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.