sir_guinglain

"be ashured I shall give my consent to mary to no man till I be tuenty yiers of ag, and then I hop in God I shall not be in great danger of bearing bairns. I got word from Dr Waderburn that if I maried now I should haserd both my oun life and my chyld's".
--Margaret Leslie, countess of Leven in her own right, to her aunt Catherine, countess of Melville, 31 July 1673. Lady Leven was right; she was forced by her tutor (guardian) the earl of Rothes to marry his nephew, and died the next year soon after the birth of a child who did not survive. See Scots Peerage, vol. 5, p. 380.

(posted elsewhere yesterday; apologies for the repetition)

Crossposts: http://parrot-knight.livejournal.com/1118097.html

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The death of Richard, sixth Earl Grey, on 10 September was marked by an obituary in the Telegraph which seemed too respectable. There was much about his activity in parliament as a prominent Liberal peer, his advocacy for small businesses and dutiful observing of elections in Zimbabwe, but surely there was another aspect to his career which they had forgotten..?

Trust a Murdoch paper to recall that there was. The Times (yes, I have paid the Murdoch shilling) have just obituarised the sixth Earl Grey, with details of his work with pornographer David Sullivan and his arrest in 1983 by the Obscene Publications Squad following the seizure of "350,000 sex magazines, books and videos" and his subsequent charge of living from immoral earnings, though the Director of Public Prosecutions chose not to pursue the case. What larks.

Crossposts: http://parrot-knight.livejournal.com/989393.html

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The Naked and the TED
- A somewhat vicious swipe from Evgeny Morozov in The New Republic at some recent publications under the TED imprint, with a side order of Niall Ferguson-bashing. I know very little about the subjects under discussion. Nevertheless, I share the reviewer's lack of enthusiasm for the sort of technocracy which he thinks is being peddled.

The next Lord Raglan
- I know nothing of the late Arthur Somerset (1950-2012) beyond that he was a leading events manager and that he was disinherited by his uncle, the 5th Baron Raglan, and so would not have inherited the family estates in south-east Wales. Nevertheless he would have inherited the peerage, had he lived; and the next Lord Raglan will apparently have the untraditional forename of Iggy.

Crossposts: http://parrot-knight.livejournal.com/878432.html

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I'm not usually one for linkspam, but here are a few items which have distracted me today:

For sale: Bush House. A landmark of BBC World Service history.
- Christopher Middleton at The Telegraph mourns the end of an era; but how often is 'Lillibulero' played on the BBC World Service these days? Its associations are questionable to say the least.
Auction for BBC World Service
- Here is the flysheet for the online auction mentioned in Middleton's article. If you want to set up your own worldwide broadcasting service, now is your chance.
Baroness Fauconberg and Conyers
- The blog post is about the death of Lady Wendy Lycett, but peerage-spotters can welcome back the baronies of Fauconberg and Conyers to the extant peerage as Lady Wendy and her elder sister Lady Diana Miller were co-heirs to those titles. At the age of 92, I think it's unlikely that Diana, the new Baroness Fauconberg and Conyers (once she has had the automatic termination of the abeyance recognised by the Crown Office, and been added to the Roll of the Peerage) will be seeking election to the House of Lords, but you never know.
Lords reform: this will be our last chance for a generation
- With the vote on Lords reform dropped, the elected hereditaries look as if they will be hanging on alongside the life peers and bishops for a little while yet. Peter Hain doesn't I think have all the details right on the measure the government had intended to put before the Commons tonight, but as he says it could have been amended.
Before Adam, by Jack London
- Project Gutenberg e-book of Jack London's 1906 novel about an early homo species, possibly in the literary geneaology of the first Doctor Who story.

Crossposts: http://parrot-knight.livejournal.com/873300.html

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The plea of an unwilling bride-to-be to her aunt, 1673

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