Feb. 13th. Sir John Lowther to Williamson says, that he had taken off his kinsman from the candidature. “I believe that her Ladyship will prevail in her resolution with regard to her relatives,” “and will neither desire, seek, nor need, anybody’s help to make whom she desires.” I know this by a letter from the Mayor. Feb. 23, Thomas Gabetis, Under-Sheriff, writes to Mr. Williamson, that he studied to serve him, but the Countess had planned otherwise. “The Corporation being disposed to gratify her for her great nobleness and bounty to the place. My station obligates me to render service with obedience to her commands, especially in this particular.” Here comes the period at which the undated letter preserved by Walpole might well have been written. But between him and the printers it seems to have disappeared. There is no further letter now on the subject among the State Papers. But in her Diary, Harl. MS., she writes, “And on ye second day of March in this year my grandchild, Mr. Thomas Tufton, was chosen Burgess of ye Town of Appleby to serve in the House of Commons in Parliament therein assembled, and sitting in Parliament at Westminster, in ye place of Mr. John Lowther, my cosin’s son, who dyed; so as Mr. Thomas Tufton, my grandchild, begann first of all to sitt in ye said House of Commons at Westminster as a member thereof, the 10th day of March, he being ye first grandchild of mine yt ever sate in ye House of Commons.” On 21st Sept., 1668, in 1670, and in 1674, this Mr. Thomas Tufton visited his grandmother and his constituency, still Burgess. So she had her way with the Secretary of State, as she had had with the King, the Protector, and her noble husbands. Her motto, it may be remembered, was “Preserve your loyalty, defend your rights.” Many other women have been right in their contentions, but to very few have been given with the spirit and courage, the wealth, power, patience and opportunity to secure success. Her struggle was no purely personal one; it was the first Protest against the invasion of the rights of her sex. She saw how “legal precedent” was drifting. Mr. Joshua Williams on Land Settlement says, “I have not been able to discover any trace of a limitation of an estate, tail, or any other estate to an unborn son prior to 3 and 4 Philip and Mary” (“Judicial Papers,” vol. i., part i., p. 47). We have already noted the decision of Judge Popham in the case of Lady Fane, which Anne Clifford quoted as precedent for her own case in vain. She utilised every opportunity of improving herself and blessing her fellow-creatures. She would not go where she could do no good. Being invited to the Court of Charles II. she replied, “I could not go, unless I were to wear blinkers, like my horses!” Dr. Donne said of her, that she “was able to converse on any subject, from predestination to slea-silk.”