Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/277

 ii s. x. OCT. 3, i9wj NOTES AND QUERIES.

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who survived the siege of Bangalore ; in 1797 formed and trained Loyal St. Andrews Volunteers.

Information as to parentage required. EVELYN HEINEKEVT.

Harmer Green House, Welwyn, Herts.

" ACCIDENTS WILL HAPPEN IN THE BEST REGULATED FAMILIES." What is the origin of the above saying T SAMUEL HOKNEB.

Dublin.

EARLS OF DERWENTWATER: DESCENDANTS.

(11 S. x. 148, 218, 256.)

THE question of the descendants of the Earls of Derwentwater has been many times raised in ' N. & Q.,' but the inquiry about r-laimants to the estates has not received much, if any, attention. There have been plenty of them. One was a man named Scott, of Middlesbrough, who pretended that he was a great-grandson of John Radcliffe (son of James, the last Earl), who died before he came of age. Another was a woman named Lovegrove, of Kingston-on- Thames, who said she was a great-grand- daughter of Francis, the first Earl. But the most aggressive and persistent of all the claimants was the unknown lady who, in 1864, descended from the wilds of Nowhere and took up her residence in the village of Blaydon, a few miles east of Dilston Castle, the Derwentwaters' Tyneside seat. She styled herself "Amelia, Countess of Darwent- water," and announced that she had come to take formal possession of her ancestral estates as heiress of her father, whom she designated the " sixth " Earl of Derwent- water.

Fully to understand her pretensions, it is necessary to quote briefly the acknowledged history of the family. Francis Radcliffe, ennobled in 1688 as first Earl, married Catherine, eldest daughter of Sir William Fenwick of Meldon, by whom he had five sons and four daughters. Dying in 1697, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward Radcliffe, as second Earl, who married Lady Mary Tudor, a natural daughter of Charles II., by whom he had three sons and one daughter. He died in 1705, and was followed by his eldest son, James, the third Earl, who, engaging in the rebellion of 1715, was beheaded the following year. By

his marriage with Maria, daughter of Sir John Webb, Earl James left a son and a daughter. That son, John Radcliffe, died in 1731, aged 19. The estates should then have fallen to his father's brother, Charles Radeliffe, but he could not inherit, for he was an attainted rebel, and in 1746, like his brother, was executed for treason. He had married a Countess of Newburgh, who bore him three sons and four daughters, and the eldest son, James Bartholomew Radcliffe, fourth Earl of Newburgh, claimed the reversion of the Derwentwater estates. They had, however, been confiscated by the Government, and in 1749, by Act of Parliament, were settled upon Greenwich Hospital. It is aid that Lord Newburgh agreed to this transfer on receiving 24,00(M. (some say 30,00(M.) from the State. He was succeeded in 1786 by his only son, Anthony James Radcliffe, fifth Earl of Newburgh, who died without issue in 1814. Anthony James was, therefore, the last of the heirs male of the family, and the last of the Derwentwaters.

Now the "Countess Amelia," like Scott of Middlesbrough, claimed that John, son of the beheaded Earl, did not die, as alleged, in 1731 at the age of 19, but lived till 1798, and, having married at Frankfort in 1740 a Countess of Waldsteine, had eleven children, all of whom died young except two : (1; James, who succeeded his father, married a Countess Mouravieff, and died shortly after the Battle of Waterloo ; (2) John James, married a Princess Sobieski, succeeded his brother James in 1816, and was the father of " Amelia " the claimant. Counting John as the fourth Earl, her father was the sixth. She had a brother, also named John James, who became the seventh Earl, and when he died in 1854 she suc- ceeded, being the only surviving child of her father, to

" all the paternal dignities of her ancient family, and became heiress and ' Countess of Darwent- water ' in her own right, the direct representative and granddaughter of John, 4th Earl."

She alleged that she was born at Dover in 1830, and that her upbringing and education were superintended by her brother, the seventh Earl, who accompanied her to Italy in 1846 to study painting, and to Switzer- land for recreation in 1850. But about her life after the death of this brother, in 1854, till she came to the North, " her ladyship " was reticent and evasive.

Among her belongings was a marvellous collection of Derwentwater " heirlooms," as she styled them. She stated that, after