succession to the earldom of Desmond; and from this, the younger branch
of the Denbigh family, Henry Fielding directly descended. The Earl of
Desmond's fifth son, John, entered the Church, becoming Canon of
Salisbury and Chaplain to William III. By his wife Bridget, daughter of
Scipio Cockain, Esq., of Somerset, he had three sons and three
daughters. Edmund, the third son, was a soldier, who fought with
distinction under Marlborough. When about the age of thirty, he married
Sarah, daughter of Sir Henry Gould, Knt., of Sharpham Park, near
Glastonbury, in Somerset, and one of the Judges of the King's Bench.
These last were the parents of the novelist, who was born at Sharpham
Park on the 22d of April 1707. One of Dr. John Fielding's nieces, it may
here be added, married the first Duke of Kingston, becoming the mother
of Lady Mary Pierrepont, afterwards Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who was
thus Henry Fielding's second cousin. She had, however, been born in
1689, and was consequently some years his senior.

According to a pedigree given in Nichols (_History and Antiquities of
the County of Leicester_), Edmund Fielding was only a lieutenant when he
married; and it is even not improbable (as Mr. Keightley conjectures
from the nearly secret union of _Lieutenant_ Booth and Amelia in the
later novel) that the match may have been a stolen one. At all events,
the bride continued to reside at her father's house; and the fact that
Sir Henry Gould, by his will made in March 1706, left his daughter
L3000, which was to be invested "in the purchase either of a Church or
Colledge lease, or of lands of Inheritance," for her sole use, her
husband having "nothing to doe with it," would seem (as Mr. Keightley
suggests) to indicate a distrust of his military, and possibly
impecunious, son-in-law. This money, it is also important to remember,
was to come to her children at her death. Sir Henry Gould did not long
survive the making of his will, and died in March 1710. [Footnote: Mr.