Patrick Comerford
I was saying in a posting yesterday how the intricacies in the family trees of the Talbot and Chetwynd families are difficult to untangle, and produce many obstacles and problems for genealogists and family historians.
The Shrewsbury Peerage Case (1858-1860) was a landmark case before the House of Lords in a dispute over the succession to prestigious titles in both England and Ireland and to vast estates in Staffordshire and other parts of England. The decision by the House of Lords in the case established legal precedents in peerage law and estate inheritance.
The Earls of Shrewsbury were the premier earls in both England and Ireland, and their string of titles include Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl of Waterford and Earl of Wexford. The titles dated back to mid-15th century, when the celebrated warrior John Talbot was made the first Earl of Shrewsbury in 1442 and first Earl of Waterford and Wexford in 1445. The earls also held the hereditary title of Lord High Steward of Ireland, an office that traditionally allowed them to carry bear a white staff at the coronation of the monarch.
George Talbot (1719-1787), 14th Earl of Shrewsbury, had succeeded his uncle in 1743. George had no children, and when he died, he was succeeded by his nephew, Charles Talbot, as the 15th Earl of Shrewsbury. In 1812, Charles Talbot to lay out the extensive gardens at Alveton Lodge, Staffordshire, which had been in the Talbot family since the 15th century and would become Alton Towers.
When the 15th earl died, the titles were inherited by his nephew John Talbot as the 16th earl. When the principal home of the Talbot family at Heythrop, near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, was destroyed by fire in 1831, he moved to Alton Towers.
John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, who lived at Alton Towers, commissioned AWN Pugin to build many churches in Staffordshire, including Saint Giles’s Church, Cheadle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)The 16th earl was a noted patron of the architect AWN Pugin. This John Talbot married Maria Theresa Talbot (1795-1856), daughter of William Talbot of Castle Talbot, Co Wexford, Mary (O’Toole) in Bath on 27 June 1814, and both branches of the Talbot family were patrons of Pugin and his church building programmes in Staffordshire and Co Wexford.
Maria died on 6 June 1856, in Paris, France, at the age of 61, and was buried at Alton Towers. Maria and John were the parents of three children, a son who died in infancy, and two daughters:
1, Lady Mary Althea Beatrix Talbot (1815-1858), born on 29 May 1815, married Prince Filippo Andrea Doria-Pamphili-Landi, and died in Rome on 18 December 1858, aged 43.
2, John Talbot (1816-1817), their only son, born 27 November 1816, died 20 March 1817 in Paris.
3, Lady Gwendoline Catherine Talbot (1817-1840), born on 5 December 1817 in Cheltenham, married Prince Marcantonio Borghese, and died in Rome on 27 October 1840.
John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, died from malaria in Naples on 9 November 1852. Because he had no surviving sons, he was succeeded as the 17th Earl of Shrewsbury by his second cousin once removed and his adopted heir, Bertram Arthur Talbot, according to the rules of male-preference primogeniture. Bertram was the great-grandson of George Talbot, a younger son of Gilbert Talbot (died 1711), second son of the 10th Earl of Shrewsbury.
Bertram, who has been described as having a mild disposition, was an invalid with delicate health. He had been informally adopted by the 16th earl and he was a Knight Commander of Malta, and a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Pope Pius IX. He was also about to be nominated a knight of the Order of Saint Patrick.
When Bertram succeeded to the title in 1852, he was still under age, and when he. Having reached the age of 21, he took his seat in the House of Lords in February 1854, and he began proceedings to claim the office of Hereditary Lord High Steward of Ireland, a claim that was referred to the Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords.
Bertram arrived at Lisbon hoping to travel on to Cintra, and accompanied on the trip by Anne Talbot from Castle Talbot, Co Wexford, a sister the late Mary Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, Father Charles Brierley Garside (1818-1876), his domestic chaplain, and Dr Mervyn Crawford, his personal doctor. But their plans were delayed by an outbreak of cholera in Lisbon. Bertram moved into the Hotel Braganza, where his symptoms deteriorated rapidly. Bertram died on 10 August 1856 in Lisbon at the age of 23; he was unmarried and childless, and left no direct Catholic successor.
The Talbot family tree is widespread, with many branches, and when Bertram died it became difficult to disentangle the tree and to identify clearly the heir to the family estates and titles. His will reflected his staunch Catholicism by making the inheritance of the Talbot family estates conditional on the heir being a Roman Catholic.
The 17th earl believed he was the last descendant in the male line of the first Earl of Shrewsbury and so he tried to leave much of his extensive property to a younger son of the Duke of Norfolk. Without a Catholic heir, the terms of Bertram’s will devolved the properties were to devolve to two prominent Catholics, Ambrose Lisle March Phillipps de Lisle (1809-1878) and Lord Edmund Bernard FitzAlan-Howard (1855-1947), a son of the Duke of Norfolk. To conform to the terms of Bertram’s will, Edmund later changed his name by royal licence and was known from 1876 to 1922 as Lord Edmund Talbot.
But Bertram’s will was contested by relatives, and there were four separate contenders for the title of Earl of Shrewsbury, the associated titles and the Talbot family estates:
1, Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 3rd Earl Talbot, the primary contender for the titles and estates, who also held the titles of Viscount of Ingestre and Baron Talbot. Bertram Talbot and Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot were so distantly related that their shared ancestor was nine generations back: John Talbot, who died in 1549. He was a descendant in the male line of Sir Gilbert Talbot (died 1518), third son of the 2nd Earl of Shrewsbury.
2, The Duke of Norfolk, as guardian of the interests of his infant son, to whom Bertram Talbot had tried to bequeath Alton Towers.
3, Lady Mary Althea Beatrix Talbot (1815-1858), known as Princess Doria-Pamphili-Landi, the only surviving child of John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury.
4, Major William Talbot (JP (1789-1861) of Castle Talbot, Co Wexford, who traced his ancestry back to William Talbot, fourth son of George Talbot, 4th Earl of Shrewsbury. His sister, Maria Theresa Talbot (1795-1856), had married John Talbot, 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1814, and he was an uncle of Princess Doria-Pamphili-Landi.
The ‘Great Shrewsbury Case’ was heard by the House of Lords, and hearings began in 1857.
When Earl Talbot’s printed document formally asserting his claims to the earldoms of Shrewsbury, Waterford and Wexford was laid on the table of the House of Lords it ran to 41 pages of genealogical and other matters. The House of Lords referred it to the committee of privileges on 9 May 1857.
After a long and expensive legal case, the Committee for Privileges of the House of Lords ruled in 1860 in favour of Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 3rd Earl Talbot, who then became the 18th Earl of Shrewsbury, Waterford and Wexford. He was also awarded much of the family estates. The Committee of Privileges rejected the rival petitions from Major Talbot, the Duke of Norfolk on behalf of his infant son, and Princess Doria Pamphili, who was dead by then, having died in Rome on 18 December 1858.
A further suit was heard in the Court of Chancery for possession of the Talbot estates at Alton Towers and other places in Staffordshire, Oxfordshire, Worcestershire and Berkshire. Legal costs depleted the intended legacies, reducing Phillipps de Lisle’s share to £11,000, and so thwarting the 16th Earl's efforts to preserve Catholic control over his family patrimony.
The protracted litigation, lasting many months, resulted in exorbitant costs that eroded intended bequests. Phillipps de Lisle eventually received only £11,000 of his £40,000 legacy after legal expenses.
The other beneficiary, Edmund Bernard FitzAlan-Howard, was the second son of the 14th Duke of Norfolk. He was known as the Hon Edmund Fitzalan-Howard and later as Lord Edmund Fitzalan-Howard until 1876, and then as Lord Edmund Talbot from 1876 and 1921. He was the principal beneficiary in Bertram Talbot’s will, provided he took the surname and arms of Talbot, which he did in 1876. However, the legal litigation and contests over the titles and the terms of the wills, eventually left Edmund with only scattered minor lands.
He was the Conservative MP for Chichester from 1894 to 1921. On 27 April 1921, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the first Roman Catholic to hold the office since 1685 during the reign of James II. His appointment was made possible through the Government of Ireland Act 1920.
He returned to the use of his paternal name in 1921, shortly after being made a peer in his own right with the title of Viscount FitzAlan of Derwent, a day after his appointment as Lord Lieutenant. However, he was in office for only a year and a half. The post was abolished when the Irish Free State came into existence in 1922, and he was replaced by the Governor-General of the Irish Free State and the Governor of Northern Ireland. He died on 18 May 1947 at 91, and was succeeded in his titles by his only son, Henry.
The Shrewsbury peerage case drew attention to the tensions the creation of religious stipulations in wills and statutory inheritance rules that seemed to continue to favour Protestant lines of descent in the decades immediately after Catholic Emancipation. The verdict also served to emphasise underscored the legal primacy of bloodline inheritance over testamentary conditions favouring religious affiliation in 19th-century peerage law.
The 18th Earl of Shrewsbury had an eventful naval career. He had been a senior naval office, commanding the Philomel at the battle of Navarino on 20 October 1827, and eventually became an Admiral in 1865 and naval ADC to Queen Victoria. He was also MP for South Staffordshire (1837-1849). With his new titles he also became Hereditary High Steward of Ireland, and took part in the installation of the Prince of Wales as a Knight of Saint Patrick in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, in 1868. As Earl of Shrewsbury, he was also Earl of Waterford, while, interestingly, his wife Lady Sarah Elizabeth Beresford (1807-1884), was a daughter of the Marquess of Waterford.
When the 18th earl died, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Charles John Chetwynd-Talbot (1830-1877), as the 19th earl. This was the first time in over 200 years, since the death of the 11th earl in 1667, that the title of Earl of Shrewsbury had passed from father to son.
The 20th earl created a scandal in Victorian England by eloping with a married woman, Ellen Miller-Mundy. They were later married, but after he died in 1921, another bitter court battle over the estate was fought by his widow Ellen and his grandson, John Talbot, 21st Earl of Shrewsbury, who claimed his grandfather was not of sound mind when writing his will and won a court settlement.
Today, the titles are held by Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 22nd Earl of Shrewsbury, who succeeded his father in 1980. He was suspended from the House of Lords for his part in a lobbying scandal in 2022, and was barred from carrying out his family’s role at the coronation of King Charles in May 2023. Since then, he was suspended again for making false travel expenses claims and using a House of Lords rail season ticket for non-parliamentary business.
Ironically, the present Earl of Shrewsbury is also known for selling off alluring but meaningless titles such as ‘deputy lord high stewardship of Ireland’. Some years ago, Manorial Auctioneers were offering the title of the ‘Barony of Dungarvan,’ Co Waterford. Later, this supposed feudal barony was back on the market again with an online business known as nobility.co.uk. Although the Barony of Dungarvan was granted to the Earl of Shrewsbury in 1446, it is doubtful that the title still survives as any kind of legal entity.
There is no territorial Barony of Dungarvan in Co Waterford, yet the site was offering the ‘Barony of Dungarvan, Ireland,’ along with the titles of ‘Baron and Baroness,’ and said it was ‘once held by Earl of Shrewsbury, Premier Earl of England and High Steward of Ireland.’ Potential buyers were told that ‘the list price’ for this title was once £45,000, but the selling price had been reduced to £20,000.
Lord Shrewsbury also called in recent years for a change of law so daughters can inherit hereditary titles from their parents. If such a change had been made before the ruling in the Shrewsbury case in 1860, Lord Shrewsbury would not hold his present titles, and they might be held by some Italian prince or princess, or by a member of the Talbot family in Co Wexford.
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