LA BELLE ASSEMBLÉE;

For AUGUST, 1811.

A New Series.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF ILLUSTRIOUS LADIES.

The Twenty-second Number.

LADY SPENCER.

Unlike families of later

rose superior to their enmity, and in 1598 he was sent back with the dignity of Marshal of Ireland and General of Leinster. Ho only left a daughter; but his rank and

LAVINIA COUNTESS OF SPENCER, the subject of our present biography, is a lady no less distinguished for the family she has married into than for that from which she is descended. The ancient stock of Bing-power enabled him to provide for a broham was seated in England long before ther, the ancestor of the object of our prethe Norman conquest, and is of undoubted sent biography. Saxon lineage. date, though still of remote autiquity, they did not derive their name from their lands but to these lands, their original seat in Somersetshire, they gave the patronymic desiguation of Sutton Bingham. On the removal of the elder branch into Dorset shire, soon after the Norman accession, the family custom was still preserved, and their newly acquired possessions assumed the name of Bingham's Melcombe.

In the reign of Henry I. Sir John de Bingham was knighted by that monarch; and after a long and respectable descent, we meet, in the reign of Elizabeth, with Sir Richard de Bingham, who was the first founder of the Irish branch. He is described not only as the most eminent person hitherto of his family, but as one of the best officers of his time; and having been sent by the Queen into Ireland in 1586, he was highly instrumental in quelling some of the most powerful and rebellious chieftains. In

all

ages we find that superior erit has met with a superior degree of envy; it is not surprizing, therefore, that Sir Richard's enemies should have succeeded so far as to procure his recal; his virtues, however,

George Bingham was Governor of Sligo, where he was accompanied by his brother Sir Richard; but a discontented officer having delivered up the castle to O'Donnel and a party of Irish rebels, the two brothers, with a few faithful adherents, were obliged to cut their way through the Curlew mountains in the county of Roscommon. His son, Sir Henry Bingham, of Castlebar,

was created a Baronet of Nova Scotia in 1632 by Charles I.; and his son, Sir George, the second Baronet, having married to his second wife a daughter of Sir Hugh Middleton, to whose enterprizing spirit the city of London is indebted for its present copious supply of one of the first necessaries of life, had a younger son, George Bingham, whose son, Sir John, became the fifth Baronet; he was appointed Governor of the county of Mayo, and was also elected its representative in Parliament. He by his marriage not only brought a claim to the Lucan title into the family, but also gave it a descent from royalty, his wife being Aune, daughter of Agmondesham Vesey, Esq. and Lady Charlotte Sarsfield, sole daughter of Wiliam Earl of Lucan, and Mary, a natural daughter of Charles II.

and of whom there is this curious and con-
scientious fact on record, that he was so
just and honest, and of so pious a disposi-
tion, that in his will he requested his ex-
ecutors to recompense every one t
that could
lawfully, prove, or could make oath, that
Sir John had injured him in any manner
whatever; to this he added, that he had no
injury done to another in his remembrance,
but that he had rather charge their souls
than his own should be in danger! His
son was Sir Robert Spencer, the first Peer,
of whom a cotemporary author declared :-

This Sir John, in consequence of his marriage, became the adherent of the Stuart family, and we are told by cotemporary historians, that his military skill and address at the siege of Limerick obliged King Wil liam to raise the siege, and thus led to the ratification of the Articles of Limerick. He was, shortly after this, killed at the battle || of Landau, in Flanders; but his second son, Sir Charles, was the seventh Baronet, and he having very patriotically discarded the prejudices of his ancestors, was elevated to the dignity of the Peerage of Ireland, by the title of Lord Lucan, in 1776. By his lady, Margaret, daughter and coheir of James Smith, Esq. of Cannon's Leigh, Devonshire, he had several children, and his eldest daughter was Lavinia, the sub-tentment than the various and mutable disject of our present biography.

The Hon. Lavinia Bingham even in her earliest youth gave ample promise of future excellence, and though we can say nothing further of her juvenile days than that they were occupied in acquiring every elegant accomplishment both of the heart and head, in the circle of domestic felicity, and under the shade of parental propriety, yet it is not irrelevant to observe, that these very circumstances marked her out as the object of choice to a young nobleman who, in addition to his own inestimable qualities, may justly consider much of his respectability in life as arising from the propriety of his early choice. Having said that this pair were expressly fitted for each other, we shall not intrude on the modesty of female feeling by expatiating further on her Ladyship's mental excellencies, but prove and elucidate them by a sketch of that congenial mind to which she is united.

Spencer (like the old Roman chosen Dictator from his farm) made the country a virtuous court, where his fields and flocks brought him more calm and happy con

pensations of a court can contribute; and when he was called to the senate, was more vigilant to keep the people's liberties from being a prey to the enervating power of monarchy, than his harmless and tender lambs from foxes and ravenous creatures." From him came Henry, the third Lord Spencer and first Earl of Sunderland, who married Lady Dorothy Sidney, daughter of the Earl of Leicester, and the celebrated Sacharissa of the poet Waller. From this || marriage with a lady so distinguished for uncommou beauty, virtue, merit, and ac|complishments, was descended Charles the third Earl of Sunderland, who married Lady Anne, daughter and co-heir of the great Duke of Marlborough: the third sen of this marriage inherited his father's title, and also that of the Duke of Marlborough; and the fourth son, John, who was first Viscount Althorpe, inherited from his grandmother, Sarah, the famous Duchess, the office of Ranger and Keeper of Windsor Great Park, the only place which by her will he could accept. His character was highly honourable to his descendants, and we are told that his death was justly lamented as a national loss, for his private munificence and his steady adherence to the real interest of his country, having constantly concurred in the senate with those who endeavoured to promote its liberty and welfare. He married Lady Georgina Caroline, daughter of John Carteret, Earl of Granville, and his son was the first Earl of Spencer in 1768. He married

As a consciousness of a virtuous and honourable ancestry must always be considered as a powerful stimulus to modern virtue, our readers will excuse us for going back to the origin of the family of Despencer, which was of noble degree in Normandy long before the Conquest. Robert Despencer was steward to William Duke of Normandy, an honourable post in those days, and always held by the first nobility; he accompanied him in his claim to the English throne, and from him in an ho- || nourable descent was Sir John Spencer who was knighted by King Henry VIII.

Margaret Georgiana, daughter of Stephen || beaked and legged or; the supporters, Poyutz, Esq. of Midgham, Berkshire, a lady whose taste for the fine arts induced her to patronize Flaxman in his elegant works illustrative of the Iliad and Odyssey, a patronage highly honourable to the sex, and to which the learned world are much indebted. Of this marriage was George John, the present Earl of Spencer, born in 1758, and also a daughter, the late admired Duchess of Devonshire.

When Viscount Althorpe, his Lordship was much distinguished even in early youth for the excellence of his private character, and we are told that he did not give in to the dissipation of the times, a circumstance || which most probably induced him to make an early marriage. With equal propriety has it been said that it was also peculiarly fortunate for his Lordship that his choice was fixed on one of the most amiable young women of the age, the Hon. Lavinia Bingham, to whom he was united in 1781, and by whom he has three sons and one daughter.

The public and private life of his Lordship are too well known to require our eulogium. His conduct when First Lord of the Admiralty rendered him highly popular in the service, and her Ladyship was no less so, from the politeness and urbanity which always distinguished her conduct towards those Officers who were the partakers of his Lordship's official hospitality. A line of battle ship has been called after his Lordship, and a frigate, the Lavinia, after Lady Spencer; and it is rather a whimsical circumstance that so great and so rapid was the increase of the navy under his Lordship's administration, that it was difficult to find names for the new ships, so that six of our finest frigates, built and launched at the same time, actually received their nomenclature, as we are told, from six of her Ladyship's favourite spaniels! an incident as complimentary to her Ladyship as the cause of it was honourable to the official character of her Lord. Having initiated our fair readers into the Freemasonry of heraldry, a sketch of the armorial bearings of the family of this Lady will not be out of its place. The original shield is azure, a bend cotized between six crosses pattee or; the crest a hawk with wings expanded proper, on a mount vert,

added on the elevation to the Peerage, are two wolves rampant azure, collared and chained or; and the family motto Spes mea Christus, "Christ is my hope;" but these ordinaries are not borne by her, the shield only being impaled along with the martial arms of Spencer. We have already premised that the allusive and figurative meanings supposed to be attached to the first assumption of any particular coat of arms, by the first founder of a family, cannot be considered as having an absolute reference to all his descendants; it will, however, serve at least to amuse, to compare these allusions with their descendants, our cotemporaries, and to investigate what may be called an armorial physiognomy. Let us then examine it in the present case.

The blazon of the shield is allusive to beauty, sweetness of disposition, and nobleness of mind. The blazon of the ordinaries of the field is the most noble of metals and superior to the colours; it is the emblem of faith, and therefore in strict consonance with the motto; it is also the emblem of gentleness, clemency, and humility, and therefore in appropriate consɔnance with the disposition of the fair bearer; need we add also constancy, purity of intention, and rectitude of heart? for of all these it is a symbol.

But our fair readers will recollect that there is not only a simple, but also a compound allusion in the union of metals and colours; so that azure accompanied by or, as in the present instance, signified “joyful in riches, and pleasant in conversation." The bend is to prompt the inclination of the bearer to study the virtues of their ancestors; and the cross seems to have been assumed either at the period of the Crusades, or perhaps at the first conversion of the family to Christianity, to which it evidently alludes, as the family is known to be of Saxon descent.

We thus complete our task for this mouth, both as genealogists and heralds; and as that task is the recording of virtue, shall resume it with redoubled pleasure in successive Numbers.

*By referring to Nos. 13, and 14, our fair readers will see that we do not exaggerate for the sake of flattery.