Page:The Complete Peerage (Edition 1, Volume 8).djvu/139

 WHARTON. 129 en. W68tinorliind,(*) being introdaoed 21 Deo. 1719, when, preeumably, he wee of fall age. He took port againtt the QoTernment in the debute on the Soath Sea Bill and in the defence of Bishop AtterbniyO*); was President of the notorious ** Hell Fire Club/' and, after a career of stngular estravafcanoe, beoame a ruined man some G years after he had attained full affe.(«) In 1726 he left England for Vienna and Ifadrid, and openly took the part of the titular James III., from whom, probably at thifl date, he received the Dukedom of Northumberland (as aboTe-mentioned) and tlie Onrter, and trhnse Prime Minister he declared himself. He joined the Spanish troops agnniBt bin own countrymen in berieginfi^ Gibraltar, May 1727, for which he WAS outlawed, tho* iiiformiilly and irreffiilArly,(^) for high treaaon, 8 April 1729. Ue m., fiiatly, when but 16 (a few weeks before his father^ death), 2 March 1714/6 (one of the " Fleet- Pnnions " performing the ceremony), Martha, da of Major Gen. HoLun,{^) She d. at her house in Qerrard Street, 14 and was bur. 22 April 1726 at St. Anne's, Soho. He m., secondly (3 months later), 28 or 26 July 1726, at Madrid, Maria Theresa O'Neill, da. of Henry O'Brirnb,(0 •n Irish Colonel in the Spmish service, by Henrietta, da. of Henrr O'Nbill. This lady was at that time Maid of Honour to the Queen of Spsin. After wandering thro' Europe almost in a state of destitution, he d., s.p.m.s., in the monastery of the Franciscans at Poblet in Catalonia 81 May [N.S.] 1731 and was hur. next day in the church there, aged but 82.(K) At {^) The ho|ie of nttractinK thia rich and influential young profligate from the Jacobite to the Whig party by this extraonlinary mark of favour singularly failed. The / preamble supplements the (feeble) claim of the grantee thereto (1 ) as beins of noble f descent, and (2) as havinsr ' chosen to distinguish himself by his personal [1] merits" by reconniing how much the " invincible King Will. III.*' owed to the grantee's father, '* that constant and courageous assertor of the public liberty and Protestant religion,*' and how " the same extraordinary person deserved so well of us in having supported our interests by the weight of his counsels, the force of his wit, and the firmness of his mind at a time when our title to the succession of this realm was endangered." As, however, tliis " |)atriot ** had himself been rewarded with a Visconntcy, two Earldoms and two Marquessates for such his services, the reason for conferring a Dukedom on his infant son is not very convincing. (**) His famous oration on this occasion is, perhaps, the best criterion of his un- doubted talents. («) In 1720 he lost, according to his own account, more than £120,000 in the South Sea Scheme. In Feb. 1725/6 he computes his debts at above £70,000. He had then sold, in 1723, the Rathfamham estates for £62,000. Those in Bucks were sold, in 1725, to the trustees of the Duke of Marlborough. His collection of pictures was sold in 1 728 to Sir Robert Walpole, and, in 1780, his Westmorland estates, for £26,000, to Robert Lowther. W Resolution of the House of Lords, 28 July 1845 in the claim to the Wharton Barony. {*) The young wife was said to be a person of '* extraordinary education,*' and appears, through all her troubles, to have preserved a blameless character. He deserted her soon after marriage, but afterwards took her back and kept her in seclusion in the country. '* He brought her to his house; but love had no part in his resolution. He lived with her indeed, but she is with him as a housekeeper, or as a nurse." [Mrs. Haywood's Mftnotn of the Kingdom of Utopia], (0 A writer in the Oent, Mng, (vol. c, 16) states her father to have been Col. John Comerford, son of ( — ) Comerfonl, of Tinlough in Loghlean, co. Tipperary. The Duchess in her will mentions " my deceased brother Comerford." Charles O'Conor states, 28 Oct. 1662 [HUt, MSS. Comm., viii, 472 (see also 441) that her father " was cousin -german to mine." (K) In 1896 his life was pub. by J. R. Robinson, a career of political inconsistency, folly and debauch seldom equalled by nny man, and never by a person of intellect. Pope, in his Moral Euayi [Epistle I.], ably sums up his character in 2S lines, beginning, " Clodio! the scorn and wonder of our days, Whose ruUnff passion was the love of praise; Bom with wbate'er could win it from (he trite, — H'om«n and Fodi must like him— or he dies." ^ There is a good account of him in Jesse's Oouri of Bnatand, where he is compared with his father, "both being remarkable for the brilliancy of their parts, their exceeding libertinism in private life, and their daring and unmanageable wit; " the K