Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 1 Vol 5.djvu/217

 MANSFIELD. 215 OF MANSFIELD, co. Nottingham, with a spec. rem. of that dignity ,( :l ) failing heirs male of his body to Louisa. Viscountess Stormont, wife of [his nephew and heir presumptive] David (Murray), Viscount Stormont [S ], and the heirs male of her body by her said husband. He retired from the Chief Justiceship, -1 June 1788, after holding it 32 years, and was cr., 1 Aug. 1792, EAHL OF MANSFIELD, co. Middlesex, ('') with a spec. rem. of that dignity. (* J failing heirs male of his body to his nephew the said David (Murray), Viscount Stoumont [S-] He m., 20 Sep. 1738, at Haby Castle, co. Durham, Elizabeth, 8th da. of Daniel (Fincii), 6th Earl of Winchil- ska, by his 2d wife, Anne, da. of Christopher (Hatton), 1st Viscount Hatton of Grendon. She d. 10 and was bur. 20 April 1784, aged 79, in Westm. Abbey, He, who lived the last four years of his life in retirement at Kenwood, in Highgate, Midx., d. there 20, and was bur. 2S March 1793, at Westm Abbev, aged 88.( c ) Will dat. 17 April 1782 (with 19 codicils) to 19 Oct. 1791, pr. 28 March 1793. Earldom. 2. Louisa, sua jure, Countess of Mansfield, co. II 179.3 Nottingham, sue. to that dignity, 20 March 1793, under the spec. lim. in the creation LI 776] thereof, being then wife of David (Murray) 2d Earl of Mansfield, co. Middlesex, who on the same day, had sue. to that dignity under the spec. lim. in the creation (1792) thereof. She was 3d da. of Charles (Cathart), 9th Lord Cathcart [S.], by Jane, da. of Lord Archibald Hamilton ; b. 1 July 1758 ; m. (as his second wife), 5 May 1776, at St. Geo. Han. sq. the abovemeutioned David, then Viscount Stormont [S.], but subsequently Earl of Mansfield, co. Middlesex as abovestated, who d. 1 Sep. 1796, as below mentioned. She m. secondly, 19 Oct. 1797, the Hon. Robert Fulke Grevii.lk, who d. 27 April 182-1, aged 72. She d. 11 July 1S43, at Richmoud Hill, Surrey, aged 85. Will pr. March 1811. II. 1793. 5. David (Murray), Earl of Mansfield, co. Middlesex, sue. to that dignity, 20 March 1793, under the spec. rem. in the creation [1792] thereof, being also Viscount Stormont [1621], Lord Scone [1608], and Loud B ALVA HID [1641], in the peerage of Scotland. He was nephew and h. of the late Earl, being e. and h. of David, 6th Viscount Stormont, &c. [S.], by Anne, da. and h. of John Stewart, which David, was elder br. of William, 1st Earl of Mansfield abovenamed. He was b. 9 Oct. 1727, ed. at Westm. school, and at Ch. Ch., Oxford ; matric. 28 May 1744; B.A., 1748 ; sue. to the peerage, [S.], as Viscount (*) The strange limitation of the Earldom in 1776 was doubtless owing to a notion then prevalent that no British peerage granted even in remainder to a Scotch Peer would enable such Peer to sit in Pari., &c. This was founded on the absurd resolu- tion passed by the House of Lords in 1711 as to the like impoteucy of a British peerage granted to a Peer of Scotland (see vol iii, p. 164, note "d," sub "Dover"), which resolution was rescinded in 1782. Accordingly, in 1792, the limitation of the Earldom was made with a direct remainder to the grantee's nephew, tho' a Peer of Scotland. ( t>) " Mansfield, co. 31 iddlesex,' ' is, of course, non existant, and was merely invented to distinguish it from the Earldom of "Mansfield, co. Nottingham," cr. 16 years previously. See p. 195, note " d," sub " Macdouald." ( c ) As an Advocate " the silver-tongued Murray " (as he was called by Pope) was probably unrivalled: within 18 months of his call to the Bar he was in three Appeal cases to the House of Lords (one being " on the all absorbing subject of the Soutli Sea bubble " ), while " his success in the House of Commons was as brilliant," he being, during the Ministry of the Duke of Newcastle " the trusted leader and almost the entire prop of the Government." As a Judge he is spoken of " as the great oracle of law and the founder of commercial jurisprudence." [Foss's "Judges."] Per contra, however, Wraxall [" Hist. Memoirs'' edit. 1884, vol. ii, p. 53], alludes to his " con- stitutional and characteristic timidity in his political capacity,"' adding, also, that "in his judicial character he manifested a devotion to the wishes of the Court scarcely exceeded by any example to be adduced even uuder the Stuart reigns. He was, adds Wraxall, compared, by Junius, " to the most prostitute Judges of the most arbitrary reigns." His decisions as to the law of succession in the cases of the Scotch peerage shew an ignorance of the laws of his native country that is freely commented upon {passim) in "Riddell."