Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

230
HAMPTON COURT
as her picture shows her, beautiful even in old age,
she was the mother of the most eminent triad of
public servants that the same family ever produced —
Richard, the "great proconsul," Arthur, Duke, of
Wellington, and Henry, Lord Cowley. Her other
children would rank as distinguished were their brothers
less famous. The Wellesleys, as they came to call
themselves before the end of the century (Richard was
matriculated at Christ Church as Wellesley in 1778),
soon formed a little colony in the Palace. Another
son, Gerald Valerian, who held one of the rich prebends
of Durham, was chaplain of the Palace — and a
daughter, Lady Anne, had also rooms in what are called
" the Queen's half-storey." Years afterwards, in 1843,
the beautiful Marchioness of Wellesley received apartments
in the Palace. An American lady, whose sisters
were Duchess of Leeds and Lady Stafford, she had
married the great Marquis in 1825,when he was for the
first time Viceroy of Ireland. They had lived happily
together till his death in 1842, chiefly in London, in
literary society and among old friends. The Marquis's
little volume, " Primitiæ et Reliquiæ," published
when he had reached the age of eighty, shows the
charm of those quiet years;and in the copy which he
gave to his wife he wrote Dryden's lines —
" All of a tenour was theirafter-life,
No day discolouredwith domesticstrife,
No jealousy,but mutual truth believed,
Secure repose andkindness undeceived."
Lady Wellesley lived till 1853. It is interesting to