Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

certain title-deeds from Mrs. Carrington.'

For reasons sufficient to me, I had my eye on Rendelson throughout the whole of this scene. From the time when Sainscroft was introduced, he had been very uneasy; and when I made this proposal he restrained himself from breaking out by a great effort. But he said quietly, Rather rash, I think, Mr. Pemberton. The theory is ingenious, but an alibi resting on a photograph and a microscope is not much to be relied on.'

[ocr errors]

He said this with his usual sneer, and the bench smiled in unison.

'I beg pardon, Mr. Rendelson, my charge against Sainscroft rests on very sufficient testimony. Meanwhile I make it, and if the bench, on the information I can give them in private, will grant the warrant, I shall undertake by Monday to establish it.'

'What evidence have you, pray?' 'My own, but I am unwilling, for many reasons, to give it.'

'What may your reasons be?' 'Because I might implicate others,' I said significantly. Let this stand till Monday and the case shall be made clear.'

'Well,' said Rendleson, changing his tone, 'your notion does you credit. I think we may admit Briggs to bail, and send the case to the assizes; and remand Sainscroft in the meantime until Monday.'

I understood this turn of affairs; and the bench, who did not understand it, at once acquiesced in the suggestion of their oracle. DagenDagentree, of course, became bail for Briggs; and the liberated butler, after one groan of relief, instantly reassumed the overbearing carriage he had laid aside in his adversity.

'Low cattle, them painting chaps,' he said.

'Why, Briggs,' said I, 'I thought you were very proud of your pic

ture.'

He disdained to reply.

Scarcely had Briggs been dismissed when Dagentree came down from the bench.

'I forgive you, Pemberton, and you must forgive me. You are certainly the best of fellows, and I do believe you have an atom of sense. It was hardly fair to keep me in the dark, and allow me to exhibit myself in the part of an exasperated hyæna. But who on earth is Mrs. Carrington ? '

'The woman at Bonthron,' said I. 'She is so like my fellow traveller from Amiens, that if the sea could give up its dead, I could have sworn it was she.'

'She must tell you herself.' So I led him up to where Mrs. Carrington was sitting.

She rose, and took him by both hands, and looked up kindly into his eyes.

'I am glad we meet again, Mr. Dagentree; though many painful years have passed since we parted. This is no place for explanations, but I have long wished to let you know how gratefully I remember your kindness. Had I known your name, I should not have waited until now. Will you come back with me to Bonthron, with Mr. Pemberton, and dine there?'

She was simple, earnest, and very warm in her manner, but without a tinge of consciousness or sentiment. Dagentree, meanwhile, presented an aspect of bewilderment, hesitation, and pleasure, mingled with embarrassment, which was amusing, and not displeasing to me. He bowed and smiled very graciously to the invitation; thanked her for recollecting any little service he might have been able to render-but-and then he stammered, and at last owned that he was sorry that he was engaged to dine at Wendover, and the sentence died away in inarticulate sound.

Here

My visit to my Discontented

Cousin is over. True, I have Briggs out on bail, Sainscroft in custody, Rendelson suspected, the mystery unsolved; but so stood matters when my visit came to an end. Time did unravel these things, and the diary of the American widow, the sequel to these pages, would, if it were published, disclose the result. Meanwhile, it suffices to say that I never visited my Discon

tented Cousin again; for his discontent has ceased. Sophia Dagentree rules over the terraces, and has rather thrown the Elzevirs into the shade; and, gentle reader, should you ever visit the unnamed scene of these events, Eustace Carrington will be glad to see you at Bonthron, for Pemberton, as well as his Discontented Cousin, is no

more.

LOW-FLYING.

I.

Low flies the summer swallow-scenting rain, And low my heart from prescience of pain; When the clouds scatter, both will mount again.

[blocks in formation]

Nor men nor swallows can soar every day,
And men and swallows should not, if they may,
And well for both that skies are sometimes grey.

IV.

For though this world is dull without the sun, More sweetly shines he after showers are done, And eyes are gladder when the tears have run.

V.

Therefore, to-day, I would not, if I could,
Forego my grief, and be of merry mood;
As well might swallows rise and miss their food.

TH

THE EARLDOM OF WILTES.

THE claim to an ancient earldom has naturally some historical interest. We say 'earldom,' for

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

earldoms are the most ancient of our English titles of nobility. Barons,' as Spelman shows, were not primarily or necessarily nobles; for a baron originally meant a freeholder, and though some barons were far greater than others, and of course included all nobles, the earliest order of nobility were the earls. And the other orders of nobility are far more modern. Earldoms are, in fact, as an order, far older than the monarchy, and existed before England, as a kingdom, could be said to exist. The Saxon earls and the Danish jarls were accounted princes of the realm, and, at the time of the Conquest, a few great earls divided England between them. These Saxon earldoms, which appear to have been hereditary, were swept away, by forfeiture for rebellion' soon after the Conquest; and Norman earldoms were founded, equally proud and potent, and the Norman earls often defied all the power of the Conqueror. Some of them, indeed, were lost by forfeiture in the course of his reign, as, for instance, the original earldoms of Norfolk and Hereford; and the earldoms thus forfeited were granted to other families-Norfolk, for example, to the Bigods, and Hereford to the De Bohuns. These again, either by forfeiture or failure of heirs male, often passed, in the course of less than a century, into other families. This might happen, be it observed, through a failure of heirs male, without such a total failure of heirs as would extinguish the earldom, which, indeed, would probably not happen for centuries, supposing the earldom went, as all the old earldoms did, to general heirs. For if

[ocr errors]

the earldom came to a daughter, she would probably marry, and carry it into a different family, and if there were several daughters, it would fall into abeyance,' out of which it might not emerge for cen turies. Hence it was that few of our ancient earldoms remained much more than a century in the same name and family, even although they went to general heirs, who would include collateral as well as lineal heirs, female as well as male. The ancient earldoms so descended because they were attached to the actual dominion of counties, over which the earls ruled as a kind of lesser, though subordinate, sovereigns; and hence the descent of the earldom followed the descent of the land or dominion, and thus, naturally enough at first, dignities and estates were descendable in the same way, estates and dignities descending together. Notwithstanding this, however, what with failure of male heirs and what with forfeitures, it is remarkable how few of the ancient earldoms were in the same family and name at the time of the Charter as at the time of the Conquest, or at the time of Edward III. as at the time of the Charter. In the course of the wars of the barons-for instance, in the reign of Henry III.-most of our ancient earldoms were lost or went into some other families. The vast earldom of Leicester, for example, founded in the family of De Montfort, was forfeited to the Crown and went to found the still greater earldom of Lancaster, which (raised to a dukedom) remains to this day an appendage to the Crown, and was for so many ages the heritage of princes of the blood. The ancient earldoms, though they went to the heirs general, having thus for

1 See Sir Francis Palgrave's History of the Saxons.

the most part become destroyed or transferred, other earldoms were created, and among these are to be found the only earldoms which have continued in the same families to modern times. Even these are very few; and of all of them, we believe, though there are some baronies which can be traced back in the same family to the middle ages, there is no earldom so old, by a century or so, as that of Wiltes, which is now claimed by the family of Scrope. Thus Edward III. created his grandson, the son of the Earl of Lancaster, Earl of Derby; but on the accession of Henry IV., that earldom merged in the Crown, and was not regranted to a subject until granted to the family of Stanley at the end of the next century. The earldom of Derby is the oldest of the existing earldoms in the same family, but the earldom of Wiltes was created in the reign of Richard II., more than a century before, and nearly five centuries ago. The creations made by Edward III. illustrate in a striking manner the mutability of our hereditary dignities. We find him creating a De Bohun Earl of Nottingham; the De Bohuns had already lost the earldom of Hereford, and in the time of Richard II. we find a Mowbray Earl of Nottingham. Edward created an Audley Earl of Gloucester; in the reign of Richard II. it was held by a Plantagenet. Edward created a Clinton Earl of Huntingdon; in the reign of Richard II. the earldom was vacant and given to another. So of the earldom of Suffolk, granted by Edward to De Ufford, and by Richard to De la Pole. Thus, we see, some earldoms in those times hardly existed, at all events in the same family, half a century. Partly, as already stated, this was owing to the mode of descent to all the heirs, female as well as male. There was a natural desire to preserve the earldom in the same blood and in the same line as long as pos

sible, and this led to a desire to avoid collateral heirs. But then it led to the same result in a different way, by diversions of the peerages into other families by reason of marriages of female heirs. In the grants by Edward III. we find a tendency to limit the descent of dignities to male heirs, and though some of the grants above mentioned were to all the heirs generally, several were to the male issue. This again was open to some objection; for, if male issue failed, the dignity became extinct altogether. For this reason, in the reign of Richard II. we find several instances of limitation to male heirs, which would allow of the general heirs coming in, including collateral heirs, if males, in order to provide against the extinction of the peerage. Indeed, the whole tendency of the feudal system was in favour of limiting such dignities to males, who might render military service to the Crown; only it was dangerous to let in collateral heirs, who might be somewhat different in their disposition towards the sovereign. For this reason that mode of limitation was only adopted in cases where the whole family was well known and of undoubted loyalty, as in the case of the De Veres and the Scropes, the only two instances in which Richard II. granted earldoms to the heirs male generally. The tendency to favour descents of dignities to heirs male was, indeed, so strong in that age, that the Lords' Committee upon Dignities in 1829 gave it as their opinion that in the case of a dignity heirs' were understood to mean heirs male; and, if so, those two grants only gave two grants only gave the prevailing sense or meaning of the word. There was undoubtedly at this time a difference between the descent of estates and of titles, and the distinction was grounded on reason, for an estate might well go to a woman, while a great dignity or office of state, as that of Earl Mar

shal, could not fitly so devolve. At all events, in the reign of Edward III. and in subsequent reigns, peerages were granted to issue male; and in the reign of Richard II. earldoms were in two instances granted to the heirs male. One of these was the earldom of Oxford, the other the earldom of Wiltes. And both are remarkable and rare instances of perpetuity in the continuance of a dignity. The earldom of Oxford was created in the family of De Vere in the reign of Henry I., and it continued in the same name and family to the last century, a period of nearly six hundred years. The earldom of Wiltes was granted in the reign of Richard II., and it is claimed by a male heir, who deduces an unbroken and undoubted succession from that time to the present, a period of nearly five hundred years.

The very object being perpetuity, no lapse of time will bar a claim to a dignity.

says:

As a learned writer

It is a maxim with regard to dignities or honours that they cannot be extinguished otherwise than by forfeiture or Act of Parliament. Claims to baronies which have long been dormant are difficult to be made out; but whenever the right happens to be clearly proved, the safety and dignity of the peerage are both concerned that no length of time should bar or even prejudice the title. Most of the ancient baronies are so merged by the intermarriages of great families, or so exposed to the objection of forfeiture, that very few instances have occurred of claims of the like nature; but in all those which have occurred, the length of time during which the honour has remained dormant has never formed a ground of objection.1

The barony of Mowbray was revived by Charles I. in favour of the family of Howard, after it had lain dormant from the time of Edward III., and it is in right of this revival that the Duke of Norfolk claims to be the premier baron of England. The barony of Berners was revived after being dormant for nearly two

1 Cruise on Dignities, p. 167.

hundred years. The barony of Despenser was revived by James I. after having been dormant more than two hundred years. The claim to the barony of Fitzwalter was allowed after it had been dormant for four hundred years. And now here is the claim to the earldom of Wiltes after the lapse of nearly five hundred years. hundred years. The imagination is impressed with the antiquity of such a claim, and it is impossible not to feel some sympathy with the feeling so eloquently expressed by Chief Justice Crew in the time of Charles I. upon the case of the earldom of Oxford, which had descended in an unbroken line, in the family of the De Veres, from the time of Henry I.

There is represented to your lordships certamen honoris, illustrious honour. I heard a great peer of this realm, and learned, say, when he lived there was no king in Christendom had such a subject as Oxford. He came in with the Conqueror, shortly after the conquest made great chamberlain, above five hundred years ago, by Henry L, the Conqueror's son. This great honour, this high and noble dignity hath continued ever since in the remarkable surname of De Vere, by so many ages, descents, and generations, as no other kingdom can produce such a peer in one and the self-same name and title. I find in all this length of time but two attainders of this noble family, and those in stormy and tempestuous times when the government was unsettled and the kingdom in competition.

I have laboured to make a covenant with myself that affection may not press upon judgment; for I suppose that there is no man that hath any apprehension of gentry or nobleness, but his affection stands to the continuance of so noble a name and house, and would even take hold of a twig or twine thread to uphold it. And yet time hath its revolutions: there must be a period and an end to all temporal thingsfinis rerum, an end of names and dignities and whatever is terrene; and why not of De Vere? For where is Bohun? Where is Mowbray? Where is Mortimer? Nay, which is more, and most of all, where is Plantagenet? They are entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality. And yet let the name and dignity of De Vere stand so long as it pleaseth God." It died out, however, in 1702, the

2 Ibid. p. 102.

« AnteriorContinuar »