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 CLANRICARDE 237 1800 (the last date of creation (*) of Irish Peers before the Union), he (having then no son), was cr. EARL OF CLANRICARDE, co. Galway [I.], with rem. of that dignity failing his issue male, to his ist and every other da. in priority of birth, and to the heir male of the body of such da.C") P.C. [I.] 24 Feb. 1 801. Gov. of Hull 1801-08. Rep. Peer [I.] 1801-08, being one of the original 28 so elected at the time of the Union. He m., 17 Mar. 1799, at her father's house, Elizabeth, 3rd da. of Sir Thomas Burke, ist Bart., of Marble Hill, co. Galway, by Christian, da. of James Browne, of Limerick. He d. 27 July 1 808, in Dublin, aged 62. Will pr. Nov. 1808. His widow . MARQUESSATE [I.] 20 Dec. 1802, at Belmont, Hants. On 26 Nov. ... 1825 he was cr. MARQUESS OF CLANRI- ^^^- ^^^^- CARDE [I.], and, on 13 Dec. 1826, was cr. BARON SOMERHILL, of Somerhill, Kent [U.K.J.C^) Under Sec. of State for Foreign Affairs, 1826-27; Capt. of the Yeomen of the Guard, 1830-34; P.C. i Dec. 1830; K.P. 19 Oct. 1 83 !;('') Lord Lieut, of co. Galway, 1831 till his death; Ambassador to St. Petersburg, 1838-41; Postmaster Gen. 1846-52; Lord Privy Seal, Feb. 1858 for about 3 weeks.(^) He was also Vice Adm. of Connaught. (*) See Appendix H to this volume. (^) Of his two daughters, Hester, the elder, m. the Marquess of Sligo [I.], and Emily, the younger, m. the Earl of Howth [I.], her issue failing, and that Earldom becoming extinct on the death of her son, the 4th Earl, 9 Mar. 1909. The Earldom of Clanricarde (1800), if inherited by the heir male of the elder da., will then become merged in the Marquessate of Sligo. (<=) The estate of Somerhill, in Kent, had passed out of the De Burgh family some 200 years ago. The grantee was indeed descended from the 7th Earl, who was cousin of the 5th Earl, who was Baron Somerhill [E.], but in spite of this (his ancestor's) cousinship, the selection of the title seems inappropriate. As to the choice of such titles, see note sub John, Earl of Enniskillen [1803]. {^) He was one of the four extra Knights made by King William IV on his Coronation, and became a knight in ordinary 24 Jan. 1833. See, ante, p. 138, note "a," sub " Charlemont." {") His appointment to this office largely contributed to the fall of the Govt, in the same year, as Lord Palmerston "had defied public opinion by taking him into the Government, after some unpleasant disclosures in the Irish Courts," in con- nection with the will of a Mrs. Handcock by whom Clanricarde was father of an illegitimate son. For this and other great offices of State see vol. ii. Appendix D. Edmund Yates {Recollections and Experiences) refers to him in 1847 as "A tall, thin, aristocratic man, bald and bland, wearing — novelties in my unaccustomed eyes — tight pantaloons, striped silk socks, and pumps." In an account of the House of Lords in 1857, '" Gent. Mag., he is described as a very bad speaker, with "a perfectly bald and caput mortuum like head." He was at first a Canningite Tory, and owed his Mar- quessate to Canning's influence. Like nearly all that statesman's followers he became a Whig between 1828 and 1830. V.G.