DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.65478#0170
St. Edmunds, 2,100. When the Act of Union was passed in May, 1707,
Lord Dysart ceased to serve in the House of Commons, and was elected
a Representative Peer of Scotland. According to his epitaph in Helming-
ham Church he distinguished himself in Parliament “ with no less Wisdom
than Eloquence, being much for the Prerogative of the Crown: and ever
for the Liberty of his Country: So as to speak and vote for keeping up an
equal Poise between both, according to our happy establish’d Constitu-
tion: Which vigilant Attention and steady Attachment to the real Welfare
and true Interest of It as well in Time of Peace as when at War with the
Common Enemy of this Nation, gained him the Publick Acknowledg-
ment as well as the Just Approbation of his Constituents.”
Lord Dysart was Lord Lieutenant and Vice-Admiral of Suffolk; and
he was also High Steward of the Borough of Ipswich. He was already
a very wealthy man when, at the age of forty-eight, he succeeded to his
mother’s title and to her property at Ham House, for he had already
inherited Helmingham and the Suffolk property from his father, Sir Lionel
Tollemache; he had succeeded to Harrington and the Northamptonshire
estate brought into his family by his grandmother,“ the Stanhope Heiress; ”
the Duke of Lauderdale’s place at Leidington in the south of Scotland
was settled upon him; and through his wife, Grace Wilbraham, he had
acquired a large estate in Cheshire.
But the extravagant tastes of the Duchess of Lauderdale were not
copied by her son. He was, perhaps as a reaction from his mother’s
lavish expenditure, a thorough miser, and, rich as he was, he chose to live
in absolute penury from the time of his marriage till his death at the age
of seventy-two.
The miserly ways of this, the third, Earl of Dysart were so well
known that they are mentioned in more than one book written at the time.
In Mackey’s Journey through England,1 published in 1724, the writer
speaks of his visit to Ham House. He says:
“ From Twittenham I crossed the River at Ham, an ancient noble
Seat, formerly belonging to the Dutchess of Lauderdale, but now to the
Dutchess’s son, the Earl of Dyset: a Scotch Title, but he of an ancient
Family and eldest Brother to that brave General Taimash whom we knew
Abroad and who was kill’d at the Expedition to Brest. The Gardens are
still well kept, but the House more neglected than one could expect from
1 A Journey through England, Familiar
Letters from a Gentleman Here to his Friend
Abroad, vol. ii., p. 62.
64
Lord Dysart ceased to serve in the House of Commons, and was elected
a Representative Peer of Scotland. According to his epitaph in Helming-
ham Church he distinguished himself in Parliament “ with no less Wisdom
than Eloquence, being much for the Prerogative of the Crown: and ever
for the Liberty of his Country: So as to speak and vote for keeping up an
equal Poise between both, according to our happy establish’d Constitu-
tion: Which vigilant Attention and steady Attachment to the real Welfare
and true Interest of It as well in Time of Peace as when at War with the
Common Enemy of this Nation, gained him the Publick Acknowledg-
ment as well as the Just Approbation of his Constituents.”
Lord Dysart was Lord Lieutenant and Vice-Admiral of Suffolk; and
he was also High Steward of the Borough of Ipswich. He was already
a very wealthy man when, at the age of forty-eight, he succeeded to his
mother’s title and to her property at Ham House, for he had already
inherited Helmingham and the Suffolk property from his father, Sir Lionel
Tollemache; he had succeeded to Harrington and the Northamptonshire
estate brought into his family by his grandmother,“ the Stanhope Heiress; ”
the Duke of Lauderdale’s place at Leidington in the south of Scotland
was settled upon him; and through his wife, Grace Wilbraham, he had
acquired a large estate in Cheshire.
But the extravagant tastes of the Duchess of Lauderdale were not
copied by her son. He was, perhaps as a reaction from his mother’s
lavish expenditure, a thorough miser, and, rich as he was, he chose to live
in absolute penury from the time of his marriage till his death at the age
of seventy-two.
The miserly ways of this, the third, Earl of Dysart were so well
known that they are mentioned in more than one book written at the time.
In Mackey’s Journey through England,1 published in 1724, the writer
speaks of his visit to Ham House. He says:
“ From Twittenham I crossed the River at Ham, an ancient noble
Seat, formerly belonging to the Dutchess of Lauderdale, but now to the
Dutchess’s son, the Earl of Dyset: a Scotch Title, but he of an ancient
Family and eldest Brother to that brave General Taimash whom we knew
Abroad and who was kill’d at the Expedition to Brest. The Gardens are
still well kept, but the House more neglected than one could expect from
1 A Journey through England, Familiar
Letters from a Gentleman Here to his Friend
Abroad, vol. ii., p. 62.
64