Beautés

Catherine Douglas née Hyde Duchess of Queensberry and Dover Autograph Letter Signed 'To the Revd: Doctor Shipley Canon of Xt: Church Oxford by way of London'.

6141 — Ambresbury Amesbury; 22 January 13 February 1755. 4to: 3 pp. Bifolium. On neatly-repaired aged paper with archival paper covering the two inner pages. Fifty-four lines of text all clear and entire. Remains of black wax seal with crest on verso of second leaf which carries the address and is docketed 'Maragna Mohammed'. A long letter in two parts the second part beginning on the verso of the first leaf which is headed 'now Febry: 13'. A significant letter to an important eighteenth-century figure; written in unusually honest and forthright terms and casting light on the Duchess's dejected state of mind in the wake of the great tragedy of her life the suicide of her son Henry Lord Drumlanrig; and in the months preceding the death from tuberculosis of her only other son Charles. Following what seems to have been a falling-out between the two the Duchess begins by assuring Shipley that she is 'mighty glad of his letter now' and that she is 'much relieved from the many & great anxietys' he 'could not possibly be exempted from' since she and her husband 'had the pleasure of his company so substantially interrupted'. 'The reason of yr: silence was too plain: it was perfectly understood: & I hope so was my silence which should not have continued so long if I could have been inspired with any thought or chain of thoughts capable to relax yr: mind or to have addministed sic wholesum food for it'. She hopes his 'intended journey' will do him good and wishes that the Queensbury's 'might have been directly in his road' and that frost 'might have detained him as long as he might properly have been detained'. Continuing on 13 February she is 'asham'd to find my self & <mine> moulderd into an other month since the last page began'. Her epistles often suffer 'from a Sort of Subsideningness sic which arises from a consciousness that my writing or not signifies little & therefore from a parcel of fagg ends or remnants of Pride or Spirit'. She 'will not venture into the matter of Shipley's partiallity sic farther than to declare that according to my opinion partialty sic is a viertue neither partiallity sic or prejudice ever did exist without cause more or less & are the <smack> & flame from some actuall matter'. Regarding a 'freind' of Shipley's her 'personall quarrell' is that he has 'vexd & Disappointed' him. Ends in the hope that Shipley's 'litte ones' are well. 'The good & bad weather ingross as by turns but the incessant Storms of yesterday & to day makes one dread for every Ship freind or enemee'. Letters by her rarely come on the market. Ambresbury [Amesbury]; 22 January [13 February] 1755. unknown