Lord Chatham, His Early Life and ConnectionsRosebery, Archibald Philip Primrose, Earl of
History
Lord Chatham, His Early Life and Connections
Rosebery, Archibald Philip Primrose, Earl of
Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 1708-1778
The fourth was Betty, of whom, unlike three of her sisters, we seem to
know too much. The curse of the Pitt blood was strong in her. Lord
Camelford, her nephew, speaks of her 'diabolical disposition,' and says
concisely that 'she had the face of an angel and the heart of all the
furies,' and that she 'formed the most complicated character of vice
that I have ever met with.' Family testimony is not always the most
charitable, but outside witnesses in no way mitigate these expressions.
Lord Shelburne says that she was received nowhere, owing to her
profligate life. Horace Walpole brings an infamous charge against her,
which we may well hope is a distortion of the natural fact that for some
time she took up her abode with her eldest brother Thomas; though Thomas
on parting with her said that her staying with him was extremely
distasteful to him. She, in any case, openly lived as his mistress with
Lord Talbot, a peer as eccentric as herself, and who promised her
marriage, she said, whenever he should be free from the incumbrance of
Lady Talbot.[34] Afterwards she went to Italy, became a Roman Catholic,
started from Florence with the declared intention of marrying Mr.
Preston, a Leghorn merchant, who seems however to have been unequal to
the occasion.[35] Then she returned to England, virulent against her
brother William, 'whose kindness to her,' says Horace Walpole, no
biassed witness, 'has been excessive. She applies to all his enemies,
and, as Mr. Fox told me, has even gone so far as to send a bundle of his
letters to the author of _The Test_[36] to prove that Mr. Pitt has
cheated her, as she calls it, out of a hundred a year, and which only
prove that he once allowed her two, and, after all her wickedness, still
allows her one.'[37] And yet on occasion she could call William the best
of brothers and of men.[38] This, too, was characteristic of the breed.
At this period of her life she called herself, heaven knows why, Clara
Villiers Pitt, or Villiers Clara Pitt (there is an engraving of her with
the latter designation), and published a pamphlet recommending magazines
of corn. Of her perhaps too much has been said; but it is necessary to
demonstrate that William's family relations were not always easy: Thomas
reviled him, Elizabeth reviled him, Ann, whoever was in fault, caused
him much trouble, while Thomas's son, whom he peculiarly cherished,
regarded him with peculiar animosity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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