In Lely's
picture of the young Countess of Chesterfield, her piquancy
attracts at a glance, whilst her beauty charms on examination.
Her cousin, Anthony Hamilton, describes her as having large blue
eyes, very tempting and alluring, a complexion extremely fair,
and a heart "ever open to tender sentiments," by reason of which
her troubles arose, as shall be set down in proper sequence.
Henry Jermyn, Earl of St. Albans, and his nephew, "the little
Jermyn," were also notable as figuring in court intrigues. The
earl was member of the privy council to his majesty, and moreover
held a still closer connection to the queen mother; for,
according to Sir John Reresby, Madame Buviere, and others, her
majesty had privately married his lordship abroad--an act of
condescension he repaid with inhumanity. Madame Buviere says he
never gave the queen a good word; and when she spoke to him he
used to say, "Que me veut cette femme?" The same authority adds,
he treated her majesty in an extremely ill manner, "so that
whilst she had not a faggot to warm herself, he had in his
apartments a good fire and a sumptuous table." [This testimony
concerning the queen's poverty is borne out by Cardinal de Retz.
In his interesting Memoirs he tells of a visit he paid the queen
mother, then an exile in Paris. He found her with her youngest
daughter, Henrietta, in the chamber of the latter. "At my coming
in," says the Cardinal, "she (the queen) said, 'You see, I am come
to keep Henrietta company; the poor child could not rise to-day
for want of a fire.
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