Tancred | Page 5

present countess. But the king
was of opinion that this supreme distinction ought only to be conferred
on the blood of the old house, and that a generation, therefore, must
necessarily elapse before a Duke of Bellamont could again figure in the
golden book of the English aristocracy.
But George the Third, with all his firmness, was doomed to frequent
discomfiture. His lot was cast in troubled waters, and he had often to
deal with individuals as inflexible as himself. Benjamin Franklin was
not more calmly contumacious than the individual whom his treason
had made an English peer. In that age of violence, change and panic,
power, directed by a clear brain and an obdurate spirit, could not fail of
its aim; and so it turned out, that, in the very teeth of the royal will, the
simple country gentleman, whose very name was forgotten, became, at
the commencement of this century, Duke of Bellamont, Marquis of
Montacute, Earl of Bellamont, Dacre, and Villeroy, with all the
baronies of the Plantagenets in addition. The only revenge of the king

was, that he never would give the Duke of Bellamont the garter. It was
as well perhaps that there should be something for his son to desire.
The Duke and Duchess of Bellamont were the handsomest couple in
England, and devoted to each other, but they had only one child.
Fortunately, that child was a son. Precious life! The Marquis of
Montacute was married before he was of age. Not a moment was to be
lost to find heirs for all these honours. Perhaps, had his parents been
less precipitate, their object might have been more securely obtained.
The union' was not a happy one. The first duke had, however, the
gratification of dying a grandfather. His successor bore no resemblance
to him, except in that beauty which became a characteristic of the race.
He was born to enjoy, not to create. A man of pleasure, the chosen
companion of the Regent in his age of riot, he was cut off in his prime;
but he lived long enough to break his wife's heart and his son's spirit;
like himself, too, an only child.
The present Duke of Bellamont had inherited something of the clear
intelligence of his grandsire, with the gentle disposition of his mother.
His fair abilities, and his benevolent inclinations, had been cultivated.
His mother had watched over the child, in whom she found alike the
charm and consolation of her life. But, at a certain period of youth, the
formation of character requires a masculine impulse, and that was
wanting. The duke disliked his son; in time he became even jealous of
him. The duke had found himself a father at too early a period of life.
Himself in his lusty youth, he started with alarm at the form that
recalled his earliest and most brilliant hour, and who might prove a
rival. The son was of a gentle and affectionate nature, and sighed for
the tenderness of his harsh and almost vindictive parent. But he had not
that passionate soul which might have appealed, and perhaps not in
vain, to the dormant sympathies of the being who had created him. The
young Montacute was by nature of an extreme shyness, and the
accidents of his life had not tended to dissipate his painful want of
self-confidence. Physically courageous, his moral timidity was
remarkable. He alternately blushed or grew pale in his rare interviews
with his father, trembled in silence before the undeserved sarcasm, and
often endured the unjust accusation without an attempt to vindicate

himself. Alone, and in tears alike of woe and indignation, he cursed the
want of resolution or ability which had again missed the opportunity
that, both for his mother and himself, might have placed affairs in a
happier position. Most persons, under these circumstances, would have
become bitter, but Montacute was too tender for malice, and so he only
turned melancholy. On the threshold of manhood, Montacute lost his
mother, and this seemed the catastrophe of his unhappy life. His father
neither shared his grief, nor attempted to alleviate it. On the contrary,
he seemed to redouble his efforts to mortify his son. His great object
was to prevent Lord Montacute from entering society, and he was so
complete a master of the nervous temperament on which he was acting
that there appeared a fair chance of his succeeding in his benevolent
intentions. When his son's education was completed, the duke would
not furnish him with the means of moving in the world in a becoming
manner, or even sanction his travelling. His Grace was resolved to
break his son's spirit by keeping him immured in the country. Other
heirs apparent of a rich seignory would soon have removed these
difficulties. By bill or