“The Duke of Hamilton,” says Walpole, to whom the world is indebted for so much that it knows of the Gunning sisters, “is the abstract of Scotch pride.  He and the Duchess, at their own house, walk into dinner before their company, sit together at the upper end of their own table, eat off the same plate, and drink to nobody under the rank of an Earl.  Would not indeed,” the genial old chatterbox adds, “one wonder how they could get anybody, either above or below that rank, to dine with them at all?  It is, indeed, a marvel how such a host could find guests of any degree sufficiently wanting in self-respect to sit at his table and endure his pompous insolence—­the insolence of an innately vulgar mind, which, unhappily, is sometimes to be met even in the most exalted rank of life.”

Perhaps the proudest period in Duchess Betty’s romantic life was when, with her husband, the Duke, she paid a visit, in 1755, to Dublin, the “dear, dirty” city she had known in the days of her poverty and obscurity, when her greatest dread was the sight of a bailiff in the house, and her highest ambition to procure a dress to display her budding charms at a dance.  Her stay in Dublin was one long, intoxicating triumph.  “No Queen,” she said, “could have been more handsomely treated.”  Wherever she went she was followed by mobs, fighting to get a glimpse of her, or to touch the hem of her gown, and blissful if they could win a smile from the “darlint Duchess” who had brought so much glory to old Ireland.

Her wedded life, however, was destined to be brief.  Her husband had one foot in his premature grave when he put the curtain-ring on her finger; but, beyond all doubt, his marriage gave him a new if short lease of life.  She became a widow in 1758; and before she had worn her weeds three months she had a swarm of suitors buzzing round her.  The Duke of Bridgewater was among the first to fall on his knees before the fascinating widow, who, everybody now vowed, was lovelier than ever; but he proved too exacting in his demands to please Her Grace.  In fact, the only one of all her new wooers on whom she could smile was Colonel John Campbell, who, although a commoner, would one day blossom into a Duke of Argyll; and she gave her hand to “handsome Jack” within twelve months of weeping over the grave of her first husband.

“It was a match,” Walpole says, “that would not disgrace Arcadia.  Her beauty had made enough sensation, and in some people’s eyes is even improved.  She has a most pleasing person, countenance and manner; and if they could but carry to Scotland some of our sultry English weather, they might restore the ancient pastoral life, when fair kings and queens reigned at once over their subjects and their sheep.”

It was under such Arcadian conditions that Betty Gunning began her second venture in matrimony, which proved as happy as its promise.  Probably the eleven years which the Dowager-Duchess had to wait for her next coronet were the happiest of her life; and when at last Colonel Jack became fifth Duke of Argyll she was able to resume the life of stately splendour which had been hers with her first Duke.  By this time her beauty had begun to show signs of fading.