Epilogue Quite Well Again
JUST been elected to the Council of the Eugenic Society, and the only woman to sit on the Council of the Cremation Society of England.
And so ring down the curtain on the “Bakers’ Dozen,” and the booksellers’ and authors’ thirteen. So ends my tale—no “Spy’s” tail.
AU REVOIR!
P.S.—No woman ever wrote a letter—tradition says—without a P.S. Above everything I am a woman, so let me hasten to add my P.S.
These pages have been corrected for press during fourteen days of great strain.
Thousands of invitations were sent from my door between reading the “galleys.” Thousands of letters and questions were answered during the correction of the “page proof,” which turned up while I was acting as Hospitality Honorary Secretary for the First International Eugenics Congress, held in London, July, 1912.
For the Inaugural Banquet I sent out to all parts of the world about a thousand invitations, nearly five hundred of which were accepted. Major Leonard Darwin, son of the great Darwin and nephew of Sir Francis Galton, presided at the dinner, and Mr. Arthur J. Balfour and the Lord Mayor (Sir Thomas Crosby) spoke. A Reception, at which all members attending the Congress were present, followed.
Amongst those who came forward and helped me, by giving delightful entertainments and each receiving five or six hundred guests in their beautiful homes, were H. E. the American Ambassador, the Duchess of Marlborough, the Lord Mayor (the first medical man to fill that post), Mr. Robert Mond, and Major Darwin.
My part of the festivities ended by my taking a hundred of our foreign and colonial visitors to tea on the Terrace of the House of Commons, thanks to the generosity of ten Members of Parliament. The Speaker kindly lent his gallery, and allowed his Private Secretary to find seats for the whole number.
All this was most enjoyable, but it was not good for careful proof-reading.
Footnotes:
1 George Harley, F.R.S., or the Life of a London Physician.
2 Lady Brilliana Harley was the daughter of Sir Edward Conway, and was born in the year 1600, at the Brill, of which her father was Governor. She became the third wife of Sir Robert Harley, of Brampton Bryan, in 1623.
From her letters published by the Camden Society one gathers she was a woman of considerable education, and of deep religious feeling imbued with Calvinistic doctrine, while devotion to her home and children is the keynote of her correspondence.
In the Great Rebellion, however, when Sir Robert Harley’s Parliamentary duties necessitated his absence from Brampton Bryan, the Royalists in the neighbourhood of the Castle alleged that Lady Brilliana was sheltering rebels; and, after various threats and efforts to gain possession of the stronghold, a Royalist force under Sir William Vavasour laid siege to Brampton Bryan Castle on July 26th, 1643.
There Lady Brilliana with her children and household, and several neighbours who had joined her in resisting the encroachments of the Royalists, were shut up for six weeks, during which time she, usually spoken of as “the Governess,” conducted the defence with both skill and courage. Shots were daily fired into the Castle and frequently poisoned bullets were used: one of these wounded the cook, who died from its effects; and two ladies among the besieged party were also wounded.
Finding that Lady Brilliana was obdurate and would not surrender, Charles I sent her a personal letter by special messenger—Sir John Scudamore—whom Lady Brilliana received with calm dignity; but with unflinching endurance she determined to continue her defence. She replied to the King by a letter setting forth the attacks to which her husband’s property had been subjected, and humbly petitioned that all her goods should be restored to her.
Sir John Scudamore hurried back with another Royal document, offering free pardon to Lady Brilliana and her supporters in the Castle, if she would surrender, and also granting free licence to all to depart from the Castle.
But Lady Brilliana stood her ground when the Royal messenger arrived on September 1st. “By this time,” an “eye-witness” wrote later, “the fame of the noble lady was spread over most of the kingdom, with admiration and applause....”
And this courageous determination was all the more pronounced as she was too unwell to receive Sir John on his return, having contracted a chill which terminated fatally about a month later.
On September 9th, the defeat of the Royal troops elsewhere necessitated the withdrawal of Sir William Vavasour’s force from Brampton Bryan, and the siege was suddenly raised.
The relief was too late. Strain of deprivation and anxiety had taken their toll and weakened the frame of the plucky heart that knew no surrender.
“This honourable lady,” continued her historian, “of whom the world was not worthy, as she was a setting forward the work of God suddenly and unexpectedly fell sick of an apoplexy with a defluxion of the lungs.... Never was a holy life concluded with a more heavenly and happy ending.”
Her body was encased in lead and carried to the top of the Castle to await burial in more peaceful days; but when the siege of Brampton Bryan was renewed, and the Castle taken, her coffin was desecrated in the search for plunder.
Her three beloved children, who had been through the first attack with her, were taken prisoner at the end of the second siege in 1644.
3 Behind the Footlights.
4 Nansen, whom she met at dinner at our house.
5 Mexico as I saw It quickly passed into a second edition in spite of its price, and then fell out of print. Nearly ten years later Nelson and Sons decided to add it to their shilling Library of Travel. Strange as it may appear, not a single copy of the old edition was on the market anywhere, and we had to advertise three times before we could get a dirty copy to tear to pieces for correction for the printers. In August, 1911, the cheap edition was selling in thousands on the railway bookstalls of Great Britain.
6 Since reproduced in a volume, Herbert Schmalz and his Work.
7 Lord Inchcape.
8 Now Mrs. W. L. Courtney.