The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. - A Colonel in the Service of Her Majesty Queen Anne by William Makepeace Thackeray
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page 7 of 601 (01%)
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how one who ever bore it, should change it for that of Mrs. THOMAS
TUSHER. I pass over as odious and unworthy of credit those reports (which I heard in Europe and was then too young to understand), how this person, having LEFT HER FAMILY and fled to Paris, out of jealousy of the Pretender betrayed his secrets to my Lord Stair, King George's Ambassador, and nearly caused the Prince's death there; how she came to England and married this Mr. Tusher, and became a great favorite of King George the Second, by whom Mr. Tusher was made a Dean, and then a Bishop. I did not see the lady, who chose to remain AT HER PALACE all the time we were in London; but after visiting her, my poor mamma said she had lost all her good looks, and warned me not to set too much store by any such gifts which nature had bestowed upon me. She grew exceedingly stout; and I remember my brother's wife, Lady Castlewood, saying--"No wonder she became a favorite, for the King likes them old and ugly, as his father did before him." On which papa said--"All women were alike; that there was never one so beautiful as that one; and that we could forgive her everything but her beauty." And hereupon my mamma looked vexed, and my Lord Castlewood began to laugh; and I, of course, being a young creature, could not understand what was the subject of their conversation. After the circumstances narrated in the third book of these Memoirs, my father and mother both went abroad, being advised by their friends to leave the country in consequence of the transactions which are recounted at the close of the volume of the Memoirs. But my brother, hearing how the FUTURE BISHOP'S LADY had quitted Castlewood and joined the Pretender at Paris, pursued him, and would have killed him, Prince as he was, had not the Prince managed to make his escape. On his expedition to Scotland directly after, Castlewood was so enraged against him that he asked leave to serve as a volunteer, and join the Duke of Argyle's army |
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