Page:Diary of the times of Charles II Vol. I.djvu/24

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xii
INTRODUCTION.

ing that my son shall remain in your Lordship's care, if it should please God to take me from him.

"I have written with much pain, and yet I must add to it a protestation of being so long as I breathe, with all sincerity of heart, your Lordship's

"Most humble, obedient daughter,

"D. Sunderland."[1]

Lady Sunderland, during the first years of her widowhood, lived with her parents at Penshurst; but Lord Leicester tells us in his journal, that in September, 1650, "she went from thence to London, and from London to dwell by herself at Althorpe." During her residence there she is said to have endeared herself to the country round by acts of charity and hospitality; and Lloyd, in his Memoirs of the Loyalists, says, "She is not to be mentioned without the highest honour in this catalogue of sufferers, to many of whom her house was a sanctuary, her interest a protection, her estate a maintenance, and the livings in her gift a preferment."

In 1652 she was married a second time to Sir Robert Smythe, son and heir of Sir John Smythe,

  1. In Mr. Upcott's Collection.