ASHRIDGE 113 



attached to those two women ! Who would have 

 believed that a Gunning would unite the two great 

 houses of Campbell and Hamilton ? For my part, 

 I expect to see my Lady Coventry Queen of 

 Prussia. I would not venture to marry either of 

 them these thirty years, for fear of being shuffled 

 out of the world prematurely to make room for 

 the rest of their adventures." A strange history, 

 indeed, for the girls who were so poor that they 

 borrowed clothes from Peg Woffington to go to 

 the Dublin Drawing-room ! 



As can be imagined, whatever the last Duke of 

 Bridgewater did for canals, he was not so successful 

 with Gardens ; and his cousin and heir, John 

 Egerton, must have found the Gardens at Ashridge 

 in a sorry plight, and certainly destitute of flowers. 

 It was this cousin, the seventh Earl (the Dukedom 

 had become extinct), who built the present magnifi- 

 cent house, in size as large as half a dozen German 

 or Italian palaces. This house was designed by 

 James Wyatt in 1808, and finished by Jeffrey and 

 Digby Wyatt successively, thus being the work of 

 three generations of famous architects. 



Practically nothing remained of the old house, 

 the last Duke having had the greater part of it 

 pulled down, meaning to build a new one. When 

 his cousin came into the property hardly a room 

 had a roof, only the lodges remained standing. 

 The Duke had lived for years in the porter's lodge, 



