daughter of the first Lord Berners,* and was slain, in 1469, shortly previous to the death of his father, as he was leading an insurrection against Edward IV.

His grandson Richard Nevill, who was at the time an infant of a year old, succeeded his grandfather as second lord Latimer; and was afterwards one of the heroes of Flodden Field. He died in 1531, leaving a large family, of whom John, his eldest son, succeeded him. John third lord Latimer was so staunch a supporter of the ancient religious system that, at the suppression of the monasteries, he took a lead in the insurrection consequent upon it, called the first pilgrimage of Grace. The insurgents were, however, prevailed upon to lay down their arms, and he was included in a general pardon. He had three wives. His second wife, by whom alone he had issue, was Dorothy De Vere, sister and coheir of the fourteenth earl of Oxford of that family. His third wife was Catherine, daughter of sir Thomas Parr of Kendal; which accomplished lady afterwards embraced the reformed religion, and, on her subsequent union with Henry VIII., became one of its most able and zealous supporters.‡

:

His only son John, fourth lord Latimer, married the lady Lucy Somerset, daughter of the earl of Worcester and by her was the father of four daughters and coheirs.§ He died in 1577: and his epitaph in Well church in Richmondshire mentions him as the "laste lord Lattimor." but in fact the title, shorn of those possessions which had thitherto accompanied it, devolved on his cousin Richard Nevill of Pedwyn, in Worcestershire, son of William Nevill, who was the second son of the second lord Latimer.

Edmond Nevill, the son of this Richard Nevill lord Latimer, claimed,

The mother of this lord Berners was the lady Anne Plantagenet, daughter and eventual heir of Thomas of Woodstock, duke of Gloucester and earl of Buckingham, &c. the sixth and youngest son of king Edward III. She was wife to Edward Stafford earl of Stafford, and mother of Humphry Stafford Duke of Buckingham, who, marrying a daughter of the second family of the first earl of Westmoreland, was ancestor of the dukes of Buckingham; of whom two, successively dying on the block, have been immortalized by Shakspeare. The leading to execution, and subsequent apparition, of the former of these are conspicious incidents towards the conclusion of Richard III; while with the ruin of the latter Henry VIII., commences. The lady Anne Plantagenet was afterwards wife to William Bourchier who was raised by Henry V, at Maunt in Normandy, in the seventh year of his victorious reign, to the earldom of Eu, which had given title to a junior branch of the royal family of France. John Bourchier, her fourth son by this latter husband, was created lord Berners.-See Sandford's Geneological History of the Kings of England.

+ Miss Strickland's Queens of England Vol. 5, p. 7.

There is a portrait and memoir of Queen Catherine Parr in Lodge's Portraits.

For the destiny of these daughters see the curious inscription on the monumental slab of their mother given in the appendix at the end of this article.

after the death of his father in as heir male of the first earl; the sixth earl had bared him. King James I. seems on his accession to have promised him the revival of the family honours, in consideration of the rebellion, which had cost the last earl so dear, having been entered into partly in the cause of his mother the queen of Scots. Consigned, however, to obscurity and neglect, he experienced that disappointment which, under the dynasty of the Stuarts, too often awaited those who put their trust in Princes.

1590, the earldom of Westmoreland, but it was decided the attainder of

The empty honour of a pompous monumental inscription in Eastham church, Essex, records him as "Lord Lattimer, Earle of Westmerland," "lineally descended from the honourable blood of kings and princes, and ye 7th Earle of Westmerland of the name of Nevills."

......

It seems probable that, of his seven children, his two sons died before him.

Returning again to the children of Ralph Nevill the first earl of Westmoreland, and Joan of Lancaster, we find that their son Robert became bishop of Durham. He does not seem to have participated in the haughty and ambitious spirit which distinguished the younger race of Nevill. His character is unstained by violence or intrigue. He sought for no increase of privileges or possessions at the expense of his vassals: and the ample revenues, which the church already held, flowed freely back through the county from which they were derived. Tranquil and retired as his life + seems to have been, his

The case was referred to the judges, and is reported in Lord Coke's Reports-Rep. 7 Mich. 7 Jac.

+ For a notice of the few public acts of his life. See Historical Division Vol. I. p.

Palatinate establishment was liberal and splendid. The great offices of his state and household were filled by his kindred the Nevills; and by the Northern gentry, many of whom were honourably retained in his service, or bound to him by acts of individual generosity.†

Another son of the second marriage of the first earl was called Edward Nevill, and he, marrying the heiress of the Beauchamps, lords Bergavenny, was called to the peerage by their title. His descendant and heir general was married to sir Thomas Fane, and had a son Francis Fane who, in consideration of his maternal descent, was, after the forfeiture of the title by the attainder of the representative of the elder family, created earl of Westmoreland. The descendant and heir male of lord Bergavenny is the present earl of Abergavenny.

And now of all this stately branching cedar, whose boughs once shadowed the land, the line of Abergavenny, not distinguished in the modern peerage by superiority of title or of fortune, is, in ennobled male descent, alone remaining. The pedigrees in Surtees' Durham have been consulted in the compilation of this sketch, and several sentences from the general history in the first volume, and from the unfinished account of the Lords of Raby in the fourth volume have been incorporated here without individual acknowledgement.

APPENDIX TO THE SKETCH OF THE FAMILY OF NEVILL.

ABY in the January of 1640, long after it had
been severed from the possession of the Nevills,
gave
the title of baron to one of their des-
cendants in the female line: and this was a
personage no less than Thomas Wentworth,
first earl of Strafford of that name, the high-
souled, but haughty, minister of Charles I.

The creation of this barony gave great umbrage to Sir Henry Vane, who had, then by purchase from the crown, become possessed of the Raby property: and he thenceforward pursued the earl with such hostility up to his execution, in the May of 1641, that, Lord Clarendon ascribes to heaven the punishing of Strafford's pride "by bringing his destruction upon him by the two things that he most despised-the people and Sir Henry Vane."

Thus his nephew, sir Thomas Nevill was his seneschall. Raine's St. Cuthbert,

p. 157.

+ The character of this Bishop Nevill is extracted almost literally from the general history at the commencement of Vol. I. of Surtees' Durham.

This distinguished statesman was heir-general to Ralph Nevill, second son of the first marriage of the first earl of Westmoreland, through his grand-daughter, Jane Nevill, wife of Sir William Gascoigne, of Gawthorpe, in Yorkshire.

T Hackney, near London, the Percyes had anciently a suburban residence: and it is not improbable that there the Lady Latimer, widow of the fourth lord Latimer, and the mother-in-law of the eighth earl of Northumberland, died; for she was buried in the old parish church of Hackney. She died 23 February, 1582, aged 59: and over her was erected a magnificent monument whereon lay a lady, crowned with a corronet and dressed in a scarlet robe, praying. But this monument, on rebuilding the church, was demolished; and nothing remains of it but the mutilated trunk of the figure, which is preserved in the belfry. On it was an inscription, quaint but not without beauty, which may be worth recording here, as it recites the marriages of her daughters and coheirs; one of whom, carrying the blood of Nevill to that of Percy, united the representation of the Saxon and Norman earls of Northumberland-an allince still commemorated by a cherished bearing in the Percy shield.

A MEMORIE OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE LADIE LUCYE LATIMER.

Such as shee was, such if yee bee, be glad :
Faire in her youth, though fatt in age she grew;
Virtuous in bothe whose glosse did never fade.
Though long alone she ledd a Widowe's life

Yet never Ladye liv'd a truer Wife.

From Wales she sprang a Branch of Worcester's* Race,
Grafte in a Stock of Brownes, her mother's side:

In court she helde a maide of honor's Place

Whilst youth in her and she in Court did byde.

• Her father was Henry Somerset, second earl of Worcester, and ancestor of the Dukes of Beaufort.

To John,* Lord Latimer, then became she wife;
Foure Daughters they had breathing yet in life.

Earl of Northumberland tooke the first to wife;
The nexte the heire of Baron Burleigh chose;
Cornwallis happ the third § for terme of life:

And Sir John Danvers pluckt the youngest || Rose:
Their Father's heirs, them mothers all she sawe:
Pray for, or praise her; make your List the Lawe.
Made by Sire William Cornwallis, Knight, this Ladie's sonne
in Lawe,

AFTER "Young Harry Percy's spur was cold ¶ " and his father, the first earl of Northumberland, had fallen in rebellion against king Henry IV., the possessions of the family were confiscated, and Henry Percy, the youthful son and heir of Hotspur, was brought up, an exile, in Scotland.

It is said that, "in the time of king Henry V, he recovered the

* John Nevill fourth baron Latimer.

+ This was Henry Percy, eighth earl of Northumberland, who was committed to the tower on the charge of participation in the alleged plot of sir Francis Throckmorton to forward a foreign invasion with the view of advancing the cause of the Roman Catholic religion in England. He died a violent death in the tower, under circumstances of mystery, on the night of 20 June, 1585; leaving, by this marriage with Catherine Nevill, issue from which the present duke of Northumberland is descended.

Thomas Cecil, afterwards created earl of Exeter, husband to Dorothy Nevill.

§ Lucy Nevill.

This was Elizabeth Nevill, wife of sir John Danvers of Dantsey, who had three sons and several daughters. Sir Charles Danvers, the eldest son, was beheaded in 1601, for his participation in Essex's plot: Henry Danvers, the second, a distinguished loyalist soldier in the time of Charles I, was created earl of Danby, and died S.P.: and sir John Danvers of Chelsea, the third, was an M. P., and was one of the judges who condemned Charles I. The latter sir John Danvers died before, but was attained after, the restoration. He married three times. His first wife was Magdalin Herbert, a widow, who by her first husband was mother of the gallant and learned lord Herbert of Cherbury. By his second wife Elizabeth, sir John Danvers of Chelsea was father of a family of which Elizabeth, born in Chelsea in 1629, and married to Robert Villiers, viscount Purbeck, a republican, who disclaimed his title and assumed the name of Danvers, was eventually the heiress. Viscountess Purbeck died in 1709, and was buried in Chelsea according to a direction in her wili. Her great granddaughter, Catherine Villiers of Chalgrove, the eventual heiress, of the family, married John Lewis, dean of Ossery. From one of the daughters of sir John Danvers of Dantsey, the present dukes of Leeds are descended; the first of whom, in consideration of his descent from the Nevills Lords Latimer, was created viscount Latimer of Danby.—Sandford, Dugdale's Claims of baronies, Banks, &c.

¶ 2 Part, Henry IV. Act 1. Scene 1.