(49) Jane Maxwell, Duchess of Gordon, wife of Alexander, fourth
Duke. She was a social leader of the Tory party, and a confidante of
Pitt. Horace Walpole called her "one of the empresses of fashion."

(50) Lady Almeria Carpenter was famous for her beauty. She was
lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Gloucester and mistress to the
Duke. "The Duchess remained indeed its nominal mistress, but Lady
Almeria constituted its ornament and its pride." (Wraxall, vol. v.
p. 201).

(51) John Russell, fourth Duke of Bedford (1710-71), died 1756. He
was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in 1762; he went as
Ambassador to Paris, where he negotiated the unpopular Treaty of
Paris. He was at the head of the place-seeking politicians called
the Bloomsbury Gang, from his town house in Bloomsbury Square; and
when, in 1767, his faction came into power, the Duke of Bedford,
who was worthy of better clients, made a feeble effort to arrive at
an understanding with Lord Rockingham about a common policy; but he
could not keep his followers for five minutes together off the
subject that was next their hearts. Rigby bade the two noblemen take
the Court Calendar and give their friends one, two, and three
thousand a year all round ("The Early History of Charles James Fox,"
p. 132). An overbearing manner and the character of his followers
made him unpopular. In 1731 he married Lady Diana Spencer, daughter
of the third Earl of Sunderland, and sister of the third Duke of
Marlborough. He married for the second time, in 1737, Gertrude,
eldest daughter of the first Earl Gower. At the death of their only
son, Lord Tavistock, in 1767, the Duke and Duchess of Bedford were
harshly charged with want of respect for his memory.