The Dukes (52 page)
21.
The Times,
18th November 185 2.
22.
Greville, VI, 372.
23.
Lady Brownlow,
op. cit.,
p. 45.
24.
Longford,
op. cit.
h
I, 419.
25.
ibid.,
p. 198.
26.
Greville, V, 125.
27.
Old and New London,!,
176.
28.
Greville, IV, 434.
29.
quoted in Martin S. Briggs.
Men of Taste.
30.
Sarah, Duchess Dowager of Marlborough,
Opinions
(1788),
P- 15-
31.
Nina Epton,
Milord and Milady,
p. 93.
32.
Hervey and His Friends,
p. 83.
33.
Lady Louisa Stuart, Introductory Anecdotes to
Life and Letters
of Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu.
34.
Lord Hervey and His Friends,
pp. 288,295.
35.
Leaves from the Notebooks
of Lady Dorothy Nevill, p. 135.
36.
Gronow, quoted in Epton,
op. cit.,
p. 114.
37.
Annual Register,
1840.
38.
Annual Register,
1838, pp. 294-6.
39.
Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan,
The Glitter and the Gold
, p. 40.
40.
ibid.,
p. 57.
41.
Harold Nicolson,
Diaries,
Vol. I, p. 150.
42.
Augustus Hare,
In My Solitary Life,
p. 149.
43.
ibid.,
p. 162.
44.
Complete Peerage.
45.
Augustus Hare,
op. cit.,
p. 81.
Daily Telegraph,
10
th
july, 1974.
7. What Happened to the Percys?
Duke of Northumberland
Hugh Algernon Percy is the uncrowned King of Northumberland. He lives in an impregnable, grey, austere medieval fortress, Alnwick Castle, which was built in 1100 and has been the home of his ancestors since 1309; his estate covers 98,000 acres with 3500 separate tenancies and is one of the best run in the country; he is Lord Steward of Her Majesty's Household, a post which still carries some duties (he announces the guests at State banquets); and he is himself a walking definition of ducal affinity - his brother-in-law is the Duke of Sutherland, his nephew is Duke of Hamilton, his father- in-law was the late Duke of Buccleuch, his grandfather was Duke of Richmond, and his great-grandfather Duke of Argyll. More than all this, he is the head of the Percys, a family which can trace its ancestry to the year 886, the Percys who gave us Hotspur, immortalised by Shakespeare, and Blessed Thomas Percy, beheaded by Elizabeth I.
Who were the Percys? The were a prominent Norman family, descended from Mainfred, a Danish chief who settled in Normandy in 886, before the time of Rollo. Their chief seat was at a place called Perci, and according to the custom they took their name from their property. The first member of the family to come to England was William de Percy (1030 1096), an intimate friend of William the Conqueror; he came in 1066 or 1067, and was known as William "
als gernons"
or "William with the Whiskers". The name Algernon has been persistently in the family ever since. This William de Percy "
als gernons"
established himself in the north of England immediately, and by the time Domesday Book was compiled, he was listed as being lord of over 100 manors. His descendants bore the title Baron Percy.
It is an illustrious pedigree, second to none. Only one thing is wrong: the Duke is not really a Percy at all. His name should be Smithson.
The Percy family came to an end in the twelfth century, when there was no male issue of the 3rd Baron Percy. The heiress was Agnes, the last representative of the family. But the
name
of Percy was preserved. Agnes married Josceline de Louvain (himself a man of some note, the son of the Duke of Brabant and a descendant of Charlemagne), making it a condition of the marriage that he should adopt the name of Percy. With all the property he was to obtain from her, it was an easy concession to make. His descendants founded the line of Earls of Northumberland which people the history plays of Shakespeare.
There was the 1st Earl (1342-1408), a friend of Richard II who turned traitor and was largely responsible for placing Henry IV (Bolingbroke) on the throne. There was his son, the tempestuous sabre-rattling Sir Henry Percy, nicknamed "Hotspur" by his enemies the Scots, who marvelled that he loved battles so much he could not keep out of them; Hotspur led the English forces at the Battle of Otterburn. There was the 4th Earl (1446-1489), who along with the 1st Duke of Norfolk was a close supporter of Richard III, though he did not fight at Bosworth; his son and successor was "Henry the Magnificent", who lived like a king, and his grandson was "Henry the Unthrifty" who all his life was in love with Anne Boleyn. He naturally made way for Henry VIII, but he might well have married her had not the King taken a liking to her. Anne's death undoubtedly shortened the Earl's own life; he was present at her trial, and was so overcome that he grew pale and had to leave. He died on the day of her execution.
His successor was his nephew, the 7th Earl of Northumberland, known as "Blessed Thomas Percy". An ardent Catholic, he led a rebellion against Elizabeth I in 1569, in company with the Earl of Westmorland. His purpose was to restore the Catholic religion in England, and to place Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne. He was captured and beheaded in the market-place at York in 1572, the same year in which the unfortunate 4th Duke of Norfolk lost his head for similar offences.
The next in line was Blessed Thomas's brother, who committed suicide in the Tower of London in 1585, and was succeeded by the 9th Earl, who spent sixteen years of his life imprisoned there. One of Guy Fawkes's accomplices in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 was Thomas Percy, a cousin of the Earl of Northumberland. The Earl was suspected of being a party to the conspiracy, and of wanting to place himself at the head of the Papists in England. The charges were not proven, but his imprisonment was by way of keeping him out of mischief. He was a learned man, consorting with mathematicians and scientists in his cell, and writing some sensible
Advice to His Son
which was eventually published in 1930. The sundial on Martin Tower was placed there for Nothumberland's benefit.
Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland (1602-1668), a moderate Parliamentarian, was entrusted with the care of Charles I's children in 1645, and played a prominent part in the Restoration of the monarchy. He married twice; first to a daughter of the Cecil family, in spite of his father's deep disapproval, who said that "the blood of Percy would not mix with the blood of Cecil if you poured it on a dish".
1
That may well have been, but the trouble was that there was very little of the Percy blood left, and something had to be done. The marriage produced five daughters, and the wife died. His second wife was a daughter of the Howards; through this marriage he and his descendants gained possession of Northampton House (built by Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton), subsequently known as Northumberland House, and occupying a prize position where Northumberland Avenue now runs, from the river to Trafalgar Square. This second marriage produced one son, the 11th Earl, who in turn had a son who died in infancy. With that child, the Percys came to an end, for the second time in their long history. All that was left was one daughter, the Lady Elizabeth Percy, who became the loneliest and richest heiress in the country when her father died in 1670, at the age of twenty-five. A mere infant of four years she carried a heavy burden; she was the owner of vast estates; the Earldom of Northumberland and the Barony of Percy were now extinct, and the ancient family of Percy would die with her. She was the most eligible heiress in England, and as a result the poor girl was married three times before she was sixteen.
To understand how the modern Duke of Northumberland can tell himself a Percy when the Percy line came to an end in 1670, one must examine the complicated series of accidents and designs which involved the descendants of Lady Elizabeth Percy. Elizabeth, nicknamed "Carrots" because of her red hair, was pestered by suitors. Charles II wanted her as a wife for one of his bastard sons, but this time he was unlucky. At the age of twelve, she was made to marry the Earl of Ogle, who died six months later. Her second husband was Thomas Thynne of Longleat, who was murdered by hired assassins in Pall Mall at the behest of another jealous suitor, Count Koningsmark. Twice a widow at the age of sixteen, she finally married in 1682 that preposterous "Proud" Duke of Somerset (see Chapter 1). It is not even possible to say that she lived happily ever after, since life as the Duchess of Somerset, the consort of a mad overbearing tyrant, cannot have been pleasant. She died in 1722, and all her Percy estates became vested in the dukedom of Somerset. Immediately, their son, Algernon Seymour, was created Baron Percy to preserve his mother's name.
Algernon married and produced a son and daughter. The son was Lord Beauchamp, heir to the dukedom of Somerset and eventual heir to the Percy property; Alnwick Castle, would, in the normal course, pass down with the dukedom of Somerset. The daughter was Elizabeth Seymour, who in 1740 made a marriage of significance to our story.
Elizabeth Seymour's husband was a Yorkshire squire, Sir Hugh Smithson, Bart. She was thereupon known as Lady Betty Smithson, and for the next four years there was no reason to suppose that Sir Hugh and Lady Betty would change their status in life. He was heir to no title. Then, in 1744, Lady Betty's brother Lord Beauchamp suddenly died, an event which threw all the related families into disarray. It meant the eventual end of that line of Seymours, and it made Lady Betty sole heiress to some of the Seymour estates, and to all the Percy estates of her grandmother. It also made Sir Hugh Smithson a very important man indeed.
The fate of the Seymours, the Percys and the Smithsons was settled in a kaleidoscope of events between 1748 and 1750. First, the Proud Duke of Somerset died, and was succeeded as 7th Duke by his son Algernon, Betty's father. In 1749, the 7th Duke of Somerset was made 1st Earl of Northumberland of a new creation. And as he had no male heirs, a most unusual stipulation was included in the patent of creation, according to which the title and Percy estates (including Alnwick Castle) should pass at his death to his son-in-law Smithson, and subsequently to Smithson's heirs by the body of Lady Betty. In 1750 the 7th Duke of Somerset died. The dukedom passed to a very distant kinsman (ancestor of the present Duke of Somerset), and the new earldom of Northumberland passed to Sir Hugh Smithson, who promptly assumed the name and arms of Percy by Act of Parliament.
Almost a century had passed since the last Earl of Northumberland had died, well beyond the memory of those alive in 1750. Smithson had married, not a Percy, but a Seymour, great-granddaughter of the last Percy. That he should now become a Percy was altogether an amazing piece of invention.
The Smithsons were themselves a modest but ancient Yorkshire family. In Domesday Book there is listed a certain Malgrun de Smethton, from whom there is a clear descent to Sir Hugh. But this was little compared to the majesty of Alnwick Castle and the riches which came from ownership of several thousand acres. Unfortunately the signs are that Smithson's sudden elevation to the highest ranks went straight to his head.
His style of living became ostentatious, his manner overbearing. Honours and favours were heaped upon him, but they served only to fuel his vanity. Selwyn described him at dinner as "nothing but fur and diamonds", and Dr Johnson exclaimed that he "is only fit to succeed himself".
2
He paraded his status and flashed his money, both in gambling for unnecessarily high odds, and, fortunately, in renovating and improving all three of his great palaces. His wife made a tactless point of being attended by more footmen than the Queen, and travelling with a greater retinue of coaches.
3
She had "such a pyramid of baubles upon her head that she was exactly like the Princess of Babylon". The newspapers called her "Duchess of Charing Cross".
4
Walpole regarded him as mediocre, and wrote bitterly of his self-aggrandisement; Walpole was childishly jealous of Smithson's brilliant rise in rank and position, and allowed his spite to colour his judgement. He put about the story that Smithson's grandfather had been a coachman. Still, the measure of Smithson's character shows through Walpole's rancour. "The old nobility beheld his pride with envy and anger", he writes, "and thence were the less disposed to overlook the littleness of his temper, or the slender portion he possessed of abilities; for his expense was a mere sacrifice to vanity, as appeared by his sordid and illiberal behaviour at play. Nor were his talents more solid than his generosity. With mechanic application to every branch of knowledge, he possessed none beyond the surface; and having an unbounded propensity to discussion, he disgusted his hearers without informing them . . . Lord Northumberland's foibles ought to have passed almost for virtues in an age so destitute of intrinsic merit."
5
Walpole's judgement was supported by the London crowd, which has always been a keen barometer of worth in a man. Londoners are not fooled by show or pretension; they are quick to deflate a man whose head has swollen. Northumberland was extremely unpopular with the crowd. He was once forced from his carriage and robbed of his watch and purse. He was suspected of being unscrupulous as well; his candidate was opposing Wilkes at the election in Brentford, Middlesex, when a riot took place at one election meeting, and two men were killed in the crush. Northumberland was accused of having hired the mob, and was almost prosecuted for murder. The crowds forced him and his wife to drink Wilkes's health in public.
To be Earl of Northumberland was not enough for his vanity, although it had satisfied generations of the real Percys. He was proposed as Lord Chamberlain, but the Marquess of Hertford was appointed instead. Northumberland demanded some sort of advancement by way of compensation, and when a marquessate was suggested, he insisted that he should have a dukedom. The 'King reluctantly agreed.
Another dukedom was to be created at the same time, and offered to the Earl of Cardigan, who had married Lady Mary Montagu. Both creations were subject to limitations; first, that both men should resign all their offices; second, that their heirs should be limited to those begotten on their present wives, excluding all other offspring. Cardigan refused these conditions, saying that he thought titles were honours and rewards, not punishments.
6
But Northumberland acquiesced, and obtained his precedence. He wanted the title Duke of Brabant, which had belonged to the ancestors of the earlier Earls of Northumberland through Josceline de Louvain, but this would not be appropriate, as it was not an English title. It is doubtful whether it would be in the King's power to grant it, without inventing it out of the blue. So he settled for Northumberland, and Hugh Percy
(ne
Smithson) became 1st Duke of Northumberland and Earl Percy in 1766, and Viscount Lovaine of Alnwick in 1784. He is the direct ancestor of the present Duke.
The only inconvenience which might upset matters would be the sudden appearance of a genuine Percy heir. They were not wanting. One claimant, called James Percy, had pressed his rights persistently for twenty years, immediately after the death of the last Earl of Northumberland in 1670. He was a trunkmaker, and he wanted to be an Earl. He petitioned the House of Lords, claiming descent from one Percy after another, all of whom were proven to have died childless, or unmarried. There had been a story that during Queen Elizabeth's reign, when it was dangerous to be a Percy, some of the Percy children had been sent to Petworth in hampers. It was a romantic idea, but groundless in fact. James Percy claimed that his father had been one of the children hidden in the hamper. The passage of 100 years since the event, which would make his father fairly ancient, did not deter him. The Lords found against him, and sentenced him to be brought before the courts at Westminster Hall, wearing around his neck a placard, on which should be written: "The False and Impudent Pretender to the Earldom of Northumberland."