The Queen: “Harkee, Lady Suffolk, you will come up as you used to do.”
Lady Suffolk stayed her week and then, despite the arguments of the Queen, she resigned her appointment, and left the court for ever. She was forty-eight years of age, and had fairly earned her retirement. She was not of a nature to live long alone, and the following year she married George Berkeley, fourth son of Charles, second Earl of Berkeley, a man not distinguished for fortune or good looks, but who, nevertheless, made her a very good husband. The King was in Hanover when he heard of Lady Suffolk’s marriage, and had already given her a successor. He received the news very philosophically, and wrote to the Queen:—
“J’étois extrêmement surpris de la disposition que vous m’avez mandé que ma vieille maîtresse a fait de son corps en mariage à ce vieux goutteux George Berkeley, et je m’en réjouis fort. Je ne voudrois pas faire de tels présens à mes amis; et quand mes ennemis me volent, plut à Dieu que ce soit toujours de cette façon.”
The King probably called Berkeley his enemy because he was a member of the Opposition. Berkeley died a few years after his marriage with Lady Suffolk, but she survived him for more than twenty years. She lived, in dignified retirement, at her villa at Marble Hill, and retained, until the end of her life, the charm of manner and amiability, which had won her many friends. Horace Walpole used to visit her in her old age, and gleaned from her much material for his famous Memoirs. She died in 1767, in her eightieth year, having survived George the Second seven years.
FOOTNOTES TO BOOK III, CHAPTER XI:
[104] Daily Journal, 8th November, 1733.
[105] The Prince of Orange was hereditary Stadtholder of Friesland, and Stadtholder by election of Gröningen and Guelderland.
[106] The Duke of Newcastle to Sir Robert Walpole, 13th November, 1734.
[107] This manuscript is preserved in the manuscript department of the British Museum.
[108] A gap here.