BOY PEER'S ROMANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8130, 9 June 1906, Page 4

BOY PEER'S ROMANCE.

The sixth Viscount Bolingbroke anil St. John lias just celebrated his tenth birthday at his scat, Lydiard Park, near Swindon.

His little Lordship's romantic birth and " discovery" upon his father's death, at the age of eighty, seven or eight years ago, forms one of the most interesting stories connected with the peerage.

Everyone supposed that the fifth Viscount died a bachelor and childless and a grandson of the third Viscount was regarded as heir-at-law. Then came the announcement that at the age of seventy-two or seventy-three, on January 6th, 1893, the deceased nobleman had been married at the Bath registry offico to Mary Emily I'.li/.ibeth Howard, spinster, ascd iiuriy-tA'o, of Lydiard. The registrar who performed the ceremony in still living in retirement at Bath, and the three witnesses of the marriage, who scrupulously regarded His Lordship's uish for privacy, are all living. Lord and Lady Bolingbroke had lived in Bath under different noius-de. plume. After the birth of a child in 18'J5, which died soon after, they eventually resumed their respective stations at Lydiard Park, her ladyship p.issing as Miss Howard. Later she went to Gay street, Bath, and there little Lord Bolingbroke, all unknown, was born on March. 15, 1896. The medical gentleman who attended was m tne secret, but no one else. The nurse is dead. The late Bolingbroke registered the birth himself a s follows:

" Name, Vernou Henry; sex, boy. father's name, Henry Mildmay St. John; mother's name, Mary Emily Elizaeth St, John, formerly Howard j father's rank or profession, Viscount Bolingbroke, of Lydiard I'ark. Even after th s important event Lord and Lady Bclingbroke kept their relationship secret, and the boy passed his infancy in Bath. There he was at the age of three when he became sixth Viscount.—Daily Chronicle.