PEERAGE AND PEDIGREE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10076, 23 June 1910, Page 4

PEERAGE AND PEDIGREE.

In a recently published volume o studies in peerage law and family history, by one ot the highest authorities on the subject, there is some amusing lopping off of claims to ancient lineage. It seems that popular genealogy, in its desire to gratify vanity by arriving at imposing conclusions, regardless of difficulties, is often wrong. The house of Marlborough does not descend from the 13th century Despencers, but from a mediaeval grazier; the Russells go back, not to a companion of the Conqueror, but to the owner of a j barge. Most of the claims of Saxon ' origin—that is, the possession of a

genuine pedigree going back to preNorman days—are declared to be without foundation. The Stanleys, Kingscote of Kingscote, Tichborne of Tichborne, and Ashburnham, are said to be credited with more romantic pedigrees than they are really entitled to. The moat diverting story is that connected with the Carrington peerage. The first Lord Carringi ton was one Smith of Lombard Street, whom Pitt ennobled. A plausable genealogist persuaded the ' good banker that the Smith line could be traced to the Smiths of Ashby Polville, who, neatly two centuries before, had been made to believe that they were descendeants of "Sir Michael Carrington, standard bearer tu Richard Coeur-de-Lion in the Holy Lind." The banker revived Sir Michael's surname, and became Lord Carrington. His son shed the Smith and t.»ok Carrington for a

surname, and in time Wynr. was pre fixed—with a hyphen. .But an unkind cuusin showed by accurate genealogy that the Smiths of Lombard street could be followed no further than to a humble Nottinghamshire yeoman, who died in 1(541. The title of Carrington, however, was in the peerage book, and there i: must remain.