Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 32.djvu/425

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Legge
419
Legh

(3) Charles Gunter, a lieutenant-colonel, who died 11 Oct. 1786; (4) Heneage, of Christ Church, Oxford, who graduated B.A. in 1781, and died 2 Sept. 1782; (5) Henry, a bencher of the Middle Temple, and sometime under-secretary at the Irish office, who died 19 April 1844; (6) Arthur Kaye, an admiral of the blue, who was created K.C.B. in 1815, and died 12 May 1836; (7) Edward, who became bishop of Oxford, and died 27 Jan. 1827; (8) Augustus George, rector of North Waltnam, Hampshire, and archdeacon and chancellor of Winchester, who died 21 Aug. 1828, and one daughter, Charlotte, who married, on 24 Sept. 1795, Charles Duncombe, afterwards first baron Feversham, and died, aged 74, on 5 Nov. 1848. His widow died on 24 July 1805, and was buried in the Dartmouth vault in Trinity Church in the Minories.

Dartmouth sat to Sir Joshua Reynolds five times, and his wife sat twice. Two of these portraits were lent by the Earl of Aylesford to the winter exhibition at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1889 (Catalogue, Nos. 96, 46). A half-length portrait of Dartmouth painted by Pompeio Battoni in Rome in 1754, and two other portraits painted by Reynolds and Gainsborough respectively, are in the possession of the present earl.

A large mass of Dartmouth's correspondence is preserved at Patshull House, Wolverhampton (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. pt. v. pp. viii-ix, 330 et seq.) Many of these papers relate to the struggle for American independence, and among them are letters from Governor Hutchinson, General Gage, and Joseph Reed of Philadelphia, afterwards secretary to Washington, who kept Dartmouth informed of the feeling of the colonists towards England, and warned him of the course which the cabinet was pursuing during 1773-5. There are also numerous autograph letters of George III to Dartmouth (ib. pp. 437-42), and a long and interesting letter from John Wesley, dated 14 June 1775, protesting against the American war, and bidding him remember Rehoboam, Philip II, and Charles I (ib. pp. 878-9). Some of his correspondence is preserved at the British Museum (see Indices to Catalogues of Additions to the Manuscripts, 1864-75 and 1882-1887).

[Horace Walpole's Hist, of the Reign of George III, 1845; Lord Mahon's Hist, of England, 1851, vols. v. and vi.; Bancroft's Hist, of the United States of America, 1876, yols. iii. iv. v.; Life of Benjamin Franklin, ed. John Bigelow, 1879, vol. ii.; Life and Times of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, 1844; Cecil's Memoirs of the Kev. John Newton, 1808, pp. 132-4; Jesse's Memoirs of George III, 1867, vols. i. ii.; Hasted's Kent, 'Hundred of Blackheath,' 1886, pp. 244-5; London Mag. 1780, xlix. 443-5, with portrait; Gent. Mag. 1801, pt. ii. pp. 768, 792; Ann. Reg. 1801, Chron. p. 85*; Collins's Peerage, 1812, iv. 121, 122-3; Burke's Peerage, &c. 1890, p. 376; Doyle's Official Baronage, i 1886, i. 517; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1888, iii. 835; Alumni Westmon. 1852, pp. 546, 556, 575; Haydn's Book of Dignities, 1851.]

G. F. R. B.

LEGH. [See also Lee, Leigh, and Ley.] LEGH, ALEXANDER (d. 1501), ambassador, appears to have been born in Scotland. He was educated at Eton and elected to King's College, Cambridge, in 1450. On 22 May 1468, being then M.A., he was collated to the rectory of Fen Ditton, Cambridgeshire, but resigned before 23 April 1473. In 1469 he became canon of Winasor. In September 1470 Legh and Alexander Carlisle, sergeant of the minstrels, gave Edward IV, then near Nottingham, information of the treason of the Marquis of Montagu [see under Neville, John, Marquis of Montagu, d. 1471, and Edward IV], and thus probably saved the king's life, a service which Edward did not fail to reward. On 14 Sept. 1471 Legh became prebendary of Grindall in York Minster, and on 26 Sept. 1471 he was made rector of St. Bride's, London, by the abbot and convent of Westminster; he resigned St. Bride's in 1485. He was also appointed king's almoner and proceeded LL.D. In 1474 and subsequent years he was employed in embassies to Scotland, In 1478 he became prebendary of Barnby in the church of Howden, Yorkshire, but resigned in the following year. He had a patent 26 May 1480, allowing him to live in England though born in Scotland, and this, if indeed it refers to the ambassador, was confirmed on 17 Aug. 1484. In 1481-2 he became one of the councillors for Berwick-on-Tweed, and in December 1483 he was appointed with George Bird as royal commissioners to survey the walls and bridge of Newcastle-on-Tyne. In 1484, when he seems to have been living at Ougham in Kent, he was a commissioner to carry out the truce with Scotland, in 1490 he was temporal chancellor of Durham Cathedral, and in 1493 he was rector of Spofforth in Yorkshire, though he seems from a letter in the 'Plumpton Correspondence' to have been non-resiaent. Legh aied in the early part of 1501.

[Athenæ Cantabr. i. 520; 9th Rep. Deputy-Keeper of Public Records, App. ii. pp. 57, 101; Plumpton Correspondence (Camd. Soc.), pp. 52, 105.]

W. A. J. A.

LEGH, GERARD (d. 1563), writer on heraldry, was the son of Henry Legh, draper, of Fleet Street, London, by his first wife