"There's many a slip between the cup and the lip"
is an old saying, and many a relation of a great noble is near the
succession of his honours, only to see them pass to some other branch
where least expected.
The present Duke, or to give him his full family name, William John
Arthur Charles James Cavendish-Bentinck, was a long way off the fifth
Duke, in the table of consanguinity, he had no trace of the Scott blood
in him, and was in fact only second cousin of his eccentric predecessor
in the title.
His father was Lieutenant-General A.C. Cavendish-Bentinck, whose
descent was through the third Duke, so that the two branches had to go
back nearly a hundred years to find a common ancestor. His birth took
place on December 28th, 1857, and it must have seemed then a remote
possibility that in less than five and twenty years he would succeed to
one of the proudest Dukedoms in the land, with the opportunities of a
royal alliance.
Two of the Duke's half-brothers were engaged in the South African war;
Lord Charles Bentinck was a Lieutenant in the 9th Lancers and was
slightly wounded in the siege of Mafeking; for his services he won a
medal and a brevet-majority.
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