MARQUESS OF CLEVELAND.
In the Gazette of September 17, 1827, is registered the grant of the title of Marquess of Cleveland to the Earl of Darlington.
The noble Earl probably selected the title of "Cleveland" in consequence of his representing the extinct Dukes of Cleveland. King Charles the Second, on the 3rd of August, 1670, created his mistress, Barbara Villiers, the daughter and heiress of William, second Viscount Grandison in Ireland, and wife of Roger Palmer, Earl of Castlemaine, Baroness Nonsuch, in the county of Surrey, Countess of Southampton, and Duchess of Cleveland, with remainder to two of her natural sons by the King, Charles Fitz Roy, and George Fitz Roy, who was created Duke of Northumberland in 1674, but died S.P., and to the heirs male of their bodies lawfully begotten respectively. The Duchess died in 1709, and was succeeded by her eldest son, Charles, who had been before created Duke of Southampton. He had issue, three sons: William, his successor in his honours; Charles, and Henry, who both died S.P.; and three daughters, Barbara, who died unmarried; Grace; and Ann; who was the wife of Francis Paddy, Esquire, and had issue.
Grace, the Duke's second daughter, married Henry, first Earl of Darlington; and on the death of her brother William, second and last Duke of Cleveland, S.P., in 1774, her son, Henry, second Earl of Darlington, the father of the present Marquess of Cleveland, became one of the representatives of that family. It is an extraordinary fact, that the attainder of the celebrated Sir Henry Vane should never have been reversed, though his son was created a Baron, his great-grandson a Viscount and Earl, and his great-great-great-grandson a Marquess. The only individual on whom the title of Cleveland has been conferred, besides Barbara Villiers and her descendants, was Thomas, fourth Lord Wentworth, who was created Earl of Cleveland in February, 1626; but it became extinct on his death, S.P.M., in 1667.
Retrospective Review.