Thomas Coningsby, 1st Earl Coningsby - Legal Difficulties and Death

Legal Difficulties and Death

In the later years of his life Coningsby suffered many difficulties. He was a widower, without any male heir, and subject to innumerable lawsuits. For some severe reflections on Lord Harcourt, the Lord Chancellor, in connection with these legal worries, he was, as Swift notes in his diary, committed to the Tower of London on 27 February 1720. Coningsby's troubles in law arose from his purchase of the manors of Leominster and Marden. After elaborate investigations, he convinced himself that the lord's rights had in many instances been trespassed upon by the copyhold tenants. He caused ejectments to be brought against many persons for being in possession of estates as freehold which he claimed to be copyhold, and as these claims were resisted by the persons in possession, his last days were embittered by constant strife. His collections concerning Marden were printed in 1722–7 in a bulky tome, without any title-page, and with pagination of great irregularity, but were never published. When his right to the Marden property was disputed, all the copies of this work but a few were destroyed. Through his sharpness of temper he was exposed to the caustic sallies of Atterbury in the House of Lords, and to the satires of Swift and Pope in their writings.

After having been in ill-health for some time, Coningsby died at Hampton Court Herefordshire on 1 May 1729. and was buried at Hope-under-Dinmore church in 1729, under a marble monument, on which the child's death is depicted in striking realism.