Duke of Devonshire

“ William Cavendish, 1st duke of Devonshire (1640–1707) , English statesman, eldest son of the earl of Devonshire last mentioned, was born on the 25th of January 1640. After completing his education he made the tour of Europe according to the custom of young men of his rank, being accompanied on his travels by Dr Killigrew. On his return he obtained, in 1661, a seat in parliament for Derbyshire, and soon became conspicuous as one of the most determined and daring opponents of the general policy of the court. ”

“ The Duke of Devonshire's landed property is just such a one as an American should visit to realize the impressions he has received of a nobleman's estate from English stories, novels, and dramatic representations. Here great reaches of beautiful greensward swept away as far as the eye could reach, with groups of magnificent oaks in the landscape view, and troops of deer bounding off in the distance. ”

“ The title of the "Welsh lord, the brave Duke of Devonshire," offers some opposition to Mr. Dixon's hypothesis, as no Duke of Devonshire was created before 1694; but, as Sir Walter Scott observed, upon a friend pointing out an inaccuracy in his "Bonnets of bonnie Dundee," "We cannot always be particular in a ballad." Possibly the name of some other country or place should be substituted for that of "Devonshire." ”

“ The Revolution again brought him into prominence. He was one of the seven who signed the original paper inviting the prince of Orange from Holland, and was the first nobleman who appeared in arms to receive him at his landing. He received the order of the Garter on the occasion of the coronation, and was made lord high steward of the new court. In 1690 he accompanied King William on his visit to Holland. He was created marquis of Hartington and duke of Devonshire in 1694 by William and Mary, on the same day on which the head of the house of Russell was created duke of Bedford. ”

“ There is a Duke of Devonshire and an Earl of Devon, as there is a Duke of Buckingham and an Earl of Buckinghamshire. Titles of this sort could not obviously have co-existed while earls and dukes had authority over the counties from which they were called. It may be observed that the dukes of Devonshire, though they can show some four centuries of descent, are of a quite modern nobility compared with the Courtnays, whose chief bears the humbler title of Earl of Devon. The earl indeed represents an imperial line. ”

“ CAVENDISH, GEORGIANA, Duchess of Devonshire (1757–1806) , eldest daughter of John, first earl Spencer, was born 9 June 1757. She married in June 1774 the fifth duke of Devonshire, who was regarded as the ‘first match’ in England, and his wife became the reigning queen of society. She set the fashion in dress, and introduced a simple and graceful style to supersede the ridiculous hoop. ”

“ One may strive as one will to draw the character of the Duke, but in the end one comes back to the plain fact that he was a great public servant,—one who served, not because he liked service for its own sake or for the rewards it brought in sympathy and public applause, but solely because he was mastered by the notion of duty and by the sense that, like every other Englishman, he owed the State a debt which must be paid. Pope said of one of his ancestors that he cared not to be great except only in that he might "save and serve the State." That was exactly true of the late Duke of Devonshire. ”

“ They all show the sharp-edged strata of unaffiliated tastes and styles of different ages and artists. They lack the oneness of a single individuality, of one great symmetrical conception.
This one-mindedness, this one-man power of conception and execution gives to the Duke of Devonshire’s palace at Chatsworth an interest and a value that probably do not attach to any other private establishment in England. In this felicitous characteristic it stands out in remarkable prominence and in striking contrast with nearly all the other baronial halls of the country. ”

“ Sir Thomas Grosvenor, third Baronet, M.P. for Chester, married Mary, only daughter and heiress of Alexander Davis, of Ebury, Middlesex. She died in 1730.
[19] William Spencer, sixth Duke of Devonshire. His mother was Georgiana, famous for her beauty and its influence over George IV. and Lord Grey. The sixth Duke inherited from his mother his Whig proclivities. He was a patron of arts and letters. Devonshire House under his bachelor rule was a centre of hospitality. That the Duke never married, notwithstanding his admiration of the fair sex, gave rise to much speculation and gossip. ”

“ I came away from that last talk, with my devotion to the man, high as it was before, greatly heightened.
* * * * *
Though I did not know the Duke of Devonshire, earlier known as Lord Hartington, nearly so intimately as the other four, I had for him a political admiration which was almost unbounded. When a young man as was only natural—I was twenty-six when I first came into contact with him— I rather chafed at what I thought was his impenetrability. ”

“ Her’s was a change of conditions that, perhaps, never fell to any one woman before or since: to be four times a creditable and happy wife, and to rise by every husband to greater wealth and higher honours; and, after all, to live seventeen years a widow in absolute power and plenty. She built three of the most elegant seats that were ever raised by one person in the same county—Chatsworth, Hardwick, and Oldcoates; all transmitted entire to the first Duke of Devonshire. The Countess died in 1607, aged 87. She bequeathed all her estates to her son William, Earl of Devonshire ”

“ For the Duke of Devonshire is so determinately against them, that I believe he will think it his duty to declare his opinion, and how far that may operate (most people, I find, being in their own minds of the same opinion) there is no saying. Legge did not sign the order for the Hessian money at the Treasury, and, I believe, makes no scruple of declaring his opinion. I have been more cautious in giving, I may say, in forming mine; but have, by not signing it at the Cockpit, kept myself at liberty. Pitt’s and Egmont’s opinions, in this regard, I don’t know. ”

“ In early Victorian days the Duke of Wellington was commonly alluded to as "the Duke" par excellence. In the opening years of the present century, in political circles at any rate, when people spoke of "the Duke" they always meant the Duke of Devonshire, and for reasons which are tersely and correctly given in Punch's brief memorial verses when he died in March, 1908 ”

“ I have little more to say, excepting that Lord Londonderry is unwell, and no particular business will come on this evening. Lord and Lady Grey are certainly invited to Carlton House to-night, and Tierney to the evening to-morrow, to meet the King at the Duke of Devonshire's. The strongest rumours are afloat, and increase with regard to his leaning towards the Opposition; and certainly these invitations do not discourage them. What he can mean seems difficult to unravel. ”

“ The Duke of Devonshire's imitator—if he be such—not only wears his hat pressed down over his eyes in the well-known fashion of the Duke, but assumes almost as inimitably that intensely [pg 6] bored look that has deceived so many people as to the true character of the head of the Liberal Unionist party. Mere photographs would inevitably fail to do justice to a case of this kind.
Russell & Sons, photo.
THE RT. HON. J. CHAMBERLAIN, M.P.
London Stereoscopic Co., photo. ”

“ I see no signs of the Duke’s resuming his employments; but on the contrary I am assured that his Majesty is coolly determined to do as well as he can without him. The Duke of Devonshire and Fox have worked hard to make up matters in the closet, but to no purpose. People’s self-love is very apt to make them think themselves more necessary than they are: and I shrewdly suspect, that his Royal Highness has been the dupe of that sentiment, and was taken at his word when he least suspected it ”

“ But he was certainly treated at foreign courts as one of birth superior to that of a younger son of a Devonshire knight; and the tradition obtains some support from the familiar way in which he was received by both queens, Mary and Elizabeth, and the peculiar terms of intimacy which he assumed towards royal personages; moreover the Duke of Northumberland treated him with the same jealousy with which he might have treated Henry Fitzroy, Duke of Richmond, had he been still alive. In the play Vernon says:—
Doubtless, if ever man was misbegot,
It is this Stucley. ”

“ Lord Holderness went in first, and kissed his hand, but was not spoken to. Pitt followed; and of him his Royal Highness took most notice, speaking to him at different reprisals with kindness, to mark his satisfaction with Pitt’s behaviour. He said a little to the Duke of Newcastle, Lord Granville, and Lord Anson. Lord Hardwicke was out of town. The Duke of Devonshire was sent to the Duke in private, to persuade him not to resign. He was inflexible. Devonshire was sent again to ask from the King as a favour that he would at least retain his regiment; he need not do the duty ”

“ He died on 11 March 1793, and was buried on the 22nd of the same month in the family vault of the Dukes of Devonshire in All Saints' Church, Derby, where there are monumental busts of him and his wife by Nollekens and Kysbrach respectively.
He married, on 6 July 1739, Lady Caroline Cavendish, eldest daughter of William, third duke of Devonshire, by whom he had five sons—all of whom died young with the exception of Frederic, viscount Duncannon (born 24 Jan. 1768) , who succeeded as third Earl of Bessborough, and died on 3 Feb. ”

“ It was not until 1895, when the differences between Conservatives and Liberal Unionists had become almost obliterated by changed circumstances, and the habit of acting together, that the duke of Devonshire, as he had become by the death of his father in 1891, consented to enter Lord Salisbury's third ministry as president of the council. The duke thus was the nominal representative of education in the cabinet at a time when educational questions were rapidly becoming of great importance ”

“ IN treating of Devonshire Characters, I have had to put aside the chief Worthies and those Devonians famous in history, as George Duke of Albemarle, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Joshua Reynolds, the Coleridges, Sir Stafford Northcote, first Earl of Iddesleigh, and many another; and to content myself with those who lie on a lower plane. ”

“ But the most elaborate specimen of Anglo-Saxon illumination of the 10th century is one belonging to the duke of Devonshire: the Benedictional of the see of Winchester, executed under the direction of Æthelwold, bishop from 963 to 984, which contains a series of miniatures, in this instance in body colours, but drawn in the unmistakable style of the new school. In the scheme of decoration, however, another influence is at work. ”

“ Even peers, who are men of worth and public spirit, are over-taken and embarrassed by their vast expense. The respectable Duke of Devonshire, willing to be the Mecaenas and Lucullus of his island, is reported to have said, that he cannot live at Chatsworth but one month in the year. Their many houses eat them up. They cannot sell them, because they are entailed. ”

“ Specimens of his printing are rare and few in number. His name appears in about twenty-eight works. His productions are not remarkable for beauty, except perhaps a ‘Book of Hours’ (1503) , of which the only copy known to be extant belongs to the Duke of Devonshire. ”

“ Regarding herself as free, she had married the Duke of Kingston, who died and bequeathed his large fortune to her. At once those who had expected to obtain the inheritance began to stir, and had the unfortunate Duchess tried for bigamy. John Dunning was counsel against her. She belonged to an ancient Devonshire family, but that did not concern him; she was an unfortunate widow beset by foes—that mattered not to him, he attacked her in the grossest manner. ”

“ The christening was attended by members of the Royal Family, and a dinner was held to celebrate the happy event. The Duke and Duchess removed soon afterward to Devonshire, and they were both much pleased with the beautiful surroundings of their new home. The Duke wrote at this time of his daughter: "My little girl thrives under the influence of a Devonshire climate, and is, I am delighted to say, strong and healthy; too healthy, I fear, in the opinion of some members of my family, by whom she is regarded as an intruder. ”

“ During the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, in 1685, many new corps were raised, and among them a regiment of musketeers and pikemen by the Duke of Beaufort. It was composed of loyal men of Devon, Somerset, and Dorset, and was known as “The Duke of Beaufort’s Musketeers.” In the same year, after the rebellion had been crushed at Sedgemoor, the Duke resigned the colonelcy to his son, the Marquis of Worcester. ”

“ As Mr Chamberlain had retired from the cabinet, and the duke had not thought it necessary to join Lord George Hamilton and Mr Ritchie in resigning a fortnight earlier, the defection was unanticipated and was sharply criticized by Mr Balfour, who, in the rearrangement of his ministry, had only just appointed the duke’s nephew and heir, Mr Victor Cavendish, to be secretary to the treasury. ”

“ He himself had 8000 men in the centre of his position; while the Earl of Devonshire lay to the south with another detachment of 6000, and Lord Cobham by the river-side commanded an equal force. Seven ships lay on the water filled with the baggage of the troops. But the strength of the king’s army appears to have largely exceeded these numbers;99.2 and even if the duke had wished to provoke a conflict, it was evidently more prudent to remain simply on the defensive. ”