King Charles II

LP was proud of her mother's descent from Colonel William Meade (her own great-grandfather), who fought for Charles II in the Civil War.

Her father, Walter Singer , a well-to-do wool merchant and a dissenting minister, had been imprisoned at Ilchester for his beliefs under Charles II (and had met his future wife when she came prison visiting)...

Of the ten children borne by Elizabeth (both as Lady Brackley and as Lady Bridgewater), seven outlived her although only four seem to have lived long enough to reach modern records: John , born on...

Lionel Cranfield, third Earl of Middlesex , challenged Lord Bridgewater (who had just been appointed guardian of his niece) to a duel in deliberately insulting language—Billingsgate dialect, Bridgewater called it, from the notoriously...

DSCS had another son, Robert , from this second marriage. This son would become Constable of Dover Castle in Charles II 's reign.

Lady Grisell or Grizell Hume , later Baillie, was the daughter of Scottish Covenanter Sir Patrick Hume (later Earl of Marchmont). Born on Christmas Day in 1665 at Redbraes Castle in Berwickshire, Grisell played...

SS 's father, the Rev. Philip Henry , was an Oxford graduate whose religious views were shaped by Puritans, and who became distinguished as a Nonconformist minister and gifted preacher. He was ordained in the...

Her mother, born Sarah Ballenden, was related to three separate Scots noble families. She brought up her daughters at first on an Admiralty pension (discontinued on Charles II 's death, restored by Queen Anne )...

MJ corresponded with Charlotte Lennox and with publisher Ralph Griffiths and his wife Isabella . Her friendship was valued by literary men like Samuel Johnson , Joseph Spence , Thomas Warton , and apparently Bonnell Thornton

CCR offered support and concern to Thomas Hog (a minister near Auldearn on the Moray Firth, who ended up as a royal chaplain to King William ) while he was being persecuted for his...

DSCS suffered a serious attack of ague (fever). To her brother Henry she attributed her recovery to a medicine referred to at the time as the Jesuits' powders , which had also cured Charles II

The Festival Theatre at Malvern first performed GBS 's Good King Charles 's Golden Days: A History Lesson, a comedy featuring actual historical figures.

This narrative was apparently planned to fit its six illustrations: portraits of imaginary beauties by Edmund Thomas Parris (whose work featured also in Gems of Beauty).

In her preface PA claims that but for her publisher's advice to study the market, she would at this stage have chosen to write something more serious and learned, but still, she says, she...

The second play in this volume, Lord and Lady Russell was met with much less interest than Elfinella. It is a historical drama set in the court of King Charles II . The despicable...