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Last week’s blog asked for a family name. The answer was ‘Stanhope’, recently topical owing to the reopening of the National Portrait Gallery, one of whose founders was the 5^th Earl Stanhope.

The story of the Stanhopes could be said to start with Philip Stanhope, (1584-1656) created 1^st Earl of Chesterfield, by Charles I in 1628. He was a royalist in the civil war, imprisoned and eventually died under house arrest in Covent Garden. His wife, Catherine Hastings, had 13 children and from these are descended the Earls of Chesterfield.

But Philip had a second wife, Anne Packington. She had a son Alexander (1638-1707), who in turn had a son, James, (1673-1721) who became the 1^st Earl Stanhope. From him are descended the Earls Stanhope

So back to the Chesterfields:

Philip Stanhope 2^nd Earl of Chesterfield, (1634-1714) married Lady Anne Percy but she died and he turned his attentions to Mary, the daughter of Lord Fairfax, the civil war military commander. Before Stanhope could tie the knot, however, Mary’s head was turned by a certain George Villiers, the 2^nd Duke of Buckingham.

The jilted Stanhope then married Elizabeth Butler, the daughter of James Butler, Duke of Ormond. They had a daughter Elizabeth Stanhope who married John Lyon, 3^rd Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, from whom Elizabeth Bowes Lyon was descended. But Elizabeth Stanhope’s parentage is disputed and it is likely that her father was not the Earl of Chesterfield but Barbara Villiers, the famous lover of King Charles II. So was Charles II’s grandmother the descendant of Barbara Villiers?!

Philip married a third time, to Lady Elizabeth Dormer. Their older son became the 3^rd Earl of Chesterfield (1673-1726)and his son, Philip, became 4^th Earl of Chesterfield (1693-1773), whose highly impressive first speech in the commons was delivered when underage. It was the 4^th Earl of whom Samuel Johnson said: ”This man, I thought, had been a Lord among wits; but I find he is only a wit among Lords”. A founder of the Foundling hospital in Bloomsbury, he married Melusa von Schulenburg, the daughter of George 1’s mistress (‘the Maypole’). It is the 4^th Earl who built Chesterfield House, a huge mansion in Mayfair, demolished in 1937.

In 1743 Philip started a successful pamphlet campaign under the pseudonym ‘Geoffrey Broadbottom’ resulting in the 1744 ‘Broad Bottom’ ministry led by Henry Pelham.

On being appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in January 1745, Chesterfield initiated a series of landscape works In Phoenix Park, Dublin, including the Phoenix Column. He is also credited with opening the park to the public.

The 1750 New Calendar Act, which established the Gregorian calendar, is sometimes called ‘Chesterfield’s Act’ owing to the 4^th Earl’s convincing arguments in the House of Lords.

After his death his illegitimate son’s wife published Chesterfield’s ‘Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman’ which, according to Samuel Johnson, taught “the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing-master”

The 5^th Earl, Philip (1755-1814) was a favourite of George III; the 6^th Earl (1805-1866) was a notable horse racing man; the 7^th Earl (1831-1871) played cricket for Nottinghamshire and founded Derbyshire cricket club. He was succeeded by his cousin George, the 8^th Earl (1822-1883). Consecutive Earls in the 19th century had no direct issue and a series of cousins and cousins once removed inherited the title. The 7^th Earl Stanhope (1880-1967) united the ‘Chesterfield’ line with the Earls Stanhope line.

So now the Earls Stanhope:

James Stanhope, 1^st Earl Stanhope, 1673-1721 (see above) was a notable general and statesman and it is he who bought the Kent country estate, Chevening. The last Chancellor of the Exchequer to sit in the House of Lords he is also sometimes claimed to be our first Prime Minister although most historians argue this was Robert Walpole. James married Lady Pitt the aunt of the prime minister Lord Chatham.

James and Lucy’s son Philip became 2^nd Earl Stanhope and was a friend of Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Priestley. Philip’s second son, Charles, another prominent scientist, became the 3^rd Earl and he married Lady Hester Pitt, the sister of the Prime Minister William Pitt. Their oldest child was the remarkable traveller Hester Stanhope who featured in a previous blog on this site.

Philip, the 4^th Earl Stanhope, was the 3rd Earl’s son by his second marriage to Louisa Grenville. Philip was also a scientist, known for is eccentricity and for becoming involved in the notorious case of the foundling Kaspar Hauser who claimed he had grown up alone in a dark room.

Philip’s son, the 5^th Earl, another Philip, was a historian and one of the founders of the National Portrait Gallery whose re-opening in June prompted this quiz.

The 7^th Earl was also a trustee of the NPG and bequeathed the Chevening estate to a trust for the benefit of the nation. It is currently occupied by the Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly.

Recommended walk: Friday 8th September 3pm

Hidden Westminster

info@walkinglondonhistory.com

Friday, 11 August, 3pm -Hidden Westminster

Answer the question below for the ‘buy one get one free’ offer for Friday’s walk.

PRIZE QUIZ

This week’s challenge is tricky but I hope you enjoy looking up some of the items.

Which family name links the following:

• A former mansion in Mayfair
• The Gregorian calendar

• A woman who was possibly the daughter of Barbara Villiers, mistress to Charles II
• The same woman is also an ancestor of the current king! How extraordinary!
• A ‘broad bottom’

Enjoy the research!

Email the answer to:

info@walkinglondonhistory.com

If the answer is correct buy one ticket for Friday and get one free.

George Bernard Shaw was born on 26th July 1856

One of only two men to receive an Academy Award and a Nobel prize. He didn’t think much of the latter, saying ‘only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel prize’.

He wrote in a rotating shed to maximise use of the available sunlight. He campaigned for a new phonetic alphabet to promote literacy. He thought eating was a troublesome necessity. Vegetarian and teetotal, he also avoided tea and coffee.

Find out more about Shaw, his play Pygmalion, his Westminster friends, and the Nobel prize on one of my Friday afternoon Westminster walks. 3pm to 5pm.

And answers please by email:

Who was the only other man to win an Academy Award and a Nobel prize?

info@walkinglondonhistory.com

So where is this new cocktail bar?!

Answers by email to: info@walkinglondonhistory.com

Do you need a clue?:

“I really must organise a tour there soon!”

Public tours coming up soon include:

Tuesday 25th 2pm Strand and Embankment

Wednesday 26th 2pm Westminster

Thursday 27th 11am Mayfair

Book through the website or, better still, simply email me.

And if you would like a private tour again please email:

info@walkinglondonhistory.com

Two open spaces. Embankment Gardens and Parliament Square.

Can you find a link between them? Clue in the photo below.

So who are they?

And was there something a little unusual about how they met?

Discover more on a walk around the Embankment Gardens and Strand area. For dates use the link below:

Walks in London

1 The crown in the photo is the Imperial State Crown. Charles III was crowned with St Edward’s crown. After retreating to St Edward’s chapel he emerged wearing the Imperial State crown for the procession to Buckingham Palace. It’s a much lighter and more valuable crown

2 Henry IV’s head was allegedly full of lice

3 The almost blind Archbishop of Canterbury, Frederick Temple, placed the crown the wrong way round on the head of Edward VII. The Archbishop died before the end of the year.

4 The queen who refused to have anything to do with her husband’s coronation was Marie Antoinette in 1626. She was a catholic and objected to the protestant ceremony

5 The queen who insisted on attending but was refused entry to the Abbey was Caroline of Brunswick , estranged queen of George IV. She died of laudanum poisoning two or three weeks later.

6 The king who spent thousands on his queen’s dress and jewellery was James II for Mary of Modena.

7 The Scottish King Alexander III and his nobles released their horses for anyone to claim them at the coronation of Edward I. The English nobles apparently followed suit.

8 The acclamations of rival groups of Norman and Saxon nobles panicked the soldiers guarding the Abbey at the coronation of William I

9 The writer holding one corner of the canopy at the coronation of James II was Samuel Pepys!

10 The coronation of Edward VII was postponed owing to the need for an appendectomy. Edward was keen to go ahead with the coronation at the abbey. His doctor informed him it was a choice between the operation or going to the Abbey in a wooden box. The doctor was Sir Frederick Treves, the man who befriended Joseph Merrick, often known as ‘the Elephant Man’

A coronation quiz. Email the answers to info@walkinglondonhistory. com

1. Which crown is this?

2. Which king’s head was allegedly full of lice when he was crowned?

3. On which king’s head did the Archbishop of Canterbury place the crown back to front?

4. Which king’s queen simply refused to take part in the coronation?

5. Which king’s queen insisted on taking part but was turned away at the door of the Abbey?

6. Which 17th century king abandoned the traditional pre-coronation procession but spent £100,000 on his queen’s jewels and dresses? (that is £100,000 in ‘old money’ not current values-it is an enormous amount)

7. At which coronation did the invited king of Scotland and his nobles free all their horses to be claimed by anyone who could catch them?

8. At whose coronation did the king’s guard outside the Abbey panic on hearing the shouts of acclamation from within, and set fire to local buildings, thinking an insurrection was taking place?

9. Which writer was one of James II’s canopy bearers?

10. Which coronation had to be delayed for the performance of a crucial medical operation?

Last week’s post featuring the King’s Champions asked which coronation featured a piebald horse borrowed from a circus, and asked which statesman accompanied the King’s champion into the hall. The answer was the coronation of George IV and the statesman in question was the Duke of Wellington

“If any person denies our most gracious sovereigns, our king and queen of England, then he is a false hearted traitor and a liar, and I, as Champion, do challenge him to single combat”.

The tradition of the monarch’s ‘Champion’ throwing down the gauntlet during the coronation banquet in Westminster Hall was introduced at the crowning of William I’s queen, Matilda in 1068, and featured in coronations until that of George IV in 1821. The tradition ended when William III dispensed with the banquet in 1831.

The first Champion was Robert de Marmion who was granted the manor of Scrivelsbury in Lincolnshire. It is a hereditary title and passed in the 14^th century to the Dymoke family. And so it remains to this day although the current Captain, Francis John Fayne Marmion Dymoke, assuming he has been invited to the coronation, will simply carry a banner.

The role of Champion historically involved a degree of skill as the Champion and anyone accompanying him had to leave the hall in reverse on horseback between the banqueting tables. Lord Talbot, accompanying Dymoke at George III’s banquet in 1761, had trained his horse so thoroughly in walking backwards that it insisted on entering the Hall in reverse much to the hilarity of everyone in the Hall.

At the coronation banquet of James II in 1685 the Champion dismounted to kiss the king’s hand and tripped over in heavy armour and had to be helped up by those around him.

The banqueting feast for William III and Mary II was delayed so long that everything happened in the dark. The Champion was two hours late and on throwing down the gauntlet an old woman seemingly emerged from the gloom and replaced the gauntlet with a white glove containing a message challenging the Captain to a duel the following day in Hyde Park. A mysterious heavily built figure was seen lurking in the park the next day but the Champion did not appear.

So, throwing down the gauntlet in the form of a quiz question, whose coronation is this and who was the famous public figure?

The Dymoke of the time was a clergyman so he asked permission for his son to deputise. Not owning a horse, his son borrowed a piebald horse from a circus. He was accompanied into Westminster Hall by perhaps the most famous public figure of the time and their entrance on horseback was described as ‘certainly the finest sight of the day’.

Will you take on the challenge?

Image courtesy of Wikimedia

It is perhaps the most dramatic moment of the coronation, the opening crescendo of Handel’s famous anthem, Zadok the Priest, at the anointing stage of the ceremony. But why Zadok the priest?

Zadok the priest was ordered by King David to bring his son Solomon by mule to Gihon and there, along with Nathan the prophet, to anoint Solomon as King of Israel with the words ‘God Save the King’.

The first known anointing of a King of all England was that of Edgar in 973. The ceremony was designed by Archbishop Dunstan and established the strong link between church and state which still exists. The ritual included the biblical text:

‘Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anointed Solomon king.
And all the people rejoiced and said:
God save the King! Long live the King! God save the King!
May the King live for ever. Amen. Hallelujah.’

Edgar first swore an oath, the ‘promisso regis’ and then came the anointing and then the investiture with regalia including the ring, the sword, the crown, the sceptre, and the staff. The ceremony has essentially remained the same for over a thousand years.

The above Zadok the priest text was later put to music in the coronation of Charles I in 1626 and subsequent coronations.

Handel’s new version of ‘Zadok the Priest’ was first sung at the coronation of George II in 1727. George commissioned Handel to write the music despite Handel being a friend of his inveterate enemy, his father, King George I. This says a lot for the prestige Handel enjoyed at the time. He was given four weeks to compose four anthems. It is reported that owing to ‘general confusion’ the anthem was played at the wrong part of the service. It is unlikely a similar error will occur on May 6th.

An operatic soprano, born in Venice. She leased a house in Soho Square which became London’s entertainment hotspot, specialising in masked balls and banquets. Her concerts featured Johann Christian Bach. She introduced a one-way traffic system to control the crowds flocking to her venue. She had a child by Casanova. At one point she controlled all the theatres in The Austrian Netherlands. She was imprisoned for debt in Paris, after which she returned to England under a false name and died of breast cancer in Fleet debtors’ prison. Mentioned by Laurence Sterne, Dickens, Thackeray and Tobias Smollett.