Note 506a — JOURNAL TO STELLA (continued 11)

Writing in October 1713, Lord Berkeley of Stratton told Lord Strafford of “a fine prank of the widow Lady Jersey” (see p. 281). “It is well known her lord died much in debt, and she, after taking upon her the administration, sold everything and made what money she could, and is run away into France without paying a farthing of the debts, with only one servant and unknown to all her friends, and hath taken her youngest son, as ’tis supposed to make herself a merit in breeding him a papist. My Lord Bolingbroke sent after her, but too late, and they say the Queen hath writ a letter with her own hand to the King of France to send back the boy” (Wentworth Papers, p. 357). See also p. 538 below. I am not sure whether in the present passage Swift is referring to the widow or the younger Lady Jersey (see p. 326).