LA BELLE ASSEMBLÉE, FOR JUNE, 1825, ILLUSTRATIVE MEMOIR OF THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LADY LUCY ELEANOR LOWTHER. THERE is so much historical interest in the name and family of Lowther, as well as in those of Sherard, that, to render them justice, a volume, rather than a few brief pages, would be requisite. It || ter and coheir of Cecil Cave, Esq., of the Lady Lucy Eleanor Sherard, of whose family connexions, by birth and by marriage, this memoir can form only an inadequate illustration, is the eldest daughter of the late, and sister of the present Earl of Harborough. Her Ladyship was born on the 21st of May, 1792; and, on the 19th of May, 1817, she was married to the Hon. Lieutenant Colonel Henry Cecil Lowther, Member for Westmorland, second son of the Earl of Lonsdale. Of this union, three sons and one daughter are the off-faced; and on the reverse, her arms in spring: Henry born on the 27th of March, 1818; Arthur born on the 12th of July, 1820; William born on the 14th of December, 1821; and Eleanor Cecily born on the 20th of December, 1822. Lady Lucy Eleanor Lowther's paternal ancestors descended from Schirard, who|| lived in the time of the Conqueror, and held divers manors and lands in the counties of Chester and Stafford. Robert Sherard became possessed of the lordship of Stapleford, in Leicestershire, in 1402, by marriage with Anne, daughter and coheir of Sir Lawrence Hawberk, Knight. From Robert, one of his great grandsons, descended the Baronets of this family, now extinct. William Sherard, second son of Francis, fifth in descent from the firstmentioned Robert, reccived the honour of knighthood from James I. at Oatlands, in the year 1622; and, having been one of the gentlemen pensioners under that sovereign, he was, by his successor, Charles I. created Lord Sherard, and Baron of Leitrim, in the kingdom of Ireland, on the 10th of July, 1627. He married Abigail, eldest daughNo. 6.- Vol. I. gold and silver, gilt, made for her funeral.* Bennet, eldest son and successor to the first Lord Sherard, married Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Sir Robert Christopher, of Alford, in Lincolnshire, Knt., by whom he had two sons; the elder of whom having died unmarried, he was succeeded by his second son, Bennet, who, on the accession of George I., was advanced to the dignity of a peer of this realm, by the title of Lord Harborough, Baron of Harborough, in the county of Leicester, by letters patent, dated October 19, 1714, with remainder, in default of male issue, to Philip Sherard of Whissendine, in the county of Rutland, Esq. On the 31st of October, 1718, he was farther advanced to the dignity of Viscount She For her loyalty then termed delinquency-this lady was, in the year 1645, fined £500 by the Committee of Sequestration. Her liberality was testified by extensive repairs and additions to the parish churches of Whissen dine and Stapleford, respectively in the counties of Rutland and Lincoln, where some of the family estates lie. A portrait of her, taken in 1622, when she was twenty-two years old, remains at Stapleford; with one also of her lord, and of Bennet, the eldest of their seven sons. 2 M* rard; and, on the 8th of May following, he was created Earl of Harborough, with remainder as before. Dying without issue, in 1732 (after honourably sustaining many high offices under the crown) he was succeeded, agreeably to the provision in his patent of peerage, by Philip, second Earl of Harborough. This nobleman was the son and heir of Bennet Sherard, Esq., who was son and heir of the Hon. Philip Sherard,, second son of William, the first Lord Sherard. Bennet, his eldest son and successor, died without|| male issue in 1770;* and was succeeded by his next surviving brother, Robert, fourth Earl of Harborough, who, at that time, held several church preferments. He married, first, Catherine, daughter of Edward Hearst, of Salisbury, Esq., by whom he had no issue ;-secondly, Jane, daughter of William Reeve, of Melton Mowbray, Esq., by whom he had a son, Philip, and a daughter, Lucy, who married, successively, Sir Thomas Cave, Bart., and the Hon. Philip Pusey, uncle to the Earl of Radnor ;-thirdly, Dorothy, daughter of William Roberts, of Glaiston, in Rutlandshire, Esq., by whom he had a daughter, Dorothy Sophia, who died unmarried. His Lordship died in 1799, at the age of eighty, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Philip, the fifth Earl. Born in 1767, his|| Lordship married, in 1791, Eleanor, the daughter of Colonel John Monckton, of Fineshade, in Northamptonshire (cousin to Viscount Galway) by whom he had :— 1. Lucy Eleanor, whose portrait, from the pencil of Miss Kendrick, enriches the present No. of La Belle Assemblée ;-2. Anna Maria, born 1794, married 1816, W. in the title and family estates on the 10th of December, 1807. We now pass to the Lowther family, which is of immemorial standing in the county of Westmorland. The orthography of its name has been greatly varied; its etymology is doubtful. It has been written Lauder, Loader, Loder, Lother, Lothair, Lothayre, Louthre, Louther, Lauther, and Lowther. According to Olaus Wormius, by whom it was discovered amongst the names of the ancient Danish kings, it is derived from Loth and er, which signify fortune and honour. Whether this be the true origin of the name, or whether it may have been taken from the hereditary possessions of the family, it would be difficult, if not impossible to decide. Few families have produced more eminent persons, or persons who have honoured their country by more considerable services. At one period, not many years ago, the Lowthers could boast of one Viscount and four Baronets, all living at the same time.*-Sir Gervasius de Lowther held a knight's service of Henry III. A.D. 1217. Sir Hugh de Louther, apparently his son, filled the office of Attorney-General in the 20th of Edward I. Thomas, the second son of Hugh, was one of the Justices of Edward III.; in the 11th of that reign, he the Court of King's Bench in the 5th of had license to make a park in his manor of Louther; and, in the 26th, 27th, and 28th he was Sheriff of Cumberland. He was in several engagements with Edward III. against the Scots; and he served repeatedly in Parliament for the county of Westmorland; in which, as also in Cumberland, the Cuffe, of St. Alban's, in the county of Kilkenny, Esq.; family has, for several centuries, taken the 3. Sophia, born 1795, married 1812, Thomas, eldest son of Sir Thomas Whichcote, of Aswarby, in the county of Lincoln, Bart.; 5. Jane born 1799; 6. Charlotte, born 1802; 7. Susan, born 1803. Robert, the present and sixth Earl of Harborough, was born on the 26th of August, 1797; and he succeeded his father His Lordship had married four wives in successionfirst: Elizabeth, daughter of Ralph, Earl Verney, by whom he had no issue;-secondly, Frances, daughter of the Hon. Wm. Noel, one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, by whom he had a daughter ;-thirdly, Margaret, daughter of Thomas Hill, of Fern, in Shropshire, Esq., M.P., by whom he had a daughter, still-born, and a son, who died in infancy;-fourthly, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Cave, of Stanford Hall, Leicestershire, Bart., LL.D. and M.P., by whom he had no issue. lead in all public affairs.—Sir Hugh, grandson of the preceding, served under Henry V. in the wars in France, and, with two of his kinsmen, was in the battle of Agincourt. Sir Hugh, his lineal descendant in the fourth generation, was Knight of the Bath at the marriage of Prince Arthur, son of Henry VII. He married Dorothy, daughter of Lord Clifford, and sister to Henry Clifford, At Great Preston, in Yorkshire, the aims of the families into which the Lowthers, at an early period, had married, are painted; viz. Lowther-cum-D'ayncourt, cells, Stapleton, Strickland, Vipont, Lord of Westmor Bromflete, Rookesby, Quait, Moubray, Burrell, Lasland, and Moulton, Lord of Gillesland in Cumberland.--Vide" Thoresby's Antiquities of Leeds," page 3. Viscount Lonsdale; and the second, Richard, of Meaburn, in Westmorland, was ancestor to the late Earl of Lonsdale. 2. Sir Christopher, created a Baronet in 1641. His eldest son, Sir John, was the founder of the town of of Cumberland, at Appleby and Skipton whitehaven, and sole proprietor of the mines there. Castle. Sir Richard, eldest son of the last-mentioned Sir Hugh, repeatedly served the office of High Sheriff of Cumberland; he was Lord Warden of the West Marches; and thrice commissioner in the affairs great between England and Scotland, during the reign of Elizabeth. In May, 1568, when Mary Queen of Scots fled into England, and arrived at Workington, in Cumberland, Elizabeth sent to Sir Richard, during his Sheriffalty, to convey her to Carlisle Castle. However, whilst Mary was in his custody, he incurred his Sovereign's displeasure, in admitting the Duke of Norfolk to visit the royal prisoner. Sir Richard's effigies, and a table of four descents, are preserved at Lowther, where he was interred, in 1607. Sir Gerard, fourth son of Sir Richard, who had sixteen children, held many possessions in Ireland; in which country he was Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, one of the Lords Justices, and, in 1654, Lord High Chancellor. James, the second son of Sir John, succeeded to the title and estates, was Vice Admiral of the county of Cumberland, and died worth nearly £2,000,000 sterling. 3. Sir William, of Swillington, in the county of York, from whom is descended the present Earl of Lonsdale. Sir John Lowther, Bart., son of Colonel Lowther mentioned above, and afterwards created Viscount Lonsdale, was born in 1655, at Hackthorp Hall, Lowther, in Westmorland. He was the thirty-first knight of his family in an almost direct line. This nobleman, who appears to have been intimately connected with all those illustrious persons, through whose virtuous exertions the Revolution of 1688 was happily accomplished, left behind him, in MS., a "Memoir of the Reign of James 11.," which was printed, though not published, in the year 1808, by the present Earl, who, as has been justly observed, " graces his high titles and princely fortune by a due regard to literature and the history of past ages." Prefixed to the memoir alluded to, with the loan of which we have been favoured, is a sketch of the life and character of the author, from the pen of the present noble representative of the family. Though our limits preclude us from distinctly tracing the career of this truly great and amiable man, we shall endeavour to transfer to our pages some of the more prominent features of the animated portrait before us. Sir Christopher, the eldest surviving son of Sir Richard, had seven sons; of whom Robert, of Maske, in the county of York, had a daughter, Hannah, Maid of Honour to Queen Mary and Queen Anne, who died unmarried, in 1757, at the age of 103, and was buried in Rutland Chapel, at Windsor. Anthony, the eldest son and successor of Robert, married a daughter of Sir William Penn, Admiral to Charles I. His son William, created a Baronet, in 1697, had a son, Thomas, who married Lady Elizabeth, third daughter of William, Duke of Devonshire. William, his son and heir by this marriage, claimed the title of Lord Sands, of the Vine; but, dying guages, he felt his deficiency in school learning, the unmarried, the title became extinct. His father and mother dying almost in his infancy, he was left to the care of his grandfather; and, after too brief a period of education at country schools, he was admitted at Queen's College, Oxford, at the early age of fifteen. Thence, at the expiration of a year and a half, he was sent to travel; but he did not remain abroad more than eighteen months. Though he had acquired a more than ordinary knowledge of the Latin and Greek lan rudiments of which, he said, were "planted but not rooted." In 1675, Mr. Lowther was returned to Parlia "The Sir Christopher's eldest son, Sir John, ment for the county of Westmorland, which he continued was one of King Charles the First's council, at York, in 1629, for the government of the northern parts. He had three sons: 1. Sir John, created a Baronet of Nova Scotia, in 1640. He married Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of Sir Henry Bellingham, Bart., and had five sons; of whom the first, Colonel John Lowther, was father to the first Lord to represent as long as he remained a commoner. distinguished loyalty of his ancestors, and their constant affection towards the Protestant religion, operated upon his virtuous mind as powerful stimulants to emulate their examples. He uniformly declared himself an advocate for the test and corporation acts;" consequently, he opposed, from the best motives, the designs of James, Duke of York. In this struggle, his superior abilities, and disinterested integrity, were frequently displayed. "He is |