The troublous year 1715 kept the Government busy with more public and pressing affairs; but after the re-establishment of tranquillity the Grant was drawn up and was enrolled on the 29th June 1716 (2d Geo. I.). It professes to proceed upon “an Act lately passed in our Parliament entitled, An Act to enable His Majesty to grant letters-patent to supply the defect in the Grant made by His Majesty King William the Third, unto Maynhard, Duke of Schonburg and Leinster, of the annual sum of £4,000 out of the Revenues of the Post Office until the sum of £100,000 be paid.” After reciting the services which the old Patent acknowledged, the new Patent adds what follows:— “Whereas the said Grant of the said £4,000 per annum for the Interest of the said £100,000 being limited and restrained to the said now Duke, and the heirs male of his body only, contrary to the said late Majesty’s intentions expressed in the said letters-patent, which was that the Interest of the said £100,000 should be continued to be paid until the said principal sum should be paid for the benefit of the persons who would have been entitled to the lands to have been purchased with the said principal sum according to the limitations aforesaid,— for supplying which defect it is by the said Act enacted that it should and might be lawful for us by letters-patent under the great seal of Great Britain to give and grant for us, our heirs and successors, unto the said Maynhard, Duke of Schonburg and Leinster, and the heirs male of his body, and for want of such issue to the heirs of the body of the said Maynhard, Duke of Schonburg and Leinster, and in default of such issue to the right heirs of the said Maynhard, Duke of Schonburg and Leinster, until the said sum of £100,000 should be paid as aforesaid, one annuity or yearly payment of £4000 of lawful money of Great Britain, &c, &c, &c, &c.”[1]
The Duke continued to live at his country house, Hillingthon, near London, till 1719, where he died suddenly on Sunday, July 5th, aged seventy-eight. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. The Annals of King George say, “On Tuesday night (Aug. 4), his Grace the Duke of Schonberg lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber in the greatest magnificence, and from thence was carried with all his trophies of honour and interred in the Duke of Ormond’s vault in King Henry’s the Seventh’s Chapel. The funeral service was performed by the Bishop of Rochester, his pall supported by his Grace the Duke of Kent, Duke of Roxburgh, Earl of Pembroke, Earl of Portmore, Lord Abergeveny, and Lord Howard of Effingham; the Earl of Holderness and Count Dagenfeldt were the chief mourners.”
Two daughters survived him. Lady Mary married Nicholas, Count de Degenfeldt, of the German Empire, who was naturalized in England on the 13th January 1720 (6th Geo. I.). [The title sometimes appears in print as Degenfeld and as Dagenfeldt.]
The elder daughter, Lady Frederica, lived till 1751; she was twice married; and from her the British representatives of the old Schombergs descend. Her first husband was Robert, third Earl of Holdernesse, who died in 1722; and her second husband was Benjamin Mildmay, Earl Fitzwalter; to the latter she had an only child, Robert Schomberg, who died in infancy. Her children to her first husband were —
1st. Meinhard Frederick, who died young.
2d. Robert, fourth Earl of Holdernesse.
3d. Caroline.
The last Earl of Holdernesse dying in 1778, left a daughter, Lady Amelia Conyers D’Arcy, who inherited from him the Barony of Conyers, which she transmitted to her son, George William Frederick, Duke of Leeds.
Caroline, daughter of the third Earl of Holdernesse, by Countess Frederica, married William Henry, Earl of Ancrum, afterwards fourth Marquis of Lothian, whose lineal descendant is Schomberg, Marquis of Lothian.
- ↑ As to the subsequent history of the pension, the Gentleman’s Magazine notes the death, on the 7th August 1751, of the Countess of Fitzwalter (formerly Dowager Countess of Holdernesse), eldest daughter of the late Duke of Schomberg, and adds that the £4000 a-year out of the Post Office settled on her father and his heirs comes to the Earl of Holdernesse. But I must inform my readers that after deducting land tax, exchequer fees, &c, the pension was only £2900. By private sale several individuals have shared the pension with the heir. One-fourth lately belonged to C. Eyre, Esq., and in March 1856 the Government redeemed his share by a payment of £19,399, 8s. It was announced that the other recipients’ shares might be bought up on the same terms, namely, reckoning each annual £1000 as about £720, being the nett payment after the above-mentioned deductions. The other recipients at that date were (according to the House of Commons’ printed papers for 1856, No. 250), the Duke of Leeds, £1080; P. Powys, £360; R. Gosling, £360; Colonel Macleod, £288; Henra: Macleod, £72. An Act of Parliament of 21st July 1856 transferred Hereditary Pensions to the Consolidated Fund; in Schedule A this entry occurs:— “The Three Fourth Parts of an Annuity granted by King George the First to Maynhard, Duke of Schomberg, and his heirs, and charged upon the Post Office Revenue, the net annual amount payable in respect of which three-fourth parts is £2160.” On 7th August 1876 the House of Commons voted the sum of £29,109 to buy up the Duke of Leeds’ share; and the Daily Telegraph attempted a memoir of the Schombergs in a leading article, almost every word of which was wrong.
