BIOGRAPHIES IN A NUTSHELL 153 



of him that he could kill his fox in a bath-chair. 

 Certainly he was constantly in at the death, when 

 driving or being driven in his phaeton behind his 

 well-known pied horses. I need hardly add that 

 his fox-hunting instincts were transmitted both to 

 his son and his grandson, the present Duke. 



John Henry Somerset, seventh Duke of Beaufort, 

 Marquis and Earl of Worcester, Earl of Glamorgan, 

 Viscount Grosmount, Baron Herbert of Chepstow, 

 Raglan and Gower, Baron Beaufort of Caldecot 

 Castle, and Baron de Botetourt, K.G., was born on 

 the 5th of February, 1792. In 18 10 he joined the 

 loth Hussars, and from 181 2 to 18 14 was on the 

 staff as aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington 

 during the Peninsular War. In those days con- 

 stituents were not so anxious in regard to their 

 representatives fulfilling their duties as they are in 

 modern times, for in 18 13, when only twenty-one 

 years of age, the Marquis of Worcester, as his 

 courtesy title then was, was returned to the House 

 of Commons as M.P. for Monmouth, a seat which 

 he retained till 1832. In 1835 he was elected M.P. 

 for West Gloucestershire. His political principles 

 were those of extreme Toryism. He was the friend 

 and political associate of Lord Lyndhurst, who was 

 then regarded as the head of the Conservative party 

 in the Upper House, and joined with him in opposi- 

 tion to the Reform Bill. It was also through his 

 energy that the Succession Act of 1835 was passed. 

 It may be said in regard to his public life outside the 



