The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-07-20
DROWNING OF EARL OF CRAVEN RECALLS FAMOUS N. Y. WEDDING
 OF C0RNELIk BRADLEY MARTIN
Countess of Craven, Unlike Her Wealthy American Parents, Has Never Made Extravagant Display Marriage Was Happy One, Though Near Riot Took Place Manhattan Ceremony.

ed carriage doors. The ballroom was
 a veritable bower of roses and orchids Tapestries hung from bal comics A dinner was served which, costing S11O a plate. beat the record for elaborate. dining established up to that time.
 hostess, who is said to have worn jewels worth half a million; one sor- aament, diamond stomacher, being valued at $250,000.
 Not very long after this gorgeous affair the Bradley-Martins decided to leave America Some said the cen ! sure of the public following the ball
 was difficult to bear. Others laughed at the idea of such well established persons being disturbed over the phrases of the ranters.
 Gave London Several Surprises.
 However, the couple left for Lon And in that city Mrs Bradley-Mar- l tins Dinner for Eighty" given In an extension dining room built over | her own back yard by means of l special floor and ceiling was one of
 the sensations of the London season. | Yet this conspicuous expenditure was not the first England knew of | the Martins lavish spirit. To their 1 generous purses Coombe Abbey, the
 country seat of the Earl of Craven, l owed its restoration. Although Miss | Cornelia Martin brought a full pocket 1 book to her husbands home it was never believed the marriage took place solely for monetary reasons so far as the Earl was concerned. Nev- ] ertheless, his brides riches helped materially in preserving the fine old atmosphere of the abbey. The House of Craven. The founder of the house of Craven went up to London as a beggar boy
 and soon founded a fine tailoring
 tablishment and thereby amassed
 wealth. This was in the time of the Stuart kings. For two successive he elected Lord Mayor of
 London and was granted a knight
 hood. Thus Sir William Craven
 bought Coombe Abbey, in Yorkshire.
 and there his eldest son, raised to the peerage in recognition of his service
 as a soldier, entertained Queen Eliza beth of Bohemia her declining years. It was often rumored that
 he married the Queen. but that has
 been denied.
 Child Entrusted to Earl
 This royal lady was the daughter
 entrusted to Sir William Craven, in
 whom the King had confidence. Thus the child grew up, and later, in the
 trial of the Gunpowder Plot, it de-
 conspirators had planned to abduct
 her from the Abbey and proclaim her
 Queen, hoping her father would be
 blown to death by their machina-
 Frederick V, the last King of Bo-
 hemia-
 The original building was the first
 Cistercian monastery established in
 WarwickShire, founded by King Ste
 phen in the twelfth century. Henry
 VIII gave it, at the time of the Re
 formation, to the Earl of Warwick,
 and it finally became the property of Sir William Craven.
 Viscount Ellington, the only son of
 the drowned Earl, found his romance
 when, during the war, he met and
 married the attractice daughter of a clerk in Ross-shire.
 The Cravens failed to frown on this apparent mesalliance. as they were
 expected to do, but took their new daughter-in-law to live with them,
 while their son went to the front. He was sent to France with his regi-
 ment, where he lost a leg and was badly wounded
 There is a son by the boys mar
 riage, who will be heir to most of the wealth left by the late Bradley Martins
 Daughter Not Great Spender. Cornelia Martin and the Earl fail ed, in their own social life, to set
 such a precedent for spending and sensationalism as did the elder Mar tins. When Mrs. BradleY-Martin
 was to be present at the coronation of the late Edward VII, a society Journal, commenting on her rumored purchase of a tiara. said: Mrs ward who is to be crowned Bradley Martin. Jr., brother of Countess Craven. however, had a jolly Scottish ceremony when he married Helen Phipps of Pittsburgh. | The wedding took place in Scotland, where kits, plaid skirts and high
 land filings to the skirl of pipes made an effective and expensive start on the road of matrimony. Few knew what unhappy fate is connected with the inconspicuous black pearl studs worn by the late Earl There is said to be a legend of bad luck connected with the wearing of these ornaments. It was revived after the news of his death was made public.