Though the author of the Shelley Memorials is curiously deficient in the communicativeness and accuracy to be looked for in a biographer professing to gather her materials ‘from Authentic Sources,’ it may be assumed that Lady Shelley is right on a matter from which the schoolboy’s preserved letters and his father’s domestic memoranda of the year 1806 would save her from going wrong. It favours this view of Lady Shelley’s statement, that old Mr. Bysshe Shelley was created a baronet by the Duke of Norfolk’s influence on the 3rd of March, 1806, when he was in his seventy-fifth year. At length the Castle-Goring Shelleys had risen from the status of prosperous middle-class folk to the honour of the baronetage. Having become a dignified commoner, with a dignity transmissible to his descendants, the Horsham miser (who had sent his son to Oxford) naturally felt that, instead of associating any longer with tradesmen’s sons at Sion House, his grandson (the heir of the heir to the Castle-Goring baronetcy) should make the acquaintance of the sons of the nobility and other territorial gentry. Much though he grudged the fees for his baronetcy, and dreaded the school-bills, Sir Bysshe determined that his grandson should be educated up to his rank, and sent forthwith to Eton.
The future poet was still under Dr. Greenlaw’s government, and his grandsire was counting the days still to elapse before he should clutch the long-coveted honour of the bloody hand, when the veteran took an important step (on 28th November, 1805) for the achievement of the grand ambition of his riper age and failing years. This ambition was to make the Shelleys of his loins into the House of the Castle-Goring Shelleys, and to endow the new house with a large and strictly entailed estate in land, that should place it securely amongst the great territorial families of Sussex; a common-place ambition, that was the natural and matter-of-course ambition for a man of old Bysshe Shelley’s character, career, and age. As he was his father’s eldest son, Mr. Timothy Shelley (the poet’s father) naturally approved this design for making a big entailed estate, to which he would succeed on his sire’s death. Though they squabbled and wrangled with one another on minor pecuniary questions, the veteran and his son were of one mind on this point. Whilst the old man was set on making a big entailed estate, his son was of opinion that the estate ought to be made.
The materials of which it was proposed to construct this big estate were,—
(A) Certain real estate, settled by deed of appointment (dated 20th August, 1791) on Mr. Bysshe Shelley for life, and then on his son Timothy for life, with, &c.
(B) Certain other real estate, settled, by certain indentures of Lease and Release (dated respectively 29th and 30th April, 1782) on the same Bysshe Shelley for life, and then on his same son Timothy for life, with, &c., and
(C) Certain unsettled lands, the property and disposal of which were wholly in the same Bysshe Shelley: and one half of the same Bysshe Shelley’s personal estate.
After what has been said of old Bysshe Shelley’s success in making money, it is needless to inform readers that C was by far the most important of these three several lots of estate:—that, though of considerable value, A and B were insignificant in comparison with C.
What was the precise yearly revenue of A and B does not appear. At a time when he had no clear knowledge of the matter, the poet used to speak of the revenue as 6000l. per annum. But whilst he certainly did not understate the income, there is reason for thinking he greatly exaggerated it. The rental may (for all I know positively to the contrary) have been 6000l. a-year; but in estimating the poet’s financial position, readers had better assume that the yearly income from A and B did not exceed, and may have been considerably less than, 4000l. a-year. If the two lots of estate yielded a clear income of 4000l. they were worth about 80,000l. If they yielded as much as 6000l., they were worth about 120,000l.
Under the settlements, to which reference has been made, Percy Bysshe Shelley (the poet) was, in the language of lawyers, tenant in tail male of A and B in remainder expectant on the deaths of his father and grandfather. That is to say, the fee simple of A and B would devolve on him absolutely after the deaths of his sire and grandsire. For the more clear information of non-legal readers, let it also be observed that, having this estate in A and B under existing settlements, Percy had in A and B an interest that would vest in him at the attainment of his majority,—an estate which, on his coming of age, he would be able to charge, aliene, or will away from his kindred; an estate on which he would be able to borrow money, and could sell, or dispose of by testament, during the lives of his father and grandfather, or the life of either of them, no less than when on the deaths of both of them he should come in actual possession of the land.
This being so, old Bysshe Shelley (son of the Yankee apothecary) made a will on 28th November, 1805, whereby he devised his unsettled lands (of C) to trustees, In Trust to settle the same, in what lawyers designate ‘strict settlement,’ on his son Timothy Shelley for life, Percy Bysshe Shelley for life, and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s sons successively, according to their seniorities in tail male, and then in default, &c., on other sons of Timothy Shelley aforesaid born in the testator’s lifetime and their sons successively in tail male, and then in default, &c., on other sons of the same Timothy, born after the testator’s death, successively according to their seniorities in tail male; with similar limitations in default, &c., in favour of John Shelley Sidney, and Robert Shelley (Timothy’s younger brothers by half-blood), and their respective issue male. By his will the testator further bequeathed his personal estate to trustees, and directed half of it to be invested in land, to be settled in the same way as the already-mentioned lands. It is further directed by the will that all persons entitled to A shall concur in settling A as C, or forfeit for themselves and issue all the interest pertaining to them under the will in C. By the will, therefore, Percy Bysshe Shelley stood to succeed on his father’s death as tenant for life to the whole entailed estate, provided he concurred in arrangements whereby the real estate A (of which he was tenant in tail male in remainder expectant on the deaths, &c., &c.) would become part of the entailed estate. To take his place in succession to the very large estate, to be created by his grandsire’s will, he was only required, on coming of age, to surrender his eventual absolute interest in a comparatively small estate, and take in lieu thereof a life-interest. Nothing was required of him that is not often required of heirs under similar circumstances. Nothing was required of him that (in case of his death in his nonage) would not have been required of his younger brother, or any other person similarly interested in A. Such was the will of old Bysshe Shelley made in 1805 in abundant grand-paternal affection for the poet, long before any differences touching religion and politics had risen between the youngster and his father. This same will was in due course proved as the last testament of Sir Bysshe Shelley, Bart., in Doctors’ Commons, in 1815.