Sir Nigel Kingscote. 
5 
on both sides that only that seat should be contested, and that 
Colonel Kingscote, whilst having the Liberal vote, should 
receive enough Conservative votes to ensure his election. In 
the last Parliament in which he sat (1880-5) he had as 
colleague Lord Moreton, son of his old and attached friend, 
Earl Ducie. In March, 1885, Colonel Kingscote received from 
Mr. Gladstone the offer of a Commissionership of Woods and 
Forests, and his acceptance of this Civil Service appointment 
brought his Parliamentary career to a close. 
The qualities that were afterwards so generally recognised 
in Colonel Kingscote had obviously attracted the notice of the 
powers that then were so early as June 28, 1859, when he was 
appointed on the formation of Lord Palmerston’s Government 
to the post of Parliamentary Groom-in-Waiting to Queen 
Victoria. He retained this appointment during Lord Russell’s 
short Government of 1865-6, but retired when that Ministry 
fell in July, 1866. 
Meanwhile, in May, 1864, he had been appointed, in succession 
to Colonel Thomas, to the post of Superintendent of the Prince 
of Wales’s Stables, a position which involved practically daily 
attendance at Marlboi-ough House, and the general supervision 
of the men, horses, and carriages in this department of the 
Heir-Apparent’s household. Memories of Colonel Kingscote’s 
punctilious discharge of his duties, and of the respect and 
affection that he inspired, remain to this day in the staff 
serving under him in the Royal stables. 
It was in this way that commenced the long and intimate 
association with his Royal master and mistress which lasted 
forty-four years, and was only terminated by Sir Nigel’s death. 
On April 9, 1867, he received the additional (honorary) 
appointment of Extra Equerry to the Prince of Wales, which 
he retained until the beginning of the present reign, when he 
was made Extra Equerry to the King. His wife, Lady Emily 
Kingscote, who had been appointed in July, 1872, Lady of the 
Bedchamber to the Princess of Wales, was at the same time 
made Bedchamber Woman to Queen Alexandra, a position which 
she resigned in June, 1906, in consequence of failing health. 
Mr. T. H. S. Escott says in his brightly written King 
Edivcird VII. and his Court (1903) : — 
“The Court of the Seventh Edward is above all things representative. 
The first principle expressed in its composition is, as befits a monarchical 
and aristocratic country, that of antiquity of family descent. Wessex, 
richly endowed as it is in that respect, possesses few stocks so ancient 
as the Kingscotes, of Wotton-under-Edge. Sir Nigel Kingscote, the Palace 
Paymaster, discharges one of his duties by reminding critics of the new 
regime that the most cosmopolitan sovereign and court ever known in this 
nation is also one of the most conservative. A Gloucestershire squire of many 
acres and old descent, Sir Nigel Kingscote has appeared as the one repre- 
