Lord Ticehurst

“ Lord Ticehurst's attachment to the turf was by no means of a lukewarm or of a perfunctory character. He was not one of the young men of the present day, who keep a racing-stud as they keep anything else, merely for their amusement; who exult indecently when they are successful, who are even more indecently depressed when they are unfortunate. ”

“ Meanwhile, Lord Ticehurst sat upright in his mail-phaeton, driving the pair of roans which were the cynosure of the Park during the season, and the envy of all horsey men always, through some of the loveliest scenery in Sussex. Not that scenery, except Grieve's or Beverley's, made much impression on his lordship. Constant variety of hill and dale merely brought out the special qualities and paces of the roans; wooded uplands suggested good cover-shooting; broad expanse of heath looked very like rabbits. ”

“ His lordship's digestion was impaired and consequently his temper suffered: both would improve simultaneously. But after his brandy and soda-water, Lord Ticehurst pulled his chair to the table, and commenced and proceeded with a very excellent breakfast, during the discussion of which he said never a word to his anxiously-expectant confederate, while, at its finish, he lit a big cigar, and, still mute, armed himself with a telescope, flung open the window, and stepped into the balcony to inspect the exhibition of the naiads bathing in the foreground. ”

“ You are not very wise, Lord Ticehurst, but you would not be such a fool as to quarrel with or part from the man who has made you what you are. Ah, you may stare and pretend to be astonished, but I repeat, who has made you what you are. ”

“ This man of whom we were just speaking,--this man whom you call Gilbert Lloyd,--is my younger brother, Geoffrey Challoner!"
CHAPTER VIII. L'Homme propose.
When a man of Lord Ticehurst's character and disposition makes up his mind to achieve a certain result--in the turf slang of the day, "goes in for a big thing"--he is not easily thwarted, or, at all events, he does not give up his idea without having tried to carry it through. ”

“ He took the road to Nismes; the huntsman had already slipped away.
"My Lord Counsellor of Parliament," cried the priest, "you have not seen us today in the most favourable light, now that all has passed off happily; I am a man again; courage revives once more within me, I could now show you that I am no coward, if a few of these villains would but return. Receive my thanks, honoured sir, and you too my young—but what do I see?" ”

“ I pitied him, and proposed that we drop the first proposition, which we were to debate two days, and take up the second proposition—“Will all mankind enjoy immortal blessedness?” He readily consented, and the discussion then went on. Mr. Tichner and his friends were much mortified at the result of the debate. He soon ceased preaching, went to California, and made shipwreck of his faith and character.
I lectured in Greenup; and while there, a preacher prayed the Lord, either to convert the Universalists, or send them to hell, and he did not seem to care which disposition was made of them. ”

“ You prevent him now again by your fatherly authority; now, certainly, these indications joined to your indifference would with myself weigh heavier in the scale. Your answer, my Lord Counsellor of Parliament!" "My son," said the father with constrained displeasure, "is free; he may serve the king according to his wish if he sets his happiness upon it."
The Intendant bowed in silence, refused all refreshment and the afflicted father followed the carriage with tearful eyes, as it rolled away.—"Is it then come to this?" exclaimed he, "your have now Edmond, what you wished, I could not say no. ”

“ Countess of Ticehurst, eh?--rank, wealth, station. For an instant a hard, cold, proud look, which had been a stranger to her face of late, flitted across her features, and then faded away. No! Those might have had their allurements when she first learned Gilbert Lloyd's worthlessness, and recommenced her life, scorning to yield, and merely looking on all human weaknesses as stepping-stones for her advancement. She had learned better things than that now. Miles! ”

“ Tichborne was the fifth of the conspirators to be hanged on 20 Sept. He was ‘a goodly young gentleman,’ and his speech as well as his demeanour moved many to compassion. He spoke feelingly of his good mother, his loving wife, his four brethren and six sisters, and of his house, ‘from two hundred years before the Conquest never stained till this my misfortune.’ He suffered the full penalty of the law, being disembowelled before life was extinct. ”

“ That question had yet to be tried, and to be tried in the person of the new lord of Tickhill. But it was not raised during the short remnant of the days of William the Red. The two powers of evil contrived to pull together in friendly guise as long as the days of unlaw and unright lasted. And the longer those days lasted, the blacker and the bitterer they grew. The greater the power and wealth which was gathered together in the hands of Robert of Bellême, the greater, we are told, was the pride and cruelty of that son of Belial. ”

“ The position of affairs at Tichborne was remarkable, for though there were hopes of an heir to Tichborne, Sir Alfred had left no child. Should the child—unborn, but already fatherless—prove to be a girl, or other mischance befall, there was an end of the old race of Tichborne. The property would then go to collaterals, and the baronetcy must become extinct. It was under the weight of these new sorrows that the Dowager Lady Tichborne wrote pitiable letters to Gibbes, promising money and asking for more particulars ”

“ The grave has wiped out even the disgrace of the penitentiary where he expiated his offense.... When I told Tiche who the woman was, she clasped her hands, saying, "The Lord is good! Years and years master suffered while she grew rich, and now her time comes! The Lord don't forget!" I can't feel that way. It is well for the narrow-minded to look for God's judgment on us for our sins ”

“ After the dissolution of monasteries, the rectorial tithes passed to Edward Abell, lord of manor of Tickenhall, who died in 1596. From his son, Ralph, Sir John Harpur purchased the manor and impropriate tithes in 1625, and they remain in the hands of his descendant, Sir Vauncey Harpur-Crewe, Bart., who is also the patron of the living, which has been converted into a vicarage in modern times. ”

“ Tecumseh, who found himself in a small minority on this occasion, replied thus:
"Elder brothers!—We have listened with attention to what you have said to us. We thank the Great Spirit for inclining your hearts to pity us; we now pity ourselves; our hearts are good; they never were bad. Governor Harrison made war on my people in my absence; it was the Great Spirit's will he should do so. We hope it will please Him that the white people may let us live in peace. We will not disturb them; neither have we done it, except when they come to our village with the intention of destroying us. ”

“ Believers in occultism might see in the trials and tribulations brought down upon the unfortunate heads of the Tichborne family by the machinations of the Claimant, the realisation of the doom pronounced by a certain Dame Ticheborne away back in the days of Henry II.
Sir Roger de Ticheborne of those days married Mabell, the daughter and heiress of Ralph de Lamerston, of Lamerston, in the Isle of Wight, by whom he acquired that estate. This good wife played the part of lady bountiful of the neighbourhood. ”

“ But Ticehurst sulked through the banquet, and the ladies agreed in voting him bête and mauvais ton. The fact was that the man was madly in love with Eugénie de Meronville, and cared for nothing but her society.
What one does and where one goes and with whom one passes one's time is, of course, very easily known in a small coterie such as that assembled in the autumn at Baden ”

“ After the return of the secluded members to the House, and the triumph of the city and the Presbyterian party, Ireton and Tichbourne were committed to the Tower, charged with aiming at the overthrow of the liberties of the city, and other grave misdemeanours. There are in the British Museum two satirical tracts relating to their imprisonment: 1. “The Apology of Robert Tichborn and John Ireton. Being a serious Vindication of themselves and the Good old Cause, from the imputations cast upon them and it by the triumphing city and nation in this their day of desertion. ”

“ In Lord Bagot's house, at Blithfield, about eight miles from Tixall, there is a portrait of the first Lord Aston painted on board. He has a firm, but pleasing countenance; short, light-coloured hair, and whiskers; his dress is black, laced with gold; and round his neck is a triple gold chain, which is said to have been a present from King Charles I.
P. 94. These lines were composed on the marriage of Walter, second Lord Aston, with the Lady Mary Weston, daughter of Richard Weston, Earl of Portland, which took place in the year 1629. ”

“ Hawkins was the prosecution of the impostor Arthur Orton for perjury, and yet the story of the Tichborne case is one of the simplest and most romantic. The heir to the Tichborne baronetcy and estates was shipwrecked while on board the Bella and drowned in 1854. In 1865 a butcher at Wagga Wagga in Australia assumed the title and claimed the estates. But the story is not related in these reminiscences on account of its romantic incidents, but as an incident in the life of Lord Brampton. ”

“ Tichborne was tried at the sessions house in the Old Bailey on 10 Oct. 1660, and pleaded not guilty, but admitted the fact for which he was indicted, only asserting his ignorance and repentance. 'It was my unhappiness to be called to so sad a work when I had so few years over my head; a person neither bred up in the laws, nor in parliaments where laws are made. ”

“ Nothing satisfactory, however, was accomplished in reference to the collection of tithes, in spite of the concession of the ministers. The old difficulty remained. Tithes could not be collected except at the point of the bayonet, which of course was followed by crimes and disturbances that government could not prevent. In 1833 the arrears of tithes amounted to over a million of pounds, and the Protestant clergy were seriously distressed. The cost of collecting tithes was enormous, from the large coercive force which the government was obliged to maintain. ”

“ Tichborne planned out for the future heir of Tichborne a life of perpetual absenteeism. He should [260] marry into some distinguished family in France or Italy, and little short of a Princess should share his fortunes. If he went into the army it should be in some foreign service. But in no case should he go to Tichborne, or set foot in England again, if she could help it.
James Tichborne was like many other weak men who have self-willed wives. ”

“ The Tichbornes date their possession of the present patrimony, the manor of Tichborne, so far back as two hundred years before the Conquest. When the Lady Mabella, [135] worn out with age and infirmity, was lying on her deathbed, she besought her loving husband, Sir Roger Tichborne, as her last request, that he would grant her the means of leaving behind her a charitable bequest, in a Dole of Bread to be distributed to all who should apply for it annually on the Feast of Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. ”

“ Had matters been conducted as one might have anticipated they would among people blessed with the means of gratifying every whim and caprice, Roger Tichborne would have lived and died like other men, and his name would never have been known except as a quiet country gentleman of English origin and French tastes, which led him into more or less eccentricities, and caused him to be more or less popular among his neighbours and dependants. But this was not to be. All great families have their secret unpleasantnesses, and in these the Tichbornes were by no means behindhand. ”

“ James Tichborne would in due course become Sir James, and he felt it his duty to secure to his son an English education. This the mother opposed most strenuously, and it was only by artifice that the boy was brought to England. Sir Henry Joseph Tichborne, who had succeeded to the baronetcy in 1821, had no son, and though time after time a child was born to him, Providence blessed him with no male heir. ”

“ His great delight was to stay at Tichborne, then in possession of his father’s brother, Sir Edward Doughty. Withal, the shy, pale-faced boy steadily gained in favour, for he had a nature which disarmed ill-feeling. As time wore on it became necessary to determine on some profession for the lad; and needless to say his father’s choice of the army added fuel to the fire of his wife’s anger. After some delay a commission was obtained and Mr. Roger Charles Tichborne was gazetted a coronet in the Sixth Dragoons, better known as the Carbineers. ”

“ The Priory of St Thomas, is three miles from Tixall, which is five from Bellamore; and from that to Canwell is fifteen, which places are all in Staffordshire. From Canwell to Irnham, in Lincolnshire, is about five and thirty miles. They were all Roman catholics; and, what is remarkable, they are all, in the male line at least, become extinct. ”

“ The Presiding Elders, whose work all this was, stared with gloomy and impersonal abstraction down upon the rows of blackcoated humanity spread before them. The ministers returned this fixed and perfunctory gaze with pale, set faces, only feebly masking the emotions which each new name stirred somewhere among them. The Bishop droned on laboriously, mispronouncing words and repeating himself as if he were reading a catalogue of unfamiliar seeds.
“First church of Tecumseh—Brother Abram G. Tisdale!” ”