296 The History of Longleat. 
You can easily picture to your minds the scene which Longleat 
must have presented when its owner, attended by the chief gentry 
of his neighbourhood, welcomed in this very hall, the gay caval- 
cade of courtiers, headed by the popular Duke, a young host and 
young guest, to both of whom the lot seemed to have fallen on the 
fairest of grounds, both at the summit of fortune, with every 
prospect at that time before them, of continuing for years to come, 
to gather the roses without being vexed by the thorns of life. Yet 
at the banquet, and amidst the revelry of that evening, there hung 
over the head of each, the very sword of Damocles, its weight and 
edge withheld by the single hair; that hair now strained to the 
uttermost, and on the point of giving way. The danger was in- 
visible, but it was instant: for soon after their leave-taking at this 
door, both fell by a violent and cruel death; the host under an 
assassin, the guest on the scaffold. 
The Duke of Monmouth’s fate does not belong to our subject, 
but we legitimately pursue that of Mr. Thynne. 
At the time of this visit he was unmarried, but was beginning to 
prepare Longleat for the reception of a bride. This we learn from 
the document to which I have already referred, the chronicle of the 
works done at the house. It goes on to say that besides the dining- 
room, Mr. Thynne also prepared the drawing-room, the alcove 
chamber and others, “all which he did when he married the Lady 
Ogle, as apartments for her and her servants when he thought she 
would come to live at Longleat.” But, alas! “there’s many a slip 
*twixt the cup and the lip:” the Lady Ogle never did come to 
Longleat, and now you shall hear the reason why. 
She was by birth the Lady Elizabeth Percy, surviving daughter 
and sole heiress of Jocelyn, 11th Earl of Northumberland, and was 
only four years old at her father’s death in May, 1670. Her 
mother marrying again, she was removed to the care of her grand- 
mother the Dowager Countess of Northumberland, one of the most 
tenacious and despotic of dowagers or grandmothers. The young 
Lady Elizabeth was the greatest match in the kingdom, the jewel 
of an ancient house, dazzling to the eyes of beholders. Many were 
the solicitors; but the lips that were to pronounce the decisive 
