Mak. 20. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



269 



COUNT KONIGSMARK AND THE DUCHESS OF 

 SOMERSET. 



Several notices of Count Konigsmark liave 

 lately appeared in " N. & Q.," Walpole's mistake 

 having occasioned a question by Mr. Markland 

 respecting his identity. There can, however, be 

 no doubt that the person who was tried for being 

 accessory to the assassination of Mr. Thynne in 

 1681-2, and whose trial is reported at length in 

 tlie 9th volume of Howell's State Trials, p. 1., was 

 Charles John Count Konigsmark, as stated by 

 Mr. Bruce in Vol. v., p. 115. of "N, & Q.," and 

 ■whose biography and genealogy are more fully 

 given by J. R. J. in p. 183. of the same volume. 



In the Note on this subject by J. R. J. it is 

 stated that " the most mysterious episode in the 

 life of this Count Konigsmark was brought on by 

 his sueing for England's richest and highest heiress, 

 Elizabeth, daughter of Josceline, second Earl of 

 Northumberland." This is perfectly true ; but 

 the personal history of this lady, her connexion 

 with Konigsmark, her imputed privity to the mur- 

 der of Mr. Thynne, and the savage allusion to these 

 circumstances by Swift thirty years afterwards, 

 deserve a more particular notice. 



Elizabeth, Baroness Percy, was daughter and 

 heiress of Josceline, Earl of Northumberland, who 

 died in 1670. According to Collins (Peerage, 

 vol. iv. p. 185.) she v/as four years old at the 

 time of her father's death ; so that she was born in 

 1666. In 1679 she was married to Henry Caven- 

 dish, Earl of Ogle, who was only son and heir of 

 the Duke of Newcastle, and who died in 1680, 

 before either party were of puberty to consum- 

 mate the marriage. In 1681 the Lady Ogle was 

 married to Thomas Thynne, of Longleat, in the 

 county of Wilts, Esquire, — a gentleman of great 

 wealth, a friend of the Duke of Monmouth, and 

 the Issachar of Dryden's " Absalom and Achito- 

 phel." Sir John Reresby, in his Memoirs, p. 135., 

 says : " The lady, repenting of the match, fled 

 from her husband into Holland before they were 

 bedded." Whether this elopement had any rela- 

 tion to Konigsmark does not appear : but a few 

 months afterwards, namely, in February 1681-2, 

 Mr. Thynne was assassinated in the Haymarket 

 by foreigners, who were devoted friends of the 

 Count, and who apparently acted under his direc- 

 tion, or, at all events, with his acquiescence. The 

 Count was at that time a mere youth, and having 

 been in London a few months before Lady Ogle's 

 marriage with Mr. Thynne, had then paid his 

 addresses to her. He returned into England about 

 ten days before the murder, and was in London at 

 the time it was committed. In endeavouring to 

 escape beyond sea the day afterwards, he was taken 

 in disguise at Gravesend, brought to Westminster, 

 and examined before Kinw and Council. Sir John 



Reresby says, " I was present upon this occasion, 

 and observed that he appeared before the king 

 with all the assurance imaginable. He was a fine 

 person of a man, and I think his hair was the 

 longest I ever saw." He denied all participation 

 in the murder, but he was committed and tried 

 with the principals, as an accessory before the 

 fact ; and although acquitted by the jury, a perusal 

 of the trial produces a strong persuasion that he 

 was privy to the purpose of the assassins. A fact 

 much pressed against him was his inquiry of the 

 Swedish envoy, " Whether or no, if he should kill 

 Mr. Thynne in a duel, he could, by the laws of 

 England, afterwards marry the Lady Ogle ? " a 

 question which showed beyond all doubt that he 

 had in some form entertained a design against 

 Mr. Thynne's life, and also that the attainment of 

 the lady was the motive. But whatever may have 

 been the intention of the Count, and whatever may 

 have been the nature of his intercourse with the 

 Lady Ogle, it is quite clear that they were not 

 married. On the contrary, this lady of early 

 nuptial experience, and of romantic but somewhat 

 suspicious adventure, — who was married three 

 times, and twice a widow, before she was sixteen 

 years old, — was married on the 30th of May, 1682, 

 and within four months after the murder of Mr- 

 Thynne, to Charles Seymour, Duke of Somerset. 

 (CoUins's Peerage, vol. i. p. 191.) Thus early 

 practised in matrimonial intrigue, we find her 

 thirty years afterwards the accomplished organ of 

 political intrigue ; the favourite and friend of 

 Queen Anne, and the zealous partisan of the Whig 

 party. In that character she became the object of 

 Swift's pasquinade, the " Windsor Prophecy," 

 which, though aimed at the Duchess of Somerset, 

 and the destruction of her influence at court, re- 

 coiled upon the head of the author, prevented the 

 queen from making him a bishop, and banished 

 him from her favour for the remainder of her 

 reign. The meaning of the " Prophecy," and the 

 keenness of its sarcasm, were of course readily 

 understood and appreciated by cotemporaries. 

 Swift himself seems to have been highly pleased 

 with it. He says, in one of his letters to Stella, 

 " The Prophecy is an admirable good one, and the 

 people are mad for it." The above recital of the 

 early history of the Duchess of Somerset will 

 render it fully intelligible at the present day. 

 After mentioning some incidents and characters 

 of the time, the " Windsor Prophecy" ends thus : 



" And, dear Englond, if aught I understond, 

 Beware of Carrots* from Northumberlond ! 

 Carrots, sown Thynne, a deep root may get, 

 If so be they are in Sommer set. 



Their conyngs mark thou ! for I have been told, ' 



They assassine when young, and poison when old. 



* Alluding to the Duchess of Somerset's red hair. 



