Notes |
---"The Gentleman's Magazine", Vol. 103, Part 2, 1833, page 79:
Countess de Grey
May 4. In St. James's Square, aged 82, the Right Hon. Amabel Hume-Campbell, Countess de Grey of Wrest, co. Bedford (1816), and Baroness Lucas, of Crudwell in Wiltshire (1663).
Her Ladyship ws born Jan. 22, 1751, the elder daughter and coheiress of Philip second Earl of Hardwicke, by Jemima Marchioness de Grey, who was the only daughter of John Earl of Breadalbane, by Lady Amabel de Grey, eldest daughter of Henry Duke of Kent, K.G. and the 12th and last Earl of Kent of that noble house.
Shortly after coming of age, her Ladyship was married July 16, 1772, to Alexander Lord Polwarth, son and heir apparent of Hugh third and last Earl of Marchmont. His lordship was created a Peer of Great Britain, by the title of Lord Hume of Berwick, May 16, 1776; but died before his father, at Wrest, March 9, 1781, in the thirty-first year of his age. Her Ladyship had no family by this alliance, and she ever after continued a widow.
On the death of her mother, Jan. 10, 1797, the marquisite of de Grey, (which had been conferred on that lady by a special remainder of a patent granted to her grandfather the Duke of Kent in 1740,) became extinct; but the barony of Lucas descended to Lady Hume. This barony had been conferred in 1633 on Mary, Countess of Anthony 11th Earl of Kent, and sole daughter and heiress of John Lord Lucas; with this remainder, singular in the English peerage, though common in that of Scotland, that, if, on the failure of her heirs male, there should "be more persons than one who shall be coheirs of her body by the said Earl, the said honour, title, and dignity shall go and be held and enjoyed from time to time by such of the coheirs as by course of descent of common law shall be inheritable to other entire and indivisable inheritances: as, namely, an office of honour and public trust, or a castle for the necessary defence of the realm, or the like;" and by virtue of this limitation Lady Hume succeeded as the eldest daughter, instead of the Barony (as would have been the case with an ancient English barony writ) remaining in abeyance, between her ladyship and her sister the late Lady Grantham. It is somewhat remarkable that this barony of Lucas should have been held by only four persons during the long period of 170 years: the Countess Mary held it 37 years; her son the Duke of Kent 40 years; his granddaughter the Marchioness de Grey 57 years; and the late Countess de Grey 36 years.
Her ladyship was advanced to the dignity of Countess de Grey, of Wrest, by patent dated Oct. 5, 1816; with remainder to her sister Mary-Jemima dowager Baroness Grantham, and the heirs male of her body. In pursuance of this remainder her nephew Lord Grantham has now become Earl de Grey as well as Baron Lucas of Crudwell. His Lordship's last surviving son died on the 6th Feb. 1831, and in consequence the Earldom of de Grey, according to the present state of the family, is likely to devolve on the only son of his Lordship's brother, the recently created Earl of Ripon (previously Viscount Goderich); whilst the Barony of Lucas, according to its peculiar remainder, must become vested in Lady Anne-Florence, the elder of Earl de Grey's two surviving daughter. Lady Anne-Florence Weddell is at present unmarried; her younger sister, Lady Mary Gertrude, was married in 1832 to Henry Vyner, esq. descended like herself (but through the Ashburnham family) from the last Earl and Duke of Kent.
The remains of the late Countess de Grey were conveyed for interment to the family vault at Wrest, in Bedfordshire; followed by the carriages of her nephews only.
|