This girl, who developed a political romance
of her own, was of good Northumberland family, related to Sir John
Fenwick and the Delavals. Her father, a merchant in Newcastle, had
educated her 'in a civil and virtuous manner,' and she had lived there
about eighteen years, behaving herself discreetly, modestly, and
honestly, as nine Northumbrian justices of the peace were ready to
testify under their hand. The strange story she later told of her
experiences at Westbrook and afterwards cannot, therefore, be wholly
dismissed as a tale trumped up for political purposes, though its most
thrilling incident is so foolish a lie as to discredit the whole.
On the Saturday before Christmas 1699 (so ran her later
'revelations,'[32] made in 1707) she took the coach from Godalming,
obedient to instructions by letter from Sir Theophilus. A little way
down the Strand he joined her in the coach, accompanied by two young
ladies--friends, she was told, of Lady Oglethorpe; and for some time
she knew no more of who they were and whence they came. They were very
secret, appeared in no company, but made themselves useful in the
pleasant, homely ways of English country life of that time: helped
with the sewing, made their own bed, swept their chamber, dressed the
two little girls, Mary and Fanny, and waited on each other.
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