The Express.
London, England, 1851-01-30 00:00:00

ESTATES OF ENGLAND.

(From the Daily News.)

THE NEWCASTLE ESTATES—CUMBER, &c.
Before enlarging on the pr. sent condition or
prospects of the Duke of Newcastle's estates it may
be well to say something of their position and
history. First of their situation.
Those persons who are informed of the geological
structure of the British islands know that between
the stratum called blue lies and that of maguesian lime-
stone lies the new red sandstone.

It is with that district of the new red sandstone
lying southward of the West Riding of Yorkshire
that we are now cancerned. It is bounded on the
west by the district of magnesien limestone, which
rises in Derbyshire, and on the east by the ricer
Trent, or by the blue lies formation, which overlies it
beyond the Trent eastward. With our faces to the
south, our backs upon Yorkshire, our feet on the
border of Nottinghamshire. near Blythe (where
King James of Scotland, on his journey to be
crowned King of England, sat down on a
bank by the wayside, and would not go further
without something to eat and drink, though at Work-
sop, five es les distant, a g►eat feast was preparing for
him by the Earl of Shrewsbury) ; from this place,
about thirty miles southward to Nottingham, and
varying from ten to fifteen miles wide, is a district of
the new red sand-stone, which was formerly Sher-
wood Forest, some of wt ick is still so called, but most
of which is now well cultivated corn land, or wide
spreading parks surrounding the mansions of several
noble lords.

Of these last the seats of the Duke of Norfolk, at
Worksop; Duke of Portland, at Welbeck ; Duke of
Newcutle, at Clamber ; all adjoining, so that •
stranger could not tell the partitions of their forest
parka, have become known as " the dukery."
Thoresby, the residence of Earl Manvers, adjoins
Clamber; and Raiford, held by the Earl of Scarbo-
rough, continues the eurceasion of noble parks south-
ward. Then follow News;tad Abbey and various
others, all portions, earlier or more lately, appropriated
by families powerful enough to take them from the
great Forest of Sherwood.

The mat recently formed is Clamber Park. A
glance at the official life of the first Pelham
who became Doke of Newcastle will leave little rea-
son to wonder why he should get so rich and Uric a slice
of the forest for a park. But firit,as the adjoining estates
of Welbeck and Thortsby, and more distant portions
of the forest now in the hands of the Duke of Devon-
shire, and famine,: of secordary note, once belonged
to Dukes of Newcastle, it may be worth while to
glar.ce briefly at the family incidents which separated,
or united, or again broke op the union of those rotates.
Of them all, Welbeck is now the most lordly in
wealth, noble in dimension., grand in scenery. It
was the property of the earliest Dukes of Newcastle,
but fill by the failure of heirs male and by marriage
to the Bentincks, Dukes of Portland, thus:—

Sir William Cavendish. nephew of the first Earl
of D-vonshire, became Baron Ogle and Viscount
Mansfield in 1820, and Baron Csvemdisb, of Bolsover,
in 1828 [Bolsover, in Derbyshire, areother arcie nt
park adjoining those named. An ingenious man at
this place bas sent a chair to the London Ezhlbitinn,
the work of five years, to tos which, I was told, 151.
bad been paid at &hover, in small sums last week, in
one day.] In 1631 Baron Cavendish, of Bolsover,
was created Earl of Newcastle ; in 16.33, Marquis of
Newcastle ; acd in 16.51, Earl of Ogle and Duke of
Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He resided at Welbeck, wrote
a treatise on horsemanship, still quoted as an au-
thority, and built the finest riding-house then in the
kingdom, which still stands at Welbeck.

This Duke of Newcastle died in 1676, and was sue-
' cceded by his eon, Henry Cavendish, who married the
daughter of William Pierrepont, Esq., of Tboresby
Park, now the seat of Earl Manvere' head of the
Pierreoonts (whose eon, Lord Newark, is contesting
the county on the part of the landlords and protec-
tion, against Mr. Barrow, the candidate of the tenant
farmers and protection, the farmers not being in-
clined to trust the lord class at present.] This Henry
Cavendish, secgbd Duke of Newcastle, is said to have
been one of a party of horsemen who rode from dif-
ferent points and met at a village in Derbyshire, distant
from Welbeck ten or twelve miles, celled Whit-
tington, and there concocted the revolution of
1688, which secured estates to them and many
other wh.g families who did not feel sure of
retaining such lande as those of Welbeck Abbey in
their own hands if James IL were permitted to re-
establish the catholic religion. The small public-
house, one story high, in Whittioron, is still pointed
out as the " Revolution house." The party consisted
of the Cavendishes (Devonshire and Newcastle fami-
lies), Earl of Derby, Lord De lame re, Sir John Darcy.
and probably one or two more. At this village of
Whittington, in May, 1783, there was born a son to
Mr. John Brotherton, officer of excise and school-
mister, afterwards excise officer in Manchester, and
subsequently a cotton spinner; that son is Joseph
Brotherton, Esq., M.P. for Salford. Henry Cavendith ,
st cmd Duke of Newcastle died in 1691 without heirs
mode, by which the title became extinct. But he left
dan4hters as co-heiresses, one of whom, Margaret,
married John Holl s, fourth Earl of Clare (a Suffolk
title), who, in 1694, was created Duke of Newcastle-
' upon-Tyne. After his marriage he lived at Welbeck,
and died in 1711 without male heirs, by which a
second time the title became extinct. He had a
sister married to Thomas, the second Lord Pelbam, of
Laughton, in Sussex, whose son, Thomas, took the
estates and name of Holies after his late uncle,
the Duke of Newcastle, and acquired that title
by creation after the accession of George I.
This duke and his brother Henry, both of
them Prime Ministers of England, the duke hold-
' iog office for so long a time under George L, George II ,
and George 111., that Lord Waldegrave, his friend,
wrote of him that he was negotiating to be in office
when the Prince of Wales, should there be one
(George IV not being then born), would come to the
throne. Clumber Park was one of the perquisites
obtained by this duke, who yet obtained • high
character for disinterestedness. It is not generally
known that a family iccident led Henry Pelham,
when Prime Minister, his brother the duke now
under notice, and their friends, to bring
into parliament, and carry into law, two mea-
sures, one of which has had an influence
on family society more profound than perhaps ever
resulted from one enactment, namely, the statute for
the regulation of marriages ; the other, the statute by
which public houses and places of amusement are
still favoured with or refused music licen‘es by the
magistrates. It is a carious question for 'peculation
to ask whether, or at what time, public places of re-
sort would hove been subjected to music licenses, and
et what tints the facilities for clandestine marriages
in England Would have been abridged by law, bad
not the sister of the Pelham. danced with a highway-
man at the Bowling Green at Putney, and loved him ?
The Earl of Tilaey's mater had danced with a sharper
at Ruckholt House, a place of public entertainment
in Epping Forest, and would have been married to
him had not his character been discovered to her.
Miss Pelham, who met her highwayman at Putney
—a robber Lamed Maclane, famous on the road this
time hundred years—waa not much pleased at those
who made the discovery. The gentleman who did so
had been twice stopped and robbed by Maclane.
Finding that Miss Pelham did Lot thank him for
his information so warmly as she should have
done, he proceeded at once to her brother the
prime minister, who took measures to detach her from
each an nuacoeptable lover; the Lord Chancellor
Hardwicke at once introduced the Marriage Bill,
and Mr. Pelham the bill to subject places of public
resort to such a system of licensing as should effec-
tually close them. Before that time marriages could
be effected anywhere in England as they still are nn
the Scottish border. The suppression of the Sc
rebellion in 174.5-46 gave the Pelham. a strong hold
of power. In May,1751, just one hundred years before
that congress of nations which is to celebrate the pro-
gress of intelligence and civilixatioo, the Pelham. in-
marketed • measure which had been several times
before attempted by other legislators, but always de-
feated by the ignorance, prejudice, or superstition of
the pub., for the alteration of the style. This was so
difficult to carry, that it required all the influence of
the Doke of Newcastle, then very high, to persuade
the landowners to accept it. They feared its effect
on leases, time engagements, country fairs, or any-
thing in which they were interested. But the duke
having vast possessions in land in several counties,
and being able to exhibit the innocence of the new
style as regarded his old lessee, the measure paned,
and became law, lat January, 1762.
Henry Pelham died in the prime of life and repu-
tation is,„ 1764, esteemed by the nation as one of the