![]() She is so lovely with her dark eyes and her dark curls and her carnation cheeks and the sweetness and the kindness all about her. I put down my pen and take up her picture to see if I can trace some likeness. I have, my nurse still says, a look of her but my nurse is old and partial and I wish I could believe it. She was Frances, daughter of Sir Henry Knyvitt of Charlton in Wiltshire, and she was a beauty. Of my mother I remember nothing, though my nurse told me much. ![]() Samuel Fleming, that learned gentleman and heretic, would be bidden from his rectory at Bottes ford to lend our Catholic household an atmosphere more congenial to a Protestant King for James like many a Scot dearly enjoyed a religious gossip he loved to display his own knowledge of the Scriptures. ![]() Invitations would go out to great houses and Dr. Merchants with rare wines and spices would converge on Belvoir from Lincoln and Nottingham yes, and from far Derby, even and with them musicians and tumblers sure of their welcome. The tailor would come from Lincoln with new liveries for the men, the seamstress with new gowns for the women. Then, for weeks beforehand, there would be a scouring and a polishing, a baking and a brewing women would come up from Bottesford village to swell our household staff great though that was. ![]() WHEN I was a child the King would come visiting my home. ![]()
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