The Countess of Huntingdon and her circle

FROM THE LIBRARY OF
REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON. D. D.

BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO

THE LIBRARY OF

PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY

^^y^^/i^. CtTm^i^^J ^^^>^^i>^^!^^!%g^^

.(^,V (JF

^m

v

^A

OCT 10 1931

^

The

V /.,

^>

:\

K

Countess of Huntingdon

And her Circle

By
Sarah Tytler-^ ^f.^ < 4

Author of "Modern Painters and their Paintings"; "The Old

Masters and their Works"; "Musical Composers and

their Works"; etc., etc.

CINCINNATI : JENNINGS AND GRAHAM
NEW YORK : EATON AND MAINS

Press of

Isaac Pitman & Sons, Bath, England.

{2300)

Contents

CHAPTER I PAGE

The Moral and Religious State of England in the Eighteenth
Century — The Oxford Revival — The Woman who was the
Comrade of John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield —
Lady Selina Shirley Born in the Reign of Queen Anne in the
Year of the Union of the English and Scotch Parliaments —
The Tradition of the Early Impression made upon her by a
Village Child's Funeral — The Engraving which represents her
as Lady Huntingdon when well advanced in years — Her two
Sisters Co-heiresses with her of her Father, Earl Ferrers'
Fortune — The Elder Sister, Lady Elizabeth Nightingale, one
of Roubilliac's famous Group in Westminster Abbey — The
younger, Mary Lady Kilmorey — Lady Selina Shirley's Marriage
in 1728 to Theophilus Hastings Earl of Huntingdon — His
High Character and Fine Intellect — Her Visits to Town and
Entrance into Court Circles and into Literary Society with her
Aunt, Lady Fanny Shirley, the Friend of Horace Walpole,
Pope, Chesterfield, and Doctor Hervey of the " Meditations
Among the Tombs "—Lady Huntingdon's presence among
the Party of Ladies in the Gallery of the House of Lords
sarcastically described by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu . . 1

CHAPTER II

Lord Huntingdon's Five Sisters — Countess Selina's Chief Friend,
Lady Margaret, who had been " as happy as an angel " from
the time she had adopted the Methodist views — Lady Hunting-
don's Hesitation — Her Dangerous Illness and Decision — The
Message she sent to the Wesleys — Lord Huntingdon's Fair-
mindedness and Kindness — The Marriages of two of his Sisters
to English Clergymen Holding Methodist Opinions — Lord
Huntingdon's Advice to his Wife to consult his old Tutor,
" Good Bishop Benson " — Her Arguments — The Bishop's Con-
viction that she Owed them to Whitefield, with his Regret that
he had Ordained the Ardent Reformer — Her Answer — The
Fascination WTiitefield had for the Fine Ladies of the Day —
The Persecution suffered by the Methodists — Some of the Salt
of the Earth against them — Hannah More Thankful that she
had never attended their Conventicles or entered their Taber-
nacles— Countess Selina's Sense of Accountability for her own
Class 16

iii

CONTENTS

CHAPTER III PAGE

Days of Trial — The Family as Trial found them — Francis Lord
Hastings — Lady Elizabeth Hastings — The two Boy Brothers —
The Children in the Nursery — The Visitation of Smallpox —
Lord Huntingdon's Dream and its Fulfilment — A Widow
Indeed — Wealth and Independence — A Missionary Tour in
Wales — A Grande Dame's Duty to her Children — The Auspices
under which Francis Earl of Huntingdon made the Grand
Tour — The Honours Heaped upon him — Lady Elizabeth
Hastings' Appointment at Court — Her Marriage to Lord
Rawdon, afterwards Earl Moira — A Different Sphere — The
Engraving known as the " Beatific Print " — Lady Huntingdon's
Precarious Health forming no obstacle to her efforts . . 33

CHAPTER IV

An English Deborah — Her Rebuffs from High Quarters — Letter
of the Duchess of Buckingham — Lady Huntingdon's Sunday
Evenings in Town — The Company Assembled — No Irreconcila-
bles — Lords Bolingbroke and Chesterfield — No Castaways —
Lady Suffolk and Lady Betty Germayne — Lady Suffolk takes
Guilt to herself — The Necessity for the Establishment of
Lady Huntingdon's Connexion — Her many Churches and
Chapels in London and throughout the Country — John Wesley's
Objections with the Difficulty of Two Suns Shining in One Sky
— Founding the College at Trevecca with Fletcher of Madeley as
its Superintendent — Countess Selina's Attendance at its Open-
ing on her Fiftieth Birthday, and at many of its Anniversaries
— The Opposition of Lady Huntingdon's Son to the Trevecca
Students — The Different Action on the Part of her Daughter,
Lady Moira — The Fate of Trevecca — Lady Huntingdon's Good
Will to the Settlers and Slaves of Georgia and the Red Indians
in the Backwoods of America . . . . . . . . 46

CHAPTER V

The Shirley Tragedy — Strange Character of Lawrence Earl
Ferrers — His Marriage — His Excesses and well-nigh Incredible
Ill-Treatment of his Wife — Their Separation by Act of Parlia-
ment— The Appointment of Earl Ferrers' Steward, Johnson,
with the Earl's Consent, as one of the Receivers of his Master's
Rents — The Fury of the Ear] at Johnson's Transmitting to the
Countess Fifty Pounds Unknown to her Husband — Johnson
summoned to Attend at Stanton — The Men Servants sent out of
the way — The Women Servants on the Watch hear threatening
Words and the Report of a Pistol— Johnson found Fatally
Wounded — The Earl's Arrest and Sensational Journey to Lon-
don and the Tower — Lady Huntingdon's Compassion for her
Unfortunate Cousin — Lord Ferrers' Trial — The Company
Present — The Sentence — The Earl's Last Requests — Lady
Huntingdon takes his Children to Bid him Farewell — He
Wears his Wedding Suit for his Execution — The Cavalcade from
_lhe Tower to Tyburn — Lord Ferrers' Death . . . . . . 65

iv

CONTENTS

CHAPTER VI PAGE

Lady Huntingdon's Friends — Sarah Duchess of Marlborough —
Two of her Letters — Doctor Young's " Narcissa " — The
Chesterfield Family — The Earl and Countess — Lord Chester-
field's Sister, Lady Gertrude Hotham — Lord Chesterfield's
Winning Manners — His " Leap in the Dark " — Triumphant
Deaths of Miss Hotham and her Mother — Friends among the
Wives of her Clergymen, Mrs. Venn, Fletcher of Madeley's Wife —
The Peculiarities of the Wives of John Wesley and Whitefield —
Lady Huntingdon's Affection for Airs. Charles Wesley — Nursing
her through Smallpox — Lady Huntingdon's Contemporary,
" Grace Murray " — Her Last Meeting with John Wesley — The
Humourist, Berridge of Everton, among Lady Huntingdon's
Men Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

CHAPTER VII

Lady Huntingdon's Three Famous Interviews — With Garrick in
the Green Room of Drury Lane to Remonstrate on the Gross
Libel of Whitefield as " Doctor Squintum " in the Play of the
Minor — Garrick's Courtesy — Her Interview with Cornwallis,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and Mrs. Cornwallis, in their Palace
of Lambeth— The Scandal of their Dissipation— Rude Rebuff
and Dismissal — Lady Huntingdon's Interview with King
George and Queen Charlotte in their Palace of Kew — Gracious
Reception and Attention to her Protest — The Honest Old King
— " Good Queen Charlotte " — The King's Indignant Letter of
Rebuke to the Archbishop .. .. .. .. ..114

CHAPTER VIII

Death of Lord Henry Hastings at the Age of Eighteen — Lady
Huntingdon's Distress — The Eagerness with which she Listened
to the Suggestion offered by the late Earl's Godson — The Sick-
ening of Lady Huntingdon's Younger and Home Daughter, with
her Happy Prospects of Marriage to her Cousin — The Future
Heir to the Huntingdon Earldom — The Pathos of the Mother's
Lamentation, and of her Reminiscences of her Daughter's
Peaceful Death-bed — Berridge's Rousing Letter Rebuking the
Countess's Excessive Grief . . . . , . . . . . 127

CHAPTER IX

Venerable Saint — Countess Moira, the Sole Survivor of Lady
Huntingdon's Seven Children — The Earl of Francis Earl of
Huntingdon — Old Friends Gone Before — Methodism Vindicated
— Lady Anne Erskine Playing a Daughter's Part — Lady Hun-
tingdon's Zeal to the very End — Her Work Finished— Death on
the 17th of June 117 Years Ago — Buried at Ashby-de-la-Zouch,
Leicestershire — Her Great-Great-Grandson an Ardent Roman
Catholic, the late Marquis of Bute . . . . . . . . 131

CONTENTS

CHAPTER X PAGE

Lady Glenorchy, the Immediate Follower of Lady Huntingdon —
Willielma Maxwell — The Future Lady Glenorchy Born, in
1741, the Posthumous Child of a Cadet of the Maxwells of
Nithsdale — Maxwell of Preston's Co-heiresses — His two Baby
Girls, Mary and Willielma — Second Marriage of their Mother
when the Daughters were Fourteen and Thirteen Years of Age
to the Scotch Judge, Lord Alva — Character of Lady Alva —
Edinburgh Society of the Time — Lady Alva's Ambition for her
Daughters — The Maxwell Sisters' Great Marriages, the Elder
to the Earl of Sutherland, the Younger to Viscount Glenorchy,
Son and Heir of the Earl of Breadalbane — The Characters of
Lord Sutherland and Lord Glenorchy — The Cloud that Hung
from the First over Lady Glenorchy's Married Life . . . . 139

CHAPTER XI

Lord Glenorchy's Half-sister — Death of his Mother in the Year of
her Son's Marriage — Lord Breadalbane's Accompanying his
Son and Daughter-in-law for the Grand Tour — Called Back
from Nice by the Death of his Sister — The Young Couple's Un-
satisfactory teie-d-tSte for the Remainder of their Two Years'
Absence — A Separation between the Pair never dreamt of —
Former Rarity of Divorces or Separate Establishments — Un-
compromising Requirement of the Fulfilment of Duty in Difficult
Circumstances — Lord and Lady Glenorchy's Return to England
and Stay at his own House of Sugnall — Near Neighbourhood
of Hawkestone, the Home of Sir Rowland Hill and his Family —
Intimacy of Lady Glenorchy with Miss Hill . . . . . . 147

CHAPTER XII

The Retirement of Taymouth — Lady Glenorchy's Insensibility to
Scenery — Her Conversion in 1765 — The First Question of the
Assembly's Catechism — The Answer in the Bible and Prayer —
A Creature dwelling Apart while Seeking to Minister to all in
Trouble — No Talent for Preaching without Confidence in Her-
self— A Shadow over her Spiritual Life — Her Sacred Songs —
Her Gentle Unreasonableness — The Sacrament at Dull — Her
Preciousness to her Unsympathetic People — The Terrible
Sutherland Bereavement — Lady Alva's Strange Encounter —
The Little Countess afterwards Duchess Countess of Sutherland
— Lady Glenorchy's Diaries . . . . . . . . . . 163

CHAPTER XIII

Lady Glenorchy at Holyrood — Indifference to its History — Her
General Friendliness — " Means of Grace " in Edinburgh —
Weekly Religious Meetings Presided over by the Rev. Robert
Walker — The Company Gathered Together — A Glimpse of the
Group — Lady Maxwell — Niddry Wynd Chapel — Objections to

vi

CONTENTS

PAGE

the Liberal Views with which it was Planned — Doctor Webster's
Support — Wesley in Edinburgh — Conference between Wesley
and Webster with Lady Glenorchy for Audience — Lady
Glenorchy's Separating herself from the Wesleyans and from the
Methodists, also Offending both Lady Maxwell and Lady
Huntingdon — Lord Glenorchy's Sale of his Estate of Sugnall —
Miss Hill permitted to pay Long Visits to Taymouth — Lord
Glenorchy's Purchase of Barnton with the Chapel he suffered
to be erected there — First Chaplain who Officiated in Niddry
Wynd Chapel 180

CHAPTER XIV

Advice to Lady Glenorchy as to an Anonymous Lady — Pearls not
to be cast before Swine — A Time to be Silent and a Time to
Speak — Further Fatherly Counsel from her own Minister, Mr.
Walker— The Mistake of Thinking the First Twenty Years of her
Life Wasted — Lady Glenorchy leaving Taymouth for Barnton
in the Autumn of 1771 on account of Lord Glenorchy's Health,
while no Serious Danger was Anticipated and she was unusually
Light-hearted — Alarming Symptoms — Quitting Edinburgh on
the Morning of the Sacrament Sunday — The Ministers she
Summoned to her Aid — Continual Intercession for the Sick Man
— His Desire to Listen and Believe— His Death 12th November,
1771 — The Divine Support Given to her — Lord Glenorchy's
Generous Will with Lord Breadalbane's Concurrence.. .. 196

CHAPTER XV

Lady Glenorchy's Income — Mr. Walker's Wise Advice as to its
Disposal — Lady Heiu-ietta Hope — The Hopetoun Family —
Lady Glenorchy's Edinburgh Church — The Quaint Laying of
the Foundation Stone — Accident during the Building — The
Countenance of the Edinburgh Presbytery requested for the
Church — The Opening of the Church in 1774 — Lady Glenorchy's
Visit to England — Her Appearance at Pinner's Hall — Her
Intention to Nominate her Chaplain, Mr. Grove, to be Minister
of her Church — Her Vexation at the Reply of the Presbytery
when she applied to them to Confirm her Nomination — The
Scandal and Disturbance produced by their Answer — Lady
Glenorchy so Hurt and Mortified that she would have quitted
Scotland if it had not been for the Remonstrances of Lady
Henrietta Hope — Mr. Grove's Withdrawal from the Controversy 208

CHAPTER XVI

Lady Glenorchy's Advisers — An Unexceptionable Candidate —
Objections Nevertheless — Her Defence — The Majority of the
Presbytery Satisfied — The Minority Refer the Matter to the
Synod — " Jupiter " Carlyle and his Followers — An Injurious

vii

CONTENTS

PAGE

Sentence — Lady Glenorchy's Friends in the Synod Appeal to
the General Assembly — Her Candidate Retires — She Goes
to England, instructing her Agent to Sell Barnton — Lady
Glenorchy is Joined by Miss Hill in a Missionary Tour — Lady
Glenorchy's Constancy to Old Friends — Meeting at the House of
Mr. Holmes, the Welsh Lad who had seen her at Pinner's Hall —
The Press-gang Employed Against her at Exmouth — Her
Reprisal — The Case in the General Assembly Practically Settled
in her Favour — Lady Glenorchy's Return to Scotland — Pathetic
Episode of Mr. Sheriff — Settlement of the former Student of
Trevecca in " Lady Glenorchy's Church" .. .. .. 221

CHAPTER XVn

The Hills of Hawkestone — Jane Hill and her Little Brother —
Richard Hill Carrying his Enquiries to Fletcher of Madeley —
Jane Hill's Letters — "The Value Lady Glenorchy set upon them
— Family Divisions in the Eighteenth Century — Sir Rowland
Hill's Merits as a Man and as a Father — Young Rowland
Announcing his Brother to Preach — Jane Hill's Inherent
Gentleness and Modesty — Rowland Hill's Recollection of the
Early Bitterness of the Conflict — Refusal of Six Bishops to
Ordain him — Jane Hill's Abundant Tribulation — Her Consola-
tion in the Friendships she shared — A Quaint Quartette at
Taymouth — Rowland's Moderate Means — His Marriage Help-
ing him to Independence — No Reason to Regard the Couple
as Ill-matched — Sir Rowland's Second Marriage and Death-
Sir Richard's Support of the Methodists — One of the Trevecca
Anniversaries at which both Rowland and Jane Hill were
Present — Sir John Hill's Five Soldier Sons — WTiat would Jane
Hill have thought of the great London Illumination and the
Transparency set in front of Surrey Chapel illustrating the
words " The Tyrant has Fallen ? " — The Courage of Rowland
the Soldier and Rowland the Preacher — Darcy Brisbane of
Brisbane afterwards Lady Maxwell of Pollok, born about 1742
— In London at Sixteen to be Presented at Court — At Seven-
teen Married to Sir Walter Maxwell of Pollok— Death of
Husband and Child — Her Unsuccessful Suitors — Her House
in Princes Street, Edinburgh — Her Acceptance of Wesleyan
Tenets — Her Friendship with Lady Glenorchy — Lady Maxwell's
Adopted Daughter, Lady Henrietta Hope — The Blow to Lady
Maxwell of Lady Henrietta Hope's Death — Weekly Gathering
of Wesleyan Ministers at Lady Maxwell's House — A Day of her
Life — Her Signed Covenant with her Maker — Her Assured Faith
Alike in her Justification and Sanctification — Her Gifts to John
Wesley — Her Schools and Sunday Schools, her Fidelity to
Lady Glenorchy's Trust and her Visits to England as Lady Glen-
orchy's Representative — Lady Maxwell's Premature Infirmity
— Her Peaceful Death at the age of sixty-eight in 1810 . . 237

^ viii

CONTENTS

CHAPTER XVIII

Frequent Administxatiou of the Sacrament Introduced in Lady
Glenorchy's Church — Her Visits to England — Death of Lord
Hopetoun — Lady Henrietta Hope's Home with Lady Glenorchy
— Opening of a Meeting-house at Carhsle — Last Visit to Tay-
mouth — Lord Breadalbane's Death at Holyrood — Lady
Glenorchy at Barnton — Declining Health — At Moffat, where
Visitors Drank Goat's Whey as well as Mineral Water — Her
Work among the Sick Poor — Breakdown of Lady Glenorchy's
Carriage at Matlock and Founding of a Chapel there — Last Visit
to the Hills — Return to Edinburgh — Life Despaired of — A
Rally and a Final Stay at Barnton — At Matlock with Lady
Henrietta Hope in 1785— Resort to Bristol to Try the Hot
Springs — Death of Lady Henrietta Hope at Bristol on New
Year's Day, 1786 — Her Request to Found a Chapel at Bristol
Carried out by Lady Glenorchy — The Chapel named the Hope
Chapel as a Memorial of a Faithful Friendship — One more Visit
to her Chapels at Exmouth, Matlock and Carlisle with the last
Chapel she Established at Workington — Barnton Sold — Lady
Glenorchy with her Aunt, Miss Hairstanes, in the Countess of
Sutherland's House in George Square — Interview with Mr.
Jones — Brief Illness — Her Remark to Herself, " If this be Dying
it is the pleasantest thing imaginable " — Her Death on the
17th of July, 1786. in her forty-fifth year — Buried in an Excava-
tion of the Rock on which her Church was built, her head
resting under the Communion Table . . . . . . . . 273

IX

List of Illustrations

SELINA COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

(Photogravure) .....

THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON ....
GEORGE WHITEFIELD. ....

TREVECCA HOUSE .....
OLD CHESHUNT COLLEGE ....

CHARLES WESLEY

ALLEGORICAL PICTURE OF LADY HUNTINGDON
LADY GLENORCHY .....
AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY {AuthoY of

" Rock of Ages ") . . . . „ p. 252

FrontisP'i

iece.

To

face p.

8

P-

26

P-

58

P-

62

P-

92

P-

134

P-

204

XI

The Countess of Huntingdon
And her Circle

CHAPTER I

The Moral and Religious State of England in the Eighteenth Century —
The Oxford Revival — The Woman who was the Comrade of John
and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield — Lady Selina Shirley
Born in the Reign of Queen Anne in the Year of the Union of the
English and Scotch Parliaments — The Tradition of the Early Im-
pression made upon her by a Village Child's Funeral — The Engrav-
ing which represents her as Lady Huntingdon when well advanced
in years — Her two Sisters Co-heiresses with her of her Father,
Earl Ferrers' Fortune — The Elder Sister, Lady Elizabeth Night-
ingale, one of Roubilliac's famous Group in Westminster Abbey —
The younger, Mary Lady Kilmorey — Lady Selina Shirley's Marriage
in 1728 to Theophilus Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon — His High
Character and Fine Intellect — Her Visits to Town and Entrance
into Court Circles and into Literary Society with her Aunt, Lady
Fanny Shirley, the Friend of Horace Walpole, Pope, Chesterfield,
and Doctor Hervey of the " Meditations Among the Tombs " —
Lady Huntingdon's presence among the Party of Ladies in the
Gallery of the House of Lords sarcastically described by Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu.

Through much of the eighteenth century it may
be said that in England vice was rampant in high
places and gross darkness covered the people.

In addition, a wave of infidelity — the cynical,
blighting infidelity of Voltaire — was sweeping over
the more intellectual and cultured classes, while
the lower ranks were sunk in ignorance and
brutality of every kind.

1

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

It almost seemed as if, in spite of the honest
endeavours of George the III and Queen Charlotte
to maintain a pure Court and to rule over a virtuous
and reHgious nation, notwithstanding the honour-
able exceptions to the laxity and corruption of
the times, Christianity, which St. Augustine had
taught and saints innumerable had illustrated by
holy lives, and martyrs many had sealed by their
devoted deaths, was about to be submerged to
make room for the atheism and heathenism which
were to reign in the future.

It was then that a cluster of young men at
Oxford, awakened, by the grace of God, to higher
thoughts and loftier aspirations, stimulated by
each other's companionship and example, came
forth into the great world with almost unparalleled
self-sacrifice. These champions of the truth and
rescuers of the lapsed gave themselves to a noble
work, and spent themselves in its prosecution.
Before they ended their days they redeemed the
situation and changed the whole aspect of
Christian England. They leavened the Church
which ejected them with their genuine Christianity.
They even salted with their spirituality the super-
cilious sneering circles and fierce unreasoning
crowds that had most subtly and most violently
opposed them.

The acts of John and Charles Wesley, George

2

AN ENGLISH DEBORAH

Whitefield and their fellows, have been fully
commemorated ; but the woman who worked along
with them from youth to age, who gave her time,
her influence, her substance, and the remarkable
organising and ruling power which rendered her
the English Deborah of her church and generation,
has been less fortunate in her biographers. The
chief, her collateral descendant, full of reverent
enthusiasm for his ancestress, and in entire
sympathy with her aims, has written the story of
her Ufe in two volumes. But while these contain
much that is profitable, interesting and quaint,
they are rather the history of Methodism than
the record of one woman's blessings and trials,
and the style of the writer is so discursive that
to find — in anything Uke sequence the incidents
which concern the central figure, resembles the
proverbial difficulty of seeking for a needle in a
hay-stack. It seems therefore desirable, lest a
name deserving of honour should be forgotten by
the many who run as they read, that a more
concise and individual study of a great and good
woman should be offered to the public.

Sehna Countess of Huntingdon was born (prob-
ably at her father's house of Stanton in Leicester-
shire) in the reign of Queen Anne, in the year of
the union of the English and Scotch ParHaments,
two hundred years ago, 1707. She was the

3

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

second of the three daughters and co-heiresses
of Washington Shirley, second Earl Ferrers and
Mary Levinge, daughter of Sir Richard Levinge,
Solicitor-General for Ireland and Speaker of the
House of Commons. By both father and mother
Lady Selina was of ancient and honourable
descent.

The tradition survives that when a little girl
of nine years she was much impressed by coming
in contact with the funeral of a child of her own
age. She joined in the procession and prayed on
the spot that when her time came God would
deliver her from her fears. With more tenacity
than is usually found in so youthful a penitent,
she was in the habit for some time of repairing to
a closet in her father's house where she could pray
unobserved. She persuaded her elder and younger
sisters to accompany her for the same purpose.
She repeatedly visited the dead child's grave,
and she retained through life a vivid recollection
of the pathetic scene which had produced so
strong an impression upon her.

If the child is mother to the woman. Lady
SeUna Shirley was likely to grow up a girl at once
impulsive and thoughtful. The engraving which
is given of her in her kinsman's book represents
her when well up in years. She wears the cum-
brous but not altogether unbecoming widow's

4

LADY SELINA SHIRLEY

dress of the period. The voluminous cap which
frames her head, the loose black dress which shows
the ample white neckerchief, and the ruffles ending
the elbow sleeves, leaving bare the still fine arms
and hands, all belonged to the costume of the
period. She leans with one hand against her
cheek, the elbow resting on a pile of books ;
another book — surely her well-beloved Bible —
she holds in the other hand. The attitude is full
of dignity and repose, while the face is infinitely
pathetic, because of the lines of sorrow and care
written there for one who in addition to the burden
of years and the trials of life, took upon her
woman's shoulders the anxieties and responsibili-
ties of widely extended works of beneficence, and
the cares of all her churches.

She was tall, and looks as if she might have been
in her earlier days graceful or " elegant," according
to the word much in use in her generation. In
spite of the wide, low brow, and the deep dark
eyes, with their tale of keen observation, and
interest in all that was passing around her, she
had not, judging from the likeness, any great claim
to personal beauty. The nose is decidedly too long
and the mouth is at once too wide and too tightly
compressed, though the last defect may have
been exaggerated by age. It might have been
said of her that while beauty is deceitful and

5

2—11300)

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

favour is vain, the woman that feareth the Lord
she shall be praised.

When Lady Selina was grown up she is said to
have been strict and precise in the performance
of her duties, striving to work out her salvation
by her good deeds, without the knowledge and
comprehension of the fulness and freeness of
Gospel grace. After she had entered into society
she still retained so much of her earnestness and
thoughtfulness that her prayer was that she might
marry into a serious family, a prayer which was
certainly granted.

Lady Selina' s elder sister. Lady Elizabeth,
married two years before her, and died young,
after the birth of two children. If Roubilliac the
sculptor's work enters into the anguish of the
parting between husband and wife, the marriage
must have been a happy one, for she was the
Lady EUzabeth Nightingale whose famous monu-
ment in Westminster Abbey represents the young
pair, he striving in despair to shield her from
the dart which Death is aiming at her shrinking
form.

The younger sister, Lady Mary, married at a
later date an Irish peer. Lord Kilmorey.

Lady Selina, the ruUng spirit of the little group,
made the best marriage, in a worldly sense, of
the three girls. In every other sense no union of

6

A NOBLE PAIR

hearts could have been more perfect, where
imperfect humanity is in question, no wedlock
more blessing and blessed, in this world of sin
and sorrow, than that which tied the knot in June,
1728, between Lady SeHna Shirley and Theophilus
Hastings, ninth Earl of Huntingdon.

She was twenty-one, and he was thirty-two years
of age. She survived him forty-five years, and to
the last, in extreme old age, she could not mention
his name without tears of affection and regret for
their long separation in this world. All those who
knew them, both her friends and the men and
women widely different in principle and practice,
join in recording his tender attachment to her,
and her loving appreciation of his talents and
virtues.

In birth, rank, and wealth, his claims exceeded
hers. He could boast royal descent through a long
line of noble ancestors, for the family sprang from
a Plantagenet Prince, that Duke of Clarence who
was brother to Edward IV. Lord Huntingdon's
standing among his peers was such that the year
before his marriage, he was selected to carry the
Sword of State at the Coronation of George II.
The dignity and bounty of his establishment of
Donnington Park surpassed the advantages of
Stanton, but these were the least of its master's
merits. ^

7

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

He was a man of high character, superior intel-
lect and liberal and generous temper. After he
had completed his studies at Oxford he made the
Grand Tour, which in his case extended to Italy
and Spain. His intimate associates and friends —
among them Lords Bolingbroke and Chesterfield —
were the most gifted and accomplished men of the
day, though, in other respects, the two mentioned
were unlike Lord Huntingdon — the sane, mentally
and morally, modest English gentleman, the
model of the domestic virtues.

In her husband's house the young Countess's
talents were cultured, not only by constant inter-
course with a man of fine judgment, wide know-
ledge and upright conduct, but by contact with
distinguished statesmen and brilliant wits.

Neither did she remain apart from town society
and Court circles. In her visits to London she
mixed freely with both, while it is not difficult to
believe that she was largely indifferent to the
monotonous round of what were then high-bred
entertainments, the foolish masquerades, the noisy
routs, the morning auctions, the free-and-easy
company of the public Gardens, especially the
gambling which formed the staple attraction in
the gaieties of the hour.

Her educated taste, as well as her serious prin-
ciples had spoiled her for such amusements. She

8

THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON

By permission oj the Governors ofChcsliiint College, Cambridge

POPE AT TWICKENHAM

greatly preferred what literary society she could

command, and that she was fortunate in procuring

at the house of a near and dear relation and a

lifelong friend, her father's sister. Lady Fanny

Shirley.

Lady Fanny had a villa at Twickenham in the

immediate vicinity of Pope's villa. With the great

poet and httle crabbed man, the lady, who was a

host in herself, was on most friendly terms. Did

she not present him on his birthday with the

appropriate gift of a stand-dish and a couple of

pens ? And did he not acknowledge the tribute

in immortal verse beginning —

" Yes, I behold the Athenian Queen
Descend in all her sober charms."

Neither was Pope's the only poetic and literary
offering laid at Lady Fanny's feet. Lord Chester-
field was supposed to have had her in his mind
in the protest —

" So the first man from Paradise was driven,"
and Hervey, of the solemnly sentimental " Medita-
tions Among the Tombs," dedicated to her his
dialogues between Theron and Aspasia.

Lady Fanny was not unworthy of such compli-
ments, for she had been a beauty, a belle, and a
bas bleu at the Courts of George I, and George II,
a rival of Lady Wortley Montagu, and a friend
of Horace Walpole's. She lived to show herself

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

a good and brave woman, who could, when
necessary, defy the prejudices of her set, and face
their incredulous jeers and mockery.

It is an evidence of Lady Huntingdon's inclina-
tion even in those early years to think and act for
herself, that she was on intimate terms with Lady
Townshend, the most outrageously eccentric
woman of all the eccentric women of the time
who rose up to stir the stagnation of high hfe.
Under her oddities she had quick penetration and
shrewd observation.

It might have been under Lady Townshend's
auspices, when infected with a desire to surprise her
companions by carrying into action some fancy
of the moment, that young Countess Selina
indulged in certain caprices of her own in the
matter of dress, for which she never seems to have
really cared, much beyond what was becoming in
her station and at her years. The trifling absurdity
was long remembered, and was brought forward
against her in later days (by the many among her
companions who were hostile to her) as the first
symptom of the Shirley madness, breaking out
eventually in religious mania.

A witness against the offender, whose own
nature in its amiable harmoniousness and mod-
eration was incapable of startling the pubhc,
even as she was incapable of a great woman's

10

A REMARKABLE DRESS

self-sacrifice in the service of her Maker and her
kind, has described one of the singular dresses
worn by Lady Huntingdon at a Drawing-room
held by Augusta Princess of Wales, the mother
of George II L

" Her petticoat was of black velvet embroidered
with chenille, the pattern a large stone vase filled
with rampant flowers that spread over almost a
breadth of the petticoat from the bottom to the
top ; between each vase of flowers was a pattern
of gold shells and foliage, embossed and most
heavily rich. The gown was of white satin,
embroidered also with chenille, mixed with gold,
no vase on the sleeve, but two or three on the
tail. It was a most laboured piece of finery, the
pattern much properer for a stucco staircase than
the apparel of a lady."

So wrote somewhat scornfully Mrs. Pendarvis,
one of the most attractive women of her time,
whose nature had not the smallest affinity to that
of Lady Huntingdon. Yet with her and with her
sister, Ann Granville, John Wesley in the early
days of Methodism, engaged for a brief space in
one of those half- sentimental half -religious corre-
spondences, in which the writers signed themselves
by fantastically classical names. The practice
was so much in fashion that even the most earnest
men and women took it up.

11

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Another Court-dress of Lady Huntingdon's, of
which a note was made, was even more outre.
For painted and embroidered flowers there were
animals of every description. One is almost
tempted to suspect a satirical allegory in the
representation of beasts ramping over the petticoat
and train, beasts ranging from the lordly lion to
the loathly serpent.

It sounds far more in keeping with Lady
Huntingdon's character and sympathies to find
that she was occupied with the politics in which
her husband played a part at this period.

She was fain to hear him and his friends speak in
a debate in the House of Lords. On account of
the interest excited in a question of Spanish en-
croachments and depredations on English property,
the crowd in the Strangers' Gallery was so great
that not an inch of space was left of which the
wives of privileged members could avail themselves.

On this occasion Lady Huntingdon is found one
of a group of women of rank on whose conduct
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu employed her caustic
pen unsparingly. Here were the Duchess of
Queensberry, Prior's " Charming Kitty," no longer
young or particularly charming, the Duchess of
Ancaster, and other ladies of title. And here again
was the young widow, Mary Pendarvis, the
Duchess of Portland's " Fair Penny," whom Lord

12

"FAIR PENNY"

Baltimore jilted shamefully about this time, Dean
Delany's future wife, and finally the dear, dainty,
venerable dame, the privileged pensioner of
George III and Queen Charlotte, the writer of the
delightful letters to which later generations are
indebted for an intimate acquaintance with her
familiars. Mary Granville, Pendarvis, Delany
was only less gifted than her wonderful predecessor
across the Channel, Madame de S6vigne, who has
preserved the records of the Courts of the great
Louis and his successor, and at the same time
vouchsafed a ghmpse of the throbbing, warm,
tender heart of a woman of genius.

The adventure of the cluster of ladies, which
would doubtless have been given very differently
by one of themselves — Mary Pendarvis — was
written with biting satire by a woman of talent,
not of genius, of cool worldly wisdom, insolent
brilliance, and sphinx-like history.

Lady Mary began, after her fashion, by carefully
chronicUng the names of the actors in the comedy
on the pretence that she looked upon the owners of
the names as " the boldest asserters and most
resigned sufferers for liberty of whom she had
ever read."

" They presented themselves at the door of the
House of Lords at nine o'clock in the morning,
when Sir William Sanderson respectfully informed

13

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

them that the Chancellor had made an order
against their admittance.

" The Duchess of Queensberry, piqued at the
ill-breeding of a mere lawyer, desired Sir WilUam
to let them upstairs privately.

** After some modest refusals, he swore he would
not admit them ; her Grace, with a noble warmth,
answered they would come in, in spite of the
Chancellor and the whole House.

" This reported, the Peers resolved to starve
them out ; an order was made that the doors
should not be open till they had raised the siege.

" These Amazons now showed themselves quali-
fied for the duty of foot soldiers ; they stood there
till five in the afternoon, without sustenance, every
now and then plying volleys of thumps, kicks, and
raps, with so much violence against the door that
the speakers in the House were scarce heard.

** When the Lords were not to be conquered by
this, the two Duchesses — very well apprised of the
use of stratagem in war — commanded a silence of
half-an-hour ; and the Chancellor, who thought
this a certain proof of their absence (the Commons
also being impatient to enter), gave orders for the
opening of the door.

" Upon which they (the ladies) all rushed in,
pushed aside their competitors, and placed
themselves in the front rows of the gallery.

14

A SUCCESSFUL STRATAGEM

" They stayed there till after eleven, when the
House rose ; and during the debate gave applause
and showed marked signs of dislike, not only by
smiles and winks (which have always been allowed
in these cases), but by noisy laughter and apparent
contempt, which is supposed to be the reason why
poor Lord Hervey spoke so miserably."

15

CHAPTER II

Lord Huntingdon's Five Sisters — Countess Selina's Chief Friend,
Lady Margaret, who had been " as happy as an angel " from the
time she had adopted the Methodist views — Lady Huntingdon's
Hesitation — Her Dangerous Illness and Decision — The Message she
sent to the Wesleys — Lord Huntingdon's Fair-mindedness and
Kindness — The Marriages of two of his Sisters to English Clergymen
holding Methodist opinions — Lord Huntingdon's Advice to his
Wife to consult his old Tutor, " Good Bishop Benson " — Her
Arguments — The Bishop's Conviction that she Owed them to
Whitefield, with his Regret that he had Ordained the Ardent
Reformer — Her Answer — The Fascination Whitefield had for the
Fine Ladies of the Day — The Persecution suffered by the Method-
ists— Some of the Salt of the Earth against them — Hannah More
Thankful that she had never attended their Conventicles or entered
their Tabernacles — Countess Selina's Sense of Accountability for
her own Class.

As Lady Selina Shirley, the young Countess had
longed and prayed to enter on her marriage into
a " serious family," and she was not baulked of her
wish. Lord Huntingdon's five sisters and half-
sisters — Lady Betty, Lady Margaret, Lady Fanny,
Lady Catherine, and Lady Ann — were all good
women, two of them. Lady Betty — much the
senior of some of the others — and Lady Margaret
being the most conspicuous for their good
deeds.

The Countess was a kindred spirit at Donnington
Park, Ashby Place, and my Lord's other seats.
She was a great dame indeed, and in all the obhga-
tions of her station she was as commendable as she
had been in her girlhood. She was particular in

16

LIFE AT DONNINGTON PARK

the fulfilment of every task which devolved upon
her. These ranged from the dignity and blame-
lessness with which she ruled her household and
entertained the distinguished company which
gathered round her husband — to the careful
consideration of what was due to the sacred
offices of the chaplain at Donnington Park and
to the vicar of the parish. To the prayers of the
one she listened reverently, while she required the
same respectful attention to his lessons from the
rest of the household. To the other she gave
ungrudging support by her unfailing attendance
at church and by her liberal charities, which as
often as she could she administered personally.

With her sisters-in-law Lady Huntingdon lived
on intimate and affectionate terms, the two
families being frequently together at Donnington
Park and Ashby. She was not the style of woman
to be jealous of her husband's relatives or to keep
up long bickering quarrels with them on their
mutual rights. Both she and they knew her place
as the wife of the head of the house, the woman
who in her prime could organise and control with
admirable judgment and justice a great rehgious
system and community to which the diocese of an
ordinary bishop was a trifle. She experienced no
trouble in recognising and claiming her own posi-
tion, and in relegating the members of her circle

17

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

to the positions which they were qualified and
entitled to fill.

Of her excellent sisters-in-law, Lady Margaret
came the nearest to the Countess, but even with
Lady Margaret there was a crow to pluck in the
first stages of their close alliance more than
once. The Ladies Hastings, and especially Lady
Margaret, had come betimes under the influence of
the Methodist followers of the group of enthusiastic
young men at Oxford who had read a new meaning
into the title-deeds of religion.

These reformers, amidst violent opposition and
the utmost obloquy, expressed frequently by the
very clergymen who were their brethren in the
ministry, were spreading their astonishing tenets
far and wide. The crusade extended from rural
England to the new far western colony of Georgia,
with its slave-owners and slaves.

Lady Huntingdon was still in doubt of these
Methodists, whose fiery zeal seemed to outrun all
prudence and propriety, while their eccentricities,
said to be subversive of law and order, were keeping
the country in a state of constant commotion.

Lady Huntingdon's was a complex temperament.
On one side she was original, with much self-
resource, even with a touch of what was racy and
bizarre as well as warmly impulsive ; on the other
hand she was the born aristocrat, with a strong

18

SPIRITUAL PERPLEXITY

regard for law and order, and an aversion to tumult
and turmoil of any kind. The overthrow of exist-
ing standards and institutions was naturally
repugnant to her.

She was perplexed by Lady Margaret's assertion
that ever since she had known some of these
Methodist preachers and had believed in their
doctrines, she had been " as happy as an angel."

Was Countess Selina as happy as an angel —
with an angel's or a child's fearless trust and perfect
peace ? She had all a woman could ask to make
her happy ; the husband of her choice, true and
kind, fine children, faithful friends, rank, wealth,
and deserved honour and esteem ; neither was she
without the " thankful heart " which Joseph
Addison had quoted as doubUng all other blessings.

But she had not the impUcit trust and unclouded
peace any more than she had the devouring absorp-
tion in their work, which caused those Methodists
to throw up every worldly advantage, to leave
behind them safe and happy homes, to rehnquish
the sweet affection of wife and child, mother and
sister, in order to face gross insult and brutal injury,
from which they barely escaped with their lives,
because they held their Master's commission and
would save souls.

She could not act up to her ideals. She had
many worries and mortifications. She was often

19

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

dissatisfied and restless. She could not " rest in
the Lord," for her Lord was a jealous God, and
when she thought how inadequate to his unutter-
able majesty and holiness were the offerings which
she made to him of her poor, paltry service, the
terror of His righteous condemnation would come
over her, and she would abase herself in the dust
and cower before the fear of Death and the Judg-
ment as when in her childhood she was brought
face to face with a child's funeral.

While Lady Huntingdon hesitated, she was
stricken with a sudden, sharp illness, from which
her life was in danger, and the matter was decided
for her. She remembered the words of Lady
Margaret, felt an ardent desire to cast herself and
her sins on her Saviour, yielded herself to the
Gospel call, renounced every other hope, and for
the first time knew the rest and joy of beUeving.
From the date of this change she began to recover,
and was restored to health once more.

As it happened, John and Charles Wesley were
then preaching in the neighbourhood, in private
houses, court-yards, barns, etc. Lady Huntingdon
sent them a message that she was one with them
in heart. She wished them good speed in the
name of the Lord, and ended by assuring them of
her determined purpose to hve for Him who had
died for her.

20

METHODISM AND PERSECUTION

This was to a certain extent casting in her lot
with the despised, derided Methodists, and it
aroused a storm of amazement and condemnation.
She immediately received her share of the rudeness
and abuse with which they were loaded.

Lord Huntingdon would not interpose his
authority to withdraw her from her new friends
and their pursuits, like other husbands in similar
case.

The most notorious of these indignant and in-
tolerant gentlemen was Frederick Frankland, Esq.,
member for Thirsk, in Yorkshire. He had taken
for his second wife a partner no longer young,
Lady Anne Lumley, a daughter of the Earl of
Scarborough, and a friend of Lady Huntingdon's.
The quarrel began three weeks after their marriage,
when he found that with two of her sisters she had
attended several Methodist meetings and agreed
with what she had heard preached. He proceeded
to treat her with the utmost harshness. She made
no complaint tiU he insisted on her leaving the
house. When she begged of him not to force her
to do this, and told him that, provided he would
allow her to have the sanction of living under his
roof, she would submit to anything, his answer
was that if she continued there he would murder
either her or himself. Her brother. Lord Scar-
borough, pled for her in vain. Forced to go within

21

3— 'H«oi

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

a few months from the date of her marriage, the
poor woman, humiliated and broken-hearted, only
survived the indignity eight months.

Lord Huntingdon was no Frankland ; he lent
his wife kind and constant support, while it is
clear he had not her absolute conviction with
regard to the Methodist tenets, though he respected
the men who held them for their honest devotion.
He received them into his house, where they were
from this period frequent guests, with the utmost
courtesy and friendliness. In London he accom-
panied Lady Huntingdon in her attendance at
the Methodist meeting-house in Fetter Lane.

When two of his sisters. Lady Margaret and
Lady Catherine, who were old enough to judge
for themselves, married two English clergymen
strongly imbued with Methodist opinions, Mr.
Ingham, of Queen's College, one of the old Oxford
set, the founder of Methodism in Yorkshire, and
Mr. Wheeler, not only did my lord make no ob-
jection, but Lady Margaret at least was married
from her brother's house in town, and Lord and
Lady Huntingdon soon afterwards visited her and
her parson in Yorkshire.

At the same time, when Lady Huntingdon asked
her husband's advice while she was still undecided
in the adoption of all the Methodist doctrines, he
counselled her to consult his old tutor Benson, the

22

BISHOP BENSON

good Bishop of Gloucester, who had ordained the
great Methodist leader, George Whitefield, when
Whitefield was only twenty-one years of age,
and had assisted the lad with money and with
sympathy.

But that was not to say that the excellent Bishop
was not considerably scandalised by the young
preacher's subsequent doings, by his disregard
for authority, and by the zest with which, Uke a
young war horse, he snuffed the battle from afar
and flung himself into the thick of it, finally by
the lack of discretion and moderation, in accord-
ance with which he neither spared himself nor his
multitude of disciples. He never turned aside to
" rest awhile," but worked himself and them into
ecstasies of devotion, till he was tempted to believe
that he and they had special revelations. When
sitting up all night in high conference, he and they
beheld the glory of God shining round about
them.

For women of Lady Huntingdon's fine nature,
as for all the noblest and best of women, self-denial
has a charm, and the danger of martyrdom, in
contrast to their own soft interests and delicate,
dainty practices, presents a powerful fascination.

The Countess's own fife was singularly safe,
worthy of all respect, touched with the highest
happiness that mortals can enjoy on earth. But

23

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

she knew well that many lives, the mass of those
around her, differed greatly from hers and her
Earl's. She was acquainted with evil passions in
high places, with the lust, the greed, the violence
with which the England of her day was groaning,
so that the rallying cry of the Methodists, " Flee
from the wrath to come," seemed only too well
founded.

Such wickedness permeated the classes — from
Court circles to those miners of Kingswood — not so
far beyond her ken, wild, half-naked savages and
serfs, toiling in darkness, set apart, as it were, for
works of darkness, for whom no man or woman
had cared till, as she had heard, George Whitefield
preached to them from Kingswood Hill — the first
memorable field service held by a Methodist
clergyman of the Church of England.

Did she not owe something — her time, her abili-
ties, her influence as a lady of quality, to such
miserable people in gratitude for her privileges
and blessings ?

So she urged, when Bishop Benson attempted to
convince her of the unnecessary strictness of her
sentiments and conduct. What were any small
breaches of conventionality ? What were even
transports of enthusiasm, when weighed in the
balance with the saving of souls ?
- If God Almighty came near to Abraham and

24

INTERVIEW WITH THE BISHOP

Moses, why should He not come near to His
servants in these latter days ?

Why should not the light which blazed on Sinai,
shone on the Mount of Transfiguration, and fell
with such dazzling effect upon Saul on his way to
Damascus, that it Winded him for the time — why
should it not be vouchsafed, by Him who is the
same yesterday, to-day and for ever, to the men
they knew ? Why should He not manifest Himself
in like manner to His faithful servants who were
giving up their all and risking their very lives as His
Christ had done before them ? Had my Lord
Bishop not heard of the like white light — whiter
than snow and more radiant than the sun — which
had appalled and awakened Colonel Gardiner ?
The story was had from one who had it direct from
Lady Frances Gardiner.

Was this the time — when the torch of the
Reformation was fast being extinguished, and the
nation — the people — were as if drugged, heavy,
blind, and torpid, on the brink of perdition — to
stand out upon trifles, to hold back because
everything could not be done after formal
precedents ?

Did not David and his men eat of the conse-
crated shewbread, and the Lord's disciples pluck
the ears of corn and swallow the grains, which the
Jews' law forbade them ? Was it not the Pharisees

2S

.^

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

who cried out when a poor sick man or woman was
healed on the Sabbath day ?

Bishop Benson, who had come to Donnington
Park to confute the errors which Lady Huntingdon
was beheved to be acquiring from the Methodists,
found his temper ruffled by her ladyship's elo-
quence, and took his departure openly lamenting
that he had ever laid hands on George Whitefield,
to whom he attributed the change wrought on
her.

" My lord," said the Countess, " mark my words ;
when you are on your dying bed that will be one
of the few ordinations which you will reflect upon
with complacence."

Possibly when the time came Bishop Benson
reflected that none of all the other candidates he
had ordained had brought such sheaves of souls
into the heavenly gcirner.

Lady Huntingdon might approve of liberty, but
it was in her character to detest hcense, yet a
conspicuous offender on the very points to which
the Bishop of Gloucester was most opposed was
the man to whom Lady Huntingdon and many
like her were most attracted. This was the golden-
mouthed young Whitefield, the tall, slight sHp of
a lad, Uttle over twenty, with his fair face and
dehcate features, his wonderful blue eyes scarcely
marred by the cast in one of them, which won for

26

\Phutu in Liiuiy ll\ilktr

GEORGE WHITEFIELD
ft out the Satioiial Pvrlrail Gallery

GEORGE WHITEFIELD

him from his enemies and traducers the mocking
title of Doctor Squint um.

It appeared Httle short of marvellous that at
no distant date Whitefield had worn the blue apron
of a " drawer " or pot-boy, and had served with
ale his mother's customers at the Bell Inn in
Worcester. It was a marvel of which he was in
no way ashamed, any more than of having been a
" servitor " at Pembroke College, Oxford, in
succession to Doctor Johnson. Whitefield wrote
short notices of his early life and experience, and
caused them to be printed and circulated among
his followers, that they might bless God on his
account and take courage on their own.

The contrast between the Drawer and the
Preacher was so amazing that in place of injuring
his popularity in aristocratic quarters, it simply
increased the sensation which made it the fashion
for fine ladies to go and hear the eloquent Methodist
address an overflowing audience, just as they
flocked to the opera to listen to a new singer, or
to the theatre to hail a fresh player. It was still
more like the ardour with which they crowded the
court in which a notorious criminal was to be tried,
and hke the assiduity displayed by the fine
gentlemen of their set in copying the example of
exquisite George Selwyn in waiting upon public
hangings.

27

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

But it was from no determination to be in the
fashion, no craving for sensationalism, that Lady
Huntingdon was constrained to admire and
encourage her chaplain, Mr. Romaine's friend,
Whitefield, and to appoint him in turn her chap-
lain in spite of what were accounted his vagaries.

The Methodists were still under the ban of the
authorities, civil and ecclesiastical. A great pro-
portion of the churches continued closed against
them. Such of the Bishops as had a leaning
towards the new doctrines supported their advo-
cates only lukewarmly, being damped and dis-
heartened by what was reported of them — even by
some of the salt of the earth on the other side of the
question, and by what was declared to be the
tendency of the supporters of the new creed to
fanaticism and extravagance.

The Methodist leaders were driven more than
ever to the highways and hedges ; the men had
to conduct the sacred ordinances of their religion
in private houses and to deliver their sermons at
market-places and in the open fields under the
canopy of heaven. John Wesley preached standing
on his father's gravestone in the churchyard of
Epworth, while the church, in which his father had
spoken long and faithfully, was shut against the
son.

This freedom to which the men were compelled

28

THE METHODISTS

was in itself an offence, bringing in its exercise
conflict with the unrepealed Parliamentary Act
against conventicles. Huge crowds were brought
together by these unusual proceedings. People
came either to sympathise with the speakers or in
violent antipathy to them. The result was wild
riots, for which the Methodists got the blame,
though they were the chief sufferers. They were
hooted and stoned, thrown into ponds and pits,
and had to resist even to blood.

The hostile Bishops issued letters against the
Reformers, warned the clergy of each diocese to
have nothing to do with these disturbers of the
public peace, these subverters of reverence,
decency and order. There were even those among
the vicars and curates who openly egged on their
parishioners to acts of insolence and persecution.

Hannah More, one of the chief exponents of the
Clapham sect, recorded with satisfaction that she
had never been present at a conventicle or entered
one of the " tabernacles " like that at Moorfields
where the Methodists conducted their services.

Notwithstanding Lady Huntingdon's attach-
ment to the Church of England, she made common
cause from the time her religious convictions
became intensified, with the Nonconformists, who
were on friendly terms with the clergy, holding
the views of the Methodists as of men who loved

29

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Among the
dissenters with whom she corresponded freely were
Isaac Watts and Phihp Doddridge. These men
esteemed the Wesleys, Whitefield, etc., and occa-
sionally exchanged pulpits with them, yet they too
were a little doubtful of the Methodists' opinions
and behaviour, and were somewhat chary of hold-
ing ministerial communion with the party, which,
like that of the early Christians, " was everywhere
spoken against."

Lady Huntingdon stood firm. She judged for
herself and arrived at her own conclusion, while
adhering to the last to the Church of England, but
when adherence was impossible, consenting to
found a new church. She saw the advisability of
the church's expansion. She hailed the advent of
lay workers within its bounds, the very measure
which so many of its most influential members
regarded as well enough for dissenters, but beneath
the dignity of, and prejudicial to, the orthodoxy
of the Church of England.

Some time before John Wesley could bring his
mind to it. Lady Huntingdon wrote her approval
of the step and mentioned the profit she had
derived not only from the laymen's prayers, but
from their preaching also.

Countess Selina had always sought earnestly to
relieve and instruct the poor and ignorant. Now

30

LADY HUNTINGDON'S CHARITY

her kitchen was open to them on every lawful day
so that they might come there for help and advice.
She visited the sick in their own homes and read
and prayed with them, nay, in that awful necessity
of fleeing from the wrath to come which was
always present with her, she addressed the work-
people in her service, and urged upon them to
repent and to be renewed in spirit.

She began to interest herself greatly in the
education of the children on Lord Huntingdon's
estates, and in all likelihood she added to the
unwearied soHcitations with which she besought
her friends and acquaintances to try the effects of
Methodist preaching by accompan3dng her to hear
one or other of her favourite preachers. She laid
the foundation of those famous Sunday evening
gatherings in her house in town, where aristocratic
congregations met to listen to Whitefield or to one
of the Wesleys, to Romaine, or to Venn.

She seems to have felt herself especially account-
able for her own class. This pecuharity is visible
all through her remarkable career, and is in striking
contrast to the modern choice of the poor of the
slums as the proper recipients — not to say of
philanthropic charity — but of reUgious missions,
and of private and personal influence and teaching.

Another motive was present and potent with
her as with the clergy of her persuasion in their

31

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

day. The Quality were then a force in the land.
Whitefield after addressing them writes of having
appealed to the " great and mighty." The same
impression was felt by the Reformers in general
and by Lady Huntingdon in particular. The
terms in which the Methodist preachers dealt with
the nobility in their congregations have ceased to
prevail. In the innumerable letters from White-
field and others, which still exist, the tone, while
faithful and stopping short of sycophancy, is not
only respectful, it is reverent. The " Honoured
Sir or Honoured Madam " with which each epistle
begins supplies the key to the style of the contents.
The conviction that to persuade and change any
of these important personages would be to engage
a deep and far-reaching influence on the side of
Christianity was very generally entertained.

The Countess was actuated by both these
motives — sympathy with and responsibility for
her class, and her rooted conviction that if they
would but be willing to exert their illustrious
examples, with God's blessing upon them, they
would be shining lights set on high places which
would flood the country and give new hope, for
the religion of England.

32

CHAPTER III

Days of Trial — The Family as Trial found them — Francis Lord
Hastings — Lady Elizabeth Hastings — The two Boy Brothers —
The Children in the Nursery — The Visitation of Smallpox — Lord
Huntingdon's Dream and its Fulfilment — A Widow Indeed — Wealth
and Independence — A Missionary Tour in Wales — A Grande Dame's
Duty to her Children — The Auspices under which Francis Earl of
Huntingdon made the Grand Tour — The Honours heaped upon
him — Lady Elizabeth Hastings' Appointment at Court — Her
Marriage to Lord Rawdon, afterwards Earl Moira — A Different
Sphere — The Engraving known as the "Beatific Print" — Lady
Huntingdon's Precarious Health forming no obstacle to her efforts.

The impetus given to Lady Huntingdon's convic-
tions, which sent her finally across the barrier
which divided her from public life, never to retrace
her steps, did not originate with herself, it was
none of her seeking. How could it be ? It was
a summons to leave behind her the peace and
gladness of her matronhood and motherhood, in
order to tread thenceforth the bleak, unshaded,
uphill road, thorn-strewn, watered with tears,
alone in the midst of a baffling crowd, the road
which no man, and still less no woman, could climb
steadfastly, unless upheld by more than human
strength.

The stately and beautiful home which struck
spectators as so safe and enduring was entered
again and again by one to whom none can deny
himself, was robbed first of its sweetness, next of
its glory, and then was speedily left behind.

33

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Lady Huntingdon had borne seven children,
one of whom — a baby, Lady Selina — died in
infancy. In addition to his own family, Lord
Huntingdon had caused to be educated along with
his eldest son, Theophilus and George Hastings,
the sons of his younger brother, who had been
known in his youth by what was, in his case, the
courtesy title of Lord Hastings.

Lord and Lady Huntingdon's son and heir,
Francis Lord Hastings, was considered an " elegant
youth " of much promise. He outstripped his
companions in their studies, and drew from the
poet Akenside — a medical man in the neighbour-
hood who might be regarded as a retainer of the
family — a set of verses in the lad's honour pre-
dicting his future greatness. The elder daughter.
Lady Elizabeth, has been described as a bright,
far forward girl. Then came two young boys of
thirteen and eleven years, the Honourable George
and the Honourable Ferdinando, no doubt trials
to their tutors striving to keep them in order and
idols of old keepers and grooms. The family was
wound up by two still small children, a second
sweet little Lady Selina, and a bold bantling of an
Honourable Henry.

There came an evening when the pair of half-
grown boys crept into the drawing-room, went
stumbUng to their mother's side, and leant against

34

A GREAT BEREAVEMENT

her, muttering unwonted complaints of their tired
bones and aching heads. She looked into their
flushed faces and heavy eyes and pronounced with
a sinking heart that they must have a Dover's
sweating powder that night and be blooded next
morning, while she strove to tell herself that
nothing more would be needed.

When the morning came there was hot haste
and the speeding away of all who had any title as
outsiders, for it was known beyond question that
the scourge of the century was there — the boys
had been stricken with smallpox. In a short time
the most dreaded of malignant diseases had done
its work — George and Ferdinando Hastings, dis-
figured, almost beyond recognition by the mother
who bore them, lay in their coffins.

It was a crushing bereavement, but so far as the
Countess was concerned there still remained an
earthly as well as a heavenly consoler, who stilled
the ache of his own heart and hid how he missed
the light steps and merry voices of his boys in the
stillness of the great house, in order to remind
her that they were the children of many prayers,
of the covenant which had been made for them
with the God who had taken them in love, surely
not in anger, from evil days to come. Her husband
was there to bid her look around her and count the
mercies spared to her. And for his sake and in

35

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

loyalty to the supreme Governor of all, she was
willing to meet Lord Huntingdon on his own
unselfish ground. She was ready to comply with
his entreaties and resolve that her heart should not
break, nor be divided between her two dead and
gone sons.

But the sky still held another and more deadly
bolt which, with the suddenness of lightning,
descended before two more years had gone on
the woman once so highly favoured, a heathen
Greek might have said of her, with bent head
and bated breath, that the gods would take their
revenge for the undue portion of prosperity and
happiness which a mere mortal possessed.

Lord Huntingdon was still in his fiftieth year,
his Countess in her thirty-ninth year. They were
not beyond the early autumn of their days. They
might with reason have reckoned on many more
long, happy years to be spent together in faithful
discharge of their duties, and in growing devotion
_and charity. But their Master had not so willed
it. One morning my lord — shrinking a little from
repeating the foolish tale which it would hurt his
wife to hear, and yet somehow impelled to warn her
of what might be coming upon her — even while he
laughed at his own superstition, reminded the
Countess that he was not in the habit of dreaming,
indeed, he believed he had never dreamt in his life

36

LORD HUNTINGDON DIES

before, which might account for his nerves being
so struck by the vision which had confronted him.
He had seen in his sleep a skeleton creep up and
settle down between her and him.

Lady Huntingdon listened — one may be sure
with widening eyes and whitening cheeks — and
then joined him in laughing more loudly than was
her habit at the folly of minding a dream.

In the course of the month he had the stroke of
apoplexy from which he never rallied. He died in
November, 1746.

It is vain to speak of what passes the compre-
hension of so many, the desolation which only the
love of her God and her kind could change so that
the desert of her life should bud and blossom
again with the flowers and fruit of Paradise.

On the monument erected to Lord Huntingdon
and his family, to which Lord Bolingbroke con-
tributed the epitaph, Lady Huntingdon had her
bust placed as a token of that union of the wedded
couple which Death could not sever entirely, while
she survived her husband for nearly half-a-century .

With entire trust in his Countess, Lord Hunting-
don left to her, without conditions, the bulk of his
large fortune and the control of the family affairs.
As a matter of course, his elder son succeeded to
the Earldom of Huntingdon and the Barony of
Hastings and the estates which went with the title.

37

4— (2300)

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Quite independent and perfectly free to adopt
the course on which she could trust that her
husband would look down, if he might —

" With larger, other eyes than ours,"

two years after her husband's death Lady Hunting-
don took a more pronounced step than she had
hitherto attempted, she went on what maybe called
a crusade or missionary tour in Wales. She was
accompanied by her elder daughter at the age of
seventeen and her little girl just turned ten.
There was a bevy of clergymen and a cavalcade
of carriages and horses ; with these she accom-
plished by her clergymen in attendance, fifteen
days' preaching through the Principality. The
picturesque train wended their way, the members
of her escort preaching as often as five times a day
in the larger towns, and in the remote villages.

It is said that the leader of this party was greatly
struck by what she heard then for the first time,
the groans and sobs of an emotional, unconventional
congregation.

All the while the Countess was strictly mindful
of what was due, in a worldly sense, to the late
Earl's children and her own, and of what she felt
herself bound to procure for them. Her loyalty
to her class and her fidelity to her friends, however
much they might differ from her in tastes and

38

THE COUNTESS IN SOCIETY

habits, even in principles and creeds, were pecu-
liarly characteristic of her. It seems a testimony
to all that is best in her that while such a man as
Horace Walpole never mentioned Lady Hunting-
don's name without a cynical scoff, other men of
the world — to wit, Chesterfield and Bolingbroke,
her own and her husband's old friends, with women
of fashion, if not so intellectual as the men, as
much opposed to whatever was beyond the mere
round of ambitions and pleasures of this earth
earthy, continued to treat her with the greatest
respect and regard. They sought her society and
relied on her goodwill, while she, on her part, never
lost her hope that they would turn to better things,
and was only concerned, so far as she had to do
with them, that they should not miss the oppor-
tunities which might be blessed at last. None
could tell when the Spirit might not open the eyes
of the blind, or waken the sleepers, and raise the
dead to newness of life.

As soon as the new Lord Huntingdon was
twenty-one years his mother, to whom he was
always politely attentive in his behaviour with
suave deference, whether or not any remnant of
genuine kindness lingered behind, vacated Don-
nington Park in order that he might form his own
establishment there. She agreed willingly to his
making the Grand Tour, though he made it under

39

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

the auspices of his godfather, Lord Chesterfield,
of whom Francis Hastings appears a smaller, less
brilliant reflection.

Chesterfield had been the late Earl's friend, and
he continued to the last the intimate friend of the
family. And was he not the finest, best-bred
nobleman of his day, \vith the most distinguished
circle of acquaintances at home and abroad to
whom he could introduce the young man ? Could
the elder man not be trusted to refrain from instil-
hng his heartless sophistries and his confirmed
unbelief into the son of the friend who had thought
so differently ?

Even if Chesterfield could be guilty of taking
advantage of his position to betray the confidence
reposed in him in relation to religion and morals,
should not Francis Hastings' godly upbringing
have rendered him proof against insidious attacks ?
He could not be kept from the knowledge of the
license and free thinking abounding in the world
around him, else how was he rightly and intelli-
gently to stand up for the truth and give a reason
for the faith that was in him ?

Whether Lady Huntingdon was too careless or
too yielding, or whether she could not help herself,
and the choice was taken out of her hands, it is
impossible at this distance of time to tell. Cer-
tainly it was pla3ang with fire, and the result was

40

THE YOUNG EARL

she was burned to the bone and marrow in the
end.

On Lady Huntingdon's son's return from abroad
he was found to have the grace of a " foreign
courtier " (of a petit maitre in fact), but though he
was bland and plausible, as might have been
expected from the adopted son of the worldling
of worldlings, Chesterfield, the young Earl lacked
his father's solid worth and virtue as he lacked the
elder man's wisdom and judgment. The son
found no fault with his mother's views and actions,
while he was absolutely without sympathy where
they were concerned.

But the pronounced infidelity which distin-
guished Francis Earl of Huntingdon in later years,
with regard to which Lady Huntingdon hoped
against hope that he would live to learn that the
finite cannot measure the infinite, and that religion
is not a growth of the reason (though rightly
understood reason and religion cannot be in
opposition), but belongs to the conscience and the
heart, and to that higher spirit of man which is in
communion with the spirit of God who made
him, was now only nascent.

The Earl's unbehef and his indifference to the
questions which were dear as life itself to his
mother could hardly have been in active hostility
as yet. It was only a cloud hanging threateningly

41

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

on the horizon, and it must have been with natural
gratification that she learned the honours heaped
upon him as a tribute to his father's memory and
his own scholarly attainments. He was named
Master of the Horse to the Prince of Wales, and a
member of the Privy Council. He carried the
Sword of State at the Coronation of George HI as
his father had carried it at the Coronation of
George IL He was appointed Lord- Lieutenant of
one of the Yorkshire Ridings and of the city of
York. He held also the office of Groom of the
Stole in the Royal Household.

Lady Elizabeth Hastings, the Countess's elder
daughter, resembled her mother in so far that she
was not beautiful, but was full of spirit and
ability. At eighteen the Countess sought and
found for her a place at Court to act as Lady of the
Bedchamber, while yet a girl herself, to two of the
younger princesses, girls in their early teens,
daughters of the Prince and Princess of Wales
and sisters of George HL

No doubt times and manners were improving.
The household of the widowed Princess of Wales
was decidedly more decorous and better cared for
than the Countess had known the Court of George H
and Queen Caronne to be, not to say than the still
more unseemly and disorderly Court of George I,
presided over by the Duchess of Kendal and

42

HORACE VVALPOLE'S PHRASE

her rival, at which Lady Fanny Shirley had
figured.

Still a Court was a highly charged atmosphere
beset with snares and pitfalls for a lively girl of
eighteen. But Lady Elizabeth's place was there
as a young lady of quality, and she was bound to
fill it, to bear its trials and resist its temptations.
After all she did not hold the post long ; it was
not many months before she resigned it and retired
into private life. In the absence of any other
reason for her withdrawal which has survived,
one is thrown out on the light assertion of
Horace Walpole, " The Queen of the Methodists
got her daughter named for Lady of the Bed-
chamber to the Princesses, but it is all off again
as she will not let her play cards on Sundays."

There may be a grain of truth in the careless
statement, for, strong as was Lady Huntingdon's
sense of the rights which belonged to her daughter's
station in life and of the corresponding duties
which devolved upon her, the mother may have
regarded the advantage of a place at Court
outweighed and its obUgations annulled by
arrangements which she could not consider con-
sistent with a young Christian gentlewoman's walk
and conversation.

A year after Lady Elizabeth's retirement the
calamitous marriage of the elder of her charge, a

43

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

thoughtless girl of sixteen, to the half-witted King
of Denmark, was duly celebrated at St. James's
Palace, the Princess's brother, the Duke of York,
acting as proxy for the King.

When Lady Elizabeth was twenty-one years of
age, six or seven years after her father's death,
about 1752, she married Lord Rawdon, afterwards
created Earl Moira. He was a full cousin of her
mother's and her contemporary, being a man of
forty-five years of age. We are told that with this
marriage Lady Huntingdon "was extremely happy
and contented," so that we are free to give his
Lordship credit for various merits, including the
sedateness to be expected from his time of life.

From the date of her marriage the daughter had
an orbit of her own, the ambitious orbit of a social
leader. She passed out of her mother's sphere ;
she, too, does not seem to have had much sym-
pathy with her mother, though Lady Moira was
accustomed to treat Lady Huntingdon with the
utmost respect, very much as if the Countess were
a great personage who was a law unto herself,
whose life and example stood apart from those of
ordinary individuals.

Lady Moira when an old woman is said to have
spoken with interest of the engraving of Lady
Huntingdon entitled by Horace Walpole " The
beatific print." It represented her with her foot

44

THE COUNTESS AND HER MISSION

on her coronet. What did it mean ? That she
had done with such vain baubles ? or was it not
rather that giving them their proper value, as
privileges and distinctions of her class, she yet
held them as utterly worthless in comparison with
a higher order of nobility.

With the elder members of the family thus
launched on the world, and taking their course
independent of her, and the younger members still
in the schoolroom, the Countess of Huntingdon
saw herself at hberty to carry out her mission.
The precariousness of her health did not interfere
with the obligations she had taken upon herself.
She was Uable in her prime and in the latter part
of her life to severe attacks of illness, from which
her recovery was often doubtful. She was accus-
tomed to speak of them as very much a matter
of course, and a chastisement which was ap-
pointed for her. On one occasion she quoted
Luther's testimony as applicable to herself, that
" he was never employed about any fresh work
but he was either visited with a fit of sickness, or
violent temptation."

45

CHAPTER IV

An English Deborah — Her Rebuffs from High Quarters — Letter of
the Duchess of Buckingham — Lady Huntingdon's Sunday Evenings
in Town — The Company Assembled — No Irreconcilables — Lords
Bolingbroke and Chesterfield — No Castaways — Lady Suffolk and
Lady Betty Germayne — Lady Suffolk takes Guilt to herself —
The Necessity for the Establishment of Lady Huntingdon's Con-
nexion— Her many Churches and Chapels in London and through-
out the Country — John Wesley's Objections with the Difficulty of
Two Suns Shining in One Sky — Founding the College at Trevecca
with Fletcher of Madeley as its Superintendent — Countess Selina's
Attendance at its Opening on her Fiftieth Birthday, and at many
of its Anniversaries — The Opposition of Lady Huntingdon's Son to
the Trevecca Students — The Different Action on the Part of her
Daughter, Lady Moira — The Fate of Trevecca — Lady Hunting-
don's Goodwill to the Settlers and Slaves of Georgia and the
Red Indians in the Backwoods of America.

The rebuffs, the unreasonable resentment, the
lack of gratitude, which were frequently Lady
Huntingdon's portion in return for her efforts to
induce her friends and acquaintances to listen to
what she held was Divine Truth, might have
wearied and overcome a less dauntless and large-
hearted woman, but here was one who could not
be humiliated in a good cause, and did not count
on gratitude from those she sought to benefit.

A letter from the Duchess of Buckingham, the
illegitimate daughter of James H, married first to
the Earl of Anglesey, from whom she was divorced,
and secondly to Sheffield Duke of Buckingham,
though very civil to the Countess herself, is an
instance of the light in which her preachers and

46

A SHOCKED DUCHESS

their creed were viewed by many of those whom
she tried to bring under their influence.

" I thank your Ladyship for the information
concerning the Methodist preaching ; these doc-
trines are most repulsive and strongly tinctured
with impertinence and disrespect towards their
superiors in perpetually endeavouring to level all
ranks and do away with all distinction, as it is
monstrous to be told that you have a heart as
sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the
earth. This is highly offensive and insulting, and
I cannot but wonder that your Ladyship should
relish any sentiments so much at variance with
high rank and good breeding.

** Your Ladyship does me infinite honour by
your obliging enquiries after my health. I shall
be most happy to accept your kind offer of accom-
panying me to hear your favourite preacher, and
shall await your arrival. The Duchess of Queens-
berry insists on my patronising her on the occasion,
consequently she will be an addition to our party.

" I have the honour to be,

" My dear Lady Huntingdon,
" Your Ladyship's most

faithful and obhged,

" C. Buckingham."

Lady Huntingdon's Sunday evening assemblies,
like the Gospel net, gathered in good and bad
indiscriminately. They included her circle and
far beyond her circle of the fashionable and
intellectual, and also the riotously vicious and

47

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

notoriously unbelieving sets which made up the
exclusive world to which she belonged. The
attendance which curiosity, the fashion of the day,
love of novelty and of a sensation, together with
more honest interests converted into a throng,
did not fail. It numbered many men and women
who, for any other cause, would have been out of
her ken, or if known to her would have excited her
reprobation.

But in the double sense of sin and salvation,
there were no irredeemable castaways among the
great, any more than among the small.

It was as if in that wonderful volcanic period
of English history the eternal truths of the world
to come were suddenly, by an overthrow of all
conventionalities, brought face to face with the
lying vanities of the time ; and men and women
were suddenly called upon to choose between them.
The presiding genius of the situation made all
welcome. As she listened with aU her heart to
the eloquent sermons, enlightened lectures, and
passionate appeals of her army of peace, she could
not despair of the conversion of her old familiar
friends — Bolingbroke and Chesterfield — who were
present on various occasions at these meetings at
her house. Chesterfield even went so far as some-
times to attend, for the gratification of his love of
oratory, Whitefield in other quarters.

48

A BOW AT A VENTURE

Neither did Lady Huntingdon venture to
condemn offenders of her own sex of less intellect
but with more scandalous reputations. Might
not Lady Suffolk and Lady Betty Germayne be
brought to see what had been the error of their
ways ? All were sinners in God's sight ; none
had a right to judge his or her neighbour, far less
to bar the bridge which spanned the gulf between
the saved and the lost.

Lady Suffolk's conduct after one of Lady
Huntingdon's Sunday evenings furnishes an ex-
ample of a sinner taking guilt to herself. It
exhibited in addition the chief actor in the scene
carried out of herself by rage, for she has been
generally represented as a placid woman of an
even temper.

" Lady Rockingham prevailed on Lady
Huntingdon to admit the beauty to hear her
chaplain " (at this time Whitefield). " He, how-
ever, knew nothing of her presence ; he drew his
bow at a venture, but every arrow seemed aimed
at her. She just managed to sit out the service
in silence, and when Mr. Whitefield retired, she
flew into a violent passion, abused Lady Hunting-
don to her face, and denounced the service as a
deliberate attack upon herself. In vain her sister-
in-law, Lady Betty Germayne, tried to appease
the beautiful fury, or to explain her mistake. In

49

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

vain old Lady Ellinor Bertie and the Duchess
Dowager of Ancaster, both relatives, commanded
her silence ; she maintained that she had been
insulted. She was compelled, however, by her
relatives who were present to apologise to Lady
Huntingdon with a bad grace, and then the
mortified beauty left the place to return no more."

Lady Huntingdon was more successful with
other ladies of rank, of whom she wrote cheerfully
to Doctor Doddridge that among their Christian
converts she trusted there would be found of
" honourable women not a few."

But the time had come for Countess Selina to
do more than to attend on the sermons of the
Methodist preachers, to reckon the preachers
among her best and dearest friends, to receive
them into her house, and to bring select crowds
to be edified by them. She was now practically
independent and in possession of a large fortune,
while the desire of her heart was that her English
people, notably her class in society, should be
saved, when the recovery of the other lapsed classes
— by no means neglected by her — would follow.
Lady Huntingdon withstood the divisions and
controversies which were beginning to arise among
the Methodists — sore trials to many and sources
of bitterness to all. To sweeten these sources
required long years, and the honest trust and regard

50

THE MORAVIANS

which, though they had sometimes been stretched
to the uttermost, flowed again at last in the old
channels.

Grace and works were brought into conflict as
of old, John Wesley, in spite of his denial, was
accused of setting too much store on works.

Whitefield, the apostle of free grace, was
assailed as a " predestinarian " and a Calvinist.

The Moravians, headed by Count Zinzendorf,
were supported by Whitefield, Ingham, and
Charles Wesley, who were enchanted by the sect's
simplicity and piety. These Moravians established
colonies in England and joined the Methodists to
a considerable extent.

But the Moravian speculations and what struck
the religious public as their dangerous lack of
standards and creeds, and their indifference to
orthodoxy, soon repelled the great body of the
serious-minded English, and brought upon those
Methodists who had fraternised with the Moravians
a similar charge of grave heresy. These accusations
distracted and divided whole circuits, and
dispersed entire congregations of the faithful.

It was high time that greater order and harmony
should be restored. It was clear to the interested
and thoughtful that field-preaching could only be a
temporary resource. More than that, it left out,
unless on exceptional occasions, the Quality,

51

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

those fine ladies and gentlemen to whom Lady
Huntingdon by all her antecedents was bound,
on whose power, dignity, wit, and influence, she
counted for benefits to all. If the existing
churches were largely withheld from the Methodist
clergymen of the Church of England, substitutes
must be found for the churches, and Lady Hunting-
don and her fortune were at the service of her
world, to take the chief part in providing these
substitutes.

Thus originated the " Connexion " with which
her name is linked. She had already promoted
various schools and one well-known orphanage —
Kingswood. Later she was to found a college
for Methodist students at Trevecca, near Talworth,
in South Wales. Now she began to build, repair
and maintain, for the most part at her own
expense, many chapels in different parts of
England. Among the most noted were those at
York and Huddersfield in the north, in the mid-
lands those at Gloucester and Worcester, in the
south at Lewes and Brighton, in the east at
Norwich and Margate, and in the west at
Swansea.

Even a large fortune could only stand such
drains with difficulty, and Lady Huntingdon dis-
posed of part of her jewels in order to build the
chapel at Brighton..

52

THE "CONNEXION"

The special resorts of real or supposed invalids
of the upper classes and their friends at Bath,
Bristol, Tunbridge Wells, and Cheltenham, were
not forgotten in a provision for their spiritual
needs.

In London the chapels or tabernacles with which
the Countess was most concerned, which she helped
to sustain, were Whitefield's Tabernacle at Moor-
fields, the Tottenham Court Chapel, Long Acre
Chapel (notorious for the street riots which
disturbed its services), and Spa Fields Chapel.

Lady Huntingdon placed in charge of the
chapels, for which she was the sole or principal
subscriber, clergymen who were Calvinistic
Methodists, of whom Whitefield was the repre-
sentative. It is easy to understand how the lofty
sternness of Calvinism with its utter self-surrender
appealed to such a woman, and rather than abjure
its doctrines she resigned herself, when only one
of two courses was left to her, to be ejected from
the Church of England.

Lady Huntingdon's " Connexion " as it was
called numbered as many as sixty clergymen with
a host of lay workers. Some of the clergymen were
settled in their spheres of work, but the greater
number, connected with the larger towns and
chapels, preached in rotation, having rounds or
circuits, which they followed, much in accordance

53

5— (•!••»

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

with John Wesley's system. Lady Huntingdon
accepted the responsibility of appointing and
placing the men whom she chose at their posts, and
of dismissing or of transferring them if they did
not answer her expectations, of if she believed
they would do better in other quarters.

These clergymen were sent out and employed
by her when and where she thought it desirable
on courses of preaching throughout England and
in Scotland and Ireland.

As the tremendous burden of the care of the early
Christian churches devolved upon St. Paul, so the
seeing to the welfare, integrity and efficiency of
her " Connexion " rested on the Countess's bent
and bereft woman's shoulders. Her organising
power must have been marvellous ; her fideUty to
her self-imposed duties prevailed to the last stage
of mortal weakness. She did the work of a bishop,
and amidst all the taunts and sneers heaped upon
her for unwomanly presumption and rank fanati-
cism, not one accusation survives of caprice,
injustice, or of weak incapacity.

As a proof that even among the best and truest
of their Master's servants there can with difficulty
be two leaders in the same cause, as there cannot
be two suns in the same sky. Lady Huntingdon's
old friend, John Wesley, lost conceit of her at
this time, and declared that she had grown

54

WESLEY CRITICISES HER LADYSHIP

arrogant and despotic, that her constant talk was
of " my schools," " my orphanage," or, as it might
be, " my churches." But this was a momentary
outburst on the part of a great and good man,
who was nevertheless fallible, and had grown
nettled and restive, unaccustomed as he was to
have his authority disputed, or to encounter a
rival.

And arrogance and despotism, however much
they are to be deprecated, are something widely
different from unfairness, untrustworthiness, and
foUy.

Neither is there sufficient evidence for this
accusation of arrogance and despotism. Lady
Huntingdon's letters, written in the Scriptural
language and stereotyped phraseology of the
religious world of her day, which lend a certain air
of artificiality to what was written in all earnest-
ness and good faith, while they express the strength
and confidence of a woman who knew herself equal
to her position and her task, do not betray under
the strained words more than natural self-
reliance. There is no sign of imperiousness or
tyranny.

As for the few personal references preserved of
the Countess, they have the simple modesty and
genuineness which might have been looked for
from a woman so gifted and godly.

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Both before and after the estabhshment of her
Connexion, Lady Huntingdon was in the habit of
travelling accompanied by one or other of her
chaplains, or by other clergymen to the districts
where there was an urgent call for a chapel, or
after the chapel was given, to inspect its working
and decide on its requirements. But she does not
seem to have made another progress so imposing
as that which she conducted in Wales two years
after her husband's death.

The Conferences of Methodists which met from
time to time at different centres, where the leaders
discussed the tenets and the poHcy of the body,
were matters of keen interest to Lady Huntingdon,
and she attended one of them at Leeds. But
there is no mention of her having come forward
in any pronounced way, or of her having let her
voice be heard in the assembly.

In her own home she occasionally addressed her
household and prayed with them. An anecdote
is told of her in relation to this practice. Two
comparative strangers, an uncle and a niece, were
availing themselves of the hospitality of the great
house for a night. The niece, a bold, giddy girl
of the world — worldly, prepared to witness the
performance with idle indifference and supercilious
abstraction. The custom was for the members of
the household and the guests to stand behind

56

A BREACH OF MANNERS

their chairs, forming a circle around the tall,
slightly swaying figure at the reading desk.

Her Ladyship's elocution, in course of time and
of much intercourse with any number of Methodist
public speakers, had inadvertently borrowed from
them — not the wonderfully flexible and melodious
tones of Whitefield, or of the sinner Dodd, not
the trumpet tones of John Wesley, but the drawl
— not so much plaintive as well-nigh whimpering
— of the more ilHterate orators.

The girl, who had been introduced into a scene
altogether foreign to her, had not even the slender
amount of modesty and reverence which would
have made her restrain herself, she burst into an
audible titter, to the horror of her uncle, a well-
bred man of the world.

Lady Huntingdon had a large acquaintance
among girls. She had daughters of her own, the
younger of whom was fast growing up. Her niece,
Miss Nightingale — Lady Ehzabeth's daughter —
and especially another niece and namesake. Miss
Sehna Margaretta Wheeler, were in the habit of
paying her long visits. But they were all gentle-
women in more than in name, and were accus-
tomed to treat their hostess not only with
affection, but with the deference which was in
her generation paid to all women of her age
and rank, and was due to her above all.

57

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Lady Huntingdon, who must have been aware
of the outrage, did not so much as open her eyes,
and neither then nor afterwards when she enter-
tained her two visitors with the utmost poUteness
did she give the smallest sign of having been
sensible of the unseemly barn-door behaviour.

The Countess certainly preferred to avail herself
at prayers of the services of a clergyman, even of a
lay worker, or of one of her Trevecca students.
Her determination to make the last play their
part was sometimes enforced in an informal,
almost comical, manner. She would thrust a
Bible into their hands, and point them to the door
of their private sitting-room, bidding them do
their duty and trust in God.

It was in the winter of 1767 that Lady Hunting-
don, then living at Bath, sought the advice of her
great friend Fletcher — incumbent of the parish of
Madeley, one of the most popular and beloved of
all the Methodist clergymen. He was French by
extraction, and to his other gifts and graces he
added the most kindly, single-hearted disposition,
and the most open-hearted, open-handed charity,
which caused him and his like-minded wife to
convert the vicarage at Madeley into an open house
for all the poor, ignorant and afflicted in the
neighbourhood.

The Countess wished to consult her friend on

58

< ~

'■J =

TREVECCA HOUSE

the plans she was forming for her College at Tre-
vecca. She proposed to admit Christian young
men resolved to devote themselves to God's
service. They were at liberty to stay in the college
three years, during that time they were to have
their education gratis, with every necessary of life,
and a suit of clothes once a year. Afterwards
those who desired it might enter the Ministry,
either of the established Church of England, or
as Protestants of any other denomination. With
the discrimination which was one of her endow-
ments she invited Fletcher to undertake the
superintendence of her College. This applied to
the appointment of masters, the admission and
exclusion of students, the supervision of their
studies and conduct, to aiding them in their pious
efforts and to judging of their fitness for the
Ministry while he still continued the devoted
parish priest of Madeley.

This invitation Fletcher accepted, taking no fee
or reward for his services. Trevecca House, used
for the College, was a massive old building, beheved
to be part of a castle which had existed in the reign
of Henry II. The date over the entrance was
1176.

The College was opened for religious and literary
education, and the Chapel dedicated, Whitefield
and various clergymen officiating, on the 24th of

59

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

August, 1768, Lady Huntingdon's fiftieth birthday.
Fletcher of Madeley was president, while a gen-
tleman named Easterbrook was assistant-presi-
dent and headmaster. An early student named
Glazebrook was a parishioner of Fletcher's, a
collier and iron worker in Madeley Wood. He
proved to be a man of decided ability and worth,
reflecting credit on the College, and on the Church
in which he was afterwards an ordained clergyman.
His fellow-students, when sufficiently instructed,
went out either as lay workers in the nearest
villages and towns, or after a more complete educa-
tion, became pastors of one or other of the dissent-
ing churches, or were, with increasing difficulty,
received as deacons and priests in the Church of
England.

Lady Huntingdon, accompanied by various
friends of her sex and set, was present at the
opening, and at many of the anniversaries, staying
for the time in the College, in the prosperity of
which she took great delight. Crowds came from
far and near on these days. Among the numerous
well-known clergymen who preached and adminis-
tered the Communion, was her cousin, Mr.
Shirley, brother of the unhappy Lawrence, Earl
Ferrers.

It would have been impossible for the Countess,
burdened as she was with the expenses of her

60

HELP FOR THE COLLEGE

churches, to have kept up by her sole efforts the
growing College, had it not been that she was
liberally assisted by those who shared her views,
more or less. Twice she received a contribution of
five hundred pounds from John Newton's patron,
the philanthropic banker, Thornton ; another
thousand was given to her and gathered for
her by her Scotch friend, the woman whose
career was most like that of Lady Huntingdon's
in a generation which they both graced. Lady
Glenorchy.

Not only the absence of the shghtest sympathy,
but the positive hostility of Francis Earl of
Huntingdon, to the cherished views and projects
of his mother, whom he treated personally with
the elaborate courtesy of the school of Chesterfield,
was shown in connection with a student of the
College of which she was so proud and fond. The
same early student, Glazebrook, who had struggled
honourably and faithfully against many obstacles
and thwartings from Oxford tutors and dignitaries
of the Church of England, of which he had become
an ordained clergyman, in his difBculties with his
Bishop and his Archdeacon, wrote to his first
benefactress begging her to use her influence with
her son to name him for one of the livings of which
the Earl was patron. Glazebrook' s father-in-law,
an old friend of the Countess, the chief medical

61

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

man in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, supported the
application.

To both requests she had to make the same
sorrowful reply. It would have been a great
pleasure to her to do as they wished, if she had
not certainly known that the petition would never
be obtained by her. For more than thirty years
her son's " most implacable dislike " had proved
to her that he would never be entreated on the
subject.

To do Lady Huntingdon's daughter, Countess
Moira, justice, her attitude to a student of her
mother's institution, himself an able and excellent
man, was very different. On the death of her
brother without lawful heirs, she succeeded him
in the Barony of Hastings and the lands connected
with it; when the same application was made to
her, she befriended the former Trevecca student
readily and kindly, presenting him to the living of
Belton, in Leicestershire, where he spent the rest
of his useful life.

On the expiry of the lease on which Trevecca
House was held, soon after the death of Lady
Huntingdon in 1791, the College, in accordance
with the wish of its foundress, merged into
Cheshunt College, the well-known institution for
Nonconformist theological students in Hertford-
shire, which was opened in August, 1792, on the

62

'?'.

C3

- '^

REMOVAL TO CHESHUNT

anniversary of the opening of Trevecca and the
birthday of Lady Huntingdon. It had already
been arranged that it should be supported by sub-
scription, and its affairs managed by seven trustees
appointed for the purpose.

To Cheshunt went the Communion Plate and
the Library which had been Lady Huntingdon's
original gift at Trevecca.

Great as were these benefactions of chapels,
college, etc., etc., and the aid rendered by the
Countess to such hospitals and reformatories as
were then in existence, they were by no means the
limit of Lady Huntingdon's schemes for the good
of human kind. Her enthusiasm knew no bounds.
Her zeal extended to all who were in her estimation
benighted, to Jews, Turks, and infidels wherever
they were to be found. It need hardly be said
that, shrewd as she showed herself, and surrounded
as she was by wise as well as eager coadjutors,
she was sometimes deceived and made the victim
of imposture.

But neither mortification nor disappointment
availed to cool her passion for her Christian work
or wear out her love for her brethren and sisters.
She had from the first subsidized Whitefield's
labours in Georgia, especially in connection with
his orphanage of Bethesda. One of the far-reach-
ing schemes, born of a boundless faith fit to move

63

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

mountains, was imparted in two letters still extant
which she addressed to George Washington. She
proposed, with his concurrence, to devote the
income of her estates in the time to come to a
great mission to the Red Indians.

(yi

CHAPTER V

The Shirley Tragedy — Strange Character of Lawrence Earl Ferrers —
His Marriage — His Excesses and well-nigh Incredible Ill-treatment
of his Wife — Their Separation by Act of Parliament — The Appoint-
ment of Earl Ferrers' Steward, Johnson, with the Earl's Consent,
as one of the Receivers of his Master's Rents — The Fury of the
Earl at Johnson's Transmitting to the Countess Fifty Pounds
Unknown to her Husband — Johnson summoned to Attend at
Stanton — The Men Servants sent out of the way — The Women
Servants on the Watch hear threatening Words and the Report
of a Pistol — Johnson found Fatally Wounded — The Earl's Arrest
and Sensational Journey to London and the Tower — Lady Hun-
tingdon's Compassion for her Unfortunate Cousin — Lord Ferrers'
Trial — The Company Present — The Sentence — The Earl's Last
Requests — Lady Huntingdon takes his Children to Bid him Fare-
well— He Wears his Wedding Suit for his Execution — The
Cavalcade from the Tower to Tyburn — Lord Ferrers' Death.

It is impossible to write even a short life of Lady
Huntingdon and omit what touched her and hers
so nearly as the calamity of the ghastly end of her
cousin, her father's heir, Lawrence Shirley Earl
Ferrers. He was, next to her sons, her nearest
male relative, the successor to her father's title
and estates ; his place, where his crime was com-
mitted, was her own early home of Stanton. In
her youth he was a famiUar companion.

His character presented so strange a blend of a
kind of cleverness, and the extreme of folly domi-
nated by frenzies of passion, for which he hardly
seemed accountable, that looking back on the man
and his miserable story at this distance of time, one
arrives at the conclusion that some degree of the
insanity which was present in his branch of the

65

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Shirleys, and was pled by his brothers in an effort
to save him at his trial, was at the root of the
evil, and that he was little other than a dangerous
lunatic. Whatever balance there might have been
originally between reason and unreason was de-
stroyed by the fact that, according to the practice
of the day. Earl Ferrers was a hard drinker.

He had married a pretty, simple girl without for-
tune, but not much beneath him in rank, since she
was the sister of a squire and baronet. Sir William
Meredith. It seems that poor Countess Ferrers,
who had rashly undertaken a desperate venture,
enticed to it by girlish infatuation over the wreck
of a young nobleman, and by the gratification to
girlish vanity in being entitled to wear such a
coronet as that which graced the head of Sehna
Countess of Huntingdon and other grand dames,
alas ! found herself totally unable to check the
downward path of her lord.

In fact. Lord Ferrers' excesses had increased in
recklessness and violence. They were, in spite of
a certain fitful, passionate fondness for his wife,
directed against her till she lived in terror of her
life. His constant taunt to her was that he was
drunk when she was first introduced to him, and
that she and her relatives kept him in a constant
state of intoxication, till the marriage was
accomplished.

66

THE SHIRLEY TRAGEDY

Lady Ferrers was childless, and partly to punish
her for that and for her weak tears and complaints
and her frightened shrinking from him, partly
because of the revival of an old illicit attachment
to a poor woman who had lived with him and
borne him children before his marriage, he took
this woman again as his mistress, openly flaunting
his infidelity in the face of his wife. He was
seldom sober, would beat the unfortunate Countess
when the fancy took him, always carried pistols
about his person and brought them to bed with him,
threatening to kill his Countess before morning.
And he was not unlikely to fulfil the threat, parti-
cularly as it was said that he had cruelly struck a
groom till the lad died from the consequences.

It was high time that Lady Ferrers' relations and
friends should interfere for her protection, and
they did it to such purpose that, by an Act of the
two Houses of Parliament, with the consent of the
King, the Countess was granted a separation from
the Earl, who was bound over by the House of
Lords to keep the peace and to furnish his wife
with a provision for her maintenance in the style
of her rank.

That the Acts might take effect, receivers were
appointed to draw his Lordship's rents, and though
he was furious at the whole arrangement, he so far
agreed to it that he appointed as one of the

:;67

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

receivers his land-steward, Mr. Johnson, who
resided at a farm-house half-a-mile distant from
Stanton.

This Johnson had been brought up from boyhood
in the Shirley family, and its head, it might have
been supposed, would have had some friendly
associations with the steward, but the circum-
stance that he had sent Lady Ferrers a remittance
of fifty pounds without his Lordship's knowledge
awoke in him one of the paroxysms of rage which
had grown upon him till they completely mastered
him.

Lord Ferrers required Johnson's attendance at
Stanton at three o'clock on an afternoon in
January, 1760. The master of the house in which
riot and disorder had long reigned, found no
difficulty in sending the men-servants out of the
way, thus leaving only women-servants within
call.

On Johnson's arrival, in the gloom of a winter
afternoon, the Earl locked the door of the room
and commanded his steward to sign a paper
confessing that he was a villain. The unhappy
man refused, when Ferrers ordered him to kneel.
Johnson compHed, possibly regarding the scene as
a fantastic pantomime, and seeking to appease his
master by apparent submission in one of the fits
of passion to which the steward, who had known

6S

A GRUESOME CRIME

the Earl from his youth, must have been well
accustomed.

The women-servants were more suspicious, and
apprehended something beyond the bounds of
Ferrers' wonted violence, because of the cunning
with which he had planned the interview and
provided against interruption. These maid-
servants, watching and listening, heard their
master shout, " Down on your other knee. De-
clare that you have acted against Lord Ferrers.
Your time is come — you must die." Then the
crack of a pistol-shot followed.

On the alarmed women rushing to the spot, the
Earl unlocked the door and made no objection to
assistance being procured in the shape of the
nearest doctor, and of the daughter of poor
Johnson, who was desperately wounded in the
side.

But, as night and darkness came on, the drink
to which the murderer had recourse still further
excited him. He returned again and again to the
room, loaded the dying man with abuse, and was
with difficulty kept from striking him and from
tearing off his bandages. The last outrage was
to tweak him by the wig. The doctor was forced
to remove his patient in the middle of the night
to his own house, where he died in the course of
a few hours. When told of the death, Lord

6— (»3«»i

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Ferrers declared that he gloried in the deed he
had committed.

The crime was so atrociously unprovoked, cold-
blooded, and done in the face of day, that no rank,
and not even the well-founded defence of craziness,
could shield the impenitent perpetrator. The law
was not to be so openly defied. Lord Ferrers was
arrested without making any resistance, though
he was armed with several pistols and a dagger.
He was removed from Ashby-de-la-Zouch to
Leicester Gaol, and from Leicester Gaol in the
course of a fortnight to the Tower of London.

With the curious, punctilious deference to his
class which belonged to the time, he was allowed,
while securely guarded on his journey, to travel
in his own landau, drawn by six horses, he himself
wearing a jockey's jacket, cap and boots.

Lord Ferrers was first taken before the House
of Lords, when the report of the Coroner's inquest
on Johnson was read, and the Earl was escorted by
Black Rod to the Tower, where he lay for two
months before his trial came on.

All through Ferrers' imprisonment, both before
and after his trial, his kinswoman. Lady Hunting-
don, visited him constantly with his consent,
though he probably guessed that it was in conse-
quence of her representations that the Governor
of^the Tower lessened the prisoner's allowance of

70

A HARDENED PRISONER]

wine, and after he was condemned, withdrew
the playing-cards with which he had solaced
himself.

But Ferrers not only continued to receive Lady
Huntingdon ; he even sent for her^ " for the sake of
company," he said. But he paid no heed to her
efforts to bring him to a better frame of mind.
According to Horace Walpole, Lord Ferrers was at
least " not mad enough to listen to my lady's
sermons." In her despair on his account, she
persuaded him to allow Whiteiield to visit him
twice. But, thought he Earl behaved to the
Methodist preacher with the utmost politeness, as
if he had taken a leaf from Lord Chesterfield's
and Francis Earl of Huntingdon's book, he was
unmoved by the voice which swayed multitudes.
And the public prayers which Whiteiield put up for
the transgressor, in the Methodist fashion of the
day, were in human judgment unanswered.
Horace Walpole called Whiteiield an 'impertinent
fellow," because the preacher, in his free, fearless
way, stated the transparent fact that his Lordship's
heart was as hard as a stone.

The Earl complained that his cousin, Lady
Huntingdon, would provoke a saint, but he had her
admitted to him to the last, after he had refused
to see his nearer relations, and he yielded to her
persuasions, in more than one instance, when he

71

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

was bent upon conduct still more defiant than
that he succeeded in committing.

Lord Ferrers' trial took place on the 16th of
April, 1760, and lasted three days. It was held in
Westminster Hall, and was attended by various
members of the Royal Family, by a crowd of peers
and peeresses, and by numbers of people of every
degree who could, by hook or by crook, obtain
admittance.

Horace Walpole was there, dropping his heart-
less, caustic remarks into the ears of the dying
beauty. Lady Coventry, one of the famous
Gunnings, who sat next to him. He was greatly
entertained with the fine show of the young peers
in their new and splendid robes, and he was
diverted by the pride of others, among them
Francis Earl of Huntingdon (come to give his vote
for or against his mother's cousin and early
playmate). These peers, of whom Lord Hunting-
don was one, preferred the ragged robes which
testified to the antiquity of their titles, for it
was said some of the robes had been worn at
the trial of Mary Queen of Scots. Charles
Wesley was present, with George Whitefield
and his wife, interested in the behalf of their
Countess.

Lord Ferrers refused to plead guilty, but was
induced, much against his will, to consent to the

72

SENTENCE OF DEATH

plea of family insanity, to which his brothers came
forward and gave testimony.

But the coolness of the prisoner, and the apparent
rationality with which he could speak and write
when his fits of drink and passion did not overcome
him, contradicted the only evidence which could
be brought forward in his defence.

Ferrers was condemned to be hanged at Tyburn,
the sentence being pronounced by the Earl of
Nottingham, who acted as High Steward. Then
for an instant the prisoner made an effort to save
himself — his voice was heard asking his brother
peers to recommend him to mercy.

But the act for which he suffered was too flagrant
and horrible, the verdict was too unanimous to
admit of its being set aside by the utmost exertions
on the part of the Earl's family and friends.

During the three weeks granted before the
execution took place, three different petitions were
presented to the old King, George H. One from
the doomed man's mother, another from the
remaining members of his family, and a third
from the Lord Keeper. The King could not grant
them.

Throughout these last weeks Lord Ferrers
remained unchanged — calm, scornful and stoHd.
His cousin. Lady Huntingdon, and his brother-
in-law, Sir Wilham Meredith, those who knew him

73

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

best, had the idea that his highly-strung, sorely
shattered nerves would give way in the end, as
they had collapsed more than once before in the
course of his hfe, but it was not so.

He is said to have made two requests, that in
consideration of his rank he should be beheaded
and not hung, and that not at Tyburn, but on the
spot where his ancestor, Robert Devereux Earl of
Essex, perished. But high treason is counted one
thing, and common vulgar murder another.

The second petition, that he should be hanged
with a silken rope, is said to have been complied
with.

Lord Ferrers concluded his requests by begging
Lord Cornwallis, the Governor of the Tower, to
pay no heed to the wishes of his family, with regard
to him, as he thought them very absurd.

Earl Ferrers had formed the wild purpose of
taking leave of his children on the scaffold, and of
improving the occasion by reading to them, and
to the assembled crowd, a paper he had drawn up
against his wife's family, and against the House
of Lords, for granting the separation between
husband and wife. (Lady Ferrers does not seem
to have made any attempt to see her husband for
the last time, to exchange forgivenesses with him,
and to bid him farewell).

Lady Huntingdon got Ferrers to give up his

74

THE EXECUTION

intention, and, though she was rigid in opposing
his desire that the Governor might permit him to
see the miserable woman who had been his
mistress, the Countess herself, on the day before
his death, took the four poor girls who were his
children to his apartments in the Tower, where he
parted from them, seemingly with little feeling.

Before going to bed on that last night he had
" Hamlet " read to him by a keeper.

On the day of his execution, the 5th of May, he
dressed in the suit he had worn at his wedding,
" of a hght colour embroidered in silver," saying
in explanation that he thought this at least as
good an occasion for putting the clothes on as
that for which they were made. He paid his bills
with punctuality and unconcern. His last act
was to correct some verses which he had written
while in the Tower. In the lines he declared him-
self a questioner and a doubter of what was true in
life and death.

At nine the Sheriffs of London and of Middlesex
arrived at the gates of the Tower to claim his body.
His fantastic haughtiness reasserted itself in
requesting that he might go to the gallows in his
landau with the six horses, instead of in a mourning
coach, and his wish was granted.

If it was any gratification to him, and one cannot
help thinking that it must have been, the pomp

75

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

of that dismal procession was as striking as was
its lamentable sadness. It could hardly have been
outdone by all the ghastly cavalcades which have
traversed similar routes. When the pageant
started it consisted of constables, horse and foot,
soldiers, the Sheriff who did not ride with him in
his chariot and six, the horses dressed with ribbons,
the central landau with its occupants guarded on
each side by soldiers, the empty chariot and six
of the Sheriff who rode with Lord Ferrers, a
mourning coach with his friends, and a hearse and
six to convey the corpse to Surgeons' Hall.

The procession took nearly three hours to reach
its destination. Lord Ferrers continuing quite
composed and behaving with great courtesy to all
the officials with whom he came into contact. He
wished the journey over, and said the details and
the tremendous crowd through which the cortege
passed were worse than death itself. But he
excused the morbid curiosity which brought the
concourse as to a gala show by the ironical observa-
tion that they had never seen a lord hanged before,
and perhaps would never see another. He ex-
pressed sympathy with one of the dragoons who
was thrown from his horse, and trusted there would
be no death that day save his.

The Chaplain endeavoured to engage Lord
Ferrers in a profitable conversation, and sought

76

SCENE ON THE SCAFFOLD

to ascertain what were his Lordship's reUgious
opinions — a proceeding which he resented some-
what, and Uttle was got from him, except that he
believed there was a God, the Maker of all things.

When the Chaplain, in what sounds like an
apology, reminded Lord Ferrers that a prayer was
usual at an execution, and asked his consent to
say the Lord's Prayer, he answered that he had
always thought that a good prayer, and the
Chaplain might use it if he pleased.

The scaffold had been hung with black at the
expense of Lord Ferrers' relations. The only
emotion he showed on mounting it was a
movement of distaste at the sight of the gallows.

He was pinioned with a black sash. At first he
had objected to having his hands tied or his face
covered, but he submitted when the necessity was
represented to him. He knelt at the repeating of
the Lord's Prayer, and, before rising, said with
solemn emphasis, " Oh God, forgive me all my
errors. Pardon all my sin." In a few seconds he
was dead.

Horace Walpole, having stigmatised in no
measured terms " the horrid lunatic," was con-
strained to add that in the matter in which he met
his death he shamed heroes.

The light-minded gossip wound up with some-
thing like a congratulation : " The Methodists

77

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

have nothing to brag of in his conversion . . .
though Whitefield prayed for him and preached
about him. I have not heard that Lady Fanny
(Lady Fanny Shirley, Lord Ferrers' aunt) dabbled
with his soul."

There was no foundation for the tradition, which
long survived in the mouths of the sensation-loving
public, that Lord Ferrers on the scaffold cursed his
wife for her share in his death, and prophesied
that she would die by fire. The legend went on
to tell that she lived for many years in dread of the
fulfilment of the prophecy which proved true in
the end. By an accident which befell her, she
spent a night in a house which was partially burned
down, the fire destroying the room in which she
had slept, and in which she perished.

78

CHAPTER VI

Lady Huntingdon's Friends — Sarah Duchess of Marlborough — Two
of her Letters — Doctor Young's " Narcissa " — The Chesterfield
Family — The Earl and Countess — Lord Chesterfield's Sister. Lady
Gertrude Hotham — Lord Chesterfield's Winning Manners — His
" Leap in the Dark " — Triumphant Deaths of Miss Hotham and
her Mother — Friends among the Wives of her Clergymen, Mrs. Venn,
Fletcher of Madeley's Wife — The Peculiarities of the Wives of John
Wesley and Whitefield — Lady Huntingdon's Affection for Mrs.
Charles Wesley — Nursing her through Smallpox — Lady Hunting-
don's Contemporary, " Grace Murray " — Her Last Meeting with
John Wesley — The Humourist Berridge of Everton among Lady
Huntingdon's Men Friends.

In Lady Huntingdon's youth she numbered
among her friends that most masterful of dames,
Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, Queen Anne's
saucy Mrs. Freeman, the beautiful vixen who cut
off her chestnut curls in order to spite her lord and
master and found them later in the cabinet in
which he had kept his treasures ; the same Sarah,
the dauntless invalid who told her doctor that she
would not put on a blister, and she would not die,
the vindictive grannie who had the pictured face
of her grand-daughter daubed black that it might
correspond with the colour of her heart. Even
she was susceptible to Countess Selina's influence.
Two letters from the great Sarah, wonderfully
sensible and modest, yet characteristic withal, are
still in existence. In these she records her regard
for Lady Huntingdon, and her willingness to
accompany her to hear Whitefield and to derive

79

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

the good which the Duchess believed she got from
his preaching.

" My dear Lady Huntingdon is always so very
good to me, and I really do feel so very sensibly
all your kindness and attention, that I must accept
your very obhging invitation to accompany you
to hear Mr. Whitefield, though I am still suffering
from the effects of a severe cold. Your concern
for my improvement and religious knowledge is
very obhging, and I do hope that I shall be the
better for all your excellent advice.

" God knows we all need mending, and none more
than myself. I have lived to see great changes
in the world, — have acted a conspicuous part
myself — and now hope in my old days to obtain
mercy from God, as I never expect any at the
hands of my fellow-creatures.

" The Duchess of Ancaster, Lady Townshend
and Lady Cobham were exceedingly pleased with
many observations in Mr. Whitefield's sermon at
St. Sepulchre's Church, which has made me lament
ever since that I did not hear it. It might have
been the means of doing me some good, for good,
alas ! I do want ; but where among the corrupt
sons and daughters of Adam am I to find it ?

" Your ladyship must direct me. You are all
goodness and kindness, and I often wish I had a
portion of it. Women of wit, beauty and quality
cannot bear too many humiliating truths — they
shock our pride — but we must die, we must
converse with earth and worms.

" Pray do me the favour to present my humble
service to your excellent spouse — a more amiable

80

A DUCHESS'S CONFESSIONS

man I do not know than Lord Huntingdon. And
believe me,

" My dear Madam,
" Your most faithful and most humble

servant,

"S. Marlborough."

The second letter is as follows : —

" Your letter, my dear Madam, was very
acceptable. Many thanks to Lady Fanny for her
good wishes, being a communication from her and
my dear good Lady Huntingdon ; they are always
welcome and always in every particular to my
satisfaction. I have no comfort in my own
family, therefore must look for that pleasure and
gratification which others can impart.

" I hope you will shortly come and see me and
give me more of your company than I have had
latterly. In truth I always feel more happy and
more contented after an hour's conversation with
you than after a whole week's round of amuse-
ments. When alone my reflections and recollec-
tions almost kill me, and I am forced to fly to the
society of those I detest and abhor. Now there is
Lady Frances Saunderson's great rout to-morrow
night, all the world will be there, and I must go.
I do hate that woman as much as I do a physician,
but I must go if for no other purpose than to
mortify and spite her.

" This is very wicked, I know, but I confess all
my little peccadillos to you, for I know your
goodness will lead you to be mild and forgiving,
and perhaps my wicked heart may get some good
from you in the end.

81

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

" Make my kindest respects to Lord Hunting-
don. Lady Fanny has my best wishes for the
success of her attack on that crooked, perverse,
little wretch at Twickenham (Pope). Assure
yourself, my dear good Madam, that I am your
most faithful and most obliged humble servant,

" S. Marlborough."

A very different friend of the Countess's in these
comparatively early days was young Mrs. Temple,
grand- daughter of the Earl of Lichfield, and
daughter of Lady Elizabeth and Colonel Lee.
Lady Elizabeth, on Colonel Lee's death, had
married, for the second time, Young, of " Night
Thoughts " fame. Lady Huntingdon had met
him at the Twickenham villa of her aunt. Lady
Fanny Shirley, whose favourite divine he was.
Miss Lee, Young's cherished step-daughter,
married Mr. Temple, son of the Lord Palmerston
of that day. She died of consumption a year after
her marriage at Montpellier, to which her sorrowing
mother and step-father had taken her in hope of
her recovery. She was the Narcissa of the
" Night Thoughts."

A pathetic episode in connection with her death
is recorded in the life of Lady Huntingdon.

" As the Doctor (Young) saw her gradually
declining he used frequently to walk backwards
and forwards in a place called ' The King's

S2

THE CHESTERFIELD FAMILY

Garden ' to find the most solitary spot where he
might show his last token of affection by having
her remains as secure as possible from those
savages who would have denied her Christian
burial ; for at that time an Englishman in France
was looked on as a heretic and infidel or a devil.
The under-gardener, being bribed, pointed out
the most solitary place, dug the grave and let him
bury his beloved daughter. The man, through a
private door, admitted the Doctor at midnight,
bringing his daughter wrapped in a sheet upon his
shoulders, and laid her in the hole. He sat down
and shed a flood of tears over the remains of his
dear Narcissa.

" With pious sacrilege a grave I stole,"

he writes in his " Night Thoughts."

With the entire Chesterfield family Lady
Huntingdon was intimate for the greater part of
her hfe. Lord Chesterfield's wife and sister were
among the Countess's dearest friends. Unhke
the husband and brother, they held the faith and
were women of high character and of decided
benevolence and piety, working willingly in con-
nection with Lady Huntingdon, and contributing
liberally to Trevecca College, and other
philanthropic institutions.

Lady Chesterfield was the daughter of George I

83

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

and the Duchess of Kendal, and had been created
in her own right Countess of Walsingham and
Baroness of Aldburgh. She was a cultivated and
accomplished woman in her generation. She was,
of course, a kinswoman of George III, and a
persona grata at Court, filling a high position
honourably and blamelessly. Unequally yoked in
marriage, while faithfully discharging a wife's
duties, she could only count on receiving from
Lord Chesterfield perfectly well-bred, courteous
pohteness.

An anecdote exists which shows that his lord-
ship's complaisance extended to selecting and
procuring from the Continent at some trouble and
expense the dress which Lady Chesterfield wore
on her last appearance at Court — a tasteful,
suitable gown of sober brown, " relieved by silver
flowers thrown up on the brocade." It attracted
the attention of George III, who, with his usual
brusqueness and inconsequence, hailed his cousin
two or three times removed : "I know who chose
that gown for you — Mr. Whitefield ; and I hear
you have attended on him this year-and-a-half."

Her candid answer was, " Yes, I have, and hke
him very well."

Lord Chesterfield's lack of heart and truth, in the
middle of his exquisite affectation, seems neither
to have alienated his friends' affection nor to have

S4

"A LEAP IN THE DARK"

altogether extinguished the trust that he might yet
change his views. His influence over such women
as Lady Huntingdon and his wife resembled that
won by the royal reprobate Charles II over his
good citizens of London, sheerly through the grace
and pleasantness of his perennial good-temper.
In writing of Lord Chesterfield to Mr. Whitefield,
in the vain hope of his final conversion, the
Countess refers to the man so unlike herself as
" dear Lord Chesterfield."

As for the Countess of Chesterfield, she refused
to quit for a moment his lordship's melancholy
death-bed, which the dying man designated " A
leap in the dark." In her last desperate effort,
she is said to have sent for Rowland Hill, to whom
Lord Chesterfield might listen, because Hill was
Sir Rowland Hill's son, in addition to being a
Methodist divine and a famous preacher. It need
not be said the sick man refused to comply with
his wife's request, and would neither see nor hear
the ghostly counsellor.

Lord Chesterfield's sister, Lady Gertrude Hotham,
was a still dearer friend of Lady Huntingdon's, one
in relation to whose family the Countess had her
last hold on her son, the Earl, and a faint trust,
on the verge of extinction, that he might yet be
reclaimed from the error of his opinions as a noto-
rious free-thinker. Lady Gertrude's son, Sir

85

7— ( 30 )

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Charles Hotham, an amiable, well-disposed young
man, though not then taking a definite side on the
religious question, which bulked largely — even
among the young and gay in the exclusive circles
of the day — was for a time Lord Huntingdon's
chosen companion. Nay, fashionable rumour had
it that the Earl admired greatly, and was fast
becoming attached to, one of Sir Charles's sisters,
the special friend of Lord Huntingdon's own sister.
Lady Selina Hastings, in spite of the fact that
both young girls were true daughters of their
mothers and ardent Methodists.

Was human love to be the divine instrument for
breaking down the hard, cold barrier which his
worship of reason had erected between mother
and son ? It was so in the case of Sir Charles
Hotham. It failed when it had to do with Lord
Huntingdon.

His friend's sister gradually declined in health,
and died in such a " calm splendour " of faith and
hope, that Whitefield, who was present, com-
memorated the triumph over death in a funeral
sermon which he preached.

Shortly after Miss Hotham's death, her brother,
Sir Charles, married much to his mother's mind,
but in two more years his young wife was attacked
by fever and died in the course of a few days.
From that time he made an open profession of his

86

WHITEFIELD AND THE PRESBYTERIANS

religion, even in the trying atmosphere of a Court,
as he had been appointed, through his uncle Lord
Chesterfield's influence, a gentleman-of-the-bed-
chamber to George III. Sir Charles survived his
wife eight years, and died when still in his prime,
near Spa, where he had been ordered for his
health.

The evening after his mother, Lady Gertrude,
had received the sad tidings of her son's death,
she accidentally set fire to her ruffles when sitting
alone reading, and was severely burned about her
neck and head. She showed great patience under
her sufferings during the fortnight which elapsed
before death ended them. With well-nigh her last
breath she ejaculated " happy, happy."

Lady Huntingdon had many valued friends in
Scotland, the Buchan Erskines, the Maxwells, etc.,
etc., whom she visited, who were ready to welcome
Whitefield for her sake. But, though he preached
to great crowds and left a deep impression behind
him, his Calvinism did not weigh sufficiently with
the authorities of the Scotch Church to justify
what they regarded as the irregular license of some
of his views and actions. In the country where
Presbyterianism followed the strict hues laid down
by John Knox, the Melvilles, etc., etc., even those
who had diverged from the Church of Scotland,
led by the famous brothers Ralph and Ebenezer

87

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Erskine, to whom Whitefield went by invitation,
could not agree with his opinions on discipline
and Church government, and in the end the
Erskines withdrew from a proposed alHance with
him.

Lady Huntingdon's innumerable friends, for
she elected to be the friend of everyone who, as
she would have quoted, " loved the Lord Jesus
Christ in sincerity," were the religious leaders of
the day, whether Church of England or Noncon-
formists, and she was in frequent correspondence
with many of them.

Naturally for a woman engaged in so much public
work. Lady Huntingdon's friends and correspon-
dents were largely men. Her women friends were
to be found mostly among women of her own class.
Circumstances forbade anything else. On inti-
mate terms as she was at one time with John
Wesley, and always with Whitefield, there is no
mention of any deahng with their wives nor indeed
with the wives of many clergymen unless where
they had intermarried with the upper classes, as
happened not infrequently. These alliances or
mesalliances, were brought home to the Countess
in the case of her two sisters-in-law, Lady Margaret
Ingham and Lady Catherine Wheeler, and of Lady
Huntingdon's niece and namesake, who became
the wife of the Rev. — . Wills.

88

THE COUNTESS & HER PASTORS' WIVES

The wives of her friends — the clergymen or
pastors, who were in their husband's rank — were
not at leisure, and many of them were hardly
suited for the intercourse which the husbands
enjoyed. These matrons were more or less en-
grossed with their family duties and affairs ; often
they had not received such an education as would
have fitted them to enter the upper ranks, and to
appear in them with advantage. Men constantly
rise socially, and are often quite equal to the
ascent, while they do it and themselves credit
in the process. Women, in spite of their power
of accommodating themselves to circumstances,
accomplish the transfer more rarely than men, and,
so far as success is concerned, less effectually.
This was still more true a century ago, when the
Unes of demarcation between the classes were
stronger.

There were exceptions to the usually shght
relations between Lady Huntingdon and the
wives of the clergymen of her connexion. It does
not seem to have been altogether so in the case of
Mrs. Pentycross, to whom Lady Huntingdon is
said to have been partial for her great good-
humour as well as for her seriousness of mind, to
whom her ladyship on one occasion wrote a very
gracious letter, so gracious that it is not without a
flavour of a great lady's condescension as well as

89

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

of her dignity, and she accompanied the letter by
the considerate gift of a silver teapot.

But certainly the barriers of caste and breeding
were over-leaped with Mrs. Venn, whose early
death was earnestly lamented by the Countess as
by her other friends. There was still another lady
who could not fail to come under the notice of Lady
Huntingdon, and to be regarded by her with lively
approval. This was the wife of the much-loved
Fletcher of Madeley, who, in addition to his other
burdens, took upon him the office of the presi-
dency of Lady Huntingdon's College of Trevecca
from sheer love of her and the work. He had
married a congenial partner, a Miss Bosanquet,
whose worldly position and means were the least
of her gifts and graces. She worked with him
heart and soul, during the not very long time their
union lasted, when they made of Madeley Vicarage
the refuge of all the weary and heavy-laden, the
sick and the sorrowful, the poor and the needy in
the parish, so that the memory of their blessed
life Ungered for generations, like the crushed sweet-
ness of perished flowers, in the place where they
had dwelt for a season.

In the domestic relations with John Wesley and
Whitefield, with whom Lady Huntingdon was long
closely allied, there were reasons why the esteem
which she entertained for the husbands did not

90

MRS. JOHN WESLEY & MRS. WHITEFIELD

extend to the wives. Neither man was happily
married, both were unfortunate in their choice of
the two widows who became their partners, who
might already have had sufficient experience of
matrimony to know that they were unsuited for
it, especially in reference to men who were en-
grossed with their Master's work, to which all else,
including their wives' claims, must be subordinate.
Without being guilty of worse offences, Mrs. John
Wesley and Mrs. Whitefield belonged to that
troublesome order of women who are full of whims
and moods of tempers, discontents and suspicions,
such as tend to drive ordinary men, who have not
higher things to think of, beside themselves, and
to tempt them to pay the women back in their
own coin.

The wives were jealous because they could never
be first with their husbands, but had to wait for
the men's notice, and to be set aside and left behind
when the Lord's work called.

It is not argued that the women had no provoca-
tion, only that they should have counted the cost
before they married such men. John Wesley, in
his goodness, was a man of adamant alike to himself
and to all connected with him. Whitefield, much
more impressionable, thought nothing of making
four voyages to Georgia after the date of his
marriage, in none of which did Mrs. Whitefield

91

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

accompany him. His absences lasted for years
at a time, and every penny he collected went to
his orphanage.

Mrs. Whitefield showed herself occasionally not
incapable of rising to his level. He would call her
his " right hand ; " he missed her sorely when she
died. He was fond of quoting an anecdote of her.
In a brutal crowd, when even his heart began to
faint, and he was on the point of being stoned,
Mrs. Whitefield standing behind him plucked him
by the cloak and charged him : " George, play
the man for your God," when his waning courage
returned in a twinkHng.

But, unfortunately, she was not always of this
mind, and Whitefield's impulsive generosity was
not enough to bridge the gulf between them.
And in neither of the two shifting households were
there children to serve as a bond which could not
be broken. No child was born to John Wesley,
and Whitefield's single descendant, the son on
whom he formed so many ardent hopes, died in
infancy.

It was far otherwise in the marriage of Charles
Wesley. Mrs. Charles Wesley, unlike her sister-
in-law, was a happy wife and mother. She was
Sarah Gwynne, a daughter of Gwynne of Garth,
a squire of long descent and considerable property
in Brecknockshire. . In her own person she was

92

^x-ww^^"^

■::.-i».:;i:^s^

CHARLES WESLEY

MRS. CHARLES WESLEY

not only a good woman, she was a well-bred and
amiable lady. Lady Huntingdon and she were
intimate and attached friends from the beginning
of their acquaintance.

About 1752, Charles Wesley was settled, so far
as he was suffered to be settled, with his wife and
child in a house in Bristol, and in Bristol was one
of the Countess's tabernacles.

Further, in connection with its Hot Wells, the
town stood next to Bath in the estimation of the
real or fancied invalids of the time, to whom
mineral waters offered a panacea for all the ills
that flesh is heir to. Lady Huntingdon, like the
rest of her generation, with more reason than most
of the visitors in her indifferent and often failing
health, was after her widowhood a frequent
resident at one or other of these watering-places.
When she had the additional attraction of one of
her chapels to superintend, her presence for longer
or shorter intervals could be still more counted
upon.

But, apart from either benefit to her health or
advantage to her chapel, there were imperative
reasons for her journeying to Bristol at this time.
The Wesley family were in distressing circum-
stances, and she could do nothing else than hasten
to their assistance and do her best to relieve them
at whatever risk or discomfort to herself.

93

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

John Wesley's iron constitution had broken
down for a time under the tremendous strain put
upon it. He was at Lewisham, sent there by his
doctors to the quaint house with the semblance of
rams' horns as ornaments on each side of the gate.
Rest and refreshment from the country air of the
village were thought his last chance for recovery.
He was so ill that his death was freely anticipated,
and his brother Charles was summoned from
Bristol to take the ordering of the churches, and
to receive John's last instructions.

As if this were not calamity enough to his grow-
ing societies and the multitude looking to him for
heavenly guidance, and to the family of which he
was the ostensible head, down in Bristol Mrs.
Charles Wesley was stricken with smallpox, and
lay in great suffering and danger for many days,
while her husband could not come to her without
deserting his post and abandoning his public duties.

One can imagine how the word " Smallpox "
sounded in Lady Huntingdon's ears, how it re-
called her two fine boys, George and Ferdinando,
cut down in their fresh, blooming youth, what had
been their pleasant comeUness rendered loathsome
to look upon, and dying within little more than a
day of each other.

But their mother did not hesitate a moment.
She set out instantly from Bath, where she had been

94

A BRAVE NURSE

staying, when she heard the grievous news; one
can guess, forbidding her young daughter, Lady
Selina, to accompany her or follow her, she made
her way to the infected house in Bristol, where she
could be a pillar of strength to the scared inmates,
assuming the responsibility of chief nurse, so that
everything which could be done was tried for the
patient, cheering and strengthening her by Lady
Huntingdon's unshaken faith in the Father of us
all doing His best for His helpless creatures. She
communicated daily bulletins to the husband in
the anguish of his absence and suspense.

She did more ; she sent for Whitefield and
commissioned him to go to London and reheve
Charles Wesley, so that he might come to Bristol
once again and see his wife — before, what
seemed more than probable, she should be called
from his side — while this Hfe lasted.

There had been disputes, rivalry, and something
of hostihty between Whitefield and the WWeys,
upholding as they did different conceptions of the
glory and the will of the same divine Master.
But there could be no abiding gall in these good
and honest hearts. What were the differences of
interpretation which had arisen between them, in
one of these seasons of adversity for which brothers
are born, when humanity thinks only of what
alleviation it can afford ?

95

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Whitefield put all his big heart into his mission —
not the less so that between two of the flying visits
which his presence in London enabled Charles
Wesley to pay to Bristol, Wesley's first-born child,
a promising little boy of not yet two years, sick-
ened of the same disease under which his mother
appeared to be lying in extremity, and died — as
Baby John Whitefield had died — in the absence of
his father^ and in Wesley's case he had not even
the comfort of helping to lay his son with words
of prayer in the churchyard which is God's
Garden.

Whitefield, in the middle of his press of work,
penned letter after letter of tender sympathy to
his fellow-sufferer : "I cannot remember anything
now but dear Mrs. Wesley," Whitefield wrote to
Charles Wesley in his warm friendliness. " Night
and day you are remembered by me."

At last Lady Huntingdon had the joy of com-
municating the glad intelligence, after Mrs. Charles
Wesley had lain twenty-two days in great danger,
that the peril was past, and there was every
prospect of the loved and loving wife's recovery.
Whitefield immediately returned a public thanks-
giving in his tabernacle for the mercy which had
been shown his friends.

Mrs. Charles Wesley was not only restored to
health, she lived a long life, survived her husband,

96

GRACE MURRAY

and died at the great age of ninety-six, thirty-one
years after her old friend Lady Huntingdon had
passed away.

Man proposes but God disposes. Surely John
Wesley's experience of matrimony would have
been very different had he married the gifted
woman his heart desired. She was another
widow, but a widow with qualities widely removed
from those of the lady who became Mrs. John
Wesley.

Lady Huntingdon could only have been ac-
quainted with Grace Murray — as she was best
known — when she was the wife, not of John
Wesley, alas ! but of another of the Countess's
friends, Mr. Bennett, of Derbyshire.

Bennett had early cast in his lot with the Oxford
reformers. He had shown a keen personal interest
in their work, had been invited by Lady Hunting-
don to pay a visit to Donnington Park, and had
been urged by her to become one of the army of
preachers — in accordance with his views and his
powers, instead of carrying his abilities and his
superior education into another profession. Finally
she introduced him to John Wesley and to White-
field. Bennett started work under the first,
though his leanings were to Whitefield and Cal-
vinism. But it was not till the Bennetts — both
husband and wife — had broken off from

97

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Wesley and joined the Calvinistic Methodists
that they came repeatedly into the old famihar
neighbourhood of Donnington Park.

Grace Murray had begun hfe as Grace Norman.
She was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1715, and
was the daughter of parents, members of the
Church of England, in affluent circumstances, and
belonging to an upper class of society. They were
able to give their children the best education of
the time, and to introduce them into what were
reckoned the polite circles of the day.

A precocious, susceptible child, even as she was
an animated, sympathetic woman, little Grace
seems to have undergone religious experiences and
worldly reactions at an extraordinarily early age.
The reactionary forces reached their height in her
early girlhood, when she developed a passion for
dancing which she declared " had nearly cost her
her life " (her spiritual life).

The rebound from this very volatile mood of
mind came soon, and with such violence, that
though she went through other reactions from
Methodism, she would never again indulge in the
amusement.

While still Grace Norman, she became so con-
vinced a young Methodist that her father, who held
other opinions, told her he could not permit her
to remain a member of his household unless she

98

GRACE MURRAY'S CONVERSION

promised not to influence her brothers in the
rehgious controversies which were raging through-
out the country. She could not give the promise,
therefore while still a girl not out of her teens she
had to leave her family, and live in lodgings not
far from her home, doubtless that the parental
eye might still be upon her, while her firmness was
subjected to the severe test imposed upon it.

The narrative of this experience impHes either
that her father, who had by no means cast her off,
supplied her with an allowance, or that she was
already in possession of an independent income
from other sources.

She was in the habit of going home at intervals
for part of the day, but had always to go back
to her lodgings before evening. In recalling the
occurrence, she remarks on the pain and mortifica-
tion with which she got up to quit the rest of the
family like somebody in disgrace paying a penalty.

The experiment surely had the effect the astute
father desired. At least, by the time Grace at
twenty-one years of age married, with her parents'
consent, a sailor named Murray, she had re-entered
society, " returned to the world," in the accepted
phrase, in which her intelHgence, sprightUness and
musical gifts, in the shape of an exceedingly
melodious voice, rendered her a favourite.

Of the great attachment of her husband there

99

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

could not be two thoughts ; his existence when on
shore seemed to be bound up in hers, while she,
in the thoughtlessness of the moment, in the
spoiUng of her naturally fine disposition caused by
the flattering preference given her by the giddy,
unreflecting company she frequented, returned
the affection by little more than the obliging
complaisance of a petted, gay young wife.

Grace was reminded of her earlier higher aspira-
tions by the time she had become a mother, when
an illness of Mr. Murray's called her to Portsmouth,
where she and her child of fourteen months joined
him and stayed with him for six weeks.

" We boarded with a widow lady who had two
daughters," she wrote afterwards. " Thrice every
day she passed by my room with her books under
her arm and her daughters with her to retire into
her room for prayers. This struck me in such a
manner that I wished to do as she did. Oh ! the
goodness of God ; it shamed me that I should
have had to be brought thither to learn to pray.
Yes, I believe I began to pray in the spirit in that
house. The Lord fastened something in my mind
there which I could never shake off."

After she went to London with her husband, her
mind was further wrought on. " When we re-
turned to London," she noted, " all the place rang
with the fame of Mr. Whitefield, who had

100

A FIELD-PREACHER

introduced the practice of field-preaching. * Poor
gentleman ! he is out of his mind,' was the general
comment. He continued to blow the Gospel
trumpet all over London. I wished to hear him,
but Mr. Murray would not consent."

When her husband went to sea again, her child
sickened and died. " Near to the end," was the
mother's description of the scene, " I, having a book
of prayer, sought a prayer in it for a departing
soul. I was constrained to kneel down and give
up the soul of my child into the hands of God.

" This amazed my sister. . . . After the
funeral I was brought into such lowness of spirits
I could rest nowhere. ... I ran to my sister
saying, ' I do not know what is the matter with
me, but I think it is my soul.'

" * Your soul ! ' she repHed, * you are good
enough for yourself and me too.*

" A young person in our neighbourhood, having
heard of my distress, sent me word she was going
to Blackheath to hear Mr. Whitefield, and would
be glad of my company. Accordingly I went
with her, and before we reached the place heard
the people singing hymns. The very sound set
all my passions afloat, which showed how the
affections may be moved while the understanding
is dark."

The spot where Whitefield stood when he spoke

101

8— (a3<io)

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

is still pointed out. It is a rising ground about
the centre of the Heath, bearing two or three old
Scotch fir trees. It is situated nearly opposite the
gate of Greenwich Park.

"Mr. Whitefield drove up in a chaise," Grace
Murray remembered, and she was at once struck
by his appearance and still more impressed by his
eloquent sermon.

Her views grew more and more decided. She
was no longer a girl in her teens to be turned aside
from her convictions by the disapproval of her
friends. Not only was she unmoved by the lack
of sympathy in her sister, who complained that
she no longer cared to go into company with
Grace, because in the room of the old vivacity
which had charmed her friends she now sat silent
and cold like a stone ; she was prepared to resist
the passionate remonstrances of her husband.
When told by his sister-in-law that Grace had
gone melancholy with attending Methodist meet-
ings, he forbade her to go to them any more. She
might repair to church when and where she chose,
but she must forsake the Methodist assembhes.

When the young wife — only accustomed to
praise and indulgence from him — resisted his
authority, he threatened as what appeared to him
the only resource left, to put her into a madhouse.
He even named the person to whose custody he

102

GRACE MURRAY'S METHODISTIC WORK

would send her, ending with the really pathetic
appeal : What should he do — he to whom she was
so much ?

An illness on her part broke him down. He
first told her to send for the clergyman of the
parish, and then yielded entirely, " My dear, send
for anyone you hke."

The death of poor Murray at sea, on one of his
next voyages, while it would awaken his widow,
being the woman she was, to the value of the regard
she had held but lightly, and smite her with tender
regrets, w^as also calculated to confirm her most
serious convictions. She became from that time
resolute in her profession and a conspicuous figure
among the Wesley ans. Whether her father was
no longer alive or had given up in despair any
further efforts to control her, she now acted
for herself, and took a prominent part in the
organisation of the church John Wesley was
founding.

He entrusted her with the forming of his female
societies, and for this purpose she journeyed
through different parts of England and Ireland.
In connection with these societies, and with the
circuits he was arranging, he had houses in various
quarters to which Wesleyan members and
ministers retired, when it was advisable, for rest
and refreshment. Grace Murray presided over

103

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

a succession of these houses, a position which she
was eminently quaUfied to fill.

She was at once devout and social, imaginative
and practical. She was decidedly intellectual, as
well as reUgious, loving reading of all kinds, of
history and poetry, as well as of books of devotion,
and she was musical withal. She was very attrac-
tive in conversation, made to guide it, and to open
up stores of interest for others — a clever, bright,
genial woman, not less than a good one, with a
heart in its right place, so as to render her friendly
to all with whom she came in contact. There is
no doubt that John Wesley admired her and held
her in high esteem. The impression among their
contemporaries must have been strong to have
spread so widely and survived so long that he had
hoped to have made her his wife.

But either his affection was kept too hidden from
its object, or else, while she honoured and rever-
enced him as a leader, the idea of the man so sternly
unbending in his principles and practice, was
repellent to her as a lover and husband.

The story goes that John Wesley received an
unexpected blow when he read in a newspaper the
announcement of her marriage in 1749, to Bennett,
of Derby, one of his own young preachers, to whom
he had been induced by Lady Huntingdon to lend
his support, and to give some employment.

104

GRACE MURRAY'S MARRIAGE

It is said that Bennett and Grace Murray first
met and were afterwards thrown together in sin-
gular and striking circumstances. One of these
was the incident of her having been called upon to
nurse him through a severe illness — and he was
worthy. He was one of the most enthusiastic and
self-sacrificing of these reforming preachers, count-
ing no toil too great, no exhausting effort beyond
his bestowal, so that it was made to gain souls. In
the end he shortened his life by his Christian
heroism.

Grace Murray was in her thirty-fifth year at the
date of her second marriage, four years after the
second Scotch Rebellion, when she had been in
one of the Wesleyan houses in Newcastle-on-Tyne,
and Charles Wesley, who had been paying the
house a visit, warned them on his departure :
" You will see the man on the red horse, and the
man on the pale horse " (war and death) " before
we meet again." And so it was : civil war with
much loss of Hfe had been at their doors, but the
storm had blown over, and there was marrying
and giving in marriage again.

John Wesley behaved with the magnanimity
which might have been expected from him. He
promoted Bennett's usefulness and success by all
the means in his power, until the fortunate rival,
having been always more under the influence of

105

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Whitefield than of Wesley, publicly separated
from Wesley at Bolton and joined the ranks of
the Calvinistic Methodists, carrying his wife with
him. This was another stab to John Wesley, the
weapon which dealt it being made of blended
metal.

The itinerating service of the Wesleyans was also
in force with Whitefield and his followers, and after
his marriage Bennett was in the habit of continuing
circuits so extensive in distance as to include two
hundred miles in the fortnight. He was accom-
panied by his wife, who led the women's classes
until the cares of her increasing family (she bore
him five sons) rendered it impossible for her either
to leave the little flock or to take them with
her.

Then a settled charge was found and a chapel
erected for him at Warburton, in Cheshire, but he
went on preaching tours to the last. Ten years
went by ; the eldest of Grace's five boys was not
eight years of age, she herself was in her forty-
fifth year in 1759, when Bennett, who had been
attacked with jaundice, in addition to loss of blood
from an accidental wound in the leg, after thirty-
six weeks of suffering, lay dying. She asked him if
his faith supported him and if God's promises to
His servants were being fulfilled. He answered
her in the affirmative, joyfully, triumphantly.

106

GRACE BENNETT'S WIDOWHOOD

They kissed each other, and his last words were

" Sing, sing."

She stayed on in the quiet country house tor
some time. She had enough left of her worldly
possessions to rear her children and to dispense
the hospitality which was natural to her. The
preachers who came to officiate in her late
husband's stead were entertained by her, while
the neighbours were invited to meet them, to
profit by their discourse.

For the sake of her children she quitted the
country, and settled in the little town of Chapel-
en-le-Frith. She still had her class every week
and her meeting of the neighbours for prayer
and improving conversation.

But she was certainly not a rich woman. She
was accustomed to do everything for her children,
several of whom died in early youth ; indeed, so
far as can be gathered, only one son remained to
her in her decUning years.

With the advance of age she became partially
blind, a great deprivation to her, though she was
never without those who loved her, and would fain
have helped her by reading to her, as by rendering
her other service. But she, who had so long
and faithfully searched the famiUar Scriptures,
mourned at being reduced to memory where they
were concerned, or tojeceiving them from the hps

107

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

of others. She would rejoice when a brighter day
or a less dim vision would let her have a glimmering
sense of the contents of the pages, as she turned
them over.

In connection with her son she desired to see
John Wesley again when he should be in her vicin-
ity. He came readily in response to her request
in the company of a friend who knew them both,
who beheved that he was acquainted with the
depth of disappointment which Grace Murray's
marriage to Bennett had been to John Wesley.

But all these things, with any trace of surviving
emotion, were long past on the part of the old
couple — the woman, aged and blind, advancing
with uncertain steps — the sight gone from the once
bright eyes, so that she could no longer look on the
face of the great man who had loved her in vain,
who was still splendid in the retention to his last
breath of the noble faculties — supreme self-control
not the least of them, which had stirred all
England.

The interview was short, its purport apparently
unknown to the single witness, and it was never
afterwards alluded to by John Wesley. But one
is certain that, if compliance with any solicitation
of Grace Bennett's were within his power, it was
freely granted.

Grace outlived Bennett by forty-five years,

108

BERRIDGE OF EVERTON

dying after a short illness at the age of eighty-
nine in 1803, when she had made her good confes-
sion in the final words, " Glory be to Thee, my God,
peace Thou givest me."

Among the men who held Lady Huntingdon's
tenets, whom she assisted in every possible way,
Countess Selina had many tried and trusted
friends, whose biographies, sermons, letters, etc.,
etc., have been preserved by like-minded and
competent chroniclers for the public to study in
later generations. This is the fact where such
household names as those of the Wesleys, White-
field, Fletcher of Madeley, etc., etc., are in
question. Even lesser Ughts Hke Romaine, Venn,
Rowland Hill, etc., have been similarly treated in
their own persons and in their works, so that they
are well known, and there is nothing more to say
of them.

There is only one quaint, highly original figure
who seems to have received less than his due in the
prejudiced eyes of Southey and in the records of
his time. This is Berridge of Everton, one of the
most confided in and rehed upon of Lady Hunting-
don's aUies, to whom she turned readily for counsel,
one who did not hesitate to express his disapproval
and argue against the probable prospects of her
favourite schemes when they did not commend
themselves to his judgment. On the other hand,

109

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

he was a man who could handsomely take back his
word and strongly uphold her enterprises when
the result proved that his estimates had been
wrong.

Among the many good and godly men who
surrounded her, worked at her instigation, and
brought her projects to a triumphant conclusion,
Berridge, like Glazebrook, the first collier-student
at her college of Trevecca, possessed in a high
degree the saving grace of humour.

In the correspondence of the time, so heavily
weighed with solemn, stereotyped language, his
letters stand out in their spontaneity and raciness,
and call forth a smile even when they deal with
the most serious subjects. It is characteristic of
the religious crisis during which he lived that such
a temper, with its burlesque sarcasm, was looked
upon in the light of a perilous gift abounding in
snares and pitfalls. Berridge gravely warned
Glazebrook of the danger which he himself ought
to have known well to the cause of evangelical
truth of indulging in enemy-making in the practice
of such wit, but nature was too strong for the man.
His comparison of his parishioners to a hive of bees
is an illustration to the point.

" As for myself, I am now determined not to
quit my charge again in a hurry," he wrote in
declining an invitation from Lady Huntingdon to

110

A CHARACTERISTIC LETTER

take the service in one of her chapels. " Never
do I leave my bees, though for a short space only,
but at my return I find them either casting a
colony or fighting and robbing each other ; not
gathering honey from every flower in God's garden,
but fining the air with their buzzing, and darting
out the venom of their httle hearts in their fiery
stings. Nay, so inflamed they often are, and a
mighty httle thing disturbs them, that three
months' tinkering afterwards with a warming-pan
will scarce hive them at last and make them settle
to work again."

Still more like Berridge is a letter written by
him to Lady Huntingdon on the occasion of one of
her sore bereavements : —

" My Lady, — I received your letter from Bright-
helmstone, and hope you will soon learn to bless
your Redeemer for snatching away your daughter
so speedily. ... Oh ! what is she snatched from ?
Why, truly from the plague of an evil heart, a
wicked world, and a crafty devil — snatched from
all such bitter grief as now overwhelms you,
snatched from everything which might wound her,
afflict her eye, or pain her heart. And what is she
snatched to ? To a land of everlasting peace,
where the voice of the turtle is ever heard, where
every inhabitant can say, * I am no more sick.'
No more whim in the head, no more plague in the
heart. . . . Madam, what would you have ? Is
it not better to sing in heaven, " Worthy is the

Hi

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Lamb that was slain/ than crying at Oathall, * Oh !
wretched woman that I am.' Is it not better for
her to go before than to stay after you, and then
to be lamenting, ' Oh ! my mother/ as you now
lament, ' Oh ! my daughter ? ' Is it not better
to have your Selina taken to heaven than to have
your heart divided between Christ and Selina ?
If she was a silver idol before, might she not have
proved a golden one afterwards ?

" She is gone to pay a most blessed visit, and will
see you again by and bye, never to part more.
Had she crossed the sea and gone to Ireland/' (to
her sister, Countess Moira) " you could have borne
it ; but now she is gone to heaven 'tis almost
unbearable.

" Wonderful strange love this ! Such behaviour
in others would not surprise me, but I could almost
beat you for it ; and I am sure Sehna would beat
you too, if she was called back for one moment
from heaven to gratify your fond desire. I
cannot soothe you, and I must not flatter you.
I am glad the dear creature is gone to heaven
before you. Lament if you please, but glory,
glory, glory be to God, say I —

"John Berridge."

Berridge was strongly opposed to the marriage
of the young Methodist clergy. He declared that
those who would try it had been punished for their
folly. He maintained that Charles Wesley had
been spoilt for his work by his happy marriage, and
that as for Charles's brother John, and George
Whitefield, they were only saved from making

112

BERRIDGE ON CELIBACY

shipwreck of the cause by God's sending them " a
pair of ferrets " for wives.

Berridge's account of the warnings which he
himself received against entering the holy state of
matrimony, to which he was tempted by " Jezebels
of housekeepers," who drove him to seek to pene-
trate into the future by inserting his finger at
random into the Scriptures and accepting as a
token of the Almighty's will the verse which he
touched, is whimsical in the extreme.

In spite of Berridge's great regard for Lady
Huntingdon and hearty attachment to her, women
in general were his betes noires, and his chief wish
and hope for promising young divines were that
they should be kept from " petticoats."

113

CHAPTER VII

Lady Huntingdon's Three Famous Interviews — With Garrick in the
Green Room of Drury Lane to Remonstrate on the Gross Libel
of Whitefield as " Doctor Squintum " in the Play of the Minor —
Garrick's Courtesy — Her Interview with Cornwallis, Archbishop of
Canterbury, and Mrs. Cornwallis, in their Palace of Lambeth — The
Scandal of their Dissipation — Rude Rebuff and Dismissal — Lady
Huntingdon's Interview with King George and Queen Charlotte in
their Palace of Kew — Gracious Reception and Attention to her
Protest — The Honest Old King — " Good Queen Charlotte " — The
King's Indignant Letter of Rebuke to the Archbishop.

The first interview was that between the Queen
of the Methodists and the King of the Stage,
David Garrick. Imagine Lady Huntingdon in
the green room at Drury Lane ! Yet she went
there to appeal to Garrick on behalf of Whitefield,
who had been grossly lampooned in a play called
" The Minor," the work of the great mimic Foote,
who himself sustained the principal part, " Doctor
Squintum " (Whitefield), whose gestures, tones,
etc., the actor gave to the life, a role in which the
famous preacher was defamed as a religious quack
and adventurer, and a rogue of the basest descrip-
tion. The whole play, in its unfair and scandalous
attack on Whitefield and the Methodists generally,
was so irreverent and immoral that it was indig-
nantly condemned as an outrage on public decency
by authorities who had neither connection with
the victims nor sympathy with their opinions.
But in the meantime it had been put on the stage

114

THE COUNTESS AND GAKRICK

of Drury Lane, was drawing great houses, and
making much money for the theatre funds.

Lady Huntingdon had already appealed to the
Lord Chamberlain, the Duke of Devonshire, who
declared that he had not known the nature of the
play when a license was granted for it, but the
license having been given he could do nothing.

The Countess then addressed herself to Garrick,
going to Drury Lane to get speech with him.

The actor, in his blue coat and scratch wig,
received her hke the gentleman he was, treating
her with the greatest honour and courtesy.

She pled with temperance and moderation the
injury which was being done to his own profession
and to those who supported it by such low and
scurrilous plays as " The Minor." He would
degrade the drama which she did not deny many
respectable people approved of, and from which
they declared they derived profit, as well as
pleasure, the drama which his fine acting had
helped to render illustrious. It would be doing it
an ill service to let it sink till it became the vehicle
of the vilest aspersions against an innocent man,
and a set of persons who were, to say the least,
peaceful citizens, and, if they offended their
neighbours, did so under the impression that it
was in order to confer upon them an inestimable
service.

115

THE^COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Garrick acknowledged that the comedy was
offensive, and inflicted a gratuitous injury on
fellow-Christians and fellow-countrymen, who,
setting aside their views, from which many
differed, were honourable and worthy individuals.
Had he known the character of the play, it should
never have been acted there, and she might rely
upon it that it would be withdrawn.

But, whether there were difficulties with the
author and chief performer, Foote, which Garrick
could not at once overcome, or whether the
temptation to replenish the theatre coffers was
too strong for him, the obnoxious comedy con-
tinued to be played for some time longer,
though it was eventually abandoned and never
resumed.

Lady Huntingdon's second interview, while
doubtless it also was conducted with delicacy and
tact, bore on the face of it such an air of invidious
intolerance and interference that only the strongest
sense of duty could have induced a woman of the
Countess's good judgment and fine breeding to
undertake the thankless task. In association
with her Connexion she had been accustomed to
rule on account of her rank, ability, and experience,
and she had naturally come to look upon herself
as a privileged adviser and arbiter. In addition
she was deeply attached to the Church of England

116

A WORLDLY PRIMATE

from which she, Uke Wesley and Whitefield, was
finally compelled to secede.

The Archbishop of Canterbury at this time was
Archbishop Cornwallis, brother of Earl Cornwallis.
The Archbishop and his wife were a scandal, not
only to the Methodists, but to all sober-minded,
right-thinking people of whatever sect, because of
their unseemly worldly dissipation and extrava-
gance, their great routs and receptions held at
their Palace on Sundays as well as on week-days.

It is hardly necessary to say that the Arch-
bishop's household and Lady Huntingdon's were
not in the same circle, so that she was not person-
ally acquainted with the Cornwallises, but the
two families had relations in common, who could
supply her with introductions.

It is a sign of the extent to which the scandal
had gone that one of these connections by
marriage not only supported her ladyship, and
attended her to the Palace in what was intended to
be an earnest private protest, but joined his
remonstrances to hers against what was becoming
a reproach to the Church and a source of malicious
triumph to unbelievers.

This fearless gentleman was the Marquis of
Townshend, son of Lady Huntingdon's early
friend. Lady Townshend, and brother of Charles
Townshend, the greatest wit of his generation.

117

9— (2^00)

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

The Archbishop received his visitors with great
hauteur and impatience, and Mrs. Cornwallis was
not less frigid and scornful.

There need have been no great difficulty in
broaching the subject ; there was sufficient room
for introducing it in referring to the grievous vices
of gambling and debauchery, senseless extrava-
gance and folly of every kind, then prevalent in
the upper classes of society. The deduction
followed that those who were the Lord's servants
were bound to show an example of godly living
in all simplicity, purity and righteous self-denial,
so that they might have the means to relieve the
poor and needy, and to help in all good works.
It would not have been much harder to add the
hint that gossip, which was always busy with
mischief, had been very busy making unpleasant
remarks on the number and nature of the Arch-
bishop's and Mrs. Cornwallis's entertainments,
and on the times and seasons when they had taken
place. The host and hostess on these occasions
had been only too lavishly hospitable, and their
friends had believed that they might do the couple
a service by reporting the hostile talk which was
flying about in all quarters.

But the Archbishop declined to listen to the
voice of the charmer, let him charm ever so
wisely. It would have been useless for Lady

118

LAMBETH HOUSE GAIETIES

Huntingdon to beg him to forgive what might seem
the presumption of a poor fooHsh woman who was
very sensible of her own miserable errors and sins,
but whose whole heart was keenly ahve to the
honour of her Master and the credit of the Church
of England.

It would have been sheer folly on Lady Hun-
tingdon's part for her to attempt to plead, with
any hope of success, that though there might be
something to be said (at the same time she appre-
hended there was but little) for balls, racecourses,
card parties, and suppers lasting far into the small
hours, still in the Archbishop's Palace and on the
Lord's Day, as well as on the six lawful days, was
there not a stringent necessity to consider the evil
consequences of the example thus set before the
people ?

His Grace would take no lesson on his house-
keeping from a set of ranters and canters, and said
as much.

Very Ukely there were other and more cruel
home thrusts dealt by the Archbishop and Mrs.
CornwaUis — recommendations for Lady Hunting-
don to let charity begin at home, with insinuations
that it was much needed there, drawn from the
notorious infideUty and want of principle of her
son, the Earl.

The interview ended, Mrs. CornwaUis carried the

119

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

story round to the dissipated set whose friendship
she affected, and wherever she told her tale, she
loaded Lady Huntingdon with ridicule and abuse
for taking upon herself the insolent performance
of preaching to the Archbishop in his own Palace.

In self-defence, and in something like despair at
her failure, the Countess sought to obtain another
interview with the Archbishop, to no purpose.
Then her courage rose still higher, and she was
induced to carry her protest into still more august
regions. She craved an audience from King
George himself, and was granted it without delay.

She was accompanied on her mission by the
Earl of Dartmouth, a nobleman who held Lady
Huntingdon's views and had agreed, in case of her
death, which was often seriously threatened, of
accepting the responsibility and assuming the
control of her Connexion. The Duchess of
Ancaster was also with her — the Duchess who,
in the days of the youth of both, had been with
Lady Huntingdon in the party of ladies of rank
and fashion whom Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
had caricatured in what she described as the
storming of the ** strangers' gallery " in the House
of Lords.

Attention has been already called to the signifi-
cant fact of Lady Huntingdon's unswerving fidelity
to her early friends, whether they agreed with her

120

THE COUNTESS NO MERE FANATIC

or widely differed from her, in her strongly ex-
pressed principles. So far from repudiating the
old friends, whether Bolingbroke or Chesterfield, or
this Duchess or that Countess, she stood by them
and they stood by her to the end. She compelled
their respect, and they could not renounce their
liking for one who was not only full of generosity
and goodwill, but was herself so loyal to old ties.

It appears as if this light on Lady Huntingdon's
character should be more taken into account by
those who will look upon her, after Southey's
fashion, as a fanatic and enthusiast, simply swept
away by a religious current, incapable of realising
any other obligations, and forgetting or regarding
with indifference whatever crossed the ruHng
passion. Surely her contemporaries — other than
those who existed only to make a mock of all that
was true, honest, lovely and of good report — must
have known the woman better than later-day
critics can compass.

The sympathy and encouragement given by
Lady Huntingdon's companions were also proofs
of the justice of her cause, with the degree to which
the CornwalHses had outraged pubUc opinion in
the correct perceptions of all the more serious and
decorous in their class.

The days were long past the time when the young
King and Queen had dehghted in making Kew

121

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

their quiet country home, where they practised
all the domestic virtues and indulged theii simple,
homely tastes. The Royal couple were a middle-
aged Darby and Joan, already suffering a foretaste
of the many sore troubles and heavy cares which
were to be their portion in later life. Not the
least of them were occasioned by the wildness and
undutifulness of the grown-up sons who had formed
part of the great troop of merry boys and girls,
princes and princesses, then the pride and delight
of the parents' hearts.

The pair were still upright and true to their
worthy antecedents, amidst whatever political
mistakes and social blunders, still honestly seek-
ing to do their best in the exalted station to which
they had been called, still the friends of goodness
wherever they realised it.

The King and Queen received Lady Huntingdon
in one of the simply furnished Kew drawing-rooms,
about which he moved continually, a comely,
stout elderly gentleman in his snuff-brown coat
with the blue ribbon of the noblest Enghsh order
of chivalry across his breast.

The little woman with the large mouth, the
beautiful hands, and the rich, sober dress, sat very
upright in the corner of her settee, but her manner
we are told was graciousness itself.

She could not have dreamt that the time would

122

A CHARACTER MISUNDERSTOOD

come when her very virtues would be used against
her, because of the shadows which wait on the
lustre of such virtues — the intolerance of weakness,
folly and vice, which is apt to accompany staunch
courage and uprightness — the rigidity which will
attend on a rooted love of order, propriety and
discipUne — the chnging to the privileges, yes, and
it may be to the perquisites, of supreme rank,
simply as a matter of right which cannot be
abandoned without a loss of dignity, not less than
of power, in her who abandons them, and that
not without injury to her successors.

And so, because a generation has arisen in which
there are volatile, rebeUious spirits to whom
careless disorder, recklessness and self-indulgence
present infinitely more attractions than do their
opposites — wise prudence, noble self-denial, and
loyal submission to authority — " good Queen
Charlotte's " memory is undervalued, nay,
assailed. Her sterUng quahties, her devotion to
her husband and children, her unremitting efforts
to preserve a pure Court in a dissolute age, her
thoughtful, hberal charities, her hospital, her
orphanage for young gentlewomen, founded and
maintained out of her private purse — the lightest
purse of any of the later queen consorts, the most
freely opened for the benefit of the needy in what-
ever class of hfe they might be found — are all

123

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

forgotten. Who could have imagined that " good
Queen Charlotte's " portrait would be painted and
held up to the readers of the twentieth century as
that of the hard, grasping, inscrutable " sphinx of
Mecklenburg Strelitz ?

The interview was a lengthened one, lasting till
refreshments were pressed on the visitors, for their
Majesties had heard much of Lady Huntingdon's
good works, and had desired to see her.

The King, in his rambling way, referred to what
he had been told of the eloquence of her preachers
of whom his bishops were jealous. He chuckled
over an anecdote of one of his bishops, who had
complained to His Majesty of the disturbances
caused by some of Lady Huntingdon's students
and pastors. The Royal reply had contained the
substance of the advice given by George H
when the same complaint had been urged against
Whitefield and his companions. The old King
had suggested as a sovereign remedy for gagging
the offenders, " Make bishops of 'em ! Make
bishops of 'em! "

The King listened attentively to Lady Hunting-
don's tale of the matter and manner of her inter-
view with the Archbishop. His Majesty declared
that her feelings and the expression of them were
highly creditable to her. He had heard something
of the Archbishop's proceedings, and now that he

124

THE KING INTERVENES

was certain of them and of his most ungracious
conduct towards her Ladyship, after her trouble
in remonstrating with them, he should interpose
his authority and see what that would do towards
reforming those indecent practices.

So King George, in all good faith, wrote his
admonitory letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury :

" My good Lord Prelate, — I would not delay
giving you a notification of the great concern with
which my breast was affected at receiving authentic
information that routs have made their way into
your Palace. At the same time, I must signify
to you my sentiments on the subject, which hold
these levities and vain dissipations as utterly
inexpedient, if not unlawful, to pass in a residence
for many centuries devoted to divine studies,
rehgious retirement, and the extensive exercise of
charity and benevolence ; I add in a place where
so many of your predecessors have led their lives
in such sanctity as has thrown lustre on the pure
rehgion they professed to adorn.

" From the dissatisfaction with which you must
perceive I behold these improprieties — not to
speak in harsher terms — and on still more pious
principles, I trust you will suppress them imme-
diately ; so that I may not have occasion to show
any further marks of my displeasure, or to inter-
pose in a different manner. May God take your
Grace into His Almighty protection.
*' I remain, my Lord Primate,

"Your gracious friend,

"G.R."

125

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

The Royal letter ended the scandal, with what
indignation on the part of the recipient is not
reported.

From that date King George and Queen
Charlotte never failed to speak of Lady Hunting-
don with the warmest praise. They dismissed as
too absurd to notice the idle malice which called
her as mad as her cousin, Earl Ferrers. When
someone said at Court that she took too much
upon her and usurped the office of a bishop, the
King was quick to reply that he wished he had
more bishops like her.

Had the incident of the appeal to the King
against the worldly frivolity of the Archbishop
and his belongings occurred in the twentieth
instead of at the close of the eighteenth century,
one is tempted to think there would have been
much talk of precedents and of constitutional and
unconstitutional methods, but under the more
primitive regime the honest old King thought only
of the right and the wrong of the affair, and acted
as his conscience told him.

126

CHAPTER VIII

Death of Lord Henry Hastings at the Age of Eighteen — Lady Hunting-
don's Distress — The Eagerness with which she Listened to the
Suggestion oflFered by the late Earl's Godson — The Sickening of
Lady Huntingdon's Younger and Home Daughter, with her Happy
Prospects of Marriage to her Cousin — The Future Heir to the
Huntingdon Earldom — The Pathos of the Mother's Lamentation,
and of her Reminiscences of her Daughter's Peaceful Death-bed —
Berridge's Rousing Letter Rebuking the Countess's Excessive
Grief.

Within the year before Lord Ferrers' death, a sad
year for Lady Huntingdon, she was summoned in
the month of September, 1759, to Brighton to
watch by the death-bed of her younger son Henry,
a lad of eighteen. While he does not seem to have
had the intellectual promise and culture of his
brother, Earl Francis, he was like him in his
rejection of his mother's rehgion. The unmistak-
able inference to be drawn from the tone of the
letters addressed to her on his death is that, young
as he was, he had already made himself conspicuous
for atheistical opinions, and it would seem for the
excuses so commonly indulged in at the period.

As an indication of how the mother's heart was
wrung by the hostihty of her sons, ahke to
Christianity and to virtue, she is said in the midst
of her strict Calvinism to have derived comfort
from the milder views of a divine, a godson of her
late husband's and a protige of the Hastings
family. He held that " possibly the state of future

127

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

punishment might be only a process of severe
disciphne, and that the greatest sinners might
ultimately find mercy." We are told " these
words sank deep into her heart."

An end had come with the death of Miss Hotham
to the intimacy which had subsisted for a time
between her brother, Sir Charles Hotham, and
Lord Huntingdon, from which the Earl's friends,
and surely his mother most of all, had hoped much.
Humanly speaking, there seemed little Hkelihood
of his views and habits undergoing a change.

Lady Moira, Lady Huntingdon's elder daughter,
with her own circle and her own family, was settled
in Ireland, where she resided for the last fifty
years of her life. But the Countess had one more
remaining child, her younger and her home
daughter, for whom she does not seem to have
sought a place at Court. This was the second
Sehna, Miss Hotham's friend, good, kind and dear,
her mother's constant companion and sympathetic
helper in all her work, who was now called away,
of whom Lady Huntingdon wrote in the anguish
which her friend Mr. Berridge sought to assuage
by his frank rebuke : " My dearest, most alto-
gether lovely child and daughter . . . the desire
of my eyes, and continual pleasure of my heart."

Lady Selina Hastings was twenty-six years of
age, with a happy future, to all appearance, in store

128

LADY SELINA HASTINGS' DEATH

for her. She was engaged in marriage, with the
consent of her brother, the head of the house, and
the entire approval of her mother, to her cousin,
Colonel George Hastings, two years her senior.
He had been brought up along with his elder
brother Theophilus, and her elder brother Francis,
under her father's care at Donnington Park, so that
she must have known him well from her childhood.

As Francis Earl of Huntingdon was not hkely
to marry, as poor young Henry was dead, and as
the intended bridegroom's elder brother, the Rev.
Theophilus Hastings, was childless, the great
probability was that Colonel Hastings would
succeed to the Earldom of Huntingdon and that
Lady Selina would live to be Countess — another
Sehna Countess of Huntingdon, a worthy successor
of her mother. But hers was a higher promotion.

Between three and four years after her brother
Henry's death, towards the close of April, 1763,
Lady Selina was seized with one of the fevers
which were so common and so deadly in that
generation. It raged for seventeen days till her
death on the twelfth of May.

The bereft mother, who had been buoyed up
during her daughter's illness by the hopes which
the doctors gave her of Lady Selina' s recovery, was
left in an empty house. But here she had the
consolations which she most prized. Lady Selina

129

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

was content to die when God willed. She had
even a premonition of the end, for when she went
to bed she was heard to say that she would never
rise from it more, and that she did not begin then
to think of death.

The communion between mother and daughter
during the last days was very near in its pathos.

" At one time," writes Lady Huntingdon, " she
called me and said, " My dearest mother, come and
lie down by me and let my heart be laid close to
yours, and then I shall get rest."

The dying girl told those around her that she
saw two angels beckoning her, and she must go,
but she could not get up the ladder.

" The day before her death," wrote her mother
again, " I came to her and asked if she knew me.
She answered, * My dearest mother.'

** I asked if her heart was happy. She repHed,
* I now well understand you,' and raising her head
from the pillow, added her testimony (like her
dear friends the Hothams), ' I am happy, very
happy,' and then put out her lips to kiss me."

If anyone had asked Lady Huntingdon whether
the wrench of parting on earth from her dearest
child — sore as it must have been — was to be
compared with the grief of the aUenation of her
sons, one cannot doubt what her answer would
have been.

130

CHAPTER IX

A Venerable Saint — Countess Moira the Sole Survivor of Lady Hunting-
don's Seven Children — The End of Francis Earl of Huntingdon —
Old Friends Gone Before — Methodism Vindicated — Lady Anne
Erskine Playing a Daughter's Part — Lady Huntingdon's Zeal to
the very End — Her Work Finished — Death on the 17th of June
117 Years Ago — Buried at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire —
Her Great-Great-Grandson an Ardent Roman Catholic, the late
Marquis of Bute.

Lady Huntingdon had reached the last stage of
human existence, the fourscore years on which
the sentence has gone forth, that they are but
labour and sorrow, so soon are they over and gone.

Of the Countess's seven children, only one
survived, Lady Moira. From the time of her
brother's death she was Baroness Hastings, a
great lady of quality, with her own wide circle,
her imperative family interests, and the numerous
claims on her time and attention. She herself
was up in years, while her husband, her mother's
contemporary, was an aged man. They had lived
for upwards of half-a-century in Ireland, which
was not then a next-door neighbour as it is to-day.
Mother and daughter were practically cut off from
personal intercourse.

Lady Huntingdon's firstborn son, Francis Earl
of Huntingdon, once the centre of so much hope
and promise, was gone, the hope blasted, the
promise unfulfilled. He died in 1789, two years

131

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

before his mother, seemingly without renouncing
either his hostiUty to her religion or his well-bred
vices.

At a comparatively early age he had retired
from Court, piqued by some fancied slight, and
renounced further Royal favour. In spite of
what had been reckoned his fine parts and accom-
plishments, he ended his days in obscurity. With
some of his father's disinclination for politics, he
had none of what Bolingbroke eulogised as the
elder Lord Huntingdon's patriotism in the esti-
mable manner in which he performed every duty
of a great nobleman, husband and father. The
verdict pronounced on the son — the graceful
scholar, traveller and man of the world, whose
" elegance " was such that it could not be accorded
an English origin — was, alas ! weighed in the
balance and found wanting in all solid virtues.

The Evangelical leaders whom Lady Huntingdon
followed so eagerly and faithfully had nearly all
crossed the bar before her. Whitefield had long
slept his last sleep beyond the Atlantic, in the land
dear to him, where he had been privileged to work
mighty marvels of grace. He died — as he had
lived — in harness, travelling and preaching to the
last day of his hfe.

Of the Wesleys, Charles, the younger, the sweet
singer of Methodism, whose happy marriage the

132

METHODISM SECURE

redoubtable Berridge had quoted as spoiling him
for the commission he held, was dead in 1788,
working steadfastly to the end. The elder brother,
John, whose natural strength had remained long
unabated, who had hardly known the meaning of
infirmity, he, too, passed within the veil in 1791.
Lady Glenorchy had gone to her rest in 1786.
Five years after her, and four months later than
John Wesley, Lady Huntingdon departed by the
same well-trodden road.

Methodism had triumphed over its enemies and
was at last allowed to run its course unmolested,
save by the mockery of the unthinking and the
prejudiced. It had vindicated its existence, not
only by the founding, disciphning, and maintaining
of the great rehgious bodies which rose from it,
but also by leaving the Church of England, which
had repudiated it, and in doing so rejected the
noblest of her sons, because of their Methodist
doctrines, leavened with the very tenets for which
the reformers had struggled and suffered.

Lady Huntingdon's " Connexion " continued to
flourish, while her rule over it and interest in it
only ceased with her last breath.

The great human comfort and stay of the
Countess in her later years was the friendship,
always growing closer and warmer, which had
existed for a long period with a kindred spirit,

133

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

though much her junior in age, Lady Anne
Erskine.

Lady Anne had removed to England, settled
there permanently, and ended by sharing Lady
Huntingdon's home and her every pursuit, watch-
ing over her declining years as an attached
daughter might have watched. So entire was
Lady Huntingdon's trust in the wisdom and
goodness of her friend, who was still in middle life,
that she appointed her the chief trustee who was
to preside over the affairs of the Connexion after
Lady Huntingdon's death. The elder woman's
confidence was justified, as it had been in so many
instances. Lady Anne Erskine, in spite of deli-
cate health, discharged the onerous obligation of
the position with devotion and discretion, till
her own death, thirty years after that of Lady
Huntingdon.

In Lady Huntingdon's eighty-fourth year, when
she was so weakened by illness as to be bedridden,
the indomitable Christian woman was full of a
project for sending the Gospel to Otaheite. She
was no less keenly anxious about the supply of
service in one of her chapels. Spa Fields, next door
to the house in which she was dwelling.

Full of faith and full of peace, her only lamenta-
tion was for the fatigue she was occasioning Lady
Anne and another faithful friend who was staying

134

ALLEGORICAL P(M<1"KAIT OF LADV H L' NTINGDON

A DYING MESSAGE

by her day and night. " I fear I shall be the death
of you both ; it will be but a few days more," she
said in regretful apology. " I long to be at home.
Oh ! I long to be at home," she often cried. Her
final message to the world in which she had
laboured untiringly was, " My work is done ; I
have nothing to do but to go to my Father."

Lady Huntingdon died on the 17th of June,
1791, and was buried in the family vault at
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire.

Among the Countess of Huntingdon's lineal
descendants through her great grand-daughter, a
namesake, another Lady Selina Hastings, her
great - great - grandson was the late Marquis of
Bute, not unlike her in singleness of heart and
absorption in his faith, though his energies were
given to another branch of the Christian Church.

It is worth while to study how the same principle
acted with equal effect and with singular likeness
in detail on two women totally different in char-
acter, the one in England, the other in Scotland —
countries then in broad contrast.

Lady Huntingdon, who exerted so powerful and
transforming an influence over Lady Glenorchy,
was a woman of strong intellect, in circumstances
and among companions that developed it to its
full extent. She was a woman of a fearless and
independent mind, judging for herself, able to

13S

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

stand alone when necessary — a woman born to
rule — and in her passionate regard for the honour
of her Master and the welfare of her neighbour,
was bound to act for her fellow-creatures, for the
ignorant, the indifferent, and the erring. She is
the same in all her doings, with the lowest as with
the highest, from the servants and workpeople
whom she must instruct, to the Archbishop with
whom she remonstrates, and the King to whom
she appeals.

Lady Glenorchy was spirituelle, in the French
sense of the word. She had the winning gifts of
a gracious personality, intelligence, and a bright
vivacity which were quite compatible with being
in dead earnest where her beliefs and feelings were
concerned. She was constitutionally timid, full
of unaffected self-depreciation, with no confidence
in herself, but prone to rely without question on
those she loved and trusted. Hers was a sweet
and lovable nature.

Lady Huntingdon, a brave, clear-headed,
strenuously good woman, had the corresponding
faults of such a character — unconscious self-
assertion, and scant tolerance of the weakness of
others.

Lady Glenorchy had the failings of her dis-
position, she was not fickle — indeed hers was a
very constant temper, and her feet were on a

136

ECCLESIASTICISM

rock, — but she was inclined to despondency,
austerity, and occasional impetuous revolts in
opposition to her habitual meekness.

It was the national churches with which the
couple had to do. In the English Church the
Bishops were fighting to maintain their temporal
dignity, and to stem the tide of Methodist innova-
tion. Their dignity was defied, and the tide was
unchecked, and penetrated in all directions.

In the democratic Scotch Church, which
governed itself, where brothers ruled brothers, the
repubhcan spiritual dignity of the ministers with
the certainty of their divine commission was
unassailed and seemed unassailable, and in spite
of the cold blast of Moderatism the ministers'
power over the members of their congregations was
undiminished. Contrast the letters which Lady
Huntingdon writes to the clergy of her Connexion,
issuing her wise commands, and the deferential
replies given by the recipients, with the corre-
spondence between Lady Glenorchy and her
minister, Mr. Robert Walker, in which she humbly
asks his advice and opinion, and the directions he
gives her with fatherly tenderness. Note also the
extremely independent and rather harsh treatment
she meets with in her presbytery and synod.

The English Churchman who approached nearest
to the Scotch ministers in the tone adopted to their

137

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

people were John Wesley in his unapproachable
superiority, his dogmatism and his benevolence,
Berridge in his homely heartiness and drollery,
and Rowland Hill in his irrepressible humour and
that abounding concern for the bodies as well as
the souls of his followers, which caused him to
travel on his missions provided with large supplies
of lymph, so that he personally vaccinated many
thousands of patients, emphasizing the great
specific of the day against the scourge of his time.
The moral of the difference between the two
women and between the two churches a Christian
advocate would explain by saying that all are the
creatures of the Almighty Ruler of the Universe,
and that it is the will of Him who, while essential
in unity, is infinite in operation, to take His saints
of all kinds, and from all quarters, to work His
will.

138

CHAPTER X

Lady Glenorchy the Immediate Follower of Lady Huntingdon —
Willielma Maxwell — The Future Lady Glenorchy Born, in 1741,
the Posthumous Child of a Cadet of the Maxwells of Nithsdale —
Maxwell of Preston's Co-heiresses — his two Baby Girls Mary and
Willielma — Second Marriage of their Mother, when the Daughters
were Fourteen and Thirteen Years of Age, to the Scotch Judge,
Lord Alva — Character of Lady Alva — Edinburgh Society of the
Time — Lady Alva's Ambition for her Daughters — The Maxwell
Sis ers' Great Marriages, the Elder to the Earl of Sutherland, the
Younger to Viscount Glenorchy, Son and Heir of the Earl of
Breadalbane — The Characters of Lord Sutherland and Lord
Glenorchy — The Cloud that Hung from the First over Lady
Glenorchy 's Married Life.

Of all Lady Huntingdon's circle, Lady Glenorchy
adopted her friend's example most nearly and was,
in fact, her disciple. The two ladies were divided
in age, they were largely separated by what was
distance in their day, they were even unUke in
mental scope and natural disposition. The re-
semblance between them lay in their rank, their
worldly circumstances, and in the single-minded
devotion with which they consecrated all to their
Master' ss ervice and to the good of their fellow-
creatures. The one became the prototype of the
other. The story of Lady Huntingdon is hardly
complete without the story of Lady Glenorchy.

Lady Huntingdon's circle created a parallel
circle. Lady Huntingdon's friends and contem-
poraries were very much the originals of Lady
Glenorchy' s friends and contemporaries, sometimes

139

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

the circles blended and became one. Many of the
members of the two sets were well known to each
other, while to Lady Huntingdon the distinction
was due of being the foundress of the movement.

Lady Glenorchy began in Scotland to do what
Lady Huntingdon had done in England, but there
was not a like need for the work in Scotland.
From Reformation times the Scotch had been
taught in their parish schools not less than from
their Presbyterian pulpits. If the people (in the
Lowlands especially) were passing through an era
of moderatism cooling down into indifferentism,
there was still a wide gulf between such a decHne
and the dense ignorance and fierce turbulence
which prevailed among the masses in the remoter
districts of the sister country.

The difficulty of having been forced into
contention with an established church, which was
as much the church of the people as it was the
church of the upper classes, turned Lady
Glenorchy's energies in another direction, and
led her to tread still more closely in the footsteps
of her old friend and model, bestowing on England
the benefits — more wanted there — which she had
destined for Scotland. Thus her later good deeds
were almost altogether after the fashion of those
of Lady Huntingdon.
-In September, 1741, four years before the

140

THE PRESTON HOUSEHOLD

second Jacobite rebellion, Willielma Maxwell,
the posthumous daughter of William Maxwell, in
Kirkcudbrightshire, was born at her late father's
seat of Preston.

William Maxwell seems to have married late in
life, as he had practised the profession of medicine
and accumulated a large fortune when he died —
four years after his marriage. His wife, Elizabeth
Hairstanes, of Craig, was the daughter of a
neighbouring Kirkcudbrightshire laird.

Maxwell of Preston is said to have belonged
to a branch of the Nithsdale family. If he shared
their political opinions and their adherence to the
house of Stuart, his death four years before the
rebellion of the '45 saved him and his family from
ruin. Lord Nithsdale, the head of the house, like
another south country peer. Lord Kenmure, the
representative of the Lowland Gordons, had
played his part in the previous rebeUion. The
romantic story of Nithsdale's escape from the
Tower of London by his faithful wife's ingenuity
and courage is well known, and must have been
a household word with his cousins at Preston.

The Preston household consisted of the widow
of the laird, a woman still in her first youth, and
two baby girls, Mary and WiUielma, with only a
year between them in age, the co-heiresses of their
late father's fortune.

141

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Thirteen years after her husband's death, Mrs.
Maxwell married again Charles Erskine, of Tine-
wold and Alva, a Judge on the Scotch Bench, with
the title of Lord Alva, which enabled his wife by
the courtesy of the time to be called Lady Alva.

It was a privilege which Lady Alva was Hkely
to value, for her reputation was that of an ambi-
tious, worldly-minded woman. Lord Alva was
appointed Lord Justice Clerk, which placed him
at the head of the legal circles in Edinburgh.
Under his roof in the Scotch capital his young
step-daughters, to whom he was kind and fatherly,
enjoyed exceptional educational and social
advantages.

It was the fairly intellectual generation of Alan
Ramsay and David Hume. The star of Robert
Burns was rising above the horizon. Alison,
Cockburn and the Duchess of Gordon were leaders
in the society which included the musical Earl of
Kelly and many more of the Scotch nobility.
They still clung to their old capital, though their
palace was vacant of a king, and the Parliament
House had become the promenade of sprightly,
audacious young advocates.

It was said that from her daughters' childhood
their mother. Lady Alva, had made up her mind
that they should make the great marriages to
which, in her estimation, their birth, their fortunes,

142

YOUNG LADIES' EDUCATION

and their personal and mental attractions entitled
them. They seem to have been pretty and
pleasing girls, well versed in the not too profound
but eminently agreeable accomphshments of their
day.

Such accomplishments enabled them to play
" lessons " on the spinet, to sing with sweet,
fresh voices, which indulged in not a few beguiling
shakes and twirls, Alan Ramsay's newest song and
the Italian ditties of their music-master. The
young ladies' useful smattering of modern lan-
guages, French and ItaUan, fitted them to pro-
nounce and express the language and sentiments
of such songs with propriety and feeling.

The list of educational acquirements was com-
pleted by the power of doing a little stiff pencil
drawing and crude water-colour painting, in addi-
tion to the embroidery so essential for the embel-
lishment of ruffles, caps and aprons, with the carpet
woolwork to cover chairs and footstools when
the eyes were growing dim, to fill up the odds and
ends of time, and to soothe and entertain the not
too exacting brains.

Lady Alva had her wish. Her two daughters
married in the same year when Mary was in her
twenty-first and WiUielma in her twentieth year.
The two young men whom they married might be
reckoned the first matches in Scotland.

143

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Mary was wedded to the twentieth Earl of
Sutherland, the head of a great clan, the premier
earl of Scotland, and the possessor of many a mile
of deer forest and sheep pasture, as well as of the
noble ancestral home of Dunrobin.

Wilhelma became the wife of John Viscount
Glenorchy, the only son and heir of the third Earl
of Breadalbane, the owner of the Campbells' broad
lands in Perthshire and the master of Taymouth,
one of the most beautifully situated and stately
houses in Scotland, on the shores of its lovely loch,
surmounted by its wild mountains, the monarchs
of all they survey.

Truly Lady Alva was successful. Two other
establishments like those of Dunrobin and Tay-
mouth were hardly to be found in Scotland. And
for her daughters to be their mistresses might have
satisfied the pride of the most match-making
mother between John o' Groats and the Cheviots.

Without doubt there were qualifications to the
perfection of the alliances — perhaps scarcely so in
the case of the Earl of Sutherland, who seems to
have been a young nobleman of much promise
and many winning qualities, of whom it could not
have been foreseen that his sun would go down
in darkness at noon.

But of Lord Glenorchy, whose twenty-three
years did not much surpass his bride's nineteen

144

LADY GLENORCHY'S TRIALS

summers, it is broadly stated that his quahties
were the reverse of Lord Sutherland's, and that
his character could not have been known to Lady
Alva — the moving spirit in the matter, or even
she would not have been so blinded by his rank
and wealth as to have conspired to shut the
eyes of her young daughter to all save the glamour
of her promotion.

Alas ! poor young Willielma ! gentle and sensi-
tive, who never knew a father's protecting care,
with a mother (of whom the daughter seems to
have always stood greatly in awe), hard and irre-
sponsive, while the girl was soon to part from her
young sister, her only other near relation with
whom she had hitherto shared every pleasure and
trouble of her life.

From the beginning of Lady Glenorchy's married
life her biographer* refers to her heavy and continu-
ous domestic trials, although he does not once
mention their nature, leaving the inferences to be
drawn from the simple declaration of Lord
Glenorchy's unworthiness.

Readers of a future generation are left to
conjecture if the excessive drinking and gambling
with the open profligacy of the time had to do
with the rarely-lifted cloud which rested on all
the years of Lady Glenorchy's married Ufe. One

* T. S. Jones.
145

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

is tempted to the conclusion from the fact that
the couple, though they had other residences
assigned to them, lived for the most part with the
husband's father, a powerful, masterful Scotch
nobleman — because his mere presence might serve
as a shield to his daughter-in-law from the
consequences of his son's vices.

146

CHAPTER XI

Lord Glenorchy's Half-sister — Death of his Mother in the Year of her
Son's Marriage — Lord Breadalbane's Accompanying his Son and
Daughter-in-law for the Grand Tour — Ca led Back from Nice by the
Death of his Sister — The Young Couple's Unsatisfactory tete-d-tHe
for the Remainder of their Two Years' Absence — A Separation
between the Pair never dreamt of — Former Rarity of Divorces
or Separate Establishments — Uncompromising Requirement of the
Fulfilment of Duty in Difficult Circumstances — Lord and Lady
Glenorchy's Return to England and Stay at his own House of
Sugnall — Near Neighbourhood of Hawkstone the Home of Sir
Rowland Hill and his Family — Intimacy of Lady Glenorchy with
Miss Hill.

Lord Glenorchy was not his father's only child.
He had an elder half-sister, Lady Jemima Campbell,
who, in right of her mother, one of the daughters
and co-heiresses of Henry Duke of Kent, and in
succession to an infant brother, whose death
followed closely on that of his mother, succeeded
to the titles of Baroness Lucas of Crudwell and
Marchioness de Grey. When a middle-aged
woman she married the Earl of Hardwick.

Lord Glenorchy's mother, the Earl of Breadal-
bane's second wife, died at Bath in 1762, the year
of her son's marriage, when Lord Breadalbane
deliberately put the management and control of
what were called " his magnificent apartments in
Holyrood," which constituted his Edinburgh
residence, and his castle of Taymouth, where the
household consisted on occasions of as many as
forty servants, under Lord and Lady Glenorchy,

147

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

the Earl dwelling usually under their roof. Even
when he occupied his house in London, where he
was in the habit of staying for the winter, he had
Lady Glenorchy with him presiding as the lady
of the house.

Lord Glenorchy had a house of his own in
England, the old manor house of Great Sugnall in
Staffordshire, which came to him through his
mother.

On Lady Breadalbane's death at Bath, the Earl,
his son and daughter-in-law went abroad travelling
en famille en grand seigneur.

But after they had made some stay in France
and had reached Nice, Lord Breadalbane was
called home by the death of a sister, and the young
couple proceeded by themselves to Rome, remain-
ing abroad for the two years usually devoted to
the Grand Tour. This appears to have been the
longest time Lord and Lady Glenorchy passed
tete-a-tete away from other friends and from the
crowd of company around the Earl, especially when
he kept open house at Tay mouth.

The season of comparative solitude may have
been the period of disillusion, if, indeed, any
illusion had ever existed on the part of the
wife, as to the life she and her husband would
lead together. For, in addition to poor Lord
Glenorchy's graver failings, he is said to have had

148

LADY GLENORCHY'S APPEARANCE

one of those peculiarly trying and unpleasant
tempers in which contradiction for contradiction's
sake was prominent, with the wrangling so foreign
and so wearing and detestable to an originally
pliant and sympathetic character, drawn into
what it hates by main force, as it were. Another
feature of such a temper was a coarse-natured
satisfaction in sheer unmitigated teasing which,
like the baiting of the lower animals, becomes in
harsh reckless hands positive cruelty to more
highly-strung, susceptible natures.

One of the trophies of foreign travel brought
back from that by no means serene and sunshiny
period was a portrait — at one time supposed to
have been the only portrait of herself in which
Lady Glenorchy indulged, so little did she care
latterly for these personal vanities. The picture
had been painted in Italy, and she is repre-
sented as playing on a lute. Whoever the artist
may have been, it was not considered to possess
any great resemblance to its subject. That
she never lost altogether her youthful come-
hness is attested by her chaplain's sedate reference
to her " agreeable person " as one of the womanly
attractions which survived in her to the last.

Lady Glenorchy herself tells later that the relief
which she sought on her return to England was
in the reaHsation of the compensations to her lot

149

11— <»30o)

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

afforded by its dignity and splendour, and in
courting forgetfulness by plunging afresh into the
whirlpool of dissipation in which she declared,
before long, the first twenty years of her life were
spent.

But her words must be taken with reservation,
prompted as they were by the self-abasement and
the austerity of the religious views of her genera-
tion, which she soon adopted and held with a
tenacity that was life-long.

It is worthy of remark that neither then nor at
any other time, when the uncongeniality of her
partner in life was most oppressive and exaspera-
ting, threatening seriously to impede if not to
destroy the spiritual progress on which she set
such store, was there ever the smallest hint
dropped of a purposed separation between the
wedded pair.

The divorces, different establishments, and
separate maintenances — the results of infidelity to
marriage vows, incompatibility of temper and sheer
fickleness and restlessness — which are so numerous
in the present day, were by comparison rarely
heard of a century- and- a- half ago. With the
serious-minded and devout they were only resorted
to when the extremity of Ucense and violence
compelled the step.

- What rendered so much of the religion of the

150

A FINE SENSE OF DUTY

time fine and noble in its sincerity, in spite of the
mysticism and the morbidness which sometimes
distinguished it, was the uncompromising recogni-
tion and the faithful fulfilment of duty in the most
difficult circumstances. It was of the very essence
of Lady Glenorchy's goodness that she should be
true to her duty as a wife and a daughter-in-law
where it was concerned with the husband who was
so little deserving of her regard, and the great
man, the father-in-law who, while he supported
her rights, had no sympathy with her convictions,
and even treated them with as scornful an intoler-
ance as was consistent with the respect and
consideration he felt bound to show his son's wife.

These professing Christians of the eighteenth
century, who were in dead earnest in their pro-
fession, instead of flying from domestic crosses and
family trials and indignantly repudiating them^
accepted them with more or less meekness, well-
nigh welcomed them, as the saints of the Roman
Cathohc Church welcomed their hair shirts and
scourges, treating them as tests of their sincerity,
as God's disciples to bring His children nearer
to Himself.

When Lord and Lady Glenorchy came back
from the Continent in 1795 — she was twenty-
three and he was twenty-six years of age — they
stayed for a little time at his Enghsh seat of Great

151

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Sugnall, which happened to be in the near neigh-
bourhood of Hawkestone, the well-known family
mansion of Sir Rowland Hill and the rallying
ground of the younger members of the Hill family
and those who were like-minded, and took a
marked side in the religious controversy of the
day. And hereby hangs a tale which formed the
turning point of Lady Glenorchy's life.

The two families became acquainted, and an
intimacy sprang up between Lady Glenorchy and
the eldest Miss Hill, her ladyship's contemporary,
soon to be her close, confidential friend.

In what Lady Glenorchy esteemed as her
unregenerate days, she had never been entirely
without serious moments and passing desires to
lead a better, more useful, and more God-fearing
life.

Coming in contact with the young Hills at a crisis
in her history, when disenchanted with her pros-
pects and satiated with the worldly pomp and
grandeur which had been coveted for her, of which
she had obtained no small measure, she was struck
by the superior peace and contentment of her new
friends. Their serious-mindedness — in more than
one instance not without brilliant sparkles of the
humour which had a charm for her — in broad
contrast to the frivolity and heartless hard-
headedness to Vv^hich she had been accustomed,

152

LADY GLENORCHY'S CHARACTER

instead of repelling, attracted her. As Lady
Huntingdon had felt before her, Lady Glenorchy
wished she were Uke these thoughtful, happy
Hills.

It is clear enough that Lady Glenorchy had not
Lady Huntingdon's mental power, her capacity
for forming independent conclusions, though the
younger woman had many counterbalancing gifts
as potent for good in their way.

Lady Glenorchy was intelUgent, modest, gra-
cious, endowed in the beginning with a sweet
gaiety of spirit, and what her biographer called a
" pleasantry "—which may be interpreted as an
innocent sense of fun and drollery — over the
habitual suppression of which in the days which
followed he could not help looking back, though
he had been reared in the strict school of Trevecca,
with mild regret.

While prudent for her years, Lady Glenorchy's
was not a strong and self-sufficing, rather a cling-
ing, submissive nature, dependent more or less
now on one, now on another friend, confiding in
them and trusting in them. She was also, in spite
of her sense and modesty, liable to sudden impulses
and fits of enthusiasm, carrying her out of herself
for the time being.

Withal she was a young woman of delicate
constitution, subjected to frequent prostrating

153

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

attacks of illness ; above all she was deprived of
the support which would have been afforded to
her by a wise and worthy husband.

A Uttle jaded and sick of her worldly rank and
riches in this her early prime, she fell readily under
the influence of Miss Hill, Rowland Hill's sister.

Miss Hill was like, yet she was most unlike, her
famous brother. She was an excellent young
woman, ardent in those reforming Christian
doctrines which her father, Sir Rowland Hill, and
her mother had begun by dreading for their son,
the Cambridge undergraduate, which they long
opposed.

She was without hesitation in the advocacy of
her principles. She could see no other way of
salvation than to come out from the world and
live as much apart from it, and as engrossed with
the concerns of her soul, as any cloistered nun had
ever sought to be.

In the long letters which Miss Hill wrote to Lady
Glenorchy she constantly urged this attitude.
Her one fear for her convert was that she should
forget it for a moment, and comply, however
guardedly, with the customs of the society around
her.

Lest Lady Glenorchy should fail to understand,
Miss Hill wrote pages and pages of explanation
and illustration as to what were the veritable

154

A LACK OF HUMOUR

Christian facts and doctrines, beseeching the new
disciple to accept them, and stand by them,
casting behind her every other inducement which
could withdraw her from the one consideration of
moment to sinful, perishing human beings.

The writer never tired of these earnest discourses.
She occasionally broke off in passionate ecstasies
over the sublime beauty and condescension of the
work of redemption, and what in the end would
be its glorious triumph. All was transcendent,
nothing was simply human.

There was no pause, no question, no perplexity,
no pitiful turning of the earthly to the earthly, no
yearning over it in the mystery of the union of
matter and spirit, body and soul.

There is not a scrap, not a grain of that saving
grace of humour which was unquenchable in
Berridge's quips and cranks, while he gravely
warned young men against the dangerous
propensity.

Neither was it absent in Whitefield nor in
Charles Wesley when, unable to escape from the
unwarrantable reproaches of his sister-in-law, he
delivered himself and his brother John from the
infliction by Ufting up his voice and quoting his
favourite Virgil in the original, till he silenced his
antagonist.

And it was for his inexhaustible wit no less than

155

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

for his burning eloquence that Rowland Hill was
widely known. Had he first learnt the practice
in the home circle, as a defence against the over-
much solemnity of his excellent sister ? At the
same time, Rowland Hill was much attached to
his elder sister — a second mother. He cherished
the letters she wrote to him when he was a
schoolboy to the end of his days.

The acquaintance and friendship between Lady
Glenorchy and Lady Huntingdon began about
this time, when it was manifest that the younger
woman was giving in her adherence to the
Methodist interpretation of Christianity, as
expounded by Miss Hill.

The young wife was beginning to alarm her more
worldly-minded friends by ordering her life and
conversation anew in accordance with her altered
conviction, though she herself did not look upon
her conversion as having been yet accomplished.

The usual charge of an unhinged mind and of
melancholy madness was being brought against
her. Lord Glenorchy was proposing, on the advice
of his friends, to hurry her away from her danger-
ous associates, the Hills, and from the dulness of
the country, to Bath and to London, where her
attention would be diverted to the amusements
and gaieties natural to her years and station, in
which she had formerly taken a Hvely interest.

!56

CONFLICTING INFLUENCES

She might be persuaded to resume the habits,
within hmitations, of a young woman of the world
which she had perfunctorily abandoned.

Lady Huntingdon was certain to encourage by
every means in her power a young woman of her
own rank in Lady Glenorchy's circumstances,
exposed to the mingled ridicule and the quahfied
persecution employed in such cases.

But, devoted as the Countess was in her high
place to the tenets which underlay Methodism,
and much as she did to promote their extension,
it is not likely that the woman who, from youth
to age, retained a large circle of friends of all shades
of opinion, would, with a broader mind and wider
outlook, have desired to impose on the novice the
stringent and conventional ideas which Miss Hill
sought to impart to her.

There is something to be said on both sides of
the question — on the side of the nun-like, shrinking
abstinence from the world which contained so
much evil, whose beguiling power had already
been felt, and on the other side something for
the easy-minded and thoughtless votaries of
pleasure. Their protest was against the self-
absorption, or at least the absorption in one topic,
which looked and sounded like the " gloom which
saddens heaven and earth," and defies all the
anxious artifices of kindred affection to hghten it.

157

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

It was too apt to take the form of sour self-
righteousness and carping fault-finding. It threw
a shadow over social enjoyment, weakened many
a sincere friendship, and ruptured even nearer
and more sacred ties.

It is hard to say of different periods of society
after the Christian era that the men and women
who have figured in them have been worse or
better than at other epochs. Vice may be more
rampant in one century than in another. Men
may^ have sinned with a cart-rope then, who
offend with a silken thread to-day ; irreverence
and heartlessness may have been more blatant
and more brutal in that generation, and more
polite and plausible in this.

But who are we to judge — to arrogate to our-
selves the knowledge of human hearts, to measure
their sympathies or their struggles ?

All one can say is that when levity, sensuality,
and crime are in flagrant ascendancy, the line
between those that fear God and those who fear
Him not is not only drawn, as it must always be,
it is marked with no faint, shadowy stroke to
human observation, but with a hard, deep score
which has often something to do with horror on
the one hand and hatred on the other.

A century-and-a-half ago the outward signs of
reprobate lives and of the misery which they

158

FANATICISM AND INSENSIBILITY

caused were painted in the strongest colours, and
the recoil from such iniquity was great in
proportion.

If there was to be such a condition as fanaticism
was it not Hkely to succeed to the callous insensi-
bihty to all save the merest materialism, which
had led to such hideous results, if it were but to
purge away the ugly accumulations and to break
up the stony hardness and deadness of hearts and
consciences which had antedated them ?

The wretchedness which followed from the
excessive drinking, gambling and profligacy which
prevailed was displayed in characters that no
eye could overlook, and ended occasionally in
ghastly crime.

The example of Lawrence Earl Ferrers was a
case in point ; another had to do with the sins of
a whole family of high estate and raged round the
devoted head of one of the most " honourable
women " of Methodistic records, so prized for her
piety and virtue that a monument was erected to
her memory in John Wesley's own church. Lady
Mary Fitzgerald was born Lady Mary Hervey.
She was the daughter of the first Earl of Bristol.
She married an Irish gentleman of the name of
Fitzgerald, whose outrageous treatment of her
forced her to adopt the rare course of claiming a
separate maintenance.

159

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

The fierce quarrels and wild misconduct of her
three brothers, who were each in turn Earl of
Bristol, were a public scandal.

The second Earl — the sailor Earl — married
privately the notorious Miss Chudleigh, one of
Queen Charlotte's first maids of honour. The
Duke of Kingston, unaware of her marriage, paid
his addresses to her, when she travelled down to
the country church in which her marriage had
been celebrated, obtained access to the parish
register, boldly tore out the incriminating page
with her own hands, and returned to London and
married her Duke. The sequel was her trial for
bigamy before the House of Lords.

The third brother, the clerical Earl, was Bishop
of Derry for thirty years, during which he so
disgraced his mitre and crozier that he was
constrained to surrender them and retire to Naples,
where, keeping up the evil traditions of his race,
he was for some time in prison as a just punishment
for his offences.

Poor Lady Mary's eldest son, George Robert
Fitzgerald, said to have been one of the most
elegant and accomplished men of his day, had to
appear at the assizes of the county Mayo, when he
was found guilty of subjecting his father to an
assault and to illegal imprisonment, for which
the son was heavily fined and sent to jail for three

160

A RARE FRIENDSHIP

years. Impenitent and untamed by the ignominy
of the sentence, the same elegant and accompHshed
gentleman in a fit of passion shot his coachman.
For this crime he was again tried, found guilty,
and publicly executed.

Is it to be wondered at that the hapless victim
of such a savage crew should seek a refuge and
find rest and peace in being one of the most zealous
and pious of Wesley's women converts ?

The friendship between Lady Glenorchy and
Lady Huntingdon had something of the character
of the regard described by Wordsworth as existing
between the " boy " and " Matthew seventy-two."
For there were more than thirty years of difference
between the ages of the women. Lady Hunting-
don's threescore was far in advance of Lady
Glenorchy's twenty-four years.

Accordingly, in one of the letters which passed
between them. Lady Glenorchy gratefully acknow-
ledges the motherly tenderness and affection which
Lady Huntingdon had frequently shown her. In
what was probably the first letter on Lady
Glenorchy's part, written about 1765, the ex-
pression of her admiration and esteem amounts
to reverence : —

" My dear Madam, —
" How shall I express the sense I have of your
goodness ? It is impossible in words. But my

161

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

comfort is that the Lord knows the grateful
thoughts of my heart, and He will amply reward
you for the kindness you have shown a poor
unworthy creature whom blindness and ignorance
render an object of pity. When you say your
heart is attached to me I tremble lest I should
prove an additional cross to you in the end, and
the pain I suffer in the apprehension is unspeak-
able. I hope the Lord permits it as a spur to me
to be watchful and to keep near to Him, who alone
is able to keep me from falling. I can truly say
that next to the favour of God my utmost ambition
is to be found worthy of the regard which your
ladyship is pleased to honour me with, and to be
one of those who shall make up the crown of re-
joicing for you in the Day of our Lord. I am sorry
to take up more of your precious time than is
needful to express my gratitude for the obligations
your ladyship favoured me with. I will only add
that I ever am with the greatest respect and
affection, my dear and much honoured Madam,

*' Your most obedient servant,

" W. Glenorchy."

162

CHAPTER XII

The Retirement of Taymouth — Lady Glenorchy's Insensibility to
Scenery — Her Conversion in 1765 — The First Question of the
Assembly's Catechism — The Answer in the Bible and Prayer —
A Creature Dwelling Apart while Seeking to Minister to all in
Trouble — No Talent for Preaching without Confidence in Herself — ■
A Shadow over her Spiritual Life — Her Sacred Songs — Her Gentle
Unreasonableness — The Sacrament at Dull — Her Preciousness to
her Unsympathetic People — The Terrible Sutherland Bereavement
— Lady Alva's Strange Encounter — The Little Countess afterwards
Duchess Countess of Sutherland — Lady Glenorchy's Diaries.

Lady Glenorchy spent the most of the summers
and autumns of her not very long Ufe at Taymouth.
She has often recorded her fondness for the place
on account of its quiet and retirement, in spite of
the Highland hospitality dispensed in the style of
the great man of the country-side. It made the
few unpretending inns almost uncalled for in the
wilds where the Quahty were concerned. Had
they not as a matter of course free quarters under
the roof of their chief, the head of their branch of
the clan Campbell ? Were not his friends, gentle
and simple of every degree, who had the sHghtest
claim to his acquaintance, entitled at least to the
three days, " the rest day, the dressed day, and
the pressed day " of Scotch visiting.

But, while Lady Glenorchy was attached to the
spot on other grounds, there is not the shghtest
evidence that the grand scenery of mountain and
flood, loch and river, majestic crags where the
eagles built their nests, deep-riven corries where

163

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

the snow of December still lingered in June, and
helped to form the rushing torrents of which the
red deer drank their fill, made any strong or
abiding impression on her mind.

Tru^; Doctor Johnson's verdict on the High-
lands, with the ** horrors " of yesterday standing
for the " sublimities " of to-day, was a thing of the
near past.-

.The" very language which Lady Glenorchy
applies to the landscape, among whose striking
features she went out like Isaac of old to meditate,
confirms the idea that her regard for Nature was
of the kind which is best pleased with the smiling
Lowlands.

She writes of " the fields " where she walks. A
century- and- a- half ago the fields proper near Tay-
mouth, the patches of golden oats and pale bear,
were few and far between, swallowed up by the
great stretches of heather-clad moor, the woods
of sombre fir and feathery birch, the spreading
green " haughs," the frowning " bens " among
which they were set.

The reason above all reasons which sealed Lady
Glenorchy' s eyes to the natural world around her
was that another world had come between and
engrossed her whole attention. The crisis of her
life, which ruled its every hour henceforth, had
arrived and taken possession of her.

164

LADY GLENORCHY'S CONVERSION

The work which Miss Hill's example began in
the soft rural surroundings of Sugnall and Hawke-
stone reached its fruition at Taymouth, which
Lady Glenorchy always viewed as the scene of her
conversion. She has left an account in her own
words of the event which she beUeved to be the
turning-point in her history, the new birth which
stood beside the earthly birth, as equalling, nay
surpassing it in importance.

After writing of the fleeting rehgious effect
made upon her during what she held to have been
the misspent twenty years of her first youth, when
she had been ignorant of God's righteousness and
Christ's redemption, she dwells on the pride and
vain glory with which she contemplated her own
patience under the crosses and trials which had
been sent to her after her marriage. She describes
her acquaintance with the family at Hawkestone,
and the influence they had over her in making
her desire to be like them.

She records the struggles with which she gave
up the pleasures of the world (its balls, theatres,
etc., etc.), when, though appearing firm and cheer-
ful, she often broke down and was at the point
of giving up the contest. She arrives at the
one of her many illnesses which turned the
scale.

In the course of the fever, she says : " The first

165

i»—t»tf»)

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

question of the Assembly's Catechism, ' What is
the chief end of man ? ' rose up in my mind as if
someone had asked it. And the answer, * To
glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever,' which had
been so far from my experience, filled me with
shame and confusion.

" In the low state of sickness in which I lay, the
prospect of Death and Judgment filled me with
remorse and terror."

She had no friend to whom to appeal. What
were styled " the means of grace " were scant at
Taymouth. At the Parish Church the principal
sermons were in Gaelic, which Lady Glenorchy
did not understand. It was only occasionally
that an English sermon was preached, while she
did not seem to be on her usual friendly terms
with the minister.

Miss Hill wrote opportunely, and her friend
eagerly replied, asking advice and faithfully
responding to the counsel she received — to search
the Scriptures and be instant in prayer.

One day in particular Lady Glenorchy writes
again : "I took the Bible in my hand and fell
upon my knees, beseeching Him with much im-
portunity to reveal His will to me by His own
Word. . . . After this prayer was finished, I
opened the Bible then in my hands and read part
of the Epistle to the Romans, where our state by

166

A TRANSFORMATION

nature and the way of redemption through a
propitiatory sacrifice are set clearly forth.

" The eyes of my understanding were opened
and saw wisdom and beauty in the way of salvation
by a crucified Redeemer. ..."

This was in the summer of 1765, and Lady
Glenorchy goes on to state : " Since that time I
have had many ups and downs in my Christian
course, but I have never lost sight of Jesus as the
Saviour of His world, though I have often had
doubts of my own interest in Him."

Dating from these days, there was a creature
in that high and mighty world of Taymouth, but
not of it ; among her fellow-creatures at home
and abroad, yet practically quite apart. No
vestal virgin, no cloistered nun, while dwelling in
the centre of a full and complicated life with its
compelling claims, could have kept herself more
asunder in spirit — except for such intercourse as
could not be avoided in the company over which
she presided. Her biographer thus relates her
practice :

" Unattended she traversed the fields, walked
with God, recounted His kindnesses and His grace,
and with faith unfeigned offered up fervent prayer
and praises. ... In her wanderings she often
communicated sacred instruction to the poor. . . .
She generously and sympathetically distributed

167

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

alms to the necessitous she met by the way,
and then returned to her closet to record in her
diary how unworthy and how sinful and how
unprofitable she felt herself to be."

Looking back through the long vista of years
one can see her who has so long ago joined the
great majority, as if she were already a spirit,
ghding as often as she could get away from the
throng of ordinary men and women — let their talk
be ever so resounding in the common speech of
a lower sphere, with thoughts and words which
fell with rude incongruity on ears which had
been touched to divine harmonies.

Yonder she is in her old quaint dress of mantua
or pehsse, and little hat, or of mob cap and sacque,
her slender, still girlish figure and refined face,
with the rapt expression which so often held it
absolutely distinct from the faces around her.

Her head has no aureole betokening her sainth-
ness, but had she belonged to the Roman Catholic
Church, steps would have been taken ere now so
that there might have been in due time a " Saint
WiUielma" in their calendar.

A very sweet, humble and somewhat sad saint,
for her gentle, modest spirit was such that she was
always distrusting — not her Lord and her God
— but her weak and worthless self. She was
always straining her energies and mortifying her

168

A SAD SAINT

inclinations in order to take up some task which
she was persuaded was to the honour of her
Master, but which went against the grain with her.

She had no talent for preaching and teaching
such as her friend Miss Hill could claim. To
rebuke or even to surprise and startle her worldly
neighbours, by calling upon them to consider their
ways and prepare for their latter end, was a tre-
mendous task from which she shrank, and of which
she was tempted to think herself, in whom she saw
so little good, incapable.

She could never arrive at that assurance of
acceptance with her Maker after which she craved
with a sick longing.

Her biographer has explained the failure in two
ways. She did not trust all in all to the finished
work of her Saviour. She was beset with a
haunting sense of her own insufficiency — her
ceaseless sins (though she did not beheve in that
attainment of perfection in this world which Mr.
Wesley, as distinct from Mr. Whitefield and her
own Church of Scotland, proclaimed).

The other and more mystical explanation was
that, while her spirit was right with God, the assur-
ance of faith was the gift of God's Spirit, which
might or might not be vouchsafed in God's free
grace, even to the most sincere and exemplary
of believers. Be that as it may, the deprivation, to

16W

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

which she submitted meekly, as she did to the
denial of other blessings, served more than any-
thing else to cast a cloud over her spiritual Hfe —
that hfe which was well-nigh all in all to her, and
it was the most powerful weapon in subduing the
original gaiety and vivacity of her temper.

You can still see her, if you look long enough
and strenuously enough, stealing away to engage
in the religious exercises to which she was so
devoted. In order that they might be in less
danger of interruption, she had a retreat out of
doors known only to herself, where she went to
meditate and pray.

One of her natural gifts was the tuneful voice
which had been carefully cultivated. But from
the time of her conversion she rarely sang any
save sacred songs, chiefly the metrical version of
those Psalms of David in which the Church of
Scotland conducted for the most part its service
of praise. The version is primitive — sometimes
rough and uncouth — but it is always distinguished
by manly strength in its pleading, and it has many
a gush of tenderness and pathos.

When Lady Glenorchy's gentle, fluttering spirit
was at peace, or when it burst its bonds and rose in
fitful triumph and bhssful gladness, she deUghted,
she tells us, in singing aloud those Psalms in the
solitude of her walks, where no mortal ears, and

170

SCOTTISH PSALMODY

only the innocent air — charged, alas ! so often
with discords far removed from these humble,
holy strains — could bear them on its wings.

Surely in that pastoral, mountainous land, the
confiding cry of " The Lord's my Shepherd," and
the steadfast assertion, " I to the hills will Hft
my eyes," were in her repertory.

And to those who know and have pondered over
her story, so long as Taymouth Castle stands in
its ancient state and bounty, so long as the
infinitely grander works of God's hands in the
nature around bring strangers from afar to
look upon them with admiration and awe, a
supernatural element will enter into the scene.

It will be in connection with the presence of the
tender young being, forlorn in the middle of her
earthly rank and riches, because she had not yet
reached the heaven where she fain would be, and
because she was so full of its spirit — while still in
the middle of human surroundings — she who was
constantly reproaching herself for looking back,
and setting her heart upon them, though in reality
they had become strange and distasteful to her.

She was not always reasonable in her religious
duties, as she regarded them. She vindicated her
right to be recognised as a daughter of Eve — no
less than a saint — by the provocation she could not
restrain herself from giving her unregenerate

171

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

relatives by actions out of proportion to her health
and strength. She would rise as early as half -past
five in the morning that she might have more time
for private devotion. She was fain to fast till her
weak body cried out in protest. Each birthday
was kept as a day of special fasting and prayer.

She was fond of attending the dispensing of the
neighbouring sacraments, and in town they were
fairly within her reach, but in the country it was
different. She writes on one occasion when she
had an impulse that she must join in the sacrament
at Dull, and Dull could only be got at on horse-
back, while the weather threatened rain. She
would not be deterred, and she refers to her
gratitude for the rain having passed off, and for the
fact that she had been greeted on her return by
nothing worse than laughter at her expedition.
The inference was that the opposition received was
apt to be of a less cheerful and of a stormier
character.

For it came in course of time to be proved
beyond doubt that the fragile, spiritually-minded
wife and daughter-in-law was a precious possession
to the unsatisfactory, tyrannical husband, and the
lordly, common-sense father-in-law.

Like many sensitive, imaginative people, she
was not without a tendency to regard as signs (who
dare say they might not have been ?) seeming

172

COINCIDENCES OR SIGNS?

coincidences such as texts of sermons happening
to be the very words of Scripture to which she had
just been turning for consolation. This is an
instance in point — " Being much dejected (at
communion) I said to myself : * Will the Lord hide
Himself for ever ? Will He be favourable no
more ? ' At that instant Doctor Webster began
to serve a table with these words : ' Perhaps
someone is saying : ' Will the Lord hide Himself
for ever ? Will He be favourable no more ? '
Let such take comfort. The Lord is nigh, though
you perceive Him not. He will yet come, though
not now.' At this moment I felt that the Lord
was nigh— that He gave a persuasion that He
would visit me in His own time. My heart repHed :
* It is well ; let the Lord come in His own time.
I will still wait on Him, and put my trust in
Him."

In the summer of 1766 Lady Glenorchy was
presiding over her father-in-law's great household
when the even tenor of her way at Taymouth was
interrupted by news which affected her deeply.
The account came of the last stages in the terrible
tragedy which had begun at Dunrobin in the
previous winter.

Neither of the biographers of Lady Huntingdon
and Lady Glenorchy gives the particulars of the
death of the little child which serve as the keynote

173

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

to the sad domestic drama. Doubtless considera-
tion for the feehngs of the surviving relatives
caused the reticence in the first place. But the
details of the piteous story have not been forgotten
in Scotland.

Young Lord and Lady Sutherland were a
peculiarly attractive couple. Lady Huntingdon,
who saw them first under the heavy cloud which
was destined to crush them, thus describes them :
** Never have I seen a more lovely couple. They
may, indeed, with justice be called the Flower of
Scotland, and such amiability of disposition — so
teachable, so mild ! They have indeed been cast
in Nature's finest mould. Bowed down to the earth
by grief, then almost inconsolable for the loss of
their daughter, the good Providence has, I hope,
directed them to this place, in order to divert
their attention from their recent loss and lead
them to the fountain of living waters from which
to draw all the consolation and comfort they stand
in need of. May the word of the Lord be power-
fully appHed to their hearts in this season of trial !
Dear Lady Glenorchy is exceedingly anxious on
'their account."

Lord and Lady Sutherland were deeply attached
to each other — a congenial pair who formed a
matrimonial contrast that must have struck home
to Lady Glenorchy's gentle, affectionate heart —

174

THE SUTHERLANDS

made for all domestic happiness. The couple were
equally devoted to their little daughter of nearly
two years of age, then their only child.

Lord Sutherland was considered a model of all
that was good in his class, but he was not inde-
pendent of the customs of his generation, or wholly
unaffected by them. On the third of January,
1766, he rose from his dinner table, flushed with
wine, and joined Lady Sutherland in the draw-
ing-room where she had her little daughter with
her. Taking the child in his arms and tossing her
in the air for his pleasure and hers, his unsteady
hand shpped, failed to catch her, and she fell
with violence, her head striking the oaken floor.
Concussion of the brain and death ensued, either
on the spot or within a few hours.

The anguish of the young parents with the
remorse of the hapless father may be conceived.

Three months later, as if to replace her dead
sister, a second daughter was born to Lord and
Lady Sutherland on the birthday of the first, but
the relatives of the couple, seeing how grief still
weighed on their spirits, thought that change of
air and scene was desirable for them, and urged
on them a visit to Bath.

Lady Glenorchy recommended her sister and
brother to the kind offices of Lady Huntingdon,
who showed her goodwill characteristically by

175

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

carrying them to hear Mr. Whitefield at her
chapel.

But soon after Lord and Lady Sutherland's
arrival in Bath he was struck down with fever,
under which he lay for a period of fifty-four days.
For twenty-one days and nights his young wife
never left his room. Neither Lady Huntingdon
nor any other friend could induce her to quit her
post. Overcome by exhaustion and sorrow, she
herself sank and died seventeen days before the
death of Lord Sutherland. He was in his thirty-
first and she in her twenty-fifth year.

Lady Huntingdon mentions the extraordinary
interest and concern which the tragedy excited
in the gay watering-place.

With what sorrow must the tidings have been
received when they had travelled as far as the
mountain shades of Taymouth, and been read by
her, who had thus lost her nearest and dearest,
the companion of her childhood and youth !

A singular instance of the terrible intervals of
suspense caused by the slow communication of
news in those days, occurred in connection with
the death of Lady Sutherland.

Her mother, Lady Alva, had by some strange
accident, failed to be made acquainted with the
death of her daughter, while she had been apprised
of the death of her son-in-law. Hard woman of

176

THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND

the world as she was known to have been, she was
hurrying with what speed the times afforded to the
help of the bereaved woman who had already been
dead for three weeks. Alighting from her carriage
at an inn on the road to Bath, Lady Alva saw two
hearses with a train of mourners preparing to set
out. On asking an explanation, she was told that
the hearses contained the bodies of Lord and Lady
Sutherland on their way to Scotland for interment
in the Royal Chapel at Holyrood. Poor mother !
in what awful circumstances she met midway the
daughter to whom she was hastening.

The baby daughter of the late Earl and Countess
was in her own right Countess of Sutherland and
heiress of the great Sutherland estates. She was
the joint charge of Lady Glenorchy and Lady
Alva. She grew up and married the Marquis of
Stafford, and through him, on his creation as
Duke of Sutherland, acquired the title of Duchess,
in addition to the inherited Countess. She was
the Duchess- Countess of Sutherland — a much
respected power in the North, living to an
honourable old age.

It was at Taymouth that Lady Glenorchy began
the diary of her soul's welfare, which she did not
even write in an ordinary room, but in the closet
in the Castle sacred to prayer, or in that other
retreat in the grounds to which she resorted for the

177

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

same purpose. The diary hardly contains a direct
word or allusion to the ordinary events of the family.
Indeed, with only two exceptions, there is not an
incident given with mundane details. The one
incident is quoted in the first page, when she
bemoans her loss of temper in an argument on
faith indulged in with Auchalladair, the agent of
Lord Breadalbane, and the familiar friend of the
house. The second incident occurred later.

The journal — the entries in which end generally
with a prayer — is a record of the Lord's dealings
with the spirit He had created, and that spirit's
obedience or resistance — whether the light of God's
countenance had shone on the inner woman, or
whether with that light withdrawn for her offences,
there were only darkness and deadness, danger
and tribulation.

Such diaries were not uncommon in Lady
Glenorchy's day. They were highly approved of
by the salt of the earth of the period. They were
believed to be decidedly conducive to growth in
grace in individual cases as they may have been
in ensuring watchfulness against besetting sins.

Lady Glenorchy adopted the practice and
continued it to the end of her days, till the diaries
filled numerous volumes.

To a later generation the objection to keeping
such a record is not so much that it tends to foster

178

THE OBJECTION TO DIARIES

self-righteousness — a result which was conspicuous
by its absence in Lady Glenorchy's experience — it
is that a diary of the kind is a continual feeling
of the spiritual pulse. If the effect bears any
resemblance to the frequent feeling of the bodily
pulse and the taking of the bodily temperature, a
symptom which is apt to be found among chronic
invalids, or sufferers from hypochondria, the end is
not cheering, and hardly justifies the means. The
physical sequel does not produce soundness of
constitution or vigour of frame.

179

CHAPTER XIII

Lady Glenorchy at Holyrood — Indifference to its History — Her
General Friendliness — " Means of Grace " in Edinburgh — Weekly
Religious Meetings Presided over by the Rev. Robert Walker
— The Company Gathered Together — A Glimpse of the Group —
Lady Maxwell — Niddry Wynd Chapel — Objections to the Liberal
Views with which it was Planned — Doctor Webster's Support —
Wesley in Edinburgh — Conference between Wesley and Webster
with Lady Glenorchy for Audience — Lady Glenorchy's Separating
herself from the Wesleyans and from the Methodists, also Offending
both Lady Maxwell and Lady Huntingdon — Lord Glenorchy's Sale
of his Estate of Sugna 1 — Miss Hill permitted to pay Long Visits
to Taymouth — Lord Glenorchy's Purchase of Barnton with the
Chapel he suffered to be erected there — First Chaplain who
Officiated in Niddry Wynd Chapel.

In Edinburgh Lord Breadalbane and his family
occupied the rooms designed for Royalty and its
Court in Holyrood Palace. But the dimmed and
faded splendour and the romantic atmosphere,
with the tragedies of kings and queens, no more
appealed to Lady Glenorchy's imagination than
did the Highland hills with their hoary peaks,
their foaming waterfalls, the lonely, still lochans,
and " the bonnie blooming heather," which spoke
to her with enticing words she did not hear. She
could not withdraw that far-away look in her eyes
which were constantly fixed on the beauty beyond
mortal ken, on the fair hills of heaven and the
city of the New Jerusalem, with its gates of pearl
and its golden streets, where there was no night
and no need of the sun by day, because God and

180

THE HISTORIC SENSE LACKING

the Lamb of God were there and were the Hght
thereof.

The past was no more to Lady Glenorchy than
the present. It was blotted out by the immensely
grander future.

What were the Courts of the unhappy Mary,
of the Charles whom the Church of England called
" the Martyr," and of that other wandering
Charles whose visit to the palace of his ancestors
was but of yesterday, in comparison with the
assemblies which she sometimes succeeded in
gathering to hear the Word of Life preached in
the "great drawing-room" — the audience-
chamber which had witnessed such different
doings, fierce brawls and heedless merry-making ?

The past was very much a blank to Lady
Glenorchy, even the present seemed to escape her.
The most singular omission of all in her letters and
diary is the name, or indeed any reference — unless
in one brief allusion — to the little Countess of
Sutherland, Lady Glenorchy' s only sister's only
child, of whom she was nominal guardian and one
of her nearest kindred.

In the single sentence or two in which Lady
Glenorchy can be understood to refer to her
niece, she writes of a child to whom she wishes
to teach something, without success, and she
makes the remark that it is difficult for her to deal

181
13— (aaoo)

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

with children. Truly, Willielma Glenorchy was a
saint shut up to the one communion — that with
her God.

At the same time it would be a grave mistake
to imagine she was hostile or even indifferent to
kindred and friendly obUgations. She was careful
to maintain pleasant relations with all connected
with her. It is unnecessary to say that she was
greatly concerned for their spiritual welfare, in
which their views were far removed from hers.
She mentions, as with a little gasp which the
speaking of the effort occasioned, her thankfulness
for having been enabled to talk of rehgion to her
mother. She writes at another time of having
prayed for her mother " with strong crying and
tears."

The entire reliance upon her by her husband
and his father was abundantly proved. She was
careful not to visit England without " waiting "
upon Lord Glenorchy's half-sister, the Marchioness
de Gray. To her chosen friends, Miss Hill, Lady
Maxwell, Lady Henrietta Hope, her warm affection
never wavered. Of her ministers she was the
staunchest and most loyal champion.

In Edinburgh, though Lady Glenorchy had to
submit to more frequent intrusions from the
company for which she cared not at all, while she
had the burden of receiving and entertaining the

182

RELIGIOUS MEETINGS

visitors, she had the compensation of the greater
command of ordinances and of congenial society.
She is not so lonely a figure, with such an air of
having descended from the skies in the Canongate
and the High Street, and the squares of the new
town.

Once a week she attended religious meetings
held either at the house of one of the members
or at the manse of her minister, the Rev. Robert
Walker, senior minister of the High Church, and
colleague to Blair, of literary fame. Walker was
less a literary man than the gentleman whose
sermons were stigmatised by more enthusiastic
and evangelical Christians as " mere moral
essays," while the name of the Rev. Robert, his
brother in the pulpit, has descended fragrant to
us for the active piety of the man, as well as for
the moderation, good sense and that touch of
humour which, like a touch of nature, makes the
whole world kin.

Among the women in the httle gathering were
some of Lady Glenorchy's friends, whose names
one loves to chronicle. There were the ladies
Leven, Northesk, and Banff, Lady Maxwell,
Lady Ross BailUe, and Mrs. Baihe Walker, the
wife of one of the city magistrates.

The reader may see the group also, if she or he
wishes, in their carriages and sedan chairs, in their

183

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

caleches and mode cloaks, some of them carrying
in their roomy pockets, along with their pocket
Bibles, their dainty jewelled snuff-boxes, that a
pinch of the contents taken in time might ward
off an inopportune drowsiness.

Lady Glenorchy was probably the youngest of
the party, in which her chief friend was Lady
Maxwell, another of the Nithsdale clan. Lady
Maxwell was the youngest of the two, neither of
whom had reached her twenty-sixth year. She
was left a widow in her nineteenth year, and her
only child was accidentally killed a few weeks
after the death of the father. The hapless girl-
widow and childless mother was so stricken to
the heart that never again did she breathe the
names of husband or child, for the words were
written in such woeful letters in the depths of
her heart that the sound was far too sacred for
casual mention in ordinary intercourse.

Lady Maxwell was a friend and follower of John
Wesley, into whose hands she put five hundred
pounds for his schools, and on hearing later that
they were still in debt, she followed by another
offering of three hundred pounds.

Lady Maxwell was clearly a woman of a different
nature from Lady Glenorchy, in whose letters to her
friend there are constant reminders of the extent
of her own confidences, freely imparted, while she

184

LADY MAXWELL

presses for the return of the confidences which the
reserved, self-sufficing woman never seemed able
to give. Notwithstanding this, Lady Glenorchy's
faith in her friend remained unshaken, though it
was not without its tests. As a mark of her
implicit trust in Lady Maxwell, when Lady
Glenorchy, with a calm consideration of her general
dehcacy of health and frequent severe illnesses,
made her will, while not yet thirty years of age,
she unhesitatingly named Lady Maxwell her
executrix.

It is plain that Lady Glenorchy's fortune
remained under her own control, and that while
she required the consent of the two gentlemen of
the family for any changes in the household, she
was able to spend large sums of her own money
on works of religion and charity.

The absence of family worship and a family
chaplain in the great houses in which she dwelt
was a grief to her. She did indeed make painful
attempts to address and to pray in strict privacy
with her maid-servants, but she was too conscious
of her own deficiencies, which she looked upon not
so much in the light of natural disquahfication as
in the sense of a sinful lack of zeal for God's glory
and of concern for the souls of her fellow-creatures.
She clung to the resource of a chaplain as solving
many difficulties.

185

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Accordingly it was with corresponding joy that
she got from Lord Glenorchy permission to install
a chaplain, with the proviso that he was only to
officiate in Lord Breadalbane's absence.

A chaplain implied a chapel — not a simple
oratory from which he might instruct the family
and lead their prayers and praise — but where he
might preach in turn along with other ministers
on Sundays and other days for the benefit of the
neighbourhood.

Lady Glenorchy hired St. Mary's Chapel in
Niddry Wynd for her purpose.

The old building had been originally a Roman
Catholic Chapel, and was, at the time Lady
Glenorchy took it, a hall of some of the City guilds.

Without doubt, Lady Glenorchy and Lady
Maxwell — her principal counsellor in the matter —
had many consultations on what should be the
organisation of the chapel. The two women were
amiable, devout, singularly enlightened and liberal
for their day, since the conclusion they arrived at
was that the chapel, which was not to be occupied
in canonical hours and was not for Lady Glen-
orchy's chaplain alone, should be open to every
parson or pastor who loved the Lord Jesus Christ
in sincerity, whatever his denomination — Episco-
palian, Presbyterian, Wesleyan, or Methodist —
only he must be Protestant.

186

"BLACK PRELACY"

The result proved that, with all the two ladies'
shining virtues, they were acting with singular
simplicity and with a lack of the shrewdness which
would have taken popular prejudice and party
rancour into consideration.

Very Ukely in Lady Maxwell's case it was not
so much want of worldly perception as indignant
defiance of such obstacles.

The undenominational project met with general
reprobation in the rehgious circles of the capital.
Lady Glenorchy's friend and minister, Mr. Walker,
plainly condemned the arrangement and declined
to preach in the chapel under the circumstances.
Apparently the introduction of Wesleyan and of
Methodist preachers to the pulpit was the innova-
tion most objected to. Yet, according to an
authority who had been himself an English
dissenter. Nonconformists from the sister kingdom
had up to this date been readily admitted to the
pulpits of the Established Church. But in the
present instance, where Methodists and Wesleyans
were pitted against each other, it was said that
the one preacher contradicted the other. Neither
were they the only outsiders tabooed. There
were objectors who refused to join in church
services with Episcopalians. The old hatred
against "Black Prelacy" stirred again in the
national breast.

187

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

The single clergyman in the city who was
favourable to the flag of truce which the two ladies
innocently sought to unfurl and found it suddenly
converted into a battle challenge, was Lady
Maxwell's minister, Doctor Webster, of the Tol-
booth, an accompHshed, broad-minded man — so
much so that, though himself a declared Calvinist,
he was in the habit of accompanying his distin-
guished parishioner, who inclined strongly to
Wesleyanism, on Sunday evenings to wait on the
services at one of John Wesley's chapels in
Edinburgh.

In the middle of the contest John Wesley himself
visited the Scotch capital, where he never made
many converts, while Whitefield had nearly taken
the place by storm. The presence of the leader
caused the contention to wax much hotter. Poor
Lady Glenorchy ! for any deed of hers to prove a
bombshell was hard lines to a meek spirit. But
she did not relinquish her design without granting
a fair hearing to both parties.

She was introduced to John Wesley, though she
had some time before declined to join his Wesleyan
Society. She was even present at a conference
held at her request between Wesley and Webster.

The scene presented is striking and significant —
the two middle-aged men in the seats of the
mighty where theology was concerned — the great

188

SEPARATION FROM WESLEYANISM

Wesleyan divine, as Romney painted him, in
his wig, ruffled shirt, and black coat, and his not
unworthy antagonist, the popular doctor, in
equally imposing costume, gravely discussing high
questions of God and His decrees, the slender, fair,
entranced woman, whose delicate feet were already
treading heaven's threshold, hanging on their
words as falling from the lips of oracles.

The worst bit of earth and earthliness comes in
after the disputants have parted and have begun
to suspect and accuse each other of deterioration
into Arminianism or Antinomianism, or any other
theological " ism " which came handy to their
memories and their lips. Even Lady Glenorchy,
the most modest of women, who, if any sermon in
the multitude of sermons to which she listened
failed to lay hold of her, never dreamt of blaming
the preacher, simply bewailed the hardness of her
own heart, was so far left to herself under the
influence of the opposing arguer as to hope that
Mr. Wesley, in the midst of his dangerous errors,
still held the essentials of Christianity !

Lady Glenorchy proceeded soon afterwards to
separate herself and her chapel from Wesleyan
preachers — a step which no more led to peace than
the rash proposal which had raised the fray.
" Lady Maxwell was very angry," the most
placable of the belligerents notes sorrowfully,

189

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

though to the credit of both women the temporary
altercation did nothing to break off their cordial
and lasting friendship.

Lady Maxwell's good opinion was not the only
one risked in the struggle, as Lady Glenorchy,
pulled different ways, harassed and worried in a
manner peculiarly trying to her, found later in
the controversy. To separate herself from the
Methodists generally, and to abide solely, as it
sounded, by the Church of Scotland, offended
Lady Huntingdon also, and a passing coolness
arose in that quarter likewise.

However, it did not prevent Lady Glenorchy
from forwarding large sums of money given
and collected by her to be expended on Lady
Huntingdon's schemes.

It was a relief to turn from wrangling jars — were
it but to these every-day incidents, for which as
a rule the mistress of Taymouth had neither eyes
nor ears. One of these incidents was that Lord
Glenorchy had disposed of the estate of Sugnall,
so that intercourse with Hawkestone was rendered
more uncertain.

But, as if in realization of how little effect
compulsion produced in that quarter, more indul-
gence began to be shown to her ladyship's opinions
and predilections. Miss Hill was suffered to pay
a visit of several months' duration to Taymouth,

190

BARNTON

nay, when the visit came to an end, my Lord
vouchsafed his consent to his Lady's accompanying
her friend as far as Edinburgh. And when Lady
Glenorchy was in England it seemed an understood
thing that part of her time of absence should be
spent at Hawkestone.

There was further compensation for the loss of
the Staffordshire seat. Lady Glenorchy was
anxious to substitute a country-house near Edin-
burgh where there would be quiet without the
remoteness of the Highlands, and where, with much
less state, there would not be the same influx of
guests.

The husband, whose ways were so unlike her
ways, was disposed to grant her wish. This fresh
complacency supports the supposition, eventually
fulfilled, that, let him be as unlike her as he was,
let him contradict and tease her, even affront and
disgrace her at times, she was possibly the thing he
valued most of all the great inheritance which was
in store for him.

He bought the country-house of Barnton, four
miles from Edinburgh, and the additions and
improvements which were at once made to it
included a chapel to which not only the family,
but the neighbours all around might resort for
spiritual teaching. Neither were the workmen en-
gaged in the work forgotten. Lady Glenorchy

191

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

would have them assembled at intervals in the
hall and addressed by the ministers whom she
brought with her to deliver their message. Lord
Glenorchy certainly permitted, if he did not
personally countenance, these addresses — in ac-
cordance with the solitary announcement in her
diary that his lordship had accompanied her on
a particular evening to her Niddry Wynd chapel.

A similar instance of her having won respect for
herself and her views was shown later by Lord
Breadalbane when he acquiesced in her rendering
help to the Reverend James Stewart, Gaelic
minister of Killin, in the district of Strathfillan
and Glenfalloch with their inhabitants as far as
twelve miles distant from any place of Christian
worship. Lady Glenorchy, at her own expense,
either built or repaired the chapel at Stathfillan,
and endowed it, taking care by the experience she
had learnt to put it under the Society for Propa-
gating Christian Knowledge. She also engaged
two missionaries of the Church of Scotland to act
under the Society, and preach through the High-
lands and Islands while she defrayed their
expenses.

The first chaplain elected for the Niddry Wynd
chapel was a young English clergyman named
Middleton, who had been officiating in an Episcopal
chapel at Dalkeith. He had been one of the six

192

MR. DE COURCY

Oxford students who were expelled from the
University for attending religious meetings in
private houses.

He was a man of good breeding and some
private means. But neither his having suffered
for conscience sake nor his suitability in other
respects could atone for his Church of England
ordination and procHvities in the eyes of Scotch
hearers. And nothing would have induced Lady
Glenorchy to force an unacceptable minister
on a congregation. So he withdrew from the
candidature.

By an arrangement which we do not quite under-
stand, unless because the new man was recom-
mended by Miss Hill, another Episcopal clergyman
was chosen to fill Middleton's place, act as Lady
Glenorchy's chaplain, and preach in St. Mary's.
He was a young Irishman named De Courcy, and
belonged to a branch of the noble house of Kingsale.
He was not only of an old family, of gentle nurture,
and of very prepossessing address — his preaching
had already attracted so much attention and
produced such results that imploring letters were
sent after him begging that his Scotch appointment
might be cancelled, and that he might be permitted
to return to England and work for his Master there.

An attempt was made to prejudice Lord Glen-
orchy against him, which was at first so successful

193

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

that within two days of De Courcy's expected
arrival in Edinburgh his lordship told his wife the
stranger should not be permitted to enter his
house.

In her trouble she retired to her room, and cried
for help where she was used to seek it, and never
sought it in vain.

" Before I got from my knees," she wrote in her
diary of the second incident of which she has given
the details, " Lord Glenorchy came to my door
and asked admittance. With fear and trembUng
I opened it. He came in and threw a letter on the
table and bade me read it.

" It was an anonymous letter informing him of
some circumstances relating to Mr. De Courcy
which tended to exasperate him more and seemed
written with a view to make dispeace in the family.

" My heart sank within me when I read it. I
stood in silent suspense expecting the storm to
burst with redoubled violence, when to my
unspeakable surprise he said : * I now see that I
have been the tool of Satan when I opposed the
coming of Mr. De Courcy — this letter shows it to
me — here the cloven foot appears, but the writer
of it shall be disappointed. I shall not only
receive him into my house, but do everything in
my power to encourage him in his work, and will
countenance him myself.' "

194

WESLEY ON DE COURCY

The malicious meddler in the affair had over-
shot the mark, and driven the unstable nobleman
to the reverse of his previous conduct. Take note
of the unconscious arrogance of Lord Glenorchy's
last words, " Will countenance him myself."

But not all Mr. De Courcy's gifts, even patron-
ised by Lord Glenorchy, sufficed to give him more
than a temporary success in Edinburgh, when even
John Wesley showed himself human, smarting
under Lady Glenorchy's finally declining to have
anything to do with his preachers. In writing to
Lady Maxwell, he sums up Mr. De Courcy's advan-
tages and comments ironically on the exclamations
they would call forth : " Surely such a preacher as
this never was in Edinburgh before. Mr. White-
field himself was not to be compared to him. What
an angel of a man ! " But John Wesley was
mistaken, except in the very beginning. Mr. De
Courcy did not, any more than his predecessors,
find favour in Edinburgh.

19.5

CHAPTER XIV

Advice to Lady Glenorchy as to an Anonymous Lady — Pearls not
to be cast before Swine — A Time to be Silent and a Time to Speak —
Further Fatherly Counsel from her own Minister, Mr. Walker —
The Mistake of Thinking the First Twenty Years of her Life Wasted
— Lady Glenorchy leaving Taymouth for Barnton in the Autumn
of 1771 on account of Lord Glenorchy 's Health, while no Serious
Danger was Anticipated and she was unusually Light-hearted —
Alarming Symptoms — Quitting Edinburgh on the Morning of the
Sacrament Sunday — The Ministers she Summoned to her Aid —
Continual Intercession for the Sick Man — His Desire to Listen and
Believe — His Death 12th November, 1771 — The Divine Support
given to her — Lord Glenorchy's Generous Will, with Lord
Breadalbane's Concurrence.

Lady Glenorchy's zeal in seeking by a great
effort to speak on the subject which was not only
near her heart, but of which that heart was full,
and her determination to withdraw from the
world and its practices, were viewed with larger,
other eyes by her worthy ministers than by the
women friends, such as Miss Hill, who were apt, as
women in all generations are apt, to go to extremes,
who had certainly at first inculcated upon her the
course which older and wiser Christians were
deprecating. One letter written by a well-known
Mr. Gillespie had evidently been solicited from
him on Lady Glenorchy's behalf, by someone who
honoured her and wished her well, but who feared
for her well-founded charges of extravagance and
eccentricity. The letter is rather directed at her,
than addressed to her. It was in fact dehcately
written to an anonymous lady.

196

AN ANONYMOUS LETTER

A copy of this letter in Lady Glenorchy's hand-
writing was found among her papers. The gist
of it was an earnest recommendation to care and
circumspection in approaching others for their
good. " Christ appointed that pearls be not laid
before swine. The pearls of the things of God are
not to be laid before persons in conversation who
are known to have the spirit of scorners of these
great and glorious things, and to be disposed to
make a bad use of what was ever so well intended,
however it may be expressed."

" The pearls of reproof and rebuke are not to be
cast before swine — those who are daring in sin
and obstinate in evil ways — lest they trample them
under foot, condemn them, turn against and rend
the reprovers, and hurt them in character, or at
least wound their spirits in place of profiting by
the reproof."

The writer goes on to state that, though persons
in public offices must speak, private believers who
are prudent — that exercise spiritual prudence —
ought to keep silence, because it is an evil time,
and persons are become incorrigible. He quotes
Amos : " Therefore the prudent shall keep silence
in that time, for it is an evil time," and dwells on
the virtue and efficacy of "holy silence" on many
occasions.

He further reminds his reader that " there is a

197

14— (3»»

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

time to be silent and a time to speak/' that " a
foolish voice is known by the multitude of words,"
that Christ kept silence when falsely accused, so
that His unjust judge marvelled : " Hearest Thou
how many things they witness against Thee, and
Thou answerest them never a word ? "

Another letter written to her by name was from
the Rev. Robert Walker. It was full of fatherly
kindness and consideration, it dealt tenderly with
the wounds she had received in the house of her
friends, when those who acknowledged the same
Lord and were engaged in the same cause, instead
of approving of her intentions and schemes, which
appeared to him of the purest, with the most
generous and disinterested projects of usefulness,
misjudged and opposed them.

When he first knew her, he wrote that he beheld
what he had long wished to see, " One who might
have been seated as queen in Vanity Fair, and even
courted to ascend the throne, nobly preferring
the pilgrim's staff to the sceptre, and resolutely
setting out on the wilderness road to the celestial
city."

But he feared that over-anxiety to shun the
dangerous pits on the left hand of the narrow way,
had rendered her less attentive than was necessary
to some openings on the right hand which ought
likewise to have been avoided. He impressed

198

A FATHERLY EPISTLE

upon her very plainly and candidly to keep to her
own sphere of hfe.

He seemed to think many of her endowments
wasted in her dealings with the lower ranks by
whom she was not understood. On the other
hand, the weapons in her possession, her bloom of
youth, and her other graces, if properly appHed,
would do more execution in a very short time
among persons of rank and education than all the
ponderous artillery of title and opulence would
be able to perform for many long years among
those inferior classes to whom her attention was
then almost wholly confined.

He combated with much tact and ability what
she was apt to deplore and refer to frequently as
the first twenty misspent years of her life. Dealing
with the acquirements she had then gained, and
was subsequently incUned to disdain, he hkened
them to jewels not one of which she could spare,
and not one of which would be lost.

" No, madam," he had written, " give me leave
to tell you they are lawful spoil. You are become
the rightful possessor of them, and the great
Proprietor who hath put them into your hands,
expects and requires that they should be
consecrated to His service."

He recalled the history of Moses with the record
that he was " exceeding fair," that he was learned

199

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and mighty
in word and deed. He proceeded to ask her if
she really supposed that all these natural and
acquired advantages — his form, his literature,
his devotion, his magnanimity and prowess — were
mere superfluous embelhshments which contri-
buted nothing to quaUfy him for the high ofhce he
afterwards bore in the church of God?

He concluded his simile and his application by
declaring that upon this supposition she must be
sensible that the marvellous train of providences
which introduced him into the Court of Pharaoh
would have neither voice nor meaning. Moses
would have been as safe, or rather more safe,
because less formidable, under the homely appear-
ance of a clumsy, awkward, common Jew, than
with the figure and splendour of an accomplished
prince.

This letter was highly prized by Lady Glenorchy.
She often spoke of it, and it was carefully preserved
among her papers.

In the autumn of 1771 Lady Glenorchy left
Taymouth in September, earlier than usual, with
Lord Glenorchy, who was suffering from indis-
position, and it was thought change of air would
benefit him. It was their first occupation of
Barnton after the alterations of it were completed,
and she was happy and thankful with an unusual

200

DOMESTIC TROUBLES

return of the gaiety which had been conspicuous
in her in her early days.

For the first fortnight all went well, and to her
satisfaction on the two Sundays there were
prayers and sermons to a company in the hall.

But on the third Sunday the whole situation
was changed by Lord Glenorchy's having been
suddenly seized with a fit. She was quite stupid
with fear, she wrote in her diary, " and could
not pray." But when he speedily rallied she was
able to write that the Lord had in mercy spared
him, and to trust that the warning might be
sanctified.

During the following week the illness seemed to
be passing off, and she was sufficiently disengaged
to have one of her compelling impulses on account
of the absence of the chaplain to call the maid-
servants together and pray with them. She felt
unwilhng and unfit and the exercise went so much
against her inclinations that she struggled for an
hour before she could bring herself to undertake it.
" She was very heavy " at the thought of meeting
the servants in the evening, when, as she could
write, the Lord graciously relieved her by sending
a minister in the way, who took the office which
was so hard for her.

A month later, the 7th of November, was the
fast day before the dispensing of the winter

201

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Sacrament in Edinburgh, and she was able to
drive to town and be at her church, while grieved
to quit Lord Glenorchy, who she feared was less
well.

On Saturday, the 9th of November, he was
worse, and she went to Edinburgh to get a nurse
and to ask the prayers of the church for him,
leaving him under the care of a medical man. She
meant to stay for the Sacrament Sunday and to
return to Barnton immediately afterwards, but
learning on the Sunday morning that he was still
worse, she went home immediately without waiting
to attend the ordinance. Finding him as she
feared, very ill, she sent for more medical aid.

On Monday he was clearly in great danger, and
with pathetic faith in her ministers and in the
power of their intercession, she summoned three,
her special friend and pastor, Mr. Walker, Mr.
Plenderleith, of the Tolbooth, and Mr. Gibson, of
St. Cuthbert's, to join with Mr. De Courcy in
praying with and for him.

All that sorrowful Monday and Tuesday, in
company and separately, the ministers assembled
and interceded for Lord Glenorchy's recovery,
and for mercy on his soul.

He was aware of his situation and frequently
expressed a sense of the evil of sin. He spoke of
his inability to believe on Jesus, while he said he

202

LORD GLENORCHY'S DEATH

had no hope save in the merits of Christ. He
wished to believe and attempted to pray — seemed
pleased with the prayers of others, desired them
to be continued. But to her great distress, as
evening drew on, he grew delirious, for she had
always entertained a hope that her prayers for
him would be heard, and that he would have made
" a good confession " at the last.

Not but that what he had said would be a great
consolation in the reverent mercifulness and
charity with which the mass of those Christians
of a century-and-a-half ago, who were so severe on
themselves, accepted, nay, caught eagerly at every
sign of repentance on dying Ups. It paraphrased
what the poet Cowper — the most despairing of all
Christians for himself — could yet hope might be
true for the reckless rider thrown from his horse,
and killed in the middle of his wild career : —

" Between the saddle and the ground
He mercy sought and mercy found."

At eight o'clock on Tuesday evening, the 12th
of November, 1771, while Mr. De Courcy was
ending an importunate prayer for the unconscious
man, he died, and his stricken wife, who was in
the room, fell motionless on the floor.

She has described her sensations : " My heart
rebelled against God. I inwardly said, ' It is hard.*
At that instant the Lord said to my soul, ' Be still

203

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

and know that I am God.' These words were
accompanied with such power that from that
moment an unspeakable calm took place in my
mind. Every murmuring thought subsided. I
laid my hand on my mouth and held my peace.

" Upon leaving the room these words were
impressed upon my heart : ' Thy Maker is thy
Husband ; the Lord of Hosts is His Name.* Thus
did the Lord comfort, support and refresh my soul
during the first days of my widowhood."

But her biographer was right in summing up the
melancholy occasion as a great and affecting
bereavement which, when the reaction came, she
felt deeply.

Both husband and wife were in the prime of life
and in the noonday of prosperity. He was no
more than thirty-three, she was thirty years.

With all his failings, he was in the near relation
of husband, and had been her constant companion
for the last ten years. Without question he was
attached to her, though he might show his attach-
ment in an undesirable fashion. The last con-
sideration of all to a woman who had already felt
and owned that her wealth, rank and influence
constituted her greatest burden, was the considera-
tion that with the life of her husband was bound
up the continuance and increase of her worldly
honours.

204

REPUTED LIKENESS OF LADY GLENORCHY

By permission oj the Governors of Chcshiint Co/h\^e, Ctiiii/jritfge

LORD GLENORCHY'S WILL

Far more overwhelming to a nature such as hers
was the forgiving tenderness which forgot and
blotted out, with a freeness and fulness akin to
the love of God all the errors and shortcomings
of the dead, and remembered only with piteous,
affectionate regard his acts of kindness.

All that was mortal of Lord Glenorchy was
taken north to the family burying-place at Finlarig
on Loch Tay, and Lady Glenorchy withdrew with
Lord Breadalbane to Holyrood. She had not
ceased to be the sorrowing father's cherished
daughter because the son who had been the Hnk
between them was gone.

Lady Glenorchy of course knew that her jointure
was a thousand pounds a year, but she had not
been aware, till Lord Glenorchy's repositories were
examined, that six months before his death the
young man, with something like an intimation of
his approaching end, had signed two deeds. By
them he left to his widow his whole real and landed
estate of the baronies of Barnton and King's
Crammond and other lands, with the patronage
of the parish of Crammond and all things belonging
to him in full right, to her and to her heirs for ever.

He further assigned to her, in legad phrase, " for
the favour and affection he bore to her," all his
plate, furniture, linen, pictures, prints, books,
everything of which he had a disposing power,

205

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

making her his sole executrix and legatee of al!
which belonged to him in each of the houses of
Tay mouth, Barnton and Holyrood.
[ What was more — what must have touched her
extremely — he gave her full power to convert the
estate and effects into money, and to employ it on
such work as she should see cause for — encouraging
the preaching of the Gospel and promoting the
knowledge of the Protestant religion, erecting
schools and civilising the inhabitants in Breadal-
bane, Glenorchy, Nether Lorn and other parts of
the Highlands of Scotland — in such a way and
manner as she should judge proper and expedient.

Still more : in case of her death before the
whole funds to be destined by her should be em-
ployed in pious purposes, trustees — Charles Earl of
Elgin and David Earl of Leven — were appointed
to carry out the original intentions of Lady
Glenorchy.

Nothing in the world could have gone to her
heart like the extraordinary liberty given her, with
its proof not only of his profound esteem for her
and faith in her, but of his respect for the objects
to which she had dedicated her life.

Whether or not Lord Breadalbane had been
privy to his son's will, he was not to be outdone
by him in generosity. The whole price of Barnton,
which had now passed to his daughter-in-law, had

206

LORD BREADALBANE'S GENEROSITY

not been paid, but, instead of suffering Lady
Glenorchy to supply the remainder of the sum
out of her funds, he furnished what was wanted as
his gift to his son's widow.

{ When the melancholy business consequent on
Lord Glenorchy' s death was over. Lady Glenorchy
was prostrated by one of the worst attacks of
the fever from which she so often suffered.

207

CHAPTER XVI

Lady Glenorchy's Income — Mr. Walker's Wise Advice as to its Disposal
— Lady Henrietta Hope — The Hopetonn Family — Lady Glenorchy's
Edinburgh Church — The Quaint Laying of the Foundation Stone —
Accident during the Building — The Countenance of the Edinburgh
Presbytery requested for the Church — The Opening of the Church
in 1774 — Lady G enorchy's Visit to England — Her Appearance at
Pinner's Hall — Her Intention to Nominate her Chaplain, Mr. Grove,
to be Minister of her Church — Her Vexation at the Reply of the
Presbytery when she applied to them to Confirm her Nomination —
The Scandal and Disturbance produced by their Answer — Lady
Glenorchy so Hurt and Mortified that she would have quitted
Scotland if it had not been for the Remonstrances of Lady Henrietta
Hope — Mr. Grove's Withdrawal from the Controversy.

Lady Glenorchy's income was reckoned a large
one in those days. It now amounted to three
thousand pounds a year. She kept her affairs in
her own hands and showed herself quite competent
to manage them, though her faithful friend, the
Rev. Robert Walker, had his fears that here again
her zeal would outrun her discretion.

He wrote to her before long, one of his wise,
considerate letters, warning her how much better
it would be for her to keep her worldly estate intact
while distributing freely from her abundance,
instead of being tempted to such rash prodigality
of charity as would impoverish her betimes and
actually leave her without the means of relieving
the needy and benefiting all religious and philan-
thropic enterprises such as it had been her
privilege and delight to do.

208

LADY HENRIETTA HOPE

Lady Glenorchy's great project, probably in-
spired by the example of Lady Huntingdon, was
that a church should be built by her where there
was room for one in Edinburgh. She had already
opened flourishing schools at Barnton. About this
time she made the acquaintance of Lady Henrietta
Hope, eldest daughter of the Earl of Hopetoun,
who was destined to become the dearest of all
Lady Glenorchy's women friends.

It is recorded of Lady Henrietta that it was
when crossing the English Channel in one of the
passenger boats of the period, and a great storm
arose so that the passengers and crew were in
prolonged danger, that she was led to think
seriously and to resolve by grace to turn to her
God and thenceforth to strive to serve Him and
to renounce what she saw to be sinful in the Ufe
around her. She is said to have been, in addition
to her godliness, a woman of natural ability
and capacity, a cheerful companion and a wise
counsellor.

The family of the Hopes of Hopetoun, like that
of the Hills of Hawkestone, included various
members who were early disposed to choose the
better part in hfe. Lady Sophia Hope held her
elder sister's opinions, and a still younger sister.
Lady Mary (who became afterwards Countess of
Haddington) when only a girl of fourteen received

209

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

a lasting impression from coming in contact with
her sister's friend, Lady Glenorchy.

The site of Lady Glenorchy' s church was what
was then called Orphan Park, from the near neigh-
bourhood of two orphanages. It was at the east
end of the hollow between the old and the new
town. . ■

Lady Glenorchy was at Taymouth when the
foundation-stone was laid, but she heard with
gladness a fuU account of the very simple ceremony
from her friend Mrs. Bailie Walker — how Bailie
Walker and Scott Moncrieff of New Hall ran with
eagerness to give their strength to help to put the
corner-stone in its place — how honest " Deacon
Dickson," a man much respected for his goodness,
stood by. When the stone was laid, the little
party repaired to one of the orphanages and sang
part of the Hundred- and- eighteenth Psalm : —

That stone is made head-corner stone

Which builders did despise ;
This is the doing of the Lord,

And wondrous in our eyes,

read the second chapter of Nehemiah, and finally
the Deacon " prayed warmly and with much
enlargement."

The happiness of the founder of the church was
sadly marred by an unfortunate accident which
happened as the building proceeded in 1773. From

210

CONFORMITY TO THE WORLD

the fall of a scaffold, the architect and his foreman
were thrown from the roof to the floor, and killed
on the spot.

To a mystical nature, apt to dwell on portents
and omens, this was a great blow and held the
danger of signifying the Lord's displeasure and his
rejection of her offering. All her minister — Mr.
Walker's moderation and tact were wanted, to
convince her that the accident, due to the careless-
ness and indifference of some of the workmen, did
not bear such a message to her.

It seemed, however, to arouse in her the dis-
position to austerity to which she was prone, for
she wrote more than one letter to her spiritual
adviser pressing him to communicate to her what
he thought on the question of conformity to the
world as shown by professing Christians.

The reverend Robert did not fail her. He
was equal to the occasion, though he decUned at
first to lay down laws on a matter where each
individual Christian enjoying freedom of conscience
ought to be a law unto himself or herself. At last
he complied with her request in two temperate,
judicious letters, in which he made use of a
humorous allegory to illustrate his meaning.

He brought forward an imaginary lady at three
stages of her history. At the first stage she was
surrounded with all the advantages of wealth and

211

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

rank to which she was entitled, which she was
using to God's glory and to the widespread benefit
of those around her.

At the second stage, impelled by morbid and false
humihty in the guise of asceticism, she had par-
tially stripped herself, and her influence for good
had lessened in proportion.

At the third stage she had seen her error, re-
sumed her rights with their dignity and grace, and
was again prospering in the cause of religion and
virtue.

More than that, he told her plainly the evil of
extremes, and calmly vindicated practices which
she had probably heard condemned wholesale by
more violent and aggressive Christians.

He pointed out to her how remote in the present
instance were these reputable places (the concert
hall and the assembly rooms) " dedicated to the
improvement of music and graceful motion, where
the noble and gentle youth of both sexes were
introduced into the polite world, and gradually
formed to appear in it with fashionable propriety,
was that ''profane, opaque, sequestered cell" into
which no ray of the sun had access, where, if
report might be credited, blasphemy, gaming and
foul debauch insulted the First Day of every
returning week."

- Mr. Walker was understood to refer in this

212

LADY GLENORCHY'S CHURCH

contrast to a club maintained by the upper classes
in Edinburgh. The members met about mid-day
on Saturday, and having excluded the light of day,
remained together in that condition till Monday.

Lady Glenorchy's church was a grey stone build-
ing, destitute of all architectural merit, like many
churches of the period, but solid and capable of
holding two thousand worshippers. It ranked
with what were called chapels- of- ease, with this
difference, that while a chapel- of- ease is in con-
nection with a particular church and is under the
control of its minister — a church or chapel founded
by the liberality of a private donor is only under
that donor and the Presbytery in which it is
situated.

With a lively remembrance of the trouble which
had followed on the undenominational character
of her chapel of St. Mary's, in Niddry Wynd, Lady
Glenorchy wrote to the Moderator of the Edin-
burgh Presbytery asking their support for the
church — which was to be Presbyterian according
to the doctrines and discipline of the Church of
Scotland — and received a cordial reply.

On May 8th, 1774, the church was opened. The
sermon in the morning was delivered by the Rev.
Doctor John Erskine, one of the ministers of the
old Grey Friars Church and the colleague of
Doctor Robertson, the historian and the Principal

213
15— (»,v»)

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

of Edinburgh University, The sermon in the
afternoon was given by Lady Glenorchy's minister,
Mr. Walker, of the High Church. She was present
on the occasion, and so anxious was she to make
it an entire day of solemn supplication, that in
the interval between the sermons she went to
St. Cuthbert's Chapel-of-ease and partook of the
Lord's Supper, returning to her own church in the
afternoon. She described the season as one of
'' sweet joy and peace in believing."

In the spring of the next year Lady Glenorchy
went to England, visiting in Bedfordshire probably
her sister-in-law, the Marchioness De Gray, and
in Staffordshire the Hills at Hawkestone. She went
to Buxton for the mineral waters. These saline
springs, whether at Bath, Bristol, Tunbridge Wells,
etc., etc., were then at the height of their repute.

In London Lady Glenorchy accompanied a
friend to Pinner's Hall, where what were called
" the Merchants* Lectures " were deHvered every
Tuesday morning. The lectures or sermons had
been instituted by the merchants of the City of
London a hundred years before. Six of the most
distinguished ministers in the city and suburbs
were appointed by a committee of the sub-
scribers to preach alternately each week. The
institution was a survival of the godliness of past
generations.

214

PINNER'S HALL

Pinner's Hall was very small, and the congrega-
tion which the old minister of Fetter Lane addressed
on this occasion was neither numerous nor distin-
guished. The presence in the primitive assembly
of a young woman of Lady Glenorchy's station in
life was certain to be known and noticed. She
must have appeared like a vision from another
world to a raw Welsh lad, a student of Trevecca,
who happened to be one of the httle company.
He recalled long afterwards that first meeting,
for he was destined to find in the lady of quahty
so unaffectedly devout, his kind and generous
patroness, whose biographer he eventually became.

After Lady Glenorchy's usual stay at Tay mouth
she returned to Edinburgh in the autumn of 1775.
There she was fated to find once more that the
fulfilment of an earnest and disinterested purpose,
which had taken the form of a public benefit,
might be a source not of public gratitude, not of
tranquil prosperity, but of innumerable crosses,
and much anxiety and mortification.

Having committed her church to the Presb3rtery
within whose bounds it was built, and received the
assurance of their approval, she had believed all
was well. She no longer dreamt of bringing
Wesleyans, Methodists and Episcopalians within
its Presbyterian walls, but she seemed still to have
had a hankering after an English instead of a

215

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Scotch Presbyterian to be settled as her minister.
Her recent visit to England had been with the
intention of selecting such a minister. But she
had not found one disengaged enough to respond
to her advances, or more to her mind, after all,
than the gentleman — an EngUsh Presbyterian
named Grove, who had been in charge of her
church for the last three months.

The origin of Lady Glenorchy's great liking for
English Presb3rterianism may have owed its
existence to the fact that it was in England she
was first awakened to serious thought. It was to
English Calvinism she had at first responded, and
in the circumstances, in the somewhat anomalous
position of her church among the surrounding
parish churches, she possibly felt as if an English
orthodox dissenter would be more in place than a
full-fledged hcentiate of the Church of Scotland.

That church had long ago consented to the
system of patronage, but was jealous of its Uberty
and rigid on questions of organisation and disci-
pline— the very questions which had made the
leaders of the United Presbyterians (Presbyterians
of the Presbyterians) refuse to receive Whitefield
into communion with them.

Mr. Grove, though worthy and with high
quahfications as a preacher, which rendered him
agreeable to the mass of Lady Glenorchy's

216

A CHECK

church-members, was opposed by a minority
because of his opinions or lack of opinions on
church order.

On the other hand, an unsettled element seemed
to have got into the congregation, a portion of
which withdrew from the church as a church
established by the State, and joined various bodies
of Scotch dissenters.

But Lady Glenorchy stood by Mr. Grove and
made application to the Presbytery on his behalf
to confirm her nomination of him as a suitable
pastor for her church — well known to the
parishioners and generally approved by them.

To her great surprise and annoyance she received
the following answer from the Presbytery : —

" Madam, —

" Your ladyship's letter was laid before us ; and
although we continue to approve of your pious
intention in establishing the new congregation
within our bounds, we cannot give our countenance
to any person being admitted minister thereof
until we have satisfying evidence of his having
been regularly Ucensed and ordained, of his loyalty
to Government, and of his conforming to our
standards. We have the honour to be your
ladyship's most obedient and most humble
servants,

** H. MoNCRiEFF Well WOOD,

" Moderator."
'Ill

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

It was clear that the old offence of her ultra-
liberality in the matter of denominationalism —
her acceptance of Episcopalians, Wesleyans and
Methodists to officiate in St. Mary's Chapel— had
not been forgotten. It had so prejudiced the
Presbytery — perhaps not without excuse — against
her orthodoxy as a daughter of the Estabhshment,
that they distrusted her and her church.

She had certainly given them, in part at least,
the security they required of Grove's loyalty to
the Government, and his adherence to the doctrines
of the Reformation in which the confessions of
both churches were agreed.

One wonders a little what her friend, the Rev.
Robert Walker, who took such a kindly interest
in her affairs and was so wise and moderate in his
judgment, thought of the imbroglio. Probably,
though he was her firm ally in other respects,
he sided with his Presbytery, for he was a minister
of the Church of Scotland before any other
obligation.

He might consider her leaning to Enghsh dis-
senters as dangerous and well-nigh perverse (if a
saint can be perverse). He had already distinctly
refused to preach in her Niddry Wynd chapel
when she and Lady Maxwell had been so lax as
to propose to admit all manner of English dissenters
to engage in the service on a level with the

218

PROPOSAL TO LEAVE BARNTON

ministers of the Church of Scotland, which was not
a dissenting church, but was the Church of the
nation and of the State, so far as the State had to
do with Scotland.

Lady Glenorchy was grievously hurt on account
of the treatment dealt out to her by those whom
she had regarded as her best friends, her guides,
teachers, and the fathers of her church. She
would not separate her church from the vener-
able Establishment in which she had been brought
up, of which she was a member, and thereby
render it a Scotch dissenting church, and she
was so sorely wounded by the strife and scandal
which arose on the Presbytery's mandate, that she,
pre-eminently a peace lover and in her own person
meek and long-suffering, was brought to propose
to the great regret of her friends to sell Barnton
and quit Scotland.

None combated this hasty resolve with more
respectful earnestness and good judgment, than
did Lady Glenorchy's friend. Lady Henrietta Hope,
and doubtless Lady Henrietta's protest helped to
turn the scale, or at least to keep it hanging in
abeyance.

Mr. Grove was another of the six Oxford
students who got into disgrace with the University
for their religious views. Naturally he resented
the distrust and suspicion with which he was

219

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

regarded on all hands. He was an able, spirited
man, sincere in his convictions, well-educated,
well-bred, and possessed of a certain amount of
landed property in England. When he found
that Lady Glenorchy, however disappointed by
the way in which matters had gone, would still
abide by the State Church, he determined to return
to England with the family he had just brought
to Scotland.

But there was no hurry and no asperity shown
by the parties on either side of the dispute. As
the Grove household could not be transported
afresh on the spur of the moment, Mr. Grove
continued to preach for two months longer in
Lady Glenorchy' s church, by her desire, with no
opposition on the part of the Presb3rtery, and it
was not till after his departure that various
neighbouring ministers took his place in her pulpit.

220

CHAPTER XVI

Ladv Glenorchy's Advisers — An Unexceptionable Candidate — Objec-
tions Nevertheless — Her Defence — The Majority of the Presbytery
Satisfied — The Minority Refer the Matter to the Synod — Jupiter
Carlyle and his Followers — An Injurious Sentence — Lady Glenor-
chy's Friends in the Synod Appeal to the General Assembly — Her
Candidate Retires — She Goes to England, instructing her Agent
to Sell Barnton — Lady Glenorchy is Joined by Miss Hill in a
Missionary Tour — Lady Glenorchy's Constancy to Old Friends —
Meeting at the House of Mr. Holmes, the Welsh Lad who had seen
her at Pinner's Hall — The Press-gang Employed against her at
Exmouth — Her Reprisal — The Case in the General Assembly
Practically Settled in her Favour — Lady Glenorchy's Return to
Scotland — Pathetic Episode of Mr. Sheriff — Settlement of the
Former Student of Trevecca in " Lady Glenorchy's Church."

Lady Glenorchy's advisers in the difficulty in
which she found herself were no mean men in the
Church of Scotland. They were Mr. Walker,
Doctor Webster, Doctor Dick, and Doctor Erksine.
Yielding to their suggestions, she chose a minister
in the room of Mr. Grove to whom it was thought
not even the most captious could find any
exception.

He was the Rev. Robert Balfour, already a
minister in the Estabhshed Church, holding a
parish near Stirling. He was a native of Edin-
burgh and had been educated at Edinburgh
schools and University. He was a licentiate of
the Edinburgh Presbytery. He bore a high
character, was very popular, and would be received
with acclamation by the congregation.

He accepted the nomination and all seemed to

221

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

smile on the arrangement. But appearances are
deceitful, and where there are malcontents in the
assembly they will without fail find grounds for
revolt. The neglect of some technicalities which
had to do with Mr. Balfour's introduction to his
charge by a member of the Presbytery, served on
this occasion.

The demand was that there must be what is
entitled a "call" from the congregation. There
must be legal security for the stipend and a deci-
sion which would put the collections made in the
church under the administration of the managers
of the Charity Workhouse.

No doubt technicalities must be attended to,
and the danger of establishing precedents requires
careful attention, otherwise the last two stipula-
tions were invidious. When one thought that the
church was Lady Glenorchy's. built by her of her
own free will, they — the Presbytery — might have
safely trusted to her to endow it. She wrote with
dignity in reply to their announcement of this
conclusion at which the Presbytery had arrived :
" It was a matter which properly belonged to me
and Mr. Balfour. His acceptance of the post was
a proof that he was satisfied."

In the same manner she remarked that she, or
rather the trustees she had appointed, might surely
be left with the disposal of the collections made

222

"JUPITER" CARLYLE

in the church, which had always been distributed
among the poor and needy, while more than once
part of them, small as they were, had been sent
to the treasurer of the Charity Workhouse.

The bulk of the members of the Presbytery
declared themselves satisfied, but one or two
brethren dissented from the others, refused to
accept Lady Glenorchy's explanation, and the
business was carried to a higher court — the Synod
of Lothian and Tweedale. It is hardly necessary
to point out that the majority of the Edinburgh
Presbytery were in Lady Glenorchy's favour.

It was not so in the Synod, where a majority of
the members — country ministers led by Carlyle
of Inveresk, " Jupiter Carlyle " — were strongly
opposed to her. Jupiter Carlyle was a host in
himself, with his imposing personality, his authori-
tative character, and his literary tastes, which,
like those of Blair, were considerably in excess of
his evangelical attributes. In all Ukelihood he
was up in arms for the honour, dignity and inde-
pendence of the Church of Scotland which he
might conceive were in danger of being subverted
by the fanatical Viscountess with her leanings
to Wesleyan Methodism, and her preference
for English divines, whether Episcopalians or
dissenters.

Carlyle and his party had sufficient power in the

223

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Synod to cause the passing of an extreme and
injurious sentence forbidding all the ministers and
probationers within the Synod to preach in Lady
Glenorchy's church, and in addition requiring that
no member of the Synod should employ a minister
of the said church to officiate in his pulpit.

Thus the church for which its foundress had
nourished such high hopes, every stone of which
might be said to have been cemented with prayer,
was boycotted and made in a sense an outcast
among State churches, while Lady Glenorchy her-
self and all she had done for the Church of
Scotland and for religion were dismissed cavalierly-

This was a piece of glaring injustice which her
friends and advisers would not suffer. Mr. Walker,
Dr. Erskine, Dr. Webster, and Mr. Johnston, of
North Leath, at once protested on her behalf, and
in the name of the Presbytery appealed to the next
General Assembly — the highest Scotch Church
court.

In the meantime Mr. Balfour, as a preparation
for repairing to Edinburgh, had resigned his parish,
but in the general excitement and irritation which
the whole effort had provoked, his Presbytery,
contrary to all custom, refused to accept his
resignation, and Balfour, dreading a conflict in
the church courts, gave up by preference, his
nomination to Lady Glenorchy's church.

224

LADY GLENORCHY GOES SOUTH

All this was discouraging enough, but so long
as the act of the Synod was not known to her, the
withdrawal of Mr. Balfour's claim seemed to end
the warfare for the time. Lady Glenorchy's
deUcate health had not been improved by the
tussle with the Presbytery, and she was advised
by her doctors to go south for the autumn and
winter while she felt at liberty to take the course
prescribed.

In the middle of October, 1776, she set out with
one man and one maid-servant, having previously
sold off her cattle and horses, and having left
orders with her agent to sell her estate of Barnton
when a purchaser should appear.

In the soreness of her heart at the contradictions
of men and of ministers, that idea of turning her
back on Scotland was present with her. She
travelled as far as Hawkestone, where she was
refreshed by the constancy and kindness of the
Hills, and her own special friend in the family
having joined her's, she went on to Bath and to
Wells, where Miss Hill's married sister resided.
There never seems to have been any diminution of
the regard between the pair early attracted to
each other. Lady Glenorchy was fidelity personi-
fied. The periods of separation had not eclipsed
the past. The other friends who had sprung up
round her, whom she relied upon with the same

225

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

ingenuous, implicit trust, one of whom grew dearer
even than Miss Hill,) had not, however, superseded
that prized first friend and counsellor in Lady
Glenorchy's affections. If the old ascendancy of
the one over the other was lessened by being shared
with others to whom Lady Glenorchy in her
lovable humiUty was prone to look up, or if her
sense of Miss Hill's infallibility was in any degree
shaken, as the hero and heroine- worship of youth
is apt to be affected, by time, there is only one sign
of it. The slight inference occurs in a letter in
which Lady Glenorchy, when referring to the
burden of responsibility on her head, remarks that
Miss Hill, who was visiting her, would have helped
her with her poor people, but she had found they
could not understand Miss Hill.

It was during Lady Glenorchy's stay at Wells
with Miss Hill's sister, Mrs. Gudway, that the blow
of the decision of the Synod fell upon its victim.
She would hear at the same time of the appeal to
the Assembly. But what misery to an unassuming,
retiring and loyal nature to regard herself and
her church as a bone of contention in the Scotch
Church Courts !

On the last day of November Lady Glenorchy
and Miss Hill journeyed to Essex, where they were
hospitably entertained by a Mr. Holmes, a wealthy,
retired merchant, a man of great philanthropy

226

THOMAS SNELL JONES

and piety, whose house was the rallying ground and
home of all like-minded persons, especially of the
poorer evangelical clergy, toihng at their posts in
the neighbourhood.

At the house of Mr. Holmes, the Welsh lad who
had been struck by the sight of Lady Glenorchy
at the old-world worship of the " Merchants*
Lectures" in Pinner's Hall, met her again. The
young man was Thomas Snell Jones, grown up,
and the pastor of a charge at Plymouth Dock.

After the dinner at which they were both present,
she showed the favourable impression he had made
upon her by asking him to conduct family worship
at her lodgings that evening and next morning.

In the course of a fortnight she visited Plymouth
Dock, and during the six weeks she remained
there Mr. Jones was her family chaplain morning
and evening.

Lady Glenorchy went next to Exmouth, where
another clergyman, who had joined her, preached
frequently and gathered a congregation — not
without opposition. While dehvering an address
in what was called " the Long Room " — probably
of the inn in which Lady Glenorchy was staying —
a press-gang sent by a neighbouring justice
ordered the landlord to give no more admission to
such preachers on pain of losing his license, and
dispersed the meeting.

227

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

This was the signal for her ladyship to step into
the breach, and that in spite of the recent failures
and distress to which she had been exposed in
connection with her church in Edinburgh. Not-
withstanding the rough and uncivilised population
she found in Exmouth, which daunted even the
benevolence of Mr. Holmes, she came to the rescue
unconquered in her Christianity. She bought a
house in the town, had it fitted up as a place of
worship, and provided pastors to preach there,
which they did with many marks of success.

Lady Glenorchy and Miss Hill continued their
progress — a kind of missionary progress — in which
they consorted and combined forces with all the
serious-minded people in the district, who desired
to bring the Gospel within the reach of the poor
and ignorant.

At Dartmouth Mr. Jones, who was of the party,
preached in a meeting-house belonging to a pious
lady, but the people were rude and behaved ill.

At Totnes a fire broke out in the inn and burnt
till its proprietors and customers were driven into
the street, and exposed to the night air in the
middle of the night, but they suffered no harm,
though the weather was damp.

At Southampton the travellers were consoled
for being badly accommodated, and uncivilly used
by the people of the inn where they stopped, in

228

A COMPROMISE

having reason to believe that the waiter who
attended on them had been savingly impressed.
In February the travellers crossed to the Isle of
Wight, where they feared they would do no good,
but at the instigation of Lady Glenorchy they
prayed that a door might be opened for them, and
next day a meeting-house was offered for their
use.

Returning by Portsmouth, her ladyship, accord-
ing to her habit in seasons of perplexity, halted
and set apart a day for *' solemn and extra-
ordinary prayer " that God would overrule the
deliberations of the General Assembly respecting
her church, for His glory.

One of her special petitions was that she should
be directed concerning her future place of residence,
and led to go wherever she might be of most use
in the work of God, and might be kept from all
selfish motives whatever in her choice. For she
had resolved that, according to the action of the
Assembly, she would either remain in England or
return to Scotland.

The case was argued in the Assembly for two
days, many ministers and elders speaking
for and against Lady Glenorchy's side of the
question. The result was a compromise, while the
Assembly disapproved of the easy and uncon-
ventional manner in which Dr. Webster was to

229

lb— (2300.

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

have introduced Mr. Balfour to his new flock, it
reversed the decision of the Synod in which they
had as it were, put Lady Glenorchy's church
beyond the pale by forbidding any communication
between it and the other churches in the Synod.

This entire withdrawal of the stigma which had
been cast on her and her church, removed the
obstacle to Lady Glenorchy's returning to her
native country, and was taken by her as a sign
that God had still work for her to do there. She
was back in Edinburgh by June, when, though she
was relieved on the main point, she was plunged
anew into uncertainty on another. The Assembly
had vindicated her, but her church did not yet
have a settled minister. There was no reluctance
on the part of the Established Church ministers
to supply the church with temporary preachers,
but after Mr. Balfour's experience the most of
these were likely to fight shy of accepting a nomina-
tion on Lady Glenorchy's part, and having to face
further prejudice and antagonism on the part of a
strong party of their brethren.

In her renewed difficulty she was thankful to
find it apparently solved by what she heard of a
Mr. Travers Sheriff, a chaplain in a Scotch
regiment in Holland. He had been educated at
the University of Edinburgh, and licensed by the
Presbytery of Haddington. He could resign his

290

TRAVERS SHERIFF

position as chaplain free from the intervention of
any Church court. He wished to leave the Army
and get a charge in Scotland, as his doctors agreed
that his health was suffering from the Dutch
cUmate.

Individually he was twenty-seven years of age,
accompHshed and attractive, with a single-hearted
ardour in his calling. Was not this the right man
found at last ? Lady Glenorchy hoped and
trusted so.

But there was a drawback ; though the few
sermons he preached were much admired by his
hearers, though he had the courage to go, of his
own accord, to the first meeting of Presbytery after
his arrival in Edinburgh, to announce that he had
received and accepted Lady Glenorchy's nomina-
tion, he was met so coolly and with such murmurs
of opposition, that he refrained from offering to
sign the confession of faith and other formula, as
he had intended to do.

His dehcate health proved a grave impediment.
It was so evident that Lady Glenorchy, eager not
to be foiled once more and always generous and
hberal, at once engaged an assistant to render his
duties Hghter. But his disease — consumption —
had too fast hold on him. He barely entered on
his office, he preached once more, when Lady
Henrietta Hope, in recording her appreciation of

231

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

the sermon, added the sad anticipation that the
first time she had heard him would also be the last.

He presided at the dispensing of the Lord's
Supper, " fencing the tables " and giving the
closing exhortation, and then his work was done
and his short life nearing its end. Everybody was
ready to sympathise and help. Mr. Balfour, who
was to have been Lady Glenorchy's pastor, came
and preached on the Monday after the Sacrament
Sunday ; as it happened he performed the same
service in the church for forty years.

Nothing could exceed Lady Glenorchy's kind-
ness to the poor young minister by whom she was
baffled again through no fault of his.

She had him removed to Barnton, sent for his
mother and with her nursed him day and night,
setting herself not only to minister to his bodily
comfort, but to cheer his fainting spirit with
heavenly consolation. She rejoiced in the faith
and peace of his death-bed, and prized deeply every
word which fell from his lips in their sacred
communings.

Now and then his opinion of his condition
fluctuated, and he had hopes of his recovery, when
her tender conscience tormented her between the
fear of hurting him by telling him what she
thought of his state and the belief that it was her
duty not to suffer him to continue under a delusion.

232

SHERIFF DIES

The delusion did not last, for the day but one
before he died he spent many hours in praise that
was not merely submission, it was triumph, and
in a dying man's exhaustion he strove to speak
words of cheer to those he was about to leave
behind.

To her he said : " Submit, it is the Lord's doing ;
we shall live together with him for ever : He has
saved me, he will save you, my dear friend." His
final words were, " All is well." She stayed with
him to the last ; she did not spare herself in any-
thing in which she could be of service to him and
his. She was present as a mark of respect and in
order to be a support to his mother at his " chest-
ing " (when he was laid in his coffin) and she went
into the Barnton vault to see where the coffin was
to find its last resting-place.

When all was over she returned to Edinburgh
to take up her duties again, chastened but not
overwhelmed. One of her first obligations was
the one which might well seem hopeless — that of
resuming her search for a desirable minister to
replace Mr. Sheriff. She made further advances
to a parish minister of the Established Church, a
Mr. Carmichael, of Carmunnok, but he did not
covet the experience of Mr. Balfour, and so decUned
her overtures.

Indeed a bad odour began to attach itself to the

233

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

church of many prayers and sacrifices. In Scot-
land no charge was more dreaded by probationers
and ministers, or was more fatal to their prospects
of credit and usefulness, than the accusation —
often more or less vague — of unsoundness in their
church's doctrines and discipline, with the risk
of the men being drawn into practically endless
lawsuits in the Church Courts.

Lady Glenorchy again turned her thoughts to
English Presbyterians. She sent a man she reUed
upon, a Mr. Dickie, to London to approach a Mr.
Clayden, whom she hoped to secure. But Mr.
Clayden had a flourishing congregation of his own
in London, and did not see himself warranted in
forsaking it for an Edinburgh church, even with
so devoted a patroness. Perhaps some echoes had
reached him of the misfortunes which had befallen
all the previous efforts to settle a pastor in the
church.

Then the dragging, wearing trouble was brought
to an end. At last, as a final resource, she applied
to her Welsh chaplain, Mr. Jones, invited him to
preach for some months in the church, and, if he
saw his way and was acceptable, she asked him to
accept her nomination to the pastorate. Mr.
Jones was respected and hked by the people, and
had only to repair to London to be fully ordained
and licensed as a Presbyterian minister, and to

234

CHOICE OF A NEW PASTOR

return and present his credentials to the Presby-
tery. Probably they were as weary of the not
very seemly contention as the others concerned
were, or the fate of the last candidate softened
them, for when he volunteered, as poor young
Sheriff had done, to sign the Confession of Faith,
etc., etc., they no longer chilled him with ungra-
cious looks and unpropitious whispers, but received
him frankly into their ranks.

It is not easy to see at this distance of time why
Lady Glenorchy had not sooner brought forward
Mr. Jones as a candidate for her church. The
most feasible explanation is to be found in the fact
that, though her liking and esteem for him were
unquestionable, it had not unnaturally detracted
somewhat from his qualifications as her minister
that he had been a poor Welsh lad, one of her
friend Lady Huntingdon's Trevecca students,
maintained at her college by charity. Lady
Glenorchy, in her first aspirations, had wished to
get a minister more on a level with herself, socially,
gently born and bred, with a University training,
with whom it would be easier and more agreeable
for her to be on intimate terms. All the first men
she selected to be her chaplains and ministers who
were rejected in turn by the congregation or the
Presbytery, or who would not undertake the task
proposed to them, Middleton, De Courcy, Grove,

235

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Balfour, Sheriff, Carmichael, were gentlemen by
birth and education, and while she was the last
woman to value such an accidental advantage
above godliness, yet if the advantage were allied
with godliness the preference was simple and
natural.

236

CHAPTER XVII

The Hills of Havvkestone — Jane Hill and her Little Brother — Richard
Hill Carrying his Enquiries to Fletcher of Madeley — Jane Hill's
Letters — The Value Lady Glenorchy set upon them — Family
Divisions in the Eighteenth Century — Sir Rowland Hill's Merits
as a Man and as a Father — Young Rowland Announcing his Brother
to Preach — Jane Hill's Inherent Gentleness and Modesty — Rowland
Hill's Recollection of the Early Bitterness of the Conflict — Refusal
of Six Bishops to Ordain him — Jane Hill's Abundant Tribulation —
Her Consolation in the Friendships she shared — A Quaint Quartette
at Taymouth — Rowland's Moderate Means — His Marriage Helping
him to Independence — No Reason to Regard the Couple as Ill-
matched — Sir Rowland's Second Marriage and Death — Sir Richard's
Support of the Methodists — One of the Trevecca Anniversaries
at which both Rowland and Jane Hill were Present — Sir John
Hill's Five Soldier Sons — What would Jane Hill have thought of
the great London Illumination and the Transparency set in front
of Surrey Chapel illustrating the words " The Tyrant has Fallen ? "
— The Courage of Rowland the Soldier and Rowland the Preacher —
Darcy Brisbane of Brisbane afterwards Lady Maxwell of PoUok,
born about 1742 — In London at Sixteen to be Presented at Court —
At Seventeen Married to Sir Walter Maxwell of Pollok — Death of
Husband and Child — Her Unsuccessful Suitors — Her House in
Princes Street, Edinburgh — Her Acceptance of Wesleyan Tenets —
Her Friendship with Lady Glenorchy — Lady Maxwell's Adopted
Daughter, Lady Henrietta Hope — The Blow to Lady Maxwell of
Lady Henrietta Hope's Death — Weekly Gathering of Wesleyan
Ministers at Lady Maxwell's House — A Day of her Life — Her
Signed Covenant with her Maker — Her Assured Faith Alike in her
Justification and Sanctification — Her Gifts to John Wesley —
Her Schools and Sunday Schools, her Fidelity to Lady Glenorchy 's
Trust and her Visits to England as Lady Glenorchy's Representative
— Lady Maxwell's Premature Infirmity — Her Peaceful Death at the
Age of Sixty-eight in 1810.

Miss Hill, of Hawkestone, was the elder daughter
of Sir Rowland Hill, the representative of an
ancient Shropshire family, one of whom was the
first Protestant Lord Mayor of London, a man of
great wealth, public spirit and beneficence — a
founder of churches and schools, one of the earlier
benefactors of Christ's Hospital, so that the element

237

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

of heredity must be reckoned with in summing-up
the virtues of a notable Enghsh family.

The family in which Jane Hill was born was one
of many children, her father, one of the numerous
Sir Rowland Hills, having eleven sons and two
daughters, thirteen in all, so that the great house
in its spacious and beautiful grounds was full of
life. Though several of the sons died in infancy,
six survived, of whom Rowland, the famous divine
and orator, was one of the younger brothers. Two
others, the Rev. Robert and the Rev. Brian, were
also clergymen without attracting particular
notice. Indeed the younger Brian, the friend of
Bishop Heber, never took a charge on account of
a religious scruple, and was satisfied to be a chap-
lain. Jane was one of the elder members of the
family much in association with the eldest son,
Richard. She was so many years in advance of
the lively, lovable little Rowland, or " Rowley,"
that along with their mother she taught him his
letters, and carried on his lessons till he was sent
to Eton. Her guardianship of the boy did not
end there. She and his brother Richard, in both
of whom strong reUgious impressions had already
been awakened, wrote to Rowland urgent letters
of serious advice, striving to preserve in the boy
the devout feehngs said to have been aroused in
the child by Isaac Watts' s hymns for children.

238

ROWLAND AND JANE HILL

Undoubtedly the sister and brother were success-
ful. Rowland Hill was a Nazarite from his birth,
and while still a merry school boy distinguished for
fun and frolic, was equally remarkable on that side
of him which was already so earnest and so singu-
larly attractive in its devotion, that he gathered
around him a group of genuinely religious boys
who vindicated the sincerity of their profession
— alike then, when the youthful disciples were
exposed to the ridicule so overwhelming at their
age, and when grown men with men's careers.

The same faithfully pleading letters — pleading
for the higher life, from his sister, followed Rowland
Hill to Cambridge and continued to stimulate and
comfort him when his lines had fallen in less
pleasant places than at Eton. So great was the
odium attached to his principles that, among all
the undergraduates and tutors, he could in after
years recall, as the only cordial face he was accus-
tomed to meet, that of the shoeblack at the gate
of his college. Eventually he made some way
against the bitter prejudices with which he was
assailed. He found some congenial spirits in
other colleges, and although he did not conquer
the hostility of the head of his college, his tutor
stood by him generously.

It is impossible to say what influence first
impelled Jane to shun the broad path and the

239

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

green, and to choose the narrow, thorny way. It
may have been the example of her brother
Richard with whom she was ultimately in close
alliance.

As quite a young man, surrounded by all the
outward advantages which could make youth glad
and gay, and being naturally, in place of sombre
and morose, on the contrary like young Rowland,
lively and witty, Richard Hill could not rest under
a sense of sin, degradation and danger, and the
necessity for a new life. He had no peace until he
had written to Fletcher of Madeley, with whom
he had not a previous acquaintance, asking him
to meet him at an inn in Shrewsbury, and resolve
his doubts. From the date of that interview,
though afterwards he differed from Fletcher on
various controversial grounds, and even wrote
publicly in opposition to his teacher, he became,
without any attempt at concealment, a changed
man. He immediately set about communicating
his views to others as vital to their highest — their
eternal interests, speaking on the subject to the
servants and the tenants on the estate, and
teaching — even preaching to the poor — in the
neighbouring villages.

In all these practices Richard Hill's sister Jane
is constantly referred to as joining and aiding him.
The younger daughter in the family agreed with

240

JANE HILL'S LETTERS

the two in their opinions, but her marriage and
removal to Somersetshire withdrew her from the
pair, who were coming forward prominently in
asserting their belief, and were making it practical
by acting as missionaries to what was little better
than the heathen ignorance of masses around
them.

It was possibly in thus early filling the post of
expositor of the truth to those who were hving in
spiritual darkness that Jane Hill acquired the
habit of entering on those long and elaborate
expositions of the Gospel message for which she
has been known. And it would be a great mistake
to suppose that her letters were not valued by
the recipients and much admired by the religious
pubUc before which they were destined to come.
To a later generation the letters may read simply
as endless repetitions of truths known to the
ordinary Christian from childhood. But it was
not so when the letters were first written and read
in the middle of the eighteenth century, which
was very different in every description of know-
ledge— religious knowledge included — from the
latter end of the nineteenth or the beginning of the
twentieth centuries.

Miss Hill's illuminating statements and exhorta-
tions were as refreshing as cold water to the thirsty
traveller in the desert when they reached her

241

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

friend, Lady Glenorchy, in her splendid retreat
in a Highland wilderness. Not only were the bulky
originals treasured, but careful copies of their con-
tents, the labour of love of many patient hours,
were found in Lady Glenorchy' s handwriting. When
the letters were pubhshed they were highly prized
as clear, flowing statements, fresh with the enthu-
siasm of a true Christian, of what was wont to be
called " the Gospel scheme."

That Jane Hill, of whose personal appearance
no record has been found, was a woman of very
considerable strength of mind and character is
abundantly shown by the fact that she stood up
for the truth in her eyes and for the service of her
Master in a house which, alas ! was divided against
itself. For though she had powerful alHes in two
of her brothers, her father and mother were indig-
nantly opposed to the convictions and conduct of
their irrestrainable juniors.

It did not make it much better that the position
was not uncommon, for surely never since Christian-
ity was introduced into the British Islands and had
to combat the hoary superstition of Druidism —
hardly even at the Reformation from Roman
Catholicism— were there more divisions in families
than occurred in the eighteenth century.

Neither could it have altogether lessened the
pain, on the contrary, it must have intensified

242

FAMILY DIVISIONS

it in some respects, though it minimised the condi-
tions of the strife, that the parents in this case were
the " dear parents," honoured in every other
relation except in what had to do with the new
interpretation of Christian obhgations. Sir Row-
land might be a despot in desiring to control his
children's consciences in what they regarded as
binding obligations, but he was by no means —
especially as compared to other fathers of his day —
radically unjust, or even consistently and habitu-
ally harsh, though he might indulge in useless,
obstinate prohibitions and in occasional explosions
of wrath.

He did not alienate his sons' inheritance,
granting that at one time he reduced Rowland's
allowance with the idea that it might put his
itinerating preaching out of his power, and that
on a certain Sunday Sir Rowland positively forbade
the lad to leave his family, a direct command which
was obeyed.

Still, the head of the house suffered both sons
and daughters, while staying under his roof and
being well acquainted with his views and wishes,
deliberately to transgress them by their ministra-
tions under his very nose, as it were, to their
neighbours around them.

A curious instance is given of the inveteracy and
audacity of the volunteer preachers in pursuing

243

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

the course which their consciences indicated.
Sir Rowland, having succeeded so far in persuad-
ing Richard, his heir, to exhibit his Christianity in
some other forms than in those of teaching and
preaching, ventured to send him after his younger
brother to recall him, if possible, from one of his
campaigns.

Rowland was preaching in the open air in the
market-place of a country town, when his eye
caught the approaching figure of Richard Hill, and
his quick intelligence guessed the errand on which
he had come. Quietly finishing his discourse, he
gave out an announcement : " Richard Hill, Esq.,
will preach the sermon here at the same time
to-morrow."

And Richard did not fail Rowland, his own
convictions and the people hanging wonder-struck
on the words of the baronet's sons turned field-
preachers, however he might fail the testy perplexed
baronet, his father.

When one considers the state of tutelage in
which children — grown men and women — stood
to their fathers in that generation, and the degree
of respect — well-nigh reverence — and submission
which was expected from the younger members
of famines to their elders, together with the
uprightness of conduct and blamelessness of inten-
tion on the part of the rebels, there could not have

244

PARENTAL AUTHORITY

been a more convincing proof of the depth and
intensity of their faith in this resistance to lawful
authority, this defiance of the sacred patriarchal
institution which is the basis and bulwark of all
family ties.

On the other hand, however, the innocent, heroic
malcontents might be inspired by a vivid concep-
tion of the approval of their Divine Master whose
cause they believed they were promoting by
preferring Him and His command to publish the
good tidings which had reached them to the
mistaken wishes of their father and mother — how-
ever supported by a sense of the highest duty and
fortified by the encouragement of friends outside
the family — it must have been, in proportion to the
very virtues of the actors, inexpressibly painful,
unutterably irksome and wearing to maintain for
a long period of years the internal warfare with
those whom in every other light the offenders
loved, honoured, and sought to please.

The heaviest portion of this trial must have fallen
on the home daughter, who was exposed to it for
a permanency. Neither was she, in spite of her
staunchness of principle and readiness of speech
and pen, of such a disposition as to render the
division in the family a light matter to her.

One who ought to have known her from the
testimony of her nearest and dearest, who held her

245

17— (23«>'

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

to the last in affectionate, grateful regard, reports
that she was gentle rather than bold, inclined to
withdraw into the background so far as she herself
was concerned, with shy, retiring modesty, rather
than to put herself forward and claim notice.
Her kinsman of a later generation could apply to
her without any sense of incongruity the fine
word-picture of Jeremy Taylor, " Like a fair
light when she shined to all the room, yet round
and about her own station she had cast a
shadow and a cloud, she shined to everybody but
herself."

If Rowland Hill in his honoured age could say
to a lady who was walking with him, a witness to
the affection and respect with which he was treated
by all the members of his family, " In my youth I
have paced this terrace bitterly weeping, regarded
by most of the inhabitants of that house as a dis-
grace to the family," it is certain that one of the
house's inhabitants who had never so regarded
him shared his pain. Nay, that she had special
additions to it, of which he — high-spirited well-nigh
to recklessness, was not capable.

When six different bishops refused to ordain
Rowland Hill and it was only by the influence of
his brother-in-law, the member for Wells, that the
Bishop of Wells was induced to admit him to
deacons' orders, and even then an Archbishop

246

ROWLAND HILL REFUSED ORDINATION

interposed to keep him from advancing to the
higher grade of priest, it is probable that his
mortification and disappointment were not equal
to hers whose pet pupil and comrade he had been
in turn.

When the strange nervousness beset him,
alternating with the humorous originality amount-
ing to eccentricity — a conspicuous strain in his
temperament — did she not tremble in her woman's
timidity lest he should be betrayed into saying
or doing anything derogatory to the dignity and
solemnity of his office ?

When he addressed and roused furious mobs
that in return hooted and hunted him, pelted him
with filth and stones, did she not quail for his
personal safety — she who had mothered him in his
bright childhood, stood by him all along, hoped
great things for him in his Maker's service,
brought herself to offer up him — even him — as a
sacrifice to that Maker's cause — lest already in his
first youth the completion of the sacrifice should
be required ?

And all the while she had to struggle against
weak health, to endure the recurring fret of their
father and mother's displeasure and condemnation.
Truly, Jane Hill, as all who have experienced a
similar family situation will agree, though she was
raised far above ordinary worldly adversity, had

247

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

her portion of the tribulation which is part of the
inheritance of the saints.

In the circumstances, the friendship and the
occasional sojourns with such women as Lady
Huntingdon and Miss Hill's contemporaries, Lady
Glenorchy and Lady Anne Erskine, must have been
precious to her. Apparently there was a proposal
which fell to the ground of her brother Rowland's
joining her in a visit to Taymouth. When
contrasting how different his experience of the
state and magnificence of Lord Breadalbane's
establishment would have been from the life of the
vagabond preacher, his biographer gives a curious
instance of the evenings at the Castle made festal
by music, to which neither Lady Glenorchy nor
Miss Hill went so far as to object as inadmissible
in a Christian household. Lady Glenorchy, the
most accomplished of the performers, would play
and sing for the gratification of the company to
the surprising accompaniment of " two violins and
Lord Balgonie on the bagpipes," surely quaintest
of all quartettes !

On another occasion, when Jane Hill and Lady
Glenorchy made their missionary tour in the south
of England and the Isle of Wight, while Lady
Glenorchy awaited the Assembly's decision with
regard to the obnoxious interdict pronounced by
the Synod, Rowland Hill and his wife were to

248

ROWLAND HILL iMARRIES

have been of the party. But his engagements — his
parish of Wotton and his Surrey Chapel, together
with difficulties in connection with the expenses
of the expedition, prevented what would have been
a great gratification to the brother and sister.

Rowland Hill's marriage to his married sister's
sister-in-law, whose brother, the member for Wells,
had proved a friend in need to Rowland in the
matter of his ordination, had necessarily served,
as marriages will, to separate in a measure the
brother and sister. But, be3^ond the fact of the
nearer relation coming between the pair, there was
nothing to find fault with in the union. The bride,
Mary Tudway, was a near connection of the family,
and her portion secured greater independence for
the bridegroom.

The annual income of his first parish, Kingston,
was not more than forty pounds. The incomes
from his next parish, Wotton, and his London
chapel never quite paid their expenses. Apart
from these sources of living he had his allowance
from his father during Sir Rowland's lifetime.
Later he had his younger son's patrimony, and
on the death of his eldest brother— well acquainted
with Rowland's circumstances — he succeeded to a
mindfully handsome bequest.

In spite of foolish gossip, there is no reason to
suppose that the couple were not well suited to

249

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

each other. Women are, as a rule, more con-
ventional than men, and it is possible that Row-
land Hill's absolute unconventionality sometimes
grated on his wife's susceptibilities. His freedom
of speech in the pulpit — Sheridan characterised it
as ** coming red-hot from his heart " — which
swayed between irresistibly droll illustrations,
that moved his hearers not merely to smile, but to
the laughter echoing strangely within consecrated
walls, and passionately pathetic appeals that
swiftly converted the laughter into tears — proved
a snare, not simply to the preacher, but to the
imagination and the invention of the hstener.

What was there too absurd to be alleged of the
clergyman who could give the members of his
congregation in anticipation of the collection, full
liberty to thrust their hands into their pockets so
long as they did not pull them out empty ? or who
could propose to marshal the men and women on
the same occasion, in a procession to the church-
door, where he would meet them ? The leaders of
the procession were to be the bestowers of bank-
notes, the next in order the givers of gold, the
third detachment was to consist of those who
had only silver in their palms, while those who
had brought but coppers should remain to the
last.

Yet none grieved more sincerely than did

250

HILL'S SENSE OF THE RIDICULOUS

Rowland Hill at the incurable sense of the ridicu-
lous which beset him in season and out of season,
while he hotly resented the incredible story that
he had in the pulpit mentioned his wife's bonnet,
and held it up to pubhc derision. It would have
been unworthy of a clergyman and a gentleman, he
said ; they were making him out a bear.

It is sufficient to recall that on many of his
preaching tours, when he and his companions were
not unhkely to be received with insult and obloquy
and even with personal risk, Mrs. Hill, naturally
a timid, punctilious woman, accompanied him,
and that after sixty years of wedlock her death
filled her aged partner with unfeigned sorrow.

In one striking scene Jane Hill participated with
her brother a few years after his marriage, and it
is to her that we owe the graphic description of
the incidents. It was on the occurrence of one
of the earher summer anniversaries of the founding
of Lady Huntingdon's College of Trevecca, which
she made a point of attending with a host of
preachers and visitors, so that the accommo-
dation of the old Welsh Castle was taxed to the
uttermost.

The ceremonies commenced on the eve of the
anniversary after supper, when a sermon was
preached by an old Welsh clergyman and a
Welsh hymn was sung. This was followed by

251

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

an address by a Trevecca student and another
sermon.

Next morning at six the great programme began
by another Welsh sermon, and by sermons both in
Welsh and EngHsh, At half-past ten again a
sermon in Welsh, succeeded by sermons in Welsh
and English preached alternately by the same
clergyman.

Then Mr. Toplady gave out the hymn —

" Blow ye the trumpet, blow,"

to the crowd of worshippers, who had been stand-
ing there since six o'clock in the morning. He had
hardly begun his prayer, which followed, when the
scaffolding on which he and about forty ministers
and students were standing fell with a crash. But
almost before the frightened spectators could rush
to the rescue of the sufferers, the dauntless voice
of the speaker rose again, telling them that as
" nobody was materially hurt " by the accident
they would resume the service, and begin it by
returning thanks toGod who had given His angels
charge over them, and the sermon was preached,
the hymn sung, as if nothing untoward had
happened.

There was dinner between two and three, after-
wards a Welsh clergyman preached both in Welsh
and EngHsh, and in succession to him the last

252

AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOI'LADV

A COLLEGE ANNIVERSARY

sermon of the day was delivered by Mr. Shirley,
Lady Huntingdon's cousin, and the brother of
the miserable Lord Ferrers.

It has been remarked that the healthy Welsh
appetite for spiritual food equals their robust
reHsh of material sustenance.

On the evening of the anniversary an even more
impressive spectacle was presented when the
Sacrament was administered, with addresses in
both languages. If the arrangement had any
resemblance to other celebrations of the kind, as
was likely, the accompaniments of the Lord's
Supper would be long remembered by the witnesses.
The practice was, if the Sacrament was in the open
air, which was rendered inevitable when large
numbers attended, to place a table covered with
a white cloth in the centre of any natural amphi-
theatre. On this were the consecrated bread and
wine. The officiating clergyman or clergymen
stood on a platform near at hand. Around the
table sat the men communicants on the turf.
Behind them the women sat on benches, and
beyond the benches stood the spectators.

The glow of the setting sun, the pale beams of the
rising moon (at seasons chosen for as much light
as could be had for the dispersal of the company),
fell in succession on the distant mountains, and at
Trevecca, on the grey and grim feudal Castle

253

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

converted by one woman's piety and charity into a
people's college.

The solemn words, " the echo of the spiritual
songs which sounded between the hills, the 'evident
tokens of the Divine Presence — the holy love and
harmony which prevailed," might well set a mark
on the close of such a day and cause it to stand
apart from the end of other days in the memories
of those who had engaged in its services.

At the date of this anniversary at Trevecca,
Lady Huntingdon had not yet been compelled to
separate from the Church of England, and all the
preachers present, who spoke in turn to an audience
of four thousand, belonged to that denomination.
Though Rowland Hill was among the clergy he
did not officiate. He had greatly admired Lady
Huntingdon and continued to the last grateful
for her kindness to him in his early troubles — so
much so that he would never speak of the coolness
which had arisen on her side, probably from a
misunderstanding of some of the pleasantries in
which he was apt to indulge. From this date,
though there was no break in her friendship with
Miss Hill, and though with Lady Huntingdon's
customary generosity she subscribed to his Surrey
chapel and expressed her gratification at his
success, she would no longer have him to preach
in her chapels. Even in that day of triumph there

254

SIR RICHARD HILL

must have been a pang to the faithful sister in the
exclusion of the beloved brother from what seemed
his right — a prominent place among the officiating
clergy.

Lady Hill of Hawkestone died about the time of
her son Rowland's marriage. Her husband, Sir
Rowland, survived her ten years, and in the inter-
val he married again. There is no mention of what
part the second wife, who had been a widow, took
in the contention between her step-children and
their father, though apparently one of her kindred
was an ally of the Rev. Rowland's allies. Judging
from ordinary precedents, the advent of a stranger
in the family circle was calculated to render Jane's
position still more difficult.

But with the succession of Sir Richard Hill the
whole aspect of affairs altered. He did not hesi-
tate to avow his sympathy with the Methodists,
and his house became their rallying- ground. His
reference in the House of Commons to " a nowa-
days obsolete book called the Bible," was an asser-
tion of his own allegiance, couched in the caustic
wit of which Rowland did not hold a monopoly
in the family.

When people argue from the text of the healthy
constitutions and habits of their grandmothers and
great-grandmothers, a reservation must be made
and a recognition allowed of the survival of the

255

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

fittest. The sedentary lives of the period — the
tendency on the part of some to brooding in-
trospection and austere self-denial — had another
side to show, and a contradiction to that which
is popularly realised. Of the Methodist ladies
here chronicled, only Grace Murray seems to have
enjoyed good health, and only two of them — she
and Lady Huntingdon — attained old age, Darcy
Lady Maxwell just approached it. Miss Hill and
Lady Glenorchy died not long past their prime.
Miss Hill soon after Lady Glenorchy.

Sir John Hill, who succeeded his childless brother
Sir Richard in 1808, made the old house ring again
with young steps and voices. He was the father
of twelve children. Five of his sons, in place of
serving in the Church miUtant like their three
uncles, entered the regular Army, fought through
the Peninsular War, and were all present at the
Battle of Waterloo, out of which they came
without serious injury. What would Jane Hill
have thought of the soldier hero in the band of
nephews — Rowland Lord Hill ? How would she
have regarded the transparency set on the occasion
of a great illumination in the front of Surrey
Chapel, bearing the words " The Tyrant has fallen "
and the warrant of two verses of Scripture to ex-
plain the allegory of the sun setting over the sea
and on the shore, at one side a fortress with

256

DARCY LADY MAXWELL

weapons of war, and at the other side a lamb lying
by implements of agriculture ?

Of this at least we may be certain, that if she
had been present hke her younger brother on the
great day when the grateful city of London pre-
sented a sword of honour to her gallant nephew
and the cheering crowd spared a huzza for " his
good old uncle," she would have echoed that
shout in the depth of her heart. For what phy-
sical courage in Rowland the soldier could match
the moral courage of Rowland the preacher when
as a lad he faced the sneers and jeers of his Uni-
versity and only the shoeblack at his college gate
smiled back at him, when as a young man he
wandered from village to village, and from town
to town, telHng the tale of the tidings of great joy
to all mankind, and was answered by the squaUd
artillery of curses and brickbats ?

Darcy Lady Maxwell of Pollok was the
daughter of an Ayrshire laird, Brisbane of
Brisbane, in the neighbourhood of Largs. There
had .been Brisbanes of that ilk as far back as the
fourteenth century.

Darcy Brisbane had been born as nearly as could
be traced, since there had been carelessness and
destruction of the parish register, in 1742. She
grew up a bright, high-spirited girl — in looks, her
biographer tells us in strong but vexatiously vague

257

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

terms, she was " made in Nature's finest mould."
Her parents were members of the Church of
Scotland, in whose tenets she was brought up,
while her education was completed in the fashion
of girls of her class in her day at a boarding-school
in Edinburgh.

She came out in her world betimes, for she was
not more than sixteen when she went to London
to be presented at Court by her aunt, the Mar-
chioness of Lothian, and to have a brief expe-
rience of the great world. The death of her aunt
brought her visit to an abrupt conclusion.

But she returned to Scotland only to plunge
into new interests and excitements, for in the course
of another year, in 1759, the girl of seventeen was
married to Sir Walter Maxwell of Pollok. The
Maxwells of Pollok belonged like Maxwell of
Preston, Lady Glenorchy's father, to branches of
the great Nithsdale house, so that, through Lady
Maxwell's husband, there was a distant connection
between Lady Glenorchy and Lady Maxwell,
while there was only a year's difference in their age.
Lady Glenorchy being the senior.

For the happiness of Lady Maxwell's marriage,
and for her delight in the child born to her within
the next two years, we have the pathetic reference
in her own words, which as a rule were few : " The
Lord gave me all I desired in this world " (alas !

258

LADY MAXWELL'S TRIALS

the sentence is not finished, it goes on), " and then
took them all away " (still there is a blessed con-
clusion to the whole matter), " but immediately
afterwards sweetly drew me to Himself." Even
for the loss of husband and child God could com-
pensate. Was the gift of her Maker not better
than ten husbands or ten children ?

In 1761 Sir Walter Maxwell died, and so ternble
was that first blow that Lady Maxwell's health
never altogether recovered from the effects. She
had been full of hfe till then, but from that date,
though she made Uttle of her ailments, her health
was uncertain, and while still in her early prime
she remained Hable to sharp, disabhng attacks of
illness.

Six weeks after the first blow, the second stroke
fell. Her child was accidentally killed. She had
not even the comfort of nursing him through a
young child's pathetic illness, of seeing him
gradually fade, so as to be brought by degrees to
face the grievous fact of his death, and of having
him die in her arms. The melancholy news was
brought to her with a stunning shock.

She sat in awful silence for a moment and then
cried out : "I see that God requires my whole
heart, and He shall have it." It was the reverse
of the infidel sentiment of Job's wife : " Curse God
and die." It was nearer the passionate loyalty of

259

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

the sorely tried believer when he protested :
" Though He should slay me, yet will I trust in
Him."

That the childless girl- widow— who never after
husband and child were laid to rest breathed their
names unless in her inmost soul, never gave a detail
of the spiritual conversion to which she believed
their deaths led, because it was part of that terrible
time — fully realised that the empty places would
not be refilled on this side the grave is evident
from a line quoted in her diary long after-
wards: " Fate, drop the curtain ; I can lose no
more."

Anyone who has watched the effect on men's
minds of such domestic tragedies as the two which
had befallen Lady Maxwell will have no difficulty
in believing that, even retiring from the world as
she did, becoming what worldly men would consider
a fanatic in one of the Methodist forms of religion —
devoting the greater portion of her afiluence,
which was not wealth, only easy circumstances
for her station, to works of charity and piety — she
was nevertheless troubled by various offers of
marriage from men, some of them considerably
above her in rank.

That these aristocratic suitors did not hold her
religious opinions is implied by her biographer's
reflection that the inadvisability of Christian

260

LADY MAXWELL IN EDINBURGH

women yoking themselves with unbelievers was
probably one of the deterrents to her lending an
ear to the gentlemen's flattering addresses. Only
on one occasion did she hesitate, we are told, and
that for the briefest season.

We can understand also that moment of heart-
sinking loneliness which assailed the young be-
reaved woman, though we are a little puzzled to
know by what channels such private information
reached her biographer. Certainly it was not
from her own self-respecting lips, so sealed on all
which deeply concerned her.

On her widowhood Lady Maxwell came to Edin-
burgh, taking a house there, and in or near Edin-
burgh she spent the rest of her Hfe with short
exceptions. Her house was in Princes Street, not
then a busy thoroughfare given over to shops,
offices and hotels, but one of the new streets of the
new town. It had been named for the two elder
sons of the Royal house on the occasion of a visit
they paid to the Scotch capital. It was built on
what had been the Burgh Muir, and looked across
the recently drained Nor' Loch to the high
" Lands " of the old town, crowned by the Castle
on its beetling rock, a wonderfully picturesque
view.

When Lady Maxwell turned in her desolation to
the sole consolation which was left to her, she

261

.S-(23cr.)

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

received a vivid and lasting impression of Wes-
leyanism (then much talked of in Scotland for the
effects it was producing in England). It was the
organisation which appealed to her as the fittest
expression of the will of the Divine Founder of
Christianity. It does not seem likely that she
had any personal introduction to John Wesley
before 1764 — later they were on intimate terms,
and corresponded regularly. In 1764, when Lady
Maxwell was in her twenty-third year, John
Wesley paid his most memorable visit to Edin-
burgh, where he was welcomed by some of the most
liberal and evangelical of the Scotch ministers, of
whom Lady Maxwell's minister. Dr. Webster, was
one. Wesley preached to large crowds on the
Calton Hill and in the yard of the High School.
In each instance the distinguished figure and face of
the young widow in her sombre weeds was surely
to be seen standing or sitting on one of the
seats provided for the old or the ailing in the
congregation.

Though Wesley's system and doctrines made
comparatively little mark in Scotland, where other
reformers had long before preceded him and sown
seed which had yielded fruit for generations and
was to sprout afresh and bear its testimony for
generations yet to come; and though Whitefield,
as coming so much nearer to the creed of the Scotch

262

LADY MAXWELL ADOPTS WESLEY ANISM

reformers, was decidedly preferred to Wesley, yet
Wesley's Society, which Lady Maxwell immediately
joined, had its adherents. Several Wesleyan
chapels were opened in different quarters of
the city, the ministers receiving in their own
denomination the distinctive title of Preachers.

Lady Maxwell continued for the rest of her life
an attached and faithful W^esleyan, which did not
prevent her from maintaining a sincere friendship
with her large-hearted parish minister, who felt
no scruple in accompanying her on various
evenings to the services in her chapel.

When Lady Glenorchy and Lady Maxwell first
met, whether as girls at their respective boarding-
schools, whether after both had borne the yoke of
sorrow and care in their youth and had taken up
that other yoke which was light by comparison,
there is no evidence to tell. But it seems the most
natural thing in the world that, even without that
slight tie of blood between the Maxwells of Pollok
and the Maxwells of Preston, Lady Glenorchy in
Holyrood Palace, and Lady Maxwell in her house
in Princes' Street should have been chief friends —
" friends in the Lord " they would have called
themselves. They attended together those weekly
meetings of " honourable women " over which Mr.
Robert Walker of the High Church worthily pre-
sided, they planned, side by side, that unfortunate

263

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Niddry Wynd chapel, which was to have united
the different Christian sects in a holy brother-
hood, but was destined to be such a bone of
contention as its projectors had never dreamt
of.

The friendship stretched beyond the hfe
of one of the friends in accordance with the
resolution by which Lady Glenorchy appointed
her contemporary her executrix.

The sign of the wisdom of the choice was found
in the absolute conscientiousness, in the unweary-
ing fidelity with which for the twenty years during
which Lady Maxwell survived Lady Glenorchy
she took upon her the burden of the other's good
works— not even getting credit for the gratuitous
service. She strove with advancing years and
abated strength to promote their usefulness, to
defend them from abuse, and to bring to an end
the lawyer's irksome arguments as to the value of
conflicting codicils of conflicting wills which caused
much delay and doubled the drudgery involved
in the vested authority.

If anything were needed to bind still more
indissolubly the union between kindred spirits,
the one forming the complement of the other, it
was the friend in common younger than either,
young enough to be entitled Lady Maxwell's
adopted daughter and to be constantly addressed

264

DEATH OF LADY HENRIETTA HOPE

by her as her "dear daughter," "her daughter
in the Lord." Yet this youngest of the three, the
adopted daughter, Lady Henrietta Hope, was so
gifted with sense and sweetness, so beloved in her
own family as by those other friends, that she was
lit to be their fellow-worker, in some respects their
stay no less than their pupil.

The near neighbourhood of her father's seat of
Hopetoun to Edinburgh and to the country-houses
where Lady Maxwell sometimes went for the
benefit of her health made Lady Henrietta an
especially available as well as a very dear com-
panion to Lady Maxwell. Notwithstanding this,
though she might have counted on her young
friend as likely to be the solace of her age, she gave
her up without a grudge to Lady Glenorchy, when
it was arranged on Lord Hopetoun' s death that the
two should make their home together.

It was left for Lady Maxwell to endure the pang
of parting when the pair went on their last journey
to England, to hear of the rapidly declining health
of Lady Henrietta, while her own health was too
broken and the season of the year — autumn — too
far advanced for her to venture on taking the
journey to Bristol. When the tidings of her
"daughter's" death reached Lady Maxwell at the
country-house near Edinburgh, it was a token of
the severity of the loss she had experienced that,

265

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

as with the losses of her early youth, she could not
bring herself to speak of it. Even the diary which
she kept as punctually as Lady Glenorchy wrote
in hers — a practice which Lady Maxwell had
pressed Lady Henrietta to adopt — lay unopened,
with its pages blank, for weeks after this latest
blow.

But if Lady Maxwell led a retired life it was not,
strictly speaking, solitary, any more than it was
idle. She had often relatives, a sister or a niece,
staying under her roof, and she was not without
a congenial, if a limited circle of friends. She was
too much occupied and too much in earnest to care
for mere acquaintances, but if anyone had the
slightest claim on her, if he or she were in sickness
or sorrow. Lady Maxwell was ready to hasten to
their aid.

There are some touching passages in her letters
with reference to a Mrs. Hunter — who had lost an
infant child — whom Lady Maxwell tenderly com-
miserated. She alludes to the baby as one whom
she had enjoyed the privilege of taking in her arms
and blessing, little thinking how short its span of
life was to be. Did she see in it her own little
child so soon and under such sad circumstances
taken from her ?

Her great source of pleasure was in a gathering
at her house every Thursday, when all the Preachers

266

A DAY IN LADY MAXWELL'S LIFE

(Wesleyan) in town, met together, and formed a
class in which she, above all others, held high
communion.

One is reminded somehow of a similar yet widely
removed meeting for worship and spiritual
improvement in Charles Simeon's rooms at
Cambridge.

Lady Maxwell's biographer has supplied us
with an example of how her days were spent. In
her earher years she rose as soon as four o'clock in
order to attend the morning service at the nearest
Wesleyan Chapel at five o'clock. On her return
she continued in her private devotions until her
breakfast hour, which was seven. After breakfast
she fulfilled the duties of the mistress of a household
— always onerous even when the household is small
to a mistress who holds herself responsible for the
well-being of every member.

She had a good deal of writing to do in connection
with her own church-membership and her charities,
and when she accepted Lady Glenorchy's legacy —
the care of her chapels and schools, and the dis-
pensing of the funds in connection with them —
the work became so heavy that Lady Maxwell had
to keep a private secretary.

From eleven to twelve she withdrew to her
place of privacy, and spent an hour in prayer and
meditation. Later, she took exercise and visited

267

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

her friends and her poor. There were periods, if
possible, of retirement for communion with the
unseen world, before and again after dinner. In
the evening she read — mostly Divinity. After an
early, light supper, her household met for a short
service before going to bed.

On Sunday she went to the Wesleyan Chapel in
the morning and evening, and to the Parish Church
in the interval. Unlike Lady Glenorchy she could
criticise a sermon, and had not only a quick
appreciation of its merits, but a keen sense of
its demerits.

On Monday evening she was rarely absent from
her chapeFs prayer-meeting, and she attended the
Band meeting where she always spoke ; she did so
also at the love-feasts with great freedom and
impressiveness.

Again, unlike Lady Glenorchy, Lady Maxwell
could give a pubHc address with readiness and ease,
as well as with sincerity and power. She did not
seem to make allowance in such circumstances for
varieties of temperament and talents, since she
appears to have attributed her friend's shyness
and dumbness to false modesty, reluctance to
make an effort, and want of habit, rather than to
a lack of a special gift, else there would not have
been the sorrowful entry in Lady Glenorchy' s
diary that Lady Maxwell had asked her to pray

268

LADY MAXWELL'S CHARACTER

with her, which she could not do, and so was filled
with distress and shame.

Friday was a day of special fasting and prayer, a
retrospect day in which she revised her doings and
her spiritual experience for the week.

In preparation for the Une of conduct which she
carefully observed. Lady Maxwell drew up a
covenant between herself and her God. It was
duly dated and signed " Darcy Maxwell." Doubt-
less there have been multitudes of such covenants
between individual Christians and their Maker,
though one hears and sees less of them than of
national and church leagues and covenants.

In Darcy Maxwell's covenant she craved no
temporal blessing, neither health, nor wealth, nor
worldly honours, for herself or those who were
dear to her, and while she prayed to God to do His
part, it was by giving her the faith, courage
and steadfastness without which it would be
impossible for her to fulfil her share of the
contract.

Lady Maxwell was a woman of altogether
stronger mental physique than Lady Glenorchy,
while she was not less unworldly nor less devoted.
Her faith was more assured, her peace more perfect,
though her diary bears witness of what she con-
sidered conflicts with sin and Satan, and she
continually craved more complete salvation, yet

269

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

she was convinced of her justification, even of her
sanctitication.

Lady Maxwell, from her not too large income, in
addition to the deduction from her capital of that
free gift of eight hundred pounds to remove the
debt from John Wesley's schools, started, main-
tained and endowed a charity school in Edinburgh,
which, according to a computation made before
her death, had sent into the world eight hundred
trained scholars. She also opened two of the
earliest Scotch Sunday Schools, one in the capital
and another at some distance in the country.

These and her other charities could only have
been carried out by strict self-denial. For instance,
not only in town, but in the country,- at Saughton
Hall and at Coates, she kept no carriage when, in
the dehcate state of her health, to be reduced to
walking for her only exercise must have made
her almost a prisoner to the gardens and grounds
of the houses. Neither were these private grounds
likely to have been choice or extensive, when the
accommodation of one of the houses (Saughton
Hall) was so restricted, even for Lady Maxwell's
small requirements, that she mentions on one occa-
sion, as an obstacle to her repairing to the country-
house, that a dying young woman was there.
Apparently the best guest-chamber was given up
to the invalid, and Lady Maxwell proceeds to

270

THE HOPE CHAPEL

speculate whether she could get another bedroom
or another bed in the same room.

In discharge of her office as Lady Glenorchy's
executrix, to which she gave much thought and
trouble, in 1749, three years after the death of her
two friends had touched her nearly, she went to
England and Bristol on business connected with
the Hope Chapel. She had not crossed the border
since the giriish flight to be presented at Court,
and get a glimpse of the great world. It was a
different errand which took her a grave, middle-
aged woman to the scene of her adopted daughter's
last sufferings and death to do her best for that
monument to friendship, humanity and religion
which had been Lady Henrietta Hope's last
concern.

It is said with evident truth that Lady Maxwell
dreaded the opening afresh of a wound which
time's merciful work had served to close, with
the revival of emotions which, brave as she was,
she shrank from encountering. But when the
cause was one of duty, and of the dead friend's
heart's desire, there could be no question whether
the performance should or should not be
accompHshed.

In the following year the untravelled, untravel-
ling woman was again at Bristol, and in 1791 she
took a third journey south, when she inspected

271

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

the meeting-houses at CarUsle and Worthington,
but of all the institutions in her care the Hope
Chapel was nearest her heart. It was also the
most troublesome obligation, from unexpected
contradictions and difficulties.

As time passed and premature infirmity crept
on, Lady Maxwell modified a little the severe
disciphne to which she had accustomed herself —
rose at six in the morning instead of four, break-
fasted at eight instead of seven, attended only the
morning diet of worship on Sunday. But her
health slowly and surely declined until entire loss
of appetite sapped what strength remained to her.
On the second of July, 1810, at the age of sixty-
eight, content and at peace, she departed from
this hfe, her spirit committed to God's hands, and
if it were His will permitted in the restitution of
all things to find once more the lost darlings of
her youth.

272

CHAPTER XVIII

Frequent Administration of the Sacrament Introduced in Lady
Glcnorchy's Church — Her Visits to England — Death of Lord
Hopetoun — Lady Henrietta Hope's Home with Lady Glenorchy —
Opening of a Meeting-house at Carlisle — Last Visit to Taymouth —
Lord Breadalbane's Death at Holyrood — Lady Glenorchy at
Barnton — Declining Health — At Moffat, where Visitors Drank
Goat's Whey as well as Mineral Water — Her Work among the
Sick Poor — Breakdown of Lady Glenorchy 's Carriage at Matlock
and Founding of a Chapel there — Last Visit to the Hills — Return
to Edinburgh — Life Despaired of — A Rally and a Final Stay at
Barnton — At Matlock with Lady Henrietta Hope in 1785 — Resort
to Bristol to try the Hot Springs — Death of Lady Henrietta Hope
at Bristol on New Year's Day, 1786 — Her Request to Found a
Chapel at Bristol carried out by Lady Glenorchy — The Chapel
named the Hope Chapel as a Memorial of a Faithful Friendship —
One more Visit to her Chapels at Exmouth, Matlock and Carlisle,
with the last Chapel she Established at Workington — Barnton Sold
— Lady Glenorchy with her Aunt, Miss Hairstanes, in the Countess
of Sutherland's House in George Square — Interview with Mr. Jones
— Brief Illness — Her Remark to herself, " If this be dying, it is the
pleasantest thing imaginable " — Her Death on the 17th of July,
1786, in her forty-fifth year — Buried in an Excavation of the Rock
on which her Church waus built, her head resting under the
Communion Table.

So complete was Lady Glenorchy' s reconciliation
with the Presbytery that in the course of a year
or two she and her pastor, Mr. Jones, ventured
without reproof or check of any kind, on an
innovation which has become general in town
churches in Scotland.

The Sacrament was formerly administered at
most twice a year, preceded by a fast-day on
the Thursday before the Sacrament Sunday,
with service and a sermon on Saturday and a
thanksgiving sermon and prayers on Monday.

Lady Glenorchy and Mr. Jones established on

273

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

their own responsibility the giving of the Sacrament
every second month with evening services on the
preceding Saturday and succeeding Monday, but
without the Thursday fast- day, and the longer
services on Saturday and Monday, except twice
a year in conformity with the practice of the
neighbouring churches of the city.

After her usual visits to Taymouth and Barnton
Lady Glenorchy went again to England, accom-
panied by Lady Henrietta Hope. Not long after
their arrival in London Lady Glenorchy became
so alarmingly ill that one of the first physicians of
the time was called in. He declared her illness to
be gout in the head and stomach, from which it
is said she was never again altogether free.

But she was able to go on to Exmouth, where
she was rejoiced to find her improvised chapel
prospering. Next she visited the Holmes near
Exeter. She sought the mineral waters at Bath.
She saw her friends at Hawkestone and returned
north by the Yorkshire watering-place of Buxton.

In the winter of 1780 she was agcdn at Bath on
account of her health. During her stay she joined
in the worship at Lady Huntingdon's Chapel, and
after a scruple, which she overcame, took the
Communion.

About this time Lord Hopetoun died, and by a
happy arrangement for Lady Glenorchy in her

274

TWO FRIENDS

solitude, when she was not with Lord Breadalbane
at Taymouth or Holyrood, Lady Henrietta Hope
came to stay with her. The two ladies were dear
friends, one of the least of the things which they
had in common being the delicate health of both.

Lady Henrietta joined Lady Glenorchy at
Buxton, and on the homeward route they stopped
at Carhsle. It was just thirty-six years since
" Bonnie Prince Charlie " and his army passed
through " Merry Carlisle " in the exuberant joy
of their early successes on their way to win a triple
crown. After their retreat from Derby and the
defeat of Preston, the routed forces came the same
way, a dispirited, disordered throng. A little later
Carhsle " Yetts " presented the gruesome spectacle
of the spiked heads of some of the leaders of the
rebels.

There were those among the descendants of
these rebels who remembered the executions at
Carlisle so long and so passionately that for more
than a hundred years no member of the family
whose ancestor had suffered there in the "'45"
would journey through the ill-omened town on
their way to England ; they made a considerable
detour in order to avoid the place.

If in Lady Glenorchy's day any mouldering
traces yet lingered of the unhappy fate of her
countrymen who had fought in the same desperate

275

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

cause with the Nithsdale Maxwells, it was not of
them she thought. No particle of bitterness, not
the most distant vain dream of retaliation and
vengeance was in that spirit full of love and charity
which mourned only over the decay of rehgion in
Carhsle, and finding a deserted, shut- up Presby-
terian meeting-house, set about the purchase,
provided a minister, and aided an awakened
congregation in supplying him with a salary.

This year Lady Glenorchy paid her last visit to
Taymouth. For twenty years she had hardly ever
failed to spend her late summers and autumns
there, with its venerable owner. She loved its
retirement if not its state, and if its grand land-
scape did not impress her, it was full to her of such
sweet, sad, sacred associations as made it heaven's
own vestibule.

Her connection with the Palace at Holyrood,
where in Lord Breadalbane's apartments she had
passed many winters, was also about to end, for
Lord Breadalbane died there suddenly towards
the close of January, 1782. It was a comfort to
her that she was with him at the last. He died
on a Saturday, and she, having heard of his shght
attack of illness, had come in from Barnton on
Thursday to attend upon him, and saw him pleased
and happy in having her about him. Only ten
minutes before his death his doctor said he was

276

LORD BREADALBANE

much better, and that he would probably be up
in his chair in a few days. But his resting-place
was to be in far away lone Finlarig, with his
children and his ancestors.

It goes without saying that Lady Glenorchy
had always been concerned for the old nobleman's
soul's welfare, and had done " what propriety
allowed " to be of service to him in this respect
also. But these were days when younger kindred,
however dear, stood at a great distance from their
seniors. In addition to the national reserve, men
of Lord Breadalbane's stamp, in his position, were
not easily approached on such delicate subjects.
Years before he had forbidden the presence of a
chaplain at the Castle when he was in residence, as
committing him to an acknowledgment of his
views. It was only from a trustworthy, confi-
dential servant much about his master's person
that the Earl's friends had the chance of hearing
how frequently in latter days he read his Bible,
and engaged in prayer, and that his only hope for
a happy eternity was founded on the mercy of
God and the merits of Christ Jesus his Saviour.

In the following May Lady Glenorchy and Lady
Henrietta Hope again repaired to Buxton, but
the much-prized mineral waters to which their
generation resorted so frequently were of little
avail in the case of Lady Glenorchy, whose health,

277

19— (a3o«'i

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

always far from robust, was steadily declining so
that she was becoming unable for much intercourse
with her friends. " I have not enjoyed a day free
from pain for many months/' she wrote, but she
would not complain. The Lord had wise ends in
afflicting His people.

She was only forty-one years of age, and a little
improvement occurring in her condition, she
cheerfully went to a Scotch watering-place,
Moffat, possibly to adopt what had been her
friends' practice for years, that of drinking goats'
whey. Lady Henrietta Hope and her sister. Lady
Jane Hope (afterwards Lady Melville), were already
at Moffat when Lady Glenorchy joined them there.
Indefatigable in good works when she had any
approach to strength, she visited personally and
sought to instruct and comfort the sick poor about
Moffat.

The winter of 1783 and the early spring of 1784
Lady Glenorchy spent between Barnton and
Moffat, where in June she left Lady Henrietta,
who was now the greater invalid of the two, and
travelled to CarHsle. She was gladdened by the
success of her chapel there. On her way to Buxton
her carriage broke down on a Saturday at Matlock
and she was under the necessity of remaining there
over Sunday.

It was a habit of hers when arriving at a village

278

MATLOCK

or town to enquire into the spiritual state of the
inhabitants. The case of Matlock struck her as
so bad that she almost immediately made up her
mind to buy " a small, neat house " built for the
managing partner of a cotton mill. The attraction
was a chapel attached to it which could contain
three hundred persons.

The provision for the wants of spiritually
destitute country people had become a passion
with her as with her old friend Lady Huntingdon.
Lady Glenorchy had always been simple in her
personal habits and economical in her private
expenses. She now began to push the economy
much further, to grudge herself the Httle she took,
and to talk of selhng Barnton in order that she
might have more means in her power to do good.

Surely it was time for friends to interfere again
and prevent her from rendering herself destitute,
but the sacrifice was well-nigh complete.

She paid one more visit to the Hills at Hawke-
stone. She arrived in Edinburgh in November at
Lord Leven's house in Nicholson Square, which
she had taken for the winter, to ensure greater
comfort and convenience for Lady Henrietta Hope.

In the early spring of 1785 Lady Glenorchy was
so ill that her life was despaired of, but she re-
covered sufficiently to go to Barnton in the course
of the spring, leaving it in June, never to return.

279

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

She was seeking to sell it, thinking that to keep
it up cost too much money which could be spent
to better purpose. Apparently, if she could dis-
pose of Barnton, her intention was to confine
herself for the summer months to the small house
at Matlock.

She was there in September, 1785, watching
over the interests of her chapel. Lady Henrietta
Hope had been able to accompany her, and at the
end of the month they went to Bristol to try the
hot springs for the ailment of the weaker of the
two.

Another blow was in store for Lady Glenorchy.
Her friend's malady, in place of decreasing, took
a fatal turn ; dropsy set in, and after several
months of great suffering. Lady Henrietta Hope
died on New Year's Day, 1786.

The friends had dwelt together in affectionate
companionship for four years, but their sympathy
and regard had a more distant date. Lady
Glenorchy, writing to Lady Mary Fitzgerald of
what was her only consolation in the near prospect
of Lady Henrietta's death, asserted that she had
been to her for years " as her own soul." The
expression meant much from the single-hearted,
sincere woman who made use of it. Well for the
survivor that her heart was with her treasure in
heaven where parted souls would be re-united,

280

HOPE CHAPEL

never more to be severed. Well for her also that
her winning, unselfish disposition attracted friends
to her and retained them for her, wherever she
went, whether they were of the world worldly, or
like herself of a higher sphere.

Lady Henrietta Hope and Lady Glenorchy had
proposed to build a chapel near Bristol Hot Wells,
sharing the expenses between them, and she who
was called away before the project could be
accomplished, bequeathed to the other two thou-
sand five hundred pounds to carry out the scheme.
It occupied much of Lady Glenorchy's attention in
those sorrowful days. She decided to call this
monument to friendship and to the help of her
fellow-creatures " Hope Chapel." She fixed on
the plan, contracted with the workmen, and saw
the work begun. It was to be finished in the
course of the year and opened in the following
spring, which she did not live to see.

She went with another friend. Miss Morgan of
Bristol, into Devonshire, to open a new place of
worship there, to see the condition of her chapels
at Exmouth and Matlock, and to visit her mother
in London. On her journey home she bestowed
some care on the purchase of ground for a chapel at
Workington, and to ascertain the condition —
happily a thriving one — of the meeting-house at
Carlisle.

281

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Arriving in Edinburgh in June, she found her
agent completing the sale of Barnton, the price
amounting to twenty-seven thousand pounds.

Later Lady Glenorchy was staying in the
young Countess of Sutherland's house in George
Square. The Countess herself was absent, but an
aunt of Lady Glenorchy' s, Miss Hairstanes, from
Kirkcudbright, was with her niece.

On an evening in July, Mr. Jones, the pastor of
her church, " waited upon her," he tells us, to pay
his respects and take leave of her before he quitted
the town for some weeks. He found her sitting
in her dressing-gown, easy and cheerful. They
talked for about an hour when her conversation
was not only " seasoned with grace," but had the
vivacity and pleasantry which often made it so
fascinating.

When he rose to go she said to him, by a coin-
cidence which would have been certain to strike
herself, " if you are to be away so long I shall not
see you again."

In order to turn the speech from a more serious
interpretation, he exclaimed : " What ! is your
ladyship about to leave us so soon ? "

Resuming the gaiety of her tone she said : "I
am thinking of going south."

" What ! " said I, " to the south of France ? "

" Why," repUed her ladyship, " perhaps I may ;

282

LADY GLENORCHY'S DYING MOMENTS

the physicians say I ought not to winter in Britain.
I have written to the Holmes's to ask them if they
will go with me, and if they consent, it may be I
shall be on my way there before your return."
She gave him her hand, and bade him farewell,
the last words he heard her say.

Another gentleman, who for love of her and her
schools and charitable institutions, looked after
them for her, called, and she talked to him with
interest.

Later, according to a common medical prescrip-
tion of the time, she swallowed an emetic. The
sickness which was desired continued longer than
was necessary, but this also had been a former
experience of hers.

However, her aunt, Miss Hairstanes, took the
precaution of sending to tell Lady Glenorchy's
doctor, and to ask him if she might give her
some drops of laudanum which had benefited
her on former occasions. He approved of the
laudanum, but the sickness was not removed.

The doctor saw her next day and thought she
would be better presently.

As she lay quiet and composed her aunt, Hstening
behind the curtain to see if she was asleep,
heard her say : " Well, if this be dying, it is the
pleasantest thing imaginable."

In her early youth she had feared death, but as

283

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

she grew older the fear passed entirely away in
the many times she was brought face to face with
the last enemy during her frequent dangerous
illnesses. She fell asleep on Saturday night and
went on sleeping softly, but as she did not awake
on Sunday morning, Miss Hairstanes called in fur-
ther medical advice. Still her doctors thought she
would sleep off the illness. But as time passed and
there was no change, a third doctor was summoned,
but he would not pronounce on the case.

The summer Sunday had worn on to evening,
when to the amazement and distress of Mr. Jones
he received a note from Lady Glenorchy's man-
servant to the effect that he feared his lady was
at the point of death.

Her minister and chaplain went immediately
to her, and saw her lying as she had gone to sleep,
her breathing almost imperceptible. So she
passed another night, dying on Monday forenoon,
the 17th of July, 1786, in her forty-fifth year.
Surely, at the last, death gently dealt with her
gentle and generous spirit and her spent body.

Lady Glenorchy had wished to be buried in her
church in Edinburgh. Accordingly a vault was
prepared with some difficulty, as the foundation
was discovered to be solid rock in which an
excavation was hewn enough to hold her coffin,
the head lying under the Communion Table.

284

LADY GLENORCHY'S BEQUESTS

A sorrowful crowd filled her church for the
funeral, which her late father-in-law, the Earl of
Breadalbane's kinsman and successor, travelled
from London to attend in order to show the dead
woman the respect of acting as chief mourner.

On the following Sunday funeral sermons were
preached in her church by her minister and by
Dr. Hunter, Professor of Divinity, in Edinburgh.

Lady Glenorchy had early made her will which
circumstances had forced her to supplement
several times. Even then she had memoranda for
another will, which was to have been signed on the
evening of the day on which she died. She had
already executed trust deeds in favour of her
Edinburgh church and of her Matlock chapel. In
the last case she bequeathed the chapel, house
and furniture to the Rev. Jonathan Scott, the
pastor, and to his wife after him, absolutely.

The last completed will made at Bristol the year
before her death still named Lady Maxwell her
executrix. What money remained of what had
been Lady Glenorchy's possessions was thirty
thousand pounds. This was divided into two
halves, one half was left in legacies and annuities
to her mother, her aunt, and numerous friends and
dependents. The remaining half was disposed of
in religious and charitable bequests, including
five thousand pounds to the Scotch Society for

285

THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON

Propagating Christian Knowledge — preferably (if
supported by the land-owners) to maintain schools
and for other religious purposes on the estates
of Sutherland and Breadalbane, and five thou-
sand pounds to the Rev. Jonathan Scott, of
Matlock, for the education of young men for the
ministry.

There was also a sealed letter to Lady Maxwell,
to be opened after Lady Glenorchy's death, asking
the friend (who complied with the greatest care
and pains where every behest was in question) to
finish Hope Chapel at Bristol Wells, and to aid
the chapels at Workington, Carlisle, and elsewhere.

Lady Glenorchy's many friends and debtors
would fain have preserved a personal remembrance
of her in the shape of picture or engraving, but the
only known portrait of her was that done in Italy,
in her youth, representing her plajdng on a lute,
to which no one attached value neither as a portrait
or as a work of art. An attempt was made by the
directors of the Society for Propagating Christian
Knowledge, to get a likeness of her by means of
description, and the artist Martin was employed
for the purpose ; but as he had never seen her
and relied chiefly on his imagination, the work
which hung in the Hall of the Society was far
from satisfactory.

So ends the record of one of the saintliest Hves

286

CONCLUSION

ever lived, whether in the world or within convent
walls.

Lady Glenorchy outlived her friend Lady Hen-
rietta Hope by only six months. Miss Hill soon
followed the two. Lady Glenorchy' s revered ally,
Lady Huntington, who was on the verge of four-
score when Lady Glenorchy died, had yet five
or six years of Hfe, while Lady Alva and Miss
Hairstanes survived their daughter and niece for
many years.

Since making the study of Lady Glenorchy the
writer has seen an engraving of her which may
have been taken from some forgotten sketch. It
is certainly neither from the Italian portrait, nor
from Martin's picture. It represents a sweet,
winning personality, a shght figure, the plain dark
dress open on a white neckerchief reaching from
the throat to the waist, a " pear-shaped face,"
broad forehead, dehcately-arched eyebrows, and
straight nose. The wavy hair is rolled back, the
dehcate. contour just shaded by a soft white cap, to
which a bow of ribbon fastens a black veil that
hangs down on the shoulders — probably as a mark
of widowhood.

THE END

287

Index

Addison, Joseph, 19

Akenside, Mark, 34

Alva, Charles, Lord, 142

Alva, Lady. 141, 142, 143. 144. 176.

177. 287
Ancaster. Duchess of. 12. 50. 80,

120
Auchalladair, Mr.. 178

Baillie, Lady Ross, 183

Balfour, Rev. Robert, 221. 222. 224,
230, 232, 236

Balgonie, Lord, 248

Baltimore, Lord, 12

Banff, Lady, 183

Bennett, Mr., 97, 104, 105, 106

— , Mrs. {See Murray, Grace.)

Benson, Martin. Bishop of Glouces-
ter, 22 et seq.

Berridge, John, 109-113, 128. 133,
155 ; Letter to Lady Hunting-
don, 111

Bertie, Lady Ellinor, 50

Blair, Robert. 183

Bolingbroke, Lord, 8, 37, 39, 48,
121 132

Bread'albane, Earl of, 144, 146, 147,
148, 151, 180, 192, 205, 206, 275.
276, 277

Brisbane of Brisbane, 257

Buckingham, Duchess of, 46 ;
Letter to Lady Huntingdon, 47

Campbell, Lady Jemima, 147
Carlyle of Inveresk, 223
Carmichael of Carmunnok, 233, 236
Charlotte, Queen, 121, 122, 123, 126
Cheshunt College. (See Trevecca

College.)
Chesterfield, Earl of, 8. 9. 39. 40,

48, 83, 84, 85, 121
— , Lady, 83, 84, 85
Chudleigh, Miss, 160
" Clapham Sect, The," 29
Clayden, Mr., 234
Cobham, Lady, 80
Cornwallis, Lord, 74, 117

Cornwallis, Frederick, Archbishop of

Canterbury, 117-119, 124, 125
Coventry, Lady, 72
Cowper, William, 203

Dartmouth, Earl of, 120

De Courcy. Mr., 193, 194, 195, 202.

203, 235
De Gray, Marchioness, 182, 214
Delany. {See Pendarvis, Mary.)
Derry, Bishop of, 160
Devonshire, Duke of, 115
Dick, Mr., 221
Dickie, Mr., 234
Dickson, Deacon. 210
Doddridge. Philip, 30. 50

Easterbrook, Mr., 60
Elgin, Charles, Earl of, 206
England in the Eighteenth Century,

1. 2
Erskine, Lady Anne, 134, 248
— , Charles. {See Alva, Lord.)
— , Ebenezer, 88
— , Dr. John, 213, 221, 224

Ferrers, Lawrence Shirley, Earl.
Dissolute life, 66 ; separated
from wife, 67 ; kills his land-
steward, Johnson, 69 ; arrested,
70 ; imprisoned in the Tower.
70 ; visited by Lady Hunting-
don, 70, 71 ; arraigned in West-
minster Hall, 72 ; pleads in-
sanity, 72 ; condemned to death.
73 ; hanged at Tyburn, 75-77

Fitzgerald, George Robert, 160, 161

— , Lady Mary, 159, 280

Fletcher of Madeley, 58, 59, 60, 90,
240

— , Mrs. 90

Foote, Samuel, 114, 116

Frankland, Frederick, 21

Gardiner, Colonel, 25
Garrick, David, 114, 115, 116
George II, 73, 124

289

INDEX

George III, 84, 121, 122, 124. 126;
Letter to the Archbishop of
Canterbury, 125

Germayne, Lady Betty, 49

Gibson, Mr., 202

Gillespie. Thomas, 196-198 ; Letter
to Lady Glenorchy, 197

Glazebrook, Mr., 60, 61, 62, 110

Glenorchy, John Viscount, 144, 147,
148. 156, 192, 200-205 ; his will,
205

— , Willielma, Lady, birth and
descent, 140, 141 ; marries Vis-
count Glenorchy, 144 ; travels
abroad with him, 148 ; friend-
ship with Miss Hill, 152, 156;
her pleasing character, 153 ;
gradual conversion to Methodism,
156 ; friendship with Lady Hunt-
ingdon, 161 ; at Taymouth, 163-
173 ; arrives at definite belief,
167 ; death of her sister and
brother-in-law, 176 ; begins her
diary, 177 ; at Holyrood, 180 ;
her aloofness from the world,
181 ; her intimates in Edin-
burgh, 183 ; hires Niddry Wind
Chapel. 186 ; but obstacles arise,
187 ; introduced to John Wesley,
188 ; separates chapel from
Wesleyan preachers, 189, and
loses Lady Maxwell's good
opinion thereby. 190 ; donation
to Trevecca College, 61 ; at
Barnton, 191 ; institutes chapel
there, 192 ; rebuked for her
reticence, 196, 198 ; death of her
husband, 203 ; left his sole
legatee, 205 ; her austerity
remonstrated with by Walker,
211 ; her project to build a
church, 209 ; foundation stone
laid, 210 ; the opening, 213 ;
visits England, 214 ; her liking for
English Presbyterianism, 216 ;
her minister discountenanced by
the Presbytery, 217 ; her ap-
pointment of Balfour disputed.
222 ; trouble with the Synod,
224, 226 ; in England again, 225
et seq. ; founds chapel at Ex-
mouth, 228 ; compromise with
the Assembly, 229 ; returns to

Glenorchy. Willielma, Lady

Edinburgh, 230 ; appoints Sheriff
minister of her church, 231 ; on
his death, appoints Jones, 234 ;
some of her friends, etc.. Chap.
XVIL pp. 237-272 ; reconcilia-
tion with the Presbytery, 273 ;
introduces more frequent ad-
ministration of the Sacrament,
273 ; in London, 274 ; alarm-
ingly ill, 274 ; joined by Lady
Henrietta Hope, 275 ; restores
chapel at Carlisle, 275. 281 ;
arranges for chapel at Matlock,
279, 280 ; death of Lady Hope,
280 ; back again, after various
excursions, in Edinburgh, 282 ;
peaceful death. 284, 133 ; burial,
284, 285 ; her will, 285-6 ; por-
traits of, 286. 287
— , Letter to Lady Huntingdon, 161
Granville, Ann. 11 [235

Grove. Mr.. 216, 217, 218. 219, 220,
Gudway, Mrs.. 226

Haddington. Mary Countess of, 209
Hairstanes. Miss, 282, 283, 284,

287
Hastings, Lady Betty, 16
— , Lady Catherine, 16. 22
— , Lady Elizabeth. {See Moira.

Countess.)
— , Col. George, 129
— , Hon. Henry. 34, 127
— . Lady Margaret, 16, 18, 19, 22
— , Lady Mary. 6
— , Lady Selina, 86, 95, 128, 129,

130
— , Rev. Theophilus, 129
Heber, Bishop, 238
Hervey, Lord, 15
— , James, 9

Hill, General Lord, 256, 257
— . Jane. 152, 154, 155, 157, 166,

169. 182, 190, 196, 225, 226, 228,

237, 238, 239, 240. 241, 242, 244,
245, 247, 248, 251 ,254, 256. 287

~, Sir John, 256

— , Sir Richard, 238, 240, 244, 255.

256
— , Robert, 238
— . Sir Rowland, 85, 152, 154. 237.

238, 243, 244, 249, 255

290

INDEX

Hill, Lady, 255

— Rev. Rowland, 85, 154, 156.
238 239, 240, 243, 244, 246, 247,
248! 249, 250, 251, 254, 255, 256.
257*

— Mrs. Rowland, 249, 251
Holmes, Mr., 226, 227, 228, 283
Hope Lady Henrietta, 182, 209,

219, 231, 265, 271, 274, 275, 277,
278, 279, 280. 281, 287

— Lady Sophia, 209
Hotham, Sir Charles, 85-87, 128
— , Lady Gertrude, 85, 87
Hume, David. 142

Hunter, Dr.. 285
Huntingdon. Theophilus, 9th Earl
of, 7. 21. 37

— Francis. 10th Earl of, 34, 39,
41, 42, 61, 72, 85, 86. 129, 131, 132

— , Selina Countess of, birth and
parentage, 3 ; early religious
impressions, 4 ; personal appear-
ance, 4, 5 ; innate seriousness of
character, 6 ; marries ninth Earl
of Huntingdon, 7 ; eccentricity
in matter of dress, 10, 11, 12;
interest in contemporary politics,
12 ; at Donnington Park, 16, 17 ;
in doubt of the Methodists. 18 ;
stricken with illness, and religious
convictions deepened, 20 ; prac-
tically throws in her lot with the
Methodists, 21 ; consults Bishop
Benson, 22 et seq. ; appoints
Whitefield her chaplain, 28 ;
attached to Church of England,
29, 254 ; but realises that
adherence is impossible. 30 ;
work among the poor, 31 ; influ-
ence on her own class, 31 ; death
of her two sons, 35 ; and of her
husband, 37 ; goes on a mission-
ary tour in Wales, 38 ; vacates
Donnington Park, 39 ; receives
many rebuffs from her friends,
46 ; Sunday evening assemblies
at her house, 47 ; withstands
controversies in Methodist ranks,
50 ; beginning of the " Con-
nexion," 52 et seq. ; sacrifices
her jewels, 52 ; informal meetings
in her own household, 56 ; con-
sults Fletcher of Madeley, 58 ;

Huntingdon, SeUna Countess of
opens Trevecca College, 59 ; her
many schemes of activity, 63 ;
her friends, chap. VI (p. 79-113) ;
interview with David Garrick,
115, 116; interview with the
Archbishop of Canterbury, 118,
119; interview with the King,
120. 122, 124 ; death of her
favourite daughter, 129, 130 ;
her own death, 135

Ingham, Mr., 22, 51
— . Lady Margaret, 88

Johnson, Dr., 164

— , Mr. (See Ferrers, Earl.)

Johnston. Mr. 224

Jones, Thomas Snell, 145, 153, 167,

215, 227, 228. 234. 235, 273, 282,

284

Kendal, Duchess of, 42, 84
Kenmure, Lord. 141
Kingswood Orphanage. 52

Lee. Lady Elizabeth, 82
Leven, David, Earl of, 206, 279
— , Lady, 183
Lothian, Marchioness of, 258

Marlborough, Sarah. Duchess of.

79 ; letters from, 80. 81
Maxwell. Mary. {See Sutherland.

Duchess of.)
— , Sir Walter. 258. 259
— Lady, 182, 183. 184, 185, 186,
189, 195, 218, 256, 257, 272, 276.
285
— , William, 141
— , Willielma. {See Glenorchy,

Lady.)
"Merchants' Lectures," 214
Meredith, Sir William, 66, 73
Methodism, the civil disadvantages
of 28 ; ultimate triumph of, 133
Middleton. Mr., 192, 193, 235
" Minor, The " (lampoon on White-
field), 114 et seq.
Moira, Lady, 34, 38, 42 et seq.. 62,

112, 128, 131
Moncrieff, Scott, 210 [13, 120

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley, 12,

291

INDEX

Moravians, the, 51

More, Hannah, 29

Morgan, Miss, 281

Murray, Grace, early years and
marriage to Mr. Murray, 98, 99 ;
first hears Whitefield, 100 ; death
of her husband, 103 ; joins the
Methodists, 103 ; mutual feelings
between her and John Wesley,
104 ; marries Mr. Bennett, 104 ;
on circuit with him, 106 ;
widowed a second time, 107 ;
retirement, 107 ; last meeting
with John Wesley, 108 ; death,
109

Nightingale, Lady Elizabeth, 6
— , Miss. 57
Nithsdale, Lord, 141
North Esk, Lady, 183
Nottingham, Earl of, 73

Oxford Movement, the, 2, 18

Pendarvis. Mrs., Mary, 11, 12, 13
Pentycross, Mrs., 89
Plenderleith, Mr., 202
Pope, Alexander, 9

QuEENSBERRY, Duchess of, 12, 14

Ramsay, Alan, 142, 143
Robertson, Principal William, 213
Rockingham, Lady, 49
Romaine, Rev. W., 28, 31

Sanderson, Sir William, 13, 14

Saunderson, Lady Frances, 81

Scarborough, Earl of, 21

Scott, Rev. Jonathan, 285, 286

Selwyn, George, 27

Sevign6, Mme. de, 13

Sheridan, R. B., 250

Sheriff, Mr. Travers, 230, 231, 232,
233 235 236

Shirley, Lady Fanny, 9. 43. 78, 81,
82

Shirley, Lady Selina. (See Hunt-
ingdon, Selina, Countess of.)

— , Mr., 60, 253

Simeon, Charles, 267

Stewart, Rev. James, 192

Suffolk, Lady, 49

Sutherland. Earl of. 144. 174, 175,

176
— , Mary, Countess of, 141, 144, 174,

176
— , Duchess-Countess of. 177. 181,

282

Temple, Mrs.. 82

Thornton, Mr., 61

Toplady, Rev. A. M., 252

Townshend, George Marquis, 117

— , Lady, 10, 80

Trevecca College, 52, 59, 90, 251-

254 ; merges into Cheshunt

College, 62

Venn, 31
— , Mrs.. 90

Walker, Mrs. Bailie, 183, 210
— , Rev. Robert, 183, 187, 198, 199,

200, 202, 208, 211, 214, 218, 221.

224, 263 ; letters to Lady

Glenorchy, 198, 211
Walpole. Horace. 9. 39, 43, 44, 71,

72, 77
Washington, George, 64
Watts, Isaac, 30
Webster, Dr.. 188, 221. 224, 229,

262
Wells, The Bishop of, 246
Wellwood, Sir H. Moncrieff (letter

to Lady Glenorchy). 217
Wesley, Charles, 20, 31, 51, 72, 93.

94, 95, 96, 105, 113, 132, 155
— , Mrs. Charles, 92, 94
— , John, 11, 20, 28. 31, 51, 54,

94, 103, 104, 105, 108, 113, 133,

155, 169, 184. 188, 195, 262
— , Mrs. John, 91, 155
Wheeler, Mr., 22
— , Lady Catherine, 88
— , Miss Selina Margaretta, 57
Whitefield, George, 23, 24, 26, 27,

31. 49, 51. 53, 63, 71, 72, 78. 80,

84, 85, 86, 87, 91, 95, 96, 100,

102, 113, 114, 132, 155, 216
— , Mrs., 91, 92

Young. Edward. 82, 83
Zinzkndorf, Count, 51

292

J^i