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The marriage of Professor S. Cassar, M.D., with Inez, eldest daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E. T. Agius, of Belsize Grove, Hampstead, London, took place at the Church of St. Ignatius of the Jesuits’ College, Valetta, Malta, on Tuesday the 23rd ult. The Rev. Father Ambrose Agius, 0.S.B., uncle of the bride, celebrated the Nuptial Mass and officiated, assisted by the Very Rev. Father Kenny, Rector of the College, and an appropriate address was delivered by Father Agius. The Holy Father sent a special Blessing to the couple on an illuminated parchment scroll, signed by Cardinal Rampolla. The bride, who was given away by her father, wore a gown of rich white satin, with a train from the shoulders of white striped brocade, lined with satin and chiffon, adorned with ruches of soft silk—some beautiful Honiton lace was arranged fichu-fashion on bodice, and caught up at the side with a bunch of real orange blossoms. Her veil was composed of net, edged with lace, while her jewels were pearls and diamond-stars, given by the bridegroom, together with a lovely bouquet of white roses and orange blossoms.

There were four bridesmaids—Miss Marie Agius, sister of the bride, and the Misses Muscat, Mifsud and Cassar, cousins of the bride. They wore white muslin and lace with pink fringed sashes, white chiffon picture bats, and pink roses to match. They carried baskets of pink geraniums which, with gold bangles, were presented by the bridegroom. The sister of the bride, Miss Marie Agius, was picturesquely dressed in pink Oriental satin and hat to match. The bridegroom was attended by Mr. Joseph L. Galizia, M.D. After the ceremony, a reception was held by Mr. and Mrs. Ed. T. Agius at ” Capua Palace,” Sliema, kindly lent by Marchese A. Mattei, LL.D., the guests numbering over 300.

At St. James’s Church, Spanish Place. W., on Tuesday morning, the marriage took place of MR. CHARLES EDWARD CARY-ELWES, third son of Captain Windsor Cary-Elwes (late Scots Guards), of Blackmore, Worcestershire, and MISS EDYTHE ISABEL PARKINGTON, second daughter of Major Roper Parkington, 6, Devonshire Place, W. The Bishop of Emmaus officiated, assisted by the Rev. Mgr. Barry, V.G., and the Rev. Dudley Cary-Elwes, cousin of the bridegroom. The bride’s father gave her away, and Mr. Guy Chetwynd, cousin of the bridegroom, was best man. There were four bridesmaids—Miss Irene Cary Parkington (sister of the bride), Miss Edith Cary-Elwes (sister of the bridegroom), Lady Mary Pepys (cousin of the bridegroom), and Miss Maria de Frietas Branco. Miss Dagmar Bennett, Miss Eileen Bennett were train-bearers, and Master Brian Hunt acted as page. The bride wore a dress of ivory white satin, the bodice being trimmed with pearl lace and small sprays of orange blossom, a full Court train of brocade of handsome floral design hanging from both shoulders. Her embroidered tulle veil covered orange sprays, and was fastened with a diamond star, the gift of the bridegroom. A reception was given by Mrs. J. Roper Parkington at 6, Devonshire-place, after the ceremony, and was largely attended.

The above text was found on p.28, 27th November 1897 in “The Tablet: The International Catholic News Weekly.” Reproduced with kind permission of the Publisher. The Tablet can be found at http://www.thetablet.co.uk .

The cousin thing is Charles and Guy (later Sir Guy Chetwynd, [1874–1935] ) and Lady Mary are all third cousins. They share a great, great, grandfather in Henry Paget (1744 – 1812) the 1st Earl of Uxbridge, and the father of the first Marquess of Anglesey.

Also quite amusingly, Charles and Edythe’s eldest daughter Lilian (1902 -2000) married Maj. Hon. Arthur Michael Cosmo Bertie ( 1886 – 1957). on  7 May 1949  as her second husband. She was the widow of Lt Cdr Frank Dayrell Montague Crackanthorpe RN. It was a second marriage for both. His sister was Winston Churchill’s sister in law, though by the time of their marriage both Jack Churchill, and Lady Gwendoline were dead.

Lady Gwendoline Theresa Mary Bertie (1885–1941). married John Churchill (1880-1947), in 1908. He was the son of  Lord Randolph Churchill and  Jennie Jerome, and younger brother of Winston Churchill. She was the mother of Clarissa Churchill (b. 1920), who married Anthony Eden. Arthur Bertie’s son, and Lilian’s step-son became the 14th Earl of Lindsey and 9th Earl of Abingdon in 1963; and their nephew  Fra’ Andrew William Ninian Bertie,(b. 15 May 1929; d. 7 Feb 2008)  was elected in 1988 His Most Eminent Highness,  the 78th Prince and Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Prior to his election, he had taught modern languages at Worth in Sussex.

John Roche was a mystery right from the start, and remains so. But it’s probably time to put together some bits of the jigsaw. He’s a great, great, great, great, great grandfather to the youngest generation.

We know a few documented bits; from the “Barrymore Records” [1902]  he “amassed great wealth during the French wars, and built Aghada House.”  Aghada  Hall was, apparently, a large  Georgian house designed by the Cork architect  Abraham Hargrave (1755-1808); though it seems to be “a comfortable gentleman’s residence rather than a vast mansion.” It was completed in 1808. John Roche was also responsible for building  the Aghada National School in 1819. The house remained in the family until 1853.

He seems to have made quite significant efforts to establish some sort of Roche dynasty to maintain the family name, and the house that he had built for himself.  From Henry Hewitt O’Bryen and Mary Roche’s marriage settlement of 1807, we know that John Roche had at least one child, Mary, and can speculate, probably, a son called John. The two trustees of the settlement are “John Roche the younger, and Stephen Laurence O’Brien,” but by the time John Roche [senior] drew up his will in January 1826, there is no reference to John Roche the younger, and we can probably conclude he had died. It would be likely that family members were the trustees of the settlement, and also likely that John Roche the younger, and Stephen Laurence O’Brien, were the brothers of the bride and groom respectively.

There were three significant beneficiaries of John Roche’s will of 1826, with a later codicil. They were his nephews James Joseph Roche, and William Roche; they seem to be cousins rather than brothers. The third main beneficiary was John Roche’s eldest grandson, John Roche O’Bryen. The total estate amounted to about £ 30,000 when John Roche died in 1829, the modern day equivalent of £45,000,000.

The house and land was left to James, and his male heirs, first of all, and then William, who also inherited £ 10,000, “in case of his not coming into possession of the estate by the means before-mentioned,  I leave him  £6,000″ plus John’s grand-daughter, Jane O’Brien’s ……  £4,000 £4 per cent. stock ;” . Jane O’Bryen, John Roche’s granddaughter was married to his nephew William Roche, and their daughter Pauline Roche inherited their share as a one year old orphan. The final third was John Roche O’Bryen’s  £ 10,000, presumably in the expectation that a male Roche heir would inherit the house and land.

John Roche O’Bryen,  and Jane O’Bryen were Catholic. All their  five remaining younger siblings were Church of Ireland. JROB and Jane/William Roche are the only O’Bryen beneficiaries of John Roche’s estate. The O’Bryen siblings seem to be John Roche’s only grandchildren.

John Roche also left  a series of £ 100 legacies (present-day £ 150,000)  to various sisters, and nephews and nieces, and “To the parish of Aghada, I leave the school-house, and £20 ( £ 30,000) a-year for its support, and also the chapel and priest’s house  I leave to the parish rent-free for ever, as long as they shall be used for such qualified purposes ; the five slate houses I built in the village, I leave to five of the poorest families rent free ; to David Coughlan I leave the house he now lives in during his life ; to my servant, James Tracy   I leave the house his wife now lives in;  and to my wife’s servant, Mary Ahearne, otherwise Finne, her house rent-free during their lives ; and to each of those three, viz.,David Coughlan, James Tracy, and Mary Ahearne,  otherwise Finne, I leave £10 (£15,000) a-year during their lives :”

So working from the above, we know that John Roche [c.1755 – 1829] is the father of Mary Roche, [1780 – 1852] who married  Henry Hewitt O’Bryen (1780 – 1836) in Nov 1807; and the grandfather of John Roche O’Bryen, Jane Roche (nee O’Bryen), and their siblings, Hewitt O’Bryen, Robert Hewitt O’Bryen, Henry Hewitt O’Bryen Junior, Stephen Hewitt O’Bryen, and Mary O’Bryen .  At the same time, he is both the great-grandfather, and great uncle of Pauline Roche. Pauline Roche’s mother is John Roche’s grand-daughter Jane O’Bryen, and her father is his nephew William Roche.

 John Roche appears to have two brothers, and two sisters:

• Hugh, who is the father of James Joseph Roche and Hugh Roche  
• Lawrence who is the father of William who married Jane O’Bryen and is the father of Pauline Roche
• Ellen m. John Verling and mother of Bartholomew Verling, Dr James Roche Verling, Catherine Ellis (nee Verling), and Ellen Verling Jnr.
• Julia m. ? Enery [the surname is unclear from the transcript of John Roche’s will]

At this stage there are only hints, rather than facts, but John Roche (Senior) seems to be part of the merchant class in late C18th Cork, and the family’s marriages appear, at least in part, strategic. Bartholomew Verling,[the non-doctor one] was also a Cork merchant, and the Spanish Consul in Cork. He also seems to have been politically linked to Daniel O’Connell, and slightly ironically, to have been responsible for getting Cobh renamed Queenstown when Queen Victoria visited Ireland in 1849. There is also the mercantile/political connection between John Roche and the Callaghans with James Joseph Roche’s marriage to Catherine Callaghan, where JR provided her marriage settlement fund of £4,000, and left instructions in the codicil to his will that she should receive the money even if the marriage didn’t go ahead. So he really did have a lot of money or was really keen on a deal going through.

Sources:

From www.landedestates.ie     What is clear is our Bartholomew Verling isn’t this one “In the 1870s Bartholomew Verling, Springfield Lodge (Oxclose), Newmarket, county Cork, medical doctor owned 883 acres in county Limerick and 110 acres in county Cork. He appears to have acquired his county Limerick estate post Griffith’s Valuation. Bartholomew Verling (1797-1893) was a naval surgeon of Oxclose, Newmarket, county Cork. He was the son of Edward Verling and his wife Anne Ronayne. The Verlings were established at Newmarket by the late 18th century.”  http://www.landedestates.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/estate-show.jsp?id=2728 But they are almost certainly relations.

From the Irish Journal of Medical Science, January 1971, Volume 140, Issue 1, pp 30-44 – regarding the Irish doctors who attended Napoleon on St Helena including James Roche Verling. Dr James Roche Verling is the Doctor Verling referred to in John Roche’s will. The source references  (Ellen Verling) and her brothers John and Laurence Roche of Aghada as members of the council of Cork. It also refers to James Roche Verling having a brother Bartholomew who was a J.P.

From Roche v O’Brien, and his will, we know that John Roche has two sisters

Julia Enery [though the spelling and therefore the name is unclear], Ellen Verling

And at least four nephews

James Joseph Roche, William Roche, Bartholomew Verling, and Doctor (James Roche) Verling

And at least two nieces

Ellen Verling jnr, and Catherine Ellis (nee Verling)

From Burke’s Landed Gentry 1847 entry we know there is another brother Hugh, who is the father of James Joseph Roche, and Hugh Roche Junior. 

Roche Of Aghado 

Roche, James Joseph Esq of Aghado House, co Cork b. 12 May, 1794 m in Nov 1821 Catharine youngest dau of the late Daniel Callaghan Esq of Lotabeg in the same county and has issue

1. Maria Josepha
2. Emily

Mr Roche, a magistrate for the co. Cork s. his uncle, the late John Roche Esq in March 1829. He and his brother Hugh, an officer in the navy, are sons of Hugh Roche, Esq by Anne, his wife dau. of Daniel McCarthy Esq, a Spanish merchant son of John  McCarthy Esq.  Seat. Aghado House co. Cork.

We know William Roche is the son of Laurence Roche from  “Barrymore Records of the Barrys of County Cork from the Earliest to the Present Time, With Pedigrees. London:” published 1902

“Patrick Barry, of Cork, gentleman, died 1861, having married Mary Anne, daughter of Stephen Murphy, of the city of Cork, draper, and had with an elder son, Stephen Barry, of H. M. Customs, Cork, and a daughter, Kate, who both died unmarried, a younger son, William Henry Barry, of Ballyadam, gentleman, J.P., who was heir to his uncle, Henry Barry, of Ballyadam, and was for many years post­master of Cork. He married in 1857 Pauline Roche, only child of William Roche, son of Lawrence Roche, whose brother, John Roche, amassed great wealth during the French wars, and built Aghada House. John Roche’s only daughter, married to [Henry Hewitt] O’Brien, of Whitepoint, Queenstown, J.P., left a daughter [Jane O’Bryen], who married her cousin, William Roche, and with her husband died shortly after the birth of their only daughter, Pauline, who was entrusted to the guardianship of her uncle, Dr. O’Brien, of Liverpool [sic], and at marriage had a fortune of £7,000.

We regret to announce the death, at Hanch Hall, Litchfield, of Major Edmund Harington Molyneux-Seel, late King’s Liverpool Regt., of Huyton, Lancashire, aged fifty-eight. The elder son of the late Mr. Edmund Molyneux-Seel, of Huyton Hey, Lancs (Chamberlain to Pius IX and Leo XIII), by his marriage with the daughter of the Duke de Losada y Lousada, he was educated at the Oratory School, and entered the Army in 1878. During the South African War he commanded the 1st Battalion of the King’s Liverpool Regt. in the advance through the Northern Transvaal, including the action of Belfast. Major Molyneux-Seel married, in 1894, Clare, youngest daughter of the late Thomas Weld-Blundell, of Ince Blundell, and leaves issue three daughters. His younger brother, Lieut.Colonel Edward H. Molyneux-Seel, D.S.O., was gazetted to a Staff appointment last year ; and his nephew, Captain Louis Molyneux-Seel, Border Regt., was reported ” missing ” last October.

The above text was found on p.21, 14th August 1915 in “The Tablet: The International Catholic News Weekly.” Reproduced with kind permission of the Publisher. The Tablet can be found at http://www.thetablet.co.uk .

The funeral of Captain Lord Petre took place at Thorndon Hall, Essex, on Saturday, where the body had arrived that morning from France. The service took place in the private mortuary chapel. The coffin was covered with the Union Jack, on which lay Lord Petre’s coronet, sword, his Coldstream bearskin, and wreaths of white flowers from his wife, mother, and sisters. A party of non-commissioned officers of the Coldstream Guards, under Lieut. Elwes, were present and acted as bearers. At the entrance to the chapel a large detachment of the Irish Guards were lined up, under the command of Lieut.-Col. the Earl of Kerry. The little chapel was filled with members of the family and outside were grouped the large gathering of tenantry, servants, and friends. The service was a Low Mass of Requiem, celebrated by the Rev. Father C. Kuypers, chaplain to Lord Petre, in presence of the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, who gave the absolutions. The music was rendered by some members of the Westminster Cathedral choir. At the conclusion of the Mass, the buglers of the Irish Guards sounded the “Last Post.” The tenantry and friends then entered the chapel and passed in front of the coffin, white flowers being placed round the mass of wreaths by children of the Thorndon Hall School. The coffin was then lowered into the vault. The chief mourners were :—Lady Petre, widow ; Julia Lady Petre, the Hon. Barbara Petre and the Hon. Clare Petre, mother and sisters ; the Hon. John and Lady Margaret Boscawen, father-in-law and mother-in-law ; the Hon. Mary Petre and the Hon. Teresa Petre, cousins ; Lieut.-Col. Oswald Turville Petre, Mr. Lawrence Petre, Mr. Loraine Petre, Lieut. Bernard Petre, Lieut. Jack Petre, and the Rev. Ralph Trafford, cousins ; Mr. and Mrs. Sebastian Petre ; Major and Lady Henry Forbes ; Mr. and the Hon. Mrs. F. Stapleton Bretherton ; Mrs. Van Cutsen ; Mrs. R. Feilding and Miss Bretherton. Among others present were : Canon Norris, Brentwood ; the Rev. R. Grant, chaplain at Ingatestone Hall.

REQUIEM AT WESTMINSTER CATHEDRAL.

Whilst the funeral was taking place at Thorndon a Requiem was celebrated at Westminster Cathedral by Mgr. Howlett. Several of the Cathedral clergy were present in the sanctuary. At the termination of the Mass, at which the music was rendered by the Cathedral choir under the direction of Dr. Terry, the buglers of the Brigade of Guards sounded “The Last Post.” Among those assisting at the Mass were : Audrey Lady Petre, aunt, the Hon. Mrs. Albert Petre, Miss Petre, Mrs. Henry Petre, Lieut. the Earl of Lisburne (representing Major-General Sir Francis Lloyd, commanding the London District), Lady Mary Howard, Colonel Drummond Hay (Coldstream Guards), the Hon. Walter Maxwell, the Hon. J. Maxwell-Scott, Countess de Montholon, Sir Henry Howard, Count and Countess de Torre Diaz, and many others.—R.I.P.

The above text was found on p. 12, 16th October 1915 in “The Tablet: The International Catholic News Weekly.” Reproduced with kind permission of the Publisher. The Tablet can be found at http://www.thetablet.co.uk .

The funeral of the Right Hon. Mary Theresa Lady Petre, widow of William Bernard, 12th Baron Petre, and mother of William Joseph, the 13th Baron Petre, and of Bernard Henry Philip, the 14th and present Baron, whose death we recorded last week, took place on Saturday last in the Mortuary Chapel at Thorndon Park.

Lady Petre was 72 years of age, and was the eldest daughter of the Hon. Charles Thomas Clifford, of Irnharn Hall, Lincolnshire, son of Charles, the 6th Lord Clifford. She was married on September 26, 1843, and lost her husband in the July of 1884. She had been suffering for some time past from repeated attacks of bronchitis. She leaves three sons—the present Lord Petre, the Hon. Philip Benedict Joseph Petre, and the Hon. Joseph Lucius Henry Petre ; and eight daughters—the Countess of Granard ; the Hon. Mrs. Isabella Mary Bretherton, of Fareham ; the Hon. Margaret Mary Petre, a nun ; the Hon. Catherine Mary Lucy Petre, the Hon. Theresa Mary Louisa Petre, a nun ; the Hon. Mary Winifrede Petre, a Sister of Charity ; the Hon. Eleanor Mary Southwell Trafford, of Wroxham Hall; and the Hon. Monica Mary Butler Bowdon, of Lancaster. Nearly all of these were able to be present during Lady Petre’s last illness. Her ladyship, who was conscious to the last, received all the rites of Holy Church.

Although it is some years since the neighbourhood of Thorndon was deprived of the Petre family, by reason of the disastrous fire which broke up their home there, the memory of Lady Petre, as well as that of her noble lord and children, lives fresh and is cherished by both rich and poor. The various charities which were instituted during the residence of her ladyship and her late husband have been maintained by the late (13th) Baron and the present Lord Petre. Nor was her ladyship’s charity confined to the country. In London she instituted, among other things, a creche, or day nursery, for poor little children, in imitation of the same institution in Paris. She took a lively interest in all Catholic philanthropic work and her loss will be severely felt.

From the time of her decease until the coffin was removed from Belmont, Bournemouth, the residence of her ladyship, the body was laid in state in the drawing-room, and masses for the dead were said by the Rev. Father Cooney, of Bournemouth. The remains were removed from Belmont at -5.30 on Friday evening, and were conveyed in a hearse by the 6.40 p.m. train from East Bournemouth to Waterloo station. At Waterloo the hearse was taken from the train, and the remainder of the journey to Thorndon was accomplished by road. The coffin was accompanied from Bournemouth by the Hon. Philip and the Hon. Joseph Petre. Thorndon Hall was reached soon after two o’clock on Saturday morning, and the coffin was placed in the mortuary chapel, a short service being held. Mortuary candles were lighted round the coffin, and during the remainder of the night it was watched by members of the congregation and the nuns at Thorndon.

The remains of her ladyship were enclosed in an elm shell lined with white satin, a second elm case, a lead coffin, and an outer coffin of mahogany, covered with crimson velvet. On the lid was a full length brass cross with steps, the base bearing the following inscription : “Mary Teresa, Lady Petre, widow of William Bernard, 12th Lord Petre, Baron of Writhe, born 1st Septr., 1823, died 31st Decr., 7895. R.I.P.”    A small brass plate at the head bore a similar inscription. The brass medieval handles had a coronet over each. At each corner were brass clasps. The coffin was covered by a black pall, with a white cross, white fleur-de-lys on black border, and the family escutcheon at the head. The Norwich express, leaving London at to o’clock, was stopped at Brentwood on Saturday morning for the convenience of the mourners. Most of the mourners arrived by this train, and were driven over to Thorndon Hall. The funeral service took place in the Mortuary Chapel, which had been enlarged by the erection of a marquee at the entrance. This work was carried out by Messrs. H. and T. C. Godfrey, of Chelmsford. The marquee and the passage leading to it were hung ,with black and white drapery. There was a large attendance of the tenantry and those employed on the estate at the service, which was of a most solemn character. The musical portion was arranged by the Rev. C. J. Moncrieff Smyth, of Warley, and was rendered by the following members of the London Priest Choir : The Revv. G. B. Cox, H. Cafferata, E. Pennington, C. Turner, G. Curtis, J. Butler, E. Smith, and J. Heditch. Requiem Mass was sung by the Right Rev. Mgr. Crook, chaplain at Thorndon Hall. The Rev. Edmund Meyer, of lngatestone Hall, was deacon, and the Rev. Dean T. F. Norris, of Brentwood, was sub-deacon. The master of ceremonies was the Rev. W. H. Cologan, of Lilystone Hall, Stock. After the Requiem, Mass Cardinal Vaughan, who was assisted by the Vicar General .(Canon Barry), gave the Absolution. The coffin was then deposited in its last resting-place between those, of her ladyship’s husband and son.

The family mourners were as follows : Lord Petre, the Hon. Philip Benedict Joseph and Mrs. Petre, the Hoh. Joseph Lucius Henry Petre, the Countess of Granard, Mr. and the Hon. Mrs. Stapleton Bretherton, Mr. E. and the Hon. Mrs. Trafford, Colonel and the Hon. Mrs. Butler Bowden, the Hon. Catherine Mary Lucy Petre, Winifred Lady Howard’ of Glossop, Miss Blanche Petre, the Rev. Augustus Petre, the Rev. John Petre, the Hon. Frederick Petre, Mr. Sebastian H. Petre, the Count de Torre Diaz, and Mr. Philip W. Colley. Among the congregation in the chapel were Colonel Maguire, Colonel Wood, J.P. Captain Digby Neave, J.P., Colonel Disney, Mr. R. J. VValmesley, the Rev. C. Earle (rector of Ingatestone), the Rev. H. J. Tilley (Romford), Mr. J. F. Lescher, J.P., Messrs. F. J. Coverdale (agent), F. Coverdale, C. Gray, and J. Gallagher, from the Thorndon Estate office, Ingatestone ; Mr. E. J. Fooks, solicitor to Lord Peter ; Mr. Philip Witham, solicitor to Lady Petre ; and Mr. W. Walker, steward. There were also present a large number of the tenants of the estate, besides cottagers and workpeople. , Telegrams and letters regretting inability to be present at the funeral were received froth his Grace the Duke of Norfolk, K.G., the Earl of Denbigh, Lord Clifford, Lord Herries, Mr. Edward Petre, the Hon. Mrs. Charles Petre, the Hon. Albert Petre, and the Rev. H. D. Heatley, rector of Ingrave. In accordance with that old Catholic custom at funerals of members of the family, 72 loaves of bread and 72 shillings were afterwards distributed to poor widows of the neighbourhood. We are indebted for much of our report to the columns of The Essex Herald..

The above text was found on p.27, 11th January 1896 in “The Tablet: The International Catholic News Weekly.” Reproduced with kind permission of the Publisher. The Tablet can be found at http://www.thetablet.co.uk .

Mr. George Edward Sandars, M.B.E. whose marriage to Miss Vera Margaret Molyneux-Seel took place on September 8th at St. Peter’s, Ludlow, is the eldest son of the Rev. George Russell Sandars, Rector of Davenham and Honorary Canon of Chester, and so is a third cousin both of Mr. J. W. E. G. Sandars, of Gate Burton Hall, whose wife is a daughter of Lady Winefride Elwes, and of Mrs. H. A. Burke whose marriage to Mr. Patrick H. A. Burke, Grenadier Guards, took place a couple of months ago. Mr. Sandars, who was at New College shortly after the War, is in the Sudan Political Service and received the M.B.E. in 1933.

The Sandars family was originally seated at Charlwood in Surrey, where the church contains several of their monuments, and the present line descends from an uncle of the famous Dr. Nicholas Sander, or Saunders, the Catholic controversialist and historian, who, on the defection of Queen Elizabeth, resigned his preferments, “ob fidem conservandam,” and went to Rome where he was ordained by Thomas Goldwell, Bishop of St. Asaph, the last survivor of the ancient hierarchy. Dr. Sander has been described as “the most noted defender of the Roman Catholic cause in his time,” and his manuscript treatise on the Holy Eucharist so impressed the Prince-Bishop of Ermland that he took him as one of his theologians to the Council of Trent. He afterwards settled in Louvain, where he became Regius Professor of theology and plunged into controversy including “a Confutation of such false Doctrine as M. Jewel hath uttered,” and about the same time he received a commission to publish in England the papal sentence that under no circumstance could attendance at the Anglican service be tolerated. About twelve years later, in 1579, he went to Ireland as Nuncio, when he showed extraordinary activity in the Earl of Desmond ‘s insurrection, a risk of his life which the leading English exiles, who knew his worth, grievously deplored. Their fears were justified, for after about eighteen months he died, probably of want and cold.

Dr. Sander was the author of the first great history of the English Reformation, a work which was vigorously attacked but which later research has largely justified. An instance of this is’ his account of the matrimonial troubles of John Ponet, Bishop of Winchester, wherein the error of his critics was confirmed on the publication in 1847 of the Diary of Henry Machyn in which there appears the entry : “The xxvij day of July (1551) was the nuw bisshope of W . . . was devorsyd from the bucher (butcher’s) wyff with shame enog (h).” Bishop Ponet, incidentally, appears to have had interesting ideas on the royal supremacy, for he seems to have been responsible, at any rate in part, for the theory “that to give license to sin was sin ; nevertheless, they thought the king might suffer or wink at it for a time”—” it ” being the question of the Princess Mary attending Mass.

Miss Vera Margaret Molyneux-Seel is a daughter of Major Edward Honore Molyneux-Seel, D.S.O.’ the second son of the late Edmund Richard Thomas Molyneux-Seel of Huyton Hey, a Chamberlain to Pope Pius IX, who married a daughter of the Duque de Losada y Lousada. Through his mother, Agnes, daughter of Sir Richard Bedingfeld, fifth Baronet, of Oxburgh, Mr. E. R. T. Molyneux-Seel was descended from three of the beatified English Martyrs, BB. Margaret of Salisbury and Philip and William Howard. His father, Thomas Molyneux-Seel, J.P. & D.L., of Huyton Hey, who built the church of St. Agnes at Huyton, took the name and arms of Molyneux-Seel in 1815, on inheriting the estates of his maternal ancestors. The Huyton property had been inherited by a younger branch of Molyneux of Sefton from the Harringtons, an ancient Catholic family descended from a brother of the Sir William Harrington who fought at Agincourt, and these predecessors are also commemorated in the names of Major Molyneux-Seel’s brother, the late Edmund Harrington Molyneux-Seel of Huyton, the father of Mrs. Carr-Saunders, and of his uncle, Henry Harrington Molyneux-Seel, Richmond Herald, who died in 1882.

The letters P. & 0. must be familiar to many who cannot give off-hand the full name of the great Company which they represent, and the name Brodie Willcox, which has once more come to the fore owing to the celebration of the P. & 0. centenary, probably means little except to Catholics and to those interested in the history of that famous shipping company. To Catholics, certainly, the name has an interest beyond its connection with shipping, for Brodie McGhie Willcox, M.P., was the maternal grandfather of that great Catholic of the last generation, Brodie Manuel de Zulueta y Willcox, third Conde de Torre Diaz. The Conde de Torre Diaz— the title dates from 1846, when it was granted to his grandfather by Isabella II of Spain—was a ” gentilhombre de Camera” to the King of Spain and held the Grand Crosses of Isabel la Catolica and San Gregorio, and in England, where he was also closely associated with the business interests of his family, he was Chairman of the Catholic Seamen’s Home and Institute, the forerunner of the present Chaplaincy to the Port of London, and Vice-President of the Superior Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

The third Conde de Torre Diaz ‘s father, whom he succeeded in 1882, was Chamberlain to the King of Spain and a member of the Spanish Senate until the Revolution of 1868, and two of his nephews have suffered similarly from a later revolution, for Don Pedro de Zulueta was an attaché at the Spanish Embassy in London until the proclamation of the Republic caused him to resign, and the Marques de Merry del Val, the eldest son of his sister Josephine, was Spanish Ambassador in London from 1913 until the Revolution.

Page 26, 18th September 1937