Page:VCH Norfolk 2.djvu/561

 POLITICAL HISTORY Paston and Sir Nevill Catlyn ; for Yarmouth, Sir William Cook, bart., and John Friend, and so on, all elected being men of high standing. The duke of Norfolk had married Mary, the daughter of Mordaunt, earl of Peterborough, a woman whose gallantries were notorious, among her reputed lovers being King James II. Possibly the private wrong may have made the duke so active a participator in bringing over William of Orange. He was the first to declare the prince in the county, riding into Norwich market-place at the head of 300 knights and gentlemen and declaring for a free Parliament.^ He raised a regiment in the county, which was presently sent to Ireland to assist in the reduction of that kingdom, and which was in all probability engaged in the celebrated battle of the Boyne.^ To Norwich he was a good friend, for he brought back its charter which had been so disgracefully surrendered to Charles II. From the accession of William III the history of the county is really the history of the elections and the growth of farming, for none of the various attempts made by the Stuarts came to anything in Norfolk, though, as will be seen, one man suffered for his participation in them. The duke of Norfolk for the good service done by him was at once made lord-lieutenant of the county,^ and was taken into favour by William. He died, however, in 1 70 1 without issue, and the title devolved successively on his nephews Thomas and Edward. But the connexion of the Howards with the county was practically over when in 1708 Thomas, eighth duke of Norfolk, in a fit of petulance pulled down the new palace (commenced by Henry the duke in 1602) in St. John Maddermarket, because Thomas Havers, then mayor of Norwich, declined to allow his private company of comedians to enter the city in state with trumpets blowing. Of late years, however, the present duke has taken considerable interest in the city, and has practically built the new Roman Catholic church on St. Giles' Hill. About the time the Howards ceased to be dominant in Norfolk the Walpoles began to come to the front. They were descended from a knightly family of no great estate long settled at Houghton. One of them, Edward Walpole, married the daughter of Sir Terry Robsart and heiress to her grandfather Sir John Robsart, the noted free lance of the reigns of Henry IV, V, and VI. A later Walpole married one of the Bacons of Hesset, of the Lord Chancellor's family. One of the next generation married the daughter of a lord mayor of London, the issue of which match. Sir Edward Walpole, was practically the first of the family to enter public life, becoming M.P. for Lynn in 1660, and voting for the return of Charles II. His eldest son, Robert Walpole, member for the pocket borough of Castle Rising until 1700, was a prominent local Whig, but will be chiefly known to posterity as the father of the great Sir Robert Walpole, afterwards earl of Orford. The latter when only twenty-four married the daughter of Sir John Shorter, another lord mayor of London, and became M.P. for Lynn in 1702. When he succeeded to his father's estate soon after his marriage it is said to have been worth over >r2,ooo a year, and no doubt he had a substantial fortune with his wife. It is impossible to enter here into the story of his career and the accusations made against him, but it must be admitted that he ' Blomefield, op. cit. iii, 424. ' Mason, op. cit. 429. • Cnl. S.P. Dom. 1689-90, p. 20. 519