The double wedding took place on 25th July 1839, at Hawarden Parish Church, and was made the occasion for much festivity and rejoicing on the part of the family and their friends, and of the humble inhabitants of the district. Sir Francis Doyle was Gladstone’s best man, and he wrote a poem for the occasion entitled “To Two Sister Brides,” of which the following stanzas refer to Catherine: “High hopes are thine, oh! eldest flower; Great duties to be greatly done; To soothe, in many a toil-worn hour, The noble heart which thou hast won. Covet not then the rest of those Who sleep through life unknown to fame; Fate grants not passionless repose To her who weds a glorious name. He presses on through calm and storm Unshaken, let what will betide; Thou hast an office to perform, To be his answering spirit bride. The path appointed for his feet Through desert wilds and rocks may go, Where the eye looks in vain to greet The gales that from the waters blow. Be thou a balmy breeze to him, A fountain singing at his side; A star, whose light is never dim, A pillar, through the waste to guide.” Immediately after the ceremony Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone drove to Norton Priory, Cheshire, the seat of Sir Richard Brooke, whose daughter, Lady Brabazon, was the bride’s best friend, where the honeymoon was spent. Neither sister had been specially accustomed to the society of highly intellectual or bookish men, and during the engagement neither Gladstone nor Lord Lyttelton, as ardent lovers, had felt the necessity of resorting to the classics when in the company of their fiancées. The young brides, when comparing notes after the honeymoon, confided to one another their dismay that at odd spare moments both husbands produced pocket editions of Horace or Sophocles (or some other classical poet), and filled the minutes by reading in them.