LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE

OF

MARQUESS WELLESLEY.

CHAPTER I.

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.

B

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. 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

The

the family in Ireland, had been borne by one of its ancestors before Henry II. A banner of St. George appears in the crest of the family, which was probably worn in consequence of the royal grant of the grand serjeanty mentioned; tenants under that tenure having had the honour of carrying the King's sword or banner before him. In England the line was continued for seven generations from Avenant De Wellesleghe. In the sixth year of Edward III. we find Philip De Wellesleigh contesting with the powerful Abbot of Glastonbury the claim which that churchman had set up of exemption from the jurisdiction of the grand serjeanty, till then enjoyed by his family. He produced the original grant of Henry I., and the confirmations of his privileges by succeeding kings, and proved his descent from Avenant; thereby defeating the pretensions of the Abbot. Philip had no male issue, and his estates passed, by his daughter Elizabeth, into the family of Banastre, and from thence into other families. The English line of the De Wellesleighs thus became extinct.

We now turn to the Irish branch of this ancient house. William, the son of Wallerand De Wellesleigh, is described in the pedigree as Sir William De Wellesley (the family name now for the first time being written as it is at present). In the year 1339 Sir William was summoned to Parliament as a Baron of the realm, and had a grant by patent from Edward II. of the custody of his castle at Kildare, previously to the possession of it by the Fitzgerald family; to hold the same for life, with a fee of twenty pounds a year. Being afterwards obliged to yield up the fortress to

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the Earl of Kildare, he received from Edward III. a grant of the custody of the manor of Demor in 1342. By his wife Elizabeth he had a son, Sir John De Wellesley, Knight, who was also summoned to Parliament, and acted a conspicuous part in the events of his time. Cox the historian, recorder of Kingsale, in his Hibernia Anglicana mentions, that in the year A.D. 1327, when Roger Outlaw, Prior of Kilmainham, the Lord Chancellor, was made Lord Justice of Ireland, David O'Tool, a strong thief," who had been taken prisoner the Lent before by Lord John [De] Wellesley, was executed at Dublin. This O'Toole was one of the most active of the insurgent Irish chieftains. Sir John De Wellesley was appointed in 1334 a commissioner with extensive powers, to preserve the peace in Ireland; and a grant and free gift passed to him that year for services done against the O'Tooles, or OʻTothells, and for keeping the castle of Dunlavin, and driving out the O'Tothells; also a grant was made, December 2nd, to his father, Sir William, for services rendered by him in Munster, and as compensation for damages sustained by him in that province. Upon the arrival of Sir Ralph De Ufford in Ireland, and the attainder of Thomas Fitzmaurice, Earl of Desmond, in 1343, he became security, jointly with the Earls of Ulster and Ormond, seventeen knights, and sundry gentlemen of note, for the appearance of Desmond, upon whose flight the bond was sued out against them. One of his brothers appears to have been Vicar of Kildare, 1377-8. Sir John De Wellesley, by his first marriage, obtained considerable estates in the county of Kildare, and had one son, William.

He

married again on the decease of his first wife, and acquired a large landed property by his second marriage. His son, who was under age at the time of his father's death, is described in the manuscript pedigree as Sir William De Wellesley of Paynestown, county of Meath, in which county the family have been settled from the year 1363 to the present generation. He was summoned to Parliament as a Baron of the Realm in 1374. In 1378 he served the office of Sheriff for the county of Kildare; and in 1381 received a commission from Richard II., appointing him keeper and governor of the castle, lands, and lordship of Carbery, and the lands and lordships of Totemoy and Kernegedagh for one year. In 1393 a writ was issued for granting him a reward for his labour and services performed against the O'Briens. His son, Sir Richard De Wellesley, served the same office of Sheriff of Kildare in 1418. Playfair mentions that at this period the family of Wellesley bore the title of "Barons of Norragh," and also distinct arms, sometimes quarterly with their paternal coat, and sometimes singly; and by an old MS. list of Peers of Ireland, it appears that one of this family was summoned to the Parliament called by Richard II. when in Ireland in 1399, the last year of his reign. Various records show that they had much property in the town of Norragh, the parish of Norraghmore, and the barony of Norragh and Rheban, in the county of Kildare; but whether their barony had been derived from the chief lord of the palatinate of Meath, and not from the Crown, or whatever was the reason, the right of sitting in Parliament as Barons