Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 1 Vol 2.djvu/394

 COWLEY. 393 Dcnoannon [I.], ,iik1 was, consequently, yr. br. of the celebrated Duke of Welling- ton.^} He was 4. 20 Jan, 1773 ; was sometime, 1791-94, an officer in the 1st Reg. of Foot Guards ; See. of Legation at Stockholm, 1792 ; M.P. for Trim [I.], 179o ; Sec. to Lord Malmesbury's Embassy to Lille, July 1797 ; Private Sec. to hisbr., Lord Mormngton, then Gov. Gen. of India, 179S-1805 : Envoy to Luckuow, 1801, concluding a treaty whereby the Nawab of Oiide ceded to the East India Company certain districts yielding a million sterling annually, and was, 1801 to 1802, Lieut.-Gen. of these ceded districts. He left India in 1803". was a Lord of the Treasury. 1804 ; M.P. for Eye, 1807, and, subsequently, 1S07-09 for Athloue. Was one of the Secretaries of the Treasury, 1807-09 ; P.O., 1809 ; Envoy to the Court of Spain, 3 Jan. 1S10 ; Ambassador, 1 Oct. 1811 to 3 March 1822, being, as such, the Plenipotentiary for the investiture of King Ferdinand VII, with the Order of the Garter(>>) at Madrid, 17 May 1815 ; KB. (G.C.B. after 2 January 1S15), 10 March 1812. Ambas- sador to the Court of Austria, 3 Feb. 1823 to 27 Aug. 1831, during which period lie was. in 182S, raited to the pan-aye as abovenamed. Ambassador to the Court of France, 13 March 1835, and again 16 Oct. 1841 to 1845. He TO. firstly, 20 Sep. 1803, at Downham-Santon, Suffolk, Charlotte, da. of Charles Sloane (Cadogan), 1st Earl Cadogan, by his 2nd wife, Mary, da of Charles Churchill. She was 6. 11 July 1301, ami. after having been the muther of four children, was divorced, by Act of Pari., in 1810, her husband obtaining £24,000 damages in a trial for crim. «m.( c ) He in. secondly, 27 Feb. 18Io,at Hatfield House, Herts, Oeorgiana Charlotte Augusta, 1st da. of James (Cecil), 1st Matujuessof Salisbury, by Mary Amelia, da. of Wills (Hir.L), 1st Marquess of Downshirb [I.] He d. at Paris, 27 April 1847, in his 75th year, and was bw. 10 May in Grosvenor Chapel. Midx. Will pr. April 1S48. His widow, who was It. 20 March 1786, d. s.p.ra. IS Jan. 1860. at Hatfield House, Herts. Will pr. 2 April I860, under £12,000. II. 1817. Saud i. IIexky Richard Charles (Wellesley), Baron Cowley OF Wellesley, s. and h. by 1st wife, 6. in Hertford Street, Earldom. Mayfair, Midx., 17 June 1804; ed. at Eton, 1817-20; Attache at y 1 or- Vienna, Oct. 1824 ; Paid Attache at the Hague, April 1829 ; Sec. of loo 'i Legation at Stuttgardt, Jan. 1832; Sec. of Embassy at Constanti- nople, Oct. 1S38, being Minister there {ad. int.) 1846-48 ; Envoy to Switzerland, Feb. 184S ; C.B., 27 April 1S48 ; Envoy to Frankfort (on a spec, mission). July 1848; K.C.B.. 1 March 1S51 ; Envoy to the Germanic Confederation, June 1851 ; P.C., 1852; Ambassador to France, Feb. 1852 to his re- tirement in July 1867 ;( d ) G.C.B., 21 Feb. 1853. Ou 11 April 1857 he was or. VIS- (*) Of the five brothers who survived infancy, no less than 4 were Peers — a fact which, though equalled in the /ria/i Peerage in the ease of the i sous of the Earl of Cork (1620-43), is unparalleled in the Peerage of this realm — (1) Richard, the eldest br., was Marquess Wellesley, Earl of Moraiugton, &c. [I ], and Baron Wellesley [G.B.] ; (2) William, the 2nd br., was Baruu Maryborough [U.K.], and afterwards Earl of Mornington [I.] ; (3) Arthur, the 3rd br., was the well-known Duke of Wellington ; while (4) Henry, the 5th br., was Baron Cowley as above. Had the 4th and only remaining br., Gerald Valerian Wellesley, D.D. (who d. 24 Oct. 1848, aged 78), obtained a Bishoprick, all five brothers might have had seats together in the House of Lords. ( b ) See an account of these special Garter missions, ante, p. 192, note " a." ( u ) She to. the same year (as his second wife), Henry William Paget, then styled Lord Paget, afterwards Earl of Uxbridge and 1st Marquess of Anglesey aud d. (a year before him) 8 July 1S53. ( d ) " The history of Lord Cowley's Embassy at Paris is the history of the Second Empire in its relations with this country. Lord Cowley went to Paris a little more than two months after the Coup d'Etat, and he finally quitted it just three years before the declaration of war in 1870 between France and Prussia. In those 15 years he was a witness aud an actor in some of the most momentous events of modern history. There were not wanting occasions between 1852 and 1867 when a lack of discretion, good sense, aud forbearance ou the part of the British Ambassador might easily have endangered the peaceful relations of the two countries." Such were (1) the alliance between France and England during the Crimean war, at the conclusion of which he, together with Lord Clarendon, was one of the English Plenipotentiaries