£ _s._ _d._ Mrs. Gardiner, lace ruffles 41 0 0 Butler, new chain 80 0 0 Opera, expenses last winter 17 19 0 Opera, subscription 21 0 0 Paid Sir Joshua Reynolds 78 15 0
Mrs. Elizabeth Armistead reigned for three years, but the duke had other diversions in other circles: the gay, frivolous, and wanton Lady Betty Hamilton, trailing from ball to ball with her suitors in her wake, set her heart upon him, and he, not unresponsive, was ready to trifle so long as he was not expected to marry. Lady Betty was finally married off to Lord Derby, reputed the ugliest and the richest peer in England.
Many were the means employed till Lord Derby’s constant and assiduous care veiled the ugliness of his person before the idol he worshipped. Time and despair made Lady Betty give a hasty and undigested consent. After a day of persecutions from every quarter, while a hair-dresser was adorning her unhappy head, she traced the consent with a pencil on a scrap of paper, and sent it wet with her tears to her mother.
A re-shuffle now took place: the duke became the new Lady Derby’s lover, and Lord Derby became the lover of Mrs. Armistead. This arrangement, however, was not of long duration. Lord Derby fell in love with Elizabeth Farren; Lady Derby, it was rumoured, ran away and had to be brought back by her brother, the Duke of Hamilton: still bent upon marrying the Duke of Dorset, she wished to divorce Lord Derby, but was foiled by the prudence of Miss Farren. The gossips of London were much excited by all these occurrences. Lady Sarah Lennox wrote: “It is no scandal to tell you it is imagined that the Duke of Dorset will marry Lady Derby. I am told she has been and still is most thoroughly attached to him.” It would be satisfactory to know exactly what part Dorset played; I fear not a very creditable one. Lady Derby was an impulsive, headstrong, attractive creature, capable of real passion under all her lightheartedness and easy virtue; her husband was unfaithful to her; her rival more sage and experienced than she herself; her lover ready to take what he could without incurring an irksome responsibility. My grandfather’s sister, Lady Derby, used to show at Knowsley the window through which the Duke of Dorset was reported to have been admitted to the house, disguised as a gardener, and it was commonly supposed that the infant Lady Elizabeth Stanley was in reality the duke’s daughter. But when the affair threatened to become too serious he was only too ready to resume his travels abroad.
