No. 152 Mr. Cole, House Steward
Uncertain.
Brown coat. White wig. Writing. A seal lying on a book on the table.
No. 153
No. 154 Anne Brudenell, Countess of Shrewsbury
BORN 1621, DIED 1702.
Brown dress. White sleeves. Blue mantle.
The daughter of Robert Brudenell, second Earl of Cardigan, by Anne, daughter of Viscount Savage. She married Francis, eleventh Earl of Shrewsbury, as his second wife.
De Grammont, in describing the beauties of the Court of the new Queen, Catherine of Braganza, mentions Lady Shrewsbury in the first flight. She seems to have surpassed most of the members of the royal circle in vice and effrontery, and a long list is given by the author above quoted of those who did not sigh in vain, but De Grammont says she was even more remarkable for the misfortunes she brought on those with whom she had to deal than for her conquests. The well-known wit and courtier, Thomas Killigrew, after her desertion of him for the Duke of Buckingham, amused himself by writing lampoons and speaking of her in a most unrestrained manner. He had been admonished that such a proceeding would prove dangerous, but persisted in his invectives. He was attacked one evening on his return from the Duke of York’s at St. James’s by some assassins, who made several sword-thrusts through his chair, one of which pierced his arm. After this narrow escape he bridled his tongue and pen, but sought for no redress, well aware the attempt would be fruitless.
Pepys tells us the Duke of Buckingham took Lady Shrewsbury to his house, whereupon the Duchess, usually very sparing of her reproaches, remarked it was not fit for her and the other to remain together under the same roof, to which the Duke agreed, adding, ‘I have therefore, Madam, ordered your coach to take you to your father’s;’—a speech which honest Pepys designates as ‘devilish.’
Evelyn, in his account of his visits to Newmarket, ‘where was racing, revelling, and feasting with jolly blades’ during the King’s residence there, mentions the Duke of Buckingham with that abandoned woman, Shrewsbury, with fiddlers, and the like, ‘all of which,’ he said, ‘did ill become a Christian court.’
Her lover also installed her in his beautiful country house on the banks of the Thames, to which Pope alludes—
‘Cliveden’s proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury, and love.’
But the incident by which she is best remembered is the famous duel, which ended so fatally. Whether Buckingham’s boasts were too loud, when he expatiated on the constancy and devotion of the hitherto fickle beauty, or from some other cause, the patient husband’s indignation was at length roused, and he sent a challenge to the Duke. We subjoin Pepys’s account: ‘Much discourse of the duel between the Duke of Buckingham, Holmes, and one Jenkins on one side, and my Lord of Shrewsbury, Sir John Talbot, and one Bernard Howard, on the other. It was all about my Lady Shrewsbury, who is, and hath been for a long time, mistress to the Duke of Buckingham. The husband challenged him, and they met yesterday, January the 16th, 1667, in a close, near Barne Elmes, and Lord Shrewsbury is wounded, run through the body from the right breast, through the shoulder, and Sir John, all along one of his arms, and Jenkins is killed, and the rest all in a measure wounded.’ Pepys makes a sapient remark on the subject: ‘This will make the world think that the King has some good councillors about him, when the Duke, the greatest man, is a fellow of no more sobriety than to fight a duel about a mistress.’ He tells us that the King, having got wind of the matter, had sent a message by the Duke of Albemarle to Buckingham, forbidding him to fight, which message, like many others, was never delivered. ‘There was great talk of the business, and Lord Shrewsbury’s case was considered very bad, and if he should die, it might make it worse for the Duke of Buckingham, and I shall not be much sorry for it, as we may have some more sober man in his place, to assist in the Government.’
On the 16th of the ensuing March, Lord Shrewsbury died of his wounds. There is a story currently believed, that his shameless wife held her lover’s horse, during the duel, in the disguise of a page.
The Queen put herself at the head of a party that declaimed against the Duke and his wicked transactions; but she was soon silenced, and the whole matter hushed up.
Lady Shrewsbury lived to find a man adventurous enough to marry her, in the person of the son of Sir Thomas Brydges of Keynsham, county Somerset. She died at the age of eighty-one.