Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 1 Vol 1.djvu/231

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AVONMO RE — AYLESFOKD. 209 V. 1883. o. Barry Nugent (Yelverton), Viscount Avonmore, ka. [I.], s. and h. b. 11 Feb. 1859. Ed. at the Royal Military Coll. Sandhurst : 2nd Lieut. 37th Foot, Jan. 1878 ; Lieut., Feb. 1879 ; Instructor of Musketry, Jan. 1882 J Capt., Nov. 1881. He d. unm. of enteric fever (when on service) at Kerbekan, in the Soudan war, 13 Feb. 18S5. VI. Mil. Algernon William (Yelvekton), Viscount Avonmore (1800), and Lord Yelverton, Baron Avonmore (1795), all in the Peerage of Ireland, yst. but only MOT, br. and h. 6. 19 Nov. 1S66. Principal Residences— BeMe Isle, near Roserea, co. Tipperary, and Hazle Rock, co. Mayo. AXILHOLM. i.e. " MOWBRAY DE AXILHOLM." Sec " Mowbray," Baron, m 1295, under the 4th Lord, 1362-66. AYLESBURY, see Ailesbury. AYLESFORD. Earls. t. TnE Hon. Heneage Finch, 2nd s. of Heneage, 1st t 1711 Karl OP Notttng-ham, by Elizabeth, da. of William HaRver, matric. at Oxford (Ch. Ch.) 18 Nov. 1664, being then aged 15 ; became a Barrister of the Inner Temple (being popularly kuowu as "the silvertongued Finch "), and was made Solicitor Gen. on 13 Jan. 167S,( a ) from which office he was removed by James II on 21 April 1686, and in Trinity term 1688 was one of the counsel for the seven Bishops ayaimt the Crown. II. P. for the Uuiv. of Oxford, 1678-9, and in several other parliaments. Was chosen by the Univ. to receive Queen Anne, in Aug. 1702, on her coming to Oxford, On 15 March 1702-3, "in consideration of his great merits and abilities," he was cr. BARON OF GEltN- SEY (sic)/ 1 ') and on the 28th was sworn P.O. By George I, on 19 Oct. 1714, he was Roman Catholic. Having joined the French Sisters of Charity to attend the siek at the Hospital of Galata, during the Russian war, she there received an ofier of marriage from Major Yelvertou (early in 1857), and shortly afterwards he "performed the ceremony " by reading the marriage service of the Church of England at Edinburgh. On 15 Aug. 1857 the marriage was celebrated by a Roman Catholic Priest at Rostrevor in the north of Ireland, after which they travelled on the Continent together as husband and wife. Though by act of Pari. (19 Geo. II, cap 13) it is enacted " that a marriage between a Roman Catholic and a Protestant, if celebrated by a Roman Catholic priest, shall be deemed null and void," the jury found not only that the Scotch marriage was valid, but that the one in Ireland was good also, finding that Major Yelverton wat a Roman Catholic. This decision was received by the populace with the greatest applause. — See an interesting account of this celebrated trial in the "Annual Register" for 1861. On appeal, however, this decision was not sustained and, finally in 1864, the illegality of these marriages was decided by the House of Lords, whereby his Lordship's marriage in 1858 (as in the text), became good. (") In the trial, for high treason, of Lord Russell in 1683 he (according to Bishop Burnet) " summed up the evidence against him, but shewed more of a vicious eloquence, in turning matters against the prisoner, than law." On which Dean Swift remarks " Finch was afterwards Earl of Aylesford— an arrant r — 1." It is certainly remarkable that during the reign of William III (to whose cause he was favourable) he obtained neither promotion, nor office of any kind. ( ) In " Courthope " the title of creation is erroneously given as " Lord Guernsey, «ft Southampton," so also, similarly, the title of Earl of Jersey, a: 1697, is there said (erroneously) to have been " co. Southampton," the mistake, possibly arising from these islands forming (ecclesiastically) part of the diocese of Winchester.