one of the most important personages at the Court of Queen
Victoria.

She had become rich and influential, so that when her husband retired
from the Speakership he was in a position to tell the Government of the
day that he did not intend to take the pension of L5000 a year, to which
he was entitled as an ex-Speaker. His refusal was couched in the
following words:--"Though without any pretensions to wealth, I have a
private fortune which will suffice, and for the few years of life that
remain to me I shall be happier in the feeling that I am not a burden to
my fellow-countrymen."

Such self-abnegation is not characteristic of many men. On being
elevated to the House of Lords he took the title of Viscount Ossington
(after the village of Ossington in Notts, which was his ancestral home)
and Lady Charlotte was henceforth known as the Viscountess Ossington.

It was a step downward in rank for her, as her marriage with a Commoner
did not degrade her to his status. As a Duke's daughter she was still
Lady Charlotte and took precedence of Marchionesses, Countesses, and
Viscountesses in the etiquette of royal courts and drawing-rooms.

When her husband became a peer she had to take his rank, and it was one
of those indefinable sacrifices associated with noble birth, that, as a
Viscountess, she had to give precedence to the wives of Marquises and
Earls.

To one who had filled so high a position as Lady Ossington had done in
political and social life the descent in status involved by the adoption
of the new title was not of much moment. She had been honoured by
royalty and had done the honours to royalty, she had tasted all the
pleasures that aristocratic Society could provide.

Like her brother, the eccentric Duke, Lady Ossington spent large sums of
money, intended, directly or indirectly, to benefit the wage-earning
classes.

In a spirit of philanthropy she built a coffee palace at Newark, Notts,
a town nine miles from Ossington, at a cost of over L20,000. Her object
was to provide a hostel where travellers of humble means could find
accommodation for the night, at charges within their means, and that it
should be a centre of meeting for Friendly Societies and other bodies in
their business and social gatherings. The profits of the establishment
she directed to be paid to the hospital.

Another coffee palace on similar lines she erected in Marylebone,
London, involving an outlay of several thousands.

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