PEERAGES
Last updated 13/01/2018 (10 Mar 2024)
Date	Rank	Order	Name	Born	Died	Age
BEREHAVEN
22 Jan 1816	V[I]	1	Richard White Created Viscount Berehaven and Earl of Bantry 22 Jan 1816 See "Bantry"	6 Aug 1767	2 May 1851	83
BERESFORD
4 Nov 1720	B[I]	1	Sir Marcus Beresford, 4th baronet Created Baron Beresford and Viscount of Tyrone 4 Nov 1720 and Earl of Tyrone 18 Jul 1746 See "Tyrone"	16 Jul 1694	4 Apr 1763	68
17 May 1814 22 Apr 1823 to     8 Jan 1854	B V	1 1	William Carr Beresford Created Baron Beresford 17 May 1814 and Viscount Beresford 22 Apr 1823 MP for co. Waterford 1811‑1814; PC 1821 Peerages extinct on his death	2 Oct 1768	8 Jan 1854	85
22 Jan 1916 to     6 Sep 1919	B	1	Lord Charles William de la Poer Beresford Created Baron Beresford 22 Jan 1916 MP for co. Waterford 1874‑1880, Marylebone East 1885‑1889, York 1898‑1900, Woolwich 1902‑1903 and Portsmouth 1910‑1916 Peerages extinct on his death For further information on this peer, see the note at the foot of this page	10 Feb 1846	6 Sep 1919	73
BERKELEY
24 Jun 1295	B	1	Thomas de Berkeley Summoned to Parliament as Lord Berkeley 24 Jun 1295	1245	23 Jul 1321	76
23 Jul 1321		2	Maurice de Berkeley		31 May 1326
31 May 1326		3	Thomas de Berkeley	1293	27 Oct 1361	68
27 Oct 1361		4	Maurice de Berkeley	1330	8 Jun 1368	37
8 Jun 1368 to     13 Jul 1417		5	Thomas de Berkeley Peerage extinct on his death	5 Jan 1353	13 Jul 1417	64
20 Oct 1421	B	1	James de Berkeley Summoned to Parliament as Lord Berkeley 20 Oct 1421	c 1394	Nov 1463
Nov 1463 21 Apr 1481 28 Jan 1489 to     14 Feb 1492	V M	2 1 1	William de Berkeley Created Viscount Berkeley 21 Apr 1481, Earl of Nottingham 28 Jun 1483 and Marquess of Berkeley 28 Jan 1489 For further information on this peer, and the Battle of Nibley Green in particular, see the note at the foot of this page On his death the Marquessate and Viscountcy became extinct, but the Barony passed to -	1426	14 Feb 1492	65
14 Feb 1492		3	Maurice Berkeley	1436	Sep 1506	70
Sep 1506		4	Maurice Berkeley	1467	12 Sep 1523	56
12 Sep 1523		5	Thomas Berkeley	1472	22 Jan 1533	60
22 Jan 1533		6	Thomas Berkeley	1505	19 Sep 1534	29
26 Nov 1534		7	Henry Berkeley Lord Lieutenant Gloucester 1608‑1613	26 Nov 1534	26 Nov 1613	79
26 Nov 1613		8	George Berkeley	7 Oct 1601	10 Aug 1658	56
10 Aug 1658 11 Sep 1679	E	9 1	George Berkeley Created Viscount Dursley and Earl of Berkeley 11 Sep 1679 Lord Lieutenant Gloucester 1660‑1689 and Surrey 1689‑1698; PC 1685 For information on Lady Henrietta Berkeley, the Earl's daughter, see the note at the foot of the page containing details of the Earl of Tankerville	1628	14 Oct 1698	70
11 Jul 1689 14 Oct 1698		10 2	Charles Berkeley He was summoned to Parliament by a Writ of Acceleration as Baron Berkeley 11 Jul 1689 MP for Gloucester 1679‑1681; Lord Lieutenant Gloucester 1694‑1710 and Surrey 1702‑1710; PC 1694	8 Apr 1649	24 Sep 1710	61
5 Mar 1705 24 Sep 1710		11 3	James Berkeley He was summoned to Parliament by a Writ of Acceleration as Baron Berkeley 5 Mar 1705 MP for Gloucester 1701‑1702; Lord Lieutenant Gloucester 1710‑1712 and 1714‑1736; First Lord of the Admiralty 1717‑1727; PC 1717; KG 1718	1680	17 Aug 1736	56
17 Aug 1736		12 4	Augustus Berkeley Lord Lieutenant Gloucester 1737‑1755; KT 1739	18 Feb 1716	9 Jan 1755	38
9 Jan 1755		13 5	Frederick Augustus Berkeley Lord Lieutenant Gloucester 1766‑1810	24 May 1745	8 Aug 1810	65
8 Aug 1810		14 6	Thomas Moreton Fitzhardinge Berkeley For further information on the subsequent claims to this peerage, see the note at the foot of this page On his death the Barony devolved to his niece (see below) and the Earldom passed to -	16 May 1796	27 Aug 1882	86
27 Aug 1882		7	George Lennox Fitzhardinge Berkeley	25 Feb 1827	27 Aug 1888	61
27 Aug 1888 to     15 Jan 1942		8	Randal Mowbray Thomas Berkeley On his death the peerage became either extinct or dormant	30 Jan 1865	15 Jan 1942	86
27 Aug 1882	B	15	Louisa Mary Milman	28 May 1840	10 Dec 1899	59
10 Dec 1899 to     4 Dec 1964		16	Eva Mary Foley On her death the barony fell into abeyance	4 Mar 1875	4 Dec 1964	89
1967		17	Mary Lalle Foley-Berkeley Abeyance terminated in her favour 1967	9 Oct 1905	17 Oct 1992	87
17 Oct 1992		18	Anthony Fitzhardinge Gueterbock Created Baron Gueterbock for life 18 Apr 2000	20 Sep 1939
BERKELEY OF KNIGHTON
26 Mar 2013	B[I]	1	Michael Fitzhardinge Berkeley Created Baron Berkeley of Knighton for life 26 Mar 2013	29 May 1948
BERKELEY OF RATHDOWNE
14 Jul 1663	B[I]	1	Charles Berkeley Created Baron Berkeley of Rathdowne and Viscount Fitzhardinge 14 Jul 1663 See "Fitzhardinge"	before 1636	3 Jun 1665
BERKELEY OF STRATTON
19 May 1658	B	1	John Berkeley Created Baron Berkeley of Stratton 19 May 1658 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1670‑1672	1 Feb 1607	28 Aug 1678	71
28 Aug 1678		2	Charles Berkeley	18 Jun 1662	6 Mar 1682	19
6 Mar 1682		3	John Berkeley	c 1663	27 Feb 1697
27 Feb 1697		4	William Berkeley Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1710‑1714; First Lord of Trade and Plantations 1714‑1715; PC [I] 1696; PC 1710		24 Mar 1741
24 Mar 1741 to     18 Apr 1773		5	John Berkeley MP for Stockbridge 1735‑1741; Lord Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets 1762‑1770; PC 1752 Peerage extinct on his death	1697	18 Apr 1773	75
BERKHAMSTED
27 Jul 1726 to     31 Oct 1765	M	1	HRH William Augustus Created Baron of Alderney, Viscount Trematon, Earl of Kennington, Marquess of Berkhampstead and Duke of Cumberland 27 Jul 1726 Second son of George II; KG 1730; PC 1746 Peerage extinct on his death	15 Apr 1721	31 Oct 1765	44
18 Jul 1917	E	1	Alexander Albert Mountbatten Created Viscount Launceston, Earl of Berkhamsted and Marquess of Carisbrooke 18 Jul 1917 See "Carisbrooke"	23 Nov 1886	23 Feb 1960	73
BERKSHIRE
28 Jan 1621 to     29 Jan 1624	E	1	Francis Norris, 2nd Baron Norris de Rycote Created Viscount Thame and Earl of Berkshire 28 Jan 1621 Peerages extinct on his death		29 Jan 1624
7 Feb 1626	E	1	Thomas Howard Created Baron Howard of Charlton and Viscount Andover 22 Jan 1622, and Earl of Berkshire 7 Feb 1626 MP for Lancaster 1605‑1611, Wiltshire 1614 and Cricklade 1620‑1622; Lord Lieutenant Oxford 1628‑1642 and Middlesex 1660‑1662; KG 1625	c 1590	16 Jul 1669
16 Jul 1669		2	Charles Howard He was summoned to Parliament by a Writ of Acceleration as Baron Howard of Charlton 18 Nov 1640	c 1615	Apr 1679
Apr 1679		3	Thomas Howard	14 Nov 1619	12 Apr 1706	86
12 Apr 1706		4	Henry Bowes Howard He succeeded to the Earldom of Suffolk in 1745 when the peerages were merged and still remain so	1686	21 Mar 1757	70
BERMINGHAM
5 Apr 1327	B	1	William Bermingham Summoned to Parliament as Lord Bermingham 5 Apr 1327 Nothing further is known of this peerage
BERNARD
6 Aug 1800	E[I]	1	Francis Bernard, 1st Viscount Bandon Created Viscount Bernard and Earl of Bandon 6 Aug 1800 See "Bandon"	26 Nov 1755	26 Nov 1830	75
BERNERS
26 May 1455	B	1	Sir John Bourchier Summoned to Parliament as Lord Berners 26 May 1455 KG 1459		May 1474
May 1474		2	John Bourchier Chancellor of the Exchequer 1517‑1527	1467	19 Mar 1533	65
19 Mar 1533		3	Jane Knyvett		17 Feb 1562
17 Feb 1562		4	Thomas Knyvett	c 1539	9 Feb 1618
9 Feb 1618		5	Thomas Knyvett	10 Jun 1596	30 Jun 1658	62
30 Jun 1658		6	John Knyvett		28 Jul 1673
28 Jul 1673 to     28 Sep 1693		7	Thomas Knyvett On his death the peerage fell into abeyance		28 Sep 1693
1711 to     29 Nov 1743		8	Katherine Bokenham She became sole heiress in 1711. On her death in 1743 the peerage again fell into abeyance	13 Aug 1658	29 Nov 1743	85
7 May 1832 to     25 Mar 1838		9	Robert Wilson Abeyance terminated in his favour 7 May 1832. On his death the Barony fell into abeyance for the third time, but only for 36 days	20 Jan 1761	25 Mar 1838	77
30 Apr 1838		10	Henry Wilson Abeyance terminated in his favour 30 Apr 1838	1 Oct 1762	26 Feb 1851	88
26 Feb 1851		11	Henry William Wilson	23 Feb 1797	27 Jun 1871	74
27 Jun 1871		12	Harriet Tyrwhitt	18 Nov 1835	18 Aug 1917	81
18 Aug 1917		13	Sir Raymond Robert Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 4th baronet	22 Jul 1855	5 Sep 1918	63
5 Sep 1918		14	Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson For further information on this peer, see the note at the foot of this page	18 Sep 1883	19 Apr 1950	66
19 Apr 1950 to     20 Feb 1992		15	Vera Ruby Williams On her death the peerage fell into abeyance	25 Dec 1901	20 Feb 1992	90
30 Jun 1995		16	Pamela Vivien Kirkham Abeyance terminated in her favour 1995	30 Sep 1929	23 Jan 2023	93
23 Jan 2023		17	Rupert William Tyrwhitt Kirkham	18 Feb 1953
BERNSTEIN
3 Jul 1969 to     5 Feb 1993	B[L]		Sidney Lewis Bernstein Created Baron Bernstein for life 3 Jul 1969 Peerage extinct on his death	30 Jan 1899	5 Feb 1993	94
BERNSTEIN OF CRAIGWEIL
15 May 2000 to     12 Apr 2010	B[L]		Alexander Bernstein Created Baron Bernstein of Craigweil for life 15 May 2000 Peerage extinct on his death	15 Mar 1936	12 Apr 2010	74
BERRIDGE
18 Jan 2011	B[L]		Elizabeth Rose Berridge Created Baroness Berridge for life 18 Jan 2011	22 Mar 1972
BERTIE OF THAME
28 Jun 1915 2 Sep 1918	B V	1 1	Sir Francis Leveson Bertie Created Baron Bertie of Thame 28 Jun 1915 and Viscount Bertie of Thame 2 Sep 1918 PC 1903	17 Aug 1844	26 Sep 1919	75
26 Sep 1919 to     29 Aug 1954		2	Vere Frederick Bertie Peerages extinct on his death	20 Oct 1878	29 Aug 1954	75
BERTIN
2 Sep 2016	B[L]		Gabrielle Louise Bertin Created Baroness Bertin for life 2 Sep 2016	14 Mar 1978
BERTRAM
14 Dec 1264	B	1	Roger Bertram Summoned to Parliament as Lord Bertram 14 Dec 1264		after 1264
after 1264 to     after 1264		2	Rogert Bertram On his death the barony fell into abeyance		after 1264
BERWICK
19 May 1784	B	1	Noel Hill Created Baron Berwick 19 May 1784 MP for Shrewsbury 1768‑1774 and Shropshire 1774‑1784	Apr 1745	6 Jan 1789	43
6 Jan 1789		2	Thomas Noel Hill	21 Oct 1770	3 Nov 1832	62
3 Nov 1832		3	William Noel-Hill MP for Shrewsbury 1796‑1812 and Marlborough 1814‑1818; PC 1824	21 Oct 1773	4 Aug 1842	68
4 Aug 1842		4	Richard Noel-Hill	7 Nov 1774	28 Sep 1848	73
28 Sep 1848		5	Richard Noel Noel-Hill	21 Nov 1800	12 Apr 1861	60
12 Apr 1861		6	William Noel-Hill	6 Jul 1802	24 Nov 1882	80
24 Nov 1882		7	Richard Henry Noel-Hill	13 May 1847	2 Nov 1897	50
2 Nov 1897		8	Thomas Henry Noel-Hill	2 Apr 1877	12 Jun 1947	70
12 Jun 1947 to     27 Jan 1953		9	Charles Michael Wentworth Noel-Hill Peerage extinct on his death	4 Mar 1897	27 Jan 1953	55
BERWICK UPON TWEED
19 Mar 1687 to     c 1696?	D	1	James Fitzjames Created Baron of Bosworth, Earl of Tinmouth and Duke of Berwick-upon-Tweed 19 Mar 1687 Illegitimate son of James II; Lord Lieutenant Hampshire 1687-1689; KG 1688 He was presumed to have been attainted and the peerages forfeited sometime between 1695 and 1697, although no Act of Attainder has ever been found, as far as I am aware For further information on the question of an attainder, see the note at the foot of this page	21 Aug 1670	12 Jun 1734	63
BESSBOROUGH
11 Sep 1721	B[I]	1	William Ponsonby Created Baron Bessborough 11 Sep 1721 and Viscount Duncannon 28 Feb 1723 MP [I] for Kilkenny County 1692‑1693, 1695‑1699 and 1703‑1721; PC [I] 1715	1659	17 Nov 1724	65
17 Nov 1724 6 Oct 1739	E[I]	2 1	Brabazon Ponsonby, 2nd Viscount Duncannon Created Earl of Bessborough 6 Oct 1739 and Baron Ponsonby of Sysonby 12 Jun 1749 MP [I] for Newtown(ards) 1704‑1715 and Kildare County 1715‑1725; PC [I] 1727	1679	4 Jul 1758	79
4 Jul 1758		2	William Ponsonby MP [I] for Newtown(ards) 1725‑1727 and Kilkenny County 1727‑1758; MP for Derby 1742‑1754, Saltash 1754‑1756 and Harwich 1756‑1758; Lord Lieutenant Kilkenny 1758; Postmaster-General 1759‑1762 and 1765‑1766; PC [I] 1741; PC 1765	by Nov 1704	11 Mar 1793
11 Mar 1793		3	Frederick Ponsonby MP for Knaresborough 1780‑1793	24 Jan 1758	3 Feb 1844	86
3 Feb 1844		4	John William Ponsonby Created Baron Duncannon 19 Jul 1834 MP for Knaresborough 1805‑1806, Higham Ferrers 1810‑1812, Malton 1812‑1826, co. Kilkenny 1826‑1832 and Nottingham 1832‑1834; Lord Lieutenant Carlow 1831‑1838 and Kilkenny 1838‑1847; First Commissioner of Woods and Forests 1831‑1834 and 1835‑1841; Home Secretary 1834; Lord Privy Seal 1835‑1839; Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1846‑1847; PC 1831	31 Aug 1781	16 May 1847	65
16 May 1847		5	John George Brabazon Ponsonby MP for Bletchingley 1831, Higham Ferrers 1831‑1832 and Derby 1835‑1847; Lord Lieutenant Carlow 1838‑1880; PC 1848	14 Oct 1809	28 Jan 1880	70
28 Jan 1880		6	Frederick George Brabazon Ponsonby	11 Sep 1815	11 Mar 1895	79
11 Mar 1895		7	Walter William Brabazon Ponsonby	13 Aug 1821	24 Feb 1906	84
24 Feb 1906		8	Edward Ponsonby KP 1915	1 Mar 1851	1 Dec 1920	69
1 Dec 1920 2 Jun 1937	E	9 1	Vere Brabazon Ponsonby Created Earl of Bessborough 2 Jun 1937 MP for Cheltenham 1910 and Dover 1913‑1920; Governor General of Canada 1931‑1935; PC 1931	27 Oct 1880	10 Mar 1956	75
10 Mar 1956 to     5 Dec 1993		10 2	Frederick Edward Neuflize Ponsonby MEP 1973‑1979 On his death the creation of 1937 became extinct whilst the Irish Earldom passed to -	29 Mar 1913	5 Dec 1993	80
5 Dec 1993		11	Arthur Mountifort Longfield Ponsonby	11 Dec 1912	5 Apr 2002	89
5 Apr 2002		12	Myles Fitzhugh Longfield Ponsonby	16 Feb 1941
BEST
4 Jun 2001	B[L]		Richard Stuart Best Created Baron Best for life 4 Jun 2001	22 Jun 1945
BESWICK
18 Dec 1964 to     17 Aug 1987	B[L]		Frank Beswick Created Baron Beswick for life 18 Dec 1964 MP for Uxbridge 1945‑1959; Minister of State for Industry 1974‑1975; PC 1968 Peerage extinct on his death	21 Aug 1911	17 Aug 1987	75
BETHELL
23 Nov 1922	B	1	Sir John Henry Bethell, 1st baronet Created Baron Bethell 23 Nov 1922 MP for Romford 1906‑1918 and East Ham North 1918‑1922	23 Sep 1861	27 May 1945	83
27 May 1945		2	John Raymond Bethell	23 Oct 1902	30 Sep 1965	62
30 Sep 1965		3	Guy Anthony John Bethell	17 Mar 1928	2 Dec 1967	39
2 Dec 1967		4	Nicholas William Bethell MEP 1975‑1979 and for London North West 1979‑1994 and London 1999‑2003	19 Jul 1938	8 Sep 2007	69
8 Sep 2007		5	James Nicholas Bethell [Elected hereditary peer 2018-]	1 Oct 1967
BEVERIDGE
25 Jun 1946 to     16 Mar 1963	B	1	Sir William Henry Beveridge Created Baron Beveridge 25 Jun 1946 MP for Berwick upon Tweed 1944‑1945 Peerage extinct on his death	5 Mar 1879	16 Mar 1963	84
BEVERLEY
26 May 1708	M	1	James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry Created Baron of Rippon, Marquess of Beverley and Duke of Dover 26 May 1708 See "Dover"	18 Sep 1662	6 Jul 1711	38
2 Nov 1790	E	1	Algernon Percy, 2nd Baron Lovaine Created Earl of Beverley 2 Nov 1790 MP for Northumberland 1774‑1786	21 Jan 1750	21 Oct 1830	80
21 Oct 1830		2	George Percy He succeeded to the Dukedom of Northumberland in 1865 when the peerages merged and still remain so	22 Jun 1778	21 Aug 1867	89
BEW
26 Mar 2007	B[L]		Paul Anthony Elliott Bew Created Baron Bew for life 26 Mar 2007	22 Jan 1950
BEXLEY
1 Mar 1823 to     8 Feb 1851	B	1	Nicholas Vansittart Created Baron Bexley 1 Mar 1823 MP for Hastings 1796‑1802, Old Sarum 1802‑1812, East Grinstead 1812 and Harwich 1812‑1823; Chancellor of the Exchequer 1812‑1823; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1823‑1828; PC 1805; PC [I] 1817 Peerage extinct on his death	29 Apr 1766	8 Feb 1851	84
BHATIA
5 Jun 2001 to     12 Jan 2024	B[L]		Amirali Alibhai Bhatia Created Baron Bhatia for life 5 Jun 2001 Peerage extinct on his death	18 Mar 1932	12 Jan 2024	91
BHATTACHARYYA
3 Jun 2004 to     1 Mar 2019	B[L]		Sir Sushantha Kumar Bhattacharyya Created Baron Bhattacharyya for life 3 Jun 2004 Peerage extinct on his death	6 Jun 1940	1 Mar 2019	78
BICESTER
29 Jun 1938	B	1	Vivian Hugh Smith Created Baron Bicester 29 Jun 1938 Lord Lieutenant Oxford 1934‑1954	9 Dec 1867	17 Feb 1956	88
17 Feb 1956		2	Randal Hugh Vivian Smith	9 Jan 1898	15 Jan 1968	70
15 Jan 1968		3	Angus Edward Vivian Smith For further information on this peer, see the note at the foot of this page	20 Feb 1932	11 Dec 2014	82
11 Dec 2014		4	Hugh Charles Vivian Smith	8 Nov 1934
BICHARD
24 Mar 2010	B[L]		Sir Michael George Bichard Created Baron Bichard for life 24 Mar 2010	31 Jan 1947
BIDDULPH
1 Aug 1903	B	1	Michael Biddulph Created Baron Biddulph 1 Aug 1903 MP for Herefordshire 1865‑1868 and Ross 1885‑1900	17 Feb 1834	6 Apr 1923	89
6 Apr 1923		2	John Michael Gordon Biddulph	19 Nov 1869	17 Dec 1949	80
17 Dec 1949		3	Michael William John Biddulph	6 Mar 1898	21 Jul 1972	74
21 Jul 1972		4	Robert Michael Christian Biddulph	6 Jan 1931	3 Nov 1988	57
3 Nov 1988		5	Anthony Nicholas Colin Maitland Biddulph	8 Apr 1959
BIFFEN
3 Jun 1997 to     14 Aug 2007	B[L]		William John Biffen Created Baron Biffen for life 3 Jun 1997 MP for Oswestry 1961‑1983 and Shropshire North 1983‑1997; Chief Secretary to the Treasury 1979‑1981; Secretary of State for Trade 1981‑1982; Lord President of the Council 1982‑1983; Lord Privy Seal 1983‑1987; PC 1979 Peerage extinct on his death	3 Nov 1930	14 Aug 2007	76
BILIMORIA
16 Jun 2006	B[L]		Karan Faridoon Bilimoria Created Baron Bilimoria for life 16 Jun 2006	26 Nov 1961
BILLINGHAM
2 May 2000	B[L]		Angela Theodora Billingham Created Baroness Billingham for life 2 May 2000 MEP for Northamptonshire & Blaby 1994‑1999	31 Jul 1939
BILSLAND
31 Jan 1950 to     10 Dec 1970	B	1	Sir Alexander Steven Bilsland, 2nd baronet Created Baron Bilsland 31 Jan 1950 KT 1955 Peerage extinct on his death	13 Sep 1892	10 Dec 1970	78
BILSTON
20 Jun 2005 to     25 Feb 2014	B[L]		Dennis Turner Created Baron Bilston for life 20 Jun 2005 MP for Wolverhampton SE 1987‑2005 Peerage extinct on his death	26 Aug 1942	25 Feb 2014	71
BINDON
30 Dec 1706	E	1	Henry Howard Created Baron Chesterford and Earl of Bindon 30 Dec 1706 PC 1708 He succeeded as 6th Earl of Suffolk in 1709	1670	19 Sep 1718	48
19 Sep 1718 to     9 Feb 1722		2	Charles William Howard, 7th Earl of Suffolk Peerages extinct on his death	9 May 1693	9 Feb 1722	28
BINGHAM
26 Jun 1934	B	1	George Charles Bingham, 5th Earl of Lucan Created Baron Bingham 26 Jun 1934 See "Lucan"	13 Dec 1860	20 Apr 1949	88
BINGHAM OF CORNHILL
4 Jun 1996 to     11 Sep 2010	B[L]		Sir Thomas Henry Bingham Created Baron Bingham of Cornhill for life 4 Jun 1996 Lord Justice of Appeal 1986‑1992; Master of the Rolls 1992‑1996; Lord Chief Justice 1996‑2000; PC 1986; KG 2005 Peerage extinct on his death	13 Oct 1933	11 Sep 2010	76
BINGLEY
21 Jul 1713 to     9 Apr 1731	B	1	Robert Benson Created Baron Bingley 21 Jul 1713 MP for Thetford 1702‑1705 and York 1705‑1713; Chancellor of the Exchequer 1711‑1713; PC 1711 Peerage extinct on his death	25 Mar 1676	9 Apr 1731	54
13 May 1762 to     22 Feb 1773	B	1	George Fox-Lane Created Baron Bingley 13 May 1762 MP for Hindon 1734‑1741 and York 1742‑1761 Peerage extinct on his death	c 1696	22 Feb 1773
24 Jul 1933 to     11 Dec 1947	B	1	George Richard Lane-Fox Created Baron Bingley 24 Jul 1933 MP for Barkston Ash 1906‑1931; Secretary for Mines 1922‑1924 and 1924‑1928; PC 1926 Peerage extinct on his death	15 Dec 1870	11 Dec 1947	76
BINNING
30 Nov 1613	B[S]	1	Thomas Hamilton Created Lord Binning 30 Nov 1613 and Earl of Melrose 20 Mar 1619 See "Haddington"	1563	29 May 1637	73
BIRD
30 Oct 2015	B[L]		John Anthony Bird Created Baron Bird for life 30 Oct 2015	30 Jan 1946
BIRDWOOD
25 Jan 1938	B	1	Sir William Riddell Birdwood, 1st baronet Created Baron Birdwood 25 Jan 1938 Field Marshal 1925	13 Sep 1865	17 May 1951	85
17 May 1951		2	Christopher Bromhead Birdwood For further information on the first wife of this peer, see the note at the foot of this page	22 May 1899	5 Jan 1962	62
5 Jan 1962 to     11 Jul 2015		3	Mark William Ogilvie Birdwood Peerage extinct on his death	22 Nov 1938	11 Jul 2015	76
BIRK
15 Sep 1967 to     29 Dec 1996	B[L]		Alma Birk Created Baroness Birk for life 15 Sep 1967 Peerage extinct on her death	22 Sep 1917	29 Dec 1996	79
BIRKENHEAD
3 Feb 1919 15 Jun 1921 28 Nov 1922	B V E	1 1 1	Sir Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st baronet Created Baron Birkenhead 3 Feb 1919, Viscount Birkenhead 15 Jun 1921 and Viscount Furneaux and Earl of Birkenhead 28 Nov 1922 MP for Walton 1906‑1918 and West Derby 1918‑1919; Solicitor General 1915; Attorney General 1915 and 1916‑1919; Lord Chancellor 1919‑1922; Secretary of State for India 1924‑1928; PC 1911 For further information on the Earl's daughter, Lady Eleanor Furneaux Smith, see the note at the foot of this page	12 Jul 1872	30 Sep 1930	58
30 Sep 1930		2	Frederick Winston Furneaux Smith	7 Dec 1907	10 Jun 1975	67
10 Jun 1975 to     16 Feb 1985		3	Frederick William Robin Smith Peerage extinct on his death	17 Apr 1936	16 Feb 1985	48
BIRKETT
31 Jan 1958	B	1	Sir William Norman Birkett Created Baron Birkett 31 Jan 1958 MP for Nottingham East 1923‑1924 and 1929‑1931; Lord Justice of Appeal 1950‑1957; PC 1947 For further information on this peer, see the note at the foot of this page	6 Sep 1883	10 Feb 1962	78
10 Feb 1962		2	Michael Birkett	22 Oct 1929	3 Apr 2015	85
3 Apr 2015		3	Thomas Birkett	25 Jul 1982
BIRT
11 Feb 2000	B[L]		Sir John Birt Created Baron Birt for life 11 Feb 2000	10 Dec 1944
BISHOPSTON
21 May 1981 to     19 Apr 1984	B[L]		Edward Stanley Bishop Created Baron Bishopston for life 21 May 1981 MP for Newark 1964‑1979; Minister of State, Agriculture Fisheries & Food 1974‑1979; PC 1977 Peerage extinct on his death	3 Oct 1920	19 Apr 1984	63
BLACHFORD
4 Nov 1871 to     21 Nov 1889	B	1	Sir Frederick Rogers, 8th baronet Created Baron Blachford 4 Nov 1871 PC 1871 Peerage extinct on his death	31 Jan 1811	21 Nov 1889	78
BLACK
21 Jun 1968 to     27 Dec 1984	B[L]		William Rushton Black Created Baron Black for life 21 Jun 1968 Peerage extinct on his death	12 Jan 1893	27 Dec 1984	91
BLACK OF BRENTWOOD
9 Jul 2010	B[L]		Guy Vaughan Black Created Baron Black of Brentwood for life 9 Jul 2010	6 Aug 1964
BLACK OF CROSSHARBOUR
30 Oct 2001	B[L]		Conrad Moffat Black Created Baron Black of Crossharbour for life 30 Oct 2001	25 Aug 1944
BLACK OF STROME
26 Apr 2021	B[L]		Dame Susan Margaret Black Created Baroness Black of Strome for life 26 Apr 2021 KT 2024	7 May 1961
BLACKBURN
16 Oct 1876 to     8 Jan 1896	B[L]		Sir Colin Blackburn Created Baron Blackburn for life 16 Oct 1876 Lord of Appeal in Ordinary 1876‑1886; PC 1876 Peerage extinct on his death	18 May 1813	8 Jan 1896	82
BLACKETT
27 Jan 1969 to     13 Jul 1974	B[L]		Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett Created Baron Blackett for life 27 Jan 1969 Nobel Prize for Physics 1948; CH 1965; OM 1967 Peerage extinct on his death	18 Nov 1897	13 Jul 1974	76
BLACKFORD
26 Jun 1935	B	1	Sir William James Peake Mason, 1st baronet Created Baron Blackford 26 Jun 1935	11 Nov 1862	21 Jul 1947	84
21 Jul 1947		2	Glyn Keith Murray Mason MP for Croydon North 1922‑1940	29 May 1887	31 Dec 1972	85
31 Dec 1972		3	Keith Alexander Henry Mason	3 Feb 1923	21 Apr 1977	54
21 Apr 1977 to     15 May 1988		4	William Keith Mason Peerage extinct on his death For information on the death of this peer, see the note at the foot of this page	27 Mar 1962	15 May 1988	26
BLACKSTONE
18 Mar 1987	B[L]		Tessa Ann Vosper Blackstone Created Baroness Blackstone for life 18 Mar 1987 PC 2001	27 Sep 1942
BLACKWELL
2 Oct 1997	B[L]		Norman Roy Blackwell Created Baron Blackwell for life 2 Oct 1997	29 Jul 1952
BLACKWOOD OF NORTH OXFORD
1 Feb 2019	B[L]		Nicola Claire Blackwood Created Baron Blackwood of North Oxford for life 1 Feb 2019 MP for Oxford West & Abingdon 2010‑2017	16 Oct 1979
BLAIR OF BOUGHTON
20 Jul 2010	B[L]		Sir Ian Warwick Blair Created Baron Blair of Boughton for life 20 Jul 2010	19 Mar 1953
BLAKE
17 May 1971 to     20 Sep 2003	B[L]		Robert Norman William Blake Created Baron Blake for life 17 May 1971 Peerage extinct on his death	23 Dec 1916	20 Sep 2003	86
BLAKE OF LEEDS
1 Feb 2021	B[L]		Judith Vivienne Blake Created Baroness Blake of Leeds for life 1 Feb 2021	Jul 1953
BLAKENEY
18 Dec 1756 to     20 Sep 1761	B[I]	1	Sir William Blakeney Created Baron Blakeney 18 Dec 1756 MP [I] for Kilmallock 1725‑1756 Peerage extinct on his death	1670	20 Sep 1761	91
BLAKENHAM
8 Nov 1963	V	1	John Hugh Hare Created Viscount Blakenham 8 Nov 1963 MP for Woodbridge 1945‑1950 and Sudbury and Woodbridge 1950‑1963; Minister of State for Colonial Affairs 1953‑1956; Secretary of State for War 1956‑1958; Minister of Agriculture,Fisheries & Food 1958‑1960; Minister of Labour 1960‑1963; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1963‑1964; PC 1955	22 Jan 1911	7 Mar 1982	71
7 Mar 1982		2	Michael John Hare	25 Jan 1938	8 Jan 2018	79
8 Jan 2018		3	Caspar John Hare	8 Apr 1972
BLAKER
10 Oct 1994 to     5 Jul 2009	B[L]		Sir Peter Allan Renshaw Blaker Created Baron Blaker for life 10 Oct 1994 MP for Blackpool South 1964‑1992; Minister of State, Foreign & Commonwealth Office 1979‑1981; Minister of State for the Armed Forces 1981‑1983; PC 1983 Peerage extinct on his death	4 Oct 1922	5 Jul 2009	86
BLANCH
5 Sep 1983 to     3 Jun 1994	B[L]		Stuart Yarworth Blanch Created Baron Blanch for life 5 Sep 1983 Archbishop of York 1975‑1983; PC 1975 Peerage extinct on his death	2 Feb 1918	3 Jun 1994	76
BLANDFORD
14 Dec 1702	D	1	John Churchill, 1st Earl of Marlborough Created Marquess of Blandford and Duke of Marlborough 14 Dec 1702 See "Marlborough"	24 Jun 1650	16 Jun 1722	71
BLANESBURGH
12 Oct 1923 to     17 Aug 1946	B[L]		Sir Robert Younger Created Baron Blanesburgh for life 12 Oct 1923 Lord Justice of Appeal 1919‑1923; Lord of Appeal in Ordinary 1923‑1937; PC 1919 Peerage extinct on his death	12 Sep 1861	17 Aug 1946	84
BLANTYRE
10 Jul 1606	B[S]	1	William Stewart Created Lord of Blantyre 10 Jul 1606		8 Mar 1617
8 Mar 1617		2	William Stewart		29 Nov 1638
29 Nov 1638		3	Walter Stewart		Oct 1641
Oct 1641		4	Alexander Stewart		c 1670
c 1670		5	Alexander Stuart		20 Jun 1704
20 Jun 1704		6	Walter Stuart	1 Feb 1683	23 Jun 1713	30
23 Jun 1713		7	Robert Stuart		17 Nov 1743
17 Nov 1743		8	Walter Stuart		21 May 1751
21 May 1751		9	William Stuart		16 Jan 1776
16 Jan 1776		10	Alexander Stuart		5 Nov 1783
5 Nov 1783		11	Robert Walter Stuart Lord Lieutenant Renfrew 1820‑1822	10 Jun 1777	22 Sep 1830	53
22 Sep 1830 to     15 Dec 1900		12	Charles Stuart Peerage extinct on his death	21 Dec 1818	15 Dec 1900	81
BLARNEY
15 Nov 1628	B[I]	1	Charles Maccarty Created Baron Blarney and Viscount Muskerry 15 Nov 1628 See "Muskerry"		27 May 1640
BLASONBERRIE
23 May 1697	V[S]	1	Patrick Hume, 1st Lord Polwarth Created Lord Polwarth, Viscount of Blasonberrie and Earl of Marchmont 23 May 1697 See "Marchmont"	13 Jan 1641	2 Aug 1724	83
BLATCH
7 Apr 1987 to     31 May 2005	B[L]		Emily May Blatch Created Baroness Blatch for life 7 Apr 1987 PC 1993 Peerage extinct on her death	24 Jul 1937	31 May 2005	67
BLAYNEY
29 Jul 1621	B[I]	1	Edward Blayney Created Baron Blayney 29 Jul 1621		11 Feb 1629
11 Feb 1629		2	Henry Blayney		5 Jun 1646
5 Jun 1646		3	Edward Blayney		1669
1669		4	Richard Blayney		5 Nov 1670
5 Nov 1670		5	Henry Vincent Blayney		Aug 1689
Aug 1689		6	William Blayney		3 Jan 1705
3 Jan 1705		7	Cadwallader Blayney	21 Apr 1693	19 Mar 1732	38
19 Mar 1732		8	Charles Talbot Blayney	27 Jan 1714	15 Sep 1761	47
15 Sep 1761		9	Cadwallader Blayney	2 May 1720	21 Nov 1775	55
21 Nov 1775		10	Cadwallader Davis Blayney	1769	2 Apr 1784	14
2 Apr 1784		11	Andrew Thomas Blayney MP for Old Sarum 1806‑1807	30 Nov 1770	8 Apr 1834	63
8 Apr 1834 to     18 Jan 1874		12	Cadwallader Davis Blayney MP for Monaghan 1830‑1834 Peerage extinct on his death	19 Dec 1802	18 Jan 1874	71
BLEASE
21 Jul 1978 to     16 May 2008	B[L]		William John Blease Created Baron Blease for life 21 Jul 1978 Peerage extinct on his death	28 May 1914	16 May 2008	93
BLEDISLOE
15 Oct 1918 24 Jun 1935	B V	1 1	Sir Charles Bathurst Created Baron Bledisloe 15 Oct 1918 and Viscount Bledisloe 24 Jun 1935 MP for Wilton 1910‑1918; Governor General of New Zealand 1930‑1935; PC 1926	21 Sep 1867	3 Jul 1958	90
3 Jul 1958		2	Benjamin Ludlow Bathurst	2 Oct 1899	17 Sep 1979	79
17 Sep 1979		3	Christopher Hiley Ludlow Bathurst [Elected hereditary peer 1999-2009]
12 May 2009		4	Rupert Edward Ludlow Bathurst	13 Mar 1964
BLENCATHRA
28 Feb 2011	B[L]		David John Maclean Created Baron Blencathra for life 28 Feb 2011 MP for Penrith and the Border 1983‑2010; PC 1995	16 May 1953
BLESSINGTON
23 Aug 1673	V[I]	1	Murrough Boyle Created Baron Boyle and Viscount Blessington 23 Aug 1673 PC [I] 1675	1648	26 Apr 1718	69
26 Apr 1718 to     2 Jun 1732		2	Charles Boyle MP [I] for Blessington 1711‑1718 Peerage extinct on his death	after 1673	2 Jun 1732
7 Dec 1745 to     14 Aug 1769	E[I]	1	William Stewart, 3rd Viscount Mountjoy Created Earl of Blessington 7 Dec 1745 PC [I] 1748 Peerages extinct on his death	7 Apr 1709	14 Aug 1769	60
22 Jan 1816 to     25 May 1829	E[I]	1	Charles John Gardiner, 2nd Viscount Mountjoy Created Earl of Blessington 22 Jan 1816 Peerages extinct on his death For information on his wife, see the note at the foot of this page	19 Jul 1782	25 May 1829	46
BLOOD
31 Jul 1999 to     21 Oct 2022	B[L]		May Blood Created Baroness Blood for life 31 Jul 1999 Peerage extinct on her death	26 May 1938	21 Oct 2022	84
BLOOMFIELD
14 May 1825	B[I]	1	Benjamin Bloomfield Created Baron Bloomfield 14 May 1825 MP for Plymouth 1812‑1818; PC 1817	13 Apr 1762	15 Aug 1846	84
15 Aug 1846 7 Aug 1871 to     17 Aug 1879	B	2 1	John Arthur Douglas Bloomfield Created Baron Bloomfield 7 Aug 1871 PC 1860 Peerages extinct on his death	12 Nov 1802	17 Aug 1879	76
BLOOMFIELD OF HINTON WALDRIST
5 Sep 2016	B[L]		Olivia Caroline Bloomfield Created Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist for life 5 Sep 2016
BLOUNT
3 Dec 1326	B	1	Sir Thomas le Blount Summoned to Parliament as Lord Blount 3 Dec 1326		1330
1330		2	William le Blount		after 1366
after 1366		3	John le Blount		by 1385
by 1385 to     Jan 1400		4	Thomas le Blount He was attainted and executed,when the peerage was forfeited		Jan 1400
25 Jan 1330 to     by Oct 1337	B	1	Sir William le Blount Summoned to Parliament as Lord Blount 25 Jan 1330 Peerage extinct on his death		by Oct 1337
BLOWER
15 Oct 2019	B[L]		Christine Blower Created Baroness Blower for life 15 Oct 2019	20 Apr 1951
BLUNDELL
22 Nov 1720 to     19 Aug 1756	V[I]	1	Sir Montague Blundell, 4th baronet Created Baron Blundell and Viscount Blundell 22 Nov 1720 MP for Haslemere 1715‑1722 Peerage extinct on his death	19 Jun 1689	19 Aug 1756	67
BLUNKETT
28 Sep 2015	B[L]		David Blunkett Created Baron Blunkett for life 28 Sep 2015 MP for Sheffield Brightside 1987‑2010 and Brightside and Hillsborough 2010‑2015; Secretary of State for Education and Employment 1997‑2001; Home Secretary 2001‑2004; Secretary of State for Work & Pensions 2005; PC 1997	6 Jun 1947
BLYTH
19 Jul 1907	B	1	Sir James Blyth, 1st baronet Created Baron Blyth 19 Jul 1907	10 Sep 1841	8 Feb 1925	83
8 Feb 1925		2	Herbert William Blyth	1 Mar 1868	27 Feb 1943	74
27 Feb 1943		3	Ian Audley James Blyth	28 Oct 1905	29 Oct 1977	72
29 Oct 1977		4	Anthony Audley Rupert Blyth	3 Jun 1931	20 Jan 2009	77
20 Jan 2009		5	James Audley Ian Blyth	13 Nov 1970
BLYTH OF ROWINGTON
24 Jul 1995	B[L]		Sir James Blyth Created Baron Blyth of Rowington for life 24 Jul 1995	8 May 1940
BLYTHSWOOD
24 Aug 1892	B	1	Sir Archibald Campbell, 1st baronet Created Baron Blythswood 24 Aug 1892 For details of the special remainder included in the creation of this peerage, see the note at the foot of this page MP for Renfrewshire 1873‑1874 and Renfrewshire West 1904‑1908	22 Feb 1835	8 Jul 1908	73
8 Jul 1908		2	Sholto Campbell	28 Jun 1839	30 Sep 1916	77
30 Sep 1916		3	Barrington Bulkeley Douglas Campbell	18 Feb 1845	11 Mar 1918	73
11 Mar 1918		4	Archibald Douglas Campbell	25 Apr 1870	14 Nov 1929	59
14 Nov 1929		5	Barrington Sholto Douglas Campbell	15 Jul 1877	3 Mar 1937	59
3 Mar 1937		6	Leopold Colin Henry Douglas Campbell	5 Mar 1881	8 Feb 1940	58
8 Feb 1940 to     14 Sep 1940		7	Philip Archibald Douglas Campbell Peerage extinct on his death	19 Feb 1919	14 Sep 1940	21
BLYTON
16 Dec 1964 to     25 Oct 1987	B[L]		William Reid Blyton Created Baron Blyton for life 16 Dec 1964 MP for Houghton le Spring 1945‑1964 Peerage extinct on his death	2 May 1899	25 Oct 1987	88
BOARDMAN
10 Jul 1980 to     10 Mar 2003	B[L]		Thomas Gray Boardman Created Baron Boardman for life 10 Jul 1980 MP for Leicester SW 1967‑1974 and Leicester South 1974; Minister for Industry 1972‑1974; Chief Secretary to the Treasury 1974 Peerage extinct on his death	12 Jan 1919	10 Mar 2003	84
BOATENG
27 Jun 2010	B[L]		Paul Yaw Boateng Created Baron Boateng for life 27 Jun 2010 MP for Brent South 1987‑2005; Chief Secretary to the Treasury 2002‑2005; PC 1999	14 Jun 1951

	Lord Charles William de la Poer Beresford, Baron Beresford
	Along the south side of Hyde Park in London, there is a broad track named Rotten Row, the name of which is probably a corruption of the French, Route de Roi (The King's Road). While the track was formerly very popular with upper-class horse riders, it has long been the case that, apart from two exceptions, no carriages were ever allowed to be driven along this route. These exceptions relate to the ruling monarch and to the Duchess of St Albans, who have enjoyed this prerogative since the days when it was granted by Charles II to the notorious Nell Gwynne, from whom the Dukes of St Alban are descended.
	The story goes that, on one occasion, Lord Charles Beresford made a bet at the Marlborough Club that he would drive down Rotten Row in broad daylight - in other words, at the time when Rotten Row was most crowded with riders. As his fellow club-members were aware of the strictness exercised by the police in preventing carriages entering Rotten Row, his bet was soon taken up. At the appointed hour a number of men, including those who had accepted the wager, took their places along the railing which lines the Row to see if Lord Charles would attempt the feat. While they waited, a water cart came along, sprinkling some of the party with dirty water. When the victims protested in angry tones, the man on the water-cart pushed back his oilskins to reveal Lord Charles, who had bribed the usual driver of the water-cart and had thus won his bet.
	William de Berkeley, 2nd Lord Berkeley [creation of 1421] and later Marquess of Berkeley
	In the early 1460s, a long-standing dispute between William de Berkeley, 2nd Lord Berkeley and Margaret Beauchamp, daughter of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick and later wife of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, flared up anew. At issue was the ownership of Berkeley Castle, together with a number of manors. Berkeley accused the Countess of plotting to gain possession of Berkeley Castle and of hiring an assassin to kill him. The Countess denied the charge of plotting to kill Berkeley, but was adamant in her claim to Berkeley Castle.
	The feud had started in 1417, on the death of Thomas de Berkeley, 5th Lord Berkeley of the creation of 1295 and great-uncle to William de Berkeley. Thomas had married Margaret, heiress of Lord Lisle and had a daughter who married Richard, Earl of Warwick. Their eldest daughter, in turn, married the Earl of Shrewsbury. Because Thomas left only daughters, the castle was inherited by James de Berkeley, younger brother of Thomas, but the Countess of Shrewsbury insisted that the castle should have been inherited by her.
	When the Countess died in 1468, all of her property was left to her grandson, Thomas Talbot, 2nd Viscount Lisle [creation of 1451]. He also inherited his grandmother's dispute with Lord Berkeley. Lisle took up the claims with the impetuousness of youth (he was aged around 25 at the time). He attempted to gain Berkeley Castle by bribery, corrupting the Keeper of the Castle, one Thomas Holt, and the Castle's Porter, Maurice King, into agreeing to deliver up the Castle to Lisle. At the last moment, King got cold feet about the planned betrayal and disclosed the scheme to his master, Lord Berkeley.
	In the meantime, Holt had fled to Lisle's house. Lisle was so enraged and disappointed that he challenged Berkeley to a trial of arms (i.e. a duel), but Berkeley replied that such a duel would not resolve the ownership dispute. Instead, he proposed a battle to be fought at Nibley Green (in the Cotswolds, north-east of Bristol) the next morning, 20 March 1470.
	Unfortunately for Lisle, Berkeley had his brothers and their retainers staying him at Berkeley Castle. He had also despatched a message for help to Bristol, and reinforcements arrived during the night, so that he had around 1000 men to fight on his behalf. On the other hand, Lisle had only his tenants, around 300 men, poorly armed and without suits of armour.
	Berkeley concealed his men in a nearby wood and when Lisle appeared the following morning, Berkeley's archers commenced firing at them. Lisle had not yet lowered his visor and an arrow pierced his left temple and toppled him off his horse to the ground, where he was despatched by daggers through the side joints of his armour. His fall caused his retainers to flee and many were killed as they fled uphill to the local church, seeking sanctuary.
	The Battle of Nibley Green is remembered as being the last battle on English soil that was fought between two private armies.
	The Berkeley Peerage Case
	The following account of the Berkeley Peerage case was written by Dalrymple Belgrave and published in The Manchester Times on 18 November 1898.
	Frederick Augustus, born in 1745, was the fifth Earl of Berkeley. This nobleman was a great county magnate and a man of fashion and pleasure. Though some years his senior he was a great friend of the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. In his day he was a well-known man enough, but nowadays what he will always be remembered for will be the story of his marriage, which caused the peerage to be practically in abeyance for more than seventy years after his death. When he died in 1810 there was no question that he had left three legitimate sons, for in the year 1796 he had been married to their mother in Marylebone Church, and after that date they were born. But there were other sons born before that date. Soon after 1796 Lord and Lady Berkeley were doing their best to prove that when they were married in 1796 they had been for eleven years man and wife. With this end Lord Berkeley obtained in 1799 a Committee of Privilege of the House of Lords to hear and perpetuate evidence.
	A witness then called was the Rev Caleb Carrington, vicar of Berkeley and tutor to Lord Berkeley's sons. He said he had heard of the earlier marriage; and that he had been informed that the difficulty was that the late vicar of Berkeley, Mr Hupsman, who had officiated at the marriage - who had been told to keep the marriage secret - had destroyed the page in the register in which it had been entered. It was thought, however, that a careful search might lead to the discovery of the missing entry. With this purpose Mr Carrington, who was then staying in London with Lord and Lady Berkeley, on March 7th, 1799, journeyed down to his parish, Berkeley, accompanied by a Mr Scriven, a conveyancer, who was to assist him in his search. The parish registers were kept by the curate, Mr Lewis, and Mr Carrington, who went to Berkeley Castle, sent to that gentleman for the book which contained the marriages between 1780 and 1790. From Lord and Lady Berkeley, he said, he had heard the date of the first marriage, and he also heard that they had been married by banns which had been published in Berkeley Parish Church.
	In the book, in which the banns were entered, he could find no entry where he could have expected it, nor could he find an entry of the marriage on or about the date he had been told of. The marriages were numbered consecutively, and the numbers ran on without a break for years after the date of the alleged marriage. As, however, he turned carefully over the pages of the banns book something attracted his attention. Two pages were pasted together. With a penknife he divided them and then, to his delight, he discovered an entry of the publication of the banns. Then he discovered something he had not noticed before. On the last page of the register the bottom part of a page had been folded down, and then the whole page had been pasted to the back of the book, so that it looked as if it was part of the cover. Again Mr Carrington set to work with his penknife, and on the piece folded down to his great delight he found the very entry he was in search of. There was the entry of the marriage of Frederick Augustus, Earl of Berkeley to Mary Cole, on March 30th, 1785. It was signed by them, by Frederick Hupsman, the vicar, by William Tudor, and by Richard Barnes, who made his mark.
	Mr Hupsman was dead, but William Tudor, who was Lady Berkeley's brother, gave his evidence, and swore to having witnessed the marriage and signed the register. That he had done the latter there was no doubt, but from the first there was much doubt as to when and under what circumstances he had done it. Mr Tudor was the son of a Mr Cole, who carried on the business of butcher and publican at a village near Gloucester. He was asked how he came to use the name of Tudor as a witness to the marriage. It was well known that after she had begun to live with Lord Berkeley, and before the marriage in 1796, Lady Berkeley had been known as Miss Tudor. It was suggested that her brother had taken the same name that she was called by, but that in 1785 she had never called herself Tudor, and he never had thought of calling himself by any such name. At first he said that he had been christened Tudor as his second name, that he had never called himself or signed any other, and that his sister had taken the name from him. It was proved, however, that by his baptismal certificate he was not christened Tudor, and that none of his schoolfellows had ever heard of his going by the name.
	The committee, in 1799, was only for hearing of evidence. In 1810 Lord Berkeley died, and the eldest son, who since 1799 had always been called Lord Dursley, and treated as the heir to the title, claimed the Earldom of Berkeley. The claim was resisted by the Attorney-General, and by members of the Berkeley family, though as three sons had been born since the marriage of 1796, there did not seem to be much prospect of the title ever going to anyone else. The estates had been left to the eldest son, who was recognised by his father as having been born in wedlock. The witnesses who had given their evidence before repeated it. The most important witness for the claimant was Lady Berkeley. She said that when she was a girl at a school at Gloucester, Lord Berkeley, who was commanding the militia there, used to follow her about and pay her attentions. After she went into service, first into the service of Lady Talbot, and afterwards that of a Mr Foote, the wife of a clergyman in Kent, Lord Berkeley wrote letters to her and on one occasion she met him at a village in Kent, near where she was in service. He then offered to marry her and it was agreed that she should marry him.
	Their banns were put up at Berkeley Church. The day before they were married she came down from London and stayed near Berkeley. The next morning she went to Berkeley Church, and was married to Lord Berkeley by Mr Hupsman, the vicar of Berkeley. There were present her brother, Mr Hupsman, and a man of the name of Barnes, who made his mark in the register. Mr Hupsman brought him to act as clerk and as a witness. She believed that he was a stranger to the place, and knew that the claimant had failed in finding out anything about [him] or anyone who knew him. She said that on account of the circumstances of the life of one of her sisters, who was living with a gentleman to whom she was not married, it was agreed that the marriage should be kept secret. Afterwards her sister married, but Lord Berkeley, when she pressed him to acknowledge the marriage, said it could not be done, as Mr Hupsman, to keep the marriage secret, had destroyed the register. On his death-bed Lord Berkeley confessed to her that when he married her he never intended to own [up to] the marriage. There were several witnesses called to swear to the handwriting in the register of the marriage, which they said was that of Mr Hupsman. There were one or two witnesses who said that they had always heard that Lord and Lady Berkeley were married before 1796. It really was common ground that though she lived at Cranfield, Lord Berkeley's place near Uxbridge, and afterwards at Berkeley Castle, she was never visited by any ladies of position, or treated as his wife.
	One witness, who gave rather striking evidence, was a Captain West, a man of fashion and a friend of the Prince of Wales, and also of Lord Berkeley. He said that in 1796 he was staying with Lord Berkeley, Miss Tudor, as she was called, being with him, and Lord Berkeley said: "Shall we tell him a secret?" He said "What is the secret?" and Lord Berkeley answered: "We have been married for more than ten years". He asked if they had been married before their eldest son was born, and Lord Berkeley said they had. He said he would tell the Prince of Wales, and Lord Berkeley agreed to this. When he afterwards heard of the second marriage and expressed his surprise, Lord Berkeley said that there was no law that prevented a man marrying the same woman as often as he pleased.
	On the other side an attorney, a Mr Pitt, said that after the day when Mr Carrington had professed to have found the entry of the marriage, he had searched the register for it, but had failed to find it. Mr Carrington had left the register at Berkeley Castle. A few weeks afterwards Mr Pitt again searched the register and he found the page at once. There were the certificates of baptism of the three eldest children, who were described as the sons of Lord Berkeley and Mary Cole, as if they were not born in wedlock, while the first son after the marriage was described in the register of baptisms as Lord Dursley. Then there was evidence to show that Lord Berkeley was not at Berkeley on the day of the alleged marriage. A Mrs Hicks, who was a daughter of Mr Hupsman, said that her father was on very friendly terms with Lord Berkeley. In February, 1785, she and her father had gone to London with Lord Berkeley and his friend, Admiral Prescott. She had gone on a visit of eight weeks to Lord Craven's house and on April 3rd she had returned to Berkeley with Lord Berkeley and Admiral Prescott in his lordship's travelling carriage. For some days before they went down to Berkeley Lord Berkeley was in London. The banns were supposed to have been published in the autumn before the marriage, and she said she must have been in church every Sunday that autumn, but she had never heard the banns of Lord Berkeley being published. As to this point, and the visit to London, her mother corroborated her. Many witnesses, who were every Sunday at church, swore that the banns were never published, and for the claimant all the evidence on this point was that Mr Hupsman used to read the banns out very quickly after the second lesson, when the congregation were making a noise by getting up on their feet. One witness said that he had heard more than twenty years before that Lord Berkeley's banns were read out in Berkeley Church, but he could not say he had heard them.
	An important witness was an old clergyman of seventy-five, a Mr Chapeau, who had evidently been on very friendly terms with Lord Berkeley. He used to live near Cranfield. He would shoot and ride with Lord Berkeley, and dine at the house day after day. Some of the witnesses for the claimant tried to make out that that he was not really a friend of Lord Berkeley. "I considered him rather," said Captain West, "a person permitted to dine when there was no company," while another witness described him as a person with whom Lord Berkeley would joke, calling him Mr Crapaud, and would come into the drawing-room after dinner and say: "Here comes old Scrapo," but he really would not be seriously friendly with him. None the less, however, it was clear that he was very intimate with his lordship, and his evidence was most important. He had dined at Cranfield when Miss Tudor, as she was then called, was there, and he was well aware that she was not treated as his lordship's wife. He remembered that one occasion he was present when Miss Tudor was discharging a maid-servant and persuading the girl to go to her friends in the country, telling her that she would pay her coach-fare if she would go. The girl said she liked to stay in London better. Miss Tudor said to Mr Chapeau that the girl would be sure to fall a prey to some man, and then she added: "In this situation I was once myself".
	Once, she said, she had to leave her place and she went to the house of her married sister. She found her sister ill and very poor and her children ill and dirty, and the house uncomfortable, and she had hard work to help her sister, and hard living. She did not like this, so she went to the house where her other sister Susan lived. When she got to the house, as she held the knocker in her hand, she remembered that their mother had told them not to speak to her sister Susan again. She laid the knocker down quietly and walked back. Then she thought of how wretched the place was where she was going, her sister ill, and her sister's children famished with hunger. Then she went back and took up the knocker and gave it a loud rap. Her sister Susan came to the door dressed in all the paraphernalia of a fine lady going to the opera. She took her in her arms, carried her into parlour, and gave her refreshment. Then she dressed her in fine clothes and took her to the opera. That evening Lord Berkeley and several gentlemen came to supper at her sister's, and some evenings afterwards while they were at supper the bailiffs suddenly came in and seized her sister for a hundred pounds debt. Just then Lord Berkeley came into the room. She and her sister both begged Lord Berkeley to pay the debt. He would only do so on one condition, and it ended by his agreeing to pay it on her consenting to become his mistress. "I was as much sold," she said, "as any lamb that goes to the shambles." He [Chapeau] had another story to tell which seemed to throw a good deal of light on the case. Once, when he and Lord Berkeley were out riding together, Lord Berkeley seemed very low-spirited, and said: "Oh. dear Chapeau, I am very unhappy. I knew an old friend of mine by the name of Smith, who was a son of the Duke of Dorset, born out of wedlock. That man was my school-fellow, and a man I loved exceedingly. Whenever I think of him I am always unhappy. I attended him all through his illness. He drank himself to death because he was disappointed about his title. Believe me, my children shall never experience such villainy through my means."
	He could not remember the date of this conversation, but he remembered it was when they were riding out together through the pleasure-grounds where the children were playing with their little barrows and toys. Once he saw Lady Berkeley punishing one of the children, and heard her say: "You little dog, though I am not your father's wife, I will let you know through life that I am your mother". Another witness was a Mr Fendale, a barrister of the Oxford circuit. He remembered being at Gloucester for the July Quarter Sessions in the year 1785. One day after court he went out for a walk, and he saw two young women looking out of a window. He looked up at them, and he kissed his hand, for one of them was a very pretty woman. They gave him no encouragement, but he seems to have been possessed of an assurance that must have stood him in good stead in his profession for he coolly opened the door of their house and walked up to the room where they were. One of them, he said, was a Mrs Farren, the wife of a man who had been a lawyer's clerk, and afterwards became a butcher.
	The very pretty woman was her sister, Mary Cole, who afterwards became Lady Berkeley. He managed to make himself agreeable to the two sisters, and expressed his admiration of the pretty one with great freedom, and took tea with them. The next day he called again and had tea, and he called a third time, on the following day. On two occasions he saw Mary Cole by herself, and then expressed his admiration very warmly, and on his third visit he was trying to kiss her - which he admitted in evidence that she did not consent to - when the door opened, and Mr Farren came in. The next day he had to go to Worcester to the assizes, and from Worcester he wrote the lady a letter which she answered. His own letter was a love letter, asking her to meet him by herself somewhere. She answered it, but he had not [kept] the answer. He could remember how it began. "Maria, with an equal mind, sits down to answer the letter she has received," and it went on to ask why, if, as he declared, his intentions were honourable, he had any objection to her being accompanied by her sister when she went to meet him. 'He said there was no impropriety in her conduct, but that there was nothing in it that suggested that she was a married woman.
	Another witness was a Miss Price, who had been governess to the children. She said that she had several times overheard Lady Berkeley trying to persuade Lord Berkeley to marry her. Then she said that she remembered that one day before the second marriage Lady Berkeley telling her that she gained her point. She did not know at the time the day the marriage was celebrated, but she remembered noticing Lady Berkeley's servant picking out the letter "T" which had been embroidered on her ladyship's clothes, and putting a "B" and a coronet upon them. Then Miss Price said she had often seen Mr Tudor, Lady Berkeley's brother, and that she remembered him when the news came to Lady Berkeley that he had married someone in a very humble position of life, Lady Berkeley was very angry and excited, and she showed her the letter she had received from him. She remembered that Tudor wrote that he "had done what your Rogue of Quality dare not do, married to protect innocence and virtue.". Miss Price also said that she remembered Tudor telling her he had never been to Berkeley. She also said that in January, 1799, she remembered Tudor coming to stay at Berkeley Castle, and saying that he had never been there before and that when he went into the church he said that he had never been into it before. She also said that one day, during Tudor's visit, he and Lord and Lady Berkeley were shut up all day in one of the upstairs rooms engaged in planning and doing something, and that a blind had been put up in the room in which they were, so that no one could see across into the room from another part of the castle which faced it. Altogether, Miss Price seemed to have had a suspiciously happy knack of overhearing secrets. In her cross-examination she had to admit to having written a letter to Lady Berkeley complaining of some treatment she had received from her, and reminding her that "she had it in her power to be her ladyship's greatest enemy".
	A much more important witness against the claimant was the Marquis of Buckingham. Lord Berkeley had several times talked to him about his children as not being legitimate, and of the peerage going after his death to Admiral Berkeley. He had also talked about the property, as if he would like to leave Berkeley Castle to one of his sons. Lord Buckingham said that he urged that Berkeley Castle ought to go with the peerage, and he had advised him to let the estates go with the peerage, but to provide for his children out of them. Lord Berkeley replied that he had a plan, and that he told him that besides the boys, there was another child, a girl. He suggested that this child might marry Admiral Berkeley's eldest son. Lord Buckingham pointed out that, under the circumstances of her birth, Admiral Berkeley might not approve of the way that she would be brought up. He had then said that she might be brought up in Admiral Berkeley's family. He said he would mention the suggestion to Admiral Berkeley, but shortly after that Lord Berkeley informed him that the little girl had died, so that there was an end of the plan. The Marquis of Buckingham also said that Lord Berkeley had asked him to be guardian to his children, but he had refused because of their being natural children. The Marquis also said that he was well acquainted with Lord Berkeley's handwriting, and then he was shown the register of Berkeley, and in reply to questions he answered that "he was sorry to say he believed that the whole of the register of the marriage, with the exception of the signature William Tudor, was in Lord Berkeley's handwriting". The Marquis of Buckingham was the last important witness called.
	After hearing all the evidence, Lord Eldon, who was then Lord Chancellor, gave judgement on behalf of the committee that the claim had not been made out. But though the lords would not admit the claim to have been made, Lord Berkeley's sons were always loyal to the theory that the story told by their mother was the truth. When [Thomas] Moreton [Fitzhardinge] Berkeley, the eldest of the sons, who was born after the second marriage, grew up, he refused to take the title which the decision of the Committee of Privilege had given to him, or to take his seat in the House of Lords. His next brother, the Honourable [George Charles] Grantly [Fitzhardinge] Berkeley, who was well known as a sportsman, and was for years a familiar figure in the House of Commons [he was MP for Gloucestershire West from 1832 to 1852], for most of his life refused to acknowledge there was any doubt about the legitimacy of his elder brother's birth, though towards the end of his life, having quarrelled with him, he seemed to find a satisfaction in attacking his brother's legitimacy at the expense of his parents' honour. The youngest brother, Craven [Fitzhardinge] Berkeley, who was also for a great many years a member of Parliament [Cheltenham 1832-1847, 1848 and 1852-1855] also always supported the claims of his eldest brother. The latter was for some years a member of Parliament [he was actually a member for less than three months in 1810 for Gloucestershire] and he was then given a peerage as Lord Seagrave [in reality Segrave of Berkeley Castle], afterwards being created Earl of Fitzharding [in reality Earl Fitzhardinge, without the 'of']. When he died without children the matter was raised again by the second son, who, on his brother's death, came into the property. This brother, who had gone into the navy and had become an admiral, claimed a barony of Berkeley, which went not by descent, but by tenure of Berkeley Castle. For this claim there was some ancient evidence, but against it there was a resolution of the House of Lords, at the end of the seventeenth century, refusing to admit the existence of such a thing as a peerage by tenure [see 'The Tenures Abolition Act' of 1660]. The House of Lords decided against the peerage by tenure, but he was afterwards created the Earl of Fitzharding [sic]. He died, leaving a son and heir, who was the father of the present Earl Fitzharding. Of the three sons born after the marriage of 1796, Craven Berkeley died first [in 1855]. He had married twice, but had only left one daughter. Grantly Berkeley had two sons who, however, died before he did [in 1881] in the lifetime of his brother, Moreton Berkeley. The latter never married, so when he died in 1882 there was no male issue left of the marriage of 1796.
	Under these circumstances the earldom went to George Lennox Rawdon Berkeley, a grandson of the Admiral Rawdon Berkeley, who would have inherited the peerage if the Lord Berkeley, who afterwards married Mary Cole, had died without lawful issue, though the barony of Berkeley descended to the daughter of Mr Craven Berkeley. No question was raised at the time, and the next Earl of Berkeley enjoyed the peerage for his life.
	On his death, in 1888, however, Lord Fitzharding[e] claimed against the son of the late Earl, and again alleged the marriage, in 1785, between Lord Berkeley and Mary Cole. Again the question came before a Committee of Privilege. There was not much new evidence, but the expert in handwriting, a personage who had developed since 1811, was put forward to show that the entry in the register was in Mr Hupsman's handwriting. That was all the evidence on which the second Committee, which sat in 1892, was asked to reverse the decision of Lord Eldon, and the Committee of 1811, who had the advantage of hearing the evidence and inquiring into the matter only a comparatively few years after the circumstances had occurred. There could not have been much hope of success, and when the matter had been argued upon , and the evidence heard, two Law Lords of the Committee, Lord Halsbury and Lord Bramwell, discussed the old evidence at length, and gave the reasons which satisfied them that the decision of the Committee of Privilege, which sat in 1811, was a correct one.
	For further information on Thomas Moreton Fitzhardinge Berkeley, see the note at the foot of the page containing details of the members of the House of Commons for Gloucestershire.
	After the death of the 8th Earl in 1942, the following article appeared in The Daily Mail on 20 March 1947:-
	To the London office of Debrett's Peerage yesterday came a letter from a traveller in India. It contained a clue to a mystery which has puzzled genealogists for years - and may support the belief that an American journalist is the ninth Earl of Berkeley, an earldom considered extinct since the eighth earl died in 1942.
	The mystery goes back to the early 19th century, when a branch of the second earl's family sailed for India to work in the East India Company. News from them was scarce, communications were bad. Their relatives in England lost track of them. It was known that most of their possessions were lost in the Indian Mutiny. No one ever really knew quite what became of them.
	And then yesterday's letter. It reported the discovery at Chunar, on the Ganges, of a tomb dedicated to "Henry Nicholas Lionel Berkeley, died 1809". The man in the tomb is believed to be the third son of the second earl [but this is hardly likely, given that the second earl died in 1710].
	Yesterday's news set Debrett's thinking back to another letter they received in 1936. It came from San Francisco. The writer, a journalist named R.F. Berkeley, asked for news of his family. He thought he might be connected with the Earl of Berkeley. He said he had been born in India and had gone to America as a child.
	Little attention was paid to the letter at the time. But now, with other facts in their possession, Debrett's believe that R.F. Berkeley may be a direct descendant of the man in the Indian tomb. It is known that some Berkeleys did go to America from India.
	Should R.F. Berkeley prove his claim to the Earldom, he would not succeed to the ownership of historic Berkeley Castle, where many Kings and Queens of England have dined, and where King Edward II was murdered in 1327. It was left to a relative of the eighth earl - Capt. R.G.W. Berkeley, who lives at Spetchley Park, Worcester. In 1925 Lord Berkeley sold all his estates in Berkeley Square - at one time the family owned almost all of it - for nearly £3,000,000.
	Upon the very next day, 21 March 1947, and probably to its chagrin, the Daily Mail printed this retraction:-
	New York, Thursday - A man whom Debrett's Peerage yesterday thought might prove his claim to be the ninth Earl of Berkeley actually died in 1939, it is revealed here today. The eighth earl died in 1942.
	The man who died in 1939 was Reginald Berkeley, advertising executive, of San Francisco. He was 79, [and] left two daughters.
	Debrett's last heard of him when he wrote in 1936 asking for news of his family. They tried to trace him yesterday after receiving fresh information from India.
	**************************
	The following anecdote concerning the 5th Earl of Berkeley is taken from Collections and Recollections, by One Who has Kept a Diary published anonymously (but whose author was George William Erskine Russell, MP) in 1898.
	Another story of highway robbery which excited me when I was a boy was that of the fifth Earl of Berkeley, who died in 1810. He had always declared that anyone without disgrace might be overcome by superior numbers, but that he would never surrender to a single highwayman. As he was crossing Hounslow Heath one night, on his way from Berkeley Castle to London, his travelling carriage was stopped by a man on horseback, who put his head in the window and said, "I believe you are Lord Berkeley?" "I am." "I believe you have always boasted that you would never surrender to a single highwayman?" "I have." "Well," presenting a pistol, "I am a single highwayman, and I say 'Your money or your life' " "You cowardly dog," said Lord Berkeley, "do you think that I can't see your confederate skulking behind you?" The highwayman, who was really alone, looked hurriedly around, and Lord Berkeley shot him through the head.
	Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners
	The following is extracted from The Emperor of the United States of America and Other Magnificent British Eccentrics by Catherine Caufield (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1981)
	Posted at intervals on the fence surrounding an estate near Farringdon, Berkshire, were signs reading "DOGS WILL BE SHOT: CATS WILL BE WHIPPED". Inside was Farringdon House, home of Lord Berners, a gifted composer, artist, writer and devisor of practical jokes. Visitors to Berners' home saw whippets wearing diamond collars, doves dyed all colours of the rainbow, and an impressive collection of cars, including an antique Rolls Royce with a clavichord built into the rear seat.
	From his house Berners could look across to the 140-feet high Farringdon Folly which he built in 1935. There was some public objection to the scheme when planning permission was sought. Asked to justify his request, Berners replied "The great point of the tower is that it will be entirely useless". Somehow this reasoning convinced the authorities and the project was approved. The completed folly had a sign stating "Members of the public committing suicide from this tower do so at their own risk".
	Ten years in the diplomatic service did not impair Berners' sense of humour. He took a dislike to a pompous senior member of chancery in one embassy who ended every statement by solemnly putting on his spectacles. With a piece of thread, Berners one day attached the spectacles to the ink bottle, blotter, letter-opener and several pens. Next time the spectacles were ritually raised to signal the end of a speech, most of the desk paraphernalia went with them.
	Berners had a collection of other people's calling cards, of which he made judicious use. Having lent his house in Rome to a honeymooning couple, he sent the cards of London's most notorious bores on ahead to the butler with instructions to deliver one or two to the couple each day. The terrified honeymooners spent most of their stay taking elaborate precautions to avoid meeting the originals.
	Berners himself had what he claimed was a foolproof technique for avoiding people, or at least getting people to avoid him when travelling by railway. According to his friend, the painter Michael Ayrton, Berners, wearing a black skull-cap and black spectacles, would lean out of the window of his compartment at every stop and beckon passengers inside. This performance was usually enough to secure a private carriage, but if someone did dare to join him, they seldom stayed for long. In order to drive the intruder off, Berners pulled out a large clinical thermometer he travelled with and, with a worried expression on his face, began taking his temperature anally every five minutes. "It was extraordinary," Ayrton remarked, "the way he could clear carriages by these simple means".
	As a composer of ballet and opera music, a landscape painter and a writer, Lord Berners was a serious, though never a solemn, artist. He had a reputation as a skilful parodist, even in his music and his painting. This trait is perhaps most evident in his satirical novels, one of which opens with this plea to the readers: "The author will be obliged if his friends will not attempt to recognise each other in these pages".
	James Fitzjames, Duke of Berwick upon Tweed
	It has always been assumed that James Fitzjames, Duke of Berwick upon Tweed and illegitimate son of King James II, was attainted and his peerages forfeited in 1695. However, no documents relating to such an attainder have ever been found.
	The following article, which discusses this question, appeared in The Times on 15 February 1954:-
	Readers of Sir Charles Petrie's recent Life of the Marshal Duke of Berwick will recall that James Fitzjames, the elder of the two illegitimate sons of King James the Second by Arabella Churchill, sister of the first Duke of Marlborough, was created by his father Duke of Berwick upon Tweed in the peerage of England in 1687. Not long after the King's flight, he too fled to France and later commanded his father's forces in Ireland, but in 1691 entered the service of the King of France and so continued for the rest of his life.
	The Complete Peerage, following other Peerage books, states that he was attainted in 1695, whereby his honours became forfeited. Sir Charles Petrie accepts this and attributes to the fact some historical significance. If the duke was in fact attainted, his heirs could not claim the dukedom unless the attainder should first be reversed by Act of Parliament. It was with the possibility of such reversal in mind that the late Duke of Alba, the Duke of Berwick's heir male, asked the late Windsor Herald, Mr A.T. Butler, before the war, to investigate his possible claim. However, the researches then undertaken led to an unexpected result, and made it appear doubtful whether the first Duke of Berwick ever, in fact, suffered a legally valid attainder at all.
	Stebbing's edition of Sandford's Genealogical History of the Kings and Queens of England, published in 1707, says that the duke "continuing in Arms … In the service of the French King against the Crown of England, he was in the year 1695 outlawed for high treason". In fact, however, no steps seem to have been taken against him until the plot to kidnap or assassinate William III was brought to light in February 1695‑6, whereupon, on the 23rd of that month, the King, by the advice of the Privy Council, issued a proclamation requiring all his loving subjects to discover, take, and apprehend 29 persons named, who, according to information given upon oath, had entered into a horrid and detestable conspiracy to assassinate and murder his Majesty's sacred person. The first in the list was James, Duke of Berwick, and the fact that he was so described in a royal proclamation seems a clear indication that he had not at that date suffered attainder. Berwick's own memoirs show that he had in fact arrived secretly in England in February, 1695‑6, on a mission from his father and Louis XIV, to explore the feeling among the English Jacobites and the possibility of exploiting the weakened position of William, after Mary's death, by an insurrection in favour of James. Three days after his arrival, however, Sir George Barclay told him of the plot to capture William in a narrow lane between Brentford and Turnham Green where his coach could not turn. The plan was betrayed to William by Thomas Prendergas or Prendergast, one of the conspirators, and the proclamation for their apprehension already mentioned took for granted that their plan was to murder, not merely kidnap, the King.
	Berwick had in fact stayed in England only a few days, one of his reasons for swift departure being "that I might not be confounded with the conspirators, whose design appeared to me difficult to execute". Sir Charles Petrie rightly points out that there is no proof that the conspirators intended William's death or that, if they did, they communicated this part of their design to Berwick. Within a short time after the proclamation, six of the 29 were apprehended, tried, and executed, while five more, having given evidence for the Crown, were pardoned. Of the rest, a number were named in an Act of Attainder, passed in the Parliament of the eighth and ninth year of William III (1696‑97), but the name of the Duke of Berwick was not amongst these. However, on November 11, 1697, a fresh proclamation was made of a reward of £1,000 for the apprehension of James, late Duke of Berwick and others "all outlawed or attainted of high treason for conspiring to murder the king and reported to have returned secretly to England". With the exception of the Duke of Berwick and two others, all those named in this proclamation were also named in the Act of Attainder.
	The position is thus seen to be decidedly obscure and the forfeiture of the dukedom at least doubtful. It seems unlikely that an attainder by Act of Parliament has been overlooked, but some judgment of outlawry or the like with the same effect may yet be traced. However, if further research should establish that there was in fact no forfeiture of the dukedom, an interesting field of inquiry opens into the possible reasons for so ambiguous a policy. If there were no forfeiture, then it would seem that the late Duke of Alba was in fact also Duke of Berwick upon Tweed in the peerage of England, and the dignity is now invested in his heir male, the Duke of Penaranda. Unhappily, Mr Butler's researches were interrupted by the war and never afterwards resumed, but it seemed desirable that their upshot should be placed on record and for this the consent of the heirs of the Duke of Alba were sought and willingly given.
	Angus Edward Vivian Smith, 3rd Baron Bicester
	Lord Bicester spent 32 years (1965-1997) in psychiatric hospitals before being finally allowed to take his seat in the House of Lords. For further information the reader should cut and paste the following into his or her web browser -
	http://www-student.cs.york.ac.uk/uni_history/bicester.html
	Vere, Dowager Lady Birdwood (first wife of the 2nd Baron Birdwood) (1901‑1987)
	Vere Drummond married Christopher Bromhead Birdwood in March 1931 and was divorced from him in 1954. Christopher succeeded his father as Baron Birdwood in 1951.
	As well as issuing a steady stream of political pamphlets, Lady Birdwood assumed the role of moral watchdog and launched numerous actions against what she perceived to be moral breaches. In 1970, Oscar Panniza's irreligious satire Council of Love was playing at the Criterion Theatre in London. Lady Birdwood launched a private prosecution against the play under the Blasphemy Act of 1376. Her objections centred on the fact that God, Christ and the Virgin Mary were impersonated on stage. Furthermore, Pope Alexander VI (Pope between 1492 and 1503) and his cardinals were shown participating in orgies with naked women and oiled wrestlers during a celebration of Mass.
	By the time the trial began, the producers had fled the country and so Lady Birdwood named the play's director, Eleanor Fazan, as defendant, in spite of the fact that she wasn't the director, merely the choreographer. If found guilty, Miss Fazan could, under the 1376 Blasphemy Act, have been burned as a witch, but John Mortimer, for the defence, argued that since Miss Fazan had not been in the theatre on the night of Lady Birdwood's visit, Miss Fazan could not be held responsible for what might have happened on stage. The magistrate agreed with Mortimer and dismissed the case, awarding Miss Fazan her costs.
	Lady Eleanor Furneaux Smith, daughter of the 1st Earl of Birkenhead (1902‑20 October 1945)
	Eleanor was the daughter of F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead. A best-selling novelist, her lifelong search for excitement scandalised the staider high society in which she and her father moved. Though packed with adventure, Lady Eleanor's life was more of a tragedy - she was an eccentric tomboy who never grew up.
	Lady Eleanor always maintained that she was born dead. The two doctors who attended her birth could not get her to breathe and gave up. An old family servant, skilled at midwifery, would not believe the doctors and by vigorous slapping and massaging with brandy, she set the 'dead' baby bawling. As she grew up, she soon began to exhibit her peculiar qualities. At the age of four, a gardener tried to stop her from wrecking a flower-bed. She responded by kicking him in the belly. A few years later, she attacked her younger brother, later the 2nd Earl, with a hatchet. She also liked to appropriate one of her father's guns, lock herself in the stables and threaten to kill anyone who tried to get her out.
	Her father had much to do with forging Eleanor's unusual personality. He regaled the child nightly with macabre ghost stories; he took her to prize fights and encouraged her 'to be cheeky before over-solemn statesmen'. When her father became Lord Chancellor, he let her bounce up and down on the Woolsack, much to the horror of the staid members of the House of Lords. Another of her father's ideas of fun was to take her to Willie Clarkson, the famous theatrical costumier, who would deck her out in an outrageously blonde wig and have her face grotesquely made-up. Eleanor and her father would then pay a series of afternoon calls on more conventional legal and social acquaintances.
	Eleanor's childhood was only half real. The rest was spent in a fanciful world of imagination. Thus she imagined she had a dog named Gyp, whom she took with her wherever she went and put food out for him every night. This eventually changed into the belief that she was a dog herself. She would walk at a companion's heels, bark and imitate other canine qualities 'with an embarrassing fidelity'. After she tired of being a dog, she became a bird. She built nests, furnished them with eggs and sat upon them 'in morose sterility for many hours at a stretch'. Later, she invented an imaginary playmate named Heyon, a girl who was supposed to live in the woods, surviving on nuts and fruit. Eleanor went daily to play with her.
	She also wrote letters to famous schools asking if they would take her unruly young daughter, Pamela. She signed them 'Miss Smith'. The replies, though tactful, rarely offered to accept Pamela as a pupil. Another prank was to answer advertisements for governesses under the alias of 'Lydia Languish'. With each application she enclosed a photograph of some scantily-clad chorus girl she bought from the local grocer's boy in dozen lots.
	Schooling was a problem. She was expelled or ran away from so many that her father could find none suitable in England. She got her marching orders from one school for knocking a prefect senseless with a cricket bat. She left another after taking a party of girls to Limehouse to sample, she said, the delights of opium. Eleanor cared nothing for schooling; she hated the institutional boarding-school life and her letters to home were full of threats of suicide unless she was removed. Once she decided that one of her school mistresses was a vampire. 'I have to sleep with a dagger for fear of her,' she informed her mother.
	At the age of nine, she discovered in her father's library a copy of George Borrow's classic gypsy romance Lavengro. She thereupon decided that she, too, had gypsy blood. To bolster this fiction, she decided that her paternal great-grandmother had been a Romany princess, based solely upon the fact that the great-grandmother's name had been Bathsheba. Gypsies and her own imaginary Romany connections became Eleanor's lifelong passion and she became one of England's foremost authorities on the subject.
	At 17, she was packed off to an exclusive French finishing school, but her stay there was short. Before long she was climbing out of her room each night to meet the local barber boy to 'indulge in orgies of vin ordinaire at village cafes'. When they returned one night, a tipsy Lady Eleanor was unable to climb in her window. Her companion had to enter first and pull her up, but in doing so, he knocked over an ornament and the resultant crash brought a mistress to investigate.
	After that, Lord Birkenhead would try no more schools. Instead, he packed his daughter off as a paying guest and pupil to an accomplished but impoverished Belgian baron. She was happy in the easy-going Belgian household until she disgraced herself and had to be sent home after causing a riot at a Brussels ball given by the British Ambassador when she released eight savage wolfhounds to start a dog fight on the dance floor.
	Back in England, she became a gossip columnist on a London paper, but since she refused to attend functions, she wrote her paragraphs from imagination. For a while, she decided she wanted to be a ballet dancer and practised until her feet bled. She then switched to novel writing, but her early efforts were rejected by publishers. She then joined Carmo's Circus as publicity officer. The lure was not so much the romance of circus life, but the circus's star attraction - a tall, swarthy, turbaned lion-tamer named Togare, with whom Lady Eleanor was madly in love.
	In 1929, she released her novel The Red Wagon which combined the romance and colour of gypsy life with that of the circus. The book quickly became a bestseller and was filmed in 1933. Over the next 15 years, she made a fortune from a dozen or so distinctive novels. The most popular of these, The Man in Grey, was filmed in 1943 and starred Margaret Lockwood, James Mason and Stewart Granger. At the time of her death from an abdominal complaint in October 1945, Lady Eleanor was a world-known celebrity.
	William Norman Birkett, 1st Baron Birkett
	The following biography of Lord Birkett appeared in the Australian monthly magazine Parade in its issue for November 1973:-
	During the late 1890s a skinny, red-haired Lancashire schoolboy used to commute by train from his home in the town of Ulverston to nearby Barrow where he attended grammar school. Glorying in his nickname of "Carrots", he headed a gang of high-spirited youngsters who filled in time on the journey fighting with other boys and skylarking with water-pistols, flour bombs and booby traps. Once, Carrots narrowly escaped police action when he and his school mates manhandled an adult passenger by mistake as the unlit train went through a tunnel. Irate regular travellers on the train used to abuse Carrots and predict that he was headed for a life of crime. In fact, crime did playa large part in his later life - but not in the way those travellers expected. Carrots' name was Norman Birkett and he was destined to become one of the most renowned criminal lawyers in England.
	When he achieved fame as one of the greatest figures at the English bar, Birkett was called "the man born with a silver tongue" and the "1000 Guinea King's Counsel". Through the 1920s and '30s Norman Birkett (subsequently knighted and ultimately raised to the peerage as Lord Birkett) starred in one cause celebre after another. Birkett succeeded the great Sir Edward Marshall Hall as the dominant figure in Britain's most sensational murder trials. His performances in obtaining acquittals in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds rivalled those of the most successful criminal advocates of fiction. So much so that a contemporary English judge once jokingly described Norman Birkett as "a positive menace to the administration of justice".
	Born in Ulverston in 1883, Birkett was the son of a middle-class Methodist draper. After finishing grammar school the youth became an apprentice in his father's shop. His youthful misdemeanours behind him, he developed a flair for oratory as a lay preacher and finally at the age of 24 won a scholarship to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, with the intention of entering the ministry. But in debates at the University Union listeners were hypnotised by Birkett's developing eloquence and before long he decided to switch from religion to the law. However, immediately after graduation he married and with a wife to support, he chose security for several years as secretary to George Cadbury, millionaire philanthropist and chocolate maker.
	The result was that Norman Birkett was 30 before he took the plunge and began practice as a barrister in Birmingham. Years of struggle followed, although Birkett got more than his share of dock briefs because sitting among the available barristers his flaming red hair frequently persuaded an undecided prisoner to choose him.
	By the early 1920s Birkett was practising in London. In time he attracted Sir Edward Marshall Hall's attention and appeared as his junior in a number of cases. In fact, Birkett first made his name when Marshall Hall became ill during a case and Birkett had to take over the defence at short notice. It meant sitting up all night to study the facts of a case that had already taken 12 days and then next morning to deliver a vital four-hour closing speech that turned the scales and won the verdict.
	In November 1925 the well-known dramatic critic James Agate brought a libel action against a reviewer who slated a book of essays Agate had published. Engaged for the defence, Birkett suavely tore to shreds the redoubtable Agate who had made his reputation as a critic with a pen dipped freely in vitriol. "Why should Mr Agate who relishes flaying actors and playwrights squeal for damages when anyone gives him a taste of his own medicine?" he demanded. The jury saw the point and awarded Agate one farthing damages.
	In 1926 Birkett scored his first big success in a murder trial when he defended 59-year-old Mrs Harriet Crouch who had shot and killed her younger husband on the small farm she had bought him when they married. The dead man ill-treated his wife, was having an affair with a servant girl and threatened to sell the farm and run off with the girl to South Africa. Mrs Crouch claimed she bought a revolver with the idea of suicide but when her husband knocked her down and began punching her, she pulled it from her coat pocket to frighten him. A struggle ensued and a shot was fired which killed her husband. "But it never entered my head either to wound or kill him," said Mrs Crouch. In court, Birkett concentrated on the servant girl and by friendly but persistent questioning got her to admit Mrs Crouch had been "grief-stricken" over her affair with the husband and had spoken of suicide. Then, in his final speech for the defence, he insisted that the shooting had been an accident and hammered away at the theme that with a bullying and faithless husband the woman's life had become a misery. The purchase of a revolver had been a natural thing to do as Mrs Crouch intended suicide "for the sanctity of her married life had been invaded and everything beautiful had become ugly". In his summing up, the judge stressed two alternative charges against the prisoner - murder or manslaughter. But the jury needed only 15 minutes to give one answer to both charges and as the foreman uttered the words "not guilty" the court rang with cheers.
	Two years after Birkett won Mrs Crouch her freedom another wife, Mrs Beatrice Pace, engaged him to defend her on a charge of poisoning her farmer husband with arsenic. Again Birkett argued that the death had been an accident. He suggested that the husband had been poisoned slowly from working with sheep dip containing arsenic. From two of the prosecution's own expert witnesses he secured admissions that a man could be poisoned by dipping sheep and then eating with unwashed hands or biting his nails or even wiping his wrist across his moustache. This time Birkett was so confident that immediately after the prosecution evidence was finished he submitted that there was no case to go to the jury and the judge should stop the trial. The judge agreed and directed the jury: "I ask you to return a verdict of not guilty". Again cheers broke out in court and there was no doubt about Birkett's own feelings in the case. Leaving his place on the front bench he went over the dock and warmly shook the hand of the still dazed woman. "I'm so glad, Mrs Pace," he said.
	By the early 1930s Norman Birkett was one of the highest-paid KCs in England with an annual income of £30,000. Yet he frequently refused lucrative briefs to defend someone who could not afford to pay for his services but whose case had aroused his sympathy. He once appeared without fee for a Cambridge undergraduate from a poor home who pleaded guilty to stealing books. Birkett won the youth a bond and then persuaded his college to let him continue his studies. On another occasion, and for a nominal fee, Birkett agreed to defend a youth charged with the murder of his father. The home of this family, he told the jury, "was one where misery reigned day in and day out and the dead man was the author of that misery. Here is this boy, not yet 18, whose only fault was this overmastering love for his mother whom he believed to be in danger." Birkett's impassioned sincerity reduced many people in the court to tears and the prisoner escaped with a few months' imprisonment for manslaughter.
	Undoubtedly Birkett's engaging manner, friendliness and golden-tongued oratory swayed jurors. Lord Chief Justice Hewitt once felt it necessary to state in court: "Sometimes the merits and charm of an advocate are unconsciously imputed to his client. You must realise, members of the jury, that you are not trying Mr Norman Birkett."
	Still Birkett went on winning acquittals in cases where other barristers considered he had little chance of success. In 1931 he defended Mrs Sarah Hearne who was charged with having killed her sister and the wife of a neighbour by putting arsenic in salmon sandwiches. Mrs Hearne was known to have bought a weed-killer containing arsenic, but Birkett was able to prove that if this preparation had been put in the sandwiches the bread would have been stained blue. So Mrs Hearne was found not guilty - as was another Birkett client, Tony Mancini, who in 1934 went on trial for the so-called Brighton Trunk Murder. The Mancini defence marked the peak of Birkett's career, for the Crown case was so overwhelming that it seemed impossible for any jury to free the accused. The body of Mancini's mistress, a prostitute named Violette Kaye, had been found been found in a trunk in his Brighton lodgings with a fractured skull. Evidence was also given that Mancini had admitted quarrelling with her and there was blood on his clothes. He had also said to someone: "What's the good of knocking a woman about with your fists? You should hit her with a hammer the same as I did." Nevertheless, Birkett won Tony Mancini an acquittal after he had got the famous pathologist Sir Bernard Spilsbury to admit that the fracture of the dead woman's skull could just as easily have resulted from a drunken fall.
	The trial was a triumph for Birkett but physically exhausting. Afterwards he collapsed in a chair in his chambers, and sighed: "This sort of thing takes years off my life". To which his junior replied: "Maybe. But it adds years to your clients".
	In 1941 Birkett was raised to the Bench and knighted. Later as a Court of Appeals judge he became Lord Birkett. But all through his years as a judge he regretted leaving the bar and longed to be back in the fray as a barrister. So when he died in 1962 he would probably have most appreciated the eulogy of a leading QC who said that if he had ever committed murder he would have unhesitatingly put his future in Birkett's hands.
	William Keith Mason, 4th and last Baron Blackford
	Lord Blackford died from a heroin overdose in May 1988. The following report of the subsequent inquest appeared in The Times on 30 June 1988:-
	Lord Blackford lost his 18-moth battle against heroin when he was tempted to use the drug again, an inquest was told yesterday. Lord Blackford, aged 26, a stockbroker, of Redcliffe Square, Chelsea, died after injecting heroin because his tolerance of the drug had decreased. Dr Paul Knapman, the Westminster coroner, recorded a verdict of death through dependence on drugs.
	Lord Blackford had been "clean" for some months before his death, but went out and bought the drug after a party in Clapham, south-west London, the hearing was told. Miss Nicky Barthorp, aged 24, Lord Blackford's girl friend, told the inquest that he had been addicted to heroin and she was helping him as he tried to give it up. She said that Lord Blackford had not drunk much at the party, a barbecue, but at about midnight said he wanted to get some drugs. "I knew he meant heroin because he didn't take any other drugs. I tried to dissuade him but he went anyway," she said.
	Lord Blackford was found lying on his bed fully clothed and with a syringe beside him on June 16 [sic - should be May 16], the day after he took the fatal dose. Miss Lizza Mason, aged 23, Lord Blackford's sister, said she had gone to his flat with Miss Barthorp after he failed to appear at work on the Monday morning.
	Lord Blackford's GP, Dr Christian Carritt, of Gloucester Road, South Kensington, said he was under the impression his patient was not abusing drugs before his death.
	Marguerite Power, wife of Charles John Gardiner, 1st Earl of Blessington (creation of 1816)
	Visitors to Captain Thomas Jenkins's home in Hampshire in 1809 were surprised to find that the bluff, good-natured officer had not returned empty-handed from a recent visit to Ireland. With him was a dazzling 20-year-old Tipperary mistress known as Sally. Tall, black-haired, blue-eyed, classically curved, full of intelligence and vivacity, she entranced the gay captain's bachelor guests, and he often had to use his sword to emphasise to the more forward that the lady belonged to him. One guest, however, was not accustomed to being baulked of anything he fancied. He paid Jenkins £10,000 for the girl.
	The buyer was the enormously wealthy Earl of Blessington. Four years later he married the bartered beauty and took her on a seven-year European tour with a retinue fit for royalty. Secretly, she succumbed to the charms of his young, dandified son-in-law, Count D'Orsay, and when Blessington died she returned to England and defied convention as the mistress of her step-daughter's husband.
	Lady Blessington was born Marguerite Power in 1789. Her father, Edmund Power, was a hard-drinking impoverished, small-time squire of Clonmel, Tipperary. Power was a magistrate and proprietor of the Clonmel Gazette. Wild speculation and gambling kept him constantly short of funds. When his pretty eldest daughter, generally known as Sally, was 16 he saw the chance of quick profit. Unknown to the girl he hawked her hand around local landowners and army officers. The highest bidder was Captain Maurice Farmer, of Poplar Hall, County Kildare. Sally became Mrs Farmer. For three years she was the victim of a loutish drunken brute. From the honeymoon she was insulted, beaten, locked up and starved. Despite this, her spirit was not broken. At 18, a radiant, strong-willed woman, she marched back to her family. She was not welcome. Her younger sisters rebelled when suitors deserted them to woo the gay, provocative young grass widow.
	Sally was making no more mistakes. She looked the field over for a year or so before she "accepted the protection" of the rich, easy-going Captain Tom Jenkins. Jenkins took her to England in 1809 and installed her as mistress of his Hampshire mansion. He not only exhibited her in the nude before his guests, but also introduced her to literature, art and public affairs. The quick mind of illiterate Mrs Sally Farmer began to bloom.
	For five years she remained Jenkins's mistress, until in 1814 he played host to the free-spending Earl of Blessington. Owner of Irish estates worth £30,000 a year, Blessington was notorious for his extravagant living. He surrounded himself with opulence and beauty. Anything he liked, he bought, regardless of price. He had a business discussion with Jenkins about Sally and £10,000 changed hands. Sally moved into the London house of the smitten earl. Within four years Blessington's wife died and meanwhile Captain Farmer had performed his only act of kindness to to Sally by jumping from a window and breaking his neck while drunk [another source states that he died while in a debtors' prison].
	Following a marriage ceremony at a fashionable London church [16 February 1818], Sally became Marguerite, Countess of Blessington. To her dinner table in the Blessington mansion came diplomats, politicians, soldiers, writers and painters. Their wives and other leaders of the London social whirl, however, preferred to stay away. This unwavering hostility sent Blessington and his bride on a tour of Europe that was to last seven years. Their entourage was so large that France and Italy called it the Blessington Circus. Dozens of coaches, baggage wagons and carts were needed to carry the earl, his wife and their many possessions. They took their own chef with all his gear in a specially-fitted caravan-kitchen. In towns that caught his fancy Blessington rented a mansion, hired more servants, bought horses, furniture, paintings, further to encumber the circus.
	At Avignon, France, they were joined by Count D'Orsay, a tall French dandy who was an athlete, swordsman, painter and sculptor. He threw up the army to accompany the Blessingtons to Italy. The earl, who had known his father, invited D'Orsay along, unaware that he sparking a notorious love affair.
	From the moment the count met Lady Blessington, no one else in the world mattered to either of them. The earl was blind to the affair. He regarding the dashing French noble as a son and arranged an engagement between him and his own 15-year-old daughter, Harriet, by his previous marriage. Shy, plain Lady Harriet was brought from Ireland. Blessington made a will leaving D'Orsay most of his estate. Soon the girl married her step-mother's secret lover.
	In 1823 the strange ménage reached Genoa, Italy, where Lord Byron was staying before his final ill-fated adventure in the cause of Greek freedom. Lady Blessington made another conquest. Historians still debate whether she joined the long list of the pale-faced club-footed poet's mistresses. When the Blessington Circus moved on after three months, Byron was reported to have given way to a "passionate fit of weeping".
	Moving to Naples, the Blessingtons rented the elaborate Palazzo Belvidere, famed for its gardens, fountains, marble pavements and picture galleries. In Paris they settled into the mansion formerly owned by Marshal Ney. There Blessington built his unfaithful wife a fantastic love bower. The bed rested on silver swans. A silver sofa stood nearby. The walls here hung with silk and lace. A sunken bath was surrounded by full-length mirrors. There, amid the gaudy splendour his money could buy, but which could not hold the love of his wife, Lord Blessington died of apoplexy in May 1829.
	Lady Blessington, d'Orsay and his young wife returned to London to set up a queer household in Seymour Place, Park Lane. The earl's estate was heavily mortgaged. His wild spending had eaten into his assets, and there was little income for D'Orsay, the principal heir, to collect. Lady Blessington had a separate income - part of a marriage settlement - of £2000 a year. She assumed support of her stepdaughter and lover. Her income, however, could not keep pace with her own expensive tastes or with Count D'Orsay's incessant demands for cash. She sat down to make money with her pen. For the rest of her life she poured out a stream of books that earned her a considerable sum.
	Her stepdaughter, Lady Harriet, was not as blind as her father to the liaison between Lady Blessington and Count D'Orsay. She sought refuge with relatives in Ireland. The lovers continued to live together at Seymour Place - though subject to increasing attacks from Press and stage on their scandalous association. Lady Blessington fought back with an all-out attempt to create the most brilliant and discussed salon in London. Society ladies still shunned her. Their men found her irresistible.
	Though the beauty could have married any eligible man in England, she had no eyes for anyone but the worthless d'Orsay. Once her guests had departed she worked long into the night on her books. Her lover squandered the money on tailors, shirtmakers, hatters, bootmakers, glove-makers, florists, jewellers, hairdressers and perfumers. He gambled wildly on horses, prize-fights and cards. He had little money of his own.
	Blessington's estate was almost entirely eaten up by debt, other legacies, and litigation by Lady Harriet against her husband. Discovering a flair for portraiture, D'Orsay set up as a fashionable painter. It was a standing joke about town that he must have made at least enough to keep himself in gloves. To save money, in 1836 Lady Blessington moved from Seymour House into the then country district of Kensington. She took a smaller residence, Gore House, once owned by William Wilberforce, the anti-slavery champion.
	Life for the lovers continued on a grand scale - but to them it seemed cramping poverty. D'Orsay grumbled because his mistress could afford no more than £1000 for repairs and alterations and another £1000 for furniture for Gore House. Creditors began to harass them despite her large income, A crisis developed in the 1840s when income from her marriage settlement slumped with the Irish potato famine. To make matters worse, the publisher of her profitable annuals died, owing her large sums for royalties. His executors denied the liability. Costly legal proceedings were her only hope of collecting.
	D'Orsay owed about £100,000 round London. Lady Blessington could not give him enough to keep his creditors quiet. Process servers haunted Gore House. By law they could not serve a writ after dark, or when the creditor was on property not his own. D'Orsay was safe if he stayed in Gore House, tenanted by Lady Blessington, and ventured out only after sunset. By day the mansion was in a state of siege, At night it was reopened and illuminated for the inevitable guests.
	The situation worsened, D'Orsay fled to France. His mistress promised to follow when she had settled her own debts. In May 1849 she auctioned all her furniture and treasures in Gore House. Women who had refused to enter now arrived in crowds to gloat and humiliate her. The sale realised £12,000, enough to pay her debts and distribute presents to her faithful servants.
	There was still £1500 over. This she took with her to France to begin life anew with her lover of more than 25 years. They had a fond reunion in Paris. "I am so very tired, Alfred," she told him as he showed her the modest apartment he had ready. She complained that her friends in London had not rallied in greater force to her aid when she needed them. "What does it matter?" D'Orsay said. "We have no need of outsiders. We have each other - we will always have each other."
	But it was not for long. Within a month, in June 1849, the Countess of Blessington died of a heart attack [a post-mortem revealed that her heart was three times normal size]. She was buried in French churchyard of Chambourcy. For two years D'Orsay toiled with his own hands to erect an elaborate mausoleum over her tomb. Then he died [4 August 1852] and was buried with her.
	The special remainder to the Barony of Blythswood
	From the London Gazette of 23 September 1892 (issue 26328, page 5383):-
	The Queen has been pleased, by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, dated the 24th August, 1892, to grant the dignity of a Baron of the said United Kingdom unto Sir Archibald Campbell Campbell, of Blythswood, in the county of Renfrew, Bart., and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, by the name, style, and title of Baron Blythswood, of Blythswood, in the county of Renfrew, with remainder, in default of such issue male, to the brothers of the said Sir Archibald Campbell Campbell, in the following order:—
	Sholto Douglas Campbell Douglas, of Douglas Support, in the county of Lanark, Clerk, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten;
	Barrington Bulkley Douglas Campbell, Esq, Colonel in Her Majesty's Scots Guards, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten;
	Walter James Douglas Campbell, of Innis Chonain, in the county of Argyll, Esq, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten;
	Montagu Douglas Campbell, Esq, Captain and Honourary Major 4th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten; and
	Robert Douglas Campbell, Esq, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten.

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