The Stately Homes of England

by Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt; S. C. Hall

The Principal Front.

The family of Grosvenor, of which the present owner of Cliefden is the illustrious head, is one of high antiquity, tracing, as it does, in England, from the Norman conquest, when his grace’s ancestor came over with William the Conqueror. The principal line of the Grosvenors was seated at Hulme, in the hundred of Northwich, in Cheshire, and was descended in direct line from Gilbert le Grosvenour, nephew of Hugh Lupus, the Norman Earl Palatine of Chester, whom he accompanied to this country. The name, it is said, was derived from le Gros Venour, from the family having held the hereditary post of chief huntsman to the Dukes of Normandy. This main line was extinct in the twenty-second year of the reign of Henry VI., the line being continued by Ralph Grosvenor, second son of Sir Thomas Grosvenor, of Hulme. He married Joan Eaton, daughter and sole heiress of John Eaton, of Eaton, or Eton, in Cheshire, Esq., early in the fifteenth century. In 1621-2 a baronetcy was conferred on the representative of the family; and in 1676, Sir Thomas Grosvenor having married Mary, sole daughter and heiress of Alexander Davies, of Ebury, in the county of Middlesex, Esq., laid the foundation of the immense wealth and rapidly increasing honours of the Grosvenors.

In 1761 the then baronet, Sir Richard Grosvenor, was elevated to the peerage by the title of Baron Grosvenor of Eaton, in Cheshire, and in 1781 was advanced to the titles of Viscount Belgrave and Earl Grosvenor. He married Henrietta, daughter of Henry Vernon, Esq., by whom he had issue an only son, Robert Grosvenor. The Earl died in 1802, and was succeeded by his son, Robert Grosvenor, as second earl.

This nobleman was born in 1767, and married, in 1794, the Lady Eleanor Egerton, daughter of the first Earl of Wilton, by whom he had issue his successor, Lord Richard, who became third earl and second marquis; Lord Thomas, who became Earl of Wilton; and Lord Robert, M.P. In 1831 Earl Grosvenor was advanced to the dignity of a marquis, by the title of Marquis of Westminster being conferred upon him. He died in 1845, and was succeeded by his eldest son—

Richard, second Marquis of Westminster and third Earl Grosvenor. He was born in 1795, and in 1819 married the Lady Elizabeth Mary Leveson-Gower, second daughter of the first Duke of Sutherland, and by her had issue a family of four sons and nine daughters. His lordship, dying in 1869, was succeeded by his eldest son, the present peer, Hugh Lupus Grosvenor, in all his titles and estates, who, in 1874, was created Duke of Westminster.

The present noble head of this illustrious family, his Grace, Hugh Lupus, first Duke and third Marquis of Westminster, Earl Grosvenor, Viscount Belgrave, Baron Grosvenor of Eaton, a Baronet, and a Knight of the Garter, was born on the 13th of October, 1825, and succeeded his father in 1869. His grace was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford, and represented Chester in Parliament from 1847 to 1869, when he entered the Upper House. In 1852 his grace, then Marquis of Westminster, married his cousin, the Lady Constance Leveson-Gower, daughter of the second Duke of Sutherland, and sister of the present noble owner of Trentham. By this union his grace has issue, living, five sons and three daughters. These are—Victor Alexander, by courtesy Marquis of Westminster, to whom (born in 1853) her Majesty the Queen stood sponsor in person, who married, in 1874, the Lady Sibell Mary Lumley, daughter of the Earl of Scarborough, by whom he has issue, and is heir to the titles and estates; Lord Arthur Hugh Grosvenor, born in 1863; Lord Henry George Grosvenor, born in 1864; Lord Robert Edward Grosvenor, born in 1869; Lord Gerald Richard Grosvenor, born in 1874; the Lady Elizabeth Harriet, born in 1856; the Lady Beatrice Constance, born in 1858; and the Lady Margaret Evelyn, born in 1873.

The Duke of Westminster is patron of eleven livings, four of which are London churches; and his seats are Eaton Hall, Cheshire; Cliefden, Buckinghamshire; Halkin, Flintshire; and the mansion in Upper Grosvenor Street.

The ancient arms of the Grosvenors, settled in the famous Scrope and Grosvenor trial in the fourteenth century, were claimed to be azure, a bend, or; but these were declared to belong to Scrope. Sir Richard Grosvenor then, after the trial, assumed the arms azure, a garb, or, as showing his descent from the ancient Earls of Chester. On or after the creation of the marquisate of Westminster the arms of that city were granted as an augmentation, and ordered to be borne quarterly with those of Grosvenor. The arms now are—quarterly, first and fourth, azure, a portcullis with chains pendent, or; on a chief of the last, in pale, the arms of King Edward the Confessor, between two united roses of York and Lancaster (being the arms of the city of Westminster); second and third, azure, a garb, or, for Grosvenor. Crest—a talbot statant, or. Supporters—two talbots reguardant, or, collared, azure. Motto—“Virtus non stemma.”

The glorious grounds of Cliefden have been pleasantly discoursed upon by many writers, but by none more graphically or technically than in a brief notice in the Garden, which to some extent we cannot do better than quote. Cliefden, “the birthplace of spring gardening,” he says, “well maintains the high character it has so long and deservedly received for the beauty of its early flowers, its banks full of wild hyacinths, primroses, and forget-me-nots; its closely shaven lawns so overspread with wild thyme that every footstep brushes up its fragrance; and, above all, its flower-beds brimful of spring beauty, which in turn give place to summer bedding plants. Looking from the terrace on the lawn, a huge sunken panel with flower-beds proportionate in size on either side of it, the floral display when we saw it was magnificent.