Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/17

 KINGSTON KINGSTOWN 11 KINGSTON, Elizabeth Chudleigh, duchess of, born in 1720, died near Paris, Aug. 28, 1788. Her father, Col. Chudleigh, governor of Chel- sea college, died when she was very young, leav- ing his family in narrow circumstances. As she grew up, her heauty and vivacity attracted much attention ; and in her 18th year, by the influence of Mr. Pulteney, afterward earl of Bath, she was appointed a maid of honor to the princess of Wales, the mother of George III. At the princess's court in Leicester house she became one of the reigning toasts of the day, and among her numerous admirers was the duke of Hamilton, whose proposals of mar- riage she accepted, with the understanding that the nuptials should be celebrated on his return from a visit to the continent. During his absence Capt. Hervey, grandson of the earl of Bristol, became enamored of her, and with the assistance of her aunt, Mrs. Hanmer, who intercepted the letters addressed by the duke to Miss Chudleigh, succeeded in alienating her affections from his rival and in persuading her to be secretly married to himself. The day after the marriage, which took place Aug. 5, 1744, she conceived so violent a dislike for her husband that she resolved never to see him again. The duke of Hamilton soon after re- turned to England, and was naturally astonished that his claim to her hand should be rejected. To escape his reproaches, and those of her mother, who was a stranger to her marriage, at her apparently unreasonable rejection of this and other advantageous offers, she visited the continent, where she pursued a career of scandalous dissipation. During a residence at Berlin Frederick the Great paid her marked attentions, and at Dresden the electress loaded her with presents. Keturning to England, she resumed her duties at the court, and became one of the leaders in the fashionable profligacy of the age. The marriage with Capt. Hervey, however, perpetually annoyed her, and in order to destroy all evidences of it she contrived to tear the leaf out of the parish register in which it was recorded. The death of her husband's grandfather, the earl of Bristol, having im- proved his prospects of succeeding to the earl- dom, she obtained the restoration of the leaf. Meanwhile the duke of Kingston, ignorant of her marriage, solicited her hand ; and having prevailed on her husband to allow a divorce by mutual consent to be pronounced at doctors',, commons, she was married a second time, March 8, 1769. The duke died four years af- terward, leaving her in possession of a prince- ly fortune on the condition that she should not again marry. Forthwith she plunged into a course of licentiousness, the censure excited by which constrained her to leave the coun- try for a time. She sailed for Italy in her own yacht, and while living in Rome in great magnificence learned that the family of the duke of Kingston were about to establish against her a charge of bigamy on the ground that her first marriage had been declared void by an incompetent tribunal. Her banker, who was in the interest of her adversaries, refused to advance her money to leave the country, whereupon she proceeded to his residence, pistol in hand, -and extorted it from him. Upon arriving in England she found public opinion strongly against her. Foote satirized her in his " Trip to Calais," under the name of "Kitty Crocodile," which however she found means to have prohibited ; but, with a vindictiveness which nothing could appease, she caused some outrageous charges to be trumped up against him, the mortification attending which so af- fected him that he died soon after. On April 15, 1776, the trial of the duchess came on in Westminster hall, which had been fitted up with great state for the purpose, and during the five days that it lasted attracted members of the royal family and throngs of distinguished persons. The duchess, attended by numerous counsel, addressed the peers with great energy, but was declared guilty. Thereupon she plead- ed the privilege of the peerage, having now virtually become the countess of Bristol, to which title her first husband had succeeded, and thus escaped the punishment of burning on the hand, with which Dunning had threat- ened her. She retained her fortune, however, and the utmost efforts of her opponents were powerless to affect the validity of the late duke's will. Thenceforth she became a volun- tary exile, visiting various European courts, and among others that of Catharine II. of Russia, who received her with great kindness. She ended her days at her chateau in the neighborhood of Paris. KINGSTON-UPON-THAMES, a municipal bor- ough, town, and parish of Surrey, England, on the E. bank of the Thames, at the mouth of the Ewell, 8 m. W. S. W. of London ; pop. of the borough in 1871, 15,257. It extends about 1 m. along the river, is irregularly built, and contains several interesting edifices, among which are an ancient cruciform church and a handsome town hall. In 1872 there were 18 places of worship, of which 8 belonged to the church of England. There are several endowed schools. A Roman town or station was built on the site now occupied by Kingston, and va- rious traces of it, such as coins and other an- tiquities, have been brought to light. A great ecclesiastical council was held here by Egbert in 838, and many Saxon kings were crowned here. KINGSTOWN, a seaport and watering place of Ireland, in the county and 7 m. by railway S. E. of the city of Dublin, on Dublin bay ; pop. in 1871, 16,387. It possesses, in the words of the tidal commissioners' official re- port, " one of the most splendid artificial ports in the United Kingdom." The harbor of ref- uge, begun in 1816, from designs by Rennie, consists of two piers and a breakwater, the E. pier being 3,500 ft. long, and the W. 4,950 ft., with an entrance 850 ft. wide, and enclosing an area of 250 acres, with a depth of water of from 15 to 27 ft. ; it cost 750,000. A revolv-