Once away from the office, and having entered the Temple Gardens, Mr Tredgold began to outline, in his usual circuitous and abstract way, a ‘little problem’ with which he had been presented.
‘Tell me, Edward,’ he began, ‘how extensive is your genealogical knowledge?’
‘I have some slight acquaintance with the subject,’ I replied.
‘I find, my dear Edward, that you have some slight acquaintance with most subjects.’
He beamed, took out his red silk handkerchief, and proceeded to polish his eye-glass as we walked.
‘Baronies by Writ, for instance. What can you tell me about them?’
‘I believe that such dignities are so called because they describe the old practice of summoning men of distinction to sit in the King’s Parliament by the issuing of a writ.’*
‘Correct!’ exclaimed Mr Tredgold. ‘Now, by several statements of law laid down since Stuart times, these Baronies are held to be heritable by heirs general – that is to say, through females as well as males. The present Lord Tansor’s peerage is just such a Barony. Perhaps,’ he continued, ‘it would be interesting to you, from an antiquarian point of view, to have a brief account of Lord Tansor’s noble line?’
I said that nothing would give me greater pleasure, and begged him to proceed.
‘Very well – pray stop me if any of this is familiar to you. In the reign of Henry III, Lord Maldwin Duport was a person of power and influence. Of Breton extraction, an ancestor having come over with the Conqueror, he was memorably described in one of the chronicles as “a man of iyrn and blud”. A dangerous and belligerent man, we may perhaps assume, but one whose services were much in demand in those uncertain and violent times. He was a great landowner, already a baron by tenure, holding lands in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Warwickshire, and Northamptonshire, in addition to other properties in the North and the West Country.
‘In December 1264, Maldwin was summoned to attend the rebel Parliament called by Simon de Montfort in the King’s name – Henry himself, along with his son, Prince Edward, being then under lock and key following the Battle of Lewes. Maldwin was subsequently summoned to Parliament in 1283, 1290, and 1295, and his successors continued to be called into the next century and beyond. In the course of time, their constant presence in Parliament was interpreted as constituting a peerage dignity deriving from the 1264 Parliament, thus giving the Barony senior precedence, along with those of Despencer and de Ros, in the English peerage.
‘The Lord Maldwin’s principal estate, or
‘This position, however, is now under threat – at least, that is how the present Lord Tansor interprets matters. The absence of an heir – I mean of a lineal heir, whether male or female – has caused him great concern; and it is this lack, and the consequences that may flow from it, that he feels may signal a decline in the family’s fortunes. His fear is that the title and property could pass to a branch of the family in which, to put things in his own terms, the qualities that have been so conspicuously demonstrated by successive generations of his ancestors are lacking. His Lordship has certainly been singularly unlucky. As you may know, the only son from his first marriage died when still a child, and his present union has so far been without issue.’
Mr Tredgold had taken out his handkerchief; but, rather than cleaning his eye-glass, he was using it instead to mop his forehead. I noticed that he had coloured a little, and so asked whether he would prefer to move out of the sun, which, though low in the sky, was unusually intense for the time of year.
‘By no means,’ he replied. ‘I like to feel the light of heaven on my face. Now then, where was I? Yes. In a word, then, it appears that there is, at present, ahem, no male heir of the direct line, which raises the distinct possibility that the title will pass to a member of one of the collateral branches of the family, an outcome to which his Lordship is deeply opposed.’
‘There are legitimate collateral claimants, then?’ I asked.
‘Oh yes,’ said Mr Tredgold. ‘His cousin and secretary, Mr Paul Carteret,* and, in due course, Mr Carteret’s daughter. But, as I say, his Lordship’s aversion to collateral succession is – well, entrenched and immovable. It is perhaps irrational, because the Barony has reverted to collateral relatives on a number of occasions in its history, but there it is. Come, I am a little tired of walking. Let us sit.’
Taking my arm, Mr Tredgold drew me to a bench in the corner of the Gardens.
‘There may yet, of course, be time for a satisfactory outcome to Lord Tansor’s predicament in the normal course of events, as it were. His physician considers it possible that her Ladyship might still be capable of conceiving an heir. I believe these things have been known. But his Lordship is not prepared to put his trust in Nature, and, after considering the matter carefully for several years, has finally come to a decision. He has wisely rejected divorce, against which I strongly advised, there being no grounds other than the lack of an heir, and it would go hard on his Lordship’s standing and reputation to behave like some Eastern potentate, and take such a step. He understands this, and so has taken an alternative course.’
Pausing once again, he looked up at the radiant blue of the sky through the branches of the tree under which we were seated, and shielded his eyes with his hand against the sun.
‘An alternative course?’
‘Indeed. A somewhat unusual one. The adoption of an heir of his own choosing.’
I cannot describe what I felt on hearing these words. An heir of his own choosing? But
‘Are you well, Edward? You look a little pale.’
‘Perfectly well, thank you,’ I replied. ‘Please go on.’
But I was far from being perfectly well. I thought my heart would burst from my chest, so assailed was I by panic at this entirely unexpected turn of events. Then I began to see that this was not the end of all my hopes; whatever such a course might mean in practice, I would still be able to claim my rightful place in the succession, if I could discover corroborative proof of my identity. All was not lost. Not just yet.
‘The firm,’ Mr Tredgold was saying, ‘has been charged with the task of modifying the provisions of Lord
