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294 he retained his constitutional vivacity to the last, he followed the praiseworthy example set him by his beautiful wife; expressed his belief in revealed religion, and died penitent, cheerful, and devout. The latter writes to St. Evremond of their mutual friend," Madame de Coulogne has undertaken to make your compliments to the Count de Grammont, by the Countess de Grammont. He is so young, that I think him as light as when he hated sick people, and loved them after they had recovered their health." His widow.survived him only a year, dying in 1708, at the age of sixty-seven. Of their two daughters, the only offspring of their marriage, Claude Charlotte, a beautiful and accomplished woman, married, in 1694, Henry Lord Stafford.* Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey, whose praise is of value, observes of her : "She had as much honour, and as much good sense, as I ever met with in any creature."+ Her younger sister died abbess of the Chanonesses in Lorrain.

ELIZABETH HAMILTON, COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT.

* Henry Howard, Viscount Stafford, was created an earl by James II., not many days before his Abdication, in 1688. See Lady M. Wortley Montagu's Letters, vol. ii. p. 217. Ed. 1837.

Lady Hervey's Letters, p. 179.

295

ANNE, COUNTESS OF SOUTHESK.

Lineage of the Countess of Southesk-Her Intrigue with the Duke of York-—Jealousy of her Husband-His singular Mode of Revenge -Her Family Afflictions and Death.

ANNE, COUNTESS OF SOUTHESK, remarkable only for her fair face and abandoned character, was the eldest daughter of the handsome and gallant Duke of Hamilton, who died of the wounds which he received at the battle of Worcester. Of her early history little is known. She seems, before marriage, to have been the friend and confidante of Mrs. Palmer, afterwards the famous Duchess of Cleveland, from whose conversation and example she probably imbibed that taste for intrigue, which has obtained for her so discreditable a position in the annals of gallantry and vice.

Lady Anne Hamilton must have been still young when she became the wife of Robert Lord Carnegie, eldest son of the Earl of Southesk, a man whose only characteristic seems to have been ill-temper, and whose principal occupations were bull-baiting and the cock-pit.

According to De Grammont, Lady Southesk had already been long famous for the tenderness of her disposition, at the time when the Duke of York expressed himself a suitor for her favours. The misery which her encouragement of the Duke's addresses occasioned her jealous husband, as well as the eccentric and disgusting means to which he reverted, in order to avenge himself on his rival, are circumstantially related both by Bishop Burnet and in the "Mémoires de Grammont."

Lady Southesk seems to have passed through the usual ordeal of paint, misery, and disappointment, with which the world is in the habit of rewarding its veterans. She is described as having been a constant attendant at the gaming-table, and Pepys alludes to her as "devilishly painted," and a flaunting frequenter of the Park. The close of her life was marked by the bitterest domestic suffering. Her first-born, Lord Carnegie, treated her with contempt; while her youngest and beloved son, William Carnegie, falling a victim to his passion for an abandoned woman, died at Paris at the age of nineteen in a miserable quarrel. The year of Lady Southesk's decease is unknown and unimportant. It is certain, however, that she was survived by her husband, who died in 1688.

297

SUSAN, LADY BELLASYSE.

Marriage of this Lady-Death of her Husband in a Duel-The Duke of York places a Contract of Marriage in her hands-She is frightened into returning it-Her Death-Picture of Lady Bellasyse at Hampton Court.

SUSAN, LADY BELLASTSE, was the only child of Sir William Armine, Baronet, of Osgodby, in Lincolnshire, by Mary Talbot, granddaughter of George, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury. At an early age she became the second wife of Sir Henry Bellasyse, son of John Lord Bellasyse, and nephew of Thomas Lord Falconberg, the son-in-law of Cromwell. She was early left a widow; her husband losing his life in a drunken fracas with Tom Porter, a Groom of the Bedchamber, and his own intimate friend.* Sir Henry died a Knight of the Bath,an honour for which he seems to have been indebted rather to his intimacy with the Duke of York, and the military services of his father during the civil wars, than to any merit of his own.

After the death of her husband, in 1667, Lady Bellasyse, who had been left with an only son Henry, afterwards second Lord Bellasyse, retired from the Court. She returned, however, in about two years, when the Duke of York showed his respect for the memory of his friend, by publicly making love to his widow. Whether there was any criminality in their intercourse is not

* For an account of this rather remarkable duel, which was fought 28th July, 1667, see Pepys' Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 104, 105, and 188. 4to.

known. The fact is certain, however, that, after the death of his Duchess, when Lady Bellasyse was no longer young, the Duke of York, probably in order to satisfy the scruples of his mistress, signed a contract of marriage, which he placed in her hands; at the same time making use of every means in his power to convert her to Popery.

Whether or not he achieved a victory over her heart, it is certain that, in his attack on her religious principles, he was entirely unsuccessful. Subsequently, in consequence of the Duke continuing his visits, her friends remonstrated with her on their frequency, and on the injury they reflected on her reputation. Thus provoked to defend her character, Lady Bellasyse, probably in a moment of indignation, produced the marriage contract which she had received from the Duke of York. The story was soon bruited abroad. Her father-in-law, Lord Bellasyse, a bigoted Papist, overlooking the advancement of his family in his regard for the interest of the religion which he professed, and dreading the influence which a zealous Protestant like his kinswoman might obtain over the Duke, immediately addressed himself to the King. Charles, according to Burnet, sent for the Duke :—“ It was too much," he said, "to have played the fool once: that was not to be done a second time, and at such an age." Lady Bellasyse, in her turn, was so intimidated by the threats of the Court, as to give up the original contract; adopting, however, the useless precaution of preserving an attested copy. It may be remarked that, after the death of her husband, the Duke of York procured for his mistress the rank of Baroness Bellasyse for her own life.

Pepys mentions his accidentally meeting Lady Bellasyse at a fashionable coachmaker's in 1669. She was seated, he says, with "other great ladies," in a new coach,

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