purported to be so, is
rather entertaining. On the other hand, in support of the claim, the
claimant's counsel professed to be able to prove the legitimacy of
Robert Villiers, alias Wright.[106]

The House of Lords after considering the matter petitioned the King to
allow the introduction of a Bill to disable Robert from claiming the
title of Viscount Purbeck: but seven peers opposed this petition
stating in writing that "the said claimant's right ... did, both at
the hearing at the bar and debate in the House, appear to them clear
in fact and law and above all objection." Charles II. replied that he
"would take it into consideration." This appears to have been the last
official word ever pronounced upon the subject, and nobody has since
then been summoned to the House of Lords as Viscount Purbeck.

The claimant, however, continued to call himself Lord Purbeck. He came
to an early end, being killed in a duel by Colonel Luttrell, at Liege,
when he was only twenty-eight; but he left a son. Nor did this son
only call himself Lord Purbeck, for on the death of the childless
second Duke of Buckingham, of whom Dryden wrote:--[107]

Stiff in opinion--always in the wrong--
Was everything by starts, but nothing long;
Who in the course of one revolving moon
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman and buffoon.
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking:
Besides a thousand freaks that died in thinking;

John Villiers, alias Danvers, alias Wright, in addition to the title
of Viscount Purbeck, assumed that of Earl of Buckingham, the reversion
of which had been secured by the first Earl and Duke to his brother
and his heirs, in the case of his own direct heirs failing. This
self-styled Earl squandered his fortune in a life of debauchery, and
then married the daughter of a clergyman, a widow with a large
jointure but about as dissolute in character as himself, which is
saying much. He left no sons.

Such claims as there were to the titles of Purbeck and Buckingham then
lay with the Rev. George Villiers, Rector of Chalgrove, in
Oxfordshire. He was the son of Edward, the second son of the boy
christened Robert Wright. In the year 1723, on the death of his
cousin, the so-called Earl of Buckingham, this clergyman put in a
claim to the titles of Earl of Buckingham and Viscount Purbeck; but,
unlike his cousin, he does not appear to have ever "lorded" himself.

This cleric left a son named George, who also became a