 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 State, chose to sacrifice all his prospects to the wajAvardness 
 of his disposition, and fell a martyr to his own folly. 
 
 Lord Camelford was the great-grandson of Robei^t Pitt, 
 the famous Governor of Madras, who acquired a large fortune 
 in India, the best part of two centuries ago, by the advantageous 
 purchase of a certain diamond, which he brought back with 
 him to England, and eventually sold at a great profit to the 
 Duke of Oi'leans, at that time Regent of France. His lordship 
 not only held a seat in the House of Peers, but he was exten- 
 sively connected with some of the first families in the kingdom. 
 His grandfather's brother was the 'great commoner,' William 
 Pitt, and afterwards first Earl of Chatham. His father was con- 
 sequently first cousin to William Pitt the younger and to the 
 second Earl of Chatham ; and his own sister, Anne Pitt, was 
 the wife of Lord Grenville, who, a few years after the date of 
 which I write, became First Lord of the Treasury and head of 
 the Ministry of ' all the talents.' The father, Thomas Pitt, 
 the first Lord Camelford (so created in 1784), owned the fine 
 family estate of Boconnoc, in Coi'nwall, wliich devolved upon 
 his son, together with tlie coronet, while he was still in his 
 minority. 
 
 Born in 1775, he received the fii'st rudiments of his educa- 
 tion under a tutor in the Canton of Berne, in Switzerland, 
 wliere even as a child lie showed a spirit and temper \\'liich, 
 though manly and vigorous, was peculiui'ly moody, wayward, 
 and untractable. He did not bear the character of a manage- 
 able boy at the Charterhouse (then under Dr. Berdmore), to 
 which lie was removed when about ten or twelve years old, 
 and wheie lie did not stay long, having shown an early taste 
 for the roving and adventurous life of a sailor. It was not a 
 difficult matter for a cousin of the Premier to obtain a com- 
 mission in the Royal Navy, and accordingly in 1789 we find 
 him joining, as a midshipman, the frigate 'Guardian,' com- 
 manded l)y the gallant Captain Riou, and laden witli stores 
 for the then infant colony of convicts which was settled at 
 Botany Bay. The calamity which befell that ship was well
 
 THOMAS PITT, LORD CAMELFORD 129 
 
 calculated to inure the young seaman to the perils of the sea ; 
 and even at that time he showed the same contempt for danger 
 which marked his career throughout, and which often partook 
 rather of the nature of recklessness than of bravery. I need 
 only say here that when all endeavours to save the 'Guardian' 
 seemed hopeless, and her commander gave leave to such of her 
 crew as chose to take to the boats, young Pitt was one of those 
 who, to the number of ninety, resolved to stand by the ship 
 and to share her fate with her gallant commander. In the 
 end, after an escape little short of miraculous, the ship made 
 the Cape of Good Hope in the condition of a wreck, and in 
 September, 1790, the survivors found their way to England. 
 
 Undaunted by the dangers which he had encountered in 
 the ' Guardian,' young Pitt on reaching London went straight 
 to the Admiralty, and bringing such family influence as he 
 could to bear upon ' My Lords,' obtained an appointment to 
 join an exploring voyage which was fitting out under Captain 
 Vancouver. He accompanied that officer in the ship ' Discovery ' 
 during part of his distant voyage ; but through his refractori- 
 ness and disobedience of orders, the result of his wayward and 
 obstinate temper, he provoked his commanding officer to treat 
 him with a severity which he would not endure. 
 
 Accordingly, quitting the ' Discovery ' in the Indian seas, 
 he joined the ' Resistance,' commanded by Sir E. Pakenham, 
 and soon gained the rank of lieutenant. It was while serving 
 on board this ship that he heard the news of his father's death, 
 and of his accession to the honours of the peerage. On returning 
 home in 1796, the fii'st thing he did was to send a challenge 
 to his late commanding officer, Captain Vancouver, which that 
 gentleman, on professional grounds, was obliged to decline. 
 The wound, however, rankled deep in the breast of Lord 
 Camelford, who threatened to chastise his superior officer 
 Doubtless, had he been a plain, untitled lieutenant — Brown 
 Jones, or Robinson — he would have been cashiered for dis 
 respect ; but then he was a Pitt, and a peer, and cousin to th' 
 First Lord of the Treasury, so what could poor Captain Van 
 
 K
 
 l3o TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 couver do ? He did the only thing possible, namely, to sit down 
 and digest his wrath ; and the end was that he died of grief 
 and pain, instead of a pistol-shot. 
 
 Having attained the rank of commander, when he had yet 
 to learn how to command himself, though he had reached the 
 ' age of discretion,' Lord Camelford was appointed next to 
 the sloop ' Favoui'ite,' on the West Indian station. We next 
 hear of him at Antigua, where, on January 13, 1798, the 
 ' Favourite ' and the ' Perdrix ' (Captain Fahie) were lying 
 at anchor in harbour. Captain Fahie, it so happened, was 
 absent at St. Kitts, and had left his lieutenant, Mr. Peterson, 
 in charge of the ' Perdrix.' Lord Camelford, whether in the 
 discharge of his duty or in mere wantonness, as being the 
 senior officer, and consequently in command, issued some trifling 
 order which the lieutenant did not feel bound to obey. Lord 
 Camelford must have been a summary disciplinarian, for he 
 called out his marines, and, asking Petei^son if he meant to 
 obey his order, and obtaining no answer or a refusal, he shot 
 him dead on the spot. Lieutenant Peterson was much beloved 
 in Antigua ; and the excited populace were hardly restrained 
 from dealing summary and probably fatal chastisement on his 
 lordship ; but they were calmed by an assurance that an 
 inquiry into the matter should be made by court-martial. 
 But the coroner's jury having brought in a verdict to the 
 effect that Peterson had ' lost his life in a mutiny ' and the 
 court-martial having 'honourably' acquitted his lordship, the 
 Admiralty at home let the affair pass into oblivion. Again it 
 was not a Brown, Jones, or Robinson, but a Pitt who had 
 shot a lieutenant ; and the Pitts were a ' heaven-born ' race. 
 Some say, I know, that ' sin is not sin in a duchess,' and 
 possibly the saying may be true ; probably it is equally true 
 that ' killing is (or was) no n}urder ' when wrought by the 
 liand of a peer of the realm. I doubt if the same law would 
 hold good now as that which appears to have prevailed some 
 four score years back in the history of the British navy. 
 
 After his acquittal. Lord Camelford assumed for a time
 
 THOMAS PITT, LORD CAMELFORD 131 
 
 the command of his ship, but soon threw it up, at the same 
 time quitting the profession in which he had earned such a 
 character for daring and for discipline. ' While in the service,' 
 says a writer of the time, ' his personal appearance was dis- 
 tinguished by the same eccentricity which marked his conduct 
 through life. His dress consisted of a lieutenant's plain coat, 
 without shoulder knots, and its buttons were as green with 
 verdigris as the ship's bottom itself. His head was shaved 
 close, and he wore an enormous gold-laced cocked hat.' It 
 deserves to be remembered to his credit that, though he was 
 so severe a disciplinarian, he showed himself particularly 
 attentive to the comfort and relief of the sick. 
 
 He had not long returned to London when he took it into 
 his head to plan a mad freak, which if he had been allowed to 
 put it into execution, would probably have cost him his life, 
 and have added seriously to the complications of the war with 
 France, which just then was at its fiercest. His plan was to 
 repair to Paris, and there, in the midst of that city, to attack 
 personally and kill the rulers of the Republic. With this 
 object in view, he took coach to Dover, where he arranged 
 with a boatman to convey him across the Channel for twelve 
 guineas, though the law at that time was so stringent as to 
 make the very act of embarkation for France a capital offence. 
 The compact, however, was betrayed to a local collector of the 
 revenue, who accompanied his lordship to the boat, and 
 arrested him in the act of stepping into it. The triumpharit 
 ' collector ' lost no time in carrying his lordship back to 
 London in a post-chaise, under a strong guard, and conveying 
 him to the office of the Duke oE Portland, at Whitehall. A 
 meeting of the Pi'ivy Council was summoned, and I read in 
 the account which I have already quoted, that ' after several 
 examinations his lordship was discharged from custody, the 
 Lords of the Council being satisfied that, however in-egular 
 his conduct, his intentions were only such as he had repre- 
 sented them to be, and that he had no other object in view 
 except that of rendering a service to the country. His 
 
 K 2
 
 132 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Majesty's pardon, therefore, was issued under the Great Seal 
 of the Kingdom, discharging his loixlship from all the penalties 
 which he had incurred under an Act recently passed, which, 
 without reference to motive, made the mere act of embarking 
 for France a capital crime.' 
 
 This was in January, 1799, when his cousin, William Pitt, 
 ruled in Downing Street ; and at least two months appear to 
 have elapsed before Lord Camelford's name was again brought 
 in any marked manner before the public, though he continued 
 to live on in London, indulging by day and night too in a 
 series of practical and sometimes offensive jokes, such as those 
 for which the late Lord Waterford in our own day made him- 
 self so notorious. At one time I find him causing a riot at 
 the box-office of Drury Lane (April 2, 1799), and insulting 
 and assaulting one of the audience — a freak for which his 
 lordship was tried before Lord Kenyon and a special jury, and 
 sentenced to pay a fine of 500?., though he had for his counsel 
 that consummate advocate, Mr. Thomas Erskine, afterwards 
 Lord Chancellor Erskine. On another occasion, when he and 
 his boon companion, Captain Barrie, were returning home late 
 at night, or rather early in the morning, as they passed 
 through Cavendish Square, they found the ' Charleys ' asleep. 
 Of course it did not take a minute to wake them up, which 
 was all very right — and to thrash them, which was all very 
 Avrong. At last the ' Charleys ' sprang their rattles, and other 
 more vigilant guardians of the West End sti-eets rushed up ; 
 but it was not till they were overpowered by ten to two that 
 Lord Camelford and his comrade were led off" to the station- 
 house. Next morning, as a matter of course, they were 
 brought up to the Marlborough Street office, where a present 
 of a guinea a-piece to tlie injured 'Charleys' enabled the 
 sitting magistrate to declare the offenders discharged, with a 
 warning not to repeat such conduct. 
 
 There was nothing in which Lord Camelford took greater 
 delight than in standing out in direct contrast to the general 
 public, and finding himself in a ininority of one. Had he
 
 THOMAS PITT, LORD CAMELFORD 133 
 
 frequented the House of Lords, he would, no doubt, have often 
 been able to gratify this whim ; but his tastes led him to 
 associate not with his 'peers,' in either sense of the term, but 
 with the ' ignobile vulgus ' of the London streets. For in- 
 stance, though he had wished to go to Paris in order to end 
 the war by a single blow, yet in 1801, when all London was 
 lit up by a general illumination, no persuasion of his friends 
 or of his landlord could induce Lord Camelford to suffer lights 
 to be placed in the windows of his rooms. He lodged over a 
 grocer's shop in New Bond Street ; and in vain did the grocer 
 and his wife protest — he remained firm to his silly and way- 
 ward resolve. The mob, of course, attacked the house and 
 saluted his windows with showers of stones. Irritated at the 
 assault. Lord Camelford rushed out among the crowd with a 
 pistol in his hand, and it seemed as if the festive day was 
 doomed to be marked with blood. At last, however, his friend 
 Barrie induced him to exchange the pistol for a stout cudgel, 
 with which he laid about him right and left, until at length, 
 overpowered by numbers, he was rolled over and over in the 
 gutter, and was glad at last to beat a retreat indoors, filthy 
 and crest-fallen. 
 
 In general. Lord Camelford was not one of that amiable 
 class of young men who return to their nests at the end of the 
 business of the day and ' dine at home ' quietly and respect- 
 ably. On the contrary, he lived chiefly at clubs and coffee- 
 houses, where his presence had at least one advantage, namely, 
 that of holding in check the insolence of the young puppies who 
 haunted such rendezvous and gave themselves airs and graces. 
 Indeed, whoever was brought into contact with his lordship 
 in those days, when pistols were often carried, and duelling 
 was in vogue, was speedily made to feel that he had better be 
 careful as to what passed his hps, lest in an unguarded moment 
 he should have to expiate with his blood the slightest slip of 
 the tongue. 
 
 His irritable disposition and obstinate temper not only led 
 him into quarrels and encounters beyond all number, but in the
 
 134 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 end paved the way for the final catastrophe of his tragical 
 death. It appears that for some time Lord Camelford had 
 been acquainted with a certain lady named Simmons. ' Some 
 officious person, either from a silly habit of talking, or out of 
 sheer malice, represented to the touchy nobleman that a friend 
 of his named Best had said to the lady something to his dis- 
 advantage. This ill-timed piece of information nettled his 
 lordship, and rankled in his breast so much that on JNIarch 6, 
 1804, on meeting Mr. Best at the 'Prince of Wales' Coffee- 
 house, he went up to him and said aloud, and in a tone to be 
 heard by the bystanders, ' I find, sir, that you have been 
 speaking of me in the most uiiAvarrantable terms.' Mr. Best 
 simply replied that he was quite unconscious of having done 
 anything to deserve such a charge. Lord Camelford declared 
 that he well knew what he had said to Mrs. Simmons, and 
 called him a ' liar, and scoundrel, and ruffian.' 
 
 The use of epithets such as these, according to the estab- 
 lished code of laws then current in society, left but one course 
 open to Mr. Best, and a hostile meeting was at once arranged 
 for the following morning. Each of the parties having ap- 
 pointed his ' second,' it was left, as usual, to the latter to fix 
 the time and place. These were seven o'clock in the morning, 
 and the fields behind Holland House at Kensington. 
 
 Meantime every means was being put in motion to super- 
 sede the necessity of a duel, or to prevent its occurrence, or at 
 all events to stop it before a fatal result should ensue ; and I 
 regret to add that it seems to have been wholly Lord Camel- 
 ford's fault that these efforts proved unavailing. Later in the 
 evening, Mr. Best, though he had been so grossly and wantonly 
 insulted, sent to his lordship a strong assurance that the in- 
 formation which he had received was quite groundless, and 
 that, as he had acted under a false impression, lie should be 
 quite satisfied if his lordship would witlidi'aw the strong 
 epithets which he had applied to him. But Lord Camelford 
 refused to accept this kindly and sensible offer. Mr. Best 
 then left the coffee-house, and some mutual friends or wit-
 
 THOMAS PITT, LORD CAMELFORD 135 
 
 nesses among the bystanders lodged an information at Marl- 
 borough Street. 
 
 Notwithstanding the magistrates were thus early let into 
 the secret, it appears that no steps were taken to prevent the 
 hostile encounter until nearly two o'clock in the morning, by 
 which time his lordship, who had gained a fair stock of ex- 
 perience in ' matters of honour ' by this time, had of course 
 taken good care to be ' ofl',' having ordered a bed at a tavern 
 near Oxford Street. 
 
 During the night he made his will, bequeathing his estates 
 to his sister, Lady Grenville. In this he insei'ted a clause in 
 which, to do him justice, he wholly acquits his antagonist of 
 blame in the affair, expressly declares that the quarrel was of 
 his own seeking, and desires that in the event of his own 
 death, and the law being put into force against Mr. Best, the 
 King may be petitioned and requested in his (Lord C.'s) name 
 to extend to him the royal pardon. 
 
 Early on the following morning, at the coffee-house in 
 Oxford Street, Mr. Best made another effort to prevail on his 
 lordship to retract the expressions which he had used. ' Camel- 
 ford,' said he, ' we have been friends, and I know the gene- 
 rosity and the unsuspiciousness of your nature. Upon my 
 honour you have been imposed upon by Mrs. Simmons ; do 
 not insist on using expressions which in the end must cause 
 the death of either you or me.' To this Lord Camelford 
 merely replied dryly, ' Best, all this is mere child's play ; the 
 matter must go on.' 
 
 Unable to come to terms at the coffee-house in Oxford 
 Street, the two principals mounted their horses, and rode 
 along the Uxbridge Road, past the wall which then bounded 
 Kensington Gardens, as far as the ' Horse and Groom,' a little 
 beyond Notting Hill turnpike-gate. At the ' Horse and 
 Groom ' they dismount, cross the road, and proceed at a quick 
 pace along the path leading to the fields behind Holland 
 House. The seconds measure the ground, and Lord Camel 
 ford and Mr. Best take up their positions at thirty paces. The
 
 136 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 sun has lately risen, and one or two of the outdoor servants of 
 Holland House are about the grounds ; but while they wonder 
 and stare the signal is given, and Lord Camelford fires. Either 
 designedly or not, he fires without effect, and Mr. Best is a 
 living man. A quarter of a minute elapses, the signal is 
 repeated, and Lord Camelford falls forward on the ground. 
 He is not dead, but he is mortally wounded : and oh, irony of 
 ironies ! he declares that he ' is satisfied.' He shakes hands 
 with his antagonist, who runs to pick him up : ' Best, I ain a 
 dead man, and you have killed me ; but I freely forgive you — 
 the fault was mine.' 
 
 It was now time for Mr. Best to beat a retreat, and one of 
 Lord Holland's gardeners was despatched for a surgeon. A 
 chair was soon procured ; and seated in it, and supported by 
 the bystanders, Lord Camelford was carried ofi" to Little 
 Holland House, the residence of Mr. Otty, where he was 
 attended by two surgeons, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Knight, of 
 Kensington. In an hour more his faithful friend Captain 
 Barrie was beside his bed, and so was his cousin, the Rev. 
 William Cockburn, afterwards Dean of York. 
 
 From the first the surgeons gave little or no hope that the 
 wound would prove anything other than mortal. The ball 
 could not be extracted, and he lingered in great agony for 
 nearly three days, when death put an end to his sufferings. 
 So died Thomas Lord Camelford, at the early age of twenty- 
 nine, by a death which, though not actually self-inflicted, was 
 brought on by his own wayward obstinacy. 
 
 The estimate formed by Mr. Cockburn as to Lord Camel- 
 ford's real character, and his testimony to the sincerity of tlie 
 penitence of his deathbed, are alike striking. He writes : — 
 
 * Lord Camelford was a man whose real character was but 
 little known to the world ; his imperfections and his follies 
 were often brought before the pul)lic, ])ut the counterbalancing 
 virtues he manifested were but little heard of. Thougli vio- 
 lent to those whom he imagined to have wronged him, yet to 
 his acquaintances he was mild, affable, and courteous : a stern
 
 THOMAS PITT, LORD CAMELFORD 137 
 
 adversary, but the kindest and most generous of friends. 
 Slow and cautious in determining upon any important step 
 while deliberating, he was most attentive to the advice of 
 others, and easily brought over to their opinion ; when, how- 
 ever, his resolutions were once taken, it was almost impossible 
 to turn him from his purpose. That warmth of disposition 
 which prompted him so unhappily to great improprieties, 
 prompted him also to the most lively efforts of active benevo- 
 lence. From the many prisons in the metropolis, from the 
 various receptacles of human misery, he received numberless 
 petitions, and no petition ever came in vain. He was often 
 the dupe of the designing and crafty supplicant, but he was 
 more often the reliever of real sorrow, and the soother of un- 
 merited woe. Constantly would he make use of that influence 
 which rank and fortune gave him with the Government to 
 interfere in the behalf of those malefactors whose crimes had 
 subjected them to punishment, but in whose cases appeared 
 circumstances of alleviation. He was passionately fond of 
 science, and though his mind while a young seaman had been 
 little cultivated, yet in later years he had acquired a pro- 
 digious fund of information upon almost every subject con- 
 nected with literature. In early life he had gloried much in 
 puzzling the chaplains of ships in which he served, and to 
 enable him to gain such triumphs he had read all the sceptical 
 books he could procure ; and thus his mind became involun- 
 tarily tainted with infidelity. As his judgments grew more 
 matured, he discovered of himself the fallacy of his own reason- 
 ings, he became convinced of the importance of religion, and 
 Christianity was the constant subject of his reflections, his 
 reading and conversation. ... I wish with all my soul that 
 the unthinking votaries of dissipation and infidelity could have 
 been present at the deathbed of this poor man ; could have 
 heard his expressions of contrition for his misconduct, and 
 of reliance on the mercy of his Creator ; could have heard 
 his dying exhortation to one of his intimate friends to live in 
 future a life of peace and virtue. I think it would have made
 
 138 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 impressions on their minds, as it did on mine, not easily to be 
 effaced.' 
 
 On tlie day after his death an inquest was held on the 
 body of his lordship, when, strange as it may sound to the 
 ears of those who have read this brief story, twelve wise and 
 enlightened inhabitants of the country village of Kensington, 
 for such it then was, brought in a verdict of ' wilful murder 
 against some person or persons unknown.' 
 
 It is evident that Lord Camelford had in him the elements 
 of a good naval officer, if his proud, obstinate, and wayward 
 spirit could only have bent itself to the rules and requiremei^ts 
 of the service. But from a child liP would never obey, or fall 
 in with even the reasonable wishes of parents and tutors. At 
 school the same headstrong and wilful nature cropped out 
 which he exhibited in the navy ; and he was true to it to the 
 very end. In the codicil to his will, which he dictated whilst 
 writhing in his mortal agony, he declared that, while other 
 individuals desired to be buried in their native land, he wished 
 to be interred ' in a country far distant — in a spot not near 
 to the haunts of men, but where the surrounding scenery 
 might smile upon his remains.' 
 
 But in this matter he was not destined to have his own 
 way. Lord Camelford's body was brought back from Ken- 
 sington to Camelford House, at the top of Park Lane, nomi- 
 nally his town residence ; and thonco it was taken and de- 
 posited in the vaults of St. Anne's, 80I10. Owing to the war, 
 effect could not be given to his desire for interment in the soil 
 of Switzerland, and his body still lies where it was first in- 
 terred, in a magnificent coffin, covered with gorgeous red velvet, 
 and surmounted by a coronet. It is perhaps the more neces- 
 sary for me to record this fact, as the contrary is asserted by 
 the late Charles Reade, in an article on Lord Camelford which 
 originally appeared in ' Belgravia ' for May, 187G, and is now- 
 included in a volume oititled 'The Jilt, and other Stories.' 
 He says that the body was wrapped up in a common fish- 
 basket, andthat it is not known now what became of it. But the
 
 THOMAS PITT, LORD CAMELFORD 139 
 
 mystery is no mystery at all; foi^Isaw the coffin, or, at all events, 
 what the verger told me was the coffin of Lord Camelford, in 
 the vaults under St. Anne's, Soho, about the year 1860 ; and the 
 coffin might or might not have contained a fish-basket in the 
 place of a ' shell.' I may add that a letter from the courteous 
 owner of his lordship's seat in Cornwall, the Hon. George M. 
 Fortescue, assured me that he never heard of any attempt, or 
 even desire, on the part of the relations of the eccentric noble- 
 man to bring his remains again into the light of day. 
 
 His fine property of Boconnoc Park, near Lostwithiel, in 
 Cornwall, he left to his sister Anne, the wife of Lord Gren- 
 ville. She outlived him sixty years, dying in the full possession 
 of her faculties, at the age of ninety, in the year 1863. At 
 her death, she bequeathed the estate to her husband's nephew, 
 Mr. Fortescue, the gentleman mentioned above, and it is now 
 owned by his son. 
 
 ^A^ EPISODE IN THE EABLDOM OF PEMBROKE. 
 
 Next to the Howards, who undoubtedly stand first and fore- 
 most in the roll of English nobility, with their forty coronets 
 all fairly won by them in 400 years, no family rises higher in 
 respect of its honours than that of the Herberts. For not 
 only do its male descendants in our day wear the coronets of 
 three earldoms — those of Pembroke, Montgomery, and Car- 
 narvon — but within a period quite historic they have borne at 
 least two more, namely, those of Powis and Torrington, both 
 now extinct in the male line ; to say nothing of other dignities 
 in the lower gi"ade of barons, as Lords Herbert of Cherbury, 
 Lords Herbert of Cardifli", Lords Herbert of Shurland, and, by 
 recent creation. Lords Herbert of Lea. In addition to this 
 they have made alliances with nearly all the greatest and 
 noblest of our titled houses — the Talbots, the Greys, Dukes of 
 Suffolk, the Sidneys, the Villierses, the Howards, the Arun- 
 dells, the Paulets, the Scropes, and the Spencers ; so that the
 
 I40 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 present Lord Pembroke, although not undisputed head and 
 representative of the House of Herbert, has come, through the 
 intermarriages of his ancestors, to hold four ancient baronies 
 in fee, as Lord Ross of Kendal, Parr, Marmion, and St. 
 Quentin. How all this comes about it would not be easy to 
 show in detail without drawing out for my readers a long 
 genealogical tree ; and those who wish to examine my state- 
 ment for themselves can verify my words by the authority of 
 Sir Bernard Burke, whose assertion of the fact, I own, is suffi- 
 cient for myself. 
 
 If they will turn to his ' Peerage ' and his ' Landed 
 Gentry,' they will find that, in addition to the honoui^s above 
 mentioned, the main stem of the Herberts has produced several 
 untitled branches of high worth and renown, such, for instance, 
 as the Herberts of St. Julian's and of Magor, in Monmouth- 
 shire, the Herberts of Llanarth, in Wales, and of Cahirnane, 
 in Ireland. Above all, with respect to the Herberts of Muck- 
 ross, near Killarney, my friend ' Ulster ' writes as follows : 
 ' Since the merging of the elder branch of the Herberts in the 
 family of Clive, by the marriage of the heiress of the last 
 Herbert, Earl of Powis, with the son of the celebrated general. 
 Lord Clive, the chieftainship of the name seems undoubtedly 
 to rest with the Herberts of Muckross, in the county of Kerry, 
 who are descended from Thomas Herbert of Kilcuagh, who 
 went to Ireland under- the care and patronage of his relative, 
 Lord Hei'bert of Cherbury.' And then he proceeds to trace 
 the descent of this Thomas Herbert from the eldest son of Sir 
 Richard Herbert of Colebroke, only brother of William, Earl 
 of Pembroke of the first creation, who — as may lie read in 
 the pages of Speed and Ilolinshed- suffered largely in purse 
 and pocket for his adherence to the House of York in the 
 Wars of the Roses. 
 
 It should be added that, while one of the earl's coronets 
 belonging to the Herberts — namely, that of Powis — for a 
 short time blossomed into that of a marquis, one of the fair 
 Countesses of Pembroke^was even more highly honoured by
 
 AN EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF PEMBROKE 141 
 
 the muses ; for to her Sir Philip Sidney dedicated his ' Arcadia, 
 while Ben Jonson immortalised her memory in the well-known 
 verses that will live as long as the English tongue : — 
 
 Underneath this marble herse 
 Lies the subject of all verse : 
 Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother. 
 Death, ere thou hast slain another 
 Wise and fair and good as she, 
 Time sliall throw a dart at tliee. 
 
 Further, it should be recorded that no less than two 
 brothers, successively Earls of Pembroke, were also in succes- 
 sion the ' honoured lords and chancellors ' of the University of 
 Oxford, where a noble statue of one of them still graces the 
 Bodleian Library ; and the reader will need scarcely to be 
 reminded that the father of the present Earl of Pembroke 
 was the good, the kind, the courteous, and amiable Sidney 
 Herbert, the rising statesman, who, had he lived, would pro- 
 bably have been Premier of England, to whom it was no honour 
 to be created Lord Herbert of Lea, so high did he stand before 
 with Englishmen of all shades of polities. 
 
 When a single house can show so many of its membei'S 
 ennobled both by titles and by the higher dignity of personal 
 merit, it is scarcely worth while to record such facts as that 
 one Lord Pembroke was Lord Chamberlain to the House- 
 hold of Charles I., and that another was 'chosen to carry 
 the sword called " curtana " at the coronation of George I.' 
 However, some of my fair readers may possibly like to ' make 
 a note ' of them. Let me, however, remind them one and all 
 that the surname of the house ennobled by so many creations, 
 and spread through so many branches, is said to be derived 
 from two Anglo-Saxon words, ' Her ' and ' Bert,' meaning 
 ' illustrious lord,' a derivation in their case not wholly false in 
 fact. I suppose too that, in order to do justice to antiquity 
 and to show my respect for ' blue blood,' I ought to add that, 
 according to the hei-alds, the Herberts are sprung from one 
 Herbert, Count of Yermandois, who came over to England 
 with the Conqueror, and held the office of Chamberlain to
 
 142 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 William Rufus. He is mentioned in the roll of Battle Abbey 
 as rewarded with a large grant of land in Hampshire, and as 
 having married a daughter of Stephen, Count of Blois, grand- 
 daughter of William I. The first of the Herberts born in 
 England, it appears, was his son, Herbert Fitz- Herbert, called 
 Herbert of Winchester, who became Treasurer and Chamber- 
 lain to Henry I. His son held the same office under the 
 second Henry, and his great grandson was summoned to Par- 
 liament as a Baron in a.d. 1294. If this be so, in all probability 
 either Mr. Herbert of Muckross, or Lord Pembroke himself, 
 might rightly put in a claim for a barony in fee nearly as old 
 as that of De Ros. 
 
 I must, however, pass by all notice of him, and of his de- 
 scendant, William Herbert, first Earl of Pembroke, Chief 
 Forester of Snowdon, and Constable of Conway Castle, the 
 staunch adherent of the House of York, who, falling into the 
 hands of the Lancastrians after the battle of Dane's Moor, in 
 1469, suffered attaindei', and was beheaded at Banbury. His 
 grandson, William, was installed a Knight of the Garter, and 
 created Lord Herbert of Cardifi", and eventually obtained in his 
 favour a fresh creation of the Earldom of Pembroke. He 
 married a sister of Catharine Parr (the last wife of Henry 
 VIII.), and became one of the most powerful noblemen of his 
 day, taking an active part in public affairs as a soldier and as 
 a statesman. It is recorded of him that ' he rode on February 
 17, 1552-53, to his mansion of Baynard Castle, in London, 
 with a retinue of 300 horsemen, of which 100 were gentlemen 
 in plain blue cloth, with chains of gold, and badges of a dragon 
 on their sleeves.' Dying in 1570, he was buried in Old St. 
 Paul's Cathedral, and with such magnificence that, if we may 
 trust the old chronicler Stow, the mourning given at his 
 funeral cost the large sum, at that time, of 2,000^. It was 
 this nobleman's son Henry, the second earl of the new creation, 
 and also a Knight of tlie Carter, whose third wife was the lady 
 mentioned above as 
 
 ' iSiihiey's sister, Peiiil)roke's motlier.'
 
 AN EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF PEMBROKE 143 
 
 But from all these brilliant and pleasant reminiscences 
 I must pass to my promised ' episode ' in the noble House of 
 Pembroke. It is by no means a pleasant one to relate, or, I 
 fear, a creditable one to the otherwise spotless shield of the 
 noble Herberts — men almost without exception sans peur et 
 sans reproche. 
 
 It appears that Philip, the seventh wearer of the coronet 
 of Pembroke, who came to the title in the reign of Charles II., 
 stood out with an evil prominence even among the riotous and 
 debauched nobles who hung about the Whitehall and St. 
 James's of that day. In our own time we have seen a Lord 
 Kingston month after month quarrelling at Charing Cross with 
 ]Iansom-cab drivers, and a Lord Waldegrave and a Lord 
 Waterford getting up rows in the Haymarket, knocking down 
 policemen, and using their fists pretty freely in street brawls 
 at the West-end — not always quite defensively. But these 
 were comparatively innocents — quite ' lambs,' as they would be 
 called at Nottingham — by the side of Philip, seventh Earl of 
 Pembroke and fourth Earl of Montgomery. Of him we learn 
 a little in a cei'tain book of ' State Trials ' which gives us a 
 peep at his character. Let me only preface my ' episode ' with 
 one remark, that he was the grandson, not of the great Lord 
 Pembroke, the ornament of the Court of King James I., but 
 of his younger brother, who ' began life as one of James's 
 favourites and parasites, was ennobled by the title of Earl of 
 Montgomery, and finished a career in all its parts alike con- 
 temptible by being the first member of the peerage after the 
 fall of the monarchy who sought (and obtained) a seat in the 
 House of Commons.' 
 
 Philip, this nobleman's grandson, who became Earl of 
 Pembroke as well as of Montgomery, on the death of his half- 
 brother in 1674, according to an entry in the Lords' Journals, 
 Jan. 28, 1678, was committed to the Tower 'for uttering such 
 horrid and blasphemous words, and for such other actions 
 proved upon oath, as are not fit to be repeated in any Christian 
 assembly.' Bishop Kennet explains at length what these
 
 144 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 blasphemies were,' and I will not trouble my readers by 
 retailing them ; I will only say that in a petition dated from 
 the Tower, which is to be found no doubt in the Journals of 
 the House of Peers, Lord Pembroke ' humbly implored pardon 
 of God, the King, and of this House,' and accordingly, after a 
 month spent in durance vile, was released, and ' had leave 
 to come to his place in Parliament.' 
 
 It is remarkable that, among the grounds on which the 
 noble earl begged for his release, he pleaded the fact that 'his 
 health was much impaired by long restraint.' Let us see what 
 follows. Such an invalid is he that he has been out of prison 
 only a few days when a complaint is made to the House of 
 Lords by a Mr. Philip Rycaut to the effect that, ' he being to 
 visit a friend in the Strand, whilst he was at the door taking 
 his leave, the Earl of Pembroke came up to the door and with 
 his list, without any provocation, struck the said Philip Rycaut 
 such a blow upon the eye as almost knocked it out, and after- 
 wards knocked him down, and then fell upon him with such 
 violence that he almost stifled him with his grips in the dirt ; 
 that his lordship then likewise drew his sword and was in 
 danger of killing him, had he not slipped into the house and 
 the door been shut upon him.' The wounded man brings his 
 petition to a close by humbly begging the House ' to be an 
 asylum to him ' and give him leave to proceed against the earl 
 according to law. In the end his lordship was bound over in 
 2,000?. to keep the peace towards Mr. Rycaut and the rest of 
 his Majesty's subjects for twelve months. 
 
 But unhappily, almost before Mi". Rycaut had been able to 
 invoke the aid of the House of Peers, Lord Pembroke had got 
 into another and far moi'e serious scrape ; for the House of 
 
 ' It is right to add that in consequence of this affair, 'to show their 
 lordships' great sense and aVjhorrency against blasphemy,' it was ordered 
 that a bill be brought into the House ' for the severe punishment of all 
 blasphemers for the time to come.' Such a bill was brought in, but 
 from some cause or other was allowed to drop. It is almost too good 
 to hope I hat even in this embryo state it had gained its end.
 
 AN EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF PEMBROKE 145 
 
 Lords on March 1 following received a petition from Lord 
 Pembroke himself, complaining that at a coroner's inquest held 
 on the body of Nathaniel Cony, gentleman, he had been charged 
 with causing that person's death — evidently implying that he 
 had received an affront which he ought not to brook as a peer. 
 
 Next day a committee of the ' Law Lords ' was appointed 
 to consider the question thus raised ; but so far were they from 
 taking his lordship's view, that on the 6tli it was resolved 
 ' tliat a commission of oyer and terminer should be issued under 
 the Great Seal for the indictment of Philip, Earl of Pembroke, 
 for killing and slaying Nathaniel Cony.' On the 19th the 
 Lord Chancellor informed the House that the Grand Jury had 
 found him guilty of 'felony and murder,' and a Lord High 
 Steward — Lord Finch, afterwards Earl of Nottingham — having 
 been appointed in due form for the purpose. Lord Pembroke 
 was put upon his trial, just as within the memory of many of 
 us the late Lord Cardigan was tried for the murder of Captain 
 Tuckett. 
 
 It is needless here to recount the legal details of the affair; 
 they may be found at full length by those who are curious in 
 such things in the book of ' State Trials.' It is enough to say 
 that the indictment charged the noble Earl with ' feloniously, 
 wilfully, and of malice before-thought, striking, bruising, and 
 kicking, killing and murdering the said Nathaniel Cony, in the 
 parish of St. Martin's-in-the-Pields, against the peace of our 
 sovereign lord the King, his crown and dignity.' It appears 
 that without any provocation, while drinking in Long's Tavern, 
 in the Haymarket, Lord Pembi^oke first insulted and then 
 assaulted Mr. Cony, next knocked him down, and ended by 
 kicking him when prostrate. The poor man died a few days 
 after, in spite of all that the doctors and ' chirurgeons ' could 
 do. The trial, happily, was not dragged out to such a length 
 as that of the Tichborne ' Claimant ' of our own day at West- 
 minster. The case against Lord Pembroke having been opened by 
 SirWm. Dolben, Recorder of London, in his capacity of King's 
 Serjeant-at-Law,the prosecution was conducted by the Attorney-
 
 146 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 General, Sir William Jones, and the witnesses having been 
 examined, and the evidence against him having been summed 
 up by Sir Francis Winnington, in a day or two the turbulent 
 and quarrelsome nobleman who had thus tarnished the shield 
 of the Herberts was found guilty of manslaughter ; forty of 
 their lordships finding that verdict, while six were for finding 
 him o-uilty of the higher offence, and eighteen pronounced him 
 ' not guilty.' 
 
 It so happened that, although if he had been found guilty 
 of murder the plea of peerage would not have saved him (as 
 witness the cases of Lord Stourton and Lord Ferrers), yet as 
 the law then stood it was competent for a member of the 
 Upper House to plead in arrest of judgment for manslaughter 
 'the privilege of his peerage;' so he got off scot free, and 
 the Lord High Steward put an end to the farce of tlie trial 
 by breaking his staff according to ancient custom. 
 
 But the danger that he had run on this occasion did not 
 cure Lord Pembroke of his fondness for tavern brawls. In the 
 following November a quarrel over their cups arose between 
 his lordship and the Earl of Dorset ; and, as usual, the quarrel 
 seemed likely to end in a duel. The matter being happily 
 l^roufdit under the notice of the House of Peers, before any 
 blood had been spilt, their lordships resolved that both of the 
 bellif^erent parties should be ' confined to their respective houses 
 or lod<^in"s till further orders ; ' and finally, on a full consider- 
 ation of the whole affair, it was ordered tliat tlie confinement of 
 the Earl of Dorset and that of the Earl of Pembroke should be 
 ' taken off,' and that the latter should have leave given him ' to 
 retire liimself to his house at Wilton.' This was not, one would 
 think a very severe punishment for such a miscreant ; and 
 many a man in the humbler ranks of middle life in our own 
 day would be glad to be let off for two serious and one fatal 
 assault by honorary banishment to some pleasant grounds and 
 a park, in Wiltshire or elsewhere. Sucli an ostracism indeed 
 would be a thing to be envied by most of us, if unaccompanied 
 by a Uu-lw, or a stain, but scarcely otherwise.
 
 AN EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF PEMBROKE 147 
 
 Whether the noble Earl took advantage of the kind 
 permission thus given to him to ' retire himself ' from the 
 temptations of ' high life in London/ does not appear. It may, 
 however, be presumed that he took the hint, as we do not hear 
 of him playing such mad pranks again in the parish of St. 
 Martin's-in-the-Fields. He died in 1683, when his titles, 
 honours, and estates passed to a younger and far worthier 
 brother, Thomas, who became the eighth earl. He restored 
 the ancient reputation of the family ; for, besides holding 
 several high offices in the State, including that of Lord High 
 Admiral and the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland, his distinction 
 in the world of literature and science procured for him the chair 
 of the Royal Society. His name tools worthy of remembrance 
 as the collector of that magnificent gallery of sculptures and 
 other antiquities which has for two centuries given an envied 
 celebrity to the fine old seat of Wilton House, the home 
 and haunt of the English Muses, and renowned alike for its 
 pictures and art treasures, and as the spot where Sidney wrote 
 the greater part of his 'Arcadia.' The titles of Pembroke 
 and Montgomery have since descended in his line, and it may 
 well be hoped that the youthful Earl of Pembroke will do no 
 discredit hereafter to the honoured name of his own lamented 
 father, Sidney Herbert. 
 
 And what about the issue of Philip, the seventh Earl ? 
 Happily, he left no male descendants to carry on the polluted 
 stream, which for centuries had flowed so purely in the veins 
 of the Herberts. He married one of the loose and frail 
 beauties of the Court of Charles II., Henriette de Querouaille, 
 a sister of the notorious Duchess of Portsmouth. This lady, 
 who survived her husband nearly half a century, left a 
 daughter, who married the second Lord Jeffries, son of the 
 infamous Judge Jeffries, by whom she became the mother 
 of Henriette Louisa, Countess of Pomfret \ but the titles of 
 Jeffries and Pomfret are now extinct.
 
 148 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 THE BISE OF THE BOTHSCHILDS 
 
 As more than one fair lady of the House of Rothschild has 
 lately married into what I suppose may be styled our Christian 
 aristocracy, a short account of the steps of the ladder by 
 which the Rothschilds in less than a centui-y have climbed 
 from poverty to the highest pinnacle of commercial success 
 may not be without interest at the present moment. The 
 main facts are not new to the world, but the details, I have 
 reason to believe, will be found new by very many, if not most 
 of my readers ; and I will therefore proceed with my story, 
 with only a word of preface — namely, that for most of them 
 I am indebted to my worthy friend Mr. Fi-ederick Mai^tin, the 
 author of the ' Statesman's Year Book,' and of other useful 
 works too numerous to mention. 
 
 In the centre of the ancient city of Frankfort-on-the- 
 Main is a narrow lane not unlike Holywell Street, in the 
 Strand, or Maryleport Street, Bristol, but which, a hundred 
 years ago, was not only one of the narrowest, but one of the 
 dirtiest and filthiest in Europe. It was called the 'Juden- 
 gasse,' or Jews' lane — the name denoting the fact that the 
 Jewish population were forced to live in one part of the town, 
 analogous to the ' Ghetto ' at Rome, and to the ' Jewry ' of the 
 City of London in the Middle Ages. In that street, in tlie 
 year 1743, was born Meyer Amschel Rothschild, the founder 
 of tliat great house which holds in its hands the destinies of 
 European nations more truly than the ephemeral emperors 
 and kings of our day. An empire may fall at Sedan ; a king 
 may abdicate at Madrid ; and the imperial and regal glories 
 pass away as a dream ; but Horace long ago crowned money 
 as a Queen, saying, ' Et genus et formam regina Pecunia 
 donat ; ' and, looking at the existing state of things around 
 us, we cannot any of us get rid of the idea that, after all, 
 money is the great power wliich rules the world.
 
 THE RISE OF THE ROTHSCHILDS 149 
 
 But to return to the Rothschilds. When Meyer Amschel 
 Rothschild first saw the light of day, the Jews, though no 
 longer tied to a single spot in London, were literally in fetters 
 at Frankfort. In 1743 the 'Jews' lane ' was a prison, guarded 
 at either end with heavy chains, which were fastened every 
 evening by the watchmen, and also were kept closed on all 
 Sundays, Feast Days, and Holy Days. Out of this pent-up 
 district, only 300 yards long, the wretched inhabitants were not 
 allowed to stir under penalty of death. ' ISTo Jew,' says Mr. 
 Martin, ' was allowed under any pretence to live beyond the 
 limits of the " Judengasse ; " a rule which compelled the poor 
 outcasts either to raise their dark sunless dwellings higher and 
 higher with each succeeding generation, or else to hide them- 
 selves away in deep cellars underground. Such were the early 
 surroundings that greeted the birth of the world-famed bank- 
 ing dynasty.' Shame on Christians, indeed, that such should 
 have been the case ; but it only proves the truth of Byron's 
 
 sneer : 
 
 Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded 
 That all th' Apostles would have done as they did. 
 
 At the age of eleven young Rothschild lost his parents, 
 and had to begin the battle of life single-handed. After a 
 few years' schooling, one fine morning he packed up all his 
 worldly goods on his shoulders, and with a stout stick in his 
 hand walked to Hanover. Here he fortunately found a place 
 as clerk to a small banker and money-changer. By dint of 
 extreme parsimony he managed to save a little out of his 
 salary, and with this capital in hand he returned to Frankfort 
 in the year of grace 1773, a little over a hundred years ago. I 
 wonder if the House of Rothschild remembered to keep in the 
 year 1873 their founder's centenary. 
 
 Meyer Amschel now took to himself a wife, and established 
 himself as a broker and money-lender in the Judengasse, join- 
 ing with his other business a little money-lending on a small 
 scale. As a skilful collector of, and an honest dealer in old 
 coins and other rarities, he soon gained some local fame, and
 
 150 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 many a vii'tuoso would look in upon him at his shop, No. 148, 
 over the door of which he hung out his sign, the ' Red Shield,' 
 which, in allusive heraldry, denoted ' Roth Schild.' 
 
 Among the connoisseurs with whom he was thus brought 
 into connection was William, the Landgrave of Hesse Cassel, 
 afterwards known as William I., Elector of Hesse. In those 
 troubled and dangerous times, when the first Napoleon was 
 making every town in Euroj)e quake, the Landgrave was no 
 doubt often glad to dispose of stray family jewels for a supply 
 of the needful, and possibly to borrow a few hundreds on 
 personal security in order to pay the more pressing of his 
 creditors. Thus, intimate relations were established between 
 the Landgrave and the once poor clerk of Hanover: and so in 
 1796, when the French troops marched on Frankfort, the 
 owner of the ' Red Shield. ' had time to put his ' little all ' 
 safe within the sheltering walls of the Landgrave's Schloss at 
 Cassel — a service which the Jew banker was able to return 
 with interest ten years later. The event is worth noticing, 
 as marking the starting-point of the career of the House of 
 Rothschild. 
 
 As a rule, bombardments are not very fortunate in their 
 consequences ; but the bombardment of Frankfort by Kleber, 
 in 1796, was not without its advantages, to the Jews at least. 
 The ' Ghetto ' of that city was knocked nearly to pieces, and 
 the Jews were thenceforth allowed, as a special favour and 
 privilege, to rent houses among their Christian brethren. 
 The ' Red Shield ' was transferred to a better part of the city, 
 and its owner was appointed banker to the Landgrave and 
 his court. 
 
 This led to an event which proved tlio turning-point of the 
 fortunes of the Rothschilds. In 1806 the Landgrave was 
 driven from his throne by Napoleon, who wanted the territory 
 in order to consolidate the kingdom of Westj^halia, which he 
 had recently conferred on his brother Jerome. In his hurry 
 to ' pack up and be off,' William had no time to secure his 
 cash, which he was only too glad to leave in the hands of his
 
 THE RISE OF THE ROTHSCHILDS 151 
 
 banker, though pi'obably he had his misgivings as to seeing 
 it again. Safer, however, he thought in the hands of Meyer 
 Amschel, his Hqf-agent, than in the hands of the merry King 
 of Westphalia. The sum amounted to just a quarter of a mil- 
 lion of English pounds. The Hof-agent, however, was equal 
 to the crisis ; he saw how to take care of the money, and to 
 make it bring in a good return also ; and at a time when 
 gold was worth from 12 to 20 per cent., and when all who 
 were 'hard up' were forced to mortgage their lands and 
 houses, he saw that it only required a cool head and sound 
 judgment to turn the capital over with advantage. The result 
 was that in six years he had nearly quadrupled the original 
 sum in his hands, and when he died, in 1812, he was found to 
 be worth a million sterling. 
 
 Shortly after this event happened the battle of Leipsic, 
 and on the re-establishment of peace the Landgrave was 
 restored to his estates and his petty royalty. He had not 
 been many days at his palace when he received a call from the 
 eldest son of his departed Uof -agent, who handed him the 
 quarter of a million which six years before he had left with 
 Meyer Amschel. The Landgrave was overjoyed at the sight 
 of his cash, and, feeling that he could not pay too much 
 honour to such honesty and probity, dubbed young Eoth- 
 schild a knight on the spot. At the Congress of Vienna, 
 which he attended shortly afterwards, he was loud in his 
 praises of the Rothschilds ; and the result was that the other 
 crowned heads of Europe were anxious to secure the services 
 of so trustworthy a banker, who, no doubt, was equally ready 
 to do for any one of them what he had done for the Land- 
 grave, namely, take care of their money and repay it without 
 interest. 
 
 Meyer Amschel Rothschild left ten children — five daugh- 
 ters and five sons — who by their father's will were bidden to 
 enter into partnership, binding themselves under the most 
 solemn promises to be true to each otlier, and to keep the great 
 Hof Agency business in their own hands, without allowing
 
 152 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 strangers to interfere with it. They were to establish differ- 
 ent branches of the central bank at Frankfort, in London, 
 Paris, and the other capitals of Europe, and thus to keep 
 each other well informed as to all the centres of politics and 
 business. 
 
 ' Anselm, the eldest son, was to be the head of the firm, 
 says Mr. ]\Iartin, ' directing all its operations, and, if neces- 
 sary, controlling the actions of his brothers. However, this 
 arrangement was not strictly carried out, for, though Anselm 
 remained all his life the nominal head, yet his third brother 
 (Xathan) inherited the largest share of his father's spirit, and 
 became the real chief of the house.' It was this Xathan 
 Meyer Rothschild, I may here remark, who, eventually settling 
 in London, was naturalised in England, was created a Baron 
 of the Austrian Empire, and became the father of Sir Anthony 
 Rothschild, the first English baronet of the family. I must 
 now pass on to his history. 
 
 Born in September 1777, he left his home at Frankfort 
 in 1798, at the age of twenty-one, and opened a small place 
 of business as a banker and money-lender at Manchester, 
 which city he is said to have reached with 8-t/. in his pocket 
 after paying his travelling expenses. By dint of shrewdness, 
 perseverance, and self-denial, however, he had so successfully 
 conducted his operations that he came from Manchester to 
 London with a capital of 200,000/. at his command. He en- 
 gaged largely in speculations in the public funds, a safe step 
 considering the supply of information which he received from 
 abroad ; and, as he realised vast profits, his 200,000?. speedily 
 added a fresh ' ' to it. 
 
 The next part of the story I will leave Mr. Martin to tell 
 in his own words : 
 
 ' An instance of young Rothschild's sound calculation, and 
 which proved an event of the greatest importance in his suc- 
 cessful career, was his first tran.saction with the British 
 Government. In 1810, during the period when the fortunes 
 of the Peninsular War seemed most doubtful, some drafts
 
 THE RISE OF THE ROTHSCHILDS 153 
 
 of Welliugton, amounting in the aggi'egate to a considerable 
 sum, came over to this country, and there was no money to 
 meet them in the Exchequer. Nathan Rothschild, calculating 
 with habitual shrewdness the chances of England's victory 
 in her great contest against the arms of France, purchased 
 the bills at a considei'able discount, and, having made them 
 over to the Government at par, furnished the money for re- 
 deeming them. It was a splendid speculation in every respect, 
 and, according to Nathan's own confession, one of the best he 
 ever made. Henceforth, the Ministry entered into frequent 
 and intimate relations with the new Hebrew banker, who 
 fully realised the pecuniary advantages which this connection 
 brought him. Every piece of early news which he obtained 
 brought him the gain of thousands at the Stock Exchange, 
 the manipulation of which he had mastered to an unexam- 
 pled degree. Soon, however, even the information which the 
 resources of the Government furnished him was deemed in- 
 sufficient by the enterprising speculator, and he set to originate 
 means of his own for obtaining news far more perfect than 
 those at the service of the Government. For this purpose he 
 organised a staff of active agents, whose duty it was to follow 
 in the wake of the Continental armies, and to send daily, or, 
 if necessary, hourly reports of the most important movements, 
 successes or defeats, in ciphers hidden under the wings of 
 carrier-pigeons. To the breed of these pigeons Nathan Roths- 
 child attended with the greatest care, and often paid large 
 sums for birds of superior strength and swiftness.' 
 
 But he was not always content with the news sent at 
 second-hand through pigeons, a mode of transit always liable 
 to be intercepted by a stray shot from a Cockney's or a school- 
 boy's gun. Occasionally he would make his way to the Con- 
 tinent himself, in order to note matters with his own eyes. 
 For instance, when Napoleon returned from Elba, his anxiety 
 for the pecuniary prospects of the house led him to Belgium, 
 where he followed events, moving in the wake of the army 
 under Wellington. Eager to glean the latest intelligence, he
 
 154 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 even ventured on the edge of the battle of Waterloo, where he 
 witnessed the defeat of the French from the high ground in 
 front of the chfiteau of Hougoumont. 
 
 As soon as the fate of the battle was decided, Nathan 
 Rothschild rode as fast as his horse could carry him to Brussels, 
 where a chaise was in waiting to take him on to Ostend, which 
 he reached at daybreak on June 19. The sea was rough, and 
 he had therefore some little difficulty in getting a boat across ; 
 but a brave fisherman agreed to peril his life for the sum of 
 80^., and the same night he was safe in Dover Harbour. 
 Posting on to London, and sleeping in the chaise, he reached 
 the City early on the 20th, and at ten o'clock was leaning 
 against his accustomed pillar at the Stock Exchange. He 
 looked solemn and anxious ; and whispered to some of his 
 acquaintances a rumour that Marshal Bllicher and Wellington 
 had sufiered a defeat, and that Napoleon was master of the 
 field and of the day. 
 
 The news spread like wildfire ; down, of course, went the 
 funds. Nathan Rothschild's known agents sold with the rest, 
 but his unknown and secret agents bought still more largely, 
 picking up every bit of scrip that they could lay hands on till 
 the following day. On the afternoon of that day (the 21st) 
 the real news reached London — the news of the fall of Napo- 
 leon. Radiant with joy, Nathan Rothschild was the first to 
 inform his friends on the Stock Exchange of the happy event. 
 The funds rose as fast as they had fallen — perhaps even a 
 little faster — and no sooner were the official returns of the 
 battle made known to the world, than it was found that the 
 House of Rothschild had netted a million by the transaction. 
 Enougli : the foundations of the monetary dynasty of that 
 liouse were now secure. 
 
 Having thus gained their first couple of millions, the 
 Rothschilds soon found honour and dignities showered thick 
 upon them. The Emperor of Austria raised all the five 
 brothers to the rank of hereditary nobles ; and seven years 
 later granted them patents of dignity as barons. And as for
 
 THE RISE OF THE ROTHSCHILDS 155 
 
 Nathan, Lis career after Waterloo was as prosperous as it 
 had been before. ' He made money,' says Mr. Martin, 'even 
 by speculations which turned out bad ; for instance, by the 
 English loan of twelve millions, for which he became respon- 
 sible in 1819, and which fell to a discount : but this did not 
 happen until Nathan had relieved himself of all responsibility. 
 His greatest successes, however, were in foreign loans, which he 
 was the first to make popular in England, by introducing the 
 habit of paying in the London market the dividends which 
 previously had been paid abroad, and by fixing the rate in 
 sterling money.' 
 
 From about the year 1819 the transactions of the brothers 
 Rothschild came to be spread over the whole civilised world, 
 and Nathan negotiated in person or by proxy loans with the 
 Czar of Russia and with the South American Republics, and 
 drove his bargains with the Pope of Rome and the Sultan of 
 Turkey ; yet, while dealing Avith these world-wide matters, 
 he could calculate to a sixpence what each of his clerk's wages 
 should amount to ; and he took care that they should never 
 be overpaid a penny, even when he was himself entertaining 
 at his table peers, bishops, and even Princes of the Blood 
 Royal. And yet he was not happy. His utter want of edu- 
 cation rendered him quite unfit to enjoy the pleasui-es of 
 London society, and at the same time exposed him to the 
 shafts of satire. He was constantly made the subject of 
 caricatures, which nettled and pained him to a degree ; and 
 and he was constantly in receipt of billets-doux, sent by the 
 post anonymously, which contained threats of assassination 
 unless he sent large sums of money to the writers. 
 
 In the year 1831 Nathan Rothschild did a stroke of busi- 
 ness which, while it, brought him and his house immense 
 profits, also heaped upon them not a little obloquy, freely ex- 
 pressed in many English and foreign newspapers. It is well 
 known that the supply of mercury is exceedingly limited, 
 being almost entirely drawn from two ndnes, those of Almaden, 
 in Spain, and of Idria, near Adelsberg, in Illyria. The mines
 
 156 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 of Almaden, which were known to the Greeks 700 years before 
 Christ, and which furnished 700,000^. annually to Rome during 
 the Imperial era, fell somewhat into neglect, on account of the 
 Napoleonic wars at the commencement of the present century, 
 so that the Spanish Government derived less pi'ofit from them 
 than formerly. Under these circumstances, when the Ministers 
 of his Catholic Majesty were hard up for funds in 1831, they 
 entertained the application of Nathan to furnish them with a 
 loan, on condition of the Almaden mines being made over to 
 him for a number of years as security. The bargain was 
 struck, and the House of Rothschild entered into possession 
 of the mines, commencing the business by immediately doubling 
 the price of Almaden mercury. The commercial world, much 
 astonished at this step, addressed itself to Idria ; and then it 
 was discovered that the mines of Idria had passed likewise 
 very quietly into the hands of Nathan Rothschild, who had 
 settled, of course, the price of the mercury on the same scale 
 as that of Almaden. By this little transaction the House of 
 Rothschild obtained a complete monopoly in the sale of 
 mercury, and Nathan was able to fix the price of the article, 
 indispensable for many purposes, at his counting-house in St. 
 Swithin's Lane. This clever stroke of business — as profitable 
 as it was clever — had one notable consequence for the sick and 
 suffering of all nations. Mercurial preparations, largely em- 
 ployed in medicine, are at present no more manufactured from 
 the pure metal as obtained from the mines, but from the refuse 
 of other articles containing quicksilver, such as the foil of old 
 mirrors and looking-glasses. It would be interesting, if the 
 statistics were to be obtained, to calculate how many pounds 
 sterling the House of Rothschild made by the little mercury 
 business, and how many persons suffered in consequence of bad 
 mercurial medicines. 
 
 The grand secret and guiding principle which has ensured 
 the continuance of the prosperity of the House of Rothschild 
 has been the unity which has attended the co-partnership of 
 its members, so strongly enjoined as a duty on his children by
 
 THE RISE OF THE ROTHSCHILDS 1^7 
 
 its founder, Meyer Amschel, as he lay on his death-bed. It is, 
 after all, but a realisation of the truth of the fable of the 
 bundle of sticks, a fresh example of the saying that ' union is 
 strength.' To cement and to continue this bond of union, 
 Nathan conceived the further idea of linking the family still 
 closer together by the intermai'riage of the brokers' children. 
 Accordingly in 1836 he summoned a meeting of the family at 
 Frankfort to discuss, and, if possible, to ratify the question. 
 His advice was followed, and the congress broke up with an 
 arrangement for the marriage of the eldest son of Nathan 
 Rothschild with the eldest daughter of his brother Charles. 
 
 Nathan had arrived at Frankfort in the May of that year 
 in perfect health and spirits, and he took part in the religious 
 ceremonies which attended the wedding of his son and his 
 niece on June 15. Next day, however, he was taken ill ; he 
 grew rapidly worse, and it was suggested that his physician 
 in London, Dr. Travers, should be summoned ; but the travel- 
 ling expenses of a London physician to Germany were too 
 hea'V'y for the purse of a Rothschild, and a cheap medical 
 ad\dser from the city of Frankfort was called in. Under his 
 hands poor Nathan Rothschild got worse and worse, grew 
 delirious, and talked only of his pounds, his notes, and his 
 thalers, and on the 28th he died. 
 
 Early on the morning of the next day a sportsman, looking 
 out for birds on the downs near Brighton, shot a pigeon, which, 
 when picked up, proved to be one of the well-known carriers 
 of the House of Rothschild. It carried no letter under its 
 wings, but only a small bit of paper on which were written 
 the words '// est mort,' with two initials. Who the il was there 
 could be no doubt. Next day there was almost a panic on the 
 Stock Exchange, and a great fall in the funds — greater even 
 than that which occurred on the death of Sir Thomas Barinir. 
 
 The remains of Nathan Rothschild were brought over to 
 England, placed in a sumptuously gilded coffin, and buried with 
 great pomp and state in the Jewish cemetery at the East-end 
 of London, his hearse being followed by a train of mourning
 
 IS8 TALES OF OUR GREAT FA M FLIES 
 
 carriages nearly a mile in length, and the cavalcade in- 
 cluded not only the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of London, but 
 also the Austx'ian, Russian, Prussian, and Neapolitan Ambas- 
 sadors. Verily, if money be not a king, it sometimes has a 
 a royal following. 
 
 The fortune left by the head of tlie family was variously 
 estimated at three, six, and even ten millions. It is probable 
 that the exact sum was never really known, as large sums had 
 been made over to various members of his family in liis life- 
 time. After declaring that lie had an interest in all the houses 
 conducted by his brothers on the Continent, he ordered that 
 his four sons should join their uncles in carrying on the trans- 
 actions — I suppose I must not call it 'business' — of the house, 
 and to each of his three daughters he left a paltry 100,000/., 
 forbidding them to marry without the consent of their mother 
 and brothers. 'This,' as Mr. Martin remarks, 'was but a 
 furtherance of the guiding thought of the latter part of his 
 life, when lie dreamed that he was destined to elevate his 
 family into a distinct class or caste, equal to that of the royal 
 families of Europe, and all united in the close ties of blood 
 alliance. Perhaps, at times, he even looked forward to the 
 day when the House of the 'Red Shield' should stand far 
 higher than those of Ilapsburg .-ind Coburg, by tlie right of a 
 power f;ir liiglicr and more stable tliaii that of ancestry — tlie 
 power of gold. 
 
 Such a di'caiii, if Nailian Rolliscliild cmt di'canied it, lias 
 not come true, nor does it seem likely evei- now to be realised. 
 Another generation has .sprung up ; (he head of the English 
 house is a Peer, and .sever;il of tlic Ivoth.schilds li.ive held seats 
 in P.uliauK'nt ; ilic RoMischilds now own ( lUiinrisbury Park 
 in Middlesex iind Tiing Park in I lertfordshire, ami Mentmoro 
 in Buckingluinishire ; and some of their handsome Jewish 
 daughters have exchanged their Israelitisli maiden-names for 
 Christian surnames.' The caste is lirokcn in upon ; the wall 
 
 ' IlMiinah, sister of Hnron Rotliscliild and of Sir A. Udtliscliild, 
 married in IHH'.t I lie late liij^hl Hon. Jlenry Fitzro.v, M.l'. lor Lowes, 
 lirotlicrnl' ihc l;itc I,(ird Southampton; a daujjlitorof Paron Rotliscliild,
 
 THE RISE OF THE ROTHSCHILDS 
 
 159 
 
 of severance is no longer standing ; and Jewish wealth has 
 now become in the matrimonial market an article of exchange 
 for Christian blood and noble ties. May the blending of the 
 two principles be happy in its results ! 
 
 AN EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF HABLEY 
 
 Among our great families, whose names are coeval with the 
 Norman Conquest— whose heads in the days of the last Stuart 
 sovereign ' held the realm in pawn ' — are the Harleys, who for 
 a century and a half after the extinction of the heroic House 
 of Vere enjoyed the dignity of earls of Oxford, and one of the 
 last of whom figured in his day as a merchant. Alderman, and 
 Lord Mayor of London. The old peerage makers tell us that 
 the family ' can be traced to a period antecedent to the Con- 
 quest,' at which date its position was so eminent that it 
 forked, like the Harcourts, into two rival branches, one on each 
 side of the English Channel, bearing their original name of 
 Harlai in France. 
 
 We find that in or about the reign of our Edward II. a 
 certain knight, Sir Robert de Harley, married Margaret, eldest 
 daughter and co-heiress (with her sister Elizabeth, wife of 
 Sir Richard de Cornwall, son of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, 
 King of the Romans, brother of Henry II.) of Sir Bryan de 
 Brampton, in virtue of which marriage he gained the magni- 
 ficent estate and noble castle of Brampton Bryan, near Ludlow 
 which has continued down to this day in the hands of his 
 descendants. And Sir Bernai^d Burke tells us that his 
 grandson. Sir John Harley, of Brampton Bryan, received the 
 honour of knighthood from Edward IV. on the field of battle. 
 From him, eighth or ninth in direct lineal descent, was Sir 
 Robert Harley, of Brampton Bryan, M.P. for Herefordshire, 
 Master of the Mint under Charles I., a man whose name 
 
 of Mentmore, has entered the bonds of matrimony after the Christian 
 rite with the Hon. Mr. Yorke, a younger brother of the Earl of Hard- 
 wicke; and still more recently another Miss Rothschild has become 
 Countess of Rosebery.
 
 i6o TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 is Avorthy of remembrance, if for no other reason, because 
 he refused to coin money at the Royal Mint in the Tower 
 with any other die than that of his royal master. For this 
 offence he was deposed by the Parliament, and he does not 
 appear to have lived to see the Restoration. His wife. Lady 
 Brilliana Harley, was a niece of Dorothy, daughter of Sir 
 John Tracy, of Toddington, Gloucestershire, and sister of 
 Mary, wife of Sir Horace Vere, Lord Vere of Tilbury, through 
 which union the Harleys became allied with the Yeres, ancient 
 Earls of Oxford, whose name is — or rather was for twenty 
 generations — a synonym for the very flower of English nobility. 
 Lady Brilliana was almost as celebrated for her defence of 
 Brampton Castle, wlien invested by the Parliamentary forces 
 in 1643, as was Lady Blanche Arundell for her defence of 
 Wardour Castle. • Her story is rather a toucliing one ; for 
 although she had held the place for seven weeks against her 
 assailants, she forced them to raise the siege, yet she died a 
 few weeks afterwards, her end being hastened by her annoy- 
 ance and grief at the siege. After her death the Roundheads 
 returned to their work, and laid siege a second time to the 
 castle, which they took and then burned to the ground. A 
 mass of noble ruins still remains to show what the size of tlie 
 castle must have been in the days of its splendour. 
 
 The son of the owners of Brampton Castle, Sir Edward 
 Harley, was a member of the Parliament tliat called back 
 Charles II. to his throne, and was appointed Governor of 
 Dunkirk in I'eward of his father's ser\ices and losses in the 
 Royal cause. His eldest son, Robert Harloy, successively 
 Speaker of the House of Commons, Secretary of State, and 
 Chancellor of tlie Exchequer, was created Earl of Oxford and 
 Mortimer in 1711, and four years later was impeached and 
 committed to the Tower. His public trial and his acquittal 
 on the charge of high treason in the reign of George I. are 
 matters well known to every school-boy or school-girl. His 
 son and successor, the second earl, was tlic gloimer and editor 
 ' See above, p. 1.
 
 AN EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF HA R LEY i6i 
 
 of the valuable collection of historical documents which is 
 known to scholars as the Harleian Miscellany, and which was 
 purchased from his widow for the British Museum. The third 
 earl was his cousin, also Edward, of whom little more need be 
 said than that he married and had four sons, of whom the 
 eldest reigned as a peer in his stead, the second was Bishop of 
 Hereford, and the fourth a prebendary of Worcester, while 
 his third son, Thomas, was sent into the City to make his for- 
 tune, or at all events to push his way. The story of this 
 Thomas Harley I now come to tell. 
 
 Although the son and the brother of an Earl of Oxford, 
 yet this gentleman shared the fate which is so common among 
 the younger sons even of titled parents, namely, that of having 
 to begin the world with but a very small supply of money. 
 Young Harley was educated at the school at Westminster ; but 
 it is not on record that on leaving his father's house at West- 
 minster he walked through Temple Bar and journeyed eastwards 
 into the City of London proper, with only the conventional 
 half -a-crown in his pocket which usually figures on these occa- 
 sions. Indeed, it is not at all certain that he went through 
 Temple Bar at all, for even at that date there were more ways 
 than one into the heart of London. One way, at all events, 
 was by the river, not in a steamer, but in a hired wherry or 
 his father's private barge. 
 
 It so happened that his father's steward, who had made 
 some pickings out of the Harley estates, was possessed of a 
 very pretty daughter, one Anna— or, as she was called, 'Nanny' 
 — Bangham, and she became the fair goddess of his destiny. 
 She was her father's heiress, was known to have a good fortune 
 * looming in the future,' and her father, plain Edward Bangham, 
 thought that none would have a better right to share it 
 with her than one of his master's sons. The fates were pro- 
 pitious ; young Thomas Harley ' popped the question ' which 
 has made (or marred) so many men before him and after him. 
 Old Bangham was quite as willing as his fair daughter to say 
 'yes ;' so the affair was soon settled, and her money too. He
 
 i62 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 received with ' Nanny ' a handsome fortune, with which, at 
 the ripe age of twenty-two, the Honourable Thomas Harley 
 commenced business in the wine trade, and became a citizen of 
 London, resolving mentally, no doubt, to sit one day in the 
 civic chair. 
 
 Time went on. Harley prospered in his business, and the 
 fact of his having a ' handle ' to his name, we may be sure, 
 did not stand in his way among the good people who worship 
 Mammon much, but ' blue blood ' even more, to the east of 
 Temple Bar. Ten years after his marriage and his start in 
 business, namely, in 1762, we find him chosen an Alderman of 
 London, and in the same year one of the members for the City, 
 having succeeded to the seat vacated by its late respected re- 
 presentative, Sir John Barnard. He served as Sheriff of 
 London in 1764, and became Lord Mayor in 1768. 
 
 During his shrievalty he made himself famous, though 
 not perhaps popular in the City, by seizing the emblems of the 
 'boot' and 'petticoat,' which the mob were burning in the 
 street opposite the Mansion House, in mockery of Lord Bute 
 and the Princess Dowager, while the Sheriflfs were busily 
 engaged, on their parts, in burning the North Briton, the 
 paper of John Wilkes. The people in the mob were throwing 
 copies of the paper about in sport and fun, when one of them 
 
 probably carrying inside of it a handful of dirt or a stone — 
 
 was hurled through the front window of Mr. Sheriff Harley's 
 chariot, shattering the glass. This caused an alarm, and the 
 Sheriffs retired, with .sound discretion, to the Mansion House. 
 Some few of the ringleaders of the mob were arrested, and 
 brought before the Lord Mayor ; but it turned out to be a 
 ' storm in a tea-cup,' and it appeared tliat no danger to the 
 Constitution was designed or contemplated by the populace, 
 though angry with the civic magnates. 
 
 A proposal being made to offer a vote of thanks to the 
 Sheriffs, for discharging their duty on this not very difficult 
 or critical occasion, was negatived by tlie Lord M.-iyor liimself, 
 who stated publicly that he did not consider the affair as
 
 AN EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF HA RLE V 163 
 
 ' sufficiently important for a public and solemn acknowledg- 
 ment, which,' he declared with emphasis, ' ought to follow 
 only the most eminent exertions of duty.' 
 
 For this refusal — it is almost incredible — the Duke of 
 Bedford, in his place in the House of Lords, moved that the 
 Mayor and Corporation of London should be 'ordered to 
 attend at the bar to answer for their conduct ; ' while another 
 duke, his Grace of Richmond, in seconding the motion, took 
 to himself and his leader great credit for not moving a formal 
 address to his Majesty, urging him to ' deprive the City of 
 its charter.' Lord Mansfield, who had, fortunately, enjoyed a 
 legal instead of a ducal education, with great good sense and 
 coolness, explained the matter in all its bearings to the satis- 
 faction of the House, and in the end prevailed upon the two 
 dukes to withdraw a motion which could not be justified upon 
 any principle of reason, law, or liberty. 
 
 For his service on this occasion, however, Mr. Harley was 
 sworn a Privy Councillor, so that he could style himself 'Right 
 Honourable ' long before he obtained the honours of the 
 mayoralty.' But in proportion as he gained favour at Court, 
 he lost it in the City ; and in consequence he was thrown out 
 of Parliament at the next election, and was afterwards un- 
 successful in his candidature for Herefordshire, in which county 
 it might be thought the Harley interest would have been all- 
 powerful. At length, in 1775, on the occasion of Mr. Foley 
 being raised to the peerage, when the memory of his shrievalty 
 had passed away, the farmers and cider- makers of Hereford- 
 shire thought better of the affair, and sent him as their repre- 
 sentative to St. Stephen's ; and he continued to hold his seat 
 for a quarter of a century or more. 
 
 There is little or nothing to say with respect to Mr. Harley's 
 mayoralty, except that it was uneventful, and that at the close 
 
 ' It is stated by Mr. Sylvanus Urban in the obituary notice of Mr. 
 Harley in the Gentleman'' s Magazine for 1804, that this honour had 
 never before been conferred on any of his predecessors in the ma3-or- 
 aity from the days of Sir AViiliam Walworth. 
 
 M 2
 
 1 64 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 of it he had won back part at least of that capricious and 
 fleeting substance called public favour. 
 
 ' It cannot be denied,' observes a writer in the Gentleman's 
 Ifagazine, who was eminently acquainted with the City politics 
 of seventy years ago, ' that in consequence of the peculiar 
 temper of the times, and the imperious duty thence frequently 
 imposed on him of fii-mly resisting the headstrong course of 
 popular licentiousness, the conduct of Mr. Harley was fre- 
 quently exposed, as might have been expected, to obloquy and 
 misrepresentation. A strong instance of this was afforded in 
 the case of the press-warrants in 1770 and the following year. 
 As he never wanted popular favour, nor practised those disin- 
 genuous artifices by which the fleeting applause of a giddy 
 multitude is too often successfully pursued, it was not in the 
 transient popularity of a day that he sought the reward of his 
 exertions, but in the approbation of his own conscience, and, 
 next to that, in the well-founded and permanent praise of those 
 whose praise he justly valued. Laudari a laudatis was ever the 
 object of his ambition. At this distance of time, however, when 
 the ebullitions of popular fury have, together with tlieir effects, 
 long since happily subsided in this kingdom, when the lament- 
 able consequences of uncontrolled democratic frenzy have been 
 so abundantly exemplified in our eyes in the total ruin and deso- 
 lation of neighbouring States, it will hardly be thought to dero- 
 gate from Mr. Harloy's public character when we state that, in 
 the vigilant discharge of his official duties he was frequently 
 exposed to insult and opposition from a lawless and irritutod 
 mob ; that, in burning tlie JVor/h Briton, while lie was ShorifF, in 
 1764, he was violently and tumultuously assaulted ; that, on 
 more than one occasion during his mayoralty he encountered, 
 with a characteristic coolness, and witli tlie most determined 
 intrepidity, very serious personal danger ; and that when 
 afterwards, in 1770, lie was going up with a number of fellow- 
 citizens to present a loyal address to liis Sovereign on the 
 birth of a princess, ho was even forcibly torn from liis chariot, 
 and prevented from proceeding to St. James's. It is more
 
 AN EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF HARLEY 165 
 
 pleasant to relate that in later and better times a very dif- 
 ferent sentiment had universally prevailed in the metropolis ; 
 and it is a fact that even his former political opponent, Mr. 
 Wilkes himself, who will probably be as little suspected of 
 partiality in this as of want of discernment in any instance, 
 has frequently been heard to bear honourable testimony, in the 
 latter years of his life, to the merits of Mr. Harley's public 
 conduct, declaring it to have been at all times uniform, manly, 
 and consistent.' 
 
 He also continued to draw a good income from his business 
 as a merchant, to which he eventually added that of a banker, 
 and prospered in his double capacity. In conjunction with 
 another gentleman, named Drummond — I believe, his son-in- 
 law— he had at one time a contract for supplying the army in 
 America with foreign gold — a contract out of which the two 
 are said to have I'ealised a fortune of more than half a million. 
 With the proceeds of this contract he bought a fine property 
 at Berrington, near Leominster, on which he built a sump- 
 tuous residence, in fact a sort of palace. But, partly owing 
 to the extravagance of his style of living, and partly in con- 
 sequence of some extensive failures, ' there was in his banking- 
 house in 1797,' says a contempoi-ary writer, 'something like a 
 hesitation of payment.' With respect to this event, 'Sylvanus 
 Urban ' says : ' At a period when this critical and even awful 
 state of public affairs had given a shock to public credit, which 
 was felt not only by the most respectable commercial houses 
 throughout the kingdom, but also in some measure by the 
 Bank of England itself, Mr. Harley determined at once to 
 relinquish all his commercial concerns. The most liberal and 
 friendly offers of pecuniary aid he had declined in the most 
 disinterested manner ; and having made a voluntary assign- 
 ment of all his real and personal property (should it be 
 wanting) for the honourable payment of all his partnership 
 demands, he had soon the heartfelt satisfaction of seeing them 
 all discharged in their fullest extent, both as to principal and 
 interest, a proof of his uprightness and integrity which raised
 
 i66 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 him even higher than before in the estimation of his fellow- 
 citizens.' 
 
 Even after this momentary failure, though advanced in 
 years, he was strongly urged to allow himself to be put forward 
 as a candidate for the chamberlainship of the City, when 
 vacant by the death of Mr. Wilkes ; but he declined the pro- 
 posal, in a ' manly and feeling address ' to the Livery, in which 
 he stated among other reasons that, in the event of such a 
 vacancy, he was pledged to support the individual who in point 
 of fact was elected to the post. On quitting the representa- 
 tion of the City in 1774, he issued another address to the 
 Liverymen of London, ' strongly marked by that manly 
 steadiness and consistency of character, that clear discernment 
 and vigour of intellect, by which he was at all times distin- 
 'guished in public and in private life.' Mr. Harley spent the 
 last few years of his life in retirement. He was for some 
 years before his death ' the Father of the City,' and he drew a 
 salary of 300Z. a year from the civic funds as governor of the 
 Irish Society. His wife died in 1798, and he followed her to the 
 grave in 1804. His 1)iographer, in the columns of the Gentle- 
 man's Magazine, records the fact tliat, down to near the end 
 of his life, lie continued the vigilant and active discharge of 
 his civic duties in the metropolis, retaining to the time of his 
 death his alderman's gown, and having become by the death of 
 Mr. Alsop, in 1785, the SSenior or Father of the City.' He 
 left five daughters, his co-heirs — two of whom married peers 
 — but no son to succeed him ; and, though the earldom of 
 Oxford is extinct, yet tlic memoiy of the ancient and noble 
 House of Harley is still embalmed in the name of Harley 
 Street, so named after the celebrated author of the llarleian 
 Miscellany, who is mentioned above as the second earl.
 
 THE BAD LORD STOURTON 167 
 
 THE BAD LOBD STOUBTON 
 
 The noble House of Stourton is of great antiquity in Wilt- 
 shire, deriving its name from the village of Stourton — the 
 town or ville upon the Stour — where its head held broad acres 
 from a date before the Conquest down to the beginning of the 
 Georgian era. That the Stourtons were men of note and of 
 power at that early date is proved by the fact that Botolph 
 de Stourton was one of the chief opponents of the Norman 
 invader in the west, disputing every inch of ground against 
 him, breaking down the sea-walls of the Severn, guarding the 
 land passages, and securing Glastonbury, so that he was able 
 to dictate even to William the Conqueror the terms on which 
 he would yield possession of the soil. From him descended a 
 long line of knights, who fought for the Holy Sepulchre in 
 their generations, and sought their mates among the Bassets, 
 the Vernons, and the Berkeleys. One of this line. Sir John 
 Stourton, a gallant warrior, and also -a statesman, in the reign 
 of Henry VI., was raised to the peerage in a.d. 1455, as Lord 
 Stourton. His great-great-grandson, Charles, the seventh 
 baron, however, sadly tarnished the family escutcheon by a 
 deed of murder, which he expiated in the market-place at 
 Salisbury. 
 
 This deed of violence took its origin in a strife arising out 
 of those Forest Laws which were so cruel a source of oppression 
 of our poorer classes in the Middle Ages. As Mrs. Crosse 
 writes in Once a Week : 'Every schoolboy knows that the 
 tyranny of the early Norman kings was felt most keenly in 
 their cruel exactions for the preservation of game. To kill 
 beasts of the chase was as penal as the murder of a man. We 
 can easily undei'stand how stoutly our ancestors battled for 
 the " Charta de Foresta," which -was extorted with as much 
 reluctance as the Magna Charta itself. Even when the laws
 
 i68 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 had undergone a considerable amelioration, common persons 
 keeping dogs within the limits of the forest were obliged to 
 cut away the balls of their fore-feet, to render them incapable 
 of pursuing game or of hunting the deer. Great dissatisfaction 
 arose from time to time in respect to the encroachments of the 
 limits of the royal hunting grounds, and bad blood was pro- 
 duced between the great landlords on the one hand and the 
 yeomanry and tenantry on the other.' 
 
 In order to see an example of the sad effects of the laws, I 
 will ask my readers to accompany me to the Forest of Selwood, 
 which lies on the borders of Wiltshire and Somerset, in the 
 direction between Salisbury and Bath. 
 
 This tract of land, pleasantly diversified by a succession of 
 hills and valleys, must have been very picturesque in the days 
 when as yet it was not cut up by modern ' improvements,' and 
 what is known as 'high farming.' These fair lands, some 
 twelve miles long by five in breadth, were in due coui'se of 
 time ' disafforested,' not, however, without a great deal of 
 opposition from those who were directly interested in keeping 
 them up as a ' chase,' and who preferred the interests of tlieir 
 horses and dogs to those of a prosperous and contented 
 peasantry. But there are two sides to every question ; and 
 the whirligig of time brought it about in the course of a couple 
 of centuries — I do not stop here to explain how — that the 
 yeomen and cottagers obtained a prescriptive right to pasture 
 their cattle on the outlying parts of the Forest of Selwood ; and 
 of course the lower ordei'S had a personal interest in presei'ving 
 its glades from encroachment by lords and squires. Again, to 
 quote the words of Mrs. Crosse : ' Towards the close of the 
 reign of Henry VIII. the nobles began to slice off pieces of 
 the outlying wastes and commons, inclosing them for their 
 own pastures and parks. A belief in the rights of the soil is 
 so inherent in human nature that it is not surprising that the 
 people rose and resisted to the very death this encroachment 
 on tlieir privileges. Tliey were first despoiled of their lands 
 by the King, and, now that the forest laws had fallen into
 
 THE BAD LORD S TOUR TON 169 
 
 desuetude, they were robbed of their pasturage by the nobles. 
 The evil had attained to such a height that in 1549 a pro- 
 clamation was issued by Edward VI. to restrain certain nobles 
 and gentry from inclosing the commons and converting them 
 into their own pastures and parks, and commanding that all 
 ground that had been thus inclosed should be thrown open on a 
 certain day, under heavy penalties.' But the good intentions 
 of this order were disregarded by the great landowners ; and 
 the result was that the cottagers assembled and raised tumults 
 thi'oughout the district, breaking down the fences which in- 
 closed the parks which Lord Herbert and Lord Stourton had 
 carved out from the lands which, though illegally, they had 
 looked upon as ' waste.' The Crown on more than one occasion 
 sent down a commission to quell these disturbances ; but one 
 of these at all events was not destined to pass away without 
 bloodshed. 
 
 In the district of which I write is a parish called Kilming- 
 ton, and in it lived a yeoman family named Hartgill, between 
 whom and Lord Stourton there was evidently ' no love lost.' 
 In fact, both the father and the son had taken active measures 
 to oppose his lordship's arbitrary attempts to inclose the 
 adjacent lands ; but Lord Stourton would not yield, and no 
 doubt felt all the more sorely wounded because his opponent 
 was a man of only middle- class birth and pai'entage. The 
 Hartgills sent up a memorial to the Privy Council, and in the 
 course of a week or two a royal mandate came from London, 
 a scarlet-coated messenger from Whitehall, desiring his lord- 
 ship to desist from an inclosure he had commenced, and to 
 avoid giving occasion for further ' misliking ' among his 
 neighbours. 
 
 At tliis time his lordship, who had married a sister of the 
 Duke of Northumberland, happened to die ; but the quarrel 
 between the Stourtons and the Hartgills was not buried in his 
 grave — it was taken up with all possible bitterness by his son 
 and successor, Charles, the seventh lord, the individual already 
 mentioned.
 
 170 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 A few years passed on, but apparently the strife between 
 the lord of the great House and the yeoman's family was as 
 lively as ever. At Whitsuntide, 1556, it appears that Lord 
 Stourton came over from Stourton to Kilmington, with the 
 pretended grievance that the Hartgills had been hunting with 
 horses and dogs in his park. With him came a large band of 
 i-etainers, armed with guns and bows, and evidently bent on 
 mischief. We catch a glimpse of the rough manners of the 
 forefathers of the yeomen of Wilts and Somerset when we 
 read that the Hartgills, on hearing of his lordship's approach, 
 retreated into the parish church of Kilmington for safety. One 
 of the old man's sons, however, John by name, ran back to his 
 father's homestead, in order to fetch some staves, some bows 
 and arrows, and other weapons of offence and defence. As he 
 ran across, several arrows were shot at him by Lord Stourton's 
 men, but these happily missed their aim. Several of the 
 villagers now came up to aid the Hartgills, and actually drove 
 the Stourtonites from the churchyard and its pi-ecincts, 
 while the old people with their servants took refuge in the 
 tower of the church, and laid in a supply of bread and meat in 
 order to stand a siege. 
 
 One can easily imagine the face of the elder Hartgill as he 
 peered warily out of the church window, and, after thanking 
 liis son for the supply of food, bade him go up with all speed 
 to London, to lay the facts of the case before the Queen and 
 her Council at Whitehall. 
 
 Scarce was young John Hartgill out of sight, when Lord 
 Stourton and his ' men of war ' returned to the churchyard, 
 keeping the old people shut up in the dark belfry of the tower 
 in a pretty state of nervous alarm. One of them, however, 
 went off to the yeoman's defenceless farm- house, and took out 
 of the stables old Hartgill's favourite riding horse, valued at 
 eight pounds, and shot him with a cross-bow, in sight of his 
 owner, giving out that the latter luid been seen on it hunting 
 in his lordship's park. 
 
 Meantime the son returned from London, l)aving so far
 
 THE BAD LORD STOURTON i7t 
 
 succeeded in his mission that at his request the Lords of the 
 Council sent down a commission, with the High Sheriff of 
 Somerset at its head, ordering Lord Stourton to appear before 
 them. His lordship was, therefore, obliged to swallow his 
 rage, and make a journey to London in custody of the Sheriff. 
 On reaching Whitehall he was committed to the Fleet Prison, 
 to which no doubt he was conveyed by the old ' silent highway ' 
 of the river Thames. In all probability, however, as being 
 the brother-in-law of the Duke of Northumberland, he speedily 
 found a means of escape — pei'haps by the use of a ' silver 
 key ; ' for, if I may believe the account of this affair as given 
 by the antiquary Strype, he was soon back at Kihnington, 
 harassing the Hartgills with all the malice of which he was 
 capable. 
 
 And so matters stood for a year or two, during which I 
 suppose that the Hartgills came down from their fastness in 
 the church tower, and went about their business as if nothing 
 strange had happened. But it is clear that the Stourtons 
 would not let them remain in quiet. On the accession of 
 Mary, the Hartgills and their fellow-j^eomen appear to have 
 presented a fresh petition, asking either for protection from 
 their tyranny, or redi'ess against their violence, for the Council 
 at Whitehall again called the bi*awlers before them. Lord 
 Stourton noAv made all sorts of promises of good behaviour, 
 vowing that if any of the Hartgills' cattle or horses had been 
 detained at Stourton House they had only to come and fetch 
 them, and they should have them freely and readily. But 
 they soon learnt not to ' put their trust in princes ; ' for as 
 tliey were going to the great house they were attacked by 
 several of his lordship's men, who attacked and wounded John 
 Hai'tgill, and left him for dead in the road. 
 
 This affair had now grown so serious as to have attracted 
 the attention of the Court of the Star Chamber, to whom, we 
 read, ' the matter appeared so heinously base on the Lord 
 Stourton 's side that he was fined in a certain sum, to be paid 
 over to the Hartgills.' Besides this, his lordship was a second
 
 172 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 time committed as a prisoner to the Fleet. But fines and im- 
 prisonments had no weight with him. By hook or by crook 
 he again conti'ived to eftect his escape out of ' durance vile,' 
 this time, however, giving a bond in 2,000Z. to return when 
 called upon to appear and expressing a wish to settle the 
 quarrel between himself and his old enemies by a money pay- 
 ment, and desiring the Hartgills to fix upon a place where 
 they should receive the fine. Strype tells us that ' the latter 
 received his errand, but were in much doubt to adventure 
 themselves,' and not without good reason, as we shall see 
 presently. 
 
 The rest of the story shall be told as condensed from 
 old Strype's quaint and circumstantial narrative : ' At length 
 a meeting was arranged at Kilmington Church, and at ten 
 of the clock one cold January morning Lord Stourton came, 
 true to his appointment. But there came with him such 
 a conclave of men on horseback and men on foot that the 
 Hartgills were in great dread. The open space near the church 
 was nigh filled with this concourse, consisting of fifteen of 
 Lord Stourton's own men, sundry of his tenants, besides several 
 gentlemen and justices, to the number of about sixty persons 
 in all. His lordship went into the church house, which was 
 about forty paces distant, and thence sent word to the Hartgills, 
 who were sheltering themselves under the sacred roof, " that 
 they must come out, for the church was no place to talk 
 of worldly matters ; " whereupon they adventured themselves, 
 coming within twenty paces, old Hartgill, after due salutation, 
 saying, " My lord, I see many of mine enemies about your 
 lordship, therefore I am much afraid to come any nearer." 
 Upon this the company said " they durst promise all they had, 
 they should liave no bodily hurt." Upon tliis comfort they 
 approached to my lord's jDcrson. Lord Stourton then discoursed 
 upon the reason which had brought them together, saying 
 that if they would come into the church house he would pay 
 them the money. But the Hartgills refused to go into any 
 covered place, the church excepted.
 
 THE BAD LORD STOURTON 173 
 
 'At this refusal there was much demur and talking, but 
 some one pi-esent thought good that a table should be set upon 
 the open green, which was done accordingly. Lord Stourton 
 laid thereupon a cap case and a purse, as though he intended 
 to make payment ; and calling unto the two Hartgills, he said 
 that the council had ordei^ed him to pay them a certain sum 
 of money, which they should have every penny ; " but marry, 
 he would first know them to be true men." This was the 
 watchword, which was no sooner said than Lord Stourton laid 
 hands on William Hartgill, adding, " I arrest you of felony." 
 Immediately ten or twelve of his own men surrounded the 
 Hartgills and thrust them violently into the church house. 
 Here his lordship produced " two bands of inkle," which he 
 had in readiness, and he caused his men to bind them with the 
 same. He took from them their purses with his own hands, 
 and finding afterwards a turquoise in one, gave it to Lady 
 Stourton. When John Hartgill was bound he gave him a 
 blow on his face. Sir James FitzJames and Chafiin looking on. 
 At this moment young Hartgill's wife, no doubt alarmed at 
 the commotion, rushed into the church house, encountering 
 Lord Stourton at the door. He spurred and kicked at her, 
 making a great rent in her hosen with his spur, and finally 
 gave her such a blow with his sword between the head and 
 neck that she fell backwards as though dead, and for three 
 hours the company had much ado to keep life in her.' Such 
 is the extraordinary account of the illegal arrest of two un- 
 offending gentlemen, made in the presence of so many persons 
 that one is surprised that a feeling of common humanity did 
 not come to rescue the oppressed. 
 
 But the worst part of the story remains to be told. Lord 
 Stourton, having kept the Hartgills all day without food or 
 drink, conveyed them bound as his prisoners to a house on his 
 estate, called Bonhams, where he sent for two ' justices of the 
 peace' to examine them ! — on what ground or charge is not 
 stated. The so-called 'justices' were probably creatures of 
 his own, for we find that their examination ended in nothing
 
 174 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 but an order that they should be 'losed of their bonds.' The 
 same night the prisoners were fetched away by some of Lord 
 Stourton's minions, who, as it subsequently appeared in evi- 
 dence, had orders to despatch them if they made any resistance. 
 Their destination was now a ' close yard,' adjoining the great 
 house, where they were made to kneel down with their hands 
 tied behind them, and were beaten till they were thought to 
 be dead, ' my lord in the mean season standing at the gallery 
 door, which was not a coyt's (quoit's) cast from the place.' 
 When the ruffians had done the job thus far,, they wrapped up 
 the bodies in their own gowns and carried them through a 
 garden into the gallery, where they were joined by Lord 
 Stourton himself, who carried a candle to show them the way, 
 and who, when one of the dying men showed by a groan that 
 life was not quite extinct, ordei'ed his servant to cut their 
 throats, ' lest a French priest, who lay near, should hear them.' 
 The bodies were then cast into an underground chamber, or 
 dungeon, liis lordship standing by with the candle in his hand. 
 One of the assassins, apparently with a softer heart than 
 his fellow, said, ' Oh, my lord, this is a pitiful sight. Had I 
 thought what I now think before the thing was done, your 
 whole land would not have won me to such an act.' To this 
 his wicked employer answered, ' What, faint-hearted fool ! is 
 it any more than ridding the world of two knaves, that living 
 were troublesome to God's law and man's % There is no more 
 account to be made of them than the killing of two sheep ! ' 
 And so they finished their hideous work of death by digging a 
 grave for their victims, covering them first with earth and 
 then with paving stones, while Lord Stouiton kept walking 
 up and down on the planks above, oftentimes calling to them 
 to make speed, for that the night went away.' But, though 
 the night passed away and morning came, the liand of justice 
 at length did not fail to overtake the wicked lord, who was 
 arrested and carried to London to be judged for his foul crime. 
 In January, 1.^.50, lie was committed to the Tower to await his 
 trial, wliicli took place on February 20 following, before the
 
 THE BAD LORD S TOUR TON 175 
 
 judges of the Council in Westminster Hall. It appears he 
 entertained a hope that, being an adherent, nominally at least, 
 of ' the old religion,' he would not be allowed by the Queen to 
 suffer the extreme penalty of the law. But in this hope he 
 was grievously mistaken. ' The Queen and her Council,' 
 observes a writer of repute, ' were greatly displeased at this, 
 and willed process and judgment to proceed against him.' 
 
 When called upon to make answer to the charge of wilful 
 murder, he refused to plead, and would not open his mouth 
 until he was threatened with being pressed to death if he 
 remained silent. At last he pleaded guilty, and was sen- 
 tenced to be hanged ; four of his men also were sentenced to 
 be hanged at the same time. 
 
 It may readily be supposed that these four poor wretches 
 were turned off at St. Giles's Pound or at Tyburn tree ; but 
 the end of Lord Stourton himself was to be witnessed by the 
 men of his own county. He was accordingly conveyed by 
 easy stages by way of Hounslow, Staines, and Basingstoke to 
 Salisbury, where he was executed on March 6. The only 
 favour shown to him was the permission that, in virtue of 
 his rank, he should be throttled by a silken instead of a 
 hempen cord. The market-place was the scene of his execu- 
 tion ; and it is some comfort to learn that ' he made great 
 lamentation at his death for his wilful and impious deeds.' 
 
 The memory of such a miscreant might well be allowed to 
 pass away, and when he was buried in Salisbury Cathedral it 
 would perhaps have been kinder to have erected no monument 
 to mark the spot where he was laid. But in the north tran- 
 sept there is a tomb which is known as that of ' the wicked 
 Lord Stourton ' by exhibiting the armorial bearincs of the 
 family in the shape of six circular openings, which represent 
 the six springs which rose, and perhaps still rise, in the park 
 at Stourton. The silken cord with which he suffered was 
 suspended over his tomb for many years, till it rotted away 
 and fell to pieces. 
 
 It is scarcely a matter of wonder tliat the Stourton family
 
 176 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 should have long since sold their Wiltshire estates, and 
 emigrated to Yorkshire, where their name is held deservedly 
 in honour to the present day. Their head is now Lord 
 Mowbi'ay, as well as Lord Stourton. 
 
 BENJAMIN, LOBD BLOOMFIELD 
 
 Very many, if not most, of the members of our Peerage, both 
 English and Irish, can boast with truth that they represent 
 families of ancestral wealth and influence, or of historic note, 
 or of brilliant achievements ; and this is true to a far greater 
 extent of the Peerage of Scotland, on the roll of which not 
 a name appears that has not been adorned with a coronet 
 for at least the best part of two centuries, while nearly all 
 the pedigrees can be certified by the ' Lyon ' King of Arms at 
 Edinburgh to extend back into the ages when the Stuarts had 
 not yet added an English to their Scottish throne. 
 
 A few of the Irish families, however, have attained the 
 honours of the Peerage without any very great public services 
 on the part of the first grantee, and without being able to 
 boast of great wealth or noble ancestry. ' My lord,' said a 
 wealthy squire and M.P., who lived in St. James's Place, to 
 Lord Bute, or Lord Shelburne, or to some other Prime Minis- 
 ter of the last century, ' I am very much inclined to support 
 your measures in my place in Parliament, and to give you 
 my vote and steady support ; but I should be most glad and 
 most obliged to you if, in return, you would go so far out of 
 your way as to ask for me the permission of the Ranger (one 
 of the I'oyal dukes) to allow me the privilege of a private key 
 which will admit me from my garden in St. James's Place 
 into the Green Park without going round by way of the 
 Palace.' ' I am sorry, sir,' replied the Premier, with a benevo- 
 lent smile, ' that it is not in my power to oblige you in the 
 precise manner in which you wish. The thing, I assure you, 
 is ail impossibility ; and his Royal Highness has not only
 
 BENJAMIN, LORD BLOOMFIELD 177 
 
 refused it to more than one applicant, but has desired me 
 never to ask such a favour again. I will, however, with plea- 
 sure recommend you to his Majesty for an Irish peerage, if 
 you feel inclined to accept the honour.' 
 
 I do not know for certain whether the proftered Irish 
 
 coronet was accepted by Mr. with the same readiness 
 
 with which it was offered ; but the stoiy — which, by the way, 
 is told with some variation by that old gossip. Sir Nathaniel 
 Wraxall — may serve to show that Irish Peerages were not 
 held of very great account in London even in the good old 
 days ' when George the Third was King,' and when the 
 Legislative Union of 1800 had not been dreamed of as yet by 
 the younger Pitt. 
 
 I am led into these remarks by way of introduction to the 
 story of the rise and advancement of one plain Captain 
 Benjamin Bloomfield, of the Royal Artillery, to the dignity of 
 ' Loi'd Bloomfield, of Redwood, in the county of Tipperary, 
 in the peerage of Ireland.' It appears that the bestowal of 
 this title was due in a very great measure to the concurrence 
 of two or three fortunate accidents. 
 
 It so happened that a plain untitled gentleman, ' de- 
 scended from an ancient family in Ireland,' according to Sir 
 Bernard Burke — albeit he omits all mention of his pedigree, 
 'Ulster King of Anus' though he is— some sixty years ago 
 held a commission in the Royal Artillery ; and secondly, that 
 he was at Brighton with his troop, when the Prince Regent 
 had taken up his residence at tlie Pavilion, which he had 
 i-ecently built as a palace of pleasure. A third piece of gra- 
 tuitous good fortune was to be found in the fact that the 
 Captain was well known in Brighton as an accomplished 
 player on the violoncello ; and further, by way of a fourth bit 
 of luck, his Royal Highness, in his idle and leisure hours, 
 wanted some one who could accompany him on that instru- 
 ment. Accordingly one day a message was sent to the barracks, 
 requesting, or rather commanding, the presence of Captain 
 Bloomfield at the Pavilion. The summons was loyally and
 
 178 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 dutifully obeyed ; Captain Bloomfield put in an appearance 
 before ' the first gentleman in Europe ; ' and' so far were his 
 musical talents brought to the right market, that from that 
 evening commenced an acquaintance between the Prince and 
 the Captain which gradually ripened into an intimate friend- 
 ship, and, as Captain Bloomfield had good manners, good sense, 
 and more tact than falls to most men, lasted while the Prince 
 was king. 
 
 For a considerable time the Captain was known in fashion- 
 able circles as Sir Benjamin Bloomfield, being appointed an 
 Equerry and Gentleman Usher of the Court, and knighted by 
 the Prince in 1815. Two years later, on the retirement of 
 Sir John M'Mahon, he was appointed to the not very labo- 
 rious ofiices of Receiver-General of the Duchy of Cornwall, 
 and Private Secretary to the Prince and Keeper of the Privy 
 Purse. 
 
 But he had not yet reached to the sunnnit of the mountain 
 up which his musical talents had led him by an easy ascent. 
 In 1824, as we are told by the Peerages, he was accredited 
 Minister Plenipotentiary and Ambassador Extraordinary to 
 the Court of Stockholm, and shortly afterwards was raised to 
 the Irish Peerage as Lord Bloomfield. 
 
 Captain Gronow, in his amusing and entertaining ' Anec- 
 dotes and Reminiscences,' lets us into a little of the secret 
 history of these last two steps of preferment. He says : ' A 
 Court intrigue, headed by a fashionable and fascinating mar- 
 chioness, caused Sir Benjamin Bloomfield to be sent into 
 splendid exile, this lady attributing to him the fact that she 
 had Ijeen compelled to send back to the donor some jewels 
 which had been presented to her by the Prince Ivcgent, but 
 which, as it was afterwards discovered, could not be alienated 
 from the Crown, to wiiicli they, in fact, belonged.' This well- 
 timed service to Royalty, then, was the true reason why 
 Sir Benjamin was sent off as ambassador to Stockholm and 
 eventually created a peer ; a)id such is the real story of tlie 
 origin of the title.
 
 BEXJAMLX, LORD BLOOMFIELD 179 
 
 It is only right to add that, although he had received not a 
 diplomatic but only an ordinary education, Lord Bloomfield's 
 good sense, polished tastes, affable manners, and unostenta- 
 tious hospitality rendered him exceedingly popular in that 
 northern capital, and that in his ' splendid exile ' he became 
 as great a favourite with Bernadotte as he had been with the 
 Prince Regent at Windsor, at Brighton, or at Carlton House. 
 The name of Lord Bloomfield (adds Captain Gronow in 1860) 
 is held in great respect even to the present day in Sweden. 
 Eventually he was nominated a Knight Grand Cross of both 
 the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order and also of the Bath, 
 and promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general in the army 
 and colonel-commandant in the Royal Engineers. 
 
 Lord Bloomtield died in the year 1846, at the age of eighty- 
 four, having been twice married. His only son, his issue by 
 his second wife, was the second Lord Bloomtield, who, having 
 followed the diplomatic profession, and having held for many 
 years the post of Minister at the Court of Berlin, was re- 
 warded with an English peerage and the dignity of a Knight 
 Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath ; but both the titles 
 died with him. Still, however, it may fairly be asserted, I 
 take it, that, in all human probability, these twin coronets 
 would never have been called into existence if it had not been 
 for the occurrence of the chapter of accidents already re- 
 ferred to ; and if any moral is to be drawn from the story 
 of Benjamin, Lord Bloomfield, it would seem to be that it is 
 occasionally a profitable investment to give our sons, as well 
 as our daughters, a musical education. 
 
 LORD LYTT ELTON'S GHOST 
 
 Among the many well-authenticated tales of supernatural 
 events — or at any rate of events that cannot be explained by 
 any merely natural laws — is one which for over a century has 
 been current in the noble house of Lyttleton, being handed 
 
 y 2
 
 i8o TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 down ■with gi'eat minuteness 'from sire to son,' and referred to 
 by Sir Walter Scott, Boswell, and Hugh Miller, as well as 
 by other writers. It relates to the sudden end of Thomas, 
 second Lord Lyttelton, which happened at a house at Epsom 
 in Surrey — then a fashionable watering-place — on November 
 27, 1779, when his lordship was only six-and-thirty years 
 of age. The story is briefly but incidentally told by Sir 
 Nathaniel William Wraxall, in his amusing and interesting 
 ' Memoirs of his own Time,' and in a way which makes it clear 
 that he, at all events, inclined to the belief that it was the 
 result of some power more than human, though at the same 
 time he hesitates to express his faith on the subject in clear 
 and unmistakable terms. I, like him, shall content myself 
 with simply telling the tale, leaving to my readers the task of 
 accounting for the occurrence in any way that they may think 
 lit. So far as Lord Lyttelton's personal character stood, his 
 secession from the supporters of Lord North, if Ave may judge 
 from Nathaniel's words, appears to have been a diminution of 
 strength and a loss of talent in the House of Peers which 
 that unpopular INIinistry could ill affoi'd. If so, it is obvious 
 to remark that a century ago high moral qualities were not so 
 necessary as they are nowadays to secui'e influence to men in 
 public situations. 
 
 The Lytteltons have held a foremost place among the un- 
 titled squirearchy of Worcestershire for at least GOO years, 
 since the reign of Henry III. With only a single break, when 
 the family hopes centred in an heiress — who induced her hus- 
 band, however, to take her own name along with her broad 
 acres — the line of male descent is made out clearly by the 
 Heralds' College from Tliomas de Littleton or Lyttleton of 
 Henry's reign, who married the heiress of Simon de Frankley, 
 down to the present Lord Lyttelton, whom Burke styles Baron 
 Lyttelton of Frankley, and who has lately succeeded to the 
 Viscount cy of Cobham. 
 
 The Lytteltons gallantly supported the royal cause in the 
 days of the Stuarts, botli in purso ;nid in person ; and one of
 
 LORD LYTTELTON'S GHOST i8i 
 
 the squires of Frankley was within the wails of Colchester 
 Castle when it was besieged by the Roundheads of the Parlia- 
 mentary army. This gentleman's grandson, Sir George Lyt- 
 telton — who had been successively M.P. for Okehampton, 
 seci-etary to George, Prince of Wales, and a Commissioner of 
 the Treasury, and afterwaixls Chancellor of the Exchequer — 
 was raised to the honours of the Peerage in 1757. He is 
 known both as an historian and a poet, and he commanded no 
 less respect on account of his personal character and those 
 domestic virtues which were rarer among great personages 
 under George II. than under Victoria. His son, too, Thomas, 
 the second lord, was a man of high political abilities, and one 
 who, in spite of private vices of a most glai^ng character, 
 might easily have occupied a high place in the then position 
 of parties, if he had not been so suddenly cut off before attain- 
 ing, or, at all events, passing the prime of life. So, at any rate, 
 thought Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, who knew many of his friends 
 personally, and who seldom formed an absurd estimate of other 
 men's position in the age of which he writes so amusingly. 
 And yet he confesses that by the profligacy of his conduct and 
 the abuse of his high talents' he seemed to have emulated the 
 Duke of Buckingham in Dryden or Pope's Duke of Wharton, 
 both of whom he resembled alike in the superiority of his 
 natural endowments and in the peculiarity of his end. Villiers, 
 Duke of Buckingham — the ' Zimri ' of Dryden's ' Absalom 
 and Achitophel ' — after exhausting his health and squan- 
 dering his immense fortune in every species of excess and riot, 
 expired, as we all know, in a way-side inn, a wretched tene- 
 ment, hard by his own estate in Yorkshire, abandoned by all 
 his former admirers and boon companions. The Duke of 
 Wharton, who had played under George I. a part not much 
 less eccentric than that played by Villiers under the second 
 Charles, ended his wild and mad career, exiled and attainted, 
 
 ' So great, indeed, were his abilities as a statesman and a writer, 
 that he lias been accused, both in the Quarferlij Eeviem and elsewhere, 
 of havina: been the author of the ' Letters of Junius.'
 
 1 82 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 in an o^tscure monastery of Catalonia, worn out, as we shall 
 pi'esently see, by his despei-ate efforts in pursuit of pleasure. 
 
 In the straggling town of Epsom, which at that time was 
 one of the chief haunts of the gay world, not annually in a 
 single race-week, but during half the year, there stands a 
 country house known as Pit Place, being so named, not after 
 the ' Great Commoner,' as many persons suppose, but for the 
 less poetical reason of having been luiilt in one of those chalk 
 pits which abound on the edge of the Surrey Downs. The 
 house still bears its old name, as it did a century ago ; and it 
 is occupied by a private family, by whom I was kindly and 
 courteously allowed, last year, to see the bedroom which was 
 the scene of the events I am about to relate. It is a plain 
 unpretending mansion, with pleasant lawns and gardens, and 
 reminds one of a country rectory. Towards the close of 
 ISTovember, 1779, Lord Lyttelton had gone down from London 
 to Pit Place for the purpose of spending a week or two in 
 field sports or other recreations, and he had taken with him a 
 gay party of friends. On the 24th of that month he had 
 retired to bed at midnight, after spending the evening in play- 
 ing at cards with his guests, when his attention was attracted 
 by the fluttering of a bird,' apparently a dove or a pigeon, 
 tapping at the window of his bedchamber. He started, for 
 he had only just put out his light and was about to compose 
 himself to rest, and sat up in bed to listen. He had gazed 
 and listened for a minute or so, when he saw, or at all events 
 fancied that he saw, a female figure clothed in white enter — 
 
 ' In an inturestiiig paper on 'Old Superstitions," Cuthbert Berle, 
 in the Illudratrd Lmuhm Jfar/azine for 1855, refers to tliis story, and 
 n marks: 'There is a superstition whicli has gained credit in country 
 parishes that a person about to die is often forewarned of his or her 
 diss)lution by tlie ajipearance of a dove or a jiigeon ; and (his belief 
 has been entertained l)y other tlian mere rustic minds. Lord Ly ttelton's 
 
 is a well-known instance And springing from a similar belief 
 
 was the Duchess of Kendal's fancy that George I. Ilcw in at her window 
 in the shai)C of a raven.' To this he adds a touching story of a little 
 child in a Kentish village, where the fh'ght of a dove into the window 
 of a schoolroom w.as recognised by a lilth; child as the lirrald of her 
 own d.'alh, wliich hap|)ened three weeks afterwards.
 
 LORD LYTTELTON'S GHOST 183 
 
 whether by the door or by the window we are not informed — 
 and quietly approach the foot of his bed. He was somewhat 
 surprised, and not agreeably surprised, when the figure opened 
 its pale lips and told him that in three days from that very 
 hour he should cease to live. 
 
 In whatever manner this intimation, real or unreal, from 
 the other world was conveyed to him, whether by sound of 
 the voice or by any other mode of communication, one thing 
 is certain, that Lord Lyttelton regarded it as a reality and a 
 message from the world of spirits. Next morning he men- 
 tioned it as such to the guests who were in the house ; and 
 during the next two or three days it preyed upon his mind, 
 visibly affected his spirits, and threw a damp over the entire 
 party who were assembled. 
 
 The third night came, and everything went on as usual. 
 The guests had sat down to dinner, played their rubbers at 
 whist, and retired ; but none of them had dared to rally the 
 young Lord Lyttelton on the depression of spirits under which 
 he laboured. Eleven o'clock came ; the party broke up and 
 went to their several rooms, wishing each other good night, 
 and heartily desiring that the night were past and gone, so 
 restless, anxious, and uncomfortable did they feel without 
 exception. Twelve o'clock came ; and Lord Lyttelton was 
 sitting up in bed, having given his servant orders to mix him 
 a dose of rhubarb, though apparently in the best of health. 
 The dose was poured out, and he was just about to take it, 
 Avhen he found that there was no teaspoon. A little out of 
 patience with his valet for neglecting to have a spoon at hand, 
 he ordered him to go and fetch one from the pantry at the 
 foot of the stairs. The man was not absent from the room 
 for more than a minute, or possibly a minute and a half ; but 
 when he returned he found his master lying back at full length 
 upon the bed, speechless and motionless. No efforts to restore 
 animation were of any avail, and no symptom of consciousness 
 showed itself. His lordship was dead, having died on the 
 third day, as the spectre had foretold.
 
 1 84 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 As the i-ecoixis of the Surrey coroner a century ago are 
 no longer extant, it is hopeless at this distance of time to 
 attempt to find out wliether a formal inquest was held upon 
 the body, and, if so, what the verdict may have been. 
 Whether, therefore, Lord Lyttelton's death was occasioned 
 by any sudden shock to his nervous system, or whether it 
 was the result of a sudden apoplectic or other seizure, must 
 remain a matter of uncertainty and conjecture to the end of 
 time. 
 
 Sir Nathaniel Wraxall adds a reflection of his own to the 
 efl:ect that the Lyttelton family in the last century suflered 
 from a certain constitutional irritability of the nerves, which 
 appears to have predisposed its members to such shocks as 
 that which produced, or at all events hastened on, the end of 
 the young nobleman here related. This may or may not have 
 been the case ; but it is only fair to state that Sir Nathaniel 
 adds, in his own gossiping way, by way of confirmation of his 
 theory, that the first lord, in spite of his great practical sense 
 and political experience, ' manifested great credulity on the 
 subject of apparitions ;' and that a female cousin of the de- 
 ceased some four years afterwards died in a somewhat similar 
 way at Stourhead, Wiltshire, about two years after her 
 marriage to Sir Richard Hoare, Bart., of that place. The fact, 
 however, is that Lord Lyttelton's life had been of so licentious 
 and abandoned a character as to subject him continually to 
 the keenest reproaches of an accusing conscience ; ' Node 
 dieque suum gestare in jnctore testem.' This domestic spectre 
 — for such it must ever be to a man of a sensitive mind — 
 which accompanied him everywhere, was known to have given 
 rise while he was on his travels, and particularly at Lyons, 
 says Sir Nathaniel, to scenes greatly resembling the scene of 
 his last moments at Epsom. 
 
 It is clear that the good-natured old chronicler on whom I 
 have drawn so largely for the materials of this sketch did not 
 speedily dismiss the subject from his memory. About five 
 years afterwards, when dining at Pit Place, he had the curi-
 
 LORD LYTTELTON'S GHOST 185 
 
 osity to search out and visit the bedchamber which was the 
 scene of Lord Lyttel ton's tragic end. He was shown the Ijed- 
 stead on which he died, and the casement of the window at 
 which the bird had tapped with its beak so maliciously, and 
 against which it had fluttered with its wings. Moreover, he 
 was a constant visitor at the house of his lordship's step- 
 mother, the Dowager Lady Lyttelton, in Portugal Street, 
 Grosvenor Square, who often talked to him on the subject, 
 inclining to the supernatural, as he did to the natural, view 
 of the case. ' A woman of a very lively imagination, she 
 gave an implicit faith,' he says, 'to all the supcrnatui^al 
 occurrences which were su^Dposed to have accompanied, or 
 rather to have immediately preceded, Lord Lyttelton's end ;' 
 and it is well known that she immortalised the event by 
 executing a painting of it, which is still in existence, and is 
 preserved in the family as a memorial of the past. She was 
 gifted with the painter's art, and she executed the painting in 
 1780, when the affair was fresh in the memory of her friends 
 and of the servant who attended him at Pit Place, from whom 
 she drew her information. Every detail was given as told to 
 her by the valet, who had it from his master's lips during that 
 three days' interval between the warning and the fatal stroke. 
 ' This picture,' adds Sir Nathaniel, ' used to hang in a con- 
 spicuous place in her drawing-room in Portugal Street, and 
 must be well remembered, there or elsewhere, by many friends 
 of the family. It is not perhaps of any high value as a work 
 of art, and its intrinsic value may be small, but it is a precious 
 heirloom in the House of Lyttelton. In it the bird at the 
 window is represented as a dove ; and the female figure 
 habited in white is standing at the foot of the bed, announcing 
 to Lord Lyttelton his speedy dissolution.' It is only right to 
 add here that the picture thus described is not known to the 
 present members of the Lyttelton family ; and, though there 
 is somewhere or other to be seen a small print of the version, 
 the print is poor and intrinsically worthless. 
 
 Lord Lyttelton, in spite of his wickedness, ' honoured the
 
 1 86 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 memory of his mother with a Monody ' which has become 
 classical, and which was unfeelingly parodied by Smollett. 
 Lord Lyttel ton's death, as here recorded, not only deprived 
 the existing Ministers of a former supporter, but caused the 
 extinction of the peerage, as he was his father's only son, and 
 liis own marriage had brought him no issue. The family 
 baronetcy, however, reverted to his uncle, William Lyttelton, 
 some time British Minister at Lisbon, who had been created 
 an Irish peer by the title of Lord Westcote, and in 1794 
 obtained in his own favour a fresh peerage patent as Lord 
 Lyttelton in the Peerage of Great Britain. It is his descendant 
 who now enjoys the title and estates as head and representative 
 of the Lytteltons of Worcestershire. 
 
 It remains only now to add one or two versions of the 
 story, either as a whole or in part, from original papers which 
 were kindly placed at my disposal by the late Lord Lyttelton 
 himself. 
 
 The first of these 2:iapers is a memorandum in the hand- 
 writing of William Henry, the first Loi'd Lyttelton of the new 
 creation, which is indorsed in his lordship's handwriting : 
 ' Remarkable Dream and Circumstances attending the Death 
 of Thomas Lord Lyttelton.' 
 
 ' On Thursday, the 25th of November, 1779, Thomas Lord 
 Lyttelton, when he came to breakfast, declared to ]\Irs. Flood, 
 wife of Frederick Flood, Esq., of the kingdom of Ireland, and 
 to the three Misses Amplilett, who were lodged in his house 
 in Hill Street, London (where he then also was), that he had 
 had an extraordinary dream befoi-e : he said he thought he 
 was in a room into which flew a Ijird, which appearance was 
 suddenly changed into that of a woman dressed in white, who 
 bade hira prepare to die ; to which he ansM'ered, " I hope not 
 .soon, not in two months." She replied, "Yes, in three days." 
 He said he did not much regard it, because he could in some 
 measure account for it ; for tliat a few days before he had 
 been with Mrs. Lawson, when a robin redbreast flew into her 
 room. When Ik; liad dressed liiiiisclf that day to go to the
 
 LORD LVTTELTON'S GHOST 187 
 
 House of Lords, he said he thought he did not look as if he 
 was likely to die. In the evening of the following day, being 
 Finday, he told the eldest Miss Amphlett that she looked 
 melancholy ; " but," said he, " you are foolish and fearful. I 
 have lived two days, and, God willing, I will live out the 
 third." On the morning of Saturday he told the same ladies 
 tliat he was very well, and believed he should " bilk the 
 ghost." Some hours afterwards he went with them, Mr. 
 Fortescue, and Captain Wolseley to Pit Place, at Epsom ; 
 withdrew to his bedchamber soon after eleven o'clock at night, 
 talked cheerful to his servant and particularly inquired of 
 him what care had been taken to provide good roles [sic) for 
 his breakfast next morning. He stepped into bed with his 
 waistcoat on, and, as his servant was pulling it off, he put his 
 hand to his side, sunk back, and immediately expired without 
 a groan. He ate a good dinner after his arrival at Pit Place 
 that day, and took an egg for his supper. It (he 1) did not 
 seem to be at all out of oi'der, except that while he was eating 
 his soup at dinner he had a rising in his throat —a thing which 
 had often happened to him before, and which obliged him to 
 spit some of it out. His physician. Dr. Fothergill, told me 
 that Lord Lyttelton in the summer preceding had a bad pain 
 in his side, and he judged that some great vessel in the part 
 where he felt pain gave way, and to that he conjectured his 
 death was owing. His declaration of his dream, and his ex- 
 pressions above mentioned consequent thereunto, were upon a 
 close inquiry asserted to me to have been so by Mrs. Flood, 
 the eldest Miss Amphlett, Captain Wolseley, and his valet de 
 cltamhre Faulkner, who dressed him on the Thursday ; and 
 the manner of his death was related to me by William Stuckey, 
 in the presence of Mr. Fortescue and Captain Wolseley — 
 Stuckey being the servant who attended him in his bed- 
 cliamber, and in whose arms he died.' 
 
 This narrative is signed ' Wescote ' — an Irish title which 
 the writer bore before being raised to the English barony of 
 Lyttelton.
 
 1 88 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 The following is the narrative of the same event in the 
 handwriting of the late Sir Digby Neave : 
 
 'Thomas Lord Lyttelton died in 1779, at his residence at 
 Pit Place, Epsom. In 1828 Mr. Taylor, of Worcester Park, 
 near Ewell, Surrey, who was then about eighty years of age, 
 told me — then residing at Pit Place — that he was in the 
 neighbourhood during the year 1779, and heard the particulars 
 of the illness and death of Lord Lyttelton from an Italian 
 painter visiting at Pit Place at the time of Lord Lyttelton's 
 death. Lord Lyttelton had come to Pit Place in a very pre- 
 carious state, and was ordered not to take any but the gentlest 
 exercise. As he was walking in the conservatory with Lady 
 Affleck and two Misses Affleck a robin perched on an orange 
 tree close to them. Lord Lyttelton attempted to catch it, but 
 failing, and being laughed at by the ladies, he said he would 
 catch it even if it was the death of him. He succeeded, but 
 he put himself in a great heat by the exertion. He gave the 
 bii'd to Lady Affleck, who walked about with it in her hand. 
 Lord Lyttelton became so ill and feverish that he went off to 
 London for advice to a house in Bruton Street. In his 
 delirium he imagined that a lady with a bird in her hand, 
 drawing his curtains aside, told him that he would die. 
 Dreams being the sequels of waking thoughts, it needed no 
 ghost to fix such an impression on the mind of a sick man ; 
 and this may l)e said to clear away supernatural agency thus 
 far. As to his death occurring at the moment indicated by 
 an appai'ition, and the putting on the clock by his friends, for 
 the habits of his boon companions in the house at the time, 
 and the report of the Italian painter, his informant (Mr. 
 Taylor) was satisfied as to its being a fable, invented to 
 mystify the public, as the actual circumstances attending his 
 death were as follows : Being ill in bed opposite a chimney- 
 piece witli a mirror over it, he desired a valet to give him 
 some medicine which was on the chimney-piece. Seeing him 
 mixing it with a tooth-brush. Lord Lyttelton raised himself 
 up in l)('d and rated him : but was so weak that his head sank
 
 LORD LYTTELTON'S GHOST 189 
 
 below the pillow on to his chest, and he gasped for breath. 
 Instead of relieving him, the valet in his fright left^the room, 
 and death ensued before assistance could be given. Mr. 
 Taylor, of Worcester Park, told me the names of the parties 
 in the house at the time ; but I recollect only that Michael 
 Angelo Taylor, M.P., was one of them. He named to me also 
 that Lord Lyttelton had become possessed of Pit Place in pay- 
 ment of a debt of honour.' 
 
 Another narrative of the same circumstances is signed 
 ' S. L.' — no doubt denoting the handwriting of Sarah, Dowager 
 Lady Lyttelton. It runs as follows : 
 
 ' Mr. George Portescue one day called upon me in town, 
 and in a conversation — the subject of an article in the 
 Quarterly, which ascribed the authorship of "Junius" to 
 Thomas Lord Lyttelton — he told me he had often heard from 
 his father, Lord Fortescue,' some details of the death of 
 Thomas Lord Lyttelton, which must be true and certainly are 
 rather curious. He said that Lord (then Mr.) Fortescue was 
 in London on the morning of a day in November, 1779, and 
 went to see Lord Lyttelton — his first cousin — wlio was then 
 also in town, and who on the day before had made a fine speech 
 in the House of Lords. He found Lord Lyttelton in bed, 
 though not ill ; and on his rallying him for it. Lord Lyttelton 
 said, " Well, cousin, if you will wait in the next room a little 
 while, I will get up and go out with you." He did so, and 
 the two young men walked out into tlie streets. In the course 
 of their walk they crossed the churchyard of St. James's, 
 Piccadilly. Lord Lyttelton, pointing to the grave-stones, said, 
 " Now look at all these vulgar fellows ; they die in their youth 
 at five and thirty ; but you and I, who are gentlemen, shall 
 live to a good old age." The walk ended by their getting 
 into a carriage and driving together to Lord Lyttelton's 
 house at Epsom, where there was a party of his friends. They 
 dined and chatted cheerfully, and no allusion was made to any 
 
 ' Hugh, first Earl Fortescue, K.G. He died in 1842.
 
 I90 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 remarkable occurrence. In the evening Lord Lyttelton with- 
 drew to his room earlier than Mr. Fortescue, who, so far from 
 having any anxiety or curiosity upon his mind respecting his 
 cousin, sat up before the fire in his drawing-room, with his 
 feet on the fender, and quietly dropped asleep. He was roused, 
 however, by Lord Lyttelton's servant rushing into the room 
 and saying, "Help, help I my lord is dying ! " He ran up- 
 stairs and found that all was over. His servant said that his 
 lordship had got into bed, and asked for his usual medicine — 
 a dose of rhubarb —but that, finding it ill-mixed, he desired the 
 servant to mix it again. No spoon being at hand, the man 
 began to mix it with a toothpick that lay on the table. " You 
 dirty fellow!" said Lord Lyttelton, "go down and fetch a 
 spoon." He obeyed, and on returning to the room, found his 
 master speecliless, fallen back on the pillow, and in his last 
 agonies. Mr. Fortescue heard nothing either then or for 
 some days after about the dream or the ghost, or the predic- 
 tion of his death, which Mr. Fortescue, therefore, seemed 
 inclined wholly to disbelieve.' 
 
 Mr. R. Plumer Ward, in his ' Illustrations of Human 
 Life' (vol. i., p. 165), treats at considerable length of this 
 strange occurrence. Giving to a friend an account of Lord 
 Lyttelton's appearance to Mr. Miles Peter Andrews, formerly 
 M.P. for Bewdley, in Worcestershire, he writes : 
 
 ' I have often heard and read much about Lord Lyttelton's 
 seeing a gliost before his death, and also of himself appearing 
 as a ghost to Mr. Andrews ; and so one evening, while sitting 
 next to that gentleman during a pause in the debates of the 
 House of Commons, T ventured to ask him what truth there 
 was in the story so confidently related. Mr. Andrews, as 
 perhaps I ought to have expected, did not much like the con- 
 versation ; he looked quite grave and uneasy, and I asked his 
 pardon for my impertinent curiosity. Upon this he said, very 
 good-naturedly, " It is not a subject that I am fond of, espe- 
 cially in such a place as this ; but if you will come and dine 
 with me I will tell you what of it is true and what false." I
 
 LORD LYTTELTON'S GHOST 191 
 
 gladly accepted the proposal ; and I think that my recollection 
 is perfect as to the following narrative. 
 
 ' In his youth Mr. Andrews was the boon companion, not 
 to say fellow rake, of Lord Lyttelton, who, as is well known, 
 was a man distinguished at once for his abilities and for a 
 profligacy of morals which few could equal. With all this he 
 was remarkable for what may be called unusual cowardice in 
 one so determinately wicked. He never really repented, and 
 yet he never could quite stifle his conscience. He never would 
 allow, yet he never could deny, a world to come ; and he con- 
 templated with unceasing terror what would probably be his 
 own state in such a world, if there was one. He was always 
 either melancholy with fear or else mad with defiance ; and 
 probably his principal misery here lay in the fact that, with 
 all his endeavours, he never could extinguish the dread of an 
 hereafter. He came down to breakfast pale with the agony 
 he suffered in a dream which at first he would not reveal. It 
 turned out that he thought that for his sins he was enclosed 
 in a globe of iron, of the dimension of the earth, and heated 
 red-hot. At that time all the world was execrating Mrs. 
 Brownrigg, who was hanged for whipping to death one of her 
 apprentices, a little girl. Lord Lyttelton had the greatest 
 hatred and horror of her name ; and to aggravate his punish- 
 ment, he thought that this wretch was shut up with himself 
 in the globe of hot iron. An imagination so strong could not 
 but be active, inquiring, and restless ; and all this, added to 
 his fears, made him harp incessantly on the question of a future 
 life. He used often to discuss this point with his friend 
 Andrews, to whom he at last said, " Well, if I die first, and 
 am allowed, I will come and inform you." This was but a little 
 before his death. That death was attended with so many 
 mysterious reports of ghosts, warnings, and prophecies, and 
 most of them such entire inventions, that I shall not trouble 
 the company with them, but hasten on to Mr. Andrews's part 
 of the story. " But," asked one of the ladies, " when you say 
 most of them, do you mean that any one of them was well
 
 192 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 founded ? " I can only tell you what I learned from Mr. 
 
 Andrews, who, I feel sure, is good authority. It is true that 
 
 the night before Lord Lyttelton died a fluttering of a bird 
 
 was heard, and perhaps a bird was seen on his window 
 
 curtains. It is not true that Mrs. Humphreys, or any other 
 
 departed lady whom he had seduced, appeared to him and 
 
 warned him of his end. It is true that he himself thought 
 
 that he was to die at a given hour, and that the clock was 
 
 put on in order to deceive him into comfort. It is also true 
 
 that he was found dead in bed with his watch in his hand, 
 
 but a few minutes after the time which he had mentioned as 
 
 destined to be his last. But it is equally true that on any 
 
 great and sudden agitation he was subject to a swelling of the 
 
 throat, which, without immediate assistance, might have killed 
 
 him by strangulation. However, the coincidence of the event 
 
 with the prophecy was at any rate most remarkable. Andrews 
 
 was at his house at Dartford, in Kent, when Lord Lyttelton 
 
 died at Pit Place, Epsom, thirty miles oft". Andrews's house 
 
 was full of company, and he expected Lord Lyttelton, whom 
 
 he had left in his usual health, to join them the next day, 
 
 which was Sunday. Andrews himself, feeling somewhat 
 
 indisposed on that Saturday evening, retired eai^ly to bed, 
 
 requesting Mrs. Pigou, one of his guests, to do the honours of 
 
 the supper table for him. When in bed he fell into a sound 
 
 sleep, but was waked between eleven and twelve o'clock by 
 
 somebody opening his curtains. It was Lord Lyttelton in a 
 
 night-gown and cap which Andrews recognised. He also 
 
 spoke plainly to liim, saying that he was come to tell him 
 
 that "all was over." It was commonly reported that he 
 
 informed him that there was another world, and bade him 
 
 repent ; but this was not true. I contine myself,' he adds, 
 
 ' to the exact words of his narrative. It seems that Lord 
 
 Lyttelton was fond of horse-play, or what the French call 
 
 mauvaise plaisanierie ; and, as he had often made Andrews 
 
 the subject of it, the latter had threatened his loi'dship with 
 
 manual chastisement the very next time that it should occur.
 
 LORD LYTTELTON'S GHOST 193 
 
 On the present occasion, thinking that the annoyance was 
 being renewed, he threw at Lord Lyttelton's head the first 
 things that he could find, which were his slippers. The figure 
 retreated towards a dressing-room, which had no ingress or 
 egress except through the bedchambei', and Andrews, very 
 angry, leaped out of bed in order to follow it into the dress- 
 ing-room. It was not there, however. Surprised and amazed, 
 he returned at once into the bedroom, which he strictly 
 searched. The door was locked on the inside, yet no Lord 
 Lyttelton was to be found. He was astonished, but not 
 alarmed, so convinced was he that it was only a trick of Lord 
 Lyttelton, who, he supposed, must have arrived, according 
 to his engagement, but after he (Mr. Andrews) was gone to 
 bed. He therefore rang for his servant, and asked if Lord 
 Lyttelton was not come. The man said, 'No, sir.' 'You 
 may depend upon it,' he replied, out of humour, ' that he is 
 somewhere in the house ; he was here just now, and he is 
 playing some trick or other.' But how he could have got into 
 the bedroom, with the door locked, fairly puzzled both master 
 and man. Convinced, however, that he was still somewhere 
 in the house, Mr. Andrews in his anger ordered that no bed 
 should be given to him, saying that he might go to an inn or 
 sleep in the stables. Be this, however, as it may, he never 
 appeared again, and Mr. Andrews went off to sleep. It 
 happened that Mrs. Pigou was engaged to go to town early 
 the next morning. What was her astonishment — having 
 heard the disturbance of the night before — to learn on her 
 arrival about nine o'clock that Lord Lyttelton had died the 
 very night that he was supposed to have been seen at Dart- 
 ford. She immediately sent an express to Dartford with the 
 news, upon the receipt of which Mr. Andrews, who was then 
 quite well, swooned away. He could not understand the 
 affair ; but it had a most serious effect upon his health, so 
 that, to use his own expression, he was not himself or a man 
 again for three yeai's. ' Such,' adds Mr. Plumer Ward, ' is 
 this celebrated story, stripped of its ornaments and exaggera- 
 
 o
 
 194 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 tions • and I for one own — if not convinced that this was a 
 real message from Heaven, which certainly I am not— that I 
 at least think the hand of Providence was seen in it, working 
 upon the imagination, if you please, and therefore suspending 
 no law of nature — though, after all, that is an ambiguous term 
 
 'but still Providence in a character not to be mistaken.' 
 
 Lord Brougham confesses in the first volume of his auto- 
 biography that ' there never was to all appearance a better 
 authenticated fact than the story of Lord Lyttelton's Ghost. 
 I have heard,' he adds, ' my father tell the story, but coupled 
 with his conviction that it was eitlior a pure invention or the 
 accidental coincidence of a dream with the event. I believe 
 that every such seeming miracle, like every ghost story, is 
 capable of explanation. My father had heard the particulars 
 from a lady, a Mrs. Affleck, during a visit which he made to 
 London in 1780, not very long after the death of Lord Lyttelton. 
 My father was convinced that tlie fcnnale tendency to believe 
 in the marvellous naturally produced the statement that the 
 moment of his death had exactly corresponded with the time 
 as predicted in the dream. The story was told with corrobo- 
 rating circumstances, one of which was the attempt to cheat 
 the ghost by altering the hour on the clock ; and the tale 
 obtained a surprising degree of credit considering the unsub- 
 stantial foundation on which it really rested.' 
 
 THE WITTY DUKE OF WHABTON 
 
 Most readers of modern anecdote biography, and most 
 
 students of English history in the reign of the first two 
 
 Georges, have heard at all events of the name of the witty 
 
 Duke of Wharton ; and if they do not remember him in prose 
 
 history, they will not forget the cliaracter of him drawn by 
 
 Pope in one of his Moral Essays : 
 
 Wharton, the scorn and wonder of our days, 
 Whose ruling passion was tlic lust of praise. 
 Born with whate'er could win it from the wise, 
 Women and fools must like him, or he dies.
 
 THE WITTY DUKE OF WHARTON 195 
 
 Though wondering senates hang on all he spoke, 
 The club must hail him master of the joke. 
 Shall parts so various aim at nothing new ? 
 He'll shine a Tully and a Wilmot too. 
 Thus, with each gift of nature and of art, 
 And wanting nothing but an honest lieart ; 
 Grown all to all, from no one vice exempt. 
 And most contemptible to show contempt ; 
 His passion still, to covet general praise ; 
 His life, to forfeit it a thousand ways ; 
 A constant bounty, which no friend has made ; 
 An angel tongue, which no man can persuade ; 
 A fool with more of wit than half mankind ; 
 Too rash for thought, for action too refined ; 
 A tyrant to the wife his heart approves, 
 A i-ebel to the very king he loves ; 
 He dies, sad outcast of each church and state, 
 And, harder still I flagitious, yet not great. 
 Ask j'ou why Wharton broke through every rule ? 
 'Twas all for fear the knaves should call him fool. 
 
 Let me therefore bring before my readers a brief outline 
 of his Grace's singular career, which will be found to justify 
 the words of Horace Walpole, who thus describes him : ' With 
 attachment to no party, though with talents to govern any, 
 this lively man changed the free air of Westminster for the 
 gloom of the Escurial, the prospect of King George's Garter 
 for the Pretender's ; and, with utter indifference to all religion, 
 the frolic lord, who had written a l)allad on the Archlnshop of 
 Canterbury, died in the habit of a Capuchin.' That this out- 
 line is in the main correct I shall proceed to show with the 
 leave of my readers. 
 
 The Whartons, successively barons, earls, marquises, and 
 eventually for a brief space dukes of Wharton, took their 
 name from a certain 'fair lordship' on the banks of the river 
 Eden, and were of great antiquity in the county of Westmore- 
 land. The first member of the House, however, of whom we 
 have any detailed account is Sir Thomas Wharton, Governor 
 of the city and castle of Carlisle in the reign of Henry VIII., 
 who, by the aid of his neighbour Sir William Musgrave and a 
 force of only 300 men, gallantly routed a large body of Scottish 
 invaders, and took prisoners the Earl of Cassilis and the Lord 
 
 2
 
 196 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 of Glencairn. Two years later lie marched into Scotland along 
 with Lord Dacre 'of the north,' and was made a peer of England 
 for his services at the taking of Dumfries. Under Philip and 
 Mary he was Lord Warden of the Middle Marches, and after- 
 wards General Warden of all the marches on the Scottish 
 frontier. Of his son, the second, and of his grandson, the 
 third Lord Wharton, there is little to record except that they 
 succeeded in due course to the title so honourably gained by 
 Sir Thomas, and married into the noble families of Devereux, 
 Earl of Essex, and Clifford, Earl of Cumberland. The third 
 Lord Wharton had the misfortune of losing both his sons in 
 his own lifetime, the elder being killed in a duel with his 
 friend James Stuart, the son of Lord Blantyre. In this un- 
 fortunate conflict, like that of Lord Mohun and the Duke of 
 Hamilton, both of the combatants fell, and they were buried 
 in one grave at Islington, or, as it was then called, Iseldon, or 
 Iseldun, ' by order of the King.' 
 
 Of Philip, the fourth Lord Wharton, I have to record the 
 fact that, though he was a violent Puritan and an active 
 partisan of the Parliament during the Great Rebellion, he 
 managed to keep his head safe on his shoulders under 
 Charles II. and James II., and to leave by his first marriage 
 an only daughter, from whom the present Lord Willoughby 
 d'Eresby and Lord Cholmondeley are maternally descended ; 
 and also by his second marriage a son, Thomas, who in due 
 course became fifth Lord Wharton. As his father had sup- 
 ported Puritanism when apparently triumphant, so noAv he, 
 in his turn, gave his active support to the Revolution of 1688, 
 and was raised to an earldom by Queen Anne, and subse- 
 quently, by Geoi'ge I., to the marquisate of Wharton, to say 
 nothing of an Irish peerage as Earl of Rathfarnham and 
 Marquis of Catherlogh — titles which at his death, in 1715, 
 devolved upon his only son Philip, who thus became sixth 
 Baron and second Earl and Marquis of Wharton whilst still a 
 boy. It is of this youth, who was born in December 1698, 
 that I have now to speak,
 
 THE WITTY DUKE OF WHARTON 197 
 
 He seems to have been a tolerably precocious youth ; for, 
 although he had been carefully educated at home, under the 
 eye of his father — whose ambition, we are told, was to make 
 him ' a great orator and patriot ' — we hear of him, at the age 
 of sixteen, getting secretly and pi'ivately married to a plain 
 untitled girl, the daughter of a certain Major-General Holmes. 
 Miss Lizzie Holmes, of course, was no equal match for the 
 heir to two marquisates, two earldoms, a viscountcy, and a 
 barony. The sad jnesalliance, however, did not reach the ears 
 of his parents for some little time ; and, luckily too, for the 
 shock is said to have killed them both within the course of a 
 year. 
 
 I cannot say that the fruits of this young gentleman's early 
 training inspire me with any strong admiration for private as 
 opposed to public school education. Papas are generally the 
 very worst hands at training their youngsters— always except- 
 ing mammas — and young Master Philip would have got better 
 over his first steps in his ' way through the world ' if he had 
 been sent to Eton, Westminster, or Winchester, and been 
 taught by contact with his fellows that ' manners makyth man.' 
 Probably his father's fussy supervision of his hopeful son's 
 education was intended to make him, not merely a strong Whig 
 in politics, but a Presbyterian in religion. His clandestine 
 union with Miss Holmes, we are told, took place at the Fleet 
 Prison, the union being celebrated by a 'Pleet parson,' and a 
 ring of an old window curtain being used for the bride's 
 wedding ring, as, we have already seen, was also the case 
 with one of the ' fair Gunnings.' The old Marquis died in 
 April, 1715, and the Marchioness followed her husband to the 
 grave, as said above, in the course of the year. Yet it is ad- 
 mitted by Wharton's biographers that, although the match 
 which the youth had made was ' no ways suitable to his birth 
 or fortune, and far less to the great views which his father 
 had of disposing of him in such a marriage as would have been 
 a considerable addition to the fortune and grandeur of so 
 illustrious a family,' there was no objection to be urged against
 
 19§ TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 the young lady personally, except that she had no money or 
 even a long pedigree. At all events, one thing is clear, and 
 that is that she deserved a very great deal more of happiness 
 than this ' Fleet marriage ' brought to her. Not a word that 
 I can find was ever urged against her conduct as a wife even 
 by the Whartons. She and her boy-husband parted within a 
 few months after their ill-starred marriage ; and at the 
 beginning of 1716 the bridegroom was sent (probably by the 
 directions left by his father to his guardians) to travel abroad. 
 The ' dominie ' to whom he was entrusted was a French 
 Huguenot pastor. 
 
 The result was just what might have been expected. The 
 young Marquis kicked hard against the rigid system of his 
 tutor. In passing through Germany his vanity was gratified 
 by the bestowal of some petty order of knighthood- far in- 
 ferior, of course, to the double coronet of a marquis, which he 
 bore as a peer both of England and of Ireland. He played 
 high of course, ran into debt like a gentleman, and after a 
 brief space he cut all his entanglements, gave his tutor the 
 slip, and set ofi" post haste for the pleasant city of Lyons, 
 where he managed to hide himself for a short time, the place 
 of his retreat being unknown to the ' dominie.' His next 
 proceeding was to write a letter to Prince James — the elder 
 ' Pretender,' as he was styled by the Hanoverian party— who 
 was then residing at Avignon, and to whom he sent the pre- 
 sent of a fine racehorse or hunter. The Chevalier, in turn, 
 resolved not to be outdone in civility, invited him to his 
 soi-disant Court, where he spent a few days in pleasure, and it 
 is said received from him tlie title of Duke of Northumberland, 
 which just at that time had ceased to belong to the Percies 
 and had not yet been conferred on the Smithsons. 
 
 After this freak he suddenly appeared at Paris, where he 
 played a double game, visiting the widowed Queen of James XL 
 at St. Germain, and borrowing from her 2,000^., but at the 
 same time not decUning the attentions of the English Andjas- 
 sador at the Tuileries, Lord Stair, to whose table he was often
 
 THE WITTY DUKE OF WHARTON 199 
 
 invited as a guest. The story goes that, in order to get the 
 money from the Queen — who is said even to have pledged 
 her jewels in order to raise it for the young vagabond 
 marquis — he engaged to lay the money out in promoting the 
 interests of the exiled Stuarts in England, though in reality 
 he spent it in play in the gambling houses of Paris. And he 
 showed the depth of his cunning by telling a friend who 
 remonstrated with him on his duplicity that, although till he 
 could repay what he had borrowed he must remain a Jacobite 
 and a nominal adherent of the Stuarts, he was really a Hano- 
 verian at heart, but that as soon as the money obligation 
 was discharged he would return to his allegiance to the Whigs 
 and the friends of the reigning sovereign.' 
 
 The stay of the young Duke in Paris having been marked 
 by a series of extravagances, to which the only parallel in our 
 own age is to be found in the achievements of the late Marquis 
 of Waterford, his Grace i^eturned to England in the December 
 of the same year ; but not being of age was unable to take 
 his seat in the House of Peers. In Ireland, however, where 
 the officials were not so squeamish, or at all events not so care- 
 ful, and possibly more open to a bribe in the way of a promise 
 of future support, he was admitted to the Upper House as 
 Marquis of Catherlogh. He at once took up the side of the 
 Government, of which he proved himself at all events an able 
 and eloquent suj)porter, though how far an honest^ one, it 
 would be hard to say. However, he so distinguished himself 
 in debate that, although still under age, he obtained from 
 George I. the much-coveted strawberry leaves of a ducal 
 
 ' This was an amusing illustration of the story which Dr. Johnson, 
 somewhat turning the tables, tells us of his own biogi'apher : ' James 
 Boswell in the year 1745 was a fine boy, who wore a white cockade and 
 prayed for King James till one of his uncles gave him a shilling on 
 condition that he should pray instead for King George, which he 
 accordingly did : so you see that Whigs of all ages are made in the 
 same wa3^' 
 
 - A letter from the Duke to Mr. Walpole, just before his arrival in 
 Paris to place himself in communication with James III., couched in 
 the most insincere phrases, will be found in Cox's 3femoirs of the Life 
 and Admbristvation of Sir llohcrt WaJpolc, vul ii.
 
 200 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 coronet, being created in 1718 Duke of Wharton. 'If/ 
 observes a writer in the English Cyclopedia, ' we put aside 
 those bestowed on members, legitimate or illegitimate, of the 
 royal family, this certainly was the most extraordinary crea- 
 tion of an English dukedom on record ; and perhaps it may 
 be regarded also as the most singular passage even in Wharton's 
 remarkable career. Notwithstanding the practice which then 
 prevailed of conferring that dignity with much less reserve 
 than at present, the attainment of it under such circumstances 
 must be held to bear strong testimony to the impression which 
 the talents of the young nobleman made at his first appearance 
 upon the stage of politics.' It may be added that, in the 
 patent of his dukedom, it was specially stated that the title 
 was conferred upon him on account of his own personal merits, 
 as well as those of his father before him. 
 
 It was probably not until after he had attained his majority, 
 early in the year 1720, that he took his seat in the English 
 House of Peers. His name first appears in the records of the 
 debates of April 5 in that year, when he joined warmly in the 
 opposition to the great Government measure of the South Sea 
 Bill, on the motion for its committal ; but no record of his 
 speech exists, for there were no Parliamentary reporters in the 
 House of Lords at the time. He also spoke frequently on the 
 same subject at the explosion of that wild scheme ; and it was 
 during a reply to a bitter invective from his lips, on February 4, 
 1721, that Lord Stanhope, then Secretary of State, burst a 
 blood-vessel, which occasioned his death the next day. The 
 Duke's next prominent appearance was as an opponent of the 
 bill of pains and penalties against Bishop Atterljury ; and this 
 is the last speech of the Duke of Wharton that is noticed in 
 the ' Parliamentary History.' 
 
 His Grace's estate, worth, it is said, some 16,000^. a year 
 when he came to it, had by this time become so involved that 
 his property was placed in the hands of trustees for the benefit 
 of his creditors, and he was allowed only 1,200^. per annum. 
 Tie now, perhaps with the view of adding to his income.
 
 THE WITTY DUKE OF WHARTOX 201 
 
 launched out in a literary speculation, by the publication of a 
 political paper called the True Briton. This undertaking 
 lasted about six months, the paper appearing twice in each 
 week ; and during this time he seems to have exerted all his 
 influence in every way against the ^Ministry and the Court. 
 He even had himself enrolled as a member of the Wax 
 Chandlers' Company in the City of London, in order that he 
 might speak and vote at common-halls and other civic meet- 
 ings. He, however, soon got tired of such unprofitable work, 
 and, giving out that his intention was to retrench for a few 
 years, lie went off to the Continent in the early part of 1724. 
 Proceeding first to Vienna, he made a distinguished figure at 
 that Court for a short time ; then he set out for ^ladrid, where 
 he dazzled the Spanish hemisphere, and, as we are told by his 
 original biographer, ' his arrival alarmed the English Minister 
 so much that an express was sent from jNladrid to London, 
 under an apprehension that the Duke was received there in 
 the character of a Minister of the English King ; upon which 
 his Grace was served with an order under the Privy Seal to 
 summon him home.' 
 
 This order the Duke entirely disregarded; 'for,' says 
 Salmon, in the ' Chronological Historian,' ' his Grace, being 
 in a coach when it was delivered to him, contemptuously threw 
 it into the street without opening it, and soon after, it is said, 
 declared himself a Roman Catholic' ' He endeavoured,' con- 
 tinues the writer of his life, ' to stir up the Spanish Court not 
 only against the person that delivered the warrant, but against 
 the Court of Great Britain itself, for exercising an act of 
 authority, as he was pleased to call it, within the jurisdiction 
 of his Catholic Majesty's kingdom. After this he acted openly 
 in the service of the Stuarts, and appeared at their Court 
 at St. Germain, where he was received with many great marks 
 of favour.' 
 
 The subsequent career of this ' spoiled child of fortune,' as 
 he was called by one of his coroneted brethren, can be attributed 
 only to madness. His wife, poor girl ! — from whom he had
 
 202 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 been torn away by his father and his 'dominie,' and whom he 
 had since neglected on account of her having, contrary to his 
 orders, brought her infant son up to London, where he died of 
 the small-pox — was carried to her grave in April, 1726. He 
 was at Madrid when he heard of her death, and immediately 
 offered his hand to a Miss O'Beirne, or O'Byrne— the orphan 
 daughter of an Irish gentleman, a colonel in the Spanish 
 service— who was one of the maids of honour to the Queen of 
 Spain. It is said that her Majesty, who always had a tender 
 regard for the ladies of her Court, refused her consent to the 
 union ; but the Duke threatened to kill himself outright, or, 
 at all events, to starve himself to death, if she would not 
 relent. At length the Queen gave way, and the marriage 
 took place. It does not, however, appear to have been a very 
 happy one, for the Duchess figures but very little as her 
 husband's companion in his subsequent adventures. 
 
 We next hear of this wandering star at Rome, where, 
 though he had taken a dukedom from the Hanoverian King of 
 England, he accepted the Order of the Garter from the son of 
 James II., and openly assumed the title of Duke of North- 
 umberland, formerly bestowed upon him by that personage. 
 But it seems to have been soon discovered that he was likely 
 to be more of detriment than of service to the cause in which 
 he had enlisted himself. ' As he could not always keep him- 
 self within the bounds of the Italian giavity,' says his first 
 somewhat tender biographer, who has been substantially 
 followed in all the later accounts, ' and had no employment to 
 divert and amuse his over-active tempci-, he ran into his usual 
 excesses, which being taken amiss, without falling into actual 
 disgrace, it was thought advisable for hiu) to remove from that 
 city for the present.' His next appearance was in the spi'ing 
 of 1727 at the siege of Gibraltar, where, having offered his 
 services as a volunteer to the King of Spain, he was appointed 
 by the Conde de las Torres one of his aides-de-camp. Here, 
 if we may believe the story told of him, he was constantly in 
 the trendies, exposing liiiusclf to tlic hottest of the fire ; and
 
 THE WITTY DUKE OF WHARToN 203 
 
 probably this was true, for his friends declared that his con- 
 duct savoured rather of reckless bravado than of sober English 
 bravery. ' He went one evening,' it is i^elated, ' close to the 
 walls, near one of the posts of the town, and either called to, 
 dared, or threatened the soldiers of the garrison. They asked 
 who he was \ he readily answered, " The Duke of Wharton ; " 
 and, though his Grace appeared there as an enemy, they 
 suffered him to return to the trenches without firing one shot 
 at him. Had they done otherwise he must inevitably have 
 perished.' The only injury he received at the siege was a 
 slight wound in his foot from the bursting of a grenade ; and 
 as a reward for what he had done, the King of Spain gave him 
 a cominission as colonel, attaching him at the same time to one 
 of the Irish regiments. But this was small compensation for 
 all that his frantic conduct lost him at home, where soon after 
 a bill of indictment was preferred against him for an act of 
 high treason, committed by appearing in arms before, and 
 firing off cannon against, his Majesty's town of Gibraltar ; a 
 conviction followed in due course ; and he lost by attainder 
 both his peerage and all else that he possessed in his native 
 country. Before this had happened, however, he had written 
 to the Pretender, promising to come back to Rome, but re- 
 ceived for answer a strong exhortation rather to make the 
 best of his way to England, and try if he could acconnnodate 
 matters there. Upon this he set out for Paris, where he 
 arrived with his Duchess in May, 1728, and coolly again began 
 to play his double game by placing himself in communication 
 with the English King's Ambassador and also with his enemies, 
 thus keeping up a most insincere political flirtation. He waited 
 upon the English Minister, Mr. Walpole, who received him 
 with abundance of civility, but was not a little surprised when, 
 at parting, his Grace told him he was going to dine with the 
 Bishop of Rochester, the exiled Atterbury, Walpole replied 
 that, if he meant to dine with that prelate, there was no reason 
 why he should tell him of his intention, which in reality was 
 an insult to his royal master. From Paris he went to Rouen ;
 
 204 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 and here, wlien he first heard of his indictment for high treason, 
 it is affirmed that he was visited by two emissaries from the 
 English Minister, Walpole, who endeavoured to persuade him 
 to avoid his fate by making some sort of submission to the 
 Government ; but he remained deaf to all they could urge. 
 In fact, he refused not only to wiite, but even to allow his 
 friends to write in his name and on his behalf to the King, 
 though it was known that on so doing a pardon was ready for 
 him. 
 
 The rest of the Duke's history would seem to indicate that 
 he was either actually mad or constantly drunk ; probably 
 both suppositions were partially true. He extorted some 
 f ux'ther pecuniary assistance from the Pretender and also from 
 other quarters ; but, notwithstanding these occasional supplies 
 and his military pay, he was commonly involved in all the 
 embarrassments of the most extreme poverty ; for whenever 
 he I'eceived any money, if it escaped his clamorous rabble of 
 creditors, it was spent as fast as his still untamed profusion 
 and taste for luxury and dissipation could squander it. He 
 now moved about as whim, or hope, or sometimes desperation 
 drove him ; first to Paris, then to Orleans, then to Nantes, 
 whence he took ship for Bilbao, and, leaving his Duchess 
 there, went to join his regiment, which appears to have been 
 stationed at Madrid. Some time after he is stated to have 
 been in garrison at Barcelona, where he got into a quarrel 
 with the Marquis de Risbourg, Governor of Catalonia, the end 
 of which was that he received orders from the Spanish Court 
 not again to enter Barcelona, but to repair to his quarters at 
 Lerida. On this we are told that, giving way to melancholy, 
 he fell into a deep consumption ; so that by the beginning of 
 the year 1731 he had lost the use of his limbs, and was not 
 able to walk from his bed to the fireside without assistance. 
 After about two months he rallied somewhat, from drinking 
 a mineral water in the mountains of Catalonia ; but in May, 
 having gone with his regiment to Tarragona, he became again 
 as ill as ever ; and, going back to the mineral spring, ' he fell,'
 
 THE WITTY DUKE OF WHARTON 205 
 
 says his biographer, ' into one of those fainting fits to which 
 he had for some time been subject, in a small village, and was 
 utterly destitute of all necessaries, till some charitable fathers 
 of a Bernardine convent, which happened to be near the 
 place where he lay, hearing of his miserable condition, offered 
 him what assistance their house afforded.' 
 
 After languishing in the convent for a week, he died there 
 on May 31, 1731, and was buried the next day by the monks 
 in the same manner in which one of themselves would have 
 been interred. He appears, by all accounts, to have made a 
 very penitent and Christian end. Horace Walpole says of 
 the death of the Duke that the only account of it which he 
 had seen, and which he gave in his ' Royal and Noble Authors," 
 came to him from ' a very good hand,' Captain Willoughby, 
 who saw a picture of him in the habit of the convent where 
 he died. He adds : ' If it was a Bernardine convent, the 
 gentleman might confovmd them ; but, considering that there 
 is no life of the Duke but booksellers' trash, it is much more 
 likely that they made a mistake.' The idea, however, which 
 has been entertained by some writers, that on his death-bed 
 the Duke became a monk, is too absurd to need repetition ; 
 for he was not only mai-ried, but had a wife living, and that 
 wife was his second wife ; so that had he been inclined to 
 adopt the cowl, like Charles V., a double dispensation from 
 Rome would have been necessary, and there was certainly no 
 time even to apply for one, much less to procure one. 
 
 It is clear from what I have written above that the Duke 
 was a man of a high order of intellect, though he proved a sad 
 example of wasted talents. In his speeches in the House of 
 Peers he was witty and apposite, and it is said that he was 
 always listened to with pleasure, because of the fun which he 
 was sure to introduce into the debates of that grave assembly. 
 Occasionally, however, he met with a ' set down.' For instance, 
 one day, as we learn from that storehouse of amusement, ' The 
 Percy Anecdotes,' having reminded his brother peers that in 
 the history of Rome he had read nf a bad Minister of State,
 
 2o6 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 one Sejauus, \\\\o h.ul first tried to wean the Emperor's affec- 
 tions from his son and then to carry him abroad, and so 
 paved the way for the ruin of Rome, he found more than his 
 match in Lord Stanhope, who replied that the Romans had a 
 law forbidding young men to speak in tlieir Senate till they 
 had learnt good manners and propriety of language, quoting 
 from the earlier pages of Roman history an instance of a 
 great man and a patriot who had a son so profligate that he 
 tried to betray the liberties of the Repul)lic, on which account 
 his father had him whipped to death. 
 
 I have said that the Duke was a clever and able man ; this 
 he showed not only by his speeches, but by his pen. His 
 biographer tells us that, ' much of an orator as he was, owing 
 to the debates not being reported, he could not talk to the 
 whole nation, and therefore he wrote and printed his thoughts 
 twice a week in a paper called the True Briton., several 
 thousands of which lieing weekly dispersed, the Duke was 
 pleased to And the whole kingdom giving attention to him and 
 admiring his style and wiiting.' The Trw Briton ran to 
 about seventy or eighty numbers, and was not a bad imita- 
 tion of the Spectator and Tatler, which preceded it. Some of 
 the papers are racy and witty, and many of them show a com- 
 mand of the English tongue which, if we may judge from 
 original letters of the time, even from the pens of English 
 peers, was very uncommon in the reign of George I. To his 
 friend Bishop Atterbury, when in the Tower, he wrote a really 
 noble letter, which begins thus happily and wittily : 
 
 'My Lord,— "While T can yet write to you, T must and T 
 will correspond with you, till the very moment that it is felony 
 (to do so), and when I can no longer write to you I will write 
 of you.' 
 
 The Duke also publi.shod a masterly letter to 'his friends 
 in Great Britain and Ireland,' csplaining his reasons for leav- 
 ing his native country and espousing the cause of liis royal 
 master, ' James TIL' In this letter lie says that he had seen 
 all the Wliiggish principles taught him liy his futlier brokiii,
 
 THE WITTY DUKE OF WHARTON 207 
 
 arbitrary laws introduced, the Convocation silenced, and or- 
 thodoxy discouraged ; and that, having seen at Avignon the 
 prince whose face ' beamed with hereditary right,* and who 
 promised to i-edress the wrongs of the Englisli, he had chosen 
 to tender to him his allegiance. 
 
 The Duke of "VTharton must have been fairly prolific 
 with his pen, if it l>e true that a bookseller named Eitson, 
 towards the end of the last century, collected the Duke's 
 poetical works, and prepared a memoir of their author, with 
 a view to publication. At the sale of Ritson s books in 1803, 
 the MS. was purchased by Mr. John Xichols ; but I cannot 
 find that it was ever actually published, either in or out of the 
 Genth man's Jlapazine, of which the latter was the editor 
 and proprietor. The late Dr. Langhome also at one time 
 hinted his intention of writing a life of Wharton ' from mate- 
 rials in his possession,' as may be seen by reference to * Effu- 
 sions of Friendship and Fancy.' ' A few poetical pieces by 
 the Duke, or said to be by him, are to be found in the first 
 volume of the 'New Foundling for Witw' One of the best of 
 them is an ode on the ' Banishment of Cicero.' Two pieces 
 of poetiT by the Duke ai-e published in Mr. Nichols's Collec- 
 tions. Walpole says that ' an ode by him on " The Fear of 
 Death," was printed in folio in 1739, "communicated to tlie 
 public by a merchant lately arrived from Spain,"' but I 
 cannot find a copy of it in the British Museum. He also 
 wrote a parody of a song sung at the Opera House by Mrs. 
 Tofts on her leaving the English stage and i-etuming to Italy. 
 This is to be seen in • Ealph's Miscellaneous Poems,' page 131. 
 That, however, he wrote very much more than these few pieces 
 in ver^ which have come down to us ^ is probable from the 
 
 » YcxL L p. 25. 
 
 * In one of his baCads the Dofce of "Wharton bantered himself on 
 his own want of bravery. I refer to a song which he made on heinar 
 seized bv the gniard in St. James's Park for singing the Jacobite air 
 * The King shall have his ain again.' This ballad is quoted by Horace 
 Walpole in his ' Royal and Xoble Authors : ' 
 
 ' The Puke he drew out half his sword. 
 The ?uard drew out the rest."
 
 2o8 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 fact that a bookseller's miscellany published during his life- 
 time was styled ' AVhartoniana.' One of his facetious poems, 
 published (at a penny) at Edinburgh, in 1728, is entitled 'The 
 Drinking Match : ' it is a mock-heroic ballad, commemorating 
 a drinking bout at Eden Hall, near Carlisle, the seat of Sir C. 
 Musgrave. It is an imitation of ' Chevy Chase,' and is not 
 without merit. As it is not generally known, I take the 
 liberty of reproducing it here from a Collection of old Ballads. 
 
 THE DRINKING MATCH AT EDEN HALL. 
 
 God prosper long from beins; broke 
 
 The Luck ' of Eden Hall \ 
 A doleful di'iuking-bout I sing, 
 
 There lately did befall. 
 
 To chase the spleen with cup and can, 
 
 Duke Philip took his way. 
 Babes yet unborn shall never see 
 
 The like of such a day. 
 
 The stout and ever-thirsty Duke 
 
 A vow to God did make, 
 His pleasure within Cumberland 
 
 Three live-long nights to take. 
 
 Sir Tilusgrave too, of Martindale, 
 
 A true and worthy knight, 
 Eftsoon with him a bargain made, 
 
 In drinking to delight. 
 
 The bumpers swiftly pass about, 
 
 Six in a hand went round ; 
 And with their calling for more wine. 
 
 They made the hall resound. 
 Now when these merry tidings reach'd 
 
 The Earl of Harold's ears, 
 ' And am I ' (quoth he, with an oath) 
 
 ' Thus slighted by my peers 1 
 
 ' Saddle my steed, bring forth my boots, 
 
 I'll be with them right quick ; 
 And, master sherill, come you too. 
 
 We'll know this scurvy trick.' 
 
 ' Lo, yonder doth Hlarl Harold come 
 
 (Did one at table say) ; 
 ' "i'is well,' reply'd llic mettled Duke, 
 
 ' How will he get away ? ' 
 
 A pint biiniiirr at Sir Christopher Musgrave's.
 
 THE WITTY DUKE OF WHARTON 209 
 
 When thus the Earl began : ' Great Duke, 
 
 I'll know liovv this did cliance, 
 Without inviting me, sure this 
 
 You did not learn in France. 
 
 ' One of us two for this offence, 
 
 Under the board shall lie ; 
 I know thee well, a duke thou art, 
 
 So some years hence shall I. . 
 
 ' But trust me, Wharton, pity 'twere 
 
 So much good wine to sidIII, 
 As these companions here may drink. 
 
 Ere they have had their till. 
 
 ' Let thou and I, in bumpers full. 
 
 This grand affair decide.' 
 ' Accurs'd be he,' Duke Wharton said, 
 
 ' By whom it is deny'd.' 
 
 To Andrews, and to Hotham fair, 
 
 Full manj' a pint went round, 
 And many a gallant gentleman 
 
 Lay sick upon the ground. 
 
 When, at the last, the Duke espy'd 
 
 He had the Eari secure. 
 He ply'd him with a full pint-glass. 
 
 Which laid him on the tloor. 
 
 Who never spoke more words than these 
 
 After he downwards sunk, 
 ' My worthy friends, revenge my fall, 
 
 Duke Wharton sees me drunk.' 
 
 Then, with a groan, Duke Philip held 
 
 The sick man by the joint, 
 And said. ' Earl Harold, 'stead of thee. 
 
 Would I had drank this pint. 
 
 ' Alack ! my very heart doth bleed, 
 
 And doth within me sink ; 
 For surely a more sober earl 
 
 Did never swallow drink.' 
 
 With that the sheriff in a rage. 
 
 To see the Earl so smit, 
 Vow'd to revenge the dead-drunk peer 
 
 Upon renown'd Sir Kit. 
 
 Then stepp'd a gallant 'squire forth, 
 
 Of visage thin and pale, 
 Lloyd was his name, and of Gang Hall 
 
 Fast by the river Swale ;
 
 2IO TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 ' Who said he would not have it told 
 
 Where Eden river ran, 
 That unconcern'd he should sit by ; 
 
 So, sheriff, I'm your man.' 
 Now when these tidings reach'd the room 
 
 Where the Duke lay in bed. 
 How that the 'squire suddenly 
 
 Upon the floor was laid : 
 
 ' heavy tidings ! ' (quoth the Duke) 
 
 ' Cumberland witness be, 
 I have not any captain more 
 
 Of such account as he. 
 
 ' Like tidings to Earl Thanet came, 
 
 Within as short a space. 
 How that the under-sheriff too 
 
 Was fallen from his place.' 
 ' Now God be with him ' (said the Earl) 
 
 ' Sith 'twill no better be, 
 1 trust I have within my town, 
 
 As drunken knights as he.' 
 
 Of all the number that were tliere, 
 
 Sir Bains he scorn'd to yield ; 
 But with a bumper in his hand. 
 
 He stagger 'd o'er the field. 
 
 Thus did this dire contention eud. 
 
 And each man of the slain 
 Were quickly carried off to sleep — 
 
 Their senses to regain. 
 God bless the King, the Duchess fat. 
 
 And keep the land in peace. 
 And grant that drunkenness henceforth 
 
 "IMong noblemen may cease. 
 
 And likewise bless our royal prince, 
 
 The nation's other hope, 
 And give us grace for to defy 
 
 The Devil and the Pope. 
 
 As might be expected, all sorts of stories — some true and 
 others perhaps false — have been fathered on the individual 
 who has been used by authors for a century and a half ' to 
 point a moral or adorn a tale,' as the ' eccentric,' the ' witty,' 
 the ' wanton,' the ' depraved,' the ' licentious,' and the ' profli- 
 gate ' Duke of Wharton. I will select a few, if only to show 
 that in his Cirace's character virtues and vices were l)leuded
 
 THE WITTY DUKE OF WHARTON 21. 
 
 in close proximity, and thex-efore in the strongest contrasts. 
 Dr. Young published a poem entitled ' The Love of Fame the 
 Universal Passion.' The Duke read it, and was so pleased 
 with it that he sent the author a cheque for 2,000/. — whicli his 
 Grace's hankers duly honoured, his account at the time being 
 satisfactory. On one of his brother peers crying out at this 
 extravagance, the Duke coolly remarked that the poem would 
 have been cheap at double the price, and that he only regretted 
 that he could not send him a second cheque for the same 
 amount on its reaching a second edition. Lord Stair, when 
 Ambassador at Paris, on receiving a visit from the Duke, began 
 to lecture him on his eccentric conduct, and to preach about 
 the virtues of his father, the Marquis. The Duke, thinking 
 this rather cool, even from one who was many years his senior, 
 reminded his lordship that he too had a worthy and deserving 
 parent, in whose steps he trusted that he also would follow. 
 The wit of the reply lay in the fact that Lord Stair's father 
 had done anything rather than distinguish himself by his 
 honesty. On one occasion, when an industrious fit seized him, 
 the Duke translated the first book of ' Tele'maque,' and wrote 
 to his friends that he had been ' conversing with his friends 
 Telemachus and Mentor, in order to persuade them to open a 
 campaign against all enemies to common-sense.' 
 
 On the day before making his speech on behalf of Atter- 
 bury in the House of Lords, it is said that he went to Chelsea 
 to see the Prime Minister, Sir R. Walpole, professing to be 
 anxious to set himself right with the Court. The clever and 
 crafty Minister was taken in for once, for he went through 
 the whole case with him, pointing out the strong and weak 
 points. The Duke walked quietly home, sat up drinking all 
 night, and the next day spoke for the bishop in the most 
 masterly manner. It should be mentioned that tlie Duke's 
 father, in one of his fits of anger, had foretold that if his son 
 learnt his faith and his politics from Atterbury, he would be 
 sure to take to wrong courses, and Avould be ruined in the end. 
 Pennant, writing in the latter part of last century, tells us 
 
 p 2
 
 2 12 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 that lie found some persons who lived near the Duke's place, 
 AVharton Hall, on the borders of Yorkshire and Westmore- 
 land, and who spoke of his dissolute conduct as being still 
 remembered in the neighbourhood, adding, ' In all his acts he 
 showed an equal resolve to defy the laws of God and man, 
 especially by hunting on Sundays.' 
 
 We have said that, although the Duke had nominally an 
 income of between 1 5, OOOZ. and 20, 000/. a year before he was more 
 than just of age, he was obliged to come to an arrangement with 
 his creditors, and to live upon an allowance of 1,200/. annually. 
 With a wife, and a vai'iety of vices also, to support, it is not 
 to be wondered at that he soon got into debt, and that he was 
 hunted by ' duns' in France, just as he was in England. On 
 one occasion, while in the North of France, he found himself 
 hard pressed by one of these gentlemen, but he was clever 
 enough, though hampered by the presence of his duchess, to 
 take a small boat and drop quietly down the Loire, at the 
 mouth of which river he took his passage by a ship to Bilbao, 
 in Spain, where his enemies could not or dared not follow him. 
 
 That in his early years the Duke stood high in the opinion 
 of the public may be inferred from the fact that in the dedica- 
 tion pages of two separate publications by different authors he 
 is spoken of as being 'above flattery and above praise, con- 
 spicuous for universal learning, steadfastness of soul, contempt 
 of power and grandeur, love of his country, zeal for liberty, 
 and the desire of doing good to mankind — in a word, as nou 
 sibi sed patrice natus.' And yet in a satirical poem on ' The 
 Duke of Wharton's Wens,' in the Harleian MSS. (6933), a 
 lover, after giving a list of other supposed impossibilities, 
 speaks of forgetting his lady love 
 
 When Wharton's just and learns to pay his debts. 
 
 Either, therefore, the praise of the writer of the dedication 
 was most fulsome and venal, or else the Duke was cruelly 
 maligned by the last-named scribbler. In all probability the 
 latter was really the case, for one of his contemporaries
 
 THE WITTY DUKE OF WHARTON 213 
 
 remarks that ' money always seemed to him like a disease of 
 which he could not too soon cure himself.' This surely does 
 not look as if the Duke was really dishonest or unjust, or even 
 ungenerous. 
 
 :, 'It is difficult,' remarks Horace Walpole in his 'Royal 
 and Noble Authors,' ' to give an account of the works of so 
 mercurial a man, whose library was a tavern, and women of 
 pleasure his muses. A thousand sallies of his imagination 
 may have been lost, for he wrote for fame no more than he 
 acted for it.' Perhaps Horace Walpole on this occasion, as 
 on many others, 'hit the right nail on the head.' The Duke 
 must have been indeed ' mercurial.' ' Like Buckingham and 
 Rochester, Philip Duke of Wharton comforted all tlie grave 
 and dull,' says Horace Walpole, 'by throwing away the 
 brightest profusion of parts on witty fooleries, debaucheries, 
 and scrapes, which may mix graces with a great cliaracter, 
 but can never make one.' Mr. Seward reraai'ks that the 
 character of Lovelace in ' Clarissa ' has always been supposed 
 to be that of this nobleman ; and the supposition is rendered 
 the more probable as Pi,ichardson printed the True Briton^ in 
 which the Duke wrote constantly. 
 
 The Duke lived for some years at Twickenham, at a place 
 called Grove House, which after his death was occupied by the 
 younger Craggs, the friend of Addison, Steele, and Tickell, 
 and the opponent of Sir Robert AValpole in Parliament. The 
 house, which was pulled down many yeai'S ago, is said to have 
 been originally built by Inigo Jones for the Earl of Rochester. 
 At Twickenham he was the neighbour and acquaintance of 
 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who wrote an epilogue for a 
 tragedy which he began on ' Mary Queen of Scots.' This poem 
 was never finished, and all of it that~remains~is a brace of 
 couplets preserved in a 'Miscellany' like 'flies in amber.' 
 They run as follows : 
 
 Sure were I free, and Norfolk were a pris'ner, 
 I'd fly with more impatience to his arms 
 Than the poor Israelite on the serpent gaz'd 
 When life was the reward of every look.
 
 214 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Well and wittily is it remarked by Bolton in his ' Extinct 
 Peerage ' that ' the Duke succeeded his father, Thomas, in all 
 his titles and abilities, but in none of his virtues.' And it is 
 indeed strange that the man who could give 2,000/. as a present 
 to a poet, and administer a witty rebuff to aia officious ambas- 
 sador, could be guilty of such an unmeaning trick as knocking 
 up his guardian in the middle of the night, in order to bor- 
 row a pin ; or at another time in France serenading respect- 
 able persons at their country chateaux, one of whom very 
 nearly killed him by a stray sliot, mistaking him for a 
 robber. 
 
 With regard to the authorities on which I have drawn for 
 my materials in the above sketch, I should say that, besides 
 Walpole's ' Royal and Noble Authors,' I have referred mainly 
 to a scarce work, entitled ' Memoirs of the Life of his Grace 
 Philip, late Duke of Wharton, by an Impartial Hand.' It is 
 prefixed to two octavo volumes published in 1732, entitled 
 ' The Life and Writings of Philip, late Duke of Wharton,' but 
 which contain only the seventy-four numbers of the True 
 Briton and his speech on the bill of pains and penalties against 
 Atterbury, the paging of which is a continuation of that of 
 the True Briton, although it has a title-page of its own, dated 
 1724. There is another publication, in two volumes Svo, 
 without date, entitled 'The Poetical Works of Philip, late 
 Duke of Wharton, and others of the Wharton Family, and of 
 the Duke's Intimate Acquaintance, particularly Lord Boling- 
 broke. Dean Swift, Lady Wharton, Doctor Delany, Lord 
 Dorset, Major Pack, the Hon. Mrs. Wharton, Arc' These two 
 volumes, however, appear to have been all printed in 1727 
 (before the Duke's death), with the exception only of this 
 general title-page and a life of the Duke, which is substan- 
 tially the same with that noticed above, and is here stated to 
 be 'communicated by a person of quality, and one of his 
 (irace's intimate friends.' The first volume contains very 
 little that is even attributed to the Duke ; but in the second 
 are some letters in prose, addressed to Tjady Wharton, liis
 
 THE WITTY DUKE OF WHARTON 215 
 
 father's first wife, and her poetical paraphrase of the ' Lamen- 
 tations of Jeremiah.' 
 
 The following vindication of the Duke of Wharton is to be 
 found in a volume of scai'ce broadsides in the British Museum. 
 It bears no printer's name, but only the date 1728 ; it was 
 probably printed in Dul)lin. It will need no explanation or 
 commentary to tliose who have read the story as I have told 
 
 it above : — 
 
 Pray isn't it queei* 
 
 Tliat a wild Peer, 
 So known for rakish tricks 
 
 As Wliarton, shovild 
 
 At last be good 
 And kiss the crucifix ? 
 
 I needs must call 
 
 It wondrous all 
 That he who spurned the Creed 
 
 Shall grow devout 
 
 And tack about 
 To penance at Madrid. 
 
 What less could he 
 
 Than thus agree 
 With Chevalier Divino, 
 
 Who gave him two 
 
 Brave titles new 
 But could not make him dine, oh ! 
 
 This Duke is then 
 
 Duk'd o'er again, 
 And glorious shines his garter ; 
 
 What honours more 
 
 Has fate in store 
 Ere Tyburn dubs him martyr 
 
 Old Thomas, rise, 
 
 And if you've eyes 
 To light you through the shades, 
 
 See, see, your son 
 
 How- he has run 
 From beggary to beads ! 
 
 'Mong jilts and lasses 
 
 Of all classes. 
 When he was spent and gone. 
 
 Oh, then he mourned, 
 
 Beseeched and turned 
 To her of Babylon.
 
 2i6 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 And have yoii not, 
 
 Old gracious Trot, 
 One Donna right and bright, 
 
 That might soltice 
 
 In such a case 
 The conscience of your knight ? 
 
 Our Chevalier 
 
 Is now so bare 
 He hasn't to give alms ; 
 
 Then, mother, take 
 
 For Jemmy's sake, 
 Some care of Wharton's quahns. 
 
 No sooner sought 
 
 But out was brought 
 An Abigail of rank ; 
 
 And so he played 
 
 With this same maid 
 A second silly prank. 
 
 He wed the lass 
 
 He took to Mass 
 All in an errant whim, 
 
 And did dispense 
 
 With marriage pence 
 As she dispensed with him. 
 
 Was nothing given ? 
 
 Th' att'air was even ; 
 He settled nothing on her : 
 
 But he's a Peer 
 
 Of honour rare. 
 And she's — a Dame of Honour. 
 
 It should be added, by way of conclusion, that, although 
 the dukedom and marquisate of Wharton liave ceased to exist 
 any longer by reason of tlie attainder passed upon the noble- 
 man whose fi-eaks I have here related, there are still those 
 who claim to be descended from the older barons of AVharton, 
 from whom the Duke was sprung, but whose rights the attain- 
 der of their descendant could not affect. So far as I can 
 learn, the barony is not extinct, but dormant, or rather ' in 
 abeyance,' out of which it may please her Majesty at any 
 moment to call it Ijy a stroke of her pen in favour of any 
 one of the rival claimants of it— namely, Lord "NVilloughby 
 d'Eresby and Loi'd Lamington, as representatives (through the
 
 THE WITTY DUKE OF WHARTON 217 
 
 Lockharts of Carnwath) of Philadelphia, youngest daughter 
 of the fourth Lord, and Mr. Charles K. Kemeys Tynte, of 
 Halsewell, Somersetshire, in right of his descent from Mary, 
 her elder sister. Mr. Tynte's father preferred a claim for this 
 peerage about fifty years ago, but his claim lias never yet 
 been decided by the House of LoitIs. 
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF BUCKINGHAM 
 If I I'emember right, 8ir Bernard Burke, in his work on the 
 ' Vicissitudes of Families,' draws attention to the fact that a 
 considerable number of our ducal houses are largely built up 
 by the accumulation of a succession of wealthy heiresses. 
 This is eminently the case, as we all know, of the Leveson- 
 Gowers, the Bentincks, the Cavendishes, and the Pelham- 
 Clintons ; but it is especially true of the noble house which 
 holds the double coronet of Buckingham and Chandos, and 
 whose male membei'S,* though paternally they are GrenviJles, 
 can scarcely know by what surname to call themselves in tlie 
 perplexity which must arise between ' Temple ' and ' Nugent,' 
 ' Brydges ' and ' Chandos ' — all which names they have taken 
 within the last century and a half in addition to their own, 
 quartering the respective arms of at least four other noble 
 houses together with their own original coat, that of ' Gren- 
 ville of Wootton.' 
 
 The Grenvilles, as we learn from the visitations of the 
 heralds and from the county histories, have been seated, as 
 landed but untitled gentlemen, on their hereditary lands at 
 Wootton, near Aylesbury, since the reign of Henry I. They 
 were county magistrates and squires and Members of Parlia- 
 ment, and generation after generation served the office of high 
 sheriff, but they rose no higher. They did not care for the 
 venal honour of one of those baronetcies which were scattered 
 far and wide among the owners of broad acres by our first 
 Stuart king ; and they lived, if not in retirement, at all events 
 out of the way of such court honours as knighthood. The 
 ' This was written before the death of the last Duke,
 
 2i8 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 first member of their House who appears to have mounted on 
 the lowest step of that ladder which led ultimately to the 
 dukedom was Mr. Richard Grenville, M.P. for Andover and 
 Buckingham, who in the reign of Queen Anne, 1710, married 
 Miss Hester Temple, the eldest daughter of Sir Richard 
 Temple of Stowe, and ultimately her father's and her brother's 
 heiress. Her father had been a leading Member of the House 
 of Commons at the time of Charles II. ; and her brother, who 
 had served as lieutenant-general under Marlborough in the 
 Low Countries, was created Loixl Cobham, with remainder to 
 herself and the issue male of her marriage with Mr. Grenville. 
 Like misfortunes, honoui'S and coronets seldom or never come 
 singly ; and it was only a few months after carrying the 
 Temple property, including the broad aci-es of Stowe, into her 
 husband's family that the lady was created in her own right 
 Countess Temple. 
 
 Her son and successor, thus enriched and loaded with 
 honours, became a leading statesman in the reign of George II., 
 under whom he held the office of Lord Privy Seal. The King, 
 however, could not endure him, pi'obably on account of a 
 certain active part which he took in public affairs at the time 
 when John Wilkes and his Majesty were at variance. If, 
 however, the King did not like him, he feared him ; for Sir 
 Nathaniel Wraxall tells us that the King, unable to refuse 
 him the Garter, behaved with positive rudeness at the moment 
 when he ovight to have fastened I'ound his neck and knees the 
 blue badge of the order, which he flung upon him before his 
 Court with a reluctance which he took no pains to disguise, 
 'muttering indistinctly some expression of aversion, and turn- 
 ins his back at the instant.' On his death the earldom of 
 Temple passed to his nephew, George, the third Eai'l, who in 
 turn mounted another step on the ladder of promotion by his 
 marriage with an lieiress, the Lady INFary Elizabeth Nugent, 
 only child of Robert, Earl Nugent in the Peerage of Ireland, 
 a cadet of the House of Westmeath, who, having sat for several 
 years in the English House of Commons, became success! s'-ely
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF BUCKINGHAM 219 
 
 a Lord of the Treasury, one of the Vice-Treasurers of Ireland, 
 and fii'st Lord of Trade and Plantations. 
 
 This nobleman appears to have been a singular character. 
 He was something of a courtier, and something also of a bad 
 poet ; and had abandoned the ancient faith of his forefathers, 
 not to the improvement of his morals. Glover speaks of him 
 as ' a jovial Irishman, who had left Ireland and Popery for the 
 Protestant religion, money, and a widow.' His second wife 
 appears to have combined in herself, at all events, the last 
 two qualifications of wealth and widowhood. She was the 
 sister and heiress of Craggs, the well-known Secretary of State 
 in the reign of George I., who lies buried in Westminster 
 Abbey. ' She brought him, however, neither felicity nor 
 issue,' says Wraxall, ' but she brought him the seat and estate 
 of Gosfield Hall, in Essex, one of the finest properties in that 
 county ; ' and he showed, we may add, his appreciation of the 
 fact by taking the name of Craggs and prefixing it to his 
 signature as Lord Nugent. He had the further good fortune 
 to get rid of her speedily and to marry another widow, the 
 Countess of Berkeley, by whom he had a daughter, whom he 
 endowed with the wealth of his second wife. 
 
 As a proof that Lord Nugent was a wit in Ids way, we 
 may remind our readers of an old story told of him when a 
 Member of the House of Commons. A bill being introduced 
 for tlie purpose of securing the better watching of London 
 at night, one of the clauses went to propose that the 'Charleys' 
 should be compelled to sleep in the daytime ; whereon liis lord- 
 ship got up, and, with a spice of dry humour, suggested that 
 lie ' should like to be personally included in the bill along 
 with the Charleys, for that he was so constantly tormented 
 with the gout that he could not sleep at night, and would be 
 very thankful for a little rest by day.' On another occasion, at 
 a party at Lord Temple's house in Pall Mall, he made a bet that 
 lie would spit in Lord Bristol's hat. He won his bet, but 
 received a challenge the next morning ; and was forced to 
 apologise rather than fight a duel in a cause which, however
 
 220 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 it ended, would have been sure to expose him to ridicule. The 
 story will be found told at full length in the pages of Sir 
 Nathaniel Wraxall. 
 
 But to return to Lord Temple, for we have not yet half 
 done w-itli tlie heiresses who have jointly built up that illus- 
 tinous house. As we have said, Lord Temple secured as his wife 
 the only child of Earl Nugent, and on his father-in-law's death 
 he inherited his Irish estates ; soon afterwards he was created 
 Earl of Clare, and raised by the favour of the King a few years 
 later to the marquisate of Buckingham. 
 
 His son, Richard, the second Marquis, followed the example 
 set by his father and his great-grandfather, and acquired the 
 estates of the ducal House of Chandos by his marriage with 
 the heiress of that illustrious family. Thus Wootton, and 
 Stowe, and Gosfield, and Canons— four magnificent estates, 
 each of them more than a patrimony for a Continental prince 
 — all met in one person, his son and successor, who was raised 
 to the title of Duke of Buckingham and Chandos at the coro- 
 nation of King George IV., the political influence which he 
 exercised in virtue of his immense wealth and possessions and 
 his connection with the Pitts and Lord Grenville being such 
 as to empower him to dictate to the existing Ministry the 
 terms on which he would give them his support in Parliament. 
 Gosfield Hall, having afforded a home for royalty in exile— 
 for it was at one time the residence of Louis XVIII. — has 
 passed into other hands, and is now owned by an Essex manu- 
 facturer ; and, though it is still kept up pretty nearly in the 
 same condition in which it stood a century ago, it is not likely 
 at present to be the rendezvous of political parties as it was 
 in the good old days of George III., when dukes, earls, and 
 marquises met tliere in troops to discuss politics and drink 
 the port wine stored up in Loixl Nugent's cellars. 
 
 Canons too— that lordly house near Edgware, with all its 
 glories and gieatness~is gone, destroyed by fire. Stowe too— 
 yes, even princely Stowe in our own time suffered a temporary 
 eclipse, its contciils being disposed under George Robbins's
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF BUCKINGHAM 221 
 
 hammer ; while its owner died not at Stowe, but in hired 
 apartments at a London hotel ! 
 
 His son, the last Duke, however, by careful and judicious 
 management of the wreck of this princely property, so far 
 Ijrought matters round as to take up his residence at Stowe 
 again, though he made for many years his home at the old 
 family estate at Wootton. He, too, married twice, and had a 
 family of daughtei^s ; and although, owing to the fact that his 
 Grace had no spn to succeed him, the ducal title of Bucking- 
 ham, with its usual fatality, suffered eclipse at his death, yet 
 he left a sister Avho, under the fortunate provisions of the 
 patent of creation, inherited and will probably transmit to 
 her descendants for many generations to come the earldom of 
 Temple, which upwards of a century ago was first bestowed 
 on his great-great-great-grandmother, Hester Temple of Stowe, 
 whose name is recorded aljove.' 
 
 On the last page I have alluded to the singular fatality 
 which for many centuries has attended the title of Bucking- 
 ham. If we may rely upon the authority of the ' Historic 
 Peerage ' of Sir Harris Nicolas, it appears that in the year in 
 which the battle of Hastings was fought, the earldom of 
 Buckingham was conferred by the Conqueror on Walter Gif- 
 ford, with whose son and successor it ended before a century 
 had passed. In the reign of Henry I. we find the earldom 
 vested in Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, but apparently only 
 for a time, as it does not seem to have been claimed by any 
 other member of that family. In 1377 we find Thomas Plan- 
 tagenet, Duke of Gloucester, the youngest son of King Ed- 
 ward III., created Earl of Buckingham ; but twenty years 
 afterwards he was murdered, and in 1399 the title became 
 extinct by his son's decease. Again, in 1444 we find the title 
 revived, this time, however, as a dukedom, in the person of 
 Humphrey Staftbrd, son of the Earl of Stafford, by his 
 
 ' The Duke's eldest daughter, on the Duke's death, succeeded to the 
 Scottish barony of Kinloss ; and the title of Lord Cobham passed to 
 his Grace's kinsman, Lord Lyttelton.
 
 227. TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 marriage with Anne Plantagenet, sister and heiress of Hum- 
 phrey, the last Earl. As every reader of history is aware, 
 he was made Lord High Constable of England, but he was 
 killed at the battle of Northampton ; his grandson and heir, 
 the second Duke, like his predecessor, was High Constable 
 of England, but in the year 1483 was beheaded for high 
 treason, when tlie title was forfeited. Three years later, how- 
 ever, by royal favour the dukedom was revived in the person 
 of his son, who also filled the office of High Constable ; but 
 he too was attainted and beheaded by Henry VIII., when 
 all the honours of the StafFords were forfeited, never to be 
 
 restored. They 
 
 . . . fell like Lucifer, 
 Never to rise again. 
 
 A century passes by, and the first Stuart holds the tlu'one on 
 which the Tudors sat. George Villiers, the King's favourite, 
 so familiar to the readers of English history and of Sir 
 Walter Scott by his court nickname of ' Steenie,' is created 
 Earl, and Marquis, and presently Duke of Buckingham. But 
 the same curse follows the honour, and dogs its holder to his 
 death. Knight of the Garter and Lord High Admiral of 
 England, my Lord Duke, you may be ; but for all that you 
 cannot escape your destiny ; and the visitor who walks round 
 the streets of Portsmouth is still shown the house in which 
 you met your sudden and cruel end more than a century 
 and a half ago by the hand of the assassin Felton, whose 
 name is still held in execration, though your own character 
 as an individual is none of the best and sweetest— if, at 
 least, it be still true that 
 
 Only the memories of the just 
 
 Kmell sweet and blossom in their dust. 
 
 The ducal title was inherited by his son, George Villiers, but 
 became extinct at his death without issue in 1687. His 
 (grandmother, who had received a patent of the title in dupli- 
 cate, had already died, and her title, too, died Avith her.
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF BUCKINGHAM 223 
 
 I pass on. Another sovereign is on the throne, and in 
 1703 I find John Sheffield, Marquis of Normanby, created 
 Duke of Buckingham ; and we cannot help entertaining a 
 hope that the title may be found in this new family to be 
 exempt from its old fatality. But no ; the story is the same. 
 On the death of the first Duke, in 1720, the coronet and straw- 
 berry leaves devolve upon his only son Edmund, wlio dies 
 under age and unmarried, and I am obliged to record the 
 extinction of the honour for the eighth time. 
 
 THE NOBLE HOUSE OE STAFEOBD 
 
 The Prince and Princess of Wales, living as they do in the 
 same county with the head of the family of Jerningham, 
 whose park of Costessy, or Cossey, is not above an hour's 
 journey by railway from Sandringham, ought really to take a 
 more than common interest in the fortunes of Lord Stafford. 
 And if my readers ask me why and wherefore, I would 
 answer, because, if we may trust the heralds and peerage- 
 makers, the paternal line of the Jerninghams is said to be of 
 Danish origin. At all events, Weever writes as follows in 
 his ' Ancient Funeral Monuments : ' — 
 
 ' This name has been of exemplarie note before the Con- 
 quest, if you will believe thus much that followeth, taken 
 out of the pedigree of the Jerninghams by a judicious gentle- 
 man : Anno Mxxx., Canute, King of Denmarke and of Eng- 
 land, after his return from Rome, brought divers captains and 
 souldiers from Denmarke, whereof the greatest part were 
 christened here in England, and began to settle themselves 
 here, of whom Jernegan, or Jernegham, and Jernihings, now 
 Jennings, were of the most esteeme with Canute, who gave 
 unto the said Jerningham certaine manors in Norfolke, and to 
 Jennings certain manors lying upon the seaside near Har- 
 wich, in regard of their former services done to his father, 
 Swenus, or Swene, King of Denmarke.' 
 
 Among our county historians few hold a higher position
 
 224 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 than Blomeiield, the author of the history of Norfolk ; and 
 he confirms, or at all events follows, the statement of Weever, 
 telling us that the Jerninghams derive their pedigree from 
 one Jernagan, who was settled at Horhaui, in Suffolk, as far 
 back as the reign of Stephen, and whose grandson, Sir Hu- 
 bert Fitz-Jernegan, took part in the rebellion of the barons 
 against King John, but submitted to Henry III., and obtained 
 the royal pardon. His grandson, who married the heiress of 
 the Fitzosberts and widow of a member of the House of Wal- 
 pole, removed from Horham to Stonham-Jernegan, giving his 
 name to the manor and parish in which he held his broad 
 acres. His son acquired property at Somerleyton and else- 
 where along the borders of Sufiblk and Norfolk, in riglit, ap- 
 parently, of his mother, and became the owner of large estates 
 in the last-named county. 
 
 From him was descended in direct line Sir Henry Jerne- 
 gan, or Jerningham (as the name came in process of time to 
 be spelt), who is described by Sir Bernard Burke as 'of 
 Huntingfield and Wingfield in Suffolk, and of Costessy in 
 Norfolk.' His name is known to history as the first of the 
 gallant knights and squires of the Eastern counties to declare 
 openly for Queen Mary as the rightful heir to the throne on 
 the death of Edward VI. • and the Queen no sooner found 
 herself firmly established in St. James's than she appointetl 
 him her Master of the Hoi'se, and commanded him to beswoiii 
 a member of lier Privy Council. From Queen Mary he ob- 
 tained also large grants of lands, not only in the Eastern 
 districts, such as Wingfield and Costessy, but also in ' the 
 West Country,' in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. He, 
 however, fixed his chief residence at Costessy, near Norwich, 
 and founded the magnificent structure known as Costessy 
 Hall, where liis descendants have mostly resided from that 
 time. He subsequently rebuilt Costessy in the style wliicli 
 marked his age, and so enlarged it that he was able to enter- 
 l;iiii Queen Elizabeth there in one of her royal progresses. 
 But tlie fact that he clung firmly to the ancient faith stood in
 
 THE NOBLE HOUSE OF STAFFORD 225 
 
 the way of his obtaining any advancement at the Lady Eliza - 
 beth's hands. 
 
 The grandson of this gentleman, in spite of belonging to a 
 proscribed religion, inheriting a property which had been in- 
 creased by the fortunate marriages of his father and grand- 
 father with members of the noble Houses of Dacre and Throg- 
 morton, was created a baronet in 1621. Like many another 
 country gentleman who was loyal to the Stuart cause, he 
 suffered severely in purse and person during the civil wars • 
 and we are told by Blomefield that during the time of Cromwell 
 the park at Costessy was let to go to rack and ruin, the mansion 
 and the domain being let to a ' Roundhead ' farmer, while the 
 deer in the noble park were destroyed, just as was the case 
 also at Wardour Castle. 
 
 After the Restoration the fortunes of the family were 
 gradually retrieved by careful and judicious management, and 
 Costessy once more took rank among the fine mansions of 
 Norfolk. The Jerninghams, however, did not appear much at 
 the Coui't of the Stuart or Brunswick sovereigns, living quietly 
 and contentedly within their own park gates and practising 
 the old-fashioned habits of hospitality and care for their 
 tenantry. It is almost needless to add that they have been 
 Roman Catholics without a break ; and in the days of the 
 penal laws their house was often searched for crucifixes, beads, 
 and other proofs of ' recusancy.' In fact, I believe there is 
 still to be seen the priest's hiding-place in the panelled walls 
 of Costessy — now commonly called Cossey — just as is the case 
 in so many other Roman Catholic mansions of the Tudor and 
 Stuart times. 
 
 But if this be so, my readers will naturally wonder how 
 the Jerninghams came to inherit the historic barony of Stafi"ord. 
 I will tell them, drawing for my materials on Burke's ' Peer- 
 age.' Sir George, the fifth Baronet, married in 1733 Miss 
 Mary Plowden, eldest daughter and eventual heiress of a 
 Roman Catholic gentleman in Shropshire, Mr. Francis Plowden 
 Comptroller of the Household to King James II., and of his
 
 226 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 wife Mary, daughter of the Hon. John Stafford Howard, 
 younger son of the unfortunate Sir William Howard, A'iscount 
 and Baron Stafford, who was beheaded and attainted in 1680. 
 This nobleman was a staunch Roman Catholic, and had 
 adhered to the I'oyal cause in the great civil war. His services, 
 however, had, as he considered, been very inadequately re- 
 warded, and he frequently voted against the Court. He was 
 accused by the infamous Titus Gates on October 23, 1678, as 
 a party to the notorious Popish plot, and was committed to 
 the Tower on the 30th of that month, along with several other 
 Roman Catholic noblemen. His trial, however, was twice 
 postponed in consequence of a dissolution of Parliament, so 
 that it was not until November 30, 1680, that he was brought 
 to the bar of the House of Lords on a charge of high treason. 
 The trial lasted seven days, and terminated in a verdict of 
 guilty, four of the Howards, his own relations, to their dis- 
 grace, having voted for his condemnation. The old Yiscount, 
 then in his seventieth year, made an excellent defence, and, by 
 himself and his witnesses, proved discrepancies, flat contradic- 
 tions, and perjury in the e\'idence of his accusers ; yet the 
 Lords found him guilty by a majority of fifty-five to thirty-one. 
 Charles, who had been present at the trial in Westminster 
 Hall, and who was convinced that Lord Stafford was innocent 
 of the imputed treason, yet signed his death-warrant, with no 
 other mitigation than that he should be simply beheaded. 
 Though a Roman Catholic, he employed Burnet ' to comfort 
 him by his instructions touching those points on which all 
 Christians agree.' His lordship was led forth to execution on 
 Tower Hill on December 29 ; he suffered with great firmness, 
 protesting his innocence with his last breath. As he left no 
 son, the viscountcy became extinct at his death ; but it so 
 happened that both he and his wife had been created Baron 
 and Baroness Stafford in 1 640, witli remainder to their children, 
 male and female. This title was restored in 1824, by the 
 reversal of the attainder on the petition of Sir George W. 
 Jerningham, in accordance with the report of the Committee
 
 THE NOBLE HOUSE OF STAFFORD 227 
 
 of Privileges in the House of Peers. Five years, however, 
 even then had to pass away before Lord Stafford was enabled 
 to take his seat on the Barons' Bench in the House of Peers, 
 on account of his adherence to the Roman Catholic faith. 
 
 The day, however, came at last, on the passing of the 
 Catholic Relief Bill ; and in May, 1829, the Parliamentary 
 oaths were subscribed by 'the Right Hon. George William 
 Stafford- Jerningham, Baron Stafford, Chevalier,' along with 
 the rest of the newly emancipated Catholic peers. 
 
 The family of Stafford, one of the most illustrious and 
 powerful in England, has figured conspicuously in the annals 
 of the country. Its founder was one of the Bagots, who were 
 landowners in Staffordshire at the time of the Conquest. Its 
 principal historical personages are Humphrey de Stafford, a 
 zealous partisan of Henry VI., who was created Duke of 
 Buckingham ^ in 1465, and who along with his eldest son fell 
 in the Wars of the Roses ; and Henry, his second son and 
 successor in the title, the friend and accomplice, and after- 
 wards victim, of Richard III., whose plots and tragic death 
 have been immortalised by Shakespeare. The sad story of 
 Edward Stafford, the third Duke, Lord High Constable of 
 England, may also be read in the pages of the great dramatist. 
 He, as everybody knows, imprudently quarrelled with Wolsey, 
 who trumped up a charge of high treason against him, upon 
 which the Duke was found guilty, and beheaded on Tower 
 Hill. When the Emperor Charles V. heard of his execution, 
 he is reported to have exclaimed, ' A butcher's dog has killed 
 the finest h%ich in England.' The ducal title became extinct 
 by his attainder ; and on the death of Henry, thirteenth Baron 
 Stafford, in 1637, the barony was presumed to have descended 
 to Roger Stafford, who, though he was great-grandson of the 
 third Duke of Buckingham, and also of Margaret Plantagenet, 
 daughter and heiress of George Duke of Clarence, and niece 
 of Edward lY., had sunk to the lowest condition, and durino- 
 the last years of an unhappy life bore the surname of Fludyer 
 ' See the previous chapter, p. 221. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 or Floyd. On his death, unmarried, in 1640, the male line of 
 this great old family became extinct. His sister married a 
 joiner of Newport, in Shropshire, and they had a son who, in 
 spite of the royal blood which flowed in his veins, followed the 
 trade of a cobbler. 
 
 Meanwhile the sister and sole heiress of Henry Stafford, 
 the thirteenth and last Baron Stafford of the creation of 1299, 
 had married Sir William Howard, son of the twentieth 
 Earl of Arundel. On the death of Lord Stafford in 1637, the 
 title was presumed to have devolved on Roger Stafford, as 
 above mentioned ; but with respect to this ' claimant ' a curious 
 story is told by Sir Harris Nicolas in his ' Historic Peerage.' 
 Though his father had been restored, yet on the son claiming 
 it as his successor, he is said to have been unjustly denied the 
 dignity on account of his poverty. Accordingly in 1640, by 
 fine levied at Westminster, this Roger Stafford surrendered 
 into the King's hands the barony of Stafford, in consideration 
 of 800Z. to be paid to him by the sovereign. The surrender, 
 however. Sir H. Nicolas holds, was clearly illegal ;i but, as he 
 died unmarried, the male line of this creation is presumed to 
 have come to an end Avhen the barony of 1547 became extinct. 
 On Roger Stafford submitting his title to the barony to the 
 decision of King Charles (we are told by another historian), 
 his Majesty declared that this luckless scion of a great race, 
 having no part in the family inhei'itance, ' nor any lands or 
 means whatsoever,' should make a resignation of all his claims 
 to the title. A deed of surrender having been accordingly 
 enrolled, in 1639 the King conferred anew the dignity on Sir 
 William Howard, as above stated, and soon after elevated him 
 to the rank of Viscount Stafford. The original barony of 
 Staffoi'd, it may be added, was created in 1299 — thirty-five 
 years after that of the premier baron, Lord De Ros. 
 
 Henry Stafford, the Duke's son and heir, was ' restored in 
 blood ' by an Act of Parliament passed in the first year of 
 
 ' Such surrenders of titles with a view to regrants and settle- 
 ments were common and legal in iScotland.
 
 THE NOBLE HOUSE OF STAFFORD 229 
 
 Edward VI., by which it was enacted 'that the said Henry- 
 Lord Stafford, and the heirs male of his body, may be taken 
 and reputed as Lords Stafford, and that the said Henry be 
 restored in blood ; ' and accordingly his lordship was summoned 
 to Parliament from 1548 to 1558. He married Ursula, 
 daughter of Sir Richard Pole, K.G., and of Margaret Countess 
 of Salisbury, niece of Edward lY. He w\as thus great-grand- 
 father of the Maiy Stafford, above mentioned, who married Sir 
 William Howard, Lord Stafford ; and accordingly, in virtue 
 of this descent, the present Lord Stafford claims, or has a 
 right to claim, the revival in his favour of the original barony 
 of 1299 ; in which case, if his lordship should be successful 
 now or hereafter, the historic name of Stafford would stand 
 fourth on the peerage roll of England. 
 
 A proof of the utter oblivion into which our Roman Catholic 
 nobles had fallen during the continuation of the penal laws 
 may be found in the title of Stafford, which was granted in 
 1786 as a marquisate to Earl Gower, one of the leading mem- 
 bers of Lord Bute's Cabinet, and father of the first Duke of 
 Suthei'land. The fact, however, is that the title was not dead, 
 but only dormant, and quite within the power of any holder 
 of the crown to call back into life in favour of the Staffords or 
 their descendants, even in the female line. Within forty years 
 the title was actually revived, and since that time there have 
 been two Lords Stafford ; just as during the temporary eclipse 
 of the Courtenays, Earls of Devonshire, that title was bestowed 
 as a dukedom on the House of Cavendish. 
 
 We have heard so much of late about claimants and im- 
 postors that I hardly know whether my readers will feel an 
 interest in being informed or reminded, as the case may be, 
 that for several years Sir George Jerningham, before attaining 
 the peerage as Lord Stafford, was greatly annoyed by a Mr. 
 Richard Stafford Cooke, who claimed to be heir of the ancient 
 barony, and accordingly instituted expensive lawsuits to eject 
 him from the property. In this, however, the claimant was 
 defeated, though — like another Orton — he proceeded so far as
 
 230 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 to attempt to take formal possession of the old baronial estates 
 in StafFordshire and Shropshire, which happily still appertain 
 to the family. 
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF RICHMOND 
 
 If any one of my readers will take the trouble to cast his eye 
 over the list of dukedoms in Lodge's or Burke's ' Peerage,' he 
 will see that for four of the existing coronets adorned with 
 ducal strawberry leaves — in other words, for a sixth of the 
 entire body of our dukes — King Charles II. is responsible, in- 
 asmuch as the first possessors of the titles of Richmond, 
 Grafton, St. Albans, and Buccleuch were sons of that sovereign 
 by one or other of his many alliances, which I fear that I must 
 scarcely dignify by the name of even morganatic unions. For 
 instance, the first Duke of Buccleuch, better known in history 
 as James Duke of Monmouth, was born to Charles by Miss 
 Lucy Walters ; the first Duke of St. Albans, by ' Nell 
 Gwyn ; ' the first Duke of Grafton, by Barbara Villiers ; 
 while the founder of the ducal house of Richmond was Charles 
 Lennox, the son of his Majesty by Mademoiselle Louise de 
 Querouaille, a French lady, who, having been maid of honour 
 to his sister, the Duchess of Orleans, was sent over to England 
 by Louis XIV. with the not very creditable mission of watch- 
 ing over French interests at the Court of St. James's — in other 
 words, of making our worthless sovereign a paid pensioner 
 under ' Le Grand Monarque.' 
 
 Besides the above-named ducal titles so freely dispensed 
 by the second Charles, it would seem that similar honours, 
 which have since become extinct, were bestowed by him at 
 various times on various favourites ; and the names of the 
 Duchess of Cleveland and the Duchess of Portsmouth will 
 readily occur to the student of the history of England under 
 the Stuarts in the list of ennobled favourites who basked in 
 the sunshine of royalty, and whose claim to such honours, to 
 say the least, was not based on virtue.
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF RICHMOND 231 
 
 ' In 1670/ says Burnet, ' the King declared a new mistress, 
 and made her Duchess of Portsmouth. She had been maid of 
 honour to Madame the King's sister, and had come over with 
 her to Dover, where the King had expressed such a regard to 
 her that the Duke of Buckingham, who hated the Duchess of 
 Cleveland, intended to put her on the King. He told him 
 that it was a decent piece of tenderness for his sister to take 
 care of some of her servants. So she was the person the King 
 easily consented to invite over. That Duke assured the King 
 of France that he could never reckon himself sure of Charles 
 but by giving him a mistress that should be true to his 
 interests. It was soon agreed to. So the Duke of Bucking- 
 ham sent her with a part of his equipage to Dieppe, and said 
 he would presently follow. But he, who was the most incon- 
 stant and forgetful of aU men, never thought of her moi-e, but 
 went to England by way of Calais. So Montague, then 
 Ambassador at Paris, heai'ing of this, sent over for a yacht 
 for her, and sent some of his servants to wait on her and to 
 defray her charge till she was brought to Whitehall ; and 
 then Lord Arlington took care of her. So the Duke of Buck- 
 ingham lost the merit he might have pretended to, and brought 
 over a mistress whom his strange conduct threw into the 
 hands of his enemies. The King was presently taken with 
 her. She studied to please and observe him in everything ; 
 so that he passed away the rest of his life in a great fondness 
 for her. He kept her at a vast charge ; and she, by many fits 
 of sickness, some believed real, and others thought only pre- 
 tended, gained from him evei-ything she desired. She stuck 
 firm to the French interest, and was its chief support. The 
 King divided himself between her and Mistress Gwyn, and had 
 for a time no other avowed amour. But he was so entirely 
 possessed by the Duchess of Portsmouth, and so engaged by 
 her in the French interest, that this threw him into great 
 difficulties, and exposed him to much contempt and distrust.' 
 
 According to the records of the Heralds' College, Charles 
 Lennox was born on July 29, 1672, and, 'being of great
 
 232 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 hopes/ when only three years old was enrolled among the 
 peers both of England and of Scotland as Duke of Rich- 
 mond, and also Duke of Lennox. The King, who was present 
 at his baptism, gave him the surname of Lennox, and his own 
 Christian name, Charles. 
 
 At nine years old the precocious child was invested with 
 the blue riband of the Order of the Garter, and while still in 
 his minority succeeded the Duke of Monmouth as Master of 
 the Horse, the duty being performed by commissioners, while 
 he of course drew his salary like the other coui-tiers around 
 him. On the death of his father, however, he was i-emoved 
 from this post by James II., on account of the share which 
 had been taken by his mother in promoting the Bill of Exclu- 
 sion. 
 
 Stuai't as he was paternally, the Duke afterwaixls acted as 
 aide-de-camp to King William in Flanders, and also held some 
 appointments about the Hanoverian household of George I. ; 
 so that we cannot suppose that he was much troubled with 
 scruples on the score of loyalty, or of royalty either, or put 
 any very wide consti'uction on the commandment which bids 
 us ' Hojiour our father.' His mother, Louise de Querouaille, 
 meantime had been created Duchess of Portsmouth for life 
 and also by Louis XIV. Duchess of Aubigny in France, a 
 title then recently extinct by the death of the last Duke of 
 Richmond of the Stuart line in 1672. 
 
 Letters patent were passed in 1673 by the King of France, 
 granting to the Duchess of Portsmouth the territory of 
 Aubigny in the province of Berri, in which it was set forth 
 that, ' considering the great extent of the said territories, con 
 sisting of the town of Auljigny, two considerable castles, two 
 parishes and fiefs, extending eight leagues, with the privilege 
 of resorting to the court and Parliament of Paris, she being 
 likewise mistress of the waters, forests, fairs, markets, and all 
 places in the said territories ; tlierefore he unites, creates, and 
 erects the said town, territory, castellany, and castle of 
 Aubigny, fiefs, and lands, »tc., into a duchy and peerdom of
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF RICHMOND 233 
 
 France,' by the name, title, and dignity of Dukes of Aubigny 
 and Peers of France.' 
 
 His Majesty King Charles, considering with what lustre 
 and glory the House of Lennox had shone in former times, and 
 that by the death of Charles Stuart, Duke of Richmond and 
 Lennox, the dignity of Duke of Lennox was merged in the 
 Crown, therefore, that the honour might be again revived, 
 bestowed the estate of Lennox on his young son, whom he had 
 just created Duke of Richmond ; and by letters patent, passed 
 in Scotland in the following month, the latter was created 
 Duke of Lennox, Earl of Darnley, and Baron Methuen of 
 Torbolton, in the peerage of that kingdom. 
 
 It was, no doubt, King Charles's fondness for this boy that 
 led him to enrich so lavishly his French mother, of whom we 
 know little to her advantage, except — what possibly might 
 atone in the eyes of some writers for many moral delinquencies 
 — the fact that she was a ' fascinating ' woman, and that ' her 
 splendour and magnificence contributed in no small degree to 
 many of the Court entertainments of the time.' So lavish, in- 
 deed, was the King's expenditure upon her that Evelyn tells us 
 in his ' Diary ' that the plate and furniture of even Charles's 
 Queen were but those of a private lady in comparison with 
 those of the Duchess of Portsmouth's establishment. He 
 writes, under date January 24, 1682 : — 
 
 'I was at the entertainment of the Morocco Ambassador 
 at the Duchess of Portsmouth's glorious apai'tments at White- 
 hall, where was a great banquet of sweetmeats and music. 
 Both the Ambassador and his retinue behaved themselves with 
 extraordinary moderation and modesty, though placed about a 
 long table, a lady between two Moors, and amongst these the 
 King's natural children, viz. Lady Litchfield and Sussex, the 
 Duchess of Portsmouth, Nelly Gwyn, &c. ... as splendid 
 as jewels and excess of bravery could make them. The Moors, 
 
 ' The dukedom of Aubigny in France still nominally belongs to his 
 Grace the Duke of Richmond; but 1he first French Revolution swept 
 away all the then Duke's feudal rights over the territory of Aubigny, 
 so that it is now a mere name and shadow.
 
 234 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 neither admiring, nor seeming to regard anything, furniture or 
 the like, with any earnestness, but only decently tasting the 
 banquet, drank a little milk and water, and also of a sorbet 
 and jacolet, but not a drop of wdne. They did not look about, 
 or stare at the ladies, or express the least surprise, but, with a 
 courtly negligence in pace, countenance, and whole behaviour, 
 answering only to such questions as were asked, with a great 
 deal of wit and gallantry ; and gravely took their leave with 
 this compliment, that God w-ould bless the Duchess of Ports- 
 mouth and the young Prince, her son, meaning the little Duke 
 of Richmond.' 
 
 The estimate of rank formed by the Moors, although erro- 
 neous in fact, was not uncountenanced by circumstances, the 
 Duchess, according to Burnet, being urged by her party to join 
 the movement for excluding the Duke of York from the throne, 
 in expectation of a declaration in favour of her son. After the 
 Stuart titles were, with a slight variation, all revived in the 
 person of his Grace, his example was selected by the King to 
 remodel in part the costume of the most noble Order of the 
 Garter, of which, though only nine years of age, he had been 
 created a Knight in 1681. 'At that time and previously, as 
 pictures show, the Knights of the Garter wore the ribbon 
 round the neck, with the " George " appendant on the breast ; 
 but the Duke's mother having some time after his installation 
 introduced him to the King with his ribbon over his left 
 shoulder and the " George " appendant on the right side, his 
 Majesty was so pleased with the conceit that he commanded 
 all the Knights Companions of the Order to wear it the same 
 way.' The first Duke, dying in 1723, was succeeded by his 
 son Charles, who was a lieutenant-general in the army, and 
 also an aide-de-camp to the King, and at his Majesty's coro- 
 nation was High Constable of England for the day. His Grace 
 held a command under George II. at the battle of Dettingen. 
 He had been declared one of the lords justices of the kingdom 
 before his Majesty's departure, and held that post in 1745, 
 when Bonnie Prince Charlie, having landed in Scotland, ad-
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF RICHMOND 235 
 
 vanced as far south as Derby. On this occasion his Grace 
 attended the Duke of Cumberland in his expedition against 
 the insurgents, and assisted in the I'eduction of Carlisle. 
 
 It may be mentioned here that one of the daughters of this 
 (second) Duke was the Lady Sarah Lennox, so celebrated in 
 the histoi'y of the last century as one of the early flames of 
 King George III., who no doubt would have married her if it 
 had not been a tradition of Hanoverian royalty — a tradition 
 which he afterwards raised into a law — to maintain the family 
 as a caste, and not to allow of marriages of its members with 
 subjects of the Crown. I can easily fancy what must have 
 been Lady Sarah's feelings when, in September 1761, as one 
 of her bridesmaids, she supjported the train of Queen Charlotte 
 at her marriage with the King, whose consort she had been so 
 nearly becoming only a few months previously. In all pro- 
 bability she was really in love with his Majesty ; for, though in 
 the following year she married Sir Thomas Charles Bunbury, 
 the marriage ended in a divorce, and she ultimately married 
 one of the Napiers. 
 
 The third Duke, who succeeded to these titles in 1750, was 
 known both as a soldier and a statesman, being successively a 
 Secretary of State, Master-General of the Ordnance, and a 
 lield-marshal in the army. His name also ought to be held 
 in honour for certain lasting benefits which he conferred on 
 art and artists in this country. He was one of the earliest 
 members and one of the most active promoters of the society 
 for the encouragement of the arts, when as yet such trivial 
 subjects had not attracted the attention of our Hanoverian 
 kings ; and he showed the reality of his goodwill towards 
 artists in general by opening his house in Spring Gardens, and 
 afterwards in Whitehall, in 1758 — before the foundation of 
 the Royal Academy — as a gallery for the display of paintings 
 annually during the London season. In fact, it may be said 
 with confidence that his town mansion was the cradle of the 
 Royal Academy, his gallery being open to all students above 
 the age of twelve, to whom he awarded premiums in money
 
 236 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 and other prizes for their best productions. It is strange, 
 considering that the Duke lived nearly six years into the 
 present century, that his Grace's name is so thoroughly for- 
 gotten from among the roll of our public benefactors and 
 philanthropists ; and it will be a great pleasure to me if this 
 present sketch should serve to remind only a few members of 
 the artist-world of his Grace's good deeds. If a Scotchman 
 has good reason occasionally to cry out ' God bless the Duke 
 of Argyll,' for reasons best known north of the Tweed, surely 
 our R.A.'s and A.R.A.'s and students of the Academy in Tra- 
 falgar Square may now and then use a like exclamation in 
 remembrance of Charles, third Duke of Richmond, Lennox, 
 and Aubigny. 
 
 It w^as this duke wliose great unpopularity as a member of 
 the Government is recorded by Sir Nathaniel William Wraxall. 
 His enemies accused him of domestic parsimony, which they 
 contrasted in no measured terms with his profusion of the 
 public money as Master-General of the Ordnance. If his 
 gallery was open to students, his kitchen, it w^as said, both at 
 Goodwood and in Whitehall, was the coolest apartment in his 
 house, and ' his kitchen chimney never smoked ' — a fact which 
 is commemorated in the ' Rolliad.' His passion for spending 
 money on fortifications and works w^hich he projected to defend 
 our great naval arsenals from invasion more than once excited 
 the attention of Parliament, and in 1785 caused fierce attacks 
 in the House, which it cost the young Minister, William Pitt, 
 infinite trouble to parry. Pitt, however, gallantly stood by 
 the Duke, declaring that his ability, experience, and syste- 
 matic economy had been one of the principal causes which had 
 secured for his own administration so large a share of the 
 popular favour. 
 
 His Grace having left no issue, these titles passed at his 
 death to his nephew, Charles, general in the army, at one time 
 Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland, and afterwards Governor-General 
 of Canada, whose melancholy doatli at Montreal in 1819, from 
 the bite of a tame fox, was universally lamented both in
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF RICHMOND 237 
 
 Canada and in England, where liis genial frankness and ur- 
 banity had made him a general favourite. 
 
 He married Lady Charlotte Gordon, sister and heiress of 
 the last Duke of Gordon. By this alliance the magnificent 
 estate of Gordon Castle, in Banffshire, with a rent-roll of 
 50,000?., was added to the estates of the family, who now bear 
 the name of Gordon-Lennox. 
 
 This duke's eldest son and successor, the late Duke, was an 
 aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula and 
 at Waterloo, and held office under Lord Grey as Postmaster- 
 General in 1830-34, with a seat in the Cabinet. From this, 
 however, he seceded, along with Lord Ripon, Lord Stanley, 
 and Sir James Graham, on account of the measures of the 
 Whig administration with respect to the Irish Church. His 
 Grace was a zealous agriculturist, and was one of the founders 
 of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, of which society 
 he was a trustee. Both on his large domains in Sussex and in 
 Scotland lie was revered by his tenants as one of the best of 
 landlords. The Duke was one of the princely supporters of 
 the turf, the annual races at Goodwood Park affording scope 
 for the display of his generous hospitality. By his honourable 
 bearing and frank manners on all occasions he had endeared 
 himself to a large circle of friends, who will never fail to 
 cherish his memory. 
 
 The present Duke of Richmond has also taken a prominent 
 part in public affairs, and was President of the Poor Law 
 Board under Loi"d Derby's second Administration. Subse- 
 quently his Grace held the offices of President of the Board of 
 Trade and Lord President of the Council ; and at one time, 
 liy the common consent of all sections of his party, he was the 
 recognised leader of the Conservatives in the Upper House. 
 It was, therefore, by no means surprising that he should have 
 obtained a renewal in his favour of the title of Duke of Gordon 
 of Gordon Castle, Scotland. 
 
 Considering the close affinity which exists between the 
 House of Lennox and royalty, and the existence of a royal
 
 238 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 palace on the banks of the Thames at Richmond, it might 
 natui^ally be supposed that it is the latter place from which 
 his Grace derives his ducal title. Such, however, is not the 
 case, the name, style, and title by which his ancestor was 
 raised to the peerage being Duke of Richmond, of Richmond- 
 shire, in the county of York, the castle of which, along with 
 the surrounding lands, belonged to the Earls of Richmond of 
 the line of De Dreux, until they fell to the Crown upon the 
 accession of Henry, Earl of Richmond, to the throne as Henry 
 VII. The ruins of the castle, as most of my readers who have 
 visited Yorkshire know, rise proudly and majestically above 
 the side of the river Swale, the bold Norman keep being still 
 almost entire ; and the castle, though untenanted, or used 
 only as a military store, is still the property of the noble duke 
 who derives from it the first of his many titles. 
 
 It may be added that Richmond in Surrey was originally 
 called Shene, for its ' bright ' and pleasant situation ; and 
 that its modern name of Richmond was given to it out of com- 
 pliment to Henry VII. when he built a palace there and made 
 it a royal residence. 
 
 GEOBGE HANGEB, LOBD COLEEAINE 
 
 ' March 31. — Died of a convulsive fit, at his residence, 
 near the Regent's Park, aged 73, the Right Hon. George 
 Hanger, fourth Lord Coleraine, of Coleraine, co. Londonderry, 
 in the peerage of Ireland, and a major-general in the army ; 
 better known by the title of Colonel Hanger, or the familiar 
 appellation of " George Hanger." ' Such is tJie curt and brief 
 manner in which Mr. ' Sylvanus Urban ' records in the column 
 of the Gentleman's Magazine, in 1824, the decease of a noble- 
 man who had played in his day a conspicuous part among the 
 early boon companions of George, Prince of ^^^^les, of whom 
 he was wittily said to be not the constant Hanger, but tlio 
 constant 'Hanger-on,' Like Lord Rochester and Loi'd Camel- 
 ford before him, he lived a life not very creditable to a member
 
 GEORGE HANGER, LORD COLERAINE 239 
 
 of ' the upper ten thousand,' and died lamented and regretted 
 by none, or at all events by few, of his contemporaries ; and 
 the extinction of his title, which was caused by his death, 
 could scarcely be said to have created in the Irish peerage any 
 gap or void which it was difficult to fill up. 
 
 The life of this mauvais sujet, however, though not such 
 as to place liim among the true aristocracy — the viri optime 
 meriti — may well entitle him to a place among the ' Eccentric 
 Characters ' of the nineteenth century ; and as such I fancy 
 that a brief outline of his life may possibly amuse my readers, 
 and serve as a beacon of warning to young (and possibly also 
 middle-aged) noblemen with more money than brains. 
 
 The family from which the hero of the present paper 
 sprang does not seem to be in any way illustrious in history. 
 George Hanger expressly says that he could not ti'ace it up, 
 beyond his grandfather, whom he styles Sir George, ' though 
 how he got the title he knew not, and cared less.' All that 
 is known about the family is that the name borne by its 
 members was variously spelt at different times as Ainger, 
 Aunger, Aungre, and Aungrier ; and it is probable that the 
 ' h ' was prefixed by some of the family whose spelling and 
 pronunciation were alike at fault. The name of Hanger, how- 
 ever, is not quite unknown to fame, for in the British Museum 
 Library there is a book published in 1685, by one Philip 
 Hanger, entitled ' A True Eelation how Eighteen Men were 
 Cast Away at Sea, with the great hardships they underwent.' 
 It is therefore quite possible that the love of strange adven- 
 ture was not original in my hero George, but simply broke 
 out afresh, as being already ' in the blood.' I may add that 
 in the present day a West End firm of tailors, Messrs. Hanger 
 and Sons, appear in the British Museum Catalogue as the 
 authors of ' An Infallible Guide in Cutting Clothes.' Can 
 they be any relations of Lord Coleraine 1 But, however the 
 name was or ought to have been spelt, the ' Extinct Peerage 
 of Ireland ' says that the Hangers came from Essex and Hert- 
 fordshire, but that they ' disposed of their English estates
 
 240 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 towards the end of the fifteenth century.' Francis Aunger or 
 Ainger, one of the younger sons of the House, appears to have 
 gone over to Ireland in the reign of Elizabeth, like many 
 another English gentleman, to seek his fortune. He chose 
 the profession of the law, became Master of the Rolls, and 
 was raised to a peerage as Earl of Longford and Baron 
 Aungier ; these titles, however, became extinct in 1704. 
 Another member of the same House, probably his brother, 
 followed the trade of a Turkey merchant, either in London or 
 in Dublin — it is not clear which — and, having got together 
 a good round sum of money, made up his mind to look out for 
 an heiress, so as to consolidate and perpetuate at once his 
 wealth and his name. He purchased the estate of Driffield, 
 in Gloucestershire, where the Hangers continued to. live till 
 the close of the last century. His son or grandson, George 
 Hanger of Driffield, Governor of the Bank of England in its 
 earlier days, was the father of Sir George Hanger mentioned 
 above, who received the honour of knighthood from King 
 William III. This gentleman had three sons, of whom the 
 third, Gabriel by name, happening to go over to Ireland to 
 visit his cousins, took a fancy to that island, where he con- 
 trived to marry a rich wife — Elizabeth, only daughter and 
 heiress of one Richard Bond, ' of Cowbury, in Herefordshire, 
 and of the province of Ulster.' In noticing his family in the 
 account of his own eccentric ' Life and Adventures ' which he 
 published in 1802, the son of this union, George Hanger, thus 
 speaks of his father : — ' His sister. Miss Anne Hanger, was 
 married to Hare, Lord Coleraine ; but my father was not in 
 the most distant degree related to his lordship, or connected 
 with him except by tliat marriage. Loi'd Coleraine, however, 
 happening to die at the very nick of time without issue or heir 
 to his coronet, my father claimed it, with just as much right 
 as the clerk or sexton of tJie parish.' Unfortunately, however, 
 for George Hanger's reputation as a family chronicler, the 
 title was not revived in his father's favour till 1762, two years 
 after the accession of George III.
 
 r 
 
 GEORGE HANGER, LORD COLERAINE 241 
 
 The ex-Tux'key merchant, however, was enjoying his gold- 
 won honours and living at his seat in Gloucestershire, in 1751, 
 when his third and youngest son George — whose life chiefly 
 concerns me — first saw the light of day. He had two elder 
 brothers, both of whom held the title before it descended to 
 himself. His first experience of school life was at Reading • 
 but the school did not prove at all to his taste, for he describes 
 his master as ' a brute, a tyrant, and a savage.' Of the school 
 to which he was next sent — kept by the Rev. Mr. Fountain 
 at Marylebone Park — he had a ditferent tale to tell, for he 
 was treated with kindness and attention. His love of mis- 
 chief, however, began to display itself here, for he violently 
 kicked on the shins the dentist who attended the school, and 
 caught his thumb between his teeth on his endeavouring to 
 operate on him a second time. He was next sent to Eton, 
 where, though he got on with Latin, he set himself entirely 
 against Greek. On rising high in the school he gave himself 
 up to field sports. After leaving Eton he entered the army 
 as an ensign in the Foot Guards, and devoted a year to the 
 study of mathematics, fortification, and the German lano-uaoe 
 at the University of Gottingen. The next two summers he 
 spent desultorily in Hanover and Hesse Cassel, where he 
 became acquainted with many 'persons of distinction,' from 
 whom, however, he appears to have derived few or no food 
 lessons in morals. Soon after his return to England he met 
 with an adventure which narrowly escaped having a fatal 
 issue. One fine Sunday evening he was walking with a friend 
 and two ladies in a side path of the gardens close to Kensing- 
 ton Palace, where thick yew trees edged the walks, when a 
 man approached the party in a menacing attitude. His ap- 
 proach was prevented by George Hanger : the fellow then put 
 his hand on his sword, at the same time showing plainly that 
 he knew well enough how to use that weapon ; but George 
 Hanger warned the stranger to retreat if he did not wish to 
 be run through ; so the man made ofi*, and George and his 
 friends brought their walk and talk to an end, without any 
 
 R
 
 242 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 further difficulty. He himself owns, in his account of the 
 matter, that, though he had been placed in many disagreeable 
 situations in life, he had never been so alarmed as on that 
 occasion. 
 
 George Hanger spent the next few years in gaiety and 
 dissipation in town; and then, on account of a fancied wrong 
 with regard to his promotion, he left the Guards in dudgeon 
 and threw up his commission. However, in spite of this silly 
 and wayward act, as soon as the first flames of the war of 
 revolution were kindled in America, he applied for and 
 obtained an appointment in one of the Hessian corps, then 
 being raised for the British service in America, and took rank 
 as a captain in the Landgrave of Hesse's corps of Jagers. 
 But before his departure for America he had got into diffi- 
 culties from his personal extravagance, and tlie shadows of a 
 future day of reckoning were already crossing his path. 
 
 He saw some active service in his new post, and obtained 
 the rank of major in the Bi'itish Legion ; but, falling a victim 
 to the yellow fever on his advance under Lord Cornwallis into 
 North Carolina, for a long time he lay between life and death, 
 being reduced almost to a skeleton. Death, how^ever, was not 
 allowed to claim him as a victim just yet. 
 
 He left America on the conclusion of peace, and was 
 enabled to return to England by the help of a friend, Mr. 
 Richard Tattersall, who ofi'ered him a home in his house, pro- 
 mising to make his presence in London again possible by paying 
 any debts that he w^as himself unable to meet. 
 
 In the autobiographical work already alluded to. Major 
 Hanger has given an amusing description of the scenes at a 
 contested election for Westminster which he witnessed at tliis 
 time, and in which he took an active part ; and he points out 
 the many qualities of familiai'ity and condescension which a 
 gentleman must needs have possessed under the old system 
 now replaced l)y thn liallot, if he wished to be of any service 
 to his party. 
 
 It was at this time that Major Hanger became one of the
 
 GEORGE HANGER, LORD COLERAINE 243 
 
 jovial associates of the then Prince of Wales, who made him 
 one of his equerries, with a salary of 300?. a year, an appoint- 
 ment which, together with employment which he undertook of 
 raising recruits for the East India Company, afforded him the 
 means of living for a time like a gentleman. His good for- 
 tune did not, however, last long, and the Major was soon on 
 the high road to the King's Bench, which he entered in June, 
 1798. He spent about ten months in ' those blessed regions 
 of rural retirement,' as he jokingly styles his prison, possibly 
 remembei-ing the lines of Lovelace : 
 
 Stone walls do not a prison make, 
 
 Nor iron bars a cage ; 
 Minds innocent and peaceful take 
 
 That for a hermitage; 
 
 and he declares that he ' lived there as a gentleman on three 
 shillings a day.' Released from prison, he now applied for 
 employment on active service, but in vain ; so he formed the 
 resolution of taking to trade, and set up at one time as a coal 
 merchant, and at another as a dealer in powder for the special 
 purpose of setting razors. Specimens of this powder he carried 
 about in his pocket to show to ' persons of quality,' whom he 
 canvassed for their patronage ! How far he flourished in the 
 coal business we do not hear ; but, as he mentions a kind 
 friend who gave him a salary sufficient to keep the wolf from 
 the door, in all probability he did not make one of those 
 gigantic fortunes which the coal owners and coal merchants 
 are in the habit of realising nowadays at the cost of the long- 
 suffering British householder. 
 
 We read in the notice already referred to in the Gentle- 
 7nan's Magazine that the Colonel (for he had now attained 
 that grade), ' though free in his manners, was never inclined 
 to give intentional offence, and the peculiarity of those man- 
 ners precluded all idea of resentment, and laughter rather 
 than anger was the result of his most extravagant sallies.' 
 This sounds strange indeed to those who know that he still 
 enjoys by tradition the fame of a noted ' bruiser,' and that he
 
 244 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 was one of the most constant and zealous patrons of the cock- 
 pit, and of all those places where the noble art of self-defence 
 was practically illustrated. Though he spent so much time 
 among low society and in not very choice amusements, we are 
 told that he found time for reading, and was ' never wanting 
 in rational conversation on the topics of the day.' 
 
 George Hanger was quite as averse to assume the title of 
 ' Lord Coleraine,' which came to him on the death of his elder 
 brother William at the close of 1814, as Horace Walpole was 
 to call himself Earl of Orford. In fact he scarcely ever signed 
 his name by his new designation. 
 
 George Hanger lived and died unmarried — at all events, 
 no legal marriage stands scored against his name in the exist- 
 ing peerages. He seems, however, to have contracted in early 
 life a quasi-matrimonial union with one of the gipsy tribe 
 whom he met by chance in the southern suburbs of London, 
 and whom he mentions in his ' Autobiography ' as ' the lovely 
 Egyptia.' He writes, ' I used to listen with raptures to the 
 melody of her voice. . . . T thought her the " Pamela " of Nor- 
 wood, the paragon of her race, the Hester of the nineteenth 
 century • but, alas ! on my return after a short absence one 
 day I found that she had gone off with a travelling tinker of 
 a neighbouring tribe, who wandered about the country mend- 
 ing pots and kettles.' 
 
 According to the tell-tale catalogue of the British Museum 
 Library, Lord Coleraine was the author of several other works 
 besides his own ' Autobiography.' Among these I may men- 
 tion here an octavo pamphlet, published in 1795, entitled 
 • Military Reflections on the Attack and Defence of the City 
 of London ; to which is (% are) added Reflections on the Loss 
 of Plymouth or Harwich,' and including general remarks on 
 the whole island. Returning to the same subject nine or ten 
 years later, I find him issuing from the press another alarmist 
 pamphlet : ' Reflections on the Menaced InA asion, and the 
 Means of Protecting the Capital ; with a letter on the pro- 
 posed fortifications round London, and a defence of the volun-
 
 GEORGE HANGER, LORD COLERAINE 245 
 
 teer system.' The volunteer movement, which has been so 
 successfully revived in our own day, had no mox'e zealous and 
 active advocate than Col. Hanger at the commencement of 
 the present century. And it was with reference to this sub- 
 ject that in 1808 he published ' A letter to Lord Castlereagh, 
 proving how 15,000 men, well disciplined, may be acquired 
 in the short space of two months ; with instructions to the 
 volunteers ; to Avhich is added a plan for the formation of a 
 corps of consolidated marksmen.' 
 
 It is clear from what I have said above that Lord Cole- 
 raine cared little or nothing about ' blue blood ' and pedigree, 
 and that he valued a man rather by his skill with his fists or 
 his rapier than by his descent from the Plantagenets. Thus 
 he commences his ' Autobiography ' with a portrait of himself 
 swinging on a gallows, apparently at Tyburn, in allusion to 
 his name ; and it is said that this is the only authentic por- 
 trait of him now extant. Still, every now and then some- 
 thing of ancestral pride peeps out in spite of himself in what 
 he writes, as, for instance, when he tells us that his father was 
 ' an honest M.P. in favour of the King and the constitution, 
 and above a bribe ' — even in the days of Sir Robert Walpole. 
 His svimmary of his Avide experience of life in every phase 
 and in all grades tells us that he had lived with men and 
 women of every rank, from the highest to the lowest — * from 
 St. James's to St. Giles's ' — from the drawing-room to the dust- 
 cart — in palaces and in night cellars ; and it is j^robable that 
 few pei\sons besides himself had seen and could describe from 
 personal experience at once the gilded salons of Carlton House 
 and the lowest purlieus of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields. His ' Auto- 
 biography ' is full of drollery, much of which I could not pos- 
 sibly transfer to these pages : but I shall never forget his 
 sketches of the old tyrant at Reading School, with his ' long 
 rattan cane,' and of the rebellion at Eton in the time of Dr. 
 Foster, in which he bore a part. At Eton, however, his educa- 
 tion appears to have been sadly neglected ; for he tells us 
 that at eighteen his only reading was ' the newspaper and the
 
 246 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Sporting Calendar,' though here and there some traces of the 
 scholar peep out in the Latin quotations that occur in his 
 autobiographical sketch ; and he has the grace to own that 
 during his three years' stay in Germany he felt the great want 
 of the refining influence of ladies' society. He could not cer- 
 tainly be altogether a ' rough,' if it be true that while at Han- 
 over he was much noticed by Prince Charles, the brother of 
 our own Queen Charlotte, and that in consequence he grew to 
 be on such terms with the Hanoverian Guards as to be allowed 
 to take part with them in their military exercises on field- 
 days. Nor does he appear to have been well or kindly treated 
 by his father in more ways than one. At all events, on one 
 occasion, when he wished to join the army of Count Roman- 
 zofi", and to volunteer for service to fight against the Turks, 
 old Lord Coleraine would not find the money for equipment, 
 so he was obliged to stay in Germany biting his thumbs and 
 cursing his adverse fate ; and he complains that, through the 
 niggardly parsimony of his parent and his elder brother, he 
 was twice deprived of his earnings, and foi'ced to begin the 
 world over again. 
 
 I have mentioned already that at one time George Hanger 
 tried to ' make both ends meet ' by recruiting for the East 
 India Company, and at another by starting as a coal merchant. 
 He tells us that he spent 500Z. — ' costs out of pocket,' as the 
 lawyers say — in establishing and organising agencies for re- 
 cruits in all the large towns of England, but that an end was 
 put to this work by a dispute among the directors in Leaden- 
 hall Street as to the best place for recruiting barracks. The 
 decision, wherever it placed the dep6t, threw him out of em- 
 ploy, robbed him of his 500/. and six years' labour, and lost 
 him an income of GOO/, a year. The result was that he spent 
 nearly a year in the King's Bench Prison (June, 1798, to 
 April, 1799), and had to stai't afresh with a capital of 40/. in 
 hand ! No wonder that next year he thought of trade in 
 earnest as a better chance than such precarious work. With 
 reference to this subject he writes in May, 1800, to a friend,
 
 GEORGE HANGER, LORD COLERAINE 247 
 
 who told him that it was reported that he allowed himself to 
 be paid by a commission on such coals as he could sell : ' On 
 my honour, the report is false, absolutely false ! I am allowed 
 an annual salary, which will keep me from want. May the 
 black diamond trade flourish with me ! ' 
 
 Carbones .... nigri 
 Sunt mihi cleliciEe ; sint mihi divitife ! 
 
 It is astonishing to see how much of worldly wisdom and 
 what the Americans call ' 'cuteness ' is to be found in George 
 Hanger's ' Autobiography.' He had no great respect for par- 
 sons, or indeed, I fear, it must be added, for religion in any 
 shape ; but scattered up and down his two volumes are to be 
 found many useful hints as to the necessity of purging the 
 theatres of vice and the encouragement of street-preaching, 
 if the morals of the populace were to be improved, mixed up 
 with all sorts of droll suggestions as to the best way of putting 
 down those very amusements in which he himself excelled, 
 and those exhibitions of which he was the especial patron ! 
 Among other matters he showed his humour by proposing to 
 levy a tax on the absentee landlords, not of Ireland, but of 
 Scotland ; and another on the superfluous luxuries of forks 
 and spoons. 
 
 As might be expected, George Hanger, with all his eccen- 
 tricity, made a capital soldier of^ fortune. Sir Henry Clinton, 
 on meeting him in America, seems to have felt this, and so 
 not only gave him a command in the expedition for the reduc- 
 tion of the southern provinces, but made him his aide-de- 
 camp at the siege of Charleston. He also distinguished him- 
 self in the operations at Savannah, and after the capture of 
 Charleston he was appointed inspector of volunteers, as well 
 as of cattle, horses, and stores, being promoted also to a 
 majority in the British Legion. Whilst serving in Carolina, 
 under Lord Cornwallis, the yellow fever (as mentioned above) 
 reduced him so low that ' his bones were coming through his 
 skin ; ' but he escaped the jaws of death, and lived to meet
 
 248 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Lord Cornwallis some years later at dinner in St. James's 
 Square. His illness on this occasion stood him in good stead ; 
 for, being sent on a cruise to Bermuda, he escaped being taken 
 prisoner along with his general. He subsequently sailed for 
 New York with Sir Henry Clinton in the hope of relieving Lord 
 Cornwallis, but arrived three days too late to effect that object. 
 That he used his eyes and ' all his seven senses ' whilst in 
 America is shown by the fact that even in 1802 he prophesied 
 that a day would come when the Northern and Southern 
 States would be brought into conflict, and that the war, when - 
 ever it arose, would not be a 'little war.' He was right in 
 this view; and probably he was the first to hold it, or, at all 
 events, to express it publicly. 
 
 Such a man, with all his faults and failings, could not 
 have been wholly bad ; and therefore I am not surprised to 
 find that when false charges were brought against his honour 
 as a man and a soldier, not only Mr. Tattersall, but even the 
 Prince of Wales, thought proper to come forward and stand 
 as his friend. The same is the inference wliich I draw from 
 a fact recorded by himself, that he visited in his cell in 
 Newgate more than one highwayman whom he thought too 
 severely punished, and even rode behind the tail of the cart 
 which carried him up Holborn Hill and along Oxford Street 
 to Tyburn. His goodness of heart, too, is proved by the 
 following assertion which he made to a friend who wished to 
 see him chosen a member of Parliament : ' I pledge myself, 
 if ever I should have the honour of a seat in the House of 
 Commons, to consult with some of the leading men in this 
 country in order to bring in a bill for the better protection of 
 women.' 
 
 From first to last it would seem as if constant misfortune 
 and disappointment liad worked a change in his temper, and 
 almost in his very nature. For instance, he tells us that he 
 had expectations from the Duchess of St. Albans, who had 
 been a prol^gde of his father, but that he was baulked of these, 
 being cut out of her will by a certain Mr. Roberts, who, no
 
 GEORGE HANGER, LORD COLERAINE 249 
 
 doubt, knew how to play his cards with greater skill than 
 himself. Again, what little property he actually inherited was 
 lost through the death of a surveyor whom he was employing ; 
 and the loss of this estate involved him in other difficulties 
 which compelled him to sell out of the army just as the 
 American war broke out, and in the long run to play the 
 undignified role of a coal-dealer ! His father had gone in early 
 life to India, with 500^. in his pocket, and had returned to 
 England with a realised fortune of 25,000/., which was increased 
 by inheriting his brothers' and sisters' fortunes ; but, with all 
 this, his lordship could not find the means to keep his son 
 afloat in the service, and even allowed him to be robbed and 
 ruined without putting forth a hand to aid him. Can it be a 
 matter of wonder to anyone that such an individual, however 
 good he might have been by natural disposition, was soured 
 and embittered, and driven into irregular courses, and at last 
 came to boast that ' he cared not whether he was a nobleman 
 or a gentleman, but one thing he knew, and that was that he 
 was a deadslwt ? ' In the days of duelling such words as these 
 meant a great deal. Holding such sentiments, it was fortunate 
 for him that he did not meet with the fate of Lord Camelford, 
 and fall a victim in an ' aflTair of honour.' 
 
 DE COUBCY, LOBD OF KINGS ALE 
 
 First on the roll of the Irish peerage, occupying the same 
 position as is held by Lord De Ros in England and Lord 
 Forbes in Scotland, stands the proud name of John Fitzroy de 
 Courcy, thirty-first Baron Kingsale. It is not everyone of 
 whom it can be said that he can trace back his family to the 
 roll of the battlefield of Hastings, but the family of De Courcy 
 can truly claim that honour ; and even more than this, if we 
 may believe the heralds and genealogists. The De Courcies 
 can boast alliance in the paternal line through the Dukes of
 
 2 50 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Lorraine, and maternally throiTgh the Dukes of Normandy, 
 with several of the royal houses of Europe. The head and 
 representative of the De Courcy family, moreover, enjoys the 
 hereditary and singular privilege of standing with his head 
 covered in the presence of royalty. The origin of this honour 
 I shall now relate. 
 
 To revert to the early history of this family, it appears 
 that Richard de Courcy, eldest son of Robert, Lord of Courcy 
 in Normandy, accompanied his sovereign William on his 
 invasion of England ; and, for his distinguished services at the 
 battle of Hastings, was enriched with considerable grants of 
 lands and lordships, among which was that of Stoke — thence 
 called Stoke Courcy — in the county of Somerset. His imme- 
 diate descendants were in high joosition at Court ; and one 
 Robei't de Courcy was present at the battle of Northampton 
 in the reign of King Stephen. But John, the great-great- 
 grandson of the first baron, was the founder of the chief 
 honours of the family. This nobleman had gained much credit 
 for himself in the wars of Henry II., both in England and 
 Gascony ; and at the instance of that monarch he was sent 
 into Ireland in the year 1177 to assist William Fitz-Adelm in 
 the government of that country. While thei'e he put himself 
 at the head of a few knights and esquires and about three 
 hundred foot soldiers, with whose help he invaded, and after 
 several efforts reduced to submission, the province of Ulster. 
 For this achievement he was rewarded in 1181 with the 
 ' Eai'ldom of Leister,' being the first Englishman who received 
 an Irish title of honour. In order to make his position more 
 secure, he married a daughter of Godfrey, King of the Isle 
 of Man, and continued to bask in the sunshine of royal favour 
 to the close of Henry II. 's reign, and during that of his suc- 
 cessor, Richard I. But envy, as has so often been the case, 
 would not allow liim to hold liis honours much longer in 
 peace ; for, on the accession of King John to the throne of 
 England, Hugh de Lacie, governor of Ireland, caused the Earl 
 to be treacherously seized while, alone and quite unarmed,
 
 DE COURCY, LORD OF KINGS ALE 251 
 
 he was doing penance in the churchyard of Downpatrick, on 
 Good Friday of the year 1203. He was sent to England 
 under a guard, and condemned by the King to perpetual 
 imprisonment in the Tower, while his earldom and estates 
 were given over to his successful rival. He had been in con- 
 finement about a year, when a dispute which had arisen 
 between King John of England and Philip Augustus of 
 France with regard to their several pretensions to the Duchy 
 of Normandy, was by agreement referred to the decision of a 
 single combat. King John had somewhat too hastily appointed 
 a day for this contest to come off, and the King of Finance had 
 his champion ready ; while John, who could find no one of his 
 subjects willing to take up the gauntlet, was forced to appeal 
 to his prisoner, the degraded Earl of Ulster, who accepted the 
 challenge, though only on a third request, ' for the honour of 
 his country.' 
 
 Such is the common story as told in the Peerages ; but the 
 records of the Tower affirm that the Earl had surrendered 
 himself and given hostages for his appearance, and was kejDt 
 by the King in the Tower to be in readiness for the day 
 appointed for the combat. The contest, however, whichever 
 way the matter stood, never came off, for the French chamj)ion 
 showed flight instead of fight on the first appearance of his 
 powerful antagonist ; and on the trumpet sounding for the 
 attack set spurs to his horse, broke through the lists, and 
 gained the seashore, whence he reached the coast of France 
 or Spain, and thus left the champion of England victor on the 
 field. The French King, however, who hadheai'd of the Earl's 
 great strength, desired to see some proof of it ; whereupon, 
 as the story goes, a massive coat of mail with a full-faced 
 helmet on the top was placed on a block. With a single blow 
 the Earl cleft asunder the armour and helmet ; and it is said 
 that the sword was fixed so deep into the wood that no one 
 else present could draw it out, though he himself did so with 
 one hand. The armour and sword used on this remarkable 
 occasion are still preserved in the Tower of London. King
 
 252 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 John was so astonished at this extraordinary exhibition of 
 strength, that h^ restored De Courcy to his titles and estates, 
 and in addition desired him to ask any favour at his hands 
 which it was in his power to grant, and it should be given 
 The Earl replied that ' he had titles and estates enough, but 
 desired that he and his successors might have the privilege, as 
 soon as their first obeisance had been paid, of being covered 
 in the presence of him and his successors, Kiiigs of England ;' 
 and the request was granted accordingly. 
 
 De Courcy, however, was disappointed in his endeavours 
 to obtain the re -establishment of his earldom and other rights 
 in Ireland ; for though he made, it is said, fifteen attempts to 
 cross the Channel, he never put foot on Irish soil again, and 
 he eventually retired to France, where he died about the year 
 1210. 
 
 He was succeeded by his only son. Miles, who in vain 
 endeavoured, in his turn, to secure his rights in Ireland, 
 Hugh de Lacie maintaining that he himself had a right to the 
 Earldom of Ulster. Earl John had never returned to make 
 his claim in person ; and so, considering that Hugh's power in 
 Ireland and his favour at Court were too gi'eat to be resisted, 
 Miles gave up his claim, and received from the King, in com- 
 pensation, the Barony of Kingsale, in Ireland, in 1223. From 
 him the family honours descended regularly for five centuries. 
 The seventh Lord, Miles de Courcy, sat in Parliament in 1339 
 as premier baron, and distinguished himself in a battle near 
 Ringrone, when he overthrew Florence MacCarthy-More, 
 driving his soldiers into the river at Bandon. 
 
 William, the ninth baron, appears to have been the first 
 to receive a confii^mation of the honours of Kingsale and 
 Ringrone at 'the hands of King Richard II. ; lie, moreover, 
 obtained a grant of 100?. per annum out of the royal 
 exchequer, with leave to purchase and own a ship, and to pass 
 and repass between England and France whenever he pleased 
 to travel. 
 
 Fortune, however, Avas again in some degree adverse in the
 
 DE COURCV, LORD OF KINGSALE 253 
 
 lifetime of the eleventh baron, Patrick, who was driven from 
 his castle of Kilbrittain by MacCarthy Reagh— an exploit 
 which, with others of the same kind, was rendered compara- 
 tively easy for the Irish on account of the absence of many 
 landowners from Ireland during the wars of the Houses of 
 York and Lancaster. 
 
 Trouble again came upon James, the thirteenth Baron, 
 who, after abetting the adventurer and impostor Lambert 
 Simnel in Ireland, refused to take the oath of allegiance before 
 Sir Richard Edgecombe, the deputy of King Henry VII., while 
 he was afloat in Kingsale Harbour. Sir Richard landed, and 
 homage was then duly performed by Lord Kingsale with the 
 rest of his townsmen in the chancel of Kingsale Church. The 
 recalcitrant Irish lords were afterwards summoned to appear 
 before the King at Greenwich, where they were reproved, but 
 pardoned. Lord Kingsale, however, was absent when the 
 rest went with the King in a solemn procession to church ; he 
 was thereupon deprived of his rank as premier baron, which 
 was bestowed by the royal pique on Lord Athenry, a strong 
 Lancastrian — Lord Kingsale being a thorough Yorkist. In 
 the Parliament which met at Dublin in 1427 he was placed 
 on the roll after Lord Athenry ; but since that peerage is now, 
 if not extinct, at least in abeyance. Lord Kingsale again stands, 
 as I have said, without dispute first among the Irish barons. 
 
 A fresh honour accrued to this noble House in the person 
 of Gerald, seventeenth baron, who was made a ' knight 
 banneret' by King Henry VIII., under the royal standard, at 
 Boulogne. His second cousin and successor, John, gained dis- 
 tinction in fighting against the Spaniards at the siege of King- 
 sale in 1601, and was in high favour at the Court of King 
 James I. During the time of this lord there was a contest 
 regarding the title of Kingsale, which was bestowed as a 
 Viscountcy on Sir Dominic Sarsfield, but was afterwards 
 exchanged for that of Kilmallock, the Privy Council stating 
 in their repoi't in 1627 that Lord Kingsale was possessed by 
 ancient evidences of the titles of Courcy, Kingsale, and Ring-
 
 254 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 rone ; and it may be added that De Courcy aj^pears now for 
 the first time as a parliamentary title. Nothing remarkable 
 seems to have occurred till during the lifetime of Almericus, 
 the twenty-third baron, who was in high favour at the Court 
 of King Charles II. and James II., and received a pension 
 from both ; he was, however, outlawed in 1690 for his military 
 services under the banner of the latter, but was received back 
 in the following year, when, as we read in Sharpe's Peerage, 
 ' he was enabled to repair to the presence chamber of King 
 William with his hat on his head, to the great surprise of his 
 Majesty. On being required by one of the lords in waiting to 
 explain his conduct, he replied that he very well knew in 
 whose presence he stood, and that the reason why he then 
 wore his hat was because he stood before the King of England, 
 and, approaching the throne, addressed the King : " May it 
 please your Majesty, my name is Courcy, and I am Lord of 
 Kino-sale, in your kingdom of Ireland. The reason of my 
 appearing covered in your Majesty's presence is to assert the 
 ancient privilege of my family, granted to Sir John de Courcy, 
 Earl of Ulster, and his heirs, by John, King of England, to 
 him and his successors for ever." The King said he recollected 
 he had such a nobleman, recognised the privilege, and gave 
 him his hand to kiss ; his lordship thereupon paid his obeisance 
 and remained covered.' 
 
 His successor, Gerald, asserted the same family privilege 
 before King George I., and again at the Court of George II. — 
 most probably at a Drawing Room, for it is recorded that the 
 o-ood-naturedKing addressed him on that occasion in terms of 
 reproof, saying, ' My lord, although you have the privilege of 
 wearin"- your hat before me, you have no such right to wear 
 it in the presence of ladies.' Lord Kingsale took the reproach 
 kindly, as it was meant, and at once bared his head — so, at 
 least, the story goes, and I merely tell it as it was told 
 to me. 
 
 It is reported that John, the twenty-fifth lord, in his turn 
 asserted and exercised Ids privilege at St. James's or at
 
 DE COURCY, LORD OF KING SALE 255 
 
 Kensington Palace in the early part of George III., but I have 
 never heard that the claim has been repeated within the last 
 hundred years ; and as to the present Lord Kingsale I very 
 much doubt whether he will attempt to act upon his privilege 
 in the presence of a female sovereign. All that I can say is 
 that, if his lordship should ever do so while Queen Victoria is 
 on the throne, he will prove himself far less of a good courtier 
 than I take him to be. When Albert Edward I. holds his 
 first levee in his own name at St. James's — at a day which I 
 trust is far distant as yet — then will be the time for Lord 
 Kingsale to reassert his hereditary right, and no doubt he will 
 find it acknowledged. 
 
 A curious episode occurred a little over a hundred years 
 ago at the time of the death of Gerald, the twenty-fourth 
 baron, and the affair seemed at one time likely to assume the 
 form of a trial at law, which, if it had not equalled in length 
 the Tichborne trial of our own time, would perhaps have 
 rivalled the great Shrewsbury case, which will be fresh in the 
 memory of many of my readers. The facts of the case may be 
 found mentioned at length in the Gentleman's Magazine of 
 June, 1760. It appears that it was understood that the late 
 Lord Kingsale died without leaving male issue, bequeathing 
 his property to his three daughters ; whereupon a paragraph 
 appeared in Faulkner^ s Journal, signed ' Charles Bernard,' 
 who stated that the title was not extinct, and that the late 
 lord had devised his ancient family estates in Ireland unto 
 one John de Courcy, a native of America, and for many years 
 a common boatman at Portsmouth, as his heir male. Tliis 
 strange announcement was contradicted by the sons-in-law 
 and daughters of the late lord, who affirmed that he had for 
 some years before his death laboured under ' a constant and 
 habitual indisposition of mind,' of which advantage was taken 
 by some evil-disposed adventurer in the neighbourhood to for- 
 ward his own interests by putting forward an heir, whom he 
 knew to have no right to the succession. This was again 
 alleged to be false by the said Mr. John de Courcy, who took
 
 256 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 possession of the baronetcy of Kingsale as twenty-fifth baron 
 — apparently in the veni, vidi, vici style. His enemies, it 
 appears, endeavoured to dispossess him, and resorted to force 
 to accomplish their end ; and though Lord Kingsale fled from 
 his own house when, after the true Irish fashion, it was broken 
 into by night, and his wife and children were turned out of 
 doors for the time, still he regained possession by means of the 
 sheriff. Ringrone Castle and the rest of the broad lands in 
 the far south-west of Ireland, which once belonged to the title 
 of Kingsale, have now passed away from the De Courcies, by 
 sale or other transfer ; but, true to his illustrious line of 
 ancestors, the last holder of the title, thirtieth Lord of King- 
 sale, bought a small property in the south of Devon near 
 Kingsbridge and Modbury, to which he gave the ancient name 
 of Ringrone, no doubt believing in the words of Horace, 
 
 Ambiguam tellure uova Salamina futuram. 
 
 The present lord is married, but has no children ; and I sin- 
 cerely hope that some future lord will pick up a stray English 
 heiress with plenty of money, who will reinstate the premier 
 baron of Ireland in the Irish property of the ancient De 
 Courcies. 
 
 I should add, for the benefit of such of my readers as have 
 a taste for personal gossip and antiquarian small-talk, that 
 Lord Forester enjoys in England the like privilege to that 
 of Lord Kingsale, having in his possession at his seat in 
 Shropshire the original grant of Heni-y VIII., conceding to 
 his ancestor, John Forester, of Watling Street, in that county, 
 the right of wearing his hat in the royal presence. 
 
 THE HEIBESS OF HADDON HALL 
 
 Haddon Hall, viewed architecturally, is one of the most 
 perfect specimens of the ancient baronial mansions of England, 
 and it forms one of the chief attractions of the fair county of
 
 THE HEIRESS OF HAD DON HALL 257 
 
 Derbyshire. But even Haddon in the olden time tinds its 
 interest enhanced by the well-authenticated tradition, which 
 tells us how, by a romantic attachment and elopement, its 
 picturesque walls and terraces, and the broad lands which 
 surround it, passed from the hands of the Yernons into those 
 of the now ducal house of Manners. 
 
 It is well observed of Haddon by Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt, 
 in his ' Illustrated Guide ' to that place, that, unlike many of 
 our old baronial residences, its history has been uniformly one 
 of peace and hospitality, not of war and feud and oppression ; 
 for that, however much its owners may have been mixed up 
 from time to time in the stirring events of the ages in which 
 they lived, Haddon Hall has never played a part in the tur- 
 moils. It has never stood a siege like Wardour Castle or 
 Lathom House ; and, though it has been a stronghold in its 
 own way, it has been a stronghold of home and of peaceful 
 domestic life, not of armed troops ; and therefore, as it nestles 
 in the woods that crown the banks of the Derwent, it claims 
 an interest peculiarly its own. 
 
 We may pass by its early history in a very few lines. At 
 a remote date it was held by the Avenels, by the tenure of 
 knight's service, from whom, towards the close of the twelfth 
 century, it passed by the marriage of an heiress into the hands 
 of Richard de A^'ernon, a nobleman of Norman extraction, as 
 is implied by his name, which was derived from a lordship and 
 town in Normandy on the banks of the Seine, between Rouen 
 and Paris, of which the family were hereditary lords, bearing 
 the titles of Counts and Barons de Reviei's, or Redvers. The 
 direct male descendant of this Richard Vernon, Sir Henry, 
 was made governor to Prince Arthur by Henry VII., with 
 whom he was a great favourite. He married a daughter of 
 the Earl of Shrewsbury, by whom he had a son, also Sir Henry, 
 high steward of the King's Forest of the Peak under King 
 Henry VIII., a knight whose son. Sir George, the owner of 
 Haddon, was known far and wide through Derbyshire and 
 
 s
 
 2 58 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 the midland counties as 'the King of the Peak.' ' It is said 
 on good authority that he owned thirty manors in Derbyshire 
 alone, to say nothing of properties in other counti-^s ; and hy 
 his first wife, a daughter of Sir Gilbert Taylebois or Talbot, he 
 had two daughters, his co-heiresses, the elder of whom married 
 the second son of the then Earl of Derby ; while the younger 
 — whose story we are about to tell — became the ancestress of 
 the Earls and Dukes of Rutland. Sir George Yernon was not 
 styled * King of the Peak ' without good cause ; for he lived at 
 Haddon in such a style of magnificence and hospitality as was 
 right worthy of a prince, and would put to shame many a 
 German potentate. It is said that he was at once the most 
 generous and the most just of men, and that, although he was 
 given perhaps to undue severity, and inclined to indulge occa- 
 sionally in a ' Lynch law' of his own throughout 'the Peak,' 
 yet he lived and died in the good esteem of his neighbours. 
 Perhaps, too, his popularity was increased among his friends 
 by the beauty of his two youthful daughters, the Lady 
 Margaret and the Lady Dorothy. 
 
 A single tradition, briefly told by Mr. Jewitt in his pleasant 
 pages, will serve to illustrate the firmness and decision of Sir 
 George Vernon's character, and vindicate his title of 'King,' 
 by showing the power which he exercised over the actions, and 
 even over the lives and properties, of the people around him, 
 with whom the good old feudal notions of the laird being able 
 to do pretty well as he pleased with his own dependents were 
 not as yet extinct. 
 
 ' A pedlar, who had been hawking his wares around the 
 neighbourhood, was one day found murdered in a lonely spot 
 on the estates of Haddon Hall. He had been seen the evening 
 V)efore to enter a cottage in the neighbourhood, and he was 
 never afterwards seen or heard of alive. As soon as the " King 
 
 ' It was Sir John Vernon, the 3'ounger brother of this worth}' knigiit, 
 that niairicd the heiress of the Montgomeries, of Sudbury, in Derby- 
 shire, and founded the family of tlie present Lord Vernon, who still 
 owns landed estates in the neighbourhood of Haddon, which have passed 
 from sire to son.
 
 THE HEIRESS OF H ADDON HALL 259 
 
 of the Peak " became aware of the fact that the crime had been 
 committed so near at hand, he had the body of the pedlar 
 removed to Haddon, laid in the hall, and covei'ed with a sheet. 
 He then sent for the cottager to come immediately, and on 
 his arrival at once questioned him as to where the pedlar was 
 who was seen to enter his house the night before. The man 
 denied having seen him, or knowing anything about him, when 
 Sir Geoi'ge uncovered the body liefore him, ordering that all 
 persons present sliould touch the body in succession, at the 
 same time declaring their innocence of the murder. The sus- 
 pected man, when his turn came, declined to touch the body, 
 and instantly rushed out of the hall and made his way, " as 
 fast as his legs could carry him," through Bakewell towards 
 Ashford. Sir Geoi'ge instantly ordered his men to mount and 
 follow him. The murderer was caught in a field opposite the 
 present toll-bar at Ashford, and at once hanged, and the field 
 still bears the name of the " gallows acre," or " galley acre." 
 Sir George is said to have been cited to London for this ex- 
 traordinary piece of Lynch law, and when he appeared at 
 Court he was summoned twice to surrender as " King of the 
 Peak." To these he made no reply, but the third time he was 
 called on as Sir George Vernon, when he stepped forwaixl and 
 acknowledged himself, " Here am I." Having been summoned 
 as the " King of the Peak," the indictment fell through, and 
 Sir George was admonished and discharged. Sir George 
 Vernon is buried in Bakewell Church, where a remarkably 
 fine and well-preserved altar-tomb bears the recumbent effigies 
 of himself and his two wives.' 
 
 But it is time that I passed from Sir George and the dead 
 pedlar to the lady in whom is concentrated the chief interest 
 of my story. Miss Dorothy Vernon, the younger daughter of 
 Sir George, and therefore, we may be sure, known all round 
 Haddon, and Edensor, and Bakewell, and Chatsworth, as a 
 ' Princess of the Peak.' 
 
 In or about the year 1567, when Queen Bess had been only 
 nine years on the throne, and when England was still ' merrie 
 
 s2
 
 26o TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 England,' on a bright morning in May the Lady Margaret 
 Vernon was escorted by a bevy of young bridesmaids to the 
 altar of Bakewell Churcli, and there became the wife of Sir 
 Thomas Stanley, of Winwick, in Lancashire, the second son of 
 Edward, third Earl of Derby, and great-great-grandson of the 
 noble and gallant Stanley who took so brave a part in the 
 battle of Bosworth Field, where he placed the crown of Richard 
 on the head of the victorious Richmond. Dorothy, who was 
 one of the bridesmaids on that day, doubtless found life at 
 Haddon rather lonely after her sister's departure for the North. 
 It is said — but, as there are no cartes-de-visite of the young 
 lady now in existence, it is impossible to v^erify the assertion 
 
 that, of all the beautiful young women of that ' period,' she 
 
 was the most beautiful ; and, of course, as she had no brothers, 
 she had the best of 'prospects.' The local tradition has it 
 that, in addition to her beauty and wealth, she was blessed 
 with so sweet a temper that she was the idol of all who knew 
 her, far and near. If this, however, really was the case, her 
 monument in Bakewell Church does her but scanty justice, for 
 the sculptor who executed the effigy on her tomb has repre- 
 sented her as neither amiable nor attractive in outward 
 appearance. The story of her life, as told to me by a Derby- 
 shire friend, will ha^■e it that she found herself obliged to play 
 the part of Cinderella ; for, while her elder sister was con- 
 gratulated on all sides for having made a conquest of one of 
 the noble House of Stanley, and becoming his affianced bride 
 was petted and made much of by her fond and indulgent 
 ' papa,' the Lady Dorothy, though only a year or so younger, 
 was kept in the background and treated as a child, when she 
 had got far more than half-way through her ' teens.' This 
 treatment, no doubt, was very unwise in her case, as in that 
 of other young ladies of ' sweet seventeen ' ; and the result of 
 course ensued that she resoh ed to secure a follower for herself. 
 She was fortunate in her choice — John Manners, a son of the 
 Earl of Rutland ; but as he was ' only a younger son,' and had 
 no broad acres to boast of, the attachment was opposed by her
 
 THE HEIRESS OF H ADDON HALL 261 
 
 father and her stepmother, and even, we are told, by her 
 sister, who, we hope, was not actuated by any feelings of 
 sisterly jealousy. Dorothy was therefore watched closely, and 
 kept almost a prisoner, being entrusted to the care of a mid- 
 dle-aged duenna, who did not contrive to make Haddon Hall 
 the happier by her presence. 
 
 Love, however, laughs at locksmiths ; and, from the days 
 of Jupiter and Danae down to our own, there has been a 
 succession of 'Young Lochinvars ' in almost every family of 
 high rank and birth. 
 
 Julius Csesar ' came, saw, and conquered,' as we all know 
 fi'om the day when we begin our Delectus ; but, unlike that 
 emperor, plain John Manners 'came, saw, and icas conquered.' 
 It had been a case of love at first sight, and, in spite of the 
 remonstrances of papa and mamma, the young lovers agi^eed 
 that they would never abandon each other, or unsay the words 
 of love that they had said. These words were destined to 
 have an abiding influence over the proud estates of Haddon 
 Hall — an influence which three centuries have not swept away, 
 for Haddon is now one of the seats, not of the Yernons, but 
 of Dorothy's descendant in the direct line, the Duke of Rut- 
 land. 
 
 ' All things,' they say, ' are fair in lo\'e as in war ' ; and so 
 John Manners is said to have disguised himself as a woodman, 
 or forester, and to have remained in various hiding-places in 
 the woods arxDund Haddon for several weeks, in order to obtain 
 stolen glances of Miss Dorothy, and, no doubt, occasional 
 meetings with her when the duenna was not ' on guard.' At 
 length, on one festive night at Haddon, perhaps at one of the 
 merry-makings consequent on her sister's marriage, when 
 everybody was busy in amusing the guests from the neigh- 
 bourhood. Miss Dorothy is said to have quietly stolen away, 
 unobserved, in the midst of the merriment, and to have passed 
 out of the door of the ante-room on to the garden terrace, 
 which still forms one of the chief features of the hall. She 
 crossed the terrace, ran swiftly down the steps and across the
 
 262 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 lawn, and so down to the foot bridge over the Derwent, 
 where she was speedily locked in her lover's arms. Horses, 
 of course, were in waiting with trusty attendants, one of 
 whom was left behind, to put papa oft' the scent in case of a 
 pursuit. 
 
 On and on they rode through the moonlight on that bright 
 August night, and early next morning they were married at 
 a church just across the borders of the county, in Leicester- 
 shire. 
 
 The door through whicli the heiress of Haddon eloped on 
 that memorable night with ' plain John Manners ' is still 
 always pointed out to all who visit Haddon as ' Dorothy 
 Vernon's door.' It is not enriched with splendid carvings, 
 nor is it to be distinguished from many other doorways in 
 old baronial halls and moated gi^anges ; but I fancy that some- 
 how or other his Grace of Rutland can hardly look without 
 s( me feeling of personal interest on the gate through which, a 
 little more than three hundred years ago, passed not only the 
 lovely Lady Dorothy, but with her the fine manor and all its 
 broad lands, into the hands of the noble family of Manners, 
 who are, or ought to be, nearly as proud of Haddon as they 
 are of princely Belvoir. 
 
 Jolm and Dorothy Manners, it may be as well to add here, 
 ' lived happily everafterw^ards.' Children were born to them, 
 and their eldest son. Sir George Manners, added to the 
 family fortunes by his marriage with Grace, daughter of Sir 
 Henry Pierrepont, a near relative of the once ducal house of 
 Kingston. The Lady Grace, as a monument in Bakewell 
 Church informs us, ' bore to her husband four sons and live 
 daughters, and lived with him in holy wedlock for upwards of 
 thirty years.' On her husband's death, she caused him to be 
 buried with his forefathers, and then placed a monument to 
 his memory at her own expense, as a })erpetual memorial of 
 their conjugal faith, and joined the figure of his body with 
 hers, having vowed that their aslies and bones should be laid 
 together.
 
 THE HEIRESS OF HADDON HALL 263 
 
 Such of our readers as care for genealogical details may be 
 glad to know that, although Dorothy Vernon herself never 
 wore the strawberry leaves of the coronet of a duchess, yet in 
 the long run she became the direct ancestress of the Dukes of 
 Rutland. Her grandson John succeeded as the eighth Earl of 
 Rutland on the death of his cousin, in 1641 ; and her great- 
 grandson, John, the ninth earl, was created Marquis of Granby 
 and Duke of Rutland in 1703. This duke's grandson was the 
 celebrated commander-in-chief of the British forces who 
 served with Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick in Germany, and 
 whose face as ' the Marquis of Granby ' is so familiar on our 
 village signboards. The ' Marquis ' unhappily died before his 
 father ; but his son Charles, the fourth duke, a nobleman most 
 popular as Loi'd-Lieutenant of Ireland in the days of Pitt and 
 Pox, was the grandfather of the present duke, who has 
 inherited both Belvoir Castle, once the seat of the Lords de 
 Ros, and Haddon Hall, the ancient home of the Yernons. 
 
 THE ECCENTBIC LADY ELLENBOROUGH 
 
 That 'Truth is stranger than fiction' is an axiom of which 
 the justice is generally acknowledged, but so seldom realised 
 that, whenever we hear of some event rather out of the common 
 course occurring to any of our friends, we find ourselves in- 
 voluntarily describing it as being 'like a romance.' And yet 
 the wildest work of fiction ever penned has rarely contained 
 incidents more extraordinarily improbable than those which 
 marked the career of the heroine of our present story, and 
 which — little edifying in many respects although they be — 
 may nevertheless serve 
 
 To point a moral and adorn a tale. 
 
 Jane Elizabeth, Lady Ellenborough, if we may trust the 
 matter-of-fact pages of ' Burke's Peerage,' was the only sister of 
 the ninth Lord Digby, being a daughter of the late Admiral 
 Sir Henry Digby. Her mother was a daughter of Thomas
 
 264 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 William Coke, of Holkham, the veteran M.P, for Norfolk and 
 well-known agriculturist, afterwards created Earl of Leicester. 
 She was born in 1807, and when little more than seventeen 
 was married to the late Lord Ellenborough (the Governor- 
 General of India) ; but the union was dissolved by Act of 
 Parliament in 1 830, ' on account of her elopement with Prince 
 Schwartzenberg.' She took as her second husband, two years 
 later, Charles Theodore Herbert, Baron Vennigen, of Bavaria. 
 
 It is probable that this alliance lasted but a short time, at 
 least if any credence may be attached to a correspondent of 
 the Vienna German Gazette, who writes thus from Beyrout in 
 1872-3 : 'I met to-day an old acquaintance, the camel-driver 
 Sheikh Abdul, and he told me that his wife had died. Her 
 name was once known all through the East. Sheikh Abdul is 
 the ninth husband of Lady Ellenborough, whom I met for the 
 first time about thirty years ago at Munich, just after she had 
 eloped with Prince Schwartzenberg from the residence of her 
 first husband. She then went to Italy, whei'e, as f-he told me 
 herself, she was married six times in succession. Each and 
 all of these unions were dissolved after a short dui'ation. In 
 1848 I met her at Athens, where she concluded an eighth 
 marriage with the Greek colonel, Count Theodoki ; tliis, how 
 ever, also lasted only for a short time. Her ati'ections Avere 
 now bestowed on an old Palicar chieftain, for whom she built 
 a beautiful house at Athens. When her latest marriage was 
 again dissolved she went to the Levant.' 
 
 It would seem as if the old satirist Juvenal must have had 
 Lady Ellenborough in the ' prophetic eye ' of his mind when 
 he wrote of a Roman lady some eighteen hundi'ed years ago — 
 
 Thus in autumns five 
 Eight husbands doth she wed— a worthy thing 
 To note upon her tomb ! 
 
 The paragraph from the Gerinan Gazette above quoted 
 having gone the round of the daily papers, both abroad and 
 at home, gave occasion for a variety of obituary notices of the 
 ex-Lady Ellenborough, dwelling in not very complimentary
 
 THE ECCENTRIC LADY ELLENBOROUGH 265 
 
 terms upon certain parts of her singular career of adventure. 
 It subsequently appeared that the news of her death was quite 
 premature, and that the report had been originally put into 
 circulation by one of her ladyship's and her second husband's 
 bitterest enemies in the neighbourhood of Damascus, which 
 she had made for some years her headquarters, opening her 
 Eastern home to all sorts of visitors from the West, as well as 
 her oriental friends. The rumour of her death was effectually 
 contradicted a few months later by a letter in her own hand- 
 writing addressed to an English lady, who was well acquainted 
 with her in Damascus. This lady and her husband had 
 mourned old Lady Ellenborough for two or three months as 
 having died in the Desert, and had quite given up all hope of 
 ever seeing her again, when one day they received from her a 
 letter stating that she was alive and in the best of health, and 
 asking them to contradict the rumour of her decease. 
 
 Lady Ellenborough was fortunate in the possession of at 
 least one sincere friend, generously eager to defend her when 
 attacked, and to make out the best case possible for her. 
 I refer to Isabel, Lady Burton, who had been intimately 
 acquainted and in the habit of daily intercourse with this ex- 
 traordinary woman during a residence of two years in Damas- 
 cus, while her husband. Sir Richard Burton, the traveller and 
 exjDlorer, then English consul at that city, appears to have con- 
 tracted a warm attachment for her, and speaks of her, in spite 
 of all her faults, in terms of the highest praise. To the 
 former. Lady Ellenborough confided the task of writing her 
 biography, while she dictated it to her day by day. In a 
 letter to the Pall Mall Gazette, written in March 1873, when 
 under the belief that Lady Ellenborough was dead. Lady 
 Burton says in allusion to this biography : ' She did not spare 
 herself, dictating the bad with the same frankness as the good. 
 I was pledged not to publish this until after her death and 
 that of certain near relatives.' 
 
 Lady Burton subsequently adds : ' I cannot meddle with 
 the past without infringing on the biography confided to me ;
 
 266 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 but I can say a few words concerning her life, dating from her 
 arrival in the East, as told me by herself and by those now 
 living there ; and I can add my testimony as to what I saw, 
 which I believe will interest every one in England, from the 
 liighest downwards, and be a gratification to those more nearly 
 concerned. About sixteen years ago, tired of Europe, Lady 
 Ellenborough conceived the idea of visiting the East, and of 
 imitating Lady Hester Stanhope and Lady Mary Wortley 
 Montagu, not to mention a French lady, Madame de la Tour 
 d'Auvei'gne, who has built herself a temple on the top of 
 Mount Olivet, and lives there still. Lady Ellenborough 
 arrived at Beyrout and went to Damascus, where she arranged 
 to go to Bagdad across the Desert. A Bedouin escort for 
 this journey was necessary ; and as the Mezrab tribe occupied 
 the ground, the duty of commanding the escort devolved upon 
 Shaykh Mijwal, a younger brother of Shaykh Mohammad, 
 chief of this tribe, which is a branch of the Great Anazeh tribe. 
 On the journey the young Shaykh fell in love with this beau- 
 tiful woman, who possessed all the qualities that could lire the 
 Arab imagination. Even two years ago she was more attrac- 
 tive than half the young girls of our time. It ended by his 
 proposing to divorce his Moslem wives and to marry her ; to 
 pass half the year for her pleasure in Damascus — which to him 
 was like London or Paris would be to us — and half in the 
 Desert in order still to lead his natural life. The romantic 
 picture of becoming queen of the Desert and of the wild 
 Bedouin tribes exactly suited the lady's wild fancies, and was 
 at once accepted ; and she was married, in spite of all opposi- 
 tion made by her friends, at the British Consulate. She was 
 married according to Mohammedan law, changed her name to 
 that of the Honourable Mrs. Digby El Mezrab, and was horri- 
 fied when she found she had lost her nationality by her mar- 
 riage and had become a Turkish subject. For fifteen years,' 
 adds Lady Bui'ton, 'she lived as she died,' the faithful and 
 
 ' This was written at the time when the report of Lady Ellen- 
 borough's death was generally believed to be true.
 
 THE ECCENTRIC LADY ELLENBO ROUGH 267 
 
 affectionate wife of the Shaykh, to whom she was devotedly 
 attached.' Half the year was passed by the couple iu a very 
 pretty house which she built at Damascus just without the 
 gates of tlie city, and the other six months were spent accord 
 ing to liis nature in the Desert in the Bedouin tents of the 
 tribe. 
 
 * In spite of this hard life, necessitated by accommodating 
 herself to his habits — for they were never apart — she never 
 lost anything of the English lady nor the softness of a woman. 
 She was always the perfect lady in sentiment, voice, manners, 
 and speech. She never said or did anything you could wish 
 otlierwise. She kept all her husband's respect, and was the 
 mother and the queen of his tril»e. In Damascus we were only 
 nineteen Europeans, but we all flocked around her with affec- 
 tion and friendship. The natives did the same. As to 
 strangers, she received only those wlio brought a letter of in- 
 troduction from a friend or relative ; but this did not hinder 
 every ill-conditioned passer-by from boasting of his intimacy 
 with the House of Mezrab and recounting the untruths which 
 he invented, imur se /aire raloir, or to sell his book or news- 
 paper at a better profit. She understood friendship in its best 
 and fullest sense ; and for those who enjoyed her confidence it 
 was a treat to pass an evening with her. She spoke French, 
 Italian, German, Slav, Spanish, Arabic, Turkish, and Greek, 
 just as she spoke her native tongue. She had all the tastes of 
 a country life, and occupied herself alternately with painting, 
 sculpture, music, or with her garden flowers, or poultry, or 
 with her thoroughbred Arab mares, or in carrying out some 
 improvement. She was tlioroughly a connoisseur in each of her 
 amusements or occupations. To the last she was fresh and 
 young ; beautiful, brave, refined, and delicate. She hated all 
 that was false. Her heart was noble ; she was charitable to 
 the poor. She regularly attended the Protestant church, and 
 often twice on Sundays. She fulfilled all the duties of a good 
 Christian lady and an English woman. She is dead. All 
 those who knew her iu her latter days will weep for her. She
 
 268 TALES UF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 had but one fault (and who knows if it was hers ?), washed out 
 by fifteen years of goodness and repentance. Let us hide it, 
 and shame those who seek to drag up the adventures of her 
 wild youth to tarnish so good a memory. Requiescat in jJCbce.' 
 
 But Lady Ellenborough was 7iot dead, and, like Lord 
 Brougham, she was able to read her own obituary notice in 
 the English papers. 
 
 It is evident, from the tenor of the last few sentences of 
 the foregoing letter, that the ' one fault ' to which the writer 
 alludes was the elopement of Lady Ellenborough with Prince 
 Schwartzenberg, and that Lady Bu.rton entirely disbelieved in 
 the half-dozen or more apocryphal husbands intervening be- 
 tween Lord Ellenborough and the Arab sheikh. At any rate 
 the eccentric lady is entitled to the benefit of the doubt ; and 
 the public curiosity respecting this extraordinary woman must 
 remain unsatisfied until the period shall arrive when her fi-iend 
 and confidante, Lady Burton, will feel herself at liberty to 
 publish the autobiography committed to her charge. Lady 
 Ellenborough lived on to September 1881. 
 
 It would be possible, without difiiculty, to draw at once a 
 parallel and a contrast between the eccentric Lady Ellen- 
 borough and the scarcely less eccentric niece of the younger 
 Pitt, Lady Hester Stanhope, whom I liave named above, and 
 wlio, more than half a century ago, exchanged English life, 
 habits, and sentiments, and possibly also, to some extent, her 
 faith as well, for those of the wild and romantic East. But 
 this I must leave for another opportunity. 
 
 THE BARINGS 
 
 Tjie Peerage of Great Britain has generally represented the 
 landed as distinct from the commercial gentry ; and, indeed, 
 even at the present day, when money has in itself a far greater 
 power than half a century ago, the names of those who have 
 been raised to the Peerage from the i-anks of commerce will be
 
 THE BARINGS 269 
 
 found to be under a dozen ; tliose that occur to me beiuf 
 Smith, Lord Carington ; Thellusson, Lord Rendlesham ; 
 Vanneck, Lord Huntingfield ; Grlyn, Lord Wolverton ; 
 Jones-Loyd, Lord Overstone ; Lord Rothschild ; and last, not 
 least, the Barings, Lords Ashburton, Northbrook, and Revel - 
 stoke. 
 
 Mr. Robert Smith, who had been for some years one of tlie 
 representatives in Parliament of his native town — Nottingham 
 — and was always found on the Ministerial side of the House, 
 was raised by Pitt, in 1796, to the Irish peerage by the title 
 of Lord Cai'ington. In the course of the following year he 
 was raised to the dignity of a peer of Great Britain by the 
 same title. This step was not accomplished, however, by Pitt, 
 as is remarked by Sir N. Wraxall, in his ' Memoirs,' without 
 ' his experiencing a long resistance on the part of the king. 
 Throughout his whole reign, George the Third,' he tells us, 
 ' adopted as a fixed principle that no individual engaged 
 in trade, however ample might be his nominal fortune, should 
 be created a British peer. Nor do I believe,' he adds, ' that 
 in the course of fifty years he infringed or violated this rule, 
 except in the single instance before us.' Up to the time of the 
 Union of Ireland in 1800, an Irish peerage was looked upon 
 in the case of one who was not possessed of landed property in 
 that country as little more than an empty honour, ' producing, 
 indeed, rank and consideration in society, but conferring no 
 personal privilege ; neither securing his person from arrest in 
 Great Britain, nor even enabling the individual to frank a 
 letter,' It was said by many at the time that Lord Carington 
 owed his elevation to his wealth and the assistance which he 
 offered to Pitt in his difficulties ; but whether this be true or 
 no, it is a fact that tlie precedent of raising to the LTpper 
 House individuals who are or have been engaged in business 
 has not been largely followed in the present century. 
 
 The Barings, however, form a marked exception to this 
 rule ; and, perhaps, no more striking instance of the rapid 
 elevation of a family could well be brought forward than that
 
 2 70 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 of the House of Baring, a family which, within less than a 
 century and a half, has established a great reputation in the 
 field of commerce, and has given several members to the two 
 Houses of Parliament. 
 
 As in the case of their great rivals in later years, the 
 Rothschilds, the home of the Barings was originally in 
 Germany. The first member of the family of whom we 
 know anything was one Henry Francis Baring, a Lutheran 
 pastor at Bremen, who, late in life, came over to England. 
 His son John managed, by close application to the business 
 which he undertook — that of a cloth manufacturer at Lark- 
 beer, in the suburbs of Exeter — to raise a considerable for- 
 tune, which he left among his four sons. Two of these, John 
 and Francis, came up to London and established a business as 
 importers of wool and dye stuffs, while at the same time they 
 were agents to the Devonshire cloth factory. This business 
 was given up on the retirement to Exeter of the elder brother 
 John, and Francis began to establish the fortune of the house 
 by banking. His speculations Avere chiefly in Government 
 loans, and he ingratiated himself with the then Premier, Lord 
 Shelburne, by whom he was called the 'prince of merchants.' 
 The dignity of a baronet was given to him in 1793, by William 
 Pitt, who had succeeded Lord Shelburne as head of the Gov- 
 ernment. Sir Francis Baring, who married in 1766 a Miss 
 Herring (cousin and co-heir of an Archbishop of Canterbury 
 of that name), left by her five sons, the three eldest of whom 
 wei'e for a time partners in the great banking-house. Sir 
 Thomas, not liking the notion of one bearing a title being 
 intimately concerned with business, withdrew from the firm 
 soon after the death of his father ; and the younger of the 
 three, Henry, spent so much of his time and fortune in 
 gambling at the Palais-Royal in Paris, and elsewhere on the 
 Continent, where he excited the admiration of all who beheld 
 his stores of wealth displayed on the tables, that he was 
 persuaded to retire from the partnership, and thus the fcjrtunes 
 of the house lieonme centred in the hands of the second son,
 
 THE BARINGS 271 
 
 Alexander. He had been brought up in tJie house of Messrs. 
 Hope, of Amsterdam, who returned to England when Holland 
 was occupied by the French armies. Alexander then went to 
 the United States of America, and there married the eldest 
 daughter of a Mr. William Bingham, considered at that time 
 to be the richest man in that country ; she brought him a 
 fortune of a million or so, which he took back with him to 
 London and invested in the family concern in Bishopsgate 
 Street. 
 
 The immense scale on which Mr. Alexander Baring carried 
 on the lousiness of the house gained for him in common talk 
 the name of ' Alexander the Great.' To France, at the time 
 of her occupation by Russian, Prussian, and Austrian armies, 
 he granted a loan of about 1,000,000^. at 5 per cent., by which 
 that country freed herself from this terrible weight. The Due 
 de Richelieu said, in reference to this gi-eat enterprise, that 
 there were 'six gi-eat powers in Europe : England, France, 
 Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Baring Brothers.' This Alex- 
 ander held office for a few months as President of the Board 
 of Trade and Master of the Mint, and was raised to the 
 peerage as Baron Ashburton in April 1835. He died at 
 Longleat in 1848, and was succeeded in the title by his eldest 
 son, William Bingham, who died a few years ago, when the 
 second son Francis took the nominal direction of the business. 
 In this capacity he engaged in some transactions which caused 
 considerable astonishment, one of which was the purchase of 
 the land surrounding the Lake Tezcuco, on the island of which 
 stands the city of Mexico — a purchase which was not long kept 
 in the hands of the firm. Had it been otherwise, it would ha%'e 
 been within the range of probabilities that, when a sovereign 
 was some years since chosen for the throne of Mexico, a 
 Baring might have been chosen to sit upon it, instead of the 
 unfortunate Maximilian of Austria. 
 
 Mr. Francis Baring married Clare Hortense, a daughter 
 of the Due de Bassano, First Secretary of State under 
 Napoleon the Great, and he purchased one of the hotels on
 
 272 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 the Place Vendome, Paris, for a large sum, and there took up 
 his residence. On the death of his elder bi'other he succeeded 
 to the family honours as Lord Ashburton, and retired from 
 his connection with the great London house. He died about 
 1868, and was succeeded by his eldest son, whose son is the 
 present lord. 
 
 The great banking house of the Barings was represented 
 till very recently by the late Mr. Thomas Baring, who sat 
 for Huntingdon in Parliament for nearly thirty years before 
 his death in November 1873, and who more than once had 
 offered to his acceptance the Chancellorship of the Exchequer 
 under Conservative administrations. He was the next brother 
 of the first Lord Northbrook, better known as Sir Francis 
 Thornhill Baring, the third bai^onet, sometime Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, and afterwards First Lord of the Admiralty, 
 under Lord Melbourne's Administration. The second and 
 present Lord Northbrook is, as our readers need not be re- 
 minded, ex-Governor-General of India, where he won a high 
 reputation as the successor of the lamented Lord Mayo, and 
 was raised to an earldom on his return to England, his eldest 
 son becoming Viscount Baring. Another member of the 
 family. Dr. Charles Baring, brother of tlie late Lord North- 
 brook, held a seat in the House of Lords as a Spiritual Peer, 
 while he was Bishop of Durham. Another member is Edward, 
 Lord Revelstoke. 
 
 The title of Baron Ashburton, of Ashburton, it may be 
 added, was first conferred towards the end of the last century 
 on John Dunning, a well-known lawyer of his day, who was 
 married to Elizabeth, daughter of the Lutheran minister 
 already mentioned as having come over to England and being 
 father of the founder of the fortunes of the House of Baring. 
 His only son, the second lord, died without issue in 1823, and 
 the title was extinct, till revived in 1835, in the person of his 
 maternal grandson, the above-mentioned Alexander Baring.
 
 SIR F. DASHWOOD AND THE FRANCISCANS 273 
 
 SIB F. DASHWOOD AND THE FRANCISCANS 
 
 I DO not know a pleasanter place on the banks of our noble 
 Thames than the ruins of Mednienham Abbey, as they rise 
 out of the green meadows on the Buckinghamshire side, hard 
 by the silvery river, about half-way between Henley and 
 Marlow. There they stand, far from the haunts of men and 
 the busy hum of cities, breathing in their decay only of peace 
 and its pursuits, and silently witnessing to the times of ' the 
 old religion,' when the Angelus bell roused the villagers around 
 three times a day to meditate on the central doctrine of the 
 Christian faith, and when Matins, Lauds, and Vespers formed 
 only part of a long round of sacred exercises which kept men's 
 minds and memories fixed on the things of the world unseen, 
 and weaned them from the pomps and vanities, the shadows 
 and the unrealities of the present life. 
 
 The peaceful air of the country which surrounds Medmen- 
 ham from Fawley to Bisham and Danesfiekl, and the delightful 
 views of English riverside scenery, added to the i-eligio loci 
 by which they are haunted, make the ruins of Medmenham 
 a favourite spot for picnics and other parties ; while the 
 stream of the Thames, which here runs clear and deep alter- 
 nately, offers the very best of sport to the disciples of ' honest ' 
 Isaak Walton. 
 
 I will not here weary my readers with a long antiquarian 
 treatise on the foundation and early history of the Abbey of 
 Medmenham. Sufficient to say that, if we may believe Dug- 
 dale, its founder was Hugh de Bolebec, evidently a Norman 
 noble, who had previously endowed the abbey of Woburn, in 
 Bedfordshire, and that as a religious house it dates from the 
 beginning of the thirteenth century ; Medmenham Abbey was 
 in fact an offshoot of the Cistercian monastery at Woburn. 
 The abbot was ' Epistolar ' of the Order of the Garter at 
 Windsor, his office being to read the Epistle of the High Mass 
 on the Feast of St. George. Through the poverty of the in- 
 habitants, the abbey had fallen into a state of decay at a very 
 
 T
 
 274 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 early period, and from a return made by the commissioners at 
 the Dissolution the place appears to have been of very little 
 importance, having only two monks, 'the house wholly in 
 ruins, and the value of the moveable goods only \l. 3&'. 8c?.' 
 Its income was only a little over 20/. a year. At the Refor- 
 mation it need hardly be said that the Abbey of Medmenham 
 shared the fate of other houses both lesser and greater than 
 itself. Its monks were reduced to a single brother, and the 
 house was annexed to the Abbey of Bisham. The site subse- 
 quently passed by sale into the hands of different owners, and 
 is now the property of Mr. Scott Murray, of Danesfield. Mr. 
 Langley, in his history of the ' Hundred of Desborough,' thus 
 describes the appearance of the building, which has been 
 artiticially turned into a most attractive ' ruin ' : ' The abbey 
 house, with its ivy-mantled roof and walls, forms a very pic- 
 turesque object. The late addition of a ruined tower, cloister, 
 and other corresponding parts, is made with so much taste and 
 propriety that when time shall have worn off all traces of the 
 rule and blunted its sharp edges, when the ivy shall have con- 
 tinued its embraces and the mosses of various hues overspread 
 its surface, some future writer will be disposed to class it with 
 the more ancient pile. Within the cloister a room has been 
 fitted up with the same good taste, and the glare of light is 
 judiciously excluded by the pleasing gloom of ancient stained 
 glass, chiefly coronets, roses, and portcullises. The figure of 
 the Virgin (the abbey seal) seated on a throne, and holding 
 the infant Saviour in her arms, carved in marble, still remains, 
 and is placed in a niche in the tower.' 
 
 But it was reserved for tlie middle of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury—for the days 'when George the Third was king' — for 
 Medmenham Abbey to receive its coup de grace in the way 
 of desecration ; and the name of John Wilkes, the honest 
 and plain-spoken politician, stands out in disgusting promi- 
 nence along with that of a scion of the aristocracy of the 
 time, for a piece of reckless and indecent blasphemy which 
 could scarcely be beaten by the vile scum of Paris in the first
 
 SIJi F. DASHWOOD AND THE FRANCISCANS 275 
 
 Revolution. That such things should have been done by 
 Frenchmen in the reaction from a hollow, courtly, and corrupt 
 religionism to an equally absurd extreme in the opposite direc- 
 tion, is easily to be conceived ; and we as Englishmen are not 
 afraid or ashamed to see and acknowledge our neighbours' 
 faults and failings ; but that atheism of a like kind was prac- 
 tised openly and avowedly in the middle of the eighteenth 
 century in England, by retined and educated Englishmen, 
 without a blush upon their foreheads, is probably new to many 
 of my readers, and will at first be met by them with a smile 
 of disbelief. For the sake of my countrymen, and especially 
 those of the 'upper ten thousand,' I heartily wish that it 
 could be proved that what I am about to tell is a fable of my 
 own invention. I fear, however, that, in case of any question 
 being raised, the grey old walls of Medmenham Abbey would 
 tell out the tale in words unmistakably plain. 
 
 Sir Francis Dash wood, Bart., of West Wycombe, in the 
 county of Buckingham, was the eldest son of one Francis 
 Dashwood, who, having represented Winchilsea in four suc- 
 cessive Parliaments, and having married four wives in suc- 
 cession—two of them the daughters of earls — was rewarded 
 for his eight public services by a baronetcy. His family were 
 respectable, but nothing more ; an elder branch owned broad 
 acres and a house on the borders of Dorset and Somerset ; and 
 his brother had been Lord Mayor of London, of which city 
 his father was an alderman and Turkey merchant, accordin"- 
 to Sir Bernard Burke. But the baronet was fortunate in one 
 of his marriages, as his wife, the Lady Mary Fane, eldest 
 daughter of Vere, fourth Earl of W^estmorland, by the death 
 of her brothers inherited a barony in fee — that of Le De- 
 spencer. In 1762 Lady Mary Dashwood died, and her son 
 became in his father's lifetime Lord Le Despencer. It is 
 about this nobleman and his friends and boon companions that 
 I am about to speak. 
 
 Born in 1708, and early initiated into public and par- 
 liamentary life under the roign of the first and second Georges 
 
 T _'
 
 276 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 we find Mr. Francis Dashwood, in his father's lifetime, member 
 for Weymouth, Head of the War Ofiice, and subsequently 
 Treasurer of the Chambers and Master of the AVardrobe to 
 the King, and eventually Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 
 1763 he made good his right to his mother's barony, and was 
 summoned accordingly to the House of Lords ; and after his 
 accession to the peerage he acted for some years as joint Post- 
 master-General. That this gentleman found time to intersperse 
 his public duties with amusements of a nature scarcely com- 
 patible with any real attachment to that religion with which 
 the English Constitution is so closely allied, will be evident to 
 anyone who reads what I tell of him on the authority of one 
 of his own acquaintances, Horace Walj)ole. That inimitable 
 gossip — who, however, can be well relied on for contemporary 
 history, or at all events for contemporary biography — speaking 
 of one of George Selwyn's excesses when a youth at Oxford, 
 for which he was sent away from Christ Church, thus explains 
 the reason of his expulsion : ' It appears that Selwyn had 
 obtained possession of a silver chalice used for the Communion 
 Service, and that while at a tavern, surrounded by a jovial 
 party of friends, he once tilled it with wine and handed it 
 round, exclaiming with mock gravity, "Drink this in remem- 
 brance of me." Some of his companions had the good sense 
 and sufficient self-respect to leave the room while this irreverent 
 orgie was proceeding. But it soon got talked about all over 
 Oxford, and at last reached the ears of the authorities, wln) 
 lost no time in inflicting upon the offender the greatest 
 disgrace which was in their power, to mark their sense of the 
 insult which he had cast upon the University and its faith.' 
 
 But, though this irreverent jest, once performed, and 
 possibly without premeditation, by a youth at Oxfoi'd, was 
 visited on George Selwyn with exj)ulsion and the loss of all 
 University prospects, it does not appear that one of Lord 
 Bute's Ministers at all lost caste among his fellows by repeat- 
 in"- the same act coolly and deliberately, wantonly and 
 li;il)ilu;ill\-. What avps an offence to be punished by expulsion
 
 5//? F. DASH WOOD AND THE FRANCISCANS 277 
 
 on the banks of the Isis, was a fit, lawful, and proper act at 
 Medmenham, some sixty miles lower down the Thames. 
 
 ' There is every reason,' says the editor of Horace Walpole's 
 Memoii's, ' to believe that out of this single outrageous act of 
 George Selwyn arose the infamous fraternity of the Francis- 
 cans, which made Medmenham Abbey the scene of its orgies.' 
 This society was founded by the Sir Francis Dashwood whom 
 I have already introduced to my readers as a Minister of State 
 under George III., and a member of Lord Bute's Cabinet. It 
 appears that he made an association of twelve members, all 
 gentlemen of course and boon companions of his own, whom 
 he styled ' Franciscans ' after himself as their founder and 
 high priest. The ruins of Medmenham Abbey were part of 
 his property; and ' why should not a man do as he likes with 
 his own 1 ' And what was there, I may also ask, to forbid a 
 Minister of State to forget his public character, and in private 
 to emulate the Regent Duke of Orleans across the water with 
 his Pare aux Cerfs ? Nothing in the world — not even public 
 opinion ; for there were no daily papers, or next to none, to 
 note such deeds, and to hold up the doers of them to public 
 execration. But to return to my subject. 
 
 John Wilkes was a member of this unholy fraternity ; so, 
 no doubt, was the Duke of Queensberry, better known as ' Old 
 Q.' ; so also was the too celebrated Paul Whitehead ; and so 
 probably was George Selwyn himself, in his earlier days. A 
 list of the rest of the members is not to be obtained, as the 
 Barony of Le Despencer has since passed into three other 
 families by descent and marriage, and together with it the fair 
 green meadows of Medmenham have also changed owners. 
 And further, few persons now living, I think, would like to 
 put in on their grandfathers' behalf a claim to membership. 
 It is all very well to be able to say, ' My grandfather, or my 
 great-grandfather was a " K.G.," or even a humble " M.P. ;" ' 
 but the initials ' M.F.O. ' or ' M.O.F.' a century ago could have 
 conveyed little credit or honour to those who chose to add 
 them to their names.
 
 278 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 John Wilkes, however, shall describe the ' Franciscans ' in 
 his own words. I quote from a letter still extant, addressed 
 by him to Lord Temple (afterwards Marquis of Buckingham), 
 from Bagshot, in September 1762. Speaking of Medmenham 
 Abbey he says : ' Rites were celebrated there of a nature 
 subversive of all decency, and calculated, by an imitation of 
 the ceremonies and mysteries of the Roman Catholic Church, 
 to render not only that Church, but religion itself, an object 
 of contumely — to such an extent, I will own, that they cannot 
 be reflected on without astonishment. Sir Francis Dashwood 
 himself used to officiate as high priest, habited in the dress 
 of a Franciscan monk of the olden days, and engaged in 
 pouring a libation from a communion cup to the mysterious 
 object of the homage of himself and his associates.' 
 
 Here we have the very best authority for a story which at 
 first sounds almost incredible in connection with the fair, 
 peaceful meadows that smile among the trees, and show their 
 image in the glassy min^or of the Thames — a scene calculated 
 rather to inspire feelings of piety and reverence than to sug- 
 gest the idea of vile and unholy rites. It is said that it was 
 in the intervals between one week's end and the beginning of 
 the next that these orgies were held. Well may Sir Nathaniel 
 Wraxall pass over the subject in as few words as possible, and 
 sum up his opinion on the matter briefly l)y saying, that ' the 
 Chancellor of Lord Bute's Exchequer in 1762 far exceeded in 
 licentiousness of conduct anything of the kind exhibited since 
 the days of Charles II.' The poet Churchill has described 
 Sir Francis Dashwood in his ' Franciscan ' character, in his 
 poem entitled ' Tlie Candidate.' 
 
 Some idea of these Bacchanalian orgies may be gathered 
 l)y a perusal of ' Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea '; a 
 work much admired at tlie time of its publication, when its 
 allusions were better understood than is now the case. 
 
 The antiquary, Browne Willis, speaks of some parts of the 
 old conventual building as still standing in his time, but only 
 a portion of a single column is now to ])e seen. A clump of
 
 S/R F. DASHWOOD AND THE FRANC/SCANS 279 
 
 willows marks the former extent of the ancient buildings, the 
 foundation walls being still discernible. The Abbey-house, as 
 it now stands, with its ' ivy-mantled ' walls, is a very good 
 imitation — but still only an imitation — of the antique ; and 
 its effect is heightened by the addition of a tower, cloisters, 
 and other erections in the Strawberry Hill style of Gothic art. 
 
 And what in the long run became of Sir Francis Dashwood, 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Premier Baron in the Peerage 
 of England ? He ' died and was buried, and slept with his 
 fathers.' He died issueless in the month of December 1781. 
 This is all I know. Strangely enough, not a line in the way 
 of obituai-y notice about his lordship is to be found in that 
 repositoiy of biographical and personal history, the Gentleman's 
 Magazine. He seems to have been clean forgotten, and to 
 have passed away out of remembrance before he died ; while 
 other statesmen and Cabinet Ministers are continually men- 
 tioned, not one in ten of my readers is aware that such a 
 personage as Sir Francis Dashwood ever lived. Such at least 
 would be the natural inference to be drawn from the ominous 
 and eloquent silence of old ' Sylvanus Urban.' His baronetcy 
 devolved on his next brother, who took the name of King, 
 while his peerage passed to two female relatives, between whose 
 descendants it fell into abeyance. This continued for seven 
 or eight years, when the death of one of the rival claimants 
 terminated that abeyance in favour of Sir Thomas Stapleton, 
 Bart., whose grandmother was a sister of the lady who had 
 carried the coronet of Le Despencer into the Dashwood family. 
 
 There is a portrait of Sir F. Dashwood as a Franciscan 
 monk among the pictures belonging to the Dilettanti Society, 
 at Willis's Rooms. It represents him, however, devoutly wor- 
 shipping, not a crucifix, but a veritable daughter of Eve. 
 
 It must be a matter of congratulation to the present 
 wearer of the coronet, now the widow of Viscount Falmouth? 
 to reflect that she has not in her veins one drop of the blood 
 which flowed in those of the 'High priest of the Franciscans,' 
 and that consequently whatever curse may have rested on
 
 28o TALES OF OUR GREAT FAVfTLIES 
 
 himself for his misdoings is not one which is more likely to 
 affect her ladyship than any one of the readers of these 
 pages. 
 
 THE SACKVILLES OF DBAYTON 
 
 In the parish of Lowick, not many miles from the town of 
 Thrapston, in Northamptonshire, in the middle of a well- 
 timbered pai'k and embowered in wood, stands the historic 
 mansion of Drayton, now the residence of Mr. Stopford- 
 Hackville. It has passed through the hands of several families 
 as owners in the last and present centuries ; and, as consider- 
 able interest attaches itself to the name of Sackville, so dear 
 to English readers, I will here tell one chapter out of its pa.st 
 history. 
 
 The manor and park of Drayton, accoi'ding to Baker's 
 ' History of Northamptonshire,' belonged, in the reign of 
 Henry VI., to a family named Green, and its owner served 
 twice as high sheriff of his native county. From the Greens 
 it passed into other hands, and thence to the Mordaunts, who 
 in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were Earls of 
 Peterborough. Lady Mary, the daughter and heiress of Henry 
 the second Earl, and eventually in her own right Baroness 
 Mordaunt, was one of the belles of the Court in tlie reigns of 
 the later Stuarts ; and so successful was she in her angling for 
 a husband that she contrived to hook and catch no less a 
 suitor than Henry, Duke of Norfolk, the head and chief of 
 ' all the Howards.' 
 
 Her marriage, however, did not turn out altogether a 
 happy one ; for, having been found by her husband to be 
 rather more intimate than she should have heen with a certain 
 knight. Sir John Germaine, of Westminster, the duke ob- 
 tained a divorce from her Grace, and, as they had no children, 
 Drayton reverted to the duchess as her own property. Sir 
 Nathaniel Wraxall, who towards the end of the last century 
 was a frequent visitor at Drayton, describes with gi'eat minute-
 
 THE SACKVILLES OF DRAYTON 281 
 
 ness the bedchamber of the fair but frail duchess, the room 
 which Sir John Germaine occupied when a guest, and the 
 ' closet ' with a high partition between the two apartments. 
 The rooms still stand pretty much as they did a century ago ; 
 but it is not my intention in these sketches to pry too closely 
 into the inner chambers of country houses, especially of those 
 where the walls and timbers, if endued with speech, could 
 tell strange tales. 
 
 Freed from her marriage tie with his Grace of Xorfolk, the 
 Lady Mary thought that the wisest course she could pursue 
 would be to marry the gentleman who had helped to bring 
 about that severance ; and accordingly, a few months after- 
 wards, the ex-duchess became Lady Mary Germaine, the 
 marriage ceremony being performed in a somewhat private 
 manner on account of recent scandal. 
 
 But who and what was Sir John Germaine ? In order to 
 answer this question I will frankly avow that it would be a 
 wholly vain and useless task to make a pilgrimage to the 
 neighbourhood of Doctors' Commons, and to search the pedi- 
 gi-ees and papers under the keeping of my good friend 
 ' Garter ' at the Heralds' College. The fact is that Sir John 
 Germaine's extraction, if not uncertain, was at all events 
 variously reported, and gave rise at the time to much 
 discussion. Every prude about the Court, and many a one in 
 the country too, expressed her wonder and surprise that so 
 line a woman as her Grace of Noi-folk should throw up so splen- 
 did a match for an adventurer who could scarcely tell his 
 father's name, though possibly he might know that of his 
 mother ! ' Why, to think of such a thing ! Who ever would or 
 could have dreamed it % ' exclaimed the world of female society, 
 for once united in its chorus of most disinterested outcries. 
 
 The chatty old chronicler to whom we have already re- 
 ferred, and who is generally set down as a fabler simply 
 because he told the truth too soon after it had happened, shall 
 be called on to explain the mystery. If we can trust his ver- 
 sion of the matter, Sir John Germaine's father ' bore arms as
 
 282 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 a private soldier in the Guards of William, Prince of Orange. 
 He happened to be possessed of a wife who was blessed with 
 great personal charms, and was even thought to have been 
 that Prince's mistress ; and accordingly her son was believed 
 to have ' stood in a very near degree of consanguinity to King 
 William III.' Other circumstances might be mentioned 
 which confirra this supposition. For instance, though the 
 Heralds' Visitations were not then quite obsolete, yet Sir 
 John Germaine inherited no paternal coat-of-arms, but 
 assumed and used on his seal a plain red cross, ' probably 
 meaning to imply thereby that his pretensions ascended 
 higher than his ostensible birth,' This supposition is strength- 
 ened by the fact that, on coming over to England with 
 William the Dutchman, in 1688, the new king was no sooner 
 seated on the throne than he signalled him out for special 
 honours, which he had in no way earned like the Bentincks, 
 the Keppels, the Nassaus, and the Schombergs. William 
 treated him with great personal affection, and looked after his 
 interests in more ways than one, procuring for him his election 
 as a Member of Parliament, and conferring on him not only the 
 honour of knighthood and a baronetcy (in the patent of which 
 he is described as ' of Westminster '), but a host of pecuniary 
 grants and other donations besides. The result was that he 
 was rich and ' a rising man ; ' and the ladies all acknowledged 
 that he was not less handsome in person than fond of ' the 
 sex.' 
 
 His handsome face and bearing no doubt recommended 
 him to the Lady Mary Mordaunt, who had no sooner doffed 
 her ducal coronet than she bestowed, as we have said, upon 
 the knight from beyond the seas her hand and heart, and with 
 them the fine estate of Drayton. 
 
 Sir John and Lady Mary Germaine lived together for 
 several years, but their marriage was not followed Ijy any 
 issue. On her ladyship's death, in ITOr), the eai-ldom of 
 Peterborough passed to a male cousin of her father, but her 
 own l)road Northamptonshire acres and mansion she devised
 
 THE SACKVTLLES OF DRAYTON 283 
 
 by will to her husband, free from all terms and conditions. Sir 
 John Germaine, though at first he was (of course) somewhat in- 
 consolable for her loss, gradually settled down into a serene and 
 contented frame of mind, and no doubt found little difficulty 
 in acquiescing in the arrangements of Pi'ovidence in his own 
 regard. 
 
 Though he had been duly naturalised, and by his long 
 residence in England had even become quite an Englishman 
 in speech and habits, yet we are told that he preserved to 
 the last some of the tastes and penclinnts of a native of the 
 Low Countries. Among other things he was a firm and 
 staunch friend of Sackville, Duke of Dorset, and still more so 
 of his duchess. The latter was a daughter of Marshal Colyear, 
 brother to the first Earl of Portmore, who had entered early 
 into the service of the Dutch sovereign. Perhaps, too, he was 
 fond of duchesses as such. At all events, he always called her 
 Grace of Doi'set his countrywoman, and visited frequently at 
 the house of her father and husband, and (what is more), so far 
 as we know, without compromising her good name. Accord- 
 ingly, as he found himself after the death of his lirst wife in 
 possession of a landed estate and childless, he grew desirous of 
 transmitting Drayton to some descendants or adopted heirs. 
 But first he thought that he would try the simpler and more 
 natural plan of a second matrimonial union, leaving it open 
 to himself to fall back upon the dernier froch of legal adop- 
 tion in default of success hereafter. Such being the case, he 
 resolved to look around him for a young and blooming wife, 
 who would be likely to give him the blessing of an heir. So, 
 with this object in view, while staying at the Bristol Hot 
 Wells he cast his eyes upon the fair Lady Betty Berkeley, a 
 daughter of the Earl of Berkeley — a lady whose birth, beauty, 
 and accomplishments made her every way worthy of his choice. 
 Being many years younger than himself, and at the same time 
 a woman of good sense and good abilities, she acquired great 
 influence over him. Added to this, she was herself intimate 
 with the Duchess of Dorset, so that the friendship between
 
 284 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 the two families became more strongly cemented than ever by 
 the new alliance. By his youthful second wife Sir John 
 Gei^maine had several children ; but, unfortunately, they all 
 died young ; and since, in his declining years, when tortured 
 with the gout. Lady Betty proved herself as kind and tender 
 a nurse as she had been a good wife and mother, he resolved 
 to make her his heir. 
 
 Accordingly, before his death, in 1718, he called her to his 
 bedside, and thus addressed her : ' Lady Betty, I have made 
 you a very indifferent husband, and particularly of late years, 
 when illness had made me a burden to myself ; but I shall not 
 be much longer a ti'ouble to you. I advise you never again 
 to marry an old man ; but I exhort you and wish you, when I 
 am gone, to marry again ; and, as a proof that I mean what I 
 say, I mean at all events to put it in your power to do so. 
 You have been a good and excellent wife to me, and I have 
 therefore by my will bequeathed to you this estate, which I 
 received from my first wife, and which, as she gave it freely to 
 me, so I as freely give to you. I hope you will marry, and 
 that you will have children to inherit it. But, if events should 
 happen otherwise, or if you marry, but have no surviving 
 child, then it would give me pleasure to think that Drayton 
 descended, after your decease, to a younger son of my old 
 friends the Duke and Duchess of Dorset.' 
 
 Lady Betty, being young when she was left a widow, sur- 
 vived her husband fifty years, and, as there happened just then 
 to be a dearth of soi-disant ' Dukes ' of Roussillon about town, 
 she never married a second time. She continued, however, 
 her friendship with the Dorsets ; and when she died, she willed 
 the estate of Drayton, not to any of her own relations, but to 
 the Duke's second son. Lord George Sackville, on condition 
 that he took the name of Germaine in lieu of his patronymic. 
 Her will is still extant, and it is not a little curious ; but a 
 strong confirmation of the story told above may be found in 
 the fact that when speaking of the name of Germaine she says 
 nothing about the arms of that family — two points which the
 
 THE SACKVILLES OF DRAYTON 285 
 
 Heralds' College scarcely ca er contemplate as separable, even 
 in thought. 
 
 Lord George Sackville, as my readers will remember, in 
 early life served in the army at Dettingen, Fontenoy, Minden, 
 and several other battles abroad, as well as subsequently in the 
 Scottish campaign of 1 745. He was a godson of King George I., 
 and for many years a Member of the House of Commons 
 and Secretary of State for Ireland, and also for America under 
 Lord North's Administration. It was he, too, who was sent by 
 the Duke of Cumberland in 1748 to negotiate the peace with 
 Marshal Saxe. He was severely blamed, and even censured 
 by a court-martial, for his conduct at Minden ; but he after- 
 wards rose, as I have said, to high ministerial employments at 
 home. 
 
 In 1782, on retiring from office, he was created (not, how- 
 ever, without remonstrance on the part of some noble lords) Vis- 
 count Sackville, and Baron of Bolebrooke, in Sussex — titles 
 which passed to his son and successor, but were subsequently 
 merged in the ducal title of Dorset, which that son inherited 
 in 1815 on the death of his cousin. These titles, however, all 
 became extinct at the last duke's death without issue in 1843. 
 It so happened, however, that his uncle, John, third Duke of 
 Dorset, the owner of princely Knole, and of Buckhurst in 
 Sussex, though he had no son, yet left two daughters, married 
 respectively to the Earl of Plymouth and Earl Delawarr. The 
 estate of Knole, and eventually the representation of the his- 
 toric house of Sackville, and of its honours — which had in- 
 cluded the Viscomty of Sackville and the Baronies of Bolehurst 
 and of Buckhurst — passed to the younger daughter, who in 
 1864 was created in her own right Baroness Buckhurst. This 
 title, at her death in 1870, devolved, under a special remainder, 
 on her second surviving son, Earl Delawarr, while a younger 
 son inherited ' princely ' Knole and was created Lord Sack- 
 ville. 
 
 The title of Buckhurst is one which all my readers will 
 identify with the name of Thomas Sackville, first Earl of
 
 286 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Dorset, Lorxl High Treasurer of England in the reign of 
 Elizabeth, who is known as the author of some poems which 
 have taken their place among English classics, and are read 
 with delight wherever the English tongue is spoken. 
 
 It only remains to add that the mansion of Drayton House 
 is described in the ' Beauties of England and Wales ' as an 
 antiquated and castellated structure, and that in an engraving 
 of the house by Buck (1722) it is said that the house was 
 formerly a castle ; but if so, it must have been very much 
 altered, though it still retains some of its castellated features 
 in its embattled walls and entrance gateway, and the two 
 square turrets at either end. It contains, inter alia, a line 
 collection of pictures and portraits by the most eminent 
 masters. In Lowick Church, uzider the east window of the 
 north isle, is an altar-tomb, on which is a recumbent female 
 figure, representing the Lady Mary Mordaunt, whose marriages 
 we have already recorded. On the north side, on a similar 
 tomb, lies the effigy of a knight in armour, with an inscription 
 stating that beneath it repose the remains of Sir John Ger- 
 maine, knight and baronet, who figures in the Extinct Baronet- 
 age as ' Sir John Germaine, of Westminster,' and who there 
 appears to have had neither father nor mother. At all events, 
 his pedigree is ' conspicuous by its absence ' from the work of 
 Sir Bernard Burke — an omission very significant, and a strong 
 confirmation of the supposition which I have already recorded 
 as to his real parentage. I have read, though I cannot now 
 tell where, a statement to the effect that Sir John Germaine 
 was so illiterate a person that he could scarcely sign his name ; 
 but I cainiot vouch for the truth of the assertion. 
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF SVTHEBLAND 
 
 In an early chapter of this volume,' while speaking of the 
 
 Grenvilles, I took occasion to remark that many of our ducal 
 
 houses are built up, so far as wealth is concerned, of a succes- 
 
 Sec ante, p. 217
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF SUTHERLAND 287 
 
 sion of heiresses. Of no family is my remark more true than 
 it is in the noble House of Gower, which, rising steadily but 
 slowly, at last, some sixty years ago, reached its zenith of ex- 
 altation, when its head won its strawberry leaves from Wil- 
 liam IV. The Gowers, however, have been among the ' noble 
 and gentle men' of England for many a long age. According to 
 the consent of all our best antiquaries, they can claim a Saxon 
 origin, and in all probability, like the Coplestones and two 
 other Devonshire families, can boast that their ancestors were 
 ' at home ' — seated, that is, on lands of their own ' when the 
 Conqueror came ; ' so that it mattered little to them, as they 
 walked across their broad acres at Sittenham, in Yorkshire, 
 noble though unentitled, and ' monarchs of all they surveyed,' 
 whether Harold or AVilliam was doomed to win the battle of 
 Hastings. 
 
 Be this, however, as it may, at all events towards the close 
 of the thirteenth century, in the reign of Henry III. or of 
 Edward I., we find Sir John Gower, a Yorkshire knight, under 
 orders to repair to Carlisle with horse and arms on the Feast 
 of St. John the Baptist, and to march northwards with the 
 king's army into Scotland; and it is probably his son, Law- 
 i-ence Gower, who obtained a pardon from Edward II. for 
 having had a hand in the murder of the royal favourite. Piers 
 Gaveston. His son, Sir Nicholas, took part in the council (jf 
 the realm held at Northampton under Edward the Black 
 Prince ; and his son again, Sir John Gower, standard-bearer 
 to Prince Edward, was taken prisoner at the battle of Tewkes- 
 bury and afterwards beheaded. In the next century or t\v(j 
 we find the heads of the family constantly honoured with 
 knighthood, and allying themselves with ladies of gentle 
 blood, such as the Constables, the Mauleverers, and the 
 Fairfaxes. 
 
 But the chief pride of this family, if any weight may be 
 attached to the statement of Leland and others, is the fact 
 that from it sprang one of the first of our English poets ; I 
 mean, of course, John Gower, who formed with Chaucer and
 
 288 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Lydgate the ' celebrated triumvirate ' of early poets in this 
 country, much as did Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch in Italy. 
 Gower is supposed to have been boi-n about the year 1325, but 
 the exact place of his birth is unknown. It is recorded of 
 him that he was certainly rich, and a Yorkshireman ; and it 
 is conjectured that he was a knight, and even a judge. As 
 well as being a man of letters, he was an accomplished jurist, 
 and he did not neglect the practice of the law even while he 
 attached himself ardently to literature. Gower enjoyed the 
 friendship of tlie great men of his country, and was honoured 
 with the recognition of royalty. Like Chaucer, he is stated 
 to have had his strong political predilections, attaching him- 
 self to the House of Lancaster under Thomas Woodstock, as 
 his friend did under John of Gaunt. 
 
 Passing on to the reign of Chaides I., we come to Sir 
 Thomas Gower, twice High Sheriff of Yorkshire, who suffered 
 severely in pocket and in purse for his faithful allegiance 
 to his king. His first wife, however, one of the Howards of 
 Naworth, brought him a fair accession of fortune ; and with 
 his second wife, Frances, second daughter and co-heiress of Sir 
 John Leveson, he obtained the estate of Lillieshall, in Shrop- 
 shire. His son Sir William, being adopted by his mother's 
 brother. Sir Richard Leveson, of Trentham, inherited those 
 magnificent estates in that county, which eventually gave, or 
 were thought to give, his descendants a fair claim to the 
 Marquisate of Stafford, and caused the addition of the name 
 and arms of Leveson to the surname and shield of the Gowers. 
 He, too, was tolerably successful in his matrimonial adven- 
 tures, as he obtained for a wife the Lady Jane Granville, eldest 
 daughter and ultimately heiress of the Granvilles, Earls of 
 Bath. 
 
 The mantle of good fortune which had been worn by his 
 predecessor descended on his son. Sir John Leveson- Gower, 
 who married the daughter of the first Duke of Rutland, and 
 was raised to the peerage as Lord Gower. His son, the second 
 Lord Gower, was tliree times married, and each marriage
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF SUTHERLAND 289 
 
 helped to fill higher and higher its cofiers, which were already 
 very fairly supplied. His first wife was a daughter of the 
 ducal House of Kingston ; his second a rich widow, for whom 
 and for whose cash the movith of many a nobleman might 
 have watered ; and his third spouse was the co-heiress of the 
 Earl of Thanet. 
 
 Thus enriched and powerfully connected, it was almost a 
 matter of course that in time he should have been advanced 
 to an earldom, an honour which he obtained from George II. 
 But the cup of prosperity for the Gowers was not yet full. 
 His son and successor, the second earl, having been left a 
 widower at a most fortunate juncture, chose as his second wife 
 the Lady Louisa Egerton — daughter, and eventually heiress, 
 of Scrope, first Duke of Bridgewater — a lady of royal descent, 
 who traced her pedigree in the female and, what is more, in 
 the legitimate, line from royalty ; namely, from Mary, Queen 
 Dowager of France, own sister of Henry VIII. She brought, 
 however, to the Leveson-Gowers something better than mere 
 royal blood ; for through her the greater portion of the 
 Lancashire property of the Dukes of Bridgewater passed to one 
 of her husband's grandsons, as will be seen joresently. Having 
 sat in the Lower House of Parliament as M.P. for West- 
 minster and Lichfield, and held several high offices of state in 
 the earlier Ministries of the reign of George III., and having 
 married for his third wife a daughter of the then all-powerful 
 House of Stewart, Earl of Galloway, Lord Gower was raised 
 in 1786 to the Marquisate of Stafford — the ancient barony of 
 Stafford, once vested in the Jerninghams, being then dormant, 
 and supposed not very likely to be claimed by or restored to 
 its Roman Catholic owners,' as the penal laws had not then 
 been repealed. 
 
 The first Marquis of Stafford died at the beginning of this 
 century, but not until he had seen his younger son on the 
 high road to a coronet, and his eldest son married to probably 
 the greatest heiress in land and money, and the owner of the 
 
 ' See ante, p. 229. 
 
 U
 
 igo 
 
 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 most illustrious title in the peerage of Scotland — I mean the 
 earldom of Sutherland, of which Sir Bernard Burke tells us 
 that, ' according to the traditionary details of some of the 
 Scottish writers, it is the most ancient in North Britain ; ' 
 while Douglas says that ' it gives way to few, if to any, in 
 Europe ' — words equivalent to those of Lord Hailes when he 
 speaks in round terms of the origin of the earldom of Mar as 
 ' lost in antiquity.' 
 
 The heiress of Sutherland, however, did not gain her 
 position without a fight, her claim to the coronet of her father 
 and grandfather being stoutly contested by two Scotch gentle- 
 men. Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstown, and George Suther- 
 land of Force. The question resolved itself into a great ' peer- 
 age case,' which formed a cause celehre a century ago ; and the 
 House of Lords adjudged the coronet of Sutherland to the 
 young lady, who a few years later added to the Stafibrdshire 
 and Shropshire estates her own magnificent inheritance in 
 Scotland, consisting of the best part of the two counties of 
 Sutherland and Caithness, once the property of the Lords of 
 
 Reay. 
 
 It might be thought that the tide of prosperity could flow 
 no longer, could rise no higher ; but such was not the case, for 
 in 1833, a few months before the death of the fortunate 
 marquis, he gained the much-coveted strawberry leaves, being 
 gazetted to the highest rank in the English peerage as Duke 
 of Sutherland, a county over which he and his wife, the late 
 duchess-countess, had long exercised the rights almost of petty 
 sovereigns. 
 
 The second duke, by his marriage with a lady of the House 
 of Howard, added rather to his political influence than to his 
 broad acres or his banking account ; but the third duke, 
 having married the heiress of the Hay-Mackenzies of New 
 Hall and Cromartie, N.B., annexed on to his northern prin- 
 cipality most of the lands which formerly belonged to the 
 Earls of Cromartie, whose title was renewed in favour of 
 the duchess, with remainder to her younger children.
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF SUTHERLAND 291 
 
 The noble House of Gower, therefore, is in this present 
 condition. Its heads and chiefs, in Httle more than a century 
 and a half, have won their way from plain gentlemen holding 
 lands in Yorkshire to a barony, an earldom, a marquisate, and 
 a dukedom They have absorbed into them a whole Scottish 
 earldom of venerable antiquity, and almost all the wealth of 
 the Duke of B^-idgewater, to say nothing of heiresses in every 
 generation ; and, even reckoning the Scotch earldom and the 
 English dukedom of Sutherland as only one title in reality, 
 members of the family now hold besides the earldoms of 
 Granville, Cromartie, and Ellesmere, the last-named title 
 having been conferred abovit a quarter of a century since on 
 the second duke's younger brother, Lord Francis Leveson- 
 Gower, better known by his subsequent name of Lord Francis 
 Egerton. In the same way, to go back to the previous 
 generation, the first duke's younger brother was created Lord 
 Granville. 
 
 In the entire range of the English, Scottish, and Irish 
 peerage, so far as my researches have extended at present, I 
 can find two, and only two, parallel to the good fortune which 
 — if coronets are signs of success — has attended the House of 
 Gower. The one instance is to be found in the House of 
 Boyle, Earl of Cork, whose ancestor, Richard, the second earl, 
 sat in the Irish House of Peers in virtue of his hereditary 
 title, and was also created Earl of Burlington, in England, while 
 his brother Lewis was raised to the dignity of Viscount Boyle, 
 his brother Roger to that of Earl of Orrery, and his brother 
 Francis to that of Viscount Shannon. The fifth and youngest 
 brother, Robert Boyle, was the celebrated philosopher ; en- 
 nobled sufficiently by his own transcendental abilities, he 
 repeatedly refused the peerage dignities which were offered to 
 him. Had he accepted these, there would have been five 
 brothers all in the enjoyment of the honours of the peerage at 
 one and the same time. The second instance is of more recent 
 date, and will readily occur to the minds of most of my 
 readers ; for from the year 1820 to 1840, or thereabouts, four
 
 292 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 brothers of the name of Wellesley held seats at the same time 
 in the Upper House of the Legislature — namely, Richard, 
 Marquis Wellesley ; Henry, Lord Cowley ; William, Lord 
 Maryborough ; and last, not least, Arthur, Duke of Welling- 
 ton. 
 
 It has been said over and over again by careless and super- 
 ficial writers that the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland have 
 not proved themselves benefactors to the cottars and poorer 
 tenantry upon their large northern estates, and that their 
 Graces are a standing example of the bad effects which follow 
 on the formation of such gigantic properties, and the accumula- 
 tion of wealth in the hands of a single individual. Before I 
 ask my reader to form a judgment on the question, I may well 
 be pardoned for craving his attention to a few facts and 
 figures, which I have ascertained to be trustworthy. It has 
 been often stated in the new^spajDers on both sides of the 
 Atlantic that the greatest cruelty has been practised by the 
 late and present Dukes of Sutherland, by 'evicting' their 
 tenantry in the North and turning their homes into sheep- 
 walks. Now the i^eal facts are these, to use the words of 
 Mrs. Beecher Stowe, in her ' Sunny Memories of Foreign 
 Lands ' : 
 
 ' Soon after the union of the crowns of England and Scot- 
 land, the border chiefs found it profitable to adopt upon their 
 estates that system of agriculture to which their hills were 
 adapted, rather than to continue the maintenance of military 
 retainers. Instead of keeping garrisons, with small armies, in 
 a district, they decided to keep only so many as could pi'O- 
 fitably cultivate the land. The effect of this, of course, was 
 like disbanding an army. It thi^ew many people out of employ, 
 and forced them to seek for a home elsewhere. Like many 
 other movements which, in their final results, are beneficial to 
 society, this was at first vehemently resisted, and had to be 
 carried into efiect in some cases by force. As I have said, it 
 began first in the southern counties of Scotland, soon after 
 the union of the English mikI Scottish crowns nnd L'Viidually
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF SUTHERLAND 293 
 
 crept northward— one county after another yielding to the 
 change. To a certain extent, as it progressed northward, the 
 demand for labour in the great towns absorbed the surplus 
 population ; but when it came into the extreme Highlands, 
 this refuge was wanting. Emigration to America now became 
 the resource ; and the surplus population were induced to this 
 by means such as the Colonisation Society now recommends 
 and approves for promoting emigration to Liberia.' 
 
 The first farm so formed on the Sutherland estates dates 
 from 1806. Further changes were made by the first duke in 
 1811-12, and completed in 1819-20. It was found necessary, 
 in the interests of the cottars themselves, to remove them in 
 large numbers from their inland homes, inaccessible and far 
 away from roads, where they were often in danger of starving, 
 down to the sea-coast, where they might support themselves 
 by the fishery. New lots of land were therefore leased to them 
 near the sea and the mouths of rivers, where they could main- 
 tain themselves by labour and industry. They had two years 
 given them to prepare for the change, without any payment 
 of rent being exacted. Timber, too, was given for building 
 their houses, and other facilities were afforded them. 
 
 The agent for the management of the Sutherland estates, 
 the late Mr. James Loch, M.P., in a speech in the House of 
 Commons on the Scotch Poor Law Bill in 1845, declared from 
 his own knowledge that while not one sixpence of rent ' was 
 received by the duke from the poor on his Sutherlandshire 
 estates from 1811 to 1833, on the contrary, there had been 
 spent among them for the benefit and improvement of the 
 people no less than sixty thousand pounds.' Formerly, he 
 said, so great was the danger of the poor dying of starvation, 
 that in the winter they were often forced to bleed their cattle 
 and mix the blood with their meal ; but since the establish- 
 ment of them on the coast, they had formed a town (Helms- 
 dale) which in 1811 did not exist, and that in 1844 they had 
 exported upwards of 37,000 barrels of herrings : the fishery 
 employing nearly 4,000 persons.
 
 294 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 In former times it appears that the estates wei'e in the 
 hands of ' middlemen,' who sublet them to the poor at advanced 
 rentals ; an end, however, had been put to this state of things, 
 and in many places the rents had been lowered thirty-six per 
 cent., while the duke had granted his tenants timber and 
 stone for their dwellings as a free gift. 
 
 The following is an extract from Mr. Loch's published 
 statement on this subject : 
 
 'Since 1811 the people have become immediate tenants, 
 at a greatly diminished rate of rent, and released from all 
 these exactions. For instance, in two parishes in 1812, the 
 rents were 1,593^., and in 1823 they were only 972/. In 
 another parish the reduction of rents has amounted on an 
 average to thirty-six per cent. Previous to 1811 the houses 
 were turf huts of the poorest • description, in many instances 
 the cattle being kept under the same roof with the family. 
 Since 1811 a large proportion of their houses has been re- 
 built in a superior manner — the landlord having paid them 
 for their old timber where it could not be moved, and having 
 also contributed the new timber, Avith lime. 
 
 ' Before 1811 all the rents of the estates were used for the 
 personal profit of the landlord ; but since that time, both by 
 the present duke and his father, all the rents have been ex- 
 pended on improvements in the county, besides 60,000/. more 
 which have been remitted from England for the purpose. 
 This money has been spent on churches, school-houses, har- 
 bours, public inns, roads, and bridges. 
 
 'In 1811 there was not a carriage-road in the county, 
 and only two bridges. Since that time 430 miles of road 
 have been constructed on the estate at the expense of the 
 proprietor and tenants. There is not a turnpike gate in the 
 county, and yet the roads are kept perfect. 
 
 'Before 1811 the mail was conveyed entirely by a foot 
 runner, and there was but one post-office in the county ; and 
 there was no direct post across the county, but letters to tlie 
 north and west were forwarded once a month. A mail-coach
 
 THE DUCAL HOUSE OF SUTHERLAND 295 
 
 has since been established, to which the late Duke of Suther- 
 land contributed more than 2,600/. ; and since 1834 mail-gigs 
 have been established to convey letters to the north and west 
 coast, towards which the Duke of Sutherland contributes 
 300Z. a year. There are sixteen post-offices and sub-offices in 
 the county. Before 1811 there was no inn in the county fit 
 for the reception of strangers. Since that time there have 
 been fourteen inns either built or enlarged by the duke.' 
 
 Sixty years since, too, there was not a gig in the county 
 and scarcely a cart on the estate ; no baker, and only two 
 shops besides two smithies ; no woodlands to supply firewood ; 
 hardly any exports ; no saving banks, no resident surgeon, 
 and no schools. So great, however, was the progress of the 
 district in civilisation, that in 1845 there were forty-one gigs, 
 eleven hundred and thirty-one carts, eight bakers' and forty- 
 six grocers' shops, many thousand acres of plantations for the 
 supply of fuel, while the exports amounted to 40,000 sheep 
 and 80,000 fleeces of wool, besides 50,000 barrels of herrings. 
 Savings banks, too, had been established in every large village, 
 twelve boys' and girls' schools had been built and endowed 
 with salaries for the teachers ; and there were five medical 
 gentlemen on the estate, three of whom received allowances 
 from the duke for their attendance on the poor in the districts 
 where they severally reside. 
 
 Added to this there is, and has been for years, under the 
 patronage of his Grace, a Farmers' Club, or other agricultural 
 association, of which the leading gentry and tenantry are 
 members ; and that they are not indolent and unintelligent 
 members may be guessed from the fact that not so very long 
 ago Professor Johnston, at their invitation, paid a visit to 
 Sutherland&hire in order to deliver a course of lectures on 
 Agriculture and Agricultural Chemistry. 
 
 The population of the Sutherland estates was estimated 
 by Mr. Loch, upwards of twenty years ago, at nearly 22,000. 
 I fancy that if poverty must ever be my lot, I should much 
 prefer to be a pauper on the estate of his Grace of Suther-
 
 296 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 land than to carry on the struggle for bare existence in a 
 garret in Soho, or Lambeth, or Clerkenwell. 
 
 A single anecdote of the late Duke of Sutherland will 
 fully justify me in my preference, and explain the meaning of 
 my last remark : 
 
 In 1827, when there was much suffering on account of bad 
 seasons, the Duke of Sutherland sent down his chief agent to 
 look into the condition of tlie people, who desired the minis- 
 ters of the parishes to send in their lists of the poor. To his 
 surprise it was found that there were located on the estate a 
 number of people who had settled there without leave. They 
 amounted to four hundred and eight families, or two thousand 
 persons ; and though they had no legal title to remain where 
 they were, no hesitation was shown in supplying them with 
 food in the same manner with those who were tenants, on the 
 sole condition that on the first opportunity they should take 
 cottages on the seashore and become industrious people. 
 
 COLONEL CHABTRES 
 
 If my readers will turn to the pages of Burke, or the first 
 ' Peerage ' which they may have at hand, they will find the 
 surname of ' Charteris ' given as the present patronymic of 
 the family of the Earl of Wemyss. 
 
 But my readers will not learn from the ' Peerage ' that the 
 name of ' Charteris ' is usually pronounced as ' Charters ' or 
 ' Chartres,' as indeed it was often written early in the last 
 century, when we had no penny post or cheap newspapers 
 and a popular press to produce and circulate them ; and per- 
 haps it is quite as well for the honour and reputation of the 
 Wemyss family that they should have changed for late years 
 the orthography of their name, if it be only in order to escape 
 the memory of the infamy which attached to one of their 
 ancestors a century and a half ago. 
 
 It is just possible that some of my readers may be among
 
 COLONEL CHARTRES . 297 
 
 the number of those who take a delight — as I will own that 
 I have done even from childhood — in Pope's noble ' Essay on 
 Man.' If so, they will have no difficulty in calling to the 
 memory a couplet in the Fourth Book, where the poet asks in 
 an impassioned tone, 
 
 < Shall some old temple nodding to its fall 
 For Chartres' head reserve the hanging wall ! ' 
 
 No doubt, too, they will have imagined that this ' Chartres,' 
 whoever he may have been, was some contemporary low fellow 
 of bad character, whose name was then a byword and a pro- 
 verb for roguery and A^llany, and has since passed out of re 
 membrance. Indeed, even Dr. Croly, in his annotated edition 
 of the works of Pope, passes the passage by with only two 
 brief lines by way of footnote, stating that he was ' an in- 
 famous profligate, who, after a long life of scandalous impu- 
 nity, was at length hanged by a denial of justice.' 
 
 Now I do not dispute the Rev. Doctor's assertion that 
 Chartres was ' an infamous profligate,' but I own that I am 
 fairly puzzled as to what he really meant by his concluding 
 words ; and as to his being hanged, the real fact is that, lite- 
 rally and truly, he was never hanged at all, and that it was 
 his escape from hanging, and not his execution, that arose 
 from a ' denial of justice.' In fact, as my readers will easily 
 see, he was screened by his high and noble relatives, aided 
 by royal favour, from the fate to which he was most justly 
 sentenced, and died quietly in his own bed. 
 
 Francis Chartres, or Charters, was a member of a respect- 
 able and worthy, not to say noble, Scottish house, whose 
 members had lived for generations— it is stated in one account 
 for no less than 400 years — on their own estate at Amisfield, 
 in East Lothian or Haddingtonshire. He was born about the 
 year 1668, in the licentious days of Charles II., from the 
 members of whose Court at an early age he had imbibed in- 
 structions in vicious ways, which he certainly carried out into 
 practice when he passed from youth into manhood and to
 
 298 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 middle age. His mother was the daughter of a titled house ; 
 and both paternally and maternally he was related to and 
 connected with a host of the nobility of the northern king- 
 dom. As a youth he was tall, elegant, and highly accom- 
 plished, and had received the best education that it was 
 possible to procure in the northern metropolis ; so that when 
 he came to the age of seventeen or eighteen, and made choice 
 of the army as a profession, he had no difficulty in obtaining 
 a commission as ensign in a foot regiment, with which he 
 sexwed under the great Duke of Marlborough in some of his 
 earlier campaigns on the Continent. Here he showed so much 
 promise that before long he was advanced to a cornetcy in a 
 regiment of dragoons, where he speedily became a general 
 favourite. At all events he ' played his cards ' remarkably 
 well, in one sense at the least ; for, being a man of pleasure, 
 a most expert gamester, and of a disposition which grew more 
 and more avaricious in proportion as he needed cash for his 
 pleasures, he made his knowledge of gambling subservient 
 to his love of money. Accordingly, while the army was in 
 winter quarters in the Low Countries, he stripped many of his 
 brother- officers of their property and 'expectations' by his 
 skill at cards and at dice. Ere long, however, his popularity 
 came to be on the wane, for he had no sooner fleeced a fellow - 
 officer of his gold than he would offer to lend him, to meet his 
 liabilities, another sum at the very moderate interest of a 
 hundred per cent., taking from him an assignment of his com- 
 mission as a security for the repayment of the debt. 
 
 It happened that about this time John, Duke of Argyll, 
 the Earl of Stair, and some few other younger members of 
 noble Scottish houses, were in the army also, and, like wise 
 and ' canny ' Scotchmen, resolved that they would not look on 
 tamely and see their brother-officei's, less ' canny ' than them- 
 selves, ruined by the artifices of Charters, although he too was 
 from 'the Land o' Cakes.' Accordingly, they applied to the 
 then Earl of Orkney, who was a general officer, and who hap- 
 pened to be quartered at Brussels, and represented to him the
 
 COLONEL CHARTRES 299 
 
 ruin which would result to the younger officei^s in the mess- 
 room if a stop were not put to his proceedings. Lord Orkney, 
 anxious for the credit of the army in general, and for that of 
 his own countrymen in particular, explained the state of the 
 case to his Grace of Marlborough, who issued his orders that 
 Charters should be put under arrest and brought in due 
 course to answer for his misdoings before a court-martial. In 
 fact, it was clear that the young laird from Haddingtonshire 
 had learned to ' play his cards ' even a little too well ! 
 
 The court, as I learn from a military source of informa- 
 tion, was composed of an equal number of Scottish and Eng- 
 lish officers, in order that Charters and his friends might have 
 no pretence for saying that he had been treated in any way 
 unfairly or partially. After a candid hearing of the case, tlie 
 court martial resolved that the proofs of his villany were con- 
 clusive, and such as could not be ignored or passed over. He 
 was found guilty of ' conduct unbecoming an officer and a 
 gentleman ' ; was sentenced to be deprived of his commission 
 and to be drummed out of his regiment, his sword having first 
 been broken ; and further, he was ordered to return to his 
 victims the money of which he had robbed them by extract- 
 ing usurious rates of interest. 
 
 Thus disgraced, he was forced of necessity to quit Brussels; 
 but he soon showed that he had by no means lost his wits 
 with his commission. The story is told, that on tlie road 
 between that city and Malines he threw his breeches into a 
 ditch, and then, buttoning his long cloak close around him, 
 went into an inn, where he took up his quarters for the night. 
 It is usual — or at all events it was usual at that time — for 
 military men to be treated with all possible respect in places 
 where the army may happen to be quartered. And this was 
 the case with Charters, the news of whose recent punishment 
 had not flown before him, as it would nowadays, on the wings 
 of the post and the Times. No sooner, accoi^dingly, had he 
 entered the house, than mine host and hostess treated him 
 with all honour, placing before him the best of such fare as they
 
 300 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 happened to have in the house. So, after ordering and despatch- 
 ing an elegant supper — not, it may be imagined, without plenty 
 of the best wine tliat the cellar could afford — he was shown up- 
 stairs by the servants, and left to take his repose. Early in the 
 morning, however, he alarmed the house by ringing his bell 
 violently. The landlord was frightened, and came rushing 
 to his room, his head wrapped up in a nightcap and his clothes 
 in disorder. Charters at once violently attacked him, swear- 
 ing furiously, and vowing that either he or some of his rascally 
 servants had found their way into his room and had robbed 
 him of his breeches, which contained in their pocket a diamond 
 ring, a gold watch, and money in notes and coin to a consider- 
 able amount ; and, a pane of the window having been found 
 conveniently broken, he intimated that the robber must have 
 entered the room by that way, and that probably the culprit 
 was the landlord himself. In vain did the landlord, and 
 the landlady too — who now came to the scene of action — 
 declare that they knew nothing of the matter, and that the 
 maids, the waiter, and the ostler had each and all been in 
 their respective beds all night ; Charters threatened the land- 
 lord, in tones that we may suppose to be those of an irri- 
 tated ' officer and gentleman,' that he should be sent off straight 
 to Brussels, and be brought to trial for felony, or, at all 
 events, as an accessory to a deed of felony. In vain did mine 
 host kneel down and implore, if not forgiveness, at all events 
 mercy ; Charters was inexorable. At length, frightened out 
 of his wits, and alarmed at the loss of custom and the dis- 
 grace which threatened to befall his house, which had hitherto 
 borne an irreproachable character for honesty and integrity, 
 he sent one of his servants to the friars of a convent hard by, 
 to whom he explained the crisis and fix in which he found 
 himself. The poor friars, good and simple souls that they 
 were, believed his story, and generously supplied the poor 
 man with a sum of money, sufficient to satisfy Captain Char- 
 ters — to reimburse him, at all events, for the loss wliich he 
 pretended to have sustained.
 
 COLONEL CHARTRES 301 
 
 Having thus ' fleeced ' the poor monks and an honest land- 
 lord by his threats and lies, this worthy and high-principled 
 youth went off pretty quickly from Mechlin, and found his 
 way to some port in Holland, where it was easy to secure a 
 passage back to Scotland. He did so, and as there were no 
 newspapers to spread abroad the news of his disgrace, he put 
 a bold front on the matter and returned to Hadding-tonshire, 
 giving out that he was once more at home, having obtained 
 leave of absence for his health, or on ' urgent private afiairs,' 
 or some other excuse equally valid. 
 
 Settled down as a respectable inhabitant at Amislield, 
 his native place, and attending the kirk regularly on the 
 ' Sabbath ' day, he soon found that he had not lost caste in 
 Haddingtonshire ; and society in Edinbui'gh was either con- 
 veniently forgetful or extremely tolerant of liis eri'ors and 
 indiscretions, because he was a young man of good family and 
 estate, with plenty of money and still better prospects, and 
 a widower to boot — a consideration which pleaded his cause 
 most eloquently with 1;he unmarried ladies of Edinburgh, both 
 maids and Avidows, some of whom he began to wheedle out 
 of their money, under the stale pretence of visiting them in 
 the capacity of a suitor. 
 
 His money, however, stood him in even better service than 
 this ; for, backed up by the good offices of some of his influ- 
 ential and titled friends, and a judicious distribution of bank 
 notes in certain quarters, he found himself one fine morning 
 z'estored to his rank in the army, with a fresh commission in 
 a horse regiment, in which before very long he was advanced 
 to the rank of colonel. At this time one of his 'Scotch 
 cousins,' the Duke of Queensberry, hajDpened to be acting as 
 Commissioner to the Scottish Parliament, which was then 
 sitting at Edinburgh, for the purpose of negotiating and 
 carrying into eiiect the measure known subsequently to his- 
 tory as the ' Union.' Here he turned to good account at once 
 his old abilities in the card-sharping line, and also his con- 
 nection with the ducal house — ^the entree to which, I may
 
 302 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 pi-esume, gave admission to most of the many grand houses 
 then inhabited by earls and mai'quises who lived in the streets 
 and courts of ' Auld Reekie.' Being invited one evening to 
 a card-party at the house of her Grace of Queensberry, he 
 contrived to place the duchess in front of a large glass, in 
 which he could see all the cards in her hand reflected. By 
 this clever stratagem he won, it is said, no less than three 
 thousand pounds, and at a single sitting. The great loss 
 which his duchess had sustained reached the ears of the 
 duke, who, however, I believe, lived on — happy man — and 
 died, unconscious of the vile means which the gallant 'colonel' 
 had adopted ; but he was so annoyed at the loss, that he 
 absolutely introduced into Parliament a Bill to prohibit gam- 
 ing above a certain sum, and I have heard, though I do not 
 know it for certain, that the Bill passed into law. I dare 
 say that, if such is the case, some of my readers will be able 
 to hunt it up in the Statute-book — a process for which I 
 have neither the time nor the inclination. 
 
 The colonel meantime continued his depredations on the 
 thoughtless, until he had acquii-ed sufficient money to add 
 largely to his estates in Scotland. He did not, however, 
 reside at Amisfield, but took up his head-quarters at Edin- 
 burgh, where he thought he would find plenty of widows, 
 equally rich and silly, to welcome him as a gay and rich man, 
 looking out for a well-endowed partner. What a pity that he 
 did not bring back with him from the Low Countries a high- 
 sounding title of foreign nobility ; for then possibly the sham 
 strawberry leaves of a ducal coronet might have dazzled the 
 eyes of some ambitious widow, and Roussillon himself have 
 been out-Roussilloned ! But, alas for his chances in the 
 northern metropolis, a young officer, happening to come over 
 at this juncture from Brussels, told the story of Charters's dis- 
 grace and fall in the old card-playing duchess's di-awing-room. 
 Her Grace saw quickly her opportunity, and took her revenge. 
 The colonel was at once ' tabooed ' from society in Northern 
 Athens, and his hunting-ground for rich widows was destroyed.
 
 COLONEL CHARTRES 303 
 
 The colonel, however, was not to be so easily taken aback. 
 He had resources of his own to fall back upon. He would 
 remove to London, as a place better suited than the northern 
 capital for the doings of such a chevalier d'industrie. Here, 
 though at that time London reckoned its population by thou- 
 sands, and not by millions, he found a fresh field for his exer- 
 tions in the humble service of Plutus. He became a noted 
 lender of money on mortgages, for which he always took care 
 to receive a large premium. In a few years he became so rich 
 as to have purchased estates not only in Haddingtonshire, but 
 also in more than one English county, and to set up for one of 
 the ' landed gentry ' south as well as north of the Tweed. He 
 contrived to flatter the vaidty and excite the matrimonial 
 hopes of half a score of middle-aged ladies, whom he took good 
 care to compromise in such a variety of ways that they could 
 never bring the law to bear upon him, and were forced to sit 
 brooding over their wrongs in solitary silence. One poor lady, 
 indeed — a charming and accomplished widow, of good family 
 and connections, who was living with her nine children in her 
 father's house at Marylebone, and to whom he introduced 
 himself as a French duke or a German count — he contrived so 
 to compromise in her reputation, to entangle in his toils, and 
 to plunder by extortionate demands, that she ended her days 
 in a madhouse. And all this while, so mean and so grasping 
 was the heartless usurer, that if coin or jewels were not readily 
 and punctually supplied by his dupes and victims, he would 
 cause threatening messages to reach them through their ser- 
 vants, and w^ait at the top of the area steps until the housemaid 
 or kitchen-drudge appeared, with the expected amount of gold 
 or silver in her hands to purchase his silence ! 
 
 Happily, however, this work was not destined to go on for 
 ever, and the accomplished villain tried his practised hand once 
 too often on apparently helpless and friendless females. In 
 1729, having grievously insulted and assaulted a young per- 
 son, named Anne Bond, whom he had engaged as a servant in 
 his house, the poor girl had the courage to summon him before
 
 304 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 the magistrates, who, fincUng the case more serious than at 
 first they thought, committed him to pi'ison to stand his trial 
 for a capital offence. 
 
 On the rest of the story I need not dwell at length. Enough 
 to add that this shameless deceiver, who had compromised so 
 many reputations, found himself at last imprisoned in Newgate 
 among the felons, where, as we are told in a contemporary 
 account, ' he was loaded with heavy fetters.' But even here 
 he was able to make the influence of his money felt ; for, adds 
 the writer, ' he soon purchased a lighter pair, and paid also for 
 the use of a I'oom in the prison, and for a man to attend on 
 him.' 
 
 The fact is that in early life, before he had entered on those 
 deplorable courses which in the end led him on to ruin, he had 
 been married to a lady of good family, the daughter of Sir 
 John Swinton, a Berwickshire laird, who had made a large 
 fortune as a merchant in Holland, having resided there during 
 the Usurpation. By her, too, most fortunately for himself, 
 he had an only child, a daughter, who, not long before the 
 time of which I write, had become the wife of a most powerful 
 Scotch nobleman, the Earl of Wemyss. This daughter's mar- 
 riage, or rather I should say her husband, now saved his life 
 from the gallows at Tyburn. It is not creditable to the cause 
 of ev^en and fair-handed justice, which knows no distinction 
 between a peer and a peasant ; but the truth must be told 
 without fear or favour. The Earl of Wemyss happening to be 
 in London at the time, and having powerful friends at Court, 
 contrived to intercede with some effect on behalf of his father- 
 in-law, and procured on his behalf a writ of habeas corpus. 
 The colonel, therefore, was admitted to bail, although, ac- 
 cording to the strict letter of the law, bail was not admissible 
 in a capital offence. ' It nmst, therefore,' says the writer of 
 an article in the ' Book of Wonders,' ' reflect no small disgrace 
 on those to whom the administration of the law was at that 
 time entrusted, that powci- and f.niiily interest should thus 
 triumph over justice'
 
 COLONEL CHARTRES 305 
 
 But such, in the event, was the case. Although thirty 
 years later, as I have already told my readers/ Lord Ferrers 
 found that his peer's coronet, and the fact that he quartered 
 on his shield the Royal Arms of England, were of no avail to 
 save him from a felon's death at Tyburn ; yet Colonel Charters 
 on this occasion contrived in the end to elude the stern and 
 rigorous grasp of the hand of justice. 
 
 The trial of Colonel Charters came on at the Old Bailey on 
 the 25th of February, 1730, when every possible art and arti- 
 fice were employed to injure the character of the poor girl who 
 stood in the witness-box as prosecutrix, in order to destroy the 
 value of her evidence ; but happily her character was shown 
 to be imr et sans rejproche. She bore her cross-examination 
 without being shaken in the smallest detail ; and the result was 
 that, after a long trial, the colonel was found guilty, and sen- 
 tenced to be hung, drawn, and quartered, after the barbarous 
 fashion of the day. Even now, however, when all hope of 
 escape seemed at an end, good fortune or wealth or high Scotch 
 connections stood his friend. His son-in-law, Lord Wemyss, 
 summoned up from Edinburgh one of the most eloquent ad- 
 vocates of the date, afterwards known as the Lord President 
 Forbes, to plead his cause before the Privy Council, and an 
 estate of 300?. a year was settled on the President in reward 
 for his services, which were so far successful as to induce the 
 king to spare the life of the infamous wretch, whose only 
 punishment in the end was that he was allowed to compromise 
 the matter by settling an annuity on Anne Bond. 
 
 Soon after his conviction a fine mezzotint engraving of 
 Colonel Charters was published, in which he is represented as 
 standing at the bar of the Old Bailey, with his thumbs tied 
 befoi^e him, and underneath the print is the following 
 inscription : 
 
 Blood !— must a colonel with a lord's estate 
 Be thus obnoxious to a scoundrel's fate ? 
 
 See ' Laurence, Earl Ferrers,' ante, p. 50.
 
 3o6 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Brought to the bar, and sentenced from the bench, 
 
 Only for cozening a country wench ? — 
 
 Shall men of honour meet no more respect ? 
 
 Shall their diversions thus b};- laws be check'd ? 
 
 Shall they be accountable to saucy juries, 
 
 For this or t'other pleasure ? — death and furies ! 
 
 What man thro' villany would run a course, 
 
 And ruin families without remorse, 
 
 To heap up riches — if, when all is done, 
 
 An ignominious death he cannot shun ? 
 
 But, though his life was spared at the Old Bailey, it was 
 not destined to be for long. A few short months seem to have 
 been in mercy allowed him for repentance. He returned to 
 Edinburgh, but so broken in health and appearance that his 
 old friends and acquaintances scarcely knew him again ; and I 
 may be quite safe in adding my belief that they did not much 
 care to recognise him. He was not only a villain — that might 
 have been pardonable and even pardoned, especially as he was 
 I'ich and had high connections ; but he was also a found-out, 
 detected, and convicted villain, and ' society ' therefore refused 
 to whitewash him. He died in the following year, a victim, 
 it is said, to his irregular course of life, but more probably to 
 the clouds of grief and disappointment in which his days were 
 drawing to their close. He ended his career of infamy in the 
 year 1731, at the age of sixty-three. 
 
 He was buried in the family vault in the churchyard of the 
 Grey Friars' Church at Edinburgh ; but his vices had rendered 
 him, in spite of his wealth and influence, so detested by the 
 public at large, that it was only with great difficulty that he 
 was laid in his grave, for the mob were hardly restrained from 
 tearing his coffin in pieces, and vented in all sorts of irregu- 
 larities and insults their feelings of honest contempt for such 
 an abandoned character. 
 
 I leave it for my readers to infer from this story whether 
 Dr. Croly is accurate or not when he states that Charters ' was 
 hung by a denial of justice.' My own idea — as I said at the 
 beginning of this paper is that the words 'was hung' are
 
 COLONEL CHART RES 307 
 
 nothing but a clerical error for ' escaped hanging.' It only 
 remains to add that the Earl of Wemyss, who up to that time 
 had borne the family name of Wemyss, on his marriage with 
 the only child of this evil-doer took the name of Charters, 
 or, as they now write it, Charteris, which has ever since been 
 borne by his descendants down to the present generation. 
 Were I in their place, I would lose no time in applying to 
 ' Lyon King of Arms ' for royal leave and licence to throw 
 aside the appellation assumed by their great-great-grandfather, 
 and to revert to the old local name by which they had been 
 known in Scotland nearly six hundred years ago. A nobleman 
 who can trace his descent, if Sir Bernard Burke is not telling 
 fables, up to a younger son of ' Macduti", Thane of Fife,' first 
 Lord of the Barony of Wemyss or Weems, and the vanquisher 
 of the tyrant Macbeth, methinks should hold to his own cog- 
 nomen, and not stoop to pick up and adopt a shield so tarnished 
 by past memories as that of Charters of Amisfield. For my 
 own part, if the choice were given to me, I would rather be 
 even plain ' Mr.' Wemyss of Wemyss than wear the coronet of 
 an earl coupled with the surname of ' Charters ' or ' Charteris.' 
 
 AN EPISODE IN THE HISTOBY OF THE COURTENAYS 
 
 Beyond a question, the House of Courtenay enjoys a proud 
 pre-eminence among the most noble and ancient of the histoi'ic 
 families, both of England and of France. The chapter of his 
 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' which Gibbon devotes 
 to a brief outline of the achievements of the Courtenays on 
 both sides of the Channel, is of course familiar to every student 
 of history and of heraldry ; but its eloquence may plead my 
 pardon if I quote from it here one or two passages, which will 
 serve to throw into more striking contrast the 'episode ' which 
 I have now the pleasure of presenting to my readers. 
 
 Confessing that there is one line in France superior to the 
 Courtenays in its origin, its alliances, and all that is comprised 
 
 X 2
 
 3o8 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 in the wide-spreading term of ' achievements,' namely, the 
 royal House of Bourbon, the historian claims for the Cour- 
 tenays the next place in rank and precedence. They are said 
 to be sprung from the marriage of Elizabeth of Courtenai 
 with Peter, son of the French king, Louis le Gros, in the 
 twelfth century, according to the ancient registers of Ford 
 Abbey in Devonshire, to which the Courtenays were frequent 
 and liberal benefactors. But, whether this be true or not, at 
 all events they claim descent from one of the noble Frenchmen 
 who in times before the Norman conquest held the castle of 
 Courtenai, in the district of Gatinois, some fifty or sixty miles 
 to the south of Paris ; and it is as certain as most matters in 
 history that in the reign of our Henry II. one Reginald de 
 Courtenay became distinguished in the camp and the councils 
 of his sovereign. ' The right of wardship,' says Gibbon, 
 ' enabled a feudal lord to reward his vassal with the marriage 
 and estate of a noble heiress ; and so Reginald Coui'tenay ac- 
 quired a fair establishment in Devonshire, where his posterity 
 has been seated above six hundred years.' In proof of this 
 statement he brings forward the fact that the wife of Reginald 
 ' held the honour of Okehampton in that county by the service 
 of ninety-three knights/ and that their son Robert married the 
 sister of Rivers, or Redvers, Earl of Devon. At the end of a 
 century, on the failure of the Redvers line, the great-grandson 
 of Reginald, one Hugh Courtenay, succeeded to the title, 
 which at that time was really a territorial dignity ; and a 
 dozen or more Earls of Devonshire of the name of Courtenay 
 have since flourished in a period of four hundred years. 
 Gibbon adds : 
 
 ' The Courtenays ranked, even in the middle ages, among 
 the chief of the barons of the realm ; nor was it till after a 
 strenuous dispute that they yielded to the fief of Arundel the 
 first place in the Parliament of England. Their alliances were 
 contracted with the noblest families— the Veres, Despensers, 
 St. Johns, Talbots, Bohuns, and even the Plantagenets them- 
 selves ; and in a contest with Jolm of Lancaster, a Courtenay,
 
 EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF COURTENAY ^,09 
 
 Bishop of London and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 might be accused of profane confidence in the strength and 
 number of his kindred. In peace, the Earls of Devon resided 
 in their numerous castles and manors in the West ; their 
 ample revenue was appropriated to devotion and hospitality ; 
 and the epitaph of Edward, surnamed from his misfortunes 
 the blind, from his virtues the good earl, inculcates with much 
 ingenuity a moral sentence which may, however, be absurd by 
 thoughtless generosity. After a grateful commemoration of 
 the fifty-five years of union and happiness which he enjoyed 
 with Mabel his wife, the good earl thus speaks from the tomb : 
 " What we gave, we have ; what we spent, we had ; what we 
 left, we lost."' But their losses in this sense were far superior 
 to their gifts and expenses, and their heirs not less than the 
 poor were the objects of their paternal care. The sums which 
 they paid for livery and seisin attest the greatness of their 
 possessions, and several estates have remained in their family 
 since the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In war, the 
 Courtenays of England fulfilled the duties and deserved the 
 honours of chivalry. They were often entrusted to levy and 
 command the militia of Devonshire and Cornwall ; they often 
 attended their supi'eme lord to the boi'ders of Scotland ; and 
 in foreign service, for a stipulated price, they sometimes main- 
 tained fourscore men-at-arms and as many archers. By sea 
 and land they fought under the standards of the Edwards and 
 Henries ; their names are conspicuous in battles, in tourna- 
 ments, in the original list of the Order of the Garter. Three 
 brothers shared the Spanish victory of the Black Prince ; and 
 in the lapse of six generations the English Courtenays had 
 learned to despise the nation and country from which they 
 derived their origin. In the quarrel of the two Roses the 
 Earls of Devon adhered to the House of Lancaster, and three 
 brothers successively died either in the field or on the scafibld. 
 
 ' ' Cleveland,' p. 142. By some this epitaph is assigned to a Elvers, 
 Earl of Devon ; but the English denotes the fifteenth rather than the 
 thirteenth century.
 
 3IO TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Their honours and estates were restored by Henry VII. ; a 
 daughter of Edward IV. was not disgraced by the nuptials of 
 a Courtenay ; their son, who was created Marquis of Exeter, 
 enjoyed the favour of his cousin Henry VIII., and in the camp 
 of Cloth of Gold he broke a lance against the French monarch. 
 But the favour of Henry was the prelude of disgrace ; his 
 disgrace w^as the signal of death ; and of the victims of the 
 jealous tyrant the Marquis of Exeter is one of the most noble 
 and guiltless. His son Edward lived a prisoner in the Tower, 
 and died an exile at Padua ; and the secret love of Queen 
 Mary, whom he slighted, perhaps for the Princess Elizabeth, 
 has shed a romantic colour on the story of this beautiful youth. 
 The relics of his patrimony were conveyed into strange families 
 by the marriages of his four aunts ; and his personal honours, 
 as if they had been legally extinct, were revived by the patents 
 of succeeding princes. But there still survived a lineal 
 descendant of Hugh the first Earl of Devon, a younger branch 
 of the Courtenays, who had been seated at Powderham Castle 
 above four hundred years, from the reign of Edward III. to 
 the present hour. Their estates have been increased by the 
 grant and improvement of lands in Ireland, and they have 
 been recently restored to the honours of the peerage. Yet 
 the Courtenays still retain the plaintive motto which asserts 
 the innocence and deplores the fall of their ancient House.' 
 While they sigh for past greatness, they are doubtless sensible 
 of present blessings. In the long series of the Courtenay 
 annals, the most splendid era is likewise the most unfortunate ; 
 nor can an opulent peer of Britain be inclined to envy the 
 emperors of Constantinople, who wandered over Europe to 
 solicit arms for the support of their dignity and the defence of 
 their capital.' 
 
 ' IJhl lapsin ? Quid feci ? a motto which was probably adopted by 
 the Powderham branch after the loss of the earldom of Devonshire, &c. 
 The primitive arms of the Courtenays were Or, three torteaux ijiilcs, 
 which seem to denote their affinity with Godfrey of Bouillon and the 
 anciem Counts of JJ.julognc.
 
 EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF COURTENAY 311 
 
 But it is time for me to proceed to an account of the House 
 of Courtenay in more recent days. It is well known that for 
 no less than two hundred and seventy-five years, after the 
 death of Edward Courtenay in 1556, the earldom of Devon 
 lay dormant, and indeed was supposed to have became extinct, 
 but that in the March of 1831 it was revived by the Crown 
 and the House of Lords in favour of William Courtenay, of 
 Powderham Castle, Devon, Avhose grandfather had been raised 
 in 1762 to the Viscountcy of Courtenay— a title which, of 
 course, he would never have accepted from George III. if he had 
 known that his family was legally entitled to the higher and 
 more ancient dignity. Indeed, it may be mentioned a^3 a proof 
 of the apparently utter extinction of the hopes of the Courte- 
 nays that in the interim the dukedom and earldom of Devon- 
 shire had been conferred upon the courtier family of Cavendish 
 — a measure which would never have been carried into effect 
 had the inhei'ent rights of the Courtenays been brought home 
 to the conscience of royalty. However, since the year 1831 
 the earldom of Devon has again adorned the roll of the House 
 of Peers, and the late earl, who died in 1888, and who was 
 many years a Member of Parliament for South Devonshire, 
 and afterwards Secretary of the Poor Law Board, was a 
 worthy I'epresentative of the accumulated honours of, shall I 
 say three, four, or eight centuries. 
 
 In the year 1832, however, not long after the revival of the 
 title, and when the rightful holder of the earldom of Devon was 
 residing abroad, the county of Kent was suddenly astonished 
 by the presence of a man of eccentric dress and appearance, 
 who gave himself out as ' Sir William Percy Hony wood 
 Courtenay, Knight of Malta, a son of Lord Courtenay and 
 heir of Lord Mount Cashell,' who took up his residence in the 
 parish of Boughton-under-Blean, between Faversham and 
 Canterbury. His real parentage, it was believed at the time, 
 was somewhat more plebeian than the above designation would 
 lead one to suppose ; and, much as in our own days, a certain 
 nameless individual d\ine famille tout a fait bourgeoise at
 
 312 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Perpignan suddenly blossomed into the ' Due de Roussillon,' 
 just so it was discovered that ' Sir William Courtenay, Knight 
 of Malta,' was none other than a crack brained fellow from the 
 far West, one 'Mr. John A. Thorn,' who had hitherto earned 
 an honest livelihood as a small spirit merchant and maltster at 
 Truro, in Cornwall. The first rumours of him in Kent date 
 from the Michaelmas of 1832, when report said that an 
 eccentric person, who had recently been known in London by 
 the name of Thompson, was staying at the Rose Inn at Can- 
 terbury, and passing at one time as ' Count Rothschild,' and 
 at another as ' Sir William Courtenay.' 
 
 The countenance and costume of this personage were both 
 such as gave the idea of his being of foreign extraction, though 
 his language showed that he was too well acquainted with 
 England and the English to be really a foreignei-. However, 
 partly by his tine figure and person, partly by his rich and 
 eccentric dress, and partly by broad and boastful assertions of 
 his intimacy with royal and noble personages, he succeeded in 
 duping a large number even of the I'espectable portion of the 
 citizens into a belief that, like ' Theudas and Judas' of old, he 
 was ' somebody.' Like most adventurers, he proclaimed that 
 he was destined, or at all events desirous, to regenerate society, 
 and issued a small periodical fly-sheet called The Lion, in 
 which he gave vent to some very strange opinions, which were 
 in reality subversive of society in Church and State. He 
 railed especially against the tithe system, as having been 
 founded by the Pope, who was instigated to it by the devil. 
 He was loud in his praises of ' purity of election ; ' and, though 
 the Reform Bill had only recently been passed, he pretended 
 to consider that the British Constitution in King, Lords, and 
 Commons was in danger, and required the aid of all honest 
 patriots in both Houses of Parliament. Giving loud utterance 
 to these views in his fly-sheet and at pot-house meetings in 
 Canterbury and the adjoining towns and villages, in the course 
 of a little time he contrived to gull the credulous multitude 
 who were as ready to see in him a veritable ' Courtenay ' from
 
 EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF COURTENAY 313 
 
 the West countiy as the mob has shown itself of late to recog- 
 nise in Arthur Orton the veritable Roger Tichborne, whom 
 his own family and the Peerage writers believed to have been 
 drowned in the Pacific some twenty years before. However, 
 be this as it may, the gaping multitude were so far awed into 
 a belief of the talents and statesmanship of their newly -found 
 ' Knight of Malta,' that when, at the general election of De- 
 cember 1832, there was a contest for the city of Canterbury, 
 the ' show of hands ' was declared to be in his favour ; and he 
 actually polled no less than 375 against the 800 and odd votes 
 which returned his opponents — Lord Fordwich and Mr. R. 
 "Watson — to Parliament. On this occasion, we are told by 
 one of the Kentish papers that Sir William Courtenay pre- 
 sented himself to the citizens of Canterbury in a most extra- 
 ordinary guise, bounding over the heads of the people in front 
 of him, and alighting on the table in the centre of the Hall in 
 a theatrical attitude, quite a la Kean. His costume, too, 
 added to the efiect of the scene, being composed of cx'imson 
 velvet and gold, with a cap and mantle to correspond, silk 
 stockings of the same colour, and Turkish slippers. He is 
 thus described in a letter written by a lady living at Canter- 
 bury at the time : 
 
 ' A Sir William Courtenay has been haz'anguing the popu- 
 lace here almost daily with novel and ludicrous addresses. 
 He is encased in a superb dress of crimson velvet, richly 
 ornamented with gold lacings, tassels, and epaulettes ; and he 
 goes about armed with a valuable sword and a dagger, which 
 he occasionally threatens to use against any person who 
 happens to interrupt him. It is given out publicly here, and 
 the ladies believe it, that his dress cost him upwards of two 
 hundred pounds, and that it was made for him by a West- 
 end tailor while he was staying at the Clai-endon Hotel in 
 Bond Street. Although he is considered handsome his face 
 is much disfigured by a superabundance of moustache and 
 beard.' 
 
 ' It was impossible,' writes one who was present, ' to follow
 
 314 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 with anything like precision the fluent, disjointed, yet occasion- 
 ally brilliant sentences which fell from his lips. Suffice it to 
 say that he promised his hearers all sorts of impossible things ; 
 he would reform the newly reformed House of Commons ; he 
 would abolish tithes ; he would remove the burden of taxation 
 from the shoulders of the poor and place it on those of the 
 rich ; h© would sweep away Corporations, and render the 
 choice of Aldermen and of Members of the House of Commons 
 more agreeable to modern ideas ; and finally, appealing to an 
 argument which will always find ready listeners among the 
 poorer classes, he promised them a speedy return to the good 
 old times when bread was cheap, and when roast beef and 
 plum pudding and nut-brown ale were constant visitors at 
 every cottager's table.' 
 
 The writer adds : 
 
 ' During the whole of the proceedings the utmost confusion 
 pi'evailed, though less than the usual amount of political feel- 
 ing was observable, the whole of the attention of the mob 
 being concentrated on the " Knight of Malta," whose fine 
 dress and still finer promises secured him the lion's share of 
 the popular favour.' 
 
 Indeed, it will scarcely be credited when I add that the 
 popular enthusiasm in his favour on the nomination-day rose to 
 such a height that crowds not only flocked round the wheels and 
 doors of his chariot, but absolutely took out the horses from the 
 traces and drew him in triumph to the Rose Inn, where he 
 again addressed the multitude from the balcony, repeating his 
 promises of speedy universal reform. On this occasion Sir William 
 picked up an acquaintance with two young Kentish gentlemen, 
 named Hobinson and Denne. The latter, indeed (who proposed 
 him at his contest for Canterbury), was a member of one of 
 the oldest and most respectable families in East Kent, fi"om 
 whose pockets he contrived to extract considerable sums of 
 money, which helped to supply him with horses and a carriage 
 to ride and drive about the streets in the course of his 
 canvass.
 
 EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OE COURT ENAY 315 
 
 After the poll Iiad been officially declared, and when the 
 new members had returned their thanks to the constituency, 
 ' Sir William ' again addressed the mob from the table and 
 from the steps of the hall, and then, after parading the town 
 with fifes and drums, once more harangued them from the 
 balcony of the Rose, his head-quarters, promising to meet 
 them on Barham Downs on the following Monday, when the 
 unwashed herd of rural voters were again treated to a repeti- 
 tion of the same wild rhapsody. At Barham Downs he was 
 proposed as a candidate for the Eastern Division of the county : 
 but his defeat there was far more decisive than it had been at 
 Canterbury, as he polled scarcely ten or a dozen votes. 
 
 It was, however, at a large political dinner given to the 
 poorer class of reformers in a field near the Dane John in that 
 city, that he first betx-ayed the earliest symptoms of that 
 violent and outrageous temper which ultimately led to his 
 death. 
 
 Early in the following year an event occurred which must 
 have opened the eyes of such of ' Sir William's ' followers who 
 had any sense or reason in their pates. He had resolved that, 
 as he could not take a borough town by storm in 1832, he 
 would use every effort to captivate the affections of the lower 
 orders, so as to stand a better chance at the next election. 
 Accordingly, he caused it to be made known that, great as 
 was his rank, his condescension was much greater, and that he 
 liked nothing so much as to sit down and eat and drink at the 
 tables of the labouring peasants. He would join the lowest of 
 gathei'ings in pot-houses, and though dressed in an eccentric 
 garb, borrowed from the green-room of a theatre, he preferred 
 the company of the poor Kentish cottager to that of his own 
 relatives, the proud Courtenays of Devon, and their aristocratic 
 and haughty connections. So thick were his invitations, so 
 numerous his engagements, and so great the calls upon his time, 
 that, like Arthur Orton, he was obliged to ride or drive from 
 house to house, picking up a crust here and a bit of bread and 
 cheese there, and generally concluding the day by a supper in
 
 i6 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 company with some of his new-made friends in a village club- 
 room. 
 
 In the February following the general election of December, 
 1832, a brief but smart action took place near the Goodwin 
 Sands, a few miles off the coast of Deal, between a revenue 
 cruiser, the ' Lively,' and a smuggling-boat called the ' Admiral 
 Hood.' The crew of the latter were captured, and both crew 
 and boat were taken to Rochester for adjudication in the regu- 
 lar course of law. On boarding the smuggler no contraband 
 goods were found, but during the chase the crew were seen by 
 the officers on board the ' Lively ' to throw overboard certain 
 tubs, which were marked and picked up by the crew of the 
 cruiser. On the examination of the prisoners before the 
 magisti'ates at Rochester, ' Sir William ' made his appearance 
 in the court, attired in a grotesque costume, and wearing a 
 small sword or scimetar, hung from his neck by a massive gold 
 chain. It strikes one as a sad pity that at this time the pho- 
 tographic art was unknown to the public, and that the ' Illus- 
 trated London News ' was as yet unborn, or I should be able 
 to treat my readers with a more lifelike description of the 
 scene in court. On one of the men being examined, the 
 ' Knight of Malta ' stepped forward, and, with all the address 
 of an artful and practised demagogue, declared that, as the 
 man was undefended, he would become his advocate. But the 
 knight was a better hustings orator than a lawyer, and the 
 fellow was convicted. A professional gentleman from London 
 undei'took the defence of the rest of the smugglers, when ' Sir 
 William ' presented himself as a witness, and swore that he 
 liimself saw with his own eyes the whole transaction between 
 tlie ' Lively ' and the * Admiral Hood,' and was positive that 
 the tubs said to have been thrown overboard from the latter 
 vessel had been floating about hither and thither in the Downs 
 all the morning, and tliat consequently tlie ' Admiral Hood ' 
 and her crew were innocent of smuggling. The object of this 
 assertion was evidently, of course, to prove that the men under 
 accusation were entitled to be set at liberty, as free from all
 
 EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF COURTENAY 317 
 
 guilt in the matter. The solicitors for His Majesty's Customs, 
 however, took a more serious view of the matter, and, having 
 undoubted evidence that the testimony of the ' Knight of 
 Malta ' was false, they resolved to prosecute him for perjury. 
 
 They did so, and the trial came on at Maidstone before Mr. 
 Justice Parke, on July 25, 1833, when it was proved by the 
 clergyman and other respectable witnesses of Broughton, that 
 at the very day and hour of the action between the ' Lively 
 and the ' Admiral Hood' (Sunday, February 17), the madcap 
 knight was comfortably seated in a pew at Boughton Church, 
 listening to the parson's sermon. But the laws of time and 
 space stand as little in the way of sham ' Knights of Malta ' as 
 the laws of moral and social existence do in the way of sham 
 marquises, soi-disant dukes, apocryphal princes, and would-be 
 baronets. 
 
 The end of the trial was that Sir William Percy Hony wood 
 Courtenay, Knight of Malta, alias ' John Thorn,' disgraced the 
 noble name which he had borrowed like a jackdaw, being con- 
 victed by a jury of twelve honest English citizens of perjury — 
 not of that venial kind which is of frequent occurrence at elec- 
 tions, or in 'testimonials to character,' or in the buying and 
 selling of horses, but of perjury, ' wilful and corrupt.' The sen- 
 tence passed upon him was that he should be imprisoned for 
 three months, and after the expiration of that time should be 
 transported beyond the seas for seven years more. Before the 
 term of his imprisonment was over, it was found that ' Sir 
 William ' was out of his senses, and he was accordingly trans- 
 ferred to the Kentish Lunatic Asylum at Barming, near Maid- 
 stone. Here he was confined for some years, until, his mental 
 condition appearing gradually to improve, he was allowed to take 
 up his residence at the house of a farmer at Boughton, near his 
 former residence. While here he appeared more tranquil and 
 calm ; but early in the summer of 1838, while occupying rooms 
 at a lonely farmhouse, kept by a man named Culver, on the top 
 of Boughton Hill, about five miles from Canterbury, he was 
 found to show symptoms of a return of his mental aberration.
 
 3i8 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Among other matters, he would declaim in loud and unmea- 
 sured terms amongst the rustic visitors against the iniquities 
 of the new Poor Law, and the grievances under which they 
 laboured as a class ; but in the end he would generally work 
 round to his commonplaces about a ' cheap loaf ' and the abo- 
 lition of tithes. At length his madness led him and some 
 of his deluded followers into an act of open riot, and riot in its 
 turn led to bloodshed, which put an end to the mad doings 
 of this soi-disant scion of the noble House of Courtenay. 
 
 On Monday, May 28, 1838, having met some of his silly 
 dupes at Boughton, he sallied out into the street at their head> 
 and, having bought a loaf of bread, stuck it on the top of a 
 pole, which the country bumpkins in his train paraded along 
 the road to Fairbrook and Goodneston, with flags flying before 
 them, bearing the cognisance of the Courtenay lion. The 
 number of the mob speedily increased, and with their numbers 
 their excitement also gathered strength. Like madmen as 
 they were, they cried aloud that they had ' bloody work ' before 
 them ; so they endeavoured, though without success, to per- 
 form the heroic task of setting fire to a beanstack — a mag- 
 nificent exploit for a ' Courtenay.' On this ' Sir William ' 
 got into a passion, and vowed that he would himself ' strike 
 the bloody blow,' though where and at what he did not con- 
 descend to say. 
 
 Passing on next to Heme Hill, with the number of his 
 dupes continually increasing, and having taken some refresh- 
 ments at a pothouse, they made their way to Dargate 
 Common, a straggling hamlet of labourers' cottages, where 
 the leader divested himself of his shoes, knelt down among 
 his followers, and prayed for half an hour at the top of his 
 voice, ' lifting up his voice to heaven,' and denouncing every- 
 body and everything in unmeasured terms. At the end of 
 their devotions the bumpkins went off to Bossendon Farm, 
 where they got some supper, several of them sleeping in the 
 barn and the rest under hedges. At daylight on the follow- 
 ing morning (Tuesday) Ihey mustered by the side of the high
 
 EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF COURTENAY 319 
 
 road, and walked in procession to Sittingbourne, nine miles 
 distant, to breakfast, with the loaf on the pole and the flags 
 carried in front as before. Breakfast over, they marched 
 through the villages of Newnham, Eastling, Throwley, Seld- 
 wich, Lees, and Selling, occasionally stopping for refreshments, 
 and from place to place adding to their numbers, their infatu- 
 ated leader addressing his dupes from time to time, and urging 
 them on to fresh acts of disorder and riot. At night they 
 retreated into a chalk-pit, where the programme of the previous 
 evening was repeated in respect of both prayers and threats 
 of ' bloody work.' After parading through other villages on 
 the following day, Wednesday, in the evening ' Sir William ' 
 and his motley crowd came back to Calver's Farm at Bossen- 
 den. Here was destined to be the end of the ' Knight's ' mad 
 expedition. It appears that a farmer named Carling, who 
 lived under the hill, went off to the magistrates with a com- 
 plaint that Thorn and his comrades-in-arms had seduced some 
 of his labourers from their work, and requesting that the 
 rioters might be apprehended. A constable named Mears 
 was sent with two others to arrest ' Sir William,' who no 
 sooner saw the agent of the law and found out his mission 
 than he shot him dead. The other two constables, seeing that 
 it would be madness to wage war against such odds — for some 
 of the country louts were armed with pistols and others with 
 bludgeons — returned to the magistrates, who sent off to Maid- 
 stone and Canterbury for the help of the military. The whole 
 neighbourhood was now fully alarmed, and great was the joy 
 and relief of the respectable inhabitants of the place when a 
 company of a hundred soldiers of the 45th Regiment arrived 
 on the spot, under the command of an officer, Lieutenant 
 Bennett. 
 
 On reaching the place where the rebels were mustered, the 
 magistrate entreated the people to disperse quietly to their 
 homes, and on their refusal ordered the Riot Act to be read. 
 By this time ' Sir William ' and his followers had retreated to 
 a deep part of the wood near Bossenden, known as the ' osier
 
 320 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 bed,' where they resolved to make a desperate stand. 'Sir 
 William ' — who had already fired one shot, though happily 
 without effect, at a magistrate, the Rev. Charles Handley, of 
 Heme Hill, for attempting to take him into custody — now 
 exhorted his poor crazy dupes in Scriptural language to ' quit 
 themselves like men,' and ' not to count their lives dear ' to 
 them. Lieutenant Bennett at once went up to him at the 
 head of his men, and commanded him in the Queen's name to 
 surrender ; but ' Sir William's ' only answer was to draw out 
 his pistol and shoot him through the heart. He had scarcely 
 fallen to the ground when the military fired and closed with 
 the rebels, several of whom, including the ' Knight of Malta,' 
 were killed on the spot, while many others were more or less 
 severely wounded. Some of the louts ran off across the fields 
 as fast as their legs would carry them ; but such of the ring- 
 leaders as were not killed were at all events secured, and 
 before evening they were marched off to Canterbury and 
 lodged in St. Agustine's jail. Thus, in only a few minutes, 
 ten lives were lost, and several of the rustics were rendered 
 cripples for the remainder of their days. It is to be 
 hoped that such of the misguided band as were wounded, but 
 may chance to be still surviving, have not yet forgotten the 
 lesson which they learnt on that day, to stick to their home 
 duties as peaceful citizens, or, if they must go to war, to fight 
 under the standard of their Queen and country, and not under 
 that of John Thorn, or of any other spurious scion of the house 
 of Courtenay. 
 
 At the following assizes at Maidstone two of Thom's 
 followers were found guilty of having had a hand in the 
 murders of the constable and Lieutenant Bennett, and were 
 sentenced to transportation for life ; while others who had 
 taken a less prominent part in the outbreak were dealt with 
 according to their deserts. It will be long, however, I fancy, 
 before the ' bloody work ' of ' Sir William Percy Hony wood 
 Courtenay, Knight of Malta, son of Lord Courtenay, and heir 
 of Lord Mount Cashell,' will bo forgotten in the neighbour-
 
 EPISODE IN THE HOUSE OF COURTENAY 321 
 
 hood of Faversliam, Sittingbourne, and Canterbury ; and 
 many a year must elapse before even a genuine ' Courtenay ' 
 will venture to come from Powderham Castle in the far West 
 to contest a seat either for a division of the fair county of 
 Kent or for the first Christian city in tlie kingdom. 
 
 As a proof of the strong feeling which a popular delusion 
 like that of the madman Thorn will excite in the gullible British 
 public, I may perhaps be allowed to bring this ' episode ' to an 
 end with the following quotation from the last chapter of Dr. 
 C. Mackay's most interesting work on 'Popular Delusions.' 
 While treating of the subject of relics and relic-worship, he 
 quotes the case of ' Sir William Courtenay ' as a remarkable 
 instance of the extent to which relic-hunting is occasionally 
 carried, even in this Protestant country, and in the middle of 
 this nineteenth century. He writes : 
 
 ' When the maniac Thom or Courtenay was shot, in the 
 spring of 1838, the relic-hunters were immediately in motion 
 to obtain a memento of so extraordinary an individual. His 
 long black beard and hair, which were cut off by the sur- 
 geons, fell into the hands of his disciples, by whom they were 
 treasured with the utmost reverence. A lock of his hair 
 commanded a great price, not only among his followers, but 
 among the more wealthy inhabitants of Canterbury and its 
 neighbourhood. The tree against which he fell when he was 
 shot was stripped of all its bark by the curious, while a letter 
 with his signature to it was paid for in gold coins, and his 
 favourite horse became as celebrated as its master. Parties 
 of ladies and gentlemen went to Boughton from a distance of 
 a hundred and fifty miles, to visit the scene of that fatal 
 affray, and stroke on the back the horse of the "mad Knight 
 of Malta." If a strict watch had not been kept over his 
 grave for months, the body would have been disinterred, and 
 the bones carried away as memorials.' 
 
 The whole affair, I may add, would have been extremely 
 amusing as an ' episode,' if it were not for its tragical ending, 
 and also for the melancholy reflection that, towards the middle 
 
 Y
 
 322 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 of the nineteenth century, nearly four hundred persons could 
 be found, in one of the oldest cathedral cities in the kingdom, 
 weak enough to put their trust and confidence in such a hair- 
 brained madman. Verily the soi-disant ' Knight of Malta ' 
 fairly outdoes in ludicrous absurdity the whole of our modern 
 soi-disant adventurers, whether native or foreign, knights, 
 counts, dukes, and princes, or butcher-baronets. 
 
 THE HOUSE OF BERKELEY 
 
 The noble House of Berkeley has disputed for three centuries, 
 against the Somersets, Dukes of Beaufort, the position of the 
 leaders and chief landowners in Gloucestershire. They de- 
 scend, or claim descent, from Robert Fitz-Harding, whose 
 father, or probably grandfather, was one of the comrades-in- 
 arms of the Conqueror, and who himself in the twelfth cen- 
 tury, in reward of his loyalty to the Empress Maud and her 
 son Heiiry I., obtained the lordship of Berkeley, of which 
 Roger de Berkeley, its previous owner, had been divested by 
 the royal will, Sir Bernard Burke mentions of this Robert 
 de Berkeley that he 'entertained at Bristol in 1168 Dermot 
 M'Murrough, King of Leinster, with sixty of his retinue, at 
 the time when that prince came over from Ireland to solicit 
 succour from Henry II.' His son Maurice was wise enough 
 to secure his position, in case of a change in the dynasty or 
 in the will of his royal master, by marrying Alice, the fair 
 daughter of one of the old divested line ; but, in spite of this 
 sage precaution, the lands and castle of Berkeley were more 
 than once in peril during the lifetime of his eldest son, 
 through the vacillating and uncertain temper of King John, 
 who first seized on his broad acres, and then assigned them to 
 the burgesses of Bristol, in order to keep their castle in 
 repair. In the long run, however, John's reign and Roljert de 
 Berkeley's life Ijoth came to an end, and the latters brother,
 
 THE HOUSE OF BERKELEY 323 
 
 Thomas, obtained a fresh grant of Berkeley Castle in 1223. 
 From him the male descent of the house of Berkeley is as 
 clear and direct as can be, down to the present century at 
 least. Why I do not say 'down to the present day ' will be 
 shown in the sequel. 
 
 Maurice, the eldest son and successor of Thomas de 
 Berkeley, was summoned by Henry III. to London in order 
 to aid him against his turbulent barons ; but the Lord of 
 Berkeley was either too little of a coui'tier or too strong a 
 Liberal to stick by the king when the king was wrong, so 
 he joined the standard of the barons, and saw his lands ao-ain 
 seized by the Crown. His son Thomas, howcA^er, regained the 
 favour of royalty, and basked in its sunshine, attending his 
 sovereign at Kenilworth and in his wars against the re- 
 fi-actory Welsh. For these services Burke tells us that he 
 had from Edward I. ' liberty to hunt the fox, hare, badger, 
 and wild cat, with his own dogs within the king's forest of 
 Mendip and in the chase of Kingswood.' He was at the 
 siege of Caerlaverock, and summoned to Parliament as a baron, 
 as was also his son and successor Maurice, chief justice in 
 South Wales, governor of the castles of Gloucester and Ber- 
 wick, and steward of the Duchy of Aquitaine. He died 
 however, a prisoner in Wallingford Castle ; and it was his 
 son and successor Thomas, the third baron, during whose 
 ownership of Berkeley King Edward II. was murdered 
 within his castle. The room where that black deed was done 
 high up in one of the towers, is still shown to the curious 
 visitor ; but it is only right to add that Lord Berkeley 
 though accused of complicity in the murder, was in the event 
 honourably acquitted. 
 
 From him I pass over three generations, and come to 
 William, the seventh baron, who was created Marquis of 
 Berkeley, but who, dying childless in 1492, made Henry VII. 
 his heir ; so that Berkeley Castle became an appanage of the 
 Tudor sovereigns, and reverted to the Berkeleys only on the 
 death of Edward VI., when Henry, who was rightfully 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 twelfth Baron of Berkeley, once more was installed in the 
 castle of his ancestors — 
 
 And Berkeley's riglit and Berkelej^'s might 
 Did meet on Berkeley's Castle height. 
 
 This nobleman's great-grandson was created Earl of Berkeley 
 in 1679, and the coronet came by regular descent to Frederick 
 Augustus, fifth earl, who held the title from 1755 down to 
 his death in 1810. About him I have a good deal to say. 
 
 This Frederick Augustus was Earl of Berkeley without 
 dispute, and the owner of the proud Castle of Berkeley. At 
 the commencement of the year 1810 the old earl's eldest son, 
 and who as such bore the courtesy title of Lord Dursley, 
 held a seat in the House of Commons as one of the members 
 for Gloucestershire. He had been born in September 1786, 
 and the date is important. On learning the news of his 
 father's death in the following August, he presented to the 
 Crown a petition for a writ of summons as Earl of Berkeley ; 
 but, as doubts were known to exist as to the validity of the 
 marriage on which the petitioner's right to the peei-age i^ested, 
 tlie Prince Regent ordered his claim to be referred to the 
 consideration of the House of Peers. The next step was a 
 formal ' inquiry,' and a regular ' Peerage case ' followed. The 
 antecedents of the late earl and his countess were raked up, 
 witnesses were examined at length ;)?-o and con, and in the 
 issue their lordships, having investigated the matter at length, 
 came to the conclusion of passing a resolution ' that the peti- 
 tioner had not at that time made good his claim to the earldom 
 of Berkeley.' His case, it must be owned, was extremely hard ; 
 for, as being the reputed eldest son and heir of the earl his 
 father, he was held to have vacated his seat in the Lower 
 House of Parliament, while the Upper House quietly sliut its 
 doors in his face. 
 
 The cause of this decision, as usual, was an ii-regular 
 marriage ; in such matters of dispute there is always 'sure to 
 be a lady in the case.' The facts, as they stand revealed to
 
 THE HOUSE OF BERKELEY 325 
 
 us in the pages of the 'Berkeley Peerage Case,' form quite 
 a romance, and may possibly interest my readers, though I 
 fear I must plead guilty to the charge of telling a ' thrice-told 
 tale,' 
 
 It appears, then, tliat late in the autumn of 1784, or at 
 the beginning of the following year, the earl, happening to 
 be on a visit at Gloucester, some twenty miles distant as the 
 crow flies from his castle at Berkeley, was smitten with the 
 cliarms of a certain Miss Mary Cole, the daughter of a 
 butcher in that city. He wooed her, not without success — 
 an event not quite improbable considering that he was scarcely 
 middle-aged, could boast a rent-roll of 50,000/. a year, and 
 had a countess's coronet at his disposal But if he secured 
 her heart, there is unfortunately no proof now extant that he 
 gave her his hand with such an amount of formality as would 
 establish a marriage in England, whatever it might do ' north 
 of the Tweed.' 
 
 However, be this as it may, the earl took the lady back 
 with him to Berkeley, where she ruled for many years as 
 mistress of the castle, styling herself and styled by others as 
 ' My Lady Berkeley.' The lady herself who stood in this 
 doubtful position always asserted, on behalf of her eldest son 
 and of his three next brothers, that, though they were born 
 previous to the public solemnisation of a marriage between 
 the earl and herself in May 1796, she had been privately 
 married to his lordship more than ten years previously ; and 
 the same fact, it is only fair to add, Avas affii-med under oath 
 in her husband's last will and testament. But it does not do 
 to play at matrimony — it is too serious a matter for a game ; 
 and so Lady Berkeley and her children learned by the sad 
 experience of a lesson which they had taught to them during 
 half a century and more. In order to establish the assertion 
 of Lady Berkeley and her husband's oath, it was necessary to 
 bring forward the register of the parish church of Berkeley. 
 The entry was accordingly produced before the House of 
 Lords ; but on inspection it was found that it was written,
 
 326 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 not on a page of the register, but on an inserted slip of paper 
 or parchment, or on a leaf that had been for many years 
 pasted down in the volume until it should be wanted. The 
 question as to the genuineness or spuriousness of this most 
 important document could not, or at all events did not, come 
 formally before the House of Lords till after the death of the 
 earl. Unfortunately, at that time the clergyman who — as it 
 was said — had solemnised the first marriage was dead ; and, 
 on being appealed to, his widow declared that she did not 
 believe the entry to be in her husband's handwriting. A 
 brother of the countess deposed that he was present at the 
 marriage as a witness ; but he had, of course, an interest in his 
 sister's good name and honour, and so his oath was not allowed 
 to outweigh the strong evidence in the opposite direction. 
 The testimony of the countess herself, too, was contradicted 
 by that of her mother, who had married as her second husband 
 a Mr. Glossop, of Osbournby, in Lincolnshire, and who, though 
 born in a humble sphere of existence, lived to see her three 
 daughters, one a countess, the second the wife of a general 
 officer, and the third married to a nephew of the late Sir T. 
 Baring. 
 
 Such was the state of the case as revealed upon the pre- 
 sentation of the petition of ' William Fitzhardinge Berkeley, 
 commonly called Viscount Dursley,' claiming to be called to 
 the House of Peers in his father's stead as sixth Earl of 
 Berkeley. The inquiry, was therefore reopened ; for, though 
 mooted during the fifth earl's lifetime, it had been abandoned 
 on finding no legal question could arise until after his decease. 
 And then, as I have stated, the proof adduced of the legiti- 
 macy of the four eldest sons was not held by the collective 
 wisdom of the House of Peers to be ' at that time ' sufiicient 
 to establish his claim. 
 
 The result was that, although no formal adverse decision 
 was arrived at expressly negativing his claim, the matter was 
 adjourned dne die ; and, practically, ' Lord Dursley ' was 
 obliged to drop his courtesy title. As a consequence he
 
 THE HOUSE OF BERKELEY 327 
 
 retired from public life, being neither a regular ' Peer ' nor a 
 regular ' Commoner,' and became known in sporting and 
 gaming circles, and generally in fashionable life, as Colonel 
 Berkeley, being in command of the South Gloucestershire 
 Militia. 
 
 I have in my autograph collection two specimens of his 
 writing signed ' Dursley ' and ' W. F. Berkeley ;' and I have 
 also seen a ' frank ' which he signed ' Berkeley,' no doubt in 
 good faith, supposing himself to have succeeded to his father's 
 earldom. I suppose that this signature is unique ; at all 
 events, I cannot persuade the friend who owns it to part with 
 it to me at any price.' 
 
 But I must return to Colonel Berkeley. The family estate 
 of Berkeley Castle did not happen to be entailed, as is usual 
 in such cases, on the title ; so Colonel Berkeley, though he 
 could not take up the earl's coronet, remained in undisputed 
 possession of the castle, which was bequeathed to him by his 
 father. This, with its large rent-roll, gave him very extensive 
 influence as a landowner in the West of England, as the only 
 individual who could keep in check, in the Whig or Liberal 
 interest, the power of the Tory Dukes of Beaufort in 
 Gloucestershire and in Bristol, with both of which constitu- 
 encies they had been connected for centuries. Though spend- 
 ing the greater pai-t of his life in the hunting-field and on the 
 racecourse, in the green-rooms of the London theatres, and in 
 gambling-rooms in St. James's, he was able to maintain his 
 position in the West of England on the whole so well, that 
 when in 1831 the Liberal party were on the look-out for 
 eligible men among the large landowners to I'aise to the Peer- 
 age, in order to enable them the more easily to carry the first 
 Reform Bill, Colonel Berkeley was offered and accepted a 
 baron's coronet from Lord Grey, and in September 1831, at 
 the time of the coronation of King William, entered as Lord 
 Segrave the doors of the House of Lords, which had been for 
 
 ' Since writing the above, I have myself become possessed cf 
 another specimen.
 
 328 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 twenty years closed against him as Earl of Berkeley. The 
 operation of the Reform Act of the following year, instead 
 of at all limiting his territorial influence, went far towards 
 doubling it, inasmuch as he was generally able to secure at 
 least one of the two seats in Parliament for the Eastern as 
 well as for the Western Division of Gloucestershire — a seat 
 which was usually held by one of his relatives — to say 
 nothing of another for Cheltenham, another for Gloucester, 
 and another for Bristol. Holding thus, in ettect, no less than 
 four if not five seats in the Lower House, and one in the 
 Upper, it was not a matter of wonder that in 1841, before 
 Lord Melbourne and the Whigs retired from ofiice, he secured 
 his advancement to an earl's coronet ; not, however, by the 
 adjudication of the ancient earldom of Berkeley in his favour, 
 but by the bestowal of a new patent as Earl Fitzhardinge. 
 
 Thus, disappointed in early life, and, as he doubtless 
 felt, being legally robbed of the coronet which was rightfully 
 his own, he lived till old age unmarried, and, dying in 1857, 
 bequeathed his castle and estates to his next brother. Admiral 
 Sir Maurice Berkeley, who made an attempt, though without 
 success, to get himself recognised by the House of Peers as 
 Baron of Berkeley, in virtue of his actual tenure of Berkeley 
 Castle, and quite apart from any creation by grant or patent. 
 His brother's claim to the earldom of Berkeley he never 
 reopened ; but shortly before his death he was created Baron 
 Fitzhardinge, a title which now belongs to his son, along with 
 the castle of Berkeley. His next two brothers, Henry and 
 Augustus, being dead, although no positive decision had been 
 arrived at by the Peers in the ' great Berkeley Peerage case,' 
 there is no doubt that the fifth brother, Mr. Moreton Ber- 
 keley, became virtually Earl of Berkeley, though he steadily 
 tleclined to assume the title, not being able to do so except by 
 allowing that the first marriage of liis mother was a farce and 
 imposture. As he lived and died unmarried, the earldom 
 passed to a cousin, wliose son now holds the earldom, though 
 lie does not own tlie proud castle, of Berkeley.
 
 ROMANCE OF THE HOUSE OF ASH BROOK 329 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF THE HOUSE OF ASHBEOOK 
 
 The Flowers, who enjoy the honours of the Irish peerage as 
 Viscounts and Barons Ashbrook, and who, in the present 
 century, have become allied by marriage with one of the 
 proudest and noblest ducal houses in the land, namely, that 
 of Marlborough, ai'e not, I have reason to believe, at all 
 ashamed of a slight dash of plebeian blood which, about a 
 century ago, became by accident intermixed with their sang 
 azul. Whether they ai-e of Norman or of Saxon origin I will 
 not undertake to say for certain, though I incline to the belief 
 that there were ' flowers ' of many kinds in England before the 
 Norman Conquest ; and the heralds tell us no more than that 
 tliey were formerly seated near Oakham, in Rutlandshire, 
 which county they represented in Parliament as far back as 
 the reign of Richard II., when one of the Flowers was not 
 only M.P. for Rutland, but also the first Commoner in the 
 land, being chosen to fill the Speaker's chair. 
 
 It appears that in the reign of Elizabeth one of these Rut- 
 landshire Flowers went over to Ireland as a soldier of fortune, 
 and distinguished himself in the wars against the natives, as 
 also did his son, who became Governor of Dublin during the 
 Irish Rebellion, in the reign of Charles I. His son and his 
 grandson became the owners of Castle Durrow, in the county 
 of Kilkenny, and the latter holding a seat in the Irish Parlia- 
 ment, won a peer's coronet under George I. 
 
 This nobleman and his son were each born, married, and 
 died, and ' slept with their fathers,' after the usual fashion : 
 but about his grandson William, the third Baron and second 
 Viscount Ashbrook, I have a little tale to tell which will 
 interest such of my i*eaders as are fond of romantic incident, 
 and who ha-ve not forgotten the story of Mr. Cecil and his 
 humble-born bride, who found herself one day Countess of 
 Exeter and Mistress of Burleigh, 
 
 Burleigh House, near Stamford Town.
 
 330 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 This young nobleman, when scarcely out of his teens, or, at 
 all events, when very young, and residing as a student at 
 Oxford, was struck with the beauty of a peasant-girl named 
 Betty or Elizabeth Ridge, whose father was in the habit of 
 punting a ferry-boat across the Thames, or rather I should say 
 the Isis, at Northmoor, in the vicinity of Cumnor, near Oxford 
 the village made so famous by Sir Walter Scott in his ' Kenil- 
 worth ' as the home of Amy Robsart. The love-sick youth 
 took every opportunity of cultivating the society of his beloved 
 water-nymph, but carefully concealed from his parents the 
 impression which she had made upon his susceptible heart. 
 
 He was at that time an undergraduate of some college in 
 the University, it is said of Magdalen College ; but he was 
 too young to think of matrimony, nor was the object of his 
 affection either old enough or sufficiently educated to become 
 his wife. She had been reared among the peasant class, and 
 was wholly uninformed in matters of the world, though she 
 could read and write pretty well, as is proved by her signature 
 ' Betty Rudge ' in the Register Book of Marriages at North- 
 moor ; but the young collegian fancied that, in spite of these 
 disadvantages, he could perceive an aptitude of mind and 
 soundness of intellect united with great amiableness of temper 
 in addition to her personal perfections. Under these circum- 
 stances he conceived the romantic idea of submitting her to 
 the superintendence of some respectable lady capable of render- 
 ing lier, through the influence of education, an associate suit- 
 able to his wishes and to his rank. The lovely ferry-girl was 
 accoixlingly placed under the tuition of a lady, a few miles off, 
 at whose house Ensign Flower occasionally visited her, and 
 where he marked from time to time, with all the enthusiasm 
 of a romantic lover, her progress in various polite accomplish- 
 ments. Elizabeth Rudge remained in this situation for about 
 three years, when the efflux of time, as well as some domestic 
 occurrences, conspired in enabling Capt. Flower to reap the 
 reward of his constancy and honourable conduct by a matri- 
 monial union ; ;ind so the knot was tied, the blessing was
 
 ROMANCE OF THE HOUSE OF ASHBROOK 331 
 
 given, and the blushing daughter of the ferryman became 
 ultimately the Viscountess A.shbrook and Lady of the Castle 
 of Durrow, on whose walls her early charms are still com- 
 memorated in an authentic portrait. By the Viscount she 
 had several sons and daughters, among the former two who 
 each succeeded to the Viscountcy in turn ; and the daughter 
 of one of these sons, the peasant-girl's grandchild, was married 
 to George, fifth Duke of Marlborough, the lord of princely 
 Blenheim. 
 
 The peasant-girl, ennobled in the manner related above, 
 showed herself in after life well worthy of the promotion 
 which she had gained, and died early in the present century 
 at a good old age, honoured and loved by all her husband's 
 family. 
 
 A friend of mine, who was for some years curate of the 
 parish of Northmoor, has kindly sent me the following memo- 
 randa as a supplement to the story as told by myself : 
 
 ' The living, as you know, belongs to St. John's College 
 Oxford, and when, as one of the Junior Fellows, I was 
 appointed to it in 1839, I can well remember looking through 
 the registers, and being much struck with the strangeness of 
 a marriage, where the bridegroom signed himself " Ashbrook " 
 and the bride signed herself (not indeed by her mark, but in 
 her own hand) " Betty (not Elizabeth) Rudge." On inquiring 
 of the Nalders, who were an old family residing there and 
 who were our College tenants, they told me they remembered 
 her sister, who was married, and who lived to a good old age, 
 and who always flattered herself that if Lord Ashbrook, or, 
 as he then was, Mr. Flower, had seen her before her sister he 
 would have chosen her in preference for his bride. From 
 what I could learn by tradition, Mr. Flower was a gentleman- 
 commoner of Magdalen College, and coming over there to fish 
 occasionally, was brought into contact with the ferryman's 
 daughter, and this ended in their marriage. He afterwards 
 erected in the parish, at the riverside, a large quadrangular 
 building, one portion of which existed in my time, and was
 
 332 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 let in cottages, the rest having been pulled down. I never 
 heard anything to the contrary of Betty Rudge being a good 
 and devoted wife, and it is very possible that the education 
 mentioned by you might have been bestowed upon her to 
 make her more suitable for the mistress of a gentleman's 
 household. She was also, doubtless, the ancestress of the 
 Duchess of Marlborough. I remember in my younger and 
 more imaginative days, it always struck me as a romantic 
 history, and as I used to wander along the banks of the Isis 
 at Northmoor, on the summer evenings when I was in my 
 parish, I used to picture to myself her waiting so anxiously to 
 ferry Mr. Flower over on his way back to College, and thought 
 it might form the basis of an interesting story for one of the 
 Magazines ; but I never got further, and am glad that you 
 have placed the story on record permanently. I think she 
 must be credited not only with supei'ior personal attractions, 
 but also with a high tone of moral principle, to have induced 
 her inamorato to make her his wife. I do not know whether 
 she lived long, or what was the place of her death or her 
 burial.' 
 
 I may add that I am told that in the parish of Shelling- 
 ford, near Farringford, Berkshire, there is a tablet to Lady 
 Ashbrook's daughter or grand-daughter, connecting her with 
 the Marlborough family. There is a portrait of her to be seen 
 at Castle Durrow, as stated above. 
 
 BOMANCE OF THE TOWNSHENDS 
 
 Wk need not go very far afield, in dealing with the ' great 
 families,' for proofs of the old adage which tells us that ' truth 
 is stranger than fiction.' Facts have often proved it, and still 
 continue to prove it, to be in reality ' stranger ; ' as I shall 
 show my readers by recalling to their memories some events 
 which happened in the family of the Marquis Townshend 
 early in the present century, and which were all brought 
 before the eyes and ears of the public by proceedings in the
 
 ROMANCE OF THE TOVVNSHENDS 333 
 
 Upper House of Parliament somewhat less than half a cen- 
 tury ago, when the titles and estates of an ancient and honour- 
 able house in Norfolk, Hertfordshire, and Staffordshire had a 
 narrow escape from passing into the hands of the illegitimate 
 issue of a Huntingdonshire brewer. 
 
 The Townshends, now Marquises and Viscounts Towns- 
 hend,' Lords Raynham, &c., in the peerage of the United 
 Kingdom, according to Collins, are an old family of genuine 
 Norman extraction, being sprung from one Louis or Ludovic, 
 a follower of the Conqueror, who soon after the Conquest 
 married a Saxon maiden, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of 
 Thomas Haywell. His great-grandson. Sir Thomas de Towns- 
 hend, married a Norfolk heiress, and was buried in 'the 
 Chyrche of the White Friers of our Ladye of Mt. Carmel,' 
 between Fleet Street and the Thames. His son and heir. Sir 
 Roger Townshend, following his example, found a wife in 
 Norfolk, and lies bui'ied, according to his last will and testa- 
 ment, in the parish church of Raynham in that county, ' in 
 the middle or body of the church, before the image of the 
 crucifix of our Lord.' He appears to have become possessed, 
 either by marriage or by purchase, of the estate of Raynham, 
 which has ever since been the chief home of the family. He 
 died in 1465. 
 
 The fortune of the house thus begun was completed by his 
 son and successor, Sir Roger, who rose to eminence in the 
 legal profession, becoming Reader in Law at Lincoln's Inn, 
 M.P. for Calne, a Serjeant-at-law, and at length one of the 
 Judges of the Court of Common Pleas. His daughters made 
 what must have been the best matches of the time in their 
 native county among the Bedingfelds, the Wodehouses, the 
 Castells, and the Windhams. For several generations the 
 
 ' Besides the Marquisate of Towushend, a younger branch of the 
 family now hold the earldom of Sydney, and only a few years since 
 they enjoyed also the earldom of Leicester, and the barony of Bayning, 
 a title recently extinct through the failure of heirs male. The same 
 fate apparently awaits Lord Sydney's title in the course of time. (Since 
 this was written Lord Sydney has died. — E. W.)
 
 334 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Townshends,^ as they had now begun to spell their name, 
 lived as country squires on their Norfolk estates at Raynham 
 and Brampton down to the reign of Elizabeth, when we find 
 John Townshend, Esq., of Raynham, M.P. for Castle Rising, 
 receiving the honour of knighthood in reward of the valour 
 which he displayed at the capture of Cadiz under the Earl of 
 Essex, his brother being shortly after knighted by King 
 James I. at the Charter House. A baronetcy conferred by the 
 same sovereign on the head of the family in the next genera- 
 tion took the Townshends out of the untitled into the ranks of 
 the titled nobility ; and their connection with the Court was 
 further confirmed by their election in successive Parliaments 
 as representatives of Norfolk, or of Castle Rising or King's 
 Lynn, in Pai'liament, to say nothing of the discharge of the 
 duties of the shrievalty. 
 
 The third baronet, Sir Horatio, having borne an active part 
 in the support of the royal cause, and afterwards in the recall 
 of Charles II., was raised to the peerage as Viscount Towns- 
 hend, and both he and his son were^ successively Lords-Lieu- 
 tenants of their native county. The latter, we are told, was 
 a strong supporter of the ' Protestant succession ' at the time 
 of the Revolution, and afterwards one of the Lords Justices of 
 the Kingdom and Principal Secretary of State, and was con- 
 stantly employed in diplomatic business. His marriage with 
 the sister of Sir Robert Walpole — his neighbour at Houghton 
 in Norfolk — added another stone to the rising fortunes of the 
 
 ' It is possible that this name originally, like many others, was of 
 purely local origin, being applied to a person living at the extreme 
 ' end ' of a ' town ; ' but there are not wanting those who affirm Ihat the 
 real orthography is Towii.s7w7;('/, dunoiingniilitary prowess in its founder 
 as the 'shcnder' or 'destroyer' of cities — not unlike the epithet of 
 ■irTo\liropeos, so constantly applied by Homer to Ulysses. 
 
 - Tliis Lord Townshend lived in a house in Cleveland Row, St. 
 James's, which is identilied by that old gossip Sir Nathaniel AVraxall as 
 still standing in his day, as that wliieli witnessed the memorable cpiarrcl 
 between its owner and Sir Robert Walpole, wlien the First ^linistcr of 
 the Crown and his Secretary of State seissed eacli other by the throat — 
 a scene which (lay is supposed to have portrayed in the ' Beggar's Opera,' 
 under the characters of I'eaehum and l>ockiit.
 
 ROMANCE OF THE TOWNSHENDS 335 
 
 family, and secui'ed the Lord-Lieutenancy of his native county 
 to a third and even a fourth genei^ation. 
 
 One of his younger sons, Thomas Townshend, entering on 
 a parliamentary career, though a man of no great abilities, 
 yet proved a fair speaker, was chosen member for the Univer- 
 sity of Cambridge, and appointed one of the Tellers of the 
 Exchequer. He was a great friend of Lord North, and was 
 known in St. Stephen's and among the wits of the day as 
 'Tommy Townshend.' Some of our readers will remember 
 the lines in Goldsmith's poem, ' Retaliation,' where he describes 
 Burke as. 
 
 Though fraught with all learning, yet straining his throat 
 To induce Tommy Townshend to lend him a vote. 
 
 His brother, the third lord, had besides his successor a son 
 Charles, who became an eminent statesman and parliamentary 
 orator ; it is he to whom Gray alludes in the lines, 
 
 A post or a pension he did not desire, 
 But left Church and State to Charles Townshend and 
 Squire. 
 
 George Townshend, however, the eldest son, was a man 
 of equal talents, and he completed the editice which his 
 ancestors had raised. He was a godson of King George I., 
 and served under George II. at Dettingen. He also took part 
 in the battles at Fontenoy an'd CuUoden, and was commander- 
 in-chief at the siege of Quebec, which city surrendered to him 
 after the death of Wolfe. In the end he gained the baton of 
 a Field- Marshal, and was not only Master-General of the Ord- 
 nance, but also Lord- Lieutenant of Norfolk, as his father, 
 grandfather, and great-grandfather had been before him. He 
 was also the most popular of all the noblemen who held the 
 post of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in the last century. He 
 married a lady who owned a peerage in her own right, the 
 barony of Ferrars de Chartley, which has since passed into 
 abeyance. His son and successor, celebrated in his day as an 
 antiquary and man of letters, left at his death in 1811 two
 
 336 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 sons, of whom the younger, Lord Charles Townshend, died 
 without issue in 1853, while his elder brother, George, came 
 to the marquisate, having contracted in his father's lifetime a 
 marriage with Sarah, daughter of Mr. John Dunn Gardner, 
 of Chatteris, in Cambridgeshire. 
 
 It appears that, owing to some irregularities in early life, 
 the marquis was forced to live abroad, and he resided in a 
 state of seclusion for the best part of half a century at Genoa, 
 whei'e he had taken up his abode almost immediately after his 
 marriage. From that day to the day of his death, at the close 
 of 1855, his family and friends heard nothing of him or from 
 him ; and the records extant at Doctors' Commons or in the 
 House of Lords will serve to show, that only a few days after 
 her marriage his wife had instituted proceedings at law, in 
 order to have her union with his lordship declared null and 
 void ah initio. 
 
 Now it frequently happens, especially in mattei's hymeneal, 
 that young ladies, and middle-aged ladies too, will act pre- 
 cipitately. The sex is as deserving now as it was in the days 
 of .^schylus, of the epithet of 'fast-going,' and the wife of his 
 loi'dship (who at that time was known as Lord Chartley) 
 formed no exception to the rule. 
 
 There are matters connected with the case before us which 
 it is undesirable, indeed scarcely possible, to go into minute 
 details with respect to the relations of Lord and Lady Chart- 
 ley. So I will use the words employed in Mr. Hardwicke's 
 'Annual Biography' for 1856 : 
 
 ' Our i^eaders may possibly remember an event which took 
 place in connection with the Townshend title a few years 
 since. The late Marquis, it is well known, at that time Lord 
 Chartley, separated from his wife shortly after his marriage, 
 which she endeavoured to set aside by a suit in the Ecclesi- 
 astical Courts. These Courts, however, are proverbially slow 
 in their proceedings, and while her suit was pending, slie 
 eloped from her father's house with the late Mr. John Mur- 
 getts, a brewer of St, Ives, with whom slie ]i\c'(l in Hunter
 
 ROMANCE OF THE TOWNSHENDS y^^ 
 
 Street and other places, clown to his death in 18i2, calliu"- 
 herself at one time Mrs. Margetts, at other times the 
 Marchioness Townshend. During this time she had by Mr. 
 Margetts a family of sons and daughters, the former of whom 
 Avere sent to Westminster School, first in the name of Mar- 
 'getts, and afterwards under the names of Lords A. and B. 
 Townshend. The eldest son was actually returned to Parlia- 
 ment in 1841 as the Earl of Leicester by the electors of Bod- 
 min, who fondly imagined that they had secured as their 
 member the eldest son of a live marquis, and one who would 
 hereafter prove a powerful patron of their interests in the 
 House of Lords ! 
 
 ' At this time Lord Chai-les Townshend, next brothei- of 
 the late marquis, and then heir- presumptive to the title (but 
 since deceased without issue), presented a petition to the 
 Crown and to the House of Lords, entreating that the children 
 of Lady Townshend by Mr. Margetts might be declared 
 illegitimate. The petition was referred to a Committee of 
 Privilege, who, after hearing the evidence of a considerable 
 number of witnesses, reported their opinion in favour of a Bill 
 to that effect. A Bill accordingly was introduced, " for declar- 
 ing the issue of Lady Townshend illegitimate," and it passed 
 the Hovise of Lords by a large majority in May 1843. If it 
 had not been for this procedure on the part of Lox'd Charles 
 Townshend, which was rendered more difficult by the forced 
 residence of the late marquis abroad (for he had never taken 
 his seat in the House of Peers, nor had he been in England 
 since his accession to the title, nor seen his wife since her 
 elopement), the marquisate of Townshend, with the noble 
 estates of Raynham, in Norfolk, and the castle at Tamworth, 
 would ha^e passed to a spurious and supposititious race, the 
 childi'en of a brewer at St. Ives. By the death of Lord 
 Charles Townshend in November 1853, his nephew. Captain 
 John Townshend, became heir-presumptive to the title ; and 
 he had every reason to feel grateful for the event of a trial 
 
 z
 
 33S TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 but for which he might have found an irrevocable '"slip between 
 the cup and the lip " in the Townshend peei-age. 
 
 ' AVe may add that, the late marquis having died near 
 Genoa on December 31, 1855, his late wife, mother of the 
 childi'en by Mr. ^Margetts, having remained a widow for nearly 
 a fortnight, was married, by special licence, on January 1*2 
 following, to Mr. John Laidler, of whom report says that he 
 was assistant to a linendraper at the West-end of London, 
 until selected by her ladyship as her — shall we say second, or 
 third — husband. ' 
 
 It is clear, from the above brief narrative, that it was a 
 most fortunate thing for the Townshend family that Lord 
 Charles Townshend's life was spared long enough to enable 
 him to prosecute this suit, and to submit the Townshend Peer- 
 age case for the calm consideration of the House of Lords, 
 Had he not chosen to do so, but preferred to let matters coolly 
 and quietly take their o^^■n course, it is not easy to see how, 
 during his lifetime, the ultimate heirs of the reversion of the 
 title could have mooted the question, and so secured the pass- 
 ing of an Act of Parliament to bastardise those who, even on 
 theii* own showing, had no more right to the proud marquisate 
 of Townshend and the halls of Raynham than the youiig of 
 the cuckoo have to the nest of the thrush they have displaced. 
 And a most useful lesson does the ' Romance of the Towns- 
 hends ' atibrd to such noble lords as, being burdened with the 
 possible succession of a spurious issue, are too indolent and 
 easy-going to take action in the matter. They may depend 
 on it, if any such there be, that in these affairs speedy action 
 is the safest policy, and the best for their own interests. I 
 ci\\\ only add that I do not make this remark at random, but 
 mean it to apply to at least one Cixse withm my own personal 
 knowledge, where an ancient title is risked on the turn of 
 fortune's wheel in an almost similar manner.
 
 THE DYMOKES OF SCRIVELSBY 339 
 
 THE DYMOKES OF SCRIVELSBY 
 
 The recent death at Naples ' of the Rev. John Dymoke, of 
 Scrivelshy Manor, Lincobashire, ' the Hon. Her Majesty's 
 Champion,' reminded the world through the daily newspapers 
 that, even in the midst of the present prosaic and utilitarian 
 age, one knightly office at least was in existence to contradict 
 the assertion of Edmund Burke that ' the age of chivalry is 
 gone.' The office of ' Her Majesty's Champion' at all events 
 has not passed away, in spite of the cheeseparing economy 
 of the illiberal Liberals who happened to be in power at 
 the coronation of William IV., in 1831, and again at that of 
 her present Majesty in June 1838. It lived till a few months 
 since in the late Rev. John Dymoke, and, as ' the King never 
 dies,' so also ' never dies ' is true of the Championship. Le 
 roi est mort ; vive le roi .' The late holder of the office was a 
 clergyman, as indeed was his father before him ; but the new- 
 Champion and squire of Scrivelsby is a layman, a Lincolnshire 
 magistrate, and an officer in the local milida. One thing is 
 certainly in favour of the Championship as an institution, and 
 that is that it is an unpaid office. It has no salary attached 
 to it ; for, though the Dymoke family hold Scrivelsby on the 
 feudal tenure of performing this duty, they have been owners 
 of that manor for upwards of five hundred years ; and they 
 obtained it, not by royal grant or out of the public purse, but by 
 marriage with an heiress, the last of the proud line of 
 Marmion, grand-daughter of Philip de Marmion, a name 
 which recalls to us memories of chivalry and of the poetry 
 of Shakespeare and Sir "Walter Scott. 
 
 This office of ' Champion ' — if we may believe Homer — 
 was not unknown five-and-twenty centuries ago ; for very 
 much the same duties as it entails were part of the knightly 
 
 ' This paper was written in March 1874.
 
 340 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 service which heralds and squires then paid to their royal 
 masters. We read at all events in the ' Iliad ' of heralds who 
 were engaged in the Homeric age to challenge the encounters 
 of single knights and to marshal the lists for the combat. "We 
 have no record of the office under the Saxon kings ; but, 
 according to Sir Bernard Burke, its duties were appended by 
 William I., as an honour to the old baronial house of Marm- 
 yon, or Marmion, the ancient owners of the manor of Scrivelsby. 
 This manor, together with the castle of Tamworth, he tells us, 
 had been conferred, soon after the Norman Conquest, on one 
 Robert de Marmyon (Lord of Fontenoy, in Normandy), on 
 condition of performing the office of Champion at the king's 
 coronation. 
 
 The following is the more circumstantial account of the 
 descent of the manor given by Sir Bernard Burke in his 
 ' Visitation of Seats ' : — 
 
 ' The Lord of Fontenoy, thus invested with these extensive 
 possessions in the conquered country, fixed his residence there- 
 in and became a munificent benefactor to the Church, be- 
 stowing on the nuns of Oldbury the lordship of Polesworth, 
 with a request that the donor and his friend. Sir Walter de 
 Somerville, might be repvited their patrons, and have burial for 
 themselves and their heirs in the abbey — the Marmyons in the 
 Chapter House, the Somervilles in the Cloyster. The direct 
 male line of the grantee expired with his great-great-grandson, 
 Philip de Marmyon, a gallant soldier, who, in requital of his 
 fidelity to Henry III., during the baronial war, was rewarded 
 after the victory of Evesham with the governorship of Kenil- 
 worth Castle. His death occurred 20 Edward I. (1292), and 
 he was then found to have been seised of the manor of 
 Scrivelsby and the castle of Tamworth. He left daughters 
 only, and between them his extensive estates in Lincolnshire, 
 Warwickshire, Leicestershii'e, and elsewhere were divided. 
 By this partition Scrivelsby fell to the share of Joan, the 
 youngest co-heir, and was by her conveyed in marriage to 
 Sir Thomas de Ludlow. The offspring of the alliance con-
 
 THE DYMOKES OF SCRIVELSBV 341 
 
 sisted of one son, John de Ludlow, who died issueless, and 
 one daughter, Margaret, the Lady of Scrivelsby, who in- 
 herited from her brother that feudal manor, and wedding Sir 
 John Dymoke, a knight of ancient Gloucestershire ancestry, 
 invested him with the Championship, which high office he 
 executed at the coronation of Richard II., despite the counter- 
 claim of Sir Baldwin Freville, Lord of Tamworth, who 
 descended from Margery, the second daughter of Philip de 
 Marmyon. From that period to the present, a space of nearly 
 five hundred years, the Dymokes have uninterruptedly enjoyed 
 this singular and important estate, and have continuously per- 
 formed the duties its tenure enjoins. It falls not, however, 
 within our province here to narrate the distinguished achieve- 
 ments of the successive Lords of Scrivelsby, to tell how they 
 maintained in splendour and dignity the ancient office they 
 inherited, or to chronicle their gallant services on the battle- 
 fields of the Plantagenets in the Wars of the Roses and at the 
 siege of Tournay.' 
 
 It may sound a little strange when I tell my readers that 
 the name of Dymoke is Welsh. Sir Bernard Burke tells us 
 that the Dymokes or Dymocks — for the name is spelt both 
 ways — claim a traditional descent from Tudor Trevor, Lord of 
 Hereford and Whittington, and founder of the tribe of the 
 Marches. 
 
 The chief himself had three sons, the second of whom 
 marrying a daughter of the Prince of North Wales, half a 
 century before the Norman Conquest, became the ancestor of 
 one David ap Madoc, who in the Welsh tongue was styled 
 colloquially Dai Madoc, the word Dai being the short form of 
 David, just as we put 'Will' for William, or 'Jim ' for James. 
 His son and heir was David ap Dai Madoc, or David Dai 
 Madoc ; and by the usual abridgment ' Dai Madoc ' came in 
 the course of time to be pronounced as Daimoc or Damoc, the 
 transition from which to Dimoc or Dymoc, and again from 
 that to Dimock or Dymoke, is easy and obvious. This cer- 
 tainly is the origin of the name of the Dymocks of Penley Hall,
 
 342 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Flintshire ; and most probably the Dymokes of Lincolnshire 
 were of the same original stock. 
 
 The first, then, of the Dymoke family who fulfilled his oSice 
 as Champion was Sir John Dymoke, Knight, who married 
 Marf^aret Ludlow, in the reign of Edward III., and was pre- 
 sent at the coronation of Richard II. His claim, it appears, 
 was disputed by ^Baldwin de Freville, the Lord of Tamworth 
 Castle ; but after deliberation it was found that the right 
 belonged to the manor of Scrivelsby, as the caput haronice, or 
 head of the barony of the Marmion family ; and, as it appeared 
 that the late King Edward III., and his son Edward, Prince 
 of Wales, known as the Black Prince, had often been heard to 
 say that the office was held by Sir John Dymoke, the question 
 was settled in his favour. 
 
 From that time to the present the office has been discharged 
 by members of the Dymoke family ; at the coronations of 
 Henry IV. and V. by Sir Thomas, son of the last named, who 
 was created a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Henry 
 IV., along with forty-five other esquires, who ' watched the 
 night before the ceremony, and bathed themselves.' His son, 
 Sir Philip Dymoke, officiated at the coronation of Henry VI. ; 
 and his grandson. Sir Thomas, at that of Edward IV. To 
 mention each separate name would be tedious ; but it is 
 noticeable that one of the family was three times ' Champion ' 
 to Richard III., Henry VII., and Henry VIIL, and another 
 to the three sovereigns who succeeded in turn to Henry's 
 throne. The son of the man who had challenged all gainsayers 
 of the right of the unfortunate James II. came forward again 
 on a change of dynasty to throw down the glove for William 
 and Mary, and again later for Queen Anne. His brother, 
 Lewis Dymoke, was Champion at the coronation ceremonies of 
 the first two sovereigns of the House of Brunswick ; while John 
 Dymoke held the same office for George III., at whose corona- 
 tion, tradition has it, the young Pretender, ' Bonnie Prince 
 Charlie,' was present in disguise. Sir Henry Dymoke, a 
 grandson, brother of the gentleman now deceased, was
 
 THE DY MOKES OF SCRIVELSBY 343 
 
 Champion at the coronation of George IV., the hereditary 
 champion, a clergyman, being allowed to perform the office by 
 proxy. This Sir Henry was offered a baronetcy in 1841, and 
 accepted it — scandal said in payment for waiving his right in 
 1838 — though it was generally thought that the office of ' Her 
 Majesty's Champion ' was in itself a higher honour than a 
 modei'n baronetcy, and it was remembered that one of the 
 family had not so very long before laid claim, though unsuccess- 
 fully, to the ancient barony of Marmion. The ' Champion,' 
 whose death I have mentioned above, was the brother of Sir 
 Henry ; he had held for some years the family living of 
 Scrivelsby, and was a magistrate for Lincolnshire. 
 
 The Gentleman's Magazine for 1821 contains a picture of 
 the Royal Champion, Henry Dymoke in the act of riding on 
 his white charger into Westminster Hall, and throwing down 
 the gauntlet or glove of defiance, supported on either side by 
 the Duke of Wellington and the Marquis of Anglesey, also on 
 horseback, while two heralds stand by on foot with tabards and 
 plumes. 
 
 The performance of the Champion on this occasion is thus 
 described by Sir Walter Scott, in a letter to one of his friends 
 and correspondents : 
 
 ' The Champion's duty was performed, as of right, by young 
 Dymoke, a fine-looking youth, but bearing perhaps a little too 
 much the appearance of a maiden knight to be the challenger 
 of the world in the king's behalf. He threw down his gauntlet? 
 however, with becoming manhood, and showed as much horse- 
 manship as the crowd of knights and squires around him would 
 permit to be exhibited. His armour was in good taste ; but 
 his shield was out of all propriety — being a round rondache, or 
 Highland target, a defensive weapon which it would be im- 
 possible to use on horseback, instead of being a three-cornered 
 or leather shield, which in the time of the tilt was suspended 
 round the neck. Pardon this antiquarian scruple, which you 
 may believe occurred to few but myself. On the whole, this 
 striking part of the exhibition somewhat disappointed me, for
 
 344 
 
 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 I would have had the champion less embarrassed by his assis- 
 tants, and at liberty to put his horse on the grand fas. And 
 yet the young lord of Scrivelsby looked and behaved extremely 
 well.' 
 
 On the occasion of the coronation of George III. the 
 Champion was seated on the grey charger which the late king 
 had ridden at the battle of Dettingen ; and it appears that 
 the fee received for carrying out the duties of the office was a 
 large bowl and cover of silver, finely chased and gilt. 
 
 Those who wish to become acquainted with the look of the 
 champion of three centuries back can, if they take the trouble 
 to visit the College of Arms, see a volume which contains a 
 pedigree of the Dymoke family. There is a true representa- 
 tion of one painted in the margin opposite to the name, as he 
 appeared accoutred on horseback, glove in hand. The trap- 
 pings of his horse are black, embroidered all over with little 
 silver lions passant, the arms of the Dymoke family. The 
 armour is of nearly the same fashion as the beautiful suit still 
 preserved in the Tower of London, which was presented by 
 the Emperor Charles V. to Henry VIII. on his marriage with 
 Catharine of Arragon. 
 
 Standard English works contain several references to the 
 
 Champion and his office. The passage in Shakespeare's ' King 
 
 Henry VI.,' when Sir John Montgomery appears before the 
 
 walls of York, at the head of the army in the cause of 
 
 Edward IV., will be remembered by many readers, where tliis 
 
 dialogue occurs : 
 
 Moni . Ay now, my Sovereign speakotli like himself: 
 And now will I be Edward's champion. 
 
 TFaxf. Sound. irum]iet ; Edward shall be here proclaimed. 
 Come, fellow-soldier, make tliou proclamation. 
 
 And wlien the soldier lias read aloud the name, style, and 
 
 title of the king, Montgomery adds, as he throws down the 
 
 gauntlet, 
 
 And whosoe'er gainsays King Edward's right, 
 By this I challenge liim to single fight.
 
 THE DYMOKES OF SCRIVELSBY 345 
 
 On the occasion of the enthronement of Queen Mary, it 
 was upon a roan horse, trapped in cloth of gold, that Sir 
 Edward Dymoke appeared, with a mace in one hand and a 
 gauntlet in the other, to challenge ' any manere of man, of 
 whatsoever state, who impeacheth the Queue's title, as a faulse 
 traytour.' Nobody on that occasion ' wanted to fight,' so 
 Sir Edward picked his owii glove up and went away with a 
 bow and a gold cup for his trouble. 
 
 It appears, according to Planche's ' Royal Records,' in 
 which the portrait of the Champion is reproduced in facsimile, 
 that Dymoke came into the hall at the close of the second 
 course of the banquet which succeeded the ceremony of the 
 coronation. After his entrance, fully equipped, he was escorted 
 to the upper end of the hall, and ' after he had made obeisance 
 to the Queen's Highness, in bowing his head, he turned him a 
 little aside, and with a loud voice declared ' as follows : ' " If 
 there be any manner of man, of what estate, degree, or condi- 
 tion soever he be, that will say and maintain that our Sovereign 
 Lady, Queen Mary the First, this day here present, is not the 
 rightful and undoubted inheritrix to the imperial crown of 
 this realm of England, and that of right she ought not to be 
 crowned Queen, I say he lieth like a false traitor, and that I 
 am ready the same to maintain with him whilst I have breath 
 in my body, either now at this time, or at any other time, 
 whensoever it shall please the Queen's Highness to appoint, 
 and thereupon the same, I cast him my gage." And then he 
 cast his gauntlet from him, the which no man would take up, 
 till that a herald took it up and gave it to him again. Then 
 he proceeded to another place, and did in this manner in three 
 several places of the said hall. Then he came to the upper 
 end, and the Queen's Majesty drank to him, and after sent 
 him the cup, which he had for his fee, and likewise the harness 
 and trappings, and all the harness which he did wear. Then 
 he returned to the place from whence he came, and after that 
 he was gone.' 
 
 Elizabeth at her coronation, we are told, went first into
 
 346 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 St. Edward's Chapel 'to shrift her,' and came forth in 'a 
 riclie mantle and surcoat of purple velvet, trimmed with 
 ermines ; ' and at the banquet which followed, says Holinshed, 
 'the hall (Westminster) was richly hung, and everything 
 ordered in such a royal manner as appertained to such a regal 
 and solemn feast. In the meantime, as her grace (the Queen) 
 sat at dinner. Sir Edward Dimmocke, her Champion by office, 
 in fair complete armour, mounted upon a beautiful courser, 
 richly trapped in cloth of gold, entered the hall, and in the 
 midst thereof cast down his gauntlet, with offer to right him 
 in her quarrel that should deny her to be the righteous and 
 lawful Queen of this realm. The Queen, taking a cup of gold 
 full of wine, drank to him thereof, and sent it to him for his 
 life, together with the cover,' 
 
 The banquet at the coronation of Queen Anne must have 
 been very splendid. Her Majesty having washed and seated 
 herself at table, with two of her woinen at her feet, the Lord 
 Sewer, the Serjeant of the Silvery Scullery, called for a dish 
 of meat, took assay of the dish, and carried it up, aided by 
 the clerks of the green cloth. Then a dish of dilly-grout was 
 set over against her Majesty, and a bishop said grace before 
 the dilly-grout, and in came the Queen's champion, on whose 
 person many pounds avoirdupois of gold and silver glittered, 
 and there nodded over his helmet a plume of feathers — white, 
 blue, and red. The trumpets sounded, the steed snorted and 
 slipped, and then and there having defied the hypothetical 
 traitor, who never made an appearance, the steel glove was 
 flung upon the pavement, and presently merely picked up 
 again. 
 
 As my readers may be glad to know in what form the 
 claim to the cliampionship was made, the following is taken 
 from the records in the ' College of Arms ' by the permission 
 of my kind friend ' Garter King of Arms.' It is an extract 
 from the petition of the Rev. John Dymoke to the Lords 
 Commissioners appointed to receive and determine the claims 
 of tliose who by tenure of their lands or otherwise ought to
 
 THE DYMOKES OF SCRIVELSBY 347 
 
 ' perform service at the coronation,' from which we learn some- 
 thing of the duty the Champion is called upon to perform, and 
 also gain some idea as to his personal appearance. After 
 setting forth his right and title to the manor of Scrivelsby 
 in consequence of the death of his relative, the petitioner 
 proceeds to show that he holds the said manor by Grand 
 Serjeantry, or, in other words, ' That whensoever any King or 
 Queen of England is to be crowned, the lord of the manor 
 for the time being, or another person on his behalf, with his 
 authority, if he shall be unable, shall come well armed for war 
 on a good charger in the presence of the said lord the King on 
 the day of his coronation,' tfec. And that ' your petitioner 
 and his ancestors, and all those whose estate your petitioner 
 hath in the said manor or barony, from time whereof the 
 memory of man runneth not to the contrary,' have been 
 champions of this realm, and that they have been used to 
 have ' one of the grand chargers of the King or Queen, with 
 saddle, harness, and trappings of cloth of gold, and one of the 
 best suits of armour of our said lord the king, with cloth of 
 gold, and twenty yards of satin of the colour of crimson, with 
 all things which appertain to the body of the lord, the King, 
 as entirely as he ought to have if he had to go to mortal com- 
 bat.' On the day of coronation, ' being mounted on the said 
 charger . . . and being accompanied by the Lord High Con- 
 stable and tlie Earl Marshal, and the herald of the king, with 
 a trumpet sounded before him,' the Champion had to come on 
 horseback into the hall where the king or queen was seated 
 at dinner ; and there, in the presence of the king, and in the 
 hearing of all the peof)le, when the trumpet had been three 
 times solemnly sounded, one of the heralds made proclamation 
 with a loud voice to the effect that if any person should deny 
 or say that the king ought not to enjoy the crown of these 
 realms, ' Here is his champion ready by his body to prove that 
 he lies like a false traitor, and in that quarrel to adventure 
 his life on any day that shall be assigned to him.' On this 
 the Champion throws down his gauntlet, and in the event of
 
 348 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 no one gainsaying that the king or queen has been crowned 
 a sovereign, the king drinks to the Champion during such 
 service in a cup of gold having a cover. The cup is afterwards 
 handed to the Champion to drink from. This cup, together 
 with the charger, saddle, harness, and all apparel and armour, 
 are then given to the Champion for his fee. 
 
 The ancient baronial seat of the Dymoke family, 8crivelsby 
 Court, is situated in a park about two miles south of Horn- 
 castle, on the road towards Revesby Abbey and Boston. The 
 o-reater part of this fine old seat was unhappily destroyed l)y 
 tire some hundi'ed years since. In the portion consumed was 
 a very large hall, ornamented with panels, exhibiting in 
 heraldic emblazonment the various arms and alliances of the 
 family through all its numerous and far-traced descents. The 
 loss has been in some degree compensated by the addition 
 which the late proprietors made to the remnant which escaped 
 the ravages of the flames ; but the grandeur of the original 
 edifice can no longer be traced. 
 
 I make no excuse for putting before my readers the follow- 
 ing quaint old ballad, which describes with perspicuity and 
 truth the transmission of the lands of Scrivelsby : 
 
 The Norman Barons Marm.yon 
 
 At Norman Court held high degree ; 
 Brave knights and Champions everyone, 
 
 To him who won brave Scrivelsby. 
 
 Those Lincoln lands the Conqueror gave, 
 That England's glove they should convey, 
 
 To knight renowned amongst the brave, 
 The Baron bold of Fontcney. 
 
 The royal grant, through sire to son, 
 
 Devolved direct hi capHe 
 Until deceased Phil Marmyon, 
 
 When rose fair Joan of J^crivclsby. 
 
 Thro' midnight's gloom one sparkling star 
 
 Will seem to sliine more brilliantly 
 Than all around, above, afar ; 
 
 So shone the maid of Scrivelsby.
 
 THE DY MOKES OF SCRIVELSBY 349 
 
 From London city on the Thames, 
 
 To Berwick Town upon the Tweed, 
 Came gallants all of com'tly names, 
 
 At feet of Joan their suit to plead. 
 
 Yet malgre all this goodly band. 
 
 The maiden's smiles young Ludlow won, 
 Her heart and hand, her grant and land, 
 
 The sword and shield of Marmyon. 
 
 Out upon Time, the scurvj- knave. 
 
 Spoiler of youth, hard-hearted churl ; 
 Fast hurrying to one common grave 
 
 Good wife and ladie, hind and earl. 
 
 Out upon Time — since world began. 
 
 No sabbath hath his greyhound limb, 
 In coursing man, devoted man, 
 
 To age and death — out, out on him ! 
 
 In Lincoln's chancel, side bj^ side, 
 
 Their effigies fiom marble hewn. 
 The ' anni ' written when they died, 
 
 Kepose De Ludlow and Dame Joan. 
 
 One daughter fair survived alone, 
 
 One son deceased in infancy ; 
 De Ludlow and De Marmyon 
 
 United thus in Margery. 
 
 And she was woo'd as maids have been, 
 
 And won as maids are sure to be. 
 When gallant youths in Lincoln green 
 
 Do suit, like Dymoke, fervently. 
 
 Sir John de Dymoke claimed of right 
 
 The Championship through Margery, 
 And 'gainst Sir Baldwin Freville, knight, 
 
 Prevailed as Lord of Scrivelsby. 
 
 And ever since, when England's kings 
 
 Are diadem'd — no matter where — 
 The Champion Dymoke boldly flings 
 
 His glove, should treason venture there. 
 
 On gallant steed in armour bright, 
 
 His vizor closed and couched his lance, 
 Proclaimeth he the monai'ch's right 
 
 To England, Ireland, Wales, and France. 
 
 Then bravely cry, with Dymoke bold, 
 
 Long may the King triumi^hant reign ! 
 And when fair hands the sceptre hold. 
 
 More bravely still — Long live the Queen !
 
 350 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES 
 
 Truly, as Mr. Pepys says in his diary, ' Good Lord ! but 
 the times doe change.' Changed indeed they are from the 
 times of our Edwards and Henries, and never again probably 
 will the gallant spectacles which have so often graced West- 
 minster Hall in days gone by be witnessed. These old-world 
 glories fade like the gilding on tombstones, which wears away 
 till the meaning becomes obscure, and is replaced by a new 
 stone. Yet we may affirm that some fine fragment of antiquity 
 lies in the ceremony of which I have endeavoured to give my 
 readers some idea. The gold-coated and feathered champion 
 was the monument of the early rite of ' ordeal by battle,' 
 whereby the sword and spear held the place of the modern 
 tribunal of the law to which combatants now resort. It might 
 have been awkward if we had now to trust the ' peace and 
 rightfulness ' of this fair realm ' to a single knight, worthy as 
 he might be,' and his charger, however imposing. The custom 
 died out, for the condition of things had changed, and mon- 
 archs now trust to the attachment of loyal hearts, which, 
 though they make little show, are a stronger defence than 
 aught can ever be — even than the right hand of a champion 
 like ' Dymoke of Scrivelsby.' 
 
 Since the above was written, death has again visited this 
 ancient house, carrying off the son and successor of the above- 
 mentioned Lord of Scrivelsby, Mr. Henry Lionel Dymoke, 
 who has passed away, not in his own halls, but among 
 strangers, and before attaining even middle age, leaving a 
 widow, but no legitimate issue. 
 
 Family feuds and pecuniary difficulties have together done 
 their best to level in the dust a once noble house, whose heads 
 once ranked as equal to the proudest peers of the realm. 
 There is, therefore, I believe, no male Dymoke who at this 
 moment, if a coronation were to occur, could put in a claim 
 for the Championship — at all events, without first establishing 
 his descent in a court of law. 
 
 Such is the sad end of ' The Dymokes of Scrivelsby.' Had 
 the second Marquis Townshend been still alive, in all pro-
 
 THE DY MOKES OF SCRIVELSBY 351 
 
 bability he would have chosen this moment to prefer a claim 
 to the honour on his own account. At all events, Horace 
 Walpole wrote to Lady Ossory, under date October 1789 : 
 
 ' When he was but two-and-twenty, his lordship called 
 on me one morning and told me he proposed to claim the 
 championcy of England, being descended from the eldest 
 daughter of Ralph de Basset, who was Champion before the 
 Flood — or before the Conquest, I forget which — whereas the 
 Dymokes came only from the second ; and he added, " I did 
 put in my claim at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth." A 
 gentleman who was with me, and who did not understand the 
 heraldic tongue, hearing such a declaration from a young man, 
 stared and thought he had gone raving mad ; and I, who did 
 understand him, am still not clear that the gentleman was in 
 the wrong.' 
 
 phinted by 
 spottjswoode akd co., new-stlleet squaee 
 
 lOVnON
 
 January, 1890. 
 
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 Miss or Mrs.? 
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 A Rogue's Life. 
 
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 Pine and Palm. 
 
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 Leo I Pft"' Foster's Daughter.
 
 30 
 
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 BY C. EGBERT CRADDOCK. 
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 Felicia. 
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 31 
 
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 Christie Johnstone. 
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 Women are Strange. 
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 Grace Balmaign's Sweetheart. 
 Schools and Scholars.
 
 32 
 
 BOOKS PUBLISHED BV CHATtO &- WiNDVS. 
 
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 BY W. CLARK RUSSELL. 
 Round the Galley Fire. 
 On the Fo'k'sle Head. 
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 Mary Jane's Memoirs. 
 Tales of To-day. 
 
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