For the Introduction and the Notes, which have been written in order to amplify the personal narrative and to connect it with the historical events of the period, Mr. L. Cope Cornford is responsible.

I have dedicated the book to my brother officers of the Royal Navy.

As luck would have it, my career has been of a singularly varied character. And my hope is that, in reading its story, boys and girls, as well as their elders, may find pleasure.

CHARLES BERESFORD

Admiral

1 GREAT CUMBERLAND PLACE, W.

June 1914

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

THE HOUSE OF BERESFORD

Lord Charles William de la Poer Beresford, born in 1846, was the second of five brothers, sons of Sir John de la Poer Beresford, fourth Marquess of Waterford. Lord Charles's elder brother, Sir John Henry de la Poer Beresford (to give him his full title), Earl and Viscount of Tyrone, Baron de la Poer of Curraghmore in the county of Waterford, and Baron Beresford of Beresford in the county of Cavan, in the Peerage of Ireland, and Baron Tyrone of Haverfordwest in the county of Pembroke, in the Peerage of Great Britain, Knight of the Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick, succeeded to these titles in 1866. Sir John joined the 1st Life Guards. He died in 1895, and was succeeded by his son (nephew to Lord Charles), as presently to be noted.

Of the other three brothers, Lord William de la Poer joined the 9th Lancers and became Military Secretary to five successive Viceroys of India, was a patron of the Turf, and died in 1900; Lord Marcus de la Poer joined the 7th Hussars, took charge of the King's racehorses, an office which he still fulfils, and was appointed Extra Equerry to King George; Lord Delaval James de la Poer (sixteen years younger than Lord Charles) ranched in North America and was killed in a railway accident in 1906.

The five brothers were keen sportsmen, hard riders, men of their hands, high-couraged, adventurous, talented in affairs, winning friendship and affection wherever they went. Lord John-Henry, fifth Marquess, the eldest brother, inherited the family tradition of good landlordship. There was never any oppression of tenants on the Waterford estate. In the House of Lords and in the country, Lord Waterford took a strenuous part in the troubled and complex issues of Irish politics; although during the last years of his life he was crippled and helpless, the result of an accident which befell him in the hunting field. Lord William won the V.C. by an act of cool and audacious gallantry in the Zulu war of 1879; renowned for reckless hardihood, there was hardly a bone in his body which he had not broken; and it is probable that his injuries, diminishing his powers of resistance, caused him to succumb to his last illness. Lord Charles has broken his chest-bone, – a piece of which was cut out in his boyhood, leaving a cavity, – pelvis, right leg, right hand, foot, five ribs, one collar-bone three times, the other once, his nose three times; but owing to his extraordinary physique and strict regimen, he is younger and stronger at the time of writing than most men of half his age.

The family home of the five brothers was Curraghmore, a noble estate lying some twelve miles west of Waterford. The great house stands in a cup of the hills, whose slopes are clothed with woods of oak, the primæval forest of Ireland. The oak woods adjoining the house were planted with the design of supplying timber to the Royal Navy. Built foursquare, like most houses in Ireland, the mansion faces upon a vast gravelled quadrangle, closed in on left and right by the long ranges of stables. Beyond the lawns of the terraced garden, beyond the hanging woods, the bony shoulders of the mountains of Comeragh hunch upon the changing sky; nearer hand, darkens the lone hill of Croughaun; and day and night the noise of running waters, the voice of the Clodagh River, flowing through tawny shallow and sombre pool, breaking white-maned upon rock and fall, rises upon the quiet air. Looking westward from the bare summit of the hill above the deer-park, you shall view the rich valley parcelled into garden and farm and paddock, which are set among deep groves; in the midst, flanked by a gleam of water, the house darkens upon the westering sunlight; and beyond, the sparkling landscape fades into the profound and aerial blue of the mountain wall. Eastward, the rounded bosses of the forest clothe the hills; and in the valley's gentle opening, the river Suir, like a scimitar laid on cloth of tapestry, glimmers dark and bright upon the plain, which, studded with woods and dotted with white specks of villages, stretches to where the dim sea-line merges in the sky.

Over yonder, cloven through the heart of the ancient woods, a green drive rises to the skyline, bordered on either side by rhododendrons, like huge ropes of jewels, three miles long. In the forest there is silence. Few birds or none nest in that deep labyrinth of silver-barked and shaggy trees, rooted for centuries in the mould of their own perennial decay. The martin-cat is lord of that hoary solitude. As a boy, Lord Charles trapped the martin-cats, and presented his mother with a muff made from their skins.

High on the hill rising to the north of the house of Curraghmore, set in a grove of beeches and enclosed within a wall, the last resting-place of the Beresfords opens upon a great and shining prospect of wood and mountain. Here is a wide and broad stone platform, like an ancient altar, the hue of rusty iron, compact of the granite slabs whereon the names of the dead are graven. On three sides it is walled with the tall silver stems of beeches, whose branches high overhead interlace in a green canopy.

Hard by stands the private chapel, once the parish church of Clonegam, a bleak and an unfeatured edifice. Within, there reclines the bronze effigy of the third Marquess, he of the aquiline profile and the full beard, who broke his neck out hunting in 1859. Opposite to him lies the white marble figure, urbane and majestic, of Lord John, his successor, father of Lord Charles Beresford. In the south wall of the chancel, in an arched recess cut out of the thickness of the wall, the white light falls from an unseen opening above upon the sculptured figure of a lady, sleeping recumbent, and beside her nestles the tiny form of her child. She was the first wife of the fifth Marquess, and she died in childbirth. Near by the private chapel, high uplifted on the bare shoulder of the hill, stands a round tower, a mark for leagues, the monument set up to the memory of the little boy, Marcus, Lord le Poer, heir to Lord Tyrone, afterwards first Marquess. He died from the effects of a fall from his pony, the accident occurring when he was jumping hurdles just outside the great courtyard of the house. His portrait, painted by Gainsborough, hangs in the drawing-room. It is a noble head, done with Gainsborough's inimitable delicacy. The lad's blue eyes gaze frankly out of the picture; his fair hair curls upon his shoulders; his coat is scarlet, with the open falling collar of the time; the face is of a singular beauty.

Near by, in the centre of the wall, hangs Sir Joshua Reynolds's portrait of Sir Francis Delaval, K.B. A tremendous figure, Sir Francis, posed in a commanding attitude upon a hillside, right arm extended, grasping a musket with fixed bayonet, and clad in a rich suit of claret colour and cocked hat. He was the uncle of the wife of the second Marquess of Waterford. By reason of that alliance, many of the Delaval family pictures came to Curraghmore.

Here is Lord Delaval himself, who died in 1808, a nobleman of a somewhat rugged and domineering countenance. Here is the first Marquess of Waterford, with a long hooked nose; he is thin-lipped, narrow-eyed (it seems that he had a squint), wearing the ribbon and star of a Knight of St. Patrick. Henry, second Marquess, was painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence; a handsome head, crowned with a mass of fine light hair. In the hall hangs the portrait of the third Marquess; he whose bronze effigy lies in the chapel. He is reading. With his pale and finely cast features, his thick brown hair and beard, he might have been (but was not) an ascetic student. He married the Hon. Louisa Stuart, second daughter and co-heiress of Charles, Lord Stuart dc Rothesay. The Marchioness was a lady of taste, and was considered the most talented amateur painter of her day. She laid out anew the gardens, where heretofore the horses used to graze close to the house, took great interest in the improvement of the mansion itself, designed the Cawnpore Memorial, designed Ford village, formerly the property of the Delavals in Northumberland, and achieved a series of cartoons representing religious subjects, which adorn the walls of the school at Ford.

These and many other ancestral portraits gaze from the walls of gallery and hall and chamber, in the great house of Curraghmore. Each generation as it grew up has traced in them its own lineaments fore-ordained, and has marked the miracle of heredity repeated again and again, from Sir Tristram Beresford, darkling in full armour, through the masterful Katherine le Poer and the beautiful Susanna Carpenter, whose mother was a Delaval, to the penultimate head of the house of De la Poer Beresford.

The entrance hall of the mansion of Curraghmore is the ancient keep, which was built by the De la Poers in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, foursquare, the walls ten feet thick. The rest of the house is eighteenth century. The original edifice is briefly described in The Antient and Present State of the County and City of Waterford, by Charles Smith, published in Dublin in 1740, and in The History, Topography and Antiquities of the County and City of Waterford, by the Rev. R. H. Ryland, published by Murray in 1824. Sir Marcus, first Earl of Tyrone, and his son, afterwards first Marquess of Waterford, made considerable additions, which, according to the date inscribed upon the lead work, were completed in 1771. From the old keep, transformed into an eighteenth-century entrance hall, a flight of steps leads to the inner hall, whence a wide staircase rises, following the walls, and out of which open the reception rooms. These face upon lawn and fountain and terrace. Over the entrance door are carved the family coat; and the crest of the De la Poers, a stag couchant bearing a cross upon his forehead, crowns the parapet. Upon the garden front are sculptured the Beresford shield and their crest, "a dragon's head erased, the neck pierced with a tilting spear, and holding the point broken off in the mouth." Motto, Nil nisi cruce.

Such was the home of the five brothers, when their father, Lord John dc la Poer Beresford, in holy orders, succeeded his brother in 1859. Lord Charles Beresford, who had been for some years at school in England, joined the Navy in that year. He came to Curraghmore in his brief and widely spaced intervals of leave, while his brothers came home more frequently during their vacations. In those days, the stables were filled with horses, the house was populous with guests; and the great courtyard in front of the house, now silent, resounded with the cheery bustle of a jovial company coming and going. All winter the house was thronged; there was hunting six days in the week; and more than a hundred horses were stabled at Curraghmore. Lord Charles Beresford has told how that many a time, when, as a midshipman, he was humping beef into the blood-boats for the Fleet, did he think not without envy upon his brothers, each with his two or three hunters, riding to hounds at Curraghmore.

The house of Beresford derives from the "very old and eminent English family of Beresford of Beresford, in the county of Stafford," and from the De la Poers, an ancient Breton family, and their quarterings include the noble houses of Hamilton, Monck, Carpenter, Plantagenet, Lastile and Leon, Mortimer, De Burgh, Holland, Wake, Wevill, Beauchamp, Delaval, Blake. The Beresfords represented the English plantation in the North of Ireland, until the marriage was made which united them with De la Poers, who were of the first English plantation in the South.

Tristram Beresford came into Ireland in the reign of James I., as manager of the corporation of Londoners, known as "The Society of the New Plantation in Ulster." The first Tristram settled at Coleraine, in county Londonderry. His son, Sir Tristram, first Baronet, in common with the first created Baronets of Ulster, bore on his shield the open red hand of Ulster, hitherto borne by the forfeited O'Neils. Sir Randal, second Baronet, sat in the first Parliament held after the Restoration.

Sir Tristram, his son, commanded a regiment of foot against King James II., and was attainted. He it was who married the Hon. Nicola Sophia Hamilton, concerning whom a legend of the supernatural is current. Briefly, it is that the friend of her early years, the Earl of Tyrone, visited her after his death, according to agreement, and, to prove the reality of his appearance, touched her wrist, shrivelling nerve and sinew, so that ever afterwards she wore a bracelet of black velvet. A picture, supposed to represent this lady, hangs in Curraghmore. It must be said that the evidence of it extant is so highly dubious, that the story is not worth telling in detail.

Sir Tristram was succeeded by his son, Sir Marcus, fourth Baronet, who married the Lady Katherine de la Poer, who was Baroness in her own right. Thus the two houses were conjoined. Lady Katherine was the only daughter and heiress of James, third and last Earl of Tyrone. She was allowed the Barony of La Poer in fee by resolution of the Irish House of Lords, on 16th November 1767. Sir Marcus her husband was created Earl of Tyrone in 1746. The son of Sir Marcus and Lady Katherine, George De la Poer, was created Marquess of Waterford in 1789, and Knight of St. Patrick at the Institution of the Order in 1783. First Marquess, he was the first De la Poer Beresford.

The De la Poer, Power, or Poher, family traces its descent from Comorre I., Count of le Poher, who married the widow of Jonas, King of Domnonée, and who died A.D. 554. Le Poher was one of the five independent states of Brittany, of which the others were La Domnonée, La Cornouailles, Le Vannes, and Le Leon. The genealogy of the Le Poers is interesting, if only by reason of its romantic names. From Comorre I., Count of le Poher, descended the Counts Comorre, Erispoë, Rivallon, Nominoë. Nominoë married one Argantal, defeated Charles the Bald, drove the Franks out of Brittany, and was proclaimed King of that country in 841. He was succeeded by his son Erispoë, who married Mormohec. From the aforesaid Rivallon descended Salomon, who (having achieved a little murderous intrigue) succeeded King Erispoë, and married Wembrit. From the brother of Salomon, Mathuedoi, descended Alain, Count of Vannes and Duke of Brittany, who fought against the Normans, and who was driven by them to take refuge in England. His son Alain (called Barbe-torte) returned to Brittany, drove out the Normans in his turn, and united Le Poer to the Duchy.

From the Pohers, in the female line, descended Arthur, Duke of Brittany, who was done to death by John, King of England, A.D. 1203. There is this other link between John of England and the De la Poers, that in the demesne of Curraghmore an ancient bridge of stone, over which the English King is said to have passed, spans the river and is called John's Bridge to this day. From the Duchess Constance, the mother of Arthur of Brittany, descended the Duchess Anne, who married King Louis XII. of France. Brittany was thus incorporated in France.

The Pohers seem to have come to England with Duke William of Normandy, called the Conqueror. In 1066 they are found in Devonshire; and later, in Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Herefordshire; a fructuous and an acquisitive clan. They came to Ireland in the reign of the second Henry: then came Sir Robert, Sir Roger, William and Simon. Sir Roger helped in the invasion of Ulster. But the founder of the De la Poers of Curraghmore was Sir Robert, who, in the year 1172, accompanied King Henry II. as Knight Marshal, and to whom was given by the King, the town of Waterford and a great parcel of county Waterford.

Towards the end of the sixteenth century, Sir Henry Sidney, in the course of his account of the province of Munster, communicated to the Lords of the Council, describes his visit to John, Lord le Poer, who was born in 1527. "27th Feb., 1575. The day I departed from Waterford I lodged that night at Curraghmore, the house that Lord Power is baron of, where I was so used, and with such plenty and good order entertained (as adding to it the quiet of all the country adjoining, by the people called Power country, for that surname has been since the beginning of the Englishman's planting inhabitants there), it may be well compared with the best ordered country in the English Pale. And the Lord of the country, though he be of scope of ground a far less territory than his neighbour is, yet he lives in show far more honourably and plentifully than he or any other, whatsoever he be, of his calling that lives in his province."

The "Peerage of Ireland" of 1768 urbanely observes: "It is very remarkable, that in so long a succession in this family, and in a country continually disturbed and torn by rebellion and civil wars, that not one of this family was ever engaged in any rebellion against the crown of England, nor was there ever a forfeiture in the family during the space of six hundred years that they have been planted in Ireland; and they at this day enjoy the family lands, and reside at the same place they were originally settled in, in the county of Waterford. In a grant of letters patent from King Charles II. to this Richard, Lord la Poer, bearing date the 9th May, the twenty-third year of his reign, there is this recital. That the ancestors of the said Richard, Lord la Poer, from their first planting in Ireland, for above four hundred years, had entirely preserved their faith and loyalty to the crown of England, in consideration therefore," etc.

Sir Tristram Beresford, up in the North, fought against King James Second; but the De la Poers harboured that monarch; who in the course of his retreat from Ireland, slept a night at Curraghmore, and departing thence took ship at Waterford, and was no more seen in Erin.

Sir Marcus, the son of Sir Tristram, as above recited, united the two houses by marrying the Lady Katherine le Poer; and their descendants, as in 1768, "at this day enjoy the family lands and reside at the same place they were originally settled in." The earldom of Tyrone, which was extinguished by the death of Lady Katherine's father, the third Earl, was revived in Sir Marcus Beresford. Tracing back the direct line of the De la Poers of Curraghmore, we find that Nicholas de la Poer was summoned to Parliament in 1375, in 1378, and in 1383, by the most ancient writs contained in the Rolls Office in Ireland. This Sir Nicholas of Curraghmore traced his descent from Brian Boru, King of Erin, who died in 1014. The line of Irish Kings (as recorded in Whitaker's Almanack) goes back to A.D. 4; and some say much further.

A collateral branch of the De Pohers, or Powers, was the Barons of Donoyle, or Dunhill, the ruins of whose castle remain to this day. It was stoutly defended against Cromwell by the Baroness; and, according to tradition, was betrayed into the hands of the enemy by the lieutenant of her garrison. These Powers were then transplanted to Connaught, and their estates were forfeited. Another collateral branch was the Powers of Knockbrit, county Tipperary. In the year 1789, to Edmund Power and his wife, who was a daughter of "Buck" Sheehy, was born Marguerite, who became Lady Blessington. It seems that her father, "Buck" Power, dissipated his fortune, as the mode was in those days; that he compelled his daughter to marry one Captain Farmer, who ill-treated her; that Mrs. Farmer left her husband, came to London with her brother, was painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, and, after Farmer's death, married Lord Blessington. Here is a link with my Lord Byron.

The relation of the De la Poer Beresfords with the Delavals of Seaton-Delaval in Northumberland, consists in the marriage of Sir Henry de la Poer, second Marquess (1772-1826), with Lady Susanna Carpenter, who was the granddaughter of Lord Delaval. Her mother, daughter of Lord Delaval, married George, second Earl of Tyrconnel. The Lady Tyrconnel was famed for her beauty. The portrait of her daughter, Lady Susanna, now at Curraghmore, represents a singularly beautiful, fair-haired creature, delicately featured, blue-eyed. The Delavals would seem to have been a high-spirited, reckless, and spendthrift race. Extravagant entertainments were devised at their house of Seaton-Delaval, which was built by Sir John Vanbrugh, playwright and architect. The actor Foote was a friend of the family; they were devoted to amateur theatricals; and Garrick once lent Drury Lane Theatre to them. The Delavals were singularly addicted to practical jokes; a tendency to the same diversion has reappeared in later generations. Lord Delaval's only son died young, and the title expired. There is a picture of the sturdy, brown-haired lad at Curraghmore. It is worth noting that an ancestor of Lady Susanna, and, therefore, of Lord Charles Beresford, was a naval officer of some distinction. George Delaval, vice-admiral of the Red, was present at the action fought off Cape Barfleur in May 1692.

The generation of the second Marquess, he who married the Lady Susanna, produced an Archbishop: even the Right Honourable and Most Reverend Lord John George de la Poer Beresford, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland. He was born in 1773, and died in 1862. Possessing great wealth, he was known for his immense benefactions. He gave largely to Dublin University, and to the College of Saint Columba; restored the Cathedral at Armagh at a cost of £30,000; and augmented the salaries of his clergy. The bust of this magnificent prelate stands in the private chapel at Curraghmore. His body is interred in Armagh Cathedral. The Archbishop bequeathed his Property in county Cavan to Lord Charles Beresford; the townlands on the estate bearing such euphonious names as Ballyheady, Corraleehan Beg, Crockawaddy, Kiltynaskeelan, Derrynacrieve, Gubnagree, Scrabby, Tullynamoultra.

The third Marquess, Sir Henry de la Poer, having met his death in the hunting-field, was succeeded in 1859 by his brother, Sir John, who was Dean and Prebendary of Mullaghbrack, in the Arch-diocese of Armagh. He married, in 1843, Christina Leslie, daughter of Charles Powell-Leslie. She was born in 1820, and lived until 1905. The Marchioness learned to ride when she was between forty and fifty years of age, and speedily became a noted rider to hounds. Their sons, as before recited, were Sir John-Henry de la Poer, fifth Marquess of Waterford; Lord Charles, Lord William, Lord Marcus, and Lord Delaval; of whom Lord Charles and Lord Marcus survive at the time of writing. Lord Charles was born on 10th February 1846 at Philipstown Glebe, Louth. It was the year of the great famine; and at Curraghmore, half a regiment was then quartered in the house.

The fifth Marquess, elder brother of Lord Charles, was succeeded in 1895 by his son, nephew to Lord Charles. The sixth Marquess lost his life by a sad accident in 1911. The present heir is a minor.

In this chronicle, brief as it is, three notable figures cannot be omitted: Mr. Commissioner John Beresford, Admiral Sir John Poo Beresford, and the Marshal. (For information concerning these worthies, I have drawn upon the Dictionary of National Biography.)

John Beresford, whose name is even yet occasionally reproached by the descendants of his political opponents, was born in 1738, and died in 1805. He was the second son of Marcus, Earl of Tyrone (brother of the first Marquess) and Lady Katherine, Baroness de la Poer. Appointed First Commissioner of Revenue in 1780, John Beresford became in fact ruler of Ireland. He was entrusted by Pitt with the management of all Irish affairs. Viceroys came and viceroys went, but Beresford continued to hold a position "greater than that of the Lord Lieutenant himself"; much to the indignation of Lord Fitzwilliam, who, when he was appointed Lord Lieutenant, permitted himself to address the First Commissioner in terms so indigestible that Beresford promptly challenged him. The duel, however, was prevented. John Beresford took a great part in the preparation and passing of the Act of Union; was M.P. for Waterford and a Privy Councillor; and did much to improve the city of Dublin, the fine Custom-house being built under his auspices. He married Barbara Montgomery, who was one of the "Three Graces" in the painting done by Sir Joshua Reynolds, now in the National Gallery. The other two Graces were her sister, Lady Mountjoy, and the Marchioness of Townshend.

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