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The Lady Victoria Tylney Long Wellesley : a 



memoir. By her eldest God- daughter. London: Skeffingtons. 

 Cr. 8vo. 1899. Pps. xii. and 194. Cloth. Price 5s. 



Of the twelve illustrations three are portraits of Lady Victoria Catharine 

 Mary Pole Tylney Long Wellesley, one of the last Earl of Mornington, 

 and the others connected with Wiltshire are South Wraxall Manor — 

 Draycot Cerne — The Keeper's Lodge, Draycot Park — and Draycot Cerne 

 Church. Of these South Wraxall is from a photograph, the others from 

 drawings of little interest. The earlier part of the book is taken up with 

 a sketch of the genealogy and descent of the Long family and properties 

 in Wilts, from Thomas Long of Draycot in 1490 to Sir James Tylney 

 Long, the last baronet, gathered from sources such as Aubrey, &c, which 

 r are open to all. The story of the apparition of the White Hand as told 

 in Burke's "Anecdotes of the Aristocracy" is given at length. Sir 

 Walter Long, of Draycot, M.P. in 1592, having a son John Long by his 

 first wife, married secondly Catherine, daughter of Sir John Thynne, of 

 Longleat, by whom he had a second son, Walter. Lady Catherine and 

 her brother, Sir Egremont Thynne, according to Burke, deliberately 

 conspired to induce Sir Walter to disinherit his eldest son John, and 

 make the son of his second marriage his heir. As the lawyer's clerk was 

 drawing up the deed which was to effect this act of injustice, a lady's 

 white hand appeared between his eyes and the parchment on which he 

 was writing, preventing him from going on with his task. He was so 

 terrified that he refused to finish the deed, and another clerk had to be 

 called in to do it. On Sir Walter's death, however, the will was contested 

 by his eldest son, and the matter ended in a compromise, Walter retaining 

 the Draycot and John the Wraxall property, which thus became separated. 

 Walter's son, Col. James Long, was created a baronet by Charles II. 

 From him the descent is further traced to the Sir James Long who 

 succeeded to the baronetcy in 1767, and on the death of Lord Tylney in 

 1784 to his vast fortune and estates at Wanstead in Essex. Wanstead 

 House, a palace said to have surpassed Blenheim in magnificence, is 

 described and illustrated from an old print. In 1785 Sir James Tylney 

 Long married as his second wife Lady Catherine Sidney Windsor, 

 daughter of the fourth Earl of Plymouth. They resided chiefly at 

 Draycot, and their life of active benevolence and philanthropy is happily 

 dwelt upon here. Their son and heir died at the age of 10, the baronetcy 

 became extinct, and the eldest daughter, Catherine, inherited the fortune 

 and estates, becoming the richest heiress in England, with a rent-roll of 

 £40,000 a year. She married, 1862, the Honble. William Pole 



