A ROMANCE OF THE PEERAGE

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 15 June 1917, Page 1

A ROMANCE OF THE PEERAGE

i SEPTUAGENARIAN" EARL MARRIED TO CHAMBERMAID. Young Lord Bolingbroke, sixth viscount of , his line, who is also "Viscount St. John, has / jusfc celebrated the attainment of /? ; s majority. But before be is permitted to tal;e ; his seat among the viscounts in the House of Lords lie will be obliged to establish to l the satisfaction of the Committee of Pnvi--3 leges of the House of Lords his claims to the . various peerages and to the baronetcy of bis j father. There should not be much diffij*' culty about this in view of the fact :hat no . opposition has been placed in the *>y of ' his possession of the family entailed estates, ' extending over some 10.000 acres, and comprising a beautiful country seat in Wiltt shire known as Lydiard Ptirk. ; > No question would be raised by the House r of Lords to his right to his father's peerages were it not for the mysterious cirfunis stances in connection with his birth. Wl-en his father, the late Lord Bolingbroke, died e at the age of 80 he was generally supposed i to have been a bachelor, eveu by. his relatives, for his union at Brussels to a Belgian woman of the name of Helene Medex, contracted some 40 years earlier, was proved to be null and void owing to the fact that she had been previously married and had a husband still living. Consequently the children that she bore him were in the eyes of the _ law illegitimate. N KINSMEN EXPECTED ESTATE. From henceforth it was believed that (he rh_ next heirs v to his honors and to his estates rs were his kinsmen, the late Rev. Dr Maurice le St. John, D.D., Canon of Gloucester Cf.the- . dral, and the latter's eldest son, Henry Percy > St. John, now a clerk in the House of Lords, in married to Maud Pascoe Glyn, y.-i-nd-r ' daughter of the first Lord Wolverton. In of fact, the name of the late canon was p "inled an as next heir in all the " peerages " and anant logous works of on the 'grouud of a( j his being a grandson of the third viscount: ' and when old Lord Bolingbroke died in 1899 the canon was immediately described in all the newspapers as the sixth Viscount -liolinsf 1 broke, ill Bub at the fqueraj the Uwyers of the dead

leer sprang a bombshell among the aiourn■rs by announcing that the old viscount had carried again, quite late in life, and that le had left a widow and a four-year-old son, /ernon Henry St. John, to succeed to liis lonors and estates. All doubts on the si bect were set at rest by the production of lie certificate of the old viscount's secret narriage on January 5, 1393, at the Bath legistry Office, and also the birth certificate )f his son, who was born'on March 15, 18S6. THE SEPTUAGENARIAN BRIDEGROOM. Lord Bolingbroke, who was at time of his second marriage 73 years old, signed his lame in the registry with an exceedingly ihaky and trembling hand. His bride had jeen a domestic servant at Lydiard Park, lis place in Wiltshire, and had borue the name, of Mary Howard. For a iime a/ter ;heir marriage the couple remained living at Bath under the name of St. John, but without making use of any title. None of their neighbors suspected their identity. At jthef places they passed under the name of Mr and Mrs Wilson, while when "hey Lad occasion' to visit Lydiard Park the o3d peer passed once more as a single man, v.-hile his wife resumed her name of-Mary Howard and her role of half-nurse.. half-housekeeper. Eighteen months after the marriage the wife gave birth to a girl, who died a few weeks afterward: and then, ui March, 1396, the boy was born at Bath. The old lord, who was 76 at the time, signed the register on this occasion with a still more shaky hand than on the occasion of his .uarriage, gave the name of Vernon Henry to the child, signed his own name as " Hurry Mildrnay St. John," and subscribed himself as " Viscount Bolingbroke and St. John of Lydiard Park," securing the avoidance of all publicity, as on previous occasions, by handsome presents to the registrar and his subordinates. THE FATHER'S DEMISE. Two months after tlie birth of the child it was put out to nurse at Bath, Lord Bc>]ing : broke going back to Lydiard ...Park, where he lived until his death, Hie viscountess continuing until the very last ruder the name of Miss Howard and in the role, of housekeeper. Nor was it until the sensational announcement by the lawyers of the old peer at his funeral that Lis relatives had the slightest idea that t.e lad died as a married man. The question arose, of course, as to what reason the old viscount could possibly have had for'keeping his marriage so secret. His lawyers explained this by the fact thai he was afraid of legal action on the part cf his relatives to secure his incarceration a- a lunatic and as not responsible for his actions. This they had already threatened to do on the occasion <of his first mesalliance at Brussels. During the suit that he had been obliged to institute to obtain the annulment of that union, on account of the voinan s bigamy, his kinsfolk had intimated that he ■was not altogether " right" in his head. He consequently apprehended that if, "after having married the Brussels woman of unsavory repute, who had already a husband l.vmg at the time, he thereupon, at the age of 7a, married one of his domestic servants, they would surely look upon him as a limabic, and endeavor to shut him up in an asylum f\mLLY CONSIDERED''TESTING WILL. \fter his deaths the family discussed the advisability of instituting legal proceedings with a view to resisting the claims ot voun" Vernon Henry St. John through his mother to the peerage and estates of the fifth viscount. . . . Thev were, however, reminded by tueir counsel that the late earl had accepted the paternity by registering its birth and that, moreover, it had been born in lawful wedlock Accordingly the widowed Lady Bolin"b'roke, the ex-chambermaid and mrse, was allowed to remain in pogsession o! Lydiard Park with her son.