This lady, who became a most prominent figure in the court of the
merry monarch, was daughter of William, second Viscount
Grandison, a brave gentleman and a loyal, who had early in life
fallen in the civil war whilst fighting for his king. He is
described as having, among other gifts, "a faultless person," a
boon, which descended to his only child, the bewitching Barbara.
In the earliest dawn of her womanhood she encountered her first
lover in the person of Philip Stanhope, second Earl of
Chesterfield. My lord was at this time a youthful widower, and
is described as having "a very agreeable face, a fine head of
hair, an indifferent shape, and a pleasant wit. He was,
moreover, an elegant beau and a dissolute man--testimony of which
latter fact may be gathered from a letter written to him in 1658,
by his sister-in-law, Lady Essex, to prevent the "ruin of his
soule." Writes her ladyship: "You treate all the mad drinking
lords, you sweare, you game, and commit all the extravagances
that are insident to untamed youths, to such a degree that you
make yourselfe the talke of all places, and the wonder of those
who thought otherwise of you, and of all sober people."
When Barbara was sixteen, my lord, then in his twenty-third year,
inherited the title and estates of his grandfather: he therefore
became master of his own fortune and could bestow his hand where
he pleased. That he was in love with Barbara is, indeed, most
true; but that his passion was dishonourable is likewise certain:
for though he wrote her letters full of tenderness, and kept
assignations with her at Butler's shop, on Ludgate Hill, he was
the while negotiating a marriage with one Mrs.
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