But that act of Parliament did not decree that folks should say Berrick and not Berwick; and even if it had, it would not be of force in this country; so the reader may pronounce it just as he pleases.
From that town was derived the ducal title of my subject.
In November, 1873, I sailed for England. Among my shipmates was Lord Alfred Churchill an uncle of the present duke of Marlborough, and a descendent of John Churchill duke of Marlborough the famous general of Queen Anne. Walking the deck one day with Lord Alfred, I asked him about his family—not about his wife and children—that would not have been good manners; but about the historic line from which he sprang. I asked how it was that he was a Churchill, when he was descended not from a son but from a daughter of the great duke. He explained that an act of parliament had authorised Charles Spencer, earl of Sunderland, son-in-law of the duke, not only to take the title of duke of Marlborough, but to change his name from Spencer to Churchill.
There can be no better evidence of the overshadowing glory of the great captain than that the house of Sunderland should so nearly suppress the old, aristocratic name of Spencer, in favor of the new, the parvenu Churchill. The Spencers came in with the Conqueror, and we meet them often in history. We well remember the two Spencers, father and son, who were executed in the reign of Edward II. on a charge of high-treason; and that bizarre historian A’Becket says that the sad tale of those Spencers led afterwards to the introduction of spencers without any tail at all.
I asked his lordship what had become of the Berwick branch of the Churchills. He answered drily that he did not know—so drily in fact that I inferred he had forgotten there had ever been such a branch.
In order to introduce that branch I must ask you to go back with me to the middle of the seventeenth century.
Charles Stuart, Charles II. sits on the throne of England, or rather perambulates about it, for he is a great walker: he and his dogs are always in motion; and his favorite breed of those animals is still known as the King Charles spaniel.
Charles was a witty and a disreputable monarch: one current view of him is that he never said a foolish thing and never did a wise one.
Charles had married Catharine of Braganza a daughter of that John of Braganza who had rescued Portugal from the yoke of the Spanish Hapsburgs, and founded the present dynasty. Catharine bore no children, and the next heir to the crown, was James duke of York brother of Charles. The two brothers were unlike in everything but general worthlessness: Charles was an idler and a scoffer; James a busybody and a devoted—not exactly devout—Roman Catholic. Both were fond of women; but mark the difference! Charles gathered to him handsome ones only; and they were truly handsome, as their portraits still testify. James fell in love so perseveringly with homely ones, that Charles said in his ribald way, that it was the priests who imposed those girls on James as a penance.
Among the damsels who won James’ heart, was Anne daughter of Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Earl of Clarendon. Now Miss Anne Hyde though respectable, was certainly no match for the blood-royal, for the heir apparent; and James after having gained her affections, sought to jilt her. What led him to think better of it is not clear: stories differ: it is even said that her father himself opposed the marriage out of prudence and politics, just as Cardinal Mazarin prevented Louis XIV. from marrying his niece Olympia with whom the young king was desperately in love. Another legend is that Sir Edward came and knelt before the king and pleaded the cause of his daughter; and Charles told James he must marry that girl. At all events, he did marry her.