Page:Poems of Anne Countess of Winchilsea 1903.djvu/24

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xx INTRODUCTION ���authority vested in the wife was to remain in force during her widowhood or her after-marriage "to any man what- soever if so it should come to pass according to her good will and pleasure." That it did so come to pass, and that with almost indecorous promptitude, is shown by the mar- riage license issued in October, 1662, to " Sir Thomas Ogle, Kt, of Wickin, in Barewell, Co. Suffolk, Bach r , 24, and Dame Anne Kingsmill of Sydmonton, Co. South ton , widow, above 30." The only child of this second marriage was Dorothy Ogle, born in 1663. In 1664 the mother died, leaving four children under seven years of age. In her will she says: "Out of the assurance I have of the prudent love and care of my dear husband, Sir Thomas Ogle, I doe wholly give and bequeath to him all my possessions, and I doe hereby wholly give, assign, remit and bequeath the education and government of all my children unto the said Sir Thomas Ogle, to be brought up in the fear of God and good nurture according to their quality, as he in his discre- tion shall think fit." In what way the young widower fulfilled this momentous trust must, unfortunately, be left largely to the imagination. Beyond the fact that he became Major of H. M. Holland Regiment in 1665, we have no record of him except that he died in 1671. His daughter Dorothy was left as the ward of Sir Richard Campion (or Champion), but there is no statement as to the disposition made of the other children. It would perhaps be most nat- ural to suppose that they would go to Sir William Hasel- wood, their mother's brother, and their intimacy with his daughter Elizabeth would lend color to that supposition. But wherever they were, Anne and Bridget, if we may judge by a few letters preserved among the Hatton MSS. in the British Museum, received a more thorough education than Dorothy. Bridget's letters are smooth, formal, high- bred and tolerably correct, while Dorothy's orthography and ��� �