time we wrote, a shoemaker, carrying on his craft in a suburb of London; another, a butcher at Halesowen; and a third, a toll-bar keeper at Cooper's Bank, near Dudley. We mentioned, too, the sufferings of an Earl of Traquair, who, ruined in the great civil war, was reduced to beg alms as the meanest pauper in the streets of Edinburgh; and we instanced the fate of the last Baronet of the O'Neills,-sprung from the ancient Kings of Ireland, who ended his days as "boots" in a little inn at Duleek, in the county of Louth. The subject seems to have attracted so much public attention that we propose in our present chapter to draw yet further on its still unexhausted stores. Our narrative of vicissitudes shall commence with a great Norman family, the UMFRAVILLES of Northumberland. Their patriarch ROBERT "with the beard," Lord of Tours and Vian, accompanied the Conqueror to England, and, in ten years after the victory of Hastings, obtained from his royal master a grant of the Valley of Redesdale in Northumberland, with all its castles, woods, and franchises, to hold of him and his heirs for ever by the service of defending that part of the country from wolves and the King's enemies by "the sword which the said King William wore at his side when he entered Northumberland, and which he gave to the said Robert." The direct male descendant

of this illustrious family, dignified with the titles of Baron and Earl-a family which was on its wane ere the Russells had sprung into importance by the spoils of the church-was Captain John Brand Umfraville, of the Royal Navy, who died a few years ago without issue. His father, Mr. William Umfraville, kept formerly a chandler's shop in Newcastle, but failed in business, and was glad to accept the situation of keeper of St. Nicholas' workhouse, in that town. In that humble station, the heir of the Umfravilles-once the all-potent Earls of Angus-closed his life, leaving a widow surviving him, and a son and a daughter without any means of support. The Duke of Northumberland, informed of the sad story of the decadence of the Umfravilles, kindly allowed an annuity to the widow, and undertook the education. of the boy, for whom, in due time, he procured the appointment of Midshipman in the Royal Navy, and whom we have just mentioned as Captain John Brand Umfraville, the last of his famous line.

The wars of the Roses effected the ruin of many of the old Plantagenet nobles. Fearful was the heartrending dissensions which that terrible quarrel sowed amongst the nearest and dearest connections, and fearful the misery and wretchedness it entailed on a great majority of the most illustrious families

in England. Philip de Comines, in his quaint yet lively style, has given a brief account of the fall of several potent houses, which will no doubt amuse every reader who does not allow himself to be startled by a language somewhat antique, or by the historian's strange transformations of English names and titles. From Comines' pages we learn that the exiled Peers of England were in such abject poverty before the Duke of Burgundy received them, that "those who beg alms are not so poor." One powerful prince, Henry Holland, second Duke of Exeter, who had married King Edward IV.'s sister, "I have seen," (we quote the old chronicler), "running a-foot, bare-legged, begging his bread from house to house, for God's sake." The poor outcast mentioned not his name, but when he was known, the Duke of Burgundy conferred on him a small pension.

The Dukes of BUCKINGHAM afford one of the most singular pages in the Misfortunes of Great Families; the title, by whatever race it was borne, uniformly ending in the same disastrous result. To begin with the Staffords, the earliest bearers of the ill-omened but honourable distinction;-Humphrey de Stafford, the sixth earl of that name, and first Duke of Buckingham, closely allied to the royal house

of Lancaster, may be said to have opened that tragedy, which deepened as it progressed towards a catastrophe with his successors. His eldest son was killed at the fatal battle of St. Albans, in which the Yorkists so signally defeated their opponents, and he himself fell gallantly fighting for the Lancastrians at the battle of Northampton. Such a death, however, was much too common in those times of civil warfare, to have deserved of itself any particular notice; but it acquires a deep significance from after circumstances, as if being an omen of misfortune.

The second Duke of Buckingham, Henry de Stafford, thus becoming, according to the custom of the times, a ward to the reigning monarch, was naturally brought up, so far as education could influence him, in attachment to the house of York. He was even a main instrument in elevating to the throne King Richard III., who made him a Knight of the Garter and Constable of England. But, as every reader of Shakspeare knows,— "High-reaching Buckingham grew circumspect. The deep, revolving, witty Buckingham

No more shall be the neighbour to my counsels;
Hath he so long held out with me untired
And stops he now for breath?"

Whatever might be the cause-whether the old family attachment, or the neglect of King Richardthe Duke collected a force to join Richmond; but

his army being defeated, he himself fled, and was finally taken, when, all old services forgotten, it was,

"Off with his head! so much for Buckingham."

The success of the Lancastrians restored the next heir of this house, Edward de Stafford, to the family honours, and he became the third Duke of Buckingham. The favour this nobleman found with Henry VII., was rather increased than diminished with his despotic successor. But he had the misfortune to offend the all-powerful Wolsey-who, if Buckingham was proud, was yet prouder. The first occasion of dispute between them, according to the gossip of the day, was this:It chanced on one occasion, that Buckingham held a basin for the King to wash his hands, when Henry, having completed his ablutions, the Prelate dipt his fingers into the water. Buckingham was so offended at this, which he considered derogatory to his rank, that he flung the contents of the basin into the Cardinal's shoes; and the latter, being no less incensed in his turn, declared aloud, that he "would stick in the Duke's skirts." To show his contempt for such a menace, the Duke came to court soon afterwards richly dressed, but without any skirts; and the King demanding the reason of so strange a