Studies in Hereditary Ability

W.T.J. Gun

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000063776
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Biology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Originally published in 1928, Studies in Hereditary Ability studies the genealogy of great families of Britain and America and examines how their ancestors influenced their genetics and who they subsequently ended up becoming. The book examines the descent of ability through both maternal and paternal lines, and seeks to argue that from both sides, there stems an equal chance of inheritance. At the time of publication maternal genealogy was relatively unexplored and the book examines the influence of the maternal line on hereditary genetics, as well as the early influence of the mother on a child's environment. The book also examines the links between leadership and intelligence, and maps the genealogy of writers, scientists and artists, and proposes that these notable figures were more likely to have had notable relatives. Although very much of its time, the book will provide a unique and interesting read for social historians, anthropologists and genealogists alike.

Studies in Hereditary Ability

CHAPTER I

WIT AND WICKEDNESS

SIR JOHN ST. JOHN, Knight, of Lydiard Tregoze, in Wilts, and Lucy Hungerford, his wife, are quite unknown to history and practically no record of their life or character has been preserved. They transmitted, however, most striking characteristics, evidenced by the very considerable number of their descendants of note and the. strong resemblance to be traced among many of these descendants. Of Sir John’s immediate ancestors there is not much to be said, but his mother belonged to a family, the Blounts of Mapledurham, of which many members had particularly distinguished themselves in arms. A direct ancestor was the Sir Walter Blount mentioned. in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, who married a Spanish lady of the distinguished house of Ayala. A collateral relative was that Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, famed in history as the conqueror of Tyrone and scarcely less well known as the lover of the fascinating Penelope Rich. Strong passions seem indeed to have marked the Blount family, but were at least as marked in connection with the Hungerfords. The matrimonial histories of Lucy’s immediate ancestors were singularly unfortunate. Sir Edward, her great-grandfather, married, with some indecent haste after her first husband’s death, Agnes, the widow of one John Cotell. Sir Edward did not long survive, and Agnes, with two accomplices, was later indicted for the murder of Cotell, and all three were convicted and executed. Sir Edward was himself probably by no means guiltless, and his son, Sir Walter, Agnes’s stepson, had a very unedifying career. His brutality to his third wife was notorious; he kept her incarcerated, and several times attempted to poison her. He was not, however, brought to book for these iniquities, but was executed for complicity in the “Pilgrimage of Grace ”; before his death he “ seemed so unquiet that many judged him rather in a frenzy than otherwise.” He was probably more than half-mad. Sir Walter, his son, in his turn accused his second wife of trying to poison him; she was acquitted, and Hungerford, for failing to pay the costs of the proceedings, was committed to the Fleet Prison.

Greatly daring was John St. John when he married into such a family, but there can be little doubt that Lucy was possessed of great personal charm. We shall soon have abundant reason to see how the evil taint persisted. Of the immediate family of John and Lucy we learn something from Mrs. Hutchinson’s Memoirs. The youngest daughter, Lucy, was the writer’s mother, and she, at any rate, seems to have harked back to better stock. “ Her father and mother died when she was not above five years old and she was brought up in Lord Grandison’s house, he an excellent and honourable person, but his wife ill-natured and jealous and a most cruel “stepmother.’” Eventually Lucy St. John and her elder sisters were brought to their brother’s house on his marriage. “ There were not, in those days, so many beautiful women found in any family as those, but my mother was by most judgments preferred before all her elder sisters, who, something envious at it, used her unkindly, yet all the suitors that came to them still turned their addresses to her.” Truly a Cinderella story in real life. Of the descendants of Barbara, one of those elder sisters, there will be more to be said. The brother, John St. John, eventually became jealous of his wife, who alone seems to have been kind to Lucy, and consequently vented his anger on his youngest sister, who took the wife’s part. Still only sixteen, she escaped from this unquiet household by marriage with Sir Allan Apsley, Lieutenant of the Tower, aged forty-eight. Notwithstanding the disparity of years the marriage was a happy one. Apsley, according to his daughter, was a most worthy person: “ If among his excellencies one outshined the rest it was the generous liberality of his mind, wherein goodness and greatness were so equally distributed that they mutually embellished each other.” Described as a father to his prisoners in the Tower, his example was followed by his wife Lucy, who was particularly kind to Raleigh.

This branch of the St. John connection altogether escaped the evil taint, though Mrs. Hutchinson herself showed the literary tastes of many of her maternal relatives. As a child she translated Lucretius into English verse; later in life she became a strict Puritan, but in her youth she “thought it no sin to learn or hear witty songs and amorous sonnets or poems.” She lived to see the rise to notoriety of her disreputable relatives, Rochester and Barbara Villiers, but we may be sure that she did not peruse the amorous poems of the former. She. lives in literary history by the life of her husband, the stalwart Puritan, Colonel Hutchinson, whose “figure stands out from his wife’s canvas with the grace and tenderness of a portrait by Van Dyck.” Her brother, Sir Allan Apsley the younger, though without his sister’s goodness, had none of the characteristic vices of so many of the St. John clan; his descendants married into the Bathursts, and that family, which achieved some prominence in the eighteenth century, hardly furnish material appropriate to the heading of this chapter.

For such we must turn to John St. John, the jealous brother, and to Barbara St. John, the jealous sister, of Mrs. Hutchinson’s Memoirs.

Anne, the daughter of John St. John, was married twice, first to Sir Francis Lea and secondly to Henry Wilmot, first Earl of Rochester, by the latter of whom she became the mother of John Wilmot, the second Earl. It seems more than probable, from what we know of her ancestry, that she transmitted evil qualities to this scapegrace son, but such accounts as we have of Anne herself are favourable. St. Evremond remarks that she “was of the ancient family of the St. Johns of Wiltshire, a lady of equal parts and beauty, as I have been informed. Her prudent conduct in preserving such estate as the father left enabled the education of her son John to be preserved suitable to his quality.” After John’s death his mother, moreover, obtained possession of and burnt some of the worst of his manuscripts.

On the father’s side Rochester had a by no means undistinguished descent. His grandfather Charles, first Viscount Wilmot, won fame in the Irish wars at the end of the reign of Elizabeth and the beginning of that of James I. The father, Henry, the first Earl, was a distinguished Cavalier, the victor of Roundway Down, a chief counsellor of Prince Charles during his exile; very popular on account of his good fellowship and companionable wit, says Clarendon, who, however, further states that he loved debauchery but never allowed it to interfere with business.

Some of his characteristics quite clearly descended to his famous, or infamous, son. Burnet, a somewhat partial witness, considers that the young Rochester was naturally modest till the Court corrupted him; environment, no doubt, came into play, but the combination of the Wilmot-St. John, not to speak of the Hungerford heredity, was probably mainly responsible for Rochester’s amazing career. Possessed of considerable literary dexterity and no small share of wit, as evidenced by his famous lines on Charles II (1), he was withal one of the most shameless profligates of all history. Some of his pranks showed, at any rate, an original turn, as when he set up as a quack doctor under the name of Alexander Bendo, taking a stall on Tower Hill and hoaxing the credulous women who then, as now, abounded. How he would have enjoyed the character of a medium at the present day! A more disgraceful exploit was conducted with Buckingham, when they took an inn on the Newmarket Road, and, pretending to be innkeepers, seduced their female visitors. It was certainly in keeping with the spirit of his ancestry that Rochester should have abducted an heiress, Elizabeth Malet by name, but he does not seem to have actually ill-treated her, and some letters of his to her, which have been preserved, are, at any rate, respectful. On his death-bed, worn out at the age of thirty-three, Rochester summoned Burnet to his side and shed so many crocodile tears as to induce the latter to declare “ that if he had recovered, he would have made good all his resolutions.” The accomplished but exceedingly vain divine was no doubt greatly influenced by the interest Rochester had taken in his History of the Reformation, an interest that was probably quite genuine. In any case, edifying tracts concerning Rochester’s “Death-Bed Repentance” were freely circulated in later years.

Mrs. Anne Wharton, the daughter of his half-brother, Sir Henry Lee, wrote an elegy on his death. This lady was assured by a very friendly critic that she was allied to Rochester in genius as well as in blood, but her writings in general are rather sorry stuff. The fact that, in addition to her elegy, she composed a paraphrase of the Lamentations of Jeremiah probably showed a lack of humour rather than versatility, though the prophet would no doubt have found plenty of material for his Lamentations in the Court of Charles II.

Rochester’s only son died young. Of his three daughters it was Elizabeth, Countess of Sandwich, who most obviously inherited his characteristics. Her husband, though belonging to the very distinguished family of Montagu and grandson of Pepys’s Lord Sandwich, was meek to the last degree and such a cypher that he was practically put in durance vile by his wife, who, says Macky, made him “ very expensive.” The rest of the world, or at any rate the male portion thereof, thought well of her. St. Evremond describes her as “aussi généreuse que spirituelle, aussi agréable que généreuse,” while Lord Chesterfield says: “ Old as she was when I saw her last, she had the strongest parts of any woman I know,” and Mark Noble observes that she “ partook of all the fire and vivacity of her father, the witty Earl of Rochester.” Her son, Lord Hinchinbrooke, died in early life, leaving, however, a good impression behind him. Pope describes him as one of the few noblemen who possessed the “ nobleman look,” while the author of Jimmy Twitcher praises him. This last production, a violent attack on Hinchinbrooke’s son, the famous Lord Sandwich, was probably, however, unduly biased in favour of the father in order to heighten the iniquities of the son. This son is the last that falls to be considered of this line. He had certain very obvious resemblances to John, Earl of Rochester, his great-grandfather, but perhaps Clarendon’s description, above quoted, of the first Earl of Rochester, is most particularly applicable to Sandwich: “ He loved debauchery but never allowed it to interfere with business.” In early life a member of the famous Hell Fire Club, Sandwich was profligate throughout, but at the same time thoroughly industrious and in some respects an able politician. The author of Jimmy Twitcher was not far wrong when he stated: “ With all his faults and what, perhaps, renders them greater, he is a man of uncommon sense and penetration. Suffice it therefore to say that he lives a monument of superior abilities prostituted to the worst of purposes.” Wroxall speaks of “ this distinguished votary of art, conviviality and pleasure who in all his official functions displayed perspicuity as well as dispatch.” Like his forbears before him, Sandwich was charming and polished to the last degree in social intercourse; his musical parties were especially famous, presided over by his mistress, Martha Ray, whose murder under singularly dramatic circumstances led to his enforced resignation of the First Lordship of the Admiralty. By Martha, Sandwich had an illegitimate son, Basil Montagu. Such are the curious twists and turns of heredity that this son, so far from being a rake, developed into a most sober member of society and acquired note as a legal writer—a very similar case to one to which later reference will be made.

The eccentricity, however, which ran through many branches of the St. John connection, came out strongly in Sandwich’s younger brother, William Montagu, a naval captain of considerable skill and daring, but more than half-mad. Two anecdotes of his peculiarities will suffice. In an affray at Lisbon he received a black eye in a scuffle. Next day, in order to keep him company, he made each of his boat’s crew black their eyes with cork, the starboard rowers the right eye, the larboard the left, the coxswain both. On another occasion he asked leave of Sir Edward Hawke to go up from Portsmouth to London. The Admiral, unwilling to let him go, jokingly replied “that he could not give him leave to go from his ship farther than his barge would carry him.’’ Montagu promptly had a carriage made on trucks, on which he placed his barge with his crew and then solemnly instructed these to go through the action of rowing. Hawke heard of this after the boat was landed for the purpose, and thereupon permitted Montagu to proceed to London in any way he thought fit.

Among the comparatively early descendants of John St. John and Lucy Hungerford, Bolingbroke was undoubtedly the most notable. This restless and versa tile politician had in almost every direction a distinguished descent. Related on the side of his paternal grandmother to Cromwell, and on the side of his mother to Queen Elizabeth, he derived from John St. John in the direct male line. His grandfather Walter, son of the John of whom Mrs. Hutchinson complained, and uncle of Rochester, was an apparently respectable character, but the father Henry was a mere dissipated man about town. Of him, however, one witticism is recorded. On his son’s elevation to the peerage, he remarked: “ Ah, Harry, I ever said you would be hanged, but now I find you will be beheaded.” The son, evidently not resentful, later procured a peerage for his father, one of the few instances in English history of a proceeding akin to that of the Chinese method of ennobling ancestors rather than descendants—a very sound method biologically, provided the right ancestor is selected, which was certainly not the case in this instance.

A much greater man than Rochester or Sandwich, Bolingbroke shared with both most profligate habits and with the latter great, if somewhat spasmodic, attention to business. During his famous administration, 1712–16, Swift, an intimate friend, said that he plodded whole days and nights like the lowest clerk in his office and that he partly broke off his habits of drinking, though he did not refrain from other liberties. His addiction to the fair sex was notorious. According to Voltaire, a woman said, on his assuming office: “ Seven thousand guineas a year, my girls, and all for us.” All authorities agree as to his charm, and the Chevalier Ramsay further instances his innate good breeding in this comment: “He outshines you, but then holds himself in and reflects some of his own light so as to make you appear the less inferior to him.” Addison fully admitted the charm, adding, however: “ If he had only as good a heart as he has a head.” Pope mentions him as having the “ nobleman look,” a distinction which, as we have seen, he also attributed to Bolingbroke’s little-known relative Hinchinbroke: “ This strange product of a revolutionary age, so brilliant as a writer, so disappointing as a thinker, so famous as an orator, so shifty as a statesman, so profligate as a man.” Thus his character has been summed up, and in one or another of his most interesting connections all these qualities may be found, but we have not to go far to discover the charm and the profligacy, which runs like a thread through the St. John connection.

Two later statesmen resemble Bolingbroke to a very marked extent, Charles Fox and Brougham, and both, it is to be noted, had most distinguished connections.

From Barbara St. John, daughter of John and Lucy Hungerford, and one of the jealous sisters mentioned by Mrs. Hutchinson, sprang a race in which this charm and profligacy were present to the fullest extent. This is, however, matter for little wonder. Barbara married Sir Edward Villiers, half-brother of Buckingham, favourite of James I, and the Villiers strain bore the closest resemblance to the St. John, giving a double dose of original sin to the more immediate descendants of Sir Edward Villiers and Barbara, his wife. The complete Villiers connection, deriving from Sir Edward’s father, Sir George, produced, by the eighteenth century, personalities of the most outstanding distinction: the first Duke of Marlborough, the Duke of Berwick, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Henry Fielding, the Pitts, Charles Fox, Sir Charles and Sir William Napier, the Herveys, Charles Townshend, Lord Castlereagh. Those descended from Sir Edward alone fall to be considered in this chapter.

From the hints we have of her ambitious disposition, we may feel sure that Barbara St. John expressed great satisfaction at the rapid rise of her husband’s family, occasioned by the success at Court of his half-brother, Buckingham. One result of this Court favour appears in the diversion to her heirs of the viscounty of Grandison, which had been created in favour of her uncle, in virtue of which her son William succeeded. This Lord Grandison fell early in the civil wars, but to judge from Clarendon’s account he had none of the family failings. “ He was,” says the historian, “ a young man of so virtuous a habit of mind that no provocation or temptation could corrupt him, and of the most rare piety and devotion, his personal valour and courage of all kinds very eminent.” His virtues, however, were far from descending on his daughter Barbara, successively Countess of Castlemaine and Duchess of Cleveland, the notorious mistress of Charles II. Quite clearly this lady harked back to one or more of the disreputable ancestors with whom she was cursed, and of all the descendants of John St. John and Lucy Hungerford she was perhaps the most fundamentally worthless, “ at once the fairest and lewdest of the royal concubines, with black eyes and a plump baby face.” All authorities indeed agree as to the beauty which she shared with so many of her relatives, all equally agree as to her utter heartlessness and shameless rapacity. Technically married to Roger Palmer, created through her influence Earl of Castleinaine, Charles readily accepted the paternity of all her numerous children, although in some cases this was almost as doubtful as that of Lord Castlemaine. In one instance there was hardly any doubt at all. The father of her youngest child was quite unquestionably her cousin, John Churchill, the future Duke of Marlborough largely owing his early rise to her favour. This child, yet another Barbara, inherited the Villiers strain on both sides; a propensity to sexual intrigue was almost inevitable and did, in fact, occur. In 1690 Barbara Fitzroy, who was allowed to use a surname to which she was not entitled, bore an illegitimate son to the Earl of Arran, then a prisoner in the Tower. Times had changed, however, and the daughter shared none of the good fortunes of the mother. The virtuous Queen Mary was then on the throne, and promptly arranged for the dispatch of the unfortunate girl to a French convent, from which she never emerged. Her son, Charles Hamilton, might well have turned out an utter rake, but, as in the very similar case of Basil Montagu, quite a different result occurred; heredity played one of its curious pranks: Hamilton became a most respectable member of society, and mildly distinguished himself by the publication of certain historical works.

Barbara Villiers’ characteristics came out more strongly in others of her descendants, notably in the third Duke of Grafton, a Premier of the time of George III, a most profligate individual, who, however, possessed much of the ability characteristic of both the St. John and Villiers strains. More remote descendants were the Seymours, Marquises of Hertford, and distant as is the descent, we can discern the influence of these connections in the third Marquis, the original of Thackeray’s Lord Steyne, a most abandoned man, but to whose exquisite taste in art we owe the Wallace collection.

The Duchess of Cleveland was not alone among her relatives in finding favour in the eyes of a monarch. Arabella Churchill, Marlborough’s sister, bore to James II the famous Duke of Berwick, but Arabella, though she had Villiers, had, however, no St. John descent. On...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Introduction
• Contents
• Chapter I. Wit and Wickedness
• Chapter II. A Dream of Fair Women
• Chapter III. A Glance Down the Centuries (England)
• Chapter IV. A Glance Down the Centuries (America)
• Chapter V. The Old Dominion
• Chapter VI. Two Philosophic Statesmen
• Chapter VII. Five Great Gossips
• Chapter VIII. Six Modern Writers
• Chapter IX. Scotland and the Southern States
• Chapter X. The Celtic Touch
• Chapter XI. Two Renegades
• Chapter XII. Mount Everest
• Chapter XIII. Four Great Artists
• Chapter XIV. “Giants of Old”
• Chapter XV. Intellect and Athletics
• Chapter XVI. The Antecedents of a Criminal
• Notes
• Index