It is rather curious that one of my informants in this article should
have dined with a lady who had dined with a peeress married in the year
1662.
This peeress was Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, the wife of
the unfortunate son of Charles II. As is well known, she was early
deserted by her husband, who represented, not without justice, that a
marriage into which he had been tempted for reasons of policy by his
relations, when he was only thirteen years of age, could hardly be
binding.
The young duchess, naturally plain in features, was so unfortunate
in early womanhood as to become lame in consequence of some feats in
dancing. For her want of personal graces there is negative evidence in
a dedication of Dryden, where he speaks abundantly of her wit, but not
a word of beauty, which shows that the case must have been desperate.
[This, by the way, was the remark made to me on the subject by Sir
Walter Scott, who, in the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, has done what
Dryden could not do—flattered the duchess:
‘She had known adversity,
Though born in such a high degree;
In pride of power and _beauty’s bloom_,
Had wept o’er Monmouth’s bloody tomb.’]
Were any further proof wanting, it might be found in the regard in
which she was held by James II., who, as is well known, had such a
tendency to plain women as induced a suspicion in his witty brother
that they were prescribed to him by his confessor by way of penance.
This friendship, in which there was nothing improper, was the means of
saving her grace’s estates at the tragical close of her husband’s life.
It is curious to learn that the duchess, notwithstanding the terms
on which she had been with her husband, and the sad stamp put upon
his pretensions to legitimacy, acted throughout the remainder of her
somewhat protracted life as if she had been the widow of a true prince
of the blood-royal. In her state-rooms she had a canopy erected,
beneath which was the only seat in the apartment, everybody standing
besides herself. When Lady Margaret Montgomery, one of the beautiful
Countess of Eglintoune’s daughters, was at a boarding-school near
London—previous to the year _Thirty_—she was frequently invited by
the duchess to her house; and because her great-grandmother, Lady
Mary Leslie, was sister to her grace’s mother, _she_ was allowed a
chair; but this was an extraordinary mark of grace. The duchess was
the last person of quality in Scotland who kept _pages_, in the proper
acceptation of the term—that is, young gentlemen of good birth, who
acquired manners and knowledge of the world in attending upon persons
of exalted rank. The last of her grace’s pages rose to be a general.
When a letter was brought for the duchess, the domestic gave it to the
page, the page to the waiting-gentlewoman (always a person of birth
also), and she at length to her grace. The duchess kept a tight hand
over her clan and tenants, but was upon the whole beloved.
She was buried (1732) on the same day with the too-much-celebrated
Colonel Charteris. At the funeral of Henry, Duke of Buccleuch, in the
year 1812, in the aisle of the church at Dalkeith, my informant (Sir
Walter Scott) was shown an old man who had been at the funeral of both
her grace and Colonel Charteris. He said that the day was dreadfully
stormy, which all the world agreed was owing to the devil carrying
off Charteris. The mob broke in upon the mourners who followed this
personage to the grave, and threw cats, dogs, and a pack of cards upon
the coffin; whereupon the gentlemen drew their swords, and cut away
among the rioters. In the confusion one little old man was pushed
into the grave; and the sextons, somewhat prompt in the discharge of
their duty, began to shovel in the earth upon the quick and the dead.
The grandfather of my informant (Dr Rutherford), who was one of the
mourners, was much hurt in the affray; and my informant has heard his
mother describe the terror of the family on his coming home with his
clothes bloody and his sword broken.
As to pages—a custom existed among old ladies till a later day of
keeping such attendants, rather superior to the little polybuttoned
personages who are now so universal. It was not, however, to be
expected that a pranksome youth would behave with consistent respect
to an aged female of the stiff manners then prevalent. Accordingly,
ridiculous circumstances took place. An old lady of the name of
Plenderleith, of very stately aspect and grave carriage, used to walk
to Leith by the Easter Road with her little foot-page behind her. For
the whole way, the young rogue would be seen projecting burs at her
dress, laughing immoderately, but silently, when one stuck. An old
lady and her sequel of a page was very much like a tragedy followed by
a farce. The keeping of the rascals in order at home used also to be
a sad problem to a quiet old lady. The only expedient which Miss ——
could hit upon to preserve her page from the corruption of the streets
was, in her own phrase, to _lock up his breeks_, which she did almost
every evening. The youth, being then only presentable at a window,
had to content himself with such chat as he could indulge in with his
companions and such mischief as he could execute from that loophole of
retreat. So much for the parade of keeping pages.