Part 8

Shortly after the accession of Henri Quatre to his precarious throne, he despatched on a mission to Monsieur D'Estrees the first gentleman of his chamber, the handsome and accomplished Duke de Bellegarde. This brilliant courtier gazed with wonder on the beauty so long concealed in the obscurity of a feudal castle. Her tresses glowed with burnished gold; her blue eyes sparkled with a dazzling fire, her complexion was radiantly fair, her nose well shaped and aquiline, her mouth was well fitted with pearly teeth, and her lips resembled the all-compelling bow of the god of love. A stately throat, a gently swelling bust, a rounded arm and slender hand--these completed the charms which a fascinating address and natural elegance of movement rendered still more irresistible.

Bellegarde saw and loved; nor was his evident devotion unpleasing to Mademoiselle D'Estrees, who had never before encountered a cavalier so handsome, so gallant, and so chivalrous. The course of true love seemed with this fortunate twain to run most smoothly; for though Gabrielle had been betrothed from her childhood to Andre de Brancas Sieur de Villars, brother of the Marquis de Villars, who had married her elder sister Juliette, the Marquis de Coeuvres could not resist his daughter's entreaties, and consented to affiance her to the Duke de Bellegarde. He was not, indeed, insensible to the advantages of an alliance with a noble so powerful and wealthy, and who stood so high in the favour of King Henry. The lovers exchanged rings in his presence; the duke presented his lady-love with his portrait, and then returned to his duties at court, where his engagement to an unknown beauty excited great astonishment.

At this time Henri Quatre was holding his court at Mantes, and relieving the sterner toils of empire by sharing in the banquet and the song. The dames and demoiselles of Mantes were often the themes of the merry talk of the jocund monarch and his courtiers, and much surprise was expressed at the indifference with which the Duke de Bellegarde conducted himself among them. They could not conceive that a country maiden could be any worthy rival of the dazzling _dames de la cour_. The duke replied that not one of them could hope to equal _la dame des ses pensees_, the beautiful Gabrielle D'Estrees. Henry laughed at the lover's infatuation. Bellegarde, piqued at his incredulity, invited him to accompany him to the Chateau de Coeuvres. The king promised; and thus, as Mademoiselle de Guise sagely observes, "the hopeful lover became the artificer of his own misfortunes," for it was due to that ill-omened visit that he perilled his happiness, and lost the favour of the king.

As the chateau was at no great distance from Senlis, where Henry afterwards was, he and the courtiers rode hastily forward. Henry was received with the welcome due to so brave a king; and the beautiful Gabrielle did homage to him by kissing his hand, and proffered the winecup for his refreshment. Her loveliness burst upon the astonished monarch, as the glories of the new world broke on the dazzled eyes of Columbus. Fresh, and pure, and unsophisticated, it took captive the royal heart, and the memories of all former loves paled before the fervency of this new passion. When he retired to Senlis, he summoned thither the Marquis de Coeuvres and his daughter, under pretext that the marquis might take his oaths as a member of the royal council. The summons was most unacceptable to Gabrielle, who complained bitterly that Henry's attentions sullied her maiden fame, while she grieved at the popular rumour that her lover Bellegarde had been ensnared by the charms of Mademoiselle de Guise. On her arrival at Senlis, she offered Bellegarde to consent to a private marriage as the only means of evading the "evil designs" of his majesty; but the duke was not chivalrous enough to dare the royal wrath. The king persisted in demanding Bellegarde's submission. He visited the beauty in the hope of soothing her disappointment and moderating her anger; but she wept continually, and, flinging herself on her knees, implored him to restore to her her affianced husband. When she found him immovable, she rose and abruptly left the apartment, and during the night quitted Senlis, and returned to her father's castle.

Meanwhile, engaged in war, Henry joined his principal officers at La Fere. It was at this epoch that he resolved on the most romantic and adventurous passage of his romantic and adventurous life. He set out from La Fere early in the dim, misty morning of the 18th November, accompanied by twelve cavaliers. At a village about nine miles from Coeuvres he quitted his attendants, and prosecuted his journey on foot, in the disguise of a peasant. To complete the transformation he carried a sack of straw on his head. It was difficult for even the invincible Gabrielle to resist so surprising a proof of her royal lover's devotion. She did not allow herself, however, to succumb too quickly. The reception was cold and ungracious. Mademoiselle professed to be disgusted with the coarse, rude garb assumed by the royal adventurer; but a brief conversation having followed, a visible relenting on the part of the flattered beauty so cheered the enamoured Henry, that, on taking leave, he said to Madame Villars, "I have now a good heart that nothing will go wrong with me, but all things prosper. I am going to pursue the enemy, and in a day or two _ma belle_ will hear what gallant exploits I have accomplished for love of her."

The king's visit to the chateau was not attended by any disastrous consequences. He returned to La Fere in safety, and his devotion to the lady became well known all over France; but her father was determined to save her honour by a method not unusual in those days. He chose a husband for his daughter, and intimated that no option would be allowed her. This was Monsieur de Liancourt, who was many years her senior, and a widower, with nine children,--wealthy, ignorant, weak in mind, and disagreeable in person. In vain Gabrielle appealed to the king against a marriage which was little better than "a living death." Henry was well pleased with an event which he foresaw would vanquish the beauty's last lingering reluctance. He said "he would cause her to be carried away within one hour of the celebration of her espousals." Her marriage took place at Coeuvres in January 1591, and she made her preparations to escape immediately from the bridegroom she loathed to the gallant Henry. The following day a royal order exiled Monsieur de Liancourt. Thenceforth Gabrielle reigned supreme in the heart of Henri Quatre.

ANNE, DUCHESS OF PEMBROKE.

[1589.]

BISHOP RAINBOW.

This lady was daughter of George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, and born in 1589. She was first married to the Earl of Dorset, and secondly to the Earl of Pembroke. She had a clear soul shining through a vivid body; her body was durable and healthful, her soul sprightful, of great understanding and judgment, faithful memory, and ready wit. She had early gained knowledge as of the best things; so an ability to discourse in all commendable arts and sciences, as well as in those things which belong to persons of her birth and sex to know. For she could discourse with virtuosos, travellers, scholars, merchants, divines, statesmen, and with good housewives, in any kind; in so much that a prime and elegant wit, Dr Donne, well seen in all human learning, and afterwards devoted to the study of divinity, is reported to have said of this lady in her younger years, "that she knew well how to discourse of all things, from predestination to slea-silk." Although she knew wool and flax, fine linen and silk, things appertaining to the spindle and distaff, yet "she could open her mouth with wisdom," knowledge of the best and highest things. If she had sought fame rather than wisdom, possibly she might have been ranked among those wits and learned of that sex of whom Pythagoras, or Plutarch, or any of the ancients, have made such honourable mention.

Authors of several kinds of learning, some of controversies very abstruse, were not unknown to her. She much commended one book, William Barclay's dispute with Bellarmine, both, as she knew, of the Popish persuasion; but the former less papal, and, she said, had well stated a main point, and opposed that learned cardinal for giving too much power even in temporals to the pope over kings and secular princes, which she seemed to think the main thing aimed at by the followers of that court; to pretend to claim only to govern directly in spirituals, but to intend chiefly, though indirectly, to hook in temporals, and in them to gain power, dominion, and tribute; money and rule being gods to which the Roman courtiers and their partisans chiefly sacrifice.

As she had been a most critical searcher into her own life, so she had been a diligent inquirer into the lives, fortunes, and characters of many of her ancestors for many years. Some of them she has left particularly described, and the exact annals of diverse passages, which were most remarkable in her own life ever since it was wholly at her own disposal, that is, since the death of her last lord and husband, Philip, Earl of Pembroke, which was for the space of twenty-six or twenty-seven years.

From this her great diligence, as her posterity may find in reading those abstracts of occurrences in her own life, being added to her heroic fathers' and pious mothers' lives, dictated by herself, so they may reap greater fruits of her diligence in finding the honours, descents, pedigrees, estates, and the titles and claims of their progenitors to them, comprised historically and methodically in three volumes of the larger size, and each of them three or four times fairly written over; which, although they were said to have been collected and digested in some parts by one or more learned heads, yet were they wholly directed by herself, and attested in the most parts by her own hand.

ESTHER INGLIS.

[1600.]

BALLARD.

Remarkable for her caligraphy, the chief thing I have to mention concerning her. All that see her writing are astonished at it, upon the account of its exactness, its fineness, and variety; and many are of opinion that nothing can be more exquisite. Gazius, Ascham, Davies, Gething, Lyte, and many others, have been celebrated for their extraordinary talents this way; but this lady has excelled them all, what she has done being almost incredible. One of the many delicate pieces she wrote was in the custody of Mr Samuel Kello, her great-grandson, in 1711. Others are remaining at the Castle of Edinburgh. Mr Hearne saw one in the hands of Philip Harcourt, Esq., entitled, "Historiae Memorabiles Genesis, per Estheram Inglis, Edinburgi. Anno 1600."

In the archives of Christ's Church, in Oxford, are the Psalms of David, written in French with her own hand, and presented to Queen Elizabeth by Mrs Inglis herself; and were by that princess given to this library. In the archives in Bodley's Library are two more of her manuscripts, preserved with great care. One of them is entitled "Les Six Vingts et Six Quartains de Guy de Faur Sieur de Pybrae, escrits Esther Inglis, pour sin dernier adieu ce 21 jour de June 1617." In the second leaf this in capital letters: "To the Right Worshipfull my very singular friende, Joseph Hall, Doctor of Divinity and Dean of Worchester, Esther Inglis wisheth all increase of true happiness, Junii 21, 1616." In third leaf, her head, painted on a card, and pasted upon the leaf.

The title of the other book is "Les Proverbes de Solomon, escrites in diverses sortes des Lettres, par Esther Anglois, Francoise. A Lislebourge en Escosse, 1599." This delicate performance gains the admiration of all who see it; every chapter is wrote in a different hand, as is the dedication, and some other things at the beginning of the book, which makes near forty several sorts of hands. The beginnings and endings of the chapters are adorned with most beautiful head and tail pieces, and the margins are elegantly decorated with the pen, in imitation, I suppose, of the elegant old manuscripts. The book is dedicated to the Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth's great favourite. At the beginning are his arms, neatly drawn, with all its quarterings, in number fifty-six. In the fifth leaf is her own picture, done with the pen, in the habit of that time. In her right hand a pen, the left resting upon a book opened, in one of the leaves of which is written, "Del eternal le bien. De moi le mal, ou rien." On the table before her there is likewise a music-book lying open, which perhaps intimates that she had some skill in that art. Under the picture is an epigram in Latin, written by Andrew Melvin, and, in the next page, another composed by the same author in Latin, of which the following is a translation:--

"One hand Dame Nature's mimic does express Her larger figures, to the life in less; In the rich border of her work do stand Afresh, created by her curious hand, The various signs and planets of the sky, Which seem to move and twinkle in our eye; Much we the work, much more the hand admire, Her fancy guiding this does raise our wonder higher."

It appears that she lived unmarried till she was about forty; and then, I find by a memorandum made by my late friend Mr Hearne, in a spare leaf at the beginning of her manuscript of the Proverbs of Solomon, that she was married to Mr Bartholomew Kello [Kelly?], a Scotchman, by whom she had a son, named Samuel Kello, who was educated in Christ Church College, Oxon.

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF NEWCASTLE.

[1620.]

BALLARD.

The youngest daughter of Sir Charles Lucas, and the wife of the Marquis of Newcastle, had, from her infancy, a natural inclination to learning, and spent so much of her time in study and writing, that it is much to be lamented she had not the advantage of an acquaintance with the learned languages, which would have extended her knowledge, refined her genius, and have been of infinite service to her in the many compositions and productions of her pen.

In 1643, she obtained leave of her mother to go to Oxford, where the court then resided, and was made one of the maids of honour to Henrietta Maria, the royal consort of King Charles I.; and when the queen, by her rebellious subjects, was unhappily forced to leave England and go to her native country, she attended her thither. At Paris she met with the Marquis of Newcastle, then a widower, who, admiring her person, disposition, and ingenuity, was married to her in that place in the year 1645. She was said to be the most voluminous dramatic writer of our female poets, that she had a great deal of wit, and a more than ordinary propensity to dramatic poetry. Mr Langbaine tells us that all the language and plots of her plays were her own, which is a commendation preferable to fame built on other people's foundation, and will very well atone for some faults in her numerous productions. [A catalogue of this lady's works, "tragicomical, poetical, romancical, philosophical, and historical," both in prose and verse, would occupy pages.]

Her person was very graceful, her temper naturally reserved, and she seldom said much in company, especially among strangers. She was most indefatigable in her studies and contemplations; truly pious, charitable, and generous; an excellent economist; very kind to her servants, and a perfect pattern of conjugal love and duty.

LADY PAKINGTON.

[1679.]

BALLARD.

Daughter of Thomas, Lord Coventry, Keeper of the Great Seal, and wife of Sir John Pakington, was well known to, and celebrated by, the best and most learned divines of her time. Yet hardly my pen will be thought capable of adding to the reputation her own has procured to her, if it shall appear that she was the author of a work which is not more an honour to the writer than a universal benefit to mankind.

The work I mean is, "The Whole Duty of Man;" her title to which has been so well ascertained, that the general concealment it has lain under will only reflect a lustre upon all her other excellences by showing that she had no honour in view but that of her Creator, which, I suppose, she might think best promoted by this concealment. [The claims of other authors are not difficult to be disposed of.] If I were a Roman Catholic, I would summon tradition as an evidence for me upon this occasion, which has constantly attributed this performance to a lady. And a late celebrated writer observes, that "there are many probable arguments in 'The Whole Duty of Man' to back a current report that it was written by a lady." And any one who reads "The Lady's Calling," may observe a great number of passages which clearly indicate a female hand.

That vulgar prejudice of the supposed incapacity of the female sex, is what these memoirs in general may possibly remove. And as I have had frequent occasion to take notice of it, I should not now enter again upon that subject, had not this been made use of as an argument to invalidate Lady Pakington's title to those performances. It may not be amiss, therefore, to transcribe two or three passages from the treatise I have just now mentioned. "But waiving these reflections, I shall fix only on the personal accomplishments of the sex, and peculiarly that which is the most principal endowment of the rational nature--I mean the understanding--where it will be a little hard to pronounce that they are naturally inferior to men, when it is considered how much of intrinsic weight is put in the balance to turn it to the men's side. Men have their parts cultivated and improved by education, refined and subtilised by learning and arts; are like a piece of a common, which, by industry and husbandry, becomes a different thing from the rest, though the natural turf owned no such inequality. We may therefore conclude, that whatever vicious impotence women are under, it is acquired, not natural; nor derived from any illiberality of God's, but from the ill managery of His bounty. Let them not charge God foolishly, or think that by making them women He necessitated them to be proud or wanton, vain or peevish; since it is manifest He made them to better purpose, was not partial to the other sex; but that having, as the prophet speaks, 'abundance of spirit,' He equally dispensed it, and gave the feeblest woman as large and capacious a soul as that of the greatest hero. Nay, give me leave to say farther, that, as to an eternal well-being, He seems to have placed them in more advantageous circumstances than He has done men. He has implanted in them some native propensions which do much facilitate the operations of grace upon them."

And having made good this assertion, she interrogates thus: "How many women do we read of in the gospel, who in all the duties of assiduous attendance on Christ, liberalities of love and respect, nay, even in zeal and courage, surpassed even the apostles themselves? We find His cross surrounded, His passion celebrated by the avowed tears and lamentations of devout women, when the most sanguine of His disciples had denied, yea, forswore, and all had forsaken Him. Nay, even death itself could not extinguish their love. We find the devout Maries designing a laborious, chargeable, and perhaps hazardous respect to His corpse, and, accordingly, it is a memorable attestation Christ gives to their piety by making them the first witnesses of His resurrection, the prime evangelists to proclaim those glad tidings, and, as a learned man speaks, apostles to the apostles."

There are many works of this lady, besides "The Whole Duty of Man," enumerated in her biographies.

NOOR MAHAL.

[1512.]

JAMES MILL.

One of the circumstances which had the greatest influence on the events and character of the reign of Jehangire, was his marriage with the wife of one of the omrahs of his empire, whose assassination, like that of Uriah, cleared the way for the gratification of the monarch. The history of this female is dressed in romantic colours by the writers of the East. Khaja Aiass, her father, was a Tartar, who left poverty and his native country to seek the gifts of fortune in Hindustan. The inadequate provision he could make for so great a journey failed him before its conclusion. To add to his trials, his wife, advanced in pregnancy, was seized with the pains of labour in the desert, and delivered of a daughter. All hope of conducting the child alive to any place of relief forsook the exhausted parents, and they agreed to leave her. So long as the tree, at the foot of which the infant had been deposited, remained in view, the mother supported her resolution; but when the tree vanished from sight, she sank upon the ground, and refused to proceed without her. The father returned, but what he beheld was a huge black snake convolved about the body of the infant, and extending his dreadful jaws to devour her. A shriek of anguish burst from the father's breast; and the snake, being alarmed, hastily unwound himself from the body of the infant, and glided away to his retreat. The miracle animated the parents to maintain the struggle; and before their strength entirely failed, they were joined by other travellers, who relieved their necessities.

Aiass, having arrived in Hindustan, was taken into the service of an omrah of the court; attracted after a time the notice of Akbar himself; and, by his abilities and prudence, rose to be treasurer of the empire. The infant who had been so nearly lost in the desert was now grown a woman of exquisite beauty; and, by the attention of Aiass to her education, was accomplished beyond the measure of female attainments in the East. She was seen by Sultan Selim, and kindled in his bosom the fire of love. But she was betrothed to a Turkman omrah, and Akbar forbade the contract to be infringed. When Selim mounted the throne, justice and shame were a slight protection to the man whose life was a bar to the enjoyments of the king. By some caprice, however, not unnatural to minds pampered and trained up like his, he abstained from seeing her for some years after she was placed in his seraglio, and even refused an adequate appointment for her maintenance. She turned her faculties to account; employed herself in the exquisite works of the needle and painting, in which she excelled; and her productions were disposed of in the shops and markets, and thence procured the means of adorning her apartments with all the elegancies which suited her condition and taste. The fame of her productions reached the ear and excited the curiosity of the emperor. A visit was all that was wanting to rekindle the flame in his heart; and Noor Mahal (such was the name she assumed) exercised from that moment an unbounded sway over the prince and his empire. Through the influence of the favourite sultana, the vizirit was bestowed on her father; her two brothers were raised to the first rank of omrahs, by the titles of Aetibad Khan and Asopha Jah; but their modesty and virtues reconciled all men to their sudden elevation. And though the emperor, naturally voluptuous, was now withdrawn from business by the charms of his wife, the affairs of the empire were conducted with vigilance, prudence, and success; and the administration of Khaja Aiass was long remembered in India as a period of justice and prosperity.

POCAHONTAS.

[BORN 1594. DIED 1617.]

DR HUGH MURRAY.