Thomas Lee had left Stratford to his oldest son, Philip Ludwell, who had lived there in great style. In his stables were a score or more of blooded horses, including the imported stallion Dotterel, which was said to be the "swiftest horse in all England (Eclipse excepted)." His imported coaches were the finest that could be had.
Philip had kept an open house, as Harry Lee well remembered, and he had entertained on a lavish scale. A whole ox could be roasted for guests in the kitchen fireplace. He had kept a band of musicians to whose airs his daughters, Matilda and Flora, with their companions danced in the Great Hall. But Philip Ludwell was now dead, Harry had heard, and Stratford had passed on to his oldest child, Matilda.
As Harry came up the oak and poplar lined road to Stratford, Matilda and Flora recognized him "as he rode past the grove of maples" and they "welcomed him with joy."
Flora was described by a contemporary as being haughty in manner, "very genteel and wears monstrous bustles." In describing Matilda the only word used by her contemporaries was "divine."
Harry was not prepared for this new Matilda. When he had last seen her she was at the awkward age of thirteen. Now she was nineteen and his first sight of her took his breath away.
There was tea-drinking in the garden with laughter and talk of the good old times before the war. Perhaps Matilda and Harry walked in the garden and "sat under a butiful shade tree" or climbed to one of the summer-houses on the roof from which they could see "Potomac's sea-like billows."
In less than a month Matilda was married to her cousin, Light-Horse Harry Lee. And what was Matilda like? There are no portraits or miniatures to tell us how she looked, no letters to unlock her personality. Only the word "divine" bequeathed by her contempories.
Matilda was expensive. Inventories tell us that her side-saddle cost 1,200 pounds of tobacco, and music lessons on the harpsichord cost 3,043 pounds of tobacco. "1 pc. fine Chintz in Pocket Money for Mis Matilda," whatever that meant, was 1,500 pounds, and another ninety pounds of tobacco went for dental care. Listed among her belongings were a cap, a pair of silk shoes and stays for her slender waist.