POLITICAL HISTORY 



Baron Byng of Southill and Viscount Torrington in 172 1.*** His eldest 

 daughter, Sarah, married in 1710 the eldest son of Sir John Osborn, and her 

 son, Sir Danvers, was the third baronet. She managed the estate during the 

 long minorities of her son and grandson, and her letters give much interest- 

 ing information upon local affairs during the years 1719—57 and 1766-73.*** 

 Her younger brother John was the unfortunate Admiral Byng who was 

 executed in 1757 for the loss of Minorca. 



Henry Earl of Kent was made a duke in 17 10 and died in 1740, a few 

 weeks after securing the marquisate of Grey and the barony of Lucas for his 

 granddaughter Amabel. She married in 1 740 Philip Yorke, the son of Lord 

 Chancellor Hardwicke,**' and the marchioness and her husband, first as 

 Mr. Yorke and later as Earl of Hardwicke, resided at Wrest Park. 



Another Bedfordshire estate passed in the early part of the i8th 

 century into a family till then unknown in the county. Ampthill Great 

 Park had been for some time held under the Crown by the Earls of Ailes- 

 bury, whose chief seat was the closely adjoining Houghton House. Charles H 

 conferred Ampthill Great Park upon John Ashburnham,*** whose grandson 

 built Ampthill House circa 1694. It was sold in 1720 to Lord FitzWilliam, 

 who resided there for a few years, but sold it in 1736 to Lady Gowran.**^ 

 Her son was created Earl of Upper Ossory in 1751 and made Ampthill his 

 chief abode. It was an Irish earldom, and he sat as member for Bedfordshire 

 from December 1753 till his death in 1758.**' His son, the second earl, 

 became member for the county on the death of his friend the young 

 Marquis of Tavistock in 1767, and sat till 1794,**' when he received an 

 English barony ; he was also lord-lieutenant of the county in 1787.*'° 

 Richard Fitzpatrick, the younger brother of the second earl, was the intimate 

 friend of C. J. Fox, a leader of fashion, joint author of the Rolliad and a 

 general in the army; he served in the American War, and was Secretary at War 

 in 1783 and 1806. He was member for the county 1807—12 ; before that he 

 had long been member for Tavistock, one of the Duke of Bedford's boroughs.*" 

 Their sister Mary *'* was the wife of Stephen, the elder brother of C. J. Fox 

 and father of the well-known Lord Holland of Holland House. As neither 

 the second Earl of Upper Ossory nor Richard Fitzpatrick left legitimate 

 sons, Ampthill went to Lord Holland on the death of the earl in 18 18. 



The well-known Earl of Bute bought the Luton Hoo estate and retired 

 to it after resigning the first lordship of the Treasury in April 1763,*^' but the 

 family ceased to reside there in the next generation. 



William Earl of Bedford was made Marquis of Tavistock and Duke of 

 Bedford in 1694, and died in 1700 at the great age of 87.*°* His son Edward 

 represented the county from 1689 to 1713.*" The second duke, Wriothesley, 



"' Diet. Nat. Biog. *" Polit. and Soc. Lett, of a Lady of the i 'ith cent. 



"' CoLins, Peerage, sub Marchioness Grey. "^ Lysons, Mag. Brit, i, 38. *" Ibid, 



"8 Ret. ofMemb. of Pari. «' Ibid. «» Beds. Co. Rec. 59. 



^*' Diet. Nat. Biog. See also Trevelyan, Early Tears ofC. J. Fox; Brougham, Sketches of Statesmen, sub 

 Lord Holland and John Allen. 



"^ See notices of her in Trevelyan, op. cit. 



*»' Lysons, Mag. Brit, i, 103. The Marquis of Bute, the son of the first owner of Luton Hoo, was still 

 there when Lysons wrote at the beginning of the 19th century. 



"^ Diet. Nat. Biog. His chief title to fame is the part he took in resuming and achieving his father's 

 great enterprise of the draining of the Fens ; hence the name ' Bedford Level.' 



"* With an interval from 1705 to 1708 ; Ret. ofMemb. of Pari 



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