DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51519#0314
264:
THE COUNTESS OF NORTHUMBERLAND.
far from being a dismissed or despairing’ lover, that he was on the
eve of success: he won the heart of the young- countess, and, in
the same year, (1673,) they came to England privately, and were
married at Titchfield in Hampshire, the family seat of the Wrio-
thesleys. It appears that she afterwards recovered those attrac-
tions for which she had been distinguished in early youth; for
Evelyn alludes to her, eight or ten years afterwards, as “ the most
beautiful Countess of Northumberland.”
In 1675 she was in England, and for some years afterwards she
was involved in troubles relative to the disposal of her only
daughter by the Earl of Northumberland.* The dowager-countess,
who appears to have been a meddling, jealous old woman, demanded
to have the entire charge and disposal of the young heiress on her
mother’s second marriage. Lady Russell, ever right in judgment
as kind in heart, alludes to this affair in one of her letters to her
husband. “The two Lady Northumberlands have met at North-
umberland-House, after some propositions offered by my sister to
the other, which were discoursed first yesterday before my Lord
Chancellor, between the elder lady and Mr. Montagu: Lord
Suffolk, by my sister, offers to deliver up the child, upon condition he
will promise she shall have her on a visit for ten days or a month
sometimes, and that she will enter bonds not to marry the child
without her mother’s consent, nor till she is of years to consent;
and on her part, Mr. Montagu and she will enter into the same
bonds, that when she is with them, at no time they will marry or
contract any marriage for her without the grandmother’s consent:
but she was stout yesterday and would not hear patiently, yet
went to Northumberland-House and gave my sister a visit: I hope
for an accommodation. My sister urges, it is hard that her child
(that if she has no other children must be her heir) should be
disposed of without her consent, and in my judgment it is hard ;
yet I fancy I am not very apt to be partial.”
* See the preceding memoir of this celebrated heiress, afterwards Duchess
of Somerset, p. 168.
THE COUNTESS OF NORTHUMBERLAND.
far from being a dismissed or despairing’ lover, that he was on the
eve of success: he won the heart of the young- countess, and, in
the same year, (1673,) they came to England privately, and were
married at Titchfield in Hampshire, the family seat of the Wrio-
thesleys. It appears that she afterwards recovered those attrac-
tions for which she had been distinguished in early youth; for
Evelyn alludes to her, eight or ten years afterwards, as “ the most
beautiful Countess of Northumberland.”
In 1675 she was in England, and for some years afterwards she
was involved in troubles relative to the disposal of her only
daughter by the Earl of Northumberland.* The dowager-countess,
who appears to have been a meddling, jealous old woman, demanded
to have the entire charge and disposal of the young heiress on her
mother’s second marriage. Lady Russell, ever right in judgment
as kind in heart, alludes to this affair in one of her letters to her
husband. “The two Lady Northumberlands have met at North-
umberland-House, after some propositions offered by my sister to
the other, which were discoursed first yesterday before my Lord
Chancellor, between the elder lady and Mr. Montagu: Lord
Suffolk, by my sister, offers to deliver up the child, upon condition he
will promise she shall have her on a visit for ten days or a month
sometimes, and that she will enter bonds not to marry the child
without her mother’s consent, nor till she is of years to consent;
and on her part, Mr. Montagu and she will enter into the same
bonds, that when she is with them, at no time they will marry or
contract any marriage for her without the grandmother’s consent:
but she was stout yesterday and would not hear patiently, yet
went to Northumberland-House and gave my sister a visit: I hope
for an accommodation. My sister urges, it is hard that her child
(that if she has no other children must be her heir) should be
disposed of without her consent, and in my judgment it is hard ;
yet I fancy I am not very apt to be partial.”
* See the preceding memoir of this celebrated heiress, afterwards Duchess
of Somerset, p. 168.