Wandesford's grandson, the first Lord Castlecomer, obtained a decree extinguishing the claim of the Brennans to it, they having been attainted as rebels (Lodge, iii. 197; Carte, i. 234; Prendergast, Ireland from the Restoration to the Revolution, pp. 126–38; Whitaker, ii. 150; for an abstract of the will see Thornton, p. 183). It is said that Charles I, at the instigation of Strafford, offered Wandesford a peerage in the summer of 1640, with the title of Viscount Castlecomer, which Wandesford refused, saying: ‘Is it a time for a faithful subject to be exalted when the king, the fountain of honour, is likely to be reduced lower than ever?’ (Whitaker, ii. 162; Comber, p. 122). Wandesford was the author of a book of ‘Instructions’ to his son George, ‘in order to the regulating of his whole life,’ which was written in 1636 and published in 1777 (see Autobiogr. of Alice Thornton, pp. 20, 187).
A portrait of Wandesford by Van Dyck was in the Houghton collection, and one belonging to his descendant, the Rev. H. G. W. Comber of Oswaldkirk, was exhibited at Leeds in 1868. He is described as ‘a fair, oval-faced man, with a sanguine complexion and auburn hair’ (Whitaker, Life of Sir George Radcliffe, p. 289; Cartwright, Chapters from Yorkshire History, p. 200; Autobiography of Mrs. Alice Thornton, p. vi).
Wandesford is said to have married twice: first, the daughter of William and sister of Sir John Ramsden of Byrom, Yorkshire, by whom he had no issue (Lodge, iii. 198; Burke, Extinct Baronetage, 1st edit. 1844, p. 550), but of this first marriage there seems to be no good evidence; secondly, Alice, daughter of Sir Hewett Osborne (22 Sept. 1614), who died 10 Dec. 1659, aged 67 (Thornton, pp. 100–22, 345). By her he had seven children, of whom Catherine, the eldest daughter, married Sir Thomas Danby, knt., of Thorpe Perrow; and Alice (b. 1626), married William Thornton of East Newton, Yorkshire; her autobiography was edited by Mr. Charles Jackson for the Surtees Society in 1875.
Of the sons, Christopher, the third, born 2 Feb. 1627–8, was created a baronet on 5 Aug. 1662, and died on 23 Feb. 1687. By his marriage with Eleanor, daughter of Sir John Lowther, he was the father of Christopher, second baronet and first viscount Castlecomer in the peerage of Ireland. Sir Christopher Wandesford, second Viscount Castlecomer (d. 1719), was the eldest son of Christopher, first viscount, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of George Montagu of Horton in Northamptonshire. He was returned to the British parliament for Morpeth on 17 Oct. 1710, retaining his seat till 1713, and was again returned on 4 Feb. 1714–15 for Ripon. In 1714 he was sworn of the privy council, and in 1715 appointed governor of Kilkenny. On 14 March 1717–18 he was appointed secretary at war, a post which he resigned in May. He died without issue on 23 June 1719, and was buried at Charlton in Kent. He married, in 1717, Frances, daughter of Thomas Pelham, first baron Pelham [q. v.]
[Thomas Comber published in 1778 Memoirs of the Life and Death of the Lord-deputy Wandesford, 12mo, Cambridge; and also, in 1777, A Book of Instructions, written by Sir Christopher Wandesford to his son, George Wandesford. These two works form the basis of the account of Wandesford's life given by T. D. Whitaker in his History of Richmondshire, ii. 147–63. Much of the material used by Comber is to be found in the Autobiography of Alice Thornton. Letters written by Wandesford are printed in the Strafford Letters, Whitaker's Life of Sir George Radcliffe, Berwick's Rawdon Papers, 1819; unpublished letters are to be found in the Carte collection in the Bodleian Library and among the Marquis of Ormonde's manuscripts at Kilkenny Castle. See also Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. i. 271, 314, x. 277, and 5th ser. ii. 327, 370, iii. 158, 338, vi. 356.]
WANLEY, HUMFREY (1672–1726), antiquary, born at Coventry on 21 March 1671–2 and baptised on 10 April, was the son of Nathaniel Wanley [q. v.] About 1687 he was apprenticed to a draper called Wright at Coventry, and remained with him until 1694, but spent every vacant hour in studying old books and documents and in copying the various styles of handwriting. His studies are said to have begun with a transcript of the Anglo-Saxon dictionary of William Somner [q. v.] (Letters from the Bodleian Libr. 1813, ii. 118). His skill in unravelling ancient writing became known to William Lloyd, the bishop of Lichfield, who at a visitation sent for him, and ultimately obtained his entrance, as a commoner, at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, where John Mill, D.D. [q. v.], was principal. He matriculated there on 7 May 1695, but next year removed to University College, on the persuasion of Dr. Charlett, with whom he lived. He took no degree at Oxford, but gave Mill much help in collating the text of the New Testament.
Wanley's talents were first publicly shown, when he was twenty-three, in compiling the catalogues of the manuscripts at Coventry school and the church of St. Mary, Warwick, which are inserted in Bernard's ‘Cata-
