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Merlin Charles Sainthill Hanbury-Tracy, 7th Baron Sudeley, FSA (born 17 June 1939) is a British peer, author, and veteran right-wing activist. In 1941, at the age of three, he succeeded his first cousin once removed, the 6th Lord Sudeley, to the Barony of Sudeley, and till the reform of the British Parliament sat in the House of Lords as a hereditary peer. A member of the Conservative Party all his adult life he was also Chairman of the Conservative Monday Club for over a decade (stepping down in January 2008). He is, (as of 2008), Vice Chancellor of the International Monarchist League.
Family
Lord Sudeley is a descendant of Sir William de Tracy, one of the assassins of Saint Thomas Becket, and the Emperor Charlemagne. Lord Sudeley's father, Captain Michael Hanbury-Tracy, a Scots Guards officer, died from wounds received at Dunkirk. His grandfather, Lieutenant The Hon. Felix Hanbury-Tracy, also an officer in the Scots Guards, was killed attacking German positions near Fromelles on 19 December 1914). Lord Sudeley followed in their regimental footsteps and did his National Service in the ranks of the Scots Guards.
Lord Sudeley, who lives in London, has been married twice and has no children.
Education
He was educated at Eton, and later read history at Worcester College, Oxford. As a young man, studying at Oxford, he was offered the position of Tutor to King Hassan II of Morocco whilst on a visit to the country. He would have been charged with teaching the King how to hunt, swim and shoot. Lord Sudeley declined, however, wishing to continue with his studies. Lord Sudeley has also lectured at the University of Bristol.
Political Activities
Lord Sudeley was a very active member of the House of Lords for over thirty years (since he was 21, the minimum age one can take one's seat), introducing several measures, most notably the Bill to prevent the unlicensed export of historical manuscripts. He was one of the hereditary peers forced to leave the Upper House by the House of Lords Act 1999 introduced by Tony Blair's Labour Party government. In 1985 he was elected a Vice-Chancellor of the International Monarchist League, .
Since the early 1970s, Lord Sudeley has been active in the Conservative Monday Club, and in 1991 he authored a booklet for them entitled and arguing for "The Preservation of the House of Lords". He is currently Club Chairman.
He spoke out against the reform of the Lords, saying: "If it isn't broken why mend it?", and also that since he believed inherited titles were "inextricably" tied to the monarchy that it was "odd that they just want to touch one institution and not the other." He also cited the wealth of experience that the Lords had built up.
Sudeley was also a former Vice-president of the now-defunct Western Goals Institute, and on 25 September 1989, chaired a WGI dinner at Simpson's-in-the-Strand for El Salvador's President, Alfredo Cristiani, and his inner cabinet. .
He is Patron of the Bankruptcy Association (The 4th Lord Sudeley was foreclosed upon by Lloyds Bank in 1902), and was Convenor of the Forum for Stable Currencies. He is also Patron of the Prayer Book Society.
On (2 June 2006), The Times quoted Sudeley as stating, in a report to the Monday Club's Annual General Meeting, that "Hitler did so well to get everyone back to work". It also claims that he began a sentence with the phrase "True though the fact may be that some races are superior to others", going on to suggest that such rhetoric might interfere with the Monday Club's hopes of being accepted again in Conservative Party circles. In 2001, Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith publicly distanced the party from the club until it ceased to "promulgate or discuss policies relating to race"; he also indicated that no Tory MPs should contribute to 'Right Now!, a periodical edited by Sudeley - which had received notice after an article called Nelson Mandela a terrorist - and forced the resignation of three members of the Commons from the Club.
Interests
Lord Sudeley once described in Who's Who one of his hobbies as "Ancestor Worship", with "conversation" being listed in Debrett's. His enduring love throughout his life, and in which he continues to take an active interest, has been for the former family seat of Toddington Manor in Gloucestershire, built by the 1st Lord Sudeley to replace the mediaeval building nearby, which had been in the family for 1,000 years. At Easter 1985, in conjunction with the century-old Manorial Society of Great Britain (of which he sits on the Governing Council), he held a well-attended conference there entitled "The Sudeleys - Lords of Toddington"; he gave a similar talk on 20 November 2006 for the centenary dinner of the Manorial Society, at Brooks's club in St James's, of which he is a member. He is also a member of the Lansdowne Club.
Lord Sudeley argued consistently in the House of Lords in defence of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer against what he saw as a reformist Synod of the Church of England. (he is a lay patron of the Prayer Book Society) and a past President of the Montgomeryshire Society.
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded byRichard Hanbury-Tracy | Baron Sudeley 1941–Present |
Succeeded byIncumbent |
References
- The Guardian
- Debrett's entry]
- The Monarchist, no.66, p.5, 1985 Norwich, UK
- BBC Archive
- Daily Telegraph
- The Times
- Court & Social Columns, 26 September, 1989
- Evening Standard
- The Independent
- Copping, Robert, The Monday Club - Crisis and After May 1975, page 25, published by the Current Affairs Information Service, Ilford, Essex, (P/B).
- Sudeley, The Rt. Hon.The Lord, Lords Reform - Why Tamper with the House of Lords, Monday Club publication, December 1979, (P/B).
- Sudeley, The Rt. Hon.The Lord, A Guide to Hailes Church, nr. Winchcombe, Gloucester, 1980, (P/B), ISBN 0714020583
- Sudeley, The Rt. Hon.The Lord, The Role of Hereditary in Politics, in The Monarchist, January 1982, no.60, Norwich, England.
- Sudeley, The Rt. Hon.The Lord, Becket's Murderer - William de Tracy, in Family History magazine, Canterbury, August 1983, vol.13, no.97, pps: 3 - 36.
- Sudeley, the Rt. Hon.The Lord, essays in The Sudeleys - Lords of Toddington, published by the Manorial Society of Great Britain, London, 1987,(P/B)
- Sudeley, The Rt. Hon.The Lord, The Preservation of The House of Lords Monday Club, London, 1991, (P/B).
- London Evening Standard newspaper, 27 March 1991 - article: An heir of neglect - A Life in the Home of Lord Sudeley (pps:32-33).
- Births, Deaths & Marriages, Family Record Centre, Islington, London.
- Mosley, Charles, (editor) Burke's Peerage, Baronetage, & Knightage 106th edition, Switzerland, (1999), ISBN 2-940085-02-1
- Sudeley, The Rt. Hon.The Lord, The Sudeley Bankruptcy in London Miscellany June 1999 edition.
- OK! magazine, London, issue 175, 20 August 1999, (7-page report on his wedding).
- Mitchell, Austin, M.P., Farewell My Lords, London, 1999, (P/B), ISBN 1-902301-43-9
- Gliddon, Gerald, The Aristocracy and The Great War, Norwich, 2002, ISBN 0-947893-35-0
- Sudeley, The Rt. Hon.The Lord, Usery or Taking Interest for Lending Money, published by the Forum for Stable Currencies, 2004, (P/B).
- Perry, Maria, The House in Berkeley Square", London,2003.