Having built the Wells Pavillion, the 7th Earl offers some marriage advice:
Traquair House October 30th 1826
Dear Sister
… I have heard report that William Maxwell is going to get a Daughter of Lord Hourtoun. I suspected long ago that the Hourtouns would lay their paws on him. They got his eldest sister with 20,000 for Mr Langdale, and now they have caught her eldest Brother the young squire with an estate worth only ten thousand a year, for his Niece. William Maxwell should have asked one of the twins – I think he has been in a hurry to encumber himself with a mill stone in the shape of a wife. He ought to have travelled about for a few years and seen a little more of the world before he thought about taking up house; and not on getting so soon out of the hands of his Guardians have fallen into petticoat government. No man should take a wife before he is 30 years of age – I am determined not to have one before that time…….
It reads like something straight out of Jane Austen.
This letter is displayed courtesy of the Traquair House Charitable Trust and by the generosity of Catherine Maxwell Stuart and the assistance of Margaret Fox, Traquair archivist.
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