The bridegroom, “pestilent fine,” walked on before all the rest:—London
had not forgotten the duel with Mr. Thomas Howard.
“But wot you what? the youth was going
To make an end of all his wooing.”
And the bride was a beautiful creature: the blush on her cheek was like
a Catharine pear—“the side that’s next the sun”; while her red underlip
looked as if “some bee had stung it newly.”
“Her finger was so small the ring,
Would not stay on which they did bring,
...
Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice, stole in and out
As if they feared the light.”
This was the bride for whom Broghill had forgotten Mrs. Harrison and the
duel in which nobody was hurt. This was the beautiful “Lady Pegg,” who
was to prove herself a woman “beautiful in her person, very moderate
in her expences, and plain in her garb; serious and decent in her
behaviour, careful in her family, and tender of her lord”[99]—nay, more,
in Broghill’s after-life it is easy to see that he had not only a brave
helpmeet, but a clever one. Robert Boyle himself has called her the
“great support, ornament, and comfort of her Family.”[100]
The old Earl was in his place when, after many long debates and “sevral
heerings”, Strafford was sentenced to death—only eleven voices of all
the Lords declaring “not content”; and on May 12 Strafford—to whom
the King had pledged his word that not a hair of his head should be
touched—was beheaded on Tower Hill. “_As he well deserved_” is the brief
comment in the Earl of Cork’s diary.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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