the hilt against it. They had horses ready and are fled.
But what is most strange, Howard sent one challenge
before, but they could not meet till yesterday at the old
Pall Mall at St James's; and he would not till the last
tell Jermyn what the quarrel was; nor do anybody know."

If no one else knew of the cause of the quarrel, certainly Jermyn did;
and never did man pay a more deserved penalty for dastardly behaviour.
Lady Shrewsbury's delight at thus ridding herself of two lovers, of both
of whom she seems to have grown weary, may be better imagined than
described. Although Jermyn was carried off the field of battle, to all
appearance a dead man, he survived until 1708 when he died, full of
years and wickedness, Baron Jermyn of Dover.

The Court, as Pepys records, was "much concerned in this fray"; but it
was long before Lady Shrewsbury's part in it came to light, to add to
the infamy which she had by that time heaped on herself. Her wayward
fancy next settled on a man of a different stamp to either Howard or
Jermyn. It seemed, indeed, to be her ambition to make her conquests as
varied as humanity itself. Her next victim was Harry Killigrew, one of
the most notorious profligates in London, a man of low birth and lower
tastes, a haunter of taverns, the terror of all decent women, and a
roystering swashbuckler, with a sword as ready to leap at a word as his
lips to snatch a kiss from a pretty mouth.

Such was my Lady Shrewsbury's successor to the aristocratic, high-minded
brother of Lord Carlisle. Killigrew's father was a well-known man of his
day, for he wore cap and bells at Charles's Court, and was privileged to
practise his clowning on King and courtier and maid-of-honour with no
heavier penalty than a box on the ears. The extreme licence he permitted