'!kf:-^Mi^ml^

CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.

VOL. II.

CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS

BY

EDWARD WALFORD, M.A.

AtJTHOE OF

"the county families,
ETC., ETC.

IN TWO volumes.
vol. il

LONDON :
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13, GREAT MABLBOKOUGH STREET.
1887.
All rights reserved.

Bt>34-

CONTENTS

OF

THE SECOND VOLUME.

The Rise of the Phippses
Peeegbine Bektie .
The Stanleys and the Mueeays
The House of De Clifford .
Poor Sie John Dineley, Baet.
Simon Feasee, Loed Lovat ;
The Rise of the Ducal House of Poetland
The Noble House of Couetenay .
The Gallant Admieal Lord Dundonald
The Murder of Lord Charlemont .
The Dudleys of Northamptonshire
Thoenton of Thoenville
The Cavendishes 
' Bess of Haedwicke ' . . . .
Olive, Peincess of Combeeland
' Wild ' Daeell of Littlecote
Eliza Faeeen, Countess of Deeby .

PAGE 1
9
18
2933
44 56
62
71
8192
98
107
117126
145161

VI CONTENTS.
A Romance in the House of Rosebeey . . 171
' Three Very Fair Seymours ' . . ¦ ¦ 182
Lettice Digby, Lady Offaley . ¦ ¦ 189
Romance of the Earldom of Kellie . • 200
A Romance in the Dartmouth Family . 208
Old Lady Coek .... • ¦ 213
The De LA Poles .... 220
The Eglinton Touenament . . ¦ 228
Malcolm, Loed Forth  241
The Prince and Princess of Hesse-Homburg 247
The Rise of the House of Goldsmid . . 254
The Love-match of the Earl of Ossory . 266
Nan Clarges, Duchess of Albemarle . 277
Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle . 285
The Lordship of Lorne ... . 295
The Ancient Earldom of Desmond . 300
The Gallant Sir John Chandos . . . 312

CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.

THE RISE OF THE PHIPPSES.
I do not know that in the whole range of
houses connected with the peerage there is to
be found a family whose rise to wealth and
high titles has been more truly the result of
accident than, that of the Phippses, Earls of
Mulgrave and Marquises of Normanby. A
reference to the genealogical portion of Burke's
Peerage will explain my meaning.
Three centuries ago the Phippses were plain,
untitled gentlemen, or possibly only yeomen, in
Lincolnshire. One of their number — a Mr.
WiUiam Phipps, the &st whose name appears in
the annals of the country, or even of his county
VOL. II. B

2 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
— appears to have raised a regiment of horse
soldiers for the service of King Charles during
the Civil Wars. But this loyal act was not at
all likely to have helped him in a pecuniary
sense ; for, with very rare exceptions, Charles IL
seems to have had a very short memory of good
deeds done to his father when in difficulties.
Mr. William Phipps, however, had a grandson,
Constantine, who chose the profession of the
law, and who, going over to Ireland at a for
tunate juncture, rose to become the occupant of
the woolsack in the ' sister island,' and to re-
ceivd the honour of knighthood. He held the
seals till 1714, when he resigned, and, coming
back to London, settled down in his chambers
in the Temple, resolved to spend his declining
years in leisure and retirement.
Like the noble house of Lansdowne, whose
history I have traced in these pages*, the house
of Phipps included in its pedigree a man of
practical genius, whose name and career I find
thus mentioned in the Mechanic's Magazine, for
a cousin of Sir Constantine was WilHam Phipps,
the inventor of the diving-bell :
* See vol. i, pp. 241-250.

THE RISE OP THE PHIPPSES. 3
' The first diving-bell of which we read was
nothing but a very large kettle, suspended by
ropes, with the mouth downwards, and planks
to sit on, fixed iu the middle of its concavity.
Two Greeks at Toledo, in 1588, made an experi
ment with it before the Emperor Charles V.
They descended in it, with a' lighted candle, to
a considerable depth. In 1683, William Phipps,
the son of a blacksmith, formed a project for un
loading a rich Spanish ship sunk on the coast of
Hispaniola. Charles II. gave him a vessel with
everything necessary for his undertaking ; but,
being unsuccessful, he returned in great poverty.
He then endeavoured to procure another vessel ;
but, failing, he got a subscription, to which the
Duke of Albemarle contributed. In 1687 Phipps
set sail in a ship of two hundred tons, having
previously engaged to divide his profits accord
ing to the twenty shares of which the subscrip
tion consisted. At first all his labours proved
fruitless ; but at last, when he seemed almost to
despair, he was fortunate enough to bring up so
much treasure that he returned to England
with the value of £200,000. Of this sum he got
about £20,000, and the Duke of Albemarle
e2

4 CHAPTERS PROM PAMILY CHESTS.
£90,000. Phipps was knighted by the king,
and since that time diving-bells have been con
stantly employed.'
No doubt, when he died, this Sir William
Phipps left the results of his invention to his
cousin Constantine, who appears to have named
after him his only son William, in whom the
hopes of the family were centred. This Mr.
William Phipps married the Lady Catherine
Annesley, only daughter of the Earl of Angle
sey, whose countess was- a natural daughter of
James II. As the husband of this latter lady,
the Earl of Anglesey, died conveniently young,
her ladyship took for her second husband John
Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham and Normanby,
by whom she had an only son, who died in his
minority, and bequeathed to his mother the re
version of his large Yorkshu-e estates.
It was of course a very natural thing for the
mother, having inherited a fine estate from the
only son of her secont? marriage, to leave it to the
only grandson of her first marriage ; and so it
came about that Constantine Phipps, the son of
Mr. William Phipps and the Lady Catherine
Annesley, when he found himself the heir to this

THE RISE OP THE PHIPPSES. 5
noble property, was enabled to claim and to
obtain an Irish peerage. The title which he
chose was that of Lord Mulgrave, of New Ross,-
in the county of Wexford ; the same that had
been one of the lesser titles of the Duke of
Buckingham. Edmund Sheffield, third Lord
Sheffield, of Butterwick, was created Earl of
Mulgrave in 1626, and at his death, in 1646, was
succeeded by his grandson Edmund as second
earl. He was the father of the above-mentioned
John Sheffield, who was elevated to the Mar-
quisate of Normanby in 1694, and in 1703 ad
vanced to the dignity of Duke of Buckingham.
His grace was well-known in his day as a poet,
but of moderate pretensions. He died in 1720,
and was succeeded by his son Edmund, on
whose death in his minority, in 1735, the duke
dom and other honours became extinct. It is
remarkable that, like the lands in Berkshire, the
ducal title of Buckingham is ' skittish, and ever
apt to cast its owners.' As often as it has been
granted, it has become extinct after one or two
generations. Constantine John, the second Lord Mulgrave
•of the new creation, was a captain in the royal

6 CHAPTERS PROM PAMILY CHESTS.
navy, in which capacity he made a voyage for
the purpose of endeavouring to find the north
west passage. An account of this expedition
he gave to the world on his return to England.
In Mr. Pitt's administration he was one of the
paymasters of the forces, and a commissioner'
of the East India Board, and held many other
important offices. He was added to the roll of the
English Peerage in 1790, with the title of Baron
Mulgrave, of Mulgrave, in Yorkshire, which be
came extinct on his death without male issue
two years later. The Irish barony, however,
devolved upon his brother, Henry Phipps, who
in 1794 had a new patent granted him, con
ferring upon him the title of Baron Mulgrave of
Mulgrave. In 1812 he was raised to the dignity
of Viscount Normanby and Earl of Mulgrave.
His lordship, having been educated to the army,
obtained early a commission in the Foot Guards,
and rose by regular stages to the rank of a
general. He distinguished himself by his ser
vices at the taking of Toulon in 1794, and he
was for some time colonel of the 31st Regiment
of Foot, and Governor of Scarborough.
His son, Constantine Henry, the father of the

THE RISE OP THE PHIPPSES. 7
present head of the family, was a distinguished
statesman, politician, and diplomatist. He held
many important official situations in the govern
ment of the country, including those of Gover
nor-General of Jamaica, Lord Privy Seal, Lord-
Lieutenant of Ireland, Secretary of State for
the Colonies, and Secretary for the Home
Department, From 1846 till 1852, he was
accredited representative of Great Britain at
the Court of the Tuileries, and from 1854 to
1858 he was Her Majesty's envoy to the Court
of Tuscany. He was also, inter alia, a success
ful novelist. Besides being made a Knight
Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath and a
Knight of the Garter, his political services were
recognised by Lord Melbourne, who conferred
upon him at the coronation of Her Majesty, in
1838, the Marquisate of Normanby. His lord
ship died in 1863, and was succeeded in all his
honours by his only son, George Augustus Con
stantine, the present marquis, who has held
several colonial posts, including the Governor
ship of Victoria.
His uncle, the late Hon. Sir Charles Phipps,
was for many years private secretary and keeper

8 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
of the Privy Purse to Her Majesty ; and various
members of the Phipps family, ever since the
days of Lord Melbourne, and the accession of
Her Majesty, have held lucrative posts about
the Court and the person of Queen Victoria.

PEREGRINE BERTIE.
For three centuries the Christian name of Pere
grine has been a' special favourite in the noble
house of the Berties, formerly Dukes of Ancas-
ter, and now Earls of Lindsey. The name, as
every fourth-form schoolboy knows, denotes a
* foreigner ' or ' traveller ;' and it is familiar to
English ears also in its abridged and disguised
shape of ' pilgrim,'
Most fancies have a reason, if one can only
find it out; and there is good reason for the
fancy which the Berties have taken for the
name of Peregrine; for it commemorates an
event in their family history of which they may
well be proud, though three centuries and more
have passed since that event occurred.

10 CHAPTERS prom FAMILY CHESTS.
It appears from the records of the College of
Arms that, according to the Heralds' Visitation,
one Thomas Bertie, a gentleman of high birth,
long pedigree, and great accomplishments, a
member of a family seated at Berstead or Bear-
sted, in Kent, ' having a long tyme used himself
to feates of armes,' was appointed by King
Henry VIII. Captain or Governor of Hurst Castle,
between Southampton and the Isle of Wight.
We know little of him personally, and perhaps
he did not hold his captaincy long enough to
leave a name behind him for any further ' feates ;'
but by his wife, AHce Say, or Saye, he left a
son, Richard, who became a fellow of Corpus
Christi College, Oxford, was bred to the Bar,
and became distinguished for his accomplish
ments in an age when the young students of
Lincoln's-Inn and the Temple took part in plays,
masques, and revels; and when even grave
Lord Chancellors and Keepers were not ashamed
to 'lead the brawls' at Christmastide in the
Great Hall, wliich was decorated with bright
mistletoe and holly for the occasion.
In 1553 young Robert Bertie carried off as
his prize and married one of the belles of the

PEREGRINE BERTIE. 11
Court, the fair Mistress Katharine, Baroness
Willoughby d'Eresby in her own right, as only
daughter and the heir of William, last Lord
Willoughby of the ancient line, and also amply
dowered with this world's goods, as being, the
youthful widow of Charles Brandon, Duke of
Suffolk, whose near relation to the throne made
the Tudor Queen Mary almost as furious at this
love-match as her sister Elizabeth was after
wards, whenever she found that a Dudley
or a Sidney had married without first asking
her royal leave.
If Mr, Bertie had not already imbibed some
strong Protestant opinions from his wife, who
was much attached to her first husband's me
mory, the anger of the queen at his presumption
may have confirmed in him an idea that the
Catholics were not the most charitable people
in the world ; and probably his wife was not
slow in fanning such an idea into a flame. At
all events, the pair thought ' discretion the better
part of valour :' and so, not long after their mar
riage, which was sudden and secretly contrived,
they quietly effected their escape from London
to Germany. Here and in Poland, to which

12 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
+,hey extended their travels, they found plenty
of persons in high positions, and even in courts,
who were well disposed to anyone who had a
grievance against that most unpopular of sove
reigns, Mary Tudor.
But the story of the flight abroad of this
oouple is styled by Sir Bernard Burke a ' roman
tic ' affair, and such indeed it was. It will be
remembered that Charles Brandon, the Duke of
Suffolk, was one of the firmest and staunchest
friends of Archbishop Cranmer, and that his
wife almost surpassed him in zeal for the cause
of the ' new religion.' At all events, at Grims-
thorpe, her seat iu Lincolnshire, she kept as her
domestic chaplain Dr. Latimer, the same who,
under Queen Mary, as Bishop of Worcester, died
at the stake. Finding, from sources of private
information, that she and her new husband were
down on the Queen's ' Black List,' she resolved
to steal a march on the myrmidons of the law,
and to find some excuse for a voluntary exile,
which she did not intend to be of brief duration.
Accordingly, either at Boston or at Lynn, the
young couple secured berths on board a fishing
vessel which was bound for one of the ports in

PEREGRINE BERTIE. 13
the Low Countries, taking with them an infant
daughter, named Susan, who afterwards married
Reginald Grey, Earl of Kent.
Though they passed the perils of the sea with
out much difficulty, yet, on landing on the shores
of the Netherlands, they found themselves the
objects of suspicion and mistrust. Accordingly
they went through a series of. not very pleasant
adventures, and suffered much fatigue as they
travelled on in disguise from one city to another
in the hopes of finding a retreat among some of
the Protestant princes of the petty states of
Germany. At last, however, they succeeded in
finding a resting-place for the soles of their feet..
At Wesel, in the Duchy of Cleves, not far from
the confluence of the Rhine and the Lippe, in
1555, the duchess was delivered of a son, to
whom she and her husband gave the name of
Peregrine, for the reason stated above. Dug-
dale, who in the main follows HoUinshead, says
that, when they were refused a lodging at Wesel,
they were about to shelter themselves from the
cold on a very bad and wintry night in the
porch of the great church, and to buy coals and
wood, in order to light a fire there, but that, oa

14 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
their way, Mr. Bertie heard two youths talking
Latin, and that he thereupon prevailed on them,
being a very fair scholar himself, to conduct
them to a private lodging, where they had the
good luck to be recognised by a Mr. Peverel, a
Protestant minister, who caused them to be
entertained in a style befitting their rank.
It is probable that they remained at Wesel for
about two years, as in 1557 they journeyed on
into Poland, where they were duly installed by
the ruling power in the earldom of Crolan, in
Samogitia, and had conferred on them full and
absolute power to rule and govern it in the
king's name ; and here they stayed, apparently
quite contented, until the death of Mary and
the consequent accession of Elizabeth prepared
the way for their return to England, which,
under the new queen, soon declared for the
Protestant cause.
In the letters patent by which Peregrine
Bertie was subsequently naturalised, it is recited
that Richard Bertie, his father, had a licence-
from Queen Mary to travel in foreign lands.
This is explained by Dugdale and HoUinshead,
who say that soon after his maniage Bishop

PEREGRINE BERTIE. 15
Oardiner sent for him, and asked him whether
the duchess, his wife, was as ready now to set
up the Mass as she had been before to puU it
down? The same authorities say that, sup
posing the duchess would be in danger, her
husband obtained the Queen's licence to travel,
as if to collect some debts due from the Emperor
of Germany to the late Duke of Suffolk ; and
that he thereupon made his way to the Conti
nent, leaving the poor duchess to follow after
him in the best way she could, whether on
board a fishing boat, as related above, or by
any other chance vessel. Be this as it may,
there is a note in HoUinshead recording the
escape, though he does not enter into details
about it, and Miss Strickland passes over the
affair almost in sUence,
Mr, Bertie and his wife, on their return to
England, stood high in favour at the Court of
the ' Maiden Queen,' The young son, whom, in
memory of his birth during their forced exile
from England, his parents named Peregrine,
grew up to manhood as handsome and ac
complished as his father had been before him ;
and, on his mother's death, in 1 580, he was sum-

16 CHAPTERS FROM I'AMILY CHESTS.
moned to Parliament as Lord Willoughby. He
proved himself one of the first soldiers of his
time ; and Sir Robert Naunton speaks of him in
his ' Fragmenta Regalia ' as ' one of the Queen's
first swordsmen and a great master of the
military art.' He married a lady of the noble
house of De Vere, daughter of Henry eighteenth
Earl of Oxford of that line, by whom he had a
son Robert, a soldier by profession, like his
father, who claimed, though without success,
the earldom of Oxford in right of his mother.
He was more fortunate in a claim which he pre
ferred to the office of Lord Great Chamberlain
of England, which was allowed to him, and
which has descended to his present representa
tive, the Lady Willoughby d'Eresby, mother of
Lord Aveland. He was created Earl of Lind
sey, and made a Knight of the Garter ; and at
the outbreak of the Civil War he was appointed
General-in-Chief of the Royal Forces, a division
of which he commanded at the Battle of Edge
Hill, where he fell.
His great grandson was raised to the Mar
quisate of Lindsey and the Dukedom of An-
caster, titles which became extinct early in the

PEREGRINE BERTIE. 17
present century, when the Earldom of Lindsey
passed to a distant cousin, who was descended
from a younger son of the second earl. But in
almost every generation down to the present
time one of the sons of the house of Bertie has
borne the name of Peregrine.

VOL. IL

18

THE LITTLE KINGDOM OF THE
STANLEYS AND THE MURRAYS,
We all know the common phrase, an imperium
in imperio ; but it is probably new to most of
my readers that down to the end of the last
century, and, indeed, to some extent for some
years in the present, there was 'a kingdom
within this kingdom,' I refer to the sovereignty
of the Isle of Man, which was enjoyed for several
centuries by the Stanleys, Earls of Derby, and
after them by the Murrays, Earls and Dukes of
AthoU. The reader of English history needs no in
troduction to the name of Sir John Stanley,
K.G., Lord Deputy of Ireland under Henry IV.
and Henry V., one of the most distinguished

THE STANLEYS AND THE MURRAYS., 19
statesmen and commanders of his age. So
great was his power and infiuence at Court that
in 1405 he obtained a grant, or rather a com
mission, in conjunction with one Sir Roger
Leke, to ' seize upon ' the fair city of ' York and
its liberties,' and also on the Isle of Man, of
which the Percies of Northumberland bad lately
been dispossessed by forfeiture. Apparently he
was not slow to take advantage of this ' com
mission ;' for we read that in the seventh year of
Henry IV. he obtained a grant in fee of the
said Isle, its Castle, and Peel, originally calledT
Holm Tower, and of aU the islands adjacent to
it, as also of all its ' regalities,' ' franchises,' &c.,
under which were probably included the rights
of port dues, tolls, wreckage, flotsam and jet-
.sam, guardianships of wards, and the granting
of charters for holding markets, fairs, and so
forth. This royal or semi-royal fief, we are further
told, was to be held under the King of England,
his heirs and successors, by personal homage
and by the service of two falcons, to be de
livered at the royal palace of Westminster on
the morning of each king's coronation. It was
C2

20 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
the great-grandson of this Sir Thomas who
married, firstly, the sister of Warwick, the
' king-maker,' and, secondly, the mother of
Henry Earl of Richmond, and who placed the
crown of England on his stepson's head upon
the blood-stained field of Bosworth. But I
must return to my subject.
The sovereignty of Man, though feudally
subject to the crown of England, would seem
to have been a reality. As King of Man, the
earl had the right of summoning the deputies
of the island to a local parhament, the House of
Keys, which is still held in the open air, upon a
hill called the Tinwald Mount, though now it
is convened in the name of Queen Victoria;
and down to this day the Isle of Man, like the
Channel Islands, is unrepresented in the English
Parliament, but enjoys the unquestioned right
of ' Home Rule,' having a legislature for its own
local purposes under the crown of Great Britain
and Ireland.
The words 'king,' 'prince,' and 'lord,' all
admit of degrees, and may be used in a sense
not excluding a reference to some feudal
superior : and therefore it may be supposed that

THE STANLEYS AND THE MURRAYS. 21
when one of the Earls of Derby voluntarily
relinquished the title of ' king ' for that of
'lord,' the change was rather in the name than
in the nature of his rule ; and that, being at a
very remote distance from the seat of the im
perial legislature, the ' lord ' of Man exercised
pretty much the same authority which had
belonged to himself and his predecessors when
they were nominally ' kings,' and that justice
— even to the extent of capital punishment —
was administered, as before, in his name.
James, the seventh Earl of Derby, as ' lord '
of Man, held the island in the cause of Charles
I. against the Parliamentarians ; and his noble
wife is almost as celebrated for her defence of
it in her husband's name and in his absence, as
she had been for her gallant defence of Lathom
House in the early part of the Rebellion. She
could not, however, save her husband from
falling into the hands of the rebels at the battle
of Worcester, or from the headsman's axe at
Bolton in October, 1651, when Cromwell be
stowed the island on his general, Fairfax.
No sooner, however, was Charles II. seated on
his father's throne than he restored the Isle of

22 CHAPTERS PROM PAMILY CHESTS.
Man to the Stanleys in the person of Charles,
eighth earl, whose two sons in succession held
the lordship of it, until the death of the last
survivor of them in 1736, when the Earldom
of Derby passed to a distant cousin.
The question now arose, who ought to inherit
the feudal dignity of Lord of Man. The last
three Earls of Derby had died without leaving
a child behind them; but James, the gallant
earl who fought and bled for the Stuart cause,
had left three daughters, of whom the youngest
survived the rest, and became her father's heir ;
and there were also other females whose
representatives, it was thought, might put in a
claim, namely, the three daughters of Ferdin-
ando, fifth earl — Anne, Lady Chandos ; Frances,
Countess of Bridgewater ; and Elizabeth, Coun
tess of Huntingdon.
The sequel is curious, and shows how often
important matters, even the successions to great
estates and high titles, after all are but the
freaks of Fortune, and hang on the turns of
her wheel. When the coronet of Derby had
been assumed without dispute by a younger
branch of the Stanleys, the lordship of Man

THE STANLEYS AND THE MURRAYS, 23
lay for awhile practically in abeyance ; no
one had claimed it, much less had taken it up ;
and there were some thoughts that, for want of
a successor, it would revert to its feudal supe
rior, the wearer of the British Crown.
James, then Duke of Atholl in Scotland,
had formed no well-grounded hopes of get
ting any pretensions to the sovereignty of
Man acknowledged, though he may have had
some hazy idea of his claims ; but, having
invited Duncan Forbes, late president of the
Court of Session in Scotland, to stay with him
as his guest, he entertained him at Blair Atholl
or Dunkeld. After dinner the attention and
curiosity of Mr, Forbes was drawn to a fine
genealogical tree of the family pedigree, its
honours and alliances, which hung in all the
colours of blazonry upon the walls of the castle
hall. When his experienced eye had examined
it a little at leisure, he exclaimed,
' What is here, my Lord Duke V
' Oh, only the Murray pedigree,' was the reply,
' Only ! I think that, by the recent death of
Lord Derby, your grace has a claim through
your grandmother, Amelia Sophia, daughter of

24 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
the seventh Earl of Derby, to at least some
portion of his estates and honours, though not to
his earldom,'
The duke replied that he had never thought
seriously of any such good luck accruing to
him, and that he had no idea of putting for
ward pretensions which he could not maintain
in a court of law.
' But I am sure that you could maintain
them,' replied Forbes, ' and you ought to lose
no time in putting them forward ; the law and
the right are clearly on your side.'
' You do not really mean so ?' replied the
duke. ' Yes, indeed I do, and you cannot too soon
set about the task in earnest.'
'Then make me out, I pray you, a brief
statement of the grounds of my claim, and I
wiU call on my solicitor in Edinburgh ; then we
will go south and take the advice of English
counsel in London.'
This was no sooner done than the first step
was taken; the duke went up to town.
Solicitors and agents were employed to obtain
the proper certificates at the Lyon office in

THE STANLEYS AND THE MURRAYS. 25
Edinburgh, and in the College of Arms in Lon
don, and the case was laid before one of the
most eminent lawyers of the day. He took his
fee of course, and gave his opinion that the
Duke of Atholl had an undoubted right to the
lordship of Man and to the barony of Strange,
which, as a barony by writ, was descendable in
the female line. The case before long came on
for hearing in due course before the House of
Lords, who decided nem. con. that the claim was
just and incontrovertible, and the Duke of Atholl
holds his seat to-day in the House of Peers as
Lord Strange. Such was the romantic upshot
of a chance country visit.
Difficulties, however, arose with respect to
this imperium in imperio in the hands of the
Murrays. The duke had too much to do in the
management of his own estate in Perthshire to
pay any great attention to his distant sovereign
ty, beyond occasionally nominating its Bishop oi"
its ' Deemsters." Added to this, the duties on
spirits, silks, and other articles being lower than
in England or in Ireland, the Isle of Man then
became a den of smugglers ; and therefore it was
resolved by the EngUsh Government that it

26 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
would be as well to put an end to this constant
source of discomfort and annoyance. As, how
ever, the Murrays had been in possession of
their lordship for half-a-century, there was only
one way of proceeding, namely, by purchase.
Accordingly, just four years after the accession
of George III., a bargain was struck between
the king and the Duke of AthoU, who agreed
for the sun of £70,000 to cede to the Crown all
his feudal rights and civil patronage in Man,
along with the castles of Peel and Rushen,
which thenceforward was annexed du'ectly to
England. From that date forward the smug
gling trade gradually died out, having received
its death-blow by the transfer. The duke, how
ever, specially reserved to himself and his suc
cessors the nomination of the bishop, and sun
dry other ecclesiastical rights. The duke, also,
by fair means or foul, was able stUl to keep a
pretty tight hold on the revenues of the island,
and the British tax-payers in 1828-29 found it
necessary to purchase these rights from the
then Duke of AthoU for the sum of £132,044,
according to Haydn's ' Dictionary of Dates,' or,
if we may trust the statement of Sir Bernard

THE STANLEYS AND THE MURRAYS. 27
Burke, which is endorsed by the author of ' Our
Old Nobility,' for £409,000.
The Murrays hold in all more than a score of
coronets. Besides the Duke of Atholl, the
Scottish peerage counts among its members a
Lord Elibank, a Lord Dunmore, a Lord Stor-
mont, whose title is now merged in the Ear] dom
of Mansfield. Besides these honours, the head
of the Murrays, according to Lodge, is Duke of
Atholl, Marquis of TulUbardine and Atholl, Earl
of TulUbardine, Atholl, Strathay, and Strathar-
dale. Viscount of Balquhidder, Glenalmond, and
Glenlyon, Baron Murray of TulUbardine, Lord
Balvenie and Gask, Baron Strange of Knockyn,
Earl Strange, Baron Percy, Baron Murray of
Stanley and Gloucester, and Baron Glenlyon of
Glenlyon, in Perthshire — to say nothing of
honours which the Dukes once owned, but
which are now extinct or dormant.
Surely the possession of these coronets, with
the hereditary sheriffdom of Perthshire, ought
to give to the head of the ducal house
of Atholl some consolation for the loss of
a lordship which was bound to become more
and more shadowy at each successive genera-

28 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
tion, and for which his grandfather, thanks to
parliamentary influence, was able to command a
price so far above its market value. The age
of such feudal privileges may be said to have
now fairly passed away, and there can be no
possible excuse for their revival in any shape or
form whatever.

29

A MODERN EPISODE
IN THE HOUSE OF DE CLIFFORD.
The holders of the peerages of Lord Clifford of
Chudleigh and of Lord De Clifford are descend
ed in the male and female line respectively from
the once great and powerful house of Clifford,
who enjoyed the earldom of Cumberland, and
who, as stated by me on a previous page,*
stood next to the Percies and the Dacres in the
north of England. Of late years the ancient
Barony of De Clifford has passed, through
females, into one or two different families.
Nevertheless the title is still extant,
AU my readers are aware, no doubt, that the
old bridge across the Thames at Blackfriars was
the work of an engineer named James Mylne.
* See vol. i, p. 144.

30 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
It is not often .that the architect of a bridge be
comes also the architect of a peerage ; and yet
one of the merest accidents in the world, in
which Mylne figured as the principal hand, con
ferred that very ancient title, or at all events its
revival, upon a plain gentleman of Gloucester
shire, The story is told at some length in the
' General Biographical Dictionary' of Chambers;
its substance may be related as follows : Mr.
Mylne happened to be engaged in making some
very great alterations and improvements at
King's Weston, near Bristol, for the late Lord
De Clifford, then Mr. SouthweU, who had known
him at Rome, and who had conceived a very
high opinion of his talents, for a sight of his
(then) new bridge at Blackfriars, On Mr.
Mylne's arrival there, he commenced making
fiome plans, in the course of which he discovered'
in the back part of the house a smaU room, to
which apparently there was no means of access.
It was resolved accordingly to cut into it from
the outside.
On obtaining an entrance, they found, to
their great astonishment, a quantity of old

THE HOUSE OF DE CLIFFORD. 31
family plate, and a pile of musty papers and
parchments. These were deciphered by the
aid of a local antiquary, and the result was that
among them were found the original records of
a barony granted to that family in the reign of
Henry III, The family pedigree was accord
ingly hunted up and set forth ; the Heralds'
College was consulted ; the matter was brought
under the attention of the House of Lords ; a
petition to the king to have the claim submitted
to a committee of privileges was duly presented
and favourably received ; at last, after a short
interval, during which every link in the chain
of proof was closely examined and established
to the satisfaction of the committee, the king
was graciously pleased to revive the dormant
title, and Mr. Southwell took his seat among
the peers of England, as second on the roll of
the barons, in 1776,
The room in which these papers were found
had in all probability been closed up, for the
sake of security, during the ' troublous times '
of the reign of Charles I., and had never been
opened subsequently — upwards of a century.
The rats and the mice had been good and

32 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
kind enough to spare the precious documents,*
and the absence of damp no doubt had con
tributed to the preservation of the papers which
conferred a coronet on Mr. Edward Southwell,
The title, at the death of this nobleman's son
and successor, fell into abeyance, which was
terminated, in 1833, in favour of his eldest
daughter, Sophia, who married Captain John
Russell, and whose grandson is the present
holder of it.
* This has not always been the case. For instance, the
late Sir John Bowring told me once that his ancestor, the
squire of Bowringsleigh, in Devon, had conferred on him a
patent of baronetcy, but that, being put for safety during
the troubles of the Commonwealth behind the panelled
wainscotting of the house, it had been devoured almost
entirely by rats or mice.

33

POOR SIR JOHN DINELEY, BART.
At the beginning of the present century there
were two living objects of curiosity at Windsor ;
the one was the good old farmer king, George
IIL, who, till laid aside by mental and bodily
ailments, used to walk along its streets and
converse on the Castle terrace regularly, to the
great delight of his subjects ; and the other was
one of the Military Knights, or, as they were
then called, the Poor Knights of Windsor — a
certain landless and almost penniless baronet,
Sir John Dineley, a man of eccentric dress and
mien, who had found in the Lower Ward, through
the kindness of those who had known him in
better days, a refuge from the storms of life.
Anchored in his Uttle two-roomed house, he was
in se ipso totus, teres, atque rotundus, and he was
VOL. IL D

34 CHAPTERS PROM PAMILY CHESTS.
the better able to keep the wolf from the door
because he had not a servant, or even a char
woman, to wait upon him. He would go out
early in the morning, aft^r having carefully
locked his door, and walk down through the
Castle gate into the market-place, whence he
would return laden with a penny roll, a pat of
butter, a small bundle of firewood, and possibly
a herring, taking care to return to his rooms
arid dress in time for the service in St. George's
Chapel which the ' Poor Knights ' were bound,
by the statutes of the Order of the Garter, to
attend daily.
And who was Sir John Dineley ? He was a
member — indeed, the last head and representa
tive — of a worthy and respectable family who
long held landed estates in Herefordshire and
Worcestershire, His ancestor had been raised
in 1707 to a baronetcy for his political services,
having sat for many years in the House of
Commons as member, first for Evesham, and
afterwards for Herefordshire ; and the family
had passed through many generations without
a stain upon its escutcheon, when a sad event
occurred which destroyed it root and branch.

POOR SIR JOHN DINELEY, BART. 35
Towards the end of January, 1741, the papers
announced that a tragedy in high life had occur
red at Bristol. On the 17th of that month. Sir
John Dineley Goodyere-Dineley, Baronet, of
Burhope and Charleton, happened to be staying
in the neighbourhood, either at the ' Hot Wells,'
or at Clifton, He was on bad terms, owing to
.some family dispute about property, with his
next brother Samuel, who was in command of a
¦vessel named the Ruhy, then lying in the roads
off the entrance of the Avon.
A mutual acquaintance, with the kindest
¦intentions but with the most unfortunate result,
brought' these two brothers together ; and it was
hoped that a meeting under his friendly mahog
any might pave the way for a reconciliation.
Apparently this hope seemed likely to be real
ised, and the brothers parted with an inter
change of the usual kindly expressions, saying
^good-night,' while the baronet went even so
far as to say that he should be ' glad to see his
brother again soon,'
He was taken at his word, a little more speed
ily than he had imagined possible ; for, having
lingered a little longer at his friend's table, quite
d2

36 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS,
late at night he found himself crossing the large
square under the shadow of the cathedral, known
to everybody in the West of England as College
Green, Here he was suddenly brought to a
stand, being confronted by six sturdy sailors, aU
armed with pistols and cutlass, with his brother,
the captain of the Ruby, at their head. It was
the work of less than a minute to seize and gag
the unsuspecting landsman and to carry him off
to the river-side, where a boat was waiting. As
soon as he was on board, the men rowed down
the Avon to their ship. He was speedily hoisted
on board, and then strangled by two sailors
named > White and Mahony, acting under the
ord.ers of Captain Samuel Goodyere.
But the vengeance of the law was both speedy
and sure. The vessel was detained in the roads
on suspicion, and the instigator of the crime,
Captain Samuel Goodyere-Dineley, who of course
had succeeded his brother in the baronetcy, was
tried, with his two accomplices, at Bristol, in the
following month of March. A verdict of guilty
was returned, and he was sentenced to death
within three months after the perpetration of the
cruel act which had made him at once a baronet

POOR SIR JOHN DINELEY, BART. 37
and a murderer. There was nothing to plead
in his defence, nor was any influence used by
titled personages, as was so often the case in
convictions for high treason, to beg George II.
to respite or pardon the criminal. His estates
were forfeited to the Crown, and his wife and
two' sons were reduced to beggary. The elder
«on, Edward Dineley, died a lunatic in 1761,
never having married, and the younger son was
the Sir John Dineley, whom I have already
introduced to my readers sixty years later as a
' 'Poor Knight ' of Windsor, living on the dole of
a set of rooms in the Castle,
' And passing rich on sixty pounds a year.'
But, poor as he was, he did not despair, even
when sixty, seventy, and eighty years of age of
being able to retrieve his position, and once
more to become Sir John Dineley of Burhope in
reality. The way to accomplish this was easy
if he could only find the right and proper person
— a lady both able and willing to rescue him
from his painful situation as a poor bachelor.
In fact, like his grace the sham Due de Rous-
sillon, he felt that the one solution of his diffi-

38 CHAPTERS PROM PAMILY CHESTS. '
culties was a well-endowed wife ; and what he
felt he avowed openly. With that view, no
sooner was the service over in St. George's than
he went back to his room, threw off his blue
cloak and ' roquelaure,' and came out like a
butterfly, another creature, quite captivating in
appearance. AVherever Royalty took its public walk, where-
ever a crowd assembled, as often as the sounds
of military music brought together the fair
ladies of Windsor and Eton on to the gay parade,
there was Sir John Dineley. Then was dis
closed the gay apparel of the old beau — the
embroidered coat, the silk-flowered waistcoat,
the nether garments of tawdry and faded velvet
carefuUy meeting the dirty silk stockings, which
in their turn terminated in the half-polished
shoes, fastened with silver buckles and clasps.
' On great occasions the old wig was newly
powdered ' — so writes Charles Knight, who re
membered him well, in his pleasant gossipings
about Windsor — ' and the best cocked hat was
brought forth, with a tarnished edging of lace.'
And so Sir John stepped proudly about the
streets and terraces of Windsor at the opening

POOR SIR JOHN DINELEY, BART, 39
of the nineteenth century, just as if he was one
of the fops who hung about Kensington Palace
in the reign of George II, ' All other days were
to him as nothing. He had dreams of ancient
genealogies, and of alUances still subsisting be
tween himself and the first famiUes in the land,
and of mansions described in Nash's " History of
Worcestershire," with marble halls and " superb,
gates," and of possessions that ought to be his
own, and which would place him upon an
equality with the noblest and the wealthiest in
the land, A little money to be expended in
law would turn all these dreams into realities.'
That money was to be obtained through a wife,
to whom in exchange he would give the title of
' my lady.'
Very naturally, therefore, he devoted himself
to that which he had persuaded himself to be
the one great business of his existence. To be
able to display himself where the ladies con
gregated most thickly was the object of his
daily savings; to be constantly in the public
eye was his hope and glory. And, to do poor
Sir John Dineley justice, there was not a particle
of levity in all his proceedings. They were

40 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
terribly real — to himself, at least. ' His face,'
writes Charles Knight, ' had a grave and intel
lectual character ; his deportment was staid and
dignified. He had a wonderful discrimination
in avoiding the twittering, girls, with whose
faces he was famihar. But perchance some
buxom matron or timid maiden, who had
seen him for the first time, gazed upon the
apparition with surprise and curiosity. In that
case he would approach. With the air of one
bred in courts, he made his most profound bow,
and, taking a piece of paper from his pocket, he
presented it, and withdrew ' — doubtless watching
the effect it produced,
I give an extract from one of these matri
monial advertisements :
'For a Wife.'
' As the prospect of my marriage has much
increased lately, I am determined to take the
best means to discover the lady most Uberal in
her esteem, by giving her fourteen days to make
her quickest steps towards matrimony from the
date of this paper until eleven o'clock the next
morning; and, as the contest will evidently be

POOR SIR JOHN DINELEY, BART. 41
the most superb, honourable, sacred, and law
fully affectionate, pray, ladies, do not let false
delicacy interrupt you . . , An eminent attorney
here is lately returned from a view of my very
superb gates before my capital house, built in
the form of the Queen's house, I have ordered
him, or the next eminent attorney here, who can
satisfy you of my possession in my estate, and
every desirable particular concerning it, to make
you the most liberal settlement you can desire?
to the vast extent of three hundred thousand
pounds,' And then follow some comical verses, which
conclude thus :
' A beautiful page shall carefully hold
Your ladyship's train surrounded with gold.'
In another of his handbOls he thus addresses
the ladies with reference to the alienation and
loss of the family estates on account of his
father's crime : ' Pray, my young charmers, give
me a fair hearing ; do not let your avaricious
guardians unjustly frighten you with a false
account of forfeiture.^
There is a quaint portrait of Sir John Dineley

42 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
in the ' Wonderful Characters ' of Caulfeild; and
John Timbs tells us in his ' English Eccentrics '
that he spent no less than thirty years in this
wUd-goose chase after a partner, ' His figure,'
he adds, ' was truly grotesque ; in wet weather
he was mounted on a high pair of pattens , , .
He came to London twice or thrice a year, and
visited Vauxhall and the theatres. His fortune,
if he could recover it, he estimated at three
hundred thousand pounds. He invited the rich
widow, as well as the blooming maiden of six
teen, and addressed them in printed documents,
bearing his signature, in which he specified the
sums that he expected the ladies to possess ; he
demanded less property with youth than with
age or widowhood, adding that few ladies would
be eUgible who did not possess at least ten
thousand pounds a year, which, however, was
as nothing compared with the honour which his
high birth and noble descent would confer, for
he was descended in the female line from the
royal house of Plantagenet, The incredulous
he referred to " Nash's Worcestershire," He ad
dressed his advertisements to the " angelic fair "
from his house in Windsor Castle, and to the

POOR SIR JOHN DINELEY, BART, 43
last he cherished the expectation of forming a
connubial connection with some lady of pro
perty,' But from these dreams he woke at last, some
what suddenly. One morning, in the year
l80^, Sir John Dineley was missed from his
place at the service in St. George's Chapel, and,
on inquiry, it was found that he had not been
seen sallying out that day as usual to buy his
penny roll and farthing candle. His door,
which was fastened inside, was burst open ; his
house, which he never had aUowed a creature
to enter, was found to be almost destitute of
furniture, except a deal table, a couple of chairs,
and a pallet bed. His sitting-room was strewed
with type from a printing-press, at which he
used to ' set up ' and ' work off ' his matrimonial
circulars. He lay in the inner room stretched
out on his bed, apparently in a dying state.
He lingered only a few days, and died — after
all his projects and efforts matrimonial — a
bachelor ; aud with him died the baronetcy of
Dineley,

44

SIMON FRASER, LORD LOVAT.
The life of the last of those misguided men
whose heads were set up on Temple Bar as
-' rebels,' nearly a century and a half ago, can
hardly fail to be of interest to my readers, even
though it should turn out that that Ufe is not
one of the heroic type of martyrs, but that of a
clever, cunning man of the world, and, indeed,
approaching to that of knave.
' At one time,' to use the words of the
late historio-grapher of Scotland, 'he was a
mountain brigand, hunted from cave to cave,
at another a laced courtier, welcomed by the
first circles in Europe ; in summer a powerful
baron, with nearly half a kingdom at his back.

SIMON FRASER, LORD LOVAT. 45-
in Avinter a prisoner, and dragged ignominiously
to the block on Tower HiU : by turns a soldier,
a statesman, a Highland chief, a judge adminis
tering the law of the land ; uniting the loyal
Presbyterian Whig with the CathoUc Jacobite,
and supporting both characters with equal
success.' Lord Lovat was a strange and eccentric
character, and one whom it is worth while to
study. His high talents — I had almost written
genius — his versatUity, his great influence over
others, make him out as one who towered above
his fellow-men, though his personal history is a
record of fraud and force, which would have
been impossible to read in any but a most un
settled time — indeed, a period of civil strife.
His biography has been written at length by
several hands, from which the foUowing notice
is largely abridged. To the contents of these
biographies, which are rare in the extreme, I
am able to add one little bit of romance, name
ly, that there is reason to beheve that, though
he lived and died as Lord Lovat, he had no
real right or claim to the title of Lord Lovat

46 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
at all, but only to that of the Hon. Simon
Fraser.* He was born about the year 1676, and is
described as 'the second son of Thomas
Eraser, fourth son of Hugh, Lord of Lovat:'
and it is worthy of note that no attempt is
made by any of his biographers to show what
became of his elder brother. All that we learn
about Simon's childhood and youth is, that he
was educated at King's College, Aberdeen, that
he distinguished himself in the acquirement of
Latin and French, and that his tone of writing
and speaking was that of a scholar. He was
taken from college to hold a company in the
regiment raised in the service of William and
Mary, by Lord Murray, son of the Marquis of
Atliole. His cousin, Lord Lovat, it appears, had mar
ried a daughter of the Lord of Athole, and her
brother naturally desired that the young lord
should assist in the recruiting. Simon, who had
* This was written shortly before the question of the
Lovat title was brought before the House of Lords in
1884 by a kinsman whose claim, though it wore an appear
ance of truth, was dismissed somewhat summarily on
being sifted by a Committee of the House of Lords.

SIMON FRASER, LORD LOVAT. 47
no toleration for any treachery that was not of
his own devising, [speaks of this proceeding
against the exiled sovereign as ' an infamous
commission,' furthered by one who, ' not daring
to attack the Erasers in an open and decisive
manner, endeavoured to tarnish their reputation
by ruining that of their chief.' The object of
sending for Simon was to inform him that a
captain's commission in the regiment was at his
service if he would give his influence to per
suade the clan to become recruits. ' But Simon's
virtue,' we are told, ' was incorruptible — he re
jected the bait with scorn.' He informed the
head of his house how that ' he had for ever
lost his honour and his loyalty, and that possi
bly he would one day lose his estates in conse
quence of the infamous steps he had taken ;
that, for himself, he was so far from consenting
to accept a commission in the regiment of that
traitor. Lord Murray, that he would immedi
ately go home to his clan, and prevent any one
man from enlisting in it.' Simon, however, at
last accepted the commission; and thus, al
though his honour revolted against taking
arms in support of King William, it was clear

48 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
that 'he had no objection to entering his service,
with the intention of betraying his trust and
doing the work of the enemy.' In connection
with this period of his Ufe there is extant a
curious legal document, in the form of a bond,
by which a fencing-master engages, during all
the days of his life, to teach Simon his art ; and
the price for this slavery is eight pounds.
At the age of twenty the young lord went
to London with his brother-in-law, Murray, to
be presented at King William's court at Ken
sington, Shortly after his return from town
occurred the death of the eleventh Lord Lovat,
and Thomas Fraser of Beaufort immediately
assumed the title of Lord Lovat, Simon — his
elder brother Alexander being, as it was
asserted, no longer in the land of the living —
took, according to the Scottish custom of a
baron's eldest son, the title of ' The Master of
Lovat,' The above succession to the peerage,
however, did not pass unchallenged, and it
stood a chance of becoming one of the causes
ciUhres of the time — one of those cases where
legal principles and practices are torn up by
the roots, that every fibre may be anatomised.

SIMON FRASER, LORD LOVAT, 49
In the meantime a series of stirring incidents
prevented this matter from coming under the
calm arbitration of the law. The chief of these
was his attempted abduction of the young
sister of the late lord, who had a better claim
than himself to the Fraser estates.
In the ' Memoirs ' of the Fraser family, it is
stated that the heiress was destined for a member
of the Athole family, by a ' project of that grey
headed tyrant, the Marquis of Athole, and of
the Earl of TulUbardine, his eldest son, the true
heir to his avarice and his other amiable quali
ties, to possess themselves of the estate of Lovat,
and to enrich their family, which was hitherto
rich only in hungry lords.' It was thought a
dangerous project to force one who was not a
Fraser on the clan ; and Lord Saltoun — the
head of a branch of the Fraser family in Aber
deenshire, with whom a sort of treaty had been
concluded — was supposed to be a fitting instru
ment for counteracting the rising influence of
Simon. Baffled in his schemes with the heiress,
Simon, for some reason or other not altogether
explainable, seized on the widow of the late
VOL. II. K

50 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
Lord Lovat, a lady of the Athole family, and
compelled her to marry him. To accomplish
this act, Simon and his clan rose in arms, osten
sibly for the purpose of attacking Lord Sal-
toun's party ; the real motive, however, was
apparently the seizure of Doune Castle, where
the dowager lady resided, as a close prisoner,
and of forcing her into a marriage with him.
In the indictment brought against Thomas
Fraser, the father, and Simon, the son, for this
outrage, the particulars of the transaction are
thus narrated :
' Not only the said Thomas and Simon Fraser
and their said accomplices refused to lay down
arms and desist from their violence when com
manded and charged by the sheriff of Inverness,
but, going on in their villainous barbarities,
they kept the said lady dowager in the most
miserable captivity, and, when nothing that she
could propose or promise would satisfy them,
the said Captain Simon Fraser takes up the
most mad and villainous resolution that ever
was heard of; for all in a sudden he and his
said accomplices make the lady close prisoner in
her chamber under his armed guards, and then

SIMON ERASER, LORD LOVAT. 51
come upon her with the said Mr. Robert Munro,
minister at Abertraff,* and three or four ruffians,
in the night-time, about two or three of the
morning, of the month of October last, or one
or other days of the said month of October last,
and, having dragged out her maids, Agnes
McBryar and — Fraser, he proposes to the lady
that she should marry 'him, and when she fell
in lamenting and crying, the great pipe was
blown up to drown her cries, and the wicked
villains ordered the minister to proceed.'
As this deed was not only a crime, but an
offence against a powerful family, Simon could
protect himself from punishment only by open
force, and thus he kept up a petty rebeUion in
the Highlands for some years. On the acces
sion of Queen Anne, his opponents becoming
all-powerful, he fled to France, where the nature
of his offence, and the immoraUty and violence
of his whole Ufe and character, were no ob
stacle to his being received into the favour and
confidence of the ' devout ' court of St, Ger-
mains. He undertook to excite a fresh insur
rection in the mountains of Scotland, and to
* One of the parties indicted.
e2

52 CHAPTERS PROM PAMHiY CHESTS,
assemble twelve thousand Highlanders for the
Prince of Wales, if the court of France would
only contribute a few regular troops, some
officers, arms, ammunition, and money. Louis
XIV, entered into this project, although he had
no great confidence in Eraser's sincerity, and
finally resolved that the outlaw should first
return to Scotland, with two persons upon
whom His Majesty might rely, and who were
instructed to examine the Highlands, and sound
the clans themselves.
But Fraser no sooner reached Scotland with
these two individuals than he privately revealed
the whole plot to the Duke of Queensberry,
undertaking to make him acquainted with the
whole correspondence between the Scottish
Jacobites and the courts of St, Germain and
Versailles. On it being discovered that he had
hoaxed the Duke of Queensberry and other states
men, and was playing a deep game of treachery
of his own, he once more made good his safety
by escaping to the Continent,
He had already been outlawed for his out
rages, and another Fraser enjoyed his estates
by the letter of the law ; but still he was not

SIMON FRASER, LORD LOVAT. 53
quite forgotten nor forsaken by his clan. And
when, some years later, the holder of the estates
had joined the insurrection, Simon found it to
his interest to side with the Government, His
clan at once left the insurgents, and he was by
law once more duly installed in the full posses
sion of his large estates.
Of the innumerable intrigues in which he was
engaged during the remainder of his tricky life ;
how, in 1745, he tried to play a double game by
sending his clan, under the command of his son,
to fight for the Pretender, while he himself,
deeply plotting for that cause, sided with the
Royalists ; of these things I need say nothing,
as they are matters of history.
Finding at last that a price was set upon his
head, he attempted to save his life by conceal
ment in the wildest part of the Western High
lands ; but he was run to earth, and arrested at
Moray, and taken to Fort WiUiam, whence he
was conveyed to London by easy stages,* He
* In the last of these stages he slept at the White Hart
Inn at St. Alban's, where he accidentally met Hogarth ;
and his portrait by that artist, ill-favoured as it represents
him, preserves at once his features, and the memory of
that event.

54 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
was naturally the special object of vengeance of
the Government, and, after a trial by his peers
in Westminster HaU, was found guilty of treason,
and executed on Tower Hill in April, 1747,
Whether the Dowager Lady Lovat, after the
forced marriage above referred to, became re
conciled or not to her fate, was afterwards to
Simon Fraser a matter of indifference, 'He
treated the forced ceremony as a youthful froUc,'
writes Mr, J, Hill Burton in his history of Lord
Lovat, ' and the victim of it Uved to see him
twice married, and rising to the pinnacle of for
tune as one who could over-ride the laws of both
God and man. Her days, however, seem not
to have been shortened by her hardships, for
she lived till the year 1743, but died, unluckily,
just too soon to see the signal downfall of her
oppressor,'

55

THE RISE OF THE DUCAL HOUSE
OF PORTLAND.
Like the Russells, so the Bentincks, Earls and
Dukes of Portland, owe the high position
which they hold in the highest grade of our
aristocracy to a mere accident, which made
their founder the object of royal favour. Part
of the story is well known ; but the accident to
which I refer is known only to members of a
narrow and privileged circle.
When WilUam, Prince of Orange, came over
to England in order to rid us of the unpopular
rule of James II,, he brought with him a large
army of Dutch soldiers, and a goodly sprinkling
of the members of the Dutch nobility, who
doubtless were quite content to exchange their
dwelUngs among the dykes of Holland for the
green fields and pleasant homesteads of this

56 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
country. Among them were the Schombergs,
¦ the De Ginkels, the Auverquerques, the Zule-
steins, the Keppels, and last, not least, the
Bentincks, Burke and the heralds tell us but Uttle about
the antecedents of the Bentincks in their own
country. But they would appear to have been
soldiers of fortune, and always ready to risk
their lives and substance in the service of their
prince. The particular member of the house of Ben-
tinck who resolved to share the fortunes of
WiUiam the Dutchman was WiUiam, son of
Henry Bentinck, who is styled Herr Van Dipen-
ham in Overyssel, The son, as a youth, was
page of honour to the prince, and in his early
manhood became his ' confidential adviser,' He
had abeady given the prince a strong proof of
his fidelity and affection ; for, when the former
was ill with the small-pox, he not only nursed
him day and night, but voluntarily shared his
bed-room, and even his bed, at the risk of his
OAvn life.
Such heroic conduct deserved a reward, and
for a wonder it received one. Bentinck was

THE DUCAL HOUSE OP PORTLAND. 57
sent, whilst quite a young man, to England, on
a confidential and delicate mission, namely, to
negotiate the marriage of the Prince of Orange
with the Princess Mary, daughter of James,
Duke of York. Accompanying his royal master
to our shores, he landed with him in Torbay, .
rode up to London by his side, and as soon as
the prince had accepted the throne which was
offered to him by the Houses of Parliament, he
was appointed groom of the stole and first gen
tleman of the royal bed-chamber, and sworn a
member of the Privy Council, Two days before
the coronation of William and Mary, he was
made a peer of his adopted country, by the
' name, style, and title of Earl of Portland, Vis
count Woodstock, and Baron of Cirencester,'
He subsequently held the important command
of the king's own regiment of Dutch Guards,
and in that capacity played a leading part at
the battle of the Boyne. He was a man marked
by no great brilUancy of parts, but of sterling
integrity and fidelity, and his bravery was be
yond question. By his first wife, who was a
VUUers, the sister of the Earl of Jersey, he had
a family of daughters, most of whom were mar-

58 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
lied to EngUsh peers, and also a son, who be
came at his death second earl, and was shortly
afterwards created Duke of Portland.
Bentinck does not seem to have taken any
open part in the intrigues and negotiations of
1688-9, but there is little doubt that he acted
privately as 'wire-puller' for his royal master
throughout. Some ten years after WilUam's
accession. Lord Portland was despatched into a
sort of honourable exile, being sent as ambas
sador to Louis XIV. at Versailles after the peace
of Ryswick ; and it is probable that he himself
sought this appointment, because he was grow
ing jealous of a rival in the king's favour —
namely, Keppel, who had been made Lord
Albemarle. Lord Portland's embassy was very
stately and imposing, as befitted so great a man
at the court of Le Grand Monarque ; but it would
seem to have been remarkable rather for pro
fusion than for elegance and taste ; and accord
ingly it was made an object of pleasantry among
the gay lords and ladies of the French court,
whilst some of them strove, but in vain, to vex
the ambassador by most trivial squabbles about

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF PORTLAND. 59'
precedence on the royal staircase. It is on
record that he endeavoured, though in vain, to
persuade Louis to send James II. from St. Ger- '
main to the sunny south, either to Avignon or
to Italy. What is more certainly true is that in
the so-called 'partition treaty' made with Louis
Avith reference to the succession of the crown of
Spain, that negotiation was effected by King
William, not through the English ministers, but
through his Dutch favourite, who consequently
was regarded with great and scarcely concealed
dislike by his brother peers in England.
What Bentinck lacked in the way of friends
ship from his brother peers, however, seems to
have been made up to him in other quarters in
a more substantial manner, for WilUam rewarded
him with large grants of land on the marches
of North Wales, and also gave him the royal
palace of Theobalds, in Herts. The earl, how
ever, preferred the domain of Bulstrode Park,
in Buckinghamshire, where he died in 1719.
He is buried in Westminster Abbey.
The subsequent fortunes of the Bentincks
were largely secured by the marriages of the

€0 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
successive heads of the family with the noblest
houses in the land — the Noels, the Harleys, and
the Cavendishes ; and, as at almost every step
the lady was an heiress, the ducal title was
amply secured by a corresponding amount of
property ; so that for the last two centuries the
Dukes of Portland have stood almost as high
for their wealth as for their rank. Thanks to
the marriage of his ancestor with a Cavendish a
century and a half ago, the present duke owns
the freehold of nearly half of the parish of
Marylebone. The third duke, who held the title from 1762
till the present century, was distinguished by
the personal favour and friendship of King
George III., who sent him as viceroy to Ireland,
and made him twice premier. The second son
of this duke. Lord WiUiam Bentinck, was
Governor-General of India, where his name is
stUl remembered for the exertions which he
made in the cause of education and in the
abolition of the horrors of 'suttee.' Another
son. Lord George Bentinck, after spending his
Ufe on the turf, and winning its ' blue ribbon '

THE DUCAL HOUSE OP PORTLAND. 61
at Epsom, late in life became joint leader of
the Conservative party along with Benjamin
Disraeli, and, had it not been for his sudden
death, it was quite ' upon the cards ' that he
might have been Premier of England.

62

THE NOBLE HOUSE OF COURTENAY.
It may be asserted without fear of contradic
tion that, in point of ancestral nobility and
ancient glory, no family in the British Peerage
exceeds that of the Courtenays, Earls of Devon
shire, or Devon. It is true that it was not until
a comparatively recent date that they attained
the coronet which their head now wears ; but
their nobility dates from before the Conquest,
and is European rather than English, cosmo-
poUtan rather than insular.
If we may trust the statement of the monk
Almoin, who wrote in the twelfth century, the
earliest ancestor of the Courtenays was Otho, a
certain French knight, who lived about the
year 1100, and who built the castle of Cour-
tenai, on the banks of the river Clair, be-

THE NOBLE HOUSE OP COURTENAY, 63
tween Sens on the east and Montargis on the
west, and between fifty and sixty miles to the
south of Paris, His grandson Joceline joined
in the first crusade, and by the death of his
kinsman, Baldwin, gained the title of Count
of Edessa, with a large territory annexed to
it. His son and successor, being worsted in his
wars with the barbarians, died a prisoner at
Aleppo in Syria, His daughter married the
brother of Baldwin III., King of Jerusalem, and
two of her descendants inherited that sovereignty,
Joceline, third Count of Edessa, distinguished
himself at the battle of Ascalon against Saladin,
Sultan of Egypt, and is supposed to have been
slain at the fall of Jerusalem, His daughters Bea
trix and Agnes were married, the former to a
German, and the latter to a French noble, and
with them ended this (the elder) branch of the
Courtenays, The descent from Otho, however, was carried
on by his great-grandson, Reginald de Courte-
nay, who married Isabel, daughter of one of the
Counts of Corbeille. The eldest daughter of
this marriage married Peter, a younger son of
Louis le Gros, who assumed, as was the custom

64 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
in such cases, his wife's name, and is known to
history as Peter Courtenay, and whose son (also
Peter) succeeded to the throne of Constanti
nople in right of his wife, sister and heiress of
Baldwin and Henry, Counts of Flanders, the
first and second Latin Emperors of the East.
Three of his descendants in succession sat
upon the throne of Constantinople, The last of
these left a daughter and heiress, Jane, who
married Charles V, of France ; and their son,
Roger de Courtenay, Seigneur de Champaign-
elles and Chief Butler of France, died in Pales
tine in 1329,
Nine generations pass by, when I find his
descendant Francis de Courtenay petitioning
Henry IV. of France, but without success, for
the restoration of his ancient house to their
rights as princes of the blood ; and other mem
bers of the house presented like petitions to
his successors on the French throne, but with
only the same mortifying result.
The direct French Une of Courtenay and the
male descendants of Pharamond in that country
are said to have ended by the sudden death of
Charles Roger Courtenay, in May, 1730.

THE NOBLE HOUSE OP COURTENAY, 65
It is a matter of tradition and history that the
Reginald Courtenay mentioned above abandoned
his estates in France, and settled in England in
the early part of the reign of Henry II, It is
said that the reason of his expatriation was the
disagreement between Louis VII, and his queen,
Eleanor of Aquitaine, and her consequent divorce
and re-marriage to the King of England — an
end to which Courtenay had largely contributed,
Henry, being thus indebted to him, did his best
to help him to a good match on this side of the
Channel, in consequence of which Reginald espous
ed Hawise or Alice, granddaughter of Robert de
Abrincis, Viscount of Devonshire ; and Hugh
Courtenay, his descendant in the fourth genera
tion, succeeded in due course to the annexed
Earldom of Devon, being lineally sprung from
Baldwin de Brion, Baron of Oakhampton and
Viscount of Devonshire, through his son Hugh,
the first Earl of Devonshire, He added to his
position at Court by a fortunate marriage with
Margaret, daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, the
all-powerful Earl of Essex, by the Lady Elizabeth
Plantagenet, daughter of King Edward I,
The succeeding earls were distinguished for

66 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
their loyalty and devotion to their king and
country; and, during the Wars of the Roses,
they firmly adhered to the Lancastrian cause.
The first earldom of Devon became extinct on
the death of John, eighth earl, who, having
joined in the cause of Margaret of Anjou, fell,
sword in hand, at the battle of Tewkesbury, in
1471. It is not to be wondered, therefore, that
when the Tudors came to the throne the son of
Henry of Lancaster should have resolved to
bestow further honours on the Courtenays, and
accordingly Edward, second Earl of Devon (of
the new creation) was raised, in 1525, to the
marquisate of Exeter.
He had the honour of tilting with Francis I.
of France at the tournament which formed part
of the amusements at the meeting of the French
and English monarcUs on the ' Field of Cloth of
Gold.' His prosperity, however, lasted but a few
brief years, for, in 1538, he was accused, truly or
falsely, of high treason, in having, together with
Henry Pole, Lord Montacute, and Sir Edward
Nevill, conspired to place Reginald Pole, Dean
of Exeter, upon the throne. He was executed,

THE NOBLE HOUSE OF COURTENAY. 67
by the headsman's axe, on Tower Hill, January
9, 1539, when his marquisate passed under
attainder. His son and heir, Edward, who, but for the
attainder, would have been second marquis, was
only twelve years old at his father's death, was
kept a close prisoner in the Tower till the end
of Henry's reign, and through that of his son
Edward ; but he was released on the accession
of Mary, and restored by a new patent of crea
tion, dated September 3, 1553, as Earl of Devon,
The original precedence, however, of his ances
tors he was never able to recover, as did the
Dukes of Norfolk and Somerset, He is described
by quaint old Fuller as being ' a person of a
lovely aspect, a beautiful body, a sweet nature,
and a royal descent.' Queen Mary is said at one
time to have intended to bestow on him her
hand, but this design never came about. Per
haps he was wise in steering clear of a match
with so dangerous a lady as a Tudor princess.
Some, however, say that the queen never for
gave him for slighting her love for that of her
sister Elizabeth, Be this as it may, he was
again thrown into the Tower, from which he

68 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
was soon after released at the intercession of
Mary's husband, Philip of Spain.
As his ancestor had come over to England
from the Continent, so now he resolved to retire
from this land of strife and war, and to seek a
refuge in the sunny and peaceful south. He
accordingly withdrew into Italy, where he died
unmarried, not without suspicion of having been
poisoned. His large estates passed into the
families of Mohun, Trelawny, and Arundell of
Trerice, and his earldom was supposed to have
become extinct, or, at all events, to have passed
into a hopeless abeyance ; so hopeless, that the
earldom (and subsequently the dukedom) of
Devonshire was held to be at the free disposal
of the Crown, and was bestowed by James L
on the head of the house of Cavendish.
Towards the end of the reign of George IV.,
however, a claim to the ancient earldom was
preferred by WilUam, Lord Courtenay, of Pow-
derham Castle, as a descendant of Hugh de
Courtenay, second of the old earls of Devon;
and, after a long investigation before a Com
mittee of Privileges, it was resolved by the
House of Lords in March, 1831, that the claim

THE NOBLE HOUSE OP COURTENxVY. 69
had been clearly established. The new earl,
however, who had long resided in Paris, where
he led a self-indulgent and eccentric life, never
came to England to take his seat in the House
of Peers, the doors of which he had sought, at
such cost of money and labour, to have opened
in his favour. He died some three or four years
afterwards, when the earldom passed to his
cousin, William Courtenay, who had been for
many years a clerk in the House of Peers ; and
his son, who sat as M.P, for South Devon in the
House of Commons, and afterwards held office
successively as Secretary to the Poor Law
Board, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster,
and also as President of the Poor Law Board, is
the present head of the noble house of Cour
tenay, unless the Almanack de Gotha can furnish
us with any elder branches among the maisons
royales or maisons ducalea on the Continent,*
The Courtenays till quite lately retained for
their motto the touchingly plaintive words, ' Z/Si
! ? quid feci T — ' Where am 1 fallen, and

* Gibbon, as is well known, devotes an eloquent chapter
of his ' Decline and Fall ' to a general statement of the
honours of this noble house.

70 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
what have I done V These words, which ex
press astonishment at a sudden and undeserved
fall, are said to have been adopted by the Pow-
derham branch of the Courtenay family, when
they had lost the earldom of Devon, Of late.
they have adopted the far more prosaic motto,
' Quod verum tutum.'

71

THE GALLANT ADMIRAL LORD
DUNDONALD,
Excepting Lord Nelson, perhaps no other
officer in the British Navy during the present
century has gained greater distinction by his
services than the late Admiral Thomas Earl of
Dundonald, best known as Lord Cochrane,
whose naval career was one of brilliant exploits
and deeds of daring. In 1809 his destruction
of the French ships in the Basque Roads dealt
a crushing blow to the great Napoleon's mari
time efforts, A few years later he served under
the government of Chili and Peru, which had
revolted against Spain, and his naval assistance
mainly contributed to those provinces achieving
their independence. His great feats in that war
were his captm-e of Valdivia, and his cutting

72 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
out the Spanish frigate Esmeralda from under
the fortifications of Callao. He was subse
quently employed by the empire of Brazil, and
there also he was completely successful. He
was created Marquess of Maranham, in Brazil,
and had conferred upon him the Grand Cross of
the Imperial Brazilian Order of the Cruzers ; he
was also a knight of the Royal Order of the
Saviour of Greece, and of the Order of Merit
of Chili, and a Knight Grand Cross of the Most
Noble Order of the Bath. He succeeded his
father as tenth Earl of Dundonald in July, 1831,
It is not, however, of the services which won
for his lordship the proud distinctions above-
enumerated that I wish to speak in this paper,
but rather of an episode in his life by which he
was placed in a very awkward and unenviable
position, namely, a charge of conspiracy and
fraud in connection with the Stock Exchange,
which was brought publicly against him in the
year 1814,
Extraordinary panics have, at different times,
taken place at the Stock Exchange, and the
prices of stocks have risen and fallen with
;rapidity at the rumours of wars, foreign aUi-

THE GALLANT ADMIRAL LORD DUNDONALD, 73
ances, and coalitions. Sometimes these rumours
have been proved to be mere inventions. The
most extraordinary conspiracy ever planned
and carried out in order to bring about a panic,
however, was that which formed the subject of
the charge above referred to, and which was
carried into execution towards the close of the
great struggle between the First Napoleon and
the allied sovereigns of Europe, The ' funds '
were then in a very depressed condition, and
great national anxiety prevailed. The best
idea of this conspiracy, perhaps, may be gathered
from a narrative of certain legal transactions
which took place some sixty years ago.
The trial came on for this conspiracy in the
Court of King's Bench, GuildhaU, on the 8th of
June, 1814, the persons charged, besides Lord
Cochrane, being Captain Randone de Berenger,
the Hon, A, Cochrane-Johnstone, R. Gathorn
Butt, Ralph Sandom (a, spirit merchant at
Northfleet), Alexander M'Rae, J, Peter HoUo-
way, and Henry Lyte. They were indicted for
conspiring to defraud the Stock Exchange ' by
cu'culating false news of Bonaparte's defeat, of
his being killed by the Cossacks, etc, in order

74 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS,
to raise the funds to a higher price than they
would otherwise have borne, to the injury of
the public, and the benefit of the conspirators.'
The conspiracy was very dramatically carried
out, and the report which was spread through
the city by the principal persons concerned in
it was such as to throw the citizens of London
into a state of commotion.
It appears that about one o'clock, a.m., on
the 21st of February in the above year, a
person, who was proved at the trial to be none
other than Randone de Berenger, stopped a
watchman in the town of Dover, and inquired
the way to the ' Ship Inn,' at that time the
principal hotel in the town. The person, who
gave the name of Colonel De Bourg, aide-de
camp of Lord Cathcart, was attired in a scarlet
and gold uniform, with a large star on his
breast. Having made his way, as directed, to
the ' Ship Inn,' he knocked violently at the
door, and, on being admitted, pretended that h©
had been conveyed in an open boat from France,
and landed along the coast about two miles
from Dover ; that he was the bearer of impor
tant news from the seat of war — being nothing

THE GALLANT ADMIRAL LORD DUNDONALD. 75'
less than 'that the allies had gained a great
victory, and had entered Paris ; that Bonaparte
had been overtaken by a detachment of Sachen's
Cossacks, who had slain and cut him into a
thousand pieces ; that General Platoff had saved
Paris from being reduced to ashes ; and that the
white cockade was worn everywhere, and that
an immediate peace was noAv certain,'
He next wrote a letter to Admiral Foley,
the port-admiral at Deal, conveying to him the
above ' important news ;' and then immediately
set off himself in a post-chaise for London, by
way of Canterbury, Sittingbourne,and Rochester,
The object in sending the letter to Admiral
Foley was that he might have telegraphed the
intelligence to the Admiralty ; but through the
haziness of the atmosphere the semaphores
were of no avail. On his arrival at Rochester,
' De Bourgh ' made his way to the ' Crown Inn,'
and communicated the news to the landlord;
and, taking care that the report should be
spread at every available point on his journey,
he hurried on until he came to the ' Elephant
and Castle,' in the Kent Road ; but, finding no
hackney-coach there, he ordered the post-boy to

76 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS,
drive him on to Marsh Gate, Lambeth, where
he entered a hackney-coach, and was driven off
to a house then recently taken by Lord Coch
rane in Green Street, Grosvenor Square,
By a little after ten the rumours had reached
the Stock Exchange, and the funds rose sensi
bly ; but, on its being found that no confirma
tory news had reached the Lord Mayor, they
soon went down again. But an important
auxiliary to this fraudulent contrivance shortly
appeared. This was the arrival of three appar
ently military officers in a post-chaise from
Northfleet, having the drivers and horses
decorated with laurel. These were Sandom,
M'Rae, and Lyte in disguise. To spread the
news they drove through the City, and over
Blackfriars Bridge, and were set down near the
Marsh Gate, where they tied up their cocked
hats, put on round ones, and walked away.
This last contrivance was the means of rais
ing ' omnium ' to 32 per cent. The amount of
stock in the possession of Lord Cochrane and
Messrs. Johnstone and Butt amounted to nearly
one million; and it was proved in evidence
that, but for this plan for raising the funds, they

THE GAI.LANT ADMIRAL LORD DUNDONALD. 77
must have been defaulters to the amount of
£160,000, and nearly ruined by their specula
tions, Sandom, HoUoway, and Lyte were
'jobbers' in the funds. At the time of the
trial, the two latter had confessed what was
their object to the Stock Exchange Committee,
though they denied any participation with the
other parties, De Berenger's handwriting was
proved ; and the coat, purchased at Solomon's,
at Charing Cross, was identified as having been
bought and worn by him, and then sunk in the
Thames, whence it was accidentally dredged
up by a fisherman, M'Rae, who was in distressed
circumstances, and who was proved to have re
ceived fifty pounds for his services.
For the defence it was contended and proved
that Lord Cochrane was acquainted with De
Berenger on honourable grounds, not arising
from stock-jobbing transactions, having exerted
himself to get him into the Navy ; likewise that
he had authorised his broker to sell his stock
whenever he could get a profit of one per cent.
Lord Ellenborough took two hours in sum
ming-up the case, and the jury took another
two hours and a half in arriving at a verdict.

78 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
They found all the persons guUty ; and the
sentence passed upon them was as follows:
' That the defendants, Lord Cochrane and Butt,
should each pay a fine of £1,000 ; the defendant,
HoUoway, a fine of £500 ; all the defendants to
be imprisoned for one year in the custody of
of the Marshal of the Marshalsea ; and that the
defendants — Lord Cochrane, Butt, and De
Berenger — should once, during that period,
stand in and upon the pillory for one hour,
between the hours of twelve and two at noon,
in the open space facing the Royal Exchange
in the city of London,'
Lord Cochrane at the time of the trial was
Member of Parliament for the city of West
minster, and in the month of July he was
brought to the Bar of the House of Commons,
and called upon to make his defence. He most
solemnly declared his innocence, and imputed
great partiaUty to Lord Ellenborough, the
judge who presided at the trial, and earnestly
implored the House to institute a thorough
investigation of the case. The motion, never
theless, for his expulsion was carried ; but that
part of the sentence condemning him to stand

THE GALLANT ADMIRAL LORD DUNDONALD. 79
in the piUory was remitted, the Government
being evidently afraid to carry it into effect,
as Sir Francis Burdett had declared that, if it
was done, he would stand beside his friend on
the scaffold of shame.
So little did the ' people ' beUeve in Lord
Cochrane's guilt, that, on the issuing of the new
writ for Westminster, he was immediately and
without opposition re-elected as their representa
tive. To crown all, however, Cochrane's political
enemies had him stripped of his knighthood, and
the escutcheon of his Order disgracefully kicked
down the steps of St, George's Chapel, Windsor
Castle, Lord Cochrane demurred on principle to
the remission of any part of his sentence, stating
that, if innocent, he ought to be publicly pro
claimed so ; but that, if guilty, the punishment
was certainly not too severe.
For many years Lord Dundonald remained
under a cloud, a branded exile, devoting his
courage to the cause of universal liberty, but
lost to the country which he loved so much. In
his old age justice, to some extent, was done to
him by the restoration of part of the honours
and dignities of which he had been stripped.

80 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
Under one Government, in 1832, Lord Dun
donald received the free pardon of the
Crown, and was promoted to that rank in the
Navy which he would have held had he never
been dismissed the service. Under a subsequent
Government, in 1847, he was restored to the
honours conferred upon him previous to his
expulsion, a course which amounted to nothing
less than a public recognition by the Government
of his innocence. At his death in 1860, his re
mains were honoured with a grave among the
nation's heroes in Westminster Abbey. Finally
in 1877, the committee of privileges of the
House of Lords decided that complete reparation
would not have been done to Lord Dundonald
unless the claims for ' back pay ' which had
been instituted by his successor, were recog
nised; the committee adding that it should
further be borne in mind that the exceptionally
brilliant services of Lord Dundonald renderedto
the British Crown as a naval officer, would, but
for his dismissal, probably have earned for him
more ample and adequate reward than any
which he received for his services. So tardy
occasionally is the action of justice.

81

THE
MURDER OF LORD CHARLEMONT.
The family of Caulfeild, Earl of Charlemont, is
one of great power and distinction in the north
of Ireland, where its members have been settled
for the last three centuries. The present Lord
Charlemont is the owner of some twenty thou
sand seven hundred acres of land in the county
of Armagh, and about five thousand nine hun
dred in the county of Tyrone ; his nominal rent-
roll in the two counties reaching, according to
the modern Doomsday Book, to an aggregate of
about twenty-five thousand six hundred pounds.
The founder of this noble family in Ireland
was Sir Toby Caulfeild, son of one Alexander or
Richard Caulfeild, Recorder of Oxford, who was
descended from ancestors of great antiquity and
VOL. IT. a

82 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
worth, settled in that county, aad at Great
Missenden, Buckinghamshire. Sir Toby was a
distinguished and gallant soldier, and, to quote
the words of Mr. Lodge, in his ' Peerage of
Ireland,' ' being initiated in the affairs of war
when very young, performed many serviceable
and memorable actions in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth against her Majesty's enemies in
Spain, the Low Countries, and Ireland (all
which are specified in the preamble to his
patent of creation to the title of Baron of
Charlemont), and especially against the formid
able traitor, O'Neile, Earl of Tyrone.'
Towards the close of the sixteenth century
Sir Toby Caulfeild took part in the siege of
Kingsale against the Spaniards ; and in the
beginning of June, 1602, the Deputy, having
collected his forces, took the field, entered
Tyrone, and marched up to the passage of the
Blackwater, which he had in the previous year
discovered to be most convenient to carry her
Majesty's forces that way into the heart of that
district. He there spent some time in causing
a bridge to be built over the river, and a fort
adjoining to guard the passage, which, after his

THE MURDER OF LORD CHARLEMONT. 83
own Christian name, Charles, was called Charle
mont. Captg-in Caulfeild, with his company of
one hundred and fifty men, were left to com
mand it. The services of this ga,llant baud
were so eminent, that the Queen was pleased to
reward their leader with a grant of part of
Tyrone's estate and other lands in the province
of Ulster,
After King James' accession to the crown of
England, he was honoured with knighthood ;
called into his Majesty's Privy Council ; made
Governor of the fort of Charlemont and of the
counties of Tyrone and Armagh; and further
rewarded for his fidelity and worthy service
with many grants of lands and employments.
He was also returned as 'knight of the shire' for
the county of Armagh, and appointed Master of
the Ordnance. He was subsequently named
Commissioner for the ' plantation ' of the county
of Longford and the territory of Elge O'Carrolin
the King's County, In all these several employ
ments and trusts the King found him so faithful,
diligent, and prudent that he thought him high
ly deserving of the peerage of Ireland, and so
created him Baron Caulfeild of Charlemont by
g2

84 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
Privy Seal, bearing date at Westminster Nov, 1,
and by patent at DubUn Dec. 22, 1620, limiting,
or rather extending, the honour to his nephew.
Sir William Caulfeild, and his issue male.
Toby, the third Baron of Charlemont, was
returned to Parliament for the county of Tyrone,
and succeeded his father as Governor of the fort
of Charlemont — a very considerable and im
portant place at the time of the rebelUon of 1641
— where he then lived, having his company of
the 97th Foot (at fifteen shillings a day on the
establishment) in garrison. But on Friday,
October 22, he was surprised and made prisoner
with all his family, and afterwards murdered by
Sir Phelim O'Neill's directions, the circumstances
whereof are related as follows in Lodge's work
quoted above :
' Sir Phelim O'Neill that day went to dine
with his lordship, who very joyfully received
and entertained him; but Sir Phelim having
appointed that visit as a sign to his Irish
followers, they repaired thither in great number^,
and his lordship's whole company, with the
captain-lieutenant, Anthony Stratford, were
either killed or imprisoned, and all the arms and

THE MURDER OP LORD CHARLEMONT. 85
goods seized by Sir Phelim, who, being thus
master of the place, marched that very night
and took Dungannon ; and, after keeping his
lordship, with his mother, sisters, brothers, and
the rest of his family, fifteen weeks prisoners in
Charlemont, sent them about five miles' distance
to Killenane, the house of Lawrence Netterville,
And the next day, sending away Major Patrick
Dory, the Lord Caulfeild earnestly desired Sir
Phelim that the major might stay with him,
because he could speak the Irish language ; but
Sir Phelim answered, he should have better
company before night ; and the same day, in
the major's presence, committed the charge of
his lordship to Captain Neale Modder O'Neil and
Captain Neale M'Kenna, of the Trough, in the
county of Monaghan, with directions to convey
him to Coughowter Castle. That night he was
taken to Kinard, Sir Phelim's own castle, when,
going into the castle between the said two
captains, the latter spoke to Edmond Bog O'Hugh
(foster-brother to Sir PheUm) saying, " Where is
your heart now ?" whereupon the said Edmond
shot his lordship in the back, whereof he then
<Jied.

86 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
¦• And that same night there were also fifteen
or sixteen of Sir Phelim's servants and tenants —
all EngUsh and Scots— murdered at Kinard,
among whom was a base son of Sir Phelim's
also murdered, because his mother was a British
woman. And it is further observed that Peter-
Pilly, his lordship's servant, three months before
the rebellion broke out, being threatened by the
Lady Caulfeild (his lordship's mother) that she
would turn him away unless he would go to
church ; he said she need not trouble herself, for
he did believe she would not stay long at Charle
mont herself ; and the day the rebellion began
he went with Sir Phelim to Charlemont, and took
away his lordship's horses,
' Sir Phelim took the king's broad seal from
the confirmation patent of the estate to his lord
ship's father, and affixed it to a sham commission,
which he pretended was granted by the king,
authorising him to raise that horrid rebeUion,'
The murder of Lord Charlemont took place on
the 1st of March, 1641 ; and this further circum
stance is added by the examination of William
Skelton, then a servant to Sir PheUm O'Neill,
who witnessed the perpetration of the deed from

THE MURDER OP LORD CHARLEMONT, 87
a window, that, ' as his lordship was entering
in at the outward gate of Kinard House, one
Clogholey O'Hugh fired his piece at him, and
missed to discharge it; whereupon another rebel,
named Edmond Boy O'Hugh, cocked his piece
and shot his lordship, being on foot, who fell
down, and uttered these words, " Lord, have
mercy upon me !"
It also appears, by the deposition of Mrs, Jane
Beer, that, not long after his lordship was
murdered, the assassin was taken, and imprison
ed in the gaol of Armagh, and had three men
set as sentinels over him (as a mock exhibition
on the part of Sir Phelim), namely, an English
man, a Scotchman, and an Irishman. He, how
ever, succeeded in making his escape, along
with the gaoler ; whereupon Sir PheUm O'Neill
caused the three sentinels to be confined, and
threatened to hangthem all. The two former (the
Englishman and the Scotchman) were accord
ingly executed ; but the Irishman was released,
and the gaoler who had conveyed away the
murderer, afterwards returned to his place, and
remained there unquestioned and unmolested by
Sir Phelim,

88 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
' A most surprising instance of the divine Pro
vidence seems to have interposed for the pre
vention of this horrid design (Lord Caulfeild's
murder). The butler, an old and trusty ser
vant,' so runs the narrative, ' remarked that the
assassin, his accomplices, and the noble family,
made up the odd number of thirteen ; and
observed, with dread aud concern, that the
murderers had often changed both their seats
and their countenances, except the bravo him
self, who kept his place on the left hand of Lord
Caulfeild, as he was wont to do, being an intimate
acquaintance, ' The butler took the opportunity, whilst they
were at dinner, to acquaint his lady with the
causes of his uneasiness, telling her that he
dreaded some direful event. She rebuked his
fears ; told him he was superstitious ; asked if the
company were merry, and had everything they
wanted. He answered, he had done his duty :
they all seemed very merry, and wanted nothing
he knew of but grace ; and since her ladyship was
of opinion that his fears Were groundless, he was
resolved, through a natural impulse he felt, to
take care of his own person. And thereupon

THE MURDER OP LORD CHARLEMONT. 89
instantly left the house, and made the best of
his way to Dublin.' The murder followed almost
immediately after his departure, before he
could well have reached the end of his journey.
His lordship dying unmarried, the honour
devolved on Robert, his next brother, the fourth
baron, who was a captain after the rebellion
began. He, however, enjoyed the title only a
few months, his death being occasioned by pre
scribing to himself too large a quantity of opium ;
so that WilUam, the third son (his brother), sur-
named ' the Good,' became the fifth Baron of
Charlemont, and had the good fortune to
apprehend Sir Phelim O'Neill, his brother's
murderer, and have him executed. His lordship,
Richard Blayney, Esq., ' Escheator ' of Tyrone,
and others were empowered to inquire ' What
estate, right, and title Oliver Cromwell, or any
cf Ms predecessors, kings or queens of England, at
any time had to any castles, manors, lordships,
rectories, tythes, &c., within the county of
Tyrone, by virtue of any Acts of Parliament or
Council, or by reason of any attainder, escheat,
or otherwise, who were then possessed thereof,
and by what title, which commission was then

90 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
executed by an inquisition, taken August 9,
1658, at the town of Strabane,'
After the Restoration, his lordship was called
into the Privy Council, &c,, and, being highly
esteemed by King Charles II, on account of his
merit and services, was advanced to the degree
of a viscount by privy seal, dated at Hampton
Court, July 17, and by patent at Dublin, October
8, 1665, by which title he took his seat in
Parliament, His lordship, dying in April, 1671, was buried
in the cathedral church of Armagh, under a
noble monument erected to his memory. His
lady was Sarah, second daughter of Charles,
Viscount Drogheda, and sister to the wife of his
brother Thomas ; and his children were four
sons and three daughters, his second (but eldest
surviving) son, William, succeeding to his
honours. This nobleman, who was a zealous
supporter of the cause of the Prince of Orange
(afterwards William III.) against King James,
enjoyed the peerage more than half-a-century.
His grandson, James, fourth Viscount Caulfeild
of Charlemont, was a distinguished patriot, and
was advanced to the dignity of Earl of Charle-

THE MURDER OF LORD CHARLEMONT, 91
mont in 1763, His lordship was commander-in-
chief of the volunteer army in Ireland in 1779.
He died in 1799, when the family honours and
estates passed to his eldest son, Francis William,
who was elected an Irish .representative peer,
and who in 1837 was created Baron Charlemont,
in the peerage of the United Kingdom, with
remainder to his brother and male issue. The
earl died in 1863, and, as he left no issue, he was
succeeded in all his hereditary honours by his
nephew, James Molyneux Caulfeild, the third
and present Earl of Charlemont.

92

THE DUDLEYS OF NORTHAMPTON
SHIRE.
For a little more than a century after the
Restoration of the ' Merry Monarch,' few famiUes
held a higher position in ' the land of spires and
squu-es' than the Dudleys, baronets and lords
of the manor of Clapton, near Thrapston, in the
above-mentioned county. During the Civil
Wars they had espoused the cause of royalty,
and had shown their zeal by parting with much
of their plate and jewels, in order to supply the
personal wants of the unfortunate Charles, and,
when his son came to the throne, they were
among the favoured ones who were not for
gotten. The young king entered London in
triumph at the close of May, 1660, and the
patent of baronetcy bestowed on William Dud
ley, Esquire, of Clapton, in the county of North-

THE DUDLEYS . OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, 9 3
ampton, bears date the 1st of August following.
Sir WiUiam was the lineal descendant of the
Suttons, one of whom had taken, as was usual,
or at all events common, in such cases, the sur
name of Dudley on his marriage with Margaret
de Somerie, the daughter and heiress of John
de Somerie, by his wife, Hawise Pagnell, whose
ancestors were Lords of Dudley at a date very
soon after the Norman Conquest. Sir WilUam
had three wives ; but he had children only by
his third lady, a daughter of Sir Paul Pindar,
Alderman of London, whose mansion still partly
stands — though on its last legs — in Bishopsgate
Street Without. His son, the second baronet,
was for many years member of parliament for
his native county, and a Commissioner of the
Customs; and. as his grandson, another Sir
WilUam, proved to be the last of his line, the
title expired with him in 1764.
Among the ancestresses of this Sir WilKam
Dudley, one deserves special mention for her
personal bravery. Her name was Agnes Hotot,
heiress of an ancient and noble family of that
name, who claimed to have come over to Eng-

¦94 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,'
land with the Conqueror, though their name
does not figure on the roll of Battle Abbey,
She was certainly no unworthy daughter of a
noble house, and she deserves being held in
memory for one deed of gallantry, which stands
recorded in a contemporary manuscript penned
hj a reverend monk, who was vicar of Clapton
during the reign of Henry VII. The account
runs as follows, the spelling of the manuscript
being modernised :
' The father of Agnes Hotot, the great heiress
who married Dudley, having a dispute with one
Ringsdale about the title to a piece of land, they
— the litigants — resolved to meet on the disputed
ground, and to decide the affair by single com
bat. On the day appointed for the encounter
at the lists it so happened that Sir John Hotot
was laid up with the gout; but his daughter
Agnes, rather than that the land should be lost
by default, armed herself cap-a-pie, and, mount
ing her father's horse, went and encountered
Ringsdale, whom she unhorsed after a stubborn
•contest. When he lay prostrate on the ground,
¦she loosened her throat-latch, lifted up the vizor

THE DUDLEYS OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. 95
of her helmet, and let her hair down about her
shoulders, thus discovering her sex,'
It may be supposed that Ringsdale was some
what crestfallen on finding that he had been
fairly vanquished in the lists by a woman ; and
it is to be hoped that he carried his quarrel no
further. Doubtless, there was no lack of suitors
for the hand of this brave heroine ; but, whether
they were few or many, she married one of the
Dudleys, from whom Sir William was directly
descended in the fourth or fifth generation.
One memorial of the gaUant deed of the fair
Agnes survived, at all events as long as the
male line of the Dudleys held the broad lands
of Clapton ; for they bore for their crest, as the
heralds express it, ' On an eastern crown, or, a
woman's head with a helmet thereon, hair dis
hevelled, throat-latch loosed, all proper.'* Cer
tainly the symbolism of heraldry is sometimes
very appropriate and eloquent ; and if there are
any Dudleys still existing, whether within or
* According to another account the arms are a chevron,
or, between three lions' heads erased, arg. — ' The Visitations
of Northamptonshire,' Harl. MSS., 1553, fol. 183.

96 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
without the border of Northamptonshire, it is
possible that they claim the right of bearing
that crest as one of which they may well feel
proud, I am told by the present rector of Clapton
that the last Sir WiUiam Dudley died at York
in 1764, but in what churchyard he was buried
is now unknown. The old church of Clapton
has been pulled down and rebuilt, and all that
now records the family is a pair of tablets
almost illegible, though on one of them can be
deciphered the words : ' ReUquise Ed. Dudley,
armigeri ; obiit Mail 6, 1632, setatis suae 72,'
Clapton Manor (or Hall, as it is now called) is
probably a wing of a much larger building, and
it still stands in park-like grounds. There is a
tradition in Clapton that the lofty spire of the
old church was struck by lightning, but that
the Dudley of the day, instead of repairing it,
puUed it and the tower also entirely down, and
built two farm-houses with the stones, seUing
the bells to pay his gambling debts.
It only remains to add that some years prior
to the death of the last of the Dudleys, the

THE DUDLEYS OP NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, 97
estate was sold to Sir Hutchins Williams, Bart.,
a cousin of the ancestor of the present squire,
the lord of the manor and patron of Clapton,
Mr, Augustus Peere Williams-Freeman.

VOL. II. H

98

THORNTON OF THORNVILLE.
At the beginning of the present century few
names were better known in the sporting world
than that of Colonel Thornton, one of the
wealthiest of the broad-acred squires of York
shire — that land of genuine sportsmen, with its
open moors and heathery hUls, The Thorn
tons, as heralds and genealogists tell us, either
derived their name from, or gave it to, one of
the sixteen lordships in the three Ridings which
owned them as superiors. The most ancient of
these, Thornton in Craven, perpetuates the'
family name, which is mentioned in deeds of
the age immediately before the arrival of Wil
liam the Conqueror. As legislators and as
soldiers, as civilians, merchants, and diplo
matists, the Thorntons have rendered good

THORNTON OF THORNVILLE. 99
service to the State at various times and in
various ways and places. But at present their
connection with broad lands in Yorkshire would
seem slight, as not a single Thornton figures in
the modern ' Doomsday Book ' as the owner of
more than about two hundred acres in the whole
of that county in Avhich once they were wealthy
squires. The grandfather of the sporting colonel, Sir
William Thornton, was in his day so active and
zealous a supporter of the rights and privileges
of his countrymen that he was chosen, as the
leading Yorkshire squire, to present at the- foot
of the throne the articles of the union between
England and Scotland in the reign of Queen
Anne, on which occasion he received the honour
of knighthood. Sir William's son — of the same
name — at the outbreak of the second Scottish
rebelUon, raised in Yorkshire, at his own cost,
. a corps of one hundred men, whom he fed,
clothed, and commanded for several months.
At the head of this little band Colonel Thornton
marched into Scotland, joined the army of the
Duke of Cumberland, and bore himself so brave
ly on the fields of Falkirk and Culloden that
h2

100 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
the Stuart clans set a price of one thousand
ppunds on his head. On returning to England,
he entered Parliament as member for York, In
this character he signalised himself by revising
the old code of the militia laws. He died
young, and left his son, the future colonel, a
minor. The guardians sent the boy to the Charter
house, where he may have been, and probably
was, the schoolfellow of John Wesley, Hi-
health, however, broke short his school career,
and he was entered, when fourteen years of
age, as a student of the University of Glasgow,
Here he seems to have been a diUgent scholar
in term-time, though in his vacations he de
voted himself wholly to field sports, his chief
companions being Lords Rivers and Seaforth,
Sir Thomas Wallace, and Mr, (afterwards the
Right Hon.) William Windham, He took an
especial delight in hawking, a diversion which
he revived with some success upon the broad
moors of his native county ; and before he had
attained his majority he had gained a name
known all over England to the north of the
Trent as a very keen rider, and one of the best

THORNTON OF THORNVILLE, 101
and most scientific breeders of horses and dogs.
His stables and his kennels at Old Thornville
were said to be the best in the county; and
weU they may have been such, for he grudged
no expense for their maintenance. When
the young squire came to London for ' the
season,' he found that his fame had traveUed
thither before him in spite of the badness of the
roads, which indeed made a journey from the
north of Yorkshire to the metropolis a serious
undertaking not easily accompUshed in bad
wintry weather in much less than ' the inside of
a week,' On reaching town he was introduced as a
member of the ' Savoir Vivre Club,' then recent-"
ly established, where he met most of the
'young bloods ' of the day, and some also of
the rank and file of the army of Uterature, and
so saw a little of ' life,' Charles James Fox and
the Lord Lyttelton, whose ' Ghost Story ' I have
told in another work,* were among the mem
bers of this club ; and among its occasional
guests and visitors was the kind-hearted Oliver
Goldsmith, The annual subscription to the
* See ' Tales of Great Families,' 1st series,'vol. L

102 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
club was four guineas, and a guinea was the
charge for dinner, including wine. Cards and
dice were in vogue at this club, according to-
the fashion of the age : but the colonel would
have nothing to do with either the one or the
other, being content, as he used to say, with
' sport,' which rendered play needless. Indeed,
it is said that when he put up over the chim
ney-piece of his library at Thornville a Latin
inscription, declaring that his house was open
to none but veri amici, he wrote below it : ' By
the established rule of this house, all bets
are considered to be off if either of the parties,
by letter or otherwise, pay into the hands of the
landlord one guinea by five the next day.'
We next find the colonel established malgrS
lui as a master of hounds. At first the pack
was supported by a subscription among the
neighbouring gentry ; but quarrels and dissen
sions arose, and in the end the hunt association
was dissolved, and the colonel found himself
obhged to maintain the pack at his own charges.
This, however, was no very great burden, for
he was a keen sportsman, and had plenty of
ready cash in his pockets or at his bankers.

THORNTON OP THORNVILLE. 103
Indeed, so fond was he of sport that for seven
teen years in succession He spent several months
in the Highlands of Scotland, which at that
time were almost as difficult of access as the
Black Forest is now to the English tourist.
Here he kept a journal, and, employing a young
artist to make sketches of the neighbouring
country, he brought his work before the pubUc
under the title of a ' Sporting Tour through
the Highlands of Scotland.' Nor was this all,
for, before quitting the north, he built on the
lands of the Duke of Gordon a shooting-box
which he humorously styled Thornton Castle.
Towards the end of the last century he had
for his neighbour at Thornville the Duke of
York, who had bought the estate of AUerton,
and which a few years later the colonel pur
chased when it came into the market, styUng
it Thornton Royal. He also added to his York
shire estates by the purchase of Boythorp, on
the wolds, on which he built a new mansion,
which he caUed Falconer's Hall, on account
of his love for the merry sport of hawking,
which he indulged on the open moors in the
neighbourhood.

104 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
The list of the more celebrated of the colonel's
horses and dogs occupies three pages in the
' Book of Sporting Anecdotes ;' and among the
latter are foxhounds, beagles, pointers, setters,
greyhounds, spaniels, terriers, &c. Three of
the hawks reared in his ' mews,' — named ' Sans
Quartier,' ' Death,' and ' The Deuce,' from their
respective qualities — were allowed to distance
any tame birds of the kind which have been
fiown in modern times in pursuit of game.
The colonel was also a vigorous athlete ; on
one occasion he walked four miles in thirty-two
minutes, and he could leap his own height, five
feet nine inches. On one occasion, on the New
market race-course, he ran down a hare, picked
her up, and carried her off in the presence of a
large assemblage. He was also well-known in
other circles, and especiaUy as a patron of the
' ring,' which at that day was rendered all the
more fashionable on account of the encourage
ment which it received from the frequent pre
sence of the Prince of Wales — the ' first gentle
man in Europe ' — at prize-fights.
But no man's life is quite unchequered. Here
and there a dark cloud will overcast the sky of

THORNTON OF THORNVILLE. 105
every man. For instance, in spite of the
efficiency of the West York MiUtia, of which
he held the colonelcy, he was brought, through
private maUce, before a court-martial, being
accused of unsoldierly conduct. This he felt
keenly, and at one time he was tempted to
resign his commission ; but he was consoled by
the love and affection of his Yorkshire neigh
bours, who, on his acquittal, took the horses
from his carriage and drew him to his hotel in
triumph, and presented him with a beautiful
medalUon in silver and a handsome sword.
' The old Colonel,' as he was always called,
was a good scholar, a man of wit, and a great
connoisseur in paintings, both ancient and
modern ; and his book on ' Sport in Scotland '
had the honour of being reviewed in the
Quarterly by no less a person than Sir Walter
Scott. As to the after life of Colonel Thornton, it
would appear that he survived the malice of
his enemies, and passed his declining years in
peaceful retirement, retaining his love for his
horses and dogs to the last. He did not, how
ever, confine his affection to his horses, dogs.

106 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
and hawks. He married a lady from Essex, a
Miss Corston, who was wise enough to cultivate
a taste in the same directions as those of her
husband, ' The old Colonel ' died in 1823, when
a large part of his estates was purchased by the
late Lord Stourton, who changed the name of
AUerton to Stourton Castle.

107

THE CAVENDISHES.
Very many of our great families bear names
of local origin ; and the great ducal House of
Devonshire forms no exception to the rule.
Its members for some three centuries have
stood prominent along with the RusseUs as
champions of the Liberal cause, and of pohtical
freedom. The original home of this house is Cavendish, in
Suffolk, where Robert de Gernon (a descendant
of one of the followers of the Conqueror) obtain
ed a landed estate by marriage with an heiress
in this lordship and manor, in consequence of
which his son exchanged his father's name for
that of the locaUty in which his lot was cast.
The Gernons were of great note in Norfolk,
Essex, and other counties, under our Norman
kings ; and their names figure in English county

108 CHAPTERS FROM PAMHiY CHESTS.
histories as the donors of large grants to various
abbeys and other religious houses.
The first of the family of whom we read in
history is Robert de Gernon, who gave consider
able property to the Abbey of Gloucester in the
reign of Henry I. He was the ancestor of
Robert de Gernon, of Grimston Hall, in Suffolk,
who, having married the daughter and heiress
of John Potton, Lord of Cavendish, in that
county, left at his decease in 1325, a family of
four sons, who, according to the custom of those
times, each took the local name of Cavendish.
According to Collins aud the Heralds, the
second of these sons, Roger Cavendish, was an
cestor of Thomas Cavendish, the distinguished
navigator, whose name is always mentioned
along with those of Drake and Dampier, and
who at his own cost victualled and furnished
three ships, with which he set sail from Ply
mouth in July, 1586, and made a circumnaviga
tion of the globe. This Thomas Cavendish, on
his return to England, wrote a curious letter to
Lord Hunsdon, the chamberlain and favourite
of Queen EUzabeth ; in which, after teUing the
courtier how he had gained victory over her

THE CAVENDISHES, 109
Majesty's enemies, he writes, ' I burnt and sunk
nineteen sail of ships small and great, and all
the viUages and towns that ever I landed at I
burned and spoiled,'
Elizabeth knighted this successful depredator,
and, fron} the portion of the spoUs that fell to
his share as capitaUst and commander, Sir
Thomas Cavendish was said, in the language of
the time, to have been ' rich enough to purchase
a fair earldom,' He was, however, not so suc
cessful in his next and last" voyage ; for, having
set sail from Plymouth, in August, 1591, and
not being able to pass the Strait of Magellan, by
stress of weather, and the mutinous spirit of his
men, he was driven back to the coast of
Brazil, where he met with an untimely death.
Sir John Cavendish, the eldest son of the
above-mentioned Roger de Gernon, was a
distinguished lawyer, and held the post of Lord
Chief Justice of the King's Bench in the reigns
of Edward III, and Richard II, In the fourth
year of the latter reign he was elected Chan
cellor of the University of Cambridge, and was
next year commissioned, with Robert de Hales,
treasurer of England, to suppress the insurrec-

110 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
tion raised in the city of York, in which year
the mob, to the number of about fifty thousand,
made it a point, particularly in the county of
Suffolk, to plunder and murder the lawyer.
Being incensed in a more than ordinary degree
against the Lord Chief Justice Cavendish, the
mob seized upon and dragged him along with
John of Cambridge, the Prior of Bury St, Ed
munds, into the market-place of the latter town,
and there caused them both to be beheaded.
The unpopularity of the judge arose in the
following manner. The younger son of the
judge. Sir John Cavendish esquire of the body
to Richard II., is said by the old chroniclers to
have been the person who actually slew Wat
Tyler, ' For WilUam Walworth, mayor of Lon
don, having arrested him, he furiously struck the
mayor with his dagger, but, being armed, hurt
him not ; whereupon the mayor, drawing his
baselard, grievously wounded Wat in the neck ;
in which conflict, an esquire of the King's house,
called John Cavendish, drew his sword, and
wounded him twice or thrice even unto
death.' For this service, Cavendish wfts knight
ed in Smithfield, and had a grant of forty

THE CAVENDISHES. Ill
pounds per annum from the King. This Sir John
Cavendish (or another of the same name)
served under Henry V. in his wars in France,
and played a conspicuous part in the battle of
Agincourt. The two great-grandsons of Sir John Caven
dish were the brothers, George Cavendish and
William Cavendish, both of whom distinguished
themselves in no small degree. The latter held
the post of Gentleman Usher to Cardinal Wolsey,
in which capacity he waited on the Cardinal in
his Embassy into France in 1527, He was also
with the Cardinal in his chamber when the Earl
of Northumberland and Sir Walter Welsh arrest
ed him in the King's name, and was the chief
person they suffered to be about him, Sir Walter
telling Mr. Cavendish that ' the King's Majesty
bore unto him his principal favour for the love
and diligent service he had performed to his
lord ; wherefore the King's pleasure was that he
should be about him as chief, in whom his
Highness putteth great confidence and trust,'
To give a more lasting testimony of his grati
tude to the Cardinal, Mr, Cavendish drew up an
account of his life and death, which he wrote in

112 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS,
the reign of Queen Mary, and afterwards pub
lished it. So faithfully indeed had WilUam
Cavendish served the Cardinal that, upon the
death of the latter. King Henry retained him in
his own service, ' especially upon the grounds of
his attachment to his late fallen master,'
In 1530 Mr, Cavendish was appointed one of
the commissioners for visiting and taking the
surrenders of religious houses, in which no
doubt he obtained some good ' pickings ;' he sub
sequently held high offices in the State, including-
that of Treasurer of the Chamber to the King;
he likewise received the honour of knighthood,
and had bestowed upon him grants of ' forfeited
church lands ' from the Crown,
But his wealth in this way was augmented
chiefly by his fortunate marriage with 'Bess
of Hardwicke,' — she was his third wife — ^by
whom he had a large family. It was this Sir
William Cavendish who commenced the present
princely mansion of Chatsworth, but died shortly
afterwards, leaving his sorrowing widow in the
full enjoyment of her worldly possessions, which
she took good care should be securely settled
upon herself and her heirs. Some time after-

THE CAVENDISHES. 113
wards, she became the wife of Sir WiUiam St.
Lo, a captain of the Guard to Queen EUzabeth,
whose ' diverse fair lordships in Gloucestershire
it was also arranged by the articles of marriage
should be settled upon herself to the exclusion
of her new husband's relatives. She survived
Sir William by some years ; but even to this
third widowhood, as Bishop Kennet observes in
his ' Memoirs of the Family of Cavendish,' she
had not survived her charms of wit and beauty,
by which she captivated the then greatest .
subject of the realm, George, Earl of Shrews
bury, whom she brought to terms of the greatest
honour and advantage to herself and children,'
Besides finishing the erection of Chatsworth,
the countess built the mansions of Hardwicke and
Oldcotes, all of which she transmitted in their
entirety to her second son by her second hus
band, namely, another Sir William Caven
dish, who in 1605 was raised to the peerage
as Baron Cavendish of Hardwicke, in Derbyshire,
and in 1618 advanced to a still higher dignity,
as Earl of Devonshire. His mother ' Bess
of Hardwicke,' Countess of Shrewsbury, lived
to the age of eighty six, dying in February,
VOL. II. I

114 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
1607, and being buried in the south aisle of All
Saints Church, Derby, in which town she had
endowed a 'hospital for the subsistence of
poor people, who have each of them an allow
ance of near ten pounds per annum.'
Lord Cavendish was one of the first adven
turers who settled a colony and plantation iu
Virginia ; and, on the first discovery of the Ber
muda Islands, he obtained, with the Earl of
Northampton and others, a grant of them from the
king. The islands were afterwards divided into
eight cantons or provinces, bearing the name of
eight of the chief proprietors, and accordingly
one of them became known by the name of
Cavendish. William, the fourth Earl of Devonshire, having
taken an active part in the revolution of 1688,
was created, in 1 694, Marquis of Hartington and
Duke of Devonshire. His son William, the
second duke, was grandfather of Henry Caven
dish, the eminent chemist and philosopher. The
third duke, having held the post of Lord Steward
of the Household, was appointed, in 1737, Lord
Lieutenant of Ireland, which office he held till

THE CAVEXDISHES. 115
1744. His son William, the fourth duke, who
was also Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, married
Charlotte, Baroness Clifford, of Lanesborough,
only daughter and heiress of Richard, Earl of
BurUngton and Cork, by which union the Barony
of Clifford, created by Charles I. in 1628, came
into the Cavendish family. His third son,
George Augustus, was created, in 1831, Earl of
Burlington and Baron Cavendish, of Keighley,
and was the grandfather of William, second Earl
of Burlington, who, on the death of his cousin,
WiUiam Spencer, sixth Duke of Devonshire, in
1858, succeeded to the ducal and other family
honours, and is the present head of the noble
family of the Cavendishes.
The fact that, in his day, the duke was all but
• Senior Wrangler ' at Cambridge is regarded by
himself as no small honour to the strawberry
leaves which surround his coronet ; and it is much
to the credit of his grace's family that, wherever
their territorial possessions extend, not simply
are the churches kept weather-tight and archi-
tecturally presentable, but every work of public
utUity and improvement is modestly and liberal-
i2

116 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
ly encouraged and supported. It is true that
the Cavendishes derive a splendid revenue from
the town of Barrow-in-Furness, but few know
of the princely sums supphed by him for pro
viding church accommodation and educational
advantages in that town.

117

' BESS OF HARDWICKE.'
If prosperity and success in life are to be regard
ed as the measure and standard pf happiness,
few individuals can be said to have been more
worthy to be styled happy than Elizabeth,
Countess of Shrewsbury, a lady better known to
history as ' Bess of Hardwicke,' * It is not given
to every woman, however nobly born and well-
mated, to marry, as she did, four husbands in
succession, and on each occasion that she went
to the altar to rise higher and higher both in
wealth and in social position.
It was her lot also to have children by one of
her husbands only, and to see these children all
married to the highest and the noblest in the
land ; and, finally, it was given to her to erect
three at least of the most magnificent private
*See above, pp. 113, 114.

118 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
mansions in, this island — the princely Chatsworth,
the stately Hardwicke Hall, and Oldcotes, all
magnificent mansions in the county of Derby. '
This lady was born the second daughter and
eventually heiress of John Hardwick, or Hard
wicke, of Hardwicke, Derbyshire, whose estates-
in that county she inherited on the death of her
brother. She first saw the light of day in or
about the year of grace 1516, Not much is
known of her early education and training ; but
from the very first she would seem to have
shown a spirit of independence and an indomit
able courage which must have marked her out
as no ordinary person. At the early age of
fourteen she became the wife of Robert Barley,
Esquire, of Barley, in Derbyshire, whose large
estates she inherited under a deed of settlement.
In the course of a few months she was left a
widow, and in that state she remained for a
period of twelve years, when she was married,
as his third wife, to Sir WilUam Cavendish, father
of the first Earl of Devonshire, and the possessor
of vast estates in different parts of the kingdom,
a large portion of which had been acquired as
grants of forfeited church lands in the reign of

' BESS OF HARDWICKE,' 119
Edward VI, To Sir WiUiam Cavendish this
remarkable lady brought not only Hardwicke
and the other possessions of her own family, but
also those of the Barleys, which she had acquired
under her first marriage. So great was the
affection of Sir WilUam for her that, at her
desire, he sold his estates in the southern parts
of England, in order to purchase lands in Derby
shire, where her own friends and kindred lived.
Also, on her further persuasion, he began the
erection of the noble mansion of Chatsworth,
which he did not live to finish, as he died in the
fourth year of the reign of Queen Mary, having
had by his late wife a large family.
After a few brief years of widowhood,
'Bess of Hardwicke' married, as her third hus
band. Sir WUUam St, Lo, Captain of the Guard
to Queen Elizabeth, By this marriage her
already extensive possessions were augmented
by the whole of the estates of her husband,
which were settled upon her and her heirs. On
the death of Sir WiUiam, she was a third time
left a widow; but soon after she married, as
his second wife, George, sixth Earl of Shrews
bury, whom she survived. With this last mar-

120 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
riage there was a stipulation that the earl's
eldest daughter, the Lady Grace Talbot, should
wed her eldest son (by her second marriage)
Sir Henry Cavendish, and that his second son,
Gilbert Talbot (who eventually succeeded to
the Earldom of Shrewsbury), should marry her
youngest daughter, Mary Cavendish. This
amicable family arrangement was duly carried
out at Sheffield in the month of February,
1567-8, the younger of the two couples being
at the time only about fifteen and twelve years
of age respectively. The Earl of Shrewsbury
died in 1590, leaving his countess in the full
enjoyment of all her worldly possessions, of
which she would appear to have made good
use, if that expression can be applied to her
love of grandeur and propensity for building.
According to Walpole's 'Anecdotes of Painting,'
there is a tradition in the family of Cavendish
that a fortune-teller had once told this imperious
lady that ' she would never die while she was
building :' and that, ' accordingly, she bestowed
a great deal of the wealth she had obtained
from three of her four husbands in erecting
large seats at Hardwicke, Chatsworth, Bolsover,

' BESS OF HARDWICKE,' 121
and Oldcotes, and, I think, at Worksop ; and
died in a hard frost, when the workmen could
not labour.'
The character of ' Bess of Hardwicke ' is thus
set forth by Lodge in his ' Portraits of Illustrious
Persons ' : ' She was a woman of masculine
understanding and conduct ; proud, furious,
selfish, and unfeeling. She was a builder, a
buyer and seller of estates, a money-lender, a
farmer, and a merchant of lead, coals, and tim
ber. She lived to a great old age, and died
in 1607 immensely rich, and without a friend,'
Old Fuller writes of her as ' a woman of un
daunted spirit ' ; while upon her monument she
is described as 'beautiful and discreet,' She
had, as already stated, children by only one of
her four husbands, namely, Sir William Caven
dish, who thus became the founder of the famous
family of Cavendish.
The estate of Hardwicke is situated about six
miles from Chesterfield, and the house stands
on high ground in a noble deer-park, full of
trees which were not young in the days of the
Tudors,perhaps even in those of the Plantagenets.
At the time of the Conquest it formed part of

122 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
the manor of Steynesby, which was granted to
Roger of Poictou, By King John it was trans
ferred to Andrew de Beauchamp, and in the
middle of the thirteenth century it passed to
WilUam de Steynesby, whose grandson, John,
died possessed of it in 1330, Shortly after
wards it passed to the family of Hardvsick, or
De Hardwicke, who gave to it their name, and
in whose possession it remained for six genera
tions, their pedigree closing with Elizabeth
Hardwicke, the wife of Sir WilUam Cavendish,
and the subject of this chapter, Hardwicke, with
its princely domains, has continued in the pos
session of her lineal descendants, through the
famUy of Cavendish, to their representative, His
Grace the Duke of Devonshire and Baron Caven
dish of Hardwicke, the present noble owner, •
'Hardwicke,' writes Mr, S, C, Hall, in his
'Baronial Halls,' 'bas for a very long period
derived romantic interest from the popular beUef
that it was one of the prisons of the lovely and
persecuted Queen of Scots, It is, however, cer
tain that, although for a time in the custody of
the Earl of Shrewsbury, she never was immured
at Hardwicke, her prison having been one of the

' BESS OF HARDWICKE,' 123-
earl's " strong castles at Sheffield," where she
passed twelve weary years in " melyncholy and
grefe," in " sickness and despair," the victim of
unceasing suspicion, " in the hopeless monotony
of sedentary employment, with an impaired con- '
stitution and a restless mind," and treated with so
much severity by the countess as to extort from
the more humane earl, in one of his petitions to
the Queen, a complaint against h.is " wyked and
malysious wyfe," '
Hardwicke, according to the authority here
quoted, appears to have been built subsequently
to the death of Mary ; ' but,' adds the writer,
' there is Uttle doubt that the room called " The
Queen's Room," in memory of the unhappy
lady, was furnished with the bed and other
furnituire removed hither from Chatsworth,
where she was for some time a prisoner,' Ac
cording to Lysons, the house ' exhibits a most
complete specimen of the domestic architecture
which prevailed among l;he higher ranks during
the reign of Queen EUzabeth ;' and it remains
in its original state, ' with little or no alteration,'
The poet Gray, adopting the popular error,
pictures it as so primitive in character that ' one

124 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
might think that the Scottish Mary was but
just walked down into the park ;' and Mrs,
Radcliffe, who gives a lengthy description of
the mansion in her ' Tours of the Lakes ' (pub
Ushed in 1795), notes the ' proud, yet gentle and
melancholy look of the queen as she slowly
passed up the hall,' and contrasts it with the
' somewhat obsequious, yet jealous and vigilant
air ' of my Lord Keeper Shrewsbury.
There is no necessity to describe Hardwicke
Hall at length, as it is better known to English
tourists than almost any other great show-house
in the Midland district. It is a magnificent
structure in the Elizabethan style, massive and
firm in construction, whilst solemn grandeur is
the great characteristic of the stately pUe. Its
general form is square, with a high square tower
at each corner, and with large medaUioned
windows ; indeed the windows are so extensive
as to have given risen to a local adage —
' Like Hardwicke Hall,
More windows than -wall.'
Round the top is a parapet of open work in
which frequently appear the initials of the

' BESS OF HARDWICKE.' 125
founder' E.S, ',, silent ' memorials of the proud
dame's vanity,'
The older Hardwicke Hall, which ' Bess of Hard-
wicke's' mansion superseded, still stands only a
few hundred yards off, a deserted ruin ; but it
certainly must have been a more comfortable
dwelling-house than that by which it was super
seded. In the walls high up may still be seen
marble mantelpieces carved with stags' heads,
the heraldic bearings of the Cavendishes, but
they look as if they would fall with the next
winter's storms.
It is only necessary to add that the tomb of
Bess of Hardwicke is to be seen in the southern
aislei of All Saints' Church, Derby. It is a
large and magnificent structure of its kind,
which would be perhaps best described as
Jacobean, made of marble and alabaster, and
rich in carving and heraldic bearings. It was
designed by herself some years before her death,
and she would frequently visit the church to
watch its progress towards completion.

126

OLIVE, PRINCESS OF CUMBERLAND
AND DUCHESS OF LANCASTER.
Most readers are aware of the fact that, Uke
the Duchy of Cornwall, the Duchy of Lancaster
is an appanage of the British Crown, and a
source of income to royalty. Few, however,
possibly are aware that within the memory of
our fathers the title of Duchess of Lancaster
was assumed and borne by a lady in virtue of
an alleged bestowal of that honour on her by
George IIL, and that she was recognised as
such by four royal dukes, and received with
full honours as a member of the royal family at
the Lord Mayor's dinner at the Guildhall Uttle
more than sixty years ago, though she now Ues
in a humble grave I
And who was this Duchess of Lancaster?
and how came she to assume that title ?

OLIVE, PRINCESS OF CUMBERLAND. 127
I will tell the story as her daughter has told
it in certaiii documents of a legal nature, which
she not very long since brought forward in evi
dence of her claim before the House of Lords, and
a copy of which has come into my possession.
To make the narrative plain, I must go back
more than a hundred years. At the commence
ment of the reign of George IIL, there was
living in the town of Warwick a clergyman bf
some literary and social distinction, the Rev.
Dr, James Wilmot — a man who was, in the
opinion of many persons, the real author of
* Junius's Letters,' and who had married a
Princess Poniatowski, sister of the last reigning
sovereign of Poland, The issue of this union
— if the statements of the family are to be
believed — was an only child, a daughter, Olive,
who was married by her father, on the 4th of
March, 1767, at Lord Archer's house in Gros
venor Square, to no less a person than His
Royal Highness Henry Frederick, Duke of
Cumberland, the youngest brother of George
the Third,
It is well known that King George had a
great aversion to any of the royal family con-

123 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS,
tracting a marriage with an EngUsh subject ;*
accordingly, it appears that this marriage was
kept quite private, and, indeed, was not known
for several years afterwards to the public,
though two distinguished noblemen, the Earl of
Warwick and the great Lord Chatham (the
elder Pitt) were privy to its celebration, and
certified to its regularity by their formal
signatures. On the 3rd of April, 1772, this marriage re
sulted in the birth of an only child, a daughter,
who was privately baptised the same day as
Olive WUmot, and was brought up to believe
herself the daughter of Mr, Robert Wilmot, and
niece of the reverend gentleman who, if the
story be true, was her grapdfather. The family '
lived at Warwick, and OUve Wilmot grew up
to chUdhood and to womanhood apparently
quite unconscious of her real royal parentage, '
although on the day following her birth she was
' rebaptised, by the King's command, as OUve,
daughter of the Duke of Cumberland,' This
second baptism, however, was not entered in the
* See ' Two Koyal Marriages,' in ' Tales of Great
Families.' 2nd Series, vol. i., p. 298.

OLIVE, PRINCESS OF CUMBERLAND. 129
parish register, but was placed on record by a
certificate signed by Dr, Wilmot, his brother
Robert, and John Dunning (afterwards Lord
Ashburton). The certificate of this union was
kept private and sacred, being entrusted to the
care of Lord Warwick, as was also the following
document, which I copy from the legal state
ments put forward in evidence only a few years
since before the House of Lords,
' George R,
' We are hereby pleased to create OUve of
Cumberland Duchess of Lancaster, and to grant
our royal authority for Olive, our said niece, to
bear and use the title and arms of Lancaster,
should she be in existence at the period of our
royal demise.
' Given at our palace of St. James's, May 21,
1773. (Witnesses) ' Chatham.
- J. Dunning.'
This paper may have been written in fuU by
the King ; but it clearly is very informal, as it
departs from the usual phraseology of 'name
style, and title,' — and does not mention in the
VOL, II. K

130 chapters FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
second clause the grade in the peerage to which
his Majesty wished to elevate 'our niece,'
whether to that of a baroness, a countess, or a
duchess. It was agreed, however, between th^
King, his brother, Dr, Wilmot, and witnesses,
that the patent of creation should not be acted
upon during the life of George III, ; the reason
aUeged being that this step was necessary in
order to screen the King's brother from a trial
for bigamy, as in 1771 he had married publicly
Lady Anne Luttrell, daughter of the Earl of
Carhampton, and widow of Mr, Christopher
Horton, of Catton, in Derbyshire, It is clear,
however, that if this was the real ground for
suppressing the patent of creation, it would
have been far more sensible (since the King
was privy to his brother's marriage) to have
agreed that the patent should not be acted on
during the life of the Duke of Cumberland
himself, seeing that his death — which happened
in 1790 — of course put an end to all possibUity
of his being indicted for bigamy.
In 1791 this Miss OUve Wilmot, as she was
reputed to be, apparently in profound ignor
ance of her rank, bestowed her hand on Mr.

OLIVE, PRINCESS OP CUMBERLAND. 131
John Thomas Serres, of whom all that we
kno'sy is that he was a son of Dominic Serres,
and that he followed the profession of a portrait
painter. Here 1 prefer to tell the story of ' OUve,
Duchess of Lancaster,' in her own words. She
says, in her printed ' case ' : —
' The said Olive Serres, having been inform
ed of her proper position in life shortly after the
demise of His Majesty King George IIL, and
being (as she had foundation to believe) the
legitimate daughter of Henry Frederick, Duke
of Cumberland, fourth and youngest brother ot
his said Majesty, assumed the honour, title, and
dignity of a princess of the blood royal, styled
herself " Her Royal Highness Olive, Princess of
Cumberland," and adopted the royal arms,
livery, and seals in like manner as made use of
by other junior members of the royal family.'
In September, 1820, not long after succeeding
to the throne, George IV. issued his command,
through Lord Sidmouth, that the certificate of
marriage between his uncle, the Duke of Cum
berland, and the elder Olive Wilmot should be
' proved and authenticated.' This was done : it
k2

132 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
was duly authenticated before Lord Chief Jus-i
tice Abbott (afterwards Lord Tenterden) ; and
the lady in question was told — apparently, how
ever, only verbally — by her solicitor, a Mr, Bell,
that his Majesty ' had been graciously pleased
to acknowledge her royal highness as Princess
of Cumberland, only legitimate daughter of his
late uncle, Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumber
land,' and to give orders that she should have
found for her a suitable residence until a per
manent one could be fixed upon, and that pecu
niary means, sufficient to enable her to keep up
her dignity, should be at once placed at her
command. She was then living in Alfred Place,
Bedford Square; and even by her own state
ment the information does not appear to have
been sent to her officially.
The Dukes of Sussex, Clarence, and Kent, it
appears, were not slow in acknowledging their
new cousin, being satisfied that the documents
with their father's signature, ' George R,,' were
genuine ; and although the Duke of Cambridge
did not acknowledge her till a far more recent
date (1844), and the Duke of York refused to
follow suit altogether, she maintained that the

OLIVE, PRINCESS OP CUMBERLAND. 133
Duke of Kent had long previously gone so far
as not only to make a will bequeathing to her
£10,000, and to assign to her and her child a
yearly income of £400 under his hand and seal,
promising solemnly to see his ' cousin reinstated
in her royal birthright at his father's demise,'
but absolutely to nominate her as the future
guardian of his infant daughter, her present
Majesty. The documents are as follows: —
1. ' I solemnly testify my satisfaction as to
the proofs of Princess Olive of Cumberland's
birth, and declare that my royal parent's sign
manual to the certificates of my dearest cousin's
birth is, to the best of my own comprehensioji
and beUef, the genuine handwriting of the King,
my father. Thus I constitute Olive, Princess of
Cumberland, the guardian and the director of
my daughter Alexandrina's* education, from the
age of four years and upwards, in case of my
death, and from the Duchess of Kent being so
unacquainted with the mode of EngUsh educa- f
* It will be remembered that her Majesty's full name is
' Alexandrina Victoria,' and that it was under that double"
name that she was first proclaimed queen.

134 CHAPTERS FROM FASHLY CHESTS.
tion ; and, in case my wife departs this Ufe in
my daughter's minority, I constitute my cousin
OUve the sole guardian of my daughter tiU she
is of age.
' Edward.
' London, Nov. 1st, 1819.'
2. ' Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, binds him
self hereby to pay to my daughter, Lavinia
Janetta Horton Serres, £400 yearly during her
life, in regular quarterly payments, and further
promises that she shaU be the young lady com
panion of his daughter Alexandrina, when that
dear infant attains her fourth year. Witness the
royal signature of his royal highness, in con
firmation of this sacred obligation.
' Olive.
' Edward.
' Dec. 17th, 1819.'
The Duke of Kent Uved only a few weeks
after signing this strange paper, dying a week
before his father ; but he survived long enough
— ^if this story be true — to ' recommend solemnly
Mrs. OUve SeiTCS, otherwise Olive, Princess of
Cumberland,' to his brother, afterwards George

OLIVE, PRINCESS OF CUMBERLAND; 135
IV., and to write other formal appeals to his
wife and to his infant child, in order to aid her
in obtaining ' her royal rights.'
At the request of the Duke of Kent, the late
Mr. Robert Owen, of Socialist memory, advanced
to the princess no less than £1,200 ; and it ap
pears from these papers, if they are genuine,
and not forgeries, that the sum was repaid to
his son, Mr. Robert Dale Owen, by her present
Majesty's command.
The rest of the story of ' OUve, Princess of
Cumberland and Duchess of Lancaster,' may be
soon told. Her mother had died in France,
early in life, of a broken heart, brought on by
the trouble arid anxiety entailed on her by her
connection with royalty, -all the more perilous
because it was clandestine. Her husband, Mr.
Serres, the portrait-painter, died in 1824, and
ten years later (in November, 1834) she died
also of a broken heart ; she was buried in the
churchyard of St. James's, Piccadilly, and had
the satisfaction, such as it was, of being entered
in the register as a princess of the blood royal.
Her daughter, Lavinia Janetta Horton Serres,
married a Mr. Ryves — a member of a good

136 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
Dorsetshire county family — but the marriage
did not turn out happily, the union being dis
solved by a legal separation, Mrs, Ryves died,
if not in actual poverty, at all events in very
needy circumstances, in lodgings in Queen's
Crescent, Haverstock Hill, in December, 1871 ;
her husband, too, ended his days in obscurity
early in the year 1873, Besides one son and
one daughter, who are deceased, Mrs. Ryves
had issue three daughters and two sons, who
survived her, by no means in affluent circum
stances, I believe it is true, and if true it is a
wonderful example of the irony of history, that
the lady who, assuming her own statement to
be trustworthy, was the second cousin of our
most gracious Queen, and her possible and in
tended guardian, was dependent in her last iU-
ness on the . aid and support of those who had
Uttle enough of their own to spare, and that she
now lies in I care not to say how humble a
grave in the cemetery at Highgate,
But my readers will want to know what steps
were taken by the Princess OUve, and by her
daughter, Mrs, Ryves, in order to prosecute
their claim to the title bestowed by George III.,

OLIVE, PRINCESS OP CUMBERLAND. 137
and to the legacy left them by the will of
Edwai'd, Duke of Kent.
The lady who had trod upon scarlet laid along
her path when she dined in state at the royal
table at the GuUdhall in November, 1820, was
arrested in the foUowing year upon a promissory
note, most probably on pmpose to raise the
question of her birth in a legal shape and form.
She pleaded that, as a member of the royal
family, she was privUeged from arrest ; and,
although baffled on this occasion by a legal
technicaUty, in the next year she gained her
point in another way. I use her daughter's
words : —
'My mother .... subsequently gained, or
rather was granted, her privilege .... as
being a member of the royal famUy ; for, having
refused to pay taxes for armorial bearings, male
servants, &c., an information was filed against
her in the Court of Exchequer by the then
Attorney-General, and after hearing the argu
ments on the case for several days the Chief
¦Baron advised the Attorney-General to with
draw the information, which he accordingly
compUed with.'

138 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
She must, however, have had a strong taste
for the law and law-courts, as next year — I am
not informed how the circumstance came about
— she was a prisoner for debt, and ' living with
in the Rules of the Fleet.'
Her daughter tells us, with apparent satisfac
tion, that
' She was delivered into the custody of the
Warder by the name, style, and title of " Prin
cess of Cumberland." From the Fleet she was
removed into the custody of the Marshal of the
King's Bench, when, after having been for
seven years in illegal bondage, her liberty was
effected by a writ from the Crown Office to the
Marshal of the King's Bench for the Princess to
proceed to the Judges at Westminster to receive
her liberty, which she accordingly did, and
obtained it.'
On the death of George IV. the daughter,
Mrs. Ryves, filed a bill in Chancery against the
Duke of Wellington, as the King's executor, for
the money due to her mother from the estate of
George III,, but was again defeated by a legal
technicaUty which prevented her right from
being really tried at law. But, with respect to

OLIVE, PRINCESS OP CUMBERLAND, 139'
her claim to royal blood, she was wholly power
less to take any further steps until the passing
of the ' Legitimacy Declaration Act ' in 1858.
Under the provisions of this Act, as soon as she
could collect sufficient funds, she brought for
ward in 1861 a suit to establish her own birth
as ' the lawful daughter of John Thomas Serres,
and OUve, his wife ;' and returning to the charge
in 1866, she endeavoured to obtain a decree for
the legitimization of her grandmother's marriage
with the Duke of Cumberland, But in this
effort she failed signally. In fact, to use her
own words, ' the decree of the Court for Divorce
and Matrimonial Causes of June 13th, 1866, de
clared that Olive Serres was not the legitimate
daughter of the Duke of Cumberland, and that
there was no valid marriage between the said
duke and Olive Wilmot.'
Against this decision Mrs. Lavinia Janetta
Horton Ryves appealed, as a last resource, to
the House of Lords ; but she again faUed in her
appeal, which was dismissed in a very summary
manner by the law lords during the Chancellor
ship of Lord Selborne. This failure, no doubt,
as it stripped her of her last worldly possessions.

140 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
also broke her heart ; and she died, as I have
said, in poverty at Christmas, 1871, Uke her
mother before her, a victim to disappointed
hopes and shattered ambitions. Alas ! how true
are the bitter words : —
' The lovely young Lavinia once had friends !'
Thus far I have given my story in the words
of Mrs. Ryves. The death of her mother, how
ever — the Princess Olive — gave occasion to a
long obituary notice of her career in the pages
of the Gentleman! sMagazine for the year 1835, in
which her pretensions to royalty are treated as
' fabrications,' and she herself denounced as an
* extraordinary and aspiring impostor,' On the
principle of Audi alteram partem, I take from
the notice of Mr, Sylvanus Urban all the facts
which are in any way supplemental to my story
of Mrs, Ryves,
It is here said that her father, Mr, Robert
Wilmot, was a house-painter at Warwick, and
that whUe living with her uncle, the Rev, Dr,
Wilmot, shortly after quitting school, she ap
peared as a witness on a very extraordinary
trial for a burglary in her uncle's house, for

OLIVE, PRINCESS OF CUMBERLAND. 141
which two men were convicted and executed,
' Her account,' adds Mr. Urban, ' was very mar
vellous, and her conduct, as she represented it,
highly heroic' Her husband, Mr. John T.
Serres, was scene-painter at the Royal Coburg
Theatre, and also marine-painter to King
George III. and to the Duke of Clarence ; her
husband's father, Count Dominic Serres, a gen
tleman of French extraction, who had been
taken a prisoner of war, settled in England, and
became one of the early members of the Royal
Academy, After her separation from her hus
band, Mrs, Serres was thrown on her own re
sources, and in 1806 obtained the appointment
of landscape-painter to the Prince of Wales, It
is believed that at one time she also made an
appearance on the stage, and performed as
Polly in the ' Beggar's Opera.'
Always possessed of a busy and romantic
iaiagination, Olive at an early age essayed her
powers at original composition, and in 1805
pubUshed a novel entitled ' St, Julian,' In the
foUovTing year she gave to the world a volume of
poetical miscellanies, which, strangely enough,
she named 'FUghts of Fancy.' These she

142 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
followed up with an opera, ' The Castle of
Avala,' and a volume of ' Letters of Advice to
lier Daughters.'
'In 1813,' writes Mr. Sylvanus Urban, 'she
embarked in her first attempt to gull the pubhc
by proclaiming her late uncle, Dr. Wilmot, to be
the long-sought author of " Junius's' Letters,"
The.'^e pretensions, advanced by her in a " Life
of the Rev, James Wilmot, D.D,," were nega
tived by letters from Dr, Butler, of Shrewsbury,
(afterwards Bishop of Lichfield,) and Mr. G,
Woodfall, published in the Gentleman's Magazine
for August, 1813, and giving rise to a contro
versy which was carried on for several months.'
Her next freak was an ' Explanation of the
Creed of St. Athanasius for the advantage of
youth !'
' About the year 1817,' continues Mr. Urban,
' she first discovered, or professed to have dis
covered, that she was not the daughter of Mr.
R. Wilmot, but of Henry, Duke of Cumberland,
At first she was satisfied to be accounted Ulegiti
mate — that was honour enough ; but she shortly
after professed to be his legitimate daughter.
At first her mother was Mrs. Payne, sister to Dr.

OLIVE, PRINCESS OP CUMBERLAND. 143
Wilmot, and afterwards she became the doctor's
own daughter. On these pretensions she pro
ceeded to forward her claims to the Prince
Regent and the royal family, and to the officers
of the Government. She now employed herself
in fabricating several absurd and contradictory
statements, the most weighty of which was a
will of George III. in which he left her fifteen
thousand pounds. In the Session of 1822 or
1823, Sir Gerard Noel was induced to move in
the House of Commons for an investigation of
her claims. The motion was seconded by Mr.
Joseph Hume ; but Sir Robert Peel, in a most
clear and convincing speech, set the matter at
rest, and enlightened the few who had been
deceived by her extravagant assumptions. He
pointed out that her documents were framed in
the most injudicious and inconsiderate manner,
many of the signatures being such as could
never have been made by the parties whose
they professed to be. He concluded his speech
by humorously observing that " even if these
claims were given up, there were others which
could yet be pressed, for the lady had 'two
strings to her bow.' In fact, he held in his hand

144 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
a manifesto of the Princess Olive, addressed to
the highest powers of the Kingdom of Poland,
and stating that she was descended from
Stanislaus Augustus !" From this time, however,
the Princess Olive was constrained to relinquish
her carriage and her footmen in the royal liveries,
which some simple tradesmen had enabled her
to display.'
Her later years were spent, I fear, not only in
obscurity, but in absolute poverty, and, indeed,
' within the Rules of the King's Bench,' where-
she died.
I have seen a portrait of the Princess OUve,
and certainly no one who inspects it will deny
that she bore a striking likeness to the royal
family, and especially to King George IV.

145

' WILD ' DARELL OF LITTLECOTE.
The story of ' WUd ' Darell of Littlecote, one
of the most romantic in the annals of ' romantic
Wiltshire,' is known to the readers of Sir Walter
Scott's poem of ' Rokeby ' — where it is given in
the form of a note at the end of the volume —
and it has been often told in a variety of other
shapes ; but it is one, nevertheless, which will
at all events bear re-telling in these pages.
The estate of Littlecote, formerly the property
of the Darells, and now of the Pophams, is
situated just within the borders of Wiltshire, to
the westward of Chilton Foliot, partly in that
parish, and partly in the parish of Ramsbury,
some two or three miles from the town of
Hungerford, in Berkshire. The hall, as it at
present stands, is one of those picturesque red
brick edifices of Tudor times, enriched with
VOL. II. L

146 CHAPTERS PROM FAinLY CHESTS.
mulUoned windows, gables, and ornamented
chimney-stacks, which so much delight the eye
of an artist, and are so eagerly seized upon by
the writer of romance as the scene of some wild
and thrilling story. It is a spacious edifice, and
appears to have been erected by one of the
Darells in the early part of the sixteenth century,
' about the time of the termination of feudal
warfare, when defence came no longer to be an
object in a country mansion.' The park com
prehends an area of about four miles in circum
ference, and is adorned with groups of various
kinds of trees. On one side of it rises a lofty
hill, crowned with wood, and forming a striking
contrast with the luxuriant arid level meadows
spread along the banks of the river Kennet, a
branch of which runs through the garden, and
there constitutes a preserve- for trout, which can
be seen darting hither and thither, or rising with
a dash to the rippling surface.
Old Leland, writing in the time of Henry VIIL,
describes the estate as ' a right faire and large
parke hangynge upon the clyffe of an highe hille
weUe woddyd, over the Kenet.' When Leland
saw the hall it was doubtless not very old ; but it

WILD DARELL OP LITTLECOTE. 147
mostprobably had taken the place of some ancient
mansion, more suitable to the feudal times which
were then passing away. Considerable alterations
have been made in the building, particularly
towards the end of the last and beginning of
the present centuries ; the interior, however, still
preserves many features of bygone times. The
great hall is very spacious, floored with stone,
and lighted by large and lofty windows. Its
walls are, or were till recently, hung with
numerous relics of ancient armour, such as coats-
of-mail, helmets, cross-bows, old-fashioned pistols,
carbines, leathern jerkins, and other defensive
and offensive accoutrements. In it is a remark
able table of massive oak, black with age and
use, and reaching nearly from one end of the
hall to the other. It was along the sides of this
table that the retainers of the family sat at meals
in the olden times, above and below the salt.
In a long gallery upstairs are ranged family
portraits of knights and gallants of the Darells
down to the last of the line, and also of the
Pophams, their successors.
From the very earhest period of its recorded
history till the days of EUzabeth, Littlecote was

148 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS,
the seat of the Darells, a plain ' county famUy,'
The first of the name who possessed it, and who
acquired it by his marriage with an heiress of
the Calstons, in the early Plantagenets, was one
WilUam Darell, who held the office of sub-
treasurer of England, He appears to have fixed
his abode on the lands that had thus faUen to
his lot, and there he established a race of knight
ly distinction, which flourished for several
generations in honour and esteem. The sub-
treasurer's eldest son. Sir George DareU, succeed
ed to his maternal inheritance, and became the
ancestor of the Darells at Littlecote. His son.
Sir Edward, who was next in possession, was
thrice married, and had one only son, John, a
gallant soldier, who was slain at Airde in
Picardy, in the wars against- France. He was
the grandfather of the ill-fated WiU (or ' WUd ')
Darell, to whom reference is made at the open
ing of this chapter.
Aubrey, who wrote about the end of the
seventeenth century, seems to have been the
first to leave any record of the story we are
about to relate ; he introduced it into a notice
of the life of Chief Justice Popham. The history

WILD DARELL OP LITTLECOTE. 149
he gives of the crime is very clear and distinct ;
and it is probable that it was from Aubrey's
account that the materials were gleaned which
form the note to Scott's poem of 'Rokeby.'
Local tradition adds somewhat to Aubrey's
narrative. The story, as told in the neighbour
hood to this day, is somewhat as follows :
In the time of Queen Elizabeth, towards the
close of the sixteenth century, there was an old
midwife, of great skUl and practice, who dwelt
in a small cottage by the roadside some few
miles from Littlecote. Whether it was at Rams
bury or at ChUton is not quite clear ; for accounts
differ on that score. One night, shortly after
retiring to rest, she was aroused by a loud
knocking at her door. There was, however,
nothing particularly unusual in such a proceed
ing as that ; but, as soon as she ascertained- the
cause of her being disturbed, she endeavoured
to excuse herself on the score of fatigue, having
¦only just returned from exercising her profess
ional duties in another quarter. She pleaded to be
allowed to send an assistant, whom she kept in
the house. The messenger, however, urged that,
as her services were required by a person of con-

150 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
sequence, it was utterly impossible for him to
think of taking her ' deputy.' He was resolved
to gain the principal, and no one else, for his
purpose. The old woman thereupon descended
the stairs and unfastened the door.
The night was dark, and the wind blew in fitful
gusts; and, just as she opened the door, the lighted
taper which she carried was suddenly extinguish
ed. She had not time even to see the stranger's
face. The man had dismounted from his horse,
which was tied to a stile close by. Having in
quired of the old woman what was her fee, and
received a reply, the stranger told her that
she should receive twenty times the amount
on condition that she accompanied him then and
there without a word of hesitation or inquiry, or
of mention or inquiry ever afterwards ; and that.
she aUowed herself to be blindfolded when she
mounted the horse that was ready pillioned to
carry her. The reward which was offered
proved quite sufficient to outweigh the woman's
scruples and fears, if she really entertained any.
She gave the promise, and, having had her eyes
bandaged vdth a scarf, she mounted to the
pillion, and the pair set off together at a brisk

WILD DARELL OP LITTLECOTE. 151
trot. What followed may be gathered from
the evidence of the woman at the trial, which
came as a sequel to the night's performance
which she was just commencing,
' After they had travelled about three-quarters
of an hour,' so runs the narrative of the case,
' she expressed great alarm, but her conductor
assured her that no harm should happen to
her, and added that they had still further to
go. He got off his horse several times to
open gates, and they crossed many ploughed and
corn-fields ; for, though it was quite dark, she
could discover that they quitted the high-road
within two miles of her own house ; she also
said they crossed a river tivice. After they had
been about an hour and a half on their journey,
they entered a paved court or yard, as she con
cluded from the clattering of the horse's feet on
the stones. Her guide now lifted her off her
horse, and conducted her through a long dark
passage, in which she only saw a glimmering of
light at a distance, which was concealed or put
out upon the shutting of a large gate through
which they passed,'
The old midwife was then led up certain

152 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
stairs, the steps of which, by the way, she took
the precaution to count; they were twenty-
two in number, A door closed behind her ; the
bandage was taken from her eyes; and then
she found that her conductor in the house was
a white-faced, frightened serving-woman, who
instantly quitted the room without speaking.
The old crone at once perceived that she was
standing in a fine and lofty chamber, A bright
fire was blazing on the hearth, and near it stood
a large bed hung round with blue curtains, from
which came sound of weeping and pain. At
the other end of the room a man, richly dressed,
was pacing backwards and forwards in an angry
or agitated manner. Having, in a subdued tone,
bid the woman do her ' office,' the man quitted
the apartment. As soon as the event was com
pletely over, she had a glass of Avine given her,
and was told to prepare to return home by
another road, which was not quite so near, but
free from gates or stiles. She begged to be
allowed to repose herself for a quarter-of-an-
hour in the arm-chair whilst the horse was
being got ready, pleading the extreme fatigue
she had undergone the preceding day.

WILD DARELL OF LITTLECOTE. 153
Thus seated, the weight of mystery oppressed
her, and she thought of the strangeness of her
situation. She noted all she could in the room,
and silently and unsuspected cut with her scis
sors a small piece out of the bed curtains, and
secreted it in her pocket. ' Suddenly she be
came aware that the gentleman whom she saw
on entering the room had come back, and stood
by the bedside. He leant over the mother, and
she gave a shriek. He had seized the child
from her breast, and in a moment he dashed
it among the embers on the hearth. The infant
fell on one side from the fire. The agonised
mother pleaded with brief strength from the
bed ; the old woman clung to his arm ; but
again he raised the child and cast it down, and
the murder was consummated. Then he rushed
out.' Soon afterwards the servant entered the room
with the scarf, the old woman's eyes were again
bandaged, and she was led out again into the
fresh air. The horse being in readiness, she
was lifted into the pillion, and the pair were
soon on the journey back, but by a different
road. At the time of parting from the guide,

154 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
Avhich was within fifty yards of her own
dwelling, he made her swear to observe secrecy,
at the same time putting into her hand a purse,
Avhich she afterwards found to contain twenty-
five guineas. For some time the old woman
kept her terrible secret ; but at length the
strange events so preyed upon her mind, that
she went to a justice of the peace and narrated
to him the whole of the facts in as clear a
manner as she was able. Suspicion was at
once directed to Littlecote Hall, and to WilUam
Darell, its master. The number of steps leading
from the court-yard to the landing-place on
the stairs, which the old woman ha<l counted,
tallied exactly vdth those of the suspected
house; and the piece of curtain was found
exactly to match one in a room where the
birth of the child was supposed to have taken
place. With such evidence, it was expected
that nothing short of a conviction of some
of the parties for the murder of a new-born
infant must have followed ; particularly as a
beautiful young lady in the family (a niece)
had withdrawn herself from her acquaintance,
under the plea of going into a convent at

WILD DARELL OF LITTLECOTE, 155
Avignon, to learn French, when she had been
seen more than once after her declared de
parture by a fruit-woman, looking out of ix
small window next to her usual apartment.
In the course of the trial, however, according
to one narrative of the tragedy in the ' Patrician,'
the circumstance of the curtain was rendered
suspicious by its being proved, on cross-ex
amination, that a Roman Catholic servant had
left the family in malice a short time before,
with horrid declarations of revenge, on account
of her having been forbidden to attend mass,
which suggested a possibility of her supplying
the facts of the curtain, as well as the local
description given by the midwife of the suspected
mansion. The midwife's story, though apparently
plausible, was considerably weakened by her
swearing positively to so many and doubt
ful points. First, that of her distinguishing
being carried over corn and ploughed fields,
though she only knew, it being so extremely
dark, that they had quitted the high-road from
the sound of the horse's feet ; but an apparent
contradiction, which was supposed to have over-

156 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
turned her whole evidence, was her positively
insisting that in their way to the house, where her
assistance was wanted, they crossed a ford twice,
whenit was proved that there was only one straight
river between the two houses. Now supposing
the guide to have made a wheel round, in order
to deceive the midwife, and to have again cross
ed the river, they must still have forded it a
third time to arrive at the suspected house. All
these circumstances being pointed out, and com
mented on by the judge for the consideration of
the jurymen, they returned a verdict of acquittal
without leaving the court.
' Whether the suspected parties were or were
not guilty of the crime of murder,' observes a
writer in Burke's ' Patrician,' ' could only be
known to themselves and the great Disposer of
all things; but no judge or jury would have
established a different verdict from such defec
tive evidence. The train of calamity which suc
ceeded the trial may give rise to melancholy re
flections, and was, no doubt, considered by the
multitude to have been the effect of Divine visita
tion. In few words, the owner of Littlecote
soon became involved in estate and deranged in

WILD DARELL OF LITTLECOTE. 157
mind, and is said to have died a victim to despon
dency; and, though the fate of the niece is^
unknown or forgotten, ruin and misery are
said to have befallen the famUy which survived
him,' In the words of the poem above referred to :
' The shrift is done, the friar is gone,
Blindfold as he came —
Next morning all, in Littlecot Hall,
Were mourning for their dame.
' Wild Darell is an alter 'd man,
The village crones can tell ;
He looks pale as clay, and strives to pray,
If he hears the convent bell.
' If prince or peer cross DareU's way,
He beards him in his pride —
If he meet a friar of orders grey.
He droops and turns aside.'
From the Darells the estate of Littlecote is
said by tradition to have passed as a bribe to Sir
John Popham, the Lord Chief Justice of England,
who presided at the trial of WiUiam Darell.
The story has been thus told by a writer in Once
a Week : ' WUd Darell was arrested, and proofs
of all kinds were accumulated against him, stifl
ing every hope of his innocence. The day for his

158 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS,
trial, which was appointed to take place before
Judge Popham, came on. His friends were
baffled in their endeavours to rescue or screen
the culprit, when secretly one last means were
tried. From Wild Darell in his prison a strange
offer went up to Judge Popham, and the Chief
Justice listened. It was this: that, should
DareU's life be spared and the law, perverted or
hoodwinked, leave him at liberty, all the fair
Manor of Littlecote, the Hall, and everything the
prisoner possessed, should be the bribe. Of
what bound the compact tradition is silent ; but
the compact was bound, and kept! Wild
Darrell rode back in freedom to Littlecote Hall,
Soon afterwards the day came when he should
fulfil his engagements. The deeds and agree
ments which made the transfer complete were
laid out on the great table, and wanted only
DareU's signature. The judge came to take
possession, bringing strange servants with him.
The signatures were completed, and the last of
the " old family " strode silently from the Uttle
crowd around him in the hall — a beggar ! He
had been a headlong and generous liver, like his
father, and notably a hard rider. The poor and

WILD DARELL OF LITTLECOTE. 159
the common people loved him. He always
used to ride a favourite horse, and he had
specially reserved this animal when he gave
up all his other property. The horse was well-
saddled at the door for the last time, and Wild
Darell was silent till he leaped into the saddle.
Then, rising in his stirrups as the horse moved
to turn from Littlecote, he cursed the despoiler
of his house in the bitterest terms, vowing that
the eldest son of the Pophams should never
enjoy the inheritance or the estate. Having
spoken thus, he dashed in a frantic manner
across the park to quit the place for ever. He
had not gone far from the house when his horse
fell in a headlong leap, and, with his rider, was
killed on a spot which is still shown as ' Wild
DareU's Leap.'
This, however, is but tradition. History
asserts that Littlecote passed by sale to Sir
John Popham, and that it had the honour, in
the time of Alexander Popham, the grandson of
the Chief Justice, of receiving a royal visit
from Charles IL, who, at his coronation, created
Sir Francis Popham, the heir of Littlecote, a
Knight of the Bath. The last male representa-

160 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY. CHESTS.
tive of this distinguished branch of the ancient
house of Popham was Francis Popham, Esq.,
of Littlecote, and of Houndstreet, Somersetshire,
who died in 1730, having devised his estates to
his nephew, Lieutenant-General Edward Wil
liam Leybourne. That gentleman assumed in
consequence the surname of Popham, and,
seating himself at Littlecote, served as high
sheriff of the county of WUts in 1830. He died
in 1853, and was succeeded by his eldest son
and heir, Edward William, on whose death, in
January, 1881, the property devolved upon his
nephew, Francis William Leybourne-Popham,
now of Littlecote and Houndstreet, who it is
hoped may live to show that the curse above
mentioned is powerless.

161

ELIZA FARREN, COUNTESS OF
DERBY.
In the course of the last two centuries a few
untitled and humbly-born actresses, but only a
few, after having ' taken the town ' more or less
' by storm ' as popular favourites, and having
reigned for a longer or shorter period as ' queens
of the stage,' have found themselves raised to
coronets, which they have won with more or
less propriety, and in some few cases without
compromising their characters as women.* Per
haps the very best and brightest and purest
specimen of this class was Eliza Farren, from
1797 down to 1829 Countess of Derby.
* The best known of these ladies were Lavinia Fenton
(' Polly Peachum '), Duchess of Bolton ; and Miss Louisa
Brunton, Countess of Craven.
yoL. II. i^r

162 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
Lizzie Farren, as she was called on the
stage, was the daughter of a certain Mr. George
Farren, a surgeon and apothecary of Cork, who
was a member of a band of strolUng players,
but never rose to anything beyond a provincial
fame and celebrity. His talented daughter,*
must have been born in one of the last
years of the reign of George IL, as in 1769 we
find her going about the country acting with
sylph-like grace the part of Columbine at such
places as could be found where the mayor was
willing to give countenance to those stage ex
hibitions which had been so cruelly proscribed
under the Puritan regime, and were forced to
remain in the cold shade for more than a cen
tury afterwards. Dr. Doran, in his ' Knights
and their Days,' draws a charming picture of
the little Lizzie, when her father was locked up
by order of the Mayor of SaUsbury as a vaga
bond, marching down the frozen street into the
* Eliza's mother was a Miss Wright, daughter of a
brewer of Liverpool. She brought Mr. Farren some for
tune, which he dissipated by his irregular habits, and
particularly by his attachment to theatrical amusements,
which led him to neglect his profession, and to join a
company of strolling players.

ELIZA FARREN, COUNTESS OP DERBY. 163
market-place, and so to the ' round-house,' early
on Christmas morning, to carry her father a cup
of warm coffee for breakfast. He also teUs us
that at Wakefield, at Chester, and in other
provincial towns, Lizzie Farren, as quite a
child, created & furore, and that in the autumn
of 1776 she came up to town, furnished with an
introduction frora an equestrian actor named
Burroughs, who was then studying for the Bar,
and, even at that time, conscious of high
talents, was doubtless looking forward to the
judicial bench — ^which he afterwards attained
— as his own proper stage. But Dr, Doran
shall tell the story in his own words :
On the Christmas eve of 1776, Miss Farren
was seated in Colman's parlour in London,
looking at him while he read two letters of in
troduction : one from Burroughs, the other from
Younger ; and both in high praise of the young
bearer, for whom they were especially written.
My limits will only allow me to say that Lizzie
was engaged for the next summer season at the
Haymarket, where she appeared on June 9, 1777,
in ' She Stoops to Conquer,'
WUen, in the following year, she played Lady
m2

164 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
Townley, she was declared the first, and she
was then almost the youngest of living actresses.
And when she joined the Drury Lane company,
in the succeeding season, the principal parts
were divided between herself, Miss Walpole,
Miss P, Hopkins, and 'Perdita' Robinson. Not
one of this body was then quite twenty years of
age! For just twenty years she adorned the Lon
don stage, playing nearly all the principal
characters in the stock EngUsh comedies. She
attracted the personal attention of Charles
James Fox, and of other wits of the time, but
without any loss of character. And for Lord
Derby, whilst his first wife was living, she had
a platonic affection, which was made the sub
ject of many squibs and jests; but 'her con
duct,' says Sylvanus Urban in the Gentleman's
Magazine, ' was so guarded as to be free from
the aspersions of the most censorious and mali
cious.' As manageress of the plays which were
performed at the Duke of Richmond's house in
Whitehall, she became intimately acquainted
with many leaders of ton and fashion, and all
who knew her admired her and appreciated her
worth at its proper value.

ELIZA FARREN, COUNTESS OP DERBY. 165
At length came the season for her abdication,
Eliza Farren took leave of the stage at Drury
Lane at the beginning of April, 1797,, At that
time private theatricals were not affairs of such
frequent occurrence as they have become in our
own days, though several of the leading mem
bers of the nobility and wealthier gentry had
private theatres fitted up at their respective
country seats. Amongst others, the Wynns of
Wynnstay, Lord Barrymore at Wargrave, Lord
Derby at the Oaks, near Epsom, and the Duke
of Richmond at Goodwood, and at his town
house in Whitehall, set apart a portion of the
mansions for dramatic purposes; and it was
probably through the performance of some of
his dramas at the Oaks that General Burgoyne
became allied with the Stanley family, having
married the Lady Elizabeth, sister of the then
Earl of Derby.
The earl, it so happened, had just been left
a ' free man,' with a coronet at his own disposal
by the death of his first wife, the Lady EUza
beth Hamilton-Douglas, daughter of James,
Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, And so, on
the 8th of May foUowing her abdication, Miss

166 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
Farren was married by special licence to Lord
Derby, at his residence in St, James's Square;
she became by him the mother of three children,
two of whom died young, and the third be
came Countess of Wilton, and mother of the
late earl.
In a dramatic magazine of the date of her
retirement from the stage, Eliza Farren is thus
described :
' Her figure is considerably above the middle
height, and of that slight texture which allows
and requires the use of full and flowing drapery,
an advantage of which she knows well how to
avail herself. Her face, though not regularly
beautiful, is animated and prepossessing; her
eye, which is blue and penetrating, is a power
ful feature when she chooses to employ it on the
public, and either flashes with spirit or melts
with softness as its mistress decides on the
expression she wishes to convey ; her voice,
though perhaps deficient in sweetness, is refined
and feminine ; and her smiles, of which she is no^
niggard, fascinate the heart as much as her
form delights the eye. In short, a more com
plete exhibition of graces and accomplishments

ELIZA FARREN, COUNTESS OF DERBY, 167
never presented itself for admiration before the
view of an audience. To this enumeration of
her personal charms we have to add the list of
her talents. It is not wise, indeed, to separate
them, as they are mutuaUy improved and bene
fitted by each other , . . A rarer combination
of nature and art, to qualify their favourite for
thd assumption of the principal characters in
the higher comedy, has never been known ;
she possesses ease, vivacity, spirit, and humour,
and her performances are so little injured by
effort that we have often experienced a delusion
of the senses, and imagined, what in a theatre it
is so difficult to imagine, the scene of action to
be identified, and Miss Farren really the char
acter that she was only attempting to sustain ;
and we cannot admit even the supposition that
St, James's ever displayed superior evidence of
fine breeding to that which Miss Farren has
done in her own person,'
It is almost superfluous to add that, when Miss
Farren took her farewell of the play-going
public at Drury Lane, the house was filled to
overflowing. Towards the conclusion of the
play, we are told, she appeared to be ' much

168 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
affected,' and when Mr, Wroughton came for
ward to speak some lines which had been writ
ten for the occasion, she was fairly overcome
and ' had to be supported by Mr. King,' The
fall of the curtain was attended with repeated
bursts of applause, not unmingled with feeUngs
of regret for the loss of an actress then in the
zenith of her charms, and while her dramatic
and personal reputation were both in the highest
esteem of the public.
The Countess of Derby died on the 23rd of
April, 1829, at Knowsley Park, Lancashire,
' after protracted suffering,' at the age of sixty-
six, and lies buried in the famUy tomb of the
Stanleys, It is said that she gave her step-
grandson, the future premier of England and
translator of Homer's ' Iliad,' his earliest lessons
in elocution.
It may be interesting to add that the Mr,
Burroughs who is mentioned above, was the
same person who, as a boy, had helped EUza
Farren to carry to her father his Christmas
breakfast in his , prison at Salisbury, and who
eventually became a judge, and received the
honour of knighthood. An anecdote relating to

ELIZA FARREN, COUNTESS OF DERBY, 169
liim shaU be told by Dr. Doran in his own
words :
'Not long after her presentation at court,
where she was received with marked kindly
condescension by Queen Charlotte, the countess
was walking in the marriage procession of the
Princess Royal and the Duke of Wurtemburg ;
her foot caught in the carpeting, and she would
have fallen to the ground but for the ready arms
once more extended to support her of Mr. Bur
roughs — now an eminent man indeed,
' Many years have been added to the roll of
time, when a carriage containing a lady was on
its way to Windsor, It suddenly came to a
stop by the breaking of an axle-tree. In the
midst of the distress which ensued to the occu
pier, a second carriage approached bearing a
good-natured-looking gentleman, who at once
offered his services. The lady, recognising an
old friend, accepted the offer with alacrity. As
the two drove off together in the gentleman's
carriage towards Windsor, the owner of it re
marked that he almost expected to find her in
distress on the road ; for it was Christmas eve,
and' he had been thinking of old times.

170 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS,
' " How many years is it, my lady countess,"
said he, " since I stood at my father's shop-door
in Salisbury, watching your perilous passage
over the market-place with a bowl of milk?"
'"Not so long, at all events," she answered,
with a smile, " but that I recollect my poor father
would have lost his breakfast but for your assist
ance." ' " The time is not long for memory," replied the
judge, " nor is Salisbury as far from Windsor as
Dan from Beersheba ; yet how wide the distance
between the breakfast at the cage-door at Salis
bury and the Christmas dinner to which we are
both proceeding, in the palace of the king !"
' " The earl is already there," added the
countess, " and he will be happier than the king
himself to .welcome the legal knight who has
done such wiUing service to the Lady of the
Knight of the Bath,"'

171

A ROMANCE IN THE HOUSE OF
ROSEBERY.
The Primroses, Earls of Rosebery, and Lords-
Primrose and Dalmeny in the peerage of Scot^
land, are descended from an eminent but un
titled family who, three centuries ago, owned
the broad acres of the barony of Primrose, in the
county of Fife, For two or three generations
they held high legal posts in Scotland under the
government of our later Stuart sovereigns, and
one of them, a Gentleman of the Bed-chamber ta
Prince George of Denmark, was raised to the
earldom in 1703, His son and successor, James,
second earl, had a son who bore by courtesy his
father's second title, and was known as Lord
Dalmeny. His name is omitted from the peer
age, probably on account of an irregular and

172 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
romantic marriage which he had contracted, in
perfect good faith and innocence, with a certain
lassie of plebeian extraction in one of our East
Anglian counties, the facts of which I am able to
lay before my readers from a private and
authentic source.
The young lady to whom Lord Dalmeny
thus became allied was named Kate, or, as
she was always called, ' Kitty ' Cannon, and her
parents were substantial yeomen, occupying a
large farm in the parish of Thorpe, which lies
at the extreme north-east end of Essex, jutting
far out into the German Ocean, They were
plain people ; but their daughter had the good,
or bad, fortune of being extremely pretty, and
when little more than a girl she was admired
by the gay young men of 'the quality' who
came down from London to stay with the
dissipated Earl of Rochford, at St, Osyth's
Priory, and with another ministerial gentleman,
who shall be nameless, at Mistley Park, near
Harwich. However, none of these titled in
dividuals condescended to breathe in her ear
a single word about matrimony ; so, when she
was just twenty, she gave her hand, and (it

A ROMANCE IN THE HOUSE OF ROSEBERY. 173
is to be presumed) her heart also, to the rector
of Thorpe, a Reverend Mr, Gough,
A quiet and remote parsonage, however, was
not exactly suited to the taste of a young lady
who had once sipped the cup of flattery from
gentlemen who belonged to the clubs about
St, James's, and who moved in courtly circles.
Accordingly, one evening when she was stay
ing in London, being present at a ball in the
neighbourhood of the then fashionable district
of Covent Garden, she managed to sUp out,
unobserved by her husband, and to run away
with John, Lord Dalmeny, who was only a few
years older than herself. She had no children,
and doubtless his lordship was led to believe
that she was a widow, and quite at her own
disposal. The pair went abroad, and remained for two
or three years travelhng in the sunny south ;
but in the early summer of 1752 Kitty Cannon,
or Kitty Gough, was taken seriously ill at Flor
ence, Her illness turned into a gaUoping con
sumption, and in the May or June of that year
she died, A few hours only before her death,
she wrote upon a scrap of paper, ' I am really

174 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS,
the wife of the Reverend Mr, Gough, vicar of
Thorpe, near Colchester, Essex ; my maiden
name was Kitty Cannon, and my family belong
to the same parish. Bury me there.'
Lord Dalmeny's young wife, as he always
thought her to be, was gone before he was
able to realise the full meaning of the hues
which she had written. At first he was dis
posed to reject them, as a creation of her sick
brain ; it was impossible for him to believe that
the dear companion of his last few years was
guilty of bigamy. But, whether true or false,
he at once resolved, as she lay in her coffin at
Florence, to give effect to her last wish, and he
instantly prepared to carry her remains over to
England. The body of this lovely woman was em
balmed, and secured in ' a very fine oaken
coffin, decorated with six large silver plates,
and it was then put into a strong outer case
of common deal, which concealed the ominous
shape of its contents. The jewellery and ward
robe of the lady were packed in other chests,
and with this cumbersome baggage Lord Dal
meny set out upon his melancholy journey by

A ROMANCE IN THE HOUSE OP ROSEBERY. 175
land to the south of France. At Marseilles he
was able to engage a vessel to carry him and
his packages by sea round to Dover, under the
assumed name of Mr. Williams, a merchant of
Hamburg; and on landing at Dover he trans
ferred his belongings to a small coaster, which
he hired to carry him to Harwich, then a busy
and bustling port, only a few miles distant from
Thorpe. The vessel, however, was forced by
contrary winds to make for Colchester instead,
where the Custom House officers came down
to the 'Hythe'to examine the freight before they
would allow it to be landed. They could not
recognise in the elegant and polished gentle
man, whom they saw dressed in the deepest
of black and bowed down by grief, a common
business man from Hamburg; and they very
naturally thought, as only seven years had
passed since the rebellion of 1745, that he was
some emissary of 'the Pretender.' So their
loyalty took the alarm. It certainly was the
plain duty of Custom House officials to see that
no French tobacco, gloves, lace, or brocade was
brought over in these large boxes without pay
ing duty to King George. Accordingly, with-

176 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS,
out giving any ' attention to the remonstrances
of Mr. WiUiams, they were about to plunge
their knives into the larger case, when the
Hamburg merchant drew his sword and told
them to desist. He at once made a clean breast
of the affair, teUing them that he was an
Englishman, and, what was more, an English
nobleman, and that the chest upon the wharf
contained the body of his dead wife. But this
explanation did not satisfy the officers, who
were not sure that there was not a murder at
the bottom of the transaction. They therefore
at once broke the outer chest, tore open the
coffin lid, and lifted the cere-cloths from the
face of the embalmed corpse. Lord Dalmeny
was taken, along with the coffin, to a church
near at hand, where he was detained until he
could prove the truth of his story.
The news soon spread about, and crowds of
the neighbouring villagers came to see the fair
lady's face as she lay in her coffin. Many of
these identified her features as those of the
Kitty Cannon who had spent her chUdhood at
Thorpe, and who had disappeared soon after
her marriage with the vicar of that parish.

A ROMANCE IN THE HOUSE OP ROSEBERY. 177
But here was a further difficulty for his lord
ship ; for, though the rest of his story was
transparently true, it was clear that the lady
Avas not really his lawful wife, A communica
tion was at once forwarded to the vicar, who
lost no time in coming over to the Hythe and
recognising the corpse as that of his vanished
partner. But what a mystery the whole affair
was to him as well as to Lord Dalmeny, to
whom at first, as may be supposed, he enter
tained and expressed no very friendly feelings.
But he was soon pacified. Possibly he had
preached but lately a sermon enforcing forgive
ness of even intended wrongs, and here was a
wrong which clearly was not intended. Accord
ingly, as soon as he was able to contemplate
the matter in all its bearings — the deception
which had been practised on the poor young
nobleman, and the passionate constancy which
had borne him up through his toilsome journey
by land and voyage by sea in order to gratify
his supposed wife's last prayer, and the faithful
ness with which, like a dog, he watched beside
her coffin in the church — he felt that he could
not refuse to forgive the wrong, and he con-
VOL. II. N

178 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
sented to meet Lord Dalmeny on a friendly
footing. The interview between the two rival hus
bands is said in a family record to have been
' very moving,' and no doubt must have been
touching in the extreme ; the only wonder is
that it has not been taken by play-writers to
work out as a plot for the stage, I am not
able to tell my readers the exact words in
which Lord Dalmeny assured the husband of
his entire innocence of fraud, and of the honest
intentions with which he had acted throughout.
Even the discovery of his long-lost Kitty's de
ceit and guilt did not put his love to shame, or
shake his determination to follow her to her last
resting-place. And the same was the feeling
of his lordship. The next day, as soon as the
magistrates were satisfied that the law had not
been broken, both husbands accompanied the
loved remains to Thorpe Church, where the
poor frail lady was buried with all the pomp
and show which could have been accorded to a
real peeress. Which of the two paid the under
taker's bill is not stated ; but I have every
reason to believe that the cost was paid by

A ROMANCE IN THE HOUSE OP ROSEBERY. 179
Lord Dalmeny, or amicably settled between
them. It is said that the funeral cortege was
•stopped for a few minutes at the gates of the
vicarage, and that the young nobleman walked
into the house, from which he presently came
forth arm-in-arm with Mr. Gough, who was
clothed in mourning as deep as his own, and
with scarf, and headband to match. This hap
pened on July 9, 1752.
After the funeral ceremony, Lord Dalmeny
departed from the scene in great grief and to
all appearance quite inconsolable, declaring that
he should leave not only the shores of Essex,
but those of England, for ever. Whether he
kept his word in this respect is more than I can
tell ; but the tragical occurrence would seem
to have shortened his days, for he survived his
beloved ' Kitty ' Uttle more than three years,
dying at the age of thirty on August 11, 1755,
in the lifetime of his father the earl, over whom
the grave closed in the November following.
Apparently the name of this Lord Dalmeny has
been struck out of the existing ' Peerages ' on
account of the strange mesalliance with which
he connected the fair escutcheon of the noble
n2

180 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS,
house of Primrose, As for Mr. Gough, he never
married a second time, being laid in his last
resting-place at Thorpe in July, 1774. The
family of Cannon is extinct in the village ;
Kitty's monument was removed some thirty
years ago by the vicar, and a flat stone was
placed over her remains to form the floor of a
vestry. ' So,' as one of her connections wrote to me
in 1862, ' theris she is, shut up out of sight and
mind along with the parish registers, where her
burial is duly recorded ; and every Sunday the
officiating parson and clerk tramp solemnly into
church over the author of a scandal too gi-eat,
and too romantic also, to be forgotten, even in
the third or fourth generation. Kitty Cannon,
or Kitty Gough,' adds my correspondent, ' is I
believe, the first woman in England who had
two husbands to follow her to the grave
together.' It only remains to add that this story is told
very briefly by Chambers in his ' Book of Days,'
(vol. ii, p. 205,) and also at greater length with
more minuteness in Once a Week, (vol. vii,,) by
a lady who signs her name Diana Butler, who

A ROMANCE IN THE HOUSE OP ROSEBERY. 181
calls the lady ' Kitty Hancomb,' and the noble
man ' Lord Dairy,' doubtless in order to throw a
thin veil over the transaction which she relates.
She, however, gives a portrait of ' Kitty,' taken
from an original painting in her own possession,
as I can certify. Happily ' Kitty ' left no child
by either husband, and perhaps it is fortunate
that she never became a mother. The earldom
of Rosebery devolved on her second husband's
next brother, whose great gi'andson is the present
peer.

182

'THREE VERY FAIR SEYMOURS.'
The recent death of the Duchess of Somerset,*
who was one of three very beautiful, witty, and
accomplished sisters, and who, as Lady Seymour,
presided with grace and elegance over the
Eglinton Tournament in August, 1839, may
serve to remind the reader of history that the
noble house of Seymour has, from a very early
date, been celebrated for the beauty of its
daughters ; and the truth of the tradition may
be proved by the many portraits in our great
pubUc and private gaUeries, painted by the
hands of Sir Peter Lely and Sir Godfrey
Kneller, But probably there was never a fairer triplet
of daughters to be seen than the Ladies Anne,.
Margaret, and Jane Seymour, daughters of a
* Her Grace died December l^l, 1884.

THREE VERY FAIR SEYMOURS. 183
certain nobleman, who is described on a family
tomb in Westminster Abbey as ' The renowned
prince, Edward, Duke of Somerset, Earl of
Hertford, Viscount Beauchamp, and Baron Sey
mour,' Their mother was Anne, daughter of
Sir William Stanhope, of Rampton, in Notting
hamshire, and sister of Sir Michael Stanhope, of
Sudbourne Hall, Suffolk, and heiress of her
mother, Elizabeth, sister of John Bourchier, Earl
of Bath ; so that their blood was on both sides of
the very bluest possible hue.
This trio of sisters were as accomplished
in mind as they were beautiful in person. They
were famous, we are told, for their learning,
even in an age when young ladies were not
ashamed to study the classical writers of anti
quity, and to imitate their style in prose and in
verse. Thus we are told by Mr. G. Ballard
in his 'Memoirs of Several Ladies of Great
Britain,' pubUshed at Oxford in 1752, that ' they
wrote four hundred Latin distiches upon the
death of the Queen of France, Margaret deValois,
sister of Francis I.,' and that these verses were
translated soon after into Greek, French, and
ItaUan, and were printed in Paris in 1551, under

184 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
the title of ' Tombeau de Marguerite de Valois,
Royne de Navarre.' From the same work Ave
learn that one Nicholas Denisot, who had been
preceptor to these learned ladies, made a collec
tion of their distiches and some other verses, as
well in honour of them as in commemoration of the
queen, and dedicated it to another Marguerite de
Valois, Duchess de Berrie, sister of Henry II. of
France. They have been praised, he adds, by
several authors, particularly by Ronsard, whose
ode pays these three fair Seymours the compli
ment of suggesting that ' if Orpheus had only
heard them, he would have been safe to become
their pupil !'
It is delightful to read the gushing words ot
the Frenchman himself: 'If that famous writer
heard the song of these syrens, who sing upon
the foamy shores of their sandy Albion, he
would surely break his pagan lyre and become
their scholar, in order to learn their Christian
song, as their voices excelled his own !' He
adds, in the same hyperbolic strain : ' Learning,
which so long resided in the East, has at last by
degrees advanced into the West, and never
stopped, till it arrived at that unknown land,

THREE VERY FAIR SEYMOURS, 185
whither she came to engage the affections of
these young virgins, the only ones of our age;
and she succeeded so well with them that we
hear them singing their many distiches, which
we blush to find superior to our own,' And,
further, the learned translator of Amadis de
Gaule spoke in terms equally enthusiastic of the
talents and learning of these ladies, in a letter
which he addressed to them, and which was pre
fixed to a collection of epitaphs on Queen
Margaret herself. It is, therefore, surprising
that their names were always and are so little
known, if not in France, yet in their own
country. Thus Monsieur Bayle says that he has
questioned some Englishmen of great learning,
and well versed in the knowledge of books and
of authors, but can find little or nothing known
about them. And apparently their names were
unknown even to Leland, the royal antiquary ;
though this may be accounted for by the fact
that he became insane before he had reached
middle life, and so probably their names escaped
the knowledge of the raany biographers who
copied and reproduced Lelaud's stores of infor
mation.

186 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
It would geem, from the slight sketch of these
young ladies given by Mr, Ballard — whose work
Ukewise deserves to be better known than it is
— that they were the three eldest daughters of
their parents, and that they had three younger
sisters, who proved to be by no means their
equals in devotion to the Muses, though the
author is at the pains to tell us that they were
all ' bred up to learning.' They were all quite
young, and the third was probably little more
than a child when their fame made its sudden
blaze in 1551. They were brought up carefully
at home and away from the court ; and, besides
their ' preceptor ' for the Latin tongue, they had
other professors to ' teach them music and the
sciences.' Of their skill in broidery and needle
work there is no record ; possibly Mr. Ballard did
not lay much stress on that branch of feminine
accomplishments. One of them, however, sang
divinely, and another played with great skill on
' the virginals.'
Of their subsequent life there is very little to
say. Possibly the young men about the Court
and in high society in those days did not care
for such qualities as a taste for composing Latin

THREE A'^ERY FAIR SEYMOURS, 187
verses in the ladies among whom they looked
for wives, aud were rather alarmed at the
possibility of finding in them any touches of the
' blue-stocking.' At all events, two of them,.
Marguerite and Jane, died young and unmarried.
It is true that a suitor was found for Lady Mar
guerite, for, if we may believe Strype,* she was
sought in marriage by Lord Strange, son of the
Earl of Derby ; and the king appears to have
smiled graciously on the proposed aUiance»
But somehow or other the marriage never came
off, for the disgrace, and misfortunes which soon
after overtook the Duke of Somerset probably
caused the match to be postponed and ultimate
ly set aside, and the young lady did not long-
survive the affair. The third of the trio. Lady
Jane, also was carried to her tomb in Westminster
Abbey when only in her twentieth year. She
was one of the maids- of- honour to Queen
EUzabeth, and, we are told, 'in great favour
with her royal mistress ;' but she was carried off
by a fever, and died on the 19th of March, 1560.
The Lady Anne, however, made up for
her sisters by marrying twice ; her first husband-
* ' Ecclesiastical Memoirs,' vol. ii, p. 358.

188 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
was John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and after
his death she married Sir Edward Unton, Knight
of the Bath, The date of her death is not
recorded in the Peerages, nor is it known
whether she left any children behind her. As
for the three youngest sisters whom I have
mentioned incidentally above, the name of one
is not given by Sir Bernard Burke and the
heralds ; but the two others, as being less learned,
found husbands, the Lady Mary marrying, firstly,
Mr. Andrew Rogers, and, secondly. Sir Henry
Peyton, of Peyton Hall; while her sister, the
Lady EUzabeth, became the wife of Sir Richard
Knightley, of Norton and Fawsley, the owner of
many broad acres and manors in Northampton
shire and the other midland counties, and an
ancestor of the present baronet of that name.

189

LETTICE DIGBY, LADY OFFALEY.
The Lady Lettice Digby is a heroine whose
name right well deserves to be held in remem
brance along with those of Lady BriUiana
Harley, of Blanche Lady Arundell, and of the
Lady of Lathom, whose defences of Wardour
Castle and Lathom House I have told in pre
vious papers.* Her defence of Geashill Castle,
in King's County, Ireland, was one of the most
spirited episodes in the history of the Irish
RebelUon in 1641, She was by birth Lettice
FitzGerald, being the only child of Gerald,
Lord Offaley, whose great-grandfather, Gerald,
ninth earl of Kildare, was an ancestor of the
ducal house of Leinster. Her mother, the Lady
Katharine KnoUys, a cousin of Queen EUzabeth,
was left a widow almost at her birth, in 1580.
» See 'Tales of Great Families,' 2nd Series, vol. i, p. 1.,.
and 1st Series, vol. i, p. 278.

190 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
The earldom, of course, descended in the male
line, but the barony of Offaley, as a barony in
fee, was one which it was thought could pass
to females, and was therefore claimed for the
youthful heiress while still a child. But the
claim, though brought before the judges, was
kept so long in dispute that King James I.
undertook to adjudicate it in person, and in the
end he did so, being probably moved by gifts
and presents, which in his day often helped to
promote or to defeat justice. His Majesty in
the end adjudged the ancient barony to the
earl, but created Lettice KnoUys Baroness
¦Offaley for life. The King's grant, which is
dated in 1619, and was made under the great
Seal of England, invested her with the lands
of Killeagh and the territory and demesne of
Geashill, which she brought by marriage into
the Digby family.
When the Irish rebeUion of 1641 broke out,
as mentioned above, the Lady Offaley was some
sixty years of age, and had been a widow for a
quari^r of a century, 'With the rebels she
could make no common cause, and with the
¦defection of the Lords of the Pale she could

LETTICE DIGBY, LADY OFFALEY. 191
have no sympathy ;' she was therefore prepared
to resist every challenge and every overture on
the part of the insurgents, whose action she
regarded as foul disloyalty. Her ladyship was
residing at Geashill Avith her sons and some of
her grandchildren, when the forces of the enemy
appeared before the walls of her castle, in spite
of the natural defences of the bogs by which
the place was surrounded, Henry Demsey, a
brother of Lord Clanmalier, and her own kins
man, along with others of the leaders of the
rebels, sent her a summons which purported to
be in the king's name, ordering her at once to
surrender her fortress, and at the same time
threatening, in case of non-compliance, to burn
it and the town which lay clustered at the foot
of its walls, but promising her and her people a
safe convoy in case she should yield.
This missive was addressed to ' the honour
able and thrice virtuous lady, the Lady Digby.'
But, a,ware of the men with whom she had to
deal, Lady Digby was not to be dismayed by
threats or duped by promises. Castle after
castle had yielded, some gained over by threats,
some by siege, and some by storm, and their

192 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
helpless inmates had been butchered or driven
forth homeless and shelterless. The Lady Let
tice had too much spirit to yield herself to such
a fate without a struggle, or without fighting a
blow iu self-defence. She alike questioned the
authority of her enemies and distrusted their
promises of mercy.
' I am,' she replied, ' as I have ever been,
a loyal subject of my king. I thank you
for your offer of a convoy, which, how
ever, I hold as of little safety. Being free
from offending His Majesty, or doing wrong to
any of you, I wUl live and die innocently, and
will do my best to defend my own, leaving the
issue to God.' Such was this noble lady's
dauntless answer to a summons sent fraudu
lently in the king's name, requiring her to give
up her castle to her own and the king's enemies.
Being surrounded by extensive bogs, Geashill
Castle was by no means easy of approach, as
already mentioned; but in proportion to its
strength was its possession of importance to
the rebels. ' Gesshall, in the King's County, is
very necessaire to be had; it is a matter of
consequence to Her Majestie's service in that

LETTICE DIGBY, LADY OFFALEY. 193
countye,' were the words of Sir Henry Sidney,
when he paid a visit to Ireland in the previous
reign of EUzabeth. Sixty years later it was an
equally valuable prize, and the rebels deter
mined to secure it if they could, at aU cost.
Negotiations with its high-spirited owner
being useless, they proceeded to make an
assault on the castle ; but they experienced
such a warm reception on a near approach, that
they were glad to retreat. ' One of the Lady
Offaley's sons, having fallen into the hands of
the rebels, was brought under the castle walls
in chains, and a threat was held out that, unless
she made at once an unconditional surrender,
they would strike his head off before her eyes.
Nothing daunted, she repUed that she had a
Roman Catholic priest as a prisoner within her
walls, that she would bring him out upon the
ramparts, and that his life should be immediate
ly forfeited if the rebels touched a hair of her
son's head. As the rebels were Catholics, rever
ence for their priest induced them to withdraw
as the price of his safety.
The siege was, however, renewed after a
brief interval, and prisoners were taken on either
VOL. n. 0

194 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
side. On one occasion a messenger, sent by
Lady Offaley with a letter to the rebels, was
detained by them. ' I am innocent,' she wrote,
^ of doing you any injury, unless you count it an
injury for my people to bring back a small
quantity of my own woods when they find them,
and with them some men who have done me all
the ill they can devise.'
The siege was suspended for a time, but not
abandoned, an interval of two months being
spent in making preparations for a renewed
assault. A hundred and forty fragments of old
iron were collected from every quarter, and
brought together, and an Irish rebel undertook
the work of fixing them, and moulding them
into one huge cannon. Three times were they
recast before the work was completed, but the
lady of Geashill showed no signs of alarm. At
length the engine was brought across the bogs
to the front of the castle. Hoping to intimidate
its gallant defender. Lord Clanmalier himself
wrote to her, announcing the arrival of this
formidable piece of ordnance, telling her that
he would never leave the spot to which he had
advanced, until he had gained possession of the

. LETTICE DIGBY, LADY OFFALEY. 195
castle. Her answer was characteristic of wo
manly bravery : ' I am still of the same mind, my
lord, and I can think no place safer than my
own house ; God will, I trust, take a poor widow
into His protection, and defend her from all
those who without cause have risen up against
her.' Her confidence was not vain, ClanmaUer
ordered the cannon to be placed in the most
commanding position, but it burst on its first
discharge, injuring several of bis rebel forces.
The rest, in bitter disappointment, took up their
guns, and kept up a continuous fire of musketry
until the evening, but vdthout inflicting any real
damage. Lady Offaley herself watched the at
tempted assault from the window. As soon as
night set in, the insurgents made off, carrying
with them their unlucky cannon.
But the respite which they allowed the lady
was a brief one. Next morning Lady Offaley
received the following letter from her rebel
cousin, Lord Clanmalier :
' Madame, — I received your letter, and am stUl
tender of your good and welfare, though you
give no credit thereunto. And, whereas you do
02

196 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
not understand by relation that my piece of
ordnance did not prosper, I beUeve you will be
sensible of the hazard and loss you are Uke to
sustain thereby, unless you be better advised to
accept of the kind offer which I mentioned to
you in my last letter unto you ... If not,
expect no further favour at my hands. — And so
I rest, your ladyship's loving cousin, &c,'
The fawning hypocrisy of her foe was well
met by the keen and caustic reply of Lady
Offaley :
' My Lord, — Your second summons I have re
ceived, and shall be glad to find you tender of
my good. For your piece of ordnance I never
disputed how it prospered, presuming you would
rather make use of it for your own defence or
against your enemies than against a poor widow
of your own blood, which, if shed, shall be
required at the hands of those that seek to spill
it. For my part, my conscience tells me that I
am innocent, and I wish you so too, — I rest,
your cousin, &c,'
In this letter true womanly feeling and
thorough heroism are apparent in closest
aUiance. Lady Lettice was not ashamed of

LETTICE DIGBY, LADY OFFALEY. 197
pleading her womanhood and her widowhood.
Her mind was free from arrogance and pride ;
she uttered no hard words ; she was cautious as
well as courageous. When her danger became
more imminent, and her resources grew feebler,
she felt that help from outside was not to be re
jected. At the end of April, 1642, she suc
ceeded in informing Sir Charles Coote, who was
then at Naas, in the county of Kildare, of the
straits to which she was reduced. He applied
at once to the Earl of Ormond, who was at
Dublin, for instructions, and the matter was laid
before the council at DubUn Castle, It was
determined that no time should be lost in send
ing assistance to Geashill. Accordingly, Philip
Sydney, Lord de Lisle, son of the Lord-Lieu
tenant of Ireland, was sent to the King's
¦County, with a regiment of carabineers and a
company of dragoons, which he had brought
with him from England, He was placed in
this high command in spite of his youth ; but
* he would have belied the high name which he
bore, had he not been forward to render assist
ance where such claims of chivalry and
Uumanity were put forth as at Geashill,' Ac-

198 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
companied by Su- George Wentworth, Sir
Charles Coote, and Lord Digby, the Lady Let-
tice's eldest son, he set off at once, and at the
head of three hundred horse, and half that
number of foot-soldiers. But their active aid
was scarcely needed, for, though they were
sUghtly harrassed by some rebel skirmishers as
they crossed the bog, yet on reaching GeashiU
it was found that the rebels had gone off into
the woods and the mountains. It appeared
that Lady Offaley, weary of waiting for help,
or, at all events, unaware that it was close at
hand, had despatched messengers to some of
her relatives among the FitzGeralds, asking for
the loan of about fifty foot-soldiers to protect
her against the ' mixed multitude ' of insurgents.
This latter, however, feU into the hands of her
foes, who were on the point of returning to
renew; the siege, when the sudden arrival of
the royal troops scattered them one and all to
the winds.
Although repeatedly urged by her friends to
retire to some place of peace and safety, this
heroic lady preferred to remain within her own
castle walls, which were now weU-provided

LETTICE DIGBY, LADY OFFALEY, 199
from DubUn with arms and ammunition. Hav
ing spent some months in peace and quiet,
and having seen the last of the rebels in her
own neighbourhood. Lady Lettice was at last
persuaded to quit the fortress which she had so
gallantly defended, and to settle down in Eng
land for the remainder of her days. She there
fore retired to her husband's estate at Coleshill,
in Warwickshire, where she died December 1,
1658, and she lies buried by his side in the
parish church of that pleasant country town.

200

ROMANCE OF THE EARLDOM OF
KELLIE.
It is not often that a coronet passes over
sixteen or seventeen intervening heads to Ught
upon that of a person eighteenth in remainder.
Yet such an event happened in the middle of
last century in the noble Scottish house of
Erskine, which enjoys, among other honours,
the earldom of KeUie. If anybody wUl be at
the pains of turning to the pages of Sharpe's
Peerage, he will see that, while Mr. Methven
Erskine was married to Joanna, daughter of
Gordon of Ardoch, in Rosshire, his brother
Thomas was also married to that lady's sister
Anne. He will also see that both of these gen
tlemen outlived their seniors, and became Earls
of Kellie, and that their respective ladies also

ROMANCE OF THE EARLDOM OF KELLIE. 201
lived to become countesses. ' Marriages,' they
say, 'are made in heaven,' but, as these two
unions came about through a shipwreck, the
truth of the statement may be doubted.
The Castle of Ardoch stands perched on a
rock high above the waves of the German
Ocean, on a headland somewhere between
Tarbat and Fortrose, The owner of this do
main (Mr, Adam Gordon) in one of the last
years of the reign of George IL, or soon after
the accession of George IIL, was walking late
one evening in his grounds, when he heard a gun
fired as a signal of distress by a vessel in the
offing. It was a very stormy night, and he
knew that there was little chance for a good
ship which got near the rocks of that headland
when a strong east wind was blowing. He
called his servants and tenants, however, and
hastened down a cleft in the rocks to the beach ;
but no traces of the ill-fated vessel were to be
found, except a few broken spars and some
small fragments of timber floating hither and
thither upon the waves. These they tried to
collect as they came to the shore, and among
other wreckage was a sort of tiny crib of

202 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
wicker-work, inside of which was a female
infant, alive, in spite of the cold and wet to
which she had been exposed. It was the work
of a few moments to rescue the Uttle stranger,
thrown, like a second Undine, upon a strange
shore. ' — The waves have hither brought
The helpless little one.'
From the clothes wrapped round its tiny body
it was clear to Mr, Gordon that she was a child
of parents of no low condition ; but there was in
her clothing no clue as to who or what her parents
might be, nor was there anything to show the
name of vessel thus lost and swallowed up by
the waves.
It was a matter of course to a hospitable
Scottish heart like that of Mr, Gordon to take
the little foundling home and have her wants
attended to by his wife and daughters. He
doubtless supposed, and at first probably hoped,
that ere long the little waif of the sea foam
would be claimed ; and in the meantime the
latter was reared with his own children, who
were young and who came soon to regard her
as a sister.

ROMANCE OF THE EARLDOM OP KELLIE. 203
Years passed by, and the little foundling was
growing up to womanhood, and was endearing
herself more and more to all the members of
the Ardoch family, when one wintry and stormy^
evening another alarm gun was fired by a vessel
in distress off the same cliffs, ' History,' they^
say, ' repeats itself,' and it would seem occasion
ally in trifling as well as in important matters.
Mr. Gordon hastened down to the beach, as he
had done some sixteen years before, just in time
to witness another shipwreck. The vessel went
to pieces on the rocks, but some, at all events,
of the crew and a single passenger were saved.
These were invited to rest and dry themselves
at the ' great house,' where every hospitality and
refreshment was offered them. The passenger
was evidently a gentleman, and the next morn
ing at breakfast he took particular notice of the
daughters of his host, and of the other young
lady whom I have already introduced to my
readers. The stranger was evidently much
struck with her appearance, and, finding that
she was not like the other girls, he made some
inquiries about her, when he heard the story of
her having come to Ardoch as a ' foundling,' and

204 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
having been saved from the jaws of the ocean
as by a miracle. The stranger listened with
great interest and emotion, and said that at the
date corresponding with her infancy his own
sister, with a little infant, was lost in a vessel
off the eastern coast of Scotland, which foundered
in a storm.
As is often the case, the^ unexpected not only
is probable, but often does happen in reality.
And so it was here. The cot or cradle in which
the foundling came ashore, on being shown to
the new-comer, was pronounced to be singular
ly like that which his sister had made for her
before she left India. The features of the young
lady, too, corresponded with those of his own
relatives. Further inquiries brought out other
points of similarity, and a mark on the little
lady's coverlet bore the initial letter of her
father's and mother's name. The foundling
orphan, there could be little doubt, was his own
sister's child.
The gentleman was a merchant, and the
shipwreck which he had suffered had not ruined
him. He had a home at Gottenberg, in Sweden,
It was open for the reception of his niece, and

ROMANCE OF THE EARLDOM OP KELLIE, 205
there was a little fortune ready for the young
lady there in case she should ever be found.
Twenty years, however, had endeared her to
her sisters, as she called the Misses Gordon, and
she was unwilUng to go to Sweden with her
newly-discovered uncle, unless one of the Misses
Gordon would accompany her, and the other
promised to come and stay with her upon her
sister's return to Scotland,
Accordingly, Miss Anne Gordon sailed with
her adopted sister from the port of Leith for
Sweden, where, in 1771, only a few weeks after
landing at Gottenberg, she became the vdfe of
Mr. Thomas Erskine, a younger brother of Sir
William Erskine, of Cambo, in Fifeshire,'who had
long been settled there as a merchant, and was
a man of wealth. Not long afterwards the
young lady, whom I can only describe as the
foundling of Ardoch, followed her example;
but I do not know the name of the man who
offered her his hand and his heart, so I can only
hope that ' she Uved happy ever afterwards,'
But, whether this was the case or not, at aU
events the sea offered no obstacle to the inti
macy which existed between the good people

206 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS,
of Ardoch and those in Gottenberg, And so
it came to pass that, some nine or ten years
later, Miss Joanna Gordon was married to Mr,
Methven Erskine, the younger brother of her
sister's husband. Deaths followed in rapid suc
cession in the family of Lord Kellie, and in
1797 the earldom devolved on Charles Erskine.
He lived, however, to enjoy the title little more
than two years, for in 1799 he followed his
ancestors to the grave, and the earldom of
KelUe passed to his uncle and heir, Thomas
Erskine, who had been for some time a consul
in Sweden, And so it came to pass that the
incident of a shipwreck twenty or thirty years
before resulted in bestowing the coronet of a
countess first on one and then on the other
of the two Misses Gordon of Ardoch,
One kinsman of the last of these two noble
men is the present Earl of Kellie, the same
to whom the House of Lords in 1875 adjudged
an earldom of Mar, created, or supposed to have
been created, in 1565, whilst the old historic
earldom of Mar, whose origin, according to
Lord Hailes, is ' lost in the mists of antiquity,'
is still borne by the heir of Une of the house

ROMANCE OF THE EARLDOM OF KELLIE. 207
of Erskine, John Francis Erskine Goodeve-
Erskine, as son of Lady Frances Jemima, sister
of the last earl, and grandson of John Thomas,
thirty-second holder of the ancient earldom of
Mar, and also tenth Earl of Kellie.

208

A ROMANCE IN THE DARTMOUTH
FAMILY.
Some few miles from Huddersfield, in the
West Riding of Yorkshire, and on the borders
of the ' black country,' stands Woodsome Hall,
an old-fashioned country house, which has been
from time almost immemorial the property of the
Legges, now Earls of Dartmouth, Apropos of
the old manor, there is a good story told by
tradition in the Legge family respecting the
sister of an ancestor of Lord Dartmouth, who
Uved some two hundred years ago. She was
a grand old dame, and had outlived her
youth and prime many years, and had resided
alone in one wing of the house. Old Miss
Susan, for such was the lady's Christian name,
sooth to say, was very proud, and fond of

A ROMANCE IN THE DARTMOUTH FAMILY. 209
having her own way, and in her own establish
ment she was perhaps more feared than loved.
She lived in tolerable state, being rich as the
world then considered wealth, though probably,
at the rate at which we live now-a-days, she
would be said to have had little more than a
competency. It so happened that one of her body-servants,
Simon Jenkins, in a fit of despondency at
having so little, or rather nothing, to do — a
fault of which modern retainers are not in
the habit of complaining — committed suicide
by hanging himself to the bedstead of his
room, on the northern side of the house. The
chamber in which this happened is still pointed
out. The sudden death of Simon caused, as
may be easily supposed, no Uttle stir and con
sternation among the inmates of Woodsome
Hall. A coroner's inquest foUowed in due
course, and a solemn verdict of 'temporary
insanity' was returned; so in due course he
was buried in the parish church, within the
precincts of her ladyship's park. The funeral,
very naturally, was at once attested and at
tended by a large gathering of the household
VOL. IL P

210 CHAPTERS PROM PAMILY CHESTS,
of which Simon had been so important a mem
ber. In the afternoon of the day on which
the funeral took place (for Jenkins had been
a great favourite with his mistress) Miss Susan
commanded the attendance of all her domestics
in her chamber, and when they were assem
bled, addressed them as follows : ' Simon Jen
kins, as you all know, was a worthy servant,
and knew and did his duty well. I was very
fond of him, and much regret his loss. But
I do not wish, and indeed I should be much
afraid, to see him in the flesh; so, if anyone
of you shall see him walking about the corri
dors, as suicides are often reported to do, I
tell you plainly that he or she shall quit my
service. And now you may all go.' Her
sermon ended, the proud old lady took up her
walking-cane leisurely, and retired to her own
chamber, where she probably seated herself in
her high-backed arm-chair — I can scarcely call
it an easy-chair — ^to take her post-prandial
snooze. And now comes the Nemesis of the
story. One evening in the same week Miss Susan had
dined alone, so far as guests were concerned,

A ROMANCE IN THE DARTMOUTH PAMILY. 211
but with half-a-dozen powdered lacqueys wait
ing upon her in their full liveries, under the
orders of the new butler. The lady took a nap,
if the truth must be told, in her chair, and slept
for half-an-hour or so, when she gave a sudden
start and scream and rang the bell furiously.
Alarmed at the violence, of her ringing, in came
the servants to hear what was the matter, when
they found their mistress quite pale and haggard,
her eyes staring wildly. It was with difficulty
that at last they succeeded in composing her,
when she sat up and said, in her own dignified
way, ' Let this room henceforth be ever kept
locked.' And with that she went upstau'S to her
own bed-room.
Whether Miss Susan had been dreaming,
or whether she had actually seen Simon Jenkins
again in the flesh, is one of those mysteries
which will never be known, for the domestics
stood so much in awe of their mistress that they
were afraid to ask her. But, at all events, in
spite of the threats of the old lady, the story
was noised abroad, and the mysterious act of
locking up the chamber became a topic of con
versation in the neighbourhood. What became
p2

212 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
of the lady herself is a question that has been
often asked, but is known only to the family,
even if it is known to them. It is often told by
Lord Dartmouth to a circle of intimate friends
and visitors to the grand old mansion under the
title of ' Nemesis, or the Butler's Ghost.' And I,
may add that mine is the authentic version, for
I tell the tale as Lord Dartmouth himself told
it to one of my oldest and most trusty friends.
The Susan Legge, whose servant's fate I have
recorded, was probably one of the five daughters
of George Legge, Master-General of the Ord
nance, and also admiral in the British Fleet,
whose name is known to history as the captor
of Tangier, He was created Lord Dartmouth
in 1682; and his son and successor, WiUiam,
second baron, having filled many important
posts in the government under Queen Anne, was
raised to the Viscountcy of Lewisham and Earl
dom of Dartmouth in 1711.

213

OLD LADY CORK.
Somewhat less than half-a-century ago there
were three titled ladies who reigned with almost
undisputed sway over West-End society in Lon
don — Lady Blessington, Lady Charle\'ille, and
' old ' Lady Cork, as she was called during the
last two or three decades of a life which, in the
end, was prolonged far beyond the period allow
ed by David. She had been an early riser all her
childhood, youth, and middle age, and, till a few
days before her death, she rose regularly at six ;
so it is no wonder that she had a narrow escape
of becoming a veritable centenarian, though she
liked the pleasures of the table, and made it a
point to the last always to dine out if she had
not company at home. Her ladyship was by
birth the Honourable Mary Monckton, daughter
of the first Viscount Galway in the Peerage of

214 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
Ireland. She was born about the years 1739-40,
and as soon as she first ' came out' was appoint
ed a maid-of-honour to Queen Charlotte, In
1768 she married Edmund, seventh Earl of Cork
and Orrery ; and before the end of the century
she had assembled at her table half the Uons of
the time — young Arthur WeUesley and Burke,
and Charles James Fox and the younger Pitt,
and the stiU more youthful Samuel Rogers, and
Mrs, Montagu, Indeed, she was stated by a
writer in the New Monthly to have had
among her frequent guests both Dr, Johnson
and Sir Joshua Reynolds; and in early Iffe,
as a chUd at her parents' house, she sat to
Reynolds for her portrait.
Lady Cork has been credited, or rather she
used to credit herself, with having first brought
Sheridan into pubUc notice. ' There was Sheri
dan,' she said at one of her soirSes ; ' I was his
first friend — ^in London, at least ; I used to invite
him to Burlington Street, and to introduce him
to people who were hkely to be useful to him.
The seat for which he sat at Stafford was put in
his way by me. My brother, Edward Monck
ton, you know, was his coUeague for a long

OLD LADY CORK. 215
time. In society his object at first was to get
his wife invited to West-End parties — that charm
ing Miss Linley, you know ; she sang so well.
Nobody at that time knew what her husband
was destined to turn out, either in Parhament or
in dramatic Uterature. Lady  said to me,
" Oh, I should like to have Mrs. Sheridan at my
musical party next week, but then there's that
drag of a husband," In two years' time that
" drag of a husband " was the pet of the House
of Commons, the Mr, Sheridan of Carlton House
and of everywhere, the observed of all observers,
and the idol of society.'
The Prince Regent and Sheridan were
frequent diners at her mansion in New Burling
ton Street; and so also were Canning and
Castlereagh, Mrs, Siddons and John Kemble,
Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott occasionally.
She liked, above everything, to entertain at her
table anyone and everyone who was likely to
become a ' Uon ' of the day ; and some people
think that Charles Dickens drew upon her for
some of the features of ' Mrs. Leo Hunter.'
A writer in the New Monthly observes :
' When we first saw Lady Cork, her Uonizing

216 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
mania had reached to fever point. At which
time, when visiting her friends, she perceived
any strangers, her first question was, not " who,
or what are they ?" but " what can they do ?"
Yet, VTith all Lady Cork's admitted taste in the
selection of her evening " stars," she was un
acquainted with that skill and delicacy of poUsh
requisite to make them shine with full effect.
Her ladyship was unpractised in the nice tact
and finesse which draws forward, imperceptibly
to the possessor, the amusive powers of the
gifted. On the contrary, she would stir up the
reposing faculties of her " lions " somewhat too
much in the fashion of a hackneyed show-beast,
and by using the long pole too briskly, sometimes
fright the more " deUcate monsters," the more
timid animals, into silence, or exasperate the
more savage into defiance — thus, by her pre
mature or ill-timed jokings and ticklings, defeat
ing her own intent, and not unfrequently some
"lion-rough," who otherwise had "roared as
gently as any sucking dove " — or " an 't were
any nightingale," whose humour she had turned
" the seamy side without," would show his claws,
in effect saying, " If you think that I have come

OLD LADY CORK, 217
hither as a lion, it is really a pity; no, I
am no such thing ; I am no such thing ; I am a
man as other men are," '
Lady Cork had to complain of Dr, Johnson's
rudeness, if there be truth in the following
story, which has been told over and over again
about that eccentric prodigy of learning :
' You knew Dr. Johnson V said a gentleman to
her, ' Knew Dr. Johnson !' answered she ; ' why,
he was my bosom friend, I'll tell you a story
¦of him. He was sitting by me, and, in the heat
of his conversation, began pinching my knee —
I was young then, I bore it a little while, and
then remonstrated. " Madam," said the philoso
pher, " I beg your pardon — but one must have a
quieting motion."' One would willingly have
gone far to see in the fiesh a lady who had thus
* quieted ' the old bear who frequented tbe Blue-
Stocking Club.
Among those who were invited to her lady
ship's salons were Charles Matthews and Theo
dore Hook ; but both of those worthies resented
the idea of being expected to ' show off' or to
be 'shown off either; and very amusing is
Theodore Hook's account of the way in which

218 CHAPTERS PROM PAMILY CHESTS.
he defeated the designs of his hostess and
enemy in this direction. In spite, however, of
such little occasional contretemps, Lady Cork's
parties were rendered agreeable by her piquancy
and ¦wit ; and to the very last her memory was
prodigious. She could repeat the longest pas
sages of Shakespeare, and Milton, and Byron,
and even of Dryden's ' Virgil ' and Pope's
' Homer.' One evening at Lady Combermere's
house, when she was approaching her eightieth
year, whilst waiting for her carriage or sedan-
chair, she sat down in the hall in the midst of
several of the gentlemen who dangled about
her, and recited with great animation half of a
book of Homer's ' Iliad.'
When she grew old, if the truth must be told
¦ — though she had the character of being wise as
well as witty — she grew rather despotic as well,
and would say sometimes very cross and iU-
natured things of and to her best friends. She
also indulged in the peculiarity of what is called
' kleptomania ;' and it was no uncommon thing
for the host and hostess of the house at which
she dined to leave a stray pewter fork or spoon
in the hall for her to carry off in her muff. Once,
indeed, she carried her propensity in this direc-

OLD LADY CORK. 219'
tion so far as to walk into the garden of Samuel
Rogers's house in St. James's Place, and to rob
it of a quantity of flowers, A wit of the
fashionable world, either Jekyll or LuttreU,.
remarked, a propos of this theft, that it was ' no
wonder that the poet looked so pale, since Lady
Cork had stolen aU his roses,' Indeed, all sorts
of good stories are told about her ladyship ;
here, for instance, is one : ' Old Lady Cork,'
writes Sydney Smith, ' was once so moved by a
charity sermon that she begged me to lend her
a sovereign as a contribution to put into the^
plate, I did so. But she never repaid me, and
I believe she spent the sovereign on herself.'
Lady Cork had long passed King David's
allotted age when she died, on Saturday, May
30th, 1840; but until a very few days before
her end she paid and received visits as usual.
Being asked how it was that she enjoyed such
good health through her long life, she said that
she ascribed it to the fact that she always got
up at six o'clock in winter, as well as in summer,
and that she dined out regularly whenever she
had no company at home. ' Man,' writes Aris
totle, ' is a social animal '; and verily woman
would seem to be so equally.

220

THE DE LA POLES,
Few of our most ancient and most noble houses
•have had a more sadly chequered and pathetic
history, and few can boast a higher antiquity or
greater nobility than the De la Poles, who were
merchant-princes at Kingston-upon-HuU, in
Yorkshire; as far back as the reign of Edward
III, They probably derived their name from
Pole, in Montgomery, close to which was the
abbey of De la Pole.
They were at a very early time connected
with the wool trade, as appears from the fact
that in 1271 Henry III, issued a precept order
ing to WilUam De la Pole and others the pay
ment of twelve pounds nine shilUngs, in payment
for cloth purchased at St, GUes's Fair, in
Winchester, In the same year we are told
that an embargo was laid on fifty sacks of skins

THE DE LA POLES. 221.
of wool, the property of WilUam De la Pole,
merchant, of Rouen, in order that they might
not be removed out of the kingdom ; and in the
following year we read of an allowance of forty
marks made to Nicholas De la Pole and others,
agents for the Flemish merchants, for losses
sustained by EngUsh merchants in Flanders,
One of this family, John Pole, was the first
Mayor of Hull, His son Edmund had a son,
WUliam, who became a London citizen, mer
chant, and woolstapler; and, in consideration
of a subsidy offered to the king at a time of
special necessity, ' when money stood him in
more stead than one thousand men-at-arms,' he
was enriched by his sovereign with various
estates, and made a knight banneret, a dignity
then next to the baronage. In 1358, two
years after the battle of Poictiers, the abbot of
a house in Normandy conveyed to him four
English manors, which still belong to the hos
pital at Ewelme, Oxfordshire, foimded by his
descendants a century later,
Michael, son of William De la Pole, rose into
favour with Edward III. during his wars with
France, By Richard he was made a Knight of

222 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
the Garter and Earl of Suffolk, and, in the end,
Lord High ChanceUor of England, His son
Michael, the second earl, died like his father in
France, and was brought to England to be
buried at Ewelme, leaving the title to his
brother WiUiam, third earL As the latter stood
beside his brother's grave, a youth of nineteen,
his future bride, Alice Chaucer, was a chUd of
four ; she lived to become his wife, after bury
ing two other husbands — ^first Sir Thomas
Philip, and, secondly, Thomas Montacute, Earl
of Salisbury, who was killed at the siege of
Orleans, when, we are told, the battle-cry of the
EngUsh troops was ' SaUsbury and De la Pole.'
Soon after her third marriage, she joined with
her husband in building and endoAving the
church of Ewelme, with its adjoining hospital
and grammar-school ; and she Ues in alabaster
on a noble altar tomb in that Church, wear
ing on her arm the blue Riband of the Garter,
once worn by her second husband, a privilege
almost unique.
But the Earl of Suffolk was not content -with
a mere share in a work of charity. He would

THE DE LA POLES, 223
also do something, as from himself alone, for
the northern town where his ancestors had first
risen into note. Accordingly, he resolved to
found and endow at Kingston-on-HuU a re
ligious house called the Chartreuse, or Charter
House ; and it is not a little singular that,
whilst other similar endowments and charities
have been wasted and confiscated, both this
hospital at Ewelme and the Charter House at
Hull remain to this day as witnesses to his
name and his work.
But the earl was destined to achieve further
greatness. Though only twenty-seven years of
age, he held the command of the English forces
in France at the siege of Montague in 1423.
Six years later he was made prisoner — taking,
however, the precaution of bestowing knight
hood on his captor, in order that he might not
fall into the hands of a ' villain ' — but was
speedily released from durance vile. He was
afterwards employed on diplomatic missions,
and was sent abroad by Henry VI. as proxy to
receive his bride, Margaret of Anjou ; and he
also had charge of the boy king when he was

224' CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
crowned at Paris in 1430. For these and other
services he was created a marquis, and he was
raised to the dukedom of Suffolk in 1448.
But the goodwill of the Court and of the
great lords aroused very different feelings in
the breasts of the nation at large, who became
more and more embittered against him as he
rose step by step in favour at St. James's and
Whitehall. He was charged with having handed
over the provinces of Maine and Anjou to Renier,
King of Sicily, on the marriage of his daughter,
Queen Margaret ; with having betrayed State
secrets to the French; with having equipped
the castle of WalUngford with AvarUke stores
for the service of the French in case of an inva
sion ; and with other high misdemeanours — all
probably alike untrue. He was accordingly
arraigned before his peers by the Speaker of
the House of Commons, and committed to the
Tower ; but he managed to escape from his
keepers and the stone waUs of the Tower, and
took ship to France, He was, however, stopped
in the Downs, where he was greeted with,
' Welcome, traitor !' A mock trial followed, as
every reader of Shakespeare knows. He was

THE DE LA POLES, 225
taken within a few furlongs of the shore by his
captors, and beheaded off Dover, his body being
carried for burial to Wingfield Church, in ' Suf
folk, where there is a monument to his memory.
He, doubtless, fell in reality a victim to the fac
tion of Richard, who then was thirsting for the
crown, which he subsequently obtained.
His son John became, by his death, second
duke when only eight years old. He married
Elizabeth Plantagenet in the year of the death
of her father, Richard Duke of York, on the
bloody battle-field of Wakefield, and was there
fore brother-in-law of Edward IV, and Richard
III. ; and as his mother's great-aunt, Catharine
Swynford, the third wife of John Duke of Gaunt,
was aunt by marriage to Richard, he stood suf
ficiently near to the throne to make his children,
at all events, an object of jealousy to the suc
cessors of Richard III, The latter, on the death
of his own son in 1484, declared John Earl of
Lincoln, son of the second Duke of Suffolk, heir
to the crown. In fact, the Duke of Suffolk stood
so high in the favour of King Richard III, that
he bore the sceptre and dove at his coronation,
VOL. II. Q

226 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
while the Earl of Lincoln carried the ball and
the cross.
John Earl of Lincoln was killed at the battle
of Stoke, whilst endeavouring to make good his
claim to the Crown. His brother Edmund suc
ceeded to the title of Duke of Suffolk — an
empty honour, seeing that the Suffolk estates
had been escheated to the Crown. A portion
of these, however, was restored to him, on con
dition that he should merge the title of duke in
that of earl. But even these estates were seized,
and finally forfeited in 1499, when he was forced
to flee the kingdom as an outlaw, as it was said
and believed, for having ' slaine a meane per
son,' for which he was excommunicated by the
Pope. The earl was induced to return to Eng
land by promise of an indemnity from Henry
VII. ; but, in spite of this, he was committed iu
1505 to the safe keeping of the Tower of Lon
don, where, after a captivity of seven years, he
was beheaded by order of Henry VIIL, who,
ever false and Tudor-Jike, declined to be bound
by his father's promise. All the Suffolk estates,
both those in the eastern counties and those at

THE DE LA POLES, 227
Ewelme in Oxfordshire, were declared by a sub
servient parhament to be justly forfeited to the
¦Crown, A life-interest in the Ewelme property was
oonsiderately granted by the King to Margaret,
wife of Earl Edmund, and daughter of Sir
Richard Scrope ; the remaining estates were
conferred on Charles Brandon, who later on was
created Earl of Suffolk, and who, it happened,
was maternally descended from the Sir Edmund
De la Pole who died in 1419, Edmund and
Margaret left, happily, only one child, a daugh
ter, who died a professed nun in a convent in
the Minories in London ; and with her perished
the last of the once powerful race of De la
Pole.

Q2

228

THE EGLINTON TOURNAMENT.
Early in October, 1861, there died very sud
denly one of the most popular noblemen in the
three kingdoms, Archibald William Montgomerie,
thirteenth Earl of Eglinton, in the peerage of
Scotland. He was also one of the most influen
tial chieftains in the Lowlands, and his castle,
on the Ayrshire coast, is well known to tourists.
He was staying at Mr, Whyte-Melville's seat,
near St, Andrew's, Fifeshire, where he was en
gaged during the afternoon in playing at golf,
apparently in robust health. He dined with Mr,
Melville in the evening, and exhibited his usual
cheerfulness; but before the party separated. he
was seized with a fit of apoplexy, which at once
rendered him unconscious. In that lamentable
state he continued until his death, a few hours

THE EGLINTON TOURNAMENT. 229
afterwards. His decease cast a gloom over all
Scotland. The earl was the head of the noble Scottish
house of Montgomerie, which has held broad
acres in Ayrshire for six centuries vsdthout inter
mission, and has produced in that time many
illustrious scions, including Sir John Mont
gomerie, who played a distinguished part in the
battle_ of Otterbourne (see the ballad of ' Chevy
Chase '), and there took prisoner Henry Percy,
the ' Hotspur ' of history ; and Hugh, third Lord
Montgomerie, and first Earl of Eglinton, Justice-
General of Scotland under James V.
The late earl (his father having died young,
whilst his grandfather lived to a great age)
succeeded to the title at the. age of eight,
and so had a long minority, during which his
estates, which were always large and profitable,
were immensely increased by judicious accu
mulation ; and though, after he came of age, he
became a great patron of the turf, his losses
and his winnings about covered each other, and
he retired, some years back, having won the
'blue ribbon' of that order and many other
prizes, with an unsullied reputation. He thence-

230 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
forward devoted himself more steadily than
ever to agricultural science and to poUtics, and
proved himself at once one of the best land
lords in canny Scotland, and one of the most
popular, practical, and sensible viceroys that
ever set foot in Ireland. He held the Lord-
Lieutenancy of that kingdom twice, first during
Lord Derby's first brief administration in 1852,
and again during his equally short political
innings in 1858-59. On both occasions Lord
Eglinton won for himseU" golden opinions
among the susceptible Irish people. He. was
sociable, jovial, frank, open, and strictly honest,
and showed no favour either to CathoUc or Pro
testant, Whig or Tory, taking as his motto not
only ' Justice to Ireland,' but ' Justice in Ireland.'
Shortly after his first visit to Ireland he had
the misfortune to lose his first wife, a portion
less widow, whom he had married when quite a
young man, and whose daughters by a former
husband he provided, out of his own pocket,
with handsome marriage dowries, securing for
them thereby two, if not three, prospective
coronets : one of these coronets, be it here re-

THE EGLINTON TOURNAMENT. 231
corded, is none other than that of the Earl of
Shrewsbury. During his second Lord-Lieu
tenancy he took, as his second wife, a sister of
the present Earl of Essex, but was again left a
widower most suddenly, after only a few
months of wedded happiness. About the same
time Lord Derby, on retiring from place and
power, bestowed on him the EngUsh earidom of
Winton, a revival of an old title which is linked
closely with the history of Scotland,
Lord Eglinton was an active, strong, and
energetic man, and very fond of field sports and
all sorts of athletic exercises. But his name
will be remembered by most persons in con
nection with the Eglinton Tournament, which
took place at the end of August, 1839. The
tournament may be regarded as an integral
part of that revival of old customs which has
marked the reign of her Majesty, and was
partly suggested by the omission of the Cham
pion's challenge at her Coronation in the
previous year. The knights, who were the
flower of the British aristocracy, had prepared
themselves for the great pageant for some

232 CHAPTERS PROM PAMILY CHESTS.
weeks previously, by practising at the jousts at
St. John's Wood, near the Regent's Park. The
tilting was intended to have occupied an entire
week, but a pouring rain marred the pleasure
and the beauty of the entertainment, drenched
the ladies' rich silks, canopies, and caparisons,
and forced the ' Queen of Beauty ' herself to
appear upon the ground — not, as had been
intended, on horseback, but in a prosaic car
riage and four. The ground selected was about
a qu3,rter-of-a-mile from Lord EgUnton's castle
in Ayrshire, surrounded by fine woods and very
beautiful scenery, and the area enclosed for the
purpose covered a space of about four square
acres, the arena being six hundred and fifty feet
long by two hundred and fifty wide. Around
the arena was erected a fence, in which were
used no less than twelve thousand square feet
of boarding. The barrier in the centre,
parallel to which the knights charged each
other in the tilts, was three hundred feet long
and about four and a half feet high, and the
ground was thickly strewed with sawdust for
twenty-five feet on either side. At the four
corners of the arena the lances of the knights

THE EGLINTON TOURNAMENT. 233
were piled, and at either extremity the pavilions
of the knights, their squires, and retainers were
arranged. The grand stand accommodated seven hundred
of the dlite of the visitors ; it was erected in the
Gothic style, and the throne for the Queen of
Beauty, which formed its centre, caught the eye
less by its prominence than by its elaborate
carved work; it was overlaid with gold, and
hung with rich drapery of crimson damask.
East and west of this gorgeous receptacle were
two galleries of inferior splendour, calculated to
contain between them nearly three thousand
spectators. One of these gaUeries was assigned
to the private friends of the earl and the knights,
and in the other those strangers who had
obtained tickets for witnessing the display.
Around this selected spot, near which the knights
displayed their dexterity in the use of ancient
weapons of war, the ground afforded stands for
thousands of spectators, who could not possibly
have gained admittance within the lists. Nearer
tiie castle were erected two temporay saloons,
each two hundred and fifty feet long, for the
banquet and the ball. Each of the knights had

234 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
his own marquee, or (in more appropriate
language) pavilion, for himself and attendantsi
The decorations of the Usts were costly and
magnificent, and some of the splendid erections
provided for at her Majesty's coronation were
again brought into use.
At the request of Lord Eglinton, a large
proportion of the visitors came attired in ancient
costume. The armour worn by some of the
chevaliers was of the most splendid description.
The Earl of Eglinton, who himself presided as
Lord of the Tournament, appeared in a very
costly and beautiful suit of brass armour, and the
crest which surmounted his helmet was decora
ted with plumes of blue and yellow feathers. His
horse, too, was richly caparisoned with blue
satin and cloth of gold.
The morning was unfortunately very wet,
and the feudal appearance of the display was
sadly marred by thousands of umbrellas. In
consequence of the rain, a considerable part of
the ceremonial was omitted ; and the Queen of
Beauty and her ladies, instead of mounting their
palfreys, were confined within their carriages.
It was two o'clock, and in the midst of a

THE EGLINTON TOURNAMENT, 235
drenching shower, when the procession started
from the castle, somewhat in the following
order :
Men-at-arms, in demi-suits of armour and
costumes, on horseback. Mounted musicians,
their horses trapped and caparisoned. Trumpet
ers, in full costume, the trumpets and banners
emblazoned with the arms of the Lord of the
Tournament, Banner-bearers of the Lord of
the Tournament, Two deputy marshals, in
costumes emblazoned with the arms of the Earl
of Eglinton, mounted on horseback, and
attended by a party of men-at-arms, on foot.
The Eglinton herald, with his tabard embroider
ed with the arms of the earl. Two pursuivants,
in emblazoned surcoats. The Judge of Peace
(Lord Saltoun), in his robes, and bearing a wand,
on horseback. Retainers, halberdiers, and men-
at-arms. The Herald of the Tournament, in his
tabard. The Knight Marshal of the Lists (Sir
Charles Lamb, the earl's step-father), in a suit
of black armour, followed by his esquires, Lord
Chelsea and Major McDoual. Attendants of
the Knight Marshal, and halberdiers of the
Knight Marshal. Ladies visitors: Lady

236 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
Montgomerie, Lady Jane Montgomerie (the
¦earl's mother and sister), and the Honourable
Miss Macdonald, on horses caparisoned with
blue and white silk. The King of the Tourna
ment, the Marquis of Londonderry, in a tunic of
green velvet, embroidered with gold, and
¦covered by a crimson velvet cloak. Esquires
(Colonel Wood and H, Irvine, Esq.) and
halberdiers. The Queen of Beauty, Lady
Seymour,* in a robe of violet. ; Ladies attendants
on the Queen. Esquire (F. Charteris, Esq.).
The Jester (Mr. Mclan, a Highland artist and
actor), on a mule caparisoned in blue and
yellow cloth and trapped with beUs, &c.
Retainers on foot. The Irvine archers, in cos
tumes of Lincoln green. Servitors of the Lord
of the Tournament, Halberdiers of the lord.
The gonfalon, borne by a man-at-arms. The
Lord of the Tournament (the Earl of EgUnton),
in a suit of richly-damasked gilt armour, with a
skirt of chain-mail. The banner, borne by Lord
A, Seymour, Esquires and retainers of the
lord. Then foUowed, in like manner, each
preceded by his halberdiers and gonfalon, and
* Afterwards Duchess of Somerset.

THE EGLINTON TOURNAMENT. 237
followed by banners, esquires, and retainers, the
several knights, as follows : Knight of the
Griffin (Earl of Craven) ; Knight of the Dragon
(Marquis of Waterford) ; Knight of the Black
Lion (Viscount Alford) ; Knight of Gael
(Lord Glenlyon); Knight of the Dolphin
(Earl of CassiUs) ; Knight of the Crane (Lord
Cranstoun), Knight of the Ram (Honourable
Captain Gage) ; the Black Knight (John Camp
bell, of Saddell) ; Knight of the Swan (Honour
able Mr. Jerningham) ; Knight of the Golden
Lion (Captain J. 0. Fairlie) ; Knight of the
White Rose (Charles Lamb, Esq.), Knight of
the Stag's Head (Captain Beresford) ; Knight of
the Border (Sir F, Johnstone) ; Knight of the
Burning Tower (Sir F, Hopkins) ; Knight of
Red Rose (R, J, Lechmere, Esq.) ; Knight of the
Lion's Paw (Cecil Boothby, Esq.) ; the Knights-
Visitors, in ancient costumes. Swordsmen ; bow
men ; the seneschal of the castle ; two deputy
marshals; attendants of the deputy marshals;
chamberlains of the household ; servitors of the
castle, and men-at arms.
Several courses of jousting were run, in which,
of all the combatants, the Earl of EgUnton was-

238 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
the most successful ; but the sports on the first
day were abridged in consequence of the
weather, and concluded with a broad-sword
combat between Mr, Mackay an actor, and a
soldier of one of the Highland regiments,
' The second tilt, perhaps the most gallant,
and certainly the most interesting joust of the
-day,' writes one who was present, ' was between
the Knight of the Dragon (the Marquis of
Waterford), and the King of the Tournament
(the Earl of Eglinton). The knights met as
combatants, in spite of the rain, in a truly
gallant style. In the first course both lances
were shivered, and the shock was heard through
out the whole amphitheatre, the sound being
answered and re-echoed by the enthusiastic
cheering of the spectators who were looking on
in thousands. In the second joust the Marquis
of Waterford started a little before his antagon
ist, and thus, meeting unequally, they raised
their lances and passed without actually en
countering each other. In the third course the
noble earl splintered his lance upon the shield
of the marquis — a feat which was answered by
another burst of prolonged applause. He was

THE EGLINTON TOURNAMENT. 239
then led by a herald to the grand stand, and paid
his devoirs to the Queen of Beauty as victor,'
On the second day, the weather continued so
unfavourable that nothing could be done, but, as
it cleared up towards the afternoon, the renewal
of the tournament was fixed for the following
day, and in the meantime the assembled multi
tude made merry as they might. In the ball
room a series of mimic tilts, on foot, took place
between Prince Louis Napoleon , (the late
Emperor of the French) and Mr, Lamb, who
were both in armour.
On Friday, the 30th, the procession and joust-
ings were repeated under more favourable cir
cumstances. The whole concluded with a tour
ney at barriers, in which eight knights were en
gaged, the blows being limited to two in passing
and ten at the encounter ; the only breakers of
this law were the Marquis of Waterford and
Lord Alford, who appeared to be plying their
weapons in good earnest, when they were separ
ated by the knight marshal. In the evening a
banquet was given to three hundred persons in
the temporary saloon (which the rain had pre
viously rendered needless) followed by a ball, at

240 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS,
which one thousand guests were present. This
part of the pageant, being carried on under cover,
was almost the only portion of the proceedings
which was not spoiled by the malign influence of
Jupiter Pluvius, And so ended the ' EgUnton
Tournament.' It was sad indeed that the revival of so splen
did a pageant was marred by the badness of the
weather, and when it does rain in Scotland, it
can pour in torrents, and blind with the
thickest of mists as well. But it is sadder still
to reflect that out of the young, noble, and
gentle men of England and of ' merry Scotland,'
scarcely one is now alive after seven and forty
years, and that most of them. Lord Alford, Lord
Waterford, Lord Londonderry, and the Lord of
the Tournament, for example, if they do not lie in
early graves, at all events never lived to approach
the Psalmist's allotted limit of three-score years
and ten.

241

MALCOLM, LORD FORTH.
In October, 1861, the newspapers announced
the news that Lord Forth, had died suddenly
whilst staying at an hotel at Gloucester, and
that his death was caused by his own hand. He
was the second but only surviving son of the
Right Hon, George Drummond, fifth Earl of
Perth and Melfort, in the peerage of Scotland,
and Due de Melfort and Comte de Lussans in
that of France, by his first wife, the Baroness
Albertine von Rothberg Rheinweiler, relict of
General Count Rapp, a peer of France, Lord
Forth was bom at Naples in the year 1834, lost
his mother before he was ten years old, and
entered the army as ensign in the 42nd Foot, at
the age of eighteen. Not long after that the
Russian war broke out, and Lord Forth acoom-
\rOL. II. R

242 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
panied his regiment to Turkey, where he served
for some months before proceeding to the
Crimea. For some reason or other, which has never
been satisfactorily explained, the wUd and
impulsive youth became unpopular in his regi
ment ; and in the end he resigned his com
mission and retired from the service while the
war was going on — a step which caused much
ill-natured remark at the time, and gave rise to
a story which was most industriously circulated
at the time, and which seriously impugned his
personal courage. Knowing as I do, from a
private source, much that has been said both for
and against him, I believe Lord Forth, as a
young man in the army, to have been as much
sinned against as sinning ; and I am of opinion
that the treatment which he received while
holding her Majesty's commission, acting on a
fiery, head-strong, and unrestrained tempera
ment, laid the foundation of his subsequent mis
fortunes, including an Ul-starred and ill-assorted
marriage, a matrimonial separation, and an in
effectual attempt to obtain a divorce on the part
of both husband and wife; and at last, the tragical

MALCOLM, LORD FORTH. 243
end of the young nobleman and his paramour.
Had Lord Forth, as the phrase goes, ' shown the
white feather in the Crimea,' it is not likely that
he would have received, as he subsequently did
receive, the medal and clasp for both the Alma
and Sebastopol ; and I believe that I am stating
the worst against him in his character of a soldier,
when I say that the act which eventually caused
him to resign his commission was an act, not of
cowardice, but of insubordination. Now sub
ordination is one of the last virtues learned by a
boy who, like Lord Forth, lost his mother at an
early age, and was scarcely ever the inmate of
his father's roof afterwards ; and who, when he
grew to manhood, found himself burdened with
a title to keep up, without the means of sustain
ing it, and was little fitted by his early training
for any profession which required obedience, and
submission to the control of a superior, I am
not seeking to excuse or palliate the reckless
ness of his subsequent career, much less the
madness of his suicide ; but let us all hope that
he will be mercifully judged at the highest of
tribunals. The Earl of Perth, his father, for many years
e2

244 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
lived whoUy abroad, and it is no secret that
when he succeeded in estabhshing his claim to
the earldom, which had been forfeited by his
ancestors on account of their zealous adherence
to the cause of the unhappy Stuarts, he recover
ed not a shiUing of their once vast revenues, oi*
an acre of the estates which once owned the
Earls of Perth as their laird. Rightly or wrongly,
almost all those estates are now OMmed by the
Lady WiUoughby d'Eresby, as heir of a younger
member of the Drummond family, who was rais
ed towards the close of the last century to a
peerage, which expired at his death.
Drummond Castle, near Perth, well known to
every Scottish tourist as the princely residence
of Lord and Lady WiUoughby d'Eresby, is the
seat where the Drummonds of old kept all but
regal state ; and I happen to know that the late
Lord Forth, some years since, traversed the
many miles of the estates of his ancestors, gun
in hand, and brought back with him to the hotel
at Perth several brace of birds, which he con
sidered that he had a perfect right to shoot
without leave or licence from the Willoughbies,
as he held that the estates were by strict right

MjVLCOLM, lord FORTH. ^¦i:5
his father's. I only state facts ; I give here no
verdict of my own as to the justice of his claim.
I would only point to the melancholy end of
Lord Forth as one of the distant and remote
resiflts — ^yet still a result — of those odious and
infamous penal laws which were so crueUy
enforced against the foUowers of the exiled
House of Stuart, down to a comparatively recent
date. The Earl of Perth, who had, in 1840, suc
ceeded his uncle in the French honours con
ferred by Louis XIV. on his grandfather, and
had thenceforth become head of the family,
petitioned the Queen, in 1841, for the formal
restoration of his Scottish titles. It was not,
however, till 1848 that he succeeded in establish
ing his case, by proving his descent before
the Committee of the House of Lords for Privi
leges ; and it was only in 1853 that his ances
tors' attainder was reversed, and he was form
aUy restored in blood by a special Act of
ParUament, and the favour of Her Majesty.
In the same year the earl (who in early Ufe
had been captain in the 93rd Foot), was ap
pointed major in the Victoria Middlesex Rifles,

246 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
a commission which he held for very many years..
It is almost superfluous to add that the cause
of the attainder passed upon the Drummonds
was the share which they took in the Scottish
rising in favour of the Pretender in 1745 ; and
that the same causes which divested them of
their patent of nobility here, earned for them
even a higher title at the Court of Le Grand
Monarque. They lived mainly at St. Germain,
on the most intimate terms with Louis XIV.,
XV., and XVI., and with the family of the
Young Chevalier ; and Lord Perth's sister, Lady
Clementina Davis, told me that she herself was
the very last person born in the royal apartments
at St, Germain, before that palace was dis
mantled as a royal residence, after the outbreak
of the first French Revolution,

247

THE PRINCE AND PRINCESS OF
HESSE-HOMBURG.
Among the various royal and semi-royal houses
which figure year by year in the pages of the
'Almanac de Gotha' are those of Anhalt-Dessau
of Hesse-Homburg, though they have both of
them been lately swallowed up, thanks to Prince
Bismarck, in the new German Empire. The
latter formed in other days a part of the Land-
graviate of Hesse-Darmstadt ; and its reigning
sovereign, or prince, though driven out of his
domains by the Rhenish Confederation in 1806,
was reinstated in his principaUty of Hesse-Hom
burg by the Congress of Vienna, and in 1817
was recognised as a member of the German
Confederation. It will be remembered by my readers that the

248 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS,
Landgravine Louise of Anhalt-Dessau, widow
of the Landgrave Gustav, some time reigning
Prince of Hesse-Homburg, and sister-in-law of
his successor, the Landgrave Ferdinand, died
in the summer of 1858, at the age of nearly
sixty years, at the Sehloss of Homburg, near
Frankfort-on-the-Maine, And, as some of the
details of her early career are so romantic that
they would seem to. belong to the realms of
fiction rather than to those of reality, I will
give here a short sketch of her life, presuming
only that the facts advanced are not imaginary,
but literally and strictly happened as they are
told in these pages.
The Princess Louise Frederica, daughter of
the Hereditary Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, was
born on March 1st, 1798, and was little more
than a child, certainly not ' out of her teens,'
when the Prince Ferdinand above mentioned,
happening to pay a visit to her father's Court,
was struck with her extreme beauty, and fell
violently in love with her. Unfortunately, how
ever, he was not an elder son ; and the young
lady had even before this — though unknown
to himself — been promised in marriage to Fer-

PRINCE AND PRINCESS OP HESSE-HOMBURG, 249
dinand's elder brother. Prince Gustav ; but,
although the ardent lover tried every possible
means of changing this prior engagement to
an arrangement in his own favour, he was not
able to persuade the young lady's parents, or to
gain his end. A lingering illness, during which
Prince Ferdinand's reason was for some time
despaired of, was the immediate consequence
of the marriage of the princess, which was
solemnised on the 12th of February, 1813. At
last he recovered from the shock, and, reason
having returned, he entered the army of his
fatherland, and, both on other battle-fields and
also at Waterloo, threw himself into the thickest
of the fray, as if he wished to rid himself of
the burden of Ufe. But death — as often hap
pens in such cases — did not come at the mo
ment when he was wanted. At all events, he did
not take a fancy to his voluntary, or rather his
would-be, victim ; and so the prince returned
home from his campaigns unhurt in body, and
probably better in mind also. In order to while
away the time, which hung heavy on his hands,
he now set out on a long course of travels,
during which he visited almost all the Courts

250 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
of Europe, and not a few of Asia also, and did
not return to Homburg until the death of his
brother had already called him to the throne.
This happened at the end of 1848. Prince
Ferdinand was now sixty-five; the Princess
Louise, his brother's widow, had seen her
fiftieth birthday, and was the mother of mar
ried daughters, who, of course, were his own
nieces. Nevertheless, though so many years
had passed by since he had first sought her
youthful affections, she was still the beloved of
his heart ; though it was, of course, impossible
for him to obtain the consent of the Church, or
perhaps of the State either, to a marriage
within the prohibited degrees. Accordingly, he
resolved to lay down a most extraordinary Une
of conduct for himself. He was naturally re
luctant, for her sake and for the avoidance of
scandal, to live under the same roof with the
object of his early love ; but, as there was only
one royal residence within his small dominions,
he saw himself obliged, very soon after his
accession, to instal himself as an inmate of the
palace of Homburg on the Mountains. There
he lived thenceforth in the strictest possible

PRINCE AND PRINCESS OP HESSE-HOMBURG, 25!
retirement, inhabiting only a few rooms in one
wing of the building, and leaving the rest of
the palace to his widowed sister-in-law.
Long ranges of apartments separated their
respective suites of rooms, and during the week
the two royal personages never set eyes on
each other ; but every succeeding Sunday was
a fete day to Prince Ferdinand, for upon that
day he would regularly traverse, along with his-
courtiers, the empty saloons which separated
him from his beloved princess, and would enter
most soberly and solemnly, yet with glowing
eyes and a beating heart, the boudoir of his
old love, and respectfully kiss her hand-
After conversing ¦with her for about an hour —
seldom much more or less — he would take up
his hat and solemnly, and with almost gloom on
his countenance, retrace his steps towards his
own lonely apartments. The faithful subjects
of the Landgrave so well knew the mood of
their prince, and so thoroughly respected his
feelings, that they seldom handed to him any
petitions except on the morning of Sunday,
when his face was always radiant with joy, and
he would have a smile, and almost a welcome,
even for a beggar.

252 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS,
The princess died, as already stated, in the
year 1858 ; and from that time down to the day
of his death the poor Landgrave remained in
consolable. At all events, he became thence
forth a complete hermit, and lived in the
strictest seclusion, wandering by day and night
through the chambers of his lonely palace. An
English traveller who visited the neighbourhood
of Hesse-Homburg in 1859 or 1860 writes thus
concerning him : ' His subjects as well as the
numerous tourists, chiefly Englishmen, who
every year visit the baths of Homburg, never
get sight of him who formerly was so amiable ;
and he is supposed to be determined to end his
days in a small private chapel, before a statue
of Princess Louise, his old, never-forgotten
lady-love,' It only remains to add that the
Landgrave Ferdinand died on the eve of om*
Lady-day, in 1866, and that he was the last of
his royal race. His small territory was in the
same year incorporated with Prussia, and now
forms a portion of the Empire of Germany, But
for the Franco-German war, it would have
fallen to Hesse-Darmstadt,
According to the ' Statesman's Year Book '

PRINoE AND PRINCESS OF HESSE-HOMBURG. 253
of the late Mr. F. Martin, the Landgrave en
joyed an annual income of 150,000 florins, or
about £12,000, which was in a great part
derived from the sale of mineral waters, and
from the rents of the gaming-tables at Hom
burg, The royal line which he represented was
founded in 1596 by Prince George I, of Hesse-
Darmstadt, who separated the territory from the
other possessions of his family in favour of a
younger son, to whom he wished to secure a
position among the smaller potentates of
Europe, On the establishment of the Rhein-
bund of Napoleon in 1806, the small country of
Hesse-Homburg was annexed to, or rather
placed under, the sovereignty of Hesse-Darm
stadt ; but the Congress of Vienna reinstated
the Landgrave among the reigning sovereigns
of the Continent, though under the protest of
the leading German princes; and, indeed, it
was only in the year 1817 that the then Land
grave, Frederick Louis, was formally recognised
by the Germanic Diet. The Uttle kingdom,
therefore, can hardly be said to have lived
quite half-a-century.

254

THE RISE OF THE HOUSE OF
GOLDSMID.
The Goldsmids, whose head and representative
enjoys a baronetcy in England and the dignity
of a baron in Portugal, may well form in this
series a companion picture to the stories of the
rise of the Rothschilds, Thellussons, and Barings.*
Little is known of their early history except
that they came from Cassel, in Germany, and
that in all probability they derived their name
from the branch of trade which they followed
at a time when a goldsmith and a banker were
pretty nearly one and the-same thing.
We are told that Aaron, the second son of
Benedict Goldsmid, of Hamburg, settled in
Leman Street, Goodman's Fields, near White-
chapel Church, as a merchant, in the early part
of the last century. His son George was the
* See ' Tales of Great Families.'

THE- RISE OF THE HOUSE OF GOLDSMID, 255
father of two sons, . Abraham and Benjamin
Goldsmid, who, by their splendid capacities for
business, strict integrity, and singular good for
tune, succeeded in raising their firm from com
parative obscurity to be the head and front of
Change Alley. At an early period of Ufe these
brothers kept a broker's shop in Goodman's
Fields, where their promptitude and honourable
dealings soon gained them a considerable
amount of credit. This success encouraged
them to enlarge their sphere of operations.
Accordingly, in 1792 they set up as stockbrokers
and moneyrlenders in Capel Court, Here they
made the acquaintance of Mr, Abraham New-
land, the chief cashier of the Bank of England,
whose name, appearing as it did at the bottom of
the national paper currency for more than half-a-
century, was for a long time almost a household
word in this country.
Inspired with a liking for the two brothers,
Mr, Newland made them his financial agents,
and through him they speedily attained the
summit of stockbroking activity. Thus taken
in hand by the ' great man,' and with the aid
of their talents, prudence, and foresight, the

256 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
success of the Goldsmids was rapid. In 1801
they became for the first time competitors for a
portion of the Government loan of five millions,
a speculation which proved so lucrative that at
the next loan they were enabled to treble their
former subscription. They were the first mem
bers of the Stock Exchange who competed
with the bankers for the favours of the Chan
cellor of the Exchequer, and succeed in divert
ing into more legitimate sources the profits
hitherto absorbed by the bankers. In the
course of five years the brothers had amassed
a fortune variously estimated from £600,000 to
£800,000. Naturally fond of show and society,
and possessed of great benevolence of character,
they spent their money freely. No sordid
parsimony was theirs. ' The daily papers,'
writes Francis, in his ' Characters of the Stock
Exchange,' ' bore almost daily testimony to
their uniform and boundless generosity. Natur
ally open-handed, the poor of all clases found
in them kindly benefactors. On one day the
grand doings at an entertainment to royalty
were recorded ; and on the next a few words
related a visit of mercy to a condemned cell.

THE RISE OF THE HOUSE OP GOLDSMID, 257
At another, mansions vying in architectural
beauty with those of our nobility were de
scribed ; and, again, some gracious act of charity
was dwelt upon. Banquets to princes and
ambassadors reviving the glories of the Arabian
Nights were frequent, and galleries with works
of art worthy of the magnificence of the Medici
graced their houses.' They were awhile for
tune's chief and especial favourites. When in
1793 almost every mercantile house in England
experienced the baneful effects of the well-nigh
unprecedented number of bankruptcies, and
when the bank in one day discounted £4,400,000,
their loss amounted but to fifty pounds. One
year they gained two sweepstakes by naming
the thousand in which the first and last ticket in
the lottery happened to be drawn, together with
several other prizes in subsequent lotteries.
But this career of splendid prosperity was cut
short in the most melancholy manner. On the
morning of April 12th, 1808, the valet of Mr.
Benjamin Goldsmid, the younger of the two
brothers, on entering his master's room, found
him hanging suspended from a cord attached to
the tester of the bed. It having been brought
VOL. II. S

258 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
forward in evidence that for some time previous
ly he had been labouring under depression of
spirits, the jury brought in a verdict of lunacy.
Mr, Abraham Goldsmid, it is said, felt the loss
of his brother so severely that he never recover
ed from the shock; and so intimate had been
the relations existing between the two members
of the house of Goldsmid, that the firm, reduced
to one partner, was unable to do its accustomed
work. Hitherto invariably successful in all its
undertakings, it now became the reverse. Soon
calamity after calamity overtook the surviving
partner, until, driven to desperation, he staked
the remainder of his fortune, formerly amounting
to about eight miUions, in one transaction, Mr.
Goldsmid was a joint contractor for the loan of
fourteen milUons with the house of Sir Francis
Baring ; but. Sir Francis dying, the support of
the market was left to his companion. Taking
the largest possible range, that he had dealt
amongst his friends one half the sum allotted to
him, the loss sustained by the remainder at
sixty-five per thousand was a strain which no
individual fortune could sustain. About the
middle of September, Abraham Goldsmid's loss

THE RISE OP THE HOUSE OP GOLDSMID, 259
amounted to about two hundred and fifty thou
sand pounds, and still the prices kept sinking
lower and lower. Towards the end of the
month, the ' Omnium ' had fallen to 6^ per cent.
Ever since the decline of Omnium from par,
Abraham Goldsmid's spirits drooped progressive
ly ; but when it reached five and six per cent,
discount, beyond all probability of ultimate re
covery, the unfortunate gentleman became rest
less and disturbed in his mind. His transactions
with the East Indian Company also increased
his embarrassments. The aid granted to them
by Parliament vras advanced in exchequer bills,
which were put into Mr, Goldsmid's hands to
negotiate. Of the five hundred thousand pounds
which they advanced, the Company had received
one hundred and fifty thousand pounds, and
they had announced to Mr, Goldsmid that they
would want the remainder on the 1st of October,
For that sum they held Omnium as security. On
Thursday, 29th of September, while on 'Change,
the sadly harassed man, it seems, betrayed
' more than his usual impatience and irritability,'
and spoke very incoherently of the revenge he
promised himself in the punishment of the two
s 2

260 CHAPTERS PROM PAMILY CHESTS.
parties opposed to him in the money-market*
In the evening he received some friends at his
house at Morden, in Surrey, and even joined
them in a game of cards. About half-past seven
on the following morning, he was seen passing
over the bridge which led to a part of the shrub
bery called the Wilderness, in the grounds at
the back part of the house ; suddenly a pistol
shot was heard, and he was discovered shortly
afterwards lying mortaUy wounded. In spite
of everything that medical aid could do, he ex
pired about ten o'clock, surrounded by his
sorrowing family. As soon as intelligence of
the dreadful event reached the City, it created
a sensation unparalleled by the loss of any
single individual, 'Expresses were sent with
the news to the King and the Prince of Wales ;
Consols fell in a few minutes from 66^ to 63f ,
and Omnium declined from about 6^ to about
10^ discount, and remained steady at that price
for some time; the jobbers of Capel Court
crowded in anxious inquiry ; the merchants of
the Exchange assembled before their usual
time; the thoroughfares resounded with rapid
questions and hurried replies, and little or no

THE RISE OF THE HOUSE OF GOLDSMID. 261
business was done ; and it is said the great
¦question of peace and Avar never created a
similar confusion.' ' A hundred fortunes,' writes
the late Mr. Frederick Martin, ' went to pieces
under the fall of the most trusted pillar of
the Stock Exchange.'
, The jury recorded the usual verdict, and the
remains of the deceased were interred in the
Jews' burial ground at Mile End. The funeral
procession was followed to the place of inter
ment by a number of poor persons, who, having
partaken of Mr. Goldsmid's charity in his life-
time, wished to honour him in death, their moans
and sobs attesting the sincerity of their sorrow.
The high priest and the elders of the synagogue
who were present paid every distinction in their
power to the remains of their departed friend,
but, in accordance with the Mosaic law, they
withheld from him their customary funeral rites,
and he was buried without the pale of conse
crated ground.
It is said of Mr. Abraham Goldsmid, as of his
brother Benjamin, that a man more truly amiable
in all the social relations of life never existed.
His general philanthropy, his ready munificence,

262 CH-VPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
his friendly demeanour, his mild and concUiatory
manner, made him beloved and esteemed by a
large circle of friends, and by the commercial
public at large. He was the promoter of all
charitable institutions, and there were not many
men who ever performed kind acts in social Ufe,
or more liberal ones in what may be termed his
public one, than Mr Abraham Goldsmid.
' It is stated,' says Francis, ' that, noticing a
great depression in the waiter who usually at
tended him while he dined, he inquired the
cause, ascertained that it was pecuniary, gave
the astonished man double the amount he re
quired, and refused to Usten to the thanks of the
recipient.' Another story is extant to the same purport.
He became acquainted, by accident, with one of
those simple and single-minded country curates
whose poverty was the disgrace and whose
piety was the glory of the Church of England.
This was the man for Abraham Goldsmid at
once to appreciate and to benefit. He obtained
all necessary particulars of his case, and in a few
weeks the parson received a letter which told him

THE RISE OF THE HOUSE OP GOLDSMID. 263
that he had been allotted a share in a new
loan. The letter was a mystery to the country
clergyman, who placed it on one side with a
confused idea that a hoax was intended. He
had not long to wait. The next day brought a
second letter, and with it comfort and consola
tion in the shape of a large sum of money, which
had been received on the allotment,
Mr. Goldsmid, before the committal of his last
desperate act, had determined, if possible, to
fulfil all his contracts at the Stock Exchange/
hoping still to have a competency left to retire
with into private life from the wreck of his
fortune. With this end in view, he had already
commenced retrenchments by discharging all
the workmen and out-door labourers employed
on his extensive premises at Morden,
An investigation having been made into the
affairs of the deceased and his partner, Mr.
Moxon, by desire of the Government, it appear
ed that the house of Goldsmid and Com
pany had originally retained to themselves
£800,000 of the loan, £600,000 of the English
and £200,000 of the Irish. The purchases of

264 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
Omnium since, in order to sustain it, had alone
occasioned the difficulties which, in a moment
of frenzy, led to the sad act. The amount of
the purchased Omnium was not stated ; but it
was positively asserted by those who had looked
into the affairs of the house, that there would be
a considerable surplus for the family of the
deceased after fulfilUng all engagements of the
firm, provided the holders of the Omnium (as
security for the money advanced) did not impru
dently bring it to the market in a hurry, but re
tained it till there was a pubUc demand for it.
The account between the Treasury and Mr.
Goldsmid was completely balanced, so that no
interruptions occurred to prevent the winding-
up of his affairs. Mr. Isaac Lyon Goldsmid,
nephew of the celebrated brothers Abraham and
Benjamin Goldsmid, was created a baronet in
1841. He was also made Baron de Goldsmid
and de Palmeira in Portugal — titles conferred
upon him by the Queen of Portugal in recog
nition of the important services rendered by him
to her country, and further was authorised to
wear his Portuguese honours in England. His

THE RISE OP THE HOUSE OP GOLDSMID. 265
son and his grandson have held seats in the
House of Commons, and they own the noble
estate of Somerhill, near Tunbridge, which the
second baronet purchased from the Alexanders
about forty years ago.

266

THE LOVE-MATCH OF THE EARL
OF OSSORY.
In the middle of the seventeenth century, one
ot the most powerful and influential nobles in
Ireland was James, Earl and Marquis of Or
monde, whom Charles II. raised to the still
higher grade of Duke, in reward for his services
during the Civil War, Ormonde's eldest son
Thomas, Earl of Ossory, appears to have been
one of those young gentlemen who consider
that they have a right, although the eldest
sons of peers, and destined heads of famiUes,
to contract marriages of love, not of convenance,
and to choose wives according to their own
fancies, and not at the bidding of a parent,
however good and excellent. Accordingly, we
find that in 1658, while residing at the Hague/
he fell over head and ears in love with Emilia,

THE LOVE-MATCH OP THE EARL OF OSSORY, 267
daughter of a member of the house of Nassau,
Louis, Sieur de Beverweert and Lord of Auver-
querque, a natural son of Maurice, Prince of
Orange. The duke — I call him so, though at
the time of which I write he was only Marquis
of Ormonde — was with the King at Brussels,
while Ossory's mother, the marchioness, was
resident at Dunmore, in the county of Kilkenny,
As the great bulk of the Ormonde estate was
hers, the Commissioners for Ireland, during the
Commonwealth, allowed her the use of Dun
more Park and its demesne lands, to the value
of two thousand pounds a year, for her personal
maintenance. One consequence, of this disper
sion of the family is that the letters of all the
parties concerned in the matter are forthcoming,
and can be read in extenso.
Early in October, 1658, Ossory first tells his
father about his passion for Mademoiselle de
Beverweert, and on the 24th of that month he
writes, expressing his joy to find that his father
approves of his suit. His expressions are very
natural, and such as might well be used in the
reign of Queen Victoria. ' I that never believed
that there was such a thing as love before, and

¦268 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
that have so much jeered at others for being in
it, cannot but with much shame confess that
I am so much overtaken with it, that if I fail
in this I shall never have a concern for any
other,' At the same time, he complains that
he has not heard from his mother for some
months. Of one thing he is glad, namely, that
the young lady has had other suitors, but he
knows that he stands high in her favour. He
asks for some ' band-laces ' of the newest fashion,
in order to send as a present to mademoiselle,
and concludes by referring to ' some lie of Dick
Talbot's about him.' Next day again he writes
that he has been so accustomed to have his
hopes frustrated — ' though not in things of this
kind,' he adds, in a parenthesis — as that his
fears exceed his hopes. He is no further en
gaged, however, than that, if his friends approve,
he has desired her not to oppose their mutual
happiness, ' which, I am sure, she will not,' he
quietly adds, as if he knew all the secrets of the
female heart.
The marquis, I have said, did not oppose the
match, but it was not equally to the fancy of
the lady mother. She was a prudent old soul ;

THE LOVE-MATCH OF THE EARL OF OSSORY. 269"
she knew the value of a good jointure ; and
she hoped that her son would make such a
match as would put a good round sum into the
family purse, .In fact, she set herself heart
and soul to oppose and thwart the love-affair ;
but it went on merrily notwithstanding. She
did not think the De Beverweerts high enough
in rank to mate with the heir of the house
of Ormonde ; and to the £10,000 belonging to
the young lady she objected seriously that it
did npt come up to the mark at all, as there
Avasa mortgage of £20,000 to be paid off, in
order to clear the estate, and there were still
two daughters unprovided for ; so she hoped
and trusted that some of her son's friends would
dissuade him from the match while there was
yet time, and so ' give a stop to his ruining
a poor family.' As late, indeed, as January,
1659, after she has given an outward, and doubt
less a reluctant, assent to the match, she still
hopes on that Ossory will be open to con
viction on the subject. ' It is not himself,' says-
the match-making and match-marring mamma,
' but a whole posterity that will be ruined by
his marrying a girl with an unsuitable marriage

270 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
portion,' Mr, Thomas Page, who was Ossory's
secretary, writes to Ormonde :
' About two months ago, my lord sent word to
my lady (his mother) that in his next she might
happily hear of a match proposed to him, and
that the young lady's fortune was ten thousand
pounds, and it may be more. My lady,
whether taking offence at the improvidence of
young men in general, or touched by the
example of some of our nobility who have ruined
themselves and their families by rash engage
ments in this very place, or dissatisfied with the
¦dowry itself (because she made a " but " of ten
thousand pounds,) or intending my lord for
somebody else, or, lastly, upon presumption that
this county affords not a party parallel to your
family, enjoined him to proceed no further,
under no pretence whatever, without her and
his family's consent, since his lady's portion
must serve to disengage the estate mortgaged,
partly to marry my Lady Elizabeth,' Page
adds : ' Since I had the honour to be known to
my lord, I never saw him in so disconsolate a
mood as he has continued ever since the receipt
of this letter,' and he advises Ormonde to

THE LOVE-MATCH OP THE EARL OP OSSORY. 271
address a few words of comfort to Ossory, Page
found it hard (he said) to disabuse Ossory of
his hopes of getting Monsieur de Beverweert's
assent to applying the marriage portion as his
mother wished. He writes to Ormonde : ' I
have a thousand times represented to him the
use of himself or kindred ; and if the father of the
family deserve his character, 'tis as easy to get
ten thousand pounds out of his hands as to
fetch water out of a rock without a miracle,'
Meantime Ossory pursued his suit. He writes
to his father : ' I got so much favour that the
young woman has promised to speak herself to
her mother,' And then : ' This is to tell you of
the success of the gentlewoman's discourse,
which was, I found, that her mother was some
what displeased at her making so much an
advance as to take upon her to break the thing
first ... I spoke to the mother myself,' He was,
therefore, the more distressed at the marchi
oness's continued opposition. As to his mother's
remark, ' She might have had more in England ;
she should remember that she has often .failed in
her projects, and that people will not be ready
to ally themselves with a family in such dis-

272 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS,
favour with the ruUng power in England,' He
compares the present match with that proposed
on the part of Mr, Treswell for his daughter : of
that on Sir Walter Py's behalf, who said he
would disinherit his son and make his
daughter worth twenty thousand pounds, ' But
there he over-reached himself,' says Ossoiy.
He knew the girl, and would never dispose of
himself in that manner for a reason which he
could tell Ormonde, but not write it. One of
Ormonde's household, named Buck, having in
termeddled, Ossory writes to say that ' Littel
Buck has been very officious, and he has been
desired not to undertake so much. It is Lord
Southampton's daughter he means, whose
alliance he (Ossory) would covet more than-
any other in England if he could like the young
lady, whom he has often seen, or if it were not
absolutely impossible for him to love another.'
He goes on to say that he considers it would be
unworthy on his part if he were to marry a
deserving person simply on account of a large
fortune, which would not prevent misery if
there was not mutual kindness. Thomas Page
was sent by Ormonde to Ireland to try and

THE LOVE-MATCH OF THE EARL OF OSSORY. 273
soften Lady Ormonde. It shows how reduced
the Royalists were that Page had not even
money enough to pay for the letter he was
sending to Ormonde. He had received two
hundred guilders for the journey, but he said
he did not know what Ossory would do to
defray some trivial expenses. He (Page) could
not part with any of the money he had received ;
' and for payment of this, your excellency's
packet, I had only one shift left, viz., an old
gold ring, which I found in a cabinet.'
Ossory still hoped that Monsieur de Bever
weert might consent to the marriage portion
being applied as his mother desired. In a
letter to his father, after treating of his passion,
and saying, 'as I never had a virtuous love
before, so I am sure that I shall never be capable
of having another again,' he adds a postscript,
' I forgot to tell you that one night the mother,
talking with me of Tom Howard's marriage,
laughed at him for being duped in having
been shown his portion and afterwards being
put in bank, which I am apt to beUeve was not
said without design of letting me know that I
might expect the contrary.' At length Lady
TOL. II. T

274 CHAPTERS PROM PAMILY CHESTS.
Ormonde's assent was extorted, and on Novem
ber 17th, 1659, her son was married. Shortly
after his vrife wrote, evidently at Ossory's
dictation, a letter of compliment and affection to
her new father-inJaw, consisting of a few lines
of scrawl, such as a child of five or six years
might write. Some new attempt being now on
foot for the king's cause, Ossory expresses his
readiness to engage in it. ' I am very glad you
are of my opinion that past services are not
sufficient to keep up a posterity in reputation,
, , . , You may see that, for the most part, a
rebel's condition that treats is better than an
honest sufferer,'
In the event it is satisfactory to know that
the married life of the Earl and Countess of
Ossory was happy, but the Duchess of Ormonde
probably judgedright in thinking that an alliance
with some of the EngUsh nobUity would have been
more likely to strengthen the famUy influence.
The duchess . generally speaks of her daughter-
in-law in a tone of complaint and of dissatis
faction at the imprudence of the marriage. In
1668, being then in Ireland, she writes to the
duke in London; after mentioning a few

THE LOVE-MATCH OF THE EARL OP OSSORY. 275
domestic affairs, she says : ' I suppose my son
Ossory will now be convinced that it is not
practicable what he did propose to himself —
having a command in Flanders — though, at the
same time, I doubt he designs what will be
almost as prejudicial unto him, and to his own
and your interests, which is to carry his wife
and famUy into England and live in London ; at
least, leave her there, where she has a mind to
be, and go himself to Italy. For in this place 1
find neither of them has a mind to stay, though
I assure you they have not wanted such
encouragements as might abundantly satisfy any
reasonable person. I hear the house they pitch
upon to live in there is the Lord Middleton's,
and to take it ready furnished. Who has put
him on that choice I cannot tell, and should be
loth to suspect Sir Arthmr Forbes. This is kept
a profound secret from me, but possibly James
Clarke may know something of this from Mr.
Page, who is the only counsellor my son chooses,
because he finds him complying with his humour
in aU things.'
In another letter the duchess prophesied her
son Ossory's ruin in six months from his going
t2

276 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
thither ' with the charge of a helpless -wife and
a number of smaU children.' He survived
scarcely long enough to suffer many of the
usual troubles which attend domestic life, when
children multiply vrithout the means to support
them multiplying in proportion, and friends are
apt to look askance at the ' happy ' authors of
their being. He died in 1 680, during the life
time of his father and also his wife. He Ues
buried in Westminster Abbey, and is known to
history as ' the gaUant Earl of Ossory,' He
left two sons, who both inherited the peerage,
and two daughters, one of whom married
WiUiam, ninth Earl of Derby, while the other
married her cousin, Henry d'Auverquerque, who
was created Lord Grantham, an ancestor,
through the female Une, of the present Lord
Cowper,

277

NAN CLARGES, DUCHESS OF
ALBEMARLE.
In the reign of the ' Merry Monarch ' courtiers
and nobles, to say nothing of princes, did not
always look to the highest rank in the selection
of their wives ; and indeed the same to a certain
extent may be said to have been the case during
thy puritanical times of the Commonwealth ; for
within three years after the execution of Charles
I. at Whitehall the daughter of a black
smith and farrier in the Savoy, John Clarges by
name, was fortunate enough in her matrimonial
career to ' secure for her husband a no less
celebrated person than General Monk, the Duke
of Albemarle, To John Clarges is attributed
the setting up of the Maypole in the Strand, at
the time of the Restoration, upon its former site.
Clarges was farrier to the Duke, then plain

278 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
Colonel Monk, He lived over his forge at the
junction of the Strand and Drury Lane, near the
spot where the historic ' Maypole ' was set up.
He gave his daughter an education suited to
the employment to which she was brought up,
namely, that of a miUiner. As the manners of
young people are generaUy formed in early
Ufe, Anne — or as she was usuaUy called
"Nan" — Clarges retained something of the
blacksmith's daughter about her even after
her elevation to a coronet with strawberry
leaves. On one fine morning in the summer of 1632
Anne Clarges was married, in the church of St.
Lawrence Poultney, in the City of London, to
one Thomas Ratford, the son of another man of
the same name, who had been a farrier, and a
servant in the employment of Prince Charles,
and was resident in ' the Mews,' no doubt the
King's Mews at Charing Cross, on the spot now
covered by the National GaUery. After their
marriage we are told that this Thomas Ratford
and his wife Uved at the ' New Exchange,' in
the Strand, in a house or shop bearing the sign
of the 'Three Spanish Gipsies,' Here they

NAN CLARGES, DUCHESS OF ALBEMARLE, 279
sold such articles of domestic use and requisites
for the toilet as wash-balls, powder, and gloves ;
Mistress Anne Ratford also teaching plain and
fancy needlework to such young girls as, wish
ing to acquire the art and mystery of a semp
stress, chose to avaU themselves of her services.
About 1647 Mistress Ratford was herself acting
as sempstress to Colonel Monk; she used to
carry his linen to his miUtary quarters, and, as
it is alleged, ' had great control and authority
over him,' It is even said that when Monk was
in ' durance vile,' in the Tower of London, she
was kind to him in more than one capacity. It
must be remembered that he was then in want,
and that she assisted him ; and when afterwards
she became his wife he had so high an opinion
of her understanding that he often consulted
her in important matters. As she was a thorough
Royalist, it is probable that she really had a
hand in bringing about the restoration of the
monarchy. But nothing is more certain than
that the brave commander, who was never
afraid of bullets, was often terrified by the
tongue of his wife.
In 1648 her father and mother died ; and in

280 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
the following year, some Uttle domestic squabble
or grievance having arisen, she and her hus
band separated. Whether Anne Clarges (or
Ratford) had given up the stall in the 'New
Exchange,' or whether her husband was reaUy
dead, is not, and never will be known, for no
certificate from any parish register appears to
have been forthcoming to prove his burial ; but
at all events, in 1652, the lady herself saw no
impediment to her entering a second time into
the connubial state, and accordingly in the
above-mentioned year she was married at the
church of St, George-the-Martyr, in Southwark,
to the gallant colonel, a name of importance in
EngUsh history, and one whom we afterwards
know as the chief instrument of the restoration
of the monarchy. In the following year she was
delivered bf a son, Christopher, of whom we
shall hear more presently.
In 1660 the dukedom of Albemarle was con
ferred on Monk (who had now become a
general) ; but the coronet of strawberry-leaves
does not appear to have rested very becomingly
upon the brow of the duchess; for, as Pepys
tells us in his gossiping diary, ' she became the

NAN CLARGES, DUCHESS OP ALBEMARLE. 281
laughing-stock of the Court, and gave general
disgust' — of course, he means among the ladies.
Pepys tells us, by the way, how he went to
Westminster HaU, and bought among other
books one of the ' Life of our Queen,' which he
read at home to his wife. ' But,' he adds, ' it
was so sillily written that we did nothing but
laugh at it. Among other things, it is dedi
cated to that paragon of virtue and beauty, the
Duchess of Albemarle.' Indeed, it may be
added that she was not at all handsome or
attractive, or even cleanly in appearance ; and
that her mother was one of the five women-
barbers of Drury Lane, and a person of no high
repute for her morals. A ballad is extant,
written upon her and her four companions ; the
burden of it is :
' Did you ever know the like,
Or ever hear the same.
Of the five women-barbers
That lived in Drury Lane?'
The duke died in January, 1669, leaving the
above-mentioned son, Christopher, who became,
or at all events was called, the second duke,
and who was appointed Governor of Jamaica

282 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
in 1687 : he died there without issue in the
same year, when his titles became extinct.
A few years later, namely in November, 1700,
a cause cMebre was heard at the bar of the King's
Bench, in which the name of Anne Clarges,
Duchess of Albemarle, was brought prominently
before the public. It was an action for tres
pass between WiUiam Sherwin, plaintiff, and
Sir Walter Clarges, bart,, defendant. The
plaintiff, as heir and representative of Thomas
Monk, Esq,, elder brother of George, Duke of
Albemarle, claimed the manor of Sutton, in
Yorkshire, and also other lands in Newton,
Eaton Bridge, and Shipton, as heir-at-law to
the said duke, against the defendant, to whom
they had been left by his only son and suc
cessor Christopher, the second duke. At the
trial several witnesses were brought forward to
swear that they had seen Thomas Ratford, her
Grace's first husband, alive as lately as January
1669-70, many years after her marriage with
the first duke and the birth of the second. In
opposition to this evidence it was contended
that aU along, during the Uves of Dukes George
and Christopher, this matter was never ques-

NAN CLARGES, DUCHESS OP ALBEMARLE, 283
tioned ; that the latter was universally received
as the lawful son of the former; and, further,
that the matter had been thrice already tried at
the bar of the King's Bench, where the defend
ant had gained three verdicts. One witness swore
that he owed Ratford five or six pounds, whicK
he had never demanded; and a man who had
married a cousin of the Duke of Albemarle
swore that he had been told by his wife that
Ratford died five or six years before the duke
married. The ' benefit of the doubt ' was given
by the judge to the side of equity and leniency.
In summing up, the Lord Chief Justice Holt
thus addressed the jury : ' If you are certain
that Duke Christopher was born whilst Thomas
Ratford was Uving, you must find for the
plaintiff; if you beUeve that he was bom after
Ratford was dead, or that nothing appears of
what became of him after Duke George mar
ried his first wife, you must find for the de
fendant.' In the end a verdict was given for the de
fendant, who was the only son of Sir Thomas
Clarges, brother of the duchess, and who was
created a baronet in 1674; he owned the

284 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
property on which Clarges Street, Piccadilly,
now stands.*
It only remains to add that ' Nan ' Clarges,
Duchess of Albemarle, and ex-sempstress, died
within a few days of the duke, her husband, in
1669, and was buried by his side in Henry the
Seventh's chapel in Westminster Abbey.
* We are told in Evelyn's diary that a Mr. Neale took
from Sir Walter Clarges a large piece of ground on the
north side of Piccadilly, agreeing to lay out £15,000 in
building : but he did not do so, and Sir Walter, having
after great trouble got the lease out of his hands, built on
it -what is now called Clarges Street.

285

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF
NEWCASTLE.
A SHORT account of the life and career of this
lady may not, perhaps, be wholly void of
interest. That she was a learned lady may be
inferred from the fact that she was the author
of thirteen published volumes of prose and
poetry ; among these is her Autobiography ; and
it is only right to say that I have drawn largely
on its contents in compiling the present paper.
Those who make a pilgrimage to Westminster
Abbey, will see in the north transept a magni
ficent tomb of alabaster and marble, with the
recumbent figure of a cavalier and his lady,
the former grasping in his hand a truncheon,
while she holds a book in hers. Below they
will read the following inscription : ' Here lyes.

286 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
the Loyall Duke of Newcastle and his Dutches,
his second wife, by whome he had noe issue ;
her name was Margarett Lucas, youngest sister
to the Lord Lucas of Colchester, a noble
familie ; for all the brothers were valiant, and
the sisters virtuous. This Dutches was a wise,
wittie, and learned lady, which her many books
doe well testifie. She was a most virtuous and
a loving and careful vnfe, and was with her
lord all the time of his banishment and miseries ;
and when he came home never parted from him
in his solitary confinement.' This refers to
WiUiam, first Duke of Newcastle, and his
duchess, the youngest daughter of Sir Charles
Lisle (who was killed at the siege of Colchester).
The lady seems to have been a ' blue-stocking '
from her earliest years ; at aU events she writes :
* It pleased God to command his servant nature
to endue me with a poetical and philosophical
genius even from my birth : for I did. ¦write some
books of that kind before I was twelve years of
age, which, for want of good order and method,
I would never divulge.'
In 1643 she entered the court of Queen
Henrietta Maria ; but her bashfulness and reti-

MARGARET, DUCHESS OP NEWCASTLE. 287
cent nature, her gra'vity, and her timidity, but
ill-assorted with courtly manners then. She
soon expressed a vrish to return home ; but this
desire was overruled by her mother, and she
accordingly remained nearly two years, attend
ing her royal mistress in her flight to France.
It was at this time, in 1645, that the Marquis
of Newcastle, living in exile on the Continent,
saw her at Paris, and chose her as his second
wife. Agitated with apprehensions that the
royal cause was hopelessly lost after the battle
of Marston Moor, aware that for himself there
was little to be expected from the enemy, and
mortified by the treatment which he had
experienced from Prince Rupert, the marquis
left England with his sons and a small company
of friends for Hamburg. Only ninety pounds
remained to him of all his vast wealth, and with
this, in the words of the duchess, ' he resolved
to seek his fortune.' Upon the Continent, we
are told, 'he was everywhere respectfully re
ceived and entertained, as well as for the gran
deur of his former estate as for his noble gaUantry
of demeanour.' The duchess narratesthat :
' After my lord was married, having no estate

288 CHAPTERS PROM FA5IILY CHESTS.
or means left him to maintain himself and his
farmly, he was necessitated to seek for credit
and Uve upon the courtesy of those that were
pleased to trust him, which, although they did
for some whUe, and showed themselves very
civU to my lord, yet they grew weary at length,
insomuch that his steward was forced one time
to teU him that he was not able to provide a
dinner for him, for his creditors were resolved to
trust him no longer. My lord, being always a
great master of his passions, was — at least
showed himself — not in any manner troubled
at it, but in a pleasant humour told me that I
must of necessity pawn my clothes to make so
much money as would procure a dinner.'
After they had been married some two or
three years, the marquis and marchioness
quitted Paris, and traveUed into Holland, making
short stays at Rotterdam and Brabant, and
finaUy settling down at Antwerp. It was from
this place that her ladyship came to England to
seek reUef, but to no purpose. During her stay
in England on this occasion, the marchioness
wrote a book of poems, and also a little volume
entitled ' PhUosophical Fancies.'

MARGARET, DUCHESS OP NEWCASTLE. 289
Notwithstanding their vicissitudes, they seem
to have lived very happily together, cherishing
similar pursuits, and enjoying as often as possi
ble the quiet pleasure's of country life. ' How
soever our fortunes are,' writes her ladyship,
' we are both content, spending our time harm
lessly ; for my lord pleaseth himself with the
management of some few horses and exercises
himself with the use of the sword, which two
arts he has brought by his studious thoughts,
rational experience, and industrious practice to
an absolute perfection.'
The humour and disposition of the lady are
thus set forth in her own words in the memoir
above referred to :
'As for my humour, I was from childhood
given to contemplation, being more taken and
dehghted with thoughts than in conversation
with society, insomuch as I would walk two
or three hours, and never rest, in a musing,
conpidering, contemplating manner, reasoning
with myself of everything my senses did
present ; but when I was in the company of my
natural friends I was very attentive of what
they said and did. For strangers I regarded
VOL. IL U

290 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS,
not much what they said ; but I observed their
actions, whereupon my reason as judge, my
thoughts as accusers or excusers, or approvers
and commanders, did plead or appeal or com
plain thereto. Also I never took delight in
closets or cabinets of toys, but in the variety of
fine clothes and such toys only as were to adorn
my person. Likewise I had a natural stupidity
towards the learning of any other language than
my native tangue ; for I could sooner and with
more facility understand the sense, than remem
ber the words, and the want of such memory
makes me so unlearned in foreign languages as
I am,' With regard to her habits of life, she writes :
' 1 was never very active, by reason I was
given so much to contemplation ; besides, my
brothers and sisters were for the most part
serious and staid in their actions, not given to
sport or play, or dancing about, whose company,
I keeping, became so too . . , , As for my
study of books, it was little ; yet I chose rather
to read than to employ my time in any other
work or practice. But my serious study could
not be much, by reason I took great deUght in

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. 291
attiring, fine dressing, and fashions, especially
such fashions as 1 did invent myself, not taking
that pleasure in such fashions as were invented
by others, I did dislike that any should follow
my fashions, for I always took deUght in a
singularity, even in accoutrements of habits.
But whatsoever I was addicted to, either in
fashions of clothes, contemplation of thought,
actions of life — they were lawful, honest, honour
able, and modest, which I can avouch to the
world with a great confidence, because it is a
pure truth,'
We can hardly wonder that she formed a lofty
estimate of her own poems when she was flatter
ed by such men as Digby, Hobbes, and Bishop
Pearson, to say nothing of sundry high-flown
praises which were addressed to her by the
Dons of Cambridge, who seem to have regarded
her as a goddess. In an epistle to the duke,
her husband, she says that, when her books first
came out, the world would not give her credit
of having written them, thinking ' that those
conceptions and fancies transcended her capac
ity,' and that she had ' plucked feathers from the
Universities.'
u2

292 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
Her husband was among the first to repair to
the Hague to congratulate King Charles II, on
the Restoration, Soon after this he retired into
the country and set himself to the work of
repairing his estates. The duchess computed
his losses at £941,303, But the wisdom and
economy of the duke enabled him, before he
died, to recover in some measure his former
magnificence. He was raised to the dukedom
in 1664, and died in 1676, having survived his
celebrated duchess about three years.
The very few persons who have read the
' Autobiography of Margaret, Marchioness, and
afterwards Duchess, of Newcastle,' will feel dis
posed to accord to that lady a very distinguished
place among the female worthies of the seven
teenth century, though her prose and her poetry
are alike forgotten now. In an age of great
public and private laxity, she ' kept the even
tenor of the way ' in the most exalted position,
excellent alike in her capacity as daughter,
sister, wife, and mother ; while, by her writings,
she has shown the world that, without talents of
the very highest order, she could adorn her high
station with the graces of a cultivated taste and

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. 293
educated mind ; and even in a gloomy period of
sorrow, danger, and distress she could influence
those around her no less by her example than
by precept, in favour of all that was noble and
generous in itself, and sustain the spirits and the
hopes of her lord, when exile and ruin stared
him in the face.
The records of her life are scanty enough.
They consist of two small volumes, printed by
the late Sir Egerton Brydges, at his private
printing press at Lee Priory, Kent ; the one cour
sisting of thirty-six pages, and the other of only
twenty-five ; and of one work only twenty-five
copies were printed, and only fifty of the other.
Both volumes are now exceedingly rare, and I
presume that I might seek in vain for the original
manuscript in the library pf the Cavendishes at
¦Chatsworth, or in that of the present Duke of
Newcastle at Clumber, The one volume is
entitled, ' A true Relation of the Birth, Breeding,
and Life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of
Newcastle, Written by Herselfe ;' and the other,
' Select Poems, by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess
of Newcastle,' Sir E, Brydges tells us in his
^ Advertisement ' to the former, that it is taken

294 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
'from the Duchesse's folio volume entitled,
" Nature's Pictures drawn by Fancy's Pencil,"
which volume,' he adds, ' is accompanied by the
celebrated, very rare, and exquisite print of the
Duke and his family, by Diepenberg.

295

THE LORDSHIP OF LORNE.
The district of Argyleshire, which is commonly
known as ' Lorn ' or ' Lome,' occupies the
northern portion of the county, from Oban and
Dunstaffnage, at its western extremity, to the
borders of Perthshire on the east. It is cut
in two by the romantic and beautiful Loch
Etive, and is separated on the west by a variety
of narrow channels from the distrct of Morven,
The district, in very ancient times, was tradi
tionally possessed by the MacDougals, a famUy
in those days almost as powerful as the
MacDonalds, 'Lords of the Isles,' From the
MacDougals it came into the royal house of
Stuart; aud it will be remembered that
among the victories gained by Bruce in his
eventful career was one over the then Lord
of Lorne, in the pass of Awe,

296 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
The broad lands of Lorne passed into the
hands of the Campbells of Lochow, the direct
ancestors of the present ducal house of Argyll,
about four hundred years ago ; and it is remark
able that they were acquired, not by force of
arms, but by a fortunate marriage. Sir Bernard
Burke teUs us that Sir Colin CampbeU, of
Lochow, in recognition of the great additions
which he had made to the estates of the house
of CampbeU, and to his achievements in war,
acquired the name of ' More,' or the Great, and
that from him the head of his descendants,
down to the present day, is known among his
GaeUc tenantry and clansmen as 'MacCallum
More.' He received the honour of knighthood
in A,D, 1280, from the hands of Alexander III,
of Scotland, and eleven years later was one of
the nominees of Robert Bruce in his contest
for the Scottish crown. This renowned and
gaUant chieftain was slain in a contest with
his powerful neighbour, the Lord of Lome,
at a .place called the ' String of Cowal,' where
an ugly obelisk of large size is erected over
his grave. This event occasioned feuds for a
series of years between the neighbouring Lairds

THE LORDSHIP OP LORNE. 297
of Lochow and Lome, which were terminated
at last by the marriage of Colin, second Lord
Campbell of Lochow, and first Earl of Argyll,
Lord High Chancellor of Scotland at the close
of the fifteenth century, with Isabella Stuart,
the eldest daughter and heiress of John,
Laird of Lorne, In consequence of this union
CoUn Campbell added to the arms of his ances
tors the ' galley,' which still figures in the Camp
bell shield, and he assumed the additional title
of ' Lord of Lorne,'
The Marquisate of Lorne was created in 1701
in favour of Archibald, tenth earl and first Duke
of Argyll, in recompense for his services to
the new monarch in the troubled times immedi
ately after the Revolution of 1688. It is
thought probable in well-informed circles that
in the course of a few months the broad lands
of Lorne will probably be raised into a duchy,
in favour of the present Marquis of Lorne, as
there are objections to a son-in-law of Her
Majesty holding a seat in the Lower House
of Parliament ;* and it is obvious that the crea-
* It is desirable to state that this -sras written on the
eve of the marriage of the Marquis of Lorne with H.R.H,
the Princess Louise in 1871.

298 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS,
tion of a new dukedom in favour of the bride
groom-elect will not even be open to the objec
tion that it will make it a permanent addition
to the House of Peers ; for in the ordinary course
of nature Lord Lorne must inherit also hie
father's title, and as we have a Duke of Hamil
ton and Brandon, a Duke of Buckingham and
Chandos, and a Duke of Richmond, Lennox, and
Gordon, so we may possibly have also a Duke
of Argyll and Lorne.
A slightly parallel example of a father and
son both sitting in the Upper House under two
separate creations, which, however, must ulti
mately be merged into each other, is to be
found in the case of the eldest son of the late
Duke of Leinster, who was raised to the peerage
of the United Kingdom as Baron Kildare in his
father's life time.
With the exception of the honours bestowed
on her own children, and the somewhat anoma
lous and exceptional case of the Duchess of
Inverness, her Majesty has but once exercised
her right of creating a ducal title since her
accession to the throne,* A second ducal title
* Her Majesty, since that date, has raised the marq[uisate
of Westminster to a dukedom.

THE LORDSHIP OP LORNE. 299
— that of Duke of Greenwich — was conferred
in the last century on John, second Duke of
Argyll ; but it became extinct at the death of
the grantee, the same nobleman to whom Pope
alludfes in the well-known lines : —
' Argyll, the State's whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the senate and the field !'

300

THE ANCIENT EARLDOM OF
DESMOND.
In the early times, long before the arrival of
the English under Henry IL, nearly the entire
county of Cork — the largest of all the counties
of Munster, and indeed of all Ireland — ^formed a
separate kingdom, under the rule of princes of
the clan or sept of Macarthy, But the invaders
made short work of the native race ; the fair
territory over which the sept had held sway for
centuries was reduced to submission by Henry,
¦who granted it to Robert FitzStephen and an
other Norman noble, with the exception of a
ismaU portion of land on the southern shore,
which was kept in the king's own hands. The
larger part of what since King John's days has
been the county of Cork, but was formerly the
kingdom or princedom of Desmond, is still

THE ANCIENT EARLDOM OF DESMOND. 301
vested in the descendants of the early Norman
' settlers ;' but the old race of Macarthy, though
robbed of its lands, yet survives in the middle
and lower classes, though scattered up and
down the length and breadth of Munster, Lein
ster, and Connaught,
But it is not of the Macarthies that I now
write, though I could tell how they fought on
equal terms with the Barries and the De Burghs,.
to say nothing of the Geraldines, It is said
that at one time they were so powerful that
' the Geraldines durst not put a plough into the
ground in Desmond.' On their fall, their lands
were mainly given to the followers and favour
ites of the sovereign, and the whole territory of
Desmond was made into an earldom, which was
conferred by Edward HI. in 1330 on Maurice
FitzThomas, one of the most popular and most
powerful nobles in the southern counties, who
had been called in by the Lord Justice to aid
him in suppressing an insurrection of the native
chiefs. One of these lords, Thomas, commonly
known as ' the great earl,' from the extent of his
possessions, obtained from Edward IV, a charter
of incorporation for the town of Youghal, and

302 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
even founded here a college and a monastic
house. But the Desmonds were proud and
fierce, and the great earl rose in rebellion
against the EngUsh king.
' The Palatinate — for such it really was — that
King Edward granted to the Earl of Des
mond . , . , formed the ninth of those petty
sovereignties into which the kingdom had been
wantonly parcelled, in order to enrich and
exalt a few favoured individuals , ... In fact,
these palatine lords had royal jurisdiction
throughout their territories ; made barons and
knights, and erected courts for civil and crimi
nal causes, as well as for the management of
their own revenues, according to the forms in
which the king's courts were estabhshed in
Dublin. They made their own judges, sheriffs,
and coroners ; nor did the king's writ run in
the palatinates.'* Such being the case, it will
not be surprising to learn that on one occasion
the Earl of Desmond, at the head of nearly ten
thousand men, having the O'Briens for his aUies,
' took the field against the combined septs of
Leinster, the Nolans, O'Morroughs, and O'Demp-
* See Thomas Moore's ' History of Ireland,' voL iii, p. 8.5.

THE ANCIENT EARLDOM OP DESMOND. 303
seys, and, laying waste all their lands, compelled
them to submit and give hostages.'
On another occasion the earl refused to attend
the king's parliament at Dublin, for which he
was arrested and cast into prison, though he was
afterwards set free on giving sureties for his
future fealty. Not very long after the earl,
instead of obeying the royal summons, called
together a rival parliament at Callan ; and in the
long run made his peace with the king so effec
tually that he was appointed Governor or Lieu
tenant of Ireland for life. He survived the
appointment, however, only five months, and,
dying in the castle at Dublin in 1355, was buried
in the church of the Friars Preachers at Tralee,
His son and successor, Gerald, called, from his
skill in verse, ' The Poet,' held the same post
for a short time in 1369, but was killed in an
affray near Limerick,
It was at a castle called Mogealey, the ruins
of which are still to be seen on the banks of the
small river of the Bride, a tributary of the Suir,
that Thomas, the Great Earl of Desmond, resid
ed when at the height of his power. An anec
dote is related which may serve to illustrate th©

304 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS,
rudeness as well as the hospitality of that period
in the South of Ireland, Without consulting his
lord, the steward of the Great Earl invited
numerous chiefs, or petty princes, of Munster,
with their foUowers and retainers, to spend a
month with him at the castle. Crowds accord
ingly flocked to Mogealey, to the surprise and,
it is to be feared, the annoyance also of the
earl, as he was not provided, in larder at least,
for so large a party for so many days. The
steward, meantime, went off on a holiday ; and
this earl, finding that his stores were nearly
exhausted, resolved to save his credit as a host,
even at the cost of his castle itself. So he led
his company out on a hunting expedition into
the neighbouring forests and woods, having
given orders to a trusty servant to set fire to
the castle, and then, when it was burnt, to say
that it was an accident, for such an accident he
knew would be regarded by his visitors as a
notice to quit. Throughout the morning, during
the intervals of the chase, he cast many a long
look at the towers of Mogealey, in the earnest
hope of seeing the flames burst from the top
of his towers. But no such fire arose. The

THE ANCIENT EARLDOM OF DESMOND. 305
earl wondered, as well he might, to find that his
orders were not carried out. On his return homo
iu the evening it was found that meantime his
steward. and seneschal had come back, just in
time to prevent the servants frora firing the
building, and had brought with him ' a large
prey ' of cattle and corn, which he had obtained
by force and threats — enough, at all events, to
keep the earl and his friends in meat for a longer
period than it was intended that their revelry
should last.
From this time to the reign of EUzabeth, the
history of Ireland may be said to be little more
than a record of strife between the house of
Desmond and the house of Fitzgerald, Barons
of Offaley and Earls of Kildare, the heads of the
former being alternately masters of the situation
and then again all but beggars. Thus, for
instance, in the reign of Henry VIIL, we find
the Earl of Desmond, ' the noblest man in all
the realm,' petitioning the king for robes to
wear in Parliament, likewise for apparel for
daily use, 'whereof he had great lack.' St.
Leger himself, who states this fact, had already
given to this once potent earl a gown, a jacket,
VOL. II. X

306 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
a doublet, hose, and other articles of dress, ' for
which he was very thankful, and which he wore
in all places where he accompanied the lord
deputy.' The true reason of the hard straits to
which he was driven to supply himself with such
necessaries is probably to be found in the wast
ing wars in which he had been engaged in sup
porting the cause of the king.
In the hands of Gerald, the sixteenth and
last earl, the possessions of the house of Desmond
had grown to such an excessive size as to be
quite unexampled in the history of the three
kingdoms. They extended for upwards of one
hundred and fifty miles through the counties of
Waterford, Cork, Kerry, and Limerick, and
comprised more than five hundred and seventy
thousand acres, according to the rough estimate
of that period, when ordnance surveys were
unknown. Such a wealthy and powerful subject was a
standing menace to the royal crown of the
Tudors, and it did not need much provocation
for Elizabeth to suppresahim and his house with
a high hand. That royal personage seldom
used half measures; and where she laid: hpr

THE ANCIENT EARLDOM OF DESMOND. 307
band the blow was sure to be a heavy one.
How heavy we may learn from Baker's
¦Chronicle, who tells the tale of the fall of the
Desmonds with affecting simplicity. ' Desmond
possessed whole counties, together with the
county palatine of Kerry (Cork), and had of his
own name and race at least five hundred gentle
men at his command, all of whom, and his own
life also, he lost within the space of three years,
very few of his house being left alive.'
Appearing in arms against Elizabeth, early in
1578, on one of the mountains of Cork, he pro
ceeded to attack Youghal, which he captured.
Some Spanish troops had been landed in the
south to aid the Roman Catholic cause, the
country having been offered by Pope Gregory
XIII. to Philip of Spain ; and with these forces
Desmond proceeded to garrison some of his
many castles. This rebellion caused a long and
'tedious warfare, by which Munster was largely
desolated, and the Earl of Desmond was re
duced to so low an ebb that he, his countess,
and the Papal Legate were glad to escape with
their lives from the Queen's troops. Pursued
from one retreat to another,, he was forced,
x2

308 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
after several narrow escapes, to ' keep his
Christmas in 1582 in a wood near Kilmallock.'
Being attacked here, his followers were all put
to the sword, and he and his countess escaped
only by remaining under the bank of a river up
to their chins in the cold water. About the
middle of the following year his chief force,
reduced by disease and death to about fifty in
all, was surprised in the act of boiling down
horseflesh by a party from Kilmallock, when
half of them were slain.
The last scene of the earl's life, however, was
the most tragical of all. His necessities having
driven him to take some cattle belonging to a
poor woman, he was closely pursued by some
English musketeers, who, on entering at night
a grove in a lonely and mountainous glen near
Tralee, found, seated round a hovel, four or
five of Desmond's most faithful followers, who,
however, fled on their entrance, leaving behind
them one venerable and powerless old man.
A soldier aimed at him one blow with his
sword, and wounded him in the arm, so that
the blood fiowed freely. On his repeating the
blow, the old man cried out, ' Spare me ; I am

THE ANCIENT EARLDOM OF DESMOND. 309
the Earl of Desmond.' The appeal, however,
was made in vain ; for the soldier at once struck
off his head, and Sent it to the Earl of Ormond,
who ' pickled it in a pipkin,' and packed it off
to England, where it was exposed, as usual with
the heads of traitors, on London Bridge. The
headless body of the once formidable Lord —
I had almost written Prince — of Desmond was
consigned to an obscure and nameless grave in
the little chapel of Killnamana, in the county
' of Kerry.
The poet Spenser, who writes as an eye-
¦^itness of the scenes, thus describes the effects
of civil warfare in the south of that green
island for which Nature has done so much, and
which man has so cruelly marred : ' Any heart
would rue the sight. Out of every corner of
the woods and glynns (glens) they (the people
of Munster) came creeping forth upon their
hands, for their legs could not bear them ; they
looked like anatomies of death. They spake
like ghosts crying out of their graves ; they did
eat the dead carrions, happy when they could
find them ; yea, and one another soon after,
insomuch as the very carcases they spared not

310 CHAPTERS PROM FAMILY CHESTS.
to scrape out of their graves ; and, if they found.
a plot of watercresses or shamrocks, there they
flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able
to continue there withal ; so that in a short time
there was none almost left, and a most populous
and plentiful country suddenly became void of
man and beast.'
After the attainder of Desmond his huge
estates were forfeited, and distributed piecemeal
among various favourites of the English sove
reign, and especially among those adventurers
who had chosen to settle in Ireland under the
protection of the English banner. Upwards of
six thousand acres were given by Elizabeth to
the Hydes ; and Kilcoleman Castle, as is known
to every reader of history, in like manner was
presented to Edmund Spenser, the author of
the ' Fairy Queen.' Other and larger tracts of
broad lands were given to the Boyles, the St.
Legers, the Fitzmaurices, the Fitzgeralds, etc.,
and many of these stiU remain in the hands of
their descendants.
As for the earldom, it was revived as a title,
without the estates, in the noble family of
Preston, but became extinct after two genera-

THE ANCIENT EARLDOM OP DESMOND. 311
tions. It was again granted, however, by
Charies I. to a younger son of the house of
Feilding ; and its head, the present Earl of
Denbigh, is also ' Earl of Desmond in the king
dom of Ireland.' But it is an empty title, and
nothing more. His lordship owns not an acre
of the vast possessions of that gaUant earl whose
death and forfeiture was really a greater event
in the history of the ' sister kingdom ' than the
absorption of many a petty dukedom and
princedom in the empire of Germany has
proved to be in the history of modern Europe.

312

THE GALLANT SIR JOHN CHANDOS.
Of all the Norman families who have made
their home in this realm of England, few can
boast of a more noble descent, or a more
worthy ancestor than the house of Chandos.
According to Sir Bernard Burke and the heralds,
the founder of the house was one Robert de
Chandos, or Chandois, who came over to this
country from Normandy, and who proved a
great benefactor to the Church in the West of
England. The family was for three centuries of
knightly rank in Herefordshire ; and there is still
to be seen in the parish of Much Marcle, near
Hereford, the place which is the traditional
home of this brave and intrepid race.
But of all the members of the Chandos family
not one bears a more honoured name than Sir
John Chandos, one of the leaders of the Eng-

THE GALLANT SIR JOHN CHANDOS. 313
lish army in those wars Avith France which were
finally settled, for a time at least, by our vic
tories at Crecy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, in the
middle of the fourteenth century. In several
of these battles Sir John Chandos took a lead
ing part, and in one of them he lost his life,
fighting for king and country, thus showing
himself no unworthy descendant of Sir Robert
Chandos, the companion-in-arms of WUliam the
Conqueror, who, when his brother chieftains
began to enlarge their grants by invading
Wales, contrived, by the aid of his good sword
and stout arm, to carve out for himself a
property in Monmouthshire, along the banks of
^the Usk, round about Carleon. Several of
this Sir Robert's descendants, it may be stated
here, proved men of note in their day, and from
time to time became sheriffs of Herefordshire,
and constables of the Castle of Hereford.
John Chandos, though young in years, hftd
already gained renown at the great naval battle
of Sluys, OD St. John Baptist's Day, 1340, when
Edward III. whoUy defeated and disabled the
fleet of France. Some six years later, having
become one of the king's chief counsellors, he

314 CHAPTERS FROM FAMILY CHESTS.
was entrusted with the education of Edward,
Prince of Wales, well known to history as
the ' Black Prince,' so-called from the colour of
his armour, which is still preserved in the Tower
of London. The Black Prince fought under
him and by his side at Crecy ; and the tutor
and governor of the young hero was made one
of the first knights of the Order of the Garter
at Windsor. The honour was well deserved,
for, as Froissart says, Chandos ' was one of the
best knights in England for wisdom, strength,
fortune, high emprise, and good counsel.'
From this time he was hardly ever separated
from the Black Prince, and the experience of
the master, writes Mr. D. M. Smith, in his ' Tales
of Chivalry and Romance,' contributed princi
pally to the glory of the pupil. The success of
the battle of Poictiers, for example, is to be
attributed chiefly to Chandos, who, on seeing
the French cavalry in disorder, cried out, ' Sire,
charge, and the day is yours,' After the battle
Sir John Chandos, like a true knight, was most
active in enforcing the duty of mercy and
courtesy towards the vanquished.
Having accompanied the Black Prince to Lon
don, where he was received with all marks of hon-

THE GALLANT SIR JOHN CHANDOS, SIS'
our and triumph. Sir John returned to France to
take part in the war then being waged in Bre-
tagne by the EngUsh under the Duke of Lancas
ter, as the earl was now called, for the ducal title
had but recently been introduced into England,.
It was during this campaign that Chandos first
met the most briUiant leader of France, Bernard
du Guesclin, These men showed themselves-
not only the most generous, but the most court
ly of adversaries, rivals in magnanimity as well
as in miUtary renown. The occasion of their
first meeting is said to have been the illegal
capture of Du Guesclin's brother Oliver, during-
a season of truce, by an English knight. At
this time the English were besieging the town
of Dinan, which was defended by the French
under Bertrand du Guesclin, ' It must, there
fore,' writes Mr, Smith, 'have somewhat startled
the lords and chief officers of the English camp'
to see the leader of their enemies coming in
amongst them, trusting only to their honour
and to the courteous usages of knighthood,'
The French knight demanded satisfaction for
the wrong done; the EngUsh knight had to
, enter the lists with Du Guesclin, and was beaten;,
and the EngUsh soon after raised the siege.

-316 CHAPTERS FROM PAMILY CHESTS.
In the next year, Chandos was named, along
with Sir Walter Manny and the Dukes of Lan-
•caster and Warwick, to represent the King of
England at a conference for bringing about
peace between the two kingdoms; and so
pleased was Edward with his brave warrior
and counsellor, that he made him Constable
of Aquitaine and Lieutenant-General of all the
EngUsh possessions in France, at the same time
bestowing on him the viscountcy of St, Sau-
veur, in Cotentin, with a fair estate.
At the battle of Auray he took prisoner his
old foe and rival Du GuescUn, But the Black
Prince was so elated with his successes that
he began to act harshly and tyrannically in
Aquitaine, In vain did his old tutor remonstrate
with him ; the Black Prince, like raany another
young man before and after him, would not
listen to the counsels of experience, AlLGas-
¦coigne was soon up in arms against the EngUsh,
and the Gascons applied openly to the French
king for aid in resisting the tyranny and extor
tions of the enemy. When it was too late, the
Prince saw his mistake ; the tragedy was work
ing towards its gloomy conclusion. On the last
night of the year 1370, Sir John Chandos, as

THE GALLANT SIR JOHN CHANDOS, 317"
General of the Forces in Poictou, sent forth a
summons to all the barons and knights of the
province to meet him at Poictiers on a second
expedition, Three hundred knights, among
was Sir Thomas Percy, answered to his call.,
He led them out, not telling them their destina
tion; but at midnight they found themselves
beneath the walls of St. Sal vain, with orders-
to mount their ladders, and scale the walls.
But it was not to be. The night passed away,
and in the morning it was found that the French
had taken the field, and were near Poictiers.
At once Sir John Chandos resolved to encounter
them, though his forces were few and ill-pro
vided with food and arms. Unhappily, Sir John
Chandos, though on horseback, wore a long,
flowing robe, and, slipping on the miry ground,.
got his feet entangled in it. At that moment a
French knight poised his lance, and thrust it
into the face and neck of the English knight,
who fell mortally wounded. The victory seemed
to be at first for the French ; but Sir John Chan
dos Uved just long enough to see the English
forces regain the ' well-foughten ' field ; and he
breathed his last almost at the moment of
victoiy.

.318 CHAPTERS PROM PAMILY CHESTS,
When the body of the EngUsh lord was found,
and recovered from among the heaps of the
slain, there was great mourning in the camp.
The knights and barons of Poictou were grieved
at heart. ' Flower of knighthood and of bravery,'
they cried; 'Sir John Chandos, cursed was the
forging of the lance that wounded thee, and
which has cost us thy life.' Then they stripped
his armour off him gently and reverently, and,
laying his body on their shields, they bore him
to the nearest fortress. But it was all too late.
The English mourned their general ; but no one
grieved for his loss more deeply than the Black
Prince himself, whose folly and rashness had
cost the King so great a hero. And well might
he grieve, for amongst all his comrades-in-arms,
though he found many brave heroes and many
-sage counsellors, he never again found one who
was the equal of Chandos, in both the tent and
the field — ' Brave hand in the foray.
Sage counsel in cumber.'
THE END.

LONDON : PRINTEt) BY DUNOAK MAODONALD, BLBNHRIM QOOSE.

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