No. 44 Lady Isabella Thynne
Full length. White gown. Coloured scarf. Ringlets.
Holding a handkerchief.
The daughter of Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, by the heiress of Sir William Cope of Kensington. There is a most tragical story connected with this lady’s youth. King James I., with the shameful injustice that characterised him, had wrested the estates and revenues of the noble family of Butler from their rightful owner, the Earl of Ormonde, and bestowed them on a favourite of his own, Preston by name, who was, moreover, created Baron Dingwall, and eventually Earl of Desmond.
Lord Dingwall married Lady Elizabeth Butler, whose brother, Lord Ormonde, had been despoiled in his favour. Their only child Elizabeth became the Earl of Holland’s ward, and was brought up chiefly under his roof; she was a beautiful and engaging girl, when her cousin, Lord Thurles, (Lord Ormonde’s son,) fell in love with her. It was a most suitable match, and so thought Lord Holland and his wife, and, indeed, the whole household. The cousins pledged their troth, Lord Thurles’s visits were encouraged, and all went well for a time, but so great a prize as Lady Elizabeth Preston was sure to be coveted. The Duke of Buckingham desired her hand for his nephew, and induced the King to forbid the marriage with young Lord Thurles.
Elizabeth’s affections were irrevocably fixed, and she had many friends and confidants; her guardian durst not assist her openly, having received the King’s commands on the subject; but there was one who was in a position to do so, and that was his daughter Isabella, Elizabeth’s chosen friend, and sister, (in all but blood,) a beautiful sharp-witted girl of her own age, who admitted Lord Thurles every day, at all hours, in a clandestine manner, (as was necessary,) nor did her parents object, or interfere with her proceedings, but allowed her to make a feint of receiving Lord Thurles’s addresses, and implicit trust was placed by all parties in Isabella’s rectitude.
Alas! for the compact which we must believe was begun in good faith: Lord Thurles was young, handsome, agreeable, captivating in fact, and the rôle of confidante is proverbially dangerous. In an evil moment he forgot his loyalty to his betrothed, and Isabella forgot her friend, herself, her duty, and all but her infatuation for the man, who was playing a double part by the two girls.
Surely no romance can outdo this real history in sensational incident. Lord Desmond was drowned about the same time his wife died, leaving as her last injunction that Elizabeth should marry no one but her cousin, and by that means restore him the property, the acquisition of which had weighed heavily on poor Lady Desmond’s mind. Buckingham was assassinated, the King died, and Charles I., on his accession, gave the royal consent to the union of the cousins. ‘And so,’ says the biographer of the great Duke of Ormonde (who, by the way, makes very light of this episode with his bride’s friend), ‘the marriage was joyously consummated, and every one content.’ We are not informed how the unfortunate Lady Isabella fared on the occasion, but the dénouement remains to be told. Several years afterwards, when Ormonde was in Paris, he went to the Academy there to visit a handsome and intelligent youth, whom he had sent thither for his education, whereupon he sat down and wrote a long description of the boy to Lady Isabella (then the wife of Sir James Thynne), being a subject in which they had a common interest. As ill-luck would have it, he at the same time indited a letter to his wife, and misdirected the covers; while Lady Ormonde was occupied in making the discovery that she had been cruelly betrayed, and deceived by the two people she loved best, and trusted most, in the world, Isabella came in, and found her reading the fatal letter.
An agitating scene ensued, Isabella humbled herself before the woman she had so grievously injured, and sought by every means of fascination which she possessed to soften her just resentment.
Tears, sobs, caresses, remorse. Elizabeth, generous and high-minded, almost beyond belief, raised the suppliant who was kneeling at her feet, with the promise not only of pardon, but of unchanging friendship; a promise nobly kept, as we shall see later. Still more marvellous is the fact, (for we can scarcely doubt the evidence,) that Lady Ormonde not only never upbraided her husband, but maintained a profound silence on the subject. As to Lady Isabella’s marriage to Sir James Thynne, we have been unable to ascertain the date, or any circumstances attending it. But it would appear she lived apart from her husband for some time before the legal separation, which took place (according to Longleat documents) in 1653. She led a most independent life during the time the Court was at Oxford: we are told a great deal about Lady Isabella Thynne, who lodged at Balliol College; strange stories of her doings; of ‘how she and Mistress Fanshawe went to morning chapel dressed as angels,’ i.e. in scanty drapery; of ‘how our grove is converted into a Daphne, for the ladies and their gallants; how Lady Isabella used to make her entry there, in a jaunty manner, with a lute before her, dressed in a fantastical costume;’ also how she and her friend Fanshawe paid a visit for a frolic to a great Don, and behaved in so extravagant a manner, that the learned man rebuked the two ladies sharply.
Lady Isabella seems to have carried her eccentricities a little too far, according to some contemporary evidence: ‘They say there is a lady banisht from Court lately—the Lady Thinne. It is a bad sign when such stars fall.’ Again: ‘It was reported that Her Majesty should strike the good Lady Thynne; methinks it should not be true. Yet they say Her Majesty gave her a box on the ear, which Lady Thynne gave Mr. Gorman to keep.’
In 1647 the paper entitled Parliament of Ladies for that year said, ‘The rattle-headed ladies having assembled at Kate’s in the Covent Garden, and choosing a speaker, at last resolved on Lady Isabella Thynne.’ But we have dwelt perhaps too long on the vagaries of one whom we are assured ‘was most beautiful, most accomplished, most humble, most charitable.’ The destinies of the two women who had been early friends, but whose characters were so opposed, seem to have been strangely entangled. Lady Isabella was fated to cross Lady Ormonde’s path once more; the occurrence is a curious one, and is related in the life of Lord Broghill (afterwards better known as the Earl of Orrery), who was at the time in high favour with Cromwell, and had pleaded Lady Ormonde’s cause to some purpose, with the autocrat, being deeply attached to that most noble lady and her husband. He had just returned from Ireland, where he had distinguished himself, when he was summoned to the Protector’s presence.
‘If you are still interested in my Lord Ormonde’s safety,’ said Oliver, ‘you had better advise him to leave London. We know all about him, where he is, what he is doing, and he had best absent himself.’ The hint was given and taken, and Lord Ormonde left England in haste. A short time elapsed, when one day Lady Ormonde was much distressed by receiving a domiciliary visit from one of Cromwell’s functionaries, who ransacked the house, and carried away every paper he could find.
She immediately sent for her faithful friend, and besought him to intercede once more in her behalf.
Broghill lost no time, but hastened off to Whitehall, where he found the great man in a towering passion.
‘You have undertaken, indeed, for the quietness of a fine person,’ he said. ‘I have allowed my Lady Ormonde £2000 a year, out of her husband’s estates, because they were sufferers in Ireland. But I find she is a wicked woman, and I promise you she shall pay for it.’ It was some time before Lord Broghill could gain a hearing, but when he was permitted to speak, he asked what proof could be adduced of Lady Ormonde’s treachery, upon which Cromwell threw him a letter, that certainly left no doubt of the writer’s Royalist tendencies and disaffection to the existing Government.
‘This had been found,’ he said, ‘in searching the escritoire at Ormonde House.’ Lord Broghill could not help laughing. ‘But this,’ he said, ‘is not the writing of my Lady Ormonde.’
‘Indeed,’ exclaimed Cromwell angrily, ‘and pray who wrote these lines?’
Bent on saving Lady Ormonde’s credit, Lord Broghill not only told him the letter was from Lady Isabella Thynne, (between whom and Lord Ormonde there had been undoubted love-passages,) but he produced some other letters of the same lady, to identify the handwriting, and further proceeded to relate several anecdotes of a most lively nature, respecting her, which turned all Cromwell’s anger into mirth, and he laughed immoderately.
Broghill’s judicious conduct had gained Lady Ormonde’s cause. But some time afterwards she went to reside at Caen, her husband being on the Continent, and Lady Isabella having got herself into hot water once more, recalled and claimed her friend’s promise. Nor did she do so in vain: Lady Ormonde welcomed her to her house, where Isabella remained two years, during which time Lord Ormonde was a frequent visitor. We do not give the dates, as they are not clearly set down by our authorities; but to the best of our belief she was in England in 1653. Lord Clarendon tells us ‘that Hyde’s heart ached for poor Lady Isabella Thynne.’
No less a poet than Waller wrote verses to her, on her playing the lute, on her exquisite cutting of trees in paper, etc.
In 1665 one Flecknoe’s Muse was also inspired by her charms.
Of her death we know nothing; but there was a story current that both she and her sister, the Lady Diana, had warnings of their approaching dissolution by meeting their own ‘fetches,’ the latter lady in Kensington Gardens.