There seems little
doubt that as a wife she proved more complaisant to Charles than as a
maid. She had carried her virtue unstained to the altar and a Duchess's
coronet, and this seems to have been the main concern of the beautiful
prude. That Charles was more infatuated even with the wife than with the
maid-of-honour is incontestable. He not only made open love to her at
Court, but, especially after he had packed off her husband, the Duke, as
Ambassador to Denmark, his pursuit took a clandestine and more dangerous
shape. Pepys throws a light on what looks like a secret amour, when he
tells us, on the authority of Mr Pierce, that Charles once "did take a
pair of oars or a sculler, and all alone, or but one with him, go to
Somerset House (from Whitehall), and there, the garden-door not open,
himself clamber over the wall to make a visit to the Duchess, which is a
horrid shame."

[Illustration: FRANCES, DUCHESS OF RICHMOND]

But the Duchess's new reign of conquest was destined to be brief. To the
consternation of her Royal lover she was struck down with small-pox,

"by which," to quote Pepys again, "all do conclude she
will be wholly spoiled, which is the greatest instance of
the uncertainty of beauty that could be in this age; but
then she hath had the benefit of it to be first married,
and to have kept it so long, under the greatest
temptations in the world from a King, and yet without the
least imputation."

That Pepys's fears were realised we know from Ruvigny's letters to Louis
XIV., in which he says that "her matchless beauty was impaired beyond
recognition, one of her brilliant eyes being nearly quenched for ever."
During this tragic illness Charles, who was consumed with anxiety,
visited her more than once, thus proving, at a terrible risk, the
sincerity of his devotion. And it is even said that his admiration of
her was not diminished by the loss of her beauty.

With this loss of her beauty, however, the Duchess's reign may be said
to have come to an end. King Charles's eyes were soon to be dazzled by
the fresher charms of Louise de Querouaille, whom the "Sun-King" had
sent from France to turn his head and influence his foreign policy in
Louis's favour; and _La belle Stuart_ was not slow to realise that at
last her sun had set. During the remainder of her long life, at least
until the Orange King came to the Throne, she retained her office of
Lady of the Bedchamber to two