THE EARLS OF DERBY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 9685, 29 April 1893, Page 2

THE EARLS OF DERBY.

The hie Uight Honourable Edward Henry Smilli Stanley, fifteenth Earl of Derby, Knight of the Garter ; Doctor of Civil Laws, Oxford ; Doctor of Laws, Edinburgh, and Fellow of the Royal Society, whose death, on 'Saturday mornin ; last, at the ago of sixty-seven, was announced by cablegram from England, formed not one of the least distinguished members in the long lino of the noble lion c of Stanley, whose history has for eight centuries been more or less intimately connected with that of their native country, and for more than half that period with the famous County Palatine, whereof they have, generation after generation, ia iin brokon succession?, tornied one of the brightest ornaments and greatest glories. Like so many others of our English nobility, the title which, since the accession of the Royal House of Tudor, in the porson of Henry VII., has been conferred upon the Stanleys of Lathom, ls a toward for their timely suppjitof the claims of tl.at monarch to the succession, is much more modern than tin name itself, that is if the claim of the family thouiselvos be duly attested to be regarded as the descendants of the grandson of one of the numerous adventurers who came over to England in the train of the Duke of Normandy, This founder of the groat Houao of Stanley, one, do Aldithley, having married the heiress of one Thomas of Stoneley or Stanley, in the County of Stafford, assumed the name witli the estate of his wifi-. In 1405, under Henry IV., we find Sir John Stanley, who had married another wealthy heiress, after the thrifty fashion o£ his family, a lady owning the estate of Lathom, near Liverpool, succeeded in obtaining manorial and feudal rights over the Isle of Man, which, 1 beYievo, the Stanleys virtually held as late as the reign of George 11. In the Parliament called nominally by King Henry VI., at Coventry, in the autumn of the year 1459, amongst the nobility of the House of York attainted of High Treason, occurs the name of Thomas Lord Stanloy. Some what curiously, the act of attainder was presented by the House of Commons, but rejected on presentation to the Crown. At the accession of Edward IV., we find tne aamo nobleman advanced to the high position of one of the three chiefs of his Urace a Privy Council, Lords Hastings and Howard being tho other two* He also hold the office of High Steward of the Royal Household. It was, however, for their desertion of the cause of the lust of the Plantagenet Kings on Bosworth Field, Angust 22nd, 1485, an action which brought about the crushing defeat of Richard 111. and placed Henry of Richmond on the throne, that the Stanleys were first rewarded with the title of Earl of Derby ; hitherto, I bbelie,e >c, borne only by younger members of the House of Pluntagenet, e.g. the oldest son of John of Gaunt and grandson of Edward 111. This Thomas Lord Stanloy, the first of the present House of tho Earls of Derby, was otherwise in c ose family alliance with Henry VII, whoso mother, Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, he had t«ken to wife after the deuth of her first husband, Edmund Tudor, ilia brother, Sir William Stanley, wap, in 1595, executed by Henry VII. fpr high treason in the matter of Warbeck's rebellion and his rich estates escheated to that monarch. There is a curious story related, if the writer remembers rightly, by Miss Strickland in her Life of Elizabeth of Yoik, that on a subsequent occasion of a Royal visit paid to Lathom Houso, tho family jester, Btepping behind Henry VII., as he stoo i on the roof peering over the vergo of tho lofty battlementp, whispored into tho ear of h"a master, "Thonne, remember William t" accompanying the whisper by a significant push of his arms. The King, wo are told, overhearing this bloodthirsty suggestion, turned pule and rapidly withdrew from his risky position. In tho Chapel of St. Nicholas, Westminster Abbey, lie the mortal romaiaa of another of the Stanleys, Sir Humphroy, who fought at Bosworth. Sir Humphrey Stanley, says Dean Stanley, himself a ecion of the younger brunch of the sanjo illus rious house, tho Stanleys of Aldorley, is the first of the Derbye buried in that place, jq 1603, 1020, 1631. Among all tho members of tho House of Stanley, from the end of tho Mid tie Ages down to our own da}', tho name of James, seventh Earl of Derby, stands out in a conspicuous, howbeit melancholy, light, as having dovoted his fortune and sacrifi ed his life to tho hopsless cause of Charlos St. wart. In a list now before mo of tho supporters of the Royul cauee in the great Civil War, occurs the name of tlij.i gallant but lucklosg Earl of Perby, us joiqt commander, with the Eirl of Cumberland and the Marquis of Hertford, of a force of sixteen thou sand dorse and foot. Lord Derby's special post was. to defend tho Counties of Chester and Lanciibter and the Islo of Man Taken prisoner after tho decisive victory, under Crumwoil, ut Woi center, he was beheaded in the market placo tit Bolton. near Manchester. His high Hpiiited Countess, Charlolto do la Tremouii'e, uill be held for over among the most famous figures of that heroic poriod for her daunt lees defence of Li'hoin House against the Pirliamoatary forces Her portiuit is sketched, ac his magic pencil alono could, by Sir Walter Scott, in "Poveril of tho Peak." The writer has soon a fine paiuting, in oils, of her unfortunate husband, among the col lection of portraits ptcserved at Lytue Hall, Cheshire, tho ancestral seal of the I.cglis In this painting, this seventh Earl of Derby is represented with daik, almost swarthy, complexion, black hair, and large, dark, molancholy eyes. EUMONT.