be quoted. After replying to
some inquiries about the Cambridgeshire clergy, which she could not
learn from Lord Bedford, "the parliament houses being so exacting of
time," she says: "You hear all the new honours, I suppose: not many new
creations, but all are stepping higher; as Lord Winchester is Duke of
Bolton; Lord Montague an Earl, still Montague; Falconbridge, who married
Mary, daughter of Oliver Cromwell, an Earl called the same; Mordaunt,
Earl of Monmouth (afterwards Earl of Peterborough); Churchill an Earl
(afterwards Duke of Mailborough); Lumley (Scarborough) made a Viscount,
Bentinck is an Earl (afterwards Duke of Portland); Sidney, a Viscount
(afterward Earl of Romney). Those that saw this and the last coronation
tell me this was much finer and in better order; and if the number of
the ladies were fewer, yet their attendance was with more application
near the Queen all the time, and with more cheerful faces by a great
deal. By what is heard from Scotland, they mean to take the example from
England. The last reports from Ireland say, that King James was moving
with his army towards the north. And yesterday Lord Burlington said,
Coleraine, a great town, was besieged by 6000 men, but that Lord Blaney
had sallied out, and so behaved himself that they had raised the siege.
D'Avaux who was the French ambassador in Holland, would not speak in
council till all the Protestants were put out. So they were, and, as
they say afterwards, discharged altogether....

"Lord Devonshire is to be installed at Windsor on St. George's day. My
young folks have a longing desire to see the ceremony, and they cannot
do it without a night's lodging at Windsor. If I can have that
accommodation of your house I will think it a great favour, and will go
with them, and look to your house while everybody is gone to the show. I
doubt the post can't bring me a return time enough so I am put in hopes
this may come to you by a coach; if it does, I do not question your
order to your housekeeper to let us in. In confidence of it, I think to
send to her, that I believe I shall come and ask your beds for
the night."

X.

The following letter to her son (afterwards second Duke of Bedford),
written from Stratton in July, 1706, is throughout so wise and good,
that we give it without any curtailment. She was then past seventy years
of age, and no words could be more fitly pondered by the young, than
these from an aged and tried and experienced