It does not appear on which of these accounts the jury found a verdict for the defendant--whether because Ratford was dead, or because nothing had been heard of him; so that the duchess, after all, might have been no duchess. However, she carried it with as high a hand as if she had never been anything else, and Monk had been a blacksmith. There are some amusing notices of her in Pepys.
"8th (March, 1661-2). At noon, Sir W. Batten, Col. Slingsby, and I, by coach to the Tower, to Sir John Robinson's, to dinner, where great good cheer. High company, and among others the Duchess of Albemarle, who is ever a plain homely dowdy."[171]
"9th (Dec. 1665). My Lord Brouncker and I dined with the Duke of Albemarle. At table, the duchess, a very ill-looked woman, complaining of her lord's going to sea next year, said these cursed words:--'If my lord had been a coward, he had gone to sea no more; it may be then he might have been excused, and made an ambassador,' (meaning my Lord Sandwich). This made me mad, and I believe she perceived my countenance change, and blushed herself very much. I was in hopes others had not minded it, but my Lord Brouncker, after we came away, took notice of the words to me with displeasure."[172]
Lord Sandwich, the famous admiral, who has such light repute with posterity, was a relation of Pepys, and much connected with him in affairs. There does not appear to have been the least foundation for the duchess's charge; except, perhaps, that Sandwich had brains enough to know the danger which he braved, while Monk knew nothing but how to fight and lie.
"4th (Nov. 1666)." Pepys says that Mr. Cooling tells him, "the Duke of Albemarle is grown a drunken sot, and drinks with nobody but Troutbecke, whom nobody else will keep company with. Of whom he told me this story; that once the Duke of Albemarle in his drink taking notice, as of a wonder, that Nan Hide should ever come to be Duchess of York: 'Nay,' says Troutbecke, 'ne'er wonder at that, for if you will give me another bottle of wine, I will tell you as great, if not greater, miracle.' And what was that, but that our dirty Besse (meaning his duchess) should come to be Duchess of Albemarle."[173]
"4th (April, 1667). I find the Duke of Albemarle at dinner with sorry company, some of his officers of the army; dirty dishes and a nasty wife at table, and bad meat, of which I made but an ill dinner. Colonel Howard asking how the Prince (Rupert) did (in the last fight); the Duke of Albemarle answering, 'Pretty well,' the other replied, 'but not so well as to go to sea again.'--'How!' says the duchess, 'what should he go for, if he were well, for there are no ships for him to command? And so you have brought your hogs to a fair market,' said she."[174]