90 frtngs of tbe IRofc, IRifle, ant) 



hereditary portion " to his illegitimate offspring. The 

 lawful widow had been successful in establishing her 

 claim in the French courts, but she failed in the 

 English courts. So Thornvillia Diana Rockingham 

 Thornton, who afterwards married Admiral the Hon. 

 E. T. Wodehouse, inherited all her father's property, 

 to the exclusion of his lawful son. Such is British 

 justice ! 



I have devoted a considerable amount of space in 

 these pages to Colonel Thornton because I think that, 

 as a sportsman, he has had few equals. There was 

 not a single field sport in which he did not excel. 

 Whatever he did was done royally. Whether he 

 hunted, hawked, fished, coursed, or played the host 

 at Thornville Royal, there was always the grand style 

 about everything. And he threw himself heart and 

 soul into all that he undertook. Let us deal tenderly, 

 then, with the less heroic phases of his life, and 

 remember him only as the lavish entertainer, the jovial 

 comrade, above all, the devoted sportsman who 



Put so much of his heart into his act 

 That his example had a magnet's force. 



