Lady Grey mentioned in this letter married the second Lord Hardwicke, who had no son.
There is an interesting allusion to Wimpole and its associations in one of Lord Melbourne's published letters to Queen Victoria. After giving Her Majesty some particulars of the place, and mentioning incidentally that he was 'very partial to Lord Hardwicke,' Lord Melbourne says:
'The cultured but indolent Lord Harley, afterwards Earl of Oxford, had married Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles, who brought him £500,000, most of which he dissipated. Their only child Margaret, "the noble, lovely little Peggy" of Prior, married William Bentinck, second Duke of Portland. Lady Oxford sold to the nation the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts, now in the British Museum (to hold which the gallery at Wimpole was built). There is much history and more poetry connected with it. Prior mentions it repeatedly, and always calls the first Lady Harley, daughter of the Duke of Newcastle, "Belphebe." If Hardwicke should have a daughter he should christen her "Belphebe." The Lady Belphebe Yorke would not sound ill.'
Thus Lord Melbourne to Queen Victoria. I may perhaps add that my father had three daughters, but it did not occur to him to give either of them that name. Prior died at Wimpole in 1721, and his portrait was hung in the library, and on the table are framed the following lines by the poet:
'Fame counting thy books, my dear Harley,
shall tell
No man had so many who knew them so well.'
At Wimpole accordingly my father, after an active life at sea which had continued with scarce an interruption for sixteen years, settled to the quieter life of a country gentleman; he was a good agriculturist, identifying himself with all the interests of the land, and resolutely opposing any changes which he considered detrimental to the prosperity of the country. I should add that he became a successful breeder of shorthorns, and that he was President of the Royal Agricultural Society in 1845, when the show was held at Derby.
In 1834 he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire. Sir Robert Peel recommended his name to King William, as he explained in a letter to Lord Hardwicke, as an exception to the rule 'which disinclines the minister to continue a member of the same family in succession in the office of Lord-Lieutenant of a county … a rule by which in ordinary cases I should wish to abide, but not for the purpose of depriving me of the real satisfaction of making an exception in the case of the present vacancy in the county of Cambridgeshire, and naming you to His Majesty, which I have done this day for the appointment of Lord-Lieutenant.' Upon the return of Sir Robert Peel to power in 1841, Lord Hardwicke's great influence and loyal principles were recognised by his appointment as Lord-in-Waiting to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.
It was in that capacity that my father was appointed to attend King Frederick William IV of Prussia, the elder brother of the Emperor William I, upon his visit to England in the early months of 1842. An interesting letter from Mr. John Wilson Croker to my father shows that Lord Hardwicke took pains to inform himself as to the character and tastes of his Prussian Majesty before entering upon his period of waiting. Mr. Croker was staying with Sir Robert Peel, where the minister was entertaining the Duke of Cambridge:
'I have as I promised you' he writes, 'turned the conversation on the subject of the K. of Prussia, and as the Duke of Cambridge happens to be here, we have heard a good deal on the subject of H.M. The sum is that H.M. is a good and enlightened man, well read in books and well versed in current literature and affairs; a Christian in heart and rather fond of theology, so much so, that he has read twice over, they said, Gladstone's book on the Church.
'I am not surprised at the "twice over," if H.M. really wished to understand the author. I found that one reading left me as much in the dark as I was at the first, and I only doubt whether a second perusal would have made me any wiser.'