Part 7

In the same century the title was revived in favour of William, a younger son of Ralph Neville, 1st earl of Westmorland, and through his mother Joan Beaufort a grandson of John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. William (c. 1405-1463), who held the barony of Fauconberg in right of his wife, Joan, gained fame during the wars in France and fought for the Yorkists during the Wars of the Roses. His prowess is said to have been chiefly responsible for the victory of Edward IV. at Towton in March 1461, and soon after this event he was created earl of Kent and admiral of England. He died in January 1463, and, as his only legitimate issue were three daughters, the title of earl of Kent again became extinct. Neville's natural son Thomas, "the bastard of Fauconberg" (d. 1471), was a follower of Warwick, the "Kingmaker."

The long connexion of the family of Grey with this title began in 1465, when Edmund, Lord Grey of Ruthin, was created earl of Kent. Edmund (c. 1420-1489) was the eldest son of Sir John Grey, while his mother, Constance, was a daughter of John Holand, duke of Exeter. During the earlier part of the Wars of the Roses Grey fought for Henry VI.; but by deserting the Lancastrians during the battle of Northampton in 1460 he gave the victory to the Yorkists. He was treasurer of England and held other high offices under Edward IV. and Richard III. His son and successor, George, 2nd earl of Kent (c. 1455-1503), also a soldier, married Anne Woodville, a sister of Edward IV.'s queen, Elizabeth, and was succeeded by his son Richard (1481-1524). After Richard's death without issue, his half-brother and heir, Henry (c. 1495-1562), did not assume the title of earl of Kent on account of his poverty; but in 1572 Henry's grandson Reginald (d. 1573), who had been member of parliament for Weymouth, was recognized as earl; he was followed by his brother Henry (1541-1615), and then by another brother, Charles (c. 1545-1623). Charles's son, Henry, the 8th earl (c. 1583-1639), married Elizabeth (1581-1651), daughter of Gilbert Talbot, 7th earl of Shrewsbury. This lady, who was an authoress, took for her second husband the jurist John Selden. Henry died without children in November 1639, when the earldom of Kent, separated from the barony of Ruthin, passed to his cousin Anthony (1557-1643), a clergyman, who was succeeded by his son Henry (1594-1651), Lord Grey of Ruthin. Henry had been a member of parliament from 1640 to 1643, and as a supporter of the popular party was speaker of the House of Lords until its abolition. The 11th earl was his son Anthony (1645-1702), whose son Henry became 12th earl in August 1702, lord chamberlain of the royal household from 1704 to 1710, and in 1706 was created earl of Harold and marquess of Kent, becoming duke of Kent four years later. All his sons predeceased their father, and when the duke died in June 1740, his titles of earl, marquess and duke of Kent became extinct.

In 1799 Edward Augustus, fourth son of George III., was created duke of Kent and Strathearn by his father. Born on the 2nd of November 1767, Edward served in the British army in North America and elsewhere, becoming a field marshal in 1805. To quote Sir Spencer Walpole, Kent, a stern disciplinarian, "was unpopular among his troops; and the storm which was created by his well-intentioned effort at Gibraltar to check the licentiousness and drunkenness of the garrison compelled him finally to retire from the governorship of this colony." Owing to pecuniary difficulties his later years were mainly passed on the continent of Europe. He died at Sidmouth on the 23rd of January 1820. In 1818 the duke married Maria Louisa Victoria (1786-1861), widow of Emich Charles, prince of Leiningen (d. 1814), and sister of Leopold I., king of the Belgians; and his only child was Queen Victoria (q.v.).

KENT, JAMES (1763-1847), American jurist, was born at Philippi in New York State on the 31st of July 1763. He graduated at Yale College in 1781, and began to practise law at Poughkeepsie, in 1785 as an attorney, and in 1787 at the bar. In 1791 and 1702-93 Kent was a representative of Dutchess county in the state Assembly. In 1793 he removed to New York, where Governor Jay, to whom the young lawyer's Federalist sympathies were a strong recommendation, appointed him a master in chancery for the city. He was professor of law in Columbia College in 1793-98 and again served in the Assembly in 1796-97. In 1797 he became recorder of New York, in 1798 judge of the supreme court of the state, in 1804 chief justice, and in 1814 chancellor of New York. In 1822 he became a member of the convention to revise the state constitution. Next year, Chancellor Kent resigned his office and was re-elected to his former chair. Out of the lectures he now delivered grew the _Commentaries on American Law_ (4 vols., 1826-1830), which by their learning, range and lucidity of style won for him a high and permanent place in the estimation of both English and American jurists. Kent rendered most essential service to American jurisprudence while serving as chancellor. Chancery law had been very unpopular during the colonial period, and had received little development, and no decisions had been published. His judgments of this class (see Johnson's _Chancery Reports_, 7 vols., 1816-1824) cover a wide range of topics, and are so thoroughly considered and developed as unquestionably to form the basis of American equity jurisprudence. Kent was a man of great purity of character and of singular simplicity and guilelessness. He died in New York on the 12th of December 1847.

To Kent we owe several other works (including a _Commentary on International Law_) of less importance than the _Commentaries_. See J. Duer's _Discourse on the Life, Character and Public Services of James Kent_ (1848); _The National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans_, vol. ii. (1852); W. Kent, _Memoirs and Letters of Chancellor Kent_ (Boston, 1898).

KENT, WILLIAM (1685-1748), English "painter, architect, and the father of modern gardening," as Horace Walpole in his _Anecdotes of Painting_ describes him, was born in Yorkshire in 1685. Apprenticed to a coach-painter, his ambition soon led him to London, where he began life as a portrait and historical painter. He found patrons, who sent him in 1710 to study in Italy; and at Rome he made other friends, among them Lord Burlington, with whom he returned to England in 1719. Under that nobleman's roof Kent chiefly resided till his death on the 12th of April 1748--obtaining abundant commissions in all departments of his art, as well as various court appointments which brought him an income of £600 a year. Walpole says that Kent was below mediocrity in painting. He had some little taste and skill in architecture, of which Holkham palace is perhaps the most favourable example. The mediocre statue of Shakespeare in Westminster Abbey sufficiently stamps his powers as a sculptor. His merit in landscape gardening is greater. In Walpole's language, Kent "was painter enough to taste the charms of landscape, bold and opinionative enough to dare and to dictate, and born with a genius to strike out a great system from the twilight of imperfect essays." In short, he was the first in English gardening to vindicate the natural against the artificial. Banishing all the clipped monstrosities of the topiary art in yew, box or holly, releasing the streams from the conventional canal and marble basin, and rejecting the mathematical symmetry of ground plan then in vogue for gardens, Kent endeavoured to imitate the variety of nature, with due regard to the principles of light and shade and perspective. Sometimes he carried his imitation too far, as when he planted dead trees in Kensington gardens to give a greater air of truth to the scene, though he himself was one of the first to detect the folly of such an extreme. Kent's plans were designed rather with a view to immediate effect over a comparatively small area than with regard to any broader or subsequent results.

KENT, one of the kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon Britain, the dimensions of which seem to have corresponded with those of the present county (see below). According to tradition it was the first part of the country occupied by the invaders, its founders, Hengest and Horsa, having been employed by the British king Vortigern against the Picts and Scots. Their landing, according to English tradition, took place between 450-455, though in the Welsh accounts the Saxons are said to have arrived in 428 (cf. _Hist. Britt._ 66). According to _The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, which probably used some lost list of Kentish kings, Hengest reigned 455-488, and was succeeded by his son Aesc (Oisc), who reigned till 512; but little value can be attached to these dates. Documentary history begins with Aethelberht, the great-grandson of Aesc, who reigned probably 560-616. He married Berhta, daughter of the Frankish king Haribert, or Charibert, an event which no doubt was partly responsible for the success of the mission of Augustine, who landed in 597. Aethelberht was at this time supreme over all the English kings south of the Humber. On his death in 616 he was succeeded by his son Eadbald, who renounced Christianity and married his stepmother, but was shortly afterwards converted by Laurentius, the successor of Augustine. Eadbald was succeeded in 640 by his son Erconberht, who enforced the acceptance of Christianity throughout his kingdom, and was succeeded in 664 by his son Ecgbert, the latter again by his brother Hlothhere in 673. The early part of Hlothhere's reign was disturbed by an invasion of Aethelred of Mercia. He issued a code of laws, which is still extant, together with his nephew Eadric, the son of Ecgbert, but in 685 a quarrel broke out between them in which Eadric called in the South Saxons. Hlothhere died of his wounds, and was succeeded by Eadric, who, however, reigned under two years.

The death of Eadric was followed by a disturbed period, in which Kent was under kings whom Bede calls "_dubii vel externi_." An unsuccessful attempt at conquest seems to have been made by the West Saxons, one of whose princes, Mul, brother of Ceadwalla, is said to have been killed in 687. There is some evidence for a successful invasion by the East Saxon king Sigehere during the same year. A king named Oswine, who apparently belonged to the native dynasty, seems to have obtained part of the kingdom in 688. The other part came in 689 into the hands of Swefheard, probably a son of the East Saxon king Sebbe. Wihtred, a son of Ecgbert, succeeded Oswine about 690, and obtained possession of the whole kingdom before 694. From him also we have a code of laws. At Wihtred's death in 725 the kingdom was divided between his sons Aethelberht, Eadberht and Alric, the last of whom appears to have died soon afterwards. Aethelberht reigned till 762; Eadberht, according to the _Chronicle_, died in 748, but some doubtful charters speak of him as alive in 761-762. Eadberht was succeeded by his son Eardwulf, and he again by Eanmund, while Aethelberht was succeeded by a king named Sigered. From 764-779 we find a king named Ecgbert, who in the early part of his reign had a colleague named Heaberht. At this period Kentish history is very obscure. Another king named Aethelberht appears in 781, and a king Ealhmund in 784, but there is some reason for suspecting that Offa annexed Kent about this time. On his death (796) Eadberht Praen made himself king, but in 798 he was defeated and captured by Coenwulf, who made his own brother Cuthred king in his place. On Cuthred's death in 807 Coenwulf seems to have kept Kent in his own possession. His successors Ceolwulf and Beornwulf likewise appear to have held Kent, but in 825 we hear of a king Baldred who was expelled by Ecgbert king of Wessex. Under the West Saxon dynasty Kent, together with Essex, Sussex and Surrey, was sometimes given as a dependent kingdom to one of the royal family. During Ecgbert's reign it was entrusted to his son Aethelwulf, on whose accession to the throne of Wessex, in 839, it was given to Aethelstan, probably his son, who lived at least till 851. From 855 to 860 it was governed by Aethelberht son of Aethelwulf. During the last years of Alfred's reign it seems to have been entrusted by him to his son Edward. Throughout the 9th century we hear also of two earls, whose spheres of authority may have corresponded to those of the two kings whom we find in the 8th century. The last earls of whom we have any record were the two brothers Sigehelm and Sigewulf, who fell at the Holm in 905 when the Kentish army was cut off by the Danes, on Edward the Elder's return from his expedition into East Anglia. At a later period Kent appears to have been held, together with Sussex, by a single earl.

The internal organization of the kingdom of Kent seems to have been somewhat peculiar. Besides the division into West Kent and East Kent, which probably corresponds with the kingdoms of the 8th century, we find a number of lathes, apparently administrative districts under reeves, attached to royal villages. In East Kent there were four of these, namely, Canterbury, Eastry, Wye and Lymne, which can be traced back to the 9th century or earlier. In the 11th century we hear of two lathes in West Kent, those of Sutton and Aylesford.

The social organization of the Kentish nation was wholly different from that of Mercia and Wessex. Instead of two "noble" classes we find only one, called at first eorlcund, later as in Wessex, gesithcund. Again below the ordinary freeman we find three varieties of persons called _laetas_, probably freedmen, to whom we have nothing analogous in the other kingdoms. Moreover the wergeld of the ceorl, or ordinary freeman, was two or three times as great as that of the same class in Wessex and Mercia, and the same difference of treatment is found in all the compensations and fines relating to them. It is not unlikely that the peculiarities of Kentish custom observable in later times, especially with reference to the tenure of land, are connected with these characteristics. An explanation is probably to be obtained from a statement of Bede--that the settlers in Kent belonged to a different nationality from those who founded the other kingdoms, namely the Jutes (q.v.).

See Bede, _Historiae ecclesiasticae_, edited by C. Plummer (Oxford, 1896); _Two of the Saxon Chronicles_, edited by J. Earle and C. Plummer (Oxford, 1892-1899); W. de G. Birch, _Cartularium Saxonicum_ (London, 1885-1889); B. Seebohm, _Tribal Custom in Anglo-Saxon Law_ (London, 1902); H. M. Chadwick, _Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions_ (Cambridge, 1905); and T. W. Shore, _Origin of the Anglo-Saxon Race_ (London, 1906). (F. G. M. B.)

KENT, a south-eastern county of England, bounded N. by the Thames estuary, E. and S.E. by the English Channel, S.W. by Sussex, and W. by Surrey. In the north-west the administrative county of London encroaches upon the ancient county of Kent, the area of which is 1554.7 sq. m. The county is roughly triangular in form, London lying at the apex of the western angle, the North Foreland at that of the eastern and Dungeness at that of the southern. The county is divided centrally, from west to east, by the well-marked range of hills known as the North Downs, entering Kent from Surrey. In the west above Westerham these hills exceed 800 ft.; to the east the height is much less, but even in Kent (for in Surrey they are higher) the North Downs form a more striking physical feature than their height would indicate. They are intersected, especially on the north, by many deep valleys, well wooded. At three points such valleys cut completely through the main line of the hills. In the west the Darent, flowing north to the Thames below Dartford, pierces the hills north of Sevenoaks, but its waters are collected chiefly from a subsidiary ridge of the Downs running parallel to the main line and south of it, and known as the Ragstone Ridge, from 600 to 800 ft. in height. The Medway, however, cuts through the entire hill system, rising in the Forest Ridges of Sussex, flowing N.E. and E. past Tonbridge, collecting feeders from south and east (the Teise, Beult and others) near Yalding, and then flowing N.E. and N. through the hills, past Maidstone, joining the Thames at its mouth through a broad estuary. The rich lowlands, between the Downs and the Forest Ridges to the south (which themselves extend into Kent), watered by the upper Medway and its feeders, are called the Vale of Kent, and fall within the district well known under the name of the Weald. The easternmost penetration of the Downs is that effected by the Stour (Great Stour) which rises on their southern face, flows S.E. to Ashford, where it receives the East Stour, then turns N.E. past Wye and Canterbury, to meander through the lowlands representing the former channel which isolated the Isle of Thanet from the mainland. The channel was called the Wantsume, and its extent may be gathered from the position of the village of Fordwich near Canterbury, which had formerly a tidal harbour, and is a member of the Cinque Port of Sandwich. The Little Stour joins the Great Stour in these lowlands from a deep vale among the Downs.

About two-thirds of the boundary line of Kent is formed by tidal water. The estuary of the Thames may be said to stretch from London Bridge to Sheerness in the Isle of Sheppey, which is divided from the mainland by the narrow channel (bridged at Queensbridge) of the Swale. Sheerness lies at the mouth of the Medway, a narrow branch of which cuts off a tongue of land termed the Isle of Grain lying opposite Sheerness. Along the banks of the Thames the coast is generally low and marshy, embankments being in several places necessary to prevent inundation. At a few points, however, as at Gravesend, spurs of the North Downs descend directly upon the shore. In the estuary of the Medway there are a number of low marshy islands, but Sheppey presents to the sea a range of slight cliffs from 80 to 90 ft. in height. The marshes extend along the Swale to Whitstable, whence stretches a low line of clay and sandstone cliffs towards the Isle of Thanet, when they become lofty and grand, extending round the Foreland southward to Pegwell Bay. The coast from Sheppey round to the South Foreland is skirted by numerous flats and sands, the most extensive of which are the Goodwin Sands off Deal. From Pegwell Bay south to a point near Deal the coast is flat, and the drained marshes or levels of the lower Stour extend to the west; but thence the coast rises again into chalk cliffs, the eastward termination of the North Downs, the famous white cliffs which form the nearest point of England to continental Europe, overlooking the Strait of Dover. These cliffs continue round the South Foreland to Folkestone, where they fall away, and are succeeded west of Sandgate by a flat shingly shore. To the south of Hythe this shore borders the wide expanse of Romney Marsh, which, immediately west of Hythe, is overlooked by a line of abrupt hills, but for the rest is divided on the north from the drainage system of the Stour only by a slight uplift. The marsh, drained by many channels, seldom rises over a dozen feet above sea-level. At its south-eastern extremity, and at the extreme south of the county, is the shingly promontory of Dungeness. Within historic times much of this marsh was covered by the sea, and the valley of the river Rother, which forms part of the boundary of Kent with Sussex, entering the sea at Rye harbour, was represented by a tidal estuary for a considerable distance inland.