By the Rev. J. E. Jackson. 



83 



dying left her childless, a young and beautiful widow : upon whom 

 Sir George Rodney a gentleman- in the west, suitable to her for 

 person and fortune, fixing his love, had good hopes from her to 

 reap the fruits of it. But Edward, Earl of Hertford, being en- 

 tangled by her fair eyes, and she having a tang of her grandfather's 

 ambition, 1 left Rodney, and married the Earl. Rodney, having 

 drunk in too much affection, and not being able with his reason to 

 digest it, summoned up his scattered spirits to a most desperate 

 attempt : and coming to Amesbury in Wiltshire, where the Earl 

 and Countess were then resident, to act it, he retired to an Inn in 

 the town, shut himself up in a chamber, and wrote a large paper 

 of well- com posed verses to the Countess in his own blood, (strange 

 kind of composedness,) wherein he bewails and laments his own 

 unhappiness ; and when he had sent them to her, as a sad catas- 

 trophe to all his miseries, he ran himself upon his sword, and so 

 ended that life which he thought death to enjoy ; leaving the 

 Countess to a strict remembrance of her inconstancy, and himself 

 a desperate and sad spectacle of frailty : but she easily past this 

 over, and so wrought upon the good-nature of the Earl her husband, 

 that he settled above five thousand pounds a year jointure upon 

 her for life." 2 



The Earl's grandson William, Marquis of Hertford, resided here 

 in 1611. (Wilts Mag. ii., 181.) The Marquis's grandson William, 

 third Duke of Somerset, dying without issue, this property passed 

 by Elizabeth Seymour the third Duke's sister in marriage to 

 Thomas, Earl of Ailesbury. In 1720, Charles Lord Bruce sold it 

 to Henry Boyle, created 1714 Baron Carlton ; and he, by will 1729 

 bequeathed it to his nephew Charles third Duke of Queensberry 

 whose family made large additions by purchase. 



A Yorkshire clergyman taking a little tour through Wilts in 

 1750, made the following note of his visit here. 3 



1 Thomas Howard third Duke of Norfolk, who was only preserved from the 

 scaftold by the death of Henry viij. 



2 Sir George Rodney was of Stoke Rodney, co. Somerset. For the poetical 

 Epistle see the " Topographer i. 398 — 405 



3 MS. Letter by Rev. Richard Woody eare ; 1750. 



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