INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. MEMOIRS OF THE LYTTELTON FAMILY TO THE BIRTH OF GEORGE FIRST LORD LYTTELTON. [MSS. preserved at Hagley.-Clarendon's Hist. of Reb. vol. i.Camden, vol. ii.-Collins' Peerage, vol. iii. ed. Brydges.-Nash's Worcestershire, vol. i. Ludlow's Memoirs. - Memoires de Grammont.] A FAMILY of long descent and gentle blood, dwelling for centuries on the same spot, has been deemed an agreeable object of contemplation by the wisest and best of men; the feelings which it awakens are akin to those excited by the aspect of the coeval oaks which have defied the storm and time on their estate, and so distinct from any servile admiration of the accidents of birth and rank, that the emotion of pleasure changes into that of sorrow where the long transmitted name has been disgraced by those who have borne it, or indeed where it has not been considered as an inheritance, obliging its possessors to increase as well as preserve its lustre. 'Nobility of blood,"* (says 66 *"O poca nostra nobiltà di sangue. VOL. I. Ben se' tu manto che tosto raccorce, DANTE PARADISO, Canto xvi. 1-8. B the great Italian poet, reproaching himself for thinking for a moment on such a subject in Paradise) "is a cloak soon shortened, for unless it be added to from day to day, Time goes round it with his shears." It is because in the Lyttelton family, the worth, wisdom, and fortune of the sons has, with few exceptions, repaired the clipping of Time in the inherited mantle of the father, that I have prefaced the history of George, first Lord Lyttelton, with a brief sketch of his ancestry. The name of this ancient family was derived from the parish of South Littleton, or Littelton, which lies in the upper division of Blakenhurst Hundred, within the Deanery of Evesham in the County of Worcester. Lands in this parish seem to have been usually allotted as jointures to the widows of the house of Littelton, till the property was sold by Sir John Littelton in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In Henry the Third's reign Thomas de Littelton married, for his first wife, Emma, daughter and heiress of Sir Simon de Frankley, and thereby became possessed of the manor of that name, called in Domesday book Franckeleia, or the free and privileged district. The issue of this marriage was an only child, also called Emma, who married Auger de Tatlington. Their son, Nicholas de Tatlington, sold the manor which he inherited. It passed through several hands to a person styling himself, "filius et hæres Augeri de Tatlington;" but, in the ninth year of Henry IV.'s reign, Thomas de Littelton, the great grandson, by a second marriage, of that Thomas who married the heiress, recovered the manor by a writ of right, as being the lawful heir to Tatlynton. From this period Frankley, which gives birth to the river Stour, and is surrounded by scenery of great natural beauty, became the sole abode of the Lytteltons (according to the modern spelling) till the year 1564, when they began to reside occasionally on a recent acquisition by purchase, the adjacent domain of Hagley. The only child of Thomas Littelton (who recovered the manor of Frankley) and Maud Quartermain his wife, was Elizabeth, who married Thomas Westcote of Westcote, in the county of Devon. One of the children of this marriage was Thomas Littelton, the author of the famous treatise on Tenures. This distinguished person, though not strictly speaking the founder of the family, was yet, undoubtedly, the chief source from whence its dignity, splendour, and great territorial possessions were derived. The exact date of the birth of one destined to occupy so conspicuous a place in the history of the municipal law of his country is uncertain. His life, though not long, was prosperous. Before its close, great abilities and unremitting diligence had been rewarded by wealth and distinction; and the vessel of his fortunes escaped shipwreck in the troublous times of the Wars of the Roses. After a close application to the study of the law in the Inner Temple, in 1445 he was promoted to the degree of Serjeant-at-law, and was afterwards appointed Steward of the Marshalsea of the King's Household. In the following year he was made King's Serjeant, and rode as Justice of the Assize on the Northern circuit. In 1447, (26 Henry VI.) he served the office of High Sheriff for the county of Worcester. In 1454 he received a general pardon under the Great Seal, and two years afterwards was named in a commission to raise forces in the county of Warwick. He appears to have been a favourite of Edward the Fourth, for in 1464, that monarch invested him with the order of Knight of the Bath, appointed him one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, and granted to him an additional salary; "ut statum suum decentiùs tenere et expensas sustinere valeret." He kept this state at a house which he rented from the Abbot of Leicester, near the church of St. Sepulchre's, in the city of London. On the 22nd of August, 1481, he made his will, which, unlike the usual testamentary dispositions of great lawyers, was characterised by extreme simplicity, clearness, and brevity; and expired on the following day at his seat at Frankley. He was buried under an altar-tomb, erected by himself during his life, on the south side of the nave of Worcester Cathedral. "He" (says Lord Coke, in his Proemium to the first Institute)" that is desirous to see his picture may, in the churches of Frankley and Hales Owen, see the grave and revered countenance of our author, the outward man, but he hath left his book as a figure of that higher and nobler part, that is of the excellent and rare endowments of his mind, especially in the profound knowledge of the fundamental laws of this realm." It appears from county records, that in the east window of the chancel in the chapel of St. Leonard at Frankley, there was the figure of a man in scarlet, with a coif on his head, in the posture of prayer, probably the original of the print prefixed to the old editions of Lord Coke's Commentaries. Cornelius Jansen painted from this likeness a fulllength picture of the Judge, which is now in the Inner Temple Hall, and an excellent copy of which is preserved at Hagley. Judge Littelton married the widow of Sir Philip Chetwynde of Shropshire, the daughter and co-heiress of William Burley of Bromscroft in the same county. Three sons were the issue of this marriage, William, Richard, Thomas. Richard, the Second son, to whom his father addressed his book on Tenures, was a lawyer; he married Alice the heiress of William Winnesbury of Pillaton Hall, Staffordshire; the family bore the same arms, but a different crest, from the Lytteltons of Frankley; they obtained a knighthood and a baronetage. In 1812, the male branch became extinct, and the estates ultimately devolved on the present Lord Hatherton, the representative of the female branch. The Third son of the Judge, Thomas, founded the house of the Lytteltons of Spetchley in Worcestershire, and of Mounslow in Shropshire. This family also obtained a knighthood and baronetage; its most distinguished descendant was the Lord Keeper Lyttelton, mentioned by Clarendon. He was created SolicitorGeneral in 1634, Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1639, and shortly afterwards, on the flight of Lord Keeper Finch from the resentment of Parliament, received the custody of the Great Seal, and in the following year was created Baron Lyttelton of Mounslow in Shropshire. He was a person of great ability and attainments, and very intimate both with Selden and Lord Clarendon. The latter gives a very |