Earl of Darlington is a title that has been created twice, each time in the
Peerage of Great Britain.
Baroness von Kielmansegg, half-sister of
King George I, was made countess of Darlington in 1722. This creation was for life only, and so the title expired on her death in 1725.[1]
The second creation came in 1754 in favour of Henry Vane, 3rd
Baron Barnard, who became the first Earl of Darlington.
Charles FitzRoy 1662–1730 2nd Duke of Cleveland, Earl of Southampton, and Baron Nonsuch, 1st Duke of Southampton, Earl of Chichester, and Baron Newbury
William FitzRoy 1698–1774 3rd Duke of Cleveland, Earl of Southampton, and Baron Nonsuch, 2nd Duke of Southampton, Earl of Chichester, and Baron Newbury
Grace Fitzroy 1697–1763
Henry Vane
c. 1705–1758 1st Earl of Darlington 3rd Baron Barnard
Morgan Vane 1706–1779
Dukedoms of Cleveland (1st creation) and Southampton, and Marquess of Cleveland extinct, 1774
Henry Vane 1726–1792 2nd Earl of Darlington 4th Baron Barnard
The Earl of Darlington was a character in
Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Remains of the Day. He was the lord of Darlington Hall. Among his employees were the butler Stevens, his father and the housekeeper Miss Kenton. During the 1930s, the Earl hosted numerous conferences and secret meetings between Germany, the United Kingdom, and other European powers in Darlington Hall. The Germans manipulated the Earl so that he persuaded the British government to negotiate the appeasement peace treaty in its favour, which eventually resulted in the outbreak of the
Second World War. The Earl died in the early 1950s. Afterwards, his heirs auctioned off Darlington Hall and all of its belongings in order to raise money to pay for death duties and other taxes.