PRINCE 87
VIII. THE GORGEOUS COUNTESS 96
IX. A QUEEN OF COQUETTES 110
X. THE ADVENTURES OF A VISCOUNT'S DAUGHTER 127
XI. A SIXTEENTH CENTURY ELOPEMENT 136
XII. TRAGEDIES OF THE TURF 148
XIII. THE WICKED BARON 165
XIV. A FAIR _INTRIGANTE_ 177
XV. THE MERRY DUCHESS 195
XVI. THE KING AND THE PRETTY HAYMAKER 207
XVII. THE COUNTESS WHO MARRIED HER GROOM 222
XVIII. A NOBLE VAGABOND 231
XIX. FOOTLIGHTS AND CORONETS 243
XX. A PEASANT COUNTESS 256
XXI. THE FAVOURITE OF A QUEEN 266
XXII. TWO IRISH BEAUTIES 282
XXIII. THE MYSTERIOUS TWINS 298
XXIV. THE MAYPOLE DUCHESS 316
XXV. THE ROMANCE OF FAMILY TREES 326

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ELIZABETH, DUCHESS OF HAMILTON _Frontispiece_
FRANCES, DUCHESS OF RICHMOND _to face page_ 18
MARGUERITE, COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON 98
SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH 110
LOUISE, DUCHESS OF PORTSMOUTH 184
HARRIET, DUCHESS OF ST ALBANS 252
ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER 266
MARIA, COUNTESS OF COVENTRY 288

LOVE ROMANCES OF THE ARISTOCRACY.

CHAPTER I

A PRINCESS OF PRUDES

Among the many fair and frail women who fed the flames of the "Merrie
Monarch's" passion from the first day of his restoration to that last
day, but one short week before his death, when Evelyn saw him "sitting
and toying with his concubines," there was, it is said, only one of them
all who really captured his royal and wayward heart, that loveliest,
simplest, and most designing of prudes, _La belle Stuart_.

When Barbara Villiers was enslaving Charles by her opulent charms, the
queen of his many mistresses, Frances Stuart was growing to beautiful
girlhood, an exile at the French Court, with no dream or care of her
future conquest of a king. Her father, a son of Lord Blantyre, had
carried his death-dealing sword through many a fight for the first
Charles, a distant kinsman of his own; and, when the Stuart sun