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1655. Thomas, first Lord Leigh, died in February, 1672, and was succeeded by his grandson (son of Sir Thomas, his eldest son, who died in vitâ patris in 1662) Thomas, second Baron, who had four sons, all of whom died unmarried excepting Edward, who became the third Baron on his father's death, in November, 1710. His Lordship had two sons: 1st, Edward, who died before his father, unmarried; and 2nd, Thomas, who succeeded as fourth Baron, in 1738, and died in December, 1749, having had issue by his first wife three sons, namely, Thomas, who died young, in October 1738; another Thomas, who was born in 1739, and died in 1741; and 3rd, Edward, who succeeded as fifth Lord Leigh, in December, 1749; and a daughter, Mary, who died unmarried, in 1806, and who will be again spoken of. Thomas, fourth Lord Leigh, by his second wife had a daughter, Ann, who became the wife of Andrew Hacket, Esq. but died without issue. Edward, fifth and last Lord Leigh, died unmarried, in June, 1786, when Mary, his sister, succeeded, as heir at law, to all the estates of her family. From this statement it appears that in 1786, all the male descendants of Thomas, the first Lord Leigh, became extinct, unless any remain of Christopher, his fourth son, whose heir male would undoubtedly be entitled to the Barony.

According to the present claimant's case, the said Christopher was twice married: first, to Penelope, a daughter of Sir George Cotton, by whom he had two sons; 1st, Roger Leigh, of Haigh, in Lancashire, from whom the claimant, Mr. George Leigh, is descended', and 2nd, Ferdinand, and two daughters, Catherine and Mary; and secondly,

The following is the pedigree issued by the claimant; the dotted lines and the name in italics show the only points which are doubtful:

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to Constance, daughter of John Clent, who was buried at Stoneley, 11th January, 1696, by whom he had a son, Thomas, who was twelve years old in 1683, and was buried at the same place on the 22nd December, 1698. There is no cause to doubt that the claimant is descended, as he asserts, from Roger Leigh, of Haigh; or that the Hon. Christopher Leigh married Constance Clent, and by her had a son, Thomas; hence the gist of his case rests in proving that the said Christopher was the father of his ancestor Roger Leigh, of Haigh; the evidence in support of which we shall proceed to examine.

Besides an alleged tradition in the claimant's family, the only proof of his descent from Christopher Leigh is an inscription on a tablet which is said to have stood in Stoneley church, but which is asserted to have been removed in 1811, when the church was repaired, and has never been replaced. In support of this fact, the following statements were made to the Attorney-General, who, it must not be forgotten, has not the power to examine witnesses on oath. Richard Perks, a plumber, remembered the monument in question; and stated that it was removed into the vestry room when the church was repaired, on which occasion he was employed there; and that besides the name of Christopher Leigh, there was also upon it that of Cotton, and the word Lancashire. Thomas Bryan's testimony corroborated that of the plumber, so far as the monument is concerned; but he also remembered that the letters on it were black, and that it related that Christopher Leigh had, by his first wife of the name of Cotton, several children, viz.-Catherine, Mary, and Roger; that a subsequent addition stated, that the said Roger was of some place in Lancashire, and that he or his son married a lady named Higham; but he added, that he was for twenty years in the service of the Hon. Mary Leigh, the sister of the last Lord, and that he had heard his mistress say, "her nearest relations of the name of Leigh resided in Lancashire."

The testimony of William Harris, a farmer, agreed with that of the preceding witness, excepting that he recollected the date of the year being upon the tablet: but the evidence of John Wilcooks is too important not to be given in the words of the Case.

"John Wilcooks, of the city of Coventry, bricklayer, stated that he went to reside at Stoneley Abbey on the 10th June, 1810, and continued there until the month of June, 1814; that he recollected the monumental stone relating to the Leigh family, which was on the south wall of Stoneley church, being brought into Stoneley Abbey House one morning about a quarter before eleven o'clock, at which time he had just returned from Coventry with the letter-bag; that he did not find any of the servants in the way, as usual; he therefore went to look for John Ilett, the house steward, who had the key of the letter-bag; that on going to seek the said John Ilett in the steward's room, he saw some men conveying along the passage the said monumental stone, in part covered with matting but open at the lower end; that not finding John Ilett he crossed over to see for him in the butler's pantry, by reason whereof he came behind the stone, and had the opportunity of recognizing it to be the same he had been in the habit of seeing in Stoneley church belonging to the Leigh family; that not meeting with Ilett there he followed the stone along the passage to the steward's office in further search of Ilett, and in so

doing saw James Henry Leigh, esq. standing near the back stairs not far from the first wine cellar, and Mrs. Leigh, his wife, standing near to the said cellar door, holding in her hand a candlestick with a lighted candle therein, for the purpose of lighting the men who carried the stone towards the wine cellar; that when the men came near, Mrs. Leigh entered the cellar, and the men with the stone instantly followed her, and Mr. James Henry Leigh as soon as he had seen the stone carried into the cellar went away up the back staircase; that having seen Mrs. Leigh at the cellar he attempted to look in to see whether the said John Ilett was there, but Mrs. Leigh directly shut the door in his face; that after the stone was conveyed into the cellar the men returned and went away."

Five other witnesses also testified to the existence of the monument in or before 1811; and one of them moreover recollected that the inscription on it stated that the descendant of Christopher Leigh, who married one Higham, had a son, Robert, who was likewise of Lancashire.

In consequence of the statement of Wilcooks, the Attorney-General requested the attendance of the Honourable Mrs. Leigh, whose character is so deeply affected by it. This lady attended accordingly, and declared that there never was such a monument in Stoneley church, and that the charge against her and her late husband, of having been concerned in its removal, was entirely false. But the most extraordinary circumstance is, that the Rev. Mr. Roberts, who had been for upwards of twenty years curate of that parish, and from which he retired in 1818, told the Attorney-General, at whose desire he appeared before him, that his reading desk was directly opposite the spot where the monument is supposed to have stood, and that he did not remember it," though he distinctly recollected the one erected to the Webster family. That tablet stood close to where the one to Christopher Leigh is said to have been erected, and has been replaced. "He would not say that it was impossible there should have been such a monument, but he thought it highly improbable; and upon being repeatedly pressed to say, whether he would positively assert that there was no such monument, he declined doing so, but contented himself with repeating what he had before said; adding, that he had never heard any person speak of a monument to the memory of the Hon. Christopher Leigh as having been in the church of Stoneley." Lionel Place, Esq. the late High Sheriff for the county of Warwick, however, afterwards informed the AttorneyGeneral" that he had formerly, upon more occasions than one, heard the said Mr. Roberts speak of a monument to the memory of the Hon. Christopher Leigh, as having been in the church of Stoneley." A MS. note certified by the solicitor for the claimant, in the copy of the Case before us, states that a member of the committee for conducting the alterations in the church has since asserted in his affidavit that Mr. Roberts was present when a person observed, "that monument the parish have nothing to do with, it belongs to the Leigh family; let it be taken down carefully, I will send it to the Abbey; they may have it cleaned and put up again, or do what they please with it."

Upon such conflicting evidence, we may be permitted to observe,

that some of the good people of Warwickshire possess most extraordinary memories! That a cross examination at the bar of the House of Lords will ascertain the simple fact, whether such a monument existed or not, it would be folly to doubt; and in the mean time we will only remark, that no account of any such monument occurs in Thomas's edition of Dugdale's Warwickshire', or we believe, in any MS. collection for that county; and we subjoin the AttorneyGeneral's comments on the subject. "There is another circumstance relating to the supposed monument which it may be material to notice. It appeared in evidence that various monuments to the memory of the different members of the family of Lord Leigh were placed in the chancel, which was the property of that family: it is not very probable therefore that a monument to the memory of the honourable Christopher Leigh, son of the first Lord Leigh, should have been separated from the rest and placed in the body of the church.”

Besides the supposed monument, and the alleged tradition, two other facts have been urged in support of the claim. The one, that Mr. Manning, the former solicitor of the claimant, had seen a pedigree in the possession of Lord Combermere, in which the marriage of Christopher Leigh with a Penelope Cotton was mentioned, and that Lord Combermere had admitted the existence of such a pedigree, and added, "that he had never been able to find it since he had given permission to a Mr. Manning to examine it in the month of August, 1814." The last fact adduced is, that a Francis Willoughby was a witness to the will of Roger Leigh, the presumed son of Christopher; which Francis Willoughby is attempted to be identified with the Hon. Francis Willoughby, brother of Lord Willoughby of Parham, who married Honora, sister of Thomas the second Lord Leigh, and niece of the said Christopher; but we confess we see no proof whatever of that identity, and think it would but slightly strengthen the case if it were established.

Several insinuations are thrown out in the Case that parish registers have been obliterated, and that the will of the Hon. Christopher Leigh has been taken away from the proper registry for the purpose of destroying the evidence of the claimant's descent. On the justice of these hints we cannot give an opinion; but we must not forget that documents have sometimes been destroyed by claimants themselves, with the view of removing the proofs of the falsehood of their pretensions.

It is necessary also to examine the other facts as they appear in the claimant's Case.

First, Although Constance, the widow of the Hon. Christopher Leigh, made a very long will, in which she mentions a number of her husband's relations, there is not a word that can be fairly deemed to allude to his having had issue by a former wife.

Secondly, Roger Leigh, the alleged eldest son of the Hon. Christopher Leigh, and consequently the grandson and first cousin of a

1 Whether Dr. Thomas has given all the inscriptions respecting the Leighs that existed in Stoneley church in 1730, when he wrote, we have not the means of knowing; but as he has introduced the copy of one to a porter of that family, who died in 1688, it is difficult to believe that he would have passed over that which recorded the descent of three generations from a son of the first peer.

peer, was not only a yeoman, and in a very low situation of life, but he decidedly could not write his name, since his will is certified by his mark; and though this circumstance is attempted to be explained by attributing it to illness and infirmity, the fact is unquestionable.

Thirdly, The supposed marriage with Penelope Cotton does not appear in any of the pedigrees of the Cotton family in the College of Arms, or in the British Museum.

Fourthly,-In the four descents of the claimant's undoubted pedigree, not one baptismal name resembles those of the family of the Lords Leigh.

Fifthly, That neither of the pretended sons of Christopher Leigh, nor their issue, are noticed in any will or deed which has been found of persons who undoubtedly belonged to the baronial line.

Sixthly, Though the Hon. Mary Leigh, who died in 1806, is made, according to one witness, to admit that "her nearest relations of the name of Leigh lived in Lancashire," she settled her property on a much more distant branch, apparently with the sole intention of preserving it to the male representatives of the family of Leigh, since she passed over her much nearer relations in the female line.

Such were the facts, together with those that have been already noticed, which appeared in the case laid before the Attorney-General, and which induced him to state, that although he "was far from being satisfied that Roger Leigh, of Haigh, from whom the petitioner derives his descent, was the son of the Hon. Christopher Leigh, and thought the statement extremely improbable; yet, as the existence of the supposed monument has been asserted by so many witnesses, who have stated that they had repeatedly seen it and read the inscription, he considered it his duty to recommend that the claimant's petition should be submitted to the House of Lords." We question however whether such would have been the Attorney-General's report had his doubts been strengthened by the following circumstances; and of one of which, the agent for the claimant, who has said so much on the suppression of documents, must undoubtedly have been aware.

In the Herald's Visitation of Warwickshire in 1683, a pedigree of Leigh occurs which was certified by Thomas the second Baron, and in which the said Christopher, the son of the first Lord and uncle of the individual who vouched for the facts, is thus described:

"4. Christoph Leigh,
obiit ap Stoneley
Sepultus 16 Sept. 1672.

Constance, da' of John
Clent, of Applewick, Com.
Wigorn Gen.

Thomas Leigh, onely child

æt. circa 12, annor. 1683."

This statement of Lord Leigh, in 1683, is corroborated by that of Peter le Neve, in 1694, who was then an officer, and soon afterwards became Norroy, King of Arms. In a valuable collection of materials for a Baronage of England', that accurate genealogist has given a pedigree of the Lords Leigh, and where he thus notices Christopher, the son of the first Baron.

1 Harleian MSS. 5808. f. 102.

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