C. J. Hamilton

“ Gunning was a clever, ambitious woman, and as she looked at the wonderful beauty of her daughters, fast growing to maturity, she thought that the girls must be taken out into the world to make their mark there. ”

“ It has often been said that Lady Coventry died from the immoderate use of cosmetics in which there was a large quantity of white lead, but consumption was more probably the real cause of her death. Her youngest sister had died of it, and the Duchess of Hamilton's two sons were also victims to the scourge. When confined to bed, Lady Coventry kept a pocket glass under her pillow which she looked at from time to time, so as to note the ravages made by disease in her once lovely features. She died at the early age of 27, leaving a son and two daughters. ”

“ In 1757 she complained to the King that she could not walk in the park, because of the mob that surrounded her, so he ordered a guard to attend her. When she pretended to be frightened, the officer on guard ordered twelve sergeants to march abreast before her, and the sergeant and twelve men behind, "and in this pomp," adds a contemporary writer, "did this idiot walk all the evening with more mob about her than ever, her sensible husband on one side, and Lord Pembroke on the other."
In March, 1859, she was looking in great beauty at her sister's wedding. ”

“ Though her husband was absent and she was in delicate health, she stoutly refused to illuminate her house in Argyll Buildings at the bidding of the mob, who battered the doors and windows for three hours. She could always put down any impertinent people with true aristocratic hauteur. ”

“ Elizabeth Gunning (Duchess of Hamilton and afterwards Duchess of Argyll) , 1734‐1790.
AT the Bal Poudré, given at Dublin Castle in the spring of 1903, two figures were prominent, the Countess of Chesterfield and her sister, Miss Gladys Wilson, who represented the beautiful Gunning sisters—the two Irish beauties who set the fashionable world of London in a blaze, and ended by being, to use Horace Walpole's words, "Countessed and double Duchessed." The luck of the Gunnings has passed into a proverb. Their story is, indeed, far stranger than fiction. ”

“ They were quite aware of their own charms. Horace Walpole tells a story that one day when they were going over Hampton Court Palace, the housekeeper, wishing to show the room containing Kneller's pictures of the Hampton Court beauties, cried, "This way for the Beauties!" On this, the sisters flew into a passion, and said they were come to see the palace, and not to be shown off as a sight. Malicious tricks were often played off on them, with a view of injuring them in fashionable society. The Duchess of Bedford was about to give a masquerade, to which the Gunnings were pining to be invited. ”

“ A more beautiful or dignified duchess could not be found. She had two sons and a daughter (afterwards Countess of Derby) , and was left a widow in 1759, but her widowhood was of short duration. She was soon engaged to the Duke of Bridgewater, an engagement which was broken off because she would not give up her sister, whose conduct was rather reprehensible. Finally she married Colonel John Campbell, heir to the Duke of Argyll. She still kept her first title, till her husband succeeded to the Dukedom. Horace Walpole says "it was a marriage worthy of Arcadia." ”

“ She then informed me that, having lived beyond her income, her husband had been obliged to retire into the country to avoid the disagreeable consequences that must ensue; that she had been in hopes that her brother, Lord Mayo, listening to the dictates of fraternal affection, would not suffer a sister and her family to be reduced to distress, but his lordship remained inflexible to her repeated solicitations. The ill-looking men I now found had entered the house by virtue of execution, and were preparing to throw her and her children out-of-doors. ”

“ I think there being two so handsome, and such perfect figures, is their chief excellence, for singly I have seen much handsomer women than either. However, they can't walk in the park, or go to Vauxhall, but such mobs follow them that they themselves are driven away. ”

“ Delany, writing in 1754, gives a vivid pen and ink sketch of Lady Coventry's appearance. "Yesterday, after chapel, the Duchess of Portland brought Lady Coventry to feast me, and a feast she was! She is a fine figure, and vastly handsome, notwithstanding a silly look sometimes about her mouth. She has a thousand airs, but with a sort of innocence that diverts one. ”

“ They resembled each other to an extraordinary degree, though Maria was always considered the prettier of the two,while Elizabeth was the cleverer, and had more dignity and discretion. One was 18 and the other 17 when, in April, 1751, they dawned on the London horizon, conquering, and to conquer, in all the dazzling bloom of youth. Horace Walpole says:—"There are two Irish girls, of no fortune, who make more noise than any of their predecessors since the days of Helen, and are declared the two handsomest women alive. ”