faith as obstacles to the
course of that heavenly virtue, were extended alike by this unfortunate
nobleman to Protestant and to Roman Catholic. In his days, Dilstone was
the scene of an open-hearted hospitality, "which," observes the renegade
Jacobite who has chronicled the events of the period, "few in that
country do, and none can, come up to." That castle-hall, now ruined and
for ever deserted, was thronged by the distressed, who, whether the poor
denizens of the place or the wanderer by the way side, found there
relief, and went away consoled. The owner of the castle gave bread to
thousands, who long remembered his virtues, and mourned his fate. He
conciliated the good will of his equals, and disarmed the animosity of
those who differed from him in opinion. Beloved, trusted, almost
reverenced in the prime of youth, James Earl of Derwentwater held, at
the period of the first Rebellion, the enviable position of one whose
station was remembered only in conjunction with the higher dignity of
virtue. To the solid qualities of integrity, he added a sweetness and
courtesy of manner which must have lent to even homely features their
usual charm.[181] Blessing and blest, he thus dwelt amid the romantic
scenery of the Vale of Hexham.

Lord Derwentwater married Anna Maria, one of the five daughters of Sir
John Webb, Baronet of Odstock in Wiltshire. An ancestor of Sir John Webb
had first acquired the title in the reign of Charles the First for "his
family having both shed their blood in the King's cause, and
contributed, as far as they were able, with their purses, in his
defence," as is expressed in their patent.[182]

During the reign of Queen Anne, Lord Derwentwater took no part in the
various intrigues which were carried on by the Jacobite party. He lived
peaceably at Dilstone, where his name was long honoured after the
tragical events which hurried him into an early grave had occurred. But
this tranquil demeanour does not argue, as it has been supposed, that
the early playmate of James had become indifferent to the cause of the
Stuarts. The friends of the exiled family founded their hopes of its
restoration on the well-known partiality of Queen Anne for her brother,
and on the circumstance of her having seen the last of her children
consigned to the tomb. There seems no reason to doubt but that, had Anne
lived longer, she would have taken measures, in unison with the wishes
of the bulk of the nobility, and in conjunction