It is a singular instance of the fickleness of fate that he should have been hounded out of Ireland by the Roman Catholics of that country, when their co-religionists in England had a few years before got up a national subscription to present him with a magnificent piece of gold plate, in gratitude for the determined action in the House of Commons, by which they were relieved from those penal laws to which they had been subject for more than two hundred years. That golden vase is a treasured heirloom at Batsford. There was nothing inconsistent in his conduct. His nature, essentially humane and merciful, recoiled from anything which savoured of persecution: at the same time, in the political government of his country, his Protestant principles and his attachment to the existing Constitution found no place for the professors of a form of religion which, in his view, constituted a danger to the State. Meanwhile, in 1803, Lord Redesdale had contracted a marriage with Lady Frances Perceval, daughter of Lord Egmont, and sister of the Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, who was murdered by Bellingham in 1812. This happy union brought him three children, two of whom, his son who afterwards became first and only Earl of Redesdale, and Frances Elizabeth, survived him. Lord Redesdale’s father, John Mitford of Exbury, was married, as I have said above, to a Miss Reveley, whose sister[8] was the wife of Thomas Edwards Freeman,[9] a wealthy and highly respected squire in the County of Gloucester. This Mr. Freeman had only one son,[10] who predeceased him, as did also the son’s wife, Mary Curtis[11] that was, leaving a daughter[12][13] who married Mr. Heathcote of Dursley in Hampshire. But this daughter had apparently inherited the bad health of her parents; she had no child, and it became evident to Mr. Freeman that she was not likely to live: so in his will he made provision that failing her and any children that she might have, since he had apparently no relations of his own, his property should go to his wife’s nephew, Lord Redesdale. Mrs. Heathcote did not survive her grandfather by many days, and almost immediately after his death in 1808, the property of Batsford passed to the ex-Chancellor of Ireland. One fine day the old lord took his little son, aged three, to see Mr. Freeman, who went and fetched a crazy old barrel organ, which he proceeded wheezily to grind for the child’s pleasure: when he had finished playing, the boy turned to his father and said with much dignity, “Give the old man a shilling!” to the great amusement of the benefactor whose property the child was one day to inherit.