Longleat.

Here was anciently a small Priory of Black Canons of the Order of St. Augustine, and at the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry the Eighth, the site and lands were granted by the Crown to Sir John Horsey, of Clifton, in Dorsetshire, and to the then Earl of Hertford, from whom it was purchased a few months after- wards by Sir John Thyune, in whose family it has since continued.

The house is two hundred and twenty feet long, by one hundred and eighty wide, and sixty feet in height.

The library, besides a good collection of books, contains some rare and curious manuscripts.

The principal portraits are those of Camden, Sir Philip Sydney, Lord Bacon, the Prince de Conde, Cardinal Richelieu, Gustavus Adolphus, “the Lion of the North,” whom one can scarcely help connecting now with Sir Walter Scott’s Captain Dalgetty, Lord Falkland, Philip Earl of Pembroke, Lady Arabella Stuart, Bishop Ken, Charles the First, Charles the Second, Mary Queen of Scots, Father Paul, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Dryden, Petrarch, Dr. Harvey, Sir Kenelm Digby, Viscount Dundee, a Duke of Buckingham, and Martin Luther, with others.

The original name of the Thynnes was Bouteville, or Boteville, one of whom, John Bouteville, hving in the time of the wars of the Roses, from his l’esiding in one of the Inns of Court, came to be called John of the Inn, or Yune, from whence the transition to Thynne.

In 1575 Queen Elizabeth visited Sir John Thynne at Longleat. In 1663 King Charles the Second was magnificently entertained here; and in 1789 George the Third and Queen Charlotte honoured the host with a visit.

Sir Geoffry Boteville was ancestor of

Sir William Boteville, who died in 1256. Seventh in descent after him was

John Boteville, or Thynne, as above stated, who flourished in the reign of King Edward IV. His eldest son,

Ralph Boteville, or Thynne, married Joan, daughter of John Higgous, of Stretton, and had two sons, the elder of whom,

Thomas Thynne, of Stretton, married Margaret, daughter of Thomas Eynes, Esq., of Stretton, and was succeeded by his eldest son,

Sir John Thynne, who began the building of Longleat in January, 1567. He married, first, Christian, daughter of Sir Richard Gresham, Knight, and secondly, Dorothy, daughter of Sir William Wroughton, of Broad Hinton, Wiltshire. His eldest son was—he died May 21st., 1580—

Sir John Thynne, of Longleat, married to Joan, youngest daughter of Sir Rowland Hayward, Knight, Lord Mayor of London, and left a son,

Sir John Thynne, Knight, of Longleat, who married, first, Maria, daughter of George, Lord Audley, and secondly, Catherine, daughter of Charles Howard, Esq. Their eldest son to survive,

Sir Henry Frederick Thynne, of Kempsford, was created a Baronet June 15th., 1641. He married Mary, daughter of Thomas, first Lord Coventry, and had three sons, the youngest of whom,

Henry Frederick Thynne, married Dorothy, daughter and coheiress of Francis Phillips, Esq., of the Inner Temple, and dying in 1705, left a son,

Thomas Thynne, who married Lady Mary Villiers, daughter of Edward, first Earl of Jersey, and died in 1710, leaving a posthumous son,

Thomas Thynne, who succeeded as second Viscount Weymouth.

The eldest son,

Sir Thomas Thynne, having sat in Parliament for several years, was raised to the Peerage, December 11th., 1682, as Baron Thynne, of Warminster, in Wiltshire, and Viscount Weymouth, with remainder to his brother in case of his dying without an heir. He married the Honourable Frances Finch, daughter of Heneage, second Earl of Winchilsea, and had an only son, who however having died without male issue, his father was succeeded at his death, July 28th., 1714, by his grandnephew,

Thomas Thynne, second Viscount Weymouth, who married for his second wife, in 1733, Lady Louisa Carteret, daughter of John, Earl Granville. The elder of his sons,

Thomas Thynne, K.G., third Viscount Weymouth, born 1734, was elevated, August 18th., 1779, to the Marquesate of Bath. He married, May 22nd., 1759, Lady Elizabeth Cavendish Bentinck, eldest daughter of William, second Duke of Portland, by whom he left at his death, November 10th., 1796, an eldest son,

Thomas Thynne, K.G., second Marquis of Bath, born January 25th., 1765, Lord Lieutenant of Somerset, F.S.A. and F.L.S., married, April 24th., 1794, Isabella Elizabeth, third daughter of George, Viscount Torrington, by whom he had a large family, of whom the eldest son to survive,

Henry Frederick Thynne, Captain R.N., and third Marquis of Bath, born May 24th., 1797, married, April 19th., 1830, Harriet, daughter of Alexander Baring, first Lord Ashburton. He died June 24th., 1837, leaving an elder son,

John Alexander Thynne, fourth Marquis of Bath, born March 1st., 1831, married, August 20th., 1861, the Honourable Frances Isabella Catherine, eldest daughter of Thomas, third Viscount de Vesci, and had, with other children,

Thomas Henry Thynne, Viscount Weymouth, born July 15th., 1862.