ning work for the consideration of a future annotator.

Of the several maids of honour mentioned therein I will begin with those of
the queen. They are Miss Stewart, Miss "Warminster," Miss Bellenden, Miss
Bardon, Miss de la Garde, Miss Wells, Miss Livingston, Miss Fielding, and
Miss Boynton.

The names of Miss Stewart (Frances Theresa), Miss Boynton (Catherine), Miss
Wells (Winefred), and Miss Warmistre are found among the original six,
appointed on the queen's marriage, May 21, 1662. The affiliation and
marriages of the first two have been well ascertained, but Miss Warmistre's
birth is yet open to some conjecture, whilst her marriage, like Miss
Wells's parentage, is wholly unknown.

Horace Walpole, on the authority of the last Earl of Arran, of the Butler
family, has confounded her with Mary, one of the daughters of George Kirke,
Esq., a groom of the bedchamber to Charles I., by Mary his wife, daughter
of Aurelian Townsend, Esq., "the admired beauty of the tymes," on whose
marriage at Christ Church, Oxford, February 26, 1645-6, "the king gave
her." She herself was maid of honour to the Duchess of York in 1674, and
the year following left the court, we may believe, under the same
circumstances as Miss Warmistre, more than ten years before, had quitted
it: after being the mistress of Sir Thomas Vernon, the second Baronet of
Hodnet in Shropshire, she became his wife, and ended her life in miserable
circumstances at Greenwich in 1711.

"1711, 17 August, Dame Mary, relict of Sir Thomas Vernon, carried
away."--Burial register of Greenwich Church.

She was sister to Diana, the last De Vere, Earl of Oxford's, countess, a
lady of as free a morality {462} as herself and as her mother, and second
wife of Sir Thomas, whose first lady, Elizabeth Cholmondley, died in June,
1676. Sir Thomas died February 5, 1682-3, leaving by her three children,
Sir Richard, the last baronet, Henrietta, and Diana, who all died
unmarried.

A portrait of Lady Vernon, by Sir Peter Lely, has been engraved in
mezzotinto by Browne, and lettered "Mary Kirk, Lady Vernon, maid of honour
to Queen Catherine." Another portrait (?) has been engraved by Scheneker
for Harding's _Grammont_, 1793. A third portrait was purchased at the
Strawberry Hill sale, by Mr. Rodd of Little Newport Street, for 1l. 5s.

A portrait of the Countess of Oxford is or was at Mr. Drummond's of Great
Stanmore. It was bequeathed to his family by Charles, first Duke of St.