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MEMOIRS OF
THE BEAUTIES OF THE
COURT OF KING CHARLES THE SECOND,
WITH THEIR PORTRAITS.

VOL. I.

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london, Hdtkdhed by Henry ColbiLrn, Great

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MEMOIRS or
THE BEAUTIES OP THE
COURT OF CHARLES THE SECOND,
WITH
THEIR PORTRAITS,
AFTER SIR PETER LELY AND OTHER EMINENT PAINTERS:

ILLUSTRATING

THE DIARIES OF PEPYS, EVELYN, CLARENDON,
AND OTHER CONTEMPORARY WRITERS.
BY MRS. JAMESON.

SECOND EDITION, ENLARGED.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

LONDON:
HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
MDCCCXXXVIII.

LONDON :
JIIAUHICE, CLARK, AND CO., HOWFORD BUILDINGS,
FENCHURCH STREET.

ADVERTISEMENT.

In offering to the public a new edition of Mrs. Jame
son's popular biographies of the " Beauties of the Court
of Charles the Second," the publisher has endeavoured,
in every possible way, to make it worthy of a still more
extended patronage than that which has been already
accorded to it. With this view, he has not only printed
it in a more convenient form, but has caused it to be
enlarged by considerable additions, both to the notes
and text, and by an introductory Essay on the reign
and character of Charles II. He trusts that the efforts
thus made, will be received with the favour which it
has been his object to merit.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

THE SECOND EDITION.

" A prince like a pear, which rotten at core is,
With a court that takes millions, and yet as Job poor is."
Old Song.

The court of Charles the Second is very properly illus
trated by the portraits of his ladies. It was by their
secret influence that the most important affairs of state
were directed, at their all-powerful nod ministers rose
or fell, by their contrivance were effected foreign treaties,
and the most weighty decisions of war or peace were
determined by their intermediation. In the weak mind
and hollow heart of Charles, a Castlemaine or a Ports
mouth might always gain the mastery over the integrity
of a Clarendon or an Ormond. It happens but too
frequently, that when female influence is thus predomi
nant in the cabinet, it is exercised by the worst portion
of the fairer sex, and this was eminently the case in
Charles's days, the avarice of whose mistresses robbed
the country of its resources, and reduced the King him
self to a disgraceful dependancy on France. Along with
i. b

11 EDITOR S INTRODUCTION.
foreign finery came in foreign licentiousness, and the
court of Charles the Second, in this latter respect, presents
a strong contrast to the stern morality of that of Crom
well. Fortunately, the debauchery of the gay cavaliers,
and the lax virtue of the dames of Louis XIV., were
too grating to the public feelings to take firm root in
England ; and, whilst the nation went on gradually
increasing and improving upon the refinements which
were now introduced, a few years saw the more objec
tionable fashions which had accompanied them disappear.
The joy which seemed to hail the accession of Charles
to the throne of his father, was but the gleamy sunshine
which often ushers in a gloomy overclouded day. Many
people, tired of the uncertainties which had for some
time filled their minds, hailed a change which seemed
to promise them some settled government. The King
was not brought in by the strength of his own party,
but rather by the dissatisfaction of those unquiet people,
who, irritated because the government was not moulded
according to their own ideas and influenced by them
selves, hastened the recall of the exiled monarch, that
they might at least see the overthrow of the party of
which they were jealous. They bore no love to Charles
in their hearts, but they shouted at his elevation, be
cause it was the downfall of the Protectorate. The
leading men seized the occasion which they saw pre
sented, and made their own advantage of it, by making
their peace with the exile, and hurrying his restoration.
But many of his best friends, who knew well his inca
pacity for the throne to which he was called, were not

EDITORS INTRODUCTION. ill
without their fears of the future. Yet there were not
wanting many also, who, in the warmth of their zeal,
thought the joy of every body was as sincere as their
own. " This day," (29th May,) says Evelyn, " his majestie
Charles the Second came to London, after a sad and long
exile and calamitous suffering, both of the King and
church, being 17 years. This was also his birth-day,
and with a triumph of above 20,000 horse and foote,
brandishing their swords and shouting with inexpressible
joy ; the wayes strew'd with flowers, the belles ringing,
the streetes hung with tapistry, fountaines running with
wine ; the maior, aldermen, and all the companies in
their liveries, chaines of gold, and banners ; lords and
nobles clad in cloth of silver, gold, and velvet ; the
windowes and balconies all set with ladies ; trumpets,
music, and myriads of people flocking, even so far as
from Rochester, so as they were seven houres in passing
the citty, even from 2 in the afternoone till 9 at night.
" I stood in the Strand and beheld it, and bless'd
God. And all this was don without one drop of bloud
shed, and by that very army which rebell'd against him ;
but it was the Lord's doing, for such a restauration was
never mention'd in any history, ancient or modern, since
the returne of the Jewes from the Babylonish captivity ;
nor so joyfuU a day and so bright ever seene ih this
nation, this hapning when to expect or effect it was
past all human policy."*
* Evelyn's Diary, vol. ii., p. 148.

IV EDITOR S INTRODUCTION.
The night of this day, which drew forth so abundantly
the pious thanksgivings of John Evelyn, the King passed
in the company of Mrs. Palmer, so soon afterwards
notorious as the Duchess of Cleveland ; and immedi
ately after, he issued a proclamation against debauchery.
Pepys observes on the 4th of June, " This morning the
King's proclamation against drinking, swearing, and
debauchery, was read to our ships' companies in the
fleet, and indeed it gives great satisfaction to all."
The members of Charles's first administration were
partly his staunch friends, who had followed him in his
misfortunes, as Ormond, Hyde, (created soon after Earl
of Clarendon,) and partly some of his new friends, who
had at least the reputation of having been chiefly in
strumental in his restoration, such as Monk, whom he
created Duke of Albemarle, and Montague, created Earl
of Sandwich. They were generally men who possessed,
in comparison with his other favourites, and of those
who succeeded them, a considerable degree of integrity
or ability. Pepys gives us a curious insight into the
temporizing policy of Sandwich (" his lord," as he styles
him,) during the negotiations for the King's return, and
confesses that he learnt, in a conversation with him, that
as to religion he was " wholly sceptical." On another
occasion Pepys speaks of him as going further than be
came him in flattering the King's vices. There can be
no doubt, however, that Sandwich possessed sufficient
virtue to render him obnoxious to the King's more im
mediate companions, and he gradually fell into disfavour
and disgrace, till at last he was slain, fighting bravely,

EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. V
in the great sea-fight in the May of 1672. On this
occasion, Evelyn bursts into a flood of eloquence in la
menting the loss of his friend ; " My Lord Sandwich
was prudent as well as valiant, and always govern'd his
affaires with successe and little losse ; he was for deli
beration and reason, they (Monk and Lord Clifford) for
action and slaughter without either ; and for this, whis-
per'd as if ray Lord Sandwich was not so gallant because
he was not so rash, and knew how fatal it was to loose a
fleete, such as was that under his conduct, and for which
these very persons would have censur'd him. Deplo
rable was the losse of one of the best accomplish'd per
sons, not onely of this nation, but of any other. He was
learned in sea affaires, in politics, in mathematics, and
in music ; he had been on divers embassies, was of a
sweete and obliging temper, sober, chast, very ingenious,
a true nobleman, an ornament to the court and his
prince, nor has he left any behind him who approach
his many virtues."*
Edward Hyde, created soon afterwards Earl of Cla
rendon, was certainly a man of great ability ; but he was
not popular, and in the political songs of the day he is
accused of unbounded avarice. Charles supported him,
both in gratitude for a long series of faithful services,
and because he thought that no other person was so
capable of supporting the Restoration, and of enlarging
the limits of his regal power.
Clarendon was virtually the bead of the administra-
* Evelyn's Diary, vol. ii., p. 370.

Vi EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.
tion with which Charles began his reign, and which was
indeed kept together almost entirely by his influence,
for the King's favour was bestowed secretly on men of
a very different character and reputation. Charles had
become gradually more and more the slave of Lady
Castlemaine, and left his ministers to follow their own
counsels whilst he spent his time with buffoons and de
bauchees ; and his courtiers, who were preparing under
female influence to stand at the head of the government,
thought of nothing but fine clothes and petty intrigues.
The want of personal security which every body felt
under the Restoration, drove even the best men to con
sider only of making their profit of the present mo
ment. Who can help smiling at the fears of Pepys,
which he avows with so much naivete in the November
of 1660, on the occasion of a dinner at Sir William
Batten's ? — " Here dined with us two or three more
country gentlemen ; among the rest Mr. Christmas, my
old school-fellow, with whom I had much talk. He did
remember that I was a great Roundhead when I was a
boy, and 1 was much afraid that he would have remem
bered the words that I said the day the King was be
headed, (that, were I to preach upon him, my text
should be, ' The memory of the wicked shall rot ;') but
I found afterwards that he did go away from school before
that time!"
In the August following, Pepys, who had hailed with
so much satisfaction the blessings which at its outset,
little more than a year before, the Restoration seemed
to promise, observes of the state of things, — " At court

EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. Vll
things are in a very ill condition, there being so much
emulacion, poverty, and the vices of drinking, swearing,
and loose amours, that I know not what will be the end
of it, but confusion. And the clergy so high, that all
people that I meet with do protest against their prac
tice. In short, I see no content or satisfaction any
where, in any one sort of people."
In the October of 1662, when the Chancellor (Claren
don) had lost not a little of what popularity he had, by
the marriage of his daughter with the Duke of York,
and by the part he had taken in the marriage of the
King and in the reconcihation of the Queen with Lady
Castlemaine, and when the influence of this termagant
lady had been doubly strengthened by the Queen's
submission, the administration which had been formed
around Lord Clarendon began to give way. The Secre
tary of State, Sir Edward Nicholas, a man of great in
tegrity, and one of the faithfullest friends of the King
as well as of his father, was sacrificed to make place for
Sir H. Bennet, afterwards known as the Earl of Arling
ton, a creature of Lady Castlemaine. The privy-purse
was at the same time given to the custody of Sir Charles
Berkeley, " a most vicious person, and one," says Pepys,
" whom Mr. Pierce, the surgeon, did tell me that he
offered his wife 300/. per annum to be his mistress. He
also told me, that none in court had more the King's
eare now than Sir Charles Berkeley, and Sir H. Bennet,
and my Lady Castlemaine."
In its foreign negotiations, the government of Charles

viii EDITORS INTRODUCTION.
the Second made a very different figure from that which
had always been sustained by England during the Pro
tectorate. Early in the new reign, the advantages which
had been obtained by the latter were sold for money to
supply the extravagance of the court. The parliament,
at first so compliant with the King, became soon dissatis
fied with his conduct, and distrustful of him, and gave
him but small supplies, and that not without making
many difficulties ; the more so, because they saw that
the ministers themselves were intent only upon filling
their own purses as quickly as possible. It was observed
in 1665, " for my Lord Treasurer, he minds his ease and
lets things go how they will ; if he can have his 8000/.
per annum and a game at l'ombre, he is well. My Lord
Chancellor, he minds getting of money and nothing else ;
and my Lord Ashly (the Chancellor of the Exchequer)
will rob the devil and the altar, but he will get money
if it be to be got." The mass of the people was equally
distrustful as the parliament, and the assessments were
collected with difficulty ; * so that between the extra va-
* On the 9th November, 1663, Pepys gives an interesting account of
the difference between Cromwell's soldiery, who had been disbanded, and
those of the King, and describes the difficulties of getting in the revenue.
" He (Mr. Blackburne) tells me, that the King, by name, with all his
dignities, is prayed for by them that they call Fanatiques, as heartily
and powerfully as in any of the other churches that are thought better :
and that, let the King think what he will, it is them that must help him
in the day of warr. For so generally they are the most substantiall sort
of people, and the soberest ; and did desire me to observe it to my Lord
Sandwich, among other things, that of all the old army, now you cannot
see a man begging about the streets ; but what ? You shall have this
captain turned a shoemaker ; the lieutenant, a baker ; this, a brewer ;
that, a haberdasher ; this common soldier, a porter ; and every man in

EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. IX
gant profusion of the King and the unwillingness of the
people to pay, the revenue of the kingdom was in a very
low condition. The ministers therefore dreaded a war,
when they had not sufficient money even to supply
the private expenditure of the King, and the debts of
the court were becoming continually heavier and more
galling. In 1665, the Dutch war broke out. The people of
England were extremely irritated against the Hollanders,
and a very large supply was voted by the parliament for
the carrying on of the war. On the part of the English,
the war was ill managed in every department. The
his apron and frock, &c, as if they never had done any thing else :
whereas the other go with their belts and swords, swearing, and cursing,
and stealing ; running into people's houses, by force oftentimes, to carry
away something ; and this is the difference between the temper of one
and the other ; and concludes (and I think with some reason) that the
spirits of the old parliament soldiers are so quiet and contented with
God's providences, that the King is safe from any evil meant him by
them, one thousand times more than from his own discontented cavaliers.
And then to the publick management of business : it is done, as he ob
serves, so loosely and so carelessly, that the kingdom can never be happy
with it, every man looking after himself, and his own lust and luxury ;
and that half of what money the parliament gives the King is not so
much as gathered. And to the purpose he told me how the Bellamys
(who had some of the northern counties assigned them for their debt for
the petty-warrant victualling) have often complained to him that they
cannot get it collected, for that nobody minds, or if they do, they won't
pay it in. Whereas (which is a very remarkable thing) he hath been
told by some of the treasurers at warr here of late, to whom the most of
the 12O,O00Z. monthly was paid, that for most months the payments
were gathered so duly, that they seldom had so much or more than 40s.
or the like, short in the whole collection."
I. C

X EDITOR S INTRODUCTION.
court was too busy about its own pleasures to allow its
attention to be given to public business ; the money
was ill applied ; and, after the King had squandered the
enormous sum of 2,390,000/. amongst his mistresses and
favourites, the war ended, in 1667, with disgrace. It
is recorded, that when the Dutch fleet was employed
in destroying the shipping in the Thames and the
Medway, and threatening a still more serious invasion,
Charles was employed with Lady Castlemaine in the
interesting sport of hunting a moth !
Much of this waste of resources and ill management,
was laid to the venality of Sir William Coventry, the
treasurer of the navy. Denham, in one of his political
poems, describes him as —
" Cerulian Coventry,
Keeper, or rather chancellor, of the sea 
To pay his fees the silver trumpet spends,
And boatswain's whistle for his place depends ;
Pilots in vain repeat their compass o'er,
Until of him they learn that one point more,
The constant magnet to the pole doth hold,
Steel to the magnet, Coventry to gold.
Muscovy sells us pitch, and hemp, and tar ;
Iron and copper, Sweden ; Munster, war ;
Ashly, prize ; Warwick, custom ; Carteret, pay ;
But Coventry doth sell the fleet away."
But the tide of unpopularity, raised by the disad
vantageous peace, after so much money and blood had
been expended, fell heaviest on Lord Clarendon. Lady
Castlemaine, who hated him because he had obstructed
some of her extravagant whims, gave the King no rest
till the Chancellor was dismissed from his office ; and

EDITORS INTRODUCTION. XI
then Charles's worthless companions congratulated him
on being, at last, his own master.
Pepys has entered in his Diary a conversation with
Evelyn in the spring of this year, (1667,) before the
peace and the fall of the Chancellor, which gives a cu
rious picture of the weak conduct of the " merry King."*
" Then," says he, " I took a turn with Mr. Evelyn ;
with whom I walked two hours, till almost one of the
clock : talking of the badness of the government, where
nothing but wickedness, and wicked men and women,
command the King : that it is not in his nature to gain
say any thing that relates to his pleasures ; that much
of it arises from the sickliness of our Ministers of State,
who cannot be about him as the idle companions are,
and therefore he gives way to the young rogues ; and
then from the negligence of the clergy, that a bishop
shall never be seen about him, as the King of France
hath always ; that the King would fain have some of
the same gang to be Lord Treasurer, which would be
yet worse, for now some delays are put to the getting
gifts of the King, as Lady Byron, who had been, as he
called it, the King's seventeenth mistress abroad, did
not leave him till she had got him to give her an order
for 4000/. worth of plate to be made for her ; but by
delays, thanks be to God ! she died before she had it.
* # # And Mr. Evelyn tells me of several of the menial
servants of the court lacking bread, that have not re
ceived a farthing wages since the King's coming in. He
* Pepys, vol. iii., p. 201.

Xll EDITORS INTRODUCTION.
tells me the King of France hath his mistresses, but
laughs at the foolery of our King, that makes his bas
tards princes, and loses his revenue upon them, and
makes his mistresses his masters. And the King of
France did never grant Lavaliere any thing to bestow
on others." — " By the way," adds Pepys, " he tells
me that of all the great men of England there is none
that endeavours more to raise those that he takes into
favour than my Lord Arlington ; and that on that score,
he is much more to be made one's patron than my Lord
Chancellor, (Clarendon,) who never did, nor never will
do any thing, but for money."
After the fall of Clarendon, all who would obtain
great places were obliged to conciliate " Bab May, my
Lady Castlemaine, and that wicked crew." The King
was, however, in a difficult position ; his parliament had
been called together, and dismissed with the greatest
dissatisfaction, and the whole country was in a ferment.
Everybody disliked the peace ; but no one wished for
the continuation of the war, because they saw that it
was so ill managed that it could bring nothing but dis
grace. The government was deeply in debt ; and the
King was distressed for want of money ; yet he dared
not to call a parliament to vote supplies. At the same
time, he loved too much his ease and his pleasures to
take any decisive steps to make himself independent of
his parliament, and he was continually vacillating be
tween different counsels. Sometimes he was determined
to send away Lady Castlemaine with a pension, and to
conciliate the parliament ; at others, his turbulent mis-

EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. X1I1
tress hectored him into obedience to, and his heartless
courtiers laughed him into acquiescence in, worse ad
vice. The sacrifice which he pretended to make to the
parliament, but which in reality arose from other feel
ings, the disgrace of the Lord Chancellor, only served to
render himself contemptible. Yet amid all this public
dissatisfaction, and much public misery, the King was
still " merry." Pepys, the valuable and amusing com
mentator on this reign, tells us a story in September,
1667, " how merry the King and Duke of York and
court were the other day, when they were abroad a-
hunting. They came to Sir G. Carteret's house at Cran-
bourne, and there were entertain'd, and all made drunk ;
and being all drunk, Ar merer did come to the King, and
swore to him by G — , ' Sir,' says he, ' you are not so
kind to the Duke of York of late as you used to be.'
' Not I ? ' says the King, ' why so ? ' — ' Why,' says he,
' if you are, let us drink his health.' — ' Why let us,' says
the King. Then he fell on his knees and drank it ; and
having done, the King began to drink it. ' Nay, sir,'
says Armerer, ' by G — , you must do it on your knees ! '
So he did, and then all the company : and having done
it, all fell a-crying for joy, being all maudlin and kissing
one another, the King the Duke of York, and the Duke
of York the King ; and in such a maudlin pickle as
never people were : and so passed the day."*
Up to this period, the public advisers of the King had
been constantly changing for the worse; and at the time
of Clarendon's impeachment, even Arlington and Coven-
* Pepys, vol. iii., pp. 362, 363.

xiv editor's introduction.
try had fallen into some disfavour, and Buckingham and
Bristol, two men devoid equally of principle or ability,
were his chief counsellors. Buckingham had but re
cently been liberated from the Tower, at the command
rather than persuasion of Lady Castlemaine, who called
his sacred majesty a fool ; but it was no long time after
this that the minister showed his gratitude, by exerting
all his power against the imperious mistress ; and she
also fell into disfavour, though it was only to make way
for a still more shameless successor.
The cabal which governed after Clarendon's fall, was
composed of men entirely unfit for any other business
but that of administering to the King's pleasures. The
Diary of Pepys contains many sneers at the ignorance
and imbecility which they exhibited in council. In
proportion with the weakness of the court, the boldness
and resoluteness of the House of Commons increased,
and the session in which Clarendon was banished struck
such a fear into all the courtiers, that they did not dare
to face another for a long time, and were in continual
apprehensions.* Multitudes of people, who had been
the warmest advocates of the Restoration, began to
regret the days of the Commonwealth, and the very
members of the House of Commons, in their speeches,
* In 1668, Pepys observes, " It is pretty to see how careful these
great men are to do every thing so as they may answer it to the parlia
ment, thinking themselves safe in nothing but where the judges (with
whom they often advise) do say the matter is doubtful ; and so they take
upon themselves then to be the chief persons to interpret what is doubt
ful."— Pepys, vol. iv., p. 119.

EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. XV
frequently contrasted the acts of Charles's government
with those of Cromwell.*
Buckingham, now the King's favourite and chief mi
nister, was a mad debauchee, as destitute of ability as of
conduct. While Prime Minister of the crown, he had
seduced the Countess of Shrewsbury, and kept her as
his mistress. The earl challenged him, and each came
to the field with two companions, one of whom was
killed on the spot, and Shrewsbury received a wound of
which he died shortly after. From this time he lived
publicly with the countess. In the May of 1 668, Pepys
notes that " the Countesse of Shrewsbery is brought
home by the Duke of Buckingham to his house ; where
his duchesse saying that it was not for her and the
other to live together in a house, he answered, ' Why,
* Feb. 14, 1667-8, " Secretary Morrice did this day, in the House,
when they talked of intelligence, say that he was allowed but 'JOOl. a-year
for intelligence : whereas, in Cromwell's time, he did allow 70,000Z. a-
year for it ; and was confirmed therein by Colonell Birch, who said that
thereby Cromwell carried the secrets of all the princes of Europe at his
girdle." — Pepys, iii., 41. Feb. 17- " Great high words in the House. . .
The King's bad intelligence was mentioned, wherein they were bitter
against my Lord Arlington, saying, among other things, that whatever '
Morrice's was, who declared he had but *J50l. a-year allowed him for
intelligence, the King paid too dear for my Lord Arlington's, in giving
him 10,000Z. and a barony for it."— iii., 42. Feb. 21. " The House this
day is still as backward for giving any money as ever, and do declare
they will first have an account of the disposals of the last Poll-bill and
eleven months' tax. And it is pretty odde, that the very first sum men
tioned in the account brought in by Sir Robert Long of the disposal of
the Poll-bill money, is 5000/. to my Lord Arlington for intelligence ;
which was mighty unseasonable, so soon after they had so much cried
out against his want of intelligence." — Vol. iii,, 46.

XVI EDITOR S INTRODUCTION.
madam, I did think so, and therefore have ordered your
coach to be ready to carry you to your father's :' which
was a devilish speech, but, they say, true ; and my Lady
Shrewsbery is there, it seems." Four months after this,
we have an anecdote highly characteristic of the un
bounded arrogance and insolence of this minister, then
in the plenitude of his power. " Buckingham now rules
all ; and the other day, in the King's journey he is now
in, at Bagshot and that way, he caused Prince Rupert's
horses to be turned out of an inne, and caused his own
to be kept there, which the prince complained of to the
King, and the Duke of York seconded the complaint ;
but the King did over-rule it for Buckingham, by which
there are high displeasures among them ; and Bucking
ham and Arlington rule all."
Amidst the senseless measures of his ministers, and
the increasing indignation of his people, Charles still
lived easily and " merrily " with his vicious and debasing
companions. The squabbles of his mistresses caused
more troubles than the dangers of the state. A ridicu
lous circumstance happened at court in the beginning of
1669, which caused hot blood, and raised high factions,
" even to the sober engaging of great persons." — " It is
about my Lady Harvy's being offended at Doll Com
mon's acting of Sempronia, to imitate her ; for which
she got my Lord Chamberlain, (the Duke of Bucking
ham,) her kinsman, to imprison Doll : upon which my
Lady Castlemaine made the King to release her, and to
order her to act it again worse than ever, the other day,
where the King himself was ; and since it was acted

EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. XVII
again, and my Lady Harvy provided people to hiss her,
and fling oranges at her ; but it seems the heat is come
to a great height, and real troubles at court about it."
The ambition of the King's ministers, and the appre
hensions of future retribution for the many extravagant
and criminal measures of which they had been the
authors, drove them to seek gratification and safety
by desperate projects. The invaluable Diary of Pepys,
which throws so much light both on the temper of the
people, and on the secret intrigues of the court, closes
with the year 1669 ; but during that year we find several
notices, which show that the measures which were only
fully developed a few years later, had already been pri
vately resolved. The King and his ministers had conci
liated no party in the state ; the latter could only escape
punishment so long as they kept the power to avoid, or
rather delay it, in their own hands, and there was nothing
they feared so much as the meeting of parliament. On
the 21st of April, Pepys observes, "Sir H. Cholmley told
me that now the great design of the Duke of Buckingham
is to prevent the meeting, since he cannot bring about
with the King the dissolving of this parliament, that
the King may not need it ; and therefore my Lord St.
Albans (the ambassador in France) is hourly expected,
with great offers of a million of money, to buy our
breach with the Dutch ; and this, they do think, may
tempt the King to take the money, and thereby be out
of a necessity of calling the parliament again, which
these people dare not suffer to meet again : but this he
doubts, and so do I, that it will be the ruin of the na
tion if we fall out with Holland."
i, d

xviii editor's introduction.
On the 28th of the same month, Pepys learned in
conversation with the same person, " that it is brought
almost to effect, the late endeavours of the Duke of
York and Duchesse, the Queene-mother,* and my Lord
St. Albans, together with some of the contrary faction,
as my Lord Arlington, that for a sum of money we shall
enter into a league with the King of France, wherein,
he says, my Lord Chancellor f is also concerned ; and
that he believes that in the doing hereof, it is meant
that he shall come in again, and that this sum of money
will so help the King, as that he will not need the par
liament ; and that in that regard, it will be forwarded
by the Duke of Buckingham and his faction, who dread
the parliament. But hereby we must leave the Dutch,
and that I doubt will undo us."
That Louis XIV. was at this time preparing to make
Charles an instrument of his all-grasping ambition there
is no doubt, and it was not many months after that a
secret treaty was entered into, by which the King and
his ministry hoped to make themselves independent of
the parliament. Yet the only thing which Charles really
gained by the alliance was a new mistress, the too cele
brated Duchess of Portsmouth. Besides the prospect it
afforded of the ultimate gratification of their ambition,
the English courtiers seem pretty generally to have
filled their pockets with French money, and a war with
Holland was resolved on. The first act of hostilities
was an unprovoked and disgraceful aggression on the
* Henrietta Maria, who is said to have been secretly married to the
Duke of St. Albans.
¦f" Clarendon, who was living in banishment.

EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. XIX

part of the King of England. In the beginning of 1672,
before any war had been commenced or proclaimed, the
King sent out what can be considered as no better than
a piratical expedition to seize on the Dutch Smyrna
fleet, which was said to be worth a million and a half of
money. The avarice of the King was excited by the
richness of the prize ; and so little scrupulous was he or
his agents in the means they employed to effect their
purpose, that the Dutch officers were invited on board
the English fleet to a friendly repast, that their convoy
might be seized with the less difficulty. But the latter
were on their guard, the English were repulsed, and the
expedition ended in nothing but disgrace. Another
arbitrary measure to obtain money, the closing of the
Exchequer, ruined thousands of his subjects, and de
stroyed entirely the confidence of the merchants and
moneyed men.
" Now," says Evelyn, (a zealous royalist,) on the 12th
of March, " was the first blow given by us to the Dutch
convoy of the Smyrna fleete, by Sir Robert Holmes and
Lord Ossorie, in which we received little, save blows
and worthy reproach, for attacking our neighbours ere
any war was proclaim'd ; and then pretending the occa
sion to be, that some time before, the Merlin yatcht
chancing to saile thro' the whole Dutch fleete, their
Admiral did not strike to that trifling vessel. Surely
this was a quarrel slenderly grounded, and not becoming
Christian neighbours. We are like to thrive accord
ingly. Lord Ossorie several times deplor'd to me his
being engaged in it ; he had more justice and honour

XX EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.
than in the least to approve of it, tho' he had been over
persuaded to the expedition.* There is no doubt but
we should have surpriz'd this exceeding rich fleete, had
not the avarice and ambition of Holmes and Sprag sepa
rated themselves, and wilfully divided our fleete, on pre
sumption that either of them was strong enough to
deale with the Dutch convoy without joyning and mu
tual help ; but they so warmly plied our divided fleets,
that whilst in conflict the merchants sailed away, and
got safe into Holland,
" A few daies before this, the Treasurer of the House
hold, Sir Tho. Clifford, hinted to me as a confident, that
his majesty would shut up the Exchequer, (and accord
ingly his majesty made use of infinite treasure there, to
prepare for an intended rupture) ; but, says he, it will
soone be open againe and every body satisfied ; for this
bold man, who had been the sole adviser of the King to
invade that sacred stock, (tho' some pretend it was Lord
Ashley's counsel, then Chancellor of the Exchequer,)
was so over confident of the successe of this unworthy
designe against the Smyrna merchants, as to put his
majesty on an action which not onely lost the hearts of
* Evelyn has again, on another occasion, recorded the indignation of
the gallant and virtuous Earl of Ossory at this action. " One thing
more let me note, that he often express'd to me the abhorrence he had of
that base and unworthy action which he was put upon, of engaging the
Smyrna fleete in time of peace, in which tho' he behav'd himself like
a greate captain, yet he told me it was the onely blot in his life, and
troubled him exceedingly. Though he was commanded, and never ex-
amin'd further when he was so, yet lie always spoke of it with regret and
detestation." — Vol. iii., p. 31.

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION. Xxi
his subjects, and ruined many widows and orphans whose
stocks were lent him, but the reputation of his ex
chequer for ever, it being before in such credit, that he
might have commanded halfe the wealth of the nation.
" The credit of this bank being thus broken, did
exceedingly discontent the people, and never did his
majesty's affairs prosper to any purpose after it, for as
it did not supply the expense of the meditated war, so it
mealted away, I know not how."
With the exception of Buckingham, the King's
ordinary companions, such as Rochester, Killigrew, &c,
were men who never troubled him with business, or
meddled in it themselves, and their names seldom ap
pear in history. Charles was a man who cared too much
for his own interest to think for a moment of that of
any body else, but he was too intent on his pleasures even
to take the trouble to look after his interest. Hence
he left all to the management of his favourites. When,
however, to secure his own ease, he found it necessary
to conciliate his parliament, he never scrupled a mo
ment to sacrifice his best favourite to attain his end.
The cabal which governed after Clarendon's fall, hoped
to secure themselves by rendering the King absolute
and independent of the parliament. It was certainly
a wild scheme, and rather a dangerous one, but they
trusted much in the aid of France, whom they were to
appease by the sacrifice of Holland. The Dutch war
was carried on with ill success on the part of England,
although Louis XIV. was gaining great advantages by

Xxii EDITORS INTRODUCTION.
it. In the great naval fight of Solebay, in 1672, was
lost the Earl of Sandwich ; and shortly after, the want
of money and the discontent of the people, obliged the
King to make a separate peace with the Dutch, which
he excused to Louis, whose pensioner he was become,
as well as he could. In the session of parliament, which
was now called together, the expression of discontent
and indignation was so unanimous and so formidable,
that the King, who was now arrived at the point where
he must either be master of the parliament or give in,
slunk from the struggle in defeat. The ministers were
in dismay, and began to think of saving themselves by
joining the popular party. The history of the remainder
of his reign, till the secret treaty with France, presents
one series of attempts by the King, not to awe the
parliament, but to cheat it by every species of false
hood and duplicity possible. The parliament, however,
had no longer any faith in his promises ; they were
well aware, that when he came to them and asked for
supplies, promising them on his royal word and honour
that it was to support a war against France, he was
secretly making a league with France to use the money
in subverting the best interests of his own country.
Every trifling circumstance raised the suspicion of the
popular party, and new heats were blown up conti
nually ; until at last, when his own constitution was
beginning to give way by his irregular life, and he
was not able to live and enjoy the advantages of it, he
went so far as to sell the freedom of his country to the
French King for a pension, which should enable him to
go on without calling a parliament at all. The first

EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. XX111
part of Charles's reign, which may rather be called the
reign of Lady Castlemaine, was fruitful enough in cala
mities to the country, when the resources of the state
were consumed in waste and debauchery ; but the reign
of the Duchess of Portsmouth struck more deeply at
the roots of English liberty and independence, though
happily the folly of the court party was itself continually
thwarting and rendering inefficient the blow.
A great cause of the violent heats and factions which
arose during the latter part of Charles's reign, was the
discovery that the Duke of York and several of the mi
nisters had turned to the Catholic religion, and the not
ill-founded suspicion that there was a plot to change
the religion, as well as to overthrow the liberties of the
country. The bloody proceedings on Titus Oates's plot
are now scarcely conceivable ; but if we consider the
extreme apprehensions under which every body then
laboured, we shall have no difficulty in accounting for
their having been thus carried away by the passion of
the moment. It is probable, however, that the violence
of these proceedings contributed, more than any other
thing, to the patience with which the nation bore the ty
rannical proceedings of the court during the King's last
years, and to the quiet accession of the Duke of York.
The period of arbitrary government which followed
Charles's last parliament, was distinguished by a plot
not much less sanguinary than that of Titus Oates,
which afforded the court a pretence for making away
with some of the most influential of its opponents.

Xxiv EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.
" After the Popish plot," observes Evelyn on the 28th
of June, 1683, " there was now a new, and (as they called
it) a Protestant plot discover'd, that certaine lords and
others should designe the assassination of the King and
the Duke as they were to come from Newmarket, with
a general rising of the nation, and especially of the citty
of London, disaffected to the present government ; upon
which were committed to the Tower the Lord Russell,
eldest son of the Earle of Bedford, the Earle of Essex,
Mr. Algernon Sydney, son to the old Earle of Leicester,
Mr. Trenchard, Hampden, Lord Howard of Escrick, and
others. A proclamation was issued against my Lord
Grey, the Duke of Monmouth, Sir Thomas Armstrong,
and one Ferguson, who had escaped beyond sea  The
Lords Essex and Russell were much deplor'd, few be
lieving they had any evil intention against the King or
the church ; some thought they were cunningly drawn
in by their enemies, for not approving some late councils
and management relating to France, to popery, to the
persecution of the dissenters, &c."#
The pretended plot was discovered by Lord Howard,
a man of no principle, who was supposed to have shared
in their councils. There was no evidence of any value
against them ; but Jeffreys was the judge, and they were
persons whom the King wished to be rid of. Essex was
found in the Tower with his throat cut ; Russell was
first executed, and afterwards Sydney, who was con
victed on his reputation of a republican, and on a piece
of paper found in his study, written long before, and
* Evelyn, vol. iii., pp. 85, 86.

EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. XXV
said to contain republican doctrines. Monmouth sur
rendered himself shortly after, and was persuaded by
the King and the Duke of York to confess a plot before
the council ; on which condition he received his pardon,
but he immediately made public declaration that there
was no plot at all.
Most people lamented the fate of Russell and Sydney.
Of the many libels against the court, composed and dis
tributed on this occasion, the following ' new song of the
times ' is a fair specimen, and is not devoid of wit.
" 'Twere folly for ever
The Whigs* to endeavour
Disowning their plots, when all the world knows 'em :
Did they not fix
On a council of six,t
Appointed to govern, though nobody chose 'em P
They, that bore sway,
Knew not one who'd obey,
Did Trincalo make such a ridiculous pother ?
Monmouth's the head,
To strike monarchy dead,
They chose themselves viceroys each o'er one another.
Was it not a damn'd thing,
That Russell and Hambden
Should serve all the projects of hotheaded Tony ?
But much more untoward,
To appoint my Lord Howard
Of his own purse and credit to raise men and money ?

* Whig was the term by which the party opposed to the aggressions
of the court began now generally to be designated.
f The council of six were Monmouth, Russell, Essex, Howard, Syd
ney, and John Hambden, the latter being the grandson of the parlia
mentary leader.
i. e

XXVi EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION.
Who at Knightsbridge did hide
Those brisk boys unspy'd,
That at Shaftesbury's whistle were ready to follow ; "
But when aid he should bring,
Like a true Brentford king,
He was here with a whoop, and there with a hollo.
Algernon Sydney,
Of Commonwealth kidney,
Composed a damn'd libel, (ay, marry was it,)
Writt to occasion
111 blood in the nation,
And therefore dispers'd it all over his closet.
It was not the writing
Was prov'd, or inditing ;
And though he urg'd statutes, what was it but fooling ?
Since a new trust is
Plac'd in the Chief-justice,
To damn law and reason too by over-ruling, t
And what if a traitor,
In spite of the state, sir,
Should cut his own throat from one ear to the other ? %

* The Earl of Shaftesbury is said to to have been the first instigator
of the plot, but, irritated and in despair at the dilatoriness of the conspi
rators, to have fled to Holland, where he died. But, in remonstrating,
he had previously " threatened to commence the insurrection with his
friends in the city alone ; and he boasted that he had ten thousand brisk
boys, as he called them, who, on a motion of his finger, were ready to
fly to arms." — Hume.
f Whenever the prisoners made legal objections, the plea was in
variably over-ruled by the judge.
j From the extraordinary manner in which the Earl of Essex's throat
was cut, it was believed by many that he had been murdered. " Yet it
was wondered by some," says Evelyn, " how it was possible he should
do it in the manner he was found, for the wound was so deep, and wide,
that being cut through the gullet, wind-pipe, and both the jugulars, it
reached to the very vertebra? of the neck, so that the head held to it by
a very little skin as it were ; the gapping, too, of the razor, and cutting

EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. XXV11
Shall then a new freak
Make Braddon and Speak
To be more concerned than his wife or his brother ?
A razor all bloody,
Thrown out of a study,
Is evidence strong of his desperate guilt, sir,
So Godfrey* when dead,
Pull of horror and dread,
Run his sword through his body up to the hilt, sir.
All Europe together
Can't show such a father,
So tenderly nice of his son's reputation,
As our good King is,
Who labours to bring his
By tricks to subscribe to a sham declaration.
'Twas very good reason,
To pardon his treason,
To obey (not his own, but) his brother's command, sir,
To merit whose grace,
He must in the first place
Confess he's dishonest under his hand, sir.
The Rye-House conspiracy, for so this plot was called,
was made to appear far more than it really was. The
illegal and unjustifiable manner in which the trials of the
prisoners were carried on, seems to show that the court
was aware that there was no legal evidence whatever to
condemn them : people in general beheld the executions
with distaste and indignation, and six years afterwards,
his owne fingers, was a little strange ; but more, that having pass'd the
jugulars, he should have strength to proceed so far, that an executioner
could hardly have done more with an axe. There were odd reflections
upon it." — Vol. iii., p. 87. " Two children affirmed that they heard a
great noise from his window, and that they saw a hand throw out a
bloody razor." — Hume.
* Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, who was found murdered with his sword
run through his body, at the beginning of the trials about the plot of
Titus Oates.

xxviii editor's introduction.
when the bigotry and tyranny of Charles's successor had
paved the way to the revolution, the judgment was re
versed, and the whole declared a murder. Evelyn, who
was equally bigoted in his hatred to catholics and dis
senters as in his loyalty, expresses the same incredulity
in the Rye-House Plot, as in that of Titus Oates. " The
public," he observes on the 14th July, 1683, " was now
in greater consternation on the late plot and conspiracy ;
his majestie very melancholy, and not stirring without
double guards ; all the avenues and private dores about
White-hall and the Park shut up, few admitted to walke
in it. The papists in the meane time very jocond, and
indeede with reason, seeing their own plot brought to
nothing, and turn'd to ridicule, and now a conspiracy of
protestants as they call'd them."
The King lived scarcely two years after the discovery
of this plot, and three after the infamous bargain with
France, whereby he had sold the liberty of his country in
exchange for a pension for himself. During that period,
all the acts of the court were directed to the same point
at which James the Second aimed more openly, the esta
blishment of the Popish religion and arbitrary govern
ment. Charles the Second ended his reign as he began
it, — a heartless libertine and a hypocrite. On the twen
ty-fifth of January, 1685, when he was fifty-four years
old, Evelyn was at court, and, it being a Sunday, was
shocked at the debauchery and profaneness which was
there exhibited. " I saw this evening such a scene of
profuse gaming, and the King in the midst of his three
concubines, (Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Mazarine,) as

EDITOR S INTRODUCTION. xxix
I had never before seen. Luxurious dallying and pro-
phaneness." On the 6th of February the King died,
in the profession of the Roman Catholic religion, to
which, up to the last moment, he had made a public
show of being averse.
The numerous libels published during the latter part
of Charles's reign, point to the Duke of York as the
chief abettor of the arbitrary and tyrannical proceedings
of the court, and, to all appearance, not without good
reason. In his mind, the Popish religion seems to have
planted all its worst principles, without intermixing with
them any of the good Christian feelings of which every
sect possesses its share. On his accession to the crown,
all the evil tendencies of the faith which he had
embraced began to show themselves still more openly.
During a reign of three years and a few months, he
contrived to insult and despise every party, to interfere
with every body's privileges and rights, and so entirely
to lose the love of his own subjects, that when the revo
lution broke out, there was not a person to hold up a
hand in his favour.

PORTRAITS AND MEMOIRS

CONTAIKEI) IN

THE FIRST VOLUME.

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA  37
THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND  69
THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT  101
THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY  123
LADY DENHAM  147
NELL GWYNN  157

INTRODUCTION.

" In days of ease, when now the weary sword
Was sheathed, and luxury with Charles restor'd,
In every taste of foreign courts improved,
All by the King's example lived and loved.
The soldierbreathed the gallantries of France,
And every flowery courtier writ romance :
Lely on animated canvas stole
The sleepy eye, that spoke the melting soul." Pope.

It is the peculiar privilege of the Portrait-painter to
immortalize Beauty, to give duration to the most
perishable of Heaven's gifts, and bestow upon the Fair
" a thousand years of bloom." When the poet has done
his utmost to describe the charms which kindled his
fancy and inspired his song; when, in the divine spirit
of his art, he has arrayed
" The thing he doats upon with colouring
Richer than roses, brighter than the beams
Of the clear sun at morning ; "
when he has decked out the idol of his imagination in
all the pomp of words, and similes culled from whatever
is sweetest and loveliest in creation — the bloom of
flowers, the freshness of the dawn, the breathings of
the spring, and the sparkling of the stars, — he has
but given us the elements out of which we compose a
I. B

2 INTRODUCTION.
Beauty, each after a fashion and fancy of our own.
Painting alone can place before us the personal identity
of the poet's divinity, — made such by the superstition
of love. When the historian has told us that Mark
Antony lost the world for a woman, and sold an empire
for Cleopatra's smile, his eloquence can go no further :
the record of her beauty lives upon his page, — her
beauty itself only in the faith of our imagination. What
would we not give to gaze indeed upon that " brow of
Egypt,"—
" The love, the spell, the bane of Antony,"
such as the pencil of Arellius might have transmitted
it to us !
It is true, that when the personage is purely ideal
and poetical, we do not willingly part with the imagi
nary form which has been stamped upon our individual
fancy, for any imitative semblance. We have no desire
to see a portrait of the lady in Comus, or the Jewess
Rebecca, or Gulnare, or Corinne, or Mignonne. In
these and similar instances, the best of painters will
scarce equal either the creation of the poet, or its vivid
reflection in our own minds : but where the personage
is real or historical, the feeling is reversed; we ask
for truth even at the risk of disappointment, and are
willing to exchange the vaguely beautiful figure which
has dwelt upon our fancy, for the defined reality, how
ever different and, in all probability, inferior.
When lingering in a gallery of pictures, with what
eagerness of attention do we approach a portrait of

INTRODUCTION.

Mary Stuart, or Lucrezia d'Este, or Tasso's Leonora !
Lady Sunderland* and Lady Bridgewater might have
hung and mouldered upon the walls of Blenheim, of
no more regard than other dowagers of quality, if
Waller had not sung the disdainful charms of the first,
and Pope celebrated the eyes and the virtues of the
latter. Yet, on the other hand, were it not for Vandyke
and Kneller, we should scarce have sympathized in
Waller's complaints of " Sacharissa's haughty scorn," or
understood the influence of " Bridgewater' s eyes." If
the portrait sometimes derives from the poet or his
torian its best value, the beauty of the portrait as often
makes us turn with redoubled interest to the page of
the poet. After looking at the picture of Hortense
Mancini in the Stafford Gallery, we take down St. Evre
mond with added zest : and who has not known what
it is to pause before some beautiful ' portrait unknown '
of Titian or Vandyke, with a sigh of baffled interest?
calling upon our imagination to supply the lack of
tradition, and asking such questions as Lord Byron
asks of Cecilia Metella, with as little possibility of
being satisfied, —
" Was she chaste and fair ? —
What race of chiefs and heroes did she bear ?
What daughter of her beauties was the heir ?
How lived, how loved, how died she ?"
Or, who ever gazed upon the portrait at Windsor of
Venetia Digby, without a devouring, but vain curiosity
to pierce the mystery of her story and her fate ? The
silence of the grave rests upon both. A few scattered
* The elder Lady Sunderland, Lady Dorothea Sidney.

4 INTRODUCTION.
and contradictory notices, and all that painting could
express of the matchless beauties of her face and form,
remain to us : dust and an endless darkness have swal
lowed up the rest !*
" Lely alone," says Walpole, " can excuse the gallan
tries of Charles : he painted an apology for that Asiatic
court:" — bear witness these lovely forms, which his pencil
has rescued from death and fate, and preserved to us
even in the loveliest looks they wore on earth : —
" Redundant are those locks, those lips as fair,
As when their breath enriched Thessalian air."
But, says Morality, and frowns, How is the world or
posterity benefited by celebrating the charms and the
errors of these fair pieces of sin and mischief, who ought
rather to do penance with their faces to the wall, than
thus boldly attempt to dazzle and blind our severer
judgment by the blaze of their attractions ? Or, if they
must needs be preserved as valuable works of art, why
* Venetia Digby was the wife of Sir Kenelm Digby : the emblema
tical accompaniments of her picture cannot now be explained or under
stood. She was of noble — of the noblest blood : her father was a
Stanley ; her mother, Lady Lucy Percy : yet Aubrey calls her a cour
tesan. She married Sir Kenelm Digby while yet very young ; and at
the age of thirty was found dead, her head resting on her hand, in the
attitude of one asleep. Some said she was poisoned by her husband
through jealousy ; others that her death was caused by certain medica
ments and preparations he had administered to enhance the power of her
charms, of which he was enamoured even to madness.
Sir Kenelm Digby was not only the handsomest man and most accom
plished cavalier of his time, but a statesman, a courtier, a philosopher,
and a dabbler in judicial astrology and alchymy.

INTRODUCTION. 0
should we not gaze upon them merely as such ? While
thus they smile upon us from the almost breathing
canvas, serene in their silent beauty, why should we
be forced to remember that faces so fair were ever
stained by passion, or clouded by grief, or wrinkled by
time ? If the severe historian must needs stain his
page with that disgraceful era of profligacy and blood,
as a record and a warning to future ages, let the poet
forget it, — let the lover forget it ; above all, let women
forget the period which saw them degraded from objects
of adoration to servants of pleasure, and gave the first
blow to that chivalrous feeling with which their sex
had hitherto been regarded, by levelling the distinction
between the unblemished matron and her who was the
" ready spoil of opportunity." Let them be the first to
fling a veil over what woman should shrink to look
upon, and exclaim, like Claire when she threw the pall
over the perishing features of Julie, — "Maudite soit
l'indigne main qui jamais soulevera ce voile ! "
This would be well, if it were possible ; but it is not.
Of late a variety of causes have combined to fix the
public attention upon the age of Charles the Second ;
and to render interesting every circumstance connected
with his court and reign. Common gallantry requires
that we should no longer suffer the Beauties of that
day to be libelled by the caricature resemblances which
have hitherto, by way of illustrating, deformed the edi
tions of De Grammont; it is due to the good taste of
Charles, to give him the full benefit of the excuse which
Lely's pencil afforded him ; and, lastly, common justice,

6 INTRODUCTION.
not only to the dead, but the living, requires that the
innocent should not be confounded with the guilty.
Most of those who visit the Gallery of Beauties at
Windsor, leave it with the impression that they have
been introduced into a set of kept-mistresses. Truly,
it seems hard that such women as Lady Northumber
land, Miss Hamilton, Lady Ossory, whose fair reputa
tions no slanderous wit dared to profane while living,
should be condemned to posthumous dishonour, be
cause their pictures hang in the same room with those
of Middleton and Denham.
It is difficult to touch upon the female influence of
Charles's reign, without being either betrayed into an
unbeseeming levity, or assuming a tone of unseasonable
severity: yet thus much may be said; the Memoirs,
which have been collected to illustrate these beautiful
Portraits, have been written without any design of
raking up forgotten scandal, or varnishing over vice:
and equally without any presumptuous idea of benefit
ing the world and posterity ; but certainly not without
a deep feeling of the lesson they are fitted to convey.
Virtue is scarcely virtue, till it has stood the test: a
woman who could pass through the ordeal of such a
court as that of Charles the Second unstained in person
and in reputation, may be supposed to have possessed a
more than common share of innate virtue and feminine
dignity ; and she who stooped to folly, at least left no
temptation to others to follow her example. When,
from the picture of Castlemaine, in her triumphant
beauty, we turn to her last years and her death, there

INTRODUCTION. 7
lies in that transition a deeper moral than in twenty
sermons : let woman lay it to her heart.
% ^ ?£ 3F vp
But a fighter and a gayer subject demands the pen.
The obvious connexion between beauty and dress, and
the influence of the reigning fashions upon the style of
the portrait-painter, render it necessary to say a few
words of the costume of Charles the Second's time, as
illustrative of the following Portraits and Memoirs.
At the period of the Restoration, and for some years
afterwards, the style of dress retained something of the
picturesque elegance of Charles the First's time. French
fashions prevailed indeed, more or less, during the whole
of the succeeding reign : French tailors, milliners, hair
dressers, and tire- worn en were then, as now, indis
pensable ; but it was not till a later period, after a
secret and disgraceful treaty had made Charles a pen
sioned creature of France, that the English court became,
in dress and manners, a gross and caricatured cOpy of
the court of Louis the Fourteenth. Before the intro
duction of perukes, men as well as women wore their
hair long and curling down their shoulders : the women,
in particular, had their trosses artfully arranged in
elaborate ringlets, partly loose, or confined to the back
of the head by jewels or knots of riband, as in the por
traits of Lady Northumberland and Lady Rochester:
The general effect was graceful and feminine ; till, like
other fashions, it was carried to an excess, and artificial
curls were worn to supply the want or scarcity of natural
hair. The men wore coats of cloth, velvet, Or serge ;

8 INTRODUCTION.
and, in full dress, of gold and silver tissue, richly slashed
and covered with embroidery : large bows of riband of
various colours, wherever they could be placed — on the
shoulders, at the breast, at the knees, at the sword-hilt,
distinguished the " ruffling gallants" of the court * The
dress of the ladies was, in material, rich silk or satin,
sometimes brocaded with gold and silver ;f and con
sisted of a long boddice fitted to the shape, and cut low
in the bosom, a tucker or laced chemise appearing above.
This boddice was open down the front, and fastened
with brooches of jewels, or knots of riband, or creves, as
in the portraits of the Duchess of Richmond and Lady
Sunderland. The skirt was worn full with many plaits,
and sufficiently short to show the ankles : the sleeves
were generally full, long, and very wide, gathered and
looped up high in front with jewels ; and showing be
neath a white sleeve of fine linen or cambric, embroi
dered or trimmed with lace. This must have been rather
an inconvenient fashion ; but very graceful in appear
ance, and calculated to set off a beautiful arm to the
greatest possible advantage.
The custom of patching the face prevailed about this
* Evelyn humorously alludes to this extravagant fashion. " He met,"
he says, " a fine thing in Westminster Hall, that had as much riband
about him as would have plundered six shops, and set up twenty pedlars :
a frigate, newly rigged, kept not half sucli a clatter in a storm as this
puppet's streamers did, when the wind was in his shrouds."— Tyrannus,
or the Mode — Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. ii.
t Pepys mentions, that his wife and Lady Castlemaine purchased a
dress off the same piece of silk, for which they paid 15s. a-yard: this is,
as if a lady of these days were to pay three guineas a-yard for a gown.

INTRODUCTION. 9
time, and continued till the days of the Spectator ,• when,
as we are told, the Tory ladies patched on one side
of the face, and those of the Whig persuasion on the
other ; till Addison's exquisite raillery rendered both
patching and party-spirit unfashionable. Shoe-buckles
were now first introduced, instead of the large roses of
riband formerly worn ; and green stockings were affected
by some of the court ladies, for reasons which politeness
forbids us to mention — except in a note* Every one
who has read De Grammont, will recollect the green
stockings of the beautiful Lady Chesterfield, which
made the Duke of York swear so gallantly, that there
was " point de salut sans des bas verts."
In 1666, the King, in order to repress the increasing
luxury of dress, and, as Mr. Pepys expresses it, " to
teach the nobility thrift," declared in council his design
of adopting a certain habit, which he was resolved never
to alter. It consisted of a long close vest of black cloth
or velvet, pinked with white satin ; a loose coat over it
of the Polish fashion ; and, instead of shoes and stock
ings, buskins or brodequins.f Some of the young cour-
* Elle l'a (la jambe) grosse et courte, poursuivit-il, et pour diminuer
ses d^fauts autant que cela se peut, elle ne porte presque jamais que des
bas verts. — De Grammont.
f See Echard's History of England, vol. ii., p. 836, and Evelyn's
Memoirs. " Oct. 8th. The King hath yesterday in council declared his resolu
tion of setting a fashion for clothes, which he will never alter ; it will be
a vest: I know not well how, but it will teach the nobility thrift, and will
do good."
"17th. The court is all full of vests, only my Lord St. Albans
I. C

10 INTRODUCTION.
tiers, aware of the King's versatility, laid wagers with
him that he would not continue in this fashion beyond
a certain time, which proved to be the case. " It was,"
says Evelyn, " a comely and a manly habit ; too good to
hold, it being impossible for us to leave the Monsieur's
vanities long."
The use of ladies' riding-habits, or Amazonian habits
as they were termed, was introduced in this reign. It
was the custom for the Queen and the Maids of Ho
nour to accompany the King in his hawking parties,
mounted upon fine horses, and attended by the cour
tiers. To ride well, was then an admired female accom
plishment : it appears that the peculiar grace with which
Miss Stewart sat and managed her horse, was one of
her principal attractions in the eyes of the King ; and
that Miss Churchill had nearly lost the heart of the
Duke of York by her equestrian awkwardness.
Cocked hats, laced with gold, and trimmed with white,
black, and red feathers, were worn by both sexes. Pepys
records his admiration of Miss Stewart in her " cocked
hat and red plume," as she returned from riding. A
particularly smart and knowing cock of the hat was
assumed by the young gallants, called the " Monmouth
cock," after the Duke of Monmouth.
In the latter part of Charles's reign, the close and
(Jermyn) not pinked, but plain black ; and they say the King says that
the pinking upon white, makes them look too much like magpies; so
hath bespoke one of plain velvet." — Pepys' Diary, vol. i., p. 471.

INTRODUCTION. 11
disgraceful connexion between the French and English
courts delivered us up to French interests, French poli
tics, and French fashions. This was the era of those
enormous perukes, which in the succeeding reigns of
Wilham and Anne attained to such a preposterous size.*
Mustachios on the upper lip disappeared from court,
but were not finally abolished till the succeeding reign.
At this time, the exposure of the neck and shoulders
was carried to such a shameless extreme, that even
women of character and reputation scarcely affected a
superficial decency of attire. Painting the face, which
had declined since Queen Elizabeth's time, was again
introduced from France, and became a fashion. Hoods
of various colours were worn, and long trains, which
caused, very unreasonably, almost as much scandal
as the meretricious display of the person.-j- Women,
* They were first worn by a Duke of Anjou, to conceal a personal de
formity, and adopted by the court in compliment to him. In the same
spirit, when Philip of Macedon was wounded in the forehead, all his
courtiers walked about with bandages round their heads.
f In the Preface to a curious religious Tract, entitled " A just and
seasonable reprehension of the enormity of naked breasts and shoulders,"
published by a Non-conformist Divine, but translated, as the title sets
forth, from the French of a grave and learned Papist, these long trains
are censured, with much spiritual indignation, as "a monstrous super
fluity of cloth or silk that must be dragged after them, or carried by
another, or fardelled behind them." There is an anecdote of a lady of
that time, who being forbidden, by court etiquette, to bring her train-
bearers into the Queen's presence, had her train made long enough to
reach into the anti-chamber.
[The inconvenient fashion of long trains belonged properly to an
earlier, more stiff and formal, and less civilized period. During the
fourteenth, and part of the fifteenth centuries, they were most enormous,

12

INTRODUCTION.

instead of wearing long ringlets clustering down the
neck, began to frizzle up their hair like periwigs, as in
the portrait of the Duchess of Portsmouth. It is re
markable, that the elevation, decline, and fall of the
female coiffure, comprised exactly a century. It began
to rise between 1680 and 1690 ; rose gradually for
the next fifty years ; and reached its extremest height
toward the end of George the Second's reign, when it
absolutely emulated the tower of Babel : from that
time it declined by slow degrees, and about the period
of the French Revolution, the heads of our women
began to assume their natural shape and proportion.
Other fashions and tastes of Charles's time may be
dismissed in a few words. The King, from spending
his youth abroad, and perhaps in earlier years from his
mother, had imbibed a decided partiality for the lan
guage and literature of France ; and after his return to
the throne, French became the fashionable language
at court. The patriotic Evelyn inveighs against this
innovation ; and only excuses the King as having " in
some sort a right to speak French, he being King of
France."* There are some lines in Andrew Marvel's
Works, in allusion to this fashion, so beautiful and so
both in France, England, and Scotland, if we may judge by the paintings
on the manuscripts of that period, and by the allusions by contemporary
writers. The puritans, and particularly the reformers in Scotland, had
too much zeal to be reasonable ; and among the numerous writings of
the latter which remain, we find invectives against these long trains so
virulent and so gross, as is not easily to be conceived.— Ed. J
* Preface to the Essay in Evelyn's Works, entitled " Tyrannus, or
the Mode."

INTRODUCTION. 13
little known, that I cannot deny myself the pleasure of
quoting them : —
" Cselia, whose English doth more richly flow
Than Tagus — purer than dissolved snow,
And sweet as are her lips that speak it, she
Now learns the tongues of France and Italy :
But she is Caelia still ; no other grace
But her own smiles commend that lovely face !
Her native beauty's not Italianated,
Nor her chaste mind into the French translated :
Her thoughts are English, though her speaking wit
With other language doth them fitly fit."
Here compliment and reproof are exquisitely blended :
but Dryden, in the comedy of Marriage a-la-Mode, has
rallied the same fashion with more severity, and infinite
comic humour. Melantha, the fine lady of the piece,
most industriously interlards her discourse with French
phraseology. " No one can be so curious of a new
fashion, as she is of a new French word : she is the very
mint of the nation ; and, as fast as any bullion comes
out of France, coins it immediately into our language."*
Her waiting-maid, who is the " heir of her cast words
as well as of her old clothes," and supplies her toilet
every morning with a list of new French words for her
daily conversation, betrays her vocabulary to her lover,
who is thus enabled to attack her with her own weapons,
* Marriage a-la-Mode, Act i., Scene 1. In a subsequent scene,
Melantha thus expresses her admiration of a French, and her contempt
for an English beau : — How charming is the French air ! and what an
etourdi bite is one of our untravelled Islanders ! When he would make
his court to me, let me die but he is just JEsop's Ass, that would imitate
the courtly French in their addresses ; but, instead of those, comes pawing
upon me, and doing all things so mal-a-droitly. — Act ii., Scene 1.

14 INTRODUCTION.
and wins her by out-doing her in affectation, and
overpowering her with her own nonsense* The
character of Melantha in this play, or rather the ad
mirable performance of the part by the celebrated
actress, Mrs. Montfort, is considered by Cibber as a
most lively and just representation of a fantastic fine
lady of Charles's time. His sketch is so very amusing,
and so a propos to our subject, that it is given in his
own words. " Melantha," he says, " is as finished an
impertinent as ever fluttered in a drawing-room ; and
seems to contain the most complete system of female
foppery that could possibly be crowded into the tortured
form of a fine lady. Her language, dress, motion,
manners, soul, and body are in a continual hurry to be
something more than is necessary or commendable. The
first ridiculous airs that break from her, are upon a gal
lant never seen before, who delivers her a letter from
her father, recommending him to her good graces as
an honourable lover. Here now, one would think, she
might naturally show a little of the sex's decent reserve,
though never so slightly covered. No, sir, not a tittle of
it : modesty is a poor-souled country gentlewoman ; she
is too much a court lady to be under so vulgar a con
fusion. She reads the letter, therefore, with a careless
dropping lip and erected brow, humming it hastily over,
as if she were impatient to outgo her father's commands
by making a complete conquest of him at once ; and
* In the list of Melantha's modish and new-fangled French words, the
reader is surprised to find several which are now so completely natu
ralized, that the date of their introduction is only thus ascertained; as
figure, conversation, grimace, embarrassed, ridicule, good graces, &c.

INTRODUCTION. 15
that the letter might not embarrass the attack, — crack !
she crumbles it at once into her palm, and pours down
on him her whole artillery of airs, eyes, and motion :
down to the ground goes her dainty diving body, as if
she were sinking under the weight of her own attrac
tions ; then she launches into a flood of fine language
and compliment, still playing her chest forward in fifty
falls and risings, like a swan upon waving water ; and,
to complete her impertinence, she is so rapidly fond of
her own wit, that she will not give her lover leave to
praise it. Silent, assenting bows, and vain endeavours
to speak, are all the share of the conversation he is
admitted to ; which, at last, he is removed from, by
her engagement to half a score of visits, which she
swims from him to make, with a promise to return in
a twinkling."* This spirited sketch is possibly dashed with some
little caricature and exaggeration, but it is evidently
from the life : and we are tempted here to pause, and
consider the revolutions in taste and manner, and con
trast the tawdry affectation, the flaunting airs, the flut
tering movements, the laborious volubility, — in a word,
the intolerable vulgarity of a fine lady of Charles's
court, with the calm, quiet elegance, the refined and
unobtrusive simplicity, which distinguish the really well-
bred woman of our time. Notwithstanding what De
Grammont says of the politeness of the English court, the
general profligacy of morals was accompanied by a gross-
ness of manners and language, in both sexes, scarcely to
* Gibber's Apology, 99.

16 INTRODUCTION.
be credited in these days. Women of condition scrupled
not to swear "good mouth-filling oaths," such as Hotspur
recommended to his wife. The licence introduced and
endured upon the stage, was not certainly borrowed
from the French theatre ; but, encouraged by the deprav
ed taste of the King, and supported by the prostituted
talents of Dryden, and the wit of Etheridge, Davenant,
Killigrew, Wycherly, it spread the contagion far and
wide, where the influence and example of the court
could not otherwise have extended. Women of reputa
tion and virtue, married and unmarried, frequented the
theatre, which was then a favourite and fashionable place
of amusement ; from which, in summer, they adjourned
to the Park or Spring Gardens, — the performances being
over about the time they now begin. How any woman,
not wholly abandoned, could sit out one of the fashion
able comedies of those days, appears incomprehensible :
most of them, indeed, paid so much external homage to
modesty, as to appear in masks ; which, from the faci
lities they afforded to intrigue, were then a useful
appendage to the female costume. To this Pope
alludes : —
" The fair sat panting at a courtier's play,
And not a mask went unimproved away ;
The modest fan was lifted up no more,
And virgins smiled at what they blushed before."
The fashionable poetry and light literature of the
day, consisted chiefly of love -songs, epigrams, epistles,
and satires ; all tinged, more or less, with the same per
verted and licentious spirit. Well might Dryden, in
self-humiliation, exclaim, —

["" INTRODUCTION. 17
" O gracious God ! how oft have we
Profaned thy sacred gift of poesy,
Made prostitute and profligate the muse ! "
A vicious taste for personal scandal was one of the
most marked characteristics of that period. The age
deserved the lash of satire; but they who coarsely
satirized it, often committed " most mischievous foul
sin, in chiding sin." There is, however, a wide differ
ence between the spirit and talent of the various satirists
then in vogue: some, like Marvel, Denham, and Roches
ter, mangled their prey like "carcases for hounds ; " others,
hke Dryden and Butler, " carved it as a dish fit for
the gods." In those days newspapers were not, as now,
the vehicles for fashionable chit-chat and satire. Coffee
houses,* which had lately been established, were the
resort of the gallants, the poets and wits of the times ;
and the usual method of circulating a court lampoon, or
any piece of malicious or political wit, was by transcripts
handed about in the coffee-houses, till they fell at last
into the hands of some obscure printer, who loved his
profit better than his ears; and by dashes and stars,
(another invention of that time,) contrived at once to
fix the scandal and elude the law.
The last successful play of Dryden, the last court
lampoon of Dorset, or the last new love-song of Sedley,
then comprised the hght reading of a fine lady. As yet
* I believe it is scarce necessary to notice, that tea, coffee, and choco
late were all introduced into England in the reign of Charles the Second ;
the first from Holland, the second from France, and the last from Por
tugal, by the Queen and her Portuguese attendants,
I. D

18 INTRODUCTION.
novels were not: the serious and prolix romances in
folio of Calprenede, Scuderi, and Durfey,— Clelie, and
the Grand Cyrus, were the only works of fiction then
fashionable ; and in their pictures of pastoral purity,
and exalted love, and high-wrought tone of impossible
heroism and double-refined sentiment, formed so strong
a contrast to the prevailing manners and tastes, that one
wonders how the gay gallants and court dames of that
period could ever have had patience to pore over them :
but thus it was.
Charles loved and patronised music ;* and the germ
of the Italian Opera may be traced to his reign.f Kil-
* But — he neglected Purcell, and rewarded Grabut !
-f- [The origin of the Opera in England is a subject that has been as
yet very imperfectly known. We may, perhaps, consider as its first form
the Masques which were so common during the reigns of Elizabeth and
the two first Stuarts. However, we are certain that there was an Opera
in England under the Commonwealth. Old Anthony Wood, mentioning
a piece of Sir William Davenant's which was performed at Rutland
House, May 23, 1656, calls it an Italian Opera ; but with as little reason,
apparently, as Dr. Burney had for supposing that the name Opera was
only applied to these performances by Wood. The piece to which he
alludes was probably the one printed the following year (1657) under
the title of " The First Dayes Entertainment at Rutland-House by
Declamations and Music ; after the manner of the Antients ; " in the
Prologue to which it is said, in apology for the smallness of the stage,
(" our cupboard scene,") —
" Think this your passage, and the narrow way
To our Elisian field, the Opera.''
And again, in one of the ' Declamations,' — " Poetry is the subtle engine
by which the wonderful body of the Opera must move." The name is
here introduced as though it were by no means new. It must be confessed
that this ' Entertainment' bears no great resemblance to the Operas of

INTRODUCTION. 19
ligrew, who had resided some time at Venice, brought
over a company of Italian singers, who sang in dialogue
and recitative, with accompaniments, and excited great
admiration at court. A young Italian, named Francesco
the present day ; but another piece, by the same author, comes somewhat
nearer to our notion of an Opera : it was printed in 1658, with the title
" The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru. Exprest by instrumental] and
vocall Musick, and by Art of Perspective in Scenes, &c. Represented
daily at the Cockpit in Drury Lane, at three after noone punctually.'
Wood says, that the Opera went on with tolerable success for some
years at Drury Lane. Sir William Davenant afterwards obtained a
patent for a theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, (we believe in Great Queen-
street,) where, soon after the Restoration, he was busy performing his
Operas, and particularly this one of the " Cruelty of the Spaniards in
Peru." In a rare volume of Songs, printed in 1661, with the title
" Choyce Poems, by Wits of both Universities," we find " a Ballad
against the Opera," whose satire is directed against this identical piece : —
" Now heaven preserve our realm,
And him that sits at th' helm,
I will tell you of a new story,
Of Sir William and his apes,
With full many merry japes,
Much after the rate of John Dorie.
This sight is to be seen
Near the street that's called Queen,
And the people have call'd it the Opera.
But the devil take my wife !
If all the dayes of my life
I did ever see such a fopperie."
And so our satirist goes on to tell us, how one of the performers comes
forward with a speech to inform his hearers of the subject of the piece, of
which he declares, " ' Tis two hours of I know not what."
" Neither must I here forget
The musick there, how it was set,
Dise two ayers and half and a Jove ;
All the rest was such a gig,
Like the squeaking of a pig,
Or cats when they'r making their love.

20 INTRODUCTION.
Corbetta,* whose performance on the guitar was much
admired and patronised by the King, first made that
elegant instrument fashionable in England ; and it
became such a mania, that, either for show or use, it
was as indispensable upon a lady's toilet as her rouge
and patch-box. A beau of that time was little thought

The next thing was the scene,
And that, as it was layne,
But no man knows where, in Peru,
With a story for the nones
Of raw head and bloody-bones,
But the devil a word that was true."
The subject of Davenant's Opera was, indeed, one by no means
proper for stage representation. Among other stage directions in the
printed edition, we have " Two Spaniards are discovered, — the one
turning a spit, whilst the other is basting an Indian prince, which is
rosted at an artificiall fire." ! .' On which the writer of the song says, —
" Oh ! greater cruelty yet !
Like a pig upon a spit
Here lies one, there another boyl'd to a jellie."
The Opera ended by a dance of the Indians, who had been delivered from
Spanish cruelty by the bravery of the English, —
" But which was strange again,
The Indians that they had slain
Came dancing all in a troop.
But, oh ! give me the last !
For as often as he past,
He still tumbled like a dog in a hoop."
English Operas were common enough during the reign of Charles II.
Pepys (Jan. 12, 1667,) mentions " Signor Baptista, (Draghi,) who had
proposed a play in Italian for the Opera, which Sir T. Killigrew do
intend to have up." — Ed.]
* There is a print of him by Gascar with this inscription : —
" Francesco Corbetta
Famosissimo maestro di Chitarra
Qual Orfeo nel suonar ognun il narra."

INTRODUCTION. 21
of, who could not write a song on his mistress, and sing
it himself to his guitar. Lord Arran, a younger son of
the great Duke of Ormond, was the most admired ama
teur performer at court ; and his beautiful sister, Lady
Chesterfield, gloried in possessing the finest guitar in
England : but it sounded discord in the ears of her
jealous lord, according to the story in De Grammont.
The following passage in Pepys' Diary is characteristic
of the time: he went to pay a visit of business to Lord
Sandwich, on board the Royal James ; " and there spent
an hour, my lord playing on the gittarr, which he now
commends above all musique in the world." Lord
Sandwich was a distinguished and veteran commander,
admiral of the fleet, and at this time a grandfather, or
old enough to be one.
Painting was neglected in this reign, except as far as
it flattered, and was subservient to personal vanity.
Accordingly we do not find the name of a single good
painter of history; while portrait-painters abounded.
Those who were chiefly employed by the court, during
the reign of Charles the Second, were Sir Peter Lely,
Huysman, Wissing, and Sir Godfrey Kneller.
Sir Peter Lely was a native of Soest, in Westphalia,
where his father, a captain of horse, was then in garrison.
After studying some time under an obscure painter of
the name of Grebber, he came to England in 1641.
Though he painted Charles the First, a short time before
his downfal,* and Cromwell more than once, it does not
* This remarkable picture is now at Sion-House.

22 INTRODUCTION.
appear that Lely enjoyed much celebrity till after the
Restoration. The gay cavaliers and beautiful women of
Charles the Second's court were better suited to his
taste, and more appropriate subjects for his delicate and
graceful pencil than the stiff figures and stern puritan
ical visages of the Commonwealth. The first Duchess
of York, Anne Hyde, though a fine woman, was not
remarkable for her personal attractions : she was, how
ever, content to gratify the taste of the King and her
husband in this particular; and, in forming her court,
after the acknowledgment of her marriage, took pains to
surround herself with all that was most brilliant and
fascinating in youth and beauty. Miss Jennings,* Miss
Temple, f and Miss Hamilton, were among the most
conspicuous ornaments of her court. She began the
collection now known as the " Beauties of Windsor," by
commanding Sir Peter Lely to paint for her the hand
somest women of the time, commencing with her own
lovely Maids of Honour. The success with which he
executed this charming task, raised him at once to repu
tation and to fortune. Every woman was emulous to
have her charms immortalized by his beauty-breathing
pencil; and lovers and poets were, for the first time,
gratified by beholding their mistresses on Lely's canvas,
scarce less enchanting than they existed in their own
imaginations. Lely has been severely criticised as an abandoned
mannerist ; and, it must be confessed, that the languid
* Afterwards Duchess of Tyrconnel.
f Afterwards Lady Lyttelton.

INTRODUCTION. 23
air, the sleepy elongated eyelids, and loose fluttering
draperies of his women, have given a general character
to his pictures, which may be detected almost at the
first glance. " Lely's nymphs," says Walpole, " are far
too wanton and magnificent to be taken for any thing
but Maids of Honour." In another place he says, " Sir
Peter Lely's women trail fringes and embroidery through
meadows and purling streams." This is surely hyper-
criticism ; and, in fact, through the whole of his obser
vations, Walpole seems determined to undervalue Lely
in comparison with Kneller. The clinquant of which he
accuses him, and justly, was equally the characteristic of
the latter painter ; and, in Lely, is redeemed by a bril
liance of colouring, and a thousand graces in style and
composition, which Kneller never equalled, except in one
or two of his very best productions. Neither, it is true,
can be compared to the great classic painters ; but some
of Lely's heads are exquisite in tone of colour and
expression : his airy, graceful, and floating draperies
certainly bear no traces of having been trailed through
purling streams ; and what true judge or real lover of
painting, could wish away those charming snatches of
woodland landscape, those magical glimpses of sky and
masses of foliage, with which he has so beautifully — so
poetically relieved his female figures ; or choose to sub
stitute for these rich effects of scenery, the straight lines
of architecture, or the folds of a curtain ? Why may
not a lovely woman be represented^ without any intole
rable violation of taste or probability, in a garden or a
bower, as well as in a saloon at Whitehall? or seated
beneath a tree, or beside a fountain, as well as before a

24 INTRODUCTION.
piece of red drapery ? In other respects, there can be
no doubt that the manner of the painter was in a great
measure caught from the prevailing manners, fashions,
and character of the times in which he lived. He
painted what he saw, and if he made his nymphs " wan
ton and magnificent," we have very good authority for
believing in the accuracy of his likenesses. The loose
undress in which many of his female portraits are
arrayed, or rather disarrayed, came into fashion as
modesty went out, and virtue was voted " une imper
tinence." The soft sleepy eye, —
" Seeming to shun the rudeness of men's sight,
And shedding a delicious lunar light,"
appears to have been natural to one or two distin
guished beauties of the time, who led the fashion, and
carried to an extreme by others, who wished to be in
the mode. We are told that the lovely Mrs. Hyde*
had, by long practice, subdued her glances to such a
languishing tenderness, that her eyes never opened
more than those of a Chinese. We may imagine the
fair and indolent Middleton, the languishing Miss
Boynton, or the insipid Miss Blague, " aux blondes
paupieres," with these drooping lids and half-shut
glances ; but it must have cost the imperious Castler
maine, the brilliant Jennings, and the sprightly Hamil
ton, no small effort to veil their sparkling orbs in com
phance with the fashion, and affect an insidious leer or
a drowsy languor. With them it must have been an
exquisite refinement of coquetterie, a kind of demi jour,
* Theodosia Capel, afterwards Lady Clarendon.

INTRODUCTION. 25
giving to the raised lid and full soul-beaming eye an
effect like that of unexpected light — dazzling, surpris
ing, overpowering.
Sir Peter Lely painted some history pieces, which
have the same merits and defects as his portraits : the
defects, however, predominate. He also drew finely in
crayons : some exquisite pieces of his, in this style, are
still extant. He was knighted by Charles the Second ;
and, like his predecessor Vandyke, married a beautiful
English woman of high family : like him, too, he was
remarkable for his graceful and courtier-like manners,
for the splendour of his house and equipage, and for
keeping a sumptuous table. He spent thirty-nine years
in England, and during twenty he was confessedly at
the head of his profession. He died suddenly in 1680,
while painting that beautiful Duchess of Somerset, whose
portrait is in this collection.
Wissing was a Dutch painter, who came over to Eng
land after having obtained some celebrity at the French
court : he was much patronised during the short time he
was here, and painted most of the royal family. The
portraits of Lady Ossory and Mrs. Nott, in this collection,
are by Wissing : he was especially in fashion among
the ladies, for he was sure to catch the best and most
advantageous expression of every face. If it happened
that one of his lovely models grew pale, and looked
fatigued during a long sitting, he would take her by the
hand and dance her about the room, to restore bloom to
her complexion and spirit to her countenance : it was a
I. e

26 INTRODUCTION.
specific which never failed. Wissing died young, at
Lord Exeter's seat at Burleigh. He has been celebrated
by Prior.
James Huysman, or Houseman, was a native of Ant
werp, who came over to England when Lely was in the
zenith of his reputation, and had nearly rivalled him :
and not without reason. Huysman had studied in the
school of Rubens, and formed his taste and style after the
model of Vandyke. Some of his pictures which I have
seen, have something of the power and freedom of the
latter painter, blended with the sweetness and grace of
Lely. His beautiful portrait of the Duchess of Rich
mond, (Miss Stewart,) as a young cavalier, is at Kensing
ton. Whether the fine picture, which hangs over the
door in the Beauty Room at Windsor, be the work of
Huysman or Vandyke, — whether it represent a Lady
Bellasys, or a Lady Byron, are points which will be dis
cussed and settled in their proper place.
Huysman constituted himself the Queen's painter,
and made her sit for all his Madonnas and Venuses. He
might have chosen a better model, and a more munificent
patroness : Catherine had no predilection for the fine
arts. Huysman died in 1696 : his death left Kneller
without a rival.
Sir Godfrey Kneller was by birth a Saxon. His first
success in England is connected with a very character
istic anecdote. He came to this country in 1674, without
any intention of residing here, having resolved to settle

INTRODUCTION. 27
at Venice, where he had already received great en
couragement. Soon after his arrival, he painted the
Duke of Monmouth for Secretary Vernon ; and the duke
was so charmed by the resemblance, that he engaged the
King, his father, to sit to the new painter. At this time
Charles had promised the Duke of York his portrait by
Lely ; and disliking the trouble of sitting, he proposed
that both the artists should paint him at the same time.
Sir Peter was to choose the light and point of view he
thought most advantageous ; the stranger was to take
the likeness as he could : he performed his task with so
much expedition, that he had nearly finished his head of
the King, when Lely had only just begun his. Charles
was pleased : Lely generously owned the abilities of his
competitor, and the justice of the resemblance ; and this
first success induced Kneller to settle finally in England.
After the death of Sir Peter Lely, in 1780, he became
the court and fashionable painter, and was for nearly
fifty years without a competitor ; during which time, he
painted all the distinguished characters of the age, both
English and foreign. William the Third knighted him,
George the First made him a baronet, and Leopold
created him a knight of the Roman Empire. Ten
sovereigns sat to him ; but we owe him a far deeper debt
of gratitude for the likenesses of Dryden, Pope, Newton,
Locke, Addison, Congreve, and Wortley Montague,
which his pencil has transmitted to us.
The well-known " Beauties " at Hampton Court, were
painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller for Wilham the Third.
As paintings, they are decidedly inferior to the Windsor

28 INTRODUCTION.
Beauties ; and, with due deference to the virtues of the
ladies they represent, are, as subjects, not to be compared
in interest and beauty, to their naughty mammas and
grandmammas of Charles the Second's time. There is
a chalkiness in the flesh, and a general rawness in the
tints, which will not bear a comparison with the delicacy
of Lely's carnations, and the splendour of colouring in
his landscapes and draperies ; and they have all a look of
studied stiffness and propriety, which, as it is obviously
affected, is almost as bad as the voluptuous negligence
of Lely's females*
Kneller's powers as a wit almost equalled his talents
as a painter, and his vanity appears to have exceeded
both. Pope, who was his personal friend, and who has
given him in his verses a surer immortality than the
pencil ever conferred, has left us a characteristic anec
dote of him : it is thus related in Spence : — " I (it
is Pope who speaks) was sitting one day* by Sir God
frey Kneller, whilst he was drawing a picture : he
stopped and said, ' I can't do so well as I should do, un
less you flatter me a little ; pray flatter me, Mr. Pope ;
you know I love to be flattered ! ' I was for once willing
to try how far his vanity would carry him ; and, after
considering a picture he had just finished for a good
while very attentively, I said to him in French, (for we
[* Seven of the heads in the gallery of Admirals, were done by Knel
ler, and the portrait of the Kit-cat Club were his. Kneller had an elder
brother, who was also distingtished as a painter, and is said to have
studied under Bol and Rembrandt. He came to England, and died in
1702. Ed.]

INTRODUCTION. 29
had been talking for some time before in that language,)
' On lit dans les Ecritures Saintes, que le bon Dieu faisait
l'homme apres son image; mais, je crois, s'il voudrait
faire un autre a present, qu'il le ferait apres Pimage que
voila,.' Sir Godfrey turned round, and said very gravely,
' Vous avez raison, Monsieur Pope ; par Dieu, je le crois
aussi.'" The gross folly and profaneness of this an
swer, seem inconsistent with the wit Sir Godfrey really
possessed : possibly he was playing off the poet's trick
upon himself, and the reply was only ironical ; for he
seems, from the first part of the story, to have been quite
aware of his own foible. His answer to his tailor was in
better taste : the man had proposed his son to him as an
apprentice, and begged he would make him a painter :
" Dost thou think, man," exclaimed Sir Godfrey in a rage,
" that I can make thy son a painter ? No ; only God
Almighty makes painters ! "*
Sir Godfrey Kneller died in 1723, and left £300 to
erect a monument to himself in Westminster Abbey,
which was executed by Rysbrach. Pope said the epitaph
he composed for this monument was the worst thing he
ever wrote,f and he was not far mistaken. The thought
in the concluding lines,
" Living, great Nature feared he might outvie
Her works, and dying, fears herself may die,"
is borrowed from Cardinal Bembo's epitaph on Raphael
* Walpole.
¦f- " I paid Sir Godfrey Kneller a visit but two days before he died, and
I think I never saw a scene of such vanity in all my life : he was lying in

30 INTRODUCTION.
in the Pantheon at Rome : but the hyperbole does not
sound so ill in Latin, as in plain homely English ; and is,
besides, most clumsily translated. It may be added, that
a compliment which, paid to the divinest of painters, was
only a poetical licence, has become burlesque and absurd
when applied to one so immeasurably his inferior. One
would almost think, that the vanity which Pope had
flattered and ridiculed when living, he meant to stigma
tize on the tomb, by praise at once so affected and poor
in its expression, so exaggerated and misapplied in its
meaning. It will not be out of place here to continue this slight
sketch of portrait-painting and portrait-painters, as con
nected with female beauty and the English court, down
to our own time.
Jervas succeeded Sir Godfrey Kneller as court-
painter. In spite of the poetical flattery of Pope,* who
his bed, and contemplating the plan he had made for his own monument.
He said many gross things in relation to himself, and the memory he should
leave behind him ; he said he should not like to lie among the rascals in
Westminster : a memorial there would be sufficient, and desired me to
write an epitaph for it. I did so afterwards ; and I think it is the worst
thing I ever wrote." — Pope- — in Spence.
* Pope spared not to flatter his friend in prose as well as in verse. In
one of his letters to him, he writes, " Every body here has great need of
you : many faces have died for want of your pencil ; and blooming
ladies have withered in expecting your return." In another, he says, " I
long to see you a history-painter : you have already done enough for the
private; do something for the public," &c. Jervas would have made a
rare history-painter !— so much is there in a fashion and a name, it
could dazzle even Pope.

INTRODUCTION. 31
embalmed his name in the " lucid amber of his lines,"
and his immense reputation when living, Jervas is now
almost forgotten as a painter. His portraits being with
out intrinsic merit as paintings, without even the value
which just likeness could give them, have long ago been
banished into garrets and housekeepers' rooms, or turned
with their faces to the wall, or exiled into brokers' shops,
to be sold for the value of their frames. Jervas had
formed his taste on two of the worst models a painter
could select, — Carlo Maratti and Sir Godfrey Kneller :
he contrived to exaggerate the faults of both, without
possessing any of their merits ; and while his success
equalled that of the former, his vanity even exceeded
the conceit of the latter.*
At this time also lived Dahl, a Swede by birth, who
came over to England about the time of the Revolution.
He was a portrait-painter of considerable merit, and
patronised by William the Third, for whom he painted
the Gallery of Admirals at Hampton Court. He
appears, however, to have painted few female portraits ;
the ladies being engrossed by Kneller and Jervas.
The reigns of George the First and Second present
not one name of eminence in portrait-painting : the arts
had sunk to the lowest possible ebb ; and the absurd
* Jervas was supposed to have indulged a presumptuous passion for
Lady Bridgewater, the loveliest of the four lovely daughters of the great
Marlborough. Hence the frequent introduction of her name into Pope's
Epistle to Jervas, and the exquisite character he has drawn of her : he
calls her, in one place, " thy Bridgewater."

32 INTRODUCTION.
and ungraceful fashions, which prevailed in dress and
manners at this time, are perpetuated in the stiff,
homely, insipid portraits of Richardson and Hudson.
" Kneller," as Walpole pleasantly observes, " had ex
aggerated the curls of full-bottomed wigs, and the tiaras
of ribands, lace, and hair, till he had struck out a grace
ful kind of unnatural grandeur." Not so his immediate
successors : they, destitute of taste or imagination, have
either left us hideous and literal transcripts of the awk
ward, tight-laced, be-hooped, and be-wigged generation
of belles and beaux before them ; or, quitting at once
all nature, grace, probability, and even possibility, have
given us Arcadian shepherdesses, and Heathen god
desses, and soi-disant Greeks and Romans, where wigs,
and flounces, and frippery mingle with crooks, sheep,
thunderbolts, and Roman draperies. But it is out of
the last abasement of hopeless mediocrity, that original
genius most frequently rises and soars ; where there is
nothing to imitate, nothing to rest upon, a reaction takes
place: and while Hudson was painting insipid faces,
in powdered side-curls and white satin waistcoats, the
genius of Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds was
preparing a new era in the history of art. Gainsborough
is chiefly celebrated as a landscape-painter ; yet what
truth of character, what vigour of touch, what free, un-
mannered simplicity of style in some of his portraits ! 
his Blue Boy at Grosvenor-House, for instance, equal
to any thing of Sir Joshua's. But the bland and grace
ful pencil of the latter was calculated to please more
generally, and he was soon without a competitor. If
court patronage make the court-painter, Sir Joshua has

INTRODUCTION. 33
httle claim to the title : it was impossible to owe less
than he did to royal favour : but if the presence of high
born loveliness in attendance upon Majesty constitute a
court, he whose pencil has immortalized two generations
of Enghsh beauties, may well be styled the court-painter
of England. Among his pupils and successors, Hoppner
imitated him, and caught something of his style and
feeling : Sir Thomas Lawrence has not imitated him, and
has inherited his genius and his fame. It is therefore
easier to contrast, than to compare them. Thus, the
excellencies of Sir Joshua Reynolds are more allied to
the Venetian school, those of Sir Thomas Lawrence to
the Flemish school. Sir Joshua reminds us more of
Giorgione and Titian, Sir Thomas of Vandyke and Lely.
Both are graceful ; but the grace of Sir Joshua Reynolds
is more; poetical, that of Sir Thomas Lawrence more
spirituel ; there is more of fancy and feeling in Sir
Joshua, more of high bred elegance in Sir Thomas
Lawrence. The first is the sweeter colourist, the latter
the more vigorous draughtsman. In the portraits of
Sir Joshua there is ever a predominance of sentiment ;
in those of Sir Thomas a predominance of spirit. The
pencil of the latter would instinctively illuminate with
animation the most pensive face ; and the genius of the
former would throw a shade of tenderness into the
countenance of a virago. Between both, what an en
chanting gallery might be formed of the Beauties of
George the Third's reign, — the Beauties who have been
presented at St. James's during the last half century !
Or, to go no further back than those painted by Law-
I. f

34 INTRODUCTION.
rence, since he has been confessedly the court-painter of
England — if the aerial loveliness of Lady Leicester — the
splendid beauty of Mrs. Littleton — the poetical sweet
ness of Lady Walscourt, with " mind and music breathing
from her face," — the patrician grace of Lady Lansdowne
— the pensive elegance of Mrs. Wolfe ; — the more
brilliant and intellectual graces of Lady Jersey, — Mrs.
Hope, with eyes that anticipate a smile, and lips round
which the last bon-mot seems to linger still, — the
Duchess of Devonshire, the Lady Elizabeth Forster,
Miss Thayer, Lady Blessington, Lady Charlotte Camp
bell, Mrs. Arbuthnot, &c. — if these, and a hundred other
fair " stars," who each in their turn have blazed away a
season on the walls of the academy, "the cynosure of
neighbouring eyes," and then set for ever to the public —
if these could be taken from their scattered stations over
pianos and chimney-pieces, and assembled together for
one spring in the British Gallery, an exhibition more
interesting, more attractive, more dazzlingly beautiful
can scarcely be imagined : but if the pride of some, and
the modesty of others, would militate against such an
arrangement, we know nothing that could prevent the
Directors of the British Institution from gratifying the
public with a regular and chronological series of British
historical portraits ; beginning with the age of Henry
VIII. and Elizabeth, as illustrated by Hans Holbein,
Antonio More, Oliver, &c, and bringing them down to
the conclusion of the last century. The royal palaces,
Knowle, Burleigh, Blenheim, Dunham, Hinchingbroke,
Tabley, Castle-Howard, &c. contain treasures in this

INTRODUCTION. 35
department, which the noble proprietors would proudly
contribute : and such a collection or selection of " gor
geous dames and statesmen old," would not only comprise
many curiosities and chefs-d'oeuvre of art, but form a
most interesting and instructive commentary on the
biography and history of our country.
The only substitute for such an exhibition is a Gallery
of Engraved Portraits. This brings us back at last to
the peculiar subject of this work, " The Beauties of
Charles's Days," and the Queen leads the way, by
right of etiquette and courtesy, if not by " right divine"
of Beauty.

Fainted, by Sir Peter lely.

Engraved, by B.Soll-

Ltd .A/A.rvdAd.dy d

'dddd^dAAd-dii

QUEEN CATHERINE
OF BRAGANZA.

Queen Katherine. — Bring me a constant woman to her husband ;
One that ne'er dream'd a joy beyond his pleasure j
And to that woman, when she has done most,
Yet will I add an honour, — a great patience.
King Henry. Go thy ways, Kate.
That man i' the world, who shall report he has
A better wife, let him in nought be trusted,
For speaking false in that.

Catherine of Braganza was the only daughter of
that celebrated Duke of Braganza, who, by one of the
most bloodless and most patriotic revolutions ever re
corded, was placed upon the throne of Portugal in 1641,
with the title of Don Juan the Fourth. Her mother,
Louisa de Guzman, a daughter of the Duke of Medina
Sidonia, was a woman of great beauty and spirit. On
the death of her husband in 1656, she was left Regent
of the kingdom ; and, during the minority of her weak
and worthless son, she maintained the national indepen
dence against Spain with equal ability and success.
Catherine, the eldest of her children, was born just
before the Duke of Braganza's elevation to the throne.

38 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
She was brought up, according to the custom of her age
and country, within the strict bounds of a convent : her
society confined to her confessor, and a few simple-
minded, fanatic nuns ; her reading, to her Breviary and
the Lives of the Saints. Such was the society and such
the education from which she was called at the age of
three and twenty to share the throne of England, and
rule the most licentious court in Europe : a court in
which her ignorance and innocence rendered her ridi
culous, her religious bigotry contemptible, and her high
spirit and fresh and unworn affections only made her
feel more acutely the mortifications to which she was
hourly exposed, both as a queen and as a woman.
The first overtures for the marriage of Charles with
the Infanta of Portugal were made by the Portuguese
ambassador, Don Francisco de Melo, in 1661, through
the medium of the Earl of Manchester, then Lord
Chamberlain. It was at first privately represented to
the King, that " it was time for his majesty to think of
marriage, from which he had hitherto been withheld by
the extreme difficulty of finding, among the issue of the
royal houses of Europe, a consort in all respects suited
to him : * that there was in Portugal a princess, whose
youth, beauty, and large portion, rendered her a desir-
* The King, guided by his mother, had early resolved not to marry a
Protestant. When the matter was debated by the privy council, and
some of his best friends strongly advised him to unite himself with a
Protestant princess, he asked petulantly where there was a Protestant
for him to marry ? Several of the German princesses were mentioned.
" Odds-fish ! " says the King impatiently, " they are all foggy ; I cannot
like any one of them for a wife ! " — Carte's Life of Ormond.

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA. 39
able match for the King of England : she was, indeed, a
Catholic, and would never forsake the religion in which
she had been bred up ; but she was without any med
dling activity of mind, and had been educated by her
mother, the Queen Regent, in tgtal ignorance of pohtics
and business; and being of a gentle and submissive
disposition, would be satisfied with the undisturbed
exercise of her own religion, without concerning herself
with that of others."
Finding these representations graciously received, the
ambassador proceeded, still with the utmost secrecy, to
explain the offer he was authorized to make. Portugal
was to pay down in ready money five hundred thousand
pounds sterling, as the marriage portion of the Infanta ;
and to assign over to the crown of England the fortress
of Tangier, on the African coast, and the island of
Bombay in the East Indies, with full liberty to the
English of trading to the Brazils. To the profuse and
needy Charles, the offer of half a million of money,
placed at his sole disposal, was a tempting consideration :
the religion of the Infanta was no objection to him, and
he hoped that the advantageous conditions annexed to
the treaty would render it palatable to his people.
When it was laid before the council, Clarendon, whose
influence was then at its height, eagerly supported the
measure ; partly from a conviction of its political utility,
partly to prevent the suspicion that he had been privy
to the marriage of his daughter* with the Duke of
* Anne Hyde.

40 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
York, in the hope of her offspring succeeding to the
crown: perhaps, also, he thought to make the young
Queen his friend, in opposition to the mistresses and
profligate courtiers, whom his natural timidity of dispo
sition made him fear, but whom the inborn integrity of
his character would not allow him to court. Supported
by his credit, and the evident wishes of the King, the
treaty met with no opposition from the council. The
Portuguese ambassador returned to his country to make
known the favourable sentiments of the King, and to
bring back full powers for the ratification of the treaty :
he carried with him also a letter from Charles to the
Infanta, written with his majesty's own hand, in which
he addressed her as his wife.
Even when matters had gone thus far, and the King's
honour was in some degree pledged, the treaty was
nearly broken off by the intrigues of the Earl of Bristol,
who was devoted to the Spanish interest, then in direct
opposition to that of Portugal. Bristol,* the most
crack-brained of political profligates, whose inconsistency
made him a by-word and a mockery, had rendered
himself pleasing to the King by his convivial quahties,
which were unrestrained by principle or decency, and
obtained a strong influence over him by being privy to
some important state secrets.f He now employed all
that influence to break off the intended marriage, and
* George Digby. See more of him in the Memoir of Lady Sunder
land.
f It is said, that he was one of the witnesses to the King's formal
abjuration of the Protestant religion.

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA. 41
was zealously supported by the ambassador of Spain,
(Don Louis de Haro,) a man of high passions, and more
than Spanish pride. Portugal, they insisted, was then
in such a state of poverty, that all her finances were
inadequate to pay the promised portion : Spain was
collecting all her power to crush the family of Braganza ;
who, unable to cope with the immense expedition
arrayed against them, would have no other resource
than " that of transporting themselves and all their
adherents to Brazil : " * and the ambassador added, with
characteristic audacity, that " really he had too high
an opinion of his majesty's good sense to believe that he
would incur the resentment of Spain, by allying himself
with a family and a nation of rebels."
The Earl of Bristol, who knew the King's ruling
foible, drew a most odious picture of the Infanta's
person, and asserted her incapacity of becoming a mo
ther: he then reverted to the charms and accomplish
ments of the Italian women. His majesty, he said, had
only to take his choice among the princesses of Italy ;
and the King of Spain would adopt her, and dower her
as a daughter of Spain.
These artful suggestions had their effect upon the
versatile and susceptible mind of Charles. He began to
cool upon his intended marriage; and, at length, to
view it even with a degree of disgust. When the Por
tuguese ambassador returned from Lisbon, the changes
* It is a curious coincidence, that the expedient here anticipated
should have been actually resorted to within our own memory.
I. G

42 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
which had taken place during his short absence, and his
cold reception at court, so astonished and affected him,
that being " something of a hypochondriac," he took to
his bed, and felt or feigned sickness.*
But, just at this crisis, fortunately (or should we not
rather say, unfortunately?) for Catherine, the levity of
Bristol, and the unexampled audacity of the Spanish
ambassador, defeated the effect of all their past in
trigues. The latter behaved with such rash insolence,
that the King, with a spirit he seldom asserted on such
occasions, commanded him to depart the kingdom in
stantly, without seeing his face again ; and sent the
Secretary of State to inform him " that a complaint of
his conduct would be made to the King, his master,
from whom his majesty would expect that justice should
be done upon him The ambassador, full of alarm
and resentment, withdrew from court, and quitted the
country in a few days. The Chancellor, and others
of the council, seized this moment to represent to
Charles, that his honour was too far pledged to retreat.
A private intimation was delivered from the French
government, through the envoy Bastide, that the King
could not bestow himself better in marriage than with
the Infanta of Portugal, who was styled, in courtly
phrase, " a lady of great beauty and admirable endow
ments ; "' offering assistance in money in case of a rup
ture with Spain. The King's wavering resolution was
at length fixed by a sight of a miniature of the Infanta,
which the Portuguese ambassador had brought with
* Clarendon's Life.

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA. 43
him. It represented a young person, not indeed strik
ingly or regularly beautiful, but whose delicate features,
soft expression, clear olive complexion, and fine dark
eyes, were at least attractive. The King, gazing on it
with complacency, declared " that person could not be
unhandsome," and, with little more deliberation, the
famous treaty was concluded which has bound England
and Portugal in strict alliance ever since.
The Earl of Sandwich was immediately despatched
with a fleet to take possession of Tangier, and bring
home the new Queen* Her embarkation and arrival in
England were attended by some curious circumstances,
* [The circumstance of a person of so good reputation as the Earl of
Sandwich having been employed on this service, might almost have been
looked on as a favourable omen for the new Queen, and as a pledge that
her cause, had she herself possessed the spirit to support it, would have
been that of the better party, though not always the stronger party, in the
state. The character of this nobleman, as left us by his contemporaries,
shines much above the generality of the courtiers of the reign of Charles II.
Clarendon says of him, " that he was a gentleman of so excellent a tem
per, that he could make himself no enemies ; of so many good qualities,
and so easy to live withi that he marvellously reconciled the minds of all
men to him, who had not intimacy enough with him to admire his other
parts ; yet was, in the general inclination of men, upon some disadvantage.
They who had as constantly followed the king, whilst he as constantly
adhered to Cromwell, and knew not how early he entertained repentance,
and with what hazards and dangers he had manifested it,, did believe the
King had been too prodigal in heaping honours upon him. And they who
had been familiar with him, and of the same party, and thought they
had been as active as he in contributing to the revolution, considered him
with some anger, as one who had better luck than they without more
merit, and who had made early conditions : when, in truth, no man in
the kingdom had been less guilty of that address ; nor did he ever con
tribute to any advancement to which he arrived by the least intimation

44 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
which influenced her future life. The portion of
d§ 500,000 which the Queen-mother had with difficulty
provided, by selling her jewels and much of her plate,
and borrowing the jewels and plate of several churches
and monasteries, had been employed on some sudden
emergency in fitting out forces against Spain, and was
not forthcoming. The Queen-mother made the best
apology she could for a step to which she had been driven
by the cruel necessity of her situation : she proposed to
put on board the fleet the amount of one-half of the por
tion in jewels, sugar, cotton, silk, and other commodi
ties, and pledged herself to the payment of the other
half within a year. Lord Sandwich was much embar
rassed ; but found it necessary to acquiesce, having no
or insinuation that he wished it, or that it would be acceptable to him.
Yet, upon this blast, the winds rose from all quarters ; reproaches of all
sorts were cast upon him, and all affronts contrived for him." — Conti
nuation of the Life of the Earl of Clarendon, p. 303. He fell in the
famous engagement with the Dutch off Southwold Bay, 28th May, 1672,
and it was observed of him, that he was always on the victorious side in
the many actions in which he had been engaged, even in this in which he
died. " So that," says the elegant historian of the British Peerage, " we
may say of this noble earl, that as he was the chief cause of the defeat
given to the Hollanders, in the first fight of the second war, so he was a
principal occasion of preventing the ruin of the English and French in this
remarkable engagement, which was the first of the third war. Gerard
Brandt acknowledges, in his Life of De Ruyter, that the squadron of Van
Ghrut entering into the action, several men of war fell upon the earl ;
that however he contrived to maintain himself, and give the last proofs
of an unfortunate valour till noon, when a fire-ship took hold of his ship.
" Such," says Brandt, " was the end of this earl, who was vice-admiral of
England, valiant, intelligent, prudent, civil, obliging in his words and
deeds, who had performed great services to his king, not only in war,
but also in affairs of state, and in his embassies." — Ed.]

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA. 45
instructions provided against such a dilemma : and the
King, who expected the arrival of half a million in gold,
with at least as much impatience as that of his bride, was
equally enraged and disappointed at the non-payment.
Even Catherine herself was made to feel the effects of
his ill-humour on this occasion.
The other circumstance above alluded to, was more
important in its effects. Though Catherine assumed
state in Portugal, and held a court as Queen of England,
she was suffered to embark without the performance of
any of the rites of marriage, or any of the ceremonies
usual among crowned heads on such occasions. The cause
of this extraordinary, and even unparalleled proceeding
was this : — The power of Spain at the court of Rome was
so predominant, that the title of the Braganza family to
the throne of Portugal had never yet been acknowledged
there. Without a dispensation from the Pope, the In
fanta could not be married to a heretic in her own coun
try, and the papal dispensation, if granted at all, would
have styled her simply the daughter and sister to a Duke
of Braganza. Rather than submit to this apprehended
insult, her proud and jealous relatives chose to trust
unreservedly in the honour of England * The fleet,
with the princess and her retinue, sailed from Lisbon the
13th of April, and arrived at Portsmouth the 14th of
May. But, though suffering severely from the effects of
her voyage, Catherine remained on board till the 20th,
* Secret JHistory, vol. i. In the Stuart Papers it is said, that Cathe
rine " would not be married by a Protestant proxy." Was she then in
the secret that her husband was a Catholic ?

46 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
from a point of etiquette which did not allow her to land,
or be seen by any but her women, till met by the King,
who was detained in London. Immediately on his arri
val, the marriage ceremony was performed according to
the Romish rite, by the Lord Aubigny,* almoner to the
Queen, in the presence of the Portuguese ambassador,
and two or three of her women. They were afterwards
married according to the Protestant church, by Dr.
Sheldon, bishop of London : but, on this occasion, Ca
therine, as simple-minded as bigoted, refused to repeat
the words of the ritual, turned away her head poutingly,
and would not even look the bishop in the face. She
insisted, however, on his solemnly pronouncing her the
wife of the King before he quitted her chamber .f
This hasty and imperfect marriage was subsequently
the occasion of much scandal, and tended to embitter the
after-life of Catherine. Many affected to regard it as a
mere contract, not binding upon the King ; and even to
found on it additional reasons for the divorce, which, in
* Brother to the Duke of Richmond.
-f- [The Earl of Sandwich gave the following account of the manner of
the Protestant marriage: — " May 21, 1662, in the afternoon the King
and Queen came into the presence-chamber (at Portsmouth) upon the
throne, and the contract formerly made with the Portuguese ambassador
was read in English by Sir John Nicholas, in Portuguese by the Portu
guese secretary De Saire ; after which, the King took the Queen by the
hand, and (as I think) said the words of matrimony appointed in the
Common-Prayer, the Queen also declaring her consent. Then the bishop
of London (Sheldon) stood forth, and made the declaration of matrimony
in the Common-Prayer, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost." — Krakefs Chronicle. See Harris's Life of Charles the Second,
2 vols. 8vo., 1757.— Ed.]

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA. 47
1669, was seriously agitated ; and would probably have
been carried into effect upon slighter grounds, if Charles
had resembled his bluff ancestor Harry the Eighth.
It does not appear that the King was disappointed in
the person of his young Queen ;* in a letter to Lord
Clarendon, dated from Portsmouth, he expresses his
satisfaction in strong terms ;f and Clarendon says, " it is
certain she had wit and beauty enough to have pleased
the King, if bigotry and an ill education had not spoiled
her." Pepys, describing her in his Diary, says, " For
the Queen, though she be not a very charming, yet hath
she a good, modest, and innocent look, which is most
pleasing." Catherine's defects seem to have been those
of manner, rather than person ; her disposition was not
sprightly, nor her deportment dignified. It would be
* " The Queen is brought a few days since to Hampton Court, and all
people do say of her to be a very fine and handsome lady, and very dis
creet, and that the King is pleased enough with her, which, I fear, will
put Madam Castlemaine's nose out of joynt." — Pepys"1 Diary.
" Portsmouth, 21 May, 8 in the Morning.
-f- " I arrived here yesterday, about two in the afternoon ; and as soon as
I had shifted myself, I went to my wife's chamber. ***** Her
face is not so exact as to be called a beauty, though her eyes are excellent
good, and not any thing in her face that iu the least degree can shock one.
On the contrary, she has as much agreeableness in her looks, altogether,
as ever I saw ; and if I have any skill in physiognomy, which I think I
have, she must be as good a woman as ever was born. Her conversation,
as much as I can perceive, is very good ; for she has wit enough, and a
most agreeable voice. You would much wonder to see how well we are
acquainted already. In a word, I think myself very happy ; but I am
confident our two humours will agree very well together. I have not
time to say any more. My Lord-Lieutenant will give you an account
of the rest."

48 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
unjust to attribute the moody pettihness and melan
choly, which she betrayed soon after her marriage, to a
natural gloominess of disposition ; for it only proved,
that she was not absolutely insensible. Charles, whose
powers of captivation few women could withstand, had,
in the commencement of their intercourse, won her
whole affections ; and she could not see herself neglected
by her husband, and brow-beat by insolent rivals, with
out the discontent and anger natural to a fond, jealous,
and high-spirited woman.
When Catherine first arrived in England, she was
dressed after the antiquated fashion of Portugal, in a high
boddice, ruff, and farthingale, which excited some inso
lent merriment in her new court, and which the King
obliged her to alter.* She had brought with her from
Lisbon a bevy of Portuguese attendants, of whom De
Grammont has left us a ludicrous description. . Six
" monsters," alias Maids of Honour, ruffed and farthin-
galed like their mistress, surrounded her person : they
were governed by an old duenna, (or guarda damas,)
* There is a fine print of the Queen in her Portuguese costume by
Fai thorne; in which her hair is dressed out like a full-bottomed
wig. Catherine was very reluctant to change her style of dress : her
Portuguese attendants had endeavoured to persuade her that she should
neither learn the English language, nor use their habit ; which they told
her would be for the dignity of Portugal, and would quickly induce the
English ladies to conform to her majesty's practice. The result, however,
was just the reverse. Evelyn speaks of the excessive ugliness and " mon
strous farding'als" of the Portuguese women : and Pepys (who was very
sensitive to personal appearance) seems to have been horrified both by
their hideous persons and dresses.

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA. 49
more hideous than all her damsels, as stiff as pride and
buckram could make her, with, we may suppose, double
solemnity of ruff, and treble expansion of farthingale.
Besides these, Catherine had in her retinue six almoners,
a confessor, a Jewish perfumer, and an officer, whose
function seems to have puzzled the whole court, entitled
the " Queen's barber." These foreigners, by their ig
norance, bigotry, and officiousness, caused as much
confusion as the French attendants of her predecessor,
Henrietta Maria ; and Charles soon followed the example
of his father, by shipping the whole cargo back to their
own country, and surrounded the Queen with creatures
of his own* In the list of her new attendants laid before
Catherine for her approbation, Charles had the effrontery
to include Lady Castlemaine, his acknowledged mis
tress. Catherine instantly drew her pen across the name,
and when the King insisted, she replied haughtily " that
she would return to her own country, rather than be
forced to submit to such an indignity." Her spirit how
ever availed her little : Charles, spurred on by the female
fury who governed him, was steady to his cruel purpose.
On one particular occasion, when the Queen held what
we should now call a Drawing-room, at Hampton Court,
Lady Castlemaine was introduced in form by the King.
Catherine, who did not know her, and heard the name
imperfectly, received her' with as much grace and be
nignity as the rest : — but in the next moment, recollect-
* The Countess of Penalva, " by reason of the Queen's tender attach
ment to her, and her own infirmities, was suffered to remain on the
Queen's earnest entreaty, that she might not be left wholly in the hands
of strangers." — See Clarendon.
I. H

50 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
ing herself, and aware of the public insult which had been
offered to her, all her passions were roused : she started
from her chair, turned as pale as ashes ; then red with
shame and anger ; the blood gushed from her nose, and
she swooned in the arms of her women. The court was
immediately broken up : but Charles, though probably
touched with some compunction, had been persuaded by
some of the profligates about his person, that the Queen
wished to govern him ; that his dignity and authority
would be compromised if he gave up the point; and
fancied he was imitating his model, Louis Quatorze, by
forcing his Queen to acquiesce in her own dishonour.
Lord Clarendon, during this degrading contest between
the wife and the mistress, had vainly opposed the King's
intention; and at length, in disgust, absented himself
from court : upon which the King wrote to him a letter,
of which the following is an extract : —
" I wish I may be unhappy in this world, and in the
world to come, if I fail in the least degree of what I have
resolved, which is of making my Lady Castlemaine of my
wife's bed-chamber ; and whosoever I find use any en
deavours to hinder this resolution of mine, except it be
only to myself, I will be his enemy to the last moment
of my life. You know how true a friend I have been
to you. If you will oblige me eternally, make this busi
ness as easy to me as you can, what opinion soever you
are of; for I am resolved to go through this matter,
let what will come on it, which again I swear before
Almighty God : therefore, if you desire to have the con
tinuance of my friendship, meddle no more with this

< *

QUEEN CATHERINE; OF BRAGANZA. 51
business, except it be to beat down all false and scanda
lous reports, and to facilitate what I am sure my honour
is so much concerned in ; and whosoever I find to be my
Lady Castlemaine's enemy in the matter, I do promise
upon my word to be his enemy as long as I live."
Whatever may be thought of the style and reasoning
of this notable epistle, it had its effect. Lord Clarendon
labours to excuse the part he took in this wretched
business, of which he has given us a very particular
account : but it must be allowed, that it ill became the
gravity of his place and character to stoop to be the
King's instrument on such an occasion. He allows that,
after having represented to Charles " the hard-hearted-
ness and . cruelty of laying such a command upon the
Queen, which flesh and blood could not comply with;" and
reminded him of the difference, in this respect, between
the French and the English courts ; " that in the former
such connexions were not new and scandalous, whereas
in England they were so unheard of, and so odious, that
the mistress of the King was infamous to all women of
honour ;"* he yet undertook to persuade the Queen to
bear this indignity, which was " more than flesh and
blood could comply with," and to receive into her soci
ety — nay, into an office of honour and trust about her
person, a female held " infamous by all women of honour,"
and whom he never would suffer his own wife to visit.
* Charles the First and James the First were models of conjugal
fidelity; and Henry the Eighth never thought of any other resource in
his amours, but the desperate one ofi divorcing,; or cutting off the head of
one Queen to marry another. , , (.

52 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
When the Chancellor first addressed himself to the
Queen upon this delicate subject, she broke out into such
a passion of grief and indignation, that he was obliged to
quit her. The next day she asked his pardon for " giving
vent to the passion that was ready to break her heart ;"
and desired his advice, and to hear the truth with all
freedom. He began by excusing the King : he told her
"he doubted she was little beholden to her education,
that had given her no better information of the follies
and iniquities of mankind, of which he presumed the
climate whence she came could have given her more
instances than this cold region would afford, (though at
that time it was indeed very hot) : and if her majesty
had been fairly dealt with in that particular, she could
never have thought herself so miserable, and her con
dition so insupportable, as she seemed to think ; the
ground of which heavy complaint he could not compre
hend." The poor Queen, with many blushes and tears,
acknowledged that " she did not think she should have
found the King's affections engaged to another lady ;"
and then she stopped abruptly, unable from the excess
of her emotion to say more. The Chancellor continued
the conference with true diplomatic art ; paid her some
comphments, and assured her, that if she made use of
her own powers of charming, she need fear no rivals.
He ventured to ask her, "whether, if it should please
God to give a Queen to Portugal, she would find that
court so full of chaste affections ?" and this allusion to the
notorious gallantry of her brother Alphonso, made the
Queen smile. But, when he touched upon the hated
point of contention, and named Lady Castlemaine, it

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA. 53
called forth all the rage and fury of yesterday, with
" fewer tears and more fire ;" and she declared* with .
passionate vehemence, that rather than submit, she
would embark for Lisbon in " any little vessel."
" That night," adds Lord Clarendon, " the fire flamed
higher than ever. The King reproached the Queen with
stubbornness and want of duty ; she him with tyranny
and want of affection." The next day, they neither spoke
nor looked at each other. The Queen sat " melancholick
in her chamber, all in tears." The King sought his
diversions elsewhere ; never, however, sleeping out of his
own apartment. After a few days, the Chancellor again
waited on the Queen by the King's command ; but with
no better success than is usual with those who interfere
in matrimonial squabbles. After exhausting all his arts
of diplomacy;, and employing such arguments as would
have come better from any other lips than those of " my
grave Lord Keeper,'' he could not, though the Queen
listened to him with edifying patience, draw from her
any other reply than "that the King might do as he
pleased, but that she never would consent to it." The
Lord Chancellor at length withdrew himself from a con
test, in which he had cut such a sorry figure, making it
his humble suit to the King, that he might no more be
consulted nor employed in an affair, in which he had
been so unsuccessful : at the same time, advising him
strongly to desist from an intention at once cruel
and unjust.
But Charles had not s^udiqd women to so little

54 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
purpose: he knew there is one method of crushing
down a female heart that never fails : and better than
the Chancellor he knew, that possessing his wife's un
bounded affection while he cared not for her, he had
the game in his own hands : and well he understood
how to play it effectually. He no longer insisted, or
met violence with violence ; but he treated Catherine
with a cold and scornful neglect, assuming to others a
more than usual gaiety and complacency of manner.
She was left out in all the mirth and parties of pleasure
going forward. Charles studiously proved to her that
his happiness in no respect depended on her, nor on her
acquiescence in his wishes. The courtiers, having their
cue from their master, forsook her to crowd round Lady
Castlemaine ; and she was reduced to a mere cypher in
her own court. It was too much to bear : Catherine had
strong passions, but no real strength and magnanimity
of character : after a short struggle, in which her pride,
her spirits, her heart, were broken down and subdued
by continued mortifications, she yielded, — and gained
nothing by the concession, but the contempt and mis
trust of those who had hitherto pitied her ill usage,
honoured her firmness, and confided in her principles.*
Even the King, who had affected throughout more dis
pleasure than he really felt, and could not but respect
the cause from which her opposition sprung, now con
temned her for her weak submission, and imputed her
former resistance to pride and petulance, rather than
to affection and female dignity.
* Clarendon's Life, folio, pp. 169, 180.

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA. 55
In the month of August following her marriage,
Catherine was induced to receive Lady Castlemaine as
one of the ladies of her bed-chamber, and to allow her
all the honours and privileges attending that office* It
happened, on one occasion, that Lady Castlemaine came
into the Queen's closet, while she was under the hands
of her dresser : " I wonder," said she, insolently, " your
majesty can have the patience to sit so long a dressing !"
" I have so much reason to use patience," replied the
Queen, pointedly, " that I can very well bear it ! " This
was the retort courteous, such as became a Queen : but
Lady Castlemaine was not, one to be easily abashed by
a repartee. From this time we do not hear of any open misunder
standing between the King and Queen. Charles, who
was good-humoured and polite, treated his wife with an
easy complaisance, which, without satisfying her tender
ness, left her nothing to complain of. She even assumed
a gaiety of manner which she thought would be agree
able to the King, and encouraged the festivities, the
masques, and banquets in which she knew he delighted :
but this struggle to subdue herself, the continued
indifference of her husband, the presence of more than
one insolent favourite, who braved her in her own
court, — above all, her excessive anxiety to have children,
which was increased by the prevalent belief that she was
incapable of producing heirs to the crown, seem to have
* " They went away — the King and his Queen, and my Lady Castle
maine and young Crofts (the Duke of Monmouth) in one coach, and the
rest in other coaches." — Pepys'' Diary.

56 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
preyed upon her mind, and, at length, threw her into a
dangerous fever, in which she was twice given over by
the court physicians* In her delirium she raved in the
most affecting manner of her children, fancying she had
three ; " but was troubled lest her boy should be but an
ugly boy : upon which the King, who was present, in
order to soothe her, said, 'No, he was a very pretty
boy.' — ' Nay,' replied the poor Queen, distractedly, ' if he
be like you, he is a very pretty boy indeed, and I would
be very well pleased with it.' "f In one of her lucid
intervals she expressed a thankful sense of the King's
affectionate attentions, which, indeed, ceased not during
her illness ; and told him that the sight of his affliction
would have made her regret hfe, but for the conviction
that she had never possessed his love ; and that in
dying, she should make room for a successor more worthy
of him, and to whom Heaven would perhaps grant the
blessing denied to her : and taking his hand while she
spoke, she bathed it with tears. The King, who was
naturally soft- tempered, was utterly subdued ; he wept
and entreated her to live for his sake. His endearing
expressions had more effect than all the prescriptions
and cordials of Dr. Prujeon, and it was believed at that
time were the real cause of her recovery : at all events,
her disorder from that moment took a favourable turn,
and she was shortly afterwards pronounced out of dan?
* In October, 1663.
-f- Pepys' Diary, vol. i., 255, 256. — " This morning, about five o'clock,
the physician feeling the Queen's pulse, thinking to be better able to
judge, she being still and asleep, waked her; and the first word she said
was, " How are the children ? " — Poor Queen !

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA. 57
ger. An incident so romantic, and so well known, was
not likely to be passed over in silence by the poets of
those days. Waller, the prince of courtly rhymsters,
has made the best use of it, in his Address to the Queen
on her Birth-day, soon after her recovery : it is not the
happiest of his occasional pieces, but the concluding
lines are not without elegance :
" He that was never known to mourn
So many kingdoms from him torn,
His tears reserved for you, more dear,
More prized, than all those kingdoms were ;
For when no healing art avail' d,
When cordials and'elixirs fail'd,
On your pale cheek he dropp'd the shower,
Revived you like a dying flower."
There are some other trifling pieces among Waller's
Miscellanies, in which Catherine is flattered with much
courtly savoir faire. The little poem of" Tea commended
by her Majesty," is one of the best. There is also an
epigram, not very pointed or significant, " Upon a Card
which her Majesty tore at Ombre," — whether in petu
lance or playfulness, we are not told.
The remainder of Catherine's life affords little to
interest. She not only never interfered in politics, but
did not even attempt to serve or countenance those who
were inclined to be her friends ; and who, by rallying
round her, might have formed a counterpoise to the par
ty of Lady Castlemaine. Lord Sandwich, who brought
her over from Portugal, and at first attached himself to
her, gave as a reason for his dereliction, that he did not
choose " to fall for her sake, whose wit, management, or
i i

58 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
interest, was not likely to hold up any man." It was1,
indeed, sufficient for her to distinguish any of the cour
tiers in particular, to mark them at once as objects of
the King's displeasure. Thus, young Edward Montagu,
the son of Lord Manchester, was disgraced and turned
out of the court, for no other fault than the pride he
took in the Queen's favour. Not that Charles either
valued her affections or doubted her discretion ; but
merely from a love of contradiction, a petty jealousy of
power, or a fear of the raillery of such profligates as
Rochester, Buckingham, and Killigrew, his " all-licensed
jester." But Catherine allowed him few opportunities
of thus mortifying her.
After having suffered in the first years of her marriage
from every passion that could distract a female mind,
she appears to have been at length wearied into perfect
indifference ; and not only endured her husband's licen
tious conduct with equanimity,* but even took pains to
reconcile him, on some notable occasions, with his per
verse and capricious mistresses. She endeavoured to
please the King, by encouraging every species of dissipa
tion and gaiety ; and even entered into the extravagant
masquerading frolics, then so fashionable, with more
spirit than success.^ " Once," says Burnet, " the Queen's
* " Mr. Pierce told me, that the good Queene will, of herself, stop
before she goes sometimes into her dressing-room, till she knows whether
the King be there, for fear he should be, as she hath sometimes taken him,
with Miss Stewart"— Pepys' Diary, vol. i., p. 277.
f " In the hall, to-day, Dr. Pierce (one of the court physkians) tells
me that the Queene begins to be briske and play like other ladies, and is

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA. 59
chairman, not knowing who she was, went from her ; so
she was alone, and much disturbed, and came to White
hall in a hackney-coach, some say in a cart."
Another of Catherine's masquerading whims is recorded
in Ives's Select Papers. There being a fair at Audley-
End, where the court then was, the Queen, the Duchess
of Richmond, (Miss Stewart,) and the Duchess of Buck
ingham, disguised themselves as country lasses, in red
petticoats, &c. &c, and so went to see the fair ; Sir Ber
nard Gascoigne riding before the Queen on a sorry cart
horse. But they had so caricatured their disguises that
they " looked more like antiques than country-folk," and
the country people began to gather round them : — " The
Queen going into a booth to buy a pair of garters for
her sweete harte, and Sir Bernard asking for a pair of
gloves stitched with blue for his sweete harte, they were
betrayed by their gebrish and their exaggerated rusticity;
and the Queen being recognised, the whole fair flocked
about them. They at length got to their horses ; but
as many of the fair as had horses got up with their
wives, children, neighbours, and sweete hartes behind
them, to get as much gape as they could, 'till they
brought them to the court-gate. Thus, by ill conduct,
was a merrie frolic turned into a penance."
It should be observed, that nothing worse than a
frolic was ever imputed to Queen Catherine, even by the
scandalous court in which she lived. Buckingham, who
quite another woman from what she was. It may be, it may make the
King like her better," h.c.^—Pepys'' Diary, vol. i., p. 225.

60 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
offered to carry her off to the Plantations, out of the
King's way, to give colour to a divorce and make room
for Miss Stewart, would not have spared her fair fame,
had it not been unimpeachable. The King rejected this
idea with horror, saying, " it was a wicked thing to make
a poor lady miserable, only because she was his wife and
had no children, which was not her fault." In that age,
when satire was " worn to rags and scribbled out of
fashion," she did not wholly escape the " fangs of malice ;"
but the most coarse and violent lampoons of which she
was the subject, could not attack her on any other score
than her popish education, and her inordinate passion
for dancing.*
* It seems incredible how a woman, who did not aspire beyond the
passive, insignificant, inoffensive part Catherine was content to play in
her own court, could ever have provoked the grossness and bitterness of*
invective which appears in some of these productions. One entitled " The
Queen's Ball," which was several times reprinted, and widely circulated,
begins thus : —
" Reform, great Queen ! the errors of your youth,
And hear a thing you never heard, called Truth !
Poor private balls content the Fairy Queen ;
You must dance (and dance damnably) to be seen,
Ill-natured little goblin ! and designed
For nothing but to dance and vex mankind !
What wiser thing could our great monarch do,
Than root ambition out by showing you ?
You can the most aspiring thoughts pull down ;
For who would have his wife to have his crown ? "
The next lines seem to refer to some particular trick, or habit, which
Catherine had of holding jewels in her mouth : —
" See in her mouth a sparkling diamond shine ; — :
The first good thing that e'er came from that mine.
Heaven some great curse upon that hand dispense,
That for the increase of nonsense takes it thence."

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA. 61
When the question of a divorce was afterwards more
seriously debated, and even some preliminary steps
taken in the House of Lords,* and Dr. Burnet em
ployed to write in favour of it; the King then said
publicly, " that if his conscience would allow him to
divorce the Queen, it would suffer him to dispatch her
out of the world ;"f and Buckingham, and his worthy
coadjutor Lord Bristol, found themselves opposed in a
quarter where they certainly little expected opposition.
Affection for his brother might possibly have influenced
Charles in this instance, as well as justice to his Queen.
In the same year, 1668, the elder brother of Cathe
rine, Don Alphonso VI., a contemptible and dissolute
monarch, was deposed by his Queen and council, and his
brother, Don Pedro, a man of courage and talent, placed
upon the throne of Portugal. This revolution in no
other respects affected the situation or happiness of the
Queen of England, than as it probably furnished an
After a great deal in the same strain, this polite effusion concludes :
" What will be next, unless you please to go
And dance among your fellow-fiends below !
There, as upon the Stygian lake you float,
You may o'erset and sink the laden boat ;
While we the funeral rites devoutly pay,
And dance for joy that you are danced away !"
* In the divorce-bill of Lord Roos, afterwards Earl of Rutland,
which was passed through the House to serve as a precedent.
[It is curious that the Duke of Buckingham opposed somewhat vio
lently the progress of this bill, and only desisted after concessions had
been made to him by Lord Roos. The lady was first cousin to the
Duchess of Cleveland. — Ed.]
•f- James II. — Vide " Stuart Papers."

62 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
additional reason against the meditated divorce. Some
attempts were made, on the King's part, to induce her
to go into a nunnery of her own free will ; but, with all
her bigotry, she had no vocation that way.*
In 1679, during the sanguinary farce of the Popish
Plot, the wretches Oates and Bedloe accused the Queen
of being privy to the pretended conspiracy against her
husband's life. Animated by a belief that this would be
agreeable to the King, Oates had the boldness, at the
bar of the House of Commons, to utter these words in
his affected phraseology : — " Aye, Taitus Oates, accause
Catherine, Queen of England, of Haigh Traison ! "
The grounds of his accusation are stated in the trial of
Wakeman, the Queen's physician ; who, he alleged, was
bribed with ^§15,000 to poison the King, in case he
should escape the poniard of a Jesuit named Coniers,
and the pistols of Pickering and Groves. Oates then
swore, " that three Jesuits carried him with them to
Somerset-House, where they were summoned to attend
the Queen ; that he remained in an anti-chamber,
when they were ushered into her presence ; that he
heard a female voice say, that she would assist Sir
George Wakeman in his project, and would no longer
bear these repeated violations of her bed. When the
fathers came out, he desired to see the Queen ; and
when admitted into the anti-chamber, whence the female
* " This being St. Catherine's-day, the Queene was at masse by seven
o'clock this morning ; and Mr. Ashburnham (groom of the bedchamber)
do say, that he never saw any one have so much zeale in his hfe as she
hath ; and (the question being asked by my Lady Carteret) much beyond
the bigotry that ever the old Queene-mother had." — Pepys.

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA. 63
voice had proceeded, he saw the Queen, who smiled
graciously on him, and there was no other woman
present." These impudent stories, with some blunders
into which the besf>breathed witness may fall, saved Sir
George Wakeman's life.*
In the commencement of this affair, the Commons,
maddened with rage and terror, sent up a petition to
the King to have the Queen removed from Whitehall,
and her household arrested, or despatched out of the
country; and Charles had now an opportunity of ridding
himself legally of a wife he had never loved. Such a
measure, though it would have consigned him to the
abhorrence of posterity, would at the moment have been
in the highest degree popular; but, shocked at the
audacity of such a monstrous fabrication, and touched
with pity for his defenceless and inoffensive Queen, he
crushed the accusation at once, observing to those about
him, " They think I have a mind for a new wife ; but,
for all that, I will not stand by and see an innocent
woman abused."
In February 1685, the King was seized with apoplexy,
and the Queen hearing of his danger, but that he was
still sensible, sent an earnest request to be admitted to
his presence, at the same time entreating his forgiveness
for any offences she might have ignorantly committed.
Charles refused to see her, but sent her a message,
couched in the most affectionate terms, assuring her he
had nothing to forgive, but requesting her pardon for
* See Dryden's Works, (Sir Walter Scott's Ed.) vol. ix., p. 294.

64 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
the many wrongs he had done her. At this time the
Duchess of Portsmouth was seated by his pillow, and
she took care that none should approach whose interests
were likely to counteract her own. The King, after
lingering a few days, died in her arms — a hypocrite to
the last. It is remarkable, that Charles IL, with all his
popular qualities, so beloved, so regretted by the nation
he had sold, cheated, impoverished, misgoverned, and
enslaved, possessed not one personal friend ; and the
disgusting negligence with which his last remains were
treated, strengthened the false report that he had been
poisoned* He captivated all who approached him occa
sionally by his amiable manners; but only those who
were at a distance were deceived by his hollow and
heartless courtesy. One by one, the faithful adherents
of his family withdrew in disgrace or in despair ; and
he who professedly mocked at the existence of virtue
and disinterested attachment, and classed all mankind
into knaves and fools, died, as he deserved, without
a friend. On the King's death, Catherine made a very decent
display of grief, and received the visits of condolence
in a chamber lighted with tapers, and hung with fune
real black from the ceiling to the floor.f She after-
* See Burnet.
f Dryden, in his Monody on the Death of Charles II., had the good
taste to refrain from any mention of the Queen, " sensible that her grief
would be an apocryphal, as well as delicate theme." Otway and others
had not this forbearance. In one of these poetical " addresses of condo
lence," the grief of the Queen for the loss of her royal consort is com
pared to that of the Blessed Virgin !

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA. 65
wards resided at Somerset-House, as Queen-dowager,
and had a villa at Hammersmith, where she spent the
summer months very privately. Her principal diversion
during her widowhood was music, which she had always
loved. She had concerns regularly, and on a splendid
scale : in all other respects she lived with rigid economy.
She was much respected by James II. and his court. In
1692 she returned to Lisbon, carrying with her (accord
ing to Walpole) some valuable pictures out of the royal
collection, as part payment of a debt she asserted to be
due to her from the crown; and died there December
30, 1705, at the age of sixty-three.
The picture at Windsor, from which the accompanying
portrait is for the first time engraved, is by Sir Peter
Lely. In every part, but more especially the drapery, it
is admirably painted. She is represented as seated in
a chair of state, and dressed in pearls and white satin,
relieved by a dark olive curtain in the background.
The attitude is rather unmeaning and undignified, but
is probably characteristic. The face is round ; the nose
a little turned up ; the eyes black and languishing ; the
mouth, though far from ugly, has an expression of
pouting melancholy. This portrait appears to have
been taken within the first two years after her marriage,
while yet she loved her husband, and deeply resented
those infidelities and negligences which she afterwards
bore with such exemplary patience.

[To the foregoing elegant sketch of the life of
i. k

66 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
the Queen of Charles the Second, we are tempted
to append a somewhat long extract from Clarendon,
which shows how much she lost in the esteem of her
friends by the ease with which she yielded and reconciled
herself to her husband's mistresses. We think we see
a concealed sneer in the following extract from the
" Chimney Scuffle," a satire printed in 1662, and there
fore not long after the marriage, and soon after the first
quarrel between the royal pair, and the subsequent
condescensions of the Queen to Lady Castlemaine, on
whose name it contains a rather poor pun : —
" Clear that Augean stable ; let no stain
Darken the splendor of our Charlemain,
Nor his court gate : may th' ladies of this time
Be emulators of our Katherine,
Late come, long wish'd : 
The world's new moulded : she who t' other day
Could chant and chirp like any bird in May,
Stor'd with caresses of the dearest sort
That art could purchase from a foreign court,
Limn'd sp by Nature's pencil, as no part
But gave a wound, where'er it found an heart ;
' A fortress and main castle of defence
Secur'd from all assailants saving Sense.'
But she's a convert and a mirrour now,
Both in her carriage and profession too ;
Divorc'd from strange embraces : as my pen
May justly style her England's Magdalen.
Wherein she's to be held of more esteem
In being fam'd a convert of the Queen.
And from relapse that she secur'd might be,
She wisely daigns to keep her companie."
After relating the circumstance of Catherine's first
introduction to Lady Castlemaine, the affronts and
mortifications to which she was subjected by her oppo
sition to the King's will, and particularly the abrupt

QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA. 67
dismissal of her Portuguese attendants, Lord Clarendon
goes on to observe, — " At last, when it was least ex
pected or suspected, the QueOn, on a sudden, let herself
fall first to conversation and then to familiarity, and,
even in the same instant, to a confidence with the lady :
was merry with her in pubhck, talked kindly of her,
and in private nobody used more friendly. This excess
of condescension, without any provocation or invitation,
except by multiplication of injuries and neglect, and after
all friendships were renewed, and indulgence yielded to
new liberty, did the Queen less good than her former
resoluteness had done. Very many looked upon her with
much compassion ; commended the greatness of her spi
rit, detested the barbarity of the affronts she underwent,
and censured them as loudly as they durst, not without
assuming the liberty, sometimes, of insinuating to the
King himself, how much his own honour suffered in
the neglect and disrespect of her own servants, who
ought, at least in publick, to manifest some duty and
reverence towards her majesty ; and how much he lost
in the general affections of his subjects : and that, be
sides the displeasure of God Almighty, he could not
reasonably hope for children by the Queen, which was
the great if not the only blessing of which he stood in
need, whilst her heart was so full of grief, and whilst she
was continually exercised with such insupportable afflic
tions. And many, who were not wholly unconversant
with the King, nor strangers to his temper and constitu
tion, did believe that he grew weary of the struggle, and
even ready to avoid the scandal that was so notorious, by
the lady's withdrawing from the verge of the court, and

68 QUEEN CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
being no longer seen there, how firmly soever the friend
ship might be established. But this sudden downfal,
and total abandoning her own greatness ; this low de
meanour, and even application to a person she had
justly abhorred and worthily contemned, made all men
conclude, that it was a hard matter to know her and,
consequently, to serve her. And the King himself was
so far from being reconciled by it, that the esteem, which
he could not hitherto but retain in heart for her, grew
much less. He concluded, that all her former aversion,
expressed in those lively passions which seemed not
capable of dissimulation, was all fiction, and purely acted
to the life, by a nature crafty, perverse, and inconstant.
He congratulated his own ill-natured perseverance; by
which he discovered how he was to behave himself here
after, and what remedies he was to apply to all future
indispositions : nor had he, ever after, the same value of
her wit, judgment, and her understanding, which he had
formerly ; and was well enough pleased to observe, that
the reverence Others had for all three was somewhat
diminished." — Ed.]

Tainted by Sir Teter Lely.

Engraved by Ihe? Wn^ht.

ycd<ddAAidd.r/

rO

'AddAAdAAd

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.

" Love is all gentleness and joy ;
Smooth are his looks, and soft his pace ;
Her Cupid is a blackguard boy,
That rubs his link full in your face ! "
Earl of Dorset.

If any faith may be given to the scandalous chronicles
of that period, the court of Cromwell, with its cant and
cropped heads, its " weel spread loaves, and lang wry
faces," was not, less licentious than that of Charles II. :
the change was rather of manners than of morals ; of
costume* rather than of character. In the days of Oliver,
Folly stalked about in solemn guise, and hid his bauble
under a Geneva cloak; and in those of Charles, he
flourished his coxcomb, and the " peal of his bells rang
merrily out," — and this was better at least than sanc
tified foolery and sober vice. " The asinina stella,"* if
not more predominant, was at all events more brilhant.
It was not so much the supremacy of wickedness, as the
magnanimous contempt of appearances — the brave de-
* " Che s'io non erro al calcolar de' punti,
Par ch' asinina stella a noi predomini." Salvator Rosa.

70 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
fiance of decorum that distinguished the court and age
of Charles II. from the solemnity of Cromwell's, and the
dulness of William's.
" The sin was of our native growth, 'tis true ;
The scandal of the sin was wholly new."
The various causes which led to that general licence
of manners which prevailed after the Restoration, are
recorded by the historian, and do not fall within the
province of these light Memoirs : one of them was
undoubtedly the personal character of that vain and
profligate woman who, in the commencement of his
reign, ruled the court and the heart of Charles, and
whose beauty and misconduct have doomed her to an
infamous celebrity.
Sir William Villiers, descended from the eldest branch
of the house of Villiers, (the younger branch becoming
Dukes of Buckingham,) succeeded his uncle, Oliver St.
John, in the title of Viscount Grandison, in the kingdom
of Ireland. On the breaking out of the civil wars, he,
with all his family, adhered to the King's party, and
distinguished himself by his devoted loyalty and chi
valrous bravery. At the siege of Bristol, in 1643, he
was desperately wounded ; and, being carried to Oxford,
died there a few days afterwards, at the age of thirty.
Lord Clarendon, who relates the manner of his death,
adds this captivating and well-drawn portrait : — " Lord
Grandison was a young man of so virtuous a habit of
mind, that no temptation or provocation could corrupt
him ; so great a lover of justice and integrity, that no

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 71
example, necessity, or even the barbarities of this war,
could make him swerve from the most precise rules
of it ; and of that rare piety and devotion, that the
court, or camp, could not show a more faultless person,
or to whose example young men might more reasonably
conform themselves. His personal valour and courage
of all kinds (for he had sometimes indulged so much to
the corrupt opinion of honour as to venture himself in
duels) were very eminent, insomuch as he was accused of
being too prodigal of his person ; his affection, zeal, and
obedience to the King, was such as became a branch of
that family." And he was wont to say, " that if he had
not understanding enough to know the uprightness of
the cause, nor loyalty enough to inform him of the duty
of a subject, yet the very obligations of gratitude to the
King, on the behalf of his house, were such as his life
was but a due sacrifice ; and therefore, he no sooner saw
the war unavoidable, than he engaged all his brethren,
as well as himself, in the service, and there were then
three more of them in command in the army, where he
was so unfortunately cut off." He married Mary, third
daughter of Paul, Viscount Bayning, by whom he left an
only daughter and heiress, Barbara Villiers, afterwards
Duchess of Cleveland.
Of the early life and education of this too celebrated
woman, I have not been able to colleet any authentic
information. She married, at the age of eighteen,
Roger Palmer, Esq., a gentleman of fortune, and loyal
adherent of the exiled King. Her first acquaintance
with Charles probably commenced in Holland, whither

72 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
she accompanied her husband in 1659, when he carried
to the King a considerable sum of money to aid in his
restoration, and assisted him also by his personal services.
But her connexion with Charles cannot be traced with
any certainty before the very day of his entrance into
London : on the evening of that day, Charles, instead of
sleeping in the palace of his ancestors, to which he had
just been restored, skulked away privately to the house
of Sir Samuel Morland, at Vauxhall, where he had an
assignation with Mrs. Palmer.
That an accomplished prince, in the prime of hfe,
skilled in all the arts that ensnare her sex, — the sovereign
for whose sake her father had fought and bled ; whom
she had just seen restored — miraculously restored, as it
was then believed, — to the throne of his fathers, wel
comed to his capital with almost delirious joy, and who,
in such a moment, threw himself and his new-found
kingdom at her feet, should have conquered the heart
and triumphed over the virtue of a woman so vain and
volatile, is not marvellous : she was only nineteen, and
thrown, by the bhnd confidence or time-serving care
lessness of her husband, into the very way of temptation.
Thus far her frailty, if not excusable, might have been
pardoned, if the end had not proved that personal
affection for the King had little to do with her lapse
from virtue, and that, in short, she was more of a Mon
tespan than a La Valliere,— more of an Alice Pierce than
a Jane Shore.
In a few months after the Restoration, Palmer was

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 73
created an Irish peer, with the title of Earl of Castle
maine. He, meekest of men, was, or affected to be, a
little sulky and restive at first under his new dignities,
but means were soon found to pacify him ; and he after
wards submitted to the coronet, and other honours which
his beautiful wife showered on his head, with a spirit of
philosophy and resignation which was quite edifying.*
The passion of the King for Lady Castlemaine, and
her influence over him, were at their height at the time
that his marriage with Catherine of Portugal was, from
political motives, resolved on. When the Queen's arrival
at Portsmouth was announced in London, Charles was
supping at Lady Castlemaine's house in the Strand.
* " But that which pleased me best was, that my Lady Castlemaine
stood over against us upon a piece of White Hall. But methought it
was strange to see her lord and her upon the same place, walking up and
down, without taking notice one of another; only at first entry, he put off
his hat, and she made him a very civil salute, but afterwards took no
notice one of another ; but both of them now and then would take their
child, which the nurse held in her arms, and dandle it." This was on
occasion of the Queen's triumphant entry into London, she being brought
with great state by water from Hampton Court. Immediately after
follows a trait of good-nature, which must not be suppressed, the rather
because it is solitary: the worst, however, are not wholly bad. A
scaffolding happened to fall at the moment, and Lady Castlemaine was
the only one among the great ladies of court, who, from an impulse of
humanity, ran down among the ' common rabble ' to see what injury had
been done, and took charge of a poor child which had been hurt in the
crowd, " which methought was so noble. Anon came one booted and
spurred, whom she talked with ; and by and by, she being in her hair,
she put on his hat, which was but an ordinary one, to keep the wind off:
but it became her mightily, as every thing else do." — Pepys1 Diary,
vol. i., p. 161.

74 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
Bonfires had been lighted, in token of respect and
rejoicing, before every door in the street except hers — an
omission which did not pass unobserved ; nor did she
attempt to conceal her despair, when the King left her
to meet his bride. It was probably sincere ; for she had
as much reason to dread, as all good men had to hope
from, the influence of a young and beloved Queen. Un
happily her fears and others' hopes proved groundless :
the King could not break the fetters which her charms
and her imperious temper had flung round him, and
the Queen had not beauty and tact enough to win him
from her rival.
Catherine had arrived in England with a fixed resolu
tion not to admit Lady Castlemaine into her presence, —
" her mother," she said, " had enjoined her not to do so :"
but the King had determined otherwise; and the gay
courtiers, who had the most influence over his mind,
were precisely those who had every thing to hope from
the misrule of Lady Castlemaine, and nothing to expect
from the countenance of Catherine. Charles, like all
weak men, had a dread of being governed by a wife;
and they persuaded him that it was infinitely more mag
nanimous to be enslaved by a termagant mistress, than
to comply with the reasonable demands of his Queen ;
and artfully represented the former, and not the latter,
as the object of compassion. They observed, " that he
had, by the charms of his person and of his professions,
prevailed upon the affections and heart of a young and
beautiful lady of a noble extraction, whose father had
lost his life in the service of the crown ; that she had

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 75
provoked the jealousy and rage of her husband to that
degree, that he had separated himself from her ; and
now the Queen's indignation had made, the matter so
notorious to the world, that the disconsolate lady had
no place of retreat left, but must be made an object of
infamy and contempt to all her sex, and to the whole
world."* To give colour to these insinuations, Lady Castle
maine had fled from the house of her husband, — not
forgetting, however, to carry with her all her jewels,
plate, and furniture, — and went over to Richmond, to be
nearer to Hampton Court, then the scene of battle. The
issue of this affair has been given in the Memoir of
Queen Catherine. Lady Castlemaine was created one of
the ladies of the bed-chamber, and soon after, lodged in
Whitehall, where she occupied apartments immediately
over those of the King.f
From this time may be dated the absolute power
* "Those discourses," continues Lord Clarendon, " together with a
little book newly printed at Paris, according to the licence of that nation,
of the amours of Henry IV., which was by them presented to him, and too
concernedly read by him, made that impression upon his mind," &c. —
Clarendon's Continuation, &c. It gratified the King to be compared to
his grandfather, Henry IV. of France. In his fortunes and his failings
there was some tesemblance ; in conduct and character, none whatever.
, f See Pepys' Diary, vol. i-, p- 212.—, " My Ladj Castlemaine is
removed, as to her bed, from her own home to a chamber in Whitehall,
next to the King's owne : which I am sorry to hear, "though I love her
much." Honest Mr. Pepys is oddly divided between his sense of right
and his extravagant admiration for the beauty iof Lady Castlemaine,
whose very petticoats, trimmed with lace, ,", it did jinn good to look upon."

76 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
which this haughty and abandoned woman exercised
over the easy-tempered Charles,— an influence never
exercised but for her own aggrandizement and his dis
honour, or the ruin of his best friends and most faithful
servants. In her chamber, and among the profligate
crew who surrounded her, was prepared the plot against
the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, which ended in the
disgrace and banishment of that great nobleman, the
earliest and best friend of her father.* When he
returned from Whitehall, after resigning the seals, she
jumped out of bed in her night-dress to look down upon
him as he passed, and stood upon her balcony, abusing him
loudly, and in the coarsest terms her vulgar malice could
suggest. When she quarrelled with the great Duke of
Ormond, who had offended her in many ways, but chiefly
by refusing to sanction her enormous drains upon the
Irish treasury, she reviled him, swore at him, and finally
told him " she hoped to see him hanged." To which
the duke replied, with a grave humour becoming his
character, that "far from wishing her ladyship's days
shortened in return, his greatest desire was to see her
grow old."
But her countenance was always extended to those
who flattered her passions, ministered to her avarice, or
* The Lord Chancellor had refused to put the seal of office to some
grant of a place which Lady Castlemaine had disposed of, saying he
thought " the woman would sell every thing shortly ;" which being
repeated to her, she sent to tell him, "that she had disposed of this
place, and did not doubt in a little time to dispose of his.n She was as
good as her word.

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 77
were subservient to her pleasures. She indeed gave
encouragement to Dryden in the beginning of his literary
career ; but it seems to have been more through con
tradiction than any perception of merit, that she per
sisted in patronising his first and worst play, after it had
been summarily executed. He repaid her interference
by a copy of verses, which is a signal instance of the
prostitution of his muse, and in which he compares her
to Cato. One would have thought, that even a poet's
imagination, fired by admiration and gratitude, could
scarcely find or make any comparisen between the vo
luptuous vixen Castlemaine and the Roman Cato ; but,
as Steele observes, " there is no stretching a metaphor
too far when a lady is in the case."
The sums which this harpy contrived to appropriate
from the funds of the state almost exceed belief. She
was, to use Burnet's coarse expression in speaking of her,
"enormously ravenous :" it was, however, rather rapacity
tlxarii avarice ; for what was obtained unworthily, was
lavished as extravagantly. Besides a grant of g§5322
a-year out of the post-office, to her and her heirs, she
had twenty thousand a-year out of the customs.* What
sums were occasionally paid to her out of the revenues of
* " Lbrd St. John, Sir R. Howard, Sir John Bennet, and Sir W.
Bicknell, the brewer, have farmed the customs ; they have signed and
sealed ten thousand a-year more to the Duchess of Cleveland, who has
likewise near ten thousand a-year out' of the new farm of the Country
Excise of beer and ale ; £ 5000 a-year out of the post-office, and, they say,
the reversion of all places in the Custom-house, the Green Wax, and
indeed what not; all promotions, spiritual and temporal, pass under her
cognizance." — Andrew MarveVs Letters. " Barclay (Berkeley) is still

78 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
Ireland cannot be ascertained : besides this income, im
mense in those days, she had at different times gifts in
money, jewels, and plate, to an incredible amount ; and
this at the time when the King's household servants
were cursing him because they had not bread to eat,
and he himself wanted linen, and was stinted in writing-
paper ! *
Berkshire-House was purchased for her by the King,
in 1668 ; and as it was of great extent, she added to her
income by converting part of it into separate houses and
letting them ; j- but all was too little to supply her mon
strous expenditure. Among her other extravagancies
was the vice of gaming : in one night she lost at Basset
gf=25,000, and was accustomed to stake one thousand,
and fifteen hundred pounds at a cast.
As the fair Castlemaine was one of those ladies who
would "whisk the stars out of their spheres" rather
than lose one iota of their will, it may be imagined that
her connexion with the King was not one long summer's
Lieutenant of Ireland ; but he was forced to come over to pay ten
thousand pounds rent to his landlady, Cleveland." — Ib.
* " This day I was told that my Lady Castlemaine hath all the King's
Christmas presents, made him by the peers, given to her, which is a most
abominable thing : and that at the great ball she was much richer in jewels
than the Queene and Duchesse (of York) put both together." — Pepys'
Diary, vol. i., p. 204.
-J- Berkshire-House was formerly the town mansion of the Howards,
Earls of Berkshire, and afterwards of Lord Clarendon. It stood on the
site of the Marquis of Stafford's princely residence, and the name of its
former proprietor is still perpetuated in Cleveland-row.

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 79
day, all serenity and sunshine. In fact, not satisfied
with "nodding him from the council-board" whenever
the whim seized her, she gave way to such inexplicable
caprices, and, upon the slightest cause, to such bursts
of tempestuous passion, that she sometimes threw the
whole court into an uproar, and drove the poor King
half distracted. It is observable, that as soon as she was
well-assured of her power over Charles, and understood
his character, she never attempted to carry any point by
tenderness or cajolery ; but, by absenting herself from
court, or by direct violence, she hectored him, as Pepys
says, out of his wits, —
" And, with bent lowering brows, as she would threat,
She scowl'd and frown'd withfroward countenance
Unworthy of fair lady's comely governance." <
Spenser.
Charles, wearied by the din of her vituperative tongue,
and pained by the disagreeable sight of so beautiful a
face deformed by demon passions, hastened to relieve
his eyes and ears by granting her demands, however
exorbitant. At times, however, being driven past the
bounds of patience, he would make an attempt at
resistance, which was sure to end in his discomfiture.
Some instances on record of her coarse manners and
termagant temper are ludicrous, and some disgusting.*
* On a certain occasion, the King being engaged to sup with her,
" there being a chine of beef to roast, and the tide rising into their kitchen
that it could not be roasted there, and the cook telling her of it, she
answered, 'Zounds! she must set the house on fire, but it must be
roasted !' So it was carried to Mrs. Sarah's husband's, and there it was
roasted." — Pepys'' Diary, vol. i., p. 253.

80 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
Once, on some slighting words from the King, she called
for her coach at a quarter of an hour's warning, and,
taking with her her plate, jewels, and favourite servants,
went off to Richmond ; the King, under pretence of
hunting, followed her there ; and before he could prevail
on her to return, he was forced to beg pardon on his
knees, and, like a little boy that had been whipped,
promised " to do so no more."
On another occasion it happened that the Queen,
conversing in her drawing-room with the ladies in at
tendance, observed to Lady Castlemaine that she feared
that the King took cold by staying so late abroad at her
ladyship's house. Her ladyship answered, that the King
did not stay late with her : on the contrary, he left her
early ; therefore she was not answerable for his taking
cold : if he stayed late abroad, it must be somewhere else.
The King, entering at that moment, overheard this
insinuation, and sudden anger inspired him with un
wonted spirit. He whispered in her ear that she was a
bold impertinent woman, and commanded her to leave
the court, and not appear again till he sent for her.
The indignant fair one took him at his word, and
retired to lodgings in Pall Mall. When she had re
mained there two days unnoticed, she began to be
alarmed, and sent to ask permission to take her things
from Whitehall. The King informed her she must come
for them. To which, after a furious struggle between
pride and policy, she condescended; and, the King
meeting her there, was, after the usual submissions,
forgiven, and harmony restored.

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 81
The Duke of Buckingham's disgrace, in 1667, was
the occasion of a most bitter quarrel. The duke was
her kinsman, some say her lover, or at least her worthy
coadjutor in all schemes of mischief and extravagance ;
and she took up his cause with all the determined
violence of her temper and disposition. The conse
quence was a regular hurricane. The King told her
she was " a jade that meddled with things she had
nothing to do with at all;" and the lady retorted by
calling his most sacred majesty a, fool. In the end she
prevailed, as usual, and Buckingham was restored to
favour. On another occasion, the King ventured to express
his doubts as to his being the father of her youngest
child. She was then near her confinement; and in a
transport of rage she exclaimed, or rather swore, for her
exclamations were usually oaths, that " whoever was the
father, the King should own it ; and she would have it
christened in the chapel at Whitehall, and owned for
the King's, or she would bring it into the Whitehall
gallery, and dash the brains of it out before the King's
face;" and forthwith she retired to the house of Sir
Daniel Hervey, and shut herself up. The King was
obliged to follow her, hearing that she threatened to
print his letters, a threat she was very capable of exe
cuting. He there made concessions on his knees, and
she was prevailed on to return to Whitehall, — " not as a
mistress, for she scorned him, but as a tyrant to com
mand him." The last and most tempestuous of these
disgraceful scenes ended in her being raised to the
I. M

82 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
dignity of Duchess. It is related by De Grammont
in his happiest style of badinage. The King, it seems,
had for some time shared her good graces with the
accomphshed Wycherly,* the handsome Churchill, f and
a score of meaner rivals. But at length, though not
particularly nice in such matters, and averse to excite
the storms he found it so difficult to allay, he began
to be somewhat scandalized at the open infidelities of
a woman whom he had so publicly distinguished, and
ventured a little advice and raillery on the subject of
one of her lovers, (the " invincible Jermyn,") whom he
considered a rival more contemptible and disreputable
than Harte, Goodman, or Jacob Hall himself.^: His
imperious Sultana took fire instantly, and blazed away
like a mine of gunpowder. Instead of defending herself,
she attacked the King. She reproached him with the
baseness of his penchants, his devotion to such idiots as
Miss Stewart, Miss Wells, and that "petite gueuse de
comedienne (meaning Nell Gwyn): then followed floods
of tears, and paroxysms of rage, in which she threatened,
like another Medea, to tear her children in pieces, and
* The commencement of her acquaintance with Wycherly is too
characteristic to be given here. It may be found in Grainger, and in
Dennis's Letters.
•f- Afterwards Duke of Marlborough. The five thousand pounds
which the Duchess of Cleveland gave him, laid the foundation of his
fortunes, by enabling him to purchase a commission. Yet he was after
wards known to refuse her twenty guineas, which she wanted to borrow
from him at Basset.
| The two former were celebrated actors, and the latter a rope-dancer.
Harte, of the King's company, had been a captain in the army, and was
the finest actor of that day : he excelled in Othello. There is a picture
of Harte in the Beauty-room at Windsor.

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 83
fire his palace over his head. The King had never
ventured to contend for peace without paying pretty
largely for it ; for, what was to be done with a fury, who
on these occasions, all beautiful as she was, resembled
Medea much less than one of her dragons? In the
present instance, though his attachment to the lady was
on the decline, and Miss Stewart reigned the goddess
paramount of the day, he was obliged to buy a reconcili
ation at a dear rate. The Chevalier de Grammont was
called in as mediator, and drew up articles of peace ; in
which it was agreed that Lady Castlemaine's new lover
should be sent to make a little tour into the country ;
that she should raise no more disturbances on the
subject of Miss Wells and Miss Stewart ; and, in consi
deration of so much amiable condescension on the lady's
part, she should be elevated to the rank of a Duchess,
with all the honours and privileges pertaining to the
title, and her pension doubled, to enable her to support
her new dignity with becoming eclat. Soon afterwards,
" in consideration of her noble descent, her father's
death in the service of the crown, and by reason (as the
letters patent set forth) of her own personal virtues,"
she was created Baroness of Nonsuch, Countess of
Southampton, and Duchess of Cleveland. The title of
Southampton must have doubly gratified her, as having
been that of her old enemy, the excellent Lord South
ampton, who had frequently excited her utmost dis
pleasure, by refusing to put his seal as Treasurer to her
exorbitant grants of money, &c.
After this last rupture, and her elevation of rank, the

84 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
duchess withdrew from the court, though she still occa
sionally appeared there : her influence over the King
did not entirely cease till the reign of the Duchess of
Portsmouth began, but she was no longer all powerful ;
and gradually as she debased herself more and more
by her excesses, she sank into neglect and contempt.
Pepys alludes in his Diary to a quarrel about this time
between Lady Castlemaine and the Duchess of Rich
mond, (the predecessor to the fair Stewart in that title,)
which threw the whole court into confusion ; " wherein
the Duchess of Richmond did call my Lady Castlemaine
Jane Shore, and hoped she should live to see her come
to the same end." There was, in truth, some poetical
justice in the catastrophe of the Duchess of Cleveland,
though the Duchess of Richmond had not the comfort
of living to witness it. On the death of the Earl of
Castlemaine, in 1703, she married a man of desperate
fortune and profligate habits, well known by the name
of Beau Fielding, and unequalled in those days for the
beauty of his person.* Fielding had married her for the
sake of her money ; and when she either could not, or
would not, any longer supply his extravagancies, he so
barbarously ill-treated her, that she was obliged to have
recourse to a magistrate for protection against his out
rages. Fortunately for her, it was discovered that he
had a former wife living, a low woman, who had cheated
him as he had cheated all the rest of her sex. He was
prosecuted for bigamy, found guilty, but pardoned by
Queen Anne. His conviction relieved the duchess from
* See « The Tatler," No. 50, for the " History of Orlando the Fair,"
i. e. the above-mentioned Beau Fielding : it is from the pen of Swift.

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 85
his brutality, but she did not long survive it : she died
of a dropsy at her house at Chiswick, October 9, 1709,
miserable, contemned, and neglected; leaving a name
more fitted to " point a moral," than to " adorn a tale."
The Duchess of Cleveland was the mother of six
children, three sons and three daughters. Charles
Fitzroy, her eldest son by the King, was born in 1662,
and created, during the lifetime of his mother, Baron
Newberry, Earl of Chichester, and Duke of Southampton.
On her death, he succeeded to the title of Duke of
Cleveland, in which he was succeeded by his son William ;
after whose death, in 1774, the title became extinct, and
has not since been revived.
Her second son, Henry Fitzroy, born in 1663, was
created Baron of Sudbury, Viscount Ipswich, Earl of
Euston, and Duke of Grafton. He was eminently
handsome in his person, of a brave and martial spirit ;
but rough, illiterate, and rude in his manners. He
married Isabella, only daughter and heiress of Harry
Bennett, Earl of Arlington,* and was killed by a cannon
* This Duchess of Grafton was the most beautiful woman of her
time ; but it was in the court of William, and not in that of Charles,
that she reigned supreme "lady of hearts," and was celebrated by all the
wits and poets of the day. Her picture is among the "Beauties" at
Hampton Court. She bore to the end of her long hfe a most irreproach
able character. I am tempted to add the following entries from Evelyn's
Diary, which throw considerable interest round her premature union
with the Duke of Grafton : she was then five, and the Duke nine years
old. "1672. Aug. 1. I was at the marriage of Lord Arlington's lovely
daughter (a sweet child if ever there was any) to the Duke pf Grafton,

86 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
ball at the siege of Cork, 1690, where he served under
Marlborough as a volunteer. He was ancestor to the
noble family of Fitzroy, in all its branches : the present
Duke of Grafton being the fourth, and the present Lord
Southampton the fifth, in descent from him.
George Fitzroy, her third son, was created by his
father Earl and Duke of Northumberland. He was
weak and dissipated, married meanly, and died without
issue. Anne Palmer Fitzroy, her eldest daughter, was born
in 1661. The Earl of Castlemaine always considered
this daughter as his offspring ; but the King, by giving
her the name of Fitzroy, assigning her the royal arms,
the King's natural son by the Duchess of Cleveland ; the -Archbishop of
Canterbury officiated, the King and all the grandees of the court being
present." The infant couple were married again in 1679, she being
twelve years old and her husband sixteen. " I confess," says Evelyn,
" I could give my Lady Arlington little joy, and so I plainly told her ;
but she said the King would have it so, and there was no going back.
Thus this sweetest, hopefullest, most beautiful child, and most virtuous
too, was sacrificed to a boy that has been rudely bred, without any thing
to encourage them but his majesty's pleasure. I pray God the sweet
child find it to her advantage ; who, if my augury deceive me not, will
in a few years be such a paragon, as were fit to make a wife to the
greatest prince in Europe.
" 1683. I went to compliment the Duchess of Grafton, now laying-in
of her first child, a son, which she called for, that I might see it. She
was become more beautiful, if it were possible, than before, and full of
virtue and sweetness. She discoursed with me of many particulars with
great prudence and gravity beyond her years." This youthful and
lovely mother was then just fifteen. She lived to walk at the coronation
of George II. as Countess of Arlington in her own right, and died
in 1722.

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 87
and portioning her nobly at her marriage, seemed deter
mined to claim a share of the parentage. She married
Lennard Lord Dacre and Earl of Sussex, and left two
daughters. Charlotte Fitzroy, who rivalled her mother in beauty,
but was far unlike her in every other respect, married
the Earl of Litchfield, by whom she was the mother of
eighteen children : one of her daughters, Lady Ehzabeth
Lee, married Young, the author of the Night Thoughts.
Barbara, her youngest daughter, whom the King
acknowledged in public, but not in private, became a
riun at Pontoise.
The beauty of the Duchess of Cleveland was of that
splendid and commanding character, that dazzles rather
than interests ; it was, however, perfect in its kind. At
a time when she was most unpopular, and her charms
and excesses were creating disturbances in the court and
disaffection in the country, she went to Bartholomew
Fair to view " the rare puppet-show of Patient Grizzle,"
(by which, it is to be hoped, she was greatly edified).
The rabble, recognising her equipage, followed it with
hisses and curses; but when she stepped out, and looked
round in all the proud consciousness of irresistible
beauty, the people, struck with admiration, changed
their curses into blessings " on her handsome face,"
though it had helped to undo a nation. The picture at
Windsor (from which the portrait is engraved) repre
sents her as Pallas, or Bellona : the last is certainly the

88 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
more appropriate character ; it is full of the imperious
expression of the original. The face is perfectly beau
tiful; the rich red hps are curled with arrogance and
" womanish disdain," and the eyes look from under their
drooping lids with a certain fierceness of expression ; the
action, the attitude, the accompaniments, are all those
of a virago : she grasps the spear with the air of an all-
conquering beauty, and leans on her shield as if she
disdained to use it; while the grand tempestuous sky
in the background, with broken gleams of hght flashing
across it, is in admirable keeping with the whole.

[In the amusing entries of Pepys' Diary, we may trace
the different vicissitudes of the Duchess of Cleveland's
reign over the King; vicissitudes, indeed, which were
not very great, for when the King's attachment to her
was diminished, she still kept her place by her own
effrontery. She was evidently much alarmed on the
arrival of the Queen, fearing at once to lose her influ
ence ; and there is every reason for believing that her
introduction at Hampton Court was a plan of her own,
a resolution to make a desperate struggle for superiority
at the outset. She succeeded, and the first years of the
King's marriage were those of her greatest power. She
still, however, showed outwardly, at least at times, some
thing like attention to the Queen. Pepys, whose curi
osity led him to see the ceremonies at the Queen's
Catholic chapel, when it was first opened, which was
not long after the duchess had been received a Maid
of Honour, describes the Queen's devoutness, and adds,

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 89
" but what pleased me best was to see my dear Lady
Castlemaine, who, though a Protestant, did wait upon
the Queene to chapel." Pepys's admiration of the beauty
of the royal mistress was now at its height, so as even to
draw a rebuke from ' his lady,' " she calling her my lady,
and the lady I admire." In the latter part of 1663, her
influence seems to have been somewhat on the decline,
and from this time till 1666, she was in part eclipsed by
the beauty of Miss StewTart. It is singular how the ad
miration of Pepys changes with the King's love. In
1663, when he hears that Castlemaine is declining in the
royal favour, he observes, " Saw my Lady Castlemaine,
who, I fear, is not so handsome as I have taken her for,
and now she begins to decay something. This is my
wife's opinion also." Miss Stewart was now the object
of his praise. " Mrs. Stewart is now the greatest beauty
I ever saw, I think, in my life ; and, if ever woman can,
do exceed my Lady Castlemaine." In 1664 he observes,
" My wife tells me the sad news of my Lady Castlemaine's
being now become so decayed, that one would not know
her ; at least far from a beauty, which I am sorry for."
Again, in the early part of 1666, " I was sorry to see my
Lady Castlemaine ; for the mourning forcing all the
ladies to go in black, with their hair plain, and without
spots, I find her to be a much more ordinary woman than
ever I durst have thought she was ; and, indeed, is not
so pretty as Mrs. Stewart." Poor Pepys ! how many cir
cumstances, independent of their own taste, influence
people in judging of beauty and excellence.
It was not long after the period when the last of
T. n

90 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
these observations was made, that occurred the anecdote
above related by Mrs. Jameson, (at p. 83.) In the lat
ter part of this year, though she seems still to have been
out of favour, the King paid Lady Castlemaine's debts
to the amount of thirty thousand pounds ; and after the
marriage of Miss Stewart to the Duke of Richmond, in
1667, she regained all her influence, and, to use the
expression of the Diary, hectored the King to whatever
she would. " My cousin Roger," says Pepys, " told us
as a thing certain, that my Lady Castlemaine hath made
a bishop lately ; namely, her uncle, Dr. Glenham, who, I
think they say, is Bishop of Carlisle ; a drunken, swear
ing raskal, and a scandal to the church; and do now
pretend to be Bishop of Lincoln, in competition with
Dr. Raynbow, who is reckoned as worthy a man as most
in the church for piety and learning : which are things,
so scandalous to consider, that no man can doubt but we
must be undone that hears of them." Her conduct now
seems so far to have increased her unpopularity, and
things appeared to be in so critical a posture, that in
1667 there was a serious design of getting rid of her for
a time, in order to propitiate the parliament. It was
rumoured that she would go to France with a pension ;
but her influence was too high, and she could not be
brought to agree to the proposal. In the May of the
following year Pepys observes, " My Lady Castlemaine
is, it seems, now mightily out of request, the King
coming little to her, and then she mighty melancholy
and discontented." The Duke of Buckingham, who now
came into full power, was also suddenly opposed to her,
as we learn from the same authority ; and the design of

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 91
sending her to France seems to have been again enter
tained towards the end of 1668. A letter preserved in
the British Museum, (MS. Harl. No. 7001,) dated from
London, the 5th of December in that year, informs us
that " a report is here also that my Lady Castlemaine
intends to make a short journey into France; but I
beheve the resolution is not yet fixt, though to invite
her my Lord Hawbry offers himselfe to attend her thi
ther." Soon after this, in the January of 1668-9, we
learn from Pepys " that my Lady Castlemaine is now in
a higher command over the King than ever, — not as
a mistress, for she scorns him, but as a tyrant to com
mand him."
From this time we hear little more of Lady Castle
maine in Pepys. The project of sending her to France
seems at a later period to have been put in practice, and
she was residing there in 1678. The following letter,
from the British Museum, shows that even there she was
still intriguing : —
Ralph Duke of Mountague* to his Cousin.
" Paris, March 29, 1678. 0. S.
" Sir, " I am out of countenance at all the troubles
you are pleased to give yourself in my concerns. I have
heard something of what you tell me of the Queen's
engagement to my Lady Arlington; but so many things
come between the cup and the lip, especially at court,
that till things are done, one must never despair, no
* He was at this time ambassador at the French court.

92 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
more than I do of being Secretary of State, if my lord
continues his favour to me, and can work off Sir William
Temple. I know for certain that there is a great cabal
to bring in Mr. Savile, who writ a letter last post to my
Lady Cleveland, that his fortune depended upon her
coming over, for that he had engaged his unkle, Secre
tary Coventry, for his place, but could not compass
money to buy it, except she got him the King's leave to
sell his bedchamber place, and some additional money to
help. You may let my Lord Treasurer know this, but it
must be kept very secret, for else it would hinder me
knowing many things that may be for his service. It is
not very well in Mr. Savile, who has those obligations to
my Lord Treasurer, to manage such an affair under-hand.
For my part, I care not for the place, except I come in
with his favour and kindness. I have tried no other
ways to compass it, neither will I. Pray put my Lord
Treasurer in mind of me, with the assurance that he has
no servant truer to him than myself, nor more entirely.
Dear Cousin,
Your most faithful humble servant,
R. Mountague."
We find, indeed, that not long after this letter was
written, the duchess was in England, whether on the
errand there alluded to or not, we cannot venture to say.
On her return to Paris, she addressed the following letter
to the King. It is preserved among the Harleian ma
nuscripts, in a volume of letters, numbered 7006, and
affords us a singularly curious picture of her intriguing

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 93
spirit, now smarting under the united stings of disap
pointment, humiliation, and anger.
" Paris, Tuesday the 28th, — f8.
" I was never so surprized in my nolle hfe-time as I
was, at my coming hither, to find my Lady Sussex gone
from my house and monastery where I left her, and this
letter from her, which I here send you the copy of. I
never saw in my nolle life-time such government of her
self as she has had, since I went into England. She has
never been in the monastery two days together, but every
day gone out with the ambassador;* and has often lain
four days together at my house, and sent for her meat to
the ambassador, he being always with her till five o'clock
in the morning, they two shut up together alone, and
would not let any maistre d'hotel wait, nor any of my
servants, only the ambassador's. This made so great a
noise at Paris, that she is now the holle discourse. I am
so much afflicted that I can hardly write this for crying,
to see a child that I doted on as I did on her, should
make so ill return, and join with the worst of men to
ruin me. For sure never malice was like the ambassa
dor's, that only because I would not answer to his love,
and the importunities he made to me, was resolved to
ruin me. I hope your majesty will yet have that justice
and consideration for me, that though I have done a
foolish action, you will not let me be ruined by this most
abominable man. I do confess to you that I did write a
foolish letter to the Chevalier de Chatillon, which letter
* Ralph Mountague, afterwards Duke of Mountague.

94 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
I sent inclosed to Madam de Pallas, and sent hers in a
packet I sent to Lady Sussex by Sir Henry Tichborn ;
which letter she has either given to the ambassador, or
else he had it by his man, to whom Sir Henry Tichborn
gave it, not finding my Lady Sussex. But as yet I do
not know which of the ways he had it, but I shall know
as soon as I have spoke with Sir Henry Tichborn. But
the letter he has, and I doubt not but he has or will send
it to you. Now all I have to say for myself is, that you
know as to love, one is not mistress of one's self, and that
you ought not to be offended at me, since all things of
this nature is at an end with you and I, so that I could
do you no prejudice. Nor will you, I hope, follow the
advice of this ill man, who in his heart I know hates
you, and were it not for his interest would ruin you if
he could. For he has neither conscience nor honor, and
has several times told me, that in his heart he -despised
you and your brother ; and that for his part, he wished
with all his heart that the parliament would send you
both to travel, for you were a dull governable fool, and
the duke a wilful fool. So that it were yet better to
have you than him, but that you always chose a greater
beast than yourself to govern you. And when I was to
come over, he brought me two letters to bring to you,
which he read both to me before he sealed them. The
one was a man's, that he said you had great faith in ; for
that he had at several times foretold things to you that
were of consequence,* and that you believed him in all
things, like a changeling as you were. And that now he
had wrote you word, that in a few months the King of
* See Burnet's History of his Own Times, vol. i., p. 422.

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 95
France and his son were threatened with death, or at
least with a great fit of sickness, in which they would
be in great danger, if they did not die ; and that there
fore he counsell'd you to defer any resolutions either of
war or peace till some months were past ; for that if this
happened, it would make a great change in France. The
ambassador, after he had read this to me, said, ' Now the
good of this is,' said he, ' that I can do what I will with
this man ; for he is poor, and a good sum of money will
make him write whatever I will.' So he proposed to me
that he and I should join together in the ruin of my Lord
Treasurer and the Duchess of Portsmouth, which might
be done thus : — The man, though he was infirm and ill,
should go into England, and there, after having been a
little time, to sollicit you for money ; for that you were
so base, that though you employed him, you let him
starve ; so that he was obliged to give him 50/., and that
the man had writ several times to you for money. And,
says he, when he is in England, he shall tell the King
things that he foresees will infallible ruin him ; and so
wish those to be removed, as having an ill star, that would
be unfortunate to you if they were not removed : but if
that were done, he was confident you would have the
most glorious reign that ever was. This, says he, I am
sure I can order so as to bring to good effect;, if you will.
And in the mean time, I will try to get Secretary Coven
try's place, which he has a mind to part with, but not to
Sir Wilham Temple ; because he is the Treasurer's crea
ture, and he hates the Treasurer; and I have already
employed my sister to talk with Mr. Cook, and to mind
him to engage Mr. Coventry not to part with it as yet,

96 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
and he has assured my Lady Harvey he will not. And
my Lord Treasurer's lady and Mr. Bertie are both of
them desirous I should have it. And when I have it, I
will be damn'd if I do not quickly get to be Lord
Treasurer; and then you and your children shall find
such a friend as never was. And for the King, I will
find a way to furnish him so easily with money for his
pocket and wenches, that we will quickly out Bab. May,
and lead the King by the nose. So when I had heard
him out, I told him I thank'd him, but that I would
not meddle with any such thing : and that, for my part,
I had no malice to my Lady Portsmouth, or to the
Treasurer, and therefore would never be in any plot to
destroy them. But that I found the character which
the world gave him was true : which was, that the Devil
was not more designing than he was, and that I won
dered at it; for sure all these things working in his
brain must make him very uneasy, and would at last
make him mad. 'Tis possible you may think I say this
out of malice. 'Tis true he has urged me beyond all
patience : but what I tell you here is most true ; and I
will take the sacrament on it whenever you please. 'Tis
certain I would not have been so base as to have in
formed against him for what he had said before me, had
he not provoked to it in this violent way that he has.
There is no ill thing which he has not done me, and
that without any provocation of mine, but that I would
not love him. Now, as to what relates to my daughter
Sussex, and her behaviour to me, I must confess that
afflicts me beyond expression, and will do much more,
if what he has done be by your orders. For though I

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 97
have an entire submission to your will, and will not
complain whatever you inflict upon me ; yet I cannot
think you would have brought things to this extremity
with me, and hot have it in your nature ever to do
cruel things to any thing living. I hope you will not
therefore begin with me ; and if the ambassador has not
received his orders from you, that you will severely
reprehend him for this inhuman proceeding. Besides,
he has done what you ought to be very angry with him
for. For he has been with the King of France, and told
him that he had intercepted letters of mine by your
order ; by which he had been informed that there was a
kindness between me and the Chevalier de Chatillon ;
and therefore you bad him take a course in it, and stop
my letters ; which accordingly he has done. And that
upon this you order'd him to take my children from me,
and to remove my Lady Sussex to another monastery; and
that you was resolved to stop all my pensions, and never
to have any regard to me in any thing. And that if he
would oblige your majesty, he should forbid the Cheva
lier de Chatillon ever seeing me, upon the displeasure of
losing his place, and being forbid the court, for he was
sure you expected this from him. Upon which the King
told him, that he could not do any thing of this nature :
for that this was a private matter, and not for him to
take notice of. And that he could not imagine that you
ought to be so angry, or indeed be at all concerned ; for
that all the world knew, that now all things of gallantry
were at an end with you and I. And that being so, and
so publick, he did not see why you should be offended
at my loving anybody. That it was a thing so common
i. o

98 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
nowadays to have a gallantry, that he did not wonder
at any thing of this nature. And when he saw the King
take the thing thus, he told him if he would not be
severe with the Chevalier de Chatillon upon your
account, he supposed he would be so upon his own : for
that in the letters he had discovered, he had found that
the Chevalier had proposed to me the engaging of you
in the marriage of the Dauphin and Mademoiselle :* and
that was my greatest business into England.f That be
fore I went over, I had spoke to him of the thing and
would have engaged him in it ; but that he refused it :
for that he knew very well the indifference you had
whether it was so or no, and how little you cared how
Mademoiselle was married : that since I went into Eng
land it was possible I might engage somebody or other in
this matter to press it to you ; but. that he knew very
well, that in your heart you cared not whether it was so
or no: that this business was set on foot by the Chevalier.
Upon which the King told him, that if he would shew
him any letters of the Chevalier de Chatillon to that
purpose, he should then know what he had to say to him ;
but till he saw those letters, he would not punish him
without a proof for what he did. Upon which the am
bassador shewed a letter, which he pretended one part
of it was double entendre. The King said he could not
see that there was any thing relating to it, and so left
him, and said to a person there, 'Sure the ambassador was
* Mademoiselle was the daughter of Philip Duke of Orleans, and
Henriette, sister of King Charles II.
-f- This was Mountague's own proposal, made to the King in his letter
to him of Jan. 10th, 1677-8, preserved in the Danby Papers, p. 48.

THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND. 99
the worst man that ever was ; for because my Lady
Cleveland will not love him, he strives to ruin her the
basest in the world, and would have me to sacrifice the
Chevalier de Chatillon to his revenge ; which I shall
not do, till I see better proofs of his having meddled in
the marriage of the Dauphin and Mademoiselle than any
yet the ambassador has shewed me.' This methinks is
what you cannot but be offended at, and I hope you will
be offended with him for his nolle proceeding to me,
and let the world see you will never countenance the
actions of so base and ill a man. I had forgot to tell
you that he told the King of France, that many people
had reported that he had made love to me ; but there
was nothing of it ; for that he had too much respect for
you to think of any such thing. As for my Lady Sussex,
I hope you will think fit to send for her over, for she is
now mightily discoursed of for the ambassador. If you
will not believe me in this, make enquiry into the thing,
and you will find it to be true. I have desired Mr.
Kemble to give you this letter, and to discourse with you
at large upon this matter, to know your resolution, and
whether I may expect that justice and goodness from
you which all the world does. I promise you that for
my conduct, it shall be such, as that you nor nobody
shall have occasion to blame me. And I hope you will
be just to what you said to me, which was at my house,
when you told me you had letters of mine ; you said,
Madam, all that I ask of you for your own sake is, live
so for the future as to make the least noise you can, and
I care not who you love.' Oh ! this noise that is had
never been, had it not been for the ambassador's malice.

100 THE DUCHESS OF CLEVELAND.
I cannot forbear once again saying, I hope you will not
gratify his malice in my ruin."
At the beginning of the year 1679, the Duchess of
Cleveland was again in England, contrary it would seem
to the King's will ; for in the same volume which con
tains the preceding letter, is also preserved the following
order from the King to the duchess, that she should im
mediately quit the country. "Whitehall, Feb. y<= 28, 78-9.
" I have already given you my reasones at large,
why I think it fitt that you should absent yourself for
some time beyond sea : as I am truely sorry for the oc
casion, so you may be sure I shall desire it no longer
than it will be absolutely necessary both for your good and
my service. In yte meantime I think it proper to give you
notice under my hand, that I expect this comphance
from you, and desire that you may believe with what
trouble I write this to you, there being nothing I am
more sensible off, than ye constant kindness you have
ever had for me ; and I hope you are so just as to think
nothing can ever change me from being
truely and kindly
Yours, Chas. Rex."
Ed.]

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THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.

'¦ A woman of that rare behaviour,
So qualified, that admiration
Dwells round about her ; of that perfect spirit,
That admirable carriage,
That sweetness in discourse — young as the morning,
Her blushes staining his." Fletcher.

The Countess de Grammont, or rather, to give her
the fair and merited title by which she is better known,
La Belle Hamilton — young, beautiful, wise, and
witty, and discreet withal, " even to detraction's des
peration," seemed to have been placed in Charles's
court purposely to redeem the credit of her sex. She
moved, in that profligate sphere, in an orbit of her own :
there were some, indeed, rash enough to reach at stars
because they shone upon them, but she was beyond a
mere coxcomb's flight ; and on she passed, looking su
perior down in all the majesty of virtue, and all the
hght of loveliness.
" Tal vagheggiata in ciel o luna, o stella,
Che segue altiera il suo viaggio, et splende."
La Belle Hamilton ! — the very name has a spell in it
of power to carry us back a century and a half. What

102 THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.
bright visions rise of flirtations at Summer Hill, and
promenades at Tunbridge Wells ! — of Maids of Honour,
coiffees a la negligence, and gay gallants in perfumed
periwigs ! — what corantos, and galliards, and court balls,
and country frolics ; and poor Lady Muskerry and her
bambino, and her costume a la Princesse de Babylon ! —
But we must descend to grave biography, and take
things in order. The advice of the giant Moulineau,
" Belier, mon ami ! commencez au commencement," is ex
cellent ; particularly when we are writing or reading the
life of a celebrated beauty, — where the conclusion is to
the beginning, like a musty moral out of Epictetus
tacked to the end of a fairy tale.
Sir George Hamilton, fourth son of James first Earl
of Abercorn, after distinguishing himself greatly in the
civil wars, retired to France on the death of the King,
his master. He resided abroad for several years, had a
command in the French army, and in France several of
his children were born and most of them educated ;
which accounts for the predilection they afterwards
showed for that country* At the Restoration, Sir
George Hamilton returned to England with a numerous
family of gallant sons and lovely daughters ; among
them Elizabeth Hamilton, his eldest daughter, who
being then just of an age to be introduced at court, soon
became one of its principal ornaments.
She appeared in that gay and splendid circle with
* Two of Miss Hamilton's brothers died in the service of France, with
the title of Count.

THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT. 103
many advantages. She was of noble descent, allied to
the most illustrious families of England, Scotland, and
Ireland ; she was the niece of the Duke of Ormond, her
mother being the sister of that great nobleman ; her
eldest brother was groom of the bedchamber, and a spe
cial favourite of the King ; her two younger brothers
were distinguished among the brave and gay : she her
self united to a most captivating person and manner,
such accomplishments as few women of her time pos
sessed, and which she had cultivated during her father's
exile. It does not appear that Miss Hamilton accepted
any ostensible office near the person of the Queen, or of
the Duchess of York ; but she was soon distinguished
by the favour of both, more particularly by that of the
duchess, and was habitually included in their most se
lect circles, as well as in all the balls, masques, banquets,
and public festivities of the court.
It was at this time that De Grammont first met her ;
but it was long after his marriage that he dictated to
her brother Anthony that enchanting description of her
which appears in his Memoirs. The lover-like feehng
which breathes through the whole — the beauty, delicacy,
and individuality of the portrait, show that De Gram
mont, with all his frivolity and inconstancy, still remem
bered with tenderness, after a union of twenty years, the
charms which had first touched and fixed his volatile
heart. She was then just arrived at that age, when the bud
ding girl expands into the woman : her figure was tall,

104

THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.

rather full, but elegantly formed : and to borrow Lord
Herbert's beautiful expression, " varied itself into every
grace that can belong either to rest or motion." She
had the finest neck and the loveliest hand and arm in
the world ; her forehead was fair and open ; her hair
dark and luxuriant, always arranged with the most ex
quisite taste, but with an air of natural and picturesque
simplicity, which meaner beauties in vain essayed to
copy ; her complexion, at a time when the use of paint
was universal, owed nothing to art ; her eyes were not
large, but sparkling and full of expression ; her mouth,
though not a little haughtiness is implied in the curve
of the under lip, was charming ; and the contour of her
face perfect.
The soul which Heaven had lodged in this fair person
was worthy of its shrine. In those days, the very golden
age of folly and affectation, the Beauties, by prescriptive
right, might be divided into two factions, whom I shall
call the languishers and the sparklers. The languishers
were those who, being dull by nature, or at least not
bright, affected an extreme softness — lounged and lolled
— simpered and sighed — lisped or drawled out their
words — half shut their eyes — and moved as if "they
were not born to carry their own weight :" the sparklers
were those who, upon the strength of bright eyes and
some natural vivacity and impertinence, set up for fe
male wits ; in conversation they attempted to dazzle by
such sallies as would now be scarcely tolerated from the
most abandoned of their sex ; they were gay, airy, flut
tering, fantastical, and talkative ; they dealt in bon mots

THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT. 105
and repartees ; they threw their glances right and left,
a tort et a travers ; and piqued themselves upon taking
hearts by a coup-de-main. Miss Hamilton belonged to
neither of these classes : though lively by nature, she
had felt, perhaps, the necessity of maintaining a reserve
of manner which should keep presumptuous fops at a
distance. She wore her feminine dignity as an advanced
guard, — her wit as a body of reserve. She did not speak
much, but what she said was to the purpose, — just what
the occasion demanded, and no more. Fiere a. toute
outrance whenever she was called upon to stand on the
defensive, she was less possessed with the idea of her
own merit than might have been supposed ; and, far
from thinking her consequence increased by the num
ber of her lovers, she was singularly fastidious with re
gard to the qualifications of those whom she admitted
upon the list of aspirants.
De Grammont had hitherto received few repulses ;
but " heureux sans etre aime," he began to be weary of
pursuing conquests so little worth. Miss Hamilton was
something new, something different from any thing he
had yet encountered in the form of woman. He soon
perceived that the stratagems he had hitherto found all-
prevailing, — flattery and billets doux, French fans and
gants de Martial,* — would be entirely misplaced in his
present pursuit : he laid aside his usual methods of pro-
* Martial was a famous Parisian glove-maker of that time. " Est-ce
que Martial fait les epigrammes aussi bien que les gants?" asks Mo-
liere's Comtesse d'Escarbagnas, in allusion to his Latin namesake. The
English translator of the Memoires de Grammont has rendered Miss
I. P

106 THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.
ceeding,* and, all his powers of captivating called forth
by a real and deep attachment, he bent his whole soul to
please ; and he succeeded.
Meantime he had many rivals, but not such as were
calculated to give him much uneasiness. Among them,
the first, in rank at least, was the Duke of York, who
became enamoured of Miss Hamilton's picture, which he
saw at Sir Peter Lely's, and straight fell to ogling the
fair original with all his might. The duke was extremely
fond of hunting ; and on his return from these expe
ditions, when he joined the circle in the duchess's draw
ing-room, he stationed himself near Miss Hamilton, and
while he amused her with the exploits of himself, and
his horses, and his dogs, his eyes expressed what his
tongue left unsaid. It would sometimes happen, indeed,
that those tender interpreters of his flame would wink
and close " au fort de leur lorgnerie ;" for princes, like
other men, are subject to fatigue as well as love. The
duchess, secure in the principles and character of her
young favourite, never treated her with so much coun
tenance and friendship as at this time. Miss Hamilton
herself affected not to perceive the duke's passion ; and
when she was obliged to take notice of it, " elle prenait la
peine de s'en divertir avec tout le respect du moride." Nor
Hamilton's " deux ou trois paires de gants de Martial" into " two or
three pair of military gloves," — a blunder only equalled by the translation
of " Love's last Shift" into " La derniere chemise de 1' amour."
* They were rather singular. — " Des qu'une femme vous plait," says
St. Evremond to him, " votre premier soin est d'apprendre si elle est
aimee d'un autre, et le second de la faire enrager, — car de vous en faire
aimer n'est que le dernier de vos soins."

THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT. 107
was she more easily pleased on the score of honourable
proposals.
" So much the more as she refused to love,
So much the more she loved was and sought."
The Duke of Richmond was a gambler and a sot ; but
he stood nearest in blood to the throne after the Duke
of York, and was considered the first match in the king
dom. Miss Hamilton thought otherwise. The duke
though much enamoured, demurred at making propo
sals, on the score of the lady's fortune ; and she never
forgave him. In vain the King interfered, and con
descended to sohcit her in his favour ; in vain he offered
to portion her nobly, in consideration of the services of
her father and his own relationship to the duke, — he was
rejected unequivocally. She could resist the invincible
Jermyn, undazzled by the glare of that all-conquering
reputation which found Lady Castlemaine an easy prey5
and which even the fair Jennings could not withstand.
She refused the Earl of Arundel, (afterwards Duke of
Norfolk,) who laid himself, his expectant dukedom, and
his thirty thousand a-year, at her feet ; and disdained to
be the first peeress of England at the expense of marry
ing a fool. The elder Russel tendered to her acceptance
his " latter summer," and his vast possessions ; the
younger Russel, his nephew, did his best to supplant his
uncle, with no better success ; and Berkeley, Earl of
Falmouth,* the personal friend and favourite both of
* Lord Clarendon says, that Berkeley was " one upon whom the King
had set his affection so much, that he had never denied any thing he
asked for himself or any body else." He married the beautiful Miss Ba
got, and was killed in the great sea-fight in 1665.

108 THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.
the King and the Duke of York, whose rank, riches,
and influence rendered him one of the greatest subjects
in the kingdom ; a man of pleasure by profession, vain,
bold, and quick of wit, — even he confessed to St. Evre
mond, that " the possession of Miss Hamilton was alone
wanting to crown all his desires ; but that he had too
much pride to owe her hand to the interference of her
parents, and dared not hazard the refusal he anticipated
from herself." De Grammont was not discouraged by
the number, rank, and pretensions of his competitors :
he was, in truth, but a younger brother, a banished man>
under the displeasure of his own sovereign, deprived of
his commission, and with no other resource but the
gaming-table to supply his expensive habits ; but he was
handsome and brave, and possessed of unequalled powers
of pleasing whenever he chose to exert them. He had
the highest possible opinion of the understanding of his
mistress, and his opinion of his own merit was not such
as to induce him to despair.
Meanwhile Miss Hamilton, though considerably occu
pied and interested by the assiduities of her captivating
lover, found time and thoughts to give to other matters.
She was wary and proud from the circumstances in which
she was placed ; but she had all the light-heartedness of
youth, and was more than once seized with the whim of
mingling a little innocent mischief, by way of variety,
with the mischief of another sort with which she was
surrounded. A fit subject for her mirthful humour
presented itself in her cousin, Lady Muskerry.*
* Margaret de Burgh, daughter of the Earl of Clanricarde, married

THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT. 109
Lady Muskerry was not deficient in understanding, nor
yet in good-nature ; but she was to the last degree ridi
culous and eccentric, — as mad as the Duchess of New
castle, but after a less dignified fashion. She was exces
sively vain ; extravagantly fond of dress, without a par
ticle of taste ; and a more indefatigable and enthusiastic
dancer than her majesty the Queen, with even less capa
bility of shining in that accomphshment; for she was
deformed in her person, and Nature had shown an undue
partiality to one leg, by lengthening it at the expense of
the other. It was the constant care of Lord Muskerry (a
very good sort of man) to prevent his wife from rendering
him supremely ridiculous by the exhibitions she was
accustomed to make of herself before the whole court.
But in vain ; for the dancing mania was so strong upon
her, that no restraint, short of durance under lock and
key, could keep her in order.
The Queen, who could only please her husband by
flattering his taste for pleasure,* announced her inten
tion of giving a masked ball, which was to exceed in
magnificence all the entertainments which had been
given since her marriage. The guests were to represent
bands from different nations, and each ticket contained
to Lord Muskerry, eldest son of the Earl of Clancarty. Lady Muskerry
was a great heiress, and, in spite of her deformity of person, was three
times married.
* " La Reine avait de l'esprit, et mettait tous ses soins a plaire au Roi
par les complaisances qui coutaient le moins a sa tendresse. Elle 6tait
attentive aux plaisirs et aux amusemens qu'elle pouvait fournir, surtout
lorsqu' elle devait en etre."

110 THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.
the name of a lady and a gentleman, who were considered
as partners for the night : the costume in which they
were to appear was also indicated. The King, who had
much good-nature and was perfectly au fait of all the
intrigues which were going forward in his court, con
trived that his guests should be paired as agreeably as
possible to themselves, and assigned to the Chevaher
de Grammont the delightful task of conducting Miss
Hamilton. His majesty also left him the choice of the
costume in which he would choose to appear. De Gram
mont, with the ready politeness of his nation, replied,
" that as he had resided long enough in his majesty's
court to become almost an Englishman, and even to be
mistaken for one, he should enroll himself in the French
corps, and disguise himself a la Francaise :" and he sent
off his valet to Paris immediately, to order the most
splendid dress that could be procured for this grand
occasion. Meantime, Lord Muskerry and his chere moitie were
both in a fever of apprehension : he, lest his wife should
be invited ; and she, lest by any treasonable practices on
his part she should be excluded. He took his measures
so effectually, that she was passed over in the hst of
invitations, the Queen being well content to spare her
fete the ridicule of such an exhibition. Lady Muskerry
fretted with suspense and impatience ; she was sure there
was some mistake, — it was not possible that upon an
occasion which gave her such an illustrious opportunity
of shining in her favourite accomplishment, she should
be excluded from court. She made Miss Hamilton the

THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT. Ill
confidant of all her hopes and fears ; and Miss Hamil
ton, possessed by the arch-spirit of mischief, determined
to amuse herself and her brothers at the expense of her
ridiculous cousin. A ticket was prepared with excellent
device, in imitation of her own, which invited Lady
Muskerry to the court ball, and bore the Queen's com
mand that she should appear en Babylonienne. A page,
disguised in the royal livery, delivered this to Lady
Muskerry, with an apology for the mistake which had
caused so long a delay. But Lady Muskerry was in too
great a rapture to listen to apologies ; thrice she kissed,
upon her knees, the gracious billet which opened the
door to paradise, and a treble gratuity was ordered to
the fortunate page.
She then sat down to consider the important affair of
her dress. The subject was embarrassing, and the time
was short. She had never been in Babylon in her life ;
but others, she thought, might be better informed than
herself: she therefore spent two days, driving about to
consult all her acquaintances upon the subject of her
Babylonian attire, — among the rest Miss Hamilton.
She took care, however, to keep her good fortune a pro
found secret from her husband ; anticipating a degree of
opposition in that quarter which she had not courage to
brave : like many of her sex, she could rebel, but dared
not disobey. Various were the tastes and opinions of
those she consulted; and Lady Muskerry, that she
might be assured of being in the right, adopted the sug
gestions of all; so that even Miss Hamilton herself could
never have anticipated any thing so marvellously absurd,

112 THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.
or so extravagant, as the appearance her ladyship made
en Babylonienne.
The night at length arrived ; but, to the amazement
of the whole court, De Grammont, hitherto renowned
for his magnificence and gallantry, was not only one of
the last to make his appearance, but when he did lead up
Miss Hamilton, it was observed that though he wore a
wig so vast, so powdered, and so essenced, that it echpsed
even that of Sir George Hewit* — the finest point-bands
and ruffles, and the smallest hat that had ever appeared,
yet his coat was merely an ordinary court-dress, rich
indeed, but totally unbefitting the occasion. The count
replied to the King's raillery by relating, with his un
equalled spirit and pleasantry, the history of his hapless
costume a la Francaise ; which, according to his knavish
valet, had been swallowed up in a quicksand near Calais.
" But a-propos ! sire," continued the count, when he had
finished a story which threw the King and court into
convulsions of laughter ; " may I presume to ask your
majesty who is that goblin en masque, whom I have
encountered at the entrance? She had nearly laid
violent hands upon me as I entered, insisting that I
must be the cavalier appointed to lead her in the dance !
May I perish, sire ! if I do not think she has dropped
from some planet, to lie in ambuscade at your palace
gate and seize upon unwary cavaliers, for nothing
beneath the moon was ever so monstrous or fantastic.
She is enveloped in at least sixty yards of silver gauze,
* The beau par excellence, the original Sir Fopling Flutter of the day.

THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT. 113
and carries a pyramid like that of Cheops on her head,
' garnie de cent mille brimborionsJ "
At this description the courtiers gazed at each other.
The Queen looked round her wonder-struck, well as
sured that all whom she had invited were then present.
" Odds-fish !" exclaimed the King laughing, " I have it !
It is some new extravaganza of that crack-brained
Duchess of Newcastle !" — and, to the consternation of
those in the secret, and the dehght of those who were
not, he commanded that her Grace should be instantly
admitted. It was now Miss Hamilton's turn to be alarmed, and
to blush and tremble behind her fan ; for if Lady Mus
kerry had been introduced to the royal presence in her
present grotesque garb, the jest would have gone much
farther than she intended. Lord Muskerry, however,
relieved her from her terrors. He had been standing in
the circle while De Grammont was speaking, and whis
pered Miss Hamilton, " Now I, for my part, would lay
a wager that it is another mad woman ; and that no
other than my own fantastic fool of a wife !" He imme
diately offered himself to execute the royal commission,
and found her accordingly, still seated in her carriage at
the gate, in a paroxysm of despair, and raving against
the faithless cavalier who had been appointed to attend
upon her. He conducted her home by main force, locked
her up in her chamber, and placed a sentinel at her door
Miss Hamilton this time escaped undiscovered. For
some other of her mahcious frolics, played off at the
i. <±

114 THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.
expense of Miss Blague, " aux blondes paupieres," and
that laughter-loving gipsy, Miss Price, who deserved
the extremity of mischief, and the scene at Tunbridge
Wells, in which poor Lady Muskerry was again made to
play a principal part, the reader who has not read the
Memoires de Grammont, (if such there be,) is referred to
that work. The grace, the spirit, the arch humour,
which give to these " airy nothings " all their charm and
importance, must, of necessity, evaporate in the best
attempt at a translation.
While these festivities were going forward, the Che
valier de Grammont had every opportunity of paying the
most assiduous court to his mistress ; and the more diffi
cult he found her of attainment, the stronger became his
attachment. Even play, hitherto his ruhng passion,
could not detain him from Miss Hamilton's side ; and
his friends began to think the affair grew serious, when
Lady Castlemaine's basset-table was forsaken for the
Duchess of Ormond's drawing-room. St. Evremond
undertook to give him some pertinent advice on the
subject, representing the utter improbability of his pre
vailing with Miss Hamilton, and the utter impossibility
of his marrying if he could ; and ended by enumerating
the suitors whom she had already refused, and whose
pretensions were so far above those of an untitled, penni
less, younger brother. " My good friend," replied the
gay Chevalier, " thou art a philosopher ; iu connais la
nature des etoiles du del; mais pour les astres de la terre,
tu n'y connais rien. I have just had a lecture from the
King, of three hours' length, upon the same score.

THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT. 115
What do you tell me of those Ostrogoths, my rivals?
Think you, if Miss Hamilton had deigned to listen to
them, that I should have cared to obtain her ? Fcoutez,
mon ami ! I will marry Miss Hamilton in spite of them
and the world; I will have my banishment reversed;
she shall be Dame du Palais to the Queen of France ;
my brother will be pleased to die some day or other for
our particular gratification. Miss Hamilton shall be
mistress of Semeat* and Countess de Grammont, to make
her amends for the loss of that oaf, Norfolk, that sot
Richmond, and that rake Falmouth. And what have
you to say to this, mon pauvre philosophe /"
And so it proved ; for Love in this instance was a
better prophet than usual. De Grammont obtained the
reward which his audacity and perseverance perhaps de
served, and carried off this paragon from all his competi
tors ; but it was no sooner secured, than he seems, with
his usual volatihty, to have neglected his conquest. It
has been said, with little probability, that one circum
stance attending this marriage inspired Moliere with the
first idea of Le Mariage Force. Louis XIV. having been
prevailed on at length io recall De Grammont, after a
banishment of six or seven years,f he was in such haste
to return to France, that he left London without per
forming his engagements to Miss Hamilton. Her two
* The chateau of the De Grammont family.
f De Grammont, with his usual audacity and love of contradiction,
had ventured to make himself particularly agreeable to a lady (Made
moiselle de Mothe-Houdancourt) whom his majesty as particularly ad
mired : for this crime he was banished.

116 THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.
brothers, Anthony and George Hamilton, pursued him
to Dover, and overtaking him at the inn, they exclaimed
aloud, " Chevaher de Grammont, n'avez vous rien oublie
a Londres ?" — " Pardonnez moi, messieurs," replied this
ardent lover, " j'ai oublie d'epouser votre sceur." We
may suppose that when his high-spirited mistress gave
him her hand, she was unacquainted with this charac
teristic trait.
The Count de Grammont left England finally in 1669,
about a year after his marriage. Charles, in a letter to
his sister, the unfortunate Duchess of Orleans, dated in
October that year, recommends the Countess de Gram
mont to his sister's friendship. " I writt to you," he
says, " yesterday by the Compte de Grammont ; but I
beleeve this letter will come sooner to your handes, for
he goes by Dieppe with his wife and family. And now
that I have named her, I cannot chuse but againe desire
you to be kind to her ; for besides the merritt her family
has on both sides, she is as good a creature as ever hved.
I beleeve she will passe for a handsome woman in France,
though she has not yett, since her lying-in, recovered that
good shape she had before, and I am afraid never will."
It appears, from the slight manner in which Charles
speaks of the Countess's beauty, that her charms were
partly lost upon his gross taste: nor is it surprising
that the man whose soul and senses were enslaved by
the vulgar and vicious Castlemaine, should be dead to
the intellectual graces and refined loveliness of Miss
Hamilton.

THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT. 117
The Countess de Grammont spent the rest of her life
in the French court. Her beauty and elegance charmed
the King, yet she did not universally please : Madame
de Maintenon thought her " plus agreable qu'aimable,"
perhaps because, though she could amuse with her lively
wit, she would not stoop to flatter. When Madame de
Caylus called her " Anglaise insupportable," she probably
spoke in the character of a French woman, and a rival
wit and beauty* Madame de Grammont, soon after her
arrival in France, was appointed " Dame du Palais " at
Versailles ; and, in a few years afterwards, De Grammont
became, by the death of his elder brother, one of the
richest and most powerful of the noblesse.
It is pain to think that the man who had sufficient
delicacy and discrimination to feel the accomplishments
of such a woman as Miss Hamilton, and spirit enough to
win and wear her, was so little worthy of his happiness.
We look for something far beyond mere superficial
talents and graces in him who was the husband of one
so peerless. He was gay, gallant, polished in his address,
and elegant in his person ; his wit ready, pointed, yet
perfectly good-humoured: he told a story with inimi
table grace — then, as now, a true Parisian accomphsh
ment. He appears to have been a man of the most
happy temperament, his vivacity and animal spirits in
exhaustible, and his invulnerable self-complacency beyond
* [Madame de S6vign6, in her letters to Madame de Guignan, speaks
generally of the Countess of Grammont as of a person by no means
agreeable, somewhat affected, and much inclined to give herself haughty
airs. — Ed. J

118 THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.
the reach of a serious thought or a profound feeling of
any kind. But these are only the garnish and " out
ward flourishes," which make a character, otherwise esti
mable, irresistible. Where was the high honour, the chi
valrous feeling, the refined sentiments, the nobility of
soul, the generous self-devotion, which should have dis
tinguished the husband of Miss Hamilton ? Frivolous,
worthless, heartless, inconstant, a selfish epicure, a gam
bler, a sharper, a most malicious enemy, a negligent
friend, and a faithless lover : — such was De Grammont,
such is the character which Bussy-Rabutin,* and even his
partial friend St. Evremond, have left of him, and which
he was well content to support in the " Memoires " which
Hamilton wrote from his dictation, and published in his
lifetime.f Whether the lovely, noble-minded, and far-
* " Le Chevalier avait les yeux rians, le nez bien fait, la bouche belle,
une petite fossette au menton, qui faisait un agreable effet sur son visage ;
je ne sais quoi de fin dans la physionomie, la taille assez belle s'il ne se
fut point voutd, l'esprit galant et delicat. II ecrivait le plus mal du
monde. — Quoiqu'il soit superflu de dire qu'un rival soit incommode, le
Chevalier l'etait au point qu'il eut mieux valu pour une pauvre femme,
en avoir quatre sur les bras que lui seul. II etait liberal j usques a la
profusion ; et par la sa maitresse ni ses rivaux ne pouvait avoir de valets
fideles. D'ailleurs le meilleur gar§on du monde. Une chose qui faisait
qu'il lui dtait plus difficile de persuader qu'a. un autre, e"tait qu'il ne par-
lait jamais serieusement, de sorte qu'il fallait qu'une femme se flattait
beaucoup pour croire qu'il fut amoureux d'elle." — Histoire Amoureuse
des Gaules.
f Before the Memqires du Comte de Grammqnt were published, they
were of course submitted to the censorship. Fontenelle was then Cen-
seur Royal ; and he was so scandalized at the idea of a peer of France
being represented as a common sharper, or, in polite phrase, " one who
used address to correct the errors of Fortune," that he flatly refused his
approbation. De Grammont, on hearing this, hastened to wait upon the

THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT. 119
superior woman, who had flung away herself upon his
unworthiness, afterwards discovered how false was the
foundation on which she had built her happiness, we
have no means of knowing ; — if not, she was more effec
tually bhnded by love than many of her sex who have
committed the same irreparable mistake.
They appear to have lived together on easy terms.
Towards the latter part of her life, the Countess de
Grammont became very devout, and was extremely
scandalized by her husband's epicurism and infidelity.
De Grammont, who had never known an hour's sickness,
used to say he should never die. At last, however, in his
seventy-fifth year, he fell dangerously ill, and the King
(Louis XIV.) sent the Marquis Dangeau to him, to re
mind him that it was time to think of God. . De Gram
mont listened to him with polite attention, and, turning
to his wife, said with a smile, " Comtesse, si vous n'y pre-
nez garde, Dangeau vous escamotera ma conversion !"
He recovered from this attack, and seemed more than
ever convinced of his own immortality; but paid at
scrupulous censor, and demanded, with his usual vivacity, what business
he had to be more solicitous about a nobleman's reputation than he was
himself? and desired that he would do him the favour instantly to sign
the licence, if the freedom with which his character was treated was the
only objection to the work. Fontenelle, as it may be supposed, made
no more difficulties. He might have replied to De Grammont, as the
latter did to Madame de Herault. The Count had visited the ladyto
pay his compliments of condolence on the death of her husband: she
received them with an air of extreme coldness ; upon which, suddenly
changing his tone, he exclaimed gaily, — " Le prenez-vous par la. ? — Ma
foi, je ne m'en soucie pas plus que vous ! "

120 THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.
length the forfeit of humanity, dying in 1707? at the
age of eighty- six. From a letter of St. Evremond to
Ninon de l'Enclos, it appears that his wife had the
satisfaction of converting him at last, and that he died
" tres devot."
The countess survived him but a short time : she left
two daughters. Claude Charlotte, the eldest, inherited
her mother's beauty and her father's wit and vivacity.
She married Henry Lord Stafford, and is the same Lady
Stafford who was the friend and correspondent of Lady
M. W. Montague. The youngest daughter died abbess
of a convent in Lorraine.
The portrait annexed is from the picture by Sir Peter
Lely, painted for the Duchess of York, and now at Wind
sor. We are told that, at the time, Lely was enchanted
with his subject, and every one considered it as the finest
effort of his pencil, both as a painting and a resemblance.*
The dignified attitude and elegant turn of the head, are
well befitting her who was " grande et gracieuse dans le
moindre de ses movemens :" we have here " le petit nez
delicat," the fine contour of face, the lovely bust, the
open expansive brow, and the lips, ripe, rich, and breath
ing sweets, — at least to the imagination. A few pearls
are negligently interwoven among her luxuriant tresses,
as if on purpose to recall Crashaw's beautiful compliment
to his mistress : —

* Chaque portrait parut un chef-d'oeuvre ; et celui de Mademoiselle
Hamilton parut le plus acheve. Lely avoua qu'il y avait prit plaisir, &c.

THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT. 121
" Tresses that wear
Jewels but to declare
How much themselves more precious are.
Each ruby there,
Or pearl, that dare appear,
Be its own blush, — be its own tear "
The countenance has infinitely more spirit and intel
lect than Sir Peter Lely's beauties in general exhibit ;
and though, perhaps, a little too proud and elevated in
its present expression, it must have been, when bright
ened into smiles, or softened with affection, exquisitely
bewitching. The neck and throat are beautifully painted,
the drapery is grand and well-disposed, and the back
ground has a rich and deep tone of colour, finely reliev
ing the figure.
There is a slight defect in the drawing of the right
arm. Lely did not, like Vandyke, paint his hands and
arms from nature : they are in general all alike, pretty
and delicate, but destitute of individual character, and
often ill drawn. In the present instance this is the more
to be regretted, because Miss Hamilton, among her
other perfections, was celebrated for the matchless
beauty of her hand and arm.
EPITRE DE ST. EVREMOND A M. LE CHEVALIER DE GRAMMONT,
A V occasion de son amour pour Mademoiselle Hamilton.
Il n'est qu'un Chevalier au monde !
Et que ceux de la table ronde,
Que les plus fameux aux tournois,
Aux avantures, aux exploits,
i R

122 THE COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.
Me pardonnent si je les quitte
Pour chanter un nouveau merite ;
C'est celui qu' on vit a. la cour,
Jadis si galant sans amour,
Le raeme qui sut a Bruxelles
Comme ici plaire aux demoiselles ;
Gagner tout l'argent des maris,
Et puis revenir a Paris,
Ayant couru toute la terre
Dans le jeu, l'amour, et la guerre.
Insolent en prosperite,
Fort courtois en necessite,
L' ame en fortune liberale,
Aux cr^anciers pas trop loyale :
Qui n'a change", ni changera,
Et seul au monde qu'on verra
Soutenir la blanche vieillesse
Comme il a passe la jeunesse ;
Rare merveille de nos jours !
N'etaient vos trop longues amours,
N'^tait la sincere tendresse
Dont vous aimez votre princesse,
N'etait qu' ici les beaux d^sirs
Vous font pousser de vrais soupirs,
Et qu' enfin vous quittez pour elle
Votre merite d' infidelle —
Cher et parfait original !
Vous n' auriez jamais eu d'egal.
II est des heros pour la guerre,
Mille grands hommes sur la terre,
Mais au sens de Saint Evremond
Rien qu'un Chevalier de Grammont ;
Et jamais ne sera de vie,
Plus admire et moins suivie !

Painted by Wi/sing.

Sngrayed by J2 .S erlveth.
fflstencal Engraver lo Ms Majesty.

A 1,/e////..-

7

l;/^/'/

du<

d%i

THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.

Her peTson was a paradise, and her soul the cherub to guard it."
Dryden.

Emilie de Nassau, Countess of Ossory, was the eldest
daughter of Louis de Nassau, Lord of Beverweert, of
Odyke, and Auverquerque, in Holland, the acknow
ledged, but not legitimate, son of Maurice Prince of
Orange. He was a man of tried virtue, talents, and
courage, and the intimate friend of De Witt.
Lady Ossory is interesting from her extreme beauty,
her tenderness, and her feminine virtues. But her alli
ance with the house of Ormond, which connected her at
the same time with all the noblest families of England
and Ireland,* and made her the daughter, wife, and
mother of heroes, has rendered her something more than
* And more immediately with those of Butler, Hamilton, Stewart,
Beaufort, Chesterfield, Devonshire, Derby, Clancarty, and Clanricarde,
&c. Lady Ossory's marriage was partly the means of raising others of
her family to English alliances and English honours ; her youngest sis
ter, Charlotte de Nassau, married the Earl of Arlington, and was mother
to the first Duchess of Grafton ; her youngest brother, Henry de Nassau
d'Auverquerque, was created Earl of Grantham.

124

THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.

merely interesting ; has shed around her person and
memory that lustre which best becomes a woman, — the
lustre reflected from the glory and the virtues of her
husband. The father of the Earl of Ossory was James, the
great Duke of Ormond ; and never, upon conqueror or
potentate, was that epithet more justly bestowed. He
was, without exception, the most illustrious character of
the times in which he lived ; without reproach as a man,
a subject, a patriot, and a soldier. He had attached him
self, from principle, to the cause of Charles the First ;
and through the whole of the civil wars had maintained
his cause with the most unshaken constancy, and the
most generous self-devotion. After having expended
his patrimony in the service of that monarch and his
successor, and finding that all was lost, except honour,
he' refused the conditions offered by Cromwell, and,
making his escape in a small boat, joined the fortunes
of the exiled monarch ; and was afterwards in his pros
perity, as in his adversity, his ablest counsellor, and
truest friend, — never his flatterer, or his favourite*
The Duchess of Ormond his wife, and the mother of
* As the loyalty of Ormond was that of principle, the favour or dis
pleasure of his capricious master never made the slightest alteration in
his demeanour ; so that his courteous equanimity sometimes abashed the
King. The Duke of Buckingham on one occasion whispered, " I wish
your majesty would resolve me one question ; whether it be the Duke of
Ormond who is out of favour with your majesty, or your majesty with
the Duke of Ormond ? for you appear the most out of countenance of
the two !"

THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY. 125
Lord Ossory, was a woman of great beauty, and of an
undaunted spirit. She was the heiress of the Earl of
Desmond, and her union with the duke, then Lord
Thurles, put an end to the feuds and lawsuits which had
for years divided the houses of Desmond and Ormond,
and threatened the ruin of both. Their marriage, how
ever, was not only a marriage of policy, but of passion ;
their early attachment was attended by various difficul
ties and romantic distresses, and in particular by one
circumstance, which throws so deep an interest round
the character of the duchess, that I venture to relate it.
She was a ward of the King, (Charles I.) who bestowed
the guardianship of her person and her vast estates on
the Earl of Holland. While the lawsuit was pending
between her and Lord Thurles, she happened to meet
her young adversary at court, and struck with his noble
qualities and fine person, fell in love with him ; she was
young, inexperienced, and as self-willed as a conscious
beauty and a great heiress may be supposed to have
been ; and took so little care to conceal the partiality she
felt, that not only the object of her affection, but the
whole court, was aware of it. The King sent to Lord
Thurles, desiring that he would desist from any preten
sions to the hand of the young lady, as his majesty de
signed her for another. To this the lover replied, with
a spirit which justified the lady's choice, that he should
be sorry to displease his majesty, but that he considered
he had even a better title than any other nobleman about
the court to pay the Lady Elizabeth those attentions
which were due to her beauty and merits, being himself

126 THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.
her " poor cousin and kinsman." The Lady Elizabeth,
on her part, was not slow to declare her abhorrence of
the match proposed by the King, and her determination
to marry Lord Thurles, and none other. The union was
in all respects the most eligible for both; no other
means could be found to put an end to their family dis
sensions, and Lady Elizabeth strongly felt, and as elo
quently pleaded, that reason and interest were on the
side of her girlish passion. But the King was resolute ;
her guardian, according to the fashion of obdurate guar
dians from time immemorial, placed the young lady in
durance vile, and not only those consequences ensued
which are de rigueur in such cases, but others which
certainly were not anticipated by any of the parties
concerned. The young lovers kept up a constant correspondence
of letters and tokens, by means of Lady Isabella Rich,
the daughter of the Earl of Holland, who not being so
strictly secluded as her father's ward, contrived to meet
Lord Thurles secretly. Lady Isabella was handsome,
lively, good-natured, and attached to Lady Elizabeth,
with whom she had been educated ; but she was not of
an age or a disposition to carry on this clandestine inter
course with safety to herself. In short — not to be too
circumstantial — Lady Isabella found her friend's lover
only too agreeable; she fell a victim to passion and
opportunity, but certainly not to any preconcerted vil-
lany on the part of Lord Thurles, who was then only
nineteen ; the whole tenour of his life, before and after,
belies such an imputation. The consequences were,

THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY. 127
that Lady Isabella became the mother of an infant, which
was immediately sent abroad and carefully educated at
Paris, without any knowledge of his parents. The secret
was so faithfully kept, that not even a breath of sus
picion rested upon Lady Isabella ; and soon afterwards,
Lord Thurles, by bribing the avarice of Lord Holland,*
obtained his consent and his interest with the King, and
married Lady Elizabeth.
Several years afterwards, when the duke visited Paris,
his first care was to inquire for this son, whom he found
a blooming and hopeful youth, accomplished in all the
exercises which became his age : the father could not
deny himself the pleasure of sending the unhappy mother
some tidings of her child ; but having occasion to write
to his wife the same day, he made a fatal mistake in the
direction of the two letters, and that which was intended
for Lady Isabella fell into the hands of the Duchess
of Ormond.
The duchess passionately loved her husband ; and
notwithstanding the lapse of years, she must have felt,
on this occasion, as a woman would naturally feel on dis
covering that she had been betrayed in the tenderest
point by her lover and her friend. She was still sitting
with the letter open in her hand, lost in painful astonish
ment, when Lady Isabella was announced ; an exchange
of letters and a mutual explanation took place, and the
scene which must have ensued may be imagined. Lady
Isabella standing before her injured friend, bowed down
* He bought the earl's consent with 15,000/.

128 THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.
to the earth with " penetrative shame," while that gene
rous friend, unable to bear the sight of her humiliation,
threw her arms round her neck, and with tears and a
thousand fond caresses, endeavoured to reconcile her
with herself, assured her of her perfect forgiveness, and
promised that the past should be to her as if it had
never been.
And she kept her word ; for it is even said, and, if
true, it is a rare instance of female discretion, that not
even the duke ever suspected his wife's knowledge of
this transaction.
It happened, after the time of which we speak, that
Lady Isabella and her family being obliged to fly from
England, the Duchess of Ormond offered her an asylum
in her house at Caen ; and Lady Isabella, worthy in
this instance of such a friend, accepted the offer as
frankly as it was made. She resided for two years under
the roof of the Duke and Duchess of Ormond, in all
honour and confidence. The duchess never condescended
to doubt either the truth and love of her husband, or the
honour and gratitude of her friend ; her domestic peace
was never disturbed by petty jealousy, nor her noble con
fidence wronged by those she had trusted. It is justice
to Lady Isabella to add, that she preserved to the end
of her life an unblemished reputation, and died un
married* * Her son died young before the Restoration. These particulars
which were not known till after the death of the duke, may be found in
Carte's Life of Ormond, vol. iii., folio.

THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY. 129
To return to the Earl of Ossory. When the Duke of
Ormond withdrew to France, in 1655, he found himself
obhged to leave his wife and family behind ; and soon
afterwards Cromwell caused the Earl of Ossory to be ar
rested, upon, no specific charge, and committed to the
Tower.* His mother waited upon the Protector to re
monstrate, and to solicit his enlargement, pleading the
quiet and inoffensive life which she led with her children
in London. Cromwell told her plainly, that he had more
reason to fear her than any body else. She rephed with
dignity and spirit, and in the presence of a numerous
drawing-room, that " she desired no favour at his hands,
but merely justice to her innocent son ;" and that " she
thought it strange that she, who had never been con
cerned in a plot in her life, nor opened her mouth against
* [The Earl of Ossory'had, previously to this, been himself residing
at the French court. It was there that the excellent and amiable Evelyn
became acquainted with him, and their friendship continued until the
Earl of Ossory's death, when he took his last farewell of Evelyn as of the
" oldest friend" he had. In his Diary, Jan. 13, 1649-50, Evelyn, at
Paris, commemorates the " exercises on horseback " of Ossory and his
brother Richard ; and soon after he relates the following anecdote.
" May 7- I went with Sir Richard Browne's lady and my wife, together
with the Earle of Chesterfield, Lord Ossorie, and his brother, to Vamber,
a place neere the citty famous for butter ; when coming homewards, be
ing on foote, a quarrel arose between Lord Ossorie and a man in a gar
den, who thrust Lord Ossorie from the gate with uncivil language ; on
which our young gallant struck the fellow on the pate, and bid him aske
pardon, which he did with much submission, and so we parted : but we
were not gon far, before we heard a noise behind us, and saw people com
ing with gunns, swords, staves, and forks, and who followed flinging
stones ; on which we turn'd and were forc'd to engage, and with our
swords, stones, and the help of our servants, (one of whom had a pistol,)
made our retreate for neare a quarter of a mile, when we took shelter in
I. S

130 THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.
his person and government, should be represented as so
terrible a person." — " No, madam," replied Cromwell,
" that is not the case ; but your worth has gained you so
great an influence over all the commanders of our party,
and we know so well your power over your own party,
that it is in your ladyship's breast to act what you please."
She answered, " that she must needs construe this speech
into a civil compliment ;" but a compliment and a shrug
were all she could get from the politic Protector, till
Ossory fell dangerously ill. She then solicited for him
with such vehemence, that Cromwell at length set him
at liberty ; and the earl, attended by his brother, Lord
Richard, disguised as his servant, escaped to the Hague
He was received there with high honour by his father's
friends, and in particular by M.de Beverweert, who enter-
a house where we were besieg'd, and at length forc'd to submit to be
prisoners. Lord Hatton, with some others, were taken prisoners in the
flight, and his lordship was confin'd under three locks and as many
doores in this rude fellow's master's house, who pretended to be steward
to Monsr- St. Germain, one of the presidents of the Grand Chambre du
Parliament, and a canon of Notre Dame. Severall of us were muph
hurt. One of our lacquies escaping to Paris, caused the bailiff of St.
Germain to come with his guard and rescue us. Immediately afterwards
came Monsr- St. Germain himselfe in greate wrath, on hearing that his
housekeeper was assaulted; but when he saw the king's officers, the gentle
men and noblemen, with his majesty's resident, and understood the occa
sion, he was ashamed of the accident, requesting the fellow's pardon, and
desiring the ladys to accept their submission and a supper at his house."
" I have often heard that gallant gentleman my Lord Ossorie affirme
solemnly, that in all the conflicts he ever was in, at sea or on land, (in
the most desperate of both which he had often been,) he behev'd he was
never in so much danger as when these people rose against us. He us'd
to call it the battaill de Vambre, and remember it with a greate deale of
mirth as an adventure en cavalierd — Ed.]

THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY. 131
tained the English royalists with great hospitality. In
her father's house, Lord Ossory had frequent and almost
daily opportunities of seeing and conversing with the
Lady Emilie : the more he saw and knew of her, the
more he admired, and at length loved, with all the
enthusiasm of his character ; and he assured his father
that " the happiness of his life depended on passing it
with her."
At this time the Earl of Ossory was about four-and-
twenty ; he was tall, well-made, and handsome, with an
open expressive countenance, and fine teeth and hair ;
he rode, fenced, and danced remarkably well ; played on
the lute and the guitar ; spoke French eloquently, and
Italian fluently ; was a good historian ; and seems to have
had a taste for hght and elegant literature ; for Sir Robert
Southwell represents him as so well read in poetry and
romance, that " in a gallery full of pictures and hang
ings, he could tell the stories of all that were there
described." These, however, were the mere superficial
graces which enabled him to please in a drawing-room ;
and to these he added all the rare and noble quahties
which can distinguish a man in the cabinet and in the
field. He was wise in counsel, quick and decided in
action, as brave in battle as an Amadis of Gaul, — gallant
" beyond the fiction of romance," humane, courteous,
affable, temperate, generous to profusion, and open al
most to a fault. " In a word," says the historian, " his
virtue was unspotted in the centre of a luxurious court ;
his integrity unblemished amid all the vices of the times ;
his honour untainted through the course of his whole

132 THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.
life ;" and it is most worthy of remark, that in those
days, when the spirits of men were heated with party
rage, when profligate pens were wielded by profligate
and obscure individuals, and satire " unbated and enve
nomed," was levelled at whatever was noble, or beautiful,
or good in the land, not a single expression can any
where be traced to contradict or invalidate this universal
testimony. " No writer," (I quote again from history,)
" ever appeared, then or since, so regardless of truth and
of his own character, as to venture one stroke of censure
on that of the Earl of Ossory."*
Such a man might have pretended to the hand of any
woman upon earth ; and no woman — though she had
been a throned and sceptred queen, in beauties, virtues,
graces, friends, exceeding all account, and dowered with
kingdoms, but would have been honoured in his choice.
If, therefore, some difficulties attended his marriage, it
will easily be believed that they arose not on the part of
the lady of his love.
The Duke of Ormond had commenced a treaty of mar
riage for his son with a daughter of Lord Southampton,!
which he broke off with regret, for her portion was
* Kippis' Biog. Brit. vol. iii., p. 84; Collins; Carte's Life of Ormond,
vol. iii.; and Sir Robert Southwell's Ireland.
f Afterwards Lady Russel, — the Lady Russel, whose very name
sanctifies the paper upon which it is written. It is, however, no impu
tation upon Lord Ossory's taste that he preferred the lady he knew and
loved to the lady he had never seen, and whose character had not yet
been developed by those trials, out of which she arose an angel upon
earth.

THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY. 133
double that of the Lady Emilie : and fortune was at this
time an object in the Ormond family, reduced as they
were by exile, confiscation, and losses of every kind.
M. de Beverweert would give his daughter no more than
^§10,000 ; and he insisted on his future son-in-law being
put into immediate possession of ^§1200 a-year ; a large
income in those days, but which would have been a mere
trifle when the family were in power and prosperity.
The Duchess of Ormond was put to great difficulties, the
condition of her estate in Ireland scarce allowing her to
part with so large a portion of it, " but she could deny
nothing to her beloved son."* The duke, who looked
upon this alliance as a means of strengthening his inte
rest with De Witt, gave his consent, and the marriage
was celebrated at the Hague, November 17, 1659. The
following year, the King's restoration took place, and
Ossory brought his young and beautiful bride in triumph
to England.
It does not appear that Lady Ossory was remarkable
for her wit ; but she had excellent sense, an affectionate
heart, and the sweetest temper in nature.f Her hus
band might have said of her, as Shakspeare so beautifully
says of his mistress :
" Fair, kind, and true is all my argument j
Kind is my love to-day, to-morrow kind,
Still constant in a wondrous excellence." J
The power she obtained and preserved in her hus-
* Verbatim from Carte, vol. iii. f Carte, vol. iii.
t Sonnet 105.

134 THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.
band's noble heart, is no slight argument of her superior
understanding ; in that age of universal gallantry, Lord
Ossory dared to be faithful to his wife ; and there hved
not the man who would have dared to banter him upon
the subject. The only fashionable folly he was known
to indulge in, was gaming ; he sometimes played high, —
an imprudence into which his habits, as a courtier, ne
cessarily led him. After having lost deeply, he would
return home, thoughtful and moody ; and when his wife
tenderly inquired the cause, and he would tell her that
he was " vexed with himself for playing the fool, and
gaming, and had lost, perhaps, a thousand pounds ;" she
would still desire him " not to be troubled, for she would
find means to save it at home." — " She was, indeed,"
adds the grave historian of the family, " an admirable
economist, always cheerful, and never known to be out
of humour ; so that they hved together in the most per
fect harmony imaginable. Lord Ossory never found any
place or company more agreeable than he found at home ;
and when he returned thither from court, they con
stantly met with open arms, with kind embraces, and
the most moving expressions of mutual tenderness."*
But this picture, bright and beautiful as it is, had its
shades. In this world of ours, " where but to think, is
to be full of sorrow," Lady Ossory was so far most happy,
that though she suffered through those she loved, (as all
must do who embark their happiness in their affections,)
she never suffered by them : but she lost several of her
* Carte's Life of Ormond, vol. iii.

THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY. 135
numerous family at an early age, and the frequent
absence of Lord Ossory, whilst engaged in the highest
civil and military employments, must have doomed her
to many widowed hours. The reckless valour, too, with
which he exposed his life, and which was such as even to
call down a rebuke from his brave father, must have filled
the gentle bosom of his wife with a thousand fond anxi
eties : yet might not those partings and meetings, those
alternations of hope and fear, those trembling terrors
for his safety, those rapturous tears which greeted his
return, have assisted to keep freshly alive, through a
long series of years, all the romance of early passion ?
And was not this much? Did Lady Ossory buy too
dearly the proud happiness of belonging to that man,
upon whom the eyes of all Europe were fixed to gaze
and to admire ? who from every new triumph brought
her home a faith and love unchanged, — deposing his
honours at her feet, and his cares in her gentle arms ?
Let the woman who reads this question, answer it to
her own heart.
An idea may be formed of Lady Ossory's hfe and feel
ings, by a rapid glance over her husband's brilliant
career. He was twice Lord-Deputy in Ireland ; twice
an ambassador : there was no considerable action fought
by sea or land, during the reign of Charles II., in which
he did not distinguish himself: he was at the same time
a general in the army, and rear-admiral of the Red ; and
in 1673, he hoisted the Union flag as Commander-in-
Chief of the whole fleet, in the absence of Prince Ru
pert. During the Dutch war, the principle and policy

136 THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.
of which he entirely disapproved,* he nevertheless served
with heroic valour, if not with enthusiasm ; and he would
have destroyed the whole fleet of Holland, if the timi
dity of the King's council had not defeated his scheme.f
He was Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, a knight of the
Garter, and a privy counsellor, lord of the King's bed
chamber, and lord-chamberlain to the Queen. He lived,
when in London, with such munificent hospitality, that
it must have required all Lady Ossory's skill, as an eco
nomist, to manage their household. He was remarkable
for seeking out all the foreigners of any distinction or
merit who visited England, and was fond of entertaining
them at his-table.J To this, perhaps, he partly owed
* See his famous speech in defence of his father against Lord Shaftes
bury. [Evelyn has this entry in his Diary, 12th March, 1671-2 : —
" Now was the first blow given by us to the Dutch convoy of the Smyrna
fleete, by Sir Robert Holmes and Lord Ossorie, in which we received
little save blows, and a worthy reproch for attacking our neighbours 'ere
any war was proclaim'd, and then pretending the occasion to be, that
some time before, the Merlin yacht chanceing to saile thro' the whole
Dutch fleete, their admiral did not strike to that trifling vessel. Surely
this was a quarrel slenderly grounded, and not becoming Christian
neighbours. We are like to thrive accordingly. Lord Ossorie several
times deplor'd to me his being engaged in it ; he had more justice and
honour than in the least to approve of it, tho' he had ben over persuaded
to the expedition." — Ed.]
-f- It is not now understood why this plan, which was allowed to be
simple and feasible, though requiring great courage to execute, was not
acceded to ; when some of the council objected, Ossory told the King,
" that he would blow up the whole Dutch fleet with a farthing candle, or
have his head set upon Westminster Hall beside Cromwell's."
j Dryden describes the house of Ormond as one " open as that of Pub-
licola, where all were equally admitted^ where nothing that was reason
able was denied, where misfortune was a powerful recommendation, and
where want itself was a powerful mediator, and stood next to merit."

THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY. 137
his widely extended reputation on the Continent. When
he was Envoy-Extraordinary in France, in 1667, Louis
XIV. endeavoured to prevail upon him to enter into his
service. He offered him personally, and through his
ministers, the most magnificent appointments ; and when
these were refused, he was desired only to name what
would content him for himself and his friends. Finding
all in vain, the King, at his departure, loaded him with
favours, and presented him with a jewel worth 2000/.
It was not alone the dangers of battle that Lady
Ossory had to fear for her husband ; his chivalrous ho
nour and the vehemence of his character sometimes
perilled his life in more private encounters. His memo
rable quarrel with the Duke of Buckingham is well
known. The duke had asserted in the House of Lords,
that " whoever opposed the Bill then under discussion,"
(the Irish Cattle Bill,) " had either an Irish interest, or
an Irish understanding." Ossory called on the duke to
retract his words, which he considered as an insolent
reflection on his country, or meet him with his sword in
his hand to maintain them. The whole affair, in which
Ossory behaved with so much frankness and gallantry,
and in which the duke cut such a pitiful, or rather such
an infamous figure, may be found at length in Clarendon.
In 1671, occurred that extraordinary attempt on the
life of the Duke of Ormond by the ruffian Blood, of no
torious memory ; it is supposed at the instigation of
Buckingham. There was, in fact, something so auda
cious and so theatrical in the idea of hanging the duke
i. t

138 THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.
upon the gallows at Tyburn, that it could only have
originated with that "fanfaron de crimes." Such, at
least, was the general opinion at the time. A few days
after this event, Lord Ossory meeting the Duke of
Buckingham in the King's chamber, the colour flushed
to his temples with passion, and his eyes sparkled with
such ire, that the duke took refuge behind the King's
chair. " My lord," said Ossory, stepping up to him, " I
know well that you are at the bottom of this late at
tempt of Blood's upon my father ; and therefore I give
you fair warning, if my father comes to a violent end by
sword or pistol, — if he dies by the hand of a ruffian, or
the more secret way of poison, I shall not be at a loss to
know the first author of it. I shall consider you as the
assassin ; I shall treat you as such, and I shall pistol you,
though you stood beside the King's chair ; and I tell it
you in his majesty's presence, that you may be sure I
shah keep my word." So saying, he turned upon his
heel, leaving the duke so completely overawed, that he
had not even spirit to utter a denial.*
* I believe no writer has remarked the singular coincidence between the
characters and fortunes of the Duke of Ormond, and his ancestor, the Earl
of Ormond, of Elizabeth's time. Both were brave, popular, enthusias
tically loyal, and inflexibly honest ; both were accomplished courtiers, and
lived to experience the ingratitude and injustice of the princes they had
served ; both experienced many changes of fortune, and hved to an extreme
old age, so as to behold their heirs in the third generation ; both were op
posed to the reigning favourites, for the enmity of the Duke of Ormond
and Buckingham was at least equal to that of the Earl of Ormond and
Lord Leicester. As Buckingham was believed to have instigated Blood
in his attempt on the Duke of Ormond, so Leicester was known to have
attempted the assassination of Ormond by means of a hired cut-throat,

THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY. 139
But it is time to stop ; the imagination lingers over
the subject, unwilling to approach the catastrophe. To
complete the glorious picture, such a spirit should have
passed away from the earth as unstained by grief as by
fear — unembittered, unbroken to the last ; and it was
far otherwise. In 1680, the earl, leaving Lady Ossory
at the seat of her daughter, Lady Derby, came to Lon
don to prepare for his departure on a new expedition.
He had been appointed governor of Tangier, but wi£h
forces so inadequate that he considered himself cast
away, " not only on a hazardous adventure, but an im
possibility."* " This," says Evelyn, " touched my lord
deeply, that he should be so little consider'd as to put
him on a businesse in which he should probably not
only lose his reputation, but be charged with all the
miscarriages and ill-successe. My lord being an exceed
ing brave and valiant person, and who had so approved
himself in divers signal batailes, both at sea and land ;
so beloved and so esteem'd by the people, as one they
depended upon in all occasions worthy of such a cap-
who was afterwards, like Blood, forgiven and rewarded. The following
anecdote is very characteristic : — The Earl of Ormond coming one day to
court, met Lord Leicester in the ante-chamber. After the usual saluta
tions, " My lord," said Leicester, insolently ; " I dreamed of you last
night !" — " Indeed," replied Ormond, " what could your lordship dream
of me ?" — " I dreamed that I gave you a box on the ear." — " Dreams are
interpreted by contraries," replied the high-spirited Irishman, and in
stantly lent him a cuff on the ear, which made the favourite stagger.
For this he was committed to the Tower by Elizabeth.
* Lord Sunderland said in council, that " Tangier must necessarily
be lost ; but that it was fit Lord Ossory should be sent, that they might
give some account of it to the world." — Evelyn's Memoirs.

140 THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.
tain ; he looked on this as too great an indifference
in his majesty, after all his services and the merits of
his father, the Duke of Ormond, and a designe of some
who envied his virtue. It certainly took so deep roote
in his mind, that he who was the most void of feare in
the world, (and assur'd me he would go to Tangier with
ten men, if his majesty commanded him,) could not
beare up against this unkindness."
The extreme heat of the weather, the fatigue he
underwent in making his preparations, and the deep
sense of the injury he had received, which seems to
have struck upon his heart, threw him into a delirious
fever : the last coherent words he spoke, were to name
his wife, and recommend her and her children to his
father's care.* He died at the house of his brother-in-
law, Lord Arlington, four days afterwards, in his forty-
sixth year : leaving behind him a character which poetry
cannot embellish, nor flattery exaggerate. Even the
muse of Dryden cowered when he approached the
theme : after reading the life of Lord Ossory in plain
and not very elegant prose, his poetical panegyric ap
pears cold and strained.j- The reply of the Duke of
* " My son's kindness to his wife, and his care of her, increases my
value for him, and my sorrow for him, and I am glad he expressed it so
frequently, when he thought of that sad hour which is come upon us ;
but there was no other need of it than the manifestation of his good-na
ture, for I am ready to do for her, whatever she or her friends can
wish." — Letter of the Duke of Ormond to Lord Arlington.
-J- Dryden was a practised hand at an elegy and a panegyric, and in
the present instance he was more in earnest than usual ; but turn from
his tuneful couplets to the simple entry which Evelyn has made in his

THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY. 141
Ormond to some impertinent comforter is well known,
and is the most comprehensive and affecting eulogy ever
pronounced : — " I would not exchange my dead son for
any living, son in Christendom !"*
Lord Ossory died before his unhappy wife could even
hear of his illness. She did not, upon her bereavement,
break out into any tumultuous sorrow ; she bowed her
head to the stroke with apparent resignation, and never
raised it again. She survived her husband little more
than three years, and dying in January, 1684, was buried
in Christ Church.
The Countess of Ossory was the mother of twelve
children, of whom, two sons and three daughters sur
vived her.
Diary, of the " death of his noble and illustrious friend, the Lord
Ossorie." — " His majesty never lost a worthier subject, nor father a
better or more dutiful son ; a loving, generous, good-natured, and per
fectly obliging friend ; one who had done innumerable kindnesses to
several before they knew it, nor did he ever advance any that were not
worthy : no one more brave, more modest ; none more humble, sober,
and every way virtuous. Unhappy England in this illustrious person's
loss ! Universal was the mourning for him, and the eulogies on him :
I staid night and day by his bed side to his last gasp, to close his dear
eyes ! O sad father, mother, wife, and children ! What shall 1 add ? he
deserved all that a sincere friend, a brave soldier, a virtuous courtier,
a loyal subject, an honest man, a bountiful master, and a good Christian
could deserve of his prince and country." — Evelyn's Memoirs, vol. i.,
p. 490.
* In the private desk of the duke was found a Prayer upon the occa
sion of his son's death, in which the old man implores that " this dispen
sation might melt, not break his heart."

142 THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.
Her eldest son, James, succeeded his grandfather as
Duke of Ormond, in 1688. He inherited the virtues,
talents, and splendid fortunes of his princely race. He
was twice Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, which he go
verned with more affection from the people, and kept
his court in greater splendour than ever was known in
that kingdom. He was twice Captain-General and Com
mander-in-Chief of the land forces of Great Britain, a
knight of the Garter, and Lord-Constable of England
at the coronation of William the Third. But in 1715,
he was impeached in the House of Commons by a fac
tious party; and in a moment of pique and disdain he
refused to wait his trial, retired to France, and joined
the party of the Pretender : he was of course attainted,
his estate declared forfeit, and his honours extinguished.
Having thus rashly decided, he did not, like his friend
Bolingbroke, restore himself to favour by betraying the
cause he had embraced : he died at Avignon, (where he
had for some time subsisted on a pension from the King
of Spain,) leaving no issue. To this Duke of Ormond,
Dryden has dedicated his Fables ; and to his duchess, (a
daughter of the Duke of Beaufort,) is addressed the
beautiful introduction to the Tale of Palamon and
Arcite. Lady Ossory's second son, Lord Charles Butler, was
created Earl of Arran on the death of his uncle Richard.
He married a daughter of Lord Crewe, and dying in
1758, the title became extinct : he was the last male
representative of this branch of the family.

THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY. 143
Of the three daughters, the eldest, Lady Ehzabeth,
married William ninth Earl of Derby. Lady Emelia
died unmarried, at the age of one hundred, having lived
through six reigns ; and Lady Henrietta was united to
her cousin, Henry de Nassau, Earl of Grantham.
The portrait, never before engraved, is after the pic
ture by Wissing, in the Beauty-room at Windsor ; the
dress is a crimson boddice, not very becoming, with a
veil shading the hair ; the arms and hands are ill drawn,
but the face is beautiful, the features small and dehcate,
with just that charming expression of modesty and in
nocence, which the fancy would love to ascribe to the
wife of Ossory.

[The following letter was written by the Duke of Or
mond to the Countess of Clancarty, on Lord Ossory's
death. " Kilkenny, Aug. 11, 1680.
" Since I may claim a part in your letter to my
wife, having so great a share in the sad subject of it ;
and since she is not in composure enough to write her
self, she desires you would receive from me her and my
thanks for the consolation you intend us, and which
really your pious reflections and advices do afford. I
confess we have need of all the assistances of reason and
religion to support us ; for though there be nothing in
this life more natural or more visible than the frailty of
it, and that we know whoever comes into this world

144 THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.
must, a little sooner or a little later, as certainly go out of
it, and that a grave is as sure a receptacle as the womb ;
yet either too much value of ourselves, or rather too
little regard to the God of life and death, makes us bear
afflictions of this kind, when they come home to our
selves, with less submission and resignation than we
ought. You have, like us, lost an eldest son, dear to you,
and valuable in the world; and we were in the same de
gree of relation to yours, that you were to ours. That
God that gave you strength and patience, and an holy
acquiescence, continue his comforts to you, and confer
them on us."
The Queen, on this truly melancholy occasion, wrote
with her own hand the following letter to the duke.
Indorsed, " Received 3rd September, 1681 ."
" My Lord Duke of Ormond.
" I do not think any thing I can say will lessen
your trouble for the death of my Lord Ossory, who is so
great a loss to the King and the publicke, as well as to my
own particular service, that I know not how to express
it ; but every day will teach me, by shewing me the
want I shall find of so true a friend. But I must have
so much pity upon you, as to say but little on so sad a
subject ; conjuring you to believe that I am,
My Lord Duke of Ormond,
Your very affectionate friend,
Catherina Regina."

THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY. 145
The following brief character of Lady Ossory's two
sons, and of her son-in-law, are taken from Spring
Macky's Memoirs, 1733, 8vo., p. 10.
"James, Duke of Ormond. — On Queen Anne's
accession to the throne, he had the command given him
of the expedition to Cadiz ; which miscarried, not by his
fault, as it appeared plainly in the examination of that
affair in the House of Peers ; and he had the good luck
in his return to burn the French fleet at Vigo, and to
assist at the solemn Te Deum, sung by the Queen at St.
Paul's for that expedition ; when it appeared how much
he was the darling of the people, who neglected their
sovereign, and applauded him more, perhaps, than ever
any subject was on any occasion. He was sent soon
after Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, where he governed
with more affection from the people, and his court was in
greater splendor, than ever was known in that kingdom.
" He certainly was one of the most brave, generous,
princely men that ever was, but good-natured to a fault ;
loved glory, and consequently was crowded with flat
terers : never knew how to refuse any body, which was
the reason why he obtained so little from King William,
asking for every body. He had all the qualities of a
great man, except that one of a statesman, hating busi
ness ; loved, and was beloved by the ladies ; of a low
stature, but well shaped ; a good mien and address ; a
fair complexion, and very beautiful face."
Dean Swift, in his Manuscript Notes, observes of the
foregoing, that it is " fairly enough writ."
i. u

146 THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.
" Lord Butler of Weston. — Is Earl of Arran in
Ireland, and brother to the Duke of Ormond : he com
manded a troop of Horse-Guards ; was gentleman of the
bed-chamber to King William ; of very good sense,
though he seldom shewed it ; of a fair complexion,
middle stature."
Dean Swift observes on this paragraph : " This is right,
but he is the most neghgent of his own affairs."
"Henry d' Auverquerque, Earl of Grantham. —
He married the Duke of Ormond's sister ; he is a very
pretty gentleman, and fair complexioned."
" A good for nothing," saith Dean Swift. — Ed.]

Painted by Sir Pke&r Zely.

Engraved, by T. Wrigfit.

i.orui^rt, j.iM.o'Lis/i<i2

12 by Jlenry dblburn, drread A'anldow^h Street, lc?3/9

LADY DENHAM.

" For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds-
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds !"
Shakspeare.

This beautiful woman is interesting from the poetical
fame of her husband, and her own tragical and myste
rious fate ; but she presents, in all respects, a lamentable
contrast to the gentle and blameless Lady Ossory.
Lady Denham was the eldest of two sisters, daughters
of Sir William Brooke, K.B., and nieces of Digby, Earl
of Bristol.* Both were beautiful and lively ; or, as De
Grammont expresses it, "faites pour donner de I' amour,
etpour en prendre ;" and their profligate uncle, who was
at this time intriguing against the influence of Lady
Castlemaine, introduced them at court, in the hope that
one or both would captivate the heart of the versatile
Charles. How far these young girls, and both were then
very young, lent themselves to this project, or were
acquainted with his purposes, is not clear: but Lady
Castlemaine interfered in good time to prevent the
* Frances Brooke, the younger sister of Lady Denham, married Sir
Thomas Whitmore, K.B., ancestor of the Whitmores of Shropshire.

148

LADY DENHAM.

accomplishment of the earl's hopes ; and the King, who
had just purchased a peace at the usual hard price, was
not inchned to endanger it for the sake of Miss Brooke.
She next attracted the notice of the Duke of York ; but
in the midst of this flirtation, she was married by the
interposition of her friends, at the age of eighteen, to
Sir John Denham,* then a widower, and old enough to
be her father, or her grandfather ; and who seemed de
termined to avenge, in his own person, all the satirical
tirades and the poignant ridicule with which he had
formerly visited faithless wives and betrayed husbands.
Denham had led a dissipated hfe, and his age was nei
ther pleasing nor respectable: although hardly more
than fifty, he is described, at the period of his marriage,
as " ancient and limping,"-f- and was ill calculated either
to captivate or to rule a young and wilful beauty. This
disproportioned union covered him with ridicule : his
beautiful wife became at once the object of open assi
duities, and himself almost frantic with jealousy. The
* Sir John Denham was born in Dublin, (where his father held the
high office of Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland,) in 1615. He
attached himself devotedly to the royal cause, and was on the Restoration
knighted, and appointed Surveyor of the Buildings to the King, — Sir
Christopher Wren as his deputy. This was the more necessary, as,
according to Evelyn, Sir John was a better poet than an architect. A
great part of the family estates, situated at Egham and its neighbourhood,
were wasted by Denham at the gaming-table ; the rest were confiscated
during the civil wars. His reputation as a poet rests upon his " Cooper's
Hill." Sir John left three children by his first wife, who was a Miss
Cotton. -f- Aubrey's Letters. De Grammont says he was seventy-nine when he
married Miss Brooke ; he probably looked much older than he really

LADY DENHAM. 149
Duke of York, who had rather neglected Miss Brooke
before her marriage, renewed his attentions. The lady
was not disposed to be absolutely cruel, but she was in
disposition haughty, and inclined to coquetry ; she gave
herself airs accordingly, and the duke, who was the most
stupid and ungainly of lovers, contrived to render him
self, on the present occasion, supereminently ridiculous:
Pepys describes him as following her up and down the
presence-chamber, " like a dog." It is consistent with
the character of James and his family, historically bran
ded with the reproach of systematic ingratitude, that
no remorseful or generous feeling seems to have re
strained him in this pursuit, although he was under
particular personal obligations to Denham, which nothing
could cancel: during the civil wars, when the prince
was a mere boy, and in imminent danger of his liberty,
or his life, Denham had conveyed him out of England at
his own personal risk, and placed him in the hands of
the Queen at Paris. As for Lady Denham, she had
declared, with an effrontery worthy of the education
she had received in the house of her uncle, that she
would not be a " mistress to go up and down the privy
stairs, but would be owned publicly;" and the duke
accordingly visited her publicly and in state, attended
by all the gentlemen of his household.
This, however, was not enough to satisfy our perverse
and arrogant beauty. Brounker, whose name is handed
down to us as the most famous chess-player of his time,
filled in the household of the duke the same honourable
office which Tom Chiffinch held in that of the King, his

150

LADY DENHAM.

brother ; and he made himself extremely useful in this
negotiation. Lady Castlemaine, who had lost the power
of blushing for any thing, did not blush to be his coad
jutor. Thus surrounded by tempters, and the worst
of tempters, those of her own sex, Lady Denham was
determined, that since the fates had decreed her
fall, it should at least be surrounded with all possible
eclat. The place of lady of the bedchamber to the Duchess
of York being vacant, Lady Denham demanded it of
the duke : the duke had the assurance to insist that it
should be given to her. The duchess, though in general
submissive to his will, and accustomed to his infidelities,
resisted on this occasion, well knowing that the high spi
rit and uncommon talents of Lady Denham exposed her
to the chance of playing a very secondary personage in
her own court : she had the example of Queen Catherine
before her as a warning ; and the duke had that of his
brother as an encouragement, and he was equally pe
remptory. Every where Sir John Denham was beset
by malicious congratulations on his wife's elevation, so
that he would have hung himself in despite and despair,
but that he had too much wit and too little courage.
The matter was still in discussion, when Lady Denham
was seized with a sudden indisposition, of which, after
languishing some days, she expired, January 7th, 1667,
in the full bloom of her youth and beauty, and before
she had completed her twenty-first year. It was believed
at the time that she had been poisoned in a cup of cho-

LADY DENHAM. 151
colate,* and her death was so sudden, it took place so
critically, and was accompanied by such agonizing symp
toms, that there was some ground for the belief: Lady
Denham herself ceased not to aver, with tears, that she
had been poisoned. Her husband was so strongly sus
pected, that for some days afterwards his house in Scot
land-Yard was surrounded by an enraged populace, who
threatened to stone him on his appearance. Others did
not scruple to accuse the Duchess of York of being privy
to this horrible affair, and an infamous libel to that effect
was posted on her door ; but there is not the slightest
ground for believing in the accusation. Sir John Den-
* Aubrey, who lived at the time, asserts the fact without any circum
locution. Pepys says that the universal belief was, that Lady Denham
was poisoned, and that the physicians would assemble the day after her
death, to examine into the symptoms and causes of her decease ; which
examination never took place.
[We think that the very entries of Pepys are sufficient to show the im
probability of her death by poison. On the 10th November, 1666, " I
hear that my Lady Denham is exceedingly sick, even to death, and that
she says, and every body else discourses, that she is poisoned ; and Creed
tells me, that it is said that there hath been a design to poison the King."
On the 12th, " Creed tells me of my Lady Denham, whom every body
says is poisoned, and she hath said it to the Duke of York; but is upon
the mending hand, though the town says she is dead this morning." The
poisoning story is here connected with a rumoured attempt on the King,
and it is evident, as was then the case on every such rumour, the town
was full of different reports about it. We hear nothing more of her in
Pepys till the second of the following January, when she died, so that
her death was by no means " sudden," or her illness very short : " Lord
Brouncker tells me that my Lady Denham is at last dead. Some suspect
her poisoned, but it will be best known when her body is opened to-day,
she dying yesterday morning." It may also be remarked that, in
Pepys, in the space of less than two months, ' every body's discourses'
are reduced to the suspicion of some. — Ed.]

152 LADY DENHAM.
ham is not so easily acquitted ; it is remarkable that he
became insane immediately after his wife's death, and
continued so for several months .* This insanity might,
however, have been caused by terror, or by indignation
and grief, and not by remorse, as it was insinuated. The
matter was at the time hushed up with all convenient
speed, and the horrible fate by which this unhappy
woman expiated her errors remains a mystery.
Sir John Denham died in 1668, about a year after his
wife ; he had completely recovered from his insanity some
months before his death ; and, in the interval, wrote his
poem on the death of Cowley.
Except the portraits of Miss Hamilton and Lady Bel
lasys, there is not one among the Beauties at Windsor
that can be compared to this picture of Lady Denham,
either for delicacy of execution, or splendour of colour
ing. She is represented seated on a bank, with flowers
in her lap, dressed in rich amber-coloured satin : the
neck, bosom, hands, and arms, are beautiful ; the face is
not generally considered as attractive, yet the features,
which are too large and striking for a dehcate beauty,
have a singular expression which rivets the attention, —
blending capacity, pride, and the capability of strong pas
sions. Her complexion is fair, but glowing and fresh like
a full-blown flower : her hair of a lovely brown. The
* In justice to Denham it should be observed, that Butler, in his
bitter and outrageous satire, entitled " Verses on the Recovery of Sir John
Denham from his late Madness," makes no allusion to the death of Lady
Denham.

LADY DENHAM. 153
whole disposition of the picture, and the magnificent
colouring of the drapery and the background, have never
been surpassed by Lely, even in his most celebrated
works. It is now engraved for the first time.

[The curious sketch of the Life of Sir John Denham,
given by the antiquarian Aubrey in his entertaining
Letters and Lives of Eminent Persons, seems to us by
no means an improper supplement to the hfe of his lady.
Aubrey was a great collector of gossiping stories, which,
from their nature, are not absolutely to be depended
upon. " I have heard Mr. James Howe say, that he was
the dreamingest young fellow ; he never expected such
things from him as he hath left the world. When he
was there, he would game extremely; when he had
played away all his money, he would play away his father's
cappes wrought with gold. His father was Sir John
Denham, one of the Barons of the Exchequer ; he had
been one of the Lords Justices in Ireland : he married
Ellenor,* one of the daughters of Sir Garret Moore,
knight, Lord Baron of Mellifont, in ye kingdome of
Ireland, whom he married during his service in Ireland,
in ye place of Chief Justice there.
" Sir John was not supposed to be a witt. At last, viz.
* She was a beautiful woman, as appears by her monument. Sir John,
they say, did much resemble his father.
I. x

154

LADY DENHAM.

1640, his play of " The Sophy " came out, which did
take extremely. Mr. Edmund Waller sayd then of him,
that he broke out like the Irish Rebellion, — threescore
thousand strong, when nobody suspected it. He was
much rooked by gamesters, and fell acquainted with that
unsanctified crew to his ruine. His father had some
suspicion of it, and chid him severely; whereupon his
son John (only child) wrot a little Essay in 8vo, pointed
against gaming, and to shew the vanities and inconve
niences of it, which he presented to his father, to let him
knowr his detestation of it : but shortly after his father's
death (1638,) (who left 2000 or 1500 lib. in ready money,
two houses well furnished, and much plate,) the money
was played away first, and next the plate was sold. 1
remember, about 1646, he lost 200 hb. one night at
Newcutt. *****
" In 1646-7 he conveyed or stole away the two Dukes
of Yorke and Glocester from St. James's, (from the
tuition of the Earle of Northumberland,) and conveyed
them into France to the Prince of Wales and Queen-mo
ther. It was at Wilton, the seat of the Earl of Pem
broke, in 1652, that he translated the  book of
Virgil's Mneis, and also burlesqu't it.* He married for
his first wife the daughter and heire of  Cotton,
of Glocestershire, by whom he had 500 lib. per annum,
one son and two daughters.
* " He burlesqued Virgil, and burnt it, saying, that 'twas not fitt that
the first poet should be so abused." From Mr. Chr. Ware, tutor to Wil
liam Lord Herbert.

LADY DENHAM. 155
" He was much beloved by King Charles the First, who
much valued him for his integrity. He granted him the
reversion of the Surveyor of his Buildings, after the
decease of Mr. Inigo Jones ; which place, after the resto
ration of King Charles IL, he enjoyed to his death, and
gott seaven thousand pounds, as Sir Christopher Wren
told me of, to his owne knowledge. Sir Christopher
Wren was his deputy.
" An. Dom. 166- he married his second wife, — Brooke,
a very beautiful young lady ; Sir John was ancient and
limping. " The Duke of Yorke fell deeply in love with her. This
occasioned Sir John's distemper of madnesse in 166-,
which first appeared when he went from London to see
the famous free-stone quarries at Portland, in Dorset.
When he came within a mile of it, turned back to Lon
don againe, and would not see it. He went to Houns-
lowe, and demanded rents of lands he had sold many
yeares before ; went to the King, and told him he was
the Holy Ghost ; but it pleased God that he was cured
of this distemper, and wrott excellent verses, particularly
on the death of Abraham Cowley, afterwards. His second
lady had no child, and was poysoned by the hands of the
Co. of Roc. with chocolatte. At the coronation of King
Charles II. he was made knight of the Bath.
" He died in 1668-9, March the 23rd ; was buried in
Westminster Abbey, near Sr- Jeffery Chaucer's monu
ment.

156 LADY DENHAM.
" He delighted much in bowles, and did bowle very well.
He was of the tallest, but a little uncurvetting at his
shoulders, not very robust. His haire was but thin and
flaxen, with a moist curie. His gate was slow, and was
rather a stalking, (he had long legges). His eie was a
kind of light goose gray, not big; but it had a strange
piercingness, not as to shining and glory, but (like a
Momus) when he conversed with you, he look't into your
very thoughts.
" In the time of the civill warres, Geo. Withers, the
poet, begged Sr- Jo. Denham's estate of the Parliament,
in whose cause he was a captaine of horse. It (happened)
that G. W. was taken prisoner, and was in danger of his
life, having written severely against the King. Sr- John
Denham went to the King, and desired his matie not to
hang him ; for that whilest G. W. lived, he should not be
the worst poet in England. Sir John was satyricall when
he had a mind to it." — Ed.]

NELL GWYNN.

"How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame
Which, like the canker in a fragrant rose,
Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name !
Oh, in what sweets dost thou thy sins enclose !
That tongue that tells the story of thy days,
Making licentious comments on thy sport,
Cannot dispraise but in a kind of praise :
Naming thy name, blesses an ill report.
Oh, what a mansion have those vices got
Which for their habitation chose out thee !
Where Beauty's veil doth cover every blot,
And all things turn to fair that eyes can see !"

Shakspeare. Sonnet 95.

Nell Gwynn, — pretty, witty, merry, open-hearted
Nelly, — has much more than her own frailties to answer
for ; and they (alas, that we must needs say it !) are
enough, in all conscience. Her very virtues have proved
mischievous, inasmuch as they have given occasion to
certain scoffers to blaspheme " the sun-clad power of
chastity." Wicked arguers against that law of society
which comprises all female virtues in one, have set up
the name of Nell Gwynn as a rallying point ; and under
that name, with all its gay associations of wreathed
smiles, arch sayings, sweet looks, kind feelings, and bene-

158 NELL GWYNN.
volent deeds, they fight their battles, without consider
ing that she, and one or two others, are but exceptions
to a general rule, harsh in particular applications, but on
the whole, just and friendly to our sex.
It is, at least in one sense, rather a delicate point to
touch on the life of Nell Gwynn : one would fain be
properly shocked, decorously grave, and becomingly
moral ; but, as the lady says in Comus, " to what end ?"
It were rather superfluous to set about proving that
Nell Gwynn was, in her day, a good-for-nothing sort of
person ; in short, as wild a piece of frailty as ever wore
a petticoat. In spite of such demonstrations, and Bishop
Burnet's objurgations to boot, she will not the less con
tinue to be the idol of popular tradition, her very name
provocative of a smile, and of power to disarm the aus
terity of virtue, and discountenance the gravity of wis
dom. It is worth while to inquire in what consists that
strange fascination, which, after the lapse of a century
and a half, still hangs round the memory of this singular
woman. Why is her name still familiar and dear in the
mouths of the people ?* why hath no man condemned
her ? why has satire spared her ? why is there in her
remembrance a charm so far beyond, and so different
from mere celebrity? Other women have become famous
and interesting in spite of their lapses from virtue, and
some from that very cause. Rosamond Clifford is the
* The head of Nell Gwynn was a popular sign in her own days, and
long after ; and is still to be seen over an old ale-house in Chelsea. Signs
are seldom other than acknowledgments of a general good-will in the
public for the thing or person signified. — C. L.

NELL GWYNN. 159
heroine of romance ; Agnes Sorel, of history and chi
valry ; Jane Shore, of tragedy; La Valliere, of sentiment
and poetry ; and Gabrielle d'Estrees has been immortal
ized by the love of a hero, to whom she was most faith
less, and of whom she was most unworthy. But Nell
Gywnn — Heaven knows — had little to do with romance,
or tragedy * or chivalry, or sentiment : and her connexion
with the King, with all the scandal it gave rise to, would
have made her, as in other cases, a mark for popular
hatred and scurrihty, but for those redeeming qualities
which " turned dispraise to praise," and made
" Both faults and graces loved of more and less."
A sprinkling of hypocrisy, or a few cooling drops of dis
cretion, had rendered Nell Gwynn either far better or
far worse, and placed her on a par with the women around
her ; as it was, she resembled nothing but herself. She
may, perhaps, be compared, in some few points, with her
fair and famed contemporary, Ninon de l'Enclos. Both
had talents, wit, vivacity, and much goodness of heart ;
both were distinguished for the sincerity and perma
nency of their friendships, their extensive charity and
munificence to literary men : what Ninon was to Racine
and Moliere, Nell was to Dryden and Lee. But there
is this difference, — that Ninon, with all her advantages
of birth, talents, independent fortune, and an education,
not only soigne, but learned, became from choice, or per
verted principle, what Nell, poor, uneducated, and un
protected, became from necessity or accident.
* Except on the stage, — and then she was " out of her calling."

160 NELL GWYNN.
A woman, when she has once stepped astray, seldom
pauses in her downward career till " guilt grows fate,
that was but choice before," and far more seldom rises out
of that debasement of person and mind, except by some
violent transition of feeling, some revulsion of passion
leading to the opposite extreme. In the case of Nell
Gwynn the contrary was remarkable. As years passed
on, as habit grew, and temptation and opportunity in
creased, her conduct became more circumspect, and her
character more elevated. The course of her life, which
had begun in the puddle and sink of obscurity and pro
fligacy, as it flowed, refined. For the humorous and
scandalous stories of which she is the subject, some excuse
may be found in her plebeian education, and the coarse
ness of the age in which she lived: when ladies of quality
gambled and swore, what could be expected from the
orange-girl ? But though her language and manners
bore to the last the taint of the tavern and the stage,
hers was one of those fine natures which could not be
corrupted ; the contaminating influence of the atmos
phere around her had stained the surface, but never
reached the core.
These observations, which irresistibly suggested them
selves, may seem misplaced, and should rather have fol
lowed than preceded her life : but it is the character of
Nell Gwynn which lends an interest to her memoirs,
though the reverse be more commonly the case. The
events of her life may be related in a few words. It
was marked by no romantic incidents, no signal reverses
of fortune, no tragic expiation of error. It is quite

NELL GWYNN. 161
impossible to make a heroine of her, in prose or in
verse. The family of Nell Gwynn was of Welsh extraction, as
may be inferred from the name : her parents were natives
of Hereford, of which city one of her noble descendants
was afterwards bishop,* and where, according to a local
tradition, she was herself born. Other authorities state
that she first saw the light in a garret in Coal-yard,
Drury-lane. However this may be, it is certain that
her earliest years were spent in London, and in the very
lowest haunts of vulgar profligacy. While yet a mere
child, she was an attendant in a tavern, where the sweet
ness of her voice and her sprightly address recommended
her to notice. She was afterwards, still in extreme youth,
servant to a fruiterer, and in this capacity employed to
sell oranges at the theatres. Here her beauty and viva-
eity attracted the notice of Lacy the comedian, her first
lover, who was soon rivalled in her good graces by Hart,
the handsomest man and most accomplished actor of
that day.f
* Lord James Beauclerk died Bishop of Hereford, in 1782.
¦f- Charles Hart was the great-nephew of Shakspeare, his father Wil
liam being the eldest son of the poet's sister Joan. Contemporary authors
are full of eulogiums of this great actor, and allusions to his various ex
cellencies. — See Dryden, Cibber, the Spectator, Fuller, and the Roscius
Anglicanus. Rymer says, " What Mr. Hart delivers, every one takes upon con
tent ; their eyes are prepossessed and charmed by his action, before aught
of the poet's can approach their ears ; and to the most wretched of cha
racters he gives a lustre and brilliance which so dazzles the sight, that
the deformities in the poetry cannot be perceived." — Tragedies of the
Last Age Considered.
I. Y

162 NELL GWYNN.
Under the successive tuition of these two admirers,
both of whom were masters of their art, Nell Gwynn
was prepared for the stage, for which she had a na
tural penchant; and, in 1667, we find her enrolled in
the King's company of comedians, who were then acting
under Killigrew' s patent, at the new theatre in Drury-
lane.* Before the Restoration, no woman had appeared
on the English stage, the female parts being all acted by
men.j- The novelty and attraction of seeing beautiful
* There are the following entries in Pepys's Diary, under the year
1667, relative to Nell Gwynn : —
" To the King's house ; Knipp took us all in, and brought to us Nelly,
a most pretty woman, who acted the great part of Ccelia to-day, very fine,
and did it pretty well : I kissed her, and so did my wife ; and a mighty
pretty soul she is." — Vol. ii., p. 8.
" To the King's house ; and there going in, met with Knipp, and she
took us up into the tiring-rooms ; and to the woman's shift, where Nell
was dressing herself, and was all unready, and is very pretty, prettier
than I thought. But, Lord ! to see how they are both painted, would
make a man mad." — Vol. ii., p. 135.
" With my wife to the King's playhouse ; and there saw The Sur-
prizall; which did not please me to-day, the actors not pleasing me;
especially Nell's acting of a serious part, which she spoils." — Vol. ii., p. 171.
•f The name of the first female actress is a disputed point : it is only
certain that the first part played by a woman was Desdemona ; the apolo
getic prologue delivered upon the occasion may be found in Malone's
History of the English Stage. Before this time, it once happened that
Charles II. being in the theatre, and expressing some impatience because
the play did not immediately begin, Sir William Davenant came forward
and apologized in these words : — " Please your majesty, they are shaving
the queen." This oft-told jest does not seem to have been well understood
by those who have repeated it. It had a double allusion, which made it
doubly piquant; for it was just at the time that Queen Catherine's
barber had arrived from Portugal, whose office caused much wonder and
amusement among the courtiers.

NELL GWYNN. 163
women in such characters as Desdemona, Ophelia, As-
pasia, &c, was undoubtedly one cause of that mania for
theatrical amusements, which was one of the character
istics of the time. Nell Gwynn at once became popular
in her new vocation. She was so great a favourite, that
the public endured and even applauded her in characters
for which her talents were altogether unfitted; as Valeria
in the Royal Martyr, Alicia in the Black Prince, and
Cidaria in the Indian Emperor, which her admirer Pepys
allows that she played " most basely;"* she also appeared
as Queen Elizabeth in the Earl of Essex. Nell Gwynn
in Queen Elizabeth must have been rare, — something
hke Polonius " enacting Julius Ceesar in the Capitol."
But, on the other hand, she excelled in comedy, and in
all parts in which dancing and singing were requisite.
The character of Florimel in the Maiden Queen appears
to have been her chef-d'oeuvre in this style. Her easy
gracefulness of address, arch expression, and musical
voice, rendered her unrivalled as a speaker of prologues
and epilogues : several of Dryden's best, and it is well
known that he excelled in these productions, were writ
ten expressly for her. For instance, the prologue to
Aurengzebe, and the ludicrous epilogue to Tyrannic Love,
in which, after stabbing herself most heroically in the
part of Valeria, and the mutes appear in conclusion to
* To the King's house, and there saw The Mad Couple, which is but
an ordinary play ; but only Nell's and Hart's mad parts are most excel
lent done, but especially hers : which makes it a miracle to me to think
how ill she do any serious part, as the other day, just like a fool or
changeling : and, in a mad part, do beyond all imitation almost. ^Vol.
ii, p. 171.

164 NELL GWYNN.
carry off the dead, she gives the bearer a box on the ear
and jumps up, exclaiming, —
" Hold ! are you mad ? you d — d confounded dog !
I am to rise and speak the epilogue !"
In this epilogue, Dryden, who, with all his admiration
for Nell Gwynn, was aware of her unfitness for the part
she acted, puts into her mouth a kind of confession of
her own deficiencies: —
" I am the ghost of poor departed Nelly ;
# # » *
To tell you truth, I walk because I die
Out of my calling — in a tragedy !"
And the concluding lines contain an allusion to one of
her personal characteristics, — the extreme negligence of
her dress : — " As for my epitaph, when I am gone,
I'll trust no poet, but will write my own :
' Here Nelly lies, who, tho' she lived a slattern,
Yet died a princess, acting in St. Catherine ! ' "
The same year that Nell Gwynn first appeared on the
stage, she attracted the notice of the witty Lord Buck
hurst, (afterwards the Earl of Dorset,) who took her from
the theatre, and allowed her ^§100. a-year.*
* Pepys, vol. ii., p. 92, 4to. edit. — " Mr. Pierce tells us, what troubles
me, that my Lord Buckhurst has got Nell away from the King's house,
and gives her 100?. a-year, so as she hath sent her parts to the house,
and will act no more." And the following entry a few days after. " To
Epsum, and hear that my Lord Buckhurst and Nelly are lodged at the
next house, and Sir Charles Sedley with them ; and keep a merry house.
Poor girl ! I pity her ; but more the loss of her at the King's house."
" To the King's playhouse, and there saw The Indian Emperour :

NELL GWYNN. 165
The absence, however, was not long : she returned to
the stage in 1668, and appeared in her great character of
Almahide, in Dryden's Conquest of Granada. In spite of
what Pepys says of her acting serious parts vilely, (which
was true, in general,) she produced a great effect in this
character, as is evident from the extraordinary success**
of the play, and the allusion to her, long afterwards, by
Lord Lansdown, in his Progress of Beauty : —
" And Almahide, once more by kings adored."
The prologue to this tragedy was written for her by
Dryden.* It seems that Nokes, the favourite buffoon
of the rival theatre, (the duke's house,) had lately drawn
crowds, by appearing in a huge broad-brimmed hat,
though where the jest lay it is impossible to guess.
Dryden ridiculed this extravagance, by causing Nell to
appear in a hat double the size, with brims as wide as a
cart-wheel : her slight short figure, just visible under this
vast overhanging circumference, and the archness with
which she delivered the satirical address, were irresistibly
droll, and produced all the effect expected ; and much
where I find Nell come again, which I am glad of; but was most infinitely
displeased with her being put to act the Emperour's daughter, which is a
great and serious part, which she does most basely." — Vol. ii., p. 112.
" Nelly and Beck Marshall falling out the other day, the latter called
the other my Lord Buckhurst's mistress. Nell answered her, ' I ani but
one man's mistress, though I was brought up in a tavern to fill strong
waters to gentlemen ; and you are mistress to three or four, though a
Presbyter's praying daughter !' " — Vol. ii., p. 149.
* See his works for this Prologue, " To be spoken by Mistress Ellen
Gwynn, in a broad-brimmed hat and waist belt." — Scott's Edition qf
Dryden, vol. iii.

166 NELL GWYNN.
more, if the tradition be true, that it was in this gro
tesque costume Nell first captivated her royal lover:
but there is reason to doubt it.* All that can be ascer
tained is, that from this time the King openly distin
guished her; and after the first performance went behind
the scenes, and took her away in his carriage to sup with
him. Soon after, Lord Buckhurst resigned her for the
consideration of an earldom and a pen sion. f
After this elevation (as the contemporary writers ex
press it, and, no doubt, very sincerely thought it,) we find
Nelly dignified in the play-bills with the title of " Madam
Ellen," by which name she was popularly known. She
appeared on the stage once or twice after the birth of
her eldest son, but retired from it altogether in 1671-
About this time she was created one of the ladies of the
Queen's privy-chamber, under which title she was lodged
in Whitehall. J Madam Ellen lost none of her popularity
by her " elevation." She carried with her into the court
* See Pepys' Diary, vol. ii., p. 179.
•f- Others say that Dorset himself introduced her at court, to shake
the influence of the Duchess of Cleveland.
+ Pegge's Curialia, p. 58. This was too disgraceful, but the disgrace
rests with Charles who offered, and the Queen who endured the outrage,
rather than upon Nell Gwynn, who certainly never sought the dignity.
It is illustrative of the morals of the time, that a female writer, in the
Dedication of a Comedy to Mistress Ellen Gwynn, chooses her principal
topic of compliment from the connexion of that lady with majesty ; and
congratulates her upon the children born from that union, as peculiar
blessings sent down from Heaven upon the mother and the kingdom.
" Nor can Heaven give you more, who has expressed a particular care of
you in every way, and above all in the bestowing on the world and you
two noble branches, who have all the greatness and sweetness of their

NELL GWYNN. 167
the careless assurance of her stage manners ; and, as
Burnet says, continued " to hang on her clothes with the
same slovenly negligence ;" but she likewise carried
there qualities even more rare in a court than coarse
manners and negligent attire, — the same frolic gaiety,
the same ingenuous nature, and the same kind and cor
dial benevolence, which had rendered her adored among
her comrades. Her wit was as natural, and as peculiar
to herself, as the perfume to the flower. She seems to
have been, as the Duchess de Chaulnes expressed it,
" femme d'esprit, par la grace de Dieu." Her bon-mots
fell from her lips with such an unpremeditated felicity
of expression, and her turn of humour was so perfectly
original, that though it occasionally verged upon extrava
gance and vulgarity, even her maddest flights became
her ; " as if," says one of her cotemporaries, " she alone
had the patent from heaven to engross all hearts." Bur
net calls her " the wildest and indiscreetest creature that
ever was in a court;" and speaking of the King's constant
royal and beautiful stock," &c. &c. Indeed, some passages in this extra
ordinary address come so near to blasphemy, that a mind, not overtinctured
with piety, must recoil from the repetition of them. " So excellent and
perfect a creature as yourself, differs only from the Divine Powers in this,"
&c; and again, " When you [that is Nelly ! !] speak, men crowd to listen
with that awful reverence as to holy oracles, or divine prophecies." It is
charitable to hope, that by ' Divine Powers,' the authoress insinuated
nothing beyond the Paphian deities ; and by ' oracles and prophecies,'
meant only the responses of the Priestess of Cytherea. We turn with
pleasure to the social qualities of this divinity, which have never been
disputed, and are prettily touched upon in another part of this dedication.
" You never appear, but you glad the hearts of all that have the happy
fortune to see you, as if you were made on purpose to put the whole world
into good-huniour.' "

168 NELL GWYNN.
attachment to her, he adds, " but, after all, he never
treated her with the decencies of a mistress." This last
observation of the good bishop is certainly " twisted into
a phrase of some obscurity :" the truth is, that Nell had
a natural turn for goodness, which survived all her ex
cesses ; she was wild and extravagant, but not rapacious
or selfish, — frail, not vicious ; she never meddled with
politics, nor made herself the tool of ambitious courtiers.
At the time that the King's mistresses were everywhere
execrated for their avarice and arrogance, it was remarked
that Nell Gwynn never asked any thing for herself, never
gave herself unbecoming airs, as if she deemed her un
happy situation a subject of pride : there is not a single
instance of her using her influence over Charles for any
unworthy purpose ; but, on the contrary, the presents
which the King's love or bounty lavished upon her, she
gave and spent freely ; and misfortune, deserved or un
deserved, never approached her in vain. Once, as she
was driving up Ludgate-hill, she saw a poor clergyman
in the hands of the sheriff's officers, and struck with
compassion, she alighted from her carriage, inquired into
the circumstances of his arrest, and paid his debt on the
spot ; and finding, on application to the vouchers he had
named, that his character was as unexceptionable as
his misfortunes were real, she generously befriended
him and his family. The plan of that fine institution,
Chelsea Hospital, would probably never have been
completed, at least in the reign of Charles, but for
the persevering and benevolent enthusiasm of this
woman, who never let the King rest till it was carried
into execution.

NELL GWYNN. 169
These, and many other instances of her kind nature,
endeared her to the populace. On one occasion, a su
perb service of plate, which had been ordered for the
Duchess of Portsmouth, was exhibited in the shop of a
certain goldsmith, and the common people crowded
round the window to gaze. On learning for whom it
was intended, they broke out into execrations and abuse,
wishing the silver melted and poured down her throat,
and loudly exclaiming, that " it had been much better
bestowed upon Madam Ellen."
Strange as it may seem, Nell piqued herself upon her
orthodox principles and her reverence for the clergy,
partly from a sincere religious feehng which had been
early and unaccountably impressed on her mind, and
never left her ; and partly, perhaps, out of opposition
to the Papist favourite, the Duchess of Portsmouth.
Madame de Sevigne gives in one of her letters so pi
quant a description of Nell Gwynn and her merry im
pertinence to her rival, that instead of referring to the
volume, I give the passage at length.
" Keroualle" (the Duchess of Portsmouth) "n'a ete
trompee sur rien. Elle avoit envie d'etre la maitresse du
roi ; elle Test  Elle a un fils qui vient d'etre reconnu,
et a qui on a donne deux duches. Elle amasse des tre-
sors, et se fait aimer et respecter de qui elle peut ; mais
elle n'avoit pas prevu trouver en chemin, une jeune
comedienne, dont le roi est ensorcele. Elle n'a pas le
pouvoir de Ten detacher un moment. La comedienne
est aussi fiere que la Duchesse de Portsmouth : elle la

170 NELL GWYNN.
morgue, lui derobe souvent le roi, et se vante de ses pre
ferences. Elle est jeune, folle, hardie, debauchee, et
plaisante : elle chante, elle danse, et fait son metier de
bonne foi : elle a un fils ; elle .veut qu'il soit reconnu.
Voici son raisonnement : ' Cette demoiselle,' dit elle,
s fait la personne de qualite. Elle dit, que tout est son
parent en France. Des qu'il meurt quelque grand, elle
prend le deuil. He bien ! puisqu'elle est de si grande
qualite, pourquoi s'est elle faite - .... ? Elle devroit
mourir de honte. Pour moi, c'est mon metier ; je ne
me pique pas d'autre chose. Le roi m'entretient ; je ne
suis qu'a, lui presentment. J'en ai un fils, je pretends
qu'il doit etre reconnu ; et il le reconnoitra, car il
m'aime autant que sa Portsmouth.' " — " Cette creature,"
continues Madame de Sevigne, " tient le haut du pave,
et decontenance et embarrasse extraordinairement la
duchesse." Besides her apartment in Whitehall, in quality of lady
of the Queen's privy-chamber, Nell Gwynn had lodgings
in Pall Mall,* where she frequently entertained the
King and a few of his chosen companions with petits
soupers and select concerts. On one of these occasions
she had collected together some new and excellent per
formers, and the King was so much enchanted, that he
expressed his approbation in strong terms. " Then, sir,"
said Nell, holding out her hand, " to show that you do
not speak merely as a courtier, let me have the pleasure
* At the left hand corner of St. James's-square : the walls of the back
room on the ground-floor were (within memory) entirely of looking-glass,
as was said to have been the ceiling. — Pennant's London, p. 90.

NELL GWYNN. 171
of presenting these poor people with a gratuity from
your majesty !" The King, feeling in his pocket, de
clared he had no money, and turning to the Duke of
York, asked him if he had any ? The duke replied,
" No, sir, I believe not above a guinea or two." Nell,
shaking her head, with her petit air malin, and drolly
mimicking the King's tone and habitual expression,
exclaimed, " Odds fish ! what company have I got
into here ! "
Cibber, who relates this anecdote, and lived about the
same time, tells us that Nell was never known to have
been unfaithful to the King, from the moment he first
noticed her, and that she was " as much distinguished for
her personal attachment to him, as her rivals were by
their titles and grandeur." Her disinterested affection,
her sprightly humour, her inexhaustible powers of en
tertainment, and constant desire to please, must have
formed an agreeable contrast to the rapacity, ill temper,
affectation, and arrogant caprices of the other court
ladies. Charles, in spite of every attempt made to de
tach him from her, loved her to the last, and his last
thought was for her : — " Let not poor Nelly starve !"
Burnet, who records this dying speech, is piously scan
dalized that the King should have thought of such " a
creature" in such a moment ; but some will consider it
with more mercy, as one among the few traits which
redeem the sensual and worthless Charles from utter
contempt. After the King's death, Nell Gwynn continued to

172 NELL GWYNN.
reside in Pall Mall, where she lived on a small pension
and some presents the King had made her. She sur
vived him about seven years, conducting herself with
the strictest decorum, and spending her time in devo
tion, and her small allowance in acts of beneficence : she
died in 1691. Dr. Tennison, then Vicar of St. Martin's,
and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, preached her
funeral sermon, in which he enlarged upon her benevo
lent quahties, her sincere penitence, and exemplary end.
When this was afterwards mentioned to Queen Mary, in
the hope that it would injure him in her estimation, and
be a bar to his preferment, " And what then ?" answered
she hastily ; " I have heard as much : it is a sign that
the poor unfortunate woman died penitent ; for if I can
read a man's heart through his looks, had she not made
a pious and Christian end, the doctor could never have
been induced to speak well of her !"
Nell Gwynn was possessed of little at her death, and
that little was by her will distributed in charity. She
left, among other bequests, a small sum yearly to the
ringers of the church of St. Martin, where she was
buried, which donation they still enjoy.
She bore the King two sons, Charles and James Beau
clerc. Charles Beauclerc, her eldest son, was born in
Lincoln's Inn Fields, in 1670, a short time before his
mother quitted the stage. The occasion of his being
titled and acknowledged, is too characteristic to be
omitted. When the children of the Duchesses of Cleve
land and Portsmouth had been dignified with titles,

NELL GWYNN. 173
orders, and offices, Nell Gwynn naturally felt piqued
that her sons, whose filial claims upon his majesty, as
the fountain of honour, were at least as well founded,
should be passed over, and she took her own whimsical
method of hinting her wishes to the King. One day,
when his majesty was present, and her eldest son was
playing in the room, she called to him aloud, in a petu
lant tone, " Come here, you little bastard ! " The King,
much shocked, reproved her : she replied meekly, and
with the most demure simplicity, that " indeed she
was very sorry, but had no better name to give him,
poor boy ! "~
A few days afterwards, this nameless young gentle
man was created Baron of Heddington and Earl of
Burford; and in 1683, Duke of St. Albans, Regis
trar of the High Court of Chancery, and Grand Falconer
of England. He inherited his mother's personal beauty,
and served with great bravery under King Wilham*
This first Duke of St. Albans married Lady Diana Vere,
sole daughter of Aubrey de Vere, twentieth and last
Earl of Oxford, and the greatest heiress in rank and
descent in the three kingdoms-! She was very young
at the period of her marriage, and as amiable and inno
cent as lovely. She was the mother of eight sons, of
whom Lord Vere Beauclerc, (ancestor of the present
* [" He is a gentleman every way de ban naturel, well-bred, doth not
love business ; is well affected to the constitution of this country. He is
of a black complexion, not so tall as the Duke of Northumberland, yet
very like King Charles."— Spring Macky.—BD.]
f Her picture, by Kneller, is among the Beauties at Hampton Court.

174 NELL GWYNN.
duke,) was distinguished as a naval commander ; and
Lord Sidney Beauclerc was the father of that Topham
Beauclerc, who was the friend of Dr. Johnson, and one
of the worthies of Boswell. The present Duke of St.
Albans is the fifth in descent from Nell Gwynn.
Her younger son, Lord James Beauclerc, died in his
childhood at Paris.
The secret of Nell Gwynn's popularity seems to have
consisted in what is usually called heart, in a kindness
and candour of disposition which the errors* and abject
miseries of her youth could not harden, nor her acquain
tance with a corrupt court entirely vitiate. On com
paring and combining the scattered traits and personal
allusions found in contemporary writers, it appears that
she was in person considerably below the middle size,
but formed with perfect elegance ; the contour of her
face was round, her features dehcate, her eyes bright and
intelligent, but so small as to be almost concealed when
she laughed ; her cheek was usually dimpled with
smiles, and her countenance radiant with hilarity, but
when at rest it was soft and even pensive in its ex
pression ; her voice was sweet and well modulated ; her
hair glossy, abundant, and of a light auburn ; her hands
were singularly small and beautiful, and her pretty foot
so very diminutive, as to afford occasion for mirth as well
as admiration.
The engraved portrait is after a picture by Sir Peter
Lely, in the possession of General Grosvenor : it agrees

NELL GWYNN. 1^5
perfectly with the foregoing description, and there can
exist no doubt of its authenticity The dress is certainly
in the extreme of that neghgence for which the lady
was remarkable ;
" Robes loosely flowing— hair as free."
Her left hand rests upon a lamb which she crowns with
flowers. The turn of the neck and the air of the head
are full of grace and character ; and the whole picture,
though a little injured by time, is exquisitely painted.

[Mrs. Jameson has said enough to make her readers
suppose that there were versions of the youthful history
of Nell Gwynn which differed much from the one she
has given. It would, indeed, have been strange had not
the love of scandal, and even curiosity and less culpable
feelings, been employed, not only in raking up, but in in
venting, anecdotes relating to the obscure beginnings of
one who had gained so great a notoriety. As far as re
gards Nelly, or her contemporaries in the same class, the
bad feelings are long ago laid asleep and forgotten ; but
with many of our readers one at least, that of curiosity,
may still live, and for its gratification we will trace briefly
one of the stories that were sent afloat of her birth and
first introduction to the world. It will easily be seen,
that the object of the person who wrote it was to make
her birth appear as respectable as possible.
She was the daughter, (this story tells us,) of a trades-

176 NELL GWYNN.
man in mean circumstances, who early implanted in her
mind a great sense of virtue and delicacy, the former of
which she was not long in parting with, and yet without
the misfortune of losing the latter. She no sooner be
came conscious of her own charms, than she solicited her
father to permit her to go into the world under the pro
tection of a lady, where she imagined that her beauty
would soon raise admirers ; and by having an oppor
tunity of a more unrestrained manner, she was not with
out hopes of making her fortune at the expense of some
visitor of the lady in whose house she was to live as a
companion. She soon attracted the admiration of a
celebrated lawyer, " from whom a family now flourishing
in the world is descended;" and he began to conceive a
violent passion for her, and his hopes of success were in
flamed from the frequent opportunities he had of con
versing with, and the degree of her station, which he
imagined would expose her to the temptation of accept
ing presents and money as the price of her virtue. We
are told that the lady had a penchant for this handsome
lawyer; and that when she perceived his attentions to
Nell Gwynn, she from that moment conceived an aver
sion to Nell, and in a few days turned her out of her
house. Nell Gwynn, thus reduced, was coldly received by her
father, who had already been prejudiced against her by
her mistress. He threatened to abandon her for ever, if
she did not consent to go into Yorkshire, and live with
her aunt, who was the wife of a parish-clerk in the little
village of  . Nell would not listen to this proposal,

NELL GWYNN. 177
and cast her eye upon the stage: She left her father's
house, took a private lodging, and as her appearance was
elegant, she passed for a young lady just come up from
the country. In this retirement she applied herself to
reading plays, and having a little money which her
mistress had given her, and ten guineas which the law
yer had made her a present of, she went very often
to the theatre, to study the acting of the different per
formers then in vogue. After living a month or two in
this manner, she wrote a letter to Betterton, inviting
him to her lodgings, there disclosed her scheme of
coming on the stage, and desired he would give his
opinion of her powers in recitation. He told her plainly
that she was not then fit for the stage, though she
seemed to have a genius that way, and advised her
to seek some other mode of livelihood. Her scheme
being so far defeated, and her money diminishing apace,
she began to be alarmed lest poverty should overtake
her; and resolved to quit her apartments, and to try
and introduce herself at the theatre by dressing herself
in the garb of an orange-girl.
Her plan, it seems, answered better than might have
been expected. No sooner had she appeared in the pit
and behind the scenes with her oranges, than the eyes of
the actors, and the young wits and men of fashion who
frequented the theatres, were fixed upon her, all anxious
to know the story and birth of the handsome orange-
girl. Betterton, who soon knew her in her disguise,
seemed astonished at her resolution, and began to form
great expectations from one, whose propensity to the
2 A

178 NELL GWYNN.
stage was so violent, as to induce her to appear in so low
a character for the sake of acquiring instruction.
An actor prevailed upon her to quit her profession of
orange-selling, and offered to share his salary with her ;
and she accepted his proposal, and lived with him in easy
tranquillity for some time. She afterwards left him, and
lived with her former acquaintance, the lawyer.
According to the story we are now following, Nell
passed through several hands before she attracted the
attention of the King; but the history of all her in
trigues has no claim to a place in our pages. Suffice it
to say, that one of her possessors is said to have been
the notorious Rochester ; and that when kept by him, she
is said to have made her first attempt to patronise the
poet Dryden, who, as a writer, was the object of Ro
chester's peculiar jealousy. " She had heard one day at
the play, that Dryden was in distress, on account of a
tragedy he had offered to the stage being, from some ca
pricious considerations of the Lord Chamberlain, rejected.
She mentioned this circumstance to Rochester, and
begged him to interpose his interest to have the objec
tion removed, and the play brought upon the stage ; but
in this suit she was unsuccessful. So far from complying
with it, he stirred himself to have Dryden discarded at
court, and recommended an obscure individual of the
name of Crown, to write a masque to be represented
before their majesties."
A long story is told of the manner in which Nell

NELL GWYNN. 179
Gwynn left Rochester, and of the revenge taken by the
latter in his writings. She was now the mistress, if we
believe this story, of a brother of the " Duchess of Cleve
land," who enjoyed some share of the King's favour, but
from whose eyes he studiously concealed Nell Gwynn.
" One day however, in spite of his caution, his majesty
saw her, and that very night possessed her. Her lover
carried her to the play, at a time when he had not the
least suspicion of his majesty's being there ; but as that
monarch had an aversion to his robes of royalty, and was
incumbered with the dignity of his state, he chose fre
quently to throw off the load of kingship, and consider
himself as a private gentleman.
" Upon this occasion he came to the play, incog., and
sat in the next box to Nell and her lover. As soon as
the play was finished, his majesty, with the Duke of
York, the young nobleman, and Nell, retired to a tavern
together, where they regaled themselves over a bottle ;
and the King showed such civihties to Nell, that she
began to understand the meaning of his gallantry.
" The tavern-keeper was entirely ignorant of the
quality of the company ; and it was remarkable, that
when the reckoning came to be paid, his majesty, upon
searching his pockets, found that he had not money
enough about him to discharge it, and asked the sum of
his brother, who was in the same situation : upon which
Nell observed, that she had got into the poorest com
pany that ever she was in at a tavern. The reckoning

180 NELL GWYNN.
was paid by the young nobleman, who that night parted
both with his money and mistress. Such were the gra
dations by which this celebrated courtesan rose to the
eminence of an imperial mistress : and in that situation
it must be owned, of all this prince's favourites, she was
both the most prolific and the least offensive to the jar
ring interests of the court or country. She observed an
evenness of conduct, and behaved with so much mild
ness, that none were her enemies who were friends to
the King, and none ever libelled her, but the malevolent
Lord Rochester."
Many stories are told of Nell Gwynn's charity and
goodness of heart. Her benevolent exertions in behalf
of the neglected author of Hudibras, were equally un
successful with the King, as with his minister Buck
ingham. She was not always, however, disappointed
in her charitable intentions. One day, when she was
" rolling about town in her coach," a poor wretch
solicited charity at her coach-door, representing himself
as an old soldier who had been disabled in the civil
wars, while fighting in the royal cause. The heart of
Nell Gwynn was touched by his distress ; she hurried
to lay his griefs before the King, and from this circum
stance, we are told, arose her zeal for the establishment
of Chelsea Hospital.
One day, when he had been struggling in the council,
and torn to pieces by the multiplicity of petitions pre
sented to him for redress, the outrageous behaviour of
the ministers, and the fierce contentions of parliament,

NELL GWYNN. 181
he retired into Nell's apartment very pensive, and seem
ed quite broken under the influence of grief : she took
the liberty to ask his majesty the cause of his disorder.
" O Nell !" says he, " what shall I do to please the peo
ple of England ? I am torn to pieces by their clamours."
" If it please your majesty," says she, " there is but one
way left, which expedient I am afraid it will be difficult
to persuade you to embrace." — " What is that," says his
majesty, in a tone that denoted curiosity. " Dismiss
your ladies, may it please your majesty, and mind your
business : the people of England will soon be pleased."
We are tempted to add, from the same source which
has furnished us with the foregoing version of her his
tory, another anecdote of Nell's mode of drawing the
King's attention to his own affairs. That she often ex
erted herself to effect this object, seems certain ; though
she might be partly influenced by opposition to the
other royal mistresses, whose exertions had quite an
other aim.
" One day, when the council had met and waited long
for his majesty's appearance, one of the lords came to
the apartment of the King, but was refused admittance.
He complained to Nell of this insufferable dilatoriness ;
upon which she laid a wager with the nobleman, of a
hundred pounds, that, that very evening, she would fall
upon a scheme that would bring him to the council.
She sent for Kilhgrew, a character so well known in
those times, that none of our readers can be ignorant of
his station ; and desired him to dress himself in boots,

182 NELL GWYNN.
and in every respect as if he was going a journey, and
enter the King's apartment without ceremony. Killi
grew immediately engaged into her scheme, equipped
himself, and entered the apartment. As soon as his
majesty saw him, ' What, Killigrew ! are you mad ?
Why, where are you going ? Did I not order that
nobody should disturb me?' — ' I don't mind your
orders, not I,' says Killigrew ; ' and I am going as fast
as I can.' — ' Why where,' says his majesty, ' where are
you going ?' — ' Going ? why to hell,' says Killigrew. ' To
hell? and what to do there?' says his majesty. 'To
fetch up Oliver Cromwell from thence,' says he, ' to
take some care of the national concerns ; for I am sure
your majesty takes none.'
" This expedient, concerted by Nell Gwynn and ex
ecuted by Killigrew, had the desired effect ; for he im
mediately went to the council, and, as long as he could
bear the badges of royalty, continued with them."
Another story, given by the same writer, is highly
characteristic of our heroine. One day she was driving
in her coach to Whitehall. Her coachman refused to
give way to another coach, in which was a lady of qua
lity. High words soon arose between the two coach
men, and the other refused to give way, because, he
said, he had himself the honour to be driving a countess,
whilst his lady was neither more nor less than a  ,
applying to his mistress a very offensive term. The in
dignant coachman jumped from his seat, and adminis
tered to the offender a severe beating. When Nell

NELL GWYNN. 183
Gwynn inquired the cause of the quarrel, and her coach
man repeated to her the offensive expression which had
stirred up his choler, '* Go, you blockhead !" said she,
" never fight again in such a cause, nor risk your carcass
but in defence of truth." The King laughed heartily,
when he heard the story, and comphed with the lady's
request, when she desired a place for her coachman.
—Ed.]

END OF VOL. I.

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