The Kensington DistrictMitton, G. E. (Geraldine Edith)
History
The Kensington District
Mitton, G. E. (Geraldine Edith)
Kensington (London, England) -- Description and travel
times bathing is permitted in the early morning.
In her gardens the fair Queen walked with her bevy of maids of honour,
that bevy which has always been renowned for its beauty, herself the
fairest of all. These fascinating, light-hearted girls grew up in an age
of coarseness and vice, and were surrounded by temptation, which all,
alas! did not resist, in spite of their royal mistress's example and
courage. It was an age of meaningless gallantry and real brutality; the
high-flown compliment and pretended adoration covered cynical intention
and unabashed effrontery. Caroline herself preserved an untainted name,
and her influence must have been a rock of salvation to the giddy,
laughing girls. Leigh Hunt, quoting from the "Suffolk Correspondence,"
thus summarizes these maids: "There is Miss Hobart, the sweet tempered
and sincere (now become Mrs. Howard, afterwards Lady Suffolk); Miss
Howe, the giddiest of the giddy (which she lived to lament); Margaret
Bellenden, who vied in height with her royal mistress; the beautiful
Mary Bellenden, her sister, who became Duchess of Argyll; Mary Lepel,
the lovely, who became Lady Hervey; and Anne Pitt, sister of the future
Lord Chatham, and as 'like him as two drops of fire.'"
Caroline's devotion to her insignificant little lord and master, and the
eagerness with which she hastened on foot to meet him, running across
the Gardens, on his return from the Continent, have been made the
subject of satire. She was generally accompanied by her five daughters,
a pathetic little band, cramped in the fetters of royalty, so stringent
toward their sex. Portraits of two of them may be seen in the Palace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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