Henry Chaplin A Memoir: Youth II. Henry Chaplin (age 1) was born on December 22, 1841¹, at Ryhall Hall near Stamford, being the third son of the Rev. [his father] Henry Chaplin (age 52), the Lord of the Manor and Rector of the Parish, and of Caroline Horatia (age 26), a daughter of William Ellice of Invergarry, M.P. for Great Grimsby, and niece of Horatio Ross.

Note 1. There was some doubt as to the year of his birth. See p. 146.

In 1864 Henry Chaplin 1st Viscount Chaplin (age 23) and Florence Paget (age 21) were engaged to be married; the King Edward VII of the United Kingdom (age 22) offered his congratulations. However, during their engagement Florence had secretly fallen in love with Henry Rawdon-Hastings, 4th Marquess of Hastings (age 21). Just before her wedding, she had Chaplin take her to Marshall & Snelgrove's on Oxford Street to add to her wedding outfit. While Chaplin waited in the carriage outside, Florence walked straight through the shop and out to the other side, where Hastings waited for her in a carriage. Hastings and Florence were married on the same day.

Adeline Horsey Recollections. 16 Jul 1864. Those days were rather noted for elopements, and two of my friends, Baroness Rose Somerset (age 35) and Lady Adela Villiers, were among the numerous romantic girls who were married in haste and sometimes repented at leisure. Florence Paget's (age 21) elopement with the last Marquis of Hastings (age 21) on the eve of her marriage with Henry Chaplin (age 23) is too well known for me to repeat the story.

On 22 May 1867 The Derby, run during a freak snowstorm, was won by Hermit (age 3), owned by Henry Chaplin 1st Viscount Chaplin (age 26). The jockey was John Daley. Hermit was bred by Mr William Blenkiron and trained by Mr Bloss at Newmarket. There were 29 runners from an initial entry of 256. The winner won by a neck in 2 mins 52 secs, with a good distance between second and third. The winner won a first prize of £7,000. As a result of betting against Hermit Henry Hastings, 4th Marquess (age 24), who had three years earlier eloped with Henry Chaplin's (age 26) fiancé Florence Cecilia Paget Marchioness Hastings (age 24), was ruined. Henry Chaplin's (age 26), who had bet on his horse Hermit, whose odds had lengthened out to 66-1 as a result of doubts about his pre-race fitness, won a fortune.

Henry Chaplin A Memoir: 2 Family and Social Life Part II. Moving in the same social circle, and being mutually attracted, they had probably seen much of one another both in Scotland and in London, and by the time Mr. Chaplin's first letter to her which has been preserved was written—during the season of 1876— friendship on his part had evidently ripened into a warmer sentiment. The letter suggests a more sentimental epoch than ours, when a woman's interest in public affairs, however much it was appreciated, was to be treated rather with playful tenderness than to be taken seriously.

Dear [his future wife] Lady Florence (age 21) — Here is the pamphlet upon vivisection, that subject of such engrossing interest. I'm afraid you will find it very dry reading, unless you are really qualifying for the Leadership of the Women's Suffrage Party and their rights. I have only looked through it hurriedly, but there is nothing to shock you, and it will introduce you to a Parliamentary Bill, than which I cannot conceive anything in this world less amusing. Your entertainment to-night by comparison will be liveliness itself, but I hope it will turn out better than you anticipate. We were lucky, I think, to ride when we did. I wonder when I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again! I hope it may be before long, and till then—

Believe me, yours very truly,

Henry Chaplin (age 35).

Henry Chaplin A Memoir: 2 Family and Social Life Part II. The Prince of Wales (age 34) was admitted to the secret a very few days after his departure from Goodwood, and on August 2 [1876] we find him writing to Mr. Chaplin (age 35):

Let me offer you my most sincere congratulations on your engagement to one of the most charming young ladies whom I know and whom I have had the advantage of knowing ever since her childhood. I certainly did think you rather reticent at Goodwood when I hinted at the subject, as I had the Duke of Sutherland's permission to do so, but I now quite understand the reason, and you were, of course, undoubtedly right to follow the wishes of the young lady. Hoping that we may meet at Dunrobin in September, from Yours most sincerely,

ALBERT EDWARD (age 34).

Henry Chaplin A Memoir: 2 Family and Social Life Part II. To both these requests the lady seems to have demurred, for in his next letter he says: [Henry Chaplin 1st Viscount Chaplin (age 35) to [his future wife] Florence Sutherland Leveson-Gower (age 21)]

You dear One, I hope it isn't unlucky to cut your hair. I wouldn't have asked you if I had known it, but I cannot believe it, and Dot shakes his head when I ask him. You may send it to me with safety when you next write. Yes! and I still want you to weigh, and why should you hate it? If it wasn't that I know you are as light as a feather, I should really begin to think you were very heavy, but if the worst comes to the worst it will be only between you and me, and I'll promise faithfully never to divulge anything over 13 stone. There, darling, isn't that good, and you'll promise not to be angry with me for laughing a little?... All the people about Blankney and at Lincoln have got hold of our engagement, and they are all so delighted and send you all sorts of kind messages already, and whatever you say there is everything to love and to like in you even for outsiders, and if you don't win all their hearts very soon when they know you, I shan't ever give an opinion again.

Henry Chaplin A Memoir: 2 Family and Social Life Part II. HOMBURG, August 16. [Henry Chaplin 1st Viscount Chaplin (age 35) to [his future wife] Florence Sutherland Leveson-Gower (age 21)]

I sent you a line from Brussels, but, ugh! the journey from there, never shall I forget it. I've been in India and have travelled from Delhi to Calcutta without stopping, but I think yesterday beat it. It was 90° in the shade yesterday. What it was in the train I don't know, but I should think 190. Dot and Vic panted and puffed with their mouths wide open the whole of the way, though I got them water and ice at every station. And as for me—well, I simply melted and groaned whenever I could. And the dust, the black dust which it was. I declare it got regularly into the skin, and I arrived like one of the niggers who sing comic songs—the Christy Minstrels at Epsom. I've been washing ever since, and I can't get clean.... I was late at the waters, you'd hardly believe it! and every one was gone home. They have a fashion, these people who come to Homburg, of getting up in the middle of the night to drink their waters, some of them beginning between 6 and 7 A.M. I like mine to be aired by the morning sun and to take them between nine and 10.

Henry Chaplin A Memoir: 2 Family and Social Life Part II. His last letter to his bride a few days before their wedding has a pathetic interest in view of the few years of marriage which were before them.

[Henry Chaplin 1st Viscount Chaplin (age 35) to [his future wife] Florence Sutherland Leveson-Gower (age 21)]

October 11 [Note. A mistake for November 1876].— Ted (age 34) has gone to Lincoln to make a speech to his constituents to-night. His marriage is settled, and announced to Lady Gwendoline (age 18), and I've had a letter from Shrewsbury acquainting me with that fact. It may be some consolation and perhaps relief to you to know that they have a "Royal Party " at Ingestre and can't come to Trentham next week, but he sends every sort of kind message to you.... I am nervous, not about the ceremony! Now didn't you hope I was going to be? but about your rooms being done by the time they ought to be, but the paper you chose is up and they will look very nice, I feel sure. Darling little woman, do not fret or fidget about the awful ceremony. I often tell you that it has no effect of that sort upon me, and I will tell you why. Because I am as firmly convinced as I can be of anything that the step we are about to take with God's blessing will be, and ought to be, except through our own faults, for our mutual and enduring happiness both here and hereafter. Think of it in this light, and then the momentary passing agitation of a ceremony will not trouble you, and remember, child, that it is to you and your good influence that I look to help us in the cares, may be in the trials and temptations and, please God, the happiness which awaits us in the future.

After 08 Oct 1881. Monument to [his former wife] Florence Sutherland Leveson-Gower (deceased) commissioned by her husband Henry Chaplin 1st Viscount Chaplin (age 40), sculpted by Joseph Edgar Boehm (age 47). His memoir by his his daughter Edith ... "After her funeral at Blankney Mr. Chaplin returned a stricken man to Dunrobin. To the end of his life the memory of this radiant being, who for five years had given him perfect happiness, held the most sacred place in his memory—a place which was never to be usurped by another woman. He found some consolation in commissioning the beautiful kneeling marble figure of Lady Florence (deceased) by Sir Edgar Boehm (age 47), which he placed in the church of St. Oswald at Blankney — the church in which she had taken so deep an interest.

Around 1889. Bassano Ltd. Photograph of Henry Chaplin 1st Viscount Chaplin (age 48)

In 1892 Henry Chaplin 1st Viscount Chaplin (age 51) sold the heavily mortgaged Blankney, Lincolnshire to the principal mortgagee William Henry Forester Denison 1st Earl Londesborough (age 57).

1894. W and D Downey. Portrait of Henry Chaplin 1st Viscount Chaplin (age 53).

1908. Arthur Stockdale Cope (age 50). Portrait of Henry Chaplin 1st Viscount Chaplin (age 67).

Henry Chaplin A Memoir. Henry Chaplin. A Memoir. Prepared by his daughter [his daughter] The Marchioness of Londonderry (age 47). 1926.

Lifes Ebb And Flow Chapter IV. [Around 1881]. Of another group were Henry and Violet Manners, the late Duke of Rutland and the present Dowager Duchess, Lord Rowton, the witty Henry Calcraft, Mr. and Mrs. Henry White (later Ambassadors of the United States in Paris, both now dead), beautiful Gladys deGrey (the late Marchioness of Ripon), Sir Robert Collier (the painter, father of the Hon. John Collier), Lady Randolph Churchill (who was first at Easton in 1885, and figured in all our gatherings afterwards), Admiral Sir Hedworth Lambton, and Henry Chaplin ("the Squire," the late Lord Chaplin), and Lord and Lady Carmarthen (afterwards the late Duke and Duchess of Leeds). Sir William Gordon Cumming, the smartest of men about town and more sinned against than sinning, was a constant friend, but he cut us all off in his retirement, and I often had sad thoughts of him, and always kept a warm comer in my heart for him. Mr. and Mrs. Hwfa Williams, who founded Sandown Park racing, were welcome everywhere. Maurice and Beatrice Ephrussi were dear Paris racing friends. Prince Charles Kinsky rode his own winner of the Grand National, "Zoedone," and was a sharer of my horsey adventures!