self been raised to the peerage
as Lord Pierrepont of Ardglass in Ireland and later was given the
dignity of Lord Pierrepont of Hanslope in Buckinghamshire. Lord
Pierrepont died in 1715, and both his titles became extinct.

The Marquess married Mary, daughter of William Feilding, third Earl of
Denbigh, by his first wife, Mary, sister of John, first Baron of
Kingston, in the peerage of Ireland. Lady Mary was, therefore, a
relation of the novelist, Henry Fielding, whose surname was spelt
differently because, he explained, his branch of the family was the only
one that could spell correctly.

Of this marriage, there was issue:

(i.) William, who took the style of Viscount Newark until 1706, and then
was known as Earl of Kingston until his death in 1713, at the age of
twenty-one. He had married before 1711 Rachel, daughter of Thomas
Baynton, of Little Charfield, Wilts, who outlived her husband eight
years. There was a son, Evelyn, who succeeded to the peerage.

(ii.) Lady Mary, the subject of this memoir.

(iii.) Lady Frances, who in 1714 became the second wife of John Erskine,
sixth or eleventh Earl of Mar; and

(iv.) Lady Evelyn, who married John, second Baron, and afterwards first
Earl Gower, and died in June, 1727.

In the winter of 1697, when Lady Mary was eight years old, her mother
died. After this, the little girl was allowed to run rather wild. Lord
Kingston was very much a man about town and a gallant, and was too
greatly occupied with his affairs and his parliamentary duties, which
took him often from home, to concern himself about her education. In
fact, before her mother's death, it would seem that Lady Mary spent
months at her grandmother's, Mrs. Elizabeth Pierrepont, at her house at
West Dean. When she was in her ninth year she returned to Holme
Pierrepont, where, as she later complained, she was left "to the care of
an old governess, who, though perfectly good and pious, wanted
capacity."

Lady Mary early had a taste for books, and enjoyed to the full the
library, where she no doubt read much that was good for her, and a good
deal that was not. She read everything that she could lay her hands on,
the old romances, poetry, and plays. One account has it that she was
taught Greek and Latin by her brother's tutor; but Sir Leslie Stephen
was doubtful about the Greek and inclined to the belief that she taught
herself Latin. Later, certainly, she taught herself Italian, and quoted
Tasso in her letters. In