Holding a handkerchief.
THE daughter of Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, by the heiress of Sir William Cope of Kensington. There is a most tragical story connected with this lady’s youth. King James I., with the shameful injustice that characterised him, had wrested the estates and revenues of the noble family of Butler from their rightful owner, the Earl of Ormonde, and bestowed them on a favourite of his own, Preston by name, who was, moreover, created Baron Dingwall, and eventually Earl of Desmond.
Lord Dingwall married Lady Elizabeth Butler, whose brother, Lord Ormonde, had been despoiled in his favour. Their only child Elizabeth became the Earl of Holland’s ward, and was brought up chiefly under his roof; she was a beautiful and engaging girl, when her cousin, Lord Thurles, (Lord Ormonde’s son,) fell in love with her. It was a most suitable match, and so thought Lord Holland and his wife, and, indeed, the whole household. The cousins pledged their troth, Lord Thurles’s visits were encouraged, and all went well for a time, but so great a prize as Lady Elizabeth Preston was sure to be coveted. The Duke of Buckingham desired her hand for his nephew, and induced the King to forbid the marriage with young Lord Thurles.
Elizabeth’s affections were irrevocably fixed, and she had many friends and confidants; her guardian durst not assist her openly, having received the King’s commands on the subject; but there was one who was in a position to do so, and that was his daughter Isabella, Elizabeth’s chosen friend, and sister, (in all but blood,) a beautiful sharp-witted girl of her own age, who admitted Lord Thurles every day, at all hours, in a clandestine manner, (as was necessary,) nor did her parents object, or interfere with her proceedings, but allowed her to make a feint of receiving Lord Thurles’s addresses, and implicit trust was placed by all parties in Isabella’s rectitude.
Alas! for the compact which we must believe was begun in good faith: Lord Thurles was young, handsome, agreeable, captivating in fact, and the rôle of confidante is proverbially dangerous. In an evil moment he forgot his loyalty to his betrothed, and Isabella forgot her friend, herself, her duty, and all but her infatuation for the man, who was playing a double part by the two girls.
Surely no romance can outdo this real history in sensational incident. Lord Desmond was drowned about the same time his wife died, leaving as her last injunction that Elizabeth should marry no one but her cousin, and by that means restore him the property, the acquisition of which had weighed heavily on poor Lady Desmond’s mind. Buckingham was assassinated, the King died, and Charles I., on his accession, gave the royal consent to the union of the cousins. ‘And so,’ says the biographer of the great Duke of Ormonde (who, by the way, makes very light of this episode with his bride’s friend), ‘the marriage was joyously consummated, and every one content.’ We are not informed how the unfortunate Lady Isabella fared on the occasion, but the dénouement remains to be told. Several years afterwards, when Ormonde was in Paris, he went to the Academy there to visit a handsome and intelligent youth, whom he had sent thither for his education, whereupon he sat down and wrote a long description of the boy to Lady Isabella (then the wife of Sir James Thynne), being a subject in which they had a common interest. As ill-luck would have it, he at the same time indited a letter to his wife, and misdirected the covers; while Lady Ormonde was occupied in making the discovery that she had been cruelly betrayed, and deceived by the two people she loved best, and trusted most, in the world, Isabella came in, and found her reading the fatal letter.
An agitating scene ensued, Isabella humbled herself before the woman she had so grievously injured, and sought by every means of fascination which she possessed to soften her just resentment.
Tears, sobs, caresses, remorse. Elizabeth, generous and high-minded, almost beyond belief, raised the suppliant who was kneeling at her feet, with the promise not only of pardon, but of unchanging friendship; a promise nobly kept, as we shall see later. Still more marvellous is the fact, (for we can scarcely doubt the evidence,) that Lady Ormonde not only never upbraided her husband, but maintained a profound silence on the subject. As to Lady Isabella’s marriage to Sir James Thynne, we have been unable to ascertain the date, or any circumstances attending it. But it would appear she lived apart from her husband for some time before the legal separation, which took place (according to Longleat documents) in 1653. She led a most independent life during the time the Court was at Oxford: we are told a great deal about Lady Isabella Thynne, who lodged at Balliol College; strange stories of her doings; of ‘how she and Mistress Fanshawe went to morning chapel dressed as angels,’ i.e. in scanty drapery; of ‘how our grove is converted into a Daphne, for the ladies and their gallants; how Lady Isabella used to make her entry there, in a jaunty manner, with a lute before her, dressed in a fantastical costume;’ also how she and her friend Fanshawe paid a visit for a frolic to a great Don, and behaved in so extravagant a manner, that the learned man rebuked the two ladies sharply.
Lady Isabella seems to have carried her eccentricities a little too far, according to some contemporary evidence: ‘They say there is a lady banisht from Court lately—the Lady Thinne. It is a bad sign when such stars fall.’ Again: ‘It was reported that Her Majesty should strike the good Lady Thynne; methinks it should not be true. Yet they say Her Majesty gave her a box on the ear, which Lady Thynne gave Mr. Gorman to keep.’