PEERAGES
Last updated 06/11/2018 (7 Mar 2024)
Date	Rank	Order	Name	Born	Died	Age
SEVERN
19 Jun 1999	V	1	HRH Prince Edward Antony Richard Louis Created Viscount Severn and Earl of Wessex 19 Jun 1999, Earl of Forfar 10 Mar 2019 and Duke of Edinburgh for life 10 Mar 2023 See "Edinburgh"	10 Mar 1964
SEWEL
10 Jan 1996	B[L]		John Buttifant Sewel Created Baron Sewel for life 10 Jan 1996	15 Jan 1946
SEWELL OF SANDERSTEAD
16 Dec 2022	B[L]		Cleveland Anthony Sewell Created Baron Sewell of Sanderstead for life 16 Dec 2022	6 Aug 1959
SEYMOUR OF SUDELEY
16 Feb 1547 to     28 Mar 1549	B	1	Thomas Seymour Created Baron Seymour of Sudeley 16 Feb 1547 KG 1547 Peerage extinct on his death	c 1508	28 Mar 1549
SEYMOUR OF TROWBRIDGE
19 Feb 1641	B	1	Francis Seymour Created Baron Seymour of Trowbridge 19 Feb 1641 Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1660‑1664	c 1590	12 Jul 1664
12 Jul 1664		2	Charles Seymour MP for Great Bedwyn 1640 and Wiltshire 1661‑1664	5 Feb 1621	25 Aug 1665	44
25 Aug 1665		3	Francis Seymour He succeeded to the Dukedom of Somerset in 1675 with which title this peerage then merged until its extinction in 1750	17 Jan 1658	20 Apr 1678	20
9 Jul 1863			Edward Adolphus Ferdinand Seymour He was summoned to Parliament by a Writ of Acceleration as Baron Seymour 9 Jul 1863 He was the eldest son and heir apparent of the 12th Duke of Somerset, but died before he could succeed to that title	17 Jul 1835	30 Sep 1869	34
SHACKLETON
11 Aug 1958 to     22 Sep 1994	B[L]		Edward Arthur Alexander Shackleton Created Baron Shackleton for life 11 Aug 1958 MP for Preston 1946‑1950 and Preston South 1950‑1955; Minister of Defence for the RAF 1964‑1967; Minister without Portfolio 1967‑1968; Lord Privy Seal 1968 and 1968‑1970; Paymaster General 1968; PC 1966; KG 1974 Peerage extinct on his death	15 Jul 1911	22 Sep 1994	83
SHACKLETON OF BELGRAVIA
21 Dec 2010	B[L]		Fiona Sara Shackleton Created Baroness Shackleton of Belgravia for life 21 Dec 2010	26 May 1956
SHAFIK
30 Sep 2020	B[L]		Nemat Talaat [Minouche] Shafik Created Baroness Shafik for life 30 Sep 2020	13 Aug 1962
SHAFTESBURY
23 Apr 1672	E	1	Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, 2nd baronet Created Baron Ashley 20 Apr 1661 and Baron Cooper of Pawlett and Earl of Shaftesbury 23 Apr 1672 MP for Tewkesbury 1640, Downton 1640 and Wiltshire 1653‑1660; Chancellor of the Exchequer 1661‑1667; President of the Board of Trade 1672‑1676; Lord Chancellor 1672‑1673; Lord Lieutenant Dorset 1672‑1674	22 Jul 1621	21 Jan 1683	61
21 Jan 1683		2	Anthony Ashley Cooper MP for Weymouth & Melcombe Regis 1673‑1679	16 Jan 1652	2 Nov 1699	47
2 Nov 1699		3	Anthony Ashley Cooper MP for Poole 1695‑1698	26 Feb 1671	4 Feb 1713	41
4 Feb 1713		4	Anthony Ashley Cooper Lord Lieutenant Dorset 1734‑1771; PC 1761	9 Feb 1711	27 May 1771	60
29 May 1771		5	Anthony Ashley Cooper	17 Sep 1761	14 May 1811	49
14 May 1811		6	Cropley Ashley Cooper MP for Dorchester 1791‑1811; PC 1814	21 Dec 1768	2 Jun 1851	82
2 Jun 1851		7	Anthony Ashley-Cooper MP for Woodstock 1826‑1830, Dorchester 1830‑1831, Dorset 1831‑1846 and Bath 1847‑1851; Lord Lieutenant Dorset 1856‑1885; KG 1862 For further information on this peer, see the note at the foot of this page	28 Apr 1801	1 Oct 1885	84
1 Oct 1885		8	Anthony Ashley-Cooper MP for Hull 1857‑1859 and Cricklade 1859‑1865 For further information on this peer, see the note at the foot of this page	27 Jun 1831	13 Apr 1886	54
13 Apr 1886		9	Anthony Ashley-Cooper Lord Lieutenant Belfast 1904‑1911, Antrim 1911‑1916 and Dorset 1916‑1952; KP 1911; PC 1922	31 Aug 1869	25 Mar 1961	91
25 Mar 1961		10	Anthony Ashley-Cooper For further information on this peer, see the note at the foot of this page	22 May 1938	Nov 2004	66
Nov 2004		11	Anthony Nils Christian Ashley‑Cooper	24 Jun 1977	15 May 2005	27
15 May 2005		12	Nicholas Edmund Anthony Ashley‑Cooper	3 Jun 1979
SHAMASH
6 Mar 2024	B[L]		Gerald David Shamash Created Baron Shamash for life 6 Mar 2024	23 May 1947
SHAND
20 Aug 1892 to     6 Mar 1904	B	1	Alexander Burns Shand Created Baron Shand 20 Aug 1892 PC 1890 Peerage extinct on his death	13 Dec 1828	6 Mar 1904	75
SHANDON
1 Jul 1918 to     10 Sep 1930	B	1	Sir Ignatius John O'Brien, 1st baronet Created Baron Shandon 1 Jul 1918 Solicitor General [I] 1911; Attorney General [I] 1912; Lord Chancellor [I] 1913‑1918; PC [I] 1912 Peerage extinct on his death	30 Jul 1857	10 Sep 1930	73
SHANNON
6 Sep 1660	V[I]	1	Francis Boyle Created Baron Boyle and Viscount Shannon 6 Sep 1660	25 Jun 1623	Apr 1699	75
Apr 1699 to     20 Dec 1740		2	Richard Boyle MP for Arundel 1708‑1710, Hythe 1710‑1711 and 1712‑1715, and East Grinstead 1715‑1722 and 1722‑1734; PC [I] 1721 Peerage extinct on his death	c 1675	20 Dec 1740
20 Mar 1756	E[I]	1	Henry Boyle Created Baron of Castle Martyr, Viscount Boyle of Bandon and Earl of Shannon 20 Mar 1756 MP [I] for Midleton 1707‑1713, Kilmallock 1713‑1715 and Cork County 1715‑1756; Speaker of the House of Commons [I] 1733‑1756; PC [I] 1733	1682	28 Dec 1764	82
28 Dec 1764		2	Richard Boyle Created Baron Carleton 6 Aug 1786 MP [I] for Dungarvan 1749‑1760 and Cork County 1761‑1764; PC [I] 1763; PC 1782; KP 1783	30 Jan 1728	20 May 1807	79
20 May 1807		3	Henry Boyle MP [I] for Clonakilty 1793‑1797 and Cork County 1797‑1800; MP for co. Cork 1801‑1807 and Youghal 1807; Lord Lieutenant Cork 1831‑1842; KP 1808; PC [I] 1809	8 Aug 1771	22 Apr 1842	70
22 Apr 1842		4	Richard Boyle MP for co. Cork 1830‑1832	12 May 1809	1 Aug 1868	59
1 Aug 1868		5	Henry Bentinck Boyle	22 Nov 1833	8 Feb 1890	56
8 Feb 1890		6	Richard Henry Boyle For further information on this peer, see the note at the foot of this page	15 May 1860	11 Dec 1906	46
11 Dec 1906		7	Richard Bernard Boyle	13 Nov 1897	13 Apr 1917	19
13 Apr 1917		8	Robert Henry Boyle	1 Feb 1900	29 Dec 1963	63
29 Dec 1963		9	Richard Bentinck Boyle	23 Oct 1924	9 May 2013	88
9 May 2013		10	Richard Henry John Boyle	19 Jan 1960
SHARKEY
20 Dec 2010	B[L]		John Kevin Sharkey Created Baron Sharkey for life 20 Dec 2010	24 Sep 1947
SHARMAN
2 Aug 1999	B[L]		Colin Morven Sharman Created Baron Sharman for life 2 Aug 1999	19 Feb 1943
SHARP
19 Sep 1966 to     1 Sep 1985	B[L]		Dame Evelyn Adelaide Sharp Created Baroness Sharp for life 19 Sep 1966 Peerage extinct on her death	25 May 1903	1 Sep 1985	82
SHARP OF GRIMSDYKE
21 Jul 1989 to     2 May 1994	B[L]		Sir Eric Sharp Created Baron Sharp of Grimsdyke for life 21 Jul 1989 Peerage extinct on his death	17 Aug 1916	2 May 1994	77
SHARP OF GUILDFORD
1 Aug 1998	B[L]		Margaret Lucy Sharp Created Baroness Sharp of Guildford for life 1 Aug 1998	21 Nov 1938
SHARPE OF EPSOM
15 Sep 2020	B[L]		Andrew Michael Gordon Sharpe Created Baron Sharpe of Epsom for life 15 Sep 2020	Jun 1965
SHARPLES
18 Jun 1973 to     19 May 2022	B[L]		Pamela Sharples Created Baroness Sharples for life 18 Jun 1973 Peerage extinct on her death	11 Feb 1923	19 May 2022	99
SHAUGHNESSY
25 Jan 1916	B	1	Sir Thomas George Shaughnessy Created Baron Shaughnessy 25 Jan 1916	6 Oct 1853	10 Dec 1923	70
10 Dec 1923		2	William James Shaughnessy	29 Sep 1883	4 Oct 1938	55
4 Oct 1938		3	William Graham Shaughnessy	28 Mar 1922	22 May 2003	81
22 May 2003		4	Michael James Shaughnessy	12 Nov 1946	9 Dec 2007	61
9 Dec 2007		5	Charles George Patrick Shaughnessy	9 Feb 1955
SHAW
20 Feb 1909 to     28 Jun 1937	B[L]		Thomas Shaw Created Baron Shaw for life 20 Feb 1909 and Baron Craigmyle 7 May 1929 This peerage extinct on his death	23 May 1850	28 Jun 1937	87
SHAW OF NORTHSTEAD
30 Sep 1994 to     8 Jan 2021	B[L]		Sir Michael Norman Shaw Created Baron Shaw of Northstead for life 30 Sep 1994 MP for Brighouse & Spenborough 1960‑1964, Scarborough & Whitby 1966‑1974 and Scarborough 1974‑1992; MEP 1974‑1979	9 Oct 1920	8 Jan 2021	100
SHAWCROSS
14 Feb 1959 to     10 Jul 2003	B[L]		Sir Hartley William Shawcross Created Baron Shawcross for life 14 Feb 1959 MP for St. Helens 1945‑1958; Attorney General 1945‑1951; President of the Board of Trade 1951; PC 1946 Peerage extinct on his death	4 Feb 1902	10 Jul 2003	101
SHEEHAN
2 Oct 2015	B[L]		Shaista Ahmad Sheehan Created Baroness Sheehan for life 2 Oct 2015	29 Jul 1959
SHEFFIELD
16 Feb 1547	B	1	Sir Edmund Sheffield Created Baron Sheffield 16 Feb 1547	23 Nov 1521	31 Jul 1549	27
31 Jul 1549		2	John Sheffield	c 1538	10 Dec 1568
10 Dec 1568		3	Edmund Sheffield He was created Earl of Mulgrave in 1626 with which title this peerage then merged	c 1564	6 Oct 1646
9 Jan 1781 20 Sep 1783 29 Jul 1802 22 Jan 1816	B[I] B[I] B E[I]	1 1 1 1	John Baker-Holroyd Created Baron Sheffield [I] 9 Jan 1781 and 20 Sep 1783, Baron Sheffield [UK] 29 Jul 1802 and Viscount Pevensey and Earl of Sheffield [I] 22 Jan 1816 For details of the special remainder included in the creation of the Barony of 1783, see the note at the foot of this page MP for Coventry 1781‑1782 and Bristol 1790‑1802; President of the Board of Agriculture 1803; PC 1809	21 Dec 1735	30 May 1821	85
30 May 1821		2	George Augustus Frederick Charles Holroyd	16 Mar 1802	5 Apr 1876	74
5 Apr 1876 to     21 Apr 1909		3	Henry North Holroyd MP for Sussex East 1857 1865 On his death all peerages except the Irish Barony of 1783 became extinct. The Irish Barony of 1783 merged with the Barony of Stanley of Alderley	18 Jan 1832	21 Apr 1909	77
SHEIKH
6 Jun 2006 to     22 Sep 2022	B[L]		Mohamed Iltaf Sheikh Created Baron Sheikh for life 6 Jun 2006 Peerage extinct on his death	13 Jun 1941	22 Sep 2022	81
SHELBURNE
31 Dec 1688 to     c 1708	B[I][L]		Elizabeth Petty Created Baroness Shelburne for life 31 Dec 1688 Peerage extinct on her death		c 1708
31 Dec 1688 to     Apr 1696	B[I]	1	Charles Petty Created Baron Shelburne 31 Dec 1688 Peerage extinct on his death	c 1673	Apr 1696
16 Jun 1699 29 Apr 1719 to     17 Apr 1751	B[I] E[I]	1 1	Henry Petty Created Baron Shelburne 16 Jun 1699 and Viscount Dunkerron and Earl of Shelburne 29 Apr 1719 MP [I] for Midleton 1692‑1693 and Waterford County 1695‑1699; MP for Great Marlow 1715‑1722 and Wycombe 1722‑1727; PC [I] 1701 Peerages extinct on his death For information on the Earl's son, who predeceased him, see the note at the foot of this page	22 Oct 1675	17 Apr 1751	75
6 Jun 1753	E[I]	1	John Petty Created Baron Dunkeron and Viscount Fitzmaurice 7 Oct 1751, Earl of Shelburne 6 Jun 1753 and Baron Wycombe 20 May 1760 MP [I] for Kerry County 1743‑1751; MP for Wycombe 1754‑1760; PC [I] 1754	1706	14 May 1761	54
14 May 1761		2	William Petty Created Viscount Calne & Calston, Earl Wycombe and Marquess of Lansdowne 6 Dec 1784 See "Lansdowne"	2 May 1737	7 May 1805	68
SHELDON
22 Jun 2001 to     2 Feb 2020	B[L]		Robert Edward Sheldon Created Baron Sheldon for life 22 Jun 2001 MP for Ashton-under-Lyne 1964‑2001; Minister of State, Civil Service 1974; Minister of State, Treasury 1974‑1975. Financial Secretary to Treasury 1975‑1979; PC 1977 Peerage extinct on his death	13 Sep 1923	2 Feb 2020	96
SHEPHARD OF NORTHWOLD
21 Jun 2005	B[L]		Gillian Patricia Shephard Created Baroness Shephard of Northwold for life 21 Jun 2005 MP for Norfolk South West 1987‑2005; Minister of State, Treasury 1990‑1992; Secretary of State for Employment 1992‑1993; Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food 1993‑1994; Secretary of State for Education & Employment 1994‑1997; PC 1992	22 Jan 1940
SHEPHERD
28 Jun 1946	B	1	George Robert Shepherd Created Baron Shepherd 28 Jun 1946 PC 1952	19 Aug 1881	4 Dec 1954	73
4 Dec 1954		2	Malcolm Newton Shepherd Created Baron Shepherd of Spalding for life 16 Nov 1999 Minister Of State, Foreign & Commonwealth Office 1967‑1970; Lord Privy Seal 1974‑1976; PC 1965	27 Sep 1918	5 Apr 2001	82
5 Apr 2001		3	Graeme George Shepherd	6 Jan 1949
SHEPHERD OF SPALDING
16 Nov 1999 to     5 Apr 2001	B[L]		Malcolm Newton Shepherd, 2nd Baron Shepherd Created Baron Shepherd of Spalding for life 16 Nov 1999 Peerage extinct on his death	27 Sep 1918	5 Apr 2001	82
SHEPPARD OF DIDGEMERE
6 Sep 1994 to     25 Mar 2015	B[L]		Sir Allen John George Sheppard Created Baron Sheppard of Didgemere for life 6 Sep 1994 Peerage extinct on his death	25 Dec 1932	25 Mar 2015	82
SHEPPARD OF LIVERPOOL
14 Feb 1998 to     5 Mar 2005	B[L]		David Stuart Sheppard Created Baron Sheppard of Liverpool for life 14 Feb 1998 Bishop of Liverpool 1975‑1997 Peerage extinct on his death	6 Mar 1929	5 Mar 2005	75
SHEPPEY
6 Sep 1680 to     Jul 1686	E[L]		Elizabeth Walter Created Countess of Sheppey for life 6 Sep 1680 Peerage extinct on her death The name of the peerage is variously spelled as "Shepey" or, according to the London Gazette (issue 1546, page 2) "Shippey"	c 1625	Jul 1686
SHERARD
10 Jul 1627	B[I]	1	Sir William Sherard Created Baron Sherard 10 Jul 1627	1 Aug 1588	1 Apr 1640	51
1 Apr 1640		2	Bennet Sherard MP for Leicestershire 1679‑1695; Lord Lieutenant Rutland 1690‑1700	30 Nov 1621	15 Jan 1700	78
15 Jan 1700 31 Oct 1718 to     16 Oct 1732	V	3 1	Bennet Sherard Created Viscount Sherard 31 Oct 1718 and Earl of Harborough 8 May 1719 MP for Leicestershire 1701‑1702 and Rutland 1713‑1714; Lord Lieutenant Rutland 1700‑1712 and 1715‑1732 See "Harborough" On his death the Viscountcy became extinct whilst the Barony passed to -	9 Oct 1677	16 Oct 1732	55
16 Oct 1732		4	Philip Sherard, 2nd Earl of Harborough	c 1680	16 Feb 1750
16 Feb 1750		5	Bennet Sherard, 3rd Earl of Harborough	3 Sep 1709	23 Feb 1770	60
23 Feb 1770		6	Robert Sherard, 4th Earl of Harborough	21 Oct 1719	21 Apr 1799	79
21 Apr 1799		7	Philip Sherard, 5th Earl of Harborough	10 Oct 1767	10 Dec 1807	40
10 Dec 1807		8	Robert Sherard, 6th Earl of Harborough	26 Aug 1797	28 Jul 1859	61
28 Jul 1859		9	Philip Castell Sherard	7 Mar 1804	14 Mar 1886	82
14 Mar 1886		10	Castell Sherard	17 Aug 1849	5 Oct 1902	53
5 Oct 1902		11	Philip Halton Sherard	2 May 1851	1 May 1924	72
1 May 1924 to     14 Jun 1931		12	Robert Castell Sherard Peerage extinct on his death	1858	14 Jun 1931	72
SHERBORNE
20 May 1784	B	1	James Dutton Created Baron Sherborne 20 May 1784 MP for Gloucestershire 1781‑1784	22 Oct 1744	22 May 1820	75
22 May 1820		2	John Dutton	24 Jun 1779	19 Oct 1862	83
19 Oct 1862		3	James Henry Legge Dutton	30 May 1804	8 Mar 1883	78
8 Mar 1883		4	Edward Lenox Dutton	23 Apr 1831	19 Jul 1919	88
19 Jul 1919		5	Frederick George Dutton	28 May 1840	2 Jan 1920	79
2 Jan 1920		6	James Huntley Dutton	5 Mar 1873	17 Sep 1949	76
17 Sep 1949		7	Charles Dutton	13 May 1911	25 Dec 1982	71
25 Dec 1982 to     20 Apr 1985		8	Ralph Stawell Dutton Peerage extinct on his death	25 Aug 1898	20 Apr 1985	86
SHERBOURNE OF DIDSBURY
12 Sep 2013	B[L]		Sir Stephen Ashley Sherbourne Created Baron Sherbourne of Didsbury for life 12 Sep 2013	15 Oct 1945
SHERBROOKE
25 May 1880 to     27 Jul 1892	V	1	Robert Lowe Created Viscount Sherbrooke 25 May 1880 MP for Kidderminster 1852‑1859, Calne 1859‑1868 and University of London 1868‑1880; Vice President of the Board of Trade and Paymaster General 1855‑1858; Vice President of the Council of Education 1859‑1864; Chancellor of the Exchequer 1868‑1873; Home Secretary 1873‑1874; PC 1855 Peerage extinct on his death For further information on this peer, see the note at the foot of this page	4 Dec 1811	27 Jul 1892	80
SHERFIELD
29 Jun 1964	B	1	Roger Mellor Makins Created Baron Sherfield 29 Jun 1964	3 Feb 1904	9 Nov 1996	92
9 Nov 1996		2	Christopher James Makins	23 Jul 1942	28 Jan 2006	63
28 Jan 2006		3	Dwight William Makins	2 Mar 1951
SHERLOCK
17 Jun 2010	B[L]		Maeve Christina Mary Sherlock Created Baroness Sherlock for life 17 Jun 2010	10 Nov 1960
SHERWOOD
14 Aug 1941 to     1 Apr 1970	B	1	Sir Hugh Michael Seely, 3rd baronet Created Baron Sherwood 14 Aug 1941 MP for Norfolk East 1923‑1924 and Berwick upon Tweed 1935‑1941 Peerage extinct on his death	2 Oct 1898	1 Apr 1970	71
SHIELDS
16 Sep 2014	B[L]		Joanna Shields Created Baroness Shields for life 16 Sep 2014	12 Jul 1962
SHINGAY
7 May 1697 to     26 Nov 1727	B	1	Edward Russell Created Baron of Shingay, Viscount Barfleur and Earl of Orford 7 May 1697 See "Orford"	1653	26 Nov 1727	74
SHINKWIN
14 Oct 2015	B[L]		Kevin Joseph Maximilian Shinkwin Created Baron Shinkwin for life 14 Oct 2015	7 Jun 1971
SHINWELL
19 Jun 1970 to     8 May 1986	B[L]		Emanuel Shinwell Created Baron Shinwell for life 19 Jun 1970 MP for Linlithgowshire 1922‑1924 and 1929‑1931, Seaham 1935‑1950 and Easington 1950‑1970; Minister of Fuel & Power 1945‑1947; Secretary of State for War 1947‑1950; Minister of Defence 1950‑1951; PC 1945; CH 1965 Peerage extinct on his death	18 Oct 1884	8 May 1986	101
SHIPBROOK
8 Feb 1777 to     15 Oct 1783	E[I]	1	Francis Vernon Created Baron Orwell 7 Apr 1762, Viscount Orwell 21 Jul 1776 and Earl of Shipbrook 8 Feb 1777 MP for Ipswich 1761‑1768 Peerages extinct on his death	c 1715	15 Oct 1783
SHIPLEY
14 Jul 2010	B[L]		John Shipley Created Baron Shipley for life 14 Jul 2010	5 Jul 1946
SHORE
5 Jun 1997 to     24 Sep 2001	B[L]		Peter David Shore Created Baron Shore for life 5 Jun 1997 MP for Stepney 1964‑1974, Stepney & Poplar 1974‑1983 and Bethnal Green & Stepney 1983‑1997; Secretary of State for Economic Affairs 1967‑1969; Minister without Portfolio 1969‑1970; Secretary of State for Trade & Industry 1974‑1976; Secretary of State for the Environment 1976‑1979; PC 1967 Peerage extinct on his death	20 May 1924	24 Sep 2001	77
SHREWSBURY
1074	E	1	Roger de Montgomery Created Earl of Shrewsbury 1074		27 Jul 1094
27 Jul 1094		2	Hugh de Montgomery		27 Jul 1098
27 Jul 1098 to     1102		3	Robert de Montgomery He was deprived of the peerage in 1102		after 1113
20 May 1442	E	1	John Talbot, 7th Lord Talbot Created Earl of Shrewsbury 20 May 1442 and Earl of Waterford 17 Jul 1446 Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1414‑1419, 1425‑1426 and 1445‑1447; KG 1424	1390	17 Jul 1453	63
17 Jul 1453		2	John Talbot Lord Treasurer 1456‑1458; KG 1457	1413	10 Jul 1460	47
10 Jul 1460		3	John Talbot	12 Dec 1448	28 Jun 1473	24
28 Jun 1473		4	George Talbot KG 1488	1468	26 Jul 1538	70
26 Jul 1538		5	Francis Talbot KG 1545 He was summoned to Parliament by a Writ of Acceleration as Lord Talbot 17 Feb 1533	1500	21 Sep 1560	60
21 Sep 1560		6	George Talbot KG 1561 He was summoned to Parliament by a Writ of Acceleration as Lord Talbot 5 Jan 1553 For information on his wife, Bess of Hardwick, see the note at the foot of this page	1528	18 Nov 1590	62
18 Nov 1590		7	Gilbert Talbot MP for Derbyshire 1572‑1583; Lord Lieutenant Derbyshire 1605; KG 1592 He was summoned to Parliament by a Writ of Acceleration as Baron Talbot 28 Jan 1589	20 Nov 1552	8 May 1616	63
8 May 1616		8	Edward Talbot MP for Northumberland 1584‑1587	25 Feb 1561	8 Feb 1618	56
8 Feb 1618		9	George Talbot		2 Apr 1630
2 Apr 1630		10	John Talbot	by 1601	8 Feb 1654
8 Feb 1654		11	Francis Talbot For information on this peer's wife, see the note at the foot of this page	c 1623	16 Mar 1668
16 Mar 1668 30 Apr 1694 to     1 Feb 1718	D	12 1	Charles Talbot Created Marquess of Alton and Duke of Shrewsbury 30 Apr 1694 Secretary of State 1689‑1690 and 1694‑1699; Lord Lieutenant of Ireland 1713‑1714; Lord High Treasurer 1714. Lord Lieutenant Staffordshire 1681‑1687, Herefordshire 1694‑1704, Hertford 1689‑1691, Shropshire 1712‑1714, Wiltshire 1689‑1718 and Anglesey, Caernarvon 1694‑1696; PC 1689; KG 1694 For information on the Duke's brother-in-law, see the note at the foot of this page On his death the Dukedom became extinct whilst the Earldom passed to -	24 Jul 1660	1 Feb 1718	57
1 Feb 1718		13	Gilbert Talbot	11 Jan 1673	22 Jul 1743	80
22 Jul 1743		14	George Talbot	11 Dec 1719	22 Jul 1787	67
22 Jul 1787		15	Charles Talbot	8 Mar 1753	6 Apr 1827	74
6 Apr 1827		16	John Talbot	18 Mar 1791	9 Nov 1852	61
9 Nov 1852		17	Bertram Arthur Talbot	11 Dec 1832	10 Aug 1856	23
10 Aug 1856		18	Henry John Chetwynd‑Talbot, 3rd Earl Talbot MP for Hertford 1830‑1831 and 1832‑1833, Dublin 1831‑1832 and Staffordshire South 1837‑1849; PC 1858 For further information on the "Great Shrewsbury Case" of 1857‑1858, see the note at the foot of this page	8 Nov 1803	4 Jun 1868	64
4 Jun 1868		19	Charles John Chetwynd‑Talbot (also 4th Earl Talbot) MP for Stafford 1857‑1859, Staffordshire North 1859‑1868 and Stamford 1868; PC 1875	13 Apr 1830	11 May 1877	47
11 May 1877		20	Charles Henry John Chetwynd‑Talbot (also 5th Earl Talbot) For information on this peer, his wife and his son, see the note at the foot of this page	13 Nov 1860	7 May 1921	60
7 May 1921		21	John George Charles Henry Alton Alexander Chetwynd Chetwynd‑Talbot (also 6th Earl Talbot)	1 Dec 1914	12 Nov 1980	65
12 Nov 1980		22	Charles Henry John Benedict Crofton Chetwynd Chetwynd‑Talbot (also 7th Earl Talbot) [Elected hereditary peer 1999-]	18 Dec 1952
SHULDHAM
31 Jul 1776 to     30 Sep 1798	B[I]	1	Molyneux Shuldham Created Baron Shuldham 31 Jul 1776 MP for Fowey 1774‑1784; Governor of Newfoundland 1772‑1775 Peerage extinct on his death	c 1717	30 Sep 1798
SHUTE
17 Apr 1880	B	1	George William Barrington, 7th Viscount Barrington [I] Created Baron Shute 17 Apr 1880 For details of the special remainder included in the creation of this peerage, see the note at the foot of this page See "Barrington" - extinct 1990	14 Feb 1824	7 Nov 1886	62
SHUTT OF GREETLAND
12 May 2000 to     30 Oct 2020	B[L]		David Trevor Shutt Created Baron Shutt of Greetland for life 12 May 2000 PC 2009 Peerage extinct on his death	16 Mar 1942	30 Oct 2020	78
SHUTTLEWORTH
16 Jul 1902	B	1	Sir Ughtred James Kay‑Shuttleworth, 2nd baronet Created Baron Shuttleworth 16 Jul 1902 MP for Hastings 1869‑1880 and Clitheroe 1885‑1902; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1886; Lord Lieutenant Lancashire 1908‑1928; PC 1886	18 Dec 1844	20 Dec 1939	95
20 Dec 1939		2	Richard Ughtred Paul Kay‑Shuttleworth	30 Oct 1913	8 Aug 1940	26
8 Aug 1940		3	Ronald Orlando Lawrence Kay‑Shuttleworth	7 Oct 1917	17 Nov 1942	25
17 Nov 1942		4	Charles Ughtred John Kay‑Shuttleworth	24 Jun 1917	5 Oct 1975	58
5 Oct 1975		5	Charles Geoffrey Nicholas Kay‑Shuttleworth Lord Lieutenant Lancashire 1997-; KG 2016	2 Aug 1948
SIDMOUTH
12 Jan 1805	V	1	Henry Addington Created Viscount Sidmouth 12 Jan 1805 MP for Devizes 1784‑1805; Speaker of the House of Commons 1789‑1801; Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer 1801‑1805; Lord President of the Council 1805, 1806‑1807 and 1812; Lord Privy Seal 1806; Home Secretary 1812‑1822; PC 1789	30 May 1757	15 Feb 1844	86
15 Feb 1844		2	William Leonard Addington	13 Nov 1794	25 Mar 1864	69
25 Mar 1864		3	William Wells Addington MP for Devizes 1863‑1864	25 Mar 1824	28 Oct 1913	89
28 Oct 1913		4	Gerald Anthony Pellew Bagnall Addington	29 Nov 1854	25 Mar 1915	60
25 Mar 1915		5	Gerald William Addington	19 Aug 1882	4 Apr 1953	70
4 Apr 1953		6	Raymond Anthony Addington	24 Jan 1887	7 Feb 1976	89
7 Feb 1976		7	John Tonge Anthony Pellew Addington	3 Oct 1914	30 Jan 2005	90
30 Jan 2005		8	Jeremy Francis Addington	29 Jul 1947
SIEFF
18 Jan 1966 to     14 Feb 1972	B[L]		Israel Moses Sieff Created Baron Sieff for life 18 Jan 1966 Peerage extinct on his death	4 May 1889	14 Feb 1972	82
SIEFF OF BRIMPTON
14 Feb 1980 to     23 Feb 2001	B[L]		Sir Marcus Joseph Sieff Created Baron Sieff of Brimpton for life 14 Feb 1980 Peerage extinct on his death	2 Jul 1913	23 Feb 2001	87
SIKKA
10 Sep 2020	B[L]		Prem Nath Sikka Created Baron Sikka 10 Sep 2020	1 Aug 1951
SILCHESTER
17 Jul 1821	B	1	Thomas Pakenham, 2nd Earl of Longford Created Baron Silchester 17 Jul 1821 See "Longford"	14 May 1774	28 May 1835	61
SILKIN
4 Jul 1950	B	1	Lewis Silkin Created Baron Silkin 4 Jul 1950 MP for Peckham 1936‑1950; PC 1945; CH 1965	14 Nov 1889	11 May 1972	82
11 May 1972 to     18 May 1972		2	Arthur Silkin He disclaimed the peerage for life 18 May 1972	20 Oct 1916	25 Nov 2001	85
25 Nov 2001 to     May 2002		3	Christopher Lewis Silkin He disclaimed the peerage for life May 2002	12 Sep 1947
SILKIN OF DULWICH
13 May 1985 to     17 Aug 1988	B[L]		Samuel Charles Silkin Created Baron Silkin of Dulwich for life 13 May 1985 MP for Dulwich 1964‑1983; Attorney General 1974‑1979; PC 1974 Peerage extinct on his death	6 Mar 1918	17 Aug 1988	70
SILSOE
18 Jan 1963	B	1	Sir Arthur Malcolm Trustram Eve, 1st baronet Created Baron Silsoe 18 Jan 1963	8 Apr 1894	3 Dec 1976	82
3 Dec 1976		2	David Malcolm Trustram Eve	2 May 1930	31 Dec 2005	75
31 Dec 2005		3	Simon Rupert Trustram Eve	17 Apr 1966
SIMEY
12 May 1965 to     27 Dec 1969	B[L]		Thomas Spensley Simey Created Baron Simey for life 12 May 1965 Peerage extinct on his death	25 Nov 1906	27 Dec 1969	63
SIMON
20 May 1940	V	1	John Allsebrook Simon Created Viscount Simon 20 May 1940 MP for Walthamstow 1906‑1918 and Spen Valley 1922‑1940; Solicitor General 1910‑1913; Attorney General 1913‑1914; Home Secretary 1915‑1916 and 1935‑1937; Chancellor of the Exchequer 1937‑1940; Lord Chancellor 1940‑1945; PC 1913	28 Feb 1873	11 Jan 1954	80
11 Jan 1954		2	John Gilbert Simon	2 Sep 1902	5 Dec 1993	91
5 Dec 1993 to     15 Aug 2021		3	Jan David Simon [Elected hereditary peer 1999‑2021] Peerage extinct on his death	20 Jul 1940	15 Aug 2021	81
SIMON OF GLAISDALE
5 Feb 1971 to     7 May 2006	B[L]		Sir Jocelyn Edward Salis Simon Created Baron Simon of Glaisdale for life 5 Feb 1971 MP for Middlesbrough West 1951‑1962; Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1958‑1959; Solicitor General 1959‑1962; Lord of Appeal in Ordinary 1971‑1977; PC 1961 Peerage extinct on his death	15 Jan 1911	7 May 2006	95
SIMON OF HIGHBURY
16 May 1997	B[L]		Sir David Alec Gwyn Simon Created Baron Simon of Highbury for life 16 May 1997	24 Jul 1939
SIMON OF WYTHENSHAWE
17 Jan 1947	B	1	Sir Ernest Darwin Simon Created Baron Simon of Wythenshawe 17 Jan 1947 MP for Withington 1923‑1924 and 1929‑1931	9 Oct 1879	3 Oct 1960	80
3 Oct 1960		2	Roger Simon	16 Oct 1913	14 Oct 2002	88
14 Oct 2002		3	Matilda Simon Matilda was recorded male at birth, and went through a process of gender reassignment. Her right to inherit the peerage as the eldest son was upheld in 2022	10 Apr 1955
SIMONDS
18 Apr 1944 24 Jun 1952 18 Oct 1954 to     28 Jun 1971	B[L] B V	1 1	Sir Gavin Turnbull Simonds Created Baron Simonds for life 18 Apr 1944, Baron Simonds 24 Jun 1952 and Viscount Simonds 18 Oct 1954 Lord of Appeal in Ordinary 1944 and 1954‑1962; Lord Chancellor 1951‑1954; PC 1944 Peerages extinct on his death	28 Nov 1881	28 Jun 1971	89
SIMPSON OF DUNKELD
5 Nov 1997	B[L]		George Simpson Created Baron Simpson of Dunkeld for life 5 Nov 1997	2 Jul 1942
SINCLAIR
c 1449	B[S]	1	William Sinclair, 3rd Earl of Orkney Created Lord Sinclair c 1449 and Earl of Caithness 28 Aug 1455		1476
1476		2	William Sinclair		Jul 1487
Jul 1487		3	Henry Sinclair		9 Sep 1513
9 Sep 1513		4	William Sinclair		1570
1570		5	Henry Sinclair	1528	21 Oct 1601	73
21 Oct 1601		6	Henry Sinclair	Mar 1581	1602	21
1602		7	James Sinclair		1607
1607		8	Patrick Sinclair		1615
1615		9	John Sinclair	29 Oct 1610	10 Nov 1674	64
10 Nov 1674 to     Mar 1723		10	Henry St. Clair On his death the heir was under attainder	3 Jun 1660	Mar 1723	62
[Mar 1723]			[John St. Clair]	5 Dec 1683	2 Nov 1750	66
[2 Nov 1750]			[James St. Clair] MP for Dysart Burghs 1722‑1734 and 1747‑1754, Sutherland 1736‑1747 and Fifeshire 1754‑1762	1688	30 Nov 1762
30 Nov 1762		11	Charles St. Clair		4 Jan 1775
4 Jan 1775		12	Andrew St. Clair	30 Jul 1733	16 Dec 1775	42
16 Dec 1775		13	Charles St. Clair	30 Jul 1768	30 Mar 1863	94
30 Mar 1863		14	James St. Clair	3 Jul 1803	24 Oct 1880	77
24 Oct 1880		15	Charles William St. Clair	8 Sep 1831	25 Apr 1922	90
25 Apr 1922		16	Archibald James Murray St. Clair	16 Feb 1875	25 Nov 1957	82
25 Nov 1957		17	Charles Murray Kennedy St. Clair Lord Lieutenant Dumfries and Kirkcudbright 1982‑1989	21 Jun 1914	1 Apr 2004	89
1 Apr 2004		18	Matthew Murray Kennedy St. Clair	9 Dec 1968
SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE
21 Jan 1957	B	1	Sir Robert John Sinclair Created Baron Sinclair of Cleeve 21 Jan 1957	29 Jul 1893	4 Mar 1979	85
4 Mar 1979		2	John Robert Kilgour Sinclair	3 Nov 1919	27 Aug 1985	65
27 Aug 1985		3	John Lawrence Robert Sinclair	6 Jan 1953
SINGH OF WIMBLEDON
12 Oct 2011	B[L]		Indarjit Singh Created Baron Singh of Wimbledon for life 12 Oct 2011	17 Sep 1932
SINHA
14 Feb 1919	B	1	Sir Satyendra Prasanno Sinha Created Baron Sinha 14 Feb 1919 PC 1919	Jun 1864	5 Mar 1928	63
5 Mar 1928		2	Arun Kumar Sinha For further information on this peer's petition for a writ of summons to the House of Lords, see the note at the foot of this page	22 Aug 1887	11 May 1967	79
11 May 1967		3	Sudhindro Prossanho Sinha	29 Oct 1920	6 Jan 1989	68
6 Jan 1989		4	Susanta Prasanna Sinha For further information on this peer, see the note at the foot of this page	1953	1992	39
1992		5	Anindo Kumar Sinha	1930	18 Jan 1999	68
18 Jan 1999		6	Arup Kumar Sinha	23 Apr 1966
SKELMERSDALE
30 Jan 1828	B	1	Edward Bootle‑Wilbraham Created Baron Skelmersdale 30 Jan 1828 MP for Westbury 1795‑1796, Newcastle under Lyme 1796‑1812, Clitheroe 1812‑1818 and Dover 1818‑1828	7 Mar 1771	3 Apr 1853	82
3 Apr 1853		2	Edward Bootle‑Wilbraham, later [1880] 1st Earl of Lathom	12 Dec 1837	19 Nov 1898	60
19 Nov 1898		3	Edward George Bootle‑Wilbraham, 2nd Earl of Lathom	26 Oct 1864	15 Mar 1910	45
15 Mar 1910		4	Edward William Bootle‑Wilbraham, 3rd Earl of Lathom	16 May 1895	6 Feb 1930	34
6 Feb 1930		5	Arthur George Bootle‑Wilbraham	21 May 1876	9 Feb 1969	92
9 Feb 1969		6	Lionel Bootle‑Wilbraham	23 Sep 1896	21 Jul 1973	76
21 Jul 1973		7	Roger Bootle‑Wilbraham [Elected hereditary peer 1999‑2018]	2 Apr 1945	31 Oct 2018	73
31 Oct 2018		8	Andrew Bootle‑Wilbraham	9 Aug 1977
SKENE
1 Oct 1857	B	1	James Duff, 5th Earl of Fife Created Baron Skene 1 Oct 1857 See "Fife"	6 Jul 1814	7 Aug 1879	65
SKIDELSKY
15 Jul 1991	B[L]		Robert Jacob Alexander Skidelsky Created Baron Skidelsky for life 15 Jul 1991	25 Apr 1939
SKRIMSHIRE OF QUARTER
2 Oct 1979 to     7 Nov 1979	B[L]		Margaret Betty Harvie Anderson Created Baroness Skrimshire of Quarter for life 2 Oct 1979 MP for Renfrewshire East 1959‑1979; PC 1974 Peerage extinct on her death	12 Aug 1913	7 Nov 1979	66
SLAINS
12 Jun 1452	E[S]	1	Sir William Hay, 2nd Lord Hay Created Lord Slains and Earl of Erroll 12 Jun 1452 See "Erroll"		1462
SLANE
c 1370	B[I]	1	Sir Simon Fleming Created Baron Slane c 1370		Oct 1370
Oct 1370		2	Thomas Fleming		1435
1435		3	Christopher Fleming		30 Nov 1446
30 Nov 1446		4	Christopher Fleming		1457
1457		5	David Fleming		1463
1463		6	Thomas Fleming		8 Dec 1470
8 Dec 1470		7	James Fleming		1492
1492		8	Christopher Fleming		9 Aug 1517
9 Aug 1517		9	James Fleming		1578
1578		10	Thomas Fleming		9 Nov 1597
9 Nov 1597		11	William Fleming		1612
1612		12	Christopher Fleming		9 Jun 1625
9 Jun 1625		13	Thomas Fleming He resigned the peerage in favour of -	c 1604	2 Aug 1651
1629		14	William Fleming		1641
1641		15	Charles Fleming		1661
1661		16	Randall Fleming		22 Oct 1676
22 Oct 1676 to     16 Apr 1691		17	Christopher Fleming He was attainted and the peerage forfeited	1669	14 Jul 1726	57
22 Jan 1816	V[I]	1	Henry Conyngham, 5th Earl Conyngham Created Viscount Slane, Earl of Mount Charles and Marquess Conyngham 22 Jan 1816 See "Conyngham"	26 Dec 1766	28 Dec 1832	66
SLATER
8 Jul 1970 to     21 Apr 1977	B[L]		Joseph Slater Created Baron Slater for life 8 Jul 1970 MP for Sedgefield 1950‑1970 Peerage extinct on his death	13 Jun 1904	21 Apr 1977	72
SLIGO
29 Dec 1800	M[I]	1	John Denis Browne, 3rd Earl of Altamont Created Marquess of Sligo 29 Dec 1800 and Baron Monteagle of Westport 20 Feb 1806 MP [I] for Jamestown 1776‑1781; PC [I] 1785; KP 1800	11 Jun 1756	2 Jan 1809	52
2 Jan 1809		2	Howe Peter Browne Lord Lieutenant Mayo 1842‑1845; KP 1810; PC [I] 1809; PC 1834 For further information on this peer, see the note at the foot of this page	18 May 1788	26 Jan 1845	56
26 Jan 1845		3	George John Browne	31 Jan 1820	30 Dec 1896	76
30 Dec 1896		4	John Thomas Browne MP for Mayo 1857‑1868	10 Sep 1824	30 Dec 1903	79
30 Dec 1903		5	Henry Ulick Browne	14 Mar 1831	24 Feb 1913	81
24 Feb 1913		6	George Ulick Browne Lord Lieutenant Mayo 1914‑1922 For further information on this peer, see the note at the foot of this page	1 Sep 1856	26 Feb 1935	78
26 Feb 1935		7	Ulick de Burgh Browne	30 Mar 1898	7 Jan 1941	42
7 Jan 1941		8	Arthur Howe Browne	8 May 1867	28 May 1951	84
28 May 1951		9	Terence Morris Browne	28 Sep 1873	28 Jul 1952	78
28 Jul 1952		10	Denis Edward Browne	13 Dec 1908	11 Sep 1991	82
11 Sep 1991		11	Jeremy Ulick Browne	4 Jun 1939	13 Jul 2014	75
13 Jul 2014		12	Sebastian Ulick Browne	27 May 1964

	Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury
	The following biography of Shaftesbury appeared in the March 1953 issue of the Australian monthly magazine Parade:-
	There was only a small attendance in the House of Commons on a summer evening of 1828 when a tall, melancholy young man rose nervously, and, in a voice that could hardly be heard, revealed to an indifferent House the atrocities that existed in Britain's uncontrolled lunatic asylums. Granite­faced businessmen and members of the aristocracy composing the majority of his audience smiled sardonically, and muttered sourly that Ashley, son and heir of the sixth Earl of Shaftesbury, was "making an awful fool of himself" in his first important speech. In a voice strangled by nervousness and the strength of his emotions, he courageously sought to tell them in a wobbly whisper, of raving, half-naked men and women he had seen with pieces of red cloth tied around their loins with rope as the only clothing, chained hand and foot in cells little bigger than graves. He told of sick and half-starved lunatics untended for days on end; of others he had seen sluiced down with cold water in the bitterest weather to rid them of the filth in which they had been lying in straw that would have disgraced a pigsty.
	It was a recital of facts grim enough to make a hangman blanch. But it was an age when the lords of the new industrial Machine Era were too busy making money, and those who called them master were too desperately engaged in a battle for survival on starvation wages, for much thought to be given to questions of humanity. So the House was quite unmoved by the idealistic young member's maiden speech, and dismissed it with a jocose reference to the quip that "there is pleasure in being mad that only a madman knows".
	Ashley, who became the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury in 1851, recorded that he was disgraced. But there was pugnacious Churchill blood in his veins, and when he died some 57 years later, in 1885, he had not only cleaned up the madhouses as legislator and commissioner, but had wiped out the heartless exploitation of child and women labour in mines, factories and fields, fixed the working day at 10 hours instead of 13 to 16, and given thousands of thieves, prostitutes and down-and-outs a chance of a new life in new lands. His triumph was all the greater by virtue of the environment into which he was born - an environment of ease and luxury that would have suborned the idealism of a less resolute mind.
	Anthony Ashley Cooper, seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, was born on April 28, 1801. His father, the sixth earl was a crotchety old curmudgeon and Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords. His mother was Anne Churchill, daughter of the fourth Duke of Marlborough, and a gay, elegant leader of fashion who bore her children with more resignation than affection. As Lord Ashley, he was sent at a tender age to a "good, old-fashioned, 'Dotheboys Hall', a flogging school for noblemen" at Chiswick where he was most unhappy. "Nothing could surpass it for filth, bullying, starvation, oppression, cruelty and neglect," he afterwards wrote. He went on to Harrow, and then to Oxford, where he graduated with honours in the classics before entering parliament at 25 to represent his grandfather Marlborough's "rotten borough" of Woodstock, and later Dorsetshire.
	He entered parliament earnestly resolved to use his position as a power for good but sadly conscious of his limitations. He was a tyro in political strategies, of no worldly experience, and with no aptitude for impromptu speaking. Indeed, every sentence of every speech he ever made was the product of slow and hesitant construction in writing; and their delivery called for super-human efforts from a faulty memory. And it is a fact that many times the integrity of his purpose did achieve success when his naiveté seemed likely to bring the cause he sponsored to an impasse against the hostility of smarter minds than his. Indeed, the speech he thought a failure actually launched him on his life-long crusades.
	Michael Sadler, M.P., who had earlier sponsored a Bill to restrict the working day of women and children in factories to 10 hours had been thrown out of his seat for Bradford [sic - Sadler was never MP for Bradford] by outraged vested interests, and the workers, seeking a new champion, asked the young sprig of aristocracy who had spoken so feelingly for the mad, to take up their cause. Ashley investigated conditions in the north­country textile mills and found them revolting: "Children as young as six were forced to work 13 and sometimes 16, hours a day, six days a week, for three shillings, and were beaten with straps by overseers when they dozed at their benches through exhaustion. In the cotton industry alone, 28,000 workers were under 13, and thousands of them, bandy­legged and crippled, died before they were 18. They were twisted by toil into the shape of all the letters of the alphabet," said the horrified Ashley after a lightning visit to Bradford.
	When he introduced Sadler's Bill again he was savagely assailed by industrialists, and by their lackeys in Parliament who clamoured that without child labour British overseas trade would be ruined and profits would be entirely wiped out. Sycophantic doctors swore that 13 hours of daily labour in a factory was healthy for children. When Ashley stubbornly produced his facts, embellished by stories such as that a small boy beaten with a nail protruding from a piece of wood till his buttocks were a jelly, because he could not stay awake they gibed that he should go to his father's estate and see conditions there before he criticised conditions elsewhere. He went, and returned to denounce his father for his treatment of his labourers - and was promptly forbidden the family mansion at St. Giles.
	By sheer persistence he shamed the Government into passing an Act forbidding factories from employing children under nine, and limiting the hours of other female and juvenile workers. Many employers promptly evaded or defied it, and lock-outs and military suppression broke up embryo unions. In all the turmoil, quietly-spoken, but now more confident, Ashley returned to the attack with his Ten Hours Bill, only to be branded an agitator bent upon duping the workers to their undoing. He had ample reason to record that he was made the object of constant, minute and pointed hatred. But out of his campaigning, limited in its immediate success as it was, there blossomed a spirit of hope that added strength to his cause.
	Four times his Ten Hours Bill was rejected - in 1838, '39, '40 and '41 - and it was ironical that at last enlightened public opinion forced parliament to accept it, thus bringing protection to more than 2,000,000 sweated workers. Ashley was out [of the House of Commons], and it was piloted through by his friend, John Fielden [MP for Oldham], one of Britain's few humane cotton-spinners. Ashley by then had resigned because his high sense of honour forbade him to continue representing a protectionist county [Dorset] while approving the repeal of the Corn Laws with which a tardy Government tried to ameliorate the horrors of the Irish famine. A few months later he returned to parliament representing Bath.
	While the factory battle was still raging Ashley demanded an inquiry into the condition of women and children in the mines. The report horrified the nation, which heard for the first time of children of six crouching alone in stygian darkness opening and shutting airdoors as half-naked women and children, tethered by chains like dogs, hauled heavy-laden coal trucks through foetid passages, some not more than 18 inches high. This time it was the land and coalowners in the Lords who denounced him as an agitator and traitor to his class, and blasted even wider the breach between the melancholy but stubborn young reformer and his father. Bitterly, the old Earl, as chairman of the Lords' Committees, framed the opposition to his son's Bill emancipating women from the mines. But in the end the Lords had to pass it. Public opinion forced it through.
	Ashley was diffident, of a retiring disposition, inclined to melancholy, and faced every crusade he entered upon full of nervous dread of the rumpus that he knew it would create. But he was driven on, and mentally supported by an ardent religious faith. Indeed, some of his evangelical campaigns as a stalwart of the Church of England were fanatically puritan. It was this driving religious zeal that made him accept with proud humility the obloquy of his own class who regarded him as a "tedious, queer, stiff figure," but who, in the end, counted him among the great. In appearance he was tall with a sensitive face fringed with feathery side whiskers. Friends called him "The Sublime," as opposed to his brother William, "The Beautiful".
	He had great compassion. After viewing scenes of filth, discomfort and disease which no pen could describe in the slums of Bethnal Green and Whitechapel, he fought a campaign which resulted in the establishment of the first Board of Health and was its first Commissioner. To help the thousands of slum orphans who were knocked about from pillar to post, sleeping under arches, carts, sawpits, on staircases and in kilns, Ashley adopted the Ragged Schools to educate and train them. He formed associations to help London's submerged tenth, coster-mongers, shoeblacks, crossing sweepers, flowersellers, thieves and prostitutes, and once addressed a meeting of 400 men who had all been in gaol and 200 of whom admitted frankly that they lived by burglary alone. He found jobs or new homes in the colonies for some 300 of them.
	Many attempts were made to suborn his reforming zeal. He was offered posts in the Cabinet, and the office of Chief Scullion to the Queen, which would have entitled him to carry a white wand and supervise the royal meals while bombarding Her Majesty with highly moral advice. But he turned them down because millions still waited to be brought under the protection of his Factory Acts. He earned the lifelong hostility of Queen Victoria by refusing the Order of the Garter, but later [1862] was persuaded by Palmerston to accept it.
	Ashley succeeded his father and became the seventh Earl of Shaftesbury in 1851. He promptly sold costly family pictures to introduce reforms on his debt-encumbered estate, which, though always hard-pressed for money, he endowed with schools and sports and social clubs that made a model for other landowners. When he succeeded to the title he was in the middle of his longest parliamentary battle, a series of Bills designed to rescue hundreds of children, many of them only four or five years old, kidnapped and sold to chimney sweeps who forced them to climb the tortuous chimneys of stately homes to clean out the soot. It was 1875 before Shaftesbury could break down opposition and bring in a licensing system that ended the atrocity.
	Though claimed by some to be Britain's greatest reformer, it is a curious fact that Shaftesbury himself never actually inaugurated the reforms he implemented. Shaftesbury, however, adopted them when they were forlorn hopes, galvanised them into life, and with the driving force of his religious zeal carried them through to success. He died on October 1, 1885, revered by many who had formerly opposed and detested him.
	Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 8th Earl of Shaftesbury
	The following is extracted from Reynolds' Newspaper of 18 April 1886:-
	The Earl of Shaftesbury committed suicide on Tuesday [13 April 1886], by shooting himself with a revolver, while being driven in a cab along Upper Regent-street. It appears that his lordship engaged a cab in the upper part of Regent-street shortly after four o'clock, and directed the cabman to drive down the street. The driver did so, and on reaching the lower end of the thoroughfare was told by the earl to return. This the man did, and when the upper end of the street was reached, his lordship again directed the cab to be turned around. This was done several times, and when the cab was near Oxford-street, about half-past four o'clock, the driver heard a shot. He jumped down, and the earl, who was unknown to him, said, "It's all right, cabman: drive on!" The man replied, "Yes, I know it's all right; but what is this?" and pointed to a bullet-hole in the front part of the cab, adding, "I value my life too much to drive on". He was, however, about to mount the box again, when a second report was heard, and this time Lord Shaftesbury shot himself in the left temple. At this moment Police-constable Smith, who had heard the first report, came up, and entering the cab, told the cabman to drive up to the Middlesex Hospital. A crowd gathered around the vehicle, but the earl was not recognised by anyone until the hospital was reached, a few minutes afterwards. There the policeman and driver of the cab carried his lordship, who was still alive, into the in-patient's ward, and summoned the assistance of the house-surgeon, Dr. Bartlett, but Lord Shaftesbury was just breathing his last, and was beyond all surgical aid, the bullet having penetrated the brain. Meanwhile an intimation of the sad occurrence had been sent to the friends of the deceased, and in a short time the Countess of Shaftesbury arrived, followed by his lordship's butler, but only to learn that the worst had happened. The weapon used was a six-barrelled revolver, and it is supposed from the position of the first shot that it had been fired accidentally, but the situation of the fatal wound showed that the second was discharged with deliberate aim.
	At the subsequent inquest, evidence was heard that the Earl had, for the last few months of his life, suffered from depression. The dead Earl's brother gave evidence that the Earl felt that life was no longer worth living. He would stay in bed for days on end, and all of the Earl's servants were directed to keep an eye on him. Great care was taken to remove all weapons out of his reach, although it was not considered necessary to place the Earl under restraint.
	When the Earl's clothing was searched after his death, a number of scraps of paper were found. On these, in the Earl's handwriting, were found the words "I am no good to anybody. I cannot live any longer. Forgive me! Bless you, dear Harriet! [Lady Shaftesbury]. You are too good for me."
	The coroner's jury returned a verdict that the Earl had committed suicide by shooting himself with a revolver whilst in a state of unsound mind.
	Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 10th Earl of Shaftesbury
	The 10th Earl of Shaftesbury was a very wealthy and flamboyant character, in the same mould as his father, Lord Ashley, the son of the 9th Earl. Lord Ashley died in 1947 before he could succeed to the title, which therefore passed, on the death of the 9th Earl in 1961, to his grandson, the 10th Earl.
	Lord Ashley had already shocked 1920s society by marrying the model and actress Sylvia Hawkes in 1927, before divorcing her some years later. She later married four more times, two of her later husbands being Douglas Fairbanks and Clark Gable. Lord Ashley later married Francoise Goussault, who became the mother of the 10th Earl.
	The 10th Earl was educated at Eton, where he developed a taste for exotic women. He does not appear to have had much regard for young women of his own class, describing them in the Eton school magazine as 'round-shouldered, unsophisticated garglers of pink champagne'. After studying at Oxford, the Earl embarked upon matrimony for the first time in 1966, when he married the 40-year old divorcee Bianca Le Vien. They were divorced in 1976 due to the Earl's adulterous habits. Later that year he married another divorcee, Christina Casella. This marriage produced the 11th and 12th Earls of Shaftesbury, but also ended in divorce.
	After the death of his mother in 1999 and the divorce from his second wife, the Earl re-located to France, spending much of his time on the Cote d'Azur, where, despite being in his early 60s, he plunged into a hectic social life, fuelled, it is said, by alcohol and Viagra. He was described as 'a philanthropist who specialised in rescuing lap dancers'.
	In 2002, he announced that he planned to marry a French lingerie model named Nathalie Lions, but this marriage never eventuated. Instead, on 5th November 2002, he married a Dutch-Tunisian nightclub hostess named Djamila M'Barek. This marriage made no difference to his social life, and he and his wife were separated by early 2004, when he took up with a woman named Nadia Orch, variously described as a 'Moroccan prostitute' or, more euphemistically, 'a club hostess'.
	On 6 November 2004, the Earl checked out of his Cannes hotel and then vanished. When no trace of him was found, the French police launched a formal criminal enquiry. Initially, it was thought that he may have been kidnapped by gangsters in order to extort his fortune from him, but this theory was soon discounted and the police authorities came to believe that the Earl had been murdered.
	In February 2005, Djamila M'Barek was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where she confessed to being involved in her husband's death. She claimed that her brother Mohammed M'Barek had strangled the Earl in her flat at Cannes, and had dumped the body. She was subsequently arrested, as was her brother. Mohammed denied his involvement and claimed no knowledge of the location of the Earl's body.
	By examining the Earl's phone records, the police were able to identify the telephone mast which received the last-known signal from the Earl's mobile phone. This clue led police to search the undergrowth in a valley on the outskirts of Cannes where, on 7 April 2005, they found a badly decomposed body that had been half-eaten by animals.
	In May 2007, Djamila and Mohammed M'Barek were tried for the murder of the Earl. Both were found guilty and both received 25‑year prison sentences.
	Richard Henry Boyle, 6th Earl of Shannon
	On the death of the 5th Earl of Shannon in February 1890, the next heir was his eldest son, Richard Henry Boyle, known under his courtesy title of Viscount Boyle. The difficulty was that Richard had moved to Canada in 1883 and had not been heard of for the last two years.
	The following article is taken from The Times of 2 April 1890:-
	The Hon. Henry Boyle left London on Saturday last [29 March 1890] for Canada, with the view of endeavouring to find some traces of his eldest brother, of whom nothing has been heard for over two years, and who, by the somewhat sudden death of his father, the [5th] Earl of Shannon, some months ago, has succeeded to the family titles and estates.
	About seven years ago Viscount Boyle, having resigned his commission in the Rifle Brigade, left England with the view of settling in the west of Canada, and he was subsequently joined by his brother Henry, and they were engaged together for some time in ranching operations. As the speculation did not, however, prove as successful as was expected, the brothers separated, and after a short interval Mr. Henry Boyle decided some three years back to return to England in order to avail himself of an opening which [he had been] offered in the City. Before leaving Mr. Boyle wrote to his brother telling him he was going home. Lord Boyle decided, however, to remain in Canada, and since then, with the exception of a report received from an innkeeper that he was seen about two years ago near one of the mining camps, nothing has been heard of him. Last year every effort was made to find him, as, apart from the natural anxiety of his friends, Lord Boyle came into a considerable sum of money, and it became necessary to find him in order to procure his signature to some papers. It is understood that Lord Shannon, before he died, had arranged to sell a considerable portion of the estates in Ireland to the tenants … He died, however, without signing the necessary deeds, and we believe the matter will have to stand over until it is discovered who the present owner of the estates is.
	Some months later, the new Earl resurfaced in New York. This report is taken from the Chicago Tribune of 25 July 1890:-
	New York, July 2 - Among the names on the passenger list of the White Star steamship Teutonic, which sailed from this port Wednesday, appeared that of a Mr. R. Boyle. This plain Mr. R. Boyle was the missing Viscount Boyle, now (because of the death of the old Earl) Earl of Shannon of County Cork, Ireland. Lord Boyle, or Earl [of] Shannon, as he is now called, is an eccentric young man with a decidedly interesting history. At the age of 22, just seven years ago, the young Viscount left his home to seek his fortune in the far Northwest. He is a young man of a decidedly roving disposition, democratic in his tastes, fond of outdoor sports, and equally fond, as it would appear, of indulging in what is known in this country as high rolling. His Lordship landed on these shores about seven years ago, with unbounded ambition, a pocketful of money, and a general desire to have a good time so far as circumstances would permit. After thoroughly "doing" this city in company with other kindred spirits, his Lordship went to a ranch in Montana and engaged in the delectable pursuit of "punching" cattle and waging a sportsmanlike warfare upon the wild denizens of the great North-western forests and streams.
	Nor was the pursuit of politics forgotten in the land of his adoption. A real, live Irish Lord was a person to command respect, and Lord Boyle was, therefore, elected a member of the Legislature. He served a term with great credit to himself and to the unbounded satisfaction of his constituents. [Burke's Peerage states that he served as a member of the Canadian Parliament, but in reality he appears to have been a member of the Northwest Territories legislature.]
	Lord Boyle was next heard of in Victoria, B.C. There, according to accounts published in the papers at the time, he appears to have led a rather fast life. Then his Lordship suddenly disappeared, and from that time - over two years ago - until within the last week he had not been heard from. As his Lordship had not written home since his departure, over seven years ago, it is not to be wondered at that his relatives were worried by his erratic and wayward conduct.
	Then came all sorts of conflicting reports as to where Lord Boyle had hidden himself. One gentleman who claimed to know located the missing nobleman in the diamond fields of South Africa. Others had met his Lordship digging for golden nuggets in the mines of Alaska, while not a few were positive that he gone to the Bengal jungles to wrestle with the tigers and huge-eared elephants. After speculating upon his Lordship's whereabouts until the four quarters of the globe had become exhausted, it was determined to call the young man dead as the best and only means of disposing of the matter. Like Stanley, therefore, Lord Boyle was killed in various ways. From this time on his Lordship died, at intervals, all manner of deaths.
	Of course when the old Earl of Shannon, Lord Boyle's father, died some months ago and the missing Lord had himself become the Earl, it became a matter of some moment either that this much killed young man should be brought to life or that the fact of his death should be well established. For this purpose Lord Boyle's brother Henry came to this country soon after the Earl's death and scoured the great Northwest on the trail of his missing relative, but finding no trace, returned disheartened to this city. The brother's search, however, was not altogether futile, for a telegram was received two weeks ago from Idaho from the missing man, stating that he was alive and well and would shortly arrive in New York. Closely following the telegram came the young Earl himself, bronzed and weather-beaten as a Sioux Indian, but a splendid specimen of physical health and robust manhood. The new Earl of Shannon remained quietly in this city for a few days and then as plain R. Boyle left with his brother for home.
	The special remainder to the Barony of Sheffield created in 1783
	From the London Gazette of 16 September 1783 (issue 12476, page 1):-
	The King has been pleased to order Letters Patent to be passed under the Great Seal of the Kingdom of Ireland, containing His Majesty's Grant of the Dignity of a Baron of that Kingdom to the Right Honourable John Lord Sheffield, and the Heirs Male of his Body lawfully begotten, by the Name, Stile and Title of Baron Sheffield of Roscommon, in the County of Roscommon, in the said Kingdom, with Remainders severally to his eldest Daughter the Honourable Maria Holroyd, and to his youngest Daughter the Honourable Louisa Holroyd, and the respective Heirs Male of their Bodies lawfully begotten.
	James Petty, styled Viscount Dunkerron, son of the Earl of Shelburne (creation of 1719) (c 1708‑17 Sep 1750)
	Although the Earl of Shelburne's entry in Wikipedia states that there were no children from the Earl's marriage, there were at least three sons, two of whom died young, while the youngest son, James Petty, who was styled Viscount Dunkerron after his father had been promoted to an earldom, predeceased his father by seven months. In his younger days, while on the Grand Tour, Dunkerron appeared to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the wrong companions. The following is taken from a pamphlet published in 1732:-
	A brief Narrative of the Unhappy Affair which happened at the City of Tours in France to the Lord Viscount Dunkeron …
	The Misfortune which happened to four Natives and Subjects of Great Britain, at the City of Tours in France, on the 20th of November last N[ew] S[tyle] being the Anniversary of the Feast of St. Andrew, the Tutelar [i.e. guardian or protector] of Scotland, being likely to make a great Noise in the World, and perhaps be liable to many Misrepresentations, to the Prejudice of the Unfortunate Gentlemen, and their Relations and Friends; it has been thought not improper to give the Publick a true and concise Account of that unhappy Affair.
	The Lord Viscount Dunkeron, only [surviving] Child to the Right Honourable Henry Petty of High Wicomb, in the County of Bucks, Baron and Earl of Shelburne in the Kingdom of Ireland, a Youth of about Nineteen Years old, being abroad on his Travels, in the Province of Tourain, where he was to improve himself in the French Tongue; and after a Proficiency therein, to proceed to several Courts in Italy; happened to fall into Company with Mr. Hamilton, a Scots Gentleman, Nephew of the late Colonel Hamilton, who was Second to Duke Hamilton [sic], in the memorable Duel between his Grace and Lord Mohun in Hyde Park, who was likewise going for Italy. The young Lord finding Mr. Hamilton an agreeable Companion, took a great liking to his Conversation, and they kept together till they came to the City of Tours, about 115 Miles South-West from Paris.
	Here they found Mr. Kinnersly, a young Gentleman of about £1500 per Ann. Estate in England, Brother to the Lady of Sir John Frederick of Pall-mall Bart., and Mr. Stuart, a Scots gentleman of about £300 per Ann. in the Shire of Fife: They all became acquainted, and made frequent Visits to each other.
	On the 20th of November, Mr. Hamilton presented all the Gentlemen with Crosses, to be worn in honour of St. Andrew, and invited them to an Entertainment at a Tavern. Mr. Kinnersly being out of order, seemed unwilling to go; but being at last overcome with the Importunities of his Companions, acquiesced. Towards the Evening, when they were all greatly heated with Wine, Mr. Hamilton desired leave to send for two Scots Gentlemen [of] his Acquaintance, who heard were in the City of Tours; and being inform'd of their Lodgings, said he would go himself, and give them a formal Invitation, in the Name of the Company. The others desired the Master of the Tavern might be sent with the Compliment, but Mr. Hamilton would not permit it, and went himself. As he was passing thro' the Street, one Maurepate, by some called a Frenchman, and by others an Italian, but allowed by all to be a Chevalier de Industry, insulted him as he went along, on account of the Cross he wore in his Hat, and gave him a Jostle against the Wall. Mr. Hamilton, resenting this Usage, drew his Sword, and bid the Fellow prepare, which he did by likewise drawing his Sword. After several violent Passes, Maurepate was ran into the Belly, and Mr. Hamilton received two Wounds, one in the Sword Arm, and the other in the Left Shoulder; and asking his Antagonist, if he had enough, the other continued the Engagement, till he received several more Wounds, and was then carried off to the Tavern, where Lord Dunkeron, and the other Gentlemen were drinking, and there expired in about an Hour.
	The Populace assembled in great Numbers about the House, so that the whole City was soon in an Uproar. The young Lord, and his Companions came down Stairs, not knowing what had happened, and drew their Swords to defend themselves from the Insults of the Rabble. Mr. Hamilton was not to be found, having that Instant got Post-Horses, and was gone to the Earl Waldegrave [British Ambassador to France 1730‑1740] in Paris, to give his Excellency an Account of what had happened. Mr. Kinnersly being unhappily intoxicated with Wine, could not be prevented from going into the Room where the Corpse lay, though Lord Dunkeron and Mr. Stuart, did all they were capable of, to hinder him. However the Master of the Tavern found means to convey his Three Guests out of the House, to their Lodgings; but as Lord Dunkeron and Mr. Kinnersly were undressing, the Seneschal came with a Guard, and arrested them both, on a Charge of being accessories to the Death of Maurepate. Mr. Stuart was not found till fourteen Hours later, and then was taken fast asleep in his Bed. They were carried before the Presidial, who after an Examination, which lasted Eight Hours, committed them all Prisoners to the Castle.
	The Lord Dunkeron dispatched an Express to his Aunt, the Lady Ikerine [Ikerrin], in London; the Earl of Shelburne, his Father, being in Ireland: and Mr. Kinnersly wrote by the same Channel, to his Relations, to acquaint them with this Misfortune.
	Mr. Hamilton having waited on the Earl Waldegrave, at Paris, and desired Protection, his Excellency told him he could not grant his an Asylum, in regard to the Strictness of the French Laws against Duelling; whereupon he immediately fled to Holland, after two very narrow Escapes of being taken, before he had got out of the Territories of France.
	The English Ambassador being acquainted with the Circumstances attending this unhappy Affair, immediately went to Court to desire an Order to be sent to the City of Tours, for the Proceedings to be staid, and such other Indulgences granted as were consistent with the Laws of the Kingdom, and his most Christian Majesty's Goodness to Foreigners of their Condition, who had made the Tour of his Dominions from no other Motive, than that of a polite Curiosity, and of improving themselves in the French Language; to the end they might be enabled to write to their Relations and Friends, in England, for Advice and Assistance.
	His Majesty, our most Gracious Sovereign King George, having been humbly acquainted with this Case, hath, as we are credibly informed, been graciously pleased to write a Letter, with his own Hand, to the most Christian King, in Behalf of these Gentlemen, and the whole Court hath been sensibly moved with the News of this Misfortune.
	Large Remittances have been made to Lord Dunkeron, and Mr. Kinnersly, with Bills of Credit, on some of the most considerable Merchants, and others, in the South of France, to assist them with whatever shall be found necessary to extricate them out of this Difficulty; and their Relations and Friends, in London, are inconsolable, in that it hath happened at so remote a Distance, and in a Country whose Laws, particularly with respect to Duels and Rencounters, differ so widely from our own.
	It is said the French Court have sent Orders for the Proceedings to be staid, till his Majesty's further Pleasure be known; and, that if any had been had, the English Gentlemen may Appeal from them to the Parliament of Paris.
	Robert Lowe, 1st and only Viscount Sherbrooke
	The following biography, which concentrates on Lowe's period in Australia, appeared in the February 1955 issue of the Australian monthly magazine Parade:-
	By one of those curious whims of nature, Robert Lowe was born an albino, of lily-white skin, Arctic-blond hair, and weak pink eyes. But if he looked like an overgrown Angora rabbit, he had the tongue of an asp and the belligerence of a wild bull elephant. At the age of 31 he was told he might soon be blind and probably dead; so he came to Australia to make a quick bid for fortune and retire. Instead, he threw himself into the colony's fight for self-government and in the seven years he lived here, between 1842 and 1850, became embroiled in more fights than most men encounter in a lifetime.
	Surviving at least two duels by men stung to fury by his caustic tongue as a member of the first Legislative Council, Lowe returned to England to achieve the Chancellorship of the Exchequer under Gladstone, a peerage as Viscount Sherbrooke and the distinction of being one of the most remarkable personalities of his day - defying death and the doctors to live to the ripe old age of 81.
	It was at Bingham, Notts, on December 4, 1811, that Robert Lowe's blood-red eyes first gazed upon the world. His father was a land-owning, fox­hunting rector there, and Robert was the second son, and the fourth of seven children. An elder sister, Elizabeth, was also an albino. Because of this aberration and the delicate eyesight that accompanied it, he was not sent to a public school (Winchester) until he was 14, and he was 22 before he graduated at Oxford. He gained a distinguished pass, however, with a first in classics and a second in mathematics. He would have gained a first in the latter, also, so his friends maintained, had his poor eyesight not required him to put his face so close to the paper that his nose rubbed out half the answers.
	He settled temporarily to tutoring, until in 1835 he won a fellowship at Magdalen College. That same year he became engaged to a Georgiana Orred and announced to his father that he had decided to become a barrister. Parental consent and cash were withheld from both projects. Nevertheless Robert married his Georgiana in March, 1836, and bought a small house at Oxford. He continued on with his tutoring, but at the same time drove his weak eyes to pore over law books. He was called to the Bar in January, 1842, but the hard work had taken toll of his eyes, and tormenting headaches and indifferent general health drove him to consult three specialists. Their verdict was unanimous: seven more years of eyesight and then complete blindness. They advised him for his health's sake to go to Australia. Robert talked the prospect over with Georgiana, and together they decided that in Australia he might reasonably hope to make a quick fortune, upon which, together with her income, he would be able to retire.
	They sailed in June, 1842, and arrived in Sydney four months later. The Governor was then Sir George Gipps, and his wife was a relative of Georgiana's. After a fortnight's stay in the vice-regal residence at Parramatta, the Lowes took up house in Macquarie Street, and Lowe settled to what he called "the wretched trade of an advocate". For the first three months all went well, although he suffered greatly from the glaring Sydney sunlight. Then a local doctor, claiming that tic douloureux [trigeminal neuralgia - a very painful disease] and not merely congenital deficiency of the eyes threatened his life as well as his eyesight, forbade him the use of his eyes altogether.
	Lowe thought of returning to England, but as 1843 wore on he decided in desperation to forget all about doctor's orders, to nurse his eyesight as much as possible, but to continue his original plan of working at the Bar. A little later he adopted blinkers, dark goggles which hooded his eyes and admitted only pencil points of light. Gradually he began to get the "feel" of things in the colony of New South Wales, which then included Port Phillip (Victoria) and Moreton Bay (Queensland).
	The year he arrived the colonists had been granted a measure of representative government under a new constitution establishing a Legislative Council of 36 members - 24 of them elected representatives and the other 12 Crown nominees and Government officials. The Governor, however, retained the power of veto over any decision of the Council, and Gipps was opposed to the elected representatives' demands for responsible government and upheld the English Colonial Office's right to supreme authority. At the end of 1843 Gipps appointed Lowe one of his Crown nominees to the Council to "strengthen the Government" against the demands of the popular members.
	Lowe's success in the Council helped to advance his prestige at the Bar, although he never reached the rank of Richard Windeyer [1806‑1847], or [Sir] Archibald Michie [1813‑1899 - two of Sydney's leading barristers at the time]. The one trial by which he is remembered today was his defence of John Knatchbull, accused of the murder of the widowed Mrs. Jamieson. He was unsuccessful, but his defence was some 100 years ahead of its time - a suit for an acquittal on the grounds of moral insanity. [For further details see the note under the Knatchbull baronetcy.] The trial had results of personal importance. He and his wife were childless and adopted the two small orphaned children of the murdered widow, Mary [other sources name her as Polly] and Bobby Jamieson. The girl died soon after the Lowes returned to England, while Bobby lived to a restless, troublesome adulthood, and caused his foster parents endless misery before he died in an insane asylum.
	For a time Lowe was a faithful ally of the Government in the Legislative Council, upholding the supreme infallibility of Whitehall, and few others in the Council could match his classic oratory or caustic wit. It was during this period that he made a reference in debate considered a personal affront by an Elderman Macdermott and a Captain Moore, who called upon him next day in his chambers in Elizabeth Street demanding that he make an immediate apology or "state a time and place". Lowe refused to do either, claiming his right to freedom of speech in the Council, and ordered them out of his chambers with some biting references to the effect that only gentlemen could have any honour to avenge, adding that in any case it was beneath his dignity to fight with those not his social equal. To add indignity to insult, he had them bound over to keep the peace and aired the whole affair in the Council by pressing for a prosecution. Public opinion was against him, however, and for a time he was the most unpopular man in the colony.
	The affair eventually blew over, and Lowe's popularity was recovered, at least in part, when he pressed for an inquiry to draw up recommendations for improvements in education. At the same time he began to favour the colony's claims for more representative government, and towards the end of 1844 he resigned as a nominee of the after supporting the establishment of a separate colony for the area round Port Phillip (later constituted as Victoria).
	He fell back on journalism as a sideline to law, and put out the first number of "Atlas", a "weekly journal of politics, commerce and literature", in November, 1844. It became immediately popular because of its advocacy of representative government and the wit of Lowe's satirical skits and epigrams. Within six months he had become as popular as he had previously been unpopular, and in April, 1845, he was returned to the Council as an elected member.
	Shortly afterwards he broke with [William Charles] Wentworth and the "squattocracy" over the land question. He was accused of betrayal, but Lowe was evidently sincere in his detestation of a land monopoly such as the squatters had secured from the English Ministry. Not only did it thwart the hopes of immigrants wanting "room to live in," he said, but it frustrated the only means by which the colony could settle people on the land and so establish a genuine yeomanry.
	Before the issue was settled, Gipps retired and was succeeded as Governor by Sir Charles FitzRoy. In England W. E. Gladstone, the new Colonial Secretary, began suggesting the revival of transportation as a means of overcoming financial depression in the colony. There was an immediate public outcry against the move; but the squatting interests were jubilant at the prospect of free labour. Then, out of the blue, in 1849, the convict ship 'Hashemy' arrived in Sydney with 250 convicts aboard. The Sydney colonists collected at Circular Quay in a spontaneous meeting of protest, to which Lowe repaired. It was a day of drenching rain, but the crowd ignored the downpour as Lowe harangued them with fiery phrases. A deputation to the Governor headed by Lowe had some results. Eventually some of the convicts were permitted to land, but they were sent "up country" while the majority were pushed on by sea to Moreton Bay. It was some years before transportation ceased, but these public meetings of protest gave the death-blow to the system.
	Towards the end of 1849 his wife's health and her constant wish to return to England decided Lowe to leave the colony, and they sailed with their young Jamieson charges on January 27, 1850. He resumed practice at the Bar in England, and in April 1851, joined 'The Times' as a leader-writer. He was elected Liberal Member for Kidderminster the following year and politics thereafter were his main preoccupation until the end of his life.
	For more than 30 years he played major roles in British politics, as Secretary of the Board of Control, Vice-President of the Board of Trade, President of the Board of Health, Minister for Education and Chancellor of the Exchequer. In this sphere he reverted to the upholding of established government, and he opposed any extension of voting rights.
	Tall Bobby Lowe, of the white hair and witty tongue, became one of the best-known figures in English public life. In 1880 his ability and service were rewarded with a peerage. As Viscount Sherbrooke he devoted more time to his small estate in Surrey and less to politics, as his health at last began to fail. Georgiana died in 1884 and the following year he married again. It was not until 1892 that he, too, died, at Warlingham in Surrey.
	*************************
	For many years, even after his death, a section of the Australian public believed that Lord Sherbrooke and his ward, Polly or Mary Jamieson, had eventually married. The following article, written by D[avid] B[lair] [1820-1899] was published in The Australasian on 24 September 1892, two months after Sherbrooke's death. Though no names are mentioned, it is obvious that the article refers to Sherbrooke. Unfortunately, the turgidity of its prose is only exceeded by its inaccuracies as to the fate of the Jamieson girl. First, the article as it was published:-
	An incident in the domestic history of an English nobleman recently deceased, at one time a distinguished Australian colonist, affords a very striking illustration of the inexhaustible mines of romance that lie beneath the prosaic surface of everyday life. It is not befitting to mention the names of the actors in this singularly strange story, but the certainty of the facts admits of no question.
	On a Saturday night more than forty years ago there was perpetrated in the city of Sydney a murder which excited unusual interest in the public mind. A poor widow, who kept a shop in one of the by-streets of the city, was making up her returns for the day when suddenly there entered a man, who had been watching her movements through the window, and, rushing behind the counter, he felled her to the ground by a blow from a heavy bludgeon, rifled the till she had been emptying and then fled into the night, leaving his victim dead upon the floor.
	When the crime was discovered shortly afterwards by a neighbour the alarm was given, and the police were speedily on the alert. Their suspicions fell on a ticket-of-leave man, who was known to be of a reckless, desperate character, and was on that account kept under surveillance. A careful searching of his well-known haunts dragged him forth into the light in circumstances that warranted his apprehension. The customary sequence of criminal procedure led up to his arraignment and conviction. He was sentenced to death and hanged. Respecting this unnamed villain it needs only to be added that he was an Englishman of noble family, a gentleman by social position and education; that a nephew of his sits at this moment in the House of Lords as a peer of the realm; and that amongst the black battalions of convicts whom Great Britain exiled from her shores to the southern world for over sixty years no more consummate villain ever landed in Botany Bay.
	The widow left an orphan, a girl about ten years old. This child was naturally taken in charge by the Government, and placed in the keeping of a respectable woman until some means could be found of permanently providing for her education and maintenance. But it happened that the gentleman who acted as Crown prosecutor in the murder case, married and childless, was strongly moved with sympathetic pity for this hapless waif of humanity, and the feeling led him to take a personal interest in the steps taken for her guardianship. At that early period there existed no institution in Sydney in the nature of an orphanage or asylum for destitute children; and such Government as then existed was in no degree disposed to take upon itself the charge of providing for such innocent victims of an adverse fate. So much the more keenly were the compassionate sympathies of the Crown prosecutor evoked on the girl's behalf. He consulted a colleague at the bar - a man of finely benevolent feelings and exalted character - on the matter. He held conferences with the Colonial Secretary. He turned the question over in his own mind anxiously and frequently. Finally he took family council with his wife upon it. The good lady, it appears, had herself been deeply considering the sad fortunes of the orphan. Her impulses of pure benevolence prompted her to make to her husband the very proposal which now he was more than hinting to her. They agreed that this episode in their domestic experience took the aspect of a plain indication of a Providential duty, not to be evaded without incurring serious moral responsibility. So the point was settled. The girl should come to them, and they should thenceforward stand towards her as her parents. To this proposal the Government willingly assented. The orphan, protected by a pitying Providence, had thus found friends, parents, and a home.
	It was a change in her social conditions for the girl, almost as strange as that which the fairy godmother's transforming power wrought for Cinderella in the nursery tale. Her new guardian was a man of very high distinction, both from his family connections in the old country and from his splendid intellectual gifts. An unusually brilliant career at his English university had made his name familiar in the highest circles of culture and refinement. He was a fellow of his college until his marriage, and a tutor of high classical renown. A born orator, a man of wide and varied learning, possessed of a strikingly handsome face and figure, he was eminently calculated to shine in society, and to win the most coveted prizes in professional and political life. Some event in his career had induced him, upon his marriage, to turn his eyes to the new world in the south as a promising sphere for his talents, and as opening up wide prospects for future advancement and wealth. On his arrival in New South Wales he was at once recognised as a first class power in every department of public life. But circumstances, partly of a personal and partly of a public nature, led him to see what the colonies, as then situated, were not the best sphere of usefulness that he could find, and in the course of a few years he went back to England. The orphan, being now fairly installed as daughter of the house, accompanied the family.
	Arrived in England, the ex-Crown prosecutor retook instantly his old place in society. His former friends and companions gathered round him. Lucrative positions were offered, avenues of professional advancement were thrown open. He selected journalism as his profession, and was immediately enrolled on the staff of The Times. Here his powerful and trenchant articles attracted all men's attention, and it was felt that the writer of such articles - the other need for qualifications being present - would be a potent factor in practical politics. Mingling freely in society with the leading men of both parties, it was the most natural thing in the world that he should be thought to be the very man to join those of his own side in politics, and to aid in guiding them on to still other victories. In due time a seat in the House of Commons was gained by sheer dint of superior mental and moral force. Once within its walls he took rank as an orator and debater. Men saw in him a future Minister of the Crown. Accordingly, when the party to which he belonged won in a great Parliamentary battle he was installed in a high post in the Cabinet, and so became one of the advisers of the Crown.
	In the meantime the adopted girl was being brought up as an English lady of the best rank and standing. Her education was exactly the same as that of a daughter born in the household. By the time that her school days were over, and she was of age to go forth into society, she made her debut amongst the circles of West End fashionable existence as the acknowledged daughter of Her Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer.
	A prolonged career of distinguished political activity for the now celebrated statesman followed. As he advanced in years so did his honours increase. At length he gained his elevation to the peerage, and entered the House of Lords with the rank of a viscount. But by this time age had begun to tell upon him. His splendid powers were visibly failing. People said of him that he was an eclipsed meteor - an extinct volcano. But nature is supreme and despotic, and it is nature's decree that a man shall not be as vigorously active and as intellectually brilliant at three score and ten as he was at forty. In his domestic life he was blessed above most men. His devoted wife gave herself to the one sole object of serving and tending her husband, in the truest spirit of wifely heroism. Her assiduous care was as heroically sustained by the devotion of a loving and grateful daughter, now grown to mature womanhood. So that when, in due course of nature, the faithful wife was taken to her rest, the daughter's tender nursing care had become essential and indispensable to the feeble, but still noble, old gentleman. Propriety required that an intimacy so close as his extremely frail and dependent condition demanded should have a still more sacred sanction than even that of filial adoption. So, after a proper interval, a formal marriage was celebrated, and the once desolate orphan of Sydney had her name entered in the pages of Debrett, and took her station amongst the nobility as an English viscountess.
	Notwithstanding the fact that D.B.'s version of events had been widely believed in Australia for some time, the Burrowa News of 20 January 1893 reported that:-
	In "The Australasian" of September 24 appeared an article by ("D.B") David Blair, telling the story of the murder by Knatchbull, in Sydney, in the forties, and stating that the daughter of the woman he killed (Mrs. Jamieson) was adopted by the counsel who defended the prisoner, subsequently becoming the counsel's second wife many years afterwards, and so attaining a place in the peerage. Though no names were given, obviously Mr. Lowe, afterward Lord Sherbrooke, was meant. A Sydney correspondent wrote throwing doubts on the romantic conclusion of the story, and pointing out that the peer's second wife was not a Miss Jamieson. He has since communicated with Lady Sherbrooke who has replied as follows:- "Dear Sir - the little girl Jamieson, who was taken charge of by Mr and Mrs Lowe after the murder of her mother, died in London when she was about 13. I am glad to be able to answer your question at once. Yours faithfully, C. SHERBROOKE." The Sydney correspondent is a member of the Legislative Council. Strange to say the story told by "D.B." is one that has been current in Australia for many years. It is now shown to be no more than a romantic myth.
	Elizabeth ("Bess") Hardwick, wife of George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury
	The following biography, in which I have amended certain areas in the interests of accuracy, appeared in the June 1967 issue of the Australian monthly magazine Parade:-
	Young Bess Hardwick, daughter of John Hardwick, a financially insecure gentleman of England, was not only physically attractive, but was an amazingly good cook and housekeeper. The delectable "beres, broths and jellies" she concocted despite the limited kitchen expenses she was allowed, never ceased to amaze her parents, her other sisters and their few guests. But while Bess scrimped and saved and wrote up her kitchen accounts neatly and accurately, she took some time off to do a little scheming.
	With her ivory-like skin shining with sweat and her light amber hair dishevelled as she worked over the oven, she vowed that one day she would rise above her environment and win a place of affluence among the nobles who treated her family with disdain or pity. And Bess Hardwick, making the most of her cooking and business skills as well as her attractive face and figure, achieved her ambition with a vengeance. Going through four fabulously rich husbands, she inherited their estates and ended her life as the wealthiest woman in England.
	The story of Elizabeth Hardwick, the most successful gold-digger of 16th century England, began in about 1518 when she was born to John and Elizabeth Hardwick at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire. Bess was 14 when a family friend, Lady Zouche, told Bess's parents the girl needed a holiday in London, The parents agreed and the pair set out for Lady Zouche's London residence. Staying with Lady Zouche at that time was an eccentric and aged gentleman, a man of exceedingly poor health and excessively vast estates. Among the dying man's estates was a great tract of land that made him possibly the richest landowner in Bess's native county of Derbyshire. When Lady Zouche cajoled her into becoming the old man's nurse, she retired to the kitchen and began preparing him an endless stream of her best dishes.
	The result was that Barlow's health began to improve. In fact it improved so startlingly that he began casting passionate eyes on his youthful nurse. Bess wasted no time in unnecessary courting. She persuaded Barlow to make out a will in her favour and, not long after her 15th birthday, led her tottering old groom to the altar. Barlow managed to survive his nuptial day for a few months. Then he died. The 15-year-old Bess was now a widow possessing vast wealth. [This story is totally at odds with other sources, which state that Barlow was a sickly teenager. In any event, the outcome was the same - his early death left Bess a very wealthy woman.]
	Although she had sufficient assets to keep her in luxury for the rest of her life, Bess did not rest on her laurels. She began looking around for another wealthy husband, this time one with a noble title. Her great wealth making a hasty remarriage unnecessary, she bided her time. Indeed she had waited 3 years when Sir William Cavendish [c 1505‑1557], who had already outlived two wives, came into her sights.
	Cavendish had inherited from his father, Clerk of the Pipe in the Exchequer, tremendous land holdings in Suffolk. He was also a financial adviser to King Henry VIII. When Henry broke with the Pope and the State confiscated church property in England, William was given the task of taking over the monasteries. He performed this duty so efficiently and expeditiously that Henry rewarded him by handing over to him valuable slices of this nationalised property.
	Bess and Cavendish were married at the unlikely hour of 2 am on August 20, 1547. Following the nuptials, the celebrations rollicked on for 24 hours before the exhausted couple retired to their bed chamber. Although six children were born during the next 10 years [actually eight, two of whom died in infancy], she found time to persuade her husband to join with her in the purchase of valuable real estate. In that time Bess and her husband bought not only her old family estate in Derbyshire, but built several mansions, some of which survive. At Chatsworth she built the mighty palace and ducal residence that became [and remains] one of England's showpieces.
	In October 1557 Cavendish died, leaving Bess engulfed in assets. In fact, even at this stage of her life she was regarded as one of England's wealthiest women. Her widowhood also made her the most eligible. It was not long after this second bereavement that she met Sir William Saint Lo, the handsome captain of Queen Elizabeth's personal guard. He was also Grand Butler of England and the owner of extensive estates.
	Bess could see only one impediment to a successful marriage - Saint Lo already had a large batch of daughters by a former wife. This meant, she knew, that in the event of his death she must divide his estate with the daughters. She solved the problem by assuring him they could never marry unless his will specified her as the sole heir. Falling for the bait, Saint Lo agreed. Three months after the wedding Saint Lo died peacefully following a short illness.
	Bess was still officially in mourning when friends noticed she was being attended by George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and one of Queen Elizabeth's most valued advisers. Shrewsbury, a nobleman of vast wealth, had found that the dual role of adviser to the Queen and manager of his extensive estates was getting too much for him. In Bess he saw the answer to all his worries. She was rich and handled financial affairs better than most men. Also, he knew, she was an excellent cook.
	The earl came up against the business woman in Bess when he first asked for her hand in marriage. She said she would not consider it unless he settled a parcel of property worth hundreds of thousands of pounds on her. Also, his youngest daughter, Grace, was to marry Bess's eldest son, Henry Cavendish, while Gilbert Talbot, heir to the earldom, must marry Bess's youngest daughter. The subsequent marriage between Shrewsbury and Bess caused the Queen to heap praise on both parties. Of Bess, Elizabeth wrote: "There ys no Ladye yn thys land that I beter love and lyke".
	On May 17, 1568, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, landed in England a fugitive from her kingdom. She was at once arrested by Elizabeth and, shortly afterwards, the Earl of Shrewsbury was selected as Mary's gaoler, first in one then in another of his castles. The relationship between Bess and her husband deteriorated rapidly from the day Mary was put in their care and within a few months they were openly abusing each other.
	Bess began intriguing with Mary, at the same time accusing her husband of being their prisoner's lover. Then one day it was learned that the Countess of Lennox, mother of Charles Stuart [Earl of Lennox of the 1572 creation], would be passing the Shrewsbury mansion, Rufford, when Bess was in residence. So Bess arranged to have the lady invited into Rufford. There she lavished hospitality on her guest and managed to induce the countess to stay over for a few days. The reason for her graciousness was that the countess was travelling towards Scotland in search of a wife for her son Charles, then fourth in line to the English throne.
	The Countess of Shrewsbury's plans hinged on the hope that one of her daughters might impress the Countess of Lennox as a future daughter-in-law. When Charles Stuart and Elizabeth Cavendish later met, love was immediate. Less than a week after that meeting the pair was secretly married. When Shrewsbury heard of the match, he was delighted and wrote to his friend, Lord Burghley, the Queen's treasurer: "The young man is so far in love that belike he is sick without her. This truly effected I shall be well at quiet for there are few noblemen's sons in England that she (Bess) hath not prayed me to deal for at some time or another. And now this comes unlooked for without thanks to me."
	But Queen Elizabeth did not take the marriage in the same spirit. Indeed she flew into a violent because she believed such a close union with the family of Mary Queen of Scots was close to treason. When the Queen issued orders demanding that the parties concerned must present themselves before her in London, Shrewsbury protested that the marriage took place without his consent. Thus he was allowed to remain out of the capital, but all others connected with the marriage set out for London and the Queen's wrath.
	Immediately the Countesses of Shrewsbury and Lennox entered the city they were arrested and imprisoned in the Tower. While the Countess of Lennox complained that this was the third time she had been in the Tower over love matters, the Countess of Shrewsbury busied herself writing appeals for release to friends she thought could help her. In time, after promising the that she would do her "reverent dutie", Bess returned to her husband, where she learned that her daughter, the wife of Charles Stuart, had given birth to a child [Arbella, who was at one time considered a possible successor to Queen Elizabeth. She eventually starved herself to death in the Tower of London in 1615.]
	By now there was no hope of reconciliation between Shrewsbury and his countess. Ultimately Bess left her husband and went to live at Hardwick Hall, the home of her childhood and now a part of her huge estates. In 1584 the Earl of Shrewsbury and 40 of his horsemen laid siege to Chatsworth, which was successfully defended by Bess's sons Charles and William Cavendish. Claiming the palace was his, Shrewsbury wrote to the Queen: "Why should my wife and her servants rule me, making me the wife and she the husband?"
	But Elizabeth sided with Bess and ordered Shrewsbury to take her back and live with her. Bitterly he carried out the order, but demanded back from his wife everything he had given her. He was still trying to devise new ways of frustrating his wife when he died in 1590, a bitter, frustrated old man.
	For the next 17 years Bess went on a building spree, sinking hundreds of thousands of pounds into new castles and mansions and extending the old. In 1608, after seeing Chatsworth extended to massive proportions, a heavy frost forced the workmen who were building extra wings on to Hardwick Hall to stop work for several days. And before they could get back to the job the old countess was dead, leaving an estate practically unrivalled in Britain.
	Anna Maria Talbot [25 Mar 1642-20 Apr 1702], wife of Francis Talbot, 11th Earl of Shrewsbury
	The following biography of the Countess of Shrewsbury appeared in the Australian monthly magazine Parade in its February 1955 issue:-
	As a sedan chair left St. James' Palace, London, one autumn night in the reign of Charles II, a slim figure slipped stealthily from the shadows and, before the chair-men could intervene, thrust a murderous sword three times through the side of the chair at the gallant within. The man who leapt out clutching a bleeding arm was, however, curiously evasive in his answers to the watch-men who pounded to the rescue. The sword thrusts, he privately suspected, were delivered by a woman, and that could only mean that Anna Brudenell, Countess of Shrewsbury, had decided to dispense with him as a lover. Life, even without his beautiful red-headed mistress, was still sweet to Thomas Killigrew, most talkative man at court; so for the first time, he shut his mouth tightly and made no accusations.
	Men with far more courage than "Tom the Jester" had taken their dismissal passively. Though a threat from Anna, "the Devil Countess", came from the most provocative lips of the Restoration period, every word carried a promise of sudden death. Yet there was no shortage of men willing to play with the fire of Anna Brudenell's love. In the profligate court of the Merry Monarch, competition for distinction in amour and intrigue ran high. At the age of 20, Anna had earned undisputed leadership among the courtesans.
	The Devil Countess began life in 1638 as the Honourable Anna Maria Brudenell, daughter of the second Earl of Cardigan. Few women less deserved the title "Honourable". From her fiery passage through a fiery era, history records not a single word of praise for her. At 21 Anna was in full bloom of the beauty that was the downfall of every male. According to one description: "There was in her round, fair visage, with its languishing eyes and full pouting mouth, something voluptuous and bold". If she had a physical fault, it was apparent only to a Frenchman. The Chevalier de Gramont thought she was slightly over-endowed with what he delicately called "embonpoint" [i.e. plumpness] - a minor matter in the days of bustles and bows.
	She married Francis Talbot, the eleventh Earl of Shrewsbury when she was scarcely 21. Perhaps her beauty was the bait, perhaps her extensive dowry. In either case, after a short period of starry-eyed infatuation, the Earl went back to the placid life of a plodding middle-aged statesman and left Anna to amuse herself as she liked - and her liking was love. Her first acknowledged conquest at court was the handsome, dashing young Earl of Arran. Despite his immaturity he had built up a reputation as an experienced heartbreaker.
	Anna changed that. The Earl became a court joke, mooning around like a student who had learned too much too quickly. Oblivious of the sniggers, his eyes followed Anna wherever she went. When she smiled, he smiled, when she frowned he was abjectly depressed. Tired of such cloying devotion, Anna fluttered her eyelashes at her brother-in-law, Richard Talbot. Talbot took the bait readily but proved to be more shark than minnow. He alone of Anna's lovers dominated her and whipped her into line. In a few months he tired of her and cast her aside. Worse, he kept the impassioned letters she wrote and presented them to his new mistress cynically tied with a lock of Anna's hair.
	When she met Colonel Thomas Howard, brother of the Earl of Carlisle, Anna's score stood at one victory and one defeat on the field of love. Howard surrendered unconditionally. When, inevitably, she tired of him and cast eyes on Harry Jermyn, the colonel refused to be shaken off. He filled the air with unsoldierly blubbering and, when tears and pleading failed, threatened to confess details of the affair to her husband. The threat infuriated rather than alarmed her. The plot she laid to rid herself of the tiresome colonel was as twisted as her own nature. Harry [i.e. Henry Jermyn, later 3rd Baron Jermyn and 1st Baron Dover] - "the invincible Jermyn" - swordsman, bully, and lady-killer, was to be the instrument of Howard's death.
	Reassuring Howard of her love, she persuaded him to take her to supper in a Charing Cross restaurant. She and the adoring Howard were tete-a-tete at a secluded table when, as pre-arranged, Jermyn hove in sight. Anna invited him to join them. While Howard glowered, Jermyn held Anna's hand and made such outrageous love to her that Howard had no choice but to challenge him to a duel.
	Anna greeted the news joyfully. Those who had met Jermyn with swords had never left the field on their feet. Howard was as good as dead, she believed. Jermyn chose for his second Colonel Giles Rawlings. Howard was supported by the younger brother of Lord Dillon. As was the custom, all four fought. Unfortunately for Anna's plans, the invincible Jermyn was vulnerable. When the dust settled, he had a wound which kept him on his back for months, while Colonel Rawlings died where he lay. In one way Anna's plan had succeeded - Howard and his second who, according to rumour, had taken the precaution of wearing body armour - fled the country. But her fine new lover, Jermyn, was a wreck.
	It was then that Anna's guttersnipe streak came uppermost. From the dozens of eligible and willing men ready to come when she beckoned, she chose Thomas Killigrew [1612‑1683], court buffoon and professional funnyman. Killigrew, a mean-souled little gossip with a viperish tongue, held his place at court by playing cruel, practical jokes which infuriated his victims and sent his worthless audience into peals of laughter.
	He was the most unlikely-looking lover of the batch, yet there was something about the futile little man that appealed to Anna's twisted nature. Elated and slightly incredulous at his fortune, Tom the Jester could not resist using the affair in his trade of buffoon. Night after night he regaled the gentlemen of the court with prurient details of the affair. His harping on the theme whetted the curiosity of George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, acknowledged No. 1 romantic lover of his age. Anna threw no obstacles in the way of Buckingham's amorous experiments. Evidently he found that Killigrew had not exaggerated, for Buckingham was soon firmly on the hook.
	Anna, however, learned from him that her boudoir secrets were rapidly becoming common property to every rake at court and there was black murder in her heart. Her plan to dismiss Killigrew was involved but effective. She persuaded him that to challenge Buckingham, a master swordsman, to a duel, would be the greatest prank of his clownish career. Killigrew felt that the duke would not soil a noble sword on a buffoon, but Anna was not so sure. Killigrew knew that his position depended on getting laughs, so he agreed and thanked Anna for the suggestion. Next night at the theatre he bandied insulting pleasantries with Buckingham, and when all eyes were on them climbed into his box and struck him in the face with a stocking. Buckingham was not amused. He cut the joker shrewdly across the seat of the breeches with a riding whip. Killigrew swung from box to box crying: "Mercy, your Grace, mercy!" while the audience went into paroxysms of mirth. Buckingham put an end to the farce by kicking the clown soundly. Next day Killigrew went to Anna for applause. He got a cold reception. She had no intention of consorting with a man who had been publicly kicked, she told him.
	Dismissed, Killigrew continued to publicise his knowledge of Anna. He should have known her better. One night as his carriage turned into the drive of his house, a band of thugs wrenched open the door, dragged out the occupant and killed him with a dozen sword thrusts. The woman's voice which exhorted the bravoes to "Kill the villain!" belonged to Anna. It was not her fault that the murdered man was not Killigrew but his unfortunate valet. Her next attempt, delivered personally as his sedan chair left St. James's Palace, silenced the braggart. He left town hastily.
	Anna and Buckingham were soul-mates. Both were entirely without morals and above the laws that governed other people. They made no attempt at discretion and before long England and the Continent rang with their tempestuous affair. They shared even their contempt for patriotism. On one of their trips to France they entered into a pact with Louis XIV to spy on England, for which Anna received a pension of 10,000 livres. Between them they jockeyed Charles II into selling Dunkirk and other British possessions to France.
	Only one thing marred their association - both had living spouses. Anna proposed to remedy that in her usual way. Until then, the ageing Earl of Shrewsbury had given her a free rein in her infidelities. She set her barbed tongue to work to break down his equanimity. All the world knew he was a cuckold, she told him, and if he had a spark of family honour he would set matters right. With his family honour impugned, the Earl challenged Buckingham, finest swordsman in the kingdom, to a duel with rapiers.
	Not satisfied with engineering her husband's death, Anna insisted on seeing the deed accomplished. On the appointed morning [16 Jan 1668] she dressed herself as a page and rode to Barn Elms, the duelling ground. She held her lover's horse while he fought a duel which was no more than murder, for the stout, ageing Earl received no mercy from Buckingham. With her husband writhing on the ground with a mortal chest wound, Anna threw herself into her lover's arms oblivious of his bloodstained shirt. Wet with the blood of the murdered man, the couple carried on a love scene that sickened even the hardened bravoes. The Earl lingered for two months [dying on 16 March], but his house was closed to Anna. She moved in with Buckingham, who ordered his own duchess to return to her father, while Charles II set the seal of royal approval on the sordid affair by granting Buckingham a palpably illegal "divorce".
	The cold-blooded killing, however, was the turning point both in the career of the Devil Countess and of Buckingham, to whom she bore a son. Their popularity wilted under public disapproval and it was then that the Shrewsbury clan dragged the pair into court and established the flagrant illegality of the Buckingham divorce. Buckingham returned to his wife and was forgiven; Anna Brudenell, still young, dropped from sight.
	Twice before her death in 1702, she emerged from obscurity. At 38 she married the son of a Somersetshire knight, years her junior [George Rodney Brydges]. A little later the Devil Countess lived up to her name, when she lured her son [by Buckingham] into an ill-timed Jacobean plot against William III. Her advice almost cost the boy his head. With this indiscretion, one of the wickedest women faded from history.
	Ferdinando Marquis de Paleotti, brother of the Duchess of Shrewsbury
	Charles Talbot, 1st and only Duke of Shrewsbury, married at Rome, 20 August 1705, Adelaide, daughter of Andrew, Marquis Palleotti, of Bologna in Italy. There are conflicting stories regarding the marriage, with many contemporaries believing that the Duke had been bullied into marrying her by her two brothers, one of whom earned his own entry in the Newgate Calendar, as follows:-
	THE MARQUIS DE PALEOTTI An Italian Nobleman, executed at Tyburn for the Murder of his Servant, 17th of March, 1718.
	This nobleman was the head of a noble family in Italy, and was brought to a disgraceful death through the vice of gambling, with all the aggravated horrors of suffering in a strange country; thus doubly disgracing the honours of his house.
	Ferdinando Marquis de Paleotti was born at Bologna. In the reign of Queen Anne he was a colonel in the Imperial army. Quitting the army at the Peace of Utrecht [1713], he visited England to see his sister; and being fond of an extravagant course of life, and attached to gaming, he soon ran into debt for considerable sums. His sister paid his debts for some time, till she found it would be a burdensome and endless task; and she therefore declined all further interference. Though she declined to assist him as usual, he continued his former course of life till he was imprisoned for debt; but his sister privately procured his liberty, and he was discharged without knowing who had conferred the favour on him. The habits of the Marquis, however, were in nowise changed, and one day, while walking in the street, he directed his servant, an Italian, to go and borrow some money. The servant, having met with frequent denials, declined going; on which the Marquis drew his sword and killed him on the spot. He was instantly apprehended and committed to prison and being tried at the next sessions was convicted on full evidence, and received sentence of death. But the Duke of Shrewsbury, his sister's husband, being dead, and the Duchess having little interest or acquaintance in England, it appears that no endeavours were used to save him from the punishment which awaited him, and he was executed at Tyburn, on the 17th of March, 1718. Italian pride had taken deep root in the mind of this man. He declared it to be disgraceful to this country to put a nobleman to death, like a common malefactor, for killing his servant; and lamented that our churches, as in Italy, did not offer a sanctuary for murderers. Englishmen, however, are thankful that neither of this Marquis' desires prevail in their country, where the law makes no distinction in offenders. To the last moment the pride of aristocracy was predominant in his mind. He petitioned the sheriffs that his body should not be defiled by touching the unhappy Englishmen doomed to suffer with him, and that he might die before them, and alone. The sheriffs, in courtesy to a stranger, granted this request, and thus, in his last struggle, he maintained the superiority of his rank. Vain man! of what avail were his titles in the presence of the Almighty?
	The Great Shrewsbury Case of 1857‑1858
	On the death of the unmarried 17th Earl of Shrewsbury in 1856 at the age of 23, the Earldom (which is the Premier Earldom of England) was claimed by a distant cousin, Henry John Chetwynd‑Talbot, 3rd Earl Talbot of Hensol. The claim also affected the possession of vast estates which had been bequeathed to Lord Edmund Howard, the infant 2nd son of the 14th Duke of Norfolk (and later 1st Viscount Fitzalan of Derwent). The property would become vested in Lord Edmund if the title of the Earl of Shrewsbury, to which the property was annexed by an Act of Parliament, was found to have become extinct. The question of the property is dealt with separately in this note.
	Given the possibility that Lord Edmund Howard would be deprived of his possible inheritance, the Earl Talbot's claim was resisted not only by the Duke of Norfolk, but also by the Princess Doria Pamphili‑Landi of Rome, the only surviving child of the 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, and a Major Talbot, of Castle Talbot, of Wexford in Ireland. Because so much was at stake, the case soon became known as the "Great Shrewsbury Case".
	The following is my summary of the pedigree relied upon by Earl Talbot in his claim. It is rather complex, but I hope you can follow it.
	The title of Earl of Shrewsbury was created in 1442 by Henry VI and conferred by that monarch on Sir John Talbot and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, as a reward for Sir John's distinguished services as commander of the English army in France. The title descended in direct succession through father and son for two generations to John Talbot, 3rd Earl. The 3rd Earl had a younger brother, Sir Gilbert Talbot of Grafton, to whom we will return later.
	After the death of the 3rd Earl, the title descended from father to son until the death of the 7th Earl in 1616, when he was succeeded by his brother, Edward Talbot, who became 8th Earl. He died two years later, when this branch of the Talbot family became extinct.
	We now go back to Sir Gilbert Talbot of Grafton, brother of the 3rd Earl. Sir Gilbert had three sons - the eldest, another Gilbert, died without male issue; the second, Humphrey, died in the Holy Land, also without male issue; the third, Sir John Talbot of Albrighton, left a number of male heirs from two marriages. His eldest son from his first marriage was Sir John Talbot of Grafton, and it was Sir John's grandson, George Talbot, who succeeded as 9th Earl of Shrewsbury on the death of the 8th Earl in 1618.
	The 9th Earl, who was a Roman Catholic priest, died childless in 1630. He was succeeded by his nephew, John Talbot as 10th Earl. This John was twice married - by his first wife, he had three sons; George, who died without issue in the lifetime of his father; Francis, who succeeded his father as 11th Earl in 1654; and Gilbert Talbot of Balchcoate, to whom we will return shortly. On the death of Francis, 11th Earl, in 1668 (of wounds received in a duel with the 2nd Duke of Buckingham), the title descended to his son, Charles Talbot, who was subsequently created Duke of Shrewsbury in 1694, the Dukedom becoming extinct on his death in 1718. The next heir to the Earldom was Gilbert, son of the Gilbert Talbot of Balchcoate mentioned above. He was a Jesuit priest, who never assumed the use of the title and who died unmarried in 1743. The title then passed to his nephew, George, 14th Earl and subsequently descended to Bertram Arthur Talbot, 17th Earl, who died unmarried in 1856. On his death, the descendants of Sir John Talbot of Albrighton by his first marriage became extinct.
	Back we go again to Sir John Talbot of Albrighton, and, in particular, the issue from his second marriage. His first son from the second marriage had died without issue, but the second son of the second marriage, John Talbot of Salwarp, in turn produced a number of sons, the eldest of whom, Sherrington Talbot, was twice married. By his first marriage, he had a number of sons, all of whom except the eldest, another Sherrington, died without issue. This Sherrington also had a number of sons, all of whom, with the exception of John Talbot of Lacock, had no male issue. John Talbot of Lacock married twice and had a number of children, but eventually the descendants of Sherrington Talbot by his first marriage died out and this line became extinct.
	The next heirs were, as a result, to be found amongst the descendants of Sherrington Talbot from his second marriage. The eldest son from the second marriage, George Talbot of Rudge, died leaving only a daughter. The next son, William Talbot of Whittington, had a son, also William Talbot, who became Bishop of Oxford 1699‑1715 and Bishop of Salisbury 1715‑1722. His son, in turn, was Charles Talbot, Lord Chancellor between 1733 and 1737 and who was created Baron Talbot of Hensol in 1733. The Earl Talbot who was the claimant in the Shrewsbury case was descended in a direct line from the 1st Baron Talbot of Hensol.
	After a great deal of lengthy argument placed before the House of Lords Committee for Privileges, mainly concerning the evidence of the extinction of all other possible lines of descent from the 1st Earl, the Committee decided, on 1 June 1858, that the Earl Talbot was entitled to become the 18th Earl of Shrewsbury.
	The next question to be decided was that of the ownership of the estates. It was commonly supposed at the time that the estates had been annexed to the Earldom by an Act of Parliament, and were therefore inalienable. As we have seen, the 17th Earl did not agree with this view and had included in his will a provision to leave the whole of the estates in trust for the second son of the Duke of Norfolk. The motivation behind the 17th Earl's wish to dispose of the estates could, perhaps, be that he thought that the Earldom would become extinct on his death, or, alternatively, his wish to keep the estates within his extended family, since the Dukes of Norfolk were descended from a daughter of the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury.
	In 1700, the owner of the Shrewsbury estates was Charles Talbot, 1st and only Duke of Shrewsbury. Although he came from a Catholic family, and had been raised as a Catholic, he converted to the Church of England and took a prominent role in the 1688 Revolution. In that year, an Act of Parliament was passed "to prevent the growth of Popery" which imposed upon Catholics an incapacity to acquire property unless they converted to the Protestant religion. The passing of this harsh act appears to have prompted the Duke to take precautions for preserving his estates for his Catholic relations by settling his estates by way of trust in the hands of Protestant friends who he knew would do the right thing, a device which was quite common at that time. Accordingly, on 31 October 1700, the Duke settled the whole of his estates, failing his own male issue, on his cousin George Talbot, later the 14th Earl.
	In 1720, by an Act of Parliament (6th George I, cap 29) the Shrewsbury estates were annexed to the Earldom and a bar was placed on the alienation of such estates. After much debate on the matter, the Court decided that this prevented the provisions of the will of the 17th Earl from operating, and thus the 18th Earl regained control of the Shrewsbury estates.
	Charles Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 20th Earl of Shrewsbury and 5th Earl Talbot, his wife and his son, Viscount Ingestre
	One of the greatest aristocratic scandals of the 19th century was the elopement of the 20th Earl of Shrewsbury with Ellen Miller‑Mundy, wife of Alfred Edward Miller‑Mundy, in April 1881. Miller-Mundy filed for divorce, and a decree nisi was granted on 10 December 1881. The decree was made absolute on 20 June 1882, and the following day the Earl and the former Mrs. Miller‑Mundy were married.
	Following the marriage, the Chicago Daily Tribune of 23 June 1882 reported:-
	England has a new premier Countess [the earldom of Shrewsbury is the premier earldom of England] who is not likely to be received at Court by the Queen with open arms. Charles Henry John Chetwynd‑Talbot, twentieth Earl of Shrewsbury in the peerage of England, Earl of Waterford in the peerage of Ireland, Earl Talbot, Viscount Ingestre, and Baron Talbot of Hensol in the peerage of Great Britain, Premier Earl of England, and Hereditary Great Seneschal of Ireland, a youth just turned 21, was yesterday married to the divorced wife of Mr. Miller Mundy, of Derbyshire. Lord Shrewsbury, who was born Nov. 13, 1860, is the son of the nineteenth Earl, a man of ability, conspicuous in his youth, as Lord Ingestre, for his sympathy with all reformatory and humanitarian movements. His mother was the daughter of a naval officer whose widow afterwards married the late Earl of Eglinton. He succeeded his father as twentieth Earl of Shrewsbury and fifth Earl of Talbot on the 11th of May, 1877. The lady whom he has now married is four years his senior, having been born in 1856. She was by birth a Miss Morewood, the daughter of Charles Rowland Palmer‑Morewood, of Alfreton Hall, Derbyshire, a country gentleman of old family and good fortune, by his marriage with Georgiana, daughter of the seventh Lord Byron, the poet's nephew and successor. Her brother is the head of the family of Palmer to which Lord Selborne belongs, the name of Morewood having been assumed with the Morewood estates. Miss Morewood was married Sept. 25, 1873, to a country gentleman of fortune and of family equal to her own, Mr. Alfred Edward Miller‑Mundy, of Shipley Hall, in Derbyshire, by whom she had one child, born in August, 1874.
	Some time in the spring of 1880 Mrs. Miller‑Mundy made the acquaintance of the Earl of Shrewsbury, then a lad of 20, and their intimacy soon became so marked as to lead to bickerings between her husband and herself. In April, 1881, she went to visit her sister at Torquay, from which charming seaside resort she suddenly eloped with the Earl. Her husband and her brother followed them to Strasburg, where the fugitives had registered themselves at the Hôtel de la Ville de Paris as "Mr. and Mrs. Grafton", and finally overtook them by a mere chance on a railway train just as it was moving out of the station. Mr. Palmer‑Morewood clambered upon the platform rail of the railway carriage and through the window, and when the conductor opened the carriage at the next station it presented all the evidence of a conflict as hot as any ever waged the Earl's great ancestor, the historic Talbot of Shakespeare [in Henry V and Henry VI], on the soil of France. Mrs. Miller‑Mundy went back to England and the scandal filled the clubs and the "society papers". Certain chroniclers scrupled not to aver that Mrs. Miller‑Mundy had "given the straight tip" to her relatives in order to bring about an explosion which would result in a divorce. In the interval sundry incidents kept the scandal alive. Mrs. Mundy's mother meeting the Earl at the railroad station at Wirksworth, for example, savagely assaulted him with her umbrella, like another Mrs. Gamp [in Charles Dickens' "Martin Chuzzlewit"]. On another occasion the Earl artfully induced his brother-in-law (now deceased), Lord Helmsley [son of the 1st Earl of Feversham], who had been enjoined to keep an eye on him, to go and arrange preliminaries for a duel with Mr. Palmer‑Morewood, who was keeping watch over Mrs. Miller‑Mundy. While the two watch-dogs were thus occupied, the Earl flitted out of reach and met the lady. When in November last [1881] the Earl of Shrewsbury came of age, he took Mrs. Miller‑Mundy down to Alton Towers, his seat, introduced her as "the lady whom he intends hereafter to make his wife" to his tenants, and kindly offered drive with her through the town of Stafford to rally the party of Church and State to the banners of the Conservative candidate in the then pending Parliamentary [by] election, an offer which, strange to say, was promptly declined by the local committee.
	The new Countess's maiden name was Palmer-Morewood. While the scandal of her elopement was still very much to the forefront of the public's mind, a fresh scandal involving her brothers erupted. The Wikipedia articles on both the 20th Earl and on Alfreton Hall, the home of the Palmer‑Morewood family, refer to this scandal, but unfortunately both articles are incorrect as to its dating. The events outlined below occurred in December 1881, not 1887, and the references to "Strange British Crime" shown at the foot of both articles to the New York Times of 29 January 1888 should read 29 January 1882. The New York Times report reads:-
	An epidemic of scandal and social outrage appears to be afflicting England at the present time. There are epidemics of burglary and murder as well as epidemics of fever and small-pox. The latest trouble is a strange outbreak of crime affecting the domestic hearth and illuminating the ranks of the higher classes of society. "The Morewood Affair", a Derbyshire scandal, holds a foremost place in the social annals of the time. It is an episode of Christmas; but it is accentuated in this new year by the estreating of bail money to the extent of $20,000 bonds entered into for the appearance of four "aristocratic" prisoners who have decamped to foreign lands. The story is a curious satire upon the supposed culture and good feeling of English country families. From my own knowledge of this society I am bound to say it is a somewhat exceptional case of utter blackguardism and lawlessness.
	Alfreton Hall is a pleasant mansion situated on one of the uplands overlooking the Erewash Valley, just where the green plains of Nottinghamshire rise into the wooded heights of the Peak of Derbyshire. A sweet rural valley was this stretch of the midlands intersected by one little river - Erewash - in the days before coal was discovered throughout its entire length. Now, however, colliery shafting and steam engines seam and scar its face with an erysipelas [i.e. an acute disease of the skin] of smoke and dirt - pillars of cloud by day and fires by night. Out of these rich coal mines the Morewoods of Alfreton, a county family, have become opulent. They have "struck oil". The father of the family died recently, and the elder brother, Mr. Charles Palmer‑Morewood, a county magistrate and the Squire of Alfreton, acting as head of the family, invited a Christmas gathering of his kinsmen at the ancestral hall. His mother and his four brothers assembled there on Christmas Day. They were hospitably entertained … All went on with peace and goodwill until the mother left. Then Mr. Morewood and his four brothers adjourned to the smoking-room.
	There appears to have been an interval in which the merits of a greatly prized old rum, which was in a singular, antique bottle, were discussed. Suddenly, without words or warning, Squire Morewood was seized by his four brothers and thrust into the library. They locked the door inside. Then they endeavoured to dragoon him into signing a document to their pecuniary advantage. This document related to certain money mentioned in the dead father's will, some of which, being vested in colliery interests, had not had time to be realized and paid over to them. The father left each of his sons a legacy of $100,000. Part of this patrimony the four younger brothers had received. Now they resorted to fear and force to obtain the remainder. The victim of their treachery refused to sign the document. He would not be cowed by coercion. He was told that the four brothers had cast lots to take his life. A revolver was held at his head to emphasize the treat. The elder brother resisted, and a desperate and dastardly struggle ensued. It was four against one. The elder brother twice struggled to the bell and rang for help. When the butler answered the summons of his master he was dismissed by one of the brothers on some trivial errand, while the others held their victim. Finally the four miscreants left their victim on the floor senseless and bleeding. "Go into the library," they said to one of the servants as they left the house, "you will find your master lying very drunk". It was a sorrowful and sickening sight that met this servant's gaze when he went into the ancestral dining salon, furnished with all that wealth could procure and taste suggest. The Squire was lying on the carpet in a pool of blood. He was entirely naked. All his clothes had been cut from off his body. He was insensible and bleeding from several wounds.
	While this fracas was going on, Mrs. Morewood, the Squire's wife, was lying in bed in the same house, her confinement having taken place only a short time previously. The four young heroes [George Herbert, Alfred, Ernest Augustus and William Louis Palmer‑Morewood] were subsequently arrested upon warrants charging them with "unlawfully assaulting" Mr. C.R. Palmer‑Morewood, Justice of the Peace, but they were liberated on bail, each in his own recognizance of $2,500, and sureties of $2,500 each, making a total sum of $20,000. When, however, the case came on for trial the defendants had absconded and the bail was estreated. The money was paid, and it is understood that it came from the pockets of the fugitives. The fact that the Police warrant was only for "common assault", and that the aristocratic ruffians were allowed bail at all, is regarded as a serious reflection on the justice dispensed by the English unpaid magistracy. Had these civilized savages been lower in the social scale, it is said they would have been charged with a more penal offense and been offered no opportunity of liberty. Now they are reported to be laughing at the law in France or Spain. One account which reaches us from Alfreton declares they are about to embark for a cruise in the Mediterranean in the beautiful yacht of the Earl of Shrewsbury. "These four young aesthetes, their divorced and divine sister, and the lordly libertine," says my correspondent, "will make, no doubt, a merry crew".
	In October 1913, the Earl's son, who used the courtesy title of Viscount Ingestre, made a pre-emptive petition seeking to prove that he was the legitimate son of Lord and Lady Shrewsbury. This petition was discussed in a report in the Evening Post of 2 December 1913:-
	London, October 15 - The President of the Divorce Court had before him this week a rather remarkable case, this being the petition of the Hon. Charles John Alton Chetwynd Talbot, Viscount Ingestre, to be declared the legitimate son of the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury. Lord Ingestre was born less than three months after the marriage of his parents, his mother being the divorced wife of Mr. Miller Mundy, of Derbyshire. Lord Ingestre is heir to the peerage, and the petition was brought to remove any possibility of doubt arising in the future. The Crown was represented by the Attorney-General, who was nominally the defendant, and the parties cited were those next in succession, including Major General Sir Reginald Talbot, Mr. Humphrey John Talbot, and Mr. Geoffrey Richard Henry Talbot.
	In opening for the petition, Mr. Priestley, K.C., said that the present Earl of Shrewsbury, being then a bachelor, was married to Ellen Mary, formerly the wife of Alfred Edward Miller Mundy, at the Registry Office, St. George's, Hanover Square, on 21st June 1882. On 8th September 1882, "the same year", emphasized counsel, the petitioner was born at Alton Towers, Lord Shrewsbury's seat in Staffordshire, and, having been born after their marriage, he was their lawful and legitimate son. Having been born after wedlock, that was conclusive, unless proof to the contrary were given, that he was the son of Lord and Lady Shrewsbury.
	He had always been recognized, said counsel, as their son by his father and mother, and by their relations and friends. He held a commission in the Horse Guards as Lord Ingestre; he was decorated by King Edward as Lord Ingestre; he was married as Lord Ingestre, that being the courtesy title of the Shrewsbury family. There had never been any question about it or his position, but lately someone in a business transaction put the question about his mother's former marriage, and as there were considerable interests involved Lord Ingestre and his father thought it desirable, while all the evidence was available, that a declaration should be pronounced in Court.
	Counsel drew attention to the important dates in the case. On 21st or 22nd April 1881, he said, Mrs. Miller Mundy left her husband and went away with Lord Shrewsbury; and she had not lived with Mr. Miller Mundy after that date. Lord Ingestre having been born on the 8th September 1882, Mr. Miller Mundy could not, if the facts he had stated were true, be the father of the child. On the 26th April 1881, Mr. Miller Mundy and his brother-in-law, Mr. Morewood, saw Mrs. Miller Mundy at Strasburg. It was to be gathered from the evidence that he saw her there upon that date for the last time. So far as he (counsel) knew he had never spoken to or seen her since 26th April 1881. On 1st May 1881, Mrs. Miller Mundy came to England via Paris, and she did not go back to Mr. Miller Mundy. After 1st May 1881, she was constantly in Lord Shrewsbury's society and on 16 May 1881, Mr. Miller Mundy filed for divorce, alleging his wife's misconduct with Lord Shrewsbury. They did not defend that petition. On 5th July 1881, Mrs. Miller Mundy joined Lord Shrewsbury's yacht, 'Castalia' at Eastbourne. They went away from England and were absent until 21st October 1881, when they reached Flushing [in the Netherlands]. They lived together continuously from 5th July 1881, until their marriage the following year. They, on 24 November 1881, went to the Hotel Windsor, Paris, staying there until 31st December of the same year. Next day they joined the yacht at Toulon and were cruising about together until 11th March 1882. On 24th March they went to Trent, in Sussex, to a house they had taken, and lived there until June.
	On 10th December 1881, counsel also mentioned, the decree nisi was pronounced by Sir James Hanner, and it was made absolute on 20th June 1882. The next day there was the marriage in London, and Lord and Lady Shrewsbury went straight down to Alton Towers, and, as far as counsel knew, they remained there, until after the birth of Lord Ingestre. He was the only son, but there was a daughter, who was married.
	On 23rd April 1904, Lord Ingestre married Lord Alexander Paget's daughter in the presence of many of their relations, and his father, Lord Shrewsbury, signed the register as one of the witnesses. His father was now present in Court to support his claim. There were seven others next in succession, and they had been cited, but had not appeared, except one, Sir Reginald Talbot, who at the last moment asked leave to come in so that he might support the claim.
	The Attorney-General said he did not dispute any of the evidence, and the President declared the petitioner to be the legitimate son of Lord and Lady Shrewsbury.
	The special remainder to the Barony of Shute
	From the London Gazette of 16 April 1880 (issue 15461, page 270):-
	The Queen has been pleased to direct Letters Patent to be passed under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland granting the dignity of a Baron of the said United Kingdom to the Right Honourable George William, Viscount Barrington, in that part of the said United Kingdom called Ireland, and the heirs males of his body lawfully begotten, by the name, style, and title of Baron Shute, of Beckett, in the county of Berks, with remainder, in default of such issue male, to his brother Percy Barrington, Esq. (commonly called the Honourable Percy Barrington), and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten.
	Arun Kumar Sinha, 2nd Baron Sinha
	The 1st Baron Sinha received his peerage in 1919, the first Indian to be ennobled. On his death in 1928, his son attempted to prove his right to a seat in the House of Lords, but this was denied on a technicality. At the time of his birth, there was no registration of births and marriages in India. Every peer must produce a copy either of his birth or of his parents' marriage certificate before he can take his seat, but he was unable to do so.
	In December 1936, Lord Sinha took the opportunity at an audience with King Edward VIII (just prior to his abdication) to present a petition for a writ of summons to the House of Lords. This petition was subsequently considered by the Committee for Privileges in 1939.
	According to a report in The Times of 26 July 1939:-
	there was no dispute in relation to any of the facts stated in the petition. The late Baron Sinha on May 15, 1880 [just prior to his 16th birthday], married Gobinda Mohini Sinha according to the formalities prescribed by Hindu law and usage. He and his wife were at all times domiciled in the Presidency of Bengal and were members of the Hindu community at the date of the marriage, which took place in the Presidency. Hindu law did not forbid a plurality of wives, but the marriage in fact remained a union between the late Lord Sinha and his wife to the exclusion of any other spouses. It was a monogamous marriage.
	In 1886, and before the birth of the petitioner, Lord Sinha and his wife joined the religious sect known as the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, and they remained members of it during the whole of their married life. One of the main tenets of the sect was monogamy, and so long as the late Lord Sinha continued to be a member of the sect he could not while his first wife was alive contract a second marriage which the Courts in India would recognise as valid. He never did eave the sect.
	The petitioner was born in Calcutta on 22 August, 1887, and was the eldest son of the marriage. Lord Sinha died in 1928; and the question was whether the petitioner, within the meaning of the patent, was the heir male of the body lawfully begotten.
	The Lord Chancellor said that nothing in their decision of that petition was intended to apply to a case where the petitioner was claiming as a son of a parent who had in fact married two wives. It was apparent that great difficulties might arise in questions relating to the descent of a dignity where the marriage from which heirship was alleged to result was one of a polygamous character.
	If sons were born to one or more of the wives it might be difficult to reconcile one of those sons with English ideas of "heirship", which must be involved in the words contained in a patent granted by the King in a well-known form and dealing with a British dignity which entitled the holder to sit and vote in the House of Lords. If there were several wives the son of a second or third wife might be a claimant to a dignity to the exclusion of a later born son of the first wife. The law as to heirship in England had provided no means of settling such questions as those.
	Those difficulties, however, did not arise in the present case. The petitioner was beyond doubt the eldest son of the late Lord Sinha by his only wife and equally beyond doubt he was lawfully begotten according to the laws of India applicable to Hindu parents. Having regard to the domicile of the parties to the marriage at the date when it was solemnized the marriage would properly be treated as valid in this country for all purposes, except, it might be, the inheritance of real estate before the Law of Property Act, 1925, or the devolution of entailed interests as equitable interests before or since that date, and some other exceptional cases.
	The present question related to the descent of a dignity conferred by the Crown on a subject resident and domiciled in India who, according to his religion at the date of the patent, was prohibited from forming a polygamous union.
	The case was without precedent in peerage law, and, in the absence of authority, must be decided in the light of its special facts. Announcing the decision of the Committee, the Lord Chancellor (Lord Maugham) said: "I have formed the opinion, with which I believe your lordships concur, that the petitioner on the facts stated has established that is the 'heir male of the body of the late Lord Sinha, lawfully begotten'."
	Susanta Prasanna Sinha, 4th Baron Sinha
	Susanta Sinha, son and heir of the 3rd Baron Sinha, together with his sister, was charged with the murder of two of his children in 1979. Both defendants were subsequently acquitted. Sinha succeeded his father as 4th Baron Sinha in 1989, and, in the normal course of events, his son would have succeeded as 5th Baron on the death of the 4th Baron in 1992. The story of these deaths and the subsequent trial verdicts is shown in the following edited newspaper extracts:-
	The Observer 27 May 1979:-
	The death of a four-year-old boy who would one day have sat in the House of Lords as the fifth Baron Sinha of Raipur [sic], and that of his three-year-old sister, have provided Calcutta's cocktail-party circuit with a satisfyingly macabre topic for speculation.
	The title involved is not ancient or grand by the standards of Indian maharajahs, but it is unique. The children's grandfather, Lord Sinha, is a prominent figure in Calcutta society. He is also the third holder of the only hereditary peerage ever to have been conferred on a non-European.
	His father was counted among the Liberal peers, but Lord Sinha, 58, sits on the cross benches during his rare visits to the Lords. The original recipient in 1919 was his grandfather, Sir Satyendra Prasanna Sinha, an eminent Bengali lawyer who represented India at the Versailles conference and was for two years a member of Lloyd George's Government.
	The case has all the other ingredients that make for a cause célèbre. According to West Bengal's fire chief, who investigated the mysterious circumstances in which Shane Patrick and Sharon Patricia perished in the small hours of 28 November last year, no one else was injured in the raging fire in the family mansion in Lord Sinha Road.
	In a packed courtroom last week, Calcutta police brought a murder charge against the children's father, the Hon. Susanta Prasanna Sinha, 26, Lord Sinha's only son and heir. Mr Sinha is a dapper young tea broker with a fondness for jazz. In his spare time he plays the piano in a fashionable Calcutta restaurant.
	Through the jazz band, Mr Sinha met an Anglo-Indian telephonist, Patricia Orchard, whom he married in 1972. The couple separated after three children were born (the elder daughter, Caroline, remained with her mother) and Mr Sinha's divorce application for adultery is still pending.
	Also accused of murder is Lord Sinha's attractive 32-year-old daughter, the Hon. Manjula, divorced wife of Prince Tobgye Dorji, a first cousin of King Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan [who was King of Bhutan from July 1972 until he abdicated in December 2006] and now in New York with the Himalayan kingdom's United Nations team.
	Under India's complex judicial system, there will be another magistrate's hearing on 12 June to provide the accused with prosecution documents before Mr Sinha and Mrs Dorji may be formally committed to the sessions court for trial. If convicted, they could be imprisoned for life.
	Brother and sister have already spent 10 days in jail and are now on bail. Though not required to enter a plea until the sessions trial, Mrs Dorji and Mr Sinha maintain their innocence and insist that the deaths were accidental.
	The Times of India 23 February 1980:-
	Sushanta Prasanna Sinha alias Sunna and Mrs. Manjula Dorji, only son and daughter of Lord S. P. Sinha, were today committed to the sessions on the charge of murdering Shane (four) and Sharon (three), only son and the youngest daughter respectively, of accused Sushanta Prasanna Sinha, on November 28, 1978, and of causing disappearance of evidence.
	It was stated that Sushanta and his sister drank till midnight with two guests in their house on November 27. A few hours later, there was a big fire in the bedroom of Sushanta. When the police and fire brigade men rushed to the spot, Sushanta and his sister were found lying in Mrs. Dorji's bedroom which was bolted from inside.
	None of the members of Lord Sinha's family informed either the police or the fire brigade men that two children were lying in Sushanta's bedroom. An ayah [maid or nurse] of the house informed the police about the two children. The police rushed to the bedroom and found the charred bodies of the two children lying side by side on the floor carpet.
	The post-mortem report revealed the presence of foreign chemical substance on the burnt tissues of the two children, on the garments and also on the carpet.
	The Observer 7 September 1980:-
	India's most sensational murder trial ended last week with the acquittal of the 28-year-old heir to the only non-European hereditary member of the British House of Lords.
	The Hon. Susanta Prasanna Sinha, only son of the third Baron Sinha (his grandfather was raised to the Peerage in 1919) was found not guilty of murdering his two children, Shane Patrick, four, and Sharon Patricia, three, or of suppressing evidence of murder. Also acquitted of the same charges was Lord Sinha's elder daughter, Manjula, 33, divorced wife of Prince Tobgye Dorjee, a first cousin of King Jigme Singye Wangchuck of Bhutan. Both pleaded not guilty.
	Rejecting the charges, Judge J. K. Bhattacharjee of Calcutta's Sessions Court said the prosecution case was 'entirely circumstantial'.
	The case arose out of a fire which swept through the family's town mansion in Calcutta one night in November 1978. Shane Patrick and Sharon Patricia were asleep in their second floor bedroom. The fire brigade later recovered their charred bodies.
	A week later their Anglo-Indian mother, Mrs Patricia Sinha, who is estranged from her husband, aused inquiries to be started.
	The police case, supported by 47 witnesses, including members of the Sinha family, was that Manjula Dorjee wanted to get rid of her nephew and niece so that they did not share in the Sinha inheritance. Judge Bhattacharjee also accepted that the children had not been killed earlier but had perished in the fire, which was entirely accidental.
	Howe Peter Browne, 2nd Marquess of Sligo
	In December 1812, Sligo was charged and convicted of "enticing British Seamen to desert". The following account is taken from the Newgate Calendar.
	At nine o'clock [on 16 December 1812] Sir William Scott attended, and charged the grand jury. The [Admiralty] Court then adjourned till ten o'clock, at which hour Sir William returned, accompanied by Lord Ellenborough, Mr Baron Thompson and several Doctors of Law. The Duke of Clarence was on the bench. The jury were then sworn to try the Marquis of Sligo, who appeared in court, and sat by his counsel, Messrs Dauncey, Dampier and Scarlett.
	Before the trial began, Mr Dauncey stated that his lordship wished to plead guilty as to part, and not guilty to the rest; and wished, therefore, only one part now be entered into.
	Dr Robinson, on the other side, was not unwilling to accede to this arrangement; but Lord Ellenborough said that the indictment must not be garbled. He must plead guilty to the whole, or not guilty to the whole.
	After some conversation between the counsel the trial proceeded; the indictment was read, charging the Marquis with unlawfully receiving on board his ship William Elden, a seaman in the King's service, and detaining, concealing and secreting him. The second count charged him with enticing and persuading the said seaman to desert; the third count, with receiving the said Elden, knowing him to have deserted.
	There were other counts with respect to other seamen, and a count for an assault and false imprisonment.
	Dr Robinson (the Advocate-General) stated the case. Captain Sprainger (examined by the Attorney-General) stated that in April, 1810, the Marquis was introduced to him by letter from Admiral Martin; his lordship appeared desirous of making a tour, and for that purpose hired a vessel called the Pylades. The witness gave him all the assistance in his power, by sending him riggers and carpenters and gunners, who were lent to him for the purpose of outfitting his vessel, but still remained part of his (Captain Sprainger's) crew. In the course of these transactions his lordship passed and repassed in a boat called the gig, which was rowed by four men: Charles Lee, Robert Lloyd, James Foljambe and John Walker; they had belonged to the boat for three years, and were constantly in it. The defendant observed that they were fine clever-looking men. Afterwards, about a week before he sailed, he missed two of these men, which the more surprised him as they were very trusty seamen, had never been absent or irregular, and, though frequently suffered to go on shore without a midshipman, had never in any instance abused this confidence. They had, besides, the wages of three years due to them.
	On the 13th, before he sailed, he went on board the Pylades to see Lord Sligo, and told him of the extraordinary circumstances of his missing these two men, whom his lordship probably recollected. He was then going to communicate to his lordship some suspicions which his officers had suggested to him, when Lord Sligo interrupted him, saying surely he (Captain Sprainger) could not think him so base as to take away these men, after the civilities by him shown to his lordship. He further said that some of the men whom he had lent to him had offered to desert, but he had refused to accept them. Witness then replied to Lord Sligo that he trusted he had not his men, and that he would not take them or any others from his Majesty's service; but, lest they should come to him, he (Captain S) would leave a description of their persons, and take his lordship's word of honour that he would not receive them, but give them up to the commanding officer at Malta, who had orders to keep them till his return. He then left his lordship, having received his promise and word of honour, and having remarked to his lordship how serious a thing it was to entice his Majesty's seamen. The fleet was at that time nearly two thousand below its complement, and it was very difficult to procure British seamen. He did not muster his lordship's crew; they seemed to be foreigners, in number about twenty or thirty. His lordship had proposed to take fifty men, as his vessel was to be a letter of marque. A few would have been sufficient for the purposes of navigation. As soon as [he] reached the ship he ordered a description of the two men to be made out, and it was sent to Lord Sligo; he received no answer then, though he afterwards had a letter from his lordship. He had never seen Lee or Lloyd since. (The letter was here read, in which Lord Sligo stated that in the course of his voyage he found that he had on board some men-of-war's men, and that he was determined to send them on shore [at] the first opportunity. Whatever expenses he might incur on their account he should put down to the score of humanity, and glory in it. He thought this explanation necessary to Captain Sprainger, who had treated him like a gentleman; but the other captain who complained he should not notice. If the business was brought into court he should do his best to defend himself, and if he did not succeed he had an ample fortune, and could pay the fines.) The letter was dated Constantinople.
	William Elden, a seaman - who was in the navy nearly thirteen years, and at the time mentioned was on board the Montague, off Malta, and had a ticket-of-leave to go ashore there on the 13th of that month, in the morning - said he and other seamen, belonging to the Montague, four of them in all, were going back to their ships when they were accosted by two men in livery, and another, who was dressed in a white jacket. The men in livery were servants of the Marquess of Sligo, and the other was the second mate of his lordship's vessel. They gave him drink, and so intoxicated him that he knew not how he got on board the Pylades, where he found himself placed in the pump well, abaft the mainmast, when he recovered his senses, and there he also saw two more of his shipmates, and a stranger, who was in a sailor's dress. Witness then came on deck, where he saw Macdermot, Thompson, Cook, Fisher and Brown on the deck. He also saw Lord Sligo on board, that evening on deck, who asked him his name, when witness told his name, and he belonged to the Montague. They were then two miles from shore. Next morning he again saw Lord Sligo, being then perfectly sober, when he was walking the deck with a shipmate of the Montague, of which they were talking. Lord Sligo again asked their names, and they answered that they were Elden and Story, and that those were the names by which they went on board that ship; but Story told his lordship that being men-of-war's men it would not do to go by their own names, and Lord Sligo immediately said: "Come to me, and I will alter them". They went on the quarterdeck, and defendant gave the name of William Smith to the witness. A few days afterwards his lordship told him that he would be useful in exercising the guns, to which he replied that he saw none there who did not know the use of the guns as well as himself. He then saw nine men of the Montague there: Cook, Fisher, Brown, Story, Sullivan, Thompson, Macdermot and Travers. Lord Sligo took an active part in the management of the vessel, and assigned to them all their duties. At Palermo he asked Lord Sligo for leave to go on shore to get clothes; his lordship gave him five four‑dollar pieces for wages. He went onshore and returned, not surrendering himself to any King's ship. At Messina he begged leave to quit the Pylades, and offered to return all the money and clothes he had received; his lordship would not suffer him, and foreign sentinels were placed in arms over the crew to prevent any from escaping. Lord Sligo at Palermo told the crew that he had procured a protection from Admiral Martin, having pledged his honour that he had no men-of-war's men on board. They were afterwards chased by the Active frigate and a brig, and were brought to, and a King's boat came alongside. Lord Sligo the desired witness to go below, who said he would rather stay where he was. The rest were then below. Lord Sligo left him for a few minutes; but returned, and told him he must go down. He then went down into the after-hold underneath the cabin, where were the rest of the seamen of the Warrior and the Montague; the hatch was closed over them, and a ladder placed on top. In about half-an-hour they were called up. They then proceeded to Patmos, where he and some more had leave of absence for a few days. The next day Lord Sligo sailed without giving them any notice, and left him and six more in great distress. They were forced to sell their clothing; they had nothing but what they stood upright in. They got a boat, but could not overtake the Pylades; they then went to Scio, and went with a British consul to the Pylades; but Lord Sligo refused to take them in, and threatened to fire at them; he knew them very well, as they were all upon deck; he took four of them on board - the carpenter, the surgeon, the man of the Warrior (Lee) and the sailmaker. The witness had been since tried, and sentenced to receive two hundred lashes; but his punishment had been remitted.
	Fisher, Sullivan and Brown, all belonging to the Montague, corroborated Elden's statement. Captain Hayes deposed to his having searched the Pylades, when the Marquis declared, upon his word, no men were concealed on board.
	After a short consultation in the box the jury found his lordship guilty of all the counts in the indictment, except one for false imprisonment.
	The judge (Sir William Scott [later Baron Stowell]) then ordered that his lordship, who was in court, should enter into recognisance to appear the next day to receive judgment.
	The trial lasted till nearly two o'clock in the morning.
	The Marquis of Sligo on Thursday [17 December 1812] appeared in court to receive sentence; an affidavit was put in, which purported that he knew nothing of the circumstances of his having men-of-war's men on board till the time of the search.
	Lord Ellenborough interrupted it by observing that the affidavit must not impeach the evidence. Mr Scarlett said that was not its object. The affidavit was then continued, stating that as soon as he found two of the Warrior's men he was anxious to dismiss them; it then expressed contrition for his folly and rashness, and a hope that the letter which was written to Captain Sprainger (which was never intended for the public) would not be thought to convey any disrespect for the laws of his country, which he was ready and anxious to uphold.
	Sir William Scott then, after an impressive speech, passed the sentence of the Court upon his lordship, which was, that his lordship should pay to the King a fine of five thousand pounds, and be imprisoned four months in Newgate.
	His lordship bowed, and was conducted by the keepers through the private door to the jail.
	There was a happy sequel to the Marquess's trial. His mother, the Dowager Marchioness, was so impressed with the fatherly advice given by Sir William Scott when sentencing the Marquess that she expressed the opinion that "it would be an excellent thing if her son could continue to have the benefit of such paternal counsels". Accordingly the Dowager Marchioness and Sir William were married shortly afterwards, although the Marquess, still being in prison, could not attend the ceremony. Nevertheless, the influence of his new step-father appears to have been beneficial, as the Marquess was subsequently rehabilitated, being Governor of Jamaica, Lord Lieutenant of Mayo and a Privy Counsellor.
	George Ulick Browne, 6th Marquess of Sligo
	The 5th Marquess of Sligo, father of the 6th Marquess, was employed in the Indian Civil Service under the name of Lord Henry Ulick Browne between 1850 and 1886. As a result, he was present in India during the time of the Indian Mutiny.
	According to an article in the Chicago Daily Tribune of 1 March 1913:-
	… he [the 6th Marquess] was a 12 months' old baby when the great Sepoy mutiny broke out in India in 1857 … His father [Lord Henry Ulick Browne, later the 5th  Marquess] left his wife and his little boy at Monghyr [now known as Munger, a city on the Ganges River in what was then Bengal, now the state of Bihar] in what he believed to be complete safety, while he himself hurried, in response to the call of duty, to the scene of the trouble.
	To his dismay the rebels cut off all chance of his rejoining his wife and child, and, worse still, surrounded Monghyr.
	Lady Ulick Browne, as she was then, sought refuge with the baby in the collector's house, together with the few other English people in the district, and during four weeks sustained a siege which cost the lives of most of the defenders through thirst, hunger, disease, and the foe.
	Lady Ulick realised that her little boy would succumb if he remained, and she accordingly took the desperate risk of permitting her devoted Hindoo ayah, or nurse, to dye the child a dusky color with chestnut leaves and to make her way with him through the insurgents' lines by passing off the little fellow as her own offspring.
	Three weeks later Monghyr was relieved by the British troops, Lady Ulick Browne being among the few of the gallant survivors of the siege. But not till nearly three months afterwards were she and her husband able to ascertain what had become of their child and nurse or to discover whether they had managed to get safely through the Sepoy lines around Monghyr and through the rebel infested country to safety, or had perished in the attempt.
	Eventually, however, the faithful and devoted ayah turned up with the little fellow, who is now the new Marquis of Sligo …

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