OR, EPISODES IN THE DOMESTIC ANNALS OF THE ARISTOCRACY. BY J. BERNARD BURKE, ESQ., AUTHOR OF PEERAGE AND BARONETAGE," THE LANDED GENTRY," แ ANECDOTES OF THE ARISTOCRACY," &c. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET, 1853. FAMILY ROMANCE. VICISSITUDES OF GREAT FAMILIES. As highest hilles with tempests be most touched, IT has been well observed that Fortune never appears in a more extravagant humour than when she reduces monarchs to mendicants, or debases the descendants of nobles into hewers of wood and drawers of water. In a former work we told of the decadence of many a royal line,-of the withering of many a proud stem; and instanced how one co-heir of our Plantagenet kings was, at the very VOL. II. B |