CHAPTER VI

The Boyhood of the Eighth Duke

IT

T was on February 12, 1824, that a son was born to the Marquis of Worcester, the heir of the sixth Duke of Beaufort. This child, who received the names of Henry Charles Fitzroy, and bore the title of Earl of Glamorgan, was for many years to be a central figure in English Sport and Society. The heir to the Dukedom of Beaufort, the historical associations of which have already been sketched, must indeed be a person of note in England.

We have seen how the Somerset family had been connected with the earlier stages of the transition of the English nobility from a position of personal power to one of political influence. The eighth Duke of Beaufort was to see another great change pass over English society, and to live through that Victorian Era, that has witnessed a transformation of our social life greater than at any period in our history. In 1824 the Reform Bill was still eight years away, and the political power that had been for so long concentrating in the

hands of our great families had not yet begun to pass from them. Such men as the Duke of Beaufort, however, with their unbending Tory principles, were excluded by the great Whig oligarchy from

place and power. Two careers then only remained to them. The military service of their country, and local leadership in country sports and agricultural matters. Both these lines were adopted successively by the heads of the Somerset family.

The eighth Duke was to be a keen soldier, whose regret was deep that no opportunity of active service was open to him. He was to watch, rather as a spectator than an actor, the political and social changes that followed the first Reform Bill and the introduction of railways.

As far as external incidents were concerned, the life of this Duke followed on the whole an even tenour. The various opportunities that his position opened out to him unfolded themselves one by one, and he was in turn soldier, statesman, and a leading figure in country life. It is not the duty of the biographer unduly to exalt and magnify his subject, but he cannot fail to note that Charles Henry Fitzroy Somerset, eighth Duke of Beaufort, was successful in all he undertook. Nor was this due entirely to his position. We need not consider here whether his gifts might or might not have been more profitably employed; it is sufficient to note that in every line of business or pleasure, in society or in politics, so far as he entered into the last, the Duke was a

leading and noticeable figure. He had the gift of a charming personality, and this means that he possessed both the will and the power of shedding happiness about his path in life. The unfailing kindness of his heart, the fine courtesy of his manner, the unaffected desire to make those around him happy, marked him out as one who was to win the affection of his fellows for his good qualities, and to obtain their forgiveness for his errors.

The courtesy and thoughtfulness that marked his conduct in life are not so common that they may pass unnoticed. Many people are good or are thought to be so, many are considerate or try to be, but very few are pleasant at the same time. Yet when we come to sum up the lives of our friends, we find that our strongest affections are drawn to those human characters, whose very faults have made them tolerant of the infirmities and weaknesses of their fellows, and whose desire to brighten the lives of those around them has been a continual and conscious effort. Such characters, it is true, may lack the backbone of strength, but when we find them succeeding in all they undertake, we know they must have power and ability as well as the milk of human kindness.

The Somerset family, as we have seen, had been for some generations somewhat out of the main stream of public life. They had therefore thrown themselves into matters of lesser moment. But sports and pastimes, though they may seem of trivial

importance, help to forge the strongest and most enduring of social ties. To one whose position, in a country like ours, marks him out as a leader of men, it is of the greatest importance that he should have the power to enjoy and excel in the things that interest his fellows. Thus the Duke's knowledge of horseflesh, his skill as a huntsman, his marvellous power as a coachman, made his country neighbours more willing to listen to him when he spoke to them on such matters as politics, or some local improvement in agriculture. For men will brook counsel and advice from one to whom they are bound by the love of a common sport. The agricultural classes, too, have ever been glad to have as a spokesman, one who by virtue of his birth, can make himself heard in those regions of court and government, that seem so far away to the man with his eyes on the earth, and his hand on the plough, who yet knows that he may be affected by the action of a far-away lawmaker in London.

The late Duke of Beaufort moved in and out among his own people, he met then in every pursuit of life. He was a foremost figure in the hunting-field and was at the head of the most magnificent establishment of the kind that has been seen in our day. He was the accepted leader and adviser of many men in all ranks of life. But most of all he was a prince in his own neighbourhood. In spite of all the changes that the last

fifty years have seen, there is still no more wonderful power than the leadership of a great English nobleman in his own country. The will and opinions of the one man direct and control those of the many, and far more certainly than by men who have what is sometimes called the substance of

power in their hands. This influence is entirely unsupported by force; it is all so intangible and made up of so many threads that it is almost impossible to define. It certainly is not, however, the result of a splendid isolation. As we follow the course of the eighth Duke's life, we recognise that there has been no more personally influential man among landed proprietors in our time, and none who mixed more freely with his people. In him we find the combination of a very human nature with gifts, ability, and a great position.

But we have gone far ahead of the year 1824, and those early days when the little Lord Glamorgan travelled to and from school on the coaches that were then the means of conveyance for all classes. To these journeys the Duke always looked back with pleasure, and no doubt they laid the foundation of that knowledge of the road and the love for driving that never left him. For he was undoubtedly the finest amateur coachman of our day. Indeed his education and his knowledge of driving went hand in hand. That the latter taste was inherited is clear from the fact that his father, who did not succeed to the dukedom till his