In the month of March 1632, Lady Strange arrived in London, on her way to the Hague—probably with the object of settling the affairs of Charlotte of Nassau’s inheritance. Differences were now beginning to arise between the Duke de la Trémoille and the Count de Laval, which gave their sister great concern.
“I hope that your husband will acquiesce in the last wish of her who brought us into the world,” she writes. “For you dear sister, I do not doubt that your goodness and generosity will override all other considerations.”
The generosity and indulgence of the Duchess de la Trémoille was to be put more than once to the test by the Count de Laval.
A certain Englishwoman, Miss Orpe, with whom he had entangled himself, pretended that she was married to him, and took the name of Countess de Laval. Lady Strange was greatly disturbed at this; but her chief anxiety was always the money from France, which either did not come at all, or arrived much diminished in transit. The rents of Christmas were not paid by midsummer.
“I beg your forgiveness, dear sister,” she writes on the 2nd October 1638, “if I speak to you so freely, but I know you to be so reasonable and so just, that you cannot approve of what is not so. I have no doubt that your son has arrived safely in Holland. He will not have found it so prosperous there as usual. Pray God that he may have found the Prince of Orange in good health.”
Here the correspondence ceases for eight years—with the exception of one letter written in 1640, on the occasion of the death of Mademoiselle de la Trémoille. Letters in those troublous days frequently got lost upon the road, and those for a long time preserved in the family archives finally suffered many rude vicissitudes. These years were the most momentous ones in the life of Charlotte de la Trémoille. In those letters she made few allusions to the events which have rendered her name illustrious. She saw nothing extraordinary in what she did; simply doing the duty which came next. The duty accomplished, all her thoughts reverted to the past.
Fortunately, this grand life of a modest, noble-minded woman here takes its place in history; and the documents of the time enable us to supplement the silence of Lady Strange, now very soon to be Countess of Derby.
CHAPTER VI
OTIUM CUM DIGNITATE. THE NEW EARL. A ROYAL WATER JOURNEY TO HAMPTON COURT. “MERRIE ENGLAND.” CAVALIERS AND ROUNDHEADS. “HOUSEHOLD WORDS.” THE NEW LETTER-POST. HACKNEY COACHES. LINEN. FAITHFUL FRIENDS. A LORDLY HOME