There was no Earl of Comberford in Hopwas in the 16th century, but a Regency blockbuster has a fictious Earl of Cumberford

The Earl of Cumberford is a fictional character in the Regency romance novel ‘Contrary Cousins’ (1981) by Judith Harkness

Patrick Comerford

When I was walking around Hopwas in one of my recent treks through the countryside in Staffordshire, I came across a blog posting from 2010 on ‘Tamworth Time Hikes’ in which a blogger, writing about the Woodhouse in Hopwas Wood back in 2010, said the house was ‘probably built on orders of the Marquess of Donegal around 1750 for use as a hunting lodge and retreat, being close to his Fisherwick estate.’

The blogger goes on to claim: ‘Local hearsay reports that there was a site here as far back as 1540, from the wife of the earl of Comberford, I cannot confirm any of this but its [sic] worth investigating.’

Of course, the blogger could never have confirmed any of this. The family of the Marquess of Donegall owned Comberford Hall in the 18th century, and before them the Comberford family owned large tracts of Hopwas, which is west of Comberford, on the road between Lichfield and Tamworth.

But there never was an Earl of Comberford, nor was there a Countess of Comberford who built the Woodhouse in Hopwas in the mid-16th century. Much as the conceited side of my inner personality might delight in the prospect of inheriting such a title, the nearest there ever was to an Earl of Comberford is a fictional character in a blockbuster or ‘chick-lit’ novel by the American romantic fiction writer Judith Harkness.

’A Mapp of Staffordshire with its Hundreds’ by Richard Blome (1715) names Comberford as Cumberford

The spelling ‘Cumberford’ is used on the Comberford family monument erected by Joseph Comerford in the Comberford Chapel in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth, in 1725. Ten years earlier, Richard Blome’s ‘A Mapp of Staffordshire with its Hundreds’ (1715) is unusual in tilting Staffordshire, viewing it from south to north on a left-to-right axis. Like many maps of the name, it spells Comberford as ‘Cumberford’. The same spelling was used 20 years before that in Robert Morden’s map, ‘Staffordshire’, for Camden’s Britannia (1695). Reviewers claim Judith Harkness often makes historical errors in her English settings. But, at least in her spelling of this fictitious aristocrat’s title she is not being entirely unhistorical.

The Earl of Cumberford is a fictional character in her Regency romance novel Contrary Cousins (1981), and she portrays him as a pompous English nobleman who detests the American branch of his family. Cumberford hates his American relatives and when his nieces arrive in London, the romantic comedy begins. When the Powell cousins take London society by storm, Cumberford is livid with rage. Lady Pendleton was certain her plan would succeed, for lively Antonia was irresistibly pretty, and Serena merely required the attentions of a first-rate dressmaker and a more confident manner to attract the notice of London’s most eligible bachelors.

But if Lady Pendleton could have foreseen how well her scheme would work and just which lords would soon be courting her charges in earnest, she would never have let Antonia and Serena off the boat from America.

Judith Harkness paints the fashionable world of Regency England, when styles were dictated by Beau Brummel, the Duchess of Devonshire held court, and dandies paraded in their phaetons and four. Groomed by their mothers to capture the hearts of the most eligible bachelors of the day, fashionable young ladies passed the Season in London and at Bath, where they were presented at a string of assemblies and balls in their finery and feathers.

Brimming with period detail, Contrary Cousins was written to appeal to readers who enjoy a good, old-fashioned romantic caper in the tradition of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer.

Judith Harkness is the author of five classic Regency romances: The Montague Scandal, The Admiral’s Daughter, The Determined Bachelor, Contrary Cousins, and Lady Charlotte’s Ruse, all originally published by Signet. She is the co-author of a screenplay, Emma in New York, an updated version of the classic Jane Austen novel set in contemporary Manhattan.

As JH Richardson, Judith Harkness also writes non-fiction on subjects ranging from children with learning and developmental issues to profiles of notable creative artists. She lives in Rhode Island with her husband, Will Taft.

The Woodhouse in Hopwas was also known as Hopwas Hayes Lodge and was built in 1730 by Zachary Babington

As for the Woodhouse in Hopwas, it was also known known as Hopwas Hayes Lodge. It was built in 1730 by Zachary Babington (1690-1745) as part of the Fisherwick estate. It was situated on the highest part of Hopwas Wood.

Zachary Babington was a barrister and was High Sheriff of Staffordshire in 1713 and 1724. He was the son of John Babington (High Sheriff in 1702), and was named after his grandfather, the Revd Canon Dr Zachary Babington (1549-1613), Chancellor of Lichfield Cathedral and Master of Saint John’s Hospital. He was distantly related to Anthony Babington, who in 1586 was hung, drawn and quartered on Tower Hill for his role in the Babington Plot to put Mary Queen of Scots, on the English throne.

Although there never was an Earl of Comberford, it is here we find a link with the Comberford family: Zachary’s grandfather, Humphrey Babington, married one of three sisters who jointly became heiresses to the vast Beaumont estates, including Wednesbury:

• Jane or Joan Beaumont, the eldest daughter, married William Babington of Teremore;
• Dorothy Beaumont, the second daughter and co-heir, married Humphrey Comberford of Comberford, Staffordshire;
• Eleanor Beaumont, the youngest daughter, married William Babington’s brother Humphrey Babington of Rothley Temple, Leicestershire.

The grandson of Canon Zachary Babington, the younger Zachary Babington, lived at Curborough Hall, near Lichfield, and later at Whittington Old Hall. His daughter Mary married Theophilus Levett, town clerk of Lichfield, and so the Levett family inherited the Babington estates at Curborough and Packington, including the Woodhouse.

The Woodhouse was altered in the 19th and 20th centuries, but it fell into disrepair and was demolished in 2010.

The Earl of Cumberford is a fictional character in a novel by Judith Harkness

The spiteful, vengeful dragon does not have the last word

Clouds and reflections, like a Paul Henry painting, on the Burrow Beach in Portrane on Sunday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Patrick Comerford

Sometimes it creeps up from behind and snaps at you viciously like a fiery dragon, as if it had been hiding behind you for months waiting and plotting its spiteful vengeance.

For the past few days, this fiery, snapping, vengeful dragon has been taking its toll on me. The symptoms of Sarcoidosis have flared back up with a vengeance, with a dry cough, a weight on my lungs, and pains in my legs and joints that have made it difficult to walk, climb or stay standing for any length of time.

Standing at the second-hand bookstall in the big red and white marquee at The Quay in Portrane for two days in a row has aggravated those symptoms.

When I could stand comfortably no longer yesterday afternoon [Sunday 4 August 2013], I took a break and walked down to the Burrow Beach. The tide was out, and the white clouds in the blue sky looked like the clouds in a Paul Henry painting from Achill Island.

On the rippled sand below, those clouds were mirrored in the small pools and rivulets left behind by the receding tide.

After visiting the grave of my grandparents, Stephen and Bridget (Lynders) Comerford, in churchyard beside Saint Catherine’s, the ruined Church of Ireland parish church, I returned to The Quay for the last half hour of yesterday’s sale, raising funds for Heart-to-Hand and its projects in Romania and Albania.

Fact and fiction, truth and lies, still sitting side-by-side on the book stall in Portrane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Bertie Ahern’s autobiography had sold the previous today from the pile of fiction books, where it had found its rightful place among cheap novels by Jeffrey Archer for the .price of 20 cents, perhaps the measure of both politicians’ worth.

If fact was difficult to tell from fiction, truth from lies, on Saturday afternoon, then it was an equally difficult task on Sunday afternoon. There beside the Jeffrey Archer’s books were Lance Armstrong’s It’s not about the Bike -- well know what it was all about now; Michelle Smith’s Gold, A Triple Champion’s Story; and Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue, An American Life.

From the tent, I could see across the Burrow Beach, and as far as Rush. But, unlike Sarah Pallin, I could not see as far as Russia. But perhaps she would have been close to Jeffrey Archer’s Shall We Tell the President?.

Reading Jeffrey Archer’s potted biography inside the covers of his books, I wondered whether this was as much a work a work of fiction as his novels. He once claimed he went to Wellington College, the public school in Berkshire, when in fact he went to school in Wellington School, Somerset.

He claims in the books on the stall that he went to Brasenose College, Oxford, but Pinocchio’s Nose College might be a more appropriate claim. In fact, he has a teaching qualification awarded by the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education, and was never a full undergraduate at Oxford. Archer’s other claims throughout his life, including his expenses claims, are worth reading as much as his fiction.

One of his books on the stall was The Eleventh Commandment. Of course, The Eleventh Commandment is: ‘Thou shalt not get caught.’ And the eleventh commandment was certainly the downfall of Michele Smith, Lance Armstrong and Bertie Ahern.

Meanwhile, the symptoms of Sarcoidosis are my downfall today. With a continuing cough and continuing aches and pains, I have decided against working at the book stall again today for the third and final day of the sale.

Walking through the ripples and the pools on the Burrow Beach in Portrane on Sunday afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Sarcoidosis has caught me ought again. But the beach walks in Portrane and our asides about fact and fiction lifted my spirits, and are helping to put the irritating, snapping dragon behind me.

I have Sarcoidosis, but Sarcoidosis does not have me, and I hope to be back on my feet again tomorrow and to take part in Irish CND’s annual Hiroshima Day commemorations at lunchtime in Merrion Square, Dublin.

Trying to tell fact from fiction among the books in the big tent in Portrane

Trying to tell the difference between fact and fiction, truth and lies, in between the books at Portrane this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Patrick Comerford

Not a penny more, not a penny less.

Honour among thieves.

And Thereby Hangs a Tale.

All titles of novels by Jeffrey Archer.

But how appropriate, I thought, that stuck in among these works of fiction by the great perjurer and politician was Bertie Ahern, The Autobiography.

Sometimes, I suppose, it can be difficult in life to tell the difference between fact and fiction, truth and lies. But it galls me that those who would like to think that none of us knows the difference then want to make more money out of us by peddling us their tales between the covers of book.

Despite what Jeffrey Archer says, I doubt whether there is any Honour among thieves.

Oh well, Bertie sat there for most of the afternoon. Until one buyer offered 20 cent ... not a penny more, not a penny less.

I spent the afternoon as a volunteer in the big red and white tent at the annual sale at The Quay in Portrane in aid of Heart to Hand and its projects in Romania and Albania.

The rain held off for most of this bank holiday Saturday afternoon, and in between the sales pitches, I managed to take time for a short stroll on the beach below the Lynders family home at The Quay, looking out onto Lambay Island.

The sale continues each afternoon this weekend, closing on Monday afternoon.

And there are some really good books (honestly) for sale in the bid red-and-white tent. Five for €1 ... not a penny more, not a penny less.

Looking out at Lambay Island from the small beach beneath The Quay in Portrane this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

In Prosperity and Adversity – a short story

The following short story was first published in True to Type: A Collection of Short Stories by Journalists in the Irish Times, edited by Fergus Brogan (Dublin: Irish Times Books and Sugarloaf Publications, 1991).

The 18 short stories in this collection were written by Maeve Binchy, Deaglán de Bréadún, Fergus Brogan, Declan Burke-Kennedy, Patrick Comerford, Joe Culley, Mary Cummins, Kieran Fagan, Brendan Glacken, Tom Glennon, Mary Maher, Seamus Martin, Mary Morrissy, Eugene McEldowney, Noel McFarlane, Padraig O’Morain, Arthur Reynolds and Paddy Woodworth.

The book, published in December 1991, was introduced by Dick Walsh and was illustrated with cartoons by Martyn Turner. The book was dedicated to the memory of our late colleague, the Revd Stephen Hilliard, who was murdered in Rathdrum Rectory, Co Wicklow, on 9 January 1990. All proceeds from the sale of the book were donated to the Revd Stephen Hilliard Trust Fund.

In Prosperity and Adversity

Patrick Comerford

IT must have Peter, while we were still children, who first took to calling him the White Rabbit. One given, the name stuck. That afternoon, Canon Phillips looked every bit the White Rabbit: hid thin, white hair fell limply around his pink face; his pink, shell-rimmed glasses failed to disguise his blood-shot, weak eyes; a full, long and starched white surplice almost totally covered his cassock, and a broad, creamy, white stole had been donned especially for Peter’s wedding.

The White Rabbit stood before us, squat, rigid, and drumming his right fingers on the Prayer Book he was keeping open in his left palm, occasionally muttering the opening sentences of the service, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered...,” as if rehearsing the wedding to himself, or testing to see if he could remember all the words.

“I understand the propriety of a bride wanting to be late,” he intoned, impatient that he had to interrupt himself.”Five minutes, ten at the most. But” – and he hissed as he looked at the clock at the west end of the church – “sixteen minutes seem extravagant.” Nervously, I nudged Peter; there might have been a knowing grin in his facial reply, except he was still anxious and upset.”

It all came to a climax the previous evening. As Peter’s best man, I had put a lot of thought into planning the stag night he wanted. He never took to Dublin stags in sleazy, smoky pubs that ended in disreputable night-clubs, and so he had planned for weeks to come home with my brother Rick in time for a proper night on the old town.

The Bohemian Girl ... the bar in White’s ... The Eagle Bar ... Con Macken’s and the Cape ... Jack Fane’s and Tommy Roche’s ... Rick wanted t prove there were more pubs on the Quay side of Main Street, “so they could roll the barrels off the ships straight into the basements.” But by the time we reached the Tower Bar in our pilgrimage through the pubs of the Bull Ring and the Main Street, Rick was too drunk to restate the finer points of his history lesson, and I was sure Peter was drawn and pale only because he had five too many. It wasn’t much to worry about, we had all experiences similar feelings in the rugby club on many of our more youthful weekends.

But just as I thought it was time to move on to the Commodore, Peter was missing. I slipped quietly from the bar, which Rick was grabbing solidly with his left hand as he held a fresh pint up to his mouth with his right. “Tell us, John, is it true you spent your snag tight ...?” He started to reminisce, but wasn’t even finishing his questions, and I thought Peter must be feeling sick if he had to spend that much time away from the two of us. I headed for the basement, wondering whether he had gone down to the men’s loo, but as I opened the bar door into the side hallway I could hear his quiet, sober, worried voice on the phone at the lunge door.

“Yes June, thanks... No, I understand... Please...don’t...I’m sorry, I am sorry.” Then he caught me in the corner of his eye. “I must go now, June, thanks... Yes, I do... I really am sorry.” But there was no “See you later,” no “I love you.”

Quietly, he hung up the phone, turned to me and pleaded: “John, I don’t feel like going on.” But he didn’t look into my face as he begged, almost sobbed: “Can we go back to your place? I’m not on for any more drinking.”

I poked my head back around the bar door. “Rick, follow us back up to my place, will you? Peter and I are going on ahead.”

Rick still had more than half a pint in his hand; I could take Peter away and find out what was troubling him before Rick realised it. As we headed out the side door and began to make our way up Rowe Street, Peter still looked pale. “There’s no point in going back to my place if you’re feeling like that. Do you want some fresh ir along the Quay? And you can tell me what’s bothering you.”

We doubled back silently, passed on down Church Lane between Saint Iberius and the Foresters’ Hall, and down the side of the car park. Peter said nothing as we crossed over the road onto the wooden-works and the trainline and began to make our way down the Quays. It was still bright, and orange streaks were beginning to break through the evening clouds over the harbour. The only sounds as we walked along Commercial Quay and Custom House Quay were a few passing cars, the birds hovering on the harbour water, and a handful of children playing around the ropes of the Guillemot moored against the Quay Wall.

We reached the Crescent before I started to ask any questions. “Well Pete, what’s the problem? Has June got butterflies? Is she having second thoughts?”

“Well, no, not exactly.”

“Not exactly? So there is a problem?”

“Well, of sorts. Look, you’ll stand beside me tomorrow, John, won’t you?”

“What do you think I am?” I asked. “Is there some problem between you and June? Do you want me to run you over to her place in the car?”

“No, no don’t, please.”

“It’ll only take ten or fifteen minutes.”

“No,” he insisted.

Now we were facing each other in the car park beside the gas works in Trinity Street, opposite the Talbot, and I still hadn’t rumbled what was wrong. “Look Peter, if you and June have some problem, you’d better sort it out now. Because, tomorrow is going to be too late.”

I wasn’t prepared for what he said next: “John, we have talked it out. We’re not getting married.” He looked away from me and out towards the Ballast Bank and the breakwater. “Not tomorrow. Not ever.”

I PEERED down at the mud in the Crescent as Peter told me a story I had never prepared myself to hear. On the way down from Dublin with Rick, it had dawned on him slowly that although he and June were the best of friends, “I just couldn’t honestly say I was in love. I had to face up to that before it was too late.”

With arms swinging slowly, limply, over the rusty rails, he went on to explain his absence once we had arrived in the Tower Bar. “By then, I had plucked up enough courage to ring her an explain that although I liked her a lot, that I would always see her as a really close friend, I knew I wasn’t ready to go ahead with getting married, not now and not with her.”

I wanted to ask him if he was just suffering from pre-marital jitters, but he continued to talk without any prompting.

“I told her I was sorry, and that I couldn’t think of how to apologise. And you know what? She just told me she understood. She promised we’d stay friends, and said she’s look after explaining everything to her family later on. That, and sending back our wedding presents as well.”

“What then?”

“Oh, we’ll meet back in Dublin next week and sort all that out – what to do about the deposit and the builders, keeping on the flat, and all those things. She just asked me for one favour before then.”

“And what’s that?” I asked, torn between my cynicism, my anger, my feelings about how lost and lonely June must have been that evening, and my loyalty to Peter.

“She wanted to know would we keep it quiet, and just turn up in Church tomorrow afternoon.”

“She what?” I didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”

“Well, she pointed out that if started trying to call off the wedding now, at this time of the night, everyone would panic, and we’d have to explain to her mother that I’d called it off. There’s be a row, and we’d have t wait months before sorting things out with the bank and the house. And she’d always have the reputation of being jilted.”

That was typical of Peter – practical down to the last detail, whatever the emotional feelings. I felt more sorry for June than for Peter, even if he was my cousin.”

“Well,” I suggested with resigned if sorry feelings, “I suppose it’s much easier for a man to say he was left at the altar because she had bad nerves, than it is for someone like June to live with the name of being a jilted woman.”

“Exactly, that’s just how June put it. She said we could just turn up in St Machta’s, pretend nothing’s happened, and when the car arrived at her house she’d tell her mother she couldn’t go through with it, pretend she’d been having second thoughts for a long time, that sort of thing.”

I thought Peter was being a coward, leaving all that for June to carry with her for the next eighteen hours, but all I could blurt out was: “The White Rabbit will be ripping mad.”

“I know. June said he’d told her she could be late, five minutes late, but no more. She says when it comes to twenty past, you can tell Canon Phillips she mustn’t be coming. She knows his bad temper will be enough to let him believe the whole thing should be called off.”

Now he had to put an extra burden on me too. But soon I was thinking: “Poor Peter.” I hadn’t realised what he’d been going through. But from the way he told it, it sounded as if June was a better friend than either Rick or I had been to him since we were children.

“Let’s go back to the Tower Bar and collect Rick,” I said. And Peter made a last request: “Not a word to Rick either, please.”

When we found Rick, he was deep in conversation about election promises, the trade union movement, and the collation. None of it made sense, and he hardly even noticed we’d been gone for 40 minutes. “I want to go on to the Commodore,” he protested. “I won’t finish drinking until we reach the Stone Bridge. Or even better, the Talbot Hotel.” He was triumphant, but he left calmly and mildly when we insisted it was time to go. It was dark as all three of us headed up Rowe Street and back to my place.

HAVING crossed the front of the church and crossed it again at least four times in as many minutes, Canon Phillips was back in front of us again. This time his patience had turned to anger, and his face was flushed with rage.

“Well, does the groom have anything to say for himself or his bride? It’s now getting after twenty past and I can’t see why I should be left standing all afternoon. I’m a retired man now, you know. I’m only doing this as a special favour for your family. Has the best many anything to say in your defence?”

I looked at Peter, who was beginning to relax. I could see relief in his eyes as he began to accept that June was not turning up. What a friend he had in her. Few men have wives who are friends like that, I thought, as I looked at the White Rabbit and began to speak up for Peter.

“Er, eh, Canon Phillips, I think I should... ”

“Should nothing my man,” he quipped back, looking straight down the nave. Rick still had a hangover and noticed nothing, but Peter and I were stunned as we turned our heads in disbelief. There, hand looped trough her brother’s arm, steadily making her way up though the pews, was June.

Before we could even turn back and catch each other’s eye, the organist was playing and Canon Phillips assumed a glad voice and feigned informality as he started to intone from his Prayer Book: “Dearly beloved, we gathered together in the sight of God, and in the face of this Congregation, to join together this Man, Peter, and this Woman, June, in holy...”


Photographs of Wexford: Patrick Comerford