Court Beauties of Old Whitehall Part 8

The accession of James II. gave the Talbots their opportunity. The favourite was created Earl of Tyrconnel, and sent to Ireland in command of the army. His wife accompanied him, and now there began for them the culminating and most critical period of their lives. Already the shadow of the ruin of the Stuart dynasty could be discerned outlined in the ferment of the times. The spirit of the approaching Revolution of 1688, which cost James II. his crown, was more religious than political; and it was in Catholic Ireland, which had groaned under the iron heel of the Puritans, that the struggle for which all were preparing was to be decided. In that distracted kingdom, with the pa.s.sionate Papist Talbot in command of the military, and the sleek Protestant Clarendon (the great Chancellor's son) in command of the civil power, the very difference in temper, character, and politics of the two men was enough to lash the factions they represented to fury. The tactics by which Talbot crushed his rival and set the Catholics, eager for revenge, at the throat of the Protestants caused his name to be execrated in England. But terrible as they were, it should be remembered that the revered Cromwell's were not a whit less ruthless. Talbot was the _enfant perdu_ of a doomed faith and a doomed nation; his name has been covered with infamy because he failed, and Macaulay, in making him the villain of his romantic "History," was merely expressing the opinion of triumphant Protestant England.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RICHARD TALBOT, DUKE OF TYRCONNEL.]

When James II. fled from Whitehall his hopes turned naturally to Ireland and Talbot. The exiled King at once created him Duke of Tyrconnel and Viceroy. There never has reigned at Dublin Castle a more striking figure. Nor was the Vicereine unequal to the position of power, splendour, and intrigue to which she had climbed with such difficulty.

Destiny ruled that her magnificent reign should be short and her ruin an arresting contrast to the success of her equally ambitious and clever sister, Sarah, d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough. She took advantage of her temporary fortune to marry her three daughters by her former husband, Hamilton, to rich and influential Irish n.o.blemen. Of one of these "three viscountesses," as they were popularly known in their day, there is, says Mrs. Jameson, a picturesque legend still current among the Irish peasantry. Laughlen Castle was left to the Viscountess Dillon on the death of her husband with the proviso that she should reside in it during her life. In her widowhood, falling in love with a young Englishman, and being unable to detain him in Ireland or follow him to England while her castle existed, she ordered a banquet to be prepared in her garden and, having set fire to the castle and feasted by the light of the blazing pile, went off to England after supper with her lover!

It is not surprising to learn that the mother of such a daughter had a commanding spirit and temper. "She is said to have ruled her husband without much effort, but as all her prejudices and pa.s.sions held in the same direction, she on many occasions only added the fuel of her feminine impatience to his headlong self-will." Her influence over Talbot was, in fact, supreme. Struggling, as she did with all her force, to maintain her husband and herself at the summit they had scaled, it was but natural that she should have made enemies among the distracted and desperate Jacobites who surrounded her contemptible master, James.

All sorts of efforts were made at St. Germain to induce the fallen King to supersede the Viceroy, or at least banish his wife from Ireland.

Lord Melfort, foiled by her intrigues, declared that she had "l'ame la plus noire qui se puisse concevoir."

The Talbot influence was, however, too strong to be easily broken, and James, having decided to fight for his crown in Ireland, trusted implicitly to the Duke of Tyrconnel, who had refused to go over to William of Orange in spite of heavy bribes. From the coming of James and his French army to Ireland in March 1689, to the fatal Battle of the Boyne, the struggle between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism entered upon its final and most distracted phase. In these months of peril the Jacobite camp was honeycombed with anarchy. Round the Viceroy and his wife envy and malice coiled like a hydra. It required all their skill to baffle the intrigues and treachery in their own party. At the same time the terror and hatred of the English vented themselves on the frenzied Duke of Tyrconnel, who, still sure of the support of his weak King, was ruthless in his vengeance and desperate in his measures to out-manoeuvre William of Orange, that master of strategy. Of the lampoons that rained upon him the following is a sample:--

"There is an old prophecy found in a bog, That Ireland shall be ruled by an a.s.s and a dog; And now this prophecy is come to pa.s.s, For Talbot's a dog and James is an a.s.s!"

The French authorities quoted by Macaulay are probably quite correct in stating that the Duke of Tyrconnel had arranged with James to make Ireland a French protectorate, in case the English crown should again be on the head of a Protestant king. The thought that he was just the Irishman to entertain such a design was sufficient to make him execrable to the Englishmen of his own day, and no less infamous to Macaulay, that strict respecter of conventions, who ferreted his forgotten name out of the oubliettes of history to depict him as the traitor _par excellence_.

But it was certainly not England that Talbot would have betrayed had his schemes succeeded. To him the yoke that crushed his race and creed was foreign. Nor would Ireland have altogether resented his handing her over to France, all bleeding as she was from Protestant and English wounds.

Of the two yokes the French would a.s.suredly have been the easier for Ireland--at least so Irishmen have declared on many occasions.

Be all this as it may, perhaps no other but Talbot could have maintained himself against the calumnies and intrigues that began slowly to break down his iron frame. It must have been with something of relief, something of despair, that the high-spirited d.u.c.h.ess of Tyrconnel learnt that the factious Franco-Irish army was finally to meet the common foe.

She knew well enough, when on the night of the 30th of June a courier brought her the news that a battle would be fought on the morrow, that on its issue hung all her future. The agony of suspense in which she pa.s.sed the day of the Battle of the Boyne found her at evening no less exhausted than the conquered and fugitive James when he reached Dublin Castle. Nevertheless, in this hour of her deepest humiliation she rose proudly above despair. As soon as the worst was told her she bore herself with as high a spirit as when years before she had faced Jermyn.

When the fleeing King arrived, faint and covered with mud so as to be hardly recognisable, the d.u.c.h.ess of Tyrconnel a.s.sembled her household in state, and dressing herself magnificently received him with all the splendour of Court etiquette. Never has Dublin Castle witnessed a function more dramatic than this of d.i.c.k Talbot's Vicereine on the night of the Battle of the Boyne. Having on one knee congratulated James on his safety, she invited him to partake of refreshment. His answer is celebrated. Shaking his head sadly, he replied that his breakfast that morning had spoiled his appet.i.te, and ironically complimented her on the swiftness of her husband's countrymen's heels. "At least your Majesty has had the advantage of them," she could not help retorting, stung by the ruin of her hopes and ambitions. When Lauzun, the French general, told her that fifteen Talbots and half as many Hamiltons had been slain, and that her husband had fought like a hero of romance, she might have been acquitted of disloyalty had she cried, as she must have felt, with the Irish soldiers, "Change kings, and we will fight the battle over again!"

At the Council held on the following day it was decided that James should return to France, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Tyrconnel either went with him or followed shortly afterwards. It was no doubt necessary for the Viceroy to have his clever wife to intrigue in his behalf at St.

Germain, where his enemies were the most dangerous. She did her best for him in that plot-laden atmosphere, but Tyrconnel and the cause he represented were hopelessly broken, and the doom of the wicked fairy had fallen on the d.u.c.h.ess. Her star had set, never to rise again.

In the following year the patriotic Viceroy died suddenly at Limerick, whither he had gone in brave despair to give battle to the fatal William of Orange once more. Before he died his enemies at St. Germain had triumphed over his wife, and the weak, ungrateful James had at last allowed himself to be persuaded to deprive him of all authority in Ireland. But, so loved as well as feared was he, the despatch which disgraced him was kept a profound secret. His death was generally attributed to poison, but the real cause, according to a more trustworthy opinion, was apoplexy. So exciting were the times, that his end scarcely caused a thrill. Death must have been welcome, for his pa.s.sionate heart was broken.

Thus perished this questionable hero, whose virtues and abilities have been covered with infamy by failure and the unbounded popular pa.s.sions of the times in which he lived. Two voices only have ever been lifted in his defence: one was Berwick's, his contemporary, who, when the opportunity was offered, n.o.bly refused to supplant him; the other was Lady Morgan's, a sympathetic critic of a later day. "Of Richard Talbot, Duke of Tyrconnel," she said, "much ill has been written and more believed; but his history, like that of his unfortunate country, has only been written by the pen of party, steeped in gall, and copied servilely from the pages of prejudice by the tame historians of modern times more anxious for authority than authenticity."

His brilliant wife, whom his death reduced to poverty, paid his memory such honour as she could. At her entreaty Anselme, the most popular preacher of the day, p.r.o.nounced his _oraison funebre_ in Paris, and the Courts of Versailles and St. Germain a.s.sembled to hear it. The obscurity in which the rest of her long life was spent has only been fitfully illuminated. Neglected in the distracted Court of the exiled Stuarts, she was so poor that she was often in want of the necessaries of life.

On one occasion temporary relief was afforded her by the gift of four hundred pounds from the pension the Pope gave to James II. Her proud spirit having been embittered by misfortune, she quarrelled with nearly all her relations, living on especially bad terms with her "three viscountesses;" her only child by Talbot that survived, and whom she had married to the Prince of Vintimiglia; and her luckier but no cleverer sister, the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough. Many years later, in the reign of Queen Anne, when her famous brother-in-law was at the height of his power and playing his double game between the Whigs and the Jacobites, she was employed for a time in his secret negotiations. But the proceedings are wrapped in mystery. There is a story said to be apocryphal, though Horace Walpole and others believed it, that she was in England in 1705, and sold haberdashery at the Royal Exchange, which was at that time let out in stalls.

"Above stairs," said Walpole, "sat, in the character of a milliner, the reduced d.u.c.h.ess of Tyrconnel, wife of Richard Talbot, Lord Deputy of Ireland under James II. This female, suspected to be his d.u.c.h.ess after his death, supported herself for a few days, till she was known and otherwise provided for, by the little trade of the place. She had delicacy enough to wish not to be detected; she sat in a white mask and a white dress, and was known by the name of the White Milliner."

It is certain that three years later she was at Brussels, where she had a meeting of a political nature with the Duke of Marlborough. In describing it to his wife he wrote that he found her grown very old and hoa.r.s.e, and so much changed as to be hardly recognisable. Through his influence some of her confiscated property in Ireland was restored to her, and she went to Dublin, where she remained for the rest of her life, with what thoughts one would like to know! She lived for nearly thirty years in a most devout and lonely retirement, and, her funds being now more than sufficient for her wants, founded a nunnery for the Order of Poor Clares. "Her death," says Walpole, "was occasioned by falling out of her bed on the floor in a winter's night, and being too feeble to rise or to call out, she was found in the morning so perished with cold that she died in a few hours." Her age was eighty-three, and she had survived the fatal Battle of the Boyne forty years!

Of the beauty for which "the Lovely Jennings" had been so celebrated at Whitehall, when she scattered the Duke of York's love-billets "like hailstones around her," there had long ceased to remain the slightest trace.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WANTON SHREWSBURY."

(ANNA MARIA, COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY.)

_From the portrait by Mary Beale in the possession of Earl Spencer._]

"WANTON SHREWSBURY"--LADY ANNA MARIA BRUDENELL, COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY

A MESSALINA OF THE RESTORATION

In all ages there are persons of whom it may be said that they have been born out of their proper era. The manner in which such beings are received by the times in which they find themselves depends entirely on the standard of public opinion then existing. The Countess of Shrewsbury was one of these strange individuals. She should have flourished in France under the Valois and the great Dumas should have been her historian. In times like our own, for instance--for whether in or out of her proper period her individuality was too striking to have permitted her to pa.s.s unnoticed--she would undoubtedly have proved the truth of the verse that declares--

"Three yards of cord and a sliding board Are all the gallows' need."

It was certainly fortunate for her that Fate did not r.e.t.a.r.d her appearance until after the Stuarts had vanished. As it was, even the Restoration looked askance at her; and it was only to her rank that she owed the immunity she enjoyed. There was a magic in rank in those days that secured liberty for its crimes. And no name appeared grander to the popular imagination than that of Talbot.

In the remote past when, first coming out of Normandy into Britain, that family of which Tyrconnel was the most ill.u.s.trious representative had settled in Ireland, its t.i.tular chief had remained in England. From him in the course of the centuries had sprung a line which yielded to none in pride of birth. Before the Howards or Percys had been heard of the English Talbots had become famous. One family alone boasted a more ancient lineage. This was de Vere, of which at the time we are now contemplating Aubrey, twentieth Earl of Oxford, was the last of his race. Since the fifteenth century the earldom of Shrewsbury had been the chief of the many dignities honourably borne by the head of the Talbots--a t.i.tle whose unbroken succession the family boasts down to the present day. At the Restoration this distinguished house was represented by the eleventh of the line. He was a colourless aristocrat who, the year before the return of the Stuarts, had been married in London to his second wife, Lady Anna Maria Brudenell, daughter of the Earl of Cardigan, by a Justice of the Peace in the church of St.

Giles-in-the-Fields.

When the Chevalier de Gramont arrived at Whitehall at the beginning of Charles II.'s reign the Countess of Shrewsbury was among the most beautiful and fascinating women he found there. If she had not already out-Castlemained the Castlemaine it was only from want of opportunity, not of inclination. Her terrible career had, however, begun. "As for Lady Shrewsbury," declared Gramont, "she is conspicuous. I would take a wager that if she had a man killed for her every day she would only hold her head the higher for it. One would suppose that she had plenary indulgences for her conduct. There are three or four gentlemen who wear an ell of her hair made into bracelets, and n.o.body finds any fault."

Judging from the virtuous, no less than the vicious, men on whom she cast her spells, my Lady Shrewsbury, like King Arthur's sister Morgan le Fay, must have possessed the secret of enchantment. Not otherwise can one explain how the Earl of Arran, the n.o.ble Duke of Ormond's n.o.ble son, became the first and most ardent of her many lovers. This brave and upright young man long languished a slave to the pa.s.sion with which she had inspired him. Perhaps, so powerful and seductive was her charm, he might never have been freed but for her own caprice. For the sorceress soon tired of her victims, and disenchanted them or had them slain as it pleased her. Few, like her kinsman, d.i.c.k Talbot, ever "sacrificed for another her letters, pictures, and hair" with impunity. But then he was quite an extraordinary man.

To those who care to peep into the seraglio of the Countess, it may cause some surprise to discover the "invincible" Jermyn bleeding in it.

Both of these voluptuaries were attracted to each other by the same motive--the desire to subjugate a notable rival in the art of enchantment. But the ever-victorious Jermyn never embarked on a more ill-advised undertaking than that of adding Lady Shrewsbury to his list of triumphs. At the time of his attempt the slave of her ring, so to speak, was Thomas Howard, brother to the Earl of Carlisle. Like Arran, he had a fine character, which under a shy exterior concealed a sensitive, jealous spirit. In his infatuation for the Countess he invited her one evening to a _tete-a-tete_ supper at a sort of _cafe chantant_ known as Spring Garden, a fas.h.i.+onable place of amus.e.m.e.nt in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross. To give a little _eclat_ to his hospitality, Howard, who was an officer in the Guards, had engaged one of his soldiers who played pretty well on the bagpipe to entertain them during the supper. The little festivity was in full swing when Jermyn, having been previously informed by her ladys.h.i.+p of her engagement for this particular evening, arrived at Spring Garden as if by chance, and insinuated himself into her company. Howard politely asked him to join his guest and himself at supper, and Jermyn not only accepted, but at once began to monopolise the lady's attention; and the better to impress her with his superiority to her host, to whom, unlike to himself, the subtle advantages of a life pa.s.sed entirely in the air of Courts had been denied, he had the insolence to gibe at the cooking, the music, and the Spring Garden generally.

Naturally under such circ.u.mstances the cynical wit of Jermyn, which seemed to delight Lady Shrewsbury, was offensive to Howard, who possessed none at all. Stung by the veiled insults levelled at him by this impertinent intruder on his evening's amus.e.m.e.nt, as well as by the jealousy of watching the Countess's smiles bestowed on another, he had the greatest difficulty to refrain from drawing his sword. A quarrel on her behalf between these two men, one of whom had begun to bore her while she wished to dupe the other, was perhaps exactly what Lady Shrewsbury most desired to complete her evening's amus.e.m.e.nt. Jermyn, no doubt, would willingly have a.s.sisted her, for he owed some of his victories over the fair s.e.x to his skill in the art of self-defence. But a chivalrous dread of exposing the fatal woman he loved to scandal prevented Howard from staining the supper with blood.

The next morning, however, Jermyn, who had gone to bed with the satisfaction of having made Howard appear ridiculous, was awakened by a challenge. He at once chose his second, one Rawlings, while Dillon, an intimate friend of Rawlings, served in the same capacity to Howard. The place of meeting was "at the old Pall Mall at St. James's," and the battle, such was the determination of the impetuous Howard, was _a l'outrance_--the seconds, according to the custom of the times, engaging as well as the princ.i.p.als.

"Mr. Coventry," recorded Pepys in his Diary that day, "did tell us of the duel between Mr. Jermyn, nephew to my Lord St. Albans, and Colonel Giles Rawlings, the latter of whom is killed, and the first mortally wounded, as is thought. They fought against Captain Thomas Howard, my Lord Carlisle's brother, and another unknown (Dillon), who they say had armour on that they could not be hurt, so that one of their swords went up to the hilt against it. They had horses ready and are fled." Thus did my Lady Shrewsbury rid herself of a lover grown inconvenient, and without the blood of her victims staining her. For, adds Pepys, "what is most strange, Howard would not to the last tell Jermyn what the quarrel was, nor do anybody know."

As it was not to the interest of the "invincible" Jermyn, who received three wounds and was carried off the field with very little sign of life, to breathe his suspicions regarding the lesson he had received, when Lady Shrewsbury's share in this duel finally came to light long afterwards her reputation was too deeply stained with the blood of others to make these drops remarkable. Possibly, had she only had gentlemen to deal with, like Arran and Howard, the Countess might have managed to evade the infamy with which she came to be regarded. But as her career proceeded her amours became more wanton, and the men she attracted lacked both chivalry and decency. Her depravity was already the subject of the idle gossip of the Court, when Harry Killigrew, having nothing better to do, had the folly to fall in love with her, and thereby proved in the sequel how fatal an enemy she could be. His advances were well received, for, said Hamilton, "as Lady Shrewsbury, by an extraordinary chance, had no engagement at that time, their _liaison_ was soon established."

Wide as had been her experience of men, it is doubtful if she had ever had a lover quite so impudent and foolish as young Killigrew. He was the son of Thomas Killigrew, a man _bien vu_ at Whitehall and well known in the Restoration times, who had, says Pepys, "a fee out of the wardrobe for cap and bells and the t.i.tle of King's Fool or Jester, and might revile or jeer anybody, the greatest person, without offence, by the privilege of his place." Indeed, this Master of the Revels of the Court of Charles II., to give him his official designation, though he was commonly known as "Tom the Jester," spared no one, and, like the still more famous Chicot, took liberties even with the King himself. Not that there was any particular daring in making merry at Charles's expense, for his Majesty had so little care of his dignity that any one could take almost any liberty with him. But Tom Killigrew had the courage to aim his quips at much more dangerous targets; to his sorrow very often, once being boxed on the ears and another time even stabbed for his jests. For the palmy days of the Court Fool had long since disappeared, and the revival of the office was only due to the cynicism of the Merry Monarch. Tom, however, took his knocks with a good grace, and reaped all the advantage possible out of his dangerous sinecure.

Many anecdotes of his daring are extant, but the only one that seems to us worth repeating is the sample he gave, as Court Jester be it understood, to Louis XIV. It is not recorded whether the Sun King laughed or bit his lips--the latter, we should judge from what we know of him--when showing Killigrew a picture of the Crucifixion hanging between two portraits of himself and the Pope, the Fool remarked: "Ah, Sire, though I have often heard that our Lord was hung between two thieves, I never knew till now who they were."

But perhaps he may best be remembered now as the original founder of the Drury Lane Theatre and as the first to introduce Italian opera to England. He had ever had a fondness for the stage, and as a boy, in order to obtain admittance to the play, used to wait outside the doors till one of the actors, as was customary, would come out in search of one of the urchins loitering there to act the devil. From acting he had taken to writing plays, and during the time he had spent in Venice, whither he had been sent by the exiled Charles to try to raise money for him, and from which he was turned out for his immoral life, he wrote some indifferent comedies. It was under his management that Nell Gwynn and the d.u.c.h.ess of Cleveland's Goodman first appeared at Drury Lane in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Rule a Wife and Have a Wife." Coupled with his fooleries and his profligacy he had much sound sense--a faculty that his son Harry wholly lacked.

This young man, who owed what prestige he enjoyed to his father, affected the beau of his period. He had plenty of wild, obscene wit, and early gained the reputation of being a swashbuckler. Pepys met him and some of his a.s.sociates one night at Vauxhall, "as very rogues as any in the town, who were ready to take hold of every woman that came by them."

They invited Pepys, who was apparently nothing loth, "to supper in an arbour, but Lord! their talk did make my heart ache! Here," continues the prurient gossip, whom we must thank for giving us many a sidelight on Restoration manners, "I first understood the meaning of the company that lately were called 'Ballers'; Harry telling me how it was by a meeting of some young blades, when he was among them, and my 'Lady'

Bennet (a notorious procuress) and her ladies and their dancing naked, and all the roguish things in the world."

That the Countess of Shrewsbury should have admitted this man to her closest intimacy, without any pretence at concealment, is sufficient to show the free rein she had come to give to her pa.s.sions. But though he had a preference for the lowest haunts of the town, a shadow of respectability still clung to him. Through the Killigrew interest at Court--besides the favour his father enjoyed with the King, one of his aunts, Lady Shannon, had been a mistress of Charles--he had secured the post of groom of the bedchamber to the Duke of York, with whom he was somewhat of a favourite. His station in life had consequently brought him in contact with the cream of Restoration society, but owing to the insufferable airs and impertinences he allowed himself there were few whom he had not offended. Once, indeed, much to the general satisfaction, the Duke of Buckingham gave him a lesson he richly deserved. For having presumed to take some insolent liberty with this n.o.bleman at Drury Lane, his Grace, in full view of the approving audience, "did soundly beat him, and take away his sword, and make a fool of him, till the fellow prayed him to spare his life." The salutary effect of this lesson was, however, only temporary, and when Harry Killigrew had the Countess of Shrewsbury for his mistress the memory of his public chastis.e.m.e.nt had quite ceased to have any effect on his volatile nature. Even the resentment he might naturally have been supposed to feel towards the Duke of Buckingham had disappeared. He was, says Hamilton, "a frequent guest at his Grace's table."

The Duke, who had, perhaps, the most brilliant wit of any person of the period and enjoyed that of others, was, in the cynical indifference with which he regarded both vice and virtue, amused by Killigrew. If, as was said of this foolish son of the Court Fool, "he would never leave off lying as long as his tongue would wag," it was equally true of this organ that it would never leave off wagging as long as there was a bottle to be drunk. Buckingham, who not only used him as a pimp but as a spy and mistrusted him, knowing Killigrew's weakness, delighted to intoxicate him as the surest means of pumping the truth from him. But Killigrew, whose self-love was enormously flattered by being the accepted lover of such a woman as the Countess of Shrewsbury, no sooner got drunk than his tongue would wag by the hour in praise of her ladys.h.i.+p's "most secret charms and least visible beauties, concerning which more than half the Court knew quite as much as he knew himself."

His Grace, into whose ears these glowing descriptions were being continually dinned, resolved at last to test the truth of them himself, with the result that Harry Killigrew lost his mistress and my Lady Shrewsbury gained a new lover. And now the foolish young libertine gave the crowning proof of his folly. For, being cut dead by Lady Shrewsbury, "he a.s.sailed her with invectives from head to foot. He painted a frightful picture of her conduct, and turned all her charms which he had previously extolled into defects."

Buckingham was not the person to be trifled with, still less Lady Shrewsbury, who had no more hesitation in removing an enemy from her path than Messalina. But as Killigrew's compromising indiscretions had after all only served to provide her with a fresh lover more to her taste, "he was privately warned of the inconvenience to which his declamations might subject him, but as he despised the advice, and persisted, he soon had reason to repent of it." His punishment was, however, deferred by an event and its consequence, that for some sixteen months engrossed the attention of his Grace and my Lady to the exclusion of all other considerations.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE VILLIERS, SECOND DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM

_After Verelst._]