_(The son of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was the misery of her life, and
it is the historic truth that he made much such a marriage as I have
described. It is said he turned Mohammedan after the death of his parents.
A portrait of him in a most aggressive turban is in existence. The reason
for Lady Mary's leaving England in 1739, and returning only to die in
1762, has never been known.)_
Maria Gunning
_Countess of Coventry_
1733-1760
Elizabeth Gunning
_Duchess of Hamilton and of Argyll_
1734-1790
"'Tis a warm day," remarks George Selwyn in a letter to Lord Carlisle,
"and someone proposes a stroll to Betty's front shop; suddenly the cry is
raised, 'The Gunnings are coming,' and we all tumble out to gaze and to
criticize."
The two lovely sisters from Roscommon in Ireland, introduced by their
beauty, were the sensation of fashionable England in 1751. Maria, a year
the elder, was the more dashing and at first the more conspicuous of the
two. She became Countess of Coventry, and died at twenty-seven. Elizabeth
married the Duke of Hamilton, after his death, refused the Duke of
Bridgewater, but later married the Duke of Argyll. Four of her children
were Dukes, two of Hamilton and two of Argyll.
So much Irish luck and beauty kept the Gunnings constantly in the centre
of court affairs. A poem celebrating their conquests was entitled, "The
Grand Contest between the Fair Hibernians and the English Toasts."
The Queen of the Bluestockings said of them, when she saw them together,
"Indeed very handsome; nonpareille, for the sisters are just alike take
them together, and there is nothing like them."
[Illustration: Maria Gunning.]