The story of the Gunnings is as romantic as any ever wrought into imaginative narrative or incorporated in epic poem. The notorious damsels were daughters of John Gunning of Castle Coote, County Roscommon, Ireland, by the Hon. Bridget Bourke, daughter of Theobald, sixth Viscount Bourke of Mayo, whom he married in 1731. The family was wofully impecunious; so when the daughters, Maria and Elizabeth, grew into marvellously comely maidens, their mother urged their going on the stage to augment the faulty fortune. They went to Dublin, and there were kindly received by Peg Woffington, then in her glory as Sir Harry Wildair, and by Tom Sheridan, manager of Dublin Theatre. The stage had not then become the stepping-stone to the ranks of the nobility, so the girls were advised to adventure socially, with their faces for their fortunes. They had not the dresses to be presented in at Dublin Castle, but Sheridan supplied these from the resources of the green-room wardrobe. Attired as Lady Macbeth and as Juliet they made their curtsies to the Earl of Harrington, the then Lord-Lieutenant.
The hostess of the evening was the handsome Lady Caroline Petersham, bride of the Earl's eldest son. Lady Caroline had been one of the "Beauty Fitzroys," and had been a favorite belle in town before her marriage.
"When Fitzroy moves, resplendent, fair. So warm her bloom, sublime her air, Her ebon tresses formed to grace And heighten while they shade her face."
Walpole wrote of her in his poem on "The Beauties." The raw Connaught girls outshone this dazzling hostess.
Their "first night" was an auspicious success. The début was applauded, and the players praised. They were adjudged fitted to star the social capital, so to London they went, in June, 1751. Their reception was magical. The West End went almost mad over them. When they appeared at Court, the aristocracy present was indecorous in its efforts to view the dominant beauties. Lords and ladies clambered on any eminence to gaze. The crowd surged upon them, and it was with difficulty they entered their chairs because of the mob outside. The gayety of Vauxhall Gardens was incomplete without them.
Their campaign was a short and eminently active one; Elizabeth triumphed first. At a masquerade at Lord Chesterfield's, in February, 1752, James, the sixth Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, who was enamoured of the younger Irish girl, wished to marry her at once. A clergyman was asked to perform the ceremony then and there. He objected to the time and place and the absence of a ring. The Duke threatened to send for the Archbishop. With the ring of a bed-curtain, at half an hour past midnight, the wedding took place in Mayfair Chapel. The Scotch were enraged at the alliance, which became an unhappy one. The Duke was vulgar, debauched, extravagant, and "damaged in person and fortune," yet, withal, insolently proud. He betook himself off within six years, and his two sons by the Duchess became, successively, seventh and eighth Dukes of Hamilton; and a daughter married Edward, twelfth Earl of Derby.
The dowager was less than a year in widow's weeds when she exchanged them for more strawberry leaves. She had two ducal offers, from their graces of Bridgewater and of Argyll; she accepted the latter. In March, 1759, she married John, the fifth Duke of that name. Walpole's comment on this was: "Who could have believed a Gunning would unite the two great houses of Campbell and Hamilton? For my part I expect to see Lady Coventry Queen of Prussia. I would not venture to marry either of them these thirty years, for fear of being shuffled out of the world prematurely, to make room for the rest of their adventurers. The first time Jack Campbell carries the Duchess into the Highlands, I am persuaded that some of his second-sighted subjects will see him in a winding-sheet with a train of kings behind him as long as those in Macbeth." And again: "A match that would not disgrace Arcadia ... as she is not quite so charming as her sister, I do not know whether it is not better than to retain a title which puts one in mind of her beauty."
The Dukes of Argyll—Lords of the Isles—have always shown a partiality for beauties as brides. This Duke's father married the beautiful Mary Bellenden, daughter of John, Lord Bellenden,—
"Smiling Mary, soft and fair as down."
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