Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 12.djvu/19

 . When his right to the Marden property was disputed, all the copies of this work but a few were destroyed, and these now fetch a high price in the book-market. Some proofs of his irritable disposition have been already mentioned. Through his sharpness of temper he was exposed to the caustic sallies of Atterbury in the House of Lords, and to the satires of Swift and Pope in their writings. His speech to the mayor and common council of the city of Hereford in 1718 on their presumed attachment to the Pretender, a speech not infrequently mixed with oaths, is printed in Richard Johnson's ‘Ancient Customs of Hereford’ (1882), pp. 225–6. A portrait of Coningsby and his two daughters, Margaret and Frances, was painted by Kneller in 1722, and engraved by Vertue in 1723. The peer's coat-of-arms is on the left hand, and a roll of Magna Charta is in his hand. His two daughters are dressed in riding habits, and with a greyhound and King Charles's spaniel. He was also painted by Kneller singly, and there is a whole-length of him in 1709 in his robe as vice-treasurer of Ireland. Numerous letters and papers relating to him are preserved in public and private collections, but especially among the manuscripts of Lord de Ros, his descendant (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep.). and the Marquis of Ormonde and the Rev. T. W. Webb of Hardwick Vicarage, Herefordshire (ib. 7th Rep.)



CONINGSBY, WILLIAM (d. 1540?), judge, second son of  (who figures as a pleader in the Yearbooks from 1480, was appointed serjesnt-at-law on 9 Sept. 1495, king's serjeant on 30 Oct. 1500, a puisne judge of the king‘s bench on 21 May 1509, was knighted then or shortly afterwards, and was still living and on the bench in 1527), was born in London and educated at Eton and Kings College, Cambridge, into which he was elected in 1497 and of which he became a fellow, though he left the university without taking a degree, was Lent reader at the Inner Temple in 1519, treasurer of the same inn in 1525-6, reader again in 1526, one of the commissions appointed to hear causes in chancery in relief of Wolsey in 1529, and one of the governors of the Inner Temple in 1533-40, 1536-7, and 1538-9. In 1539-40 he was arraigned in the Starchamber and sent to the Tower for advising Sir John Skelton to make a will upon a secret trust, in contravention of the Statute of Uses (27 Hen. VIII, c. 10). He was released after ten days’ confinement, but lost the offices of prothonotary of the king's bench and attorney of the duels of Lancaster, which he then held. On 5 July of the same year he was appointed to a puisne judgeship in the king’s bench, and was knighted; but as his name is not included in the writ of summons to parliament in the next year, it would seem that he died or retired soon after his appointment. Coningsby was also recorder of Lynn in Norfolk, in which county his seat, Eaton Hell, near Wallington, was situate. His daughter Margret married first, Sir Robert Alyngton of Horseheath, Cambridgeshire, and secondly, Thomas Pledgeor of Bottisham in the some county. Coningsby is said to have been descended from Roger de Coningsby, lord of Coningsby in Lincolnshire in the reign of John.



CONINGTON, FRANCIS THIRKILL (1826–1863), chemist, was younger brother of Professor [q. v.] He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, graduated B.A., taking a second class in classics in 1860, was elected a fellow of his college, and afterwards proceeded M.A. For some time he was scientific examiner in the university. He devoted himself chiefly to chemistry, and his ‘Handbook of Chemical Analysis,' Lond. 1868, 8vo, based on Heinrich Will's 'Anleitung sur chemischen Analyse,' has taken its place among the text-books on the subject. He died at Boston, Lincolnshire, on 20 Nov. 1863, aged 85.



CONINGTON, JOHN (1825–1869), classical scholar, born 10 Aug. 1825, was the eldest son of the Rev. Richard Conington of Boston in Lincolnshire. In 1836 he was sent to the grammar school at Beverley, and two years afterwards to Rugby, where he was placed in the house of [q. v.], afterwards