Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill - Plaidy Jean - Страница 1

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George 1

I George II m. Caroline of Ansbacf

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Frederick Louis m Augusta of Saxe-Gotha Anne Amel

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Augusta George III Edward

m. Charlotte of Mecklenburg -Strelitz

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I Frederick Charlotte Augusta

George IV William Edward Elizab<

•ophia Dorothea of Calls

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Sophia Dorothea

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Caroline George William. Mary Louisa

Duke of Cumberland

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filliam. Henry Frederick Caroline Matilda,

Queen of Denmark

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nest Adolphus Sophia Alfred

Augustus Mary Octavius Amelia

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

of

of

Mrs. Fitzherbert and George

IV The Life and Times of George

IV George The Fourth Memoirs of George IV George the Fourth The First Gentleman The Good Queen Charlotte The Life of George IV George III The Four Georges The First Gentleman

Europe Loves of Florizel Memoirs and Portraits Memoirs of the Reign

George III George III, Monarch

Statesman George III, His Court and

Family In the Days of the Georges The Four Georges The House of Hanover The Great Corinthian Fanny Burney The Story of Fanny Burney George, Prince and Regent The Years of Endurance England in the Eighteenth

Century The Reign of George III The Dictionary of National

Biography British History

National and Domestic History of England

W. H. Wilkins, m.a., f.s.a. The Rev. George Croly

Shane Leslie Robert Huish Roger Fulford Grace E. Thompson Percy Fitzgerland Percy Fitzgerland J. C. Long Wm. M. Thackeray Lewis Melville

Philip Lindsay Horace Walpole Horace Walpole

and Beckles Wilson

Henry Colburn

William B. Boulton Sir Charles Pctrie Alvin Redman Doris Leslie Christopher Lloyd Muriel Masefield Philip W. Sergeant Arthur Bryant R. W. Harris

J. Steven Watson

Edited by Sir Leslie Stephen

and Sir Sidney Lee John Wade William Hickman Smith

Aubrey

A Birth in Tong Castle

Dusk was beginning to throw long shadows across the Red Room in Tong Castle as Mary Smythe pushed aside the red hangings about the bed and sat down uneasily. It was too early as yet for the child to make its appearance—but how could one be sure? Children had a habit of coming before their time.

She wished that the child could have been born in their own home. Walter had said that as soon as they had a child they must certainly look for a house, and she anticipated with great pleasure the prospect of choosing her own furniture and making her own home; it would be quite different from living in her brother-in-law's mansion at Acton Burnell or here in Tong Castle.

It was of course very kind of the Duke of Kingston to lend them his castle until after the birth of the child; he preferred to have someone living there during his absence, to keep the servants in order and see to the running of the place, so why not his good friend Walter Smythe whom he knew was longing to leave the parental roof now that he had acquired a wife?

She had been delighted to come to Tong Castle, as grand and impressive an edifice to be found not only in the county of Shropshire but in the whole of England. But it was not one's own home. She had tried to make it so by installing the prie-dieu in a corner of the room, the crucifix over the bed and the

flask of holy water on the carved mantelpiece. But whenever she was conscious of the manner in which the servants eyed these things, an irrepressible indignation swept over her. She would never be reconciled to the laws of England which, while they did not go so far as to forbid Catholics to worship as they pleased, excluded them from their civil rights and penalized them in a hundred ways.

Mary clenched her hands together and reminded herself that she would be ready to die for her faith in the same way in which those of her own faith were murdering those not of theirs throughout the world.

Walter came into the room. He was the best of husbands, good looking, financially secure and, most important of all, a Catholic. The marriage would never have taken place if he had not been. She had brought him a good dowry; they were even remotely related to each other, which was often the case with Catholic families in England, for few married outside their own religion.

He looked startled when he saw her. 'Mary?'- he cried ques-tioningly. She nodded. 'I am not sure. But it may be.'

'It's a little soon.'

'It often happens so, I believe.'

'Should I call the midwife?'

'Not yet. Wait a little. She will laugh at me for being overanxious.'

He sat down beside her and took her hand.

'It's strange,' he said, 'that the child should be born in a castle.'

'I'd rather he were born in our own home.'

'We'll find a house as soon as you are ready.'

"I should like to settle near my brother in Hampshire.'

4 In Red Rice?' mused Walter. 'An excellent spot, as it is not far from Winchester.'

'Walter, after your adventures in the Austrian Army do you think you can settle down?'

'With you ... to raise a family, yes.'

To raise a family. She saw the gracious house, the garden with its peaceful lawns and the children they would have clustered about them. It was a pleasant picture; and the sub-

sequent births would be less tiresome than this one. The midwife had told her that the first was always the most difficult.

'A house,' she mused, to take her mind off the pains which she fancied were becoming a little more frequent, 'with a chapel.'

'Perhaps it would be a little unwise to have a chapel in the house, my love.'

'Oh, Walter, why should we be persecuted?'

Walter admitted that the intolerant laws were a burden to all Catholics, but being a fair man he pointed out that they were less severe in England than in any other country in the world.

'Yet ... we are penalized,' cried Mary, her eyes flashing. 'If this were not so we should have our own house now. You would not have had to leave England to follow a career.'

'Well, I have at least travelled and seen service in the Austrian Army.'

'And that was England's loss,' cried Mary vehemently. 'Oh, Walter, if only it had gone differently at the '45.'

'But it did not, Mary, and we know full well that the Stuarts lost all hope after Culloden. Charles Edward will never come back now. He is drinking himself to death across the water and the Hanoverians are firmly on the throne. They say young Prince George is a good young man, and popular with the people. No, Mary, the Hanoverians arc here to stay so we had better make the best of it.'

'But to live as we do ... hearing Mass almost by stealth, being debarred from privileges. What of our children? Are they going to grow up in a society which will deprive them of their rights because they worship God in the only true way?'

'You must not excite yourself, my dear. One thing is certain. Our children will worship God in accordance with the laws of the Roman Catholic Church no matter what the laws of the country.'