To Elizabeth's pa.s.sion for pomp and pageantry Leicester was indispensable. It was he who arranged to the smallest detail her gorgeous progresses and receptions, culminating in that historic visit to Kenilworth in 1575, every hour of which was crowded with cunningly-devised entertainments--from the splendid pageantry of her welcome, through banquets and masquerades, to hunting and bear-baiting--all on a scale of lavish prodigality such as even that most gorgeous of Queens had never known.

Thus for thirty long years Leicester held his paramount place in the affections of his Sovereign--a pre-eminence which was never seriously endangered even when he seemed most disloyal, and transferred to other women attentions of which she claimed a monopoly. When he flirted outrageously with my Lady Hereford, one of the loveliest women at Court, she responded by coquetting openly with Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Ormonde, or Sir Thomas Heneage; and only laughed at the jealousy she aroused. "If a man may flirt," she would mockingly say, "why not a woman, especially when that woman is a Queen?" And, of course, to this question there was no other answer for my lord than to "kiss and be friends," and to promise to be more discreet in the future.

But the Earl was ever weak in the presence of beauty; and in spite of all his vows could not long be true even to his Queen. He lost his heart to the lovely wife of Lord Sheffield; and when her husband died conveniently and mysteriously (it was said that Leicester, with his doctor's help, removed him by a dose of poison) it was not long before he wedded her in secret, only just in time to make her child, whose name, "Robert Dudley," made no concealment of his parentage, legitimate.

Before the child was many months old, however, the father was caught in the toils of another charmer, my Lady Ess.e.x, and after deserting his wife and, it is said, unsuccessfully trying to poison her, he made Lady Ess.e.x his Countess, in defiance of that secret wedding with Sheffield's widow.

When news of this double treachery, with the ugly suspicions that attended it, reached the Queen's ears, her rage knew no bounds. She vowed that she would send her faithless lover to the Tower, that his head should pay forfeit for his false heart; and it was only when her anger had had time to cool that more moderate counsels prevailed, and she was content to banish him to a virtual prison at Greenwich.

It was not long, however, before her heart, always weak where her "sweet Robin" was concerned, relented; and he was summoned back to Court to resume his place at her side. In fact his very falseness and his follies seemed to make him even dearer to the infatuated woman than his loyalty and his love-making had ever done.

These days of silken ease were, however, soon to be changed. When, in 1585, Elizabeth wished to send her soldiers to help Holland in the struggle with Spain, her choice fell on Leicester to take command of the expedition, though his only experience of war had been more than a quarter of a century earlier, when young Dudley had left the Tower and his fellow Princess-captive's side to give his sword its baptism of blood in Picardy. At Flushing and Leyden, Utrecht and Rotterdam, the great English Earl and friend of England's Queen was received with the rapturous homage due to a Sovereign deliverer rather than to a subject.

All Holland abandoned herself to a delirium of joy and festivity, and before he had been many weeks in the Netherlands a heroic statue rose at Rotterdam in his honour; and he was invited with one clamorous and insistent voice to take his place as governor and dictator of the land he had come to save.

Such a splendid lure was too potent for Leicester's ambition to resist.

Without troubling to consult his Sovereign at home he accepted the "throne" that was offered to him; and it was only after ten days had elapsed that he deigned to despatch a messenger to Elizabeth with news of his promotion. Meanwhile, and long before his envoy, who was delayed by storms on his journey, could reach the English Court, Elizabeth had heard news of her favourite's presumption, and her Royal anger blazed into flame at his insolence in daring to accept such honours without consulting her pleasure.

She promptly despatched Sir Thomas Heneage, his whilom rival, to the Netherlands armed with a scathing letter in which the Queen poured out the vials of her wrath on Leicester's head.

"How contemptuously we conceive ourselves to have been used," she wrote, "you shall by the bearer understand. We could never have imagined, had we not seen it fall out in experience, that a man raised up by ourself, and extraordinarily favoured by us above any other subject of this land, would have in so contemptible a sort broken our commandment in a cause that so greatly toucheth us in honour ... and therefore, our express pleasure and commandment is that, all delays and excuses laid apart, you do presently, upon the duty of your allegiance, obey and fulfil whatsoever the bearer hereof shall direct you to do in our name. Whereof fail you not, as you will answer the contrary at your uttermost peril."

One can imagine Leicester's feelings on reading such words of Royal anger and reproach from the woman who had always shown such indulgence to him. His impulse was to resign his governorship forthwith, and to hasten back to London to beg forgiveness on his knees; but before he could give effect to this decision he had learned that Burghley had interceded for him with the Queen to such effect that, supported by a pet.i.tion from the States-General, he was to be allowed to retain his office with Elizabeth's reluctant consent.

A few months of rule, however, were sufficient to disillusionise the Dutchmen. Leicester proved as incapable to govern a country, as to lead an army. His arrogance, his outspoken contempt for his subjects, his incompetence and his capricious temper, so thoroughly disgusted the nation that had welcomed him with open arms, that he was asked to resign his office as unanimously as he had been invited to accept it; and in November of 1587, the Earl returned ignominiously to England, eager to repair his damaged credit by at least making peace with his Queen.

To his delight he was received with as much cordiality as if he had done naught at all to earn his Lady's displeasure. Elizabeth had undoubtedly missed her favourite, her right-hand man. She had in fact become so accustomed to him that she could not be long happy unless he was at her side; and it was by her side that he rode and shared the acclamations with which her soldiers greeted her when she paid that historic visit to the camp at Tilbury on the eve of the Armada.

But Leicester's adventurous life was now drifting to its close. His health had for some time given him cause for alarm, and in August 1588, he left his Kenilworth home to seek relief by taking baths and drinking healing waters; and from Rycott he wrote the last of his many letters to the Queen.

"I most humbly beseech your Majesty," he wrote, "to pardon your poor old servant to be thus bold in sending to know how my gracious Lady doth and what ease of her late pain she finds, being the chiefest thing in this world I do pray for is for her to have good health and long life. For my own poor case I continue still your medicine, and find it amend much better than with any other thing that hath been given me. Thus hoping to find perfect cure at the bath, with the continuance of my wonted prayer for your Majesty's most happy preservation, I humbly kiss your foot. From your old lodging at Rycott this Thursday morning ready to take on my journey. By your Majesty's most faithful and obedient servant,-- R. LEYCESTER."

But the Earl was not destined to reach the baths. His course was run. He got as far on his journey as Coventry; and there, on the 4th of September, he drew his last breath. Some said that his end was hastened by a dose of poison administered by his Countess, eager to pursue unchecked her intrigue with Christopher Blount; others that she accidentally gave him a draught from a bottle of poison which he had designed for her. But neither suspicion seems to have any evidence to support it.

Thus perished, little past the prime of life, a man who more than any other of his day drained the cup of pride and pleasure, to find its dregs exceeding bitter to the taste.

CHAPTER XXII

TWO IRISH BEAUTIES

In the winter of 1745 the city of Dublin was thrown into a state of high excitement by the appearance of a couple of girls from the wilds of Connaught, whose almost unearthly beauty won the instant homage of every man, from His Excellency the Earl of Harrington, then Lord Lieutenant, to the sourest jarvey who cracked a whip in her streets. To quote the pardonably extravagant language of a chronicler of the time,

"They swam into the social firmament of the Irish capital like twin planets of dazzling splendour, eclipsing all other constellations, as if the pall of night had been drawn over them."

They had grown to girlhood, so the story ran from mouth to mouth, in a ruinous thatched house, in the shadow of Castle Coote, in County Roscommon, and were the daughters of John Gunning, a roystering, happy-go-lucky, dram-drinking squireen, whose most serious occupation in life was keeping the brokers' men on the right side of his door. And at the time this story opens they were living in a cottage, rented for a modest eight pounds a year, on the outskirts of Dublin, with their mother, who was a daughter of Lord Mayo.

To say that all Dublin was at the feet of the Gunning sisters, at the first sight of their lovely faces and dainty figures, is an unadorned statement of fact. The young "bloods" of the capital were their slaves to a man, ready to spill the last drop of blood for them; and every gallant of the Viceregal Court drank toasts to their beauty, and vied with his rivals to win a smile or a word from them. Peg Woffington, it is said, threw up her arms in wonder at the sight of them, and, as she hugged each in turn, declared that she "had never seen anything half so sweet"; and Tom Sheridan went down on his knees in involuntary homage to the majesty of their beauty.

It was Tom Sheridan who placed his stage wardrobe at their disposal when they were invited to the great Viceregal ball in honour of King George's birthday; and, attired as Lady Macbeth and Juliet respectively, they danced the stately minuet and rollicking country dances with such grace and abandon that lords and ladies stopped in their dances, and mounted on chairs and tables to feast their eyes on so rare and ravishing a sight.

"With Betty as with Maria," says Mr Frankfort Moore, "the art of the dance had become part of her nature. Her languorous eyes were in sympathy with the voluptuous movements of her feet and lithe body, and the curves made by her arms formed an invisible chain that held everyone entranced. The caresses of her fingers, the coyness of her curtsies, the allurements of her movements--all the graces and charms inwoven that make up the poem of the minuet--became visible by the art of that exquisite girl, until all other dancers became common-place by comparison."

Such was the fascination of their beauty that, it is said, the sisters were one day drugged by a party of licentious admirers, whose guests they had innocently consented to be, and were actually being carried away by their ravishers when Sheridan, who had got wind of the plot, appeared on the scene with a number of stout-armed friends, and effected their rescue.

But even Dublin was no suitable market for such peerless beauties, Mrs Gunning decided. Through her they had the blood of the Plantagenets in their veins; and no man less than a Duke or an Earl--certainly not an Irish squire or impoverished lord--was a fitting match for her daughters. And so to England and London they were carried, flushed with their conquests, leaving broken hearts behind them, and heralded across the Channel by many a sonnet singing their beauty.

But, although each was equally fair, the sisters were by no means alike in their charms. Maria, all gladness and mirth, was a sprightly brunette, in whose laughing glances shone the fires of a pleasure-seeking soul; while Elizabeth, the younger, with soft blue eyes and dark golden hair, although infinitely more placid, was no less radiant than her dashing sister.

"Each was," to quote another description, "divinely tall, with a figure of perfect symmetry, and a grace of dignity enhanced by the proud poise of the small Grecian head.

Faultless also were the rounded arms and the hands, with their long, slender tapering fingers."

All the portraits of Elizabeth reveal the same dainty disdainful lips in the shape of a Cupid's bow, the long, slender nose, the half-drooping lids and lashes. In colouring there was the same delicacy. A soft, ivory pallor shone in her face, a flush of pink warmed her cheeks, there was a gleam of gold as the sunbeams touched her light brown hair.

Such, in the cold medium of type, were the two Irish sisters who took London by storm, and who "made more noise than any of their predecessors since the days of Helen," in the summer of 1751. Their conquest was immediate, electrifying. London raved about the new beauties; they were the theme of every tongue, from the Court to the meanest coffee-house.

Even Grub Street rubbed its eyes in amazement at the wonderful vision, and ransacked its dictionaries for superlatives; and the poets, with one accord, struck their lyres to a new inspiration.

Whenever the sisters took their walks abroad "they were beset by a curious mult.i.tude, the press being once so great that one of the sisters fainted away and had to be carried home in her chair; while on another occasion their beaux were compelled to draw swords to rescue them from the mob." When, too, they once went to Vauxhall Gardens, they found themselves the centre of a mob of eight thousand spectators, struggling to catch a glimpse of their lovely faces or to touch the "hem of their garments."

When, in alarm, they sought refuge in a neighbouring box, the door was at once besieged by jostling, clamorous thousands, who were only kept at bay by the sword-points of their escort. And when, one day, they visited Hampton Court, the housekeeper showed the company who were "lionising"

the place into the room where they were sitting, instead of into the apartment known as the "Beauty Room," with the significant remark, "_These_ are the beauties, gentlemen."

With such universal and embarra.s.sing homage, it is no wonder that all the gallants in town, from the rakish Duke of c.u.mberland downwards, were at the feet of the fair sisters, or that they had the refusal of many a coronet before they had been many weeks in London. Each sister counted her n.o.ble lovers by the score, and each soon capitulated to a favoured wooer.

Among Maria's most ardent suitors was the Earl of Coventry, "a grave young lord" of handsome person and courtly graces, who had singled himself out from them all by the ardour of his wooing; and to him Maria gave her hand. One March day in 1752, the world of fashion was thrown into a high state of excitement by reading the following announcement:--

"On Thursday evening the Earl of Coventry was married to Miss Maria Gunning, a lady possessed of that exquisite beauty and of those accomplishments which will add Grace and Dignity to the highest station. As soon as the ceremony was over they set out for Lord Ashburnham's seat at Charlton, in Kent, to consummate their nuptials."

Of Lady Coventry, who seems to have been as vain and foolish as she was beautiful, many amusing stories are told. So annoyed was her ladyship by the crowds that still followed her when she took the air in St James's Park that she appealed to the King for an escort of soldiers, a favour which was readily granted to "the most beautiful woman in England,"

Thus, on one occasion, we are told,

"from eight to ten o'clock in the evening, a strange procession paraded the crowded avenues, obliging everyone to make way and exciting universal laughter. In front marched two sergeants with their halberds, then tripped the self-conscious Lady Coventry, attended by her husband and an ardent admirer, the amorous Earl of Pembroke, while twelve soldiers of the guard followed in the rear!"

One day, so runs another story which ill.u.s.trates her ladyship's lack of discretion, she was talking to King George II., who in spite of his age, was a great admirer of beauty, and especially of my Lady Coventry. "Are you not sorry," His Majesty enquired, "that there are to be no more masquerades?" "Indeed, no," was the answer. "I am quite weary of them and of all London sights. There is only one left that I am really anxious to see, and that is a _coronation_!" This unflattering wish she was not destined to realise; for King George survived the foolish beauty by a fortnight.

Lady Coventry had no greater admirer of her own charms than herself. She spent her days worshipping at the shrine of her loveliness, and embellished nature with every device of art. She squandered fortunes in adorning it with the most costly jewellery and dresses, of one of which the following story is told. One day she exhibited to George Selwyn a wonderful costume which she was going to wear at an approaching fete.

The dress was a miracle of blue silk, richly brocaded with silver spots of the size of a shilling. "And how do you think I shall look in it, Mr Selwyn?" she archly asked. "Why," he replied, "you will look like change for a guinea."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARIA, COUNTESS OF COVENTRY]

Mrs Delany draws a remarkable picture of my lady at this culminating period of her vanity.

"Yesterday after chapel," she writes, "the d.u.c.h.ess brought home Lady Coventry to feast me--and a feast she was! She is a fine figure and vastly handsome, notwithstanding a silly look sometimes about the month; she has a thousand airs, but with a sort of innocence that diverts one! Her dress was a black silk sack, made for a large hoop, which she wore without any, and it trailed a yard on the ground. She had on a cobweb-laced handkerchief, a pink satin long cloak, lined with ermine mixed with squirrel-skins. On her head a French cap that just covered the top of her head, of blond, and stood in the form of a b.u.t.terfly with wings not quite extended; frilled sort of lappets crossed under her chin, and tied with pink and green ribbon--a head-dress that would have charmed a shepherd! She had a thousand dimples and prettinesses in her cheeks, her eyes a little drooping at the corners, but fine for all that."

Such vanities may be pardoned in a woman so lovely and so spoiled by Fortune, especially as her reign was fated to be as brief as it was splendid. She was, perhaps, too fair a flower to be allowed to bloom long in the garden of this world. Before she had been long a bride consumption sowed its deadly seeds in her; and she drained the cup of pleasure with the fatal sword hanging over her head. She knew she was doomed, that all the medical skill in the world could not save her; and, with characteristic courage, she determined to enjoy life to its last dregs.

She saw her beauty fade daily, and pathetically tried to conceal its decay by powders and paints. She grew daily weaker; but, with a brave smile, held her place in the vortex of gaiety. Even when the inevitable end was near she insisted on attending the trial of Lord Ferrers for the murder of his steward. As Horace Walpole says,