Page:The Story of Nell Gwyn.djvu/205

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DE GRAMMONT'S MEMOIRS.
189

reason to doubt its accuracy in this matter, she was certainly in town when the Muscovite ambassador had his audience of the queen, nearly two months after the period assigned by Pepys. But this was too interesting an event to be concise upon. Pepys has more to say:—

"19 Jany. 1662-3.—This day, by Dr. Clarke, I was told the occasion of my Lord Chesterfield's going and taking his lady (my Lord Ormond's daughter) from court. It seems he not only hath been long jealous of the Duke of York, but did find them two talking together, though there were others in the room, and the lady by all opinions a most good virtuous woman. He the next day (of which the Duke was warned by somebody that saw the passion my Lord Chesterfield was in the night before) went and told the Duke how much he did apprehend himself wronged, in his picking out his lady of the whole court to be the subject of his dishonor; which the Duke did answer with great calmnesse, not seeming to understand the reason of complaint, and that was all that passed; but my lord did presently pack his lady into the country in Derbyshire near the Peake; which is become a proverb at court, to send a man's wife to the Peake when she vexes him."—Pepys.

It appears from the books of the Lord Steward's office, to which I have had access, that Lord Chesterfield set out for the country on the 12th May, 1663; and from his "Short Notes," referred to in the Memoirs before his Correspondence, that he remained at Bretby in Derbyshire with his wife throughout the summer of that year.

None of the biographers of Sir John Denham tell us when his second marriage took place. But