Jacksons Oxford Journal. 19 January 1839.

Death of the Duke of Buckingham

We deeply regret to have to announce the melancholy intelligence of the death of his Grace the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, which took place at his princely residence of Stowe, about a quarter before eight o'clock on Thursday morning. On Monday last the Duke, whose health had for some time previously appeared to be improving, became suddenly worse, and the illness assumed at once so serious and alarming an appearance, that the Marquis of Chandos, who had invited a large party at his seat at Wotton, sent to his expresses off in various directions to countermand the arrival of his visitors, and remained at the bed-side of his afflicted parent until his lamented decease at the time already mentioned. Lady Chandos the present Duchess, with Earl Temple, now Marquis of Chandos, and his sister Lady Anne, were also at Stowe, so that the last moments of the Duke and were solaced by the presence and attentions of his immediate family and kindred.

The late Duke was born in the year 1776, and in March next would have completed his 63d year. In April, 1796, he married the Lady Anne Elizabeth Brydges, [i] sole heiress of James Brydges, last Duke of Chandos. He succeeded his father, the late Marquis of Buckingham, on the 11th of February, 1830, and on the 4th of February, 1822, he was created Duke of Buckingham and Chandos by the then King George IV. The Duchess departed this life at Avington a few years ago, universally beloved and regretted, and by none more than the poorer classes of the neighbourhood, to whom she was indeed an unceasing and ostentatious benefactress. It is through this lady that the present Duke represents the ancient line of the Dukes of Suffolk, one of whom, Charles Brandon, married Mary, sister to Henry VI, and Queen Dowager of France, to whose issue, by the last will of that monarch, the crown of these realms was limited in remainder on the contingency of a failure of issue in other lines. Hence the name of Plantagenet, in connection with those of Grenville, Brydges, and Temple.

If in him the arts have lost a friend, and artists a munificent patron, the poor have no less reason to lament the kind-hearted employer and benefactor. In the liberality which shows itself in the quiet acts of silent charity he allowed no political considerations to stop his hand or stint his benevolence. He had a heart that felt for the sufferings of the afflicted, and

A hand open as day to melting charity. [ii]

As a Chairman of Quarter Sessions, to the duties of which office he formerly gave great attention, the late Duke was one of the ablest and most efficient that, perhaps, ever presided in such a court of justice. Men of all political parties willingly bore testimony to his dispassionate and discriminating impartiality on the Bench of the Sessions Court, where he showed a knowledge of the law of evidence, and a readiness and accuracy in applying it, which is rarely displayed by any man not educated to the bar. Natural talent without considerable application, we need hardly say, could not have supplied him with such a qualification for the efficient discharge of judicial duties.

By his Grace's death the offices of Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum [iii] of the county of Buckingham have become vacant. An Order of the Garter are is also placed at the disposal of Ministers. The elevation of the Marquis of Chandos to the Peerage makes, of course, a vacancy in the representation of Buckinghamshire. Ministers, notwithstanding their former defeats, will probably try once more to force one of their creatures upon the county, but none, save a Conservative, has the slightest chance of representing a constituency so sincerely devoted as the freeholders of Buckinghamshire are to the preservation of our ancient institutions in Church and State. While they lament over the memory of the departed they will not forget to vindicate the Conservative and constitutional principles, which, as a British Peer and Patriot, he loved and cultivated.