"Since your affairs proceed so prosperously with the Russells," said the king, "I will acquaint you that you are delivered from another rival, much more dangerous, if he were not already married: my brother has lately fallen in love with Lady Chesterfield." "How many blessings at once!" exclaimed the Chevalier de Grammont: "I have so many obligations to him for this inconstancy, that I would willingly serve him in his new amour, if Hamilton was not his rival: nor will your majesty take it ill, if I promote the interests of my mistress's brother, rather than those of your majesty's brother." "Hamilton, however," said the king, "does not stand so much in need of assistance, in affairs of this nature, as the Duke of York; but I know Lord Chesterfield is of such a disposition, that he will not suffer men to quarrel about his wife, with the same patience as the complaisant Shrewsbury; though he well deserves the same fate." Here follows a true description of Lord Chesterfield.
[Philip, the second Earl of Chesterfield. He was constituted, in 1662, lord-chamberlain to the queen, and colonel of a regiment of foot, June 13, 1667. On November 29, 1679, he was appointed lord- warden and chief-justice of the king's forests on this side Trent, and sworn of the privy-council, January 26, 1680. On November 6, 1682, he was made colonel of the third regiment of foot, which, with the rest of his preferments, he resigned on the accession of James IT. He lived to the age of upwards of 80, and died, January 28, 1713, at his house, in Bloomsbury-square.]
He had a very agreeable face, a fine head of hair, an indifferent shape, and a worse air; he was not, however, deficient in wit: a long residence in Italy had made him ceremonious in his commerce with men, and jealous in his connection with women: he had been much hated by the king; because he had been much beloved by Lady Castlemaine: it was reported that he had been in her good graces prior to her marriage; and as neither of them denied it, it was the more generally believed.
He had paid his devoirs to the eldest daughter of the Duke of Ormond, while his heart was still taken up with his former passion: the king's love for Lady Castlemaine, and the advancement he expected from such an alliance, made him press the match with as much ardour as if he had been passionately in love: he had therefore married Lady Chesterfield without loving her, and had lived some time with her in such coolness as to leave her no room to doubt of his indifference. As she was endowed with great sensibility and delicacy, she suffered at this contempt: she was at first much affected with his behaviour, and afterwards enraged at it; and, when he began to give her proofs of his affection, she had the pleasure of convincing him of her indifference.
They were upon this footing, when she resolved to cure Hamilton, as she had lately done her husband, of all his remaining tenderness for Lady Castlemaine. For her it was no difficult undertaking: the conversation of the one was disagreeable, from the unpolished state of her manners, her ill-timed pride, her uneven temper, and extravagant humours Lady Chesterfield, on the contrary, knew how to heighten her charms with all the bewitching attractions in the power of a woman to invent who wishes to make a conquest.
Besides all this, she had greater opportunities of making advances to him than to any other: she lived at the Duke of Ormond's, at Whitehall, where Hamilton, as was said before, had free admittance at all hours: her extreme coldness, or rather the disgust which she showed for her husband's returning affection, wakened his natural inclination to jealousy: he suspected that she could not so very suddenly pass from anxiety to indifference for him, without some secret object of a new attachment; and, according to the maxim of all jealous husbands, he immediately put in practice all his experience and industry, in order to make a discovery, which was to destroy his own happiness.
Hamilton, who knew his disposition, was, on the other hand, upon his guard, and the more he advanced in his intrigue, the more attentive was he to remove every degree of suspicion from the Earl's mind: he pretended to make him his confidant, in the most unguarded and open manner, of his passion for Lady Castlemaine: he complained of her caprice, and most earnestly desired his advice how to succeed with a person whose affections he alone had entirely possessed.
Chesterfield, who was flattered with this discourse, promised him his protection with greater sincerity than it had been demanded: Hamilton, therefore, was no further embarrassed than to preserve Lady Chesterfield's reputation, who, in his opinion, declared herself rather too openly in his favour: but whilst he was diligently employed in regulating, within the rules of discretion, the partiality she expressed for him, and in conjuring her to restrain her glances within bounds, she was receiving those of the Duke of York; and, what is more, made them favourable returns.
He thought that he had perceived it, as well as every one besides; but he thought likewise, that all the world was deceived as well as himself: how could he trust his own eyes, as to what those of Lady Chesterfield betrayed for this new rival? He could not think it probable, that a woman of her disposition could relish a man, whose manners had a thousand times been the subject of their private ridicule; but what he judged still more improbable was, that she should begin another intrigue before she had given the finishing stroke to that in which her own advances had engaged her: however, he began to observe her with more circumspection, when he found by his discoveries, that if she did not deceive him, at least the desire of doing so was not wanting. This he took the liberty of telling her of; but she answered him in so high a strain, and treated what he said so much like a phantom of his own imagination, that he appeared confused without being convinced: all the satisfaction he could procure from her, was her telling him, in a haughty manner, that such unjust reproaches as his ought to have had a better foundation.
Lord Chesterfield had taken the same alarm; and being convinced, from the observations he had made, that he had found out the happy lover who had gained possession of his lady's heart, he was satisfied; and without teasing her with unnecessary reproaches, he only waited for an opportunity to confound her, before he took his measures.