Page:The Wentworth Papers 1715-1739.djvu/20

 4 THE WENTWORTIi PAPERS.

general interest to be included in the present collection, that his advancement in life was much checked by a fatal attach- ment to the bottle. His own letters, indeed, are incoherent enough at times to justify the suspicion of it. The circum- stances of his death, not long before that of his more famous brother, as they will appear in the sequel, were very distressing. The two other sons of Sir William Wentworth, Paul and Allen, as we shall have another occasion to mention, were both killed when fighting in the Low Countries. Of the daughters Frances Arabella married Walter, Lord Bellew, of Ireland ; Anne married James Donelan, also of Ireland ; and Isabella married Francis Arundel, of Stoke Bruerne, Northampton- shire. The youngest daughter, Elizabeth, known as " Betty" to the readers of the correspondence, was living with her mother during the chief years to which the letters relate. She was married in 1722, to John, Lord Arundel, of Trerise. Of the place of Thomas Wentworth's education no record has been found, but he appears in the list of pages to Mary, the queen of James II., when only fourteen years old, his mother at the same time holding the post of bedchamber woman to her majesty. Sir William was evidently in high favour with the king, for a news letter of September, 1686, records that, on the marriage of his daughter to Lord Bellew, " an Irish Papist," James made her a present of 3,000/. Lord Bellew, we may note, remained faithful to the king after . his flight, and fought for his cause in Ireland at the battle of Aughrim, where he was severely wounded and taken prisoner; his wounds, indeed, were so serious that they brought about his death within a few months after his release. It does not appear that Sir William Wentworth's attachment to his Catholic master was so steadfast ; for, after the Revolution, we are told* a cornet's commission was bought for his son

are gathered from a memoir attached to the Stepney Correspondence in the British Musemn, and from a paper in his own handwriting drawn up apparently about the time of his threatened impeachment in 17 15, with a view no doubt to set forth his many services to his country. A few portions of these materials are quoted literally. It will be sufficient to
 * The main facts which follow of Thomas Wentworth's early career

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