ty new house she bought there; and brought her establishment, her
maids, lap-dogs, and gentlewomen, her priest, and his lordship her
husband, to Castlewood Hall, that she had never seen since she quitted
it as a child with her father during the troubles of King Charles the
First's reign. The walls were still open in the old house as they had
been left by the shot of the Commonwealthmen. A part of the mansion
was restored and furbished up with the plate, hangings, and furniture
brought from the house in London. My lady meant to have a triumphal
entry into Castlewood village, and expected the people to cheer as
she drove over the Green in her great coach, my lord beside her, her
gentlewomen, lap-dogs, and cockatoos on the opposite seat, six horses to
her carriage, and servants armed and mounted following it and preceding
it. But 'twas in the height of the No-Popery cry; the folks in the
village and the neighboring town were scared by the sight of her
ladyship's painted face and eyelids, as she bobbed her head out of the
coach window, meaning, no doubt, to be very gracious; and one old woman
said, "Lady Isabel! lord-a-mercy, it's Lady Jezebel!" a name by which
the enemies of the right honorable Viscountess were afterwards in the
habit of designating her. The country was then in a great No-Popery
fervor; her ladyship's known conversion, and her husband's, the priest
in her train, and the service performed at the chapel of Castlewood
(though the chapel had been built for that worship before any other was
heard of in the country, and though the service was performed in the
most quiet manner), got her no favor at first in the county or
village. By far the greater part of the estate of Castlewood had been
confiscated, and been parcelled out to Commonwealthmen. One or two of
these old Cromwellian soldiers were still alive in the village, and
looked grimly at first upon my Lady Viscountess, when she came to dwell
there.

She appeared at the Hexton Assembly, bringing her lord after her,
scaring the country folks with the splendor of her diamonds, which she
always wore in public. They said she wore them in private, too, and
slept with them round her neck; though the writer can pledge his word
that this was a calumny. "If she were to take them off," my Lady Sark
said, "Tom Esmond, her husband, would run away with them and pawn them."
'Twas another calumny. My Lady Sark was also an exile from Court, and
there had been war between the