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William, the only son of Evelyn, first Duke of Kingston, married Rachel, daughter of Thomas Baynton, of Little Chalfield, Wiltshire, by whom he had a son named Evelyn, born in 1711, and one daughter, Lady Frances. William, who took the title of Earl of Kingston, died of small-pox in 1713.
Evelyn, the first duke, died in 1726, and was succeeded by his grandson Evelyn in the dukedom and the estates.
He was elected a Knight of the Garter in 1741. On the outbreak of the rebellion in 1745 the Duke, at his own cost, raised a regiment of light horse, which greatly distinguished itself at the battle of Culloden. Some years afterwards he was given the rank of Lieutenant-General in the army. On the occasion of the coronation of George III. he had the honour of carrying St. Edward's staff, and in 1763 was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire and Steward of Sherwood Forest.
The Duke is described by Walpole as weak, though of fine person and great beauty. On March 8, 1769, he went through the ceremony of marriage at St. George's, Hanover Square, with the notorious Elizabeth Chudleigh,1 who was afterwards proved to have been, at the time when the ceremony took place, the wife of the Hon. Augustus John Hervey, afterwards Earl of Bristol.
On the Duke's death in 1773 the titles became extinct. His only sister, Lady Frances Pierrepont, married, in 1734,
Philip Meadows, Esq., third son of Sir Philip Meadows, and left issue, Charles, who succeeded to the estates and assumed the surname and arms of Pierrepont. He was created Lord Pierrepont of Holme-Pierrepont and Viscount Newark in 1796, and Earl Manvers 1806. He married Anne Orton, daughter of John Mills, Esq., of Richmond, and had issue the Hon. Charles Herbert, who married Mary Letitia, daughter of Anthony Hardolph Eyre, Esq., and from this marriage are descended the present noble owners of the estate. The younger brother of the last-named Charles Herbert Pierrepont, Earl Manvers—the Right Hon. Henry Manvers, who was born in 1780, married Lady Sophia, only daughter of Henry, first Marquis of Exeter.
The Marchioness of Exeter, who was mother of Lady Sophia, was said to be the heroine of Tennyson's poem, "The Lord of Burleigh."
The village of Perlethorpe, situated near Thoresby House, and entirely within the park, is occupied exclusively by workmen and others employed on the estate. In old documents it is frequently called Peverelthorpe. In the reign of Henry the Third, William Peverel, the younger, had the profit and control of this part of the country, and probably had some settlement here.
The parish register contains entries of very early date; in fact, it is one of the three earliest in the country, beginning in 1529, ten years before the order was made directing parish registers to be kept, but in other respects it is of no great interest. It has been recently published by Dr. Marshall. Some of the earliest names that occur are borne by families still in the neighbourhood, such as Rockley, Bullivante, Peatfield, Tudsbury, Hardstaffe.
1533. Edward Bullivante was baptised ye firste day of Marche.
1542. Henerie Foster and Elizabeth Hurst was maried iv th. daie of June.
1552. Edward Bullivante and Alee heathe were married the Xlth. day of Maie.
1627. Richard Tudsbury and Mary was married the i6th. daye of August.
1652. heanearye marshall was baptized the 4th day of Aprill. April ye 18th, 1746. Sarah Peatfield of Palethorpe made oath that ye body of Daniel Marshall of ye same place, lately deceased, was not, when buried, wrapped up in any thing, nor put in any coffin lined or faced with anything, but what was made of sheeps wool only : before me. Richard Jackson, Vicar of Walesby.
In ye presence of Matthew Markland, Vicar of Sutton.
The burial of William Scott, "Captain of the Mary" in and the birth of Ann Winchester at the "Menagerie" in carry us back to the palmy days of Thoresby. Throsby, in his edition of Thoroton, mentions "the fine sheet of water bearing vessels of no great burthen, of which I suppose the Mary was the chief."
The keeper, the house-steward, the baker, and the clerk of the kitchen to the Duchess of Kingston, whose burials are entered, remind us of the residence here of Elizabeth Chudleigh.
In 1800. Charles Tudsbury and Martha Hardstaffe, both of the parish of Edwinstowe, were married in this chapel by license. July 14. In the presence of John Eaton, Ann Tudsbury.
1802. William Bentinck, Esq., and the Honourable Frances Augusta Eliza Pierrepont. Oct. 20.
The will of "Thomas Stringer, of Parlethorpe, husbandman," who died in 1557, of which a copy is here given, is of some interest on account of the bargain his executor is required to make with certain legatees. He bequeaths "unto the Church of P'lethorpe ij vestments and a cope willing that the said p'ish shall pay unto my executor iij iv for which vestments and cope I lade out vis viiid for them. . . . To our clerke an old cote. To benson my best hose. To Saunderson's wif a yowe and a lambe."
Edmund Pettynggar, of Thowrsbye, by will dated February 15, 1556, gives "to Richard Pettyngar, my servant; a violytt jackytt."
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1 The career of Elizabeth
Chudleigh, who went through the ceremony of marriage with Evelyn, the
last Duke of Kingston,
was so remarkable that
it is said to have suggested to Thackeray the character of "Beatrice " in
Esmond, and of the "Baroness Bernstein" in The Virginians.
She was the only child of Colonel Thomas Chudleigh,
Lieutenant-Governor of Chelsea Hospital. On Colonel Chudleigh's death,
she and her mother
being badly provided for, her youth was spent in the country. She was
a beautiful girl, and while staying at her aunt's house met, at Winchester
races, Augustus John Hervey, a lieutenant in the navy, grandson of the
first Earl of Bristol. Hervey obtained leave of absence from his ship
and paid his addresses to her at her cousin's house. Piqued at the apparent
neglect of another lover, the Duke of Hamilton, she consented to marry
him, and, as they were both poor and she could not afford to lose her
place as maid of honour, they were married privately, though in the presence
of witnesses, in the chapel of Laniston, by the rector, Mr. Amis, at
10 or 11 p.m. on August 4, 1744. A few days afterwards Hervey joined
his ship and sailed for the West Indies, and his wife, when not in attendance
at Leicester House, lived with her mother in Conduit Street. Her husband
returned to England in October, 1746, and in the summer of the next year
she was secretly delivered of a male child at Chelsea. This child was
baptized and put out to nurse at Chelsea in November, 1747, as Henry
Augustus, son of the Hon. Augustus Hervey, and shortly afterwards died,
and was buried there. From the time of Hervey's return to England there
had been frequent quarrels between him and his wife. Miss Chudleigh,
as she was still called, kept her marriage secret, and continued to hold
office as a maid of honour at the Court of the princess. George II. pretended
to be in love with her, and gave her a watch which cost thirty-five guineas,
and made her mother housekeeper at Windsor, a place of considerable profit.
As, in 1759, the failing health of the Earl of Bristol seemed to promise
the succession at an early date to his brother Augustus, Elizabeth thought
it well to take steps to prove her marriage, should she desire to do
so. She went down to Winchester, where Mr. Amis then lay on his death-bed,
and in the presence of witnesses caused him to enter her marriage in
the register of Laniston Chapel.
Hervey, who was anxious to marry again, sent a message to her in 1768
by Caesar Hawkins, the surgeon who had been present at the birth of the
child, to say that he proposed to apply for a divorce. In order to obtain
a divorce, however, it was necessary to prove the marriage, and as Elizabeth
was not willing to incur the scandal of a divorce, she refused to allow
that a marriage had taken place. At thesame time she was anxious for
a dissolution in order that she might become the wife of the Duke of
Kingston. Accordingly she instituted a suit of jactitation against him
in the Consistory Court, and the answer made by Hervey was so weak that
there is reason to believe the whole proceeding was collusive. Elizabeth,
however, as she told Caesar Hawkins, was unhappy at finding that she
had to swear she was not married. She took the required oath, however,
and on February 11, 1769, the court declared her a spinster and free
from any matrimonial contract; and enjoining silence on Hervey, on the
8th of March following, she was married to the Duke of Kingston, at St.
George's, Hanover Square.
In May, 1773, Hervey renewed his matrimonial case by presenting a petition
to the King in Council for a new trial, and the matter was referred to
the Lord Chancellor. The Duke of Kingston died at Bath on September 23,
1773, leaving to the Duchess by his will his real estate for life and
the whole of his personality for ever, on condition that she remained
a widow. Shortly after the Duke's death she sailed for Italy in her yacht.
During her absence Mr. Evelyn Meadows, the next heir to the estate,
the Duke's nephew, on information received from Ann Cradock, who had
been in the service of Elizabeth, caused a bill of indictment for bigamy
to be drawn up against her. On learning this she determined to return
to England at once.
In March, 1775, her first husband, Hervey, succeeded his brother as
Earl of Bristol.
On the 24th of May the Duchess appeared before
Lord Mansfield in the Court of King's Bench to answer the indictment
preferred against her.
She was attended by the Duke of Newcastle and others, and entered into
a recognizance, herself in £4,000 and four sureties of £1,000 each.
The trial of the Duchess before the House of Peers began on April 16,
1776. It extended over the 19th, 20th, and 22nd.
The indictment set forth that she, as the wife
of Augustus John Hervey, did on the third day of March, in the ninth
year of George the Third,
marry the late Evelyn Pierrepont, Duke of Kingston, her former husband
being then living. Her plea was an authenticated copy of a sentence of
the Ecclesiastical Court in her favour, in the year 1768, previous to
her marriage with the Duke of Kingston, deceased, which her counsel pronounced
was a good plea in bar of the indictment. All the peers found her guilty,
but one, the Duke of Newcastle, who said, "erroneously, but not
intendedly guilty, upon my honour."
The marriage with Hervey, the birth of the child, and the registration
of the marriage in 1759 were clearly proved by Ann Cradock, and the widow
of the clergyman who officiated.
The Earl of Bristol, her husband, died on December 22, 1779. Elizabeth
Chudleigh (Countess of Bristol) died in 1788.
Walpole says: "She was presented at Court
as Duchess of Kingston, and, as if she had bribed the King and Princesses
too, they, the Queen
and the whole Court, wore the favours she had sent them on her marriage."
Dictionary of National Biography; H.
Walpole's Reign of George III.