Marriage to Lady Yarborough 



which few men can give, and very few women receive ? And 

 truly, at that period, the Countess of Yarborough needed all 

 the assistance she could get, for at the death of his father the 

 present Earl of Yarborough was only a boy of sixteen, and 

 consequently a very heavy burden fell upon the shoulders of 

 his mother in the management — not only of her family, con- 

 sisting of four boys and one girl, and of those household details 

 that are supposed to be the one and only thing a woman can 

 undertake, but the entire control of the Brocklesby Estate, 

 which now devolved upon her. Such confidence had her first 

 husband, the Earl of Yarborough, in her capacity for carrying 

 through any task to which she set herself, that he had left 

 everything in her charge as executrix, and had appointed her 

 joint trustee for her children and the estate. Nor was the 

 Earl's confidence in his capable wife misplaced, for during the 

 present Earl's minority she not only paid off mortgages on 

 the estate to the amount of over ^100,000, but enhanced, if it 

 were possible, the reputation of the Yarboroughs as the most 

 equitable of landlords in the United Kingdom. 



Even the hounds fell to her management, and until the 

 present Earl of Yarborough came of age she carried the horn, 

 and was virtually M.F.H. of the celebrated Brocklesby Pack. 

 Of the 1st Lincolnshire Light Horse, too (Lord Yarboroughs 

 Own), she was honorary Colonel. It was in these two special 

 directions that my brother was able to help the Countess of 

 Yarborough, even before his marriage to her Ladyship, with 

 his masterly knowledge of hounds, and their working. 



After his marriage with her, in 1881, my brother took up 

 his residence at Brocklesby Hall, where the Countess's duties, 

 until the marriage of her eldest son, constrained her, though 

 pleasantly enough, to live, letting his bachelor house of Little 

 Brocklesby to respective tenants of sporting proclivities. He 



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