Countess had another long widowhood of 17
years. Her second son, William Cavendish, was created Baron Cavendish
and his great-grandson Duke of Devonshire.

Charles Cavendish was another son of this extraordinary woman, and he
bought the Welbeck estate, towards the end of the sixteenth century,
from two or three men of obscurity to whom it had passed, after Henry
the Eighth had ordered the monastic establishment at the Abbey to be
dissolved. His son became Baron Ogle and Viscount Mansfield, and
subsequently Earl, Marquis and Duke of Newcastle in 1644.

This nobleman was devoted to the fortunes of Charles I. and was a
skilful General during the time of the Civil War. He also wrote a book
on "Horsemanship," which was regarded as a remarkable production of its
time, and he built a riding-school at Welbeck, where his theories in the
training of horses could be carried into effect; but the structure has
in recent years been devoted to other purposes, and a new and more
spacious riding-school erected to take its place.

The dukedom became extinct for want of male heirs, but his daughter,
Lady Margaret Cavendish, married John Holies, Earl of Clare, who, in
1691, obtained a further step in the peerage by the resuscitation of
the dukedom, and once more there was a Duke of Newcastle.

A valuable appointment by the Crown came in his way, for he was chosen
Warden of Sherwood, with which office went the privilege of enclosing
land at Clumber under the royal prerogative. Again there was no prospect
of male heirs, so the Duke left the Clumber property to his sister's
son, Thomas Lord Pelham, who traced his descent from Bess of Hardwick
through the Pierrepoints (Earls Manvers). Thomas Pelham assumed the name
of Holles, and was created Duke of Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1715.

But to return to the Duke who was Warden of Sherwood Forest; he had one
daughter, Lady Henrietta Cavendish-Holles, who married Edward Harley,
second Earl of Oxford. Their only daughter, Margaret, married William
Bentinck, second Duke of Portland.

Hers was a fortunate alliance for the Bentincks. She was a rich heiress,
and the vast property at Welbeck and Bolsover belonging to her
grandfather, John Holles, was her dowry. This was the first introduction
of the Dutch family into Nottinghamshire in 1734.

Having thus traced how this delightful domain passed by matrimonial
intrigues into the possession of its present owner, it will be
appropriate to glance at the anci