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We all know the common phrase, an imperium
in irnperio; but it is probably new to most of my readers that down to the
end of the last century, and, indeed, to some extent for some years in the
present, there was 'a kingdom within this kingdom.' I refer to the
sovereignty of the Isle of Man, which was enjoyed for several centuries
by the Stanleys, Earls of Derby, and after them by the Murrays, Earls and
Dukes of Atholl.
The reader of English
history needs no introduction to the name of Sir John Stanley, K.G., Lord
Deputy of Ireland under Henry IV. And Henry V., one of the most
distinguished statesmen and commanders of his age. So great was his power
and influence at Court that in 1405 he obtained a giant, or rather a
commission, in conjunction with one Sir Roger Leke, to
'seize upon' the
fair city of 'York and its liberties,' and also on the Isle of
Man, of
which the Percies of Northumberland lead lately been dispossessed by
forfeiture. Apparently he was not slow to take advantage of this 'commission;' for we read that in the seventh year of Henry IV he
obtained a grant in fee of the -said Isle, its Castle, and Peel,
originally called Holm Tower, and of all the islands adjacent to it, as
also of all its 'regalities' ' franchises,' &c., under which were
probable included the rights of port dues, tolls, wreckage, flotsam and
jetsam, guardianships of wards, and the granting of charters for holding
markets, fairs, and so forth.
This royal or semi-royal
fief, we are further told, was to be held under the King of England, his
heirs and successors, by personal homage and by the service of two
falcons, to be delivered at the royal palace of Westminster on the morning
of each king's coronation. It was the great-grandson of this Sir Thomas
who married, firstly, the sister of Warwick, the 'king-maker,' and, secondly,
the mother of Henry Earl of Richmond, and who placed the crown of England
on his stepson's head upon the blood-stained field of Bosworth. But I must
return to my subject.
The sovereignty of Alan,
though feudally subject to the crown of England, would seem to have been a
reality. As King of Alan, the earl bad the right of summoning the deputies
of the island to a local parliament, the House of Keys, which is still
held in the open air, upon a hill called the Tinwald Mount, though now it
is convened in the name of Queen Victoria; and down to this day the Isle
of Man, like the Channel Islands, is unrepresented in the English
Parliament, but enjoys the unquestioned right of 'Home Rule,' having a
legislature for its own local purposes under the crown of Great Britain
and Ireland.
The words 'king,' 'prince,'
and `lord,' all admit of degrees, and may be used in a sense not excluding
a reference to some feudal superior: and therefore it may be supposed that
when one of the Earls of Derby voluntarily relinquished the title of
`king' for that of 'lord,' the change was rather
in the name than in the nature of his rule ; and that, being at a very
remote distance from the seat of the imperial legislature, the
'lord' of
Alan exercised pretty much the same authority which had belonged to
himself and his predecessors when they were nominally
'kings,' and that
justice -even to the extent of capital punishment
was administered, as
before, in his name.
James, the seventh Earl of
Derby, as `lord' of Man, held the island in the
cause of Charles I
against the Parliamentarians; and his noble wife is almost as celebrated
for her defense of it in her husband's name and in his absence, as she had
been for her gallant defense of Lathom House in the early part of the
Rebellion. She could not, however, save her husband from falling into the
hands of the rebels at the battle of Worcester, or from the headsman's axe
at Bolton in October, 1651, when Cromwell bestowed the island on his
general, Fairfax.
No sooner, however, was
Charles II. seated on his father's throne than be restored the Isle of
Man to the Stanley-s in the Person of Charles, eighth earl, whose two sons
in succession held the lordship of it, until the death of the last
survivor of them in 1736, when the Earldom of Derby passed to a distant
cousin.
The question now arose, who
ought to inherit the feudal dignity of Lord of Man. The last three Earls
of Derby had died without leaving a child behind them; but James, the
gallant earl who fought and bled for the Stuart cause, had left three
daughters, of whom the youngest survived the rest, and became her father's
heir; and there were also other females 'whose representatives, it was
thought, might put in a claim, namely, the three daughters of Ferdinando,
fifth earl-Anne, Lady Chandos; Frances, Countess of Bridgewater; and
Elizabeth, Countess of Huntingdon.
The sequel is curious, and
shows how often important matters, even the successions to great estates
and high titles, after all are but the freaks of Fortune, and bang on the
turns of her wheel. When the coronet of Derby had been assumed without
dispute by a younger branch of the Stanleys, the lordship of Man lay for
awhile practically in abeyance; no one had claimed it, much less had taken
it up; and there were some thoughts that, for want of a successor, it
would revert to its feudal superior, the wearer of the British Crown.
James, then Duke of Atholl
in Scotland, had formed no well-grounded hopes of getting any pretensions
to the sovereignty of Man acknowledged, though he may have had some hazy
idea of his claims; but, having invited Duncan Forties, late president of
the Court of Session in Scotland, to stay with him as his guest, he
entertained him at Blair Atholl or Dunkeld. After dinner the attention and
curiosity of Mr. Forbes was drawn to a fine genealogical tree of the
family pedigree, its honors and alliances, which hung in all the colors
of blazonry upon the walls of the castle hall. When his experienced eye
had examined it a little at leisure, he exclaimed,
'What is here, my Lord
Duke?'
'Oh, only the Murray
pedigree,' was the reply. 'Only! I think that, by the recent death of Lord
Derby, your grace has a claim through your grandmother, Amelia Sophia,
daughter of the seventh Earl of Derby, to at least some portion of his
estates and honors, though not to his earldom.'
The duke replied that
he had never thought seriously of any such good luck accruing to him, and
that he had no idea of putting forward
pretensions which he could not maintain in a court of law.
'But I am sure that you
could maintain them,' replied Forbes, 'and you ought to lose no time in
putting them forward; the law and the right are clearly on your side.'
'You do not really mean so?' replied the duke.
Yes, indeed I do, and you
cannot too soon set about the task in earnest'
Then make me out, I
pray you, a brief statement of the grounds of my claim, and I will call on
my solicitor in Edinburgh; then we, will go south and take the advice of
English counsel in London.'
This was no sooner done than the first step was
taken; the duke went up to town. Solicitors and agents were employed to
obtain the proper certificates at the Lyon office in Edinburgh, and in the
College of Arms in London, and the case was laid before one of the most
eminent lawyers of the day. He took the fee of course, and gave his
opinion that the Duke of Atholl had an undoubted right to the lordship of
Man and to the barony of Strange which, as a
barony by writ, was descendible the female line. The case before long came
on for hearing in due course before the House
Lords, who decided nem con.
that the claim we just and incontrovertible, and the Duke of Atholl holds
his seat to-day in the House of Peers Lord Strange. Such was the romantic
upshot of a chance country visit.
Difficulties, however,
arose with respect this imperium in imperio in the hands of the
Murrays. The duke had too much to do in
the management of his own estate in Perthshire
to pay any great attention to his distant
sovereignty, beyond occasionally nominating its Bishop its 'Deemsters:
Added to this, the duties spirits, silks, and other articles being lower than
in England or in Ireland, the Isle of Man then
became a den of smugglers; and therefore it a resolved by the English
Government that would be as well to put an end to this constant source of
discomfort and annoyance. As, however, the Murrays
had been in possession of their lordship for half-a-century, there was
only one way of proceeding, namely, by purchase. Accordingly, just four
years after the accession of George
III a bargain was struck between the king and the Duke of Atholl, who
agreed for the sun of £70,000 to cede to the Crown all his feudal rights
and civil patronage in Man, along with the castles of Peel and Rushen,
which thenceforward was annexed directly to England. From that date
forward the smuggling trade gradually died out, having received its
deathblow by the transfer. The duke, however, specially reserved to
himself and his successors the nomination of the bishop, and sundry other
ecclesiastical rights. The duke, also, by fair means or foul, was able
still to keep a pretty tight hold on the revenues of the island, and the
British tax-payers in 1828-29 found it necessary to purchase these rights
from the then Duke of Atlioll for the sum of £132,044, according to
Haydn's 'Dictionary of Dates,' or, if we may
trust the statement of Sir Bernard Burke, which is endorsed by the author
of 'Our Old Nobility,' for £409,000.
The Mumays hold in all
more than a score of coronets. Besides the Duke of Atholl, the Scottish
peerage counts among its members a Lord Elibank,
a Lord Dunmore, a Lord Stormont, whoes title is now
merged in the Earldom of Mansfield. Besides these honors, the head
of the Murrays, according to the Lodge, is duke of Atholl, Marquis of
Tullibardine and Atholl, Earl of Tullibardine, Atholl, Strathey, and
Strathardale, Viscount of Balquhidder, Glenalmond, and Glenlyon, Baron
Murray of Tullibardine, Lord Balvenie and Gask, Baron Strange of Knockyn,
Earl Strange, Baron Percy, Baron Murray of Stanley and Gloucester, and
Baron Glenlyon of Glenlyon , in Perthshire to say nothing of honors
which the Dukes once owned, but which are now extinct or dormant.
Surely the possession of these coronets, with the
hereditary sheriffdom of Perthshire, ought to give to the head of the
ducal house of Atholl some consolation for the loss of the lordship which
was bound to become more and more shadowy at each successive generation,
and for which his grandfather, thanks to parliamentary influence, was able
to command a price so far above its market value. The age of such
feudal privileges may be said to have now fairly passed away, and there
can be no possible excuse for their revival in any shape or form whatever.
Chapters From the Family Chests, 1887
Chapters From the Family Chest |
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