MS. Letter to Mr. Hutchinson. This curious and natural account of an amusing scene is contained in a manuscript Vindication of the Duchess, addressed to Mr. Hutchinson, preserved in the Coxe MSS. in the British Museum, and has never before been quoted or published.—See Coxe Papers, vol. xliv. p. 2. “The good-nature yet weakness of Anne’s character is strongly exemplified in the details in the text.” Footnote 154: Lady Hyde, afterwards Countess of Rochester, from whom the Duchess states herself to have received many affronts on the back-stairs.—Coxe MSS. vol. 44. Footnote 155: The Duchess of Somerset, wife of the proud Duke of Somerset, so called from his excessive pride of rank and ostentation, was a Percy; and, as such, considered to merit precedence, and great deference, both by her husband and by the Duchess of Marlborough, who always called her “the great lady.” There seems to have been a friendly understanding between the two Duchesses, for Mr. Maynwaring, in one of his letters to the Duchess of Marlborough, says, “I am glad the Duke and Duchess of Somerset were to dine with you, for notwithstanding the faults of the one, and the spirit of Percy blood in the other, I think they both naturally love and esteem you very much.”—Coxe MSS. vol. xli. p. 248. Footnote 156: MS. Letter. Coxe Papers, p. 44. Footnote 157: Conduct, p. 230. Footnote 158: Conduct, p. 230. Footnote 159: Cunningham, b. xii. p. 279. Footnote 160: Cunningham, b. xii. p. 279. Footnote 161: Cunningham, b. xii. p. 279. Footnote 162: Cunningham, book xii. p. 282. Footnote 163: Conduct, from p. 238 to 244. Footnote 164: See another account of this scene, in Private Correspondence of the Duke of Marlborough, vol. i. p. 295. Footnote 165: Conduct, p. 244. Footnote 166: Burnet’s History, b. iv. vol. vi. p. 314. Footnote 167: Biographia Britannica, art. Gilbert Burnet. Footnote 168: Biographia Britannica. Footnote 169: The Countess de Soissons was one among many ladies of rank, and some belonging to the court, who, merely to satisfy curiosity, ever powerful in female hearts, visited a woman of the name of Voisin, who carried on a traffic in poisons, and was convicted by the _Chambre Ardente_, and burnt alive on the twenty-second of February, 1680. This woman kept a list of all who had been dupes to her imposture; and in it were found the names of the Countess de Soissons, her sister the Duchess de Bouillon, and Marshal de Luxembourg. In order to avoid the disgrace of imprisonment without a fair trial, the Countess fled to Flanders; her sister was saved by the interest of her friends; and the Marshal, after some months’ imprisonment in the Bastile, was declared innocent.—_See_ _Beckman’s History of Inventions_, vol. i. p. 94, 95. Footnote 170: Burnet, Hist. p. 290. Footnote 171: Conduct, p. 254. Footnote 172: Cunningham, Burnet, Tindal. Footnote 173: