[16] "The press" was administered to prisoners who refused to plead in answer to a charge. The sentence was as follows: "That you be taken back to the prison whence you came, to a low dungeon, into which no light can enter; that you be laid on your back on the bare floor with a cloth round your loins, but elsewhere naked; that there be set upon your body a weight of iron as great as you can bear—and greater; that you have no substance, save on the first day three morsels of the coarsest bread, on the second day three draughts of stagnant water from the pool nearest to the prison door, on the third day again three morsels of bread as before, and such bread and such water alternately from day to day until you die." This barbarous law remained in force until 1772.
[17] The Romance of London, Timbs, vol. i., pp. 105-8.
The Romantic Story of the White Milliner, otherwise the Beautiful Frances Jennings, Duchess of Tyrconnel—Her Youthful Escapade—Her Connection with the New Exchange the subject of a Play by Douglas Jerrold—Its Failure and the Author's Disappointment—"Nan" Clarges, afterwards Duchess of Albemarle, sells Wash-balls in the New Exchange—Her Burial in Westminster Abbey—Sir William Read, the Quack, cures "Wry Necks" in Durham Yard—Demolition of the New Exchange—A Noted Book-shop—Ambassadors reside Here.
The romantic story of the White Widow, or the White Milliner, otherwise Frances Jennings, Duchess of Tyrconnel, wife of Richard Talbot, Lord Deputy of Ireland in the reign of James II., plays a large part in the history of the Adelphi. In the Revolution of 1688 the duchess sold small articles of haberdashery for a few days in the New Exchange. According to Horace Walpole, "She wore a white dress wrapping her whole person, and a white mask, which she never removed, and excited much interest and curiosity." Her case becoming known, "she was provided for." The association of Richard Talbot's widow with the Adelphi is very curious. This lady, Frances Jennings, was sister to the celebrated Duchess of Marlborough. By her first husband, George, Count Hamilton, a member of the Abercorn family, and a maréchal de camp in the French service, she had three daughters: Elizabeth, afterwards the wife of Viscount Ross; Frances, wife of Viscount Dillon; and Mary, wife of Viscount Kingsland. On the death of Count Hamilton, she married Colonel Richard Talbot, Baron of Talbot's Town, Viscount of Baltinglass, and Earl of Tyrconnel. On March 20, 1688, James II. created him Marquess and Duke of Tyrconnel. On his death, in 1691, his widow was left with two daughters, one of whom became Princess of Vintimiglia.[18] Walpole states that the duchess, on her arrival in England in 1688, was reduced to absolute want, and, being unable to procure safe access to her family, she adopted the disguise of the White Milliner as a temporary means of livelihood. Be this as it may, the duchess must have had money in her widowhood, for shortly after the death of her husband, and despite the penal laws against the Roman Catholics, she established a convent for Poor Clares in King Street, Dublin, and in this city, at the ripe old age of ninety-two, she died, according to Horace Walpole, "in consequence of falling out of bed upon the floor on a winter's night. Being too feeble to rise or call for aid, she was found in the morning so numbed by the cold that she lived only a few hours." She was buried in St Patrick's Cathedral on March 9, 1730. Walpole describes her as "Of very low stature, extremely thin, and without the least trace of in her features of ever having been a beauty."
Whatever she may have been in her old age, she was pretty and graceful in her youth when at the court of Charles II. Count de Grammont states that she was proof against all the wiles of the Merry Monarch, yet her spirits were such that on one occasion she attired herself as an orange-wench in order to have her fortune told in the neighbourhood of St James's.
While the beauty and unusual propriety of the new-comer were still attracting the attention of the Court, the giddy girl was indiscreet enough to embark in a wild frolic, which very nearly had the effect of ruining her hitherto stainless reputation. The adventure in question, which has been chronicled by more than one contemporary writer, is thus recorded by Pepys: "What mad freaks," he says, "the Mayds of Honour at Court have! That Mrs Jennings, one of the Dutchesse's maids, the other day dressed herself like an orange wench, and went up and down and cried oranges; till, falling down, or by some accident, her fine shoes were discovered, and she put to a great deal of shame." The particulars of the adventure are so interesting that they may be related in these pages.
"Lord Rochester, at this time in disgrace at Court, happened to be consoling himself for the King's displeasure by performing, in an obscure corner of the city, the character of a German empiric and fortune-teller. The success of his celebrated frolic is well known. His fame, which at first had been merely local, had gradually spread itself abroad till at last it reached the ears of the Court. Rochester was of course equally as well acquainted with the scandal of the day as with the persons and characters of those who figured in the licentious Court of his royal master. Accordingly, having recognised one or two of the female attendants of the maids of honour, who had eagerly flocked to consult him, he sent them back so amazed by his superhuman powers as to excite the curiosity of their mistresses. The result fully answered Rochester's expectations. Under the protection of the then fashionable mask, there was more than one giddy maid of honour who made up her mind to dive into the secrets of futurity by means of the German mountebank. Who, indeed, could gravely blame them, when even the Queen herself had set the example of risking her reputation, by indulging in similar masquerading frolics?