e once wrote to her, "I got to bed
about ten. I then prayed for you, my dearest love, kissed
your dearest little hair, and lay down and dreamt of you,
had you ten thousand times in my arms, kissing you and
telling you how much I loved and adored you, and you
seemed pleased.... I have your heart, and it is warm at
my breast. I hope mine feels as easy to you. Thou joy of
my life, adieu!"

In another letter he exclaims:

"Oh, my dearest soul ... your dear heart is so safe with
me and feels every motion mine does. How happy will that
day be to me that brings you back! I shall be unable to
speak for joy. My dearest soul, I send you ten thousand
kisses."

So irrepressible was his passion that it burst the bounds of prose, and
gushed forth in verses such as this:

"Hear, solemn Jove, and, conscious Venus, hear!
And thou, bright maid, believe me while I swear,
No time, no change, no future flame shall move
The well-placed basis of my lasting love."

When the fair and frail Countess, in a fit of alarm, took refuge at
Eaton Hall, her Royal lover followed her in disguise, installed himself
at a neighbouring inn, and continued his intrigue under the very nose of
her jealous husband, who at last was driven to sue for divorce. He won
an easy verdict, and with it L10,000 damages--a bill which George III.
himself had ultimately to pay. Within a few months the incorrigible Duke
had another "dearest little angel" in his toils, and pursued his
gallantries without a thought of the Countess he had left to her shame.

Such was this degenerate brother of the King when the most memorable of
his victims crossed his blighting path one summer day in the year 1771,
at Brighton--a radiantly beautiful young woman who had just discarded
her widow's weeds, and was arrayed for fresh conquests.

Anne Luttrell, as the widow had been known in her maiden days, was one
of the three lovely daughters of Lord Irnham, in later years Earl of
Carhampton, and a member of a family noted for the beauty of its women,
and the wild, lawless living of its men. Her brother, Colonel Luttrell,
was the most reckless swashbuckler and the deadliest duellist of his
time--a man whose morals were as low as his temper and courage were
high.

At seventeen Anne had become the wife of Christopher Horton, a
hard-drinking, fast-living Derbyshire squire, who left her a widow at
twenty-two, in the