ENGLISH LORDS

Press, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 26639, 26 January 1952, Page 3

ENGLISH LORDS

1 Reviewed by JJ.S.I The Somerset Sequence. By Horatia ?, uran £' With “ Introduction by Sir Osbert SitwelL Newman Neame. 223 pp. The Duke of Berwick and His Son. Some unpublished letters and papers edited with an introduction by Sir Charles Petrie. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 112 pp. “Every Englishman loves a lord” runs the old saying, and even in these democratic days of the Common Man ? n astonishing interest still survives in the great aristocratic families who so long dominated English public life. Of these the Somersets are ■ not the least remarkable, and Mrs Duraril, herself a member of the family, has traced in a readable book their fortunes through twenty generations, beginning with John of Gaunt, the third son of Edward 111, whose heirs were given the name Beaufort from an estate once held by him in Champagne. Of semi-royal origin, the Somersets acquired vast properties in Gloucestershire and South Wales, including Raglan Castle and tiie manor of Badminton, and a bewildering variety of peerages, among them the earldom and dukedom of Somerset, the earldom and marquisate of Worcester, and finally the dukedom of Beaufort, which Charles II conferred on them in 1682. In the two great civil conflicts of English history they espoused the losing side. Two dukes of Somerset, who had fought for the Lancastrians during the Wars of the Roses, were executra by the victorious Yorkists, and the fourth Earl of Worcester is said to have expended a million pounds in the service of Charles I. He died a prisoner of the Roundheads after Fairfax’s cannon had blown in the walls of Raglan Castle. The Somersets remained Roman Catholics long after the Reformation and Tory Jacobites long after the Revolution. Yet their genius for backing lost causes, while it caused them temporary hardships, does not seem to have seriously impeded the growth of the family fortunes. At the close of the Victorian age their estates were reckoned at 51,000 acres with an annual rental of £56,000. Since the 17th century they have never been very prominent in politics and have indeed acquired more fame for their devotion to sport The fifth Duke of Beaufort is credited with the introduction of fox-hunting into England around 1760, and the game of badminton derives its name from the magnificent seat of the Somersets in Gloucestershire, where it was first played in the 1870’s. Easily the most celebrated of their race was the second Marquis of Worcester, who when the family properties were confiscated by the government of the Commonwealth, settled down quietly to scientific pursuits and claimed to have invented a hundred mechanical appliances, including a steam-engine, which he described in a book called “A Century of such Inventions as at present I can call to mind to have tried and per-, fected.” Mrs Durant, who might have said much more about him and his inventions, finds it strange that a Roman Catholic should be a scientist and makes in this connexion a rather ’ foolish and inaccurate reference to Galileo and the Inquisition which is the only serious blemish in an other- : wise excellent family history. “The Duke of Berwick and His Son" introduces us to another noble house, which, though of English origin, has long been domiciled in Spain. Its founder, a natural son of James II and Arabella Churchill, sister of the great Duke of Marlborough, accompanied his father into exile at the Revolution, entered the service of Louis XIV, and, having fought with distinction in the Spanish Sucession war, rose to be marshal of France and a grandee of Spain. A few years ago a collection of his letters and papers turned up. in a London salesroom and were bought by his descendant, the present Duke of Berwick and Alba, who for some years was General Franco’s ambassador in Britain. Sir Charles Petrie, who has long enjoyed a reputation as an interpreter of Spanish culture, has now published this correspondence with a commentary and translation of those pieces which were originally written in French or Spanish. It cannot be said that the letters are of much historical value. Most of them passed between Berwick and his eldest son and Seal mainly with family matters. The most important are a number or 1 papers drafted by Berwick between 1701 and 1708 containing plans for Jacobite descents on Ireland and Scot--1 land to restore his half-brother, the ; Pretender James Edward, to the throne of the three kingdoms. Any future 1 historian of the Jacobite movement will have to take these documents into account. The Duke of Alba, in dedicating the collection to his distant kinsman Mr Churchill, observes with pleasant wit: “A projected Invasion of England cannot, I know, meet with your approval, but 4he plans outlined here were made very many years ago and neirer implemented”!