MRS POYNTZ

Mrs Poyntz was an amiable and gentle-hearted woman, as her letters testify, and can in no way be considered responsible for the subsequent career of the Royal Duke. I have in my possession a most interesting and touching letter from Lady Cromartie, whose husband was under sentence of death, in 1715, as a Jacobite, in which she makes a most earnest appeal to Mrs Poyntz to intercede with the Queen in behalf of the prisoner, and, to the best of my belief, the intercession was of some avail. At all events, Lord Cromartie’s life was spared, although his title was attainted, and was only revived in 1861, in the person of the late Duchess of Sutherland.[[22]] The Duke of Cumberland was a frequent visitor at Midgham, and there was a suite of apartments called by his name. The house, as I have said before, was constantly let during my uncle’s life, but in a small, quaint cottage on the skirts of the park, lived, at the time of which I am speaking, an old lady, who had been in the service of my grandmother as lady’s maid, and still occupied a place of trust in that of my uncle. We occasionally visited this dear old retainer of our family, and one summer I accompanied my mother and my brother Charles to Midgham Cottage.

[22]. Anne Hay McKenzie, married to third Duke of Sutherland, died 1889.

To me that visit was a real holiday. We all loved Illidge (for that was her name) dearly, and were much amused by her eccentricities, while the life in a real bonâ fide cottage seemed to me like a page out of some rural novel.

Illidge was a short, rather thick-set woman, with silver hair, bushy eyebrows, bright eyes, and a most determined expression. She wore the dress which was in vogue in the last generation: a short plain, scanty gown of fawn-coloured silk, low in the neck and short in the sleeves, a white muslin fichu, and apron and black mittens. There is a picture at Drumlanrig Castle of the Duchess of Queensberry in exactly the same costume, which I saw years afterwards when on a visit to the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch.

Illidge had very aristocratic notions, and nothing ruffled her dignity more than when we—my brother or myself—marched into the kitchen and called to Sarah, the sole indoor domestic of the little household, asking her for what we wanted, instead of ringing the bell in the parlour, although the parlour and kitchen were next door to each other.

“Just as you please, my dear,” said Illidge, looking extremely angry, “but I’ve always been accustomed to gentlepeople ringing the bell, and not coming into the kitchen at all hours, and making so free with the under-servants!”

She had an inveterate hatred for the occupants of Midgham House. She was quite aware that her master was always glad when the house was let and warmed and kept in repair by being lived in, but if the angel Gabriel had come down from heaven to become the tenant of Midgham House, Illidge would have hated and despised him.

On one occasion I composed a grandiloquent poem, having for its theme the courtship and marriage of Anna Maria Mordaunt and Stephen Poyntz, which I wrote out in my best hand, and presented to Illidge, who agreed with me in considering it a very fine epic.

VISIT TO ILLIDGE