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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ROMANCES OF THE ARISTOCRACY ***

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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