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TALES

OUR GREAT FAMILIES.

VOL. II.

TALES

OUR GREAT FAMILIES.

BY
EDWARD WALFOED, M.A.,
AND LATE SCHOLAR OE BALLIOL COLI., OXPOBD.
AUTHOB OP
"THE COUNTY FAMILIES,"
&c. &0.
Sbztavto Series.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13, GKEAT MAKLBOROUGrH STREET.
1880.
All rights reserved.

CONTENTS

THE SECOND VOLUME.

The Romance of the Eabldom of Huntingdon
Lady Hester Stanhope
The Countess of Nithsdale .
The Romance of the Eabldom of Mab
Mabgabet, Duchess of Newcastle
LOBD NoBTHINGTON
The Cutlebs of Wentwobth .
The Eabldom of Bbidgewateb
The Caeews of Beddington .
A Chaptee on the Peeeage .
The Kibkpateicks of Closebuen
The Cliffoeds, Eaels of Cumberland
The Homes of Polwarth
The Ducal House of Bedfobd
Tragedies of the House of Innes

Page 1
28
53 75
91
115 127
130 142
154 176
183 193
211 225

VI CONTENTS. Page
The Ducal House of Leinsteb . . . 237
The Royal House of Stuabt . . . 256
The Gbeat Douglas Case .... 270
The Radoliffes of Deewbntwateb . . . 285
The Rise of the House of Haedwicke . . 302
Field-Mabshal Keith ..... 312

TALES

OUR GREAT FAMILIES.

Second Series.

THE ROMANCE OF THE EARLDOM OF
HUNTINGDON.

FEW of our English families are more ancient
or more illustrious in history than that of
Hastings, and none have to boast of a more
romantic chapter of their records, if romance
consists in a strange blending together of the
" ups and downs" of life. The house of Hastings
was not only noble by descent under our Norman
kings, but " distinguished during several reigns
as much for wisdom in the Cabinet and incor
ruptible loyalty as for bravery in the field." Its
founder, if we may trust a statement in Blome-
VOL. n. b

2 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMTLIES.
field's " History of Norfolk," derived his name
from that fair Cinque Port on the Sussex Coast,
near which was fought the bloody battle which
transferred the English Crown from the brows of
Harold to those of William the Norman. He
appears to have been steward to the Conqueror,
and Portreve of Hastings, the tolls and duties of
which place he farmed, no doubt to his profit.
This office descended to his son, who held also
the Manor of Ashill in Norfolk, by the tenure of
" great serjeantry," being bound to take charge
of the "naperie," or table linen, at the coronation
of the English sovereign. Another of the family,
Hugh de Hastings, steward to Henry I., by a
fortunate marriage with the heiress of the Flam-
villes, or Flamvyles, obtained many broad acres
in the counties of Leicester, Norfolk, and Suf
folk; and we find his son, William, acting as
steward to Henry II., and also to the Abbey of
St. Edmund's Bury, and marrying a daughter of
the powerful Earl of Eu. In the next two or
three generations, the successive heads of the
house allied themselves in marriage with the
Bigods, and other great territorial Lords ; till
Henry, Lord of Hastings, early in the thirteenth
century, put the coping stone on the family for
tunes by marrying Ada, daughter of David, Earl
of Huntingdon, and sister of John le Scot, Earl of

THE EARLDOM OF HUNTINGDON. 3
Chester. His only son was knighted by Simon
de Mountfort; and, adhering to that nobleman
and the other insurgent Barons who took the
field against Henry III., was appointed Governor
of the Castles of Scarborough, Winchester, and
Kenilworth, and married the heiress of Cante-
lupe, Baron of Bergavenny. His eldest son,
John de Hastings, Seneschal of Aquitaine, in the
eighteenth of Edward I. became one of the com
petitors for the Scottish crown in right of his
grandmother Ada, whom I have mentioned above,
and who was also niece of Malcolm IV. and Wil
liam the Lion, successively Kings of Scotland.
He married the sister of another influential noble
(the Earl of Pembroke), and was summoned to
Parliament among the greater Barons of the
kingdom by Edward II. In the next reign (that
of Edward III.) the dignity of the family was
increased by the bestowal upon its chief of the
Earldom of Pembroke, which title remained in
the family for three generations. The second
Earl of Pembroke was buried in the Church of
the Grey Friars in London. He had served with
distinction in the wars of France, where he was
made prisoner; and heralds record of him that
he was " the first English subject who imitated
Edward III. in the quartering of his arms, as
may be seen in his escutcheon on the north side
B 2

4 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
of that monarch's tomb in Westminster Abbey."
The last of the three Earls of Pembroke, having
married a daughter of Mortimer, Earl of March,
met with his death by an accidental stroke from
his rival's lance in a tournament at the royal
Court at Woodstock.
The male line of the elder branch being thus
brought suddenly to an end, the headship of the
House of Hastings passed to a younger line, the
history of which, though traced generation after
generation by the officers of the " College of
Arms," it would be tedious and profitless to re
cord here in detail. Enough to say that Sir
Ralph de Hastings, who succeeded to the repre
sentation of the family, and fell at the Battle of
Nevill's Cross, near Durham, in 1346, when
David Bruce, King of Scotland, was taken pri
soner, was the direct ancestor of William, Lord
Hastings, one of the most loyal, able, and gal
lant officers under Richard Plantagenet, Duke of
York, and his son Edward IV. He was made
Lord Chamberlain of the Royal Household, a
Knight of the Order of the Garter, Steward of
the Houses, and Constable and Warder of the
Castle and Parks there, and finally was created
Lord Hastings of Ashby de la Zouch. The long
contest between the rival houses of York and
Lancaster gave Lord Hastings every opportunity

THE EARLDOM OF HUNTINGDON. 5
for showing his zeal in the cause of his royal
master, whom he accompanied in his flight, when
driven to bay by the Earl of Warwick to the
coast of Holland. Effecting his return to Eng
land, as every reader of English history knows,
the King gave battle to Lord Warwick and the
other adherents of the rival cause, whom he
routed at the Battle of Barnet, and again soon
after at Tewkesbury, where it is to be added,
not without regret, that he had a hand in the
death of the young Prince Edward, who had
been made a prisoner along with his mother Mar
garet. Lord Hastings in the end fell a victim to the
Protector Gloucester, afterwards Richard III.,
by whom he was beheaded in the Tower of Lon
don, his estates being at the same time confis
cated. These, however, were restored by Henry
VIII. to his son, the second Lord, who strength
ened his position at Court by a marriage with
the heiress of the Hungerfords. The third Baron,
having attended King Henry VIII. at the capture
of Tournay, was raised in 1529 to the Earldom
of Huntingdon, a title which descended from sire
to son for just two centuries and a half, when
Francis, the tenth Earl, who had carried the
Sword of State at the coronation of George III.,
was gathered to his fathers, his sister carrying

6 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
the ancient Baronies of Hungerford, &c, into
the family of Rawdon, afterwards Earls of Moira,
the head of whom, inheriting the proud Castle of
Donnington, was created Marquis of Hastings
it being taken for granted — somewhat rashly, a
we shall see presently — that the Earldom of
Huntingdon had become extinct. How this hap
pened, and how the title, after an eclipse of
nearly thirty years, was revived, I will now pro
ceed to explain.
The process will prove but another instance of
the old saying, that truth is sometimes stranger
than fiction.
In order to follow this process, I must ask my
readers to transport themselves mentally with me
to the small county town of Enniskillen, in the
north of Ireland, where, in the year 1817, a cer
tain Captain Hans Francis Hastings is acting as
barrack-master, on a small salary, a post to which
he has been appointed by the interest of his
kinsman, the then Marquis of Hastings, Governor-
General of India.
In the spring of the year a story was rife about
Enniskillen that a serious quarrel had occurred
between Captain Hastings and a nobleman who re
sided in that neighbourhood, and at whose house
the captain had often been a guest. It was said
that Lord Erne had taken great offence at a liberty

THE EARLDOM OF HUNTINGDON. 7
which the Captain had taken in hunting down,
without his permission, a favourite fox belonging
to his lordship, who had used such abusive lan
guage on the subject that the Captain, according
to the ideas prevalent at that time, thought he
could not do otherwise than " demand satisfac
tion." A meeting, however, was refused by the
nobleman, on the ground of his opponent not
being his equal in rank. To this taunt the
Captain replied that he considered himself equal,
and even superior, to the nobleman in the matter
of family descent, as he was the eldest lineal male
descendant of the noble House of Hastings, and
as such legally entitled to the Earldom of Hunt
ingdon, though there might be difficulties in the
way of his assuming the honour. On this an
nouncement being made, a time and place for a
meeting were arranged ; but a hostile encounter
was in the end happily prevented by some friends,
who intervened and effected a reconciliation. The
Captain, it should be stated here, disclaimed the
truth of this story of the fox and the pistols,
when questioned about it by one of his friends,
Mr. Henry Nugent Bell, then a student at the
Inner Temple. Mr. Bell, however, became so
interested in the question of the rightful heirship
of the Earldom of Huntingdon, that he resolved

8 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMU-IES.
to sift the matter to the bottom. With this view
he questioned his friend, Captain Hastings, as to
whether he had at any time seriously entertained
the idea of taking the necessary steps towards
claiming the title. The Captain said that he knew
but little of his family history or connections, in
consequence of having been sent to sea early in life,
and having spent so long a time on foreign service ;
but that his uncle, the Rev. Theophilus Hastings,
rector of Leake, in Leicestershire, on whose word
he placed great reliance, had often told him that
he, the Captain, was, next to himself, the right
ful heir to the Earldom of Huntingdon. Feeling,
however, that there might be a doubt on the sub
ject, and that any prosecution of the claim might
end only in a fiasco and in ruinous expense, he
endeavoured to dissuade his friend from taking
up the matter seriously. Mr. Bell, however, did
not agree with this laisser dller view ; and in the
end gained the consent of Captain Hastings, Mr.
Bell promising to bear the expenses incurred in
case he should fail in his claim ; while Captain
Hastings, on his side, agreed to pay all costs in
case his friend should be successful in proving
him the legal heir to the Earldom.
Mr. Bell accordingly first laid the case before his
friend, a Mr. Jameson, at that time the " father"
of the north-west Bar of Ireland, who advised a

THE EARLDOM OF HUNTINGDON. 9
further investigation of the family records and
other papers. Upon this Mr. Bell resolved to
make a visit to Leicester, and to turn over and
search all the old registers, tombstones, and other
documents which he could hear of as bearing in
any way on the Hastings family.
The story of the search made by Mr. Bell is
certainly romantic, and amusing enough ; but we
have not space to go minutely into every adven
ture as told by Mr. Bell. Difficulties of any kind
were, with him, but an incentive to further search,
and a day's drenching on the outside of a coach
was borne by him with equanimity. Leaving
Dublin in August, 1817, he reached Ashby-de-la-
Zouch ; thence he set out next day for Castle
Donnington, where he hoped to obtain assistance
in his search from a solicitor of that place, who
took an interest in the Captain's family. But in
this he was disappointed ; for he obtained from
him only a little greasy old bit of paper, which
did not much enlighten him. The landlord of the
inn, however, advised him to go over to the village
of Belton, about six miles distant, and to see a
poor gentleman (by name Needham) who lived
there, and who was believed to have in his veins
a drop of the blood of the Plantagenets, and to
be a relation of the Hastings family ; adding that
he would learn from him more in an hour than

10 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILLES.
he would probably extract in a year from the old
lawyer. Thither accordingly he walked the next
morning, having first had an interview with a
certain Squire Toone, who had been an old friend
of the deceased Colonel George Hastings. From
him they learned that Theophilus Hastings, the
rector of Belton, had generally been considered,
in and after the lifetime of the late Earl, to have
a right to the title ; but that the clergyman was
too old, and his brother the Colonel too ill, to
undertake the proofs of any present or future
claim with a chance of success. He spoke, how
ever, familiarly of Frank Hastings— the same
whose claim Mr. Bell had come to investigate —
as the " present Earl." Next, from a Mr. Need-
ham, who was working on his small farm, he
managed to extract the particulars of the Colonel's
birth and education, the sad misfortune which had
shattered his mind, his claims to the succession,
and the particulars of his death. He took Mr.
Bell to the grave of the Colonel in the church
yard, telling him how he was present when the
Colonel, in a fit of insanity, burned the papers
which had been left in his care by Selina Countess
of Huntingdon ; that the Colonel's father was
Henry Hastings, of Lutterworth, who was a son
of a Richard Hastings, of the same place ; but
that he could go no higher up in the pedigree,

THE EARLDOM OF HUNTINGDON. 11
nor tell where the last-named Hastings was
buried. From one Tobias Smith, who came up
at the time, and who had been a faithful servant
of the Colonel for some thirty years before hi
death, Mr. Bell gained further important infor
mation ; for he could tell him where the Captain,
and his brother and sisters, were born, and
the maiden names of their mother and grand
mother. He knew all about the papers which had been
given to his master by the Countess Selina,
mother of the late Earl, and he also was present
when the colonel burned them. He also remem
bered the investigation made by her ladyship into
the Colonel's pedigree, when his marriage with
her daughter, Lady Selina, was arranged, and
the sad and sudden death of that young lady, in
consequence of a fright during a thunderstorm,
a few days before her intended marriage to
Colonel Hastings himself.
Prosecuting their inquiries about their client's
claim to be Earl of Huntingdon, Mr. Bell and
Mr. Jameson did not gain much information from
one Dr. Prior, of Ashby-de-la-Zouch, although
Hans Francis Hastings had been the schoolfellow
and companion of his youth ; but this might haye
been due to the doctor's intimacy with Sir C.
Hastings, of Willesley Hall. The vicar of

12 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMHJES.
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, however, showed them the
parish registers, and even offered to assist their
search ; but this was said in a tone which seemed
rather to savour of a joke. Their extracts made,
the indefatigable pair went on to Lutterworth,
and copied all entries in the registry there which
in any way concerned the Huntingdon family.
A village patriarch whom they met in this church
yard remembered the Captain's grandfather, and
that he was usually called "Lord" Hastings in
the latter years of his life, everyone believing
that he was heir to the title and estates of Earl
Francis. Proceeding to Welford, they found the grave
of Captain Hastings' great-grandfather, and the
register of his interment. Thence they went on
to Leicester, from which city Mr. Bell proceeded
alone to Loughborongh, to get the registry of the
bnrial of Henry Hastings. This he received
from the rector; while the octogenarian clerk
added that he remembered the gentleman's funeral,
that he was popularly called " fat Harry,"
and that his coffin was " all covered over with
finery, and big enough for two ordinary-sized
corpses to lie comfortably in it till the day of
judgment." Leaving Loughborough, the man of law, who
was now working con amore, took his seat in a

THE EARLDOM OF HUNTINGDON. 13
coach to return to Leicester, feeling anxious and
heavy at heart ; for, though he had been tolerably
successful up to the present time, very much yet
lay unexplained. After pumping his three fellow-
travellers, and finding each unable or unwilling
to furnish any information, he climbed to the
coach top, only to meet with an equal want of
success. The vista before him seemed full of
disappointment and failure, and hope was begin
ning to fade away, when he descried an aged
dame jogging along in a market-cart in front of
the coach. As he overtook the humble vehicle,
Mr. Bell, with a skill that would have put even
Lavater to the blush, marked the old lady as one
with whom it would repay him to converse.
Seeing an empty chair in the cart, the passenger
on the coach top addressed the driver as " dear
mother," and, with a legal fiction, poured forth a
protestation that the sun and the jolting of the
coach had put him into a fever, which would
surely increase unless she of her charity would let
him occupy the seat by her side as long as their
journey lay in the same road.
Turning up her spectacles, the old lady gazed
with surprise at the person who thus addressed
her, but replied benignantly, " My dear son, this
old chair is perfectly at your service if you will
deign to accept its support, and I wish with

14 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
all my heart the change may be of use to
you." In another instant the coach would have carried
the physiognomist far in advance of the lowly
vehicle ; so, quite reckless of the danger, Mr. Bell
leapt at once into the market-cart, but landed on
it with such a shock that it was a wonder the
bottom of the cart did not break ; a reactionary
jerk, however, sent this impetuous comer over its
side. Scrambling to his feet again, and shaking
off some of his coating of dust, Mr. Bell re-entered
the cart, seated himself in the arm-chair, making
profuse apologies for his impetuosity ; and, after
some desultory chat, asked his companion if
Leicester was not the country of the Earls of
Huntingdon? This question instantly loosed
his companion's tongue; and, after bewailing the
misfortunes of that illustrious house, she pro
ceeded to narrate that at the age of fourteen, and,
when considered by the country folks a very
pretty girl, she had been engaged by Lady Ann
Hastings as a maid ; but after two months had
been transferred by that lady to the service of
her niece, the young Lady Selina, second daughter
of " the Lady Huntingdon who built the chapels ;"
and that her new young mistress, whom she
idolised, became very much attached to her.
Before Lady Selina was twenty she was con-

THE EARLDOM OF HUNTINGDON. 15
sidered a beauty, and expected to make a grand
match ; but her affections were already fixed upon
her cousin, the father of Mr. Bell's client, who
had been brought up at Donnington Park. With
naive simplicity, the good woman confessed that
she too had shared the feelings of her mistress,
and loved the handsome young soldier, who was
too honourable to give her any encouragement,
though ever after, by her own account, he was to
her almost as a brother. When the question of
his marriage with Lady Selina arose, the steward
was sent with a lawyer all over the country to
hunt up the Colonel's pedigree.
This excited Mr. Bell's interest in the highest
degree, and he asked where they gleaned their
knowledge. The old lady named many places
where he afterwards obtained information abso
lutely essential to his success, but to which he
never would have thought of going had he not
taken his drive in the cart. But we must not
forget that our concern is with the previous
generation of the Hastings family ; so revenons a
nos moutons. On the steward's return, he proved
beyond dispute that the Reverend Theophilus
Hastings, the Colonel's brother, was heir to the
title of Huntingdon, supposing that the Earl
should die without heirs male, and that after him
the succession would fall to the young Colonel.

16 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
So the marriage was agreed to, and the old
woman declared she pretended to be delighted,
though at first it was a sore trouble to her. This
marriage, however, never actually took place, and
this is how it came about. One afternoon a
fearful storm came on, immediately after the
young man had come in from shooting, and,
while he was congratulating himself on his good
fortune, he saw that his affianced bride turned
pale and sick. Her maid, the narrator, ran for
restoratives, and then called for assistance, but
before any could arrive the lovely lady was a
corpse. Deep distress fell upon the household at Don-
nington Park, but the Colonel seemed stunned.
He knew nobody, would scarcely taste a morsel
of food, and wasted to a shadow. Health and
reason had sustained a shock, which probably
caused his madness a few years afterwards.
Then the Earl of Huntingdon went abroad ; Mr.
Bell's companion married ; and in the course of
years the Colonel found himself a wife, who bore
him four sons, all of whom (the old lady said)
were dead, the eldest having died when a child of
six, the second and third of yellow fever in the
West Indies, and the youngest, she added, was
drowned at the Cove of Cork.
Having heard all her story, Mr. Bell now as-

THE EARLDOM OF HUNTINGDON. 17
sured the good woman that in one matter she
was mistaken, for that the young man announced
to be drowned in Cork harbour was alive and
happy, and that it was by no means improbable
that he would soon turn up and become Earl of
Huntingdon. At this news her joy was so ex
cessive that she fairly hugged her companion,
who immediately afterwards dismounted from
the rustic vehicle at the Three Cranes Inn in
Leicester, where his friend Jameson was anxiously
awaiting him and dinner.
Though Mr. Bell must have been tired by his
day's work, he could not rest. The aged and
garrulous dame would naturally, he said, tell her
daughter what had passed ; and from her the
tidings might leak out, and the result be the
removal, or even destruction, of most important
records. So, having dined, he sent for a chaise,
and started in quest of his new acquaintances.
He first drove to a church not far from Leicester,
and, inquiring for the parish clerk, found him in
a hovel as squalid as any inhabited by the Irish
mountaineers. On inquiring for the parish
register, he was told that it could not be seen,
for the parson lived three miles off, and only
came over every Sunday morning.
Then the inquirer begged the clerk to accom
pany him to the church, as he wished to inspect
VOL. II. C

18 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMDLIES.
two or three tombstones in the chancel. The
man stared in amazement, replying : " Pray, Sir,
may I ax what countryman you be '? I am sure
you ben't of our parish, or you would not be in
such a hurry to go to church this time o' the
night." And when Mr. Bell asked why, he re
plied, " One Hastings, Sir, a warrior, in Holiver
Cromwell's time, canters about, on a marble horse
of his, over the gravestones at night. He was
' sequestrified' by the Parliament in those times;
which, they say, sticks in his gizzard to this
hour. Lord bless us ! Sam Caxton told me, not
five days agone, that he rattled one of the tomb
stones you mention into two thousand pieces.
Howsomdever, that was no very hard matter to
do, as it was of a slaty substance."
" But did you examine this stone ?" asked Mr.
Bell. " Ay, that I did, and the fact was so, sure
enough." " Do you know who was buried beneath it?"
again inquired the lawyer.
" No, not I ! but my old father, who has been
clerk here nearly sixty years, perhaps can tell ;
that is, if he remembers anything about it, which
I much doubt, by reason he is so old and deaf."
The visitor asked where the old man lived,
again requesting the clerk to accompany him;

THE EARLDOM OF HUNTINGDON. 19
but this the man declined. He offered the gen
tleman, however, a sort of substitute for a lamp,
and the keys of the church, "if as how he wished
to go a ghost-hunting alone."
So, armed with the keys and a light, the en
terprising visitor went to the church, which stood
a considerable distance from his chaise, while
the driver was taking a nap, and the horses were
quietly eating their corn. The rain fell heavily,
and it was no easy matter to keep the light from
being extinguished. At last he entered the
church, an ancient, rude building, with uncouth
ornaments, and floor covered with matting. The
broken tomb was soon found, and in the corner
of the chancel was a broom and a small heap of
rubbish, which the visitor surmised might have
been part of the tomb. To work, therefore, he
went, sitting on a rush mat, and poked amongst
the rubbish till he had collected all the pieces
composing the inscription. These formed a novel
puzzle. However, he at length succeeded in
taking the exact words of the inscription, toge
ther with a sketch of the whole. Hours mean
while passed, and a storm was raging outside ;
but the nightly visitor to the dead was roused,
at last, by fancying he heard a bell toll. Startled,
he looked around, but all was dark save the
dimly-lighted circle around the lamp. He ga-
c 2

20 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
thered up his papers, closed his book, and was
about rising from his kneeling posture, when he
distinctly felt warm living breath upon his cheek
and hair. Half petrified, Mr. Bell turned round,
expecting to see the Knight of the Marble
Charger in person ; when, lo ! his eyes met the
benevolent gaze of an ass- This animal belonged
to the clerk, and was grazing in the churchyard,
when, seeing the open door and the light, he pro
bably came in to seek shelter from the rain. Mr.
Bell, however, resolved he should pay for giving
him such a fright, and, seizing the broom, laid it
about his back. The donkey turned and kicked,
breaking the rude lamp, and bespattering with
grease his assailant, who then hurried away,
wet and frightened, restored the keys to the
clerk, with a few shillings, and jumped into his
chaise. But he had his reward, for this copy of
the broken tombstone was one of the most im
portant proofs of his client's claim that was
brought into evidence.
Next morning he returned to the church, ac
companied by Mr. Jameson and the parson ; so
they were able to examine the registry, and to
obtain certificates of the entries. Then they
went on to Welford, in Northamptonshire, and
obtained a faithful abstract of the burial of
Richard Hastings, great-grandfather to their

THE EARLDOM OF HUNTINGDON. 21
client ; and thence started for London provided
with materials which, they presumed, were suffi
cient to enable them to state a case for the opi
nion of eminent counsel, though there were still
twenty-four other descendants of the family to
account for.
The results of their searches they proposed to
submit to Sir Samuel Romilly ; but, just at this
same juncture, Mr. Jameson withdrew from the
case, which he deemed could never be successful.
So Mr. Bell went alone to Dorking, where he
was told that the great lawyer was about to leave
Tanhurst at seven next morning. In spite of
the lateness of the hour, therefore, he presented
himself, and was shown into a room, into which
there soon stalked a long gaunt figure, minus
cravat, and with ungartered stockings. But there
was about him a deep, searching look, which
seemed to demand the business of every man ;
and Mr. Bell soon told him what he wanted.
But, when his tale was finished, and the case
presented, with a fee, of course, as an accompa
niment, Sir Samuel put both gently away, say
ing, that he never took cases. This was a crush
ing disappointment; but Mr. Bell pleaded so
hard that Sir Samuel would for once relax his
rule, that, amused and touched, the great man
at last familiarly replied, " Well, Paddy, I will."

22 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
In the course of two days he sent his opinion,
which, happily, was favourable to the claim.
Mr. Bell was then seized with illness, after re
covering from which he returned to Ireland, to
arrange his affairs, and bring his family to Lon
don. Arriving in the metropolis in January, 1818,
the Irish lawyer found that his work was to be
nearly begun over again; for that the Hon.
Henry Hastings, of Woodlands (who had died
a century before), had no fewer than twenty-four
descendants to be accounted for. He accordingly
searched Doctors' Commons, and collected the
wills of one hundred and eighty persons of the
name of Hastings, including some belonging to
the Woodlands family, which were of extreme
importance. But another •difficulty fairly puzzled
the ardent worker : he found mention of a Ferdi-
nando and a Theophilus Hastings, born respect
ively in 1675 and 1677, and also of Ferdinando
and Deborah Hastings of Kennington; but no
thing farther was said about them. Sir Samuel
Romilly declared that, failing the evidence of
their deaths, without heirs male, no Attorney-
General would report that his client was entitled
to the honours he claimed.
Disappointed and thoroughly vexed, the lawyer
turned away; but luckily met his client, and

THE EARLDOM OF HUNTINGDON. 23
accompanied him to consult Mr. Townsend, the
Windsor Herald. This old gentleman took the
gloomiest view of the matter, declaring that the
case must come before the Committee of Privi
leges in the House of Lords, and that many
years, or at any rate Sessions, must pass away
before their Lordships could possibly arrive at a
decision. Mr. Bell contended this was ridiculous,
and affirmed he would bring the business to a
close before nine months had passed— a boast
which, I may here remark, he actually made
good ; for it suddenly occurred to him that some
of the unmarried sisters or daughters of the
Earls of Huntingdon of that date might remem
ber these relatives, and make them a trifling
bequest in their wills, giving, at the same time,
such a description of the recipients as would
insure identity. The idea no sooner entered the
busy brain of Mr. Bell than it was worked out,
and it proved that Lady Elizabeth Hastings,
sister to Theophilus, the ninth Earl, had died
a maiden, and made a will bequeathing a bond
worth one hundred pounds to Ferdinand o Has
tings, of Long-alley, Shoreditch, gentleman, late
of Kennington. A will of this Ferdinando was
then easily discovered, stating that he had one
only child, Deborah, to whom in a codicil he left
the bond " bequeathed to him by Lady Eliza-

24 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
beth Hastings, his relative." Encouraged by
this success, he renewed the search for the will
of Ferdinando's brother Theophilus. It too was
found, and stated that the testator died a bache
lor, bequeathing all his estates to the four chil
dren of his niece Deborah, only child of his
brother Ferdinando.
Almost mad with delight, Mr. Bell flung down
the books, jostled everyone he met, threw him
self into a coach, and ordered the driver to gallop
to Mr. Hans Francis Hastings', or rather Lord
Huntingdon's, residence in Montague Place.
Upstairs he flew into the arms of Mrs. Hastings,
whom he greeted as her Ladyship, claiming at
the same time a salute, which she had promised
the moment he could prove the extinction of the
line of these cadets of the family. All, of course,
was joy and congratulation.
Wednesday, the 2nd of April, was fixed by
the Attorney-General for the first hearing of the
case, and in a few hours the astute lawyer proved
conclusively that his client was the eldest sur
viving lineal male descendant of Sir Edward
Hastings, fourth son of Francis, second Earl of
Huntingdon, and as such the true heir to, and
owner of, the title.
About this time the lawyer called on a Mr.
Samuel Pryor, of Gray's Inn, having learnt that

THE EARLDOM OF HUNTINGDON. 25
a box deposited in his safe keeping contained the
armorial ensigns of the Earls of Huntingdon and
Derby, presented by Francis, the last Earl of
Huntingdon, to the father of the present claim
ant. The chest was produced, and taken into
possession by its rightful owner. On the second
day's pleading Mr. Bell was still not prepared
to prove the extinction of twenty persons of the
House of Hastings of Woodlands ; so the hear
ing was adjourned till the 27th of April.
But when success was almost in view, other
obstacles arose. While he was hunting every
where for traces of the twenty Hastingses of
Woodlands, of whom there was no account, a
tailor of that name, residing in Cheltenham,
claimed the Earldom for himself. Next came a
fishmonger, living in a garret in Chancery Lane ;
and then an Irishman of the name of Hastings,
patronised by the noble Marquis of that title,
who claimed descent from John, third son of
Sir George Hastings, and grandson of the Hon.
Henry Hastings of Woodlands, second son of
George, fourth Earl of Huntingdon. It happened
Mr. Bell had proved that this John died without
inale issue ; so the Attorney- General sent him
off to collect more conclusive proofs. At Christ-
church, in the neighbourhood of the New Forest,
where he arrived in the evening, the clerk pleaded

26 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
in excuse the ghosts that nightly haunted the
church; but Mr. Bell was imperious, and the
haunting demons did not think fit to appear. But
a curate's wife had destroyed the early registers
in order to make kettle-holders ! So not much
information was obtained ; but the Prerogative
Office in Winchester supplied the deficiency, and
on the day appointed the most complete evidence
was brought forward of the death of John Has
tings without issue, and the man claiming the
peerage in right of a supposed descent from that
person did not put in an appearance. The let
ters patent of creation were now required,
in order to show that the title was limited to
heirs male, and for these every place was
searched, till they were at last found enrolled in
the Remembrancer's Office of the Court of Ex
chequer. All the proofs were now complete, and Mr.
Bell drew up a draft of the report, which the
Attorney-General corrected. A fair copy was
then made, and, when signed, was sent to his
Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and by him
forwarded to the Lord Chancellor, Lord Eldon.
His Lordship signified his approbation without
his usual dilatoriness ; and the Prince Regent
thereupon signed his Royal Warrant, empower
ing the officers of the Crown to issue a writ of

THE EARLDOM OF HUNTINGDON. 27
summons to Hans Francis Hastings, commanding
his attendance in the then ensuing Parliament,
to be holden on the 14th of the same month,
" by the style, title, and dignity of Earl of the
County of Huntingdon."
Thus it was that within two years of the fracas
between Captain Hastings and the noble Lord,
his neighbour at Enniskillen, the star of the
Earldom of Huntingdon was brought back out
of the obscurity which had dimmed its lustre for
some thirty years, into the firmament of the
House of Peers — the untitled barrack-master
taking his seat as third upon the roll of Earls in
the Peerage of England, next after their Lord
ships of Shrewsbury and Derby. And although
in this case the broad acres which had belonged
to the Earls of Huntingdon had passed by mar
riage into another family, and could not be re
covered, yet, so far as the coronet was concerned,
the words of the old Scottish crone in " Guy
Mannering" were realised :
" And Bertram's right and Bertram's might
Shall meet on Ellangowan height."

-28

LADY HESTER STANHOPE.

" "pvIED, at her villa of Dar Jun, on Mount
I / Lebanon, eight miles from Sidon, in Syria,
June 23rd, 1839, at the age of sixty-three, the
Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope, half-sister to Earl
Stanhope. This clever but eccentric woman was
born on the 12th of March, 1776, the eldest
daughter of Charles, third Earl Stanhope, and
granddaughter, maternally, of the great Earl of
Chatham." So writes " Sylvanus Urban" in the
" Gentleman's Magazine." This lady's wild and
eccentric career may well furnish the materials
for one of these sketches, for in romantic incident
and interest it does not yield to those of other
English ladies of rank and family who have
willingly said farewell to the refinements and
civilisation of the West, and have taken up their
home in the wild freedom of a nomadic life in

LADY HESTER STANHOPE. 29
the deserts of the far-distant East — such as Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu in the last century, and
Lady Ellenborough in our own days. In fact,
the story of her life is the most conspicuous
instance of the voluntary adoption of a semi-
barbarous existence which the modern world has
seen. Little more than seventy years ago, the
niece of Pitt, she was the favourite companion ot
his leisure hours in Downing Street, and acted
constantly as his amanuensis and secretary. In
1806, when her uncle lay dying of a broken
heart in the villa which he had hired on Putney
Heath, his accomplished niece brought to his bed
side the war map of Austerlitz, and unfolded it
before his eyes, which were fast sinking into
their last long rest. " Roll up the map, Hester
dear," said the Minister, " and fetch me my will."
What provision he made for her future mainten
ance I know not, and we need not care to inquire ;
but it certainly would have added one more pang
to his death if he could have looked forward
little more than thirty years through the vista of
time, and foreseen her dying almost a pauper,
among faithless and heartless strangers, under
the roof of a tumble-down monastery among
the cedar-clad heights and defiles of Mount
Lebanon. Lady Hester, it would seem, inherited a large

30 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
share of eccentricity from both the Pitts and the
Stanhopes. On her mother's side she was the
cousin of the wild Lord Camelford ; and her
father, Lord Stanhope, was perhaps the oddest
member of the House of Lords in his day.
Smitten with an admiration of the " liberty,
equality, and fraternity" which he had seen in
France, he ordered his coat of arms, crest, sup
porters, and all, to be blotted out of the panels
of his carriage. He was whimsical also to a
degree in his habits of life, for he would sit down
on the floor to a breakfast of dry bread and a
little tea, and sleep in the same place under a
pile of ten or a dozen blankets, winter and sum
mer alike. His precocious little daughter Hester,
it is said, resolved to rebuke in her father the
pride which aped humility, for she ordered
a pair of stilts, on which his lordship met her in
a lane near his seat in Somerset. " What
on earth are you doing, Hester?" was his excla
mation. " Oh, papa, as you have got rid of your
carriage, I thought stilts the best way to travel
through the mud." The carriage was brought
back, but the armorial bearings were not repainted.
Hester had very little education as a child ; the
chief end and object of the foreign governesses
to whom she was handed over by her grandmother
for instruction being apparently to mould her

LADY HESTER STANHOPE. 31
shape by the use of back-boards, on which they
made her recline. " How I hated those wretches !"
Lady Hester would say in after-life; "they
would have squeezed me, if it had been possible,
into a tiny miss." From this it may be seen
that she was proud of her tall figure and erect
bearing ; but the chief point in her body of which
she was proud was her foot and instep, and she
would boast that a kitten could walk under the
arch of the sole of her foot. This, in her esti
mate, was not only a proof of high birth, but an
earnest of future fame. Not having read much
of history, she made up her mind that it was a
tissue of lies, and was a study quite unworthy
of her attention. But, without books, she con
trived to gain a good deal of stray knowledge,
in spite of the efforts of her French and Swiss
governesses to " keep her in leading strings."
Lady Hester, in her uncle's lifetime, was
young, rich, and gifted with a fair share of
beauty. She was tall and handsome, and is said
to have inherited no small share of the dignity
of her illustrious grandfather. She presided at
Pitt's bachelor table, and did the honours of
Downing Street to foreign potentates and the
most illustrious of English nobles with a style
peculiarly her own. Nor was she insensible to the
admiration which she inspired. "Men who were

32 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
no fools," she writes, " declared that I might well
be proud of the alabaster whiteness of my neck,
rivalling that of any. pearl necklace," which led
Beau Brummell |to exclaim, " For Heaven's sake
take off those [eai'rings, that we may see what is
beneath them." The chivalrous old admiral, Sir
Sydney Smith, was, if possible, even more en
thusiastic in her praise ; for,thus he describes her
entrance into the salon at one of Pitt's political
gatherings in Downing Street. " She entered the
room dressed in a pale skirt, exciting admiration
by her magnificent and majestic figure. The
roses and the lilies were blended in her face, and
the ineffable smiles of her countenance diffused
happiness around her." And even the plain and
prosaic King George III. gave elegant testimony
to her intellectual merits; for he said to Mr.
Pitt that he had less reason to be proud of his
position as First Minister of State than of having
a niece who " united in herself all that was great
and good in man or woman either." And yet,
wittily observes Dr. Russell, this lady, who com
prised in herself such virtues, was, according to
her own confession, " a mischievous mimic, as
fierce and as proud as the devil." Still, however
fierce and proud she could be at times, she had
plenty of good sense and business habits, and
a very large share of the Treasury patronage

LADY HESTER STANHOPE. 33
must have passed, more or less directly and con
stantly, through her hands. Her wit and esprit
attracted to her side all the cleverest men and
some of the cleverest women in Europe. But,
like her uncle, she would have nothing to say
to marriage; and the Minister's sudden death
left her almost alone in world ; for her father and
mother were dead, and she was not on the best
of terms with her brother, Lord Stanhope, and
the rest of her family. She had been brought up
in the lap of luxury and comfort, and had never
known what it was to have a wish or an ambition
ungratified. All that wealth and position in London
society could afford had been hers ; and so, when
she found herself suddenly left with a lessened
and restricted income, inadequate, as she thought,
to the support of an Earl's daughter and sister,
she resolved to meet the calamity with pride, and
to leave the shores of England at once and for
ever. It is difficult, however, to discover that she
had much cause to complain of poverty, for from
the time of her uncle's death she was in receipt
of a pension of .£1,200 a year, double of that
assigned to her younger brothers and her sisters.
This large pension she owed, beyond a doubt, to
the fact that she was Pitt's favourite niece, and
the one who had rendered him the most useful
VOL. II. D

34 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
services as his secretary. Dr. Madden, in his
" Travels in Turkey," tells us that he learned
this fact from Lady Hester herself, who added
that her uncle seldom opposed her opinions, and
always respected her antipathies.
Having spent a few months in a house in Mon
tague Square, and an equal time in a retired
cottage in South Wales, both of which she found
lonely and wretched, she determined to make her
home abroad, and to say farewell to the dull
monotony of English existence. Accordingly,
having obtained the necessary passports and
credentials, she made her way to Constantinople,
starting from which, as a new centre, she led a
wandering life in the East, which at that time
was almost inaccessible to English travellers, and
where she met with adventures enough to fill a
volume. She was robbed in the great Desert,
thrown into prison in Egypt, and shipwrecked
on the shores of the Euxine ; but her spirit did
not give way. And so, after losing or otherwise
exhausting a large portion of the means which
had been left to her, she settled down in the
solitudes which surround Mount Lebanon, a
year or two before the conclusion "of the war
against Napoleon.
Before taking this final step, she had sojourned
in turn at Jerusalem, Damascus, Aleppo, Cairo,

LADY HESTER STANHOPE. 35
Constantinople, and Palmyra, for shorter or
longer periods; but in these great cities and
haunts of men she found less to attract her than
in the silence of the eternal cedar forests. Here
she found a friend in Abdallah Pasha, who
granted to her as a residence the remains of an
old and dilapidated convent near the ancient
Sidon. But the word " near" must not be taken
in the English sense of the term ; for it was
situated on a lofty, level plain in the middle of
barren highlands, where on every side "moun
tains linked themselves with mountains, like rings
of a close chain, completely divested of soil and
vegetation — excepting the cedars — worked upon
and furrowed for ages by winds and waters, and
strewed on every side with large boulders and
masses of grey rock." Such is the description
of the locality which Lady Hester fixed on as
her future home. Upon the top of one of these
hills was a plateau or sort of natural esplanade,
and here some half-a-dozen huts, of a single story
high, formed what was known as the remains of
the Dar Jun Monastery. Within the walls of this
building for more than a quarter of a century,
with scarcely a book or even a newspaper to wile
away the time, and to give her news of the friends
of her childhood and the fortunes of her country
— forsaken by her European servants, and an
D 2

36 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
object of curiosity rather than of regard to
travellers — the woman who had shone as one of
the acknowledged leaders of society in England
in the palmiest days of our national glory, was
content to drag out the days of her middle life
and to spend her declining years. She turned,
however, the monastery and its garden into a para
dise, and " made the desert smile."
And yet she did not live a wholly idle or in
active life. She organised a numerous caravan,
loaded camels with rich presents for the Arab
chiefs, and traversed every part of Syria, explor
ing its interior and making herself acquainted
with the wild tribes who inhabited it. And so
greatly did the " great Western Lady" impress
those tribes with a sense of her superiority, that
they became ready, before long, almost to fall
down and worship before her. At all events, it
is recorded that, seated
" High on a throne of solemn state,"
she received on one occasion the homage of more
than fifty thousand Bedouin Arabs, who made
oath in due form before her that every European
traveller who might ever afterwards receive and
produce one of the firmans delivered to her, and
signed by her, should have accorded to him free

LADY HESTER STANHOPE. 37
passage through the Desert, and safe-conduct
among the ruins of Balbec and Palmyra.
The following peep at her ladyship we owe to
Eliot Warburton : " The Pasha of Sidon pre
sented Lady Hester with the deserted convent of
Mar Elias on her arrival in his country, and this
she soon converted into a fortress, garrisoned by
a band of Albanians ; her only attendants beside
were her doctor, her secretary, and some female
slaves. Public rumour soon busied itself with
such a personage, and exaggerated her influence
and power. ' It is even said that she was crowned
Queen of the East at Palmyra by fifty thousand
Arabs. She certainly exercised almost despotic
power in her neighbourhood on the mountain ;
and, what was perhaps the most remarkable
proof of her talents, she prevailed on some Jews
to advance large sums of money to her on her
note of hand."
In personal appearance, especially as she ad
vanced in years, there is said to have been a close
resemblance between Lady Hester Stanhope's
countenance and that of her illustrious grand
father ; and more than one traveller in the East
has recorded the fact that her look was such as
to remind him of Copley's celebrated picture
of the great statesman struck with his death
stroke in the House of Lords. " Her dress was

38 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMDLIES.
always a turban made of pale cashmere shawls,
so worn as to conceal the hair ; a long yellow
cashmere shawl thrown in folds around her
shoulders and breast, and an immense robe of
white silk with long flowing sleeves, and yellow
Turkish boots. She was of a commanding size
and presence, possessed a dignified, majestic, and
thoughtful countenance, and conversed with great
positiveness of manner and correctness of dic
tion!" But there was no virtue which she pos
sessed in a higher degree than that of personal
courage. Nothing could terrify or alarm her.
She once met in the open plain some thousands
of Bedouins fully armed, who galloped towards
her, shouting ferociously, and apparently intend
ing to take away her life. Her face at the time
was covered by her turban and shawl ; but she
trotted her horse along leisurely and quietly, and
when the foremost Arab had almost reached her
she stood boldly up in her stirrup, tore off her
yashmac, coolly waved her arm, and cried out,
" Avaunt ! do you not know your Queen ?"
In Murray's Handbook for travellers in Syria
and Palestine, the approach to Lady Hester's
abode is thus described : " The road from Sidon
to Beyrout is bleak, bald, and uninteresting.
First we reach the village of Jun, beside which
is the old convent where poor Lady Hester Stan-

LADY HESTER STANHOPE. 39
hope spent the last days of her strange life,
where her mortal remains still lie, and where
" After life's fitful fever she sleeps well."
Dr. Madden, in his amusing " Travels in
Turkey," thus describes in detail the place and
its inmate's habits of life :
" Her villa of D'Joun is eight miles distant
from the town of Sidon. There is no village in
its vicinity ; hemmed in on all sides by arid
mountains, this residence is shut out from the
world, and is at the mercy of the Bedouins, if
they had the audacity to attack it ; but of this
there is but little fear, for they regard her lady
ship as the " Queen of the Wilderness." The
room into which I was ushered was in the Ara
bian style. A long divan was raised at the end,
about a foot and a half from the ground, and at
the further corner, as well as the glimmering
lamp would allow one to distinguish, I perceived a
tall figure in the male attire of the country, which
was no other than Hester herself. She received
me in a most gracious manner, arose at my en
trance, and said that my visit had afforded her
great pleasure. One of the most striking features
in her ladyship's character is, that she reads the
stars, and is guided by them. Her ladyship's
influence over the Turkish pashas of Syria has

40 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
greatly diminished, and for an excellent reason
— that she has no longer wherewithal to buy the
rogues' protection. Her establishment formerly
consisted of thirty or forty domestics, and a
great number of girls, whose education was her
employment ; but they have all deserted her with
the exception of five servants. On their fidelity
her life is now depending. Several attempts have
been lately made to break in at night. People
have been found murdered who have been attached
to her, and the corpse of a stranger a few days
ago was found lying near her gate. Her habits are
peculiar. She retires to rest at the dawn, and rises
in the afternoon ; she takes her meals in her own
apartment, and never with her guests ; she drinks
no wine, and very seldom eats meat. Tea is
sometimes brought in towards two in the morn
ing. Part of her ladyship's conversation turns
upon some of our late and most famous states
men and politicians. ' As to leaving this country
(she said) your advice is in vain ; I never will re
turn to England. I am encompassed by perils,
I am no stranger to them. I have suffered ship
wreck off the coast of Cyprus ; I have had the
plague here ; I have fallen from my horse near
Acre, and been trampled on by him ; I have en
countered the robbers of the Desert, and when
my servants quaked, I have galloped in amongst

LADY HESTER STANHOPE. 41
them and forced them to be courteous ; and when
a horde of plunderers was breaking in at my
gate, I sallied out amongst them, sword in hand,
and, after convincing them that had they been
inclined they could not hurt me, I fed them at my
gate, and they behaved like thankful beggars.
Here I am destined to remain. That which is in
the Great Book of Life who may alter ? It is
true I am surrounded by perils ; it is true I am at
war with the Prince of the Mountains, and the
Pasha of Acre ; it is very true my enemies are
capable of assassination ; but if I do perish, my
fall shall be a bloody one. I have plenty of arms,
good Damascus blades ; I use no guns ; and while
I have an arm to wield a hanjar, these barren
rocks shall have a banquet of slaughter before
my face looks black in the presence of my
enemies." By way of accounting for Lady Hester's eccen
tricities, it has often been said that she was mad ;
but the Rev. S. Thompson, then missionary from
the American church at Beyrout, who knew her
well, and visited her in Lebanon late in life,
always said that she was not only quite sane, but
very sensible, well informed, and extremely
shrewd. There can be no doubt that she enjoyed
the savage life which she had so deliberately
adopted by her own instinct and free choice. In

42 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
fact, to use the words of an American biographer,
" she enjoyed bloodshed." Of pity as a qualifier
of justice she was ignorant. When one of her
villages was disobedient, she annihilated it. On
one occasion a mountain chalet concealed a mur
derer ; she burnt it to the ground along with its
inmates. But, though insensible, as a rule, to the softer
feelings of woman's nature,. Lady Hester had a
keen sense of justice, and was ever loyal to her
friends. Of this trait the authors of the - Percy
Anecdotes' gives us a striking example. " When
she was at Mar Elias, near Sidon in Syria, in
1816, she received a visit from a Colonel Blum,
of the French Engineers, who, upon the abdica
tion and fall of Xapoleon, and at the end of the
war, had determined on travelling to the East.
The Colonel had just returned from visiting the
Temple of Jupiter Ammon, and Lady Hester ad
vised him to avoid going into the mountains of
the Ansarih, near Latikea, which he promised to
do. An over-eager curiositv, however, led him
to break his pledge ; he set forward, and was
soon afterwards murdered. On hearing of his
death, Lady Hester applied to the French Am
bassador, but he would not interfere, and the
consuls in Syria had no power to act in the mat
ter. Determined, however, as she said, to avenge

LADY HESTER STANHOPE. 43
the death of her poor friend, Lady Hester obtained
from the Pasha of Acre and Damascus a body of
five hundred men, and accompanying them, after
a great search, discovered the murderers, who
thus were taken and executed."
In February, 1838, Lord Palmerston, then
Foreign Secretary, had received such an unsatis
factory account of the treatment of some of Lady
Hester's creditors by that haughty lady, that he
was induced to send out to the British Consul in
Syria instructions to stop the payment of her
pension for a time, till their just claims were
satisfied. Indignant at this treatment, Lady
Hester wrote some high-spirited and indignant
letters, not only to Lord Palmerston, but also to
the Duke of Wellington, and to various other
persons of influence at home, which found their
way into the newspapers of the time. It is said
that she even went so far as to address the Queen
on the subject, begging her as a sister to inter
fere, and not allow her ministers to insult the
niece of William Pitt, and the Queen of the
East! In 1839 she began to feel, like other mortals,
the weight of increasing years, and her body
showed signs of waning strength. But she
would not plead guilty to others of being old, nor
would she allow that she was out of health. She

44 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
combated against the approach of sickness to the
very last. As Mr. Eliot Warburton writes :
" She lived for many years beset with difficulties
and anxieties, but to the last she held out gal
lantly ; even when confined to her bed and dying,
she sought for no companionship or comfort, but
such as she could find in her own powerful but
unmanageable mind." In the June of that year,
Dr. Thompson, happening to hear from her at
tendants that she was ill, rode up into the
mountains, accompanied by the English consul,
in order to pay her a visit, and to see if there
was occasion for sending a surgeon or physician.
But, on reaching the entrance of the fortress
which for so many years had been her home, they
found a profound silence reigning through the
place. They knocked, but no one came to open
the doors. At length, finding their way through
a window into the shapeless ruins, and having
lighted a lamp, for it was dark, they stumbled
over logs of decaying timber and pools of stagnant
water, unmet and unquestioned by anyone, into
an inner chamber, where on entering they found
Lady Hester Stanhope stretched on the ground a
corpse. She had been dead for several hours,
possibly even for a day. The isolation from her
kind which she so loved was complete at last. It
is said that the day before her death she had sent

LADY HESTER STANHOPE. 45
to Beyrout for medical advice, but that it was too
late. The end had come. Only a morning or
two before, a retinue of twenty or thirty
domestics, male and female, none English, but
all Oriental, had watched, or pretended to watch,
every motion of the eye of her who was their
queen ; but the spell was broken by the departure
of her breath ; everyone of the mercenary crew
had fled off with such spoils and plunder as he or
she could lay hands upon. It is said even that
a little girl, whom she had adopted and had
maintained in her house for years as a companion,
carried off her watch and jewels, and also sundry
papers on which she had set a peculiar value.
Neither the child nor the property was ever seen
or heard of a£«un. Not a single thing was left
in the room wfiere she lay dead, except a few
ornaments upon her person — no one had ventured
to touch them ; even in death she seemed able to
protect herself thus far. At midnight her
countryman and the missionary carried her out
by torchlight to a spot in the garden that had
been formerly her resort, and there they jointly
performed over her body the last sad rites, and
buried her, coffinless though not shroudless, under
one of the great cedars which overshadowed her
garden." Dr. Thompson several years afterwards in

46 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMDLIES.
" The Land and the Book " gave from memory
some most interesting details of her life and
death, from which we condense the following :
"And now we must climb once more up five
hundred feet to that castle-like inclosure around
the top of this bold mountain pyramid. It is
safely done, and here we stand on Dahr Jun ; and
beneath this rude and broken tomb is buried the
once lovely and witty and most eccentric Lady
Hester Stanhope. Is it possible ? Can anything
be more sad and solitary ? But perhaps it is well
that it should be thus. A melancholy change
has come over the scene since I first visited it.
The garden, with its latticed arbours and shaded
alleys and countless flowers, is utterly destroyed,
and not one room of her large establishment is
entire. This, on the south-west corner, was the
apartment in which her ladyship wore out the
three last dreary months of life ; and this on the
east of it, was the open lewan, where we found
the body wrapped in waxed cloths dipped in
turpentine and spirits. The whole of these
premises were alive with her servants, and others
assembled on this mournful occasion. Now not
a dog, a cat, or even a lizard appears to relieve
the utter solitude. The tomb also is sadly
changed. It was then embowered in a shrubbery
and covered with an arbour of roses, not a vestige

LADY HESTER STANHOPE. 47
of which now remains, and the stones of the
vault itself are broken and displaced. There is
no inscription— not a word in any language ;
and, unless more carefully protected than hitherto,
the last resting-place of her ladyship will soon
be lost 
" The British Consul at Beyrout requested me
to perform the religious services at the funeral
of Lady Hester. It was an intensely hot Sunday
in June, 1839. We started on our melancholy
errand at one o'clock, and reached this place at
midnight. After a brief examination the Consul
decided that the funeral must take place imme
diately. The vault in the garden was hastily
opened, and the bones of General L. — or of his
son, I forget which— a Frenchman who died here,
and was buried in the vault of her ladyship —
were taken out and placed at the head. The
body, in a plain deal box, was carried by her
servants to the grave, followed by a mixed
company with torches and lanterns, to enable
them to thread their way through the winding
alleys of the garden. I took a wrong path, and
wandered in the mazes of these labyrinths.
When at length I entered the arbour, the first
things I saw were the bones of the General, in a
ghastly heap, with the head on top, having a
lighted taper stuck in either eye socket — a hideous

48 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
grinning spectacle. It was difficult to proceed
with the service under circumstances so novel
and bewildering  The people of Jun, that
large village across the way, made large profits
from the liberality and extravagance of Lady
Hester, and they are full of wonderful stories
about her. Several of our friends in Sidon were
in her service for years, and from them and from
others still more closely connected, I have had
abundant opportunity to learn the character of
this strange being. On most subjects she was
not merely sane, but sensible, well-informed, and
extremely shrewd. She possessed extraordinary
powers of conversation, and was perfectly fasci
nating to all with whom she chose to make
herself agreeable. She was, however, whimsical,
imperious, tyrannical, and at times revengeful in
a high degree. Bold as a lion, she wore the
dress of an emir — weapons, pipe, and all; nor
did she fail to rule her Albanian guards and her
servants with absolute authority. She kept spies
in the principal cities, and at the residences of
pashas and emirs, and knew everything that was
going forward in the country. Her garden, of
several acres, was walled round like a fort,
crowning the top of this conical hill, with deep
valleys on all sides ; its appearance from a dis
tance was quite imposing. ... The morning

LADY HESTER STANHOPE. 49
after the funeral the Consul and I went round
the premises and examined thirty-five rooms,
which had been sealed up by the Vice-Consul of
Sidon to prevent robbery. They were full of
trash. . . . The crowd of servants and greedy
retainers had appropriated to themselves all her
most valuable effects. One of the wealthy
citizens of Sidon is said to have obtained his
money in this way. She told Mrs. T. that once,
when she was supposed to be dying of plague,
she would hear her servants breaking open her
chests and ripping up the embossed covers of her
cushions. ' Oh ! didn't I vow,' said she, ' that
if I recovered I would make a scattering of
them,' and she performed her vow to the letter.
.... She could be extremely sarcastic, and her
satire was often terrible. Many of her letters,
and the margins of books which I purchased at
the auction, are 'illuminated' with her caustic
criticisms. There was no end to her eccen
tricities. In some things she was a devout
believer, an unbeliever in many. She read the
stars, 'and dealt in nativities and a sort of second
sight, by which she pretended to foretell coming
events. She practised alchemy, and in pursuit of
this vain science she was often closeted with
strange companions. She had a mare, whose
backbone sank suddenly down at the shoulders,
VOL. H. ' E

50 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
and rose abruptly near the hips. This deformity
her vivid imagination converted into a miraculous
saddle, on which she was to ride into Jerusalem
as a queen, by the side of some sort of a Messiah
who was to introduce a fancied millenium.
Another mare was to play a part in this august
pageant, and both were tended with extraordinary
care. A lamp was kept burning in their very
comfortable apartments, and they were served
with sherbet and other delicacies  In fact,
she was wholly and magnificently unique. Now
riding at the head of wild Arabs, a queen of the
Desert, on a visit to Palmyra ; now intriguing with
mad pashas and vulgar emirs ; at one time treat
ing with contempt consuls, generals, and nobles,
bidding defiance to law, and thrashing officers
sent to her lodge ; at another resorting to all kinds
of mean shifts to elude or confound her creditors ;
to-day charitable and kind to the poor ; to-morrow
oppressive, selfish, and tyrannical in the extreme.
Such was Lady Hester Stanhope in her mountain
home in Lebanon."
All sorts of stories are told about her fancies
aud " crochets." Amongst her other ideas of beauty
and dignity, she held that no man or woman
could be possessed of intellect or brains unless
they had a lofty instep and an arched foot. She
used to say that she was more proud of her foot

LADY HESTER STANHOPE. 51
than of being a Stanhope and the niece of Pitt ;
for that a kitten could walk under the sole of it.
The same point she admired in M. Lamartine,
who paid her a visit in Lebanon, and blew his
trumpet in her praise in his " Voyage a l'Orient,"
some six or seven years before her death.
Mr. Herbert Spencer endeavours in one of his
recent works to argue that such examples as that
here given of an instinctive preference for the
scenes of wild and savage life are but reproduc
tions in later generations of the impressions re
ceived by ancestors in bye-gone days, which pass
as an inheritance to their descendants, and reas
sert themselves in strange combinations. Whether
this be the case or not, however, I cannot pre
tend to determine. Qui sa ? Lady Hester, no
doubt, need not go so far back to account for the
eccentricities which marked her character. For
these she doubtless inherited from her father, a
man remarkable for his scientific researches and
mechanical inventions — among which was a novel
printing press, which he set up at his seat, Che-
veniug, near Sevenoaks — and also for his re
publican sentiments, which brought him more
than once into conflict with the Court and the
Government, although he was the brother-in-law
of the favourite minister of George III., Wil
liam Pitt. E 2

52 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
Sylvanus Urban thus sums up her character in
the " Gentleman's Magazine :" " This lady, so cele
brated throughout Europe for her eccentric habits
and anti-national prejudices, was, nevertheless,
a woman of a very strong and, we may add, un
daunted mind. The fame of her piety and her
almsgiving was widely diffused from Mount Leba
non, with its settled dwellers, to the furthest
nomads and wandering tribes of the sands of
Arabia." The allusion to her " piety" may per
haps raise a smile on the lips of some readers ;
but there can be no doubt that her " almsgiving"
was generous to an excess, and that if she had
kept it within stricter bounds towards the end of
life, she would have been more of a Queen among
her faithless and selfish subjects.

53

THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
A ROMANCE OF THE TOWER.

IN our oldest records, as soon as surnames began
to be frequently used in Scotland, the name
of the Maxwells is mentioned. Their immediate
ancestor, Marcus, whose father claimed a Norman
descent, lived in the reign of King Malcolm Can-
more. He appears to have been a man of rank,
and had considerable possessions in the county of
Roxburgh, which he called the barony of Marcus-
well, afterwards modified into Maxwell.
Sir John de Marcuswell, the grandson of this
chief, stood high in favour with his sovereign,
Alexander II. He succeeded his father in the
sheriffdom of Roxburghshire, and was one
of the Ambassadors Extraordinary sent by
Alexander to the English Court to negotiate his
marriage with the Princess Joan ; an event which

54 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
says the aged chronicler, " was happily accom
plished," Sir John assisting in person at the
royal nuptials. He afterwards acquired the
barony of Caerlavrock in Dumfriesshire, and was
instituted Great Chamberlain of Scotland in 1231.
About 1250 the barony of Mearns, in Renfrew
shire, was added to the possessions of the family,
whose members subsequently acquired additional
wealth and influence through the marriage of
Eugene de Maxwell wTith the daughter of Roland,
Lord of Galloway. The fine old Celtic name of
Kirkconnell is also associated with that of Max
well, Aymer de Maxwell having married Janet,
heiress of the Kirkconnells, when her name be
came merged in that of her husband.
In course of time no fewer than five baronetcies
were held by cadets of the Maxwell family —
namely, those of Springkell in Dumfriesshire,
Cardoness and Monreith in Galloway, Calder-
wood in Lanarkshire, and Pollock in Renfrewshire.
Sir Herbert de Marcuswell, who sat in the
Parliament of Scone when the Scottish nobles
agreed to acknowledge the Maid of Norway for
their Queen, was grandfather of Sir Eustace de
Marcuswell, who, a staunch patriot and friend of
Robert Bruce, held out the Castle of Caerlavrock
against the English for many weeks, and at last
obliged them to raise the siege, and who, fearful

THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 55
lest the fortalice should fall into the hands of
the enemy, demolished it himself. For this
generous action the Bruce nobly rewarded him
with grants of several lands. Sir Eustace was
one of the Scotch nobles who signed the famous
letter to the Pope, asserting the independence of
Scotland. Sir Herbert de Maxwell, great-grandson of the
loyal Sir Eustace, obtained from Archibald Earl
of Douglas a grant of the stewartry of Annandale,
which greatly added to his power and interest in
Dumfriesshire. He was appointed one of the
hostages for King James's ransom, and had the
honour of knighthood conferred upon him at his
Majesty's coronation. He was soon afterwards
created Lord Maxwell of Caerlavrock, &c, and
instituted Warden of the Scottish Marches.
John, fourth Lord Maxwell, a man of great
courage and renown, accompanied his royal master
to the fatal field of Flodden, and there perished,
together with his four brothers.
John, fifth Lord Maxwell, was so highly
esteemed by King James VI. that he appointed
him Captain of the Castle of Lochnaben, Colonel
of his Majesty's Guards, and Warden of the West
Marches. This monarch, who in his love for
romantic adventures greatly resembled his father,
when desirous to give a queen to Scotland, set

56 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
out for France disguised as a private gentleman,
in company with Lord Maxwell, for whom he
cherished an almost brotherly fondness. Unfor
tunately, however, a violent storm arose which
obliged the vessel to put back into Kinghorn,
much to the distress of the royal knight errant.
After the death of the fair Magdalene of France,
his " forty days' Queen," King James despatched
Lord Maxwell as Ambassador Extraordinary to
the French Court, this time to negotiate a mar
riage between himself and Mary of Lorraine,
daughter of the Duke de Guise. The event being
successfully accomplished, as a reward to him for
his services on this occasion, the grateful monarch
confirmed to him the lands of Eusdale, Eskdale
and Wauchopdale. Lord Maxwell was possessed
of a large estate, and held from the King
no fewer than fourteen charters of different lands
and baronies. He accompanied his sovereign to
the battle of Solway Moss, where he was taken
prisoner and sent to the Tower of London, but
shortly after regained his liberty on payment of
one thousand marks. His successor, John, seventh
Lord Maxwell, rose so high in favour with King
James VI. that he was made Warden of the
Marches ; and, after the death and forfeiture of
the Regent Morton, got a charter under the great
seal of the lands, barony, earldom, and regality

THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 57
of Morton, and was immediately after created
Earl of Morton. On a change of the ministry,
however, the Earldom was revoked. Having been
likewise deprived of his office of Warden of the
Marches, it was conferred upon Johnstone of
that ilk, which occasioned a deadly feud between
the families, and at last proved fatal to the noble
lord himself, for he lost his life in an encounter
with the Johnstones in December, 1593. This
desperate combat, still famed in tradition, took
place at the Dryffe Sands, not far from Lockerbie.
Though fewer in numbers than the Maxwells, the
'Johnstones completely routed them. Many of
the former clan were killed, while others were
cruelly wounded in their flight by slashes in the
face, which wound was then termed a " Lockerbie
lick." At the Holm of Dryffe there stood, until the
river rose high in flood many years ago and washed
them away, two bushes known as " Maxwell's
Thorns." To this spot, after the bloody fray,
came the wounded Lord Maxwell ; and thither
in pursuit of him sped a young Annandale trooper,
who had resolved to capture, maim, or kill the
enemy of his clan. According to Spottiswoode,
when struck from his horse, the aged chief held
out his hand and claimed to be taken prisoner ;
and, instead of his plea being granted, the sup-

58 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
plicating hand was cut off, and he was killed
outright. But the tradition of the country tells
the story in a grimmer fashion, namely, that the
fierce dame Johnstone, coming to the field in
search of her husband, and, if need were, to ad
minister succour to the wounded, on learning from
the unprotected warrior who he was, dashed out
his brains with the ponderous keys of her fort
alice. The son of the slaughtered nobleman, John,
eighth Lord Maxwell, being of a high and vindic
tive spirit, determined to avenge his father's death
upon the Johnstones. Embracing the first oppor
tunity, he shot Sir James Johnstone of that ilk
through the back. This traitorous deed roused
such a storm of indignation against its perpetrator
that he was obliged to fly the country. The sup
posed feelings of the fugitive on leaving his
native land are touchingly rendered in the beau
tiful ballad known in " The Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border" as "Lord Maxwell's Good
Night." This unfortunate chief was tried in his absence,
and condemned to death. He was afterwards, it
is said, betrayed to the Government by the very
peer (Lord Caithness) who had offered him an
asylum on his return to Scotland, and was be
headed at the Cross of Edinburgh on the 2 1st of

THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 59
May, 1613. Dying childless, he was succeeded
by his brother Robert, who was " rehabilite and
put in possession of all his brother's estates" in
1618. He obtained under the Great Seal charters
of many lands, which he added to his inheritance ;
and, becoming a great favourite with his King,
he was in 1620 created Earl of Nithsdale, with
precedency from his father's creation of Earl of
Morton in 1581, by patent to his heirs male. He
took his place accordingly in the Parliament of
1621. This first Earl of Nithsdale is described
as " A baron stout and bold as e'er wore sword on thigh,
A brave old Scottish cavalier, all of the olden time."
Under his supervision the grand old Castle of
Caerlavrock rose to a state of greater magnificence
than ever. It is designated in some documents
as the " daintie fabric of Nithsdale's new lodg
ings ;" and so floi-id was its exterior, and so rich
were its furnishings, that it might have been the
abode of royalty. Upon the breaking out of the
Civil War this lord warmly espoused the royal
cause, on which account he suffered of course
sequestration and imprisonment at the hands of
" the saints of the Lord."
Robert, second Earl, who also proved himself
a steady loyalist, dying unmarried in 1667, his

60 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
estates and honours devolved upon his cousin and
heir male, John Lord Herries, lineally descended
from Sir John Maxwell, of Terreagles. This
Sir John Maxwell, who had married Agnes, eldest
daughter and heiress of William, fourth Lord
Herries, with whom he got the lands and barony
of Terreagles, &c, was the Lord Herries who
is famed in Scottish history as the devoted ad
herent of Mary Queen of Scots, and was one of
Her Majesty's Commissioners to the Court of
Elizabeth. He was also instituted Warden of
the Marches.
With the exception of Robert, fourth Earl of
Nithsdale, who had for his Countess Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir Francis Beaumont, a near rela
tive of George Villiers, the princely Duke of
Buckingham, the Maxwell lords had hitherto
contented themselves with wives chosen from
amongst the daughters of Scotland. Stately and
beautiful some of these may have been ; nobly
dowered we know they were. Of noble birth too
were the dames who wore the Maxwell coronet ;
for maidens sprung from the Lords of Galloway,
of Kenmure's line — the Lords of Lochinvar — and
from the haughty House of Douglas did not dis
dain to merge their own proud names and honours
in those of the Lords of Nithsdale.
But William, the fifth Earl, following the ex-

THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 61
ample of his more immediate ancestor, crossed
the Border, and wooed and won for his bride, we
know not under what circumstances, the Lady
Winifred Herbert, daughter of a Welsh noble,
William Earl (and afterwards Marquis) of Powis
then a pale, delicate, and gentle girl, with light
eyes and auburn hair. Though unlike in ap
pearance and in character, the noble pair were
one in their love, their religion, and their loyalty
to the exiled House of Stuart. This latter feel
ing amounted to a passion ; and their surround
ings at Terreagles, together with all the associa
tions connected with the Maxwells of Nithsdale,
were well calculated to keep alive the senti
ment. These proud, aspiring chiefs, as recorded in
history, stood high in favour with the Stuart
sovereigns, and well did they deserve to do so.
Their subjects, they were also their friends. They
advised with them in their public and private
affairs ; they had given their lives for them on
the battlefield ; and their charter chests bore evi
dence that the Stuarts in their regard had proved
the reverse of ungrateful. In the stately forta
lice over which the Lady Winifred was called
upon to preside in the heyday of her youth and
beauty, there was preserved with reverential care
the very bed on which the lovely and hapless

62 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
Mary Queen of Scots had laid her weary head
when going as a fugitive to the Court of Elizabeth,
and by it lay her missal, which had been in daily
use. And numberless relics of Lord Herries
were there — the Lord whose name was so closely
identified with hers in history. Again, the first
Earl of Nithsdale had suffered numerous hardships
through his unswerving loyalty to the Stuarts;
and for the same noble cause the second Earl was
imprisoned by the Roundheads when a very young
man. There, too, in their immediate neighbourhood
was the magnificent castle of Caerlavrock, which
the gallant Sir Eustace laid in ruins rather than
that it should fall into the hands of the enemies
of his King. Little wonder then, such being the
traditions of his race, that when, in 1715, the
heir to " auld Scotia's ancient crown" set foot in
Scotland with a view to regain what was his by
right, William, fifth Earl of Nithsdale — as his
noble ancestors would have done before him —
bade a tender farewell to his fair young wife and
his lovely children, mounted his horse and went
forth from the home of his ancestors to fight for
him whose emblem was the " Rose o' Sud."
Readers of history are but too well aware of
the sad sequel to this rash attempt on the part
of the " Chevalier de St. George" to recover the
throne of his ancestors. They know that the

THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 63
" Rebellion of '15" brought sorrow to many a
noble hearth, and furnished Temple Bar with
many ghastly heads of " traitors ;" that on the
bloody field of Preston the bright hopes cherished
by the Jacobite party were blighted, and that the
Lords Nithsdale, Derwentwater, Wintoun, Carn-
wath, and Kenmure were marched southwards
as prisoners to the Tower of London.
It was in the peaceful seclusion of Terreagles
that the disastrous intelligence reached the ears
of Lady Nithsdale. Her resolution was at once
taken. She would go off to London. The sea
son was mid-winter, and there was snow upon
the ground ; but what of that ? Go she must to
save her husband. That was her one prominent
idea, and she knelt to God and prayed for a
special blessing on her enterprise. She arose
from her knees refreshed, strengthened, and con
fident of success. Having first buried deep in
the garden all state papers of importance, she
set out in company with her faithful maid, Evans,
ready to encounter any dangers that might arise.
She was a wife ; her husband and the father of
her children was in the Tower — that dread abode
whose very name was suggestive of death, and
she must save him. Arrived in the English ca
pital, she eagerly sought out the peeresses of
her acquaintance; but, though deeply sympa-

64 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
thetic, they could afford her no hopes of success
in her enterprise. And why? Because Lord
Nithsdale belonged to a noble Catholic family ;
therefore the King willed him to suffer. The
afflicted Countess then sought the Elector him
self. " A King's face should give grace," but it
was not so upon this sad occasion. George
scowled upon her and drew back, as she pre
sented to him at St. James's a petition praying
for her husband's life. He strove even to push
her away as she clung to him; but she would
not let go her hold, so that she was dragged the
entire length of the apartment pouring forth the
while her passionate entreaties for mercy with
tearful sobs, till some noblemen standing by re
leased her grasp, and she fell back fainting on
the floor. There was, therefore, no hope from
the Majesty of England. Then the high-souled,
and yet hopeful Countess resolved to save the
Earl by woman's wile. How she accomplished
her purpose will be best told in her own words.
In a letter, written to her sister in long after
years, she tells the story thus :
" Upon this I formed the resolution to attempt
his escape, but I opened my mind to nobody but
my dear Evans. In order to concoct measures,
I strongly solicited to be permitted to see my
Lord, which they refused to grant me unless I

THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 65
consented to remain confined with him in the
Tower. This I could not submit to, and alleged
for excuse that my health would not permit me
to endure the confinement. The real reason of
my refusal was not to put it out of my power to
accomplish my design. However, by bribing the
guards, I often contrived to see my Lord till the
day upon which the prisoners were condemned.
After that we were allowed to see and take leave
of them. By the help of Evans, I had prepared
everything necessary to disguise my Lord, but
had the utmost difficulty to prevail upon him to
make use of them. However, I at length suc
ceeded by the help of Almighty God.
" On the 22nd of February, which fell on a
Thursday, our petition was to be presented to
the House of Lords, the purport of which was
to entreat the House to intercede with His Majesty
to pardon the prisoners. We were, however,
disappointed. The day before the petition was
to be presented by the Duke of St. Albans, who
promised my Lady Derwentwater to present it,
failed in his word. However, as she was the
only English Countess concerned, it was incum
bent on her to have it presented. We had one
day left before the execution, and the Duke still
promised to present the petition ; but, for fear
he should fail, I engaged the Duke of Montrose
VOL. n. F

66 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
to serve it himself, so that it might be done by
the one or the other. I then went in company
of most of the ladies of quality who were then
in town to solicit the interest of the Lords as
they were going to the House. They all behaved
to me with great civility, but particularly my
Lord Pembroke, who, though he desired me not
to speak to him, yet promised to employ his in
fluence in our favour, and honourably kept his
word, for he spoke very strongly in the House
in our behalf. The subject of the debate was,
whether the King had the power to pardon those
who had been condemned by Parliament. And
it was chiefly owing to Lord Pembroke's speech
that it passed in the affirmative. However, one
of the Lords stood up, and said that the House
would only intercede for those of the prisoners
who should approve themselves worthy of their
intercession, but not all of them individually.
This salvo quite blasted all my hopes, for I was
assured it aimed at the exclusion of those who
should refuse to subscribe to the petition, which
was a thing I knew the Earl would never submit
to; nor, in fact, could I wish to preserve his
life on such terms.
" As this notice had passed generally, I thought
I could derive some advantage in favour of my
design. Accordingly, I immediately left the

THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 67
House of Lords, and hastened to the Tower,
where, affecting an air of joy and satisfaction,
I told all the guards I passed by, that I came
to bring joyful tidings to the prisoners. I de
sired them to lay aside all their fears, for the
petition had passed the House in their favour.
I then gave them some money to drink to the
Lords and his Majesty, though it was but
trifling: for I thought if I were too lavish on
this occasion they might suspect my designs, and
yet that giving them -something would gain their
good-humour and service for the next day, which
was the eve of the execution.
" The next day I could not go to the Tower,
having so many things on my hands to put in
readiness; but in the evening, when all was
ready, I sent for Mrs. Mills, with whom I lodged,
and acquainted her with my design of attempting
my lord's escape, as there was no chance of his
being pardoned, and this was the last night
before the execution. I told her that I had every
thing in readiness, and I trusted she would not
refuse to accompany me, that my lord might pass
for her. I pressed her to come immediately, as
there was no time to lose. At the same time I
sent for Mrs. Morgan, then usually known by
the name of Hilton, to whose acquaintance my
dear Evans had introduced me, which I looked
S 2

68 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
upon as a very singular happiness. I immediately
announced my resolution to her. She was of a
very tall and slender make, and I begged her to
put under her own riding-hood one that I had pre
pared for Mrs. Mills, as she was to lend hers to
my lord, that in coming out he might be taken
for her. Mrs. Mills was then with child, so that
she was then not only of the same height, but
nearly of the same size as my lord. When we
were in the coach I never ceased talking, that they
might not have time to reflect. Their surprise
and astonishment when I first opened my mind
to them had made them consent without ever
thinking of the consequences. On our arrival at
the Tower the first I introduced was Mrs. Morgan,
for I was only allowed to take in one at a time.
She brought the clothes that were to serve Mrs.
Mills when she left her own behind her. When
ever Mrs. Morgan had taken off what she had
brought for my purpose, I conducted her back to
the staircase ; and in going I begged her to send
me my maid to dress me ; for I was afraid of
being too late to present my last petition that
night if she did not come immediately. I de
spatched her safe, and went partly down stairs to
meet Mrs. Mills, who had taken the precaution
to hold her handkerchief to her face, as was very
natural for a woman to do when she is going to

THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 69
bid her last farewell to a friend on the eve of his
execution. I had indeed desired her to do it that
my lord might go out in the same fashion. Her
eyebrows were rather inclined to be sandy, and
my lord's were dark and very thick ; however, I
had prepared some paint of thecolour of hers to
disguise his with. I also brought an artificial
head-dress of the same coloured hair as hers ; and
I painted his face with white, and his cheeks with
rouge, to hide his long beard, as he had not time
to shave. All this provision I had before left
in the Tower. The poor guards, whom my slight
liberality of the day before had endeared to me,
let me go quietly with my company, and were
not so strictly on the watch as they usually had
been ; and the more so as they were persuaded,
from what I had told them, that the prisoners
would obtain their pardon. I made Mrs. Mills
take off her own dress and put on the one I had
brought for her ; I then took her by the hand and
led her out of my lord's chamber ; and in passing
through the next room, in which there were
several people, with all the concern imaginable, I
said. " My dear Mrs. Catharne, go in all haste and
send in my waiting maid. She certainly cannot
reflect how late it is. She forgets I am to present
a petition to-night ; and if I let slip this oppor
tunity I am undone, for to-morrow will be too

70 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
late. Hasten her as much as possible, for I shall
be on thorns till she comes." Everybody in the
room seemed to compassionate me exceedingly,
and the sentinels very officiously opened the door
to me. When I had seen her out I hastened back
to my lord and finished dressing him. I had taken
care that Mrs. Mills did not go out crying as she
came in, that my lord might the better pass
for the lady who came in crying and afflicted.
When I had almost finished dressing my lord
in all my petticoats save one, I perceived it was
growing dark, and was afraid that the light of
the candle might betray us ; so I resolved to set off.
I went out leading him by the hand, and he had
his handkerchief to his eyes ; I spoke to her in
the most piteous tone of voice, bewailing bitterly
the negligence of Evans, who had ruined me by
her delay. Then said I, " My dear Mrs. Betty,
for the love of God, run quickly and bring her
with you ; you know my lodgings, and if ever
you made despatch in your life do it at present ;
I am almost distracted with this disappointment."
The guards opened the door, and I went down
stairs with her, still conjuring her to make all
possible despatch. As soon as he had cleared the
doors I made him walk before me, for fear the
sentinels should take notice of his walk. At the
bottom of the stairs I met my dear Evans, into

THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 71
whose hands I confided him ; and, in company
with Mrs. Mills, conducted him to it. In the
meantime, as I had pretended to have sent the
young lady on a message, I was obliged to re
turn upstairs, and go back to my lord's room in
the same feigned anxiety of being too late ; so
that everybody seemed sincerely to sympathise
with my distress. When I was in the room I
talked to him as if he had been really present,
and answered my own questions in my lord's
voice as nearly as I could imitate, till I thought
they had had time to clear themselves of the
guards, when I thought proper to make my way
off also."
Thus cleverly did Winifred Countess of Niths
dale contrive to cheat the block of its intended
victim. Lord Nithsdale made his escape abroad,
disguised in the livery of a retainer of the
Venetian Ambassador; the breeze, which filled
the sails of his vessel, proving so favourable
that the Captain innocently observed, " it could
not have been more so were his passengers fly
ing for their lives." Lord Nithsdale lived for
thirty years longer ; he died at Rome on the eve
of the " Forty-five," in which eventful year the
Young Chevalier raised anew the Stuart standard
in the wilds of Glenfinnan, and Scotland was
once more in the throes of a Rebellion. It is

72 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
almost needless to add that his title passed under
attainder. William Lord Maxwell, only son of William,
fifth Earl of Nithsdale, who, but for his father's
forfeiture, would have been the sixth Earl of that
name, and have inherited the barony of Herries
of Terreagles, married the Lady Catherine Stuart,
daughter of Charles, fourth Earl of Traquair, and
by her had two daughters, Mary, who died young,
and Winifred, married to William Constable, of
Everingham, in Yorkshire, who took the addi
tional name of Maxwell.
An act of Parliament was passed In 1848, by
which Mr. Constable Maxwell, of Everingham,
and all the other descendants of William Earl of
Nithsdale, were restored in blood. Mr. Constable
Maxwell thereupon presented a petition to Her
Majesty, praying to be declared and adjudged
entitled to the honours and dignity of Lord
Herries of Terreagles. This petition was re
ferred to the House of Lords, which on the report
of the committee for privileges, on June 23, 1858,
declared Mr. Constable Maxwell entitled to the
barony of Herries of Terreagles, as the lineal
heir of Agnes, Lady Herries.
His Lordship died November 12, 1876, and
was succeeded by his eldest son, the present peer,
among whose honours not the least is the fact

THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 73
that he is the representative of Winifred, Countess
of Nithsdale.
And do our readers desire to know what became
of the noble lady who had thus wrought her hus
band's deliverance at the risk of her own life ?
When the King, who but a few days before had
pashed her aside so rudely at St. James's, found
that " the bird was flown from the Tower," and
that all clue to his retreat was lost, he was angry
and vexed, and so was his Minister, Sir Robert
Walpole, who had all along urged him not to
spare the lives of his prisoners. Accordingly,
as it was impossible to execute a lady who had
taken no actual part in arms in the rising, we
learn from the Book of Caerlavrock that it was
proposed to apprehend her, " but the Solicitor-
General would have her to be leniently dealt with.
It was therefore resolved not to make any par
ticular search for her, and to arrest her only in
the event of her openly appearing in England or
Scotland," In. fact, the English Court was glad
to get rid of her presence on any terms ; and that
the ruling powers did not readily forgive her
may be inferred from the fact that, although the
widows of the other attainted lords obtained their
jointures out of their respective estates, Lady
Nithsdale's application for her jointure was curtly
and unceremoniously refused. Her husband's

74 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
title having been forfeited under attainder, Lady
Nithsdale of course refused to grace the Court of
a monarch whom she regarded as a Pretender,
and as in intention the executioner of her lord.
Accordingly the Lord and Lady Nithsdale at
tached themselves to the Court of the Chevalier
at St. Germain s, and were with him when he
married Clementina Sobieski.
Lady Nithsdale died at Rome in 1749, having
survived her husband nearly five years, ahd leav
ing behind her a memory of noble womanhood
which will not readily be forgotten by those who
read the annals of Scotland, or visit the Tower
of London.
There is at Everingham Park an original por
trait of Lady Nithsdale, by Sir Godfrey Kneller,
which represents her when in the prime of life.
In the Book of Caerlavrock will be found a
number of interesting letters from her pen.
As history is apt to repeat itself, perhaps it may
be remembered that in 1815 — just a century later
—Madame Lavalette, by a similar ruse, effected
the escape of her husband from a prison in Paris,
where he lay under sentence of execution the
next morning.

75

THE ROMANCE OF THE EARLDOM
OF MAR.

AMONG the oldest and noblest of the great
Scottish Houses, we must certainly count
the Erskines, who have held, and still hold, no
less than four Earldoms — those of Mar, Kellie,
Buchan, and Rosslyn — and also an English ba
rony, won more than half a century ago by the
legal skill and eloquence of that " consummate
advocate, who, having begun life in the navy,
and then served for a time in the army, resolved
at the mature age of thirty to study the law, and
in the course of twenty years had " climbed to
the top of the tree," holding the Great Seal of
England in the short-lived Ministry of " All the
Talents." The Earldom of Rosslyn, and the
Barony of Loughborough must be scored down
to the success of another member of the Erskine

76 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
family, the late Lord Loughborough, who held
the woolsack in the last half-century. I say no
thing of inferior distinctions, such as a stray
baronetcy or two gained by members of the
Erskine family ; for they really are as nothing
in comparison with the honours which they bore
when Scotland was still an independent king
dom. The dignity of Earl is of later date, and is
supposed to have taken the place of that of
" Maonnor," which was inferior only to that of
King. From " Burke" we learn that in the
ninth century, in an. encounter between a Scandi
navian chief, Sigurd, and the famous Melbrigdor
" Maormor" of Mar, the latter was slain by Si
gurd, who suspended to his saddle-bow his foe's
head, forgetting that a remarkable tooth formed
a prominent feature therein. The bumping of
the tooth made a wound in Sigurd's thigh, which
mortified and caused his death, thus, in an un-
looked for manner, avenging the defeat of this
illustrious head of the House of Mar.
Like many other Scottish honours, these three
Earldoms above mentioned have given rise at
times to serious complications ; and the deci
sion of a recent peerage case by the House of
Lords, while it places two of these Earl's coro
nets on the brows of a single holder, has but

THE EARLDOM OF MAR. 77
served to draw attention to the greatness and
importance of the Erskines in byegone times,
and to illustrate a saying of the Scotch judge,
Lord Hailes, which has so often been quoted
that it has almost passed into a proverb and a
truism, to the effect that " the origin of the Earl
dom of Mar is lost in the mists of antiquity."
The Erskines of Erskine, as they were styled
from a remote period, are of almost fabulous an
tiquity " North of the Tweed," one Henry de
Erskine being recorded as proprietor of the
Barony of Erskine as early as the reign of
Alexander II. It is a matter of little moment
whether they gave their name to the Barony, or
took it from the lands which they owned; in
either case their antiquity is as unquestioned as
that of the early Athenians, who took a grass
hopper as their crest, as " true children of the
soil." The first of the race of whom mention is made
in detail in modern peerages, and who is allowed
to pass current with the heralds of our day, is a
Sir Thomas Erskine, who married, about the
end of the fourteenth century, Janet, daughter
of Sir R. Keith and his wife, Lady Janet, the
heiress of Mar, through her mother Lady Chris
tian Monteith, daughter of Lady Helen, daughter
of Gratney, eleventh Earl of Mar, and of the

78 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
Lady Christian, sister of King Robert the Bruce.
This Sir Thomas Erskine put in a claim in right
of his wife* — though unsuccessfully — to the an
cient territorial Earldom of Mar, as we shall
see presently. But first it will be necessary to
say something about the venerable coronet which
he claimed, and how he came to aspire to its
possession. The Earldom of Mar, as it has hitherto stood
recorded in the pages of " Lodge" and " Burke,"
bears date from 1404, and this ancient peerage
ranks on the Union Roll third among the Earls,
giving place only to the Earldoms of Crawford
and of Erroll. But there can be no doubt that,
although through the stormy and troubled times
of the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, its
descent is less easily traced, yet as a territorial
Earldom, it is really older than the Norman Con
quest, even if we cannot go quite so far as to
hold with Lord Hailes, that " it existed before
our (i.e. Scottish) records, and before the era of
genuine history," so that its origin is " lost in
antiquity." Modern writers, however, following
in the track of the early Scottish annalists,
assert it as an accepted and undoubted fact that
one " Martacus, Earl of Mar, witnessed a charter
* Though unsuccessful, he still, however, assumed the
dignity.

THE EARLDOM OF MAR. 79
of donation by Malcolm Canmore to the Culdees
of Loch Leven in 1065."
We all know that the river Niger in Africa,
and the Mole in Surrey, flow for long distances
underground, reappearing in due course, after
their little subterranean detour, and just so it
is with the history of the Earldom of which we
treat. The Earldom appears in the person of
Gratney, styled only eleventh Earl, but who,
for all that we know, may have been the twenty-
first in legitimate or illegitimate descent from
the chief, pirate, or sea-king in whose favour
the Earldom was first created. Be this as it
may, however, it is as certain as Scottish annals
can make it that he succeeded to his father's
honours in 1294, and died a little before 1300,
having married the Lady Christian Bruce, sister
of King Robert I., as we have said above. From
him the descent of the title can be traced pretty
clearly. His son, Donald, the twelfth Earl,
appointed Regent of Scotland in 1332, was
placed in command of the Scottish army, but,
being ignorant of the Art of War, he lost his
life, being defeated by an inferior force under
Edward Balliol, and " smothered in the rout."
The son whom he left, Thomas, usually styled
the thirteenth Earl, was the last male scion of
the race which sprang from Gratney, the eleventh

80 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
Earl. He was Great Chamberlain of Scotland,
and held other high appointments in that king
dom ; and once, if not more often, was sent as
ambassador to the English sovereign at West
minster, where he was lodged with all due ho
nour in the royal precincts of Scotland Yard,
near Charing Cross, on the spot which now
forms the head-quarters of the Metropolitan Po
lice Force.
At the death, without issue, of this Earl, ac
cording to the custom of the times, when titles
were realities and implied a feudal territorial
sovereignty, the coronet of Mar passed to his
sister Margaret, who thus became Countess of
Mar in her own right. She married first, Wil
liam, Earl of Douglas, by whom she had a son,
James, who was killed on the field of Otterburn,
in the life-time df his mother, and hence never
enjoyed the Earldom, and a daughter, Isabel.
Margaret married, secondly, Sir J. de Swynton,
by whom she left no issue. On the Countess Mar
garet's death, her daughter, Isabel, became Coun
tess of Mar in her own right. The charters and
records in which Isabel appears as holding the
" Earldom of Mar and Lordship of Garioch" are
very numerous, and the history of this lady,
would of itself form a romance. By the death
of her husband, Malcolm Drummond, she was

THE EARLDOM OF MAR. 81
left, -while still young and no doubt pretty, a
forlorn and unprotected widow. She sat alone,
without a child, or a sister, or a brother to cheer
her, in her castle of Kildrummie, and was, of
course, a first-rate prize for any gay and gallant
gentleman who cared to play the part of " Young
Lochinvar," with a slight dash of violence added,
in order to make the matter piquant and pictu
resque. Courtship in those ages was occasionally of a
rather rude kind, and love and feats of arms
were mixed up in a way which we read of
nowadays only in the pages of Irish country
newspapers. The story runs that Alexander, a
natural son of the Earl of Buchan, and grand
son of Robert II., made his appearance at this
time at the head of a formidable band of robbers
in the Highlands, and that he stormed and took
the castle of the young Countess of Mar, after
possibly only a faint and feeble show of resist
ance. The pretty widow was, no doubt, easily
reconciled to her captor, for we read that Alex
ander soon " obtained her Ladyship in marriage
either by force or persuasion." For my own part,
I hope that I shall be considered a cynic, when
I profess my belief that it was by a little of both
means, and that " persuasion" was not the larger
of the two.
VOL. H. G

82 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
Like one of the Sabine maidens of whom we
read in the early Roman legend, or like the
fair dames Io and Europa of Herodotus,* she
does not seem to have been quite unwilling to
be carried off. At all events, if she were " a wee
bit" angry at first, she soon came round. Nor
was this all. She so far forgave the misdeed
that she made over, by a free grant and deed,
all her honours and inheritances to her husband
by a charter — 12th August, 1404 — which, how
ever, was unconfirmed and speedily cancelled, for
on the following 9th December (as Lord Craw
ford and Balcarres writes), " he went on his
knees before the Bishop and other witnesses,
gave up the castle, the keys, the charters, and
the jewels, whereon the Countess executed a
new settlement, by charter, the same day, on
the longest liver of them, but, failing such, on
her own heirs." His Lordship adds, " This set
tlement was duly confirmed by Robert III., and
the said charter and confirmation have stood ever
since, except dui-ing an interval of injustice, for
one hundred and thirty years, as the fundamen-
* See Book I., chapters ii. iii. The Father of History,
after detailing the circumstances of the seizure of these two
ladies, adds his own opinion with a quaint touch of humour,
remarking "it is clear to me that if they had not them
selves been willing, they would never have been carried off."

THE EARLDOM OF MAR. 83
tal investiture of the House of Mar, as repre
sented by the heirs-general of Isabel."
This Alexander Stewart appears to have been
a man of consequence in his day. He was sent
more than once as ambassador to England (when
he kept high state in Scotland Yard) distin
guished himself in France under the standard of
the Duke of Burgundy — at whose instance he
went to Liege to quell a revolt of the people
against their Bishop — and was afterwards ap
pointed Lord Warden of the Marches. He also
commanded the royal army at the battle of Har-
law against the " Lord of the Isles."
On the death of the Countess Isabel, Alexan
der, who was merely life-renter, resigned the
Earldom to James I. through a bargain by which
the King, in 1426, regranted it to him and his
heirs, whom failing, to revert to the crown.
Alexander died in 1435, whereon (again quoting
from Lord Crawford and Balcarres) " the rights
of Sir Robert Erskine, son of Sir Thomas, Isa-
leTs heir and representative, emerged, under the
confirmed charter of 9th December, 1404; he
was " returned heir," in 1438, to the wliole
Earldom, and in accordance with law and custom
became Earl of Mar. But neither Robert, Earl
of Mar, nor his descendants were ever allowed
to enjoy their inheritance, for James I. seized
G 2

84 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
the Earldom under a pretence (declared by the
Supreme Court in 1626, to have been one naked
possession without right), and in 1457, after Earl
Robert's death, James II., being then of age,
the retours of 1438 were restored, might pre
vailed, and the heirs of Mar, after repeated pro
tests, stood excluded, and the Kings of Scotland
granted the Earldom to members of their own
family and others.
" At length, after a lapse of one hundred and
thirty years, Queen Mary, ever desirous of re
dressing injustice, restored, per modum justitice,
by charter, 23rd June, 1565, to John, 'Lord
Erskine, the direct descendant of Earl Robert,
(and his heirs general) the Comitatus of Mar, or
dignified fief, which, at that time, and till the
close of the century carried the honours." Queen
Mary's charter was confirmed by Act of Parlia
ment, 1587, declaring the said restored Earl's
son, then living, to be heir to the Earl Robert
of 1438, and regarded " as if immediate heir to
the Countess Isabel" in her own right (of 1404).
This son, who was made Treasurer of Scotland,
brought an action, in 1626, against Lord Elphin-
stone, and " the final Court passed their decree,
declaring the resignation to the Crown in 1426,
and the reduction in 1457 to be null and void,
while they declared the settlement of December

THE EARLDOM OF MAR. 85
9, 1404, and its confirmation valid, and Robert to
have been lawfully Earl of Mar in virtue of his
heirship to the Countess Isabel — not the slightest
trace appears of a new creation in 1565, or open
ing for its existence."
In spite of this decision of the Supreme Court
in 1626, which being before the " Union," is
(as Lord Brougham maintained) " binding on
the House of Lords," the Committee of Privi
leges in 1875 (consisting alone of Lords Chelms
ford, Redesdale, and Cairns) expressed their opi
nion that an entirely new Earldom, called Mar,
was " created in 1565," and restricted to the
heirs male of the Erskines, who, as we have seen,
became connected with Mar, solely by the mar
riage of Sir T. Erskine with the heiress of Mar.
The effect of the finding of the Committee of
Privileges (which, however, is technically not a
judgment), if it should be permanently main
tained, would be to alter the Union Roll (which
the Treaty of Union forbids) by the secession of
the ancient and only Earldom of Mar thereon,
and to replace it by the newly alleged " creation
in 1565," and thus to throw the title of Mar six
places lower down upon the list of Scottish
Earls, below those of Rothes, Morton, Buchan,
Eglinton, Caithness, and Moray, who are all
entitled to rank above any title 1565.

86 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
But even yet we have not done with the
troubles which have attended the Earldom of
Mar. The title descended from the Earl restored
by Queen Mary in regular succession down to
the Earl who attached himself to the cause of
James Stuart, the "elder Pretender," and took
an active and zealous part in the Scottish rising
of 1715. In this rising the Earl was lucky
enough not to be caught, or he would most surely
have lost his head on Tower Hill. He escaped to
the Continent, and took up his abode with the
exiled Stuarts, along with the Drummonds and
other adherents of the lost cause, and died, I
believe, at St. Germains in 1732.
The Earldom of Mar, very naturally, suffered
attainder from the House of Hanover in con
sequence of the part which its holder had played,
and this attainder lasted for more than a century.
It was reversed by Act of Parliament in 1824, at
the instance of George IV., after his return from
his first and only visit to Edinburgh, and in
favour of John Francis Erskine " grandson and
lineal representative," as the Act states, through
his mother, Lady Frances, only surviving child
of the attainted Peer— thus clearly maintaining
female succession ; but the new Earl of Mar did
not live long to enjoy his restored honours, dying
in the following year. The Earldom then passed

THE EARLDOM OF MAR 87
to his eldest son, John Thomas, who died in
1828, and then to his son, John Francis Miller,
who died without issue in 1866.
During the lifetime of this Earl, it was always
assumed that the Earldom, as it had more than
once passed through females, would devolve on
his sister, Lady Frances Goodeve, had she been
living, and to her children at her decease; and
accordingly the name of his nephew, Mr. John
Francis Erskine-Goodeve, stood recorded in the
Peerages as undisputably his heir presumptive.
On his uncle's death he assumed the Earldom in
due course, and his vote as Earl of Mar was
habitually received without protest or hesita
tion by the officers of the Crown in Scotland
at the election of representative peers at Holy-
rood. However, some time after the new Earl had
been in possession of his uncle's ancient title, a
new claimant appeared in the person of his kins
man, Lord Kellie, the heir male, who urged that
the Earldom was not descendible to females —
though it had been so regarded for centuries by
all authorities, and it had, in 1824, come through
a female, Lady Frances Erskine, to his own
direct ancestor — and he lodged a formal petition
with the House of Lords to the effect that he
might be declared Earl of Mar by an imaginary

88 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
new creation in 1865, with a line of succession
limited to heirs male. By a strange miscarriage
of justice, and in defiance of all the established
usages, as it seems to me, an unprofessional out
sider, the House of Peers were led by the three
lords who formed the Committee to whom Lord
Kellie's claim was referred, as already mentioned,
to report that he had made out his claim to be
Earl of Mar, " created (by Queen Mary) in 1565."
Not a shadow of a proof was adduced to show
that Queen Mary had ever created a new Earldom.
Lord Chelmsford stated (see his printed Judg
ment) in support of it : " There is no writing or
evidence of any kind. Lord Mansfield said in a
full House of Pers, July 9, 1877, " there is no
scrap or tittle of evidence, or document of any
kind to prove that there ever was that creation in
1565 ; nobody has ever heard of it ; the Com
mittee of Privileges made an unfortunate report.
They came to what I consider a most erroneous
conclusion, suggested by no facts whatever"
adding, " the noble Lords must have taken im
mense pains with the case, because it would be
a difficult thing to give a judgment when all the
facts are against you."
Moreover, the Law Officers representing the
Queen, at the termination of the case, reported to
the Committee that " the Mar title is descendible

THE EARLDOM OF MAR. 89
in any case, through females to heirs general, and
that Lord Kellie, the heir male, had failed to
establish his claim."
The House of Lords have since, by their Select
Committee in 1877, declared that the ancient
Earldom is by no means extinct, and that the
finding of a new Mar title in 1875 by an alleged
new creation of 1565, has in no way touched the
ancient Earldom, nor interfered with the right of
John Francis Erskine, who naturally continues to
hold the time-honoured dignity he inherited as a
matter of course, and who is generally received as
the Earl of Mar in society.
His cause is also espoused by many members
of the Upper House, for example by Lords Huntly,
Ailsa, Galloway, Mansfield, Caithness, Stair,
Blantyre, Morton, Napier and Ettrick, Arbuthnot,
Strathallan, and above all, by Lord Crawford, who
probably knows far more about the law of
Scottish inheritances, whether territorial or titu
lar, and from his wider range of knowledge can
take a more enlightened view of the " case " sub
mitted to their Lordships than two or three
English Peers who have ignored Scottish history,
Royal Charters, Acts of Parliament, and the
decisions of the Supreme Court of Scotland, which
being before the "Union," remain unalterable,
and thus have, unfortunately for themselves, lent

¦90 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
their names to and sanctioned what has been
widely condemned by many Peers, the Public, and
the Press, as a gross act of injustice, but which
certainly cannot remain long unredressed, for
Magna est Veritas et prcevalebit.

91

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE.

AMONG the female worthies of the seven
teenth century, most persons who have had
the good fortune to read the autobiography of
Margaret, Marchioness (afterwards Duchess) of
Newcastle, will feel disposed to accord to that
lady a very distinguished place. In an age of
great public and private laxity, she kept the even
tenor of her way in the most exalted position,
excellent alike in her capacity as daughter, sister,
wife, and mother ; while in her writings, both in
prose and poetry, 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 educated mind, and even in
a gloomy period of sorrow, privation, and dan
ger, she could influence those around her, no less
by her example than by precept, in favour of all

92 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
that was noble and generous in itself, and sus
tain the spirits and 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 press at Lee
Priory, Kent; the one consisting of thirty-six
and the other of only twenty pages ; and of one
work no more than twenty-five copies were
printed ; both of them are exceedingly rare, and
we presume that we might seek in vain for the
original MSS. either in the library of the Caven
dishes at Chatsworth, or in that of the Duke
of Newcastle at Clumber. The one volume is en
titled "A True Relation of the Birth, Breeding,
and Life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of
Newcastle, Written by herself," and the other,
" Selected Poems, by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess
of Newcastle." Sir E. Brydges tells us in his " ad
vertisement" to the former, that it is taken " from
the Duchess'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 Diepenbeck." This work, which was
published in 1(!56, and " was printed by J. Martin
and J. Allestrye at the Bell, in St. Paul's Church
yard," professes to contain " several feigned

DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. 93
Stories of Natural descriptions, as Comical, Tra
gical, and Tragi-Comical, Poetical, Romantical,
Philosophical, and Historical, both in Prose and
Verse, some all Verse, some all Prose, some mixt
partly Prose, and partly Verse ; also there are
some Morals and some Dialogues ; but," naively
adds the title page, " they are as the Advantage
Loaves of Bread to a Baker's Dozen ; and a true
story at thelatterEnd,whereinthere is no feigning."
The Duchess was the youngest of three sons
and five daughters, children of Sir Charles Lucas
— or, as she calls him, one " Master" Lucas — of
St. John's, Colchester, Essex, and sister of the
first Lord Lucas, and also of that celebrated
loyalist, Sir Charles Lucas, whose memory is im
mortalised in the pages of Clarendon. She was born
about the year 1620, and in 1645 became— as she
was particularly anxious to have it recorded* — the
second wife of William Cavendish, second Marquis,
and firstDuke, of Newcastle, of the creation of 1664.
Her husband, who is well known as the author
* " I writ it . . . lest after ages should mistake in not
knowing I was daughter to one Master Lucas . . . and second
wife to the Lord Marquis of Newcastle ; for my Lord having
had two wives, I might easily have been mistaken, especially
if I Bhould die and my Lord marry again." It is curious that
this " mistake " was made afterwards, in spite of her Grace's
minuteness on the point. See the " Lounger's Common-Place
Book," Vol. III. p. 398.

94 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
of a large and valuable work on " Horses and
Horsemanship," was elevated to the peerage in
1620 as Baron Ogle and Viscount Mansfield, and
advanced to the dignity of Baron Cavendish and
Earl of Newcastle in 1628. He was greatly cele
brated as a Royalist general during the Common
wealth, and in his services for the restoration of
the monarchy he sustained immense losses. For
his devotion to the royal cause he was rewarded
with the Marquisate of Newcastle in 1643, and
subsequently promoted to the Dukedom, as
above stated, a title which became extinct in
1680. The Duchess tells us that she was an infant
when her father died, soon after his return to
England from exile, whither he had been sent by
the displeasure of Queen Elizabeth and her
favourite, Lord Cobham, on account of having
" unfortunately killed one Mr. Brooks in a single
duel ;" that, as for her breeding, it was " accord
ing to her birth and the nature of her sex ;" and
it appears that the family were brought up, as she
says, " virtuously, modestly, civilly, honourably,
and in honest principles, not running riot, but
living orderly." Like a true woman, she adds,
"My mother did not only delight to see neat and
cleanly, fine and gay, but rich and costly, main
taining us to the height of her estate, but not

DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. 95
beyond it." And to do the mother justice, it
must be added that she seems to have been a
model of sensible matrons, " buying with ready
money, and not on the score," and, although she
might have increased her daughters' fortunes by
thrift and sparing, yet choosing to bestow her
money on her children, their " breeding," their
" honest pleasures," and "harmless delights."
Lady Lucas, adds her daughter, was particu
larly careful to bring up her children under the
influence, not of fear, but of love ; " she would
not suffer her servants to be rude before us, or to
domineer over us, which all vulgar servants are
apt to do." And, as a proof of the well-ordered
nature of her household, she continues, " Neither
would my mother suffer the vulgar serving men
to be in the nursery among the nursemaids, lest
their rude love-making might do unseemly actions,
or speak unhandsome words, in the presence of
her children." "Although," adds the Duchess,
" we had tutors for .all kinds of virtues,* as sing
ing, dancing, playing of music, reading, writing,
working, and the like, yet we were not kept
strictly thereto ; they were rather for formality
than benefit ; for my mother cared not so much
for our dancing and fiddling, singing, and prating
* She means excellencies or accomplishments. See Aristotle's
Ethics, passim.

96 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
of several languages, as that we should be bred
virtuously." Of her Grace's brothers, two, she says, were
" excellent soldiers and martial discipliners, being
practised therein ;" the one, Sir Thomas Lucas,
commanded a troop of horse in Holland ; while
the other, Sir Charles Lucas — the same of whom
we have already made mention — having served
under his brother, and gained experience abroad,
showed great signs of future ability in his pro
fession.* Her eldest brother, Lord Lucas, married
a "virtuous and beautiful lady," one of the Neviles
of the Abergavenny family, by whom he was the
ancestor of the present holder of the Barony of
Lucas, the mother of Earl Cowper, in whose
superior honours the title must ultimately merge.
Margaret Lucas's sisters married respectively Sir
Peter Killegrew, Sir William Walter, and Sir
Edmund Pye.
The Duchess gives next a few paragraphs,
curious as exhibiting a rare picture of family
affection and harmony, and also as showing the
custom of the gentry of the higher class, even
* " As the Duchess says, he was the author of " A Treatise
of the Arts of War," but " by reason it was in characters, and
the key thereof lost, we cannot as yet understand anything
therein, at least not so as to divulge it." See an account of Sir
C. Lucas in Clarendon's " History of the Rebellion."

DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. 97
then, to pass the winter in London. She says :
" Most of my sisters lived with my mother, es
pecially when she was at her country house —
living most commonly at London half the year,
which is the metropolitan city of England ; but
when they were at London, they were dispersed
into several houses of their own ; yet for the
most part they met every day, feasting each other
like Job's children." As to their recreations, when
in town for the season, the Duchess writes :
" Their custom was in winter-time to go sometimes
to plays, or to ride in their coaches about the
streets to see the concourse and recourse of people ;
and in the spring-time to visit the Spring Garden,
Hyde Park, and the like places ; and sometimes
they would have music and sup in barges upon
the water. These harmless recreations they would
pass their time away with ; for, I observed, they
did seldom make visits, nor never went abroad
with strangers, but only themselves in a flock
together, agreeing so well that there seemed but
one mind amongst them ; and not only my own
brothers and sisters agreed so, but my brothers
and sisters-in-law, and their children, although,
but young, had the like agreeable natures and
affectionable dispositions ; for my best remem
brance I do not know that they ever did fall
out, or had any angry or unkind disputes."
VOL. 11. H

98 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
This happy family party, 'however, was sadly
broken up and scattered by the breaking out of
the Civil War between King Charles and his
Parliament ; an " unnatural war," as the Duchess
styles it, which "came like a whirlwind, and
and felled down our houses, where some in the
wars was crusht to death, as my youngest brother
Sir Charles Lucas, and my brother Sir Thomas
Lucas ; for though my brother Sir Thomas did
not die immediately of his wounds, yet a wound
he received on his head in Ireland shortened his
life." The Duchess was now rapidly rising into woman
hood, and it appears from her autobiography,
that she conceived a strong desire to become one
of the Maids of Honour to the Queen, Henrietta
Maria, who was then with the Court at Oxford.
" Hearing the queen had not the same number
that she was used to have, I wooed and won my
mother to let me go." It appears that this step,
though agreeable to her mother, did not suit the
wishes of her sisters and brothers, who thought
that her inexperience of the world and bashful-
ness of manner, would lead her to do herself less
than fair justice. Nor were these fears entirely
groundless ; for she pleads guilty to having been
so bashful as to be willing to be thought dull,
and even a fool, rather than do anything which

DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. 99
might even seem to be forward, or after the
fashion of the " fast" young ladies of the age.
Once admitted, however, into the privileged circle
of the Court, her mother very sensibly urged her
to persevere in her duties there, rather than to
return to " my sister Pye, with whom I often
lived when she was in London."
It was fortunate for Margaret Lucas that she
had a mother to listen to, and that she had the
sense to follow that mother's advice. " My
mother said it would be a great disgrace for me
to return out of the Court so soon after I was
placed ; so I continued almost two years, until
such time as I was married from thence." It
appears that the Marquis of Newcastle, to use
her own simple and touching words, "did ap
prove of those bashful fears which many con
demned, and would choose such a wife as he
might bring to his own humours, and not such
an one as was wedded to self-conceit, or one that
had been tempered to the humours of another ;
for which he wooed me for his wife. And though
I did dread marriage, and shunned men's com
panies as much as I could, yet I could not, nor
had not the power to refuse him, by reason my
affections were fixed on him, and he was the only
person I ever was in love with."
Both her husband's and her mother's family
H 2

100 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
were great sufferers in the Civil wars ; and one
of the saddest blows was inflicted on Margaret
Lucas by the death of her excellent mother, con
sequent upon what she thought to be the ruin of
her house and of the throne as well. " My
mother," she says, most touchingly, " lived to
see the ruin of her children, and then died ; my
brother, Sir Thomas Lucas, soon after; my
brother, Sir Charles Lucas, after him, being shot
to death* for his loyal service  My eldest
sister died somewhat before my mother, her
death being, as I believe, hastened thro' grief for
her only daughter, on which she doted."
The next scene in Margaret Lucas's life is
exile. She had been married but a year or two,
when her " Lord" was forced to exchange the
palace and broad acres of the Cavendishes for a
residence in sorry lodgings in Paris, at Rotterdam,
and finally at Antwerp, where it appears that he
and his faithful partner and friend were glad to
accept the offers of the tradesmen to give them
credit, where they could not pay ready money
for the necessaries of life. Here, too, her woman's
* He fell side by side with Sir George Lisle, at Colchester,
in the cause of King Charles I. They were shot in the open
space behind Colchester Castle, just under the north wall ; and
to this day it is a local tradition that the grass will not grow on
the spot where their blood fell to the ground.

DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. 101
wit did not desert her : she came over to
England, and hearing that the Marquis's estate
was about to be sold, subject to an allowance to
the wife of the owner, she busied herself to get
a grant out of some portion of his large propert}r,
which she estimates in her " Life of the Duke
of Newcastle," at .£20,000 a-year, or about
£150,000 of our present money : with this end
in view, she tells us, went repeatedly to Drury
House and Goldsmiths' Hall, but in vain ; the
Parliament men had stern and inflexible hearts,
and " she made the more haste to return to her
Lord, with whom," she adds, " 1 had rather be
as a poor beggar than to be mistress of the world
absented from him. But patience hath armed
us," she quaintly concludes, " and finds us
Fortune-proof." In early life, it appears, she had written for
her private amusement, inter alia, a little book
called " The World's Olio," and during the year
and a half she spent in London in the fruitless
effort to recover a portion of her husband's or
her mother's property, she tells us that she
penned a " Book of Poems,'7 and a little book
called " My Philosophical Fancies ;" from the
latter of which we will give some extracts pre
sently. This, indeed, must have been a very
natural solace to her in her months and years of

102 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
trouble and distress, and her pen must have
been to her laborum dulce lenimen; for, as she
tells us, she was " from childhood given to con
templation, more addicted to solitariness than to
society, to melancholy rather than mirth."
To judge from the autobiographic memoir from
which we have already quoted so largely, it is
clear that the Duchess was of a tender and sensi
tive disposition, and possessed, a timorous and
over-scrupulous conscience. Bent on all that
was of good report, honest, pure, and sincere,
and as clear as the daylight itself, she is perpetu
ally showing an amount of self-suspicion and
distrust which, to say the least, is but little in
keeping with her bold and resolute conduct,
when brought face to face with danger and dis
tress. But there are riddles in the female heart
which it is not given, perhaps, to any man to
solve, and the character of Margaret Lucas, in
this respect at least, is one such enigma.
"It is clear," says Sir Egerton Brydges,
" from her prefaces, that the major part of her
works was composed during a period of sorrow.
If her Grace's pen was rather too frequently in
dulged, it is a strange want of candour, and 1
may add, a want of feeling, too, that would
strive to raise a laugh at amusements so innocent
and virtuous, under the pressure of undeserved

DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. 103
and patriotic misfortune. The truth is that, con
siderable as is the alloy of absurd passages in
many of her compositions, there are few of them
in which there are not many proofs of an active,
reflective, and original turn of mind. Though
her manners are stated by her to have been
marked by the extreme of reserve, still her imagi
nation was quick, copious, and sometimes even
beautiful ; yet her taste appears to have been
uncultivated at the best, and perhaps originally
defective. Nothing that I have yet read of hers
is touched by pathos, which, indeed, does not
seem to have been an ingredient of her mind.
On the contrary, we are too frequently shocked
by expressions and images of extraordinary
coarseness, all the more extraordinary as flowing
from a female of high rank, and brought up in
the atmosphere of courts."
It may be interesting to our readers to know
that upon the Restoration, peace and affluence
once more shone upon this noble and worthy pair,
whose sufferings were crowned at length by their
restoration also to the enjoyment of the long-lost
domains of the Duke's vast hereditary property.
The old Abbey of Welbeck once more opened its
gates to its former lord and master; and the
castles of the North again welcomed their chief
tain, whose maternal ancestors, of the baronial

104 TALES OP OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
house of Ogle, had ruled over them for centuries
in Northumberland, with feudal sway that more
than rivalled the Percies in splendour. But ad
vancing years had now made the Duke desirous
rather of repose than of a life spent in courts and
"pageants, to say nothing of extravagance and
dissipation ; and his Duchess, the loving and
faithful companion of his fallen fortunes, though
far younger in years, had gained experience from
her trials, and was but little disposed in conse
quence to quit the quiet luxury of rural grandeur
and the leafy bowers of Nottinghamshire, so
soothing to her melancholy and contemplative
disposition, for the tinsel splendour of the Court
at Whitehall, or " our palace of St. James'." To
such a pair we may easily imagine that the noisy
and intoxicated revelry of a profligate Court would
have been far more painful and distasteful than
all the wants of their late calm and retired, though
chilling, poverty. They therefore refused to be
present at Charles's levees and to become inmates
of his palace, choosing rather to devote them
selves to the sober pleasures of a country life, not
wholly divorced from literature and the arts.
This solitary state and isolated magnificence, so
congenial to the tastes of the duchess and her
" Lord," seems to have afforded an infinite supply
of contemptuous jests to the talented and accom-

DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. 105
plished mob of dissolute wits, who crowded round
Charles II., and worshipped the rising, or rather
risen, sun of royalty. These silly insects, buzzing
in the artificial sunshine of the royal presence,
probably thought that persons like the Duke and
Duchess of Newcastle— who, in virtue of their
high rank and enormous wealth, had the power to
mix, if they pleased, in the busy scenes of courts
and cabinets, and yet could prefer the charms of
nature and the joys of a country life — were fit
only to become the butts of their ridicule. And
it is more than probable that the memory of these
witticisms at their expense may not wholly have
faded away before the earlier years of Horace
Walpole,* who caught up the mantle of these
* Horace Walpole, in his " Royal and Noble Authors,"
sneeringly remarks, that " her Grace's literary labours have
drawn down less applause than her domestic virtues ; nor can
it be denied that she wrote too much to be expected to write
well, had her taste or judgment been greatly superior to what
we find them. That she displayed poetical talent, however,
when it was not clouded by obscure conceits, or warped by a
witless effort to engraft the massy trunk of philosophy on the
slender wilding of poesy, will be seen from her poem entitled
' The Pastime and Recreation of the Queen of Fairies, in Fairy
Land, the Centre of the Earth.' " In a foot note on the ex
tract from the above poem it is affirmed that " there must have
been some affectation about her Grace's person as well a3
writings ; for Granger describes a portrait of her at Welbeck,
attired in a theatrical habit, which she usually wore."

106 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
oracles of wisdom, and condescended to speak in
tones of sneering pity of the character and amuse
ments of Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle.
But assuredly, we may be pardoned for asking,
— pace Horatii AValpole, — whether any phase of
life can show more virtuous and amiable qualities
than a voluntary resort to such innocent rural
enjoyments, combined with the consolations and
pleasures of literature, on the part of persons who
have had more than their fair share of tossing on
the billows of the ocean of life ? To us it would
rather seem that, after the enjoyment of all the
privileges of high rank and a princely fortune,
the spirit which refuses to be broken, or irretriev
ably bent, by the stern gripe of poverty, by
expulsion from home, kindred, and friends, and
by the frowns and scorn of the world, is a truly
noble spirit, whether it be in the breast of a man
or of a woman. And she who, under the blight
and the gloom of such reverses, could create a
kingdom of her own within her mind, shows an
intellectual energy to which few women indeed
can lay claim, and which all the Horace Walpoles
in the world ought not to be allowed to defraud
of the praise that is her due.
Still we must not be led so far by our admira
tion for the Duchess's personal character as not to
subject her writings to just but candid criticism.

DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. 107
Margaret Cavendish had talents, as well as virtues,
which raised her above the multitude, even higher
in proportion than her rank. Her mental powers,
by the aid of a little more arrangement, more
scholar-like polish, and even a moderate exercise
of maturer judgment, might easily have given
birth to writings on which posterity would have
set the highest store. She fell short of this point
of merit. She wanted the primary qualities of
real genius. She was neither sublime nor pathe
tic. She was true to nature, and to her own
genuine, artless feelings ; but higher she could
not rise. She had none of that power of seizing
on the combination of circumstances, of touching
by a few single strokes those chords which,
through the force of association in our ideas, call
up at once whole pictures into being before the
eyes of our minds. She wanted true taste ; she
knew not what to obtrude on her readers, and
what to leave out. She pours out all her feelings,
genuine and excellent in their way, with an un-
distinguishing hand, and mixes up the serious,
the colloquial, and sometimes even the vulgar,
after a manner which cannot be defended by her
warmest admirers.
And yet, though we must own that the Duchess
was deficient in a cultivated judgment, that her
knowledge was more multifarious than exact, and

108 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
that her powers of fancy and sentiment were more
vigorous than her powers of reasoning, we can
not but admire that ardent ambition which, in
her Grace, as in most other persons, is rarely
found except in combination with marked supe
riority of intellect. " I fear," writes the Duchess,
" that my ambition inclines to vain-glory, for I
am very ambitious ; yet it is neither for beauty,
wit, titles, wealth, or power, but as they are steps
to raise me to the summit of Fancy's Tower,
which is to live by remembrance in after ages."
In spite of her strong ambition on this head, it is
to be feared that her Grace's fond desire has not
hitherto been gratified. Her virtues, personal and
literary merits, are known but to few — for quarto
volumes, we fear, are not read by the many ; —
but pleased indeed shall we be if, in our humble
way, we have contributed, though in ever so slight
a degree, to give effect to the " ambition " of Mar
garet Cavendish, and assisted her to make her
name " live by remembrance in after ages."
Her "Nature's Pictures drawn by Fancy's
pencil " are a collection of what she calls her
" feigned stories " in verse and prose, designed to
" present virtue, the Muses leading her, and the
Graces attending her, likewise to defend Inno-
cency, and to help the distressed and lament the
unfortunate, and to show that Vice is seldom

DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. 109
crowned with good fortune." As she says, half-
apologetically, in her address to the reader,
" these pieces are not all limbed alike, for some
are done with oil colours of Poetry, others in
watery colours of Prose, some upon the dark
grounds of Tragedy, and some upon light grounds
of Comedy." The verse consists of a series of
tales told by men and women sitting round a
winter fire ; and we fear that, although many of
them are good and excellent, a few of them savour
more of the style of Boccaccio than we should
have expected from a lady whom the Cambridge
dons compared to Diana on the score of chastity.
However, we suppose that some allowance must
e made for the manners of the age. Some of the
songs interspersed with these stories are very
good in their way ; and to judge from MS. mar
ginal notes, in the Duchess's own handwriting,
she was largely helped in their composition by
" my Lord." Her prose compositions occupy ten
books, of which the last is styled "The She
Anchoret," which represents the conversations of
all kinds of persons with a sort of fairy, the only
child of a pious and excellent widower, and made
the medium of teaching her hearers lessons of
wisdom on all kinds of physical and moral
subjects. So rare is the work entitled " Nature's Pictures,',

110 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
that it is scarcely ever met with, even in an imper
fect condition ; indeed, the copy in the British
Museum (fol. 1656) wants the rare print of the
Duke and his family alluded to above, and is
likewise deficient in the four last leaves. The
only known perfect copy was in the Granville
Library. The drift of her " Nature's Pictures " may be
gathered from the following random list of sub
jects : — " The Discreet Virgin," " The Loving
Cuckold," "The Converts in Marriage," "The
Three Wooers," " The Matrimonial Agreement,"
"Of two Ladies' Different Humours," "The
Drunken Poet," "Love's Cure," " The Tale of the
Ladye in Elyzium," &c, and " The Tobacconist."
This last we make no apology for reprinting
here at full length : —
The Tobacconist.
There were two maides talking of husbands, for
that for the most part is the theame of their dis
course, and the subject of their thoughts.
Said the one to the other, " 1 would not marry
a man that takes tobacco, for anything."
Said the second, " Then it is likely you will
have a fool for your husband, for tobacco is able
to make a fool a wise man ; for though it doth not
always work to wise effects, by reason some fools

DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. Ill
are beyond all improvement, yet it never failes
where any improvement is to be made."
" Why," said the first, " how doth it worke
such wise effects?"
Said the second, " It composes the mind, it
busies the thoughts, it attracts all outward objects
to the mindes view, it settles and retents the
senses, it cheeres the understanding, strengthens
the judgment, spyes out Errors ; it evaporates
follyes, it heates Ambition, it comforts sorrow, it
abates passions, it excites to noble actions ; it
digests conceptions, it inlarges knowledge, it
elevates imaginations, it creates phancies, it
quickens wit, and it makes reason Pleader, and
truth Judge in all disputes or Controversies
betwixt Right and Wrong."
Said the first, " It makes the breath stink."
Said the second, " You mistake ; it will make a
stinking breath sweet."
" It is a beastly smell," said the first.
Said the second, " Civet is a beastly smell, and
that you will thrust your nose to, although it be
an excrement, and, for anything we know, so is
Ambergreece, when tobacco is a sweet and plea
sant, wholesom and medicinable herb."
The list of the Duchess's works in the Catalogue
of the British Museum includes, besides the books

112 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
already mentioned, " Philosophical Fancies "
(12mo., 1653), "Poems and Fancies" (fol.,
1653), « The World's Olio" (fol., 1655), " Philoso
phical and Physical Opinions " (fol., 1655),
"Playes" (fol., 1662), "The Life of William,
Duke of Newcastle " (fol., 1667), and the same in
Latin (fol., 1668), "Plays never before printed"
(fol., 1668), " The Grounds of Natural Philosophy"
(fol., 1668).
Her Grace's praises are to be found in a
folio volume, entitled " Letters and Poems in
Honour of the Incomparable Princess, Margaret,
Dutchess of Newcastle, printed in- the Savoy in
1676." These letters, some in English, some in
French, and some in Latin, bear the signatures
of a variety of learned bodies and personages,
including the Vice-Chancellor and Senate of the
University of Cambridge, the Master and Fellows
cf St. John's College, Cambridge, the Master
(Bishop Pearson) and Fellows of Trinity College,
Mr. Kenelm Digby, Dr. T. Barlow, of Queen's
College, Oxford, Thomas Hobbes, Dr. John Fell,
the Bishop of Rochester (Dr. John Dolbin), the
Lord Berkeley, and Lord Bullingbrooke (sic).
They are all couched in a strain of the most ful
some flattery. One of those from Trinity College,
Cambridge, concludes by calling the Duchess
"Margaret the First, Princess of Philosophers,

DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE. 113
who hath dispelled Errors, appeased differences
of opinion, and restored Peace to Learning's
Commonwealth." And another, from the Univer
sity of Cambridge, sums up her merits in a single
Virgilian line : —
" O soror, o doctum quee sola es Fcemina nomen ;"
and somewhat sportively suggests that she is,
after all, but a Marchioness in breeches, for so we
should be profane enough to translate these words,
" An virili veste induta Marchionissa annos for-
tasse aliquot, idque Athenis, inter Philosophos
delituisti ? " And when they came to try their
hands at verse, half the dons of Cambridge seem
to have gone into ecstatic raptures about her joint
wit and beauty. One fellow of King's College
profanely declares that she is fit to compare only
with the Blessed Virgin Mary ; while another, in a
more truly classic style, compares her and her
books to Niobe and her children : —
" Natorum numero Niobe non provocet illam,
Nee specie, Niobes quse Dea stravit opes ;
Bis septem e gravido, ceu Jupiter, ilia cerebro
Pignora dat, (decuit sic peperisse Deam) ;
Pignora ceu speculo totum referentia mundum,
Non nisi cum mundo pignora digna mori."
It only remains to add that the Duchess died
in London on one of the last days of the year
VOL. H. i

114 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
1673, and was buried on the 7th of January
following in Westminster Abbey, where the Duke
raised a handsome monument to her memory.
Though married at so early an age, her union with
the Duke was issueless. Her children were her
books. The Duke, her husband, followed her to
the grave just three years later, having died on
Christmas-day, 1676, and he too lies buried by
her side in the Abbey of Westminster.

115

LORD NORTHINGTON.

MOST of us, no doubt, remember the names
of Lord Hardwicke and Lord Thurlow, as
occupants of the Woolsack in the last century.
Their fame has not passed away with them, but
remains to our day ; partly because their judg
ments are quoted with respect and reverence by
the legal profession ; and partly also, it must be
owned, because their titles still survive in the
persons of their descendants and representatives,
and the roll of the House of Peers in 1880 would
not be complete without a Lord Thurlow and a
Lord Hardwicke.
But in the interval between those two learned
lawyers there sat upon the Woolsack a man whose
name is comparatively forgotten by the world,
though he was scarcely inferior to either of them
in ability, and had almost as marked an individu-
I 2

116 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
ality of character as Thurlow, of whom it used
to be said that no man could be half as wise
as he looked. I refer to Robert Henley, Earl of
Northington. Descended from the Henleys, of Henley, in
Somersetshire, he had for his great-grandfather
Sir Robert Henley, Master of the Court of Queen's
Bench, who being successful in his career at the
Bar, became late in life the owner of the magni
ficent estate of The Grange, near Alresford,
Hampshire, originally built by Inigo Jones, and
also of a fine town mansion, on the south side of
Lincoln's Inn Fields, on the site now covered by
the Royal College of Surgeons. His grandfather,
and his father, Anthony Henley, were successively
Members of Parliament ; and the name of the
latter frequently occurs in the memoirs of cor
respondence of the reign of Queen Anne as one
of the most polite and accomplished men of his
age. Leaving Oxford, and settling down in
London, he was admitted to the society of all
the first wits of the time, and became the friend
and companion of the Earls of Dorset and Sun
derland, as well as of Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot,
and Burnet. He was equally acceptable as a
politician at the Court of King William at Ken
sington, and also at Wills' and Tom's coffee
houses as a wit. He was the patron of Garth,

LORD NORTHINGTON. 117
who dedicated to him his "Dispensary ;" and he
became a frequent contributor to the periodical
literature of his day, including the " Medley" and
the " Tatler." As a member of the Lower House
he was a zealous asserter of the principles of
liberty, and he became an object of hatred to the
Tory party on account of having moved the ad
dress to Queen Anne in favour of Bishop Hoadley's
promotion. By his marriage with one of the family of
Bertie, Earl of Lindsey and afterwards Duke of
Ancaster, one of his immediate neighbours in
Lincoln's Inn Fields, Mr. Henley obtained a for
tune of £30,000 ; and his wife bore him two sons,
the younger of whom is the object of this sketch.
His elder brother died young, but not till he had
secured for himself much notoriety by his dis
sipation and wit, his frolics and profusion, both
in town and in country circles ; and especially by
a " most humorous but insolent reply to his con
stituents, who had desired him to oppose Sir
Robert Walpole's famous scheme." He married
a daughter of the noble House of Berkeley, but
passed to his grave childless. The other son of
Anthony the elder, and brother of Anthony the
younger, was Robert Henley, who was born about
the year 1708, and was educated at Westminster,
where he was the schoolfellow of the great Lord

118 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
Mansfield, though somewhat his junior in age,
and also of Bishop Newton. He was afterwards
entered at St. John's College, Oxford, whence he
was elected to a Fellowship at All Souls. Having
left Oxford, he was called to the Bar, and became
a Bencher of the Inner Temple. His family con
nections led him to choose the Western Circuit,
and he became in due course Recorder of Bath,
and its representative in Parliament. In the gay
society which gathered in that city to " drink the
waters," he met his future wife, a Miss Huband,
who had been for a long time wheeled about in a
chair, but was afterwards able to hang up her
crutches and walk, thanks to the goddess of the
waters or the little god of love. The newly-married
couple, not being blessed with wealth, (for the
elder Henley was still living and held the purse-
strings rather tightly,) on coming to London,
took up their abode in Great James Street, Bed
ford Row, which then commanded a view across
the fields near the Foundling towards Hampstead.
and Highgate. In Parliament he was a frequent
debater, and an active supporter of the politics
of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and of the
" Leicester House party." On the Prince's death
in 1751, he adhered to the Princess, and so laid
the foundation of his subsequent success in life :
for he was made Solicitor and Attorney-General

LORD NORTHINGTON. 119
to the Heir Apparent — a post which he subse
quently exchanged for the Attorney-Generalship
of England, on the formation of the Ministry
headed by Lord Bute and the elder Pitt, and
shortly afterwards, for the Great Seal, thanks
to the strong friendship of " the great commoner." -
In 1757, accordingly, he was sworn into office,
not, however, exactly as Lord High Chancellor,
but as "Lord Keeper of the Great Seal,"— in
consequence of the personal dislike and opposi
tion of the King.
His friendship with the Leicester House party
so far rendered him distasteful to George II. that
he was kept for three years without the Peerage
which is usually attached to the Woolsack; and
he probably would have remained a Commoner
till the next reign, but for the accident of the trial
of Lord Ferrers for murder, when it was thought
that the first law officer of the Crown ought to
preside. Accordingly in March, 1760, he was
created a Peer by the name, style, and title of
" Lord Henley, of The Grange, in the County of
Southampton." It is generally said that the newly made Peer
did not show to advantage on this occasion. Such,
at all events, was the opinion of the old Court
gossip, Horace Walpole, who writes with his usual
spleen and sneer. " The judge and the criminal

120 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
were far superior to those you have seen.* As
for the Lord Steward,t he neither had any dignity,
nor affected any. Nay, he held it all so cheap
that he said at his own table the other day, ' I
will not send for Garrick to learn to act a part.' "
But whether this charge be true or not, he sen
tenced Lord Ferrers to be hung in a speech at
once grave, simple, dignified, and appropriate.
Curiously enough it was again his lot to preside
as Lord High Steward in the House of Lords in
1765, when the "wicked" Lord Byron was tried
by his Peers for having killed his neighbour, Mr.
Chaworth, in a duel in Pall Mall.
The accession of George III., as might be ex
pected, brought with it to Lord Henley the long-
delayed reward, for he gave up the Great Seal as
Lord Keeper only to receive it back as Lord High
Chancellor, being at the same time raised to the
higher dignity of Earl of Northington. Not long
afterwards he was made Lord-Lieutenant of
Hampshire, and resided mostly at his seat in that
county, the Grange, from the time of his retire
ment from public life down to the end of his days,
though he varied his existence by occasional visits
to Bath.
* The allusion is to the Rebel Lords who were tried for the
Scottish Rising in 1745.
t Walpole clearly meant the Lord Chancellor.

LORD NORTHINGTON. 121
He continued to sit upon the Woolsack during
the three successive Ministries of Lord Bute,
George Grenville, and Lord Rockingham. On
the accession of the Duke of Grafton and Mr. Pitt
to place and power, he resigned the Great Seal,
but continued for a year to hold a seat in the
administration as President of the Council. This
dignity, however, he resigned in 1767, on account
of the constant attacks of his old enemy, the gout,
which embittered the five last years of his life.
He died in January, 1772.
I am sorry to say that, unless Horace Walpole
and other writers of contemporary anecdote
indulge in gross scandal and lies, Lord Northing-
ton, in spite of his great talents and high position,
must have been a most inveterate toper. In fact,
in his love of the bottle he could not have been
surpassed either by Lord Thurlow or by any of
those choice wits who used to gather in the upper
room of the Devil Tavern in Fleet Street, and
quaff the midnight bowl in honour of Bacchus,
looking up to the lines of Ben Jonson inscribed
over the mantelpiece in letters of gold.
" Truth itself doth flow in wine.

Wine it is the milk of Venus,
And the poet's horse accounted :
Ply it, and you all are mounted.

122 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
'Tis the true Phoebean liquor,
Cheers the brains, makes wit the quicker,
Pays all debts, cures all diseases,
And at once three senses pleases."
I will give one or two examples of Lord North
ington in his cups.
If we may believe Horace Walpole, the Lord
Chancellor was drunk, or at all events had been
drinking freely, one evening, when a smart gentle
man, with a staff or civic office in his hand, arrived
to tell him that he had been chosen Governor of
St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and began in a set
speech to allude to his health and abilities. " By
G  ! " cried out the Chancellor, " it's a lie ; I
have neither health nor abilities ; my bad health
has destroyed my abilities, if I ever had
any." Again, in 1766, while holding office as Lord
President of the Council, he went to stay at Bath,
where he entered extensively into fashionable
society, though he voted it a " horrid bore," even
if he did not use a coarser expression. Horace
Walpole, at all events, writing to Lady Suffolk,
says : " The Dowager Chancellor is here. . . .
My Lord President goes to the balls ; but I believe
he had rather be at the ale-house." So well indeed
was his Lordship's proclivity in this direction
known, that on Lord Gower being appointed to

LORD NORTHLXGTOX. 123
the Presidency of the Council, one of the wits of
the day remarked, " Lord Granville had the post,
and now Lord Northington has it : it is a drunken
place by prescription."
It must be remembered, however, in forming
an estimate of Lord Northington, that toping was
the " order of the day" in his time, and that " as
drunk as a lord " was a saying as true as it was
terse. But those times have passed away, and
now-a-days, perhaps, it would be more correct to
say, " as drunk as a working man."
There is current in the profession an amusing
anecdote respecting the acceptance of the Great
Seal by Lord Northington. The Seal had been
offered to Chief Justice Willes, but had been
declined by him for reasons in part personal and
in part political, for it was offered without a
peerage. Immediately afterwards Henley called
on him at his villa, where he found him walking
in his garden, highly indignant at the meanness
of the offer. After entering into his grievances
in some detail, Willes concluded by asking
whether any man of spirit under such circum
stances could have accepted the Great Seal,
adding, " Could you, Mr. Attorney-General, have
done so V Being thus appealed to point blank,
Henley gravely told the Chief Justice that it was
too late to discuss the question, as he had called

124 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
on him for the purpose of telling him that he
had just accepted the Seal for himself, and that
he had accepted it on the same terms which
Willes had rejected with scorn.
Though the name of Lord Northington is
almost forgotten upon the Woolsack, he was
much respected in his official character by so
good a judge and so high an authority as Lord
Eldon, who calls him " a great lawyer," and
expresses his admiration for his firmness in deli
vering his opinion. By an accident, unfortunate
for his fame, the proceedings in the Court of
Chancery, whilst he presided over it, were most
inefficiently reported ; so that his Lordship must
be added to the long list of those who have been
obliged to sleep in the shade of long night carent
quia rate sacro. His grandson, Robert, Lord
Henley, however, was able to repair this defect
to some extent, by gleaning some of his deci
sions from sundry manuscript collections in the
hands of legal friends, and publishing them in
two volumes. These show that, whatever he may
have been in private life and over the bottle, on
the bench he showed judicial talents of the
highest order. " He was gifted by nature," ob
serves his grandson, " with an understanding at
once vigorous and acute, and he brought with
him to the bench a profound acquaintance with

LORD NORTHINGTON. 125
both the science and practice of the law. He was
remarkable for the great energy and decision of
his mind, and for the happy capacity of relieving
an intricate case from all minor and extraneous
circumstances, whilst he grappled with and over
came its weightiest difficulties. His judgments
also are conspicuous for their clear, simple, and
manly style." It must be owned that his only
judgment which is couched in terms intelligible
to non-professional readers — his sentence on Lord
Ferrers — fully bears out this praise.
He was succeeded by his only son, Robert,
who became second Earl, , and is known to the
readers of history as the friend of Charles James
Fox and the patron of Windham. He was made
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland by the Coalition
Ministry of 1783, and also received the green
riband of the Order of the Thistle. He died at
Paris in 1786, in his fortieth year; but as he
left no son, his titles became extinct. He is
spoken of by Horace Walpole as a " decent, good
sort of man," and as being " at one time intended
by the Ministry (1782) for a diplomatic employ
ment abroad." The Barony of Henley, however,
was revived — though only as an Irish peerage —
in favour of his son-in-law, Sir Morton Eden,
who had married his youngest daughter, Lady
Elizabeth, the only one of Lord Northington's

126 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
children who had a family, though they all
found husbands. His son, the present Lord
Henley, therefore, is the last Lord Northing-
ton's maternal grandson, and representative
of his name.

127

THE CUTLERS OF WENTWORTH.

AMONG those families who have experienced
the " vicissitudes" of fortune in no ordinary
degree, is that of the Cutlers, who formerly
owned the broad acres now known as Wentworth,
near Rotherhaio, in Yorkshire, the seat of Earl
Fitzwilliam. The Cutlers, formerly of Stainborough (now
Wentworth House), in Yorkshire, owed to the
law their rise from the position of plain untitled
gentry to the baronetage. Sir Gervase Cutler.
who owned that property in the reign of Charles
L, was a member of the long robe, and made
two fortunate marriages, his first wife having
been the co-heiress of Sir JohnBentley, of Rolles-
ton, in Staffordshire, and his second one of the
daughters of John, Earl of Bridge water. "The
latter alliance," observes a writer in the Patrician,

128 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
" was solemnised in 1633, a year before the
' Masque of Comus,' by one John Milton, was
presented by the lady's brothers and sisters in
the Castle of Ludlow ;" and it is commemorated
in some elegant verses by Abraham France, the
poet. But the term of happiness — at all events,
of peaceful repose — that followed the marriage of
the knight and his second lady, was of brief
duration. The Civil War broke out, and Sir
Gervase arrayed himself under the royal banner.
He raised a considerable force of foot soldiers and
horsemen in the cause of Charles I., and, like a
good Cavalier, he sent the family plate to Ponte-
fract, to be coined into money for the royal
exchequer. He died in 1645, leaving his young
widow burdened with a large family and some
what pinched for means. His eldest son, the
second Sir Gervase, who succeeded to his
father's name and lost fortunes, was not a youth
of a disposition to save the family from ruin, or
to retrieve the position which should have been
his among the gentry of Yorkshire. On the con
trary, in spite of his mother's good example, he
seems to have been of extravagant and dissolute
habits. He married, however, and had a family ;
but in the next generation his descendants —
who, through their mother, the Lady Magdalene
Egerton, were in direct line of descent from the

THE CUTLERS OF WENTWORTH. 129
Tudors and Plantagenets — were sunk into ob
scurity." He died in the year 1705, and about
the same time his paternal estate of Staiuborough
passed by purchase into the hands of Wentworth,
Earl of Strafford, whose grandfather was a brother
of Thomas Wentworth, the ill-fated statesman of
the reign of Charles I. From the Straffords the
estate of Wentworth was inherited by Lord
Rockingham, the minister of George III., and
from the Rockinghams it passed, in 1744, by the
marriage of Lady Anne Wentworth, eldest
daughter of Thomas, first Marquis, and heiress
of her brother Charles, second Marquis, to the
Fitzwilliams, who from that time to this have
always borne the name of Wentworth before that
of Fitzwilliam.

VOL. H. K

130

THE EARLDOM OF BRIDGEWATER.

AMONG the many noble houses which adorn
the south of England is the mansion, or,
to give it its ancient name, the College, of Ash-
ridge, in Hertfordshire. The present magni
ficent structure was built in the Gothic and
castellated style, by Francis Henry, eighth Earl of
Bridgewater, whose name will always be held in
grateful memory by men of science and culture as
the munificent founder of " The Bridgewater
Treatises." As the visitor approaches the park
and pleasaunce of Ashridge on his way between
Hemel Hempstead and Aldbury, he may fancy,
at a distance, that he is looking upon a veritable
castle of the fourteenth century, and may well
exclaim with Milton:

THE EARLDOM OF BRIDGEWATER. 131
" Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landscape round it measures ;
Towers and battlements it sees,
Bosom'd high in tufted trees."
And, in explanation of the last line, it may be
added that it expresses the very name of this
classical spot, as a "ridge" or "rudge" (a
steep place) set in the midst of ash trees.
Here a monastic college was founded in a.d.
1285 by Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, for twenty
canons, called Bons-hommes, or Good-men,
under a rector. It was dedicated to the honour of
the sacred Blood of Christ, and Hollinshed
gives the following account of the reason why it
was so dedicated:
"Edmund, the son and heir of Richard, Earl
of Cornwall, who was second son to King John,
being with his father in Germany, and there
beholding the reliques and other precious monu
ments of the ancient emperors, he espied a box of
of gold, by the inscription whereof (as the
opinion men then gave) he found that therein was
contained a portion of the blood of Our Blessed
Saviour. He therefore, being desirous to have
some portion thereof, by fair entreaty and money
obtained his desire, and brought over the box
with him into England ; bestowing a third part
thereof at his father's decease on the Abbey of
k 2

132 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMHJES.
Hailes, which his father had founded, and
wherein his father and mother were both buried :
whereby to enrich the said monastery, reserving
the other two parts in his own custody ; till at
length, moved upon such devotion as was then
used, he founded an Abbey at Asherugge, in
Hertfordshire, a little from the manor of
Bercampstead, in which he placed the monks of
the order of Bons-hommes (good men), being the
first that ever had been of that order in England,
and assessed to them and their abbey the other
two parts of the Sacred Blood."
It is said that these monks came to England
from the South of France, and that, besides
Ashridge they had but one other house
in England, namely, at Edington in Wilt
shire. Little is known of the history of Ashridge as
a college, except that Edward I. held a Parlia
ment within its walls, and that the rector and
monks held it in peace down to the twenty-sixth
year of the tyrant, Harry the Eighth, when it
was surrendered to the crown and became the
residence of royalty. Edward VI. bestowed it on
his sister, the Princess Elizabeth, who took up
her abode here during a great part of Mary's
reign. " It was her chosen seat, when suspected
by her imperious sister of conspiracy ; and from

THE EARLDOM OF BRIDGEWATER. 133
this place she was forcibly torn, though weak
and ill, by the Queen's messengers, and con
veyed in a litter by slow journeys to London,
to answer the charges brought against her."
Ashridge, having been for a short time in other
hands, was purchased by Sir Thomas Egerton,
Lord Ellesmere, the founder of the noble house
of Egerton, on whose death it passed to his
eldest son, who soon after, in 1617, was created
Earl of Bridgewater. In 1631 he was promoted
to the presidency of the Marches of Wales ; and
it is to the fact that he was living in this
capacity at Ludlow Castle that we owe the
beautiful " Masque of Comus." Todd, the editor
of Milton, writes :
" The Earl had probably been long acquainted
with Milton, who had before written the ' Arcades'
for the Countess of Derby, and who, as it has
been supposed, wrote also, while a student at
Cambridge, his elegiac ode to the Marchioness of
Winchester, in consequence of his acquaintance
with the Egerton family. ' I have been in
formed from a manuscript of Oldy's,' says
Warton, ' that Lord Bridgewater, being ap
pointed Lord President of Wales, entered upon
his official residence at Ludlow Castle with
great solemnity. On this occasion he was
attended by a large concourse of the neighbour-

134 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
ing nobility and gentry. Among the rest came
his children, in particular Lord Brac'kley, Mr.
Thomas Egerton, and Lady Alice,
" To attend their father's state
And new-intrusted sceptre.
They had been on a visit at the house of their
relations in Herefordshire, and in passing through
Haywood Forest were benighted, and the Lady
Alice was even lost for a short time. This
accident, which in the end was attended with no
bad consequences, furnished the subject of a
mask for a Michaelmas festivity, and produced
' Comus.' " Lord Bridgewater was appointed
[or rather installed] Lord President May 12, 1633.
When the perilous adventure in Haywood
Forest, if true, happened, cannot now be told. It
must have been soon after. The mask was acted
at Michaelmas, 1634.'
The first and second Earls appear to have both
been men of piety and learning, and to have
shown themselves liberal friends of the Muses
and their clients. The fact that the first Earl
was one of those who encouraged the early efforts
of John Milton would alone speak volumes for
his memory. The second Earl, who married a
daughter of Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, was
one of those persons who ordered his household

THE EARLDOM OF BRIDGEWATER. 135
in a truly Christian manner, having prayers
read for his family in the chapel morning and
evening, from which none were allowed to
absent themselves without a good excuse. The
Earl in his " Household Roll" then gave rules
for the conduct and deportment of those who
waited at table, from which I may be pardoned for
quoting the following, as giving a picture of a
well-regulated nobleman's household in the lax
days of Charles II. :
" All both gentlemen and yeomen are in a
willing and decent manner to bringe up the first
course to the table, and becaase the attendance
of the gentlemen cannot afterwards be spared
from thence duringe the meale, the yeomen are
afterwards to bring up the second course and the
fruite ; and all take care not to use any uncivil],
careless, slightinge, or unseemly demeanour in
their attendance at table, and particularly to
show respect and curtesie to strangers.
" All are diligently to attend their service at
the table, without gazinge about (so blindinge
their owne eyes from finding what is fitting for
them to doe, without being called), or listening
too earnestly to what is said, (so stoppinge their
owne ears against the call of such as shall have
occasion to make use of them).
" None is to carry out of the dininge-room any

136 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
napkin, spoone, knife, glasse, or any thing else
belonging to the service of the table, but by the
privity or appointment of the buttler, that
soe nothinge of that nature may be sett in win-
dowes, or by corners there to adventure break-
inge, stealinge, or being purloyned away, upon
payne that he, who is soe found offendinge, doe
pay for what is soe lost or imbezled.
" All are to notice that the meate taken from the
table is to be delivered into the clarke of the
kitchen's hands againe, without any imbezlinge
or takinge away any part of it, that soe such care
may be taken that the meate provided may suffice
the family."
For the deportment of the servants towards
each other there are the following rules :
" Civill and sober demeanour is to be used by
all the servants, one among another at their
meals, at their several tables, where they are
appointed to sitt; and all unseemly and rude
deportment to bee avoyded both in words and
actions ; and none are to rise from table until
thanks be first given to God.
" All quarrelling, brawling, and fightinge is to
be forborne and avoyded by all the household
servants, but upon occasion of wrong profered,
they are to make it known to myselfe or
my officers, that soe speedy redress may be had."

THE EARLDOM OF BRIDGEWATER. 137
Then follow directions to the steward, the
"gentlemen of my horse," to the gentlemen
ushers, yeomen ushers, clerk of the kitchen,
butler, wardrobe keeper, and porter, with general
directions to all the servants. Among the latter
is the following, which shows that the article
particularised must have been thought worthy of
special attention :
"That in all things care be taken to avoid
wasteful expence; and that more particularly
the clerke of the kitchen, the cooke, and the
larder maid be watchfull to prevent the waste-
full expence of butter, which had hitherto beene
both too little considered, and too little valued,
and too much wasted."
Dying in 1686, the Earl left an honoured name
and noble estate to his son John, the third Earl,
whose son, the fourth Earl, having held the post
of Master of the Horse to Prince George of
Denmark, was raised to the dukedom of Bridge-
water by George I. His younger son, the sixth
Earl and third Duke, was the illustrious father of
inland navigation, immortalised by the canal
which bears his name, and still more so by the
self-denial with which he voluntarily gave up
present wealth, luxury, and splendour, in order
to complete that immense work for the benefit of
another generation, in which he had the less

138 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
interest as he had no son, and lived and died
unmarried. The dukedom ceased at his death, the more
ancient earldom passing to his cousin, John
William, the seventh Earl. This nobleman was
a son of Dr. John Egerton, Lord Bishop of
Durham, by his marriage with the Lady Anne
Sophia Grey, daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of
Kent. Lord Bridgewater, having been bred for
the army, enterd the service in 1771 as a cornet
in the 7th Light Dragoons, and ultimately rose
to the rank of a generaL Before his accession
to the peerage, he sat for many years in Parlia
ment as member for the borough of Brackley, and
voted invariably with the Administration. When
he died the Earl was Colonel of the 14th Dragoons,
Steward for the Duchy of Cornwall to the estates
of that Duchy in Hertfordshire, and Master of
Greatham Hospital, Durham. On the death of
the last Duke of Bridgewater he succeeded to
the Hertfordshire estates of that nobleman, to
gether with a large fortune ; and at the time of
his own death, Lord Bridgewater is said to have
been the largest holder of Bank stock of any man
in England.. In the obituary notice of him in
the " Gentleman's Magazine" it is stated that
"his lordship was much of an economist, and
was able to expend a very large sum in rebuilding

THE EARLDOM OF BRIDGEWATER. 139
the family seat of Ashridge, now one of the most
splendid mansions in England." The writer adds
that his lordship "was a man of a quiet domestic
turn, and much esteemed in the circle of his
acquaintance. He was long distinguished for
his love of the fine arts, his hospitality, and the
employment given to the poor on his large estates
.... The Earl of Bridgewater left by his will
£6000 per annum for ever, for the employ and im
provement of the poor in the parish of Ashridge."
At his death in 1823 the Earldom of Bridge-
water devolved on a most singular and eccentric
character — Francis Henry, the last Earl. He
was sixty-six years old when he came into the
title, and had held a prebendal stall in Durham
Cathedral, and had also been rector of Middle
and of Whitchurch in Shropshire, both of which
livings he retained until his death. He lived a
bachelor, and though he was the owner of
princely Ashridge, he took up his abode at Paris,
where he occupied himself with literary matters.
He amused himself chiefly with domestic bio
graphy, and in 1826 he printed for private cir
culation some " Family Anecdotes," from which
some extracts will be found in the "Literary
Gazette" for 1827. The Earl always had half a
dozen or more dogs to sit down with him to
meals, chairs and plates being put ready for

140 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
them, though he never carried their refinement so
far as to induce them to use spoons ! In other
respects he was equally eccentric. Sometimes a
fine carriage, containing half a dozen of his dogs
was seen in the streets of Paris, drawn by four
horses, and accompanied by two footmen. In his
last days, when so weak as to be unable to leave
his own grounds, he is said to have adopted a
strange substitute for the sports of the field, to
which he had been addicted. In his garden at
the back of his house there were placed about
three hundred rabbits, and as many pigeons and
partridges, whose wings had been cut. Provided
with a gun, and supported by servants, he would
enter the garden and shoot two or three head of
game, to be afterwards put upon the table as his
sporting trophies !
Nor did his eccentricity end except with his
life : for he tried by his will to create a fresh duke
dom, or at the least a marquisate; for having no
son or brother or very near relation to whom to be
queath his property, he left Ashridge and other
estates in different counties, to his kinsman, Lord
Alford, the eldest son of Earl Brownlow, on con
dition that he obtained a higher grade in the peer
age than his father before him. This condition, of
course, he could only fulfil and carry into effect
by making interest with the Prime Minister of the

THE EARLDOM OF BRIDGEWATER. 141
day; and he could hardly expect to make interest
with him unless he actively supported his politics
in Parliament. It can scarcely therefore be a
matter of surprise to any thoughtful reader that
the House of Lords, as the Supreme Court of
Equity, taking a common -sense view of the legal
question raised by this strange will, declared the
condition sought to be imposed by the Earl upon
the object of his bounty " contrary to public
policy," and therefore void. Accordingly they
assigned the estates to Lord Alford free from all
conditions; and it is his son, the present Earl
Brownlow, who now owns " princely" Ashridge,
though it is tenanted for life and mainly inhabited
by his lordship's mother, Lady Marion Alford.

142

THE CAREWS OF BEDDINGTON.

IT may possibly be remembered that in the
year 1875 the daily papers recorded, in a
paragraph of three or four lines, the bank
ruptcy, and more recently the death, of a Mr.
Carew, " the last of a noble family, who once
entertained royalty at their ancestral home at
Beddington, near Croydon, in Surrey."
The Carews, or Careys— for the name is pro
nounced either way, and no doubt both forms
are at root one and the same — are a race of the
Anglo-Saxon stock which was "at home" in
Somerset, Pembrokeshire, and several other
English and Welsh counties "when the Con
queror came." So at least say Sir Bernard
Burke and the heralds ; and the assertion is con
firmed by the tradition of the family, which says
that the Carews are one of the few families now
remaining who can trace their descent, without

THE CAREWS OF BEDDINGTON. 143
interruption from the Anglo-Saxon period of
English hiBtory. In the ages of the Roses, the
Tudors, and the Stuarts, the Carews figured
amongst the most distinguished statesmen and
warriors both in England and Ireland. One
member of the family appears to have settled in
Ireland as early as the reign of Henry II., in
1154, and may therefore well have been one of
those adventurers who went over to that country
with Strongbow : and at the present hour they
possess the honours of the Peerage both in
England and Ireland, and also of the Baronetage.
The estates of Woodstown and Castleborough, in
the South of Ireland belong to Lord Carew, and
those of Haccombe and Tiverton Castle in
Devon, to Sir Walter Carew ; while other
Carews flourish at Colliepriest in Devonshire, at
Crowcombe in Somersetshire, at Carpenders
Park in Hertfordshire, and at Ballinamona in
the county of Waterford.
Leaving it, however, to the worthy rulers of
the Herald's College, or as I ought to say, the
" College of Arms," to draw out the pedigree of
all the Carews, and to join them on to one single
stem, I may at once pass to a short notice of the
early history of that particular branch of the
House of Carew, whose fortunes I have to record.
And here, happily, I am not left without a guide ;

144 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
for Mr. Alfred Smee, of the Bank of England,
has devoted a chapter of his lately published
work, " My Garden,"* to an account of Bedding-
ton Park and its former noble owners ; and, with
such resources lying " at the pit's mouth" ready
to be drawn upon, I am happily saved the trouble
of diving very deeply into the mine of informa
tion to be found in the works of Dugdale, Speed,
and other learned antiquaries.
It is now rather more than five hundred years
since the Carews first came to be connected with
Beddington. At all events, as early as the year
1353 (the 27th of Edward III.) we find two
members of that family, William and Nicholas de
Carru, as the name was then spelt, engaging to
rent the Manor at twenty marks per annum of
its then owners, Sir William Willoughby and
his lady. Seven years later we find Sir William
obtaining leave from the King to alienate the
fee-simple of the estate to Nicholas De Carru and
his heirs. Within a few years this same Nicholas
contracted a marriage with the only daughter and
heiress of Sir William Willoughby, and widow
of Sir Thomas Huscarle, who owned the adjoin
ing Manor; thus it was that he became possessed
of a considerable estate and lands, and founded
* "My Garden, its Plan and Culture." By Alfred Smee,
F.R.S. London: Bell and Daldy, 1872.

THE CAREWS OF BEDDINGTON. 145
the fortunes of the family, who flourished for so
many years alongside of the noble and venerable
oaks with which their park abounded.
This Sir Nicholas de Carru appears to have
descended from one Otho, a Norman noble, who
came over to England in the train of the Con
queror, and the name of Carru was first taken in
the reign of King John by his descendant from
the Castle of Carriew or Carru in Pembrokeshire,
which they then held. He adds that the family
arms are just as they are now given in Burke,
" Or, three lions passant in pale sable," and that
the present method of spelling the name was not
adopted until the reign of Henry VII.
Be this, however, as it may, one thing is cer
tain, namely, that the Carews can boast of several
very distinguished persons as members of their
house, but of none more noteworthy in his way
than one Gerald Carew, who is better known to
the world at large by his literary appellation
of Giraldus Cambrensis,* the celebrated historian,
whose works, entitled " Itinerarium Cambriae,"
" Topographia Hibernise," and others of a similar
* The family name of " Giraldus Cambrensis," as stated in
the Biographical Dictionary, is given as De Barri ; but the
fact of his being a member of the ancient family of the Carews
is here given on the authority of Mr. Smee's work already men
tioned above.
VOL. H. L

146 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
character, as well as his very long connection
with the county of Pembroke, whilst holding the
archdeaconry of St. David's, may well cause
him to be regarded as one of their principal
members. But to return to the Carews of Beddington. I
find that the Sir Nicholas Carru, whom I have
already introduced to my readers, was a person
of considerable importance in the reign of King
Edward III., under whom he was not only one
of the "Knights of the Shire" for Surrey, but
also Keeper of the Privy Seal, and eventually
one the executors of the will of that warlike and
illustrious Sovereign. The Manor of Bedding-
ton continued to be vested in the Carew* family
from father to son down to the reign of Henry
VIII., when another Sir Nicholas Carew, Master
of the Horse to his Majesty, Lieutenant of Calais,
and one of the Knights of the Garter, happening
to incur the displeasure of that fierce and peppery
tyrant, was beheaded on Tower Hill in 1539.
He had no sooner been consigned to his grave
in the Church of St. Botolph's, Aldgate, than his
* Other houses with lands and manors, small and large, ap
pended to them, had at different times become the property of
the Carews. Among these were the Forester's Manor (the
locality of which is unknown) and the Frere's Manor, which
formerly belonged to the Hospital of St. Thomas in South-
wark.

THE CAREWS OF BEDDINGTON. 147
broad lands at Beddington were seized upon by
the King, who appointed one Michael Stanhope
to reside in the Manor-house as its " keeper."
During this time it is said that King Henry was
a constant visitor at Beddington, that he fre
quently took up his residence there for a few
days together, and held a council there on one
occasion, I believe in 1541. Subsequently one
of the King's courtiers, or rather court vultures,
obtained from the royal despot a grant of the
Manor of Beddington for his life; and in the
following reign the Manor, mansion, church, and
lands of fair Beddington, were granted to Thomas
Lord D'Arcy, of Chiche,* in exchange for other
lands which the latter had ceded to the King.
From Queen Mary, in whose service he was em
ployed, the next generation of the Carews, re
presented by Sir Francis, obtained the restitution
of the estates which had been wrenched away
from his father ; but Sir Francis was too wary
to rest content with a mere royal grant, which
in those ticklish times he knew might be upset
by the next occupant of the throne, but clenched
the matter by a money payment in return for a
legal and duly attested cession of the estate of
Beddington. It was this Sir Francis Carew who built the
* Better known as St. Osyth's, near Colchester, in Essex.
L 2

148 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
old mansion of Beddington Park, but which has
been so extensively modernised in the eighteenth
century that little of it now remains except the
great hall. This was quite in keeping with the
great halls of other houses, and is very like the
hall of Christ Church, at Oxford. The great
door of this hall has still on it a curious ancient
lock, very richly wrought, and its keyhole is
concealed by a shield which bears the arms of
England. By his clever legal arrangement Sir Francis
managed to keep on good terms with the " Maiden
Queen," as well as with her sister, and ultimately
it fell to his lot to entertain royalty at his house.
At all events, it is on record that Elizabeth
honoured Sir Francis Carew with her presence at
Beddington, in August, 1599, when she spent
three days at the mansion. In the following
August, as it appears, she paid her worthy host
a second visit. On this occasion Sir Francis
seems to have exerted his horticultural skill to
the utmost in keeping back the cherries, the
favourite fruit of Elizabeth, for the table of that
Queen. As the process was strictly in keeping
with the subject treated of in Mr. Smee's book, our
author quotes the following quaint account of it
from Sir Hugh Piatt's "Garden of Eden," in
which the worthy knight says : —

THE CAREWS OF BEDDINGTON. 149
" Here I will conclude with a conceit of that
delicate knight, Sir Francis Carew, who, for the
better accomplishment of his royal entertainment
of our late Queen of happy memory at his house
at Beddington, led Her Majesty to a cherry tree,
whose fruit he had of purpose kept back from
ripening at the least one month after all other
cherries had taken their farewell of England.
This secret he performed by straining a tent or
cover of canvas over the whole tree, and wetting
the same now and then with a scoop or horn, as
the heat of the weather required; and so, by
withholding the sunbeams from reflecting upon
the berries, they both grew great, and were very
long before they had gotten their cherry colour ;
and when he was assured of Her Majesty's coming,
he removed the tent, when a few sunny days
brought them to their maturity."
It is interesting to be reminded that it is to Sir
Francis Carew that we are indebted for the first
introduction into this country and cultivation of
orange trees, which are supposed to have been
brought into England, at his suggestion, by Sir
Walter Raleigh, who was married to the niece of
this "good old country squire." In proof that
his estimate of the horticultural skill of Sir
Francis Carew is not overdrawn, I may place on
record the following account of the orangery

150 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
at Beddington, taken from the twelfth volume of
the " Archseologia."
" Beddington Gardens, at present (1796) in
the hands of the Duke of Norfolk, but belonging
to the family of Carew, has in it the best orangery
in England. The orange and lemon trees there
grow in the ground, and have done so for
nearly a hundred years, as the gardener, an
aged man, said that he believed. There are a
great number of them, the house wherein they are
being above 200 feet long; they are most of them
13 feet high, and very full of fruit, the gardener
not having taken off them so many flowers this
year (1796) as usually do others. He said that
he gathered off them at least 10,000 oranges this
last year. The heir of the family being now
about fifty-five years of age, the trustees take
care of the orangery, and this year they build a
new house dver them. There are some myrtles
growing among them, but they look not well for
want of trimming. The rest of the garden is all
out of order, the orangery being the gardener's
chief care, but it is capable of being made one of
the best gardens in England, the soil being very
agreeable, and a clear silver stream running
through it."
The rest of the story of the House of Carew
may be speedily told. Sir Francis, the " grand

THE CAREWS OF BEDDINGTON. 151
old gardener " and courtier in one, died a bachelor
in 1611, at the venerable age of eighty-one, leav
ing his estates to his nephew, Sir Nicholas Throg-
morton, who took the name and arms of Carew
on inheriting Beddington. It was in the time of
this Sir Nicholas that Sir Walter Raleigh was
beheaded ; and it was to him that his sister, Sir
Walter's widow, addressed a letter requesting
that he might be buried in Beddington Church.
It does not appear from history whether this re
quest was refused, or subsequently withdrawn by
the widow ; but, at all events, Sir Walter Raleigh
was buried in St. Margaret's Church, Westmin
ster, while his head, after being cut off by the
axe of the executioner, was sent to his son at
West Horsley, in Surrey, where it was interred.
The letter itself is well worth preserving, and
accordingly I reproduce it here : —
" To my best B[rother], Sirr Nicholes Carew,
at Beddington,
"I desair, good brother, that you will be
pleased to let me berri the worthi boddi of my
nobell hosbar, Sir Walter Ralegh, in your chorche
at Beddington — wber I desair to be berred. The
lordes have given me his ded boddi, though they
denyed me his life. This nit hee shall be brought
you with two or three of my men. Let me her

152 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
(hear) presently. E. R. God holde me in my
wites." The lands of Beddington remained in the hands
of the Carews, till the year 1791, when Sir
Nicholas H. Carew, Bart, (whose father had been
raised to that title in 1715) left them to his only
daughter for life, and then, at her death, to the
eldest son of Dr. John Fountain, Dean of York) ;
and if he had no son (which in the event proved
to be the case), then he entailed them by his will
on the eldest son of Richard Gee, Esq., of Orping
ton, in Kent, who took the name and arms of
Carew by royal licence, his grandmother having
been born a Carew. On his dying a bachelor, in
1816, he bequeathed Beddington to the widow of
his brother, William, Mrs. Ann Paston Gee, and
she again, at her death in 1828, devised the
estate to Admiral Sir Benjamin Hallowell, who
thereon took the name of Carew. His son,
Captain Carew, some thirty years ago sold
the estate, with its mansion, orangeries, park,
and deer.
The remaining story is sad enough. The proud
Hall of Beddington, where Queen Elizabeth and
her Court were once entertained, is now a public
institution ; and the old stock of the Carews, in
spite of having been bolstered up by entails and

THE CAREWS OF BEDDINGTON. 153
adoptions of the name by descendants in the
female line, passed away a few years since, when
the last bearer of the name died, homeless and
landless. Such, indeed, are the "Vicissitudes
of Families."

154

A CHAPTER ON THE PEERAGE.

IT is not uncommon to hear people speak of the
House of Lords as a body of men almost
wholly unconnected with the commercial and pro
fessional interests of the kingdom. But those who
do so, forget the very important fact that with the
exception of a few families of Norman extraction,
who came over with the Conqueror, such as the
Vernons, the Veres, the Talbots, Sackvilles,
Cliffords, and Berkeleys, a very large proportion
of the founders of existing peerages rose from the
ranks of common every-day life, as merchants and
respectable tradesmen. And so far from regard
ing this fact as a matter of disgrace, we are happy
to state, from our own experience, that many of
the present possessors of the peerages are proud
of the honourable achievements of their ancestors.
To bring but this point, I mean to lay before my

A CHAPTER ON THE PEERAGE. 155
readers some " Scraps from the Peerage," which,
doubtless, will be found interesting to many of
them. For example, Earl Cornwallis is lineally de
scended from Thomas Cornwallis, formerly a mer
chant in Cheapside, and Sheriff of London in
1378. The Earl of Coventry is in direct descent
from John Coventry, or de Coventry, mercer, and
Lord Mayor of London, in the year 1425 (and
one of the executors of the celebrated Whitting-
ton). The ancestor of the Earl of Essex was Sir
William Capel, Lord Mayor of London in 1503 ;
the first founder of the family of the Earls of
Craven was a merchant tailor, and Lord Mayor of
London in the reign of Elizabeth. The noble
house of Wentworth, Marquis of Rockingham and
Earl Fitz William, was a certain Samuel Went
worth (also called Fitz William as being a natural
son), who was an Alderman of London and Sheriff
in 1506. He was one of the retainers of the un
fortunate Cardinal Wolsey, and was knighted by
Henry VIII. for his attachment to that prelate
when he was in misfortune. He built the greater
part of the Church of St. Andrew Undershaft in
the City. Lawrence de Bouvines was a Flemish
tradesman, who having married the only daughter
of a silk-mercer at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, came
to London in the reign of Elizabeth, and settling

156 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
down as a merchant in Thames Street, laid the
foundations of the noble House of Radnor. The
present Earl of Warwick is lineally descended, not
from the great " kingmaker " of that name in the
reign of Edward IV., but from a certain humble
William Greville, a citizen of London, and "flower
of the woolstaplers," in the time of James I., who
was himself the grandson of Richard Rich, of the
City of London, who executed the office of Sheriff
of that city in 1441. The Earl of Dartmouth
acknowledges as the founder of his family a cer
tain Thomas Legge, who was Sheriff of London
in the eighteenth, and Lord Mayor in the twenty-
first and twenty-eighth years of the reign of
Edward III. The Earl of Craven in a like manner,
looks up to Sir William Craven, Knight and Lord
Mayor of London, in 1611. The grandfather of
the first Lord Leigh, of Stoneleigh, was brought
up as an apprentice under the Rowland Hill whom
we mention below, and by marrying his niece
came in for a great portion of his estate, and finally
became Lord Mayor of London in the first year of
Elizabeth's reign. William Paget, from whom
the Marquis of Anglesey derives his blood, was
the son of a plain Serjeant-at-Mace, in the City
of London. Thomas Coventry, the grandson of
the John Coventry mentioned above, was a mem
ber of the Inner Temple, and eventually rose in

A CHAPTER ON THE PEERAGE. 157
the law till he became keeper of the Great Seal
under Charles I. One Thomas Bennett, a mercer,
who served the office of Sheriff of London in 1594,
and was Lord Mayor in 1603, laid the foundations
of the family of the Earls of Tankerville, who are
lineally descended from him. The ancestor of the
Earls of Pomfret was Richard Fermor, or Fer-
mour, who having amassed a splendid fortune as
a citizen in business at Calais, came to England,
suffered attaint under Henry VIIL, and did not
recover his property till the fourth year of Edward
VL's reign. The Earl of Darnley owes the first
elevation of his family to John Bligh, a London
citizen, who was employed as agent to the specu
lations in the Irish estates forfeited in the rebellion
of 1641. "Plain John" Cowper, an Alderman of
Bridge Ward, and Sheriff in 1551, was the ances
tor of the Earls Cowper, of Panshanger. The Earl
of Romney, too, is descended from another Alder
man of London, one Thomas Marsham, a jeweller
in Threadneedle Street, who died in 1642. Lord
Dacre's ancestor, Sir Robert Dacres, was banker
to Charles I., and although he lost £80,000 through
the misfortunes of that monarch, he left a princely
fortune to his descendants. Lord Dormer, too, is
descended from Sir Michael Dormer, Lord Mayor
of London, in 1541, and Lord Petre from Sir
William Petre, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.

158 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
Lord Dudley's ancestor was one William Ward,
who made a large fortune as a goldsmith in Lon
don, and was jeweller to Henrietta, the Queen
Consort of Charles I. Sir Rowland Hill, who
was Lord Mayor in the reign of Edward VI., was
the ancestor of the families of Lord Berwick and
Lord Hill, and of " all the Hills of Shropshire."
And perhaps still more wonderful than all, the
family of Osborne, Duke of Leeds and Marquis of
Carmarthen, trace up their pedigree to one Edward
Osborne, who was apprenticed to Sir William
Hewitt, an Alderman and pin-maker, living on old
London Bridge, in the days of Elizabeth, and
whose only daughter he gained in marriage by a
romantic adventure, having saved her life by
jumping into the Thames after her. Thomas
Osborne, the first Duke of Leeds, it is said, showed
his strong good sense, by being more proud of the
circumstance of his ancestor having acquired
wealth and station by his honesty and intrepid
spirit than he was of any of the subsequent ser
vices of his family during the Civil Wars ; and on
one occasion he related to King Charles II. the
whole story of Sir William's daughter and the
brave apprentice, with an air of conscious pride,
which did honour to his feelings. Two more re
cent instances of the same kind have occurred in
our own day, in the elevation of Mr. Alexander

A CHAPTER ON THE PEERAGE. 159
Baring, formerly head of the great City house of
Baring Brothers, to the peerage, in 1835, by the
title of Lord Ashburton ; and again in the still
more recent promotion of Mr. Samuel Jones Lloyd,
the wealthy banker of Lothbury, to the dignity of
Lord Overstone.
As to the legal profession, it is wonderful to
observe how many peerages it has been rewarded
with. To this beginning the Earldoms of Ayles-
ford, Mansfield, Ellenborough, Guildford, Hard
wicke, Shaftesbury, Cardigan, Clarendon, Bridge-
water (now extinct), Ellesmere, Rosslyn, Eldon,
Cottenham, and Cowper, besides other inferior
peerages, such as those of Lords Teuterden,
Abinger, Wynford, and Thurlow, owe their
ennoblement. The first Lord Somers was the son
of a plain attorney of the city of Worcester, and
gained his title from William III. by defending
the non-juring bishops under James II., and by
expounding the measures of that unfortunate mo
narch as virtually amounting to an abdication, at a
conference between the two Houses of Parliament.
The Earl of Winchelsea and Nottingham confesses
that he owes the latter title partly to the abilities
of Christopher Hatton, who began life as a humble
student of law, at one of the Inns of Court, and
was eventually made Lord Chancellor, and created
Viscount Hatton by Queen Elizabeth, and partly

160 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
to Heneage Finch, Recorder of London, who mar
ried Elizabeth, daughter of a London merchant,
named Daniel Harvey. And to come to our days,
some of the brightest ornaments of the peerage
are men who, like Lord Lyndhurst, Lord Broug
ham, Lord Denman, Lord Tenterden, Lord Sel-
borne, Lord Langdale, Lord Truro, Lord Cran-
worth, Lord Campbell, and Lord St. Leonard's,
have started life among the middle ranks of
society, but have risen to the highest honours in
the land by abilities and industry, of which not
only they themselves, but the nation at large, may
well be proud. The father of Lord Lyndhurst
was a portrait-painter, who came and settled in
this country from America. The father of Lord
Brougham was a plain country gentleman in
Cumberland. The fathers of Lord Cranworth and
Lord Selborne were plain country clergymen. The
late Lord Langdale began life as a surgeon, and
went to the bar when he was of middle age. Lord
Truro started as an attorney. " Plain John
Campbell," in spite of having won the peerage for
his wife, and another for himself, was the son of
a Presbyterian clergyman, at Cupar, in Fifeshire ;
and so poor was he as a young man, that some
time after he was called to the bar he used to
walk from county town to county town when on
circuit, because he could not afford the luxury of

A CHAPTER ON THE PEERAGE. 161
posting. The father of the first Lord St. Leonard's
(better known as Sir Edward Sugden)) was well
remembered half a century since as a barber and
wig-maker in Duke Street, Piccadilly.
Did we not know but too well the history of
Ireland for the last five hundred years, as having
been, till a very recent date, the worst governed
country in the world, and never having been
allowed to draw her fair share of the profits
arising from her partnership with England, it
might possibly strike us as a somewhat strange
and unaccountable thing that, while the English
Peerage is all but exclusively English, and while
the possession of a Scottish Coronet argues an
unmistakeable Gael, the roll of the Irish Peerage
presents us with a strange medley of English
men and even Scotchmen,* the native Irish
element being scarcely represented in it at all.
It contains, indeed, many families of the purest
" blue blood," and of undoubted antiquity ; but
few of these are sons of the soil itself, few whom
the Roman of Latium would have styled " Indi
gent," or the ancient Greek worshipped as
" Autochthones." It would, indeed, be difficult
for Mr. Lodge or Sir Bernard Burke to point out
among the oldest of the nobility houses which
* The Duffs, Earls of Fife, are peers of England and
Ireland, not of Scotland.
VOL. II. M

162 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
have struck their roots deeper into the middle
ages of Irish history, or whose names have come
down to us along the stream of time with a
brighter lustre, than those of Ormonde and Clan-
ricarde, Talbot and Taaffe, Kildare and Kinsale,
Nugent and Fitzmaurice. But all these are of
English origin— the first of the Ormondes who
went over to Ireland having been, according to
Sir Bernard Burke, the chief " Butler" to King
Henry. But not only the Butlers of Ormonde,
but the Talbots of Malahide, the Plunkets, the
Fitzwilliams, the St. Laurences, the Prestons,
the Aylmers, the Blakes, the Bourkes, the Barne-
walls, and the Dillons, are originally of Norman
stock, and eight centuries ago were as much
strangers to the Emerald Isle as the Hellenes
when they settled in the ancient Pelasgia. They
are part of a horde of immigrants into Ireland,
who sailed westward from the shores of Eng
land in the old Norman times to better their
fortunes. Many other families, who now enjoy the
highest titles and the largest possessions in Ire
land, are merely branches of old, but untitled,
English families ; such are the Beresfords,
Chichesters, Boyles, Pakenhams, Annesleys,
Binghams, Southwells, Ponsonbies, Colleys and
Fortescues, to say nothing of a host of others.

A CHAPTER ON THE PEERAGE. 163
But unquestionably the greater part of the entire
number are sprung from families who emigrated
to Old Erin from England and Scotland either
in the reign of Elizabeth, when the Queen trans
ported thither, and permanently located, a large
army to oppose " the rebellious natives," or else
during the unhappy Civil wars of the succeeding
century, in which Ireland played so conspicuous
a part. As to many of these adventurers (for
such they were) it must be owned that, until they
came to the green shores of Ireland, they were
too often obscure and unknown. Many of them
gained the honour of knighthood and the peerage
by means of their sycophancy, by playing the
part of flatterers to the reigning powers, and by
worshipping the rising sun of the Tudor or
Stuart cause. They were soldiers of fortune,
contractors and commissioners, civilians and
placemen, individuals who, according to their
own personal qualities, their industry, their good
luck, their powers of adulation, or their skill in
making money, found themselves in three or four
generations lifted into titles and political conse
quence by the lever of property and prosperity.
Thus, for example, the Colleys, from whom the
Duke of Wellington is sprung, trace their des
cent from a person of that name who went from
Rutlandshire to hold a post as captain in the
M 2

164 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
army of Queen Elizabeth in 1599 ; and the first
of the Beresfords went from Westerham, in Kent,
under her successor, James I., to carry into effect
the " plantation" of Ulster. The first Irish Pon-
sonby was a follower of Oliver Cromwell, and
the first Knox a Glasgow merchant, who settled
in Dublin in the reign of Charles II.
Indeed, in looking over the hereditary descent
of the Irish peerages now in existence, some one
hundred and fifty in number, I am struck with
amazement at finding only one of which it can
be said that it is of genuine Irish and Celtic ex
traction. I believe that since the extinction of
the grand old title of O'Neill* (some quarter of
a century ago), O'Brien, Lord Inchiquin, is the
only Irish peer who truly represents by unbroken
male descent an original Irish family. The
O'Flaherties, once princes in the south, the
O'Donovans, the O'Mores, the O'Gradies, the
O'Reillies, and the other heads of ancient Irish
Septs, (as the clans were called), and the rest
of the old Milesian aristocracy, are, indeed,
" conspicuous by their absence," and exist but
sparingly among the landed gentry and the
county families, their broad lands having been
* This title has been revived lately in the person of one of
the Chichesters, who is descended in the female line from the
old O'Neills.

A CHAPTER ON THE PEERAGE. 165
lost by repeated confiscations, and their owners
being forced— too often by their own fault, we
must allow — to go forth into exile, on account
of their adherence to a foreign and proscribed
religion. But every one knows that the posses
sion of an Irish title is by no means an equivalent
for the enjoyment of an English, or even a Scot
tish coronet. The truth is, too, that very many
even of the present Irish peerage are compara
tively poor and landless, besides being uncon
nected with the Emerald Isle ; and this fact tends
to confirm the want of prestige under which, it
must be owned, the Irish peerage labours. But,
perhaps, the greatest slur upon the Irish peerage
is one which dates only from the former half of
the reign of King George III : I allude to the
years anterior to the " Union" of 1801.
"Throughout his whole reign," says Sir Na
thaniel W. Wraxall,* " George III. adopted it
as a fixed principle that no individual engaged
in trade, however ample might be his nominal
fortune, should be created a British peer. Nor
do I believe, that in the course of fifty years he
ever infringed, or violated his rule, except in
the singlet instance before us. He was not by
* " Posthumous Memoirs of his own Time," Vol. I., p. 66.
t The instance alluded to is that of Mr. Robert Smith, M.P.
for Northampton, who, at Mr. Pitt's urgent and repeated re-

166 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
any means so tenacious of the Irish peerage. In
fact, on the very same day on which Mr. Smith
had been raised to his English dignity, another
commercial member of the Lower House of Par
liament, Sir Joshua Vanneck, was created a
Baron of Ireland, by the title of Lord Hunting-
field. Indeed, previous to the Union with the
sister kingdom, in 1801, an Irish peerage, if con
ferred on an Englishman who possessed no landed
property in that country, could be regarded as
little more than an empty honour, producing,
indeed, rank and some consideration in society,
but conferring no personal privilege; neither
securing his person from arrest in Great Britain,
nor even enabling the individual to frank a letter
by post."
Sir Nathaniel might have added that, some
ten years later, Mr. Thelusson, a wealthy Lon
don merchant, and of foreign extraction, was
raised to the Irish peerage as Lord Rendlesham ;
and, curiously enough, after half a century has
passed, both of these families still hold their
broad acres, not in Ireland, which probably they
have never seen, but in Suffolk, where they hold
quest, was created an Irish peer, as Lord Carrington, in 1796,
and advanced to the English Peerage, by the same titlo, about
fifteen months afterwards. It is always thought that Mr. Pitt
was under deep pecuniary obligations to this gentleman, which
he could not pay by any other means .

A CHAPTER ON THE PEERAGE. 167
the highest position after the Herveys and
Rouses. To show the humble estimate in which an
Irish coronet was held in the time of our grand
fathers,— the good old days when George III.
was king, — it will be sufficient to tell the follow
ing story on the authority of the same Sir N. W.
Wraxall : —
" I cannot advise His Majesty," said Lord
North in 1776 to a Welsh baronet, " to allow
you a private entrance to your house in St.
James' Place through the Green Park, but I will
get him instead to create you an Irish peer."
After some hesitation as to the value of the
equivalent offered, the matter was compromised
on these terms, and Sir Richard Phillipps, of
some un-Hibernian place in Pembrokeshire, was
straightway gazetted " Lord Milford, in the
Peerage of Ireland, with remainder to the heirs
male of his body." In fact, we are continually
reading of individuals who, unable to effect an
entrance into the British House of Peers, were
forced to content themselves with an Irish co
ronet. How cheap these coronets became at the
time of the Union is a matter of history, and
need not be repeated here. English gentlemen
by shoals were on that occasion created peers of
Ireland, and peers of Ireland in their turn were

168 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
advanced in " batches" of no small numerical
amount, to the peerage of England. The mis
fortune (from an Irish point of view) was that in
, either case the gain was British and the loss
Irish. The Saxon gentleman became not a whit
more Celtic than before; he frequently owned
not an acre of Irish soil, and never even visited
the country which so freely bestowed her coro
nets on his friends and relatives. But the Irish
peers, per contra, on accepting an English title,
were fairly absorbed by wholesale into the peer
age of England ; they came to St. Stephen's, and
— perhaps very wisely — there they stayed.
As an illustration of the above remarks, let us
take a short retrospect of the history of the Fitz-
geralds, of the ducal house of Leinster, and we
shall see that even this, in more than one sense
perhaps, the most illustrious of Irish families, —
if we may be pardoned for the " bull," — is not
really Irish, but English, not Celtic, but Anglo-
Norman. There is indeed no name in the ranks
of the Irish peerage, as Thomas Moore remarks,
that has been so frequently and so prominently
connected with the political destinies of Ireland as
that of this race. They have generally been dis
tinguished alike by their generous dispositions and
manners, and their hatred of English domination.
Many of them have suffered death, and some of

A CHAPTER ON THE PEERAGE. 169
them attainder too, in attempts to break off the
yoke from the necks of their fellow-countrymen ;
and their family annals for more than six cen
turies past furnish ample illustrations of the mis
taken policy of England towards the sister country.
In later times more than one of the Fitzgeralds
has been honourably distinguished. When Ire
land, after the long sleep of exhaustion to which
a code of tyranny, unexampled in history, had
doomed her, was again beginning to exhibit some
stirrings of national spirit, again was the noble
name of Fitzgerald found foremost among her
defenders ; and the memorial addressed by the first
Duke of Leinster to George II., denouncing the
political Primate, Stone, as a greedy Churchman
investing himself with temporal power, and
affecting to be a second Wolsey in the state,
marks another of those chapters of Irish history
in which all the characteristic features of her mis-
government are brought together in their com
pendious shape. This honest remonstrance con
cludes with the following words : — " Your Ma
jesty's interest in the hearts of your loyal subjects
is likely to be affected by these arbitrary measures,
as few care to represent their country in Parlia
ment, where a junta of two or three men discon
cert every measure taken for the good of the sub
ject, or the cause of common liberty. Your

170 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
memorialist has nothing to ask of your Majesty —
neither place, civil or military — neither employ
ment nor preferment for himself or his friends ; and
begs leave to add, that nothing but his duty to
your Majesty, and his natural hatred to such de
testable monopoly, could have induced your
memorialist to this presumption." The name of
Lord Edward Fitzgerald, who died of wounds re
ceived by him in resisting an arrest on the charge
of high treason during the vice-royalty of Lord
Cornwallis in June, 1798, is but too well known
to all our readers.
The attainder passed upon Lord Edward Fitz
gerald without a previous trial and conviction
remains a sad blot upon the escutcheon of the
House of Peers, who assented to the act, though,
with better sense, they subsequently agreed to its
repeal. His eldest brother. Lord William Robert
Fitzgerald, father of the late Duke, was unani
mously chosen general-in-chief of the Irish Volun
teers in 1782, and, notwithstanding some marked
faults and failings, his amiable manners, his
* He was the husband of the celebrated Pamela, who is
often (but erroneously) stated to have been an illegitimate
daughter of the Duke of Orleans. We learn from Madame
Genlis her true story — namely, that she was the daughter of
English parents of the name of Sims, from whom the Duke
obtained her, and took her over to France to be companion to
the Duke's daughter, the Princess Adelaide.

A CHAPTER ON THE PEERAGE. 171
honesty of purpose, and his well-attested patrio
tism, endeared him to the Irish people. He
succeeded to the Dukedom in 1773, and died in
1804, leaving his eldest son, the late Duke, then
a youth of some twelve years old.
The family of Fitzgerald, we have said, are
of English extraction ; in common with the Fitz-
maurices (now represented by the Marquis of
Lansdowne as Earl of Kerry), they are descended
from one Maurice Fitzgerald, who ably supported
Henry II. in his conquest of Ireland. This
Maurice is said to have been a son of the then
" Castellan" of Windsor, and to have traced his
origin to the princes of South Wales. For his
services he received a grant of the town of Wex
ford, and the baronies of Offaley and Wykenloe,
now called Wicklow ; and being appointed one
of the Governors of Ireland, slew O'Rourke,
Prince of Meath, who had rebelled against the
English invaders. His eldest son, Gerald, de
fended Dublin against O'Connor, King of Con-
naught, and was created Baron of Offaley. His
son Maurice, who received a grant of Maynooth
and the adjoining lands from Henry III., is said
to have been the first who brought over the Friars
Minor into Ireland, and eventually became Lord
Justice of the kingdom. His elder son, Thomas,
surnamed the Great, married an heiress who

172 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
brought him large possessions in the county of
Kerry ; his grandson, by a similar alliance, added
the lands of the Decies and Desmond to the family
estates, and married for his second wife, an Irish
lady, the daughter of Hugh O'Connor, by whom
he became the ancestor of the White Knight, the
Knights of Glyn and of the Valley, and the
Knight of Kerry, or the Black Knight. He was
killed with his son at Callan, fighting against
Macarthy More, and was succeeded by his grand
son, named the Ape, according to Burke, from
the fact of an ape, or baboon, having run away
with him as he lay an infant, deserted in his
cradle, and carried him up to the steeple of the
Abbey at Tralee, where he bore him round the
battlements, and after showing him to the gaping
crowd, brought him down in safety, and laid him
in his cradle again. From this fact, two apes
have been adopted as supporters to the arms of
Fitzgerald. The child thus wonderfully preserved
became ultimately Prince of Munster, and was
the ancestor of the Earls of Desmond, whose
descendants, having ranked as the most powerful
of Irish nobles for more than two centuries, were
attainted by Queen Elizabeth on account of a
rebellion raised against her rule in Ireland by the
sixteenth Earl, who was slain in a foray, and his
head sent over to England by the Earl of Or-

A CHAPTER ON THE PEERAGE. 173
monde, and set upon London Bridge. His son
became a Protestant, in the vain hope of obtain
ing the reversal of the attainder, and was re
cognised as Earl of Desmond by the Queen, who
sent him back to Ireland to bring back his father's
followers to their allegiance. But Burke tells us
that when he came hither and attended Protestant
worship at Kilmallock, the crowds who followed him
withdrew, sothathewas forced toreturn to England
defeated in his proselytising objects, and died there
in 1601. The old Roman Catholic leaven, how
ever, was not extinct in the Desmond branch
of the Fitzgeralds ; they migrated to Spain ; and
the last male heir of one branch of that noble
house died in Germany in 1632, having borne
the title of Earl of Desmond among the
Roman Catholic nations of the south of Europe,
and held commissions as an officer in the armies
of the King of Spain and the Emperor of Ger
many. We must now return to the elder branch. Their
history is not without interest to our Irish readers.
The Gerald above mentioned, having challenged
the Lord of Kildare (who refused the challenge),
and having been in consequence possessed of his
manors, was ultimately created Earl of Kildare
by Edward II. Some generations later the
seventh Earl held a parliament at Dublin and at

174 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
Naas, in which it was resolved that, as no means
could be found to stop the carriage of silver out
of Ireland, a fine of forty pence should be im
posed on each pound carried beyond the seas. He
subsequently became Lord Chancellor of Ireland,
but was involved with the Earl of Desmond, and
attainted in 1467, though subsequently pardoned
and restored. His son, the eighth Earl, was
deputy to the Duke of Bedford, Lord Lieutenant
under Henry VII. He assisted in the proclama
tion of Lambert Simnel as King Edward VI., and
was present at his coronation in Christ Church,
Dublin, when the sermon was preached by the
Bishop of Meath. The ninth Earl revolted against
Henry, in company with his five uncles, and died
a prisoner in the Tower, with his honours at
tainted. Of his second son, Gerald, eleventh
Earl, we find a remarkable account in the pages
of Stonyhurst, a contemporary historian. At
the age of ten he was preserved from the ven
geance of the King by the care of his relatives, and
sent abroad. He wandered about from court to court
until Cardinal Pole sent him to Italy to complete
his education. He married Mabel, daughter of
Sir Anthony Browne, and, through that connexion
obtained the favour of King Edward, and the
reversal of his father's attainder. In the follow
ing reign he was restored by letters patent to the

A CHAPTER ON THE PEERAGE. 175
Earldom of Kildare, with his original precedence ;
and it is not a little singular that, though attainted
by Act of Parliament, this Gerald actually sat as a
peer in the Parliament of 1560, and that it was not
until Elizabeth's reign that the attainder was
reversed by Act of Parliament.
From this Gerald the title descended regularly
to the sixteenth Earl, the first of the family who
conformed to the established religion, in which
he was reared by his Scottish guardian, the Duke
of Lennox. He married a daughter of the first
Earl of Cork ; his second son, Robert, took an
active part in effecting the Restoration, but was
stripped of his employments and estates by James
II. He was in prison in Dublin when the news
of the defeat of James at the battle of the Boyne
was brought ; and bursting forth from his dungeon,
by his prudence and courage, saved Dublin from
being sacked. He also had the honour of pre
senting the keys of the city of Dublin to William
III. on his landing there. It was his only sur
viving son, James, twentieth Earl, who was
created a Peer of Great Britain in 1746, and
twenty years later was advanced to the Dukedom
of Leinster. * See below, p. 237, " The Ducal House of Leinster."

176

THE KIRKPATRICKS OF CLOSEBURN.

n^HE recent death of the Countess de Montijo,
_L mother of the Empress Eugenie, has natur
ally drawn attention to her Scotch extraction ;
and many persons have asked how her Imperial
Majesty comes to be connected with the house of
Kirkpatrick of Closeburn. I will, therefore, en
deavour briefly to answer their question.
Although the estate and castle of Closeburn, or
Clotesburn, no longer is owned by the Kirk-
patricks, having passed by purchase into the
hands of those wealthy ironmasters, the Bairds ;
yet the memory of the " auld lairds" still hangs
about the spot, which is situated in the fair dis
trict of Dumfriesshire, known as Nithsdale, on
the left or eastern bank of the Nith, some ten
miles north of Dumfries, and four miles south
east of Drumlanrig. The castle takes its name

THE KIREPATRICKS OF CLOSEBURN. 177
from Clota, the ancient name of Old Kirkpatrick,
near the source of the Clyde. The baronetcy of
Kirkpatrick of Closeburn also, according to Sir
Bernard Burke and the heralds, still survives to
attest the long connection between the estate and
the noble family which once were its lords and
masters. The first mention that we find of the
Kirkpatricks is in the reign of King David I.,
when one Ivone, or Ivor, Kirkpatrick, was wit
ness to a charter by Robert Bruce the elder,
granting the fishery of Torduff to the monks of
Abbeyholm. Tradition, however, ascribes to
them a far earlier origin, alleging that an an
cestor of this " principal" family, as it is styled
by Nisbet in his " Heraldry," possessed broad
lands in Nithsdale as early as the ninth century
of the Christian era.
A grandson of the above-mentioned Ivone ob
tained from King Alexander II., in a.d. 1232, a
confirmatory charter of the lands of Closeburn ;
and his direct and lineal descendant, through a
long line of warlike lairds of Closeburn, was a
gallant knight — Sir Thomas Kirkpatrick, gentle
man of the Privy Charter to James VI. of Scot
land. Accompanying his sovereign southwards
when he came to claim his English throne, he
obtained a patent of denizenship south of the
Tweed as well.
VOL. II. N

178 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
His grandson, or great-grandson — for it is not
quite clear which — Thomas Kirkpatrick, of Close-
burn, was created a baronet of Scotland in 1685,
in recognition of his faithful services to Charles I.
during the Civil War. He married a lady of the
noble house of Sandilands, and his son, Sir
Thomas (the second), a daughter of the House of
Lockhart; while his grandson, Sir Thomas (the
third), chose as his wife a fair lady of the Grier-
sons, of Capenoch.
The first baronet, it appears, pulled down all
of the ancient castle and fortress of Closeburn,
except the tower, and with the materials built
near it a magnificent mansion in the style of his
time ; but this house was burnt to the ground
through the carelessness of drunken servants, in
August, 1748, when nearly all the family portraits,
papers, and plate were burnt along with it.
This loss seemingly affected not only the pocket,
but the health and spirits of its owner. He was
never the same man afterwards ; and when he
died, some quarter of a century later, having lost
his eldest son in the prime of life, he left to his
successor, Sir James, the fourth baronet, little
of an inheritance besides an honoured name.
His grandson, the present baronet, is styled " of
Closeburn," but the reality of that territorial
title has long since passed away. The " name"

THE KIRKPATRIOKS OF CLOSEBURN. 179
is there, but the " local habitation" is gone for
ever. One of the younger sons of the third baronet,
Thomas Kirkpatrick, having gone into voluntary
expatriation, and living in the " sunny south,"
married, in Sweden, a lady of rank, and ob
tained a post as Swedish consul at Malaga in
Spain. By this union Mr. Kirkpatrick had a
family of several children, one of whom married
the second son of the Count de Montijo. This
gentleman succeeded his elder brother in the
family honours, and became the father of Eugenie,
and of another daughter, who married the Duke
of Alba and Berwick. It appears, therefore, that
the Empress has at least as much of Swedish
and of Scottish as of Spanish blood in her veins;
and this may possibly account for the fact that
she has a fairer complexion and bluer eye than
are often found south of the Pyrenees.
A word, however, about Closeburn, which has
derived an additional lustre from the magic pen
of Sir Walter Scott. It was built, as stated above,
by Ivan Kirkpatrick. His descendant, Sir Roger
de Kirkpatrick, with the barbarity sanctioned by
the age in which he lived, despatched the Red
Comyn as he lay dying at the altar of the Grey
Friars' Church, in Dumfries, from a wound re
ceived from the hand of the Bruce. The tale is
N 2

180 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
mentioned by Hume, and other historians ; and,
in a note to the "Lord of the Isles" on the
stanza — "  Kirkpatrick's bloody dirk,
Making sure of murder's work,"
Sir Walter Scott enters into a somewhat lengthy
discussion upon the deed. He tells us that the
Bruce and the Red Comyn met at the high altar
of the Grey Friars in Dumfries, that their differ
ences broke out into high and insulting language,
and that Bruce drew his dagger and stabbed
Comyn ; that, rushing to the door of the church,
Bruce met two powerful Barons, Kirkpatrick of
Closeburn, and James de Lindsay, who eagerly
asked him " What tidings ?" " Bad tidings," an
swered Bruce ; " I doubt I have slain Comyn."
" Doubtest thou." said Kirkpatrick ; " I mak'
sicker" (i.e., sure) of it." With these words he
and Lindsay rushed into the church and des
patched the wounded Comyn. The Kirkpatricks
of Closeburn assumed, in memory of this deed,
a hand holding a bloody dagger, with the memor
able motto, " I mak' sicker."
Sir Walter then mentions a doubt raised by
Lord Hailes as to the identity of the Roger de
Kirkpatrick, since the Roger de Kirkpatrick who,
with Lindsay, despatched the Red Comyn, is

THE KIRKPATRICES OF CLOSEBURN. 181
supposed to be the same person who, in June,
1357, was murdered by Lindsay in Caerlaverock
Castle ; whereas, says Lord Hailes, " the repre
sentative of the honourable family of Kirkpatrick
of Nithsdale, Roger de Kirkpatrick, was made
prisoner at the battle of Durham, in 1346, and
was alive on the 6th of August, 1357 ; for on
that day, Humphrey, his son and heir, is pro
posed as one of the young gentlemen who were
to be hostages for David Bruce. Roger de Kirk
patrick, Miles, was also present at the Parlia
ment which met at Edinburgh, September 25,
1357, and is mentioned as alive in the following
month of October."
To this it is answered that at the period of the
Regent's murder there were two families of the
name of Kirkpatrick (nearly allied to each other)
in existence, descended from Stephen Kirkpatrick,
styled in the Chartulary of Kelso, 1278, Dominus
villas de Closeburn, filius et haeres Domini Adae
de Kirkpatrick, Militis, whose father, Ivone de
Kirkpatrick, witnessed a charter of Robert Bruce,
1141. Stephen had two sons— Sir Roger, who
carried on the line of Closeburn, and Duncan,
who married Isabel, daughter and heiress of Sir
David Torthorwald of that ilk. After some re
marks, to show that the Torthorwald could not
have been concerned in Comyn's murder, he adds :

182 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
"Universal tradition, and all later historians,
have attributed the Regent's death-blow to Sir
Roger de Kirkpatrick, of Closeburn."
Sir Walter also remarks that the crest of the
Torthorwald family, as it still remains on a
carved stone, built into a wall in the village of
Torthorwald, bears some resemblance to a rose.
But this, most probably, was intended for a
thistle, as the original crest of the family was a
thistle, with the motto " Tich and I perse ;" a
crest which was exchanged by Kirkpatrick of
Closeburn (as already recorded by me) for the
hand and bloody dagger,* after the cruel deed
which, in that barbarous age, was deemed
honourable. * Sir B. Burke gives the Kirkpatrick crest as "A hand,
holding a dagger in pale, distilling drops of blood."

183

THE CLIFFORDS,
EARLS OF CUMBERLAND.

OF all great houses of the North in the days
of the Plantagenets, the next in rank, wealth,
and power after the Percies was undoubtedly that
of the Cliffords, Lords Clifford, and afterwards
Earls of Cumberland. Even the Dacres of the
North could not match them in feudal splendour;
and as for the rest of the nobility of the Border
land, they were literally nowhere in comparison
of them.
We find Richard, son of William Fitz-Pontz,
Earl of Arques, the unole and companion-in-arms
of the Conqueror, marrying,* at the end of the
eleventh century, Maud de Tony, heiress of
Clifford Castle in Herefordshire, from which his
* One of the daughters of this marriage was " The Fair
Rosamond."

184 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
son Walter took the name of Clifford, in lieu of
his own, after the fashion of the time. His sons,
grandsons, and great-grandsons, for several
generations, were chiefs among the feudal barons
in the west and north of England, and, living at
a distance from the royal court, were able to hold
a rival court of their own ; they obtained the
Castle of Brougham in Westmoreland, and a
large tract of country round about it, through the
marriage of Roger de Clifford, so celebrated for
his valour in the wars under Henry III. and
Edward I., with the heiress of the Viponts ; and
the deaths of more than one Clifford on the
battle-fields of Wales sealed their reputation for
loyalty to the throne.
The first of this line, however, who seems to
have been actually summoned to Parliament as one
of the peers of the realm, was Robert de Clifford,
who lived at the close of the thirteenth century, and
was the son of the above-mentioned Roger. He
inherited Brougham Castle from his father, who,
when adding to it and repairing it, had caused
the words " This made Roger," to be carved in
large letters in stone over the gateway. Robert,
the first baron, was also Earl Marshal of England,
and he fell fighting under the royal standard at
the battle of Bannockburn. He married an heiress
of the illustrious House of De Clare, and his son,

THE CLIFFORDS OF CUMBERLAND. 185
the second baron, was Sheriff of Westmoreland.
Though he was beheaded at York in 1327, along
with Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, still the line of
the Cliffords was continued by his brother
Robert, who became the ancestor of a long series
of barons, of whom the eleventh was raised to
the Earldom of Cumberland. The earldom in
his case was no mere titular honour, as his
property extended over a large portion of the two
counties now dominated over by the Lowthers,
to say nothing of another territory in Yorkshire
— the broad acres which surrounded Skipton
Castle. Another of his seats was Barden Tower,
not far from Bolton. The tower is still stand
ing ; and from its gates must often have rode
forth, in all the pride of chivalry,
" The stout Lords Cliffords that did fight in France—"
yes, and in Scotland and England too, and in the
Marches of Wales, from the time of the Con
queror down to the days of the Tudors and
Stuarts, including the " Old Clifford," and the
" Bloody Clifford," who slew the young Duke of
Rutland and afterwards the Duke of York, his
father, as told by Shakespeare in " King Henry
VI." From these same gates also doubtless went
forth at a later date the great seafaring Lord
Clifford, George, third Earl of Cumberland, the

186 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
hero of Elizabeth's reign, who made no less than
eleven expeditions, chiefly against the Spanish
and the Dutch, and mostly also at his own
expense, to the West Indies, Spanish America,
and Sierra Leone. Here too lived, in either
childhood or girlhood, the heroic Countess of
Derby, daughter of Henry, second Earl of Cum
berland, and grand-daughter of Charles Brandon,
Duke of Suffolk; and also Anne Clifford,
Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery,
a lady of whom I have more to say in detail
than of the rest of the family. She was the
daughter of George, the third Earl, and was
married at an early age to Richard Sackville,
Lord Buckhurst, afterwards Earl of Dorset, by
whom she had two daughters, afterwards Coun
tesses of Thanet aud Northampton. This lady,
one of the most illustrious characters to whom
our country has given birth, is well fitted to
occupy a niche in the temple of history by
the side of Lady Blanche Arundell of Wardour,
and the " Lady of Lathom." She was a woman
of high spirit, and gifted with a determined will,
which nothing could break or bend. "By the
blessing of a religious education, and the example
of an excellent mother," writes her biographer,
" the Countess imbibed in childhood those prin
ciples which in middle life preserved her untainted

THE CLIFFORDS OF CUMBERLAND. 187
from the profligacy of one husband and the
fanaticism of another ; and after her deliverance
from both, conducted her to the close of a long life
in the uniform exercise of every virtue which
became her sex, her rank, and her Christian
profession. She had all the courage and liberality
of the opposite sex, united with the devotion,
order, and economy (perhaps not all the softness)
of her own. She was the oldest and most inde
pendent courtier in the kingdom; had known
and admired Queen Elizabeth ; had refused what
she deemed an iniquitous award of King James ;
had rebuilt her dismantled castles, in defiance of
Cromwell; and had repelled with disdain the
interposition of a profligate minister, under
Charles II."
In her second widowhood, and as soon as
the iniquity of the times would permit— so runs
the narrative — her genius began to expand itself.
Her first husband was, like all the Buckhursts,
a man of sense and spirit, but of licentious morals ;
her second was the illiterate and despicable
tool of a party which she despised. Accordingly,
we find her complaining that the bowers of
Knowle in Kent, and of Wilton in Wiltshire, had
been to her no better than the painted abodes of
sorrow. Yet, perhaps, if there were a failing point
about her character, it was that she loved

188 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
independence and even authority too well for
a wife. But the time now caino when every impedi
ment was to be removed ; and with two rich
jointures added to her paternal inheritance, she
withdrew into the north, and set about her
great works of " repairing the broaches, and
restoring the paths to dwell in," and in a short
time, by the integrity and economy of her agents,
and by her own personal supervision, she was
enabled to remove every vestige of devastation
which the Civil Wars had left.
She had indeed some very fine traits in her
character, and did many good works in her
time, though she took care that they should
not be forgotten. For instance, as already in
timated above, she was the ropairor and
restorer of the castles and churches in the
north. Mr. William Howitt writes, in his "Visits to
Remarkable Places :" " When nhe came to her
ancestral estates she found six castles in ruins,
and the Church of Skipton in a similar condition,
from tho ravages of the Civil War. She restored
them all ; and upon all sot an omblazonmont of
the fact. One of tho first things which sho
built was a work of filial pioty — a pillar in the
highway at the place where she and her unhappy

THE CLIFFORDS OF CUMBERLAND. 189
mother last parted, and took their final farewell.
She erected monuments to her tutor Daniell, the
poetic historian, and to Spenser — the latter in
Westminster Abbey. She wrote her own life,
of which the title-page is indeed a curiosity,
being a whole page of the most vain-glorious
enumeration of the titles and honours derived
from her ancestors. Spite of her vain-glory, she
was, nevertheless, a fine old creature. She had
been an independent courtier in the court of Queen
Elizabeth, possessing a spirit as lofty and daring as
old Bess herself. She personally resisted a most
iniquitous award of her family property by
King James, and suffered grievously on that
account. She rebuilt her dismantled castles in
defiance of Cromwell, and repelled with disdain
the assumption of the minister of Charles II."
Her historian tells us that " she patronised the
poets of her youth, and the distressed loyalists
of her maturer age; she enabled her aged
servants to end their days in ease and inde
pendence; and, above all, she educated and
portioned the illegitimate children of her first
husband, the Earl of Dorset. Removing from
castle to castle, she diffused plenty and happiness
around her, by consuming on the spot the
produce of her vast domains in hospitality and
charity. Equally remote from the undistiuguish-

190 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
ing profusion of ancient times and the parsi
monious elegance of modern habits, her house
was a school for the young and a retreat for
the aged ; an asylum for the persecuted ; a
college for the learned ; and a pattern for all."
To this "it may be added (writes Mr. Howitt)
that, during that age when such firmness was
most meritorious, she withstood all the arts,
persuasions, and all but actual compulsion
of her two husbands, to oblige her to change
the course and injure the property of her
descendants." A memorable instance of her high spirit is
recorded when, late in life, by failure of the
male line, after thirty-eight years of family dis
cord, she had come into possession of the great
hereditary estates of the Cliffords, Earls of Cum
berland. To these estates belonged, in her
father's and her own day, the patronage of
the borough of Appleby. Sir Joseph Williamson,
the profligate Minister and secretary of "the
Merry Monarch," happening to suggest to her
the name of a friend as an eligible representative
for her borough, she returned to him the follow
ing laconic and patriotic answer :
" Sir,
"I have been bullied by an usurper, and I

THE CLIFFORDS OF CUMBERLAND. 191
have been neglected by a court ; but I will not
be dictated to by a subject. Your man shall not
stand ; " Yours,
" Anne Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery."
I have said that she was a great restorer of the
castles on her large estates ; among these is
Barden Tower, on the front of which the follow
ing inscription may still be read :
" This Barden Tower was repayred by the
Ladie Anne Clifford, Countesse Dowager of Pem-
brokee, Dorsett, and Montgomery, Baroness
Clifford, Westmoreland, and Vercie Lady of the
Honor of Skipton in Craven and High Sherifesse
by inheritance of the Countie of Westmoreland in
the years 1658 and 1659, after it had layne
ruinous ever since about 1589, when her mother
then lay in itt and was great with child with her
till nowe that it was repayred by the said Lady.
Is. chapt. 58. v. 12.* God's name be praised !"
Barden Tower stands in a quaint, picturesque,
old-fashioned nook, in the midst of theNorth York
shire hills. Dr. Whitaker writes in his " History
of Craven" :
* Thou shalt build up the foundations of many generations,
and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, and the
restorer of paths to dwell in.

192 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
" The shattered remains of Barden Tower stand
shrouded in ancient woods and backed by the
purple distances of the highest fells. An anti
quarian eye rests with pleasure on a scene of
thatched houses and barns which in the last two
centuries has undei'gone as little change as have
the simple and pastoral manners of the inhabi
tants."

193

THE HOMES OF POLWARTH.

FEW families in the past history of Scotland
ever filled a more honourable place than did
the ancient family of Home. Sprung from the
Dunbars, Earls of March, whose ancestors were
the Saxon Kings of England, and Princes and
Earls of Northumberland, their own distinguished
abilities, loyalty, and patriotism added fresh
laurels to the princely house from which they
were descended.
As the Barons of Home and the Earls of March-
mont, their names are enshrined in the roll of
their country's heroes, while as " Polwarths of
the Green," they live in its traditions and its
song. And not inferior to the sons was one, at
least, of the daughters of the house. The bravest
of all Scottish heroines was undoubtedly the Lady
Grizel Home, whose name will never be forgotten
VOL. II. o

194 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
while a loving heart, self-sacrifice, and devotion
are esteemed honourable in women.
The Lords of Home and of Marchmont had a
common ancestor in Sir Thomas Home, a cadet
of the noble house of the Dunbars, Earls of March,
who flourished in the reigns of Robert II. and III.,
the former being descended from his eldest son,
Sir George, and the latter from his youngest, Sir
David. This Sir David, alike the progenitor of
the house of Wedderburn and of the house of
Polwarth, was a youth of a noble and undaunted
spirit, and so greatly esteemed by Archibald, Earl
of Douglas, that he appointed him his armour-
bearer, and bestowed on him a grant of the lands
and barony of Wedderburn, which was afterwards
confirmed by a charter from the said Earl in
1415. In the pedigree of the Home family we read
that George and Patrick, the grandsons of Sir
David, married Marian and Marietta Sinclair,
daughters and co-heiresses of Sir John Sinclair,
of Hermandston, the head of one of the most
ancient families of that surname in Scotland ; but
the compiler fails to narrate the good old Border
fashion in which this union of the two noble
families was brought about.
At this troublous period of Scottish history
heiresses, as now, were in great demand ; but the

THE HOMES OF POLWARTH. 195
wooing of these " well tochered damsels " was con
ducted in a far different manner from that of our
more peaceful times. Few were married without
the previous exchange of sword thrusts and sun
dry hard knocks, little calculated to soothe the
angry feelings of those who chanced to be worsted
in the encounter. As was to be expected, the
prizes so eagerly sought after generally became the
property of the strongest in the affray, if not the
most worthy of their lovers. Of their numerous
suitors, Marian and Marietta Sinclair preferred
the two sons of their powerful neighbour and
cousin, Home of Wedderburn ; but their father
unfortunately dying before their marriage had
taken place, they fell into the hands of the inevit
able " cruel uncle," so famous in nursery story.
Rapacious to a degree, their unworthy relative re
solved to prevent their marriage, in order that he
might succeed to their estates. The better to
carry out his nefarious scheme, he secreted his
nieces in a grim old castle in Lothian. But " love
laughs at locksmiths," and " where there is a will
there's a way," as the stern old jailer speedily
found to his cost. By means of a beggar woman
who opportunely came soliciting alms to their
prison gate, the captive damsels contrived to get
a note conveyed to their lovers, acquainting them
with their forlorn position and place of conceal-
0 2

196 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILH5S.
ment. This missive at once met with a response
from the youths in person, who made their appear
ance before the castle gate at the head of a ' stout
body of Merse men ; the latter, vassal like, being
ready to burn, murder, or pillage as their chiefs
required. Enraged to the utmost at this unex
pected turn of events, the uncle made all possible
resistance, but in vain ; the gallant young Homes
bore down all before them, and he had the mortifi
cation of seeing his nieces carried off in triumph
before his eyes, hedged in by the conquering spears
of Wedderburn. The victors escorted their lady
loves to Polwarth, where their nuptials were
immediately celebrated amidst the shouts and
acclamations of the inhabitants. Part of the re
joicings consisted in a dance round two old thorn
trees which grew in the centre of the village ; and
in commemoration thereof all marriage parties,
until very recently, when the thorns fell to pieces
through age, danced round the venerable trees to
an air composed for the occasion, and known as
" Polwarth-on-the-Green."
" At Polwarth-on-the-Green if you'll meet me in the morn,
Where lasses do come ever to dance about the thorn."
Through his marriage with Marietta Sinclair,
Sir Patrick acquired the lands and barony of Pol
warth, which had come into the possession of the

THE HOMES OF POLWARTH. 197
Sinclairs in the reign of Robert III., by the union
of the then Sir John Sinclair, of Herdmanston,
with Elizabeth, sole daughter and heiress of Sir
Patrick de Polwarth.
Of Sir Patrick Home it is said that he was a
man of great valour and fortitude, and a strenuous
defender of the Borders against the encroach
ments of the English ; and of his son, also a Sir
Patrick, that he was most worthy and honourable,
and so devoted to his king, James III., that the
perfidious Duke of Albany in vain tempted him
with considerable offers to aid him in his rebellion
against his sovereign. " Nothing could induce
Sir Patrick," says his historian, "to join with
any measure contrary to the interest of his king
and country." This loyal knight, though possessed
of a vast estate, afterwards obtained under the
Great Seal no fewer than seven charters of
different lands and baronies ; and so high was he
in favour with James IV., that the King con
stituted him Comptroller of Scotland.
Sir Patrick, the fifth Baron, who was a great
promoter of the Reformation, while acting as
captain of the Regent's horse, received a fatal
wound in a conflict with the Queen's troops at
Cairney in 1570, His son and grandson, both
named Sir Patrick, played equally prominent parts
in the times in which they lived, and each re-

198 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
ceived signal proofs of his sovereign's favour.
But by far the most distinguished member of this
ancient house was Sir Patrick, the eighth Baron
of Polwarth — a man distinguished for his patriot
ism, his misfortunes, and his after-greatness, but
more distinguished as the father of Lady Grizel
Baillie. Sir Patrick was chosen in 1665 knight of the
shire of Berwick, in which capacity his great
genius and abilities soon made themselves known
and felt. Some disturbances taking place in the
country with regard to the militia, &c, he pro
tested against the measures adopted on this occa
sion in such forcible terms that the Council, for
his insolence, as they termed it, put him in prison ;
but he was soon afterwards liberated, chiefly
through the intercession of the Countess of North
umberland. The execution of Russell and Alger
non Sydney in 1684 invited the Duke of York
and his supporters to prosecute those who had dis
tinguished themselves in opposition to their
tyrannical proceedings ; and it was resolved
that Sir Patrick should again be placed under re
straint. Fortunately, the soldiers sent to arrest
him stopped at the house of a friend to the
Government in order to procure some refreshment.
Their inquiries respecting the road to Redbraes
Castle alarmed thelady, who secretly favoured the

THE HOMES OF POLWARTH. 199
Presbyterian party. Fearing that some danger
threatened Sir Patrick, and yet not daring either
to write or to send a message, she wrapped a
feather in a piece of paper, and despatched a boy
with it over the hills to Redbraes, while she con
trived to detain the militia. Sir Patrick at once
concluded it was meant ^s a hint that he should fly,
and accordingly sought safety in the family burial-
vault under the church at Polwarth, where he had
no fire and no light, except such as could effect an
entrance through a narrow slit in the wall. In
this dismal abode he remained a whole winter
month. Meanwhile, Patrick, the eldest son, was
taken up and put in prison ; and on the 26th of
December a petition from him was presented to
the Privy Council, setting forth the piteous con
dition of the family now deprived of their father
and threatened with the loss of their estate. " He
was but a poor afflicted young boy," he said, " who
could do no harm to the State; he moreover
cherished loyal principles, and was a hater of
plots. All he craved was liberty, that he might
see to some livelihood for himself, and be in some
condition to help and succour his disconsolate
mother and the rest of his father's ten starving
children." The boon was granted, though
grudgingly, the youth being obliged first to obtain
security for his good behaviour to the extent of

200 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
two thousand pounds sterling. And now Sir
Patrick's noble daughter, Grizel, steps upon the
scene. Lady Grizel, the eldest of ten children, was
born on Christmas Day, 1663, at Redbraes Castle,
in the Merse. From her earliest years she dis
played great activity and intelligence, and her
delight lay in performing offices of kindness for
her relations. When barely-beyond childhood she
was despatched — probably in charge of a trusty
domestic — on an important political mission to a
great friend of her father's, Mr. Baillie, of Jervis-
wood, then lying a prisoner in the Tolbooth of
Edinburgh ; and so ably did she execute her
errand that she was intrusted with a similar mis
sion to him before his execution. In the course
of these melancholy visits Lady Grizel made the
acquaintance of his son, George Baillie, who at
the time of his father's death was a youth of nine
teen, and she a girl of eighteen. And now her
own parent stood in need of her assistance. As
has already been stated, Sir Patrick lay concealed
in the family vault. With the comfort of a bed
and bedding, and with his thick " Kilmarnock
cowl " drawn down over his ears to protect him
from the cold, he passed his time in repeating
George Buchanan's Latin version of the Psalms,
which he had in years gone by impressed on his

THE HOMES OF TOLWARTH. 201
memory ; and thither the young Grizel found her
way alone at midnight laden with a basket of
provisions, and stayed with him as long as she
could, so as to return home before daybreak. To
quote the family memoir written by her daughter,
Lady Murray, of Stanhope : " In all this time my
grandfather showed the same constant composure
and cheerfulness of mind that he continued to
possess to his death, which was at the age of
thirty-four, all of which good qualities she in
herited from him in a high degree. Often did
they laugh heartily in that doleful habitation at
different incidents that happened. She at that
time had a terror of churchyards, especially in the
dark, as is not singular at her age, arising from
idle nursery stories; but, while engaged in con
cern for her father, she stumbled over the graves
every night without fear of any kind entering her
thoughts, save of soldiers despatched in search of
him, of which the least noise or motion of a leaf
put her in terror. There was also a difficulty in
supplying him with food without the servants
suspecting it ; but she effected this by stealing it
off from her plate at table into her lap. Many a
diverting story she has told about this and other
things of a like nature. Her father was fond of
sheep's head, and while the children were eating
their broth Grizel hid the greater part of one in

202 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
this manner — when her brother Sandy, the future
Earl of Marchmont, looked up with astonishment,
and said : ' Mother, will ye no speak to Grizel ?
While we have been taking our broth she has eat
up the whole sheep's head.' As the gloomy habi
tation my grandfather was in was not to be long
endured, they were contriving other places of con
cealment for him; amongst others, particularly
one under a bed which drew out on a ground
floor, in a room of which my mother kept the key.
She, and a man named Winter, whom they had
admitted into their confidence, worked in the
night, making a hole in the earth after lifting the
boards, which they did by scratching it up with
their hands, not to make any noise, till she had
left not a nail on her fingers, she helping the man
to carry the earth as they dug it, in a sheet on his
back, out of the window into the garden. He
then made at his own house a box, large enough
for her father to lie in, with bed and bed clothes
and holes in the boards for air. When all this
was finished, for it was long about, she thought
herself the most secure, happy creature alive.
When it had stood the trial for a month of no
water coming into it, which was feared from its
being so low, and every day examined by my
mother, and the holes for air picked clean, her
father ventured home, having that to trust to.

THE HOMES OF POLWARTH. 203
After being at home a week, the bed daily
examined as usual, one day in lifting the boards
the bed bounced to the top, the box being full of
water. In her life she was never so struck, and
had nearly dropped down, it being at that time
their only refuge. Her father, with great com
posure, said to his wife and her, he saw they must
tempt Providence no longer ; that it was now fit
and necessary for him to go off and leave them.
They immediately set about preparing for my
grandfather's going away. My mother worked
day and night in making some alterations in his
clothes for disguise. They were then obliged to
trust John Allan, their grieve, who fainted away
when he was told that his master was in the
house, and that he was to set out with him on
horseback before day, and pretend to the servants
that he had orders to sell some horses at Morpeth
fair. Accordingly my grandfather getting out
by a window to the stables, they set out in the
dark. Though with great reason it was a sor
rowful parting, yet, after he was fairly gone, they
rejoiced and thought themselves happy that he
was in a way of being safe, though they were
deprived of him, and little knew what was to be
either his fate or their own. My grandfather,
whose thoughts were much employed, and went
as the horse carried him, without thinking of his

204 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
way, found himself at Tweedside, and at a place
not fordable, and no servant. After pausing and
stopping a good while, he found means to get
over, and get into the road the other side, when,
after some time, he met his servant, who showed
inexpressible joy at meeting him, and told him, as
he rode first, he thought he was always following,
till, upon a great noise of the galloping of horses,
he looked about and missed him. This was a
party sent to his house to take him up, which they
searched very narrowly ; possibly hearing horses
had gone from the house, they suspected the truth,
and followed. They overtook the man, who, to his
great joy and astonishment, missed his master,
and, being too cunning for them, they were gone
back before my grandfather came up with him.
He immediately quitted the high road, after a
a warning by so miraculous an escape, and in two
days sent back his servant, which was the first
intelligence they had at home of his not having
fallen into their hands."
Sir Patrick got to London through bye ways,
giving himself out for a surgeon — for he could
bleed, and carried his instruments about with
him ; and, after one or two narrow escapes, he
succeeded in making his way to Holland. He was
then " forfeited," his estate being given to Lord
Seaforth. Upon this Sir Patrick's lady, accom-

THE HOMES OF POLWARTH. 205
panied by her daughter Grizel, went to London (
by sea to solicit an allowance for herself and her
children ; but, in spite of their numerous and
influential friends, and the sympathy which
their misfortunes excited, all that they could get
was .£150 a year. They afterwards joined Sir
Patrick with the rest of the family at Utrecht,
where they remained till the Revolution, an in
terval of three years and a half. To these years
of exile, poverty, and toil, Grizel was wont to
refer in after-years as having been the happiest
period of her life. Not many women would have
thought so under the circumstances; for there
was not a week in which she did not sit up at
least two nights to do the necessary business of
the house. She went to market, and also to the
mill, where their corn was ground ; she washed
and dressed the linen, cleaned the house, cooked
the dinner, mended the children's stockings, made
their clothes, and in short did everything that
could be expected of a good housewife. Added
to which she undertook a voyage to Scotland by
herself for the purpose of bringing over her young
sister, Juliana, who had been left behind awhile
with a friend.
In spite of her multifarious occupations, the
incomparable Grizel found time to write a collec
tion of Scottish songs, the best known of which

206 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
is the quaint old ballad, " There was a May and
she lo'ed nae men."
The poorly provided house of " Dr. Wallace,"
as Sir Patrick styled himself, was the hospitable
rendezvous for all reduced Scotch ladies and gen
tlemen during their stay in Utrecht ; and doubt
less many gay evenings were spent by the exiles
in that Presbyterian household; for so little was
Sir Patrick imbued with the usual stern asceticism
of his party, that he liked to see his children
hearty and merry, laughing, dancing, and sing
ing about him. " Lost estates," he said, " can
be regained, but health once lost by a habit of
melancholy can never be restored."
Grizel's favourite brother Patrick was then a
soldier in the Prince of Orange's Guard, and so
was his dear friend, young Baillie of Jerviswood,
whose acquaintance Grizel had made in the grim
old Tolbooth of Edinburgh, as stated above. The
young men rode in the Prince's Guard, stood sen
try at his gate, and had the honour of seeing
him eat in public ; and in order that her brother
might make a good appearance on these occasions,
Grizel devoted a portion of her nights to the
work of washing, starching, and darning his
lace cravat and ruffles. Doubtless she also
performed the same kind office for his friend and
her lover — for Grizel Home was a handsome girl,

THE HOMES OF POLWARTH. 207
with a light lithe figure, delicate features, chestnut
hair and brillant complexion ; but he was poor
even as herself, his estates having been confiscated.
They were happily young, and deeply attached,
and so for a while were content to live on love
and hope.
In 1685 Sir Patrick came to Scotland with the
Duke of Argyle, and upon the suppression of the
rebellion he narrowly escaped being made prisoner.
Again retiring to Holland, he remained there till
he came over to England with the Prince of
Orange in 1688. On their return to their native
land, Grizel declined the post of maid of honour
to Queen Mary ; but she did not refuse to become
the wife of George Baillie, to whom she was
married at Redbraes Castle on September 17,
1692, the revolution having restored him his
estates, when he was in his twenty-ninth year,
and she in her twenty-eighth. This union
lasted for forty-eight years — " years of love and
trust." Sir Patrick, having been instrumental in getting
the crown settled upon their Royal Highnesses,
was immediately named one of the new privy
councillors by King William, and was raised to
the peerage by the title of Lord Polwarth of Pol
warth in 1690; and by patent the King added to
his armorial bearing in a surtout an orange

208 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
proper, ensigned with an imperial crown, as an
everlasting mark of His Majesty's regard and
esteem for the House of Polwarth. He was con
stituted successively sheriff principal of Berwick
shire, one of the extraordinary lords of session
and Lord High Chancellor of Scotland ; and was
created Earl of Marchmont in 1697. Other dig
nities followed in rapid succession. Queen Anne
and George I. added further to his high offices, all
of which he discharged with " great sufficiency,
candour, and fidelity." He died in 1724, in his
eighty-fourth year. His son, who sat in Par
liament as Lord High Treasurer for Scotland,'
died before him without issue in 1710.
Alexander, second Earl of Marchmont, who
married Miss Campbell, the heiress of Cessnock,
was likewise distinguished for his great learning
and abilities. He was made one of the senators
of the College of Justice in Scotland, one of the
Privy Council and Exchequer ; in 1715 he was
appointed Envoy Extraordinary to the Courts of
Denmark and Prussia ; and in 1721 he was sent
as first ambassador to the Congress to be held at
Cambray, when he made his public entry into that
city with great splendour and magnificence. In
1728 he was invested with the Order of the
Thistle. He died in 1740, and was succeeded by
his youngest son, Hugh, who on his entering the

THE HOMES OF POLWARTH. 209
House of Commons in 1734, had attracted the
favourable notice of Horace Walpole, and was
esteemed the greatest orator and statesman of
the age. On the death of his father, he was chosen
one of the sixteen representative peers, and was
appointed Keeper of the Great Seal for Scot
land. Shortly before he died, he disinherited his own
sons because they supported a candidate for the
county of whom he disapproved, and left the
estates to his sister's children. His son Alex
ander, Lord Polwarth, was created a British peer
as Lord Home of Berwick. He married Lady
Amabel Yorke, afterwards Countess de Grey.
The Earl died in 1781, having survived his son,
so that the title became extinct.
Through the marriage of his daughter, Lady
Diana Home, with Walter Scott, the Laird of
Harden, who became chief of the name of Scott
on the extinction of the male line of the elder
branch, the barony of Polwarth was claimed and
obtained by their son, Hugh Scott, in 1835.
The present possessor of this ancient title is
Walter Hugh Hepburne Scott, twelfth Baron of
Polwarth, who married in the year 1863, Mary,
eldest daughter of George, fifth Earl of Aberdeen,
by whom he has a numerous family. And it is
no wonder that down to this very day the name
VOL. H. P

210 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
of Grizel— the Scottish equivalent of the " patient
Griselda" of Boccaccio— is an especial favourite
with the Baillies of Jerviswood, now Earls of
Haddington, and with many other Scottish
families.

211

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF BEDFORD.

THE present moment, when the public mind is
filled with sympathy for the bereaved rela
tives of the venerable statesman, who has just
entered into his rest,* after serving his country,
to the best of his ability, for more than three
score years, may not be inopportune for a brief
sketch of the rise and fortunes of the Russell
family ; albeit that to many it may prove but a
" twice-told tale."
The House of Russell claims that of Du Rozell,
in Normandy, as the tree from which their
branch was lopped off and planted on the English
soil. The first historical notice of the family
tells us that in the reign of King John, a.d.
1202, one John Russell, of Kingston Russell, in
* The allusion is to the death of Earl Russell, which hap
pened in May, 1878.
P 2

212 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
Dorsetshire, and Constable of Corfe Caatle, gave
fifty marks for a licence to marry the sister of a
local grandee, named Bardolfe. The offspring of
this union was one Sir Ralph Russell, who sat
as a knight of the shire for the county of South
ampton, in the first Parliament of Edward II. ;
and this gentleman was ancestor in the eighth
generation of Sir John Russell, Speaker of the
House of Commons in the time of Henry VI.
A grandson of this Speaker, and bearing the
same Christian name, who lived on his estate at
Berwick (or Bury-wick), about four miles from
Bridport, in Dorsetshire, was reputed the most
accomplished gentleman of his day. In 1500 a
violent and sudden storm drove the Archduke
Philip of Austria, son to the Emperor Maximilian,
to take refuge in the harbour of Weymouth, as
he was returning from the Low Countries on his
way to Spain. Sir Thomas Trenchard, who, it
would appear, was then Governor of Weymouth,
received the royal refugee with all due honours,
and sent for his own relation, Mr. John Russell,
to wait upon him, probably because this gentle
man could speak French and German more
fluently than the generality of even the high-born
Englishmen of that day.
The Archduke was so much pleased with Mr.
Russell that he insisted on his accompanying him

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF BEDFORD. 213
to London, and remaining in his service so long
as he stayed at the English Court, where the
royal guest did not fail to recommend his new
favourite to the notice of his host, King Henry
VII. On the departure of Philip the King made
Mr. Russell a gentleman of his Privy Chamber,
and he continued to show him especial favour as
long as he lived.
Under Henry VIII. the Dorsetshire squire rose
with great rapidity. He served with credit on
the Continent, accompanied his royal master to
the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and was knighted
by the Earl of Surrey, Admiral of the English
¦fleet, at the taking of Morlaix. He was after
wards employed by Henry in diplomatic negotia
tions with the Pope, the King of France, and the
Emperor, and he fought at the battle of Pavia,
when the defeated Francis succumbed to the
power of Charles V., and yielded up his sword to
Lannoy. Henry rewarded Sir John Russell's
services by making him Comptroller of the royal
household and a member of the Privy Council,
at the same time appointing him Warden of
the Stannaries, Lord Admiral of England and
Ireland, and Lord Privy Seal, and bestowing on
him the Blue Riband of the Order of the Garter.
In 1539 the lucky favourite was created Baron
Russell of Chenies. On the attainder of Stafford

214 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMtLDXS.
Duke of Buckingham, Henry bestowed on him
also the Manor of Agmondesham, which had been
forfeited by that nobleman. Lord Russell's mar
riage with the heiress of Chenies added that Manor
and seat to his other possessions ; and Chenies is
still the place of sepulture of the House of Bedford.
From generation to generation the Russells are
buried, not at Woburn, but at Chenies, a little
village on the borders of Buckinghamshire and
Hertfordshire, where their tombs are well worthy
of a pilgrimage. To the lover of English scenery
I can recommend such a pilgrimage, as one of
the most interesting objects to be seen within
twenty miles of London. In the Russell chapel,
which forms the north aisle of the parish
church, and was built by Ann Countess of Bedford,
in 1556, there are many fine monuments, in
cluding one in memory of Lord William Russell,
who was beheaded, and whose body rests in the
vault below, beside his brave and loving wife,
Lady Rachel. The vault contains about sixty
coffins, Earl Russell's being the last deposited
there. On the dissolution of. the greater monasteries
Lord Russell obtained the broad lands belonging
to the Abbey of Tavistock, and in other parts of
Devon, besides considerable church property in
Somerset, Cornwall, and Buckinghamshire; but,

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF BEDFORD. 215
though so largely indebted for their wealth to
Court favour and the spoils of the Church, they
have always been the champions of the cause of
the people.
When Henry VIII. attacked Boulogne, he took
Lord Russell with him as Captain-General of the
vanguard of the royal army, and one of his last
acts was to increase his faithful follower's already
enormous possessions by giving him a grant of
the wealthy monastery of Woburn ; while he
added to his dignity and importance by appoint
ing him a member of the council of his youthful
heir. At Edward VI's Coronation Lord Russell acted
as Lord High Steward, and three years after
wards, in the year 1550, he was created Earl of
Bedford. At this period, carrying his Protestant
zeal to the precise length which then found favour
at Court, he acted as an iconoclast in the west
of England.
In spite of this fact, however, he was sent to
Spain by Queen Mary in the second year of her
reign, in order to escort Philip to England, and
to ratify her contract of marriage with the Arch
duke. In the following year the Earl of Bedford
died, leaving his titles and estates to his son,
Francis, who had been one of the first to pro
claim Mary queen, and who took a leading part

216 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
in the battle of St. Quentin, and in the capture
of that town. He was a Privy Councillor under
Queen Elizabeth, and was sent by her as am
bassador to Francis of France, as also to Mary
Queen of Scots, in order to negotiate a marriage
between that ill-fated lady and Elizabeth's
favourite, the Earl of Leicester ; after which he
was again sent to France, to propose a marriage
between herself and the Duke of Anjou. This
Francis, Earl of Bedford, founded sundry ex
hibitions for poor scholars in University College,
Oxford ; and he was so prodigal in his munifi
cence that Queen Elizabeth was once heard to
say to him, " My Lord of Bedford, you make all
the beggars." He had four sons, of whom the
youngest only survived him (reminding one
forcibly of the curse of sacrilege), and was suc
ceeded by Edward, only son of his third son
Francis. His youngest son, William (called to the House
of Lords in his father's lifetime as Baron Russell
of Thornhaugh), on returning from foreign travel
in his youth made no stay at the English Court,
but betook himself to the wars in Hungary,
France, the Low Countries, and Ireland. He was
for some time Lord Deputy of Ireland, and there
suppressed the rebellion of Tyrone and O'Maden.
The Lord Deputy's eldest son, Francis, sue-

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF BEDFORD. 217
ceeded his cousin, Edward, the third Earl, in
1627. Three years later he was the principal in
a great work of drainage in the fen country, and
was appointed a commissioner to inquire into de
fective titles, as also to treat with the Scotch
malcontents at the beginning of the Civil War.
His death, of small-pox, in 1641, was a great
loss to Charles L, and Lord Clarendon tells us
that it proved one great cause of the breach then
becoming daily wider between the King and his
people. He died the very day on which Stafford's
death-warrant was issued ; and Archbishop Laud
mentions him as one of the many plotters against
that unfortunate nobleman, but no other witness
has confirmed this charge.
William, the eldest son of the fourth Earl,
held a command in the cavalry for the Parlia
ment ; yet he was chosen to bear the royal sceptre
of St. Edward at the Restoration. He was elected
a Knight of the Garter in 1672, and still was
sufficiently pliant in his allegiance to be sworn a
member of the Privy Council when William and
Mary came to the throne. In 1694 he was created
Marquis of Tavistock and Duke of Bedford, and
became, through his wealth and his skill in the
practice of political science, one of the most
powerful noblemen of the day. As a proof of
this, it may be added that he was at the same

218 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
time Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, Bed
fordshire, and Middlesex. It is remarkable that
in his ducal patent of nobility it is expressly re
cited that he was the father to William, Lord
Russell, "the ornament of his age." The first
Duke of Bedford died in 1700.
The following is the history of the first Duke's
courtship and marriage, as it stands recorded by
Sir Bernard Burke : —
" The lady of his choice was Anne, daughter
and heiress of Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset, by
his too celebrated Countess, Frances Howard, the
divorced wife of Essex. ' Francis, Earl of Bed
ford,' says Pennant, ' was so averse to the al
liance that he gave his son leave to choose a wife
out of any family but that. Opposition usually
stimulates desire ; the young couple's affections
were only increased. At length the King inter
posed, and sending the Duke of Lennox to urge
the Earl to consent, the match was brought about.
Somerset, now reduced to poverty, acted a gener
ous part, selling his house at Chiswick ; plate,
jewels, and furniture, to raise a fortune for his
daughter of £12,900, which the Earl of Bedford
demanded, saying, that since her affections were
settled, he chose rather to undo himself than
make her unhappy.' The lady proved worthy of
the alliance. It is said that she was ignorant of

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF BEDFORD. 219
her mother's dishonour till informed of it by a
pamphlet which she accidentally found ; and it is
added that her Grace was so struck with this
detection of her parent's guilt that she fell down
in a fit, and was found senseless with the book
open before her. The Duke had issue by this
admirable woman seven sons and three daughters,
of whom the eldest surviving son was the cele
brated William, Lord Russell. This distinguished
patriot was first returned to Parliament for the
county Bedford, in 1678-9. His Lordship, who
took an active part against the Court, appeared
publicly in the King's Bench, at Westminster
Hall, June 16, 1680, and presented the Duke of
York as a recusant ; he subsequently carried up
the bill of exclusion of His Royal Highness, at
the head of more than two hundred members of
the Commons, to the House of Lords. Thus
incurring the hostility of the Government, he
soon fell a victim to his uncompromising patri
otism. Charged as a participator in the Rye
House conspiracy, his Lordship was arraigned at
the Old Bailey, June 13, 1683, and convicted.
He was executed, by decapitation, at Lincoln's
Inn Fields, July 21 following. Between his con
demnation and death Lord Cavendish offered to
change clothes with him in the prison, and thus
enable him to effect his escape ; but Lord Russell

220 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
had too much magnanimity to expose his friend
to so much danger."
Wriothesley, son to Lord William, succeeded
his grandfather, the attainder passed on his father
having been reversed by William and Mary.
He married Elizabeth, only child and heiress of
John Howland, Esq., of Streatham, who brought
a large and valuable property into the family of
Russell. Wriothesley had been created Baron
Howland, of Streatham, before the death of his
grandfather. He became in due course a Gentle
man of the Bedchamber, Lord High Constable
of England, and a Knight of the Garter; but he
died young, of small-pox, leaving two sons, both
of whom in their turn succeeded to the dukedom.
The elder, Wriothesley, third Duke, married a
daughter of the Duke of Bridgewater, and died
childless in 1732.
John, fourth Duke, K.G., was twice married-
first to Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of Charles,
Earl of Sunderland, and grand-daughter of the
great Duke of Marlborough ; secondly, to Lady
Gertrude Leveson-Gower, aunt of the first Duke
of Sutherland. By the latter he had a daughter,
and also a son, Francis, Marquis of Tavistock,
who died before his father. John was Lord-
Lieutenant of Ireland, and Ambassador at the
Court of France, where he signed the prelimi-

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF BEDFORD. 221
naries of peace with France and Spain in 1732.
In 1744 he became First Lord of the Admiralty
and a Member of the Privy Council. On the
breaking out of the Rebellion of 1745 the Duke
raised a regiment of foot for the King. Honours
now began to fall thickly on him. Two years
afterwards he was Secretary-of-State, and held
the seals of that office till 1751. He was also a
Governor of the Charterhouse, Warden and
Keeper of the New Forest, and Lord-Lieutenant
and Custos Rotulorum of Devonshire and Bed
fordshire. He also acted as a Lord Justice while
the King was in Germany. On becoming Lord-
Lieutenant of Ireland he showed especial favour
to the Roman Catholics, most probably because
he knew that the French were preparing to make
a descent upon the island, in the hope of sever
ing it from England. The Duke, however, rallied
all the Irish around him, and put the island into
a state of complete defence. A French fleet
hovered near the coast, but was repulsed by
Admiral Lord Hawke. Next year the attempt
was renewed under Thurot, who landed troops at
Carrickfergus, which capitulated ; but the French
had to evacuate it in five days. It may be
added that Captain Elliott engaged this fleet off
the Isle of Man and defeated it, when Thurot
was amongst the slain.

222 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
When George II. died, the Duke was super
seded in the viceregal office by the Earl of
Halifax. In 1762, he was sent as Minister
Plenipotentiary to Versailles, where he signed
the preliminaries of peace with France and Spain.
He died January, 1771, in the prime of life, and
lay in state at his residence, Southampton House,
Bloomsbury, before being carried for interment
to Chenies, where he slept with his fathers. His
grandson, Francis, eldest son of the Marquis of
Tavistock, a boy only six years old, became the
fifth Duke of Bedford ; but he was cut off with
out issue at the age of thirty-five. His death
was lamented as a national calamity, for the
Duke had devoted himself to agricultural pur
suits, and his seat, Woburn Abbey, became the
seat of rural science, both agricultural and horti
cultural: for the Duke spent twenty thousand
pounds a year on improving the breed of cattle
and sheep, and he was one of those who founded
the Agricultural Society of England.
Lord Ossory wrote in his note book of this
young nobleman : " The operation was per
formed very successfully by Earle 
However, the progress of the disease was not
favourable, and on March 2, about half-past
eleven, a.m., he expired .... in Lord John's
arms. His energetic and capacious mind, his en-

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF BEDFORD. 223
larged way of thinking and elevated sentiments,
together with the habits and pursuits of his life,
peculiarly qualified him for his high station and
princely fortune. His uprightness and truth
were unequalled, his magnanimity, fortitude, and
consideration in his last moments, taken so un
prepared as he was, were astonishing."
He left two brothers, John, who succeeded to
the dukedom, and Lord William, who was mur
dered, in 1840, by his valet, Courvoisier. John,
the sixth Duke, like his father, was Lord-Lieu
tenant of Ireland. He too devoted himself to
agriculture, and to draining the fen districts,
now known as the Bedford Level. He was car
ried off by a sudden attack of illness at the
Doune of Rothiemurcas, in Perthshire, October
20, 1839. He was the father of Francis, seventh
Duke, and of Earl Russell, also of a numerous
family of other sons and daughters.
Like the Cavendishes, the Russells can boast
that for three centuries the name of their
family, in spite of their great wealth and
honours and titles, has been always identified
with the cause of the people and of freedom ;
and, at all events, no house of the English
nobility could ever have produced a nobler
specimen of its sons than the ill-fated Lord

224 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
William, whose death upon the scaffold in
Lincoln's-inn-fields forms one of the saddest and
at the same time most disgraceful chapters in
English history.

225

TRAGEDIES OF THE HOUSE OF INNES.

T)EADERS of Sir Walter Scott will not be
111 surprised to find that among the chiefs of
the Highland and Lowland clans of Scotland two
or three centuries ago there was a disposition to
" take the law into their own hands," and that
there was many a " red hand in the foray" to be
found among the Campbells, the Forbeses, the
Mackintoshes, and the Mackenzies ; but they may
perhaps be astonished when they read that wars
were thus waged not only between rival and
hostile clans, but also between members of the
same clan, and that family strifes were con stantly
appeased even in the neighbourhood of the Court
of Holyrood by the summary assassination of an
obnoxious relative. Of such a state of things
the following paper will afford, at all events,
two examples in the annals of the noble House
vol. n. Q

226 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMDLIES.
of Innes, the head of which wears the ducal
coronet of Roxburgh. The first chief of this
ancient house whose name has been handed down
to posterity is Herewald, who received a charter
from King Malcolm of Scotland for the broad
lands between the rivers Spey and Lossy, in
Elginshire. The royal giver of this estate was
probably Malcolm the Maiden ; but the names of
two witnesses to the charter (which is still in
existence) countenance the supposition advanced
by some annalists, that they were bestowed
by Malcolm Can more, who reigned sixty years
earlier. In the days of King David Bruce, Sir Walter
of Innes, the tenth in descent from Herewald,
left three sons, who were all Lairds of Innes.
The eldest, Walter, died unmarried; John, the
second, was an ecclesiastic, and was first de
signated " Parson of Duffus ;" but in 1406 he
was consecrated Bishop of Moray.
" According to the family record, he was ' the
great builder of the greatest and fairest fabrick
in the kingdom, that is the Cathedrall of Elgine.'
The work itself, the common tradition, and the
inscription (that upon the bishop's tomb in the
cathedral) prove sufficiently what is said. The
man died young, whether he took anything from
the estate or not, and gave it to the Church, it

TRAGEDIES OF THE HOUSE OF INNES. 227
needs not be said, because it cannot be proven-
Though there be reports to that purpose."
Alexander, the twentieth Laird of Innes, is
said in the record to have " had some particu
larity in his temper." Of this he gave sufficient
proof by engaging in lawsuits with his friends,
and among the rest, with one Innes of Pethnock
(apparently a cousin), which brought both the
litigants to Edinburgh in 1576. The laird met
his opponent at the Cross, and, after passionately
reproaching him for having dared to send him a
citation, he either stabbed the poor man with a
dagger or shot him with a pistol. Then, when
the crime was committed, and the wounded man
had breathed his last, pride forbade the laird to
flee away from justice ; so he paced haughtily up
and down upon the spot, as if he had done nothing
that could be condemned, his kinsman's life being
a thing that he could dispose of without account
ing for it to any man.
Tidings of the tragedy were, however, quickly
carried to the Earl of Morton, then Regent, who
sent a guard to fetch the murderer to the Castle.
Then, when the Laird at length began to realise
the extreme danger in which he stood, and saw
that his rash and passionate deed would probably
cost him his own life, he made an effort to save
it, by surrendering to the Regent a barony which
Q 2

228 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
brought in twenty-four thousand marks yearly.
The very evening that this transfer had been
made, and duly signed and sealed, Laird Alex
ander made merry with some friends at a " colla
tion ;" and, speaking of the large ransom which
the Earl of Morton had made him pay for his life,
added a boast that, " had he his foot once loose,
he would fain see what Earl durst come and
possess his lands." Rash man I Laird Alexander,
you shall soon find you have to pay more heavily
for your words than for your deeds.
On this being reported to the Regent, he re
solved to play a sure game with his prisoner, and
therefore coolly ordered his head to be struck off
within the Castle the very next day, while he
took quiet possession of the barony.
As the beheaded Laird was childless, his brother
John succeeded him. But this new Laird, in the
words of the record, " had neither children nor
discretion ;" and this he speedily proved ; for soon
after he came to the estate, he allowed himself
to be persuaded to part with it to the nearest heir
male, Alexander Innes of Cromy, son to John's
aunt, Margaret Innes, and her first cousin and
husband James Innes of Cromy, whose father,
Robert Innes of Cromy and Rathmackenzie, was
grand-uncle to the Lairds Alexander and John.
John did not, however, give up all his property and

TRAGEDIES OF THE HOUSE OF INNES. 229
rights at once ; they seem to have been coaxed
from him, bit by bit, during 1578, and at last,
on the 2nd of December in that year, John com
pleted his own impoverishment, by giving Alex
ander a charter of alienation of his whole
estate. The new possesor of the Innes property thence
forth took upon himself not only to act as if he
were really laird, buteven to call himself so, though
his too-generous and credulous cousin was still
alive. John seems even to have acquiesced in
this arrangement ; for, from the time of his re
nunciation of his rights, he called himself only
plain " John Innes, sometyme of that Ilk."
There was then living in Scotland one Robert
Innes, of Innermarky, a distant cousin to Laird
John. This man was descended from one Walter
Innes, commonly called Wyllie Watt, second son
to Robert Innes, fifteenth Laird, who was a great
hero of the family, having been conspicuous for
his valour on several occasions, and especially at
the battle of Brechin; but who also had re
ceived the undesirable appellation of "111 Sir
Robert." About this time the House of Innermarky had
become possessed of considerable estates and,
for this reason its heads " conceited" themselves
to be next to their chief ; and, finding the Laird

230 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
childless, Robert of Innermarky was vexed that
Cromy, whose estate, even as now augmented,
was inferior to his own, should be raised to the
chieftainship. This displeasure of Innermarky was reported
by kind friends to Cromy, who instantly chal
lenged him to single combat, on the proposed
terms that, each laying aside all pretentions, the
best man should win the coveted rank. But
the rich cousin refused to fight, pretending
that he had yielded to the dissuasions of his
friends. Laird John was then living at Kinnairdy, the
usual residence of the Innes family, while Cromy
lived at Innes or at his own house at Cromy ; and
as Innermarky's abode was near Kinnairdy, he
found frequent opportunities of holding forth to
the old Laird upon the iniquities of his cousin,
who had done him such dishonour and discredit
in wheedling his estates away, and usurping his
title and dignity, leaving the too-kind benefactor,
by whose favour he had all, no better than a
masterless dog. Had Cromy left him his estate
and title for his life, the tempter argued, it would
have kept him in some esteem ; but, as it was,
the pretender's insolence had made him more con
temptible than the meanest beggar in the neigh
bourhood.

TRAGEDD2S OF THE HOUSE OF INNES. 231
The old Laird listened to these tirades, and soon
would have given anything to be able to take back
all that he had bestowed upon his cousin. But
it was useless, Innermarky would urge, for the
Laird to expect to recover anything out of which
he had been cheated, unless Cromy was first
killed ; and, if his chief would assent, he himself
would do the deed, be the hazard what it might,
for he could not endure that his chief should be
Cromy's slave.
John's consent once obtained, they began de
bating how to put their purpose into execution.
An opportunity offered itself in the month of
April, 1580 ; at which time Cromy, having
been called to Aberdeen by some business, was
obliged to stay there longer than he had intended,
because his only son, Robert, a youth of sixteen,
was ill at the college, and his father could not
leave the town until his boy had recovered. Ac
cordingly he brought him out of the Old Town
to his own lodging in the New. and continually
sent messengers home with reports about the boy
to his wife.
These messengers, in passing, would report at
Kinnairdy on the circumstances that detained
their master at Aberdeen ; addiug, with the gar
rulity of menials, every particular of where he
lodged, and how he was attended. Innermarky

232 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
judged this opportunity too good to be lost. There
fore, first collecting a number of assistants, he
and his Laird rode off to Aberdeen, entered the
city after nightfall, and about midnight came
to Cromy's lodging.
The outer gate of the Close was open, but all
others were shut; so, unwilling to break any
open with violence, they chose to raise such a
cry in the Close as might induce those who
were within to open their doors to see what the
tumult might be.
The feuds between the families of Gordon and
Forbes, both chiefs in Aberdeenshire, were not
then extinguished. Therefore they raised the
cry of " Help, a Gordon, a Gordon !" which was
the gathering word of the friends of that family.
Alexander, being deeply interested in the
Gordons, started from his bed at the cry, took
his sword in his hand, and opening a back door
that led to the court below, stepped down three
or four steps, and called to know what was the
matter. Then Innermarky, recognising him by
his voice, cocked his gun, and shot him through
the body; in an instant, as many as could get
about their victim, fell upon him, and butchered
him barbarously. Meanwhile Innermarky, per
ceiving that the Laird stood by, as either re
lenting or terrified, held to his throat a bloody

TRAGEDIES OF THE HOUSE OF INNES. 233
dagger that he had just snatched out of their
victim, swearing dreadfully that he would serve
him in the same way if he did not draw his own
dagger and stab it up to the hilt in the body
of his nearest relative. After his example, all
who were there were forced to do the like, that
all might be alike guilty. Even a youth, John
Innes, afterwards Laird of Coxtown, then at
school at Aberdeen, was taken out of his bed by
Innermarky, and compelled to stab the dead
body, that the more might be under the same
condemnation. What a contrast was this scene of horror and
butchery to the pale, pure light of the moon and
the stars, by which the miscreants searched
everywhere for the sick youth, Robert. That
night he had been lying with his father; but
upon hearing the gun and other noises, he had
jumped out of bed, and, helped by some people
in the house, had escaped by a back door into
a garden, and from that into a neighbour's house,
where he was kindly sheltered and concealed
from his pursuers.
Then Innermarky took the dead man's signet-
ring and sent it to his wife, as from her husband,
by a servant whom he had bribed, ordering her
to forward in return a particular box, containing
all the deeds given him by Laird John, whom

234 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
the servant said he had left with his master
at Aberdeen, adding that for the greater
speed he had sent him on his best horse,
and with the ring in lieu of a letter. The wife
was tronbled and perplexed, as well she might
be, yet she delivered the box to the man and let
him go.
At this 'time there was staying in the house
a youth related to the family, who was most
anxious to go to Aberdeen to see his cousin,
who had been ill ; so the boy ran to the stable to
beg the servant to take him up behind him ; but
the man made all sorts of excuses. The lad, how
ever, waited his opportunity, and, as the servant
was starting again with the box, leaped up be
hind him, determined to have a seat. The man,
enraged, drew his dirk to rid himself of his com
panion ; but the lad wrenched it out of his hand
and killed him with it, and brought back the horse
and box to the house.
While the lady was lamenting this occurrence,
another man arrived from Aberdeen with tidings
of her husband's murder, on which she fled to her
own people, carrying her husband's box of deeds,
and by her friends was soon brought before the
King. The Earl of Huntly looked after Cromy's son
Robert ; and, taking him to Edinburgh, put him

TRAGEDIES OF THE HOUSE OF INNES. 235
into the family of Lord Elphinstone, then High
Treasurer of the kingdom, who took such a liking
to the youth that some two years afterwards he
gave him his daughter in marriage.
During these two years Laird John and Inner
marky possessed the estates of Innes ; but they
were then declared outlaws, and Robert of Cromy
came into the north with a commission against
them and all others concerned in his father's
murder. Laird John was soon taken and sent to
Robert, who, however, did not put him to death,
but bound him, under a contract, to give up the
charterchest and the other property.
Innermarky fled to the hills ; but, when weary
of that life, lay concealed for a time in the house
of Edenglassie, where, in September, 1584, he
was surprised by Laird Robert. But his hiding-
place was first entered by Alexander Innes of
Cotts, the same who had killed the false servant
sent by Innermarky. All his life after, Alexander
went by the name of " Craig in Peril," for thus
venturing upon Innermarky when desperate.
" There was no mercy for him" (says the family
record), " for slain he was ; and his hoar head
was cut off, and taken by the widow of him whom
he had slain, and carried to Edinburgh, and casten
at the King's feet." The compiler of the record

236 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
adds a brief and quaint note by way of comment,
to which my lady readers will doubtless subscribe :
" A thing too masculine to be commended in a
woman."

237

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF LEINSTER.

rnHE Fitz Geralds, Dukes of Leinster, who
_L stand fairly at the head of the titled houses
of Ireland in virtue of their descent, their achieve
ments, and their broad acres, trace their pedigree
traditionally from one Dominus Otho, a member
of the family of the Gherardini of Florence. This
individual, seized with a longing desire for
change and foreign travel, quitted his own sunny
land and repaired to Normandy, whence, in 1057,
he crossed over to England, and presented him
self at the Court of Edward the Confessor, with
whom he soon became so great a favourite that
the Saxon Thanes grew jealous of his influence.
Between his own good sword and the favour of
his King, he gained enormous possessions in
England, which descended to his son Walter.
The latter, however, resolving to be on the win-

238 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
ning side, joined William the Conqueror on his
landing at Pevensey, and fought in the battle
of Hastings. He married Gladys, a Princess of
North Wales ; and their son, Gerald Fitz Walter,
soaring as high as his father had done before
him, fixed his affection upon Nesta, daughter to
the Prince who ruled over the southern half of
the Principality ; and his suit was successful.
Nesta had two sons ; the elder, David Fitz Ge
rald, became a churchman, and in due time was
consecrated Bishop of the powerful, and, at that
time, metropolitan See of St. David's. There
he kept open house, as the princely bishops were
accustomed to do in those days ; so it came to
pass that Dermot MacMurrough, the expelled
Irish King of Leinster, stayed at his episcopal
palace on his way back from the English Court ;
and at his host's hospitable board met Maurice
Fitz Gerald, his younger brother, who, full of
martial valour, and burning to make himself a
name of renown, required little persuasion from
the royal guest to take part in the expedition
now being organised in England to replace him
on his throne in Ireland.
Making hasty preparations, Maurice was able
to embark for the "Emerald Isle" with his
sturdy Welsh followers, in two ships, before any
other division of the English army was ready to

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF LEINSTER 239
sail ; and a favourable wind quickly wafting
them across the Channel, the adventurers landed
in the Liffey, and took Dublin, where Strongbow
soon joined them. Even then the English army
numbered only six hundred men ; and when Ro
derick O'Connor, King of Connaught, the chief
among the petty Irish rulers, came with thirty
thousand followers, and invested the fair city,
blockading it on the seaboard with thirty Manx
ships, the handful of invaders seemed doomed to
destruction, and despair, no doubt, seized upon
many a strong man's heart. Maurice Fitz Ge
rald, however, alone stood undaunted at the
mighty odds against him ; he went about exhort
ing his comrades to take the initiative, and to
try a sortie, and, seeing that there was no other
means of escape, they concluded that it would
be more honourable, and would entail less suf
fering to perish on the battle-field than if they
were to surrender themselves as prisoners of war.
So the little band threw open the gates of Dublin
and marched out, each man strong in the deter
mination to sell his life as dearly as he could ;
and, falling on the hordes of undisciplined Irish,
put them to the rout, Roderick himself escaping
with difficulty from the scene of slaughter.
Thus the English power came to obtain the
ascendancy in Ireland. Maurice seized on, or

240 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
otherwise acquired, such lands as he pleased to
take a fancy to, and died at Wexford in 1177,
but was laid to rest in the Abbey of Grey Friars
outside the walls of Maynooth. Giraldus Cam
brensis writes of him that he was " an honour
able and honest man, sunburnt, well looking,
and of middle height." The historian adds that
Maurice was " a man of innate goodness, de
siring rather to be than to seem virtuous : his
words were few, but full of weight and earnest
ness. Valiant and active, yet neither impetuous
nor rash, he was circumspect in attack, and re
solute in defence ; sober, modest, chaste, trusty,
and faithful. His death was a sorrow to his
friends, and much harm to the English settlers
in Ireland."
Gerald Fitz Maurice, his eldest son, was sum
moned to Parliament as Baron of Offaly in
1205 ; but he died in the course of the same
year. Maurice Fitz Gerald, second Baron of
Offaly, appears to have been eminently a reli
gious man ; but he was a successful soldier
notwithstanding. In 1216, he invited some
Franciscan monks to come over to Ireland, and
he built for the brown-vested brethren a monas
tery at Youghal. In 1229, he did the same pious
office for the Dominicans, who had not previously
gained any footing in the sister isle; and in

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF LEINSTER. 241
1231, he built a beautiful Franciscan Abbey at
Youghal. In his old age, the second Baron of
Offaly exchanged the casque for the cowl, ending
his days in piety and peace among his beloved
Franciscans. John Fitz Thomas Fitz Gerald, sixth Baron
of Offaly, and afterwards first Earl of Kildare,
was saved from death in early infancy in an ex
traordinary manner. His father's castle of Wood
stock, near Athy, caught fire, and in the alarm
and confusion caused by the flames, the poor
babe was forgotten as it lay in its cradle. The
falling in of the roof of his nursery brought the
child back to the memory of his parents and the
assembled crowd ; and all were bewailing him
as dead, when strange sounds were heard on one
of the towers of the castle, which thus far had
escaped the flames. Looking up, all saw, with
amazement, a large ape, which was usually kept
chained, standing on the turrets, and holding
the infant carefully in his arms, and talking to
it in his own apish language. This was consoling,
so far; but might not the creature awkwardly
let the young heir fall over the battlements ? All
stood spell-bound in terror, when the strange
nurse suddenly disappeared with its charge ; and
great was the relief and joy when the creature
came below and laid its nursling down unin-
vol. H. R

242 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
jured at its parents' feet. The boy, very natu
rally, got among his companions the nickname
of " Nappagh Simiacus ;" but when he grew to
man's estate, he showed his gratitude to the pre
server of his life by adopting an ape as his crest,
and two others as the supporters of his arms,
to which one of his descendants in later times
added the motto, " Non immemor beneficii."
When the ape's foster-child grew up, he had
a bitter feud with William de Vesci, Lord of
Kildare, who was so much esteemed by Edward I.
that he was made by him Lord Chief Justice of
Ireland. The estates of Lord Offaly joined those
of the Lord of Kildare ; so their respective
owners had no lack of opportunities for quarrel
ling to their hearts' content. De Vesci invariably
charged Fitz Gerald with being the cause of
these disputes, averring that in private quarrels
he was as fierce as a lion, but where public in
juries were involved as meek as a lamb. Lord
Offaly, in great indignation, replied to this charge
in the Council Chamber, saying to his adver
sary, "You would gladly charge me with treason,
that by shedding my blood, and by catching
into your clutches my land, that is so near upon
your lands of Kildare, you might make your son
a proper gentleman." " A gentleman," quoth
Vesci, " thou bold Baron ! I tell thee the Vescis

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF LEINSTER. 243
were gentlemen long before the Geraldines were
barons of Offaly. Yes, and before that Welsh
bankrupt, thine ancestor, feathered his nest in
Leinster ' so comfortably.' " " As to my an
cestor," replied Fitz Gerald, " whom you term
a bankrupt, how rich or how poor he was upon
his repairing to Ireland I purpose not at this
time to debate ; yet this much I may boldly say,
that he came hither as a buyer, not as a beggar.
He bought his enemies' lands by shedding his
blood 1 but you, lurking like a spider in his web
to entrap flies, endeavour to bag subjects' lives
wrongfully by despoiling them of their honour.
I, John Fitz Thomas Fitz Gerald, Baron of
Offaly, do therefore tell thee, William de Vesci,
that I am no traitor and no felon, but that thou
art the only buttress by which the King's enemies
are supported."
In the royal presence he soon afterwards chal
lenged De Vesci to mortal combat. On this issue
his adversary took up the gauntlet, but before
the day of combat he fled to France, thereby
confessing the truth of the charge thrown in his
teeth. The King, justly regarding this craven
proceeding as an acknowledgment of his guilt,
confiscated De Vesci's estates, and bestowed
them on the Baron of Offaly, creating him at the
same time Earl of Kildare. R 2

244 TALES OF OCR GREAT FAMILIES.
How in due course the Earls of Kildare
blossomed into Marquises of Kildare, and ulti
mately into Dukes of Leinster, I must now pro
ceed to explain.
Gerald, the eighth Earl of Kildare, nicknamed
" Geroit More," or the Great, was for some
years Lord Deputy of Ireland ; but his constant
feuds with the Butlers, and the enmity of the
Bishop of Meath, who happened to be high in
Court favour, induced the King to revoke the
appointment and send Lord Grey of Codnor to
supersede him. However, Geroit More took no
heed of the King's order, but set Lord Grey at
defiance. Thereupon Edward III. summoned
both to England, but the captive conquered his
captor ; for the King was so much charmed with
the stout Earl of Kildare, that he re -appointed him
Lord Deputy; and this office was held by the
noble Earl till the reign of Henry the Seventh,
who suspended him and called him back to Eng
land. Geroit More instantly convened a parlia
ment at Dublin, and made the Barons there as
sembled write to the King that the presence of
the Lord Deputy was indispensable to the peace
'and prosperity of Ireland. Soon afterwards he
and his party acknowledged the impostor, Lam
bert Simnel, to be Edward, Earl of Warwick, and
crowned him in Christ's Church Cathedral, Dublin,

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF LEINSTER. 245
with a crown borrowed from the head of a statue
of the Blessed Virgin, which stood in St. Mary's
Church, near Dame Gate. When Simnel was
defeated, Kildare implored Henry's pardon;
strange to say, the King granted it, and even
continued him in office, remarking that they
would at last come to crown apes, should he be
long absent from Ireland.
Before Simnel's follower, Perkin Warbeck,
appeared, the deputy had been displaced. He
had followed his enemy, the Bishop of Meath,
into a church, whither the latter had fled for
sanctuary, and hurrying after him into the
chancel, where the frightened prelate had fallen
upon his knees, he exclaimed, " By St. Bride !
(his favourite oath) were it not that I know my
prince would be offended with me, I could find
it in my heart to lay my sword upon thy shaven
crown." He contented himself, however, with
putting the poor Bishop into prison, where he
kept him until his successor in the deputyship
procured his release.
Being promised pardon for this and other
offences, he ventured to go to Dublin, but had
no sooner arrived than the then new Lord Deputy
seized the turbulent nobleman and shipped him
off to London, where he was detained in the
Tower for two years. At last he was brought

246 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
before the King's Court. His outrage on the
Bishop was first alleged against him. The
prisoner replied, he was not learned enough to
answer in such weighty matters ; the Bishop was
a learned man, and so was not he, so he might
be easily outdone in argument. Henry replied
he might choose a counsellor. " But," replied the
Earl, " I doubt I shall not have that good fellow
that I would choose." The King assured him
that he should have his choice : adding, that " it
concerned him to get counsel that was very good,
as he doubted his cause was very bad." " Sire,"
replied the prisoner. " I will choose the best in
England." " Who is that ?" asked His Majesty.
"Marry, the King himself; and, by St. Bride, I
will choose no other." Henry laughed, and said,
" A wiser man might have chosen worse." The
prisoner was then accused of having burnt the
Church of Cashel, to which he confessed, adding,
" By my troth, I would never have done it, but
I thought the Bishop was in it." The King
laughed again ; and when the Bishop of Meath
exclaimed, " All Ireland cannot rule this man,"
at once replied, " Then he shall rule all Ireland !"
and so restored him to his deputyship, honours,
and estates, retaining only his eldest son as a
hostage for his fealty. And the Earl showed his
gratitude; for when Perkin Warbeck landed at

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF LEINSTER. 247
Cork, in 1497, he went against him, and nearly
took him prisoner. For this feat Henry rewarded
him with several manors in Warwickshire and
Gloucestershire. When also the Earl of Clan-
ricarde and many other powerful chiefs rose
against the King, FitzGerald met them at Knock
Tuogh (the Hill of Axes), about seven miles from
Galway. Many of the lords who accompanied
the deputy were alarmed at seeing the force of the
enemy, and besought the general to offer terms
of peace, but these he scornfully declined. The
rebels made a furious onset, but the men of Lein
ster received them in such gallant fashion that
they were repulsed in confusion. The Lord
Deputy's son, Gerald, thereupon charged without
orders ; a fierce battle raged for some time, and •
of the nine divisions of Clanricarde's fine army,
only one broken battalion survived. As a reward
for this victory the Lord Deputy was nomi
nated a Knight of the Garter. In 1513, he
marched against Lemyvannon Castle (now called
Leap Castle), in the King's county ; but, as he
was watering his horse in the river at Kilkeen,
he fell, shot by an O'More of Leix. After linger
ing five days he died, and was buried in his own
chapel of Christ Church, before the high altar.
Holinshed quaintly styles him " a mightie man of
stature, full of honoure and courage: who had

248 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
been Lord Deputie and Lord Justice of Ireland
three and thirtie yeares. He was," he adds, " in
government milde: to his enemies sterne. He
was open and playne ; hardly able to rule himself
when he was moved in anger, and as sharp as
short; being easily displeased, though sooner
appeased." Geroit Oge (Gerald the younger), ninth Earl,
succeeded his father as Lord Deputy, and ruled
as a King beyond the English pale, which then
included only the counties of Dublin, Louth,
Meath, and Kildare. Thus he incurred the
jealousy of England and the hatred of Cardinal
Wolsey, by which he nearly lost his head.
Brought as- prisoner to London, he was committed
to the Tower, and soon afterwards brought up
before the council, where Wolsey made a furious
attack upon him ; but he answered the Cardinal
with so much wit and sense that his accuser
withdrew from the Council chamber in a rage,
and deferred his examination for a time. The
Earl was much beloved by the Lieutenant of the
Tower, who often sought his company ; and one
evening, when they were playing together at
" slide-grote, or shuffle boorde," a message was
brought from Wolsey that the Earl of Kildare
was to be executed on the morrow. The noble
prisoner marking his antagonist's deep sigh,

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF LELNSTER. 249
exclaimed, "By St. Bride, Lieutenant, there is
some mad game in that scroll, but, fall how it
will, this throw is for a huddle." When the
worst was told him : " Now I pray then," he ex
claimed, " do no more, but learn assuredly, from
the King's own mouth, whether his Highness
be willing thereto or not." The Lieutenant
sorely feared he might displease Henry ; yet his
love for his friend made him post to the palace,
though it was just upon midnight, and deliver
his errand. Apparently Henry was ignorant of
the order given in his name by the Chancellor ;
but, anyhow, he delivered his signet to the
Lieutenant in token that the order for his execu
tion was countermanded.
The Earl was soon after restored to his dignity,
but had not long enjoyed it when he was again
recalled to England and to his confinement in the
Tower. Before obeying this mandate he constituted his
son Thomas, Lord Offaly, vice-deputy, in his
absence ; but the reports that continually reached
him of the hot temper of this young man — espe
cially of his murder of an archbishop, and of the
consequent sentence of excommunication pro
nounced against him — broke the old Earl's heart.
He died in the Tower, and was buried in St.
Peter's Church within its walls.

250 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
Thomas, the tenth Earl, commonly known as
" Silken Thomas " from the silk fringes worn on
the helmets of his retainers, rebelled against the
English rule, and calling a meeting at St. Mary's
Abbey, declared that he was Henry's foe, offering
his sword to the Lord Chancellor. This prelate,
with tears in his eyes, begged him to abandon his
treasonable design ; but his domestic bard burst
at that moment into such a wild, weird strain of
martial music, that the nobleman yielded to its
influence, turning a deaf ear to the wise counsels
of his friend.
For a long time he resisted the lord-deputy,
Skeffington, with all the forces which England
could send against him ; but finally, deserted by
his allies, he was obliged to surrender, on a pro
mise, sealed over the consecrated Host, that he
should receive a full pardon in England.
Disregarding this solemn promise, Henry VIII.
kept him in prison for sixteen months, at the end
of which time (along with five of his uncles, two
of whom had ever been staunch adherents of the
English), he was hanged, drawn, and quartered at
Tyburn on February 8, 1537, when only twenty-
four years old. Surrey's "Fair Geraldine," the
Lady Elizabeth Fitz Gerald, was half sister to
"silken Thomas." In 1543 she married Sir
Anthony Browne, when he was sixty years of age.

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF LEINSTER. 251
While in the Tower the young Lord was very
badly treated, for he writes, with a singular dis
regard of orthography : " I never had any money
syns I cam unto prison but a nobull; nor I have
had nethyr hosyn, dublet, nor shoys, nor shyrt
but on (one). I have gone barefote dyverse
tymes (when yth hath not been very warme), and
so I should have don styll and now, but that pore
pryssners of their gentylnes hath sometyme gevyn
me old hosyn and shoys, and old shyrtes. This
I write to you, not as complaigning on my
freyndes, but for to show you the trewth of my
gret nede." Thus his chivalrous, generous, self-
sacrificing spirit shone through all his sufferings.
Like another member of his house, Lord Edward
Fitz Gerald, he allowed himself to be led astray
by the very warmth and fervour of his patriotism ;
and he paid the penalty of his error by a violent
death. Gerald, the half-brother of " silken Thomas,"
then twelve years old, was sought for by the
emissaries of the English Government, in order
that he too might be kept under arrest ; but,
being safely conveyed to the Continent, the lad
found an asylum at Rome with his kinsman, Car
dinal Pole; and Cosmo de' Medici, Duke of
Florence, appointed him his Master of the Horse.
On the accession of Edward VI. he came to Eng-

252 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMHJES.
land, and the young King restored his Irish
estates, with many of his ancestral honours. He
wooed and won Mabel, daughter of Sir Anthony
Browne, K.G., and died in London in 1585, but
was buried at Kildare.
In the lives of the succeeding Earls of Kildare
and of their descendants, the Dukes of Leinster
—for the head of this illustrious house was raised
to an Irish dukedom by George III.— there has
been less of romantic interest than that which
surrounded the Fitz Geralds in the days of the
Plantagenets and the Tudors. But still there re
mains something for me to say about them. Like
the Cavendishes and the Russells in England, the
heads and all the members of this House, though
they owed their elevation in the peerage to the
English Crown, have been found fighting on the
side of the people and popular liberties. Down
to the reign of Charles I. the Earls of Kildare had
been staunch Catholics ; but George, the six
teenth Earl, having been educated in the Reformed
faith by the Duke of Lennox, his guardian,
changed his religion, and his successors ever since
have been Protestants, though uniformly kind and
liberal to their Catholic tenantry, by whom they
are loved and honoured. Robert, the younger
son of this Earl, having taken an active part in
the Restoration, held high posts in the adminis-

THE DUCAL HOUSE OF LEINSTER. 253
tration under our last Stuart and two first Guel-
phic sovereigns ; and his son, the twentieth Earl,
was raised to the Dukedom of Leinster, and also
honoured with an English peerage, as Viscount
Leinster, of Taplow. For more than a century
the head of the Fitz Geralds stood alone in the
ducal grade of Ireland; and the present Duke is
the richest landlord, and holds the largest amount
of broad acres of any nobleman in that kingdom.
A sad fate befel Lord Edward Fitz Gerald, the
youngest son of the first Duke of Leinster. Fired
with a rash zeal on behalf of his Catholic fellow-
countrymen who were smarting under the Penal
Laws, he rose in rebellion against his sovereign,
and was mortally wounded in a vain attempt to
resist the officers sent to arrest him. His wife,
the lady so well known as "Pamela," is said,
though erroneously, to have been an illegitimate
daughter of the Duke of Orleans. Madame de
Genlis tells us that she was the daughter of
English parents named Sims, from whom she
obtained her as a companion to the Duke's
daughter, Madame Adelaide. Lord Edward's
death happened in the year of the Irish rebellion
of 1798. She survived till 1831.
It would be almost impossible in a paper like
this to enumerate one half of the branches of the
great Fitz Gerald tree. It is enough to say that

254 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
at various times they have held several Irish and
English peerages and baronetcies, and that there
are at the present day no less than a dozen in
dividuals of that name who are heads of county
families. Most of them are so noted for their
pugnacious and belligerent qualities that they
are often styled, half in fun and half in earnest,
the "fighting" Fitz Geralds.
It should not, however, be omitted from our
story that a younger son of the first Maurice Fitz
Gerald became the ancestor of the Earls of Des
mond, who ranked amongst the most powerful
nobles of Ireland for at least two centuries, until
Gerald, tenth Earl of Desmond, raising the stan
dard of rebellion, waged open war against Eng
land and the English for ten years— as long a
period as the siege of Troy — and eventually lost
his life in attempting to seize upon some cattle
in a border foray. His head was transmitted
by the Earl of Ormonde to Queen Elizabeth, who
caused it to be fixed on a spike upon London
Bridge as the head of a traitor and malefactor.
This step was followed by the usual attainder,
under which the estates of the Desmonds, in
three or four, if not more, counties of the South
of Ireland were forfeited to the Crown. The son
of this unfortunate nobleman, James Fitz Gerald,
having been educated at the Court of Elizabeth,

THE DUCAL HOUSE Of LEINSTER. 255
was led to embrace the Protestant faith ; and the
Queen, craftily hoping through his influence to
bring back the followers of his murdered father to
their allegiance, restored to him his Earldom, or at
least recognised him as Earl of Desmond, and
sent him back to Ireland ; but when it was known
that he had publicly attended the Protestant ser
vice his adherents fell away from him, and he
went off to England disappointed and crestfallen.
He continued to be styled Earl of Desmond, but
he lived on in obscurity in London, enjoying a
titular distinction without any corresponding
reality. He died in 1601. Sir Bernard Burke
tells us that after his death the title of Desmond
was assumed and borne by an individual sup
posed to be the last heir male of the race of Fitz
Gerald, who died in 1632, an officer in the army
of the King of Spain and Emperor of Germany.
It only remains to add that, as stated in a
previous chapter (see page 175), the twentieth
Earl of Kildare was raised by George III. to the
Dukedom of Leinster.

256

THE ROYAL HOUSE OF STUART.

IT has often been remarked that it is hard to
decide whether the Bourbons or the Stuarts
have been the most unfortunate of Royal Houses
in the history of modern Europe. The gloom
in which the sun of the latter House set in Eng
land, is of course, known to every reader of our
annals ; but not so the misfortunes which hung
around it in the morning of its day and in its
meridian splendour. Some of these early sorrows
may form an interesting chapter in this present
series of Stories of Great Families.
On Febuary 22, 1371, his uncle, David Bruce,
having died without issue, Robert Bruce ascended
the throne of Scotland. According to the
historians of that period, a son of the celebrated
Banquo, after his father's murder by Macbeth,
fled into Wales, where he was kindly received by

THE ROYAL HOUSE OF STUART. 257
Griffydth ap Llewellyn, the reigning prince. This
kindness, however, the young man repaid by
forming a connection with the fair Nesta, his host's
daughter, who in the course of time gave birth
to a son, named Walter. The indignant sire de
graded his daughter to the position of a servant,
and ordered her lover to be put to death. We are
further informed that ere this child was grown to
manhood, he killed at his grandfather's Court a
man who taunted him with his birth, and then
fled to that of Edward the Confessor, where he
was also unable to restrain his murderous pro
pensities, and thus had to seek a new refuge with
Alan the Red, younger son of the Earl of Brittany,
whom he accompanied to England in the train of
William the Conqueror. Here he fought at the
battle of Hastings, and afterwards married Alan's
daughter, Christina, grand-daughter (on the
mother's side) to Siward, Earl of Northumber
land, whose father, we are assured, was the off
spring of a Danish princess. Another daughter
of Earl Siward married Duncan, King of Scot
land, so that Walter's wife and Malcolm III.
(styled Malcolm Canmore) were cousins.
The young man is said to have betaken himself
to the land of his fathers during the reign of
Malcolm, who promoted him to the office of High
Steward of Scotland. On this account he gained
vol. n. s

258 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILD3S.
the name of Walter the Steward, and this (cor
rupted into Stuart) became, in course of time, the
surname of his family. It is added that Walter
had a son, Alan, also High Steward; but the
truth of that assertion rests on two charters, one
granted by Earl Cospatrick, and the other by his
son, Waldeve, Earl of March, at Dunbar. To
both charters Alan Dapifer (or Alan the Steward)
subscribes as a witness ; but this individual may
have been merely the house-steward in Earl Cos-
patrick's family.
Banquo's father is said (by Kennedy) to have
been one of the seven sons of Core, King of
Munster; but Sir George MacKenzie makes
him the son of Ferquhard, son of Kenneth III. ;
while Simpson calls this Ferquhard Thane of
Lochaber, and son of Kenneth, son of Murdoch,
son of Doir, son of Eth, King of Scotland.
In the reign of Malcolm IV. (surnamed the
Maiden), in the middle of the twelfth century,
there was certainly a Walter, son of Alan, who
was High Steward of Scotland ; and in 1319 in
the reign of Robert Bruce, Walter, High Steward
of Scotland, commanded the Scotch forces in
Berwick, and repulsed an attack of the English
on that city. Sir Walter Scott says that the
former of these two personages was a member of
the Anglo-Norman family of FitzAlan, and that

THE ROYAL HOUSE OF STUART. 259
the dignity of High Steward became hereditary
in his family ; but the two accounts do not appear
irreconcilable ; and it should be added that the
Stuarts always believed in their descent from
Banquo. When James I. visited Oxford, he was
saluted, on passing the gate of St. John's College,
by three lads, dressed to represent the three
witches, who, in Latin hexameters, bade the royal
descendant of Banquo, " Hail ! King of Scotland,
England, and Ireland."
The first Stuart, King of Scotland, was the
son of Marjory, daughter of Robert Bruce. He
was aged and infirm ; but, in spite of this fact,
all through his reign he carried on warfare
against the English ; and in it occurred the battle
between the Percies and the Douglas which gave
rise to the celebrated ballad of " Chevy Chase."
The administration of affairs devolved upon the
old King's son, the Earl of Fife, his eldest son
being lame, and also of an indolent disposition.
The Earl of Buchan, his third son, was a great
cause of grief to the aged monarch ; for, having
a quarrel with the Bishop of Moray, in order to
spite that prelate, he burned the fair cathedral
of Elgin, " the lantern and ornament of the north
of Scotland." For this crime Robert put his son
into prison, but died almost immediately after
wards, perhaps of grief; and the culprit also
S 2

260 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
died, or, perchance, was killed in his dungeon.
His son, Duncan Stuart, assembled a band of the
wildest Highlanders, and laid waste the county
of Angus, to revenge his father ; but both he and
his savage followers were exterminated by the
Earl of Crawford, sent against the young man by
his uncle John, who, on his accession to the
throne, had assumed the name of Robert III., his
baptismal name, that of John, being considered
unlucky in Scotland. But ill-luck clung to the
King in spite of his casting off his real name.
His brother, the Duke of Albany, found an in
convenient rival in the Duke of Rothsay, the heir
apparent; and, continually assuring Robert II.
that he was committing misdemeanours, obtained
from him a writ, under which he was empowered
to arrest the Prince, and keep him under re
straint in order for his amendment. On this the
Prince was waylaid, thrown into a dungeon, and
starved to death ; the daughter of one of his
keepers, who passed a few thin oat cakes into his
prison, and a poor woman who contrived to con
vey a little milk from her own breast to the
famishing sufferer, both paid for their charity
with their lives.
When King Robert was told of this tragedy,
he sent off his younger son, James, to the King
of France, in order to save him from a like fate ;

THE ROYAL HOUSE OF STUART. 261
but the ship in which the Prince sailed was taken
by an English privateer, and Henry IV. com
mitted his young royal prisoner to the donjon
keep of Windsor Castle. When King Robert
heard the news, he threw himself into such an
agony of grief that he died in three days, March
29th, 1405.
Till 1424 the young Scottish King remained a
prisoner ; but then he was released, and united
to the lady of his heart, Joan, grand- daughter to
John o' Gaunt ; and returned to his own country,
hoping no doubt that life would henceforth prove
one long sunny day. But he was doomed to be
grievously disappointed. With an empty treasury,
for all the patrimonial estates of the Stuarts had
been disposed of by the Duke of Albany, James
felt himself obliged to obtain from his Parliament
an Act commanding the sheriffs of each county
to find out what lands had belonged to his an
cestors, in order that he might take possession of
them. This step raised up against him a host of
enemies, amongst whom was the Earl of Athol,
who, with his followers, attacked James when
he was sitting at supper with the Queen, without
any body-guard, in a Dominican convent near
Perth, and killed him, after inflicting twenty-
eight wounds.
James II. was then a child, only seven years

262 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
of age. He was taken possession of by Crichton,
the Lord Chancellor; but the Queen-mother
rescued her son, and sent him to Leith, packed
up in a clothes chest, and both she and the boy
were received into Stirling Castle by the governor
before their escape was discovered. Here they
remained for some years; but the governor
quarrelled with Queen Joan and shut her up in a
mean apartment, bringing her afterwards before
a convention of the States, while a strong guard
ever attended the little King, even in his play
hours. So Joan made friends once more with the
Chancellor, who, with a strong body of cavalry,
surrounded James's party while they were hunt
ing, and carried him back to Edinburgh. When
he reached his fourteenth birthday, James declared
himself able to govern for himself, though Scotland
was distracted by civil discord, which prevented
him from tasting the blessing of peace even once
during his whole reign. In 1460 he 'was acci
dentally killed by the bursting of a cannon at
the siege of Roxburgh Castle, and his Queen,
Mary of Gueldres, appeared in a few hours in
the camp, presenting her seven-year-old son,
James, to the army as their King.
As James III. grew up, he devoted most of his
time and thoughts to the study of astrology,
while he allowed his brother, the Duke of

THE ROYAL HOUSE OF STUART. 263
Albany, to rule upon the English border. But
the enemies of this nobleman and of James's
other brother, the Earl of Mar, induced the chief
astrologer to persuade the superstitious King that
the stars betokened that the Scotch lion would be
devoured by his own whelps; while an old
woman, considered a witch, declared that his
brothers intended to murder him. Mar provoked
his fate by railing at these unworthy favourites ;
he was arrested and beheaded in the Canongate
at Edinburgh. The Duke of Albany was next
committed to Edinburgh Castle '; but he let him
self down the castle wall by converting his sheets
into a rope, and so made his escape to France. In
1482 the chief nobility banded together, seized
and hanged all James's unworthy favourites, and
committed the monarch to easy restraint in
Edinburgh Castle, from which the Duke of
Albany delivered him. The great lords then
placed the Duke of Rothsay, James's eldest son,
a promising youth of fifteen, at their head, and
declared that their King meant to subject Scot
land to England, fortified themselves in the Castle
of Stirling, and shortly afterwards met him, in
battle array, near Falkirk. James was a coward,
and at the first onset put spurs to his horse, a
noble charger, that had been presented to him by
Lord Lindsay, intending to gain the banks of the

264 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMHJES.
Forth, and go on board one of the ships of
Admiral Wood's fleet, which was then riding at
anchor; but in passing through the village of
Bannockburn, a woman, frightened at the sight
of a man in armour galloping at full speed,
dropped her pitcher, which she was filling at a
burn. The horse shied at it, the King fell
heavily to the ground, and a miller and his wife
carried the stranger, all bruised and maimed,
between them into their hovel. James im
mediately asked for a priest to hear his dying
confession, when his hosts demanded his name
and rank. "I was," he incautiously replied,
" your King this morning." The woman clapped
her hands in utter amazement, and, running to
the door, called for a priest to confess the King.
"lama priest," said a passing wayfarer, " lead
me to his Majesty." The King was covered with
a coarse cloth, and the stranger kneeling by him,
asked whether he thought he might recover if
attended by a physician. James replied that he
might perhaps get better ; on which the counter
feit priest pulled out a dagger and stabbed the
King to the heart. His name was never dis
covered. The Duke of Rothsay, now King, was filled
with anguish and remorse when he heard the
strange and fatal news. He was crowned as

THE ROYAL HOUSE OF STUART. 265
James IV., at Edinburgh, June 24, 1487; and
the first four years of his reign were one long
struggle between his party of regicides and the
friends of the murdered King : but at last all were
fully reconciled, and the Pope took his interdict
off Scotland. In 1495 our own King, Henry VII.,
offered his eldest daughter, Margaret (though
only ten years and a half old) to James for his
bride, and the Scotch King accepted her, though
he did not seem to like the arrangement ; so
during the reign of Henry VII. England and
Scotland were at peace, and the latter became a
maritime power. Henry VIII. offended James by
granting letters of marque to Sir Thomas and Sir
Edward Howard, against Sir Andrew Barton, a
Scottish admiral, who, they declared, had plun^
dered English ships, while professing to fight only
against the Portuguese. Barton was killed and
his ships taken, but James immediately resolved
on war with England. Queen Margaret tried to
dissuade him from his rash purpose ; but her in
fluence was very small, as James was now
infatuated with an English lady, the daughter of
one Heron, of Ford, who had been taken prisoner
with his wife and daughter in one of the Scotch
raids. So he marched into England at the head
of a fine army, and fell in the battle of Flodden,
leaving only an infant son, James V. ; but soon

266 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
afterwards the Queen gave birth to a posthumous
son, who received the name of Alexander. The
Duke of Albany was now chosen as Regent. The
Queen-mother married the Earl of Angus ; but
they quarrelled and separated, and that nobleman
obtained possession of the young King, who, as
he grew older, perceived that he was in fact a
prisoner, for when he made an effort to escape,
Sir Thomas Douglas, brother to the Earl, ex
claimed, " Sir, rather than that our enemies should
take you from us, we will lay hold of your per
son, and should you be torn to pieces in the
struggle we will carry off part of your body." So
James dissembled, and at last contrived to elude
the vigilance of his gaolers by stealing away one
night in the dress of a groom. He showed him
self an able monarch, but as he grew older he
became very cruel ; the death of his two only sons
preyed on his mind; finally he was haunted
by frightful dreams and apparitions; and often
would draw his dagger upon those about him.
Having alienated all his nobles, and become sus
picious of each, he appointed one Oliver Sinclair,
a favourite minion, to command an army which
he was sending against England to revenge an in
road of the Duke of Norfolk ; but when they came
in sight of the foe, and Sinclair read his commis
sion, which had hitherto been a secret, the nobles

THE ROYAL HOUSE OF STUART. 267
and private soldiers at once declared they would
surrender to the English rather than follow such
a general ; and at once made good their words.
¦James was at Caerlaverock, twelve miles from Sol-
way Moss, the scene of the catastrophe, waiting
for news, and when it came his melancholy and
madness greatly increased. He would take no
food, and his end was visibly approaching, when
tidings came that his Queen, Mary of Guise, had
presented him with a daughter. He was heard to
say, " It will end as it began ; the crown came by
a woman, and will go with one ; " then he turned
his face to the wall, and, in broken accents,
ejaculated, " Solway Moss." Soon after this
James V. was a corpse, and the infant Mary a
queen. Trouble surrounded this poor child from her
birth; civil wars and religious fanaticism dis
tracted her country, while the armies of Henry
VIII. wasted its broad fields and destroyed its
fair cities. From the age of three, when the little
Queen was sent to France, to return home a
widow of sixteen, she had undoubtedly much
enjoyment, with only the sorrow of her husband's
death and that of quitting " La belle France ; "
but afterwards scarce one gleam of happiness
cheered her life until she laid it down on the
scaffold at Fotheringay.

268 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMLLHCS.
The youth of her son, James VI., crowned King
when but a year old, lacked the sweetness of a
mother's love and of the ties of kindred. He was
educated with care, but kept in a kind of captivity
by the Earl of Morton, and, when fifteen, was
seized by a party of malcontents, who promised
him liberty if he would order the Earl of Lennox
to quit Scotland ; with these terms he complied,
but it was only after two years' confinement that
he escaped from their hands and really became
King. He felt his mother's death acutely, but
was too weak to prevent or avenge it ; and soon
afterwards nearly fell a victim to a conspiracy of
the Earl of Gowrie. On succeeding to the throne
of Elizabeth, he found himself constantly exposed
to plots against his life and his crown. One of
these conspiracies was started in order to set the
Lady Arabella Stuart on the throne of England ;
the other to blow the King himself up in the
House of Parliament. Still, compared with his
predecessors, he might be esteemed fortunate ;
while upon his son, Charles I., fell the heaviest
weight of misfortune and indignity, which cul
minated in his death upon the block, at the age
of forty-nine.
Charles II. spent the best years of his life in
exile, and even when called thence to his native
country was treated with insult and indignity.

THE ROYAL HOUSE OF STUART. 269
After the battle of Worcester his escape was
almost miraculous. The plague and great fire of
London signalised his restoration to the throne ;
frequent plots disturbed his government, and led
to the execution of Lord William Russell and
Algernon Sydney. He was suddenly carried off
by a fit of apoplexy ; many thought and said be
was carried off by poison. James II. lost his
throne by adopting measures subversive of the
English constitution, and died a pensioner of
Louis XIV. at St. Germain.
His daughter, Mary, married William Prince of
Orange, but she had no children ; her sister,
Anne, married Prince George of Denmark, and
lost all her children while they were young, so
that on Anne's demise the crown passed to the
House of Hanover. Thus for more than three
hundred years ill fortune clave to the Royal House
of Stuart, nor did the evil star fail to shed its
baneful influence upon the fortunes of King
James's male descendants.

270

THE GREAT DOUGLAS CASE.

FEW romances exceed in interest the tale con
nected with this celebrated case, which
almost convulsed society in England as well as
Scotland in the middle of the last century. Its
heroine, the Lady Jane Douglas, born in 1697,
and left an orphan at the age of two years by
the decease of her father, the second Marquis of
Douglas, was brought up along with her brother,
Archibald, third Marquis, a boy about two years
older than herself, by their widowed mother, the
Marchioness, a woman of great sense and spirit.
Lady Jane grew up a beautiful and accomplished
girl ; and when the Earl of Dalkeith made love
to her and asked for her hand, after winning
her young heart, life must have seemed to the
noble maiden to promise her a succession of sun
shine and bliss. But any such dream was rudely

THE GREAT DOUGLAS CASE 271
dispelled ; a letter reached her, signed with her
lover's name, stating that before meeting with
her he had engaged himself to another fair lady,
without whom, he now felt sure, he could not be
happy. Deeply stricken as she was by the disappoint
ment of her earliest affections, Lady Jane felt
3Tet more keenly that this barbarous affront
would immediately be in the mouth of eveiy one
of her friends and acquaintances. How could she
face it ? how listen to the well-meant but cutting
condolences which were sure to be offered her?
The young girl's courage failed ; and, taking only
her maid into her confidence, she started off with
her for France, determining there to enter a con
vent and to take the vows, renouncing the vain
world, its pomps, and its joys. The Marchioness,
however, obtained a clue to her flight, probably
from the chattering of the maid with some friend
before starting; and, following her daughter to
Paris, was able to prevent her from carrying out
her scheme. Her son, the Marquis of Douglas,
fought with the recreant lover, and then assigned
his sister a portion of .£300 a year, and made her
the heir of his estates in the case of his own
death without issue; but in 1725 he involved
himself in such trouble by his passionate fondness
for gaming, that he was compelled to live in com-

272 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMH-jDUS.
plete retirement at Douglas Castle, and Lady
Jane seldom even saw him.
She now lost her mother ; and, left alone in
the world in 1746, when eight or nine-and-forty
years of age, she listened to the addresses of a
widower, Mr. John Stewart, who had no fortune,
but was " of a fine figure, lively conversation, and
approved honour, but withal quite thoughtless
and extremely profuse." But he was the younger
brother of a baronet, who was aged, ill, childless,
and possessed of a good property (Grandtully),
to which Mr. Stewart was the undoubted heir
presumptive. Lady Jane naturally wished her marriage to
be solemnised quite privately, lest it should come
to her brother's ears, and he be offended at what
he would be sure to regard as a mesalliance ; so
it was thus performed August 4, 1746, at Edin
burgh, by one Robert Keith, who styles himself
in the certificate a " minister of the Gospel ;" and
the pair started for the Hague for their honey
moon, and thence after a time removed to Aix la
Chapelle. In April, 1748, finding herself about to be
come a mother, Lady Jane wrote to her brother,
who was now Duke of Douglas, acquainting him
with her marriage and her hopes, adding that
she and her husband were proposing to make a

THE GREAT DOUGLAS CASE. 273
journey to Switzerland, where some relations
were living, on account of the dearness of rent,
food, and all other necessaries at Aix la Chapelle,
as well as of the noise and bustle in that city,
which might prove injurious to her in her present
condition. Lady Jane's medical man, however,
put a veto on this long journey, and application
was then made to the grand bailie of the Count
of Salm for the use of the Count's castle of Bed-
bour. This the bailie, of course, could not grant
without permission from his master, who was
residing at Vienna ; so, as time pressed, and the
Count might refuse to lend his castle after they
had waited for his answer, Lady Jane and her
husband resolved to start at once for France.
They travelled in the public diligence : and,
staying a few days at Liege en route, they met
some Scotch acquaintances, who remarked Lady
Jane's condition ; and the same thing occurred
at Sedan and also at Rheims, where they re
mained nearly a month — not, in fact, thinking of
leaving it until advised that much better doctors
were to be found at Paris, whither they proceeded,
.accompanied only by Mrs. Hewitt, Lady Jane's
companion. After spending a couple of days at
the H6tel de Chalons, they removed to a lodging-
house kept by a Mme. Le Brun, who strongly
recommended one Louis Pierre de La Marr as
VOL. H. T

274 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
accouclieur, although, as it came out afterwards,
the man had obtained no medical diploma.
However, he was fully up to his work, and, as
the story goes, on the 10th of July, 1748, Lady
Jane was safely delivered of twin boys — the first
born a strong, healthy child, but the younger so
puny and frail-looking that La Marr immediately
baptised the little fellow (in accordance with a
rule imperative upon French accoucheurs, in such
a case, at that time), and persuaded the parents
to send him to a Mme. Gamier, a successful
nurse, living at Haute Borne, near Paris, with
whom the child remained more than a year,
during which he became healthy and strong, the
father meanwhile going frequently to see him, as
did La Marr also. He was named Sholto Thomas.
As soon as Lady Jane was sufficiently re
covered, she and her husband returned to Rheims,
where they had left two maid-servants ; and here
the eldest boy was baptised, September 22. 1748,
in a public and splendid manner, in the Church
of Saint Jacques de Rheims, by the names of
Archibald James Edward, one Anthony Curios
being the officiating priest, while the Bishop of
Joppa was among the invited guests.
In 1749 the Duke of Douglas, a proud, passion
ate, and suspicious man, who could not forgive
his only sister for the crime of having married

THE GREAT DOUGLAS CASE. 275
without his consent, withdrew the pension he had
hitherto allowed her ; so Lady Jane and her
husband were reduced to great straits. A pa
thetic letter from Lady Jane to the Earl of
Morton, however, brought her .£350 as a loan, on
which she, accompanied by her trusted friend and
companion, Mrs. Hewitt, went off to Paris, and
brought her little Sholto Thomas away from the
good nurse who had so well cared for him ; then
they paid their debts at Rheims, and started for
England. But the Earl of Morton's money did
not stretch out far enough in such unthrifty
hands ; and at Dunkirk they borrowed twenty-
five louis d'or from the Chevalier Douglas, and
=£40 from Sir Walter Rutledge, to bring them to
England, where they arrived before Christmas
day, 1749.
Mr. Stewart was, in a very short time, put
into prison for debt, and Lady Jane and her
children, with Mrs. Hewitt, lodged meanly
enough, sometimes in a back street in London,
and sometimes at the little country village of
Chelsea, for two years and ten months ; but she
was always in great straits. During this period
letters passed frequently between the imprisoned
husband and his wife, in which the children are
continually mentioned in terms of the greatest
affection. T 2

276 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
Meanwhile the Duke of Douglas had been told
that the little boys now brought to England, and
supposed to be his heirs, were not Lady Jane's
children at all, but had been obtained from poor
parents in Paris, and that Margaret Kerr, Lady
Jane's maid, before she went abroad, had stoutly
maintained that a marble table could as easily
become a mother as her mistress. The Duke was
already very angry with his sister, because,
having sent a messenger to her some time before
to demand some deeds which he had formerly
given into her hands, the man, who was in league
with her enemies, had returned from Rheims
vowing she would not give them up, though they
were all the time in his possession, as he was
forced to acknowledge at the subsequent trial.
Lord Dundonald also had written to the Duke,
assuring him that Lady Jane had called upon
Lady Stair, accompanied by the little boys, but
that Lady Stair, having examined the children's
mouths, was convinced, from the difference in
their teeth, that they were not exactly of the
same age.
So, when Lady Jane brought her little ones to
Scotland, in 1752, she wrote to her brother a
touching letter, in which she says : " The
children, poor babes, have never yet done any
fault ; may I not then plead for their being ad-

THE GREAT DOUGLAS CASE. 277
mitted and allowed to see you and to kiss your
hands? The youngest, Sholto, is thought to
resemble you much when you were a child ; and
Archie is thought by a great many to have the
honour of resembling you much since you became
a man." The Earl of Crawfurd also wrote to the Duke,
interceding for the poor lady so overwhelmed
with trouble; but the influence of friends was
all of no avail. Neither mother nor children
were admitted inside the doors of Douglas Castle, -
although Lady Jane often called at the gates,
and left notes for her brother with a man named
White, of Stockbrigs, the Duke's confidential
manager, who spoke fairly to the poor lady,
but was in fact her greatest enemy, and
probably never gave his master one of her
letters. While in Scotland Lady Jane writes to her
husband : " The children, I bless God, enjoy
perfect good health, and are in good spirits, they
are mightily caressed here, and little Archie is
thought to be very like you." In another letter
she says : " This day Archie and Sholto are to
begin to learn to read, taught by one Warden,
recommended by the Countess of Stair, as one
that teaches well, and brings children forward in
a short time. I told them I was writing to you,

278 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
and they both prayed me to give their duty to
their papa."
To this Mr. Stewart replies : " Many kisses to
the dear little men, with my best blessing to
them and you."
In April, 1753, Lady Jane being obliged to
return to London, left the boys in Scotland with
a maid named Isabel Walker ; they then seemed
quite well, but two days afterwards little Sholto
showed signs of fever, which rapidly increased,
and soon carried off the sufferer. The news so
affected Lady Jane that she was never well after
wards. She wrote, however, another and most
moving letter to the Duke, telling him of her
grief at the loss of her younger darling. The
child had been, as already stated, baptised by La
Marr, but he had been conditionally re-baptised
on arriving in England. From this time the poor
mother's health failed more and more, and she
died — as her doctor declared, of a broken heart —
November 22, 1753, in a wretched apartment at
Edinburgh, and destitute almost of the common
necessaries of life. Her doctor writes of her that
" she bore her sickness with Christian patience,
resignation, and that remarkable sweetness of
temper so natural to her." Four hours before her
departure she sent for Archibald, and, laying her
hand on the boy's head, said tenderly, " God bless

THE GREAT DOUGLAS CASE. 279
you, my child ! God make you a good and honest
man, for riches I despise. Take a sword in your
hand, my son, and you may one day be as great
a hero as were some of your ancestors."
Some time after the grave had closed over the
heart-stricken mother, the Duke of Douglas heard
from Lady Stair's own lips that the story re
ported to him of her examination of the teeth of
his sister's children was utterly and maliciously
false; and he became, to some extent at least,
convinced of the injustice which he had done to
the gentle companion of his own childhood.
Immediately after Lady Jane's death, Lady
Schaw charged herself with the care of Archie,
then five years old. His father also took a ten
der interest in his welfare, and writes to this
kind friend to have him inoculated, or not, as
her own judgment directs, reminding her that
the person from whom the virus is taken should
be of a clean and healthy constitution. He adds,
" Give my blessing to my dear little man."
In 1758, the Duke of Douglas married, per
haps hoping to have an heir, who would prevent
his dead sister's son from succeeding to his
estates. If so, his hopes were disappointed ;
and, what is more, his Duchess became the mo
therless boy's warm friend ; indeed, she pleaded
his cause with her husband so eagerly that a

280 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
(quarrel and a separation ensued. The Duke
however, relented, and, on his reconciliation with
his wife, acknowledged Archibald to be his
nephew and heir. Three years later the Duke.
himself died, having executed, ten days before,
an entail of his whole estate in favour of the
heirs male of his father, and appointing Margaret
Duchess of Douglas, the Duke of Queensberry,
and the Earl of Morton his nephew's tutors and
guardians during his minority.
The young Archibald was immediately " served
heir" to his ,'deceased uncle, upon proof of his
birth and propinquity by an " inquest" held by
fifteen men according to Scottish law. The
proofs were deemed satisfactory, the jury were
unanimous, and the lad was put in possession of
the family estates.
Actions were soon after brought in the Scottish
Courts of Law by the Duke of Hamilton (hus
band of the beautiful Elizabeth Gunning) and
the Earl of Selkirk, both of whom claimed por
tions of the estate under settlement made by
ancestors of the Duke of Douglas. But these
claims were not allowed.
Meanwhile, the Duke of Hamilton sent an
agent to France, to make inquiries about the
birth of the youthful laird ; and in December,
1762, it was given out that Archibald was no

THE GREAT DOUGLAS CASE. 281
son of Lady Jane Douglas, and that she never
had a son at all. Mrs. Helen Hewitt was sup
posed to be an accomplice in the imposture ; and
against her and the poor boy's father (now Sir
John Stewart, of Grandtully) a criminal suit
was raised before the Tournelle Criminelle of
the Parliament of Paris. In the summer of 1763,
a Monitoire was published by the Archbishop of
Paris, and dispersed throughout France, giving
the story of Lady Jane's imposture as stated by
the claimants, and enjoining all persons, on pain
of excommunication, to impart to their parish
cure anything they might know concerning the
facts of the case, when the cure was to seal up
such information and send it to the Procureur-
G^neral. Some witnesses deposed to the abstraction of
a male infant from one Saury. This was not
denied ; but it was proved that the babe had not
been carried off till the end of December, 1749,
or the beginning of 1750, at which time the
Douglas child and his parents were in England.
Then a statement was put forward that at the
time when the supposed birth of the twins took
place, a gentleman applied to a poor woman
named Marie Guinette to procure two newly
born male children — or one if two could not be
obtained — to present to a lady who had been

282 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
confined of twins, both of whom were dead. This
Guinette, it was asserted, spoke to a friend
named Mignon, wife of a glass-grinder in Paris,
who had a boy three weeks old. According to
the story, the husband and wife agreed to sell
their infant, and took it to a shop, where the
person who bought it at once changed its ragged
clothes for fine ones. But the deposers added
that the infant had bright blue eyes, whereas
those of the young Stewart were undoubtedly
black. The case came before the Scotch Court of Ses
sion in July, 1767; not, however, as a criminal
prosecution, but in the shape of an action of
ejectment, the youthful owner being, of course,
the defendant. Among the judges were several
eminent men — Lord Auchinleck, Lord Kames,
Lord Monboddo, and Lord Hailes. There was
a division of opinion, and the casting vote against
young Archibald was given by the Lord Presi
dent Dundas, who up to that time had been
supposed to be in his favour, but who professed
to have received " a new light on the subject."
But Archibald's friends did not let the matter
drop here. The claim was carried into the House
of Lords, and in 1769 the decision of the Scot
tish Judges was reversed, owing chiefly to the
powerful influence of the Earl of Mansfield, then

THE GREAT DOUGLAS CASE. 283
Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. The
decision was received with vehement contro
versy and recrimination ; indeed, Lord Mansfield
was openly accused of corruption, and was even
denounced, many years later, by Sir Philip
Francis in the House of Commons. Dr. Johnson,
with his usual common sense, held that the pre
sumption of filiation was strong in the defend
ant's favour, and that great weight should be
allowed to a dying declaration, meaning, of
course, that of Lady Jane.
The successful young claimant, though he
inherited the property of his mother's family,
never became Duke of Douglas, that title being
extinct; but in 1790, he was raised to the peer
age of Great Britain as Baron Douglas of Dou
glas Castle, and, as such, took his seat in the
House of Lords.
That honour, however, continued through only
two generations in the male line; for, though
three of his sons succeeded to the barony in turn,
they each and all died without leaving a son.
The Douglas property accordingly passed to the
eldest daughter of the first Lord Douglas's
daughter, who married the Earl of Home ; and
Lord Home, in right of his wife, is now the
owner of Bothwell and Douglas Castles, and of
other broad lands in Lanarkshire; and in his

284 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
favour the Barony of Douglas was revived in
1875. Anyone who is curious to see the pros and cons
of the great Douglas case, should read the
" Summary of the Speeches, Arguments, and
Determinations of the Lords of Session in Scot
land, with a Preface by a Barrister-at-Law,"
which was published, as a quasi legal " Report,"
by J. Almon, opposite Burlington House in
Piccadilly, in 1767. They will find them fairly
stated and weighed in the balance ; and I should
add that I have made considerable use of the
" Preface" in the Story of the " Great Douglas
Case" as I tell it in these pages.

285

THE RADOLIFFES OF DERWENT WATER.

ANEW chapter will have to be written in the
history of " pretenders" and " claimants,"
for only a few weeks since the daily papers re
corded the premature death of a lady in the north
of England, who styled herself " the Lady Amelia
Radcliffe" and " the Countess of Derwentwater,"
and who, not so many years ago, made a bold
attempt to assert what she believed to be her
legal rights to the ruined Castle of Dilston, and
to the rank of a peeress of England. At the time
of her dashing adventure I wrote a short account
of the Radcliffes in a magazine of small circula
tion, and now defunct ; and as some interest just
now attaches to her name, I have obtained the
permission of the editor to reproduce the story,
with a few corrections, in this series of tales.
In tender and touching reminiscences, few

286 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
spots in the whole of England surpass Dilston —
or, as it was once called, Devilstone — Hall, as
in its lonely and ruined state it still frowns down
upon "the Devil's Water" — originally Dyville's
Water — which foams along between steep and
well-wooded cliffs, eager to join the Tyne, a few
miles to the north-east of the ancient abbey
tower of Hexham. Even now, though what re
mains of the old mansion is roofless, and though
the bat and the owl fly in and out of its mullioned
but unglazed windows, and as we walk along
the grass-grown terrace that overhangs the valley
and the river, our fancy cannot help repeopling
it with its noble occupants of little more than a
century and a half ago, when it was the home of
James and Anne, the youthful, gay, brilliant, and
ill-starred Earl and Countess of Derwentwater.
There, even to the present hour, the young Earl's
name lives in popular tradition, among a primitive
and poetic race of peasantry ; nor is there any
episode in history that has a firmer hold on popular
sympathy than his melancholy fate, and the ruin
of his family which that fate involved.
According to Sir Bernard Burke, the Radcliffes
of Derwentwater were one of the oldest knightly
families in the county of Cumberland. In that
county, a little beyond Hay Castle, the river
Derwent runs under the base of the mountain s

THE RADCLIFFES OF DERWENTWATER. 287
called the Derwent Fells, and spreads itself into
a spacious lake, in which are three islands ; one
of these isles was inhabited by a population of
miners ; another was supposed to be the same in
which— if we may believe the venerable Bede —
St. Hubert led the life of a hermit ; and the third
was the seat of the family of Radcliffe, the head
of which, being knighted by Henry V., married
Margaret, daughter of John de Derwentwater.
In like manner, from the time of the Norman
Conquest down to the reign of Henry III., Dilston
Castle appears to have been in the possession of
a family who bore the local name of Dyvelstone ;
and at length, after having passed through several
intermediate hands — the Tyndales, the Crafters,
and the Claxtons — 'it devolved on the Radcliffes,
in the person of one Sir Nicholas Radcliffe, who
as we said above, married the fair daughter and
heiress of the Derwentwaters. Thenceforth the
two properties became merged into one.
Their descendant in the direct line, Sir Francis
Radcliffe, or Radclyffe, Baron of Dilston, in
Northumberland, according to "Ulster," was
raised to the Scottish Peerage as Baron Tyndale,
Viscount Radcliffe and Langley, and Earl of
Derwentwater. This nobleman, by his marriage
with Catherine, daughter and heir of Sir William
Fenwick, of Meldon, Northumberland, had a

288 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMDLIES.
family of four daughters and five sons, of whom
the eldest, Francis, succeeded to the honours and
estates ; the second, Edward, died unmarried ;
while of the after-history and fortunes of the
three youngest, Thomas, William, and Arthur,
nothing is known, except that Thomas became a
soldier. We now come to Francis, the second
Earl, who had married in his father's lifetime
Mary Tudor, one ofthe natural daughters of King
Charles II., by Mrs. Mary Davis. By her he had
a daughter, Mary Tudor, and three sons, one of
whom died young, or, at all events, issueless,
while the eldest, James, and the youngest,
Charles, successively inherited the Earldom.
James, the third Earl, was the ill-starred and
gallant nobleman who, becoming the victim of
a steadfast though misguided loyalty, rashly em
barked, together with his brother Charles, in the
attempt to place the Chevalier St. George, better
known by his sobriquet of " the Old Pretender," on
the throne which his father had abdicated. He
is described as having been " a perfect cavalier,
and a fine specimen of a genuine English noble
man ; amiable, brave, open, generouB, hospitable
and humane ; ' and of so universal a beneficence
that he seemed to live for others.' He gave bread
to multitudes of people whom he employed on his
estates ; the poor, tho widow, and the orphan all

THE RADOLIFFES OF DERWENTWATER. 289
rejoiced in his bounty." Ho joined the forces
raised in Scotland in 1715, under the Earl of
Mar, and other noblemen, including Lords Ken-
muro, Widdrington, and Wintoun, in tho cause
of " James III. ;" and, marching at the head of
a regiment or two southwards, made his way to
Appleby, Lancaster, and Preston. Here they
and their little band were met by a large force
under General Carpenter ; and the little chances
which they had of success were rendered smaller
by divided counsels. After a hard-fought en
counter, the Earl and his brother were forced to
surrender as prisoners in war. He was sent to
the Tower of Loudon, where lie was kept in
close custody. He was tried for his share in the
rebellion before the House of Lords, and being-
found guilty of high treason, when only twenty-
eight years of age, he was beheaded on Tower
Hill on the 24th of February, 1715-16, when all
his honours and estates became forfeited to the
Crown. On the evening of the day in which the Earl's
head was struck off, the Cumberland and North
umberland sky was lit up by a splendid aurora
borealis ; and from that day to this the " Northern
Lights," as they are called elsewhere, are spoken
of among the rustic peasantry of Tynedale and
Hexhamshiro as the " Derwentwater lights." They
VOL. II. u

290 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
are viewed by them not without some feelings of
terror and alarm, and are considered, as the
comets of . old were thought to be, the heralds of
" nae gude" tidings to the neighbourhood. This
fact alone will serve to show how deeply the
memory of the Earl and his tragic end stands
engraven upon the hearts of the Northumbrian
peasants. As to the place of his burial, there are great
doubts.* According to Sir Bernard Burke, the
best authenticated account states that he found a
grave in the church of St. Giles'-in-the-Fields ;
but there. is also a tradition that his mutilated
remains found a resting place at Dilston. What
ever be the truth of the story, however, one thing
is certain, namely, that the memory of the ill—
* A correspondent writes to me with reference to this state
ment, " I believe that Lord Derwentwater's remains were taken
straight from the place of execution to Dagnam Park, in Essex,
and from thence to Dilston Church, in the vault of which they
remained until the sale of that property by the Crown a year
or two ago, when they were exhumed in the presence of a
member of the Petre family, and conveyed to Thorndon, in
Essex, where they were re-interred in the mortuary chapel of
the Petre family. Lord Petre," adds my correspondent, " pos
sesses several Radcliffe relics, inoluding the clothes in which
Lord Derwentwater was executed, his Missal, and a very
beautiful portrait of the Earl. It may be added that Lord
Petre is descended in the direct (female) line from James,
third Earl of Derwentwater."

THE RADOLIFFES OF DERWENTWATER. 291
fated nobleman is still cherished by the people
around Dilston Castle, and lives in many a rude
ballad of the country-side ; and we may add that
the exquisitely touching lament, "Farewell to
Lochaber" is said to have been written by the
Earl, and addressed to his wife, on the eve of
his departure for the adventure in which he for
feited, in a mistaken and hopeless cause, his life,
his fair lands, and his family. James Radcliffe
left a young and beautiful widow, Anna Maria,
the daughter of Sir John Webb, Bart,, of Old-
stock, Wilts, and two infant children besides, to
deplore his untimely fate. These children were,
a daughter, Mary, who in 1732 became the wife
of Robert James, eighth Lord Petre ; and a son,
John, who, if we may believe the Heralds, died
young and issueless ; but about whom it has re
cently been affirmed that he lived to marry and
leave a family, to inherit his name, though not
his coronet or his broad acres.
We now pass to his brother Charles, who, after
the presumed death of his brother's son — a matter
of which he must have been well assured by per
sonal knowledge — assumed the title of Earl of
Derwentwater, in spite of the attainder which
had been passed upon it. He was, like his brother,
one of the most unbending adherents of the
House of Stuart, and took a prominent part in
u 2

292 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMHJES.
the events of those stirring times in which his lot
was cast. Bearing, with his brother, a share in
the Rebellion of 1715, he had been taken prisoner
at Preston, in the November of that year, and,
being carried to London, was tried and condemned
of high treason. After his conviction, in the
following year he received several reprieves from
time to time ; and probably on account of his ex
treme youth, and of a reluctance on the part of
the Government to shed any more blood of such
a noble House, he would have been pardoned by
the Crown. But on the 11th of December, 1716,
in company with eleven other " rebels," he made
his escape out of the gaol of Newgate, and thus
unfortunately placed himself beyond the benefit
even of a general act of grace which was passed
about that time. Thus it happened that if the
elder brother had escaped he would have saved
his head ; the younger brother would have saved
his head by remaining in captivity.
On reaching the continent, Charles Radcliffe
proceeded to Rome, where he obtained a pension
from the Chevalier St. George. We next hear
of him as settled in Paris, where in 1724 he
became the second husband of Maria, Countess of
Newburgh in her own right, by whom he had
several daughters and a son, James Bartholomew,
Earl of Newburgh, whose son, Anthony James, Earl

THE RADOLIFFES OF DERWENTWATER. 293
Of Newburgh, died without issue in 1814. Twice,
during his long period of exile, Charles Radcliffe
came to London ; and though his presence was
well known to the Government, and though he
assumed an attainted title, yet his visits were
allowed to pass unnoticed ; at all events, he came
and went away unmolested by the King and his
Ministry. The rising of 1745 in favour of" Bonny Prince
Charlie," however, again called him into the field
of action. Still adhering to the cause of the
Stuarts, he embarked for Calais in the November
of that year, on board the ship of war " l'Espe-
rance," a privateer, together with his son and
some officers, and a store of ammunition of war,
hoping, and no doubt intending, to join Charles
Edward on the Scottish coast. Although there
was no actual legal proof of any such warlike
intention , yet the ship was seized in the open sea
by the " Sheerness" man-of-war, and brought
into the Downs. The captain landed his prisoners
at Deal, when Radcliffe and his son were com
mitted to the Tower. The son, being deemed a
foreigner, was exchanged on the first cartel ; but
Charles Radcliffe himself was confined till the
Rebellion was over.
In Michaelmas Term, 1746, he was brought to
the bar of the Court of King's Bench to have

294 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
execution awarded against him under his former
sentence, passed thirty years before. He pleaded
that he was not proved to be the same person who
bad been previously convicted, and prayed time to
bring witnesses in support of his statement ; but
as, in his affidavit, he would not positively deny
that he was the attainted Charles Radcliffe, the
Court proceeded, and decided against the plea.
He then wished to plead in bar the general par
don of 1716, to which I alluded above, but,
although one judge dissented from his brethren,
the Court refused to hear or admit of any farther
plea, and he was ordered for execution.
Although strictly speaking he was not a noble
man, for the earldom was under attainder, yet re
gard was paid to his high rank and station so far
that he was not made to undergo the then legal
and customary penalty for high treason, in the
case of obscure and ignoble criminals, bnt was
beheaded on Tower Hill, like his brother before
him, on the 8th December, 1746. It is needless
to add that he met his fate with the same dignified
calmness and manly courage which had marked
his brother, although with less of pious resigna
tion. He was the mainspring of the support which
his house and family gave to the cause of the
Stuarts, and it is calculated that he and his

THE RADOLIFFES OF DERWENTWATER. 295
brother between them spent more than .£300,000
in the attempt to place the exiled House once
more upon the throne.
If, then, we follow the statement of Sir Bernard
Burke, the Earldom of Derwentwater, as we have
said, fell under attainder in the person of James.
the third Earl, whose only representatives, accord
ing to the same authority, are Lord Petre's
family, and they only in the female line ; if, how
ever, the Earldom had been restored to the male
issue of Charles, the last who assumed it, still it
would have become extinct in 1814. on the death
of his grandson, Anthony James, Earl of New
burgh, whom we mentioned above, unless it be
true that the son of James, the third Earl, lived
to marry and have issue male. If this was not
the case, it is clear that the only persons who can
put in any claim for the Earldom of Derwent
water, are the male descendants of Thomas,
William, and Arthur, the three youngest sons of
the first Earl, if any such can now be found. It
is presumed that the attainder passed upon his son
or sons could not have any retrospective effect on
him as their father, or on any legitimate male re
presentatives who could or can prove their des
cent from them. But it is not stated anywhere,
either by Sir Bernard Burke or by any reliable
authority, that the Earldom created by James II.

296 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
was granted to the Radcliffes with any but the
usual remainder to the issue male of the first,
grantee's body, lawfully begotten. If so, no
female can establish any legal right to the title of
Derwentwater, nor indeed can any male claimant
whose line of descent passes through a female.
It was urged on behalf of the lady who styled
herself " Amelia, Countess of Derwentwater," that
John, the son of James, third Earl, did not die
young of an accident, as is generally supposed,
but lived to marry Elizabeth Arabella Maria, in
her own right Countess of Waldsteine, and that
on his death, in 1798, he left two surviving sons,
James, fifth Earl, who married, but died without
issue, shortly after the battle of Waterloo, and
John James, styled the sixth Earl, who in 1813
married Amelia Anna Charlotte, Princess Sobieski.
This Earl, it is alleged, had, with three sons, who
died young, one surviving son, also John James,
who called himself the seventh Earl, and whose
death occurred in 1854. As he died unmarried,
he left his claim — be it good or bad — to both title
and the family estates to his only surviving sister,
Amelia Matilda, who was born at Dover on the
2nd April, 1830, the same lady who, under the
name of "Amelia, Countess of Derwentwater,"
made an ill-judged attempt to enforce her claims
to the ancient inheritance of the Radcliffes at

, THE RADCLIFFES OF DERWENTWATER. 297
Dilston, by a forcible entry into the halls of her
ancestors. Two things are clearly established, assuming
" the Lady Amelia's " statement to be true : firstly,
that Charles Radcliffe, who was executed in 1746,
had no right or claim to the title of Earl of
Derwentwater, his elder brother's son being still
alive; and secondly, that, on the same assump
tion, her own brother no doubt would have been
Earl of Derwentwater, except for the attainder
passed on his ancestor. But I repeat that there
is no proof whatever, so far as I can see, of the
possibility of the title vesting in a female, unless
the original patent was made out in favour of
heirs general, instead of heirs male.
It was said by the Lady Amelia's friends that
the representatives of the family, her brothers,
her father, and her grandfather, would have long
ago put in a formal claim to the title and estates
if it had not been that they were unwilling to
acknowledge the sovereignty of the House of
Hanover, but that she herself was prepared to take
the oath of allegiance to Queen Victoria. " While
owning the power of the Crown to confiscate the
estates on account of the rebellion of James, third
Earl, she denied, as the lands are governed by the
laws of eutail, that such confiscation should have
continued after his execution in 1716. Believing

298 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
that she was both heiress of entail and also heir
general, she made her claim, and did what she
deemed best to enforce it." There is no doubt
that in so doing she struck upon the right chord
of public sympathy, and one which would respond
to her faithfully. The poetic halo that surrounds
the grey walls of old Dilston Hall has not yet
departed ; and the name of Radcliffe all around
Tynedale and Hexhamshire has even to this day
a magic influence. But it is in a court of law,
and before the House of Peers that she ought to
have appeared in due form as a suitor, if she
wished her claims to be legally investigated and
honestly treated. The titles and estates of most
of the other nobles who joined in the two Scottish
uprisings of 1715 and 1745 have already been re
stored, and the Peerage is no longer without a
Winton, a Perth, a Southesk, or an Airlie, or even
an Earl of Mar.
Meantime it is of interest to us all to learn that
so keen has been the love felt by the Radcliffes
for their own land and for their own ancestral
halls, that the two Earls, who shed their blood on
Tower Hill by an executioner's axe, desired to be
buried in the chapel at Dilston, where, also, still
repose the remains of some others of the family.
It is said that, in spite of the long enforced exile
to which they have been subjected as a race for

THE RADOLIFFES OF DERWENTWATER. 299
their ancestor's folly or fealty, call it as you will,
nearly every member of the Radcliffe family has
contrived to pay at least one stolen visit to the
banks of the " Devil's Waters," and to gaze on
those grey walls that once belonged to his or her
forefathers. Nay, further, they have so contrived
that nearly every member for the past hundred
years has been born in this island. For instance,
John James, the sixth Earl (Lady Amelia's father),
was born at Dilston, and the story of his birth
has about it an air of romance. His mother,
travelling incognito, came to England, and just
before his birth made her way to Hexham and
Corbridge. As she drove along the highway at
Dilston the carriage, by pre-arrangement, was
made to break down, as if by accident. The
neighbours ran out to assist the strangers ; and
the " countess " was conveyed to a small inn in
the village. Here, in a chamber called the Earl
of Derwentwater's room, her child first saw the
light of day ; and that child's daughter, " The
Lady Amelia," was born at Dover on the 2nd of
April, 1830. The deceased claimant, it is said,
though educated for the most part abroad, spent
much of her life in this country, and during the
last few years, from time to time, without reveal
ing the secret of her name, she had paid stolen
visits to Dilston Hall and its neighbourhood.

300 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
She made herself known to no one on these
occasions, but contented herself by simply stating
that the heir of Dilston was alive, and would one
day appear in the midst of the good folks of Cor
bridge and Hexham, and along the banks of the
Devil's Water :
" And Bertram's might and Bertram's right
Shall meet on EUangowan's height."
It should be added that the Crown, when it had
seized upon the estates of the Derwentwaters in
Cumberland and Northumberland, of the present
value of between £40,000 and £50,000 a year,
transferred them to the Commissioners of Green
wich Hospital, to be devoted towards the founda
tion and maintenance of that institution. As the
estates have been thus torn from their rightful
owners, it is a matter of congratulation that their
noble revenues are applied to a purpose so good
in itself and so serviceable to the nation. Still,
it is an open question whether, in event of the
rightful heir establishing a claim to the coronet,
the nation ought not to give back some share of
that spoil which it took away in its hasty wrath ;
and this equitable right has been recognised to
some extent ; for in 1749 an Act was passed,
inter alia " for raising certain sums of money out
of the said estates for the benefit of the children

THE RADCLIFFES OF DERWENTWATER. 301
of Charles Radcliffe," under which an annuity was
paid to his grandson, Anthony James, Earl of
Newburgh, till his death in 1814, and was con
tinued to that nobleman's widow, who died so
lately as August, 1861, at Slindon House, Sussex,
when she had nearly attained her hundredth
year.

302

THE RISE OF THE HOUSE OF
HARDWICKE.

IT is always said, as a matter of legitimate
boast, that in England the House of Peers
is open to all, and that every subject of the
Crown, if he has but sufficient industry and
energy — to which qualities I should be inclined
to add a dash of interest and good luck — may
make his way from the humblest position into
its foremost ranks ; and as Archbishop of Canter
bury or of York, or as Lord High Chancellor, the
son of a small tradesman or yeoman may rise to
take precedence of all his fellow-subjects, save
only those of the blood royal. And so it is. The
archiepiscopal mitre, during the last three cen
turies, has been as often gained by men of no
family influence or high birth as by connections
of the upper ten thousand. And the case of the

THE HOUSE OF HARDWICKE. 303
woolsack is the same. Lord Eldon was the son
of a coal merchant, Lord Truro of a London
attorney, Lord Thurlow of a Suffolk clergyman,.
Lord Selborne and Lord Cranworth were also:
sons of plain country clergymen.
Side by side with these names may be men
tioned that of Philip Yorke, first Earl of Hard
wicke, who was the son of an attorney of respect
able character, but in narrow circumstances, and
was born at Dover in the year 1690. After re
ceiving a limited education — despite the wishes
of his mother, who desired him to enter the
Church — the boy was sent by his father to
London, where he entered the office of a Mr.
Salkeld, an eminent attorney. In this position
he devoted every spare moment of his leisure in
endeavouring to supply the defects of his early
education. The wife of Mr. Salkeld was a>
notable and frugal housewife ; and young Yorke
being what is termed a gratis clerk (that is, one
who has paid no premium for the legal lore he
may acquire in his master's chambers), she fre
quently employed him in running upon errands,;
and making him " generally useful" in the house
hold. This reminds us of King Alfred in, the
household of the Danish peasant, and of Sir John
Bowring when a boy-clerk in a merchant's house,
at Exeter. This work was very distasteful to the

304 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
youth who was destined to be Lord Chancellor of
England ; and, anxious to be relieved from this
uncongenial employment, one day when she had
sent him " marketing," much to her surprise and
chagrin, he brought his purchases home in a
hackney carriage, the fare of which she had to
pay. About this time, having entrusted to his
clerk the charge of the cash for the petty expenses
of the office, and looking over the accounts one
day, he met with a striking example of his wife's
notability as a housekeeper, for amongst the
miscellaneous office disbursements there appeared
several such items as " a saddle of mutton," a
" barrel of oysters," " coach fare for vegetables
from Covent Garden," &c, — items not generally
expected to be found amongst the office expenses
of an attorney. This brought about an explana
tion, and the young aspirant for legal honours
was relieved in future from the performance of
the drudgery of these menial duties.
Steadily applying himself to his profession,
Yorke entered as a student at the Middle Temple,
and was called to the Bar in 1715; and as his
abilities were known to be of a high order, he
immediately obtained considerable employment.
During the time he was " keeping terms," he be
came acquainted with Mr. Parker, one of the sons
of Lord Chief Justice Macclesfield, the conse-

THE HOUSE OF HARDWICKE. 305
quence of which was an introduction to the judge,
who highly appreciated Yorke's merits, and em
ployed him as the companion and tutor to his
sons. After his call to the Bar, Mr. Yorke received
the support of his old benefactor, Mr. Salkeld,
together with the favour and patronage of Lord
Macclesfield, and he was thus at the very outset
enabled to acquire an extensive practice ; indeed,
the favouritism of Lord Macclesfield, even in
Court, is stated to have offended and aggrieved
many old and eminent practitioners.
In 1719, the year of Lord Macclesfield's eleva
tion to the woolsack, young Mr. Yorke took his
seat in the House of Commons as member for
Lewes. In the same year he thought it would
add to his happiness if he married ; so looking
round, he fixed upon the young widow of a Mr.
William Lygon, of Madresfield, the daughter of
Mr. Cocks, a gentleman of good estate in Wor
cestershire, and a niece of Lord Somers and of
Sir Joseph Jekyll, then Master of the Rolls. The
lady, amongst other recommendable qualifica
tions, possessed that of a good jointure. And
when, fortified by a letter of introduction from
her unclf (Sir Joseph Jekyll, at whose house he
had met her), Mr. Yorke called upon her father
at his London residence, who asked him what
VOL. H. X

306 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
was his rent roll, he was surprised to hear that
all Mr. Yorke's estate consisted of " a perch
of ground in Westminster Hall !" The father,
however, being assured by Sir Joseph Jekyll that
the young lawyer's prospects were very good,
gave his consent, and they were married ; and
she proved a most excellent wife for a period of
forty-two years.
Lord Campbell, speaking of their domestic life,
says : " They continued to old age tenderly at
tached to each other. She contributed not only
to his happiness, but to his greatness. She often
humorously laid claim (as she had good right to
do) to so much of the merit of Lord Hardwicke's
being a good Chancellor — in that his thoughts
and attentions were never taken from the busi
ness of the Court by the private concerns of the
family, the care of which, the management of
his money matters, the settling all accounts with
stewards and others, and, above all, the educa
tion of his children, had been wholly her depart
ment and concern without any interposition of
his, farther than implicit acquiescence and entire
approbation." Lady Hardwicke was, it has been said, of a
very careful and saving disposition, approaching
to stinginess ; and what he earned she saved.
It has been related that she took care that the

THE HOUSE OF HARDWICKE. 307
purse in which the Great Seal is carried — which
was made of very expensive embroidery, and re
newed annually — should not become the perqui
site of the seal-bearer, but be retained when dis
carded, by herself. So many of them were saved,
that at length she had enough to hang with them
the state-room in the mansion at Wimpole, and
make curtains for the state-bed. Lord Hard
wicke, in allusion to this, is said to have playfully
remarked, " There was not such a purser in the
navy." But Lord Campbell, in alluding to this, gives
a somewhat modified version of the story. He
says : " The truth is, that this purse, highly de
corated with the royal arms and other devices, is,
by ancient custom, annually renewed, and is the
perquisite of the Lord Chancellor for the time
being, if he chooses to claim it. Lady Hard
wicke, availing herself of this custom, caused the
purse, with its decorations, to be put as em
broidery on a large piece of rich crimson velvet,
corresponding to the height of one of the state
rooms at Wimpole. These purses, just twenty
in number, complete the hangings of the room,
and the curtains of a bed, singularly magnificent.
She, therefore, in reality, only prepared a cha
racteristic and proud heirloom to be handed down
to commemorate the founder of the family."
x 2

308 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
The following incident is told of Lord Hard
wicke, whilst still a rising barrister : Mr. Justice
Powis had a habit of frequently using the phrase
" I humbly conceive," and " Look, do you see."
On one occasion, during an interval in the Court,
the Judge said, " Mr. Yorke, I understand you
are going to publish a poetical version of ' Coke
upon Lyttleton ;' will you favour us with a spe
cimen ?"
" Certainly, my Lord," said the ready barrister,
and proceeded gravely to recite :
" He that holdeth his lands in fee
Need neither to shake nor to shiver,
I humbly conceive ; for look, do you see,
They are his and his heirs' for ever."
In 1720, while upon the Circuit, and within
five years from his call to the Bar, Mr. Yorke
was appointed to the post of Solicitor-General,
and shortly afterwards received the customary
honour of knighthood, and four years later he
was promoted to the Attorney-Generalship.
After holding this post for about ten years, Sir
Philip Yorke was elevated to the Bench as Lord
Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and created
Baron Hardwicke.
Lord Campbell speaks of Lord Hardwicke as
" the man universally and deservedly considered
the most consummate judge who ever sat in the

THE HOUSE OF HARDWICKE. 309
Court of Chancery ;" while the Earl of Chester
field has written of him :
" Lord Hardwicke was, perhaps, the greatest
magistrate this country ever had. He presided
in the Court of Chancery more than twenty years,
and in all that time none of his decrees were ever
reversed, or the justness of them questioned.
Though avarice was his ruling passion, he was
never in the least suspected of any kind of cor
ruption—a rare and meritorious instance of vir
tue and self-denial under the influence of such a
craving, insatiable, and increasing passion. He
was an agreeable and eloquent speaker in Par
liament, but not without some little tincture of
the pleader. He was a cheerful, instructive
companion, humane in his nature, decent in his
manners, unstained by any vice (excepting that
of avarice) — a very great magistrate, but by no
means a great minister."
It is related as an incident in Lord Hard-
wicke's judicial career, that on one occasion an
attempt was made to bribe him. This was by
Thomas Martin, Mayor of Yarmouth, who fool
ishly wrote the ¦ Lord Chancellor a letter, in
which he bespoke his favour, and asked him to
read some papers which he inclosed (respecting
a Bill in Chancery with which he was threatened ),
and for the trouble of so doing, he begged his

310 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
acceptance of a twenty pound note. An order
being made upon the Mayor to show cause why
he should not be committed to prison for con
tempt of court, he made an affidavit that the
letter was written, and the bribe offered, through
ignorance, and not from any evil intention what
ever. The Court took a lenient view of the
matter, and the rule was discharged upon his
worship paying all expenses and agreeing that
the twenty pounds should be given to the pri
soners of the Fleet Prison.
Lord Hardwicke presided in King's Bench for
three years and a half, during which time he
added largely to his former high reputation ; and
on the death of Lord Chancellor Talbot in 1737,
he was raised to the Woolsack. He continued
to hold the Great Seal until November, 1756, and
during the whole of those twenty years his inte
grity was never called in question : the wisdom
of his decrees was the theme of universal eulogy,
and it is worthy of note that during the whole
time that he presided in the Court of Chancery
three only of his judgments were appealed from,
and those were confirmed by the House of
Lords. In 1754 Lord Hardwicke was advanced a step
in the peerage, being created Earl of Hardwicke
and Viscount Royston. But Lord Hardwicke

THE HOUSE OF HARDWICKE. 311
was not only the winner of a title, but the
founder of a family which has more than held
its own in the Eastern counties for two centu
ries. Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire, the estate
of the Harleys, he purchased, and transmitted
it to his posterity. His son and successor
Philip, the second Earl, married the Lady
Jemima Campbell, daughter of the third Earl
of Breadalbane, and ultimately in her own right
Baroness Lucas of Crudwell and Marchioness
De Grey : his grandson Philip, third Earl, was
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland ; and his great grand
son, Charles Philip, fourth Earl, was also a-
Cabinet Minister under Lord Derby. Lord Hard-
wicke's second son held the office of Lord Chan
cellor, but died suddenly before a patent, which
was in progress of creating him a peer as Lord
Morden, could be completed. The present re
presentative of the Yorkes, though removed by
only three generations from the poor lawyer's
clerk, is one of the wealthiest and most influen
tial nobles in the Eastern counties.

312

FIELD-MARSHAL KEITH.

AMONG the records of brave and eminent
Generals who have won for themselves an
enviable share of fame far away from their
country and their kindred, the name of Field-
Marshal Keith occupies no mean place ; whilst
the sculptor has perpetuated his gallantry, as
every travelled Englishman is aware, by placing
him amongst the eight generals whose effigies sur
round the equestrian statue of Frederick the
Great at Berlin. Field-Marshal Keith was the
descendant of a noble and influential Scottish
family who took a prominent part in the politics
of their troubled country under the later Stuart
sovereigns. He was born in 1696, and so, on the
outbreak of the first Scottish rising in 1715, was
just nineteen years old. Like the rest of his kith
and kin, he joined the standard of the Chevalier

FIELD-MARSHAL KEITH. 313
St. George, and after the battle of Sheriffmuir, in
which he was severely wounded, he effected his
escape, along with his brother, to France, where
he devoted himself to military studies — not, how
ever, neglecting other matters of a more peaceful
nature, for he became a member of the Academy
of Sciences. Leaving Paris after awhile, he went
to Spain, where he served for ten or twelve years
as an officer in the Irish Brigade commanded by
the Earl of Ormond. But, on accompanying the
Spanish Embassy to Russia, he thought it best to
throw up his commission in Spain and to enter
formally the service of the Czar. Here he greatly
distinguished himself upon several occasions, and
was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General.
The Empress Catharine also invested him with
the Order of the Black Eagle, and presented him
with a sword set with diamonds, adding at the
same time 2,000 roubles to his military pay and
presenting him with an estate in Livonia. But
fortune did not continue to smile upon him with
out interruption ; for, being offended by an insult
intentionally or carelessly offered to him by the
Russian Chancellor, Count Bestuche, the Marshal
gave up his appointment in the Russian service,
on which the Empress, not very liberally nor very
graciously, recalled the grant which she had made
to him of the Livoniau estate. Accordingly he

314 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
became for a third time a wanderer and exile on
the face of the earth.
He had not, however, long to wait for a fresh
start in life. The King of Prussia eagerly
embraced this opportunity of making an officer of
such distinguished merit his own. Keith soon
gained the King's confidence, and became his
favourite companion in his travels through Ger
many, Poland, and Hungary. The Seven Years'
War gave Keith an opportunity of not only dis
playing great military talents, but he showed
great bravery, taking part in all the eventful
battles of the period.
On the 14th of October, 1758, the Austrian s
surprised the Prussians in their camp between
Botzen and Hochkirchen. On the first alarm
Keith mounted his horse, assembled a body of
troops -with the utmost expedition, and marched
directly to the place which was attacked. The
Austrians had possessed themselves of the rising
ground, and had planted a numerous train of
artillery along the hill, and made themselves
masters of Hochkirchen. Keith, knowing the
importance of the stake, directed his whole efforts
to this place, while his master (Frederick) was
employed in sustaining an attack from another
quarter, and in forming the troops as fast as they
could be assembled. Keith attacked the village

FIELD-MARSHAL KEITH. 315
of Hochkirchen, and drove the enemy from that
part ; but, being overpowered by numbers, was
obliged to retire in his turn. He rallied his men,
returned to the charge, and regained the village.
Being again repulsed by the fresh reinforcements
of the enemy continually pouring down from the
rising grounds, he made another effort, entered
Hochkirchen the third time, and set it on fire,
as he found it untenable. Thus he kept the
Austrians at bay, and maintained a furious con
flict against a vast superiority of numbers till the
Prussian Army was formed. During the engage
ment Keith rallied the troops, charged at their
head, and exposed his life in the hottest fire like
a captain of Grenadiers ; and it was in one of
these charges that the gallant Field-Marshal
was dangerously wounded. But even then he
refused to quit the field, and continued to
signalise himself in the hottest of the battle,
until he received a shot in his breast, when he
fell dead in the arms of Mr. Tilry, a gallant
English gentleman who had made the campaign
as a volunteer, and was himself shot through the
shoulder. The Marshal happened to be so near
the enemy that his body soon fell into their hands,
and was stripped. In this situation it was found
by Count Lacy, son of a general of that name,
with whom Marshal Keith had served in Russia.

316 TALES OF OUR GREAT FAMILIES.
The young Count had been the pupil of Marshal
Keith, and revered him as his military Mentor,
though he now held a command -in the Austrian
service. He knew the body by the large scar of
a dangerous wound which General Keith had re
ceived at the siege of Otchakov. He was deeply
affected when he saw his old friend and honoured
master extended at his feet — a lifeless and naked
corpse. He immediately caused the body to be
covered, and buried on the spot ; but it was
afterwards dug up by the curate of Hochkirchen,
laid in a coffin, and decently interred. Some time
afterwards Frederick the Great ordered it to be
removed to Berlin, where it was buried with all
the honours due to the rank and extraordinary
merit of the gallant soldier.
It has often been asserted that Marshal Keith's
character was sadly tainted by avarice. But it is
scarcely possible that his life could have been
devoted, as was too often the case with the mili
tary commanders of the last century, to the accu
mulation of riches, for his brother, the Lord
Marischall of Scotland, when writing about him
to Mme. Geoffrin, remarked, "My brother has
left me a noble heritage ; after having overrun
Bohemia at the head of a large army, I have only
found seventy dollars in his purse."
The name of Keith, happily, is still perpetu-

FIELD-MARSHAL KEITH. 317
ated in the British Peerage, for the Marshal's
sister and heiress became the wife of Charles,
tenth Lord Elphinstone, by whom she had a son,
George, who, entering the English Navy, was the
comrade and friend of Nelson, and was created
Lord Keith. His granddaughter, the Hon. Emily
Jane Elphinstone de Flahault, the present
holder of the title, is Dowager Marchioness of
Lansdowne, and also in her own right Baroness
Keith and Nairne.

THE END.

London: Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street.

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