By the supreme test, therefore, vouched for by the Supreme Lover, we know that the love of Ireland was Lord Edward’s “greatest love,” and that all other loves of his had to yield to its supremacy. But we can only measure the magnitude of his love for Ireland, if we have the measure of his other loves to set beside it. And so it falls out, that we have a particular need, if we would estimate Lord Edward aright, and would understand what he had to offer to Ireland, to know something of his other loves, and of those who inspired them. Above all we must know something of his extraordinary love for his mother.
His letters are full of it: “I am never so happy as when with you, dearest mother, you seem to make every distress lighter, and I bear everything better, and enjoy everything more when with you.” And again: “You cannot think how I feel to want you here. I dined and slept at Frescati the other day, Ogilvie and I, tête-à-tête. We talked a great deal of you. Though the place makes me melancholy, yet it gives one pleasant feelings. To be sure, the going to bed without wishing you a good night; the coming down in a morning, and not seeing you; the sauntering about in the fine sunshine, looking at your flowers and shrubs without you to lean upon one, was all very bad indeed. In settling my journey that evening, I determined to see you in my way, supposing you were even a thousand miles out of it.”
There is one letter to the “dearest of mothers,” in which he places his love for her above all else: “I assure you I miss you very, very much. I am not half so merry as I should be if you were here. I get tired of everything, and want to have you to go and talk to. You are, after all, what I love best in the world. I love you more than I think I do; but I will not give way to such thoughts, for it always makes me grave. I really made myself miserable for two days since I left you, by this sort of reflections; and in thinking over with myself what misfortunes I could bear, I found there was one I could not; but God bless you.”
Was it Lord Edward’s surpassing love for his mother, that made her, on her side, single him out among all her children to lavish her tenderness on; or did she recognise in his great capacity for love a heritage from her own nature which drew this son closer to her than any other child she had ever borne? It is certain that of her numerous children—they counted twenty-one in all—Lord Edward was his mother’s favourite, and was accepted as such by the rest of the family. Mr. Gerald Campbell thinks her very frankness in avowing her preference for him prevented any jealousy among the others. Among the seventy or eighty letters of the Duchess to her daughters and others which Mr. Campbell examined before writing his charming book, “Edward and Pamela Fitzgerald,” there is hardly one, he tells us, “in which she does not express her exceeding love for him above all the rest.” He quotes: “Dear, dear Eddy! How constantly he is in my thoughts!” “In Edward nothing surprises me, dear angel; he has always loved me in an uncommon degree from childhood.” “I do not pretend to say that Dearest Angel Edward is not the first object: you have all been used to allow me that indulgence of partiality to him, and none of you, I believe, blame me for it, or see my excessive attachment to that Dear Angel with a jealous eye.” The truth is that Lord Edward had to an extraordinary degree, the gift, so often accorded as a birthright to persons with a great work to do in the world, of winning hearts. And probably his own brothers and sisters were as ready to succumb to his magnetism as the rest of the world.
It would not be surprising if Lord Edward inherited his power of winning hearts, as well as his capacity for love, from his fascinating mother, and she, in her turn, wielded it in virtue of her Stuart blood. For she was the great-granddaughter of Charles II and the beautiful Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. Of the numerous daughters of her father and mother, the Duke and Duchess of Richmond, four grew to womanhood, and of these Lady Emilia Mary was the second. All four were famous for their great beauty and charm; and all four have played a notable part in history. Lady Caroline, who married Stephen Fox, afterwards Lord Holland, was the mother of the brilliant statesman, Charles James Fox. Lady Louisa married Mr. Connolly, of Castletown. Lady Sarah, some years after the unfortunate termination of her first marriage with Sir Charles Bunbury, married Colonel Napier and became the mother of many distinguished soldier sons, including Sir William Napier, the historian of the Peninsular Wars, and Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror of Scinde.
I do not know why the novelists who have found in the life romance of the four beautiful Lennox girls such a wealth of material should have passed over the love-story of their parents. It is, if possible, more romantic than any of them. The story is told by their grandson, Mr. Henry Napier, and published in the introduction to the “Life and Letters of Lady Sarah Lennox” (pp. 85-87), his mother:
“My grandfather, the second Duke of Richmond, was one of the Lords of the Bedchamber to King George the Second, who then resided at Kensington Palace. He had been, as was the custom in those days, married while yet a boy to Lady Sarah Cadogan.... This marriage was made to cancel a gambling debt, the young people’s consent having been the last thing thought of; the Earl of March[[15]] was sent for from school, and the young lady from her nursery, a clergyman was in attendance, and they were told they were immediately to become man and wife! The young lady is not reported to have uttered a word; the gentleman exclaimed, ‘They surely are not going to marry me to that dowdy!’ The ceremony, however, took place; a postchaise was ready at the door, and Lord March was instantly packed off with his tutor to make the ‘grand tour,’ while his young wife was returned to the care of her mother, a Dutch woman, daughter of William Munster, Counsellor of Holland. After some years spent abroad Lord March returned, a well-educated handsome young man, but with no very agreeable recollections of his wife. Wherefore, instead of at once seeking his own home, he went directly to the Opera or Theatre, where he amused himself between the acts in examining the company. He had not long been occupied in this manner when a very young and beautiful woman more especially struck his fancy, and turning to a gentleman beside him he asked who she was. ‘You must be a stranger in London,’ replied the gentleman, ‘not to know the toast of the town, the beautiful Lady March.’ Agreeably surprised at this intelligence, Lord March proceeded to the box, announced himself, and claimed his bride—the very dowdy whom he had so scornfully rejected some years before, but with whom he afterwards lived so happily that she died of a broken heart within the year of his decease, which took place in Godalming, in Surrey, in August, 1750, when my mother was only five years and a few months old.”
[15]. The title borne by the hero of the story while his father, the first Duke of Richmond, was still alive.
EMILY, COUNTESS OF KILDARE
The Mother of Lord Edward Fitzgerald