aspect of things. Her Grace was scarcely cold when the Duke asked his
lovely cousin to be his third wife. The offer was not one that La Belle
Stuart had the slightest intention of refusing, but its acceptance,
owing to the King's passion for her and dislike of the Duke, made her
hesitate like one who _recule pour sauter mieux_. Before pledging
herself to her infatuated cousin, to whom love and drink seemed to have
lent their audacity for the occasion, she persuaded him to ask the King
boldly for permission to marry her. Charles, who knew exactly the state
of the Duke of Richmond's finances, concealed his rage under cover of a
demand for a settlement that it was beyond the Duke's power to make. To
the beautiful maid of honour, who had tantalised him for four years with
her prudery and now implored him to allow her to marry honourably--not
because she loved the Duke, as she confessed, but from a "desire to
reform him"!--the King tempered his refusal with dazzling bribes. She
should be a duchess in her own right; she should have her drafts to any
amount on the Treasury or Post Office or Customs honoured like my Lady
Castlemaine's; she might shop with the Privy Purse; he would send away
Lady Castlemaine and give up his Nell Gwynns and Moll Davises; in fine,
he would do anything in the world she asked, provided she would consent
to be his _maîtresse en titre_. La Belle Stuart's reply is, perhaps, the
only instance of the refusal of such an offer on record. "I hope I may
live to see you old and willing," retorted the baffled King, from whom
consent to this marriage at any price was not to be wrung.
To a man of the mental calibre of the Duke of Richmond the position in
which he had placed himself was well qualified to damp his ardour. To
prevent such an undesirable eventuality, Miss Stuart, while seeking a
happy end to her troubles, was in the habit of giving her ducal lover
midnight assignations, which though of a strictly virtuous type, be it
understood, kept the heat in him. It was one of these secret interviews
that brought matters to a head. For Lady Castlemaine, having learnt from
one of her spies, of whom she kept a well-paid staff at Whitehall, of
these midnight meetings, made her plans accordingly. One night, as
Charles was returning in very ill-humour from Miss Stuart's, who had
pleaded a headache as an excuse for refusing to see him, Lady
Castlemaine waylaid him and informed him in her vixenish fashion of the
cunning with which his "angelic Stuart" was duping him. As the termagant
swore she could prove her words, Charles at once returned to the prude's
apartments. At his wholly unexpected reappearance some maids opposed his
entrance instead of trying to warn their mistress, but the King pushed
them aside roughly, and entered La Belle Stuart's bedroom, where he
found the Duke of Richmond sitting at her bedside. The anger of Charles
was only equalled by the consternation of the others. The Duke,
speechless and petrified from the torrent of abuse poured upon him, had
thoughts of jumping from the window, but as he reflected that if he did
so he would probably fall into the Thames which flowed beneath it, he
chose to make a discreet rather than a valorous exit and left the room
in silence.
This attack on the Duke gave Miss Stuart time to compose herself, and
after his departure, instead of attempting to justify herself, she gave
the surprised Charles such a talking to as perhaps he had never had
before, save from my Lady Castlemaine. "If," she said, "she were not
allowed to receive visits from a man of the Duke of Richmond's rank, who
came with honourable intentions, she was a slave in a free country; that
she knew of no engagements that could prevent her from disposing of her
hand as she thought proper; but, however, if this was not permitted her
in his dominions, she did not believe that there was any power on earth
that could hinder her from going over to France and throwing herself
into a convent to enjoy there the peace which was denied her in his
Court." And she ended by asking him to be good enough "to leave her in
repose, at least for the remainder of that night."
Such effrontery dumfounded the King. He went off in a towering rage. We
are not told what sort of, if any, "repose," after such a scene, the
maid of honour got that night; but the next morning, with a craft worthy
of a Madame de Maintenon, she appealed to the Queen with the due tears
to help her to retire to a convent. So well did she play her part that
Catherine, who had every reason to hate her, wept with her; but
reflecting that if she were to have a rival, such an innocent Magdalene
as Miss Stuart would be infinitely preferable to a Lady Castlemaine, her
Majesty actually brought about a reconciliation between her husband and
her maid of honour! It was exactly what La Belle Stuart desired; under
cover of this reconciliation she had time to prepare her plans without
exciting suspicion.
One "foul night" the beautiful prude stole from her room at Whitehall
and joined the Duke of Richmond, who, the day after that surprise visit
of the King's had fled the Court without waiting to be banished. The
assignation on this occasion was at the Bear Tavern by London Bridge,
where the Duke had a chaplain and a coach ready. And here, having at
last been properly made a duchess by the chaplain, her Grace and her
husband, who one suspects from his habits must have kept up his courage
artificially for this occasion, "stole away into Kent" in the coach.
Charles's anger, when he discovered the flight of the prude, may be
imagined. Its consequences were far-reaching. On coming from the cage
from which his beautiful bird had flown, the King chanced to meet a
certain Lord Cornbury in the door. The sight of this man, who was the
son of Clarendon, at such a time and place confirmed the suspicions
aroused in him by Lady Castlemaine of the Chancellor's complicity in a
plot to help La Belle Stuart marry the Duke of Richmond. And it is,
perhaps, no exaggeration to say that at that moment Charles's
opposition to the many enemies in Court, Parliament, and the country of
the ablest of his Ministers, to whom also he not a little owed his
throne, was finally broken down. On the morrow of this "marriage affair"
of La Belle Stuart's the great Clarendon fell.
As for the happy couple, they were banished the Court, whereupon her
Grace saw fit to return his Majesty the trifling presents she had
allowed herself to accept from him, and to justify her conduct by what,
from the notoriety given it, was practically a public confession of
innocence preserved against great odds. And this subtle and calculating
woman has been called by Hamilton, and those who have taken his mockery
literally, a brainless, childish simpleton, with just sense enough to
capture a Duke of Richmond! No doubt in a day when Gwynns, Castlemaines,
and Portsmouths were fleecing the nation and making and unmaking
Ministers, a woman who had only had a few jewels and a fixed salary of
£700 a year for her services to the Queen, and took no interest in
politics, must seem both virtuous and a fool. The "explanation,"
however, of her line of action at Whitehall produced a favourable
effect. The public readily acquitted her of all the base imputations
that had been cast upon her.
At Whitehall no one benefited by the absence of the beautiful and
"wronged" Duchess of Richmond but Lady Castlemaine. She, indeed, was now
established more firmly than ever in the Council and the Treasury, but
La Belle Stuart was missed. When new beauties appeared at Court
people compared them with the faultless loveliness of her who was
banished for her virtues to the country. They remembered the charming
grace with which she had danced and walked and rode; the elegance of her
mode of dressing; the polished refinement of her manners. Poor Queen
Catherine, who had to endure the insolence of Lady Castlemaine, sighed
for the maid of honour who had always shown her respect, and "was never
known to speak ill of any one." And even the King, who had never been
able to love a woman as he had loved La Belle Stuart, longed to see her
once more. So in the following year she was forgiven and came back
triumphantly, as lady of the bedchamber to the Queen, with splendid
apartments at Somerset House, where Catherine was living.
[Illustration: THE DUKE OF RICHMOND.]
The Duke and Duchess of Richmond were now people of the highest
consequence; and if scandal, as it did, chose to busy itself with her
Grace, she, no doubt, endured it philosophically. At least, from
personal experience, she was able to draw comparisons between the
quality and quantity of the mud flung at a duchess and that with which a
destitute maid of honour is bespattered. What effect marriage produced
on the prudery of this beautiful creature we cannot learn. Slander had
it that the King once, when drunk, boasted to the Duke of Richmond that
the Duchess was no longer indifferent to him. A similar imputation was
cast upon his Grace's appointment as Ambassador to Denmark. As his wife
did not go with him, people said he was sent there to get him out of the
way. And we require something more than the word of Mr. Pepys's "Mr.
Pierce," before we accept as proved the statement and all that it
implies, that Charles "did on a sudden 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 being open, himself clamber
over the wall to make a visit to her (the Duchess), which is a horrid
shame."
What, however, can be vouched for as true is that some time after her
Grace returned to Court the King appeared as devoted as ever. His
attention was especially solicitous during a severe illness when she was
attacked by the small-pox. Notwithstanding the danger he ran of catching
the disease, he visited her once, at least, in her sickroom, nor did his
admiration for her appear to wane on her recovery, when her looks were
so altered that Pepys was shocked to see her, and Ruvigny wrote to Louis
XIV. that "her matchless beauty was impaired beyond recognition, one of
her brilliant eyes being nearly quenched for ever."
The Duchess, however, bore the loss of her beauty with indifference, and
consoled herself, if one may judge from tastes of which she had
apparently given no previous evidence, with the cultivation of the
artistic sense. Nat Lee, the tragic poet, whose "Rival Queens" long held
the stage, owed much of his success to her encouragement. In dedicating
his "Theodosius" to her he enthusiastically acknowledged her love of
dramatic art as well as her kindness to himself. "Your extraordinary
love," he wrote, "for heroic poetry is not the least argument to show
the greatness of your mind. Your Grace shall never see a play of mine
that shall give offence to Modesty and Virtue. My Genius was your
favourite when the Poet was unknown, and I openly received your smiles
before I had the honour to pay your Grace the most submissive gratitude
for so illustrious and advantageous a protection. You brought Her Royal
Highness just at the exigent time, whose single presence on the poet's
day (benefit performance of 'Theodosius') is a subsistence for him all
the year after." Her letters to her husband that have been preserved, it
may be added, are evidence of her sound common sense. Of painting, too,
she had a keen appreciation. After her death "her fine collection of
original drawings of da Vinci, Raphael, and others, together with
miniatures and engravings, was sold at auction." Such instances of
artistic taste and kindness of heart go far to disprove Mrs. Jameson's
statement as to the "frivolity of her mind and shallowness of her
character."
With the coming of Louise de Kéroual all the scandal about the Duchess
of Richmond and her royal lover ceased. The new and fresher beauty
completely supplanted her in the King's affections. But La Belle Stuart
had the consolation, if she required it, of proving that prudery fares
better in the day of adversity than the courtezan. The ducal rank for
which she had intrigued so questionably in her youth gave her a great
prestige, which she enjoyed till her death. She continued, in spite of
Louise de Kéroual, to be lady of the bedchamber--a post equivalent to
that of Mistress of the Robes of the present day--to Catherine of
Braganza during the rest of the reign; while on his accession James II.
appointed her in the same capacity to his Queen. It was in fulfilling
the duties of this office that she witnessed the birth of that Prince of
Wales who was afterwards to be known as the "Old Pretender."
On the coming of William of Orange her services were dispensed with, but
she passed the remainder of her life without suffering the misfortunes
of exile and confiscation that fell upon so many Jacobites. As she had
never taken the least interest in politics the troubles of the party to
which she belonged by birth did not apparently concern her. The years
rolled by serenely. While Jacobites were plotting she lived quietly
among her pictures and books and a crowd of cats. At the coronation of
Anne she emerged from her retirement for the occasion. It was her last
public appearance. Shortly after she died, "devout in her way," and was
buried, as she had requested, in her peeress's robes in the vault of the
Dukes of Richmond at Westminster Abbey.
Her will revived public interest in the forgotten beauty of the past
generation, and afforded many a gibe at her expense. Instead of dying
comparatively poor, as was expected, it was found that she had
accumulated a considerable fortune, saved out of the wreck of her
husband's, whom she had survived thirty years. The bulk of it she left
to her favourite nephew, Lord Blantyre, to purchase an estate to be
called "Lennox's love to Blantyre." She had always been particularly
proud of the fact that she was not only Duchess of Richmond, but of
Lennox as well. This seat is still known as "Lennox-love."
But this reminder of the cunning prudery with which La Belle Stuart had
hooked a double duchy out of the quagmire of Whitehall afforded the wits
less amusement than the legacies she left her cats. Pope set the town
a-laughing with his line, "Die, and endow a college--or a cat!" But
there were some, perhaps, whose laughter turned to tears when a certain
Lord Hailes, who had known her, declared "that the annuities she left to
support her cats was a delicate way of providing for some poor and proud
Jacobite gentlewomen, who had the care of them, without making them feel
that they owed their livelihood to mere liberality."
It may, perhaps, be of interest to add that the beauty for which La
Belle Stuart was so celebrated ran in her family. Her sister, Sophia,
who was also a favourite at Court, and after the Revolution of 1688 a
loyal adherent of the Stuarts, excited the admiration, among others, of
Mr. Pepys, who pronounced her "very handsome." The daughters of the
handsome Sophia, who married not so well as her sister Frances, were
distinguished by the friendship of the famous Hamilton. The eldest,
Ann, was particularly lovely. As the wife of the Maréchal Duc de
Berwick, the right noble son of James II. and the sister of the Great
Marlborough, she was long known at the French Court as "La Belle
Nanette."
"LA BELLE HAMILTON," COMTESSE DE GRAMONT
A GOOD WOMAN OF THE RESTORATION
The masterpiece of Sir Peter Lely, which forms the frontispiece to this
book, scarcely needs the charming testimony of Anthony Hamilton to
assure us that the fair subject of this _historiette_ was a good woman.
The portrait breathes goodness and refinement. The Court of Charles II.
had no ornament so flawless. La Belle Hamilton was as chaste as Lady
Castlemaine was polluted, as pure as La Belle Stuart was designing. If
the "Mémoires de Gramont" has kept the recollection of the Restoration
more vivid than that of perhaps any other period of English history, its
heroine, more than all the characters who enliven its inimitable pages,
has unquestionably aided the author in his wonderful effort to refine
vice of its grossness. Her perfume seems to sweeten the noxious air of
her times and to linger subtly in the memory of the unclean palace in
which it was spilt.
If it be granted that rules may be proved by their exceptions, one
wishing to defend the truth of the cynical aphorism that virtue, like
happy nations, has no history, could choose no more convincing argument
than to cite La Belle Hamilton. She seems, one is tempted to say, to
have been born for the express purpose of proving that purity could
exist undefiled in the vicious atmosphere of Whitehall. Her story cannot
be compressed into the space of a footnote. It is too closely interwoven
with that of her brilliant brother, his fascinating book, and her
extraordinary husband.
The Hamiltons, like the Stuarts of Blantyre, were very poor and very
highly connected. Miss Hamilton's father, like Miss Stuart's, was a
younger son and a Royalist, and fled, like him, to France after the
execution of Charles I. We have stated how Stuart of Blantyre was
provided for in exile. Sir George Hamilton was no less fortunate. The
young King, Louis XIV., gave him a military command, which enabled him
to maintain himself, his wife, and his nine children till the
Restoration. When Charles II. returned to England, Hamilton, like the
rest of the banished cavaliers, returned with him and obtained
preferment at Court. Appointments as pages, grooms-in-waiting, and army
officers were provided for his sons; while his daughters, thanks to the
influence of their uncle, the great Duke of Ormond, without being
obliged to accept for their maintenance the doubtful distinction of
becoming maids of honour to the Queen or the Duchess of York, lived with
their parents and had the _entrée_ to Court.
It was not long before the beauty and charm of Miss Hamilton attracted
attention. The Duke of York was the first to admire her. The mind of
this prince was so extraordinary that it sought, and apparently found,
excuse for his lax morals, as well as at a later period encouragement
for his political ambitions, in the zeal of his religious convictions.
Where Charles II. took his pleasures with a cynical indifference of God
or man, his dull brother pursued his armed with a breviary. His
immoralities were as circumscribed as his religious views. When Charles
wanted a mistress he went far afield; in his hunt he bagged anything
that came his way, from a duchess to a demi-rep. James was only catholic
as regards the mission of Rome on this planet; his quest for the same
article as his brother was restricted to the _entourage_ of his Duchess.
He was satisfied with a maid of honour. As those in the Court of the
Duchess of York were, with one or two exceptions, particularly
unprepossessing, the cynical, witty Charles used to say that "he
believed his brother's mistresses were given him as a penance by the
priests."
There were times, however, when beauty appealed to the sanctimonious
James. One of these was when he beheld Miss Hamilton. His admiration
soon became the talk of the Court without, owing to her tact,
compromising her; for she treated him with such dignity that James, who
was shy in these matters, could never summon up the courage to get
beyond a mild flirtation, while the Duchess of York felt there was so
little cause to be jealous of such a rival that she showed her the
greatest affection and esteem. This behaviour on the part of Miss
Hamilton soon made the ogling of her royal admirer so fatiguing that it
was not long before he carried his attentions elsewhere.
The Duke of Richmond, who, when contemplating matrimony was inclined to
be guided in the choice of a wife by following in the steps of royalty,
succeeded the Duke of York as a suitor for the favour of La Belle
Hamilton. This was the Duke of Richmond who was afterwards, when in
quest of his third wife, so cleverly hooked by La Belle Stuart. He was
now, however, in search of his second Duchess, but, though apparently
greatly in love, unable to bring himself to the point of a proposal--not
from any timidity, like the Duke of York, but from purely mercenary
motives. This man who afterwards married Miss Stuart without a penny
hesitated on the present occasion to wed the beautiful Miss Hamilton,
who was equally destitute. The King, it is true, from consideration of
the claims of her family upon him, offered to overcome the Duke of
Richmond's objections by himself dowering the beauty. But as she
resented being bargained for like an odalisque in a slave-mart, she
decided that the honour it was proposed to confer on her was not worth
having.
The "invincible" Jermyn was the next suitor, but as his intentions were
no more honourable than the Duke of York's Miss Hamilton soon treated
him with the contempt he deserved. While the Duke of Norfolk, with his
twenty-five thousand a year, could not get her so much as to look at
him. And it was her refusal to become the premier Duchess in the kingdom
that kept Lord Falmouth, one of the most talented and ambitious as well
as one of the most dissipated of the younger peers of the realm, from
declaring a passion which, as he told St. Evremond, "made him regard
Miss Hamilton as the only acquisition wanting to complete his
happiness."
The list of her unsuccessful lovers would not be complete without
mention of the Russells, uncle and nephew. And as the portrait of the
elder has been drawn by La Belle Hamilton's brother with a humour that
elevates caricature to a fine art, we can do no better than reproduce it
from the "Mémoires de Gramont."
"He was," says Anthony Hamilton, "full seventy, and had distinguished
himself by his courage and fidelity in the civil wars. His passions and
intentions in regard to Miss Hamilton appeared both at once; but his
magnificence only appeared by halves in those gallantries which love
inspires. It was not long since the fashion of high-crowned hats had
been left off, in order to fall into the other extreme. Old Russell,
amazed at so terrible a change, resolved to keep a medium, which made
him remarkable; he was still more so by his constancy for cut doublets,
which he supported a long time after they had been universally
suppressed; but, what was more surprising than all, was a certain
mixture of avarice and liberality, constantly at war with each other,
ever since he had entered the list of love."
This Lord John Russell, whose favourite nephew, a tiresome, stupid young
man, was also in love with La Belle Hamilton (though the fact was
concealed from his uncle), had some difficulty in finding the courage
necessary to propose to his youthful inamorata. But he managed to find
it just as he was on the eve of leaving town, and his mode of
declaration will complete the above portrait.
"I am," he said, suddenly coming to the point on finding her alone when
he came to bid her goodbye, "brother to the Earl of Bedford. I command
the regiment of Guards. I have three thousand a year, and fifteen
thousand in ready-money. All which, madam, I come to present to you,
along with my person. One present, I agree, is not worth much without
the other, and therefore I put them together. I am advised to go to some
of the watering-places for something of an asthma, which, in all
probability, cannot continue much longer, as I have had it for these
last twenty years. If you look upon me as worthy of the happiness of
belonging to you, I shall propose it to your father, to whom I did not
think it right to apply before I was acquainted with your sentiments. My
nephew William is at present entirely ignorant of my intention; but I
believe he will not be sorry for it, though he will thereby see himself
deprived of a pretty considerable estate; for he has a great affection
for me, and besides, he has a pleasure in paying his respects to you
since he has perceived my attachment. I am very pleased that he should
make his court to me, by the attention he pays to you; for he did
nothing but squander his money upon that coquette Middleton, while at
present he is at no expense, though he keeps the best company in
England."