Court Beauties of Old Whitehall: Historiettes of the Restoration

by W. R. H. Trowbridge

Those who care to follow the fortunes of the Lovely Jennings will learn that everything came to pass just as the fairies predicted.

But from fancy to fact. The Duchess of York, in order to refute the imputation cast upon her own looks by the ugliness of her maids of honour, decided to form a new Court. And that none but beauties should compose it, she resolved to see all the applicants herself and choose those who pleased her, regardless of their recommendations. Frances Jennings, then about sixteen, was one of those thus selected. Her father was an insignificant country squire of small fortune, and her mother a woman, as we say nowadays, "with a past." We are not told the nature of her excursions into the realms of the unconventional or disreputable, but are left to infer that they were such as even in that day of license were not to be tolerated. Nevertheless, though Mrs. Jennings was not received at Court, the fact was apparently no bar to the advancement of her family. She managed somehow to secure royal patronage for her daughters, Frances and Sarah, who in their turn managed to use it as a stepping-stone by means of which they climbed to very exalted stations.

The elder of the two sisters had no sooner appeared at Court than she attracted the attention of the Duke of York, who regarded his duchess's maids of honour as the sine quâ non of his seraglio. The lovely odalisque, however, had already, young as she was, formed a very decided resolution as to the line of conduct she intended to adopt. Like La Belle Stuart, she meant to use Whitehall as a trap in which to catch a husband. Being naturally sensible, she was aware that the freedom which certain ladies enjoyed at Court was the exception, not the rule; and that, while a Lady Castlemaine or a Countess of Shrewsbury might with impunity, by reason of personality and rank, defy decency, a humble maid of honour in attempting to copy them would very quickly be given her congé. This reasoning was demonstrated by many instances, the latest being that of Miss Price, whose conduct had obliged the Queen to dismiss her. Moreover, to emphasise the value of a good reputation she had that of her mother constantly before her eyes as a warning.

So the Lovely Jennings turned a deaf ear to the entreaties of the royal tempter. But as the world is ever more ready to believe evil than good of one—a platitude especially applicable to a maid of honour at Whitehall—the mere consciousness of being virtuous is not enough for the world. Of virtue the world always demands proofs. It was impossible to believe that a mere chit of a maid of honour—with such a mother too!—could resist a royal duke. He, however, clumsy at love-making as at everything else he undertook, himself furnished the world with proofs of Miss Jennings's innocence. "He thought that writing might perhaps succeed, though ogling, speeches, and embassies had failed. Paper is made to serve many uses, but it unfortunately happened that she had no use for it. Every day notes, containing the tenderest expressions and most magnificent promises, were slipped into her pockets or muff. This, however, could not be done unperceived, and the malicious little creature took care that those who saw them slip in should likewise see them fall out unopened. She had only to shake her muff or pull out her handkerchief as soon as his back was turned, and his notes rained about her for any one to pick up who chose. The Duchess was frequently a witness of this conduct, but could not find it in her heart to chide her maid of honour for want of respect to the Duke. Thus the charm and virtue of Miss Jennings were the only subject of conversation in the two Courts; people could not understand how a young creature fresh from the country should so soon become the ornament of the Court by her attractions and its example by her conduct."

This discreet behaviour soon rid the maid of honour of her troublesome admirer, for the Duke of York, unlike his brother King Charles, very quickly lost interest in the women who resisted him. Finding the Lovely Jennings prove invincible, James turned his attention to one of her more complaisant companions in attendance on his duchess, and as a consequence had, many years later at St. Germain, the, to him, morbid satisfaction of doing penance for, among other sins, the ruin of Arabella, young John Churchill's sister. James's repentance in this instance, however, was not unnaturally tempered with a just pride, for if ever there was a royal bastard worthy of admiration and honour it was James Fitz-James, Duke of Berwick, the son of the complaisant Miss Churchill and the Duke of York. Without exaggeration it may be said that there were few men of any rank in his day more knightly in the true sense than this illustrious nephew of the Great Marlborough.

But while Frances Jennings had successfully avoided one of the most treacherous pitfalls at Whitehall, she very nearly tumbled into another equally dangerous. The King, whose curiosity was fired by the maid of honour's reputation, piqued himself on succeeding where his brother had failed.

"God knows," said Hamilton, "what might have been the consequence; for he greatly excelled in wit, and besides he was King—two qualities of no small consideration. The resolutions of the Lovely Jennings were commendable and very judicious; but wit had great charms for her, and—royal majesty at the feet of a young person is very persuasive. Miss Stuart, however, would not consent to the King's project."

That cunning prude, to whom the royal admiration was the bait with which she hoped to catch her ducal husband, had strong objections to others with a similar purpose using her bait and fishing in the same stream. Charles allowed himself to be deluded with false hopes by La Belle Stuart, and the Lovely Jennings, though she lost the chance of becoming a maîtresse en titre—a position to which her ambition may have led her fancy—added both to her reputation and admirers by this adventure.

But of all the various kinds of fish that were angled for at Whitehall, husbands were the most difficult to catch. The beauties who hooked theirs out of that fishpond only succeeded in landing them after much practice. Miss Jennings's first attempt might be described as a graceful failure. The fish on her hook, so to speak, was the son of Lionne, Louis XIV.'s Minister for Foreign Affairs. This statesman, rightly considering that the Court of Charles II. was the place par excellence in which a very gauche and shy youth of nineteen would have unrivalled opportunities to "form" himself, had sent his son, the Marquis de Berni, there under Courtin, when that diplomatist went to England for the first time as French Ambassador. The details of the young man's progress have been preserved in the official despatches that Courtin sent to Lionne.