lish. My
grandfather, the sixth Duke of Bedford, was born in 1766 and died in
1839. He married, as his second wife, Lady Georgiana Gordon, sister of
the last Duke of Gordon, and herself "the last of the Gordons" of the
senior line. She died just after I was born, and from her and the "gay
Gordons" who preceded her, I derive my name of George. It has always
been a comfort to me, when rebuked for ritualistic tendencies, to recall
that I am great-great-nephew of that undeniable Protestant, Lord George
Gordon, whose icon I daily revere. My grandmother had a numerous family,
of whom my father was the third. He was born in Dublin Castle, his
father being then Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in the Ministry of "All the
Talents." My grandfather had been a political and personal friend of
Charles James Fox, and Fox had promised to be godfather to his next
child. But Fox died on the 13th of September, 1806, and my father did
not appear till the 10th of February, 1807. Fox's nephew, Henry Lord
Holland, took over the sponsorship, and bestowed the names of "Charles
James Fox" on the infant Whig, who, as became his father's viceregal
state, was christened by the Archbishop of Dublin, with water from a
golden bowl.

The life so impressively auspicated lasted till the 29th of June, 1894.
So my father, who remembered an old Highlander who had been out with
Prince Charlie in '45, lived to see the close of Mr. Gladstone's fourth
Premiership. He was educated at Rottingdean, at Westminster, where my
family had fagged and fought for many generations, and at the University
of Edinburgh, where he boarded with that "paltry Pillans," who,
according to Byron, "traduced his friend." From Edinburgh he passed
into the Blues, then commanded by Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, and thence
into the 52nd Regiment. In 1832 he was returned to the first Reformed
Parliament as Whig Member for Bedfordshire. He finally retired in 1847,
and from that date till 1875 was Sergeant-at-Arms attending the House of
Commons. He married in 1834, and had six children, of whom I was the
youngest by eight years, being born on the 3rd of February, 1853.[2]

My birthplace (not yet marked with a blue and white medallion) was 16,
Mansfield Street; but very soon afterwards the official residences at
the Palace of Westminster were finished, and my father took possession
of the excellent but rather gloomy house in the Speaker's Court, now
(1913) occupied by Sir David Erskine.

Here my c