f a page, while he was fighting the duel with her husband. She
married, secondly, George Rodney Bridges, son of Sir Thomas Bridges
of Keynsham, Somerset, Groom of the Bedchamber to Charles IL, and
died April 20th, 1702. A portrait of the Countess of Shrewsbury, as
Minerva, by Lely.]

who is a whore, and is at this time, and hath for a great while been, a
whore to the Duke of Buckingham. And so her husband challenged him, and
they met yesterday in a close near Barne-Elmes, and there fought: and my
Lord Shrewsbury is run through the body, from the right breast through
the shoulder: and Sir John Talbot all along up one of his armes; and
Jenkins killed upon the place, and the rest all, in a little measure,
wounded. This will make the world think that the King hath good
councillors about him, when the Duke of Buckingham, the greatest man
about him, is a fellow of no more sobriety than to fight about a whore.
And this may prove a very bad accident to the Duke of Buckingham, but
that my Lady Castlemayne do rule all at this time as much as ever she
did, and she will, it is believed, keep all matters well with the
Duke of Buckingham: though this is a time that the King will be very
backward, I suppose, to appear in such a business. And it is pretty to
hear how the King had some notice of this challenge a week or two
ago, and did give it to my Lord Generall to confine the Duke, or take
security that he should not do any such thing as fight: and the Generall
trusted to the King that he, sending for him, would do it, and the King
trusted to the Generall; and so, between both, as everything else of the
greatest moment do, do fall between two stools. The whole House full
of nothing but the talk of this business; and it is said that my Lord
Shrewsbury's case is to be feared, that he may die too; and that may
make it much the worse for the Duke of Buckingham: and I shall not be
much sorry for it, that we may have some sober man come in his room
to assist in the Government. Here I waited till the Council rose, and
talked the while, with Creed, who tells me of Mr. Harry Howard's'
giving the Royal Society a piece of ground next to his house, to build
a College on, which is a most generous act. And he tells me he is a
very fine person, and understands and speaks well; and no rigid Papist
neither, but one that would not have a Protestant servant leave his
religion, which he was going to do, thinking to recommend himself