DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0287
THE COUNTESS OF SUNDERLAND. 241
joined him at Paris; they remained there together for about a
year. From this time there was an end of Lady Sunderland’s
domestic peace; her restless and ambitious husband became deeply
involved in all those dark, disgraceful schemes of court policy
which threatened the very foundation of English freedom. She
had not even the consolation which belongs to many a wife whose
husband treads the giddy path of ambition,—that of seeing her
lord honoured and useful in his generation, and thus, in the grati-
fication of her pride, finding some amends for disappointed love.
Endued with splendid abilities of every kind, cultivated by study ;
with an intellect to comprehend the universe, to weigh the desti-
nies and wield the resources of great nations ; with the most con-
summate address, the most insinuating graces of manner, and with
a knowledge of human nature, or rather of the world, allowed to
be unrivalled,—with all these advantages Lord Sunderland united
no generous feeling or patriotic principle, no elevated or enlarged
views of policy. To obtain wealth, office, power for himself'—to
baffle or betray his rivals,—to govern one king through his mis-
tresses and his vices, and dupe another through his friendship
and his virtues,—such were the objects he pursued. After being
twice Prime Minister of England and at the summit of power;
alternately the leader, the tool, and the victim of a party, this
really accomplished but most miserable man sank into the grave,
leaving behind a reputation for political profligacy, which happily
has been more than redeemed by later statesmen of his family.*
In the midst of many trials and anxieties, Lady Sunderland
appears ever superior to her husband in sense, in virtue, and in
feeling. All the notices of her scattered through Evelyn’s Diary,
exhibit her uniformly in the most amiable and respectable light;
he appears to have been the confidant of her secret charities, as
well as of her domestic afflictions: on one occasion he notes in his
* The history of Lord Sunderland’s political career, from 1671 to 1695, and of
the double and treacherous part he played in the Revolution, may be found in all
the records of that period :—as a tissue of venality, inconsistency, and falsehood,
it is perhaps unexampled.
R
joined him at Paris; they remained there together for about a
year. From this time there was an end of Lady Sunderland’s
domestic peace; her restless and ambitious husband became deeply
involved in all those dark, disgraceful schemes of court policy
which threatened the very foundation of English freedom. She
had not even the consolation which belongs to many a wife whose
husband treads the giddy path of ambition,—that of seeing her
lord honoured and useful in his generation, and thus, in the grati-
fication of her pride, finding some amends for disappointed love.
Endued with splendid abilities of every kind, cultivated by study ;
with an intellect to comprehend the universe, to weigh the desti-
nies and wield the resources of great nations ; with the most con-
summate address, the most insinuating graces of manner, and with
a knowledge of human nature, or rather of the world, allowed to
be unrivalled,—with all these advantages Lord Sunderland united
no generous feeling or patriotic principle, no elevated or enlarged
views of policy. To obtain wealth, office, power for himself'—to
baffle or betray his rivals,—to govern one king through his mis-
tresses and his vices, and dupe another through his friendship
and his virtues,—such were the objects he pursued. After being
twice Prime Minister of England and at the summit of power;
alternately the leader, the tool, and the victim of a party, this
really accomplished but most miserable man sank into the grave,
leaving behind a reputation for political profligacy, which happily
has been more than redeemed by later statesmen of his family.*
In the midst of many trials and anxieties, Lady Sunderland
appears ever superior to her husband in sense, in virtue, and in
feeling. All the notices of her scattered through Evelyn’s Diary,
exhibit her uniformly in the most amiable and respectable light;
he appears to have been the confidant of her secret charities, as
well as of her domestic afflictions: on one occasion he notes in his
* The history of Lord Sunderland’s political career, from 1671 to 1695, and of
the double and treacherous part he played in the Revolution, may be found in all
the records of that period :—as a tissue of venality, inconsistency, and falsehood,
it is perhaps unexampled.
R