36 



The Imminent Ladies of Wiltshire History. 



missed her aim ; but she nevertheless kept her word, and observed 

 her vow to the last. There is a fine portrait of this singularly 

 eminent Duchess of Richmond, late Hertford, late Prannell, at 

 Longleat — a full-length, in black dress with a starched ruff, and a 

 long staff in her hand. Her air is somewhat domineering and 

 imperious, quite corresponding with her biography. 



Next, in our show, comes a very different personage, a native, I 

 believe, of Fonthill, Lady Eleanor Audley, wife of Sir John Da vies, 

 of Tisbury. She was simply a half-crazy enthusiast, who followed 

 the dangerous business of prophesying. Her rank and connexion 

 made her notorious, and her denunciations against men in power in 

 the days of the Commonwealth created some confusion and brought 

 her into trouble. The title of the first of her two printed books is, 

 "Eleanor Audley's Prophesies. Amend, Amend, Amend. Mene, 

 Tekel, Upharsin." This is in verse and an extraordinary rhapsody. 

 The other book is called " Strange and Wonderful Prophecies by the 

 Lady Eleanor Audley, who is yet alive and lodgeth in Whitehall : 

 which she prophesied 16 years ago, for which she was confined in 

 the Tower and Bedlam : with Notes on the prophecies and how far 

 they are fulfilled concerning the late King's Government, armies 

 and people of England. 1649/'' She suffered a rigorous imprison- 

 ment, and died in 1652. 1 



She is followed, after a long interval of one hundred years, by 

 another literary lady, but of a better stamp — the Countess of 

 Hertford, known by three volumes of correspondence with the 

 Countess of Pomfret. *Sho was by birth a Thynne of Longleat, 

 granddaughter of Thomas, first Viscount Weymouth, and wife of 

 Algernon Seymour, Earl of Hertford, who in 1748 became (the 

 seventh) Duke of Somerset. They lived at the Castle at Marl- 

 borough, afterwards the Inn, now the College. She patronized 

 Thomson of the Seasons, and Shenstone, and is mentioned under 

 certain fictitious names in the works of Dr. Watts and Mrs. Rowe. 



1 The following letter to this lady, lately discovered, presents a rather ungentle 

 portrait of her, by some aggrieved contemporary : — 



" 1626. May. Brooke to Lady Eleanor Davies. Reproaches her for abuse of his wife and inno- 

 cent child. Declares she has abandoned all goodness and modesty, is mad, ugly, blinded with pride 

 of birth, &c. Threatens to scratch a mince-pie out of her, and wishes her, as the most horrible of 

 curses, to remain just what she is," — {Domestic Calendar. State Papers, James I.) 



