Mary Louisa Boyle

“ He says the cascade at Boughton, though smaller than the one at Versailles, is more beautiful. The old gourmet is never tired of praising the good living and extolling the comestibles that the Duke had sent him, and he says: “J’ai été à Boughton voir milord, la bonne compagnie, l’érudition, les perdreaux, les truffes;” in fact all that had charms for him in the absence of the Duchesse de Mazarin herself, to whom he writes. The two men met frequently at the house of the beautiful Hortense, one of whose most fervent admirers was the Duke of Montagu. ”

“ Thus perished the man whose noble end to a noble life, called forth eulogiums from friend and foe. Bishop Parker, a partisan of the Duke of York, says: “He fell a sacrifice to the service of his country: endued with the virtues of Alcibiades, untainted by his vices; capable of any business; of high birth, full of wisdom, a great commander on sea and land; learned, eloquent, affable, liberal, magnificent.” The Duke of Buckingham, who was in the fleet says: “Lord Sandwich was such a loss, the Dutch might almost have called it a victory.” ”

“ On completing his twenty-first year, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir James Bourchier, of Felsted, in Essex, a kinswoman of Hampden’s, who brought him a modest dowry, which she nobly relinquished with the additional money he had settled on her for life, to rescue her husband from pecuniary difficulties in after years; a woman of irreproachable life, and unobtrusive manners, who tolerated rather than coveted grandeur, and distinction, an excellent housewife, and a loving help-mate. ”

“ Nothing could equal the consideration and generosity of Louis XIV. towards the exiled sovereigns. The ex-Queen of England had a small Court of her own, at St. Germains, where she presided with gentle quiet dignity, cheering the declining days of her unhappy husband, by her unceasing devotion. Whatever the faults of Mary of Modena may have been in public life, no one could deny to the exiled Princess a reputation for virtue, tenderness, and charity, very uncommon in the age in which she lived. ”

“ Indeed, before he embarked, Montagu had a conversation with Richard Cromwell in which he told him roundly that he would rather find him (on his return from sea) in his grave, than hatching mischief; upon which that mild man replied that he would do “whatever Montagu, Broghill (afterwards Earl of Orrery) and Monk would have him.” ”

“ After a merry dinner, Pepys took boat and visited every ship in the fleet to make known the royal message, and doubtless it was as he said, “a brave sight and pleasant withal” to be received with “respect and honour” and to bring “joy to all men.” On his return to the “Nazeby,” Montagu was much pleased to hear the fleet received the communication from the King with a transport of joy, and he showed his secretary two private letters that he had received from Charles, and the Duke of York, couched in the most friendly language. ”

“ One wish he has: Could he be pardoned in this world, by the man he has most injured? Oh, my Lord, when I meet her in another world, enable me to tell her—if departed spirits are not ignorant of earthly things—that you forgive us both, and that you will be a father to her dear children. ”

“ His first wife was Marie Louise, daughter of Philip, Duke of Orleans, by Henrietta Maria of England. Transplanted from the brilliant Court [254] of France, to the stiff formality of Spain, and the Spaniards, at a time when the jealousy of France was so great, that the Mistress of the Robes was said to have wrung her parrots’ necks for speaking French, Marie Louise, the wife of a half idiot King, bore herself wisely and bravely, and during the few short years of her reign, gained an influence for good, over her husband, who loved her dearly. ”

“ I hope, Charles, when you receive this and know that I have sent this gentleman to be your tutor, you will be very glad to see I take such care of you, and be very grateful, which is the best way of showing your obedience. You are now grown big enough to be a man, if you are wise enough, and the way to be truly wise, is to serve God, learn your books, observe the instructions of your parents first, and next your Tutor, to whom I have entirely resigned you for these seven years, and according as you employ that time you are to be happy or unhappy for ever. ”

“ Montagu had now indeed, as Clarendon observes, betaken himself most generously to the King’s service. He was occasionally much tried by the over-interference of his colleague, Monk, “yet was he willing to do him all the honour in the world,” and let him have all the honour of doing the business, though “he will many times express his thoughts of Monk being a thick-skulled fool.” But Monk was most influential, and Montagu, with his wonted [17] magnanimity, sacrificed his own pride to advance the cause of his royal master, and the prosperity of his country. ”

“ He was proclaimed Protector in 1654, and while refusing the title of King, sate on a Chair of State, the only one covered, in that vast assembly, and drove back to his Palace at Whitehall, with more than regal pomp. Thither, keeping up great state, he removed his [243] aged mother, whose remaining days were embittered by alarm, for her son’s safety, his favourite daughter, Mrs. Claypole, from whom he would scarcely ever separate, the gentle and handsome likeness of himself, Mary, etc.
Hard, cruel, and uncompromising in public life, Oliver was tender, and loving in his domestic relations. ”

“ Lady Rachel Russell says: “My sister urges that her only child should not be disposed of without her consent, and in my judgment it is hard, yet I fancy I am not partial.” The old lady was triumphant, however, and contrived to get the young heiress into her power, or rather to assert her power over her fortunes, and Elizabeth Percy had the strange fate of being three times a wife, and twice a widow ere she was sixteen. [71] She married, when only thirteen, Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, who immediately assumed the name and arms of Percy; but he died a few months after his marriage, in 1680. ”

“ There still exists a gate named after Lord Sandwich. “When at Lisbon my Lord sent over presents of mellons and rare grapes to his Countess in London; the grapes so fine that Mistress Pepys packed some up in a basket to send to the King’s Majesty.” Lady Sandwich also received a civet cat, parrot, apes, and many other eccentric proofs of her Lord’s remembrance, which she showed to Mr. Pepys when he dined with her at the Wardrobe. ”

“ The marriage was concluded, under circumstances which appeared to promise great prosperity; but alas, for human foresight! the young Queen’s life was destined to be one prolonged struggle, of sorrow, distress, and difficulty. She took refuge in France, soon after the birth of her daughter Henrietta, and was there warmly welcomed, and treated with liberality by the King; her constant pecuniary difficulties being usually attributed to her generosity, to the English Royalists. ”

“ Mr. Palmer, now a member of Parliament, had a house in King Street, Westminster, close to the Palace, as also to the lodgings of the Earl of Sandwich, whose housekeeper, “Sarah,” supplied his lordship’s cousin, and daily visitor, Mr. Pepys, with abundant gossip. The far-famed diary abounds in anecdotes of Barbara, praises of her beauty, alternating with blame of her conduct, but every word shewing the fascination she exercised over the writer. The Earl of Anglesey died in 1660-61: and about the same time a daughter was born to Mistress Palmer, which was the occasion of much scandal. ”

“ The murderer of her, whom he preferred, far preferred to life, suspects the hand from which he has just received, such an offer as he neither desires, nor deserves. His wishes are for death, not life. ”

“ Lord Sandwich, with his usual hospitality, invited the two officers to a family dinner, and in the evening, he and Miss Ray encountered Major Reynolds, and Mr. Cradock at whist, Captain Hackman preferring to overlook the game. There can be little doubt that Miss Ray inspired the young soldier with love, at first sight. Hackman at that time was on a recruiting party at Huntingdon; he became a constant visitor at Hinchingbrook, and it seems that whenever Miss Ray drove out, he constantly waylaid her, bowing low as she passed. ”

“ The good knight sent for his nephew to help him entertain the Prince, which he did by disputing violently with his Royal Highness: a quarrel ensued, and Oliver, being the strongest of the two, caused Charles’s blood to flow, an ominous presage of after times. We do not know how Sir Oliver visited his nephew’s outbreak, but he was a staunch cavalier, and supported the Royalists till his death. ”

“ Yet at one time, on the occasion of a lover being killed in a duel in Spain, she seems to have entertained the notion of embracing the latter alternative; but the easy-going St. Evremond advised her strongly against such a step, assuring her the loss of a lover, might soon be repaired. Her enemies in France, founded a scandal on the discovery that she did not reside under the roof of her Royal mistress, at Whitehall, “mais dans un Pavillon tout près du Château de St. James.” She also incurred blame in many quarters, for not sharing Queen Mary’s exile in 1688 ”

“ He was a patron to men of letters and learning, showing great discrimination in his choice of bestowal of livings in his gift, and “an enemy to pluralities and non-residency.” Not only did he do good “to the good to make them better, but also to the bad to keep them from worse.” It is scarcely credible how many poor as well as rich he fed. It is reported that a hired coachman of London, who had been at my Lord’s house, told on his return that he had seen 1200 people [57] served in a day at my Lord Montagu’s door, which was not credited, and a wager of £10 laid. ”

“ But Barbara was angry with her former admirer, and jealous of his admiration for her own daughter, and she resolved to be revenged. Accordingly she wrote to the King and told him the whole story. “Montagu,” she says, “has neither conscience nor honour; he has told me several times he despises you in his heart, and that he wishes the Parliament would send you and your brother to travel, for you are a dull, ungovernable fool, and he is a wilful fool.” ”

“ Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, in her unpublished volume of remarks and axioms, (which does her little honour) is very hard upon her son-in-law. She declares he had no just claim for place, or favour on the Government, on account of services, by sea, or land; but this statement is emphatically contradicted, in a marginal note, stating that Montagu had served under the great Duke of Marlborough himself. He seems by all accounts, to have been a kind hearted, and benevolent man, but undoubtedly whimsical, and eccentric ”

“ At the age of seventeen, Oliver Cromwell left the Grammar School, at Huntingdon, and entered Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Both as a school-boy and a collegian he distinguished himself more in athletic sports, than in application to study, and he appears to have led a wild irregular life, according to his own admission, for it is difficult to sift the truth, from the preposterous flattery on the one hand, and the unqualified abuse on the other, which characterise Cromwell’s biographers, according to their political opinions. ”

“ The beautiful and youthful Countess of Northumberland, who had lately become a widow, was residing in Paris, and as we mention in the notice of her life, Montagu became her suitor, and eventually her husband. They were married privately in England in [76] 1673. After his marriage he became a Privy Councillor and Master of the Great Wardrobe, an office he bought of the Earl of Sandwich. He busied himself in building on a magnificent scale, and found his wife’s money most useful to him in carrying out his plans. ”

“ James had a great respect and even affection for his wife, in spite of the frequent causes he afforded her for jealousy, and there is no doubt that she influenced him very much in religious matters, and contributed to his downfall. They had several children who died in their infancy; but in 1688 the unfortunate Prince of Wales, afterwards called the Old Pretender, or Chevalier de St. George, was born. The Queen’s romantic adventures when, aided by the Duc de Lauzun, she escaped in the dead of night, with her infant in her arms, are too well known to be recorded here. ”

“ Lady Sandwich, as it had been to have travelled to Rome, and not to have seen the Queen of Sweden. It is, in a word, the best thing the country has to boast of, and as she has been all that a woman of spirit could be, so she still continues that easy and independent creature, that a sensible woman always will be.” Such is Pope’s standard of female excellence! In another letter to his friend, Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery, he says: “This lady is both an honour, and a disgrace to her native country. She resided in France for some time ”

“ When he was taken prisoner on his road to London, he met my Lord Essex at Barnet, who was proceeding with the army against the King. That nobleman stopped his coach, intending to go and salute Lord Montagu, who presently ordered his coachman to drive on, as this was no time for compliments. When brought before the Committee of State, where he pleaded nobly, the verdict was that he should be detained a prisoner, but that it might be in his own daughter’s house. ”

“ In 1662, he married Catherine of Braganza, daughter of John IV., King of Portugal, and died at Whitehall, in the twenty-fifth year of his reign. Some say he confessed himself a Roman Catholic; some that he was a victim to poison. It was his brother’s wish to prove the former statement, and several of his contemporaries, including the Duke of Buckingham, believed the latter. The last named nobleman gives apparently an impartial character of the “Merry Monarch,” who was remarkable for contradictions, and inconsistencies, even above the average, in an inconsistent world. ”

“ In the intervals of his employment, Lord Sandwich, who was the fondest of fathers, came up to London frequently to settle the preliminaries of his daughter Jemima’s marriage to the son of Sir George Carteret, an alliance which gave great satisfaction to both families, and the negociations for which were carried on by the indefatigable Pepys. Indeed it was a good thing at that moment to find any cause for rejoicing, as our Diarist’s pages are now full of the record of calamities, caused by the Plague then raging—“no boats on the river, the grass growing up and down Whitehall ”

“ He married Maria Theresa, daughter of Philip IV., King of Spain. His reign was brilliant in arts, commerce, and arms, but disgraced by immorality.
As regards the exterior of the “Great Monarch,” his sister-in-law, (the Duke of Orleans’ second wife, a Princess of Bavaria,) thus describes him: “Personne n’avoit un si beau port, un aspect noble, la voix très agréable, et des manières aisées. Quand il étoit dans la foule, on n’avoit pas besoin, de demander qui étoit le Roi.” ”