Of Lady Temple there is very little to be known, and what there is can be best understood by following the career of her husband, which has been written at some length, and with laboured care, by Mr. Courtenay. After her marriage, which took place in London, January 31st, 1655, they lived for a year at the home of a friend in the country. They then removed to Ireland, where they lived for five years with Temple's father; Lady Giffard, Temple's widowed sister, joining them. In 1663 they were living in England. Lady Giffard continued to live with them through the rest of their lives, and survived them both. In 1665 Temple was sent to Brussels as English representative, and his family joined him in the following year. In 1668 he was removed from Brussels to the Hague, where the successful negotiations which led to the Triple Alliance took place, and these have given him an honourable place in history. There is a letter of Lady Temple's, written to her husband in 1670, which shows how interested she was in the part he took in political life, and how he must have consulted her in all State matters. It is taken from Courtenay's _Life of Sir William Temple_, vol. i. p. 345. He quotes it as the only letter written after Lady Temple's marriage which has come into his hands.
My Dearest Heart,--I received yours from Yarmouth, and was very glad you made so happy a passage. 'Tis a comfortable thing, when one is on this side, to know that such a thing can be done in spite of contrary winds. I have a letter from P., who says in character that you may take it from him that the Duke of Buckingham has begun a negotiation there, but what success in England he may have he knows not; that it were to be wished our politicians at home would consider well that there is no trust to be put in alliances with ambitious kings, especially such as make it their fundamental maxim to be base. These are bold words, but they are his own. Besides this, there is nothing but that the French King grows very thrifty, that all his buildings, except fortifications, are ceased, and that his payments are not so regular as they used to be. The people here are of another mind; they will not spare their money, but are resolved--at least the States of Holland--if the rest will consent, to raise fourteen regiments of foot and six of horse; that all the companies, both old and new, shall be of 120 men that used to be of 50, and every troop 80 that used to be of 45. Nothing is talked of but these new levies, and the young men are much pleased. Downton says they have strong suspicions here you will come back no more, and that they shall be left in the lurch; that something is striking up with France, and that you are sent away because you are too well inclined to these countries; and my cousin Temple, he says, told him that a nephew of Sir Robert Long's, who is lately come to Utrecht, told my cousin Temple, three weeks since, you were not to stay long here, because you were too great a friend to these people, and that he had it from Mr. Williamson, who knew very well what he said. My cousin Temple says he told it to Major Scott as soon as he heard it, and so 'tis like you knew it before; but there is such a want of something to say that I catch at everything. I am my best dear's most affectionate