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EDITOR'S PREFACE SK 



THE family of St John is of ancient standing / p'y 



in England, tracing descent in the female line O^ 



from William de St John, who was grand /a /a 



master of siege engines, waggons, etc., in the 11'/ 



army of William the Conqueror. His great-great-grand- 

 daughter, Mabel, married Adam de Port, Lord of Basing, 

 by whom she had a son William, born about the middle of 

 the thirteenth century. Few family surnames had become 

 fixed at that period. A feudal lord was known either by the 

 title of his principal landed estate, or by a patronymic 

 formed by prefixing the syllable "Fitz" to his father's bap- 

 tismal name; while humbler folk acquired designations 

 from their occupation, place of birth or residence, or from 

 some personal characteristic. But in measure as society 

 became settled and more complex, necessity became press- 

 ing for a definite and permanent system of distinguishing 

 between families,and fixed surnames were gradually adopt- 

 ed. Hence, when Mabel de Port's son William succeeded 

 his father as Lord of Basing, he adopted as a surname the 

 territorial title of his ancestors — de St John. 



Fourteenth in direct male descent from this William 

 came Henry, first Viscount Bolingbroke (1678- 1751), 

 Queen Anne's singularly shifty Secretary of State, who 

 was so promptly impeached and attainted when George \. 

 cametothethroneini7i4; his name, inconsequence, being 

 erased from the Roll of Peers. In 1751 the attainder was 

 removed in favour of his grandson Frederick, who there- 

 upon became second Viscount Bolingbroke. This Lord's 

 second son, General the Hon. Frederick St John, married 

 first Lady Mary Kerr, daughter of William, fifth Marquess 



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