Memoirs and Correspondence of the Most Noble Richard Marquess Wellesley...

Antiquity of the Wellesley Family.-MS. Pedigree.-De Wellesleys of Somersetshire, temp. William I. - De Wellesleghe accompanys Henry II. to Ireland-settles there.-Contest between Abbot of Glastonbury and Philip De Wellesleigh.-English Estates pass to Banastres, &c.—Sir W. De Wellesley in Parliament.-Edward II. grants Kildare Castle.-Edward III. grants Demor.- Lord John De Wellesley captures O'Tool.-Estates County Meath.-Sir W. De Wellesley, Sheriff County Kildare, in Parliament, appointed by Richard II. Governor of Carbery Castle-Pursues the O'Briens.-De Wellesleys "Barons of Norragh."-Spelman MSS.-Dengan Castle (birth-place of Wellington), A D. 1411.- Lordships of Mornington, &c. - Alliances with Cusackes and Plunkets.-Drops the "De."-Walter Wellesley, Abbot, studies at Oxford, Master of the Rolls, Bishop.—Henry VIII.—Cowleys, Wellesleys, and Cusakes intermarry.-Pedigree traced to Dermot Macmorough, King of Leinster, and to Roderick O'Connor, King of Connaught.-Name of Wellesley contracted to Wesley-proof, Athenæ Oxonienses.-Methodists.-Rev. Charles Wesley.-Colleys or Cowleys settle in Ireland.-Lord Cowleye, Staffordshire, holds various high offices.-Sir H. Cowley in Parliament.—Providore of Queen Elizabeth.-Sidney, &c.-Family History. - Richard Colley takes the name, &c. of Wesley on the death of Garret Wesley.-Created Baron. -Son becomes Viscount Wellesley, Earl of Mornington, father of Richard, first Marquess, &c.-Marries Lord Dungannon's Daughter.— Doctor of Music, T.C.D., &c.—Musical Compositions.—Richard Lord VOL. I.

Wellesley at Eton. Musæ Etonenses.- Oxford-Prize Poem. Death of his Father.-Becomes Earl of Mornington.-Generosity to his Mother. Assumes his Father's Debts.-Education of his Brothers.Ages of William, Anne, Arthur, Gerald Valerian, Mary Elizabeth, and Henry, on the death of their father.

THE Wellesleys are descended from an Anglo-Irish family of great antiquity. In a manuscript pedigree among the papers of the late Marquess Wellesley, which appears to be an authenticated copy from Irish genealogies in MS. in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, the Wellesley family is traced as high as the year A.D. 1239, to Michael De Wellesleigh, the father of Wallerand De Wellesleigh, who was killed, together with Sir Robert De Percival, (one of the Egmont family,) on the 22d of October, 1303. It is stated by Playfair, that the family is of Saxon origin; deriving its name from the manor of Wellesley, anciently Welles-leigh, in the county of Somerset, which was held under the Bishops of Bath and Wells, and to which the family removed from Sussex soon after the Norman invasion. In the reign of Henry I. a grant of the grand serjeanty of all the country east of the river Perret, as far as Bristol Bridge, including the manor of Wellesleigh in the hundred of Wells, was made to one Avenant De Wellesleghe, whose descendant, according to some authorities, upon the embarkation of King Henry II. for Ireland, accompanied that Monarch in the capacity of standard-bearer. The manuscript pedigree, to which reference has been made, is silent on this point; the statement apparently resting on a tradition in the family that a standard, preserved down to a late period in the mansion-house of

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Memoirs and Correspondence of the Most Noble Richard Marquess ..., Volume 1