He then passed away, but in one particular Lady Betty did not take his advice: she never married again, although she survived him by fifty years, and thus it is perhaps that I regard her, with her crewel work, her china closet, and her pot-pourri, rather as a spinster than as a widow. There is no trace at all at Knole of Sir John Germaine, that royal bastard, that handsome and enterprising child of fortune, thanks to whom Drayton came into the possession of Lord George and continues to this day in the hands of his descendants. Of Lady Betty, on the other hand, there are copious traces. There are her rooms, which I have already described in the first chapter, her small square four-poster, her ring-box, and the painted wooden figure of a lady with the fontange of Queen Anne’s day on her head. There is Lady Betty’s own portrait, a miniature full-length, in blue brocade. There is yard upon yard of her industrious embroidery. There is the pot-pourri which is made every summer from her receipt (1750):
Gather dry, Double Violets, Rose Leaves, Lavender, Myrtle flowers, Verbena, Bay leaves, Rosemary, Balm, Musk, Geranium. Pick these from the stalks and dry on paper in the sun for a day or two before putting them in a jar. This should be a large white one, well glazed, with a close fitting cover, also a piece of card the exact size of the jar, which you must keep pressed down on the flowers. Keep a new wooden spoon to stir the salt and flowers from the bottom, before you put in a fresh layer of bay salt above and below every layer of flowers. Have ready of spices, plenty of Cinnamon, Mace, Nutmeg, and Pepper and Lemon-peel pounded. For a large jar ½ lb. Orris root, 1 oz. Storax, 1 oz. Gum Benjamin, 2 ozs. Calamino Aromatico,[[12]] 2 grs. Musk, and a small quantity of oil of Rhodium. The spice and gums to be added when you have collected all the flowers you intend to put in. Mix all well together, press it down well, and spread bay salt on the top to exclude the air until the January or February following. Keep the jar in a cool, dry place.
In the second respect Lady Betty carried out her husband’s wishes, for when she died herself at the age of nearly ninety she bequeathed the “venerable heap of ugliness” to Lord George, with £20,000 and half the residue of her estate.
§ iv
CHARLES SACKVILLE
2nd
Duke of Dorset
Since I have avoided all political details, which would have led anyone more conversant than myself with the background to the facts into pages of dissertation, there remains very little to say of the first Duke of Dorset. He died a few years before his dear, dear Colly, and was succeeded by his son, that Lord Middlesex to whom I have alluded as being so unsatisfactory. There is not much record of this good-for-nothing duke, who enjoyed his dukedom only four years, and who was married to a “very short, very plain, very yellow, and vain girl, full of Greek and Latin.” Apparently he married her no earlier than he need, for Horace Walpole writes of “Lord Middlesex’s wedding, which was over a week before it was known. I believe the bride told it then, for he and all his family are so silent that they would never have mentioned it; she might have popped out a child, before a single Sackville would have been at the expense of a syllable to justify her.” I have already quoted the few epithets I have found relating to this duke, the “proud, disgusted, melancholy, solitary man ...” who produced operas and spent enormous sums on defending singers in legal actions. He was reputed mad, “a disorder which there was too much reason to suppose, ran in the blood”; he was certainly eccentric; and there is a large picture of him in the ball-room at Knole dressed as a Roman emperor, with bare knees, a plumed helmet on his head, and various pieces of armour. Besides these scanty documents, there are some verses which scarcely entitle him to be called a poet: Arno’s Vale, which I have never read, and which is addressed to a certain Madame Muscovita, whose portrait is at Knole; and others which are at Knole, for instance:
LADY BETTY GERMAINE’S BEDROOM AT KNOLE