Lady Grizel. ... New edition

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LADY GRIZEL ' Houses, churches, mixed together ; Streets unpleasant in all weather ; Prisons, palaces contiguous, Gates, a bridge, the Thames irriguous. Warrants, bailiffs, bills unpaid ; Lords of laundresses afraid. Rogues that nightly rob and shoot men ; Hangmen, aldermen, and footmen. Many a beau without a shilling ; Many a widow not unwilling ; Many a bargain if you strike it ; This is LONDON— How d'ye like it?1 Humours of the Times, a.d. 1758, British Museum,. 1 Witch— AR hail, Macboot ! hail to thee, Knight of the Thistle ! 2 Witch— All hail, Macboot ! hail to thee, Knight of the Garter ! ! 3 Witch — All hall, Macboot ! that wouldst be king hereafter ! ! ! ' Macboot, A Tragedy — a.d. 1763. 1 Witeh — When sliall we three see again An-easy and a peaceful reign ? 2 Witch — When the hurlyburly's o'er, When this Wilkes shall be no more.

Tho' the land may not be lost, Yet it shall be faction-tossed.' Macboot, A Tragedy— a.d. 1763. LADY GEIZEL &!. impression of a f-Eomentous (fHpoclj BY THE HON. LEWIS WINGPIELD AUTHOR OF 'SLIPPERY GROUND,' ' ABIGEL ROWE,' 'IN HER MAJESTY'S KEEPING,' ' MY LORDS OF STROGDE,' ETC. ETC. NEW EDITION LONDON RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BUELINGTON STREET P-iblisfjtrs in ©.Dinars to p_rt fHajtstg tf)c ©utcn Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh. CONTENTS. CH> PTEE PAGE I. The Bath in 1747 1 II. An Heir-Apparent's Followers . . 9 III. A Cruel Snare ..... 23 IV. Parson and Highwayman . . .33 V. Babble about Many Things, chiefly the Fleet Prison ..... 40 ,VI. Will Lady Grizel fall into the Snare . 48 VII. The Shadow draweth nigh . . .55 VIII. A Grave Chapter which may not be skipped . .... 66 IX. The Masquerade at Ranelagh . . 80 X. Rosemary Mead . . . . .89 XI.

A Syllabub Party at the Bishop's . .106 XII. Mr. Pitt to the Rescue . . . .115 XIII. Over the Seas and far away . . 129 XIV. Lady Grizel puts on her Armour . .140 CONTENTS. VI PAGE

Chapter I. The Bath In

1747. 'At ten of the clock the block was fixed on the scaffold, and his lordship's coffin brought, with this inscription on the lid: "Simon Dominvs Fraser de Lovat, decollat. April 9, 1747. Æt. sum. 80." At eleven my lord drank a little burnt brandy, mounted the steps of the scaffold, and after examining the axe, repeating the while some lines of Horace, kneeled down before the block ' A pretty lad, clad in pale blue and silver, was pain fully striving to decipher the crabbed characters of a letter which he rested on his mother's knee, but as he stumbled over his task his lips quivered and his eyes swelled till his voice failed him altogether, and, flinging his arms around the lady's waist, he burst into tears. A pale child in a mob cap, who sat on the floor hard by, turned her large lustrous eyes on him, and howled too out of mere sympathy.

AVhat a vastly pretty pair were these two — the stoutly built blonde boy and the delicate black-haired maid ! 'Himmel ! what ails de shilder .' cried the lad's mother in shrill broken English. ' Monsieur Stone, look to it. His Highness's education is schandlich ! If de Prince of Wales were not so busy mit de baiting of bears at Hockley-in-de- Hole, maybe he would see to his eldest poy.' The Princess of AVales pushing aside her tambour turned to enlist the sympathies of her ladies with respect to her royal spouse's peccadilloes. Indeed she was always full of complaints concerning him, and with more show of reason than many querulous wives ; for Frederick, eldest son of George H., was, if possible, more contemptible than was his father. His temper was more obstinate, his understanding weaker, his selfishness as stupendous.

He was fond, more over, of low company, consorting with prizefighters, sup ping frequently with the royal midwife — and this last crime was looked upon by the people as worst of all, for in the year of grace 1747 a gulf yawned between upper and lower classes which, as in my old age I write this chronicle, time and strange events are beginning to fill up. ' Little Prince George has three tutors,' cried the Princess, emphasising her words with a needle. ' Three I A grand milord, a bishop, and dis Monsieur Stone. He is nine years old and can hardly read. Quelle scandale ! I complain to his Highness of dis Monsieur Stone, and his Highness only laugh at me. He dress himself superbe in velvet, dis Monsieur Stone, and dine at taverns mit Monsieur Wilkes, qui est par trop vicieux, and neglects his charge.' Mr. Stone bowed low as he strove to parry the attack of the Princess, smiling quietly to himself as he replied : ' Poor Mr. AVilkes is the gayest companion in all Eng land, madam.

If your Highness would allow me to present him, you would, I warrant, fall under the spell. As to my charge, I can do little with him. He is good, but incorri gibly idle. My Lord Harcourt, chief governor, is a mere pageant. So that the future King of England acquires the grand air, he deems book-learning but of little worth. The bishop, as all the world knows, was a buccaneer before he assumed the cassock. Nor hath he thought it needful to change his way of life. His jovial Grace drinks with drunkards, lives with sinners, and herds with infidels for dinners. If I were trusted with the sole and entire charge of his Highness, then perhaps ' 'That you will never be,' retorted the Prince of Wales, who during this colloquy had been lolling and yawning in his chair, alternately dragging the watch from either fob out of sheer laziness. ' No, no ; my good Stone ; don't be ambitious.

That the lad cannot read matters little. It ill becomes a prince to be a pedant. But I do not like his being a milksop. Pho ! To howl about a traitor's death. There ! hand the letter to Grizel ; she's sturdy enough ought to have been a man, instead of a maid of honour.' THE BATH IN 1747. 3 Mr. Stone said nothing, but his sinister eyes flashed for an instant on the Prince of AVales, then froze under the cold mask of discipline. Lady Grizel took the letter in her large shapely hand, and read on : ' Having placed his neck upon the block, in half a minute he dropped his kerchief, and the headsman, being now more expert at his business, thanks to experience with the other lords, severed with one blow the head from the body, both of which were placed in one coffin and taken back to the Tower.' ' So ends a bloody drama ! ' remarked Henry Fox, who was sipping his morning glass of tepid water. ' So end all traitors,' added the Prince of Wales. ' They don't love our family much, these English people ; but they like us better than the Jacobites, who in the last rising brought home the horrors of civil war to them.

Thanks to them at least for that.' A dreamy young lady who sat behind him (the second maid of honour, in fact) sighed deeply as she drew the little girl towards her and kissed away her tears. ' You may well sigh, Lady Gladys,' murmured a tall gentleman beside her, sadly. ' Tullibardine, Balmerino, Kilmarnock, Lovat ! unfortunate gentlemen. This corrupt age of ours shows us few such.' ' Mr. Pitt,' laughed Henry Fox. ' You are too good for us. What a pity we can't live in the epoch of our choice. ' ' My opinions may not be popular, neither do I run the race of popularity.' ' You assume antique virtue. In this wicked world we must float with the stream or be drowned.' 'Or by stemming, turn the tide,' retorted Mr. Pitt sternly — 'the vile muddy tide. This is an age without honour or decency. Men are venal and debased ; women mere painted, unprincipled, charming butterflies.

Patriotism dies with these erring Northern lords.' Mr. Fox shook back his ruffles and laughed aloud. It was such fun to trot out the hobbies of this whitevisaged young Pitt, who prated of fame, of virtue, and other eccen tricities, and took refuge from the fashionable follies of his day in the pages of the Latin poets • who was never known to play Faro, or go a-wenching, or crack a festive bottle at a tavern. True, though but eight-and-thirty or thereabouts, he was already a martyr to the gout, which might partly account for his odd ways. And was it not rare sport to draw him out, to make him at will, like a Jeremiah, lift up his voice in lamentation 1 Mr. Fox at least thought so, for to the lack of principle of a Frenchman he joined the habits of a Malay. He was a libertine with a nascent love of pelf, and was wont to horrify Mr. Pitt by boldly unveil ing the guiding-spring of his life, which was an ever-growing respect for the God of Mammon.

Mr. Pitt was his exact antithesis. He actually quailed and shook with horror over Fox's sentiments. The bait was always sure to bring a bite, nor did it fail on this occasion. ' Money ! Money ! is the cry on all sides,' he went on. ' Alas for England ! she buffets vainly in a sea of self interest. None so poor now as to do her reverence ! Eobert Walpole used to say, "England should give laws to the world." Such a thing may never be — never, never !' His melodious voice died in a sigh, like the chord of an Æolian harp. Æolian harps set some people's teeth on edge. The shrill Princess shivered and cried out : ' Mein Gott ! Monsieur Bidd ! Cessez done. She is a dismal horrid place, your England, filled with dull beebles. Every man in England is talking of his stupid politics, every woman of her ugly clothes.

As for you, you make mein blut run cold like a Cassandra.' The scene upon which the Princess looked out was lively enough. Tiers of nobly - proportioned houses of hewn stone rose one above the other from among gardens and orchards rosy with the promise of spring. Around circled a range of wooded hills, so distinct in the clear atmosphere of early morning, that each vista of wide street seemed abruptly closed with a wall of tender green. Along the centre of the valley meandered a silver thread, lost here and there in the tangle of overhanging boughs and the pale pink of opening blossoms. It was the smoothly gliding Avon, which whispered as it went of the strange doings iu this city of Bath — laughed and murmured of THE BATH IN 1747. 5 human folly as it swept along ; then brawled proudly as it rushed over the weir of the holy resting-place it would pass presently, where the sins and sorrows — the petty fretting and noisy discontent — of the world of fashion would be forgot beside the tomb of England's kingliest king.

The river, as it flowed, never found Bath asleep, for indeed Bath never slept. All day long, from morn till dusk, the dusty roads of approach re-echoed with the din of wheels — flying machines, whiskies, waggons, chaises, clattering down the steep inclines, to overturn probably at the bottom ; then when righted on their crazy straps and wooden perches with groans and curses, to rattle and wheeze after hairbreadth escapes and perils into the friendly haven of the Bear or the AA^hite Hart. Fine ladies were never tired of toiling up the hills to show the gilded sculpture on their creaking coaches, while troops of beaux threaded among them in and out through blinding dust to air a new broidered coat or exhibit the perfection of their horsemanship. And what a heat and bustle in the crowded streets !

AVhat a constant patter of wooden heels on the broad flags ; what an echo of mincing steps ! What an unending cry of ' By your leave,' as (by their leave or not) chairmen forced a way amongst the throng, or footmen elbowed a passage for their mistresses ! AVhat a singular confluence of unmixing waters — the rich, the poor, the vulgar, the genteel, the sick, the strong in health ! Princes of the blood and peers with star and ribbon. Upstarts of fortune: negro-drivers from plantations far away; sharpers, bullies, cripples, tradesmen, highwaymen ; all jostling to wards the publicbath, or crowding, in eagerness for news, about coffee-house doors. As day gave place to night the racket knew no ceasing. The Assembly-rooms upon the North Parade, close by the river, were gay with many a light, which threw long shadows across the bowling-green below, down to the water's brink.

There the young flocked to move a minuet, while the old wrangled over the ace of spades. Hark ! the clock of the ancient Abbey chimes eleven. Mr. Nash (better known as King of Bath, and Marshal of the Black Ace) stops the band, for his will is law, his despotism supreme. The tea-merchant ruefully pays to the dowager the profit wrung from her London custom. The peruke maker bows his best bow to the earl's daughter. Night is made hideous by the shouts of serving-men. Chairs swing along flagged alleys, each one preceded by its flambeau. Eound the old Abbey's feet surge myriad twinkling lights like glow-worms at a merry-making — vanishing among the trees of the Orange Grove, along the high stone-girt ramparts of the North Parade, under the swaying signs of Stall Street, and the gray line of the venerable borough walls.

Fashion is going to bed . No ! See how each window brightens along the steep street which leads to the Circus and the upper town. The cream of rank inhabits those finely-sculptured mansions. Chairmen discharge their glittering loads, and rolling themselves in long coats settle down to snore beneath the stars. For rank and fashion is only beginning the night. The sun peeping in will look on wine and cards. Verily the God Trump's favourite shrine is Bath, and Hoyle is his prophet. At dawn the beau reels off to bed _ her Grace looks peevishly out on the silver stream — the passing scavenger — and shuts out the garish day. Surely Bath will now go to rest 1 No. The other portion of the hive is up and stirring ; the pump-room is besieged. The public bath in view of the whole street is full of half-clad quality ; the roads alive with newly-arrived chaises.

Early in the morning it must be admitted that Bath doth not look well. She doth things in public which befit a more private scene. Housewives go through an outward ceremony of washing clothes in the common conduit. Dames en deshabille, in close chip hats and frayed unclean brocades, pick their way amongst unpleasing trifles towards the king's bath, while beggars and market wenches lean elbows on the Stall Street parapet, staring at the statue of Bladud and raddled fashion in the scummy water. For the steaming stew is open to the air. Her Grace, in a cotton wrapper with a kerchief stuck in her hat for the sake of her perspiration, here meets the bohea merchant whom she robbed the night before, both decorously buried THE BATH IN 1747. 7 to the chin in opalescent soup beset with motes. She clings to the same brass ring with him to steady her steps, offers him snuff or a sniff at the nosegay which floats before her on a tray, and mops her heated brow as she nods to a peeling countess opposite.

The dowager emerges from her bath, and having in a convenient closet renewed the scattered glories of her skin, proceeds to join the ranks of fashion in the pump-room above. She drinks her jorum of lukewarm water, curtseys to royalty, consumes the last scandal, breakfasts in public with her chosen gossips, then retires to the milliner's across the little court to weep over the last novel till 'tis time to array herself for dinner. By three o'clock the heaviest headed of the gambling set are up and ready for the fray again. All Bath unites at dinner, then promenades under Harrison's sycamores by Avon's bank till the hour comes round for driving, and so the endless wheel of fashion twirls, and Bath is never allowed one hour of rest. The pump-room is the favourite resort of the Princess of Wales during her annual sojourn with her court at Bath.

It amuses her to watch the people in the tank below, whilst holding amorning levee of her lord's adherents. She ever liked Bath better than London, for in the latter city she could not avoid perceiving how the quality was hated by the scum. People were always saying rude things within her hearing, wishing his gracious Majesty at the devil, or what not. She could not help knowing that George II. could boast of the unusual distinction of being loathed and despised by all his subjects, and she rather enjoyed it, for that gracious monarch was sworn enemy to his eldest son (her husband) and all that belonged to him. But then the honest London burghers discovered also that Frederick was no whit less disreputable than his royal parent, and began to detest him equally, together with the posse of his bedizened friends and favourites.

Not that any one desired to thrust the new family from the throne. The exiled House of Stuart was infinitely worse than the reigning House of Brunswick. Moreover, the details of the late rising (of which Lord Lovat was the last victim) were fresh in the minds of all. A great horror of Jacobitism and of Jacobites invaded the public mind. True, George was a disgrace to human nature, but so also was the Chevalier to a yet deeper degree. People were resolved then to endure their fate with as little -grimacing as they might, looking hopefully forward to a better day somewhere in the dim future ; but they took little trouble to conceal their sentiments from the ken of either King or Prince. Nobody likes to bear curses and visible signs of opprobrium more than is absolutely needful. Therefore the Princess always enjoyed her sojourn at the Bath, for the people who grimaced and growled never went thither, and she was able to forget for a while that the public disliked the royal father and the royal son equally, distrusted his Majesty's ministers, and were altogether exceedingly disgusted with their fate.

The court of the Prince of AVales always followed him when he went to the Bath, and the Princess, his spouse, always deemed the pump-room a fitting point of vantage from whence to contemplate her world. She is contemplating her world now from her watch tower. Her subjects defile before her each morning on this little square of stones, for hither each modish man or woman must come to drink the daily modicum of water. The pump-room occupies one end of a small paved yard, its three entrances being approached by a few steps. The old Abbey, with its bellowing chimes and crumbling saints, stands at the other ; while its two sides are bounded by rows of chocolate-houses and milliners' shops, in one or other of which fricassees of news are constantly being cooked for the delectation of the royal palate.

Through an archway leading into Stall Street a constant bustle is visible in the AArhite Hart yard, and great is the commotion in the royal circle when an unfamiliar coach draws up, and the bells peal out their welcome. Her Highness never fails with undignified eagerness to drop her needle, ex claiming: 'Grizel, my loafe! Go zee oo's gum!' And the beautiful maid of honour instantly sweeps her grand skirts across the yard, followed by a bevy of adorers, scattering the maimed and halt who doze in the sun, in order to learn every particular for her mistress, without delay, relative to the new arrival.

Chapter II. An Heir-apparent's Follo

.VERS. As a new-comer to the Bath, I must present you to their Highnesses. Augusta, Princess of Saxe-Gotha, was never pretty. At her best she was tall, angular, bony ; with arms of unnatural length which resembled a pair of oars. At the time when our story opens, her voice was shrill, her temper acid, her neck like unto a corkscrew. She rated her tire woman in language more forcible than lady -like. She was querulous because, poor thing, nobody on the world's face loved her, and indeed there was not much that was lovable about the Princess of Wales. That she should love her husband was out of the question. She could only despise Prince Frederick, and moreover it is as much a tradition of the House of Brunswick that wives should hate their husbands as that fathers should detest their sons. The royal pair were as usual surrounded by their household, as well as by a mob of adventurers of every degree.

Behind the Princess, seated on low chairs, were her two maids of honour. The one, comely and sweetlooking, was Lady Gladys, daughter of the Duke of Richmond, whose eldest girl eloped with Henry Fox. Lady Gladys had yet one other sister, Sarah, a child in a mob-cap who was with her at the Bath. That black-eyed beauty was little Prince George's prime favourite and chosen play fellow, and verily, as folks frequently remarked, the two children made a vastly pretty pair. The other maid of honour was Lady Grizel — fairest of the fair. Wiio may hope to describe that marvellous beauty, whose grandeur electrified even the rough Irish chairman as he closed his lid over her stately head . The purely -modelled features, the finely -chiselled nose, the scornful mouth, the liquid eye, whose sapphire blue was set off by dark silken lashes ; above all, the clear ivory skin (never daubed with paint), which was only one shade more creamy than the luxuriant masses of her highly powdered hair.

She knew that she was peerless among the beautiful, for she read the fact in the ogle of each beau, and swept on smiling with tip-tilted nose, walking unharmed over rows of bleeding hearts, as whilom Cune gunda did on red-hot ploughshares. Behind her, like a shimmering trail of light upon the sea, lay those rows of shattered hearts. She took up none upon her march, sagely remarking, when reproached for cruelty, that it is wonderful how easily broken hearts are mended. AVomen shook their heads, vowing that the maid of honour would surely come to • shipwreck. Young Mr. Pitt thought otherwise. He believed in the theory of the Beautiful and Good. Surely so fair a casket should contain an angel's soul, which for example's sake would linger a while, then speed upwards to a more fitting station. Sure none would harm so beautiful a thing, to look on which was in itself a privilege.

But Mr. Pitt, though a clever and rising young man, was not infallible. Lady Grizel was wild ; given to skipping after the manner of a fawn. She was living, too, in a wicked world. AVould her masculine turn of mind, her sturdy independent spirit, save her from snares and pitfalls. AVe shall see. Her mistress, the Princess, looked gravely sometimes on her escapades, saying that she out-heroded Herod even in an age of license ; but the young lady laughed and rippled out a blithe roulade, and her Highness, smiling, tapped her cheek, declaring there was naught to be done with such a ' zaucy buss.' Everybody loved Lady Grizel for her spontaneous gaiety and unaffected enjoyment of life, just as people love to watch a butterfly flitting like a jewel endowed with move ment amongst sunlight flowers.

AVhich of us may deny the occult power of the Beautiful . None of Prince Frederick's lords were prepared to do so. On the contrary, they one and all grovelled at her dainty feet, swear ing that she was lovelier than Helen of Troy — that she was Perfection come down to earth — laying the responsibility of her wild ways and carelessness of the world's opinion upon the strange schooling of her earlier years. For although now, at seventeen, she was the reigning toast, the champion heart-breaker, the favourite maid of honour of a prospective Queen of England, yet the early girlhood of Lady Grizel was spent in grinding poverty and trouble. Her father, Earl Gowering, died intestate when she was but two years old, leaving his wife and daughter to the care of a bastard son. The fortune and title strayed off to an unknown heir, and the three were left face to face with penury.

A great name fills no stomach, as Lady Grizel found to her cost. Her mother, too proud to proclaim her state, sold her jewels, and kept a small lodging-house dur ing the remainder of her life in a remote western town ; and there, rocked by Atlantic billows, the neglected child grew up to womanhood, whilst her mother trembled at her increasing beauty. Untamed as the seamew, she sported on the cliffs, worshipped as divine by the rough sailor lads, wandering hand in hand sometimes with her tall grave brother, whose stern face was the image of her own with out its brightness. There she learned that she was beauti ful, and began to loathe her coarse woollen gown, trimming its scant folds with such bits of finery as the lapping waters threw up at her feet. On the remote western headland she dragged out a monotonous existence, dreaming with discontent of grand dead ancestors and her own piteous lot — dreaming of how John, Earl Gowering, received a kiss from Elizabeth herself as a reward for the first news of the Armada's rout ; of how Maurice, thirteenth Earl, rode into London with the second Charles ; of how Gerard, fifteenth Earl, was honoured by a hand-shake from the gloomy William.

Yet, here was she, direct heiress of their ancient name, a-running of messages on a shingly beach, or schem ing of dinners for vulgar farm-folk — simply because her father forgot to make a will before entering on a shameful tavern brawl. She hated his memory for the wrong done to her, his sole legitimate offspring. What a pity that Jasper was a bastard. But for that envious bend-sinister he would have slid into his father's seat and all would have been well, for she and Jasper loved one another, despite their disparity in years, as the ivy loves the oak, the oak the ivy. Jasper was always all that was good and kind, but then she had imbibed with mother's-milk the prevailing contempt for a bend-sinister. It was amusing to mark the motherly airs of the little damsel towards her big brother. She loved, and patronised, and half feared him in her heart, the only being on earth she ever feared.

He loved, and chid, and pitied her, for was it not sad to see such high born loveliness wasted among boors . A time came when brother and sister were parted. The Countess Gowering died, and the Prime Minister, hearing of her daughter's case, procured for her the post of maid of honour to the Princess of AVales. Sweet are the uses of adversity, we are told. Poverty had no sweets for Lady Grizel. In after days she retained a fierce enjoyment of the good things of this world, bred of that grinding early time ; an unromantic appreciation of wealth and grandeur, such as few can feel who have not gone supperless to bed. From the moment she appeared at court her triumph was complete. All were enchanted by the lovely madcap. Such beauty and so old a name were voted an ample dowry. Peers of all ranks were suitors for her hand.

For a time she scoffed at all. The Princess of AA7ales bethought her self that the girl might be made useful as a bait to secure some important personage for her lord's party against the King's. It behoved her to lure away as many as might be from his Majesty's side to that of the Heir-apparent, so she decided that Lady Grizel's hand should be a reward for such defection. There was the old Duke of Tewkesbury, for example, a hoary old reprobate, who could not be o-ot to declare himself. He was past seventy certainly but then he was also the richest and greatest duke of Eno-land. Lady Grizel, however, declined the intended honour. 'No,' she said; 'he is a toothless lion. Let him be. He is an old dear, and I love to tease him ; but as to be coming premiere duchesse at so great a sacrifice, no !

I am over young to be his wife.' Then she reflected that it might be as well to be a duchess, after all, and finally threw the handkerchief to the young Duke of Hamilton, who was preparing his trunks for the grand tour. She did not love his Grace, but saw in him the making of a very proper husband. A noble pair they looked as they plighted their troth. The Prince of Wales swore with unnecessary oaths that he would see the knot tied before the young gentleman started on his travels, but Lady Grizel, with wit beyond her years, declared that those travels should be his probation ; that he should write to her post by post, and claim her on his return home after coquetting with Vanity Fair and com bating Apollyon in the form of foreign nymphs. Alas for the constancy of man ! Apollyon triumphed.