Cotehele House <1>
Calstock
Tavistock
Thursday August 18th 1870
My dear Henry
I am very anxious to know something about Rosamond & Amandier. <2> I have heard nothing concerning them since they were at Milan – & was in hopes you would have let me know what course they resolved upon taking.
Flora’s Sister, Mrs Fitzroy, <3> is just come home quite safe from Wildbad – & Mr & Mrs [Hert?] Boger <4> from Switzerland. Do write & tell me.
We left London on the 1st August, came here for 3 days, & then went to Mt Edgcumbe <5> – where Val <6> had a grand field day – abt 4000 men – reckoning 600 sailors & Ships’ Boys, who represented the enemy. The Cornish Volunteers came up in great force from Penzance & other places – 1400 men – a good shew, was it not? Charlie <7> was with us – He is now gone back to London, to make up arrears of duty – & Val gone to fetch Katie <8> from Eastwell Park. They are due at Mt E. today. – We came from Mt E. on Tuesday, Ernestine’s <9> birthday,) [sic] & Flora came with us.
What lovely weather! The woods are in great beauty – & the Pink Japan lilies look beautiful – in some large terra cotta pots, which I bought at the works near Melbury. <10> Are you not sorry for the poor Emperor? and the Empress <11> – it is a melancholy state of things – but I am in hopes the Prussians will be beaten next.
Ernestine sends her love
Yr affte sister
Caroline
Notes:
1. Cotehele, Cornwall: ancient house, seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe, now a National Trust Property.
2. Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2nd daughter and Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].
3. Louisa Emily Fitzroy, née Macdonald, a niece of Caroline's husband through his sister, Lady Caroline Sophia Edgcumbe (d. 10 April 1824), who was the first wife of Reginald George Macdonald (d. 1873). Louisa Emily (sometimes Emily Louisa) (d. 1897) first married Charles William Marsham (d. 1852) on 13 April 1841. She then married, on 4 December 1856, Col. Hugh Fitzroy of the Greenadier Guards, the son of Lord Henry Fitzroy.
4. Possibly related to Deeble Boger, solicitor to the Mt Edgcumbes.
5. Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.
6. William Henry Edgcumbe, ‘Val’, 4th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (1832–1917), JP & Ld Steward of the Royal Household; WHFT’s nephew ‘Bimbo’.
7. Charles Earnest Edgcumbe (1838–1915), JP, WHFT’s nephew.
8. Lady Katherine Elizabeth Edgcumbe, née Hamilton (1840–1874), wife of William Henry Edgcumbe.
9. Ernestine Emma Horatia Edgcumbe (1843-1925), WHFT’s niece.
10. Melbury, Dorset: one of the Fox Strangways family homes; WHFT was born there.
11. Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (1808–1873), President of the Second Republic of France (1850–1852), and Emperor of the French (1852–1870) and his wife Eugenie (1826–1920), Empress of France (1853–1871).