The story of the Gunnings is as romantic as any ever wrought into
imaginative narrative or incorporated in epic poem. The notorious
damsels were daughters of John Gunning of Castle Coote, County
Roscommon, Ireland, by the Hon. Bridget Bourke, daughter of Theobald,
sixth Viscount Bourke of Mayo, whom he married in 1731. The family was
wofully impecunious; so when the daughters, Maria and Elizabeth, grew
into marvellously comely maidens, their mother urged their going on
the stage to augment the faulty fortune. They went to Dublin, and
there were kindly received by Peg Woffington, then in her glory as
_Sir Harry Wildair_, and by Tom Sheridan, manager of Dublin Theatre.
The stage had not then become the stepping-stone to the ranks of the
nobility, so the girls were advised to adventure socially, with their
faces for their fortunes. They had not the dresses to be presented in
at Dublin Castle, but Sheridan supplied these from the resources of
the green-room wardrobe. Attired as _Lady Macbeth_ and as _Juliet_
they made their curtsies to the Earl of Harrington, the then
Lord-Lieutenant.
The hostess of the evening was the handsome Lady Caroline Petersham,
bride of the Earl's eldest son. Lady Caroline had been one of the
"Beauty Fitzroys," and had been a favorite belle in town before her
marriage.
"When Fitzroy moves, resplendent, fair.
So warm her bloom, sublime her air,
Her ebon tresses formed to grace
And heighten while they shade her face."
Walpole wrote of her in his poem on "The Beauties." The raw Connaught
girls outshone this dazzling hostess.
Their "first night" was an auspicious success. The début was
applauded, and the players praised. They were adjudged fitted to star
the social capital, so to London they went, in June, 1751. Their
reception was magical. The West End went almost mad over them. When
they appeared at Court, the aristocracy present was indecorous in its
efforts to view the dominant beauties. Lords and ladies clambered on
any eminence to gaze. The crowd surged upon them, and it was with
difficulty they entered their chairs because of the mob outside. The
gayety of Vauxhall Gardens was incomplete without them.
Their campaign was a short and eminently active one; Elizabeth
triumphed first. At a masquerade at Lord Chesterfield's, in February,
1752, James, the sixth Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, who was enamoured
of the younger Irish girl, wished to marry her at once. A clergyman
was asked to perform the ceremony then and there. He objected to the
time and place and the absence of a ring. The Duke threatened to send
for the Archbishop. With the ring of a bed-curtain, at half an hour
past midnight, the wedding took place in Mayfair Chapel. The Scotch
were enraged at the alliance, which became an unhappy one. The Duke
was vulgar, debauched, extravagant, and "damaged in person and
fortune," yet, withal, insolently proud. He betook himself off within
six years, and his two sons by the Duchess became, successively,
seventh and eighth Dukes of Hamilton; and a daughter married Edward,
twelfth Earl of Derby.
The dowager was less than a year in widow's weeds when she exchanged
them for more strawberry leaves. She had two ducal offers, from their
graces of Bridgewater and of Argyll; she accepted the latter. In
March, 1759, she married John, the fifth Duke of that name. Walpole's
comment on this was: "Who could have believed a Gunning would unite
the two great houses of Campbell and Hamilton? For my part I expect to
see Lady Coventry Queen of Prussia. I would not venture to marry
either of them these thirty years, for fear of being shuffled out of
the world prematurely, to make room for the rest of their adventurers.
The first time Jack Campbell carries the Duchess into the Highlands, I
am persuaded that some of his second-sighted subjects will see him in
a winding-sheet with a train of kings behind him as long as those in
Macbeth." And again: "A match that would not disgrace Arcadia ... as
she is not quite so charming as her sister, I do not know whether it
is not better than to retain a title which puts one in mind of her
beauty."
The Dukes of Argyll--Lords of the Isles--have always shown a
partiality for beauties as brides. This Duke's father married the
beautiful Mary Bellenden, daughter of John, Lord Bellenden,--
"Smiling Mary, soft and fair as down."
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