DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0213
THE DUCHESS OF RICHMOND.
183
now to learn from tale or history. A catastrophe, which hung’
upon the caprice of a giddy woman, influenced the destiny of
three kingdoms.
The King was transported with rage at a step which seemed to
set his love and power at defiance: all who were suspected of
having been privy to the marriage of Miss Stewart with the Duke of
Richmond (among whom were some of the King’s best friends and
wisest counsellors,) fell under his extreme displeasure. The great
Lord Clarendon was deprived of the Seals and banished,* and his
dismissal was followed by those consequences, which paved the
way for the Revolution.
Pepys, in his Diary, records a conversation which took place
soon after her marriage, between the Duchess of Richmond and
one of the lords of the court, which is very consistent with her
character and conduct throughout. She said, that “ when the
Duke of Richmond first made love to her, she did ask the King,
and the duke did so likewise ; and that the King did not at first
refuse his consent.” She confessed, (( that she was come to that
pass, as to resolve to have married any gentleman of 1500Z. a-year,
who would have had her in honour, for she could not lower con-
tinue in the court without submitting to the wishes of the King',
whom she had so long kept off, though he had liberty more than
any other had, and more than he ought to have hadshe said
that a she had reflected on the occasion she had given the world
to think her a bad woman, and that she had no way but to marry,
* “ The Earl of Clarendon’s son, the Lord Cornbury, was going to her (Miss
Stewart’s) lodgings, upon some assignation that she had given him about her
affairs, knowing nothing of her intentions.. Tie met the King in the door, coming
out, full of fury. And he, suspecting that Lord Cornbury was in the design,
spoke to him as one in a rage that forgot all decency, and for some time would
not hear Lord Cornbury speak in his own defence. In the afternoon he heard
him with more temper, as he himself told me. Yet this made so deep an
impression, that ho resolved to take the Seals from his father.”—Burnet's History
of his own Time, vol. i. p. 354.
183
now to learn from tale or history. A catastrophe, which hung’
upon the caprice of a giddy woman, influenced the destiny of
three kingdoms.
The King was transported with rage at a step which seemed to
set his love and power at defiance: all who were suspected of
having been privy to the marriage of Miss Stewart with the Duke of
Richmond (among whom were some of the King’s best friends and
wisest counsellors,) fell under his extreme displeasure. The great
Lord Clarendon was deprived of the Seals and banished,* and his
dismissal was followed by those consequences, which paved the
way for the Revolution.
Pepys, in his Diary, records a conversation which took place
soon after her marriage, between the Duchess of Richmond and
one of the lords of the court, which is very consistent with her
character and conduct throughout. She said, that “ when the
Duke of Richmond first made love to her, she did ask the King,
and the duke did so likewise ; and that the King did not at first
refuse his consent.” She confessed, (( that she was come to that
pass, as to resolve to have married any gentleman of 1500Z. a-year,
who would have had her in honour, for she could not lower con-
tinue in the court without submitting to the wishes of the King',
whom she had so long kept off, though he had liberty more than
any other had, and more than he ought to have hadshe said
that a she had reflected on the occasion she had given the world
to think her a bad woman, and that she had no way but to marry,
* “ The Earl of Clarendon’s son, the Lord Cornbury, was going to her (Miss
Stewart’s) lodgings, upon some assignation that she had given him about her
affairs, knowing nothing of her intentions.. Tie met the King in the door, coming
out, full of fury. And he, suspecting that Lord Cornbury was in the design,
spoke to him as one in a rage that forgot all decency, and for some time would
not hear Lord Cornbury speak in his own defence. In the afternoon he heard
him with more temper, as he himself told me. Yet this made so deep an
impression, that ho resolved to take the Seals from his father.”—Burnet's History
of his own Time, vol. i. p. 354.