T/ie Ancestry of Francis Gallon I'.t 



find Erasmus Darwin's natural daughters were intimates of his family'; 

 Colonel Edward Sacheverel Pole gave the family living to a natural son 

 who bore the name of Pole and was beloved by Darwins, Galtons and 

 Poles alike. Our first knowledge of Elizabeth Collier is her marriage 

 on April 10, 1769, to Colonel Pole in the little church at Radbourne. 

 Why should a natural daughter of Lord Portmore appear in Derby- 

 shire ? We think there is no doubt that the true explanation is to be 

 found in the fact that the Gurzons were next neighbours to the Poles, 

 and that Lady Curzon, formerly Lady Caroline Colyear, would be half- 

 sister to Elizabeth Collier. She brought her natural sister with her 

 to Derbyshire, and there Elizabeth married. In tracing the parentage 

 of Erasmus Darwin's second wife to Lord Portmore, we have linked up 

 Francis Galton's grandmother with a number of names of great his- 

 torical interest. 



Charles Colyear himself commonly called "Beau Colyear" a 

 name justified by the portraits I have seen of him, was chiefly cele- 

 brated for his horses and his equipages. But his father (see Plate XII) 

 was a man of great distinction. He served as a soldier of fortune 

 under William of Orange and came with him to England, afterwards 

 serving in Spain and Flanders 



"one of the best foot officers in the world, is very brave and bold; hath a great 

 deal of wit ; very much a man of honour and nice that way, yet married the Countess 

 of Dorchester " 



writes a contemporary of him. Catherine Sedley, his wife, had been 

 mistress to James the Second 2 . Portmore was a soldier of fortune raised 

 to the peerage by his achievements in the field. Catherine Sedley, what- 

 ever we may think of her morals, was undoubtedly a woman of very great 

 character and of great wit. A sample of this is provided by her 

 astonishment at the intensity of the Duke of York's passion for her : 

 " It cannot be my beauty," she said, " for I have none ; and it cannot 

 be my wit, for he has not enough to know that I have any." 



The portrait of her by Kneller 3 , till recently at Arthingworth Hall 



1 There are frequent visits and letters to and from these Miss Parkers, and they are two 

 out of the four children in the sketch of the staircase at Dr Darwin's house : see Plate X. 



2 Catherine Sedley was a kinswoman of the Churchills, whether through the 

 Drakes or not, I have been unable to ascertain. Thus she was probably related to 

 Arabella Churchill, and possibly to both Barbara and Elizabeth Villiers a subject 

 which would form a fitting study for a thesis on heredity. 



SD|I| at Christie and Manson's in 1913. 



32 



