William Lamb, 2nd viscount Melbourne, Queen Victoria's first PM (& husband
of Lord Byron's lover Lady Caroline Ponsonby Lamb), never could induce his
mother to identify his real father. He finally figured she probably didn't
know herself and gave up.
Antony Wagner tells the story of one especially licentious Regency peeress'
son who, at his 21st birthday party, publicly confronted Her Ladyship to say
that he thought it was high time she told him who his real father was. (The
bystanders' reactions to his demand are not recorded.)
Then there was the countess of Oxford of the Harley family, whose children
were known as "the Harleian Miscellany."
I have seen an estimate that barely 50% of the sitting peers at the time of
that writing were really the legitimate heirs male of the bodies of the
original grantees of their titles. Supposedly the large number of peers'
eldest sons who fell in WWI accounted for this, as most Victorian peers and
their wives obeyed the conventions long enough to produce one or two
children together & then went their separate ways, with the wife often
producing a "cuckoo in the nest" or two--perhaps the best-known 20th century
example being Lady Diana Manners, daughter of the wife of the duke of
Rutland, who openly proclaimed that she was the result of her mother's
affair with another man.
Regards
John P.
From: <dcunniff@verizon.net
To: John Parsons <carmi47@msn.com
Subject: Re: OT: Alphonso XII's inbreeding
Date: Sat, 06 Nov 2004 15:58:20 -0500
in article BAY11-F10AQV6uPDVni0001bb8a@hotmail.com, "John Parsons" at
carmi47@msn.com wrote on 11/6/2004 08:19 AM:
Among the consequences was the little-remarked likelihood that
Clementine Hozier, wife of Sir Winston Churchill, was [along with all
her
siblings] fathered not by her mother's husband but by the head of the
Mitfords, thus nearly relating Sir Winston by marriage to Sir Oswald
Moseley, Bt., head of the British Nazi party and husband of the Hon.
Diana
Mitford. Small world.)
John,
Well, Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford was Joan Hardwick's conclusion. But
I
think there are other candidates, including someone I think would be as
"interesting": Captain Bay Middleton (sometime "horse instructor" to the
Empress Sisi), whom Mary Soames claimed (April 2002) was her mother's
father
(citing a letter written by Lady Blanche Ogilvy). Without DNA tests I think
certainty is unlikely. It does all begin to sound a bit like a Jerry
Springer Show<g>.
Dennis J. Cunniff