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diff --git a/old/14193-8.txt b/old/14193-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..034c50f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14193-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10002 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Love Romances of the Aristocracy, by Thornton Hall + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Love Romances of the Aristocracy + +Author: Thornton Hall + +Release Date: November 28, 2004 [EBook #14193] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE ROMANCES OF THE ARISTOCRACY *** + + + + +Produced by Dave Morgan and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +LOVE ROMANCES OF THE ARISTOCRACY + +By + +THORNTON HALL, F.S.A. + + +BARRISTER-AT-LAW + +AUTHOR OF "LOVE INTRIGUES OF ROYAL COURTS," ETC. ETC. + + +ILLUSTRATED + + +LONDON + +T. WERNER LAURIE + +CLIFFORD'S INN + + +[Illustration: ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON] + + +_TO_ + +MRS TOM HESKETH + + +_L'amitié est l'amour sans ailes_ + + + + +PREFACE + + +My object in writing this book has been to present as many phases as +possible of the strangely romantic story of the British Peerage, so that +those who have not the time or facilities for exploring the library of +books over which these stories are scattered, may be able, within the +compass of a single volume, to review the panorama of our aristocracy, +with its tragedy and comedy, its romance and pathos, its foibles and its +follies, in a few hours of what I sincerely hope will prove agreeable +reading. If my book gives to any reader a fraction of the pleasure I +have derived from its writing, I shall be more than rewarded for a +labour which has been to me a delight. + +THORNTON HALL. + + +_As love plays a prominent part in at least twenty of these stones, and +is only really absent from one or two of them, I venture to hope that my +good friends, the reviewers, who have been so kind to my previous books, +will not find fault with my title, which, more accurately than any other +I can think of, describes the nature and scope of my book_. + +T.H. + + + + + +CONTENTS + + CHAP. PAGE + I. A PRINCESS OF PRUDES 1 + II. THE NIGHTINGALE OF BATH 21 + III. THE ROMANCE OF THE VILLIERS 36 + IV. THE STAIN ON THE SHIRLEY 'SCUTCHEON 51 + V. A GHOSTLY VISITANT 62 + VI. A MESSALINA OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 74 + VII. A PROFLIGATE PRINCE 87 + VIII. THE GORGEOUS COUNTESS 96 + IX. A QUEEN OF COQUETTES 110 + X. THE ADVENTURES OF A VISCOUNT'S DAUGHTER 127 + XI. A SIXTEENTH CENTURY ELOPEMENT 136 + XII. TRAGEDIES OF THE TURF 148 + XIII. THE WICKED BARON 165 + XIV. A FAIR _INTRIGANTE_ 177 + XV. THE MERRY DUCHESS 195 + XVI. THE KING AND THE PRETTY HAYMAKER 207 + XVII. THE COUNTESS WHO MARRIED HER GROOM 222 + XVIII. A NOBLE VAGABOND 231 + XIX. FOOTLIGHTS AND CORONETS 243 + XX. A PEASANT COUNTESS 256 + XXI. THE FAVOURITE OF A QUEEN 266 + XXII. TWO IRISH BEAUTIES 282 + XXIII. THE MYSTERIOUS TWINS 298 + XXIV. THE MAYPOLE DUCHESS 316 + XXV. THE ROMANCE OF FAMILY TREES 326 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON _Frontispiece_ + FRANCES, DUCHESS OF RICHMOND _to face page_ 18 + MARGUERITE, COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON 98 + SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH 110 + LOUISE, DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH 184 + HARRIET, DUCHESS OF ST ALBANS 252 + ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER 266 + MARIA, COUNTESS OF COVENTRY 288 + + + + +LOVE ROMANCES OF THE ARISTOCRACY. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +A PRINCESS OF PRUDES + + +Among the many fair and frail women who fed the flames of the "Merrie +Monarch's" passion from the first day of his restoration to that last +day, but one short week before his death, when Evelyn saw him "sitting +and toying with his concubines," there was, it is said, only one of them +all who really captured his royal and wayward heart, that loveliest, +simplest, and most designing of prudes, _La belle Stuart_. + +When Barbara Villiers was enslaving Charles by her opulent charms, the +queen of his many mistresses, Frances Stuart was growing to beautiful +girlhood, an exile at the French Court, with no dream or care of her +future conquest of a king. Her father, a son of Lord Blantyre, had +carried his death-dealing sword through many a fight for the first +Charles, a distant kinsman of his own; and, when the Stuart sun set in +blood, had made good his escape to the friendly shores of France, where +he had found a fresh field for his valour. + +Meanwhile his daughter was happy in the charge of the widowed Queen +Henrietta Maria, who although, as Cardinal de Retz tells us, she +frequently "lacked a faggot to leave her bed in the Louvre," and even a +crust to stay the pangs of hunger, proved a tender foster-mother to +brave Walter Stuart's child, and watched her growth to beauty with a +mother's pride. + +Even before she emerged from short frocks, Frances Stuart had +established herself as the pet _par excellence_ of the Court of France. +With Anne of Austria the little Scottish maiden was a prime favourite; +every gallant, from "Monsieur" to the rakish Comte de Guise, loved to +romp with her, and to join in her peals of childish laughter; and the +King himself, Louis XIV., stole many a kiss, and was proud to be called +her "big sweetheart." So devoted was His Majesty to _La belle Ecossaise_ +that, when her mother talked of taking her away to England, he begged +that she would not remove so fair an ornament from his Court, and vowed +that he would provide the child with a splendid dower and a noble +husband if she would but allow her to remain. + +But Madame Stuart had other designs for her pretty daughter; and when +Henrietta Maria took boat to England to shine again at the Court of +Whitehall, under her son's reign, Frances Stuart joined her retinue, and +found herself transported from the schoolroom to the most brilliant and +dangerous court in Europe. When this transformation came in her life +Walter Stuart's daughter was just blossoming into as sweet and fragrant +a flower as ever bloomed in woman's guise. Fair and graceful as a lily, +with luxuriant brown hair, eyes of violet, and a proud, dainty little +head, she had a figure which, although yet not fully formed, was +faultless in its modelling and its exquisite grace. And these physical +charms were allied to an unspoiled freshness, which combined the artless +fascinations of the child with the allurements of the woman. + +Such was Frances Stuart when she made her appearance at the Court of +Charles II. as maid-of-honour, to his Queen, Catherine; and one can +scarcely wonder that, even among the most beautiful women in England, +the French "Mademoiselle," as she was called, was hailed as a new +revelation of female fascination, especially as she brought with her the +bubbling gaiety and passionate zest of life of the land of her exile. + +To the "Merrie Monarch's" senses, sated with riper beauties and more +stolid charms, this unspoiled child of nature was as a wild rose +compared with exotic hot-house flowers. She was, he vowed, so "dainty, +so fresh, so fragrant," that none but the sourest of anchorites could +resist her--and he was no anchorite, as the world knew well. Almost at +sight of her he fell madly in love with her, and brought to bear on her +the battery of all his fascinations. Was ever maid placed, on the +threshold of life, in so dangerous a predicament? For the King, who was +her first lover, was also one of the most captivating men in England, a +past-master in the conquest of woman. But, in response to all his +advances, his honeyed words and oglings, the Stuart maid only laughed a +merry childish laugh. She would romp with him, as she had done with the +gallants at the French Court; to her he was only another "big +playfellow" to tease and play with. She knew nothing of love, and did +not wish to know more. He might kiss her--_vraiment_--why not? and that +Charles made abundant use of this concession, we know, for we are told +that "he would kiss her for half an hour at a time," caring little who +looked on. + +And all her other Whitehall lovers--a legion of them, from the Duke of +Buckingham to the youngest page at Court, she treated in precisely the +same way. Was it innocence or artfulness, this assumption of childish +prudery? "She was a child," says Count Hamilton, "in all respects save +playing with dolls"--a child who refused to grow into a woman, and yet, +one shrewdly suspects that behind her childishness was a motive deeper +than is usually associated with so much simplicity. + +She infected the whole Court with her exuberant youthfulness. +Basset-tables and boudoir intrigues were alike deserted to enjoy the new +era of nursery games which she inaugurated. Jaded gallants and sedate +Ladies of the Bedchamber mingled their shrieks of laughter in +blind-man's buff and hunt-the-slipper with the Stuart maid as Lady of +Misrule and arch-spirit of jollity. Pepys was shocked--or affected to +be--one day by seeing all the great and fair ones of the Court squatting +on the floor in the Whitehall gallery playing at "I love my love with an +A because he is Amorous"; "I hate him with a B because he is Boring," +and so on; and no doubt rocking with glee at some sally of wit, for, +Pepys says, "some of them were very witty." + +The little madcap even carried her games and toys into the sacred +environment of the Audience Chamber. Seated on the floor, innocently +exposing the prettiest pair of ankles in England, and surrounded by her +big playfellows, she would challenge them to a competition in +castle-building with cards; and when her carefully-reared edifice +toppled to the ground she would break into a silvery peal of laughter, +and clap her hands for the King to come and help her to rebuild it, for +no less distinguished assistant would she allow to touch her cards. And +Charles never failed to respond to the summons, though he were +hobnobbing with chancellor or archbishop, and would be sent away happy, +with a kiss for his pains. No wonder poor Pepys was horrified at such +unseemly goings-on. + +And equally small wonder that the King's mistresses and the great ladies +of the Court cast many a jealous and vindictive glance on the child, who +had power to lure away their slaves to her nursery shrine. The Duke of +Buckingham, himself, was prouder to be her favourite playfellow than of +all his conquests in the field of love. He wrote songs, and sang them +for her pleasure; he kept her in a ripple of laughter for hours together +by his stories and clever mimicry, and rushed to her side whenever she +summoned him to build card-castles or to join in a romp--until what was +"play to the child" began to prove a serious matter to the man of the +world. He found that, while he was building castles or chasing the +elusive fairy blindfolded, she had stolen his heart away; but when he +ventured to tell his love to her she boxed his ears, and told him to run +away and not be so naughty again. + +Was there ever so tantalising and inscrutable a maid? And as she had +treated the King and his chief favourite, she treated all her other +playfellows. The Earl of Arlington, a grave, dignified Lord of the +Bedchamber, so far unbended as to make love to the little witch, who +stood so well in the favour of his Sovereign; and never did man exert +himself more to win the favour of a maid. + + "Having provided himself," says Hamilton, "with a great + number of maxims and some historical anecdotes, he + obtained an audience of Miss Stuart, in order to display + them; at the same time offering her his most humble + services in the situation to which it had pleased God and + her virtue to raise her. But he was only in the preface + of his speech, when he reminded her so ludicrously of + Buckingham's mimicry of him that she burst into a peal of + laughter in his very face, and rushed stifling from the + room. Thus ignominiously was sounded the death-knell of + Arlington's hopes!" + +George Hamilton, one of the most handsome and fascinating men in +England, fared better, but retired from the pursuit of so seductive and +tantalising a maid. Still Hamilton was the most congenial playfellow of +them all. He was a madcap like herself, always ripe for fun and frolic; +and for a time she revelled in his comradeship. He first won her heart +in the following fashion. One day old Lord Carlingford was delighting +and convulsing her by placing a lighted candle in his mouth, and +hobbling to and fro thus illuminated. "I can do better than that," +exclaimed the irrepressible Hamilton. "Give me two candles." The candles +were produced. Hamilton lit them, and thrust the pair into his capacious +mouth, and minced three times round the room before they were +extinguished, while _La belle Stuart_ paraded after him, clapping her +hands and laughing in her glee. + +Such a feat was an efficient passport to her favour. Rollicking George +was at once installed as playmate-in-chief to the spoiled child, and was +privileged with a greater intimacy than any of her other favourites had +ever enjoyed. + + "Since the Court has been in the country," he confessed, + "I have had a hundred opportunities of seeing her. You + know that the _déshabille_ of the bath is a great + convenience for those ladies who, strictly adhering to + their rules of decorum, are yet desirous to display all + their charms and attractions. Miss Stuart is so fully + acquainted with the advantages she possesses over all + other women, that it is hardly possible to praise any + lady at Court for a well-turned arm and a fine leg, but + she is ever ready to dispute the point by demonstration. + After all, a man must be very insensible to remain + unconcerned and unmoved on such happy occasions." + +It is conceivable that Hamilton, stimulated by such, no doubt, artless +encouragement as he seems to have enjoyed, might have made a conquest +where so many had failed, had not his future brother-in-law, Gramont, +taken him seriously to task and warned him of the grave danger of +flirting with the lady on whom the King had set eyes of love, and +persuaded him at the eleventh hour to beat a dignified retreat. + +Pepys draws a pretty picture of Miss Stuart at this time, as he saw her +riding, among the Ladies of Honour, with the Queen in the Park. + + "I followed them," he says, "up into Whitehall, and into + the Queen's presence, where all the ladies walked, + talking and fiddling with their hats and feathers, and + changing and trying one another's by one another's heads + and laughing. But, above all, Mrs Stuart in this dresse, + with her hat cocked and a red plume, with her sweet eyes, + little Roman nose, and excellent _taille_, is now the + greatest beauty I ever saw, I think, in my life; and, if + ever woman can, do exceed my Lady Castlemaine, at least + in this dress. Nor do I wonder if the King changes, which + I verily believe is the reason of his coldness to my Lady + Castlemaine." + +How many hearts Frances Stuart toyed with and broke in these days of her +girlish beauty and irresponsibility will never be known; but we know +that at least one hopeless wooer committed suicide, and another, Francis +Digby, Lord Bristol's handsome son, after years of unrequited idolatry, +in his despair rushed away to seek and find death in the Dutch war. + +And it was not only over men that Frances Stuart cast the spell of her +witchery. One of her earliest and most ardent admirers was none other +than my Lady Castlemaine herself, who alone claimed to hold her +Sovereign's heart. So secure she thought herself of her supremacy that +she not only took the French beauty into favour, but actually encouraged +Charles in his pursuit of her, probably little realising how dangerous a +rival she was taking to her bosom. It is said that this was but an +artifice to divert Charles's attention from an intrigue that she was +carrying on with that rakish beau, Henry Jermyn; but, whatever the +cause, there is no doubt that for a time she lost no opportunity of +throwing her Royal lover and the fair Stuart together. She even looked +on smilingly at a mock marriage, at one of her own entertainments, +between the pair--"with ring and all other ceremonies of church service +and ribands, and a sack-posset in bed, and flinging the stocking, +evincing neither anger nor jealousy, but entering into the diversion +with great spirit." + +And not only did she thus trifle with fire; for some months she rarely +saw the King but in Miss Stuart's presence. + + "The King," to quote Hamilton again, "who seldom + neglected to visit the Countess before she rose, seldom + failed likewise to find Miss Stuart with her. The most + indifferent objects have charms in a new attachment; + however, the Countess was not jealous of this rival's + appearing with her in such a situation, being confident + that whenever she thought fit, she could triumph over all + the advantages which these opportunities could afford + Miss Stuart." + +As a matter of fact Charles's _maitresse en titre_ regarded the +"Mademoiselle" as nothing more dangerous than a pretty, winsome child. +"She is a lovely little thing," she once said patronisingly, "but she is +only a spoiled child, fonder of her toys and games than of the finest +lover in the world." But she was not long left in this unsuspicious +Paradise. There was soon no doubt that the "child" had made a conquest +of the King, and that she, the mother of his children, no longer held +the throne of his heart. + +Her first rude disillusionment came when Charles was presented by +Gramont with "the most elegant and magnificent carriage (called a +'calash') that had ever been seen." The Queen herself and Lady +Castlemaine each decided that she and no other should be the first to +take an airing in Hyde Park in this georgeous vehicle, which was sure to +create an unparalleled sensation; and each exerted her utmost arts and +eloquence to secure this concession from the King. + + "Miss Stuart, however, had the same wish and requested + to have the calash on the same occasion. The Queen + retired in disdain from such a contest, while the King + was driven to distraction between the cajoling and + threats of the two rival beauties." + +It was Miss Stuart, however, who won the day, to Lady Castlemaine's +unrestrained rage and disgust. The child had scored the first point in +the duel, the prize of which was the King's favour. + +According to Hamilton, this victory was believed to have cost the +"prude" her virtue; but Miss Stuart had proved again and again that she +was no such compliant maid. The only passport to her favours, though a +King sought them, was a wedding-ring; and amid all the temptations of a +dissolute Court, where virtue was as hard to seek as a needle in a a +bundle of hay, she adhered to this high resolve. Probably no maid ever +found her way with such a sure step through the iniquitous mazes of +Charles II.'s Court to an honourable marriage as _La belle Stuart;_ +though at one time she so despaired of realising her ambition "to be a +Duchess" that she declared she was "ready to marry any gentleman of +fifteen hundred a year that would have her in honour." + +And never, perhaps, have the designs of a dissolute King been so +cleverly and consistently baffled. Charles made no concealment of his +passion for the beautiful maid-of-honour, and the more coldly she +treated his advances, the more marked and ardent was his pursuit. + + "Mr Pierce tells me," Pepys writes, "that my Lady + Castlemaine is not at all set by by the King, but that he + do doat upon Mrs Stuart only, and that to the leaving of + all business in the world, and to the open slighting of + the Queen. That he values not who sees him, or stands by + while he dallies with her openly; and then privately in + her chamber below, while the very sentrys observe him + going in and out; and that so commonly that the Duke, or + any of the Nobles, when they would ask where the King is, + they will ordinarily say, 'Is the King above or below?' + meaning with Mrs Stuart; that the King do not openly + disown my Lady Castlemaine, but that she comes to Court." + +Such was the spell which this enchantress cast over the King. Nor were +her conquests by any means confined to the circle of the Court in which +she moved a splendid, but unassailable Queen, for every man who came +within the magic of her presence seems to have lost both head and heart. +One of the most infatuated of all her victims was Phillipe Rotier, the +youngest brother of the famous medallists whom Charles had invited to +England, and whose first commission was to design a medal in celebration +of the Peace of Breda. For the purposes of this medal Miss Stuart was +asked by the King to pose as Britannia; and so captivated was Phillipe +Rotier, to whom she gave sittings, by the exquisite perfection and grace +of her figure, and so entranced by her beauty, that he fell madly in +love with her, and narrowly escaped the loss of reason as well as of +his heart. Since that day the figure of Britannia has appeared on +millions of coins and medals to perpetuate through the centuries the +faultless form of the woman who drove artist as well as King to the +verge of despair by her beauty and her inaccessible prudery. + +It was destined, however, that a prize which had so long eluded the +handsomest gallants in England should fall at last to one of the most +insignificant of all Charles's courtiers, a man who had neither good +looks, intellect, nor character to commend him to a lady's favour. Such +a gilded nonentity was Charles Stuart, Duke of Richmond and of Lennox, +who, having buried two wives, now began to cast envious eyes on the +maid-of-honour whom his Sovereign could not win. + +Small in stature, deformed in figure--a caricature of a man, His Grace +of Richmond was the last degenerate scion of the Stuarts of +Richmond-d'Aubigny, a man of depraved tastes and besotted brain, the +butt and the clown of Charles's Court. That this middle-aged buffoon +should aspire to the hand of the loveliest and most elusive woman in +England was only less amazing than that she should smile on his suit. +The Court was struck with consternation--and convulsed with laughter. +Nothing so utterly astonishing and so ludicrous had come within its +experience. But there could be no doubt about it. _La belle Stuart_, who +had so long resisted the King, and given the cold shoulder to such +gallants as the Duke of Buckingham and Lord Arlington, was not only +smiling on her ill-favoured suitor, she was actually giving him midnight +assignations in her own apartments, and risking for a clown the +reputation a King had been powerless to sully. + +Here, at last, was a fine weapon placed in the hands of the outraged and +vindictive Castlemaine. Here was a splendid opportunity of paying off +old scores, of showing to her Royal lover the kind of woman for whom he +had supplanted her, and of reinstating herself in his good graces. One +night, as he returned in an evil temper from a fruitless visit to Miss +Stuart's apartments, from which he had been sent away on some frivolous +pretext, he was accosted by my Lady Castlemaine, who, with ill-concealed +triumph, told him that at the moment _La belle Stuart_ turned him away +from her door, she was actually dallying with his new and contemptible +rival, the Duke of Richmond, at the other side of it. + +Charles was incredulous, furious at the suggestion. "Come with me," Lady +Castlemaine answered, "and I will prove that I am telling you the simple +truth;" and taking his hand she led him exultantly down the gallery from +his apartments to the threshold of Miss Stuart's door, where, with a +sweeping curtsy and an invitation to enter, she left him. On throwing +open the door, to quote Hamilton, the King + + "found Miss Stuart in bed, but far from being asleep. The + Duke of Richmond was seated at her pillow, and in all + probability was less inclined to sleep than herself. The + King, who of all men was usually one of the most mild + and gentle, testified his resentment to the Duke of + Richmond in such terms as he had never used before. The + Duke was speechless and almost petrified; he saw his + master and King justly irritated. The first transports + which rage inspires on such occasions are dangerous. Miss + Stuart's window was very convenient for a sudden revenge, + the Thames flowing close beneath it. He cast his eyes + upon it, and seeing those of the King more incensed and + fired with indignation than he thought his nature capable + of, he made a profound bow, and retired without replying + a single word to the vast torrent of threats and menaces + that were poured on him." + +But if the Duke proved thus a poltroon, Miss Stuart showed a very +different metal. She was furious at the indignity of the King's +intrusion on her privacy, and proceeded to read him such a lecture as +his Royal ears had never listened to. She was no slave, she said, with +flashing eyes, to be treated in such a manner, not to be allowed to +receive visits from a man of the Duke of Richmond's rank, who came with +honourable intentions. She was perfectly free to dispose of her hand as +she thought proper; and if she could not do it in England, there was no +power on earth that could hinder her from going over to France, and +throwing herself into a convent to enjoy that tranquillity that was +denied her in his Court! And the enraged beauty wound up her lecture by +pointing imperiously to the door and bidding the King begone, "to leave +her in repose, at least for the remainder of the night." + +Charles went away baffled and cowed, but with a fierce rage in his +heart. He had been defied, browbeaten, insulted by the woman for whom he +would almost have bartered his crown; and he vowed that he would be +revenged. On the following morning Miss Stuart, her anger now cooled, +and awake to the enormity of her offence against Charles, sought an +audience with Queen Catherine, to whom she told the whole story, begging +her to appease the King, and to induce him to allow her to retire to a +convent. So affecting was this interview that, we are told, the Queen +and the maid-of-honour mingled their tears together, and Catherine +promised to do her utmost to bring about a reconciliation. + +One final attempt Charles made to capture the prize before it was lost +to him for ever. He offered to dismiss all his mistresses, from the +Castlemaine herself to saucy Nell Gwynn, and to dower her with large +revenues and splendid titles if she would but consent to be his +_maitresse en titre_; but to all his seductions and bribes the +inflexible maid-of-honour turned a blind eye. No future, however +dazzling, could compensate her for the loss of her dearest possession. +"I hope," said the King at last, "I may live to see you old and +willing," as he walked away in high dudgeon. To the proposed match with +the Duke he point-blank refused his consent, and vowed that if his +sovereign will were defied, the punishment would be in proportion to the +offence. + +But the fair Stuart had finally made up her mind. It had long been her +ambition--from childhood, it is said--to be a Duchess, and she was not +going to let the opportunity slip for all the kings in the world. What +might come after was another matter. A Duchess's coronet and a +wedding-ring were her immediate goal. Thus it came to pass that one dark +night she stole away from the Palace of Whitehall, and was rowed to +London Bridge, where the Duke awaited her in his coach. Through the +night the runaway pair were driven to Cobham Hall, in Kent, where, long +before morning dawned, an obliging parson had made them man and wife. +Frances Stuart was a Duchess at last; and Charles's long intrigue had +ended (or so it seemed) in final discomfiture. + +On hearing the news the King was beside himself with anger. He forbade +the runaways ever to show their faces near his Court--he even dismissed +his Chancellor Clarendon, whom he suspected of having a hand in the +plot. + +But all his wrath fell impotently on the new Duchess, who returned his +presents and settled smilingly down to enjoy her new dignities and her +honeymoon. Within a year--so powerless is anger against love--Charles +summoned the truants back to favour, and the Duchess, as Lady of the +Bedchamber to the Queen, was installed once more at Whitehall, more +splendid and pre-eminent than ever. During her brief exile, she had held +a rival court of her own as near Whitehall as Somerset House, where, +says Pepys, + + "she was visited for her beauty's sake by people, as the + Queen is at nights. And they say also she is likely to go + to Court again, and there put my Lady Castlemaine's nose + out of joint. God knows that would make a great turn." + +How far the Duke's bride succeeded in putting Lady Castlemaine's "nose +out of joint" must remain a matter of speculation. There seems little +doubt that as a wife she proved more complaisant to Charles than as a +maid. She had carried her virtue unstained to the altar and a Duchess's +coronet, and this seems to have been the main concern of the beautiful +prude. That Charles was more infatuated even with the wife than with the +maid-of-honour is incontestable. He not only made open love to her at +Court, but, especially after he had packed off her husband, the Duke, as +Ambassador to Denmark, his pursuit took a clandestine and more dangerous +shape. Pepys throws a light on what looks like a secret amour, when he +tells us, on the authority of Mr Pierce, that Charles once "did take a +pair of oars or a sculler, and all alone, or but one with him, go to +Somerset House (from Whitehall), and there, the garden-door not open, +himself clamber over the wall to make a visit to the Duchess, which is a +horrid shame." + +[Illustration: FRANCES, DUCHESS OF RICHMOND] + +But the Duchess's new reign of conquest was destined to be brief. To the +consternation of her Royal lover she was struck down with small-pox, + + "by which," to quote Pepys again, "all do conclude she + will be wholly spoiled, which is the greatest instance of + the uncertainty of beauty that could be in this age; but + then she hath had the benefit of it to be first married, + and to have kept it so long, under the greatest + temptations in the world from a King, and yet without the + least imputation." + +That Pepys's fears were realised we know from Ruvigny's letters to Louis +XIV., in which he says that "her matchless beauty was impaired beyond +recognition, one of her brilliant eyes being nearly quenched for ever." +During this tragic illness Charles, who was consumed with anxiety, +visited her more than once, thus proving, at a terrible risk, the +sincerity of his devotion. And it is even said that his admiration of +her was not diminished by the loss of her beauty. + +With this loss of her beauty, however, the Duchess's reign may be said +to have come to an end. King Charles's eyes were soon to be dazzled by +the fresher charms of Louise de Querouaille, whom the "Sun-King" had +sent from France to turn his head and influence his foreign policy in +Louis's favour; and _La belle Stuart_ was not slow to realise that at +last her sun had set. During the remainder of her long life, at least +until the Orange King came to the Throne, she retained her office of +Lady of the Bedchamber to two Queens; but her appearances at Court, the +scene of so many triumphs, were as few as she could make them. + +For the rest her days were spent in retirement, among her beloved books +and pictures and cats; until, after thirty years of widowhood, full of +years and wearied of life's vanities, she was laid to rest in her ducal +robes in Westminster Abbey. The bulk of her enormous fortune went to her +nephew, Lord Blantyre, with a direction that he should purchase with +part of it an estate, to be known as "Lennox's Love to Blantyre"; and to +this day "Lennox-Love" perpetuates, like the Britannia of our coins, the +memory of one of the most beautiful and tantalising women who have ever +driven men to distraction by their beauty. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE NIGHTINGALE OF BATH + + +A century and a half ago Bath had reached the zenith of her fame and +allurement, not only as "Queen of the West," but as Empress of all the +haunts of pleasure in England. She drew, as by an irresistible magnet, +rank and beauty and wealth to her shrine. In her famous Assembly Rooms, +statesmen rubbed shoulders with card-sharpers, Marquises with swell +mobsmen, and Countesses with courtesans, all in eager quest of pleasure +or conquest or gain. The Bath season was England's carnival, when cares +and ceremonial alike were thrown to the winds, when the pleasure of the +moment was the only ambition worth pursuing, and when even the prudish +found a fearful joy in playing hide-and-seek with vice. + +But although the fairest women in the land flocked to Bath, by common +consent not one of them all was so beautiful and bewitching as Elizabeth +Ann Linley, the girl-nightingale, whose voice entranced the ear daily at +the Assembly Rooms concerts as her loveliness feasted the eye. She was, +as all the world knew, only the daughter of Thomas Linley, +singing-master and organiser of the concerts, a man who had plied +chisel and saw at the carpenter's bench before he found the music that +was in him; but, obscure as was her birth, she reigned supreme by virtue +of a loveliness and a gift of song which none of her sex could rival. + +It is thus little wonder that Elizabeth Linley's fame had travelled far +beyond the West Country town in which she was cradled. George III. had +summoned her to sing to him in his London palace, and had been so +overcome by her gifts of beauty and melody that, with tears streaming +down his cheeks, he had stroked her hair and caressed her hands, and +declared to the blushing girl that he had never seen any one so +beautiful or heard a voice so divinely sweet. + +Charles Dibdin tried to enshrine her in fitting verse, but abandoned the +effort in despair, vowing that she was indeed of that company described +by Milton: + + "Who, as they sang, would take the prisoned soul + And lap it in Elysium." + +The Bishop of Meath, in his unepiscopal enthusiasm, declared that she +was "the link between an angel and a woman"; while Dr Charles Burney, +supreme musician and father of the more famous Madame d'Arblay, wrote +more soberly of her: + + "The tone of her voice and expression were as enchanting + as her countenance and conversation. With a + mellifluous-toned voice, a perfect shake and intonation, + she was possessed of the double power of delighting an + audience equally in pathetic strains and songs of + brilliant execution, which is allowed to very few + singers." + +To her Horace Walpole also paid this curious tribute: + + "Miss Linley's beauty is in the superlative degree. The + king admires and ogles her as much as he dares to do in + so holy a place as oratorio." + +Such are a few of the tributes, of which contemporary records are full, +paid to the fair "Nightingale of Bath," whom Gainsborough and Reynolds +immortalised in two of their inspired canvases--the latter as +Cecilia--her face almost superhuman in its beauty and the divine rapture +of its expression--seated at a harpsichord and pouring out her soul in +song. + +It was inevitable that a girl of such charms and gifts--"superior to all +the handsome things I have heard of her," John Wilkes wrote, "and withal +the most modest, pleasing and delicate flower I have seen"--should have +lovers by the score. Every gallant who came to Bath, sought to woo, if +not to win, her. But Elizabeth Linley was no coquette; nor was she a +foolish girl whose head could be turned by a handsome face or pretty +compliments, or whose eyes could be dazzled by the glitter of wealth and +rank. She was wedded to her music, and no lover, she vowed, should wean +her from her allegiance. It was thus a shock to the world of +pleasure-seekers at Bath to learn that the beauty, who had turned a cold +shoulder to so many high-placed gallants, had promised her hand to an +elderly, unattractive wooer called Long, a man almost old enough to be +her grandfather. + +That her heart had not gone with her hand we may be sure. We know that +it was only under the strong compulsion of her father that she had given +her consent; for Mr Long had a purse as elongated as his name, and to +the eyes of the poor singing-master his gold-bags were irresistible. Her +elderly wooer loaded his bride-to-be with costly presents; he showered +jewels on her, bought her a trousseau fit for a Queen; and was on the +eve of marrying her, when--without a word of warning, it was announced +that the wedding, to which all Bath had been excitedly looking forward, +would not take place! + +Mr Linley was furious, and threatened the terrors of the law; but the +bridegroom that failed was adamant. It was said that, in cancelling the +engagement, Mr Long was acting a chivalrous part, in response to Miss +Linley's pleading that he would withdraw his suit, since her heart could +never be his, and by withdrawing shield her from her father's anger. +However this may have been, Mr Long steadily declined to go to the +altar, and ultimately appeased the singing-master by settling £3,000 on +his daughter, and allowing her to keep the valuable jewels and other +presents he had given her. + +It was at this crisis in the Nightingale's life, when all Bath was +ringing with the fiasco of her engagement, and she herself was overcome +by humiliation, that another and more dangerous lover made his +appearance at Bath--a youth (for such he was) whose life was destined +to be dramatically linked with hers. This newcomer into the arena of +love was none other than Richard Brinsley Sheridan, grandson of Dean +Swift's bosom friend, Dr Thomas Sheridan, one of the two sons of another +Thomas, who, after a roaming and profitless life, had come to Bath to +earn a livelihood by teaching elocution. + +This younger Thomas Sheridan seems to have inherited none of the wit and +cleverness of his father, Swift's boon companion. Dr Johnson considered +him "dull, naturally dull. Such an excess of stupidity," he added, "is +not in nature." But, in spite of his dulness, "Sherry"--as he was +commonly called--had been clever enough to coax a pension of £200 a year +out of the Government, and was able to send his two boys to Harrow and +Oxford. + +The Sheridan boys had been but a few days in Bath when they both fell +head over heels in love with Elizabeth Linley, with whom their sister +had been equally quick to strike up a friendship. But from the first, +Charles, the elder son, was hopelessly outmatched. + + "On our first acquaintance," Miss Linley wrote in later + years, "both professed to love me--but yet I preferred + the youngest, as by far the most agreeable in person, + beloved by every one." + +Indeed, from a boy, Richard Sheridan seemed born to win hearts. His +sister has confessed: + + "I admired--I almost adored him. He was handsome. His + cheeks had the glow of health; his eyes--the finest in + the world--the brilliancy of genius, and were soft as a + tender and affectionate heart could render them. The same + playful fancy, the same sterling and innoxious wit that + was shown afterwards in his writings, cheered and + delighted the family circle." + +Such was Richard Brinsley Sheridan, when, in the year 1769, he first set +eyes on the girl, who, after many dramatic vicissitudes, was to bear his +name and share his glories. From the first sight of her he was +hopelessly in love, although none but his sister knew it. He was little +more than a school-boy, and was content to "bide his time," worshipping +mutely at the shrine of the girl whom some day he meant to make his own. + +He gave no sign of jealousy when his elder brother made love to her +before his eyes--only to retire quickly, chilled by a coldness which he +realised he could never thaw; or even when his Oxford chum, Halhed, his +dearest friend and the colleague of his youthful pen, fell a victim to +Elizabeth's charms, and, in his innocence, begged Sheridan to plead his +suit with her. Halhed, too, had to retire from the hopeless suit; and +Richard Sheridan, still silent, save, perhaps, for the eloquence of +tell-tale eyes, held the field alone. + +It was at this stage of our story that a grave element of danger entered +Elizabeth Linley's life, with the arrival at Bath of a Major Matthews, a +handsome _roué_, with a large rent-roll from Welsh acres, and a +dangerous reputation won in the lists of love. At sight of the fair +Nightingale in the Assembly Rooms this hero of many conquests was +himself laid low. He was frantically in love, and before many days had +passed vowed that he would shoot himself if his charmer refused to smile +on him. Her coldness only fanned his ardour; and his persecution reached +such a pitch that in her alarm she appealed to young Sheridan for help. + +Nothing could have been more fortunate for the young lover than such an +appeal and the necessity for it. It was a tribute to her esteem, and to +his budding manliness, which delighted him. Moreover, it gave him many +opportunities of meeting her, and talking over the situation with her. +At any cost this persecution must end; and the result of the conferences +was that an excellent plan was evolved. Richard was to worm himself into +the confidence of the Major, and, in the character of friend and +well-wisher, was to advise him, as a matter of diplomacy, to cease his +attentions to Miss Linley for a time. Meanwhile arrangements were to be +made for the Nightingale's escape to France, where she proposed to enter +a convent until she was of age--thus finding a refuge from the +persecution to which her beauty constantly subjected her, and also from +the scandal which the Long fiasco had given rise to, and which was still +a great source of unhappiness to her. + +The plot was cunningly planned and worked smoothly. The Major was +induced by subtle pleading to leave Miss Linley in peace for a time; +and, to quote Miss Sheridan: + + "At length they fixed on an evening when Mr Linley, his + eldest son and Miss Mary Linley were engaged at the + concert (Miss Linley being excused on the plea of + illness) to set out on their journey. Sheridan brought a + sedan-chair to Mr Linley's house in the Crescent, in + which he had Miss Linley conveyed to a post-chaise that + was waiting for them on the London road. A woman was in + the chaise who had been hired to accompany them on this + extraordinary elopement." + +For elopement it really was, although ostensibly Sheridan was merely +playing the part of a friendly escort to a distressed lady, whatever +deeper scheme, unknown to her, may have been in his mind. After a brief +stay in London a boat was taken to Dunkirk, and the journey resumed +towards Lille. + +It was during this last stage of the journey that Sheridan disclosed his +hand. With consummate, if questionable, cleverness he explained that he +could not, in honour, leave her in a convent except as his wife; that he +had loved her since first he met her more than anything else in life, +and that he could not bear the thought of her fair name being sullied by +the scandal that would surely follow this journey taken in his company. + +To such plausible arguments, pleaded by one who confessed that he loved +her, and to whom she was (as she now realised) far from indifferent, +Miss Linley could not remain deaf. And before the coach had travelled +many miles from Calais the runaways found an accommodating priest to +make them one. The would-be nun thus dramatically ended her journey to +the convent at the altar. + + "It was not," she wrote to him later, "your person that + gained my affection. No, it was that delicacy, that + tender interest which you seemed to take in my welfare, + that were the motives which induced me to love you." + +The honeymoon that followed these strange nuptials was of short +duration; for, a few days later, Mr Linley arrived, in a high state of +anger, to reclaim and carry off his runaway daughter; and Sheridan was +left to follow ignominiously in their wake. When he reached Bath it was +to find his hands full. During his absence the irate Major, quick to +discover his perfidy, had published the following notice in the local +_Chronicle_:-- + + "Mr Richard S., having attempted, in a letter left behind him for + that purpose, to account for his scandalous method of running away + from this place, by insinuations derogating from my character and + that of a young lady, innocent as far as relates to me or my + knowledge, since which he has neither taken notice of my letters, + nor even informed his own family of the place where he has hid + himself, I cannot longer think he deserves the treatment of a + gentleman, than in this public manner to post him as a Liar and a + treacherous Scoundrel.--THOMAS MATTHEWS." + +Such a public insult could, of course, only have one issue. Sheridan +promptly challenged Matthews to a duel, the result of which was that the +Major was compelled to make an apology, as public as his insult. But, +so far was he from penitence, that within a few weeks he demanded a +second meeting--and this proved a much more serious matter for Sheridan. + +The rivals met the following morning on Claverton Down; and after a few +furious exchanges both swords were broken, and the opponents were +struggling together on the ground. Matthews, however, being much the +stronger, was able to pin Sheridan down, and with a piece of the broken +sword stabbed him repeatedly in the face. "Beg your life, and I will +spare it," he demanded of the prostrate and defenceless man. "I will +neither beg it, nor receive it from such a villain," was the unflinching +answer. + + "Matthews then renewed the attack, and, having picked up + the point of one of the swords, ran it through the side + of the throat and pinned him to the ground with it, + exclaiming, 'I have done for him.' He then left the + field, accompanied by his second, and, getting into a + carriage with four horses which had been waiting for him, + drove off." + +Sheridan, unconscious and apparently dying, was driven from the Downs to +a neighbouring inn, "The White Hart," where for a time he hung betwixt +life and death. On hearing of his condition Miss Linley (who at the time +was singing at Cambridge) travelled post-haste to his bedside; and, +tenderly nursed by his wife and his sister, the wounded man slowly +fought his way back to strength. + +One would have thought that, after such a tragic experience and +observing the mutual devotion of the young couple, their parents would +have relented and given their approval of the union, however improvident +and inexcusable it might appear to them. But, on both sides, they were +obdurate; and Mr Sheridan carried his opposition to the extent of +extracting from his son a promise that he would not even see his wife. + +But love laughs at parents' frowns and usually triumphs in the end. When +Elizabeth Linley went away to London to sing in oratorio, her husband +followed her; and, in the _rôle_ of hackney coachman, had the pleasure +of driving not only his wife but her father, home nightly from the +concert-room, without either of them suspecting his identity. When at +last he revealed himself to his wife, her delight was so great as to +leave no doubt of the sincere love she bore him. Many a secret meeting +followed; a final joint appeal ultimately broke down the obduracy of the +parents; and once again Sheridan led his bride to the altar, to make her +finally and securely his own. + +For a time Richard Sheridan and his Nightingale found a haven in a +remote, rose-covered cottage at East Burnham. These were days of +unclouded happiness, when, the "world forgetting and by the world +forgot," they lived only for love, caring nothing of the future. They +were days of simple delights; for their entire income was the interest +of Mr Long's £3000, which proved ample for their needs. Mrs Sheridan, +now at the zenith of her fame, might have won thousands by her +voice--she actually refused offers of nearly £4000 for one short +season--but her husband wished to keep the Nightingale's voice for his +own exclusive delight; and she was only too happy in thus turning her +back on fame and fortune. + +But such halcyon days could not last long. Even Paradise might pall on +such a restless temperament as that of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. He +began to sigh for the outer world in which he felt that it was his +destiny to shine, for an arena in which he could do justice to the gifts +which were clamouring for scope and exercise. And thus, to Mrs +Sheridan's lasting regret, cottage and roses and simple delights of the +country were left behind, and she found herself installed in a Portman +Square house, in the heart of the world of fashion. + +Here Sheridan, always the most improvident of men, launched out into +extravagances more suited to an income of £5000 a year than the paltry +£150 which was all he could command. He entertained on a lavish scale; +and his wit and charm, supplemented by his wife's beauty and gift of +song, soon surrounded them with a fashionable crowd eager to eat his +dinners and to attend his wife's _soirées_. Sheridan was in his element +in this environment of luxury and prodigality; but the Bath Nightingale +would gladly have changed it all for "a little quiet home that I can +enjoy in comfort," as she told her husband--above all, for the Burnham +cottage where she had been so idyllically happy. + +Perhaps if Sheridan had never left the cottage and the roses, his name +would never have been known to fame. His ambition needed some such +stimulus as this spasm of extravagance to wake it to activity. He must +now make money or be submerged by debts; and under this impulse of +necessity it was that he wooed fortune with _The Rivals_, and awoke to +find himself famous and potentially rich. Other comedies followed +swiftly from his eager and inspired pen--_The School for Scandal_, _The +Duenna_, and _The Critic_--each greeted with enthusiasm by a world to +which such dramatic triumphs were a revelation and a delight. Sheridan +was not only the "talk of the town"; he was hailed universally as the +brightest dramatic star of the age. + +It is needless to say that Sheridan's fame was a delight to his wife. + + "Not long ago," she wrote to a friend, "he was known as + 'Mrs Sheridan's husband.' Now the tables are turned, and, + henceforth, I expect I shall be just Mr Sheridan's wife. + Nor could I wish any more exalted title. I am proud and + thankful to be the wife of the cleverest man in England, + and the best husband in the world!" + +That Mrs Sheridan adored her husband is evident from every letter she +wrote to him. She addresses him as "my dearest Love" and "my darling +Dick," and vows that she cannot be happy apart from him. "I cannot love +you," she declares, "and be perfectly satisfied at such a distance from +you. I depended upon your coming to-night, and shall not recover my +spirits till we meet." But through her letters runs the same hankering +after the old simple, peaceful days--the days of love in a cottage. "I +could draw," she writes, "such a picture of happiness that it would +almost make me wish the overthrow of all our present schemes of future +affluence and grandeur." + +But greatly as he loved his wife, Sheridan was now too much wedded to +his ambition to listen to such tempting. He had conquered fame with his +pen; now he aspired to subdue it with his tongue. In 1780, while he was +still in the twenties, he was sent to Parliament by Stafford suffrages; +and from his first appearance at Westminster captivated his fellow +law-makers by the magic of his eloquence. A new star had arisen in the +oratorical firmament, and soon began to pale all other luminaries. +Within two years he was a Minister of the Crown; and in another year he +had electrified the world by the most brilliant oratory that had ever +been heard in our tongue--notably by his historic speech in the trial of +Warren Hastings, to the preparation of which his wife had devoted +herself body and soul. + +Fresh from listening to this latest sensational triumph of her husband +in Westminster Hall, she wrote:-- + + "It is impossible to convey to you the delight, the + astonishment, the admiration he has excited in the + breasts of every class of people. Every party prejudice + has been overcome by this display of genius, eloquence + and goodness.... What my feelings must be, you can only + imagine. To tell you the truth, it is with some + difficulty that I can 'let down my mind,' as Mr Burke + said afterwards, to talk or think on any other subject. + But pleasure too exquisite becomes pain; and I am at this + moment suffering from the delightful anxieties of last + week." + +But Mrs Sheridan's day of happiness and triumph was soon to draw near +to its close. She saw her husband climb to the dizziest pinnacle of +fame, and she watched with pain his brilliance dimmed, and his +marvellous intellect clouded by excessive drinking, before the fatal +seeds of consumption, which had already carried off her dearly-loved +sister, began to show themselves in her. Her illness was as swift as it +was, happily, painless. She simply drooped and faded and died, tenderly +watched over to the last by her husband with a silent anguish that was +pitiful to see. + + "During her last days," says Mrs Canning, her devoted + friend, "she read sometimes to herself, and after dinner + sat down to the piano. She taught Betty (her little + niece) a little while, and played several slow movements + out of her own head, with her usual expression, but with + a very trembling hand. It was so like the last efforts of + an expiring genius, and brought such a train of tender + and melancholy ideas to my imagination, that I thought my + poor heart would have burst in the conflict." + +And one June day, when the world she had loved so well was flooded with +a glory of sunlight, her beautiful spirit sped silently away to join the +"choir invisible." Nine days later she was laid to rest in Wells +Cathedral, thousands flocking to pay farewell homage to the closest link +the world has ever known "between an angel and a woman." As for Sheridan +he survived his grief twenty-four years, to end his days in poverty, and +to crown his life's drama with a stately funeral in Westminster Abbey. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE ROMANCE OF THE VILLIERS + + +The Villiers have had a liberal share of romance, ever since the +far-away days, three centuries and more ago, when the fourth son of Sir +George opened his eyes at Brookesby, in Leicestershire. From being a +"threadbare hanger-on" at Court this son of an obscure knight rose to be +the boon companion of two kings and the lover of a Queen of France. +Honours and riches were showered on this spoiled child of fortune. He +was created, in rapid succession, Viscount and Marquis, and finally Duke +of Buckingham; he won for bride an Earl's daughter, the richest heiress +in the land; and for some years dazzled the world by his splendours and +wealth as he alienated it by his arrogance. And just when his meteoric +career had reached its zenith, his life was closed in tragedy by the +assassin's knife. + +His mantle of romance, however, fell on his son and successor, the +second Duke, who was brought up in a Palace nursery, and had for +playmates the children of Charles I.; and who, after a career which in +its dramatic adventure outstripped fiction, ended his turbulent life, if +not, as Pope says, + + "In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half-hung," + +at least in extreme poverty and suffering in a Yorkshire inn, at Kirby +Moorside. Of all the vast estates he had inherited, his kinsman, Lord +Arran, said: "There is not so much as one farthing towards defraying the +expense of his funeral." + +Nor have the men of Villiers' blood had any monopoly of adventure. Their +wives and daughters have seldom been content to lead the unromantic life +which happily contents so many of their sex. From Barbara Chaffinch, +whose intrigues secured the Earldom of Jersey for her husband in William +III.'s reign, to the Lady Adela Villiers who ran away with Captain +Ibbetson, a handsome young officer of Hussars, to Gretna Green and the +altar, they have played many diverse and sensational _rôles_ on the +stage of their time. + +It was but fitting that George Villiers, fifth Earl of Jersey, should +make a Countess of the Lady Sarah Sophia Fane, in whose veins was an +adventurous strain as marked as in his own; for she was the fruit of one +of the most dramatic unions recorded in the annals of our Peerage. A +year before she was cradled her mother was Anne Child, the richest +heiress in England--the only daughter of Robert Child, head of the great +banking firm at Temple Bar, and a descendant of Francis Child, the +industrious London apprentice who married the daughter of his master, +William Wheeler, goldsmith, whose riches and business he inherited. + +"Old Child," as Anne's father was familiarly known, had many +aristocratic clients who used his cheques and overdrew their accounts; +but the most prodigal, as also the most ingratiating, of them all was +the young Earl of Westmorland, who, not content with making large +demands on the banker's exchequer and patience, had the audacity to +aspire to all his wealth through his daughter's hand. + +Anne was perhaps as naturally flattered by the attentions of a lord as +she was fascinated by his handsome face and figure and his courtly +manners; but the father had other designs for his heiress than marrying +her to a prodigal young nobleman. "Your blood, my lord, is good," he +once told him; "but money is better." + +Lord Westmorland was not, however, the man to be turned aside from the +gilded goal on which he had set his heart. If he could not wed the +heiress with her father's blessing, he would dispense with the +benediction. That he _would_ marry her he was determined; and Anne was +just the girl to assist a bold lover in such an ambition. + +One day, so the story is told, Lord Westmorland decided to bring the +matter to a crisis. He had been dining with Mr Child, and, after the +wine had circulated freely, he said, "Now, sir, that we have discussed +business thoroughly, there is another matter on which I should be +grateful for your opinion." "What's that?" enquired the banker, beaming +benevolently on his guest, as a man who has dined well and is at peace +with the world. "Well, sir, suppose you were deeply in love with a girl +who returned your love, and that her father refused his consent. What +would you do?" "What should I do?" laughed the banker, "why, run away +with her, of course, like many a better man has done!" + +What more direct encouragement could an ardent lover want? It is +possible that the next morning the banker had completely forgotten the +conversation, and his vinous approval of runaway matches; but, two days +later, he was destined to have a rude awaking. In the middle of the +night he was aroused by the watchman to learn that his front door had +been found open; and a little later the alarming discovery was made that +his daughter had flown. His suspicions fell at once on that "rascally +young lord"; and they were confirmed when he found that the Earl, too, +had disappeared, and that a chaise, with four galloping horses, had been +seen dashing northwards as fast as whip and spur could drive them. + +The banker was furious. He raged and stormed as he ordered his servants +to procure the fastest horses money could command; and with lavish +promises of reward to the postboys he set out in hot pursuit of the +fugitives. Luckily they had no long start; and, with better horses, more +frequent changes, and a heavier purse, he had little doubt that he would +soon overtake them. But the chase was sterner and longer than he had +imagined. Cupid lends wings to runaway lovers. Fast as Mr Child's +sweating horses raced, they gained but little on the pursued. Through +the long night, the next day, and the following night the desperate race +continued--through sleeping villages and startled towns, over hill and +moor, until the borderland grew near. Then, between Penrith and +Carlisle, the quarry was at last sighted. + +Mr Child's horses, urged to a final effort by the postboys, slowly but +surely reduced the interval; and now inch by inch they draw abreast of +the runaway chaise. The moment of triumph has come. Mr Child, with body +half protruding from the chaise, calls loudly on the fugitives to halt, +shaking his fist at the smiling face of the Earl, who with one hand +waves a graceful adieu, with the other presents a pistol at Mr Child's +near leader. A flash, a report, and the horse falls dead. A few minutes +later the Earl's chaise is a distant dark speck in a cloud of dust, at +which the baffled banker impotently shakes his fist. + +Before the fallen horse could be removed and the chase resumed the +runaways had got so long a start that they could laugh at further +pursuit; and by the time Child's chaise rattled impotently through the +street of Gretna village, his daughter had been a Countess a good hour. + +For three years the banker kept his vow that he would never forgive her +and her shameless husband. The Earl, indeed, he never did forgive, but +his daughter won her way back into his heart, and to her he left the +whole of his colossal fortune, amounting, it is said, to little less +than £100,000 a year. + +It was from this romantic union that the Lady Sarah Sophia Fane came, +who was to unite the 'prentice strain of Francis Child with the blood of +the proud Villiers. As a young girl the Lady Sarah needed no such rich +dower as was hers to commend her to the eyes of wooers. From the Fanes +she inherited a full share of the beauty for which their women were +noted, and to it she added many charms of her own. She had a figure, +tall, commanding, and of exquisite grace, eyes blue as violets, a +luxuriant crown of dark hair, and a complexion pure and beautiful as a +lily. + +It is little wonder that a young lady so dowered with gold and good +looks should attract lovers by the score, all anxious to win so fair a +prize. But to one only of them all would she listen, Lord Villiers, heir +to the Earldom of Jersey, a man of towering stature and handsome face, +aristocrat and courtier to his finger-tips, a fearless and graceful +rider, and an expert in manly sports. Such a combination of attractions +the daughter of Anne Child could not long, nor was she at all disposed +to, resist. And one May day in 1804--almost twenty-two years to the day +after her parents' dramatic flight to Gretna Green--the Lady Sarah +became Vicountess Villiers. A year later she was Countess of Jersey. + +From her first entry into society the child-countess (for she was little +more than a child) took the position of a Queen, to which her rank, +wealth, and beauty entitled her, and which she held, supreme and +unassailable, as long as life lasted. Her _salon_ was a second Royal +Court to which flocked all the greatest in the land, proud to pay homage +to the "Empress of Fashion." She entertained kings with a regal +splendour. Their Majesties of Prussia and Belgium, Holland and Hanover, +and the Tsar Nicholas I. were all delighted to do honour to a hostess so +captivating and so queenly. + +At Middleton Park, her lord's Oxfordshire seat, she dispensed a +hospitality which was the despair of her rivals. Her retinue of servants +seldom numbered less than a hundred, and many a week her guests, with +their attendants, far exceeded a thousand. Money was squandered with a +prodigal hand. The very servants, it is said, drank champagne and hock +like water; her housemaids had their riding horses, and dressed in silks +and satins. Among her thousands of guests were such men as Wellington +and Peel, Castlereagh and Canning, all humble worshippers at her shrine; +and Lord Byron who, in his gloomy moods, would shut himself in his +bedroom for days, living on biscuits and water, and stealing out at dead +of night to wander ghost-like through the neighbouring woods. These +moods of black despondency he varied by turbulent spirits, when he would +be the gayest of the gay, and would challenge his fellow-guests to +drinking bouts, in which he always came off the victor. + +Lady Jersey had no more ardent admirer than Byron, whose muse was +inspired to many a flight in honour of + + "The grace of mien, + The eye that gladdens and the brow serene; + The glossy darkness of that clustering hair, + Which shades, yet shows that forehead more than fair." + +And among her army of guests the Countess moved like a Queen, who could +stoop to frivolity without losing a shred of dignity. Surely never was +such superabundant energy enshrined in a form so beautiful and stately. + + "Shall I tell you what Lady Jersey is like?" wrote + Creevey. "She is like one of her numerous gold and silver + dicky-birds that are in all the showrooms of this house. + She begins to sing at eleven o'clock, and, with the + interval of the hour when she retires to her cage to + rest, she sings till twelve at night without a moment's + interruption. She changes her feathers for dinner, and + her plumage both morning and evening is the most + beautiful I ever saw." + +She seemed indeed incapable of fatigue. Tongue and body alike never +seemed to rest, from rising to going to bed. + + "She is really wonderful," says Lady Granville; "and how + she can stand the life she leads is still more wonderful. + She sees everybody in her own house, and calls on + everybody in theirs. She is all over Paris, and at all + the _campagnes_ within ten miles, and in all _petites + soirées_. She begins the day with a dancing-master at + nine o'clock, and never rests till midnight.... At ten + o'clock yesterday morning she called for me, and we never + stopped to take breath till eleven o'clock at night, when + she set me down here more dead than alive, she going to + end the day with the Hollands!" + +A life that would have killed nine women out of ten seemed powerless to +touch her. When far advanced in the sixties she was acknowledged to be +still one of the most beautiful women in England, retaining to an +amazing degree the bloom and freshness of youth. And when she appeared +at a fancy-dress ball arrayed as a Sultana, in a robe of sky-blue with +coral embroideries and a turban of gold and white, she was by universal +consent acclaimed as the most beautiful woman there. It may interest my +lady readers to learn that she attributed her perpetual youth to the use +of gruel as a substitute for soap and water. + +Although Lady Jersey had admirers by the hundred among the most +fascinating men in Europe, no breath of scandal ever touched her fair +fame. Indeed, she carried her virtue to the verge of prudery, and +repelled with a freezing coldness the slightest approach to familiarity. +So prudish was she that on one occasion she declined to share a carriage +alone with Lord John Russell, one of the least physically attractive of +men, and begged General Alava to accompany them. "Diable!" laughed the +General, "you must be very little sure of yourself if you are afraid to +be alone with little Lord John!" + +She was merciless to any of her lady friends who lapsed from virtue, or +in any way, however slight, offended the proprieties. But the vials of +her fiercest anger were reserved for her mother-in-law, the +Dowager-Countess, whose shameless intrigue with the Prince Regent +scandalised the world in an age of lax morals; and the outraged Princess +Caroline had no more valiant champion. She not only declined to have +anything to say to her husband's mother, she carried her disapproval to +the extent of refusing point blank to appear at Court. So furious was +the Regent at this slight that "the dotard with corrupted eye and +withered heart," as Byron calls him, had her portrait removed from the +Palace Gallery of Beauties, and returned to its owner. + +A few days later, however, the Countess had her revenge. At a party in +Cavendish Square she was walking along a corridor with Samuel Rogers +when she saw the Regent coming towards them. As he approached he drew +himself to his full height, and passed with an insolent and disdainful +stare, which Lady Jersey returned with a look even more cold and +contemptuous. Then, with a toss of her proud head, she turned to Rogers +and laughingly said, "I did that well, didn't I?" + +It was, perhaps, as Queen and Autocrat of "Almack's" that Lady Jersey +won her chief fame--Almack's, that most exclusive and aristocratic club +in Berkeley Street, Piccadilly, the membership of which was the supreme +hall-mark of the world of fashion. No rank, however exalted, no riches, +however great, were a passport to this innermost social circle, over +which Lady Jersey reigned like a beautiful despot. + +Scores of the smartest officers of the Guards, men of rank and fashion, +and pets of West End drawing-rooms, clamoured or cajoled for admission +to this jealously-guarded temple, but its doors only opened to receive, +at the most, half a dozen of them. Even such social autocrats as Her +Grace of Bedford and Lady Harrington were coldly turned away from the +doors by the male members of the club; while the ladies shut them in the +face of Lord March and Brook Boothby, to the amazed disgust of these men +of fashion and conquest--for, by the rules of the club, male members +were selected by the ladies, and _vice versâ_. But beyond all doubt the +destinies of candidates were in the hands of the half dozen Lady +Patronesses who formed the Committee of the club--Princess Esterhazy, +Princess von Lieven, Ladies Jersey, Sefton and Cowper, and Mrs Drummond +Burrell; and of these my Lady Jersey was the only one who really +counted. + + "Three-fourths even of the nobility," says a writer in + the _New Monthly Magazine_, "knock in vain for admission. + Into this _sanctum sanctorum_, of course, the sons of + commerce never think of intruding; and yet into the very + 'blue chamber,' in the absence of the six necromancers, + have the votaries of trade contrived to intrude + themselves." + + "Many diplomatic arts," writes Captain Gronow, "much + _finesse_, and a host of intrigues were set in motion to + get an invitation to Almack's. Very often persons whose + rank and fortunes entitled them to the _entrée_ anywhere, + were excluded by the cliqueism of the Lady patronesses; + for the female government of Almack's was a despotism, + and subject to all the caprice of despotic rule. It is + needless to say that, like every other despotism, it was + not innocent of abuses." + +The fair ladies who ruled supreme over this little dancing and gossiping +world issued a solemn proclamation that no gentleman should appear at +the assemblies without being dressed in knee-breeches, white cravat, and +_chapeau bras._ On one occasion, the Duke of Wellington was about to +ascend the staircase of the ballroom, dressed in black trousers, when +the vigilant Mr Willis, the guardian of the establishment, stepped +forward and said, "Your Grace cannot be admitted in trousers," whereupon +the Duke, who had a great respect for orders and regulations, quietly +walked away. + +Another inflexible rule of the club was that no one should be admitted +after eleven o'clock; and it was a breach of this regulation that once +overwhelmed the Duke of Wellington with humiliation. One evening, the +Duke, who had promised to meet Lady Mornington at Almack's, presented +himself for admission. "Lady Jersey," announced an attendant, "the Duke +of Wellington is at the door, and desires to be admitted." "What o'clock +is it?" she asked. "Seven minutes after eleven, your Ladyship." She +paused for a moment, and then said with emphasis and distinctness, "Give +my compliments--Lady Jersey's compliments--to the Duke of Wellington, +and say that she is very glad that the first enforcement of the rule of +exclusion is such that, hereafter, no one can complain of its +application. He cannot be admitted." And the Duke, whom even Napoleon +with all his legions had been powerless to turn back, was compelled to +retreat before the capricious will of a woman. + +Such an autocrat was this "Queen of Almack's." + + "While her colleagues were debating," says the author of + the "Key to Almack's," "she decided. Hers was the + master-spirit that ruled the whole machine; hers the + eloquent tongue that could both persuade and command. And + she was never idle. Her restless eye pried into + everything; she set the world to rights; her influence + was resistless, her determination uncontrollable." + +"Treat people like fools, and they will worship you," was her favourite +maxim. And as Bryon, her intimate friend, once said, "She was the +veriest tyrant that ever governed Fashion's fools, and compelled them to +shake their cap and bells as she willed." + +It was at Almack's, it is interesting to recall, that Lady Jersey first +introduced the quadrille from Paris. + + "I recollect," says Captain Gronow, "the persons who + formed the first quadrille that was ever danced there. + They were Lady Jersey, Lady Harriet Buller, Lady Susan + Ryder, and Miss Montgomery; the men being the Count St + Aldegonde, Mr Montgomery, and Charles Standisti." + +It was at Almack's, too, that she introduced the waltz, which so +shocked the proprieties even in that easy-going age. + + "What scenes," writes Mr T. Raikes, "have we witnessed in + these days at Almack's! What fear and trembling in the + _débutantes_ at the commencement of a waltz, what + giddiness and confusion at the end! It was, perhaps, + owing to the latter circumstance that so violent an + opposition soon arose to the new recreation on the score + of morality. The anti-waltzing party took the alarm, and + cried it down; mothers forbade it, and every ballroom + became a scene of feud and contention." + +But through it all Lady Jersey circled round and round the ballroom +divinely, with Prince Paul Esterhazy, Baron Tripp, St Aldegonde, and +many another graceful exponent of the new dance, for partners; and her +victory was complete when the world of fashion saw the arm of the +Emperor Alexander, his uniform ablaze with decorations, round her waist, +twirling ecstatically, if ungracefully, round in the intoxication of the +waltz. + +For fifty years, Lord Jersey's Countess reigned supreme in the social +world, carrying her autocracy and her charms into old age. As was +inevitable to such a dominant personality she made enemies, who resented +her airs and scoffed at her graces. Lady Granville called her "a +tiresome, quarrelsome woman"; the Duke of Wellington, one of her most +abject slaves, once exclaimed, "What ---- nonsense Lady Jersey talks!" +and Granville declared that she had "neither wit, nor imagination, nor +humour." But to the last day of her long life she retained the homage +and admiration of hundreds, over whom she cast the spell of her beauty +and personal charm. + +The evening of her life was clouded by a succession of tragedies, each +sufficient to break the spirit of a less indomitable woman. One by one, +her children, the pride of her life, were taken from her; but she hid +her breaking heart from the world, and in the intervals between her +bereavements she showed as brave and bright a face as in the days of her +unclouded youth. The death in 1858 of her daughter, Clementina, the +darling of her old age, was a terrible blow; but still the hand of the +slayer of her hopes was not stayed. Her husband, whose devotion had so +long sustained her, followed soon after; three weeks later her eldest +son, the new Earl, died tragically in the zenith of his life; and the +crowning blow fell when, in 1862, her last surviving child was taken +from her. + +For five more years she survived her triumphs and sorrows, until, one +January day in 1867, she passed suddenly and painlessly away, and the +world was the poorer by the loss of one of the noblest women who have +ever worn the crown of beauty or held the sceptre of power. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE STAIN ON THE SHIRLEY 'SCUTCHEON + + +The Shirleys have been men of high honour and fair repute ever since the +far-away days when the conqueror found their ancestor, Sewallis, firmly +seated on his broad Warwickshire lands at Eatington; but their proud +'scutcheon, otherwise unsullied, bears one black, or rather red, stain, +and it was Laurence Shirley, fourth earl of his line, who put it there. + +Horace Walpole calls this degenerate Shirley "a low wretch, a mad +assassin, and a wild beast." He was, as my story will show, all this. He +was indeed an incarnate fiend. But was he to blame? He was possessed by +devils; but they were devils of insanity. The taint of madness was in +his blood before he uttered his first cry in the cradle. His uncle, +whose coronet he was to wear, was an incurable madman. His aunt, the +Lady Barbara Shirley, spent years of her life shut up in an asylum. And +this hereditary taint shadowed Laurence Shirley's life from his infancy, +and ended it in tragedy. + +As a boy, he was subject to violent attacks of rage, when it was not +safe to approach him; and his madness grew with his years. Strange tales +are told of him as a young man. We are told that he would spend hours +pacing like a wild animal up and down his room, gnashing his teeth, +clenching his fists, grinning diabolically, and uttering strange +incoherent cries. He would stand before a mirror, making horrible +grimaces at his reflection, and spitting upon it; he walked about armed +with pistols and dagger, ready at a moment to use both on any one who +annoyed or opposed him; and in his disordered brain he nursed suspicion +and hatred of all around him. + +When he was little more than thirty, and some years after he had come +into his earldom, he wooed and won the pretty daughter of Sir William +Meredith; but before the honeymoon was ended he had begun to treat her +with such gross brutality that, before she had long been a wife, she +petitioned Parliament for a divorce, which set her free. And as he was +obviously quite unfit to administer his estates, it became necessary to +appoint some one to receive his rents and control his revenue. + +Such was the pitiful plight to which insanity had reduced Laurence, Earl +Ferrers, while still little over the threshold of manhood; and these +calamities only, and perhaps naturally, accentuated his madness. He +became more and more the terror of the neighbourhood in which he lived, +and few had the courage to meet him when he took his solitary walks. + + "I still retain," writes a Mr Cradock in his "Memoirs," + "a strong impression of the unfortunate Earl Ferrers, + who, with the Ladies Shirley, his sisters, frequented + Leicester races, and visited at my father's house. During + the early part of the day his lordship preserved the + character of a polite scholar and a courteous nobleman, + but in the evening he became the terror of the + inhabitants; and I distinctly remember running upstairs + to hide myself when an alarm was given that Lord Ferrers + was coming armed, with a great mob after him. He had + behaved well at the ordinary; the races were then in the + afternoon, and the ladies regularly attended the balls. + My father's house was situated midway between Lord + Ferrers's lodgings and the Town Hall, where the race + assemblies were then held. He had, as was supposed, + obtained liquor privately, and then became outrageous; + for, from our house he suddenly escaped and proceeded to + the Town Hall, and, after many violent acts, threw a + silver tankard of scalding negus among the ladies. He was + then secured for that evening. This was the last time of + his appearing at Leicester, till brought from + Ashby-de-la-Zouche to prison there. + + "It has been much regretted by his friends that, as Lady + Ferrers and some of his property had been taken from him, + no greater precaution had been used with respect to his + own safety as well as that of all around him. Whilst + sober, my father, who had a real regard for him, always + urged that he was quite manageable; and when his sisters + ventured to come with him to the races, they had an + absolute reliance on his good intentions and promises." + +Once he disappeared for a time, and made his way to London, where he +lodged obscurely in the neighbourhood of Muswell Hill. Here he +surrounded himself with grooms and ostlers, and other low company of +both sexes, abandoning himself to orgies of debauchery. Among his milder +eccentricities he would, we are told, mix mud with his beer, and drain +tankard after tankard of the nauseating mixture. He drank his coffee +from the spout of the coffee-pot, and wandered about, a grotesque +figure, with one side of his face clean-shaven. + +But even then he had sane moments, when the raving madman of yesterday +became the courteous, polite, shrewd man of to-day, charming all by his +wit and high-bred geniality. It was, of course, inevitable that a career +such as this, marked by a madness which grew daily, should lead sooner +or later to tragedy. And tragedy was coming swiftly. It came early in +the year 1760, before Lord Ferrers had reached his fortieth birthday. +And this is how it came. + +The Court of Chancery had ordered that his lordship's rents should be +received and accounted for by a receiver, who, by way of concession to +his feelings, was to be appointed by himself. The Earl, who rarely +lacked shrewdness, looked round for the most suitable person to fill +this delicate post--for a man who should be as clay in his hands; and +such a "tool" he thought he had found in his steward, Mr John Johnson, +who had known him since boyhood, and who had never thwarted him even in +his maddest caprices. Mr Johnson was duly appointed receiver; but the +Earl's self-congratulation was short-lived. The steward proved that he +was possessed of a conscience, and that neither cajolery nor threats +could make him swerve from the straight path of honesty. + +In vain the Earl coaxed and blustered and bullied. The receiver was +adamant. He had a duty to perform, and at any cost he would discharge +it. His lordship's rage at such unlooked-for recalcitrancy was +unbounded. He began to hate the too honest steward with a murderous +hatred; behind his back he loaded him with abuse, and vowed that, of all +his enemies, the steward was the most virulent and implicable. But while +the Earl was nursing this diabolical hatred, he showed little sign of it +to Johnson, who was so unsuspectingly walking to meet tragedy. + +One January day, in 1760, Lord Ferrers sent a polite message to his +steward to come to Staunton Harold on an urgent matter of business. It +was on a Friday; and punctually at two o'clock, the hour appointed, Mr +Johnson made his appearance, and was ushered into his Lordship's study. +Unknown to him, Lord Ferrers had sent away his housekeeper and his +menservants on various pretexts; and, apart from the Earl and the +steward (the spider and the fly), there was no one in all the great +house but three maidservants, whose chief anxiety was to keep as far +away as possible from their mad master. + +With a courteous greeting Lord Ferrers invited Mr Johnson to take a +seat; and then, placing before him a document, which proved to be a +confession of fraud and dishonesty in his office of receiver, he +commanded his steward to sign his name to it. + +On reading the confession which he was ordered to sign, Mr Johnson +indignantly refused to comply with such an outrageous demand. "You +refuse to sign?" asked the Earl with ominous calmness. "I do," was the +emphatic reply. "Then," continued his lordship, producing a pistol, "I +command you to kneel." Mr Johnson, now alarmed and awake to his danger, +looked first at the stern, cold eyes bent on him, and then at the pistol +pointed at his heart, and sank on one knee. "Both knees!" insisted the +Earl. Mr Johnson subsided on the other knee, looking calmly at his +would-be murderer, though beads of perspiration were standing on his +forehead. A moment later a shot rang out in the silent room, and the +steward fell to the floor mortally wounded. Laying down the smoking +weapon, Lord Ferrers opened the door and called loudly for assistance. +The horrified servants, who had heard the report, came, huddled and +fearful, at his bidding. One he despatched for a doctor, and, with the +assistance of the other two, he carried the fast-dying man to a bedroom. +When the doctor arrived he found the Earl standing by the bedside, +trying to stop the flow of blood which was ebbing from the steward's +chest; but the victim was beyond all human aid. He had but a few hours +at the most to live. An hour later Lord Ferrers was lying dead drunk on +the floor of his bedroom, while Mr Johnson's life was ebbing out in +agony at his house, a mile away. + + "As soon as it became known," to quote the account given + by an eye-witness in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, "that + Mr Johnson was really dead, the neighbours set about + seizing the murderer. A few persons, armed, set out for + Staunton, and as they entered the hall-yard they saw the + Earl going towards the stable, as they imagined, to take + horse. He appeared to be just out of bed, his stockings + being down and his garters in his hand, having probably + taken the alarm immediately on coming out of his room, + and finding that Johnson had been removed. One + Springthorpe, advancing towards his lordship, presented a + pistol, and required him to surrender; but his lordship + putting his hand to his pocket, Springthrope imagined he + was feeling for a pistol, and stopped short, being + probably intimidated. He thus suffered the Earl to escape + back into the house, where he fastened the doors and + stood on his defence. + + "The crowd of people who had come to apprehend him beset + the house, and their number increased very fast. In about + two hours Lord Ferrers appeared at the garret window, and + called out: 'How is Johnson?' Springthorpe answered: 'He + is dead,' upon which his lordship insulted him, and + called him a liar, and swore he would not believe anybody + but the surgeon, Kirkland. Upon being again assured that + he was dead, he desired that the people might be + dispersed, saying that he would surrender; yet, almost in + the same breath, he desired that the people might be let + in, and have some victuals and drink; but the issue was + that he went away again from the window, swearing that he + would not be taken. + + "The people, however, still continued near the house, and + two hours later he was seen on the bowling-green by one, + Curtis, a collier. 'My lord' was then armed with a + blunderbuss and a dagger and two or three pistols; but + Curtis, so far from being intimidated, marched boldly up + to him, and his lordship was so struck with the + determinate resolution shown by this brave fellow, that + he suffered him to seize him without making any + resistance. Yet the moment that he was in custody he + declared that he had killed a villain, and that he + gloried in the deed." + +The tragedy is now hastening to its close. The assassin was kept in +custody at Ashby until a coroner's jury brought in a verdict of "Wilful +Murder" against him, when he was transferred to Leicester, and a +fortnight later to London, making the journey in his own splendid +equipage with six horses, and "dressed like a jockey, in a close +riding-frock, jockey boots and cap, and a plain shirt." He was lodged in +the Round Tower of the Tower of London, where, with a couple of warders +at his elbow night and day, with sentries posted outside his door, and +another on the drawbridge, he passed the last weeks of his doomed life. + +In mid-April he was duly tried by his Peers at the Bar of the House of +Lords; and, although he tried with marvellous skill and ingenuity to +prove that he was insane when he committed the murder, he was, without a +dissentient voice, pronounced "Guilty," and sentenced to be "hanged by +the neck until he was dead," when his body should be handed over to the +surgeons for dissection. One concession he claimed--pitiful salve to his +pride--that he should be hanged by a cord of silk, the privilege due to +his rank as a Peer of the realm; and this was granted as a matter of +course. + +One day in early May the scaffold was reared at Tyburn, where so many +other malefactors had looked their last on the world; and at nine +o'clock in the morning Lord Ferrers started on his last journey--the +most splendid and most tragic of his chequered life. He was allowed, as +a last favour, to travel to his death, not in the common hangman's cart +as an ordinary criminal, but in his own landau, drawn by 'six beautiful +horses; and thus he made his stately progress to Tyburn. + +Probably no man ever journeyed to the scaffold under such circumstances +of pomp and splendour. It might well, indeed, have been the bridal +procession of a great nobleman that the black avenues of curious +spectators in London's streets had come to see, and not the last grim +journey of a malefactor to the hangman's rope. His very dress was that +of a bridegroom, consisting, as it did, to quote again from the +_Gentleman's Magazine_, + + "of a suit of light-coloured clothes, embroidered with + silver, said to have been his wedding-suit; and soon + after the Sheriff entered the landau, he said, 'You may, + perhaps, sir, think it strange to see me in this dress, + but I have my particular reasons for it.' The procession + then began in the following order: A very large body of + constables of the county of Middlesex, preceded by one of + the high constables; a party of horse grenadiers, and a + party of foot; Mr Sheriff Errington, in his chariot, + accompanied by his under-Sheriff, Mr Jackson; the landau + escorted by two other parties of horse grenadiers and + foot; Mr Sheriff Vaillant's chariot, in which was + Under-Sheriff Mr Nichols; a mourning-coach and six, with + some of his lordship's friends; and, lastly, a hearse and + six, provided for the conveyance of his lordship's corpse + from the place of execution to Surgeons' Hall. + + "The procession moved so slowly that Lord Ferrers was two + hours and three-quarters in his landau but during the + whole time he appeared perfectly easy and composed, + though he often expressed his desire to have it over, + saying that the apparatus of death and the passing + through such crowds of people was ten times worse than + death itself. He told the Sheriff that he had written to + the King, begging that he might suffer where his + ancestor, the Earl of Essex, had suffered--namely, on + Tower Hill; that 'he had been in the greater hope of + obtaining this favour as he had the honour of quartering + part of the same arms and of being allied to his Majesty; + and that he thought it hard that he should have to die at + the place appointed for the execution of common felons.' + As to his crime, he declared that he did it 'under + particular circumstances, having met with so many crosses + and vexations that he scarcely knew what he did." + +At the top of Drury Lane he paused to drink his last glass of wine, +handing a guinea to the man who presented it. On the scaffold not a +muscle moved as he surveyed the black crowd of onlookers with a calm and +amused eye. To the chaplain he confessed his belief in God; and he +exchanged a few pleasant words with the executioner as he placed a gold +coin in his hand. + +Thus, cold, calm, without rancour or regret, perished Laurence, Earl +Ferrers, not even a struggle marking the moment when life left him. +After hanging for an hour, his body was taken down and removed to +Surgeons' Hall, where it was dissected; and, thus mutilated, it was +exposed to public derision and malediction before it found a final +resting-place, fourteen feet deep under the belfry of old St Pancras +Church. + +Such is the stain which burns red on the Shirley shield, and such was +the man who placed it there. But, as we have seen, Laurence Shirley was +mad beyond all doubt, and "knew not what he did"; and in the eyes of all +charitable and right-thinking men the 'scutcheon of the Ferrers Earldom +remains as virtually unsullied to-day as when it was virginally fresh +two centuries ago. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A GHOSTLY VISITANT + + +There is scarcely a chapter in the story of the British Peerage more +tragic and mysterious than that which chronicles the closing days of +Thomas, second Lord Lyttelton, whose dissolute life had its fitting +climax of horror at the exact moment foretold to him by a ghostly +visitor. Various and somewhat conflicting accounts are given of this +singular tragedy; but in them all the chief incidents stand out so clear +and unassailable that even such a hard-headed sceptic as Dr Johnson +declared, "I am so glad to have evidence of the spiritual world that I +am willing to believe it." + +Thomas, second Lord Lyttelton, son of the first Baron, the distinguished +poet and historian, was the degenerate descendant of five centuries of +Lyttelton ancestors, who had held their heads among the highest in the +county of Worcester since the days of the third Henry. Unlike his +clean-living forefathers, he was famous as a debauchee in a dissolute +age. + + "Of his morals," Sir Bernard Burke says, "we may judge by + the fact of his having died the victim of the coarsest + debauchery, and leaving behind him a diary more + disgustingly licentious than the pages of Aratine + himself." + +William Coombe, who had been at Eton with Lyttelton, is said to have had +his old schoolfellow in mind when he dedicated his _Diaboliad_ "to the +worst man in His Majesty's Dominions," and when he penned those terrible +lines:-- + + "Have I not tasted every villain's part? + Have I not broke a noble parent's heart? + Do I not daily boast how I betrayed + The tender widow and the virtuous maid?" + +From the days when he wore his Eton jacket the life of this perverse +lord seems to have been one long record of profligacy; at least, until +that day, but six years before its end, when, to quote his own words, "I +awoke, and behold I was a lord!" + + "From the time when," Mr Stanley Makower writes, + "although no more than a youth of nineteen, his + engagement to General Warburton's daughter had been + broken off on the discovery of the vicious life he had + led in his travels in France and Italy, he had been a + source of shame and trouble to his family.... To measure + the depths of Lyttelton's vices, it is necessary to read + his own letters, in which the literary style is as + perfect as the fearless admission of fault is + bewildering." + +Indeed, even more remarkable than the viciousness of his life, was the +brazen openness with which he flaunted it in the face of the world. + +With this depravity were oddly allied gifts of mind and graces of +person, which, but for the handicap of vice, should have made Lord +Lyttelton one of the most eminent and useful men of his time. When he +was at Eton Dr Barnard, the headmaster, predicted a great future for the +boy, whose talents he declared were superior to those of young Fox. In +literature and art his natural endowment was such that he might easily +have won a leading place in either profession; while his gifts of +statemanship and his eloquent tongue might with equal ease have won fame +and high position in the arena of politics. + +Shortly after he succeeded to his Barony he married the widow of Joseph +Peach, Governor of Calcutta, and for a time seems to have made an effort +to reform his ways; but the vice in his blood was quick to reassert +itself; he abandoned his wife under the spell of a barmaid's eyes, and +plunged again into the morass of depravity, in which alone he could find +the pleasure he loved. + +Such was Lord Lyttelton at the time this story opens, when, although +still a young man (he was but thirty-five when he died), he was a +nervous and physical wreck, draining the last dregs of the cup of +pleasure. + +And yet, how little he seems to have realised that he was near the end +of his tether the following story proves. One day in the last month of +his life a cousin and boon companion, Mr Fortescue, called on him at his +London home. + + "He found," to quote the words of his lordship's + stepmother, "Lord Lyttelton in bed, though not ill; and + on his rallying him for it, Lord Lyttelton said: 'Well, + cousin, if you will wait in the next room a little while, + I will get up and go out with you.' He did so, and the + two young men walked out into the streets. In the course + of their walk they crossed the churchyard of St James's, + Piccadilly. Lord Lyttelton, pointing to the gravestones, + said: 'Now, look at these vulgar fellows; they die in + their youth at five-and-thirty. But you and I, who are + gentlemen, shall live to a good old age!'" + +How little could he have anticipated that within a few days he, too, +would be lying among the "vulgar fellows" who die in their youth at +five-and-thirty! + +And, indeed, there seemed little evidence of such a tragic possibility; +for the very next day he was charming the House of Lords with a speech +of singular eloquence and statesmanlike grasp--the speech of a man in +the prime of his powers. Such efforts as this, however, were but as the +spasmodic flickerings of a candle that is burning to its end, and were +followed by deeper plunges into the dissipations that were surely +killing him. + +It was towards the close of the month of November, in 1779, that Lord +Lyttelton left London and its fatal allurements for a few days' peaceful +life at his country seat, Pit Place, at Epsom (in those days a +fashionable health resort), where he had invited a house-party, +including several ladies, to join him. And, it should be said, no host +could possibly be more charming and gracious; for, in spite of his +depraved tastes, Lord Lyttelton was a man of remarkable fascination--a +wit, a born raconteur, and a courtier to his finger-tips. + +During the first day of his residence at Epsom the following +incident--which may or may not have had a bearing on the strange events +that followed--took place. + + "Lord Lyttelton," to quote Sir Digby Neave, "had come to + Pit Place in very precarious health, and was ordered not + to take any but the gentlest exercise. As he was walking + in the conservatory with Lady Affleck and the Misses + Affleck, a robin perched on an orange-tree close to them. + Lord Lyttelton attempted to catch it, but failing, and + being laughed at by the ladies, he said he would catch it + even if it was the death of him. He succeeded, but he put + himself in a great heat by the exertion. He gave the bird + to Lady Affleck, who walked about with it in her hand." + +On the following morning his lordship appeared at the breakfast-table so +pale and haggard that his guests, alarmed at his appearance, asked what +was the matter. For a time he evaded their enquiries, and then made the +following startling statement:--"Last night," he said, "after I had been +lying in bed awake for some time, I heard what sounded like the tapping +of a bird at my window, followed by a gentle fluttering of wings about +my chamber. I raised myself on my arm to learn the meaning of these +strange sounds, and was amazed at seeing a lovely female, dressed in +white, with a small bird perched like a falcon on her hand. Walking +towards me, the vision spoke, commanding me to prepare for death, for I +had but a short time to live. When I was able to command my speech, I +enquired how long I had to live. The vision then replied, 'Not three +days; and you will depart at the hour of twelve.'" + +Such was the remarkable story with which Lord Lyttelton startled his +guests on the morning of 24th November 1779. In vain they tried to cheer +him, and to laugh away his fears. They could make no impression on the +despondency that had settled on him; they could not shake the conviction +that he was a doomed man. "You will see," was all the answer he would +vouchsafe, "I shall die at midnight on Saturday." + +But in spite of this alarming experience and the gloomy forebodings to +which, in his shattered state of nerves, it gave birth, Lord Lyttelton +did not long allow it to interfere with the work he had in hand, the +preparation of a speech on the disturbed condition in Ireland which he +was to deliver in the House of Lords that very day--a speech which +should enhance his great and rapidly growing reputation as an orator. He +spent some hours absorbed in polishing and repolishing his sentences, +and in verifying his facts; and, when he rose in the House, he was as +full of confidence as of his subject. + +Never, it was the common verdict, had his lordship spoken with more +eloquence and lucidity or with more powerful grasp of his subject and +his hearers. + + "Cast your eyes for a moment," he declared, amid + impressive silence, "on the state of the Empire. + America, that vast Continent, with all its advantages to + us as a commercial and maritime people--lost--for ever + lost to us; the West Indies abandoned; Ireland ready to + part from us. Ireland, my lords, is armed; and what is + her language? 'Give us free trade and the free + Constitution of England as it originally was, such as we + hope it will remain, the best calculated of any in the + world for the preservation of freedom.'" + +It was the speech of a far-seeing statesman; and although it proved but +the "voice of one crying in the wilderness," Lord Lyttelton felt that he +had done his duty and had crowned his growing political fame with the +laurels of the patriot and the orator. + +On the following morning Fortescue met his cousin sauntering in St +James's Park, as Mr Makower tells us, "with the idleness of one who has +never known what occupation means." + +"Is it because Hillsborough, the stupidest of your brother peers, paid +you such fine compliments on your speech?" he asked. + +Lyttelton smiled faintly. "No, it was not of that I was thinking," he +answered. "Those are things of yesterday. Hillsborough was wrong; the +majority who voted with him were wrong; and I was right with my +minority. They don't know Ireland as I do. But a Government which can +lose America can do anything. I have done with politics. I was thinking +of something entirely different when you came upon me. I was +thinking--of death." + +Fortescue laughed. But, when he had heard the story of Lyttelton's +dream, something in the manner of the narrator conveyed to him a feeling +of uneasiness. + +"No man has more thoroughly enjoyed doing wrong than I have," continued +Lyttelton. "But I should not have enjoyed it so much if I believed in +nothing. With me sin has been conscientious; and I enjoyed the wrong +thing not only for itself but also because it was wrong. Suppose it be +true that I have not more than three days to live--" + +"You take the thing too seriously," interposed his cousin. + +"Join me at Pit Place to-morrow," said Lyttelton. "Then you shall see if +I take it too seriously." + +During the intervening two days he fluctuated between profound gloom and +boisterous hilarity. One hour he was plunged into the depths of despair, +the next he was the soul of gaiety, laughing hysterically at his fears, +and exclaiming, "I shall cheat the lady yet!" + +During dinner on the third and fatal day he was the maddest and merriest +at the table, convulsing all by his sallies of wit and his infectious +high spirits; and, when the cloth was removed, he exclaimed jubilantly, +"Ah, Richard is himself again!" But his gaiety was short-lived. As the +hours wore on his spirits deserted him; he lapsed into gloom and +silence, from which all the efforts of his friends could not rouse him. + +As the night advanced he began to grow restless. He could not sit still, +but paced to and fro, with terror-haunted eyes, muttering incoherently +to himself, and taking out his watch every few moments to note the +passage of time. At last, when his watch pointed to half-past eleven, he +retired, without a word of farewell to his guests, to his bedroom, not +knowing that not only his own watch, but every clock and watch in the +house had been put forward half-an-hour by his anxious friends, "to +deceive him into comfort." + +Having undressed and gone to bed, he ordered his valet to draw the +curtains at the foot, as if to screen him from a second sight of the +mysterious lady, and, sitting up in bed, watch in hand, he awaited the +fatal hour of midnight. As the minute hand slowly but surely drew near +to twelve he asked to see his valet's watch, and was relieved to find +that it marked the same time as his own. With beating heart and +straining eyes he watched the hand draw nearer and nearer. A minute more +to go--half a minute. Now it pointed to the fateful twelve--and nothing +happened. It crept slowly past. The crisis was over. He put down the +watch with a deep sigh of relief, and then broke into a peal of +laughter--discordant, jubilant, defiant. + +"This mysterious lady is not a true prophetess, I find," he said to his +valet, after spending a few minutes in further mirthful waiting. "And +now give me my medicine; I will wait no longer." The valet proceeded to +mix his usual medicine, a dose of rhubarb, stirring it, as no spoon was +at hand, with a tooth-brush lying on the table. "You dirty fellow!" his +lordship exclaimed. "Go down and fetch a spoon." + +When the servant returned a few minutes later he found, to his horror, +his master lying back on the pillow, unconscious and breathing heavily. +He ran downstairs again, shouting, "Help! Help! My lord is dying!" The +alarmed guests rushed frantically to the chamber, only to find their +host almost at his last gasp. A few moments later he was dead, with the +watch still clutched in his hand, pointing to half-past twelve. He had +died at the very stroke of midnight, as foretold by his ghostly visitant +of three nights previously. + +Thus strangely and dramatically died Thomas, second Lord Lyttelton, +statesman, wit, and debauchee, precisely as he had been warned that he +would die in a dream or vision of the night. How far his death was due +to natural causes, to the effect of fear on a diseased heart, none can +say with certainty. That his heart was diseased, that he had had many +former seizures, during which his life seemed in danger, is beyond +question; but if it was merely coincidence, it was surely the most +remarkable coincidence on record, that his death should come at the +exact moment foretold by the lady of his vision, as related by himself +three days before the event. + +Such a happening was strange and weird enough in all conscience; but it +was no more inexplicable on natural grounds than what follows. Among +Lord Lyttelton's boon companions was a Mr Andrews, with whom he had +often discussed the possibilities of a future life. On one such occasion +his lordship had said: "Well, if I die first, and am allowed, I will +come and inform you." + +The words were probably spoken more in jest than in earnest, and Mr +Andrews no doubt little dreamt how the promise would be fulfilled. On +the night of Lord Lyttelton's death Mr Andrews, who expected his +lordship to pay him a visit on the following day, had retired to bed at +his house at Dartford, in Kent. + +When in bed, to quote from Mr Plumer Ward's "Illustrations of Human +Life," he fell into a sound sleep, but was waked between eleven and +twelve o'clock by somebody opening his curtains. It was Lord Lyttelton, +in a nightgown and cap which Andrews recognised. He also spoke plainly +to him, saying that he was come to tell him all was over. It seems that +Lord Lyttelton was fond of horseplay; and, as he had often made Andrews +the subject of it, the latter had threatened his lordship with physical +chastisement the very next time that it should occur. On the present +occasion, thinking that the annoyance was being renewed, he threw at +Lord Lyttelton's head the first thing that he could find--his slippers. +The figure retreated towards a dressing-room, which had no ingress or +egress except through the bed-chamber; and Andrews, very angry, leaped +out of bed in order to follow it into the dressing-room. It was not +there, however. + +Surprised and amazed, he returned at once to the bedroom, which he +strictly searched. _The door was locked on the inside_, yet no Lord +Lyttelton was to be found. In his perplexity, Mr Andrews rang for his +servant, and asked if Lord Lyttelton had not arrived. The man answered: +"No, sir." "You may depend upon it," said Mr Andrews, thoroughly +mystified and out of humour, "that he is somewhere in the house. He was +here just now, and he is playing some trick or other. However, you can +tell him that he won't get a bed here; he can sleep in the stable or at +the inn if he likes." + +After a further vain search of the bed-chamber and the dressing-room, Mr +Andrews returned to bed and to sleep, having no doubt whatever that his +too jocular friend was in hiding somewhere near. On the afternoon of the +following day news came to him that Lord Lyttelton had died the previous +night at the very time that he (Mr Andrews) was searching for his +midnight visitant, and abusing him roundly for what he considered his +ill-timed practical joke. On hearing the news, we are told, Mr Andrews +swooned away, and such was its effect on him that, to use his own words, +"he was not himself or a man again for three years." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A MESSALINA OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY + + +There have been bad women in all ages, from Messalina, who waded +recklessly through blood to the gratification of her passions, to that +Royal mountebank, Queen Christina of Sweden, whose laughter rang out +while her lover Monaldeschi was being foully done to death at her +bidding by Count Sentinelli, his successor in her affections; and in +this baleful company the notorious Lady Shrewsbury won for herself a +dishonourable place by a lust for cruelty as great as that of Christina +or Messalina, and by a Judas-like treachery which even they, who at +least flaunted their crimes openly, would have blushed to practise. + +No woman could have had smaller excuse for straying from the path of +virtue, much less for making foul crimes the minister to her lust than +Anna Maria, Countess of Shrewsbury. The descendant of a long line of +honourable Brudenells, daughter of an Earl of Cardigan, there was +nothing in the history of her family to account for the taint in her +blood. She had been dowered with beauty and charms which made conquest +easy, inevitable; and she was honourably wedded to a noble husband, the +eleventh Earl of Shrewsbury, who, although a man of no great character +or attainments, was an indulgent and faithful husband. Nor does she, +until she had reached the haven of married life, appear to have shown +any trace of the wickedness that must have been slumbering in her. + +And yet, before she had worn her Countess's coronet a year, she had made +herself notorious, even in Charles II.'s abandoned Court, for passions +which would ruthlessly crush any obstacle in the way of their +indulgence. Lover after lover, high-placed and base-born indifferently, +succeeded one another in her fickle favour, as Catherine the Great's +favourites trod one on the heels of the other, each in turn to be flung +contemptuously aside to make room for a more favoured rival. + +Even Gramont, seasoned man of the world and far removed from a saint as +he was, was frankly horrified at the carryings-on of this English +Messalina, compared with whom the most lax ladies of the English Court +were veritable prudes. "I would lay a wager," he says, "that if she had +a man killed for her every day she would only carry her head the higher. +I suppose she must have plenary indulgence for her conduct." The only +indulgence she had or needed was that of her own imperious will and her +elastic conscience. + +As we glance down the list of her victims, we see some of the most +honourable names, and also some of the most despicable characters in +the England of the Restoration. The Duke of Ormond's heir caught her +capricious fancy for awhile; but, though his love for her drove him to +the verge of suicide, she wearied of him and trampled him under foot to +seek a fresh conquest. + +To my Lord Arran succeeded Captain Thomas Howard, brother of the Earl of +Carlisle, a shy, proud young man of irreproachable character, whose love +for the fascinating Countess was as free from dishonour as a weakness +for another man's wife could be. She caught him securely in the net of +her charms, ensnared him with her _beauté de diable_, and then, +satisfied with her ignoble triumph, proceeded to make a fool of him. + +Nothing pleased this Countess more than to bring her lovers together, to +watch with gloating eyes their rivalries, their jealousies, and their +quarrels, which frequently led to her crowning enjoyment--the shedding +of blood. And it was with this object that one day she induced Howard to +join her at a _petit souper_ at Spring Gardens, a favourite +pleasure-haunt of the day, near Charing Cross. The supper had scarcely +commenced when the _tête-à-tête_ was interrupted by the appearance of +none other than the "invincible Jermyn," one of the handsomest and most +notorious _roués_ of the day, a famous duellist, and one of my lady's +most ardent lovers. + +Here was a prospect of amusement such as was dear to the heart of the +Countess, who, needless to say, had arranged the plot. Jermyn needed no +invitation to make a third at the feast of love. That was precisely +what he had come for; and although Howard played the host with admirable +dignity to the unwelcome intruder, Jermyn ignored his courtesy and +brought all his skill to bear on fanning the flames of his jealousy. He +flirted outrageously with the Countess, kept her in peals of laughter by +his sallies of wit and scarcely-veiled gibes at her companion, until +Howard was roused to such a pitch of silent fury that only the presence +of a lady restrained him from running the insolent intruder through with +his sword. Nothing would have delighted her ladyship more than such a +climax to the little play she was enjoying so much; but Howard, with +marvellous self-restraint, kept his temper within bounds and his sword +in its sheath. + +Such an outrage, however, could not be passed over with impunity; and +before Jermyn had eaten his breakfast on the following morning, Howard's +friend and second, Colonel Dillon, was announced with a demand for +satisfaction--a demand which met with a prompt acquiescence from Jermyn, +who vowed he would "wipe the young puppy out." The duel took place in +the "Long Alley near St James's, called Pall Mall," and proved to be of +as sanguinary a nature as even the grossly-insulted Howard could have +desired. + +On the 19th of August 1662, Pepys writes:-- + + "Mr Coventry did tell us of the duel between Mr Jermyn, + nephew to my Lord of St Alban's, and Colonel Giles + Rawlins, the latter of whom is killed, and the first + mortally wounded as it is thought. They fought against + Captain Thomas Howard, my Lord Carlisle's brother, and + another unknown; who, they say, had armour on that they + could not be hurt, so that one of their swords went up to + the hilt against it. They had horses ready and are fled. + But what is most strange, Howard sent one challenge + before, but they could not meet till yesterday at the old + Pall Mall at St James's; and he would not till the last + tell Jermyn what the quarrel was; nor do anybody know." + +If no one else knew of the cause of the quarrel, certainly Jermyn did; +and never did man pay a more deserved penalty for dastardly behaviour. +Lady Shrewsbury's delight at thus ridding herself of two lovers, of both +of whom she seems to have grown weary, may be better imagined than +described. Although Jermyn was carried off the field of battle, to all +appearance a dead man, he survived until 1708 when he died, full of +years and wickedness, Baron Jermyn of Dover. + +The Court, as Pepys records, was "much concerned in this fray"; but it +was long before Lady Shrewsbury's part in it came to light, to add to +the infamy which she had by that time heaped on herself. Her wayward +fancy next settled on a man of a different stamp to either Howard or +Jermyn. It seemed, indeed, to be her ambition to make her conquests as +varied as humanity itself. Her next victim was Harry Killigrew, one of +the most notorious profligates in London, a man of low birth and lower +tastes, a haunter of taverns, the terror of all decent women, and a +roystering swashbuckler, with a sword as ready to leap at a word as his +lips to snatch a kiss from a pretty mouth. + +Such was my Lady Shrewsbury's successor to the aristocratic, high-minded +brother of Lord Carlisle. Killigrew's father was a well-known man of his +day, for he wore cap and bells at Charles's Court, and was privileged to +practise his clowning on King and courtier and maid-of-honour with no +heavier penalty than a box on the ears. The extreme licence he permitted +himself is proved by that joke at the expense of Louis XIV., which might +well have cost any other man his head. Louis, who always unbended to a +merry jester, was showing his pictures to Killigrew, when they came to a +painting of the Crucifixion, placed between portraits of the Pope and +the "Roi Soleil" himself. "Ah, Sire," said the Jester, as he struck an +attitude before the trio of canvases, "I knew that our Lord was +crucified between two thieves, but I never knew till now who they were." + +Such was Tom Killigrew who kept Charles's Court alive by his pranks and +jests, and who is better remembered in our day as the man to whose +enterprise we owe Drury Lane Theatre and the Italian Opera; and it would +have been better for the world of his day if his son had been as decent +a man as himself. His fun, at least, was harmless, and his life, so far +as we know it, was reasonably clean. His son, however, was notorious as +the most foul-mouthed, evil-living man in London, whose very contact +was a pollution. Once Pepys, always eager for new experiences, was +inveigled into his company and that of the "jolly blades," who were his +boon companions; "but Lord!" the diarist says ingenuously, "their talk +did make my heart ache!" + +That my Lady Shrewsbury should stoop to such a _liaison_ astonished even +those who knew how widely she cast her net, and how indiscriminating her +passion was in its quest for novelty. That such a man should boast of +his conquest over the beautiful Countess was inevitable. He published it +in every low tavern in London, gloating in his cups over "his lady's +most secret charms, concerning which more than half the Court knew quite +as much as he knew himself." + +Among those to whom Killigrew thus boasted was the dissolute second Duke +of Buckingham, whose curiosity was so stimulated by what he heard that +he entered the lists himself, and quickly succeeded in ousting Killigrew +from his place in my lady's favour. To the tavern-sot thus succeeded the +most splendid noble in England, a man who, in his record of gallantry, +was no mean rival to the Countess herself. To be thus displaced by the +man to whom he had boasted his conquest was a bitter blow to the +libertine's vanity; to be cut dead by Lady Shrewsbury, who had no longer +any use for him, roused him to a frenzy of rage in which he assailed her +with the bitterest invectives; "painted a frightful picture of her +conduct, and turned all her charms, which he had previously extolled, +into defects." The Duke's warnings were powerless to stop his +vindictive tongue; even a severe thrashing, which resulted in Killigrew +begging abjectly for his life from his successful rival, failed to teach +him prudence. His slanders grew more and more venomous until they +brought on him a punishment which nearly cost him his life. + +But before Killigrew's tongue was thus silenced, the wooing of the Duke +and the Countess was marred by a tragedy, to which our history happily +furnishes no parallel. The Countess's husband had hitherto looked on +with seeming indifference, while lover after lover succeeded each other +in his wife's favour. But even the Earl's long forbearance had its +limits; and these were reached when he saw the insolent coxcomb, +Buckingham, a man whom he had always detested, usurp his place. He +screwed up his laggard manhood to the pitch of challenging the Duke to a +duel, which took place one January morning in 1667, and of which Pepys +tells the following story: + +"Much discourse of the duel yesterday between the Duke of Buckingham, +Holmes and one Jenkins, on one side, and my Lord Shrewsbury, Sir John +Talbot and one Bernard Howard, on the other side; and all about my Lady +Shrewsbury, who is at this time, and hath for a great while, been a +mistress to the Duke of Buckingham. And so her husband challenged him, +and they met yesterday in a close near Barne-Elmes, and there fought; +and my Lord Shrewsbury is run through the body, from the right breast +through the shoulder; and Sir John Talbot all along up one of his +armes; and Jenkins killed upon the place, and the rest all, in a little +measure, wounded. This will make the world think that the King hath good +Councillors about him, when the Duke of Buckingham, the greatest man +about him, is a fellow of no more sobriety than to fight about a +mistress." + +It is said that the Countess, in the guise of a page, accompanied her +lover to the scene of this bloodthirsty duel; held his horse as, with +sparkling eyes, she saw her husband receive his death-blow; and, when +the foul deed was done, flung her arms around the assassin's neck in a +transport of gratitude and affection. Never surely since Judas sent his +Master to his death with a kiss has the world witnessed such an infamous +betrayal. + +From the scene of this tragedy the Duke escorted the Countess-page to +his own home, where he installed her as his avowed mistress in the eyes +of the world, at the same time ordering the carriage which was to take +his outraged wife back to her father's house. Even in such an abandoned +and profligate Court as that of Charles II., the news of this dastardly +crime and Lady Shrewsbury's callous treachery was received with +execration, while a thrill of horror and fierce indignation ran through +the whole of England. But the Countess and her paramour smiled at the +storm they had brought on their heads, and with brazen insolence +flaunted their amour in the face of the world. + +Now that the Countess's husband had been removed from their path the +shameless pair had time to attend to Killigrew, whose malicious tongue +must be silenced once for all. They hired bravos to track his footsteps, +and at a convenient moment to remove him from their path. The +opportunity came one day when it was learnt that Killigrew, who seemed +to know that his life was in danger and for a long time had evaded his +enemies successfully, intended to travel from town to his house at +Turnham Green late at night. His chaise was followed at a discreet +distance by my Lady Shrewsbury, who arrived on the scene just in time to +witness the prepared tragedy which was to crown her revenge. Killigrew, +who was sleeping in his chaise, awoke, to quote a contemporary account, + + "by the thrust of a sword which pierced his neck and came + out at the shoulder. Before he could cry out he was flung + from the chaise, and stabbed in three other places by the + Countess's assassins, while the lady herself looked on + from her own coach and six, and cried out to the + murderers, 'Kill the villain!' Nor did she drive off till + he was thought dead." + +The man whose murder she thus witnessed and encouraged was not, however, +Killigrew, as in the darkness she imagined, but his servant. Killigrew +himself, although severely wounded, was more fortunate in escaping with +his life. But the lesson he had received was so severe that for the rest +of his days he gave the Countess and her lover the widest of berths, and +retired into the obscurity in which alone he could feel safe from such +a revengeful virago. This second crime, like its predecessor, went +unpunished, so powerful was Buckingham, and so deep in the King's +favour; and he and the Countess were left in the undisturbed enjoyment +of their lust and their triumphs. + + "Gallant and gay, in Clieveden's proud alcove, + The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love," + +the infamous pair defied the world, and crowned their ignominy by +standing together at the altar, where the Duke's chaplain made them one, +almost before the body of the Countess's husband (who had survived his +duel two months) was cold, and while the Duchess of Buckingham was, of +course, still alive. The Countess was not long before her brazen +effrontery carried her back to Court, where she took the lead in the +revels and at the gaming-tables, and made love to the "Merrie Monarch" +himself. Evelyn tells us that, during a visit to Newmarket, he + + "found the jolly blades racing, dancing, feasting and + revelling, more resembling a luxurious and abandoned rout + than a Christian country. The Duke of Buckingham was in + mighty favour, and had with him that impudent woman, the + Countess of Shrewsbury, and his band of fiddlers." + +It was only with the downfall of the Stuarts that this shameless +alliance came to an end, when Buckingham's reign of power was over, and +he was haled before the House of Lords to answer for his crimes. He and +the partner of his guilt were ordered to separate; and for this purpose +to enter into security to the King in the sum of £10,000 apiece. Thus +ignominiously closed one of the most infamous intrigues in history. +Buckingham, buffeted by fortune, rapidly fell, as the world knows, from +his pinnacle of power to the lowest depths of poverty, to end his days, +friendless and destitute, in a Yorkshire inn. + + "No wit, to flatter, left of all his store! + No fool to laugh at, which he valued more. + There reft of health, of fortune, friends, + And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends." + +To my Lady Shrewsbury, as to her paramour, the condemnation of the Lords +marked the setting of her sun of splendour. The slumbering rage of +England against her long career of iniquity awoke to fresh life in this +hour of her humiliation, and she was glad to escape from its fury to the +haven of a convent in France, where she spent some time in mock +penitence. + +But the Countess was, by no means, resigned to end her days in the odour +of a tardy and insincere piety. As soon as the sky had cleared a little +across the Channel, she returned to England, and tried to repair her +shattered fame by giving her hand to a son of Sir Thomas Bridges, of +Keynsham, in Somerset, who was so enslaved by her charms that he was +proud to lead the tarnished beauty to the altar. And with this mockery +of wedding bells "Messalina's" history practically ended as far as the +world, outside the Somersetshire village, where the remainder of her +life was mostly spent, was concerned. The fires of her passion had now +died out, and the restless and still ambitious woman exchanged love for +political intrigue. She became the most ardent of Jacobites, and plotted +as unscrupulously for the restoration of the Stuarts, as in earlier +years she had planned the capture and ruin of her lovers. + +Not content with treading the shady and dangerous path of intrigue +herself, she set to work to undermine the loyalty of her only son, the +young Earl of Shrewsbury, one of the most trusted ministers and friends +of the Orange King; and such was her influence over the high-principled, +if weak Earl that she infected him with her own treachery, until the +man, whom William III. had called "the soul of honour," stood branded to +the world as a spy, leagued with the King's enemies, and was compelled +to leave England for ten years of exile and disgrace. + +This corruption and ruin of her own son was the crowning infamy of one +of the worst women who ever enlisted their beauty, of their own free +will, in the service of the devil. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A PROFLIGATE PRINCE + + +Of the sons of the profligate Frederick, Prince of Wales, Henry +Frederick, Duke of Cumberland, was, by universal consent, the most +abandoned, as his eldest brother, George III., of "revered memory," in +spite of his intrigue with the fair Quakeress, was the least vicious. +Each brother had his amours--many of them highly discreditable; but for +unrestrained and indiscriminate profligacy Henry Frederick took the +unenviable palm. + +Even the verdict of posterity is unable to credit this Princeling with a +solitary virtue, unless a handsome face and a passion for music can be +placed to his credit. In his career of female conquest, which began as +soon as he had emancipated himself from his mother's apron strings, he +left behind him a wake of ruined lives; not the least tragic of which +was that of the lovely and foolish Henrietta Vernon, Countess Grosvenor, +whom he dragged through the mire of the Divorce Court, only to fling her +aside, a soiled and crushed flower of too pliant womanhood. + +And yet, when his passion was in full flame, no woman was ever wooed +with apparently more sincere ardour and devotion. + + "My dear Angel," he once wrote to her, "I got to bed + about ten. I then prayed for you, my dearest love, kissed + your dearest little hair, and lay down and dreamt of you, + had you ten thousand times in my arms, kissing you and + telling you how much I loved and adored you, and you + seemed pleased.... I have your heart, and it is warm at + my breast. I hope mine feels as easy to you. Thou joy of + my life, adieu!" + +In another letter he exclaims: + + "Oh, my dearest soul ... your dear heart is so safe with + me and feels every motion mine does. How happy will that + day be to me that brings you back! I shall be unable to + speak for joy. My dearest soul, I send you ten thousand + kisses." + +So irrepressible was his passion that it burst the bounds of prose, and +gushed forth in verses such as this: + + "Hear, solemn Jove, and, conscious Venus, hear! + And thou, bright maid, believe me while I swear, + No time, no change, no future flame shall move + The well-placed basis of my lasting love." + +When the fair and frail Countess, in a fit of alarm, took refuge at +Eaton Hall, her Royal lover followed her in disguise, installed himself +at a neighbouring inn, and continued his intrigue under the very nose of +her jealous husband, who at last was driven to sue for divorce. He won +an easy verdict, and with it £10,000 damages--a bill which George III. +himself had ultimately to pay. Within a few months the incorrigible Duke +had another "dearest little angel" in his toils, and pursued his +gallantries without a thought of the Countess he had left to her shame. + +Such was this degenerate brother of the King when the most memorable of +his victims crossed his blighting path one summer day in the year 1771, +at Brighton--a radiantly beautiful young woman who had just discarded +her widow's weeds, and was arrayed for fresh conquests. + +Anne Luttrell, as the widow had been known in her maiden days, was one +of the three lovely daughters of Lord Irnham, in later years Earl of +Carhampton, and a member of a family noted for the beauty of its women, +and the wild, lawless living of its men. Her brother, Colonel Luttrell, +was the most reckless swashbuckler and the deadliest duellist of his +time--a man whose morals were as low as his temper and courage were +high. + +At seventeen Anne had become the wife of Christopher Horton, a +hard-drinking, fast-living Derbyshire squire, who left her a widow at +twenty-two, in the prime of her beauty, and eager, as soon as decency +permitted, to enter the matrimonial lists again. + +About this time Horace Walpole, who had a keen eye for female charms, +describes her as + + "extremely pretty, very well-made, with the most amorous + eyes in the world, and eyelashes a yard long. Coquette + beyond measure, artful as Cleopatra, and completely + mistress of all her passions and projects. Indeed, + eyelashes three-quarters of a yard shorter would have + served to conquer such a head as she has turned." + +In another portrait Walpole says: + + "There was something so bewitching in her languishing + eyes, which she could animate to enchantment if she + pleased, and her coquetry was so active, so varied, and + yet so habitual, that it was difficult not to see through + it, and yet as difficult to resist it. She danced + divinely, and had a great deal of wit, but of the satiric + kind." + +Such were the charms and witchery of Mrs Horton when the lascivious +young Prince, who was still a boy, was first dazzled by her beauty at +Brighton; and when, in fact, she was on the eve of smiling on the suit +of one of the legion of lovers who swelled her retinue, one General +Smith, a handsome man with a seductive rent-roll to add to his +attractions. But the moment the Prince began to cast admiring eyes at +the young widow the General's fate was sealed. She had no fancy to go to +her grave plain "Mrs Smith" when a duchess's coronet (and a Royal one to +boot) was dangled so alluringly before her eyes. + +For from the first she had made up her mind that she would be the +Prince's legal wife, and no light-o'-love to be petted and flung aside +when he chose, butterfly-like, to flit to some other flower; and this +she made abundantly clear to Henry Frederick. Her favours--after a +period of coquetry and coy reluctance--were at his disposal; but the +price to be paid for them was a wedding-ring--nothing less. And such was +the infatuation she had inspired that the Duke--flinging scruples and +fears aside, consented. One October day they took boat to Calais, and +were there made man and wife. The widow had caught her Prince and meant +the world to know she was a Princess. + +For a few indecisive weeks the Duke put off the evil day of announcing +his marriage to his brother, the King, and to his mother, the Dowager +Princess of Wales, whose frowns he dreaded still more. But his Duchess +was inexorable. She declined to play any longer the _rôle_ of "virtuous +mistress" in an obscure French town, when she ought, as a Princess of +the Blood Royal, to be circling in splendour and state around the +throne. + +Between his wife's tears and tantrums on one side of the Channel and the +Royal anger on the other, the Duke was driven to the extremity of his +exiguous Royal wits; until finally, in sheer desperation, he decided to +make the plunge--to break the news to the King. Had he but known how +inopportune the time was he would surely have taken the first boat back +to Calais rather than face his brother's anger. George was distracted by +trouble at home and abroad. His mother was dying; across the Atlantic +the clouds of war were massing; the political atmosphere was charged +with danger and unrest. And when the quaking Duke presented himself +before his brother as he was moodily walking in his palace garden, +George was in no mood to accept quietly any addition to his burden of +worries. + +No sooner had the King read the ill-spelled, clumsily-worded note which +the Duke shamefacedly placed in his hand than his anger blazed into +flame. "You idiot! You blockhead! You villain!" he shouted, purple in +face and hoarse with passion. "I tell you that woman shall never be a +Royal Duchess--she shall never be anything." "What must I do, then?" +gasped the Duke, quailing before the Royal outburst. "Go abroad until I +can decide what to do," thundered the King, waving his brother +imperiously away. + +It was a very crestfallen Duke who returned to Calais to face the +upbraiding of Duchess Anne on his failure. But it took much more than +this to cow a Luttrell. She at least was not afraid of any king. She +would defy him to his face, and compel him to acknowledge her--before +her child was born. And within a few weeks she was installed at +Cumberland House, with all the state and more than the airs of a Royal +Princess. The days of concealment were over; she stood avowed to the +world, Duchess of Cumberland and sister-in-law to the King; and she only +smiled when George, in his Royal wrath at such insolence, announced +through his Chamberlain that "there was no road between Cumberland House +and Windsor Castle--that the Castle doors would be closed against any +who dared to visit his repudiated sister-in-law." + +There were some, however, who dared to brave George's displeasure by +paying court to the Duchess, whose beauty and grace surrounded her with +a small body of admirers. The daughter of an Irish nobleman played to +perfection her new and exalted _rôle_ of Princess. "No woman of her +time," says Lord Hervey, "performed the honours of her drawing-room with +such grace, affability, and dignity." And, in spite of George's frowns, +the only real thorn in her bed of roses was the knowledge that the +Duchess of Gloucester, who, as the daughter of a Piccadilly sempstress, +was infinitely her inferior by birth, and not even her superior in +beauty, was received with open arms at the Castle, and drew to her court +all the greatest in the land. + +She even made overtures to her rival and enemy, and proposed that they +should appear together in the same box at the opera--an overture to +which the Duchess of Gloucester retorted contemptuously: "Never! I would +not smell at the same nosegay with her in public!" + +By sheer effrontery Duchess Anne at last forced her way into the Royal +Court and public recognition as a member of George's family; and the +fact that both the King and the Queen snubbed her mercilessly for her +pains, detracted little from her triumph and gratification. What her +Grace of Gloucester had won by submission and ingratiating arts, she had +won by brazen defiance and importunity. But the goal, though so +differently reached, was the same. Her triumph was complete. + +To her last day, however, she never forgave the King and Queen. While +they had smiled on the sempstress's daughter, who had been guilty of +precisely the same offence as herself--that of wedding a Royal Prince +without the King's sanction--they had scorned her, a Luttrell, the +daughter of a noble house; and terrible was the revenge she took. She +deliberately set herself to debase the Prince of Wales--a youth whose +natural tendencies made him a pliant tool in her hands. She enmeshed him +in the web of her beauty and charms; she pandered to his vanity and his +passions; while her husband initiated him into the vices of which he +himself was a past-master--drinking, gambling, and lust. Notorious +profligate as George IV. became, there is little doubt that he would +have been a much better man if he had not fallen thus early into the +hands of a revengeful and unprincipled woman. Thus infamously the +Duchess of Cumberland repaid George and his Consort for their slights; +and her shameless reward was when she witnessed their grief at the moral +degradation of their eldest son. + +But even in the hour of her greatest triumph and splendour Anne Luttrell +was an unhappy woman. She had climbed to the dizziest heights of the +social ladder; her pride was more than satisfied; but her heart was +empty and desolate. Her fickle husband soon wearied of her charms, and +flaunted his fresh conquests before her face. In the royal family +circle, into which she had forced her way, she was an unwelcome +stranger; and such homage as she received was conceded to her rank and +not to herself. "Of all princesses," she once wrote to a friend, "I +really think I am the most miserable." + +Her husband died at the age of forty-five, worn out with excesses, +regretted by none, execrated by many. Of his father it had been written +by way of epitaph:-- + + "He was alive and is dead, + And, as it is only Fred, + Why, there's no more to be said." + +Henry Frederick's epitaph, if it had been written by the same hand, +would have been much more scathing. His Duchess survived him a score of +years--unhappy years of solitude and neglect, a Princess only in +name--harassed and shamed by her eldest sister, Elizabeth, a woman of +coarse tastes and language, a confirmed gambler and cheat, whose +failings, which she tried in vain to conceal, brought shame on the +Duchess. + +The fate of Elizabeth--one of the "three beautiful Luttrells"--is among +the most tragic stories of the British Peerage. When her Duchess-sister +died she drifted into low companionships, was imprisoned for debt, and +actually bribed a hairdresser to marry her, in order to recover her +liberty. On the Continent, to which she escaped, she fell to still lower +depths--was arrested for pocket-picking, and for a time cleaned the +streets of Augsburg chained to a wheelbarrow, until a dose of poison set +her free from her fetters. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE GORGEOUS COUNTESS + + +If, a century ago, Edmund Power, of Knockbrit, in County Tipperary, had +been told that his second daughter, Marguerite, would one day blossom +into a Countess, and live in history as one of the "most gorgeous" +figures in the fashionable world of London under three kings, he would +certainly have considered his prophetic informant an escaped lunatic, +and would probably have told him so, with the brutal frankness which was +one of his most amiable characteristics. + +The Irish squire was a proud man--proud of his pretty and shiftless +wife, with her eternal talk of her Desmond ancestors; proud of two of +his three daughters, whose budding beauty was to win for them titled +husbands--one an English Viscount, the other a Comte de St Marsante; and +proudest of all of his own handsome figure and his local dignities. But +he was frankly ashamed to own himself father of his second daughter, +Marguerite, the "ugly duckling" of a good-looking family, and with no +gifts or promise to qualify her plainness. + +But the squireen was probably too full of his own self-importance to +waste much thought or regret on an insignificant, unattractive girl, +though she was his own child. He loved to strut about among his humble +neighbours in all the unprovincial glory of ruffles and lace, buck-skins +and top-boots, and snowy, wide-spreading cravat. He was the king of +Tipperary dandies, known far beyond his own county as "Buck Power" and +"Shiver-the-Frills"; and what pleased his vanity still more, he was a +Justice of the Peace, with authority to scour the country at the head of +a company of dragoons, tracking down rebels and spreading terror +wherever he went. That he was laughed at for his coxcombry and hated for +his petty tyranny only seemed to add to the zest of his enjoyment of +life; and he saw, at least, a knighthood as the prospective recognition +of his importance, and his services to the King and the peace. + +Such was the father and such the home of Marguerite Power, who was one +day to dazzle the world as the "most gorgeous Lady Blessington." + +As with many another "ugly ducking" Marguerite Power's beauty was only +dormant in these days of childhood; and before she had graduated into +long frocks, the bud was opening which was to grow to so beautiful a +flower. If her father was blind to the change, it was patent enough to +other eyes; and she had scarcely passed her fourteenth birthday when she +had at least two lovers eager to pay homage to her girlish +charm--Captains Murray and Farmer, brother-officers of a regiment +stationed at Clonmel. To the wooing of Captain Murray, young, handsome, +and desperately in earnest, she lent a willing ear; but when thus +encouraged, he asked her to be his wife, she blushingly declined the +offer, on the ground that she was yet much too young to think of a +wedding-ring. To the rival Captain, old enough to be her father, a man, +moreover, whose evil living and Satanic temper were notorious, she +showed the utmost aversion. "I hate him," she protested in tears to her +father, who supported his suit; "and I would rather die a hundred times +than marry him." + +But "Beau Power" was the last man to be moved from his purpose by a +child's tears or pleadings. Captain Farmer was a man of wealth and good +family, and also one of his own boon companions. And thus, tearful, +indignant, protesting to the last, the girl was led to the altar, by the +biggest scoundrel in Tipperary--a "maiden tribute" to a lover's lust and +a father's ambition. + +[Illustration: MARGUERITE, COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON] + +The child's fears were more than realised in the wedded life that +followed. Before the honeymoon had waned, the Captain began to treat his +young wife with all the brutality of which he was such a past-master. +Blows and oaths were her daily lot; and when his cruelty wrung tears +from her, her husband would lock her in her room, and leave her for +days, without fire or food, until she condescended to beg for mercy. + +After three months of this inferno the Captain was ordered to a distant +station; and, as his wife refused point-blank to accompany him, was by +no means reluctant to "be rid of the brat" by sending her back to her +home. Here, however, the child-wife found herself less welcome than, and +almost as unhappy as in her wedded life; and, driven to despair, she +left the home in which she had been cradled, and fared forth alone into +the world, which could not be more unkind than those whose duty it was +to shield and care for her. + +How, or where, Beau Power's daughter lived during the next twelve years +must always remain largely a mystery. At one time she appears in Dublin; +at another, in Cahir; but mostly she seems to have spent her time in +England. Over this part of her adventurous life a curtain is drawn; +though some have endeavoured to raise it, and have professed to discover +scandalous doings for which there seems to be no vestige of authority. +We know that, by the time she was twenty, Sir Thomas Lawrence was so +struck by her beauty that he immortalised it on canvas; but it is only +in 1816 that the curtain is actually raised, and we find her living with +her brother in London, where, to quote her sister, + + "she received at her house only those whose age and + character rendered them safe friends, and a very few + others, on whose perfect respect and consideration she + could wholly rely. Among the latter was the Earl of + Blessington, then a widower." + +Whatever may have been her life during this obscure period, when her +charms were maturing into such exquisite beauty, it is thus certain that +at its close she was moving in a good circle, and was as irreproachable +as she was lovely. Of her rascally husband she had happily seen nothing +during all those years of more or less lonely adventure; and the end of +this tragic union was now near. One day in October 1817, the Captain +ended his misspent days in tragedy. He had drifted through dissipation +and crime to the King's Bench prison; and in a fit of frenzy--or, as +some say, in a drunken quarrel--had flung himself to his death through a +window of his gaol. + +Thus, at last, the nightmare that had clouded the young life of the +squireen's daughter was over, and she was free to plan her future as she +would. What this future was to be was soon placed beyond doubt. The +widowed Earl of Blessington had long been among the most ardent admirers +of the lovely Irishwoman; and before Farmer had been many months in his +prison-grave, he had won her consent to be his Countess. The "ugly +duckling" had reached a coronet through such trials and vicissitudes as +happily seldom fall to the lot of woman; and her future was to be as +radiant as her past had been ignoble and obscure. + +Seldom has a woman cradled in comparative poverty made such a splendid +alliance. Lord Blessington was a veritable Croesus among Irish +landlords, with a rent-roll of £30,000 a year; allied, it is true, to an +extravagance more than commensurate with his revenue. He had a passion +for all things theatrical, and an almost barbaric taste in the gorgeous +furnishings with which he loved to surround himself; and this taste his +wife seems to have shared. + +When the Earl took his bride to his ancestral home, Mountjoy Forest, she +revelled in her boudoir, with its hangings of "crimson Genoa +silk-velvet, trimmed with gold bullion fringe; and all the furniture of +equal richness." But she had had enough of Irish life in the days of her +childhood, and soon sighed to return to London and to a wider sphere for +her beauty and her social ambition; and before she had been a bride six +months we find her installed in St James's Square, drawing to her +_salon_ all the greatest and most famous in the land, and moving among +her courtiers with the dignity and graciousness of a Queen. + +Royal Dukes kissed her hand; statesman basked in her smile; Moore sang +his sweetest songs for her delight; and all the arts and sciences +worshipped at her shrine, and raved about her beauty of face and graces +of mind. + +Sated at last with all this splendour and adulation, my Lady Blessington +yearned for more worlds to conquer; and so, one August day in 1822, she +and her lord set out on a triumphal progress through Europe, with a +retinue of attendants, and with luxurious equipages such as a king might +have been proud to boast. In France they added to their train Count +d'Orsay, who threw up his army-commission under the lure of the +Countess's beautiful eyes; and seldom has fair lady had so devoted and +charming a cavalier as this "Admirable Crichton" of Georgian days. + + "Count d'Orsay," says Charles James Mathews, the famous + comedian, who knew him well, "was the beau-ideal of manly + dignity and grace. He was the model of all that could be + conceived of noble demeanour and youthful candour; + handsome beyond all question; accomplished to the last + degree; highly educated, and of great literary + acquirements; with a gaiety of heart and cheerfulness of + mind that spread happiness on all around him. His + conversation was brilliant and engaging, as well as + instructive. He was, moreover, the best fencer, dancer, + swimmer, runner, dresser, the best shot, the best + horseman, the best draughtsman, of his age." + +Such was the Count, then a youth of nineteen, who thus entered Lady +Blessington's life, in which he was to play such an intimate part until +its tragic close. + +From France the regal progress continued to Italy, everywhere greeted +with wonder at its magnificence and admiration of my lady's beauty. Two +spring months in 1823 were passed at Genoa, where Lord Byron loved to +sit at the Countess's feet and pay homage to her with eye and tongue. +From Genoa the procession fared majestically to Rome, of which her +ladyship, in spite of the sensation she produced and the adulation she +received, soon wearied; she sighed for Naples, where she was regally +lodged in the Palazzo Belvidere, a Palace, as she declared, "fit for any +queen." And how the squire's daughter revelled in her new +pleasure-house, with its courtyard and plashing fountain, its arcade +and its colonnade, "supporting a terrace covered with flowers"; its +marvellous gardens, filled with the rarest trees, shrubs and plants; and +long gallery, "filled with pictures, statues, and bassi-relievi." + + "On the top of the gallery," she says, "is a terrace, at + the extreme end of which is a pavilion, with open arcades + and paved with marble. This pavilion commands a most + charming prospect of the bay, the foreground filled up by + gardens and vineyards. The odour of the flowers in the + grounds around the pavilion, and the Spanish jasmine and + tuberoses that cover the walls, render it one of the most + delicious retreats in the world. The walls of all the + rooms are literally covered with pictures; the + architraves of the doors of the principal rooms are + oriental alabaster and the rarest marbles; the tables and + consoles are composed of the same costly materials; and + the furniture bears the traces of its pristine + splendour." + +Such was the Arabian palace of all delights of which her gorgeous +ladyship now found herself mistress; and yet nothing would please her +indulgent lord but the spending of a few thousands in adding to its +splendours by new and costly furnishings. Here she spent two-and-a-half +years of ideal happiness, sailing by moonlight on the lovely bay, with +d'Orsay for companion; visiting all the sights, from Pompeii to the +galleries and museums, with a retinue of experts, such as Herschell and +Gell in her train, and entertaining with a queenly magnificence Italian +nobles and all the great ones of Europe who passed through Naples. + +From Naples Lady Blessington took her train to Florence, where she cast +her spell over Walter Savage Landor, who spent every possible hour in +her fascinating company; and where she was joined by her husband's +daughter, the Lady Harriet Gardiner, a girl of fifteen, who, within a +few weeks of reaching Italy, became the wife of my lady's handsome +protege, d'Orsay. And it was not until 1828, six years after leaving +London, that the stately procession turned its face homewards, halting +for a few months of farewell magnificence in Paris, where Lady +Blessington was installed in Marshal Ney's mansion, in an environment +even more gorgeous than the Palazzo Belvidere of Naples could boast, +thanks to the prodigality of her infatuated lord. + +The description which her Ladyship gives of her Paris palace reads, +indeed, like a passage from the "Arabian Nights." + + "The bed," she says, "which is silvered instead of gilt, + rests on the backs of two large silver swans, so + exquisitely sculptured that every feather is in + alto-relievo, and looks nearly as fleecy as those of a + living bird. The recess in which it is placed, is lined + with white fluted silk, bordered with blue embossed lace; + and from the columns that support the frieze of the + recess, pale blue silk curtains, lined with white, are + hung. A silvered sofa has been made to fit the side of + the room opposite the fireplace--pale blue carpets, + silver lamps, ornaments silvered to correspond." + +Her bath was of white marble; her _salle de bain_ was draped with white +muslin trimmed with lace, and its ceiling was beautiful with a painted +Flora scattering flowers and holding an elaborate lamp in the form of a +lotus. And all the rest of the equipment of this dream-palace was in +keeping with these splendours, from the carpets and curtains of crimson +to the gilt consoles, marble-topped _chiffonières_, and _fauteuils_ +"richly carved and gilt and covered with satin to correspond with the +curtains." + +This, although Lady Blessington little dreamt it, was to be the last +lavish evidence of her lord's devotion to his beautiful wife; for, +before they had been many months back in England the Earl died suddenly +in the prime of his days. Large as his fortune had been, the last few +years of extravagance had made such inroads in it that all that was left +of his £30,000 a year was an annual income of £600, which went to his +illegitimate son. Fortunately the Countess's jointure of £2,000 a year +was secure; and on this income Lady Blessington was able to face the +future with a heart as light as it could be after such a bereavement; +for, eccentric as her husband had been, and in some ways almost +contemptible, she had loved him dearly for the great and touching love +with which he had always surrounded her. + +It was during her early years of widowhood that her ladyship turned for +solace, and also for additional revenue to support the extravagance +which had now become second nature, to her pen, in which she quickly +found a small mine of welcome gold. Her "Books of Beauty" and "Gems of +Beauty" were an instantaneous success--they made a strong appeal to the +flowery sentiment of the time, and sold in tens of thousands of copies. +Her "Conversations with Byron," a record of those halcyon days at Genoa, +fed the curiosity which then invested the most romantic of poets with a +glamour which survives to our day; and her novels and gossipy books of +travel were hailed in succession by an eager public of readers. + +In these years of prolific literary labour she was able to double her +jointure, and to maintain much of the splendour to which she had become +so accustomed. Even her literary children were cradled in luxury on a +_fauteuil_ of yellow satin, in a library crowded with sumptuous couches +and ottomans, enamel tables and statutary. To her house in Seamore Place +her beauty and fame drew the most eminent men in England, from Lawrence +and Lyndhurst to Lytton and young Disraeli, gorgeous as his hostess, in +gold-flowered waistcoat, gold rings and chains, white stick with black +tassel, and his shower of ringlets. + +But the Seamore Place house proved too cabined and too modest for my +lady's exacting social ambition. She demanded a more spacious and +magnificent shrine for her beauty, which was still so remarkable that +she was considered the loveliest woman at the Court of George III. when +well advanced in the forties--and this she found at Gore House, in +Kensington, a stately mansion in which Wilberforce had made his home, +and which, surrounded by beautiful gardens and shut in with a girdle of +spreading trees, might have been in the heart of the country, instead of +within sight of the tide of fashion which flowed in Hyde Park. + +Here for thirteen years, with the handsome, gay, accomplished d'Orsay, +who had separated from his wife, as major-domo, she dispensed a princely +hospitality. Her dinners and her entertainments were admittedly the +finest in London; and invitations to them were as eagerly sought as +commands to a Court-ball. + +"At Gore House," said Brougham, "one is sure to meet some of the most +interesting people in England, and equally sure not to have a dull +moment." Brougham was himself a constant and a welcome guest, and the +men he met there ranged from Prince Louis Napoleon, then an exile +without a prospect of a crown, and the Duke of Wellington to Albert +Smith and Douglas Jerrold--so wide was the net of Lady Blessington's +hospitality. And all paid the same glowing tribute, not only to their +hostess's loveliness but to the warmth of heart, which was one of her +greatest charms. And of all the great ones who sat at her dinner-table +or thronged her drawing-rooms not one was wittier or more fascinating +than Count d'Orsay, who, in spite of envious and malicious tongues, +never occupied to the Countess any other relation than that of a +dearly-loved and devoted son. + +Although Lady Blessington's income rarely fell below £4,000 a year, it +was quite inadequate to her expenditure; and it was clear to her that +this era of splendid hospitality could not last for ever. A day of +reckoning was sure to come; and it came sooner than she had anticipated. +D'Orsay, who seems to have been even more careless of money than his +mother-in-law, plunged deeper and deeper in debt--some of it, at least, +incurred in helping to keep up the Gore House _ménage_--until he found +himself at last face to face with liabilities far exceeding £100,000, +and besieged with duns and bailiffs. Once he was arrested at the suit of +a bootmaker, and was rescued from prison by Lady Blessington's +rapidly-emptying purse. The climax came when a sheriff's officer +smuggled himself into Gore House, and brought down on d'Orsay's head an +avalanche of angry creditors, each resolute to have his "pound of +flesh." The Countess was powerless to stem the invasion; her own +resources were at an end, the Count himself was penniless. The only +safety was in flight; and one day Gore House was found empty. The birds +had flown to Paris; and the mansion which had been the scene of so much +magnificence was left to the mercy of a horde of clamorous creditors. + +A few weeks later, all "the costly and elegant effects of the Right +Honourable, the Countess of Blessington, retiring to the Continent" were +put up to auction; and twenty thousand curious people were pouring +through the rooms which her gorgeous ladyship had made so famous--among +them Thackeray, who was moved to tears at the spectacle of so much +goodness and greatness reduced to ruin. The sale, although many of the +effects brought absurdly low prices, realised £12,000--a smaller sum +probably than would be paid to-day for half-a-dozen of the Countess's +pictures. + +This crushing blow to her fortunes and her pride no doubt broke Lady +Blessington's heart; for within a few months of the last fall of the +auctioneer's hammer, she died suddenly in Paris, to the unspeakable +grief of d'Orsay, who declared to the Countess's physician, Madden, "She +was to me a mother! a dear, dear mother--a true, loving mother to me." +Three years later this "paragon of all the perfections" followed the +Countess behind the veil, and rests in a mausoleum, of his own +designing, at Chamboury, with one of the most lovely women who have ever +graced beauty with rare gifts of mind and with a warm and tender heart. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A QUEEN OF COQUETTES + + +The 29th of May in the year 1660 was indeed a red-letter day in the +calendar of jovial fox-hunting Squire Jennings, of Sandridge, in +Hertfordshire. It was the day on which his Royal idol, the second +Charles, set out from Canterbury on the last stage of the journey to his +crown. Mounted on his horse, caparisoned in purple and gold, at the head +of a gay cavalcade of retainers, he rode proudly through the Kentish +lanes and villages: through avenues of wildly-cheering crowds, flinging +sweet may-blossoms and flowers under his horse's feet, and waving green +boughs over their heads in a frenzy of welcome. + +[Illustration: SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH] + +And it was on this very day, as the "Merrie Monarch" was riding under +the flowery arches and fluttering pennons of London streets, to the +clanging of joy-bells and the thundering of cannon, with a procession +twenty thousand strong behind him, that Squire Jennings' daughter first +opened her eyes on the world in which, though her simple-minded father +little dreamt it, she was destined to play so brilliant a part. No +birthday could have been more auspicious than this which saw the +restoration of a nation's hope; and the sun which flooded it with +splendour was typical of the good fortune that was to gild the life-path +of the Sandridge baby. + +If on that day Squire Richard had been told that his baby-girl would +live to wear a Duchess's coronet and to be the bosom-friend and +counsellor of a Queen of England, he would have laughed aloud; and yet +Fate had this and more in waiting for Sarah Jennings in the years to +come. The Squire himself professed to be no more than a plain +country-gentleman, who knew as much as any man about horses and the +management of acres, but knew no more of courts and coronets than of the +man in the moon. + +His family, it is true, had been seated for generations on its broad +Hertfordshire lands, and his father had been dubbed a Knight of the Bath +when the Prince of Wales, later Charles I., himself received the +accolade. His mother, too, was a Thornhurst, of Agnes Court, Old Romney, +a family of old lineage and high respectability; but, apart from Sir +John, no Jennings had ever aspired even as high as a mere knighthood, +and certainly they were as far removed from coronets as from the North +Pole. + +Squire Jennings had another daughter, Frances, at this time a winsome +little maid of eight summers, already showing promise of a rare +loveliness. And she, too, was destined to a career, almost as brilliant +as, and more adventurous than that of her baby-sister. Her story opened +when one day she was transported, as maid-of-honour to the Duchess of +York, from the modest home in Hertfordshire to the glamour and +splendours of the Royal Court, where her beauty dazzled all eyes. + +The Duke of York himself lost his heart at sight of her, and turned on +her the battery of his sighs and smiles, his ogling and flattering +speeches. When she met his advances with coldness, he bombarded her with +notes "containing the tenderest expressions and most magnificent +promises," slipping them into her pocket or muff, as opportunity served; +but the disdainful beauty dropped the _billets-doux_ on the floor for +any one to read who chose to pick them up, until at last the Royal lover +was compelled to abandon the pursuit in despair. + +James's brother, the King, made violent love to her; and every Court +gallant, from the Duke of Buckingham to Henry Jermyn, the richest beau +in England, fluttered round her beauty like moths around a candle. How, +after many romantic vicissitudes, Frances Jennings gave her heart and +hand to Dick Talbot, the handsomest man in the British Isles; how she +raised him to a Dukedom, and, as Duchess of Tyrconnel, queened it as +Vicereine of Ireland; and how, in later life, she sank from this dizzy +pinnacle to such depths of poverty that for a time she was thankful to +sell tapes and ribbons in the New Exchange bazaar in the Strand, is one +of the most romantic stories in the annals of our Peerage. + +While Frances Jennings was coquetting with coronets and playing the +madcap at the Court of Whitehall, Sarah was growing to girlhood in her +rustic environment in Hertfordshire, more interested in her pony and her +toys than in all the baubles that made up the life of that very fine +lady her sister, and giving no thought to her beauty, to which each day +was adding its touch of grace. But she was not long to remain in such +innocence; for one day when she was still but a child of twelve her +sister came in a splendid Court carriage, and took her off to London, +where a very different life awaited her. + +She was not, it is true, to move like Frances in the splendid circle of +the Throne, though she was to be on its fringe and to catch many a +glimpse of it. Her more modest _rôle_ was to be playfellow and companion +of the Duke of York's younger daughter, Anne--a shy, backward child, a +few years younger than herself, who suffered from an affection of the +eyes, which practically closed books and the ordinary avenues of +education to her. + +To such a child cradled in a palace and hedged round by ceremonial, +Sarah Jennings, with the superabundant health and vitality of a +country-bred girl, was an ideal playmate; and before many days had +passed the timid, clinging Princess was the very slave of the vivacious, +romping, strong-willed daughter of the squire. Thus was begun that union +between the strong and the weak, which in later years was to make Sarah, +Duchess of Marlborough, virtual Queen of England, while her childish +playfellow, Anne, wore the crown. + +It was under such conditions that Sarah Jennings blossomed rapidly into +young womanhood--little less lovely than her ravishing sister, but +infinitely more dowered with strength of mind and character--an +imperious young lady, with the cleverest brain and tongue, and the most +inflexible will within the circle of the Court. + +While Sarah was playing with her Royal charge in the Palace nursery, +John Churchill, son of a West Country knight, whose life was to be so +closely linked with hers, had already climbed several rungs of the +ladder at the summit of which he was to find a Duke's coronet. He had +made his first appearance at Court while she was still in the cradle at +Sandridge; and although, no doubt, she had caught many a glimpse of the +handsome young courtier and favourite of the King, in her eyes he moved +in a world apart, as far removed by his splendid environment as by his +ten years' superiority in age. + +John Churchill was, at least, no better born than herself. He was son of +one Winston Churchill, of a stock of West Country gentry, who had flung +aside his cap and gown at Oxford to wield a sword for King Charles; and +who, when Cromwell took the fallen reins of government into his own +hands, was made to pay a heavy price for his loyalty by the forfeiture +of his lands and a fine of £4,000. When Charles I.'s son came to his +own, Winston's star shone again; his acres were restored, he was dubbed +a knight, and was rewarded with well-paid offices under the Crown. +Moreover, a place at Court, as page-boy, was found for his young son +John; and another, as maid-of-honour to the Duchess of York, for his +daughter Arabella. + +From the day young Churchill entered the service of James, Duke of York, +Fortune smiled her sweetest on him. The Duke was captivated by the boy's +handsome face, his intelligence and charming manners, and took him at +once into favour. By the time he was sixteen he was a full-blown officer +of the Guards, and the idol of the Court. His good looks, his graces of +person, and powers of fascinating wrought sad havoc in the breast of +many a Court-lady; and, boy though he was, there were few favours which +might not have been his without the asking. + +Even Barbara Villiers, my Lady Castlemaine, who had for many years been +the King's "light o' love," and had borne him three sons, all +Dukes-to-be, cast amorous eyes on the handsome young Guardsman; and, +what is more, succeeded where beauty failed, in drawing him within the +net of her coarse, middle-aged charms. Strange stories are told of the +love-making of this oddly-assorted pair, which had a ludicrous +conclusion. One day King Charles was informed that if he would take the +trouble to go to Lady Castlemaine's rooms he would be rewarded by a +singular spectacle--that of young Churchill dallying with his mistress +and the mother of his children. And so it proved; for when the King made +an unexpected appearance he was just in time to see the +lieutenant-Lothario disappearing through an open window and his +inamorata on the verge of hysterics on a sofa. + +One cannot blame the "Merrie Monarch" for deciding that such activities +were better fitted for another field of exercise. The young Lothario was +packed off to Tangier to cool his ardour by a little bloodshed; but +before he went Lady Castlemaine handed him a farewell present of £5,000 +with which, according to Lord Chesterfield, "he immediately bought an +annuity of £500 a year of my grandfather Halifax, which was the +foundation of his subsequent fortune." + +A young man so enterprising and so gifted by nature could scarcely fail +to go far, when his energies were directed into a suitable channel. He +proved that he could serve under the banner of Mars as gallantly as +under the pennon of Cupid. He did such doughty deeds against the Dutch, +under Monmouth, that he was made a Captain of Grenadiers. At the siege +of Nimeguen his reckless bravery won the unstinted praise of Turenne, +who, when one of his own officers cowardly abandoned an important +outpost, exclaimed, "I will bet a supper and a dozen of claret that my +handsome Englishman will recover the post with half the number of men +that the officer commanded who has lost it." And the "handsome +Englishman" promptly won the supper for the Marshal. Moreover, by an act +of splendid daring, during the siege of Maestricht he saved the Duke of +Monmouth's life; and returned to England a hero and a colonel, having +thoroughly purged his indiscretion in Lady Castlemaine's boudoir. If he +had toyed dangerously with the King's mistress, he had at least saved +the life of his Sovereign's best-loved son. + +It was at this time that Churchill seems to have first set eyes on Sarah +Jennings, now standing on the verge of womanhood, and as sweet a flower +as the Court garden of fair girls could show. He saw her moving with +queenly grace and dainty freshness among a crowd of the loveliest women +at a Royal ball, her proud well-poised head rising above them as a lily +towers over meaner flowers. And--such are the strange ways of love--from +that first glance he was fascinated by her as no other woman ever had +power to fascinate him. When he sought an introduction to her, the +bright spirit that shone in her eyes, her clever tongue, and her +graciousness quickly forged the chains which he was proud to wear to his +life's end. Seldom has a woman's spell worked such quick magic--never +has the love it gave birth to proved more loyal and enduring. + +But Sarah Jennings was no maid to be easily won by any man--even by a +lover so dowered with physical graces and so invested with the halo of +romance as John Churchill. She knew all about his heroism on +battlefields; she knew also of that little incident in a palace boudoir, +and of many another youthful peccadillo of the gallant young colonel. +She was no flower to be worn and flung aside; and she meant that Colonel +Churchill should know it. She could be gracious to him, as to any other +man; but she quickly made the limits of her indulgence clear. To all his +amorous advances she presented a smiling and inscrutable front; his +ardour was as unwelcome as it was premature. + +Had she designed to make a conquest of her martial lover she could not +have set to work more diplomatically. Colonel Churchill had basked for +years in woman's smiles, often unsought and undesired; to coldness and +indifference he was a stranger; but they only served, as becomes a +soldier, to make him more resolute on victory. As a subtle tongue and a +handsome person made no impression on this frigid beauty, he had +recourse to his pen (since his sword was useless for such a conquest) +and inundated her with letters, breathing undying devotion, and craving +for at least a smile or a look of kindness. + + "Show me," he writes, "that, at least, you are not quite + indifferent to me, and I swear that I will never love + anything but your dear self, which has made so sure a + conquest of me that, had I the will, I had not the power + ever to break my chains. Pray let me hear from you and + know if I shall be so happy as to see you to-night." + +But to all his protestations and appeals she returns no response. If she +is deaf to the pleadings of love she must, he determined, at least give +him her pity. He writes to tell her that he is "extreme ill with the +headache," and craves a word of sympathy, as a beggar craves a crust. He +vows, in his pain, + + "by all that is good I love you so well that I wish from + my soul that if you cannot love me, I may die, for life + could be to me one perpetual torment. If the Duchess," + he adds, "sees company I hope you will be there; but if + she does not, I beg you will then let me see you in your + chamber, if it be but for one hour. If you are not in the + drawing-room you must then send me word at what hour I + shall come." + +At last the iceberg thaws a little--though it is only to charge him with +unkindness! She assumes the _rôle_ of virtue; and, with a woman's +capriciousness, charges her lover with the coldness and neglect which +she herself has visited on him. + + "Your not writing to me," she says, "made me very uneasy, + for I was afraid it was want of kindness in you, which I + am sure I will never deserve by any action of mine." + +Was ever wayward woman so unjust? For weeks Churchill had been deluging +her with ardent letters, to which she had not deigned to answer one +word. Now she assumes an air of injured innocence, and accuses _him_ of +unkindness! She even promises to see him, but cannot resist the +temptation to qualify the concession with a gibe. + + "That would hinder you," she says, with delicious, if + cruel satire, "from seeing the play, which I fear would + be a great affliction to you, and increase the pain in + your head, which would be out of anybody's power to ease + until the next new play. Therefore, pray consider; and, + without any compliment to me, send me word if you can + come to me without any prejudice to your health." + +At any rate, the Sphinx had spoken and shown that she had some feeling, +if only that of pique and unreason; and the despairing lover was able to +take a little heart. After all, coquetry, even if carried to the verge +of cruelty, holds more promise than Arctic coldness. + +But the course of love, which could scarcely be said to have even begun, +was not to run at all smoothly. Sir Winston Churchill had set his heart +on his son marrying a gilded bride, and he had discovered the very woman +for his ambitious purpose--one Catherine Sedley, daughter of his old +friend Sir Charles Sedley, a lady, no longer quite young, angular and +unattractive, but heiress to much gold and many broad acres. And he lost +no time in impressing on his handsome boy the necessity of such an +alliance. Pretty maids-of-honour were all very well to practise +love-making on; but land and money-bags far outlast and outshine +penniless beauty. + +For a few undecided weeks the lure seemed to attract Churchill, coupled +though it was with the death of his romance. He dallied with the +temptation as far as the stage of marriage-settlements; and rumour had +it that the match was as good as made. Handsome Jack Churchill was to +marry an elderly and gilded spinster, and to mount on her money-bags to +greatness! + +No sooner had these rumours reached the ear of Sarah Jennings than she +flew into a towering rage. "Marry a shocking creature for money!" she +raved; "and this was what all his passionate protestations of love +amounted to!" Sitting down in her anger she poured out the vials of her +wrath on her treacherous swain, bidding him wed his gold. + + "As for seeing you," she wrote, "I am resolved I never + will in private or in public if I can help it; and, as + for the last, I fear it will be some time before I can + order so as to be out of your way of seeing me. But + surely you must confess that you have been the falsest + creature upon earth to me. I must own that I believe I + shall suffer a great deal of trouble; but I will bear it, + and give God thanks, though too late I see my error." + +Never had maid been so cruelly treated by man! After spurning Churchill +for months, returning nothing to his ardour and homage but a disdainful +shoulder or a gibe, the moment he dares to turn his eyes on any other +divinity she is the most outraged woman who ever staked happiness on a +man's constancy. But at least her anger served the purpose of bringing +Churchill back to his allegiance more promptly than smiles could have +done. He, who had never yielded a foot to an enemy on the field of +battle, quailed before the tornado of his lady's anger. He broke off the +negotiations for his marriage with Miss Sedley, who quickly found a +solace in the Duke of York's arms in spite of her lack of beauty, and +came back to the feet of his outraged lady on bended knees. + +But if she was coy and cold before, she was unapproachable now. In vain +did he vow that he had never ceased to love her more than life--that he +adored her even more now in her anger than in her indifference. + + "I vow to God," he wrote, "you do so entirely possess my + thoughts that I think of nothing else in this world but + your dear self. I do not, by all that is good, say this + that I think it will move you to pity me, for I do + despair of your love, but it is to let you see how unjust + you are, and that I must ever love you as long as I have + breath, do what you will. I do not expect in return that + you should either write or speak to me. I beg that you + will give me leave to do what I cannot help, which is to + adore you as long as I live; and in return I will study + how I may deserve, though not have, your love." + +Was ever lover more abject, or ever maid so hard of heart, at least in +seeming? To this pathetic effusion, which ought to have melted the heart +of, and at least wrung forgiveness from, a sphinx, she retorted that he +had merely written it to amuse himself, and to "make her think that he +had an affection for her when she was assured he had none." At last, +however, importunity tells its tale. She consents to see him; but warns +him that + + "if it be only to repeat those things which you have said + so often, I shall think you the worst of men and the most + ungrateful; and 'tis to no purpose to imagine that I will + be made ridiculous to the world." + +Still again she gave signs of thawing. To his next letter, in which he +wrote: + + "I do love and adore you with all my heart and soul, so + much that by all that is good, I do and ever will be + better pleased with your happiness than my own," + +she answered: + + "If it were sure that you have that passion for me which + you say you have, you would find out some way to make + yourself happy--it is in your power. Therefore press me + no more to see you, since it is what I cannot in honour + approve of; and if I have done so much, be as good as to + consider who was the cause of it." + +At last Churchill had received a crumb of real encouragement. Even the +veriest poltroon in love must take heart at such words as these--"you +would find out some way to make yourself happy--_it is in your power_." +And it was with a light step and buoyant heart that he went the +following day to the Duchess's drawing-room to pursue in person the +advantage her letter suggested. But the very moment he entered the room +by one door his capricious mistress left it by the other; and when, in +his anger at such cavalier treatment, he wrote to ask the meaning of it, +and if she did not think it impertinent, she left him in no doubt by +answering that she did it "that I may be freed from the trouble of ever +hearing from you more!" + +Once more Churchill, just as he had begun to hope again, was relegated +to the shades of despair. She refused to speak to him, she avoided him +in a manner so marked that it became the talk of the Court, and brought +her lover into ridicule. To such extremity was he reduced that he +actually wrote to her maid to beg her intercession. + + "Your mistress's usage to me is so barbarous that sure + she must be the worst woman in the world, or else she + would not be thus ill-natured. I have sent her a letter + which I desire you will give her. I do love her with all + my soul, but will not torment her; but if I cannot have + her love I shall despise her pity. For the sake of what + she has already done, let her read my letter and answer + it, and not use me thus like a footman." + +In her reply to this letter Sarah assumed again an air of wounded +innocence. She had done nothing, she declared, with tears in her pen, to +deserve what he had written to her; and since he evidently had such a +poor opinion of her she was angry that she had too good a one of him. + + "If I had as little love as yourself, I have been told + enough of you to make me hate you, and then I believe I + should have been more happy than I am like to be now. + However," she continued, "if you can be so well contented + never to see me, as I think you can by what you say, I + will believe you, though I have not other people." + +No wonder the poor man was driven to his wits' end by such varied and +contradictory moods. After avoiding him for weeks in the most marked and +merciless manner she charges him with "being content never to see her." +Although she had never uttered or penned a syllable of love in return +for his reams of passionate protestations, she taunts him with having +less love than herself! Was ever woman so hard to woo or to understand, +or lover so patient under so much provocation? + +She further accused him of laughing at her when he was "at the Duke's +side," to which he retorted "I was so far from that, that had it not +been for shame I could have cried." She even swore that it was he who +avoided _her_; and he proves to her that he had followed her elusive +shadow everywhere, and had even "made his chair follow him, because I +would see if there was any light in your chamber, but I saw none." + +But even this arch-coquette recognised that the most devoted lover's +forbearance has its bounds, and she was much too clever a woman to +strain them too far. When she had brought him to the verge of suicide by +her moods and vapours she saw that the time of surrender had come; and +when her lover's arm was at last around her waist and her head on his +shoulder, she vowed that she had never ceased to love him from the +first, and that she had never meant to be unkind! + +Thus it came to pass that one winter's day in 1677, at St James's +Palace, John Churchill led his bride to the altar, which proved the +portal to one of the happiest wedded lives that have ever fallen to the +lot of mortals. How little, at that crowning moment, Sarah Churchill +could have foreseen those distant days of the future, when she was left +to walk alone the last stage of life, in which she would read and +re-read, with tear-dimmed eyes, the faded letters which her coldness had +wrung from her lover in the flood-tide of his passion and his despair. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE ADVENTURES OF A VISCOUNT'S DAUGHTER + + +When the Hon. Mary King first opened her eyes in Cork County late in the +eighteenth century, her parents, who already had a "quiverful" of +offspring, could little have foreseen the tragic chapter in the family +annals in which this infant was to play the leading part. Had they done +so, they might almost have been pardoned for wishing that she might die +in her cradle, a blossom of innocence, before the blighting hand of Fate +could sully her. + +Her father, Robert, Viscount Kingsborough, was heir to the Earldom of +Kingston, and member of a family which had held its head high, and +preserved an untarnished 'scutcheon since its founder, Sir John King, +won Queen Elizabeth's favour by his zeal in suppressing the Irish +rebellion. All its men had been honourable, all its women pure; and it +was not until Mary King came on the scene that this fair repute was ever +in danger. + +Not that there was anything vicious in Lord Kingsborough's young +daughter. She was the victim of a weak nature and a lover as +unscrupulous as he was handsome and clever. She grew up in the +Mitchelstown nursery--one of a dozen brothers and sisters--a wholesome, +merry, mischievous girl, with no great pretensions to beauty, but with +the fresh charms, the dancing grey eyes, and brown hair (which, in its +luxuriant abundance, was her chief glory) of a daughter of Ireland. + +Among those whom her bright nature and winsome ways captivated was one +Henry Gerald Fitzgerald, the natural son of her mother's brother, and +thus her cousin by blood, if not by law. Fitzgerald, who was many years +Mary's senior--indeed, at the time this story really opens, he was a +married man--had been brought up by Lady Kingsborough as one of her +children. He had been the companion of Mary's elder brothers, and Mary's +"big playfellow" when she was still nursing her dolls. He was, moreover, +a young man of remarkable physical gifts--tall, of splendid figure, and +strikingly handsome. It is thus small wonder that the child made a hero +of him long before she had emerged from short frocks. When she grew into +young womanhood Fitzgerald's attentions to her grew still more marked. +He was her constant companion on walks and rides, her partner at +dances--in fact, her shadow everywhere, until even her unsuspecting +parents began to grow alarmed. + +One summer day in 1797, when the Kingsborough family were spending a few +weeks by the Thames-side, near Fitzgerald's home at Bishopsgate, the +blow fell. Miss King disappeared, leaving behind her a note to the +effect that she intended to drown herself in the Thames. Her family and +friends were distracted. The river was dragged, but no trace of the +missing girl was found. On the river bank, however, were discovered her +bonnet and shawl, mute witnesses to the fate that seemed to have +overtaken her. Her father alone refused to believe that his daughter had +ended her life tragically. He persisted in his search for her, and was +soon rewarded by a clue which threw a different and more ominous light +on her fate. + +From a postboy he learned that a young lady, answering exactly to the +description of his daughter, had been driven, in the company of a +handsome man, to London, where they had walked off arm in arm together. +In London they had vanished; and advertisements and placards offering +large rewards failed to discover a trace of them. Then it was that Lord +Kingsborough's suspicions fixed themselves firmly on Fitzgerald. He and +no other must have been the scoundrel who had done this dastardly +deed--a shameful return for all the kindness lavished on him by the +family of the girl he had abducted. + +When his lordship sought Fitzgerald out, and charged him with his +infamy, he was met with open surprise and honest indignation. So far +from being the guilty man, Fitzgerald avowed the utmost disgust at the +deed, and declared that he would know no rest until the girl had been +restored to her parents, and the miscreant properly punished. And from +this time no one appeared to be more zealous in the search for the +runaway than her abductor. + +For weeks all their efforts to trace the fugitive proved of no avail, +until one day a girl of the lower-classes called on Lady Kingsborough, +to whom she told the following strange tale. She was, she said, servant +at a boarding-house in Kennington, to which, some weeks earlier (in +fact, at the very time of the disappearance), a gentleman had brought a +young lady who answered to the advertised description of the missing +girl, especially in her profusion of beautiful hair, which fell below +the knees. The gentleman, she continued, often visited the girl. + +"It must be my daughter!" exclaimed Lady Kingsborough. "But who is the +gentleman? Pray describe him as fully as you can." "He is tall and +handsome----" began the girl. At that moment the door opened, and in +walked Fitzgerald himself. "Why," exclaimed the servant, as with +startled eyes she looked at the intruder, "that's the very gentleman who +visits the lady!" + +For once Fitzgerald's coolness deserted him. At the damning words he +turned and dashed out of the room, thus confirming the worst suspicions +against him. The rage and indignation of the injured family were +boundless. Such an outrage could only be wiped out with blood, and +within an hour Colonel King, elder brother of the wronged girl, called +on Fitzgerald, with Major Wood as second, struck him on the cheek, and +demanded a meeting on the following morning. + +The next day at dawn the duellists met near the Magazine in Hyde Park, +Colonel King bringing with him his second and a surgeon. Fitzgerald came +alone. He had been unable to find a friend to accompany him. Even the +surgeon, when requested, point blank refused to undertake the +dishonourable office of second to such a miscreant. The combatants were +placed ten yards apart, and, at the signal, two shots rang out. Neither +man was touched. Again and again shots were exchanged, and both men +remained uninjured. + +After the fourth ineffectual exchange Major Wood tried to make peace +between the duellists. But Colonel King turned a deaf ear alike to his +second and to Fitzgerald, to whom he said: "You are a ---- villain, and +I will not hear a word you have to offer!" Once more the duellists took +up their positions, three more shots were exchanged without the least +effect, and, as Fitzgerald's ammunition was now exhausted, the +combatants left the ground, after making another appointment for the +next day. The next day, however, both were placed temporarily under lock +and key, to prevent a further breach of the peace. + +Meanwhile, the unhappy girl had been rescued from the Kennington +lodging-house, and taken back to the family seat at Mitchelstown, where +at least she ought to be safe from further harm from the scoundrelly +Fitzgerald. The Kings, however, had not reckoned on the desperate, +vindictive nature of the man, who was now more resolute than ever to get +Mary into his power. + +Disguising himself, he journeyed to Cork, carrying the fight into the +enemy's camp. He took up his quarters at the Mitchelstown Inn to develop +his plans for a second abduction. But in his scheming Fitzgerald had +literally "bargained without his host," who chanced to be an old trusted +retainer of the King family, and who from the first was not a little +suspicious of the strange guest, who kept so mysteriously indoors all +day and walked abroad at night. + +No honest man would act in this secretive way, he thought. There had +been strange "goings-on" lately; and the least he could do was to +communicate his fears to Lord Kingsborough, in case his guest should be +"up to some mischief." His lordship, who was away from home, hurried +back to Mitchelstown, convinced, from the description, that the +suspected man was none other than Fitzgerald himself, and arrived at the +inn only to discover that the bird had already flown. + +Luckily, it was no difficult matter to trace the fugitive in the wilds +of County Cork. The postboy who had driven him was easily found, and +from him it was learnt that the stranger had been put down at the +Kilworth Hotel. There was no time to be lost. Jumping on to his horse, +Lord Kingsborough accompanied by his son, the Colonel, raced as fast as +spurs and whip could take him to Kilworth, and demanded to see the +newly-arrived guest at the hotel. A waiter, despatched to the guest's +room, returned with the announcement that his door was locked, and that +he refused to see any one. But the pursuers had heard and recognised the +voice through the closed door. It was Fitzgerald himself. + +Bursting with rage and indignation, father and son rushed up the stairs +and demanded that Fitzgerald should come out. When he refused with +oaths, they broke in the door--and found themselves face to face with a +brace of pistols. Before they could be used, however, Colonel King, +stooping suddenly, made a dash at Fitzgerald, closed with him, and was +at once engaged in a life and death struggle. Backward and forward the +combatants swayed, straining every muscle to bring their pistols into +play for the fatal shot. By an almost superhuman effort, Fitzgerald at +last wrested his right arm free. His pistol was pointed at the Colonel's +head. But before he could press the trigger, a shot rang out, and he +fell back dead, shot through the heart. Lord Kingsborough had killed his +daughter's betrayer to save his son's life. + +The news of the tragedy flew throughout the country, in all the +distorted forms that such news assumes on passing from mouth to mouth. +But wherever it travelled--from the shebeens of Connemara to the +coffee-houses of Cheapside--it carried with it a wave of compassion for +the assassin and execration for his victim. As for Lord Kingsborough, he +confessed to a friend: "God knows, I don't know how I did it; but I wish +it had been done by some other hand than mine!" + +As was inevitable, the Viscount and his son were arrested on a charge of +murder. Colonel King was tried at the Cork Assizes, and acquitted to a +salvo of deafening cheers, as there was no prosecution. For Lord +Kingsborough a different escape was reserved. Before he could be +brought to trial at Cork, his father, the Earl of Kingston, died, and +the Viscount became an Earl, with all the privileges of his +rank--including that of trial by his Peers. + +In May 1798, a month after his son's acquittal, Lord Kingston's trial +took place in the House of Lords, with all the state and ceremony +appropriate to this exalted tribunal. Preceded by the Masters in +Chancery, the judges in scarlet and ermine, by the minor lords and a +small army of eldest sons, the Peers filed in long and stately +procession into the House, followed by the Lord High Steward, the Earl +of Clare, walking alone in solitary dignity. + +Then began the trial, with all its quaint and dignified ceremonial; and +Robert, Earl of Kingston, pleaded "Not Guilty," and claimed to be tried +"by God and my Peers." But the trial, which drew thousands to +Westminster, was of short duration. To the demand that "all manner of +persons who will give evidence against the accused should come forth," +no response was given. Not a solitary witness for the Crown appeared. +One by one the Peers pronounced their verdict, "Not Guilty, upon my +honour"; the Lord Steward broke his white staff; and amid a crowd of +congratulating friends, the Earl walked out a free man. + +And what was the fate of Mary King, the cause, however innocent, of all +this tragedy? For her own sake, and for obvious reasons, it was +important that she should disappear for a time until the scandal had +subsided; and with this object she was sent, under an assumed name, to +join the family of a Welsh clergyman, not one of whom knew anything of +her story. Here, secluded from the world, and in a happy environment, +she soon recovered her old health and gaiety. She was young; and youth +is quick to find healing and forgetfulness. In the Welsh parsonage she +made herself beloved by her amiability and admired for her gifts of +mind. + +Among the latter was a talent for story-telling, with which she beguiled +many a long, winter evening. On one such evening she told the story of +her late tragic experiences, disguising it only by giving fictitious +names to the characters. And she told the story with such power and +pathos that, at its conclusion, her auditors were reduced to tears for +the maiden and execrations for her betrayer. + +Carried away by the excitement of the moment and the effect she had +produced, she exclaimed: "I, myself, am the person for whom you express +such sorrow." Then, horrified by her indiscretion, she added: "And now, +I suppose, you will drive me from your home." But such was not to be +Mary King's fate. The clergyman, who was a widower, had already almost +lost his heart to her charms; and her sufferings made his conquest +complete. A few weeks later the bells rang merrily out when Mary King +became the wife of her kindly host; and for many a long year there was +no one more beloved or happy in all Wales than the parson's wife, who +had thus romantically come through the storm into a haven of peace. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ELOPEMENT + + +In the latter days of Queen Elizabeth there was no merchant in England +better known or held in higher repute than Sir John Spencer, the +Rothschild or Rockefeller of his day, whose shrewdness and industry had +raised him to the Chief Magistrateship of the City of London. + +From the day on which John Spencer fared from his country home to London +in quest of gold, Fortune seems to have smiled sweetly and consistently +on him. All his capital was robust health and a determination to +succeed; and so profitably did he turn it to account that within a few +years of emerging from his 'prentice days he was a master of men, with a +business of his own, and striding manfully towards his goal of wealth. +Everything he touched seemed to "turn to gold"; before he had reached +middle-age he was known far beyond the city-walls as "Rich Spencer"; and +by the time his Lord Mayoralty drew near he was able to instal himself +in a splendour more befitting a Prince than a citizen, in Crosby Hall, +which a century earlier Stow had described as "very large and +beautiful, and the highest at that time in London." + +Indeed, Crosby Hall, ever since the worthy alderman, whose name it bore, +had raised its walls late in the fifteenth century, had been the most +stately mansion in the city, and had had a succession of famous tenants. +When Sir John Crosby left it for his splendid tomb in the Church of St +Helen's, it was for a time the palace of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in +which, to quote Sir Thomas More, "he lodged himself, and little by +little all folks drew unto him, so that the Protector's Court was +crowded and King Henry's left desolate"; and it was in one of its +magnificent rooms that Richard was offered, and was pleased to accept, +the Crown of England. + +Shakespeare, who lived in St Helen's in 1598, knew Crosby Hall well, and +has immortalised it in "Richard III."; Queen Elizabeth was feasted more +than once within its hospitable walls, and trod more than one measure +there with Raleigh. For seven years it was the home of Sir Thomas More +when he was Treasurer of the Exchequer; and, to his friend and successor +as tenant, More sent that affecting farewell letter, written in the +Tower with a piece of charcoal, the night before his execution. Such was +the historic and splendid home in which "Rich Spencer" dispensed +hospitality as Lord Mayor of London in the year 1594. + +Not content with the lordliest mansion in London Sir John must also have +his house in the country, to which he could repair for periods of +leisure and rest from his money-making; and this he found in Canonbury +Tower, which he purchased, together with the manor, from Lord Wentworth. +It is said that Sir John had a bargain in his purchase; but, in the +event, he narrowly escaped paying for it with his life. It seems that +the news of "Rich Spencer's" wealth had travelled as far as the +Continent, and there tempted the cupidity of a notorious Dunkirk pirate, +who conceived the bold idea of kidnapping the merchant and holding him +to a heavy ransom. How the attempt was made, and how providentially it +failed is told by Papillon. + + "Rich men," says this chronicler, "are commonly the prey + of thieves; for where store of gold and silver is, there + spirits never leave haunting, for wheresoever the carcass + is, there will eagles be gathered together. In Queen + Elizabeth's days, a pirate of Dunkirk laid a plot with + twelve of his mates to carry away Sir John Spencer, + which, if he had done, £50,000 ransom had not redeemed + him. He came over the sea in a shallop with twelve + musketeers, and in the night came into Barking Creek, and + left the shallop in the custody of six of his men; and + with the other six came as far as Islington, and there + hid themselves in ditches near the path in which Sir John + came always to his house. But by the providence of God--I + have this from a private record--Sir John, upon some + extraordinary occasion, was forced to stay in London that + night; otherwise they had taken him away; and they, + fearing they should be discovered, in the night-time came + to their shallop, and so came safe to Dunkirk again. + This," adds Papillon, "was a desperate attempt." + +But proud as Sir John Spencer was of his money-bags, he was prouder +still of his only child, Elizabeth, heiress to his vast wealth, who, as +she grew to womanhood, developed a beauty of face and figure and graces +of mind which pleased the merchant more than all his gold. So fair was +she that Queen Elizabeth, on one of her many progressions through the +city, attracted by her sparkling eyes and beautiful face at a Cheapside +window, stopped her carriage, summoned her to her presence, and, patting +her blushing cheeks, vowed that she had "the sweetest face I have seen +in my City of London." + +That a maiden so dowered with charms and riches should have an army of +suitors in her train was inevitable. A lovely wife who would one day +inherit nearly a million of money was surely the most covetable prize in +England; and, it is said, the bewitching heiress had more than one +coronet laid at her feet before she had well left her school-books. But +to all these offers, dazzling enough to a merchant's daughter, Elizabeth +turned a deaf, if dainty ear. "It is not me they want," she would +laughingly say, "but my father's money. I shall live and die, like the +good Queen, my namesake, a maid." + +And so has many another much-sought maiden said in the pride of an +untouched heart; but to them as to her the "Prince Charming," before +whom all her defences crumble, comes at last. In Elizabeth Spencer's +case, the conquering prince was William, second Lord Compton, one of the +handsomest, most accomplished and fascinating young men in London. In +person, as in position, he was alike unimpeachable--an ideal suitor to +win even the richest heiress in England; and it is little wonder that +the heart of the tradesman's daughter began to flutter, and her pretty +cheeks to flame when this gallant, whose conquests at the Royal Court +itself were notorious, began to pay marked homage to her charms. + +That his reputation in the field of love was none of the best, that he +was as prodigal as he was poor, mattered little to her--probably such +defects made him all the more romantic in her eyes, and his attentions +all the more welcome. To Sir John, however, who was even more jealous of +his treasure than of all his gold, the young lord's reputation and, +above all, his poverty were fatal flaws in any would-be son-in-law of +his. As soon as he realised the danger he put every obstacle in the way +of his daughter's silly romance, even to the extent, it is said, of +locking her in her room, and closing his door in the face of her lover. +"If your reputation, my lord, were equal to your rank," he told him in +no ambiguous terms; "and if your fortune matched your family, I should +have naught to say against your suit. But as it is, I tell you frankly, +I would rather see my girl dead than wedded to such as you." + +To his daughter's tears and pleading he was equally obdurate. She might +ask anything else of him and he would grant it gladly, though it were +half his wealth; but he would be unworthy to be her father if he +encouraged such folly as this. But Spencer's daughter, when she found +conciliatory measures of no avail, proved that she had a will as strong +as her father's; she told him to his face that with or without his +sanction she meant to be my Lady Compton. "I will marry him," she +declared with flushed face and panting breast, "even if you make me a +beggar." "And that, madam," the defied and furious father retorted, "I +can promise you I will do; for not a shilling of mine shall Lord +Compton's wife ever have." + +For a time the artful Elizabeth feigned submission to Sir John's anger; +and he began to congratulate himself that this trouble at least, +whatever others might follow, was at an end. But how little he knew his +daughter, or her lover, the sequel proved. + +One day, a few weeks after Sir John's fierce ultimatum, a young baker, +carrying a large flat-topped basket, called at his house, from which he +soon emerged, touching his cap to the merchant as he passed him in the +garden, and giving him a respectful "good day." "A civil young man," Sir +John said to himself, as he continued his promenade; "his face seems +somehow familiar to me." And well might it be familiar; for the baker +who gave him such a civil greeting was none other than the scapegrace, +Compton; and inside the basket, which he carried so lightly, was the +merchant's only daughter and heiress, whom her lover had taken this +daring and unconventional way of abducting under the very nose of her +parent. + +It was not long before Sir John's disillusionment came. His daughter +was nowhere to be seen; and none of his domestics knew of her +whereabouts. Alarm gave place to suspicion, and suspicion to fury +against his child and against the young reprobate who, he felt sure, had +outwitted him. Messengers were despatched in all directions in chase of +the runaways; but the escapade had been much too cunningly planned to +fail in execution. Before Sir John set eyes on his daughter again--now +becomingly penitent--she had blossomed into the Baroness Compton, wife +of the last man her father would have desired to call his son-in-law. + +To "Rich Spencer" the blow was crushing, humiliating. It was bad enough +to be defied and outwitted, to be made a fool of by his own daughter; +but to know that the treasure he had lost had fallen into such +undesirable hands was bitter beyond words. His home and his heart were +alike desolate; and, in his despair and wrath, he vowed that he would +never own his daughter as his child, and that not one penny of his +should ever go into the Compton coffers. + +In this mood of sullen, unforgiving anger Sir John remained for a full +year; when to his surprise and delight he received a summons to attend, +at Whitehall, on the Queen, whose graciousness during his mayoralty he +remembered with pleasure and gratitude; and no man in England was +prouder or more pleased than he when, at the time appointed, he made his +bow to his Sovereign-Lady and kissed her hand. + +"I have summoned you, Sir John," Her Majesty said, "to ask a great +favour of you. I do not often stoop, as you know, to beg a favour of +any man; nor should I now, did I not know that I have no more dutiful +subject than yourself, and that to ask of you is to receive. I am +interested in two young people who have had the misfortune to marry +against the wishes of the lady's father, and who have thus forfeited his +favour. And I wish you to give me and the youthful couple pleasure by +taking his place and standing sponsor to their first child." + +To such a request made by his Sovereign Sir John could but give a +delighted consent. He would do much more than this, he vowed, to give +her a moment's gratification; and he not only attended the baptismal +ceremony, but on the suggestion of the Queen, who was also present, +allowed the child to bear his own Christian name. "More than this, your +Majesty," he declared, "as I have now no child of my own, I will gladly +adopt this infant as my heir." + +"Your goodness of heart, Sir John," Her Majesty answered, beaming with +pleasure, "shall not go unrewarded; for the child you have now taken to +your heart and made inheritor of your wealth is indeed of your own flesh +and blood--the first-born son of your daughter, and my friend, Elizabeth +Compton." + +Such was the dramatic plight into which "Rich Spencer's" loyalty and +generosity had led him. He had innocently pledged himself to adopt as +his heir, the son of the daughter he had disowned for ever. "And now, +Sir John," continued the Queen, "that you have conceded so much to make +me happy, will you not go one step farther and take your wilful and +penitent daughter to your heart again?" What could the poor merchant do +in such a predicament, when his Sovereign stooped to beg as a favour +what his lonely heart yearned to grant? Before he was many minutes older +he was clasping his child to his breast; and was even shaking hands with +her graceless husband. + + * * * * * + +When, full of years, Sir John died in 1609, his obsequies were worthy of +his wealth and fame. He was followed to his grave in St Helen's Church +by a thousand mourners, clad in black gowns; and three hundred and +twenty poor men, we are told, "had each a basket given them, containing +a black gown, four pounds of beef, two loaves of bread, a little bottle +of wine, a candlestick, a pound of candles, two saucers, two spoons, a +black pudding, a pair of gloves, a dozen points, two red herrings, four +white herrings, six sprats and two eggs"--a quaint and lavish symbol of +his charity when alive. + +So enormous was the fortune he left, that it is said Lord Compton, on +hearing its amount (£800,000) "became distracted, and so continued for a +considerable length of time, either through the vehement apprehension of +joy for such a plentiful succession, or of carefulness how to take up +and dispense of it." + +That my Lady Compton, who a few years after her father's death blossomed +into a Countess, proved a devoted and dutiful wife to her lord there is +no reason to doubt; but that she had an adequate idea of her own +importance and a determination to have her share of her father's +money-bags is shown by the following letter, which is sufficiently +remarkable to bear quotation in full. + + "My sweet life,--Now that I have declared to you my mind + for the settling of your estate, I suppose that it were + best for me to bethink what allowance were best for me; + for, considering what care I have ever had of your + estate, and how respectfully I dealt with those which + both by the laws of God, nature, and civil policy, wit, + religion, government, and honesty, you, my dear, are + bound to, I pray and beseech you to grant to me, your + most kind and loving wife, the sum of one thousand pounds + per an., quarterly to be paid. + + "Also, I would, besides that allowance for my apparel, + have six hundred pounds added yearly for the performance + of charitable works; these I would not neither be + accountable for. Also, I will have three horses for my + own saddle, that none shall dare to lend or borrow; none + lend but I, none borrow but you. Also, I would have two + gentlewomen, lest one should be sick; also, believe that + it would be an indecent thing for a gentlewoman to stand + mumping alone, when God has blest their Lord and Lady + with a great estate. Also, when I ride hunting or + hawking, or travel from one house to another, I will have + them attending, so for each of those said women I must + have a horse. Also, I will have six or eight gentlemen, + and will have two coaches; one lined with velvet to + myself, with four very fair horses; and a coach for my + women lined with sweet cloth, orelaid with gold; the + other with scarlet, and laced with watchet lace and + silver, with four good horses. Also, I will have two + coachmen, one for myself, the other for my women. Also, + whenever I travel, I will be allowed not only carroches + and spare horses for me and my women, but such carriages + as shall be fitting for all, orderly, not pestering my + things with my women's, nor theirs with chambermaids, nor + theirs with washmaids. + + "Also, laundresses, when I travel; I will have them sent + away with the carriages to see all safe, and the + chambermaids shall go before with the grooms, that the + chambers may be ready, sweet, and clean. + + "Also, for that it is indecent for me to croud myself + with my gentleman-usher in my coach, I will have him have + a convenient horse to attend me either in city or + country; and I must have four footmen; and my desire is + that you will defray the charges for me. + + "And for myself, besides my yerely allowance, I would + have twenty gowns apparel, six of them excellent good + ones, eight of them for the country, and six others of + them excellent good ones. Also, I would have to put in my + purse two thousand and two hundred pounds, and so you to + pay my debts. Also, I would have eight thousand pounds to + buy me jewels, and six thousand pounds for a pearl chain. + + "Now seeing I have been, and am, so reasonable unto you, + I pray you to find my children apparel, and their + schooling, and all my servants, men and women, their + wages. + + "Also, I will have all my houses furnished, and all my + lodging-chambers to be suited with all such furniture as + is fit, as beds, stools, chairs, cushions, carpets, + silver warming-pans, cupboards of plate, fair hangings, + etc.; and so for my drawing-chambers in all houses, I + will have them delicately furnished with hangings, couch, + canopy, cushions, carpets, etc. + + "Also, my desire is that you would pay your debts, build + up Ashby House and purchase lands and lend no money (as + you love God) to the Lord Chamberlain, which would have + all, perhaps your life from you; remember his son, my + Lord Wildan, what entertainments he gave me when you were + at the Tilt-yard. If you were dead, he said, he would be + a husband, a father, a brother, and said he would marry + me. I protest I grieve to see the poor man have so little + wit and honesty to use his friend so vilely; also, he fed + me with untruths concerning the Charter-House; but that + is the least; he wished me much harm; you know how. God + keep you and me from him, and such as he is. + + "So now I have declared to you my mind, what I would + have, and what I would not have; I pray you, when you be + Earl, to allow a thousand pounds more than now I desire + and double allowance.--Your loving wife, ELIZABETH COMPTON." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +TRAGEDIES OF THE TURF + + +In the whole drama of the British Peerage there are few figures at once +so splendid in promise and opportunities, so pathetic in failure and so +tragic in their exit as that of the fourth and last Marquess of +Hastings. Seldom has man been born to a greater heritage; scarcely ever +has he flung away more prodigally the choicest gifts of fortune. + +When Henry Weysford Charles Plantagenet was born one July day in 1842 it +was a very fair world on which he opened his eyes, a world in which rank +and wealth and exceptional personal gifts should have ensured for him a +leading _rôle_. He was still in the cradle when his father, the second +lord, died; and he was barely nine years old when the death of his elder +brother made the school-boy a full-blown Marquess, the inheritor of vast +estates and a princely rent-roll. + +But Fate, which had showered such gifts on the young lord had, as so +often happens, marred them all by the curse of heredity. The taint of +gambling was in the boy's blood. His mother had won an unenviable +reputation throughout Europe by her passion for gambling; indeed there +were few gaming-tables in Europe at which the "jolly fast Marchioness" +was not a familiar and notorious figure. And his father, the Marquess, +was as devoted to horses and turf-gambling as his wife to her cards and +roulette. That the child of such parents should inherit their depraved +tastes is not to be marvelled at. And it was not long before they +manifested themselves in a dangerous form. + +While he was still an undergraduate at Oxford the young Marquess who, +from childhood, could not bear the sight of a book when there was a dog +or a horse to claim his attention, began that career on the turf which +was to be as tragic in its end as it was dazzling in its zenith. He +bought from a Mr Henry Padwick for £13,500 a horse called Kangaroo, +which was not worth the cost of his keep. What a fraudulent animal he +was is proved by the fact that he never won a penny for his purchaser, +and ended his career, as he ought to have begun it, between the shafts +of a hansom. + +But, so far from being disheartened by this initial experience, Lord +Hastings had barely thrown aside his cap and gown before he was owner of +half a hundred race-horses, with John Day as trainer; and was fully +embarked on his turf-career. From the very first year of his enlarged +venture success smiled on him. Ackworth won the Cambridgeshire for him, +in 1864; the Duke captured the Goodwood Cup two years later; and the +Earl carried off the Grand Prix de Paris. In the four years, 1864 to +1867 the Marquess won over £60,000 in stakes alone, while his winnings +in bets were larger still. So excellent a judge of a horse was he that +he only spoke the truth when he boasted, "I could easily make £30,000 a +year by backing other men's horses." Indeed on one race, Lecturer's +Cesarewitch, he cleared £75,000. Such was the brilliant start of a +racing-career which was to close so soon in failure and disgrace. + +In the world of the Turf the youthful Marquess was hailed as a new +deity. At Epsom, Newmarket, and a dozen other race-courses his +appearance created as much sensation as that of the Prince of Wales +himself; he was greeted everywhere with cheers and a salvo of doffed +hats; and the way in which he scattered his smiles and his bets was +regal in its prodigality. + + "As he canters on to the course," we are told, "he + slackens speed as he passes through the line of + carriages, from which come shrill, plaintive cries, 'Dear + Lord Hastings, do come here for one second,' and others + to like purpose. Conveniently deaf to the voice of the + charmers, he rides straight into the horseman's circle, + and takes up his position on the heavy-betting side. + 'They're laying odds on yours, my lord,' exclaims a + bookmaker. 'What odds?' blandly asks the owner. 'Well, my + lord, I'll take you six monkeys to four!' 'Put it down,' + is the brief response. 'And me, three hundred to two--and + me--and me!' clamour a score of pencillers, who come + clustering up. 'Done with you, and you, and you'--the + bets are booked as freely as offered. 'And now, my lord, + if you've a mind for a bit more, I'll take you + thirty-five hundred to two thousand.' 'And so you shall!' + is the cheery answer, as the backer expands under the + genial influence of the biggest bet of the day. Then, + with their seventies to forties, and seven ponies to + four, the smaller fry are duly enregistered, and the + Marquess wheels his hack, his escort gathers round him, + and away they dash." + +Such was the splendid, reckless fashion in which the Marquess would +fling about his wagers until he frequently stood to win or lose £50,000 +on a single race. If he had always kept his head under the intoxication +of this wild gambling he might perhaps have made another fortune equal +to that he had inherited. But his wagering was as erratic as himself, +and his gains were punctuated by heavy losses which began to make +inroads on even his enormous resources. + +The first crushing blow fell on that memorable day when Hermit struggled +through a blinding snowstorm first past the post in the Derby of 1867, +to the open-mouthed amazement of every looker on; for Mr Chaplin's colt +had been considered so hopeless that odds of forty to one were freely +laid against him. + +Hermit's sensational victory was the climax of a singular and romantic +story. Three years earlier Lady Florence Paget, daughter of the second +Marquess of Anglesey, had been the affianced bride of Mr Henry Chaplin, +who was passionately devoted to her, little dreaming that another had +stolen her heart from him. One day Lady Florence, with Mr Chaplin for +escort, drove to Messrs Swan & Edgar's, ostensibly on shopping bent; but +the shopping was merely a cloak to another and treacherous design. She +entered the shop, slipped out through the back entrance where Lord +Hastings was awaiting her, jumped into his cab, and was whirled away +while her _fiancé_ patiently and unsuspectingly awaited her return at +the opposite side of the building. + +When Mr Chaplin realised the dastardly trick that had been played on +him, he bore the blow to his pride and affection right bravely. No trace +of resentment was ever shown to the world; but he would have been less +than a man if he had not cherished thoughts of retaliation. His +opportunity came when Hermit was offered for sale by auction, and Lord +Hastings was among the keenest bidders for the son of Newminster and +Eclipse. At any cost Mr Chaplin determined to baffle his betrayer for +once--and he succeeded; for, when the Marquess stopped short at 950 +guineas, Mr Chaplin secured the colt by a further bid of 50 guineas. + +At the time he little realised--nor did he much care--what a bargain he +had got; for Hermit not only sired two Derby winners in Shotover and St +Blaise, before he died his sons and daughters had won among them +£300,000 in stake-money alone. Not much later came that ill-starred +Derby, which none who saw it can ever forget. Lord Hastings, angry at +having lost the horse to his rival, laid the long odds against Hermit +so recklessly that he stood to lose a large fortune by his success; and +Hermit's last few gallant strides cost him over £100,000. + +It was a staggering blow, under which the most stoical man with the +longest purse might well have reeled; but the Marquess met it with a +smile of indifference; and when, a few minutes later, he drove off the +course, with his friends, in a barouche and four to dine at Richmond, he +seemed the gayest of the company. A few days before his death, recalling +this tragic moment in his life, he said proudly, "Hermit fairly broke my +heart. But I didn't show it, did I?" + +That his smiling face must have masked a very heavy heart, it scarcely +needed his own confession to prove. Rich as he still was, the loss of +more than £100,000 was a very serious matter. Indeed we know that he was +only able to meet his liabilities by parting with his magnificent estate +of Loudoun in Scotland, which realised £300,000. When the doors of +Tattersall's opened on the morning of settling-day, the first to present +themselves were his agents, who handed over £103,000 in settlement of +all claims against the Marquess. Mr Chaplin had scored, and scored +heavily; but at least it should never be said that his defeated rival +had shrunk from paying the last ounce of the penalty the moment it was +due. + +When next his lordship appeared on a race-course--it was at Ascot, a few +months later--he was greeted with thunders of cheers from the +bookmakers, a tribute to his pluck and sportsmanship, which must have +taken away some of the sting of defeat. But fate which had dealt this +merciless blow to the Marquess was in no mood to spare him further +disaster. The second stroke fell within five months of the first--at the +Newmarket second October Meeting. The favourite for the Middle Park +Plate was Lord Hastings' filly, Elizabeth, whose chances he fancied so +much that he backed her heavily, confident that he would recover a great +part of his Derby losses. + +When Elizabeth, instead of running away from her rivals, passed the +winning-post a bad fifth, even his iron nerve failed him for once. He +uttered no word; but he grew pale as death, and staggered as if about to +fall. A moment later, however, he had pulled himself together and was +helping Lady Aylesbury to count her small losses. "Tell me how I stand," +asked her ladyship, as she placed her betting-book in his hand. The +Marquess made the necessary calculation; and with a smile of sympathy, +answered: "You have lost £23." And he, who could thus calmly calculate +so trifling a loss, was £50,000 poorer by his filly's failure to win the +Plate! + +He knew well that he was a ruined man--worse than this, unutterably +galling to his proud spirit--he knew that he was a disgraced man. His +vast fortune had crumbled away until he had not £50,000 in the world to +pay this last debt of honour. And yet he continued to smile in the face +of ruin, carrying through this crowning disaster the brave heart of an +English gentleman and a sportsman. + +He sold the last of his remaining acres, his hunters and hounds, and +all his personal belongings; and all the money he could raise from the +wreckage of his fortune was a pitiful £10,000. His last sovereign was +gone, and he was £40,000 in debt, without a hope of paying it. When he +next appeared on a race-course the very men who had cheered him to the +echo at Ascot greeted him with jeers and angry shouts at Epsom. The hero +of the Turf, the idol of the Ring, was that blackest of black sheep, a +defaulter! + +And not only was he thus branded as a defaulter. Strange stories were +being circulated to his further discredit as a sportsman. The running of +Lady Elizabeth in one race was, it was said, more than open to +suspicion. The Earl, who was considered a certainty for the Derby, was +unaccountably scratched on the very evening before the race, though the +Marquess stood to win £35,000 by her, and did not hedge the stake-money. + +The public indignation at these discreditable incidents found a vent in +the columns of the _Times_; and although Lord Hastings denied that there +was "one single circumstance mentioned as regards the two horses, +correctly stated," and offered a frank explanation in both cases, the +public refused to be appeased, and the stigma remained. + +So overwhelmed was he by this combination of assaults on his fortune and +his good name that his health--undermined no doubt by excesses--broke +down. He spent the summer months of 1868 in his yacht, cruising among +the northern seas in search of health; but no sea-breezes could bring +back colour to his cheeks or hope to his heart. He was a broken man +before he had reached his prime, and he realised that his sun was near +its setting. When he returned to England no one who saw him could doubt +that the end was at hand. But his ruling passion remained strong to the +last. He was advised by his friends to stay away from the Doncaster +races; but he would go, though he could only with difficulty hobble on +crutches. + +The last pathetic glimpse the world caught of this former idol of the +Turf was as, from a basket-carriage, with pale, haggard face and +straining eyes, he watched Athena, a beautiful mare which had once been +his, win a race. As she was being led to the weighing-house he struggled +from his carriage, hobbled on his crutches up to the beautiful animal, +and lovingly patted her glossy neck. + +Such was the last appearance of the ill-fated Marquess on a scene of his +former triumphs. For a few months longer he made a gallant fight for +life. He even contemplated another voyage, and a winter in Egypt; but, +almost before winter had set in, on the 11th November 1868, he gave up +the struggle and drew his last breath--"leaving neither heir to his +honours nor the smallest vestige of his ruined fortune; but leaving, in +spite of his final failure, the memory of a true sportsman, and of a +perfect gentleman who was no man's enemy but his own." + + * * * * * + +Before the Marquess of Hastings had mounted his first pony another +meteor of the Turf, equally dazzling, had flashed across the sky, and +been merged in a darkness even more tragic than his own. + + +Lord William George Frederick Cavendish Bentinck, commonly known and +loved as "Lord George," who was cradled at Welbeck in February 1802, was +the second son of the fourth Duke of Portland, a keen sportsman who won +the Derby of 1809 with Teresias. The boy thus had the love of sport in +his veins; and a passion for racing was the dominant note in his too +brief life from the day, in 1833, when he started a small stud of his +own, to that fatal day on which, piqued by his repeated failure to win +the coveted "blue riband," he sold every horse in his stables at a word, +and abandoned the Turf in despair. + + "Lord George Bentinck," wrote Thormanby, a few years ago, + "was the idol of the sportsmen of his own day. The + commanding personality of the man threw a spell over all + with whom he was brought into contact; they were + half-fascinated, half-awed--judgment and criticism + surrendered to admiration. There are still veterans left, + like old John Kent, who talk with bated breath of Lord + George as a superior being, a god-like man, a king of + men." + +From the day he joined the Army as a cornet of Hussars in 1819, to the +tragic close of his life, Lord George always cut a conspicuous and +brilliant figure in the world. He was the spoilt child of Fortune; and, +like all such spoilt children, was constantly getting into hot +water--and out of it again. As a subaltern, for instance, he showed such +little respect for his seniors that, one day on parade, a Captain Kerr +exclaimed aloud: "If you don't make this young gentleman behave himself, +Colonel, I will." Whereupon the insubordinate sub. retorted: "Captain +Kerr ventures to say on parade that which he dares not repeat off." + +Such was the youth and such the man--gay, debonair, and popular to the +highest degree, but always uncontrollable and reckless. As a sportsman +he was the chief of popular heroes, his appearance on a race-course +being the invariable signal for an ovation, such as the King might have +envied. And, indeed, his Turf transactions were all conducted on a scale +of truly regal magnificence. Though he was never by any means rich, he +often had as many as sixty horses in training, while his racing stud +numbered a hundred. He kept three stud farms going, and his +out-of-pocket expenses ran to £50,000 and more a year. To provide the +money for such prodigality he wagered enormous sums. For the Derby of +1843, for instance, he stood to win £150,000 on his horse Gaper, and +actually pocketed £30,000, though Gaper was not even placed. In 1845 his +net winnings on bets reached £100,000; and he thought nothing of staking +his entire year's private income on a single race. + +One by one all the great prizes of the Turf fell to him--some many +times--but the only prize he ever cared a brass farthing for, the Derby, +always eluded his grasp, though again and again it seemed a certainty. +So deep at last became his disgust and mortification at the unkindness +of Fate in withholding the only boon he coveted that, in a moment of +pique, he decided to sell his stud and leave the turf for ever. + +"I'll sell you the lot," he impulsively said to George Payne at +Goodwood, "from Bay Middleton to little Kitchener (his famous jockey), +for £100,000. Yes or no?" Payne offered him £300 to have a few hours to +think the offer over, and handed the sum over at breakfast the next +morning. No sooner had the forfeit been paid than Mr Mostyn, who was +sitting at the same table, looked up quietly and said: "I'll take the +lot, Bentinck, at £10,000, and will give you a cheque before you go on +the course." "If you please," was Lord George's placid answer; and thus +ended one of the most brilliant Turf careers on record. + +And now for the irony of Fate! Among the stud thus sold, in a fit of +pique, for "an old song" was Surplice, the winner of the next year's +Derby and St Leger. Lord George had actually had the great prize in his +hand and had let it go! + +How keenly he felt the blow may be gathered from the following passage +in Lord Beaconsfield's biography: + + "A few days before--it was the day after the Derby, May + 25, 1848--the writer met Lord George Bentinck in the + library of the House of Commons. He was standing before + the bookshelves with a volume in his hand, and his + countenance was greatly disturbed. His resolution in + favour of the Colonial interest, after all his labours, + had been negatived by the Committee on the 22nd; and on + the 24th, his horse, Surplice, whom he had parted with + among the rest of the stud, had won that paramount and + Olympic stake, to gain which had been the object of his + life. He had nothing to console him, and nothing to + sustain him, except his pride. Even that deserted him + before a heart, which he knew at least could yield him + sympathy. He gave a sort of superb groan. + + "'All my life I have been trying for this, and for what + have I sacrificed it?' he murmured. It was in vain to + offer solace. + + "'You do not know what the Derby is,' he moaned. + + "'Yes, I do; it is the Blue Riband of the Turf.' + + "'It is the Blue Riband of the Turf,' he slowly repeated + to himself; and, sitting down at a table, buried himself + in a folio of statistics." + +Just a few months later, on 21st September 1848, his body was found +lying, cold and stiff, in a meadow about a mile from Welbeck. That very +morning he had risen full of health and spirits, and at four o'clock in +the afternoon had set out to walk across country to Thoresby, Lord +Manvers' seat, where he was to spend a couple of days. He had sent on +his valet by road in advance; but the night fell, and Lord George never +made his appearance. A search with lanterns was instituted, and about +midnight his body was discovered lying face downwards close to one of +the deer-park gates. He had been dead for some hours. + +What was the cause of his mysterious death? The coroner's jury appear +to have found no difficulty in coming to a decision. Their verdict was, +"Died by the visitation of God--to wit, a spasm of the heart." Thus +vanished from the world one of its most brilliant and picturesque +ornaments, in the very prime of his life and his powers (he was only +forty-six), and when he seemed assured of a political future even more +dazzling than his Turf fame. + +But there were many, among the thousands who deplored the tragic eclipse +of such a promising life, who were by no means satisfied with the vague +verdict of the inquest. Lord George had always been a man of remarkable +vigour and health, and never more so than on the day of his death. Was +it at all likely that such a man would drop dead during a quiet and +unexciting stroll across country? Later years, however, have brought new +facts to light which suggest a very different explanation of this +tragedy. "The hand of God" it was, no doubt, which struck the fatal +blow--it always must be; but was there no other agency, and that a human +one? Could it not be the hand of a brother? Some have said it was; and +although the story is involved in obscurity and may be open to grave +doubt (indeed it has been more than once flatly contradicted) there can, +perhaps, be no harm in including it in this volume. This is the story as +it has been told. + +Though Lord George Bentinck was the handsomest man, and one of the most +eligible _partis_ of his day he never married; yet, no doubt, he had +many an "affair of the heart." But not one of all the high-born ladies, +who would have turned their backs on coronets to become "Lady George," +could in his eyes compare with Annie May Berkelay, a lovely and +penniless girl, who could not even boast a "respectable" parentage. + +Miss Berkeley was, so it is said, a child of that most romantic union +between the Earl of Berkeley and pretty Mary Cole, the butcher's +daughter. This girl he professed to have made his countess shortly after +in the parish church of Berkeley. That his lordship legally married his +low-born bride at Lambeth eleven years later is beyond doubt, but that +alleged first secret marriage was more than open to suspicion. There +seems little doubt that the entry the in Berkeley church register was a +forgery; and that, not until Mary Cole had borne several children to the +Earl, did she become legally his wife by the valid knot tied at Lambeth. +It was, in fact, decided by the House of Peers that the Berkeley +marriage was not proven, and thus seven of the children were +illegitimate. + +It was one of Lord Berkeley's children thus branded to the world who is +said to have won the heart and the homage of Lord George Bentinck. And +little wonder; for Annie May Berkeley had inherited more than her +mother's beauty of face and of figure, with the patrician air and +refinement which came from generations of noble ancestors. + +But handsome Lord George was only one of many wooers whom her charms had +enslaved. There were others equally ardent, if less favoured; and among +them none other than the Marquess of Titchfield, Lord George's elder +brother, and the future "eccentric Duke" of Portland, often referred to +as "The Wizard of Welbeck." The Marquess and his younger brother had +never been on the best of terms. They had little in common; and when +they found themselves rival suitors for the smiles of the same maiden +this incompatibility gave place to a bitter estrangement. + +It was not, however, until Lord George discovered that the Marquess was +more intimate with his ladylove than he should be, that their mutual +relations became strained to a dangerous degree. It is said that the +brothers quarrelled fiercely whenever they met, and that Lord George, +whose temper was violent, frequently struck his brother, who was no +physical match for him. One day, so the story goes, their constant +squabbles reached a climax. After a fiercer quarrel than usual Lord +George struck his brother and rival repeatedly, until the latter, roused +to fury, struck back and landed a heavy blow on his brother's chest, +over the heart. Lord George's heart was diseased, and the blow proved +fatal. + +This, then, is said to be the true explanation of the tragedy of that +September day in 1848; of that "spasm of the heart" which, according to +the verdict of the coroner's jury, was the cause of Lord George +Bentinck's death. If this story is true, much that has been so long +mysterious becomes clear. Lord George's sudden and tragic death is +explained; as also the fact that it was from this period that the Duke +of Portland's moroseness and shunning of the world became so marked as +to be scarcely distinguishable from insanity. If the death of a brother, +however provoked and accidental, had been on his conscience, what could +be more natural than that the fratricide should thus shut himself from +the world in sorrow and remorse? + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE WICKED BARON + + +The British Peerage, like most other human flocks, has had many black +sheep within its fold; but few of them have been blacker than Charles, +fifth Baron Mohun of Okehampton, who shocked the world by his violence +and licentiousness a couple of centuries ago. + +Charles Mohun had in his veins the blood of centuries of gallant men and +fair women, from Sir William de Mohun, who fought so bravely for the +Conqueror on the field of Hastings, to his father, the fourth Lord of +Okehampton, who took to wife a daughter of the first Earl of Anglesey, a +man who won fame in his day by his statesmanship and his pen. But there +was also in his veins a black strain which branded the Mohun 'scutcheon +with the stigma of eternal shame. + +From his early youth he exhibited an unbridled temper and a passion for +low pursuits. In an age when loose morals and violence were winked at, +he soon won an unenviable notoriety by his excesses in both. Wine and +women, gambling and duelling, were the breath of life to him, and in +each indulgence he was infamously supreme. He was twice arraigned for +murder, and in the prime of life he died a murderer. + +Such was the fifth Lord Mohun when our story opens, towards the close of +his shameless career; and in the first of the disgraceful episodes that +marked its close, as in so many others of his career, a beautiful woman +figures prominently--none other than the celebrated Mrs Bracegirdle, the +most fascinating actress of her day, whose witcheries made a lover of +every man who came under the spell of her charms. + +Her army of lovers ranged from Congreve and Rowe, who wrote inspired and +passionate plays for her, to the Dukes of Dorset and Devonshire and Lord +Lovelace (among a hundred other titled gallants), who were ready to shed +their last drop of blood in defence of her fair fame; though each sought +in vain to besmirch it in his own person. But her virtue was reputed to +be "as impregnable as the rock of Gibraltar." Dr Doran describes her as +"that Diana of the stage, before whom Congreve and Lord Lovelace, at the +head of a troop of bodkined fops, worshipped in vain"; although, with +all her unassailable propriety, she did not escape outspoken suspicions +of being Congreve's mistress all the time. + +Describing her charms, another chronicler says: + + "She was of a lovely height, with dark brown hair and + eyebrows, black sparkling eyes, and a fresh blushing + complexion; and, whenever she exerted herself, had an + involuntary flushing in her breast, neck, and face." + +Such, in the cold medium of print, was Mrs Bracegirdle when she became +the central figure of a great tragedy, the horrors of which have sent a +thrill down to our own time. + +Among Mrs Bracegirdle's many baffled wooers was Captain Richard Hill, a +boon companion of Charles, Lord Mohun, and a man of unrestrained +passion. To all the Captain's coarse advances the actress turned a +contemptuous shoulder, until in his rage he swore that at any cost she +should be his. There was, he was convinced, only one real obstacle to +the success of his suit, Jack Montford, the handsomest actor of his day, +to whom Mrs Bracegirdle was said to be very kind; and the furious +Captain vowed: "I am resolved to have the blood of Montford, and to +carry off his charmer by force if need be." + +Captain Hill made no concealment of his purpose. He mouthed his threats +aloud at his favourite tavern in Covent Garden and elsewhere; and he +found a willing helper in Lord Mohun, who was always ripe for any +dastardly scheme; and, with Mohun's help, he carefully prepared his +plans for both murder and abduction, for on both his heart was set. + +By lavish bribes the two conspirators engaged half a dozen soldiers to +assist in their scheme; they arranged that a coach with two horses, and +four others in reserve, should be in waiting at nine o'clock in Drury +Lane, close to the theatre at which Mrs Bracegirdle made her appearance +nightly; and, equipped with a formidable armoury of swords, daggers, and +pistols, they repaired at the appointed time to the scene of action. + +For a full hour they waited, watching with lynx eyes the door from +which the fair actress would emerge; but, as luck would have it, she was +not playing that night. She was, in fact, at the moment supping at the +house of a friend, Mrs Page, in Princes Street, close by; and they were +on the point of proceeding there when the lady made her appearance, with +her mother as companion and Mr Page and her brother for escort, on her +way home to her lodgings in Howard Street across the Strand. + +At sight of their fair prey two of the soldiers rushed forward, snatched +Mrs Bracegirdle from her mother's arm and dragged her, screaming and +resisting, towards the coach in which Lord Mohun was sitting by his +cases of pistols, and in which it was intended to carry her off to +Totteridge. When her escort rushed to her rescue, Hill struck at the old +lady with his sword; but the cries and sounds of scuffling attracted +such a crowd that a change of plans became necessary. + +With consummate cleverness the adroit Captain now took each of the +ladies by the arm and coolly conducted them himself out of the crowd to +their lodgings, Mohun and the soldiers following ignominiously behind. +Upon reaching Howard Street, the ladies safely indoors, the soldiers +were dismissed, and Mohun and his ally, with drawn swords, paced up and +down the street, vowing vengeance on the unhappy Montford, whom they +considered the cause of all their troubles, and who, sooner or later, +must pass through Howard Street on his way to his house in Norfolk +Street adjoining. + +For two long hours they kept their bloodthirsty vigil, feeding the +flames of hate with copious draughts of wine, which they procured from +a neighbouring tavern. The lady had escaped them, but they would at +least make sure of her lover, the handsome actor, who on the stroke of +midnight turned the corner into Howard Street. + +Montford had, it appears, already heard of the frustrated attempt to +carry off Mrs Bracegirdle, and that Mohun and Hill were keeping watch +outside her lodgings; so that he was not unprepared for an unpleasant +scene. Picture his amazement then when Lord Mohun advanced smilingly to +meet him, and embraced him with a great show of affection. "I am not +prepared for such cordiality," the actor said coldly, as he disengaged +himself from the unwelcome embrace. "I should prefer to learn how you +justify Captain Hill's abominable rudeness to a lady, or keeping company +with such a scoundrel." + +At this moment the Captain, inflamed with drink, strolled insolently up +to the pair, and, giving Montford a resounding box on the ear, +exclaimed, "Here I am to justify myself. Draw, fellow!" But before +Montford had time to recover from the blow and to unsheath his sword, +Hill ran him through the body. Without a groan the wounded man sank to +the ground. A cry of "Murder" arose; the watchmen rushed to the scene. +But before they arrived Hill had made his escape; while Mohun, who at +least had the courage of his race, submitted himself to arrest. His +first question to the watchmen was, "Has Hill escaped?" And when he was +assured that he had, he added: "I am glad of it! I should not care if I +were hanged for him." + +Such was the story which sent a thrill of horror through London on the +day following the tragedy, and which aroused a fury of anger against the +cowardly assassins; for not only was Jack Montford a popular idol who +had captured all hearts with his handsome face and figure, his clever +acting and his unaffected personal charm, but his wife, who had been +thus tragically widowed, was one of the most gifted and delightful women +who ever adorned the stage. + +It was thus inevitable that Lord Mohun's trial by his Peers, which was +opened on the 31st of January 1693, in Westminster Hall, and which was +invested with all the pomp and ceremonial befitting such an occasion, +should attract crowds of excited spectators, curious to see the +principal actors in this sensational drama, and burning to see justice +done to the noble instigator of the murder. The pent-up excitement +culminated when Mrs Bracegirdle, looking more beautiful than ever in +spite of her pallor and evidences of suffering, entered the witness-box; +and every word of the story she told was listened to in a silence that +was painful in its intensity. + +In answer to the Attorney-General's request that she should "give my +lord an account of the whole of your knowledge of the attempt that was +made upon you in Drury Lane, and what followed upon it," she said: + + "'My lord, I was in Prince's Street at supper at Mr + Page's, and at ten o'clock at night Mr Page went home + with me; and, coming down Drury Lane there stood a coach + by my Lord Craven's door, and the hood of the coach was + drawn, and a great many men stood by it. Just as I came + to the place where the coach stood, two soldiers came and + pushed me from Mr Page, and four or five men came up to + them, and they knocked my mother down almost, for my + mother and my brother were with me. + + "'My mother recovered and came and hung about my neck, so + that they could not get me into the coach, and Mr Page + went to call company to rescue me. Then Mr Hill came with + his drawn sword and struck at Mr Page and my mother; and + when they could not get me into the coach because company + came up, he said he would see me home, and he had me by + one hand and my mother by the other. And when we came + home he pulled Mr Page by the sleeve and said, "Sir, I + would speak with you."' + + "ATTORNEY-GENERAL:--'Pray, Mrs Bracegirdle, did you see + anybody in the coach when they pulled you to it?' + + "MRS BRACEGIRDLE:--'Yes, my Lord Mohun was in the coach; + and when they pulled me to the coach I saw my Lord Mohun + in it. As they led me along Drury Lane, my Lord Mohun + came out of the coach and followed us, and all the + soldiers followed them; but they were dismissed, and, as + I said, when we came to our lodgings, Mr Hill pulled Mr + Page by the sleeve and said he would speak with him. + Saith Mr Page, "Mr Hill, another time will do; to-morrow + will serve." With that, when I was within doors, Mr Page + was pulled into the house, and Mr Hill walked up and down + the street with his sword drawn. He had his sword drawn + when he came alone with me.' + + "ATTORNEY-GENERAL:--'Did you observe him to say anything + whilst he was with you?' + + "MRS BRACEGIRDLE:--'As I was going down the hill he said, + as he held me, that he would be revenged, but he did not + say on whom. When I was in the house several persons went + to the door, and afterwards Mrs Browne (my landlady), + went to the door, and spoke to them, and asked them what + they stayed and waited there for. At last they said they + stayed to be revenged of Mr Montford; and then Mrs Browne + came in to me and told me of it.' + + "ATTORNEY-GENERAL:--'Were my Lord Mohun and Mr Hill both + together when that was said, that they stayed to be + revenged of Mr Montford?' + + "MRS BRACEGIRDLE:--'Yes, they were. And when Mrs Browne + came in and told me, I sent my brother and my maid and + all the people we could out of the house to Mrs Montford + to desire her to send, if she knew where her husband was, + to tell him of it; and she did. And when they came + indoors again I went to the door, and the doors were + shut, and I listened to hear if they were there still; + and my Lord Mohun and Mr Hill were walking up and down + the street. By-and-bye the watch came up to them, and + when the watch came they said, "Gentlemen, why do you + walk with your swords drawn?" Says my Lord Mohun, "I am a + peer of England--touch me if you dare!" Then the watch + left them, and they went away; and a little after there + was a cry of "murder." And that is all I know, my lord.' + +When at the close of the case Lord Mohun was asked if he had anything to +say in his defence, he answered: + + "My lords, I hope it will be no disadvantage to me my not + summing up my evidence like a lawyer. I think I have + made it plainly appear that there never was any formal + quarrel or malice between Mr Montford and me. I have also + made appear the reason why we stayed so long in the + street, which was for Mr Hill to speak with Mrs + Bracegirdle and ask her pardon, and I stayed with him as + my friend. So plainly appeareth I had no hand in killing + Mr Montford, and upon the confidence of my own innocency + I surrendered myself to this honourable house, where I + know I shall have all the justice in the world." + +The trial, which lasted five days, resulted in a verdict of +acquittal--sixty-nine peers voting Lord Mohun "Not Guilty," and fourteen +finding him "Guilty." + +One would have thought that such a severe lesson and narrow escape would +have given Mohun pause in his career of vice and crime. On the contrary, +it seems merely to have whetted his appetite for similar adventures. He +plunged into still deeper dissipation; one mad revel succeeded another; +duel followed duel, all without provocation on any part but his own. He +killed in cold blood two more men who had innocently provoked his +enmity, "as if increase of appetite did grow by that it fed on," until +he rightly became the most dreaded and hated man in all England, a man +to whom a glance, a gesture, or a harmless word might mean death. + +But his evil days were drawing to their end; and appropriately he died +in a welter of innocent blood. When the Duke of Hamilton was appointed +Ambassador to the French Court, the Whigs were so alarmed by his known +partiality for the Pretender that the more unscrupulous of them decided +that, at any cost, he must be got rid of. What simpler plan could there +be than by provoking him to a duel; what fitter tool than the +fire-eating, bloodthirsty Mohun, the most skilled swordsman of his day? + +Mohun jumped at the vile suggestion, and lost no time in seeking the +Duke and insulting him in public. His Grace, however, who knew the man's +reputation only too well, treated the insult with the silence and +contempt it deserved; whereupon Mohun, roused to fury by this studied +slight, changed his _rôle_ to that of challenger. Thrice he sent his +second, one Major-General Macartney, almost as big a scoundrel as +himself, to the Duke's house in St James's Square; the fourth time a +meeting was arranged for the following morning at the Ring, in Hyde +Park, a favourite duelling-ground of the time. The intervening night +hours Mohun and his satellite spent in debauchery in a low house of +pleasure. + +In the cold, grey dawn of the following morning--the morning of 15th +November 1712--the principals and seconds appeared almost simultaneously +at the Ring--in the daytime the haunt of beauty and fashion, in the +early morning hours a desolate part of the Park--and the preliminaries +were quickly arranged. Turning to Macartney, the Duke said: "I am well +assured, sir, that all this is by your contrivance, and therefore you +shall have your share in the dance; my friend here, Colonel Hamilton, +will entertain you." "I wish for no better partner," Macartney replied; +"the Colonel may command me." + +A few moments later the double fight began with infinite fury. Swords +flashed and clattered; lunge and parry, parry and lunge followed in +lightning succession; the laboured breaths went up in gusts of steam on +the morning air. There was murder in two pairs of eyes, a resolve as +grim as death itself in the stern set faces of their opponents. Soon the +blood began to spurt and ooze from a dozen wounds; the Duke was wounded +in both legs; his adversary in the groin and arm. Faces, swords, the +very ground, became crimson. Colonel Hamilton had at last disarmed his +opponent, but the others fought on--gasping, reeling, lunging, feinting, +the strength ebbing with each thrust. + +At last each made a desperate lunge at the other; the Duke's sword +passed clean through his adversary up to the very hilt; Mohun, reeling +forward, with a last effort shortened his sword and plunged it deep into +the Duke's breast. Colonel Hamilton rushed to his friend and raised him +in his arms, when Macartney, snatching up his fallen sword, drove it +into the dying man's heart, then took to his heels and made his way as +fast as horse and boat could carry him to Holland. + +Before the Duke could be raised from the ground to which he had fallen, +he had drawn his last breath. A few moments later Mohun, too, succumbed +to his wounds--the "Dog Mohun," as Swift called him, lying in death but +a few yards from his victim. + + "I am infinitely concerned," Swift wrote the same day, + "for the poor Duke, who was an honest, good-natured man. + I loved him very well, and I think he loved me better." + +Thus, steeped in innocent blood, perished Charles Lord Mohun, who well +earned his unenviable title, "The wicked Baron." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A FAIR _INTRIGANTE_ + + +The face of a baby, the heart of a courtesan, and the brain of a +diplomatist. Such was Louise de Querouaille who, two centuries and a +half ago, came to England to barter her charms for a King's dishonour, +and, incidentally, to found a ducal house as a memorial to her +allurements and her shame. + +If she had been taken at her own estimate Louise was at least the equal +in lineage of any of the proud beauties whose claim she thus challenged +to Charles II.'s favour. She had behind her, she said, centuries of +noble ancestors, among the greatest in France; and she was kin, near or +remote, to every great name in the land of her birth. All, however, that +is known of this Queen of _intrigantes_ is that she had for father a +worthy, unassuming Breton merchant, who had made a sufficient fortune in +the wool-trade to take his ease, as a country gentleman, for the latter +part of his days, and whose only ambition was to bring up his son and +two daughters respectably, and to dispense a modest hospitality among +his neighbours. It was at Brest that Evelyn enjoyed this hospitality +for a brief period; and the diarist has nothing but what is good to say +of the retired tradesman. + +But the worthy merchant had his hands full with one at least of his two +daughters, who was developing dangerous fascinations, and with them a +precocious knowledge of how to turn them to account. He was thankful to +pack Louise off to a boarding-school, where she seems to have led her +teachers such a dance that it became necessary to place her in stronger +hands; and with this view the foolish father sent her to Paris, the last +place in the world for such a charming and designing minx, and to the +custody of a weak-willed aunt. + +Nothing could have suited Louise better than this change of arena for +the exercise of her wilfulness and witchery. Before she had been many +days in the French capital she was able to twist her aunt round her +little finger--indeed her power of captivating was, to the end of her +life, her chief dower--and to obtain all the freedom she wanted. And it +was not long before her allurements won the admiration of the dissolute +Duc de Beaufort, High Admiral of France, a man skilled in all the arts +of love. The girl's bourgeois head was completely turned by the +splendour of her first captive; and, to make him secure, she counted no +sacrifice too great. Not, indeed, that she ever regarded her virtue as +anything but the principal piece she intended to play on the chessboard +of life. + +For a few years Louise revelled in the new life which the amorous Duc +opened to her, and which only came to an end when the Admiral was +despatched, in command of a fleet, against the Turks, an expedition from +which he was fated never to return. Before he said good-bye, however, +Louise took care to make the next step on her ladder of world-conquest +secure. Through the Duc's influence she was appointed maid-of-honour to +Madame, sister-in-law to Louis XIV., and sister to the second Charles of +England, now restored to the throne of his fathers. + +We can well imagine that the wool merchant's daughter wasted no sighs on +the lover she had lost. She had now a much wider and more splendid field +at the Court of France, for the exploiting of her dangerous gifts and +the indulgence of her ambition. That the new maid had no lack of lovers +we may be sure; for though she was not richly dowered with beauty she +always seems to have had a magnetic power over the hearts of men. We +know, too, that she singled out for special favour, the Comte de Sault, +the handsomest noble in France, a man skilled above all his fellows in +the then moribund knightly exercises; and that her _liaison_ with the +Comte, in a court where such intimacies were the fashion, added to, +rather than detracted from, her social prestige. + +Such was the life of Louise de Querouaille up to the time when she made +her first acquaintance with the land in which she was destined to crown +her adventurous career, and to make herself at once the most dazzling +and the most hated figure in England. At this time Louis' designs on +Spain and Holland had received a rude check by the signing of an +alliance between England, Sweden, and the United Provinces; and it +became a matter of vital importance to detach England from a combination +so fatal to his schemes. With this object he decided to send Henrietta, +Duchess of Orleans, on a visit, ostensibly of affection, to her brother +Charles II., charged with a secret mission to induce him by every +artifice in her power to withdraw from the alliance. + +How Henrietta returned flushed with triumph from this iniquitous +embassy, after ten days of high revelry at Dover, is well-known history. +Charles, in response to his favourite sister's pleading and bribes, not +only consented to desert his allies, but, as soon as he decently could, +to follow in the steps of his brother, the Duke of York, to Rome; and in +return for these evidences of friendship, Louis was gracious enough to +promise him substantial aid and protection; and, further, to grant him a +subsidy of £1,000,000 a year if he would take up arms with France +against Holland. + +It is more to our purpose to know that among the gay galaxy of courtiers +who accompanied Madame to England was Louise de Querouaille, who thus +first set eyes on the King, in whose life-drama she was to play so +brilliant and baleful a _rôle_; and that before Charles, with streaming +eyes, said "good-bye" to his scheming sister, she had made excellent use +of her opportunities to enslave this English "King of Hearts." So much +at least was reported to Louis on the return of the embassy, when he +was assured by Madame that, of all the beautiful women in her train, the +only one to make any impression on her Royal brother was Louise de +Querouaille. + +This information, no doubt, was in Louis' mind when, later, it became +necessary to cement Charles's allegiance to his compact. Gold was always +a potent lure to the "Merrie Monarch," whose purse was never deep enough +for the demands made on it by his extravagance; but a still more +seductive bait was a beautiful woman to add to his seraglio. The Duchess +of Cleveland had now lost her youth and good looks; the incomparable +Stuart's beauty had been fatally marred by small-pox. Of all the fair +and frail women who had held Charles in thrall there was none left to +dispute the palm with the French maid-of-honour except Nell Gwynn, the +Drury Lane orange-girl, whose sauciness and vulgarity gave to the jaded +Sybarite a piquant relish to her charms. + +Here was a splendid opportunity for Louis to complete the conquest of +his vacillating cousin whose allegiance was so vital to his plans of +aggrandisement. Louise should go to Whitehall to play the part of +beautiful spy on Charles, and, by her favours, to make him a pliant tool +in the hand of "le Roi Soleil." + +Charles, who was by no means loth to renew his Dover acquaintance with +the bewitching maid-of-honour, sent a yacht to Dieppe to bring her to +England, and charged no less a personage than the Duke of Buckingham to +be her escort to Whitehall. The Duke, however, who was probably too much +occupied with his own affairs of the heart, "totally forgot both the +lady and his promise; and, leaving the disconsolate nymph at Dieppe, to +manage as best she could, passed over to England by way of Calais,"--a +slight which the indignant Louise never forgave. + +Thus it was that the new favourite of the King made her journey across +the Channel under the escort of the English Ambassador, and was given by +him into the charge of Buckingham's political rival, Lord Arlington. +"The Duke of Buckingham thus," to quote Bishop Burnet, "lost all merit +he might have pretended to, and brought over a mistress whom his strange +conduct threw into the hands of his enemies." + +The arrival of the "French spy," whose mission was well understood, was +hailed by the English nation with execration, modified only by a few +stilted lines of greeting from Dryden, as laureate, and some indecent +verses by St Evremond--efforts which the new beauty equally rewarded +with gracious smiles and thanks. That the English frankly hated her +without having even seen her was a matter of small concern--she was +prepared for it. All she cared for was that Charles should give her a +cordial welcome; and this he did with effusiveness and open arms. Apart +from her character as ambassadress to his "dear brother" of France, she +was a new and piquant stimulus to his sated appetite--a "dainty dish to +set before a King." + +She was installed at Whitehall to the flourish of trumpets; was +appointed maid-of-honour to the Queen, who frankly disliked and dreaded +this new rival in her husband's accommodating affection; and at once +assumed her position as chief of those women the King delighted to +honour. And with such restraint and discretion did she conduct herself +during these early days at Whitehall that she disarmed the jealousy of +the Court ladies, while receiving the homage of their gallants. + +To Charles she was coyness itself--virtue personified. While smiling +graciously on him she kept him at arm's length, thus adding to her +attractions the allurement of an unexpected virtue. So jealously did she +guard her favours that the French Ambassador began to show alarm. + + "I believe," he wrote at this time, "that she has so got + round King Charles as to be of the greatest service to + our Sovereign lord and master, _if_ she only does her + duty." + +That Louise was fully conscious of her duty and meant to do it, was +never really in question--but the time to unbend was not yet. It was no +part of her clever strategy to drop like a ripe plum into Charles's +mouth. _Il faut reculer pour mieux sauter._ She would be accounted all +the greater prize for proving difficult to win. + +The psychical moment, she decided, had come when Lord Arlington invited +Charles and his Court to his palatial country-seat, Euston, where, +removed from censorious eyes and in the abandon of country-house +freedom, she could exhibit her true colours to full advantage. Over the +revels of which Euston was 183 the scene during a few intoxicating +weeks, it is but decent to draw the curtain. With such guests as the +merry and dissolute Charles, his boon-companions, experts in gallantry, +and his ladies, with most of whom an acquaintance with virtue was but a +faded memory, it is no difficult matter to raise a corner of the curtain +in imagination. One typical scene Forneron records thus: + + "Lady Arlington, under the pretext of killing the tedium + of October evenings in a country-house, got up a + burlesque wedding, in which Louise de Querouaille was the + bride and the King the bridegroom, with all the immodest + ceremonies which marked, in the good old times, the + retirement of the former into the nuptial chamber." + +It was precisely such a ceremony in which, a few years earlier, Charles +had figured with _La belle Stuart_, while Lady Castlemaine looked on +with laughter and applause. + +[Illustration: LOUISE, DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH] + +Such was the revolution that resulted from this country visit that +Louise de Querouaille returned to Whitehall, the avowed _maitresse en +titre_ to the King. The French maid-of-honour had justified the +confidence Louis reposed in her; and as reward she was appointed Lady of +the Bedchamber to Catherine, and wore a coronet as Duchess of +Portsmouth. More than this, the delighted Louis raised the wool +merchant's daughter to the proud rank of Duchesse d'Aubigny, in exchange +for which dignity she pledged herself to induce Charles to go to war +with Holland; to avow himself a Catholic; and to persuade his brother +and successor, the Duke of York, to take to wife a Princess of France. + +Louise de Querouaille had now reached a dizzier height than, in the +wildest dreams of her girlhood, she had ever hoped to climb. She was a +double-Duchess, of England and of France, the mistress and counsellor of +a puppet-King, and an arbiter of the destinies of nations. Well might +her humble father, when he paid his Duchess-daughter a visit in London, +throw up his hands in amazement at the splendours with which his "petite +Louise" had surrounded herself! So high had she climbed that it seemed +at one time that even the Crown of England was within her reach; for +when Catherine was brought to the verge of death the Duchess was +probably not alone in thinking that she might be her successor on the +throne. + + "She has got the notion," wrote the French Ambassador, + "that it is possible she may yet be Queen of England. She + talks from morning till night of the Queen's ailments as + if they were mortal." + +But at least, if the crown was not to be hers, there was as much gold to +be had as she cared to garner. Not content with her allowance, which, +nominally £10,000 a year, in one year reached the enormous sum of +£136,000, she heaped fortune on fortune by trafficking in a wide range +of commodities, from peerages and Court appointments to Royal pardons +and slaves. A few years of such rich harvesting made her incomparably +the richest woman in England, although she squandered her ill-gotten +gold with a prodigal hand. Her apartments at Whitehall were crowded with +the costliest furnishings and objects of art that money could buy. When +Evelyn paid a visit to the Court he records: + + "But that which engaged my curiosity was the rich and + splendid furniture of this woman's apartment, now twice + or thrice pulled down to satisfy her prodigality and + expensive pleasures; while her Majesty's does not exceed + some gentlemen's wives in furniture and accommodation. + + "Here I saw the new fabrics of French tapestry, for + design, tenderness of work and incomparable imitation of + the best paintings, beyond anything I ever beheld. Some + pieces had Versailles, St Germain's, and other palaces of + the French King, with huntings, figures, and landscapes, + exotic flowers and all to the life, rarely done. Then for + Japan cabinets, screens, pendule clocks, great vases of + wrought plate, table-stands, sconces, branches, braseras, + etc., all of massive silver and out of number, besides + some of his Majesty's best paintings!" + +Probably at this time of her illicit queendom the only thorn in Louise +de Querouaille's bed of roses was that vulgar, "gutter-rival" of hers, +Nell Gwynn, with whom she suffered the indignity of sharing Charles's +affection. To the high-born, blue-blooded daughter of centuries of +French nobles (of whom her tradesman-father always affected a +disconcerting ignorance) the very sight of her saucy and successful +rival, the ex-orange-wench, was a contamination. She pretended to stifle +in breathing the same air, and with high-tossed head sailed past Madame +Nell (the mother of a duke), in the Court _salons_ and corridors, as if +she were carrion. + +And to all these grand, disdainful airs Madame Nell only retorted with a +Drury Lane peal of silvery laughter. She, who was accustomed to "chuck +Charles's royal chin," and to call him her "Charles the third," in +unflattering reference to his two predecessors of the name in her +favour, could afford to snap her fingers at the French madame who, after +all, was no better than herself. + +"The Duchess," she would say, "pretends to be a person of quality. She +says she is related to the best families in France; and when any great +person dies she puts herself in mourning. If she be a lady of such +quality, why does she demean herself to be what she is? As for me, it's +my profession; I don't profess to be anything better. And the King is +just as fond of me as he is of his French miss." + +But while Her Grace of Portsmouth was revelling in her splendour and her +gold, her mission as Louis's Ambassadress was making unsatisfactory +progress. However disposed Charles may have been to change his faith to +the advantage of his pocket, he was not prepared to risk his crown, +possibly his head, for any Pope who ever lived; nor did the project of +providing a French bride for his successor, the Duke of York, promise +much better. Louis proposed the Duchess of Guise, his own cousin; but +James had heard too much of this unamiable and unattractive Princess +from his sister, Henrietta, to relish the venture. The Duchess herself +suggested a Princess of Lorraine, as a suitable bride, but Louis, who +had no love for the d'Elboeuf ladies, nipped this project in the bud. + +After a long resistance, however, she had induced her Royal lover to +declare war on Holland; and Louis professed himself so pleased with this +concession to his schemes, that he dazzled her eyes with splendid +promises if she would but carry out his programme to the full. It had +become her crowning ambition to win the right to a _tabouret_ at the +Court of Versailles--the highest privilege accorded to the old +_noblesse_, that of sitting on a stool in the presence of the King; and +this proud distinction, which would raise her to the highest pinnacle in +France, inferior only to the crown itself, could be hers if Louis would +but grant her the d'Aubigny lands to accompany her title, for the +_tabouret_ went with the Duchy domains. Even this most coveted of all +the gifts in his power Louis promised to the little adventuress if she +would but carry out, not only all she had undertaken, but any future +commands he might lay upon her. + +His immediate object now was to take advantage of the distraction caused +by the war between England and Holland to annex the Palatinate and the +Franche Comté, on which he had long set covetous eyes; but he quickly +discovered that for once his vaulting ambition had overleaped itself. +The whole of Europe took alarm; England to a man rose in angry protest, +sworn enemies joining hands to resist such an outrageous aggression; and +Charles, in a frenzy of fear for his crown, dismissed his hireling army +paid with Louis's gold. The proud edifice which the Duchess of +Portsmouth had so carefully reared was threatened with a cataclysm of +popular rage against the "painted French spy" who was regarded, and +perhaps rightly, as a prime instigator of the mischief, and the worst +enemy of the country that had given her such generous hospitality. + +To add to the danger of her position she became seriously ill; sustained +heavy money losses; and even her supremacy with the King was gravely +imperilled by the arrival at Court of Mazarin's loveliest niece, +Hortense de Mancini, with whom Charles had flirted in the days of his +exile, and who now came to England in the full bloom of her peerless +beauty to complete her conquest of the amorous Sovereign--"the last +conquest of her conquering eyes," as Waller wrote in his fulsome +greeting of the new divinity of the Whitehall seraglio. + +For once Louise's indomitable courage showed signs of yielding. The +whole armoury of fate seemed arrayed against her at this crisis in her +life; even Louis, for whom she had striven so hard, began to distrust +her powers and to show indifference to her. When Forneron paid her a +visit at this time he found her in tears. "She opened her heart to him, +in the presence of her two French maids, who stood by with downcast +eyes. Tears rained down her cheeks; and her speech was broken with sobs +and sighs." Never had this designing beauty been so near the verge of +absolute ruin. + +It is not necessary perhaps to follow the Duchess through the period of +her eclipse; to watch the weak-kneed Charles sink deeper and deeper into +the morass of his disloyalty until, in return for a subsidy of +£4,000,000, he offered to dissolve parliament and to make England the +bond-slave of Louis's designs on Europe; or to see Louise, the chief +instrument of all this ignominy, reach the climax of her disgrace and +her peril when mobs besieged Whitehall, and clamoured that the "Jezebel" +should be sent to the scaffold. + +It is sufficient for our purpose to know that through all this terrible +time she steered her way with almost superhuman skill back to the +sunshine of success and favour. Her life-long ambition was crowned when +Louis gave her the d'Aubigny lands and, with them, the _tabouret_ which +had so long dazzled her eyes and eluded her grasp. When the sky in +England had at last cleared she paid a visit to her native land. For +four ecstatic months the wool merchant's daughter made a triumphant +progress through France, acclaimed and fêted as a Queen. At her castle +of d'Aubigny she held a splendid court and dispensed a regal hospitality +to the greatest in the land, who had scarcely deigned to notice her in +her days as maid-of-honour. When, according to St Simon, she paid a +visit to the Capucines in Paris her approach was heralded by a +procession of monks, scattering incense and bearing aloft the holy +cross. "She was received," we are told, "as if she were a Queen, which +quite overwhelmed her, as she was not prepared for such an honour." To +such a pitch indeed did this popular idolatry reach that she was +actually painted as a Madonna to grace the altar of the richest convent +in France. + +On her return to England from this tour of conquest she found a +reception almost equally regal awaiting her. She was reinstated as chief +favourite of the King, all his other mistresses--even the Queen herself +being relegated to the background; and high statesmen and Ambassadors +did their homage to her before they sought audience with Charles +himself. She was, in fact, as Louis's deputy, Vice-Queen of +England--_plus roi que le Roi_. + +Thus secure of her power the Duchess was not unwilling to indulge once +more her old propensity for flirtation (to give it its mildest name). +The handsome and graceless Duke of Monmonth, Charles's favourite son, +Danby and many another gallant, succeeded one another in her favours, +which she dispensed without any care for concealment. But the only one +of her lovers of this time who made any real impression on such heart as +she had was the rakish Philippe de Vendôme, grandson of Henri IV. and +nephew of her first lover, the Admiral, Duc de Beaufort, who, as we have +seen, gave her the first start on her career of infamy and conquest. She +seems to have conducted an open and shameless intrigue with De +Vendôme--a man who, according to St Simon, had never gone sober to bed +for a generation, who was a swindler, liar, and thief, and the most +despicable and dangerous man living. When the Duchess, realising that +her intrigue with this handsome scoundrel was going too far, sought to +withdraw, he threatened to show certain incriminating letters she had +written to him, to the King; and it was only when Louis intervened and, +by bribes and commands, induced her lover to return to France, that she +was able to breathe again. + +Not content with setting such a shameless example to the Court, she was +the arch-priestess of the gaming-tables at which Charles and his +courtiers spent their nights to the chink of glasses and gold. She made +light, we learn, of losing 5,000 guineas at a sitting. No wonder Pepys +was shocked at such scenes. + + "I was told to-night," he writes, "that my Lady + Castlemaine is so great a gamester as to have won £15,400 + in one night, and lost £25,000 in another night at play, + and has played £1000 and £1500 at a cast." + +The Duchesse de Mazarin, he tells us, + + "won at basset, of Nell Gwynne 1400 guineas in one night, + and of the Duchess of Portsmouth above £8000, in doing + which she exerted her utmost cunning and had the greatest + satisfaction, because they were rivals in the Royal + favour." + +But the end of these saturnalia was at hand. The last glimpse we have of +them was on the night of 1st February 1685--the last Sunday Charles was +permitted to spend on earth. + + "The great courtiers," says Evelyn, "and other dissolute + persons were playing at basset round a large table, with + a bank of at least £2000 before them. The King, though + not engaged in the game, was to the full as scandalously + occupied, sitting in open dalliance with three of the + shameless women of the Court, the Duchesses of + Portsmouth, Morland, and Mazarin, and others of the same + stamp, while a French boy was singing love-songs in that + glorious gallery. Six days after," he adds, "all was in + the dust." + +As the end of that wasted Royal life drew near the Duchess's chief +concern--for it was her last opportunity of redeeming one of her pledges +to Louis, her paymaster--was that Charles should at least die an avowed +Catholic. + + "I found her," Barillon wrote to Louis, "overcome with + grief. But, instead of bewailing her own unhappy and + changed condition, she led me into an adjoining chamber + and said: 'M. l'Ambassadeur, I want to confide a secret + to you, although if it were publicly known my head would + pay the forfeit. The King is a Catholic at heart, and yet + there he lies surrounded by Protestant bishops. I dare + not enter the room, and there is no one to talk to him of + his end and of God. The Duke of York is too much occupied + with his own affairs to trouble about his brother's + conscience. Pray go to him and tell him that the end is + near, and that it is his duty to lose no time in saving + his brother's soul.'" + +The remainder of the Duchess's life-story is soon told. The days of her +queendom and glory were at an end. She was glad to escape to France +before James's tempestuous reign ended in tragedy. Here trouble and loss +were largely her portion. She lost favour with Louis to such an extent +that, at one time, he seriously thought of exiling her; her son deserted +and disgraced her; her ill-gotten riches took wings, until only a +pension of £800, wrung from Louis, saved her from absolute destitution. +True, she was still able to claim her _tabouret_ at the Court of +Versailles, and, for a few hours occasionally, to revive the glories of +the past; but apart from these ironical spasms of splendour she spent +her last years in loneliness and sadness, turning to a tardy piety as a +refuge from the coldness of the world, and as a solace for its lost +vanities. She saw all the great figures, among whom she had moved, pass +one by one behind the veil before she died, a wrinkled hag of +eighty-five, shorn of the last vestige of the charms which had wrought +such havoc in the world. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE MERRY DUCHESS + + +When Elizabeth Chudleigh first opened her eyes on the world, nearly two +centuries ago, at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, of which her father was +Deputy-Governor, we may be sure that her parents little anticipated the +romantic and adventurous _rôle_ Fate had assigned to her on the stage of +life. A member of an ancient family, whose women had ever been +distinguished for their virtue as its men for their valour, the Chelsea +infant was destined to shock Society by the laxity of her morals as she +dazzled it by her beauty and charm, and to make herself conspicuous, in +an age none too strait-laced, as an adventuress of rare skill and +daring, and as a profligate in petticoats. + +As a child she amused all who knew her by the airs she assumed. Before +she was long out of the nursery she vowed that "she would be a Duchess," +and a Duchess she was before she died. She was quick to learn the power +of beauty and of a clever tongue; and before she was emancipated from +short frocks she was a finished coquette. + +Such was Elizabeth Chudleigh when, at fifteen, she blossomed into +precocious womanhood. Her father, the Colonel, had long been dead, and +his widow had made her home in the neighbourhood of Leicester House, +where the Prince and Princess of Wales held their Court. Here she made +the acquaintance of Mr Pulteney, later Earl of Bath, a great favourite +of the weak and dissolute Prince; and through his interest, Elizabeth, +now a radiantly lovely and supremely fascinating young woman, was +appointed a maid-of-honour to the Princess. + +In the environment of a Court, surrounded by gallants, and with women +almost as lovely as herself to pit her charms against, Colonel +Chudleigh's daughter, eager to drink the cup of pleasure and of +conquest, was in her element. She was the merriest madcap in a Court +where licence was unrestrained; and she soon had high-placed lovers at +her dainty feet, including, so they say, none other than Frederick +himself. Coronets galore dazzled her eyes with their rival allurements; +but while, with tantalising coquetry, she kept them all dangling, one +alone tempted her--that which was laid at her feet by the Duke of +Hamilton, a gallant whose high rank was rivalled by his handsome face +and figure, and his many courtly accomplishments. + +When the Duke asked her to be his wife she graciously consented, and her +Duchess's coronet seemed assured thus early, with a prospect of +happiness that does not always accompany it; for in this case she seems +to have given her heart where she gave her hand. For a time the course +of true love ran smoothly, and the maid-of-honour became a model of +decorum as the affianced wife of the man she loved. + +But her dream of happiness was destined to be short-lived. An intriguing +aunt, Mrs Hanmer, who had no love for the Hamiltons, set to work to dash +the cup of happiness from her niece's lips. She intercepted the Duke's +letters, poured into Elizabeth's ears poisonous stories of his +infidelities and entanglements to account for his silence, and, when the +poison began to show signs of working, whisked her niece away on a visit +to the country-house of her cousin, Mr Merrill, at Lainston, where among +her fellow-guests was a dashing young naval lieutenant, the Hon. +Augustus Hervey, who was second heir to his father's Earldom of Bristol. + +The lieutenant, as was inevitable, perhaps, fell promptly under the +spell of the maid-of-honour's charms, and made violent love to her, +with, of course, Mrs Hanmer's whole-hearted connivance. The girl, +blazing with resentment of the Duke's coldness, and his apparent +indifference to her beauty and his vows, lent a willing ear to his +pleadings, and within a few days had promised to be wife to a man whom, +as she confessed later, she "almost hated." + +The wedding was, by mutual consent, to be secret, partly on account of +the bridegroom's lack of means to support a wife, and partly from fear +of giving offence to his family. In the dead of an August night, in +1744, the bridal party stole out of Mr Merrill's house, and made its +way to the neighbouring church, where the ceremony was performed by the +light of a taper concealed in the best man's hat. Thus, romantically and +mysteriously, Elizabeth Chudleigh took her first matrimonial step, which +was to lead to such dramatic developments. + +Forty-eight hours later the bridegroom had joined his ship at +Portsmouth; and his bride's greatest joy, as she confessed, was when he +had departed. Such a marriage, the fruit of pique and anger, boded ill +for happiness. Frankly, the union was one long misery, broken by the +intervals when the husband was away at sea, and accentuated during his, +happily brief, visits to her. Two children were born to this +ill-assorted pair, but both died young; and Elizabeth Hervey had +abundant opportunity to follow her natural bent, by seeking +forgetfulness in dissipation. + +In the full glow of her beauty, a wife who was no wife, she resumed her +broken career of conquest. She made a tour of Europe, leaving a train of +broken-hearted and languishing lovers behind her. At Berlin she brought +Frederick the Great to his knees, and made an abject slave of him; she +shocked the ladies of the Dresden Court by her laxity and the prodigal +display of her charms, and by the same arts bewitched the men. She led, +we are told, a life of shameless dissipation, which only her beauty and +intellectual gifts redeemed from vulgar depravity. She had lovers in +every capital she visited, and discarded them as lightly as so many +playthings. + +On her return to England, so anxious was she to obliterate that fatal +episode in the dark church, she made a journey with certain friends to +Lainston, and, while the vicar's back was turned, tore the fatal page +out of the marriage register. + +Meanwhile, the naval lieutenant had blossomed into an Earl, on his +father's death; and when the new Earl, her husband, showed signs of +failing health, and there was an early prospect of graduating as a +wealthy dowager Countess, she saw the wisdom of making another journey +to Lainston to replace the record of her marriage. Alas, for her +scheming; the moribund Earl took a new lease of life, and the gilded +dowagerhood became nebulous and remote again. + +But Elizabeth Chudleigh was not to be long baulked in her ambitious +designs. Though her charms had grown too opulent and were faded--for she +was now near her fiftieth birthday--she was able to count among her +slaves the aged Duke of Kingston, an amiable and weak old gentleman of +enormous wealth, and with one accommodating foot already "in the grave." + +Wife, or no wife, she now made up her mind to be a Duchess at last. She +appealed to Lord Bristol, the husband from whom she had so long been +estranged, to divorce her, even going so far as to offer to qualify for +the divorce by an open and flagrant act of infidelity; but his lordship +only shrugged a scornful shoulder. Still, not to be thwarted, she +brought a suit of jactitation of marriage, and, by a lavish use of +bribes and cajolery, got a sentence from the Ecclesiastical Court which +at last set her free. Within a month she had blossomed into "the most +high and _puissante_ Princess, the Duchess of Kingston," thus realising +her childish ambition. + +For four and a half years the Duchess was a dignified pattern of all the +virtues. The passions of youth had lost their fires; the scenes of +revelry and coarse dissipation to which they had given birth were only a +memory. She would yet die in the odour of sanctity, however tardy. But +storms were brewing, and the Duke's death, in 1746, precipitated them, +though not before she had had another fling with the riches he left to +her. + +Throwing aside her widow's weeds, she flung herself again--old, obese, +and faded as she was--into a round of dissipation which shocked and +disgusted even London, accustomed as it was to the vagaries of the +"quality," until she was glad to escape from the storm of censure she +had brought on her head. + +She bought a magnificent yacht and sailed away to Rome, where Pope and +Cardinal alike conspired to do her honour; and was only saved from +eloping with a titled swindler by his arrest and later suicide in +prison. It was while in Rome that news came to her that her late +husband's heirs were planning a charge of bigamy against her, with a +view to setting aside his will in her favour. + +Her exchequer was empty for the time; but, presenting herself before her +banker, pistol in hand, she compelled him to provide her with funds to +enable her to return to London--to find all arrangements already made +for her trial in Westminster Hall on a charge of bigamy. Public opinion +was arrayed against her; she was received with abuse, jeers, and +lampoons. Foote made her the object of universal ridicule by a comedy +entitled, "A Trip to Calais." But the Duchess metaphorically snapped her +fingers at them all. She was no woman to bow before the storm of +ridicule and censure. She openly defied it to do its worst. Her splendid +equipage was to be seen everywhere, with the autocratic Duchess, serene, +smiling, contemptuous. + +It was of this period of her life that the following story is told. One +day when driving in London her gorgeous carriage was brought to a halt +by a coal-cart which was being unloaded in a narrow street. The Duchess +was furious at the delay, and protruding her head and shoulders from the +carriage and leaning her arms on the door, she cried out to the +offending carter: "How dare you, sirrah, to stop a woman of quality in +the street?" "Woman of quality!" sneered the man. "Yes, fellow," +rejoined her Grace, "don't you see my arms upon my carriage?" "Indeed I +do," he answered, "and a pair of d---- coarse arms they are, too!" + +Seldom has a trial excited such widespread excitement and interest. + + "Everybody," Horace Walpole wrote to his friend Sir + Horace Mann, "is on the quest for tickets for her Grace + of Kingston's trial. I am persuaded that her impudence + will operate in some singular manner; probably she will + appear in weeds, with a train to reach across Westminster + Hall, with mourning maids-of-honour to support her when + she swoons at the dear Duke's name, and in a black veil + to conceal her blushing or not blushing. To this farce, + novel and curious as it will be, I shall not go. I think + cripples have no business in crowds, but at the Pool of + Bethesda; and, to be sure, this is no angel that troubles + the waters." + +But if Walpole resisted the temptation to witness a scene so piquant and +remarkable, hundreds of the highest in the land, including Queen +Charlotte herself, the Prince of Wales and many another Royal personage, +ambassadors and statesmen, flocked to Westminster to see the notorious +Duchess on her trial on the charge of bigamy. And the vast Hall was +packed with a curious and expectant crowd when her Grace made her +stately entry with a retinue of _femmes de chambre_, her doctor, +apothecary, and secretary, and proceeded to her seat, in front of her +six bewigged Counsel, with the dignified step and haughty mien of an +Empress. + +Hannah More, who was present at the trial, says that hardly a trace of +her once enchanting beauty was visible; and that, had it not been for +her white face, "she might easily have been taken for a bundle of +bombasin." + +The trial lasted several days, during the whole of which the Duchess +conducted herself with remarkable dignity and composure, in face of the +damning array of evidence that was brought against her--the evidence of +a maid who had witnessed her midnight marriage in Lainston Church; of +the widow of the parson who officiated at the nuptials; and of Serjeant +Hawkins, who authenticated the birth of her first child by Augustus +Hervey. + + "The scene opened on Wednesday with all its pomp," wrote + Walpole, who although not present seems to have followed + the trial with the keenest interest, "and the + doubly-noble prisoner went through her part with + universal admiration. Instead of her usual ostentatious + folly and clumsy pretensions to cunning, all her conduct + was decent, and even seemed natural. Her dress was + entirely black and plain; her attendants not too + numerous; her dismay at first perfectly unaffected. A few + tears balanced cheerfulness enough, and her presence of + mind and attention never deserted her. This rational + behaviour and the pleadings of her Counsel, who contended + for the finality of her Ecclesiastical Court's sentence + against a second trial, carried her triumphantly through + the first day, and turned the stream much in her favour." + +The following day proved a much more severe test to her Grace's +composure; and no sooner had the Court risen than "she had to be +blooded, and fell into a great passion of tears." And each succeeding +day added to the tension and anxieties which she struggled so bravely to +conceal. + +On the third day of the trial Walpole says: + + "The plot thickens, or rather opens. Yesterday the judges + were called on for their opinions, and _una voce_ + dismantled the Ecclesiastical Court. The + Attorney-General, Thurlow, then detailed the 'Life and + Adventures of Elizabeth Chudleigh, _alias_ Hervey, + _alias_ the most high and _puissante_ Princess, the + Duchess of Kingston.' Her Grace bore the narration with a + front worthy of her exalted rank. Then was produced the + first capital witness, the ancient damsel who was present + at her first marriage. To this witness her Grace was + benign, but had a transitory swoon at the mention of her + dear Duke's name; and at intervals has been blooded + enough to have supplied her execution if necessary. Two + babes were likewise proved to have blessed her first + nuptials, one of whom, for aught that appears, may exist + and become Earl of Bristol." + +Three days later Horace Walpole concludes his narrative of the trial, +which we are afraid his antipathy to the adventurous Duchess has +coloured a little too vividly: + + "The wisdom of the land," he writes, "has been exerted + for five days in turning a Duchess into a Countess, and + yet does not think it a punishable crime for a Countess + to convert herself into a Duchess. After a pretty + defence, and a speech of fifty pages (which she herself + had written and pronounced very well), the sages, in + spite of the Attorney-General (who brandished a hot iron) + dismissed her with the single injunction of paying the + fees, all voting her guilty; but the Duke of Newcastle, + her neighbour in the country, softening his vote by + adding 'erroneously, not intentionally.' So ends the + solemn farce. The Earl of Bristol, they say, does not + intend to leave her that title.... I am glad to have done + with her." + +A few days later, in spite of a writ, _ne exeat regno_, which had been +issued against her, she was back in France, travelling in state as +"Madame la Duchesse de Kingston." From Calais she made her magnificent +progress to Rome, where Pope and Cardinals vied in doing honour to so +exalted and charming a lady, and entertained her as regally as if she +had been a Queen. Returning to Calais she installed herself in a +palatial house where she dispensed a lavish hospitality, and flung her +gold about with prodigal hands. + +But Calais soon palled on her exacting taste. It was too dull, too +cabined for her activities. So away she sailed in a splendid yacht to St +Petersburg where Catherine received her as a sister-Empress, and gave +balls, banquets, and receptions in her honour. From St Petersburg she +continued her journey to Poland, and made a conquest of Prince +Radzivill, who exhausted his purse and ingenuity in devising +entertainments for her, including the excitement of a bear-hunt by +torchlight. + +Back again in France, flushed with her triumphs, she purchased a Palace +in Paris, and the château of Sainte Assize in the country, at which +alternately she held her Court, and moved among her courtiers an obese +Queen, alternately charming them with her graciousness and shocking them +by her profanity and indelicacies. Here she made her will, leaving most +of her jewels to her "dear friend," the Russian Empress; a large diamond +to her equally good friend the Pope; and an extremely valuable pearl +necklace and earrings to my Lady Salisbury, for no other reason than +that they had been originally worn some centuries earlier by a lady who +bore the same title. + +But the career of the profligate and eccentric Duchess was nearing its +close, and she died as she had lived, game and defiant. While she was +sitting at dinner news came that a lawsuit had been decided against her. +She broke out in a violent passion and burst a blood-vessel. But, even +dying as she was, she refused to remain in bed. "At your peril, disobey +me!" she said to her protesting attendants. "I _will_ get up!" She got +up, dressed, and walked about the room. Then, calling for wine, she +drained glass after glass of Madeira. "I will lie down on the couch," +she then said. "I can sleep, and after that I shall be quite well +again." + +From that sleep she never awoke. The maidservants who held her hands +felt them grow gradually cold. The Duchess was dead. After life's fitful +fever, she had found rest. Thus died, in the sixty-ninth year of her +life Elizabeth, Duchess of Kingston, who had drunk deep of life's cup of +pleasure; who had alternately shocked and dazzled the world; and who had +found that the greatest triumphs of her beauty and the most prodigal +indulgence of her appetites were "all vanity." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +THE KING AND THE PRETTY HAYMAKER + + +If ever woman was born to romance it was surely the Lady Sarah Lennox, +whose beauty and witchery nearly won for her a crown as England's Queen +a a century and a half ago; and who, after ostracising herself from +Society by a flagrant lapse from virtue, lived to become the mother of +heroes, and to end her days in blindness and a tragic loneliness. + +There was both passion and a love of adventure in the Lady Sarah's +blood; for had she not for great-grandfather that most fascinating and +philandering of monarchs, the second Charles; and for great-grandmother, +the lovely and frail Louise Renée de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, +the most seductive of the beautiful trio of women--the Duchesses of +Portsmouth, Morland, and Mazarin--who spent their days in "open +dalliance" with the "Merrie Monarch," and their nights at the +basset-table, winning or losing guineas by the thousand. + +As an infant, too, she drank in romance from her mother's breast--the +mother whose marriage is surely the most romantic in the annals of our +Peerage. One day, so the story runs, the Duke of Richmond, when playing +cards with the first Earl of Cadogan, staked the hand and fortune of his +heir, the Earl of March, on the issue of the game, which was won by Lord +Cadogan. On the following day the debt of honour was paid. The youthful +Earl was sent for from his school, Cadogan's daughter from the nursery; +a clergyman was in attendance, and the two children were told they were +immediately to be made husband and wife. + +At sight of the plain, awkward, shrinking girl who was to be his bride +the handsome school-boy exclaimed in disgust, "You are surely not going +to marry me to that dowdy!" But there was no escape; the demands of +"honour" must be satisfied. The ceremony was quickly performed; and +within an hour of first setting eyes on each other, the children were +separated--Lord March being whisked back to his school-books, and his +bride to her nursery toys. + +Many years later Lord March returned to London after a prolonged tour +round the world--a strikingly handsome, cultured young man, by no means +eager to renew his acquaintance with the "ugly duckling" who was his +wife. One evening when he was at the opera his eyes were drawn to a +vision of rare girlish loveliness in one of the boxes. He had seen no +sight so fair in all his wide travels; it fascinated him as beauty never +yet had had power to do. + +Turning to a neighbour he asked who the lovely girl was. "You must +indeed be a stranger to London," was the answer, "if you do not know +the beautiful Lady March, the toast of the town!" Lady March! Could that +exquisite flower of young womanhood be the ugly, awkward girl he had +married so strangely as a boy? Impossible! He proceeded to the box, +introduced himself, and found to his delight that the beautiful girl was +indeed none other than Lady March, whom he had every right to claim as +his wife. A few too brief years of happy wedded life followed; and when +the Earl died in the prime of manhood his Countess, unable to live +without him, began to droop and, within a few months, followed him to +the grave. + +Such was the singular romance to which Lady Sarah Lennox owed her being, +a romance which was to have a parallel in her own life. As a child in +the nursery she gave promise of charms at least as great as those of her +mother. And she was as merry and full of mischief as she was beautiful. + +One day (it is her son who tells the story) she was walking with her +nurse and her aunt, Lady Louisa Conolly, in Kensington Gardens, when +George II. chanced to stroll by. Breaking away from her guardian the +pretty little madcap ran up to the King and exclaimed in French: "How do +you do, Mr King? You have a beautiful house here, _n'est-ce pas_?" +George was so delighted with the child's _naïveté_ that he took her up +in his arms, gave her a hearty kiss, and would not release her until she +had promised to come and see him. + +And how the King and his "little sweetheart," as he called her, enjoyed +these visits! and the merry romps they had together! + + "On one occasion," says Captain Napier (Lady Sarah's son + of much later days), "after a romp with my mother, the + King suddenly snatched her up in his arms, and, after + squeezing her in a large china jar, shut down the cover + to prove her courage; but soon released her when he found + that the only effect was to make her, with a merry voice, + begin singing the French song of Malbruc, with which he + was quite delighted." + +But these happy days of romping with a King came too soon to an end. On +her mother's death Lady Sarah, then only five years old, was carried off +to Ireland, to the home of Lady Kildare. There she remained for eight +years, when she returned to England and the guardianship of her eldest +sister, Lady Holland. As soon as George heard of the return of his +little playmate he sent for her, hoping to resume the romps of early +years. But Lady Sarah, though prettier than ever, proved so shy and so +embarrassed by the King's familiarities that at last he exclaimed in +disgust: "Pooh! she has grown too stupid!" + +But if Lady Sarah's shyness had cost her the King's favour, her beauty +and girlish grace quickly won for her another Royal friend--none other +than George's grandson and heir to the throne, then a handsome boy +little older than herself, and at least equally diffident. Every time +the young Prince saw her he became more and more her slave, until his +conquest was complete. He was only happy by her side; while she found +her dogs and squirrels more entertaining company than the King-to-be. + +Lady Sarah was now blossoming into young womanhood. Every year added +some fresh touch of beauty and grace. She was the pet and idol of the +Court, captivating young and old alike by her charms and winsomeness. +Horace Walpole raved about her. When she took part in a play at Holland +House, of which he was a spectator, he wrote: + + "Lady Sarah was more beautiful than you can conceive.... + When she was in white, with her hair about her ears and + on the ground, no Magdalen by Correggio was half so + lovely and so expressive." + +And Lord Holland, her brother-in-law, draws this alluring picture of +her: + + "Her beauty is not easily described otherwise than by + saying she had the finest complexion, most beautiful + hair, and prettiest person that was ever seen, with a + sprightly and fine air, a pretty mouth, and remarkably + fine teeth, and excess of bloom in her cheeks." + +Although the Prince's passion for her was patent to all the Court, she +seems either not to have seen it or to have been indifferent to it--an +indifference which naturally only served to feed the flames of his love. +One day shortly after he had succeeded to the throne, George, the shyest +of Royal lovers, determined to unbosom himself to Lady Sarah's friend, +Lady Susan Strangways, since he could not summon up courage to declare +his passion to the lady herself. After turning the conversation to the +Coronation, "Ah!" he exclaimed with a sigh, "there will be no Coronation +until there is a Queen." "But why, sir?" asked Lady Susan in surprise. +"They want me to have a foreign Queen," George answered, "but I prefer +an English one; and I think your friend is the fittest person in the +world to be my Queen. Tell her so from me, will you?" + +A few days later when the King met Lady Sarah, he asked: "Has your +friend given you my message?" "Yes, sir." "And what do you think of it? +Pray tell me frankly; for on your answer all my happiness depends. What +do you think of it?" "Nothing, sir," Lady Sarah answered demurely, with +downcast eyes. "Pooh!" exclaimed the King, as he turned away in dudgeon, +"nothing comes of nothing." + +Thus foolishly Lady Sarah turned her back on a throne, which there is +small doubt might have been hers for a word. Why that word was not +spoken will always remain a mystery. It was said that her heart had +already been won by Lord Newbattle, a handsome young gallant of the +Court; but what was taken for a conquest seems to have been but a +passing flirtation. How little Lord Newbattle's heart was involved was +shortly proved when, on learning that Lady Sarah had been thrown from +her horse and had broken her leg, he made the heartless remark, "That +will do no great harm, for her legs were ugly enough before!" + +The news of this accident, however, had a very different effect on the +young King, who was consumed with anxiety about the girl he still loved +passionately, in spite of her coldness. He promptly sent the Court +surgeon to attend to her; kept couriers constantly travelling to and fro +to bring the latest bulletins, and knew no peace until she was restored +to health again. When at last she was able to return to London he was +unremitting in his attentions to her. He was never happy apart from her; +and, in fact, his intentions became so marked that his mother, the +Princess-Dowager, and the ministers were reduced to despair. + +Secret orders were given that the young people were never to be allowed +to be together. The Princess, indeed, carried her interference to the +extent of breaking in on their conferences, and rudely laughing in Lady +Sarah's face as she led her son away. "I felt many a time," the insulted +girl said in later years, "that I should have loved to box her ears." +But Lady Sarah, who seems at last to have awakened to the attractions of +the alliance offered to her, was not the girl to sit down tamely under +such interference with her liberty. Her spirit was aroused, and she +brought all her arts of coquetry to her aid. + +If she could not see the King at Court she would see him elsewhere. When +George took his daily ride he was sure to meet or overtake Lady Sarah, +attired in some bewitching costume; or to see her daintily plying her +rake among the haymakers in the meadows of Holland House, a picture of +rustic beauty well-calculated to make his conquest more complete. + +Once, it is said, when she had not seen her Royal lover for some days +she even disguised herself as a servant and intercepted him in one of +the corridors of the Palace. The coy and cold maiden who had told the +King that she "thought nothing" of his advances, had developed into the +veriest coquette who ever set her heart on winning a man. Such is the +strange waywardness of woman; and by such revolutions she often courts +her own defeat. + +That King George still remained as infatuated as ever is quite probable. +Had it been possible for him to have his own way, Lady Sarah Lennox +might still have won a crown as Queen of England. But the forces arrayed +against him were too strong for so pliant a monarch. In a weak moment, +despairing of winning the girl he loved, he had placed his matrimonial +fate unreservedly in the hands of the Privy Council; and from this +surrender of his liberty there was no escape. + +Colonel Graeme had been despatched to every Court on the Continent, in +quest of a suitable bride for him; and his verdict had been given in +favour of Charlotte Sophia, the unattractive daughter of the Duke of +Mecklenburg Strelitz. The die was cast; and George, just when happiness +was within his reach, was obliged to bury the one romance of his young +life and to sacrifice himself to duty and his Royal word. To Lady Sarah +the news of the arranged marriage was no doubt a severe blow--to her +vanity, if not to her heart. It was a "bolt from the blue," for which +she was not prepared. But she was too proud to show her wounds. + + "I shall take care," she wrote to her friend, Lady + Susan, on the very day on which the blow fell, "I shall + take care to show that I am not mortified to anybody; but + if it is true that one can vex anybody with a reserved, + cold manner, he shall have it, I promise him. Now as to + what I wish about it myself, excepting this little + message, I have almost forgiven him. Luckily for me I did + not love him, and only liked, nor did the title weigh + with me. So little, at least, that my disappointment did + not affect my spirits more than an hour or two, I + believe. I did not cry, I assure you, which I believe you + will, as I know you were more set on it than I was. The + thing I am most angry at is looking so like a fool, as I + shall, for having gone so often for nothing, but I don't + much care. If he was to change his mind again (which + can't be, tho') and not give me a very good reason for + his conduct, I would not have him; for if he is so weak + as to be governed by everybody, I shall have but a bad + time of it." + +A few days later, the Royal betrothal was made public. At the wedding +Lady Sarah tasted the first fruits of revenge, when she was by common +consent, the most lovely of the ten beautiful bridesmaids who, in robes +of white velvet and silver and with diamond-crowned heads, formed the +retinue of George's homely little bride. During the ceremony George had +no eyes for any but the vision of peerless beauty he had lost, who, +compared with his ill-favoured bride, was "as a queenly lily to a +dandelion." + +The ceremony was marked by a dramatic incident which crowned Lady +Sarah's revenge, and of which her son tells the following story. Among +the courtiers assembled to pay homage to the new Queen was the +half-blind Lord Westmorland, one of the Pretender's most devoted +adherents. + + "Passing along the line of ladies, and seeing but dimly, + he mistook my mother for the Queen, plumped down on his + knees and took her hand to kiss. She drew back startled, + and deeply colouring, exclaimed, 'I am not the Queen, + sir.' The incident created a laugh and a little gossip; + and when George Selwyn heard of it he observed, 'Oh! you + know he always loved Pretenders.'" + +But if Lady Sarah had lost a crown there was still left a dazzling array +of coronets, any one of which was hers for the taking. Her beauty which +was now in full and exquisite flower drew noble wooers to her feet by +the score; but to one and all--including, as Walpole records, Lord +Errol--she turned a deaf ear. Picture then the amazement of the world of +fashion when, within a year of refusing a Queendom, she became the bride +of a mere Baronet--Sir Thomas Bunbury, who had barely reached his +majority, and who, although he was already a full-blown Member of +Parliament and of some note on the Turf, was scarcely known in the +circles in which Lady Sarah shone so brilliantly. + +More disconcerting still, Lady Sarah was avowedly happy with her +baronet-husband. + + "And who the d----," she wrote to her bosom-friend, Lady + Susan, "would not be happy with a pretty place, a good + house, good horses, greyhounds for hunting, so near + Newmarket, what company we please in the house, and + £2,000 a year to spend? Pray now, where is the wretch who + would not be happy?" + +And no doubt she was happy, with her dogs and horses, her peacocks and +silver-pheasants, and her genial sport-loving husband who simply +idolised her. Even after five years of this rustic life she wrote to +Lady Susan, who was now also a wife: + + "Good husbands are not so common, at least I see none + like my own and your description of yours, from which I + reckon that we are the two luckiest women living. As for + me, I should be a monster of ingratitude if I ever made a + single complaint and did not thank God for making me the + happiest of beings." + +It was fortunate that she had an idolatrous husband; for even in Arcadia +she could not, or would not, keep her coquetry within decent bounds. She +flirted outrageously with the neighbouring squires and with such men of +rank as drifted her way; but the baronet saw no cause for alarm or +resentment. He was frankly delighted that his wife had so many admirers. +He basked genially in the reflected glory of his wife's conquests! + +And Lady Sarah might have lived and died the baronet's adored wife had +not Lord William Gordon crossed her path. Lord William was young, +handsome, full of romance, a dangerous rival to the bucolic and stolid +baronet, under whose unobservant eyes he carried on an open flirtation +with his wife. Before Lady Sarah realised her danger, she had drifted +into a _liaison_ with the handsome Scot, which could only have one +termination. One morning in February 1769 Sir Thomas awoke to find his +nest empty. Lady Sarah had flown, and Lord William with her. + +Then followed for Lady Sarah a brief period of fearful joy, of +intoxicating passion. Far away near the Scottish border she and her +lover spent halcyon days together. Their favourite walk by the banks of +the Leader is known to-day as the "Lovers' Walk." It was a foolish +paradise in which they were living, and a rude awaking was inevitable. +After three months of bliss Lord William's family brought such pressure +to bear on him that the lovers were compelled to separate--he to travel +abroad, she to find a refuge from her shame under the roof of her +brother, Charles, Duke of Richmond, at Goodwood, where, with her child +(but not Sir Thomas Bunbury's), she spent a dozen years in penitence and +isolation. + +The life which had dawned so fairly seemed to be finally merged in +night. Her betrayed husband had procured a divorce; and although he was +chivalry itself in his forgiveness of and kindness to her, she realised +that there was no hope of reunion with him. Days of weeping, nights of +remorse, were her portion. But though she little dared to hope it, +bright days were still in store for her--a happy and honourable +wifehood, and the pride and blessing of children to rise up to do her +honour. + +It was the coming of the Hon. George Napier, an old Army friend of her +brother, that heralded the new dawn for her darkened life. There were +few handsomer men in England than this tall, stalwart son of the sixth +Lord Napier, who is described as "faultless in figure and features." +When he met Lady Sarah, under the roof of his old friend, her brother, +he was still mourning the wife whom he had recently buried in New York; +but the sight of such suffering and beauty allied touched a heart which +he had thought dead to passion. That she was as poor as he was, and many +years older mattered nothing to him. He soon realised that his only hope +of happiness lay in winning her. In vain the lady protested that she was +not fit to be his wife. + + "He knows," she wrote to Lady Susan, "I _do_ love him; + and being certain of that, he laughs at every objection + that is started, for he says that, loving me to the + degrees he does, he is quite sure never to repent + marrying me." + +Lady Sarah's family put every possible obstacle in the way of the +proposed union, but the masterful soldier had his way; and one August +day in 1781 Captain Napier led his tarnished but loved and loving bride +to the altar. For many years poverty was their lot; but they laughed at +their empty purse and found their reward in mutual devotion and the +sight of their children growing in strength and beauty by their side. Of +their five sons, three won laurels on many battlefields and died +generals; one of the trio was the famous conqueror of Scinde, another +was the historian of the Peninsular War. + +When, after twenty-three years of ideally happy life together, Colonel +Napier (as he had become) died, his widow was disconsolate. + + "How I wish I could go with him," she wrote; "the + gentlest, bravest man who ever brought sunshine and + solace into a woman's darkened heart." + +But Lady Sarah was destined to walk life's path alone for nearly twenty +years longer, finding her only comfort in watching the careers of her +gallant boys. + +To add to her misfortunes her last days were spent in darkness. The eyes +that had melted with love and sparkled with mischief, could no longer +even look on the sons she loved. + +A pathetic story is told of these last clouded days of Lady Sarah's +life. In the year 1814, when, although an old woman she had still twelve +years to live, she was present at a sermon preached by the Dean of +Canterbury in aid of an Infirmary for the cure of diseases of the eye. +As the preacher drew a pathetic picture of King George, a liberal patron +of the Infirmary, spending his days in darkness among the splendours of +his palace, tears were seen to stream down Lady Sarah's cheeks, until, +overcome by emotion, she asked her attendant to lead her out of the +church. + +Who shall say what sad and tender memories were evoked by this picture +of her lover of fifty years earlier, in his darkness and isolation, shut +out like herself by a dark barrier from the joy and light of life. Among +the mental pictures that thronged her brain was, probably, that of a +dainty maiden, rake in hand, glancing archly from under her bonnet at a +gallant young Prince, whose eyes spoke love to hers as he rode +lingeringly by; and that other picture of the same maid, with downcast +eyes, declaring that she "thought nothing" of her Royal lover's vows, +though they carried a crown with them. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE COUNTESS WHO MARRIED HER GROOM + + +Life has seldom dawned for any daughter of a noble house more fair or +full of promise than for the infant Lady Susanna Cochrane, second +daughter of John, fourth Earl of Dundonald. All that rank and wealth and +beauty could give were hers by birth. Her mother was an Earl's daughter, +and had for grandfather the Duke of Atholl. Her paternal grandmother was +Lady Susanna Hamilton, daughter of the Duke of Hamilton; and on both +sides she came from a line of fair women, many of whom, like her mother, +had ranked among the most beautiful in all Scotland. + +Such was the splendid heritage of Lady Susanna when she opened her eyes +on the world two centuries ago; and, during the earlier years of her +life, it seemed that Fortune, who had already dowered her so richly, +could not smile too sweetly on her. She grew to girlhood and young +womanhood more beautiful even than her mother or her two sisters, Anne +and Catherine, of whom the former became a Duchess at sixteen; while +Catherine was not long out of the schoolroom before her hand was won by +the Earl of Galloway. + +As for Susanna, the loveliest of the "three Graces"--"Scotland's +fairest daughter," to quote a chronicler of the time--she counted her +high-placed lovers by the score almost before she had graduated into +long frocks; and Charles, sixth Earl of Strathmore, was accounted the +luckiest man north of the Tweed when he won her for his bride. + +It was an ideal union, this of the beautiful Lady Susanna with the +stalwart and handsome young Earl--"the fairest lass and bonniest lad" in +all Scotland; and none who saw their radiant happiness on their +wedding-day could have dreamt how soon tragedy was to close so bright a +chapter of romance. + +For a few short years the young Earl and his Countess were ideally +happy. + + "I never thought," Lady Strathmore wrote to a friend, + "that life could be so sweet. The days are all too short + to crowd my happiness into." + +Then, when the sky was fairest, the blow fell. + +One May day in the year 1728, the young Earl went to Forfar to attend +the funeral of a friend, and among his fellow-mourners were two men of +his acquaintance, James Carnegie, of Finhaven, and a Mr Lyon, of +Brigton, the latter a distant relative of the Earl. + +After the funeral the three men sat drinking together, as was the custom +of the time, and then adjourned to a tavern in Forfar, where they +continued their potations until all three were, beyond all doubt, in an +advanced state of intoxication, and ripe for any mischief. + +From the tavern they went, uproariously drunk, to call on a sister of +Carnegie, where Mr Lyon not only became quarrelsome, but with drunken +jocularity, had the audacity to pinch his hostess's arms. It was with +the utmost difficulty that Lord Strathmore induced his two companions to +leave the house, in which one of them had so far forgotten what was due +from him as a gentleman; and it was scarcely to be wondered at that an +unseemly brawl began almost as soon as they were in the street. + +Mr Lyon began to conduct himself more outrageously than before, now that +the modified restraint of a lady's presence was removed. With boisterous +horseplay, he pushed Carnegie into a deep gutter which ran by the +roadside, and from which Carnegie emerged covered with mud and raging +with fury. Such an insult could only be wiped out with blood; and, +drawing his sword, Carnegie rushed at his tormentor. The Earl, in order +to avert a tragedy, imprudently threw himself between the two +antagonists, with the intention of diverting the blow. Carnegie's sword +entered his body, passing clean through it; and he fell to the ground a +dying man. Two hours later the young Earl gasped his life out in the +tavern, where he had drunk "not wisely, but too well." + +Thus a drunken brawl, following on a funeral, made a widow of the +beautiful Countess of Strathmore just when life was at its brightest and +best, and when the days seemed all too short to hold her happiness. + +As for James Carnegie of Finhaven, he was brought to trial on a charge +of murder, and every nerve was strained to bring him to the gallows. +That this was not his fate, in spite of the terrible provocation he had +received, and the obviously accidental nature of the tragedy, he owed +entirely to the skill and eloquence of his counsel, Robert Dundas of +Arniston, who played so cleverly on the feelings and self-importance of +the jury that they returned a verdict of acquittal. + +The widowed Countess mourned her lord deeply and sincerely. More +beautiful than ever (she was barely twenty when this tragedy came to +cloud her life), and richly dowered, many a wooer sought to console her +with a new prospect of wedded happiness. She had naught to say to any of +them. She preferred to live alone with her memories, and to find solace +in good works. And thus for seventeen years she lived, a model of all +that is beautiful in womanhood, captivating all hearts by her sweetness +and graciousness, and by a beauty which sorrow only served to refine and +make more lovely still. + +Thus we find her in 1745, a gracious and lovely woman, still young, +dispensing her charities and hospitalities, and esteemed everywhere as a +model of all the proprieties. But she was still a woman. Romance and +passion were by no means dead in her; and to this "eternal feminine" we +must look for an explanation of the strange event which now follows in +her story. + +Among the Countess's many servants was one George Forbes, a young and +strikingly handsome groom, who had been taken on as stable-boy by her +late husband. Forbes was a simple, manly fellow, a peasant's son, and +with no ambition beyond the state of life to which he had been born. He +was proud of the fact that he had served his mistress well, and that she +liked him. That Lady Strathmore valued her groom was proved by the fact +that she chose him as her escort whenever she went riding, and that she +promoted him to the charge of her stables--a proof of confidence which +no doubt he had earned. But that his high-placed mistress should regard +him otherwise than as a servant was an absurd idea which never entered +his head. + +One day, however, the Countess summoned the groom to her presence, and, +to his amazement and embarrassment, told him that she had long grown to +love him, and that she asked nothing better of life than to become his +wife. Overcome with surprise and confusion, Forbes protested--"But my +lady, think of the difference between us. You are one of the greatest +ladies in the land, and I am no better than the earth you tread on." +"You must not say that," the Countess replied. "You are more to me than +rank or riches. These I count as nothing, compared with the happiness +you have it in your power to bestow." + +In the face of such pleading, from one so beautiful and so reverenced, +what could the poor groom do but consent, fearful though he was of the +consequences of such an ill-assorted union? And thus strangely and +romantically it was that, one April day in 1745, the Countess of +Strathmore, the descendant of dukes and kings, gave her hand at the +altar to the ex-stable-lad and peasant's son. + +What followed this singular union was precisely what was to be expected. +The Countess was disowned by her noble relatives; her friends with one +consent gave her the cold shoulder; and, unable to bear any longer the +constant slights and her complete isolation, she was thankful to escape +with her low-born husband to the Continent. + +Here familiarity with the groom quickly, and naturally, perhaps, bred +contempt and disillusion. His coarseness offended every susceptibility; +he was frankly impossible in such an intimate relation; and after she +had given birth to a daughter in Holland, she arranged a separation, for +which the groom was, at least, as grateful as herself. The child--the +very sight of whom, reminding her as she did of the father, she could +not bear--was placed in a convent at Rouen, where she was tenderly cared +for by the abbess and nuns. As for the mother, weary and disillusioned, +she rambled aimlessly and miserably about the Continent until, after +nine years of unhappiness, death came to her at Paris as a merciful +friend. Such was the sordid close of a life that had opened as fairly as +any that has fallen to the lot of woman. + +And what of the child who drew from her mother royal and ducal strains, +and from her father the blood of stablemen and peasants? At the Rouen +convent she grew up to girlhood, perfectly happy, among the nuns she +learned to love. The sad and beautiful lady who had come once or twice +to see her, and who, she was told, was her mother, had become a dim +memory of early girlhood. Who the great lady was, and who was her +father, she did not know. This knowledge the nuns, in their wisdom, kept +from her--if, indeed, they knew themselves. + +One day, in 1761, her days of childish happiness came to an abrupt and +sensational end. A rough seafaring man called at the convent with a +letter from her father demanding the return of his daughter. The bearer +was sent by the captain of a merchant-vessel, who had instructions to +convey the girl from Rouen to Leith; and, after an affecting farewell to +the abbess and nuns, who had been so kind to her, Susan Janet Emilia +(for that was the girl's name) started with her strange escort on the +long journey to a parent whom she had never consciously seen. The +father, released by the death of the Countess, had married a second wife +of his own station, and had settled as a livery-stable keeper at Leith, +where, with his rapidly-growing family, he had now made his home for +some years. + +At last Emilia was handed over to the custody of her groom-father, who +conducted her to his home, which, as may be imagined, was a pitiful and +sordid exchange for the peace and happiness of her convent life. From +the first day the new life was impossible. Emilia was treated by her +stepmother with coarseness and brutality; she was daily taunted with her +dependent position, and shown in a hundred ways that her presence was +unwelcome. + +Can one wonder that the proud spirit of the girl rebelled against such +ignominy? It was better far to trust to the mercy of the world than to +bear the brutal treatment of her low-born stepmother. And thus it came +to pass that, early one morning, before the household was awake, Emilia +slipped stealthily away with a few shillings, all her worldly +possessions, in her pocket. Walking a few miles along the shore, she +took the packet-boat, and crossed to the Fife coast, thus placing a +broad arm of the sea between herself and the house of misery and +oppression she had left for ever. + +For days this descendant of Scotland's proudest nobles tramped aimlessly +through the country, sleeping in barns or craving the shelter of the +humblest cottage, and, when her money was exhausted, even begging her +bread from door to door. + +At last human nature reached its limit. Late one night, footsore and +fainting from exhaustion and hunger, she presented herself at a remote +farmhouse, and begged piteously for a meal and a night's rest. None but +the hardest heart could have resisted such a pathetic appeal, and Farmer +Lauder and his good wife had hearts as large as their bodies. At last +the waif had fallen among good Samaritans. She was received with open +arms; and instead of being sent away in the morning, was cordially +invited to make her home with them. + +The rest of Emilia's strange life-story can be told in few words. After +a few years of peaceful and happy life in the hospitable farmhouse, she +married the farmer's only son, an honest and worthy young fellow who +loved her dearly. She became the mother of many children, who in their +humble life knew nothing of their high-placed cousins, the Dukes and +Earls of another world than theirs. + +When, in process of time, her husband died--many of her children had +died young, the rest were far from prosperous--Mrs Lauder retired to +spend her last days in a small cottage at St Ninian's, near Stirling, +where for a time she lived in the utmost poverty. Then, when her life +was almost flickering out in destitution, a few of her great relatives +condescended to acknowledge her existence. The Earls of Galloway and +Dunmore, the Duke of Hamilton, and Mrs Stewart Mackenzie combined to +provide her with an annuity of £100; and, thus secure against want, the +old lady contrived to spin out the thread of her days a few years +longer. Thus died, at the advanced age of eighty-five, eating the bread +of charity, the woman who had in her veins the blood of Scotland's +greatest men and her fairest women. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +A NOBLE VAGABOND + + +The circle of the British Peerage has included many "vagabonds," some of +whom have worn coronets in our own day; but it is doubtful whether any +one of them all has had the _wanderlust_ in his veins to the same degree +as Edward Wortley Montagu, whose adventurous life was ignominiously +ended by a partridge-bone more than a century and a quarter ago. + +It would have been strange if this blue-blooded "rolling-stone" had been +a normal man, since he had for mother that most wayward and eccentric +woman, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who dazzled England by her beauty and +brilliant intellect, and amused it by her oddities in the days of the +first two Georges. This grandson of the Duke of Kingston, and +great-grandson of the first Earl of Sandwich was "his mother's +boy"--with much of his mother's physical and mental charms, and more +than her eccentricities, as his story abundantly proves. + +As a child of three he accompanied his parents to Constantinople, where +his father, the Hon. Sydney Montagu, was sent as our Ambassador; and +there he won a place in history at a very early age as the first English +child to be inoculated for the small-pox. Probably, too, it was his +boyish life in Turkey that inoculated him with the passion for all +things Eastern, that so largely influenced his later life. + +His adventures began when his parents returned to London, and the boy +was sent as a pupil to Westminster. It was not long before he rebelled +against the discipline and trammels of school-boy life; and one day he +threw down his Euclid and Cæsar and vanished as completely as if the +earth had swallowed him. Every street, court, and alley was searched in +vain for the truant; advertisements and handbills offering a reward for +his recovery were equally futile. Not a trace of the runaway was to be +found anywhere. + +One day, a good twelve months after his family had concluded that the +lad was dead, or, at least, lost for ever, Mr Foster, a friend of his +father, chanced to be in Blackwall when he heard a familiar voice crying +fish. "That is the voice of young Montagu," he exclaimed, and promptly +despatched his servant to bring the boy to him. The fish-seller +innocently came back, his basket of plaice and flounders on his head, +and was at once recognised by Mr Foster as the truant son of Lady Mary. + +For a time he denied his identity with the utmost coolness; then, seeing +that denial was useless, he flung away his basket and took to his heels. +It was not, however, difficult to trace him; he was tracked to his +master's shop, where it was found that he had been a model apprentice +and fish-hawker for a year; and he was induced to return to his parents +and to school. Thus ignominiously ended Edward's first adventure, the +precursor of a hundred others. + +He had, however, only been back at his books a few months when he +vanished again--this time as apprentice on a vessel bound to Oporto, the +captain of which, a Quaker, treated the lad with all kindness and +consideration. Arrived at Portugal he ran away again, and, tramping into +the interior, begging food and shelter on the way, he found work in the +vineyards, where for two years or more he shared the life of the +peasants. One day, as good or ill luck would have it, he was ordered to +drive some asses to the nearest seaport, where he was recognised both by +the English Consul and his old friend, the Quaker; and once more the +prodigal was induced to return to his father's roof. + +For a time he proved a model student, to the surprise and delight of his +parents; but once more "hope told a flattering tale." For the third time +he disappeared, and was soon on his way to the Mediterranean as a sailor +working before the mast, and ideally happy in his vagabond life. This +time his father's patience was quite exhausted. He refused to trouble +any more about his prodigal son, declaring that "he had made his bed and +must lie on it." + +Mr Foster, however, the rescuer from the fish-basket, was of another +mind. He went in chase of the fugitive, ran him to earth, and brought +him again triumphantly home, submissive but unrepentant. It was quite +clear that the boy would never settle down to the humdrum life of home +and school, and, with his father's permission, Mr Foster took the +restless youth for a long visit to the West Indies, where it seemed that +at last he was cured of his passion for straying. A few years later we +find him back in England, a model of stability, a student and a scholar, +who, in 1747, blossomed into a knight of the shire for the County of +Huntingdon. The rolling-stone had come to rest at last, and had actually +developed into a pillar of the State! + +But this eminently respectable chapter in Montagu's chequered life was +destined to be a short one. He soon found himself so uncomfortably deep +in debt that he vanished again--this time to escape from his creditors. +He turned up smiling in Paris, where the sedate legislator blossomed +into the gambler and _roué_, dividing his time between the seductive +poles of the gaming-table and fair women. + +His course of dissipation, however, received a sudden and severe check +one Sunday morning in the autumn of 1751, when he was rudely disturbed +by the entry of a _posse_ of officials into his room, armed with a +warrant for his imprisonment. + + "On Sunday, the 31st of October 1751," Mr Montagu + records, "when it was near one in the morning, as I was + undressed and going to bed, I heard a person enter my + room; and upon turning round and seeing a man I did not + know, I asked him calmly _what he wanted_? His answer was + that _I must put on my clothes._ I began to expostulate + upon the motive of his apparition, when a commissary + instantly entered the room with a pretty numerous + attendance, and told me with great gravity that he was + come, by virtue of a warrant for my imprisonment, to + carry me to the Grand Chatelêt. I requested him again and + again to inform me of the crime laid to my charge; but + all his answer was, that _I must follow him_. I begged + him to give me leave to write to Lord Albemarle, the + English Ambassador, promising to obey the warrant if his + Excellency was not pleased to answer for my forthcoming. + But the Commissary refused me the use of pen and ink, + though he consented that I should send a verbal message + to his Excellency, telling me at the same time that he + would not wait the return of the messenger, because his + orders were to carry me instantly to prison. As + resistance under such circumstances must have been + unavailable, and might have been blameable, I obeyed the + warrant by following the Commissary, after ordering one + of my domestics to inform my Lord Albemarle of the + treatment I underwent. + + "I was carried to the Chatelêt, where the jailors, + hardened by their profession, and brutal for their + profit, fastened upon me as upon one of those guilty + objects whom they lock up to be reserved for public + punishment; and though neither my looks nor my behaviour + betrayed the least symptom of guilt, yet I was treated as + a condemned criminal. I was thrown into prison, and + committed to a set of wretches who bore no character of + humanity but its form. My residence--to speak in the jail + dialect--was in the SECRET, which is no other than the + dungeon of the prison, where all the furniture was a + wretched mattress and a crazy chair. The weather was + cold, and I called for a fire; but I was told I could + have none. I was thirsty, and called for some wine and + water, or even a draught of water by itself, but was + denied it. All the favour I could obtain was a promise to + be waited on in the morning; and then was left by myself + under a hundred locks and bolts, with a bit of candle, + after finding that the words of my jailors were few, + their orders peremptory, and their favours unattainable. + + "I continued in this dismal dungeon till the 2nd of + November, entirely ignorant of the crime I was accused + of; but at nine in the morning of that day, I was carried + before a magistrate, where I underwent an examination by + which I understood the heads of the charge against me, + and which I answered in a manner that ought to have + cleared my own innocence." + +The story of the charge and trial is a long one; but it can be briefly +outlined as follows:--It seems that one, Abraham Paya, a Jew, who, +disguised as "Mr Roberts," was staying with a Miss Rose who was not his +wedded wife, accused Montagu and two of his friends, Mr Taafe and Lord +Southwell, of making him drunk as a preliminary to inveigling him into +play and winning 870 louis d'or from him. + +As the Jew, whom his losses had sobered, refused to pay, Montagu and his +associates had compelled him by violence and threats to give them drafts +for the sums owing to them. Then, knowing that payment would be refused, +"Roberts" shook the dust of Paris off his feet, turned his back on lady +and creditors alike, and ran away to Lyons. Whereupon, so said the +complainant, Montagu and his fellow-thieves had ransacked his baggage +(which he had foolishly left behind him), and appropriated all his money +and jewels, to the value of many thousands of livres. + +To quote Mr Montagu again, the latter part of the charge was that Mr +Taafe + + "smashed all the trunks, portmanteaus and drawers + belonging to the complainant, from whence he took out in + one bag 400 louis d'or, and out of another, to the value + of 300 louis d'or in French and Portuguese silver; from + another bag, 1200 livres in crown pieces, a pair of + brilliant diamond buckles, for which the complainant paid + 8020 livres to the Sieur Piérre; his own picture set + around with diamonds to the amount of 1200 livres ... + laces to the amount of 3000 livres, seven or eight + women's robes; two brilliant diamond rings, several gold + snuff-boxes, a travelling-chest containing his plate and + china, and divers other effects, all of which Mr Taafe + (one of Montagu's co-defendants) packed up in one box, + and, by the help of his footman, carried in a coach to + his own apartment. That afterwards Mr Taafe carried Miss + Rose and her sister in another coach to his lodgings, + where they remained three days, and then sent them to + London, under the care of one of his friends." + +Fortunately for Montagu, the verdict of the Court was in his favour; +and, after such an unpleasant experience, he was glad to return to +England, where, such an adept at quick-changing was he, that we soon +find him a full-blown Member of Parliament for Bossinery, lightening his +legislative labours by writing a learned treatise on the rise and fall +of ancient Republics. Was there ever such a man? Duke's grandson, +fish-hawker, common sailor, peasant, _roué_, gambler, Member of +Parliament, scholar--all _rôles_ came equally easily to him; and many +more just as varied were to follow. It was while thus wearing the halo +of learning and high respectability that his father died, leaving him a +substantial income, and a large estate in Yorkshire to his eldest son, +if he should have one. And now we find him leaving his law-making and +cultivating letters and science in Italy, further enriched by the guinea +which was all his mother, Lady Mary, condescended to leave her vagrant +son. The rest--an enormous property--went to his sister, the Countess of +Bute. + +From Italy he went on a long tour through the East, where he seems to +have played the _rôle_ of Lothario very effectually. At Alexandria (to +give only one of his love adventures) he lost his fickle heart to the +beautiful wife of the Danish Ambassador, whom, under various pretences, +he induced to leave the coast clear by getting him to go to Holland. The +husband thus safely out of the way, Montagu proceeded to dispose of him. +He showed the lady a letter from Holland giving sad details of his +sudden death, and consoled the bereaved "widow" so well that she +consented to reward him with her hand and to accompany him to Syria. + +By the time the dead husband had returned to life Montagu was already +weary of honeymooning, and was thankful to make his escape to Italy, +free to woo, and, if necessary, to wed again. + +We next find this human chameleon at Venice, wearing a beard down to his +waist, sleeping on the ground, eating rice and drinking water, and +recounting his adventures to all who cared to hear them. He was an +Armenian, and played the part to perfection--until he wearied of it, and +found another to play. At this time he wrote: + + "I have been a labourer in the fields of Switzerland and + Holland, and have not disdained the humble profession of + postillion and ploughman. I was a _petit maitre_ at + Paris, and an abbé at Rome. I put on, at Hamburg, the + Lutheran ruff, and with a triple chin and a formal + countenance I dealt about me the word of God so as to + excite the envy of the clergy. My fate was similar to + that of a guinea, which at one time is in the hands of a + Queen, and at another is in the fob of a greasy + Israelite." + +From land to land he wandered, assuming a fresh character in each, and +thoroughly enjoying them all. During a two years' residence at Venice he +was visited by the Duke of Hamilton and a Dr Moore, the latter of whom +gives the following entertaining account of the visit. + + "He met us," Dr Moore writes, "at the stairhead, and led + us through some apartments furnished in the Venetian + manner, into an inner room quite in a different style. + There were no chairs, but he desired us to seat + ourselves on a sofa, while he placed himself on a cushion + on the floor, with his legs crossed, in the Turkish + fashion. A young black slave sate by him; and a venerable + old man with a long beard served us with coffee. After + this collation, some aromatic gums were brought and burnt + in a little silver vessel. Mr Montagu held his nose over + the steam for some minutes, and snuffed up the perfume + with peculiar satisfaction; he afterwards endeavoured to + collect the smoke with his hands, spreading and rubbing + it carefully along his beard, which hung in hoary + ringlets to his girdle. This manner of perfuming the + beard seems more cleanly, and rather an improvement upon + that used by the Jews in ancient times. + + "We had a great conversation with this venerable-looking + person, who is, to the last degree, acute, communicative, + and entertaining, and in whose discourse and manners are + blended the vivacity of a Frenchman with the gravity of a + Turk. We found him, however, wonderfully prejudiced in + favour of the Turkish characters and manners, which he + thinks infinitely preferable to the European, or those of + any other nation. He describes the Turks in general as a + people of great sense and integrity; the most hospitable, + generous, and the happiest of mankind. He talks of + returning as soon as possible to Egypt, which he paints + as a perfect paradise. Though Mr Montagu hardly ever + stirs abroad, he returned the Duke's visit, and as we + were not provided with cushions, he sate, while he + stayed, upon a sofa with his legs under him, as he had + done at his own house. This posture, by long habit, has + become the most agreeable to him, and he insists upon its + being by far the most natural and convenient; but, + indeed, he seems to cherish the same opinion with regard + to all customs which prevail among the Turks." + +It was during this interview that Mr Montagu declared: "I have never +once been guilty of a small folly in the whole course of my +life"--probably making the mental reservation that all his follies had +been great ones. Thus this singular sprig of nobility drifted through +his kaleidoscopic life, changing his religion as lightly as he changed +from priest to ploughman, or from debauchee to Armenian storyteller. + +Perhaps the most remarkable thing he ever did was the publication of the +following advertisement, the object of which was evidently to secure the +large Yorkshire estate devised by his father to any son he might have: + + "MATRIMONY.--A gentleman who hath filled two succeeding + seats in Parliament, is near sixty years of age, lives in + great splendour and hospitality, and from whom a + considerable estate must pass if he dies without issue, + hath no objection to marry any lady, provided the party + be of genteel birth, polished manners, and about to + become a mother. Letters directed to ---- Brecknock, + Esq., at Wills's Coffeehouse, facing the Admiralty, will + be honoured with due attention, secrecy, and every + possible mark of respect." + +At this time Montagu was the father of three children--two sons (one a +black boy of thirteen, who was his favourite companion) and a daughter; +but they all lacked the sanction of the altar. + +A lady answering these delicate requirements was actually found, and +Montagu would probably have graduated as a respectable husband and +father of another man's child had not his vagabond career been cut +tragically short. One day, when he was dining at Padua with Romney, the +famous artist, a partridge-bone lodged in the old man's throat, and +refused to budge. He was suffocating; his face grew purple--almost +black. In terrified haste a priest was summoned to administer the last +consolations of religion; but the dying man would have none of him. When +he was asked in what faith he wished to leave the world, he gasped, "A +good Mussulman, I hope." A few moments later Edward Wortley Montagu, who +had played more parts on the world's stage than almost any other man who +ever lived, was a corpse. This grandson of a Duke had begun his life of +adventure as a fish-hawker, and ended it as "a good Mussulman." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +FOOTLIGHTS AND CORONETS + + +Ever since that tough old soldier Charles, first Earl of Monmouth and +third Earl of Peterborough, hauled down his flag before the battery of +Anastasia Robinson's charms, and made a Countess of his victor, a +coronet has dazzled the eyes of many an actress with its rainbow +allurement, and has proved the passport by which she has stepped from +the stage to the gilded circle which environs the throne. + +The hero of the Peninsula and the terror of the French was an old man, +with one foot in the grave, when the "nightingale" of the London +theatres brought him to his gouty knees; but so resolute was he to give +her his name that, to make assurance doubly sure, he faced the altar +twice with her, before starting on his honeymoon journey across the +Channel. + +Pope, who was a friend of the amorous Earl, draws a pathetic picture of +him in the latter unromantic days of his romance. During a visit to +Bevis Mount, near Southampton, the poet writes: + + "I found my Lord Peterborough on his couch, where he gave + me an account of the excessive sufferings he had passed + through, with a weak voice, but spirited. He next told me + he had ended his domestic affairs through such + difficulties from the law that gave him as much torment + of mind as his distemper had done of body, to do right to + the person to whom he had obligations beyond expression + (Anastasia Robinson). That he had found it necessary not + only to declare his marriage to all his relations, but + since the person who married them was dead, to re-marry + her in the church at Bristol, before witnesses. He talks + of getting toward Lyons; but undoubtedly he can never + travel but to the sea-shore. I pity the poor woman who + has to share in all he suffers, and who can, in no one + thing, persuade him to spare himself." + +Pope, however, understated the Earl's vigour or his indomitable spirit; +for he not only succeeded in getting to the sea-shore, but as far as +Lisbon, where he died in the following October, but a few months after +his second nuptials. My Lady Peterborough and Monmouth lived to see many +more years, and by her dignity and sweetness to win as much approval in +the Peerage as in the lowlier sphere of the stage. + +Anastasia Robinson was the first star of the stage to wear a coronet, +but where she led the way, there were many dainty feet eager to follow; +and, curiously enough, it was Gay's famous _Beggar's Opera_ that pointed +the way to three of them. + +Any one who chanced to drop in at a certain coffee-house at Charing +Cross, kept by a Mr Fenton, in the days when the first George was King, +might--indeed, he could not have failed to--have made the acquaintance +of a "little witch" (as Swift called her) with a voice of gold, who was +destined one day to be a Duchess. This little elf with the merry eyes, +dancing feet, and the voice of an angel, was none other than Mrs +Fenton's daughter by a former husband, a naval officer, and the prime +favourite of all the wits and actors whom her fame drew to the +coffee-house. + +She sang for her stepfather's customers, danced for them, charmed them +with her ready wit, and sent them into fits of laughter by her childish +drolleries. Of course there was only one career possible for her, they +all declared. She must go on the stage, and then she could not fail to +take London by storm. She had the best masters money could secure for +her; and when she reached her eighteenth birthday Lavinia Fenton made +her first curtsy on the Haymarket stage as Monimia, in _The Orphan_. Her +_début_ was electrifying, sensational. Such beauty, such grace, such +wonderful acting were a revelation, a fresh stimulus to jaded appetites. +Within a few days she had London at her feet. She was the toast of the +gallants, the envy and despair of great ladies. Titled wooers tumbled +over each other in their eagerness to pay her homage; but Lavinia +laughed at them all. She knew her value; and her freedom was more to her +than luxury which had not the sanction of the wedding-ring. + +Her real stage triumph, however, was yet to come. After appearing in the +_Beaux's Stratagem_ with brilliant success she was offered the part of +Polly Peachum in Gay's Opera, which was about to make its first bow to +the public. The salary was but fifteen shillings a week (afterwards +doubled); but the part was after Lavinia's own heart. For a few +intoxicating weeks she was the idol and rage of London; her picture +filled the windows of every print-shop; the greatest ladies had it +painted on their fans. Royalty smiled its sweetest on her. + +Then, at the very zenith of her triumph, the startling news went +forth--"The Duke of Bolton has run away with Polly Peachum." And the +news was true. The popular idol, who had turned her back on so many +tempting offers, had actually run away with Charles Paulet, third Duke +of Bolton and Constable of the Tower of London; and the stage knew her +no more. For twenty-three years she was a Duchess in all but name, until +the Duke, on the death of his legal wife, daughter of the Earl of +Carberry, was at last able to put Lavinia in her place. + +As Duchess, a title which she lived nine years to enjoy, she won golden +opinions by her modest dignity, her large-heartedness, and by the +cleverness and charm of her conversation, which none admired more than +Lord Bathurst and Lord Granville. + +Duchess Lavinia had been dead thirty years when Mary Catherine Bolton, +who was to follow in her footsteps, was obscurely cradled in Long Acre +in 1790. Like Lavinia Fenton, Mary Bolton was born for the stage. As a +child the sweetness of her voice and the grace of her movements charmed +all who knew her. The greatest teachers of the day taught her to sing, +and when only sixteen she made a brilliant _début_ as Polly, recalling +all the triumphs of her famous predecessor. + +But it was as Ariel that she made her real conquest of London. "So +pretty and winning in pouting wilfulness, so caressing, her voice having +the flowing sweetness of music, she bounded along with so light a foot +that it scarcely seemed to rest upon the stage." It is little wonder +that Ariel danced her way into many hearts, and that even such a sedate +personage as Edward, second Lord Thurlow, should so far succumb to her +fascinations as to offer her marriage. Her wedded life was only too +brief, but she rewarded her lord with three sons; and a liberal share of +her blood flows in the veins of the Baron of to-day, her grandson. + +Not many years after Mary Bolton had danced her way into the Peerage +London was losing its head over still another "Polly Peachum"--Catherine +Stephens, daughter of a carver and gilder in the West of London. Miss +Stephens, who like her predecessors in the _rôle_, sang divinely even as +a child, was but seventeen when she made her first stage curtsy, and won +fame at a bound, as Mandano in _Artaxerxes_. One triumph succeeded +another until she reached the pinnacle of success as Polly of the +_Beggar's Opera_. + +Catherine Stephens had no lack of gilded and titled lovers; but she was +too much wedded to her art to listen to any vows or to be lured from it +even by a coronet. Although, however, she eluded her destiny until the +verge of middle age she was fated to die a Countess; and a Countess she +became when George Capel, fifth Earl of Essex, asked her to be his wife. +The Earl had passed his eightieth birthday, and was nearly forty years +her senior; but he made her his bride, though he left her a widow within +a year of their nuptial-day. + +Since Catherine Stephens wore her coronet--and before--many an actress +has found in the stage-door a portal to the Peerage. Elizabeth Farren, +who was cradled in the year before George III came to his Throne, was +the daughter of a gifted and erratic Irishman, who abandoned pills and +potions to lead the life of a strolling actor, a career which came to a +premature end while his daughter was still a child. Fortunately for +Elizabeth, her mother was a woman of capacity and character, who made a +gallant struggle to give her children as good a start in life as was +possible to her straitened means; and by the time she was fourteen the +girl, who had inherited her father's passion for the stage, was able to +make a most creditable first appearance at Liverpool, as Rosetta, in +Bickerstaff's _Love in a Village._ + +So adept did she prove in her adopted art that within four years she +made her curtsy at the Haymarket as Miss Hardcastle, in _She Stoops to +Conquer_; and at once, by her grace and brilliant acting, won the hearts +of theatre-going London; while her refinement, at that time by no means +common on the stage, and her social graces won for her a welcome in high +circles. Many a lover of title or eminence sought the hand of the +sparkling and lovely Irishwoman, and none of them all was more ardent in +his wooing than Charles James Fox, then at the zenith of his career as +statesman; but she would have naught to say to any one of them all. Her +fate, however, was not long in coming; and it came in the form of Edward +Stanley, twelfth Earl of Derby, who, before his first wife, a daughter +of the Duke of Hamilton, had been many months in the family-vault, was +at the knees of the beautiful actress. He had little difficulty in +persuading her to become his Countess; and one May day, in 1797, he +placed the wedding-ring on her finger in the drawing-room of his +Grosvenor Square house. + +For more than thirty years Lady Derby moved in her new circle, a +splendid and gracious figure, received at Court with special favour by +George III and his Queen, before she died in 1829, transmitting her +blood, through her daughter, Lady Mary Stanley, to the Earl of Wilton of +to-day. + +While my Lady Derby was still new to her dignities, Eliza O'Neill was +beginning to prattle in the most charming brogue ever heard across the +Irish Channel, and to grow through beautiful childhood to witching +girlhood. The daughter of a strolling actor who led his company of +buskers through every county in Ireland from Cork to Donegal, the love +of things theatrical was in her veins; and while she was still playing +with her dolls she was impersonating the Duke of York to her father's +Richard III. Everywhere the little witch, with the merry dancing eyes, +won hearts and applause by her sprightly acting, until even so excellent +a judge of histrionic art as John Kemble sought to carry her away to +London and to a wider sphere of activity. + +From Dublin, he wrote to Harris, manager of Covent Garden Theatre: + + "There is a very pretty Irish girl here, with a touch of + the brogue on her tongue; she has much talent and some + genius. With a little expense and some trouble we might + make her an object for John Bull's admiration in the + juvenile tragedy. I have sounded the fair lady on the + subject of a London engagement. She proposes to append a + very long family, to which I have given a decided + negative. If she accepts the offered terms I shall sign, + seal and ship herself and clan off from Cork direct. She + is very pretty, and so, in fact, is her brogue, which, by + the way, she only uses in conversation. She totally + forgets it when with Shakespeare and other illustrious + companions." + +And thus it was that John O'Neill's daughter carried her charms and +gifts to London town in the autumn of 1812, when she justified Kemble's +discernment by one of the most brilliant series of impersonations, +ranging from Juliet to Belvidera, that had been seen up to that time on +the English stage. For seven years she shone a very bright star in the +firmament of the drama, winning as much popularity off as on the stage, +before she consented to yield her hand to one of the many suitors who +sought it--Mr William Wrixon Becher, a Member of Parliament of some +distinction. Eliza O'Neill lived to be addressed as "my Lady," and to +see her eldest son a Baronet, and her second boy wedded to a daughter of +the second Earl of Listowel. + +Five years before Miss O'Neill's Juliet came to captivate London, +another idol of the stage was led to the altar by William, first Earl of +Craven. Louisa Brunton, for that was the name of Craven's Countess, was +cradled, like her successor, on the stage; for her father was well known +at every town on the Norwich Circuit as manager of a popular company of +actors, as devoted to his family of eight children as to his art. When +Louisa made her entry into the world she was the sixth of the clamorous +flock who roamed the country in the wake of their strolling father; and +it would have been odd indeed if she had not acquired a love of the +theatre to stimulate the acting strain in her blood. + +Such were the charms and talent that the child developed that, by the +time she came to her eighteenth birthday she was carried off to London +to appear at Covent Garden Theatre as Lady Townley in _The Provoked +Husband_; and the general verdict was that no such clever acting had +been seen since Miss Farren was lured from the stage by a coronet. And +not only did she create an immediate sensation by her acting; her +beauty, which a contemporary writer tells us, "combined the stateliness +of Juno with the gentler and beauty of a Venus," made her a Queen of +Hearts as of actresses. So seductive a prize was not likely to be long +left to adorn the stage; and although Miss Brunton consistently turned a +blind eye to many a seductive offer, she had to succumb when his +Lordship of Craven joined the queue of her courtiers. Four years of +stage sovereignty and then the coronet of a Countess; such was the +record of this daughter of a strolling player, whose greatest ambition +had been to provide food enough for his hungry family. Lady Craven lived +nearly sixty years to enjoy her dignities and splendours, surviving long +enough to see her grandson take his place as third Earl of his line. + +[Illustration: HARRIET, DUCHESS OF ST ALBANS] + +For twenty years the English stage had no star to compare in brilliancy +with Harriet Mellon, whose life-story is one of the most romantic in +theatrical annals. From the January day in 1795 when she made her bow on +the Drury Lane stage as Lydia in _The Rivals_, to her farewell +appearance in February 1815, a month after she had become a wife, her +career was one unbroken sequence of triumphs. To quote the words of a +chronicler, + + She shone supreme, splendid, unapproachable, not only by + her brilliant genius, but by her beauty and social + fascinations. + +That she revelled in her conquests is certain; for to not one of her +army of wooers, many of them men of high rank, would she deign more than +a smile, until old Thomas Coutts came, with all the impetus of his +money-bags behind him, and literally swept her off her feet The lady who +had spurned coronets could not resist a million of money, qualified +though it was by the admiration of a senile lover. + +Nor did she ever have cause to regret her choice; for no husband could +have been more devoted or more lavish than this shabby old banker who +used to chuckle when he was taken for a beggar, and alms were thrust +into his receptive hand. Wonderful stories are told of Mr Coutts' +generosity to his beautiful wife, for whom nothing that money could buy +was too good. + +One day--it is Captain Gronow who tells the tale--Mr Hamlet, a jeweller, +came to his house, bringing for the banker's inspection a magnificent +diamond-cross which had been worn on the previous day (of George IV's +Coronation) by no less a personage than the Duke of York. At sight of +its rainbow fires Mrs Coutts exclaimed: "How happy I should be with such +a splendid piece of jewellery!" "What is it worth?" enquired her +husband. "I could not possibly part with it for less than £15,000," the +jeweller replied. "Bring me a pen and ink," was the only remark of the +doting banker who promptly wrote a cheque for the money, and beamed with +delight as he placed the jewel on his wife's bosom. + + Upon her breast a sparkling cross she wore + Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore. + +And this devotion--idolatry almost--lasted as long as life itself, +reaching its climax in his will, in which he left his actress-wife +every penny of his enormous fortune, amounting to £900,000, "for her +sole use and benefit, and at her absolute disposal, without the +deduction of a single legacy to any other person." + +That a widow so richly dowered with beauty and gold should have a world +of lovers in her train is not to be wondered at. For five years she +retained her new freedom, and then yielded to the wooing of William +Aubrey de Vere, ninth Duke of St Albans (whose remote ancestor was Nell +Gwynn, the Drury Lane orange-girl and actress), who made a Duchess of +her one June day in 1827. + +For ten short years Harriet Mellon queened it as a Duchess, retaining +her vast fortune in her own hands and dispensing it with a large-hearted +charity and regal hospitality, moving among Royalties and cottagers +alike with equal dignity and graciousness. At her beautiful Highgate +home she played the hostess many a time to two English Kings and their +Queens. + + "The inhabitants of Highgate still bear in memory," Mr + Howitt records, "her splendid fêtes to Royalty, in some + of which, they say, she hired all the birds of the + bird-dealers in London, and fixing their cages in the + trees, made her grounds one great orchestra of Nature's + music." + +When her Grace died, universally beloved and regretted, in 1837, she +proved her gratitude and loyalty to her banker-husband by leaving all +she possessed, a fortune now swollen to £1,800,000, to Miss Angela +Coutts (grand-daughter of Thomas Coutts and his first wife, Eliza Stark, +a domestic servant) who, as the Baroness Burdett-Coutts of later years, +proved by her large munificence a worthy trustee and dispenser of such +vast wealth. + +Such are but a few of the romantic alliances between the peerage and the +stage, of which, during the last score of years, since Miss Connie +Gilchrist blossomed into the Countess of Orkney and Miss Belle Bilton +into my Lady Clancarty, there has been such an epidemic. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A PEASANT COUNTESS + + +In the dusk of a July evening in the year 1791 a dust-covered footsore +traveller entered the pretty little Shropshire village of Bolas Magna, +which nestles, in its setting of green fields and orchards, almost in +the shadow of the Wrekin. The traveller had tramped many a long league +under a burning sun, and was too weary to fare farther. Moreover, night +was closing in fast, and a few hissing raindrops and the distant rumble +of thunder warned him that a storm was about to break. + +He must find some sort of shelter for the night; and among the few +thatch-covered cottages in whose windows lights were beginning to +twinkle, his steps led him to a modest farmhouse behind the small +village church. In answer to his knock, the door was opened by a burly, +pleasant-faced farmer, of whom the stranger craved a refuge from the +storm until the morning, and a little food for which he offered to pay +handsomely. "I shall be grateful for even a chair to sit on," added the +weary traveller, when the farmer protested that he had no accommodation +to offer him. + +"Very well," said the farmer, relenting. "Come in, and we'll do the +best we can for you. It's going to be a bad night, not fit to turn a dog +out in, much less a gentleman; and I can see you're that." And a few +minutes later the grateful stranger was seated in Farmer Hoggins's cosy +kitchen before a steaming plate of stew, while the thunder crashed +overhead and the rain dashed in a deluge against the window-panes. + +Thus dramatically opened one of the most romantic chapters in the story +of the British Peerage. As Farmer Hoggins shrewdly concluded, his +travel-stained guest was at least a gentleman. His voice and bearing +proclaimed that fact. But the farmer little suspected the true rank of +the man he was thus "entertaining unawares," or all that was to come +from his good-hearted hospitality to a stranger who was so affable and +so entertaining. + +Although he was known in his own world as plain Mr Henry Cecil, he was a +man of ancient lineage, and closely allied to some of the greatest in +the land. Long centuries earlier, when William Rufus was King, one of +his ancestors had done doughty deeds in the conquest of Glamorganshire; +and from that distant day all his forefathers had been men who had held +their heads among the highest. One of them was none other than the +famous Lord Burleigh, one of England's greatest statesmen, favourite +Minister and friend of Henry VIII. and his two Queen-daughters. So great +was my Lord Burleigh's wealth that, as Sir Bernard Burke tells us, + + "he had four places of residence--his lodgings at Court, + his house in the Strand, his family seat at Burleigh, and + his own favourite seat of Theobalds, near Waltham Cross, + to which he loved to retire from harness. At his house in + London he supported a family of fourscore persons, + without counting those who attended him in public. + + "He kept a standing table for gentlemen, and two other + tables for those of a meaner condition; and these were + always served alike, whether he was in or out of town. + Twelve times he entertained Elizabeth at his house, on + more than one occasion for some weeks together; and, as + royal visits are rather expensive luxuries, and + Elizabeth's formed no exception to the rule (for they + cost between £1,000 and £2,000), the only wonder is that + his purse was not exhausted, and that he was able to + leave his son £25,000 in money and valuable effects, + besides £4,000 a year in landed estates." + +Such was the splendour of this early Cecil, whose two sons were both +raised to Earldoms--of Exeter and Salisbury--on the same day. + +Henry himself was heir to one of these family Earldoms--that of +Exeter--and some day would wear a coronet and be lord of vast estates, +although the knowledge gave him little pleasure. His parents had died in +his boyhood; and as his uncle, the Earl, took no interest in his heir, +the lad was left to his own devices. In good time he had wooed and +married the pretty daughter of a West of England squire, a Miss Vernon, +who proved as wayward as she was winsome. His wedded life was indeed so +far from being a bed of roses that he was thankful to recover his +liberty by divorcing his wife; and at the age of thirty-seven, but a few +months before this story opens, he was a free man once more. + +Courts and coronets had no attractions for him. His marriage had proved +a bitter draught. He was a disappointed and disillusioned man, and he +determined that if ever he took another wife she should be "a plain, +homely, and truly virtuous maiden, in whatever sphere of life I find +her. Then I swear with King Cophetua, 'This beggar-maid shall be my +Queen.'" + +Full of this romantic, if quixotic, resolve, Henry Cecil strapped a +knapsack on his back, and, staff in hand, tramped off in search of the +"beggar-maid" who was to bring him happiness at last; or, if he could +not discover her, at least to find some place of retirement where he +could lead a simple life, remote from the empty splendours and vanities +of the world to which he was born, and in which he had sought happiness +in vain. + +And thus it was that in his wanderings his steps led him to the little +village in Shropshire, and to the hospitable roof of Farmer Hoggins and +his good wife, whose hearts he had won before the humble supper-table +was cleared on that stormy July night. No doubt the stranger's enjoyment +of the farmer's hospitality was enhanced by the glimpses he had caught +of his host's daughter, Sarah, a rustic beauty of seventeen summers, +with a complexion of "cream and roses," with a wealth of brown hair, and +lovely blue eyes which from time to time glanced shyly at the +good-looking stranger. + +No doubt, too, it was the wish to see more of pretty Miss Sarah that was +responsible for the stranger's reluctance to resume his journey on the +following morning, which dawned bright and beautiful. So far from +showing any anxiety to continue his tramping, Cecil begged his host's +and hostess's permission to spend a few days with them. He was, he said, +a painter by profession; it would give him the greatest pleasure to +spend a few days sketching in such a beautiful district; and he would +pay well for the hospitality. + +The farmer and his wife, who had already grown attached to their +pleasant guest, were by no means unwilling to accept the offer; nor did +they raise any protest when the days grew into weeks and months. These +were halcyon days for the world-weary man--delightful days of sketching +in the open air in an environment of natural beauty; peaceful evenings +spent with his simple-minded hosts and friends; and, happiest of all, +the hours in which he basked in the smiles and blushes of pretty Sarah +Hoggins, carrying home her pails of milk, helping her to churn the +butter, or telling to her wondering ears stories of the great world +outside her ken, while the sunset steeped the orchard trees above their +heads in glory. + +To Sarah he was known as "Mr Jones"; and to her innocent mind it never +occurred that he could be other than the painter he professed to be. +The villagers, however, were sceptical. True, the stranger was a +pleasant man who always gave them a cheery "good-day," and gossiped with +them in the friendliest manner. But that there was some mystery +connected with him, all agreed. "Painter chaps" were notoriously poor, +and this man always seemed to have plenty of money to fling about. Then, +he would disappear periodically, and always returned with more money. +Where did he go, and how did he get his gold? There could be little +doubt about it. This handsome, mysterious, pleasant-tongued stranger +must be a highwayman; for it was a fact that every time he was absent, a +coach or a chaise was held up in the neighbourhood and its occupants +relieved of their valuables. + +Suspicion became certainty when Mr Jones bought a piece of land in their +village and began to build the finest house in the whole district, a +house which must cost, in their bucolic view, a "mint o' money." But Mr +Jones simply smiled at their suspicions, and made himself more agreeable +than ever. He loved the farmer's daughter, and she made no concealment +of her love for him, and nothing else mattered. He had won his +"beggar-maid," and happiness was at last within his grasp. + +When he asked his hosts for the hand of their daughter in marriage, the +good lady was indignant. "Marry Sarah!" she exclaimed. "What, to a fine +gentleman? No, indeed; no happiness can come from such a marriage!" + +But the farmer for once put his foot down. "Yes," he said, "he shall +marry her. The lass loves him dearly; and has he not house and land, +too, and plenty of money to keep her?" And thus it came to pass that one +October day the church-bells of Bolas rang a merry peal; the villagers +put on their gala clothes; and, amid general rejoicing, qualified by not +a few dark hints and forebodings, Sarah Hoggins was led to the rustic +altar by her "highwayman" bridegroom. + +For two ideally happy years Mr Jones lived with his humble bride in the +fine new house which he had built for her, and which he called Burleigh +Villa. He had lived down his character of highwayman, and was regarded, +and respected, as the most important man in the village. He was even +appointed to the honourable offices of churchwarden and overseer; while +under his tuition his peasant-wife was becoming, in the words of the +village gossips, "quite the lady." + +One day towards the end of December, 1793, after two years of this +idyllic life, Mr Jones chanced to read in a country paper news which he +had dreaded, for it meant a revolution in his life, the return to the +world he had so gladly forsaken. His dream of the simple life, of +peaceful days, was at an end. His uncle, the old Earl, was dead, and the +coronet and large estates had devolved on him. Should he refuse to take +them, and end his days in this idyllic obscurity, or should he claim the +"baubles," and return to the hollow splendour of a life on which he had +turned his back? + +The struggle between duty and inclination was long and bitter; but in +the end duty carried the day. He would go to "Burghley House by Stamford +Town," and fill his place on the roll of the Earls of Exeter. To his +wife he merely said: "To-morrow we must start on a journey to +Lincolnshire. Business calls me there, and we will go together," a +proposal to which she gladly consented, for it meant that she would see +something of the great outside world with the husband she loved. + +At daybreak next morning "Mr Jones" said good-bye to his kind hosts and +relatives and to the scene of so much peaceful happiness, and, mounting +his wife behind him on a pillion, started on the journey to distant +Lincolnshire. Through Cannock Chase, by Lichfield and Leicester, they +rode, finding hospitality at many a great house on the way, rather to +the dismay of Sarah, who would have preferred the accommodation of some +modest inn, and who marvelled not a little that her husband, the obscure +artist, should be known to and welcomed by such great folk. But was he +not her hero, one of "Nature's gentlemen," and as such the equal of any +man in the land? + +At last, after days of happy journeying through the cold December days, +they came within view of a stately mansion placed in a lordly park, at +sight of which Sarah exclaimed, with sparkling eyes, "Oh, what a +beautiful house!" "Yes," answered her husband, reining in his horse to +enjoy the view; "it is a lovely place. How would you like, my dear +Sally, to be its mistress?" Sally broke into a merry peal of laughter. +"Only fancy _me_," she said, "mistress of such a noble house! It's too +funny for words. But how I should love it if we were only rich enough to +live in it!" "I am so glad you like it, darling," answered her husband, +as he turned in the saddle and placed an arm around her waist; "for it +is yours. I am the Earl of Exeter, its owner, and you--well, you are my +Countess--and my Queen." + + "'Now welcome, Lady!' exclaimed the Earl-- + 'This Castle is thine, and these dark woods all.' + She believed him wild, but his words were truth, + For Ellen is Lady of Rosenthal." + +He did not, like the hero of Moore's ballad, "blow his horn with a +lordly air"; but with his Countess he presented himself at the door of +Burleigh to receive the homage and welcome due to its lord. + + "Many a gallant gay domestic + Bow before him at the door; + And they speak in gentle murmur + When they answer to his call, + While he treads with footsteps firmer + Leading on from hall to hall. + And while now she wanders blindly, + Nor the meaning can divine, + Proudly turns he round and kindly, + 'All of that is mine and thine.'" + +Thus did Sarah Hoggins, the peasant-girl, blossom into a Countess, +chatelaine of three lordly pleasure-houses, and Lady Bountiful to an +army of dependents. The news of the romantic story flashed through the +county, indeed through the whole of England; and great lords and ladies +by the score flocked to Burleigh to welcome and pay homage to its +heroine. + +For a few too brief years Countess Sarah was happy in her new and +splendid environment, though it is said she often sighed for the dear +dead days when her husband was a landscape painter, and she his humble +bride in their village home. The modest primrose did not bear well the +transplanting to the lordly hot-house. Her cheeks began to lose their +roses. She bore to her husband three children; and then, "like a lily +drooping, she bowed down her head and died," tenderly and lovingly +nursed to the last breath by the husband whose heart, it is said, died +with her. + +Of her two sons, the elder succeeded to his father's Earldom, and was +promoted to a Marquisate. The younger, Lord Thomas Cecil, married a +daughter of the fourth Duke of Richmond--thus mingling the peasant blood +of Hoggins with the Royal strain of the "Merrie Monarch,"--and survived +until the year 1873. Her daughter had for husband the Right Honourable +Henry Manvers Pierrepoint, and became grandmother to the present Duke of +Wellington, who thus has for great-grandmother Sarah Hoggins, the rustic +beauty who milked cows and was wooed in the Shropshire orchard by "Mr +Jones, the highwayman," when George the Third was King. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE FAVOURITE OF A QUEEN + + +When Robert Dudley was cradled in the year 1532 the ball of Fortune was +already at his feet, awaiting the necessary vigour and enterprise to +kick it. He had, it is true, no great lineage to boast of. Cecil spoke +contemptuously of him in later and envious years as grandson of a mere +squire and son of a knight; but the so-called squire was none other than +Edmond Dudley, the shrewd financier and crafty-tongued minion of Henry +VII., who, with Empson for ally, filled his sovereign's purse with +ill-gotten gold, and paid for his enterprise with his head when the +eighth Henry set himself to the paying off of old scores. His father, +the knight, was that John Dudley, King Henry's trusted friend and +executor of his will, Admiral and Earl Marshal of England, whose +splendid gifts and boundless ambition won a dukedom for him, and made +him for a time more powerful than his King. + +[Illustration: ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER] + +Such was the parentage of Robert Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland's +fifth son, who inherited, with his grandfather's scheming brain and +plausible tongue, the ambition and love of splendour which made his +father the most brilliant subject of two kings. And this great, if +dangerous heritage was not long in manifesting itself in the young +lordling, who was destined to add to his family's story a chapter more +romantic and dazzling than that of which his father was the hero. + +As a boy in the schoolroom he was quick to show gifts of mind almost +phenomenal in one so young. Latin and Italian, mathematics and abstruse +sciences came as easily to this scion of the Dudleys as reading and +arithmetic to less-dowered boys. And with this precocity of mind he +developed physical graces and skill no less remarkable until, by the +time he was well in his 'teens, few grown men could ride a horse, couch +a lance, or speed an arrow with such skill as he. + +At the Royal Court, where his ducal father was autocrat, the handsome +boy of all the accomplishments found immediate favour and rapid +promotion. He was dubbed a knight when most youths of his years were +still wrestling with their Latin Grammar; he was appointed for life +Master of the Buckhounds; and was chosen one of the six gilded youths +who ministered to the King in the Privy Chamber. And in love he was as +precocious as at the Royal Court and in mental and manly +accomplishments, for at eighteen we find him standing at the altar in +the King's Palace at Sheen, near Richmond, with his youthful Sovereign +as best man. + +Whether it was really a love-match or not is open to doubt, perhaps; +for Robert Dudley seems to have had little voice in the choice of his +bride. For his elder brother, Guildford, the Duke chose a wife of +exalted rank, none other than the Lady Jane Grey, grand-daughter of Louis +XII.'s Queen and Henry VIII.'s sister. But for his boy, Robert, a plain +knight's daughter seems to have been good enough in his eyes; and she +was Amy, child of Sir John Robsart, of Siderstern, a lady whose fate was +to be as full of pathos and tragedy as that of his brother Guildford's +wife. + +For a time, however, Fortune seemed to smile on this union of the Duke's +son and the Knight's daughter, who was as fair as she was to be +unfortunate, and who was not without a goodly dower of Norfolk lands, on +which her youthful husband settled for a few years of peaceful life. He +soon became a man of mark in the county of his adoption, taking the lead +in local affairs, administering his estates with skill, and finally +blossoming into a Member of Parliament to represent his neighbours at +Westminster. But the call of Court life was always in his ears; and many +a long spell he stole from his wife and his rural duties to spend among +the gaieties of Whitehall or the splendours of Henri II.'s French +_entourage_. + +With the death of the boy-king, Edward VI., a change tragic and +unexpected came in the young knight's life. His ambitious father coveted +a crown for his daughter-in-law, the Lady Jane Grey, whom he had induced +Edward, on his death-bed, to nominate as his successor; and +Northumberland, thus armed with Royal authority and spurred by his +insatiable ambition, sought by force of arms to give effect to his +scheme almost before the breath had left the late Sovereign's body. How +his daring project failed is well-known history--how the Princess Mary +on her way southward to her throne eluded Robert Dudley, who was sent to +intercept her; how she equally outwitted Northumberland and his army, +and made her triumphant entry into London as Queen; and how her +vengeance fell on those who had sought to snatch the crown from her. + +From the Duke and Lady Jane to Robert Dudley, all the traitors who had +conspired to do this dastardly deed were sent to cool their misguided +ardour in the Tower, from which Northumberland, Jane and her husband +were led to the headsman's block; while Robert Dudley was among those +who were left to languish in durance, and to while away the tedious +hours of captivity by carving their emblems and names on the walls of +their cells, where they may be seen to this day, or to stroll +disconsolately on the Tower leads by way of melancholy exercise. + +Robert, it is said, found many of these hours of duress far from +unpleasant; for among the prisoners in the Tower was none other than the +Princess Elizabeth, sister to the Queen (and her successor on the +throne); and we are told, on what authority does not appear, that there +were many sweet and stolen meetings between the fair young Princess and +the captive knight, when bribed warders turned a blind eye on their +dallying. And rumour even goes so far as to speak of secret nuptials, +the fruits of which were, in late years, to bear such high names as my +Lord of Essex and Francis Bacon. + +"Fairy tales," no doubt; but, stripped of such ornamental embellishment, +there can be little doubt that it was within the Tower's grim walls that +Dudley first learnt to love the lady who was to be his Queen, and in +whose life he was destined to play such a romantic part, when she should +wear her crown, and he should be her avowed lover and aspirant to her +hand. + +A year of such pleasantly-qualified captivity, and Robert Dudley was a +free man again, sent to purge his treason, by a Queen, indulgent to his +youth and it may be to his good looks, by wielding a sword in the war +then raging between Spain and France; and here he acquitted himself so +valiantly for Mary's Spanish allies that, on his return in 1558, covered +with glory, the ban on the Dudleys was removed; and Robert and his +brothers and sisters were restored to all the rank and rights their +father's treason had forfeited. + +A few months later Queen Mary died; and when Elizabeth ascended the +throne, Dudley's sun burst into splendour. The romance which had been +cradled amidst the fearful joys of prison-meetings, was now to flourish +under vastly-changed conditions. That the new Queen had lost her heart +to the handsome and accomplished cavalier, whose prowess in war had set +the seal on the favour won by his graces of person and mind and his +ingratiating charm, there can be small doubt; and as little that Dudley, +forgetful of the wife left to pine in solitude in her Norfolk home, +returned the devotion of the lady, now his Sovereign, who had made his +Tower prison a palace of delight. + +Nor did Elizabeth make any concealment of her passion. She was a Queen; +and none should question her right to smile on any man, be he subject or +king. Before she had been a year on the Throne, Dudley was proudly +wearing the coveted Garter; was a Privy Councillor and Master of Her +Majesty's horse. She gave him fat lands and monasteries to add to the +large possessions with which her brother Edward had endowed his +favourite; and wherever she went on her Royal progresses, Robert Dudley +rode gallantly at her right hand, a King in all but name. And no Queen +ever had more splendid escort. + +He was, indeed, a man after her own heart, the _beau ideal_ of a +cavalier; a lover, like herself, of pomp and splendour, a past-master of +the arts of pageantry and pleasure, and the owner of a tongue as skilled +in the language of adroit flattery as in the use of honeyed words. Such +was Robert Dudley who loved his Queen; and such the Queen who returned +undisguised admiration for flattery, and love for love. + +That the greatest Kings and Princes of Europe sought the young Queen's +hand; that ambassadors tumbled over each other in their eagerness to +press on her this splendid alliance and that, mattered nothing to her. +Her hand was her own as much as her Crown--she would dispose of it as +she wished, and none should say her nay. To the fears and anger of her +people at the prospect of her alliance with a subject she was as +indifferent as to the jealousies of Dudley's Court rivals. She could +afford to smile at them all--and she did. + +And, while Dudley was thus basking in the smiles of his Sovereign, the +Lady Amy was eating her heart out in loneliness and a futile jealousy in +Norfolk. Her husband, it is true, paid her a duty visit now and then, +and kept her purse well supplied for dresses she had not the heart to +wear. She knew she had lost his love, if, indeed, she had ever had it; +and she spent her days, as was known too late, in tears and prayers for +deliverance from a burden she was too weary to bear longer. + +One day, in September 1560, an ominous rumour began to take voice. +Dudley's wife had been poisoned--by her husband, it was said with bated +breath. The Queen herself heard, and repeated the report to the Spanish +Ambassador; varying it on the following day by the statement that "Lord +Robert's wife had broken her neck. It appears that she fell down a +staircase." And this amended version proved to be tragically true. While +Dudley was dallying with his Queen amid the splendours of the Court, his +devoted wife was found, with her neck broken, lying at the foot of a +staircase in the house of a Norfolk neighbour, whose guest she was. + +How had this tragedy happened? and had Dudley any hand in it? were the +questions that passed fear-fully from mouth to mouth, from end to end +of England. The story, as told at the inquest, throws little light on +what must always remain more or less a mystery. + +This story was as simple as it was tragic. It seems that Amy Robsart +(for by her maiden name she will always live in memory and in pity) rose +early on Sunday morning, the 8th of September, the day of her death, and +suggested that the entire household at Cumnor Place, at which she was +staying, should leave her alone and spend the day at a neighbouring fair +at Abingdon. "As for me," she said, "I shall be quite happy alone. I +have no taste for pleasure; but I always like to know that others are +enjoying themselves, even if I cannot." Eagerly responsive to such a +welcome suggestion the entire household repaired to the fair, except the +hostess (Mrs Owen) and a lady guest; and with them as companions Amy +Robsart spent a quiet and peaceful day. During the evening she rose +suddenly from the card-table, at which the three ladies were playing, +and left the room; and nothing more was seen of her until the servants +returning from the fair found her dead body at the stair-foot. + +Was it suicide or a brutal murder? The bucolic jury shrank from either +conclusion, and gave as their verdict "accidental death." That Amy +Robsart ended her own life is far from improbable; for it was no secret +to her friends that she was weary of it, and would welcome the release +death alone could bring. But the general opinion, so far from supporting +this plausible theory, turned to thoughts of murder, and branded Dudley +as slayer of his wife. It was even commonly whispered that he had bribed +one of his minions, Anthony Foster, to hurl her down the stairs to her +death. + +Whatever may be the truth, none could prove it then; and who shall +succeed now? It is more generous and certainly more probable to suppose +that Amy Robsart by her own act--wilful, at the dictate of a brain +disordered by grief, or accidental--removed the barrier to her husband's +passion for his Queen. Certain it is that Dudley affected, if he did not +actually feel, deep sorrow at his wife's death, and that he spared no +pains to solve the mystery that surrounded it. + +His grief, however, seems to have been short-lived; for before the +unhappy Amy had been many months in her grave we find him more ardent +than ever in his devotion to Elizabeth, whose hand he was now free to +claim. But the Queen, who was nothing if not an arrant coquette, was in +no mood to be caught even by the man she loved. She drove him to +distraction by her caprices. One moment she would "rap him on the +knuckles," only to smile her sweetest on him the next. One day she would +flaunt in his face a patent of peerage, as evidence of her affection; +the next she would cut the parchment to pieces under his nose, laughing +the while. She roused him to frenzies of jealousy by dallying with one +Royal offer of marriage after another--now it was Philip, the Spanish +King, now His Majesty of Sweden--canvassing their respective merits and +charms in his presence, and flaring into angry retorts when he ventured +to ridicule his august rivals. + +She carried her tortures even to the extent of seeming to encourage a +match between her favourite and Mary Queen of Scots; and, to make him a +worthy suitor for a Royal hand, granted him the peerage she had so long +dangled before him. Robert Dudley as Baron Denbigh and Earl of Leicester +was no unfit husband for her "Royal sister"; certainly a much more +possible personage than "Sir Robert" could have been. But she never +intended thus to lose her most acceptable admirer, and was +relieved--though she affected to be angry--when news came that Mary had +chosen Darnley for her husband. Thus was Leicester's loss Elizabeth's +gain; and his reward was that he took still a higher place in her +favour. + +If he was not now King Consort in name, he was, at least, in place and +power. When the Queen fancied she was dying of small-pox she announced +her wish that he should be appointed Protector of the Realm at a +princely salary; and, when she recovered, he was empowered to act as her +deputy--to receive ambassadors, to interview ministers, and to sit in +her seat at the deliberations of her council. To such an eminence had +the favour of a Queen raised the grandson of the "country squire." + +No wonder it was commonly rumoured either that she was actually Dudley's +wife or that her relations with him were open to grave suspicion. "I am +spoken of," she once bitterly said to the Spanish Ambassador, "as if I +were an immodest woman. I ought not to wonder at it. I have favoured him +because of his excellent disposition and his many merits. But I am +young, and he is young, and therefore we have been slandered. God knows, +they do us grievous wrong, and the time will come when the world knows +it also. I do not live in a corner; a thousand eyes see all I do, and +calumny will not fasten on me for ever." + +But neither Elizabeth nor Dudley (or Leicester, as we must now call him) +allowed these rumours and suspicions to affect even their familiarities, +which were proclaimed to all on many a public occasion; as when the Earl +once, during a heated game of tennis, snatched the Queen's handkerchief +from her hand and proceeded to wipe his perspiring forehead with it. + +To Elizabeth's passion for pomp and pageantry Leicester was +indispensable. It was he who arranged to the smallest detail her +gorgeous progresses and receptions, culminating in that historic visit +to Kenilworth in 1575, every hour of which was crowded with +cunningly-devised entertainments--from the splendid pageantry of her +welcome, through banquets and masquerades, to hunting and +bear-baiting--all on a scale of lavish prodigality such as even that +most gorgeous of Queens had never known. + +Thus for thirty long years Leicester held his paramount place in the +affections of his Sovereign--a pre-eminence which was never seriously +endangered even when he seemed most disloyal, and transferred to other +women attentions of which she claimed a monopoly. When he flirted +outrageously with my Lady Hereford, one of the loveliest women at Court, +she responded by coquetting openly with Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord +Ormonde, or Sir Thomas Heneage; and only laughed at the jealousy she +aroused. "If a man may flirt," she would mockingly say, "why not a +woman, especially when that woman is a Queen?" And, of course, to this +question there was no other answer for my lord than to "kiss and be +friends," and to promise to be more discreet in the future. + +But the Earl was ever weak in the presence of beauty; and in spite of +all his vows could not long be true even to his Queen. He lost his heart +to the lovely wife of Lord Sheffield; and when her husband died +conveniently and mysteriously (it was said that Leicester, with his +doctor's help, removed him by a dose of poison) it was not long before +he wedded her in secret, only just in time to make her child, whose +name, "Robert Dudley," made no concealment of his parentage, legitimate. +Before the child was many months old, however, the father was caught in +the toils of another charmer, my Lady Essex, and after deserting his +wife and, it is said, unsuccessfully trying to poison her, he made Lady +Essex his Countess, in defiance of that secret wedding with Sheffield's +widow. + +When news of this double treachery, with the ugly suspicions that +attended it, reached the Queen's ears, her rage knew no bounds. She +vowed that she would send her faithless lover to the Tower, that his +head should pay forfeit for his false heart; and it was only when her +anger had had time to cool that more moderate counsels prevailed, and +she was content to banish him to a virtual prison at Greenwich. + +It was not long, however, before her heart, always weak where her "sweet +Robin" was concerned, relented; and he was summoned back to Court to +resume his place at her side. In fact his very falseness and his follies +seemed to make him even dearer to the infatuated woman than his loyalty +and his love-making had ever done. + +These days of silken ease were, however, soon to be changed. When, in +1585, Elizabeth wished to send her soldiers to help Holland in the +struggle with Spain, her choice fell on Leicester to take command of the +expedition, though his only experience of war had been more than a +quarter of a century earlier, when young Dudley had left the Tower and +his fellow Princess-captive's side to give his sword its baptism of +blood in Picardy. At Flushing and Leyden, Utrecht and Rotterdam, the +great English Earl and friend of England's Queen was received with the +rapturous homage due to a Sovereign deliverer rather than to a subject. +All Holland abandoned herself to a delirium of joy and festivity, and +before he had been many weeks in the Netherlands a heroic statue rose at +Rotterdam in his honour; and he was invited with one clamorous and +insistent voice to take his place as governor and dictator of the land +he had come to save. + +Such a splendid lure was too potent for Leicester's ambition to resist. +Without troubling to consult his Sovereign at home he accepted the +"throne" that was offered to him; and it was only after ten days had +elapsed that he deigned to despatch a messenger to Elizabeth with news +of his promotion. Meanwhile, and long before his envoy, who was delayed +by storms on his journey, could reach the English Court, Elizabeth had +heard news of her favourite's presumption, and her Royal anger blazed +into flame at his insolence in daring to accept such honours without +consulting her pleasure. + +She promptly despatched Sir Thomas Heneage, his whilom rival, to the +Netherlands armed with a scathing letter in which the Queen poured out +the vials of her wrath on Leicester's head. + + "How contemptuously we conceive ourselves to have been + used," she wrote, "you shall by the bearer understand. We + could never have imagined, had we not seen it fall out in + experience, that a man raised up by ourself, and + extraordinarily favoured by us above any other subject of + this land, would have in so contemptible a sort broken + our commandment in a cause that so greatly toucheth us in + honour ... and therefore, our express pleasure and + commandment is that, all delays and excuses laid apart, + you do presently, upon the duty of your allegiance, obey + and fulfil whatsoever the bearer hereof shall direct you + to do in our name. Whereof fail you not, as you will + answer the contrary at your uttermost peril." + +One can imagine Leicester's feelings on reading such words of Royal +anger and reproach from the woman who had always shown such indulgence +to him. His impulse was to resign his governorship forthwith, and to +hasten back to London to beg forgiveness on his knees; but before he +could give effect to this decision he had learned that Burghley had +interceded for him with the Queen to such effect that, supported by a +petition from the States-General, he was to be allowed to retain his +office with Elizabeth's reluctant consent. + +A few months of rule, however, were sufficient to disillusionise the +Dutchmen. Leicester proved as incapable to govern a country, as to lead +an army. His arrogance, his outspoken contempt for his subjects, his +incompetence and his capricious temper, so thoroughly disgusted the +nation that had welcomed him with open arms, that he was asked to resign +his office as unanimously as he had been invited to accept it; and in +November of 1587, the Earl returned ignominiously to England, eager to +repair his damaged credit by at least making peace with his Queen. + +To his delight he was received with as much cordiality as if he had done +naught at all to earn his Lady's displeasure. Elizabeth had undoubtedly +missed her favourite, her right-hand man. She had in fact become so +accustomed to him that she could not be long happy unless he was at her +side; and it was by her side that he rode and shared the acclamations +with which her soldiers greeted her when she paid that historic visit to +the camp at Tilbury on the eve of the Armada. + +But Leicester's adventurous life was now drifting to its close. His +health had for some time given him cause for alarm, and in August 1588, +he left his Kenilworth home to seek relief by taking baths and drinking +healing waters; and from Rycott he wrote the last of his many letters to +the Queen. + + "I most humbly beseech your Majesty," he wrote, "to + pardon your poor old servant to be thus bold in sending + to know how my gracious Lady doth and what ease of her + late pain she finds, being the chiefest thing in this + world I do pray for is for her to have good health and + long life. For my own poor case I continue still your + medicine, and find it amend much better than with any + other thing that hath been given me. Thus hoping to find + perfect cure at the bath, with the continuance of my + wonted prayer for your Majesty's most happy preservation, + I humbly kiss your foot. From your old lodging at Rycott + this Thursday morning ready to take on my journey. By + your Majesty's most faithful and obedient servant,-- + R. LEYCESTER." + +But the Earl was not destined to reach the baths. His course was run. He +got as far on his journey as Coventry; and there, on the 4th of +September, he drew his last breath. Some said that his end was hastened +by a dose of poison administered by his Countess, eager to pursue +unchecked her intrigue with Christopher Blount; others that she +accidentally gave him a draught from a bottle of poison which he had +designed for her. But neither suspicion seems to have any evidence to +support it. + +Thus perished, little past the prime of life, a man who more than any +other of his day drained the cup of pride and pleasure, to find its +dregs exceeding bitter to the taste. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TWO IRISH BEAUTIES + + +In the winter of 1745 the city of Dublin was thrown into a state of high +excitement by the appearance of a couple of girls from the wilds of +Connaught, whose almost unearthly beauty won the instant homage of every +man, from His Excellency the Earl of Harrington, then Lord Lieutenant, +to the sourest jarvey who cracked a whip in her streets. To quote the +pardonably extravagant language of a chronicler of the time, + + "They swam into the social firmament of the Irish capital + like twin planets of dazzling splendour, eclipsing all + other constellations, as if the pall of night had been + drawn over them." + +They had grown to girlhood, so the story ran from mouth to mouth, in a +ruinous thatched house, in the shadow of Castle Coote, in County +Roscommon, and were the daughters of John Gunning, a roystering, +happy-go-lucky, dram-drinking squireen, whose most serious occupation in +life was keeping the brokers' men on the right side of his door. And at +the time this story opens they were living in a cottage, rented for a +modest eight pounds a year, on the outskirts of Dublin, with their +mother, who was a daughter of Lord Mayo. + +To say that all Dublin was at the feet of the Gunning sisters, at the +first sight of their lovely faces and dainty figures, is an unadorned +statement of fact. The young "bloods" of the capital were their slaves +to a man, ready to spill the last drop of blood for them; and every +gallant of the Viceregal Court drank toasts to their beauty, and vied +with his rivals to win a smile or a word from them. Peg Woffington, it +is said, threw up her arms in wonder at the sight of them, and, as she +hugged each in turn, declared that she "had never seen anything half so +sweet"; and Tom Sheridan went down on his knees in involuntary homage to +the majesty of their beauty. + +It was Tom Sheridan who placed his stage wardrobe at their disposal when +they were invited to the great Viceregal ball in honour of King George's +birthday; and, attired as Lady Macbeth and Juliet respectively, they +danced the stately minuet and rollicking country dances with such grace +and abandon that lords and ladies stopped in their dances, and mounted +on chairs and tables to feast their eyes on so rare and ravishing a +sight. + + "With Betty as with Maria," says Mr Frankfort Moore, "the + art of the dance had become part of her nature. Her + languorous eyes were in sympathy with the voluptuous + movements of her feet and lithe body, and the curves + made by her arms formed an invisible chain that held + everyone entranced. The caresses of her fingers, the + coyness of her curtsies, the allurements of her + movements--all the graces and charms inwoven that make up + the poem of the minuet--became visible by the art of that + exquisite girl, until all other dancers became + common-place by comparison." + +Such was the fascination of their beauty that, it is said, the sisters +were one day drugged by a party of licentious admirers, whose guests +they had innocently consented to be, and were actually being carried +away by their ravishers when Sheridan, who had got wind of the plot, +appeared on the scene with a number of stout-armed friends, and effected +their rescue. + +But even Dublin was no suitable market for such peerless beauties, Mrs +Gunning decided. Through her they had the blood of the Plantagenets in +their veins; and no man less than a Duke or an Earl--certainly not an +Irish squire or impoverished lord--was a fitting match for her +daughters. And so to England and London they were carried, flushed with +their conquests, leaving broken hearts behind them, and heralded across +the Channel by many a sonnet singing their beauty. + +But, although each was equally fair, the sisters were by no means alike +in their charms. Maria, all gladness and mirth, was a sprightly +brunette, in whose laughing glances shone the fires of a +pleasure-seeking soul; while Elizabeth, the younger, with soft blue eyes +and dark golden hair, although infinitely more placid, was no less +radiant than her dashing sister. + + "Each was," to quote another description, "divinely tall, + with a figure of perfect symmetry, and a grace of dignity + enhanced by the proud poise of the small Grecian head. + Faultless also were the rounded arms and the hands, with + their long, slender tapering fingers." + +All the portraits of Elizabeth reveal the same dainty disdainful lips in +the shape of a Cupid's bow, the long, slender nose, the half-drooping +lids and lashes. In colouring there was the same delicacy. A soft, ivory +pallor shone in her face, a flush of pink warmed her cheeks, there was a +gleam of gold as the sunbeams touched her light brown hair. + +Such, in the cold medium of type, were the two Irish sisters who took +London by storm, and who "made more noise than any of their predecessors +since the days of Helen," in the summer of 1751. Their conquest was +immediate, electrifying. London raved about the new beauties; they were +the theme of every tongue, from the Court to the meanest coffee-house. +Even Grub Street rubbed its eyes in amazement at the wonderful vision, +and ransacked its dictionaries for superlatives; and the poets, with one +accord, struck their lyres to a new inspiration. + +Whenever the sisters took their walks abroad "they were beset by a +curious multitude, the press being once so great that one of the sisters +fainted away and had to be carried home in her chair; while on another +occasion their beaux were compelled to draw swords to rescue them from +the mob." When, too, they once went to Vauxhall Gardens, they found +themselves the centre of a mob of eight thousand spectators, struggling +to catch a glimpse of their lovely faces or to touch the "hem of their +garments." + +When, in alarm, they sought refuge in a neighbouring box, the door was +at once besieged by jostling, clamorous thousands, who were only kept at +bay by the sword-points of their escort. And when, one day, they visited +Hampton Court, the housekeeper showed the company who were "lionising" +the place into the room where they were sitting, instead of into the +apartment known as the "Beauty Room," with the significant remark, +"_These_ are the beauties, gentlemen." + +With such universal and embarrassing homage, it is no wonder that all +the gallants in town, from the rakish Duke of Cumberland downwards, were +at the feet of the fair sisters, or that they had the refusal of many a +coronet before they had been many weeks in London. Each sister counted +her noble lovers by the score, and each soon capitulated to a favoured +wooer. + +Among Maria's most ardent suitors was the Earl of Coventry, "a grave +young lord" of handsome person and courtly graces, who had singled +himself out from them all by the ardour of his wooing; and to him Maria +gave her hand. One March day in 1752, the world of fashion was thrown +into a high state of excitement by reading the following announcement:-- + + "On Thursday evening the Earl of Coventry was married to + Miss Maria Gunning, a lady possessed of that exquisite + beauty and of those accomplishments which will add Grace + and Dignity to the highest station. As soon as the + ceremony was over they set out for Lord Ashburnham's seat + at Charlton, in Kent, to consummate their nuptials." + +Of Lady Coventry, who seems to have been as vain and foolish as she was +beautiful, many amusing stories are told. So annoyed was her ladyship by +the crowds that still followed her when she took the air in St James's +Park that she appealed to the King for an escort of soldiers, a favour +which was readily granted to "the most beautiful woman in England," +Thus, on one occasion, we are told, + + "from eight to ten o'clock in the evening, a strange + procession paraded the crowded avenues, obliging everyone + to make way and exciting universal laughter. In front + marched two sergeants with their halberds, then tripped + the self-conscious Lady Coventry, attended by her husband + and an ardent admirer, the amorous Earl of Pembroke, + while twelve soldiers of the guard followed in the rear!" + +One day, so runs another story which illustrates her ladyship's lack of +discretion, she was talking to King George II., who in spite of his age, +was a great admirer of beauty, and especially of my Lady Coventry. "Are +you not sorry," His Majesty enquired, "that there are to be no more +masquerades?" "Indeed, no," was the answer. "I am quite weary of them +and of all London sights. There is only one left that I am really +anxious to see, and that is a _coronation_!" This unflattering wish she +was not destined to realise; for King George survived the foolish +beauty by a fortnight. + +Lady Coventry had no greater admirer of her own charms than herself. She +spent her days worshipping at the shrine of her loveliness, and +embellished nature with every device of art. She squandered fortunes in +adorning it with the most costly jewellery and dresses, of one of which +the following story is told. One day she exhibited to George Selwyn a +wonderful costume which she was going to wear at an approaching fête. +The dress was a miracle of blue silk, richly brocaded with silver spots +of the size of a shilling. "And how do you think I shall look in it, Mr +Selwyn?" she archly asked. "Why," he replied, "you will look like change +for a guinea." + +[Illustration: MARIA, COUNTESS OF COVENTRY] + +Mrs Delany draws a remarkable picture of my lady at this culminating +period of her vanity. + + "Yesterday after chapel," she writes, "the Duchess + brought home Lady Coventry to feast me--and a feast she + was! She is a fine figure and vastly handsome, + notwithstanding a silly look sometimes about the month; + she has a thousand airs, but with a sort of innocence + that diverts one! Her dress was a black silk sack, made + for a large hoop, which she wore without any, and it + trailed a yard on the ground. She had on a cobweb-laced + handkerchief, a pink satin long cloak, lined with ermine + mixed with squirrel-skins. On her head a French cap that + just covered the top of her head, of blond, and stood in + the form of a butterfly with wings not quite extended; + frilled sort of lappets crossed under her chin, and tied + with pink and green ribbon--a head-dress that would have + charmed a shepherd! She had a thousand dimples and + prettinesses in her cheeks, her eyes a little drooping at + the corners, but fine for all that." + +Such vanities may be pardoned in a woman so lovely and so spoiled by +Fortune, especially as her reign was fated to be as brief as it was +splendid. She was, perhaps, too fair a flower to be allowed to bloom +long in the garden of this world. Before she had been long a bride +consumption sowed its deadly seeds in her; and she drained the cup of +pleasure with the fatal sword hanging over her head. She knew she was +doomed, that all the medical skill in the world could not save her; and, +with characteristic courage, she determined to enjoy life to its last +dregs. + +She saw her beauty fade daily, and pathetically tried to conceal its +decay by powders and paints. She grew daily weaker; but, with a brave +smile, held her place in the vortex of gaiety. Even when the inevitable +end was near she insisted on attending the trial of Lord Ferrers for the +murder of his steward. As Horace Walpole says, + + "The seats of the Peeresses were not nearly full, and + most of the beauties were absent; but, to the amazement + of everybody, Lady Coventry was there, and, what + surprised me more, looked as well as ever. I sat next but + one to her, and should not have asked her if she had been + ill, yet they are positive she has few weeks to live. She + was observed to be 'acting over all the old comedy of + eyes' with her former flame, Lord Bolingbroke, an + unscrupulous rake, who seems to have striven for years to + make her the victim of his passion." + +Her conduct, indeed, seems never to have been very discreet. + + "Her levities," says a chronicler of the time, "were very + publicly talked of, and some gallantries were ascribed to + her which were greatly believed. However, they were never + brought home to her; and, if she were guilty, she escaped + with only a little private scandal, which generally falls + to the lot of every woman of uncommon beauty who is + envied by the rest of her sex." + +During the summer of 1760 the unhappy lady lay at the point of death, in +her stately home at Croome Court, bravely awaiting the end. + + "Until the last few days," says Mr Horace Bleackley, "the + pretty Countess lay upon a sofa, with a mirror in her + hand, gazing with yearning eyes upon the reflection of + her fading charms. To the end her ruling passion was + unchanged; for when she perceived that her beauty had + vanished she asked to be carried to bed, and called for + the room to be darkened and the curtains drawn, + permitting none to look upon her pallid face and sunken + cheeks." + +Thus, robbed of all that had made life worth living, and bitterly +realising the vanity of beauty, Lady Coventry drew her last breath on +October 1st 1760. Ten days later, ten thousand persons paid their last +homage to her in Pirton churchyard. + + * * * * * + +Three weeks before Maria Gunning blossomed into a Countess her younger +sister Betty had been led to the altar under much more romantic +conditions, after one of the most rapid and impetuous wooings in the +annals of Love. A few weeks before she wore her wedding-ring, the man +who was to win her was not even known to her by sight; and what she had +heard of him was by no means calculated to impress her in his favour. +The Duke of Hamilton, while still young, had won for himself a very +unenviable notoriety as a debauchee in an age of profligacy. He had +drunk deep of every cup of questionable pleasure; and at an age when he +should have been in the very prime of his manhood, he was a physical +wreck, his vitality drained almost to its last drop by shameful +excesses. + +Such was the man who entered the lists against a legion of formidable +rivals for the guerdon of Betty Gunning's hand. It was at a masquerade +that he first seems to have set eyes on her; and at sight of her this +jaded, worn devotee of pleasure fell headlong in love. Within an hour of +being introduced he was, Walpole says, + + "making violent love to her at one end of the room, in my + Lord Chesterfield's house, while he was playing at + pharaoh at the other; that is, he neither saw the bank + nor his own cards, which were of £300 each. He soon lost + a thousand." + +Such was the first meeting of the lovely Irish girl, and the man whom +she was to marry--a man who, even in the thraldom of a violent love, +could not refrain from indulging his passion for gambling. So inflamed +was he by this new beauty who had crossed his path that, to quote our +entertaining gossip again, + + "two nights afterwards, being left alone with her, while + her mother and sister were at Bedford House, he found + himself so infatuated that he sent for a parson. The + doctor refused to perform the ceremony without licence or + ring--the Duke swore he would send for the Archbishop. At + last they were married with the ring of the bed-curtain, + at half an hour after twelve at night, at Mayfair Chapel. + The Scotch are enraged, the women mad that so much beauty + has had its effect." + +If the wooing be happy that is not long in doing, the new Duchess should +have been a very enviable woman; as no doubt she was, for she had +achieved a splendid match; the daughter of the penniless Irish squireen +had won, in a few days, rank and riches, which many an Earl's daughter +would have been proud to capture; and, although her Ducal husband was +"debauched, and damaged in his fortune and his person," he was her very +slave, and, as far as possible to such a man, did his best to make her +happy. + +Translated to a new world of splendour the Irish girl seems to have +borne herself with astonishing dignity and modesty. She might, indeed, +have been cradled in a Duke's palace, instead of in a "dilapidated +farmhouse in the wilds of Ireland," so naturally did she take to her +new _rôle_. When Her Grace, wearing her Duchess's coronet, made her +curtsy to the King one March day in 1752, + + "the crowd was so great, that even the noble mob in the + drawing-room clambered upon tables and chairs to look at + her. There are mobs at the doors to see her get into her + chair; and people go early to get places at the theatre + when it is known that she will be there." + +A few weeks after the marriage, the Duke of Hamilton conducted his bride +to the home of his ancestors; and never perhaps has any but a Royal +bride made such a splendid progress to her future home. Along the entire +route from London to Scotland she was greeted with cheering crowds +struggling to catch a glimpse of the famous beauty, whose romantic story +had stirred even the least sentimental to sympathy and curiosity. When +they stopped one night at a Yorkshire inn, "seven hundred people," we +are told, "sat up all night in and about the house merely to see the +Duchess get into her post-chaise the next morning." + +Arrived at her husband's Highland Castle she was received with honours +that might almost have embarrassed a Queen, and which must have seemed +strange indeed to the woman whose memories of sordid life in that small +cottage on the outskirts of Dublin were still so vivid. Indeed no Queen +could have led a more stately life than was now opened to her. + + "The Duke of Hamilton," says Walpole, to whom the world + is indebted for so much that it knows of the Gunning + sisters, "is the abstract of Scotch pride. He and the + Duchess, at their own house, walk into dinner before + their company, sit together at the upper end of their own + table, eat off the same plate, and drink to nobody under + the rank of an Earl. Would not indeed," the genial old + chatterbox adds, "one wonder how they could get anybody, + either above or below that rank, to dine with them at + all? It is, indeed, a marvel how such a host could find + guests of any degree sufficiently wanting in self-respect + to sit at his table and endure his pompous insolence--the + insolence of an innately vulgar mind, which, unhappily, + is sometimes to be met even in the most exalted rank of + life." + +Perhaps the proudest period in Duchess Betty's romantic life was when, +with her husband, the Duke, she paid a visit, in 1755, to Dublin, the +"dear, dirty" city she had known in the days of her poverty and +obscurity, when her greatest dread was the sight of a bailiff in the +house, and her highest ambition to procure a dress to display her +budding charms at a dance. Her stay in Dublin was one long, intoxicating +triumph. "No Queen," she said, "could have been more handsomely +treated." Wherever she went she was followed by mobs, fighting to get a +glimpse of her, or to touch the hem of her gown, and blissful if they +could win a smile from the "darlint Duchess" who had brought so much +glory to old Ireland. + +Her wedded life, however, was destined to be brief. Her husband had one +foot in his premature grave when he put the curtain-ring on her finger; +but, beyond all doubt, his marriage gave him a new if short lease of +life. She became a widow in 1758; and before she had worn her weeds +three months she had a swarm of suitors buzzing round her. The Duke of +Bridgewater was among the first to fall on his knees before the +fascinating widow, who, everybody now vowed, was lovelier than ever; but +he proved too exacting in his demands to please Her Grace. In fact, the +only one of all her new wooers on whom she could smile was Colonel John +Campbell, who, although a commoner, would one day blossom into a Duke of +Argyll; and she gave her hand to "handsome Jack" within twelve months of +weeping over the grave of her first husband. + + "It was a match," Walpole says, "that would not disgrace + Arcadia. Her beauty had made enough sensation, and in + some people's eyes is even improved. She has a most + pleasing person, countenance and manner; and if they + could but carry to Scotland some of our sultry English + weather, they might restore the ancient pastoral life, + when fair kings and queens reigned at once over their + subjects and their sheep." + +It was under such Arcadian conditions that Betty Gunning began her +second venture in matrimony, which proved as happy as its promise. +Probably the eleven years which the Dowager-Duchess had to wait for her +next coronet were the happiest of her life; and when at last Colonel +Jack became fifth Duke of Argyll she was able to resume the life of +stately splendour which had been hers with her first Duke. By this time +her beauty had begun to show signs of fading. + + "As she is not quite so charming as she was," says + Walpole, "I do not know whether it is not better to + change her title than to retain that which puts one in + mind of her beauty." + +But what she may have lost in physical charms she had gained in social +prestige. She was appointed Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Charlotte; +and was one of the three ladies who acted as escort to the Princess +Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz to the arms of her reluctant husband, +George III. It is said that when the young German bride came in sight of +the palace of her future husband, she turned pale and showed such signs +of terror as to force a smile from the Duchess who sat by her side. Upon +which the frightened young Princess remarked, "My dear Duchess, you may +laugh, for you have been married twice; but it is no joke for me." Her +life as Lady of the Bedchamber appears to have been by no means a bed of +roses, for Charlotte proved so jealous of the attentions paid to the +beautiful Duchess by her husband, the King, that at one time she +contemplated resigning her post. The letter of resignation was actually +written and despatched; but Her Grace, who did not approve altogether of +its language, added this naive postscript before sending it, "Though _I_ +wrote the letter, it was the Duke who dictated it." + +Boswell, when describing a visit he paid to Inverary Castle, in +Johnson's company, gives us no very favourable impression of the +Duchess's courtesy as hostess. When the Duke conducted him to the +drawing-room and announced his name, + + "the Duchess," he says, "who was sitting with her + daughter and some other ladies, took not the least + notice of me. I should have been mortified at being thus + coldly received by a lady of whom I, with the rest of the + world, have always entertained a very high admiration, + had I not been consoled by the obliging attention of the + Duke." + +During dinner, when Boswell ventured to drink Her Grace's good health, +she seems equally to have ignored him. And while paying the utmost +deference and attention to Johnson, the only remark she deigned to make +to his fellow-guest was a contemptuous "I fancy you must be a +Methodist." In fairness to the Duchess it should be said that Boswell +had incurred her grave displeasure by taking part against her in the +famous Douglas Case in which she was deeply interested; and this was no +doubt the reason why for once she forgot the elementary demands of +hospitality as well as the courtesy due to her rank; and why, when +Johnson mentioned his companion by name, she answered coldly, "I know +nothing of Mr Boswell." + +The Duchess saw her daughter, Lady Betty Hamilton, wedded to Lord +Stanley, the future Earl of Derby, a union in which she paid by a life +of misery for her mother's scheming ambition; and died in 1790, thirty +years after her sister Maria drew the last breath of her short life +behind drawn bed-curtains in her darkened room. + +To Betty Gunning, the squireen's daughter, fell the unique distinction +of marrying two dukes, refusing a third, and becoming the mother of four +others, two of whom were successive Dukes of Hamilton, and two of +Argyll. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE MYSTERIOUS TWINS + + +A century and a half ago the "Douglas cause" was a subject of hot debate +from John o' Groats to Land's End. It was discussed in Court and castle +and cottage, and was wrangled over at the street corner. It divided +families and estranged friends, so fierce was the partisanship it +generated; and so full was it of complexity and mystery that it puzzled +the heads of the wisest lawyers. England and Scotland alike were divided +into two hostile camps, one declaring that Archibald Douglas was son of +Lady Jean Douglas, and thus the rightful heir to the estates of his +ducal uncle; the other, protesting with equal warmth and conviction that +he was nothing of the sort. + +Dr Johnson was a stalwart in one camp; Boswell in the other. "Sir, sir," +Johnson said to his friend and biographer, "don't be too severe upon the +gentleman; don't accuse him of a want of filial piety! Lady Jane Douglas +was _not_ his mother." "Whereupon," Boswell says, "he roused my zeal so +much that I took the liberty to tell him that he knew nothing of the +cause, which I most seriously do believe was the case." For seven years +the suit dragged its weary length through the Courts; the evidence for +and against the young man's claim covers ten thousand closely-printed +pages; but although Archibald won the Douglas lands, his paternity +remains to-day as profound a mystery as when George III. was new to his +throne. + +Forty years before the curtain rose on this dramatic trial which, +Boswell declares, "shook the security of birthright in Scotland to its +foundation," the Lady Jean, only daughter of James, second Marquess of +Douglas, was one of the fairest maids north of the Tweed--a girl who +combined beauty and a singular charm of manner with such abounding +vitality and strength of character that she did not require her high +rank and royal descent to make her desirable in the eyes of suitors. She +was, moreover, the only sister of the head of her family, the Duke of +Douglas, who seemed little disposed to provide an heir to his vast +estates; and these there seemed more than a fair prospect that she would +one day inherit. + +It was thus but natural that many a wooer sought Lady Jean's hand; and +had she cared for coronets she might have had her pick of them. On the +evidence of the man who ultimately became her husband she refused those +of the Dukes of Hamilton, Buccleuch and Atholl, the Earls of Hopetoun, +Aberdeen and Panrnure, _cum multis aliis._ However this may be, we know +that she had several love romances; and that one at least nearly led to +the altar while Jean was still a "wee bit lassie." The favoured suitor +was the young Earl of Dalkeith, heir to the Buccleuch Dukedom, a young +man who may have been, as Lady Louisa Stuart described him, "of mean +understanding and meaner habits," but who was at least devoted to her +ladyship, and in many ways a desirable _parti_. The Duchess of Buccleuch +was frankly delighted with the projected marriage of her son with Lady +Jean Douglas, "a young lady whom she had heard much commended before she +saw her, and who since had lost no ground with her"; and, no doubt, the +fair Douglas would have become Dalkeith's Countess had it not been for +the treacherous intervention of Her Grace of Queensberry, whose heart +was set on the Earl marrying her sister-in-law. + +The marriage day had actually been fixed when a letter was placed in +Lady Jean's hand, when on her way to the Court--a letter in which the +Earl claimed his release as he no longer loved her. That the letter was +a clever forgery never occurred to Lady Jean, who was so crushed by it +that it is said she fled in disguise to France to hide her shame and her +humiliation. Such was the tragic ending to Lady Jean's first romance, +which gave her such a distrust of man and such a distaste for matrimony +that for thirty years she vowed she would listen to no avowal of love, +however tempting. + +During the long period, while youth was slipping from her, Lady Jean +appears to have lived alone at Drumsheugh House, near Edinburgh, where +she made herself highly popular by her affability, admired for her gifts +and graces of mind, and courted for her rank and her lavish +hospitality--paying occasional visits to her brother, the Duke of +Douglas, whose devotion to her was only equalled by the alarm his +eccentric behaviour and his mad fits of jealousy and temper inspired in +her. That the Duke, who is described as "a person of the most wretched +intellect, proud, ignorant, and silly, passionate, spiteful and +unforgiving," was scarcely sane is proved by many a story, one alone of +which is sufficient to prove that his mind must have been unbalanced. +Once when Captain Ker, a distant cousin, was a guest at the castle, he +ventured to remonstrate with his host on allowing his servants, +especially one called Stockbrigg, to rule over him; whereupon + + "the poor Duke," to quote Woodrow, "who for many years + had been crazed in his brain, told this familiar, who + persuaded him that such an insult could only be wiped out + in blood. On which the Duke proceeded to Ker's room and + stabbed him as he was sleeping." + +It is little wonder that Lady Jean declined to live with a brother who +was thus a slave to his own servants and to a temper so insane; but +although their lives were led apart, and although, among many other mad +delusions, the Duke was convinced that his sister had applied for a +warrant to "confine him as a madman and she to sit down on the estate +and take possession of it," he was generous enough to make her a +liberal allowance, and to promise that, if she married and had children, +"they would heir his estate." + +Such was the state of affairs at the time this story really opens. Lady +Jean had carried her aversion to men and matrimony to middle-age, happy +enough in her independence and extravagance; while the Duke, still +unwed, remained a prey to his jealousies, his morbid fancies and his +insensate rages; and it is at this time that Colonel Stewart, the +"villain of the play," makes his appearance on the stage. + +Ten years earlier, it is true, John Stewart, of Grandtully, had tried to +repair his shattered fortunes by making love to Lady Jean, who, although +then a woman of nearly forty, was still handsome enough, as he confessed +later, to "captivate my heart at the first sight of her." She was, +moreover (and this was much more to the point), a considerable heiress, +with the vast Douglas estates as good as assured to her. But to the +handsome adventurer Lady Jean turned a deaf ear, as to all her other +suitors; and the "Colonel," who had never won any army rank higher than +that of a subaltern, had to return ignominiously to the Continent, where +for another ten years he picked up a precarious living at the +gaming-tables, by borrowing or by any other low expedient that +opportunity provided to his scheming brain. The Duke of Douglas, who +cordially detested this down-at-heels cousin, called him "one of the +worst of men--a papist, a Jacobite, a gamester, a villain"--and his +career certainly seems to justify this sweeping and scathing +description. + +Such was the man who now reappeared to put his fate again to the +test--and this time with such success that, to quote his own words, + + "very soon after I had an obliging message from Lady Jean + telling me that, very soon after my leaving Scotland, she + came to know she had done me an injustice, but she would + acknowledge it publicly if I chose. _Enfin_, I was + allowed to visit her as formerly, and in about three + months after she honoured me with her hand." + +Was ever wooing and winning so strange, so inexplicable? After refusing +some of the greatest alliances in the land, after turning her back on at +least half-a-dozen coronets, this wilful and wayward woman gives her +hand to the least desirable of all her legion of suitors--a man broken +in fortune and of notorious ill-fame: swashbuckler, gambler and +defaulter; a man, moreover, who was on the verge of old-age, for he +would never see his sixtieth birthday again. The Colonel's motive is +manifest. He had much to gain and nothing to lose by this incongruous +union. But what could have been Lady Jean's motive; and does the sequel +furnish a clue to it? She was deeply in debt, thanks to her long career +of extravagance; and, to crown her misfortune, her brother threatened to +withdraw her annuity. But on the other hand she was still, although +nearly fifty, a good-looking woman, "appearing," we are told, "at least +fifteen years younger than she really was"; and thus might well have +looked for a eligible suitor; while her marriage to a pauper could but +add to her financial embarrassment. There remained the prospect of her +brother's estates, which would almost surely fall to her children if she +had any, if only to keep them out of the hands of the Hamiltons, whom +the Duke detested. And this consideration may have determined her in +favour of this eleventh hour marriage, with its possibilities, however +small, of thus qualifying for a great inheritance. + +Thus it was, whatever may be the solution of the mystery, that, one +August day in 1746, Lady Jean was led to the altar by her aged pauper +lover, and a few days later the happy pair landed at Rotterdam, with a +retinue consisting of a Mrs Hewit (Lady Jean's maid) and a couple of +female servants, leaving her ladyship's creditors to wrangle over the +belongings she had left behind at Edinburgh. + +From Rheims, to which town the wedding party journeyed, Lady Jean wrote +to her man of business, Mr Haldane:-- + + "It is mighty certain that my anticipations were never in + the marrying way; and had I not at last been absolutely + certain that my brother was resolved never to marry, I + never should have once thought of doing it; but since + this was his determined, unalterable resolution, I judged + it fit to overcome a natural disinclination and + backwardness, and to put myself in the way of doing + something for a family not the worst in Scotland; and, + therefore, gave my hand to Mr Stewart, the consequence of + which has proved more happy than I could well have + expected." + +Such was the unenthusiastic letter Lady Jean wrote on her honeymoon, +assigning as her motive for the marriage a wish "to do something for her +family," which could scarcely be other than to provide heirs to the +Douglas lands--an ambition which to the most sanguine lady of her age +must have seemed sufficiently doubtful of realisation. + +Then began a wandering life for the grotesque pair. Rheims, Utrecht, +Geneva, Aix-la-Chapelle, Liège, and many another Continental town appear +in turn on their erratic itinerary, the Colonel travelling as Lady +Jean's _maitre d'hotel_, and never avowed by her as her husband; and at +every place of halting my lady finds fresh victims for her clever tongue +and ingratiating charm of manner, who, in return for her smiles and +flatteries, keep her purse supplied. Now it is young Lord Blantyre who +succumbs to her wiles, and follows her from place to place like a +shadow, drawing large sums from his mother to "lend to my Lady Jean, who +is at a loss by not receiving letters which were to bring her +remittances." Now it is Mr Hay, Mr Dalrymple, or some other susceptible +admirer who obliges her by a temporary loan, and is amply rewarded by +learning from her lips that he is "the man alive I would choose to be +most obliged by." Thus, by a system of adroit flatteries, Lady Jean +keeps the family exchequer so well replenished that she is able to take +about with her a retinue consisting of two maids and a man-cook, in +addition to the indispensable Mrs Hewit; and to ride in her carriage, +while her husband stakes his golden louis on the green cloth and +drinks costly wines. + +Even such an astute man of the world as Lord Crawford she makes her +devoted slave, ready at any moment to place his purse and services at +her disposal, to the extent of breaking the news of her marriage to the +Duke, her brother, and begging for his approval and favour; a task which +must have gone considerably against the grain with the proud Scotsman. + + "I can assure your Grace," his lordship writes, "she does + great honour to the family wherever she appears, and is + respected and beloved by all that have the honour of her + acquaintance. She certainly merits all the affectionate + marks of an only brother to an only sister." + +This appeal, eloquent as it was, only seemed to fan the anger of the +Duke, who, as he read it, declared to the Parish minister who was +present: "Why, the woman is mad.... I once thought, if there was a +virtuous woman in the world, my sister Jeanie was one; but now I am +going to say a thing that I should not say of my own sister--I believe +she is no better than ...; and that I believe there is not a virtuous +woman in the world." + +At the very time--so inconsistent was this singular woman--that Lord +Crawford, at her request, was breaking the news of her marriage to her +brother, she was repudiating it indignantly to every person she met. To +Lady Wigton, she declared with tears that it was an "infamous story +raised by Miss Molly Kerr, her cousin, in order to prejudice her brother +against her, and that it had been so effectual that he had stopped her +pension"; and she begged Lady Wigton "when she went to England to +contradict it." + +But this nomadic, hand-to-mouth life could not go on indefinitely. The +supply of dupes began to show signs of failing, and in her extremity she +wrote urgent letters to friends in England and Scotland for supplies; +she even borrowed from a poor Scottish minister almost the last penny he +had. A crisis was rapidly approaching which there was no way of +escaping--_unless_ the birth of a child might soften her brother's +heart, and, perchance, re-open the vista of a great inheritance in the +years to come. Such speculations must have occurred to Lady Jean at this +critical stage of her fortunes; but whether what quickly followed was a +coincidence, or, as so many asserted, a fraudulent plot to give effect +to her ambition, it would need a much cleverer and more confident man +than I to say. At any rate, from this failure of her purse and of her +hopes of propitiating the Duke began all those mysterious suggestions +and circumstances, of which so much was made in the trial of future +years, and which heralded the birth of the desired heir--or "to make +assurance doubly sure," in Lady Jean's case--heirs. + +As the expected event drew near it became important to go to Paris in +order to have the advantage of the best medical assistance, especially +since Lady Jean was assured that the doctors of Rheims, where she was +then living, were "as ignorant as brutes." And so to the French capital +she journeyed with her retinue, through three sultry July days, in a +public diligence devoid of springs. How trying such a journey must have +been to a lady in her condition is evidenced by the fact that, during +the three days, she spent forty-one hours on the road, reaching Paris on +the 4th of July. Just six days later her ladyship, to quote a letter +written by Mrs Hewit, "produced two lovely boys," one of whom was so +weak and puny that the doctor "begged it might be sent to the country as +soon as possible." + +So far the story seems clear and plausible, assuming that a lady, in +such a delicate state of health, could bear the fatigues of so long and +trying a journey as that from Rheims to Paris. But from this stage the +mystery, which it took so many wise heads to penetrate in future years, +begins to thicken. Although the children were said to have been born on +the 10th of July it was not until eleven days later that Mrs Hewit +imparted the news to the two maids who had been left behind at Rheims, +in the letter from which I have quoted. Further, although the Colonel +wrote to six different people on the 10th not one of his letters +contains any reference to such an interesting event, which should, one +would think, have excluded all other topics from a father's pen. + +Moreover, although the Colonel and his wife were, as the house-books +proved, staying on the 10th of July at the hotel of a M. Godefroi, +neither the landlord nor his wife had any knowledge that a birth had +taken place, or was even expected; and it was beyond question that the +lady left the house on the 13th, three days after the alleged event, +without exciting any suspicion as to what had so mysteriously taken +place. + +On the 13th, the Colonel and his lady, accompanied by Mrs Hewit, +declared that they went for a few days to the house of a Madame la +Brune, a nurse--but no child, M. and Mme. Godefroi swore, accompanied +them; and on the 18th of July, eight days after the accouchement, they +made their appearance at Michele's Hotel (still without a solitary +infant to show), where Madame was already so far recovered that she +spent the days in jaunting about Paris and making trips to Versailles. + +At Michele's the story they told was that the infants were so delicate +that they had been sent into the country to nurse; and yet none had seen +them go. But before the parents had been a day in their new quarters the +Colonel, after hours of absence, appeared with a child--a puny infant, +but still unmistakably genuine. Thus one of the twins was accounted for. +The other, they declared, was still more delicate and must be left in +the country. + +It was quite certain that the children had not been born either at +Godefroi's or Michele's Hotel. As for the intermediate place of lodging, +the most diligent later enquiries failed to discover either Madame la +Brune or the house in which she was supposed to live in the Faubourg St +Germain. Moreover, was it a coincidence that on the very day on which +the Colonel at Michele's with one of the alleged children, it was +proved that a "foreign gentleman," exactly answering his description, +had purchased, for three gold louis, a fortnight-old baby from its +peasant-parents, called Mignon, in a Paris slum? + +To add further to the confusion, both Colonel Stewart and Mrs Hewit, in +later years, declared in the most positive manner, first that the +children had been born at Michele's, and secondly at Madame la Brune's, +in defiance of the facts that on the 10th of July, the alleged date of +birth, the mother was beyond any doubt staying at Godefroi's hotel, that +no such person as Madame la Brune apparently existed, and that the only +visible child at Michele's was a fortnight old. + +On the 7th of August Lady Jean wrote to inform her brother, the Duke, +that she had been blessed with "two boys," one of which she begged his +permission to call by his name--a letter which only had the effect of +rousing His Grace's "high passion and displeasure," with a threat to +stop her annuity. For sixteen months the second and more delicate infant +was left with his country nurse, the mother never once taking the +trouble to visit it; and then the Colonel and his wife made a mysterious +journey to Paris, returning with another child, who, they alleged, was +the weakling of the twins. Was it again a coincidence that, at the very +time when the second child made his appearance, another infant was +purchased from its parents in Paris by a "strange monsieur" who, if not +the Colonel, was at least his double? And was it not strange that this +late arrival should appear to be several months older than his more +robust brother, as the purchased child was? + +At last, provided with two children, and having exhausted their credit +on the Continent, Lady Jean and her husband turned their faces homeward, +prepared to carry the war into the enemy's camp. Arrived in London they +set to work to win as many influential friends and supporters as +possible; and this Lady Jean, with her plausible tongue, succeeded in +doing. Ladies Shaw and Eglinton, the Duke of Queensberry, Lord Lindores, +Solicitor-General Murray (later, Lord Mansfield), and many another +high-placed personage vowed that they believed her story and pledged +their support. Mr Pelham proved such a good friend to her that he +procured from the King a pension of £300 a year, which she sorely +needed; for, at the time, her husband was a prisoner for debt "within +the Rules" of the King's Bench. + +Even Lady Jean's enemies could not resist a tribute of admiration for +the courage with which, during this time, she fought her uphill fight +against poverty and opposition. Her affection for her children and her +loyalty to her good-for-nothing husband were touching in the extreme; +and, if not quite sincere, were most cleverly simulated. + +To all her appeals the Duke still remained obdurate, vowing he would +have nothing to do either with his sister or the two "nunnery children" +which she wanted to impose on him. In spite of her Royal pension Lady +Jean only succeeded in getting deeper and deeper involved in debt, +until it became clear that some decisive step must be taken to repair +her fortunes. Then it was that, at last, she screwed up her courage to +pay the dreaded visit to her brother, in the hope that the sight of her +children and the pathos of her personal pleading might soften his heart. + +One January day in 1753, one of the Duke's servants says, + + "she looked in at the little gate as I was passing + through the court. She called and I went to her, when she + told me she was come to wait on the Duke with her + children. I proposed to open the gate and carry in her + Ladyship; but she said she would not go in till I + acquainted his Grace." + +The Duke, however, after consulting with his minion Stockbrigg, who +still ruled the castle and its lord alike, sent word that he refused to +see his sister; and the broken-hearted woman walked sadly away. To a +letter in which she begged "to speak but a few moments to your Grace, +and if I don't, to your own conviction, clear up my injured innocence, +inflict what punishment you please upon me," he returned no answer. + +Trouble now began to fall thickly on Lady Jean. Her delicate child, +Sholto, died after a brief illness. She was distracted with grief, and +cried out in her deep distress: "O Sholto! Sholto! my son Sholto! if I +could but have died for you!" This last blow of fate seems to have +completely crushed her. A few months later, she gave up her gallant and +hopeless struggle, but only with her life. Calling her remaining son to +her bedside she said, with streaming eyes: "May God bless you, my dear +son; and, above all, make you a worthy and honest man; for riches, I +despise them. Take a sword, and you may one day become as great a hero +as some of your ancestors." Then, but a few moments before drawing her +last breath, she said to those around her: "As one who is soon to appear +in the presence of Almighty God, to whom I must answer, I declare that +the two children were born of my body." Thus passed "beyond these +voices" a woman, who, whatever her faults, carried a brave heart through +sorrows and trials which might well have crushed the proudest spirit. + +Lady Jean's death probably did more to advance her son's cause than all +her scheming and courage during life. Influential friends flocked to the +motherless boy, whose misfortunes made such an appeal to sympathy and +protection. His father succeeded to the family baronetcy and became a +man of some substance. His uncle, the Duke, took to wife, at sixty-two, +his cousin, "Peggy Douglas, of Mains," a lady of strong character who +had long vowed that "she would be Duchess of Douglas or never marry"; +and in Duchess "Peggy" Archibald found his most stalwart champion, who +gave her husband no peace until the Duke, after long vacillation, and +many maudlin moods, in which he would consign the "brat" to perdition +one day and shed tears over his pathetic plight the next, was won over +to her side. To such good purpose did the Duchess use her influence +that when her husband the Duke died, in 1761, Colonel (now Sir John) +Stewart was able to write to his elder son by his first marriage: + + "DEAR JACK,--I have not had time till now to acquaint you + of the Duke of Douglas's death, and that he has left your + brother Archie his whole estate." + +Thus did Lady Jean triumph eight years after her scheming brain was +stilled in death. + +The rest of this singular story must be told in few words, although its +history covers many years, and would require a volume to do adequate +justice to it. Within a few months of the Duke's death the curtain was +rung up on the great Douglas Case, which for seven long years was to be +the chief topic of discussion and dispute throughout Great Britain. +Archibald's title to the Douglas lands was contested by the Duke of +Hamilton and the Earl of Selkirk, the former claiming as heir-male, the +latter under settlements made by the Duke's father. Clever brains were +set to work to solve the tangle in which the birth of the mysterious +twins was involved. Emissaries were sent to France to collect evidence +on one side and the other; notably Andrew Stewart, tutor to the young +Duke of Hamilton, who seems to have been a perfect sleuth-hound of +detective skill; and it was not until 1768 that the Scottish Court of +Session gave its verdict, by the Lord-President's casting-vote (seven +judges voting for and seven against) against Lady Jean's son. + + "The judges," we are told, "took up no less than eight + days in delivering their opinions upon the cause; and at + last, by the President's casting-vote, they pronounced + solemn judgment in favour of the plaintiffs." + +Meanwhile (four years earlier) Sir John Stewart had followed his wife to +the grave, declaring, just before his death: + + "I do solemnly swear before God, as stepping into + Eternity, that Lady Jean Douglas, my lawful spouse, did + in the year 1748, bring into the world two sons, + Archibald and Sholto; and I firmly believe the children + were mine, as I am sure they were hers. Of the two sons, + Archibald is the only one in life now." + +But Archibald Douglas was not long to remain out of his estates. On +appeal to the House of Lords, the decree of the Scottish Court was +reversed, and the victory of Lady Jean's son was final and complete. + +Of his later career it remains only to say that he entered Parliament +and was created a Peer; and that he conducted himself in his exalted +position with a dignity worthy of the parentage he had established. But, +although he became the father of eight sons, four of whom succeeded him +in the title, no grandson came to inherit his honours and estates; and +to-day the Douglas lands, for which Lady Jean schemed and fought and +laid down her life, have the Earl of Home for lord. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +THE MAYPOLE DUCHESS + + +For many a century, ever since her history emerged from the mists of +antiquity, Germany never lacked a Schulenburg to grace her Courts, to +lead her armies, or to wear the mitre in her churches. They held their +haughty heads high among the greatest subjects of her emperors; their +family-tree bristled with marshals and generals, bishops and +ambassadors; and they waxed so strong and so numerous that they came to +be distinguished as "Black Schulenburgs" and "White Schulenburgs," as +our own Douglases were "black" and "red." + +But not one of all the glittering array of its dignitaries raised the +family name to such an eminence--a bad eminence--as one of its plainest +daughters, Ehrengard Melusina von der Schulenburg (to give her full, +imposing name), who lived not only to wear the coronet of a Duchess of +England, but to be "as much a Queen as ever there was in England." + +Fräulein Ehrengard and her brother, who, as Count Mathias von der +Schulenburg, was to win fame as the finest general in Europe of his day, +were cradled and reared at the ancestral castle of Emden, in Saxony. +The Schulenburg women were never famed for beauty; but Ehrengard was, by +common consent, the "ugly duckling" of the family--abnormally tall, +angular, awkward, and plain-featured, one of the last girls in Germany +equipped for conquest in the field of love. + +When she reached her sixteenth birthday, Ehrengard's parents were glad +to pack her off to the Court of Herrenhausen, where the family influence +procured for her the post of maid-of-honour to the Electress Sophia of +Hanover. At any rate she was provided for--an important matter, for the +Schulenburgs were as poor as they were proud--and she was too +unattractive to get into mischief. But it is the unexpected that often +happens; and no sooner had the Elector's son and heir, George, set eyes +on the ungainly maid-of-honour than he promptly fell head over ears in +love with her, to the amazement of the entire Court, and to the disgust +of his mother, and of his newly-made bride, Sophia Dorothea of Zell. To +George--an awkward, sullen young man of loutish manners and loose +morals--the gaunt girl, with her plain, sallow face, was a vision of +beauty. She appealed in some curious way to the animal in him; and +before she had been many weeks at Herrenhausen she was his avowed +mistress--one of many. + +"Just look at that mawkin," the Electress Sophia once exclaimed to Lady +Suffolk, who was a guest at the Hanoverian Court, "and think of her +being my son's mistress!" But to any other than his mother, George's +taste in women had long ceased to cause surprise. The ugly and gross +appealed to a taste which such beauty and refinement as his young wife +possessed left untouched. He had markedly demonstrated this perverseness +of fancy already by showering his favours on the Baroness von +Kielmansegg--who was reputed to be his natural sister, by the way--a +lady so ugly that, as a child, Horace Walpole shrieked at sight of her. + +She had, he recalls, + + "two fierce black eyes, large and rolling, beneath two + lofty arched eyesbrows; two acres of cheeks spread with + crimson; an ocean of neck that overflowed and was not + distingushed from the lower part of her body, and no part + of it restrained by stays. No wonder," he adds, "that a + child dreaded such an ogress!" + +Such were the two chief favourites of this unnatural heir to the throne +of Hanover, who, by a curious turn of Fortune's wheel, was to wear the +English crown as the first of the Georges. In the company of these +ogresses and of a brace of Turkish attendants, George loved to pass his +time in beer-guzzling and debauchery, while his beautiful and insulted +wife sought solace in that ill-starred intrigue with Königsmarck, which +was to lead to his tragic death and her own thirty years' imprisonment +in the Schloss Ahlden, where she, who ought to have been England's +Queen, ate her heart out in loneliness and sorrow. + +To George his wife's intrigue was a welcome excuse for getting rid of +her--a licence for unfettered indulgence in his low tastes; and the +tragedy of her eclipse but added zest and emphasis to his unfettered +enjoyment of life. In the hands of Von der Schulenburg the weak-minded, +self-indulgent Prince was as clay in the hands of the potter. She +moulded him as she willed, for she was as crafty and diplomatic as she +was ill-favoured. Madame Kielmansegg was relegated to the shade, while +she stood in the full limelight. She bore two daughters to her Royal +lover--daughters who were called her "nieces," although the fiction +deceived nobody--and as the years passed, each adding, if possible, to +her unattractiveness, her hold on the Prince became still stronger. + +Thirty years passed thus at the Herrenhausen Court, when the death of +Queen Anne made "the high and mighty Prince George, Elector of Hanover, +rightful King of Great Britain, France and Ireland." The sluggish +sensual life of the Hanoverian Court was at an end. George was summoned +to a great throne, and no King ever accepted a crown with such +reluctance and ill-grace. He would, and he would not. For three weeks +the English envoys tried every artifice to induce him to accept his new +and exalted _rôle_--and finally they succeeded. + +But even then he had not counted on the "fair" Ehrengard. She refused +point-blank to go with him to that "odious England," where chopping off +heads seemed to be a favourite pastime. She was quite happy in Hanover, +and there she meant to stay. She fumed and raged, ran about the Palace +gardens, embracing her dearly-loved trees and clinging hysterically to +the marble statues, declaring that she could not and would not desert +them. And thus George left her, to start on his unwelcome pilgrimage to +England. + +Madame von Kielmansegg, however, was of another mind. If her great rival +would not go, she would; and after giving the Elector a day's start, she +raced after him, caught him up, and, to her delight, was welcomed with +open arms. The moment Von der Schulenburg heard of the trick "that +Kielmansegg woman" had played on her, she, too, packed her trunks, and, +taking her "nieces" with her, also set out in hot pursuit of her Royal +lover and tool, and overtook him just as he was on the point of +embarking for England. + +George was now happy and reconciled to his fate, for his retinue was +complete. And what a retinue! When the King landed at Greenwich with his +grotesque assortment of Ministers, his hideous Turks, his two +mistresses--one a gaunt giant, the other rolling in billows of fat--and +his "nieces," the crowds thronging the landing-place and streets greeted +the "menagerie" with jeers and shouts of laughter. They nicknamed +Schulenburg the "Maypole," and Kielmansegg the "Elephant," and pursued +the cavalcade with strident mockeries and insults. + +"Goot peoples, vy you abuse us?" asked the Maypole, protruding her gaunt +head and shoulders through the carriage window. "Ve only gom for all +your goots." "And for all our chattels, too, ---- you!" came the +stinging retort from a wag in the crowd. + +But Schulenburg soon realised that she could afford to smile and shrug +her scraggy shoulders at the insolence of those "horrid Engleesh." She +found herself in a land of Goshen, where there were many rich plums to +be gathered by far-reaching and unscrupulous hands such as hers. If she +could not love the enemy, she could at least plunder them; and this she +set to work to do with a good will, while the plastic George looked on +and smiled encouragement. There were pensions, appointments, +patents--boons of all kinds to be trafficked in; and who had a greater +right to act as intermediary than herself, the King's _chère amie_ and +right hand? + +She sold everything that was saleable. As Walpole says, "She would have +sold the King's honour at a shilling advance to the best bidder." From +Bolingbroke's family she took £20,000 in three sums--one for a Peerage, +another for a pardon, and the third for a fat post in the Customs. Gold +poured in a ceaseless and glittering stream into her coffers. She +refused no bribe--if it was big enough--and was ready to sell anything, +from a Dukedom to a Bishopric, if her price was forthcoming. She made +George procure her a pension of £7,500 a year (ten times as much as had +long contented her well in Hanover); and when valuable posts fell vacant +she induced him to leave them vacant and to give her the revenues. + +Not content with filling her capacious pockets, she sighed for +coronets--and got them in showers. Four Irish Peerages, from Baroness of +Dundalk to Duchess of Munster, were flung into her lap. And yet she was +not happy. She must have English coronets, and the best of them. So +George made her Baroness of Glastonbury, Countess of Feversham, and +Duchess of Kendal. And, to crown her ambition for such baubles, he +induced the pliant German Emperor to make her a Princess--of Eberstein. +Thus, with coffers overflowing with ill-gotten gold, her towering head +graced with a dazzling variety of coronets, this grim idol of a King, +who at sixty was as much her slave as in the twenties, was the proudest +woman in England, patronising our own Duchesses, and snubbing Peeresses +of less degree. She might be a "maypole"--hated and unattractive--but at +least she towered high above all the fairest and most blue-blooded +beauties of her "Consort's" Court. + +When the South Sea Bubble rose to dazzle all eyes with its iridescent +splendours, it was she more than any other who blew it. She was the +witch behind the scenes of the South Sea and many another bubble +Company, whether its object was to "carry on a thing that will turn to +the advantage of the concerned," "the breeding and providing for natural +children," or "for planting mulberries in Chelsea Park to breed +silk-worms." + +Every day of this wild, insane gamble, which wrecked thousands of homes, +and filled hundreds of suicides' graves, brought its stream of gold to +her exchequer; and when the bubbles burst in havoc and ruin she smiled +and counted her gains, turning a deaf ear to the storm of execration +that raged against her outside the palace walls. She knew that she had +played her cards so skilfully that all the popular rage was impotent to +harm her. Only one of her many puppets--Knight, the Treasurer of the +South Sea Company--could be the means of doing her harm. If he were +arrested and told all he knew, impeachment would probably follow, with a +sentence of imprisonment and banishment. But the crafty German was much +too old a bird to be caught in that way. She packed Knight off to +Antwerp; and, through the influence of her friend, the German Empress, +the States of Brabant refused to give him up to his fate. + +The Duchess of Kendal was now at the zenith of her power and splendour. +While Sophia Dorothea, the true Queen of England, was pining away in +solitude in distant Ahlden, the German "Maypole" was Queen in all but +name, ruling alike her senile paramour and the nation with a tactful, if +iron hand. It is said that she was actually the morganatic wife of +George, that the ceremony had been performed by no less a dignitary than +the Archbishop of York; but, whether this was so or not, it is certain +that this "old and forbidding skeleton of a giantess" was more England's +Queen than any other Consort of the Georges. + +She was present at every consultation between the King and his +Ministers--indeed the conferences were invariably held in her own +apartments, every day from five till eight. She understood and humoured +every whim of her Royal partner with infinite tactfulness, to the extent +even of encouraging his amours with young and attractive women, while +she herself, to emphasise her platonic relations with him, affected an +extravagant piety, attending as many as seven Lutheran services every +Sunday. The only rival she had ever feared--and hated--Madame +Kielmansegg, had long passed out of power, and as Countess of Darlington +was too much absorbed in pandering to her mountain of flesh, and filling +her pockets, to spare a regret for the Royal lover she had lost. + +When George, on hearing of the death of his unhappy wife, Sophia +Dorothea, set out on his last journey to Hanover, his only companion was +the Duchess of Kendal, the woman to whose grim fascinations he had been +loyal for more than forty years; and it was she who closed his eyes in +the Palace of Osnabrück, in which he had drawn his first breath +sixty-seven years earlier. + +A French fortune-teller had warned him that "he would not survive his +wife a year"; and, as he neared Osnabrück, the home of his brother, the +Prince Bishop, his fatal illness overtook him. + + "When he arrived at Ippenburen, he was quite lethargic; + his hand fell down as if lifeless, and his tongue hung + out of his mouth. He gave, however, signs enough of life + by continually crying out, as well as he could + articulate, 'Osnabrück!' 'Osnabrück!'" + +As night fell the sweating horses galloped into Osnabrück; an hour +later George died in his brother's arms, less than twelve months after +his wife had drawn her last breath in her fortress-prison of Ahlden. + +The Duchess of Kendal was disconsolate. + + "She beat her breasts and tore her hair, and, separating + herself from the English ladies in her train, took the + road to Brunswick, where she remained in close seclusion + about three months." + +Returning to England, to the only solace left to her--her +money-bags--she spent the last seventeen years of her life alternating +between her villas at Twickenham and Isleworth. George had promised her +that if she survived him, and if it were possible, he would revisit her +from the spirit world. + + "When," to quote Walpole again, "one day a large raven + flew into one of the windows of her villa at Isleworth, + she was persuaded that it was the soul of the departed + monarch, and received and treated it with all the respect + and tenderness of duty, till the Royal bird or she took + their last flight." + +Thus, shorn of all her powers and splendour, in obscurity, and hoarding +her ill-gotten gold, died the most remarkable woman who has ever figured +in the British Peerage. Her vast fortune was divided between her two +"nieces," one of whom, created by her father, George, Countess of +Walsingham, became the wife of that polished courtier and heartless man +of the world, Philip, fourth Earl of Chesterfield. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE ROMANCE OF FAMILY TREES + + +Such are a few of the scenes which arrest the eyes as the panorama of +our aristocracy passes before them; but it would require a library of +volumes to do anything like adequate justice to the infinite variety of +the dramas it presents. There is for instance a whole realm of romance +in the origins of our noble families whose proud palaces are often +reared on the most ignoble of foundations; and whose family trees +flaunt, with questionable pride, many a spurious branch, while burying +from view the humble roots from which they derive their lordly growth. + +Although Cobden's assertion that "the British aristocracy was cradled +behind city counters" errs on the side of exaggeration, there is no +doubt that in the veins of scores of the proudest English peers runs the +blood of ancestors who served customers in City shops. + +When, a couple of centuries ago, John Baring, son of the Bremen Lutheran +parson, Dr Franz Baring, opened his small cloth manufactory on the +outskirts of Exeter, his most extravagant ambition was to build up a +business which he could hand over to his sons, and to provide a few +comforts for his old age; if any one had told him that he was laying the +foundations of four families which should hold their heads proudly among +the highest in the land he would no doubt have laughed aloud. + +Yet John Baring lived to see his only daughter wedded to John Dunning, +who made a Baroness of her. Of his four sons, Francis was created a +Baronet by William Pitt, and found a wife in the cousin and co-heir of +his Grace of Canterbury. The second son of this union, Alexander, was +raised to the Peerage as Baron Ashburton, won a millionaire bride in the +daughter of Senator Bingham, of Philadelphia, and, from the immense +scale of his financial operations, was ranked by the Duc de Richelieu as +"one of the six great powers of Europe"--England, France, Russia, +Austria, and Prussia being the other five. Sir Francis's eldest +grandson, after serving in the exalted offices of Chancellor of the +Exchequer and First Lord of the Admiralty, was created Baron Northbrook, +a peerage which his son raised to an earldom; a second grandson +qualified for a coronet as Baron Revelstoke; and a third is known to-day +as Earl Cromer, the maker of modern Egypt, with half an alphabet of high +dignities after his name. + +At least three dukes (Northumberland, Leeds, and Bedford) count among +their forefathers many a humble tradesman. Glancing down the pedigree of +his Grace of Northumberland, we find among his direct ancestors such +names as these, William le Smythesonne, of Thornton Watlous, husbandman; +William Smitheson, of Newsham, husbandman; Ralph Smithson, tenant +farmer; and Anthony Smithson, yeoman. It was this Anthony whose son, +Hugh, left the paternal farm to serve behind the counter of Ralph and +William Robinson, London haberdashers, and thus to take the first step +of that successful career which made him a Baronet and a man of wealth. +From Hugh, the London 'prentice sprang in the fourth generation, that +other Hugh who won the hand of Lady Elizabeth Seymour, and with it the +vast estates and historic name of Percy. + +Some years before Hugh Smithson, the farmer's son, set foot in London +streets, Edward Osborne left the modest family roof at Ashford, in Kent, +to serve his apprenticeship to, and sit at the board of, William Hewitt, +a merchant of Philpot Lane, who shortly after moved his belongings to a +more fashionable home on London Bridge. One day it chanced that while +his only daughter, the fair "Mistress Anne," was hanging her favourite +bird outside the parlour window she lost her balance and fell into the +river, then racing in high tide under the arches of the bridge. +Fortunately for Mistress Anne the young apprentice saw the accident; +quick as thought he threw off his shoes and surcoat, and, plunging into +the swollen waters, caught the maiden by her hair as she was being swept +away, and with difficulty dragged her to a passing barge, on which both +found safety. + +There was only one proper sequence to this romantic incident; Mistress +Anne lost her heart to her gallant rescuer, the grateful parents smiled +on his wooing, and one fine August morning, not many months later, the +wedding-bells of St Magnus Church were spreading far and wide the news +that young Osborne had found a bride in one of the fairest and richest +heiresses of London town. In due time Osborne became, as his +father-in-law had been before him, Lord Mayor of London; the son of this +romantic alliance was knighted for prowess in battle; Edward Osborne's +grandson was made a Baronet; and his great-grandson, Sir Thomas, added +to the family dignities by becoming in turn, Baron, Viscount, Earl and +Marquis, and, finally, Duke of Leeds. Thus only two generations +separated the 'prentice lad of Philpot Lane from his descendant of the +strawberry-leaves, the first of a long and still unbroken line of +English dukes, whose blood has mingled with that of many noble families. + +The noble house of Ripon has its origin in Yorkshire tradesmen who +carried on business in York, some of whom were Lord Mayors of that city +two or three centuries ago. These early Robinsons added to their fortune +and enriched their blood by alliances with some of the oldest families +in the north of England--such as the Metcalfes of Nappa and the +Redmaynes of Fulford--and slowly but surely laid the foundation of one +of the wealthiest and most distinguished of great English houses. For +four generations the head of the family was a Cabinet Minister, while +one of them was Prime Minister of England. + +The Marquises of Bath derive descent from one John o' th' Inne, who +was, probably, a worthy publican of Church Stretton, and who was +descended in the seventh generation from William de Bottefeld, an +under-forester of Shropshire in the thirteenth century; while, through +his mother, the late Marquis of Salisbury derived a strain of 'prentice +blood from Sir Christopher Gascoigne, the first Lord Mayor of London to +live in the Mansion House. + +Until a few years ago there might be seen in the main street of the +village of Appletrewick, in Yorkshire, a single-storey cottage, little +better than a hovel, which was the cradle of the noble family of Craven. +It was from this humble home that William Craven, the young son of a +husbandman, fared forth one day in the carrier's cart to seek fortune in +far-away London town. Like many another boy who has taken a stout heart +and an empty pocket to the Metropolis as his sole capital, he fought his +way to wealth; and before he died he was addressed as "My lord," in his +character of London's chief magistrate. The eldest son of this peasant +boy won fame as a soldier, became the confidential friend of his +Sovereign, and was created in turn a Baron, a Viscount, and Earl of +Craven. He died unwed, and all his wealth and dignities passed to a +kinsman who, like himself, traced his descent from the peasant stock of +Appletrewick. + +The Earls of Denbigh have for ancestor one Godfrey Fielding, who served +his apprenticeship in London city, made a fortune as a Milk Street +mercer, and was Lord Mayor when Henry VI. was King. Five years later, +we may note in passing, London had for chief magistrate Godfrey Boleyn, +whose great-grand-daughter wore the crown of England as Queen Elizabeth. + +The present Earl of Warwick, whose title was once associated with such +names as Plantagenet, Neville, Newburgh, and Beauchamp, has in his veins +a liberal strain of 'prentice blood. The founder of the family fortunes +was William Greville, citizen and woolstapler of London, who died five +centuries ago, after amassing considerable wealth; while another +ancestor was Sir Samuel Dashwood, vintner, who as Lord Mayor entertained +Queen Anne at the Guildhall in 1702, and found a husband for his +daughter in the fifth Lord Broke. + +The father of the noble house of Dudley was William Ward, the son of +poor Staffordshire parents, who was apprenticed to a goldsmith and made +a fortune as a London jeweller. + +In the latter half of the seventeenth century Nottingham had among its +citizens a respectable draper named John Smith, who, it is said, made +himself useful to his farmer customers, in the intervals of selling +tapes and dress materials to their wives, by helping them with their +accounts. John lived and died an honest draper, and never aspired to be +anything else; but his descendants were more ambitious. From drapers +they blossomed into bankers and Members of Parliament; and in 1796 +George III. departed for once from his rule never to raise a man of +business to the Peerage, by converting Robert Smith into Baron +Carrington. His successor abandoned the patronymic Smith for his +title-name; and the present-day representative of John Smith, the +Nottingham draper is Charles Robert Wynn Carrington, first Earl +Carrington, P.C., G.C.M.G., and joint Hereditary Lord Chamberlain of +England. + +When William Capel left the humble paternal roof at Stoke Nayland, in +Suffolk, to see what fortune and a brave heart could do for him in +London, it certainly never occurred to him that his name would be handed +down through the centuries by a line of Earls, Viscounts, and Barons. +Fortune had indeed strange experiences in store for the Suffolk youth; +for, while she made a Knight and Lord Mayor of him, she consigned him on +a life sentence to the Tower for resisting the extortions of the +mercenary Henry VII. Sir William's son won his knightly spurs on French +battlefields, wedded a daughter of the ancient house of Roos of Belvoir, +and became the ancester of the Barons Capel, Viscounts Malden, and Earls +of Essex. + +The Earls of Radnor owe their rank and wealth to the enterprise which +led young Laurence des Bouveries from his native Flanders to a +commercial life at Canterbury in the days of Queen Bess. From this +humble Flemish apprentice sprang a line of Turkey merchants, each of +whom in turn added his contribution to the family dignities and riches, +until Sir Jacob, the third Baronet, blossomed into a double-barrelled +peer as Lord Longford and Viscount Folkestone. Not the least, by any +means, of the descendants of Laurence des Bouveries was Canon Pusey, +the great theologian, who was grandson of the first Lord Folkestone. + +Lord Harewood springs from a stock of merchants who accumulated great +wealth in the eighteenth century; and Lord Jersey owes much of his +riches to Francis Child, the industrious apprentice who, in Stuart days, +married the daughter of his master, William Wheeler, the goldsmith, who +lived one door west of Temple Bar. + +Other peers who count London apprentices among their ancestors are Lord +Aveland and Viscount Downe, both descendants of Gilbert Heathcote, whose +commercial success was crowned by the Lord Mayoralty in 1711; the +Marquis of Bath, a descendant of Lord Mayor Heyward, whose sixteen +children are all portrayed in his monument in St Alphege Church, London +Wall; and also of Richard Gresham, mercer, who waxed rich from the +spoils of the monasteries, and whose son was founder of the Royal +Exchange. The Earl of Eldon owes his existence to that runaway exploit +which linked the lives of John Scott, the Newcastle tradesman's son, and +Miss Surtees, the banker's daughter. + +If George III. during his lengthy reign only raised one business man to +the Peerage, later years have provided a very liberal crop of coroneted +men of commerce. To mention but a few of them, banking has been +honoured--and the Peerage also--by the baronies granted to Lords +Aldenham and Avebury; Lords Hindlip, Burton, Iveagh, and Ardilaun owe +their wealth and rank to successful brewing; Baron Overtoun was +proprietor of large chemical works; Lord Allerton's riches have been +drawn from his tan-pits; Lord Armstrong's millions come from the +far-famed Elswick engine-works at Newcastle; and Lord Masham's from his +mills at Manningham. The Viscounty of Hambleden has sprung from a modest +news-shop in the Strand; the Barony of Burnham was cradled in a +newspaper office; and Lords Mount-Stephen and Strathcona were shepherd +boys seventy years or more ago, before they found their way through +commerce to the Roll of Peers. + +Although these lowly origins are as firmly established as Holy Writ, and +are in most cases as well known to the noble families who trace rank and +riches from them as to the expert in genealogy, they are often as +carefully excluded from the family tree as the poor and undesirable +relation from the doors of their palaces. Not content with a lineage +extending over long centuries, and with a score of strains of undoubted +blue blood, many of our greatest nobles and oldest gentle families +strain after an ancestry which is not theirs, and throw overboard some +obscure forefather to find room for a mythical Norman marauder, who in +many cases exists nowhere but in the place of honour on their own +pedigrees. + +"What are pedigrees worth?" asks Professor Freeman. "I turn over a +'Peerage' or other book of genealogy, and I find that, when a pedigree +professes to be traced back to the times of which I know most in detail, +it is all but invariably false. As a rule it is not only false, but +impossible. The historical circumstances, when any are introduced, are +for the most part not merely fictions, but exactly that kind of fiction +which is, in its beginning, deliberate and interested falsehood." + +This scathing criticism refers to pedigrees which profess to be based on +existing records; what shall we say, then, of those family trees which +have their ambitious roots in the dark centuries which no ray of +genealogical light can possibly pierce? Take, for instance, that amazing +pedigree of the Lyte family of Lytes Cary, at the head of which is +"Leitus (one of the five captains of Beotia that went to Troye)," whose +ancestors came to England first with Brute, "the most noble founder of +the Britons." (It is only fair to say that the present representative of +this really ancient family, Sir H. Maxwell-Lyte, an expert genealogist, +turns his back resolutely on the Beotian captain, and even on Brute +himself, and generally lops his family tree in a merciless but most +salutary fashion.) + +The College of Arms, among many amazing pedigrees, treasures one of a +family "whose present representative is sixty-seventh in descent in an +unbroken male line from Belinus the Great (Beli Mawr), King of Britain," +which actually exhibits the arms of Beli, who, poor man, died long +centuries before heraldry was even cradled. + +Of families who derive descent from Charlemagne the name is legion; but +even such elongated pedigrees are quite contemptible in their brevity +compared with others which have at their head no other progenitor than +Adam, the father of us all. At Mostyn Hall, we learn, there is a vellum +roll, twenty-one feet long, of pedigrees, some of which "are traced back +to 'Adam, Son of God,' without any conscious sense of the incongruous"; +and these records, we must remember, are in the hand of "a man +thoroughly trustworthy as to the matters of his own time." There is in +the College of Arms a similar family tree which commences boldly with +Adam and the Garden of Eden; and an authority on Welsh pedigrees +declares, + + "A Welshman whose family was in any position in the + sixteenth century can, as a rule, without much trouble + find a pedigree thence to Adam; an Englishman who is + unable to do the same has a natural tendency to regard + all Welsh pedigrees with distrust, not to say contempt." + +Mr Horace Round gives some startling examples of flagrant dishonesty, +where forgery is only one of the implements used. Take, for example, +that shameful story of the "Shipway frauds," which is thus referred to +by a clergyman of the parish. + + "In the fall of 1896, by an elaborate system of impudent + frauds, an unscrupulous attempt was made to claim these + monuments for one who was an entire stranger to the + parish. An agent from London was employed in a search for + a pedigree. He, by fraudulent means, concocted a very + plausible story. Genealogies were manufactured, tombs + were desecrated, registers were falsified, wills were + forged--in a word, various outrages were committed, with + many sacred things in this parish and elsewhere. These + two figures, as part of the pedigree, were deposited in a + niche in the chantry; on either side were huge brass + tablets on which were engraven various untruthful and + unfounded statements." + +In another case Hughenden Church was desecrated to gratify the vanity of +a family of Wellesbourne, anxious to trace their descent from the +Montforts. + + "They caused a monumental effigy of an imaginary ancestor + to be carved in the style of the thirteenth century + ...they adapted the plate-armour effigy to their purpose + by cutting similar arms on the skirts, and they had three + rude effigies fabricated by way of filling up the gaps + between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries." + +To give but two more out of many cases of similar imposture, the +Deardens, many years ago, actually had a family chapel constructed in +Rochdale Church with sham effigies, slabs, and brasses to the memory of +wholly fictitious ancestors; while in two Scottish churches altar-tombs +were placed to the memory of successive apocryphal lairds of Coulthart. +Such are the lengths to which a craze for ancestry has carried some +unprincipled persons; and there is no doubt that the arts of the forger +are still enlisted in the service of people who crave long descent and +do not scruple as to the methods by which they attain it. + +Happily, however, the mania for ancestors does not often take such +extreme and reprehensible forms; its manifestations are usually rather +amusing than criminal. A common weakness is, however plebeian and +obvious in its origin a surname may be, to dignify it with a Norman or +at least French cradle. Thus we are solemnly assured that the Smithsons +(a name which bluntly proclaims its own derivation) are "a branch of the +baronial family of Scalers, or De Scallariis, which flourished in +Aquitaine as long ago as the eighth century." The first Cooper was not, +as the unlearned might imagine, a modest if respectable tradesman of +that name--no, he was a member of the great house of De Columbers, one +of whom was "Le Cupere, being probably Cup-bearer to the King"; Pindar, +the patronymic of the Earls Beauchamp, is, of course, a translation of +the Norman Le Bailli, and its bearers are "probably descended from +William, a Norman of distinction"; while at least one family of Brownes +springs lineally from "Turulph, a companion of Rollo," founder of the +Ducal House of Normandy. After this, one learns with meek resignation +that the honourable cognomen Smith is derived from _Smeeth_, "a level +plain"; and that some, at least, of the Parker family had for ancestors +certain De Lions, who flourished bravely under William the Conqueror. + +Another favourite vanity is to glorify a name by the prefix De: + + "a particle which has been all but unknown in England + since the first half of the fifteenth century, and which + has never possessed in Great Britain that nobiliary + character which the French nation have chosen to assign + to it. De Bathe, De Trafford, and the rest are + restorations in the modern Gothic manner." + +It is, we fear, a similar vanity which has displaced such modest +surnames as Bear, Hunt, Wilkins, Mullins, Green, and Gossip in favour of +De Beauchamp, De Vere, De Winton, De Moleyns, De Freville, and De Rodes. + +This ludicrous yearning for a Norman ancestry is responsible for many of +the absurdities in the pedigrees of even our most exalted families. Thus +it is that we find such statements as this widely circulated, and +accepted with a quite childlike credence: + + "This noble family (Grosvenor) is descended from a long + train in the male line of illustrious ancestors, who + flourished in Normandy with great dignity and grandeur + from the time of its first erection into a sovereign + Dukedom, A.D. 912, to the Conquest of England. The + patriarch of this ancestral house was an uncle of Rollo, + the famous Dane...." + +And again: + + "The blood of the great Hugh Lupus, Duke (_sic_) of + Chester, flows in the Grosvenor veins." + +This pleasing fiction still rears its head unabashed in spite of all +attempts to destroy it; in its honour the late Duke of Westminster was +actually named "Hugh Lupus" at the baptismal font, while his younger +brother was labelled Richard "de Aquila"; and yet it is an indisputable +fact that the Grosvenor ancestors cannot be carried beyond a Robert de +Grosvenor, of Budworth, who lived a good century after the Conquest, and +who has no more traceable connection with Rollo than with the Man in +the Moon. + +The Ducal House of Fife, we are told, "derives from Fyfe Macduff, a +chief of great wealth and power, who lived about the year 834, and +afforded to Kenneth II., King of Scotland, strong aid against his +enemies, the Picts." The present Duke, however, has the good sense to +disclaim any hereditary connection with the old Earls of Fife, and to +place at the top of his family tree one Adam Duff, who laid the +foundation of the family prosperity in the seventeenth century. The +Spencers, it is claimed, spring lineally from the old baronial +Despencers, "being a branche issueing from the ancient family and +chieffe of the Spencers, of which sometymes were the Earles of +Winchester and Glocester, and Barons of Glamorgan and Morgannocke." +This, no doubt, is a very distinguished origin; but, alas! the earliest +provable ancestors of this "noble" family were respectable and +well-to-do Warwickshire graziers, and the first authentic title on the +true pedigree is the knighthood conferred on John Spencer in 1519, less +than four centuries ago. Similarly the Russells, Dukes of Bedford, are +said to be derived from one Hugh de Russell, or Rossel (who took that +name from his estate in Normandy), one of the Conqueror's attendant +barons on his invasion of England. Here, again, facts fail lamentably to +support the descent claimed, since the earliest known progenitor of this +"great house" was that Henry Russell who was sent to Parliament to +represent Weymouth in the fifteenth century, and whose great-grandson +blossomed into the first Earl of Bedford. (It may, perhaps, be well to +state that, although the pedigrees here criticised are those that have +been or are widely accepted, they are not necessarily approved by the +families whose descent they profess to give.) + +Another Norman ancestor who must go overboard is the alleged founder of +the "noble" house of Bolingbroke--that "William de St John who came to +England with the Conqueror as grand master of the artillery and +supervisor of the wagons and carriages," since it can be positively +shewn that the St John family first set foot in England a good many +years after William I. was safely underground; and with this mythical +William must also go that equally nebulous progenitor of the Fortescue +family, "who" according to the venerable and almost uniform tradition, +"landed in England with his master in the year 1066, and, protecting him +with his shield from the blows of an assailant, was graciously dubbed +'Fortescu,' the man of the stout shield." The Stourtons, so the +"Peerages" say, were "of considerable rank before the Conquest, and +dictated their own terms to the Conqueror"; but, as Canon Jackson, the +learned antiquary, truly points out, "of this there is no evidence. The +name is found, apparently for the first time, among Wiltshire +landowners, in the reign of Edward I., when a Nicholas Stourton held one +knight's fee under the Lovells of Castle Cary." + +The Duke of Norfolk has a family tree of very stately growth, and can +well afford to repudiate a good many of the ancestors provided for him +by "Peerage" editors. Certainly, if he ever read the following statement +he must have smiled aloud: + + "The Duke's proudest boast is that his name of Howard is + merely that of an ancestor, Hereward the Wake, whose + representative, Sir Hereward Wake, is still in + Northamptonshire." + +As a matter of fact, his Grace's earliest known ancestor was Sir William +Howard, "who was a grown man and on the bench in 1293, whose real +pedigree is very obscure"; and who, no doubt, would have laughed as +heartily as his descendant of to-day at his imaginary derivation from +the Conqueror's stubborn foe of the fens, Hereward the Wake. + +In the Fitzwilliam pedigree we encounter another nebulous knight of the +Conqueror. "The Fitzwilliams," we are informed, "date so far back that +their record is lost, but Sir William, a knight of the Conqueror's day, +married the daughter of Sir John Elmley," and so on; and further, that +at Milton Hall, Peterborough, one may actually look on an antique scarf +which "was presented to a direct ancestor of the Fitzwilliams by William +the Conqueror." The most skilled of our genealogists have sought in vain +for an authentic trace of this gallant knight of Conquest days; and +Professor Freeman does not hesitate to dismiss the story of his +existence as "pure fable." But if Sir William of Normandy must fall from +the family tree, his place is most creditably taken by Godric, a Saxon +Thane, who, as a forefather, is at least as respectable as any Norman +warrior in William's train. + +The house of Fitzgerald is credited with an ancestor, one Dominus Otho, +"who is supposed to have been of the family of the Gherardini of +Florence. This noble passed over into Normandy, and thence, in 1057, +into England, where he became so great a favourite with Edward the +Confessor that he excited the jealousy of the Saxon Thanes." Dominus +Otho must too pass, with many another treasured ancestor, into the +crowded genealogical land of the rejected; for the real founder of the +Fitzgerald house was Walter, son of "Other," whose name is first met +with in Domesday Book in 1086. The Otho story is shown to be "absolute +fiction." + +In view of such examples of misplaced ingenuity exhibited by the makers +of pedigrees for our noble families, one can almost read without a smile +that + + "there were Heneages at Hainton in the time of King Edwy; + they doubtless took part in the revolt which brought + Edgar to the throne, and it is not impossible that some + of them were in the train of Wulfhere, King of Mercia;" + +or that + + "Lord Alington comes of a family of ancient lineage, one + of his ancestors being Sir Hildebrand de Alington, who + was marshal to William the Conqueror at the battle of + Hastings," + +though we may know full well that the Sturt pedigree really begins in +the seventeenth century, and that the earliest known Heneage lived and +died some three centuries before. + +But "noble" families have no monopoly of misguided genealogy. "The +immense majority of the pedigrees of the landed gentry," says a +well-known officer of arms, "cannot, I fear, be characterised as +otherwise than utterly worthless. The errors of the 'peerage' are as +nothing to the fables which we encounter everywhere;" and the same may +be said of many another collection of pedigrees which is a treasured +possession in countless British homes. + +Some even justly famous men have not been proof against this insidious +form of vanity and pretence. Edmund Spenser was ungenerous enough to +"dismiss his known ancestry of small Lancashire gentry and plant himself +modestly in the shadow of the newly discovered shield of arms of the +noble house of Spencer, 'of which I meanest boast myself to be.'" And +Lord Tennyson, whose ultimate ascertainable forefather was an eighteenth +century Lincolnshire apothecary, was provided with a slightly +differenced cadet's version of the arms of Archbishop Tenison, with whom +he had no connection whatever. + + + + +INDEX + + Aberdeen, Earl of, 299 + Affleck, Lady, 66 + ----, Misses, 66 + Alava, General, 44 + Albemarle, Lord, 235 + Aldenham, Lord, 333 + Alexander, Emperor, 49 + Alington, Lord, 343 + ----, Sir Hildebrand, 343 + Allerton, Lord, 334 + Almack's, 45-49 + Andrews, Mr, 71-73 + Anglesey, Earl of, 165 + Anne, of Austria, 2 + ----, Princess, 113 + ----, Queen, 331 + Ardilaun, Lord, 333 + Argyll, Duke of, 295 + Arlington, Lady, 184 + ----, Lord, 6, 182, 183 + Armstrong, Lord, 334 + Arran, Lord, 76 + Ashburton, Lord, 327 + Atholl, Duke of, 299 + Avebury, Lord, 333 + Aveland, Lord, 333 + Aylesbury, Lady, 154 + + Bacon, Francis, 270 + Barillon, 193 + Baring, Alexander, 327 + ----, Francis, Sir, 327 + ----, Franz (Dr), 326 + ----, John, 326-327 + Barnard, Dr, 64 + Bath, Marquess of, 330, 333 + Beaconsfield, Lord, 159, 160 + Beauchamp, Earl, 338 + Beaufort, Duc de, 178, 179, 191 + Becher, Sir William W., 251 + Bedford, Duchess of, 46 + ----, Dukes of, 340 + Bentinck, Lord George, 156-164 + Berkeley, Annie May, 162, 163 + ----, Earl of, 162 + Bilton, Miss Belle, 255 + Bingham, Senator, 327 + Blantyre, Lord, 1, 20, 305 + Blessington, Countess of, 97, 100-109 + ----, Earl of, 99-105 + Blount, Christopher, 281 + Boleyn, Godfrey, 330 + Bolingbroke, Lord, 290, 321 + Bolton, Duke of, 246 + ----, Duchess of, 246 + ----, Mary Catherine, 246, 247 + Boothby, Brook, 46 + Boswell, 296, 297, 298 + Bottefeld, William de, 330 + Bouveries, Laurence des, 332, 333 + Bracegirdle, Mrs, 166-173 + Bridges, Sir Thomas, 85 + Bridgewater, Duke of, 295 + Bristol, Earl of, 199, 204 + Broke, Lord, 331 + Brougham, Lord, 107 + Browne, family, 338 + Brunton, Louisa, 251, 252 + Buccleuch, Duchess of, 300 + ----, Duke of, 299 + Buckingham, Duke of, 4-6, 36, 37, 80-85, 112, 181, 182 + Buller, Lady Harriet, 48 + Bunbury, Sir Thomas, 216-218 + Burke, Sir Bernard, 62-63 + Burleigh, Lord, 257, 258 + Burney, Dr Charles, 22 + Burnham, Barony, 334 + Burrell, Mrs Drummond, 46 + Burton, Lord, 333 + Bute, Countess of, 238 + Byron, Lord, 42-43, 45, 48, 102 + + Cadogan, Earl of, 208 + Campbell, Colonel John, 295 + Canning, 42 + ----, Mrs, 35 + Capel, William, 332 + Cardigan, Earl of, 74 + Carhampton, Earl of, 89 + Carlingford, Lord, 7 + Carnegie, James, 223-225 + Caroline, Princess, 45 + Carrington, Lords, 332 + Castlemaine, Lady, 8-12, 14, 18, 115, 116, 184, 192 + Castlereagh, Lady, 42 + Catherine, Empress, 205 + ----, Queen, 3, 10-12, 16 + ----, the Great, 75 + Cecil, Henry, (Earl of Exeter), 256-265 + ----, Lord Thomas, 265 + Chaffinch, Barbara (Countess of Jersey), 37 + Charles I., 1 + Charles II., 1-20, 75-84, 110, 112, 115, 116, 177-194, 207 + Charlotte, Queen, 202, 214, 296 + Chesterfield, Lord, 116, 291, 325 + Child, Anne, 37-41 + ----, Francis, 37 + ----, Robert, 37-41 + Christina, Queen of Sweden, 74 + Chudleigh, Colonel, 195, 196 + ----, Elizabeth, 195-206 + Churchill, Arabella, 115 + ----, John, 114-126 + ----, Winston, 114, 120 + Clarendon, Chancellor, 17 + Cobden, 326 + Cochrane, Lady Susanna, 222-227 + Compton, Lady, 142-147 + ----, Lord, 139-147 + Congreve, 166 + Conolly, Lady Louisa, 209 + Coombe, William, 63 + Cooper family, 338 + Coutts, Thomas, 252-255 + Coventry, Countess of, 287-290 + ----, Earl of, 286 + Cowper, Lady, 46 + Cradock, Mr, 52 + Craven, Earl of, 252, 330 + ----, William, 330 + Crawford, Lord, 306 + Creevey, 43 + Cromer, Earl, 327 + Crosby, Sir John, 137 + Cumberland, Duchess of, 91-95 + ----, Duke of, 87-95, 286 + + Dalkeith, Earl of, 300 + Dalrymple, Mr, 305 + D'Arblay, Madame, 22 + Darlington, Countess of, 324 + Darnley, Lord, 275 + Dashwood, Sir Samuel, 331 + D'Aubigny, Duchesse, 184-194 + Dearden family, 337 + De Bathe, 338 + De Beauchamp, 339 + De Freville, 339 + Delany, Mrs, 288 + De Moleyns, 339 + Denbigh, Earls of, 330 + Derby, Earl of, 249 + De Reti, Cardinal, 2 + De Rodes, 339 + De Trafford, 338 + De Vere, 339 + Devonshire, Duke of, 166 + De Winton, 339 + Dibdin, Charles, 22 + Digby, Francis, 9 + Dillon, Colonel, 77 + Disraeli, 106, 159, 160 + Doran, Dr, 166 + D'Orsay, Count, 101-109 + Dorset, Duke of, 166 + Douglas, Archibald, 298-315 + ----, Duke of, 299, 301, 302, 306, 307, 310, 311, 312 + ----, James, Marquess of, 299 + ----, Jean (Lady), 298-315 + ----, Sholto, 312 + Downe, Viscount, 333 + Dryden, 182 + Dudley, Earls of, 331 + ----, Edmond, 266 + ----, Guildford, 268, 269 + ----, Robert (Earl of Leicester), 266-281 + Duff, Adam, 340 + Dundalk, Baroness of, 322 + Dundonald, Earl of, 222 + + Eberstein, Princess von, 322 + Edward VI., 268 + Eglinton, Lady, 311 + Eldon, Earl of, 333 + Elizabeth, Queen, 137, 139, 142-144, 258, 269-281, 331 + Errington, Mr Sheriff, 59 + Errol, Lord, 216 + Essex, Countess of, 277 + ----, Earl of, 60, 248, 270, 332 + Esterhazy, Princess, 46 + ----, Prince Paul, 49 + Evelyn, 84, 177, 193 + Exeter, Earl of, 264 + + Fane, Lady Sarah Sophia, 37, 41 + Farmer, Captain, 97-100 + Farren, Elizabeth, 248, 249 + Fenton, Lavinia, 245-246 + Ferrers, Earl of, 51-61, 289 + Feversham, Countess of, 322 + Fielding, Sir Godfrey, 330 + Fife, Dukes of, 340 + Fitzgerald, Henry Gerald, 128-133 + ---- family, 343 + Fitzwilliam family, 342-343 + Folkestone, Viscount, 332-333 + Foote, 201 + Forbes, George, 220-228 + ----, Susan Janet, 227-230 + Forneron, 189 + Fortescue, Mr, 64-65, 68-69 + ---- family, 341 + Fox, Charles James, 62, 249 + Frederick, The Great, 198 + Freeman, Professor, 334, 342 + + Gainsborough, 3 + Galloway, Earl of, 222 + Gardiner, Lady Harriet, 104 + Gascoigne, Sir Christopher, 330 + George I., 317-325 + ---- II., 209, 210, 287, 293 + ---- III., 22, 87, 91-93, 210-221, 296 + ---- IV., 45, 94 + Gilchrist, Miss Constance, 255 + Glastonbury, Baroness of, 322 + Gloucester, Duchess of, 93 + ----, Duke of (Richard), 137 + Godefroi, M., 308-310 + Godric, 343 + Gordon, Lord William, 217-218 + Graeme, Colonel, 214 + Gramont, 10, 75 + Granville, Lady, 43, 49 + Gresham, Sir Richard, 333 + Greville, William, 331 + Grey, Lady Jane, 268, 269 + Gronow, Captain, 46, 47, 48, 253 + Grosvenor, Countess, 87-89 + ---- family, 339, 340 + Guise, Comte de, 2 + ----, Duchesse de, 188 + Gunning, Elizabeth, 282-297 + ----, John, 282 + ----, Maria, 282-297 + ----, Mrs, 284 + Gwynn, Nell, 186, 187, 192 + + Haldane, Mr, 304 + Halhed, 26 + Hambleden, Viscounty of, 334 + Hamilton, Betty (Lady), 297 + ----, Colonel, 174, 175 + ----, Count, 4, 6, 10, 14 + ----, Duke of, 173-176, 196, 197, 239, 249, 291-294, 299, 314 + ----, George, 7, 8 + ----, Susanna (Lady), 222 + Hanmer, Mrs, 197 + Harewood, Lord, 333 + Harrington, Earl of, 282 + ----, Lady, 46 + Hastings, Marquess of, 148-156 + Hatton, Sir Christopher, 277 + Hay, Mr, 305 + Heathcote, Gilbert, 333 + Heneage family, 343 + ----, Sir Thomas, 277-279 + Henri IV., 191 + Henrietta Maria, Queen, 2 + Hereford, Lady, 277 + Hereward, the Wake, 342 + Hervey, Hon. Augustus, 197-199 + ----, Lord, 93 + Hewit, Mrs, 304, 308-310 + Hewitt, Anne, 328, 329 + ----, William, 328, 329 + Heyward, Lord Mayor, 333 + Hill, Captain Richard, 167-173 + Hillsborough, Lord, 68 + Hindlip, Lord, 333 + Hoggins, Sarah (Countess of Exeter), 259-265 + Holland, Lady, 210 + ----, Lord, 211 + Home, Earl of, 315 + Hopetoun, Earl of, 299 + Horton, Christopher, 89 + ----, Mrs, 89-91 + Howard, Bernard, 81 + ----, Captain Thomas, 76-78 + ----, Sir William, 342 + + Ibbetson, Captain, 37 + Irnham, Lord, 81 + Iveagh, Lord, 333 + + Jackson, Canon, 341 + Jennings, Frances, 111, 112 + ----, John (Sir), 111, 112 + ----, Sarah, 110-126 + ----, Squire, 110, 111 + Jermyn, Henry, 9, 76-78, 112 + Jerrold, Douglas, 107 + Jersey, Earl of, 37, 41, 50, 333 + ----, Countess of (Sarah), 41-50 + Johnson, Dr, 25, 62, 296-298 + ----, Mr John, 54-57 + + Kemble, John, 250 + Kendal, Duchess of, 322-325 + Kent, John, 157 + Ker, Captain, 301 + Kerr, Captain, 158 + Kielmansegg, Baroness von, 318-320, 324 + Kildare, Lady, 210 + Killigrew, Harry, 78-81, 83 + ----, Tom, 79 + King, Colonel, 130-133 + ----, Sir John, 127 + ----, Mary (Hon.), 127-135 + Kingsborough, Lady, 128, 130 + ----, Viscount, 127, 129, 132, 133 + Kingston, Earl of, 134 + ----, Duchess of, 200-206 + ----, Duke of, 199, 231 + Königsmarck, 318 + + La Brune, Madame, 309, 310 + Landor, Walter Savage, 104 + Lauder, Farmer, 229 + ----, Mrs, 230 + Lawrence, Sir Thomas, 99, 106 + Leeds, Duke of, 329 + Leicester, Earl of, 275-281 + ----, Countess of, 281 + Lennox, Lady Sarah, 207-230 + Lieven, Princess of, 46 + Lindores, Lord, 311 + Linley, Elizabeth Ann, 21-35 + ----, Mary, 28, 35 + ----, Thomas, 21, 22, 24, 28 + Long, Mr, 24, 31 + Louis XIV., 2, 19, 79, 179-194 + ----, Napoleon (Prince), 107 + Lovelace, Lord, 166 + Luttrell, Anne, 89-95 + ----, Colonel, 89 + ----, Elizabeth, 95 + Lyndhurst, Lord, 106 + Lyon of Brigton, 223, 224 + Lyte, Sir H. Maxwell, 335 + ---- family, 335 + Lyttelton, Thomas, Lord, 62-73 + + Macartney, Major-General, 174-175 + Madden, Dr, 109 + Mancini, Hortense de, 189 + Mann, Sir Horace, 201 + Mansfield, Lord, 311 + Manvers, Lord, 160 + March, Lord, 46, 208, 209 + Marsante, Comte de, 96 + Mary, Queen, 269, 270 + ----, ---- of Scots, 275 + Masham, Lord, 334 + Matthews, Major, 26-30 + Mazarin, Duchesse de, 192, 193 + Meath, Bishop of, 22 + Mellon, Harriet, 252-254 + Meredith, Sir William, 52 + Merrill, Mr, 197 + Messalina, 74 + Metcalfes, of Nappa, 329 + Michele, 309, 310 + Mohun, Charles Lord, 165-176 + ----, Sir William de, 165 + Monaldeschi, Count, 74 + Monmouth, Duke of, 116, 191 + ----, Earl of, 243, 244 + Montagu, Edward Wortley, 231-242 + ----, Lady Mary Wortley, 231, 238 + Montford, Jack, 167-173 + Montgomery, Mr, 48 + ----, Miss, 48 + Moore, Dr, 239 + ----, Thomas, 101 + More, Hannah, 202 + ----, Sir Thomas, 137 + Morland, Duchess of, 193 + Mornington, Lady, 47 + Mount Stephen, Lord, 334 + Munster, Duchess of, 322 + Murray, Captain, 97, 98 + + Napier, Hon. George, 218-220 + Napier, Lord, 219 + Neave, Sir Digby, 66 + Newbattle, Lord, 212 + Newcastle, Duke of, 204 + Ney, Marshal, 104 + Norfolk, Duke of, 342 + Northbrook, Lord, 327 + Northumberland, Duke of, 266, 268, 269, 327 + + O'Neill, Eliza, 249-251 + Orleans, Duchess of, 179-181 + Ormond, Duke of, 76 + Ormonde, Lord, 277 + Osborne, Edward, 328, 329 + ----, Sir Thomas, 329 + Osnabrück, Bishop of, 324 + "Other," 343 + Otho, Dominus, 343 + Overtoun, Lord, 334 + + Page, Mr, 170, 171 + ----, Mrs, 168 + Paget, Lady Florence, 151 + Panmure, Earl of, 299 + Parker family, 338 + Payne, George, 159 + Peach, Joseph, 64 + Pelham, Mr, 311 + Pepys, 5, 8, 12, 17, 18, 78, 80, 192 + Peterborough, Earl of, 243, 244 + Pierce, Mr, 12, 18 + Pierrepoint, Hon. H.M., 265 + Pindar, 338 + Pope, 243 + Portland, Duke of, 157, 163, 164 + Portsmouth, Duchess of, 184-194, 207 + Power, Edmund, 96-99 + ----, Marguerite, 96-109 + Pulteney, Mr, 196 + Pusey, Canon, 333 + + Queensbury, Duchess of, 300 + ----, Duke of, 311, + Querouaille, Louise de, 19, 177-194 + + Radnor, Earls of, 332-333 + Radzivill, Prince, 205 + Raikes, Mr T., 49 + Raleigh, Sir Walter, 137 + Rawlins, Colonel Giles, 77 + Redmaynes (of Fulford), 329 + Revelstoke, Baron, 327 + Reynolds, 23 + Richelieu, Duc de, 327 + Richmond, Duchess of, 17-20 + ----, Duke of, 13-18, 208, 218, 265 + Ripon, Marquesses of, 329 + Robinson, Anastasia, 243, 244 + Robinsons, 328, 329 + Robsart, Amy, 268-274 + Rogers, Samuel, 45 + Rollo, Duke of Normandy, 339 + Rotier, Phillipe, 12 + Round, Mr Horace, 336 + Rowe, 166 + Russell, Lord John, 44 + ---- family, 340, 341 + Ruvigny, 19 + Ryder, Lady Susanna, 48 + + St Albans, Duke of, 254 + St Aldegonde, Count, 48, 49 + St Evremond, 182 + St John family, 341 + St Simon, 190 + Salisbury, Marquess of, 330 + Sandwich, Earl of, 231 + Sault, Comte de, 179 + Schulenburg, Ehrengard von der, 316-325 + ----, Mathias (Count), 316 + Scott, John, 333 + Sedley, Catherine, 120-121 + ----, Sir Charles, 120 + Sefton, Lady, 46 + Selkirk, Earl of, 314 + Selwyn, George, 216, 288 + Sentinelli, Count, 74 + Seymour, Lady Elizabeth, 328 + Shaw, Lady, 311 + Sheffield, Lord, 277 + Sheridan, Charles, 25 + ----, Mrs (E. Linley), 31-35 + ----, Richard Brinsley, 25-35 + ----, Thomas (Dr), 25 + ----, Thomas, 25, 283, 284 + Shipway frauds, 336 + Shirley, Lady Barbara, 51 + ---- Laurence, (Earl of Ferrers), 51-61 + Shrewsbury, Anna Maria, Countess of, 74-86 + ----, Earl of, 75, 81, 82, 84, 86 + Smith, Albert, 107 + ----, General, 90 + ----, John, 331 + ----, Robert, 333 + ---- family, 338 + Smithson, Hugh, 328 + Smythesonne, Smitheson, etc., 327, 328, 338 + Sophia, Electress of Hanover, 317 + ---- Dorothea of Zell, 317, 323, 324 + Southwell, Lord, 236 + Spencer, Elizabeth, 139-147 + ----, Sir John, 136-144, 340 + ---- family, 340 + Spenser, Edmund, 344 + Standish, Charles, 48 + Stanley, Lord, 297 + Stephens, Catherine, 247-248 + Stewart, Andrew, 314 + ---- Colonel John, 302-315 + Stourton, family, 341 + Stow, 136 + Strangways, Lady Susan, 211, 212, 215, 216 + Strathcona, Lord, 334 + Strathmore, Earl of, 223-224 + Stuart, La belle, 1-20 + ----, Lady Louisa, 300 + ----, Madame, 2 + ----, Walter, 2, 3 + Sturt pedigree, 343, 344 + Suffolk, Lady, 317 + Surtees, Miss, 333 + + Taafe, Mr, 236, 237 + Talbot, Sir John, 81 + ----, Richard, 112 + Tenison, Archbishop, 344 + Tennyson, Lord, 344 + Thackeray, 108 + Thormanby, 157 + Thurlow, 204 + ----, Edward, Lord, 247 + Tripp, Baron, 49 + Turenne, Marshal, 116 + Tyrconnel, Duchess of, 112 + + Vaillant, Sheriff, 59 + Vendôme, Philippe de, 191, 192 + Vernon, Miss, 259 + Villiers, Adela, Lady, 37 + ----, Barbara, 1, 115 + ----, Clementina, 50 + ----, Sir George, 36 + ----, George, Earl of, 37, 41 + + Wake, Sir Hereward, 342 + Wales, Prince of (Henry Frederick), 95 + Walpole, Horace, 23, 51, 89, 190, 201-204, 211, 289, 291, 295, 318, 321, 325 + Walsingham, Countess of, 325 + Warburton, General, 63 + Ward, Mr Plumer, 72 + ----, William, 331 + Warwick, Earl of, 331 + Wellesbourne family, 337 + Wellington, Duke of, 42, 47, 48, 49, 107, 265 + Wentworth, Lord, 138 + Westmorland, Earl of, 38-40, 216 + Wigton, Lady, 306, 307 + Wilberforce, William, 106 + Wilkes, John, 23 + William III., 86 + Willis, Mr, 47 + Wilton, Earl of, 249 + Wood, Major, 130, 131 + Woodrow, 301 + + York, Duke of (James), 112, 115, 185, 193 + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Love Romances of the Aristocracy, by Thornton Hall + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE ROMANCES OF THE ARISTOCRACY *** + +***** This file should be named 14193-8.txt or 14193-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/1/9/14193/ + +Produced by Dave Morgan and the PG Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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