The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1865-03-21 00:00:00

VIE BERKELEY PEERXGE.

Two Corms of a pamphlet purporting to he a "Reply
to come ;restores in a book entitled ' My Life and
Reoolleri ions, by the Flom °motley F. Berkeley,' by
she other surviving ROII. of the let, Earl and Countered
Berkeley" larva reached ua„ cc sirpect from opposite
•quarters, for the one is inscribed 'for private cimuls-
Con," and the oh' r seeing intended fur review ; whilst
both are from the same press, and heir to he subscribed
by thesatneindividuala, vie : Earl Frtshardinge, Messrs
Augustus and Henry Berkeley, the latter of whom is
M.P. for Bristol, and also by the Hon. Thomas
Moreton Fitzhardinge Berkeley, whom is now
de facto the pre-ent Earl of Beikeley. It is better
perhaps for the public Frurnalist not to allude farther
to the fact of this unfortunate nobleman's name being
thus &dialed to • publication, the object of which is
partly to damns whether or not he is helii in the
power of otheis, and whether the wealth and honors
which by inheritsnce are his, are not in point of fact
• diverted to accomplish he objects of • f.imily comp.ict,
and over-rile the Iteli6e.ate &minion of the Boise of
Lords. On looking at them two paiiiplileta, all the
more narrowly that one of ti em is whierrereri to
have been suppressed, become, whilat it is marked "for
private circulation," it at the game time declares its
intention "publicly to contradict" the stitementa of
the lion. Grantley F. Bus kr.ley, and becaum, we
oonfesi it, the author, or at least, Mr. Henry Berkeley,
wont', it be sail, have given his ears to get back
every single copy front 'private circulation," we could
ant help being struck with the discrepancies produced
by the printer's alteration'. The "priest,," copy,
despi'e some suppress d passages, scarcely makes more
than 15 pr., the other fully IS; and yet the alterations
are all adroitly contrived, as coy printer wonlrl see at
once, for the purposes of concealment. What the •
, precise differences are it is not, however, of sufficient
Moment to disclose ; the chief 01 curustance of note
;being the fact of the pamphlet, which first emanated
'from the private intention of these authors, having been
withdrawn f "private circulation," to be re-issued
unreservedly to the public, with only the omission of
one or two oucierrhaad errors, and the extension of
several minor passages. And certainly whatever affects
a question of title in this country is a legitimate topic
public discussion, though not, perhaps, after the
fashion of this pamphlet, the Hoot° or extract on
whose title page front "Foolish Things," an essay in
the Saturday Review, and abjectly intende no doubt,
to propitiate the criticism of that redoubtable journal,
I, perha pa the hest Thing to be found in the production,
and Is, at all events, eminently descriptive of the pro-
duction itself.
It must be obvious enough to every reader of Mr.
Grantley Berkeley's "Recollections" that the main
objeceof that work is to place upon a clear and Moon-
testible borne the facts at ague in the Berkeley Peerage
OM. in which he is after the present Earl (Mr. Moreton
Berkeley) the person in the world most vitally interested,
relanding an he does as heir presumptive to that brother,
and having two sons to succeed him in whatever honors
and titles, not to say poseerions, of right are his. But
'The object of this pamphlet, which (at least in the
new and public edition) sets out with • denial of Mr.
'Grantley Berkeley's hope of title or money, of his object
to enrich or ennoble himself by pressings case in a court
•of justice, of any claim to rank or fortune capable " at
this time" of being made by him, appears to us most
completely neutralised by the admission arrived at on
Its final page, that, although at present Mr. Grantley
Berkeley has no tocsisstandi, at Mr. Moreton Berkeley's
death he can make suoh claim as he thinks proper, and
that "Mr. Gmatley Berkeley's two sons are in the
entail of the Berkeley Castle estates, and the
Stratton estates, and barring issue of the ions
of the present lord they will inherit both pro.
ponies." By . "the present lord" it is true
tthat the pamphleteers imply Earl Fitahardinge and not
tthe present "Earl of Berkeley ;" but the expression is,
Ito say the least of it, singularly unguarded. And the
very fact of the issue of Earl Fitzhardinge being thus
interposed betwixt Mr. Grantley Berkeley's sons and
•their right of inheritance, mid as we have beard,
also the illegitimate brothers at their bone, in
defiance of a final decision of the House of Lords, is
enough to excuse all the statements in his
"Recollections," and to call forth his most
strenuous endeavours, as the father of a family, to de-
fend and protect the threatened rights of his heirs. A
'candid perusal of both versions of this pamphlet has not
failed to satisfy us that the writers accept the fortunes
rand rotates from "Moreton F. Berkeley," and revel in
ithe.richao he bestows on the present Lord Fitahardinge,
wirererattese fortunes and estates can only belong of
right to the Earl of Berkeley. How they can do thin,
,and at the same time pledge themselves solemnly to the
.assertion that HE is NOT the Earl of Berkeley, and has
no right or title to be no considered, we can find nothing
in the present pamphlet to explain. For if he is NOT
the Earl of Berkeley, to whom only the estates and
fortunes can of right pertain, what right have they to
.accept the conveyance to those fortunes and estates
'which only can belong to the Earl? To all who know
the story this truth is certain, that if Moreton F.
'Berkeley be not the Earl, then Grantley F. Berkeley
must be, as there stands • final decision of the highest
tribunal in the land, the House of Lords, in bar of the
Isoitimacy of the present Lord Fitahardinge,
Masan. Augustus and Henry. It is manifest
from this pamphlet that from that time forth
there has been • sort of family arrangement to say
nothing of this, but to maintain in the face of that
decision of the House of Lords a "united testimony"
against the legal judgment pionounced in the case.
But when it comes to a question betwixt family con-
victions and legal decisions, the public will not be long
in Throwing in their fiat also into the preponderating
scale.
Mr. Grantley Berkeley having, as we have said, a
duty to perform to his own family, in tranamittiog to
them unimpaired their claims and rights, has, whatever
others may think. (and with some people it seems a sort
of fashion to assail him simply because he always strikes
lback,) with perfect propriety rendered it • leading mar-
iposa of his recent volumes of "Recollections" to state
dieliocaly the real judicial facts of the Berkeley Peerage
masa For this, which may almost be termed an act of
ciolf-tlefenoe mad self-preservation, he is charged with
beefing rntioupresentati ma and calumnies upon the
xisemorieref his father and mother, which the brothers,
regordingea ." foul slanders," adopt as their plea for
vindicating the characters of their parents. With great
deference "the einumstance of their having nothing
thither thentheir own assertions to oppose to the solemn
rfiesigiest tirthe law is more likely, however, to damage
than to Support their object. People will naturally
demand of them why, if they are in the right, they do
met establish their legitimacy now and at onto, no long
as they are in the land of the living and in the place of
Ups? They are old men, most of them, and with them
-will vanish all chancre of establishing their view of the
case. There is nothing to prevent their attempting
isow, what they toll Mr. Grantley Berkeley he must
Vasil fora loess standi to attempt. But for more than
:fifty years they have been content to submit to their
•aptivieselpoeition, and they now blame their brother,
the-hein snisecisaptive to the honours they have so long
wiles:tad or rejected, for maintaining before the public
his lawful rights. No doubt it is not pleasant that
isstdly iseandals should be revived ; but in this ease
how oes you to avoid it if family claims are ever to be
=upon their proper footing? We have read Mr.
ley Berkeley's " Roe. ollections" with some &Oen-
800, and hie ex*nationa are very explicit. It seems
to have been very well known amongst all his intimate
friends that daring his stogior's lifetime he had laid it
down es a ride to guide him, that as he was only the
hair preventative, he therefore had no personal reason
for stirelag in the matter so long as things were con.
duetted with decency ; and hence, even as the heir pre.
samptive to the earldom, he would not put himself in
aridease, out of deference to bin mother, or during her
lifetime. Does this look like what the pamphleteers
sal • breech of the Fifth Commandment? As if
torroboration of all this they publish s letter
of his in this pamphlet, written when, with a
tfinimialt anxiety, they raw that Mrs. Berkeley,
bin wife, had put on her cards "Mrs. Berkeley,"
band of "Mrs. Grantley Berkeley." To that letter,
is truth, Mr. Grantley Berkeley might simply point as&
prier elbow rigidly he adhered to the resolve not to
bort his mother's feelings. The date of that letter is
Mb His mother lived many years after that, and
AWN bar lifetime, we have reason to believe, he never
*Mb elm slop ealeulated to wound her feelings. When
OM died rho mos min different. Mr. Grantley Berkeley
twA Ulm is duty to perform towards himself and his
own iketaate ; say, he bad the saine duty to truth
MA MI Aim yobbo, and particularly in regard to the
enteoulen to an Earldom there was the
masime—smilmolellipet and mobility did compel him, like
.3811 ma to stand in lise phew where he must speak the
-troth, Boyne it whim- BA.
;Baer oriralop twie lord Fitshardinge, it appears
Isaac *be leatimur" that for a number of years
Illet.'Grentlisy Berkeley and he were on the best of
*sem ; sad as regarded kiss, Mr. Grantley Berkeley
dealasoi hie desire that be should,, it he thought he
Mil bed the shadow of a claim to reverse the final
stebision M the House of Lords, use every exertion to
Arm ; audit them wen anything in his (Mr. °motley
-Berkeley's) that he could do to gain him a fair
4elithe do It, and throw no impediment in his
cosy. Mt of aeons made no attempt, for he knew that
Abe dabble In the Lords was final, and that some of the
eithaimmit Who had tried to establish his ease had
aeon imprisoned for perjury, and others, including, Mr.
aOrantley Berkeley says, his mother, bad found it
tampedient to go abroad. The most bitter charge in the
losessidsrasephlet is founded epos this. The writer*
Osegart that in their belief the history of the matter given
by the Earl and Countess, under the sanction of their
oaths, was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but'
the truth. Now it certainly appears from the evident*
to the House of Lords that for one thing the latter
• ewers that her mother was dead and buried; but tho
**Lords prodased her mother in their House, end ameci
-"who that old lady was?" This sample of Alan, tip*
'imam eel up to establish the legitimacy of the r *WWI
.IPTIE•TE we are afraid is more than enough to show h,
• eelianee was to be *tied upon it, and poth'
"meld move tardily illarizate the faros of the loosen
writers offer* Omit "united testimony" in support
mists • mum.
Mara: °matte, Berkeley states, however, •
trait in the conduct of the late Lord Fitshardinge,
=Med to the brothers laid under the inn
otacy by the decision of the Peers, and midi-
eularlyahm to the eldest legitimate brother, the present
•Bari el Meekoloy, that he was stilt "about to prosecute
big claim In legitimaey, " but he never pretended so to
Mr. Brantley Berkeley. Again, in his letters to hie
mother, in those to the present rightful End of
Berkeley, and to the brothers Augustus and Henry, he
always put to his signature the words, "claiming as
• right to be, Berl of Berkeley;" but this he never ds'cl
Its his letters to MT. Grantley F. Berkeley. At leer,
when by taking the lead in politics for him, a -
Giontley Berkeley did as recorded in the "h.
Boas," by 5 compromise with the Whig Govern.
-t Government °caseated to mate him • Baron

,whichrMr.
" Rawness
Governmas
Baron; ha
al:waist
vs,'
is
Masi

Abandonment

of hie retiCgnce in regard to .the

*Pawn.
"Lord Beware,
n the Earldom
I reolied, that I
eaother, *IA
no objection to
Ssegrave ; bat, bath
ilia matter, " if ke aelert.a
the rank of peer, then, and
--theli.eassi..aullea--anast ha Mz. anntlay Berkeley)
g •4101314 Colloeive that he o,bandooed CU further pretence
40 reinstate himself as the head of the fealty.' These
.t,were therefore the athepted terms between them, and
may well 'moonlit for any alteration in Mr. Grantley
B.erkeley's Wilde ii respects the theeeselon, or O-
.