"If you are at Goodwin...I hope you will take a walk up to the Carne Seat, sit down in the little room and think of that you took with Lady Emily Lennox..."
-Emily Duchess of Leinster to her husband
Many aristocratic teen girls got married off quickly and some of those girls got their teenage kicks. Lady Emily Lennox was barely a teen when she caught the interest of James, Marquess of Kildare. Like most high school relationships,
her parents weren't thrilled with their daughter's crush on a guy in his twenties, despite the fact that he was a rich peer. James was Irish, and unlike many aristos of the Emerald Isle, actually enjoyed living there. The Lennoxes saw him as a guy from the wrong side of the tracks. Did this bad boy bring out the saucy side of Emily? Who knows; but what we do know is that after James proposed to fifteen-year-old Emily she gave in to her,
shall we say, carnal desires. After church, on Christmas day, Emily and James took advantage of his empty summerhouse to give in to their feelings for each other.
Now some mothers will scare their daughters about giving
it up so easily because then there is no lure for the husband. This certainly wasn't the case for James. Whatever Emily did to him in that "little room" that she fondly remembered sixteen years later, James liked, and wanted more of. Lord Kildare was especially anxious to wed now! Two months later at a magnificent ceremony the two were formally joined. Emily also made a great impression on her husband on their wedding night:
"I don't believe, if I was to lie at Whitehall, I could ever sleep, for thinking that in that house it was that I first took possession of that which for about fifteen years I have enjoyed."
The two were madly in love and many children followed. Perhaps Emily wouldn't be the teenage role model your mother would pick out for you but then again it would seem as if her actions didn't mislead her.
What a LOVELY post! Truly, this was like reading a blurb from a fictional tale. I would really, really love to get my hands on a biographical account or possibly a collection of letters from her to him and vice-versa. Any suggestions?
ReplyDeleteSuch a lovely post. I really liked this. It was very sweet :)
ReplyDeleteI am not sure about letters but as for biographical account I can definitely recommend Stella Tillyard's The Aristocrats which is all about Emily and her sisters (and a mini-series was based off of it!)
ReplyDeleteIf The Aristocrats (the TV series; haven't read the biography) is to be believed, ALL of those Lennox girls (and their brother too) had a bit of the naughty gene in them.
ReplyDeleteMust have come from their great-grandfather Charles Stuart!! And they had two brothers who lived to adulthood: Charles who became the 3rd Duke, and George. But there were so many girls in that family that the boys would seem to have been swamped.
DeleteI have been fascinated by the Lennox sisters since I read the book and then watched the miniseries. I was always saddened by the fact that Emily's husband would still seek 'relations' with other women and that she turned a blind eye to it, but I guess she knew where his true affections were. Thanks for posting something on this family!
ReplyDeleteWow cute power couple! Retro
ReplyDeleteOh, I love happy endings! Thank you for writing this.
ReplyDeleteGlad you all enjoyed the feisty story!
ReplyDeleteIt really does read like a fun romance novel (let's leave the fact that he couldn't keep his hands to himself after marriage out of it) and rather amazing having passed that mid-teen age with my daughters not all that long ago that she could have known her mind so very well at that age.
ReplyDeleteThere's recent research that suggests people who sleep together on the first date are more likely to get married. Admittedly some of this is probably just due to the fact that people who don't like each other probably won't sleep together at all, or even go on a second date; but nevertheless, those who are a good match will be strongly drawn to each other.
ReplyDeleteI have heard that!
ReplyDelete