ndid income
of 180,000l. per annum.

The stake in the Druce claim is not only the Dukedom of Portland and the
entailed estates of the Bentincks in the male line; but in the female
line too, including this dazzling dowry of 180,000l. a year.

CHAPTER IV

THE FARMER DUKE'S DAUGHTER AND THE HOUSE OF COMMONS' SPEAKER.--BECOMES A
BENEVOLENT VISCOUNTESS

_Place aux dames._ Before relating some of the incidents in the careers
of the fourth Duke's high-spirited sons, the Marquis of Titchfield and
Lord George Bentinck, place must be given to the social triumphs of his
third daughter, Lady Charlotte Cavendish-Bentinck.

With all the advantages that wealth and birth could give her among the
proud aristocracy of England the love affairs of Lady Charlotte did not
run smooth. Her lover was Mr. John Evelyn Denison of Ossington Hall,
about twenty miles from Welbeck in the same county of Nottingham. That
the young Squire--of well-born family though he was--should aspire to
the hand of a Duke's daughter showed no want of spirit on his part. But
after all he was only a Commoner, though he had in him the making of the
First Commoner of England leading to a still higher elevation on the
ladder of social distinction, until he became a peer of the realm, only
three degrees lower in rank than the head of the Cavendish-Bentincks
himself.

The Farmer Duke, simple though his tastes were, did not view with
pleasure the courtship of his daughter by the young Squire of Ossington.

Lady Charlotte had mingling in her veins the blood of the highest
nobility of three nations. The Cavendishes were among the flower of
English chivalry, the Bentincks were renowned in Holland and the Scotts
traced their lineage from the pride of Scotland.

The Duke could not bring himself all at once to give Lady Charlotte away
to one who had no title.

She was a little over twenty years of age and when her father refused to
hear of the suit of John Evelyn Denison she shed many tears in the
presence of her maid. Life to her at this time was by no means so full
of sunshine as is usually supposed to be the good fortune of Duke's
daughters.

At length Lady Charlotte expressed her intention of eloping with Mr.
Denison, and at the prospect of indirectly creating a sensation in high
life the Farmer Duke relented.

Lady Charlotte's marriage was her first triumph. Her next was when her
husband rose to be Speaker of the House of Commons in 1857 and she
herself