82 THE JOCKEY CLUB 1750- 



' Letters,' and in Jesse's ' Selwyn,' in the character 

 of a very ' fast ' man ; and the story of his hurried 

 marriage, when a ring of the bed-curtains is said to 

 have been utilised for the purpose, is well known. 

 Though he raced and rode in person, he is not promi- 

 nent among the improvers of the thoroughbred, and 

 seems, in fact, to have inclined towards the ' cock- 

 tail ' ; but, whatever may have been his shortcomings 

 in that respect, they have been amply atoned for by 

 two of his successors — the Duke who was better known 

 as Lord Archibald Hamilton (and who most un- 

 expectedly succeeded his two nephews), and the pre- 

 sent Duke. 



Our Duke of Kingston is Evelyn Pierrepont, who 

 succeeded to the title in 1726 and died in 1773, when 

 the dukedom became extinct. He certainly qualified 

 most thoroughly for the Jockey Club so far as the 

 looseness of his domestic screw (a looseness character- 

 istic, as has been said, not of the Club only but of 

 the society to which the earliest members of the 

 Jockey Club would belong for the most part) was 

 concerned ; for he married the lady known to history, 

 or, rather, to scandalous chronicle, as the ' notorious 

 Miss Chudleigh,' or the ' infamous Duchess of King- 

 ston.' She had been his mistress for years before he 

 married her ; but it is by no means certain that he 

 was privy to the bigamy which she committed in 

 marrying him. He, at any rate, bred, owned, and 

 ran several excellent horses; and a certain filly 



