THE TALBOTS—(MODERN PERIOD).
THE recurrence to the old stock did not improve the wearisome mediocrity which seems the doom of a family who, while they have never been quite unequal to their position, have
produced a great man ouly once in three hundred years. The new stem, Gilbert, third grandson of the hero, had not been un- distinguished under Henry VII., and had acquired the manors- of Grafton, and Upton Warren, in Worcestershire, with inter- ests in Hambury, Bromsgrove, Kings Norton, Kidderminster, Kenneswick, and Estbury, forfeited by the attainder of Humphrey Stafford. His descendant, however, George, the ninth Earl, was an undistinguished man, as was his nephew John, the tenth Earl, though lie fought on the royal aide
in the Civil War, and was besieged in Alton, which was at the
same time laid in ruins. He died February 8th, 1653, and (his eldest son George, the friend of the poet Habington, having died
before him) was succeeded by his second son Francis, eleventh Earl, best known as the husband of Anna Maria, second daughter of the Earl of Cardigan, the "Wanton Shrewsbury" of Pope, who stood by Buckingham's horse, disguised as a page, while the profligate Peer killed her husband in a duel provoked by her own conduct, and clasped her lover while her husband's blood left marks on her dress. Charles Talbot, his son, the twelfth Earl, was a man of more mark. though his character still remains a puzzle to posterity—a man whose life leaves on the mind an im- pression of intrinsic honesty of purpose, and yet who acted the part of a dishonourable traitor. He was born July 24th, 1660, and as his parents were both rigidly Catholic in their views, he was brought up strictly in those religious principles. "His person," says Macaulay, "was pleasing, his temper singularlysweet, his parts such as, if he had been born in a humble rank, might well have raised him to the height of civil greatness, all these advantages he had so improved, that before he was of age he was allowed to be one of the finest gentlemen and finest scholars of his time. His learning is proved by notes, which are still extant in his handwriting, on- books in almost every department of literature. He spoke French like a gentleman of Louis's bedchamber, and Italian like a citizen of Florence." Having made the acquaintance of Tillotson, he resolved to fathom the depths of the great controversy between Catholicism and Protestantism. He procured, through his grand- father, the Earl of Cardigan, the most approved arguments of the Roman Catholic priests, and, communicating them to Tillotson, received his answers, and transmitted them to his grandfather. This process continued for two years, and then Shrewsbury declared him- self a convert to Protestantism. His first attendance on the worship of the Established Church was at Lincoln's Inn Chapel, May 4th, 1679. His morals, however, partook of the libertinism of that age, and his character generally was unsteady and impulsive, though governed in the main by generous instincts. He was early called the King of Hearts, and his career is only explicable by some such reference to the heart rather than to the head. He had carried the pointless sword at the coronation of James II., held the command of the 6th Regiment of horse and was Lord-Lieutenant of Stafford- shire, but opposing the Court, he entered into communication with the Prince of Orange, and as early as May, 1687, offered him his services. He is even said to have mortgaged his estate for 40,000/. to raise money for the English expedition, the greatest direct service rendered to the Revolution by any English Peer. Certain it is that on Russell sounding him as to his willingness to take part in Orange's design, he at once frankly threw himself into the affair, and agreed to stake everything on the issue. In June, 1688, he was one of the seven who signed the "Association " inviting the Prince over, and co-operated heartily in the Revolution which followed. He was one of those selected by William to treat with James about removing from Whitehall, and accompanied the fallen King to the stairs on his embarkation, endeavouring to the best of his power to assuage the bitterness of the moment. On the accession of William he was appointed one of the Secretaries of State, at an earlier age than had been known in the ease of any preceding Secretary. The administration, however, was soon distracted by the bitter quarrels of the two Secretaries, Nottingham the other being at the head of the Tory interest—and deeming every nominee of his rival's as a Roundhead and Republican—while Shrewsbury retaliated with the charge of Jacobitism. Shrews- bury, indeed, with all his talents, proved himself wholly unfitted for such an arduous post at such a difficult crisis. His nerves and his health alike gave way before the cares and anxieties of office. He was irritated with Nottingham and the Protestant Tories for endeavouring to secure a hold on the King's favour ; he was irritated at William for lending an ear to them, and at his own party, the Whigs, for urging him on to press the King unfairly on his personal predilections. His religions belief had never recovered the terrible ordeal to a really earnest mind of a conversion from his inherited faith, and he had lost with the change that parity of principle which might have supported him in his present trying position. "For his own happiness," Macaulay observes, with great truth, "he should either have been much better or much -worse. As it was, he never knew either that noble peace of mind which is the reward of rectitude, or that abject peace of mind which springs from impudence and insensibility. Few people who have had so little power to resist temptation have suffered so cruelly from remorse and shame." Before Shrewsbury had been six months in office he began to address to William letters full of earnest entreaties to be allowed to retire from office, and expressing in unmistakeable terms the complete prostration of his mind and body. The letters, in fact, were those of a man stricken with nervous fever; but William, who believed the Earl to be true, remonstrated against his resignation, and heaped new marks of favour on his head only to have the seals of office conveyed again and again to him- self, and to hear that Burnet had with difficulty restrained the Earl from an audience which would have ended in a personal altercation. Had he known the truth he would have been far more irritated than he at length became. The Earl's secret motive for his incessant repudiation of office was the command of James. Worked upon by his mother, an ardent Jacobite, the Earl had opened communications with St. Germain's, and had been restored to favour with James, who, however, commanded him, as a test of sincerity, to resign the seals. The :moment the arrangement was complete, Shrewsbury repented, and indecision, repentance, and the sense of a double treachery intensified the agitation of his nerves, and at last, obtaining his dismissal in June, 1690, he shut himself up in misery at Epsom, to recover, with his health, his tone of moral character. The war with France, however, awoke him. "The thought that by standing foremost in the defence of his country at so perilous a crisis he might repair his great fault, andj regain his own esteem, gave new energy to his body and his mind. In a few hours he was at Whitehall, and had offered his purse and sword to the Queen," who was at the head of the Government in the absence of William. There had been some idea of placing a nobleman of high rank nominally at the head of :the fleet, and Shrewsbury begged for the post ; but the fear of divided counsels prevailed, and the offer was declined. The danger passed, and the next prominent appearance of Shrewsbury was as the proposer in the House of Lords of the Triennial Bill, a measure most distasteful to King William. That King, however, still retained a greater feeling of personal liking to him than to any other of the great Whig lords, and at the close of 1693, on Nottingham's resignation of the seals, he made a great effort, through his mistress, Elizabeth Villiers, backed by Wharton and Russell, to induce the Earl to accept office again. Shrewsbury, however, declined on all sorts of pleas, the real cause, of course, being his entanglement with the Court of St. Germain's, and his aversion to the ex- ample of those statesmen who did not scruple at the same time to correspond with James and hold office under William. From November to March Shrewsbury stood firm in his refusal. Then his course was changed by a curious incident. Sir James Montgomery, who, from the representative of the Scotch nation in their offer of the crown to William had sunk to a dis- reputable and starving agent of the Jacobites, called on Shrewsbury and entered on a treasonable conversation with him. Shrewsbury, distrusting him, returned only cautious answers. Through some means the whole conversation reached the ears of William. He sent for Shrewsbury, and when he reiterated his excuses for not accepting the seals, observed, "There is another reason behind ; when did you see Montgomery last ?" Shrewsbury, remembering his cautious answers, claimed the merit of having refused the offers of the agent. The King, dwelling on the danger and scandal of such communications with Jacobites, said that the only way in which Shrewsbury could clear his reputation with the nation and himself was to accept the seals at once. "That," he said, "will put me quite at ease. I know that you are a man of honour, and that, if you undertake to serve me, you will serve me faithfully." Shrewsbury, seeing no alternative, accepted office
March 4th, 1694, and was rewarded by being made a Knight of the Garter on the 25th of April, and on the 30th was raised to the dignities of Marquis of Alton and Duke of Shrewsbury.
The Duke continued to take a leading part in the Govern- ment till the arrest of Sir John Fenwiek, and his confessions compromised Shrewsbury, with Marlborough and several others in the King's employment. Shrewsbury, in a state of great excite- ment, wrote to the King, declaring, with a want of ingenuousness, that his connection with Lord Middleton had resulted from their relationship, and had not extended to any actual offer of his services to James. William affected to believe this. "Be assured," he wrote, "that these calumnies have made no unfavourable impres- sion on me. Nay, you shall find that they have strengthened my confidence in you." Shrewsbury was so overpowered at this unmerited trust that he shrank from a personal interview with the King on his return from the Continent, and hastened to the seclu- sion of a remote seat of his, in the wok's of Gloucestershire, and availing himself of the plea of a fall from his horse, declined to, come up to town or to face the Parliament. He also again offered his resignation of the seals. But the King and all his friends so remonstrated that he gave way. A wretched Jacobite spy accused the Duke of having been acquainted with the assassination plot, and not warning the King, but William declared he could himself prove the Duke's inno- cence, and Shrewsbury was again acquitted. But he never regained his peace of mind, though at this time apparently at the height of earthly prosperity. He continued to hold the seals of Secretary till May 14, 1699, though in a continual state of indeci- sion and perplexity between the King, the Whig party, and the con- sciousness of his secret intrigue with St. Germain's. He acted frequently as a mediator between the King and the Whigs, and between the Whigs and the Earl of Sunderland, but with little success, being too easily moved himself. He was constantly im- portuning the King for permission to resign, and at last, in 17007 departed for Rome, where he married an Italian lady of high birth, and remained till the reign of Anne. On his return, in 1708, he was treated by his friends as a lukewarm supporter, and was per- suaded by Harley and the Tories into the great attack on Marl- borough and Godolphin. In 1713 he was sent to Ireland as Lord- Lieutenant, where, as one might have expected, with the best intentions he succeeded in raising the distrust of all parties, who united for once, Tories, Whigs, and Jacobites, in a chorus of satire on his government and person. On his return from Ireland he found the Tory Ministry in a state of decomposition, Harley and Bolingbroke contending for the mastery, and on Harley's dis- comfiture and resignation of the office of Lord High Treasurer, the Staff was bestowed on Shrewsbury, who held both that office and his Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland at the death of Queen Anne. At that crisis, for the last time, his better spirit awoke, and enter- ing the Council Chamber unsumnioned, and followed by the other Whig Peers whose names remained on the list of the Privy Council, the Duke carried into effect, with an energy which completely discomfited the Jacobites, the plans which placed the House of Hanover on the throne. He was essentially a man who required great crises such as these and great pressing excitement to call forth his resolution, and enable him to do justice to his own principles. On the accession of George I. he filled several honorary offices ; but his political career was really at an end, and he doubtless felt the release from necessary action as agreeable as it was, perhaps, salutary for his remaining reputation. He had purchased an estate in Oxfordshire, near Woodstock, called Heythorpe, Alton being still in a dilapidated condition. Here and at a house at Isleworth he passed the remainder of his life, being carried off by a fever on the 1st February, 1718. He was a man of a class which only those who belong to it will ever understand, a man in whom high principle and great ability were neutralized by a physical condi- tion which, except when overcome by a great crisis, rendered his powers valueless. In a great crisis he was as effective and decided as his ancestor ; in little emergencies, irresolute as a woman. As he left no children the Dukedom and Marquisate became extinct, but the Earldom of Shrewsbury devolved on Gilbert, eldest sur- viving son of Gilbert Talbot, fourth son of John, tenth Earl, who succeded as thirteenth Earl, but being in holy orders of the Church of Rome died without issue in 1743.
It was probably with a view to his succession that the Duke obtained the Family Act, which entailed his estates for ever, so long as they should be in possession of a Catholic. The priest, the only one, we believe, who, since Queen Mary's death, has been a Peer of the realm, was succeeded by his nephew George, fourteenth Earl ; he by his nephew Charles, and he again by his nephew John, sixteenth Earl, who died in 1852, having taken an active though
moderate part in Catholic emancipation. Leaving only daughters, the title devolved on his cousin Bertram, the seventeenth Earl, a fanatic Catholic, who made a desperate attempt to upset the Duke's Family Act by bequeathing the Shrewsbury property to the llowards, his advisers telling him that as his will only became operative after his death, the title had ceased to be held by a Catholic and the entail to exist. The Courts decided, however, that the will was the act of a living man, and title and estates must therefore go together.
To find their possessor it is necessary to re-ascend the stream. Sir Gilbert Talbot, of Grafton, Worcestershire (third son of John, second Earl of Shrewsbury), who led the forces of his nephew the young Earl at the battle of Bosworth, bad by his second wife a son, Sir John Talbot of Albrighton, Shropshire, who is the com- mon ancestor of the late and present Earls of Shrewsbury, his elder son (by his first marriage), Sir John Talbot of Grafton, being the ancestor of the line which has become lately extinct, and his younger son (by a second marriage), John Talbot of Sal- warp, in Worcestershire, being the ancestor of Charles Lord Tal- bot, who founded the family which has now succeeded to the Shrews- bury title and estate. The father of Charles Talbot, William Talbot, was the only son of William Talbot, of Stourton Castle, Staffordshire, third son of Sherrington Talbot, of Salwarp and Lay- cock, Worcestershire, eldest son of John Talbot, of Salwarp. Wil- liam Talbot went into the Church, and became successively Dean of Worcester, and Bishop of Oxford, Salisbury, and Durham. He died October 10, 1730, having been a staunch Whig, of considerable eloquence and ability, leaving a large family, the eldest of whom entered Oxford, was called to the Bar, and rose on 29th Novem- ber, 1733, to the Lord Chancellorship. He was, accordingly, created Baron Talbot of Hensol, in Glamorganshire, an estate he had acquired with his wife, a daughter of Charles Mathews, Esq., of Castle-y-Menich, in that county. "As an equity Judge,' says Lord Campbell, "Lord Talbot exceeded all the high expectations which had been formed of him. In my long journey, from the reign of Ethehrd to that of George IV., I find this Chancellor alone without an accuser, without an enemy, without a detractor, without any one from malice or mistake to cavil at any part of his character, conduct, or demeanour. While in no respect deficient in judicial gravity and dignity, the flowing courtesy of his manners seems to have won all hearts." "He was energetic and indefatigable in business, punctual in his hours of sitting." In the political arena Lord Talbot had little to bring his talents into prominent play, the chief debates being on foreign affairs. Still he showed his independence by opposing his own Cabinet, along with his friend Hardwicke, on the provisions of their "Smuggling Bill," the enactments of which he considered dangerous to the liberty of the subject. When in the apparent enjoyment of perfect health, and with the prospect of a long and brilliant career before him, Charles Talbot was suddenly seized by a spasm in the heart, which, from the first, was pronounced to be fatal, and after a brief interval he expired on the 14th February, 1737, in the fifty-third year of his age. His eldest son, a youth of great promise, died before him, and William, his next son, succeeded as second Lord Talbot. He seems to have been a man of some energy of character, and in 1761 was raised to the Earl- dom of Talbot, and, in 1780 was made Baron Dynevor, with special remainder in the latter peerage to his daughter, who married into the family of Rice, who now, as Lords Dynevor, represent the heirs- general of the Chancellor Talbot. As Earl Talbot left no son, on his death in 1782 the Earldom became extinct, and the barony of Talbot devolved on his nephew, John Talbot, who, in 1784, was created Earl Talbot of Hensel, and Vicount Ingestre of Ingestre, in Staffordshire. He assumed by royal lease, in 1786, the name of Chetwynd, in addition to that of Talbot, from his mother, daughter of Viscount Chetwynd, of Ireland. He died in 1703, and was succeeded in the Earldom by his son, Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, the father of the present Earl Talbot, Henry John Chetwynd-
Talbot, who became fifth Earl Talbot in 1849, and in 1856, on the death of his kinsman, the seventeenth Earl of Shrewsbury, succeeded in establishing his right to the succession of that older peerage, becoming eighteenth Earl of Shrewsbury.
The great legal battle with the Ilowards ended, as we have said, in the decision that the Duke's Act was operative, and the eighteenth Earl, who, be it remembered, is the direct lineal descendant of the man recorded in "Domesday Book," and of the great John Talbot of Shakspeare, stands possessed of all the properties of his House. He has been known chiefly as a very decided Tory, and is just at this moment engaged in a battle with his tenantry at Oaten, near Birkenhead, which came to Sir John Talbot, of Albrighton, by his first Marriage with the heiress of the Troutbecks, in which, to judge from the printed correspondence, the rights of property are pushed to a point rather too suggestive of feudal ideas. His son, however, Lord Ingestre, a moderate Conservative, is remarkable for his social leanings, and may yet, if this battle does not ruin the popularity of his great House, take his place as one of the leaders in the next revolution—the great fight with pauperism, in which, if the aristo- tocratic constitution of England is to be maintained, the great nobles must consent to take their accustomed share. That struggle will be on us, perhaps, before Lord Ingestre is a Peer, and his chance of eminence in life will probably depend on his following the course which kept his powerful kinsman, whose act has preserved this great property to the Protestant side—perhaps the only family arrangement which ever fulfilled its framer's intentions— ostensibly on the popular side. As yet the Talbots, despite their splendid pedigree, their vast estates, and the two great men they have contributed to our annals, have not reached the historic eminence which belongs to most of their younger, but more efficient, rivals.
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