Love Romances of the Aristocracy

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Love Romances of the Aristocracy

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Title: Love Romances of the Aristocracy
Author: Thornton Hall
Release Date: November 28, 2004 [EBook #14193]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LOVE ROMANCES OF THE ARISTOCRACY
By
THORNTON HALL, F.S.A.
BARRISTER-AT-LAW
AUTHOR OF "LOVE INTRIGUES OF ROYAL COURTS," ETC. ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
LONDON
T. WERNER LAURIE
CLIFFORD'S INN
[Illustration: ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON]
TO MRS TOM HESKETH
_L'amitié est l'amour sans ailes_

PREFACE
My object in writing this book has been to present as many phases as possible of the strangely romantic story of the British Peerage, so that those who have not the time or facilities for exploring the library of books over which these stories are scattered, may be able, within the compass of a single volume, to review the panorama of our aristocracy, with its tragedy and comedy, its romance and pathos, its foibles and its follies, in a few hours of what I sincerely hope will prove agreeable reading. If my book gives to any reader a fraction of the pleasure I have derived from its writing, I shall be more than rewarded for a labour which has been to me a delight.
THORNTON HALL.
_As love plays a prominent part in at least twenty of these stones, and is only really absent from one or two of them, I venture to hope that my good friends, the reviewers, who have been so kind to my previous books, will not find fault with my title, which, more accurately than any other I can think of, describes the nature and scope of my book_.
T.H.

CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE I. A PRINCESS OF PRUDES 1 II. THE NIGHTINGALE OF BATH 21 III. THE ROMANCE OF THE VILLIERS 36 IV. THE STAIN ON THE SHIRLEY 'SCUTCHEON 51 V. A GHOSTLY VISITANT 62 VI. A MESSALINA OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 74 VII. A PROFLIGATE PRINCE 87 VIII. THE GORGEOUS COUNTESS 96 IX. A QUEEN OF COQUETTES 110 X. THE ADVENTURES OF A VISCOUNT'S DAUGHTER 127 XI. A SIXTEENTH CENTURY ELOPEMENT 136 XII. TRAGEDIES OF THE TURF 148 XIII. THE WICKED BARON 165 XIV. A FAIR INTRIGANTE 177 XV. THE MERRY DUCHESS 195 XVI. THE KING AND THE PRETTY HAYMAKER 207 XVII. THE COUNTESS WHO MARRIED HER GROOM 222 XVIII. A NOBLE VAGABOND 231 XIX. FOOTLIGHTS AND CORONETS 243 XX. A PEASANT COUNTESS 256 XXI. THE FAVOURITE OF A QUEEN 266 XXII. TWO IRISH BEAUTIES 282 XXIII. THE MYSTERIOUS TWINS 298 XXIV. THE MAYPOLE DUCHESS 316 XXV. THE ROMANCE OF FAMILY TREES 326

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON Frontispiece FRANCES, DUCHESS OF RICHMOND to face page 18 MARGUERITE, COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON 98 SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH 110 LOUISE, DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH 184 HARRIET, DUCHESS OF ST ALBANS 252 ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER 266 MARIA, COUNTESS OF COVENTRY 288

LOVE ROMANCES OF THE ARISTOCRACY.
CHAPTER I
A PRINCESS OF PRUDES
Among the many fair and frail women who fed the flames of the "Merrie Monarch's" passion from the first day of his restoration to that last day, but one short week before his death, when Evelyn saw him "sitting and toying with his concubines," there was, it is said, only one of them all who really captured his royal and wayward heart, that loveliest, simplest, and most designing of prudes, La belle Stuart.
When Barbara Villiers was enslaving Charles by her opulent charms, the queen of his many mistresses, Frances Stuart was growing to beautiful girlhood, an exile at the French Court, with no dream or care of her future conquest of a king. Her father, a son of Lord Blantyre, had carried his death-dealing sword through many a fight for the first Charles, a distant kinsman of his own; and, when the Stuart sun set in blood, had made good his escape to the friendly shores of France, where he had found a fresh field for his valour.
Meanwhile his daughter was happy in the charge of the widowed Queen Henrietta Maria, who although, as Cardinal de Retz tells us, she frequently "lacked a faggot to leave her bed in the Louvre," and even a crust to stay the pangs of hunger, proved a tender foster-mother to brave Walter Stuart's child, and watched her growth to beauty with a mother's pride.
Even before she emerged from short frocks, Frances Stuart had established herself as the pet par excellence of the Court of France. With Anne of Austria the little Scottish maiden was a prime favourite; every gallant, from "Monsieur" to