engaged to Colonel Clinton).” On 16th December 1766, he married, at Paris, Penelope Pitt, daughter of Lord Rivers (then George Pitt, Esq., M.P.). He divorced this lady on 7th November 1771. From the proceedings it appears that he had inherited his uncle’s house in North Audley Street, and also Cobham Park. When he discovered that his wife had been the victim of a seducer, he hastened from Cobham Park to London. On getting out of his chaise, he immediately went from his house towards Bond Street, and in Pond Street he took a sword from a sword-cutler’s, and afterwards went to the Opera House and found Count Alfieri, whom he called out. As they walked to the Green Park he drew from the Count a confession of his guilt. In the Park they fought a duel. Ligonier was only yielding a formal compliance with the world’s code of honour, and he allowed the Count to make a furious attack, which he skilfully parried, being a splendid swordsman. Alfieri says, “He only parried my blows; his aim was not to kill me. At last he made a thrust and wounded me between the elbow and the wrist; he then lowered the point of his sword, and said he was satisfied.” All the world admitted that Ligonier had been an excellent husband, and his wife’s relations took his side. She is remembered through Gainsborough’s beautiful portrait; the National Portrait Gallery catalogue is mistaken in calling her a Countess; she was only Viscountess Ligonier. His uncle, Earl Ligonier, had died in 1770, when (by the remainder of the patent of 1762) Colonel Ligonier had become an Irish Viscount, but not an Earl.
Edward, Viscount Ligonier, became Colonel of the 9th Foot on the 8th August 1771. On the 14th December 1773, he married a second time. Old Ligonier’s first colleague in the representation of Bath was Robert Henley, who suddenly rose from being Solicitor-General to the Prince of Wales to be his Majesty’s Attorney-General, became Keeper of the Great Seal, with the title of Baron Henley, and afterwards (in 1764) Lord Chancellor, with the higher title of Earl of Northington. His son was the second and last earl, and a daughter and co-heir, Lady Mary Henley, became the wife of Edward, Viscount Ligonier.
Lord Ligonier was promoted to the rank of Major-General, 19th September 1775. He wished to be an Earl, and accordingly in 1776 (19th July) the King granted him “the state, degree, title, style, dignity, and honour of Earl Ligonier of Clonmel, in the kingdom of Ireland.” He became a Lieutenant-General on the 29th August 1777. In Beatson’s List of Knights of the Bath, the following notice occurs:—
“1781, Edward, Earl Ligonier, Lieutenant-General, died before installation.” His death took place on the 14th of June 1782.
Thus the Earl Ligonier expired at the early age of forty-two. His library was sold in 1783 by Joseph White, Auctioneer in Holborn. He had no children by either marriage. On the 18th November 1785, the Countess Ligonier gave her hand to a second husband, Thomas Noel, LL.D., the second and last Viscount Wentworth. Cobham Park was sold to the Earl of Carhampton.
*⁎* Frances, sister of Edward, Earl Ligonier, was born in 1742. In a description of a fancy-ball, where she appeared as Minerva, she is described as “a very elegant figure.” Her marriage removed her from London assemblies to the distant and stilly north, her husband being Colonel Thomas Balfour of Elwick, in the Orkney Islands. Her children were Mary (born 1778); Captain John Edward Ligonier Balfour, of the 9th Foot (born 11th January 1780), who was killed at Alkmaer, in Holland, 19th September 1799; Captain William Balfour, R.N., of Trenabie, Vice-Lieutenant of Orkney (born 1781, died 1846). Mary was married in 1798 to the Rev. Alexander Brunton, afterwards Doctor of Divinity, and Professor of Hebrew in the University of Edinburgh. Mrs. Brunton, by her celebrity as the author of works of serious fiction, specially of “Self-Control” and “Discipline,” has saved her mother’s and her husband’s names from oblivion. The date of her mother’s death is not preserved; the lamented “Mary” died on the 19th December 1818, aged forty.
From the manly and pathetic memoir by her husband, I select those sentences which connect her with the Ligoniers:—
