Let’s do some Aubrey blogging: Mary, Countess of Pembroke, who…
…was very salacious, and she had a Contrivance that in the Spring of the Yeare, when the Stallions were to leap the Mares, they were to be brought before such a part of the house where she had a vidette (a hole to peepe out at) to looke at them and please herselfe with their Sport; and then she would act the like sport herselfe with her stallions. One of her Gallants was Crooke back’d Cecill, Earl of Salisbury.
Crooke back’d, eh? Must be all that leaping. Aubrey continues:
She was the greatest Patronesse of witt and learning of any Lady in her time. She was a great Chymist and spent yearly a greate deal in that study. She kept for her Laborator in her House Adrian Glibert, halfe brother to Sir Walter Raleigh, who was a great Chymist in those days, and a man of excellent naturall Parts; but very Sarcastick and the greatest Buffoon in the Nation.
Lady chemists sound like a lot of fun.
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