<g>Charles</g>, the second but eldest surviving son of the first Duke, is mentioned in the family history as a nobleman of great parts and learning. He died in the lifetime of his <g>father</g>, in consequence of an accident, in the thirty-eighth year of his age. His horses, we are told, taking fright, and running down a steep hill, the danger became imminent; when, to avoid the casualty which threatened him, he unhappily leaped out, broke his thigh-bone, and only survived the accident three days.
<g>Henry</g>, his eldest son, succeeded his grandfather as second Duke of Beaufort. On <g>Queen Anne’s</g> visiting the University of Oxford in 1702, and going thence in her progress to Bath, the Duke met her Majesty near Cirencester, on the twenty-ninth of August; and, attended by great numbers of the gentlemen, clergy, and freeholders of the county, conducted her with great pomp to his seat at <g>Badminton</g>, where she was received with regal splendour. This act of loyal hospitality--so becoming in a descendant of Henry the first <g>Marquess</g> of Worcester--was most graciously acknowledged by the Queen and her royal consort Prince George of Denmark.
Three years after this event, the Duke took his seat in the House of Lords; but did not appear at court until after the change of ministers in 1710, when he frankly told her Majesty that he could “then, and only then, call her Queen of England.”
After being installed in various high offices, and while promising a long and distinguished career in the service of his country, he was prematurely cut off in the thirty-first year of his age, and buried at Badminton, where a monument records his titles, character, and public services.
<g>Badminton</g>, which we have just named, is the principal seat of the Beaufort family, and comprises one of the finest parks in England. Badminton Church, which contains the monuments above-named, was rebuilt at the expense of the late Duke of Beaufort in 1785, after a plan by Evans. It stands within the Ducal Park; and, besides various other specimens of art, represents the arms of Somerset--“foy pour devoir”--faith for duty--worked in mosaic in the pavement of the chancel. On the destruction of