The Smithsons are a family of respectable antiquity, and could probably trace back their descent to the sixteenth century. One of them was made a baronet at the time of the Restoration for services rendered to the royal cause.
The little borough of Wellington does not appear to have given a title to any body before Sir Arthur Wellesley's time. The title next it in the peerage is one of the most famous in history; it is said, too, to be one which has always brought misfortune to its possessors. Certain it is that no one line of Dukes of Buckingham has extended beyond three or four generations. Of the Staffords, two were executed as traitors; of the Villierses, the first was assassinated, the second—his son—died poor and little considered.
The Sheffields, Dukes of Normandy and Buckinghamshire, were also a short-lived race.
Of the Grenvilles, Dukes of Buckingham and Chandos, it is sufficient to say that, from whatever cause, the ascendancy of the family in English politics seems to have come to an end about the time that its head attained to the first rank in the peerage.
The premier marquisate of England was founded by that courtier who managed to please four successive sovereigns, all of different religions. "I'm of the willow, not the oak," was his explanation to a friend who scarcely understood how Lord Winchester had kept his head, to say nothing of his place, in these unsafe times. He is said to have been ninety-seven years old at the time of his death. Of the oak rather than the willow was made the gallant cavalier, his descendant, whose defence of Basing House is the most honorable fact in the family history.
Among other marquisates, that of Lansdowne is of considerable interest to the student of heraldic antiquities. Lord Shelburne, the prime minister, who was so strangely eclipsed by his young colleague Pitt, appears to have set a higher value upon titles than might have been expected of one of his robust understanding. He asked to be made a duke; George III. declined to comply with his request, alleging that he meant to reserve the title henceforth for members of his own family. Lord Shelburne was therefore fain to content himself with a marquisate (of Lansdowne). Lansdowne had already given a title to one of the mediocre poets, whose lives Johnson wasted some valuable time in writing.
The third Marquis of Lansdowne seems to have had the rare merit of exactly understanding his own abilities, and of knowing what he wanted. He saw that the premiership was be end his powers, and he steadily declined it. Yet no Whig cabinet was considered complete without Lord Lansdowne, so long as Lord Lansdowne chose to take office. He was indeed one of those men whose power is none the less a fact because their names do not appear in the newspapers so often as those of others. He managed, too, to play the difficult part of Mæcenas with eminent success, and amongst other good work brought Macaulay into Parliament.
Of a plainer sense than his father, Lord Lansdowne declined a dukedom.
For the name of Salisbury, Shakespeare's Henry V. predicts an immortality that shall make it as a household word. The name indeed recurs again and again in the historic plays. William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, appears in King John. Another earl (John de Montacute) appears in Richard II. He, by the way, was beheaded, without trial, at Oxford, shortly after the accession of Henry IV. Other Salisburys followed, most of them hard hitting warriors. But as famous a line as any was to be founded by a man of peace. One Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, by the way, wandered so far from the political and religious tenets of his famous ancestor, Elizabeth's and James's minister, as to turn Catholic; while the present marquis would scarcely have agreed on the most serious subject with the founder of his house's greatness. Robert Cecil, first earl, was chancellor of the University of Cambridge; Robert, third marquis, is chancellor of the University of Oxford.
The name of Lord Salisbury not unnaturally links itself at the present time with that of his relative, Lord Derby, whose motto is "Sans changer" — rather a curious one for a house which may almost be said to have been founded by an act of treachery, and the heads of which have professed a variety of political opinions. James, seventh earl, who was taken prisoner at Worcester and beheaded by the Cromwellians, would assuredly have marvelled much at the opinions professed by Edward Henry, fifteenth earl. For the rest, the most famous holder of the title of Earl of Derby was Henry Plantagenet (son of John, Duke of Lancaster), afterwards Henry IV. Henry was only created Duke of Hereford in 1397.
Huntingdon gives a title to the third English earl, whose title dates from 1529. But the greatest men of the house of
