In an earlier chapter, Sir Philip Warwick told us that Newcastle “had the misfortune to have somewhat of the poet in him”. This misfortune impelled him to write poems to Margaret, who replied:—
“Your verses are more like you than your picture, though it resembles you very well”.
From a later letter, she would seem to have been at St. Germains and Newcastle in Paris, and that she feared to go with the Queen to Paris lest she should be supposed to be doing so with the object of flirting with Newcastle:—
“I hear the Queen comes to Paris next week to the solemnities of Princess Mary’s marriage, and I am in a dispute whether I should come with her if I can get leave to stay. My reason is because I think it will stop their discourse of us when they see I do not come. My Lord let your eye limit your poetry.” Possibly Newcastle’s verses may have begun to savour too strongly of the Song of Solomon. The question of the poems crops up again in a later letter, and they would seem to have been the cause of a slight misunderstanding:—
“I am sorry you should bid me keep the verses you sent me, for it looks as though you thought I had flung away those you sent before.”
But perhaps Newcastle may only have been anxious that his verses should be carefully preserved, in order that, at some future date, he might publish them in a book of his “Collected Poems”. Poets are not totally destitute of eyes to business. Anyhow, no maker of verses would like to think that they had been “flung away”. The next letter hints at more troubled waters:—
“I never said any such thing as you mentioned in your letter about your picture, nor even showed it to a creature before yesterday when I gave it to mend; but I find such enemies that whatever is for my disadvantage, though it have but a semblance of truth, is declared.
“It is not usual to give the Queen gloves or anything else, but if you please I will give them to her.”
Presently comes another letter which looks as if, even then, all was not quite smooth between the lovers.