Wilkes, Lord le Despenser, Lloyd, Bubb Doddington, Sir John Dashwood King, Paul Whitehead, Bates, Sir William Stanhope, Lovebond Collins, and others. Notoriety had already been attached to the old manor-house of this property (now a farm about one mile from the church,) from the circumstance of Charles II. having paid a visit to Sir John Borlase; on which occasion he was accompanied by the witty, frail, and open-hearted Nell Gwynne. In June, 1785, Mr. Lee Antonie, at the earnest suggestion of Sir William Lee of Hartwell, presented the donative of Edgware, near Totteridge, to the Rev. Thomas Martyn, the eminent scholar and botanist. This gentleman, as appears by his letter to Dr. Lee in the Edes (page 37), was a friend of all the family, and the appointment seems to be the natural consequence of esteem on their part; but in the Annual Register for 1825 (page 257), it is asserted that he was preferred to the perpetual curacy of Edgware by the Earl of Coventry, in that year. The owner of Colworth was now called to the pursuits, cares, and duties of squirearchy; and at an early age was chosen the representative burgess of the neighbouring borough-town of Great Marlow. Without dwelling upon the politics, or rather partizanships of the Bucks of that day, it may be entered upon these minutes that the new M.P. was greatly elated by the event, and thus returned acknowledgements which, perhaps, may have been sincere: TO THE INDEPENDENT ELECTORS OF GREAT MARLOW. By the Honour you have this Day conferred, in electing me one of your REPRESENTATIVES in PARLIAMENT, I am raised to the highest of my Ambition. The Manner in which you have bestowed that Honour, creates a double Obligation. You have shut the Door against Tumult and Corruption; and while you have maintained Peace and the Principles of our valuable Constitution, you have convinced the World that a Neighbour will succeed, if he is supported by the INDEPENDENT VOTERS of MARLOW. I congratulate you on this Triumph, and will make it the Study of my Life to enjoy it with you, and deserve it. Little Marlow, June 16, 1790. I am Your devoted Servant, WILLIAM LEE ANTONIE. Mr. Lee Antonie and Francis Duke of Bedford were at Westminster School together, and, in more senses than one, rowed in the same boat. They afterwards continued their intimacy, insomuch that Marlow was forsaken ; and from 1802 our squire represented Bedford, conjointly with Samuel Whitbread, in three successive parliaments; he was, moreover, an active Major of the Bedford Volunteers. In public life he obtained esteem as an honest voter, though not addicted to speechifying; and, albeit a stiff Whig, conducted himself so that he maintained the enviable character of an independent countrygentleman--a valuable genus unknown to all other countries, and nearly extinct in this. His agreeably engaging manners, and unequivocally charitable disposition, rendered him popular; and there wanted nothing but marriage to his becoming the universal favourite of the county. He was heir-at-law to the Rev. Sir George Lee, and would have inherited the baronetcy and Hartwell estates, but that he died at Colworth in September, 1815, at the age of 51; having bequeathed Colworth, Totteridge, Medmenham, Little Marlow, and other lands at Lynn, in Norfolk, to his nephew, John Fiott, Esq. eldest son of his sister Harriet. A handsome tablet, designed and executed by the celebrated and classic Flaxman, was dutifully erected to his memory by his heir, Dr. Lee, in the chancel of Sharnbrook church, from which our Plate VII. is taken. There is a striking likeness of Mr. Lee Antonie (No. 49) in the celebrated print called the "Wobourn Sheepshearing," which was published in the year 1811. This elaborate engraving contains-besides an extensive group of gentry, oxen and sheep of many kinds, and lines of horsemen and carriages-portraits of the leading patrons of farming in that day; and, as they are all gathered to their fathers save the veteran Lord John, now Earl Russell, their names may be acceptable to the readers of my last chapter: 1. The Wobourn shepherd. 2. The shepherd's boy. 3. Sir Andrew Corbett. 4. H. Hanmer. 5. Mr. Reeves. 6. Mr. Honnibone. 7. Mr. Stubbins. 8. Dr. Cartwright. 9. Sir Thomas Hanmer. 10. Mr. Smith. 11. Lord Dundas. 12. Rev. Bate Dudley. 13. Rt. Hon. John Foster. 19. Robert Byng, esq. 20. Mr. Wilson. 21. Mr. Buckley. 22. Mr. Walton. 23. Mr. Stone. 24. Mr. Runciman. 25. Sir Thomas Miller. 37. Dr. Gates. 38. A known shepherd. 39. Lord Winchelsea. 40. Sir Watkin W. Wynne. 41. H. R. H. Duke of Clarence. 42. Mr. Elman. 43. Mr. Northey, M.P. 44. Mr. Astley. 45. Lord William Russell. 50. Lord Sheffield. 51. Mr. Sitwell. 52. Sir Thomas Carr. 61. Mr. Western. 62. Mr. Wakefield. 66. Lord Ossory. 69. Arthur Young, esq. 70. Sir John Sinclair. 75. Sir Humphry Davy. 77. Mr. Moore. 80. Sir George Osborne. 91. Sir Harry Fetherston. As the death of Mr. Lee Antonie is dated 1825 instead of 1815 on a family pedigree that was put into my hand, it is also requisite to advert here to certain other errors which the cacography of a cursive copyist led me into, when occupied in compiling the Edes. Discrepancies indeed are unavoidable where various documents and authorities are consulted which sometimes differ from each other, and even from themselves, on genealogical points. Hence I had considerable trouble in tabulating the Lee lineage (Edes Hartwellianæ, page 96) from conflicting data; but, having since obtained access to the Hartwell parish register, which is complete in its baptisms and burials from the year 1550, a correction or two may be inserted that, however slight, are advances towards absolute accuracy. This register is also of interest in proving the stability of many families around, even though some of them have descended |
