Page:Wives of the prime ministers, 1844-1906.djvu/194

WIVES OF THE PRIME MINISTERS additions, became the Hawarden Castle with which the name of Gladstone is always associated. The ruins of the old original castle still exist and form a picturesque object in the grounds.

Sir Stephen Glynne died in 1815, and the care of the four children, two boys and two girls, all under six years old, devolved on the mother. She returned to her father, and she and the children lived with him in Berkeley Square, at Audley End, and at Billingbere. It was only after his death that she resided at Hawarden, where she was assisted in the duties connected with the estate by her brother, the Rev. the Hon. George Neville, to whom her husband, shortly before his death, had presented the living of Hawarden.

A journal is still in existence in which Lady Glynne made notes about her children during the years 1815-20. She describes Catherine as beautiful, high-spirited, and strong-willed.

Catherine Glynne was not highly educated in the sense in which that phrase is now understood. As a girl, she lived more out of doors than indoors, became a good horsewoman and proficient in all the athletic exercises, archery among them, then permitted to girls. She was not a great reader then nor later, but contact 158