d sailed away to Rome, where Pope and
Cardinal alike conspired to do her honour; and was only saved from
eloping with a titled swindler by his arrest and later suicide in
prison. It was while in Rome that news came to her that her late
husband's heirs were planning a charge of bigamy against her, with a
view to setting aside his will in her favour.

Her exchequer was empty for the time; but, presenting herself before her
banker, pistol in hand, she compelled him to provide her with funds to
enable her to return to London--to find all arrangements already made
for her trial in Westminster Hall on a charge of bigamy. Public opinion
was arrayed against her; she was received with abuse, jeers, and
lampoons. Foote made her the object of universal ridicule by a comedy
entitled, "A Trip to Calais." But the Duchess metaphorically snapped her
fingers at them all. She was no woman to bow before the storm of
ridicule and censure. She openly defied it to do its worst. Her splendid
equipage was to be seen everywhere, with the autocratic Duchess, serene,
smiling, contemptuous.

It was of this period of her life that the following story is told. One
day when driving in London her gorgeous carriage was brought to a halt
by a coal-cart which was being unloaded in a narrow street. The Duchess
was furious at the delay, and protruding her head and shoulders from the
carriage and leaning her arms on the door, she cried out to the
offending carter: "How dare you, sirrah, to stop a woman of quality in
the street?" "Woman of quality!" sneered the man. "Yes, fellow,"
rejoined her Grace, "don't you see my arms upon my carriage?" "Indeed I
do," he answered, "and a pair of d---- coarse arms they are, too!"

Seldom has a trial excited such widespread excitement and interest.

"Everybody," Horace Walpole wrote to his friend Sir
Horace Mann, "is on the quest for tickets for her Grace
of Kingston's trial. I am persuaded that her impudence
will operate in some singular manner; probably she will
appear in weeds, with a train to reach across Westminster
Hall, with mourning maids-of-honour to support her when
she swoons at the dear Duke's name, and in a black veil
to conceal her blushing or not blushing. To this farce,
novel and curious as it will be, I shall not go. I think
cripples have no business in crowds, but at the Pool of
Bethesda; and, to be sure, this is no angel that troubles
the