Disappointment in Love
In 1770, at the age of thirteen, Lady Louisa fell in love with her second cousin, William Medows (1738–1813), the son of Philip Medows of Nottinghamshire, Deputy Ranger of Richmond Park, and of Lady Frances Pierrepont, who like Louisa's mother was a granddaughter of Evelyn Pierrepont, 1st Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull. Medows was then a forty-one-year-old lieutenant-colonel of the 5th Regiment of Foot, and Lord Bute considered him unsuitable and put a stop to it. Lady Louisa was bitterly disappointed. She wrote of Medows:
| “ | He seems to have that independent spirit which fortune cannot depress or exalt. He is really a character unlike anything but himself, au reste, the most agreeable man I ever met with, and one of the most humorous. | ” |
Later the same year, Medows married another lady, Frances Augusta Hammerton, and went on to become a Lieutenant-General, a Knight of the Bath, and Governor-General of Madras.
Stuart was not a beautiful woman. Fanny Burney wrote of her in 1786:
| “ | Lady Louisa Stuart has parts equal to those of her mother, with a deportment and appearance infinitely more pleasing: yet she is far from handsome, but proves how well beauty may be occasionally missed when understanding and vivacity unite to fill up her place. | ” |
Louisa Stuart does not seem to have fallen in love again, but she had at least two other pursuers. Her next was Henry Dundas (1742–1811), member of parliament for Midlothian and Lord Advocate of Scotland, later created Viscount Melville. Dundas was a gallant and good-looking man who had been married but was legally separated from his wife. His devotion worried the Bute family, but it turned out to be brief and merely amused Lady Louisa. Her last serious suitor was John Charles Villiers (1757–1838). He was the second son of Thomas Villiers, 1st Earl of Clarendon, and for a time overwhelmed Stuart with his admiration. Her parents encouraged the match, and she was tempted, but she finally decided that a "love match without any love is but a bad business". As a result, she never married. In 1791, Villiers married his cousin Maria Eleanor Forbes, a daughter of Admiral John Forbes, and in old age he inherited the family's titles and estates from his older brother Thomas Villiers, 2nd Earl of Clarendon (1753–1824), who never married.
When the Earl of Strafford (1722–1791) was widowed in 1785, society gossip quickly linked his name with Stuart's, leading Lady Diana Beauclerk to remark "So Lady Louisa Stuart is going to marry her great-grandfather, is she?" However, Stuart looked on Strafford merely as an elderly uncle, and not as a suitor, and he for his part did nothing to promote such an alliance.
Stuart later became a close friend of the novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832), a friendship which lasted from the 1790s until Scott's death in 1832. Scott regularly sent Stuart his work for her opinion, describing her as the best critic of his acquaintance.
Read more about this topic: Lady Louisa Stuart
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