No. 155 Dorothy Percy, Countess of Leicester
After the Vandyck at Petworth.
DIED 1659.
Seated. White satin gown. Blue mantle. Pearl ornaments.
She was the eldest daughter of Henry Percy, ninth Earl of Northumberland, by Dorothy, daughter of Walter, first Earl of Essex, of the Devereux family. She married in 1618 Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester.
Of her affection for her husband let her own letter speak, written eighteen years after their marriage, when Lord Leicester was Ambassador in Paris. She says, if she were not bound to entertain his messenger a little, ‘I would bestowe one side of this paper in making love to you, and since I maie with modestie expres it, I will saie that if it be love to think of you sleeping and waking, to discourse of nothing with pleasure, but what concerns you, to wishe myselfe everie hower with you, and to praie for you with as much devotion as for mie owne sowle, then sertainlie it maie be said that I am in love.’
Dorothy was indeed of a gentle and loving disposition, and of a character in all respects strongly opposed to that of her sister, the Countess of Carlisle, whom Sir Philip Warwick designates as ‘that busy stateswoman,’ with other observations by no means flattering. Dorothy’s tastes were of a more domestic kind, and her temper amiable and peaceable. She could not, however, prevent a dissension which arose between her brother Algernon Earl of Northumberland and her Lord, when the latter was in Holstein. A letter addressed by Lord Leicester to his brother-in-law shows plainly that he was not the implacable one in this matter. After many assurances of friendship he goes on to say: ‘I present a request to your Lordship, that you will make a visit to your sister, my dear wife, if she be at Penshurst. That poor place has not offended, that it should be forbidden the honour to receive you. She hath not offended, that she should be deprived of the consolation and delight that your Lordship’s company ever brings her;’ many more arguments and conciliatory expressions going to prove that Leicester, at least, desired to be reconciled; but Northumberland remained irate. We may gather this from another letter, from Dorothy to her husband. ‘I have not yet seen my brother,’ she writes, ‘he being full of the King’s business, as he pretends, neither have I perceived any inclination to drawe me from the solitarines I suffer in this place; for though I expressed a willingnesse to go to him, yet have I received no manner of invitation, which I take a little unkindlie. But I thanke God and you, mie dearest harte, that the obligations I have received from frendes have been small, and I hope mie necessities of the times maie not be encreased. But of this coldnesse in my brother I will take little notice, and content myself the best I can, with this lonelie life, without enveing others their greatnesse, their plenty, or their jollitie.... My best and most earnest praiers shall be offered for you, and with your owne, which I believe are better than mine, I hope the blessinges shall be obtained, which shall make us happy.’ We hear of her afterwards visiting her husband in Paris, when the Queen of France presented my Lady Leicester with a costly diamond.
During the civil war Lord Leicester’s well-known loyalty made him obnoxious to the Parliament, and his estates were sequestered. But the Countess drew up what Lodge designates as ‘a bold and dignified memorial,’ and which perhaps tended to the removal of the sequestration which followed shortly afterwards, enhanced, as it was, by the combined influence of her brother and her son.
Lord Northumberland, now partially reconciled to his sister, had been coquetting for a long time with the Royalist and the Roundhead parties, and was therefore thought worth winning over by both, while the young heir of Penshurst, Lord L’Isle, was very popular with the powers that were then in the ascendant, on account of his republican tendencies. So Lord and Lady Leicester were left in peaceful possession of their beautiful home, the ‘Arcadia’ of the Sidneys.
On the death of King Charles I., the care of the younger children, the Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Gloucester, devolved on the Countess, and we cannot doubt her guardianship was tender, though Lord Clarendon, who did not much affect the Lord and Lady of Penshurst, speaks rather slightingly on the subject. But the reduced allowance, the lessening of respect, the omission of titles, and the like, were not to be laid to the charge of the royal children’s guardians, but to that of the Government then in power. At all events, Princess Elizabeth evinced her affection for Lady Leicester by bequeathing to her a jewel of much value, on her death, at Carisbrook in the Isle of Wight, where she had been removed from the shades of Penshurst. This token of gratitude and friendship was grudged by the Parliament, who, questioning the validity of the will, instituted a suit against the Earl of Leicester, and after some litigation, (as might have been expected,) gained possession of this bone of contention.
Lady Leicester did not long survive her young ward. There is a letter extant, addressed by her husband, on her death, to her unkind brother, Lord Northumberland, which we do not transcribe, as the cringing, courtier-like style does not take our fancy, although speaking with much affection of the wife whose loss he no doubt so deeply mourned.
They had four sons and eight daughters.