There is an account of this incident in a letter of Sir Charles Lyttelton to Viscount Hatton, in the Hatton Correspondence. He tells us that the poor captain, Captain Crow of The Monmouth, "found himself in the Tower about it;" but he does not add any further information as to the part which Dorothy played in the matter.
After their retirement to Sheen and Moor Park, Surrey, we know nothing distinctively of Lady Temple, and little is known of their family life. They had only two children living, having lost as many as seven in their infancy. In 1684 one of these children, their only daughter, died of small-pox; she was buried in Westminster Abbey. There is a letter of hers written to her father which shows some signs of her mother's affectionate teaching, and which we cannot forbear to quote. It is copied from Courtenay, vol. ii. p. 113.
SIR,—I deferred writing to you till I could tell you that I had received all my fine things, which I have just now done; but I thought never to have done giving you thanks for them. They have made me so very happy in my new clothes, and everybody that comes does admire them above all things, but yet not so much as I think they deserve; and now, if papa was near, I should think myself a perfect pope, though I hope I should not be burned as there was one at Nell Gwyn's door the 5th of November, who was set in a great chair, with a red nose half a yard long, with some hundreds of boys throwing squibs at it. Monsieur Gore and I agree mighty well, and he makes me believe I shall come to something at last; that is if he stays, which I don't doubt but he will, because all the fine ladies will petition for him. We are got rid of the workmen now, and our house is ready to entertain you. Come when you please, and you will meet nobody more glad to see you than your most obedient and dutiful daughter,
D. TEMPLE.
Temple's son, John Temple, married in 1685 a rich heiress in France, the daughter of Monsieur Duplessis Rambouillet, a French Protestant; he brought his wife to live at his father's house at Sheen. After King William and Queen Mary were actually placed on the throne, Sir William Temple, in 1689, permitted his son to accept the office of Secretary at War. For reasons now obscure and unknowable, he drowned himself in the Thames within a week of his acceptance of office, leaving this writing behind him:—
"My folly in undertaking what I was not able to perform has done the King and kingdom a great deal of prejudice. I wish him all happiness and abler servants than John Temple."
The following letter was written on that occasion by Lady Temple to her nephew, Sir John Osborne. The original of it is at Chicksands:—
To Sir John Osborne, thanking him for his consolation on the death of her son.
SHEEN, May 6th, 1689.
Dear Nephew,—I give you many thanks for your kind letter and the sense you have of my affliction, which truly is very great. But since it is laid upon me by the hand of an Almighty and Gracious God, that always proportions His punishments to the support He gives with them, I may hope to bear it as a Christian ought to do, and more especially one that is conscious to herself of having many ways deserved it. The strange revolution we have seen might well have taught me what this world is, yet it seems it was necessary that I should have a near example of the uncertainty of all human blessings, that so having no tie to the world I may the better prepare myself to leave it; and that this correction may suffice to teach me my duty must be the prayer of your affectionate aunt and humble servant,