A STRANGE ROMANCE OF THE PEERAGE.

Colonist, Issue 62, 25 May 1858, Page 3

A STRANGE ROMANCE OF THE PEERAGE.

(From the Court Circular.) It is a trite observation that "truth is stranger than fiction," and if what we hear about the Devonshire titles and estates be well founded, the courts of law will soon afford another evidence of the more startling incidents of reality than of romance. For half a century or more there has been bruited about a curious story respecting the birth of the late Duke of Devon-, shire.? The report has been so common that all delicacy in now alluding to the matter would be idle affectation. It is no news to. any of our readers.to be told that fame has, throughout his life, made rather free with his Grace's pedigree, and.assigned to him a parentage wholly inconsistent with the legitimate inheritance of the .rank and estates which he enjoyed to the hour .of Ji}^;death. The story ran/thjat the fifth vDukeWl)evon3hire, who married first1 in; 1774, j%|^g|Jt|r'of EM Spencer,;;:t#:-who&; be-h&d, tfo^ughfersvbecame, in" thW; course' of >a few, bdursVoii thei 21st May,;i79o;tbe";father^two children, one a daughter'(the third), by his wife, the other a son, by a lady-.pf rank; that, being anxious for a heir male, his Grace caused the illegitimate son to be substituted .for the legitimate daughter, and that the changeling succeeded to the ducal honors and vast patrimonial estates, the daughter having afterwai'ds become the wife of General E— ~.. The manoeuvre was not, however, so secretly effected, or at all events the secret was not so' well kept, as to prevent a rumour of the stratagem from reaching, the ear of Lord George Cavendish, who, in default of " heirs male lawfully begotten" df his brother the Duke of Devonshire, was the next in succession to the family titles and estates. When his brother died, and the young Marquis of HartingtOn, as the late duke was then/ called, assumed the title of the Duke of Devonshire, in 1811, his uncle, Lord George Caven-. dish, according to the report, had an interview with his Grace, and, after fully unfolding the mystery of his birth, and producing such, proofs as he deemed sufficient to sustain an action of ejectment from the estates,' for want of legal title, concluded by saying that it was not bis wish to drag his family disgracefully before the public gaze, or to disturb the young nobleman in possession, provided the Duke formally bound himself to abstain from forming any matrimonial connexion by which the inheritance of the estates arid titles might be transmitted in his line. Whether or not there be any truth in this story, or whether or not, if the substitution of one child for the other be true, there was sufficient evidence to estab^ lish the fact at the bar of the House of Lords or. in. a court of law, aire points upon which we are not called upon to offer any opinion. ' Suffice it, to say that the late. Duke of Devonshire never did4nti'j)duce any lady into -society as his wife, and is generally supposed to have lived and died a bachelor. If he made any bargain with. Lprd George Cavendish, such as tumour alleges.'•" -to been made, ';the ; latter descend«iiHs Kit; grave with the conviction that the alleged con-;; tract had been, down to that 'time, faithfully observed, and that his own heir-at-law would, in course of time* become Duke of Devonshire. And such has been the case; for upon the death of the late Duke, Lord George Cavendish's grandson, the Earl of Burlington, at once as-; sumedthe title of Duke of Devonshire, and is recognised by all the members of the Cavendish family as their rightful head. But is he so ? That is a question which, it seems, will have to be decided by the proper tribunals. There is (so we hear) a claimant to the dukedom and its magnificent appendages in the person of a son of the late Duke by a lady to whom it is positively asserted that his Grace was married by a. Roman Catholic clergyman, the lady being a. member" of that church. Such a marriage, though it might have been attended with illegality, would not be necessarily null or invalid, and the issue thereof might undoubtedly be the heir-at-law of his father, and, therefore, of the Duke^of Devonshire, if the.late duke had really been the rightful possessor of that exalted title. The, claim, if formally advanced, will necessarily raise.two important questions—lst, whether the claimant is or is not the legitimate son of the late Duke;.and, 2nrd (supposing this point established in the affirmative), whether the late Duke was or was riot the legitimate son of; his father, the fifth Duke ? The first question will, however, be the most serious ; for, if the claimant should establish his own legitimacy, the Earl of Burlington will find it rather a difficult task, in the teeth of notorious facts and circumstances, to successfully maintain his own right to the title: and estates of the Duke of Devonshire. Everybody knows that the late Duke's title was publicly recognised by the House of Lords, and by allthemembers of his own family; and it would be rather awkward in the latter now, at ,the end of nearly 50 years since his accession to the pieerage, to come forward with; a plea, of, illegitimacy in t»r of his legitimate sotf|.rights, such plea being founded tipQh 'evidence which, if it exist! \ in their possession since 1811, and hasi been; | allowed to remain dormant all that time. /We"i understand: there is no doubt at all, as to the late Duke's having left sons who succeed to very considerable property by his Grace's death, and that the claim of one of these to the patrimonial honors and estates is now going through the preliminary stages necessary to a legal investigation.; : ~