Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/96

 that the peerages of the descendants of the second marriage, were all creations of James the First, whereas the peerages of Edward Villiers, Viscount Villiers, and Earl of Jersey, were creations of William the Third. The connection, indeed, of Charles Pelham Villiers with the English peerage is quite independent of the Duke of Buckingham branch of the Villiers family. I cannot say that there is no connection with any Stuart peerage since the peerages of Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, and the peerage of Capel, Earl of Essex, were Stuart peerages.

It appears then that Charles Villiers, the advocate of the abolition of the bread-tax, was descended from an ancient and honourable English or Anglo-Norman family, and not from an upstart Court favourite of the times of the Stuarts. It is true that when the Government is monarchical, a Jack Ape can make any man a duke, and George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, possessed the power of governing James I., as much as the Duchess of Marlborough possessed the power of governing Queen Anne. But even when the Government is what it was under James I. and Queen Anne, it is possible that the difference may be very great between the Court favourite of one reign and that of another.