THE LENNOXES.

A NOTHER of Charles IL's brood, and the most Stuartlike .11 of them all. The Lennoxes are descended from a natural son of Charles II. and Louise Renee de Penencourt, of Querouaille, in Brittany. She had been noticed by Charles when attending his sister Henrietta of Orleans, and Buckingham perceiving the impres- sion she had made, pointed out to the French Court the advisability of giving Charles a mistress devoted to French interests. It was accordingly arranged that the lady should travel to Dieppe with the Duke's equipage, and he would there join her, and accompany her to England. But the volatile voluptuary forgot or did not con- descend to fulfil the latter part of the arrangement, but went to England by way of Calais, and she was indebted to Montagu, the Ambassador at Paris, for the means of conveyance across the Channel. Of course Buckingham thus secured in her an enemy instead of a friend. The King was greatly taken with her, and she ruled over him for the rest of his life, dividing her empire, but. very unequally, with Nell Gwynne, the latter being considered as the Protestant and English mistress, the Duchess as the Catholic and French. Nell revenged herself for the superior power of her rival by her witty but coarse sarcasms on her, and the quarrels of the two ladies were caricatured by the wits of the day in a pre- tended dialogue between their respective dogs, in which Nell's is made the victor, but with the reproach of using bad language. Mademoiselle de Querouaille's only son by the King was born July 29, 1672, and received the name of Charles, with the sur- name of Lennox; the title of the younger branch of the Stuart family, which had then (1672) just become extinct. The King seems to have resolved to substitute the family of this natural son for the extinct Stuarts of Lennox in all respects. For having created the mother on August 19, 1673, Baroness of Petersfield, Countess of Farnham, and Duchess of Portsmouth for life, he prevailed on Louis XIV. in the month of December in the same year to make a grant to her of the territory of Aubigny- upon-Nere, in the province of Berry, during her life, with re- mainder to such of the King of Great Britain's natural sons by her as he should name, under the same limitation as the grant by Charles VII. of France on March 24, 1422, to John Stuart, Lord Darnley, ancestor of the extinct Dukes of Richmond and of King Charles II. himself, for services against the English in France. On August 9, 1675, his father created Charles Lennox. Baron Setrington (Yorkshire), Earl of March (from the Marches in Wales), and Duke of Richmond, in Yorkshire, with a grant of the site of the castle of Richmond. He also bestowed on him the estate of Lennox, in Scotland, and on September 9, 1675, created him Duke of Lennox, Earl of Darnley, and Baron Methuen, of Torbolton, in Scotland ; and in January, 1684, the French King created Aubigny into a duchy and peerage of France, to be enjoyed by the Duchess of Portsmouth during her life, and after her death by her son the Duke of Richmond, and the heirs male of his body, under the title of Dukes of Aubigny and Peers of France. On April 7, 1681, the young Duke was made a Knight of the Garter, and his mother having introduced him to the King with the blue ribbon over his left shoulder, and the George appen- dant on the right side, instead of the usual fashion of the ribbon round the neck and the George appendant on the breast, the King ordered the fashion to be changed in all Knights of the Order thenceforth accordingly. He was made Master of the Horse on the removal of the Duke of Monmouth ; but his mother supporting the Exclusion Bill, on the accession of James II. the Duke was dismissed from this office. He was too young at the Revolution to take any prominent part, but acquiesced in the change, and on November 14, 1693, took his seat in the House of Lords. He served in Flanders with King Wil- liam as his aide-de-camp, ropposed (naturally enough) the Resumption Bill in 1700, and was one of the Lords of the Bed- chamber to George L, being a Hanoverian Whig, but a man of no political eminence. He died May 27, 1723, at his seat of Good- wood, in the parish of Boxgrove, Sussex, which he had purchased in 1720 from the Compton family. He pulled down the old Gothic house and built another, on the scale of a hunting-seat or occasional residence, which was enlarged to its present dimensions by the third Duke.

He was succeeded by his only son, Charles, second Duke of Rich- mond and Lennox, who had sat during his father's lifetime in the House of Commons for the boroughs of Chichester and Newport. He was a Lord of the Bedchamber and aide-de-camp to George I. and George L T ., acting as High Constable of England at the coronation of the latter Prince. His grandmother, the Duchess of Ports-

mouth, who, after her lover's death, had retired to France, where she long outlived her beauty, but not her ambition or her desire to regain some of her old political influence in England, where her name was entirely forgotten, died November 14, 1734, when the second Duke of Richmond became also Duke of Aubigny.

He was a soldier, fought at Dettingen. and accompanied the Duke of Cumberland to ..cotland, but he never attained distinction, and died August 8, 1750. He was described by Horace Walpole as the only man in the world who ever loved the Duke of Newcastle.

His marriage to his wife, Lady Sarah Cadogan, daughter of Marl- borough's favourite general, William Earl Cadogan, was a romantic affair. "Their union was a bargain to cancel a gambling debt be- tween the parents, and the young Lord March was brought from college, the lady from the nursery, for the ceremony. The bride was amazed and silent, but the bridegroom exclaimed Surely you are not going to marry me to that dowdy?' Married he was, how- ever, and his tutor instantly carried him off to the Continent. Lady Sarah went back to her mother. Three years afterwards Lord March returned from his travels an accomplished gentleman, but having such a disagreeable recollection of his wife that he avoided home, and repaired on the first night of his arrival to the

theatre. There he saw a lady of so fine an appearance that he

asked who she was. The reigning toast, the beautiful Lady March: He hastened to claim her, and they lived together so affectionately, that one year after his decease [Aligust 25, 1751] she died of grief." Thus writes her grandson.

The Duke of Richmond had by this lady twelve children, the seventh of whom, Charles, succeeded him in his titles. Three of the daughters deserve special notice. The eldest (and eldest child), Lady Georgina Caroline Lennox, born March 27, 1723, made a runaway match in May, 1744, with Mr. Henry Fox (after- wards Lord Holland), and her second surviving son by him was the celebrated statesman Charles James Fox. She was herself created Baroness Holland in 1762. The Duke's sixth child and second daughter who lived to maturity, Lady Emilia Lennox, married James, Earl of Kildare, afterwards Duke of Leinster, and became the mother of the unfortunate Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the "Irish Rebel." The Duke of Richmond's eleventh child and seventh daughter, Lady Sarah Lennox, born February 14, 1745, inherited her mother's beauty to a considerable extent, and engaged the affections of George HI. in his early years. "It was observed in the spring of 1761 that the King used almost every morning to ride along the Kensington Road, while Lady Sarah, fancifully attired as a shepherdess, used to stand close by, on the lawn of Holland House, making hay." The young King is even said (by her son) to have made Lady Sarah an offer, to have been at first refused, but afterwards (on the urgent solicitation of her brother-in-law, Fox) accepted. Be this as it may, the King afterwards gave up the match, doubtless on his mother's advice, and Lady Sarah acted as one of the brides- maids to the new Queen. She married in 1762 Sir Thomas Charles Banbury, Baronet, from whom she was divorced by Act of Parliament, May 14, 1776, and re.married, August 17, the Hon. George Napier, sixth son of the fifth Lord Napier. Her eldest son by the second marriage was the conqueror of Scinde,—General Sir Charles James Napier,—and her third son General Sir William Napier, the historian of the Peninsular War.

Charles, eldest surviving son, who succeeded his father as third Duke of Richmond, and who was born February 22, 1735, played a more conspicuous part in politics than his predecessors. He had made choice of a military life, and rose through the successive grades to the rank of full general February 19, 1783, and of field-marshal, July 30, 1796, and had the command of several regiments besides that of the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards ; but he did not engage in active service. On October 18, 1763, he was declared Lord-Lieutenant of Sussex, and on. the accession of George III. appointed one of the Lords of the Bedchamber, but soon after resigned. In 1765 he was appointed Ambassador-Extraordinary to France, and on October 23 in the same year was sworn of the Privy Council. On May 23, 1766, he was appointed one of the Secretaries of State in the first Rockingham Ministry, in place of the Duke of Grafton. The Duke was at this time an established member of the Rockingham connection. But the Ministry was tottering when he joined it, and on August 2 following, the Duke resigned with Lord Rockingham, to make way for the first Pitt's second Ministry. He at first assailed the new Premier— now made Lord Chatham—in no measured terms ; but the course of events soon threw them again into co-operation against the Grafton-North Ministry. The Duke still adhered, however, to the Rockingham section of the Whigs, despairing of retaining the American Colonies, and differing from Lord Chatham, who would not consent to the idea of their separation from England. Ac- cordingly he lent his support, though in a sarcastic manner, to Lord North's conciliating and repealing bills, ridiculing, however, the choice of the elegant Lord Carlisle to go on a mission of con- ciliation to the "men in woollen nightcaps" of the American Congress. In the lame year (1778) he gave notice of a motion on the 7th of April in the House of Lords for an address entreating

the King instantly to withdraw his fleets and armies from the thirteen revolted provinces, and to make peace with them on such terms as might secure their goodwill. This was the celebrated oc- casion on which Lord Chatham made his last speech in Parliament. The Duke replied to him, expressing great respect for his talents and character. "The name of Chatham will ever be dear to Eng- lishmen," he said ; "but while I grant this, I am convinced that the name of Chatham is not able to perform impossibilities." Chatham stood up again, but, as is well known, fell down in a fit, was removed insensible from the House, and died on the 11th of May following. The Duke appeared less creditably in the House on a subsequent occasion, on June 14, 1779. He had all the over- weening pride of the most exclusive aristocrat, combined with political principles of a very democratic cast, and he had the bad taste, and it proved the ill-luck, to sneer at the new Chancellor Lord Thurlow's lowness of birth. Thurlow, fixing on the Duke a look of the most lofty contempt, retaliated in the following bitter terms :—"I am amazed at the attack the noble Duke has made on me. Yes, my Lords'—raising his voice to its loudest tones—"I am amazed at his Grace's speech. The noble Duke cannot look before him, behind him, or on either side of him, without seeing some noble Peer who owes his seat in this House to successful exertions in the profession to which I belong. Does he not feel that it is as honourable to owe it to these as to being the accident of an acci- dent? To all these noble Lords the language of the noble Duke is as applicable and as insulting as it is to myself, but I do not fear to meet it single and alone. No one venerates the Peerage more than I do, but, my Lords, I must say the Peerage solicited me, not I the Peerage. Nay more, I can say, and will say, that—as a Peer of Parliament,—as Speaker of this right honourable House,—as Keeper of the Great Seal, —as Guardian of His Majesty's con- science,—as Lord High Chancellor of England,—nay, even in that character alone in which the noble Duke would think it an affront to be considered, as a man,—I am at this moment as respectable,— I beg leave to add I am at this moment as much respected,—as the proudest Peer I now look down upon ! "

In the followingyear the Duke distinguished himself by motions for economical reform, for annual parliaments, and universal suffrage, The latter motion came on at an unfavourable crisis,—the Lord George Gordon Anti-Popery riots. The House of Lords had been summoned for the 2nd of June (1780) to hear the Duke's motion, when the Houses of Parliament were beset by the mob, and his speech was interrupted by Lord Montfort, who rushed into the House en- treating the Peers to rescue Lord Boston, who was being maltreated by the mob. Lord Boston contrived to escape while adroitly engag- ing the ringleaders in a discussion on Anti-Christ, but the debate on the Duke's motion was not resumed, and the House adjourned to the following day. When the second Rockingham Ministry was formed, in March, 1782, the Duke was appointed Master- General of the Ordnance, with a seat in the Cabinet. He con- tinued in his opinions on the necessity of Parliamentary reform, and a great meeting of friends of that cause was held at his house not long after his acceptance of office, in which it was resolved that a motion on the subject should be made in the House of Commons by the younger Pitt, which was accordingly done, and on a division lost by a majority of twenty in a house of three hundred members. It may be observed that the Duke had now a seat in the same Cabinet with Lord Thurlow ! The new Cabinet soon became a scene of discord. Thurlow represented quite an alien element, dependent on the King alone, Shelburne and Fox quarrelled, and in July the death of Lord Rockingham precipitated the imminent dissolution of his Ministry. Fox put forward the Duke of Portland as the new Premier, passing over the claims of the Duke of Richmond, between whom and both Fox and Burke there had grown up a coolness, contrasting with their former warm alliance. Richmond was little likely to digest such a slight to his dignity, and he adhered to Shelburne, retaining office under him until in April, 1783, the Fox-North Coalition drove the Ministry from power. He resumed his office in December, when the adventurous Pitt formed his Ministry, declining at first, but after- wards soliciting and receiving a seat in the Cabinet. From this time down to November, 1795, the Duke remained a member of the Pitt Ministry, altogether laying aside his former democratic notions, and thereby incurring bitter reproaches from the advo- cates of liberal opinions. On the trial of Hardy for treason, the Duke was summoned as a witness by the defence to prove the handwriting of a letter of his own written in 1782, and containing very strong language in a democratic direction ; and in the cele- brated debates in 1792 on the Royal Proclamation, in which the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Portland's friends separated themselves from Fox's foreign policy, Lord Lauderdale fell with fury on the Duke of Richmond. "There is a camp," he cried, "to be formed at Bagshot, to overawe the people of the capital, and to stifle their efforts for reform. I declare I am glad the noble Duke is to command that camp. If apostacy can justify promo- tion, he is the most fit person for that command, General Arnold alone excepted." On this the Duke started up and denounced "these impertinent personalities," and thereupon Lauderdale chal- lenged him, and was challenged by Arnold, but a duel in the former case was prevented by the interposition of friends.

But the Duke had not lost his aristocratic prejudices along with his democratic opinions. A curious proof of this oc- curred in 1790, on the elevation of Mr. William Grenville to the Peerage to lead the Government in that House as Home Secretary. The pride of the Duke of Richmond took fire at the double injury of the appointment of a younger sm to such a position, and its being made without his being previously consulted by the Premier. He addressed from Goodwood on November 24 a long letter to Pitt, couched in such characteristic terms that we cannot illus- trate his character in this point better than by a few ex- tracts. Professing to believe that the creation was a great injury to Mr. Grenville himself, since he would be the natural leader in the Commons if anything happened to Pitt himself, that contingency being alluded to in the coolest and most matter-of - fact manner, the real grievance is disclosed. "To call up a younger brother to the House of Peers for the evident purpose of giving him the lead there, is a degree of reflection on the whole House of Lords that there is no one there fit for such a situation," ,---the simple fact—" which will be felt, and may cause him to fail in that for which alone you place him there. If this should be the case, or by any other means a change happen, a Lord Grenville without a fortune would be in but a poor situation." Admitting, however, that this was Grenvillecs own concern, and that he is misled by his ambition, the Duke proceeds to admonish Pitt in the following° extraordinary terms :—" It would be incon- sistent with the friendship that I have upon all occasions shown you, and with the fairness I will always act with, not to say that I believe this country will not be satisfied to see you two younger brothers take the lead of the Houses of Parliament, and by yourselves govern the country. With your abilities, which without a compliment are very transcending, you may take the lead in the House of Commons, but Mr. Grenville, whose parts, however solid and useful, are certainly not upon a level with yours, cannot, as I conceive, succeed in taking the lead in the House of Lords, where something of higher rank and more fortune and dignity is required ; and I do apprehend that both of you being in such situations, so nearly related, with Lord Chatham in the Admiralty, will be thought engrossing too much in one family." The Duke goes on with amusing naivete to point out how unsupported Lord Grenville will be in the House of Lords, and goes over for this purpose the disqualifications of all the chief Minis- terialists in that House. "As to myself," he concludes, "I do not

see how I can be of any use I have said that I could be of little use ; perhaps in no situation could I have been of much ; but to be of any as a speaker a man must feel something for himself, and not appear to the world in an unbecoming situation. I trust I have not shown myself a difficult man when, after having had for many years a considerable share in the debates in the House of Lords, I first wished to support your Government as an individual, and afterwards defended your measures as a minister under Lord Sydney and the Duke of Leeds. But to continue to act a second part nnder every change, and particularly under one which is avowedly made for the sole purpose of giving the House of Lords another leader, would be depriving myself of every sort of con- sideration which I may hope to have in that House, and rendering myself totally useless there." And thus we arrive at the real grievance "the country" had to complain of —the non-appoint- ment of the Duke of Richmond.to the leadership in the Lords ! Then the Duke recurs to the other grievance of not having been consulted,—" I cannot but feel myself somewhat neglected by your deciding upon this measure without my consent or even know- ledge," and concludes—"lf I had any political ambition I might feel disappointed and hurt at such conduct, but having none it only adds to that desire of retiring from public business which you know I have long had in view. In so doing I shall endeavour not to give it the appearance of any dissatisfaction with you, for in truth I feel none, believing, as I do, that your conduct does not proceed from any intentional want of kindness towards me, but from (you must forgive me for saying so) an idleness in your dis- position, that too often makes you neglect to cultivate the friend- ship of those who are most attached to you, and which makes you expose your judgment to be biased by the opinion of the narrow

circle to which you confine your intimacy." Imagine that ad- dressed to William Pitt by a descendant of Louise de Penencourt,

and we may understand why Pitt tried to make every man of 10,000 acres a Peer, and why the House of Hanover acquired so immoveable a dislike of the English aristocracy

The Duke of Richmond did not, however, resign on this occasion, but put up as he best could with the leadership of "the younger brother" till November, 1795, when it was thought better that he should retire in order to secure greater harmony in the Cabinet. He died December 29, 1806, leaving no children, and was sue. ceeded in his honours and estates by his nephew, Charles, fourth

Duke of Richmond, son of Lord George Henry Lennox, a general in the army, who died March 22, 1805. The fourth Duke was born in 1764, entered the army in the Coldstream Guards, and in 1814 attained general's rank with the command of the 35th Regi- ment. While in the Guards he had a dispute with the Duke of York, his commanding officer, which terminated in a duel, in which the Royal Duke had a narrow escape from the ball of his antagonist. On April 19, 1807, the Duke of Richmond, who had consistently supported the Tory party, was appointed Viceroy of Ireland, in which country he spent six years, where his affable manners made him personally very popular. After his recall in August, 1813, he retired to Brussels with his family, the estate being a good deal encumbered. The celebrated ball given by the Duchess at Brussels, on June 15, 1815, which immediately preceded the battle of Waterloo, is part of history. On the morning of the 18th the Duke rode out.to Waterloo to see his two sons, who were both on the field with staff appointments, and when the Inniskil- lings were on the point of advancing across the Wavre road to charge, "an individual in plain clothes on their left," says Siborne, "called out, Now's your timer This was the Duke of Rich- mond, who was carried away by the excitement of the moment, holding no military command on the field. In 1818 he was appointed Governor-General of Canada, but he enjoyed only a brief tenure of his honours, for he died at Montreal on August 28, 1819, of hydrophobia, from the bite of a pet fox belonging to a private in one of the garrisons, which the Duke was endeavouring to separate from a dog. The bite for some time was not thought of any importance, but gradually the symptoms of the complaint came on, and the Duke died in terrible agonies. On September 9, 1789, he had married Charlotte, daughter of Alexander, Duke of Gordon, and was succeeded by his eldest son by her, Charles, fifth Duke, who was born August 3, 1791. This nobleman had been educated at Westminster School in company with the present Earl Russell and the late Sir James Graham, where he was remarked chiefly from his "manly determination to protect the weak, and put a stop, as far as he could, to the system of bullying" which disgraced the school. In 1810 he was gazetted to the 13th Light Dragoons, then in the Peninsula with Wellington, and served through nearly the whole Peninsular War, on Wellington's staff or with his regiment. At the siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, along with the Prince of Orange and Lord Fitzroy Somerset, he entered the breach with the storming party as a volunteer, and all three were reproved for so doing the next day by Wellington, it not being their duty as staff officeis. He was dangerously wounded at the battle of Orthes, being shot through the chest ; but he recovered, and rejoined his chief on the day after the battle of Toulouse, and was afterwards at Waterloo. On the conclusion of peace Lord March retired from active service, and in April, 1816, married Lady Caroline Paget, eldest daughter of the Marquis of Anglesey, and during his father's lifetime occupied Molecomb, a very beautiful villa within a few minutes' walk of Goodwood House. After his succession to the Dukedom, he still kept Goodwood closed till he had cleared off the encumbrances on the estate, when he re-opened it, and during the rest of his life made it the scene of continued hospitality, though he managed his property so well that he left at his death an entirely unencumbered estate. It comprises three contiguous estates, Holmaker, Goodwood, and West Hampnett, the first of these having been purchased (in 1765) by the third Duke, as was also the last. On the death of the fifth Duke of Gordon, his uncle, in 1836, without issue, the Duke of Richmond succeeded to Gordon Castle and the princely estates thereto attached, under an entail of his grandfather, Alexander, the fourth Duke of Gordon. On this he assumed the name of Gordon before his family name. In 1833 he became involved in a law-suit connected with the Aubigny estates. The French Revolution had swept away the title and changed the law of succession, and a collateral descendant of the third Duke had claimed the property. The Duke of Rich- mond lost the suit ; but the lawyers and Louis Philippe got the best part of the property. The Duke's political career began with the accession of George IV., for he had taken no part previously in politics, though a member of the House of Commons. He joined of course the Tory party ; but always took rather an independent position, advocating what he considered to the advantage of the "agricultural interest." He was favourable to the claims of Protestant dissenters, and advocated their admission to the national universities ; but had a great aversion to Catholic emancipation, looking with dread on the Papal and priestly influences which would, he thought, preponderate. When Welling- ton and Peel abandoned their former views on this subject, in 1829, the Duke of Richmond lost all confidence in them, and gradually became their opponent on most measures, de- nouncing especially their indifference to the degraded condition and distress of the agricultural labourers. At the beginning of the reign of William IV. he spoke of Wellington's Cabinet as "a Government of mere expediency, Jell of vacillating proposals, never daring to propose and support measures on their own proper grounds." On the defeat and resignation of the Wellington Cabinet at the close of the year, the Duke took office under Lord Grey, though still looked upon as in many respects a Tory, becom- ing Postmaster-General December 14, 1830. He of course sup- ported the Reform Bill (declining to form a new Ministry when the King hesitated to create new Peers), and the other measures of the Grey Government, until the Irish Church question arose in 1834, when he separated from his colleagues, and resigned in the summer of that year. He did not again take office, but became a general supporter of Sir Robert Peel, except on points respecting subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles and the grievances of Dis- senters, on which he maintained his former opinions. He next appeared prominently as an advocate of the Corn Laws, and the leader of the Protectionist party in the House of Lords, and con-

tinued to hold these opinions (as he did all his old opinions) to the end of his life, and after Protection was abandoned by every one else. He was always a strong opponent of the Game Laws, being,

as he said, almost revolutionary in his feelings on this point. Al- though he kept a large racing stud, and made Goodwood famous on the turf, he was not a betting man, and though a great sports-

man, he had a great detestation of the wholesale slaughters called bailues. He was an enthusiastic agriculturist, and breeder of Southdown sheep, &a., a great advocate of prison reform, and a

high-minded, open-hearted, and most amiable English gentleman, —perhaps the best specimen of the class presented in latter times.

His untiring, and at last successful, advocacy of the claims of his Peninsular fellow-soldiers to a medal, against the Duke of Welling- ton's somewhat ungracious opposition, exemplifies the whole tone of his character.

He died October 21, 1860, and was succeeded by his eldest son, the present and sixth Duke, Charles Gordon-Lennox, who has always been a consistent Tory, and has held office as President of the Poor Law Board.

The character of the Lennoxes, as traceable in their history, seems simple. They are just Stuarts, with the good and ill qualities of that fated race, their licence and their geniality, a pride of birth more than usually conspicuous from the circumstances of their descent, and something of their sense of kingly duty. They have done little for England, but they have stood, on the whole, fairly by the side of the people, and their present estate was not taken out of the national chest.