Lords

Bernard Marmaduke FitzAlan-Howard, Premier Duke & Earl of England,* 16th Duke of Norfolk, 27th Earl of Arundel. presided last week at the exciting ceremony of removing from Arundel Castle's hoary vault the skeleton of his potent ancestor, the 13th Earl of Arundel, dead 336 years.

The heart of the young Duke & Earl (he is only 22) undoubtedly beat fast. If the skeleton of the Earl were found to be missing or could not be identified. Pope Pius XI would refuse beatification. But if the skeleton proved to be all right, and if suitable documents were found in the coffin, all would be well. No Howard yearns for further earthly honors; but the young Duke & Earl, educated by priests and brought up by a supremely devout mother, yearns devoutly for the holy joy of having an ancestor beatified.

Out of the gloomy vault was pried the ancient coffin. A copper plate, incorruptible, identified the moldering sarcophagus. The skeleton was complete. Yellowed parchments supplied the final proof. They were forwarded, by the Right Reverend Peter E. Amigo, Bishop of Southwark, who was present at the disinterment, to Vatican City.

The 13th Earl of Arundel, a Roman Catholic convert, was condemned to decapitation by Protestant Queen Elizabeth on charges of treason but died in the Tower of London before his execution day.

Henry ("Harry") Snell M. P., a Laborite recently created a Baron, chose last week the jolly title "Lord Snell of Plumstead," was appointed Under-Secretary of State for India.

George Nathaniel Curzon, the late Marquess Curzon of Kedleston, father of obstreperous Lady Cynthia Mosley, was recalled last week by the unveiling of a monument to him in London on the sixth anniversary of his death.

The unveiler: Stanley Baldwin who became Prime Minister in 1923, thereby almost breaking the heart of Lord Curzon who thought he should have had that plum, having worked for it all his life. Said honest Mr. Baldwin last week as he unveiled:

"Lord Curzon's experience and qualifications at that time were infinitely greater than mine. I can never forget the generosity with which he treated me, his willing consent to serve under me; and never by word, by expression or by look did he show he would have had it otherwise."

Generations before the smart U. S. wordwangler Ogden Nash wrote his best-selling Hard Lines, an Oxford undergraduate penned the following allusion to himself:

My name is George Nathaniel Curzon

And I am a most superior person.

*As Burke's Peerage puts it, "The Ducal and illustrious Howards stand, next to the Blood Royal, at the head of the Peerage of England''--and are, of course, of prodigiously older English lineage.

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