DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0164
140
LADY DENHAM.
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 publiclyand 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 Chaffinch held in
that of the King', his brother; and he made himself extremely useful
in this negociation. Lady Castlemaine, who had lost the power of
blushing for any thing, did not blush to be his coadjutor. 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 spirit 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 peremptory. Everywhere 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 sudden indisposition, of which, after languishing some
LADY DENHAM.
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 publiclyand 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 Chaffinch held in
that of the King', his brother; and he made himself extremely useful
in this negociation. Lady Castlemaine, who had lost the power of
blushing for any thing, did not blush to be his coadjutor. 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 spirit 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 peremptory. Everywhere 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 sudden indisposition, of which, after languishing some