THE HISTORY OF THE BEL VOIR HUNT 



we got home. I think I have told you the chief passages. 

 Lord Granby's temper had been a Httle ruffled the night 

 before : the Prince had invited him and Dick Lyttelton to 

 Kew, where he won eleven hundred pounds of the latter, 

 and eight of the former, then cut, and told them he would 

 play with them no longer, for he saw they played so idly 

 that they were capable of ' losing more than they would 

 like."'i 



After all, the age changes more than men and women, for 

 the loud voices and the risky jokes, all perhaps save the 

 drunkenness, might be paralleled at a " smart " supper party 

 of our own day. The same lively writer just quoted tells us 

 of Lord Granby's marriage and of the extravagance that 

 characterised both his own conduct and that of his bride- 

 elect. Unfortunately, we know that recklessness was a part 

 of his character, and that in consequence his last years were 

 harassed and embittered by his creditors. Nevertheless, his 

 married life does not seem to have been unhappy, though 

 neither his wife nor he ever acquired any clear idea of the 

 value of money. 



There is reason to think, judging her by the surest of all 

 tests, the characters of her children, that Lady Granby was a 

 good mother during the short time her married life lasted. 

 On October 24th, 1760, she died, leaving two sons — Charles, 

 who succeeded his grandfather as the fourth Duke, the friend 

 and political associate of Pitt and the patron of Crabbe, and 

 Robert, who died fighting gallantly on the deck of his 

 ship — and one daughter, who afterwards married Lord 

 Tyrconnel. 



For some time after his marriage Lord Granby lived 

 much in the country on a somewhat straitened income. 

 Walpole tells us that : — 



" Lord Granby's match, which is at last to be finished 

 to-morrow, has been a mighty topic of conversation lately. 

 The bride is one of the great heiresses of old proud Somer- 

 set. Lord Winchilsea, who is her uncle, and who has 

 married the other sister very loosely to his own relation 



* Horace Walpole's Letters, ed. 1840, vol. ii., pp. 339-341. 

 46 



