Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 1.djvu/452

 402 COMPLETE PEERAGE banbury II. 1632. 2. Edward (Knollys), Earl of Banbury, &'c., s. and h., i>. 10 Apr. 1627, at Rotherfield Greys, where the Earl (his father) was then residing. Under the description of" Earl of Banbury " he was party to a chancery suit, 9 Feb. 1 640/1, as " an infant, by William, Earl of Salisbury, his prochein amy and guardian." (*) He i/. unm., and under age, in or before June 1645, being slain in a quarrel on the road between Calais and Gravelines, and was /?ur. In the church of the Friars Minims, at Calais. III. 1646. 3. Nicholas (Knollys, "heretofore Vaux "), Earl OF Banbury, ^c, only br. and h., l>. 3 Jan. 1 630/1, at (Lord Vaux's House) Harrowden, Northants. As heir to his br. he inherited a small property (called the Bowling Place) at Henley- upon-Thames (being part of the heritable lands of his late father which had passed under the In^. p. m. of 1641), and immediately assumed the peerage, as appears by a deed dat. 19 Oct. 1646, whereby his step father. Lord Vaux, settles the manors of Harrowden, {jfc, Northants, on his (Lord Vaux's) wife, the Dowager Countess of Banbury, for her life, with rem. to Nicholas, her son, the said Earl. He sat repeatedly (") Depositions as to his birth were then made. The best account of the claim to the Earldom of Banbury is J treatise on the Lcnv of Adultirine Bastardy^ with a report of the Banbury case, ^., by Sir N.Harris Nicolas, 1836, p. 588, from which work most of the facts mentioned in the text are taken. The learned writer is not merely content with ably demonstrating the legitimacy in law of the and and 3rd Earls, but brings forth many arguments to prove that they were in fact children of the 1st Earl. There certainly seems no proof to the contrary. The fact of the childless Lord Vaux setding his estates on his young step son, who consequently took his name, though suspicious, is not without precedent ; at p. 369 of Nicolas' treatise a similar instance (Agsborough, alias Townshend) is mentioned. It seems also certain, that the Earl must have been aware of the birth of the elder of the two sons, as according to the evidence of " Francis Delavall, Esq., " (1641) he " did come into the chamber where the Countess was, a little before her delivery, and desired to have persons sent for to give her ease, and shortly after the birth desired witness' wife to take care of his hoy. " The birth of the second boy, being at Lord Vaux's house, is in more suspicious circumstances, but, even then, there is the testimony of Anne Delavall (1661), that the lying in was publicly known in the house, " that he [Lord Banbury] knew shee lay in " and that " he [Nicholas] was owned by the E. of Banbury as his son. " The general impression however doubtless was (as is noticed by Peter Le Neve, Norroy, in an elaborate ped. of Knollys, about 1693, now in the Harl. MSS. 5808) that the two sons were begotten by Lord Vaux. Their matern- ity is quite clear, and the singular and probably unique hypothesis of Beltz (Lancaster Herald, 1822-41) that they were the sons of Lord Vaux, but by another woman [or women] than the Countess, appears to be opposed to all evidence and probability. Anyhow, whatever may have been their actua/, their legal paternity (not having been upset by Act of Pari.) appears indisputable and has been acknowledged by the law of the land, though unacknowledged by the House of Lords. See also post, p. 404, note " a. "