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.