THE VILLIERS.—(SECOND GROUP.)
GEORGE -VILLIERS, the second Duke, was only eight months old at the time of his father's murder, and during his minority great efforts were made by the popular party to gain him over to their side. But in 1648, on the rising of the Earl of Hol- land in Surrey, the young Duke and his brother, Lord Francis (born April 2, 1629), joined the enterprise which ended in a dis- astrous defeat near Kingston-on-Thames, July 7, 1648, in which Lord Francis was killed, and the young Duke escaped to London, and lay concealed there till he could find his way to Holland. Here he supported himself by the sale at Antwerp of the valuable col- lection of paintings formed by his father, and joining Prince
Charles, accompanied him in his Scotch expedition of 1650, and
marched with him into England in 1651. Quarrelling with the Scotch, he demanded in the name of the English Peers the removal of David Lesley from the command, affecting to think it a deroga- tion of honour that they should have to serve under him, and on the King's refusal came no more to the Council, scarce spoke to the King, and not at all to any one else, and sulked in the most ridicu- lous manner, not even changing his linen. But at Worcester battle he fought bravely at the King's side, and accompanied him in the that part of his flight to Boscobel House. Leaving him there, the Duke, after many adventures and disguises, managed a second time to escape to Holland. For a short time Buckingham adhered to the exiled Court ; but tiring of this, abandoned Charles, made his peace with Cromwell, and obtained back through a politic marriage the greater part of his estate, which had been sequestrated in 1648. He first made love to Cromwell's daughter Mary, and being rejected by father and daughter, turned to Fairfax (to whom his estate had been given, and who had allowed a con- siderable annuity out of it to the Duchess of Buckingham, his mother), and wooed and won Mary Fairfax, the heiress of the ex- general of the Parliament. The match brought with it an estrange- ment between Fairfax and Cromwell, the former getting under suspicion and leading a most unquiet life in consequence of his son-in-law's intrigues, and personal misconduct, and extravagance. At last, August 24, 1658, just before Cromwell's death, Bucking- ham was arrested and committed to the Tower, where he remained till July 29, 1659, and the downfall of Richard Cromwell. He was then released, on giving security for good behaviour to the Govern- ment. But on August 13 following he was again arrested as impli- cated in Sir George Booth's rising. On May 4, 1660, on the eve of the Restoration, his estate was restored to him by a vote of Parlia- ment, and he rode before the King at the entry into London on the 29th May. He began his career at the Court of Charles II. with a fortune of 19,6001. a year, one of the largest possessed by any English subject, nearly all of which he managed to dissipate before the end of his erratic career. With perhaps greater natural .abilities than his father, and less overbearing in his prosperity, he rivalled him in profligacy, and being wanting in a certain fitful
elevation of character which was a redeeming point in the elder Villiers, he went beyond him in levity and fickleness of disposition, and scarcely rose in his actions above the stamp of a witty and unprincipled trifler. He soon neglected his unhappy wife entirely, and abandoned himself to the grossest debauchery. But his natural cleverness enabled him to diversify these excesses by playing with other more creditable pursuits,—architecture, music, poetry, dramatic composition, and the more alluring and chimerical parts of chemistry, by turns occupied a few hours of his attention. Politics he took up and pursued as another form of gambling, and he lived in a fit arena for the display of such an irregular genius. He began as a zealous courtier, and was installed as a Knight of the Garter, but in 1666 plunged into intrigues with the Republi- can party, was dismissed from all his appointments, and warrants even were out against him for his apprehension. But he contrived to make his peace with the King, and was appointed Master of the Horse. He revenged himself, it is believed, on the Duke of Ormond, who had assisted in his disgrace, by an attempt through the notorious Colonel Blood to assassinate him. Ossory, Ormond's -eldest son, taxed Buckingham with this in the King's presence. He now joined with those intriguers who were labouring to under- mine and overthrow Clarendon, and assisted by his ridicule of the pompous, self-opinionated Chancellor to bring him into disfavour with Charles. After his fall Buckingham contributed the initial etter of his name to what was called the " Cabal " Ministry, which .succeeded. In February, 1668, occurred the duel in which he killed the Earl of Shrewsbury, whose wife he had seduced. He received the King's pardon, but the young Earl afterwards petitioned the House of Lords against him. Buckingham alleged in excuse that he only fought on the gravest provocation, that Shrewsbury had fought him twice before, and he had each time
given him his life, and that he had threatened to pistol him if he refused to fight a third time, and the Parliament being prorogued, the matter dropped. In 1670 he went to France nominally on an embassy of condolence on the death of the Duchess of Orleans, but really to negotiate secretly the triple alliance. He brought back with him a new mistress for the King, afterwards the Duchess of Ports- mouth, but neglected her so during the voyage that he made an enemy instead of a friend of her. He also first introduced to Court Mary Davies and Nell Gwynne. On the dismissal of the Cabal Ministry he went into an opposition to the Court, which became more and more violent. He courted the citizens, pulled down his house at Charing Cross and removed to one in Dowgate, and in 1674 he resigned the Chancellorship of the University of Cam- bridge, and strongly supported the Nonconformists in their opposition to the Test Act. The same year he was sent to the Tower. He became with Shaftesbury one of the great " managers' of the anti-Popery cry and a great patron of Dr. Titus Oates, and for the rest of the reign of Charles he continued his career of violent opposition in politics and profligate expenditure in private life. On the accession of James II. he retired to the splendid seat of Helmsley, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, which he had derive from his father in-law, Fairfax, to whom the House of Commons had given it, and there devoted himself to field amuse- ments. Having caught a fever from sitting on the damp ground while heated with a fox-hunt, after a few days' illness he died at the house of a tenant at Kirkby-Moorside, on the 16th April, 1687, not as Pope described it, at a wretched inn, nor was he reduced to any such state of poverty as is implied in those celebrated lines. Dryden satirized him under the name of Zimri, in lines more often quoted perhaps-than any satire ; but some kind of popular favour seems to have adhered to him through all his excesses. As he left no children his honours became extinct.
We may now take up the line of the Villiers which is still re- presented in our peerage,—descended from Sir Edward Villiers, second.son of Sir George Villiers of Brooksby by his first wife, and consequently half-brother to the first Duke of Buckingham. Edward Villiers was knighted at Windsor in 1616, in 1620 was sent Ambassador to Bohemia, in 1622 was made President of Munster, and, according to Sir Henry Wotton, lived in that province in singular estimation for his justice and hospitality, and died September 7, 1626, as much to the grief of the whole province as ever any governor did, before his religious lady, who was of a sweet and noble disposition, adding much to his honour. This lady was Barbara, eldest daughter of Sir John St. John of Lidiard Tregooze, Wiltshire, and niece to Sir Oliver St. John, created Viscount Grandison, in Ire- land, January 3, 1620, with remainder to his niece's posterity. Sir Edward Villiers had by her three daughters and four sons. The eldest of these, William, succeeded his uncle as second Viscount Grandison in 1630, and died in August, 1643, of a wound received at the siege of Bristol in the Royal cause, leaving an only daughter, Barbara, as his heiress, who became afterwards disgrace- fully celebrated as Duchess of Cleveland and mistress of Charles II. Clarendon gives one of his flaming panegyrics of the Cavalier Viscount, in which he speaks of his " rare piety and devotion," so that "the court and camp could not show a more faultless person," which is, after all, no very exalted praise. His three brothers engaged in the same cause,—the eldest, John, succeeding as third Viscount Grandison, but dying without male issue, was succeeded by the next brother, George, fourth Viscount Grandison, who died December 16, 1699. His eldest son and successor, Edward, who died before his father, had risen to the rank of Brigadier-General in the army, and married Catherine, daughter and heiress of John Fitzgerald, Esq., of Dromana, county Waterford, and in her right
obtained a large estate in that county. One of his daughters, Harriet, married Robert Pitt, Esq., and became mother of the celebrated Earl of Chatham. Her eldest brother, John Villiers, succeeded his grandfather as fifth Viscount Grandison, and was raised by George I. (September 11, 1721) to the title of Earl Grandison of Limerick, and on the 26th October, 1733, he was sworn of the Privy Council, and appointed Governor of the county and city of Waterford. He died May 14, 1766, at his house in Suffolk. His two sons died before him, leaving no male issue, and the Earlaom of Grandison became extinct. His daughter Eliza- beth, who married a Mr. Mason, of Waterford, was created Coun- tess of Grandison ; but her son George, Earl Grandison, dying
in 1800 without male issue, the title again became extinct. The Viscountcy had passed on the death of the fifth Viscount (and
first Earl) to the descendant of Sir Edward Villiers, youngest brother of the second, third, and fourth Viscounts. This branch had before that time gained other honours. This Edward Villiers, after serving in the Royal cause, and being wounded at the first battle of Newbury, Clarendon testify- ing that the King found his (11:licence and dexterity fit for any trust," was after the Restoration knighted, made Knight Marshal of the Household, Colonel of the Duchess of York's Regi- ment, and Governor of Tynemouth Castle. He also had a grant of the Royal house and manor of Richmond, and his wife became governess to the Princesses Mary and Anne. James II. retained him in his office of Knight Marshal, but he resigned to the King the Royal Palace at Richmond "for a valuable consideration." He died just after the Revolution, and was buried in Westminster Abbey July 2, 1689. He had married a daughter of Theophilus Howard, Earl of Suffolk, and by her had two sons and six daughters. The eldest daughter, Elizabeth, was Maid of Honour to Mary of Orange, and married Lord George Hamilton, third son of William, Duke of Hamilton, who was created Earl of Orkney. She became the mistress of William III., and as such obtained immense grants of land, which caused great scandal and public invective. She is said, however, not in other respects to have abused her influence with the King, and she founded an English school at Middleton, Cork. She died April 19, 1733. The fourth daughter, Anne, married William Bentinck, the founder bf the Portland family. The elder son, Edward Villiers, had his fortune made by being appointed to attend the Princess Mary into Holland on her marriage to ' William, and accompanied them on their expedition to England at the Revolution. On their accession to the throne he was made Master of the Horse to the Queen and knighted, and succeeded his father as Knight Marshal. On the 20th March, 1691, he was created Baron Villiers of Hoo, Kent, and Viscount Villiers of Dartford, Kent. His office of Master of the Horse ceasing with the death of Queen Mary, he was sent Envoy Plenipotentiary to the Congress at the Hague in 1695, and in 1697 appointed one of the Plenipotentiaries for the Treaty of Ryswick, and in the same year a Lord Justice for Ireland. On October 29 in the same year he was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary to the States-General, and on September 24, 1697, he was raised to the dignity of Earl of Jersey. At the end of the next year he succeeded the Earl of Portland as Ambassador Extraordinary to the Court of France, and entered Paris with great state in January, 1699. Here he remained till May, when he returned to England and was appointed May 14 a principal Secretary of State, and soon one of the Lords Justices during the absence of the King. The King, however, sent for him to Loo before the end of the year. He was appointed one of the Plenipo- tentiaries for the second Treaty of Partition, and in June 24, 1700, Lord Chamberlain. To this office he was re-appointed on the ac- cession of Queen Anne, and continued in this post to April, 1704, after which he held no public employment, and died August 26, 1711. Next day he was to have been named Lord Privy Seal, being also designated as one of the Plenipotentiaries to the Congress of Utrecht. He was a Tory, but a personal adherent and courtier of Ring William, being employed by him in most of the secret negotia- tions with persons of importance. He is said along with Keppel to have been a great instrument in bringing the Tories into King Wil- liam's Cabinet, and on the other hand to have persuaded the King to forego his opposition to the Resumption Bill affecting the Irish grants to the favourites. Burnet has a great dislike to him as a Tory favourite of the King. Speaking of his dismissal from the Lord Chancellor- ship in 1704, he says, " The Earl of Jersey was a weak man, but crafty, and well practised in the arts of a court ; his lady was a papist, and it was believed that while he was Ambassador in France he was secretlyreconciled to the Court of St. Germain's, for after that he served in their interests. It was one of the reproaches of the last reign that he had so much credit with the late King, who was so sensible of it that if he had lived a little while longer he would have dismissed him; he was considered as the person that was now in the closest correspondence with the Court of France, and though he was in himself a very inconsiderable man, yet he was applied to by all those who wished well to the Court of St. Germain's." On this passage Lord Dartmouth has a note :.-" The Earl of Jersey was not so strong a man as Bishop Burnet, but had more integrity and a better judgment ; it is true that his lady was a papist, but the rest of the story was believed by nobody but the Bishop and those who gave credit to his surmises." In another note, however, Lord Dartmouth seems almost to admit the correspondence of Jersey with the Court of St. Germain's. His wife was Barbara, daughter of William Chiffinch, Closet Keeper to Charles II., by whom he had two sons, and a daughter married into the Thynne family. His eldest son and successor William, second Earl of Jersey, was elected one of the Knights for Kent in the Parliament of 1705, and died 'aly 13, 1721. He had two sons, William, who succeeded as third Earl of Jersey, and Thomas, who was created Earl of Clarendon. The third Earl of Jersey was a Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Frederick Prince of Wales, and in 1740 was appointed Chief Justice in Eyre of the Forests, &c., South of Trent, and afterwards one of the Privy Council. He died August 28, 1769. His eldest son died before him, and he was succeeded by his second, George Bussy, fourth Earl of Jersey, who sat for Tamworth, and afterwards for Aldborough, in Yorkshire, and Dover, and March 21, 1761, was appointed one of the Lords of the Admiralty, but resigned April, 1763 ; Lord Chamberlain July 6, 1765, and resigned September 9, 1769, being the same day appointed a Lord of the Bedchamber, in which position he coutinued till December, 1777. On March 30, 1782, he was appointed Master of the Buckhounds, which he exchanged May, 1783, for that of Captain of the Gentlemen Pensioners, and resigned the latter post December, 1790. He Was afterwards Master of the Horse to the Prince of Wales, and died August 22, 1805. His wife, the daughter and heiress of Dr. Twysden, Bishop of Raphoe, gained an unenviable notoriety as the mistress of George IV. at the time of his marriage with Queen Caroline. One of her daughters also married the first Marquis of Anglesea, and being divorced from him remarried the then Duke of Argyll. The eldest son, George, succeeded as fifth Earl of Jersey. He held the posts of Chamberlain and Master of the Horse in some of the Conservative administrations, was a patron of the turf, and died October 3; 1859. He married Sarah Sophia, eldest daughter of John, Earl of Westmoreland, who inherited the very large property of her maternal grandfather, Mr. Child the banker, of Osterly Park, near Brentford, Middlesex, and the Earl assumed the name of Child beforg that of Villiers. His eldest son and successor, George Augustus Frederic, sixth Earl of Jersey, who married a daughter of Sir Robert Peel the Premier, died a few days after his father, October 24, 1859, and was succeeded by his son Victor Albert George Child-Villiers, seventh and present Earl, who has not yet attained his majority. The Jersey branch has not produced any men above the level of courtiers, though the polish, grace, and beauty of the old Villiers have survived to a great extent in these- their descendants. Besides Osterly the Earls of Jersey have also a seat at Middleton-Stoney in Oxfordshire.
We have already mentioned Thomas Villiers, second son of William, second Earl of Jersey, who became the founder of the Clarendon branch of the family. In 1752 he married Lady Charlotte Capel, daughter of William, third Earl of Essex, by Lady Jane, eldest daughter and joint heiress of Henry Hyde, last Earl of Clarendon and Rochester of that family. During the reign of George II. Mr. Villiers was several times Minister at the Courts of Dresden, Vienna, Berlin, and other German Courts, and in 1748 was made a Lord of the Admiralty. He represented Tamworth in Parliament till May 31, 1756 ; he was created Baron Hyde of Hindon, Wilts ; on September 2, 1763, was sworn of the Privy Council, and on the 10th declared Joint Postmaster-General with Viscount Hampden. In this office he continued till July, 1765, when on the formation of the first Rockingham Cabinet he resigned. On June 14, 1771, he was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and on June 8, 1776, was advanced to the title of Earl of Clarendon, and died December 11, 1786. He was also created a. Baron of the kingdom of Prussia. He was a man of fair but not brilliant ability. His son and successor, Thomas, second Earl of Clarendon, represented Helstone in Parliament, and died un- married 1824, and was succeeded in his honours by his next brother, John Charles, third Earl of Clarendon, who married the daughter and coheiress of Admiral the Hon. John Forbes, and had an only daughter, who died unmarried. Ile died December 22, 1838, and was succeeded by his nephew, George William Frederick, eldest son of the Hon. George Villiers, third son of the first Earl. The present. Earl was Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Madrid during the crisis of the civil wars which attended the succession of the present Queen, was Lord Privy Seal, 1839 ; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, 1840-41; Lord- Lieutenant of Ireland, 1817-1852 ; and 1853-1858 Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He has just (April, 1864) accepted the office of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. His brother, the Right Hon. Charles Pelham Villiers, the well-known proposer of the repeal of the Corn Laws for so long a time in the House of Commons, is now Poor-law Commissioner for England ; another brother, Henry Montagu Villiers, was Bishop of Durham, and died August, 1861. The seat of this branch is the Grove, Watford, Hertfordshire. Taken together the family has not been great or its history creditable ; but it, has remained for 200 years at the top of society, and has woven its history not in gold thread
into that of Great Britain. Its greatest services have been diplo- matic, and the genius of the House, such as it is, seems to be for intrigue ; but it has not been without a fitful kind of sense that English nobles exist in order that the English nation may grow great.
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