Here was a prospect of amusement such as was dear to the heart of the Countess, who, needless to say, had arranged the plot.  Jermyn needed no invitation to make a third at the feast of love.  That was precisely what he had come for; and although Howard played the host with admirable dignity to the unwelcome intruder, Jermyn ignored his courtesy and brought all his skill to bear on fanning the flames of his jealousy.  He flirted outrageously with the Countess, kept her in peals of laughter by his sallies of wit and scarcely-veiled gibes at her companion, until Howard was roused to such a pitch of silent fury that only the presence of a lady restrained him from running the insolent intruder through with his sword.  Nothing would have delighted her ladyship more than such a climax to the little play she was enjoying so much; but Howard, with marvellous self-restraint, kept his temper within bounds and his sword in its sheath.

Such an outrage, however, could not be passed over with impunity; and before Jermyn had eaten his breakfast on the following morning, Howard’s friend and second, Colonel Dillon, was announced with a demand for satisfaction—­a demand which met with a prompt acquiescence from Jermyn, who vowed he would “wipe the young puppy out.”  The duel took place in the “Long Alley near St James’s, called Pall Mall,” and proved to be of as sanguinary a nature as even the grossly-insulted Howard could have desired.

On the 19th of August 1662, Pepys writes:—­

“Mr Coventry did tell us of the duel between Mr Jermyn, nephew to my Lord of St Alban’s, and Colonel Giles Rawlins, the latter of whom is killed, and the first mortally wounded as it is thought.  They fought against Captain Thomas Howard, my Lord Carlisle’s brother, and another unknown; who, they say, had armour on that they could not be hurt, so that one of their swords went up to the hilt against it.  They had horses ready and are fled.  But what is most strange, Howard sent one challenge before, but they could not meet till yesterday at the old Pall Mall at St James’s; and he would not till the last tell Jermyn what the quarrel was; nor do anybody know.”

If no one else knew of the cause of the quarrel, certainly Jermyn did; and never did man pay a more deserved penalty for dastardly behaviour.  Lady Shrewsbury’s delight at thus ridding herself of two lovers, of both of whom she seems to have grown weary, may be better imagined than described.  Although Jermyn was carried off the field of battle, to all appearance a dead man, he survived until 1708 when he died, full of years and wickedness, Baron Jermyn of Dover.

The Court, as Pepys records, was “much concerned in this fray”; but it was long before Lady Shrewsbury’s part in it came to light, to add to the infamy which she had by that time heaped on herself.  Her wayward fancy next settled on a man of a different stamp to either Howard or Jermyn.  It seemed, indeed, to be her ambition to make her conquests as varied as humanity itself.  Her next victim was Harry Killigrew, one of the most notorious profligates in London, a man of low birth and lower tastes, a haunter of taverns, the terror of all decent women, and a roystering swashbuckler, with a sword as ready to leap at a word as his lips to snatch a kiss from a pretty mouth.