[264c] Presumptuous: claiming much.
[265] See p. [123]. John Winchcombe, a weaver of Newbury, marched with a hundred of his workmen, at his own expenses, against the Scots in 1513.
[266a] Thomas Coke, M.P., of Derbyshire, was appointed a Teller of the Exchequer in 1704, and Vice-Chamberlain to the Queen in 1706. In 1706 he married—as his second wife—Mrs. Hale, one of the maids of honour (Luttrell, v. 411, 423; vi. 113, 462; Lady Cowper’s Diary, 15, 16), a lady whose “piercing” beauty it was, apparently, that Steele described under the name of Chloe, in No. 4 of the Tatler. Jervas painted her as a country girl, “with a liveliness that shows she is conscious, but not affected, of her perfections.” Coke was the Sir Plume of Pope’s Rape of the Lock.
[266b] The committee of management of the Royal household.
[266c] Francesca Margherita de l’Epine, the famous singer, and principal rival of Mrs. Tofts, came to England in 1692, and constantly sang in opera until her retirement in 1718, when she married Dr. Pepusch. She died in 1746. Her sister, Maria Gallia, also a singer, did not attain the same popularity.
[266d] Charles Scarborow and Sir William Foster were the Clerks of the Board of Green Cloth.
[267a] See note on Thomas Coke, [266].
[267b] The Earl of Sunderland’s second wife, Lady Anne Churchill, who died in 1716, aged twenty-eight. She was the favourite daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, and was called “the little Whig.” Verses were written in honour of her beauty and talent by Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax, Dr. Watts and others, and her portrait was painted by Lely and Kneller.
[267c] Mary, daughter of Sir William Forester, of Dothill, Shropshire. In 1700, at the age of thirteen, she had been secretly married to her cousin, George Downing, a lad of fifteen. Three years later, Downing, on his return from abroad, refused to acknowledge his wife, and in 1715 both parties petitioned the House of Lords for leave to bring in a Bill declaring the marriage to be void; but leave was refused (Lords’ Journals, xx. 41, 45). Downing had become Sir George Downing, Bart., in 1711, and had been elected M.P. for Dunwich; he died without issue in 1749, and was the founder of Downing College, Cambridge.
[268a] In a discussion upon what would be the result if beards became the fashion, Budgell (Spectator, No. 331) says, “Besides, we are not certain that the ladies would not come into the mode, when they take the air on horseback. They already appear in hats and feathers, coats and periwigs.”