The Marquis of Hertford was the Duke of Somerset’s great-grandson.  He married Lady Arabella Stuart, daughter of Charles Stuart, Earl of Lennox, uncle of King James I, for which matrimonial adventure he was imprisoned in the Tower.  His second wife was Frances, daughter of Robert, Earl of Essex, and sister to the great general of the Parliamentary Army.  She was the mother of young Lord Beauchamp, whose death Dorothy deplores.  He was twenty-eight years of age when he died.  He married Mary, daughter of Lord Capel of Hadham, who afterwards married the Duke of Beaufort.

Baptist Noel, Viscount Camden, was a noted loyalist.  After the Restoration we find him appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Rutland.  Of his duel with Mr. Stafford there seems to be no account.  It did not carry him into the King’s Bench Court, like Lord Chandos’ duel, so history is silent about it.

April the 2nd, 1654.

SIR,—­There was never any lady more surprised than I was with your last.  I read it so coldly, and was so troubled to find that you were so forward on your journey; but when I came to the last, and saw Dublin at the date, I could scarce believe my eyes.  In earnest, it transported me so that I could not forbear expressing my joy in such a manner as had anybody been by to have observed me they would have suspected me no very sober person.

You are safe arrived, you say, and pleased with the place already, only because you meet with a letter of mine there.  In your next I expect some other commendation on’t, or else I shall hardly make such haste to it as people here believe I will.

All the servants have been to take their leaves on me, and say how sorry they are to hear I am going out of the land; some beggar at the door has made so ill a report of Ireland to them that they pity me extremely, but you are pleased, I hope, to hear I am coming to you; the next fair wind expect me.  ’Tis not to be imagined the ridiculous stories they have made, nor how J.B. cries out on me for refusing him and choosing his chamber-fellow; yet he pities me too, and swears I am condemned to be the miserablest person upon earth.  With all his quarrel to me, he does not wish me so ill as to be married to the proudest, imperious, insulting, ill-natured man that ever was; one that before he has had me a week shall use me with contempt, and believe that the favour was of his side.  Is not this very comfortable?  But, pray, make it no quarrel; I make it none, I assure you.  And though he knew you before I did, I do not think he knows you so well; besides that, his testimony is not of much value.

I am to spend this next week in taking leave of this country, and all the company in’t, perhaps never to see it more.  From hence I must go into Northamptonshire to my Lady Ruthin, and so to London, where I shall find my aunt and my brother Peyton, betwixt whom I think to divide this summer.