link to Talbot Project home page link to De Montfort University home page link to Glasgow University home page
Project Director: Professor Larry J Schaaf
 

Back to the letter search >

Document number: 2094
Date: Thu 02 Dec 1830
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: GAISFORD Henrietta Horatia Maria, née Feilding
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA30-56
Last updated: 2nd February 2012

Thursday
Decr 2nd

My dear Henry

I am very glad to hear Laycock is so quiet & well behaved. We were delighted with the proclamation. Aunt Louisa <1> dined here yesterday as Lord Lansdowne <2> had a cabinet dinner. She is going to Bowood <3> in a few days, with Louisa. <4> She hopes to do a great deal of good by talking to the people there. The accounts from Moreton <5> were better yesterday – they had taken several prisoners there & at Minterne. We were excessively surprised to hear Louisa Frampton <6> was arrived in town. She is not looking ill all things considered. Aunt Harriet <7> describes Moreton as quite en état de siège <8> – all the windows barricadoed with furniture – the plate &c hid away – & the iron bars before the windows taken up, that the people may drop into the oubliettes! Uncle John <9> seems quite disappointed that there are no adventures at Melbury <10> & that he has gone all that way for nothing. I hope that odious Holy Alliance <11> is not going to attack Belgium & draw us into a war.

We had 4 Steyrische Alpensinger <12> at the Duchess of Cannizzaro’s <13> the other day they sing very prettily indeed & were quite enchanted when we talked to them about the mountains of Styria. There [sic] are very picturesque with green hats & feathers

We had tableaux again last Tuesday at Lady Dudley Stuart’s. <14> They made me act Rowena in the last scene in Ivanhoe <15> & Lady Dudley was Rebecca in a beautiful oriental dress. Caroline <16> personated Dante’s Beatrice in another & Elisa Hunloke <17> Hamlet’s mother in the scene where he shews her the 2 pictures. Mrs Fox Lane looked quite beautiful as a Sybil with upturned eyes. Addio carissimo fratello <18> pray write me a line & tell me if there are any Chrysanthemums –

Your affte
Horatia

Do the poor people go on subscribing? I am enrhumée al solito <19> & could not go Lady Aberdeen’s-<20> there is music to night at Mrs Bradshaw’s<21> but I am afraid I shall not be able to go.

Notes:

1. Louisa Emma Petty Fitzmaurice, née Fox Strangways, Marchioness of Lansdowne (1785-1851), wife of Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne; Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria, 1837-1838; WHFT's aunt.

2. Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780–1863), MP, WHFT’s uncle.

3. Bowood House, nr Calne, Wiltshire, 5 mi NE of Lacock: seat of the Marquess of Lansdowne.

4. Louisa Howard, née Fitzmaurice (d. 1906), daughter of Lady Louisa Emma Fitzmaurice.

5. Moreton, Dorset: home of the Frampton family. This refers to the Swing Riots of 1830. By the end of December 1830 nearly two thousand people had been arrested and were awaiting trial, of which nineteen people were executed. [See Doc. No: 02083, and Doc. No: 02088].

6. Louisa Charlotte Frampton (1808-1885), author.

7. Lady Harriot Frampton, née Fox Strangways (1778 - 6 Aug 1844); dau of Henry Thomas Fox Strangways, 2nd Earl of Ilchester and Mary Theresa O'Grady; she married James Frampton (1769-1855) in 1799.

8. In a state of siege.

9. John George Charles Fox Strangways (1803–1859), MP.

10. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.

11. Holy Alliance, the 1815 treaty between the Tsar of Russia, the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia and Ferdinand VII, King of Spain.

12. Alpine singers from Styria.

13. Duchess of Cannizzaro (d. 1841), Society hostess.

14. Lady Christine Dudley Coutts-Stuart, née Bonaparte (1798–1847).

15. Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe (1819).

16. Lady Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding (1808-1881); WHFT's half-sister; Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria, 1840–1854 & 1863–1865.

17. Eliza Margaret de Biaudos, née Hunloke (1810–1878), daughter of Lady Anne Hunloke, née Eccleston (1788–1872); after 1860, known as Lady Anne Scarisbrick.

18. Goodbye dear brother.

19. I have a cold as usual.

20. Harriet Gordon, née Douglas, Lady Aberdeen (d. 1833).

21. Anne Marie, née Tree (1801-1862), an accomplished singer and actress in Bath and London; wife of James Bradshaw (d. 1847), tea merchant and MP.