Earl of Mar, and other Scots Lords, one of his
Majesty's messengers came for the Foreign Person, and conveyed him in a
coach to the Cockpit at Whitehall; while another messenger took up his
abode in the house at Hanover Square, lying in the second best
bed-chamber, and having his table apart, for a whole week. From these
circumstances, it was rumoured that the Unknown Lady was a Papist and
Jacobite; that the seminary Priest, her confederate, was bound for
Newgate, and would doubtless make an end of it at Tyburn; and that the
Lady herself would be before many days clapt up in the Tower. But Signor
Casagiotti, the Venetian Envoy, as a subject of the seignory, claimed
the Foreign Person and obtained his release; and it was said that one of
the great Lords of the Council came himself to Hanover Square to take
the examination of the Unknown Lady, and was so well satisfied with the
speech he had with her as to discharge her then and there from
Custody,--if, indeed, she had ever been under any actual durance,--and
promise her the King and Minister's countenance for the future. The
Foreign Person was suffered to return, and thenceforward was addressed
as Father Ruddlestone, as though he had some licence bearing him
harmless from the penalties and praemunires which then weighed upon
recusant persons. And I am given to understand that, on the evening of
his enlargement, the same great Lord, being addressed in a jocular
manner at the coffee-house by a Person of Honour, and asked if he had
not caught the Pope, the Devil, and the Pretender in petticoats and
diamonds, somewhere in St. George's parish, very gravely made answer,
that some degrees of Loyalty were like Gold, which were all the better
for being tried in the furnace, and that, although there had once been a
King James, and there was now a King George, the lady, of whom perhaps
that gentleman was minded to speak, had done a notable Thing before he
was born, which entitled her to the eternal gratitude of Kings.

Although so old on her first coming to Hanover Square, and dwelling in
it until her waiting-woman avowed that she was close on her Ninetieth
year, the Unknown Lady preserved her faculties in a surprising manner,
and till within a few days of her passing away went about her house,
took the air from time to time in her coach, or in a chair, and received
company. The very highest persons of Quality sought her, and appeared to
take pleasure in her conversation. To Court,