[167] He and Mr. Benjamin Keene had the reversion of a place in the Revenue between them, after the death of the then Earl of Scarborough.
[168] Surveyor of the King’s Woods and Forests.
[169] They are contained in two letters still preserved by the Duke of Bedford.
[170] October 11, 1764.—Tuesday noon, an express arrived from the Duke of Devonshire (Lord Hartington in the text), at the Spa in Germany, which brought advice that his Grace was much better, and that there were great hopes of his recovery; but these agreeable hopes were soon damped by the arrival of Lord John Cavendish, the Duke’s youngest brother, at seven o’clock the same night, at Devonshire House, who brought the melancholy news, that his Grace had relapsed, and departed this life the 3rd instant, at half an hour past nine o’clock at night, at the above place.
His Grace was eldest son of William, late Duke of Devonshire, by his Duchess Catherine, daughter and sole heir of John Hoskins, Esq. In March, 1748, he married the Lady Charlotte Boyle, youngest daughter and heiress of Richard, late Earl of Burlington, which lady died in December, 1754, by whom he had issue,—1, William, Marquis of Hartington, born in December, 1748, who is now the fifth Duke of Devonshire, a minor, at Harrow school; 2, Lord Richard, born June 19, 1752; 3, Lord George Henry, born in March, 1754; and 4, Lady Dorothy, born August 27, 1750.
His Grace, at the time of his decease, was Lord High Treasurer, and a Privy Counsellor of Ireland, Governor of the county of Cork in that kingdom; a Governor of the Charter-house, Fellow of the Royal Society, and Knight of the Garter; but some time since had resigned all his places on the British establishment. The many amiable and truly excellent public and private virtues, and the very shining accomplishments which his Grace possessed, added a lustre to his high rank, and render his death a public loss.—(Public Journals.)
[171] Lord Duncannon, eldest son of the Earl of Besborough, who was created an English Baron, was one of the Lords of the Admiralty.
[172] So Sir Robert Walpole called him.
[173] The above sarcastic remarks may be ascribed to a recent family quarrel, in which the Duke of Devonshire and Lord Hartington had sided with Horace Walpole, the uncle, against the nephew, the author of these Memoirs. The injustice of them is sufficiently proved by the estimation in which both these noblemen (especially Lord Hartington) appear to have been held by their contemporaries, and by the conduct of the latter even in delicate and difficult times, as related by the author himself.—E.
[174] Robert Darcy, Earl of Holderness, Lord of the Bedchamber, had been Embassador at Venice and the Hague, where he married the Greffier Fagel’s niece. His mother was a daughter of Duke Schomberg, and married a second time to the Earl of Fitzwalter.