FROM A STABLE TO A MANSION.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3754, 8 January 1881, Page 4

FROM A STABLE TO A MANSION.

Mr Wai ford relates a curious incident in-the career of the Duke of Chandos, ■. whose magnificence and lavish expenditure in adorning his mansion of-Canons, is the theme of one of Pope's satires. While travelling once in Herefordshire, the Duke's attention, as he approached the Castle Inn in Marlborough, was attracted by piercing screams. He instantly, alighted from his carriage and perceived a handsome young woman, little ' more 1 than a girl, struggling in the grasp of a powerful fellow, who' was cruelly flogging her with a whip. Her face was streaming with blood. A crowd of spectators were 'coinmisserating the victim,

yet none dared to interfere with the brute ■ who was beating her and who, it appeared was her.husband and the ostler of the inn.

In ana«er to the Duke's indignant remon-

strance, the ostler replied that the woman was his own and that,he could do what he

liked with her in the way of administering

correction, but if his Grace telt interested .. in her he might have her for £20. The offer was accepted. The Duke we are told acted like a man of honour. He had the

young woman educated by the best of masters, and subsequently, on the death of"his second Duchess, made her his

wife. Nor does it seem that he ever had cause to repent of bis bargain, for in his will he says, "I owe'the greatest comfort I have enjoyed io this life to my Duchess LydiaCatherine." This story, may, to some extent, be apocryphal, but it is certain that the origin of the third Duchess of .Chandos was very obscure." . " The

Duke of Chandos' marriage," writes a correspondent, of Dean. Swift, "has made ;: tt; great noise, and the poor Duchess is often reproached with her being brought 'up in Burr street, Wapping." -