The Mary Hamilton Papers : Letter from Charlotte Margaret Gunning to Mary Hamilton

Digby (née Gunning), Charlotte Margaret

The Mary Hamilton Papers

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Letter from Charlotte Gunning to Mary Hamilton. She describes the King's and Queen's visit to the theatre, his first attendance since his illness, and the enthusiastic reception they received: 'the whole House which was fuller if I may say so, than it could hold, sung 6 times over God save the King'. Gunning has been extremely busy, spending ten days in St Leonard's, then returning to town, and she apologises for not writing earlier to Hamilton. She is house-hunting: 'I have been tormented to death about Houses seen a hundred, all too small, so dear, dirty or too far from my Father, you have no idea of the difficulty or the price – at length we have been reduced to take a neat shell in South Audley Street for a year ready furnished, it is very clean, comfortably, nicely furnished & gives us time to look about us & fix upon a comfortable habitation for life'. Mr D [her fiancé Stephen Digby] has been suffering from gout, but is well now and goes to Somerset on Monday. He will return for New Year's Day and the wedding will take place early in January. His niece, Miss Digby, will take Gunning's place at Court. Gunning describes her as very pretty, amiable and one of eleven children. She is pleased with the news that John Dickenson Senior has agreed to give up Taxal to Hamilton and her husband. 'I think the c[i]rcumstance of two families in a H[ouse] always a very disagreeable one, howeve[r] well they are united, besides that you had really no room to see or receive you[r] Friend's [sic]'.</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Dated at St James's [London].</p><p style='text-align: justify;'>Original reference No. 35.</p>