Despenser family

“ R.C.—You talk like a civilian, Will. Could you make her understand what you meant by inheritance and families? They know no such things among the savages, but marry anyhow, without regard to relation, consanguinity, or family; brother and sister, nay, as I have been told, even the father and the daughter, and the son and the mother.
W.A.—I believe, sir, you are misinformed, and my wife assures me of the contrary, and that they abhor it; perhaps, for any further relations, they may not be so exact as we are ”

“ While the poor woman was telling this dismal story, in came the gentle woman's husband, and, though her heart was hardened against all pity, who was really and nearly related to the children, for they were the children of her own brother, yet the good man was quite softened with the dismal relation of the circumstances of the family; and when the poor woman had done, he said to his wife, 'This is a dismal case, my dear, indeed, and something must be done.' His wife fell a-raving at him: 'What', says she, 'do you want to have four children to keep? Have we not children of our own? ”

“ His rival Audley had been allotted Newport and Netherwent, while Amory had been assigned the castle of Usk and estates higher up the Usk valley. Annoyed that he should be a lesser personage in south Wales than Earl Gilbert had been, Despenser began to intrigue against his wife's brothers-in-law. Each of the co-heirs had already become deadly rivals. Their hostility was the more keen since the three had already taken different sides in English politics. Despenser was the soul of the court faction; Amory was the ally of Pembroke and Badlesmere, the men of the middle party ”

“ Then she went on to tell me how she very luckily fell into a good family, where, behaving herself well, and her mistress dying, her master married her, by whom she had my husband and his sister, and that by her diligence and good management after her husband’s death, she had improved the plantations to such a degree as they then were, so that most of the estate was of her getting, not her husband’s, for she had been a widow upwards of sixteen years. ”

“ It was for the daughter’s sake alone that she cared to live now; the daughter to whom men had left only God and that mother. A new lesson was now to be taught to Constance—to rest wholly upon God.
It was very tranquilly at last that Elizabeth Le Despenser passed away from earth. She took most loving leave of Constance, blessed and said farewell to all her children, and charged Bertram and Maude to remain with her and be faithful to her. ”

“ Walter Let's see our step-mother, and we will receive her with all the tenderness and respect we owe you.
Matthews She is also in the masquerade, and it was for her that I planned the party. Deign to unmask, Madame, and take these young marrieds for your children.
Sonia (unmasking) I'm very happy to enter into so loveable a family. I hope they are as happy as I am to be their mother.
Trim
Anna, shall we give our consent to this marriage?
Anna One could criticize it. But, come, it's necessary to grant a general amnesty.
Belinda
Papa. I have one more blessing to ask you. ”

“ He did penance for his friendship with Belle Yorke by his flirtation with Lady Victoria Mauleverer, and repaid himself for his attentions to Lord Severn’s daughter with a smile from the singer.
To a man in such a state of self-deception Despencer’s poison came as a tonic. His wrath at hearing her attacked, and the necessity he felt of being able to rebut the accusation, were the measure of his love for the woman he had resolved never to love. ”

“ Despencer stole a glance at her sideways.
“There I think you are unwise. It is always so much better not to know who are behind the curtain.”
The marchioness sat up and frowned in earnest.
“That shows that you think it was my husband and Belle Yorke. Mr. Despencer, I can see that there is some connection between those two, and that you know all about it.”
Despencer smiled pleasantly, with the satisfaction of a general who sees the enemy march straight into the ambush he has prepared. He could even afford to play with his victim. ”

“ The Naïr husbands are reduced to the modest rôle of progenitors; and it is to the wife that the fortune of the family belongs. It is not, however, the mother who governs the family, but her brother. To this brother belongs the duty of bringing up his nephews, of protecting them, and of mourning for them, if they happen to die; in reality, he is an avuncular father, and when he dies his nephews inherit his personal property. ”

“ Well, my dear', says her husband, 'but I value it, for I won't have such a blot lie upon the family, and upon your children; he was a worthy, ancient, and good man, and his name is respected among all his neighbours; it will be a reproach to you, that are his daughter, and to our children, that are his grandchildren, that we should let your brother's children perish, or come to be a charge to the public, in the very place where your family once flourished. ”

“ Her uncle is the person to do that. You may go, Eurynomé.”
“Alas, Lady mine!” lamented Despina, “you have lost a chance. There is great evil in this wicked girl’s heart towards you, and I would have beaten it out before it grows into deeds.”
“My good Despina, what harm can a wretched nurse-girl, who could not even make herself understood outside, do to me? It is the Prince’s fancy that she should attend on the little lord, and I should be sorry if he thought I had a prejudice against her. If he sees for himself that she is troublesome, he will tell Petros to take her away.” ”

“ The male member of the family inherits, but he does so only as the son of a female member of the family through whom he may justly claim kinship, or, to put it in another form, a man's natural heir is not his son, or his brother's son, or the descendant of a common male ancestor, but his sister's, or his sister's daughter's son, or the descendant of a common female ancestress. ”

“ My cousin, Lord St. Nivel, was certainly fully up to date, and his sister, Lady Ethel, was, if possible, a little more so. They were twins. Left orphans as children, the two had grown up greatly attached to one another naturally, and being the sole survivors of a very rich family and inheriting all its savings and residues, they had an extremely good time of it together without any great desire to exchange their happy brother and sisterhood for the bonds of matrimony. ”

“ While I am in America my affectionate brother, the head of the family, supports me, as is his duty. Your philosophy is pretty enough, but it is not practical. The whole fault lies in our old-fashioned system of inheritance, the elder male of a family getting all the estate and the younger ones nothing at all. Here, in this crude and plebeian country, I believe it is the custom to provide for all one's children, and a father is at liberty to do so because his estate is not entailed."
"And he earns it himself and can do what he likes with it," added Uncle John, impatiently. ”

“ On the contrary, the sons and daughters of a woman’s brother are only her nephews and nieces. How can we explain this familial confusion on one side, and this distinction on the other? It may probably be attributed to the habit of the Redskins to marry a lot of sisters at the same time. A woman counts her sister’s children as her own, because the husband of that sister, whom we should call her brother-in-law, is virtually her husband also. Inversely, for a man, his brother’s children, or his fraternal nieces and nephews, are reckoned as his own children ”

“ It must have been some twelve months after those lines were penned, that the writer conceived an ardent attachment for one Elizabeth. The active research of Dr. Grosart has discovered that this lady belonged to the Boyle family—a family already of importance and destined to be famous. The family seat was at Kilcoran, near Youghal, and so we understand Spenser's singing of 'The sea that neighbours to her near.' Thus she lived in the same county with her poet. The whole course of the wooing and the winning is portrayed in the Amoretti or Sonnets and the Epithalamium. ”

“ Jean’s complexion was extremely pale, Janet’s was florid; my grandmother’s nose was straight, my great-aunt’s aquiline; but by the sound of the voice, not even a son was able to distinguish one from other. The marriage of a man of twenty-seven and a girl of twenty who have lived for twelve years as brother and sister, is difficult to conceive. It took place, however, and thus in 1799 the family was still further cemented by the union of a representative of the male or worldly element with one of the female and devout. ”

“ Hist. ii. 141) . Once more Despenser returned to arms, taking part in the naval expedition of the Earl of Arundel against the Flemish coast, 1386-7 (Froissart, xi. 361 et seq.) In 1388, after the impeachment of Sir Simon Burley by the 'merciless' parliament, Despenser is found in the royal council (Froissart, xii. 259) . As an indication of his religious attitude it is noted that he alone among the English bishops took active steps to suppress lollardy in 1389 (Walsingham, Hist. Angl. ii. 189; Ypodlgma Neustniæ p. 360) . ”

“ Every relationship recognized under the system is thus explained from the nature of the consanguine family, founded upon the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group. Relationships on the father’s side are followed as near as the parentage of children could be known, probable fathers being treated as actual fathers. Relationships on the mother’s side are determined by the principle of affinity, step-children being regarded as actual children. ”

“ Many old things, no doubt, would be changed, by the work of Deborah and her kind—but not too many, Roger hoped. And these young people, meanwhile, would be bringing up children in their turn. So the family would go on, and multiply and scatter wide, never to unite again. ”

“ And as for our young ladies, I doubt there'll be nobody sit in the young master's place till he comes back himself to fill it.'
'Oh, you and your young master have been good brothers, I daresay,' said the stranger, looking up at the singing lark with rather sad eyes.
'Not so extra particular for me, sir, though Martha and me was good friends enough; and as for the young gentleman, the ladies aren't his sisters but his aunts, you see, he having neither father nor mother, brother nor sister. ”

“ Both the Bishop and the Admiral patted him on the head and said, ‘Charles will restore the old family’; by which I gather with some surprise that, even in these days of open house at Northiam and golden hope of my aunt’s fortune, the family was supposed to stand in need of restoration. But the past is apt to look brighter than nature, above all to those enamoured of their genealogy; and the ravages of Stephen and Thomas must have always given matter of alarm. ”

“ But Lord Denmeath, who disputed, or denied, my relation to their family, was their uncle and guardian. To him to make myself known, would have been to blight every hope of concealment from the commissary, whose claims were precisely in unison with the plan of his lordship, for making me an alien to my country. What, against their joint interests and authority, would be the power of a sister or a brother under age? Often, indeed, I was tempted to trust them in secret ”

“ Of course Cousin Dempster and his wife were invited, being my cousins, and so saturated with the family genius, that people are constantly expecting it to break out, which it hasn't yet, except in a general way. But Cousin D. made lots of money in the war, and money is thought almost as much of as talent by some people. Still, between ourselves, I don't think they would have been invited if they hadn't come from Sprucehill; which is taking a literary position next to the Hub since our Society has begun to publish my humble reports. ”

“ Its utmost weight, in respect to her, is to diminish the force of her declaration, in respect to the filiation and legitimacy of her child, and that very remotely. Her acts and conduct are at variance with the deposition; the last was taken when she had been for some time separated from Desgrange, avowedly for his bigamy in marrying her. She had not lived with him for more than a year, and did not at any time afterwards live with him. When the prosecution of Desgrange began she was living with her family. When Desgrange was released from prison no steps were taken by either for a reunion. ”

“ The whole family are a singular instance of unity without uniformity. While I have worked at the book, I have become irresistibly and most strongly attracted by such characters as Catherine Gurney and Richenda Cunningham, though for the great fetish of the family, the self-opinionated, self-parading, egotistical Joseph John, I never could have any warm feeling. Yet a descendant of one of his cousins (Lady Fry) assures me that she was so distressed on hearing of his death in her childhood, that she pulled down all the blinds of her doll’s house. ”

“ I shouldn't have let her come along—I had my doubts of the weather, but it was a chance to see the relatives she's got scattered through the group. They're constantly visiting one another; blood means a lot down here where they recognize degrees of consanguinity absurdly farfetched to our minds. First cousins are like brothers, second and third cousins considered members of one's immediate family, and so on through the descendants of remote ancestors. ”

“ This caused the ancient family to form a single body, both in this life and in the next,"—De Coulanges, in The Ancient City.
"Land belonged to the clan and the clan was settled upon the land. A man was thus not a member of the clan because he lived upon or even owned the land, but he lived upon the land and had interest in it because he was a member of the clan."—Hearn, in The Aryan Household.
"Three things if possessed by a man make him fit to be a chief of kindred: that he should speak in behalf of his kin and be listened to; that he should fight in behalf of his kin and be feared ”