breast, the wound running downwards into his body, when his grace fell upon him. It was now that the Colonel came to his aid, and raised him in his arms. Such a blow, it is probable, would have been fatal of itself, but Macartney had by this time picked up one of the swords, and stabbing the Duke to the heart, over Hamilton's shoulder, immediately fled, and made his escape to Holland. Such, at least, was the tale of the day, widely disseminated, and generally believed by one party, although it was no less strenuously denied by the other. Proclamations were issued, and rewards offered, to an unusual amount, for the apprehension of the murderer, the affair assuming all the interest of a public question. Nay, it was roundly asserted by the Tories that the Whig faction had gone so far as to place hired assassins about the Park, to make sure of their victim if he had escaped the open ferocity of Lord Mohun, or the yet more perilous treachery of Macartney. When the Duke fell, the spectators of this bloody tragedy, who do not appear to have interfered in any shape, then came forward to bear him to the Cake House, that a surgeon might be called in and his wounds looked to; but the blow had been struck too home; before they could raise him from the grass he expired. Such is one of the many accounts that have been given of this bloody affair, for the traditions of the day are anything but uniform or consistent. According to some, Lord Mohun shortened his sword, and stabbed the wounded man to the heart while leaning on his shoulder, and unable to stand without support; others said that a servant of Lord Mohun's played the part that was attributed by the more credible accounts to Macartney. This intricate knot is by no means rendered easier of untying by the verdict of the jury, who, some years after, upon the trial of Macartney for this offence in the King's Bench, found him only guilty of manslaughter. Lord Mohun himself died of his wounds upon the spot, and with him the Barony of Mohun, of Okehampton, became extinct; but the estate of Gawsworth, in Cheshire, which he had inherited from the Gerards, vested by will in his widow, and eventually passed to her second daughter, Anne Griffith, wife of the Right Honourable William Stanhope, by whose representative, Charles, Earl of Harrington, it is now enjoyed. His lordship was twice married, his first wife being Charlotte Mainwaring niece to Charles Gerald, Earl of Macclesfield; his second was Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Thomas Lawrence, and widow of Colonel Griffith. He had no issue by either. FRANCES, COUNTESS OF HERTFORD. FRANCES, third Countess of Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, was daughter of Thomas Howard, Viscount Bindon, and widow of Henry Prannel, citizen of London. Of her ladyship, Arthur Wilson gives the following very amusing history: "This lady was one of the greatest, both for birth and beauty, in her time; but at first she went a step backwards, as it were, to fetch a career, to make her mount the higher. Her extraction was high, fit for her great mind; yet she descended so low as to marry one Prannel, a vintner's son, in London, having a good estate, who, dying, left her childless-a young and beautiful widow; upon whom, Sir George Rodney, a gentleman in the west, suitable to her for person and fortune, fixing his love, had good hopes from her to reap the fruits of it. But Edward, Earl of Hertford, being entangled by her fair eyes, and she having a tang of her grandfather's ambition, left Rodney, and married the Earl. Rodney, having drunk in too much affection, and not being able with his reason to digest it, summoned up his scattered spirits to a most desperate attempt; and coming to Amesbury, in Wiltshire, where the Earl and Countess were then resident, to act it, he retired to an inn in the town, shut himself up in a chamber, and wrote a large paper of well-composed verses to the Countess, in his own blood (strange kind of composedness), wherein he bewails and laments his own unhappiness; and when he had sent them to her, as a sad catastrophe to all his miseries, he ran himself upon his sword, and so ended that life which he thought death to enjoy; leaving the Countess to a strict remembrance of her inconstancy, and himself a desperate and sad spectacle of frailty:* but she easily past this over, and so wrought upon the goodnature of the Earl, her husband, that he settled above five thousand pounds a year jointure upon her for life. In his time, she was often courted by the Duke of Lennox, who presented many a fair suppliant; sometimes in a blue coat, with a basket-hilt sword, making his addresses in such odd disguises; yet she carried a fair fame during the Earl's time. After his decease, Lennox and Richmond, with Sir George Rodney appears to have been that Sir George Rodney, of Stoke Rodney, in Somersetshire, who was son of Maurice Rodney, Esq., who died 1588, and great grandson of Sir John Rodney, Knight. In Collinson's History of Somersetshire, iii. 604, it is said that he married, in his father's lifetime, Anne, daughter of Matthew Smith, of Long Ashton, Esq., with whom he had a fortune of 2000l., and from his father a settlement of the Manors of Rodney Stoke, Backwell, Dinder, Lamyat, Lovington, Twyverton, Saltford, Wintford, and Hallatrow. But, as he died without issue, the estate devolved on Sir John Rodney, son of George, second son of Sir John Rodney by Anne, daughter of Sir James Crofts. His son and heir, Sir Edward, left a daughter and co-heir, married to Sir Thomas Brydges, of Keinsham. But Sir Edward had a younger brother, George, who married the famous Anne, daughter of Sir Thomas Lake, of Cannons, and widow of William Cecil, Lord Roos; which George was a poet, and died 1669, and is supposed to have been great grandfather of the late Admiral Lord Rodney. The poetical epistle, written with his blood, supposed to have been addressed by Sir George Rodney to the Countess of Hertford, with the Countess's answer, and Sir George's verses to her before he killed himself, are printed in the "Topographer," i. 398-405, from a MS. in the British Museum. the great title of Duchess, gave period to her honour, which could not arrive at her mind, she having the most glorious and transcendent heights in speculation: for, finding the King a widower, she vowed, after so great a prince as Richmond, never to be blown with kisses, nor eat at the table of a subject; and this vow must be spread abroad, that the King may take notice of the bravery of her spirit; but this bait would not catch the old King, so that she missed her aim; and, to make good her resolution, she speciously observed her vow to the last. "When she was Countess of Hertford, and found admirers about her, she would often discourse of her two grandfathers, the Dukes of Norfolk and Buckingham; recounting the time since one of her grandfathers did this, the other did that: but if the Earl her husband came in presence, she would quickly desist; for, when he found her in these exaltations, to take her down he would say, Frank, Frank, how long is it since thou wert married to Prannel? which would damp the wings of her spirit, and make her look after her feet, as well as gaudy plumes. "One little vanity of this great Duchess, with your patience, may yet crowd in this story. She was a woman greedy of fame, and loved to keep great state with little cost; for, being much visited by all the great ones, she had a formality of officers and gentlemen that gave attendance, and this advantage-that none ever ate with her; yet all the tables in the hall were spread, as if there had been meat and men to furnish; but before eating time the house being voided, the linen returned into their folds again, and all her people grazed on some few dishes. Yet, where her actions came into Fame's fingering, her gifts were suitable to the greatness of her mind. For the Queen of Bohemia, to the christening of |