1 62 Life of the Duchess of Newcastle 



to dishonour my friends and family by my indiscreet actions, 

 that I rather chose to be accounted a fool than to be thought 

 rude or wanton. In truth, my bashfulness and fears made 

 me repent my going from home to see the world abroad, and 

 much I did desire to return to my mother again, or to my 

 sister Pye, with whom I often lived when she was in London, 

 and loved with a supernatural affection. But my mother 

 advised me there to stay, although I put her to more charges 

 than if she had kept me at home, and the more, by reason she 

 and my brothers were sequestered from their estates, and 

 plundered of all their goods, yet she maintained me so, that I 

 was in a condition rather to lend than to borrow, which cour- 

 tiers usually are not, being always necessitated by reason of 

 great expenses Courts put them to. But my mother said it 

 would be a disgrace for me to return out of the Court so soon 

 after I was placed ; so I continued almost two years, until 

 such time as I was married from thence. For my Lord the 

 Marquis of Newcastle did approve of those bashful fears 

 which many condemned, and would choose such a wife as he 

 might bring to his own humours, and not such a one as was 

 wedded to self-conceit, or one that had been tempered to the 

 humours of another ; for which he wooed me for his wife ; 

 and though I did dread marriage, and shunned men's company 

 as much as I could, yet I could not, nor had not the power to 

 refuse him, by reason my affections were fixed on him, and he 

 was the only person I ever was in love with. Neither was I 

 ashamed to own it, but gloried therein. For it was not amor- 

 ous love (I never was infected therewith, it is a disease, or a 

 passion, or both, I only know by relation, not by experience), 

 neither could title, wealth, power, or person entice me to love. 

 But my love was honest and honourable, being placed upon 

 merit, which affection joyed at the fame'of his worth, pleased 

 with delight in his wit, proud of the respects he used to me, 

 and triumphing in the affections he professed for me, which 

 affections he hath confirmed to me by a deed of time, sealed 

 by constancy, and assigned by an unalterable decree of his 

 promise, which makes me happy in despite of Fortune's 

 frowns 1 . For though misfortunes may and do oft dissolve 

 base, wild, loose, and ungrounded affections, yet she hath no 



l The letters of Margaret Lucas to the Marquis of Newcastle before their marriage 

 are calendared in the Report on the Duke of Portland's MSS., ii, 134-7. They deserve 

 printing in full. 



