Lords and ladies clambered on
any eminence to gaze. The crowd surged upon them, and it was with
difficulty they entered their chairs because of the mob outside. The
gayety of Vauxhall Gardens was incomplete without them.
Their campaign was a short and eminently active one; Elizabeth
triumphed first. At a masquerade at Lord Chesterfield's, in February,
1752, James, the sixth Duke of Hamilton and Brandon, who was enamoured
of the younger Irish girl, wished to marry her at once. A clergyman
was asked to perform the ceremony then and there. He objected to the
time and place and the absence of a ring. The Duke threatened to send
for the Archbishop. With the ring of a bed-curtain, at half an hour
past midnight, the wedding took place in Mayfair Chapel. The Scotch
were enraged at the alliance, which became an unhappy one. The Duke
was vulgar, debauched, extravagant, and "damaged in person and
fortune," yet, withal, insolently proud. He betook himself off within
six years, and his two sons by the Duchess became, successively,
seventh and eighth Dukes of Hamilton; and a daughter married Edward,
twelfth Earl of Derby.
The dowager was less than a year in widow's weeds when she exchanged
them for more strawberry leaves. She had two ducal offers, from their
graces of Bridgewater and of Argyll; she accepted the latter. In
March, 1759, she married John, the fifth Duke of that name.
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