80 Report of the Meetings for 1894. 



have now for the first time been whispered in the public ear. Six lineal 

 generations of the name of Sharp appear in that record, each successive 

 head of the family bearing the name of John. He who appears as 

 the first of the family in Pegswood was called Stephen, whose son 

 was baptized so long ago as 1680. How many years before that 

 Stephen Sharp had been settled in, or connected with, Pegswood is 

 not known, but there he was in the reign of Charles the Second, only 

 twenty years after "the Merry Monarch's happy restoration," and 

 eight years before there set foot in England the Bentinck, who became 

 the founder of the family of the Duke of Portland, the present owner 

 of the ancient Barony of Bothal. During these 200 and odd years, 

 while one John Sharp, after another was diligently tilling his fields, 

 which at times one or other of them must almost have cherished as 

 '' paternal acres," the estate itself, by a series of striking vicissitudes, 

 passed from the family of the famous Duke of Newcastle, who won 

 renown in the civil war for his devotion to the Royalist cause. His 

 only daughter held it and Welbeck in her own right. She married 

 John Holies, who had conferred upon him the title and rank of his 

 wife's father. Thus a second Duke of Newcastle, but of a different 

 family, became owner of Bothal. It next passed to the family of 

 Harley, the famous Earl of Oxford, who played sach a prominent part 

 in the troubled politics of the reign of Queen Anne, for he married 

 the only daughter and heiress of the second Duke of Newcastle. The 

 Earl and Countess of Oxford had only one child — a daughter, and 

 their heiress. She is known in literature as Matthew Prior's "noble, 

 lovely, little Peggy." With her there came to the Bentinck family 

 one of their many lucky opportunities. Their rise had been so rapid 

 as to cause heartburnings and Jealousies in not a few ancient houses. 

 The first of the Bentincks set foot on English soil at Torbay with 

 his Dutch master, William, Prince of Orange, on the 5th of November 

 1688. Next year, he was created Earl of Portland, and his son was 

 raised to the rank of Duke in 1716. When, in 1734, the Lady 

 Margaret Harley was married to the second Duke of Portland, Bothal 

 passed to the noble family in whose possession it still remains. 



The six genex'ations of farmers, commemorated in the window under 

 notice, were thus on the estate while it was in the hands of at least 

 four of the great houses of the English nobility, and in the possession 

 of at least eight distinct owners. These facts certainly speak well 

 for both landlords and tenants on the Bothal estate for upwards of 200 

 years, and perhaps quite as much for the prudence and judiciousness 

 which have been exercised by those entrusted with its local management. 

 The good understanding, proved by these facts to have existed between 

 the successive owners and occupiers of Bothal, is not a thing of the 

 past ; that it was never more cordial than at present is known and 

 acknowledged by all who have any acquaintance with the estate and 

 its administration. J. FERGUSSON, 



in Newcastle Daily Chronicle, August 25th 1894. 



I 



