THE FORTUNE OF THE PERCIVALS.
IN the days of Queen Elizabeth, one Richard Percival, who had ruined himself and alienated his relatives by an imprudent marriage and "a stormy youth," went, as others have done since, to foreign countries to redeem his life. After a while he returned, attached himself to Lord Burleigh, attracted the Queen's attention by translating some despatches, and died a wealthy and respectable man. His son obtained a grant of land in the County Cork, and thenceforth the Percivals throve. In 1733 their good fortune culminated. The then head of the family, after being created successively Baron and Viscount Percival, obtained a charter for the colonization of Georgia, and a patent creating him Earl of Egmont. His son added an English peerage and English estates to the family honours, and having in his old age married a second wife, who, like her predecessor, bore him sons, he had sufficient interest to obtain for her and her male issue the Irish Barony of Arden. But for the present we must confine our attention to the elder branch. His son, the third earl, died in 1822, leaving a son and grandson. The son, Earl John, was already deeply embarrassed. The grand- son, afterwards Earl Henry, was already ruined. On attaining his majority, in 1817, he had been induced to take on himself the whole of his father's debts, amounting to more than 200,000/. Even in the degradation of his later years, friendly witnesses speak of him as "a shrewd, well-read man, of gentlemanly manners ;" and his conduct to his father seems to have been marked by a, perhaps, excessive generosity. For a few years ho sat in the House of Commons, but after his grandfather's death the creditors became clamorous, and judgments were recovered against his father and himself. He abandoned his seat in Parliament, he abandoned his rank, he abandoned his name, and even his country. Viscount Percival disappeared, and a Mr. Lovell resided abroad in obscure country towns.
At this time Mr. Edward Tierney became the principal adviser of the family. He was a solicitor in Dublin in large practice, of a high reputation, Crown Solicitor for the North- west Circuit, brother of the Court Physician, and forty-two years of age. The Percival estates were vested in three trus- tees, of whom Mr. Tierney was one, on trust for sale and payment of the debts, and subject thereto on trust to pay to Earl John 2,000/. a year for life, to his son, 1,0001. during the father's life, and 2,000/. thereafter, and as to any surplus on trust for the survivor. In 1830 an attempt was made to sell the Irish estates. Mr. Tierney opposed it on the ground that the property was increasing in value. They were, nevertheless, put up, at the upset price of 210,000/., but found no purchaser. Then the English estates, except an advowson of no great value, came to the hammer, and fetched 200,0001. Many of the encum- brances were cleared off, and in December, 1835, matters were simplified still more by the death of Earl John.
Mr. Lovell returned to England. With bim came Mrs. Clesse, the widow of a French officer, and her son, Alexis Battauchon. Her protector took his seat in the House of Lords as fifth Earl of Egmont in Ireland, and fourth Lord Lovell and Holland in the peerage of Great Britain. Thus he was now free from danger of arrest ; but in a few days Lord Egmont once more disappeared. Mrs. Clesse, however, took Burderope Park, in Wiltshire, and with her and her son lived Mr. Lovell. In the same year his mother's death put him into possession of a small estate in Wales, producing a rental of 550/., which, since the Earl's death, has been sold to Colonel Pennant for 45,000/. In June, 1837, the trustees conveyed the Cork property to him in fee, so that it became absolutely his own. Consisting of 11,000 acres, Mr. Tierney's representatives themselves admit its market value to have been at that time 200,0001. The charges on it were just half the amount. It seems difficult to estimate his available property at less than 120,000/. after payment of all debts. Thenceforth the Earl drank steadily, though to what extent is disputed. On the one hand he is described as negligent in his person and sottish in appearance—often sitting up all night with his dogs, drinking wine and brandy—often in a muddled state in the morning, or (to use the appropriate terms of art), either " cockey" or " springey"—oecasionally in London, " on the spree," which seems to mean spending days together in debauchery and low company, or leaving Barderope Park by stealth, and under cover of night, for some neighbouring pot-house, whence he was brought home next day drunk. On the other hand, all this is said to be an exaggeration—that he was " not a confirmed sot," or-defi- cient in intellect—that he associated with the neighbouring gentry,and was even intimate with the clergyman of the parish and his wife. Then Mrs. Clesse's health rendered it neces- sary that they should go to Lisbon, where in 1841 she died. In October Mr. Lovell returned to England and went to Webb's Hotel, in Piccadilly. All this time his property, Irish and Welsh, had remained entirely in the hands of Mr. Tierney. He was an active, prosperous man ; his brother, the physician, had been created a baronet with remain- der, in default of male issue, to the thriving Crown Solicitor ; and whatever may have been the case with their unhappy owner the Percival estates had thriven also. While Earl Henry was always in want of money, large sums had been expended in improvements, and even in the Earl's life- time the value of the property had greatly increased. Just then occurred the great fire in the Tower. The Earl went, and caught a violent cold. He drank as usual, became feverish, and took to his bed. The landlady sent for an at- torney named Parkinson, who had managed Mrs. Clesse's affairs, and with whom the Earl had associated. He sum- moned Alexis Battauchon, and on the 8th of December Mr. Tierney arrived. Mr. Parkinson's tale is now as follows :- Tierney instructed him to prepare a will for the Earl. He objected, and proposed that the family solicitors should be sent for. Tierney said that the Earl would not see them, and added, " Why, that poor fellow in the next room (Alexis Battauchon) may be reduced to beggary if the Earl dies with- out providing for him !" Then Parkinson reluctantly consented. Battauchon was to have an annuity of 100/. per annum—there was one legacy of 500/. The residue was to go to Tierney, who was also sole executor. Parkinson saw the Earl, and suggested 2001. per annum for Battauchon. The Earl replied that he had already given him a bond for 4,0001., and " the estates would not bear more." When this was re- peated to Tierney, he said, " just so ; that shows he knows more about his affairs than the world gives him credit for." On the 23rd of December, 1841,the Earl of Egmont died—the cause of death being described by Dr. Hamilton Roe, who at- tended him, as " Consumption—Delirium tremens." His co- heiresses were the three Miss Percivals, of whom the survivor died in 1860. His successor in his honours was Lord Arden.
It will be remembered that the great grandfather of Earl Henry obtained the Irish barony of Arden for his second wife. Her eldest son and successor was created an English peer by the same title as that of his Irish peerage. Her second son was the Prime Minister, Mr. Spencer Percival, who was murdered by a lunatic in the lobby of the House of Commons. The eldest son of Lord Arden left no male issue, and was succeeded by his brother, who in early life was pre- sent at Trafalgar, who served in Egypt, and once represented West Surrey in Parliament. In 1841, as has been stated, the family honours were concentred on him, and in 1860 he became Earl Henry's heir-at-law. Meanwhile Mr. Tierney, after succeeding in 1845 to his brother's baronetcy, died in 1856, leaving the bulk of his property, including the Percival estates, to his son-in-law, the Rev. Sir William Lionel Darell, Bart., and his family, against whom Admiral the Earl of Egmont has filed bills both in Ireland and England, praying that an issue may be sent to common law to ascertain the validity of Earl Henry's will made in 1848, and acted on ever since.
It seems that immediately after the death of Earl Henry; his relatives had ordered inquiries as to his mental capacity for making a will. On this head they had been satisfied. The case now made is, that Sir Edward had systematically deceived his client as to the value of the property, and that he had no idea of how much he was depriving his relatives. The plaintiff's witnesses represent the Earl as always speaking of his affairs as in a hopeless state. Mr. Gundry Walker, a merchant at Lisbon, who was intimate with him, speaks of his mind as enfeebled by drunken excesses. "The Earl used frequently to say to me that his property was so bedevilled that he was indebted to his man of business for all the income he received; aed that his man of business made great sacrifices to pay what he did, that he detested arithmetic, and did not know what he signed, but trusted implicitly to his man of business ; the burden of his talk was, that he was a ruined man, and indebted to his man of business for everything—even his daily bread." And this when he had, as we have seen, at least 120,0001. On the other hand, it is shown that the fullest accounts were rendered by Sir Edward to the Earl, whose wants made him more than ordinarily sharp in money matters; and letters were produced respecting the Welsh property, showing that he was fully alive to his own interests, and made frequent inquiries as to his affairs. Alto- gether, this part of the case does not amount to much. It cannot be denied that Sir Edward's management transformed g a desert into a garden, and replaced a swarm of discontented paupers by a happy and solvent tenantry." For this purpose a little judicious deception was hardly blameable. The inte- rests of the estate, that is, of the people who lived on it, it may well have seemed, were not to be postponed to the cravings of a drunkard—and, at all events, when Sir Edward assumed the management, there was every proba- bility that Earl Henry would marry and leave issue to profit by this postponement of the present to the future. As to the -circumstances under which the will was made, Sir Edward cannot be defended from the charge of imprudence. It should not have been drawn by any but the family solicitors, and he should have insisted on the appointment of a co-executor, so that the value of the property would have become known to some one other than himself. For the darker charges they rest on the evidence of Parkinson alone, a man of doubtful repute, and who has kept silence for nearly twenty years, and until the voice of the accused has been silenced by death. But if Sir Edward has left his reputation at the mercy of such a -man as this, we must not forget it was his own act to employ this person for a highly responsible duty by which he was largely to benefit.
The most dangerous part of the plaintiff's case is, however, the course which Sir Edward pursued after 1841. At the reading of the will he told the relatives that the estates were so encumbered that he should derive no advantage from them. Then appeared paragraphs in the Irish papers congratulating Tierney on this large accession to his fortune. He directed a Mr. Woodgate, a solicitor who had been concerned in all the dealings with the Percival property, to insert a statement in the Dublin Evening Pacquet representing them as of little svalue. And these representations, made by the sole executor -of Earl Henry's will, were, it seems, made by him down to the time of his death. These representations can scarcely have been accurate. Whether they were the completion of a long meditated and successful fraud, or whether they were the weak expedient of one who could not bear to risk the reputa- tion which stood so high by avowing that he had obtained from the partiality of such a man as Earl Henry the dishe- risen of his natural heirs, it is not for us to decide. The case rests on the evidence of Parkinson, and of Woodgate, who three or four years back assisted Sir William Darell in the sale of that advowson which was the last relic of the English property, and who has now turned against his employers. These men's credibility must first be tested in open court, if, that is, the squeamish tenderness of the present day does not object to their being pressed as to events which happened twenty years ago, and to the raking up of any little incidents in their lives which they object to disclose, not, of course, as being discreditable, but as having nothing to do with the -present case. But, whatever the final issue of this great cause may determine to be the true moral deducible from the career of Sir Edward Tierney, it has at least afforded another instance -of the vicissitudes of great houses, and proves once more that no legal arrangements—neither hereditary rank nor the conveyancer's best devised entails—can save families from the -consequences of their own vices and follies, or prevent the work of centuries of continuous thrift from being kicked down in two generations by a prodigal and a sot.
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