PREFACE. THE noble families, of which this volume is the record-families the most illustrious in the whole range of European Genealogy-are so associated with our national annals, have at all times exercised so powerful an influence on the political events of their country, that their history must of necessity abound in interest. Fortunately the Nobility of the British Empire still endures in all its original grandeur, and includes on its roll the names of Howard, Talbot, Bruce, Stanley, Fitz-Gerald, O'Brien, Courtenay, Nugent, Hastings, Bertie, Russell, Seymour, Clifford, Hamilton, Graham, Butler, Brabazon, Dillon, Barnewall, Murray, Gordon, Lindsay, Forbes, Montgomerie, and others of equal fame; but it must be confessed that many of the most distinguished Houses have passed away and now form part of the Dormant and Extinct Peerage. It is a fact no less strange than remarkable that the more conspicuous a man is for his great mental powers, the more rarely does he leave a representative to perpetuate his name. Neither Shakespeare, nor Milton, nor Marlborough, nor Napoleon, nor Nelson, nor Walter Scott, nor Chatham, nor Edmund Burke, nor William Pitt, nor Fox, nor Canning, nor Macaulay, and, I may now add, nor Palmerston, has a descendant, in the male line, now living. May not the same observation be applied with equal truth to those families which stand out the most prominent in the pages of history? May not the splendour of race like the splendour of mind have too much brilliancy to last? Beauchamp, De Vere, De Lacy, Mowbray, Dunbar, Bohun, Fitz-Alan, Sydney, Holland, Tudor, Percy, Plantagenet, and Mortimer are "entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality." This ever-recurring extinction of English titles of honour formed the subject of a chapter in my recent work on "The Vicissitudes of Families," and I venture to reproduce here the following passages which bear so strikingly on the Dormant and Extinct Peerage :— "After William of Normandy had won at Hastings the broad lands of England, he partitioned them among the chief commanders of his army, and conferred about twenty Earldoms: not one of these now exists, nor one of the honours conferred by William Rufus, Henry I., Stephen, Henry II., Richard I., or John. "All the English Dukedoms, created from the institution of the Order down to the commencement of the reign of Charles II., are gone, except only Norfolk and Somerset, and Cornwall, enjoyed by the Prince of Wales. At one time, in the reign of Elizabeth, Norfolk and Somerset having been attainted, the whole order of Dukes became extinct, and remained so for about fifty years, until James I. created George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham. "Winchester and Worcester (the latter now merged in the Dukedom of Beaufort) are the only existing English Marquessates* older than the reign of George III.! "The Earl's coronet was very frequently bestowed under the Henrys and the Edwards it was the favourite distinction, besides being the oldest; and yet, of all the English Earldoms created by the Normans, the Plantagenets, and the Tudors, eleven only remain; and of these six are merged in higher honours, the only ones giving independent designation being Shrewsbury, Derby, Huntingdon, Pembroke, and Devon. "The present House of Lords cannot claim amongst its members a single male descendant of any one of the Barons who were chosen to enforce Magna Charta, or of any one of the Peers who are known to have fought at Agincourt; and the noble house of Wrottesley is the solitary existing family, among the Lords, which can boast of a male descent from a Founder of the Order of the Garter. Sir William Dugdale's "History of the Baronage of England," published in 1675, contains all the English Peerages created up to that time. The index of these titles occupies fourteen closely printed columns, a single one of which would easily include the names of all the dignities that remain now out of the whole category." There are, at present, eight English counties which are unrepresented, if I may so express myself, among the existing nobility; but which formerly gave titles of great historic fame now to be found in the Dormant and Extinct Peerage only, viz., 1. DORSET, made so memorable by the Beauforts, Greys, and Sackvilles; 2. KENT, which designated a brilliant Coronet, worn by the Plantagenets, Hollands, and Greys, and a Royal Dukedom, peculiarly interesting to this generation; 3. YORK, always, and 4. GLOUCESTER, frequently, a Royal appanage; 5. OXFORD, for twenty Earls, the inheritance of DE VERE; 6. MONMOUTH, principally remembered in connection with the ill-fated son of Charles II.; 7. MIDDLESEX, the title of a series of four Earls of the family of Cranfield, before it became the second dignity of the Sackvilles; and 8. SUSSEX, which invested, in succession, with a well-sounding Saxon appellation, the De Albinis, de Warrens, Ratcliffes, Saviles, Lennards, and Yelvertons, and gave title to a popular Royal Dukedom. WALES has only two counties unappropriated, MERIONETH and FLINT. In IRELAND two provinces, ULSTER and CONNAUGHT, and seven counties, KILKENNY, MONAGHAN, FERMANAGH, KING'S COUNTY, QUEEN'S COUNTY, CLARE, and ROSCOMMON; and in SCOTLAND, ten, viz., Banff, FORFAR, CLACKMANNAN, STIRLING, DUMBARTON, EDINBURGH, LINLITHGow, Kirkcudbright, WIGTON, and KINROSS, have no Peers now existing, with titles derived from them. Several of the most ancient and historic of our Peerage dignities are under attainder: otherwise the Earl of Stamford would be Marquess of Dorset; the Duke of Buccleuch, Duke of Monmouth; the Earl of Abergavenny, Earl of Westmoreland; Captain Charles Stannard Eustace, Viscount Baltinglass; and Mr. Marmion Ferrers, of Baddesley Clinton, might prove his right to be Earl of Derby by a creation older than that of the Stanleys. In course of time, it may be fairly anticipated that these Attainders will be reversed; and that other extinct or dormant titles may be restored to the extant Peerage. The Earldom of Wiltes has a collateral heir male in Mr. Scrope of Danby, *I do not, of course, include Marquessates-the second titles of Dukedoms-titles which neither have nor ever can have separate existence. the male representative of the house of Scrope, and the Barony of Scrope of Bolton appears to belong to Henry James Jones, Esq., heir-general of the same illustrious race; Mr. Lowndes, of Chesham, and Mr. Selby Lowndes, of Whaddon, are co-heirs to the Baronies of Montacute and Monthermer; Sir Brooke W. Bridges, Bart., is, in all probability, entitled to the Barony of Fitz-Walter; Lord Dufferin is undoubtedly the senior heir of the Earls of Clanbrassill; Colonel Kemeys-Tynte has established his co-heirship to the Barony of Wharton; Mr. Anstruther-Thomson, of Charleton, co. Fife, is heir-general of the St. Clairs, Earls of Orkney, and Lords Sinclair; a Dillon is, unquestionably, in existence, the rightful Earl of Roscommon; and a FitzPatrick, who ought to be Lord Upper Ossory; Mr. O'Neill, of Shanes Castle, is the heir-general of the Lords O'Neill, as well as the possessor of their widespread estate; and many other heirs and representatives of dormant honours will be found named in the following pages. It is also possible that heirs to some of our old titles might be discovered in foreign countries: most certainly there are, in Spain, France, Italy, and Germany, descendants of several of those noble families which preferred exile to disloyalty; and very probably there are in America other scions of our British nobility besides the Fairfaxes, the Aylmers, and the Livingstones. It is only within these last few days that I have ascertained that the Baronetcy of Boreel, which has heretofore been always considered an extinct dignity, still exists in the person of His Excellency WILLIAM BOREEL de Hogelanden, Minister of State in Holland. To the perfecting of this book I have devoted the most laborious revision-the most anxious and unremitting attention. Public Documents and Records, Heralds' Visitations, Post Mortem Inquisitions, Patent Rolls, Lords' Entries, and Funeral Certificates have been referred to; printed authorities, especially Dugdale's "Baronage," Wood's edition of Sir Robert Douglas's "Peerage of Scotland," Archdale's "Lodge,” Sir Harris Nicolas's "Synopsis" (so ably and learnedly edited, under the title of "The Historic Peerage," by Mr. Courthope, Somerset Herald), Milles, Brooke, Collins, Jacob, Banks, and Heylin have been consulted and largely drawn on, as well as many privately printed family memoirs. In fact, no available source of information has been neglected which I thought would improve my work, and no trouble or research has been spared. In this, as in my other literary productions, I have received most valuable aid from many friends and correspondents-a co-operation demanding my most grateful acknowledgments. Thousands and thousands of communications have been made to me in furtherance of my "History of the Landed Gentry," and my "Extant Peerage and Baronetage," as well as of this, my present work, and an amount of knowledge has been thus acquired which could not otherwise be obtained. The gentlemen of England did for "The History of the Landed Gentry" in the 19th century what their ancestors did for the Heralds' Visitations of the 16th and 17th: they submitted freely and courteously their pedigrees and family documents, thus enabling me to produce a work which has, for a long series of years, been most favourably received. In my "Landed Gentry," as in the Heralds' Visitations, and indeed in every similar undertaking, errors must creep in. In some few, very few instances, has false information been imposed on me; even when it has, the recurrence of editions enables me to detect and erase incorrect statements. For myself, this much I will add, that I have endeavoured, during the whole of my arduous genealogical labours, the chief occupation of my past life, to perform my task conscientiously, and that it is a source of infinite gratification to me now to remember that my works have met the approval and encouragement of many of the most distinguished genealogists of my time; of such men as Nicolas and Ormerod, John Riddell and Alexander Sinclair, Lords Farnham, Lindsay, Kildare, and Gort, the Comte de Montalembert, D. O'Callaghan Fisher, and the Rev. John Hamilton Gray, Sir Harris Nicolas, whose genealogical ability, accuracy, and erudition have never been surpassed, took, for years before his early and lamented death, a lively interest in my works, and rendered me the most valuable assistance and very recently, Montalembert, the enlightened spirit and faithful echo of both the byegone and the happily still existing chivalry of France, referred kindly to my books, and more especially to "the Dormant and Extinct Peerage," which he considered the most valuable, in this that it illustrates and brings back to light the great personages and great families who have figured in every age of English history. With these few remarks, and with the consciousness that, amid many difficulties, I have sought the truth alone, and have done "all in honour," I submit my "History of the Dormant and Extinct Peerage" to the favourable judgment of the public, with some confidence and much hope. My readers, I am convinced, will take into account the toilsome nature of my undertaking, the countless dates, and names, and facts, that the following pages comprise, and will make allowance for mistakes and errors which may, despite of the most sedulous care and minute revision, have been overlooked. Their indulgence thus accorded to me, I feel safe as to the general correctness of the whole. ATON, BARONS ATON; BURKE, Baron Leitrim; DE DREUX, Earls of Richmond; FITZ JAMES, Duke of Berwick; FLEMING, Earls of Wigton; GENEVILL, Barons Genevill: LIVINGSTONE, of the United States; MAGENNIS, Viscounts Iveagh; MARTIN, Barons Martin; MASSUE DE RUVIGNY, Earl of Galway; PALMER, Earl of Castlemaine; PRESTON, VISCOUNT TARRA; UFFORD, BARONS 615 627 |