PEERAGE
Last updated 20/03/2023
Date Rank Order Name Born Died  Age
COWPER
18 Mar 1718 E 1 Sir William Cowper,3rd baronet 24 Jun 1665 10 Oct 1723 58
Created Baron Cowper 14 Dec 1706,
and Viscount Fordwich and Earl 
Cowper 18 Mar 1718
MP for Hertford 1695-1700 and
Bere Alston 1701-1705. Keeper of the Great
Seal 1705. Lord Chancellor 1707-1710 and
1714-1718. Lord Lieutenant Hertford 1710-
1712 and 1715-1722.  PC 1705
10 Oct 1723 2 William Clavering-Cowper 13 Aug 1709 18 Sep 1764 55
Lord Lieutenant Hertford 1744-1764
18 Sep 1764 3 George Nassau Clavering-Cowper 26 Aug 1738 22 Dec 1789 51
MP for Hertford 1759-1761
22 Dec 1789 4 George Augustus Clavering-Cowper 9 Aug 1776 12 Feb 1799 22
12 Feb 1799 5 Peter Leopold Louis Francis Nassau
Clavering-Cowper 6 May 1778 21 Jul 1837 59
21 Jul 1837 6 George Augustus Frederick Cowper 26 Jun 1806 15 Apr 1856 49
MP for Canterbury 1830-1835. Lord
Lieutenant Kent 1846-1856
15 Apr 1856 7 Francis Thomas de Grey Cowper 11 Jun 1834 18 Jul 1905 71
to     Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1880-1882.
18 Jul 1905 Lord Lieutenant Bedford 1861-1905.  KG 1865
PC 1871
He obtained a reversal of the attainder of the
Baronies of Butler of Moore Park and Dingwall (qqv)
in 1871. In 1880 he succeeded to the Barony of
Lucas of Crudwell. On his death the creations of 
1706 and 1718 became extinct, the Barony of
Butler of Moore Park fell into abeyance and the 
Baronies of Dingwall and Lucas of Crudwell passed 
to his heir general Auberon Lucas - see "Lucas 
of Crudwell"
COX
24 Jan 1983 B[L] 1 Caroline Anne Cox 6 Jul 1937
Created Baroness Cox for life 24 Jan 1983
COZENS-HARDY
1 Jul 1914 B 1 Sir Herbert Hardy Cozens-Hardy 22 Nov 1838 18 Jun 1920 81
Created Baron Cozens-Hardy
1 Jul 1914
MP for Norfolk North 1885-1899. Lord
Justice of Appeal 1901-1907. Master of the
Rolls 1907-1918.  PC 1901
18 Jun 1920 2 William Hepburn Cozens-Hardy 25 Mar 1868 25 May 1924 56
MP for Norfolk South 1918-1920
For information on his death, see the note at
the foot of this page
25 May 1924 3 Edward Herbert Cozens-Hardy 28 Jun 1873 22 Oct 1956 83
22 Oct 1956 4 Herbert Arthur Cozens-Hardy 8 Jun 1907 11 Sep 1975 68
to     Peerage extinct on his death
11 Sep 1975
CRAIG OF RADLEY
30 Jul 1991 B[L] 1 Sir David Brownrigg Craig 17 Sep 1929
Created Baron Craig of Radley for life
30 Jul 1991
Marshal of the RAF. Chief of the Defence
Staff 1988-1991
CRAIGAVON
20 Jan 1927 V 1 Sir James Craig,1st baronet 8 Jan 1871 24 Nov 1940 69
Created Viscount Craigavon 20 Jan 1927
MP for Down East 1906-1918 and Down Mid
1918-1921. Prime Minister of Northern
Ireland 1921-1940  PC [I] 1921  PC [NI] 1922
24 Nov 1940 2 James Craig 2 Mar 1906 18 May 1974 68
18 May 1974 3 Janric Fraser Craig  [Elected hereditary peer 9 Jun 1941
1999-]
CRAIGMYLE
7 May 1929 B 1 Thomas Shaw 23 May 1850 28 Jun 1937 87
Created Baron Shaw 20 Feb 1909 for life
and Baron Craigmyle 7 May 1929
MP for Hawick 1892-1909. Solicitor
General for Scotland 1894-1895. Lord
Advocate 1905-1909. PC 1906
28 Jun 1937 2 Alexander Shaw 28 Feb 1883 29 Sep 1944 61
MP for Kilmarnock 1915-1923
29 Sep 1944 3 Thomas Donald Mackay Shaw 17 Nov 1923 30 Apr 1998 74
30 Apr 1998 4 Thomas Columba Shaw 19 Oct 1960
CRAIGTON
3 Nov 1959 B[L] 1 John [Jack] Nixon Browne 3 Sep 1904 28 Jul 1993 88
to     Created Baron Craigton for life 3 Nov 1959
28 Jul 1993 MP for Govan 1950-1955 and Craigton
1955-1959. Minister of State for Scotland
1959-1964.  PC 1961
Peerage extinct on his death
CRAMOND
23 Feb 1628 B[S] 1 Dame Elizabeth Richardson 3 Apr 1651
Created Baroness of Cramond
23 Feb 1628
3 Apr 1651 2 Thomas Richardson 19 Jun 1627 16 May 1674 46
MP for Norfolk 1660-1674
16 May 1674 3 Henry Richardson Oct 1650 5 Jan 1701 50
5 Jan 1701 4 William Richardson 2 Aug 1654 7 Mar 1719 64
7 Mar 1719 5 William Richardson Feb 1715 29 Jul 1735 20
to     Peerage extinct on his death
29 Jul 1735
CRANBORNE
20 Aug 1604 V 1 Sir Robert Cecil 1 Jun 1563 24 May 1612 48
Created Baron Cecil of Essendon
13 Aug 1603,Viscount Cranborne
20 Aug 1604 and Earl of Salisbury
4 May 1605
See "Salisbury"
--------------------------------------------
V 1 Robert Michael James Cecil 30 Sep 1946
Summoned to Parliament as Viscount
Cranborne and Baron Cecil
Created Baron Gascoyne-Cecil
17 Nov 1999  (qv)
See "Salisbury"
CRANBROOK
22 Aug 1892 E 1 Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy 1 Oct 1814 30 Oct 1906 92
Created Viscount Cranbrook 4 May 
1878 and Baron Medway and Earl of
Cranbrook 22 Aug 1892
MP for Leominster 1856-1865 and Oxford
University 1865-1878. President of the
Poor Law Board 1866-1867. Home Secretary
1867-1868. Secretary for War 1874-1878
Secretary of State for India 1878-1880. 
Lord President of the Council 1885-1886
and 1886-1892.  PC 1866
30 Oct 1906 2 John Stewart Gathorne-Hardy 22 Mar 1839 13 Jul 1911 72
MP for Rye 1868-1880,Kent Mid 1884-1885
and Medway 1885-1892
13 Jul 1911 3 Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy 18 Dec 1870 23 Dec 1915 45
23 Dec 1915 4 John David Gathorne-Hardy 15 Apr 1900 22 Nov 1978 78
22 Nov 1978 5 Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy 20 Jun 1933
CRANFIELD
9 Jul 1621 B 1 Lionel Cranfield 13 Mar 1575 6 Aug 1645 70
Created Baron Cranfield 9 Jul 1621 and Earl
of Middlesex 16 Sep 1622
See "Middlesex"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
4 Apr 1675 B 1 Charles Sackville 24 Jan 1638 29 Jan 1706 68
Created Baron Cranfield and Earl of
Middlesex 4 Apr 1675
See "Middlesex"
CRANLEY
20 May 1776 B 1 George Onslow 13 Sep 1731 17 May 1814 82
19 Jun 1801 V 1 Created Baron Cranley 20 May 1776,
and Viscount Cranley and Earl of
Onslow 19 Jun 1801
See "Onslow"
CRANSTOUN
17 Nov 1609 B[S] 1 Sir William Cranstoun 23 Jul 1627
Created Lord Cranstoun 17 Nov 1609
23 Jul 1627 2 John Cranstoun by 1642
by 1642 3 William Cranstoun c 1680
c 1680 4 James Cranstoun c 1700
c 1700 5 William Cranstoun 27 Jan 1727
27 Jan 1727 6 James Cranstoun 8 Jul 1773
8 Jul 1773 7 William Cranstoun 3 Sep 1749 30 Jul 1778 28
30 Jul 1778 8 James Cranstoun 26 Jun 1755 22 Sep 1796 41
22 Sep 1796 9 James Edmund Cranstoun 1784 5 Sep 1818 34
5 Sep 1818 10 James Edward Cranstoun 12 Aug 1809 18 Jun 1869 59
18 Jun 1869 11 Charles Frederick Cranstoun 1811 28 Sep 1869 52
to     Peerage extinct on his death
28 Sep 1869
CRANWORTH
20 Dec 1850 B 1 Sir Robert Monsey Rolfe 18 Dec 1790 26 Jul 1868 77
to     Created Baron Cranworth 20 Dec 1850
26 Jul 1868 MP for Penryn 1832-1839. Solicitor
General 1834 and 1835-1839. Lord 
Chancellor 1852-1858 and 1865-1866
PC 1850
Peerage extinct on his death
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
28 Jan 1899 B 1 Robert Thornhagh Gurdon 18 Jun 1829 13 Oct 1902 73
Created Baron Cranworth 28 Jan 1899
MP for Norfolk South 1880-1885 and
Norfolk Mid 1885-1892 and 1895
13 Oct 1902 2 Bertram Francis Gurdon 13 Jun 1877 4 Jan 1964 86
KG 1948
4 Jan 1964 3 Philip Bertram Gurdon 24 May 1940
CRATHORNE
15 Jul 1959 B 1 Thomas Lionel Dugdale,1st baronet 20 Jul 1897 26 Mar 1977 79
Created Baron Crathorne 15 Jul 1959
MP for Richmond 1929-1959. Minister for
Agriculture and Fisheries 1951-1954
PC 1951
26 Mar 1977 2 Charles James Dugdale 12 Sep 1939
Lord Lieutenant N Riding Yorkshire 1999-
[Elected hereditary peer 1999-]
CRAVEN
For information regarding the alleged "Curse of the
Cravens," see the note at the foot of this page
16 Mar 1664 E 1 Sir William Craven Jun 1608 9 Apr 1697 88
to     Created Baron Craven 12 Mar 1627 and
9 Apr 1697 Baron Craven,Viscount Craven and Earl
11 Dec 1665 B 1 of Craven 16 Mar 1664, and Baron
Craven 11 Dec 1665
      Lord Lieutenant Middlesex 1670-1689  PC 1681
On his death all peerages except the Barony
of 1665 became extinct
9 Apr 1697 2 William Craven 24 Oct 1668 9 Oct 1711 42
Lord Lieutenant Berkshire 1702-1711
9 Oct 1711 3 William Craven 1700 10 Aug 1739 39
10 Aug 1739 4 Fulwar Craven 10 Nov 1764
10 Nov 1764 5 William Craven 19 Sep 1705 17 Mar 1769 63
MP for Warwickshire 1746-1764
17 Mar 1769 6 William Craven 11 Sep 1738 27 Sep 1791 53
Lord Lieutenant Berkshire 1786-1791
27 Sep 1791 7 William Craven 28 Sep 1770 30 Jul 1825 54
18 Jun 1801 E 1 Created Viscount Uffington and Earl
of Craven 18 Jun 1801
Lord Lieutenant Berkshire 1819-1825
30 Jul 1825 2 William Craven 18 Aug 1809 25 Aug 1866 57
Lord Lieutenant Warwickshire 1853-1856
25 Aug 1866 3 George Grimston Craven 16 Mar 1841 7 Dec 1883 42
Lord Lieutenant Berkshire 1881-1883
7 Dec 1883 4 William George Robert Craven 16 Dec 1868 10 Jul 1921 52
Lord Lieutenant Warwick 1913-1921
10 Jul 1921 5 William George Bradley Craven 31 Jul 1897 15 Sep 1932 35
15 Sep 1932 6 William Robert Bradley Craven 8 Sep 1917 27 Jan 1965 47
27 Jan 1965 7 Thomas Robert Douglas Craven 24 Aug 1957 22 Oct 1983 26
22 Oct 1983 8 Simon George Craven 16 Sep 1961 30 Aug 1990 28
30 Aug 1990   9 Benjamin Robert Joseph Craven 13 Jun 1989
CRAVEN OF RYTON
21 Mar 1643 B 1 John Craven c 1610 1648
to     Created Baron Craven of Ryton
1648 21 Mar 1643
MP for Tewkesbury 1640-1641
Peerage extinct on his death
CRAWFORD
21 Apr 1398 E[S] 1 Sir David Lindsay c 1360 Feb 1407
Created Earl of Crawford 21 Apr 1398
Feb 1407 2 Alexander Lindsay c 1387 1438
1438 3 David Lindsay 17 Jan 1446
17 Jan 1446 4 Alexander Lindsay Sep 1453
Sep 1453 5 David Lindsay 1440 25 Dec 1495 55
25 Dec 1495 6 John Lindsay 9 Sep 1513
9 Sep 1513 7 Alexander Lindsay c 1443 May 1517
May 1517 8 David Lindsay 27 Nov 1542
27 Nov 1542 9 David Lindsay 20 Sep 1558
20 Sep 1558 10 David Lindsay 1527 Oct 1574 47
Oct 1574 11 David Lindsay 1552 22 Nov 1607 55
22 Nov 1607 12 David Lindsay 8 Mar 1576 Feb 1620 43
Feb 1620 13 Henry Lindsay 1623
1623 14 George Lindsay 1633
1633 15 Alexander Lindsay 1639
1639 16 Ludovic Lindsay Nov 1652
Nov 1652 17 John Lindsay c 1598 1678  
He was created Earl of Lindsay (qv) 1633
1678 18 William Lindsay Apr 1644 6 Mar 1698 53
6 Mar 1698 19 John Lindsay by 1672 Dec 1713
Dec 1713 20 John Lindsay 4 Oct 1702 25 Dec 1749 47
25 Dec 1749 21 George Lindsay-Crawford c 1729 11 Aug 1781
11 Aug 1781 22 George Lindsay-Crawford 31 Jan 1758 30 Jan 1808 49
Lord Lieutenant Fife 1798-1807 and 1807-08
For further information on the claim made for the
peerages, see the note at the foot of this page
30 Jan 1808 23 Alexander Lindsay 18 Jan 1752 27 Mar 1825 73
He succeeded as 6th Earl of Balcarres (qv)
in 1768. 
Governor of Jamaica 1794-1801
27 Mar 1825 24 James Lindsay  (also 7th Earl of Balcarres) 27 Apr 1783 15 Dec 1869 86
Created Baron Wigan 5 Jul 1826
MP for Wigan 1820-1825
15 Dec 1869 25 Alexander William Crawford Lindsay  (also 8th 
Earl of Balcarres) 16 Oct 1812 13 Dec 1880 68
For further information on this peer, see the note
at the foot of this page.
13 Dec 1880 26 James Ludovic Lindsay  (also 9th Earl of Balcarres) 28 Jul 1847 31 Jan 1913 65
MP for Wigan 1874-1880.  KT 1891
31 Jan 1913 27 David Alexander Edward Lindsay (also 10th
Earl of Balcarres) 10 Oct 1871 8 Mar 1940 68
MP for Lancashire North 1895-1913.
President of the Board of Agriculture
1916. Lord Privy Seal 1916-1918. Chancellor
of the Duchy of Lancaster 1919-1921. 
First Commissioner of Works 1921. Minister
of Transport 1922.  PC 1916  KT 1921
8 Mar 1940 28 David Alexander Robert Lindsay (also 11th Earl of
Balcarres) 20 Nov 1900 13 Dec 1975 75
MP for Lonsdale 1924-1940.  KT 1955
13 Dec 1975 29 Robert Alexander Lindsay (also 12th Earl of 
Balcarres) 5 Mar 1927 18 Mar 2023 96
Created Baron Balniel (qv) 24 Jan 1975
MP for Hertford 1955-1974 and Welwyn Hatfield
Feb-Oct 1974. Minister of State for Defence
1970-1972. Minister of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs 1972-1974  PC 1972
KT 1996
18 Mar 2023   30 Anthony Robert Lindsay (also 13th Earl of Balcarres) 24 Nov 1958
CRAWLEY
24 Jul 1998 B[L] 1 Christine Mary Crawley 9 Jan 1950
Created Baroness Crawley for life 24 Jul 1998
CRAWSHAW
25 Aug 1892 B 1 Sir Thomas Brooks,1st baronet 15 May 1825 5 Feb 1908 82
Created Baron Crawshaw 25 Aug 1892
5 Feb 1908 2 William Brooks 16 Oct 1853 19 Jan 1929 75
19 Jan 1929 3 Gerald Beach Brooks 1 Apr 1884 21 Oct 1946 62
21 Oct 1946 4 William Michael Clifton Brooks 25 Mar 1933 7 Nov 1997 64
7 Nov 1997 5 David Gerald Brooks 14 Sep 1934
CRAWSHAW OF AINTREE
17 May 1985 B[L] 1 Richard Crawshaw 25 Sep 1917 16 Jul 1986 68
to     Created Baron Crawshaw of Aintree for life
16 Jul 1986 17 May 1985
MP for Toxteth 1964-1983
Peerage extinct on his death
CREMORNE
19 Jun 1785 V[I] 1 Thomas Dawson 25 Feb 1725 1 Mar 1813 88
to     Created Baron Dartrey 28 May 1770,
1 Mar 1813 Viscount Cremorne 19 Jun 1785 and
11 Nov 1797 B[I] 1 Baron Cremorne 11 Nov 1797
For details of the special remainder included in the
creation of 1797, see the note at the foot of
this page
On his death the Viscountcy became extinct
whilst the Barony passed to -
1 Mar 1813 2 Richard Thomas Dawson 31 Aug 1788 21 Mar 1827 38
MP for Monaghan 1812-1813
21 Mar 1827 3 Richard Dawson 7 Sep 1817 12 May 1897 79
He was created Earl of Dartrey (qv) in 1866
with which title this peerage then merged
CRETING
27 Jan 1332 B 1 John de Creting after 1332
to     Summoned to Parliament as Lord
after 1332 Creting 27 Jan 1332
The peerage presumably became extinct
on his death
CREW OF STENE
20 Apr 1661 B 1 John Crew 1598 12 Dec 1679 81
Created Baron Crew of Stene
20 Apr 1661
MP for Amersham 1623-1625, Brackley 
1626 and 1640-1648, Banbury 1628-1629,
and Northamptonshire 1640 and 1654-1655
12 Dec 1679 2 Thomas Crew 1624 30 Nov 1697 73
MP for Northamptonshire 1656-1658 and
Brackley 1659-1679
30 Nov 1697 3 Nathaniel Crew 31 Jan 1633 18 Sep 1721 88
to     Bishop of Oxford 1671-1674. Bishop of 
18 Sep 1721 Durham 1674-1721. Lord Lieutenant Durham
1674-1689 and 1712-1714  PC 1686
Peerage extinct on his death
CREWE
25 Feb 1806 B 1 John Crewe 27 Sep 1742 28 Apr 1829 86
Created Baron Crewe 25 Feb 1806
MP for Stafford 1765-1768 and Cheshire
1768-1806
28 Apr 1829 2 John Crewe 1772 4 Dec 1835 63
4 Dec 1835 3 Hungerford Crewe 10 Aug 1812 3 Jan 1894 81
to     Peerage extinct on his death
3 Jan 1894
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3 Jul 1911 M 1 Robert Offley Ashburton Crewe-Milnes, 2nd 12 Jan 1858 20 Jun 1945 87
to     Baron Houghton
20 Jun 1945 Created Earl of Crewe 17 Jul 1895,
and Earl of Madeley and Marquess of
Crewe 3 Jul 1911
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1892-1895.
Lord President of the Council 1905-1908
and 1915-1916. Lord Privy Seal 1908-1911
and 1912-1915. Secretary of State for
India 1910-1915. Secretary of State for
War 1921.  PC 1892  KG 1908. Lord
Lieutenant London 1912-1944
Peerages extinct on his death
CRICHTON
c 1443 B[S] 1 William Crichton c May 1454
Created Lord Crichton c 1443
Chancellor of Scotland 1439-1443 and
1448-1454
c May 1454 2 James Crichton c 1455
c 1455 3 William Crichton by Oct 1493
to     His peerage was forfeited in 1484
24 Feb 1484
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29 Aug 1642 B[S] 1 James Crichton c 1620 1665
Created Lord Crichton and Viscount
of Frendraught 29 Aug 1642
See "Frendraught"
CRICHTON OF SANQUHAR
29 Jan 1488 B[S] 1 Sir Robert Crichton c 1495
Created Lord Crichton of Sanquhar
29 Jan 1488
c 1495 2 Robert Crichton 9 Sep 1513
9 Sep 1513 3 Robert Crichton c 1520
c 1520 4 Robert Crichton c 1535
c 1535 5 William Crichton 11 Jun 1550
11 Jun 1550 6 Robert Crichton 1561
1561 7 Edward Crichton 23 May 1569
23 May 1569 8 Robert Crichton 29 Jun 1612
He was hanged for murder - for further 
information, see the note at the foot of this page
29 Jun 1612 9 William Crichton 1643
He was created Earl of Dumfries (qv) in
1633 into which title this peerage then
merged
CRICKHOWELL
15 Oct 1987 B[L] 1 Roger Nicholas Edwards 25 Feb 1934 17 Mar 2018 84
 to     Created Baron Crickhowell for life
17 Mar 2018 15 Oct 1987
MP for Pembroke 1970-1987. Secretary of
State for Wales 1979-1987.  PC 1979
Peerage extinct on his death
CRISP
28 Apr 2006 B[L] 1 Sir Edmund Nigel Ramsay Crisp 14 Jan 1952
Created Baron Crisp for life 28 Apr 2006
CROFT
28 May 1940 B 1 Sir Henry Page Croft,1st baronet 22 Jun 1881 7 Dec 1947 66
Created Baron Croft 28 May 1940
MP for Christchurch 1910-1918 and
Bournemouth 1918-1940  PC 1945
7 Dec 1947 2 Michael Henry Glendower Page Croft 20 Aug 1916 11 Jan 1997 80
11 Jan 1997 3 Bernard William Henry Page Croft 28 Aug 1949
CROFTON
1 Dec 1797 B[I] 1 Anne Crofton 11 Jan 1751 12 Aug 1817 66
Created Baroness Crofton 1 Dec 1797
12 Aug 1817 2 Sir Edward Crofton,4th baronet 1 Aug 1806 27 Dec 1869 63
27 Dec 1869 3 Edward Henry Churchill Crofton 21 Oct 1834 22 Sep 1912 77
22 Sep 1912 4 Arthur Edward Lowther Crofton 7 Aug 1866 15 Jun 1942 75
15 Jun 1942 5 Edward Blaise Crofton 31 May 1926 13 Jun 1974 48
13 Jun 1974 6 Charles Edward Piers Crofton 27 Apr 1949 27 Jun 1989 40
27 Jun 1989 7 Guy Patrick Gilbert Crofton 17 Jun 1951 25 Nov 2007 56
25 Nov 2007 8 Edward Harry Piers Crofton 23 Jan 1988
CROFTS
18 May 1658 B 1 William Crofts c 1611 11 Sep 1677
to     Created Baron Crofts 18 May 1658
11 Sep 1677 Peerage extinct on his death
CROHAM
8 Feb 1978 B[L] 1 Sir Douglas Albert Vivian Allen 15 Dec 1917 11 Sep 2011 93
to     Created Baron Croham for life 8 Feb 1978
11 Sep 2011 Peerage extinct on his death
CROMARTIE
1 Jan 1703 E[S] 1 Sir George Mackenzie 1630 17 Aug 1714 84
Created Lord Macleod and Castlehaven
and Viscount of Tarbat 15 Apr 1685,
and Lord Macleod and Castlehaven,
Viscount of Tarbat and Earl of
Cromartie 1 Jan 1703
17 Aug 1714 2 John Mackenzie c 1656 20 Feb 1731
20 Feb 1731 3 George Mackenzie c 1703 28 Sep 1766
to     He was convicted of treason and the
1746 peerage forfeited in 1746
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
21 Oct 1861 E 1 Anne Sutherland-Leveson-Gower 21 Apr 1829 25 Nov 1888 59
Created Baroness Macleod,Baroness
Castlehaven,Viscountess Tarbat and
Countess of Cromartie 21 Oct 1861
For information about the special remainders
included in the creations of these peerages,see 
the note at the foot of this page
25 Nov 1888 2 Francis Sutherland-Leveson-Gower 3 Aug 1852 24 Nov 1893 41
to     On his death the peerage fell into abeyance
24 Nov 1893
25 Feb 1895 3 Sibell Lilian Mackenzie Blunt 14 Aug 1878 20 May 1962 83
Abeyance terminated in her favour 1895
20 May 1962 4 Roderick Grant Francis Mackenzie 24 Oct 1904 13 Dec 1989 85
13 Dec 1989 5 John Ruaridh Blunt Grant Mackenzie 12 Jun 1948
CROMER
6 Aug 1901 E 1 Evelyn Baring 26 Feb 1841 29 Jan 1917 75
Created Baron Cromer 20 Jun 1892,
Viscount Cromer 25 Jan 1899 and Viscount
Errington and Earl of Cromer 6 Aug 1901
PC 1900  OM 1906
29 Jan 1917 2 Rowland Thomas Baring 29 Nov 1877 13 May 1953 75
PC 1922
13 May 1953 3 George Rowland Stanley Baring 28 Jul 1918 16 Mar 1991 72
Governor of the Bank of England 1961-1966
PC 1966  KG 1977
16 Mar 1991 4 Evelyn Rowland Esmond Baring 3 Jun 1946
CROMWELL
10 Mar 1308 B 1 John de Cromwell c 1335
to     Summoned to Parliament as Lord
c 1335 Cromwell 10 Mar 1308
Peerage extinct on his death
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28 Dec 1375 B 1 Ralph de Cromwell 27 Aug 1398
Summoned to Parliament as Lord
Cromwell 28 Dec 1375
27 Aug 1398 2 Ralph de Cromwell 1368 1417 49
1417 3 Ralph de Cromwell 1403 4 Jan 1455 52
to     On his death the peerage fell into abeyance
4 Jan 1455 See below for continuation -
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
25 Jul 1461 B 1 Sir Humphrey Bourchier 14 Apr 1471
to     Summoned to Parliament as Lord
14 Apr 1471 Cromwell 25 Jul 1461
Peerage extinct on his death
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
9 Jul 1536 B 1 Thomas Cromwell 1485 28 Jul 1540 55
to     Created Baron Cromwell 9 Jul 1536
28 Jul 1540 and Earl of Essex 17 Apr 1540
MP for Taunton 1529-1536. Chancellor
of the Exchequer 1533. Lord Chancellor
1535. Lord Privy Seal 1536  KG 1537
He was attainted and executed when his
peerages were forfeited
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
18 Dec 1540 B 1 Gregory Cromwell 4 Jul 1551
Created Baron Cromwell 18 Dec 1540
4 Jul 1551 2 Henry Cromwell by 1538 20 Nov 1592
20 Nov 1592 3 Edward Cromwell 1560 27 Apr 1607 46
27 Apr 1607 4 Thomas Cromwell 11 Jun 1594 1653 59
He was created Earl of Ardglass (qv) in
1645 into which title this peerage then
merged
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
1490 4 Maud Stanhope 30 Aug 1497
to     Held to have become Baroness Cromwell
30 Aug 1497 (creation of 1375) in 1490. On her death
the peerage again fell into abeyance
16 Jul 1923 5 Robert Godfrey Wolseley Bewicke-Copley 23 May 1893 21 Oct 1966 73
Abeyance terminated in his favour 1923
Lord Lieutenant Leicestershire 1949-1966
21 Oct 1966 6 David Godfrey Bewicke-Copley 29 May 1929 18 Aug 1982 53
For information on the death of this peer,see 
the note at the foot of this page
18 Aug 1982 7 Godfrey John Bewicke-Copley  [Elected hereditary 4 Mar 1960
peer 2014-]
CROOK
3 Jul 1947 B 1 Reginald Douglas Crook 2 Mar 1901 10 Mar 1989 88
Created Baron Crook 3 Jul 1947
10 Mar 1989 2 Douglas Edwin Crook 19 Nov 1926 18 Jun 2001 74
18 Jun 2001 3 Robert Douglas Edwin Crook 19 May 1955
CROOKSHANK
13 Jan 1956 V 1 Harry Frederick Comfort Crookshank 27 May 1893 17 Oct 1961 68
to     Created Viscount Crookshank
17 Oct 1961 13 Jan 1956
MP for Gainsborough 1924-1956. Financial
Secretary to the Treasury 1939-1943. 
Postmaster General 1943-1945. Minister
of Health 1951-1952. Lord Privy Seal 1952-
1955. PC 1939  CH 1955
Peerage extinct on his death
CROSBIE
22 Jul 1776 V[I] 1 William Crosbie,2nd Baron Brandon May 1716 11 Apr 1781 64
Created Viscount Crosbie 30 Nov 1771
and Earl of Glandore 22 Jul 1776
See "Glandore"
CROSS
19 Aug 1886 V 1 Richard Assheton Cross 30 May 1823 8 Jan 1914 90
Created Viscount Cross 19 Aug 1886
MP for Preston 1857-1862, Lancashire SW
1868-1885 and Newton 1885-1886. Home
Secretary 1874-1880 and 1885-1886.
Secretary of State for India 1886-1892
Lord Privy Seal 1895-1900.  PC 1874
8 Jan 1914 2 Richard Assheton Cross 28 Jan 1882 14 Mar 1932 50
14 Mar 1932 3 Assheton Henry Cross 7 May 1920 5 Dec 2004 84
to     Peerage extinct on his death
5 Dec 2004 For information on the death of his younger
brother,see the note at the foot of this page
CROSS OF CHELSEA
12 Mar 1971 B[L] 1 Sir (Arthur) Geoffrey Neale Cross 1 Dec 1904 4 Aug 1989 84
to     Created Baron Cross of Chelsea for life
4 Aug 1989 12 Mar 1971
Lord Justice of Appeal 1969-1971. Lord
of Appeal in Ordinary 1971-1975. PC 1969
Peerage extinct on his death
CROWHURST
11 Jun 1850 V 1 Charles Christopher Pepys,1st Baron  29 Apr 1781 29 Apr 1851 70
Cottenham
Created Viscount Crowhurst and Earl
of Cottenham 11 Jun 1850
See "Cottenham"
CROWTHER
28 Jun 1968 B[L] 1 Sir Geoffrey Crowther 13 May 1907 5 Feb 1972 64
to     Created Baron Crowther for life 28 Jun 1968
5 Feb 1972 Peerage extinct on his death
CROWTHER-HUNT
9 Jul 1973 B[L] 1 Norman Crowther Hunt 13 Mar 1920 16 Feb 1987 66
to     Created Baron Crowther-Hunt for life
16 Feb 1987 9 Jul 1973
Peerage extinct on his death
CRUDDAS
29 Jan 2021 B[L] 1 Peter Andrew Cruddas 30 Sep 1953
     Created Baron Cruddas for life 29 Jan 2021
CUCKNEY
25 Jul 1995 B[L] 1 Sir John Graham Cuckney 12 Jul 1925 30 Oct 2008 83
to     Created Baron Cuckney for life 25 Jul 1995
30 Oct 2008 Peerage extinct on his death
CUDLIPP
8 Jan 1975 B[L] 1 Sir Hugh Kusman Cudlipp 28 Aug 1913 17 May 1998 84
to     Created Baron Cudlipp for life 8 Jan 1975
17 May 1998 Peerage extinct on his death
CULLEN
11 Aug 1642 V[I] 1 Charles Cokayne 4 Jul 1602 19 Jun 1661 58
Created Baron and Viscount Cullen
11 Aug 1642
19 Jun 1661 2 Brien Cokayne 12 Sep 1631 Jul 1687 55
Jul 1687 3 Charles Cokayne 15 Nov 1658 30 Dec 1688 30
30 Dec 1688 4 Charles Cokayne 4 Jan 1687 6 Apr 1716 29
6 Apr 1716 5 Charles Cokayne 2 Sep 1710 7 Jun 1802 91
7 Jun 1802 6 Borlase Cokayne 30 Sep 1740 11 Aug 1810 69
to     Peerage extinct on his death
11 Aug 1810
CULLEN OF ASHBOURNE
   
21 Apr 1920 B 1 Sir Brien Ibrican Cokayne 12 Jul 1864 3 Nov 1932 68
Created Baron Cullen of Ashbourne 21 Apr 1920
Governor of the Bank of England 1918-1920
3 Nov 1932 2 Charles Borlase Marsham Cokayne 6 Oct 1912 17 Dec 2000 88
17 Dec 2000 3 Edmund Willoughby Marsham Cokayne 18 May 1916 5 Dec 2016 100
5 Dec 2016 4 Michael John Marsham Cokayne 28 Nov 1950
CULLEN OF WHITEKIRK
17 Jun 2003 B[L] 1 William Douglas Cullen 18 Nov 1935
Created Baron Cullen of Whitekirk for life
17 Jun 2003
PC 1997  KT 2007
CULLODEN
27 Nov 1801 B 1 Adolphus Frederick  24 Feb 1774 17 Jul 1850 76
Created Baron of Culloden,Earl of
Tipperary and Duke of Cambridge
27 Nov 1801
See "Cambridge"
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31 Mar 1928 B 1 Henry William Frederick Albert 31 Mar 1900 10 Jun 1974 74
Created Baron Culloden,Earl of 
Ulster and Duke of Gloucester
31 Mar 1928
See "Gloucester"
CULMORE
12 Jul 1725 B[I] 1 William Bateman c 1695 Dec 1744
Created Baron Culmore and Viscount
Bateman 12 Jul 1725
See "Bateman"
CUMBERLAND
18 Jun 1525 E 1 Henry Clifford,11th Baron de Clifford 1493 22 Sep 1542 49
Created Earl of Cumberland 18 Jun 1525
KG 1537
22 Sep 1542 2 Henry Clifford 1517 8 Jan 1570 52
8 Jan 1570 3 George Clifford 8 Aug 1558 30 Oct 1605 47
KG 1592
For further information on this peer, see the
note at the foot of this page.
30 Oct 1605 4 Francis Clifford 1559 21 Jan 1641 81
MP for Westmorland 1585-1587 and 
Yorkshire 1604-1605. Lord Lieutenant
Cumberland, Northumberland and 
Westmorland 1611-1639
21 Jan 1641 5 Henry Clifford 28 Feb 1591 11 Dec 1643 52
to     MP for Westmorland 1614 and 1621-1622.
11 Dec 1643 Lord Lieutenant Westmorland and York
1642
Peerage extinct on his death
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
24 Jan 1644 D 1 Prince Rupert,Count Palatine of the Rhine 27 Dec 1619 29 Nov 1682 62
to     Created Earl of Holderness and Duke
29 Nov 1682 of Cumberland 24 Jan 1644
Lord Lieutenant Berkshire 1670 and Surrey
1675. First Lord of the Admiralty 1673  KG 1642
Peerage extinct on his death
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
9 Apr 1689 D 1 George,Prince of Denmark 2 Apr 1653 28 Oct 1708 55
to     Created Baron Ockingham,Earl of
28 Oct 1708 Kendal and Duke of Cumberland
9 Apr 1689
Husband of Queen Anne. KG 1684  PC 1685
Peerages extinct on his death
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
27 Jul 1726 D 1 William Augustus 15 Apr 1721 31 Oct 1765 44
to       Created Baron of Alderney,Viscount
31 Oct 1765 Trematon,Earl of Kennington,Marquess
of Berkhampstead and Duke of
Cumberland 27 Jul 1726
Second son of George II.  KG 1730  PC 1746
Peerage extinct on his death
For further information on this peer,see
the note at the foot of this page
 
CUMBERLAND AND STRATHEARN
22 Oct 1766 D 1 Henry Frederick 27 Oct 1745 18 Sep 1790 44
to     Created Earl of Dublin and Duke of
18 Sep 1790 Cumberland and Strathearn 
22 Oct 1766
PC 1766  KG 1767
For further information on two women who claimed 
to be Cumberland's daughter and grand-daughter,
see the note at the foot of this page.
Peerage extinct on his death
CUMBERLAND AND TEVIOTDALE
24 Apr 1799 D 1 Ernest Augustus 5 Jun 1771 18 Nov 1851 80
Created Earl of Armagh and Duke of
Cumberland and Teviotdale 24 Apr 1799
Fifth son of George III. KG 1786  KP 1821
King of Hanover 1837-1851
For further information on this peer, see the
note at the foot of this page.
18 Nov 1851 2 George Frederick Alexander Charles
Augustus 27 May 1819 12 Jun 1878 59
King of Hanover 1851-1866.  KG 1835
12 Jun 1878 3 Ernest Augustus William Adolphus
to     George Frederick  21 Sep 1845 14 Nov 1923 78
28 Mar 1919 KG 1878
Deprived of his peerages 1919
CUMBERLEGE
18 May 1990 B[L] 1 Julia Frances Cumberlege 27 Jan 1943
Created Baroness Cumberlege for life
18 May 1990
CUMRA
14 Apr 1703 B[S] 1 Sir James Stuart 4 Jun 1710
Created Lord Mount Stuart,Cumra and
Inchmarnock,Viscount of Kingarth and
Earl of Bute 14 Apr 1703
See "Bute"
CUNLIFFE
14 Dec 1914 B 1 Walter Cunliffe 4 Dec 1855 6 Jan 1920 64
Created Baron Cunliffe 14 Dec 1914
Governor of the Bank of England 1913-1918
6 Jan 1920 2 Rolf Cunliffe 13 May 1899 24 Nov 1963 64
24 Nov 1963 3 Roger Cunliffe 12 Jan 1932
CUNNINGHAM OF FELLING
27 Jun 2005 B[L] 1 John Anderson Cunningham 4 Aug 1939
Created Baron Cunningham of Felling for life
27 Jun 2005
MP for Whitehaven 1970-1983 and Copeland
1983-2005. Minister for Agriculture,Fisheries and
Food 1997-1998. Minister for the Cabinet Office
and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1998-
1999. PC 1993
CUNNINGHAM OF HYNDHOPE
26 Jan 1946 V 1 Sir Andrew Browne Cunningham,1st baronet 7 Jan 1883 12 Jun 1963 80
to     Created Baron Cunningham of
12 Jun 1963 Hyndhope 15 Sep 1945 and Viscount
Cunningham of Hyndhope 26 Jan 1946
Admiral of the Fleet 1943. KT 1945 OM 1946
Peerages extinct on his death
CURRIE
25 Jan 1899 B 1 Sir Philip Henry Wodehouse Currie 13 Oct 1834 12 May 1906 71
to     Created Baron Currie 25 Jan 1899
12 May 1906 PC 1894
Peerage extinct on his death
CURRIE OF MARYLEBONE
1 Oct 1996 B[L] 1 David Anthony Currie 9 Dec 1946
Created Baron Currie of Marylebone for life
1 Oct 1996
CURRY OF KIRKHARLE
13 Oct 2011 B[L] 1 Sir Donald Thomas Younger Curry 4 Apr 1944
Created Baron Curry of Kirkharle for life
13 Oct 2011
CURZON OF KEDLESTON
28 Jun 1921 M 1 George Nathaniel Curzon 11 Jan 1859 20 Mar 1925 66
to     Created Baron Curzon of Kedleston
20 Mar 1925 11 Nov 1898 (the last Irish peerage),
Baron Ravensdale,Viscount Scarsdale
and Earl Curzon of Kedleston 2 Nov 
1911 and Earl of Kedleston and Marquess 
Curzon of Kedleston 28 Jun 1921
MP for Southport 1886-1889. Viceroy
of India 1898-1905. Lord Privy Seal
1915-1916. Lord President of the Council
1916-1919 and 1924-1925. Foreign
Secretary 1919 -1924.  PC 1895  KG 1916
On his death the Barony of 1898, the Earldom of
1911 and the creations of 1921 became extinct.
The Barony of Ravensdale descended to his
daughter and the Viscountcy of Scarsdale 
descended to his nephew - see those titles
For information on his first wife, see the note at 
the foot of this page
CURZON OF PENN
27 Feb 1802 V 1 Assheton Curzon 2 Feb 1730 21 Mar 1820 90
Created Baron Curzon of Penn 13 
Aug 1794 and Viscount Curzon of Penn
27 Feb 1802
MP for Clitheroe 1754-1780 and 1792-1794
21 Mar 1820 2 Richard William Penn Curzon-Howe
He was created Earl Howe (qv) in 1821 with
which title this peerage then merged
CUSHENDUN
7 Nov 1927 B 1 Ronald John McNeill 30 Apr 1861 12 Oct 1934 73
to     Created Baron Cushendun 7 Nov 1927
12 Oct 1934 MP for St Augustines 1911-1918 and
Canterbury 1918-1927. Financial Secretary
to the Treasury 1925-1927. Chancellor of
the Duchy of Lancaster 1927-1929. PC 1924
Peerage extinct on his death
CUTTS OF GOWRAN
12 Dec 1690 B[I] 1 John Cutts c 1661 25 Jan 1707  
to     Created Baron Cutts of Gowran
25 Jan 1707 12 Dec 1690
MP for Cambridgeshire 1693-1702 and
Newport IOW 1702-1707. PC [I] 1705
Peerage extinct on his death
William Hepburn Cozens-Hardy, 2nd Baron Cozens-Hardy
On 27 May 1924, the "Daily Mail" reported the death of Lord Cozens-Hardy, as shown hereunder:-
'Lord Cozens-Hardy, of Gunthorpe Hall, Norfolk, was killed yesterday afternoon in a motor-car
accident near Starnberg (Upper Bavaria), 17 miles from Munich. At a sharp bend on the road, 
Lord Cozens-Hardy, who was driving, put on the brakes suddenly and the car turned turtle. The
other two occupants of the car, a German businessman and the chauffeur, escaped with minor
injuries. Lord Cozens-Hardy was crushed beneath the car and terribly injured. He died a few
minutes after, without recovering consciousness. The body is being brought here [Munich]
tonight.
'Lord Cozens-Hardy, who was 56, succeeded his father, the first lord, and a former Master of
the Rolls, in 1920. A Chancery K.C. in active practice at that time, Lord Cozens-Hardy, after his
accession to the title, was seen only rarely in the courts.
'There was a tiny comedy of errors when the peerage devolved on him. He had not taken his
seat in the Upper House, and, as the writ had not been moved for a new election in South
Norfolk, Mr. William Cozens-Hardy, M.P., as he still remained, found that, though, in a sense a
member of either House, he was for the moment excluded from both.'
The alleged "Curse of the Cravens"
When the 7th Earl of Craven died in 1983, the newspapers were quick to seize upon the alleged
"Curse of the Cravens." The story goes that hundreds of years ago (one paper says 700) one of
the ancestors of the Craven family made a servant girl pregnant. Her mother cursed the family,
the curse stating that all boys of the Craven family would die young. Another version of the 
curse is more specific, with all boys of the family condemned to die before their mothers.
Whether the curse actually exists is a moot point, but the reports of the 7th Earl's death in 1983
make special mention that the Earl "lived in fear of a curse that reputedly causes all the males of
his family to die young." One wonders whether the curse is to some extent a self-fulfilling
prophecy in that the person is so convinced that he cannot escape his fate that he becomes
resigned to it with inevitable fatal consequences, in the same manner that Australian aborigines
believe that if a "kurdaitcha" man undertakes the ceremony of "pointing the bone" the person at
whom the bone was pointed will surely die shortly thereafter.
An examination of the ages at which the Barons Craven, and later the Earls of Craven, died, does
however reveal that the average age at death is quite low, and is even lower for those deaths
which have occurred in the last 145 years. Commencing with the sons of the 2nd Earl, the 
following dates are interesting, when viewed in the light of the prediction that the Craven sons 
would die before their mothers:-
* The eldest son of the 2nd Earl, known by the courtesy title of Viscount Uffington, died at the
age of 26 in April 1865 during the lifetime of his father. His mother died in May 1901.
* The second son of the 2nd Earl, who became the 3rd Earl in 1866, died in December 1883 aged
42, again while his mother was still alive (see above).
* The 4th Earl died in July 1921 [for further details of his death see below] at the age of 52. His
mother died in November 1924.
* The 5th Earl died in September 1932, aged 35. His mother died in May 1961.
* The 6th Earl died in January 1965 aged 47. His mother died in September 1974.
* The 7th Earl died in October 1983, aged 26. His mother died 26 June 2011, aged 95.
* The 8th Earl, brother of the 7th Earl, died in August 1990 (see above).
If we ignore the question of dying before their mother, and expanding the listing to include all
sons of the various Earls in the last 200 years, we find that:-
* The 1st Earl had three sons - the 2nd Earl who died at age 57, and two other sons who died
at the ages of 25 and 52
* The 2nd Earl had four sons - Viscount Uffington and the 3rd Earl are already noticed above
while the remaining two sons died at 75 and 16
* The 3rd Earl also had four sons - the 4th Earl mentioned above, and three other sons who
died at the ages of 89, 2 months and 30
* The 4th and 5th Earls each had an only son who became the 5th and 6th Earls respectively
* The 6th Earl had two sons, who became the 7th and 8th Earls (see above), the 7th Earl
being succeeded by his brother as his son, Tommy Nicholson, is illegitimate.
Only two sons of the various Earls, therefore, during the last 200 years, have reached what might 
be called a reasonable age.  It is also interesting to note that the 4th, 7th and 8th Earls all died
what might be termed 'violent' deaths. All in all, one might be forgiven for believing in both the
existence and efficacy of the alleged curse, but I leave the reader to form his or her own
opinion.
Some notes on the various Earls:-
Craven A cigarettes
Smokers of a certain age will probably recall that Craven A cigarettes were very popular at one
time. Their filters were 'cork tips' and I am bound to say that, although I once smoked almost any
legal substance, I always drew the line at Craven A - they were horrible. The brand was
apparently named after the Earls of Craven.
William George Robert Craven, 4th Earl of Craven
The following report of the death of the 4th Earl appeared in 'The Times' of 11 July 1921:-
'A gloom was cast over Cowes to-day by the news that Lord Craven, a well-known member of 
the Royal Yacht Squadron, had been drowned. He arrived off Cowes only yesterday on a cruise 
in his 63-ton yawl Sylvia.
'Lord Craven, with Lord Ebury, joined the yacht at Southampton yesterday afternoon, and on 
arrival at Cowes Lord Craven went ashore and visited the Royal Yacht Squadron, where he spent 
the evening with other members and was in the best of health and spirits. Later in the evening
he returned to his yacht in the motor launch, which he helped the crew to haul up.
 
'The weather being still warm, Lord Craven remained on the deck of the yacht, which was lying 
about half a mile from the squadron in the roadstead. For some time he was talking with the 
captain, who left him there smoking just after midnight, when he and his crew turned in for the 
night.
'At 8.30 this morning when the valet went to Lord Craven's cabin he found that he was missing 
and that his bed had not been slept in. His yachting cap was found in the saloon. It is believed 
that he had walked to the stern of the yacht and either accidentally stumbled or was seized with
illness and fell overboard. No trace of his body could be seen, but after a search lasting all the 
morning it was found this afternoon in the sea at Gurnard Bay, about two miles to the westward.
It was brought to Cowes mortuary to await an inquest.
'People living on the green heard cries during the night, which apparently came from the direction
of Egypt Point, about a mile from where the yacht was lying, but no-one thought they came from 
anyone in distress. It is conjectured that Lord Craven, having fallen overboard, attempted to 
swim to shore, but finding he could not do so, cried for help. He was understood to be a very
good swimmer.'
William George Bradley Craven, 5th Earl of Craven
The 5th Earl became somewhat of a celebrity in 1926 when he, together with Vera, Countess 
Cathcart, attempted to enter the United States. The following report of his subsequent death
appeared in the 'Chicago Daily Tribune' on 17 September 1932:-
'The fifth earl of Craven, whose escapades with Vera, countess of Cathcart, stirred up a storm
which nearly resulted in an international incident between the United States and Great Britain
in 1926, died here [Pau, France] today at the age of 35 [the cause of death was peritonitis].
'The incident of 1926 began when the countess of Cathcart was barred from the United States
by immigration authorities because she had been divorced on statutory grounds. She was
accused of "moral turpitude." Her husband when he won the divorce in 1922 had named the earl
of Craven as co-respondent. Eighteen months later the countess and the earl lived together in
South Africa.
'The countess fought the expulsion order, declaring that if she were barred, the earl should also
be refused admittance on the same grounds. The earl already had been admitted. The case was
taken to the federal courts and also aired on the floor of the United States senate and in the
British house of commons. 
'Immigration authorities, wishing to question the earl, issued an order for his arrest. He fled to
Montreal. When she learned of his flight, the countess branded him a "coward." Later the
countess won her fight and was admitted to the United States. 
'She sold her play, "Ashes of Love," and performed in it under Earl Carroll's management for a
few nights before it closed a failure. Countess Vera gained further notoriety during this period
when she was present at Earl Carroll's famous "bathtub party," at which a show girl bathed in 
a tub of wine while the men present passed by in line and drank of the wine. Carroll was
sentenced to prison for this episode. [Carroll (1893-1948) was a well-known theatrical producer
and director until he was killed in a plane crash].
'Born July 13, 1897, the earl of Craven succeeded to the title of his father in 1921. He had one
of the most remarkable careers of the British nobility. He was disabled through the loss of his
right leg and permanent disability in his left arm in the war and later became bankrupt and was
disinherited.'
William Robert Bradley Craven, 6th Earl of Craven
The 6th Earl of Craven married Gwendoline Irene Meyrick on 3 May 1939. Gwendoline was the 
daughter of the notorious "queen of the nightclubs" Kate Meyrick, whose other two daughters
married the 26th Baron de Clifford and the 14th Earl of Kinnoull.
In the following August the Earl petitioned the Courts for the annulment of his marriage to
Gwendoline, who in turn cross-petitioned for the restitution of her conjugal rights. The petitions
were heard in June 1940. The following (edited) report appeared in 'The Times' of 14 June 1940:-
'By his petition dated August 4, 1939, Lord Craven sought the annulment of the marriage on the
ground that it was celebrated without his consent. He alleged that at the time when the marriage
was celebrated he was in such a condition of mind and body through alcohol poisoning that he
was unaware of the nature or quality of the ceremony of marriage with Lady Craven, or of the 
fact that he was present at a marriage ceremony or taking part in the same.
'Lady Craven, who before the marriage was Gwendoline Irene Meyrick, denied the allegations, 
and pleaded that she was lawfully married to Lord Craven. By her cross-petition....Lady Craven
pleaded that Lord Craven had left her without cause in May, 1939, and had not returned to her
and had refused to render her conjugal rights. She prayed for a decree of restitution of
conjugal rights. Lord Craven denied the allegations, and denied he was lawfully married to Lady
Craven.
'Mr. Justice Hodson, giving judgment, said that the parting took place on May 4, the day after
the ceremony. Lord Craven, through his advisors, repudiated the marriage, and on July 14 for
the first time it was claimed that there had been no marriage.
'Lord Craven had been described by medical men who examined him as being unstable and
impulsive and of a vain disposition. He suffered from asthma, the significance of which was that
he was sensitive to alcoholic poisoning. He had also had an accident followed by concussion,
which was of importance.
'On the night before the marriage Lord Craven arrived in the small hours of the morning at the
night club with which Lady Craven was concerned, having already drunk a good deal at other 
places. He drank a good deal more at the club, partly in the company of his wife-to-be, and
marriage was discussed. The subject had been mentioned before between them. The end of the
story was that they were married that morning after a licence had been obtained by the wife-
to-be.
'Lord Craven had seen no member of his family, nor any friend, from the time he left the night
club until he was married. During that time he was in the company of his wife-to-be and her
sisters. He (his Lordship) was asked to say that what happened was an outrage, that those
women had got hold of the young man and that everything which he did thereafter was done 
under their guidance and not of his own accord at all, he being soaked in drink, unstable to start
with, and not fit to give his assent to marriage or anything else.
'During the night before the marriage, or in the early hours of the morning, Lord Craven was seen
by a number of people at the club and was behaving perfectly normally. Nobody would say that
he was drunk. There was no doubt that when marriage was discussed Lord Craven himself was
active in making arrangements for the ceremony. Lord Craven said now he did not remember very
much about it, but he did not profess entirely to have forgotten what took place.
'The marriage ceremony took place that morning. Lord Craven signed a form. His signature on
that form was not first-class, but it did not compare unfavourably with other signatures of his.
The service was in the Church of England form, with which Lord Craven was not familiar, he
being a Roman Catholic. The question of the ring arose and Lord Craven produced a signet ring.
The vicar rejected that and then a sister of the bride produced her wedding ring. Lord Craven
gave the responses, some of which would not be easy to give if a person were acting 
automatically, and the bride and bridegroom signed their names in the register.
'The vicar did not notice anything except that when the parties were going away the groom
moved as though he were in a dream. "He looked as if he were half asleep." His Lordship [the
Judge] said that Lord Craven had been up all night and had had a great deal to drink.
'His Lordship stated the evidence as to the subsequent movements of the parties. Medical
witnesses, he continued, had described the effects of alcoholic poisoning as being of two stages.
One was the impairment of judgment, and the other was staggering and thickness of speech
indicating lack of coordination. The case for Lord Craven was that he was in the first stage, 
because he had taken a large quantity of alcohol over a long period. In that stage, it was 
suggested, his memory had gone and he did not know what he was doing.
'It was further suggested that Lord Craven was acting under the wicked influence of the wife.
He (the judge) was not prepared to find any such thing. All the evidence went to show that
he was acting very much of his own volition without being spurred on by anyone.
'That Lord Craven's judgment was impaired there could be no doubt, but the question of degree
had to be considered when one had to determine whether his judgment was so impaired that he
did not know what he was doing. He (the judge) was quite unable to find that the husband had
discharged the burden of proving either that he did not know what he was doing or that he did
not consent to the marriage. 
'His Lordship dismissed Lord Craven's petition and granted Lady Craven a decree of restitution of
conjugal rights.'
Thomas Robert Douglas Craven, 7th Earl of Craven
From 'The Times' of 3 November 1983:-
'The seventh Earl of Craven, whose life was spent under the threat of an ancient curse, shot
himself after years of depression, an inquest was told yesterday. 
'A curse that all male Cravens would die young was put on the family seven centuries ago after
an ancestor made a servant pregnant.
'Lord Craven, aged 26, was found lying in a pool of blood at his Sussex manor house on October
22, with a 12-bore shotgun at his side. The last three earls have all died prematurely.
'He had been treated for schizophrenia and had tried to commit suicide four times, the Eastbourne
inquest heard.
'His mother, Lady Craven, found his body at Peelings Manor, Hankham, East Sussex......the
Coroner recorded the verdict that Lord Craven killed himself while the balance of his mind was
disturbed.'
At his death, the 7th Earl left an illegitimate son, and he was therefore succeeded by his brother
Simon George Craven, 8th Earl of Craven whose death in a car crash in 1990 did nothing to
dispel the alleged curse.
Alexander Lindsay, 4th Earl of Crawford ('Old Beardie')
The 4th Earl of Crawford was the most formidable power in Scotland during the middle years
of the 15th century. He was a regular guest at Glamis Castle, where one night on one of his 
visits and after an evening of heavy drinking, he demanded a game of cards. By this time it
was late, and the Sabbath was dawning; as a result, no one was prepared to play with him.
Getting progressively more aggressive, Crawford determined that the Sabbath would not
interrupt his pleasures and swore that he would even play the Devil himself.  No sooner had
he said this than a tall man dressed entirely in black entered the room and the Earl, pleased 
to have a playing partner, took him into another room where they proceeded to play.
There was much swearing and stamping of feet within the room, and there are some accounts
of the servants' curiosity. One tried to peep into the room through the keyhole, but was 
blinded by a bolt of lightning. The Earl stormed out of the room, raging at the servant for 
this breach of his privacy. When he turned back to re-enter the room, the man in black had
gone, taking the Earl's soul with him. Five years later, the man in black reappeared and
the Earl died, reclaimed by the Devil according to the story.
It is said that visitors to Glamis Castle can hear, behind one of the walls of the Castle crypt,
the sounds of rolling dice, swearing and the stamping of feet, the sounds of the Earl playing
until the Day of Judgment.
The Crawford Peerage Claim 1809-1839
The following account of the claim is taken from an anonymously written book titled "Celebrated
Claimants Ancient and Modern" published by Chatto and Windus, London, 1873.
'In 1808, George Lindsay Crawfurd, twenty-second Earl of Crawfurd and sixth Earl of Lindsay,
died without issue, and his vast estates descended to his sister, Lady Mary Crawford. After
the death of the earl various claims were advanced to the peerage, one of them being 
preferred by a person of the name of John Crawfurd, who came from Dungannon, in the north
of Ireland. When this claimant arrived at Ayr, in January 1809, he gave himself out as a 
descendant of the Hon. James Lindsay Crawfurd, a younger son of the family, who had taken
refuge in Ireland from the persecutions of 1666-1680. At first he took up his abode at the inn
of James Anderson, and from his host and a weaver named Wood he received a considerable
amount of information respecting the family history. From Ayr he proceeded to visit Kilbirnie
Castle, once the residence of the great knightly family of Crawfurd. The house had been
destroyed by fire during the lifetime of Lady Mary's grandfather, and had not been rebuilt--the
family taking up their residence on their Fifeshire estates. At the time of the fire, however,
many family papers and letters had been saved, and had been stored away in an old cabinet,
which was placed in an out-house. To these Mr. Crawfurd obtained access, and found among
them many letters written by James Lindsay Crawfurd, whose descendant he pretended to be.
He appropriated them and produced them when the fitting time came. At Kilbirnie he also 
introduced himself to John Montgomerie of Ladeside, a man well acquainted with the family
story and all the vicissitudes of the Crawfords; and one who was disposed to believe any
plausible tale. The farmer, crediting the pretender's story, spread it abroad among the villagers,
and they in turn fell into ecstasies over the idea of a poor man like themselves arriving at an
earldom, rebuilding the ancient house of Kilbirnie, and restoring the old glories of the place. 
Their enthusiasm was turned to good account. The claimant was very poor, and stood in need 
of money to prosecute his claim, and he made no secret of his poverty or his necessities, and
promised large returns to those who would help him in his time of need. "Farms," we are told,
"were to be given on long leases at moderate rents; one was to be a factor, another
chamberlain, and many were to be converted from being hewers of wood and drawers of
water to what they esteemed the less laborious, and therefore more honourable, posts of
butlers and bakers, and body servants of all descriptions." These cheering prospects, of course,
depended upon the immediate faith which was displayed, and the amount of assistance which
was at once forthcoming. Therefore, each hopeful believer exerted himself to the utmost, and
"poor peasants and farmers, cottagers and their masters, threw their stakes into the claimant's
lucky-bag, from which they were afterwards to draw 'all prizes and no blanks.'" Men of loftier
position, also, were not averse to speculate upon the chances of this newly-discovered heir.
Poor John Montgomerie gave him every penny he had saved, and every penny he could borrow,
and after mortgaging his little property, was obliged to flee to America from his duns, where, it
is said, he died. His son Peter, who succeeded to Ladeside, also listened to the seductive voice
of the claimant, until ruin came upon him, and he was compelled to compound with his creditors.
'In due time the pretender to the Crawford peerage instituted judicial proceedings. His 
advocates brought forward some very feasible parole evidence; but they mainly rested their 
case upon the documents which had been discovered in the old cabinet at Kilbirnie. These 
letters, when they were originally discovered, had been written on the first and third pages;
but in the interim the second pages had been filled up in an exact imitation of the old hand with 
matter skilfully contrived to support the pretensions of the new-comer. In these interpolations 
the dead Crawfurd was made to describe his position and circumstances in Ireland, his marriage,
the births of his children, and his necessities, in a manner which could leave no doubt as to the
rightful claims of the pretender. Unfortunately for his cause, he refused to pay his accomplices
the exorbitant price which they demanded, and they, without hesitation, made offers to Lady
Mary, into the hands of whose agents they confided the forged and vitiated letters. The result
was that a charge of forgery was brought against the claimant, and he and his chief abettor,
James Bradley, were both brought to trial before the High Court of Justiciary, in February 1812,
and were sentenced to fourteen years' transportation. This result was obtained by the
acceptance of the evidence of Fanning, one of the forgers, as king's evidence. While under
sentence the claimant wrote a sketch of his life ["Sketch of the Life of John Lindsay Crawfurd,
Esq., containing a full and impartial account of his claim to the title and estates of George,
Earl of Crawfurd and Lindsay. With an account of his trial for forgery….Written by himself" 
Dairy, 1812] which was printed at Dairy, in Ayrshire, and was published before the sentence
was carried into execution. After some delay the sham earl was shipped off to Botany Bay, and
arrived in New South Wales in 1813. Many persons in Scotland continued under the belief that
he had been harshly treated, and had fallen a victim to the perjured statements of witnesses
who were suborned by Lady Mary Crawford. It was not disputed that the documents which had
been put in evidence really were forged; but it was suggested that the forgery had been 
accomplished without his knowledge, in order to accomplish his ruin. Public feeling was aroused
in his favour, and he was regarded not only as an innocent and injured man, but as the rightful
heir of the great family whose honours and estates he sought.
'During his servitude in Australia, John Lindsay Crawfurd contrived to ingratiate himself with 
MacQuarrie [sic - Macquarie], the governor of New South Wales, and got part of his punishment
remitted, returning to England in 1820. He immediately recommenced proceedings for the 
recovery of the Crawfurd honours; and, as his unexpected return seemed to imply that he had
been unjustly transported, his friends took encouragement from this circumstance, and again
came forward with subscriptions and advances. Many noblemen and gentlemen, believing him
to be injured, contributed liberally to his support and to the cost of the proceedings which he 
had begun. At last the case came,--and came under the best guidance--before the Lords
Committee of Privileges, to which it had been referred by the king. Lord Brougham was counsel
in the cause, and he publicly expressed his opinion that it was extremely well-founded. Many of
the claimant's adherents, however, were deterred from proceeding further in the matter by the
unfavourable report of two trustworthy commissioners who had been appointed to investigate
the affair in Scotland. On the other hand, Mr. Nugent Bell, Mr. William Kaye, and Sir Frederick 
Pollock, with a host of eminent legal authorities, predicted certain success. Thus supported,
the pretender assumed the rôle of Earl of Crawfurd, and actually voted as earl at an election
of Scotch peers at Holyrood. Unfortunately for all parties, the claimant died before a decision
could be given either for or against him. His son, however, inheriting the father's pretensions,
and also apparently his faculty for raising money, contrived to find supporters, and carried on 
the case. Maintaining his father's truthfulness, he declared that his ancestor, the Hon. James
Lindsay Crawfurd, had settled in Ireland, and that he had died there between 1765 and 1770.
leaving a family, of which he was the chief representative. On the other hand, Lord Glasgow,
who had succeeded by this time to the estates, insisted that the scion of the family who was
supposed to have gone to Ireland, and from whom the pretender traced his descent, had in 
reality died in London in 1745, and had been buried in the churchyard of St. Martin's-in-the-
Fields. It was finally proved that a record remained of the death of James Lindsay Crawfurd
in London, as stated, and 120 genuine letters were produced in his handwriting bearing a 
later date than that year. The decision of the House of Lords was--"That from the facts now
before us we are satisfied that any further inquiry is hopeless and unnecessary." This opinion
was given in 1839, and since that time no further steps have been taken to advance the claim.
Strange to say, Lord Glasgow allowed the body of the original claimant to be interred in the
family mausoleum; and it has been more than suggested that if John Lindsay Crawfurd was not
the man that he represented himself to be, he was at least an illegitimate offshoot of the same
noble house, and that had he been less pertinacious in advancing his claims to the earldom, he
might have ended his days more happily.'
Alexander William Crawford Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford
and 8th Earl of Balcarres
A man who was infinitely more famous in death than he ever was in life…..
The 25th Earl died in Florence, Italy in December 1880. His body was embalmed by an Italian
chemist, laid in an Italian-wood shell and sheathed in lead. To make doubly sure, two further
wooden coffins were added. With these elaborate precautions completed, the Earl's body
began its long journey home.
Traditionally, the Earls of Crawford and Balcarres were buried at Haigh Hall in Lancashire, but
the vault was full. A new mortuary chapel had just been finished at Dunecht (12 miles west of
Aberdeen) and was as yet unoccupied. The new chapel was solidly constructed of granite, and
the only entrance to the burial crypt was down a flight of eight steps leading from outside the
chapel. With the burial ceremony over, workmen sealed the entrance to the crypt with four
massive granite slabs and filled the crevices between the slabs with cement.
One Sunday morning in May 1881, the new Earl's housekeeper was walking near the chapel 
when she smelled a strange aromatic perfume arising from the crypt. In the next few days, 
others remarked on the odd smell so persistently that the new Earl ordered an inspection. 
Workmen found a gap between the granite slabs which they attributed to a natural subsidence 
of the soil and they further attributed the strange smell to decaying flowers within the vault. 
They straightened the slabs, filled the cracks with cement, covered the whole entrance with
soil and planted it with shrubs.
In September 1881, Mr Yeats, the Earl's family solicitor, received a mysterious note at his
Aberdeen office. "Dear Sir," the letter ran, "the remains of the late Earl of Crawford are not
beneath the chapel at Dunecht, as you believe. The scent of flowers ascending from the crypt
will, on investigation, prove to be something else." The letter was signed "Nabob."
Yeats contacted the builder who had carried out the inspection of the vault. The builder
reassured Yeats, who as a result dismissed the letter as a grisly practical joke without
bothering to inform the Earl.
Early in December 1881, some tradesmen working at Dunecht House noticed that the soil
covering the entrance of the crypt had been tampered with and told the Earl. He summoned
Yeats, who, recalling the earlier note, called in the police. Inspection left no doubt that the
tomb had been violated. Picks and shovels, stolen from a nearby toolshed, littered the lawn.
Three sets of footprints, made by hobnailed boots and all different, showed in the mud. One
of the granite slabs had been moved and was propped up by a piece of wood, leaving a gap
of 18 inches. The raiders had chosen an ideal time, as the break-in had occurred the night
before, when a sudden storm had effectively covered any noise.
 
With grim foreboding, the police entered the crypt where they found the wooden coffins, the
lead coffin and the Italian-wood shell strewn about the floor, but there was no sign of the 
body of the Earl. The mystery of the strange smell which saturated the air of the vault was,
however, solved; it came from the aromatic wood of the shell made in Italy.
The police poured every available man into Dunecht and combed the countryside for clues.
In the meantime Yeats believed that the mysterious "Nabob" held the answer. He inserted
notices in the agony columns of the British press asking Nabob to come forward, without
result. He then, on his own initiative, offered a £50 reward to the writer of the note if he came 
forward. This time, Nabob's greed got the better of his discretion. He wrote to Yeats
assuring him that the Earl's body was still in the Dunecht area. He refused, however, to
disclose its hiding place until the 'desperadoes' who had carried it off were brought to justice.
He had no wish, he said, to be murdered by them or to be suspected by the police as an 
accomplice.
A few days later, the Government offered a reward of £500 and a free pardon to anyone, not
being the guilty party, who gave information leading to the arrest of the grave-robber(s). From
all over Britain letters poured in, giving thousands of hiding places for the Earl's body. Some 
writers claimed they had seen visions; others swore that they had helped carry the body under
threats. One letter made out such a good case against two Aberdeen men, Thomas Kirkwood
and John Philip, that the police arrested and charged them with the crime. Only watertight 
alibis saved them. When all the letters had been sifted, the police concluded that Nabob was 
the only person who had real knowledge of the crime, but he remained discreetly silent.
Public interest in the case was waning when, five months later, an Aberdeen man named George
Machray, a gamekeeper, came forward with some fresh information. As a result, the police
arrested a man named Charles Soutar, a rat-catcher who supplemented his income by poaching,
mainly on the Dunecht estate. No sooner had he been taken into custody than he confessed he
was "Nabob."
His story was that one night in April 1881 he was poaching deer near Dunecht when he heard a
rustling of bushes. Thinking the gamekeepers were looking for him, he fled but he tripped and 
fell. Before he could rise, two men with blackened faces pinned him to the ground. As he lay
helpless, two more men who spoke 'like English gentlemen' loomed out of the dark. One of the
newcomers put a pistol to his head and seemed bent on killing him until one of his original
assailants told the armed man 'It's all right, it's only the rat-catcher on a poaching venture.'
When dawn broke, Soutar crept back into the woods, where he saw a carefully camouflaged
mound. He dug into it with his fingers and was horrified to find the embalmed body of a man,
wrapped in a blanket. The makeshift grave reeked of an aromatic perfume.
Based on Soutar's story, a party of police went to Dumbrock Wood where they found the body
exactly where Soutar had said it was. Although Soutar stuck doggedly to his story of the men 
in the woods, the police found it too hard to believe and charged him with breaking into the 
crypt.
Soutar was tried in October 1882 before Lord Craighill in the High Court in Edinburgh. He 
pleaded ''not guilty.' At his trial, evidence began to pile up inexorably against Soutar. Witness 
after witness testified that he had discussed the disappearance of the Earl's body long before
anyone but the body-snatcher could have known about it.
Soutar's counsel put the case for the defence simply. His story of the black-faced men was true.
Why, he asked, would a guilty man draw attention to the crime by writing the 'Nabob' letter and
persistently discussing the subject with half-a-dozen witnesses? Plainly, Soutar was an innocent
man - a man who feared for his life, but was determined to keep interest in the crime alive until
the real criminals were brought to justice.
The Solicitor General for Scotland, Alexander Asher, in his speech for the Crown, left the 
defence's argument threadbare. The crime could only have been committed by someone who
knew Dunecht intimately and none knew it better than the self-confessed poacher, Soutar.
Why had Soutar persistently called attention to the crime? Simple, said Asher; there could be
only two reasons for the ghoulish theft - either to hold the Earl's family to ransom, or in the
hope that a reward would be offered. In either case, so long as the theft of the body went
undiscovered, the crime itself was useless. When the crypt had been re-sealed without
suspicion, Soutar was forced to write the Nabob note, which Yeats had ignored. In desperation,
said Asher, Soutar had then been forced to make a second raid on the tomb and prop up the
granite slab so that there could be no doubt that the vault had been violated.
After retiring for a mere 25 minutes, the jury found Soutar guilty and he was sentenced to five
years' penal servitude.
It seems to me that there are a number of unanswered questions in this case - is it likely that
Soutar, who does not seem to have been over-endowed with intelligence, hatched the whole 
plot on his own? If he did, how did he single-handedly manage to pry up the massive granite 
slabs? - he was reported to have been a small, weedy man. In any event, the fact that three 
different sets of footprints had been found after the second raid was never explained.
The special remainder to the Barony of Cremorne created in 1797
From the "London Gazette" of 11 November 1797 (issue 14064, page 1081):-
'His Majesty's Royal Letters being received, granting the following Dignities, Letters Patent are
preparing to be passed under the Great Seal of this Kingdom accordingly [including] to Thomas,
Viscount Cremorne, and the Heirs Male of his Body lawfully begotten, the Dignity of Baron 
Cremorne, of Dawson-Grove, in the County of Monaghan; and in Default of such Issue, to 
Richard Dawson, Esq; Nephew of the said Thomas Viscount Cremorne, and the Heirs Male of 
his Body lawfully begotten.'
Robert Crichton, 8th Lord Crichton of Sanquhar
The 8th Lord Crichton of Sanquhar was hanged for the murder of John Turner, a fencing-
master who had put out Crichton's eye in a fencing match five years earlier. The following
lengthy account is taken from a series entitled "Historic Tragedies of London Life" by
W.W. Hutchings, and which was serialized in the Adelaide 'Advertiser.' This particular
instalment appeared on 3 August 1901:-
'Among the noblemen who followed James VI [of Scotland] to England to share the good things
of which Queen Elizabeth's successor had the disposal, was Lord Sanquhar, the head of an
ancient and honourable family which had held the rank of baron for some 300 years. According
to Sir Edward Coke, who drew up a report of the strange events now to be related, the baron
was "a man of great courage and wit, endeared with many excellent gifts, as well natural as
acquired." This great lawyer was the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas at the time these things
fell out, and no doubt had excellent opportunities of forming a correct estimate of Sanquhar's
character; yet it is not easy to believe that a man of true courage could ever have been guilty
of the conduct to which he allowed himself to descend.
'In 1607, four years after James Stuart came south, Lord Sanquhar was visiting at Lord Norreys'
house in Oxfordshire, and there met a fencing-master from Whitefriars, John Turner by name, 
who had been engaged to entertain the company with his feats of skill and to cross foils with
any who chose to enter the lists against him.
'Among those who challenged him was young Sanquhar, and, most unfortunately, in the course
of the fencing Turner struck his antagonist in the eye and thrust the ball out of its socket. The
eye must have been put back, for Sanquhar himself afterwards spoke of suffering less pain in it
after a while, and said that for at least two years he hoped for complete recovery.
'The injury, however, was a serious one. For many days the sufferer's life was in danger, and in
the end he completely lost the use of the damaged organ. According to Wilson, a contemporary
historian, Sanquhar brought the punishment upon himself by affronting the fencing-master and
maliciously setting himself to degrade him in the eyes of his patrons, so provoking Turner that 
he determined to make him smart for his arrogance and ill-will, without intending, however, to
punish him so severely as he actually did. This version of the affair is unsupported, and is, on
the face of it, improbable to the point of incredibility. Even if Sanquhar was guilty of
provocative behaviour, of which there is no proof, it is not to be believed that the hurt inflicted
upon him was aught but pure accident. If the young nobleman was really seeking to humiliate 
Turner in the eyes of his pupils and patrons, it was only playing into his hands to inflict upon him
an injury for which the only excuse that could be urged was lack of skill in the fencing-master. 
Sanquhar himself afterwards protested that on taking up his foil he explained he was doing so
only as a learner, and not as one that would contend with a master in his own profession, and
requested therefore that he should be treated "as a scholar," which meant that the face should
be exempted from attack; and I know of no reason for doubting this statement. To accept it,
however, is only to involve Lord Sanquhar in the greater condemnation for his subsequent
behaviour. Had he really treated the fencing-master with scorn and contumely, he might have 
been excused for believing that the wound in the eye was inflicted wilfully and in resentment.
But after the explanation he gave at the taking up of the foils, the idea that the injury was
intentional ought never to have entered his mind. This seems to have been the view generally
taken of the affair; and Turner's expression of regret was accepted as sincere by everyone 
except the sufferer himself.
Unhappily Lord Sanquhar appears from the first to have suspected malicious intent, and he
brooded over the thought until it ripened into a certainty, and the desire for revenge became a
fierce obsession. If Wilson, the contemporary writer already spoken of, could be believed, the
craving for vengeance was awakened in his soul by a casual remark of Henry the Fourth of 
France. While the Scottish noble was at the French Court the King is said to have asked him
how he lost his eye. "It was done with a sword," was his vague reply, for he was willing to have
it thought that the wound was received in more dignified circumstances than in a bout at the
foils with a common fencing-master.
'Thereupon the King enquired, "Does the man live?" which question, says Wilson, in his uncouth
style, "gave an end to the discourse, but was the beginner of a strange confusion in his working
fancy." 'Tis a pretty story, but has, I fear, no basis in fact. Lord Sanquhar himself, though
afterwards he went minutely into his motives and feelings, breathed not a syllable about this
conversation, and, had it actually taken place, it is incredible that he should have missed such 
an opportunity of representing his vengeance as having been instigated by a monarch, and a
monarch so renowned for chivalry as Henri Quatre.
'When, two years after the accident, Lord Sanquhar came back from France, he found that 
Turner was at Greenwich Palace, "playing," to use the expression of those days, before King 
James and his father-in-law, the King of Denmark; and so blind, according to his own account,
had his rage against the man become, that he at once made up his mind to seek him out and
run him through, though well aware that to commit such an outrage at the Court would be 
treated as a serious aggravation of his crime. He failed, however, to find his quarry, and, 
learning that he had gone to London, he followed him thither, but again missed him; and the
first news he could get of him in town was that, by a strange coincidence, he had gone to
Lord Norreys' place, where the original mischief was done. For the time, therefore, Lord 
Sanquhar laid aside his purpose, and took a journey to Scotland.
'The change of scene, however, did not rid him of his murderous purpose, and on finding himself
again in London, he once more set about tracking down his prey.
'He now resolved upon a change of tactics. Until this time, if he is to be believed, he had never
had any intention but to avenge his wrong with his own hand. But now, according to his own 
story, he began to despair of a favourable opportunity, for while he himself was well-known at
Whitefriars, where Turner lived, the fencing-master was not familiar to him, and he had to take
with him those who knew Turner better than himself in order to "make siccar" of his man. He,
therefore, "agreed with" two of his countrymen, who, to use his rather fine phrase, "undertook
the acting of this tragedy" - in simple words he hired a brace of ruffians to commit an act of
murder.
'My readers, I think, will not be satisfied that this is the real explanation of his decision to 
perpetrate the crime by deputy. It is most unlikely that he could have had any difficulty in
recognising the man, whom he had stood up to at the foils, and who had been almost 
constantly in his mind's eye for years; or if he had any such difficulty, what could have been
easier than to get a public character like Turner pointed out to him? Is it not a good deal more
likely that he feared that if he attacked Turner, unless he took him so completely by surprise
as to incur the contempt due to cowardice and treachery, he would be worsted, and might
even suffer more than the loss of any eye?
'However this may be, of the fact that he did "agree with" the men to assassinate Turner there
can be no doubt; but, to quote another of his euphemisms, "nothing ensued upon it." How it was
that the scheme missed fire we know not; but the probability is that the fellows decamped with
their earned money, not choosing to go any further with the sorry and perilous business.
'Sanquhar now had occasion to travel on the Continent, and was away for some time, but on 
his return, he once more set himself to compass Turner's destruction, and finally prevailed upon
two of his servants, Robert Carlisle and Gilbert Gray, to do the deed. Gray, however, could not
bring himself to such a piece of wickedness. "Repenting," says Sir Edward Coke, "of a purpose
and act so barbarous, vile, and bloody, being touched with the motion of the Holy Ghost," he
resolved to back out of the affair, and, fearing his patron's wrath, he started for Harwich to take
ship for Denmark. Carlisle was a more determined villain. Telling his master of Gray's defection, he
volunteered to carry through the business himself, and he said he would do it as soon as Turner
was back in London, even though he perished in the attempt.
'It was early in May, 1612 that Gray "fell quite off."  On the 11th of that month - five long years 
after the mischance at the foils - about 7 o'clock in the evening, Carlisle, and with him a page of
Lord Sanquhar's named Irving, came upon Turner at a tavern in Whitefriars near the fencing 
school, sitting just outside the door with a friend. Either Carlisle or Irving, or both of them, must
have had some acquaintance with Turner, for they saluted him, and he civilly invited them to
drink with him. For answer Carlisle turned round, saw to the priming of a pistol which he had
concealed upon him, cocked it, and then suddenly, wheeling around, discharged it point blank at
the man who had just offered him hospitality.  The ball entered the heart, and with the 
exclamation "Lord have mercy upon me! I am killed!" the poor fellow fell to the ground, and 
almost instantly expired.
'The murderers at once bolted, in different directions. As soon as the bystanders had recovered
from their consternation they gave chase. Carlisle made good his escape, bur Irving, the page,
being less familiar with the locality, ran into a blind alley, and before he could get out again his
pursuers were upon him, and he was secured.
'This, however, was but a partial satisfaction to outraged public feeling. It was not Irving who 
had fired the fatal shot, but Carlisle. Moreover, there was a strong suspicion that even Carlisle
was only in a legal and not also in a moral sense the principal in the crime.
'Lord Sanquhar's malice against Turner appears to have become notorious, and the suspicion 
that he was the contriver of the base and cruel deed must have been greatly strengthened by 
the fact that both Carlisle and Irving were known to be in his service. That a dastardly murder
should have been committed in open day in the City of London, and almost in the shadow of the
court, was in itself enough to move the public to anger in an exceptional degree; that the 
actual murderers should have been Scotsmen, and the probable contriver of the crime one of 
those Scottish nobles whose selection for honour and emolument by the King was keenly 
resented by his English subjects, were circumstances that greatly exacerbated an indignation
already sufficiently bitter and violent.
'Exigent and clamant, therefore, was the demand that justice be done upon the criminals and
especially upon the man in whose rancorous breast the murder had the birth.
'But there were difficulties in the way. By ordinary process of law Lord Sanquhar could not be
charged as an accessory until Carlisle, the principal, had been attainted, and this would take
a long time unless the latter could be arrested. But he fled to Scotland, and once there he
was not amenable to English law! Yet unless the King was to incur grave odium, it was
necessary that the murderers should speedily be brought to justice. James therefore set his
lawyers to work, and as the result of his counsels with them, by an unusual exercise of
sovereign authority, he issued a royal proclamation, giving all his subjects, Scottish as well as
English, authority to apprehend Carlisle and Gray, as well as Lord Sanquhar, who had made
himself scarce, having either hidden himself away in London or fled to the country. For the
production of his body, if living, the reward of £500, and if dead of £300, was offered; smaller
rewards, respectively of £100 and £50, were offered in the case of Carlisle.
'Messengers were at once dispatched hotfoot to all parts, and also to Scotland, to carry this 
proclamation and raise the hue and cry, and such was the dispatch used that Carlisle was laid 
by the heels "ere he was to warm his house" across the Tweed, and Gray at Harwich, where he
was about to embark for Denmark or Sweden. As to Lord Sanquhar, as soon as he heard that
the proclamation was to be or had just been issued, thought it prudent to give himself up, and
on the Thursday after the murder he appeared at Lambeth Palace and surrendered himself to
Archbishop Abbot. He, however, solemnly protested his innocence, and knowing that Carlisle and
Gray had both got clean away, he no doubt reckoned that it would be impossible to bring home
to him the crime, since there had been no communication on the subject between him and 
Irving, the man in custody. But when Gray was brought in the case began to wear a more 
serious look. Under examination the man made a clean breast of his share in the business, and
when Lord Sanquhar was confronted with him, in the presence of the King himself, and was
closely pressed, it was not long before he, too, broke down and confessed that the murder was
of his procurement.
'It was on the 27th of June, six weeks after the crime, that he was brought to trial in the Court
of the King's Bench, in Westminster Hall. He had claimed to be tried by his peers, but the plea
was not allowed, since though he was a lord in Scotland, he was not a peer of the English
Parliament, and so he had been lodged, not in the Tower, but in the prison of the King's Bench,
and was now indicted as Robert Creighton. Asked if he was guilty or not guilty, he embarked
upon a long speech, which is a curious psychological study.
'In form it is categorical and pedantic, such as might have been composed by a lawyer or a
theologian. As to its spirit I confess that it is not easy to take a favourable view of it. There are
profuse expressions of contrition, there is a great parade of candour, yet he admits no more than
could be proved against him, and in spite of his express acceptance of his doom as both
righteous and inevitable, it is patent that he is all along appealing to the clemency of the King.
From this point of view the address, whatever may be thought of its sincerity, was framed not
without skill. It was just such a prelection as would interest and titillate a monarch like James,
a dull, conceited, pragmatic pedant, with a voracious appetite for the coarsest flattery. 
Sanquhar enumerates categorically the points of his crime. "I have offended (1) God, (2) my
Prince, (3) my native country, (4) this country, (5) the party murdered" - his unfortunate
victim, it will be seen, comes far down in the list - "(6) his wife, (7) posterity, (8) Carlisle, and
lastly (9) my own soul." Then he takes up each point in turn, but it is his offence "unto the
King's Majesty" that he is most emphatic about. "If I had more than my life to make satisfaction
unto him I would think myself happy. And this favour I request of your lordships, that the King
may be truly informed of the sincerity of my confession, and of my hearty repentance, and if
it please him not of his favour and clemency to pardon me this offence, yet I humbly desire
that I may die in his grace and favour." He then deals with the imputation, regarding it as a 
blemish upon his reputation, which was "more dear to him than life," that although nursing
hatred against Turner in his heart he had professed to be reconciled to him. By way of reply
to this accusation he protests at great length that from the time he received his hurt he had
been consistent in his hatred, and since his first return from France had sought every occasion
of wreaking his vengeance. Feeling that he was thus making himself out as a very sorry fellow,
he declared that though he had had occasion to draw his sword both in the field and upon
sudden violences, and had both given and received hurts, yet was he never guilty of blood
unto death till now: only - and here he glances again at the King - "only I must confess that
upon commission from the King to suppress wrongs done me in my own country, I put divers
of the Johnsons to death; but for that, I hope, I shall need neither to ask God nor man for 
forgiveness.
'As the prisoner at the bar pleaded guilty, the solicitor-general, who was none other than the
great Sir Francis Bacon, tendered no evidence, but delivered himself of a long speech, 
addressed not to the court, but to the culprit himself. It was for the most part a fulsome, yet
magnificent eulogy of the King; and it was on this occasion and in this connection that Bacon
employed one of the most famous of his metaphors. "Then did his Majesty," he exclaimed,
"stretch forth his long arms (for kings, you know, have long arms), one of them to the sea,
where he took Gray shipped for Sweden; the other to Scotland and took hold of Carlisle, ere
he was warm in his house."
'The judge, Justice Yelverton, followed in the same strain of gross adulation, but not at all in
the same grand manner, and then, in the formula which is used to this day, passed the death
sentence.
'Great efforts were made by Sanquhar's friends to obtain a commutation of the capital penalty,
and Archbishop Abbot also used his influence with the King to the same end. But James was
obdurate. It has been said that he had a personal grudge against the misguided nobleman.
While Lord Sanquhar was in France, so the tale goes, someone remarked in his hearing that he
was the son of David (Rizzio); and he had failed to resent the profane witticism. The story is
probably apocryphal. At any rate, it is easy without it to understand why James refused to
exercise his prerogative of mercy. The man who could be base enough to fling a Raleigh to the
Spanish wolves who were howling for his blood, was not likely to incur the slightest risk of
giving offence to his Southern subjects by plucking Sanquhar from the gallows.
'So two days later the miserable man was brought to what is now known as New Palace Yard,
and there, before the great gate of Westminster Hall, paid the penalty of his crime, after 
delivering an address in which he declared himself to be of the Roman Catholic faith, and which
breathes a genuine contrition not to be felt in his speech at the trial. Carlisle and Irving [Gray?] 
had already suffered for their offence, on gibbets set up in Fleet-street over against the 
entrance to Whitefriars, the precinct to which their victim belonged and in which they had 
treacherously done him to death.'
The remainder to the Earldom of Cromartie and subsidiary titles created in 1861
From the "London Gazette" of 18 October 1861 (issue 22557, page 4143):-
"The Queen has been pleased to direct letters patent to be passed under the Great Seal, 
granting the Dignities of Baroness, Viscountess, and Countess of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland unto Anne, Duchess of Sutherland, wife of George Granville William, Duke
of Sutherland, by the names, styles, and titles of Baroness Macleod, of Castle Leod, in the
county of Cromartie, Baroness Castlehaven, of Castlehaven, in the same county, Viscountess
Tarbat, of Tarbat, in the same county, and Countess of Cromartie; and further granting, after
her decease, the titles of Baron Macleod, Baron Castlehaven, Viscount Tarbat, and Earl of
Cromartie unto Francis Sutherland Leveson Gower (commonly called Lord Francis Sutherland
Leveson Gower), the second surviving son of the said Anne, Duchess of Sutherland, and the
heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, with remainders over."
The "remainders over" referred to are fully set out in the Journals of the House of Lords 
(121 LJ p 74) and read - "and, in default of such issue [i.e. of Francis Sutherland Leveson 
Gower], to each of the other younger sons of the said Anne Duchess of Sutherland, by her
present or any future husband hereafter to be begotten, and to the heirs male of the body and
respective bodies of such sons severally and successively, one after another, as they shall be
according to seniority of age and priority of birth, the elder of such sons and the heirs male of his
body always to be preferred and take before the younger of such sons and the heirs male of his
and their respective body and bodies, and in default of such issue, unto the said Francis 
Sutherland-Leveson-Gower (commonly called Lord Francis Sutherland-Leveson-Gower) and the
heirs of his body lawfully begotten and to be begotten, and, in default of such issue, to each of
the other younger sons of the said Anne Duchess of Sutherland, by her present or any future
husband hereafter to be begotten, and to the heirs of the body and respective bodies of such
sons severally and successively, one after another, as they shall be according to seniority of
age and priority of birth, the elder of such sons and the heirs of his body always to be preferred
and to take before the younger of such sons and the heirs of his and their respective body and
bodies, and, in default of such issue, to our trusty and well-beloved Florence Sutherland-
Leveson-Gower (commonly called Lady Florence Sutherland-Leveson-Gower), daughter of the 
said Anne Duchess of Sutherland, and the heirs of her body lawfully begotten and to be
begotten, and in default of such issue to each of the other daughters of the said Anne Duchess
of Sutherland, by her present or any future husband hereafter to be begotten, and to the heirs
of the body and respective bodies of such daughters severally and successively one after 
another as they shall be according to seniority of age and priority of birth, the elder of such
daughters and the heirs of her body always to be preferred and take before the younger of
such daughters and the heirs of her or their respective body and bodies."
There is, however, a further proviso to be taken into account - "Provided that if the said Francis
Sutherland-Leveson-Gower or any other person taking under the said letters patent shall 
succeed to the Earldom of Sutherland, and there shall upon or at any time after the occurrence
of such an event be any other younger son or any other daughter of the said Anne, Duchess of
Sutherland, or any heir of the body of such other son or daughter, then, and so often as the 
same may happen, the succession to the honours and dignities thereby created shall devolve
upon the son or daughter of the said Anne, or their heirs, who would be next entitled to succeed
to the said honours if the person so succeeding to the Earldom of Sutherland were dead without
issue." The effect of this proviso is that the peerages became subject to a "shifting remainder"
so that, on certain contingencies happening, the peerages would pass from one person to
another, even though no death had intervened to cause such a change. For a fuller explanation
of a "jumping remainder" see the note under the Barony of Buckhurst.
If you can understand all that, you're doing well. The important point to note is that, while at
first glance the remainder seems to repeat itself in the eighth line of the second paragraph above 
(by going back to Francis Sutherland-Leveson-Gower), close examination will show that, for the 
balance of that paragraph the references are to "heirs of the body" rather than "heirs male of
the body." As a result, the succession was opened up so that the peerages could descend to
female heirs. 
In order to make understanding of the remainder easier, it can be summarised as follows:-
(1) to her second surviving son Lord Francis Leveson-Gower, and the heirs male of his body; 
(2) to each other of her younger sons and the heirs male of their bodies;
(3) to Lord Francis Leveson-Gower and the heirs of his body (i.e. not heirs male) [with the
     result that the peerages could descend through female lines];
(4) to each other of her younger sons in priority of birth and the heirs of their bodies (again,
     not heirs male);
(5) to her daughter Lady Florence and the heirs of her body; and
(6) to each other of her daughters in priority of birth and the heirs of their bodies.
In the event, section (2) above became redundant, since the Countess had only the one son. On
the death of the Countess, she was succeeded by her son Francis, who died in 1893, leaving
two surviving daughters. As a result, the Earldom fell into abeyance until 1895 when the 
abeyance was terminated in favour of the elder daughter.
David Godfrey Bewicke-Copley, 6th Baron Cromwell
Lord Cromwell died after being thrown from his horse in August 1982. The following report of the
inquest into his death appeared in "The Guardian" on 11 September 1982:-
'Lord Cromwell suffered severe brain damage when he was thrown twice by a partly-trained
horse, an inquest in Coventry was told yesterday.
'Grey Lad, the four-year-old gelding that threw him, and his two other horses were destroyed
on his widow's orders two days after his death.
'Lord Cromwell was exercising Grey Lad in a field when the horse lunged forward and he fell off,
hitting the back of his head on the hard ground. Although dazed, he insisted on remounting
and riding away but moments later stable staff again saw him fall and land on his head.
'He died four days later in a Coventry hospital. The Coroner, Mr. Francis Kenderdine, recorded
a verdict of accidental death on Lord Cromwell, the Government's senior stockbroker, of the
Manor House, Great Milton, Oxfordshire.
'There was no doubt his fatal injuries were caused by one of the falls Mr. Kenderdine said.
'Lady Cromwell told the coroner that her husband wore a top hat when out hunting, but at
other times he seldom wore anything on his head.'
John Michael Inigo Cross, son of 2nd Viscount Cross (23 March 1923-2 February 1951)
Cross died in February 1951 after disappearing in the Scottish Highlands. The following articles
from 'The Times' describe the events:-
5 February 1951 -
'An R.A.F. mountain rescue team will join in the search today for Mr. John Michael Inigo Cross, 27,
younger surviving son of the late Lord Cross, who has been missing since Friday on the snow-
covered mountains between Loch Arkaig and Ben Nevis. They will operate from Fort William,
Inverness. A rescue party of 84 experienced hillmen and police searched 40 square miles in the
area yesterday and on Saturday.
'Mr. Cross, who is factor for the West Highland Estates, lives at Glenan House, Fort William. He
visited the Glendessary forest on Friday with the Inverness county agricultural committee and a
fencer to inspect the deer fences, and arranged to meet them later. He failed to turn up.'
7 February 1951 -
'There is still no news of Mr. John Michael Cross, son of the late Lord Cross, who was lost in
snowstorms on Friday night in Glendissary forest, Inverness-shire.'
7 June 1951 -
'The body of Mr. John Michael Cross, 27, factor for the West Highland Estates, was found 
yesterday by a shepherd in a burn at Caonich, Glendessary Forest, Inverness-shire. He was the
brother of Lord Cross, and had been missing since February 2.'
George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland
The following biography of the 3rd Earl of Cumberland appeared in the October 1968 issue of
the Australian monthly magazine "Parade":-
'One December day in 1589 watchers on the Cornish coast saw a little fleet of six ships creeping
slowly with tattered sails and storm-beaten hulls towards the harbour of Falmouth. As the 
vessels straggled into the anchorage they looked more like the survivors of a desperate naval
battle than the victors in one of the most sensational plundering expeditions in British maritime
history. Hundreds of wounded lay crowded on heaps of blood-soaked straw below decks. Most
of their comrades were emaciated by starvation and shaking with fever. Their commander, the
dashing piratical Earl of Cumberland, was so weak that he had himself lashed to the foremast of
his flagship as he piloted his squadron into harbour.
'Yet Cumberland's fouled and leaking ships were, in fact, floating treasure houses, laden with
golden loot worth the equivalent of $600,000 from the galleons of Spain and Portugal. For six
months he had roamed the central Atlantic, capturing, sinking or burning at least 15 ships in a 
foray that struck terror into the proud navy of the King of Spain. Queen Elizabeth greeted him
as one of her greatest heroes, worthy to rank with Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher and the other
adventurers who scourged the seas wherever the warships and treasure galleons of Spain were 
to be found. To the Spanish, of course, Cumberland and his compatriots were simply red-handed,
pirate cut-throats, outlaws beyond the pale of civilization or mercy if they were caught. Five 
times he led his marauders out into the Atlantic treasure routes, bringing home a mass of plunder
rivalled only by the exploits of the "dragon of the sea," Sir Francis Drake.
 
'He should have been one of the richest men in England. But money flowed like water through
the hands of the swaggering, dissipated and wildly extravagant Earl of Cumberland. He wore
Queen Elizabeth's diamond­studded glove as a favour in his hat. But the monarch who had
personally reaped a huge share of his plunder refused even to help pay the debts that over-
whelmed his last years. At 47, the glittering Lord Cumberland was dead - bankrupt, broken in 
spirit, but leaving a name that was to haunt the Spanish Main for a generation afterwards.
'He was born George Clifford at Brougham Castle in Westmoreland in August 1558 and succeeded
to his father's title as third Earl of Cumberland at the age of 11. The Cliffords were among the
greatest magnates of the north of England. Young Cumberland inherited a princely estate and
quickly set about squandering it in a princely fashion. He was still in his teens when he wed
the daughter of his guardian, the Earl of Bedford, but soon deserted his bride to plunge into a
courtier's life of gambling, hunting and fantastic expenditure on clothing and jewels. By 1585 he
had run through most of his fortune. He decided that the speediest way to recoup it was to turn
to the sea. 
 
'Queen Elizabeth's court was ringing with the exploits of the great captains who sailed out in their
small, well-armed ships to harass England's inveterate foe, King Philip of Spain. They pounced on
the ponderous galleons bound for Cadiz with the gold of Mexico and Peru. They spread fire, terror
and destruction among the Spanish colonies in the Americas.
'Cumberland was not a born seaman like Drake or Hawkins. But the peacock courtier-turned-
pirate was to prove as tough and brilliant a navigator as any other Elizabethan captain. In 1587,
with three cockle-shell vessels he cruised down the South American coast from the Caribbean to
the River Plate. The prizes scarcely paid the cost of the expedition, but only a year later the
aftermath of the Spanish Armada provided a turning point in Cumberland's fortunes. 
 
'During the historic battle off Dunkirk as the huge Armada sailed up the Channel, Cumberland
commanded the 600-ton Bonaventura, one of the biggest ships in the English Navy. Steering
headlong into the heart of the action he attacked the giant San Felipe, killed 200 of her crew,
set her on fire and drove her out of the battle. Wounded three times he then sailed up the
Thames to Tilbury, the first man to inform Queen Elizabeth of the epic tidings that the Armada
was beaten, scattered and in full retreat. The jubilant Queen promised the messenger any favour
he cared to name. It was a warship that Cumberland wanted, a powerful, heavily armed vessel
to lead his next foray against King Philip's galleons.
 
'By June 1589 he was at sea again, and the Queen's ship Victory and five smaller craft, which he
equipped himself by pledging the last of his ancestral estates. Officially it was a naval expedition,
but Cumberland knew that nobody, least of all the Queen, would inquire too closely where his 
plunder came from. And few of Britain's sea marauders ever came home with the staggering haul
of gold and silver plate, gems, coin and spices that the Earl of Cumberland collected in the next
six months. Before he left the Channel he had sunk three big French merchantmen bound from
the Mediterranean, an act of blatant and ruthless piracy, though he put the crews ashore 
unharmed. Off the Portuguese coast he looted and burned several galleons laden with spices,
silks and jewels from the East Indies, meeting little resistance from the unwieldy enemies. But
his most sensational coups came a few weeks later as he cruised round the islands of the Azores
in the central Atlantic.
 
'The Azores were a customary staging point for the Spanish treasure fleets returning with ingots
of gold and silver from the fabulous American mines. They were also a favourite lurking place for
the English sea wolves. On the day when he sighted the islands Cumberland fell on a Spanish
galleon, boarded her after desperate fighting and seized gold worth $200,000 before sinking her.
A week later, learning that seven ships were sheltering at Fayal, he steered boldly into the 
harbour in the teeth of a fierce cannonade from the fortress and plundered them all, one after 
the other. Next he appeared off the towns of Graciosa and Santa Maria, seizing, plundering and
burning more rich prizes under the very eyes of the terrified inhabitants. Only his attempt to
capture Santa Maria itself ended in bloody disaster when two-thirds of his landing party were
killed or wounded by point-blank fire from the forts.
 
'His ships now crammed with loot, prisoners and wounded, Cumberland decided to sail for home,
the start of a voyage that degenerated into a nightmare of suffering. Atlantic storms beat the
fleet hundreds of miles off its course. Fever raged virulently among the crews. Thirst and
starvation increased the toll of horrors. By the time Cumberland reached the Channel half his
men were dead and the remainder existing on a spoonful of vinegar and a fistful of maggoty
flour a day. Yet, on the quays of Falmouth, the gaunt, yellow-faced survivors unloaded a mass
of treasure that made the pirate Earl the national hero of the day.
'Queen Elizabeth profited hugely from her share in financing the enterprise and she willingly
supplied another warship when Cumberland set out again in 1592. This time he joined with Sir
John Burgh [1562-1594] off the Azores in capturing and burning the Madre de Dios, known to 
seamen round the world as the "great galleon" and the biggest and richest ship afloat on the
seven seas. The exploit was tarnished by a furious quarrel between Cumberland and Burgh
over the division of the spoils, for the Earl's dissolute life between voyages had again embroiled 
him in enormous debts. [The result of the quarrel between Cumberland and Burgh was the 
latter's death - he was killed in a sword duel with a man named John Gilbert]. Eventually
Cumberland lost most of his claim, but the Queen advanced him the equal of $70,000, cannily
insisting on being repaid with extortionate interest after his next expedition.
 
'Though he made two more cruises as far afield as Brazil and the Gulf of Mexico he never 
repeated the sensational hauls from the Azores fleet and the "great galleon." In 1594 he swooped
on the famous Portuguese merchantman, the Cinco Llagas and left her a burning hulk after taking
off 200 chests of cinnamon, rubies and pearls. For the next three years he ornamented Queen
Elizabeth's court, the close friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, writing sonnets, gambling, fascinating
the Queen by his gallantry and piling up another mountain of debts.
 
'Desperate need for money drove him back to the sea again and, early in 1598, he began fitting
out the biggest and costliest of all his expeditions. With more loans from the Queen and admiring
courtiers he built for himself the 'Scourge of Malice,' one of the most powerfully armed ships that
had ever been launched from the royal dockyard in Deptford on the Thames. Twenty smaller
vessels were collected and the celebrated soldier, Sir John Berkeley, was enlisted as second in
command of the 1,200 sailors, gunners and pikemen. 
 
'On March 6, 1598, the most imposing piratical fleet that left the shores of Elizabethan England
sailed from Plymouth and steered out into the Atlantic. First Cumberland cruised south to the
Canary Islands hoping to catch Portuguese East Indiamen lumbering up the west coast of Africa
from the Cape of Good Hope. But prizes were few and small so the Earl crossed to Brazil and then
to the West Indies for a massive descent on the settlements of the Spanish Main. His main target
was San Juan, capital of the island of Puerto Rico, which Cumberland planned to capture and use
as a base for further operations. 
 
'On June 6 San Juan was stormed in a lightning assault that took the Spanish completely by
surprise. Then Cumberland's ambitious plans steadily began to go wrong. A fearful outbreak of
yellow fever decimated the English invaders, already weakened by heavy losses in the battle for
the town. Leaving Sir John Berkeley in command at San Juan, Cumberland sailed off to hunt down
treasure ships, but news of the English onslaught had already sent the galleons scurrying to the
nearest harbours for refuge. When the Earl returned to Puerto Rico he found that Berkeley had
abandoned the fever-riddled ruins of San Juan, leaving only the graves of 400 of his seamen.
 
'Failure of the grandiose West Indian expedition was a crushing blow to the debt-haunted Earl
of Cumberland. Back in London he tried vainly to raise money to equip another foray. The Queen
turned a deaf ear. Formerly flattering courtiers coldly rebuffed him and creditors pursued him
relentlessly. When he died on October 30, 1605, he possessed not a penny of the vast treasure
hoard he had brought home from his far-flung pirate adventures.'
 
William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (creation of 1726)
 
The following biography of Cumberland appeared in the December 1957 issue of the monthly
Australian magazine "Parade":-
'The ne plus ultra in bloody infamy is the distinction accorded by Englishmen to George, 1st
Baron Jeffreys, "The Hanging Judge." Among Scotsmen this dubious honour is reserved for
William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, "The Butcher of Culloden," who routed the forces of
Charles Edward Stuart, the Young Pretender, in his gallant but abortive bid for his lost
inheritance of the English throne in April, 1746, on Culloden Moor. In the ensuing blood-bath,
Cumberland secured the Highlands to the English Crown by "making a desert and calling it peace."
 
'A massive, moon-faced 20-stoner, the son of George II, second Hanoverian king of England,
Cumberland was as thick in the head as he was in hocks and hips; and it was to his unimagin-
ativeness that many of his cruelties were due. Cumberland had the virtues of cautious courage
and dependability but the vices of brutishness and indifference to human suffering. Boorish, dull,
stolid, he stands forever as the Villain in a romance of history in which Charles Edward Stuart
was the Prince Charming. Fortunately for posterity Cumberland never married. Throughout his life 
there are only slight references to the noblewoman to whom he paid his ponderous court - and 
no record of his success in "affairs of the heart" - except for a shadowy "Miss Elliot" who lived 
under his protection for the last years of his retirement.
 
'Late in 1720 the birth of Charles Edward Stuart in Rome to the exiled Stuart Pretender to the
throne raised the hopes of the Jacobite world. Eight months later William Augustus, who was to
douse those hopes in blood, saw the light of day in England. He was the second surviving son of
of the Prince of Wales [later George II] and Princess Caroline of Anspach, and a very beautiful 
child. In a family with a dreary tradition of mutual hatreds between fathers and sons, it was
unusual that both his grandfather, George I, and his parents doted on him.
 
'His father had hated his father [George I] and when he became King of England in 1727 as
George II, transferred that hatred to his own elder son Frederick, William Augustus' brother, the
Prince of Wales. His father once said of him: "My dear first born is the greatest ass and the 
greatest liar and the greatest canaille [riff-raff] and the greatest beast in the whole world, and 
I heartily wish he was out of it." Both mother and son tried to deprive Frederick of his right of
accession to the English throne and accord it to their beloved fat boy William Augustus, now 
grown into a beefy youth. They were unable to do this, but loaded riches and honours on
William in inverse ratio to the hatred they bestowed on his brother, Frederick. William's income
was lavishly increased to support his dignity as the Duke of Cumberland.
'Queen Caroline died late in 1737 after a year of bitter family strife. In the following year, at the
age of 17, Cumberland was given £12,000 a year to support him in a naval career. He was a 
failure as a sailor, and was appointed on his 20th birthday to command the Coldstream Guards.
Cumberland took to the Army like a duck to water. Two years later his father took him to the
Continent for active service. In the summer of 1743 George II, then in his 60th year, led about
40,000 British and hired Hanoverian troops to drive the French out of the Rhineland. At the battle
of Dettingen on June 27 - the last occasion in which an English king was to lead his troops in
battle - Cumberland led a brigade, and in the midst of the British victory was wounded in the leg.
'After Dettingen, Cumberland was promoted Lieutenant-General. To the mob in England he had
become "Billy the Bold" and was being described as outrageously and shockingly military. With the
he was popular enough as a hard-working, personally courageous officer, and was respected for
these qualities. But he was feared for his severity of discipline, which was counted harsh even
in an age when 1000 lashes was the customary punishment for mutiny or stealing.
'On March 6 [1745], within a few weeks of his 24th birthday, Cumberland was gazetted Captain-
General of His Majesty's land forces. He had not yet acquired the monstrous obesity of later 
years although he was tall and massive and much of the earlier handsomeness had vanished
from his lard-like face. At Fontenoy in the summer of 1745 Cumberland showed himself small fry
against Marshal de Saxe, who, admittedly, was by way of being a military genius. Billy the Bold
is said to have burst into a violent fit of crying when he lost the day and accounts were brought
in to him of the killed and wounded. But he marshalled his forces to make an orderly retreat.
 
'At home Cumberland's defeat was attributed to the cowardice or treachery of his Dutch allies.
In the autumn, when news came that the Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart, had landed in
Scotland and routed the British Army at Prestonpans [21 September 1745], Cumberland was
appealed to as the only man capable of averting the destruction of Britain at the hands of 
Charles and his wild Highlanders. Cumberland reached London in October, and the attitude of
the average Londoner was expressed by Horace Walpole: "The great dependence is on the
Duke," Walpole wrote. "The soldiers adore him, and with reason, for I am told he is a great
military genius." The French, however, are reported to have said that "they knew better than
to take him prisoner for he did them more service at the head of the British Army."
'Instead of following up his victory at Prestonpans, Charles Stuart delayed for a month; but by
December he was as far south into England as Derby. London panicked, and December 6 was
known as "Black Friday." There was a run on the Bank of England so great that cheques were
cashed in sixpences. Shops were boarded up, and all who could made plans to flee to the 
country. However, instead of marching towards London, Charles, on the advice of his Council,
retreated, for one English army under Marshal Wade and another, 10,000 strong under 
Cumberland, were converging upon him.
 
'On January 30, 1746, Cumberland arrived at Holyrood, and slept in the very bed used by Prince
Charles during his stay in Edinburgh. His presence stiffened the morale of the English Redcoats,
for although biased and brutal, he was a vigorous and capable officer, and showed himself
determined to stamp out the rebellion even if he had to exterminate the entire race of Scots to 
do it. The Duke's unpopularity grew, especially after Linlithgow Palace, birthplace of Mary Queen
of Scots and home of many Stuart kings, went up in flames the morning after his troops had 
been quartered there. Whether the fire was due to vandalism, as the Scots alleged, or to
accident, as Cumberland claimed. has never been decided.
 
'On February 6 [1746], Cumberland reached Perth, in Scotland, after having "thought fit to let
the soldiers a little loose, with proper precautions, that they might have some sweets with all
their fatigues." After passing through Perth, he had to reckon with mounting hostility. At Glamis
Castle, he was entertained by the Strathmores with all honour due to his rank; but when he
proposed to set out next day, the saddle girths of his and his escort's horses were spirited away
by the hairy laird who haunted the castle. After his delayed departure, his hosts burned the bed
"desecrated by the sleep of the German swine." As he went on his way through the little Scottish
town of Brechin, the weighty gallant blew a kiss to a pretty girl among the crowd watching him.
She showed him her back in an offensive gesture, and the Scottish villagers displayed their
contempt of him in a roar of laughter. Not all the rigours of martial law cruelly applied could
quench the courageous contempt of Scotsmen for Cumberland.
 
'At the beginning of March, Cumberland issued a proclamation offering mercy to all laying down
their arms; but the poor response led him to the conclusion that nothing would cure the 
"petulant, insolent spirit of the people" other than "some stroke of military authority and severity."
His army was not only better than the Young Pretender's in point of numbers, but immeasurably
superior in discipline, organisation, training, efficiency and supplies. The Highlanders harried the
English with guerrilla warfare, but it would have had to have been on a much larger scale to have
been effective. 
'Accordingly, on April 16, when the two armies met at Culloden, a few miles east of Inverness, 
the Highlanders were a ragged, starving and weary band, their chief weapons courage and the 
grim determination of despair. They were prevented from coming to grips with the British by a
storm of grape-shot, and within 25 minutes the battle was over, Charles was in flight, and the
day was irretrievably and hopelessly lost for the Young Pretender's cause. "The moor was 
covered with blood, and our men, what with killing the enemy, dabbling their feet in the blood
and splashing it about one another, looked like so many butchers," wrote a Hanoverian officer
under Cumberland. 
'There were only 1000 of the original 5000 Scots who entered the battle left on the field, and
of these many were murdered in cold blood during the terrible three days that followed.
Cumberland gave no quarter to his fallen foe. It is said of him that while he was riding over the
battlefield a wounded rebel grimaced defiance. Cumberland turned to Major (later General) Wolfe,
the hero of Quebec: "Shoot me that scoundrel who dares to look on us with such contempt," he
ordered. Wolfe is said to have replied: "My commission is at Your Royal Highness' disposal, but I
can never consent to become an executioner."
 
'Immediately after the battle there was a search made through the adjacent houses, and 
wounded Highlanders were dragged out and shot or clubbed to death. A number of prisoners were
rounded up in a barn which was locked and set on fire. The dead were stripped naked and left
lying on the battlefield for days, while those who wished to pass that way were obliged to ride 
over the rotting corpses. One Highlander, left for dead and unable to rise because of his wounds,
saw a coach approaching and painfully dragged himself out of its path. "The coach came so near
that the coachman made a lick at me with his whip as if I had been a dog," he later testified.
 
'The pogrom which Cumberland instituted after the blood-bath of Culloden was a terrible 
systematic massacre of wounded and fugitives. Every cottage was searched and many innocent
people were murdered. Cumberland began a methodical occupation of the country moving from
Inverness to Fort Augustus, and establishing camp there, whence he sent out a series of punitive
expeditions. Tradition has it that Fort Augustus was the scene of monstrous orgies, with the 
wives of rebels stripped naked and made to ride horseback races for the entertainment of the
British soldiers and their camp followers. All Scots, even the poorest tenants, were dubbed
suspect of having taken part in the rising and were systematically deprived of their flocks and
grain. Along the main roads, soldiers hunted down the Jacobites, and virtually wiped out many
clans, in pursuit of Cumberland's policy of devastation and plunder.
'The news of the victory at Culloden reached London on April 25. The House of Hanover and
the Whigs had had a bad scare and, delirious with joy, backed up Cumberland, the Great Man
of the Hour, in his policy of revenge. His father made him a gift of £10,000, and to evidence
the nation's gratitude an income of £40,000 a year was granted him by Parliament in addition
to his income as a Prince of the Royal House. Portraits of the triumphant Duke were sold in the
streets, his name was a popular toast in alehouses, and his image was hung outside dozens of 
inns. (In Scotland, however, the eyes were always picked out of the signs.) As one British
rhymer put it fulsomely, "Sweet William ruled the day." Handel composed "Judas Maccabeus" in
celebration of his triumphant return to London in July from the now silent, sullen and deserted
Highlands. His only regret in this dreadful affair was that he could find no one to betray the
fugitive Young Pretender for even the £30,000 of "blood-money" he had offered. 
'Another sound trouncing at the hands of the French under Marshal de Saxe, upon his return
to the Continent, however, took some of the "starch" out of Cumberland. He was appointed to
the sinecure of Ranger of Windsor Forest, and settled down to the life he liked best - hunting,
horse-breeding, dicing, and gambling on a mammoth scale. Public opinion was reacting against
the acclamations given him after Culloden. When it was proposed to give him the freedom of
one of the city's ancient Companies, one of the aldermen cried out: "Then let it be of the
Butchers" - and afterwards, Cumberland's nickname of "Butcher" stuck.
'By 1749, to the bewilderment of his ageing father, Cumberland's name had become a byword
for barbarous and arbitrary discipline. Horace Walpole wrote: "His savage temper increases every
day....He loves blood like a leech." Walpole was commenting on the Duke's avowed determination
to keep a certain court-martial sitting for six months if need be, to force it to increase its order
of 200 lashes for a soldier who had overstayed his leave by a single day! He had already attained
the gross obesity which oppressed him like a deformity. At a ball given by his crony, the dull rake
Lord Sandwich, he tumbled down in the middle of a country dance and "lay like a turtle on the 
top shell, for his face could not reach the ground by some feet."
 
'By 1750 Cumberland was one of the wildest plungers in England, losing as much as £10,000 on 
a boxing wager and gambling away as much as £30,000 in a single night. The following year - 
when "poor Fred" his brother died, and old George II not only absented himself from the funeral
but allowed no fitting funeral ceremony - English opinion expressed itself: "If it had only been
William; if it had only been 'the Butcher'," Englishmen said. In 1757 Cumberland was again abroad
as Commander-in-Chief. He was defeated at Hastenbeck and agreed to the shameful conditions
imposed by the French [in the Treaty of Kloster-Zeven, 8 September 1757] to disband his army 
and evacuate Hanover. Discredited, he returned to England, where his disgrace was completed 
by his father's furious refusal to ratify the conditions of the surrender.
'Cumberland retired to private life and meddled with politics, doing what he could, after the death
of his father in 1760 and the accession of his nephew, to displace the ministry of Lord Bute, 
George III's former tutor and a Scot, and backing Pitt, the people's idol. He was already a victim
of gout and in 1764 the wound he had received at Dettingen broke out afresh. He died in October
of the following year.'
Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland and Strathearn
Prince Henry Frederick was a younger brother of King George III. In keeping with family tradition,
Henry Frederick was alleged to have married, in a secret ceremony on 4 March 1767, one Olive
Wilmot, who reputedly gave birth to a daughter, Olivia, in 1772. It is with Olivia and her 
daughter Lavinia that we are concerned with in this note.
Olivia was an imposter who attempted to claim that she was the daughter of the Duke of 
Cumberland. Her story can be found in old editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the following
being from the 11th edition.
Olivia was born Olive Wilmot, the daughter of Robert Wilmot, a house painter and embezzler, in
Warwick. At the age of 10 she was sent to board with her uncle, James Wilmot, rector of 
Barton-on-the-Heath. In 1789 she rejoined her father in London. She had a talent for painting 
and studied art with John Thomas Serres (1759-1825), marine painter to George III, and she
married Serres in 1791. They had two daughters. Olive exhibited her paintings at the Royal 
Academy of Arts and the British Institution, but was financially reckless; both she and her
husband were imprisoned for debt. The Serres came to a parting of the ways, with acrimony
on both sides; from Serres because Olive had had several affairs when he was away, and from
Olive because she was given an allowance of only £200 per annum. George Fields, an artist 
friend, moved in with Olive and she gave birth to his son prior to her divorce in 1804. She then
devoted herself to painting and literature, producing a novel, some poems and a memoir of her
uncle the Rev. Dr Wilmot, in which she endeavoured to prove that he was the author of the
Letters of Junius.
In 1817, Olive wrote a letter to the Prince of Wales, claiming that she was the natural daughter
of Prince Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland by Mrs Olive Payne (who was James Wilmot's
sister and her actual aunt). She asked the Prince for financial support. In a petition to George
III, she put forward a claim to be the natural daughter of the Duke of Cumberland, the King's
brother.
In 1820, (after her father, her uncle and King George III had died) she revised her claim. James
Wilmot, she claimed, had secretly married the Princess Poniatowski, sister of King Stanislaus I
of Poland, and their daughter had married the Duke of Cumberland in 1767 at the London house
of a nobleman. Olive claimed to be the only child of this marriage, and that her mother had died
'of a broken heart' on the Duke of Cumberland's 'second' and 'bigamous' marriage to Anne Horton
(the Duke had actually only married once, the 'first' marriage being a fabrication by Olive).
She herself, ten days after her birth, was, she alleged, taken from her mother, and substituted
for the still-born child of Robert Wilmot. According to Olive's fantasies, King George III had
learned the 'truth' and had given her £5,000 in cash and a yearly pension of £500 for life. She
also claimed to have received support from the King of Poland and to have been created 
Duchess of Lancaster by George III in May 1773, which, she said, entitled her to the income
of the Duchy of Lancaster. In a memorial to George IV she assumed the title of Princess Olive
of Cumberland, placed the royal arms on her carriage and dressed her servants in the royal
liveries.
Mrs Serres' claim was supported by documents, and she bore sufficient resemblance to her
alleged father to be able to impose on numerous gullible people. In 1821, she had herself
rebaptized as the daughter of the Duke of Cumberland at Islington Church, and 'announced' 
her parentage in several letters to the newspapers and in pamphlets. She actually succeeded
in obtaining some courtesies in response to her claims of royal status, such as being permitted
to pass through the Constitution Gate.
The same year, however, she was arrested again for debt and placed in the King's Bench 
Prison. She appealed to the public for contributions, placing posters reading 'The Princess of 
Cumberland in Captivity!' all over London, and publishing, in 1822, further details of her claims.
On her release, she had an affair with Sheriff J W Parkins, a London eccentric, who turned
against her when she failed to honour her debts to him. She next had an affair with a young
man who called himself William Henry FitzClarence, who claimed to be the illegitimate son of
the Duke of Clarence.
Olive managed to persuade Sir Gerard Noel, an aged member of Parliament, to make inquiry into
her claims, but by this time the royal family were fighting back, having located her birth
certificate, a statement by Robert Wilmot stating that she was her natural and lawful father,
and a statement from Princess Poniatowski that none of King Stanislaus' sisters had ever been
to England. In 1823 Sir Robert Peel, then Home Secretary, speaking in Parliament, responded to
Noel's speech in Olive's favour with a denunciation of her documents as forgeries and her story
as a fabrication. It was concluded that her claims were false, but Olive escaped prosecution
for forgery.
Her husband, who had never given her pretensions any support, expressly denied his belief in
them in his will. Olive continued a shadowy existence in and out of debtors' prisons. In 1830
she again published a pamphlet staking her claim on royalty……Mrs Serres' pretensions were
probably the result of an absurd vanity. Between 1807 and 1815 she had managed to make 
the acquaintance of some members of the Royal family, and from this time onwards seems to 
have been obsessed with the idea of raising herself, at all costs, to their social level. The
tale once invented, she brooded so continuously over it that she probably ended by
believing it herself.
                                                 *****************
Olive died in November 1834. It will be recalled that Olive had two daughters by John Thomas 
Serres. The older of these two was Lavinia Serres (1797-1871) who married a painter, Anthony
Ryves in 1822, divorcing him in 1841 because he refused to acknowledge her as 'Princess
Lavinia'. She kept up her mother's fight and added a new touch to the campaign which, if
accepted, would have made her a claimant to Queen Victoria's throne. Lavinia revealed that she
was in possession of documents which proved that, before he had married Queen Charlotte,
George III had married a Quaker named Hannah Lightfoot in April 1759. If this secret marriage
could be proved, it meant that all of George III's children by Charlotte were illegitimate and
that the throne should have descended to the descendants of the Duke of Cumberland - i.e.
Lavinia. 
In 1866, she took her claim to court where, one by one, a mass of documents were produced
with most being dismissed as forgeries. The jury didn't leave the box to reject Lavinia's claim.
The authorities impounded all of Lavinia's documents and suppressed all evidence relating to
Hannah Lightfoot, for which they were criticized in the newspapers.
 
Lavinia's claim regarding Hannah Lightfoot must be treated as being without foundation. Even
if Hannah did marry the future George III in 1759, it would have been a bigamous marriage,
since Hannah was already married to an Isaac Axford at the time.
                                                 *****************
The following lengthy article appeared in the 'Manchester Times' on 4 November 1898, part of a
series by Dalrymple Belgrave called "Romances of High Life." Reference is made in the article to
a book attributed to Lady Anne Hamilton [d 1846], daughter of the 9th Duke of Hamilton. Some 
of the contents of this book - for example the story that the real author of the Letters of Junius 
was Dr. James Wilmot, and references to Hannah Lightfoot - indicate that perhaps Olivia Serres
may have had some role in its compilation. The book was published in 1832, and was speedily
suppressed. My copy is a reprint dated 1883.
'In the year 1866, a Mrs. Ryves took advantage of the Legitimacy Declaration Act [1858] to bring
a matter before the Divorce Court that had amused the curious of a past generation. It was then
forty-four years since the public had first heard of the claims and wrongs of a certain person who
called herself Princess Olive of Cumberland. At no time were those pretensions believed in by any
persons of sense who had taken the trouble to examine into them, while their absurdity had more
than once been publicly exposed. Mrs. Ryves, who brought the suit in the Divorce Court, was the
daughter of the lady who claimed to be the Princess Olive of Cumberland. The latter lady was 
born as far back as 1772, and for a large portion of her life nobody even doubted the fact that
she was the daughter of Robert Wilmot, house painter, of Warwick. As the daughter of Robert
Wilmot she was baptised at St. Nicholas's Church, Warwick, on April 15th, 1772, and as her 
father and mother were people in a humble position of life, but good character, there could be 
few people about whose birth there was less doubt or romance.
'Much of Olivia Serres's early life was spent at the house of a bachelor uncle, the Rev. James
Wilmot, D.D., who was rector of Barton-on-the-Heath, Warwickshire, and a Fellow of Trinity
College, Oxford. Dr. Wilmot was an old-fashioned Oxford don, devoted to port wine and to books.
His devotion to the former however, is said to have grown, and while he attended to his cellar
his niece Olivia had the free run of his library. It is said that in his library there were a good many
specimens of that type of work which is described as "top shelf books" - that is to say, works of
a former age in which the higher morality or otherwise of a latter age finds very much to take
exception to. To these books the young lady seems to have devoted a good deal of her 
attention. Her old uncle, who had an exalted opinion of his own talents, and the brilliancy of his
University career, considered that a hard fate had condemned him to rust away in a country
rectory. This made him rather an ill-tempered old gentleman, but his talk about Oxford and the
great people he had known there always found a willing listener in his niece.
'When she was 17 years old her father, who had gone to London and established himself there in
trade, had her back to live with him. Mr. Robert Wilmot, though only a house painter, had shown
some taste for art, and had painted some pictures of Warwick Castle. This had led to his 
becoming acquainted with a well-known artist, John Thomas Serres [1759-1825], who was the
son of Dominic Serres [1722-1793], the Marine Painter to King George III, to which post he after-
wards succeeded, and who had come down to Warwick to paint the castle and grounds.
'Serres had helped the house painter in his trade, and had some acquaintance with him in London,
and calling at the house after the arrival of the young lady he was at once much struck with her.
She was a very pretty girl, and very lively and clever; and although people who knew much 
about her, even when she was young, seem to have mistrusted her, it is not perhaps surprising
that the artist - who was then a man of thirty - should have fallen in love with her. She seems
to have had some talent for painting, and it was arranged that he should give her lessons. The
lessons ended by his becoming engaged to marry her. At that time Serres had arranged to pay
a three years' visit to the Continent for the purpose of studying art, and his plans were not
changed by his engagement, which, it was arranged between them, should be kept secret.
'As soon, however, as he had left the young lady announced her engagement. Serres's father
seems to have greatly disapproved of it, and to have tried to break it off. The young man,
however, was very much in love, and after he had been on the Continent for about a year was
brought back to England by a letter from Olivia, who had been sent back to her uncle's, and
found the old gentleman's temper more trying than ever. Serres returned, and though some of
his friends had a good deal to tell him against the young lady, he refused to listen to anything
against her, but hurried down to the Warwickshire Rectory. There they agreed that the marriage
should be hastened on, and on September 17th, 1791, they were married by Dr. Wilmot, at
Barton-on-the-Heath Church. After they left the church, the old gentleman gave him some rather
remarkable advice. "Serres," he said, "she is now your wife; but mind, keep her employed, or she
will be plotting some mischief." Before very long Serres had reason to see how much wisdom
there was in the warning. Of course, she made him quarrel with his family, whom she did not
forgive for opposing the marriage, though they tried to make the best of it when it could not be
helped. She began to be jealous of him, and then she very soon gave him cause to be jealous of
her. Serres, as the son of a painter to the King, had some acquaintance with some members of
the Royal Family. Mrs. Serres informed him that the Duke of Cambridge had paid her a visit, and
had made love to her. The next day, when they were out for a walk together, Serres made a
low bow to a gentleman, who said, "How d'ye do, Serres?" "Who is that?" asked Mrs. Serres. Her
husband informed her that it was her imaginary lover, the Duke of Cambridge. Many of her 
injuries to her husband were less shadowy. She spent a great deal of money, and got him into
debt, and after some years there was a separation between them. It only lasted for a few 
months, when Serres, who was as much in love with her as ever, made it up again. Shortly
afterwards his father died, and he was appointed Marine Painter to the King in his stead. Part
of his duty was, during the war with France, to go into harbours on the enemy's coast and make
sketches. For this he was allowed a ship and paid £100 a month. When he came back from this
service he found that his wife had not only been spending a great deal of money, but she had
signed his name to bills and to a bond for £150. Under these circumstances he became bankrupt
rather than convict her of forgery. After that they lived some wretched years together. Serres
was still in love with his wife, though he often seems to have had very good reason to be
suspicious of her conduct. At last they separated.
'After their separation Mrs. Serres, who had shown a great talent for her husband's art, gave
lessons in painting. Amongst her pupils were some members of the Royal Family, and she in 1806
was appointed landscape painter to the Prince of Wales. She also began to write books, 
publishing "Olivia's Letters to her Daughters," and a work on the Athanasian Creed. Serres, it is
said, told a friend that the title of the former work ought to be "Olivia's Letters to her Daughters,
or Satan Reproving Sin." About this time there began to be signs that the life she was leading,
and the dangerous excitement of having some slight acquaintance with persons of exalted rank,
was having an injurious effect upon her reason. In 1808 she began an incoherent correspondence
with the Prince Regent. She offered to lend him £20,000, and at the same time she begged him
for pecuniary assistance. She compared him to Julius Caesar, and she talked in a mad way about
the politics of the illustrious persons of the day. In one letter she asked: "Why, sir, was I so
humbly born?" The matter of birth is one which most persons believe cannot be mended. Mrs. 
Serres, however, appeared to have thought otherwise. Her uncle, Dr. Wilmot, had died in 1808,
and in 1813 she wrote an absurd memoir of the old clergyman, in which she represented him as
a person of great social and political influence, and on obviously absurd grounds asserted he had
written the Letters of Junius. In a second pamphlet on the same subject there was a good deal
about the question of handwriting, which was a subject in which she was evidently beginning to
take a great deal of interest.
'In the meantime the notion that her birth was of a more romantic character than the parish 
register made out seemed to be taking possession of her. In 1817 she petitioned the King on the
subject, alleging that her father was the late Duke of Cumberland, the younger brother of his 
Majesty, and that her mother was a married sister of her father's. By 1820, however, when the
King and the Duke of Kent had died, her story had evolved into a very ingenious romance, which
made out that she was a Royal Princess. To do this she invented, first of all, a Polish Princess, 
the daughter of Stanislaus, King of Poland. To this Royal lady Dr. Wilmot, her bachelor uncle, was
secretly married. The issue of the marriage was one daughter, Olive, who was placed under the
care of Dr. Wilmot's married sister. Of course, this daughter grew up marvellously beautiful, and
two great men were in love with her. One of them was the Earl of Warwick, the other was the
King's brother, the Duke of Cumberland. The Earl gave way to the Duke, and the young lady
consenting to that arrangement, the Duke married her at Lord Archer's house in London on
March 4th, 1767, in the presence of the Earl of Warwick and James Adder, D.D. Of this marriage
there was also one daughter, Olive, who was substituted for a still-born child of Mrs. Robert
Wilmot, her grandfather's sister-in-law, and brought up as their child.
'Such was the story by which this lady who would be a Princess got rid of the very obvious and
substantial evidence of her humble birth. And this story was, so she declared, in a statement
which she addressed to the English people, proved by an immense quantity of documents which
she had in her possession; and professed to have obtained from the late Duke of Kent. At this 
time she obtained a carriage from a confiding tradesman, and had the royal arms painted on it,
and drove out in it with her servants dressed in the royal livery. A paper called the "British
Luminary" took up her case, and every week published a good deal about her. She failed, 
however, to attract much attention. Still, however, she was full of resources in hitting upon
expedients to come before the public. One day an evening paper wrote that "the public would be
a little amused and surprised to hear of the baptism of a full-grown Princess, which took place
at Islington Church a few days ago. About eleven o'clock of the forenoon of Thursday last a
carriage apparently of a person of rank, was observed standing at the door of the curate's 
house, and was soon after driven to the gate of the churchyard. The curiosity of the neighbours
was much excited on seeing a portly, well-dressed dame, apparently about 50, handed from the
coach by a dashing young fellow about half her age. They stayed for some time in the church,
and those who looked into the parish register afterwards found baptised Olive, daughter of
Frederick Henry, Duke of Cumberland, and Olive, his first wife, born 1772."
'The same paper afterwards published a letter from "Princess Olive," written in the third person,
and stating that the person who accompanied the Princess was a relative, William Henry 
FitzClarence, Esq. Her Royal Highness, wishing "to approach her God and to satisfy the English
nation as to her legitimacy, adopted the called-for measure - bound by every principle of
conscientious honour to respect the religion which so eminently distinguished Great Britain, and
preserved its eternal repose amidst the turmoil of surrounding States." What was perhaps not a
very unusual occurrence in her life, an arrest for debt, gave her an opportunity, for she 
petitioned the Court of Queen's Bench that as a legitimate daughter of the Duke of Cumberland,
and, therefore, one of the Royal Family, she was privileged from arrest. The court, however,
decided against her on a technical point, that she had not raised the question of privilege in time.
Her next step was a somewhat more dangerous one, for she produced what purported to be the
will of George III, witnessed by Chatham and Dunning. This document left £15,000 to "Olive, the
daughter of our brother of Cumberland." In 1822 she took proceedings in the Prerogative Court
on the alleged will, but again she was foiled by legal technicalities, for the court held that in the
case of the King's will it had no jurisdiction.
'There are always amiable persons who are looking about for oppressed individuals whose cause
they can champion, and one of them, Sir Gerard Noel, a county member [for Rutland], and a
baronet of old family, was attracted by the wrongs of the Princess Olive. In 1823 he brought her
case forward before the House of Commons, and, presenting a petition from her, moved that a
Committee of the House should be appointed to consider it. A more celebrated politician seconded
this motion - namely, Mr. Joseph Hume; but he was careful to state that he only wished to say 
that he considered that her case should be inquired into, and that he expressed no opinion as to
its merits. This brought a reply from Sir Robert Peel, that appeared at the time to be perfectly
crushing, in which he alluded to the inconsistent pretensions that she had made at other times,
and giving other reasons for treating her claims as based on fraud or delusion. In 1825, Serres,
who, on account of his wife's extravagance, was always in difficulties, died in the Rules of the
King's Bench Prison, and about this time Mrs. Serres herself was arrested for debt, and lived
within the Rules of the King's Bench Prison until her death in 1834. She left a daughter, Lavinia,
who had been brought up by her  and had been educated in an atmosphere of make-believe and
delusion. This daughter married, and for some years seems to have not troubled about her claims
to illustrious birth, or at all events they did not come before the public. Her marriage, however,
was not a happy one, and she obtained a judicial separation from her husband. After that event
she seems to have taken a renewed interest in her claims. She at first tried to take proceedings
on the alleged will of George III in the Court of Chancery, but there were legal obstacles in her
way. Then she published an appeal to Royalty, a pamphlet setting out her claim to be called
Princess Lavinia of Cumberland and Duchess of Lancaster.
'This publication was remarkable because it published what purported to be the marriage 
certificate of George III with Hannah Lightfoot, the Quakeress. There had been some mention of
this story before in a book of "Memoirs of the Court," which were supposed to be by Lady Anne
Hamilton. That lady, however, had nothing to do with the book, which was full of scandalous
falsehoods, many of which still occasionally find their way into print, and there is much in the book 
to suggest that it was the work of Mrs. Serres, for all her absurd stories about her uncle, Dr.
Wilmot, are in it. At length the Legitimacy Declaration Act was passed, which enabled a person to
go to the Court of Probate and Divorce and obtain a judgment as to the genuineness of any
marriage from which he was descended. Mrs. Ryves [i.e. Lavinia] determined to take advantage
of this Act, but at first she was confronted with a difficulty. Her wish to prove that she was the
legitimate descendant of the Duke of Cumberland. The date when this alleged marriage with Olive
Wilmot was said to have been celebrated was before the Royal Marriage Act, which invalidated
the marriage of any descendant of George II unless with the consent of the reigning sovereign,
came into force. Therefore there was nothing to prevent it being a perfectly good marriage. The
effect of that, however, would have been that Mrs. Ryve's mother would have been a legitimate
descendant of George II. If that was the case the consent of George III would have undoubtedly
been required to her marriage to Mr. Serres. This difficulty had not been provided for, for, bulky
as the documentary evidence was, there was no consent of George III to the unfortunate 
marriage of Mr. Serres with Olivia. Possibly the difficulty never occurred to the person who could
provide the certificate until it was too late.
'Mrs. Ryves, or her advisers, seem to have hit upon a singularly childish expedient. In 1859 she
petitioned the court to declare her mother's marriage with Mr. Serres to be a valid one. Now, as 
to that marriage, which purported to be between Olive Wilmot and Mr. John Thomas Serres, there
did not appear to be any doubt or question, nor did it appear to the Attorney-general - whose
business it was to see that the Act was not used for declaring the issue of invalid marriages to
be legitimate - that there was any ground for his interference. The court therefore declared the
marriage between Mr. and Mrs. Serres to be a perfectly valid one. Mrs. Ryves, or her advisers,
appeared to think that after this had been obtained there could never be any question about the
matter; and she then, together with her son, William Henry Ryves, petitioned the court to 
declare that Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, and Olive, his wife, were lawfully married; and
that Olive, afterwards Olive Serres, was their legitimate child; and that the petitioner, Lavinia 
Ryves, was lawfully married to Anthony Ryves; and that the second-named petitioner, William
Henry Ryves, was their lawful child. This petition, of course, produced an answer from the
Attorney-general, who denied that Olive, the petitioner's mother, was the daughter of Henry
Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, and Olive Wilmot, and that the petitioner's mother was born as
set forth in the petition, or that Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, was married as set forth
in the petition. So at last the issue was raised in a court of law.
'Before the case began, however, the question of the position of the petitioner and her "locus
standi" was raised. It was pointed out that if she proved her mother's legitimacy she would
illegitimatise herself. It was agreed, however, that this question should stand over, and that the
petitioner should be allowed to proceed with her attempt to prove the marriage of Olive Wilmot
and the Duke of Cumberland. The case was opened by her counsel, who, with a good deal of
embroidery, told the romantic story of Olive Serres, and incidentally of Dr. Wilmot and the Polish
Princess. Olive and the Duke of Cumberland had been married at the house in London of Lord
Archer by Dr. Wilmot, and the marriage was witnessed by "Brooke" [the Earl of Warwick was also
Earl Brooke] and J. Adder. The counsel read the certificate, which he said was attested by 
"Chatham and J. Dunning." He also read another certificate which was exactly to the same 
effect. He stated that King George III knew of this marriage, and for this reason he was very
angry when he afterwards heard that the Duke had married Lady Anne Horton. It was in 
consequence of this that he gave orders that Olive, who was born shortly after the second
marriage, and who had been baptised by Dr. Wilmot, should be re-baptised as the daughter of
Robert Wilmot. The order was given in writing, and the learned counsel read it. "G.R. - Whereas
it is our Royal will that Olive our niece be baptised Olive Wilmot, to operate during our Royal
pleasure. To Lord Chatham." There was a declaration from Lord Warwick to the same effect.
Dr. Wilmot, so said the learned counsel, was, however, able to insist that all proceedings should
be solemnly certified by the King and other important persons, because it happened that he 
possessed a secret of the King's. It was that in 1759, three years before he was publicly married
to Queen Charlotte, the King had been privately married by that very Dr. Wilmot to a lady named
Hannah Lightfoot. It would, he gravely went on to say, be necessary to prove that fact in order
to make the declarations of Hannah Lightfoot evidence, as the declarations of the wife of the
head of the family.
'Here the Lord Chief Baron interrupted that if that was so George IV would have had no right to
the throne.
"Nor," said the Attorney-General, "would her present Majesty. I do not disguise from myself that
this is nothing less than a claim to the throne."
'The counsel went on with his statement, and read two statements in writing by J. Wilmot, one
of which was attested by Chatham and J. Dunning, that he had married George III to Hannah
Lightfoot. Then he read various other documents, two certificates of the marriage of George III
with Hannah Lightfoot, signed by the parties and by James Wilmot as clergyman, and witnessed
by William Pitt and Ann Taylor, a written declaration by George III that he created Olive of
Cumberland Duchess of Lancaster. To this the court pointed out that such grants were always
conferred by a patent under the Great Seal, but this objection did not appear to disconcert the
learned counsel, who went on reading his astounding documents. These documents he after-
wards attempted to prove by the evidence of an expert in handwriting. There were a number of
scraps of paper on which these certificates were written. Everybody appeared to have been
willing and anxious to write declarations about everything connected with the story on scraps
of paper, and most of these documents were witnessed by William Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, 
and J. Dunning. Mr. Netherclift, the expert in handwriting, expressed his opinion that all the
signatures were genuine. In cross-examination, however, he changed his mind, and expressed
his opinion that J. Dunning, which appeared on many of them, was a forgery, when it was
compared with the real signatures of Dunning, the Attorney-General of those days. There was
very little attempt made to prove the handwriting of Lord Chatham by comparison, and it was
suggested that he had the gout when he signed the documents; and at last, when a bundle of
Chatham's undoubted letters were put into Mr. Netherclift's hand, he said that if those letters
were genuine the disputed signatures were not genuine.
'Then Mrs. Ryves went into the box and told her story. She was at first to be examined as to her
knowledge of Hannah Lightfoot, and as to that lady's declaration of the marriage of the Duke of
Cumberland to Olive Wilmot. This, however, the court would not allow. Each one of the judges
expressed his opinion that the alleged certificate - in one of which George III's signature was
"George Guelph," a style of signature that had never been used by any member of his family, was
a forgery. Then she told stories of the friendly terms which she and her mother had been on with
the Duke of Kent and other members of the Royal family, and of how her mother had learnt the
secret of her birth from Lord Warwick, and how the Duke of Kent was informed of the story, and
was so moved by the news that it shortly caused his death. She was cross-examined by the
Attorney-General with the intention, so it seemed, of suggesting that her mother was insane.
She was also cross-examined about statements her mother had made in petitions which were
inconsistent with the story afterwards set up. She explained this by saying that mistakes had
been made by the lawyer who drew up the petition. The Attorney-General pointed out that in the
memorial in question offspring had been written as "orfspring." "That also was the lawyer's 
mistake," she said. Then the Attorney-General read a congratulatory ode she sent to the Prince
Regent on his birthday by Mrs. Serres:-
          Hail, valued hour orfspring of Heaven's smile,
          The great and mighty succour of this isle.
'The Attorney-General's answer was a model of quiet humour, and he suggested that the whole
case was a mixture of fraud and insanity. Mrs. Serres's fraud, he suggested, might be palliated,
because she was half insane, and Mrs. Ryves might have almost got to believe the absurd
impostures in which she had been bred up. He ridiculed the story about Dr. Wilmot and the
Princess, and the marriage of his imaginary daughter. Before he had finished speaking the jury
stopped him, and said they were all quite agreed, and, though the counsel for the petitioner
insisted on making another speech, it was obvious that the absurdity of the case was palpable
to all in court. After the jury had, without any hesitation, found against the petition, except that
Mrs. Ryves was the legitimate daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Serres, and that W.H. Ryves was the 
legitimate son of Mr. and Mrs. Ryves, the Attorney-General stated that he was prepared to prove
that Dr. Wilmot was at Oxford on the day he was said to have married the Duke of Cumberland
and Olive Wilmot in London, and that Lord Warwick had never used the name "Brooke," in which
he was supposed to sign many of the documents, as he always took the title of Greville before
he succeeded to the peerage.
'Mrs. Ryves died some years afterwards [7 December 1871], and no more has ever been heard of
her absurd claims.'
For further reading on this subject, a good summary can be found in "The Great Pretenders: The
True Stories behind Famous Historical Mysteries" by Jan Bondeson [W W Norton & Co, New York
2004] on pages 158-188.
Ernest Augustus, 1st Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale
Ernest Augustus was the fifth of George III's pack of sons, described by the Duke of Wellington
as 'the damnedest lot of millstones that was ever hung around the neck of any government.'
Whereas his other brothers were unpopular from time to time, Ernest Augustus was most heartily
hated by the English people almost all of the time.
After being tutored at home when young, Ernest was sent to the University of Gottingen and 
was then sent to Hanover to receive military training. He fought in Flanders and the Netherlands
during the wars against the French, where he appears to have been quite a competent soldier
and commander. During this period, he lost his left eye and thereafter wore a patch over it,
giving him a sinister look. Ernest blamed the loss of the eye on a war wound, but it may have 
been due to a tumour. Significantly, his son also lost an eye to a childhood illness, before losing
the other eye shortly afterwards in an accident.
He returned to England in 1799 to be given a grant of £12,000 a year and the Dukedom of
Cumberland and Teviotdale. He was described at that time as being exceedingly tall with an
air of distinction. His one eye was 'a regular piercer.'
For the next ten years, Cumberland occupied himself in military affairs and as a leader of the
right wing extremist section of the Tory party, opposing any proposed reforms. He was the
bitter enemy of the Whigs in politics, who did all they could to discredit him. 
The first major scandal of his life occurred on 31 May 1810. Cumberland had attended a concert
and had returned home a little after midnight and gone to bed. He was awakened by blows to his
head and, starting up, had made for the door of his second valet, Neale, shouting for help while
parrying the blows of an unseen attacker. Neale rushed in brandishing a poker and was ordered 
to arouse the other servants and to stop anyone leaving the Palace. At the door of the Duke's 
principal valet, Sellis, Neale and the other servants heard a gurgling noise. They went in and 
found 'a bloody razor lying by Sellis' hand and a wash-basin standing on the table with a little
water in it, appearing as if someone had been washing their bloody hands in it.' The Duke's
apartments were spattered with blood from one end to the other and the Duke himself had
received a number of wounds, the most serious of which were a deep wound to the back of 
his head and his right thumb, which had been nearly severed by the attacker's blade. Sellis
was lying on his bed, his head hanging by a shred and 'his hands straight down, and the
blood, all in a froth, running from his neck.'
Notwithstanding the coroner's finding that Sellis had attempted to murder Cumberland and had
then committed suicide, rumour strongly suggested that Cumberland had murdered his valet.
The Duke's next brush with scandal occurred in February 1813, when the Duke was accused of
attempting to corrupt a recent election for the House of Commons constituency of Weymouth
and Melcombe Regis. While this storm blew over, Cumberland commanded the Hanoverian troops
at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, one of Napoleon's worst defeats.
Even when he was abroad, however, Cumberland found a way to deepen his unpopularity. He did
this by marrying, in 1815, his first cousin Princess Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. She had
already been married twice before, firstly to Prince Frederick Louis of Prussia, by whom she had
three children, and secondly to Frederick William, Prince of Solms-Braunfels, by whom she had a 
further seven children. Cumberland's mother, Queen Charlotte, refused to receive her new 
daughter-in-law, and the House of Commons refused to grant an extra allowance to the Duke or
to congratulate him on the marriage. True to form, his Whig opponents suggested that Frederica
had murdered her first two husbands (notwithstanding that her first marriage was ended by
divorce and not death).
For the next 14 years, Cumberland and his family lived abroad, with only occasional visits to
England, but in 1829, he decided to resume residence in London. 'The Times', no lover of the
Duke, reported that, 'It is generally understood that the Duke of Cumberland will become a 
permanent inmate of the Castle. [i.e. Windsor Castle] It is said that his Royal Highness and his
august family will occupy that portion of the building called The Devil's Tower.'
In March 1829, a further and more serious scandal arose. A Captain Garth, who was rumoured to
be the illegitimate son of Cumberland's sister, the Princess Sophia, 5th daughter of George III,
and General Garth, brought an action to enforce an agreement ensuring him £3,000 a year in
return for some papers referring to his 'rank and situation in life.' These papers were never made
public, but Garth showed copies to London editors. There were references which encouraged the
rumour that Captain Garth was really the son of an incestuous relationship between Ernest
Augustus and his sister, Sophie. Again, these rumours may be true, or they may have been 
started by his Whig enemies.
This scandal had scarcely subsided before another arose - this time allegations were made that
Cumberland had made an attempt upon the virtue of Lady Lyndhurst, wife of the Lord Chancellor,
in her own drawing room. 
In February 1830, Cumberland's run of scandals continued. He was rumoured to be in a liaison 
with Lady Graves, wife of Lord Graves, who was Cumberland's Lord of the Bedchamber and 
Comptroller of his household. Lord Graves wrote to his wife saying that he did not believe a word
of the gossip, following which he rather spoiled the effect of his letter by cutting his throat. 
For further information on Lord Graves' suicide, see the note at the foot of the page containing
details of that peerage. Cumberland was hissed whenever he was recognised in the streets, 
and a mob once pulled him off his horse outside the House of Lords.
When his older brother King William IV died in 1837, Cumberland became King of Hanover, since
Victoria, as a woman, was ineligible under Salic Law which was practised in Hanover. Between
the accession of Victoria on 20 June 1837 and the birth of her first child, Princess Victoria on
21 November 1840, the Duke of Cumberland was the heir to the British throne. 
 
When he died in 1851, 'The Times' wrote: 'The good to be said of the Royal Dead is little or
none.' But the Hanoverians erected a statue to his memory and inscribed it: 'To the father of
his country from his faithful people.'
Mary Victoria Curzon, 1st wife of George Nathaniel Curzon, later Marquess 
Curzon of Kedleston (27 May 1870-18 July 1906)
Mary Victoria Leiter and George Curzon were married in April 1895. She accompanied her husband
to India when he was appointed Viceroy, such appointment meaning that she became Vicereine,
the highest official title that could be held by a woman in the Indian Empire. Her stay in India's
tropical climate, her demanding social responsibilities and an infection following a miscarriage led
to a decline in her health which culminated in her death in 1906, aged only 36.
An article in the "Los Angeles Times" of 6 Nov 1904, which discusses the superstitious nature of
Anglo-Americans, included the following comments on Lady Curzon:-
'……..those who are still wondering why the medical men in attendance on Lady Curzon allowed
her to be removed on a stretcher from Walmer Castle to the house of a friend are evidently not
aware that there is a decidedly strong element of superstition in her character. She is stubbornly
opposed to going into residence in any house that has been the scene of the last days of
eminent persons, and it is pretty well-known among her immediate friends that high political
considerations alone caused her to fall in with her husband's wish and go to Walmer Castle. She
did not forget that the late W.H. Smith died there so suddenly during his Lord Wardenship [of the
Cinque Ports] that the political party with which he was identified was denied an opportunity to
confer the usual peerage upon him. Lady Curzon shares such superstition with Lady Wolseley
whose absolute refusal to live at Walmer resulted in the resignation of her gallant husband [sic-
Lord Wolseley was never Lord Warden].
'There is also a local feeling that did not help to modify Lady Curzon's scruples. The room in
which Lord Wellington died is said to be haunted, and that it is for this and no other reason that
it is now just as it was left when the great soldier breathed his last there. Lady Curzon remembers
too that Lord Salisbury's end came while he was still Lord Warden although he passed away at
Hatfield. All these thoughts combined, working on a delicate constitution, are said to be chiefly
responsible for the sudden collapse of her ladyship. So strong have been her feelings on the 
matter that she insisted upon her mother and sister staying at the local hotel, "The Royal," -
instead of at the Castle, when they rushed to her bedside on their arrival here a week or so ago.
'Mrs. Leiter [Lady Curzon's mother] wondered why no arrangements had been made for them to
stay at the Castle, especially as she had selected her rooms in anticipation of many pleasant
visits during her son-in-law's occupation. When the reason was explained to her she willingly
submitted to her sick child's wishes and put up at the best thing that could be done for her at
the local hotel. Local gossip was busy with the suggestion that Mrs. Leiter was superstitious,
too, and that in spite of her affection for her dying daughter she would not risk staying in a 
place that had developed so suddenly such a strange reputation. It is an undoubted fact that
Lady Curzon, even at the risk of her life, demanded to be removed from the Castle.'
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