Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 3.djvu/600

This page needs to be proofread.

58o CURSON (with 5 others, all severely punished) in Nov. 1 501, as a Yorkist con- spirator, but immediately pardoned, being probably a spy employed by the King, from whom he afterwards received a pension and many other favours. In a commission of the peace for Norfolk and Suffolk, i Mar. 1 515, he is styled [only] " Sir Robert Curson," though it may be signi- ficant that he is there entered immediately after the Peers and at the head of the Knights.(*) He was similarly entered on a Royal Commission relating to Ipswich in I52i.() He entertained the Queen Consort Katherine in 151 7, and Henry VIII in 1532, at his house in Ipswich. He was apparently in the employ, on the Continent, of the English Court, and there is frequent reference to him either as "Baron Curson" or "Lord Curson.'X-^) He m. Margaret ( — ). He d. s.p. Will dat. 3 1 Oct. 1 534, pr. Mar. 1 534/5, at Hoxne, by his widow. CURZON OF KEDLESTON BARONY [I.] I. George Nathaniel CuRzoN, 1st s. and h. ap. of Alfred Nathaniel Holden (Curzon), 4th Baron i<>9<'- ScARSDALE, by Blanche, 2nd da. of Joseph Pock- PARTnnM lington Senhouse, of Netherhall, Cumberland. VTSrOTTNTrY AND ^^ ^^' ^- " J^"" '^^9; ed. at Eton, and at ^ATrAxiv rrVk- 1 Balliol Coll. Oxford; Pres. of Oxford Union Soc. JiAKUNY [U.R.J i88o;(d) Lothian Essay Prize and Fellow of I. 1911. All Souls' 1883; Arnold Essay Prize 1884; con- tested S. Derbyshire 1885; Assist. Private Sec. to Corson called Lord Curson, Master of the rearward," but three Privy Seals of 19 Mar., 3 and ii July 15 14, are headed "For Robert, Lord Corson, Master of the Ordnance in the rearward." He is mentioned as " Lord Curzon," serving on the Continent, by Sir William Sandys, 22 Sep. 1522, and under the same designation by Lord Berners 29 Jan. 1522/3. It will be noticed that he is never called the Lord Curzon, as is usual at that date in describing English peers. It is suggested by J. H. Round (who has collected most of this evidence) that this points to some action having been taken by the Crown in 1512-13 (when Sir Robert held command in the French war, undertaken in conjunction with the Emperor) for the recognition of Curson's foreign title, which recognition may have been mistaken for an English creation. Round considers this to have been also the case as to the Dukedom of Dudley in the 17th century, which he holds to have been similarly accepted as an English creation on the strength of a recognition of Lady Dudley as a Duchess of the Empire. The title of Count of the Holy Roman Empire, conferred in 1595 on Thomas Arundell, afterwards (1605) Baron Arundell of Wardour, was never acknowledged by Queen Elizabeth. (*) ex inform. J. H. Round. (*>) Article "Sir Robert Curson, otherwise Lord Curson," by John Clyde, in Suffolk Inst, of Archaeol.., &c., vol. xi. ("=) In Letters and Papers, Henry Fill. {^) For a list of Peers who have been Presidents of the Union Soc. at Oxford or at Cambridge, see vol. iv. Appendix F.