that the late lord had devised his ancient family estates in Ireland unto one John de Courcy, a native of America, and for many years a common boatman at Portsmouth, as his heir male. This strange announcement was contradicted by the sons-in-law and daughters of the late lord, who affirmed that he had for some years before his death laboured under "a constant and habitual indisposition of mind," of which advantage was taken by some evil-disposed adventurer in the neighbourhood to forward his own interests by putting forward an heir, whom he knew to have no right to the succession. This was again alleged to be false by the said Mr. John de Courcy, who took possession of the Baronetcy of Kingsale as twenty-fifth baron-apparently in the veni, vidi, vici style. His enemies, it appears, endeavoured to dispossess him, and resorted to force to accomplish their end; and though Lord Kingsale fled from his own house when, after the true Irish fashion, it was broken into by night, and his wife and children were turned out of doors for the time, still he regained possession by means of the sheriff. Ringrone Castle and the rest of the broad lands in the far south-west of Ireland, which once belonged to the title of Kingsale, have now passed away from the De Courcies, by sale or other transfer; but true to

his illustrious line of ancestors, the last holder of the title, thirtieth Lord of King sale, bought a small property in the south of Devon near Kingsbridge and Modbury, to which he gave the ancient name of Ringrone, no doubt believing in the words of Horace,

Ambiguam tellure nova Salamina futuram."

The present lord is a Benedick; but I sincerely hope that some future Lord will pick up a stray English heiress with plenty of money, who will reinstate the premier baron of Ireland in the Irish property of the ancient De Courcies.

I should add, for the benefit of such of my readers as have a taste for personal gossip and antiquarian smalltalk, that according to Sir Bernard Burke, Lord Forester enjoys in England the like privilege to that of Lord Kingsale, having in his possession at his seat in Shropshire the original grant of Henry VIII., conceding to his ancestor, John Forester, of Watling-street, in that county, the right of wearing his hat in the royal presence.

132

THE HEIRESS OF HADDON HALL.

H

ADDON HALL, viewed architecturally, is

one of the most perfect specimens of the ancient baronial mansions of England, and it forms one of the chief attractions of the fair county of Derbyshire. But even Haddon in the olden time finds its interest enhanced by the wellauthenticated tradition, which tells us how by a romantic attachment and elopement, its picturesque walls and terraces, and the broad lands which surround it, passed from the hands of the Vernons into those of the now ducal house of Manners.

It is well observed of Haddon by Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt, in his "Illustrated Guide" to that place, that, unlike many of our old baronial residences, its history has been uniformly one of peace and hospitality, not of war and feud and oppression;

for that, however much its owners may have been mixed up from time to time in the stirring events of the times in which they lived, Haddon Hall has never played a part in the turmoils. It has never stood a siege like Wardour Castle or Lathom House; and, though it has been a stronghold in its own way, it has been a stronghold of home and of peaceful domestic life, not of armed troops, and therefore, as it nestles in the woods. that crown the banks of the Derwent, it claims an interest peculiarly its own.

We may pass by its early history in a very few lines. At a remote date it was held by the Avenels, by the tenure of knight's service, from whom, towards the close of the 12th century, it passed by the marriage of an heiress into the hands of Richard de Vernon, a nobleman of Norman extraction, as is implied by his name, which was derived from a lordship and town in Normandy on the banks of the Seine, between Rouen and Paris, of which the family were hereditary lords, bearing the titles of Counts and Barons de Reviers, or Redvers. The direct male descendant of this Richard Vernon, Sir Henry, was made governor to Prince Arthur by Henry VII., with whom he was a great favourite. He married a daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, by whom he had a son, also Sir Henry, high steward

of the King's Forest of the Peak under King Henry VIII., whose son, Sir George, the owner of Haddon, was known far and wide through Derbyshire and the midland counties as "the King of the Peak."* It is said on good authority that he owned thirty manors in Derbyshire alone, to say nothing of properties in other counties; and by his first wife, a daughter of Sir Gilbert Taylebois or Talbot, he had two daughters, his coheiresses, the elder of whom married the second son of the then Earl of Derby; while the younger -whose story we are about to tell-became the ancestress of the Earls and Dukes of Rutland. Sir George Vernon was not styled "King of the Peak" without good cause; for he lived at Haddon in such a style of magnificence and hospitality as was right worthy of a prince, and would put to shame many a German potentate. It is said that he was at once the most generous and the most just of men, and that, although he was given perhaps to undue severity, and inclined to indulge occasionally in a "Lynch law" of his own throughout the Peak," yet he lived

.6

* It was Sir John Vernon, the younger brother of this worthy knight, that married the heiress of the Montgomeries, of Sudbury, in Derbyshire, and founded the family of the present Lord Vernon, who still owns landed estates in the neighbourhood of Haddon, which have passed from sire to son.