"A flattering sketch of the mathematical and inventive ability of Sir William Phips - our governor during the time of the witchcraft delusion; with a copy of the epitaph from his monument in St. Mary Woolnoth's Church in London, are given in "The Peerage of Ireland,"by John Lodge, vol. vii. p. 84, of the edition of 1789, edited by Mervyn Archdall, as a prelude to the history of the ancestry of Lord Mulgrave; which is followed by the statement that Sir William Phips was the father of Sir Constatine Phipps, Lord Chancellor of Ireland from 1710 - 1714, who was grandfather of the first Baron Mulgrave....
"Sir Edgerton Brydges copied the statement from Archdall and incorporated it in his celebrated edition of Collins's Peerage (1812), but having noticed later the Life of Sir William Phips by Cotton Mather, corrects the statement in an appendix, so far as Sir Constatine was concerned, by suggesting that Spencer Phips, the adopted son of Sir William, was the true ancestor of Lord Mulgrave.  Debrett in his annual Peerage, carried the original story for years, but finally left it out entirely.  Burke substituted "cousin" for "father", still keeping Sir William Phips for the "figurehead" of the family by saying he was cousin of Sir Constatine.  Savage (1861) Vol. iii, p. 422, calls attention to the "preposterous fable" and quotes "Smile's Self-Help", p. 169 as a present example of its continuance.  The Heraldic Journal (1865), Vol. i pp. 154-5, contains a full and interesting account of this "popular error".  The latest promulgation of the old story which has come to my sight is in an elegant volume purchased by the Boston Athenaeum during 1881, "Picturesque Views of Seats of Nobleman, &c., " by Rev. F. O. Morris, no date, but evidently a very recent publication, Vol. ii. pp.11 to 12, with a view of Mulgrave Castle, the seat of the Marquis of Normanby.
This magnificent place was inherited by Constantine Phipps (a grandson of Sir Constantine previously mentioned) from his maternal grandmother, whose paternity was a question of historic doubt....
This Constantine Phipps was created Baron Mulgrave of the peerage of Ireland in 1768, but the titles have accumulated upon his descending line until the present head of the family is Marquis of Normanby, Ealr of Mulgrave, Viscount Normanby and Baron Mulgrave of Mulgrave, Co. York, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom; Baron Mulgrave of New Ross, Co. Wexford, in the Peeerage of Ireland."  The armorial bearings are quarterings of those of James II! and of Sir William Phips!.
Mr. Waters has found a father for Constantine Phipps, and we hope the whole question of relationship to Sir William (if any existed) will be fully settled soon.  Dr. Marshall in "The Genealogist," Vol. vi, gave new material as to the marriages and children of the first Constantine...."    Genealogical Gleanings in England, Henry F. Waters, A.M.)

"Hardly any of the early Chancellors of Ireland who rose above the common level or followed an independent course, escaped an impeachment or a vote of censure by one or other of the two Houses; and Sir Constantine Phipps (the ancestor of the Marquis of Normanby) must be considered fortunate in finding his case, when prejudged by the Commons, warmly taken up by the Lords. The charge against him was the common and popular one of having injured the Protestant interest by undue liberality towards the Papists, and he had given great offence by refusing to join in a procession for celebrating an anniversity held in high honour by the Orangemen.  An address to the Queen for his removal was carried in the Lower House on December 13, 1713, which was met and counteracted by addresses of a diametrically opposed tendency from the Upper House and the Convocation.  The Lords also directed the prosecution of one of his assailants for saying that "the Lord Chancellor was a canary bird, a villain, and had set this country by the ears, and ought to be hanged."  He was the friend of Prior and the correspondent of Swift, who, in a  letter to Dr. King, relating to the rival addresses dwells on the inexpediency of giving a triumph to either party. That the assailants obtained none, is patent from the facts that Phipps held his ground till the accession of George I, when a general change of Government took place, and, ceasing to be Lord Chancellor, he resumed his practice at the English Bar, where (we are told) he was much employed by Jacobites and Tories - a fact which goes far to justify the instinctive antipathy of the Irish Williamites."  (Lives of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland)