business was shrewdly suspected in that court, otherwise he would scarcely have obtained access to the sovereign's presence, without letters, passport, or, in fact, the slightest warrant of his respectability.

The duke of Newburgh received his lordship's compliments with much courtesy, and of himself began to ask questions about the journey, the English ambassadors, and proceedings of the treaty of Cologne; and afterwards insensibly turned the conversation on the court of England and the royal family. He inquired about the duke of York and his marriage; and asked where was Monsieur de Peterborough, and if he continued at Paris after the treaty of Inspruck? Discreet answers having been returned by lord Peterborough to all these queries, the duke went on to say 66 that he heard the duke of York was like to be married to an English lady;" to which the earl replied," that he had heard of no such thing." At last he took his leave with much civility. After his departure, Peterborough and his friend asked the gentleman by whom they had been presented to the duke," if they might not have the further favour of seeing the duchess and the young princess." He said, "he would inquire," and left them; and after some stay, returned to let them know they would be admitted. He then ushered them into an upper room, where they found the duchess of Newburgh and the princess, her eldest daughter, in evident expectation of their visit. The earl made his compliments, with the greatest possible respect, to which her highness in her own tongue made all suitable returns; but said, "that, not being versed in the French language, she desired her daughter the princess might interpret between them." On which the princess, nothing loth, as it should appear, approached and helped to carry on the conversation, with intention, as he thought, of showing her capacity in that language. They all, by that time, as he had reason afterwards to believe, suspecting him to be some other person, and having more design in this little voyage than was pretended.'

From this hint, it should appear, that the naval envoy of the duke of York was mistaken for the royal admiral himself, going about the world in disguise to choose a second consort for himself; the romantic circumstances attending

1 Mordaunt Genealogies.

his first marriage, and secondly, his disinterested attachment to lady Bellasis, indicating that he was not likely to enter into a cold state alliance with a stranger. James acted much more wisely, however, in trusting to the good taste and sound sense of his trusty friend, than if he had relied on his own judgment, since no man was more easy to be deceived than himself.

The princess of Newburgh was supposed to be about eighteen years of age, of middle stature; she had very light hair, and was of an exceedingly fair complexion. Her eyes were of a light bluish grey, the turn of her face more round than oval; that part of her neck which his lordship could see, was white as snow; but, on the whole, she was inclining to be fat. In discourse, she interpreted readily her mother's sense to him, and spake her own aptly enough; "but there did not appear that great genius for business and conversation" for which, observes our noble author," she has been praised, since she was called to sit on the greatest throne in Europe.'

The earl of Peterborough took his leave of the duchess and her daughter, with all the respect due to ladies of their quality. At his departure, he found himself attended much more by gentlemen, and with greater respect, than at his arrival; and he was pressed to stay supper by the chief officers of the house, even to a degree of importunity. The punctilious caution with which his lordship avoided committing himself, by accepting the slightest hospitality from the duke of Newburgh, proves that he did not consider the fat, fair fraulein, his daughter, by any means worthy of the preferment of becoming duchess of York.

66

After he had, with some trouble, backed out of all the civilities that were pressed upon him, and withdrawn to his inn, where he made an ill supper, "2 there came to call upon him, under pretence of a visit from a countryman, a young gentleman, one Hamilton, who wore a gold key by

1 The name of this princess was Eleanor Magdalen. She married James's former rival, the emperor Leopold I., on the death of his second wife, the beautiful arch-duchess of Inspruck, in 1676. She was the mother of the emperors Joseph I. and Charles VI. The great enmity of the imperial family to James may, perhaps, be traced to the influence of this princess, and the offence she took at the earl of Peterborough coming to look at her for his master, and then making no proposal for her hand.

* Mordaunt Genealogies.

his side, and was said to be of the duke's bedchamber, and much in his favour. This Mr. Hamilton seemed every way to try what he could get out of the earl; and by his discourse, his lordship perceived that he had puzzled the court, and that his declining to receive further attentions, made them suspect that he was dissatisfied. The earl, finding himself rather in a dilemma, was impatient to be gone; and having a wagon ready, the usual mode of travelling in that country, he made a precipitate retreat the next morning to Cologne, whence he wrote by express to England, an account of his visit to the court of Dusseldorf. In answer, he received immediate orders to return to Paris, where he was assured he should meet directions to marry and bring home the princess Mary Anne of Wirtemberg.

The earl obeyed with much satisfaction, esteeming this, next to the Modenese alliance, the most suitable of any that had been proposed; so with all the haste he could, and not doubting of the performance of what he had been assured, he returned to Paris, and alighting at the monastery where the princess Mary Anne lived; he acquainted her with the news of the preferment, which he had every reason to believe, awaited her. The princess had not self-command enough to conceal her joy on this occasion; "and," pursues his excellency, "she was not to be blamed, considering the provision it would have been for an orphan maid to marry a prince so great, both in the circumstances of fortune and merit."

The result should be a warning to all diplomatists engaged in the delicate and responsible business of royal marriages, not to advance a single step beyond the precise wairantry of their instructions; brief as had been the interval between the letters the earl had received at Cologne, and his arrival at Paris, a total change of purpose had taken place in the secret councils of the British court; and the luckless envoy found that he had committed an irretrievable blunder, by his communication to the princess; for the orders that awaited him at his own house were, not to marry and bring her home, as the consort of the duke of York, but to break off all negotiations for her hand. His consternation and vexation may be imagined, especially as this 1 Mordaunt Genealogies.

sudden and provoking caprice proceeded not from any fickleness on the part of the duke of York, but from the impertinent interference of that restless intriguante, the duchess of Portsmouth, whose insolence led her to aspire at nothing less than marrying the heir-presumptive of the British crown to a bride of her selecting. The lady whom she had chosen for him was the daughter of the duc d'Elbœuf, a cadet prince of the house of Lorraine; her mother was the sister of Mareschal Turenne-a connexion to which his royal highness would have had no objection, because of his affection to his old commander, had the lady been of a suitable age; but when the earl of Peterborough came to see her, after king Charles had consented to the marriage, he found that she was a little girl under thirteen, and so very childish for that age, that he would not for a moment encourage the idea of bringing home a bride of her fashion for his royal friend.' The duchess of Portsmouth, however, who thought to carry her point in time, if she could only succeed in breaking off the promising negotiation with Mary Anne of Wirtemberg, continued, by means of her emissaries, so to disparage that princess that the duke was induced to give her up.

Much ado was there to pacify the poor princess on so great a disappointment; especially as there were those to whom she seemed a rival, who forbore not to rejoice, if not to insult her, on this change of fortune. As for the earl of Peterborough, he frankly confessed that he durst not see her again. In fact, after having committed himself by his premature communication, he felt to the full as deeply mortified as herself.

An effort had been made by the British resident at Paris, by sending an express to meet him on the road with news of this change, to prevent the earl of Peterborough from committing himself, by complimenting the princess of Wirtembergh on the imaginary preferment that his first letters. had given him reason to believe awaited her, but the messenger having taken a different route, missed him. Mortified and annoyed as the earl was with the capricious conduct of his own court, he was in a manner consoled when he found that he was required by his majesty to proceed

1 Earl of Peterborough, in Mordaunt Genealogies.

Ibid.

with all speed to Modena, to demand, according to the proper forms, the original of that beautiful portrait which had never ceased to haunt his imagination since he first got a stealthy view of it in the Conti palace.

It is a little amusing that king Charles, in his instructions to "Our right trusty and right well-beloved cousin, Henry, earl of Peterborough, our ambassador extraordinary at the court of Modena," commences with noticing "the failure of the occasion" on which he had been appointed ambassadorextraordinary at the court of Vienna "viz., for effecting a marriage between our most dear brother, James, duke of York, and the young archduchess of Inspruck," but passes over in silence the other five ladies-viz., the duchess of Guise, Mesdemoiselles Rais and d'Elbœuf, and the princesses of Newburgh and Wirtemberg, whose conjugal qualifications his excellency had subsequently been employed to report for his royal highness's consideration, and proceeds with laudable brevity to the object of his present mission, in these words:

"Our said dear brother desiring us much to consent to his marriage with the young princess of Modena Mary d'Esté, sister to the present duke of Modena, we have thought fit hereby to enjoin and direct you to make what convenient speed you possibly can to the court of the said prince, and introducing yourself there by your letters of credence, which we herewith send you, to an audience of the duchess-regent, after the performance of such compliments to her on our part, as will best occur to you on the subject, open unto her our brother's earnest desire to espouse the young princess, her daughter,"

&c. &c.

A polite hint on the subject of the young lady's portion is delicately introduced in his majesty's statement:

"That our said dearest brother seems to be willing to settle a jointure of fifteen thousand pounds per annum sterling money of England, and even to enlarge himself further therein, if the value of her portion (hitherto not certainly known to us) shall require a better."

The time for the payment of the portion, and all arrangements connected with it, are in this document referred to the friendly arbitration of the king of France, Louis XIV. :—

"These capitulations being thus finished, proceeds his majesty, you shall proceed to espouse the princess in our brother's name, according to the deputation and proxy he will send you to that effect, and when that ceremony is

1 "Official instructions to the earl of Peterborough for the marriage treaty of James Duke of York and Mary of Modena." Appendix of Mordaunt Genealogies.