38 The Eminent Ladies of Wiltshire History. 



more, till I know whether her Grace will fill up the rest of the 

 paper." Her Grace did fill it up, and in this way : — " Write I must, 

 particularly now I have an opportunity to indulge my predominant 

 spirit of contradiction. I do in the first place contradict most things 

 Mr. Gay says of me to deter you from coming here ; which if you 

 do, I hereby assure you that unless I like my way better, you shall 

 have yours, and in all disputes you shall convince me, if you can. 

 Pray come, that I may find out something wrong, for I, and I 

 believe most women, have an inconceivable pleasure in finding out 

 any fault, except their own. - " It does not appear that Dean Swift 

 ever ventured to encounter this lively antagonist. There is an 

 engraved portrait of the Duchess of Queensberry in Sir Richard 

 Hoare's Modern Wilts/'' which seems to have been taken when she 

 fully deserved the description with which Prior's ballad begins, 

 "Fair Kitty, beautiful and young." She died in 1787. 



In the following year, 1788, died another lady, a native of 

 of Devonshire, but by her marriage connected with this town 

 of Bradford. This was the famous Miss Chudleigh, whose career 

 was a very extraordinary one, and the talk of the whole country. 

 I do not exactly reckon her among the Worthies of Wilts, but she 

 was certainly eminent in one sense. She had a place at Court as 

 Maid of Honour to the then Princess of Wales, and when very 

 young she married privately a Mr. Hervey, brother of the Earl of 

 Bristol. From him she separated very soon, and after twenty-five 

 years, still remaining at Court, and Mr. Hervey being still alive, she 

 married the Duke of Kingston, from whom the fine old house in 

 this town takes its name. The Duke dying, left her all his estates 

 for her life; but all his money absolutely for her own. The relatives 

 of the Duke of course did not like this, and contested it. They 

 procured proof of her first marriage with Mr. Hervey, which had 

 never been legally dissolved, and then brought against her an action 

 for bigamy, intending to shew that she could not lawfully be the 

 wife of the Duke, and so to defeat the will. The trial took place 

 before the House of Lords, and for five days was the great sight in 

 London, being attended by enormous crowds in-doors and out. She 

 had been very beautiful, but by this time there was not much of 



