The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford
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 {xx} 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
{xxi} 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; {xxii} 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." {xxiii} 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 {xxiv} 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.
{xxv}
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."