How the Peers got their Land.

Thames Star, Volume XVI, Issue 5039, 7 March 1885, Page 1

How the Peers got their Land.

At the time when some 50 or 60 peers are bearding the House of Commons and the country, and are striving to bar the doors of the Constitution against two, millions of new -voters, it may be not amiss.to ask in what way these men came to obtain possession of the power which, they have so grossly abused. Waiving for .the present the consideration of the manner in which they obtained their titles and privileges, on account of the -■ source from which the leading Tory Peers acquired their estates, and the reasons why, may not be without instruction and interest at this political crisis. The Salisbury estates (as we showed quite recently), which extend over six counties comprise 120,122 acres, and yield a rental of £33.294, \exclusive of very valuable London property, have come down to the Marquis from If oyal grants of Church and Crown land,which rightfully belonged the State. The Duke of Eichmond, as every* - body knows, is descended from an illegiti* , mate son of Charles 11., one of a round dozen of children of the same class whom that licentious monarch quartered on the country. It is a curious fact that the English estates of the Eichmond family . were mainly derived not from Boyal gifts of land, but from a grant of King Charles made by letters patent,. of one. shil- . ling per.. chaldron upon all coals shipped in the river rJyne to be consumed in England. The proceeds of this iniquitous tax upon one of the, prime necessaries of life - must have been enormous, and in this way the Dnke of Richmond was enabled to purchase the Sussex estates, containing 17,117 acres now in the possession ot his descendant. This discreditable grant continued in force till a comparatively recent period, and when it- was given up the Duke' received an annuity of £18,000 for life, by way of compensation. The present Duke is in possession of the extensive Gordon estates, which descended to him from his mother, sister of the last Dake of Gordon. Alto* gether be holds about 287,467 acres in England and Scotland. His grace in-»a amiable man, who would, hot if let to himself, follow any rash or perilous policy; hut he is usually the dupe or tool of men of more resolute character, or of cunning and selfish intriguers. Another high Tory peer of enormous wealth and slender ability, who has been pressed. into the front ranks, of the. opponents .of the . franchise is the young Duke of Portland. The founder of the Bentinck family was ■ the younger son of a Dutch nobleman who accompanied William of Orange to Eng- ■. land and was his most confidential friend and adviser. He no doubt rendered important services to the Monarch, but the rewards heaped upon him were so enormous as to excite the indignation of all parties. Bentinck was inordinately greedy, and his rapacity was insatiable. Large' slices from the Royal domain in , many countries of England, gifts of money, . perquisites, offices, and titles, all failed to satisfy the avarice of the favorite ; and at length he begged of His Majesty three lordships in Wales—about tour-, fifths of a whole country— md carrying with them extensive and lucrative royalties at an annual quit rent to the Crown of 6s &&. The Commons voted unanimonsly an address to the King begging him to stop the grant, and William was obliged to give way, which he did with a very bad. grace. He would " find some other way," be said, "of showing his favor" to the EarKof Portland, and a few months after he gavo the Earl no fewer than 10 manors, besides certain fee-farm rents worth at that time £24,000. The second Duke by & fortunate marriage, obtained an enormous accession to his estates, including Walbeck Abbey, the chief seat of the family, which, as its name indicates, was formerly monastic property. The third Duke married the echefcress of General Scott,, who brought with her a' large prooerty, including a barren Island at the mouth of the Firth of Forth. A lighthouse had existed there for 163, years. It-was a very unsteady light, especially in bad weather, and of little use. The Commissioners of Northern Lights had legal powers to compel the owner to make the light more, effective, but they did not choose to exercise them.' Instead, an Act of Parliament was passed giving the Duke (then Marquis of Tichficld) the sum of £tO,OOO for. his interests in the, light; ami then another light was coustrueted in"its .stead, i at the public expense, at a cost of ,

£30,000 mere. This same Duke, who was at one time Prime Minister, was lay rector of Marylebone. Owing to the great increase,ef the population, it was considered necessary to erect and endow four new churches by Act of Parliament, between 1804 and 1817, at a cost to the ratepayers of £170,000; but the Duke obtained tho right of presentation to the benefices. In 1817 an act was passed authorising ihe. expenditure of £40,000, raised by the sale of Crown lands in order to purchase from the Duko his rights as rector and tho patronage of the four churches. Another of these ducal Tory houses is that of Rutland, which possesses . 69,021 acres, with an annual rental of . £49,948, mainly tho spoils of the old church'and the common lands, which they bare enclosed. .'The family of Manners, was of some note. in. ancient times but the real founder of the Rutland line was Thomas Manners, created Earl of Rutland by Henry VIII. To no man even of that age could the words of his descend* ant, Lord John Manners—ono of the councellors of the Tory chiefs—be more appropriately applied as he was certainly one of " the courtiers' greedy herd," who devoured the ecclesiastical property which ought to have been devoted to national purposes. Take as a single specimen one of the appropriations which have stamped his shame upon the great house which he 7 established. He obtained a grant of the estates of Croiton Abbey, consisting of lands in nearly fifty parishes, for an annual fixed rent of £297 9s 4s-., which there is reason to think has long since ceased ,to be paid. If our space had permitted, we should have liked to say something, of the Norths, a particularly flagrant case of plunder ;of the Hamiltons, whose 157,384 acres, with the exception of 4939 in Suffolk, were derived directly front the grants of Crown Lands; of the Dundases ; the Stuarts of Blantyro; and the Herberts, including the Earl of Carnarvon and the Earl of Pembroke, whose ancestor was a noted church spoiler. But! 1 enough bas been said to show the truth of _,the statement made by Lord Beaconsfield in one of his navels, that "we owe the English peerage to" three sources—the spoliation of the church, the open and cflagrant sale f of its honors by the elder ..'"Stuarts, and.the ' borough-mongerihg of our own times.; These are the three main sourceß of the existing peerage cf England, and,' in myj>piriion disgraceful ones." And yet the men thus characterised by the late Tory leader are the fierce opponents of all political progress, and are now resisting to the utmost en act of bare justice to the agricultural classes in the community.—Glasgow Weekly Mail.