Our Old Nobility. by Noblesse Oblige [Pseud.]

Gc 929.7201 Evlo v.l 1267345 GENEALOGY COLLECTl V im ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00726 8128 OUR OLD NOBILITY. OUR OLD NOBILITY. - NOBLESSE OBLIGE, p s ~u A V. ^•i^CO'A'Z? EDITION, PUBLISHED FOR THE POLITICAL TRACT SOCIETY, By E. J. KIBBLEWHITE, 3f, TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C. 1S7;, PREFACE^ I HIS book is a reprint, with a few corrections and additions, of a series of articles which have ap- peared in the Echo. Should it meet with public approbation I intend in due time to reprint a second series which is now appearing every Saturday in the same journal I desire to express my obligations to Mr. Macqueen, Sec- retary of the Financial Reform Association, for the valuable information which he has compiled from the Landowners Return, and published in the Financial Reformer diXid Financial Reform Almanack. I have also to tender my thanks to various correspondents, some of them being members of the families of whom I have written, for information by which I have been enabled to correct and add to the original articles in the EcJio. It has been my endeavour to state facts as accurately as possible, and scarcely any of the statements I have made have been called in question; in fact the only important correction which I have been compelled to make was in regard to a living duke, who is credited in a County History with having discharged his father's debts. Unpaid ; VI Preface written to me denying this, I have been creditors having J statement. If, inadvertently, I have obliged to withdraw the \ the first to regret it done any person injustice I should be ] unfavourable facts but on the other hand there are many I have refrained of which I am morally certain, but which j from stating in the absence of proof. i present work is completed I may have Possibly when my j general. At something to say upon the Land Question iu 1 readers facts, and leave present.! am content to give my | them to draw their own conclusions. CONTENTS, CHAP. Vlll Contents, CHAP. OUR OLD NOBILITY. I HE Dukedom of Grafton is a very fair sample of the bastard peerages, of which there are several. The Duke's possessions are very extensive, — 13,642 acres in Suffolk, 8,458 in Northamptonshire, 7,316 in Bucks, and 2,784 in Banffshire—32,200 acres in all. He is also hereditary Ranger of Whittlebury and Salcey Forests, an office which gives him the right of cutting underwood and exercising other privileges over some few thousand acres besides. Whittlebury Forest, by the way, has furnished the Fitzroys with the sites of two handsome residences, in which the Duke and his brother reside, and which have attached to them five or six hundred acres of pasture-land. The Duke has also a seat at Euston Hall, in Suffolk, and valuable landed property in London, the locaHty of which is indicated by the family names of Grafton Street and Fitzroy Square. His Grace receives a pension of ;£843 per annum as a retired diplomatist ; and his brother, Lord Augustus Fitzroy, who is a major-general, has been an equerry to the Queen since 1849, with a salary of ^750. The Fitzroys are certainly descended from one of the vilest of women, Barbara Palmer, wife of Lord Castlemaine, and mistress of Charles IL, and they are probably descended from Charles H. also, though, as Barbara was false alike to her husband and her royal lover, it is impossible to speak with certainty. Charles very considerately fathered his bastards on 2 Our Old Nobility, the nation \ in those days an illegitimate son of the monarch had better provision made for him than a younger legitimate son of the monarch at the present time. One of Charles's Ministers was Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington, whose only daughter was married at the mature age of twelve to young Fitzroy, the son of Barbara Palmer and Charles II. Ample provision was made for the young couple. In 1673 Charles granted to the Earl of Arlington for life, and to Fitzroy and his wife afterwards, a very extensive tract of Crown land, viz., the lordship and manor of Grafton, manor of Hartwell, and lands in Hartwell, Roade, and Hanslope, manors of Alderton, Ellsworth, Stoke Bruerne, Green's Norton, Potterspury, Ashton, Panlerspury, part of Chacomb Priory, lands in Grimscott, Houghton Parva, Northampton, Harding- ston, and Shuttlehanger, parcel of Sewardsley Priory, the office and fee of the honour of Grafton, and the forests of Salcey and Whittlebury (reserving the timber to the Crown). This extraordinary grant will account for the large estates of the Fitzroys in Northamptonshire and Bucks. The Fitzroys inherit their Suffolk estates from the Earl of Arlington, This patriotic statesman, who formed one of the notorious Cabal Ministry, not content with taking bribes from the King of France, not content with the lucrative posts of Secretary of State, Keeper of the Privy Purse, and Postmaster- General—managed to secure for himself a number of valuable grants, as is shown by the State papers in the Record Office, among which were a moiety of the estates of a former Earl of Lenox, and several manors in the county of Wicklow. He also obtained a lease of Marylebone Park on advantageous terms, and another lease of three-fourths of Great St. John's Wood at an annual rental of £,2\ 6s. 2d. No wonder that he was able to purchase Euston Hall and the surrounding lands. One of his Suffolk lordships was formerly part of the possessions of St. Edmund's Abbey, though whether acquired by grant or purchase is not clear. Charles II. was not content with giving away Crown lands in the wholesale manner above described ; the children of his harlots were further provided for at the public expense. The Duke of Grafton, for instance, had an hereditary pension of ^9,000 a year granted from the Excise, and ;£"4,7oo a year from the Post Office, which con- tinued to be paid till a comparatively recent date. There was also a very lucrative sinecure in the family, which the Duke of —; The Fitzroys, Grafton surrendered in 1795, for an annuity of £,^10 a year an arrangement ratified by the Act 46 Geo. III., cap. 89. Whittlebury Forest was formerly one of the most extensive of the Royal domains, and furnished a large quantity of timber for the Navy ; it is now comparatively small. An inquiry was made into its management in the latter part of the last century, and though the Commissioners in their report of 1792-3 v/hite- washed the Duke of Grafton, the hereditary ranger, yet the facts showed clearly enough that the forest had been scanda- lously mismanaged, and the Crown grossly defrauded, for while in 1608 it contained 51,046 timber oaks, in 1783 it contained but The Crown had only reserved the timber 5,211. ; everything else that could be got out of the forest went to the Duke of Grafton ; and the natural result of the divided owner- ship was that the portion of the Crown greatly diminished. It was the old story of the cattle of Jacob and Laban over again. And, to make the case still worse, though the original grant reserved the timber to the Crown, -the Dukes of Grafton had managed to get paid for it out of the revenue. One specimen of the conduct of the hereditary rangers of Whittlebury Forest, in regard to its management, must suffice. In the early part of the reign of George III., the Navy was greatly in want of timber, and a survey was made of all the timber in the Royal forests, including Whittlebury. A warrant was issued from the Treasury to cut down a quantity of trees in Whittlebury ; but as the unfortunate official who was charged with the execution of the order did not bring the warrant in his pocket, the Duke of Grafton stopped him in his work, and insisted on his dis- missal from the public service. Junius, writing on this transac- tion, exclaims, " In w^hat language shall I address so black, so cowardly a tyrant ? The Lords of the Treasury recall their warrant ; the Deputy-Surveyor is ruined for doing his duty the oaks keep their ground : the king is defrauded ; and the Navy of England may perish for want of the best and finest timber in the island. And all this submitted to, to appease the Duke of Grafton ; to justify the man w^ho has involved the King and his kingdom in confusion and distress ; and who, like a treacherous coward, deserted his master in the midst of it." It would be regarded as invidious if this incident were adduced as a fair specimen of the patriotism of the great houses, though unfortunately not a few similar instances might be produced This man, who succeeded in defrauding the Our Old Nobility, re- urgently required, was at^ that very time king of the timber ^ less than ;£i8,77o ceivingno ^ ^-l^^^y^y^T^T^J^TTX^tthe Profits of the Seals . S. 780 a-year as Receiver-General of Common Pleas, ^^^ides 4^3 6 a-year § the King's Bench and ; care of Whittlebury, ; from the Crown as a salary for taking to do paid two deputies £^^0 a year each while the Crown ^ consideration the history o for him. Taking into the work ^ of the House by a Royal : the Fitzroys from the foundation of the Royal Forest of Whittle- bastard, to^heir administration | motto.

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