Strange that history should make an end of a
man, before it had made a beginning of him. These, however, are the
_facts_; which, in writing a romance about Sir Wellerand and Sir
Percival, I shall have great pleasure in falsifying. But how, says the too
curious reader, did the De Wellesleighs find themselves amongst Irish
kernes? Had these scamps the presumption to invade Somersetshire? Did they
dare to intrude into Wells? Not at all: but the pugnacious De Wellesleys
had dared to intrude into Ireland. Some say in the train of Henry II. Some
say--but no matter: _there_ they were: and _there_ they stuck like
limpets. They soon engrafted themselves into the county of Kildare;
from which, by means of a fortunate marriage, they leaped into the county
of Meath; and in that county, as if to refute the pretended mutability of
human things, they have roosted ever since. There was once a famous copy
of verses floating about Europe, which asserted that, whilst other princes
were destined to fight for thrones, Austria--the handsome house of
Hapsburgh--should obtain them by marriage:
'Pugnabunt alii: tu, felix Austria, nube.'
So of the Wellesleys: Sir Wellerand took quite the wrong way: not
cudgelling, but courting, was the correct way for succeeding in Kildare.
Two great estates, by two separate marriages, the De Wellesleighs obtained
in Kildare; and, by a third marriage in a third generation, they obtained
in the county of Meath, Castle Dengan (otherwise Dangan) with lordships as
plentiful as blackberries.
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