Page:Biographical catalogue of the portraits at Weston, the seat of the Earl of Bradford (IA gri 33125003402027).pdf/194



No. 7.

HENRY NEWPORT, VISCOUNT NEWPORT, AFTERWARDS THIRD EARL OF BRADFORD.

''Red coat. Silver brandebourgs.''

DIED 1734.

He was the eldest son of Richard Newport, second Earl of Bradford, by Mary Wilbraham. He represented Shropshire in several Parliaments during his father's life, and was at different times Lord-Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the Counties of Stafford, Shropshire, and Montgomery. Lord Bradford died unmarried at his house in St. James's Place, and was buried in Henry the Seventh's Chapel at Westminster.

He was succeeded in his titles, and such estates as he could not alienate, by his brother Thomas, who had become imbecile through a fall from his horse in early life in Cowhay Wood, Weston Park. He was incompetent to manage his own affairs, and, dying at Weston, 1762, his titles became extinct, and his property descended to his nephews, the sons of Lady Anne Bridgeman; and the Countess of Mountrath. Henry, Lord Bradford was an immoral and vindictive man, and having quarrelled with his mother on account of her endeavour to disentangle him from some disgraceful connection, he vowed vengeance on her and her whole family. This threat he carried out in a shameful manner, and though the story is long and complicated, yet it bears so nearly on the fortunes of the present possessor of Weston, that we cannot refrain from entering into details. In 1715, Lord Bradford cut off and debarred all the then existing entails of the family estates over which he had any power, and in 1730 he made a will by which he left all his large estates in trust, for the use of John Newport, alias Harrison, alias Smyth, his illegitimate son by Anne,