DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0165
LADY DENHAM.
141
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 chocolate;* and her death was so sudden; it took place so
critically; and was accompanied by such agonizing symptoms; 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 suspected, that for some days afterwards his house
in Scotland-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 Denham is not so easily acquitted : it is remarkable that
he became insane immediately after his wife’s death, and continued
so for several months.f This insanity, might, however, have been
* Aubrey, who lived at the time, asserts the fact without any circumlocution.
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 shew the improbability
of her death by poison. On the 10th November, 16G6, “ 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 Den-
ham, 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,
m Pepys, in the space of less than two months, ‘ every body’s discourses ’ are
reduced to the suspicion of some.—Ed.]
t 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.
141
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 chocolate;* and her death was so sudden; it took place so
critically; and was accompanied by such agonizing symptoms; 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 suspected, that for some days afterwards his house
in Scotland-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 Denham is not so easily acquitted : it is remarkable that
he became insane immediately after his wife’s death, and continued
so for several months.f This insanity, might, however, have been
* Aubrey, who lived at the time, asserts the fact without any circumlocution.
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 shew the improbability
of her death by poison. On the 10th November, 16G6, “ 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 Den-
ham, 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,
m Pepys, in the space of less than two months, ‘ every body’s discourses ’ are
reduced to the suspicion of some.—Ed.]
t 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.