Ube ifit^wiUiatits 277 



the patriarchal age of eighty-five. Only one notable in- 

 cident stands out in his later life, and that was his second 

 marriage, which took place on the 21st of July 1823. 

 The bride, Louisa, Dowager-Baroness Ponsonby of 

 Imokilly, was seventy-one and the bridegroom seventy- 

 five. But the story went that they had been sweethearts 

 in their young days, had been separated by a hard fate, 

 and when at last both were free, finding that the old, 

 old love of long ago was not dead, they married. A 

 pretty story of two faithful lovers ! 



Under his son and successor the sporting traditions of 

 Milton and Wentworth House were magnificently sus- 

 tained. When the latter died in 1857, his vast estates, 

 with a rental of ;^ 150,000, were by his will divided into 

 three unequal parts. The Milton estate, worth ;£"40,ooo a 

 year, was bequeathed to his second surviving son, the 

 Hon. George Wentworth Fitzwilliam, an enthusiastic 

 lover of the Chase, who kept up the old Hunt in the 

 same liberal and sportsmanlike style. On his death in 

 1874 Mr H. Wickham became Master of the Milton pack. 



The present Earl Fitzwilliam, on succeeding to the 

 title in 1857, started a pack of foxhounds at Wentworth, 

 with drafts from Milton, to hunt a little tract of country 

 between the Badsworth and the Grove. Right in the 

 heart of the manufacturing and colliery districts, a more 

 unpromising hunting country could not well be imagined, 

 yet with his 45 couples of hounds the Earl manages to 

 show good sport three days a week, and, though now in 

 his 84th year, is as keen for the Chase as his famous 

 grandsire at the same age. 



The hereditary love of hunting among the Fitz- 

 williams is conspicuous in his second son, the Hon. 

 Henry Wentworth Fitzwilliam. Born in 1840, and 



