Note 2 — Chapter XIX

[The eleventh Earl of Northumberland, Joscelyn Percy, died in 1670, leaving an only daughter, who married Charles Seymour, ninth Duke of Somerset. This lady is described as ‘the betrothed of three husbands,’ because she was married at fourteen to Henry Cavendish, son of the Duke of Newcastle, who died in the following year. She was then affianced to Thomas Thynne of Longleat, who was assassinated in 1682; and at last married to the Duke of Somerset. The eldest son of this marriage, Algernon Seymour, who succeeded to the Dukedom of Somerset in 1748, was created Earl of Northumberland on the 2nd of October, 1749, and Earl of Egremont on the following day, with remainder (as regards the latter title) to his nephew Sir Charles Wyndham, who succeeded him in February 1750. The Earldom of Northumberland passed at the same time to Sir Hugh Smithson, son-in-law of Duke Algernon, who was created Duke of Northumberland in 1766. The titles and the vast property of the Duke of Somerset, Earl of Northumberland, thus came to be divided.

George O’Brien Wyndham, third Earl of Egremont, to whom Mr. Greville paid this visit, was born on the 18th of December, 1751. He was therefore eighty-two years old at this time; but he lived five years longer, and died in 1837, famous and beloved for his splendid hospitality and for his liberal and judicious patronage of the arts, and likewise of the turf.]