Page:The Wentworth Papers 1715-1739.djvu/18

 2 THE WENTWORTH PAPERS.

greater part of the Savile estates in Wakefield, in right of his mother. In legal documents of the time he is usually described as of that town, but it does not appear that he was for any- considerable time a resident there, all his family, with one notable exception, having been born elsewhere. In 1672 his newly-acquired estates in Yorkshire had given him such a position in the county that he was chosen to serve the office of high sheriff ; and there is every reason for believing that during his year of office he occupied Stanley Hall, near Wakefield, at that time the property of the Pilkington family. At any rate, his son Thomas, the subject of this memoir, was born there, if we may take an assertion of that fact in one of his own letters as true. The parish registers of Wakefield prove Thomas to have been baptized in the old church of that town on September 17, 1672. Six months afterwards, that is, about the time of the termination of Sir William Wentworth's shrievalty, and of his election as member of Par- liament for Thirsk, the family moved up to London,* where the influence of the Apsleys was sufficient to procure for Lady Wentworth, and for most of her children as they grew up, appointments of more or less value connected with the court. Of these numerous children some account is necessary, as they nearly all figure to some extent in the correspondence

when at Berlin in May, 1709. He is arranging for his mother to take a journey from London into Yorkshire to see his new estate at Stain- borough, and adds : —
 * Evidence of the above facts is gained from a letter of Wentworth

" If you have a mind to see Wakefield you may go from Strafford in the morning and come back the same night. It is not ten miles distance or else you may go there of a Saturday and lie there, and so go to church at Wakefield the Sunday, or either lie there tTie Sunday night or return to Strafford ; and then in the afternoon you may go from Wakefield to see ' Standly Hall,' where I was born, if your curiosity leads you to desire to see that." To which Lady Wentworth replied: — "To the best of my remembrance your father gave tenor eleven pounds for two horses to his coach down to Wakefield ....

" Your sister has been used to travel, I never but with the Court, since you was half a year old. Upon my word I pleased myself much with the fancy of seeing the house you was born in, and I wish I could see Ashby, ' and Holback ' and ' Sammonby ' (in Lincolnshire)."

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