h, his sister (Miss Elizabeth Leigh), Mr. Hill (agent of Mr.
Leigh),[156] and all the house party, to stay at Stoneleigh Abbey in
Warwickshire.

The circumstances were as follows. On July 2, 1806, occurred the death
of the Hon. Mary Leigh, who had been for twenty years life-tenant of the
Stoneleigh estates, under the will of her brother, the last Lord Leigh.
The estates now passed--according to Lord Leigh's will--unto the first
and nearest of his kindred, being male and of his blood and name, that
should be alive at the time. All the Leighs of the Stoneleigh branch had
died out, and an heir had to be sought among their remote cousins, the
Adlestrop Leighs. In ordinary circumstances the heir would have been
James Henry Leigh, who was the head of this branch; but by the peculiar
wording of Lord Leigh's will, all those of an older generation who were
thus 'the first and nearest of his blood and name' appeared to take
precedence of the natural heir, although this does not seem to have been
the intention of Lord Leigh.[157]

The _eldest_ Leigh was the Rev. Thomas Leigh,[158] who therefore became
the legal owner of Stoneleigh; but as it was thought possible that there
might be other claimants, Mr. Leigh's solicitor advised his taking
immediate possession; and accordingly Mr. Leigh and all his house party
moved from Adlestrop to Stoneleigh.

This visit, and the whole question of the succession to Stoneleigh, must
have been especially interesting to Jane's mother; for it seemed likely
that Mrs. Austen's own brother, Mr. Leigh Perrot, would, under the terms
of the will, have a life interest in the estate after Mr. Thomas Leigh,
if he survived him. It was, however, obviously most in accordance with
the desire of the testator, and with the general opinion of the family,
that the estate should go according to the usual rules of succession by
primogeniture in the Adlestrop branch; and as all the parties to the
transaction were on excellent terms with each other, and as they
believed it to be quite doubtful what interpretation a court of law
would put upon the will, they settled the matter without any such
intervention. Mr. Leigh Perrot resigned his claim to the estate and
gained instead a capital sum of L24,000 and an annuity of L2000, which
lasted until the death of his wife in 1835. This is no doubt the
agreement with Adlestrop, mentioned below in the letter of February 20,
1807,[159] and it must, one would think, have been cons