London
Monday 3d December
My Dear Henry
I have a most gracious answer from Lord Lansdowne, <1> you are welcome to his Villa & he only regrets it is so cold a house for so cold a time of year, but he trusts to your seeing Every Thing at that moment en couleur de rose, <2> and passing over its désagremens. <3> For my part I think it a charming place at any Season, still more in one’s Honey Moon. He tells me that Calne Election comes on Friday & must terminate Saturday evening, & he understands Chippenham is the same, therefore it certainly would not be worth while for Mr F. & Horatia <4> to arrive at Laycock Thursday night for you to depart Sunday morning, as you will of course make your escape from your Constituents as soon as possible, unless indeed you stay to make speeches on Monday, for I believe chairing <5> is out of fashion. But in short you had better write to Mr F. yourself. If you direct here it will get as soon to Melbury <6> but that as you please.
I am just returned from Mr King, <7> nothing could be more gentle & civil than he was. He got into the carriage & there we sat with the glasses up for more than one hour. As the post is going I have no time now to enter into details, but will tomorrow – He talks in the calmest & clearest manner & among other things said he had heard her most highly spoken of by a Mrs Walmsley of something Castle – who knows them all well. – He said he had told Mr Simpson <8> that he did not come there as a common Lawyer because he felt an almost paternal interest in you, having had the management of your affairs from your infancy. It seems that when he left Markeaton <9> Mr Simpson expressed himself quite satisfied with the 500 & said Mr Mundy <10> was so too. That afterwards when he was gone it was referred to some old [uncle?] a Mr Leber, who proposed 600, and Mr King considers that Mr Simpson has behaved ill to him in so doing he says he feels himself hurt & has written to tell him so
You must have three Trustees, Ld Kerry & Mansel Talbot <11> he says are unexceptionable & the 3d should be a Lawyer for your convenience
adieu
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts
Notes:
1. Henry Petty Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne (1780–1863), MP, WHFT’s uncle.
2. Through rose-coloured spectacles.
3. Annoyances / disadvantages.
4. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father, and Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
5. Carrying the victor aloft on a chair, in a triumphal procession.
6. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
7. Of William Read King & Son, solicitors, London.
8. Mr Simpson, solicitor.
9. Markeaton Hall, Derbyshire, NW of Derby: home of the Mundy family.
10. Francis Mundy (1771–1837), politician and father of Constance Talbot.
11. William Thomas Fitzmaurice, Earl of Kerry (1811–1836), MP, and Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot (1803–1890), immensely wealthy landowner, mathematician & politician; WHFT’s Welsh cousin.